#at least as of kh2 what they meant was feeling emotions. roxas made axel feel as though he had emotions. he made him feel like he could feel

[nadziejastar]

Have you read isa/saïx’s character file? How do you feel about how he was portrayed and where his character will evolve to from this point?

One corner of Xigbar’s mouth twitched up in a sneer. “Me? I’m already half Xehanort.”

“That’s…nuts…!”

Xigbar’s golden eye regarded Sora.

It doesn’t make sense. What does he think he can do by throwing away his own heart and becoming Xehanort? I don’t get it. And what is Xehanort after? Why’s he putting his heart in other people?

Yes, I did read his Character File. Personally, I really don’t like the way Saïx was handled. Not at all. It didn’t seem like he evolved naturally as a character. It seemed more like the writers were very lazy and just wanted to have him redeemed quickly without putting any real effort in. And I also don’t have much faith in his characterization going forward due to the lack of respect his character received in KH3. And here’s why.

“Talking to Roxas and Xion always brings back memories of my human life, back when I was a kid. It’s a weird sensation. I ought to be able to share all this with Saïx, but I just don’t feel like it anymore. It’s strange, but I’m content with just missing what’s gone. I’m not the one who changed. You did.”

“What were you really after, Lea? We joined the Organization at the same time, and formulated our plan. At this point, it’s just an idle fantasy. Everything changed. You, and me.”

I always saw Saïx like this: He was a Nort. An alter ego of Xehanort, no different than Xemnas or Ansem Seeker of Darkness. Saïx absolutely did NOT seem like the same Isa that we saw in BBS. 

“Our efforts have come to bear fruit, nearly ripe for the plucking.”

“Not only have you the power to inflict pain, you also have the power to plant seeds of doubt in one’s receptive heart.”

“It seems we have found a loose thread at which we can tug to unravel Ventus’s heart. The first step is to get Terra alone; then we need to plant the seeds of doubt in Ventus.”

His Machiavellian personality and even his speech patterns were far more similar to Xehanort than Isa. The writers were hinting all along that Saïx was actually Xehanort, not Isa. Look how many times Axel said Saïx had changed. I never got the impression that Isa’s change was natural, either. He changed because he literally became another person—Xehanort. Unlike Braig, there were no hints that Isa ever consented to becoming Norted. 

“Xemnas and Xehanort formed the Organization for a specific reason—round up a bunch of empty husks, hook them up to Kingdom Hearts, then fill them all with the exact same heart and mind,” Xigbar explained behind him.

Sora turned around. Empty husks? Is he saying they’re going to break them with sorrow and put another heart into them…? Or did they already do it?

“Translation—they were gonna turn all the members into Xehanort.”

“Make more Xehanorts?” You’re hollowing out people’s hearts to put Xehanort’s inside them?!

I think Isa was originally meant to be a test subject in the experiments. His mind had to be “broken” with sorrow first. His sense of self had to die. The experiments were to control the mind and convince it to renounce its sense of self. Before becoming a vessel, Isa had to be hollowed out. Then, his heart was swallowed by Xehanort’s. By the time he was a Nobody, Saïx’s mind and personality were Xehanort’s. For the most part, it seemed like Isa’s heart was totally dormant inside of Saïx. Asleep, like Venus’s heart was inside of Sora.

“Indeed. A heart is never lost for good. There may have been variances in our dispositions, but a number of us unquestionably showed signs of a burgeoning replacement.” 

A burgeoning replacement… 

“Once born, the heart can also be nurtured. Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind and convince it to renounce its sense of self. But understand, one can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets, for as many times as it takes. And so I knew, even after we were divided into Heartless and Nobodies, it was just a temporary separation.”

There was a gaping void within Saïx, which caused him immense suffering. He remembered his bond with Lea, but he was literally incapable of feeling it. He couldn’t experience friendship or a connection as a Nobody. He wasn’t like Axel or Xemnas or Xigbar. Since Isa’s heart was captured by Xehanort, Saïx had access to Isa’s memories and could still feel some emotions from Isa’s dormant heart, when something very powerful triggered it, such as Axel leaving the organization. But at the end of the day, Saïx was still Xehanort. He still had Xehanort’s soul/mind, even though he didn’t realize it.

“Things are finally right again,” Saïx went on. “Of course, we’re better off this way.”

Axel had no retort for that. Maybe because he didn’t want to alienate Saïx anymore.

“Xemnas is exasperated from all the ‘fixing’ we’ve had to do. We have to set things right. There is too much on the line…Lea.”

Hearing his old name, Axel glanced up to see Saïx watching him intently. He remembered being human. Memories surged inside him, crowding the space in his chest. For Nobodies, memory had all the weight of a heart.

So, Saïx had Isa’s body, Xehanort’s mind, Isa’s memories, and no heart. That’s how we got the complicated character that he was. He was a fascinating character. But he was a Xehanort; cold and calculating. He manipulated Axel to kill Xion by calling him “Lea”, which was honestly a really depraved thing to do. He preyed on Axel’s memories of their past. Saïx did not like how much power Axel had over him, and tried to brutally kill him. At the same time, Saïx had strong romantic feelings for Axel. But—and this is important—those feelings weren’t really Saïx’s feelings. They truly belonged to Isa. Saïx was experiencing them the same way Sora experienced Roxas/Ventus’s feelings. The relationship was like a parasite siphoning off of its host.

Three elements combine to create a life: a heart, a soul, and a body. But what of the soul and body left behind when the heart is lost? When the soul leaves the body, its vessel, life gives way to death, but what about when the heart leaves? A being does not perish when its heart leaves its body. The heart alone disappears into the darkness.

― Secret Ansem Report 4

Three elements combine to make a life. Xehanort creates vessels by literally replacing their mind/soul/personality and heart with his. By the time we are introduced to Saïx in KH2/Days, two of those elements have already been replaced. Only the body is still Isa’s. The body is the least important part of your identity. So, how could Saïx still even be considered Isa at that point? KH is all about hearts. In metaphysical terms, the heart is simply the relationships you form which give you meaning, purpose, and love.

“Do you know what happens to those who lose their true purpose? Inevitably, they destroy themselves.”

So, how can KH3 downplay the effect being Norted had on Isa? THE biggest things about Saïx were his lack of purpose and his inability to love.

Yes, I thought you didn’t need me anymore. If you didn’t need me, then I no longer held meaning.

He even said in his Character File that if Lea didn’t need him anymore, his life had no meaning. Saïx longed to have the purpose, meaning, and love that a heart provided. He remembered how much meaning Isa’s life had, because of his love for Lea. But he didn’t have access to that, no matter how much he wanted it.

“Just stop it! You treat people’s hearts like they’re bottles on a shelf, but they’re not!”

Hearts aren’t “foolish,” and other people aren’t tools for you to use.

Sora faced Xemnas and summoned his Keyblade, ready to fight. “Hearts are made of the people we meet and how we feel about them—they’re what ties us together even when we’re apart! They’re what…make me strong.”

If Isa’s heart was swallowed by Xehanort’s, then none of Saïx’s relationships should have any bearing on Isa once he was saved. Isa shouldn’t have to atone for anything Saïx did to Roxas or Xion or Axel, because they had different minds and hearts. Those relationships were totally distinct. Saïx did not even really have a heart. He just had a blank void since Isa’s heart was dormant/asleep.

This whole concept is what made the Axel/Saïx relationship so interesting to me. Axel never knew that his best friend’s heart was replaced, like a bottle on a shelf. Hearts are NOT interchangeable. In KH, the heart is what makes you who you are. It is your core identity. So, Saïx had Isa’s body, but not his heart. Without Isa’s heart, the very essence of their special relationship was gone. Axel never knew why Saïx didn’t feel like Isa any longer. Something was just…missing. If Saïx didn’t have Isa’s heart, that is a HUGE deal. Not something to be glossed over, like it was in KH3. In KH3, Saïx being Norted meant absolutely nothing. It might as well not even have been a plot point.

Xigbar: If people see with their hearts, Saïx, then you’re even blinder than the rest of us.

Seeing how Axel handled the relationship with his Norted best friend was soooo intriguing to me. It was SUCH a cool idea, that unfortunately went nowhere. Axel did not feel a connection with Saïx. Instead, he relied on his memories. When Axel mentions the red sunset on Day 255, it’s called “The Longest Day”. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, and is also known as “midsummer”. I believe that the red sunset thing was a precious memory Axel had of Isa telling him that. The scene was inspired by Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. And I believe the localization team knew that. Versus XIII was inspired by Hamlet, so Nomura obviously likes Shakespeare.

Love… Huh. “It is powerful, but it’s not a power we get to have.” Axel had very little confidence in his ability to explain it. But whenever Roxas or Xion had questions about the mysteries of the human heart, he did his best to answer. 

“Nobodies can’t love?” Roxas asked. 

“Nope. You need a heart for that.”

 “Oh… Right.” Roxas fell quiet, pensive. 

Axel kept talking. “Love is what happens when there’s something really special between people.” 

“More special than friends? Like…if they’re best friends? Inseparable?”

In KH, key memories have the power to awaken a heart, even in Nobodies. Axel was growing a heart throughout the course of the story after he returned from Castle Oblivion. The whole idea was that his newly awakened heart allowed him to transform things “base and vile” to “form and dignity”. Axel’s heart had the power to transform (in his mind) the nasty and cold Nort Saïx into the Isa he loved from his memories. His love for Isa was blind and allowed him to remain intensely loyal to what was, essentially, an impostor. Smoke and mirrors. That is what I saw when I played Days and read the novels.

I love Roxas and Axel. I’m sure Saïx would scoff at that. Call it a trick of my artificial memories.

Saïx, without a heart, had no such power. He could not look at things with the mind. He had a scar on his mind’s eye. He only saw with his eyes. He couldn’t even see Xion, since her appearance was dependent upon the connection she has with the observer. Xemnas and Xigbar could see her, though. So clearly there was something uniquely wrong with Saïx. The most important thing was, Saïx could not love Axel the way Isa could.

“You know, right, because you all have hearts!” Sora said, testing Xigbar.

“Axel and Roxas and Naminé, and that other girl. I felt what Roxas felt and…they laughed together, got mad, and they grieved.” The ache in his heart belonged to everyone. “You have to have a heart to cry.”

Xigbar snorted derisively. “It’s about time you noticed.”

Axel did have a heart. Xemnas and Xigbar had hearts, too.

“Oh, the things you hear from a guy with no heart,” Xigbar said through his hilarity.

None of us have hearts, Saïx was about to remind him, when Xemnas spoke again.

Saïx did NOT have a heart. He was unique compared to the other Nobodies.

The Tin Man programming is all purpose versatile program for what ever the master needs done, it means that the slave is a well oiled machine. Sometimes the slave is reluctant to do a job but he is being told that he is a well oiled machine.U.S. Sen. Allen Simpson, one of the perpetrators of the Monarch Program, referred to the Tin Man programming when he told a slave “THESE ARE BUT EMPTY SHELLS OF THE LIFE THEY WERE ONCE POSSESSED. LIKE YOU ARE–EMPTY AND VOID OF LIFE.”Certain alters are not given courage and most have their hearts taken from them. The alters who are programmed not to have hearts are hypnotically told the same thing the Tin Man says, “I could be human if I only had a heart.”

—The above are all excerpts from a book about government mind control

Saïx’s canon backstory does absolutely nothing to explain his unique characterization. If you ignore Saïx’s uniqueness, you cannot possibly offer him a decent redemption. And KH3 did a horrendous job redeeming Isa. It’s so bizarre, too, because if he actually had been subjected to mind control experiments, like it was hinted, it would have perfectly explained his weird personality and also created some much needed sympathy for him.

#kh saix #anti-kh3 #kh akusai #leaisa

[musashi]

Recontextualizing Saix after KH3

I don’t know about y’all, but I never actually pegged Saix as a jealous or hurting person before KH3. 

Maybe I was just horribly misguided in his character, maybe I was entirely oblivious, but his exasperation toward Axel over the course of the series always just seemed like two things to me--1. his personality, and 2. a complete lack of understanding on what the hell the guy was doing. In Days, it was abundantly clear that they were planning something, with Saix cozying up to Xemnas and Axel laying low and handling the dirty work. So when Axel started running around with Xion & Roxas and losing focus, I to a degree was able to interpret Saix’s feelings on the matter. To me, it always just seemed like frustration. Compound that with the fact that Axel was clearly growing his heart back through his connection with Sora while Saix was slowly but surely getting norted, and the divide between them seemed entirely inevitable. Axel follows his heart and Saix follows his head, and all the animosity between them made sense entirely given the circumstances. Axel was taken with his emotions. Saix could barely remember emotions. It didn’t seem that complex from where I was standing.

Christ, was I wrong.

I remember reading takes that Saix was secretly hurting, that he was jealous of his best friend’s relationship with these two kids who popped up seemingly out of nowhere. But that narrative of them just didn’t click for me, it seemed too contrived, it seemed like something that would be given at least some blatant focus in a series that holds your hand like Kingdom Hearts. To me, it was a take that seemed designed for fic, for angst, for fanon. Which I was more than okay with, and I reveled in it all the same--I just didn’t think it was canon.

KH3 didn’t just kick me in the balls. It kicked me in the balls, robbed me, and laughed as it ran away.

For Saix to simply say that he was jealous, that would completely re-frame his character enough to make it unbearably tragic. For him to sit here and say that watching his best friend make other friends literally threw him so far into despair he lost his will to go on, well. Holy shit.

Before this, what did we know of him? Isa was a young kid and Lea was his best friend. They had a playful, if not a little antagonistic friendship. For reasons unknown, they were intent to sneak into the castle in their hometown of Radiant Garden, where experiments of the heart were taking place unbeknownst to the general public. They lost their hearts there, became Saix and Axel, and have since spent about a decade working for Xemnas in the organization. Seemingly, Saix’s plan was to get as close to Xemnas as possible in order to execute some sort of betrayal. Axel’s plan was handle most of the dirty work as the organization’s assassin. Over the course of that decade, they drifted apart, Xemnas got his claws in Saix, Axel made some new friends, and Saix viewed them entirely with scorn, even treating one of them as an object rather than a person. Eventually, Axel defected from the organization after more or less having his friends ripped away and traumatized in front of his face. Saix stayed, seemingly loyal to Xemnas until the very end.

In KH2 and Days, without the knowledge KH3 provides, Saix is a monster. The monotonous whisper of his voice is chilling at times, there is so rarely a single trace of emotion in him. He is cold, calculating, and actively toys with the protagonist. He doesn’t even seem to revel in manipulating and beating down Sora, it simply seems like something he knows must be done. More on that later.

There is not a single moment in these two games where you’re ever meant to sympathize with Saix. He’s a villain.

The narrative wastes no time in framing Saix as one of the most despicable in the organization. When you play BBS and get to see who he was before, that is the closest thing you really have to a moment where you feel for him--he seemed like such a normal kid before, and this is what he is now. Sadistic and cold and completely void of compassion.

Maybe, maybe you might unearth a little sympathy for him in some of his vague comments in days--where he laments that the past is long gone and that Axel seems to be straying from their plan together. But a mystery plan with an old friend poised up against Axel’s turmoil in trying to protect these two kids, you’re probably a lot more likely to take Axel’s side in the divorce. I sure as hell did.

Knowing all we know about Saix now, though, the entire fucking script is flipped on its head. Saix goes from an unemotional villain to someone who is hurting so badly it has utterly and completely consumed him.

Most notably, him in KH2 is probably him at his most tragic. And it hit me like a freight train when I was reminded of this scene--

Gonna be real, I never actually like...... thought about this conversation? Like, what the fuck are they talking about here. I’m kind of a dumbass, and also I can replay the same game 17 fucking times without ever really thinking about some of the dialogue. It only just hit me recently what this interaction is about. 

Charade? What ‘charade,’ dude?

So you backpedal. He’s asking Xemnas if Kingdom Hearts is ready, which really translates to ‘hey, do we need Sora to still be fighting heartless?’ and Xemnas is like, nah we’re good. What charade is leading to Sora doing that? And that’s when you realize like... oh. Oh.

Saix’s whole manipulative coldhearted demon thing is an act here. His entire presence interacting with the protagonist in this game basically is just him showing up, being like ‘we got Kairi! Neener neener!’ and then watching in satisfaction as Sora goes apeshit on every heartless within a ten mile radius. The more him & his buddies piss Sora off, the more captive hearts he releases, the faster Kingdom Hearts is complete. It’s just a work day, for him, playing with this child’s emotions.

He’s asking here, ‘Can I stop pretending like I want to toy with him?’

He’s asking here, ‘Do we need him alive still, Superior?’

He’s asking here, ‘Can I waste this fucking kid?’

Because it doesn’t matter who’s face he’s wearing. To Saix, that is Roxas. The boy who took away his best friend.

The next time Sora sees Saix after this scene, Saix wastes no time. His weapon is in his hand long before Sora enters the room. When he does, Saix doesn’t address him. He addresses only Roxas.

Cue one of the most batshit wild fights in the entire fucking game. The chilling dude you’ve been dealing with since the game’s halfway point is actually a werewolf, and on top of that he’s more or less a fire elemental too. Claymores are thrown, teenage boys are smacked around like fucking pinatas, the room is entirely cloaked in blue flame, and Saix is fucking screaming in utter and complete rage the entire time. 

(I could go on and on about the symbolism of blue flames, how their colour invokes a feeling of calm but they actually burn hotter than red ones. What that says about Saix’s emotions, his own inner turmoil, the facade he presents. I won’t today.)

Saix doesn’t hold back. This fight is the culmination of everything, you realize in hindsight. Unbeknownst to you, the player, you are the manifestation of all his pain and hurt. You ripped everything from his hands. You took one of his best friends, and in turn you took two. Axel abandoned both him and their third because you, light of the universe, wormed your way into his newborn heart and rekindled a dead fire that made him juggle his past and his present.

Saix has spent this entire game wanting you dead. This fight is not beef between the hero and the villains. This fight is strictly personal, though unrequited. To Saix, this is his last chance to take revenge on what hollowed him out, took his future from him, left him all alone and directionless. Nothing to account for a decade in isolation and pain but yellow eyes and empty hands and an even emptier chest.

I’m the queen of reading too much into battle taunts, but they DO have a good deal of importance in KH. One of Axel’s when he’s fighting Roxas, for instance, is ‘do I ring any bells, yet?’ In hindsight, one of Saix’s is pretty fucking heartbreaking, and I did always find it out of place until now--on occasion, he’ll shout ‘Move aside!’

Much like Axel’s obsession with being remembered, and the tragic irony in his best friend forgetting him, there is a certain creed to be found in Saix’s battle taunts. In KH2, it’s “All shall be lost to you,” and in Days, it’s “I will leave you with nothing.”

The first time Saix fades, he is all alone. He has no one and nothing. Back in 2006, when KH2 was all we knew of him, this is the only moment the game really allows you to feel for him, if you’re the particularly sympathetic type. His last words are him crumbling finally, wondering to what end he’d have to go to just to glimpse some semblance of a happy end.

He dies on his feet, not even kneeling, even after giving his all in the fight. Even in death, he stands on his own, relies on himself. It’s all he has left.

The second time he fades, he collapses into the arms of the person he loves most. Blows upon blows, they have torn each other to nothing, and Lea holds him as he’s dying. Makes sure the last thing he sees before he goes is the face of a person who’s going to have one hell of an apology once he reforms. Someone who, knowing all he knows now, is never going to put him through something so isolating and horrible again.

Lea’s arms around Saix are a promise, the same promise Lea will repeat time and time again until he’s dead and gone. This time, he makes sure Isa can hear it, resolves to never lose sight of it again.

Saix’s last words the first time were “Where is my heart?”

Saix’s last words the second time were the answer--

“Lea.”

#wordy wendy #kingdom hearts #kh3 spoilers #akusai #leaisa #wendy rambles #kingdom hurts #when the day met the night #IN THIS HOUSE WE LOVE AND SUPPORT ISA

[arcxnumvitae]

Kingdom Hearts

Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

You know the deal, KH spoilers beware

Favorite character:

For the longest time I wasn’t too partial for one character over the other (though I was taken by Riku’s pretty eye color and Roxas’ tragic tale, which I still am) but I’ve always favored the Sea Salt trio over the others. And then I found myself feeling for Xion more and more. I feel like this isn’t a surprise since I end up talking about her a lot but she’s gone through a lot! First she joins the Organization as a Nobody, someone who isn’t supposed to exist or have emotions and she’s an odd one out because she doesn’t have any memories from when she was a full person like most of the others do. Some of the members are okay but then there’s Saix who treats her like shit, calls her “it” and a “puppet” for no good reason! She makes friends with two other members and they grow close and that’s great! Friendship! Eating ice cream together! 

But then things don’t seem right and she comes to realize that, even among this group of people who aren’t supposed to exists, she’s even lower than that, just a replica meant to absorb some memories of the Keyblade hero Sora to keep him in his sleep meant to fix his memories forever. So not only is her existence hurting this person she doesn’t know, but it turns out that one of her good friends Roxas, the nobody of said hero, is also having his literal life sapped away by her mere presence. And there’s nothing she can do about it at all, the top brass of the Organization knows this and is fine with her offing him if it means they still get to use her power and keep Sora out of their hair.

So what does she do? Make the decision to essentially die rather than be the cause for pain for her friend. And the kicker? She’s informed that since she was never an actual person and is just made up of stolen memories, when she dies, everyone’s memories of her will fade away as there’d be nothing left of her. And the madlad still goes through with it with some of the saddest boss music  in this entire doggone series! Makes Roxas kill her so that he can survive and there’s a reason why I cried at 358/2 Days ending! There’s other sad stuff of course with her pain of realizing she’s just a fake and her butting heads with Axel too but for me to describe the entirety of how sad Xion’s initial existence was would take so much time. There’s also a reason I see parallels with her and Lucia too.

Least Favorite character:

Fucking Yen Sid. Kirei and I have waxed poetic multiple times about why he sucks so I won’t repeat that here, it’s all in the Discord chat. He was a shit teacher, shit at giving exams, and Sora deserved to be given the title of master dammit

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

You know, I don’t really ship anything here. Friends are my power and all that. I’m basic and think that Sora and Kairi are cute and see the potential in Sora and Riku but really that’s it. Oh wait, Aqua and Terra are cute dual parenting Ven and I’ll admit, that moment in KH3 where he looked at her and said “you lit my way home” or something with tears in his eyes…you almost got me there, Nomura. But yeah, I just think the friendships are sweet.

Character I find most attractive:

Listen, 12 year old me saw the vivid shade of Riku’s eyes and never went back. I do like his KH2 design because the stupid long hair appealed to me. As of now though, I’m more of a Xemnas type of gal. You hear that voice? Silky smooth. Saix also is most certainly easy on the eyes. Marluxia. Aqua’s very pretty. Terra. Lots of pretty people in this series. You know what, Eraqus is a looker too. Yes, I’m talking about him when he was older don’t judge me.

Character I would marry:

Hmmm, Aqua’s a pretty dependable and responsible lass, I’ll go with her.

Character I would be best friends with:

Namine! She’s so sweet and we could just chill in comfortable silence doing our own things with no problems. Sora would be a fun cheery guy to hang with.

a random thought:

We like to joke like ‘haha, this plot is convoluted and makes no sense’ but honestly if you just like….play the games or look up their stories it’s not that hard. It’s a lot of information as a whole since there’s like 13 games of plot going on but just. knowing the narrative. makes it easier to understand. It’s why you see those three hour videos explaining the entirety of the plot, it’s doable it’s just a lot. And you have to be willing to understand and accept that this series makes it own rules in its universe and that’s just how things are. Escape for Dream Drop Distance and the sudden time travel rules, fuck 3D and the sudden time travel rules! That shit had me literally sitting down to try and puzzle what happened in that game out once I’d finished it. 

An unpopular opinion:

I already gave my yearly allowed hot take to Kirei about how I feel the fandom handles shipping and I don’t feel like repeating myself here, so. mmm. Long as I’ve been in this hellhole I’m sure for this one I’ve actually developed unpopular opinions. Oh,

Terra Did Nothing Wrong.

Or at least his worst action was trusting the wrong guy, which you could argue a lot for the reasoning of. Not only was Xehanort someone his master and father figure Daddy Eraqus clearly trusted and introduced as a good friend, but when Xehanort began his body-snatching machinations and started to get close to Terra the young lad was coming from just being failed in his big Mark of Mastery exam (which his fellow pupil Aqua passed) by said master/father figure explicitly calling out his accidental unintentional summoning of inner darkness (which he quickly stifled and didn’t use so like what the heck Eraqus he tamped down his darkness just like you said he should) and being disappointed in him. Terra was down and feeling like he needed to prove himself to– well, himself. And the rest is history. He gets a lot of flak for being manipulated by a chess mastermind at a vulnerable point and I think he already paid the fattest price for it anyways.

My Canon OTP:

Living my best sweet no OTP life yeahhhh!

My Non-canon OTP:

Same deal here yeahhhhh!

Most Badass Character:

Sora’s been canonically knocked back to level one multiple times but each adventure he took out some form of the big bad. In KH3 he was taking on three members of the Real Organization Thirteen at once. The boy’s strong. Almost like he *coughs* deserves the title of Keyblade Master or something, wild…. And he does it all with a smile on his face, look at him go.

Most Epic Villain:

I mean, Xehanort’s been the main major villain of the Dark Seeker saga and I think he’s earned this designation. He’s essentially set in motion just about everything that’s gone on in this entire saga through his plan to summon Kingdom Hearts. Not to mention his motivation for essentially bringing about the end of all worlds is like a scientific ‘just wanna see what happens after’. Knowledge driven, methodical, that’s good. No, we’re not acknowledging KH3 changing his motivations to well-intentioned extremist I’m keeping my morally corrupt researcher grandpa thank you very much. Will the Master of Masters take that pace in the new saga? Dunno, he’s a good planner too and I like his goofy mannerisms, it’s enough to make you wonder if he’s really a villain. Then you remember he kinda let, and even instigated, the end of the world once so…. You know what, Xigbar/Luxu’s up there now too for being the man behind the man. Long con with a keyblade that was originally his anyways, I can appreciate that scam.

Pairing I am not a fan of:

I don’t like Axel and Roxas as a romantic pairing, I know KH mostly handwaves ages but he looks disconcertingly older and considering he looked about Ven’s age in BBS and it’s been 10+ years since then…yeah, I’ve just never been comfortable with them as a romantic duo. Not to mention the role he takes on in 358/2 that predominantly teaches a naive Roxas about the world and relationships. He does sure as hell act like a spurned ex in 2 though, ha. I guess the same could be said for Terra and Ven for the same reasons but I don’t see as much for them. Funnily, once upon a time when I was younger I side-eyed Roxas and Namine and Roxas and Xion a bit cause ‘aren’t they both technically from the same Sora?’ But then you realize it’s Kingdom Hearts and everyone’s from Sora so….

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

hahahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkairi. This is a long dead horse that’s been beaten at so I’ll be brief. Yes she saved Sora’s life in 3 and Re:Mind, thank goodness, did a lot to give her more of an active role (baby girl took on Xemnas head on and even managed to break his guard).Continue with that, Nomura. More of that please! I’m tired of people dunking on Kairi, the potential’s there I know you can do it! I like her! I want to like her more! Also the aforementioned last-second swerve to be like “hey, maybe Xehanort was trying to be a good guy!” Why? How come he got to go into the light peacefully with his boyfriend, Aqua was in the Realm of Darkness for ten years and Terra was stuck inside that heartless! Ven was asleep! They had to sit there and watch their dead master frolic into the sunset with their own personal mortal enemy!

Favourite Friendship:

Oh gosh. Riku and Sora. Riku’s done so much to make up for his screwups in the first game to the point of even potentially forever losing his physical form “to make sure his best friends sleeps peacefully.” Like, there’s no brief and succinct way to describe the absolute rock that Riku has been for Sora and even vice versa! Their talk on the beach in KH2 where they finally get to air out some of the relationship kinks from KH1 was so sweet. Was the “well there’s one thing I have that you can’t beat. A friend like you” cheesy as hell? Yes. Did it make me ‘awwww’ like crazy? Also yes, the quintessential KH experience. But I just think this is a great story and it’s great how it resolves them creating their own friend groups outside of the other that’s personal to them (Donald and Goofy for Sora and Mickey for Riku) while still allowing their own friendship to still be as important as it is.

Character I most identify with:

Maybe Roxas. I, too, always act like I need a nap (this was a joke). But yeah, honestly, no one really.

Character I wish I could be:

I don’t know, they’ve all (mostly.) got their happy endings now at the end of 3 but everyone went through hell and back to get them. I’m good, I think.

#shctteredillusions #{Answers #me: Kingdom Hearts isn't difficult to understand #Nomura: *does that shit he did with Verum Rex* #Me:....You're trying to make this difficult for me aren't you

[jokahlu]

Kingdom Hearts 3 Ted Talk, Kairi’s Edition (More like rant) (Will contain spoilers)

*Warnings*

While reading the following post you should expect:

*Spoilers are ahead.

*Duality of emotions clashing between love and frustration.

*A certain mouse’s head will be expected in a platter, and he will be the source of the darkness coming out of me.

*Love for a character that deserved way more than what she got.

*Deep disappointment for a forgotten friendship that was non-existent.

*A sailing ship warmed my heart.

*And an ending that shattered it.

…So it’s basically me ranting at how SE treats Kairi.

Also, it’s a pretty long read. I tried to make it short. Oh well.

Enjoy.

*Read at your own discretion*

I’m so wrecked after this game. But don’t get me wrong, I loved it!

The graphics were superb, their expressions on point, the writing and humor, the landscapes and worlds. It was all so precious. Being able to play as the spiked hair little bundle of joy again after so long was truly like coming home.

But as much as I loved it, there are so many things that rubbed me the wrong way. So many things I hoped for, that seemed reasonable and not out of the realm of possibilities, but never happened.

I will not mention all of them here because I could write an entire essay about it. Reason why I’ll try not to get overly excited. Underline try.

This time I will mostly talk about Kairi. 

Let’s do this quick, shall we?

First of all, I need that mouse’s head on a platter.

I wish Aqua would’ve given Mickey a good beating in this game. Don’t get me wrong, I usually like Mickey and his character in the KH franchise is pretty cool. But I hated his disregard to Kairi in this game. It just made me want to scream. Yes, he’s not the only one who doesn’t give a damn about the redhead (more on that lovely subject later), but I felt like he valued other’s life above hers in a blatantly obvious way. There are two scenes where I noticed this and it made me want to crawl up the walls.

The first scene was when Kairi is about to be struck down by Terranort, after him discarding two experienced fighters with a little more than a flick of his wrist, mind you. So, of course she’s scared and paralyzed, like any normal keyblade wielder (with only basic training and no real experience) would be. As Sora is desperately running to shield her with nothing but his body, Mickey uselessly screams “Sora no!”, as Donald and Goofy use their brains (and weapons) and come to the rescue.

What gives Mickey? Is she that unimportant in your mind, that Sora shouldn’t even try to help her? Did you honestly expect Sora to just let her die? Because if Terranort struck her, she was toast.

But I guess the answer is yes, because the other scene that made me want to strangle him was when Sora wants to go and save her and Mickey is trying to convince him not to go. I bet if it was Minnie on the line he would be jumping into lava if it meant to save her. But Kairi? Nah.

I swear I would’ve wanted Minnie to be next to Kairi and both be destroyed by Master Xehanort, just to see if Mickey’s reaction would be any different and if he would also risk it all at the end to save her instead of being like “oh don’t go Sora, you may never come back. Just leave Kairi to die, we can lose her but not you” attitude. Geez.

Love for a character that deserved better.

Oh, I could go one and on, on this one. It’s divided in many categories because the whole rant can be resumed in: she deserved better.

I’ll point out the obvious: I’ve always loved Kairi.

Yeah, she’s underdeveloped, not well written and can’t seem to shake the damsel in distress coat off, but I’ve always liked her. I’ve always felt Sora and Riku’s love for her real and heartwarming, and that’s made me like her so much. She’s also super brave, witty and has a great personality (don’t fight me on this)

I do get why some people might not like her, but I do.

Kingdom Hearts games have always treated her like a plot device and nothing more, and kh3 was the worst of the bunch in my opinion.

No one seems to care about her except for Sora.

When everyone reunites after Kairi dies, the only one who says something to him to reassure and confort Sora, apart from Donald and Goofy, is Xion. The rest are like oh ok she died, what’s next? I was expecting for Axel to be pissed, sad, anything, or anyone commenting something about it, but they just disregarded it like nothing happened.

Even if I understand that Terra, Aqua, Ven, Roxas, even Xion, didn’t know her that well and I didn’t expect it to affect them, at least they should acknowledge their fallen comrade. But ok, they didn’t know her that well. But Axel and Riku virtually not giving a damn? It really made things worse for my already wrecked heart. Those two are her closest friends, aside from Sora..

Even when the final battle is over everyone is like “wohoo we won! it’s all over!” (I’m glaring at you mouse) and even Riku agrees, Sora is the only one who is sad and heartbroken for her dying. Speaking of Riku basically disregarding her death..

Deep disappointment for a forgotten friendship that was basically non-existent.

Saying that I was disappointed in Kairi and Rikus interactions is a mayor understatement. This broke my heart because my highest hope for kh3 was to see Riku and Kairi being friends. Like, real friends.

In kh1 he was all over protecting her, in kh2 he silently looked after her and kept her safe as much as he could, but kh3? Man, in this game they felt like borderline strangers to me. Even faced by her being murdered in front of his face, he just stood there kind of surprised and pissed. Nothing more.

Seriously?

I mean Master Xehanort had just cold-bloodedly killed her right then and there, and he didn’t react as if his childhood friend had just turned into dust. 

And even worse, when the final battle ended he didn’t even offer to go with Sora to save her. What the hell?

If it was Sora who had died, there is no doubt in my mind that he would’ve been fighting his way to save him, consequences be dammed. (And it’s what probably happens when Kairi comes home alone, smh) And that reaction would be right because they’re best friends and that how any of the other characters would react if one of their trio was killed and they had the chance to save them.

So why did it seem like he didn’t care at all? It hurts a lot.

Where is the Riku who’s last worlds for Sora were asking him to keep Kairi safe? The one who helped her escape Axel or shielded her from Saix?

Riku felt off to me in Kingdom Hearts 3, not only because of this, but I’ll leave that for my Riku rant.

Kairi’s performance in the final battle

Not everyone has to kick ass to be valid, and she tried her best to train and help, even when it was not something she was used to. 

I mean, come on! Her first real experiences in battle were in the final battle. Who the hell thought it was a good idea? She had only trained with Axel. So, of course she would freeze when she sees trained/experienced keyblade wielders being thrown all over the place. Even Sora didn’t take out his weapon, trying to save her in the rush of the moment. And even if she did take out her keyblade when Terranort attacked her, she would’ve been smashed against the wall like Axel.

I’ll admit that before kh3 was released, I wished she did become OP and beat some organization XIII butt, but as I advanced in the game I realized how ridiculous that is. If you put kh1 Riku and Sora in that scenario, even at the end of the game with all the experience they had gathered, I bet they wouldn’t have fared very differently.

What I truly want is for her to go on her own adventure and grow powerful at her own pace, so in the next big battle she’ll be fairly prepared. It would be better if that adventure was with Sora and Riku, exploring new worlds together just the three of them, like they dreamed about in kh1.

But I’ll say it again: Not everyone in the game must kick ass to be valid.

A sailing ship warmed my heart. Even if it was poorly written (Unsurprisingly. It involves Kairi so I expected as much)

The Sokai in the game honestly lifted my battered heart.

Sora grows to learn so much more of love in this game: how powerful true love can be, how if you truly believe, love can make miracles happen and that one day is enough if there is true love.. He even admits that he still doesn't know much about it, but as the story goes on we can see that he knows more than he believes.

I loved the paopu scene. I could totally imagine Kairi and Riku planning it beforehand, so that Kairi and Sora would be alone to do so. Key word being “imagine” because at this point, their friendship is only in my imagination.. but that will be saved for Riku’s rant..

I believe that it’s so in character that Kairi initiates the paopu scene, because Sora would never do so. But I loved it, and the way they looked at each other was so.. oh man this game.

The paopu moment did seem to make Sora bolder, touching her more than before and being blunter about how she makes him feel. And it’s so heartwarming and wholesome that the moment when Sora realizes Kairi’s light had been guiding him in the darkness, he remembers the two acts of true love he had witnessed before in the game: Rapunzel’s tear bringing Flynn back to life and Elsa and Ana’s scene as well. I believe that’s the moment when he realizes that she’s his True Love.. 

That moment when he finds her in the darkness, and he makes her shy when he tells her that he felt strong with her, smiling knowingly when she turns away embarrassed. Or holding her hand for longer than necessary when they go back with the others.

It’s amazing that after meeting so many new people, many gorgeous girls and guys, Sora’s heart hasn’t let go of the friend he fell for as kids. He loved her for her personality and heart, which is why their bond is so strong, even if they see each other less than before.. which is a massive understatement if I must say so myself.  

That heart wrenching scream when she was taken into the heartless tornado or his grief-stricken face as he screamed at Master Xehanort “Why”, are proof of just how deep his feelings for her are. How important and invaluable she is in his life.

Adding to this, his utter sacrifice to go save her as soon as possible, not enjoying his victory against Master Xehanort, and not making her wait one more second (his words, not mine) is a statement of his feelings for her, simple and clear (thought I would say clean did ya?)

I mean, come on! His first thought after killing that murderous bald sack of darkness was about her.

And at the end I love how they were holding hands and sitting so close to each other on the paopu tree (They’re definitely a couple now) before he vanished and shattered my heart in a million different pieces.

Speaking of which..

An ending that shattered my heart.

I feel like her dying was very unnecessary. I think that it was only for Sora to embark on a mission alone. Master Xehanort says that he lacks motivation, so he kills her (she’s being used as a plot device again dammit) but Sora clearly was going to fight him either way, motivation or not. 

So, killing Kairi was only for Sora to go alone at the end, leave the story inconclusive and the game, and players, in dire need of a sequel.

Before the secret ending had been added, I was super sad that the only person who truly cared for her had seemingly died, or vanished, but now we know he’s someplace else, looking for a way back to her. I would love for her to save him, but given how SE treats her, I think I’ll temper my expectations for her in the next installments of the games.

This game left me with a super bittersweet feeling, but it was definitely worth it! I won’t let SE and the character’s indifference towards Kairi affect my overall enjoyment of the game.

But let’s hope she gets to shake that damsel in distress title Nomura loves to give her.. I guess I can’t keep my expectations low for her, can I?

Oh well, Sora still need to give her her lucky charm back, which she gave back in Blank Points, so he needs to come back to her to return it.

Please SE let Kairi help save Sora this time, without being a burden. Thank you.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#sokai #sora #kairi #kingdom hearts #kingom hearts 3 #kh3 spoilers #riku #rikai #A post appreciating Kairi #She deserved better #super long post #ted talks #kingdom hearts 3 review #opinion

[effervescible]

KH2 meta thoughts

Finished Kingdom Hearts 2 in my great series replay today, and I have a bunch of thoughts about narrative and story structure and character bits that I’m gonna slap down. Originally posted on plurk so forgive the rambliness.

Playing KH2 again with the full series knowledge but years removed thanks to fannish hibernation was a really interesting experience. It helped me sort of step back and look at the story as a whole, the game itself and its place in the series, and the structure of it.

The Riku-Sora stuff remains really, really good. I'm not going to say it's perfect but I can't think of anything specific I would change without changing the general story. Since my last jaunt through Disney hell, I've become extremely partial to games that meld gameplay with story and themes, and KH2 does that really well with Riku once he joins the party. I super love that his most frequent reaction command is a shield. Kid evolved from a darkness brat into some kind of paladin protector. And that little fist bump on their limit break, ahh. And all the stuff on the beach is just *chef kisses fingers* No complaints there Oh and storywise, even though we only see Riku's true face at the end and he's absent for so much of the game, his presence is felt throughout so his arc from KH1 to Reverse/Rebirth to KH2 feels really good and continuous

But god, they did the girls dirty. Everyone's written a thousand angry words about Kairi and how she just gets shoved offstage and they are 1000% true (why give her a Keyblade in one scene and do nothing with iiiiiiiit) but right now I'm more asspained about Namine. Her story in Chain of Memories is so good and her promise with Sora to become real friends is this important thing before a break in the story, after which we naturally assume it'll happen in some way and it just doesn't. (Can someone tell me if the scene between Riku and Sora before fighting Xemnas where Sora says he wanted to thank her but couldn't was added for Final Mix or not? It felt new to me but I legit can't recall whether it was there in vanilla KH2 or not.)

On an in-character level, I get why Namine would be focused on Roxas. Holy shit, someone just like her, someone she's very connected to through their births! But it's not good storytelling to just kind of drop things with Sora. Also she doesn't even get to go back to Kairi onscreen! I do like the eerieness of her started to distort through proximity to Kairi. And I like that she gets to face the Organization again but this time she isn't afraid. But goddamn does her story just kind of trickle to a stop. She's low on my list of priorities for Sora needs to save, since I'm most concerned about characters who got actively fucked over and she chose her fate, even if that choice was informed by a lot of emotional abuse. But I really hope she gets something more in KH3 if they're getting the band back together

On that note, (inhales, steeples fingers) Roxas.

Roxas has some of the most amazing moments in the game, even at the end, but his story is also where the game feels really disjointed. Not quite the same as Namine, where her story just sort of fell apart; the pacing is really weird with Roxas-related stuff. Back in the day, I came away from KH2 having enjoyed the game but feeling ultimately disappointed because here was this kid who clearly had an important story and an important friendship and we never learned much about either. I still feel that way to a degree, but having Days in the back of my mind made a big difference. Not so much for the specific events in it, because during most of my playthrough I wasn't really thinking about Xion or the specific happenings of Roxas' year in the Organization at all. But having them in the back of my mind gives him an extra narrative weight that feels lacking looking just at what we know of him in KH2.

I'm not sure if I'm making any sense, but looking only at KH2, it feels like they were writing Roxas with the idea that he'd experienced certain emotions more than that he'd experienced certain events. Which is fine, but it does sort of feel like he's just Sora's foil--a beautifully written foil, but not a full character of his own. But add Days into the mix and even if it doesn't change any of the following story, it feels like there's more heft to it. This kid still suffered a tragic fate, but that tragic fate happened to a person and not just a narrative device.

I will say that this playthrough made me 100% understand why people used to characterize Roxas as being very serious and moody most of the time. Even aside from the serious and moody flashbacks with Riku and Axel, late in the game, when you're doing the Organization boss rush and the references to his time in the Organization are flying fast and furious...I don't know, I just got a very strong sense of melancholy, that his life there wasn't a good one. (Related, Saix asking if Roxas hadn't taken care of Riku really sounds like they meant for Roxas to have done it on Organization orders, but then that doesn't fit with the game's stated timeline of Riku fighting Roxas after he betrayed the Organization. Still, an interesting idea.) But Roxas' story kinda peaks with his fight against Sora and then falls down. He's the elephant in the room the entire game, always in the background of Sora's story and the things Sora hears and feels. And then they never even talk. His last spoken scene should have been with Sora, not Namine.

Again, it makes characterization sense that there would be a bond there, because as far as they know they're the only people like each other that exist. But they were pushing the Sora-Kairi parallel way too hard to the detriment of the storytelling. I mean, it's great that in a way you'll get to see Namine every day, but don't you have anything to say to your other self over here...? The scene in Dream Drop doesn't feel like a fix-it for me, it feels like a narrative conclusion that got lost and resurfaced a few games later. Luckily, it was pretty much note-perfect in my book. But to me it feels like the conclusion of Roxas' KH2 arc, not an addendum. He might have another one depending what happens in KH3, but emotionally, that scene belongs under the same subhead as all of KH2.

Final Mix made a big improvement to things Axel-related. In vanilla KH2, yeah, Roxas does finally get pissed off enough to force a heart fight with Sora after Axel's death, but otherwise you'd almost wonder if their friendship was one-sided, there's so little aftermath. But their final clock tower scene is fantastic and even without knowledge of Days, you get a good sense of what their friendship was like.

It is kind of funny that, once you know that Axel was originally going to die sooner and got more screentime (and more importance, generally) due to popularity, you can really tell. Because there's so much stuff in this game you wouldn't necessarily expect him to have a lot of screen time, but he's absent for a really long time and then shows up without warning and dies immediately. But in all the post-KH2 games, even the prequels, there's definitely a sense of This Is An Important Character.

Overall, coming away from this, I feel like the biggest difference between KH2 and all the games that come after it is that they are building up to something and KH2 is kind of playing in its own sandbox, not really looking ahead to what's coming next. At least until they added the BBS hints. It might be absolute bullshit and they had no idea what they were going to do with the characters until KH3 development began properly, but BBS-Coded-DDD-0.2 all give the impression that there's a road map they're following. Less so for Days, but that they pointedly tie in the fallout of Days to stuff that's going to happen. But KH2 feels like more of an end point.

THESE ARE MY EXTREMELY EARNEST FEELINGS ABOUT THIS DISNEY HELL-GAME, COME TALK TO ME ABOUT THEM or just slink away rolling your eyes, that's cool too.

#kingdom hearts #roxas #riku #axel #namine #kh2 #meta #kh meta #good god jaina do you have this much to say about a disney anime game you are a grown adult #clearly yes i do #i'm in hell and you're all coming with me

[nadziejastar]

What if Subject X turns out to be Ava instead?

I’d still feel the same as I do about Skuld being Subject X. The only character who deserved to be Subject X was Isa. He was made for that role. It was ridiculous that KH3 tried to pass Saïx off as a normal person when he was clearly a science experiment gone wrong, lol. I also put Ava and the other foretellers into the same category as the rest of the Union X characters. They are great background characters that add interesting lore to the series. But I don’t feel like they should all be transported to the present and become the main focus of the new arc. The KHUX characters aren’t really that personable. There’s also enough main characters as it is, at least for now. If Lea and Isa were to grow closer to other characters, I’d prefer it be with the existing protagonists. There is so much more potential there.

Other than Subject X, what I didn’t like about Lea’s characterization in KH3 was his single-minded focus on Roxas. He’s grown so much as a character since KH2, it felt like such a waste to make him go back to that again. It’s not that I didn’t like Roxas and Axel’s friendship or anything. I did like it. I just hated how that one relationship eclipsed everything else about Lea’s character. 

His relationships with everyone else were left very underdeveloped because I guess Square thought fans only cared about Axel/Roxas, and to a lesser extent, Axel/Roxas/Xion. I don’t like the characters being stuck in their separate trios in general, which was another reason I didn’t like KH3. I want to see everyone interact. But with Lea specifically, there is so much potential with his other relationships. The Xehanort Saga went out of its way to show that he had a lot in common with everyone, not just Roxas. The LAST thing I wanted for Lea in KH3 was to go back to being Axel and go back to being in the sea-salt trio of all things. Talk about character regression. I’ve complained a lot about how Lea/Isa was such a wasted opportunity, but so were Lea’s other relationships.

Lea/Sora: These two have had almost no development together, even after Lea joined the good side. Why? Sora was the one who inspired Axel to betray the organization in CoM, and it wasn’t just because he was connected to Roxas. Axel gave up his life for Sora in KH2. He made him feel like he had a heart. Sora is the one who can connect with anyone. Lea was the perfect person to benefit from a character like Sora. Axel’s whole character arc in 358/2 Days was about reconnecting with his inner child—his true self—and changing back into Lea. Lea wanted to be with his friends forever. Axel told himself to grow up and stop wishing for the impossible, but then he changed his mind at the end. Axel said he and Sora had a lot in common and they did. Lea was a natural optimist who would do anything for his friends, like Sora. I want a heartfelt scene where Lea thanks Sora for everything and tells him about how much he changed after meeting him.

Lea/Kairi: Yes, they did get a little development in KH3, but not nearly enough. This relationship would have been a lot better if Xion’s bond with Axel carried over to Lea and Kairi. That’s what I think Nomura originally wanted, anyways. Instead of having an underdeveloped bond with Kairi and and an underdeveloped bond with Xion, focus on ONE well-developed bond with Kairi. Same with Ventus. Kairi and Lea were both from Radiant Garden and both were implied to be test subjects. They both had a lot in common, too. They both missed someone they cared about which led to them summoning Keyblades. Isa also has a lot in common with Kairi. They both wanted to be helpful but felt like they just got in the way. Neither of them were naturally good at fighting and needed to be protected a lot. This made them feel like a burden. Kairi and Isa have the potential to grow very close and I think it would be an adorable friendship.

Lea/Riku: Axel actually got a lot more interaction with Riku in the novels, which was great. They became friends. Axel acted playful and childish in a way he never did with Roxas or Xion. They ALSO have a lot in common since they’re the leader. They both worry about their friends and want to step in and do everything for them. They also both have a tendency to keep their feelings a secret from others and handle their emotional problems on their own. I think Lea would be comfortable talking with Riku about certain things he might not with other characters. Riku spent a long time battling the darkness, for Sora’s sake. And Lea was all alone for many years trying to help Isa, who was possessed. And since Riku was possessed, he could also understand how Isa felt, being used as a vessel.

Lea/Mickey: After being in Organization XIII for so long, Lea needs to be around upbeat, lighthearted characters. Mickey was the one he turned to for help when he was recompleted. Without him, he never would have summoned a Keyblade. In the KH2 novels, Mickey trusted Axel and was glad Riku became friends with him. Any Disney characters would provide good character development for Lea. Let’s not forget that Pluto adored Axel. I’d rather see Lea grow close to Pluto than any Union X character…  

Lea/Ventus: I’m of the opinion that Axel’s relationship with Roxas was always meant to carry over to Ventus. I hated the way Roxas was handled in KH3 because it prevented Lea from forming a deeper bond with Ven, who Lea was obviously meant to grow close to ever since BBS. I don’t think it was a coincidence that Lea’s best friend was a vessel, and Ventus was best friends with Terra, who was also a vessel. Roxas never understood Axel or learned about his past, but Ven could definitely understand Lea if he got to know him. Too bad he was never given the chance. Ven and Lea are both outgoing and have a childlike sense of fun. And Ven is also one of the only characters to have an established friendship with Isa. Ven is a great person to help Isa come out of his shell and be more comfortable around new people. I liked that they were playing frisbee together in the ending. I would prefer to see their friendship developed more rather than Lea and Isa being used as props to introduce Skuld.

Lea/Aqua: I think these two have great potential. Out of the wayfinder trio, Aqua was the most complex and had the most emotional depth. Out of the sea-salt trio, Axel was the most complex and had the most emotional depth. Both of them keep their more sentimental feelings to themselves, though. Both of them know what it’s like to lose hope and be lost in darkness for a very long time. Both of them know what it’s like to give up everything for a friend. Aqua is mature and more of an adult than most of the other characters, so I think Lea could talk with her about serious stuff, like his past. Isa also has a lot in common with her. Both are mature, reserved and a bit shy. 

Lea/Terra: Lea picked up Terra’s wooden Keyblade. That definitely was supposed to be significant. He took care of Ven when he was in the organization, alone with no memories. It was just like how Terra took care of him. I’m sure Aqua and Terra would be grateful to Lea for looking out for their friend. Lea and Isa are closest in age to Terra and Aqua. They wouldn’t have to feel like the “old guys” of the group with them. The potential for a great friendship is all there. But now I’m not sure if they’ll even get a chance to interact. Heck, I would be more excited to see Lea and Isa grow close with Hayner, Pence, and Olette more than anyone from Union X. 

#kh #kingdom hearts #kh3 #kh axel #kh lea #kh terra #kh aqua #kh sora #kh kairi #kh pluto #kh riku #kh isa #kh ventus

[nadziejastar]

Axel and Roxas's Dysfunctional Relationship

Maybe a body without a heart just disappears, if it’s got nothing to do, Axel thought. Nobodies have no hearts. Pretending to be humans with hearts, we laugh, get angry, make expressions. We can think, but… but we don’t have hearts.

In the world made from Roxas’ memories, Roxas had three friends the same age, but I wasn’t there. Roxas had smiled in that world. Like he was having fun. Like he’d been there all along.

It’s a place of lies Naminé made from his own memories, but maybe, that’s the real Roxas. Not clad in a black coat, but playing with friends his own age, laughing, eating ice-cream, wandering around—like Sora.

This post is going to be about Axel and Roxas’s relationship and how misunderstood and mishandled it really was in KH3. I once had an Akuroku shipper tell me that I was downplaying Axel’s feelings for Roxas because of my preference for LeaIsa. I don’t really think that’s true. I think Axel’s feelings were very strong and important. They were just very misunderstood and inappropriately romanticized. 

And in any case, from what I’ve seen, it was always Roxas’s feelings towards Axel that got overlooked by shippers. Even if you ignore the age difference, Axel and Roxas’s relationship was pretty one-sided in KH2. That was the whole idea. Axel’s story was meant to be tragic because Roxas was not as invested in being “best friends” as Axel was. After 358/2 Days, it was obvious that Roxas and Axel did have a genuine friendship and Roxas did care about Axel.

The fact that the members of Organization XIII shared the same goal did nothing to make them close with one another. Some among them had been friendly back when they were human. Whether that made any difference to the others, Axel didn’t know, and he didn’t need to know.

For a member of the organization, there was only one goal—to obtain a heart.

But just because we have no hearts doesn’t mean we feel nothing, thought Axel. We just know that we’re…incomplete somehow. When we were told that what we each lack is a heart, it made perfect sense. Because we definitely lack something.

But Roxas still never displayed the same intense devotion that Axel did, and that was still a VERY important theme in their relationship. The story needed a way to address Roxas and Axel’s dysfunctional and imbalanced relationship, while still keeping things open for a healthy friendship between them down the road. And they did (at least until KH3). The bottom line is that Axel and Roxas were NOT really “best friends” like Sora and Riku were. That was supposed to be very important.

Axel always seemed to be using the idea of having a best friend as a coping mechanism. His fixation on Roxas was not meant to be seen as healthy or endearing. He was willing to harm Kairi and Sora just to see Roxas. He wasn’t trying to see Roxas because they were such close friends. He was trying to see Roxas because he had VERY severe issues. He was broken. Axel was a very maladjusted person. When I first played KH2, I got the sense that if Axel hadn’t disappeared at the end, he would have just started stalking Sora instead. It was never really about Roxas OR Sora.  

And then, Nobodies without hearts wish for only one thing. A heart. If I was asked if I wanted a heart, I guess I’d answer that I did. But, do I really want a heart? Can a heart really fill this hollowness I’ve carried since I fell into existence as a Nobody?

It was more about finding someone—anyone—to make Axel feel like he had a heart. That’s what he was truly obsessed with. He felt like he was lacking some fundamental aspect of being human. Roxas was a special Nobody because he was born with a heart—Ventus’s heart. He had an emotional capacity that other Nobodies didn’t, which always fascinated Axel. Roxas gave Axel hope that maybe he had a heart, too. And he desperately wanted to believe that he did. He wasn’t even convinced that having a heart would heal his emptiness.

“If I return with you in tow, I get to live without being branded as a traitor,” he said with a wry grin.

“Maybe. Axel, what do you want to do?”

“Avoid being eliminated ideally.”

“So you’re offering me up to the organization?”

“…Well, you see any other options?” His expression was frozen in a forced smile.

He had no ideas. He didn’t know what to do. And he had no heart and thus no emotions to guide him, either.

And it wasn’t just about friendship, either. Axel did almost destroy Roxas, after all. Roxas was innocent and made Axel remember his childhood. But despite how lonely Axel was, he didn’t decide to chase after Roxas until after he was already branded a traitor by the organization. He even tried to go back to the organization after Roxas went back to Sora. He only started “stalking” Roxas when he was completely out of options and had absolutely no other place to go.

The moon was a heart. The very thing he could never have. In the end, he hadn’t been able to find anywhere to go. So here he was, back in this city of glowing skyscrapers.

If I’m trying to get away from Saïx—from the organization itself—what am I doing here?

The truth struck home—Nobodies had no place where they belonged.

“Now what do I do…?” he muttered, his face still upturned to the distant moon.

A heart. Maybe the answer was closer than he thought.

More than anything, Axel wanted someplace where he belonged. He thought he needed a heart for that, which is why he wanted one so badly.

“We don’t disappear… We’re only reborn,” Naminé murmured, perhaps to herself.

“I’m not like you and Roxas,” Axel said flatly. His hand holding the ice pop stick paused in midair.

“But—but you…” She looked down, clenching her fists.

“It’s because I don’t have a heart,” Axel went on. “I don’t want to disappear, but I’m not upset or sad about it.”

Without a heart, Axel thought a Nobody would just disappear leaving nothing behind. Lea always wanted to live forever, so the thought of disappearing without a heart deeply unsettled him. Terrified him, actually. It was a constant source of dread looming over his shoulders. His anxiety got so bad, he couldn’t even fight Dusks because destroying them reminded him of when he would inevitably disappear, too.

Axel: You know, I've been thinking about something Naminé said. Roxas...are you really sure that you don't have a heart? Is it possible that we all have one? You, me, her... Or is that just wishful thinking?

He thought that maybe, just maybe, if he had a heart, he would be able to go on existing, instead of just vanishing into nothing. Axel knew he was going to disappear, it was only a matter of when. He knew he had no hope of returning to a “normal” life ever again. He just didn't want to disappear alone. He wanted to know that there would be someone waiting to see him on the other side. 

When Axel was trying to bring Roxas back, his intentions weren't exactly innocent. It wasn’t so just so he could see his best friend and then they could go back to eating ice cream together. It was because Axel was preparing for the end. He wanted someone to disappear with. He was in a very dark state of mind. He was terrified of non-existence and he was using Roxas as a way to deal with that fear.

Ansem: He could feel Sora.

DiZ: Oh, he told you how he “felt,” did he? Ridiculous. A Nobody cannot feel anything.

Ansem: If he had met Sora, things might have been different.

Riku: Maybe I didn’t need to fight him after all. I think he left the Organization because…he really wanted to meet you.

Axel spent most of KH2 trying to see Roxas again. But Roxas seemed more interested in other things. He wanted to know about Sora and his past. To be honest, he seemed to take his reunion with Axel for granted. Roxas perceived Axel as an uncomplicated guy who preferred to keep things light and casual. From his perspective, it wasn’t an inappropriate reunion or anything. Roxas just didn’t understand Axel. And Axel never let anyone get too close to him, so that’s to be expected. 

Regardless, Roxas was never, ever going to be able to meet Axel’s emotional needs. He was never supposed to. It would be unfair to expect him to. The point was that Axel was placing an unfair burden on a kid who just wanted to play with his friends. Kids shouldn’t have to deal with adult issues. Axel knew that. He was trying to shelter Roxas from those very issues Days. But in KH2 he was so emotionally unstable, he turned to Roxas for support, even though he never looked to him for emotional support in Days. Axel did need emotional support back then, but he knew Roxas couldn’t really offer it.

Axel: I wanted to see Roxas. He…was the only one I liked… He made me feel…like I had a heart. It’s kind of…funny… You make me feel…the same…

What Axel desperately wanted and needed was to reunite with someone who wanted to see him as much as he wanted to see them. Someone who shared his level of emotional investment in them. Someone who desperately yearned to see him with all their heart. That is what he needed in order to heal his pain and have a truly happy ending.

Roxas: My role was to see if you were ready to take ownership of the hurt inside you. And now that role is done. Nothing left for me to do but…go away.

Sora: Go home?

Roxas: I don’t know if I have one, but…there’s a place I’d like to be.

Sora: Where? Huh? What’s this feeling? Memories, but…not mine. I see a place. A sunset. Comforting…but also sad. This is where I spent my first…and my last…

Roxas: …summer vacation.

And even though they did have a healthy friendship in Days, Roxas just didn’t offer that to Axel. Their relationship wasn’t open or honest enough for that level of intimacy. Even in Re:Coded, Roxas’s main source of “hurt” was that his summer vacation was over. And the dialogue was very similar to what Axel and Naminé talked about on Sunset Hill.

Axel: Man, I miss the old times. Still got it memorized? The day we met, when you got your new name, you and I sat right here and watched the sunset.

Roxas: Yeah. This place is home. Me… Hayner, Pence, Olette…We’ve shared a lot of adventures.

Axel: You’ll see them again. I know you will.

Roxas: Yeah, you’re right. Well, I should go.

Axel said he had no home. But he still expressed a desire to go somewhere and see someone. Roxas thought of Twilight Town as his home. When Axel was reminiscing about the time they spent together in Twilight Town, Roxas mentioned Hayner, Pence, and Olette. Those were the people he wanted to see the most. Axel reassured him that he would. Roxas wanted to be with kids his own age doing normal stuff. He was truly happy with them. Axel knew that. It’s why his story was so sad. 

“What’s it like having a best friend?”

Stumped by that one, Axel turned to the sunset. Even if Nobodies could go around playacting friendship, Axel felt like pretending to be best friends was something else altogether. It just wasn’t in them. And he didn’t have a better answer.

He squinted in the blazing glow and finally said, “Couldn’t tell you. I haven’t got one.”

Roxas always envied Hayner, Pence, and Olette for their normal and happy lives. It’s why the ideal life constructed from his memories in the data world was living with them. Axel wasn’t even there. This is why I liked the twist with Saïx so much. Lea used to have his own best friend he ate ice cream and played with. He had his own normal happy life, just like Roxas did with the kids in Twilight Town. 

That's the life he really wanted to go back to. Not the life of eating ice cream on the clock tower with Roxas. Thanks to Isa, Axel and Roxas’s relationship wasn’t so imbalanced anymore. They were pretty much the same. Axel wasn't really obsessed with Roxas. He was just trying to fill a void, both literally (his heart) and figuratively (his best friend).

“Well, nothing lasts forever,” Axel mumbled, looking off to the side again. “Least of all for a bunch of Nobodies. But, you know, hanging out every day isn’t the only thing that matters. We’ll still have one another, even if that changes.”

“Really?” Roxas perked up.

“Yeah. As long as we remember one another, we’ll never be apart. Got it memorized?”

In the manga, Roxas and Xion talked about running away and always being together on Day 96. In the game, Day 96 is when Roxas said he wanted to hang out together forever. Axel was pessimistic about it, and was clearly thinking about the past. When he said they’d never be apart, he said it for their sake, not his. In the game, Roxas suggested they all run away together on Day 352 ~Sunset~ and Axel said the same thing. 

“—Hey, why don’t the three of us go off somewhere?” Roxas said.

“Huh?” Xion stared at Roxas. Axel didn’t say a thing.

“If we did, then surely, we could be together always.”

“We don’t have any place to run.” Xion shook her head.

“I know,” he mumbled. “I was just thinking out loud.”

Axel suddenly broke his silence. “Well, even if things change, we’ll never be apart—”

“—As long as we remember one another,” Xion finished. “Right?”

Day 352 was the day Roxas and Xion almost killed each other. They wanted to run away and be together forever. But Axel didn’t want to run away with them. At first, I think Lea and Isa thought they could just run away together, too. They couldn’t go home, but they could go off somewhere and always be together.

If he’s this gone, there’s nothing to do but bring him back, even if I have to drag him.

“Wait. Please explain what you mean.” At Roxas’ question, Axel paused.

That’s different. The open hostility is gone.

“Axel… what do you know?”

It’s not the first time Roxas has asked me that. I know. Yeah, I always know the things Roxas doesn’t. I know things I can’t tell Roxas. That’s why… I definitely couldn’t go.

Then they finally realized that they had nowhere to run from Xehanort. They couldn’t go off somewhere. But they could “go somewhere” together. That was the only way they could be together forever, like they wanted. Even as a Nobody, Axel still had hope that someday they could be together forever.

Can I destroy Roxas? Probably not. But I know what I can’t do. Xemnas and Saïx probably knew that as well. Maybe we can disappear together from here and go somewhere. 

And that was the reason Axel didn’t want to run away and why he couldn’t go with Roxas when he defected. And also why Lea needed upside-down tear marks to stop himself from crying. Saïx only brought it up when Lea said he was dragging him home. Even with their poorly written canon relationship in KH3, Isa still obviously saw a side of Lea that was way more raw and emotional than what Roxas ever saw of Axel. Even though the scene in KH3 was written to emphasize that Axel and Saïx weren’t getting along and that Axel wanted to bring back Roxas the most...Saïx still knew him better than Roxas did.

“Axel…” The hostility disappeared from Roxas’ eyes.

I can’t find the spirit to fight this Roxas anymore. Here - there was nothing he could do but fade away.

“Let’s meet again in the next life,” he said, smiling just a little as he said those words, and Roxas nodded silently. “Yeah, I’ll be waiting.” Roxas answering seriously was somehow strange, and Axel laughed.

“Silly… you’d have a next life, but…” Axel said to Roxas–and his figure disappeared in the darkness of a portal he’d opened behind him.

When Axel asked Roxas to meet him again in the next life, he was thinking about disappearing together---“going somewhere”. But he knew that’s not what Roxas had in mind, so he laughed. And then...he just left.   

“My role was to see if you were ready to take ownership of the hurt inside you. And now that role is done. Nothing left for me to do but…go away.”

“Go home?” Sora didn’t know what he meant by go “away.” Even if he was an illusion, going away sounded kinda…awful.

It’s obvious if you read between the lines that the person Axel really wanted to see in the next life was not Roxas—it was Isa. I don’t think I’m downplaying the importance of Axel’s relationship with Roxas by acknowledging that. Lea was closer to Isa than anyone else. At least that is how their relationship was originally envisioned. 

Axel’s eyes crinkled as he remembered his own best friend—the only friend he’d ever had, in fact.

“If your best friend goes away, you’re sad, and if you get to be with them, you’re happy,” Naminé added. “Isn’t that how it is, Axel?”

“…That’s about the size of it.” Axel nodded and sat down on the remaining empty sofa, staring at the sea-salt ice cream he held.

“So you are capable of sincerity,” said Riku.

Axel only shrugged at the jab and finished his ice cream pop.

Axel was chasing after Roxas because he thought his real best friend had already gone away. Saïx didn’t care about Axel or want to see him anymore. He wanted him to disappear. Axel previously said that his memories of the past were too precious to lose. But the loss of his friendship with Isa was so painful he wanted to forget they were ever friends at all. Axel was utterly miserable in KH2.

Axel thrust his hand into his pocket, and took out the white envelope.

The memories of me and Roxas haven’t faded away. For now, that’s just fine.

“…Really feel like some ice cream,” Axel muttered, watching the sunset absently.

We were always together with the sunset. We talked about all kinds of things in that place. I think it’d be good if we could talk and eat ice cream there again someday. Now, there’s nothing but that. I only hope for that.

The setting sun was shining on Axel.

Axel took out the white envelope on Day 6, the day he decided he had to destroy Roxas. Then he immediately tried to bond with Saïx afterwards, even going so far as to joke about destroying Roxas. Then he took the envelope out again at the very end, on Day 7. 

A lot of the things Axel did with Roxas were things he did with Isa. I’m sure the WINNER stick was the same. And I’m sure that this passage at the very end of “Axel 7 Days” referred even more to Isa than it did to Roxas. Sadly, all evidence suggests that Axel was using Roxas as a replacement Isa. Their friendship was very dysfunctional. There were a lot of issues that needed to be resolved. But it looks like they never will be.

“Hayner…”

I don’t know that name he muttered. It’s probably–those kids–Roxas’s friend’s name.

“Pence… Olette…”

This Roxas’s most important friends’ names.

This Roxas wouldn’t call my name like that.

“Hayner! Pence! Olette!” Roxas cried, Axel sprang–into a dark space.

Roxas appeared in Twilight Town at at the end of KH2 because he thought of it as his home. He felt like he belonged there. He was there because he wanted to see Hayner, Pence, and Olette again. That’s the life he longed for. Roxas never displayed that type of longing for Axel. He just didn’t. Doesn’t mean they weren’t friends. They just weren’t really best friends. 

When I first played KH2, I got the sense that Roxas would have been creeped out by the way Axel acted if he had ever learned about it. He wouldn’t have been flattered by Axel kidnapping Kairi or trying to turn Sora into a Heartless, just to see him. He would have been freaked out. After their friendship got more development in later games, I think Roxas would have felt pity for Axel. But he still would have been uncomfortable with his obsessive fixation on being “best friends”. Especially because Roxas only knew Axel as an aloof and emotionally detached guy. He found it hilarious when Axel said something sentimental because he just never saw that side of him before. 

“Do you two even have anywhere to go?” Axel wondered from his perch on one of the boulders that dotted the shore.

“Do you?” Riku replied, staring out at the horizon.

“I never had anywhere to go in the first place. We Nobodies don’t belong, period. Nowhere to go and nowhere to come home to.

Unlike Roxas, Axel appeared in Twilight Town one last time because he felt like he had nowhere to belong. He knew deep down that Roxas wasn’t really longing to see him again, the way he was with Hayner, Pence, and Olette. He wasn’t even really chasing Roxas. He was trying to run away from his loneliness. Seeing Roxas again showed him that he had nowhere to run, though.

When a Nobody meets the real thing… that’s when a Nobody disappears. No… that’s when a Nobody goes home to where they belong. I wonder whether Axel actually went somewhere when he faded.

Somewhere…

If Roxas were there too, that would be nice, Naminé hoped. But that’s an unattainable dream.

To Axel, “going somewhere” didn’t mean running away or going home. It meant disappearing with someone. He just hoped he’d be able to see that person again in the next life. I think he promised to disappear with Isa if it meant he could go somewhere with him and see him again. In KH2, I think he still wanted to see the Isa from his memories, but he thought that was impossible. It left him with a tremendous void to fill, and he turned to Roxas to fill it. But Roxas didn’t want to “go somewhere” with him like Isa did. Roxas wanted to live his own life.

“Do you need help with that?” Ansem asked him, glancing pointedly at his wounded chest.

“…We Nobodies just vanish as we die okay,” said Axel, and he put the ice cream in his mouth and stood up. “Besides, maybe now I can finally go see Roxas.”

In the manga, Axel was looking at the sky on Sunset Hill when he said there was someone he wanted to see. He didn’t know where that feeling came from, since he didn’t have a heart. He suspected that maybe he did have one and wanted to see Roxas one more time to know for sure. And Roxas was looking at the sky when he said Sora would find the answer.

“I’d better go.” He stood up. “Sora is waiting.”

“Oh. Right… You really can taste the sea salt in this, huh?” Axel turned away, his shoulders shaking.

If he had no heart, then what were these feelings welling up in his chest supposed to be? Sorrow and…happiness? Axel didn’t have a handle on it. But maybe not understanding these things was part of having a heart.

There was a feeling of happiness for Axel because he was able to cry—proof he had a heart. He finally got his answer. But even then, nothing about Axel and Roxas’s reunion was meant to be fulfilling from Axel’s point of view. Quite the opposite. Roxas was confident that Sora would find the answer, but Axel was left in tears. His brief reunion with Roxas in the next life didn’t fill the void he had. He was still sad and empty. And it wasn’t just because Roxas left.

If I ever wake up again… I’d be happy if I could see Roxas. No—I know I will. Roxas… Hey, wake up. You’re really there, aren’t you? You promised me we’d meet again in the next life… right? ‘Cause we’re best friends, aren’t we? And then Axel faded from existence, vanishing into nothing.

A promise… That we’d meet again… in the next life. We promised. I remember. I remember our promise.

It was because he knew that Roxas wasn’t really waiting for him so they could “go somewhere” and be together forever. He wasn’t really the person Axel made that promise to in all seriousness. When Axel first suggested it, he thought Roxas responding seriously was funny. 

Roxas didn't have the slightest clue how important that promise was to Axel. He barely knew anything about Axel’s inner emotional life. What it all boils down to is that Axel turned to Roxas out of a desperate fear of dying alone---a very primal human fear. And in the end, that’s exactly what happened. He might have been able “go somewhere,” after all. But he’d still be going there alone.

“See you, Axel,” Roxas told him. He looked over his shoulder. It was a promise.

Like we promised to meet again in the next life. We’ll make another promise.

“See you, partner,” said Axel. Roxas gave him one last smile and vanished into the air. Moments later, Axel did the same.

When Lea was recompleted in KH3D, he woke up in Radiant Garden, his real home. The last scene he was in, he was crying. But now he wasn’t sad anymore; he was very happy. He finally knew for sure that he had a heart and a next life. It’s not that he didn’t want to see Roxas/Ventus ever again. But in KH3D, I got the sense that Lea let go of his unhealthy obsession with him. It was a huge milestone in his development.

He didn't need a “rebound” best friend anymore. He was ready to move on with his life, just as Roxas had moved on with his. I do think they were supposed to get a genuinely emotional and tearful reunion, and establish an actual healthy friendship in KH3. But only after Roxas/Ventus learned about Lea’s past and who he really was. Especially since Ventus did get to meet Lea back when he was just a normal kid, too.

Roxas: Hey, Axel. You haven't forgotten?

Axel: Hm? What?

Roxas: You made us a promise.

Axel: I did?

Roxas: That you'd always be there...to bring us back.

Axel: Yeah...

Roxas: Got it memorized?

Axel: Best friends forever.

After his dream, Lea was reminded of the promise he made. He never actually made this promise to Roxas, though. He made it to Xion, but he didn’t remember her, either. So who did he make this promise to? I think Isa and Lea originally promised to "go somewhere" together. But Lea couldn't swallow that. He changed his mind. If Isa did "go somewhere," Lea wasn't going with him. He was going to bring him back. And that’s why he was smiling when he said he always got stuck with the icky jobs.

In KH3D, I got the sense that Lea was fully aware that the way he acted with Roxas was unnatural for him. It was the result of his grief over losing his best friend and his existential dread. But Lea was a natural optimist. He could move on from his clinginess because he had hope that he’d finally address the root cause of his pain. He could see Isa again. The real Isa from his memories. That’s who he originally made that promise to and who he really wanted to see all along. 

It’s why Axel simply chasing after Roxas again and reuniting with him in KH3 was in no way an emotionally satisfying conclusion to his emotional roller coaster of a character arc. It felt very hollow, actually. Their reunion never even attempted to address the underlying dysfunction of their relationship. KH3 seemed to glorify Axel’s dependency, which I found strange. I loved Lea’s implied backstory with Isa. Their reunion had the potential to be a lot more satisfying because it was heavily implied Lea and Isa had a far more intimate relationship with each other than Axel had with Roxas. And in my opinion, such a reunion would have given Lea a rewarding resolution to his story---one that he lacked in canon.

#leaisa #kh meta #kingdom hearts #kh axel #kh roxas #kh lea

[nadziejastar]

Saïx’s True Purpose & Personality Change

“It’s something powerful, right? Where does it come from?” Roxas was dead serious.

 Love… Huh.

“Love is a special power that only humans have.”

I don’t trust myself to explain this right. But I want to answer Roxas and Xion’s questions about ‘the human heart’ to my best extent.

“So Nobodies don’t have it?”

“You need a heart for it, see.”

“A heart…” Roxas was lost in thought.

Axel kept speaking. “There’s something special only born between people who are even more than friends…that’s love.”

As soon as I beat KH3 and read the secret reports, my first thought was that Isa must have originally been Subject X. And that has been my firm belief ever since. It makes perfect sense. FAR more than him being an apprentice, which was a last minute retcon.

Ansem's Report 2

The experiments caused the test subject's heart to collapse, including those of the most stalwart. How fragile our hearts are! My treatment produced no signs of recovery. I confined those who had completely lost their hearts beneath the castle. Some time later, I went below and was greeted by the strangest sight. Creatures that seemed born of darkness...What are they? Are they truly sentient beings? Could they be the shadows of those who lost their hearts in my experiments? 

During the experiments on the darkness of the heart, all the subjects’ hearts collapsed, even the hearts of the most stalwart.

Secret Ansem Report 2

I have made a grave mistake. My study of the "darkness of the heart" began with a simple psychological test and quickly snowballed. Spurred on by my youngest apprentice, Ienzo, I constructed a massive laboratory in the basement of my castle. Unbeknownst to me, my six apprentices then began collecting a large number of subjects on which to perform dangerous experiments into the "darkness of the heart." As soon as I found out, I called my apprentices together and ordered them not only to cease their studies, but to destroy the results of their research thus far.

Isa was a unique subject. His heart was amazingly strong, due to his feelings for Lea, and it didn’t collapse like all the others.

Secret Report 4: Experiments of the Heart – Notes on Subject X, Excerpt 2

My pilot studies used a handful of subjects, but none possessed the fortitude to endure them. Ultimately, all suffered mental collapse. I knew it would be a heavy blow to lose a subject as unique as she. Upon discovering the tests I've been conducting, my master demanded that I cease my work immediately and destroy what research I have compiled. Worse still, he ordered the release of my remaining subjects. She is gone. Where is Subject X now? Has "wise" Master Ansem hidden her away? Whatever the case, I will not be deterred. I will take her place as the first subject in the grand experiment to come.

But it was captured. Xehanort’s goal was to use the power of Isa’s heart as a weapon, and he became a vessel. Saïx was the result.

“I’ll bring him back to our side. Let me—”

“That’s enough.” Saïx turned his head, giving Axel a sidelong look over his shoulder. “Traitor.”

Axel scowled darkly.

“I’m going. You know, don’t you, that you won’t stop me except by force? And even if you tried, you would fail.” Saïx went on his way. 

It’s my memories that are telling me this sort of thing is unpleasant.

The Berserker Nobodies carry cursed hammers. So, Saïx probably carries a cursed claymore. When he grips the claymore, he enters his berserk state. 

“Then let’s skip the conversation,” said Saïx, and just like that he threw his claymore. But, Roxas batted it aside easily. The series of movements was like it was done by a completely different person than yesterday’s Roxas.

Saïx hesitated for a second, and Roxas ran at him.

He blocked the Keyblade.

Long ago—I remember, I didn’t hate fighting. Saïx flung his claymore at Roxas.

And so, Saïx remembered things from a long long time ago.

My theory is that the claymore makes Saïx relive the memories---good or bad---that made his heart so strong, enhancing his fighting ability by going berserk.

Saïx: I passed on the message as you so desired. I told the young Sora to keep defeating the Heartless.

Xemnas: Good. Not only have you the power to inflict pain, you also have the power to plant seeds of doubt in one's receptive heart. Sora will soon begin to doubt himself. It will cause him to hesitate and that hesitation will turn to anger. That anger will fuel him to get rid of his apprehension and move forward. He will pave the way for the future we desire.

Saïx: There's something I've meant to ask.

Xemnas: About Axel? The poor fool. How long will he keep chasing the illusion of friendship, when he himself lacks emotion? Trying so hard to retrieve what he has lost, when it may never have existed in the first place. He deserves nothing more than our pity.

And those memories were of Lea. The heart has a direct connection to memory. Saïx is forced to relive Isa’s memories in order to receive greater power, but he’s convinced that neither he nor Axel can actually feel anything anymore. And he’s tormented by it.

Day 94: All Goes Apace

Author: Saïx

The hearts collected by our two Keyblade wielders, Roxas and Xion, have gathered together; and now, almighty Kingdom Hearts waxes large in the night sky. Our efforts have come to bear fruit, nearly ripe for the plucking. All plans proceed smoothly—alarmingly so, in fact, though this is no time to be deterred by paranoia.

Day 94 ~Hearts~ is when Kingdom Hearts first becomes visible in the sky. They’re sooo close to getting their hearts back, and Saïx is trying not to be paranoid.

Cogsworth: Those horrid creatures plaguing the castle have kept the master from seeing Belle for days… There has to be some way to bring the two of  them together!

Xion: Remember the last time we were here? The candelabra was talking about the same thing. The servants seem awfully interested in making sure Belle and their master get along.

Roxas: You think it’s strange?

Xion: Only that they seem to be in such a rush about it.

That day Roxas and Xion go to the Beast’s Castle for the first time together. And Cogsworth is also trying not to be paranoid since time is running out for them to become human again.

“If he’s taking on the Heartless himself, he must have a reason to fight.”

Xion stared down at the Keyblade. What’s my reason?

“A reason?” Roxas blinked at her, mystified. “Like what?”

Chapter 65 of the KH2 manga is when Sora faces off against Saïx. It’s called “The Reason I Fight”. In 358/2 Days, that’s what the Beast’s Castle was all about, too. 

“Like…maybe he has something he wants to protect,” she said softly.

Xion, in turn, was mystified that Roxas found the idea so strange. As if he had never thought to ask why.

The main thing Roxas wanted to know was why the Beast fought so hard when he was the master of the castle, like Xemnas. He had servants to fight for him (or at least Roxas thought so). Xion suggested that the Beast was fighting so hard because he had something he wanted to protect.

Roxas: I just don’t understand why having a heart is so important. Do you?

Axel: Kind of a strange time to bring it up…

Roxas: But don’t you ever stop and wonder? We’re fighting for something we don’t know anything about.

Axel: Roxas… We’re fighting because we want to know what it’s about.

Roxas: Yeah… Yeah, I guess you’re right.

After the mission, Roxas was questioning the reason they were all fighting so hard. Axel told him it was to get hearts of their own. Hearts were necessary to experience certain things, and that was the recurring theme of Beast’s Castle.

Meanwhile, Roxas was already in the Beast’s castle with Xaldin. Gashes in the walls told them of a fearsome battle between the Heartless and the castle’s master.

But Roxas had one question for Xaldin. “Why is the Beast fighting so much?”

“That is what we’re here to find out,” said Xaldin. They climbed the stairs from the entrance hall, toward the grand doors, which Roxas was fairly certain led to the ballroom.

I think that world was meant to be a parallel to Axel and Saïx’s backstory. The reason the Beast fights is tied to Isa’s true purpose as a human and Axel’s reason to work so hard to complete Kingdom Hearts.

“Well, it seems important to him…” Roxas looked again at the rose beneath the glass, safe in the back of the chambers. It was somehow sparkling, unlike anything else here.

“Precisely. That is no ordinary rose. The room is in tatters save for one corner—because to him, at least, it is more precious than all the castle’s riches.”

“Is that why he’s fighting the Heartless? He wants to protect the rose?”

“Indeed. It holds some strange power… Perhaps the Heartless are drawn to it as well.”

“Is that the reason he’s fighting so hard…?” But why was the Beast so determined to protect a flower?

The Beast was fighting so hard to protect the rose, which was very dear to him. It was the one thing that was most important to him. Or at least that’s what Xaldin thought.

“Our work here is done,” Xaldin declared. “We have the Beast’s weakness.”

“We do?”

“That which we treasure has power over us, Roxas. His heart is captive to it. And that makes it his weakness.”

“Captive…? I don’t get it.”

Everything Xaldin said only got harder and harder to follow.

“Nor should you. You have no heart to love with. Let’s not linger here.”

Xaldin said that having something you care about is a weakness. It’s they key to capturing the person’s heart. Since Nomura said that those implanted with Xehanort’s heart get their heart captured, this is no doubt what happened to Isa.

“Well, you were right,” Roxas went on. “We figured out what he cares so much about. But Xaldin says that’s a weakness.”

“Why would caring about something be a weakness?” Xion asked, baffled.

Roxas lowered his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t get it, either.”

I’m not the only one surrounded by things I can’t understand, Xion thought. Axel would explain it, though…

“I hope Axel comes back soon,” said Roxas. She nodded. They would have so many things to ask him.

Whenever Roxas went to Beast’s Castle, he’d want to talk to Axel afterwards, to explain things to him. 

“Hmm, this is fascinating,” said Xaldin. “His monstrous form is somehow tied to the rose.”

“You mean, his curse?” Roxas asked, keeping his voice low.

“Yes. It seems that unless he completes some task before the rose withers, he’ll remain a beast forever.” Xaldin smirked at his own cleverness. “A beastly curse and a rose… Heh-heh. This will prove useful.”

“How?”

“Trying to explain it to you would be a waste of time. Let’s go, Roxas. No more dallying.” With that nonanswer, Xaldin left the chambers.

Roxas dallied anyway, peering through the doors again. The rose, the thing he treasures, is his weakness? Nope, I don’t get it. I wonder if Axel will know what it all means…?

And Axel always found it hard to explain. That’s because the concepts Roxas asked about were all things you needed a heart to understand.

“Do you have anything you couldn’tKeybladeo lose?”

Axel shifted in surprise and pulled the ice cream bar out of his mouth. “What? Where’d that come from?”

“I saw someone today and…he was talking about something like that. It was so important he couldn’t even think about losing it. Xaldin told me that’s a weakness. And I started thinking about how I don’t have anything—”

“Yeah, because you don’t have a heart.” Axel sighed, weary of having to point it out.

Roxas thought that Axel would know what Xaldin meant, and I think he was absolutely right.

Young Xehanort: What? “Your friends are your power”? Ah...how very true. But if the light of friendship is a form of power...the darkness of being alone is a power...even greater. Darkness is the hearts true nature. 

I don’t think Isa naturally enjoyed combat, but he did his best to protect Lea. He got better at fighting and even started to enjoy it because it had a purpose. There was meaning in it. Isa couldn’t bear to lose Lea. This was seen as his weakness and exploited during the experiments.

Sora: That’s the hearts true nature. To never, ever let go. Wherever they are, Andy and the other toy haven’t let go either.

Woody: Yeah! You can’t keep us from Andy.

Sora fought to protect his friends, too. It was his weakness and Saïx definitely exploited it during their battle. Sora’s friends were turned into cards, and even when the cards were destroyed, Sora still told Saïx that he wasn’t alone. 

Xigbar: Oh, and you can spare me the usual party line. Yes, hearts are powerful when they’re connected. But if you put too much of that power in one place, some of those hearts might end up breaking.

Saïx got extremely upset by this and was reminded of his fight with Roxas.

After so long, the weight of it was somehow strange in her grip. She thought she could feel the warmth from his hand lingering in the metal.

“Then you can go ahead and use it for the day,” said Roxas.

“But what are you going to use?”

“Well…” A hint of a grin came to his face, and he picked up a makeshift weapon near his feet. “I can improvise.”

“Roxas…that’s a stick.” It couldn’t possibly do any damage to Heartless, Xion thought.

When Xion was trying to regain the use of her Keyblade at the Beast’s Castle, she also said she wasn’t alone. Roxas was right there fighting beside her. He put himself at a disadvantage for her sake.

Roxas: Love? What's that?

Xaldin: It's an emotion. The one deluding those two as we speak.

Roxas: Oh...

Xaldin: They think the power of love will save them? That's the stuff of poetry, not practicality.

Roxas: Love is a power?

Xaldin: None you or I will ever grasp. Nor will they, for long. The love between them will wither and die. Love never lasts.

My theory is that Lea always fought really hard to protect Isa, who probably had never fought a day in his life. Lea enjoyed play fighting and was more equipped to handle himself. He saved Isa from certain death one day by and Isa really wanted to thank him by letting him have a day off to rest. Like Xion, he had been working really hard to become more independent and useful. I think he bungled it and collapsed, but after that, the apprentices viewed him differently. I don’t think he was seen as very useful at first. He was weak. But then they realized how strong his heart was.

Roxas looked bewildered. As he’d expected, he wasn’t doing a very good job explaining it.

“Not that it matters. We’ll never know the difference.”

Roxas wouldn’t let it go. “Do you think I could love somebody, if I had a heart?”

“Once Kingdom Hearts is complete, I bet you’ll be able to figure it out.” 

The magic words again, Axel thought. It’ll all make sense when Kingdom Hearts is complete. But was that true?

No one had ever seen it happen before. So who knew? Still, all they could do was believe in it. Pitiful Heartless, mindlessly collecting hearts…

The Beast’s true purpose was not defending the rose; it was defending Belle. He wanted to protect her because he loved her. I think Isa wanted to protect Lea because he loved him. And I think Axel’s main motivation to complete Kingdom Hearts was that he loved Isa. He wanted him to get his heart back, and he wanted to experience love again. More than anything, Axel wanted love. Someone who thought he was the most important person in the world. This is why Roxas was unable to meet his emotional needs. Axel wanted more than just friendship. He wanted romantic love. That was his motivation for completing Kingdom Hearts. 

“Something you find amusing?”

“Oh, the things you hear from a guy with no heart,” Xigbar said through his hilarity.

None of us have hearts, Saïx was about to remind him, when Xemnas spoke again.

Xigbar taunted Saïx for having no heart. It happened more than once in the novel. The first time is when Saïx couldn’t see Xion. 

“…Well, do your best. The best a kid without a heart can do, anyway,” said Xigbar, and he too disappeared.

Xigbar also suggested that Isa lost his heart as a kid. It was no doubt a result of being experimented on. When Axel told Roxas he’d have to work twice as hard to make up Xion’s quota, he called it “doing your best”. And I think that’s why Xigbar said Saïx would have trouble doing that without a heart. He was referring to the “kid without a heart,” Isa. His heart is what gave him strength.

“I feel bad for you, too,” she told him.

“What are you talking about?” Saïx towered over Naminé.

“You haven’t even noticed yet…that you have a heart.”

Several Nobodies emerged from a rift out of the corridors.

“A heart? I have a heart? No one wants your nonsense!” Saïx raised his sword over Naminé—but Riku was there with Soul Eater to intercept the blow.

“Hmph. I don’t have time for these games.” Darkness welled from a rift behind Saïx. “Do your best to help your dear hero.” With that, he disappeared.

“Are you all right?” Riku helped Naminé to her feet.

“Now I understand…,” she murmured.

“Naminé…? You understand what?”

She was silent for a moment and quietly shook her head as she stood. “It’s nothing. We have to find Kairi.”

Despite having such a close bond with Lea as a kid, and desperately wanting a heart more than anyone, Saïx still never displayed any human emotion. There was supposed to be something very unusual about him.

“Looks strong,” Axel remarked from behind them.

“Yeah. He is,” Riku said, sinking into thought.

His heart is even stronger than his body. It’s exactly the kind of heart the organization wants…

“But someone that strong won’t just do whatever the organization says,” Naminé murmured.

“Well, this is their chance to show how persuasive they can be,” Axel said with a bitter smirk.

I don’t think Isa was ever really that great of a fighter. But his heart was stronger than his body (he’d probably be a good fighter if he had a Keyblade). And his strong heart is why he was targeted by the apprentices and became Subject X, Xehanort’s favorite lab rat.

Odr (pronounced “Oh-der,” from Old Norse Óðr, “ecstasy, inspiration, fury, frenzy;” sometimes shortened to Óð or “Od”) is an obscure, seldom-mentioned god. The Old Norse noun óðr means "mind", "soul" or "spirit".  

It is derived from a Proto-Germanic word *wōð- or *wōþ- and it is related to Gothic wôds ("raging", "possessed"), Old High German wuot ("fury" "rage, to be insane") and the Anglo-Saxon words wód ("fury", "rabies") and wóð ("song", "cry", "voice", "poetry", "eloquence"). Old Norse derivations include œði "strong excitation, possession". Ultimately these Germanic words are derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *wāt-, which meant "to blow (on), to fan (flames)", fig. "to inspire".

This backstory also fits with the Norse mythology-inspired concept of Saïx. Berserkers worked themselves up into a rage while focusing on something that gave them “divine inspiration”. They needed a purpose, which was typically Odin. Part of the mythology of berserkers is that they are possessed by animal spirits, like bears or wolves. The wolf is the traditional spirit guide of the hunter, warrior, and magician. The wolf represents a dual nature of nourishing and destruction. I think Saïx would be represented be a wolf (or werewolf).

In Celtic tradition, the Hare is sacred to the Goddess and is the totem animal of many lunar Goddesses - Hecate, Freyja, Selene, Anumati. Freyja is the wife of Odr. She is the headstrong Norse goddess of love, sensuality, and women’s mysteries, was also served by hare attendants. The nocturnal Hare, closely linked to the moon which dies every morning & is resurrected every evening, also represents Immortality & the rebirth of Nature in Spring. It is also a symbol of Abundance as the hare can conceive while pregnant.

On the other hand, I think Isa was possessed by the spirit of a rabbit when he fought. Unfortunately, wolves eat rabbits. Isa’s heart was swallowed by Xehanort’s.

Xemnas: As your flesh bears the sigil, so your name shall be known as that of a recusant.

It makes sense that Saïx was given his scar not long before receiving his new name and new purpose. The third eye chakra is located on the forehead between the eyebrows, exactly where Saïx’s scar is. The scar was something he apparently got as a human, since it stayed after he was recompleted, unlike Axel’s tear marks. The third eye governs one’s ability to think and make decisions, and their connection to their purpose. It also controls extra-sensory perception, which explains why Saïx could not see Xion.

Xemnas: A heart is never lost for good. There may have been variances in our dispositions, but a number of us unquestionably showed signs of a burgeoning replacement. Once born, the heart can also be nurtured. Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind, and convince it to renounce its sense of self. But understand, one can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets, for as many times as it takes. And so I knew, even after we were divided into Heartless and Nobodies, it was just a temporary separation.

Xemnas learned that the heart could not simply be banished. So, in order to create vessels, he resorted to controlling the mind and capturing the heart. This all happened during the experiments on the darkness of the heart.

Outside the window, the moon—the heart-shaped moon—floated. Axel watched it, still sprawled on his bed. There was still a little time before he had to leave on his mission.

To gather hearts, to have hearts of our own, to not let the heart mislead us…

For these past few days, I’ve been thinking about the meaning of Xemnas’ words. To not let the heart mislead us? What does that mean? Whenever I’m alone, these thoughts just float around in my head the whole time. I don’t know why I have to think so much about it. I bet the other Nobodies don’t.

The heart… emotions. I think about their origins. Contemplate it. Reason about it. When did I start doing this?

On Day 117 ~Secrets~, Axel was thinking about Xemnas’s speech before Saïx came in the room. He didn’t know what Xemnas was talking about when he said they wouldn’t let the heart “mislead” them.

Sora: So then, all that stuff I just saw--did you put that in my head?

Xigbar: No. That wasn't "stuff," it was a dream. The falling asleep part was definitely our bad. But we can't put stuff in your head. Hey, I got an idea. Ask your heart. See if it's got a clue. 

Sora: Well...my heart was aching. That's why I kept going. 

Xigbar: Oh... Thank you, Sora's heart, for pushing him right into our clutches. Aren't hearts great? Steer us wrong every time.

When Xigbar found Sora in KH3D, he said something very similar. 

Xemnas: However--through weakness of body...weakness of will...or weakness of trust--most of the original members we had chosen for the Organization were inadequate. Thus, naturally, they never had a chance to attain their goal. Yet, even this was to be expected. We have learned of the heart's folly, and we have achieved our other goals. This last excursion has proven to be a worthy closing assignment for the Organization.

And afterwards, Xemnas showed up and talked about the mind control experiments. He said that they’d learned of the heart’s folly and achieved their other goals. Saïx is no doubt a product of this. 

Day 355: Mind

Author: Xigbar

The gears of Xemnas' plans have begun to spin wild since the loss of half our membership at Castle Oblivion. The results are there, but can this state of affairs fairly be called a success? If Kingdom Hearts can be said to possess a mind of its own, it is surely rejecting Xemnas—no, rejecting Xehanort. Roxas left the Organization today.

Isa was “misled” by his heart, causing him a lot of pain, putting his heart to sleep. Then he got Norted. His mind and heart were replaced with Xehanort's. The same thing was almost done to Sora. He was going to be made into the 13th vessel by mentally fracturing him, and putting his heart to sleep, leaving him without a sense of self.

Xemnas: You seek answers. You feel nothing. Nothing is real. I can give you purpose.

Roxas: Roxas.

Xemnas: That is right–the new you.

Roxas received his new name along with his purpose soon after he was born. When Roxas was leaving the organization, he was rejecting that purpose. He was rejecting Xehanort. And Saïx was unusually angry about it. He even said similar things that Xemnas did, implying that the same thing was told to him when he received his new name and purpose. At that point, Isa's consciousness was gone.

Day 356: Unforeseen Events

Author: Saïx

Our plans never accounted for the possibility of both Xion and Roxas leaving. How did this come to pass? When did Roxas grow strong enough to outmuscle me? What were you really after, Lea? We joined the Organization at the same time, and formulated our plan. At this point, it's just an idle fantasy. Everything changed. You, and me.

Isa’s purpose was protecting Lea. His new purpose was to become stronger, since physically he probably wasn’t that strong. And his priorities drastically changed. He might not have any memory of receiving his purpose. Since he's a Nort, maybe he thought it was something he desired on his own.

Roxas: Yeah, but what is it? “The heart of all hearts”?

Xion: It’s where all the hearts you and I collect wind up.

Axel: Exactly. It’s because of you two and the Keyblade that we’re finally making some progress. We might finally get hearts of our own.

Xion: “The strength of the human heart is vast,” Xemnas said.

Roxas: Yeah, but what do we need with it?

In the prologue of the manga, Axel reminisced with both Roxas and Xion. They got their new names, then watched the sunset together. One of the panels included the scene of Xion questioning her purpose in the organization. Roxas questioned why they were fighting on Day 94, but accepted Axel’s explanation that they’d understand when they had hearts.

Xion: Roxas, why are we doing all this? Working for the Organization?

Roxas: What do you mean, why? So we can get hearts of our own, right?

Xion: Why? What do we need hearts for?

Roxas: I don’t know. But I figure once we have them, we’ll be in a better position to judge. Right?

Xion: Maybe. I just wish I knew what I was doing here.

Xion started questioning why she was fighting on Day 151, after she failed the mission with Riku and was called a failure. Roxas tried to cheer her up, but she ran off. All of this would eventually lead her to run away for good.

Axel ducked into the sweets shop. “One ice cream, please!”

“Here you go.”

Sea-salt ice cream in hand, he meandered toward the clock tower.

I wasn’t expecting to find Riku easily in the first place. I bet Saïx thought the same. But Saïx will probably pull that magnificently horrible face and have a nasty word or two to say if I state that ‘I couldn’t find him’, but then that’s Saïx’s ‘personality’. In short, Saïx pretending to be a human just involves just a whole lot of that kind of thing. It doesn’t mean that he himself is really feeling some kind of displeasure. That too is natural, seeing as he has no heart.

“This is so salty,” Axel muttered just like every time, biting his ice cream as he climbed the slope that led to the station.

After Xion ran off on Day 151, Axel showed up at the clock tower. Just after the scene where Xion ran off, there was an extra scene in the novel. Axel bought some ice cream and was thinking about Saïx’s “personality”.

Saïx heaved an exaggerated sigh. In a way, Saïx put more effort than any of them into pretending he had a heart, Axel thought. And yet, he was more lacking than any of them.

Axel remarked several times about Saïx’s lack of human emotion. He did it when he returned from Castle Oblivion on Day 72 ~Change~, when Saïx wasn’t worried about him or grateful to him.

After watching them go, Axel stretched and turned to Saïx, expecting to see a scowl. But the expression had left Saïx’s face, leaving him as dispassionate as usual.

Of course, he had been faking it in the first place. Nobodies had no hearts; they only imitated what emotions they remembered. The very proof of their emptiness showed how desperately they each longed for a heart. Axel probably did the same thing himself without noticing, and yet, for some reason, when Saïx did it—or actually, any of the others—it seemed so out of place.

Maybe because it makes me realize how much effort we put into acting like we’re still human, Axel thought. It’s pointless.

And he did it on Day 96, when he covered for Roxas and Xion so they could go to the Beast’s Castle together. In the manga, Axel said Saïx was like that from the start, so probably ever since he became a Nobody.

Xion: I’m remembering things. About who I was as a human.

Axel: Well, stop remembering. Nothing good will come of it.

Xion ran away on Day 255 because she wanted to know who she was. She wanted a real purpose, not just doing the organization’s bidding. Afterwards, Axel sat with Roxas and couldn’t break the news to him. I think he was remembering how Isa awakened to a new purpose, too. This coincided with his personality change and possibly him regaining his memories. Saïx’s purpose was to become stronger. After that, he became a totally different person. Axel’s biggest source of pain throughout Days was that he thought he would never see the Isa from his memories ever again. The Isa who existed before he awakened to a new purpose.

Axel: You really think the truth is going to make you feel better? It won’t.

Roxas: What makes you so sure? I have a right to know who I am! How did I get here? Why am I special? Where did I learn to use the Keyblade? I deserve those answers!

Axel: Roxas…

Roxas: Are you gonna tell me or not? Axel… Who am I?

The Isa who still loved him and whose purpose was protecting him. He was terribly lonely and was very upset when both Roxas and Xion started questioning who they were, because he knew he would lose them. They'd be destroyed. He had a very strong stance against them regaining their human memories. 

"Axel—please.”

“No ‘please’.”

“But… I…” For a second, Axel thought he saw Xion’s face become Sora’s again. He shook his head slowly. 

“You get it, don’t you, Axel? I can’t live like this.”

“There should be a way for you to keep living as yourself.” Xion pushed Axel back with the Keyblade, jumped back, and readied her stance.

“That’s a lie. On top of this, I don’t want to be used by the Organization for such a thing. I hate that Roxas is being used by the Organization.”

“So do I.”

Axel couldn’t bear to tell Roxas that he might never see Xion again after she left. It’s probably due to what happened to Isa. Subject X was an amnesiac. He probably started to regain his memories, which started after becoming self-aware and telling Lea why the sunset was red. That was the beginning of the end. His heart began to gradually get swallowed by Xehanort. Lea had to witness his friend become a completely different person over time. He was reliving that experience with Xion.

#kh #kingdom hearts #kh meta #kh isa #kh saix #kh lea #kh axel #leaisa #akusai

[nadziejastar]

Interesting Things From The Dream Drop Distance Novel (Part 1)

This is it. The moment we’ve been waiting for. The KH3D novel is finally out! This is the first full translation of it that I’m aware of, so all of this stuff is new to us English speakers. And I’m gonna write about all of the interesting stuff in it. Especially the stuff with Lea. But anything else noteworthy, too. So far, I haven’t seen anything particularly interesting in the Disney worlds. But Lea’s section was filled with extra details, just as I expected. More to come later (I’m still reading), but here’s what I got for now:

“Sora and Riku are best friends.”

Axel’s eyes crinkled as he remembered his own best friend—the only friend he’d ever had, in fact.

“If your best friend goes away, you’re sad, and if you get to be with them, you’re happy,” Naminé added. “Isn’t that how it is, Axel?”

“…That’s about the size of it.” Axel nodded and sat down on the remaining empty sofa, staring at the sea-salt ice cream he held.

But first, it’s important to point out how Axel was in KH2, since KH3D picks up right where KH2 left off. I loved how complicated Axel being “best friends” with Roxas was. 

He seemed a tiny bit startled as he scanned the room, and his eyes fell on a particular drawing. “This is…me? And that guy Axel…?”

It was Naminé’s drawing of Roxas and Axel, standing side by side.

“You’re best friends,” she said.

Right. Those two had been friends—well, Axel believed they still were. Roxas was his only friend and his best. And Axel was the same for Roxas—probably.

Even Naminé knew Axel thought of Roxas as his best friend and only friend. But...she wasn’t so sure Roxas felt the same way (...he didn’t).

In Twilight Town, the evening sun sank toward the horizon. Roxas was perched on the ledge, high up on the clock tower, watching the sunset and thinking of nothing in particular. He liked to sit up here where he could see the whole town.

“Finally awake, huh?”

Roxas looked up. “Axel…”

His only good friend—his best friend—Axel had arrived with two sea-salt ice cream pops.

Axel always felt the need to assert that Roxas was his best friend and only friend. It was sad. He never acted like this in 358/2 Days. Just KH2. That’s how badly Saïx hurt him. He was doing everything in his power trying---in vain---to forget about Isa.

Roxas… hey, wake up. You’re really there, aren’t you?

You promised me we’d meet again in the next life… right?

Cause we’re best friends, aren’t we?

And then Axel faded from existence, vanishing into nothing.

A promise…

That we’d meet again… in the next life.

We promised.

I remember.

I remember our promise.

He made the promise with Roxas to meet again in the next life to replace the one he made with Isa. It was the promise of two best friends. Axel never made such an special and serious promise with Roxas. Roxas didn’t really understand what was going on when he made this “promise” with Axel. He barely even remembered him at that point. When they did meet again, Roxas disappeared and left Axel in tears.

I’m…dreaming. 

I’m in the usual spot on top of the clocktower in Twilight Town, watching the sunset in the distance. In my hand is a cold, salty-sweet bar of sea-salt ice cream. I’m eating it by myself, wearing my usual black coat. 

“Hey, Axel. You haven’t forgotten?” Suddenly, my best friend, Roxas, is beside me. 

“Hmm? What?” Roxas is eating ice cream, too. 

“You made us a promise.” 

A promise? What kind of promise? 

“I did?” 

“That you’d always be there…to bring us back,” says Roxas.

“Yeah…,” I reply. Each reply makes me nervous. Roxas should be watching the sunset with me, but I can’t tell where he’s looking. It’s unsettling. 

“Got it memorized?” Roxas points at his temple, mimicking me. 

“Best friends forever,” I answer. 

No one’s beside me anymore. The dream is short, but it feels so long—and then I wake up.

And that’s where his dream begins in KH3D. I think Roxas was symbolically replacing Isa here, too. It’s why the camera angle looks exactly like the clock tower scene with Saïx in KH3, when he said he was dragging him home. I wonder if Roxas (and Saïx in KH3) were supposed to be looking at something specific when their face is hidden. Axel said he was unsettled because Roxas should have been looking at the sunset, but he couldn’t tell what he was looking at. The whole dream had a creepy feeling that made Axel nervous.

Axel opened his eyes in the laboratory of Radiant Garden, a room with computers in the back of what was once an office. He wasn’t sure what was going on. He’d saved Sora, but what about after that? 

How did I end up here? Axel sat up slowly. His head was groggy. What happened? 

“Roxas?” He wasn’t there, but Axel could see himself reflected in the glass of the lab.

The laboratory was once an office. Makes sense. Ienzo was the one who suggested building the lab in the basement.

“That’s me…” He spotted a few others collapsed in the same room. The ones in white lab coats were Even and Ienzo, and then there was Dilan and Aeleus still in their former uniforms. Aeleus was starting to get to his feet with a groan. 

Why aren’t they wearing the black coats? Wait, don’t tell me— 

Axel checked his reflection in the glass again and looked for the marks. They were gone. The marks under his eyes were missing. 

It was definitely important that Lea, unlike all the others, was still wearing the black coat even when he was recompleted. He was wearing it when he lost his heart, which is unusual. And I like how the first thought that pops into his head to make sure he’s human is the marks under his eyes. He didn’t just randomly notice they were gone in the mirror. He specifically checked for them. They essentially represent his entire identity as a Nobody. Since Saïx mentioned them several times in KH3, I’m sure the entire backstory of how he got them was supposed to be very important to their relationship.

“We’re people again.” Oddly enough, he found the fact easy to accept. All four of the men behind him had joined the Organization here. Xehanort didn’t count, so there were only two missing: Braig and one other. 

“Isa?” Axel—now Lea—softly said the name of his old friend.

I always wondered what Lea meant when he said Xehanort didn’t count. Apparently everyone became Nobodies and joined the organization right there in that lab, including Lea and Isa. But Xehanort was different. He must have become a Nobody at a different time and place, probably after everyone else. He still had a Keyblade when Ienzo, Even, and Braig lost their hearts. 

Another reason I hate Lea and Isa being apprentices is that the apprentices (besides Braig, I guess) willingly gave up their hearts for research purposes. They knew what they were signing up for. Why would Lea and Isa agree to sacrifice their hearts? What was in it for them? Xaldin said that they sacrificed their hearts to be free from the shackles of emotion. When Xemnas gave his speech in Days, he said they organized to achieve power over the heart. Axel had no idea what he was talking about because he was not a founding member. Lea and Isa gave up their hearts and their emotions for a total stranger? That makes no sense at all.

“What the devil…?” said Aeleus, the first to wake up. He was holding his head.

“Beats me,” Lea replied with a smile as Ienzo also unsteadily got to his feet.

“What…happened…?” Ienzo asked. 

“If you don’t know, then I don’t, either,” Lea answered in his usual teasing manner. Ienzo frowned, clearly unsatisfied. 

Ienzo wouldn’t have known about any of the events following his visit to Castle Oblivion as a member of the Organization. Explaining it all would be a pain—although if he had retained his memories from the castle, things might get a little complicated. 

Ienzo’s Nobody, Zexion, was destroyed because of me. I need some time to myself to think before we get into all that. 

“I’m gonna go look for the others. I’ll leave things here to you.”

I love how cheerful Lea is right after he wakes up, even teasing the apprentices he no doubt despises. And he is worried that Ienzo will remember what he did to him in Castle Oblivion and things will be awkward. But he doesn’t seem to harbor any personal hostility towards Ienzo. Since he needed some time to himself to think, he probably felt a bit guilty. In the CoM novel, he said he needed time to himself after killing Vexen.

Lea left the other four and walked to the room Ansem the Wise had once used as his office, but the wall was decorated with a portrait of Xehanort. It was littered with books, just as he remembered from when he’d snuck in here before. No one else was there. 

Hmmm, interesting. So apparently when Lea (and presumably Isa) snuck into the castle, they made it all the way into Ansem the Wise’s office. This makes me think that they didn’t sneak in through the front gate (I never thought they did, anyways). They must have snuck in through the entrance located in the Postern, which led them directly to Ansem’s study. It would make sense if they were abducted while snooping around in there. 

I really don’t think it’s realistic that they were constantly sneaking in and out, visiting the secret prisons down that long staircase. Not only was the entrance to the lab hidden, that stairway was hidden, too. It’s also not very realistic that someone who broke into the castle and entered Ansem’s study would ever be allowed to become an apprentice. Also, Lea didn’t seem to recognize the portrait of Xehanort that was in there. So, at least at the time he was abducted, it wasn’t there. And that portrait was not there during Mickey’s visit. So, they became apprentices after Mickey visited and Ansem knew about his apprentices kidnapping people? Yeah, sure.

Lea stepped into the hallway and found a skateboard, covered with dust and seemingly abandoned for some time. 

“Don’t go leavin’ this here,” he muttered, then gave the board a small kick as he thought of its owner before walking off.

Ok, this is REALLY interesting to me. Is there actually some kind of backstory for this skateboard? Sora can ride a skateboard in the castle, but I never thought it had a narrative reason to be there. It is described as being abandoned for some time and covered in dust. So, it’s probably been there as long as the castle has been abandoned. Most telling is that Lea said he thought of its owner before walking off. Evidently, he knew who the owner of that skateboard was. That’s quite interesting. Probably wasn’t Isa’s. 

Perhaps it belonged to one of the other test subjects that Lea was acquainted with. When they were released, maybe they left their skateboard? I always wondered if they were gonna use FF characters as some of the other test subjects. What if Neku, Shiki, Beat, and Rhyme were subjects of the experiments? And that was how their existence came to an end and they found themselves in the dream world? That would be kinda sad. Or maybe it’s Zell’s from FF8. Who knows.

No, really, what happened? I mean, I know I’m human again. I always thought when a Nobody fades away, that’s when they really and truly cease to exist, but I must’ve been wrong about that. 

I’m the human I used to be; I can tell. We didn’t have separate personalities like Roxas and Sora. Why was that? I guess because Roxas was special—or Sora was anyway. But special how, exactly? 

“You’ve lost your hearts,” they told us, over and over, but I wasn’t buying it. Not completely, at least. If I didn’t have a heart, then what was that ache in my chest?

I like how confident he’s being here. Pfft, acting like he never believed Xemnas anyways, and always knew he had a heart. Well, deep down he always did.

Lea kept walking until the side entrance was up ahead. He could feel a faint breeze from outside. I doubt the other two are gonna wake up anywhere outside the castle. 

He stopped. Suddenly, he recalled a certain memory. 

It was back when I was a kid—yeah, back before they called this place Hollow Bastion. The first time they called it Radiant Garden. I met someone, and we kinda ended up friends. I hung out with him because I wanted to be remembered by as many people as possible and live forever. What was his name? 

Lea couldn’t recall, but the guy reminded him of someone else. Who was it? Memories from deep in Lea’s heart were resurfacing. Maybe turning human again was why he was suddenly remembering things from his childhood? No, he should’ve been able to remember all along. At the same time, the doubts he’d been holding ever since he became human again were beginning to come into focus.

Okay, very interesting. So I guess Axel didn’t remember Ventus during 358/2 Days, at least not consciously. He probably just felt like Roxas was familiar for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, and being around him always made him remember his childhood. It makes sense that Lea wouldn’t remember someone he met for just a few minutes from ten years ago. But as soon as he got his heart back, he remembered Ventus. His heart remembered. Ven was supposed to be a VERY important part of Lea’s story, way more than he was in KH3. And notice how Lea has time to think about someone he barely remembered, but not Subject X, who he supposedly was looking for the whole time. Hmm.

But even here, Lea couldn’t make the connection between the kid he met way back when and Roxas. He only just barely remembered him, I guess. But it proves that Lea didn’t think of Roxas as a different person from Sora yet. As far as Lea knew, Sora WAS Roxas, and Sora was his friend now. His whole journey in KH3D, meeting Mickey, getting a Keyblade, was to look for Isa. Roxas had nothing to do with it. Lea needed to reunite with Ventus and rekindle his friendship with him. His obsession with Roxas got really old, and I’m really disappointed he didn’t evolve past it in KH3. His development regressed.

Why did we go back to being human? Did something change us back? What is Xemnas up to this time? No, he must be Xehanort now. 

“Sheesh, what a mess…” Lea scratched his head. What am I supposed to do? 

He needed time to think it over. Lea slowly made his way back to the laboratory.

Lea was still quite suspicious even after becoming human again. He knew that since Braig was missing, Isa was probably in trouble. I don’t think Lea would ever believe Isa joined the organization of his own free will.

“Where are they? I’ve turned this castle upside down.” 

Aeleus was putting books back in their former places on the shelves in the lab. Lea had to wonder if that was really necessary right now, but maybe it was just a soothing task for him at the moment. 

I love how Lea is wondering whether it’s really necessary for Aeleus to organize those books right now. It sends the impression that Aeleus is a neat freak if organizing stuff calms him down. Compared to some of the others, Lea didn’t seem to hate Aeleus as much.

Ienzo was also organizing the desk. He seemed to be searching for something, but Lea couldn’t quite tell. The other two were missing. “Hey. Are the other two out cold?”

I wonder if Ienzo searching for something was supposed to be important. Probably. He was looking through a book.

“What a drag,” Lea said with a big sigh, then turned to Ienzo and offered the only answer he’d found. “Could they not have been recompleted at all?” 

It wasn’t completely beyond the realm of possibility; in fact, it actually made the most sense. Even if Ienzo did explain further, they’d still arrive at the same answer. The question is, what do I need to do now? 

“Well, you see—” 

“Ah! Forget it.” Lea interrupted Ienzo before he could say any more, then, after another look at the portrait of Xehanort, shifted his attention to some scribbled notes on the wall. 

Secrets of the worlds, secrets of the soul, and secrets of Kingdom Hearts, along with some faded words that had to be a password. DOOR TO DARKNESS. 

Oh, so we finally get to learn what that note scribbled on the wall actually said. It’s all about secrets, huh? Very interesting. It was probably gonna be shown how that note got on the wall in KH0.5. We’ll never get to see it though.

The Door to Darkness, huh? 

“You know what? I’ll bring ’em back myself,” he said. 

“Huh? How exactly?” Ienzo exclaimed, which prompted Aeleus to slowly stand up and look at him, too. 

“Why do I always get stuck with the icky jobs?” Lea complained, although he didn’t sound particularly upset by the idea. He slowly made his way out of the room.

Lea was more than happy to use the dark corridors to find Isa. He seemed to be quite familiar with the Door to Darkness, too. In KH3, Ienzo said that they couldn’t travel between worlds after being recompleted. So, Lea’s ability to use the dark corridors as a human was quite special.

“What’s the matter?” asked Dilan with a nasty smirk. “Did Master Ansem say something again?”

“No—there’s a visitor from somewhere else,” Even replied. “Apparently, there really are other worlds.”

Xehanort frowned. “What does that mean?”

“Someone calling himself the king of one of those worlds came to visit Master Ansem. And from his appearance, it’s obvious he is indeed from another world. Said his name is Mickey, I believe…”

“So, the opening of the door affects the worlds,” Ienzo said quietly.

Aeleus and Braig had nothing to add.

This is a passage from the KH2 novel. Apparently Braig and Aeleus were aware of other worlds before the others were. Maybe that’s why Aeleus reacted so strongly when Lea said he’d bring Braig and Isa back himself.

#kh3d #kh #kingdom hearts #kh axel #kh lea #kh isa #kh roxas

[nadziejastar]

No, I haven’t, at least not since back then. It’s crazy to think how much the characters have evolved since then. When I first played KH2, I never would have imagined that Axel and Saïx would have been friends as humans. I thought Axel hated Saïx, too. He just seemed like such a generic villain. And I certainly was never expecting them to be best friends. Of course, that unexpectedness is why I loved the twist so much. When I first played Days, I thought it was very strange that they were friends as humans, due to how different they were as Nobodies. Even in Days, they barely seemed like friends and didn’t get along very well. The most indication I got that they used to be very close was in Axel’s report, when he lamented how much Saïx had changed. That did intrigue me, but I didn’t know what to make of it.

It was only after I played BBS that I became really fascinated by their relationship. Because Isa was just so...normal. My first thought when I saw Isa was “Oh my God, baby Saïx is so cute?!” Isa had a totally different personality than Saïx, too. I understood why Lea was friends with him. They had a lot of chemistry and seemed very close. And then it showed them sneaking into the castle, so naturally I assumed that he and Lea were test subjects in the experiments. I always thought Axel was a former test subject, and that confirmed it for me. Their entire life story was so...sad. Even more than TAV, in my opinion. I hated how Lea was made into comic relief in KH3 because he was honestly such a heartbreaking character. And so was Isa. I hated how the tragedy of their story was completely trivialized and diverted to be about Skuld.

Isa was nothing like his Nobody and that made a great and unexpected twist. I always knew there was supposed to be a plot twist down the line that would show that Isa was possessed/controlled and that he would need to be rescued. Then their friendship would go back to the way it was when they were kids. KH is pretty predictable that way. There really was no point in someone like Saïx of all people being Axel’s best friend, if that were not the case. And what else was all that constant “best friends” stuff for if Lea and Isa being best friends was going to have such a minuscule effect on the story? If Axel’s real best friend was supposed to be Roxas (and Xion) all along, why even create a character like Isa? Such a waste.

I guess the old fanfics were not entirely wrong. Axel and Saïx couldn’t stand each other in KH2. Saïx was hunting Axel down to kill him, though he was doing so for more personal reasons than I ever imagined. He hated Axel for leaving him. He was kinda like a spurned lover, stalking their ex, lol. He was stalking Axel the same way Axel was stalking Roxas. And Axel “hated” Saïx, though his feelings turned out to be surprisingly complicated. Saïx broke his heart. It was very interesting to me because they had such a long history together and their relationship was so intense and personal. Saïx was the only character who knew Axel on an intimate level. He’s still the only character who knows the real Lea.

I must say, I have a really hard time going back to pre-Days Axel characterization, which is why I didn’t like him in KH3. KH3 pretty much threw away all of his post-KH2 development. I really, REALLY enjoyed the idea that Axel was so obsessed with Roxas being his “best friend” because he was so heartbroken over his horrifically messed up relationship with Saïx. That made his story a thousand times more interesting. Not only was that a fascinating concept, it perfectly explained Axel’s fixation on Roxas and made it a lot less weird to me. Axel’s real best friend was the guy who was trying to kill him the whole time. No wonder he was so emotionally unstable. That is exactly what Axel’s character needed. His obsession with Roxas was fine for a mentally disturbed, tragic, one-off antagonist who dies at the end. But for a permanent main character, they needed to explain that part of his personality and address it. It was a huge problem.

My impression was that many Axel-related fanfics back then were pretty shippy with him and Roxas. And Roxas was the only character who Axel was friends with back then, so it’s not really that surprising, I guess. But that’s why I wasn’t really as interested in Axel as a character before Days and BBS. I thought his relationship with Roxas was kinda interesting in KH2, since it was so unconventional. But I didn’t find it that compelling, either, since Axel and Roxas honestly didn’t seem to be that close. Actually, what made Axel so compelling to me was that he and Roxas weren’t close. Axel was just desperate for somebody to show him kindness, so naturally he gravitated to a character like Sora’s Nobody. His story was meant to be tragic in KH2. And since he was chasing after someone who he wasn’t even that close to, I did find it tragic.

Even back before Days, I hated Roxas and Axel as a pairing and I hated how romanticized it was in the fandom. It wasn’t even just the age difference, either (though that was a factor). A lot of people saw Axel’s obsession with Roxas as cute and endearing or even a beautiful display of romantic devotion. I certainly never did. To me, their relationship lacked emotional depth (intentionally so). They didn’t appear to understand or even know each other that well. It didn’t seem like Roxas knew very much about Axel and that turned out to be very true. Axel couldn’t talk about his life, his past, his true feelings, or anything of substance with Roxas. And Roxas didn’t really seem to have that strong of a connection to Axel, since he didn’t think Axel would even miss him. 

I don’t really like the fandom view of the sea-salt trio, either. They had cute moments, but...it wasn’t all that cutesy in the end. Axel always tried to fix Roxas’s problems, yet Axel never confided in Roxas even once. Roxas never worried about Axel like a best friend would. Axel and Roxas had an interesting friendship which definitely had the potential to grow into something more healthy and genuine if given enough time and development. But I certainly don’t think they were close enough friends to offer Axel a happy ending just by reuniting in KH3. When Riku went home in KH2 with Sora and Kairi, that was a happy ending. Those were his best friends. When Terra, Aqua, and Ven reunited and went home together, that was happy ending. They’re best friends. But Axel “ending up” with Roxas? That’s...not really a happy ending for him, because they were NOT best friends. If anything, I was looking forward to Lea and Roxas/Ventus rebooting their friendship, and having a fresh beginning, where they actually got to know each other. Not just rushing to an undeserved happy ending.

Axel’s obsession with Roxas always seemed to be due to his loneliness and desperation more than the super close bond he had with Roxas. Axel had nobody else in his life to show him the bare minimum of basic human interaction. Nobody. I actually could relate to how that feels since I came from a very dysfunctional background myself. There was a time when I was younger after my parents died, when I had absolutely nobody to talk to except for these two little kids I would babysit. I was in my early 20′s and they were around 10. About the same age difference between Axel and Roxas/Xion. I really was grateful to have their company during such a stressful period. I cared about them. Being around innocent kids has a very comforting effect on someone who is lonely. But it’s not like I could talk to them about anything important. 

If I started calling them my best friends, that would be...disturbing. This is why I see Axel and Roxas’s relationship for the sad thing it really was. That type of loneliness and desperation is really nothing to glorify. It’s not cute at all. It seemed like fans imagined their relationship being a lot more amazing than what it actually was. For me, the way Axel acted with Roxas in KH2 was, well...sad and pathetic. I thought it was supposed to be sad and pathetic. I liked that it was sad and pathetic because I understand how it feels to be sad and pathetic. It’s what made Axel such a memorable character and why I liked him so much in KH2. But that’s why I thought he deserved so much better than what Roxas could offer him. Before Days and BBS, Roxas was the only important relationship Axel had. But they still never felt that close to me. It was very hard for me to feel invested in their relationship. I always liked Axel, so I was happy he was given more depth in Days and BBS. And he needed a relationship with someone besides Roxas to give him that depth.

I’ve had Akuroku people accuse me of shipping bias in my assessment of Axel and Roxas’s relationship. But honestly, they have it backwards. I don’t criticize Axel/Roxas because of my preference for Lea/Isa. I loved Lea/Isa because I always found Axel/Roxas to be so lacking. My distaste for Axel/Roxas looong predated Isa’s existence. I loved Isa as a character so much because I thought he offered Axel what he really needed, which Roxas didn’t. Axel’s biggest issue was loneliness. Isa seemed to really adore Lea. He only came out of his shell for him. It was hinted that Isa worried about Lea’s physical and emotional well-being in a way Roxas never did with Axel. Sadly, KH3 seemed to go with the more cutesy and idealized version of Roxas/Axel than the more realistic and interesting version. So, Lea definitely got screwed out of having a real best friend.

#kh axel #kh #kh saix

[nadziejastar]

Lea/Axel was pretty clingy and had abandonment issues. In the books, he was willing to kill himself and Roxas just they could be best friends together forever. I feel so bad for him. He lost his old friend and his innocence to a cult and was desperate to feel love and friendship again. And when those got snatched away again he snapped, literally being ok with dying just so he could he see friends. He had some serious demons back then. Poor guy

Isa’s Connection to Ice Cream

Yes, Axel definitely had abandonment issues. He bitterly longed for his past and his innocence. I just cannot get over how everything about Lea and Isa in BBS was so happy and normal. Even Nomura said that both of them were just innocent frisbee-playing boys. They were portrayed a lot like Hayner’s gang, and the Wayfinder Trio in the old days. Very innocent and cute. It’s why Axel’s memories meant everything to him.

He desperately yearned to go back to those days. Lea deserved to have someone from his past, like everyone else. It made him FAR more interesting to me than simply being the big bro of the Sea-salt trio. The whole reason he ate ice cream was due to his past. The day where Lea and Isa are thrown out of the castle is a very important day. It’s as significant as the night before Aqua and Terra’s Mark of Mastery exam. And it has to do with ice cream.

Scrooge—An entrepreneur and shop owner from Disney Town. Hoping to take his already massive fortunes to cosmic levels, he moved to Radiant Garden with Merlin’s help.

I always got the impression that Axel’s ice cream addiction was an emotional thing—not just that he simply liked it that much. We never saw him eat it in KH2, but in Days, his favorite flavor was sea-salt. Just like Hayner’s gang. They represent childhood innocence. And Axel ate it ALL the time.

I have a theory. So, in BBS Scrooge took his business from Disney Town to Radiant Garden. This is how Lea is introduced to sea-salt ice cream. And Scrooge’s nephews were coming up with new flavors during that time. Ventus is the one who fixes their ice cream machine. And one of the songs in ice cream beat is called “Dessert Paradise.” It’s the only original song, made just for that mini-game.

Saïx’s Casual Gear is shaped like a banana and is called “Just Desserts” or “Dessert Time” in Japanese. It’s probably safe to assume that Isa had a sweet tooth. I think Lea and Isa ate at the ice cream shop all the time; probably every time they unsuccessfully tried to sneak into the castle and got thrown out. It was their routine, their own icing on the cake. If he likes fruit, Isa’s favorite flavor was probably “Double Crunch”, the one that was given to Ven if he wins the Million Dreams Award. Lea’s favorite was obviously sea-salt. And these memories had an enormous impact on him.

Axel had seen the trio out and about countless times, always talking and laughing. Roxas looked about the same age as them, actually.

Each one held an ice cream bar—sea-salt flavor, pale blue, and distinctly salty-sweet.

Axel was rather fond of it himself. Or rather, he remembered that he liked it.

“…Why don’t we get some ice cream first?”

I noticed a few things. While reading the novels, it didn’t even seem like Axel liked the taste of the ice cream—at least not anymore.

Axel: Man, I miss the old times. Still got it memorized? The day we met, when you got your new name, you and I sat right here, just like this and watched the sunset.

He took Roxas to eat ice cream on the day he got his new name. And in the opening of the Days movie, Axel watched Roxas enjoying his ice cream, but he looked reluctant to eat his. He braced himself, and then recoiled when he bit into it. It was way too salty for him, and he didn’t like it. It seemed as if he hadn’t eaten it in a long time. He only started when Roxas came, when he took him out as a treat. Then, he started getting nostalgic and began eating them non-stop.

Beside the small shop run by the Moogles, an unusual-looking elderly gent, Scrooge, was touting his wares with some blue ice cream in hand.

“Come one, come all, and have yourself a taste! Ice cream, ice cream, sweet, salty, and strange!”

“What’s that?” Lea ran up to check it out.

“Oh, young man, would you like one?”

“I’m…guessing they aren’t free?” Lea asked, jamming a hand into his pocket.

Scrooge hopped up and yelled, “Of course not! Are ye daft?!”

This is from the novel, of the epilogue with Lea and Isa. Are they free? LOL. Definitely sheltered. Lea’s just a kid. He didn’t have a lot of money. He was digging through his pockets. It’s like how Hayner and the gang had to take on odd jobs to get enough money to go to the beach, and get pretzels.

An important thing to note is that this was the day they ate sea-salt ice cream for the very first time! Scrooge just arrived and he just started selling it. Lea didn’t even know what it was. This was one of the happiest days of his life, and is no doubt burned into his memory. He met Ventus, and ate at Scrooge’s ice cream shop for the first time. Lea never looked happier than when Isa said he’d never forget him. Just like Aqua never looked happier than when she saw Terra and Ven arguing like brothers.

“Okay, I’ll take one…no, two!”

“Thank ye kindly!”

Lea handed over some munny and took the two ice popsicles from Scrooge, one of which he gave to Isa.

Despite being broke, Lea buys one for himself. And he still made sure to buy one for Isa, of course. One for each of them.

“It’s cold…,” Isa muttered as he took a bite.

“What’re you talking about? It’s ice cream; of course it’s cold. Got it memorized?”

“Salty, too.”

“But sweet!” Lea added, and Isa smiled a bit.

It’s rare to see Isa smile.

Isa seems like a deadpan type of person, who complains a lot, in jest. “This ice cream’s cold”. Lea’s like “yeah, no shit dummy!” That made Isa smile. I found it cute how Lea reacted when Isa smiled. He is more introverted, so it was rare to get a smile out of him. It gave me the impression that Lea constantly tried to make him smile and was happy when he did.

But, well, friendship means eating ice cream together, talking about stupid things, and laughing like this. Speaking of which, I wonder what that he’s up to….that guy, Ventus or whatever.

“We’ll get another shot at it.”

“Yeah,” Isa replied, gazing at the castle they had failed to infiltrate. Lea grinned and looked up at it, too.

Lea thinks about Ventus when talking about what friends do together. Is it just a coincidence that Roxas shows up, and Axel automatically wants to be his friend and eat ice cream with him?

Axel: C'mon, let’s get some ice cream.

Roxas: Why?

Axel: Whaddaya mean, why? Because we’re friends.

Roxas: So…friends are people who have ice cream together?

Axel: Sort of… That, or laugh at stupid stuff that doesn’t make any sense. Like those kids we just saw–they were friends. C'mon, I’ll show you how it works.

Axel said they were friends, like they had met before, and it was just a given. And he looked so flustered about it. The scene made me think it was a deliberate nod to when he met Ventus.

Axel: It’s sea-salt ice cream. C'mon, I already told you once. Get it memorized, man.

Roxas: It’s really salty…but sweet, too.

And later that day, Roxas sees that he had a WINNER stick. I couldn’t help but notice that Saïx also looked at his popsicle stick in KH3, like it was a WINNER, too. It honestly kills me that we had a potential storyline where Isa was involved with that whole idea, and I’ll never get to know what it was about. It makes me so sad.

“Oh, hey, I just remembered…” Axel idly kicked his dangling feet against the ledge.

“Did you guys know you should be checking your ice cream sticks?”

“Really? For what?” asked Xion.

“Once you finish your ice cream bar, check the stick. It might say ‘Winner.’ Not that I’ve ever seen one.”

Apparently Axel had never seen a WINNER stick before. I definitely think Isa was going to have a much larger importance to Axel’s sea-salt ice cream addiction than we ever learned. I think ice cream was fundamental to their friendship, and Axel’s memories. Isa probably knew that Lea was hoping to get a winning stick. Lea met Ven by picking up the wooden Keyblade Terra gave him, after he was left all alone. So, I would not be surprised if the WINNER stick had a special meaning with Isa, too. After Roxas left it for Axel, it probably made him doubly sad.

Axel: Pfft, me? I didn’t do anything.

Xion: Sure you did. If you hadn’t spoken up for us this morning, me and Roxas would’ve had to split up.

Roxas: And then Xion might never have remembered how to use the Keyblade.

Xion: Thanks, Axel.

Axel: Ahem… How ‘bout an ice cream, then?

Xion: Huh?

Axel: Buy me one, and we’ll call it even.

On the day Xion and Roxas thank Axel for defending them from Saïx, he looks away with a troubled expression. Then he says an ice cream will make them even. He needed an ice cream to deal with the distance between him and Saïx.

Aqua’s eyes never left Terra as he walked away. She had no idea what to do, and her chest ached. Her fingers tightened around her Wayfinder.

It was part of a set, to keep them together no matter where they were. Their hearts were connected, after all.

But—had she made a mistake?

It’s like when Aqua clutched the wayfinder tightly when Terra distanced himself from her. She’d always take it out and hold it when she needed comfort. It represented her unbreakable connection with her friends. I think the ice cream was the same for Axel. He found such comfort in ice cream because it represented his memories of the past—specifically of Isa. He eats it all the time as a form of self-medication. It helped him feel closer to the Isa of his memories.

Axel ducked into the sweets shop. “One ice cream, please!”

“Here you go.”

Sea-salt ice cream in hand, he meandered toward the clock tower.

He’d never deluded himself that tracking down Riku would be easy, and neither had Saïx. It was just that if he went back and reported that he couldn’t find anything, he would have to deal with those attempts at “personality”—the sneers, the snide remarks, the only trappings of human emotion that Saïx ever showed. Not that Saïx was even capable of annoyance or disappointment, of course, what with the lack of a heart and all.

Heading up the slope to the station, Axel bit into the ice cream bar. “This stuff is so salty,” he murmured to himself, as he often did.

Axel often murmured to himself about the ice cream’s saltiness. And he was thinking about Saïx’s lack of emotion in this scene. Of course, he’d want to soothe himself with childhood memories in that moment. Memories like the first time he and Isa had sea salt ice cream together. The same day they met Ven, and Isa told him he’d never forget him. Isa complained that the ice cream was salty, then Lea made him smile. Axel was thinking he’d never see Isa smile again. So he ate ice cream to soothe himself.

Axel: Does it hurt, Naminé? Watching your two childhood friends fight all because of you? You have my sympathies. From the heart. But don’t waste your time. We Nobodies can never hope to be somebodies.

Axel doesn’t visibly show sadness too often. He guards his emotions well. But when he spoke with Naminé, he had the look of pure heartbreak and dejection. Sora and Riku reminded him of his broken friendship with Isa. He didn’t want them to go through what he did. Axel had the same look Aqua had on Destiny Islands. 

She couldn’t even pass the Keyblade on to Sora. She didn’t want them to go through what she did. These were the most vulnerable looks I’d seen on either of them. Downplaying Lea’s relationship with Isa is like downplaying Aqua’s relationship with Terra. Her fractured relationship with him was the main source of her pain! It’s like saying that Aqua doesn’t need Terra anymore because she met Riku, who reminds her of him. Even when she had Ven, she wasn’t happy until Terra was saved.

“Yep, hard to believe there are so many worlds out there besides our own. The light is their hearts, and it’s shining down on us like a million lanterns.”

Aqua, too, gazed up at the sky as she listened to Terra’s words.

Yes, the light was the radiance of the world’s heart. The hope of the people living within that world.

Terra taught Ven about where the light of the stars comes from.

The sun sank lower and lower as Axel watched, his mind wandering.

If he stared for too long, the image would burn itself into his eyes, visible even after his eyes were closed.

A phantom sun.

Someone had once told him why sunsets were red… Who was that?

The novel hinted that it was Isa who told Lea why the sun sets red.

“An unbreakable connection.” Aqua raised her blue charm skyward. “No matter where we go, we’ll never truly be apart. And that power will see us through, I know it.”

“…Unbreakable connections, huh?”

Ven held his good luck charm up to the sky, too.

Our bond will never break, with or without these, thought Terra.

This was the night Aqua gave her friends the wayfinders. She used magic on them so that they’d always find their way back to each other. She looked at the stars and said they would always be together.

“Yeah. As long as we remember one another, we’ll never be apart. Got it memorized?”

Roxas grinned. “Who are you, and what have you done with Axel?”

“Hey! I tried, okay?” All that effort to cheer them up, and they just turned it into a punch line. Chagrined, he looked away.

Xion burst into giggles, and then, as if it was contagious, Roxas started laughing, too.

“Oh, c’mon, it’s not that funny!” Axel scolded.

That was also the day Axel looked at the sunset, and said that as long as he had memories, he’d never have to be apart from anyone. The day he said an ice cream would make it even. When Terra said Aqua never stopped lighting his way back, that was the most emotional she had ever been. That unbreakable connection meant everything to her. And I’ve never seen Lea look as happy as when Isa handed him the ice cream. He had the look of perfect bliss. His memories meant everything to him.

#kh meta #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts meta #kh lea #kh axel #kh isa #kh leaisa #kh isalea #kh akusai

[nadziejastar]

“These Heartless here are the last, I think.”

“Xion, fight fight fight~” Axel clapped, as she turned around.

“What are you doing?”

“What am I doing… I’m praising you, you know.”

“You’re weird,” said Xion, laughing. Just then, Axel suddenly felt like Xion’s face had blurred, and he rubbed his eyes.

“Is something wrong, Axel?”

“Nah…” For a second, the Xion I saw there had the face of… Naminé.

I know. Pretty much everything about his character revolved around being Norted. It was the only way to make him sympathetic. Day 117 ~Secrets~ is a LOT like Day 95 ~Nobodies~. Both days are about special Nobodies. On Day 117, Axel sees Xion as Naminé. It happened while he was praising Xion with his “fight fight fight” line. Afterwards they head to the clock tower. Xion talks about her memories and it’s stated that she and Roxas have so much in common again. Axel also says his memories have never done him any good. It’s just like Day 95 where he said memories are baggage. But this time, Xion mentions the seashells. Axel knew they represented Sora and Kairi’s promise.

“You sure did,” Xion told him with a grin, slipping the seashell back in her pocket. “We finished our ice cream ages ago.”

Roxas sat down beside her. “Xigbar cut and run. I had to finish the mission on my own.”

“Sounds like you earned yourself the treat,” said Axel. Not wasting any more time, Roxas dug in. Axel pocketed the stick from his own ice cream.

Interestingly, I noticed that Axel put the stick in his pocket that day right after Xion put her shell in her pocket. I think the WINNER stick meant a LOT more to Axel than he ever told Roxas or Xion. He was probably lying when he said he didn’t know what it meant.

Xigbar, standing and watching their exchange with his arms folded, opened his mouth. “You’ve been working really well lately haven’t you, Poppet.”

“…Thank you,” Xion replied in a small voice.

“Thank you? Why do you have to say thanks?

“Well, you were praising me, weren’t you? Was I wrong?”

“Haha… Yeah, I guess you could see it like that.” He pressed his hand to his mouth and snickered.

“Did I say something funny?”

“No, no. You’re fine.”

If Saïx was interested in their conversation, he gave no indication.

A couple days later, Xigbar praises Xion in front of Saïx, and it closely resembles the praising that Axel gave Xion. I think Xion absorbed Axel’s memory and Xigbar was able to see it.

“Finally! We got ’em all!” Sora’s Keyblade descended upon the last Dusk. He heard someone applauding.

“All in a day’s work!” He couldn’t help striking a pose as he turned. But instead of an awestruck spectator, he found someone from the organization.

“Impressive.” Saïx kept on clapping dryly as he strode closer to the trio, who were still poised to fight.

“What do you want?!” Sora demanded.

Saïx paused to speak deliberately. “Have you seen a man named Axel? I believe he’s here somewhere…”

I definitely think Axel’s memory involved praising Isa. In KH2, Saïx starts praising Sora and clapping while he’s looking for Axel. And this is the scene where he mentions that he’s a special Nobody who remembers what having a heart was like. Which is very similar to what Axel said on Day 95. It must have been this particular memory that stared to awaken Isa’s heart inside of Saïx, because after this Saïx’s behavior changes a lot. He gets really nasty with Xion. 

I found it amusing how he was depicted in the chapter called “The Wrong Button”. Because I think that’s exactly what happened. Xion pushed the wrong button by bringing back an important memory for Saïx. And since Axel had started to grow a heart, it awakened Saïx’s heart, too. It was actually kinda endearing how childish he was acting, because he’s a Nort. I think his feelings for Axel started to come back very strong and he did NOT know how to handle it at all. If you don’t take the fact that he was Norted into account, you ruin the entire meaning behind his bizarre behavior.

“What’s wrong?” Axel asked. “Not hungry?”

At least, I can tell from her voice that she’s female. But, I don’t know a single thing other than that. And, I don’t really like hanging out with girls. Press the wrong button, and women fly into a bad mood.

Roxas looked into Xion’s face. “Did something happen?”

Xion stayed silent. With no other choice, Axel opened his mouth. “If you’ve got troubles, you tell them to your friends… right? Roxas.”

When Axel first met Xion, he was worried that she would fly into a bad mood over nothing simply because she was a girl.

“So, Saïx, what am I doing to—? Oh, boy. Awfully early for such a bad mood, don’t you think?” Saïx had whirled to face him with a rather pronounced scowl.

“…Nobodies do not have ‘moods’ to be ruined,” he said at length.

“Well, sure, technically…”

Of course, with no hearts, they couldn’t have moods or fits of temper. If something went frustratingly awry, their faces might reveal shadows of remembered emotion, no more. Still, for a remembered shadow, that was a mean glower on Saïx’s face.

But the only one who got in a bad mood like that was Saïx. He started to get in a really bad mood after Xion fainted. He was acting exactly like the stereotypical woman Axel was talking about. Axel tried to approach him delicately, but it didn’t work.

“Did something happen?”

“Not really…” He’s a bad liar. I can pick it straight away. But, I guess that isn’t concrete proof that something did happen. Something must have happened that Roxas didn’t understand the reason for either, thought Axel. An emotion somewhere in my memories.

Roxas hit the wrong button with Xion, and Axel knew what that was like.

“Did something happen?”

“Xion has collapsed again.”

Axel frowned. That’s certainly an undesirable affair. “…Was Xion unwell or something?”

“No,” Saïx replied, any hint of expression vanishing from his face. “It’s just that the failure was functioning better than expected until recently.”

“‘The failure’? Is that what we’re calling her now?”

Saïx said Xion was functioning better than expected. And I think that has to tie into the memory of Axel going “fight fight fight”. Isa was doing better than expected and Lea was praising him. Then something bad happened. He was probably targeted because Isa was Lea’s weakness, and Isa felt like a failure afterwards. Xion reminded him of this and he takes these feelings out on her. Like a little kid.

Axel kept speaking. “There’s something special only born between people who are even more than friends… that’s love.”

“More than friends… So, best friends?”

“It’s a bit different than best friends…” Axel searched for words that Roxas could understand easily.

I noticed the particular wording of the way Axel described love to Roxas.

“Well, this is a rare occasion.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you hardly ever come looking for me these days.”

“So? I’ve got something to discuss with you, for a change.”

“Very funny,” Saïx remarked flatly. He’s being sarcastic… Joking, in other words.

Saïx had made up his mind not to say such things in front of the other Organisation members. It was something he could only be towards Axel, something special that could only have been born from the relationship Saïx and Axel had had as humans.

And...it just sounded so similar to the description of the way Saïx acted around Axel during all of the drama with Xion. Saïx started pouting and getting sassy that Axel doesn’t visit him very much anymore. Then they proceed to argue like an old married couple when Saïx starts bitching when Axel sits on his shelf.

But, I wonder why I can’t help being sarcastic about it.

“Don’t tell me I was one of those?” Axel asked, laughing, and the scars on Saïx’s forehead moved slightly along with his expression. Looks like he didn’t appreciate that joke.

It’s kind of the opposite of when Axel first came back from Castle Oblivion. Axel was being sarcastic, trying to figure out if Saïx was worried about him. Saïx was all business back then. After the whole Xion incident, Saïx started acting like a passive-aggressive clingy ex-girlfriend, LOL.

“Girls are complicated, aren’t they,” muttered Axel, and Roxas looked up at him, surprised.

“How did you know I was thinking about Xion?”

“Cause you’re simple, Roxas… Well, all us Nobodies are simple, though.”

Axel called Roxas simple when he was worrying about Xion.

“Is it about the failure?”

Axel shrugged. “Mind reader, are we?”

“It’s because you’re simple, see… That hasn’t changed.”

“Simple—you’re a rude bugger,” Axel replied, sitting down on a shelf right opposite Saïx.

And Saïx called Axel simple for doing the same thing, LOL.

“Well…just make sure you give her some space.”

“What? Why?” He sounded frustrated.

“Because if you rush in trying to fix things, you’ll just hit more buttons. Trust me on this one.”

Roxas sighed again. “Fine… I guess.”

He slumped into a pile, just like a boy with a heart.

Axel told Roxas to give Xion some space when she was going through her issues.

“That Genie we met seemed really worried about his friend Al,” Xion remarked eventually. “But then he said he’d respect his friend’s decisions. I guess you can’t just jump in and do everything for them, even if you want to.” Idly swinging her legs, she took another bite.

“Yeah. People need their space.” Axel cocked his head in thought. He must have heard that somewhere, a long time ago, back when he was human.

And when Axel heard about the Genie, he said he felt like he heard that a long time ago when he was human. Makes me wonder if Isa had a moody period like Xion when he was struggling to perform up to expectations. He thought Lea was helping him do everything and it made him feel useless. And he became dramatic over it. And all of those feelings were coming back for Saïx. 

“Where’s Kairi?!” Sora shouted toward the voice. Saïx looked down at them from the stage. 

“Kairi…? Oh, I expect she’s catching up with her friend from the darkness,” he said as if it were nothing of much concern.

“What’s that mean?!” Sora demanded.

“She doesn’t need you anymore.” Saïx smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes.

Saïx’s words to Sora were telling. Sora came to rescue Kairi, to be her hero. And Saïx said Kairi didn’t need Sora anymore. He smiled, but it was a fake smile. He was trying to convince himself he didn’t need Axel anymore and he was failing miserably. As a Nort, I find him sympathetic. But as a normal person, his behavior obviously makes no sense.

The blue-haired man had been the very first to join the organization after the founding members. He should have been special. The way number 13—Roxas, wielder of the Keyblade—was special. Axel was not. And yet…He remembered what the witch Naminé had said. Axel seemed lonely. 

The man himself had denied it, but she was absolutely right. Axel was lonely. He’d lost Roxas. Lonely. Didn’t that mean he had a heart? How had he gained one? Why only him? Was it an effect of his contact with the boy, or was there something else at work?

Saïx was jealous of Axel because he wanted to be special.

“Riku! No!” Naminé screamed, running in front of Saïx to stand in the way. “Don’t let the darkness control your heart. You’ve beaten it back before. You made it your strength, remember? You can’t let him trick you!”

“You have no part in this!” Saïx slapped her across the face, hard enough to throw her to the ground.

“I feel bad for you, too,” she told him.

“What are you talking about?” Saïx towered over Naminé.

“You haven’t even noticed yet…that you have a heart.” Several Nobodies emerged from a rift out of the corridors.

“A heart? I have a heart? No one wants your nonsense!” Saïx raised his sword over Naminé—but Riku was there with Soul Eater to intercept the blow.

“Hmph. I don’t have time for these games.” Darkness welled from a rift behind Saïx. “Run along and help your dear hero.” With that, he disappeared.

“Are you all right?” Riku helped Naminé to her feet.

“Now I understand…,” she murmured.

Naminé was able to view the memories of Riku that Xion absorbed. Maybe this is why she said she understood when Saïx said to go help your “dear hero”. If she saw one of Axel’s memories, she understood who he was.

“The darkness took advantage of the weakness in you—in your heart. But your indomitable hope kept it at bay,” said Ansem. “You made the darkness your strength, and—

”“Is that all you came here for? To tell me this?” Riku interrupted.

Ansem quietly shook his head. “Naminé, Roxas, and Xemnas… The Nobodies of those with strong hearts are peculiar beings. My—that is, our theories proved fruitless. Coming into contact with a strong heart transforms a world. And not just worlds, but people themselves—and even Nobodies.”

Naminé, head lowered and hand extended with the ice cream for Riku, perked up upon hearing those words.

That’s it… Yes. The mystery of the heart. When we encounter someone special…the world changes. Our hearts change. Everything changes.

What Ansem says to Riku in this exchange is very similar to what Naminé told him when he was fighting Saïx. This was the secret of the heart. Nobodies born of a strong heart can grow a new one, which is not what he thought originally. It can happen when they encounter someone special. In Axel’s case, Roxas and Xion were special, but everything about his relationship with them revolved around the fact that they brought back memories.

Then someone else spoke behind him. “I’ve been waiting for you, Axel.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d show up.” His smirk turned nastier as he turned to see Saïx. He didn’t take his eyes off the other man as he spoke to the girl in the cage.

“Listen, Kairi! Trust me. I’m going to get you out!” Behind him, the portal closed.

“What are you saying…? Vile traitor!” The great Claymore took shape at Saïx’s back. Axel didn’t waste a second grabbing his chakrams. But his body was reluctant somehow. I don’t want to disappear… But still, it wouldn’t be so bad if I did. Not here.

This is the very next scene after the one about the secret of the heart. Saïx was able to awaken a heart by coming into contact with someone special. But that heart was captured by Xehanort. That makes him an incredibly sad character.

#kh saix #kh axel #kh akusai