#askatriangleandastar

Kirby: A deep dive into a pond

The Kirby franchise is one of the bigger ones out there. It’s been around since 1992 and has about 38 games since then. Despite being pretty popular, when you ask people just who Kirby is they’ll probably give you simple answers like “he’s that little pink ball who’s happy and innocent” or “that guy who fights gods over cake”, but just how accurate are these descriptions? Who really is Kirby?

To answer this question, I’ll be looking at three different mediums of the Kirby franchise, the game, the novels, and the anime. Of which, have different canons and portray Kirby in different ways. I’ll start off with the game iteration. In the very first Kirby game, there isn’t much to Kirby. There’s no dialogue or pause screen descriptions. Anything personality-wise can only be guessed from his actions. In this game, Kirby sets off to get the sparkling stars and food that King Dedede stole and bring it back to the people of Dream Land. From this alone we can tell how kind he is for going out of his way to fight all these enemies and bosses to give food back to the people. In Dream Land 2 and 3 he saves Popstar yet again, even saving King Dedede from Dark Matter despite their qualms in the past. However, Kirby’s Adventure is an interesting one, as it deviates from the black and white good and bad that was set up in the Dream Land games. Though King Dedede split up the star rod, preventing the Fountain of Dreams from flowing, he did it to prevent Nightmare from giving everyone in Dream Land bad dreams. Kirby doesn’t know this and immediately assumes that King Dedede is up to no good. He pieces the star rod together and defeats King Dedede, but as he approaches the fountain to put the star rod in its rightful place, King Dedede tries to stop him. Though, it isn’t out of malicious intent. He shakes his head and looks worried. Kirby doesn’t listen to him and puts the star rod back in the fountain. Only to release Nightmare. Kirby’s completely shocked by this, not knowing what to do. Luckily King Dedede doesn’t hesitate to get Kirby up there to fight Nightmare. This game’s important for the development of both Dedede’s and Kirby’s characters. It shows us that Dedede’s grown from the king who would steal from his citizens and that Kirby isn’t flawless. It highlights a glaring flaw of Kirby’s: he doesn’t stop to talk it out. Never does he resolve something by talking or reasoning with the big bad, which tends to work out most of the time, but in Kirby’s Adventure and Squeak Squad, the dangers of this are shown with Nightmare and Dark Nebula respectively. Although, the dangers aren’t permanent due to how powerful Kirby is.

Kirby doesn’t speak in most of the games besides a “hi” every now and then. He does in Kirby’s Avalanche, a spin-off typically viewed as non-canon and “out-of-character”, and is shown to be quite cocky and sassy. He calls Poppy bros sr.’s bombs “pathetic”, insults Broom Hatter’s avalanche skills, “I'd worry more about cleaning up your Avalanche skills first”, as well as insults Kracko’s aiming skills “You couldn't hit a barn sized lightning rod, Kracko”. However this is not the only time Kirby is shown to be cocky. In the pause screen descriptions of main games, Kirby is sometimes the one to be describing his copy ability, which happened more commonly in the games before Return to Dream Land. From these descriptions, Kirby’s personality especially shines. Some are goofy like tornado and freeze, “Spin spin spin spin spin Spinspinspinspin Spinspinspin AAAAAUGGHH!”, “Stop! Come no closer! I'll chill you to the bone!” and some are confident and cocky, “Flaming tackle time! Who's gonna stop me?”, “No one can hurt me! Look out below!”. Generally these descriptions have an upbeat charm to them, which matches how positive Kirby tends to be. Although, Kirby isn’t always happy-go-lucky all the time, which is highlighted by a joke in Super Star Ultra that wasn’t translated that clearly. In the english version, the narrator calls Kirby a “jolly fellow” prompting Kirby to make a frowning face. In the Japanese version, it’s more clear as to why he makes that expression, because the narrator’s being dismissive of any chance of Kirby having troubles by essentially saying he has nothing to worry about. Kirby is generally a happy person, yes, but he still feels other emotions and it’s not out of character for him to get angry or sad, even over small things like getting knocked out of a tree while looking for apples (Scene in Epic Yarn) and not getting anything at the picnic (End goal game of Crystal Shards).

Kirby also proves himself to be pretty smart, able to reprogram robots, able to drive, able to raise baby chicks and a very skilled fighter. He’s also independent, though Meta Knight and King Dedede are sometimes seen as mentors to Kirby by many fans; while in reality they're more so rivals and friends.

So that’s how the game Kirby is, what about the Kirby in the anime? This Kirby is notably different because of how much younger he is. Awoken 200 years too early according to Meta Knight, this Kirby is a baby. Like the game Kirby, he tends to be positive and has a sense of justice, fighting and defeating monsters almost every episode. Unlike the game Kirby, they need guidance and tend to be pretty oblivious as well as gullible. Tiff, Tuff, and Meta Knight all help with this, with the first two taking older sibling roles and Meta Knight taking a weird mentor that doesn’t seem as helpful as he should be. This Kirby is also very kind hearted and even befriends three monsters, Chilly, Phan Phan, and a baby Galbo. He isn’t nearly as powerful or smart as his game counterpart and he is notably a lot more emotional, which makes sense considering he is a lot younger.

The Kirby in the novels written by Mie Takase, is more similar to the game Kirby than the one in the anime is. Notably this novel really exaggerates Kirby’s impulsiveness and love for food. He’s also pretty weak in comparison, mostly when he doesn’t have an ability. However, the biggest difference between this one and the game one is that he’d actually try to talk things out before resorting to violence. He is also more emotional than his game counterpart, getting much angrier at Magolor’s betrayal and even gets scared when he sees that Void Termina looks like him.

^ That’s where the essay ends it’s incomplete and im too lazy to make a proper conclusion but im gonna add on some stuff

My take away from all these iterations are that some constants of Kirby are that he cares about his friends and wants to protect them, trusting to a fault (could be taken as he’s naïve but i see it as he sees the good in everyone), generally positive, and rash

as for why my interpretation is the way it is, yes a good chunk of it is projection but it’s also to highlight different sides to him and make him more of a person, because if that polygon interview taught me anything it’s that Kirby’s supposed to reflect the player’s emotions, not his. And frankly I find that boring! I want to see him express extreme emotions I enjoy the subtle hints to his personality in the pause screens of his abilities in older games i enjoy his sassy remarks in avalanche.

essentially im trying to build off of what little is put in place to give him a fleshed out personality. the constants i listed above are what I try to incorporate in it, and as i built off of those i find other traits to give him, like strict moral code which stems from his rashness and care.

call it overanalyzing but i find it fun despite how tedious it may seem picking out the tiniest details (and i mean TINY. i even took the fact that Kirby sent Marx into the nova at the end of their fight into account as spitefulness–because he didn’t NEED to do that but dude was pissed) to build a character around when there’s other characters that have much more basis.