#it’s not that she’s bad in kh3

[greetings-inferiors]

Saw someone comparing people disliking Kairi being the “damsel in distress” of the franchise and wanting her to have her own game to raging feminists complaining that she should be a strong independent woman that don’t need no man and like… no…

Kairi is great in kh1. Seriously! If anyone looks at kh1 and goes “it’s bad because a woman is a damsel in distress and that’s sexist” yeah no they’re stupid. The problem is how it keeps happening.

Kh1: she’s a princess of heart so she’s taken by the darkness and her heart is protected by sora’s heart. But this is fine! It’s goo motivation for Sora, especially since Riku’s gone evil.

CoM: it’s all about saving Naminé, who isn’t technically Kairi but is Kairi’s nobody. So it isn’t that bad. It really does hammer home how Sora’s memories of Kairi are of highest value to him, to the point it can get a bit repetitive lmao. But still it’s fine.

Kh2: she’s not a damsel at all! Apart from like being taken by Axel for a bit, I’d say this is the most agency she’s gotten in the whole series. But still, she was kidnapped by Axel. It resolved quickly, but still.

She doesn’t appear much until kh3, and when she does it’s pretty good. So at this point it’s established that she IS a strong character. Even in kh3 she spends who knows how long in a hyperbolic time chamber training with Axel/Lea, so as far as we know she’s at the level of a keyblade master by now.

But then

And this is probably my biggest gripe with kh3

We get to the scene where Xemnas just… grabs Kairi and runs away, and suddenly Kairi is as powerless as she was in kh1. And, that sucks.

Luckily in re:mind we get to fight as her and she FUCKING SLAPS, which is ALL THE MORE REASON SHE SHOULD GET A SOLO GAME NOMURA

Basically Kairi is one of the most important trios in the franchise, and she constantly gets sidelined and belittled. It made sense in kh1, but now she’s a keyblade wielder it’s just depressing.

And she’s the only guardian of light to not get more than a single battle of playtime. Sora… is the main character of the franchise. Riku gets a playable appearance every other game. The way finder trio got you to play their game three times through to give them all time to shine, and aqua even got a solo outing, Roxas had a whole game to himself and you could play Axel, Xion, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, and even the other members of organisation 13 in mission mode. But Kairi had a single battle in Kh3’s re:mind and a game where she’s the narrator (because you don’t ACTUALLY play as her, but as EVERY GODDAMN CHARACTER EXCEPT HER)

In a franchise that loves handing out spin offs to any character that breathes, it really sucks that such an integral, beloved, cool, and fun character doesn’t have their own game, or even a side story like Riku.

And this doesn’t even mention her personality, which kind of has deteriorated since kh1, where she genuinely was an incredible character don’t @ me.

It’s not your fault you’re bland Kairi, it’s Nomura’s 😔

Here’s to Kairi having agency as the franchise moves forwards. But with kh4 moving to another realm, once they’ve found Sora I don’t see what she’s gonna do. What she COULD do.

[claitea]

ok actually. does anyone have any good kingdom hearts playthroughs or video essays to recommend. i do wanna refresh my memory of the series bc i miss it a lot

[fabulousairpirate]

incoming kh rant, lol

Hi! I'm supposed to be doing schoolwork, so you know what that means: it's time for me to talk about kingdom hearts again!

Y'all remember how Xion was originally treated by the fandom, particularly by shippers? I do. I was in the trenches fighting for my girl's honor while folks who shipped Protag Boy with Best Friend who was ten years older than him slandered her into oblivion. There was literally no Xion content for years. Go to Youtube right now and look up any video that was widely known throughout the fandom (Axel as Dane Cook, which are still classics btw, character Disney themes, trailers for different movies using KH cutscenes, fuckin Invader Zim videos) and I'm willing to bet you money that Xion will not appear in any of them. If she did, it was like "Woah this person really knows their stuff, they've got fuckin' Xion in the vid." But most of the stuff was either people complaining about her being shoehorned in, making her the villain in the AkuRoku stuff, or just the beaten-to-death joke of "Who's Xion?" Maybe we just needed to mature or dive deeper into the story, but by the time KH3 came out, the tune had thankfully changed and she received the hero's Welcome Back she deserved. It's interesting to see the change from completely neglected and ignored character to fandom darling, but if anyone can pull it off, it's her.

I will say though, it is so viscerally satisfying to hear the remix of Vector to the Heavens. It was already a great boss theme. But the KH3 version, with the heavy rock guitar and the war drums, it almost gives off the impression that it isn't just Xion fighting her opponent; it's Xion fighting US. It's her answer to the endless "Who's Xion" jokes: I Will Make You Remember Me. And I Will Cut Your Max HP, Thank You.

Idk. I love her, always did and always will. Character of all time.

[psychopomp-namine]

I just wanna say. I know we emphasize the "thank namine" plotline a lot, but sora did make another actual PINKY PROMISE with namine, which is that he'll find her again when he wakes up and then they'll be friends for real. so we're actually waiting on TWO namine promises to follow up on in future games

although technically sora made her promise to him

THEY PINKY PROMISED!!!!!!!

last time they talked in KH3 iirc was in the final world and the heart station scene. namine has come back and it's not like they're not friends, but it's not a real resolution to this promise methinks. idk if nomura will drop this plotline and handwave it in the future, or if we'll get a real resolution in the future with the same weight as the "thank namine" plotline (they'll probably resolve both in one go). but it's a pinky promise. a promise is a promise!! I am holding you to this, nomura!!!

[crosbyce]

I think this is my favorite Kairi

[naydralikessoup]

ohh it's misogyny got it

did they seriously forget to include all the friendship establishment :( are they really making this thing more about the lore than the characters :( youre seriously not going to show me any of their history together or dynamics?? like. the reason i played every other game in the series???

[finitevoid]

would love to hear your reasoning on transfem sora !!! bc instinctually i feel it, but im not 100% sure why myself

The people want the transfem sora meta and thus they will get it

the simplest and most obvious reasoning is the one I’m gonna get out of the way first, and honestly it’s enough to justify this headcanon forever and ever by itself: when sora’s Others aren’t ven, they’re girls. every single time.

Im not saying that roxas isn’t sora’s nobody or that he’s more ven’s than sora’s or something (because that’s not true), but I am saying that roxas looks like ven and clearly takes some of his personality cues from ven. and roxas is a boy. vanitas is ven’s darkness, and vanitas is a boy.

xion is sora’s memories, and xion is a girl. and namine is “kairi’s heart and sora’s body” and she’s a girl. (NAMINE IS TRANS—). canonically this is because of their tangential associations with kairi (sora’s memories taking the form of his most important person whatever etc) but… they’re still sora’s. most times sora is reborn, he’s reborn as a girl

sora’s Others that are ven

and sora’s Others that aren’t

Smarter people than me have pointed this out before now but. The threads are there

Moving onto some actual analysis though, I think that sora speaks to the transfeminine experience because he doesn’t actually really ask for any of this shit

it’s not like I can point to a specific moment where sora expresses dislike or even a lack of personal association with masculinity because— masculinity is the default, right? why would sora dislike being masculine?

buuuuuut… he kinda does? If I parrot the gendered framework for my kairi analysis— i.e. that keyblade wielding is a masculine ideal of strength, then… while sora technically achieves that ideal, it’s 1) not taken seriously by other characters (he’s even mocked by the narrative for how “bad” of a keyblade wielder he is!) and 2) was something thrust upon him, something that he adapted to, not something he asked for or wanted.

sora struggles against his own dislike of his position pretty textually; he spends all of kh1 resenting the keyblade before he’s forced to truly claim and embrace it, by the time ddd happens he’s so exhausted of it all that he walks dead on into a trap, and he spends all of kh3 getting mockingly negged by everyone he’s supposed to be friends with

and I reaaaally wanna emphasize that last one; how sora’s seen by other characters. something that happens to a lot of trans people I think is that… because our internal perceptions of ourselves, whether we’re aware of them or not, actually really effect what we absorb socially and how we move and act, even subconsciously… like, this is why it’s common for trans girls irl to come off a certain way, or to be treated with pretty textbook sexism prior to even coming out, and the way that other characters treat sora reminds me so viscerally of this phenomena. It’s vivid.

sora’s mocked but he’s not allowed to say anything about it; they mean it as a joke but he’s not comfortable expressing how insecure it really makes him feel. They’re pointing out that he’s failing at something— failing to be strong— failing to be a boy? and if he says that makes him uncomfortable then that will… reveal something? Reveal what? Sora isn’t sure, but he knows he shouldn’t reveal it.

plus… no shade to riku or anything, but the way he treats sora in kh1 SCREAMS of “I think you’re beneath me.” his reaction to sora having the keyblade is such palpable disgust at the thought of someone Lesser than him having acces what he thinks is respectable; what he thinks Should Be His. like… lol?

sora’s just kind of… checking off boxes, right? He’s doing what he’s told, absolutely scrambling against himself to accommodate Everyone, All The Time, like with the kind of fervor that speaks to someone who doesn’t believe he will have friends at all if he doesn’t Serve them in some capacity.

sora also gets along better with girls [shrugs]. He and kairi yknow, gestures vaguely at belle and ariel, i don’t know that you’d know this Nessie but sora spends the entire tangled world beating out flynn rider for rapunzel’s attention lol, etc

on a more allegorical level too… rage form… feeling like there’s Something Wrong inside of you… something that you’re ashamed of, that betrays your Wrongness, that you don’t want to come out lest others judge you… idk…

like with my kairi meta, none of this only applies to a transfeminine reading, but all of it does apply to a transfeminine reading. masculinity is sora’s prison that keeps him exhausted and insecure. I just think that femininity could be her escape

on an only tangentially related note, I actually don’t agree with most other tgirl sora truthers that she’d be butch. I think sora would be superrrrrr fem like she’d spend the first multiple years of her transition dressing in as many girly styles as she can possibly think of before she settles back on cargo pants and [NEW!!] spaghetti strap tank tops with cute designs. I love you sora!!!!!

[butter-goat]

I feel like we as a community don't speak enough about soras psychology. He as a character clearly (if you look a little deeper than what he intentionally is letting people see) does not deal with his emotions very well. Especially when his friends are in danger or in trouble. For example during the "everyone's dead scene" (which isn't what it's called but I can't be bothered to look it up rn) in the keyblade graveyard in kh3 sora only lets a little bit of what he believes out. He has sunk down into a depression in as little as a couple of seconds. Indicating his ruined mental state. He depends almost entirely on his friends for his self worth and it's not healthy. He screams and cries when his friend are dead. (Which is completely understandable they just DIED for gods sakes) but he reacts in such a harsh way. He immediately begins blaming himself and considers himself worthless. While it could have been something that just happened in the moment because he was in shock, I believe there is evidence indicating that he may actually believe that. there's evidence that he blames himself for riku and mickey getting trapped in kh's version of hell; the dark world. There's evidence that he blames himself for kairi going missing every game. There's evidence that he blames himself for Roxas' ... Everything. When he remembers her, he blames himself for everything that happened to Xion and immediately begins trying to bring her back after he learns that she can be brought back. And namine.... Ohohoho namine. When he sees her for the first(?) time I believe he collapses like he does for riku in kh2. And he starts saying things like "I'm so glad i found you!" And "I'm sorry for taking so long!" Which is indicative of a guilty conscience in my opinion. And when he forgets her and half-remembers her at the end of kh2 he feels bad for keeping him from roxas because at the moment he believes they are friends who have been kept from each other because of him. And when he leaves twilight town for the first time, he cries. And although this could be chalked up to Roxas' memories living through him I believe that it is not the case. He's leaving his friends, hayner, pence, and olette for the first time which makes him sad. As we covered before, he thinks he's worthless without his friends and that is why I believe he started to cry. Anyways sorry for going on a long rant, I wanted to get my feelings down so I could explain it better to other people.

[reunionatdawn]

The beauty of Axel's original character arc

"I thought a lot about that. Should I leave him as he was or should I bring him back again? However, when I considered the people that Lea wants to bring back, his existence plays a big role. I think Lea has successively become a key character." (Tetsuya Nomura)

Nomura said that he debated whether to bring Axel back to life, or to leave him as he was. The fact that he wasn't sure meant that his KH2 character arc must have felt complete somehow. So, I'd like to take a look back at Axel's original storyline in KH2 and why I liked it so much. I thought his death worked very well as a beautiful and satisfying (albeit more bittersweet) ending to his story. In many ways, I found it to be much more poignant than his storyline in KH3.

“Is that how to treat a best friend on coming back from completing a long mission!” “I don’t recall becoming your best friend.” (Another Report: Roxas—Somewhere in Time)

Roxas was closer to Axel than any of the other Organization members. But he obviously yearned to have best friends his own age. That is why he was best friends with Hayner in his dream world, even though he didn't know them in real life. And he didn't even remember Axel. In other words, Roxas and Axel were not really best friends. In the short story that was included with the Japanese version of KH2FM+, Axel was the one who was insistent on using that label.

Hayner: Well, I doubt we can be together forever. But isn't that what growing up's all about? What's important isn't how often we see each other, but how often we think about each other. Right?

The whole concept behind Nobodies was that they had no hearts, but they still had their memories from the time when they did. So, the writers undoubtedly had some idea of what each member's backstory was like. In the original KH2, the writers chose not to explicitly tell us anything about Axel's past. But based on his behavior, we would be able to ascertain that he probably had a best friend when he was still a human. However, he was already a grown up. His summer vacation must've ended a long time ago. He could no longer be with his best friend, and he needed Roxas to fill that void.

Roxas: Organization XIII… they're a bad group. Naminé: Bad or good, I don't know. They're a group of incomplete people who wish to be whole. To that end, they're desperately searching for something.

One of the biggest themes in KH2 is that of duality. In Hinduism, the universe is said to be made up of two complementary opposite forces called Shiva and Shakti. Shiva is the masculine force and is known as the destroyer or transformer. He is associated with chaos, darkness, and the element of fire, which symbolizes purification. Shakti represents light, order, and the feminine nurturing aspects of the universe, giving birth to new life. She is associated the element of wind, which symbolizes life energy and creation.

Axel's moniker is "おどる火の風". It translates to "Wind of the Dancing Fire" or "Dancing Fire's Wind". This is my theory of what the deeper meaning was. One of the most famous depictions of Shiva is that of him dancing in a ring of fire. This version of him is known as known as Nataraja. The rhythmic movements of the dance are said to cause storms and destruction. And there's a backstory to the dance.

In Hindu mythology, Sati immolated herself out of intense devotion to her husband Shiva when her father insulted him. When Shiva learned of Sati's death, he was overcome with grief, sorrow, and uncontrollable rage. Shiva carried Sati's lifeless body on his shoulders and began to perform the cosmic dance of destruction.

In KH1, the reports mentioned how Ansem amplified "storms" in the subjects of his experiments on the darkness of the heart. The kanji used (嵐) can refer to a literal storm or it can also be used metaphorically to describe an intense emotional state. I suspect that the original idea in KH2 was that Axel's best friend was killed during an experiment. And this event caused Axel's heart fall to darkness, turning him into a Nobody. It's probably the reason why Axel was so delighted to assassinate Vexen by setting him on fire.

Axel: Let's meet again in the next life. Roxas: Yeah. I'll be waiting. Axel: Silly. Just because you have a next life…

The imagery of Shiva dancing within a circle of flames represents the eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Shiva performs the dance and destroys the universe, but this destruction is eventually followed by rebirth. His lover Sati was reborn as the goddess Parvati and reunited with Shiva as his other half. Their combined form represents unity in duality and cosmic balance. In KH2, Axel did not think he was going to be reborn. And that was the basis of his storyline.

Naminé: We may not have homes. But there is someplace I want to go… And someone I want to see… Axel: Same here.

Nobodies had a strong thematic association with death and the afterlife. In KH2, Naminé was the ghost girl living in the haunted mansion. In KH3, she was an incorporeal star in the Final World, the metaphysical place where people go when they have strong attachments and cannot pass on to the other side.

A Nobody was the spirit that went on even as its body faded from existence. They were very similar to the Unsent from FFX, which was another game written by Kazushige Nojima. Axel was created because his human-self had strong sentiments. He desperately wanted to be with his best friend forever. And this unfulfilled dream, ironically, kept his body and soul tethered to the realm of light.

Kairi: Maybe…waiting isn't good enough. Axel: My thoughts exactly! If you have a dream, don't wait. Act. One of life's little rules. Got it memorized?

When Axel asked Kairi if she wanted to "see" Sora, he was referring to her meeting him in the afterlife because he was planning to kill them both. A similar form of wordplay was also used in the Japanese dialogue. His intentions were made apparent by his outstretched hand. He wanted Sora to become a Heartless again. So, he probably planned to accomplish that the same way he became a Heartless.

(Japanese Translation) Axel: We're quite similar, aren't we? Both of us want to meet our important friends. Don't you think we're like comrades?

In the KH universe, when a person dies, their heart returns to the light of Kingdom Hearts. Since Axel didn't think he had a heart, he thought there would be nothing left of him to live on after his empty vessel was destroyed. Even if he wanted to die and be reborn to meet his best friend, he couldn't. He was driven by intense loneliness.

Some Kingdom Hearts fans think there's something romantic between Axel and Roxas and that Disney stopped that from being made explicit. Is that true? Have there been things Disney have stopped you from doing? Nomura: In terms of the relationship between Axel and Roxas, we never intended anything like this and this is actually the first time I ever heard of it! We don't want to openly negate how the fans have come to enjoy the characters, but it was not something the creative team intended. Axel and Roxas are the best of friends and that's their primary relationship. 

Axel's intense yearning to see Roxas once more made fans question his orientation even back in 2005. Akuroku was quite a popular ship back in the day and many players saw romantic subtext on Axel's part. I do agree that Axel is easily read as queer. But the creative team was not trying to imply that he was in love with Roxas. I think it was his human best friend that he was really in love with, and Roxas just reminded Axel of him. When he was with Roxas, he felt like he was with his best friend. And that's why he wanted to die by his side.

(Japanese Translation) Axel: When I was with him, it felt like I had a heart too. That kind of feeling... I feel it with you too... The same...

When Axel said, "the same", he was referring to how Sora reminded him of Roxas. But I believe that we were invited to read between the lines and wonder if he was also referring to a human best friend that had already passed on. Ultimately, Axel's original KH2 arc was not about being together with Roxas forever. Roxas merged with his other half and became whole. He would live on within Sora.

In some Hindu traditions, "Sati" also refers to the act of a widow willingly participating in a self-immolation ritual on her deceased husband's funeral pyre. It was seen as an expression of devotion and loyalty and also an act of peerless piety which was said to purge her of all her sins. The widow would achieve spiritual liberation (moksha) not only for herself but also for her deceased husband. This meant that both would be freed from the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara). The widow was thought to be reunited with her husband in the afterlife, enjoying an eternal spiritual existence with him.

To help Sora reunite with Kairi, Axel self-immolated. After he died, Nojima probably envisioned that he would meet his dead best friend again, who was waiting for him on the other side. He had attained moksha, which represents the final goal of human existence in Hinduism, where the soul is liberated from the cycle of samsara. And that's probably why Nomura wasn't sure whether it was better to bring him back to life or to just leave him as he was.

"I never thought he would grow as much as he has. We originally planned to have him exit upon being defeated by Roxas during the opening of KHII, but all the staff, myself included, were strongly inclined to have him keep playing an active role after that. It's possible he will have things to do in the future, too. I tried to put that into his 'see you' line in KH2 FM+." (Tetsuya Nomura)

When KH2 was written, the writers probably had not envisioned a preexisting relationship between Saïx and Axel. But after its success, they decided to expand on the Organization's backstories, and came up with that idea. Isa was based on the original concept that was implied in KH2. Axel did have a human best friend, and that loss had a profound influence on his relationship with Roxas.

If Axel's human best friend was supposed to be literally dead in KH2, then him only being Norted is a major retcon, yes. But it was a retcon that would allow for the eventual reunion of Axel with his best friend in the physical life. Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, he could resurrect him from the dead. And that was the underlying idea of making Lea a Keyblade wielder in the first place.

Lea and Isa's backstory is one of the missing links of the KH series. By all means, it should have been depicted many years ago, in the defunct Birth by Sleep Volume II. This is a shame because it left their relationship extremely underdeveloped, and their reunion was largely glossed over in KH3 as a result. Because of this, I thought Axel's storyline in KH3 fell flat, and I thought that his ending in KH2 was more impactful. But I may change my mind if we finally get to see more of Axel's long overdue backstory in Missing Link.

[marcirose]

If anyone wants to know why the kingdom hearts fandom has a lot of bad takes and everything in that regard just know it's all kh2's fault

Kh2 is the reason why everyone thinks the disney worlds are filler, why people think Sora "fell off" after kh2, why people think the series is just cool anime stuff but with disney characters, and why people think Kairi still has relevance all cause she has a keyblade (/hj about the Kairi point but also not really)

The games that came after kh2 aren't held in as high of a regard cause everyone expected the future games to be like kh2 when they're very clearly not. Most of the kh3 criticism I saw basically boiled down to "this should have happened like it did in kh2"

Every game after kh2 is doomed to be compared to kh2 like how every final fantasy game after ff7 is doomed to be compared to ff7 cause of how it popped off the way it did

Imo kh2 more or less essentially ruined everyone's perception of what kh is and is also one of the biggest examples of showing the dissonance between what the fans want to see vs the story Nomura wants to tell and that dissonance gets stronger with each game

Kh2 was the turning point in the series that basically told everyone that the story wasn't going the way they think it would go and it completely went over everyone's heads and I think that needs to be talked about

Anyway moral of the story is stop skipping kh cutscenes. That's why y'all confused and why y'all don't know things. If I see any kh4 criticism that sounds like "it should be like kh2" I'll bitchslap you to the moon I've had enough of the comparisons

[yzafre]

The thing about Ventus as we're introduced to him in BBS is, for me, that he has a lot of right instincts and feelings, but not (yet) the maturity to properly communicate and act on them.

Because if you look at what he says in the game - hey something bad's coming, we should stay together, we should support each other, we should not spy on each other and mess with other's agency at an outsider's behest - I mean... he's right! He is, in fact, right about that!

I very firmly believe that if they'd stuck together a lot of the issues in BBS would have been either avoided or mitigated. Like imagine if you had this unshakeable understanding of what's going wrong and what you need to do to fix it but no one will listen to you. Without experience and maturity guiding you on how to handle it, I can see why he gets very yell-y and snappish and impulsive.

The problem, of course, is that just because it's understandable does not mean it's a good way to handle things. It's still an immature course of action! I know there's been people that find him very whiny, and on top of that, uh, telling Aqua she's awful was not the best look, Ven, what the heck.

I think another aspect of this is he's still filtering these things he instinctively knows through a rather... self-centered? Point of view. He's more focused on how their actions are making him feel, rather than understanding why Terra and Aqua are acting the way they are, why they don't see the truths he does.

We joke a lot about "your experience is not universal" but honestly I think realizing that is a huge stepping stone in a person's path of growth. Looking outside yourself to realize other people are have their own internal worlds guiding them.

That's why the "What you are is Darkness?" scene in KH3 hits so well for him! He's both finally able to communicate why he finds his and Vanitas' situation so awful rather than just yelling a lot, but also he understands and acknowledges Vanitas' point of view, even if he probably still knows/feels its not the best one.

[firestorm09890]

The Axel quote "Go on, you just keep running. But I'll always be there to bring you back!" I feel is taken out of context a lot and if you know how he is and how much he will fight to get his friends back it feels like he's saying "you're my friend and whenever you feel like throwing your life away I'll bring you back to your senses", a sweet sentiment said in a very Axel way, except it's actually about him recapturing Xion to force her back into the Organization. She was going to throw her life away in this instance but it's sort of like going "no! don't kill yourself. you're going back to the place that made you want to kill yourself and you're not leaving". Could we maybe figure out how to make her not want to kill herself instead? The answer is "no" in this instance, by the way.

If the two options weren't "let Xion go and she'll kill herself" and "send her back to the evil place that want to do bad things to her" I'd say something about Axel being possessive and caring more about losing his source of happiness than the actual well-being of his friends (which actually has more merit than you might think, considering the line directly before the subject of this post was "You both... think you can do whatever you want. Well, I'm sick of it," referring to Roxas leaving the Organization to learn the truth from someone who would actually tell him) but that WAS the only alternative to Xion going off to die (aside from secret option 3, not making her come back to the Organization but also not allowing her to see Naminé, I guess, which probably would have ended in tragedy anyway) and that's honestly how the end of Days is. Everything is bad. I still think for the sea salt trio friendship to work post-kh3 he NEEDS to sit down with Roxas and Xion for a long and potentially brutal discussion about the consequences of his actions and how they were harmed by them but also man it sort of was a bitch of a situation

[themattress]

Birth by Sleep was the point the KH series began going downhill. It was hyped up as a prequel that would answer a lot of questions, which it did...but it also had somehow mutated in development into something that went beyond that into recontextualizing the entire series rather than helping to logically progress it, which included heaps of blatant retcons that contradicted the previous games. All the new Keyblade lore in this game never went away and gradually consumed the series, as did its main villain for a long period of time. The anticipated fall-out of "save Terra, Aqua and Ven from their tragic fates" transformed into "save everyone from their tragic fates", undermining any dramatic weight the series had.

Yet despite that, it was on the whole executed quite well. I love the graphics, the music, the gameplay, the Disney worlds, the overall atmosphere, the new characters and their superb designs, the mini-games including the Command Board, and even the story on its most basic level plus clever writing/pacing by Daisuke Watanabe that shines through even Nomura and Oka's clunker of a script. It may not have lived up to expectations and was when the series jumped the shark, but there is so much good in it that keeps me coming back all the same.

I cannot stand Xehanort the Keyblade wielder as a character, for a multitude of reasons I don't want to relitigate here (I feel everyone ought to know them by now anyway). But despite that, there are three places where I actually enjoy him a lot - in Birth by Sleep where he's written as just the delicious wicked, unsympathetic villain of that story and origin behind Terra-Xehanort plus is voiced wonderfully by Leonard Nimoy; in Kingdom Hearts III's Re:Mind DLC where he's just treated as an enemy you can enjoy hating and beating up without thinking about him all that much plus is voiced wonderfully by Christopher Lloyd, and in the KH3 manga adaptation where most of the problems he suffered from in the game have been excised, from having his plan depicted as a new comeback rather than "the pre-destined master plan all along" to having the unearned pathos and dignity in his send-off removed.

358/2 Days is a mess, but it's.....how do I put it....a sincere mess. It's got the same dumb shonen anime vibe as KH2 did, but dumb shonen anime that are genuine and comfortable in being dumb shonen anime are charming to me, moreso that dumb shonen anime that overreach and try to pretend they're some avant-garde work in the way the KH series grew into from Dream Drop Distance and onward. I consider Kingdom Hearts, Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts II, the special editions of all three, the original Coded (the mobile game that doesn't exist anymore), 358/2 Days and Birth by Sleep to be the Golden Age of the franchise.

Xion kicked off many unfortunate trends that would contribute to the degradation of the KH series and as a character she's very shallow in how plot is put ahead of any form of distinct personality, but that plot wasn't half-bad all things considered (it should have been a disaster, yet it shockingly wasn't), and while her personality may be tepid her personal struggle is effectively portrayed and I can't blame people for getting invested and choked up over it.

Of course, I straight-up love the manga version of Xion. She doesn't qualify for this meme.

Kingdom Hearts III is an abomination of a story, just one shade removed from its direct predecessor Dream Drop Distance. It officially killed any interest I have in the franchise going forward. But much like Birth by Sleep, it's a damn well-executed game! The gameplay, while shallow, is really fun, and by God the Disney worlds are superb - they may be the most filler they're ever been plot-wise, but they've also never been better designed, successfully combining the best of KH1 and KH2 style design in a way BBS and DDD failed at while also cleverly incorporating different genres of gameplay that match the world's aesthetics. The Gummi Ship is a similar "best of both worlds" situation, I adore minigames like the Bistro, Classic Kingdom, and the Flan Heartless, and all the stuff brought about in the Re:Mind DLC (except for fucking Yozora) is fantastic (Data Greeting, my beloved!) So while KH3 being my final big experience in the KH series could have been better, it could have been worse too.

Under better circumstances many characters from the X sub-series and overlapping Lost Masters Saga could have had potential, but the writing is so bad that I just end up turned off of the characters altogether. Except Strelitzia. Despite (or maybe even because) her having some of the worst treatments of a female character even by this series' standards (which is saying something), I can't help but appreciate her. While I hate the "Keyblade wielder in ancient times" angle for all of them, something about the dynamic between Strelitzia, Lauriam and Elrena is endearing and adds a lot to the bond between Marluxia and Larxene that beforehand was just a shallow one rooted in mutual power-hungry aspirations. So even if I disregard literally everything else involved, I'd still want to headcanon Strelitzia as existing.

[mechanicalflowergarden]

Alright since people seemed curious, here's a rundown of the headcanoned lore behind my recent piece.

Keep in mind, not everything here will line up with the way the KH lore works. This is just something a friend and I discussed for fun :)

ALSO SPOILERS!!

===

In this story, Yozora stumbles upon Strelitzia in the Final World, unconscious and injured. He takes her with him back to Quadratum, patches her up and offers her a place to stay.

The two end up becoming friends which my friend and I described as, "Sunshine & Sunshine protector (who has an attitude problem)".

We also came up with the headcanon that Yozora is UX Player's 3rd Reincarnation (tho both are unaware of it). I have not seen them the same since.

Now that's the basic backstory my friend and I came up with which we used in a DnD-like VRChat RP about an alternate ending to KH3 where Xehanort won and is taking over other worlds. Characters from KH & FF band together to protect the worlds and defeat Xehanort.

Now Yozora's relationship with the group is kind of iffy. He's hard to read and he tends to isolate himself, and some characters don't like that about him. They don't understand his intentions, and even when they do, they're quick to be against him.

Some of this behavior is inspired from Noctis, specifically from Versus XIII. Noctis' Versus XIII VA mentioned that Noctis was originally meant to be a much darker character before they changed him for XV.

Strelitzia knows Yozora isn't a bad person, after all he took her in and cared for her. She sees the good in him and accepts the bad parts too. Nobody could ever convince her to stay away from him. And in turn, she's the only one Yozora will allow to be close to him.

Friend and I came up with what-if scenarios and one of them was Strelitzia falling into darkness with Yozora.

The reason why Strelitzia would be such a good candidate to fall into darkness is bc she's someone who questioned their reason for protecting the light and fighting darkness (which was hinted in UX).

She's someone who has personally seen what darkness can do to someone, but she's also seen that not every person who falls to darkness is a bad person.

Take Ventus for example. Darkness possessed him to kill her, but during the times Lauriam considers putting an end to Ventus, her soul tells him not to.

So imagine the scenario where everyone was against Yozora, believing he had to be put down. Strelitzia would never allow that to happen. She'd question why these guardians of light are able to justify this action as one of light.

And if remaining by Yozora's side means she's also fallen into darkness, then she'll gladly accept whatever titles they throw at her.

This drawing is to show the bad end of that battle where Yozora is struck down. Taking his weapon and jacket before he fades away, she strays from the path of light for it had failed her.

[crosbyce]

It's OFFICIAL;

Kairi has turned non-BUY-nary against KH4 in 2025

[aitsuheart]

As someone who likes Soriku, I also like Kairi. I hate how there are unfortunately some people that give everyone who likes Soriku a bad name by hating Kairi and just making her awful in non canon things.

It's quite sad.

The narrative also doesn't really do her justice either and it's such a shame. She could be really interesting. I have stated in the past, let her still have nice friendships with Sora and Riku along with various other characters. Let her have emotions about being left behind and change. Let her get frustrated that she feels that she cannot get strong enough. Let her find out what happened in her past to end up at the Destiny Islands.

I don't want her overpowered. There are some fans who show her a someone who is overpowered and can do anything and it feels like a weak characterization.

Let Kairi feel frustrated that she constantly becomes something to motivate others such as her kidnapping in kh2 and her heart getting destroyed in kh3. It would be so much more interesting if Kairi expressed that she hates how she became a liability. And I'm not saying she is, but she feels that way since she had to be saved.

Not enough people focus on that.

Let her show her feelings or emotions.

It's only reason I sometimes dislike aspects of the people who ship the opposing ship. It's not because it's opposing, but because they reduce Kairi to just that. People show her as having no character other than being a character's partner. It's the similar reason why I dislike the part in MOM where she has to turn to Sora to fight Xehanort.

Why couldn't she do it herself?

In all honesty, I'm fine with the pairing and Soriku is just really special to me.

Disclaimer: These are my thoughts of how Kairi is portrayed by fans and in canon. And what I would like to see from her in future games.