Kingdom Hearts feels like coming home. Whenever I’m feeling a bit down or like I need something
lighthearted and wacky as a pickmeup, I’ll fire up either Kingdom Hearts 1 or
2 and barrel through the Heartless. It’s a nice alternative to screaming into the void
about life. There’s just something about Sora, Donald, and Goofy’s misadventures
through melodramatic fanfiction of the Disney canon that just speaks to my cursed self. Wow,
my generation’s media really fucked us up, wow. But note I only said 1 and 2. Though I’ve grown
up with the franchise since before I started kindergarten (We love pulling an all-nighter
before school just to get to Atlantica solely for my love of The Little Mermaid), I have plenty of
qualms with it, some of which I’ve mentioned in my older video on how Arendelle because the worst
world in the series. That video was more focused on how the series’ approach towards adapting
Disney properties has shifted over the years, but today we’re gonna be focused on the core story of
the Xehanort Saga. Namely, why it’s not good. I don’t think anyone is surprised to hear the
oh-so-original hot take that Kingdom Hearts’ writing is bad. That’s kinda been done to
death at this point, and I wouldn’t be surprised if more hardcore fans are
resistant at this point cuz they just wanna enjoy their weird-ass nonsense as the world burns around
them. Which, fair. I get that. However, I think it’s important for us to express our
honest feelings on how media affects us, good and bad, and to delve into why we had that reaction.
Developing media literacy takes time and a lot of exposure to things
you might not initially think is up your alley, and our relationships to media can change over
time as things in our own life change… or the creators of what we live turn out to be
less than stellar. But my point is that it’s okay to love something that’s messy or poorly written,
and likewise, you can still love something while still being frustrated with it or critiquing it.
Critique is a sign of love, because you’re willing to be honest in where something disappointed you
and where you wished it had done better. With that aside, Kingdom Hearts is unique
given that its very premise is absurd. Take Disney, throw in some Final Fantasy cameos,
have it be led by a spiky-haired anime self-insert boi with a key the size of a baseball bat (that
you actually use like a baseball bat), and go save the universe from a bunch of adorable
shadow demons - now available as plushies. You wouldn’t expect something so insane to be an
actual best-selling video game franchise. But it’s that absurdity that draws people’s attention.
It takes two beloved icons and melds them into something new,
and the inclusion of Disney coupled with the simple story of the first game
makes it easily accessible and incredibly enjoyable - and I don’t think a lot of folks
quite realize the importance of accessibility. You want people to enjoy your story, don’t you?
Ain’t nothing wrong with making sure as many people are able to follow your story and
get something out of it, and the first Kingdom Hearts understood that perfectly
and excelled. But then… then it got weird. (Xehanort) “X! A most ancient letter!”
“I’m already half Xehanort!” “In a way, what I really am is Jiminy’s
journal.” (Xehanort) “Some say ‘kye’...” (Jiminy Cricket) “You’re my journal?!” (Sora) “They
put bugs in him!” (Mickey Mouse) “What?!” And not like, cool weird, but like… needlessly
weird. The kinda weird where you think being quirky itself is a personality trait rather than
a side effect of you actually going off the beaten path to do something nobody’s ever done before.
A lot of folks will say, “You just don’t like Kingdom Hearts because it isn’t conventional.
She isn’t like other girls - she’s absurd.” To which I say… homegurl, she’s really not as
eccentric as you make her out to be. There have been wonderful videos like
Birth By Sleep: The Turning Point by Bl00dy Bizkitz about the franchise’s decay, but Kingdom
Hearts’ obsession with complicated lore points to a deeper problem from which most of the other
problems spring: the surrealism (NOT absurdism) of Kingdom Hearts isn’t in service of a good story
and characters, or themes, but of a convoluted, messy plot with pointless worldbuilding
solely for the sake of being complicated. This is something I gleaned from Frustrated Jacob,
who’s done… very long videos about Kingdom Hearts’ storytelling issues.
Hey, they’re really nice to throw on in the background while I’m working in Blender, okay?
Okay. But he talks a lot about how Kingdom Hearts is actually pretty cut and dry and not very silly,
and something he specifies is what the lore is in service of. And the answer is… nothing.
That goes for the lore, and that also goes for the perceived surrealism of Kingdom Hearts.
Now when I talk about surrealism going forward, I’m talking about all the outlandish elements:
the sleeping worlds, worlds of memory and data, world lines, the mechanics of light and darkness,
hearts versus souls, alternative selves, so on, so forth, oh god. Things that are
more steeped in the abstract and in emotions rather than logic and reason. In this sense,
relying on surreal storylines and imagery can enhance your story, specifically when
you go ham on your visual storytelling and have a clear idea of what represents what. You know,
you make use of things like metaphors or symbols. Two similarly absurd animes that remind me a lot
of Kingdom Hearts (namely KH1 and a bit of 2) are Gurren Lagann and Revolutionary Girl Utena,
but I find myself enjoying both far more than I’ve enjoyed Kingdom Hearts in a very long time.
Spoilers for both series ahead, but Gurren Lagann (I hope to god I’m saying that right) is aware
of its own silliness, especially in the final arc against the Anti-Spiral Forces, and revels in that
silliness. And part of the reason it’s able to do that is because it knows what it’s trying to say.
To boil things down, the weird use of “Spiral” and “Anti-Spiral” refers to those who embrace the
unpredictability and chaotic nature of life, and those who seek to stamp it out wherever it arises.
Gurren Lagann’s final antagonist - the Anti-Spiral Forces - is a representation of despair-fueled
nihilism. Ya know, the whole “Life is pointless and people suck, so we’d be better off if we were
all gone.” That schtick. And Simon and friends’ response is, “Hey, we’re traumatized too, but we
also know life can be great, so go fuck yourself.” I actually kinda teared up towards the end of my
first watch of the series, because the message resonated with me while also putting a smile
on my face. Not only was it fun, but it also took a bat to my heart. Even when we’re in
a giant space robot fighting a giant evil demon thing, in the middle of the cosmos,
fighting our literal despair, I’m still crying. Revolutionary Girl Utena, meanwhile, feels like
an acid trip. By the end of the series, a lot of people could find themselves confused on
their first watch if they expect a more direct story telling them outright what’s happening.
Or rather, they expect something more literal than figurative.
Utena is steeped in visual storytelling and symbolism. It’s a story about abuse, gender,
sexuality, and coming of age… and also lesbianism. And it explores these things through its visuals.
It can feel weird, having this pink-haired girl go to a conveniently placed dueling arena at the back
of her school’s campus with an upside-down floating castle, along with resident mean
girl Nanami laying eggs and transforming into a cow because of her need for designer cowbells…
“Moo! Well obviously it’s a Sebastien Dior Cowbell of cooouuuurse!” “That’s right,
a cowbell! As in a bell that a cow wears around its neck!” “What’re you talking abooouuuut?”
But it works because it knows what it’s trying to communicate.
In this case, the eggs are a metaphor for female puberty and periods, and the cowbell…
I’m still trying to figure that one out. (Nanami) “Do I need my appendix remooooooved?!”
(Utena) “What happened to Nanami?!” Ultimately, the chaos in Ohtori Academy
is rooted in Akio, the main antagonist who was once a prince, inspiring a young Utena to become
a prince herself one day, which turned out to be a pretty good idea actually. Akio is charismatic
and influential, but that serves to mask the abuse and manipulation he deals out to everyone,
including his sister Anthy, who at this point has been so mentally, physically,
and emotionally broken she believes she deserves to be objectified and possessed as the Rose Bride.
Akio controls everyone in the school through the illusions from his observatory, including
the dueling arena and the castle, representing the fairy tale full of charm he’s selling to people.
But on another level, this is all to represent how Akio is able to manipulate all of these people,
to make them see what they want to see, so he can puppeteer them to get what he wants.
Trapping them essentially in purgatory. But also trapping himself, because everything here is fake.
And Utena, when confronted with this, is able to break his illusion - to break the
castle - and inspire Anthy to leave Ohtori Academy and leave the cruel fake world that
Akio had convinced her to lock herself in. When you look at Kingdom Hearts, does it
really do anything similar to either of these stories? What do the sleeping worlds represent,
or replicas, or the datascape Maleficent kept prattling on about for 5 minutes before she moved
onto the next MacGuffin? The chaotic elements in Kingdom Hearts aren’t fun, they’re mind-numbing,
because while Gurren Lagann and Utena both use their absurd imagery and storylines to present
their stories in a visually interesting way, and to just have fun with their shit, Kingdom Hearts
uses it more as an excuse for boring lore no one really cares about, and contrived plots that no
one really cares about. None of it means anything. The reason why people loved Nobodies in Kingdom
Hearts 2 - aside from their cool hair and early 2000s edginess (god this ruined us) - was because
of what they represented. People with no hearts, unable to feel anything, yet yearning to become
more than they are? That’s an immediately understandable conflict, and one you could
apply to a bunch of relatable scenarios. Namely the queer kids, exhibit A myself. Also Roxas
is just so pretty (he owned my childhood), I can’t help myself. And Axel. Who let them be so pretty?
But then the franchise instead decided to focus on the weird lore of Nobodies actually indeed
having hearts, and making them whole people again, or bringing them back via replicas,
but then oops they’re Nobodies again because Xehanort. And actually,
THEY’RE ALREADY HALF XEHANORT-- oh god, kill me. It doesn’t really mean anything anymore beyond an
excuse to drag fan favorite characters back into this awful story, and it feels so pointless that
I don’t even really care that Larxene is here. And wow, you made me not care about Larxene even
when she’s bullying people… you bastards. How could you do this to me? #LarxeneDeservedBetter.
Character motivations, character flaws, themes, none of these things are really present in Kingdom
Hearts. Fuck, I don’t even really think Kingdom Hearts knows what a metaphor is.
Light and darkness aren’t really for good and evil, they’re just light and darkness… okay?
Much like a certain other anime-esque property, it is the illusion of a story. The main difference
here is, at least Kingdom Hearts can say at one point, it was indeed fun and heartfelt.
And then it fell from the pedestal. Right down the rabbit hole, long story short, Sora survived!
Kingdom Hearts will sometimes pretend it has a point. That’s why they babble about hearts that
are our guiding keys that connect us or whatever, but it’s all perfunctory platitudes. Ooh, look at
that alliteration, wow. They’re hollow gestures to make you pretend they’re saying something,
but in reality, we all know it’s memeable bullshit. The characters at this point are just
chess pieces, not only to Xehanort, but to the writing itself. Designed to be empty
and one-dimensional to achieve whatever Nomura’s outline says we need to get us to the next game.
Hell, the fact Kingdom Hearts 3 has so much emphasis on setting up this weird Verum Rex Yozora
alternate world is bizarre, because it’s supposed to be the conclusion to the Xehanort Saga.
It’s okay to focus on payoff rather than setup at this point; hell, that’s a big reason why people
were so excited about Kingdom Hearts 3 (like RWBY Volume 8, wow!). You don’t spend years giving us
side games like Birth by Sleep and Dream Drop just to have most of KH3 be filler and setup.
Real talk, I don’t even really care about Melody of Memory. One, I thought we learned
not to do the side games with important plot points anymore. But also, a rhythm
game?! What?! And why does it have plot locked behind it?! And it’s supposed to be about Kairi
going through her memories to find a link to Sora or whatever, but from what I've seen,
Kairi still gets shafted, so great. Okay, thanks. You couldn’t just make her playable in Dream Drop?
At this point, I don’t even really care about the story anymore. I’m not on the edge of my seat to
find out what happened to Sora or what Quadratum is because I don’t care about the lore. And the
lore isn’t really being used to do anything interesting with the characters or the story.
It’s just weird for the sake of being weird. It just exists, and I’m like, “But why?”
Kingdom Hearts’ stumblings come from it not realizing what made people love it
in the first place. If they focused instead on fleshing out their characters, and giving
them emotional storylines, using the abstract lore as a way to explore rather than… whatever
the hell Ansem was spouting in Melody of Memory… (Ansem the Wise) “The three realms of our world:
light, darkness, and between. This also includes the worlds of memories,
data, and dreams. Unreality? A fictional world?” Then KH3 could’ve easily recreated the magic of
the first two games in a new and interesting way. Ultimately, I just feel bad. For myself losing
interest in Kingdom Hearts, for Nomura being chained to this franchise and unable to expand
beyond it ((KH Versus 4, lol), and for people who sincerely wanted a better story to enjoy.
And if you do enjoy the direction Kingdom Hearts has been going in, and you really like 3
and Melody of Memory, then this isn’t to shame you or say that you’re wrong. I’m happy you got
something out of it. Ultimately, you won. But I also have the right to say I don’t like them.
Well I didn’t like 3. And I ain’t touching Melody of Memory, not even with a 10-foot pole.
For people disappointed with Kingdom Hearts, I highly recommend the rewrite series by Cryptonix.
This series made me tear up several times, because it took the foundations of the story and gave them
actual substance, especially Birth by Sleep, and oh my god I cannot wait for his version of
Dream Drop Distance. It is already a chef’s kiss. The way he took the sleeping worlds and actually
made it make sense in the lore but also be a great way to explore characters and
traumas and stuff and OH MY GOD-- Also he did Kairi justice, so I’m obligated to love it.
Anyhow, if you enjoyed this video and would like this see more content like this from me, then
be sure not only to subscribe and ring that bell for notifications because YouTube hates creators,
but also please consider pledging your support over on Patreon, and/or checking out my debut
urban fantasy novel, De Cineribus: From the Ashes. Nomura, I share your obsession with weird names,
but WE NEED HELP, MAN. WE NEED HELP. Real talk, I know I’ve been taking
a break for a very long while, and my content is shifting a little bit. Been wanting to diversify
the stuff I talk about. And also Blender has been absorbing my soul. I’m really enjoying
having this new creative hobby in 3D modeling and rigging and animation that isn’t a part of my
online presence, in YouTube or my writing. It’s just so nice to have that little escape.
I may share some of the stuff I’ve been whipping up at one point, but for now… eh.
I am gonna try to be more active in new videos I’m creating.
But I just wanted y’all to know I’m okay, I just needed a break for a little while,
and I’m having a lot of fun. Even while this year is killing me inside. Anyway bye.