Hey, folks, I’m going to be completely upfront with you about this one.  I’m writing about creepy lore in the Kirby series.  And before you laugh and walk away, bear with me for a moment longer.  Sure, at first glance, Kirby might seem like the cutest franchise to have ever existed.  But when you recall that these games also feature a frozen, post-apocalyptic Earth, a creepy, underground laboratory with animals in tanks, and battles against a massive, bleeding eyeball, you start to realize that Kirby’s not as cute and cuddly as we might first believe.  Also, spoiler warnings for various Kirby games, I guess, especially Star Allies.

Remember how King Dedede got possessed by Dark Matter in Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64?  Remember how his entire stomach ripped open to reveal a toothy mouth?  (How did he survive that?!)  Oh yeah, and then if you get the bad ending in Kirby 64, the game ends quite ominously with one of the fairies making an evil smirk, implying that she, too, has been possessed by Dark Matter, and the true evil has not been fully vanquished.  (I got the bad ending for years before I realized that I needed to collect all the crystal shards.  That fairy’s malevolent grin haunted and confused me.)  I haven’t played that many Kirby games considering just how numerous they are, but even in the small fraction that I have played through to completion, the sheer number of instances where characters, both friend and foe, get possessed and controlled by an evil entity are too innumerable to even keep track of.  It’s even implied that Magolor was actually a “sad shell” controlled by the Master Crown.  Wee, fun times!

Having missed out on the majority of the games in the series, I made sure I researched this topic as thoroughly as I could, and most of my research led me to Kirby Star Allies on the Switch, which seems to be quite lore-heavy for a Kirby game.  And from what I learned, this game apparently includes a cult that worships Dark Matter.  Yep, cults and possession.  Can’t get much cuter than that!  So in this game, there is the Jambastion cult, the leader of which is a guy named Hyness, and his goal is to summon Void Termina, a being that exists in all dimensions and which has the power to destroy the entire universe.  As if that wasn’t dark enough, I read that Hyness resorted to actually committing suicide in order to finish summoning Void Termina!

To top it off, I unearthed this little morsel of knowledge that Void Termina might also be responsible for the creation of both Kirby, our hero, and Zero, the leader of the Dark Matters.

…

Kirby, I hardly even know you anymore.