Another kh thought that won’t leave my mind: Why is Riku the one to introduced the paopu to the series?
Why not Kairi, Sora’s supposed love interest? Kairi doesn’t even mention the paopu tree at all, Sora and riku are the ones caught up on it and the only time she ever interacts with a paopu before kh3 is when she sees sora drew her one. Never before that or after.
Riku is quite literally the first time we ever see it or it’s mentioned. He appeared with one out of nowhere and even explained the tale. “If two people share on, their destinies become intertwined, they’ll remain a part of their lives no matter what.” As Riku says this, he walks past Sora. They meet in the middle as Riku and Riku disappears from screen as he says “they’ll remain a part of each other’s lives no matter what.” Foreshadowing the events of kh1? With the paopu fruit?
Isn’t it funny how there’s no implication to Kairi at all in his words? Isn’t it funny how after this Selphie calls the paopu “romantic” even though Riku is the only one to talk about or be seen with a paopu around Sora so far?
And it was so randomly too. “C’mon, I know you wanna try it” before he laughs and runs away.“You wanted one, didn’t you?”
Riku remembered, who knows how long ago, Sora mentioning wanting a paopu fruit. It couldn’t have been kh1 sora, could it? Why would sora look so and caught off guard and confused then? That Sora who was awkward about his feelings and didn’t understand them. How long ago did sora say he wanted a paopu and why did Riku keep that thought in mind?
Another thought. Riku gives sora the paopu on a very particular day. It’s the day before the storm. It’s the day before he knows the island is going to fall. Did Riku give sora the paopu fruit because no matter what happened that night, he wanted them to remained intertwined in each other’s lives? That maybe even after he was going to do, Sora wouldn’t leave him?
“I should’ve tried that paopu thing”
There’s only two other moments we see Riku with a paopu.
Once in official art
And once on the manga
Why would Riku have a paopu? He has no one to share it with, right? Sora and Kairi are a pair, right? There’s no one left for Riku to have a destiny with, right? He has the paopu all by himself, somehow for some reason, right?
Doesn’t it seem so strange that Riku holds the paopu alone in the first art, looking back at someone, and in the second art he stands next to Sora, who looks down at the paopu in surprise? Who is Riku looking at? Why does Sora look so surprised by the paopu? Why is he the only one looking at it and not the camera?
And isn’t so interesting that Sora and Riku actually do share a paopu? On the keyblade that represents their hearts coming together?
We never see Sora and Riku share a paopu and yet there it is, attached to ropes woven together like they are in their lives. This is purely symbolic because of how much the paopu means to them. They didn’t actually share a paopu but they didn’t have to. Their wills were stronger than fate. They made themselves apart of each other’s lives no matter what all in their own.
Why did Riku introduce the paopu to the series?
Because Riku wanted to share the paopu with Sora. Because Riku wanted to make sure that he and Sora’s destinies were intertwined. Because Riku loves Sora.
Hello soriku tumblr! A bestie of mine is thinking of creating a free soriku zine! If any of you are interested in joining or downloading it, please check out the poll!
I think truly one of the most devious things that Nomura ever did to us was tricking us into believing that Sora was a static character.
With all these other characters around him going through sweeping, morally complex character arcs around him–Riku, Roxas, Xion, take your pick–it was so easy for us to write Sora off as the one true constant throughout the series. He was always cheerful, happy-go-lucky, endearingly dense, always peppily proclaiming his “my friends are my power!” mantras. Heck, even the other characters were reinforcing this–the “that’s Sora for you"s, the "he never changes,” the sidelong glances at each other. This underlying narrative of Sora’s simplicity, his sameness, is layed on especially thick in Kingdom Hearts 3–so thick that it’s almost suspicious.
But if you take a closer look at his character arc throughout the series, it’s so obvious that this simply isn’t the case–especially in DDD and KH3. Through his encounters with both new friends and enemies, he’s had to readjust his definitions of morality and justice, and has had to mature to meet each new threat. However, while his character growth has been mostly positive, I’m not sure that this is 100 percent the case.
One thing that is especially telling is his reaction to Kairi being swept up by the Demon Tide at the end of KH2. This is notthe same reaction he’s had to losing Kairi before, such as at the beginning and end of KH1. Sure, he was extremely worried and saddened, but it was still punctuated by a hope and belief that they would see each other again. This is not the case in KH3–it’s agony. Devastation. It’s been three years and I still can’t stop thinking about that raw, gut-wrenching scream ripped from his throat. Up to that point in the series, we had never seen Sora completely devoid of hope like this–and it was scary.
His reaction was that of pure frustration, frustration that the cycle that has occurred over and over again won’t quit repeating–you love someone, they are taken away from you, you get them back, they are ripped away from you again. I think what’s so disturbing about this to us is that characters (especially in “children’s” media) don’t normally have this level of awareness. “Lost loved ones” is an extremely popular trope in children’s media, often used to the point of abuse, but the fact that it repeats is often gone unrecognized by the characters involved.
But not by Sora. He has a level of awareness here that we’ve never associated with him before. He sees the cycle, he wants it to stop–but to make it stop would be a betrayal of everything he stands for. To stop it would require something drastic.
“My whole journey began the day I lost her. And every time I find her…she slips away again. I thought we’d finally be together. But she’s out there, alone.
…Not for one more second.“
Am I saying that we’re going to get a "Sora is the Master of Masters reveal”? No, not necessarily. But I am saying that I don’t think the Sora that we see in KH4 is going to be the same boy that we knew.
Guys this isn’t related to this blog but this needs more people to see this. I’ve been birding for like, two or so months. One of my number one targets was a Sora (its a rail bird thats somewhat common) and for some reason I have been UNABLE to ever find one in every single one of my trips. Finding a Sora has been like, tied as my top goal since I started birding because 1) Sora has been missing in the Kingdom Hearts Fandom for 1161 days and its a meme 2) I fucking love Sora 3) heheh bird and Kingdom Hearts I gotta find it
And TODAY. Fucking TODAY I went out birding and I - for the first time - SAW A SORA. I FOUND SORA.
THEN I COME HOME
KINGDOM HEARTS 4 TRAILER.
SORA HAS BEEN FOUND.
I FOUND SORA (BIRD) AND SORA (CHARACTER) ON THE SAME FUCKING DAY WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK
IM SCREAMING I DIDNT GET A GOOD PHOTO BUT LIKE
LOOK I FOUND SORA IN REAL LIFE ON THE DAY THAT SORA APPEARED IN THE REAL WORLD
Hi, thanks for sharing my art, but today I feel very depressed, although my Kingdomhearts art is welcome… it’s not what I really do, I’m working on two comics… that I would love for everyone to know …but unfortunately it’s IGNORED, don’t be like that…
Once upon a time there was a boy who dreamed of being an adventurer… when his fate met him, the lady of dreams took pity on this boy’s soul and took him to an island resembling “neverland”.
I’m sorry this is truly honestly the funniest way they could’ve framed this happening
Thank god you’ve gotten here ajgsgkskg honestly it’s one of the best scenes in the game for Sora’s expressions alone because it really tells a lot. He looks at her with an almost sad look, not sure what to say, and he doesn’t move to take it until she’s explained her intent. Why? Because Sora DID view the paopu as a romantic gesture and he’s realizing he didn’t feel that way about Kairi. Kairi literally has to tell him it’s “just a good luck charm” (in jp, and then in Remind they added the more accurate translation as a Kingstagram post lol) before he feels comfortable to take it. Also, me saying it’s not romantic isn’t just my own wishful thinking- what did Sora’s own jp voice actor have to say about the scene?
Then there’s the whole character files short story that came out AFTER Remind where Sora spends the entire time talking about how he doesn’t understand true love, or love in general- especially romantic love. How he can see that a couple like Belle and Beast are in love but quote “I still don’t understand what the love there is?”. Not to mention he also directly says he doesn’t understand in love in the PotC world (again, even more directly in jp)
KH3 is very much “show don’t tell” despite what people think (even MoM tells us this) and this scene is showing where Sora’s attention really is (on Riku, worrying about Riku being alone in the beginning of the scene) and how his feelings or understanding of his feelings have changed with regard to Kairi. It’s actually a really layered scene and worth multiple watches.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thinks Sora recognizes that Kairi’s gesture is romantic here. I think, if he was oblivious, he would’ve said something about inviting Riku over or waiting until Riku could join them or something. But the paopu has always had a romantic connotation, and Sora’s expression here is of someone who knows that.
He’s read the room. They’re alone, there’s a beautiful sunset, and Kairi’s gazing at him like that… You’d expect Sora to be smiling or flustered or something. His longtime crush likes him back. He should be thrilled! His heart should be going doki doki! But this is pretty much… the opposite of that. If this scene is supposed to be romantic, the romance really does seem to be one-sided.
And the og Japanese makes that even more obvious omg? He doesn’t accept the paopu until Kairi assures that sharing it doesn’t change their relationship?? It’s for good luck — a good luck charm — like always… And even then there’s still some hesitation. He doesn’t look happy.
He knows how serious a gesture this is, and he doesn’t like the idea of relying on a paopu, of needing it — it’s kind of like admitting something bad is going to happen/he’s going to fail — but he recognizes Kairi’s really scared and sharing it will make her feel better.
It flashes to the cave drawing from when they were kids and I guess that’s supposed to be romantic, but it reminds me of Kairi’s desperate desire for things to not change, for Sora to not change, and how everything has already changed. This whole scene shows how much has changed since the last time they sat watching the sunset together in KH1. That feels like forever ago… Kairi so badly doesn’t want to lose Sora.
And — I saw your tags — yes, that absolutely reminds me of Pooh wanting to be together with Sora forever. There are many parallels here. Sora’s lack of enthusiasm. Not reacting how you’re expecting him to, suggesting he’s changed/his feelings have changed. How Sora’s not on the same page as Pooh or Kairi but reassures them anyway… It’s interesting that Sora is questioning love and his feelings for people, his relationships with them, when this has never really been touched on in the series before now… especially because it’s happening while Riku is figuring his feelings out… Not saying anything for certain, but it’s interesting.
