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Well-Rounded Characters in KH



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Launchpad

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I went in on this in another thread, but thought it might be an interesting topic.

Of the thirteen characters featured on the Kingdom Hearts III box art, only Sora, Axel, Donald, and Goofy tend to display a believable range of emotions and reactions to the things that happen in the story. We see these four enjoy themselves, get sad, get excited (this is a huge one), show concern for someone, and have multiple types of dynamics with different characters.

The nine other characters are honestly sadly really flat, and beyond wanting them to find each other again, and see their initial stories through, I can't honestly say I want to spend another second with any of them in this series. It's so jarring that these characters exist in a Disney franchise, where each world is bursting with fun characters and life. Meanwhile, our main narrative is centered around characters who's highest aspiration is to lifelessly sit around eating ice cream or stand next to each other on a beach.

We still don't know Terra and Aqua. We don't know what they like, we don't know what annoys them, we don't have any idea. Ten years of knowing them, hours of cutscenes with each, and they still have only the most base goals. A scene where Riku and Terra stand across from each other and laugh about nothing really doesn't do it. Ventus, meanwhile, continues to be a childish Sora expy without any of the nuance and twice the obnoxious naivety.

Roxas and Xion have a little more room to grow, as relatively new people, but as of now they're pretty dull. I think they have the highest potential for a side game that rescues their characters from ice cream eating obscurity and flat affects.

Riku and Kairi are a particularly sad situation, as they've been bleeding character for a long time. Kairi's lost a lot of her spunk and youth, and Riku's redemption arc has left him sagely, stoic, and all business. He's only two years older than he was in KH1, where he loved messing with Sora, racing, and showing off. Those aren't negative traits, and they don't need to be shaven off to show how grown he is.

What KH needs more than anything is to let the characters guide themselves based on what they want, instead of listening to the fucking wizard in the fucking tower for another installment.
 

okhi12

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Well, their stories are so dramatic that they had no time to show their true personalities in ''normal'' situations. KH is supposed to be about friendship but it has a severe lack of scenes actually depicting interactions between friends. Riku kinda lost his cocky side in KH3 and became the solemn, sober and dull type but at least he had a development arc. Kairi's case is the most jarring, she was a rather sassy girl in KH1 and suddenly became the typical sweet girl.
0.2 Kairi had a single line and even that was more Kair-like than KH3 Kairi. I'm curious about MoM Kairi, because she really needs to develop a consistent personality.
 

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I feel like the kh cast has so much potential, but I just don't see that potential leading anywhere. Ventus has another upcoming memory trauma coming up, and that just leads to more of the same when it was already his entire character in bbs. We've had the khux main cast for years and we know barely nothing about most of them outside of their role (or lack thereof) in the plot, so it's not like the kh team have realized the characters need to be developed more.
 

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i really want sora and kairi to grow more and sora can man up and tell kairi how he feels. and i hope we get more closer for namine and some other characters so that we know more about them and relationships. and i hope we get more talk and if darkness is vanitas in a way in khux.
 

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I agree with what's been said. Most of the cast need more stuff to showcase more of their personality. The problem is most of the KH cast are very serious or have a lot of drama tied to them. What they need is silly moments in the story to break them out of their usual selves to show a side of them you wouldn't expect.

Final Fantasy VII is a good example of taking serious characters and putting them in situations outside their comfort zone and were greatly entertaining, fleshing out their personalities beyond one trait. Much as I love the Kingdom Hearts cast, this is a problem with most of them.

Roxas and Xion are two of my favorite characters, however I don't want them to just be defined by the clock tower and ice cream. Now that they are back, I would love some wacky adventures with them. Bring back Roxas's skateboarding in a Twilight Town that no longer does that regularly, or he starts collecting bring arts figures and gets excited decorating his room with them.

Xion has little to no experience interacting with normal people. Now that she's a townie this would make for some hilarious and awkward meetings in town. Go the Garnet route from FFIX where she picks up slang from those around her and use those slangs in weird situations. And there are plenty of Disney worlds and characters I'd love to see them interact with. Because they were not born human, they can fit many of Disney and Pixar's themes, and with no Organization holding them back they can finally do full interactions.

And most of all, I hope they are not Yen Sid's lackeys. I'd rather they stumble on whatever the main arc of KH4 while doing their own thing and accidentally get involved, rather then following Yen Sid's terrible leadership. I do think the KH characters all have potential to breakout and show more personality. They just need the right games to do. This is why I so prefer the characterization in the KH mangas. Everyone is so expressive and full of life that makes the game counterparts like dull in comparison. If only BBS got a manga...

Edit: Also give the characters some things they are good at, some things they are bad at, and even some things they are afraid of. Could make for some compelling self contained stories.
 
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Noivern

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I'm sorry but I don't agree with you in the slighest, lol.

We got to see PLENTY of Riku, he's very charismatic in both CoM and 3D. In 3 his arc is more so finished, but as boring as his role in that game was, it makes sense that he's more calm as he's an accomplished master now.

In BBS we got to see Aqua be annoyed and sassy multiple times with Vanitas, as well as caring with Ven and disappointed in Terra. She is smart and thoughtful but without being brash or prideful, and her hopeful protagonist role is a deep contrast with the other characters who are driven by justice and curiosity (Sora), pride and responsability (Riku and Terra) or running away/confronting personal demons (Ven/Roxas).

Roxas is much more developed than most characters in the franchise, ESPECIALLY if you take the Days manga for his characterization. Xion is pretty well written too in my books.

Ventus isn't just Sora 2.0. He's a lot more tragic and we also have to add the characterization from his past as well, how his current personality was made up for the time he spent with the other apprentices. He's more innocent and childish while Sora is sassier and more of a clown.

If anything I'd say Sora feels a lot less well rounded because his character is constantly reduced to the dumb, useless anime protag. He's constantly downplayed by every character and with the exception of 1 and CoM, where he actually grows into his role and learn other's respect, he's still treated as a kid even though he always ends up saving everyone.

We get to see him angry, sad and happy, but they never really bother to develop his character behind that.

Every other character grows throughout the franchise, with some going through very drastic developments (Riku and Roxas the most, in my opinion), but with the exception of the very end of Re:Mind, Sora is still the same kid; Just with new powers and a cooler outfit.

He went through so much but his role as the main protagonist doesn't allow him to properly grow and absorb everything he experienced.
 

SweetYetSalty

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I'm sorry but I don't agree with you in the slighest, lol.

We got to see PLENTY of Riku, he's very charismatic in both CoM and 3D. In 3 his arc is more so finished, but as boring as his role in that game was, it makes sense that he's more calm as he's an accomplished master now.

In BBS we got to see Aqua be annoyed and sassy multiple times with Vanitas, as well as caring with Ven and disappointed in Terra. She is smart and thoughtful but without being brash or prideful, and her hopeful protagonist role is a deep contrast with the other characters who are driven by justice and curiosity (Sora), pride and responsability (Riku and Terra) or running away/confronting personal demons (Ven/Roxas).

Roxas is much more developed than most characters in the franchise, ESPECIALLY if you take the Days manga for his characterization. Xion is pretty well written too in my books.

Ventus isn't just Sora 2.0. He's a lot more tragic and we also have to add the characterization from his past as well, how his current personality was made up for the time he spent with the other apprentices. He's more innocent and childish while Sora is sassier and more of a clown.

If anything I'd say Sora feels a lot less well rounded because his character is constantly reduced to the dumb, useless anime protag. He's constantly downplayed by every character and with the exception of 1 and CoM, where he actually grows into his role and learn other's respect, he's still treated as a kid even though he always ends up saving everyone.

We get to see him angry, sad and happy, but they never really bother to develop his character behind that.

Every other character grows throughout the franchise, with some going through very drastic developments (Riku and Roxas the most, in my opinion), but with the exception of the very end of Re:Mind, Sora is still the same kid; Just with new powers and a cooler outfit.

He went through so much but his role as the main protagonist doesn't allow him to properly grow and absorb everything he experienced.
I also agree with your post as well. Makes me wonder where I truly stand on the matter, lol. I guess I see both points of view. Regardless this is a good post you made, especially your points with Aqua.
 

Absent

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IMO KH character are so barebones but the video game medium gives the illusion that there's more to these characters than there is. Fanon and biases play a huge role.

And to clarify because you can never be sure, I love most of the KH cast.
 

Face My Fears

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How can you forget Riku, the character that has received the best development in the entire series? Sure, in KH3 he didn't do much or grow, but that's because his character arc ended in KH3D.

Roxas and Xion are perf. I know that they're mostly associated with being sad/"emo", but they do have fun moments in Days.

I don't think it's fair to call out every other character besides Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Axel for not displaying a wide range of emotions. Why? Because the characters you listed had plenty moments to express a wide range of emotions. When are we going to see Namine being silly and having fun in Atlantica? Namine's only been trapped, used, abused, and forgotten. Of course her default emotion will be sadness.

Kairi is the character that I think gets treated the worst (besides Namine). She was the original non-combat, sitting on the sidelines character. Nomura tried to give her something in KH2, but then stuck her on the sidelines for several years and games until KH3. How can she do anything if she's not around the action? She wasn't around for BbS and Days for obvious reasons. Coded and 3D she should have been more present, but maybe because they were smaller titles Nomura didn't want to get her off Destiny Islands... or maybe he forgot she existed. If you look at the games that Kairi was actually featured in (KH1, 2, 3 and ReMIND), she does pretty well. She went from damsel in KH1, to searching for Sora in KH2 (yes, she got kidnapped) but then stepping up to fight, then becoming an all-mighty keyblade wielder in KH3. The only issue here is that she is denied the fun of visiting Disney worlds - which is where I think emotions can come out.

Speaking of emotions coming out in Disney worlds, how can you say we know nothing about Aqua and that she has no emotions? We see her sad, concerned, angry, and we even get some humour out of her with the scenes that feature Zack. Also, her "basic goals" after ten years was basically her goal from the one game that she debuted in. How can her goal change, when her entire existence is contingent on the main story overall - IE defeating Master Xehanort. Why would her goal change from getting out of the Realm of Darkness to defeat Master Xehanort and save her possessed friend to raiding the Cave of Wonders for riches or going on a date with Cinderella?

That's the problem with all these extra characters. Ensemble pieces will have all the "protagonists" share a similar goal, which is usually defeat the main "antagonist". Roxas and Xion - due to their nature - were able to get some more meat in their stories, throwing in "becoming real", but it was clear that their main goal was also to stop Xemnas and free themselves from the Organization (which is essentially, and unknowingly, stopping Master Xehanort). Riku as well was able to do more than just "defeat Xehanort" because he was possessed by Xehanort. So I think Aqua got a lot of development in 0.2 because she CHOSE to save Terra (which unleashed Ansem/Xemnas onto the worlds) and she was stuck, unable to help him. The reason it doesn't look like she got development or has no emotions post-0.2 is because she didn't get a proper confrontation with Master Xehanort in KH3.

You are right that some characters need more development (I'm looking at Terra and Ven), but you can't really judge them too harshly because Terra has been possessed and Ven was sleeping for more than a decade. They only had BbS to show themselves and that game's story wasn't really about them, but more so a backstory to Master Xehanort's rise to power leading to the events of KH1 and future games.

The characters aren't flat, it's that their stories were not properly completed (like Riku's) so it feels like they are flat.
 

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I agree with a lot of what Launchpad said, but I can't find myself to agree that Roxas isn't a character with depth, personally I feel even his short stint in KH2 alone did enough to cover his bases well, I certainly didn't find him flat or one note.

Not that there's ANYTHING wrong with being one note, Demyx has always been entertaining to me and he's rather 1D, but you can't go around parading these guys as main characters if you won't develop them.

Also you forgot to mention Leon as an example of a well rounded character but I will forgive that oversight 😌
 

Face My Fears

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I agree with a lot of what Launchpad said, but I can't find myself to agree that Roxas isn't a character with depth, personally I feel even his short stint in KH2 alone did enough to cover his bases well, I certainly didn't find him flat or one note.

Not that there's ANYTHING wrong with being one note, Demyx has always been entertaining to me and he's rather 1D, but you can't go around parading these guys as main characters if you won't develop them.

Also you forgot to mention Leon as an example of a well rounded character but I will forgive that oversight 😌
How is Leon well-rounded but not Aqua? He's moody and brooding in all the games that he's in. If that's well-rounded then I guess Terra is definitely well-rounded.
 

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How is Leon well-rounded but not Aqua? He's moody and brooding in all the games that he's in. If that's well-rounded then I guess Terra is definitely well-rounded.
It was a throwaway line if I'm honest but I'll elaborate. Simply put, Main and Side characters have different expectations put on them, Aqua is a main character, and has had significant screentime, maybe about 20 hours or so if I had to give an average number, yet despite that for the vast majority of that time, her characterisation is static. She's just repeating herself for a lot of BBS, which BBS' rather mid dialogue doesn't help with at all.

She wants to bring her friends back because her master told her to, yet she hardly develops out of that pov until the very very end of the game, and even then she's not really compounding on her pov, she's just following it through but with more anger and firmness. There's a few times Aqua has some interesting moments which show us some of her character - Like with Zack - but in BBS alone we don't really know anything else except that she wants to protect her friends. We don't even know WHY she cares about them so much because they had such a stilted, forced friendship scene in the beginning that was literally just a callback to KH1 and probably relied on fans recalling that scene and super imposing TAV on SRK.

The secret ending of BBS, and 0.2 to a MUCH greater extent, was better than the rest of the game in this regard because now that Aqua's hit rock bottom and is all alone we suddenly get a much greater insight into her feelings and motivations, and what her limits are as well as how she pushes them. 0.2 is what saved Aqua's character for me and cemented her as one of my favourites, but even so, we needed a whole Episode Aqua to bring this *main* character to an acceptable level of autonomy.

Leon on the other hand has maybe 2 or 3 hours across every game, and is clearly pigeonholed as the stereotypical stoic leader, yet though they had every reason to leave him be so 1 dimensional, they didn't, not even in KH1, where a bit of his backstory is learnt, and some text dialogue indicates his relatively strong personal feelings over the missing dalmatians. KH2 is so much better for him as a character, because sure we know he's The Stoic, but he's also Sora's mentor, and with that comes his "Oh Shit" looks when Sora does something dumb like get transported by a computer, or looking exasperated by Aerith's (Well everyone on the HBRC really) antics, and the best example to show they took some time to flesh out Leon a little bit more is to to compare and contrast Leon's outburst of concern when Sora disappears into a flash of light at the end of the 1000 Heartless battle with Cloud's very passive "Relax, they'll be fine".

They didn't *have* to cut to those two at all and could have ended the scene well before but they did, and furthermore they chose to show Leon expressing emotion very outwardly while Cloud acted as the more traditional Stoic™.

When I look at the screentime both characters get, and compare their moments of "well-roundedness", it shouldn't be the case that a Main character (not necessarily Aqua) who's had an entire campaign dedicated to them in one game and had significant outings in others and a side character who's been in about 3 games, 1 dlc and 2 cameos have a similar number of those moments.

It's all about ratios at the end of the day I guess, and the side characters, particularly in KH2, and Zack, really shine with theirs.
 

Face My Fears

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It was a throwaway line if I'm honest but I'll elaborate. Simply put, Main and Side characters have different expectations put on them, Aqua is a main character, and has had significant screentime, maybe about 20 hours or so if I had to give an average number, yet despite that for the vast majority of that time, her characterisation is static. She's just repeating herself for a lot of BBS, which BBS' rather mid dialogue doesn't help with at all.

She wants to bring her friends back because her master told her to, yet she hardly develops out of that pov until the very very end of the game, and even then she's not really compounding on her pov, she's just following it through but with more anger and firmness. There's a few times Aqua has some interesting moments which show us some of her character - Like with Zack - but in BBS alone we don't really know anything else except that she wants to protect her friends. We don't even know WHY she cares about them so much because they had such a stilted, forced friendship scene in the beginning that was literally just a callback to KH1 and probably relied on fans recalling that scene and super imposing TAV on SRK.

The secret ending of BBS, and 0.2 to a MUCH greater extent, was better than the rest of the game in this regard because now that Aqua's hit rock bottom and is all alone we suddenly get a much greater insight into her feelings and motivations, and what her limits are as well as how she pushes them. 0.2 is what saved Aqua's character for me and cemented her as one of my favourites, but even so, we needed a whole Episode Aqua to bring this *main* character to an acceptable level of autonomy.

Leon on the other hand has maybe 2 or 3 hours across every game, and is clearly pigeonholed as the stereotypical stoic leader, yet though they had every reason to leave him be so 1 dimensional, they didn't, not even in KH1, where a bit of his backstory is learnt, and some text dialogue indicates his relatively strong personal feelings over the missing dalmatians. KH2 is so much better for him as a character, because sure we know he's The Stoic, but he's also Sora's mentor, and with that comes his "Oh Shit" looks when Sora does something dumb like get transported by a computer, or looking exasperated by Aerith's (Well everyone on the HBRC really) antics, and the best example to show they took some time to flesh out Leon a little bit more is to to compare and contrast Leon's outburst of concern when Sora disappears into a flash of light at the end of the 1000 Heartless battle with Cloud's very passive "Relax, they'll be fine".

They didn't *have* to cut to those two at all and could have ended the scene well before but they did, and furthermore they chose to show Leon expressing emotion very outwardly while Cloud acted as the more traditional Stoic™.

When I look at the screentime both characters get, and compare their moments of "well-roundedness", it shouldn't be the case that a Main character (not necessarily Aqua) who's had an entire campaign dedicated to them in one game and had significant outings in others and a side character who's been in about 3 games, 1 dlc and 2 cameos have a similar number of those moments.

It's all about ratios at the end of the day I guess, and the side characters, particularly in KH2, and Zack, really shine with theirs.
That's all fine and dandy with the ratios. I get that. But you're just comparing the amount of time and expecting that character development should happen in that time. That isn't the right way to look at it.

The way I look at it is how/what the characters are doing in the story. Their position in the story will dictate what they can do. If they gave Aqua moments of happiness and fun, where she didn't care about her missing friends IE the whole point of her entire journey in BbS, people would have called her out on that for being unnatural and distracting from the main plot.

Leon gets to be Sora's teacher and the player's entry point into this new world of keyblades and heartless, then he gets to deliver exposition about Maleficent/Ansem/his backstory of Radiant Garden being destroyed. Then he gets to join you at the climax of the game, which happens to be his ruined home and wish you good luck. In KH2, he's present for the Organization's confrontation of Sora, the 1000 heartless battle, Sora's silly antics with Tron, and witness the rebirth of his home to Radiant Garden.

Aqua is stuck in a forcefully separated storyline, where she is alone and only interacts with Disney characters, except for the middle of the game and the end. She can't enjoy her time with the Disney characters, as she's learning Terra is being corrupted by darkness and an inexperienced Ven is missing. Aqua is a new master, so she is new to all of this and doesn't have anyone to guide her through travelling worlds. Sora at least had Donald/Goofy to learn from out in the worlds. Aqua has no one.

Looking at the two comparisons, their situations allowed their "well-roundedness" to show. Aqua isn't a flat character. The story of BbS is flat and that's what makes her seem flat. Character is only revealed when they are put into situations that can show different sides of it. Aqua has ALWAYS been in situations where she can only really show sadness, anger or despair. Leon, even though he is a side character, had his story arc completed with the rebirth of Radiant Garden. Aqua's arc is completed, but KH3 makes it that Sora is the one that does it for her, so her character doesn't get the catharsis necessary to make her seem "well-rounded".

You can even look at Kairi. How much character can you reveal when you're always kidnapped or waiting on Destiny Islands? That's not Kairi's fault, it's Nomura's. And even then, I will say that it's more the story that Nomura wants to tell's fault. The Dark Seeker Saga was built upon characters being forgotten, lost, and separated - mostly because Nomura was seemingly writing the story as he went and had to retcon tons of stuff. But you can clearly tell the difference between characters getting to show themselves if you compare TAV to RAX. TAV were separated from the get-go in their game. RAX got to spend time together, and sure it was mostly eating ice cream, but they got to have moments like "Roxas, that's a stick." You can't expect TAV to have those moments when they are NEVER together. And you can't blame them for it, when BbS was created to SEPARATE them (Master Xehanort's plan to lure Terra to the darkness and Ven to question everything).
 

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You are right that some characters need more development (I'm looking at Terra and Ven), but you can't really judge them too harshly because Terra has been possessed and Ven was sleeping for more than a decade. They only had BbS to show themselves and that game's story wasn't really about them, but more so a backstory to Master Xehanort's rise to power leading to the events of KH1 and future games.
No not really, the story of birth by sleep wasn’t just about about Xehanort but the Wayfinder trio as well, but mostly Xehanort Terra and Ventus, meanwhile Aqua (like Eraqus) in birth by sleep had a minor role, she was a bystander, you can remove her and the story (mostly) would be the same, only time she was the center focus was in the realm of darkness where the story was no longer about her friends but instead was her story and her struggle and development, she was the least developed personality wise in birth by sleep, she didn’t get personality until 0.2, both terra and Ven in bbs already had personality and had a story and purpose, and even terra who is just as much flat as aqua managed to at least be less bland in bbs cause of his struggles with the darkness and his anger it all felt real, Aqua story arc may have ended but to me it felt like it still going cause of her struggle with the darkness and PTSD, so i won’t say it ended, the only story arc that ended with her is her finding her friends, in bbs Aqua was a walking talking robot that all her motivation were her friends, why is she sad? Cause her friends, why is she mad? Cause her friends, why is she happy? Cause her friends, she does have tiny personality in her in bbs I won’t deny that, however 0.2 is what managed to give her a character development, real emotions and a personality, even if you claim she had them in bbs still it honestly wasn’t obvious to spot them until 0.2.

Edit: even Xion was important in Days and was heavily focused on as much as Roxas, Kairi was involved in the plot of Kh1, namine was involved in Re:chain of memeory, meanwhile Aqua got the raw deal of being the third wheel in birth by sleep until her friends were out of the way, she needed 0.2 to move her away from her friends shadows and make her important (Altho being a waifu did help making her stand out even more then the other two) and finally she started to get a proper character development and story.
 
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Altho being a waifu did help making her stand out even more then the other two
Truer words have not been spoken, this is 90% of the reason for her initial popularity. In fact, KHs great character design is probably the largest reason why fans are even attracted to characters in the first place

That's all fine and dandy with the ratios. I get that. But you're just comparing the amount of time and expecting that character development should happen in that time. That isn't the right way to look at it.

Except I'm fairly sure that's how it should work? Like in no way is it a good thing that a main character in a game that has had many many hours of screen time and is still static at best. And you say we should be looking at what the characters are doing in the story but is it not the case that the prevalence of autonomous character moments in a story is directly related to how well balanced that character is? I'm not boiling this down to numbers, it's definitely a qualitative thing, I just used the ratio example as a way of simplifying my position, but I guess numbers seem like anathema to these types of discussions.


If they gave Aqua moments of happiness and fun, where she didn't care about her missing friends IE the whole point of her entire journey in BbS, people would have called her out on that for being unnatural and distracting from the main plot.

That's not what I'm saying at all, nobody is saying she should be fun loving or some sora expy, they're just saying she should have showcased some more personality traits than her dogged pursual of her friends. It would not distract at all from the main plot for her to go through some introspection on why she's doing this and maybe have her wondering what Terra or Ven are going through when she sees the aftermath of their visits. Having more, better flashbacks would work in BBS' favour, not against it. When I say I want for such and such character to be well rounded I'm NOT saying they should exhibit every personality trait under the sun, simply that they should walk, talk and groove in a way that's true to the character, and make them feel more realistic. Real people all have their own personalities which kinda dictate how they react to stuff, it's the same for video game characters, except its never really the case here.

I'm not even too sure how to go about the rest of your post because I feel like it's at such a wild tangent off of from where I left off that I can't really go about replying to it without giving it some more thought, but suffice to say I completely disagree that the plot and Aqua being with disney characters did not allow her to show off some more traits.
 

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It bothers me supremely how much people overlook Ansem The Wise. I will die on the hill that he's the most complex character in the series by a large margin. Many of his actions are morally messed up, yet are completely understandable once you garner a full perspective on his story. He's a greater symbol of a grey character than anyone else and he brings a large deal of depth to the series. Everyone else is generally much simpler in terms of moral paths they take. Riku and Axel have had lengthy character changes and elements of tragedy to them as well, but Ansem's is the least cut and dry by far, because it isn't a matter of going from good to bad or bad to good. He starts off good, falls down a heavy spiral of horrible acts, both ones he commits and ones forced upon him and by the end of KH2, it's entirely up for debate as to whether he's forgivable or not and whether his final actions repented for his sins.

It's extra impressive when you consider how limited his screen time is. Many people (mostly fans of Roxas & Namine) will just say he's bad and let that be that. But there is a hell of a lot to discuss about his character and it annoys me that these discussions are rarely had.

I suspect Ansem's character design might not be interesting enough for some people. His looks aren't anime-esque at all, no spiky or silver hair, no ideal body standards, no absurd weapon. But that only makes him stand out more to me.

Always read the Ansem reports, people.
 

palizinhas

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Jun 5, 2016
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I find Ansem the Wise and Eraqus two of the better done characters in the series. They're the two most hated characters by the fandom, even over Xehanort, but they feel real in a way most kh characters don't. You understand what they're doing, even if you know it's a bad thing.
 

Foxycian

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It bothers me supremely how much people overlook Ansem The Wise. I will die on the hill that he's the most complex character in the series by a large margin. Many of his actions are morally messed up, yet are completely understandable once you garner a full perspective on his story. He's a greater symbol of a grey character than anyone else and he brings a large deal of depth to the series. Everyone else is generally much simpler in terms of moral paths they take. Riku and Axel have had lengthy character changes and elements of tragedy to them as well, but Ansem's is the least cut and dry by far, because it isn't a matter of going from good to bad or bad to good. He starts off good, falls down a heavy spiral of horrible acts, both ones he commits and ones forced upon him and by the end of KH2, it's entirely up for debate as to whether he's forgivable or not and whether his final actions repented for his sins.

It's extra impressive when you consider how limited his screen time is. Many people (mostly fans of Roxas & Namine) will just say he's bad and let that be that. But there is a hell of a lot to discuss about his character and it annoys me that these discussions are rarely had.

I suspect Ansem's character design might not be interesting enough for some people. His looks aren't anime-esque at all, no spiky or silver hair, no ideal body standards, no absurd weapon. But that only makes him stand out more to me.

Always read the Ansem reports, people.
I have a soft spot for Ansem the wise (even Eraqus) after blank points he showed that he really wanted to atone for his past mistakes, i honestly like his character.
 

SweetYetSalty

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Ansem the Wise is probably one of the best characters in the series. Despite not being a main character, we see his change and evolution. He starts off as a cold monster in the Roxas tutorial, but through the reports and his eventual appearance at the end, we see he's changed. But it doesn't stop with KH2. We see his development continue in BBS, DDD, and KH3. He is constantly trying to make amends, constantly referencing Roxas and Namine and how wrong he was to treat them the way he did, and doing anything within his power to help.

I don't mention Ansem as much as I should, but I really like and respect the character for his growth. I think his redemption story was almost as good as Riku's. Riku had more screentime to really flesh his arc off. But Ansem's up there with him. He's put in the time, and seems to take full blame for the Roxas situation, even though there were two others involved. And now he's trying to make amends.

Going forward I hope characters like Isa, another character who's redemption is split among the fanbase, Ienzo, Even, and the other reformed Organization members can get the level of depth that Ansem did for their continued stories. For a secondary character, Ansem is peak performance.
 

Hedginka

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Aug 27, 2017
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I find Ansem the Wise and Eraqus two of the better done characters in the series. They're the two most hated characters by the fandom, even over Xehanort, but they feel real in a way most kh characters don't. You understand what they're doing, even if you know it's a bad thing.

I disagree about Eraqus, because I think he suffers from a few problems that tie into BBS' writing as a whole. BBS is the first KH game where the pacing felt rushed and characters weren't given enough time to develop themselves and their connections with those around them. If you thought Ansem didn't get enough screen time, Eraqus is an even worse case. He has what, 10 minutes of total screen time? And unlike Ansem, the reports don't accomplish enough to truly flesh him out. There's a reason why Xion's death is heralded as the saddest scene in the series and not Eraqus'.

In general, the characters of BBS never seem to communicate well with each other. Part of that is probably intentional, but part of it feels forced and clunky and Eraqus harbours a part of that as well. You can easily sympathise with him for being a misguided parent/mentor, but it isn't an arc as tightly put together as Ansem's in my eyes.

With all my compliments to Ansem said, I'm not too fond of him returning post-KH2. His farewell scene was amazing and since then, little to nothing has been done with him. DDD teased that he'd pulled strings behind the scenes that would lead to a grand return of sorts, but then Tetsuya wrote himself into a corner and KH3's story became KH3's story. I'm not sure what's gained from bringing him back at all.

And I'm not even gonna touch the subject of Isa. In fact, I'm going to put as much thought into his redemption as Tetsuya did.
 
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