#bc. ive seen peope call attention to how sora and kairi are parallels in this regard

[whyarewecalledtheshipname]

a messy sora ramble that isnt as focused as i wanted it to be. brought on by seeing one of my old kairi posts, (but also i read a post about this too somewhere, i hope i remember sorry):

Sora is definitely facing the same problem as kairi. His stagnancy is just written/done much better, or in a more interesting way, than kairi's.

​as in— he technically doesn't 'grow'. he always loses his power and starts at base level. The best counter example or whatever we have to this trend is riku. Riku from ddd to kh3, retained his power. Remained strong. Was not explicitly stated to have lost his power or strength. And we know why. Because he's always been focused on gaining strength to protect what matters, and now he knows it's sora. And it pushes him to work through his struggles with darkness, which helps him grow.

Sora keeps avoiding dealing with his trauma and internal struggles. And so he doesn't actually grow. And bc this is a game, it's best represented by sora starting every game back at square one.

Not to mention, he is explicitly stated to be actually losing his power every time. It's not just a game-playability thing, or a power-creep thing. In game, sora starts all over every time bc of some shortcoming or other in his prior actions, behavior, or character.

Kh2, for example. Sora starts all over even after aging a whole year bc he chose to forget all the bs from castle oblivion, instead of working through them as well as his resulting trauma. "Make me like i was." It could not be more blatant.

Riku actively chose to remember all his struggles in castle oblivion, instead of forgetting them. Throughout the 358 days, he is working and fighting to wake sora up. And the results of his growth are plain to see in the kh2 ending.

Now sora is left constantly susceptible to darkness, both from external forces as well as his own, bc he constantly refuses to /deal/ with it. You get shit like ddd, where he falls to darkness from the get go, and you get riku, who again, fights to protect sora, pushes through the darkness with all his previous experiences with it. Uses that experience, and comes out stronger, and grows.

I wrote a kairi ramble a million years ago about how her story isn't interesting on paper, and that thats why she seems and basically /is/ a lackluster character.

But sora is living practically the same story, but like i also said in that kairi post:

"Trauma doesn’t always have to be packaged as some action-packed superhero story that’s fun to consume."

But for sora, it is. Just, by default bc hes the mc of a game series, ig, or a more "sophisticated" reason that my monkey brain isn't processing rn lol.

But it's like /because/ sora goes on adventures on screen, it means he's moving forward on his journey of personal growth. And like. Thats not the case at all.

And it took me five ever to begin to process this. I love sora for who he is and what he brings to the kh world. Actually. You can have heavy scenes and darker, more depressing concepts, but sora comes in and you actually feel lighter. Like you can breathe more easily. Legit, for me at least. And again! I didn't even appreciate that about him until recently, i don't remember what scene(s) caused this tho.

But esp as a basic riku bitch, i used to feel a bit indifferent towards sora's character. Like "he's another happy-go-lucky mc. lowkey boring". But! When i started seeing people explain this, that sora's character is like an embodiment of repressed trauma, i was like oh! I see! That's /amazing/, actually. (And that made soriku feel more uh "deep" lol, bc it's not surface level light/dark, but actually rooted in their character and journey)

But the reason im rambling about it now, much more messily than other people have talked about this, is bc i came across my old kairi posts and was like "oh i was wrong. It's not just her."

i think sora is luckier in that, he trusts so much in his heart, and in his connections to others. he trusts his heart to guide him through struggle, even when he doesn't understand it, or chooses not to.

(the words at the beginning of kh3, that are sora's mindset at the end of that game, reflect that same trend i feel like. Sora is due for some introspection in kh4, hopefully, but even now, dead, he's still relying solely on his heart to guide him. Which isn't inherently bad, but the trouble comes when he depends on his heart alone to do that, when it'll take more than that to light his way through his darkness)