You see, one thing that did strike us during the very first rounds of Xion-bitching is that complaining about her Sue-ish tendencies was maybe a bit disingenuous considering that I've been affectionately referring to Sora as the Intergalactic Mary Sue From Hell for ages. I mean, think about it – the guy spends most of his time flying from one barely-reinvented Disney world to the next, making friends and helping save the day. That's pretty much textbook Sue activity, and yet I like Sora. A lot. So what makes the difference?
It's a lot of factors, but the main one (for us at least) is that Sora manages to be endearing despite his Sue-ish tendencies, rather than being defined by them alone. It's not hard to see what Squeenix and Disney were trying to do with the KH series – Sora is very much born from the childhood fantasy we all had at some point of getting to travel to the worlds of all those Disney movies (or whatever else our favourite story might have been as a kid) and make friends with our favourite characters. But for me personally, and an impressively large number of other KH fans who've variously outgrown Disney or otherwise become disillusioned the company over the years, this is not a selling point. In fact, quite a bit of disgust at the idea of playing 'a Disney game' kept us from getting into the series at all for years. Sora does also get to cosy up to a lot of Final Fantasy characters, which is a whole lot more up our fanservice alley, but what played the biggest part in getting us to finally give the game a chance was the realisation that the KH series had some likeable new characters, and a really good story. Not to mention gorgeous graphics and enjoyable gameplay, but characters and plot will always be my one big weakness.
[...]He's in many ways the stereotype of the dumb, well-intentioned hero – chosen by destiny for the usually arbitrary 'strength of the heart'-type characteristics. But his stupidity rarely hits the point of being offensive – by KHII, he's being allowed to give good advice and make good calls (see, for example, his efforts to get Hercules out of his emo-phase, or his justified reluctance not to trust the parrot). Sora's been dealt a rough hand – torn from his home, separated from his friends, dumped with the weight of the universe on his shoulders – and just when he thought it was over and he could go home, sent straight back into the fray for another round. And yet he never complains about the unfairness of his lot, and rarely takes more than a few glum moments here or there to angst about it. No matter how many worlds he visits or how many friends he makes, he never loses his sense of wonder, never makes you doubt he genuinely cares about each of them, but never long loses sight of his own goal of finding those two really important friends he grew up with again. Sora, in short, is a good person, but without becoming so perfect he becomes unbelievable. A few Sue-ish traits can't even make a dent in that.
Xion, alas, is not nearly so inoffensive.
Whereas Sora may have been born from childish fantasies of meeting fictional characters and having fun, Xion is the kind of Sue people start writing when the crushing angst of puberty is upon them. She exists not to meet wonderful people, help them out and have fun, but to be told by all the good guys what a wonderful special little snowflake she is, and victimised by everyone else to make the us feel sorry for her. The story is no longer about how wonderful all the worlds she's experiences are, it's about how wonderful she is. This is narcissism of a far less innocent kind. To add insult to injury, unlike Sora, innocently Sue-ing himself into a bunch of old AU Disney movies, Xion is Sue-ing herself into a series I genuinely enjoy – and that usually has far better writing than that.
You see, one thing that did strike us during the very first rounds of Xion-bitching is that complaining about her Sue-ish tendencies was maybe a bit disingenuous considering that I've been affectionately referring to Sora as the Intergalactic Mary Sue From Hell for ages. I mean, think about it – the guy spends most of his time flying from one barely-reinvented Disney world to the next, making friends and helping save the day. That's pretty much textbook Sue activity, and yet I like Sora. A lot. So what makes the difference?
It's a lot of factors, but the main one (for us at least) is that Sora manages to be endearing despite his Sue-ish tendencies, rather than being defined by them alone. It's not hard to see what Squeenix and Disney were trying to do with the KH series – Sora is very much born from the childhood fantasy we all had at some point of getting to travel to the worlds of all those Disney movies (or whatever else our favourite story might have been as a kid) and make friends with our favourite characters. But for me personally, and an impressively large number of other KH fans who've variously outgrown Disney or otherwise become disillusioned the company over the years, this is not a selling point. In fact, quite a bit of disgust at the idea of playing 'a Disney game' kept us from getting into the series at all for years. Sora does also get to cosy up to a lot of Final Fantasy characters, which is a whole lot more up our fanservice alley, but what played the biggest part in getting us to finally give the game a chance was the realisation that the KH series had some likeable new characters, and a really good story. Not to mention gorgeous graphics and enjoyable gameplay, but characters and plot will always be my one big weakness.
This is not so much true of KH1, which is best described as a bit of brainless fun, but by Chain of Memories the story was genuinely involving me, and KHII blew me away – the leap in storytelling between the two main games is so big it verges on emotional discontinuity. And while I didn't have much opinion on Sora in KH1, by KHII I loved him to bits. He's in many ways the stereotype of the dumb, well-intentioned hero – chosen by destiny for the usually arbitrary 'strength of the heart'-type characteristics. But his stupidity rarely hits the point of being offensive – by KHII, he's being allowed to give good advice and make good calls (see, for example, his efforts to get Hercules out of his emo-phase, or his justified reluctance not to trust the parrot). Sora's been dealt a rough hand – torn from his home, separated from his friends, dumped with the weight of the universe on his shoulders – and just when he thought it was over and he could go home, sent straight back into the fray for another round. And yet he never complains about the unfairness of his lot, and rarely takes more than a few glum moments here or there to angst about it. No matter how many worlds he visits or how many friends he makes, he never loses his sense of wonder, never makes you doubt he genuinely cares about each of them, but never long loses sight of his own goal of finding those two really important friends he grew up with again. Sora, in short, is a good person, but without becoming so perfect he becomes unbelievable. A few Sue-ish traits can't even make a dent in that.
Xion, alas, is not nearly so inoffensive.
Whereas Sora may have been born from childish fantasies of meeting fictional characters and having fun, Xion is the kind of Sue people start writing when the crushing angst of puberty is upon them. She exists not to meet wonderful people, help them out and have fun, but to be told by all the good guys what a wonderful special little snowflake she is, and victimised by everyone else to make the us feel sorry for her. The story is no longer about how wonderful all the worlds she's experiences are, it's about how wonderful she is. This is narcissism of a far less innocent kind. To add insult to injury, unlike Sora, innocently Sue-ing himself into a bunch of old AU Disney movies, Xion is Sue-ing herself into a series I genuinely enjoy – and that usually has far better writing than that.
