Namine was never a character, her first appearance was "perpetually sad and demure blonde Kairi with even less dialogue than the real deal" (CoM) then she got upgraded to Roxas' "friend interest" in KH2 (though only because they were explained to be LITERAL HALVES OF SORA/KAIRI). After that, she got her story completely rewritten in Days to that of some awkward 3rd wheel damsel in distress, and didn't make another genuine appearance in the series until ReMIND.
Larxene was always a sarcastic biznetch whose motivation was doublecrossing people. She got her motivation rewritten in KH3 thanks to shameless UX sequelbait plugs, but up until then she was a vile character who wouldn't hesitate to backstab any of the Org (she'd probably even try to backstab Xemnas tbh). The bit about Larxene joining the Org to hop on Marluxia's rosebud would have been cool and less "female must pine after male"y if they bothered to expand on their relationship in KHUX, but so far they still haven't managed to do that.
IMO, It's best they start killing off the bloated cast. Actually merge Namine and Kairi now, because there's no reason why Kairi and blonde quiet Kairi should exist in the same world (I'm not anti-Nobody like DiZ was, but come on). Give Kairi Namine's magic powers over Sora and retcon them as PoH powers that she discovers as part of her keyblade training, and have her lead the charge in finding Sora (because we all know Sora holds Kairi to be most precious, why wouldn't she him as well?)
Have Riku ship her off to LoD so she can get training from Master Aqua, teach her to stop wielding in the Default Sora stance, ween her off and send her into the RoD to search for clues.
Like dude.
Naminè is more than what you're claiming, first of all. She started out as a sad and demure girl with a selfish, not so secretive desire to have what Kairi has in Sora. Or to have a friend. She was just forced to doing it the wrong way. With Sora's forgiveness and kindness to what she did, she gained the backbone she needed and refused to harm him any longer. And that growth of a spine continued onwards into KHII where she hacked into Diz's data to help Roxas, approached Roxas in the most confident head bitch in charge way, busted Kairi out of jail, and raised up fists along with Kairi towards Saïx. So
yes, she is a character. A character who developed and visibly changed from being a doormat to standing up for herself without being playable or hijacking an entire game to herself. Which is the best she can have I suppose. In fact, the whole shtick with CoM was to invert the damsel in distress trope. She's just underused, mistreated, and recently got utilized as a prop for a male character that she forgot existed after CoM.
Roxas and Naminè are their own people and whatever relationship or bond they built due to their similar fates are their own. They have nothing to do with Sora's and Kairi's relationship. They don't even share the same personality or reasons for meeting. Stop using old 2000s arguments to dismiss their connection, it doesn't hold.
As Kira here puts it -
Killing people, maybe. But "merging"? Have you not played the last 3ish KH games where they made clear everyone is their own person and it's morally wrong to rob people of their body/hearts/and agency?
Larxene is a sarcastic biznetch, yes, and I adore her for it. People can dislike how she doesn't have enough depth all they want, but that doesn't change the fact that she's the only female out of KH who's entertaining and has an actual
different personality than the samey scraps we get from Kairi/Xion/Aqua/Naminè/Strelitzia, etc. And she doesn't deserve being presented as having no other reason to join a group other than Marluxia...whose sister is the
definition of the non-character archetype that you tried to use on one that isn't. She gets a few scenes, and then gets offed just to give Lauriam his man angst. Like they did with Kairi in KHIII. At least we got a murder mystery out of it, I
guess.
Thing is, ReMind has set up a perfect opportunity to give Namine a roll again. I have never minded that Namine can't fight and isn't an action girl. Imo, you don't need to fight to be relevant. Namine, to me, fulfills a similar role as Yen Sid, Fairy Godmother, and other oracle like characters.
Namine, the one with power of Sora's memories, should certainly be leading the effort here to find Sora. Or at least, to help others find Sora by giving advice, clues, or "using others" to do so (by that I mean, going through say, Ven or Roxas to see if she can connect to Sora somehow, they're the closest to him after all since they're kinda triplets)
It still falls into the "doing something for a guy" narrative people have an issue with, but it can't be avoided. More than half of the main characters are dudes, and Sora, the main character who they're searching for, is a dude.
I don't think it's as simple as "Nomura is a sexist and that's that." I'm sure he has a bias floating around in that head of his that he's unaware of, but I don't think it's purposeful. He's not actively thinking "Girls can't do this. Only Riku." It's probably more like, "Well, Riku is cooler though, and the fans really like him and so do I. So I'll use him." And therein lies the problem.
Instead of following through with plot threads that make sense, Nomura chooses his personal favorites/fan favorites. This has benefited some characters where I'm sure they'd be ignored otherwise (Aqua, for example), but has definitely hurt many many more.
sex·ism
/ˈsekˌsizəm/
noun
prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
That doesn't make it any less sexist. Whether he's aware of it or not, his choices in using female characters as props to male characters to either have as a trophy or to give them angst is putting them in a gender role he believes is appropriate for them. Strelitzia and Kairi both got fridged. It's either that or you're a plot device/deus ex machina. If you don't fight or have a Keyblade you get no focus (so yes, in KH, Naminé does
need to fight to be relevant because she's obviously getting nothing by not doing so, like Kairi once before her). When an interview question asked about Aqua, he said female characters were difficult to write/understand when the reality is there is no difference between them and male characters. And while yes, he has a very serious boner for Riku and his clone (now anyway), his choices in the narrative leads me to think he's the typical traditional middle aged Japanese man with outdated views on women who finally got called out on it. Even Kairi's spunky, shade throwing, energetic disposition changed into being more meek like Naminè in KHIII when he has ten male characters and more with various different personalities, attitudes, and traits. Probably due to the Japanese finding soft, "cutesy" girls endearing. You see it in anime too.
If Aqua wasn't popular, he wouldn't have given her what she obtained out of it.
If fans weren't outraged at Kairi's treatment, she more than likely wouldn't even have this game.
Of course, that doesn't mean he can't change. He's been getting the hang of the more modernized woman. But it took backlash.
