#if nomura wants me to draw good things he can give me missing link news 😔

[goldensunset]

Hi uh. Might I redeem P34CH ? Many thanks, <3

freya tbh

[komoryriku]

Is Kairi Capable of Mind Manipulation?
: Kairi’s Letters and the Power they May Hold

So. I have some personal theories about Kairi that I need to get off my chest. There’s a lot. Above is a scene from the KH3 opening that I will be breaking down later but for now, please keep it in mind as we go…


First of all, I’m so relieved that finally it’s been revealed that Kairi was a pawn in Xehanort’s schemes, now I don’t have to waste time arguing for that. All I will say is that evidence of this has been here since kh1:

Okay, moving on.

What does Kairi do exactly? Not too much on screen, but here’s what we know so far. -She holds the power of a princess of heart… maybe. -She is sent out to Destiny Islands to draw out the key blade bearer (Riku) -She writes letters to Sora. -She is closely connected to Namine, loosely connected to Xion, and figuratively comparable to Aqua. -She claims her memories of home are a little hazy for her. -She loves Sora as a friend. -She becomes Sora’s Chirithy.

If you want to know ahead of time what my ultimate theory is, here you go: Kairi has magic powers of memory or mind manipulation, and her letters, specifically, are manipulating Sora. If you wanna see me break down why I think this, here we go.

Pre-requisites to this theory:

I would very much prefer not to have to regurgitate certain things that are common knowledge to people in the soriku fandom and kh in general. This analyst is subscribed to the idea that Kingdom Hearts is written with queer coding and gay intent, that Riku is the Light, the Sleeping Realm theory is truth, that Sora and Riku will be romantically linked in the end. My reasoning is based on my own two eyes as well as the meta discourse surrounding these readings among like-minds, so if you have time, please read:

-Obligatory Sleeping Realm Theory Link  -The Necklace Theory (Which is just canon but still not explicit in game) -Queer CoM Analysis

Okay, onward!

Parallels:

We do not know much about Kairi as of yet, but what the games do give us is a string of VERY major, obvious Parallels. We are asked over the course of several games to compare Kairi to 3 specific girls: Namine. Xion. Aqua.

Let me break these down. Again, I’m so glad they finally revealed she’s a pawn so this parallel breakdown isn’t even half as long as it would’ve been otherwise hahah.

Namine.

Namine is said to be Kairi’s nobody. There is so much I find suspicious about that but for the sake of staying on topic, I won’t get into it, that’s another theory for another day (though I will flirt with it the speculation section). More importantly, she is objectively, directly associated with Kairi and the plot begs us to draw very close parallels between her and Kairi.

Namine has special powers. She can manipulate Sora’s memories and the memories of those close to him. The characters believe she can do this because she was formed from Kairi’s heart and Sora’s body, and I don’t know if that’s true, but I do take for granted that she is a nobody formed from Sora’s sacrifice and that her powers exist because of her connection with Kairi. Either way, what does she actually do?

Namine spends her days surrounded by white walls, drawing pictures on paper that seemingly have the power to manipulate Sora’s memories. This is a pretty specific skill she has, and if you ask me her art style is pretty advanced for a nobody who wasn’t even formed that long ago. She has the artistic eye to include reflective lighting in her work, which is not only beautiful and colorful but in my experience, it’s something a lot of young artists don’t even think to consider as beginners. If nothing else though, its a very specific style. I will be bringing this back up later for some really fun speculation.

These drawings she does are beautiful but also specifically are tied to her powers to manipulate memories.

What we also know about Namine is that she is being used for her powers against her will. Better analysts have covered this already so I will simply say Namine is a good and caring person who has magical manipulative powers that people were abusing her for. She betrayed her captors by the end of COM by refusing to hurt Sora any longer. All the while being tied back to Kairi. What they were making her do though, was manipulate Sora’s memories to replace all images of Kairi with herself… but also certain memories of Riku. Specifically, the memory of Riku swearing an oath to protect Sora as he gave Sora his crown necklace during the meteor shower (seriously, please read those pre-req theories). And ever since her debut, the games have never allowed us to stray from connecting her back very directly to Kairi. Namine is the most literal of parallels. Please keep all of this in mind for later.

Xion.

Xion, conceptually, is an extremely complicated character. She is tied to Kairi in ways that are not as literal as Namine, but she is still very closely associated with her. Once again, far better analysts can explain her better than I can, but here are the most important notes I will make about her:

-Xion is a puppet containing Sora’s memories. -The memories creating Xion are a complex amalgam of memories related to Sora himself, Kairi, and Riku.

All we really need to note for this Kairi Theory Essay is that Xion is another Kairi parallel that is directly associated with missing/manipulated memories as well. She is inadvertently taking these memories from Roxas, the Sora parallel, whom she is copied from, and these memories specifically belong to Sora. Twice in a row, Nomura has told us Kairi parallels are related to Sora’s memories being affected.

That’s all we really need to know for now, but I will also speculate further on Xion in relation to this theory later.~

Aqua

Aqua is not a literal Kairi parallel the way that Namine and Xion are. Aqua has no direct ties to Kairi the way they do, and her character is entirely original and not related to Kairi. However, Aqua is still figuratively a Kairi parallel, due to the role she plays in her story. I’ve already broken down elsewhere what role she plays that is meant to mirror Kairi, but the tl;dr of that is Aqua was set up as a pawn to observe, draw out her friends, and create a division between them. Like Kairi as well, she is not to be defined by these acts, because she truly loves her friends and dedicated her heart’s power to protecting them and saving them. She protects Ven’s body the way Kairi protected Sora’s bodily form. She also works to keep Ven from breaking by telling him he has always lived here with them and Eraqus, the same way Kairi as a Chirithy works to help Sora by taking his memory of Riku’s sacrifice away. Once again, even with the loosest of Kairi parallels, we see memory manipulation at play with the Sora parallel.

Chirithy

I will keep this short because I hope that you read the Sleeping Realm Theory and I also trust that you have the critical thinking skills to understand this symbolic (and literal) concept easily lol. Kairi is Sora’s chirithy the way Riku is Sora’s dream eater. A Chirithy is a specific kind of dream eater, however. A chirithy is made to follow you as your companion, and they specifically lead you into new timelines, taking away the traumatic memories you gained that caused the timeline to shift. We see this play out in KHUX, and with controversy, as the chirithies themselves discuss whether or not it’s actually morally okay for them to take those memories. Although that is a question, Kairi’s instincts are, in my opinion, purely and sweetly to protect Sora. She promised to keep him safe, (I’ve been supposing at that point in the loop she knew she was a Chirithy, and she most certainly was his chirithy by then either way given the ears on her hood appearing after Sora’s dream drop occurred). She does take Sora’s traumatic memories away, it is her job to do so, and I believe she does this solely because she means well and wants to keep him safe and smiling, as her letter to Sora suggests.

Unfortunately, what this specifically does though, is removes Sora’s memory of Riku’s sacrifice. It is stolen from him in that sense. Not only that, but because Sora’s memory of Riku’s sacrifice was taken, in spite of the event being etched onto his heart, and the pain of it being scarred into it, Sora credits Kairi as the source of the light he is following in the darkness. We know for a fact that that light is Riku’s because we saw the sacrifice, we remember it, we saw Sora call to it as Riku and receive a response, we even see Kairi twirl in front of the light and back away from it to lead Sora into it because it is not her light. Kairi, in a very literal way, has replaced Riku in Sora’s mind regarding who his light is. Kairi herself does not do this, it is Sora who fools himself because his memory was taken, but nevertheless, Kairi has just replaced Riku in Sora’s thoughts regarding this light and erased his memory of Riku’s sacrifice.

I will suggest more Things in the speculation section~

Now that all of that is out of the way, Lets Talk About Kairi’s Letters.

What do they do? Well, objectively, we do not know. That’s why this is a theory lol. But regardless of any magic or manipulation, letters are a means of forging a connection with others. Letters to friends by nature are words from the heart intended for someone you care about.

But literally speaking in the series, Kairi’s letters do something a little more special. In kh2 they forge a literal connection to Sora from Kairi. Sora is “trapped” in the dark realm with Riku, but pretty content to be so. No door opened, and that was the ending they had happily resigned to. It is not until Sora reads Kairi’s letter, emphasized by the camera, that the door to light opens. At the very least, we know for sure that manipulation or not, Kairi’s letters are capable of doing that much… 

Kairi also tells us she writes letters to Sora and doesn’t even send them. For whatever reason, however, she sent the letter in Kh2 as soon as she remembered who Sora was post his reconstruction. And this is pretty much all we know for sure.

If I say “Kairi’s letters are manipulating Sora” thats rather jumping to conclusions, cuz obviously there are missing pieces. All we have is: Kairi—>Letters—> ___ —>Sora.

That’s not enough to make the conclusion. But that’s where those handy dandy parallels come in.

Namine—> Drawings—> Manipulate—>Sora Xion—->Memories—-> Borrowed—> (Roxas—>) Sora Aqua—-> White Lies—> Distract—> Ven Chirithy----> Memories----> Taken----> Keyblade Wielder

So as you can see, the missing piece that fits the puzzle, isn’t so hard to theory-craft. Especially between Namine and Kairi. It is a jump to a conclusion, but it is far from a leap. True or not, this is my working theory.

So it’s time for speculation. 
Things that I have been exploring on the other side of that “leap”.

Kairis letters

Let’s start with the first letter we get to read from Kairi.

Pretty sweet sentiments right? But here is the thing about some of those lines in particular… “Many worlds sharing the same sky” is something Sora has already heard… from Riku.

Not to mention, something about this dark realm scene in Kh2 always bothered me… Sora is seemingly in utter bliss with Riku in the dark realm.

He does wanna get Riku home but if they’re stuck here, they are not complaining. And then the camera lingers for a pretty long time on Riku handing Sora that letter. That usually means  they want me to notice it and consider it… Okay, time to consider it.~

The letter pretty certainly opened the door to light by forging a connection to Sora from the light world with Kairi. Sora was so content that he wasn’t even connecting to home. Not until he read this nice letter from his friend Kairi. There is nothing manipulative about that on its own… but we have been asked by the games to parallel Kairi to Namine so I think it’s fair to suggest Kairi’s creative writing should really be considered thoughtfully the way Namine’s drawings are. The most basic logic is these letters are affecting Sora’s mind in some way. What further leads me to think this? The only thing Sora was even thinking about in this scene before reading that letter was Riku. Riku’s company, Riku’s injury, Riku’s happiness, Riku, Riku, Riku. And then as someone else pointed out here, Sora sees Kairi in the light world after reading this letter and leaves Riku to struggle to shore on his own.

This doesn’t have to mean anything but we know Riku is injured, We know the Sun is Riku’s symbol, and Sora is running from Riku, eclipsing the Sun, and rushing back to shore where Kairi is waiting to welcome him home. It is jarring when you think about it. How did Sora go from thinking about nothing else BUT Riku to leaving him with a probably-broken-hip to struggle to shore on his own? It is no wonder Riku is always left to think he is going to be alone in life and he has no choice but to struggle out of the darkness on his own.

This mirrors something in particular…. 

The scene of Sora losing Riku to the darkness in the KH1 opening…

Followed by shot for shot re-animation of Sora chasing Riku’s Light in the KH3 Dive to the Heart.

And something about the scene in Kh1 always really bothered me… Sora was worried sick about Riku when he lost him to the sea- only to suddenly be happy and appear blissfully ignorant of Riku disappearing the moment he sees Kairi. As if he just suddenly forgot about him upon seeing her.

And I think the parallels speak for themselves. (Don’t forget about that beach scene in the Kh3 op either... we are getting to that.)

I’m not saying Kairi and her letters make Sora forget about Riku, but…

I’m also not saying Kairi’s letters replace memories of Riku with herself, I actually don’t know that there’s enough here to make that statement likely… So I won’t… say that…

(I hope you read those pre-req’s because I’m going to assume you speak the KH language regarding Sora, Riku, and Kairi vs, water, land and air, vs Light/Dark, the Sun, the Moon, Dawn, Sunset, Night… all that good stuff.)

Now let’s talk about her letter in 3.

Oh this is interesting. Repeating motifs. Almost as though the game is trying to tell us something crucial.

Full transcript of Kairi’s KH3 letter to Sora that she has no intention of sending:

I'm sorry I left without saying good-bye. Did Master Yen Sid tell you? I'm training to become a Keyblade wielder like you. 
That's right. No more waiting for you to come back from your adventures. 
I want to get out there and do my part to help. 
Merlin has used his magic to bring us to a place where time doesn't matter. We can take as long as we need to complete our training. He's an amazing wizard. 
Oh, and by "us," I mean me and lea. 
He's really sorry for all the trouble he caused. I told him it's fine, but he won't stop apologizing. 
I'll admit I was a little scared of him at first, but I've gotten to know him better. All he ever wanted was to help his friend. 
Honestly, it's hard not to like him. 
Every now and then, I catch him staring at me. When I ask what's wrong, he says, "I'm not sure. I think I'm forgetting something. Don't know what." 
Sora, I think it may have something to do with you. 
Your journey is all about helping people: some that you've never met before, and some like Lea that you have. They're all counting on you. 
It won't be easy, but I hope you'll remain the happy and cheerful Sora I know. 
There's no heart your smile can't reach.

In particular, this letter goes on and on about Lea and how he has turned over a new leaf and deserves forgiveness. Personally, I took this to mean Kairi is really hoping Sora will forgive her for the part she was forced to play in Xehanort’s plot, perhaps her writing even influencing his mind to do so via urging him to forgive Lea. You may notice that this would imply that Kairi is fully aware of her role in Norty Nort’s plot. And to that I say yes, it sure would. But not as much as her leading Sora around to her various “heart” pieces like a moth to the wrong flame in Re:Mind.

Anyway, this is not a letter she intends to send to Sora, and she makes a note of this to Lea, even when he tells her plainly that Merlin will deliver it for her. If we keep in mind that Namine’s art doesn’t even need to be seen by Sora for the mind tricks to work, then perhaps- Sora really doesn’t even need to receive this letter for its influence to work. This would rather make her frantic attempt to send the letter in Kh2 a little strange, but consider this: Her close connections to Sora are potentially based very heavily on these letters. Especially if some of her connections are based on making him forget Riku at various points. Having forgotten Sora in Kh2 until he was reconstructed, and considering that Sora barely reacts to her reunion hug with him, it rather makes a lot of sense that Kairi needed to forge a new connection with him, via one of her letters. In that case, Sora needed to actually read it.

KH3 OP

Beach Scene

Now, finally, I want to talk about that part of the Kh3 opening I mentioned at the very beginning. We are back. Once again, I trust you speak the language of Kh symbolism.

This section begins with Kairi suddenly appearing against a bright white background. Forgive me if I suggest hey, that reminds me of Namine’s white walls, or some blank pages... Next, Sora appears in the empty white environment, which remains white until, seemingly, their eyes meet. And THEN, after that delay, the world of Destiny Islands starts rendering in like a game slowly loading a world on a slow engine. Once again, the motif of Sora standing in the ocean, and running up to Kairi on the shore takes place. He is happy to see her. Perhaps he thinks he found the Light that Chirithy told him to search for. Hey this time Kairi is even running into the sea to meet him instead of waiting for him, just like she said! good for her~. Anyway. As they run out to meet each other, however, lightning strikes. Sora doesn’t see it, but he clearly senses it in some way and stops, (didn’t someone once tell Sora to mind what he hears and not what he sees?~). The camera then zooms out to reveal Sora and Kairi as pieces on a chess board in Nort and Eraqus’ game. Now, this essayist takes for granted that Riku is the Light cuz the text says so. Because of that, my first instinct is to say the purple lighting that we saw represents Riku. A forgotten, heartbroken, lonely Riku. Lightning being one of the most destructive forms of light after all, and Riku would be particularly hurt to know that Sora has forgotten him.

Where is Riku?

What is really interesting about this opening is the severe, odd, lack of Riku. He is missing throughout most of it but in particular when Sora is fighting Xemnas. In the opening for Dream Drop Distance, Riku is very much there, and the animations of him harmoniously fighting with Sora, as well as protecting Sora, self sacrificially are prominent, are there because they want you to remember exactly what happened in that scene and what Riku did.

Only for that to be absent from Sora’s boss battle review sequence in Kh3’s opening. At first, I found his absence annoying but now I’ve come to realize there is a reason for it. The popular theory is that it relates to Sora’s memories being taken away. Riku’s sacrifice most certainly was one of them, thanks to Kairi as his chirithy, but that’s not the memory missing from the opening sequence. It’s basically Riku in general outside of the fall of Destiny Islands, the cast shot, and the shot of him walking into the light from shadow. There isn’t a review of previous games in which Riku played the crucial role he did, and nothing from Dream Drop Distance. To that I personally say, this is most likely foreshadowing that Sora will lose ALL his memories of Riku- as his entry fee to play the Reaper’s Game in Shibuya… Oh yes, TWEWY is also a pre-requisite for this theory lol but you should also play it in general cuz it’s a great story and if nothing else is obviously crucial to what comes next in Kingdom Hearts. Highly speculative, but my assumption is that once Sora beats the game and Joshua returns all of his memories, he will give Sora EVERYTHING back, including anything Kairi has removed as his chirithy or anything she has manipulated as herself.

Further Parallel Speculation

Remember when I said I’d love to elaborate? Well here we are~ We’re gonna get super gay too.

Namine:

Namine is a figure that represents, to me, a brilliant use of queer coding about a queer struggle known as compulsory heterosexuality (or comp-het for short as I’ll be repeating this term a lot). If you made it this far and aren’t lgbt savvy then I’ll tell you that comp-het means compulsively feeling attraction to someone of the opposite sex based on heteronormative conditioning. As Sora roams through Castle Oblivion, he is constantly finding himself misplacing memories of Kairi onto Namine followed by eventually memories of Riku onto Namine. This is one of the most literal depictions of the comp-het phenomenon I’ve ever seen, and it is BOLDLY placed in a mainstream video game from the year 2003. It’s quite admirable in my opinion. Namine’s abilities grant us a convoluted plot so confusing that most people will not understand right away, but to the queer eye familiar with comp-het, it provides a strong implication that Sora may be even more confused than we think about who it is he is in love with. To illustrate, it means Sora thinks he likes Kairi romantically cuz society told him being straight is the default way we live. In actuality, he is projecting his feelings for Riku onto Kairi, (with Riku doing the same until COM and onward), and in COM, those Riku->Kairi feelings are projected onto Namine. She creates another layer of distance between them. But even without her presence, Kairi is still there between them, a question that begs to be answered, and yet another extremely common parallel.

Namine is extremely uncomfortable taking the necklace memory of Riku and imposing herself on it. But when you consider Kairi may have been manipulating Sora, it makes me also wonder how many of Sora’s Kairi memories are actually Riku memories, and whether or not Namine even CAN fix those memories… Just food for thought. Speaking of comp-het...

Xion Xion is an even more convoluted character creation, designed to confuse you even more than Namine does. In my eyes, Xion is very literally comp-het personified. Xion, as far as we’ve been told, is a puppet, a copy of Roxas but blank slate. A literal nobody. They are only what you project onto them. And what did Xion become?

Xion became a real confusing amalgam of so many things. -Roxas initially projects GirlTM onto her. Literally. This makes sense since he already has Axel, a male friend, and his instincts coming from Sora’s memories casually assume a female friend is needed to complete their trio. This is because Kairi was that female friend to Sora. -Over time, as Xion craves becoming whole, she inadvertently receives more memories from Roxas (Sora), of Kairi and obtains her face (albeit with black hair, and there are numerous theories about why that is but this essay is already really long lol). -The strange thing is though- despite having Kairi’s face, the hints we get are that Riku memories are zapping into her too. Not only that, but her death grants Roxas Oblivion as she enters his heart. -I don’t think I need to explain what that implies, but to keep it short, Oblivion is representative of Riku’s oath to Sora associated with the necklace memory. Namine was correct to tell Ansem the Wise that the missing memories are crucial to Sora. I have an analysis on Oblivion vs Promise Keeper that I keep meaning to post but the tl;dr of it is that Oblivion has nothing whatsoever to do with Kairi and EVERYTHING ENTIRELY to do with Riku and his oath to protect Sora. It should have no association with her whatsoever. She is also Roxas’ forgotten friend once the memories of her go away the way Sora’s memories of Riku will. -The manga also much more clearly shows us that the feelings Xion is thriving on from Sora are feelings associated with Riku: the empowerment he feels when fighting with friends.

So if I may, here is the returning theme of projection, of misplaced affection, of misplaced memories. This theme is SO CONSTANT with every Kairi scene and parallel we get, and I do not think it is a stretch to say they are not just here to discuss queer themes of compulsory heterosexuality, but are integral to the plot of KH in a very literal, physical way. In other words, it comes up with Kairi way too often to make mind manipulation a leap. It’s still a jump, but it is not a leap.

Aqua

Aqua is not a literal Kairi parallel the way Namine and Xion are, so she does not bring any major compulsory heterosexuality themes to the table, and her “mind manipulation”, if my theory on white lies between the BBS trio is correct, is pretty minuscule as far as we can tell. This does not mean there isn’t anything to speculate on regarding Kairi’s powers though.

Aqua is a gifted mage, and places a protective spell on Kairi when they meet. This is such a sweet and sentimental moment and I love it so much. She also literally gives her friends way finder charms based on paopu fruits the way Kairi does for Sora. So there are some literal parallels to be found there, but the ideas that concern me most are these-

Aqua is associated with magic. Given that Aqua, Namine, and Xion, are all associated with water, like Kairi, (again I assume you speak the KH language of symbolism and metaphor), and some form of magic (Namine with mind powers, and Xion wielding the key blade), is it possible that Kairi is also a mage of some kind? Or at least harbors the powers of a mage, the way she harnesses the power of a princess of heart?

Re:Mind menu screen art

This is an analysis I’ve been dying to post but only since Kairi has been outed as a pawn spy for Xehanort have I felt free enough to do so without going through the trouble of proving her association with the dark side. You are welcome to dismiss this analysis for reading too much into it but if you’re as deep into this as I am then here we go~

First of all, I want to call attention to how beautiful this art is, and how wonderfully symbolic I think it is, and what it actually reminds me of. Do you remember my comments earlier about Namine having a specific art style, which incorporates reflective light in her coloring? Look at the oceanic blue in Sora’s grey pants and jacket. Look at the yellow from sunlight in Sora’s hair. Look at the blue and yellow reflecting in Kairi’s pink dress and her red hair. Look at the tinge of blue from the sea reflecting on Sora’s paopu fruit. I am not saying this menu art is supposed to be literally drawn by Namine, I sincerely do not think it is lol, this is a symbolic image. But I do think it is meant to REMIND us of Namine’s art.  

This menu screen, like the blank pages of a sketch book or notebook, like the beach scene in the KH3 opening, begins with a white screen. Slowly fading in, like the beach scene in the KH3 opening, or a game with a slow loading engine, we have a sketch of Sora. Sora’s feet appear already immersed in the water, as he is eating a paopu fruit, continuing his walk out to sea that we have been seeing him take since kh1 with these key arts. Sora is walking out into the ocean alone, and the coloring fades in bringing the scene to life. This is all the menu art is for KH3.

When Re:Mind was released, the menu screen for it evolved. Now, suddenly fading into this pre-existing scene is a drawing of Kairi, inserted into the moment. Kairi is depicted with a paopu fruit of her own, and she enters the scene with her feet standing on top of the water, not immersed like Sora’s the way they should be considering the depth of the water. This could be a mistake and nothing more… except the water has splash animations added around their feet, meaning this is something someone absolutely should have caught because animations are here drawing our attention to it. This would imply that it means something, so- what? Kairi is not immersed in the ocean, (darkness?), the way Sora is. She is walking /on/ water, not in it. I think this may very well be representative of her protecting Sora’s form as he navigates the new timeline in the dream scape, similar to when we see Riku and Sora walking on water in the dark realm. Or it may represent the way she is navigating darkness but is not immersed in darkness. She treads over it, not through it.  

We do not know what this menu screen means. But here is my take on it. Because it is meant to remind us of Namine, we should consider mind manipulation is at play. Because Kairi appears here only after Re:Mind is released, in her Chirithy hood and eating a paopu with Sora, we are to recognize this as the second timeline, in which Kairi has been added to Sora’s journey like a figure in Namine’s art. We should also remember that as Sora’s chirithy, she has removed his traumatic memory of the timeline shift and very specifically removed his memory of Riku dying as he sacrificed himself for Sora. As the title implies, the game wants to remind us of what happened: the timeline being rewritten, as well as Sora’s Memories being rewritten, and in a sense, Sora’s MIND being REwritten. So much to do with mind and memory being affected...  

A couple more theories as food for thought:

Kairi’s Grandmother:

You may have been wondering how Kairi could be so pure of heart, as far as we are aware, and yet capable of morally grey things like manipulation at best, and outright terrible things at worst? Well, here is my theory: Kairi’s grandmother has been held hostage and used as leverage against Kairi. For as often as Kairi has been used as a catalyst to bait Sora into acting for Xehanort’s schemes, we know Norty and the powers he works for, (Master of Masters), are no strangers to keeping hostages as motivation for their pawns. I’m just going to fill in the missing blanks between “Kairi’s missing grandmother” and “Kairi acting for the dark side”. Remember her letter to Sora that she didn’t send where she told Sora that Lea was just acting out evil to save his friend, and he’s actually a very good guy and a lovable friend you can’t help forgiving?

I think this is intending to draw a redemption arc parallel between Kairi and Lea that is even more literal than you think. Axel was acting out harshly because he would do anything to bring Roxas back, even willing to destroy Sora to make that happen. If Kairi’s only family was being kept prisoner and threatened with death unless Kairi did what she was told, how can you blame Kairi for her actions? Especially when she started playing the role of a pawn as a helpless child. We don’t know what she’s been through, but probably a lot of traumatic experiences. There is no reason to consider Kairi evil, and although you can explain her actions any number of ways, this one seems the most likely to me.

Her parallels likewise have had a reasonable motivation for their actions if they were even willful at all.


-Namine herself was being held captive, with the organization forcing her to commit acts of violating mind manipulation. Seeing how genuinely kind Sora was, however, she eventually refused to be their pawn anymore -Xion did not even willfully take Sora’s memories, she was a complete victim of circumstance. Even when wanting to run away, however, Roxas simply was not going to live if she were around to continue absorbing his powers. Thus she chooses to return to Sora. -Aqua is not spying on Terra or trying to drag Ven home because she wants to. She is doing it because Eraqus burdened her with this task. She protects Ven with all she has in the end, and sacrifices herself to give Terra a chance at survival.

Do not assume that Kairi being capable of doing these things, or actually doing them makes her evil. KH has been pretty consistent about showing the ways in which women are often forced by the patriarchy to perform various deeds against their will and there is no reason to hate her for this or think the worst of her when she is more than likely just as much a victim of circumstance as anybody else in her position would be. I think it’s very fair to be mad at someone in her position if you were the one being manipulated by her, but never forget to be fair in your judgement of this fictional character being manipulated by the forces of evil in this fictional world which uses her as a pawn. Kairi can still a good person of good intent even if she had to do bad things. 


Time to reach: Ava

Since I’m already several layers deep in speculation I just thought I’d throw this out there as food for thought. It’s a popular theory that Ava, the missing foreteller, is dwelling within Kairi’s heart, which could possibly mean Namine is Ava’s nobody the way Roxas is likely Ven’s, as they were both dwelling in Kairi’s heart and Sora’s heart respectively when Sora sacrificed himself. Ava is particualrly skilled in the art of Illusions, which is pretty relevant to the idea that Kairi and Namine are directly manipulating Sora’s mind. Namine’s powers involve rearranging memories, and drawing new memories illustration what she is creating. She is literally creating illusions in the mind. If Ava is dwelling in Kairi’s heart, perhaps logically Kairi can use these powers but not directly. She cannot create illusions out of thin air, but can play tricks on the mind with them. Namine forming from Kairi’s heart having meshed with Ava’s heart might thus be able to create mind illusions, using drawn illusions. Is Ava the source of Kairi’s powers? Is Ava the princess of heart which Kairi is using to do her jobs? Well, I don’t know lol. It’s just out there as food for thought. 

In Conclusion.... Nothing, really lol

All we have to go on are consistent parallels and strong guesses. Kairi may or may not be able to manipulate minds, and her letters may or may not influence Sora’s mind. I don’t know. It is worth considering though, I think. However, I ask that you judge Kairi fairly, open mindedly, and do not underestimate how powerful she may very well be. I cannot wait to see what will be revealed about her character in the future.