Not vanquishing him. As I said, KH showed us that it's possible to fight without ending the opponent.
But again, that is my personal nitpick. I actually did not expect Demyx to survive nor would I know how to write the story in that situation.
I see, well, it also depends on how the fight overall goes as even if one participant may
want to spare the other in the end, depending on what blows are dealt throughout it the opponent may be done for simply by the aftereffects of the fight itself.
Demyx started to fade immediately after the fight ended, it is not like he was just weakened after the fight and then Sora, Donald and Goofy delivered a coup de grace to an enemy who could have moved on alive afterwards.
In
that case I would probably also upset about the whole situation.
For such a case, the fight against Luxord I would point to as a more ambigious example as there Luxord states "You play the game quite well.", essentially conceding defeat and Sora "answers" this by rushing up to Luxord and delivering a
deadly finishing blow.
Without going too much into detail about this incident, there Sora was
also already fired up because Luxord captured his friends inside cards and remembering the events from Port Royal he knew Luxord as an enemy already.
Luxord is also not the type of character one would describe as a stereotypical villain who's overly malicious and yet that too ddn't stop Sora from ending him personally and up close.
I don't think the writers did anything wrong by making an obvious final fight against him ending with him getting vanquished, just noting this doesn't resonate with my image of Sora.
Well, I'd hate to quote this from Dream Drop Distance, as I didn't like it, but:
"Sora has a heart like that- uncorrupted, willing to see the good before the bad." sayeth Ansem.
Sora refused to see anything else but the fact that Demyx was a Nobody and his enemy, and ignored anything else about his non-aggressive personality.
His reactions against Xehanort is kind of a different matter: he knew who Xehanort was- evil in his mind.
But this Sora who is described as this child soul who will see good in you before anything else doesn't really match up his attitude towards possibly the least aggressive of his enemies.
I elaborate more about this a bit further below.
Ahh, now I think we're getting to the crux of the whole discussion here, as we both have apparently quite a different overall image of Sora.
Ansem the Wise does indeed say that and that Sora has an uncorrupted heart is indeed true, but that doesn't mean that "willing to see the good before the bad" is an universal truth that Sora
always adheres to.
Sora is human and therefore also has flaws and is capable of misjudgement and
not always seeing the good before the bad despite the willingness possibly being there due to circumstances and his own emotional state.
Sora would be a true "messiah" or "Gary Stu"-figure if what Ansem says in in DDD would apply universally and all across the board regardless of which the circumstances of the current setting are.
Like said, it was a war-like situation and Sora had many other things on his mind to consider and ponder about right then, primarily but not limited to "Leon and the others are fighting a battle massively outnumbered, I need to help them.".
Taking into consideration Demyx' personality and whatever was the least thing which could have crossed Sora's mind.
All this also happened also just after these parts:
Accessing Ansem's computer said:
Goofy: I think it wants to know what we wanna know.
Sora: Riku and Kairi!
(Sora presses a few more buttons and a red window appears on the screen with the words "Data Error.")
Sora: No way... Even Ansem's computer doesn't know...
...
(The red windows appears again)
Computer: The data is corrupt.
(Sora slams his fist on the keyboard)
Sora: Stupid computer!
(He continues to slam keys and the windows on the screen jump around wildly)
Goofy: Sora!
Xehanort's Portrait said:
Mickey: Well, the man in the picture is definitely the one who tried to take
over Kingdom Hearts---the one you fellas defeated.
(Sora, Donald, and Goofy have flashbacks of the final confrontation with him at
the End of the World)
Mickey: But, what you actually fought was his Heartless. Ya see, he wasn't
really Ansem. He just went around telling everybody that he was.
Sora: You mean...
Donald: Ohh...
Goofy: Hmm...
Sora, Donald, & Goofy: Whaaaat?
Sora: We went through all that trouble to defeat an impostor?Goofy: Well, let's see. Some feller named Ansem, who wasn't really Ansem,
became a Heartless. Does that mean a Nobody got created when that happened, too?
Mickey: Yup! And that Nobody is the leader of the Organization.
Sora, Donald, & Goofy: Whaaaat?...
Sora (glaring at the painting): You...! You started all of this! Because of
you, Riku and Kairi... Oh! Your Majesty, do you know where Riku is?
Mickey (looking away from Sora): He's... I'm sorry. I can't help.
(Sora walks to Mickey's front)
Sora: Really, Your Majesty? Are you sure?
Mickey (turning away): I'm sorry, Sora.
Sora: What about Kairi? Organization XIII might've kidnapped her.
(Mickey whirls around)
Mickey: Oh, no!
(He looks at the painting)
Mickey: Sora, Donald, Goofy. I was plannin' to go get help from Ansem the Wise.
But---now I know I forgot the most important thing. Helping others should
always come before asking others for help. We're safe and sound---and free to
choose! So there's no reason we shouldn't choose to help our friends.
(Donald and Goofy nod)
Mickey: Let's look for Riku and Kairi together.
(A huge explosion knocks Mickey off his balance)
Sora: Outside!
It should be common knowledge by now that Sora goes all smile and sunshine around his friends to not drag them down and let negativity take over, but looking at all the above, on the inside Sora is
pissed, frustrated and
anxious because the problems keep piling up and they're not one step closer to success in their main mission.
To summarize, Sora had his hopes dashed that Ansem's computer could help him in his search for Riku and/or Kairi, he learned that the "Ansem" they defeated a year ago wasn't even Ansem, that the Nobody of this very fake Ansem leads the Organisation XIII, his current main enemies which just increased his disdain for the whole group and on top not even the King, which he knew spent some time alongside Riku, can give him any clue towards the status of his best friend.
That in itself is already a lot to ponder about and although Sora doesn't show it openly (apart from some angry outbursts like punching the computer) he
is both worried and angry.
He recalls that Kairi was possibly kidnapped as well, and while Mickey doesn't know about this either he does come around and offers Sora to join Donald, Goofy and himself in order to look for Riku and Kairi.
Things seem to be looking up at least a little and
wham, in comes the Heartless invasion of Radiant Garden led by Maleficent and the Organisation (Maleficent thinks she's in charge but the Org is pulling the strings), endangering his friends in
this world and squashing again any prospect of progress towards the main mission because since Sora has this uncorrupted heart Ansem the Wise praises him for in DDD, he can't just abandon the people of Radiant Garden he formed a bond with to such an assault.
This is the whole background on which the issue of "Just seeing Demyx as an enemy standing in the way" is built. And strictly spoken it is the
truth as again, "
willing to see the good before the bad" =/= "
always seeing the good before the bad".
Sora was simply not in the mental state to act like that during these events.
After putting together all this I even realize that I may have found a reason for Sora's mocking attitude which I formerly declared as "a waste of time" and contrary to his desire to hurry up in order to help Leon and the others.
It may be a bit ugly, but unquestionably human: Sora had built up anger, frustration and anxiety, so he sought an outlet to vent it somehow and Demyx was just the unlucky first major member of the opposing faction to run into him.
Well, not really. Should you manage to beat them, Sora will stop once Cloud and Leon are unable to keep fighting (even if he does collapse after dealing with Leon, he was talking like the fight was over. He saw Leon, a much more menacing guy, with a knee on the ground and decided not to continue.)
Sark was defeated but not erased on the spot. Riku was left able to walk away from every match (okay, I admit Riku is obviously an extreme case, still Sora doesn't just eradicate the evil as soon as he fights.)
Any enemy that wasn't the declared overlord of darkness or a paragon of evilness basically got to "live" and was done by other factors, really.
And in these two groups, Demyx's fate was put with the one that in my opinion didn't represent him is what I'm saying.
Aside from the fact that CoM Sora was definitely altered, given his reactions and backlash against Donald Goofy and the Jiminy too, Larxene (the character towards whom Sora was arguably the most violent) was as different from Demyx.
Larxene makes it so you can't help but hate her and is without a doubt a malevolent and evil woman who likes to see others suffer. And a great character in my mind. I seriously love Larxene, close to a fanboy level.
But I would never argue that Sora did bad or was out of character for him to try and vanquish her.
Riku is indeed a special case as he's Sora's closest friend since they were toddlers, so there is definitely some bias in Sora's decisions regarding him.
"Any enemy which wasn't declared the overlord of darkness got to live/Sora was willing to spare", really? Let's look at some more examples, shall we?
In CoM, he goes to cleave Marluxia in half the moment they set foot in Castle Oblivion, in the entrance hall, way before the memory shenanigans set in and before even learning who that guy in the black coat even is. Marluxia teleports out of the way, sure, but Sora's intention was obvious by going directly for a finishing blow.
The Roxas battle, be it metaphysical inside the heart and all, Sora ends by viciously slashing Roxas across the chest after he's surprised that Sora can simply summon his Keyblade back to his hand. He doesn't hesitate a moment.
Luxord I did already mention.
You see that how the Demyx battle ended wasn't exactly exceptional compared to all these.
Except that Donald and Goofy are surprised to see Pete out of the dimension in KH II, so that means they either forgot about him or kept thinking him being secluded there for all that time was "just".
I do wonder what else could've Pete done in the past. For some reason, I don't think it could take a 180 and be something really ruthless and different from his BbS mischief.
Minnie also did say "I tried to overlook many things that you did, but you've finally crossed the line!"
So, disregarding those votes WAS a pretty big deal even for him.
Even if he did, say, destroyed half of the town-- a void. Eleven years and counting.
You many probably file that under the same case as Donald not recognizing Yen Sid's tower as BBS clearly shows that Maleficent broke Pete out while it was still BBS-era time.
Well, one more example we do have from DDD, the events of Country of Musketeers, and after
those I'd say Pete was lucky that Minnie even allowed him still around.
High treason is/was normally a warrant for the death penalty in the real world.
I do get where you're coming from (I also should mention, not because I'm feeling called out but for clarity, that I do not even like Demyx's character that much). Is definitely harder from a hero to act violent without making someone speak ill of him.
You've touched the real issue-- this is (again) less about the character and more about how we see his actions, probably.
It's also clear by now how us two have a seriously different way to gauge evil, good, and even violence and mercy, at this point.
Intriguing.
It is both actually, the character
and the actions as the state of the character and the
context of the actions matter as well.
Yep, definitely.
"good" and "evil" are, coming down to it, just
concepts after all and while we may even take into consideration largely the same factors to gauge it as well as violence and mercy, we clearly do place different weight and priority on these factors, leading to a different overall evaluation of certain situations.
But in all honesty, that's what makes such discussions even more interesting. ^__^
Eh, he does the job of spreading heartless & getting new ones made well enough. Maleficent's probably operating on Beast Wars henchmen logic: they're either loyal but dumb or smart yet treacherous. Loyal & dumb at least gets the grunt work done.
This right here. Pete may not be smart enough to tie his own shoelaces but the basic tasks he gets done rather successfully. He can apparently also use Dark Corridors without any additional protection and work with Heartless without them turning on him, so his heart does seem to have quite some strength.
Darkos; didn't mean it that way. But there could be another reason. Could of he have been influenced by Roxas there? I don't know how Demyx treated Roxas; and I think it's been established that Roxas did influence Sora a little from the inside.
If I recall correctly by the time Roxas deserts the Organisation for good he doesn't make any difference anymore between the individual members and hates them all equally, especially when taking into account that he believes Axel also lied to him the whole time and he was nothing but a tool for them all the time.
So if there was some influence from him trickling down into Sora it would not be farfetched to assume that it strengthened Sora's disdain even further.
OK, nitpick that relates to the Nobody discussion going on: "just give it a rest! You're Nobodies! You don't even exist. You're not sad about anything!!" Says Sora, not very long after Axel sacrifices himself to save him.
Heh, well, that's KH 2 for you which
continues to hammer down these "you don't feel/exist" mantras throughout the whole run.
Back in the 2000s this used to neatly divide the whole fandom into two groups as well between those who believed these mantras and those who did not.
I also have to say I kinda don't like how the protags kept this "you dont feel shit" up. Especially after Axel. Anyone else COULD be faking but why would he when he's already dying to save Sora?
Considering the fandom split and heated debates about this afterwards back in the days KH 2 was "new" I can't help but wonder if this all was intended like this.
The whole "are you sure you don't have a heart" thing during Axel's and Roxas' last meeting also plays the whole issue up yet again.
2. Given Sora considered Demyx a total wimp, I doubt he thought Demyx could actually do anything to his friends (and if he did, then that just says what Sora thinks of his friends. XD) And Sora never says anything on the matter. He just taunts him. Which leads to..
I doubt that Sora was actually seeing Demyx as the main danger to his friends, but y'know, the massive horde of Heartless Leon & co. had to face.
We do see Yuffie slumping down in exhaustion in one scene and it was made pretty clear that the defenders were badly outnumbered.
The FF characters are very strong no doubt and each of them can probably defeat more than 200 Heartless with ease, but stamina and exhaustion certainly do play a role and as I detailed further above, Sora had also quite some other ugly stuff flying through his mind at the time.