Stuff you may see includes shows, animation, art, general thoughts and games. And lots of Kingdom Hearts. I also post my own art here: https://steam-whistler-art.tumblr.com/ | Twitter: @steamwhistler2
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I didn’t want to add to the og post bc it’s already long and not focused on this. But this post made me realize most of Sora and Riku’s softer/shippy moments do not in fact happen in the Realm of Light. KH1 takes place mostly in the Light, but the boys act as rivals/enemies. Their dynamic starts to shift after this, but CoM takes place in Castle Oblivion, which is the Realm Between. In KH2, Riku aids Sora from the dark until their reunion in the World That Never Was, which is the Realm Between. The Dark Margin talk happens in the Realm of Darkness. DDD is the Realm of Sleep… Compared to Sora and Kairi who share more moments in the Light, this trend is very interesting.
Sora and Riku’s dynamic in DDD carries over to KH3, and arguably, it’s a little more in the Light than before. No big moments (that are acknowledged in-game, at least), but I would say it’s starting to leave the shadows with Sora being teased by Donald and Goofy for finding Riku attractive and always listening to Riku, the reminders that Riku is always at the back of Sora’s mind throughout the game, and Sora’s discomfort when Kairi offers him a paopu fruit (with Riku nearby on the beach… who Sora starts this scene looking at and thinking about). Those are moments that happen in the Light. But the big ones still happen in the Dark… or are forgotten.
Sora saves Riku in the Realm of Darkness. He uses the Power of Waking to do this, which is honestly a huge deal. That’s Sora’s entire goal for most of KH3 — to gain the PoW and regain the strength he lost in DDD. It complements Riku gaining the PoW by wanting to save Sora in DDD, and it parallels Hercules getting his strength back because he wants to save Meg. But the fact that Sora’s goal is achieved here is unacknowledged in the game, to the point where it seems to go over a lot of people’s heads. It even went over my head the first time I played KH3. (Side note: I wonder if it says something that the Combined Keyblade, which symbolizes Sora and Riku’s relationship, has only been summoned in the Realm of Sleep and the Realm of Darkness so far. We’ve never seen it in the Light.)
Riku’s True Love sacrifice for Sora in the Keyblade Graveyard is in the Realm of Light, but it’s ultimately forgotten. This sacrifice saves Sora. It’s the reason light prevails over the dark and our heroes win in the end. And it’s totally unacknowledged in the game. It’s implied Sora sees something in the tunnel of light when he reaches for Riku, but that also seems to be forgotten. Not only is that in the physical dark, but we are left in the dark as to what Sora sees. It’s out of frame, outside the bounds of the story presented to us. The shadows of the shadows. As the audience, we literally and figuratively do not have the full picture.
These parts of KH3 are practically erased, almost like they never happened. Almost like they cannot happen. (The KH3 graphic novel actually does erase Riku’s sacrifice from the story.) And I do think that’s very, very interesting in the context of KH taking place in the Disney fairytale universe. Even in the Realm of Darkness, even in the shadows within this reality, there’s only so far the boundary can be pushed. A queer relationship has to remain subtext (Darkness). It can’t exist on the surface (Light). It can’t significantly impact the story. The story can’t be about that. Not in this world.
I’m sure I’m not the only one that jokes about Sora and Riku getting together in Quadratum because it’s (from their pov) Unreality. But it’s not a joke either, right, because this is a different world, made up of things that don’t exist in Disney fairytale land with all its traditional cishetero relationships and happy endings… This is a world where a queer relationship could happen. Because it’s not “real.”
Let’s take this a step further.
If we’re interpreting Darkness as a metaphor for subtext in a story while Light is what’s on the surface, that makes Reality canon stories and Unreality the opposite. Ideas that never make it past the conceptual stages or drafts, that are never published or coded, for whatever reason (like how Verum Rex seems based on Nomura’s Versus XIII, which was cancelled irl)… or existing stories and ideas that are so forgotten/lost to time that they may as well have never existed (like Strelitzia and the Lost Masters). Unreality is the other side of creation.
On a textual level, Sora and Riku’s relationship in DDD carrying over to KH3, with increasing moments in the Light, is a queer relationship starting to be consciously realized by both characters. On a metatextual level, it’s a queer relationship starting to be made more explicit by a creator… before it’s hit by censors, sentenced to the limbo of what could be. From this perspective, it would be extremely meta for Sora and Riku to get together (or for romantic feelings to be confirmed, at least) in a universe that represents unrealized/lost ideas while their relationship struggled to exist beyond subtext in a universe that represents what’s “real”/canon.
What the Master of Masters says about Light and Darkness is also interesting from this perspective. Light and Dark are not supposed to reach Quadratum, but they do. Reality is not supposed to touch Unreality, but it does. The line between what’s real and what’s not, what’s canon and what’s not, is blurring. Versus XIII lives through Verum Rex. Sora (“real”) meets Nameless Star (“unreal”) in the Final World. Sora and Strelitzia, stuck in Unreality, are characters from a “real” story that haven’t been completely forgotten. Riku (“real”) has dreams about Sora (“unreal” atp), and Riku crosses from Reality into Unreality to find Sora while still remaining “real” (not erased from Reality/canon).
I actually think Strelitzia kinda represents when a beta/draft character is replaced by the final one. Ultimately, Ventus takes her role in the canon story, and she is erased from it. But that beta/draft character was still created, so it still “exists” even though it’s not in the story. And the bonds you, as the creator, imagined them forming with other characters if they were in the story still exist (Strelitzia is remembered by Laurium, Elrena, and Ventus). It’s also not lost on me that Strelitzia is, technically, a queer character because she’s in love with the UX Player regardless of gender. So it feels like she is erased and replaced specifically due to censorship/executive meddling in this allegory for the creative process. But I digress.
I do think it’s significant that the Final World rests on the edge of Sleep and Death, and that Riku reaches Sora in Unreality through the Realm of Sleep. Dreams and Unreality are pretty similar. Both are made of what you hope, imagine, wish, want to be real. The biggest difference is dreams are subconscious and Unreality, I think, represents conscious ideas that are never made real or are forgotten. A world of lost dreams and desires, brimming with possibility and potential… Moving from the allegorical subconscious to the conscious-but-not-acted-upon reflects the evolution of Riku’s feelings in particular. He knows how he feels about Sora, but he does not believe his feelings could ever be reciprocated. So he’s in the world where dreams remain fantasy. For now.
If Sora and Riku represent a censored queer relationship, then I think them getting together in Unreality (and presumably making it back to their own world/Reality in the Light) would be like saying you can’t erase what’s already in the story, what’s already real. You can try. You can downplay, ignore, dismiss, censor, try to forget, but those moments still happened. Those feelings still exist. That bond still exists. Nothing can change that. KH3 sure dropped some big Sora/Riku moments that require follow up to make narrative sense. There’s no taking those back.
KH is also really big on the idea that reality is subjective. Nomura said in an interview about KH4 that Yozora’s world is fictional to Sora, but Sora’s world is fictional to Yozora. What’s real to one person is fantasy to another. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter who’s right, because if you believe something is real, that makes it real. So I think you can also see “soriku canon in Unreality” as like meta commentary on fanfiction too, from this perspective. It’s not “canon,” but it’s still “real.” Obviously, it would be canon because all of KH is canon, but in this allegorical take, as long as the boys are in Unreality, it wouldn’t represent “canon.” Does that make sense? My head kind of hurts.
Of course I’m not claiming this reading (Darkness is subtext, Reality is canon, etc.) is intentional. It could be, but either way I think it’s really fun to view KH through a meta lens like this.
the phrase is "issho ni ikou" in japanese. at one point I compiled every instance of it in the series when it occurs with the beckoning of a hand - this phrase is inherently tied to Riku's beckon for Sora at the start of KH1 (even though he doesn't say this phrase in that moment):
💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 0 · "we'll go together"
(fun fact -the moment from KHX is also the only spoken line in the entire game)
the moment from kh1 is so, so much the blueprint for these other scenes. this is why we see it again in DDD, with young xehanort.
funnily enough, he does say at least a similar phrase in the novels and the manga:
and the phrase is also contained in this line sticker (extremely funny)
each of these moments feature a transition of some kind (flynn moment less so but ignore it) it's how ephemer brings player into the new worldline, it's how young xehanort brings sora down into another layer of sleep, it's how sora ends up retrieving the keyblade and leaving destiny islands, its how sora and riku return to the realm of light; and in the secret movie, it's the light that pierces through the darkness.
to me, it's become a bit of a symbol for Riku beckoning Sora into an "awakening", whether literal or metaphorical.
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Happy Pride to all of you but specifically to these good folks in the tags.
The fic is real and you can read it: Halfway to the Stars by Arsamenes
I cannot summarize it better than Arsamenes did, I am not the writer in this relationship. I draw pretty pictures. But if you'd like 27k of gay pining, being perceived, getting to fight the algorithm and win, and some goddamn hope and optimism, this might be the fic for you.
(also it literally takes place during pride month. topical!)
While deep sea diving in the web archive I stumbled upon some neat bits of Kingdom Hearts fandom history, like this— what may be the first ever “Riku is Gay” essay (in English).
The first snapshot of the page is from 26th November 2002, just after the international release of KH. Soriku really been out here since day 1…
The purple prose dates it a lot but I didn’t notice any blatant Kairi bashing, which is impressive. It’s interesting that Riku’s complicated feelings for Sora have been documented even as early as 2002, pointing to the same subtext fans discuss even 20 years later.
Here’s a link to the essay: Dissertation on Riku x Sora by Ruaki
“In the end, Riku fell into the 'as long as he's happy' mentality. A much needed noble gesture on his part, but who can say what the future holds for him?“
"Kairi became the 'separation of land and sky,' the literal break between two good friends."
"When something is taken away from someone, the natural thought is to get it back, especially if one is of a competitive, jealous, and possessive nature. For someone like Riku, however, it is not as easy. To be scorned so easily, it made him feel unneeded, and Riku needs to be needed. He needs to feel important, wanted, admired, respected, loved. He does not blame Kairi, but she became a bit of a tool to him; if Sora wants her so much, then Riku shall be the one to win her instead. Then Sora will come back to him, once he sees he cannot have Kairi's attention."
OH THEY FUCKING GET IT
I'm not even done reading it but the fact that they got all of this just from KH1 alone is actually insane like they truly nailed Riku's character to a T
Can I also add some of the bits that floored me with how accurate they still are 20 years later?
Above is the essay, below is the ddd novel for comparison
——
Also the fact that they mentioned Sora being Riku’s precious person more than once even though this was written before CoM made the question of who’s a precious person to who a whole Thing. Incredible.
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Why do you think the X-Blade broke into uneven pieces? Wouldn't it make sense for it to be equal halves of light and darkness?
I mean other than the fact that Nomura just likes the numbers 7 and 13 (I assume because in real-world cultures these numbers have a lot of important symbolism), I don’t think it would necessarily have to break into equal pieces even if it was made of perfectly balanced light and darkness. Thinking of it as a physical object, it would make sense for something “shattered” to not break into perfectly even pieces, and I think this applies even for something more conceptual like the X-blade.
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