Marluxia

Marluxia, the Graceful Assassin (優雅なる凶刃 Yūga-naru Kyōjin, lit. Graceful Assassin's Blade), is Rank XI within Organization XIII, the lord of Castle Oblivion and the main antagonist of Sora's story in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. He wields the element of Flower, and uses his element to command beams of destructive energy from flower-themed minions and attack opponents with his massive scythe.

Originally discovered by senior Organization members Xigbar and Xaldin, Marluxia is the mastermind of an internal rebellion in the Organization against Xemnas, and Sora's final boss of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Marluxia will make an appearance in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and is a playable character in the multiplayer mode.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Lord of Castle Oblivion and a member of the Organization.

In a move to bring the group under his control, Marluxia used Naminé to overrun Sora's memory and tried to claim the power of the Keyblade.


 * Reverse/Rebirth

No. 11 in the Organization.

Marluxia lured Sora to Castle Oblivion in hopes of using his power to seize the Organization.

''He ordered Naminé to alter Sora's memories, and fooled Vexen into challenging him. All was going according to plan, but Marluxia's scheme dissolved when Axel set Naminé free.''

Marluxia was ultimately destroyed by Sora.

Kingdom Hearts II
''Formerly Organization XIII's Number XI. He has been eliminated.''

He plotted an Organization rebellion and tried to seize the power of the Keyblade, but Axel's betrayal led to his destruction.

Sora's Arrival
Marluxia first appears in the series at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, when Sora first enters Castle Oblivion, making him normally the first Organization member to appear in the series (although the Enigmatic Man is a secret boss in Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix). Marluxia, still cloaked and hooded, explains to Sora that the Castle has made him forget all of his spells and abilities, and instructs him in the use of cards to fight. He also enters into battle with Sora, although he makes it very easy and it is only an instructional fight. After giving Sora a set of World Cards to begin climbing the floors of the castle, Marluxia leaves Sora to fend for himself.

Dissent in the Organization
Marluxia, working with Larxene and Axel, plots to overthrow the Organization. They formulate a plan to use a young girl named Naminé, who has a mysterious power over memory, to deceive Sora into thinking he had sworn to protect her, and then have her use Sora to help them defeat the senior Organization members. This plot stems from a rivalry between some of the younger Organization members and the original six core members. Vexen, Larxene, and Axel all do their part to feed Sora with information and lure him further into the castle. Each of them fight him on their own, although none of them use their full strength and throw the fights. They also make use of Vexen's Riku replica to compete with Sora for Naminé's loyalty.

Marluxia and Larxene eventually learn that Vexen has been reporting back to Zexion regarding their revolt. After Vexen loses control of the Riku Replica, Marluxia pronounces his project a failure, and after Vexen arrogantly protests, claims that his mastery over Castle Oblivion allows him the authority to do so. Marluxia threatens to tell "the Superior" of Vexen's failure, but Vexen pleads with him not to do so. Marluxia agrees not to if Vexen eliminates Sora. Although confused by the order, Vexen agrees, and heads Sora off in the Twilight Town world. He fights Sora for the second time, but is again defeated. Before he can reveal Marluxia's plans to use Sora, however, Axel strikes him from behind on Marluxia's orders, making Vexen the first Organization member to be eliminated.

Failure of the Plot
Axel's assassination of Vexen allows him to gain the full trust of Marluxia and Larxene. As Sora nears the top floors of the castle, Axel is left alone with Naminé to keep watch over her. Instead of keeping an eye on her, Axel allows her to escape, freeing her from Marluxia's control and ending her continued restructuring of Sora's memories, effectively ruining the plot to manipulate Sora into fighting the Organization. This prompts Larxene to attack Sora shortly after he defeats the Riku replica for the final time, but she is killed in the struggle, leaving only Marluxia to carry out the plot.

Marluxia then confronts Axel about his betrayal, to which Axel replies that Marluxia is in fact a traitor to the Organization, and that Larxene paid the price for her own disloyalty. He then threatens to kill Marluxia, but Marluxia seems unphased by this, stating simply "You can try." The two then engage in battle, with Marluxia displaying an eerie speed. While they both attack one another powerfully, neither takes any actual damage and appear to be equally matched.

Marluxia makes Naminé appear in front of him, apparently as a shield to prevent Axel from attacking him further, but Axel laughs it off, saying he's willing to go through Naminé to get to Marluxia. Marluxia, however, tells Sora (who had just appeared in the room, much to Axel's surprise) that Axel was willing to hurt her and vanishes with a laugh, leaving Sora and Axel alone. Axel sneers at Sora for having become Marluxia's puppet after all, but Sora resolves to eliminate Marluxia right after he finishes Axel. The two fight, and Sora comes out the victor, but Axel escapes death and vanishes.

Death
Sora pursues Marluxia into his inner chambers and attacks him. He destroys him, but finds that the real Marluxia had been hiding in a back room and that his opponent had only been a copy. Sora advances into the final room to confront Marluxia, who has combined with a large machine-like Nobody, wielding a power Sora and his friends can sense through the doorway leading into the chamber. Sora defeats him again in the storyline's final battle, making Marluxia the fourth Organization member to fall.

Personality
Marluxia is quite deceptive in nature. He makes an attempt to rebel against the Organization by using Sora as a puppet to accomplish his goals. Personality wise, he is often portrayed as very arrogant and vain. Like Xemnas, Marluxia has a habit of being overly dramatic and giving long speeches. For example, when Axel confronted Marluxia regarding his betrayal to the Organization, he only taunts Axel and leaves Sora to fight the latter. He also takes great pride in his appearance. This is evident by the sakura petals that he often has surrounding him. He also flourishes his weapon after striking with it, occasionally leaving himself open. During battle, he uses unique tactics like a death counter to represent his devious personality.

Most importantly though, Marluxia seems to have an obsession with his superiority over the other Organization members. As the lord of Castle Oblivion, Marluxia has the ability to keep other members of the Organization under his own judgment. He even manipulates Vexen into fighting Sora by using Vexen's fear of Xemnas against him. Even though most of Marluxia's personality traits are negative, he does have a few positive aspects. Some of these include his devotion and persistence to succeed in his goals. He's a very adamant member of Organization XIII. Marluxia believes that he deserves more respect than he's given. All in all, Marluxia is a very egotistical, manipulative member of the Organization, who would stop at nothing to overthrow the Organization and become superior.

Fighting Style
Marluxia fights using the attribute of Flower and wields a large, rose pink and dark green scythe.

Marluxia has two forms in the original Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and three in the Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories remake. While in basic human form, he can attack with his scythe normally, or use it to slash at an enemy from across a distance using energy waves. With his control over Nature, Marluxia can create a clone made of flowers, send a flurry of petals at his opponent, and in Re:CoM, Marluxia uses a sleight in which he creates a powerful shockwave by hitting the ground with his scythe. Like the other Organization members from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Marluxia moves by levitating. In the remake, he can also teleport freely. This is also the only form which he is limited by an actual deck, while the final forms merely have cards appear, and do not have to reload.

In his first final form, Marluxia makes use of his machine-like Nobody to slash at Sora with its arms, or fly at him and cause impact damage. He can also use flower petals to fire lasers at Sora, or to fire blasts of energy from the bottom of the contraption. In the remake, the Nobody is also capable of harnessing darkness which it can shroud the whole field with.

Marluxia's additional final form in the PlayStation 2 remake involves Marluxia and Sora fighting on a larger version of Marluxia's Nobody floating in a starry-night environment surrounded by circulating rings. A large angelic Nobody stands behind him wielding a gigantic scythe. Marluxia is held in one place surrounded by Nobody thorns. From there, he fights mainly by commanding the Nobody which can create shockwaves, shoot a sweeping laser, blow gusts of wind that prevent Sora from moving forward, and create a whirlwind that scatters all of Sora's cards, including his reload bar. Sora must pick up the cards to reclaim them, and he must pick up the reload to to be able to reload again. Marluxia's most notable sleight however, is a sleight in which he shoots Nobody thorns that triggers a death countdown timer, where the counter counts down to zero, causing death if not repelled. He can also trigger the one rotating ring around the battlefield, causing it to fire lasers from all directions. Last but not least, he also reuses the rose petals which fire lasers.

In Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix, Marluxia returns in an optional battle with new tactics. He begins the battle by whispering in Sora's ear, which causes a countdown timer to appear above Sora's head based on his current level, similar to the hit point condition of the Titan Cup. He then spends most of the battle attacking Sora relentlessly with his scythe, which deals no damage, but instead reduces the timer's count by one for each hit. If the timer reaches zero, Sora loses the battle, but the timer can be increased by using the reaction command "Rob Count", in which Sora grabs Marluxia's scythe, knocks him into the air and hurls the scythe at him. The "Rob Count" reaction adds 13 to the timer, a reference to the 13 members in the Organization. Marluxia also can conjure up black circles which cover most of the floor and deal damage to Sora's HP, but leave the death timer unaffected. Marluxia also wheels around the floor swinging his scythe, and can hover above Sora attacking him with his scythe while making pillars sprout up from the ground and deal damage to Sora.

The Chain of Memories manga shows Marluxia using somewhat violent plant-based powers; he uses thorny vines to restrain Naminé in a manner similar to crucifixion, and summons a Venus flytrap that captures Naminé, Donald, and Goofy and nearly devours them.

Quotes

 * "Along the road ahead lies something you need. However in order to claim it you must lose something that is dear to you."
 * "In this place, to find is to lose, and to lose is to find. That is the way in Castle Oblivion."
 * "Vexen, the simple fact is that your project was a failure. You'd best not disappoint us again."
 * "You must eliminate the traitor."
 * "That would be an unfortunate denouncement."
 * "''Naminé, erase Sora's memory."
 * "The keyblade's power...How I've longed to make it my own!"
 * "You're a shell. A shell who has had everything taken from you. Everything!"
 * "Imbeciles... You would knowingly shackle your heart with a chain of memories born of lies? You would be one who has a heart' yet cast aside your hearts's freedom?"
 * "Soon the emptiness will shatter your heart here in this world of nothingness! As lightless oblivion devours you drown in the ever-blooming darkness!"
 * "You turn from the truth because your heart is weak! You will never defeat me!"

Card
Marluxia (Enemy Card)

Trivia

 * There have been several notable changes between the GBA version of Chain of Memories and Re:Chain of Memories. Marluxia's attacks involve cherry blossom petals, but in Re:CoM, the petals more resemble rose petals. Also, Marluxia's brunette hair color from the GBA version of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories is now rendered into a more rose pink-colored hair in Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories.
 * Not counting Roxas or Xion, should the latter appear in an FMV of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Marluxia is the only Organization member to be rendered in FMV, seen in the opening of Kingdom Hearts II.
 * Nomura has stated that Marluxia was originally intended to be a female character, which may explain his affiliation to the color pink and the element of flowers as well as his having a feminine-sounding name.
 * Marluxia's boots have heels as other members of the Organization have different styles of soles as well. This might be a remnant of Nomura's "female Marluxia" design.
 * In the manga, Marluxia does not use alternate forms and is easily killed by Sora in their first battle.
 * It is also unclear as to precisely why Xemnas made Marluxia the Lord of the Castle, despite his low numbered rank. Speculation suggests that Xemnas was aware of his rebellious thoughts and was actually seeking to expose them by granting him authority. This could also suggest why three senior members were left in charge of the lower levels of the Castle.
 * There are some interesting coincidences about Xemnas and Marluxia in the games. Xemnas is number 1 and is the main antagonist of Kingdom Hearts 2. Marluxia is number 11 and the main antagonist of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (the sequel to Kingdom Hearts that was released on the Game Boy Advance). Both of them also have only the number one in their ranks. They have some similar dialogue and tend to give long speeches with dramatic arm motions as well.
 * It is interesting to note that neither Marluxia nor any of the other Organization members (except Axel) in Castle Oblivion used any type of Nobodies while in the castle. It is possible that because they were assigned to the castle, they had either none to control or chose to rely on the castle's powers instead.
 * Chronologically, Marluxia is the very first member of Organization XIII to appear in the series. Since Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix wasn't released until after the original Chain of Memories Marluxia is technically the very first member to appear. However he only appears hooded during the opening cut-scene and his true identity isn't revealed until much later in the game (around the halfway point, almost). This would make Axel the very first member of Organization XIII who's identity is confirmed.
 * Along with Xemnas (and possibly Riku), Marluxia has the distinction of taking on the role of both a playable character and final boss in the series due to his playable confirmation in 358/2 Days
 * Also interesting to note, is that Marluxia, Axel, Larxene, and Vexen are the first four Organization members to be introduced and represent the four primary elements: Fire (Axel), Blizzard (Vexen), Thunder (Larxene), and Cure (Marluxia).
 * Out of the 6 Organization members who appear in Chain of Memories (Marluxia, Axel, Larxene, Vexen, Zexion and Lexaeus), Marluxia is the only one who doesn't make an appearance in Riku's story.

Marluxia