Zexion rant. Don't mind me.
I'm sure this has been ranted on before, but arrrrgh.
Some of the recent complaints on other coms about the dub have set off my alarm bells. A number of people have been complaining that Zexion "Sounds too old."
*sighs*
It's a common problem I see around fandom that becuase Zexion is supposedly the "youngest" apprentice, this makes him anywhere from fifteen to twelve. I'm sorry, what?!
Zexion does not look fifteen by KH standards. Fifteen is... Riku in KHI. Fifteen is Hayner, Pence, and Olette in KHII. Fifteen is Sora and Kairi in KHII. FIFTEEN IS NOT WHAT ZEXION IS
Granted, Square has a strange perception of age anyway; just look at The World Ends With You. Neku, Shiki, Beat, and Joshua (... sort of) are all supposed to be 15; they look about 13 to me... while Sho Minamimoto and Kariya Koki look 25, but they are 18 and 19, respectively. Yashiro Uzuki is even odder, as I believe she's about 17.
Still.
Zexion does not look fifteen by any stretch of the imagination, and people have to remember that youngest is relative. Not only THAT, but the Nobody's apprenticeship was ten years ago, and if you go with the idea that Nobodies DO age, well, even if he WAS sixteen then Zexion is certainly not sixteen now, he'd be twenty-six years old.
Youngest is such a relative position. Just look at how much older the rest of the Original Six look than Zexion. Vexen and Xigbar look to be in their late thirties if not (very well cared for, possibly sexy, especially with derek stephen prince ok done fangirling) their early forties, Xaldin and Lexaeus look like their early thirties or late twenties at most. And as for Xehanort? nobody knows how old he was and he could have only been a year older than Zexion. Which puts them at anywhere between the aforementioned sixteen and twenty five for when they were apprentices... which then puts them somewhere between twenty six and thirty five as Nobodies.
Again, if you go for the theory that Nobodies DO age, then the voice makes sense. He sounds like an adult male. If you go for the theory that they DON'T unless they are Roxas and Namine (who are special), then Zexion STILL doesn't look sixteen, he looks eighteen at the youngest, and he would still mentally be twenty eight... which is perfect, as he has an eighteen year old's voice with a twenty-eight year old's inflections and thought processes.
TL;DR - Zexion is not a small child. Deal with his adult male voice.
[[On the subject of Nobodies aging/not aging, I have a new theory. KH either runs on comic book time or, more accurately, inverse comic book time - that is, only the protagonist and his closest friends age, but everybody else stays in some kind of stable time loop limbo... thingy. ]]
Some of the recent complaints on other coms about the dub have set off my alarm bells. A number of people have been complaining that Zexion "Sounds too old."
*sighs*
It's a common problem I see around fandom that becuase Zexion is supposedly the "youngest" apprentice, this makes him anywhere from fifteen to twelve. I'm sorry, what?!
Zexion does not look fifteen by KH standards. Fifteen is... Riku in KHI. Fifteen is Hayner, Pence, and Olette in KHII. Fifteen is Sora and Kairi in KHII. FIFTEEN IS NOT WHAT ZEXION IS
Granted, Square has a strange perception of age anyway; just look at The World Ends With You. Neku, Shiki, Beat, and Joshua (... sort of) are all supposed to be 15; they look about 13 to me... while Sho Minamimoto and Kariya Koki look 25, but they are 18 and 19, respectively. Yashiro Uzuki is even odder, as I believe she's about 17.
Still.
Zexion does not look fifteen by any stretch of the imagination, and people have to remember that youngest is relative. Not only THAT, but the Nobody's apprenticeship was ten years ago, and if you go with the idea that Nobodies DO age, well, even if he WAS sixteen then Zexion is certainly not sixteen now, he'd be twenty-six years old.
Youngest is such a relative position. Just look at how much older the rest of the Original Six look than Zexion. Vexen and Xigbar look to be in their late thirties if not (very well cared for, possibly sexy, especially with derek stephen prince ok done fangirling) their early forties, Xaldin and Lexaeus look like their early thirties or late twenties at most. And as for Xehanort? nobody knows how old he was and he could have only been a year older than Zexion. Which puts them at anywhere between the aforementioned sixteen and twenty five for when they were apprentices... which then puts them somewhere between twenty six and thirty five as Nobodies.
Again, if you go for the theory that Nobodies DO age, then the voice makes sense. He sounds like an adult male. If you go for the theory that they DON'T unless they are Roxas and Namine (who are special), then Zexion STILL doesn't look sixteen, he looks eighteen at the youngest, and he would still mentally be twenty eight... which is perfect, as he has an eighteen year old's voice with a twenty-eight year old's inflections and thought processes.
TL;DR - Zexion is not a small child. Deal with his adult male voice.
[[On the subject of Nobodies aging/not aging, I have a new theory. KH either runs on comic book time or, more accurately, inverse comic book time - that is, only the protagonist and his closest friends age, but everybody else stays in some kind of stable time loop limbo... thingy. ]]