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Vanitas is an important antagonist in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts 3, and his design alone springs up a ton of questions from fans, as his face is nearly identical to Sora's, and his outfit resembles what Riku wears in his dark form.
He isn't exactly an individual person as he was made by the darkness in Ventus' heart, which only springs up more questions about how he came to be, why he looks the way he does, and what his allegiance really is. It also brings up the question of why the villain Xehanort created Vanitas in the first place.
How And Why Vanitas Was Made From Ventus
Vanitas is the dark half of Ventus' heart, which was created by Xehanort while Ventus served as his apprentice. He tried to get Ventus to create the x-blade in the Keyblade Graveyard, but Ventus was not able to use the power of darkness and failed to create the key.
While Ventus was knocked out, Xehanort used Ventus' own Keyblade to separate Ventus' darkness from him, and this darkness formed Vanitas. Coming from Ventus, Vanitas had a personality more like his at first but became twisted and evil due to Xehanort's manipulative teachings.
Why Vanitas Looks The Way He Does
Having come from Ventus' heart, Vanitas physically looking like Sora has confused many Kingdom Hearts fans. This is not the first time a character looks just like another, as the same occurrence happened with Sora's Nobody, Roxas. Like Sora and Vanitas, Roxas looked a lot like Ventus. In Vanitas' case, this may seem more unusual at first because Roxas looked identical to Ventus for a sound reason. Ventus was in Sora's heart, so Sora's Nobody reflected how Ventus looked. However, when Vanitas was created, Ventus was not in Sora's heart yet.
The truth is actually that it was not revealed what Vantias' face looked like at first. It was covered until Ventus already had a connection with Sora's heart when he visited Destiny Islands, changing Vanitas' face to look like Sora's. Despite being separated, Ventus and Vanitas could still affect each other physically. Whatever Vanitas' face was before, he even had a face, it changed to Sora's when Sora and Ventus' hearts connected. It is also that connection that saved Ventus' heart since he was broken from Xehanort extracting Vanitas out of him in the first place.
This is not a new concept in Kingdom Hearts, as the same phenomenon happened with Xion when she was cloaked for a while until she started to look more similar to Kairi. Likewise, Vanitas' face resembling Sora's is also something that developed instead of him being born with it from the beginning.
What Happened To Ventus And Vanitas
In the events of Birth by Sleep, Vanitas forcefully tried to rejoin Ventus so that they could create the x-blade. Vanitas was then defeated by both Aqua and Ventus, but Ventus fell into a coma and his heart joins Sora's. As for Vanitas, his heart was taken by Young Xehanort and time-traveled to the future to be a final member of Organization 13.
Between Kingdom Hearts 3 and Birth by Sleep, Sora met Vanitas for the first time in the cathedral area. There, Vanitas told him that his heart was a prison but Sora himself was not the prisoner. This quote references the fact that Ventus was taking refuge in Sora's heart. In Kingdom Hearts 3, Ventus finally awoke from his coma and joined Sora's team for the final battle in the Keyblade Graveyard, and Vanitas was joined by Organization XIII members. When they had their final battle against Vanitas and won, Vanitas changed to his original form, darkness, and returned to Ventus' heart.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is available to play on PSP and is included in the Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix for PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.