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Final Post: I am a fan

The first week when we were assigned to select a Storyworld, I didn’t really know what to pick. Especially in terms of fandoms, I’d felt like I wasn’t an ardent fan of anything in particular. I don’t watch that many TV shows, nor have I read books for pleasure in a long while. I loved Studio Ghibli and Harry Potter, but those fandoms and story worlds are a little overdone, and Eileen had mentioned covering Miyazaki films later on in the semester. Other things I’d thought about included Avatar, the Last Airbender and Fullmetal Alchemist, but those had already been chosen by two of my classmates. So by that point, I’d narrowed it down to two options: Community and Kingdom Hearts. Community was a TV show that I knew had a strong cult following – it had been on the verge of cancellation many a time, and was only able to have its final season after being revived thanks to the loyalty of the fan base. Chock full of pop culture references, witty quips, and easter eggs, the show would’ve been amazing to take on as a storyworld. However, I’d thought with such a devoted following, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to take it on, since I had been only a casual watcher. It was also created by Dan Harmon, who also wrote another classmate’s choice of storyworld Rick and Morty. So for the sake of variety within the class selections, I decided to go the video game route and choose Kingdom Hearts. Even now I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d done Community, but I’d also enjoyed taking a peek back at my childhood with my favorite video game, especially now that Kingdom Hearts III is slated to be released next year. I’d always struggled with the definition of what it is to be a “fan” of something. More often than not, I’d seen people (especially girls) get torn down for declaring their love for something, be it Pokemon or Twilight. Especially when it’s video games or another thing “for boys,” questioning their knowledge or loyalty to the storyworld is something I’ve seen and experienced over and over again. As a result, I’m often wary of declaring my interest in a lot of shows,  movies, or games, just to avoid hearing retorts that I’m “not a real fan.” The semester we had discussing our particular storyworlds, I realized how important it was to not be ashamed to be a proud member of a fandom, and not to be scared of the responses from those within the fandom and out. And so when I decided to do Kingdom Hearts as my storyworld, I still had my reservations. I’d only ever played four of the dozen games, and of those I’d only completed 2. Statistically, I’d be a crappy fan. But I still love to play the game, the music still makes me nostalgic, and I was as excited as any other fan to watch the Kingdom Hearts III trailer they released at E3 this year. I realized that one of the more difficult things about these blog posts was how to build my foundation for later posts. If I’m writing for someone who had never even played before, what do they need to know? I’d hoped to capture their attention by introducing them to the worlds they might already find familiar, without confusing them by trying to explain a plot so convoluted even I didn’t quite understand. But that complexity was something I’d liked about the franchise; the relationships and ties between characters, and how each game tied into the timeline as a whole, left me scouring wiki pages as a kid, trying to wrap my head around it. Each game can stand alone, but in order to get a full picture I’d need to reference every game, some of which I’d never played. It was difficult trying to determine which facts were truly necessary for anyone reading my blog to know. For example, when I’d started writing my post on female representation in the game, I realized I’d have to reference characters I’d barely even touched on in past posts. In order to maintain my focus on analysis rather than introducing characters, I was still unable to go as deep as I had wanted. There were a lot of other posts I’d thought about writing, but decided not to because they required too much context and explanation to really make sense. In hindsight, I think I would have rather just written it how I’d wanted to, assuming that the reader had the prior knowledge necessary. This was my first time actually using Tumblr, so I’d really enjoyed contributing to the Kingdom Hearts fandom that already thrived on the site. I’d really felt like I was part of a community that shared my interests, and through this class I was also able to take a look at what other people loved but I had little knowledge of. Now that this semester has come to an end, I can’t wait to go home and finally return to the game I’ve been writing about these past few months, and see if I love it just as much as I did before.

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Women in Kingdom Hearts

Despite Kingdom Hearts being so closely connected with the Disney universe, which arguably caters more towards young girls than young boys, the games clearly leave much to be desired with respect to female representation and development within the game. And while I recognize this is a trend across most role-play video games, I had hoped that a game that caters to a somewhat younger audience and that lacks the violence and bloodshed that marks RPG’s as a “boys’ game” would at least make steps to ensure their female characters received as much love as their male counterparts.

One notable example is Kairi, one of Sora’s best friends. She, together with a boy named Riku, grew up together with Sora on Destiny Islands, and the trio are technically the main protagonists in the series, Riku even serving as a main antagonist. Despite that, she serves barely any screen time in Kingdom Hearts (she’s pretty much in a coma for 90% of it), and in Kingdom Hearts II (where she’s once again kidnapped). Especially compared to the development and strength shown by the other two main characters, Kairi is notably lacking and trapped in a passive role, despite being a rare Keyblade wielder like Sora and Riku. The manga adaptation of the series showcases her personality more, revealing Kairi to be charismatic, strong-willed, and independent, but these traits are barely touched on in the video game itself.

Kairi is also one of the six “Princesses of Heart,” who possess no darkness within them and have hearts of pure light. Despite their apparent power to unlock Kingdom Hearts, which is the heart of all worlds and basically everything, they are all easily snatched from their homes and rendered prisoners by those who tried to possess this source of infinite power. Besides Kairi, I don’t recall any of them even having lines, much less any character development.

There are plenty of female characters within the series, but very few are of actual depth. If they possess power, they are often tools to be used by others (like Xion and Namine), or they play an antagonists role (several members of Organization XII are female, or Maleficent). It’s frustrating to see female characters receive less care and attention from the game developers, especially because I love these games so much, and I’m hoping that the release of Kingdom Hearts III might see some changes to this trend.

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About the Music of Kingdom Hearts

For me, the music that accompanies the Kingdom Hearts franchise invokes as much love and sentimentality as the soundtracks of a Studio Ghibli movie would. Composed by the reknowned Yoko Shimomura, who has also composed music for Street Fighter II and Final Fantasy XV, each game’s playlist consists of arrangements of already well-known songs from Disney and other worlds, as well some of original pieces that truly make the game special.

I’d heard once that either a song can make a movie famous, or a movie can make a song famous. For this case, I cannot tell which is one is more true. Upon hearing the songs, I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t think of Kingdom Hearts, but I also can’t imagine Kingdom Hearts without its music. So here I am, listening to Sanctuary and writing this post, and resolving to dust off the PS2 as soon as I return home for winter break.

Composing and arranging music for video games is extremely tricky, since it must be iconic, yet cannot detract from gameplay. Listeners can’t get sick of it even after the thousandth time hearing it. And Kingdom Hearts has met those needs and gone far beyond. Even across games, the music remains so familiar, yet each version is lovingly remixed or rearranged to be slightly different for each game. Utada Hikaru, who wrote and sang the theme songs for both title series (and is reportedly doing the same for the third!!), even wrote Japanese and English versions of each to better cater to the international fanbase.

One of the highlights of Kingdom Hearts is the music. It makes each scene, each world come to life, yet blends seamlessly into the gameplay. I hadn’t even realized how much the music had seeped into my consciousness until I realized that if I went through the entire soundtrack I could recognize which world they belonged in within five seconds. Each piece embodies the world that it’s inspired by, and each original track is recognizable and representative of the game. Few games manage to make each note within its repertoire as well-known as its title tracks, but I believe this this franchise did.

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Bringing Worlds - and Fandoms - Together

I was five when Kingdom Hearts was first released for the Playstation 2; my brother was nine years old, and delighted to be introduced to this new game by his friends. And so I spent my summer vacation rolling about on my parents’ bed, watching as my brother sat on the floor in front of our clunky pre-flatscreen TV set and devoted hours toward saving the worlds from darkness. And after a few weeks of being relegated to delivering snacks and popsicles, I decided that I wanted to play too. 

This was likely more out of the desire to mimic my big brother more than a genuine interest in video games, but I loved Disney as much any child did (and still does). Although I’d fought my brother for the controller over every new game he received, Kingdom Hearts was one of the few that I genuinely fell in love with, and the reached for when he completed the game and inevitably lost interest, leaving me free to play as much as I wanted. 

Since I was so young when I’d first played (more like watched my brother play) the game, I had actually been introduced to some of these Disney worlds for the first time. I had never watched Aladdin, Tarzan, or The Nightmare Before Christmas, but through Kingdom Hearts I got to know the characters and the stories without exposure to the media they had been drawn from. The ones I did know, like Winnie the Pooh and The Lion King, I loved being able to step into the worlds I loved.

Square Enix has been able to build a strong fan base of people fiercely loyal to the franchise by replicating worlds already known and loved by passionate fans independent of the game. But they also opened the gates in the other direction. A lover of the games is not necessarily aware of every story depicted in the Kingdom Hearts universe. Through the series, fans of both the games and of the Disney sources are introduced to new stories and characters to fall in love with, perhaps even making them fans of the original itself. In my case, Kingdom Hearts II brought in slightly “lesser-known” worlds for players my age, such as Timeless River, an ode to Steamboat Willie (1928) and other classical shorts, or Space Paranoids, the digital world of Tron (1982) I decided to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas because I’d already lived through the movie within the game, and thought it disrespectful to love a story without having seen where it came from.

Perhaps this was a commercial move for both Square Enix and Disney: tap into an already massive Disney fanbase and guarantee customers, as well as subtly marketing other parts of the Disney universe to potential new fans. But for me, I know that their choice gave birth to a beautiful game of its own right.

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Character Types: Nobodies

A Dusk, one of the most common Nobodies

In rare cases, when a Heartless is born, a Nobody remains. They lack a heart, which had been lost to the darkness, but the body and soul remain to supply a body and soul. They are mostly grey in color, and move with fluidity and elasticity, almost like dancing. Since they are made from “leftovers” in a sense, they exist in a state of nonexistence, in between the Realms of Light and Darkness, where Somebodies and Heartless reside, respectively. In contrast to Heartless, which grow larger and more powerful in proportion to their strength, Nobodies born from a strong-willed heart can sometimes even retain their sense of self and look completely human. In these cases, Nobodies look like reflections of their original selves, but most of the time Nobodies are only vaguely humanoid (more so than Heartless, however, since they kept their physical form). 

Sora, for example, had at one point turned into a Heartless (long story), and as a result gave form to Roxas, a Nobody whose name is an anagram of Sora’s (plus an X). Nobodies use their logic and intelligence to guide their actions, as they lack a heart. However, they use the memories they have from when they were whole to emulate the emotions they once had.  

Organization XIII, a group that consists of Nobodies that have retained their sense of self. Their purpose is to regain their missing hearts and become whole again. Roxas was a member before he was remerged into Sora.

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Character Types: “Somebodies” and Heartless

All the characters from the series

The people and creatures you find within the Kingdom Hearts franchise can be quite neatly categorized into three groups: the Heartless, Nobodies, and everyone else (unofficially called “Somebodies”). Since I’ve personally never played any of the prologue games (i.e. Birth by Sleep), I’ll only explain what I know, but the relationships between individuals across groups is one of the most confusing parts of the plotline. That, and the timeline (which does not go in order of game release date).

The main party: Sora, Donald, and Goofy :)

“Somebodies” are basically those who are neither Heartless nor Nobody – in that sense, they are whole. “Somebodies” are the most “human” characters, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are people, nor are they necessarily good. For example, Donald is an anthropomorphic duck, and Maleficent is a major antagonist in several games. However, they exist in their most complete forms and thus cannot be considered Heartless, nor can they be Nobody.

Heartless are creatures that act as the main opponents our party must defeat to gain experience and move forward. They are born when a person is consumed by the darkness in their hearts (hence the name “Heartless”) and act as physical manifestations of said darkness. They act purely on instinct and seek to consume the hearts of others and thus create more Heartless – they can even consume the “hearts” of worlds, which is how worlds have been destroyed. Only those with an affinity for darkness and a strong will can control them, but one with hearts must be careful to not show weakness, lest they be consumed.

An Emblem Heartless known as a Soldier, and a Pureblood Shadow

There are two types of Heartless: Pureblood and Emblem. Pureblood Heartless were born “naturally” from darkness, and are pure black in color, with glowing yellow eyes. They are the most common type, although there is less variety within the class. Emblem Heartless were created artificially, often from a stolen heart, by a machine designed to replicate the process of the heart being consumed by darkness. They are emblazoned with a heartlike symbol, and come in more shapes and colors than their Pureblood counterparts.

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🎃👑❤️🌕

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Just sayin’ Square..just sayin’..

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so i hear y’all think kingdom hearts is confusing

aight folks heres a little character psa for ya

THIS is sora and vanitas they are NOT the SAME person

THIS is ventus and roxas they too are NOT the SAME person

HOWEVER

sora and roxas, technically, ARE the SAME PERSON take ‘sora’ add an x and rearrange

ventus and vanitas also, technically, ARE the SAME PERSON note the name similarity

ALRIGHT I HOPE IVE CLEARED THAT UP FOR EVERYBODY AND NO ONE IS CONFUSED ANYMORE!!!

this has been a kingdom hearts psa

just dont make me talk about the 13 versions of xehanort… EDIT: WELL TURNS OUT I DID END UP TALKING ABOUT THEM FOLKS

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Please KH3

Give me my unflinching

Brave as fuck

Ass kickin’

Tough as hell

 Princess of Heart that the manga gave us.

LET THIS GIRL FIGHT IN GAME WE ALL KNOW SHE CAN

GIVE HER BETTER WRITING I’M BEGGING YOU

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KINGDOM HEARTS III D23 TRAILER!

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The Worlds of Kingdom Hearts: Part 3

This is the last of my 3-part mapping blog posts, where I mention a some tweaks the developers made to the character design in order to meld our heroes into the worlds they’ve been placed in, as well as taking a look at some of the original worlds made for the game. 

Agrabah: Aladdin (1992)’s world actually is made up of two parts: the city of Agrabah and the palace as seen in the film, and the Desert Cave where Aladdin discovers Genie’s lamp. Nevertheless, the encompassing world is named Agrabah. Upon our party’s arrival, Jafar kidnaps Princess Jasmine, and we team up with Aladdin to defeat him (with a little help from Genie and the flying carpet). However, Jasmine, like Alice, goes missing.

Monstro: Somehow, a massive space whale swimming across the universe is an entire world on its own. Similar to how it swallowed up Pinocchio and Geppetto in Pinocchio (1940), Monstro swims by our party’s ship and swallows it up whole. Since the whale has been freely roaming the worlds map since before the everything became connected, it doesn’t need to be “locked” or “sealed” again, like most of the other worlds in the Kingdom Hearts universe needed to. I especially got lost in this world in particular, since the chambers are an interesting interpretation of internal organs, which all rather look the same.

Atlantica: Earth may be considered the Water Planet, but the 1989 film The Little Mermaid has a world that is quite literally all underwater - there’s hardly any land to be seen. Thanks to Donald’s magical prowess, Sora, Donald, and Goofy are transformed to adapt to the aquatic environment: Sora becomes a merman with a dolphin’s tail, Donald gets squid tentacles (as a mage, perhaps this is an homage to the sea witch, Ursula), and Goofy ends up looking like a sea turtle with Goofy’s head attached. The original film’s plot is touched on only in Kingdom Hearts II, but since that iteration of the world is reduced to minigames and cutscenes, it’s quite possibly one of the worst worlds in the game, despite being so fun in the first Kingdom Hearts.

Halloween Town: Like in Atlantica, our visit to Halloween Town sees a decked out character design, with ~spooky~ costumes to blend our characters into the rest of the world of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). In Kingdom Hearts II, this world expands to include Christmas Town as well, but the first game only allows our party to take a look at the Halloween side of the world. From Dr. Finkelsteins Lab to the iconic curly hill with the large full moon set behind, much of the film’s stop motion artistry is lovingly translated into digital.

Neverland: This world is named Neverland, but the actual Neverland seen in Peter Pan (1953), is actually not accessible in this game. Instead, we spend most of our time in this world on Captain Hook’s ship. However, thanks to Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, we learn to fly, and find our way to London’s iconic Clock Tower.

Hollow Bastion: Although Hallow Bastion is an original world created for the game, the castle that we find ourselves in is inspired by Beast’s castle from Beauty & the Beast (1991), as well as Maleficent’s fortress from Sleeping Beauty (1956). A lot of drama happens here in the story – betrayal, defeat, sacrifice, revival, and fighting galore! I had actually never played through this world, since I admittedly have never finished the first game of the series… Sometime between the sequel Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts, the formerly magnificent castle had been partially destroyed and warped beyond recognition. In Kingdom Hearts, this castle is the home of Maleficent and all we see of the world, but after her defeat, subsequent games show the restoration of the surrounding city and of the castle itself. In Kingdom Hearts II, we discover that the castle and the city belongs to a world known as Radiant Garden, which is objectively a much nicer name than Hollow Bastion.

End of the World: True to its name, this is the last world that we enter, and the setting for the final battle of the game. Another original world, the dark purple and blue hues used to bring the world to life actually emphasizes its lack of life. Similar to how Traverse Town is a collection of people from lost worlds, End of the World is made of fragments of worlds that that been destroyed by Heartless. Sora even comes across the remnants of his own lost home, Destiny Islands, albeit in a darker form. Upon closing the Door to Darkness, the lost worlds are restored and End of the World breaks apart, with the world fragments returning to their respective homes.

There is much much MUCH more to cover if I wanted to create a somewhat encompassing map of the Kingdom Hearts franchise. Each new game includes new worlds, or opens up new elements of old ones. But through these posts, I think it’s easier to grasp the breadth of this universe, and all the details within.

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The Worlds of Kingdom Hearts: Part 2

This part peeks at the some of the worlds constructed from Disney’s films. Many of them expand upon what we can see in scenes of the movies, like constructing hallways or extra rooms to make it more playable and enjoyable.

Wonderland: The first “borrowed” world the party arrives at is that of Alice in Wonderland. Keeping in mind that Kingdom Hearts draws inspiration from Disney, Wonderland is a depiction of the 1951 film, not the 1871 novel by Lewis Carrol. Here, the party encounters iconic aspects of the film’s world, like the talking doorknob, the “Drink Me” potion, and the place settings for the Mad Hatter and the March Hare's Tea Party. However, the titular character Alice is nowhere to be found!?!

Olympus Coliseum: A relatively small world in this game, Hercules’s Olympus Coliseum acts as a training ground for Sora (and Hercules!) under the watchful eye of the satyr Phil, but does not serve much purpose within the main storyline. Kingdom Hearts II and other games in the franchise develops the world further by also incorporating aspect of the 1997 movie’s plot, but Kingdom Hearts merely borrows the setting. The Coliseum did not appear much in the original film, so its layout and details were more at the liberty of the game designers.

Deep Jungle: This world is a reconstruction of the 1999 film Tarzan, from the Tree House in which Tarzan was orphaned, to the Camp set up by Jane and Clayton. Here we get to swing from vines and swim among hippos, but also experience (an albeit revised) version of the movie’s plot – just add in more monsters (Heartless) and replace Tarzan with a 14-year-old boy as the protagonist.

100 Acre Wood: One of the most adorable parts of the series, the world of Winnie the Pooh resides within a book, though the pages were scattered across worlds and must be regathered to make it whole once again. Fortunately, this world is spared from Heartless and fighting, so once the world is fully restored Sora is free to play mini-games with Pooh and his friends. It doesn’t really push the story forward, but the music is too cute to pass up.

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The Worlds of Kingdom Hearts: Part 1

Note: Kingdom Hearts as a franchise consists of 8 video games across various platforms (with several additional remakes), but I will focus on the titular game for this post.

The World of Kingdom Hearts is an amalgamation of worlds both original and borrowed, and as a child my favorite part was exploring every inch of each world I unlocked, and getting lost among the twists and turns. Granted I’m also notoriously abysmal at directions, even in a video game, so half of my playtime was spent trying to find my way back to where I began.

Awakening: The beginning of the game starts in some realm in between a dream and reality – we first get to play the main character, Sora, in this beautiful tutorial and intro into the mechanics of the gameplay itself.

Destiny Islands: The setting for the prologue, where Sora, Riku and Kairi spend their days playing with friends and dreaming of bigger worlds and grand adventures. This is one of the few original worlds created specifically for the game, but unfortunately the protagonists’ home is destroyed and we are unable to return once the main storyline begins.

Traverse Town: As a World that consists of remnants of lost worlds, Sora awakens here after Destiny Islands is lost to the darkness. Though it is a world created for Kingdom Hearts, many of the characters that reside in it hail from Final Fantasy VII or VIII, or Disney classics like 101 Dalmatians or The Sword in the Stone.

Traverse Town serves as a base of sorts, and our party returns here multiple times to begin the next step in their journey. It is where Sora, Donald, and Goofy first meet, and it also holds the gate into Winnie the Pooh’s 100 Acre Wood.

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Kingdom Hearts: a Universe of Storyworlds

The Kingdom Hearts video game franchise is a collaboration between Square Enix and Disney Interactive and my selection for the “storyworld” I will be investigating throughout the semester. The story follows Sora, a wielder of the Keyblade, who journeys across worlds accompanied by Goofy and Donald Duck. Yes, that Goofy, and that Donald Duck. The worlds they travel to are manifestations of Disney movies and contains characters we all already know and love. 

For this reason, I thought Kingdom Hearts would be a good option to write about – the games insert original characters into unoriginal worlds, putting them where they did not belong yet finding a place for them to blend seamlessly into each universe. The worlds are literal “storyworlds,” built from the universes of Disney’s animated movies. Sora (and thus we) are free to explore Beast’s castle at their leisure, sing with Ariel for as long as we want, and continue with the plot at our own discretion. Many of the characters are oblivious to the larger storyline, or the fact that their world is connected to dozens of others.

I personally have only played three of the eight games in the franchise, but I have many fond memories of playing (after a long-fought battle against my older brother over the controller and a seat in front of the television) ever since elementary school. The series has fostered my love for Disney and for role-play games, and despite being quite unskilled in the actual playing part I loved being able to imagine I was truly in these worlds, becoming friends with Winnie-the-Pooh and Mulan. I look forward to revisiting my childhood in more ways than one, through this franchise and the movies that it draws inspiration from.