#kidnapped kairi!'

[oveliagirlhaditright]

"Shielding Kairi, Sora fought through the Heartless in the Second District, and they ran into the secret waterway." - Kingdom Hearts 1 novel page 238. Based on the game by Tetsuya Nomura. Novel written by Tomoco Kanemaki.

So, I already did one thing based on this scene (the part where they hold hands in this segment)

, but I thought I'd do another one because Sora protecting Kairi is super cute, too. And because the one I made of Sora and Kairi holding hands didn't completely satisfy me. Hope you guys enjoy! (And if you all can't tell, I'm starting to do a thing where I make manips of the SoKai moments in the novels that aren't in the games).

I decided to have SoKai "balling their fists here" instead of Sora wielding his Keyblade so they would have nice, expressive faces. I feel like in KH1 a lot of the time when Sora had the Keyblade he had fish face. -shrugs- (Just imagine that he's about to summon Kingdom Key. LOL) Also, Sora's hair is very dark here. I know (it had to be to try and match the coloring of Kairi and secret water way image). I guess this is way back when Sora had chocolate brown hair in KH1, before they later changed it to a lighter color;)

#kh #sokai #kingdom hearts #manip #edit #kh1 novel #khi novel #kingdom hearts i novel #kingdom hearts 1 novel #tomoco kanemaki #sora #kairi #sora and kairi #digital manipulation #mine #my work #shanna's various forms of art #next up is in kh2 book when kairi's all like 'it's you!' when she sees saix and points her keyblade at him and sora says 'you're the one wh #kidnapped kairi!' #*'you're the one who kidnapped kairi!'

[sunhalf]

kairi has been dead since the beginning. btw.

#thinking abt how narratively shes essentially a fridged wife #like her 'deaths' are the catalysts again and again #starting when shes FOUR and the bad man removes her from her home world and Kills Her identity by stealing her memories #and kairi KNOWS THIS! being a perfect corpse is all that being a princess of heart IS #she is doomed by the fucking universe to die perfectly enough that ppl miss her when shes gone #and every game revolves around sora and riku killing themselves because she died #but when shes NOT dead? they dont talk to her #riku doesnt seem to reach out to kairi at all between 1 and 2. he has his reasons but he Could #he rly only cares when she gets kidnapped/is at risk of Dying again #she is loved not because she is kairi she is loved because shes light incarnate #she is loved because she is fragile and pure and incapable of doing wrong #she is anything other than a living girl to grow beside or actually KNOW. shes motivation. shes light. #shes not supposed to live. shes just supposed to die. and die perfectly. over and over again. #and when shes not dying then she doesnt matter at all #and kairi knows it. and she hates it. and her best friends (particularly riku) act like thats for the best #sora is the only one who even sometimes makes an effort to love her while shes a girl #and not a corpse

[justjunnie]

Xehanort: *Monologues about other worlds existing, light, darkness and experiments that are not experiments but are definitely experiments*

Kairi: *is literally 4 years old*

#kingdom hearts #kh mom #melody of memory #kingdom hearts melody of memory #kairi #xehanort #kh #kh spoilers #he goes and and goes about lots of bullshit and kairi is just there like #???? sir you just kidnapped me

[palizinhas]

"Roxas and Xion shouldn't have come back" if you think I could have handled Kairi getting kidnapped in any scene that didn't involve these two coming back you're wrong

#kingdom hearts #imagine getting THAT and not seeing the seasalts hugging soon afterwards #actually. it would just be kairi kidnapping and saix dying in the same scene right lol

[embraceyourdestiny]

So sad ven technically killed streli because they’d literally be besties otherwise

#og #it’s like axel and kairi whyd he have to kidnap her 😔💔 #poor women in kh

[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)

#sora doesnt really count tbh he doesnt change much #the other characters are DiZ axel (sorta) xion and roxas (second best arcs) and like.... .... thats it #most of the other characters are static #do NOT talk to me about kairi KH does her such a disservice #im gonna be so mad forever that kh3 isnt her being protagonist to save sora in tjrn #ans ahes probably just gonna get kidnapped again or whatever #urgh #this is just for og characters i dont count rehashing disney plots as original writing ok

[themattress]

Untitled Kairi Post

Y'know what? In a way, Kairi was tragically doomed as a character from the very beginning.

"Oh, because she was a love interest and damsel in distress!"

No. Myths, fairy tales and, well, Disney movies have used those tropes for ages, and if you're doing a story where a huge point is the influence of those things, it's kind of a given that the leading lady be a love interest and damsel in distress. And the writing is smart enough to put a twist on the trope given that Kairi's distress is much less than it appeared to be because she's Sora's love interest and he's her's, and after Sora saves her she saves him right back.

"Oh, because she wasn't a playable character or party member!"

No. It would have been nice to have the playable puzzle solving-based Kairi sequence they initially planned at Hollow Bastion, but I can understand why it was removed given how it would slow down the pace following what is perhaps the signature sequence of the game. And in any case it doesn't have any bearing on how things went for the rest of the series, given that Riku also was not a playable character or party member (he just had a crappy AI when pretending to help you fight Parasite Cage all so that he could kidnap Pinocchio).

"Oh, because she was stuck in a coma the whole game!"

NO! God damn it, how much must the game beat the point into your stupid head!?

And who could forget?

Stop laughing right now.

Kairi. Not just "her heart". KAIRI. Since the heart = the person.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it exposes some serious sexism if one goes with the "Kairi was in a coma" line for KH1 and yet says "Ventus was inside of Sora" post BBS, since it's literally the exact same situation except that Kairi was always awake within Sora's heart as opposed to Ventus only waking up at the end of 3D. It's why Sora felt things regarding Hollow Bastion, why he experienced the memory of Kairi and her grandfather, and why he saw and heard Kairi multiple times. He wasn't hallucinating; that was always really her.

So, enough beating around the bush. What did I actually mean, then?

Well....let's start at the beginning.

Kairi's arc in the original Kingdom Hearts is not just told through the writing. Utilizing a video game as a visual/audible medium, it is also told through animation, voicework and music. During her introductory cutscene, we see Kairi asked by Sora if she remembers the world she was born in before being sent to Destiny Islands. "I told you before. I don't remember." She answers this sincerely. "Nothing at all?" Sora responds. That's when we see this detail.

"Nothing." Kairi is lying. She doesn't remember everything given the trauma caused by being forced out of her old home, but she does remember just enough to understand why it was traumatic. She had a comfortable life there, and a family. She was happy. And then it was all gone in an instant. Now, on Destiny Islands, she is similarly content ("Well, I'm happy here.") and fears risking that same loss. And yet a small part of her still yearns for the past. She loved what she can recall of her past, as she loves her present. She fears only the future.

Riku's fixation on his existential woes and the mysteries of the universe, while also putting her up on some sort of pedestal like she's something special, is not helping at all. Something about it feels wrong to Kairi...wrong and uncomfortably familiar. It's making her very anxious.

But Kairi has someone to lean on and help her keep up an optimistic, cheerful front, perhaps enough to talk herself into believing it: Sora. And during this scene, we hear the track "Kairi I":

This track reflects Kairi's character in this moment. While there is a subtle undercurrent of worry, her heart is strong enough to not let it get to her and look on the bright side as she looks out to the sun setting over the ocean. With Sora's reassurance, she is able to feel as though her home and friends won't change or go away no matter what happens on her, Sora and Riku's planned voyage, which allows her to feel anticipation for it. All finally feels right.

Of course, things were not right, and Kairi ended up in heart form as her body and soul were lost to darkness along with Destiny Islands. From Kairi's POV, she is now in the Station of Awakening (aka Dive to the Heart) and can do little but watch Sora's adventures as she can see them through his eyes, not fully putting it together why she can and where she truly is.

In the scene at Merlin's House, we get to hear "Kairi II".

While it's similar to "Kairi I", there is now a more somber and mysterious feel to it given the present circumstances. While she doesn't know if Sora can hear her, Kairi wistfully waxes nostalgic over how Merlin's House reminds her of the Secret Place on Destiny Islands. And while Kairi feels sad over missing that place, she's also happy that there are places like it elsewhere in the universe. She's clearly learning as much from Sora's journey as Sora is.

Finally, we hear "Kairi III" in the flashback with little Kairi and her grandmother.

And while it starts out reflecting Kairi's childhood innocence, it ends up turning...almost sad. The reason why being one of the most overlooked details of the scene: at the end of the grandmother's story, she disappears, and little Kairi is shown moving her head all around looking for her. This isn't actually part of the memory, but a reflection of Kairi's heart. She knows that she had a grandmother and that her grandmother isn't here anymore, but she can't remember how her grandmother "left". But she at least still exists...within her heart.

Speaking of which, once Kairi's heart returns to her body and Sora loses his heart in the process, Kairi puts her foot down. She may have learned how to better deal with and accept change and loss, but a line still has to be drawn somewhere and Sora is that line for her.

Thus is she able to save him. Later, we see her worry about the future and things changing again when she questions whether anything can be the same between her, Sora and Riku again after the corruption Riku had underwent. Once again, Sora boosts her optimism.

More importantly, he helps her learn, as he does, that even when separated you can take strength in keeping your loved ones (metaphorically) in your heart, and that even if things change and Kairi is cut off from the people and things she loves, they will always exist within her heart, just as with her grandmother and the story she told her about light and darkness.

This is why, in the end, Kairi is able to let Sora go and yet still feel content.

From "Hikari" (JP):

I'll stop doing pointless things like thinking about the future. Today I'll eat delicious things. The future is always before us, Even if I don't know it.

From "Simple and Clean" (EN):

 Regardless of warnings, the future doesn't scare me at all.  Nothing's like before.

This is a really good, really well done character arc.

It's also a very human character arc.

Yes, there are a lot of fantastical things going on, but when you put all of that aside, what are you left with? A young girl moves away from her old home and everything that she ever knew and loved, which gives her anxiety about the same thing happening with the new home and everything that she's come to know and love from it, which now includes a certain boy. She fears the future; she fears change. In the end, she ends up staying in her new home - but the boy moves away! However, through her time spent with him she's learned to accept this because he'll always be a part of her heart, which is something that won't ever change.

When put that way, it sounds positively mundane, and by and large the KH fandom - and Tetsuya Nomura himself for that matter - don't want or like mundane stuff like that. They want the crazy, the overdramatic, the angsty, the flashy, the anime tropeyness they're familiar with. This is why they were unreceptive to Kairi's arc to the fullest degree, as in many of them are literally unaware it even happened because they were too busy fixating on the archetypal Japanese media-style dick measuring contest between Sora and Riku (which is also far deeper than they tend to give it credit for, btw, but I digress). And if that's the case, then the question gets raised: why bother focusing on or expanding Kairi at all? She doesn't "sell".

THIS is why Kairi was doomed from the start. It's not her fault. But it's sadly the truth.

#Disney #Square Enix #Kingdom Hearts #Kairi #Opinion #Analysis #Kairi Deserved Better #This has been a PSA

[goldenchocobo]

Day 3: Two characters you want to see friendship form/get stronger

I really want these two to be friends; and I can see Terra going all out to make Kairi feel at home. But I also can see Kairi being a little distant with him at first. Xehanort was wearing the face of Terra when he kidnapped Kairi and sent her to a different world. I don't think it'll be Axel-level worried, but she'd have to remember that Terra wasn't that person.

Also I know Kairi's gearing up to be more magic-based like Aqua; but I just want her to come leaping in to save the day with Meteor crash, Geo Impact or Brutal Blast that Terra taught her.

#Kingdom Hearts #KH #kh4challenge #Terra #Kairi #Goldenchocobo's Art #this is probably the best Kairi I've drawn

[convicted-jay-walker]

Slow day at work means 3 more kingdom heartsifications

I imagine that these guys all came from different worlds and the story is a mix between Ninjago and more birth by sleep era of stuff because I don’t want them in the unchained key era and I think Arin is more sora than Lloyd is.

Lloyd feels more Ventus.

If I was to swap out characters directly I would have to pair them up but it would go

Ventus - Lloyd

Vanitas - Harumi / Morro

Aqua - Nya / Zane / Pixal

Terra - Kai / Cole / Jay

Eriqus - Wu

Xehenort - Garm

Sora - Arin

Riku - Sora ( ha )

Kairi - Euphrasia ( it’s the kidnapping getting trapped thing I’m sorry )

Donald and goofy - Wyldfyre ( the menace and the silly ness combined )

I could spread out and do the thirteen with other characters but omg I can’t be bothered rn

#ninjago #lego ninjago #ninjago au #ninjago cole #ninjago kai #ninjago nya #cole brookstone #nya jiang #kai jiang #ninjago kingdom hearts #Ninjago kingdom hearts au #kingdom hearts #keyblade #keyblade design

[oveliagirlhaditright]

"With that, Saïx appeared.

Kairi was the first to ready her Keyblade. 'It's you...!' she said with audible resentment.

Sora glanced at her before fixing his attention on Saïx and readying himself for combat. 'You--you're the one who kidnapped Kairi!'" Kingdom Hearts II novel, volume 2, page 186. Based on the games by Tetsuya Nomura, novel written by Tomoco Kanemaki.

One of the scenes I've been dying to make ever since I started this "let's try to create some of the scenes from the KH novels" endeavor of mine.

This is my favorite Kairi scene as far as the Kingdom Hearts novels are concerned.

And I'm actually really proud of what I accomplished here:)

#kh #kingdom hearts #sokai #kairi #sora #saix #isa #sora and kairi #kaiora #kairi vs saix #get it kairi! #kairi so should have gotten something like this in the games #the only thing i DON'T like about this is sora's line 'you're the one who kidnapped kairi!' is said to axel in the games and here it's said #to saix. because the novels does this weird 'axel didn't REALLY mean to kidnap kairi' thing that i hate. but whatever #khii novel #khii novels #kh2 novels #kh2 novel #kh novels #kingdom hearts novels #kingdom hearts 2 novel #kingdom hearts 2 novels #kingdom hearts ii novel #kingdom hearts ii novels #mine #my work #shanna's various forms of art #manip #digital manipulation #edit

[holleighgram]

Hold onto your keyboards, cause I'm about to get ✨️controversial ✨️

I'd like to preface this by saying all interpretations/ headcanons/ readings/ etc. Are valid and I'm in no way discouraging anyone to change their ways.

I watched (and enjoyed) Baloney's "The Truth About Kingdom Hearts!" And I absolutely adored their take on the series, but one line stuck out to me that I really want to expand on because I don't see it being talked about as often as it should.

Kairi doesn't like Riku.

And I think this is a very RICH and IMPORTANT aspect of the Destiny Trio dynamic. It adds to the complexity of these characters, but especially Kairi.

(Another shout out to @violethowler and their INCREDIBLE Constructing Kingdoms series. The video on"The Girl Who Never Grew Up" made me like and understand Kairi so much more. Highly recommend checking it out.)

Kairi doesn't like Riku, and with some pretty valid reasons, but I'll get to that after I compile all the evidence towards this:

In KH:

Kairi likes her life the way it is. She doesn't desire change, but Riku wants nothing but change. He wants to grow up and move on and see the outside world.

And because Sora looks up to him, Sora has jumped on the bandwagon too. Kairi is going along because Sora is. But it is clear that for Kairi, change =/= good. So what does she say?

"You know, Riku's changed."

Sora asks her how, and she kinda bites her tongue. Clearly she had opinions, but doesn't want to badmouth Soras best friend to him. Later she says, "Sora, don't ever change."

Later, after everything, when Kairi is restored and in Travers Town, she doubts that Riku can be saved, despite the fact that she LITERALLY saved Sora from being a heartless. She almost seems like she's trying to convince Sora not to go, or to at least let her come with-- not to save Riku but because she wants to be there with Sora.

At the end of the game, she obviously return to destiny islands and draws the paopu.

During Chain of Memories, everyone forgets about Sora, but the memories of Riku stay intact. For a year. Kairi is well aware that her "friend" is missing. In fact, last she knew of him, he was still taken by Ansem and presumably dead or at least suffering. She doesn't know.

She knows she's a Princess of Heart and has powers thay can help (as she restored Sora after being a heartless). But the most we get is "he's far away, but I know we'll see him again." Like, do you?

I mean, SELPHIE is the one that says "I sure miss him." That's way more than we EVER get from Kairi.

So for a YEAR, she doesn't spare Riku a single thought. But the SECOND she remembers Sora, she is willing to do anything to see him again.

Here's a little bit of speculation for WHY she doesn't like Riku:

1) Perhaps when she first met them as kids, he reminder her of Xehenort, who kidnapped her and yeeted her into space.

2) Kairi wanted to be best friends with SORA, but not Riku. She's afraid that Sora will follow Riku to the outside worlds (where she doesn't want to go) and leave her behind. If it wasn't for Riku, Sora wouldn't want to leave at all.

3) He (as far as we know) opened the door and damned their home into Darkness. That's probably a point of contention for her. Even though Sora so forgiving.

4) He hurt Sora in KH1, but Sora is still loyal to him. She probably sees that as him taking advantage of Sora-- the person she cares most about.

5) He's the reason Sora never came home. If it wasn't for him, they would have gone home at the end of KH1 together.

I can't say for sure how Riku feels about Kairi. He DID drag her corpse around and give into the darkness to save her, but that can be interpreted as solely wanting to "beat " Sora at being the hero. Even still, we get moment in COM where he reflects on missing her. We even see Namine come to his rescue in her form. I definitely feel like there is less animosity there, but who knows.

That's all.

Roast me, Kairi stans, but I love the depth this reading gives to the story and the potential for arcs and character growth for her and she is forced to face who she is without Sora.

#kingdom hearts #riku kh #riku #kh riku #sora kh #soriku #kh #kh meta #kairi kh #kairi #kh kairi #kairi kingdom hearts #character study #destiny trio #might not be an actual trio

[winter-kh-sideblog]

The thing with Kairi is, for all of the “she has no autonomy and is barely a character” jokes, she is so so interesting if you are willing to put a little bit of effort into understanding her. And this is kingdom hearts, the fandom of digging through offhand comments from games across every console imaginable to put together snippets of backstories, so like, I KNOW there’s an audience of people willing to put in effort? So here is my little essay on why Kairi has so much potential

I think a lot of people get lost because they assume that Kairi is Sora’s girlfriend? And they say “oh well the narrative doesn’t show that, the narrative is giving us more reasons they should move on than that they should stay togehter” and it’s like!!! You’re correct!!!! The narrative IS saying that!!! This is because Kairi is not, and never was Sora’s girlfriend!!!

Most people (correctly, sadly) get the “thrown to the side, no autonomy, barely a character” vibes from Kairi. But then they just go “oh she’s a one-dimentional stock Woman ™ character” and don’t think farther

i think that, a LOT of Kairi’s canon treatment makes more sense when you realize she’s not the “hot popular girl who’s a prize to be won” trope that people think she is. She’s the dead wife.

This sounds wild at first, because she 

Is a teenager

Has never been in a relationship, let alone married

Is ALIVE

So it’s like. What the heck. How could she be the dead wife. But she IS. and i think it’s impossible to unsee once you realize it.

She’s been dead from the beginning. She’s always haunting the narrative. She’s barely present and doesn’t get to make decisions, but the things that happen to her catalyze the entire plot of almost every game?

The thing is, her stock cliche ending is not, and never was “she ends up with Sora bc she’s the Prize and the symbol of Winning and they live heteronormatively ever after.” Her ending was always. She is perfect and innocent and pure. She dies. Everyone is sad and angry for a bit. They fight for justice. Then they move on. The happy ending is catalyzed by her and she gets credit, but she doesn’t do anything, she doesn’t have autonomy, and she doesn’t get to stick around for the ending. 

And this is a REPEATING motif in her life. When she was FOUR years old she was sent ahead to stop the apocalypse. She is basically dead to her homeworld. They weren’t getting her back. She lost her memories and her family and her life.

In kingdom hearts one, she dies in the apocolypse and becomes motivation and a prop for Sora and Riku. She doesn’t get to fight, she doesn’t get blood on her hands, she isn’t faced with messy decisions.

In kingdom hearts 2, she’s again kidnapped to start the plot. She doesnt get to be with sora or riku or even know what’s happening for most of the game.

And then of course in kingdom hearts 3, she’s literally killed, and it’s like. It’s not even a fight. She’s literally just slaughtered for no reason other than Sora fight motivation.

She’s the symbol of home and family to Sora. It’s not just a matter of romance, there’s not even romance between them? Not really? It’s about childhood and closeness and the promise of forever.

And the thing is. She clearly doesn’t want to be the dead wife character. I don’t think anyone would??? But it is ALL she’s good at. And that’s the problem. She’s a princess of heart, which is defined by absence. She doesn’t have darkness. She doesn’t have evil or badness or anger or malice or anything. And it’s just so?????? She’s narratively destined to die young before she has the chance to get older and get involved in anything messy or morally dubious. Her “job” is to be perfect and good enough that people miss her when she’s gone.

And then???? They don’t????? That’s the whole thing with melody of memory. They let her stay in a coma for an ENTIRE YEAR. Her friends are upset when she dies, but Sora’s the only one actually fighting to bring her back. No one else makes an effort to be with her???? It doesn’t seem like Riku makes any effort to contact her at all in the time between kh1 and kh2 when Sora’s in a coma for an entire year???? They fight and kill to wake Sora up but not Kairi anymore?????

They can't even make a kairi GAME without making her basically dead because that's her Role.

And it’s like????? What do you do when you’re the dead wife. When everyone theoretically loves you but only for what you’re not. When they love you because you’re fragile and pure and have never done anything wrong. When you’re not allowed the chance to live enough to become anything complicated, and people act like that’s for the best?

What do you do when you’ve been dead since the beginning, when everyone has already mourned you??? When they've all reached the acceptance phase and you're not sure if they want you back? They've spent too long learning to be Without you to remember how to be With you and now you're an inconvenience and a reminder of closed wounds?

What do you do when you’re alive but you never learned How to be alive, because you weren’t Supposed To survive????? What do you do when no one knows what to do with you??????

I think a lot of people who want Kairi to break free from the narrative are the ones who keep saying things like “oh she needs to move on from Sora and get better friends” but Sora is one of the only people who gets it?????? He’s been one of the only people that we see onscreen???? making any kind of attempt????? To love her like she’s alive?????? Its not much but its literally ALL shes given?????? And i dont fault her for holding onto that?????? And cherishing it????

And I do think it can be very cool to see her move on???? But i dont think people understand that,,,, if Sora and Kairi were to end up together, it wouldn’t be playing into the cliche, expected ending. Kairi LIVING is already breaking free of the tropes. Kairi being allowed to be messy and hurt and heartbroken,,,, being allowed to want things for herself,,,, being able to ask for help IN THE MOMENT instead of having people guess what she would have wanted after she’s gone,,,, being loved as a person rather than as an idea,,,,, Thats breaking free of the narrative tropes in such a profound way. And i don’t even think it matters much whether it’s romantic or as bffs or as teammates???? It’s just about being chersished as a human person and given a support system.

So yes, i do want to see Kairi make new friends and get some self confidence and move past her layers and layers of survivors guilt and make an identity for herself that doesn’t revolve around a man???? But also????? I think that its 2023 and people should stop pretending that sokai is inherently the boring or cliche expected ending when they’re LITERALLY doomed by the narrative already. Like do you guys actually not realize how subversive it would be if they were to end up together. The romance of staying alive for each other and breaking the cycle out of pure love and spite. The rebellious act of LIVING and taking up space while you're alive, of being a person instead of a concept to be idealized.

You can ship what you want and whatever sparks joy but PLEASE for the love of everything do not call sokai the boring ending. Please stop saying that letting kairi continue to exist and be alive will make the games suck or be cliche. Please.  Just like put a little bit of effort into themes and narratives i beg of you. It is so much more fun.

#kairi #kairi kh #kingdom hearts #sokai #kh meta

[mythicalartistx]

Opinions of KH2 novels that happen that are funny/interesting

I saw a lot of sections recently

Riku Axel & Namine are a trio

Their interactions are nice

It's something I didn't know I needed

I love seeing them do stuff in the background while Sora does basic (game moments), instead of focusing what happens in the games during Disney worlds, it shows them

Axel being a grey character

He doesn't know himself if he's bad or good

But some of the others noticed it and gladly call him their friend.

Also when Goofy "dies" he helps him to see if he's alright and even gives him a potion

Instead of initially kidnapping Kairi, he does so with good interest in mind, thinking she's in danger because the organization is after her— Riku and Naminé were going to her but got caught up in a battle with Saïx.

Then Saïx fought Axel and won, obtaining Kairi.

Also Naminé helps heal Axel after he lost to Saïx.

I love his banner with Riku

At one point Mickey is like, I'm glad you're not alone Riku, Riku responds, He's my friend, but then Axel says, Nobodies don't have friends, it's not exactly word for word, but similar.

Axel comments to Riku

Riku eating ice cream and Axel is like is it good, You're like a little kid even though you look like a mean old man. Then Axel steals his ice cream and Riku like bruh really dude there is plenty of ice cream in there.

After Land of Dragons, Axel tells Riku, Seeing Sora made you that happy, and Riku is like I don't feel like telling you. Then afterwards he's like it's creepy how you smile with Ansem's face.

Mickey and Goofy can smell

So Pluto is in the novel sometimes around Axel and of course Kairi. When Mickey first sees Axel after Riku leaves, he sniffs him and is like oh it's you I thought it was Riku but you smell like Pluto.

Then later when Axel helps Goofy after his "death" he is like you smell like Pluto and at this point Axel is like AGAIN!?!?

Maleficent and Riku

Honestly I find this kinda charming and kinda nice.

At one point she calls Pete useless and how Riku was so much helpful and even got him what he was trying to do and gave him Kairi. She then admits that she was using him, but it made her kinda sad or a "thorn in her heart" that he left her without hesitation.

Then at one point Riku goes to see Maleficent and Maleficent is like oh you're alive and he says I see you came back from the dead. And it's great exchange.

He wanted to see if she'd fight the nobodies/ organization 13. But when he goes to her he wonders if he is betraying Mickey by doing that and he thinks it's all for Sora.

Riku opinion of DiZ request

So DiZ got Riku to do some things... that isn't great and afterwards he wonders if that was right.

After seeing how DiZ treated Naminé and views nobodies he is like Should I have fought Roxas? He was thinking Should I have destroyed him for him to go back to Sora? What if there was another way so he could still be here?

And I wanted to point it out that he obviously questions whether it was right and he was just following DiZ because he wanted Sora back and thought it was the ONLY way and much would have rather Roxas to stay as a person too.

DiZ offers Naminé ice cream

At one point Naminé goes back to the mansion in the middle of KH2 and she finds DiZ which she is surprised by. DiZ was harsh and mean to her at the beginning of the game and is weary of him,

But this dude straight up offers her sea salt ice cream like he didn't want her destroyed or want Riku to get rid of her (which Riku was like NAHHH I won't because he saw them as people and Sora was waking up). And then he says there are plenty more, you can share with friends 😀😁 LIKE COMPLETE SWAP

Saïx fight Riku and Naminé

First when Riku and Naminé is fighting Saïx while Axel gets Kairi, Saïx slaps Naminé and causes her to fly back.

Then he is like oh you're trying to protect your home from darkness (assuming he might corrupt it or by getting Kairi) and then he's like but you did that once before. LIKE 😭😭😭 THAT WAS UNCALLED FOR

And then he tells Riku he sold his Soul for Power. JUST wow, great character but man is he cold sometimes.

I never want Saïx to touch Naminé again though... Saïx over here hurting Axel and Naminé.

Donald and Goofy no longer tease about Kairi

So... In KH2 there are moments where Donald and Goofy tease Sora about Kairi with possible romantic implications

(though I'm not exactly sure since that is the English version which could have some transaction errors and there's a lot of added romantic moments because of English version)

In Halloween town, Sora also imagines himself dancing with Kairi when Jack and Sally dance, but in the novels none of these things happen. Donald and Goofy don't tease him about Kairi.

Shang and Mulan = Sora and Riku

So in land of the dragons when Sora sees Mulan and Shang he tears up and thinks of himself and Riku cause he missed him.

This does happen in the game, but it's more explicit here that he missed him and thinks of Riku and himself when he sees Shang and Mulan.

Sora always wanted to fight by Riku's side

In the novels throughout the ending battle Sora is so excited and is just glad to fight by Riku's side and he had always wanted to have him as an ally.

He states how he always hoped and dreamed he'd be able to.

He feels so excited and just glad to be able to do so.

Also want to point out that they feel better together and they're okay in the dark realm because they have the other

Sora doesn't care as long as Riku is okay

At one point Sora says, so what if he's in organization 13, it's fine.

Donald is like it's not they're a bad group of people.

This just shows how much he cares about him.

Axel pretends to betray Riku and Naminé to help Kairi

He told them he was going to and would give them their location and reassures them that he doubt Xemnas would come over.

And Xemnas ends up being the one going over....

#kingdom hearts #riku #sora #soriku #axel #Saïx #namine #ghost trio #axel namine and riku #kingdom Hearts 2 #kh2 #kh2 novel #Love Riku interaction with Maleficent #too bad dark riku and Maleficent didn't interact more in kh3 #Saïx please don't slap Naminé #Naminé has more going on in the novel than Kairi 😭😭😭 #If Sora ain't gay then why he picturing him and his BEST FRIEND when he sees Shang and Mulan — a couple #The added content eith Axel Naminé and Riku is so great #I love it #Goofy and Mickey smelling Pluto like Riku smells darkness 😭😭 😂 #sea salt ice cream

[transpanda-1]

Kingdom Hearts 2 is so. Fascinating. So much of the game involves disney couples getting together or keeping relationships stable (Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, Hercules, Atlantica, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lion King, and maybe even Halloween town???) which is. maybe supposed to evoke Sora’s feelings for Kairi

But the game is about Sora and Riku.

Riku is barely in Kingdom Hearts 2 and Sora will NOT stop mentioning him for 90% of the game. Kairi gets kidnapped at one point and he still asks others about Riku more!

And when they finally meet up! Sora meeting up with Kairi feels kind of forced and nongenuine! Sora says he cares but he doesn’t really show it as much! But when RIKU comes? Tears start FLYING from him??? “I looked everywhere for you...!”

How else are you supposed to interpret that in a game with so many couples getting together despite the difficulties?!

#kingdom hearts #soriku #sorry it's just like wow. WOW. #We forgot how gay they are like. Sheesh. #Sora is so deadset focused on Riku at all times he wants to be around Riku so badly all the time #Sora #Riku

[robotsafari]

was playing more kh2 and got very disappointed by the fact they made olette just sit there and let kairi get kidnapped. at least let her try and help kairi escape in an awesome bike chase sequence.

#beep boop you want fries with that #kingdom hearts #olette #kairi #feel free to tag as kailette #sorry i cant draw bikes. or anything. #i know kairi needs to get got for the plot but a little more resistance pleeease?

[yume127]

It’s heartbreaking to think that, by the end of Days, Roxas felt so betrayed by everyone around him to fully believe that no one—not even his best friends—would have cared if he was gone.

For months, he questioned what was happening around him. Everyone around him acted strange, and it seemed like there were some things they were not telling him, but he still chose to trust them. That was until he found out that his best friends were keeping things from him, and the Organization, whom he’d always been loyal to until that point, was planning to get rid of him.

He ended up fighting with his best friend and running away, only to witness the death of his other best friend.

At that point, everything he ever cared about was lost, and he was so desperate that he embarked on a suicidal mission to destroy the Organization and free Kingdom Hearts, under the delusion that it would give him his old life back.

Except someone stopped him before he could. He got kidnapped and put into a simulation, where he had everything he had ever wished for—a normal life he gets to spend with his best friends.

For a brief time, everything seemed okay. He was happy.

That was until strange things started happening around him. He saw things no one else could, and started questioning his reality, only to find out it was fake. It was just an illusion to keep him at bay until he’d have to give up his life for another guy he barely knew, because apparently his life was much more worthy and important than Roxas’.

It didn’t matter how much he screamed and fought. No one was going to save him as he disappeared inside Sora.

He fought one last time, against the guy he had to give up his life for, and then he just gave up. He fully surrendered to the idea that he was just a part of Sora, and that “it really has to be [Sora]”.

No one cared about Roxas, anyway. Both the bad guys and the good guys wanted to get rid of him, and not even the people who cared the most about him truly believed he deserved his own life. He was just a Nobody, after all.

Except, it was not true.

Without realizing, during the time he was alive as his own person, he touched many people’s hearts.

Axel and Xion, his best friends, truly cared about him and just wanted to protect him from his fate. Xion would have wanted to be with him and Axel forever if fate hadn’t been so cruel to them. Axel’s deepest wish, after Roxas’ disappearance, was to bring him back.

Naminé, whom he only met briefly during his last seven days and shared his same fate, found a silver lining in believing they could be together (even if through Sora and Kairi) and held onto that promise of meeting him again and talking with him about everything.

Hayner, Pence and Olette immediately offered to help Sora save Roxas upon finding out their data selves were friends with him, and looked forward to the day they’d get to meet their new friend.

Sora himself, the guy Roxas had to give up his life for, was the first person to fully believe Roxas was his own person and deserved his own life, and he made it a priority to find a way to bring Roxas back.

Even some of the people who had been antagonistic with him during his life, like Saix and Ansem the Wise, helped to make sure Roxas could come back.

It was so satisfying seeing him coming back in KH3 and recognizing that many people helped him return. Because Roxas was important, and many people did, in fact, miss him and worked hard to allow for his return.

#roxas #kingdom hearts #kh #long post #sorry about the long post #i was feeling sad about Roxas today but I didn't plan to write an essay about it ahgdjf #anyway this is one of the reasons I don't get why some people believe he shouldn't have come back in kh3 #it would have been so unsatisfying if his story ended with him giving up on ever having his personhood