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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? ♥
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? ♥
Spoilers or something! But the post is already spoily so!
Re: Eat, Sleep, Drink and Be Merry
I'd say the body needs sustenence. And, love of immortal creatures aside, you know I'm with you on Nobodies aging. They just -- do. Roxas did, we saw him. You can't really argue that.
But while they need to eat and sleep, I think they're missing some of the drive that makes us do these things. I'm not, for example, wholly convinced they dream. I have this image of life for a Nobody being fundamentally greyed -- just a bit paler, a bit less real.
So if a Nobody had sex both before and after regaining his heart, he'd probably get off harder after, because the feeling would be a shade more intense, more immediate.Also, they're probably driven a little less towards sex, too, unless you want to get into a psychological need to feel human.And this leads into my sense on feelings.
Axel clearly has them. Demyx...sort of has them. But Saix makes it clear that he doesn't, or at least, he certainly wouldn't defend their existence like Axel did. Xemnas may not either.
It seems very Japanese to me that the only Nobodies would lay claim to feelings are those who have had their hearts moved. (The more I think about Demyx, the less I really trust what he says in the fight with you right before he gets cold and serious, but if you want to put him in this category, have fun figuring out who moved his heart. ♥
Xigbar ftw, who coincidentally is another guy I see as laying claim to feelings, so) That the others, well, feel empty inside, a hole where their heart is supposed to be. And it isn't that they don't feel anything, but what they do feel is hollow and faded.And the reason why I'll stick by this diagnosis, even though Axel has that monologue, is that although we see him feeling things he seems so surprised by it sometimes. (As Roxas leaves, the way his voice hitches and he drops his head -- when he's dying, how he tells Sora about the way Roxas made him feel...) There's this clear implication in my mind that these feelings are special, that before Roxas, Axel didn't feel much of anything.
He habitually lays feelings out in his speech, and he doesn't feel uncomfortable doing it, because he feels some things, the mere mention of feelings isn't enough to make him turn pale and gasp, but it sure unsettles some of the other numbers. And the part of Axel that is unsettled by feelings, that still recognizes strong ones as few and far between, will be damned before he'll admit that to anyone else.
But there are alternate explanations for why the wine has no taste, and I like them just as well. You know that. ♥
Re: Spoilers or something! But the post is already spoily so!
But I think that in Axel's case, that explains perfectly well why he feels like Roxas makes him whole: with him the bleeding stops, the ache goes away. He can feel without the sensation of being drained by his own emptiness. And the intensity of what he feels, the suddenness and the realness, surprises him because he's not used to feeling that way. It only happens for Roxas.
(Roxas still likes his explanation about the wall of logic, but that might just be a Roxas thing. My Axel doesn't agree with him on that. XD )
On that note, I feel like some people are more prone to dwelling on that hollowness than others (Saix and Xemnas, notably) and that would make it next to impossible to feel anything good; other people are more prone to brushing it aside when possible and just moving on, like Xigbar, or concentrating with all their might on the good things, like Demyx. It's not to say they don't have that hollow feeling too -- but they're able to live around it. Other people (such as Larxene!) just took such pleasure out of the ugly things like anger and pain that don't get softened by hollowness, only sharpened by it, that little wonder she seemed normal? XD
Of course I agree with you on eating/sleeping/aging, but (note the difference in our Axels? XD ) I think sex becomes more of an item of interest. It's not so much feeling alive as feeling anything enough to forget, for a while, the void.