#do NOT talk to me about kairi KH does her such a disservice

[captainadwen]

Riku has the best character arc in kh, and I think it's genuinely very good but also there's like maybe five characters with arcs/noticeable growth and most are dead

(As of kh2 anyway which is the furthest I've gotten, though an hour of birth by sleep promises at least three characters with arcs so! Hopeful)

[maverickflare]

☕️ uhhh treatment of the girls in kingdom hearts. in game or fandom whatever you'd like

i find it both frustrating and fascinating tht there seems like an almost universal understanding among kh fans tht the women + girls of kh are treated badly by the narrative but then all of these same fans turn around n treat these characters Just as badly. 

n ive been chewing on this question for a bit trying 2 figure out how Best 2 say this but fuck it. heres a bullet list of assorted thoughts on the subject none of it is eloquent or coherent. 

kairi absolutely suffers the most in the narrative n in fan content. nobody needs me 2 tell them tht. but specifically i dislike tht everything abt kairi seems 2 come back 2 her relationship 2 sora and Soras Feelings For/About Her. frustrating. 

the way tht ppl go out of their way 2 compare xion n kairi despite them having almost nothing 2 do w each other infuriates me. the in game statement of xions core memories being soras memories Of kairi does not make her a kairi. i think it does her a serious disservice 2 reduce xion 2 tht even if the games compare them as well. tht doesnt make it ok for either of these characters. 

namine is probably among my fav characters in the series. i think shes a rlly good supporting character. shes got fun powers, a good set of circumstances tht fuel her actions, she makes mistakes, n shes allowed to rectify tht later. the problem is tht she blips out of existence almost as soon as her story is over n it feels like the narrative just Doesnt know what 2 do w her after the fact. thts rlly frustrating. 

aqua isnt a bad character but i hate the voice direction for her it just feels....weird 2 me. the wiki compares her 2 kairi also which i fucking loathe. her entire playable story is cleaning up after other ppls messes n she seems 2 get constantly pushed into Mom Friend role in fan content tht ive seen. n like.....i dont think her story is inherently bad but i DO hate the bad taste it leaves in my mouth where the only playable lady character in a Main Storyline is just cleaning up after the mess of the male characters.

larxene is the best character in the goddamn series this is not a joke. shes fun 2 watch shes got a rlly epic moveset n abilities shes just fantastic every second shes on screen she steals the show. BUT. shes a villain. n as far as i know, her former self elrena doesnt act like tht. n is a completely different fucking person. so.

strelitzia only exists 2 die i guess. i could not tell u anything abt skulds personality even tho i like the version of her ive made in my head. ava n invi r practically interchangeable w one another. i frequently forget there r girls in dark road. 

(send me a ☕️ and a topic and i’ll talk about how i feel about it)

[actual-lea]

I do need to have Some words, because I have many thoughts and emotions and I need to talk about the ONE THING about this dang game that I need to talk about.

SPOILERS FOR KINGDOM HEARTS 3 ARE BELOW - I WILL TRY TO KEEP IT VAGUE BUT THERE ARE! SPOILERS! HERE!

THE THING ABOUT THIS GAME IS

first of all, I have done nearly a complete 180 on my initial impression of this game. Yesterday I finished San Fransokyo, and was confused as to why I didn’t get automatically dumped back onto the world map, and assumed that it was because some Plot Things were going to happen so the game wanted to let me save (I was VERY RIGHT about THAT). 

Buuuuuuut I really thought there had to be a whole lot more game left to go? I knew that that was the last of the Disney worlds that I knew of that were in this game, and I knew that oddly, at least going by what the game told me with the world logos showing up at the end, that I wouldn’t be going back for a second visit to any of them. But I assumed? That there still had to be a Lot left from there

and to an extent, yes, there was, but goddamn, when that big big Heartless fight, a bigger badder version of the 1000 Heartless battle, that HAD to be the halfway point of the game, right? 

And I think that’s why I came away last night when I finished the game, feeling kind of disappointed. In a very odd way that I couldn’t put my finger on. The game was so much shorter than I was expecting it to be - which, in retrospect, isn’t really all that true - my final playtime on that first file was about 30 hours (granted, that included lots of pausing and staring at the screen in silence and not-silence during many a cutscene (especially one that happens not long after big big Heartless fight (you know the one))), and for comparison, my 100% Jiminy’s Journal file on KH2 is only 35 hours. So it’s not even that it’s a ridiculously short game, although it certainly felt that way and that might be due in a big way to just how much cutscene there is in that game because holy fuck it is A LOT. I am reasonably sure that KH3 is at least 50% cutscene. 

ANYWAY. So the point is, I finished KH3 at around 3am, and cried a whole lot, and then slept. And then I woke up oddly early this morning, and my weird takeaway from the ending was still there - that vague disappointment that I Could Not figure out - but I went ahead and jumped back in because I hadn’t unlocked the secret ending yet, so that’s what I spent my morning doing (AND HOO BOY)

and now, that I’ve been thinking about this game all day, and have had time to let it all sink in, the further I get from that initial takeaway the less disappointed I am. Like, in terms of comparison, I don’t know that anything can beat KH2 - it is essentially a flawless game as far as I’m concerned, so it would be very hard for this to even come close - and I think that’s where that vague disappointment came from, because as much as I tried to convince myself that I had pretty realistic (read: no) expectations for this game, after 13 years it was kind of impossible not to and BOY THIS POST GOT LONGER THAN I THOUGHT AND I’M NOT EVEN TO THE POINT YET

All of that to say, I. Love. This. Game. I have a few issues with it, mostly pacing-related, but overall, it’s a goddamn solid game, and a goddamn solid conclusion to this monster of a saga that we’ve all come to know (sort of) and love (and also today I discovered that there was some Shit I Did Not Know about KH which is WEIRD AS HELL FOR ME but that’s neither here nor there)

So WHY am I typing this goddamn essay of a ramble, why did I feel that my initial opinion of “HEY IT’S GOOD” is worth shouting into this random void (besides well I kinda want to be able to remember my initial impressions word-for-word when I go back and reminisce about this game’s existence)?

IT IS BECAUSE I AM SALTY AS HELL

ABOUT THIS ONE THING

THIS ONE THING

AND THAT THING

IS

Hey.

Square Enix.

Hey. Kingdom Hearts writers? Nomura? Whoever is responsible for these kinds of things? 

What the FUCK is it going to TAKE for you to treat Kairi as more than a GODDAMNED MACGUFFIN

I’m so FRUSTRATED ABOUT THIS

DDD came out in, what, 2012? And I mean even further back than that we got to see her fight with a Keyblade in goddamn 2006 in KH2! We’ve been teased for over 10 years with the possibility that Kairi will actually become one of the fighters, or at the very least, that she’ll at least get to become an ACTUAL CHARACTER rather than just always being the Thing that Sora Has To Save (because I’m not saying! That she has to be able to fight! To be a good character! I’m just so sick! of the way these games treat her!)

Like, I don’t even really have any kind of strong emotional attachment to Kairi. She’s not one of my favorite characters (which is not to say I don’t like her, I definitely do, there are just a lot of characters that I LOVE very much which kind of outshines her). And I can almost forgive that she’s kind of just going to be the damsel in distress at least once a game because that’s just How It Be.

But this fucking game gives her the WORST TREATMENT in any KH game. By fucking far.

So her and Axel/Lea get to have their off-screen training montage, which, is awesome! Hell yeah! You have no idea how FUCKING PUMPED I was when we first got that trailer with those two! The entire time I saw the first cutscene with them, I spent the whole time just excitedly clapping and yelling “BEST FRIENDS”! Granted, I kind of wish that all didn’t take place Entirely off-screen, but I mean I don’t know where it would have fit so it makes sense anyway.

SO WE HAVE THIS SETUP that these two get to be the last of the seven, which, hell yeah! 

AND THEN,

these two prove to be The Most Useless characters in the game.

And I wish I could phrase that better! Because it sounds like I am throwing my ire at the characters, when OH BOY NO

It’s definitely not quite as pronounced with Axel (which, hm, wonder why (”do you have any idea how popular I am”)) but both of them serve essentially no purpose at all - to put it simply and vaguely, they get benched. 

But Kairi gets it Worst of all. THREE SEPARATE TIMES (maybe more? that’s just off the top of my head) an enemy is attacking her, and she just STANDS THERE

she doesn’t even HAVE A KEYBLADE IN HER HAND

and so THREE SEPARATE TIMES a different character jumps in front of her to take the hit/protect her

And I’m so! Befuddled!! By this!!! We were goddamn led to believe that her and Axel had this great training, that like, yeah, they’re still new at this, so they’re gonna screw up, but they’re at least decently competent! At least enough that we feel confident enough to bring them into this Big Ass Battle! 

So WHY, WHY is Kairi the one that has to draw the Cutscene Plot-Convenient Incompetence stick EVERY SINGLE TIME

HEY THERE ARE SLIGHTLY LESS VAGUE SPOILERS BELOW THIS JUST A WARNING

THOUGH HONESTLY I don’t even know if I can call it a fucking spoiler because it’s just so. unsurprising.

So, well, here we are, Kairi gets kidnapped. Again. Wouldn’t be a KH main title if it didn’t happen at least once yeah? That’s, fine. I guess. Whatever, we need to raise the stakes. What pisses me off is HOW it happens! Because it happens in the exact same goddamn way as KH2, where, 

OH NO the villain has grabbed me by the wrist!

The wrist! My weakness zone!

I am completely unable to break free! Of this inescapable grasp! Of my wrist!

Even while I am literally holding a Keyblade in my hand, and also am surrounded by SEVERAL OTHER PEOPLE THAT COULD MAYBE STEP IN AND HELP!

Alas! My wrist! Remember me as I was!

Like. Come on.

KH2, I could kind of write it off, at least a bit, as a limitation of the graphics/animation/whatever. But GODDAMN the animation and EVERYTHING in this game is SO EXPRESSIVE AND IMPRESSIVE and that is in fact one of my favorite things about this game (like DUDE the convo between Vexen and Demyx is pretty much one of my favorite scenes ever) and holy FUCK this post has gotten out of hand

The point of that is that there’s just no excuse for why the Patented Wrist Grab should work again. Especially since it’s leading into something else that happens near the very end that I’m also kind of salty about? But a bit less in that I at least realized on a rewatch Why it happened and it wasn’t the initial reason I thought. My whole thing is, Boy These Villains are Definitely Very Powerful and that Sucks, and if this is just to be a “hey we can render you completely powerless and destroy you at any time” then why does it ALWAYS have to be Kairi that gets shafted. This game did her a terrible terrible disservice and that’s honestly my biggest (and only actual one that I can think of) issue with KH3. 

And I do sound considerably angrier about this than I actually am. Because like, it is a video game, and I know that writing is not going to be perfect or completely match up with what I want it to be, and that’s fine. I just wish I didn’t have to continue being constantly disappointed with how Kairi’s character is treated (re: not a character at all especially the further we get into these plots).

BUT BOY HOWDY WHAT A FUCKING AWESOME GAME