#sora analysis

Keyblade wielders were already scarce before Birth by Sleep. Between BbS and KH1 the only active wielder that we know about is Mickey. That's it. He's the only one. The only ones that know about Keyblades at all(as far as who was seen in KH1) are the Final Fantasy Traverse Town group, King Triton, Ansem SoD, and Maleficent. The other Disney villains only knew because of Maleficent.

Sora is the only person in about 10 years or so to get a Keyblade. With Mickey busy in the Realm of Darkness, Sora is the only one who can stop the Heartless and protect the worlds. Between the FF gang, Triton, and Maleficent I'm sure their knowledge on the Keyblade isn't anywhere near perfect. So, especially with the FF gang, it makes sense that they call Sora the Keyblade Master as if he's the only one. Cuz in the moment he really is the only one. He's everyone's last hope.

(I posted the ask on accident when I wasn't finished with it so, posting it like this. And it took awhile cuz my time for having coherent thoughts ran out for the day.)

I joined the fandom after this was a big argument apparently, but I do know quite a bit about this so, those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it as the saying goes.

But uh, Sora didn't think they were capable of having emotions/feelings and that every time they did express it they were just faking so he didn't want to 'fall for the trick'. That's why like even when Demyx seemed to express genuine emotion about fading away Sora didn't have much of a reaction outside of looking angry then he immediately went on about wanting to fight more of them. One of them kidnapped Kairi and at that point he already knew about that. It got personal for him cuz Kairi was okay on Destiny Islands until then and now she's no longer safe anymore thanks to them.

Sora didn't even know Xemnas was manipulating them anyway. I don't think several of them knew that either. I'm sure some of them did like Axel and Saix tho, but no one knew to what extent it was. You can't know what you don't know after all. Everyone(excluding Xemnas, Xigbar, Namine, and maybe Demyx) believed Nobodies couldn't get their hearts back without the help of Kingdom Hearts. Sora was just as fooled as they were.

And if you think about it, wouldn't you be pissy at the people who kidnapped someone you like, terrorized lots of places you went, and in a way were using you to get what they wanted? Like, Sora was nicer in KH1 compared to KH2 but I chalk that up to KH1 Sora being new to everything while KH2 Sora already went through a journey and is now trying to find Riku and go back home. He's got experience now. And Yen Sid gave him a run down of Nobodies so he was more prepared for them than the surprise attack by the Heartless and barely knowing who Maleficent was before meeting her briefly for the first time. He was harsher to the Org cuz they were personally fucking with him. And along with not thinking they could truly have emotions/feelings, he was gonna be unremorseful towards them for that.

Was he legitimately harsh in KH2? Yeah. From his perspective did it make sense? Also yeah. And Saix got him to get on his hands and knees and beg, then told him no! And begging like that in Japan is like a mega big deal so for Sora to do that and Saix to brush him off was a huge shocker. If you're gonna be like Saix then I'd say it's right for Sora to be a dick right back at him.

But anyway, there's a reason Sora was like that. There's no way he could have known that the Nobodies were anything more than emotionless shells without hearts. He wasn't cruel for the sake of being a dick or whatever either. For what he was lead to believe he was acting in a way that made sense. He felt his anger at them was justifiable for everything they were messing with.

-Xehanort Report IV...Four paths...

Crossroads have been a fairly consistent theme in Kingdom Hearts, starting in Chain of Memories:

and showing up again at the site of the Keyblade War:

(and the “X” or “cross” is also a major symbol in the series, derived from the X-Blade, an object made from the intersection of light and dark)

The four paths represented are Night (Darkness), Day (Light), Twilight, and Dawn.  Incidently, these are also shown on the cover of Kingdom Hearts 3 as others have pointed out:

(All characters are facing Dawn and Day)

In Chain of Memories, it seems the Sora and Riku’s paths were set in place.  After arriving at the crossroads from Castle Oblivion, DiZ gestures to the paths on his right and left and asks Riku to choose between the path of light or the path of dark. 

Riku instead chooses the middle road.  DiZ asks him if this is the “twilight path to nightfall”, but Riku says it’s the road to dawn.

Riku already came from the twilight path both literally (as the path they just came from is the only one left that could be the twilight path) and metaphorically, having fallen to darkness and narrowly escaped becoming a puppet of Xehanort’s. 

But what about Sora?  At the beginning of CoM he is lead down the path that leads to Castle Oblivion, the same one which could be called "twilight”.  And since CoM, both Sora and Riku have been walking these paths- Riku by choice, Sora by manipulation.  In CoM Sora is manipulated to go to Castle Oblivion to be used by Marluxia, in KH2 Sora is used by the Organization to collect their hearts, and in DDD Sora is again manipulated by Xehanort and nearly falls to darkness.  The cover of DDD even illustrates this, showing Riku rising to the light, eyes open meaning he is actively choosing, aware, awake.  Sora on the other hand is falling to darkness, eyes closed, meaning he is unaware, asleep (remember Destati means “awaken”). 

Unlike Riku, Sora never actively chose which path to go down- and maybe until he does, he will always be lead astray by those who want to use him for their own ends.  He needs to “awaken” and choose.  In KH3, it seems that once again Sora is being used without his awareness:

Back to that quote from the Xehanort report though, I wonder where Sora will end up?

“...defenders of the light, servants of darkness, those who sought to reconcile the two, and those motivated by nothing more than lust for power.”

Sorry this took so long for me to answer, I needed some time to think how to respond and then it got buried with everything happening…but anyway…Unfortunately I can’t think of any in-depth analysis of Sora I’ve come across (If anyone else has, please link, I’d love to read them too), but I think I have an idea why they are so rare compared to analysis of Riku, and maybe give you a little analysis of Sora myself.

For one thing, I think Riku is just easy for people to relate to because his insecurities are such an up-front, significant part of the narrative.  It’s easy to relate to Riku’s struggles, while it’s less easy for people to relate to Sora’s.  This is because Riku’s major struggles are internal, and even his struggle with Ansem is always framed as an internal struggle with his own darkness and dark emotions.   At the end of the day- supernatural darkness powers and possession taken metaphorically- Riku’s story is a very human one.  He deals with jealousy, anger, loneliness, anxiety, shame, etc- and we as the audience get to see him work to overcome these things.  The fact that Riku changes and grows so much as a person is what makes him so easy to write about. 

But now look at Sora.  I do not think Sora is a shallow character, but unlike Riku, so far the majority of his struggles have been external, and fantastical in nature..which makes him harder to relate to.  With almost every horrible thing that happens in his life- his home being destroyed and getting blasted alone to another world, almost being killed by his best friend, being separated from his friends, etc- he seems to have an almost unnatural ability to take everything in stride.  He has his sad moments, moments of anger, but for the most part he stays the same cheerful, optimistic Sora (except maybe when he’s being manipulated by false memories in CoM).  Sora hasn’t really had to change himself or have his beliefs challenged in order to deal with his problems.  It is only at the end of DDD that I think we start to see that Sora’s way of dealing with things is beginning to be challenged- and I think this will continue in KH3 (which will hopefully mean lots of material for analysis). 

There is one major thing I think Sora will have to learn to deal with internally in a better way- that is his own pain and hurt (which in this series tends to manifest as darkness- and we know Sora will be dealing with internal darkness in kh3).  One consistent pattern we’ve seen from Sora is that he tends to push down his own pain (and the pain of other hearts within him) and put on a cheerful smile whenever it slips out in front of other people.  A few times we see this happen in kh2.  He pushes down the pain but doesn’t deal with it.  Eventually it’s going to become too much for him. 

We know from Re:Coded that eventually Sora will have to awaken the memories within him that belong to the people connected to him.  Namine explains:

“These memories, all of them are too painful.  Handled the wrong way, they could damage Sora’s heart, even break it.”. 

It could be that this is what the Xehanorts want to happen, and part of why they seem to want Sora to bring back Roxas.  Maybe they are hoping it will weaken Sora’s heart.  Also in Re:Coded, Data Riku tells Data Sora

“On the road ahead, more than one truth will come to light.  You’ll forget things. Lose things that you care about, and it won’t always make sense.  It’ll be frustrating, and it’ll make you angry.  It may even hurt so badly you’ll feel you’re about to lose yourself.  But don’t worry Sora.  That won’t happen to you.  You won’t let it.  You’re like a sponge.  No matter how much pain they throw at you, you’ll suck it up and leave things a little bit better.”