“Lock of Fate” Chapter One Commentary

[babyrodent]

 Overview

With the prologue out of the way, the story starts off in Digital Twilight Town much like “Kingdom Hearts II” did with its prologue (don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on going to 6 days like in the game). It is with this start, however, that the protagonist of the story, the original character Fusa, is introduced here. The Digital Twilight Town that Fusa was in from this chapter to Chapter 3 is not the same as Roxas’s Digital Twilight Town from “KHII” despite otherwise. I say this because, in correspondence with “358/2 Days”, Roxas was in The World That Never Was fighting Riku so the Digital Twilight Town that he would be in had not been created yet.

About This Chapter

Chapter 1 opens with the Newborn Nobody, whose name we come to find out is named Fusa, waking up for the first time with implanted memories inside of her head created by DiZ and then meeting with her “friends”– digital recreations of Hayner, Pence, and Olette like in “KHII”. Although the scene plays out almost word-for-word like in the infamous prologue of “KHII”, it shifts to a different tone when Fusa refuses to combat Seifer when she was challenged to at the Sandlot. We get our first glimpse of the Dusk Nobodies as well, something that is going to be brought up again in future chapters. The chapter concludes with a return to Disney Castle, where Max Goof and Gremlin Gus board the Gummi Excalibur.

One thing to note is that this is takes place on the very tail end of “Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days” before Roxas is captured and taken to Twilight Town.

Characters Introduced

• Fusa: Although the Prologue was the first time we get to see her, this is the first time that we’re properly introduced to Fusa herself, name and all. Although we the readers know that she is a Newborn Nobody, she herself does not so she is left completely in the dark about what she really is. This is going to play a major role in later chapters where, unlike the Fusa that is presented here, she would become aware as to what she is. I say this because Fusa, as evidenced in the chapter and up until she gets to Mysterious Tower, not only lacks the proper skills to combat, but also to defend herself. Now the justification in the story is that she is pacifist and doesn’t believe in fighting at all. That’s only half of the truth– in reality, it wasn’t just her pacifism that holds her back from combating Seifer, but it was also her severe inexperience as well. This is going to be a prime example of how far she’s come since her first appearance.

Development of Fusa

Fusa’s character, as best as I can describe it, did not come easily even after the original story was retooled. One of the extremely major changes had to come to the protagonist herself. Even after becoming more of a character and less of a self-insert, I needed to play around with concepts and ideas that would work of her. One such concept would be that of the usage of the protagonist using a video game controller as a way to control her enemies into fighting each other. While the concept itself was cool, I realized that some readers would take it the wrong way and accuse the female protagonist of not doing anything to actually fight and be active. So it was scrapped, but not entirely; while constructing Fusa, the concept of enemies being controlled was kept and tweaked so that it would be part of her Heart powers.
When it came time to design what Fusa would look like, I decided to try something different. Her beta appearance had shoulder-length light brown hair, but this was changed to a dark blonde hair in a ponytail and then to a platinum blonde in a single braid, which became the final hairstyle. Then I had to change her eye color. Rather than give her the usual blue eyes that are common with the “Kingdom Hearts” protagonists to signify that they were the heroes of the story (though with Riku and Kairi, their eyes are respectively blue-green and violet-blue, but you get the point, right?), I decided to give her light pink eyes to connect her to her Heart powers. Once we get to her outfit, then I’ll go into more detail about it.
Then there was her Heart powers, but I will get to that as we don’t see them yet.

The Cutting Room Floor

In the earliest form of the story, the 1st person POV romance crap (pardon my French), the two Digital Twilight Towns were going to be one with beta-Fusa is in it alongside of Roxas as a way for her to interact with another Nobody before he would be reunited with Sora again. As to what her fate would have been once Roxas is absorbed back into Sora, I really haven’t figured that out to be honest. Well, nevertheless, this was scrapped as a way to keep these two characters separate.

Also, there was going to be a scene between the Dusk Nobodies that chased after Fusa where they asked each other non-verbally if what they are doing is the right thing before concluding that it’s the only thing that they must do in order to remain alive. This was intended to foreshadow as to what they used to be, but then I realized that it would have disrupted the flow of the scene, so it had to be cut.

Little Touches

• The drawings in Fusa’s room were recreated from scratch as part of the data in her Digital Twilight Town as Fusa doesn’t really draw. The cat toy she brings along, however, is real and is going to be used again. The justification for the cat toy, or at least in the digital recreation, is that she used to have a pet cat as a child and is keeping the cat toy as safekeeping.
• At first, I realized that no one in Digital Twilight Town seem to realize that Fusa has light pink eyes. Then I realized that, since DiZ created the digital version of this world, it’s programmed that way. Huh.
• The voice that says “Mere figments of the mind” twice at the beginning neither belong to DiZ nor Fusa. This is going to come into play later on.
• This is the only time where the Dusk Nobodies “speak” to Fusa where they call her “sister” as opposed to “liege” when the Dusk Nobody encountered Roxas in “KHII”.
  Fusa’s physical age is noted to be 14 years old when her actual age mentally is more or less way younger than expected. This really makes her the younger member of the Usual Spot gang in the recreation.