Charles Marlow
Marlow's name may be inspired by the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. Conrad's father was a translator of William Shakespeare who doubtless would have known of Marlowe's work as well. Some intertextual interpretations of "Heart of Darkness" have suggested that Marlowe's "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" may have influenced Conrad. Charles Marlow describes a character as a "papier-mache Mephistopheles", a reference to the Faust legend. Marlow's and Kurtz's journey up the Congo River in "Heart of Darkness" also has similarities to another work by Marlowe, "Dido, Queen of Carthage", in which Aeneas is stranded on the shore of Libya and meets the African queen Dido.
Universe of Kingdom Hearts
In "Birth by Sleep", Master Xehanort's over-eagerness to obtain the weapon has him seek to clash two hearts of equal strength—one of pure light and one of pure darkness—with each other. He finds such a means through his former apprentice Ventus and the youth's personified darkness Vanitas, whom Xehanort created and enlisted to ensure his plans succeed. Though Ventus and Vanitas fuse back into one being with the χ-blade in hand, the reunion is not complete as the unstable χ-blade eventually explodes due to Vanitas' destruction within Ventus. The events of "Dream Drop Distance" reveal that, as a contingency to his previous plan, Xehanort has arranged the formation of his thirteen "Seekers of Darkness", the new Organization XIII composing of his various incarnations and vessels, to fight the Keyblade users who would form seven "Guardians of Light", or target the Princesses of Heart, to recreate the χ-blade.