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Roxas, Namine, and the Spoilers of Doom
Very long and rambly, spoilers for Kingdom Hearts ahead if you don't know who they really are. (Edit: Further warnings for character death discussion in the comments.)
Namine's fate was probably decided in Chain of Memories: for those of us not familiar with it, she was compelled by Marluxia to alter Sora's memories and made him forget about his old friends and "remember" her instead (and, in fact, become a bit fixated on her, and I don't know if she expected that). She confesses to this towards the end of the game and offers him the choice: she can put his memories back the way they were, but he'll forget everything that happened during the course of CoM and all the people he met there -- or he can keep his false memories, and continue being the way he is.
It's fairly obvious from the way she speaks that she wants him to choose to leave his memories the way they are. She wants him to remember her; no one has ever been as kind to her as Sora, even when he knows that she's scrambled his brain. Sora hates doing it, but we see in Kingdom Hearts 2 that his choice was to recover his true memories.
Sora's rejection, I think, sort of resigned Namine to the fact that she wasn't real and couldn't seek any happiness for herself: in the end he chose something "real", something she couldn't give him. So she wanted to become whole because that would mean a chance to be real and be loved. Namine was content to be Kairi for that reason.
But it was different with Roxas. He didn't need Sora -- and, technically, Sora doesn't seem to need him either, until the total reconstruction of his head.
(In fact, both Sora and Kairi seem to do just fine without their respective Nobodies for quite a while. >_> ...ahem.)
But Roxas had more than what Namine had. He had a place, he was useful, he was accepted. Maybe it wasn't all dance parties down at The Castle That Never Was but it was his place. Nobody!Roxas doesn't seem to have been crying about being unloved -- if anything, we see him brushing off any suggestion of sentimentality. When he leaves that life behind it's not because he was unhappy, but because he had questions that needed answers.
In Twilight Town, Roxas was replaced with a false personality, reasonably carefully constructed to be parallel to Sora's, and he still wasn't a Sora clone, he was still different. But it was a more vulnerable position.
And then they BEAT him and BROKE him so that they could fit him back into Sora. The things DiZ said to him when he was at his most unstable were HORRIBLE.
"A Nobody doesn't have a right to answers. It doesn't even have a right to BE."
"I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to half of Sora."
"It's the fate of a Nobody."
And he hated Nobodies SO MUCH at that time that it was impossible for him to feel any sympathy or pity for what he was doing to Roxas. Even Riku pitied Roxas for what they did to him -- and Riku was at least as broken and had far more and more personal reason to want Roxas to "vanish". But DiZ just couldn't see him as more than a broken piece of someone more important to his plans.
It wasn't until he'd been worn down to despair that they could put him back into Sora. And it's obvious that they wanted him that way-- There is absolutely no reason why DiZ wouldn't have wanted Namine to talk to Roxas unless they wanted him utterly lost and off-balance so that Sora could eat him. After all, Namine was trying to convince him that becoming Sora would be good for him. Why didn't they just let her talk, since Roxas trusted her?
Because they don't want Roxas to think. They don't want him to feel. The more he does things on his own the less Sora he is. And in spite of all they've tried to do to him he's STILL not Sora.
He grits at DiZ, "I hate you SO MUCH," and DiZ says, "You should share some of that hatred with Sora. He's far too nice for his own good."
And the simple fact of the matter is that he's right. Sora would never, ever have said anything like that. Sora can't hold grudges against people who don't genuinely intend him harm (see: Namine) and typically can only be bothered to dislike people who are clearly black-and-white-ly evil. Sora would never say anything like that, might not even be able to think anything like that.
Perhaps they're counterparts, the dark to the light, but they failed to turn Roxas into Sora. And a Nobody is nothing if not walking survival instinct -- a body and soul too stubborn to lay down and die after the heart is stolen -- and DiZ knew that there was no way Roxas would just disappear for them.
So they gave him a more amenable personality and then beat him and broke him and then threw him at Sora, and we know how that turned out. But it was clear that Roxas didn't do it voluntarily. He fought all the way and he was regretful at the end, even if he was resigned -- he wasn't content like Namine. We see that up through the World That Never Was he wasn't quite at peace with it.
Of course, by the end, all is Disney cheer and Roxas is whole and happy with Sora and "lives on" by being able to hang out with someone who is part Namine.
But God, was it a HORRIBLE trip to get there, and nobody ever actually addressed it. DiZ apologized but the injustices weren't fixed. We know that Nobodies can feel, Axel proved it to us damnit, but we smashed all of the members of OXIII and right up until the end that remained unspoken, unconsidered. The game ends still telling us that Nobodies can never be real people unless they happen to be super-special Nobodies who can go back to being human and, damnit, that sucks.
Roxas was shafted damnit, and I love that bastard. I'm giving him lots of AU love.
Oddly, thinking of "Sanctuary" as a song about Sora-and-Roxas makes me feel very positive about it. XD
Namine's fate was probably decided in Chain of Memories: for those of us not familiar with it, she was compelled by Marluxia to alter Sora's memories and made him forget about his old friends and "remember" her instead (and, in fact, become a bit fixated on her, and I don't know if she expected that). She confesses to this towards the end of the game and offers him the choice: she can put his memories back the way they were, but he'll forget everything that happened during the course of CoM and all the people he met there -- or he can keep his false memories, and continue being the way he is.
It's fairly obvious from the way she speaks that she wants him to choose to leave his memories the way they are. She wants him to remember her; no one has ever been as kind to her as Sora, even when he knows that she's scrambled his brain. Sora hates doing it, but we see in Kingdom Hearts 2 that his choice was to recover his true memories.
Sora's rejection, I think, sort of resigned Namine to the fact that she wasn't real and couldn't seek any happiness for herself: in the end he chose something "real", something she couldn't give him. So she wanted to become whole because that would mean a chance to be real and be loved. Namine was content to be Kairi for that reason.
But it was different with Roxas. He didn't need Sora -- and, technically, Sora doesn't seem to need him either, until the total reconstruction of his head.
(In fact, both Sora and Kairi seem to do just fine without their respective Nobodies for quite a while. >_> ...ahem.)
But Roxas had more than what Namine had. He had a place, he was useful, he was accepted. Maybe it wasn't all dance parties down at The Castle That Never Was but it was his place. Nobody!Roxas doesn't seem to have been crying about being unloved -- if anything, we see him brushing off any suggestion of sentimentality. When he leaves that life behind it's not because he was unhappy, but because he had questions that needed answers.
In Twilight Town, Roxas was replaced with a false personality, reasonably carefully constructed to be parallel to Sora's, and he still wasn't a Sora clone, he was still different. But it was a more vulnerable position.
And then they BEAT him and BROKE him so that they could fit him back into Sora. The things DiZ said to him when he was at his most unstable were HORRIBLE.
"A Nobody doesn't have a right to answers. It doesn't even have a right to BE."
"I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to half of Sora."
"It's the fate of a Nobody."
And he hated Nobodies SO MUCH at that time that it was impossible for him to feel any sympathy or pity for what he was doing to Roxas. Even Riku pitied Roxas for what they did to him -- and Riku was at least as broken and had far more and more personal reason to want Roxas to "vanish". But DiZ just couldn't see him as more than a broken piece of someone more important to his plans.
It wasn't until he'd been worn down to despair that they could put him back into Sora. And it's obvious that they wanted him that way-- There is absolutely no reason why DiZ wouldn't have wanted Namine to talk to Roxas unless they wanted him utterly lost and off-balance so that Sora could eat him. After all, Namine was trying to convince him that becoming Sora would be good for him. Why didn't they just let her talk, since Roxas trusted her?
Because they don't want Roxas to think. They don't want him to feel. The more he does things on his own the less Sora he is. And in spite of all they've tried to do to him he's STILL not Sora.
He grits at DiZ, "I hate you SO MUCH," and DiZ says, "You should share some of that hatred with Sora. He's far too nice for his own good."
And the simple fact of the matter is that he's right. Sora would never, ever have said anything like that. Sora can't hold grudges against people who don't genuinely intend him harm (see: Namine) and typically can only be bothered to dislike people who are clearly black-and-white-ly evil. Sora would never say anything like that, might not even be able to think anything like that.
Perhaps they're counterparts, the dark to the light, but they failed to turn Roxas into Sora. And a Nobody is nothing if not walking survival instinct -- a body and soul too stubborn to lay down and die after the heart is stolen -- and DiZ knew that there was no way Roxas would just disappear for them.
So they gave him a more amenable personality and then beat him and broke him and then threw him at Sora, and we know how that turned out. But it was clear that Roxas didn't do it voluntarily. He fought all the way and he was regretful at the end, even if he was resigned -- he wasn't content like Namine. We see that up through the World That Never Was he wasn't quite at peace with it.
Of course, by the end, all is Disney cheer and Roxas is whole and happy with Sora and "lives on" by being able to hang out with someone who is part Namine.
But God, was it a HORRIBLE trip to get there, and nobody ever actually addressed it. DiZ apologized but the injustices weren't fixed. We know that Nobodies can feel, Axel proved it to us damnit, but we smashed all of the members of OXIII and right up until the end that remained unspoken, unconsidered. The game ends still telling us that Nobodies can never be real people unless they happen to be super-special Nobodies who can go back to being human and, damnit, that sucks.
Roxas was shafted damnit, and I love that bastard. I'm giving him lots of AU love.
Oddly, thinking of "Sanctuary" as a song about Sora-and-Roxas makes me feel very positive about it. XD
no subject
I totally saw Roxas being absorbed by Sora as something he couldn't help when he'd finally come in contact with him - there he is screaming that his heart is his own. I can't believe that Roxas is actually happy about fading away, despite what Namine said.
Even the battle in The World That Never Was feels like incomplete closure. I can see Roxas coming to actually respect Sora, maybe even like him. It's interesting to me how the moment of revelation is Sora set against a backdrop of his friends, and not only because a lot of the game is "my friends are my power!" It's a juxtaposition where Roxas really only had Axel, who had pretty much just died for him.
And yeah, there's no way Axel didn't have feelings. I'll have to dig up the link, but I think it was the KH2 novel that said it's not so much that Nobodies don't have a heart, but that they just have a feeling that they're missing something, and have chosen to call that a lack of a heart. A surprising amount of the game is about perception, because Sora doesn't really have the chance to find out that some of the Nobodies weren't really evil, and then there's DiZ with his willingness to basically kill someone to achieve his revenge, and Riku with his willingness to see Roxas disappear since it would help Sora, even though he did eventually feel pity.
So in summation: WORD.
no subject
The Nobodies break my goddamn heart, especially the ones who get shafted so bad like Roxas. I can buy some of them not having warmfuzzy feelings. For instance, Larxene. She possessed the warmfuzzy of a bag of knives. But Axel ♥ Roxas and you can't watch the man die and walk away claiming he couldn't feel anything.
I think you're right about the perspective of it all: Sora is so out of the loop about the Organization that he really doesn't wind up ever considering them in any light except the one he was introduced to them in: they're evil, don't have hearts, and don't feel anything. Maybe if he'd remembered Castle Oblivion it would've been different, but because he so transparently had no idea...
I mean, did he even know that Axel was one of them? Of course he wasn't second-guessing when it seemed to be true on the surface.
Sigh.
I should totally not think about joining that RP on your journal.
no subject
I'd say Sora probably knew that Axel was part of Org13, if only because of the coats, but by the time they meet (that Sora can remember, anyway), he's been told so much by Mickey, etc about Nobodies not really being people that one aberration is hardly going to make that much of a difference, especially when he has no idea that Roxas even existed. He doesn't know Axel's motivations, and that, for Sora, might have weakened the idea that Nobodies feel and act on those feelings beyond trying to pretend that they're real.
Aaaaaaaand: This (http://maiki.livejournal.com/368614.html#cutid1), this (http://maiki.livejournal.com/368867.html#cutid1), and this (http://maiki.livejournal.com/369554.html#cutid1) are the ones I can find immediately with info about the novel. The bit about Nobodies and hearts is in the last link. Maiki's also done a translation of Nomura's KH2 Ultimania interview, which I can try to find for you, if you'd like.
And you totally SHOULD think about joining it! It's been forever since I've had a chance to play with you. ♥
no subject
Well, Riku was wearing a coat too, so Sora's been wrong about cloak = OXIII before, and Axel had already betrayed them by the time Sora encountered him, so he certainly didn't seem to be like all the rest of the guys who were trying to sabotage his friends. But I don't seriously think that Sora was oblivious to Axel's being in OXIII. XD It's just yet more proof that Sora doesn't have the ability to really dwell on these things, and being as we can't get monologues from Nobodies who have either been eaten or been kamikazed, that's probably the end of it as far as Sora's concerned.
I devoured those links and crave moooore novel and manga and good stuff. Kyaa.
...I could use some tasty soda. Who has a prime candidate already on the sidelines, besides the three taken?
no subject
With Riku, I think it's kind of unclear, because up until TWTNW (and I suppose you could argue the second visit to Mulan world), Sora didn't know if Riku was one of the guys in the black coats. If I remember correctly, even when they asked Mickey about why he was dressed in the coat, he said it was to blend in (presumably with Org13). Or possibly I'm making that part up. But yes, definitely with the Sora doesn't dwell on these things, and he never really was given a chance to see it as more than black and white.
I will try to find more of her translations (or any, really), because there's also some interesting stuff there on the keyblades and how they react to people's hearts, etc.
No one else really has someone waiting for them, since I haven't advertised beyond my personal journal and the people I know are interested are pretty much good to play anyone. I'd adore an Axel, though, if you're so inclined.
no subject
Ultimania interview (http://maiki.livejournal.com/351209.html)
More info on keyblades (http://community.livejournal.com/kingdom_hearts/686626.html?thread=5032994#t5032994) - With this one, the commenter doesn't really give an official source for his/her post, so I'm not sure if it's official, but at the least, it's an interesting theory. I didn't read through all of it, but at least the first bit sounds like it has a possibility of being official info.
no subject
I love so many members of OXIII that it's almost hard to choose. But... there must needs be thinking on this Axel business in the morning.
no subject
Take your time; the game won't be starting for a while, anyway. I'm just excited now about you playing. ♥
no subject
Anyway, I was just replaying the game again and I came across something that points to the Nobodies having hearts. (By the way, you put into words what I couldn't with this post. I dislike DiZ with a passion. I understand that he was betrayed by the Nobodies, but he was too "Wow, maybe if I sacrifice myself it will make everything right again." It just doesn't work that way.)
So, while DiZ was being a total asshole to Roxas right before he got eaten, Roxas said, "No, my heart belongs to me!" But at this point, he already remembers that he is a Nobody and part of the Organization. So, if Nobodies don't have hearts, why would he not want to share his heart? >w
no subject
DiZ got so obsessed with the idea of revenge that I think in a way he was more than a little himself what he claimed Nobodies were: less than human, unfeeling. I think that's partly why he takes on the headwrap and robes -- if Mickey had recognized him, he would have tried to get closer to him, would have noticed his obsession and tried to talk him back down, and he didn't want to be talked down.
And I think that about Roxas is really interesting, now that you mention it. He's very definitive that he has a heart and if he does remember, then he definitely should have the full complement of reasons why he shouldn't. Either Roxas never bothered believing in the lack-of-heart business, compared his 'fake' existence to his real existence and didn't find a significant emotional difference, or he really does have a heart of some sort to defend. ♥
*iconlove~*
no subject
It's like he knew it was wrong, but still wanted to do it anyway. Still, he's totally running away from any responsibility he's supposed to have, despite whether he was acting like he normally would.
Or maybe being with Axel made him realize Nobodies do have hearts?:D I think they still have emotions. I mean, remembering how to act? Too many of their actions seem based on emotions to write it off as mere memory. I think someone said Xemnas was just trying to trick them (don't remember who though ><;;).Thanks! ♥