Kingdom Hearts Tier 11 Cosmology

[Bobsican]

No, I'm not downgrading the verse to tier 11, I'm merely proposing something that can have connotations to some profiles.

So... as I've explained here, basically the plot of KH3D revolves on main characters traveling across the dreams of the world's hearts to restore them back to normal for the most part, and given it's below the baseline reality (aka, the one that's currently focused as the 3D one, as much it's made clear hierarchically it's on the same level as anyone's normal dreams), this'd indeed fall as tier 11 out of naturally being qualitatively inferior out of R<F layers being involved.

However, how many qualitative inferiorities? Well, Ansem states to Riku that no matter how many dreams within dreams he dived into he wouldn't be able to reach the chasm of dreams (Ansem even emphatizes later on the same video the dream within dreams involved), and as the blog I've linked above explains, such chasm is shown to be the Station of Awakening, which has The Final World physically outside of it (in other words, The Final World is qualitatively the same level as the Station of Awakening).

Quadratum is stated to be fictional even in relation to it as much Ansem the Wise explains that as the main cosmology (including dreams) are made of light and darkness (which we already accept as much hearts are accepted type 1 concepts out of all that exists requiring them to do so, and they're in turn made of light and darkness), Quadratum lacks those and is regarded as fictional, this is further supported with how light and darkness themselves are regarded as high dimensional too.

So, the proposal is that Quadratum is a 1-A amount of qualitatively inferior layers in relation to the baseline reality (really "deep" in 11-C), going by the Tiering System FAQ, as it's stated that regardless of the amount of R<F dream layers traveled as explained above, the bottom wouldn't ever be reached in this manner, thus being qualitatively inferior even to a qualitatively inferior "High 1-B" structure, with Quadratum being regarded as fictional even to this.

Q: How can a character be 1-A and above without an infinite-dimensional/infinitely-layered cosmology, then?​

A: A good way to accomplish this would be to show that whatever state of being in which they exist is completely independent of the number of layers/dimensions present on the setting. For example, if they are unaffected by dimensions being arbitrarily added or removed from physical space by virtue of transcending it entirely, or if they exist as a "background" or canvas of sorts in which any amount of them can be inserted. This argument generalizes to tiers higher than 1-A as well.

Note that, in order to jump to 1-A this way, it does not suffice that adding one or several layers/dimensions makes no difference to the character in question. That much could be true even if the character only has one level of qualitative superiority to the constructs, as then they would all appear to have zero / infinitely small size to them. It has to be clear in some fashion that even if an infinite or unlimited number of dimensions/layers are added or removed it would make no difference to the character. The same applies to similarily large jumps in other tiers, like from 1-A to 1-A+ etc.

The main impact this'd have on profiles is listing Lower Dimensional Existence to the pages of characters in KH3D or Quadratum like Sora, Riku, Dream Eaters, Yozora and some Real Organization XIII members, I don't think AP downgrades should be applied in such states as much we have 3-D characters with 6-D AP here, and the UES would still apply as much even in qualitatively inferior spaces.

I guess there's also the inherent BFR on this scale as Quadratum is regarded as the afterlife in the verse as the blog also explains, although only characters that can manipulate KH hearts would have that (Keyblade and KH light/darkness users), as the criteria is described as the body and heart perishing.

 

[TokiNoOuja]

I still don't understand....

 

[Bobsican]

Basically the proposal is to just make Quadratum fall as 11-C (infinite qualitative inferiority layers plus 2, which'd fall as 1-A if it was qualitative superiorities instead). Mentions of tier 1 are merely being used inversely to refer to qualitatively inferior equivalents for convenience purposes.

 

[BestMGQScalerEver]

Bob cooking?

 

[Ped2018]

Bob cooking?

Extremely rare

 

[Huesito88]

Bob cooking?

Nah he's building

 

[Hasty12345]

Next you’ll tell me characters can BFR others to these “-1-A” realms so they’re instant wincons as no other verse has this kind of cosmology

 

[Scottycj256]

If Kingdom Hearts can BFR characters to Quadratum then its immediately like #1 strongest Low 1-C verse

 

[Hasty12345]

If Kingdom Hearts can BFR characters to Quadratum then its immediately like #1 strongest Low 1-C verse

It would be a really cool ability ngl

 

[Bobsican]

Next you’ll tell me characters can BFR others to these “-1-A” realms so they’re instant wincons as no other verse has this kind of cosmology

SCP says hi, lol

But jokes aside, actually, that's quite the case now that you mention it with how Quadratum is regarded as the afterlife in the verse, meaning that it'd be an inherent effect of someone inflicting "true" death (aka, making the body and heart perish) as the blog explains in further detail.

If Kingdom Hearts can BFR characters to Quadratum then its immediately like #1 strongest Low 1-C verse

Given the criteria to do it (no one can just directly BFR someone else there so far), I don't think their spot would change with this, beyond maybe having a proper wincon to Nasu characters.

 

[ThanatosX]

I think the proposal make sense overall, though it is a bit weird to see a "negative 1-A" cosmology. But considering the context behind it, I agree with it.

 

[Eseseso]

How can they BFR people to this realm?

 

[Bobsican]

How can they BFR people to this realm?

By killing them alongside their heart, basically

 

[Reiner04]

downgrading the verse to tier 11

Agree.

 

[Arceus0x]

No, I'm not downgrading the verse to tier 11

 

[Eseseso]

By killing them alongside their heart, basically

So he still has to actually kill them?

Doesn't seem like that much of a boost to me.

 

[Bobsican]

Yeah, it was never intended to be a major thing for vs threads.

 

[Eseseso]

Yeah, it was never intended to be a major thing for vs threads.

Ok, then.

This is perfectly fine and I agree with the CRT, since I don't see any disgustingly smurfish hax here.

Does this even have any use in a vs thread? Just curious.

 

[Bobsican]

Mainly just rendering High Godly stuff barely useful as they'd reform in this 11-C space.

 

[Eseseso]

Mainly just rendering High Godly stuff barely useful as they'd reform in this 11-C space.

Neat-O.

OP itself looks good.

 

[Qawsedf234]

Quadratum is a 1-A amount of qualitatively inferior layers in relation to the baseline reality (really "deep" in 11-C)

There's no real negative Aleph number. 0 is a finality in dimensional tiering. You can't not have at least 1 definable axis. It can be 11-C but it's not a negative Aleph.

 

[Bobsican]

There's no real negative Aleph number. 0 is a finality in dimensional tiering. You can't not have at least 1 definable axis. It can be 11-C but it's not a negative Aleph.

The Tiering System does allow those:

11-C: Low Hypoverse level​

Characters or objects that demonstrate power equivalent to destroying/creating a 0-D level construct of any size, or three levels of infinity/degrees of reality/fiction transcendence or similar beneath a 3-D reality. This tier also includes characters who are vastly below this level, and all characters beneath this tier’s requirements in any significant way will still be at this tier.

In fact there's precedent on this with some SCPs, which can have "negative" tier 0 gaps between their tier and 3D.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

However, how many qualitative inferiorities? Well, Ansem states to Riku that no matter how many dreams within dreams he dived into he wouldn't be able to reach the chasm of dreams (Ansem even emphatizes later on the same video the dream within dreams involved), and as the blog I've linked above explains, such chasm is shown to be the Station of Awakening, which has The Final World physically outside of it (in other words, The Final World is qualitatively the same level as the Station of Awakening).

I don't really get how you draw this conclusion from what is said in the scene. The exact quote is "Sora can no longer wake up. No matter how many nightmares you consume, you cannot wake someone who has fallen into the chasm of dreams."

Can you elaborate on that a bit more?

 

[Bobsican]

I don't really get how you draw this conclusion from what is said in the scene. The exact quote is "Sora can no longer wake up. No matter how many nightmares you consume, you cannot wake someone who has fallen into the chasm of dreams."

Can you elaborate on that a bit more?

A bit later in that same scene, Ansem also says:

Ansem: This world, the nightmare, the abyss. Why haven't you returned to the reality whence you came?

Riku: No. This is a...

Ansem: Dream of a dream. A twofold nightmare.

So, Ansem contextualizes shortly after that that "nightmares" in this context refer to dreams within dreams, combine that with the statement of being unable to wake up Sora regardless of how many nightmares (dreams within dreams) he consumes to reach the chasm of dreams, and there's overall a decent case for "negative" 1-A combined with the other qualitative inferiorities mentioned on top.

If you're confused of the bit where he says "reality whence you came", that's out of the context that Riku should have returned to the normal baseline reality out of his duty being done, but things didn't go according to plan out of Ansem and other antagonists interfering with Sora's dreams, which Riku was inside of at the time as stated there too.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

So, Ansem contextualizes shortly after that that "nightmares" in this context refer to dreams within dreams, combine that with the statement of being unable to wake up Sora regardless of how many nightmares (dreams within dreams) he consumes to reach the chasm of dreams, and there's overall a decent case for "negative" 1-A combined with the other qualitative inferiorities mentioned on top.

I've seen that bit of dialogue. What I don't understand, however, is how you infer that "consuming nightmares" refers to him delving into more dreams within dreams.

 

[Bobsican]

I've seen that bit of dialogue. What I don't understand, however, is how you infer that "consuming nightmares" refers to him delving into more dreams within dreams.

Oh, good question, my bad for not clarifying on that bit.

"Consuming nightmares" here refers to him assimilating (yeah, it's somewhat literal) the nightmares of such dreams within dreams, as that's part of his nature as a Spirit Dream Eater (protecting Sora from nightmares), Ansem elaborates on that in the next scene after the one we've been talking about here for a while.

With how Riku already had freed the nightmares from all the Sleeping Worlds at the time, only going deeper in Sora's dream in this manner is the plausible option left going not only for the implications with Ansem correlating nightmares to dreams within dreams as said before, but also how Sora is shown to be ending up in the deepest slumber after going into multiple dreams within dreams, gotta just quote the novel for this one as the game is a bit vague and all over the place:

“Come with me.”
The young man held out his hand to Sora. It reminded him so much of the way Riku had reached out to Sora that fateful day they set out from the Destiny Islands. After a moment, Sora could sense his vision blurring.
“Ungh… What?”
His head was so heavy. He was swaying. What in the world…?
“Pleasant dreams, kiddo,” Xigbar said to him gently.
Sora then fell into a deep sleep.

(...)

“What do you mean?” Sora asked back. “At this point, I was talking to myself?” So the guy standing over there is the same guy sitting here next to me. And robe guy is going over there to talk to himself, too? Is it all the same person? I don’t get it.
“That is Xehanort reduced to just a heart—the being you and your friends called Ansem.”
Sora raised his head to find the man in the brown robe right in front of him. He jumped, startled, and then his mind fell back into sleep.

When he came to, it was night on the Destiny Islands. The man in the brown robe was entering the secret place, and another Sora—the Sora whose journey was about to begin—was following him into the cave.
Present-day Sora had no idea what was going on anymore.

(...)

“So? That could only tell him so much. How did he know I would be here today?”
“Simple.”
Just then, there was a boom from the cave so loud it shook the world around them. As Sora watched, Kairi’s body was hurled out of the entrance.
“Kairi!”
He immediately opened his arms to catch her, but she passed right through him. Sora then fell into another deep sleep.

This time he woke up in Traverse Town. This was where it all started, and he’d been here so many times since.

(...)


“Pluto!”
Sora chased after the dog, but he couldn’t catch him.
Sora…!
Instead, he collapsed into unconsciousness.

When he woke up again—
“Huh? Am I back?”
Yes, this was the World that Never Was, where he’d run into Xigbar and fallen asleep. The king, Donald, and Goofy ran by in front of him.

(...)

“What do you want me to see?!” Sora screamed.
The sound faded into the hollow sky.
Riku: Sora, don’t chase the dreams. They’ll lead you nowhere, just to an abyss you’ll never be able to wake up from.
But Sora didn’t hear the voice. He was completely alone.

(...)

They reached out to him, and Sora reached back. He had to take their hands—but the two of them distorted again as they turned away from him. As they started to leave him behind, they reverted to Riku and Kairi. Sora tried to go after them, but he could barely move. Something was weighing him down. He didn’t know if it was his own body or the air itself.
“What is going on?”
Sora! Don’t! You’ve gotta wake up! Sora!
Sora felt like he heard someone calling. That voice—he got the sense that it had been calling to him this entire time. And then the two he was trying to catch changed from Riku and Kairi back to that pair he didn’t know. Everything was twisting and distorting. I’m running and running, but I just can’t reach them. What…what is this place?

(...)

And again, everything was warping. Someone was standing on the shore. Is that…Ansem?!
Just then, a swift, sudden sleep overtook him.

Sora’s knees buckled and hit the ground, as if he had dropped from the sky.
“Oopsy-daisy. Wasn’t easy putting you into a second sleep, and he almost woke you up.”

Sora even appears asleep to Riku while in this state and then vanishes by going even deeper going by how what's quoted in the novel happens at the same time as that, plus in the perspective of the real world (aka, the baseline reality), Sora was sleeping, and Riku had to use the Power of Waking to reach the chasm of dreams (aka, Sora's Station of Awakening, as the blog explains) to wake him up.

So, not only the context shows that Sora was indeed falling into further dreams within dreams, Ansem bothers clarifying to Riku that he wouldn't be able to reach Sora regardless of how many dreams within dreams he purified from nightmares, and we even get perspective swaps to the one of the real world (aka, the baseline reality) showing that it's all dreams to them, combine that with the explanations given in the blog linked in the OP and this seems rather explicit.

Sorry if this is a lot, but I wanted to minimize misconceptions while also keeping this somewhat readable, feel free to ask if you are unsure on anything.

 

[Eseseso]

I get how it is 11-C, but how is it "-1-A"?

 

[Bobsican]

With Quadratum being 1-A levels of lower in relation to the baseline reality, it's "negative" as merely a form of speech for simplicity purposes on the amount of qualitative inferiorities involved, as it's below the baseline reality (aka, the main perspective given in the series), which is what we use for tiering, so it's just really "deep" in 11-C, in other words.

 

[Bobsican]

Bump.

 

[Bobsican]

Bump.

 

[Bobsican]

Bump.

 

[Bobsican]

Bump.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

Would this have any consequences for the characters' strength while they are in the Sleeping Worlds or The Final World?

 

[Bobsican]

Would this have any consequences for the characters' strength while they are in the Sleeping Worlds or The Final World?

The main impact this'd have on profiles is listing Lower Dimensional Existence to the pages of characters in KH3D or Quadratum like Sora, Riku, Dream Eaters, Yozora and some Real Organization XIII members, I don't think AP downgrades should be applied in such states as much we have 3-D characters with 6-D AP here, and the UES would still apply as much even in qualitatively inferior spaces.

I guess there's also the inherent BFR on this scale as Quadratum is regarded as the afterlife in the verse as the blog also explains, although only characters that can manipulate KH hearts would have that (Keyblade and KH light/darkness users), as the criteria is described as the body and heart perishing.

 

[Nehz_XZX]

That makes sense.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

With how Riku already had freed the nightmares from all the Sleeping Worlds at the time, only going deeper in Sora's dream in this manner is the plausible option left going not only for the implications with Ansem correlating nightmares to dreams within dreams as said before, but also how Sora is shown to be ending up in the deepest slumber after going into multiple dreams within dreams, gotta just quote the novel for this one as the game is a bit vague and all over the place:

So this argument seems to hinge on the idea that "nightmares" and "dreams within dreams" are synonymous, which those scans don't really demonstrate. A dream within a dream being referred to as a "nightmare" doesn't mean all nightmares are nested dreams, and in fact:

Ansem: Dream of a dream. A twofold nightmare.

This indicates the opposite. "A twofold nightmare" being cited as a special designations implies not all nightmares are dreams buried inside dreams.

 

[Bobsican]

So this argument seems to hinge on the idea that "nightmares" and "dreams within dreams" are synonymous, which those scans don't really demonstrate. A dream within a dream being referred to as a "nightmare" doesn't mean all nightmares are nested dreams, and in fact:

This indicates the opposite. "A twofold nightmare" being cited as a special designations implies not all nightmares are dreams buried inside dreams.

Well, I bothered checking the JP version of the cutscene, and this is what I found:

Memories become dreams, and dreams are in sleep.
And that sleep is darkness.
Sora's heart has fallen into darkness.
Can you believe that Sora has fallen into darkness?
You've felt it, too.
This world, this nightmare, this abyss of darkness.
Why haven't you... Not been back in the real world?
You're not back there.
A dream of a dream, a nightmare within a nightmare...
You've been traveling in Sora's dream.
And now you're going to fall into the darkness within the darkness.

The wording is more explicit on dreams within dreams being involved, especially when you notice that a dream and a nightmare are the same thing for our purposes meaning-wise in terms of qualitative layers, so that's not much of a factor anyways, as much a good comicbook and a morally questionable comicbook would both be valid cases for qualitative stuff.

So overall, a correlation to "nightmare" = "dream within dream" isn't necessary anymore for the proposed stuff in the OP as the JP version makes it clear it's more like "nightmare" = "dream" for these purposes, with both claims of a "dream within a dream" and "nightmare within a nightmare" both being valid, especially considering that earlier in the before-quoted JP cutscene, Ansem said this previously:

Sora will never wake up.
No matter how many of Sora's nightmares you feed on
Those who have fallen into the abyss of dreams
Will never wake from their slumber.

Meaning that this specifically is talking about Sora's nightmares, and not only we already know Riku is inside Sora's dreams (or nightmares, at this point), I already explained the whole context at this time of Sora falling into further nightmares within nightmares, and thus overall it seems quite reasonable to conclude from the information we have that no matter how many nightmares within nightmares Riku purifies, this wouldn't affect the chasm of dreams Sora ended up on, which is a sound "negative" 1-A reasoning as explained in the OP.

 

[Bobsican]

Bump.

 

[Antvasima]

What are the staff conclusions here so far?

 

[Bobsican]

@Ultima_Reality is still evaluating the provided information, @Nehz_XZX also is in agreement with the thread, but he doesn't have the user rights to count as a proper staff vote.
Oh yeah, @Qawsedf234 also commented on a tiering semantic, which I already clarified over with no further response from him.