Yeah, as a more villainous pairing they'd be pretty entertaining.
Well what's a bit of backstabbing among traitors? I'm sure they'd work it out.
But honestly it's weird to me that they're now framing it as if Larxene was into Marluxia, when she and Axel seemed to be hitting it off so much better in CoM.
That's another aspect that came out of nowhere and got retconned in. Marluxia and Larxene hardly exchanged words, if at all, and KHIII wasn't much better. And suddenly there's this relationship there that comes from the past. It doesn't help that it ruins Larxene's character. Her only motivation being a guy to join the Organization? Elrena being used for this Strelitzia mystery about
him and then never seen again since? Just typical, sexist Nomura here.
This is something I find rather frustrating with KH's story telling. There's a lot of interesting dynamics that are established over the years, but they're either not utilized or glossed over. Like what you mentioned here.
Often it feels like instead of having characters actually work things out and get to that point, the story just skips to where it wants the characters to be. Ansem and his apprentices are a good example, yes you can have them working in the labs again, but there's some ground work that needs to be done to get them there. Same with what you mentioned between Riku and Roxas, you can have them or even Xion and Isa, get along, but there's somethings that need to be addressed first.
Exactly.
I'd have found it more interesting, if Mickey was with Riku fighting off Ansem, Repliku and Xigbar, leaving Axel and Kairi to face Marluxia and Larxene. You could have Marly and Larx holding a grudge against Axel, while Kairi feels Naminé's fear at the sight of her abusers. This would also give us the added benefit of having Axel and Kairi be party members for a full fight.
You should take Nomura's director seat or something. Sounds much better narratively. That's another thing that bothers me. How people online in some forum can think of things in only minutes while the guy in charge professionally struggles to get anything in-depth done with the characters. And also can't figure out that if there's no time for that, to not throw things together as if everything is fine with the cast.
Something about that rubs me the wrong way 'cause I was never fond of the mentality of characters being obstacles for the ships people wanna like.
Unfortunately, that predominantly exists, otherwise no shipping battles would be happening. That's the crux of them.
And I'm talking about a particular faction.
I don't remember Riku being abusive to Namine in this series... DiZ apparently wanted Riku to "take care of" Namine after everything was done, I guess? Riku didn't do anything to her though. Riku was more threatening to Xion from what I remember, and even then he didn't do much to her either other than make her feel bad. Roxas is probably the one he hurt the most by defeating him and then helping DiZ to delude him with the TT replica. And Namine was in on that herself, too--she wasn't coerced into what happened to Roxas like she was by the Org. into harming Sora. I guess I didn't really mind Riku's actions because Nobodies were thought to be hollow vessels of the original people and Riku was trying to revive someone who was actually real. That's not quite the same as Axel murdering his own in order to get him and Isa farther up the chain of command in CoM. (Although KH3 softened that storyline by writing in that they were seeking to find the Mystery Girl.) Still, Axel was ruthless to Vexen in particular, and enjoyed it. He came across bloodthirsty. Of course he didn't have a heart at the time.
Riku didn't stop or try to lessen Diz's ignorance and verbal abuse for her sake, he manhandled her when she was speaking to Roxas in that odd white room, dragging her up by the arm, then stopped Roxas from trying to help Naminè with Diz as Diz manhandles her himself while she tries to fight him off to get last words in. That's called complacency and makes him just as guilty. The brakes only appeared when it came to dispose of her.
Adding in that he might have believed that these people were hollow vessels and his goal being to ultimately wake Sora up (which his little scenes with Naminè tend to consist of), it simply does not paint the picture of someone that loves and cares for a potential significant other. It's a hard sell to me with this type of history. RepliNami is problematic in my opinion, but it makes more sense to me in comparison.
And Naminè had no choice in this matter due the complications involved. If they wanted Sora to wake up, wherein she had promised to fix him, then she knew that Roxas had to disappear. That doesn't mean she agreed with how Diz decided to handle it. Otherwise, there's no point of breaking into data Twilight Town and riling him up as a result of her actions. It's completely counterproductive, no? More so as it risked Sora's awakening.
I think AdrienXIII placed it in perspective. Riku may not have been as bad as Axel, but there's questionable behavior that's simply not addressed and it feels like they skipped the road to reach that final destination where they can all run around the beach, making it feel hollow and disingenuous.
Anyway, I think a "pair the spares" RikuNami pairing woul be just as insulting for Riku as it would be for Namine.
I think forcing the idea that Riku inherited Riku Replica's feelings to excuse Riku's lack of interest previously is much more insulting to all three parties. I've seen it thrown around as another distorted interpretation of Nomura's interview because, again, the lack of acceptance of what was stated there. Why would anyone want that for their ship in general is beyond me.
You don't have to be this bitter towards Namiku, ya know.
Trust me, if I was bitter, it'd be worse. I'm simply pointing out and calling out the shippers who stubbornly and falsely claim something that's not there. Like it being canon. Then get triggered when others don't follow their perceived reality.