#wonderful thoughts op
I feel like we should look more closely at Sora’s very first and most iconic line in the series; “i’ve been having these weird thoughts lately…. like, is any of this for real, or not?”
i’m quite surprised i’ve never seen anyone analyze it because there’s a lot to unpack from it.
the first thing that dawned on me is how mature it is. sora is known to be a silly, childish character. innocent, and naive. but the way he says this line, it sounds so introspective. in the story sora is shown to be a care-free kid. as his adventure goes on we see him experience and express complex emotions but because he’s fourteen they’re a bit emotionally immature. he doesn’t know how to articulate the big things he feels in charming words because that’s difficult for any fourteen year old to do but he does feel things deeply. this line shows in clearer, raw terms what kinds of things sora feels in the depths of his heart. it’s a pretty big thing for a kid to wonder, an existential thought that the things that happen around him might be trying to fool him. and sora doesn’t let on that he feels this at all on the outside, not to donald and goofy, not to riku and kairi, not even to the player. he might not even be conscious that he does feel this way himself, it could just be a gnawning feeing in the back of his head he doesn’t pay attention to or doesn’t notice. but regardless he does feel this uncertainty, and only in the depths of his heart can it be expressed. cue falling onto a stain glass pillar.
and sora feeling this way is very interesting. the line is so vague, it could be interpreted so many ways. what exactly doesn’t feel real to sora any more? life in the broad term? maybe he was slowly growing out of the island as he saw riku growing away from him. maybe it felt dull and boring without his best friend, like a tv show sora was an audience member to with no control over his life. maybe it was about riku himself? the facade of friendship they kept up as a distance grew between them making it difficult to tell between what was real and what was an act.
maybe it was the keyblade whispering in sora’s ear. or darkness stirring within the island. maybe everything felt like a play reaching its rising action. maybe sora was just waiting for the shoe to drop, to the strange tight feeling and eeriness on the island that something was going to happen.
or maybe, sora’s been dreaming. the line is said before sora fights the darkside and as we see he awakes from a nap after, meaning he hasn’t visited the depths of his heart yet. so what else could he be dreaming out? maybe it’s ven. just like how ven saw sora’s adventures in sleep, maybe sora saw ven’s memories as well. maybe he could feel him in his heart, feel things that weren’t quite real, like they were someone else’s feelings.
putting interpretation aside, this line shows off one of sora’s underrated skills off well: observation. sora is very aware of a lot of things around him, most of all he’s emotionally observant
somehow a part of him feels that something is unreal. and he’s also aware that having thoughts like that is strange. no one else seems to be thinking the same thing, on the outside he’s all alone in that thought. what doesn’t feel real to him? the picturesque life on an island with his best friends? maybe a moment of Suspension when he becomes aware of himself or the world while life continues on around him? just what set off this thought, this observation in sora? how long before kh1 was sora getting this feeling. was it the keyblade? was it kingdom hearts? i have to know, and with the like making a comeback in kh4 i really hope they go in depth with it because this most iconic line has haunted me for years
