What if Roxas looked like Sora?

[Deleted member 246005]

So what if Roxas looked more like sora instead of ventus? Would that have changed how his character would have been recieved? less confusing? What that affect the series in anyway?

 

[Not Ienzo]

Honestly if Roxas was an almost identical copy of Sora like the other Organization members, I wouldn't like it. I don't think it would have been well received either, but I can't speak for everyone.

I don't think KH2 wouldn't have changed much, but it would have really affected the future of it since BBS would have been waaay different.

 

[DarkGrey Heroine]

We'd have yet one more Sora-faced entity around, and to list them all and imagine the visual mess, we'd have KH1 and CoM Sora, Days Sora (who is Roxas) and Sora (who is Xion but appears as Sora to quite a few folks) AND the real Sora in Days simultaneously, KH2 Sora and Sora (who is Roxas), re:Coded Data Sora and Data Sora (who is Roxas), BBS Sora (just Sora thank Arceus), DDD Sora and Sora (who is Roxas) AND Sora (who is Xion because she appears as well so I'll just throw her in this list for the sake of visualising the EXCESSIVE NUMBER OF SORAS EVERYWHERE).

Other that the boring and frustrating image of a billion Sora-faced entities walking in and between worlds, even hearts, well - if Roxas would have had Sora's face I think DiZ STILL would want to end his laifu 13/13

*edit * Fyoock, I was wrong there with "BBS Sora (just Sora thank Arceus)" because there's of course our bae Sora-who-is-Vanitas (thank Satan???)

 

[Zettaflare]

Honestly if Roxas was an almost identical copy of Sora like the other Organization members, I wouldn't like it. I don't think it would have been well received either, but I can't speak for everyone.

I don't think KH2 wouldn't have changed much, but it would have really affected the future of it since BBS would have been waaay different.

How would BBS be different? Roxas resembling Ven is almost never addressed in the series. Hell, not even Axel picked up on it.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

While it is not about Roxas, I'm gonna sliding in shortly to remind the fellow community that Nomura actually knew from the very beginning that Ventus should look like either Sora or Roxas and he just couldn't decide which one to go with for quite a while.

Had Roxas been "looking totally like Sora" this would of course not have been an issue to begin with and we would have three additonal "Sora's" as in that case Roxas, Ventus and Vanitas would all look totally like Sora (with Vanitas being the only colour-variation) and instead of two sets of (visual) twins we would have had one quartet of identical boys.

I dare to assume this would have confused and upset many parts of the fandom even more, especially when Data-Sora and Memory-chimaera Xion would also have been a thing.

 

[Zettaflare]

Ventus resembling Sora? That could have worked. Since we know that Ventus is from the Chi era maybe he could have been a distant relative of Sora.

 

[End]

It would be cool to have Roxas look like a mixture of Sora and Ventus. Ventusora.

 

[KeybladeKnightQ]

It would be cool to have Roxas look like a mixture of Sora and Ventus. Ventusora.

Technically he is https://goo.gl/images/nnykJJ

While it is not about Roxas, I'm gonna sliding in shortly to remind the fellow community that Nomura actually knew from the very beginning that Ventus should look like either Sora or Roxas and he just couldn't decide which one to go with for quite a while.

Had Roxas been "looking totally like Sora" this would of course not have been an issue to begin with and we would have three additonal "Sora's" as in that case Roxas, Ventus and Vanitas would all look totally like Sora (with Vanitas being the only colour-variation) and instead of two sets of (visual) twins we would have had one quartet of identical boys.

I dare to assume this would have confused and upset many parts of the fandom even more, especially when Data-Sora and Memory-chimaera Xion would also have been a thing.

I agree I also wouldn’t have been a fan of this. It was a good thing though that Nomura did because not only is the connection more impactful between Sora,Roxas, Ventus, and Vanitas the way it is, it also explained why Roxas is the only human nobody that doesn’t look like his somebody. I remember it confusing the hell out of me as to why Roxas didn’t look like Sora after I beat KH2 for the first time. Obviously I doubt that Nomura had any reason in mind to make Roxas look different than Sora at the time he made KH2 other than the fact that he probably didn’t want to confuse people between him and Sora also it would have been hard to accept him as his own person which was the whole point of his whole story if he did look exactly like Sora. But like I said I’m glad it played out the way it did cause I can’t imagine the entire thing working any other way even if the only reason Nomura did decide on why Ventus should look like Roxas was so Vanitas could look like Sora which was mostly for shock value. If I had anything to criticize is that of the 4 of them Ventus doesn’t have much of his own unique personality and traits and is almost an exact clone of Sora personality wise.

 

[End]

Technically he is https://goo.gl/images/nnykJJ

WHAT NO WAY! I never even noticed.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Ventus resembling Sora? That could have worked. Since we know that Ventus is from the Chi era maybe he could have been a distant relative of Sora.

Considering that Ventus barely ages and there are apparently several time/era shenanigans going on I doubt that there can be any convincing explanation for an actual blood relation between him and Sora, no matter how distant.
Ven was 10/11 when Sora was born and before the whole extra convolution introduced via X[chi] was thing I recall the theory that they are in reality actual "long lost" true brothers (or at least half-brothers) was a thing in some fandom circles.

I agree I also wouldn’t have been a fan of this. It was a good thing though that Nomura did because not only is the connection more impactful between Sora,Roxas, Ventus, and Vanitas the way it is, it also explained why Roxas is the only human nobody that doesn’t look like his somebody. I remember it confusing the hell out of me as to why Roxas didn’t look like Sora after I beat KH2 for the first time. Obviously I doubt that Nomura had any reason in mind to make Roxas look different than Sora at the time he made KH2 other than the fact that he probably didn’t want to confuse people between him and Sora also it would have been hard to accept him as his own person which was the whole point of his whole story if he did look exactly like Sora. But like I said I’m glad it played out the way it did cause I can’t imagine the entire thing working any other way even if the only reason Nomura did decide on why Ventus should look like Roxas was so Vanitas could look like Sora which was mostly for shock value. If I had anything to criticize is that of the 4 of them Ventus doesn’t have much of his own unique personality and traits and is almost an exact clone of Sora personality wise.

Nomura already had ideas and concepts for BBS when he was working on KH 2, so giving Roxas a different look may have already had other reasons at least on a conceptual level.
Sometimes people put open and "weird" extra stuff into their works to expand upon later even when they don't yet know how exactly this expansion will eventually look like.

It's more or less the same with Ventus' mysterious backstory/origins. In BBS there were slight hints towards Ven's backstory being something more than just the ordinary (Xehanort himself speaking of great potential and indicating an interest in the kid) but it certainly wasn't anything substantial that could have hinted at what is currently done with a complete era-jump and direct connection to the Keyblade War of anicent times.

I also wouldn't call Ventus an exact clone of Sora personality-wise as while there are general overlaps like the kindness and friendly attitude, they still have several traits telling them apart.
Since I haven't got the time to do a full analysis myself right now, I'm gonna defer it to this rather informative post:
Ventus and Sora: Not as similar as you think.
It's a bit older but I don't think it has lost much relevance.
So far in X[chi] Ven has not had that much of a role and the few glimpses we got to see of him indicate that he's rather shy, diffident and has not much faith in himself (also a contrast to Sora, mind you, who's outgoing, loud and competitive even as a 4year old as seen in BBS).

WHAT NO WAY! I never even noticed.

Don't fret about it, lol.
Many people did not notice and for quite some this arguably minor physical difference isn't enough.
(not to mention that depending on the lighting in a scene this difference might not come over clearly and in DDD the staff admitted they used the exact same model for Roxas and Ventus).

 

[VoidGear.]

I mean, most of all, they do look almost the same? But yeah, I wouldn't be much of a fan of them even having the same hair, so I'm kinda glad they went with "same face, different kind of spikes".

 

[Elysium]

KH2 would've made more sense. Yes, after-the-fact they explained away Sora's Nobody looking nothing like him with Ventus, but I really don't believe Nomura knew or planned that ahead of time.

 

[Deleted member 246005]

I think Roxas and Xemnas looking like Sora and SoD would have made KH2 more easier to follow. However the game does have other problems storywise so it's not a total fix.

It would change how his arc would be recieved because the connection between him and Sora is more apparent. The twist that Roxas was Sora's nobody was better hidden because OG Roxas felt more like a different person than a Roxas with Sora's looks and voice. He'd just come across as an amnesiac Sora so people might be less invested in him resisting his fate.

Days would different because Roxas more like Sora so Riku might try a diplomatic approach first. He would try and reach out to him and give him answers that Axel couldn't. DiZ might suggest namine should just use her powers on him to get a man on the inside. Since no one remembers Sora people wouldn't confuse Roxas for him if they ran across him.

BBS would be different because Ven might look like Sora instead of Roxas. You could make them different by making Ven older and a more different personality. Or just make him different like how Aqua and Terra are different from Riku and Kairi.

A way to deal with the whole "everyone is Sora/Kairi/Xehanort" meme is to not have everyone be Sora/Kairi/Xehanort.

 

[Desticember]

That would be really meh to me. I like the way he looks.

 

[Veevee]

I don't think it would've been a smart choice design-wise. Making Roxas not look like Sora created a surprise effect back in times of KH2, the complete tutorial section was about finding out who Roxas was, wondering about his past and ultimately giving in to Sora. Making Roxas look different to Sora underlined the effect of "this is a person of his own", it made his wish to be an own person visually more clear because he WAS a different person. Imagine he just looked like Sora, people would probably be less reluctant to let him go because he'd be an obvious part of Sora, underlined by visuals. Plus, it gave way for another mystery: As soon as it was revealed that nobodies looked like their somebodies, people started to wonder how that made Roxas Sora's nobody.
Plus, if Roxas had looked like Sora, it would've been the cherry on the cake of visual confusion. xD