Let us start with the most logical place to begin: What we know.
What we know is that a person coming into contact with a Heartless can and usually does leave behind three separate entities. These three entities are the Heart, a Heartless and a Nobody. We also know where these things go. The Heart, eventually, goes to Kingdom Hearts, the Heartless goes off in search of the nearest hearts and the Nobody goes off in search of each of the former two. What I, as a researcher, am hoping to postulate on in the coming pages is why, exactly, each of these three entities behaves in such a way after their separation and if, given proper systems, could become whole once again. Using research I have gathered from Sora and his companions, as well as theories of my own, I believe that the information I have gathered and just submitted to you give me a fair place to start.
First, let us look at the person, as a whole, before he has any contact with a Heartless.
First let us make a distinction between a person and an individual. A person typically subscribes to the popular notions of the time, be they regarding politics, entertainment, social issues or even which restaurant in the 2nd District of Traverse Town is to be most highly regarded. Very few of these issues, of course, come from any sort of internal debate, but rather from external resources; A critic in a daily paper or periodical that they happen to enjoy, their parents, or a few friends that the person considers more intelligent than themself, for example.
A person is much different from an individual in one more very important way: An individual will do anything in their power to avoid placing themselves in a potentially dangerous situation. They are first and foremost concerned with their own personal well-being. While under extreme duress, or during an unexpected attack of their conscience, however, even the most self-absorbed of persons is able to overcome their selfishness for sacrifice if it is for someone that they personally care for very dearly, or feel indebted to in some way. The idea of 'paying forward' a good deed illustrates clearly this example, as a regular - normally selfish - person does one good deed, that person feels indebted in some way to do a good deed either for them, or for another random stranger.
From where do these sudden bursts of selflessness come? To find the answer, first we must explore the individual and what makes them different from a person.
A very important aspect of an individual is that they have a discerning eye for everything that stands in front of them. Be it words on a page, an enemy, a friend, or something as mundane as a building, an individual will examine and question even the most obvious of aspects. "Is the building really brown?" an individual may ask a person, gathering only a bewildered look from the person as if to say, "What a stupid question, everyone knows brown is brown is brown, this person must be an idiot to question something so readily apparent,"
This statement also exposes something very true about persons. All persons believe everyone around them to be merely persons as well, it usually never occurs to them that they could be interacting with a true individual. The individual, in equal folly, usually assumes that everyone around him or her to also be an individual, for an individual never allows himself to believe so lowly of other sentient beings.
To come back to our example, with the individual asking if the building really brown, the reason why the individual asks is because the individual knows it is important to question our realities. Most individuals have an inkling of the existence of other worlds, it is in fact a widely accepted fact among them. Persons, however, are completely oblivious to this. This is the primary reason that, aside from in a world like Traverse Town, where many lifeforms traveled there from another world, you cannot mention the presence of other worlds to common persons. The idea that their world is not the center of all existence is a terribly painful shock. It can be likened to basing your entire mathematics system on the idea that two plus two equals five. You formulate theories based on this reasoning, your architecture is built on it. Then, one day, someone comes along and tells you, quite truthfully, that two plus two actually equals four. Not only would a massive paradigm shift have to occur in your thinking, but you would be expecting disaster or the downfall of your civilization at every moment, finding that you had based your entire world on this faulty information.
Because of their ability to question the things around them, even the most blatantly obvious, an individual gains courage to stand up to the unknown, or even that which is known to be terrible, if it means the safety and peace of mind of others. They question, when presented with a Heartless, for example, if actually is too fearsome of a foe for them to stand up to. Though they know of no weapons which can affect it, they are willing to create diversions, distractions or even be a sacrifice for others if they feel it is for the overall greater good of the world they live in.
From where does this selflessness come? From where do a person's bursts of selflessness come? The answer is, of course, the same and, of course, very obvious.
They come from their heart.
Not the physical heart mind you, it is well known that the physical heart is a device of muscle that pumps blood through our body. The spiritual Heart, on the other hand, is no less real. There have been live reports from victims seeing a Heartless attack and watching hearts weave their way into the sky, like helium-filled balloons to which a child simply cannot keep their grip. We know that the spiritual Heart exists both from this phenomenon and the phenomenon of Kingdom Hearts.
Before we explore the topic of Kingdom Hearts, I would like to take one more moment to reflect on the differences between the individual and the person. It is widely acknowledged and taken down by scribe that there are far more Heartless than Nobodies scattered across the worlds. It is my theory that this is because of one simple fact, there are far more persons than individuals scattered across the worlds.
As I have displayed before, a person barely uses their heart. In fact, seems to stumble across it by accident. While it may seem cruel to say so, a person is not so far removed from a Heartless to split into the three separate acknowledged entities. When a person is attacked by a Heartless, they lose their heart and simply change their physical manifestation into our world due to it. A Nobody is not created.
Why?
It is because of what a Nobody is. While it may be widely known, let us retell it here for the sake of the argument. A Nobody is the shell of the personality that is left behind. The "soul" of the individual, if you will. While it carries no memories, it does carry with it the opinions, thoughts and mannerisms and appearance of that from which it came. It is my opinion that it takes an individual, one with enough of a personality devoted to thoughts of others as opposed to thoughts of self, to create a Nobody. A person is too close to a Heartless to begin with to create a Nobody.
I will not waste time on what a Heartless is in these pages, for it has been documented many times more efficiently before me. If one is truly interested in the what of these things, I suggest they read the now published Ansem Reports and then return to these documents. To condense his information down to the barest essentials, a Heartless is the converted body of the victim with their Heart, where a Heart is, by my definition, the vehicle for selflessness.
So, we have covered how all three - the separated Heart, the Heartless and the Nobody - are all created. We have even touched briefly on why all three are created. The Heart, as just mentioned, is the source of selflessness in beings, the Nobody as a necessary remnant of the personality of an individual, and the Heartless being covered in Ansem's reports. Next, I will look at how each behaves after the creation of these three separate entities.
The Heartless is a simple creature. After it is created, it simply looks for more Hearts to consume. It is widely misconstrued that the Heart that leaves from a Heartless upon its demise is the Heart of the original creature. In fact this is a representation of all the hearts that the Heartless in question has consumed. The Heart originally belonging to that particular Heartless would lie inside a Heartless elsewhere. It is almost comical how silly that widely held false notion is, for if the Heartless possessed itself and its original Heart, what would make it a Heartless? It seems very contrary to the idea of the creature.
We now know what the Heartless does after it is separated. The next is why the Heartless behaves in this manner. The easy answer, one that is unable to be dismissed, is that the Heartless is merely a tool of destruction. It hunts for more Hearts simply out of the desire to eliminate that which it does not have. "If I can't have it, no one can," would be the childish, though appropriate, comparison, for the Heartless do not possess any more (in fact, they may possess less) intellect than a child.
However, I believe that the desire for the Heartless to consume other Hearts to be more complex than this. For, if all the Heartless desired was wanton destruction, why would it act in such a pattern? The pattern I speak of is one that has been widely noted by other researchers who all claim correctly that the Heartless seem to search out the largest Hearts they can find. While a nearby heart is a quick and easy snack, the Heartless searches for the biggest heart it can seek on every world it comes in contact with. The Heartless seek out the Heart of the World. This phenomenon is nothing short of amazing for a creature that seems to have only basic survival and instinctual skills. And, again, we find ourselves asking the question, "Why?"
To answer that, we must perform an experiment. We must place a Heartless in the presence of Kingdom Hearts. Speaking with Sora and his companions, they tell me that the Heartless, when near Kingdom Hearts are both much stronger and very highly aggressive. They seem to want to be near it at any cost, even if it may be their lives. This, to me, is very telling. It shows a desire to return to Kingdom Hearts. Why, again with "Why," would the Heartless seek the place where their Heart has gone?
To me, the answer is very simple. The Heartless wish to be whole again.
Before elaborating on that conclusion, let us now move to the behavior of a Nobody after he has been created. Most Nobodies have no discernible characteristics, most do not appear to be human. However, and this is very important, some do. Some look exactly like the shell that they once inhabited, others look remarkably similar. Nobodies can form bodies of government, plan, plot, discuss intelligently and perform any intellectual tasks that a whole person can perform. Even non-humanoid Nobodies can think intelligently and seem to display basic intelligence in that they will retreat, attack in groups, attempt different methods of defeating their enemy, etc. They, unlike Heartless, will not simply head towards their slaughter. They are ordered there.
The humanoid Nobodies represent, to me, the Nobodies of those with the strongest personalities. Those who simply would not give up their external shell and kept it even though everything else had been torn from them. This gives them a strength of will over the non-humanoid Nobodies who lost bits and pieces of their personalities in their "birth," for lack of a better word. The non-humanoid Nobodies take orders from the humanoid Nobodies because the non-humanoid Nobodies are thusly given purpose. And we, of course, know that purpose is what drives any being capable of thought. For everyone has, many times, woken up in the morning and wondered why they were doing something. By finding purpose, it renews their vigor even towards that which they previously thought unacceptable. The same is for the non-humanoid Nobodies. Once they are given purpose, they will do their best to carry out their orders, even at the cost of their own life.
It seems, however, that all Nobodies, humanoid and non-humanoid alike, are driven - just like the Heartless - towards Kingdom Hearts. The benefit of the intelligence of the Nobodies is that they are able to communicate effectively why they are doing what they are doing. Any humanoid Nobody will tell you why they seek Kingdom Hearts. They seek the Heart that they lost when they were attacked by Heartless. The Nobody wishes to be whole again.
The conclusion for the two entities is the same, they both seek out Kingdom Hearts, they both wish to become whole once again. Though it is odd how two seemingly opposed entities end up striving for the same goal. However, it is my contention that this is neither simply a bizarre set of circumstances nor mere coincidence. I postulate that this desire to be complete is, in fact, what drives any being with any instincts whatsoever.
Yes, the desire for "wholeness" present in both Nobodies and Heartless is of a very literal sense. However, anyone, be it a person or an individual, search for a figurative "wholeness" for their whole lives. Persons and individuals of the worlds run by commerce change careers between five and seven times almost universally. The fact that this figure stands up across worlds is staggering and seems to indicate a sense of yearning for something more, something that makes a person or an individual "whole."
Before we discuss further this idea of "wholeness," I would like to discuss the one entity for which I haven't covered its pattern of travel after its separation.
The Heart is probably the most confusing thing of all, the poets didn't lie. For when the spiritual Heart leaves us, it behaves entirely unlike the other two entities it leaves behind. It seems to want to meet neither with its original Heartless nor its Nobody. In fact, after being freed from the Heartless it was consumed by, it heads to the one place that is hardest for either of the other two groups to reach: Kingdom Hearts.
And, again, I am confronted with the "Why" of it all. Why would the Heart want to head for Kingdom Hearts as opposed to being reunited with its "body" (the remnants of its physical form, the Heartless) or "soul" (the remnants of its spiritual form, the Nobody)? The answer I have come up will have its detractors, but I believe that it is the only answer that makes sense when taking into account all other factors. It is in fact so mind-boggling simple that I had to laugh at myself when I finally stumbled upon it.
The Heart doesn't have any wants. It does not desire. The Heart does not possess any instincts or thoughts. It is simply an object in stasis. Though it is a spiritual existence, it does not have a spirit of its own. If it was connected, either to its Heartless or its Nobody, it could perhaps exercise some sort of control on the events happening to it. However, with neither to rely on, it merely travels to - what we have determined Kingdom Hearts to be - the place of the Heart's "birth."
Now, let us more closely examine this idea of "wholeness."
First of all, let us try and define this concept. As previously stated, for entities for something that is literally missing for them, like the Heartless or Nobodies, it is a very simple matter. They try to find their missing pieces so as to reassemble themselves. For persons and individuals who have less tangible things missing, it is much harder to define this "wholeness."
On the world of Earth, the religious practice known as Buddhism called the idea of "wholeness," Bodhi. Bodhi required a series of steps towards bettering one's self by following the teaching of their head figure Buddha. Christianity is another religion of this world, and followers always implore non-Christians to "accept God (their deity) into their life" believing this will fill the holes in the non-Christians life, making them "whole." These beliefs show us just how important this idea of "wholeness" is to persons and individuals living across all worlds.
So why is it, when confronted with this figurative "wholeness," even I seem to come up blank for an answer? I know that I have not experienced "wholeness" in my life, for I know there are still things - first and foremost among those, truth - for which I seek. If one is still searching, is it not safe to say that someone is not yet "whole"? By that same token, if we were to find what we were looking for, what would the purpose of our lives be? Would it not eliminate it?
By that same account, what if Nobodies and Heartless were to find what they were looking for? Would their purposes also be eliminated?
Are they not the lucky ones for knowing exactly what they are looking for and being able to understand the consequences of finding it?