The Overly Gentlemanly Man

He knows.

He has always known.

Actual quote:

"I don't want some animation studio giving Hobbes an actor's voice, and I don't want some greeting card company using Calvin to wish people a happy anniversary, and I don't want the issue of Hobbes's reality settled by a doll manufacturer. When everything fun and magical is turned into something for sale, the strip's world is diminished. 'Calvin and Hobbes' was designed to be a comic strip and that's all I want it to be. It's the one place where everything works the way I intend it to"

This was in the 1990's, pre-AI, pre- Chris Pratt, pre- Cinematic Universes, and if he was opposed to it then, he sure as hell wouldn't be okay with it now.

I present to you: Every single one of these which is possible to achieve in a Gen 1 game

The first one of these is actually a TON of different lines but here are some examples:

Things like to evolve into Clefairy idk

An example of the second:

Many Paths, One destination:

Skipping right to the end

And whatever the heck all this is

I know you meant this as a joke, but it’s something I’ve been legitimately mulling over and. It’s actually more like Data Sora is a Sora that doesn’t need therapy. Imagine KH1, but Kairi’s safe. The Destiny Islands are safe. Riku doesn’t betray him. Sora doesn’t kill himself. There’s no Organization 13. No Ansem or Xemnas or Xehanort. Yeah, Sora still has to risk his life to save the world, so to speak, and save Riku, but… the whole time he’s saving Riku, Riku is talking to him. The whole time he’s world-hopping, Mickey is talking to him. When he has to face his giant heartless, Riku is guiding him and Mickey shows up to help him. When he learns his memory is going to be erased, he’s okay with it, because Riku is going to go through it with him, and he knows Mickey, Donald, and Goofy will have those memories even if he loses them.

He’s never alone. He never feels like he’s alone. The only time he starts to is in Castle Oblivion, after he’s been reset, but even then, Riku is there reassuring him at the start. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy speak to him when he’s unsure of what to do. Mickey is there holding his hand when he receives all of Roxas and Xion and Ventus’ painful memories. At least twice throughout the game itself, Mickey reminds Sora, “Just remember, you’re never alone.” And it’s true. I’m not invalidating the struggles Data Sora does go through. I’m just saying I think those struggles, those experiences, are more bearable, less negative, because he has so much support. There’s not a second of doubt that he is loved and believed in, and that gives him strength and confidence and helps him relax, makes him happy. He’s in genuinely good spirits.

Also, not to be all “now let’s talk about an entirely different character,” but I feel like Coded does a similar/connected thing with its use of Data Roxas. There’s a starting difference in that D!Roxas seems more cognizant than his counterpart that they are all data in a computer, and what that means — he certainly knows he has a specific purpose in D!Sora’s journey.

But he also always read to me like D!Roxas is who Roxas would be if he stewed more in his anger. The explosion of emotion in the KH2 Roxas vs. Sora fight is A++++ but overall, the amount of time Roxas gets to spend righteously furious is low compared to the time he spends confused as shit (Days) and kinda sad but also accepting of his situation (basically end of KH2 onward.)

But D!Roxas is both a huge dick and obviously, bitterly angry, but it doesn’t even seem to me like he’s angry at D!Sora in particular, even if he’s directing it at him. Like, I read these lines....

"Friends? You don't say? So then what were their names again? Tell me. [...] The fact that you can't remember them just means they weren't very important to you to begin with. Isn't that right?"

"They're only there until they're not. Do you see where I'm going with this? Nothing's real. You can break the little hearts they don't have, and then forget about it. No hurt feelings, no baggage. It's that simple. You don't have a heart. It's 100 percent guilt-free."

"The sadness of knowing you forgot someone who matters to you, something like that'll gnaw at you forever."

"Why should you keep the hurt inside? Just tell yourself you need to forget about the people you met in this place. You'll have no one to miss. No cause for loneliness. No hurt to keep eating away at your heart."

"I would ask if you enjoyed your little trip...but we both know that you've forgotten it. Bet you're feeling pretty empty."

And I’m like My Dude This Is Clearly Not About Sora, this seems a lot more related to what you went through, forgetting your old best friends and then being forgotten by the new ones because he and they were just fake data constructions. All of the D!Roxas sections give me the feeling of someone prodding at a half-scabbed over wound to see if it still hurts.

And then of course he goes apeshit when Sora seems to accept all the hurt, basically accepts all the pain that Roxas suffered like it’s not a big deal — and this is part of the test, yes, but he’s also not faking his own emotional response.

But Sora can take it, and on the other side of the fight, he validates D!Roxas’ pain, and offers connection and support. And in doing so he passes his own test but seems to have helped D!Roxas process his own pain and trauma. The emotional support and openness that D!Sora has experienced thus far gets passed on to others — it has a ripple effect. And even in a simulated, closed environment with no greater effect on Series Lore and which came from a freakin’ cell phone game, there’s something really nice in that.

YOU🫵'RE 🫵 NE->XT.!! moTHERFUCKER!!!!

You are a librarian! You have taken on management of a Mystical House full of secrets, which you must slowly reveal room by room. But! A catastrophe struck before your arrival, so you gotta clear the rooms out as you go.

Except you're just one person, you gotta go get your neighbors to help out.

Most of the people will charge me money to help out, but the towns blacksmith, my old war-buddy Denzel, he'll help for free.

"Denzeeel!" I pound on his doorway at the break of dawn. "Come up to the big spooky house, why don't you?"

He comes to the house. And I show him the best time. We drink a smoky tea, feast upon rare pears that only bloom in the fae seasons, I gift him some metal and encourage him to look at it's cool magic properties. Dawn to morning to afternoon, we have a wonderful time. And then, as the day grows dark and he's thinking about heading home, I stop him.

"before you go, can you do me a quick favor?" And then I walk them into the basement, through some caves, and point to a room with roughly one billion bats.

"you can clear out roughly a billion bats, right? I really need to get in there."

And then my sweet, long-suffering friend goes into the room filled with roughly a billion bats to clear it out for me. Good man, I think fondly, as he stumbles home to his smithy after.

And then, as night turns to morning, I contemplate the next room, deep in the library's secret prison, burning with an eternal flame of the monstrous prisoner that broke his chains.