Xehanort

Xehanort is the main antagonist in the Kingdom Hearts series. He is the complete being of "Ansem" and Xemnas, and a former apprentice of Ansem the Wise. Xehanort is directly responsible for the creation of the Heartless, the Nobodies, Organization XIII, and is the driving force behind the Disney villains' desires and plans, and sets in motion the events that make up most of the series. Xehanort has made an appearance in every game in the series so far in some shape or form and is expected to be in future titles.

Though Xehanort himself appears rarely, he is represented by various alter-egos, such as his Heartless "Ansem" in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, his Nobody Xemnas in Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and his former persona Master Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.

Kingdom Hearts II
The former apprentice of Ansem the Wise.

Even after becoming a Heartless, Xehanort persisted in his research of the doors and the heart of all worlds - all in the name of "Ansem," of course.

Meanwhile, his Nobody Xemnas had taken leadership of Organization XIII.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
In Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, it is revealed that Xehanort was once known as Master Xehanort, a highly skilled and revered Keyblade Master. Having become corrupt with the concept of darkness throughout his travels, Master Xehanort became obsessed with finding Kingdom Hearts to gain ultimate power. To accomplish his plans, Xehanort crafted his own apprentice known as Vanitas out of the darkness of the heart of one of his former students, Ventus. Using the byproduct of Vanitas's creation, the Unversed, Xehanort begins to search for the Princesses of Heart in an attempt to use the light in their hearts to conquer Kingdom Hearts.

Master Xehanort eventually reunited with his old classmate, Master Eraqus in the Land of Departure to watch over the Master Qualification exams of Aqua and Terra. Unknown to Eraqus, Xehanort was manipulating the exam by using his powers over darkness, resulting in Terra failing and Aqua passing. In Terra, Xehanort saw great potential and sought to convert him to darkness for the next phase of his plans. Xehanort also sought to make Ventus stronger as he planned to have Vanitas merge with Ventus to create an ultimate weapon known as the X-blade, the only weapon capable of opening Kingdom Hearts, under his control. Throughout the game, Xehanort meets Braig, who joins him in his plans to slowly turn Terra to the dark side, scarring both his eye and face in the process. As Terra accepts the darkness into his heart, Xehanort confronts Eraqus and shows his true nature to his former friend. After much turmoil, Xehanort orchestrates the death of Eraqus and destroys the Land of Departure before heading off to claim Kingdom Hearts.

While Ventus and Aqua destroy Vanitas, Terra is able to fight and defeat Xehanort, but Xehanort reveals that he wanted Terra to accept the darkness so that he may possess him to gain greater powers. Xehanort then uses his keyblade to transfer his heart to Terra's body, whose heart migrates to his discarded armor. Xehanort takes full control of Terra's body, but Terra's heart inside his armor creates the Lingering Sentiment, which defeats Xehanort and sends his body to Radiant Garden. Aqua sees Terra at Radiant Garden, not knowing he is possessed by Master Xehanort and approaches him. Xehanort then duels Aqua but is again defeated, resulting in Xehanort being consumed by darkness and sent to the dark realm. In an effort to save Terra's body, Aqua jumps into the dark realm and uses her armor and keyblade to save Terra's body, leaving her stranded in the dark realm and Terra at Radiant Garden without a memory. Braig, Dilan, and Ansem the Wise find him, who introduces himself as Xehanort to which Braig smiles, knowing of Xehanort's plans for Terra beforehand.

In one of the ending sequences, it is revealed that though Xehanort has much control over Terra now, the remains of Terra's consciousness are fighting Xehanort's hold. Xehanort tells him it does not matter as the seeds for his plans have already been planted as Braig tells the possessed Terra of the ideas him and Master Xehanort exchanged, eventually cultivating in the creation of the Heartless and Master Xehanort's personality becoming dominant.

Ansem's Apprentice
Although he was confused about his past, Xehanort's quick learning and cunning made him Ansem's foremost apprentice. Xehanort was described by Ansem as having abilities so remarkable that they could be considered supernatural. Eventually, Ansem began to worry about the darkness that lingers within the hearts of others and sought a way to stop it before it consumed his people. Ansem constructed a laboratory under his castle where he, Xehanort, and Ansem's five other assistants (Braig, Dilan, Even, Aeleus, and Ienzo) would conduct experiments on darkness. Xehanort, who Ansem now fully trusts as an apprentice and friend, offered to use himself in the experiments. Ansem also hoped to unlock Xehanort's memories in addition to uncovering a way to repress the darkness within hearts. Xehanort had other plans in mind though and decided to conduct his own experiments to go deeper into the research.

The Heartless
Xehanort and Braig convince the other apprentices to help them carry out their own experiments. They abducted countless people and locked them within the depths of the laboratory where Xehanort then conducted horrible experiments on the subjects. After using many test subjects, one set of experiments led to the collapse of their hearts. The subjects then went into unrecoverable conditions and were locked up in the dungeon of the castle. Eventually, Xehanort checked on the subjects and saw that they transformed into creatures of darkness, which he named "The Heartless" as they apparently lacked hearts. At this point, Xehanort had taken Ansem the Wise's name as his own and wrote his own report under this stolen name.

Xehanort then presented the Heartless with living and non-living samples; the Heartless only responded to the living. Xehanort witnessed the Heartless consume the living creatures and then multiply into more Heartless. Xehanort deduced that the Heartless seek the hearts of other things, which explains why they only react to living samples, in order to create more of their kind. Xehanort and his associates soon began to slowly accept the darkness, allowing them to have limited control over the Heartless. They in turn began to look less and less humane, a factor that Ansem himself realized. When Ansem learned that his apprentices continued with the research, he called them together and ordered for them to cease their efforts immediately, all the while questioning what was happening to his loyal apprentices. Xehanort however saw his master as a fool who had no understanding of research and kept the research operating.

After observing the behavior of the Heartless and their responses to living things, Xehanort took one of the Heartless aside and observed its behavior. The Heartless began to move throughout the castle until a door appeared which Xehanort was somehow able to open. Behind the door was a humongous mass of energy to which the Heartless reacted immensely. The opening of this door led to the collapse of the world's boundaries, which was seen in the form of a meteor shower. Xehanort eventually deduced that the door actually led to the heart of that world and that the opening of this door led to the collapse of the walls between worlds. This allowed inter-dimensional travel as all the walls between worlds were now broken and eventually a visitor showed up named King Mickey. He had constructed a Gummi Ship, a spacecraft capable of breaking through world boundaries, out of materials from the meteors and used it to visit many different places in search of answers of recent events. Xehanort and Mickey met and had huge discussions in which Xehanort learned of the Keyblade, a mysterious weapon that Mickey himself possessed.

There were also legends that told of seven princesses with pure hearts and how they have a connection to this Keyblade. The Keyblade can also be wielded by many, as long as their hearts qualify, and it seems there is a legend of one Keyblade bearer who went on a journey of destiny to seal off the doors to other worlds. Since this was not in Xehanort's interest, he sought a way to find this weapon. Mickey eventually met and befriended Ansem the Wise and the two of them exchanged theories and ideas in his office about what the Heartless were after. Ansem decided to resist the urge to test their theories while expressing deep remorse for his actions. However, Ansem had no idea that Xehanort had gone further than he himself even dared. Xehanort entered the office during their discussion, asking Ansem's permission to test an experiment. Ansem forbade Xehanort to conduct it and told him to forget everything he learned from the research.

Even though Ansem had no further urge to research the darkness, the experiments led by Xehanort continued including the creation of a machine that created artificial Heartless, all of which were marked with an emblem created by Xehanort in order to differentiate them from the pure-bred Heartless. King Mickey suspected something odd about Xehanort and told Ansem to check his lab, collect all his data, and see if everything was under control. Ansem did so and learned that Xehanort had taken his name as his own and wrote a detailed report. From the report, Ansem learned of the horrible torture inflicted on people by the inhumane experiments that Xehanort had done. Ansem ordered his apprentices to seal off the laboratory and cease their scheme for knowledge.

The Path to Destruction and Knowledge
Ansem's apprentices did as he instructed them but Xehanort eventually banished Ansem to the Realm of Nothingness and ravaged the world with Heartless. The Heartless under the command of Xehanort began spreading to other worlds and destroyed numerous ones in their mad search for hearts. One side effect of the destruction of so many worlds was the creation of Traverse Town, made up of the remains of the ruined worlds and populated by the few survivors of those said worlds. Xehanort then ordered for the seal on the laboratory to be broken and that a room that he called the "Chamber of Repose" be constructed. Once done, Xehanort often went in and spoke as if there was someone else in the room. It is later revealed that the room housed the armor of a fallen Keyblade wielder although it is not known what the purpose of this was. Xehanort then abducted and sent Kairi, a resident of Radiant Garden, to the oceans of other worlds. The reason for this was because Xehanort thought Kairi had a connection to the Keyblade bearer, as she seemed to possess power comparable to that of a Princess of Heart, which is rumored to posses a connection to the Keyblade. He hoped to use her to find the Keyblade master and prevent him from sealing off the doors to other worlds.

Xehanort made the final pages of his report, which outlined his intentions as well as those of the Heartless. The Heartless seek to consume the hearts of all living things. However, they not only seek human hearts, but the hearts of the worlds themselves. Their ultimate goal is to collect enough hearts to form the biggest heart of all, the heart in which all that exist are evolved from: Kingdom Hearts. Xehanort decided to use the Heartless' instincts to make his own plans. He would find Kingdom Hearts in order to gain ultimate power, control, and knowledge. Xehanort also learned that the creation of a Heartless can also lead to the creation of another creature called a Nobody, beings that are left over bodies of those whose hearts have been stolen away. They transform into an inhuman state and do not truly exist as they lack a heart to make them truly live.

Xehanort and the others eventually gave themselves to the darkness to gain the ability to control all Heartless and wield the powers of darkness. They lost their hearts in the process and they became powerful Nobodies. However, Xehanort was the only one to have both a human Nobody and Heartless, both possessing the memories prior to their creations. Since they possessed strong hearts, Xehanort and his followers were able to retain their human forms as Nobodies. Radiant Garden was almost completely destroyed, save for the castle and the mutated waterways, which had several modifications done to it by Xehanort and the other apprentices, and most of its people were wiped out while some managed to escape to Traverse Town, such as Leon, Aerith, Yuffie, Cid and Merlin.

A Heartless and Nobody
Xehanort's Nobody took the concept of his original name being an anagram with an X in it and applied it to the name he stole, Ansem. Thus he was called Xemnas who created The Organization, later called Organization XIII, with the other apprentices at its core. Like Xemnas, all the other members rearranged their names and put an X in them in order create a new identity for themselves. They sought to become complete beings again and be whole. Meanwhile, Xehanort's Heartless, still calling himself "Ansem", remained a spirit seeking to plunge all that is in darkness. Both portions of Xehanort sought Kingdom Hearts in order to wield the power it possesses and unleash it into the universe.

Xehanort's Heartless' plans were to control other beings and use them to collect the Princesses of Heart and use them to open up the portal to Kingdom Hearts. To this end, he commanded the Heartless to manipulate the darkness within the Disney villains to serve their needs. Maleficent, being manipulated by the Heartless, led this group of villains to control the darkness by using the heartless and collecting the princesses to open the path to Kingdom Hearts through an artificial keyhole. This group used Hollow Bastion as a base of operations and used Ansem's reports to help them control the heartless and the darkness. None of them knew, however, that they were being used by a far greater evil that was residing in the shadows, waiting for the opportune moment to claim Kingdom Hearts for himself. At the same time, Xehanort's heartless would use the Heartless to destroy entire worlds and collect the world hearts to form the dimension of Kingdom Hearts itself. He also searched for a host to take control of so that he may regain a physical presence. His choice for a host would later turn out to be Riku.

Exploiting Riku's jealous friendship with Sora, Xehanort's heartless nearly shattered their friendship and took possession of Riku's body, sending his heart to the dark realm. Unfortunately for him, the goal he sought for throughout his whole life, Kingdom Hearts, ended up destroying him with its light, giving Riku back his body. Kingdom Hearts was soon sealed away by Sora and King Mickey, which destroyed billions of heartless and the End of the World as well as restoring all the worlds taken by Xehanort and the Heartless. (Xehanort's Heartless would still live on in Riku, causing some of the events of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II)

Meanwhile, Xemnas, the Nobody of Xehanort, sought to find Kingdom Hearts by collecting human hearts. His goal was to use Kingdom Hearts to make himself a kingdom, where he would be the ruler forever. Leading Organization XIII (Xigbar, Xaldin, Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion, Saïx, Axel, Demyx, Luxord, Marluxia, Larxene, Roxas, and Xion), Xemnas controlled all Nobodies and constructed a fortress that would serve as a base of operations: The Castle that Never Was. Organization XIII recruited other powerful Nobodies in their plans to find Kingdom Hearts and use its power to become complete beings again. Xemnas eventually found a fortress known as Castle Oblivion and converted it into a base of experiments where the nature of memory would be experimented on. He was also searching frantically for a room called the "Chamber of Waking" and believed it to be somewhere within this fortress. In the meantime, Organization XIII brought chaos and destruction to many worlds in order to create more Heartless and Nobodies to control. Research was also put into the Keyblade and the Organization eventually learned that it held the literal key to forming and obtaining Kingdom Hearts.

And Xemnas, unlike his Heartless counterpart, achieved his goal. But after all of the other Organization members were slain by Sora, fate turned back on him and Kingdom Hearts was scattered by Ansem the Wise himself in an explosion that killed the former ruler of Radiant Garden. Xemnas, with no other option, absorbed the remnants of Kingdom Hearts and became ultimately powerful. However, in a climactic battle with Sora and Riku, Xemnas was destroyed by the light of the Keyblade and faded, taking Kingdom Hearts with him. This also ended the reign of Organization XIII and the Nobodies and, as Sora stated after the battle, restored the realm of light to peace and safety.

By the end of Kingdom Hearts II, the madness of Xehanort seemed to have finally been destroyed by Sora and Riku, but it is unknown if this can truly be seen as a fact.

Personality
Throughout the series, from Birth by Sleep all the way up Kingdom Hearts II, Xehanort has shown to be a cold, calculating, violent, and icy sociopath with no love or concern for anybody or anything other than himself. He is shown to value power, control, and knowledge above all other things and has no compunctions with betraying others even his own associates. This is perfectly illustrated when he murdered his childhood friend, Eraqus, and when he betrayed Ansem, ruining the latter's life and leaving him with nothing other than revenge to live for. As a keyblade master, there was apparently a time when Xehanort was a noble and balanced man, having earned the trust of Eraqus and being able to wield the keyblade. In his travels though, Xehanort lost his grip on sanity and became obsessed with darkness and using it to fulfill his lust for power and control over all there is. From that point further, Xehanort had no concern for others and only saw them as worth living as long as they could fulfill his own dark desires. Controlling dark forces, Xehanort destroyed worlds, murdered innocents, created evil monstrosities that plagued the worlds, and manipulated others into furthering his plans.

Seeing others as simply tools, Xehanort tortured many individuals with experiments that went beyond the boundaries of insanity. He felt no sympathy or remorse for his actions and justified them by stating that it was all done in the name of research. Eventually though, this pursuit of research was then shared with a lust for power. Xehanort eventually warped his mind into thinking that darkness is the heart's true power and the source of all power in general. He has also shown an extreme disregard for all life and wiped out his own world in pursuit of his goals and sacrificed his own body to gain more power over the creatures of darkness he created known as the Heartless. His Heartless and Nobody are shown to be just as sadistic and warped as their prior existence. Both are shown to have no emotions other than anger and hatred and have no concern for anybody or anything other than themselves.

Xehanort's Heartless destroyed many worlds along with their respective populaces in order to form Kingdom Hearts, all the while manipulating others and, at the same time, feeding off the darkness in their heart. He wanted nothing but to have darkness overrun the realm of light and conquer the universe. He was highly manipulative when it came to other's emotions as shown when he convinced Riku to let the darkness flow into his heart. Xemnas wished to access the power of Kingdom Hearts to both acquire a heart, and to reign over others using his new powers. To this end, he took the hearts of billions and turned them into heartless for the simple reason of having Sora defeat them and return their hearts to Kingdom Hearts, making it stronger for when Xemnas took its power. Xemnas kept his former self's trait of seeing others as experiments, shown when he created Xion to be his slave. He was shown as callous and possessing no sympathy that she would have to live with a tortured existence and had no sorrow for her when she was destroyed by Roxas.

Both portions of Xehanort, which make up his ultimate characterization, care for nothing but control over the universe and having ultimate knowledge. They both have warped minds to the point of breaking the edge of insanity, believing that darkness is all that truly exists in the heart and that it should be used as the ultimate source of power. It is unknown if Xehanort has truly been destroyed, or if he is still out there in some shape or form. Regardless, Xehanort's actions have led to at twelve eleven years of suffering and ruin with people's lives being consumed and destroyed by his warped ambitions. As of now, Xehanort has never shown any form of kindness of nobleness and any type of goodness he may have once had seems to have been abandoned when he became obsessed with the darkness of the worlds and hearts.

Appearance
As Terra's body was used in the creation, Xehanort originally wore two intersecting a skintight, black, high-collared shirt, showing that he is rather muscular. Terra's pants bear a distinct feudal Japanese style; his belt is tied like an obi-sash and he wears hakama (traditional samurai pants distinguished by the large pleats). His hakama are dark grey near the top, with several loops for his belt and two buttons, both of which are undone. The rest of the pants are tan with a small, lighter stripe of tan on the bottom hem. Xehanort wears a plain black wristband on his right arm, while his left arm is significantly more armored. He has amber-gold eyes and stark white hair and eyebrows. Xehanort's hair is worn long, with two bangs framing his face. His hair also sports three backward-facing spikes, one at the top of his head, and one on either side, just above his ears. His skin is also rather tan.

While in Radiant Garden, after losing his memories, Xehanort wore white labcoat with rather loose sleeves that is partway zipped down. The coat also has pockets roughly where Xehanort's hips would be. He wears black boots that bear a vague resemblance to those of Organization XIII members, albeit his sport two vertical white stripes on the sides. Underneath his coat, Xehanort wears a grey vest overtop a white collar shirt, along with a purple tie-like strip of cloth he wears around his neck.

Trivia

 * If you remove the "X" in Xehanort's name and reassemble it, you can get the phrases/words "No Heart" and "Another". On a side note, when Xemnas visits the Room of Sleep, his password in the computer is "another", hinting that Xehanort himself realized the anagrams in his name, typed along with the original names of the other apprentices that became Organization XIII's first six members.