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- Sep 16, 2015
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Sora I think was improved.
Sora was painfully generic in KH1 and you definitely got the sense he was a purely reactionary character. Rarely expressing any emotion beyond neutral and just regurgitating what just happened around him. Like I get they wanted to be normal with him but there is normal and then there is acting like a robot. No crying, no real anger or rage just mild disgruntlement, even his happiness is so subdued. It's jarring to see Riku turn against him, try to kill him, and then runs off and Sora is like "meh I got the keyblade and my friends it's all good".
CoM Sora had a lot more emotion but it's almost exclusively focused on Riku and Namine and it's like wildly uncharacteristic of Sora because he doesn't listen to anyone, he has all his care focused on person, he ditches his friends, tells Jimminy to shut up. It's not Sora, this was not organic character growth, and that's fine because that's literally the plot of the game. Namine remade Sora's heart to turn him into a puppet, some of Sora is still in there but for the most part he's a living fanfiction version of himself. Which is interesting but it doesn't give you much of a grasp of the character.
Then came KH2 and they tried to put more effort into his character but we've gone the opposite spectrum. He's never really had emotion of his own before and so he swings wildly over fence because it's clear that they don't know "who" Sora is yet, they are still feeling out the character. People say he became a generic shonen I say he became more like an actual human being who emotes and shows an actual proper emotional spectrum range. However they still hadn't quite gotten down Sora's empathy and will writing yet. KH2 Sora like KH1 Sora just kind of blindly accept everything he's told and doesn't argue, doesn't question, and like I guess maybe this was a consistent trait across these three games but it's not a good or interesting trait and it clashed bad so I'm glad they dropped it. You can't have an empathetic kid and just have him ignore every shred of emotions a Nobody has because a random old man he just met for 15 minutes told his Nobodies have no emotions, it makes him come off unnecessarily cruel.
Coded and DDD came around and these effectively acted as psuedo-retcons of Sora's earlier characterization. Coded was basically "what if KH1 Sora had been written with a proper emotional spectrum, meaningful opinions and curiosity of his own, and was more than a vehicle for the player...and then let's build the being a hollow shell vehicle character into his character arc in a meta way". While DDD is what if Sora actually internalized and kept his character development, what if he actually paid attention to all the conflicting things monologue characters, basically let's just ignore the fact KH2 had him super tone deaf the screams of defeat and horror coming from Demyx. But most importantly what is Sora when he is happy? When he doesn't have a home world destroyed, his friends missing, an immediate crisis organization to deal with. When Sora has had his happy ending and helped made peace with his inferiority to Riku, who IS Sora without personal tragedy? I really enjoyed Sora getting to go on an adventure that he wanted to go on, where he could have fun, and I liked him actually reflecting on himself both from his well deserved overconfidence in his power and friends to absolute emotional crapstorm brewing inside him. However Sora is not the best character alone, he needs others to bounce off of so it's not great.
KH3 took DDD Sora and built off him giving him Donald, Goofy, and Disney party members we got to see the best of Sora's personality shine. His relationships with Riku and Kairi felt far better developed than they had in the past, well more so Kairi because DDD was so Riku based. But as a whole Sora had a full emotional spectrum but in a way that didn't feel extreme unless it called for it. He takes in the world and learns he doesn't just regurgitate what happens around him or forget a lesson he learned. During the course of KH3 Sora would reiterate and put into practice lessons and things he saw is the Disney worlds like Hercules's "with all my heart". At the same time while he's still a 15-16 year old boy he shows a remarkable amount of restraint and maturity. As much as he wants to run to the realm of darkness he doesn't until things take an absolute turn for the worst, no matter how frustrating and dead end his quest is he keeps on going.
At the same time we see him using lessons and event from his other adventures including ones he didn't go on. Like he already is mature enough that when he learns about the data adventure and pain he immediately says how pain can't all be bad and how it's important, the lesson that took his young data self an entire adventure to learn. Likewise he talks about Roxas, DDD, and basically you get an actual sense of his history. Even more so you see him slip into a mentor role rather than being always on the receiving end and it feels just in general that he garners more respect from people around him than he used to. I also like how they evolved his negative trait of his poor self image.
In KH1 he tied his worth to the keyblade and later his friends. In KH2 Sora felt good about himself because Riku admitted he was jealous and that having one another as a friend is something the other can't copy. DDD he says he doesn't care that he isn't special, that he didn't need Xehanort to raise him up because he is proud that his power comes from friends. But now KH3 showed he took that too far the other direction, his self-worth challenged when they take away all his friends and leave just him and now the people he drew strength from are gone like super gone. Which leads us into Sora having to find and use his own power and lessons to bring everyone back and turn the tides for the heroes.
I really feel that Sora's ability to travel completely encapsulate his character growth both in and out of universe. He started out the series trapped on his island then being flung out of his world against his will. He ends it as a boy who can open gates to worlds without anything but his heart and keyblade. Not just worlds either but dreams, hearts, limbo, and across the boundaries of time and space itself.
Sora was painfully generic in KH1 and you definitely got the sense he was a purely reactionary character. Rarely expressing any emotion beyond neutral and just regurgitating what just happened around him. Like I get they wanted to be normal with him but there is normal and then there is acting like a robot. No crying, no real anger or rage just mild disgruntlement, even his happiness is so subdued. It's jarring to see Riku turn against him, try to kill him, and then runs off and Sora is like "meh I got the keyblade and my friends it's all good".
CoM Sora had a lot more emotion but it's almost exclusively focused on Riku and Namine and it's like wildly uncharacteristic of Sora because he doesn't listen to anyone, he has all his care focused on person, he ditches his friends, tells Jimminy to shut up. It's not Sora, this was not organic character growth, and that's fine because that's literally the plot of the game. Namine remade Sora's heart to turn him into a puppet, some of Sora is still in there but for the most part he's a living fanfiction version of himself. Which is interesting but it doesn't give you much of a grasp of the character.
Then came KH2 and they tried to put more effort into his character but we've gone the opposite spectrum. He's never really had emotion of his own before and so he swings wildly over fence because it's clear that they don't know "who" Sora is yet, they are still feeling out the character. People say he became a generic shonen I say he became more like an actual human being who emotes and shows an actual proper emotional spectrum range. However they still hadn't quite gotten down Sora's empathy and will writing yet. KH2 Sora like KH1 Sora just kind of blindly accept everything he's told and doesn't argue, doesn't question, and like I guess maybe this was a consistent trait across these three games but it's not a good or interesting trait and it clashed bad so I'm glad they dropped it. You can't have an empathetic kid and just have him ignore every shred of emotions a Nobody has because a random old man he just met for 15 minutes told his Nobodies have no emotions, it makes him come off unnecessarily cruel.
Coded and DDD came around and these effectively acted as psuedo-retcons of Sora's earlier characterization. Coded was basically "what if KH1 Sora had been written with a proper emotional spectrum, meaningful opinions and curiosity of his own, and was more than a vehicle for the player...and then let's build the being a hollow shell vehicle character into his character arc in a meta way". While DDD is what if Sora actually internalized and kept his character development, what if he actually paid attention to all the conflicting things monologue characters, basically let's just ignore the fact KH2 had him super tone deaf the screams of defeat and horror coming from Demyx. But most importantly what is Sora when he is happy? When he doesn't have a home world destroyed, his friends missing, an immediate crisis organization to deal with. When Sora has had his happy ending and helped made peace with his inferiority to Riku, who IS Sora without personal tragedy? I really enjoyed Sora getting to go on an adventure that he wanted to go on, where he could have fun, and I liked him actually reflecting on himself both from his well deserved overconfidence in his power and friends to absolute emotional crapstorm brewing inside him. However Sora is not the best character alone, he needs others to bounce off of so it's not great.
KH3 took DDD Sora and built off him giving him Donald, Goofy, and Disney party members we got to see the best of Sora's personality shine. His relationships with Riku and Kairi felt far better developed than they had in the past, well more so Kairi because DDD was so Riku based. But as a whole Sora had a full emotional spectrum but in a way that didn't feel extreme unless it called for it. He takes in the world and learns he doesn't just regurgitate what happens around him or forget a lesson he learned. During the course of KH3 Sora would reiterate and put into practice lessons and things he saw is the Disney worlds like Hercules's "with all my heart". At the same time while he's still a 15-16 year old boy he shows a remarkable amount of restraint and maturity. As much as he wants to run to the realm of darkness he doesn't until things take an absolute turn for the worst, no matter how frustrating and dead end his quest is he keeps on going.
At the same time we see him using lessons and event from his other adventures including ones he didn't go on. Like he already is mature enough that when he learns about the data adventure and pain he immediately says how pain can't all be bad and how it's important, the lesson that took his young data self an entire adventure to learn. Likewise he talks about Roxas, DDD, and basically you get an actual sense of his history. Even more so you see him slip into a mentor role rather than being always on the receiving end and it feels just in general that he garners more respect from people around him than he used to. I also like how they evolved his negative trait of his poor self image.
In KH1 he tied his worth to the keyblade and later his friends. In KH2 Sora felt good about himself because Riku admitted he was jealous and that having one another as a friend is something the other can't copy. DDD he says he doesn't care that he isn't special, that he didn't need Xehanort to raise him up because he is proud that his power comes from friends. But now KH3 showed he took that too far the other direction, his self-worth challenged when they take away all his friends and leave just him and now the people he drew strength from are gone like super gone. Which leads us into Sora having to find and use his own power and lessons to bring everyone back and turn the tides for the heroes.
I really feel that Sora's ability to travel completely encapsulate his character growth both in and out of universe. He started out the series trapped on his island then being flung out of his world against his will. He ends it as a boy who can open gates to worlds without anything but his heart and keyblade. Not just worlds either but dreams, hearts, limbo, and across the boundaries of time and space itself.
