Kingdom Hearts 4: Who is Strelitzia?

Since the release of the Kingdom Hearts 4 reveal trailer, fans have been questioning who is Strelitzia, the orange-haired girl in the white dress? Sadly, as expected from the Kingdom Hearts series, there is no simple answer. But if you've played Kingdom Hearts: Union X, Strelitzia (pronounced "struh-lit-see-uh") should be familiar.

To comprehend Strelitzia, one must first comprehend Kingdom Hearts Union X. (also known as Kingdom Hearts X, Kingdom Hearts Unchained X, or Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road - just to make everything even more confusing.) For the primary antagonist Xehanort's genesis narrative and how he turned to darkness, players are sent to Daybreak Town, which is set before the mainline series (Sora, Donald, and Goofy's journey).

It's best to express it this way: Strelitzia is a keyblade wielder from this period, and her narrative occurs years before Sora joins Donald and Goofy. Strelitzia was debuted in Kingdom Hearts: Union X and regrettably - spoiler alert - dies in the mobile game. Because she and Sora haven't met much previously, and she's thought to be dead, her appearance in the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer is a surprise.

Fans of the series should be unsurprised since series creator Tetsuya Nomura is known for making the mythos exceedingly complicated. That doesn't mean Strelitzia and Sora aren't related - as revealed in Kingdom Hearts Union X, Strelitzia is the younger sister of Lauriam alias Marluxia from Organization XIII, with whom Sora has had multiple encounters throughout the series.

To command the Dandelions faction in Kingdom Hearts Union X, Strelitzia was picked by keyblade master Master Ava (who you may have seen in the Kingdom Hearts X Back Cover film on the Kingdom Hearts 2.8 compilation) (a team players choose at the start of the game.)

We can't cover everything in Kingdom Hearts Union X. Strelitzia, along with four other key blade wielders, were charged with collecting light (called Lux) and were finally compelled to relocate onto "another world" in order to stop the light expiring during the Keyblade War.

Strelitzia doesn't make it to the other side as she is killed by Ventus (who has his own story in Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep), but she does visit her brother Lauriam before inexplicably dying. It's unknown if this implies she's dead or has gone on to something evil after a brief moment in Kingdom Hearts Union X where she wears a white robe and disappears.

We don't know how Strelitzia fits into Kingdom Hearts 4 yet, but the teaser revealed that she and Sora are both in Quadratum, which the ex-Dandelion describes as "an afterworld."