The Princess
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Kairi
Anyone who is even familiar with Kingdom Hearts is most likely also familiar with her. She is the seventh and thus last Princess of Heart. Also, she is Sora and Riku's childhood friend.
For fast and easy browsing -
Kairi's Plot
When our lovely Princess was at the tender age of 4, Xehanort - then the ruler of Hollow Bastion, came and said - "I want to reach Kingdom Hearts. However, there's a pest in the form of the Keyblade Master possibly preventing me from achieving that goal. I must get rid of him. But first - how do I find him?"
For that very purpose he used a girl with unusual powers - possibly those of a Princess's, hopefully with connections to the Keyblade Master. He threw the girl off of Hollow Bastion into the Ocean between the Worlds, and thus Kairi gets washed up on the shores of Destiny Islands, where she is truly found by - none other than Sora, the Keyblade Master.
Being from a Different World, Sora finds her insanely cool and amazing and instantly befriends her, and where Sora is, Riku can't possibly be too far behind. Though Riku, instead of hyping over the Girl from Another World, is more interested in the fact that there are other worlds and plans to leave the Islands along with Sora and Kairi.
On the night before they leave, however, the Islands are taken over by the Heartless, Kairi disappears but not before her Heart migrates to rest in Sora's Body and she thus becomes A Body with a Soul but No Heart. (Alright children, where did we hear that one before? ;) )
Seeing how her Heart is inside Sora's Body, it needs to be removed. In the process Sora removes his own Heart from his Body and becomes a Heartless. Kairi who regained her Heart awakens from her slumber and serves as the trigger that makes Sora regain human form. Together they set sail to the safe haven of Traverse Town.
Seeing how she actively says then "I'm either coming with Sora, or not at all!" - And Sora says "You'd kind of get in my way" - Kairi has effectively outlived her usefulness for this game. The last thing memorable she does is milk a promise out of Sora saying he'd come back to her and then he parts from her twice in a row, once before the final fight to save Riku, and the second after the fight to look for Riku.
She doesn't appear in CoM on a level worthwhile of saying here, and I'll summarize her appearance in KH2 in the following way -
She is tired of waiting for Sora to come back so she gets kidnapped. On the way Riku gives her a Keyblade to justify her existence in the current title.
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Kairi's Plot Analysis
What we see in the game is that we have three characters -
We have Riku who moves the plot. He's the one that says they should get out of the Islands, and then goes to the extent of falling to Darkness to do it.
We have Sora who's moved by the plot. He's the one that when Riku says to get out of the Islands he tags along, and when Riku falls to the Darkness - he goes to save him.
And then we have Kairi - who's abused by the plot. Now, such an important, main character, look at the length of that Plot paragraph! How on Earth can I say she's a plot victim?!
Simply - I can replace her.
Replacing Kairi
Alright. Let's assume for the extent of this paragraph that it was not Kairi that hailed from Radiant Garden/Hollow Bastion - but for the case in point, it was Selphie. Our beloved Selphie, turned child from her FFVIII self and placed on Destiny Islands is for argument's sake our Princess of Heart originating from Hollow Bastion.
Let us review how this change affects our plot.
Why is this a dilemma? Because what we see happening at the start of KH1 with Kairi is effectively her losing her Heart to the Darkness. She didn't become a Nobody-Heartless (at least according to what we learn in the Reports) because she is a Princess of Heart incapable of housing Darkness in her Heart and thus becoming a Heartless. The fact remains, however - that her Heart was weak enough to separate from her Body in front of the great Darkness. Placing someone else in Kairi's place might affect this plot happening. However - it would mean that character's Heart is stronger than Kairi's thus, in almost every possible way - that character is better than Kairi in the long run by Kingdom Hearts standards.
Let's see what we have here then. Going along with the assumption that she would've, indeed, lost her Heart at the start of KH1 - even if we took Selphie, or for that matter - a completely different and irrelevant character - we got the same plot structure and conclusion.
While I was working on this essay, a dear friend and a horrible Square-tard asked me - "Hey, Duck, say... without Kairi, would Kingdom Hearts still had been Kingdom Hearts?"
Now, despite what I just said, the answer is not a straightforward, blunt "HELL YES!". If you look more carefully at what I've written you will see that Kairi plays a crucial role in the plot of the first game. She's what makes Riku take off and eventually fall to the Darkness in a way, and what fuels the rivalry between him and Sora. Also, she's the missing link in creating the Keyhole to Darkness.
Quite an important gal, I'd say.
HOW-EV-ER.
I just said that you can replace her and you'd still meet all those criteria, right?
Make sure you've a replacement Princess of Heart, any Princess of Heart - and you can do quite nicely without Kairi.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the first and possibly the most crucial flaw in Kairi as a character - her complete and utter lack of anchoring in the plot. Namely -
It Doesn't Have to be Kairi.
And why doesn't it have to be Kairi - because each and every single plot event present here is - lo and behold, passive. It's not like Riku that acts. It's not like Sora that reacts. Stuff just happen to Kairi and she goes along with it. She doesn't take a single active action - on the contrary, they even further detach her from the plot by keeping her away from Hollow Bastion at the end, thus effectively keeping her away from doing something epic when they had the chance with her proving to be the final hope for the other Princesses just about to give in, or something along those lines.
Again, may I remind you that we're talking about a main character here.
Let's have a look at our other two Main Characters for a minute then, shall we?
Now we have Sora as the Seeker of Darkness, and Riku as the Keyblade Master.
...wait, what?
What, indeed. Hear me out.
While I've enough basis to contradict this statement (as can be found here ), it is clearly written in Jiminy's journal in KH1 that Riku was supposed to be the original Keyblade Master. However, because he fell to the Darkness that role moved on to Sora. Now while I gravely disagree with that and believe otherwise, it bases perfectly what I want to say.
For a proper main character, the character itself dictates its role in the plot.
Because Riku is Riku and not anyone else, he cannot be the Keyblade Master of Light. He would not have joined with Donald and Goofy; he would not have listened to Leon. He would not have cared about anyone along the road, and he quite possibly have stilled joined with Maleficent.
Why? Because Riku is the type to achieve his goal no matter the cost, even if it means falling to the Darkness. Hardly the type to be the Hero.
Because Sora is Sora and not anyone else, he cannot be the one to fall to the Darkness and host the Seeker of Darkness. Sora didn't want to escape from the Islands. Even if Sora would've listened to Maleficent for half a minute about Riku not caring about him anymore, the instant he'd have met him in person would've been the instant Sora gave Maleficent the finger (or the Disney equal) and went off with Riku. He'd have trusted in his friends and fought for them no matter what - because he's their Light, and they - his.
Why? Because Sora is the type to be the Hero without meaning it simply because he wants to protect the things dear to him. He's too strong to fall to the Darkness. That's why he got the Keyblade - even if you do say that he was a replacement - had Sora not been worthy, even if no one else was the Keyblade Master - Sora still wouldn't have gotten the job. It's because he's good enough that he got it.
Now. Kairi is a Princess of Heart... why?
No reason. They just needed to somehow connect a girl to the plot.
Excellent anchoring for a main character if you take into consideration everything I said up until now about her active contribution to the plot.
Damn you Disney.
Back to Top
Kairi as a Princess
Now that I killed her as far as plot structure goes, time to show she's not the pretty, perfect Princess everyone believe her to be, isn't it?
Allow me then to differentiate between two types of Princesses -
The first is well known to all of us. That is the Disney Princess. Under that category I will put Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Snow White, and Cinderella.
Their main characteristics as shown from the movies include very little to no character, air headed-ness, loose connection to reality, and intense though somewhat camouflaged selfishness.
When you look at the other three Disney Princesses of Heart, you will have Alice, Belle and Jasmine - who're very complex and developed characters on their own right. I intentionally leave them out of this.
However, I will not compare Kairi to a Disney Princess - at least not now.
Despite Donald Duck and Goofy being your Party mates, this is not a Disney movie.
This is Kingdom Hearts, and thus - it is a video game.
Let us review Princesses fitting this medium then.
I hope you will find at least one Princess you are familiar with.
Aerith is a Healer and border-line Mother Nature. Garnet is both a true Princess by heritage and a Summoner. Mint is a Healer. Schala is a powerful Sorceress. Angela is a sorceress and a Princess by heritage.
Out of all those examples there is one obvious thing in common - they all, without exception, posses enormous amounts of inner power. Both healing, summoning, and spell casting are all based on the caster's strength of Mind and Heart - Angela couldn't cast spells until she had to fend for her life for the first time; Mint had to go through trials to be able to properly cast Healing spells; the same for Garnet and summoning.
Kairi, on the other hand, not only received a Keyblade - a sign of pure, obvious physical strength when coupled with Sora's Magic and Riku's Darkness - but one that didn't do too much good on the long run and disappeared after one fight.
And just to freshen up everyone's Memories -
Both Sora and Roxas had to go through Destati sequences prior to being able to use the Keyblades properly (Roxas had to reclaim it).
Sora had to retake the Keyblade from Riku after a single moment of weakness.
Riku had to go through everything he went through until he got his own Keyblade.
The reason I cannot accept Kairi's Keyblade as a sign of strength of Heart is simple - even if I do set aside the very simple fact that it was Riku who made the Keyblade - we see no proof of said strength. On the contrary -
Her Inner Strength was so low she lost her Heart at the beginning of KH1, which was why it was able to transfer to Sora to begin with!
Already, a clear failure in being an RPG Princess by definition.
Now, because the Princess-character has such a great amount of Inner Strength that is put to good use they will almost always be in your party (other than Schala who's an NPC) (and between us, who really would leave their Healer or Spell-caster behind on the boss battles unless they're on some challenge? Selected few).
Being in the party means that, at the very least - we'll see them, and indeed all characters (again, Schala aside) receive a lot more attention in the long run than Kairi does. And what do we see?
All the small character development moments that really make you like/hate a character because that's what actually builds a character.
All the small, seemingly insignificant moments between characters that really build a relationship, slowly, over time, with a strong foundation, starting from friendship and on towards true love.
When did we ever get to see an honest, real dialog between Sora and Kairi outside of Destiny Islands?
And then the other question arises -
When did we ever get to see any sort of interaction between Kairi and anyone who isn't Sora? And no, I don't really count her saying 'you're welcome' to Riku on the Islands.
Another strong property of the Princess Character is a strong bond between her and the entire party. When Aerith... left... everyone mourned it. Garnet brought along half her staff from the castle and then got into a sister-bond with Eiko. Mint is Arche's best friend - and they're at one point romantic rivals over Cless!
Kairi, on the other hand, after saying aforementioned 'you're welcome' to Riku - offers Sora to leave him behind and go on the cruise just the both of them.
In Kingdom Hearts 1, at the end of Hollow Bastion - she sees what happened to Riku with her own eyes. She's there when Sora explains to Leon exactly what happened, and even then, she allows herself to say to Sora when you talk to her - "You didn't find Riku? Don't worry, he can take care of himself."
Well I'm sorry, but last time I checked falling to the Darkness and losing control of your body didn't really count as 'taking care of oneself'.
This quote doesn't only show her complete and utter lack of concern towards Riku - it also shows she doesn't understand Sora's feelings at all, nor does she want to - how dare she tell this to him when he's hellbent on saving Riku even from himself?! And after what she saw?!
To this very day I cannot believe they actually let her say this.
...what? You don't believe me she said it?
Good thing I've proof then, huh?
The only person she seems capable of being concerned with is Sora - and even then she says the most horrible things to him.
She is interested in her Knight while neglecting her Kingdom.
Now while this might be forgivable for a Disney Princess - Kairi by definition is not such a Princess. And if she indeed is - then I'm sorry, but she's in the wrong place for this is a Square RPG where even the Disney characters receive proper Square interpretations. We don't take kindly to her kind around here - after all, even Aurora, Snow White and Cinderella only appeared for a duration of what, 10 minutes when we saved them? And yet we see Kairi for how long?
Back to Top
Kairi - Conclusion
Well, if I didn't convince you yet that Kairi is horribly made character, nothing anyone will ever say would.
What's left then to Kairi the girl Kairi that justifies her Existence? Probably being Sora's Romantic Interest.
Did she succeed in that? We shall see. Ho, we shall see.
Now would be a good time to possibly take a small break, freshen up, wash your face and get a glass to drink :) this thing's damned long, ya see XD;;;
Alrighty then. This was long, but still - showing why Kairi doesn't deserve as a character to be in the Lead is only one half of what I'm here to prove.
After all, there's someone more fitting to be the Lead then her, right? Let's introduce her then.
- Introduction
- Kairi (You are Here)
- Namine
- Sora/Kairi
- Sora/Namine
- The Promises (Because these deserve their own sub-topic)
- What She Made Him Promise (Sora/Kairi)
- What He Promised to Her (Sora/Namine)
- Riku, Sora, and the Girls
- SoRiKai
- SoRiNami
Kairi
Anyone who is even familiar with Kingdom Hearts is most likely also familiar with her. She is the seventh and thus last Princess of Heart. Also, she is Sora and Riku's childhood friend.
For fast and easy browsing -
Kairi's Plot
When our lovely Princess was at the tender age of 4, Xehanort - then the ruler of Hollow Bastion, came and said - "I want to reach Kingdom Hearts. However, there's a pest in the form of the Keyblade Master possibly preventing me from achieving that goal. I must get rid of him. But first - how do I find him?"
For that very purpose he used a girl with unusual powers - possibly those of a Princess's, hopefully with connections to the Keyblade Master. He threw the girl off of Hollow Bastion into the Ocean between the Worlds, and thus Kairi gets washed up on the shores of Destiny Islands, where she is truly found by - none other than Sora, the Keyblade Master.
Being from a Different World, Sora finds her insanely cool and amazing and instantly befriends her, and where Sora is, Riku can't possibly be too far behind. Though Riku, instead of hyping over the Girl from Another World, is more interested in the fact that there are other worlds and plans to leave the Islands along with Sora and Kairi.
On the night before they leave, however, the Islands are taken over by the Heartless, Kairi disappears but not before her Heart migrates to rest in Sora's Body and she thus becomes A Body with a Soul but No Heart. (Alright children, where did we hear that one before? ;) )
Seeing how her Heart is inside Sora's Body, it needs to be removed. In the process Sora removes his own Heart from his Body and becomes a Heartless. Kairi who regained her Heart awakens from her slumber and serves as the trigger that makes Sora regain human form. Together they set sail to the safe haven of Traverse Town.
Seeing how she actively says then "I'm either coming with Sora, or not at all!" - And Sora says "You'd kind of get in my way" - Kairi has effectively outlived her usefulness for this game. The last thing memorable she does is milk a promise out of Sora saying he'd come back to her and then he parts from her twice in a row, once before the final fight to save Riku, and the second after the fight to look for Riku.
She doesn't appear in CoM on a level worthwhile of saying here, and I'll summarize her appearance in KH2 in the following way -
She is tired of waiting for Sora to come back so she gets kidnapped. On the way Riku gives her a Keyblade to justify her existence in the current title.
Back to Top
Kairi's Plot Analysis
What we see in the game is that we have three characters -
We have Riku who moves the plot. He's the one that says they should get out of the Islands, and then goes to the extent of falling to Darkness to do it.
We have Sora who's moved by the plot. He's the one that when Riku says to get out of the Islands he tags along, and when Riku falls to the Darkness - he goes to save him.
And then we have Kairi - who's abused by the plot. Now, such an important, main character, look at the length of that Plot paragraph! How on Earth can I say she's a plot victim?!
Simply - I can replace her.
Replacing Kairi
Alright. Let's assume for the extent of this paragraph that it was not Kairi that hailed from Radiant Garden/Hollow Bastion - but for the case in point, it was Selphie. Our beloved Selphie, turned child from her FFVIII self and placed on Destiny Islands is for argument's sake our Princess of Heart originating from Hollow Bastion.
Let us review how this change affects our plot.
- Reaching Destiny Islands because she's a Princess of Heart and Sora and Riku are there - Check
- Riku would've said "Golly, there're other worlds! Let's get off of this one!" over the girl from another world - Check
- Losing her Heart when the Islands disappeared - Dilemma
We'll assume for argument's sake then that most normal girls would indeed fall to the same fate. - Her Heart moved to Sora's body through the Princess-Keyblade Master relation - Check
- Sora and Riku fight over who'll save her because that's what Sora and Riku do - fight over who's better - Check
- Removing the Heart since we have to, thus turning Sora into a Heartless and creating Roxas - Check
- Leaving the Other Princesses in Hollow Bastion since they didn't know about it until it was irrelevant - Check
- Thus ending her task and being left behind under the parting circumstances as they were - Check
Why is this a dilemma? Because what we see happening at the start of KH1 with Kairi is effectively her losing her Heart to the Darkness. She didn't become a Nobody-Heartless (at least according to what we learn in the Reports) because she is a Princess of Heart incapable of housing Darkness in her Heart and thus becoming a Heartless. The fact remains, however - that her Heart was weak enough to separate from her Body in front of the great Darkness. Placing someone else in Kairi's place might affect this plot happening. However - it would mean that character's Heart is stronger than Kairi's thus, in almost every possible way - that character is better than Kairi in the long run by Kingdom Hearts standards.
Let's see what we have here then. Going along with the assumption that she would've, indeed, lost her Heart at the start of KH1 - even if we took Selphie, or for that matter - a completely different and irrelevant character - we got the same plot structure and conclusion.
While I was working on this essay, a dear friend and a horrible Square-tard asked me - "Hey, Duck, say... without Kairi, would Kingdom Hearts still had been Kingdom Hearts?"
Now, despite what I just said, the answer is not a straightforward, blunt "HELL YES!". If you look more carefully at what I've written you will see that Kairi plays a crucial role in the plot of the first game. She's what makes Riku take off and eventually fall to the Darkness in a way, and what fuels the rivalry between him and Sora. Also, she's the missing link in creating the Keyhole to Darkness.
Quite an important gal, I'd say.
HOW-EV-ER.
I just said that you can replace her and you'd still meet all those criteria, right?
Make sure you've a replacement Princess of Heart, any Princess of Heart - and you can do quite nicely without Kairi.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the first and possibly the most crucial flaw in Kairi as a character - her complete and utter lack of anchoring in the plot. Namely -
It Doesn't Have to be Kairi.
And why doesn't it have to be Kairi - because each and every single plot event present here is - lo and behold, passive. It's not like Riku that acts. It's not like Sora that reacts. Stuff just happen to Kairi and she goes along with it. She doesn't take a single active action - on the contrary, they even further detach her from the plot by keeping her away from Hollow Bastion at the end, thus effectively keeping her away from doing something epic when they had the chance with her proving to be the final hope for the other Princesses just about to give in, or something along those lines.
Again, may I remind you that we're talking about a main character here.
Let's have a look at our other two Main Characters for a minute then, shall we?
Now we have Sora as the Seeker of Darkness, and Riku as the Keyblade Master.
...wait, what?
What, indeed. Hear me out.
While I've enough basis to contradict this statement (as can be found here ), it is clearly written in Jiminy's journal in KH1 that Riku was supposed to be the original Keyblade Master. However, because he fell to the Darkness that role moved on to Sora. Now while I gravely disagree with that and believe otherwise, it bases perfectly what I want to say.
For a proper main character, the character itself dictates its role in the plot.
Because Riku is Riku and not anyone else, he cannot be the Keyblade Master of Light. He would not have joined with Donald and Goofy; he would not have listened to Leon. He would not have cared about anyone along the road, and he quite possibly have stilled joined with Maleficent.
Why? Because Riku is the type to achieve his goal no matter the cost, even if it means falling to the Darkness. Hardly the type to be the Hero.
Because Sora is Sora and not anyone else, he cannot be the one to fall to the Darkness and host the Seeker of Darkness. Sora didn't want to escape from the Islands. Even if Sora would've listened to Maleficent for half a minute about Riku not caring about him anymore, the instant he'd have met him in person would've been the instant Sora gave Maleficent the finger (or the Disney equal) and went off with Riku. He'd have trusted in his friends and fought for them no matter what - because he's their Light, and they - his.
Why? Because Sora is the type to be the Hero without meaning it simply because he wants to protect the things dear to him. He's too strong to fall to the Darkness. That's why he got the Keyblade - even if you do say that he was a replacement - had Sora not been worthy, even if no one else was the Keyblade Master - Sora still wouldn't have gotten the job. It's because he's good enough that he got it.
Now. Kairi is a Princess of Heart... why?
No reason. They just needed to somehow connect a girl to the plot.
Excellent anchoring for a main character if you take into consideration everything I said up until now about her active contribution to the plot.
Damn you Disney.
Back to Top
Kairi as a Princess
Now that I killed her as far as plot structure goes, time to show she's not the pretty, perfect Princess everyone believe her to be, isn't it?
Allow me then to differentiate between two types of Princesses -
The first is well known to all of us. That is the Disney Princess. Under that category I will put Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Snow White, and Cinderella.
Their main characteristics as shown from the movies include very little to no character, air headed-ness, loose connection to reality, and intense though somewhat camouflaged selfishness.
When you look at the other three Disney Princesses of Heart, you will have Alice, Belle and Jasmine - who're very complex and developed characters on their own right. I intentionally leave them out of this.
However, I will not compare Kairi to a Disney Princess - at least not now.
Despite Donald Duck and Goofy being your Party mates, this is not a Disney movie.
This is Kingdom Hearts, and thus - it is a video game.
Let us review Princesses fitting this medium then.
I hope you will find at least one Princess you are familiar with.
- Aerith - Final Fantasy VII (Square Soft)
- Garnet - Final Fantasy XI (Square Soft)
- Mint - Tales of Phantasia (Namco)
- Schala - Chrono Trigger (Square Soft)
- Angela - Seiken Densetsu 3 - Secret of Mana 2 (Square Soft)
Aerith is a Healer and border-line Mother Nature. Garnet is both a true Princess by heritage and a Summoner. Mint is a Healer. Schala is a powerful Sorceress. Angela is a sorceress and a Princess by heritage.
Out of all those examples there is one obvious thing in common - they all, without exception, posses enormous amounts of inner power. Both healing, summoning, and spell casting are all based on the caster's strength of Mind and Heart - Angela couldn't cast spells until she had to fend for her life for the first time; Mint had to go through trials to be able to properly cast Healing spells; the same for Garnet and summoning.
Kairi, on the other hand, not only received a Keyblade - a sign of pure, obvious physical strength when coupled with Sora's Magic and Riku's Darkness - but one that didn't do too much good on the long run and disappeared after one fight.
And just to freshen up everyone's Memories -
Both Sora and Roxas had to go through Destati sequences prior to being able to use the Keyblades properly (Roxas had to reclaim it).
Sora had to retake the Keyblade from Riku after a single moment of weakness.
Riku had to go through everything he went through until he got his own Keyblade.
The reason I cannot accept Kairi's Keyblade as a sign of strength of Heart is simple - even if I do set aside the very simple fact that it was Riku who made the Keyblade - we see no proof of said strength. On the contrary -
Her Inner Strength was so low she lost her Heart at the beginning of KH1, which was why it was able to transfer to Sora to begin with!
Already, a clear failure in being an RPG Princess by definition.
Now, because the Princess-character has such a great amount of Inner Strength that is put to good use they will almost always be in your party (other than Schala who's an NPC) (and between us, who really would leave their Healer or Spell-caster behind on the boss battles unless they're on some challenge? Selected few).
Being in the party means that, at the very least - we'll see them, and indeed all characters (again, Schala aside) receive a lot more attention in the long run than Kairi does. And what do we see?
All the small character development moments that really make you like/hate a character because that's what actually builds a character.
All the small, seemingly insignificant moments between characters that really build a relationship, slowly, over time, with a strong foundation, starting from friendship and on towards true love.
When did we ever get to see an honest, real dialog between Sora and Kairi outside of Destiny Islands?
And then the other question arises -
When did we ever get to see any sort of interaction between Kairi and anyone who isn't Sora? And no, I don't really count her saying 'you're welcome' to Riku on the Islands.
Another strong property of the Princess Character is a strong bond between her and the entire party. When Aerith... left... everyone mourned it. Garnet brought along half her staff from the castle and then got into a sister-bond with Eiko. Mint is Arche's best friend - and they're at one point romantic rivals over Cless!
Kairi, on the other hand, after saying aforementioned 'you're welcome' to Riku - offers Sora to leave him behind and go on the cruise just the both of them.
In Kingdom Hearts 1, at the end of Hollow Bastion - she sees what happened to Riku with her own eyes. She's there when Sora explains to Leon exactly what happened, and even then, she allows herself to say to Sora when you talk to her - "You didn't find Riku? Don't worry, he can take care of himself."
Well I'm sorry, but last time I checked falling to the Darkness and losing control of your body didn't really count as 'taking care of oneself'.
This quote doesn't only show her complete and utter lack of concern towards Riku - it also shows she doesn't understand Sora's feelings at all, nor does she want to - how dare she tell this to him when he's hellbent on saving Riku even from himself?! And after what she saw?!
To this very day I cannot believe they actually let her say this.
...what? You don't believe me she said it?
Good thing I've proof then, huh?
The only person she seems capable of being concerned with is Sora - and even then she says the most horrible things to him.
She is interested in her Knight while neglecting her Kingdom.
Now while this might be forgivable for a Disney Princess - Kairi by definition is not such a Princess. And if she indeed is - then I'm sorry, but she's in the wrong place for this is a Square RPG where even the Disney characters receive proper Square interpretations. We don't take kindly to her kind around here - after all, even Aurora, Snow White and Cinderella only appeared for a duration of what, 10 minutes when we saved them? And yet we see Kairi for how long?
Back to Top
Kairi - Conclusion
Well, if I didn't convince you yet that Kairi is horribly made character, nothing anyone will ever say would.
- She is completely and utterly passive in the plot concerning her. Things are done to her without her doing anything. Thus -
- We can easily replace her with just about any other character as long as that character would be a Princess of Heart, making Kairi herself, the character - all but worthless.
- If it doesn't mean being with Sora - she won't do it, even if it means rejecting the little plot she can be active about.
What's left then to Kairi the girl Kairi that justifies her Existence? Probably being Sora's Romantic Interest.
Did she succeed in that? We shall see. Ho, we shall see.
Now would be a good time to possibly take a small break, freshen up, wash your face and get a glass to drink :) this thing's damned long, ya see XD;;;
Alrighty then. This was long, but still - showing why Kairi doesn't deserve as a character to be in the Lead is only one half of what I'm here to prove.
After all, there's someone more fitting to be the Lead then her, right? Let's introduce her then.
- Introduction
- Kairi (You are Here)
- Namine (Go here now!!!)
- Sora/Kairi
- Sora/Namine
- The Promises (Because these deserve their own sub-topic)
- What She Made Him Promise (Sora/Kairi)
- What He Promised to Her (Sora/Namine)
- Riku, Sora, and the Girls
- SoRiKai
- SoRiNami