#kingdom hearts meta analysis

[rosie-kairi]

I don't think I've ever really spoken in depth about how much I love Lauriam as a character, which is honestly a crime because out of all the Union Leaders I'd probably have to crown him as my number one favorite.

I love Lauriam not only as a character (pink, sibling plotline) but also as an example of how much prequels can recontextualize an entire character. While Ventus is also an example of this, I think we all knew that he probably had some sort of messed up past that landed him in the clutches of Old Man Xehanort. Marluxia, on the other hand, had absolute zero background to infer from his screentime. He was the villain, you're not really meant to think too hard about him and how he became who he is because he sucks and you hate him.

I don't think there were many people chomping at the bit wanting to get info about his past. Like, it would've been cool to get, but I don't think a background for Marluxia was necessary for the story at that point in time. His role was to establish the organization as a threat to Sora and the other guardians, and that was pretty much the extent of it.

And then Union X happened, and Lauriam entered stage right into a tragedy where his fate was already sealed. You look at Lauriam with his polite little smiles and cute little chibi animations and immediately think "what is this man up to" because you are already primed to distrust him on principle due to COM. Did not help his case that he was introduced in the cutscene immediately following the death of Strelitzia, painting a huge target on his back. Fandom reaction was hostile towards him before he was even fully on screen. Occam's Razor, the most obvious answer is the correct one. Lauriam is the obvious suspect because of his actions in the future, so he must be the killer. Literally him just existing in a scene caused more ire to build against him.

But then the Shift Pride cutscene happened. Then it was revealed that Lauriam and Strelitzia -the girl who so many thought he killed- were siblings, and that he was quite worried for her wellbeing, actually.

Every cutscene a clearer picture of who Lauriam is a person was painted, and soon you stopped looking at him with distrust, and it's replaced with the question of "What happened to you?". What happened that caused Lauriam, someone who has been shown to care deeply and immensely about the people he loves, someone who is willing to do anything for those people, become Marluxia? It became increasingly obvious that they were incredibly different people, even though Marluxia came from Lauriam.

And this isn't to say that there was no connection between the two. Lauriam seemed to be incredibly self-confident in his abilities, enough to be pretty steadfast in his resolve to square up with goddamn Maleficent of all people (even if he did get his ass kicked). There's also his very intense anger, as seen in the cutscene where Ventus confesses to being the reason why Strelitzia "vanished", as well as a bit in the scene where he's at Ventus's bedside.

This is all to say that Lauriam was not a necessary addition to the khux cast, he very well could've been swapped with a random new character and the plot probably would've worked fine, all things considered. But because it's Lauriam -the somebody of a character that has already been established to be a prick- it gives his whole plotline a hell of a lot more punch. If it was a new character, people probably wouldn't have been as distrusting of him right of the bat, the sibling plotline would be sweet, but because it's Lauriam and we know how he ends up in the future, it becomes a hell of a lot more tragic. How did the change happen? He's tragic because we know that whatever he does will lead to the outcome of him losing his heart and falling to darkness, something that is essentially the exact antithesis of the keyblade wielder mission statement.

Lauriam is someone who was made to struggle against the destiny that was written out for him with a neat pen and ink, and someone who was doomed to fail in every regard. He could not save his sister, he could not defeat Maleficent, he could not help Ventus, he could not keep his memories when thrown into the future. He couldn't do anything about it.

I realize this is all rounding back around to "the inherent tragedy of prequels" but it's true.

...and yeah that's basically it. I have a lot more thoughts about this guy but I feel like if I write anymore I'm just gonna sound completely incomprehensible bc I'm very tired. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to sparkle on

#Rosie rambles #lost the plot a bit but I think it's decently comprehensible #kingdom hearts union x #khux #kh lauriam #lauriam #kh marluxia #marluxia #character analysis #meta #i think

[andrewwtca]

Maybe I'm just looking way too deep into this, but I think the reason that BBS uses a command system instead of letting you freely use skills and magic because Masterhood requires you to discipline yourself and do things 'by the book'

And that's why in both BBS and DDD a command system is used, because the primary goals is to become a Master. You want to do things 'correctly' so that you can prove that you really understand how a Keyblade works.

(and also, funnily enough, the ones who seem to have the most freedom in this rigid system is Ven and Sora, who only want to be Masters by association of their friends)

And then in KH3, even though Sora was technically trying to be a Keyblade Master alongside Riku, he goes back to the normal action commands menu, because Sora never truly cared for being a master. But.... even then...

The game lets you play as Riku and Aqua, who have become Keyblade Masters, and the combat system doesn't change (and don't you dare stop me here and say, 'Andrew that's because it would be silly to change a combat system for two briefly playable characters' BECAUSE THAT'S NOT THE POINT). They've grown from the games where they achieved Masterhood and they realized the limitations of their teachers and of Mastery itself.

Aqua realized how fragile the balance truly is and Riku, time and time again, learned that doing things 'by the book' entails completely denying the darkness. Both of their struggles stem from darkness - Aqua rejecting it and Riku being unable to reject it. And they learn that the books were wrong: darkness can't be eliminated. They realize how their teachers have failed them, to an extent, and don't hold themselves to their exact teachings.

But, this is only a small example of breaking the toxic cycle their Masters taught them and RIKU IS STILL THE PRIMARY ONE TO LEAD THE CHANGE TO TRULY ACCEPTING BOTH LIGHT AND DARK (ROAD TO DAWN), AND OF COURSE, RIKU ONLY FINDS THE LIGHT BECAUSE OF SORA AND SORA ALSO HAS DARKNESS HE NEEDS TO ACCEPT, SO THEY'RE BOTH THE ONES TO LEAD THE CHANGE, SO THE COMMAND SYSTEM ACTUALLY PROVES SORIKU ENDGAME ANDliterary analysis is my special interest

#stuff from twitter #kingdom hearts #kh meta #soriku #soriku endgame actually #birth by sleep #dream drop distance #kh3 #that last part was literally just that essay I wrote LMFAO #it goes to show how endgame soriku is #literary analysis is my special interest

[autumn-may]

Rewatching the KHDR cutscenes and it really is fascinating how obvious the Bragi/Luxu thing is on a second playthrough. Like we all know the Brain/Bragi/Braig name similarities and stuff but it is very interesting how close Bragi seems to Eraqus.

It makes a lot of sense if you’re thinking of Luxu, of course he’d want to stay close Eraqus, he’s the living legacy of the keyblade masters of old, it’s a sure bet he’d be important, and isn’t it his role to keep an eye on anything that looks like it matters?

idk just something I’ve been thinking about

#Khdr #khdr spoilers #kingdom hearts dark road #kh Bragi #Kh luxu #Kh meta #kh analysis #Young Eraqus

[tennelleflowers]

Turns out I’ve got more to say about Riku >:3c

#kingdom hearts #kh #soriku #riku #kingdom hearts 3 #video #meta #analysis

[descendant-of-truth]

The data characters in Coded are endlessly fascinating to me because like... they're so much like the originals. But everything is shifted just enough to the left that they feel different, and a little off if you think about it long enough.

Probably the main thing that stands out is that they all start out with different "base memories" from each other, if you will. The only thing Data Sora knows is that he grew up on the islands with his friends, but Data Riku has an encyclopedic knowledge of everything that happened in KH1. Data Namine knows what happened in CoM, and Data Roxas remembers up to the end of the KH2 prologue.

None of them are caught up to the present. The events of KH2 don't exist to them, because those events are written in a different journal.

But you can't even say that Data Sora is "just" Sora from before he started his journey, because almost as soon as the game starts, there's something wrong with that picture.

It's a little hard to explain, but Sora seems... remarkably unconcerned with his surroundings. He accepts whatever Mickey tells him without a second thought, even if he admits (still much too casually) that he doesn't understand what's going on.

(Not to mention that the giant, eye-catching blocks around him are things he doesn't even acknowledge until prompted by Mickey to "look for anything odd.")

But probably the biggest difference between the two Soras when they're starting out is that the journey isn't personal for Data Sora. He doesn't dwell on the islands being lost, and more importantly, he isn't looking for his friends. He doesn't even think about his friends. The first time Riku's name comes out of his mouth is when he literally shows up in front of him.

The early parts of Coded really make the "data" part of Data Sora apparent, I think. He's kind and brave like Sora, he has his mannerisms down, but he feels a bit hollow. There's nothing that's really important to him yet; he just goes along with things as they happen to him.

And then he loses the Keyblade and Riku at the same time, which is the first event to prompt genuine distress from him that he doesn't quickly bounce back from.

This is when Data Sora goes from a passive protagonist to more of an active one - something that the original Sora was from the start. He finally disobeys a request from Mickey, going to Hollow Bastion by himself in order to save Riku.

It's only there that he finally starts to process what having friends means, though, courtesy of Donald and Goofy's guidance... which the original Sora had ever since Traverse Town, by the way. Mickey wasn't a bad mentor to Data Sora, necessarily, but he was a lot more objective-focused, and thus didn't do a lot to help foster a deeper understanding of certain things in him.

Another thing I find interesting - the original Sora lost his Keyblade before going through Hollow Bastion, too, but the way they each get them back is different. Sora makes a rousing speech about how his friends are his power, and his conviction in that summons it back:

While Data Sora summons his back in a moment of fear, and a desire to protect his friends from being crushed:

He even fights a possessed Riku like Sora did, but the dynamic between them is much different on both ends. Originally, Sora was really fed up with Riku, and didn't know the full extent that he was being manipulated. (Also Riku stole the Keyblade and his friends by extension from him, so he's understandably kind of mad about that)

Meanwhile, Riku's villainous sass was on full display, mocking Sora for having a weak heart and saying he would get destroyed by the darkness. This was probably the worst terms they've been on with each other.

In Coded, there's no bad blood between them, and Data Sora knows exactly how much Riku isn't acting of his own accord. So his tone becomes one of unambiguous concern, while Riku wants so much to not fight Sora that he asks to be destroyed instead.

And because Ansem just... doesn't seem to exist in the datascape, Sora is able to bring Riku back with him much faster than the original could, so the motivation that made CoM and KH2 possible in the first place is gone entirely.

Data Sora's journey leads him to the same places as Sora's, and the story beats are similar, but his experiences are unmistakably different. Which is what makes the way Data Riku talks about things especially fascinating.

He makes a lot of references to the original events of KH1, and talks like he and Data Sora are inextricable from it. "I always seem to give in," "you once turned into a Heartless," "you would have saved us." He never completely separates the events of the datascape from those in the real world, treating Riku's failings as his own, saying that Data Sora lost his heart and doesn't remember it.

Data Roxas and Namine are the same way - it's actually Sora who's the odd one out, who doesn't give his original a second thought most of the time. It's only when other people attribute Sora's experiences to him that he, somewhat mistakenly, adopts that information into his worldview.

(No, Sora, that's not your Heartless. No, you weren't on a journey to find Riku and Kairi. That was a different guy. You don't even know Kairi for some reason. Add him to the list of people that live in Sora's shadow along with Roxas and Xion)

I don't know what the conclusion is here exactly, just that there's something about the way the data characters are so different but similar at the same time to the people they're based on that's really engaging to me.

I mean, one of Sora's biggest fears seems to be turning into someone else, or just being a copy of another person, as we saw in DDD. Data Sora is a Sora who's a copy, and he's kind of just... fine with that. He's content with what he has. Even when his memories are a complete mess by the end of the game, he accepts the situation as it is and keeps moving forward.

Anyway I could keep going but for now I'll leave it at "and that's why the data characters should show up again in future games"

#kingdom hearts #kh coded #kh recoded #data sora #data riku #analysis #meta #This was mostly just an excuse for me to talk about how good Data Sora is again whoops #but honestly he deserves all the appreciation he can get

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Hi,

Do you ever think on the first conversation Inej and Kaz had in Heleen's office? It feels like theres a lot there and I wondered if you have any thoughts on it. I come back a lot to when Inej asks Kaz if he convinced Per Haskell to buy out her indenture because "you like Suli girls" and Kaz answers "i don't know enough Suli girls to say"

that's a very interesting sort of snarky answer to me because he refutes the idea that he's the type to fetishize the Suli culture to the point of being "into" Suli women just because they are Suli. But also he doesn't just shut down the idea of him being into anyone. Which ... This is post Imogen debacle, he's resigned himself to not being "into" anyone at this point for several years. He doesn't care how people see him for it either. He could have been ruder or more just more direct about this, but he wasn't. And its like that with many of his early actions towards Inej. He's nicer than you'd think he'd be and its interesting becuase i don't get a sense that Kaz fell for Inej "at first sight", i think his love for her was gradual and snuck up on him (heh) so really everything he did at first and especially not demanding she gets a dregs tatto must have been from some basic sense of compassion, although he'd shank me for saying so.

Also, i always wondered how Kaz explained to Haskell why Inej didnt get a tattoo, then i re-read the books recently i realized omg i bet he totally probably just didn't?! Inej wasn't the type talk about it, she wears concealing clothes and is not very seen/social within the gang so my theory is that lazy ass Haskell didnt ask and assumed she got a tatto and kaz just let the assumption happen. Do you think that's believable?

Hi, thanks so much for your question - and so sorry it’s taken me an eternity to reply!

When I tell you that I think about this meeting once a week… well I’m hoping that you think “woah so cool she knows so much and thinks so in depth about these characters literary analysis is awesome” and not “Jesus Christ she’s insane”. But genuinely, the Kanej meeting is something I think about a lot and I think holds an awful lot of meaning.

The “you like Suli girls” “I don’t know enough Suli girls to say” to me is such a wonderful moment because, as you quite rightly said, it immediately refutes Kaz’s endorsement of the hyper-sexualisation of Suli culture that we see so prevalently in Kerch / Ketterdam (I’ve gone into this at length before but in a whistle stop tour think about the way the Menagerie customers talk about Inej and place so much emphasis on her skin colour, her bedroom at the Menagerie being a “farcical” version of a Suli caravan, the way “the Menagerie always stocked a Suli girl”, the Rare Spices billboard, etc). And this is so important for so many reasons, but in particular because the second Heleen exits the room and she’s alone with Kaz, Inej immediately tenses at the assumption that he is going to rape or assault her- “braced herself for what would come next, fingers twisting in her silks”. And what happens instead? He asks her for her name. Her name, that has been ignored and erased for an entire year as yet another roll of dehumanisation piled against her. Even though the pair discuss and make a clear understanding of the fact that this isn’t some kind of rescue mission and Inej’s world isn’t going to suddenly fix itself, this moment makes an instant connection for Inej between Kaz Brekker and safety. Because somehow, despite everything that’s happening, this moment in Tante Heleen’s office is the safest Inej has felt for an entire year. It’s also interesting that you mentioned he doesn’t shut down the idea of not being interested in anyone and I definitely agree with that, personally I don’t believe that Kaz is asexual although I know some people headcanon him that way it’s just not something that works for me and my perception of his character, and that’s because of situations like his attraction to Imogen and several situations he’s in with Inej. His exact words when considering being with Imogen are “he knew the things he was supposed to want. He did want those things”, which to me very clearly shows that he does experience sexual attraction and sexual desire, and the limiting factor is his ptsd and touch aversion rather than his sexuality/orientation. I agree that Kaz and Inej didn’t experience a love at first sight kind of moment, but I do think that this meeting really solidified their relationship to a level of immediate understanding between them, in essence an acknowledgment of them being “twin soldiers, marching on, pretending they were fine”. They are both able to see the other, clock that they understand to some extent, and respect each other.

Kaz is quite abrasive in this scene, but what always gets me is how confrontational Inej is able to be - “And what happens when you take their money, and you become a rich man?”. (The quote is something to that effect, sorry I don’t have my book with me right now). I think that a big aspect of her being able to summon the confidence to put herself against him so immediately is that she genuinely feels this level of safety with him, because this far he represents the opposite of everything that had tormented her. Or at the very least the polar end of a spectrum that she has been tormented by another part of. And controversially to the image of everything Inej has experienced in the Barrel so far, Kaz is amused by and enjoys her standing up to him, in fact he almost seems endeared by it saying “Then you can steal all my secrets too”.

And ohh the tattoo, or lack thereof, makes me so happy! It doesn’t require much reading between the lines to understand the relevance of Kaz not forcing Inej to take the Dregs tattoo on, she even says herself that he refused to be the one who marked her again, but I love the idea that he didn’t actually tell anyone she’s not got it!! I hadn’t considered this before but it makes perfect sense with everything we know about Inej’s relationship with the Dregs - Nina doesn’t know she lacks the tattoo, and Inej comments on the fact that the others can’t see her scars from having the Menagerie feather removed but that “they all knew it was there”, suggesting she keeps her forearms covered most of the time, and the emotional disconnect she feels from the rest of the Dregs is always discussed at an intellectual level and in the way she spends most of her time with Kaz or alone rather than with them rather than any dislike/distrust/etc of her because she didn’t take on the tattoo. I absolutely love this theory because it takes away any feeling of guilt around lacking the tattoo and also makes it a far more personal thing to be shared only between Kaz and herself.

Thank you so much, I’m so sorry it took me so long to reply, but I hope this made sense and that you enjoyed reading it! <3

#grishaverse #six of crows #leigh bardugo #crooked kingdom #inej ghafa #nina zenik #kaz brekker #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #matthias helvar #kanej #kanej headcanon #kanej brainrot #*cries in kanej* #kanej my beloved #kanej supremacy #kanej has my whole heart #soc meta #soc analyst #soc analysis #six of crows meta #six of crows analysis

[holleighgram]

I Think Re:Coded Tells Us How The Story Will End

So I'm going to shamelessly tag @tennelleflowers because I had this moment of speculation while watching their fantastic 6 hour long video essay (yet again).

As the title states, I think Re:Coded for all of its many faults, is a rough outline for how the story will progress.

Data Riku is chosen by the Journal (a non sentient encapsulation of the story) to embody all that it contains to protect it from "corruption".

There is speculation that Riku may be some sort of avatar of Kingdom Hearts, and this theory will be using that as a jumping off point.

I think, down the line, Kingdom Hearts will be threatened again, and will choose Riku as the Child of Destiny, to embody it and protect it from corruption via the MoM or otherwise.

Now, Riku will probably keep this a secret from Sora as they go through their journey in this chapter because he thinks he needs to protect KH on his own because he was chosen OR he's not sure Sora is "up to the task" yet.

But, we know Sora is

And I think he will have to. Just like in coded, we will see Riku ready to give up and self destruct in order to spare Sora, but Sora won't have it.

I think he's going to have to dive into Rikus heart (now containing Kingdom Hearts itself, which would just be a SICK gameplay imo) and learn more about why Riku was chosen.

The reason KH chose Riku was the same reason the journal did-- because 2 defenders are better than one. Sora might not defend the Journal or KH with his life, but we know he will do just that for Riku.

Both Riku and Sora have the strength to protect what matters, which is what will ultimately save KH.

In the end, it's not about saving the Worlds. It's about saving *your* world. And this story is about these two heros and their bond being what ultimately saves the worlds.

The ENDING ending is up to speculation- sora sacrifices the his place in the realm of light to stay with Riku or they forget everything in the end or whatever. Nomura has the final shot already decided, apparently.

BUT anyway that's just my brainrot for today.

#kingdom hearts #riku kh #sora kh #soriku #kh meta #riku #kh riku #kh3 #kh #kh recoded #kh coded #kh theory #theory time #child of destiny #child of prophecy #speculation #kh analysis

[megaderping]

For years, the Kingdom Hearts fandom has argued that Terra is the dumbest character in Birth by Sleep. That he’s too trusting, too gullible, and that Aqua has to clean up after his messes. Both he and Aqua tend to get boiled down to flat archetypes without regard for their actions in the story or the complexities to their characters.

In this video, I hope to challenge that perspective by really digging into Terra as a character, his actions in the story, and the context behind those actions. Through it all, I also wish to emphasize the tragedy of Birth by Sleep on a more personal level than the broad, macro plot elements.

This video has been a long time coming, so it’d be super awesome if you could reblog it to help it reach a wider audience!

#kingdom hearts #terra #terra kingdom hearts #birth by sleep #wayfinder trio #aqua #aqua kingdom hearts #kh terra #kh aqua #eraqus #xehanort #character analysis #video #kingdom hearts meta #kingdom hearts analysis

[phoenix-downer]

KH3 Retrospective

I can’t believe it’s been four years already since KH3 came out. It both feels like it came out ages ago and just last month. Above was the very first screenshot I took as I started my playthrough. I was so awed by how good the textures for the stained glass on the Station of Awakening looked. 

Something I did while I was playing KH3 was create a little Google doc of my first reactions/impressions (as well as spamming the screenshot button lol). Here was from the first page: 

New version of Dearly Beloved is gorgeous - sounds similar to DDD version a little

Sora’s opening line is so good - Kairi is his home

Opening - Kairi and Sora’s chess pieces by each other

Kairi’s piece is the paopu piece

Riku looks gorgeous

Everyone looks beautiful

The door opening to save everyone there at the end

Seven hearts to save

Sora’s holding Xehanort’s piece at the end - checkmate?

Station of Awakening is GORGEOUS - looks like actual stained glass now

Showing Sora’s memories

Wisdom, vitality, balance - which one?!

I chose balance (yay SDG!)

Guardian, Warrior, Mystic

I chose Guardian (yay Namine!)

Tidal wave, then Sora ended up in cloud world

Destati sounds awesome

Sora’s opening lines are so good

Mysterious Tower music sounds so good

Cable Town looked gorgeous - Land of Departure?

Sora’s theme sounds kickass

Ending scenes from 0.2 played again to catch you up to speed on SDG

Next year for the fifth anniversary I want to share more of the document, perhaps in a more organized fashion (I also had a reaction document for ReMind and Melody of Memory that I might share excerpts from in the future). It’s just such a neat little time capsule of my immediate first reactions to everything, and while I had to use the pause button a lot, it’s fun to look back on what I was thinking in the moment before my later thoughts/perceptions took over. Definitely worth the time it took to record everything. 

For KH4 I want to continue the trend, as it also makes for a fun way to share the first playthrough experience with my friends and it makes it easier to write analysis posts later on.

Summarizing my thoughts now on KH3: 

The good: Beautiful graphics, world environments were a huge upgrade, the music was amazing, the humor in the Disney worlds was really good, Olympus Coliseum, Kingdom of Corona (the dancing minigame!), The Caribbean, San Fransokyo, Wayfinder Trio Reunion, Xion’s return, Roxas’s return, all the heartfelt Sora and Kairi moments, Young Xehanort, the Keyblade transformations, having more than two people in your party at a time now, the Luxu reveal.

The bad: No true midpoint to the game, no FF characters, the climax was rushed, wish Naminé was more involved, the way Kairi got “killed” was super bleh, and I’m still not a fan of the original ending (the secret ending excluding Kairi also made me ehhhhhh). 

And this leads me into another part of the document. When I consume a piece of media, I like to think about what worked well and why. It’s just really fun to celebrate good writing and learn from it, you know? Hence all the translation/analysis posts I’ve done of certain scenes from KH3. I also like to figure out how I would “fix” anything that didn’t land for me because it’s also a good learning experience, and at the end of my initial thoughts document, I actually included a list of things I thought would improve the writing of KH3. Of course, this is all based on my own personal feelings/interpretations, and as it stands, ReMind fixed a number of them anyway. But I thought I’d share my initial “fixes” in bold and then my thoughts about them now. 

Writing Changes:

Have Sora think about Kairi a la KH2 - Flynn/Rapunzel, Will/Elizabeth… - this isn’t really going to be changed at this point for obvious reasons, but I missed the little moments where Sora was thinking of Kairi in KH2 (like when Will and Elizabeth hugged, when he saw Jack and Sally dancing, etc.) and thought those would have strengthened the romantic plotline of KH3.

Sora’s reunion with Riku was anticlimactic - ditto, not gonna be updated at this point, but I remember thinking oh that’s it lol when technically we hadn’t seen them onscreen together since 2012 (trailers notwithstanding). In universe it makes sense though because it hasn’t been that long since they’ve seen each other. Plus, I assume their reunion in KH4 will be good, so I’m looking forward to that. 

Sora’s reunion with Kairi was also anticlimactic - see above, not gonna get changed at this point, but I wish they’d gotten a moment together before the big group meetup or at least him reacting to seeing her again. We hadn’t seen them talk directly since Blank Points I think? (trailers notwithstanding). So yeah I was a little disappointed there wasn’t more to their reunion, and again I think a little moment or brief scene that could’ve built up to the paopu fruit more. And at this point in the game I definitely got the feeling that Nomura was rushing to finish before deadlines hit + the burnout was setting in and he couldn’t spare any time to extras like this, just the core scenes that had to be there (group meetup, Aqua and Ven convo about Terra, Riku and Repliku scene, Kairi and Sora paopu sharing scene). He might have also had to do a bunch of last minute rewrites, who knows.

Have Kairi actually send her letter to Sora - I assume this will happen at a later date, looking back now it feels like foreshadowing, so I’m not sure why I complained about this lol. I do think at some point Sora will read the letter because why go to all that trouble of showing Kairi writing it + having her read it to the audience if it won’t be significant down the line? The focus on Sora’s smile makes me think he might get the letter when he’s feeling really down and needs to be cheered up, but we’ll see.

Have Sora have some way of contacting her like he can contact Riku - Yeah idk Square acts allergic sometimes to the love interests contacting the main character (see FFXV...), and in universe she was training with Merlin and Axel in a place where time flowed differently etc. so I get why she didn’t. Again I was just thinking of ways the paopu scene could’ve been built up to more effectively within KH3 itself (obviously the paopu scene has been foreshadowed since KH1 so that wasn’t my issue, more that I wanted more buildup within KH3 that built on the buildup we saw in KH1 and KH2 and Blank Points).

Keep Kairi getting killed… but have it be because she was protecting Sora of her own free volition - Yeah I’m still not happy about how this was handled. ReMind helped make this more tolerable because she did get to fight Xehanort by Sora’s side, but I still think her “death” could’ve been handled a lot better. And that’s all I’ll say about that lol, it’s a topic that’s been discussed to death at this point.

Go into more depth about what YX said - I think this was about all of Young Xehanort’s cryptic foreshadowing to Sora, I honestly can’t remember lol. But I do think, now that I’ve replayed the game, the foreshadowing works well, so I think this was more of an initial reaction on my part. 

Show Sora going to rescue her - This was one of my biggest issues with how KH3 originally ended, and I remember feeling robbed that we didn’t get to see Sora’s rescue mission of Kairi, but little did I know what Nomura had in store lol. ReMind more than fixed this, and I will be forever grateful to it and to Nomura for knowing how important this was and making sure it was added to the story. ReMind elevated KH3 so much for me, and looking back, I really do think Nomura was making the best of a bad situation (engine switch a year into development, tight deadlines, Disney being strict, serious burnout, sky high expectations...) with vanilla KH3, and I hope he gets the development time he needs to tell the story he wants to tell with KH4. I just remember reading some of his interviews post-KH3 and you could tell how exhausted and burnt out he was, and I really hope he doesn’t go through that again. 

End things on a less gutpunch of an ending - I know some people loved KH3′s ending so this is subjective, but I did not lol. Thankfully, ReMind fixed this and made the ending more bittersweet now that we’ve seen Sora rescuing Kairi. It feels much better knowing he got those moments with her traveling the worlds before he disappeared. 

Roxas and Sora barely interacted - ReMind fixed this too (noticing a pattern here?) I was really happy with the additional screentime they got in ReMind together  because honestly, their relationship is one of my favorites in the entire series.

Sora still hasn’t thanked Namine - I assume this will happen at a later date, I just remember thinking poor Naminé hadn’t gotten thanked yet. But I do think Nomura has something specific in mind for this scene and we will see it at some future date. So less of a “this should’ve been in KH3″ thing and more “oh bummer I’ll have to wait a while yet to see this.” 

Xehanort got off easy - I think this whole plot point was a victim of the rushed pacing that impacted both the climax and ending of KH3. I remember thinking to myself that Xehanort should not have gotten to die and go to Keyblade Heaven with Eraqus in the same game where he “killed” the protagonist’s girlfriend (which resulted in the protagonist’s “death”) especially not so soon after it happened. But in a way it’s also kind of realistic? The bad guy doesn’t always get what he deserves in real life, so I can see why Nomura took this angle here (though I would argue that in stories you can show good triumphing over evil and in fact people tend to want that more than realism due to the escapist nature of fiction). Then again, I’m kind of biased because I’m not a fan in general of turning Xehanort from a main villain to a misunderstood guy with an angsty backstory who was manipulated by the True Big Bad. I get the feeling we haven’t seen the last of him given that art of his younger self with an umbrella that came out for Dark Road’s ending, so I’m bracing myself for him to show up in Quadratum and team up with Sora, and meh, I just wish the series would move past him at this point, you know?

Destiny Trio still not a trio :( - fix that - I do hope that we get more Destiny Trio interactions in KH4, but looking back, I kinda get why there wasn’t a whole lot of them in KH3. The focus was more on Sora and Kairi’s relationship since that played such a key role in the climax and ending of the story, and there will be time in the future for the three to interact more. Nomura had that quote about how KH3 would feature relationships changing etc., and we did see that with the focus more on Sora and Kairi’s relationship (plus Melody of Memory gave us some Riku and Kairi interactions, and KH4 is probably gonna feature some good Sora and Riku interactions given how they’ll probably reunite before Sora and Kairi do. And then Kairi and Sora’s reunion will be important given how they were separated, and I imagine there will be at least one meaningful scene of the three of them together). 

Have Kairi fight back while she’s being taken - in her defense, it was very realistic for a short, petite fifteen-year old girl to have trouble fighting back against a grown ass man who 1) towers over her and most of the rest of the cast, and 2) is wrenching her arm back in a way that meant she’d likely dislocate her own arm if she tried to fight back. I just still wish this entire plot point had been handled differently, but it’s in the past now, not much more to be said about it.

Roxas and Xion were freed maybe when Sora “died”? - I think I had this on there because I thought the story would’ve benefited from the rescues being spread out more, giving time to focus on each one and allowing some longer soft/quiet moments with the character reunions. 

Anyway, thanks for reading all this. It was interesting going back and looking at my initial reactions to KH3 and how my thoughts and feelings have changed over time. I think the big factors in the shift are that ReMind really added so much to the story and fixed most of my major issues with it, and I have a better picture now of all the stressors Nomura had to deal with to get the game out the door. Honestly it’s probably a small miracle the vanilla game turned out as well as it did given all the factors he was working against, and for that I have a lot of respect for him. And it was clear he was aware of the issues, you know? Otherwise he wouldn’t have released ReMind. He wanted KH3 to be good and he wanted to make the fans happy, so he did what he could to improve on the base game. And there are some truly fantastic moments in the base game and ReMind alike that I loved analyzing every single piece of. 

How about you guys? How have your thoughts/feelings towards KH3 changed over time if at all? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

#kingdom hearts #kh3 #kingdom hearts 3 #kh analysis #kh meta #kh retrospective #kh #retrospective #long post

[mr-deblob]

Hear me out on this: I honestly think Kairi could be the main playable character in Kingdom Hearts 4

Or at least a significant playable one.

I know that it sounds ridiculous to entertain the idea, especially with how badly she's been sidelined for the past 20 years. But taking into account the structure of mainline games and the current locations of our characters, it starts to look likely for both narrative and game design purposes.

Sora and Riku are stuck in Quadratum

First things first- there's no way in hell Nomura's letting Riku rescue Sora in the beginning hours of KH4. They definitely won't just hop back to the Realm of Light when they find each other. He might make questionable plot decisions, but he's not gonna pass up a chance to torture the two of them even more, especially since *something's* going on with Yozora and the Master of Masters.

In a GameInformer interview he gave, he was asked about how much time we'd spend in Quadratum.

I think it will be a pretty good amount of time since it is set as the initial base within the game. You spend time there and then go to different worlds and then go back there. Because the graphics are more realistic this time around, I feel like there’s more of a realistic daily life aspect to Sora’s life. You can see him go in and out of his room and spend time there. I feel like players will get to see more of the day-to-day routines he goes through.

It sounds like Quadratum will act more like an interlude between worlds, where the developments that happen in the Realm of Light (or wherever else) will cause more troubles to pop in the city. We've already seen Sora fighting a giant Heartless(?) that just showed up out of nowhere. There might be more events like that, or even encounters with the mysterious figures staring down from the rooftops. And when nothing's threatening the world, Sora might simply be living daily life with Strelitzia.

I'm uncertain on how much we'll actually get on the nature of Quadratum since it is just Tokyo, but part of me is feeling like the story beats will be more important than the setting on this side.

Kairi can have a blank-slate start

I'm sure everyone who picked Kairi in that final fight was a bit surprised by how aggressive it was. A strike raid teleport and a barrage of light flooding the battlefield were amazing to see in her first time in the spotlight. We know she can fight, so wouldn't those skills carry over to her next game?

But she's been asleep for a whole year to have her memories explored. They could easily explain the loss of former skills. Besides, the reasons for Sora always resetting to Level 1 are basically on the same scale. If you wanted more reasoning, then maybe Aqua's training is having her develop her own fighting style from scratch. It's very obvious she's trying to emulate Sora in her stance.

We also know that Kairi has her own unique combat pose. They've shown it to us at least twice in DDD and the KH3 opening, but we've never seen her actively using it in-game AFAIK. It sure would be an opportune moment to have her adopt it to signify her becoming her own person independent of Sora and Riku.

If the training time with Aqua seems like it would be too short to warrant Kairi going off on her own, keep in mind that we don't know how much time disparity there is between Quadratum and the RoL It could be synched up or be off by weeks, even months, more than enough to get her through the fundamentals.

Also, a mini-timeskip would give Nomura the chance to give the Destiny Trio new designs again. How Riku gets a new outfit and hairstyle while looking for Sora, I don't know, but he already pushed him through the Shadow Barber Shop. He can probably come up with something.

We still gotta have different Keyblades

Straight-up the title of this section. It's incredibly unlikely that Nomura would cut these, but as before, it's equally unlikely that Sora will get out of Quadratum into the RoL. Disney worlds are confirmed, and unless all of them are entirely new, I don't think there's a satisfying way to justify why he couldn't get help from the inhabitants, try to get off-world, or at least get in touch with someone if he still has his Gummiphone.

So if anyone else could go around to these worlds and collect these keychains, Kairi seems like a good candidate for that.

"But what about Destiny's Embrace?" Fair point. It's still got sentimental value to her and has familiarity. They wouldn't just dump it entirely.

However, I believe (and earnestly hope) that Kairi finally gets meaningful character development now. There's so much we could delve into (and we will later), but her current goal of growing stronger seemingly stems from a desire to determine her fate. For so long she's been carried by the tides of chance, waiting for what will happen rather than actively reaching towards her goals. In the end, it brought her down the path that led to Sora's disappearance, so she can't keep placing her faith in destiny.

Kairi might temporarily retire Destiny's Embrace, or perhaps her new mindset will trigger something in her Keyblade. We've seen that with Riku and the Way to the Dawn. It might be a more basic Keyblade like Braveheart, or she could end up wielding an iteration of the Kingdom Key to represent herself starting anew. Hell, maybe Sora fighting in her place in MoM passed it on to her, or she manifests it from her memories.

It'd be a convenient way to keep giving out new keychains while still making it feel like Sora experienced actual consequences for his misuse of the Power of Waking. They could even have Sora gain access to them through Kairi. His temporary possession of her at the end of MoM could be used as an in-universe way to hand-off the main PoV in a natural-feeling way, and she might be able to send him manifestations of the keychains as memories or something else that could cross over to Quadratum.

Masters and Maleficent will go wild

The KH3 ending brought back the Lost Masters through some unexplained mechanic. It also implies that they'll be the main antagonists of the new arc, but they're currently in the Realm of Light. I don't know how much Sora could do from the other side of reality. Not to mention Maleficent making even more schemes.

So the Keyblade wielders and their allies will have to defend against them and whatever other enemies crop up in their wake. But why would Kairi be the one pursuing their main goal? Why not Master Aqua, or at least one of the battle-hardened wielders?

Depending on the numbers, it'd be easy to say the other wielders are busy defending the worlds from the new threats, that they're spread too thin to take up whatever role Kairi would theoretically take. Maybe her status as a Princess of Heart could come up as another reason why it'd have to be her.

In any case, whatever Luxu has in that mysterious box spells bad news. The fact that there are going to be five ancient Keyblade Masters carrying out the Master of Masters' plan spells catastrophic news. Perhaps the missing Master Ava could work from the shadows to stymie them or to help Kairi on her quest.

Also, the Heartless are still gonna be wreaking havoc even if the Masters aren't. That will practically always be true, especially now that Xehanort's not controlling them all. Maleficent is going to do what Maleficent does best and use this to her advantage. With all these potential villains in the RoL, someone's gotta take care of them.

New worlds can develop Kairi further

Now that KH3 is finished and out of development hell, they're now free to consider new Disney properties, even those beyond 2014. And there's quite a few that could easily be connected to Kairi's desire to grow beyond her past and choose her own path:

Moana - Island girls who want to seize their destinies to see what lies beyond everyday life, both struggling with self-doubt. Also have grandmas who know more than they let on.

Coco - How memories connect us, that we can be together in heart when apart, the pains of love and separation. Fighting for your dream even when you're alone.

Encanto - Especially heavy exploration of breaking from the roles others place on us and that we take on, acknowledging and expressing emotions we hide from others.

Brave - "If you had the chance to change your fate, would ya?" Besides that, accepting that people can grow apart, that we each take our own paths, that it doesn't need to break our bonds.

WALL-E - Be open to change, don't let familiarity keep you stuck. Trust in the future, trust in yourself, break through the limits of your past. Go on even when all seems lost.

Frozen 2 - Self-determination and independence, grieving what has been lost, righting the wrongs of the past. Pain is a fact of life, do not let your fear of it keep you from doing what is necessary.

There's likely other films that could fit or other themes of these movies that parallel with Kairi, but these are rife with potential. Plus, the trend of female protagonists with little to no romantic storylines could let Kairi be perceived as more than Sora's love interest or someone to be saved.

Kairi is finally free to change

I don't think it's controversial to say that Nomura really mishandled Kairi's role in the series up til now. She's been stuck in character limbo, and even if we know more stuff *about* her since KH1, we haven't really gotten much *from* her. She's never had enough focus to really showcase her inner world, but I don't think it's due to disinterest on Nomura's part. Instead, I think that it was a result of very poor planning of her arc and his weakness at indirect characterization.

From the start, he probably had an idea of where he wanted to take Kairi's character. He must've, at minimum, pinned down the major strokes of her backstory involving Radiant Garden given the brief mention of her not remembering her home and the flashback with her grandma in KH1. KH2 and BBS both manage to flesh her out a bit more, and even her portrayal in the first game seemed to hint at something going on beneath her surface. Even so, she still outwardly appears as the same cheerful, kind, caring girl from the beginning of the series. I don't think Nomura decided to completely rip those seeds of growth from her character, but he has at least stifled them up til now.

In comparison to all the other main and supporting characters in KH, Kairi is noticeably lacking in any major character insights. From what I've seen, even people who dislike how the female cast is written can tell that the story is practically avoiding any chances for Kairi to verbalize her emotions. The conversations we do get with her almost always shift focus to the other person's feelings. If it does focus on her, the thoughts she does express tend to explore her relationships with other people instead of letting us know more about Kairi herself. As to why he'd make this writing choice with her, there's two possible answers beyond him just not wanting to deal with her.

The first is that he's trying to characterize her through her lack of characterization, that she's a people-pleaser who tends to put others' needs and wants before her own. We've already seen shades of this in KH1 on the dock and when Sora tells her to stay behind in Traverse Town.

In the former, it comes across as her trying to convince herself to go along with the plan about the raft, telling herself that she's ready to go wherever and holding onto the idea that she can always come back to Destiny Islands. Even so, you can hear a hesitation and uncertainty in those words. The only parts where she lets her fears bleed through are when she tells Sora not to change and arguably when she jokes about just the two of them taking the raft. Kairi tests the waters to see if Sora would be willing to go along with her alone before backing down. I don't think she'd actually go through with it, she's not that type of person. I can't say for certain that she hasn't entertained the thought, even if only half-seriously, but it's clear that she said it to avoid her thoughts on how Riku's changed. Kairi doesn't want to show Sora her doubts, especially when they're so close to setting sail. The only assurance she allows herself is asking Sora not to change, to stay her familiar friend, before shifting to expressing apparent excitement at setting sail.

When Sora and Kairi make their promise with the Wayfinder, she's afraid of how their friendship with Riku will have changed if he comes back. Still, she's willing to go help save Riku after seeing Sora's resolve to do so. When he tells her no, she pushes back, telling him that they have to stick together. She only starts to relent when Sora tells her that they won't be alone even if they're apart, then gives up entirely when he says she'd be in his way. Her laugh almost seems like an automatic response to cope with the hurt that statement would naturally provoke. Before he goes, she makes a compromise between their wants, getting Sora to promise that he'll return her Wayfinder to her- that he'll come back after everything's done. Then she tells him that she's always with him wherever he goes, taking Sora's statement and using it to reassure herself more than him. She doesn't want to inconvenience the ones she cares for, so she changes herself, adapting to their desires and opinions to ease any friction between them.

The other answer would be that Nomura's plan for her required her to retain her starting character traits until certain conditions were fulfilled. From where we are in the story, I'd wager that he she needed to be separated from Sora and Riku and for her to gain a meaningful motivation get stronger, at least according to Nomura's standards. The first half of that has been true for almost the entire series, as sad as it is, but we've only just now fulfilled the second. It's possible that he underestimated how long he would need to keep Kairi relatively unchanged for whatever he had planned in the future, causing her to be a static character for all this time.

Now, she's had to confront her fears head-on, needed to acknowledge the feelings of weakness and inferiority getting shattered by Xehanort gave her. It's Xehanort's fault that Sora disappeared, but she might partly blame herself for needing to be rescued rather than saving herself. Her tendencies of staying out of everyone's way and going along with their plans wasn't enough to keep Sora out of harm's way, to protect him. That failure can drive her to grow strong, to realize that valuing herself doesn't mean having to devalue others, that caring for yourself is an act of kindness for those who care about you.

I will acknowledge that even if these answers are accurate, reasonable intentions still don't excuse a sloppy execution. Nomura has skill in weaving a character's motivation into their actions and personality to add depth. However, he often relies on the characters voicing these out loud instead of letting the audience draw their own conclusions from what's presented. While this works well-enough for the series, it means that any indirect characterization he tries to do often ends up falling flat. Aqua at the Keyblade Graveyard is the biggest example of this. It's clear now that her time in the Realm of Darkness left her with some serious PTSD and that the massive storm of Heartless caused her to freeze up at the sight, but the way it was shown pre-Re:Mind ended up frustrating more people with her inaction instead of having them understand why she didn't act.

I'd argue the same thing's been happening with Kairi throughout the series up until now. A character like Kairi isn't inclined to express their unfiltered thoughts, leaving her to rely on indirect characterization to be fleshed out. Combine that with a weakness at subtle storytelling and a severe lack of focus and screentime, and you'll leave your audience almost nothing to discern about her character without close examination. Not to mention, any frustrations or disappointments or boredom regarding her character would only serve to make people even less willing to engage with her, especially stretched out over two decades.

Hopefully, Nomura feels free to put his plans regarding Kairi into motion now that she's gained the space for agency beyond Sora and Riku. I even think Nomura himself is aware of his struggles with nuanced character writing, something he hopes to fix. If you haven't heard, he brought on Akiko Ishibashi, the writer for Neo: The World Ends with You, to help write KH4. Anyone whose played that game can tell you about the amount of depth and complexity the cast of that game had, and her ability to transform one-dimensional archetypes into fully-realized people. I have little doubt that she'll breathe new life into the world of Kingdom Hearts, and I think that we'll see the start of this change through Kairi first and foremost.

In the future

This all sounds like wishful thinking, and it is, but I hope that it's not entirely unfounded. I'm mainly making this before any major trailers drop because, if this does happen, I can't imagine them hiding it for too long.

Maybe Nomura will finally give Kairi the screentime she deserves, and if he doesn't... well, guess we'll go through even more years of rightful disappointment in Nomura's handling of her.

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 4 #kh #kh4 #kh4 speculation #kairi #kh kairi #kingdom hearts theory #kh meta #character analysis #character writing #fan theory #speculation #game theory #akiko ishibashi #tetsuya nomura #please please please Nomura #don't prove me wrong here #let us know you care about Kairi

[mirror-to-the-past]

Hi! Wanna hear me rave about how I really appreciate Kairi as a character, particularly in what she represents?

This was born partly from Kairi swimming around in my head regarding how much I like her (I hope it shows), and partly because of me generally looking at YouTube comments (dangerous, I know) where I was surprised to see people calling Kairi useless, unimportant, etc. I've also seen opinions lamenting about Kairi's minimal usage (which is totally fair- who doesn't want to see more of their favorites?), but it's to the point that some have said it's bad writing or that the writers don't care about her or something.

Every person's reading of a story and their preferences are ultimately their own, and I acknowledge my scope of fan opinions is limited to wherever I end up on the KH internet, but I just thought I'd throw my two cents in about what I think of Kairi's utilization as a character.

And the verdict is... that I'm actually really satisfied with how her character is executed, amount of screen time and everything! Why, you ask?

Before playing Days, I was still very moved by Roxas in just his KH2 opening debut, yet his amount of overall screentime in comparison to all of the characters of the other games prior to that was very limited. But- I still liked him because I thought that with the little he had, it was done so effectively and with stellar atmosphere.

Personally, I think the same of Kairi.

Across the games, practically every scene she *is* in has her stealing the spotlight. At the end of KH1 where she wakes up from her sleep, she really emotes her heart out. When Sora disappears right in front of her, she just yells "I won't let him go!" Which was a pretty poignant and steadfast thing from a disoriented kid. I thought it was touching. She holds herself to that, and actually brings Sora back. It's sweet as all hell. She says the (retrospectively) very tonally setting line of wondering "You think it'll ever be the same again between us?" when referring to her, Sora, and Riku's friendship. In Kairi's first cutscene in KH2, I was over here like:

My heart was being SQUEEZED, man. I already talked a bunch about it, made a fanfic about it and everything, and I still didn't get my wiggles out over that scene, evidently. After all that time, she had to come to grips with the complete MIA state of her friend group, and how she doesn't even recall one of them outside of vague notions of emotion.💥 Misery. But she still holds on, because that's Kairi, for better or for worse. She takes that same steadfast nature when she turns her KH2 kidnapping into an Organization infiltration and beats some antagonistic ass. Her wishes saved Sora and Riku from a slow death in purgatory. 🎊

Off to KH3, she's still holding on, and her motivation to stick her neck out and become a Guardian of Light isn't even necessarily to save the world or do some grandiose mission like her other friends are doing. It's so she can stick to her friends who are so insistent on leaving their homeworld behind for dangerous exploits. So she can finally be there with them in their harrowing moments and not just be stuck in the nerve-racking in between of unknowing.

So, what I'm getting to is this...

I feel like Kairi, for what she represents, is portrayed well. And to me, she represents grounding. In a series that's as metaphysical as KH, it's a wonder to have a character as rooted in stability as Kairi is. People like to tout Sora as the mascot of "friendship is power," and he is in many ways, but while Sora is the feeling, the empathy of seeing someone who needs help and loudly saying they're besties now because he's moved by you, Kairi is the one who holds out for you simply because she should. The one who's left out of the loop that still shows up when you need someone in your corner. She's the reminder of home, and the person who follows through on the promises. She's the person who holds in her mind the images of her childhood friends, and no matter how they change, she still remembers what they were like at their core- when they were small and simple- and will always hold affection for that. She's if a friendship bracelet was turned into a human.

And like a friendship bracelet, she's nostalgic. She's what feels like the most important thing in that first friendship at 7 years old, that you wear proudly and promise to be good to forever and ever. And like a friendship bracelet, she often will end up lost in a cubby hole a few years down the line, or falling apart.

It's why in KH3, when she tries the metaphorical friendship bracelet again with the Paopu Fruit, she's affirming that, even if it seems like Sora's really grown away from his home, she's the reminder of his foundation and where he came from- what he was like before everything spiralled into confusion and everyone got older. It's a soft promise that says "even if you've changed, Sora, there's one person who won't forget the *you* you were. You worry about your future, I've got your past."

And for a coming of age story, I think that's a beautiful and tender execution of that kind of message. Kairi has made me think, which is all I really want from a character at the end of the day, of what things I've unknowingly left behind as I've grown older. And it stings. It hurts, but it's a good hurt. She makes me realize that, when it's not stopping my growth, there's no harm in my remembering the things that have made me, me. I don't want to be stuck in the past, but who says I should lose my core, either?

🎊Kairi🎊

#I would love more interactions with her and the group #like her and Ventus and her and Riku #but ultimately that same sentiment applies to 90% of desired KH dynamics #not just Kairi's #kingdom hearts #kh kairi #kairi #kh meta #kh analysis #she has carved out a place in my brain tbh- instead of brain there is Kairi #I care her so much

[andrewwtca]

Something really sad, and also INCREDIBELY telling, I found in the Ultimanias is how the Destiny Trio's bonds are described. like, Sora and Riku are kind of consistently described as best friends, but when Kairi gets involved, the bond just becomes childhood friends.

Sora: "Though he lived on Destiny Island with his childhood friends, Kairi and Riku..."

Riku: "A young man who cares deeply for his friends and is Sora's best friend and good rival."

Kairi: "A lively girl who possesses a pure heart of light and grew up on the same Destiny Island as Sora and Riku."

I found a translation, as well, of a character correlation diagram and they're the only trio that isn't described as best friends.

I understand that as a whole, their trio is supposed to represent growing up and how your bonds to one another can change - whether that means growing stronger and coming even closer or weakening and becoming distant - but you'll still care about each other. But it still is incredibly heartbreaking to see the main trio's friendship summed up as "they grew up together."

The only place I've so far seen to say different is the Story Before KHIII.

Sora:

Riku (ignore these god-awful screenshots I was literally watching a youtube review to try and read it because I couldn't find it anywhere else. Just trust me, it says 'Sora and Kairi's best friend since childhood'):

Kairi:

Now, I get it that maybe they don't want to use the same language, but it makes the most sense to me to say on Sora's bio to describe them as best friends, especially considering we see HIS bond with Riku and Kairi, but on Riku's? And the fact that Sora is always the 'friendship guy'? (This is just an outlier I wanted to bring up that calls Riku and Kairi best friends, and that's only if you take these translations as 100% faithful, which we have seen time and time again, that they often aren't.)

It almost feels like their friendship is at an all-time low. And don't forget this is the guidebook that leads up to KHIII, which should hypothetically be the peak of their bond, because they're all on the same level (not in terms of Mastery as Riku is the only Master, but in terms of all being Keyblade Wielders), they're all safe, they all have opportunities to tell each other their feelings. This book is a chance to be a celebration of their friendship, of how they overcome and yet?

'Childhood friends.'

I remember, maybe a few weeks ago, there was a question going around on Twitter asking 'if you have to get rid of one trio, which one would it be?' and most people said Destiny Trio and yeah, it's for a very obvious reason! A lot of these same people say that the games just don't do a good job of showcasing their relationship and they're all really good friends with each other, and everyday, it just more and more obvious it's just wistful thinking. This is as close as we can get as a 'word from god.'

And when you look at the game, it's obvious that they're drifting. The last meaningful conversation we had in this group was Sora and Riku in KH2. KH2!!! That was literally 18 years ago (like a few months for them, but that's not the point I'm making)!!! Meanwhile, we got meaningful interactions in both the other trios in KH3 - which, I'll concede, it was because they were separated for long periods of time that they were so meaningful, but if the game wanted to show us Destiny Trio having deep interactions, it could've! Literally, Sora and Kairi sharing a paopu fruit didn't even have a conversation! it was just Kairi inadvertently voicing her (VERY WELL JUSTIFIED) fears that they'll drift away from each other!

The reason Destiny Trio doesn't feel like a trio is because they aren't one! There's Sora and Riku who are homoerotically close, there's Sora and Kairi who have are growing distant, and there's Riku and Kairi who's only meaningful interactions were founded on guilt or Sora.

TL;DR: "Destiny Trio" is slowly turning into "Sora and Riku dating with Kairi constantly left out of the picture"

They really are Destiny Trio because destiny brought them together and that's about it. Destiny can't give them the same drive to save each other as it gave Seasalt and Wayfinders. I mean yeah, they'll physically save each other, but they're so out of touch emotionally with each other. Like Kairi still refuses to process Sora growing up. Riku has never told Kairi about the things he did to try and save her. He's never even told Sora about his jealousy of Sora and Kairi. And god forbid Sora ever tell them about his insecurities!

The apathy towards destiny in Chikai's opening feels like the perfect way to describe what's going on with them. Destiny is there. Destiny brought them together. And that's it. What else is there to care for?

It's also, once again, very telling that this same song then proceeds with very romantic lyrics about making an oath with someONE. Hm. It's almost like even outside the games, on written supplements, we're constantly being told the path the Destiny Trio is on, and we're constantly being shown that every step they're taking is leading them further down it.

Just. OUGH, these kids!!! I need them to stop sacrificing themselves for each other and making these oaths that are all too big for them, and sit down and just TALK. (And please please please let Kairi interact with someone other than these two. Please, it hurts to see her fall away with nowhere to land!!!)

#kingdom hearts #kh meta #soriku endgame actually #stuff from twitter #sora #riku #kairi #destiny trio #literary analysis is my special interest

[selenestarmoon]

The Collector's Loneliness

We all know that The Collector wants revenge but he are also desperate to get out of his prison and that is why he sought to sacrifice titans and later allies himself with Belos to kill all the witches but what if he chased the titans because he blames them for his confinement and for leaving him abandoned and at the same time to somehow make a ritual similar to what he did with the owl beast for that they were going to keep him eternal company?

Maybe he just helps Belos not only to be free but also to somehow get the souls of the dead witches from Day of Unity to keep him eternal company?

If he caught beasts like the Owl Beast and used that ritual as a way to create an eternal companion that would always keep him company?

When King has that strange dream where The Collector's prison is, the latter desperately asks him not to go and it sounded quite honest and desperate on his part. The Collector really is like a child: he doesn't know right from wrong so he has no idea how bad his actions are and he doesn't want to be alone so he seeks company, even if it was by force (as he did with the Owl Beast).

It also explains why he persecuted the titans and it's because he blames them for having left him locked up inside the titan's bones (it could be because the titan himself imprisoned him for being a threat or he simply ended up imprisoned by accident) and trust me that spent indefinite years in solitary confinement he would drive anyone crazy.

An example of how harmful extreme isolation can be and how it can negatively affect someone is Aqua from Kingdom Hearts series.

In Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep she in her final fight against Terranort manages to defeat him and her heartless creates a portal that takes them to the Realm of Darkness and Aqua sacrifices herself giving him her keyblade and armor to help him escape.

And although Mickey tries to get her out, he doesn't succeed since she tries to stop a swarm of heartless and is taken by them to a false version of Destiny Islands and is forced to remain in the Realm of Darkness.

but with the hope that one day someone would rescue her and take her back home.

however, so many years of isolation end up taking its toll on her: Ansem, the seeker of darkness (or as I call him the false Ansem) tries to attack the real Ansem but Aqua defends him, which makes the false Ansem attack her and makes her submerged in the sea of the Realm of Darkness

and the darkness that is corrupting Aqua makes all the negative feelings that she has been repressing explode and turn her into Anti-Aqua, the living representation of all the Aqua's negative feelings of frustration, anger for feeling that her friends abandoned her, despair to get out of that world, loneliness for having lost her friends and only having some monsters as company that seek to kill her.

and when Mickey and Riku interacted with her, all Aqua does is lash out in anger at them because she blames them for her imprisonment as she feels that they abandoned her for so many years.

and she was only able to return to normal and leave the Realm of Darkness because there were people who loved her and cared about her.

If Aqua, despite having friends who love her, succumbed to the negative feelings she's been repressing from being 10 years alone and trapped in an isolated place felt frustrated, lonely, desperate and resigned to her eternal confinement and attacks her friends for thinking they abandoned her for years, imagine how The Collector would feel who spent indefinite years isolated in his prison, probably spending MANY MORE YEARS than Aqua in the Realm of Darkness, looking to kill titans because he thinks that they're responsible for his imprisonment also, unlike Aqua, The Collector doesn't have friends and anyone and the only person he thinks is his friend is a person who's probably just using him.

I'm not justifies him, I'm just saying that The Collector probably captured and collected beasts because he wanted to have fun and turn forcibly anyone he meet into his friends in the worst possible way and he didn't care if this ended up hurting them but once he was imprisoned he spent so many years of loneliness and isolation that drove him crazy to the point where he wants to free himself at any cost and is also desperate to have any kind of company in anyway without caring if the others want to be his friends or not.

He may have been bad before his confinement, but what the isolation and loneliness he had while there did was amplify his defects (fear and hatred of loneliness and abandonment, not realizing the impact of his actions), making him even worst what he was before.

#the owl house spoilers #the owl house analysis #the owl house meta #the owl house speculation #toh analysis #toh meta #toh spoilers #toh speculation #the collector #the owl house collector #kingdom hearts 3 spoilers #kingdom hearts birth by sleep spoilers #aqua kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts aqua #kingdom hearts 3 #kingdom hearts birth by sleep

[violethowler]

Constructing Kingdoms is back for a new season of Kingdom Hearts analysis!!

For this month’s episode, I’m going to be discussing the narrative significance of this concept of unreality introduced in Melody of Memory, how it fits into the existing patterns of the story, and why it's introduction matters in the context of the franchise's coming of age narrative. 

For anyone who didn’t see the channel update I posted in July for the anniversary of my first video, going forward I’ll be doing new episodes every other month to allow myself more time to work on each one while balancing everything I have going on IRL. Next episode will be going online on November 26th.

#constructing kingdoms #kingdom hearts youtube channel #kingdom hearts meta #analysis video #kingdom hearts analysis #self promo

[descendant-of-truth]

Okay people give Coded a lot of crap for the concept of "digitizing a journal" and said journal getting corrupted but when you actually think about it. in what way is that strange

Like, think about what a "data world" is for a second. Computers aren't the only things that store data; a journal with events recorded on it is just as much a container for data as a computer, it's just formatted differently.

The 100 Acre Wood is a prime example of how this works. It's a book that, through its words and pictures, becomes real enough for Sora to travel to. And when its pages are torn out, it affects the memories of its characters and the locations they can visit. It becomes "corrupted" in a sense.

The Book of Prophecies also contains enough data on the future to be able to project it onto the real world, which is how you travel to most places in KHUX. Those are also data worlds, just not digital ones.

So really, given the way the series utilizes data as a concept, is it really so weird that they can transfer it from one medium to another? We do this in real life too, when we copy books into a digital format. Coded just had a more fantastical animation to go with it, partly for dramatic flair and partly because they weren't just uploading words, they were uploading the whole world of the journal into something they could interact with.

But once the world is made digital, that's when it becomes susceptible to bugs and glitches like we see in the game. And I can't help but wonder if we'll ever get to explore the Book of Prophecies the same way we did Jiminy's Journal... what secrets could we find in there? What would happen if that book got corrupted?

#kingdom hearts #kh coded #kh recoded #analysis #meta #Coded 2 featuring the Book of Prophecies WHEN #I'm just saying!! The journal was said to have a connection to the Book!! When is that getting followed up on!!!

[sensitive-charmy]

Putting ships and romance aside, Sora and Riku have something really special. I have never seen a relationship between two male characters quite like them before.

They are both rather gentle hearts for being in the middle of battle 24/7. Sora still believes wholeheartedly that light will always win. Riku has faced the darkness head on and knows life is more complicated than being split between pure good and pure evil. Neither one of them exude toxic masculinity or pride themselves on how strong they are. They’re aware of their own strengths and weaknesses. They have a rather comedic rapport with one another. Riku teases Sora.

But it’s always out of love and never malice. Sora always laughs with him and happily accepts the challenge. Sora and Riku push each other to be the best versions of themselves.

They don’t compete to simply one up one another. They compete to encourage themselves and each other. They compete to have fun together. It’s not a question of who is stronger. It’s how they bond.

They don’t shy away from expressing their feelings. And they compliment one another.

For as many character flaws as they may have, for whatever their downfalls may be, for whatever faults they have, they’re such unproblematic boys. They’re soft. They’re kind. They communicate. They smile. They laugh. They really do love one another so purely. No toxicity with these two boys at all. Shocking considering they’re both male. Shocking considering they started out as rivals in KH1. And now they’re partners. They’re always working together. They’re so, so important.

#I love my nontoxic boys #I love how much I can unabashedly love them #I don’t have to worry about them saying something stupid or intentionally hurting innocent people #no they’re not perfect #they have their own unique character flaws #but they’re not jerks #they’re not gross #they’re sweet soft boys #sora #riku #soriku #kingdom hearts #kh #kh analysis #kh meta #text post