[ OOC ] Frozen Pride // Vexen's Research

[glacialis_nemo]

Composition of a Heart

The heart is comprised of three elements, with only one of which is necessary for life in all living creatures, aware of consciousness or not.

• Darkness

Darkness represents negative energy, the will to execute acts considered bad and evil by human standards, however, darkness is what, in moderation, provides a necessary developmental thought process within the human mind. The first exhibit of the use of darkness begins in childhood when the child is old enough to understand that certain behaviors warrant rewards or punishment. The child then begins behaving as conditioned by the parents as a rudimentary form of manipulation of its surroundings. This process develops over time. The child then begins testing the parent's limits, establishing acceptable social and personal boundaries upheld by society as a whole, and by what an individual person will and will not tolerate.


Fear is also considered a trait of darkness, which is linked directly to the survival instinct and human ingenuity. Fear causes the construction of tools and weapons for means of defense, drives the human race to seek shelter and control its environment to ensure the safety of the individual.

Anger and rage developed as a stimulus to help establish order as well as clearly announce a person's displeasure to outside stimulus. Personalities derived around these emotions are considered negative, but the repression of it also does more harm than good. Properly expressing anger is the key to preventing destruction or self-destruction.

The Id and a portion of the Ego stems from darkness as well, as the Id is the selfish and subconscious drive to execute that which promises pleasure and happiness to a person without regards to consequences. Darkness, representing all things concerning the self, satisfaction and preservation of the self, falls right into this category. The Ego's job, according Sigmund Freud, is to consciously balance the subconscious Superego and Id.

Any concept deemed 'good' can be tainted as well by zealotry, and there are negative aspects to the darkness that are not to be overlooked

While there are neutral aspects that only effect behavioral patterns, there are stronger effects. As the natural balance between light and darkness becomes skewed, should it tip in the favor of darkness. The exact symptoms expressed vary on a case-by-case basis, depending upon the individual and their motives. Within most ambitious subjects, it's observed to have similar effects to many addictive drugs, except the subject craves power, and not an altered state of mind. In this way, the subject consumes itself in the never-ending pursuit for power, and continues reaching deeper into the darkness until the body, mind, and heart can take no more and break, thus allowing the heart to be consumed. In fearful subjects, it feeds into paranoia, and the subject still breeds a hunger for power that meets, eventually, the same ends. They sew their destruction quicker with their fearful ways, afraid of being killed or bested, without the driving force of confidence, arrogance, or ambition to keep their minds focused for long.

The general symptoms expressed is a marked hunger for something--typically a concept or idea that has been tainted and corrupted by moral standards--and so the zealous pursuit leads the subject astray until they're consumed. Most often, whatever the subject originally pursued quickly warped into a hunger for power and control.

Lack of darkness in a heart entirely is extremely rare, but it is obviously possible to survive without it. The Princesses of Heart are the only known subjects to have pure hearts, however, it is capable for an individual outside of that group of seven to have a pure heart. Darkness is present in almost all hearts to some degree, but is not necessarily a sign of a person's personal values or habits.

Even Nobodies are incapable of escaping the cloying effects of darkness. Nobodies exhibit stronger coping mechanisms due to the strength of heart of the original Somebody, but without taking proper precautions, darkness will eventually taint the mind, the only bastion left to Nobodies.

• Light

Light is representative of all things deemed good by human kind, and represents positive energy. Light is most prevalent in people in most worlds, only because humans have been conditioned by society to hide their negative traits and keep thoughts to theirselves. However, the presence of light denotes that which is innocent and good in human society, any of which can be turned into a negative trait when exhibited in excess or in zealotry.

The Superego in Freud's studies of the psyche is a perfect representation of the light within almost all living beings capable of conscious awareness. The Superego subconsciously aspires to do only what is right by social and personal moral standards, never to indulge in pleasure because of the consequences and social stigma it can often yield.

Innocence and honesty are other traits associated with light, a direct opposite to selfishness and manipulation that darkness yields. Innocence often pertains to naivete among the populace, or a lack of understanding of sexual desires, physical pleasure, and the absence of any sexual relations, but innocence is also connected to ignorance, or a lack of understanding of the finer workings of the world. It also denotes a lack of malicious intentions, whether or not the path taken to a well-intentioned end results in accomplishing more harm than good.

Sympathy, passion, and love are also related to light. The desire to go beyond every living thing's instinctual urge to self satisfy and do whatever it takes to continue to live can often be overcome by this positive emotion. While this puts the host in danger of manipulation, in times of physical danger, sympathy is often accompanied with the adrenaline rush necessary to preserve both, if not one life. Passion, so long as the drive is for the benefit of mankind as a whole, the intentions behind the drive are pure, and the means to that end breaks no moral or written law of man, is considered to be related to the light. Love, too, is of the light, being a raw and selfless emotion.

Humility, one must take care not to think their selves any better than others, as arrogance is considered to be of darkness. Too little and arrogance takes hold, too much, and the traits of courage and self-confidence--both more examples of traits deriving from the light--can result in meekness, which more often leads to darkness as passive aggressive thoughts pool due to mistreatment and being taken advantage of, rather than light.

Caution should be taken with anything related to the light. While, in moderation, all traits considered to derive from the light within hearts are inherently good, any pure concept can and will be tainted. Perversion of religion and good will being the prime example. Religious teachings of good will towards even those considered evil is often used as fuel for wars. Innocence can be manipulated or corrupted, love can become obsessive, and passion can lead a desperate heart into darkness.

It's also been observed that too much light within a heart can be a marked weakness, which can often lock the subject into a singular state of mind and cause them to suffer from 'tunnel vision.' Just as darkness skews a subject's sight and draws them in to be consumed, so a heart can fall victim to the wiles of light.

The effects are markedly different from those consumed by darkness. Darkness is a destructive force, where light acts as the antithesis: the constructive force. Those doused in light, in most observed cases, fear and abhor the darkness, thus rejecting it. In the process, this then negates nature's way of tempering and balancing a heart. This makes their hearts more susceptible to the wiles and consumption of darkness. I have, in the course of my studies, seen remarkable cases, however. 

• Memory

Memory is the one thing no heart can be without. Even fetuses in utero show an ability to recognize mother's voices, and develop memory from the moment the brain shows readable EEG(electroencephalogram). A person can live with a heart of pure light, Nobodies are beings whose bodies are made entirely of darkness, and there have been observed  cases wherein a heart was entrenched in Darkness, but none yet that functioned without memory.

In my studies, I've managed to replicate Riku, a somebody with his heart, struggling with darkness though he was. The hearts I created were unstable at best, but upon implanting a stable heart that the vessel accepted with memories I gleaned from Riku, the body then began to function and the physical heart began to beat. From there, RRiku was functional, and Naminé's powers had the same effect on his copied memories as they did Sora's true memories.

Even in No. i, a being based off of a nobody with no heart, I found that her body had no readable vital signs until I implanted her with Sora, and possibly Ventus' memories. I suspect the reasoning behind this would be that the experiences stored in a heart--and to a less permanent degree, the mind-- dictates the balance of light and darkness within a heart, which in turn dictates a person's Id, Ego, and Superego, or moralities, and thus creates awareness of oneself, be it rudimentary, as observed in dogs and wild animals, or as advanced as the self-awareness humans exhibit. In this way, the heart then becomes whole and functional, be it with an inclination to light or darkness. So long as the heart is an empty vessel, it cannot function.

• Incomplete

It is, however, worth mentioning that while a heart can function without light or darkness present, that would be assuming that the heart is whole. I've observed an incomplete, natural heart only once before. What magics are required to split a heart is unknown to me, or whether it requires no magics, but instead a keyblade. I've not yet been able to test this theory, and artificial hearts torn asunder by throwing off the balance of light and darkness until critical mass is reached and the heart fractures is a poor example.

What is known is that, based on my observations with artificial hearts--and is therefore a poor judgment of what would occur within a natural heart--an incomplete heart will degrade until it self-destructs and is no more. Heart recycling and thus regeneration has been known to happen, but my theory is that the destruction of a heart in this manner renders that impossible. While the heart is degrading, functionality, as observed by Ventus, is possible. However fast or slow the process is, I can not say without knowing more about Ventus. The artificial hearts degraded and finally imploded within hours. I assume once a heart reaches a critical point wherein most of it is destroyed, the body goes into a comatose state until the heart finally implodes and death of the mind, and then the body, occurs.

Ventus was a special subject indeed, but I can split no more of XIII's memories to create more replicas and see what results will be yielded. No. i is to be the only replica produced. Tearing too many memories from XIII will hazard rendering him incomplete and unstable, much as what I gleaned from Ventus, and the existence of a Nobody is an unstable one to begin with.

A number of members that can see a face have submitted a few different names yet, though I can clearly see XIII and Ventus when I look at no. i, myself.

This will be the next step of the Replica Program upon my return to The Castle That Never Was.

Traverse Town/The World That Never Was/Castle Oblivion

Traverse Town is a unique world whose barrier of light is conditionally permeable. The World That Never Was is a world with special properties as the Nobody world of Twilight Town. Castle Oblivion is a curious castle stationed in Darkness, with no known origin and unique properties.
 

(( BET YOU THOUGHT THERE WAS GOING TO BE MORE HERE. NOPE. NOT YET. ))