sincere: DGM: Lenalee's back to the viewer ([oxiii] grasping at straws)
Kay ([personal profile] sincere) wrote2006-08-01 02:52 pm
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Not a no-body

This is a tangent to a ramble I've wanted to make for a long time regarding the Nobodies (it's always about Nobodies!) and OXIII in particular.

I've seen a lot of people who seem to think that they're sort of this immortal surreal existence. They don't need to eat. They don't need to sleep. They don't age. They just sort of exist.


Which is fair enough, but canon suggests (of course there's no hard facts) otherwise. We see them eating and drinking and taking turns making dinner in the CoM manga, for example. I think something to consider is that they may not be human and they may even be, for all intents and purposes, dead -- but they're still bodies. That's actually all they are. And bodies, as coma patients teach us, require food and drink, and age even without written consent from the people who operate them.

And, the closest thing to canon evidence we have to support this theory: Nobodies have to age, because Sora was fourteen when Roxas was created, and Roxas is definitely not fourteen now. He is clearly fifteen. Namine is even more visibly older: we see her at fourteen and fifteen in the KH manga. (Between the pair of them and Sora, in Nomura and Amano's minds, 15 is the year when you suddenly become less of a cartoon and more of a sex object!)

This is when I look at Ansem's research assistants. We know they're nine years old as Nobodies -- so are they nine years older physically? The telling ones are Xehanort and Ienzo.

I. Xehanort-Xemnas
He's telling because he's the ONLY Nobody we've seen as a Somebody. Now, Xemnas does not look old. But on the other hand, Xehanort looks quite young -- I would place him between 20-22. He definitely looks younger than his Heartless, who I could easily place as nine years older than how he looked then; maybe around 30. And Xemnas, although quite youthful looking, could pull off 30.

VI. Ienzo-Zexion
We don't know what Zexion looked like as a Somebody, but we do know that he's very young-looking, and he was old enough to be a scientist eight years ago. Now, Zexion could be anywhere from 16 up. But on comparing him to the others, specifically Axel and Demyx, I don't think he looks younger than they are -- he's at least their age and probably more. He's very short, very slender, and drowning in his clothes and his hair, but I think his appearance is deceptive.

And, furthermore. We know that he was young as a research assistant -- whenever Ansem mentions him, it's always "young Ienzo..." or "my youngest research assistant..." That isn't so odd in English, really, but in Japanese it stands out a bit. It suggests to me that Ienzo is young enough that it's noticeable... unique.

Ienzo, the cleverest and most cunning of them, the one who convinced Ansem to research into the dark, shows some signs of being a child prodigy. (Tell me you can't see him as a little boy with that Rubix cube.) It doesn't seem like a stretch to think that Ansem used "my young assistant Ienzo" the same way he would use "my young friend Sora" -- to talk to someone considerably younger, for whom "my assistant" or "my friend" would give the wrong impression.

If Ienzo was 17, then he'd be 25 in CoM.

II-V
Help me pin down ages!!

Xigbar seems to be in the mid-late 40s to me. Xaldin is tricky, but I sort of see him in his mid 30s, and Lexaeus is tricky, but I put him the same age. Vexen I see as being late 30s to mid 40s. Stabbing Xemnas at 30 and Zexion at 25 rounds out the original lot.


Thoughts? ♥

[identity profile] yashahime.livejournal.com 2006-08-01 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Interestingly enough, there are actually a couple of psychological conditions wherein one cannot feel emotions. Histrionic personality disorder is characterized by feelings of emotional numbness, except when one has done something very extreme, such as self-mutilation, to allow oneself to feel something. Unfortunately, it's kind of uncurable, being an inborn personality disorder, so I don't WANT them to have that one. On the other hand, my personal experiences with depression have indicated that depression may ALSO create such a feeling of emotional numbness within. Given that there is some fairly masisve physical upheaval involved in becoming a Nobody, severe depression is pretty easy to see as an outcome.

This is why I feel the Org just needs massive doses of anti-depressants to feel better. *nods*

On the DiZ front, I kind of feel that DiZ is real big hyppocrite, given that in some ways he's even more 'nobody' than the Nobodies are.

And he damned well should have just screwed Xehanort senseless instead of hanging out with the Mouse, dammit! X-P

[identity profile] yami-chan.livejournal.com 2006-08-02 03:02 pm (UTC)(link)
I just got the image of Org13 standing in line at their local pharmacy (which more than likely is somewhere in Twilight Town XD), waiting for their Prozac to be ready while complaining about the high cost of meds, inflation and the need for a more socialized health system. Of course, at some point they’d just get tired of it all and threaten the pharmacists. Anyway, that image just made me giggle for the longest.

And he damned well should have just screwed Xehanort senseless instead of hanging out with the Mouse, dammit!

OMG Yay! I am not the only one that thinks this! I’m not alone. XDDD

[identity profile] yashahime.livejournal.com 2006-08-02 05:38 pm (UTC)(link)
See, that's what happens when Xemnas isn't willing to shell out for DECENT insurance. X-D

...and I think most of the fandom feels that way, or at least that's what I've heard.