Ansem the Wise

**Ansem the Wise** is the sage-king of Radiant Garden during *Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep*. In order to protect his people from the darkness, he spent much of his time studying the heart with his apprentices (Braig, Dilan, Even, Aeleus, Ienzo, and Xehanort), but was eventually exiled to the Realm of Darkness when they were corrupted by that same darkness. He himself gained dark powers, renaming himself **DiZ** (*Darkness in Zero*) and setting out on a quest to avenge himself throughout *Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories*, *Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days*, and *Kingdom Hearts II*.

## Appearance

Ansem the Wise originally wore a periwinkle labcoat, identical to those worn by some of his apprentices (Even, Ienzo, and Xehanort), save for the color. Underneath this, he wore a dark grey vest, white collared shirt, and a violet ascot, as well as black pants and shoes. He also draped a red sweater or coat of some sort over his shoulders. Ansem's hair was blond and worn long and slicked back. He also sported a short mustache and goatee. His eyes are bright orange.

As DiZ, Ansem dons a much more complex outfit. His face is covered in red bandages, save for his right eye and mouth, and he tied two intersecting belts around his head, one passing over where his left eye should be. He wears a long, red cape with a quadrate cross cut taken out at the chest, the edges of which are yellow. This cut exposes a similarly oblong white symbol on a pitch-black shirt.

Overtop this shirt, DiZ wears what seems to be grey, segmented armor over his sides and abdomen. His legs are covered by a long, black cloth lined with yellow, which itself has several brown straps pinned onto the front, seemingly for no purpose other than to create yet another angular pattern. On a yellow sash that hangs around DiZ's waist are three brown pouches, descending downward diagonally on his left hip. These pouches are all identical, all sporting the same design on the top flap, and all closed by a darker brown strap that attaches to a silver button on the right ride, a grey tassel hanging from each button. Like Ansem and his coat, DiZ wears a dark colored scarf around his neck. He also has light colored sleeves.

Notably, Ansem's skin is darker when in his "DiZ" disguise, and his beard is not present, despite his chin being mostly visible. When he removes the bandages, however, these changes disappear in a dark vapor, suggesting that Ansem used his dark magic to artificially change his appearance. His eyes appear to be a much darker shade of amber orange when he is not in the DiZ persona, but this is likely an optical illusion caused by the difference in skin color of Ansem and DiZ. In fact, his skin and eye color while disguised as DiZ are very similar to those of "Ansem, Seeker of Darkness".

## Personality

Originally, Ansem was a peaceful and kind scholar, who sought to learn more to help him in his reign as Radiant Garden's king. He was ready to trust his closest students with his findings and even asked for their support. Upon nursing Terra-Xehanort back to health, Ansem permitted him to live in his castle, showing compassion for people with amnesia. He bonded with King Mickey, forming a deep friendship that helped heal his heart in times of stress. However, he could be stern, given he yelled at Xehanort for trying to continue their taboo experiments.

After being exiled by the Nobodies of his apprentices, Ansem became consumed by loath, though still retained his dedication to protecting the worlds. Because of his apprentices, he held a strong racism against Nobodies, seeing every one of them as nothing but an empty existence taking up space. This is shown by his use of the term "witch" to describe Naminé, and his refusal to permit Roxas to know the truth about his existence, saying that "a Nobody doesn't have a right to know. Nor does it even have a right to be".

After his encounters with Sora and his friends, Ansem began to see how much he was hurting others in his quest for vengeance. An indication of how greatly he was affected, is seen by his laughing when Riku introduces himself as "Ansem", as means to mask the pain he felt for causing him to go so far to awaken Sora. After contemplating on how insensitive he would have been all just for revenge and how unfair his treatment of Roxas and Namine was, Ansem felt deep remorse and guilt for so easily succumbing to his desire for revenge and how it caused the suffering of many callously. His desire to repent reached levels where he was more than ready to give his life to atone and he sincerely apologized to Roxas for how callously and unceremoniously he treated him before his death. Learning from his lessons of trying to experiment with the heart, Ansem fully acknowledged and showed no bitterness on how little he understood the workings of a heart, instead simply laughing and calling himself a fool for it. While facing Xemnas, the very apprentice who double-crossed him, rather than furiously charging at him, Ansem focused solely on encoding Kingdom Hearts but this did not prevent him from exchanging bitter words with Xemnas.

## Powers and Abilities

Ansem the Wise has no combat abilities to speak of, but since gaining the power of darkness during his banishment, he has been shown to be able to do at least three things. In one of his reports, Ansem stated that after he discovered his new-found powers, he gained the ability to use Corridors of Darkness for travel, though he admits that it was difficult to control initially. This was shown after Riku defeats Roxas; Ansem arrives shortly to take Roxas with him. To avoid being recognized, Ansem has also displayed the ability to change his outward appearance to conceal his identity.

In *Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories* and *Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories*, he uses this ability to become Xehanort's Heartless to guide Riku. He also seems to be quite skilled at manipulating the darkness around himself and in other people's hearts. Both cases were shown when Ansem, as Xehanort's Heartless, easily deflects an attack from Riku with a shield of darkness and when he unlocks the darkness within Riku's heart to allow him to wield it as a weapon.

Ansem is also a technical genius, having created a functioning digital replica of Twilight Town. His facility in Twilight Town is a very high-tech laboratory, filled with computer screens and several suspended-animation pods. He also was able to copy the body of his research, and himself, into Sora's heart whilst Naminé restored his memory.