#kingdom hearts 3

[avalon-knightly]

This reminded me of this little thing I made for Valentine's day back in 2022.

"Just take these flowers and don't look at me like that…"

[moonlightkitkat]

This was originally for an rp with my friend and I but no, I need to go more in depth about it.

Kairi from Kingdom Hearts is so TRAGIC to me. Specifically about dreams and dreameaters.

Sora and Riku are stepping ahead once again, and as they journey to become masters, they get adorable little pokemon dream eaters, who protect their dreams and stay connected to their hearts. Not only that, but Riku BECOMES Sora’s dream eater due to the forces after him.

But Kairi?

Kairi doesn’t have anyone to protect her dreams.

This is especially tragic to me when I remember that in KHMoM, she’s asleep throughout it. Yes she’s traveling through her memories, but her dreams, the realm of sleep, that’s what is allowing her to traverse her memories. And what does she discover while she’s in her dreams?

The unfiltered terror of her past. From the time she closes her eyes to when she opens them, she suddenly realizes that she truly never had any agency in her life. As a child she was kidnapped, experimented on if we go off of the novels (which I DO), and shipped off to a new world all by herself. Her memories locked themselves away because the poor girl was chased and attacked by MONSTERS before she was kidnapped. If the novels are taken into consideration, she was one of the subjects in the experiments of the heart, led by Xehanort. She was so LITTLE when she went though all of that, and this time, there was no caring older woman to protect her.

Kairi realizes that her entire life has been puppetted by Xehanort. She was sent to the islands, specifically so he could track down future keyblade wielders. Less than ten years later, her heart has been seperated from her body, and her kidnapper is tormenting her friends, and is hellbent on killing them. She wakes up and doesn’t even realize she’s looking at Xehanort, but he knows EXACTLY who she is. And what does he say?

“So you’ve awakened at last Princess. You’ve served your purpose, but now it’s over.”

And Riku’s soul fights back, screaming that his body won’t be used for… whatever Ansem was gonna do. I genuinely believe Ansem would have killed her. That realization, that horror about what he’s about to do, gives Riku the strength to fight back and beg for Kairi to run.

Then, a year later, she’s kidnapped again. She’s locked away in a floating cage, mocked and told that her only use is to make Sora angry. Once again, though she doesn’t realize it, she’s being used to lead Sora into danger.

Finally, less than a year after she’s been given the keyblade, her life is cut short by the same man who’s caused her so much grief. Even if Xehanort didn’t “really” kill her, her body shattered. Her “death” is why her best friend is no longer with her. For the final time. Xehanort used her to hurt Sora.

Then, in her desperate attempt to do something, because Sora had been right there. His hand had held hers, and then suddenly he was gone, and it was all her fault. In the midst of her grief and shock, she agrees to dive into her dreams and memories, obsessively searching for any clue to where he might be.

And then she unlocks her memories.

And then she faces the memory that exists within her, that always existed there, haunting her from within her own mind. I see this as how Ansem the Wise managed to keep his memory alive within Sora’s heart in DDD.

Yes Kairi’s finally getting the answers she’s longed for, answers to where Sora is, but she’s also overwhelmed with grief. Her entire life has been puppetted but she had no idea. Her friends, her home, her life, had been toyed with and destroyed over and over again by this man. So she unleashes her anger, her hate, her rage, and she FIGHTS.

But she’s no match for him, even in her dreams. I see her weakness to him being solely because she has no faith in herself. In KH3 her battle lines are “Please work!” She is the only fighter in KH that doesn’t believe in her strength, or that openly doesn’t. That, along with the trauma of when she was little, and the memories and pain that have resurfaced, memories of herself being weak and helpless, is the reason why she cannot defeat the memory of Xehanort.

And so the memory of Sora takes over, for just a moment, and does the job for her. Because Sora wins every fight, and Sora was always there to save her. So here, in her dreams, she’ll pretend he’s here and will save her once more.

When she wakes up, she doesn’t tell Riku about her memories. She doesn’t give herself a moment to process it, instead shoving the memories away and sharing what’s important. Not herself, not the past the three of them always wondered about, even though it’s the whole reason Sora and Riku wanted to leave the islands. No, it’s Sora’s location. Because she isn’t important, not to herself always. Sora is.

Riku leaves, and once again, Kairi’s all alone. Shes not really, she has Aqua and the others, but the two halves to her heart are gone, and she can’t reach them. Shes not strong enough.

Back to the dream eater bit.

Kairi’s had this sudden resurgence of memories, ones that she’s helpless to defend herself from. In her dreams, those memories, along with all the other terrible moments, are sure to resurface. With no dream eater to gently guide her, to remind her it’s all a dream, she’s helpless, and is trapped reliving them again and again.

She has no fluffy bat, no bouncy unicorn kitty, not even a Chirithy of her own. Perhaps her one chance to have one, being Riku, the living dream eater, has left her, and now she’s alone.

Alone in the waking realm, alone in her dreams, Kairi’s once again separated from her friends in more ways than one.

Stripped of agency, confidence, comfort, and protection in her dreams, she truly is all alone.

I find that so very tragic.

[whereiskh4]

IT HAS BEEN 2112 DAYS SINCE SORA VANISHED

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 3

[robinchan-hananomi]

‘I invoke the right of Parl-‘ ‘uh-uh, no, no parlay. Look around, we’re a little busy’ basically Jack telling Luxord they have no time for Organization nonsense

Donald and Sora absolutely roasting each other. ‘Sora can’t count’ ‘your face is memorable’

Remy just hijacking Sora because he didn’t stop to help the rat father dropped fruit

"kingdom hearts 3 wasn't a good game"

umm

we have woody burning the shit out of young xehanort

sully throwing vanitas through multiple doors and then shredding the door

hayner (attempting) to high kick ansem seeker of darkness

"nobody axes axel"

[lennythereviewer]

My favorite Kingdom Hearts fact is that one of the biggest plot-holes that Nomura has never been able to meaningfully retcon or write his way out, a plot-hole so big that it fundamentally breaks the very rules the series is written on...

Is the existence of Steamboat Willie

Let me explain for the uninitiated:

In Kingdom Hearts 2, there’s a small detour in the story involving Maleficent trying to invade Disney Castle, the home of King Mickey. She can’t step foot in the castle due to an artefact of pure light that wards off darkness locked in the basement.

Pete, who is working for Maleficent, opens a door into the past (Before Disney Castle, this land was known as Timeless River) and decides to remove the artifact from it’s place in time so it won’t be there to stop them from getting in.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy chase Pete into the past thanks to another magic door provided by Merlin, and through some shenanigans involving old cartoons and teaming up with Pete’s past-self, they lock the door the villains are using, and return the artefact to it’s proper place so it can exist in the present.

You with me so far? Pretty straightforward-ish time-travel plot right?

Here’s where it goes off the rails.

Time travel would go on to become a staple of Kingdom Hearts going forward and would come with a very strict set of rules over how it operates:

1. You can only travel to a point in time where a version of yourself exists

2. You basically give up your body to do so, and travel as a disembodied soul unless you have a vessel to inhabit

3. You can’t alter the past in a meaningful way, what’s going to happen will happen

4. You lose your memories of said trip once you return, but your actions could leave a lingering instinct on your other self that could influence their decisions

“Wait” you may be thinking “Why should anyone go through all those hoops? Wasn’t time travel super simple that first time?”

And you’d be totally right, because the existence of Timeless River completely renders all of these rules and restrictions meaningless. 

There is no version of Sora that existed in Timeless River before he step foot there, everyone kept their bodies, the trio and Pete were able to mess with the timeline as freely as they pleased, and they all very much remember their trip. 

Nomura has never been able to meaningfully explain this super simple, easy way of time travel and the more convoluted method co-existing other than a cheap-throwaway line from one of the villains saying that Merlin “broke the rules” 

The hilarious part about this line is that it implies that PETE of all characters is actually more powerful than the actual villain of the series, because Pete opened a door into Timeless River through sheer willpower and nostalgia for “the good old days”

But the all-knowing chess-master of a villain who had an evil plan several decades in the making with countless moving parts and contingencies to account for had to use the roundabout, more complicated method of time travel where a lot could go wrong.

Pete though? Dude just casually broke all the rules of time travel because he felt like it. He's just built different.

TL;DR: Steamboat Willie breaks Kingdom Hearts lore in half, Pete is more powerful than Master Xehanort, and I fucking love this beautiful trainwreck of a series you guys it means so much to me

I love Kingdom hearts so much.

[loomka]

just thinking about her loneliness and despair slowly turning more and more sour at the end of the long days spent in the realms of darkness. her time consumed fighting an inner battle to keep herself free of resentment, while losing little by little the hope of seeing her friends ever again. her, once prideful, keyblade master title wearing her down as she loses sight of what it meant -

[a study of 'The Fallen Angel' by Alexandre Cabanel]

[chiaraeliz]

strength to protect what matters

[luxmoogle]

𓊝 Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me~ ⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆ ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ

[xyrishi00]

anti-aqua

[thehavster]

Sora and a friend!

[kaliune]

Chirithy doodle ☁️

[djangotheasteri]

love this team from kh, they are the best.

[asleepinawell]

local man would rather call on the power of the moon to enter berserker mode than go to couples therapy

bonus, he's back like a day later, they just had to be dramatic about it:

[klyukvav]

[gummi-ships]

Worlds of Kingdom Hearts 3