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lightandfellowship · 2 months

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KHDR Re:Write - Giving Urd A More Prominent Character Arc

The tl;dr:

Urd’s initial motivation: To explore the outside worlds and learn more about them.

Urd’s struggle: She realizes that when their mission ends, she will go back to her boring, normal life in Scala, once again forbidden to leave. This in conjunction with feelings of loneliness make her consider running away after their mission is complete.

Urd’s conclusion: The freedom to explore the worlds is still a motivating factor, but she realizes that protecting the worlds and sharing her experiences with her friends is her true desire, compelling her to stay in Scala and continue her training. Her loneliness can not be cured so easily, but her friends will help her work through it.

Below the read more is a rough outline of how I would implement this character arc into the story. Be forewarned that it's a fairly long and text-heavy post.

Four notes before we begin:

Rather than this being a full-fledged rewrite where I get to go ham and do whatever I want, instead my goal is to try and demonstrate how the game in its PRE-EXISTING state could have given Urd a more clear and satisfying character arc via fairly minor changes to the dialog, characters, and story. I want to see if this could have been possible without having to expend too much extra time and resources, since it seems like a lack of time/resources/budget is why her story got cut in the first place. So I won’t be doing anything drastic like creating entirely new episodes or anything like that. Same worlds. Same number of episodes. Same sequence of events. Same overarching plot.

Ideally, I would have liked to convey certain details about these characters and their story via secret reports/diary entries. Specifically, the sorts of details that would slow the pace down or feel a little too direct/clunky if addressed within the story itself. However, because of the self-imposed restriction I talked about in point 1 (i.e. no drastic alterations to the game or additions that would require extensive effort to implement), I won't be utilizing such a format, and so I will sometimes have the characters speak a bit more openly/directly about their feelings/thoughts than I otherwise would've liked.

Because I have a lot to say, I won't be providing summaries of the episodes I'm discussing as I explain my story changes. A fairly solid recollection of the game's events is...perhaps not required, but certainly helpful for understanding what I'm talking about and how I arrived at my choices.

I don't claim to know better than the writers or even be an experienced writer myself, this is just how I personally would approach giving Urd a more prominent character arc, because I think we can all at least agree that Urd didn't get enough focus in this game. If Urd's story hadn't been cut (presumably), I have no doubt that Tomoco Kanemaki would have come up with something better than what I'm proposing here.

But anyway, without further ado:

Urd's Motivation and Personality

During the flashback where the underclassmen explain their reasons for wanting to become Keyblade Masters, Urd says that it’s because she wants to explore the outside worlds and learn more about them. However, I feel that KHDR could do a better job of depicting this motivation throughout the game. Were it not for Urd directly stating her motivation in this scene, I don't think you could have ever reasonably guessed that this was her motivation based solely on her dialog and actions throughout the rest of the game.

She says her dream is to see the outside worlds for herself, and yet she rarely ever shows any particular interest in the Disney worlds that she does visit, or at least she’s no more interested than the rest of her friends are, which is to say: barely. It's a common gag/occurence throughout the game that the underclassmen are either disinterested or unsettled by the worlds and their inhabitants, and for whatever reason Urd is included in that. Sure, she’s on an important mission, but where’s the curiosity? Where’s the desire to learn more about the worlds? Shouldn’t that motivation bleed into her actions and dialog even a little bit? Even if she’s trying to reign herself back for the sake of the mission?

I think having Urd be just as indifferent/detached from the worlds as her friends is a misstep, personally. So in this rewrite, I am adjusting her personality a bit, in contrast to Hermod who doesn't really require any personality changes in order to have his arc make sense (to be discussed in his rewrite post). In short: I want her to be more excited and inquisitive in each world. I want her to be enamored by all the strange sights and sounds. I want her to get lost in thought as she analyzes some new find, her friends having to snap her back to reality and remind her of their mission. When the rest of the characters are awkwardly trying to ignore some oddity that's demanding their attention, I want Urd to be one of the few who actually shows genuine interest.

Like I mentioned, I know the characters are on an important mission and aren’t supposed to get sidetracked from their primary goal, but like, Vor and Eraqus were allowed to be curious and easily distracted by stuff, so I don't see why Urd couldn't as well, at least a little bit. I also think this personality change will provide more variety among the underclassmen, specifically in how they interact with the outside worlds.

Anyway, for the sake of not making this post any longer than it needs to be, I’m not going to list every dialog tweak that needs to occur in order to accomodate this personality change, just the most notable ones I can think of.

One last thing: it’s under-explored, but the game seems to suggest that Urd might be lonely. When remarking on how close Eraqus and Xehanort are, she says that she wishes she had a relationship like that herself. The implication seemingly being that she doesn’t feel like she has any best friends to share a special bond with. I think this desire for a friendship like Xehanort and Eraqus' may be further evidenced by the fact that she tends to tease Eraqus the most and is pretty friendly with him in a way that she isn't with the others, which makes me think that she's indeed jealous (in a nice way) of the relationship Xehanort has with Eraqus, and thus attempts to mimic their dynamic with Eraqus.

To me, Urd being lonely is too interesting of an emotional angle not to expand upon, even if the writers didn’t intend for her one-off comment to mean anything deeper. And I think her struggling with feelings of loneliness will synergize well with what I have in mind for her story.

Episodes 1-4: Establishing Urd's Character

The first dialog tweak: when Odin informs the class that they’re being sent on a mission to the outside worlds, in addition to Eraqus and Bragi expressing excitement at the news, I want Urd to be excited, too. She can still have her “Don’t sound so excited about it.” line, but maybe after she says that she makes her :3c face because she can’t hide her true feelings. Eraqus can reply with something like “Speak for yourself, Urd! Getting to see the outside worlds is a dream come true for you!”. Hermod and Eraqus can then have their usual lines of H: “Hey, this is serious! People are missing, you know!” and E: “Right. Sorry.”

As cool as the party member specific dialogs in Episode 3 can be, I’m dropping the mechanic where Episodes 1-3 let you choose your party member for the cutscenes. IMO, it's just bad for the story, because you can never focus on just one particular character and properly illustrate their unique personality; everyone's dialog has to be juuust generic enough to be easily swappable. Instead, in my rewrite, Urd is your assigned party member for Episode 1; perhaps she's even the one who requested to team up with Xehanort and Eraqus.

Not much happens in Episode 1 admittedly (it's mostly an exposition dump and premise setup), but in the very least it needs to establish and emphasize her love for exploration and learning. I think this can be easily achieved with the pre-existing Agrabah scenes. For example: when the party arrives to the outskirts of Agrabah and is attacked by Heartless, have Urd be disappointed that their first trip to the outside world was soured by their presence. When the party enters the abandoned city proper, have Urd express further disappointment that there’s no residents to interact with. Things like that. But obviously still have her be serious about their mission and the missing upperclassmen; she shouldn't seem selfish in her interests.

So Episode 1 is just kinda whatever, but It’s in Episode 2 that I definitely want her desire to learn and explore be in full force (she’s your primary party member for this episode as well. Which also synergizes with my Hermod rewrite—stay tuned for that, eventually). Everything in Wonderland is so strange and different and fascinating to her. The other characters find the world confusing and off-putting, but Urd finds it charming and unique. This does admittedly require Episode 2 to have some extra cutscenes/events since in the base game the only thing that really happens in this episode is the trial, and I think it’s still essential for Vor to be the party member in Episode 3 (where most of the Wonderland hijinks happen) since Vor doesn’t get much screentime in the second half of the game.

Two changes I would suggest: rather than the party waiting around indefinitely for the other underclassmen to show up to their meeting spot, and having the Cheshire Cat and Card Soldiers come to them, instead they get worried and decide to leave to go look for their friends, while running into these characters along the way. Then, take the tea party scene from Episode 3 and put it in Episode 2 instead, before the trial happens. You could even use this scene to foreshadow the trial by making it so that the White Rabbit fretting over his broken watch is because he doesn’t know what time it is and he fears that he’s going to be late for the trial. This will require some dialog tweaks in Episode 3 because the characters have an important discussion there that involves the Mad Hatter and March Hare, but it's nothing too hard to work around; maybe they just visit the tea party a second time, maybe they just bring up their interaction with them from Episode 2, or maybe they only talk about the Tweedles instead. There are multiple routes you could take to accomodate this change.

And rather than the Cheshire Cat directly telling the party that their friends are locked up, and the Card Soldiers mentioning the trial, instead I want the whereabouts of the other underclassmen to be more of a mystery that the party has to solve, with Urd being the one picking up on most of the clues just by being her inquisitive and observant self. Eraqus says it himself in some optional dialog that Urd has "always been good at figuring things out".

So ultimately, it’s Urd who realizes that the “trial” mentioned by the White Rabbit (because in this rewrite its the rabbit who mentions it instead of the soldiers), and the other “trespassers” mentioned by the Card Soldiers, are both in reference to their missing friends. (And maybe the Cheshire Cat gives the party a legit riddle too that they solve together, rather than being fairly straightforward in his hint like he is in the base game). Thus Urd paying attention and finding inherent worth in the strange and nonsensical world of Wonderland is what saves the day, her natural curiosity and collected knowledge about the world and its residents coming in clutch. This way, her motivations and personality can also be directly integrated into the plot rather than just being a character side story, and she gets the opportunity to shine, too.

And to tie in to the loneliness angle, I think some of the other underclassmen should be a little confused by Urd’s enthusiasm for the worlds they visit. Not in a mean or insulting or putting her down kind of way (they are friends!), but just a little at a loss for how to react when she expects them to understand her feelings and her point of view. The plot doesn’t need to highlight this too directly, just have Urd’s classmates being confused/unsure of something Urd says or shows them and then have Urd looking a little let down at their lukewarm reactions. Much like the underclassmen unintentionally leaving Vor out of stuff and underestimating her, I want this to be kinda subtle and under-the-radar. This would be mostly meant as set up for her arc later.

All that being said, I imagine Urd's loneliness isn't just because her friends don't always Get Her on a deeper level, it's also because she's not really open about her true feelings a lot of the time. Her official bio states that she's relied upon by the others, so perhaps she's too scared of burdening her friends with her own issues. However, relationships are a two-way street, and she's partially preventing herself from forming that close bond she desires because she isn't really letting herself lean on her friends when she needs them.

Episode 5: The Problem/Conclusion

So, to summarize, Episodes 1-2 need to establish her love for exploration and learning (and also give some brief glimpses at her loneliness) since she’s not present much in Episodes 3-4. Episode 5 is when her side story needs to officially complete. A rather quick arc, admittedly, but I think that’s what would work best in the framework of what the game gives us; the base game seems to suggest that her arc was supposed to end in this episode, anyway.

Events start to unfold when Urd realizes that once their mission is over, things will go back to normal and she will no longer be able to explore the outside worlds until she becomes a Keyblade Master. Something that might not occur for YEARS; heck, something that might not occur AT ALL if she fails her exam or if Scala's rules change. Thus, she starts to question whether she even wants to return home to Scala. What if, after their mission was over, she ran away? What if she got to explore to her heart’s content? She can’t imagine returning to her boring, normal life now that she’s gotten a taste of freedom. And maybe she can discover a way to cure her loneliness by finding fulfillment elsewhere? Perhaps it was Vor leaving in the previous episode that makes Urd realize that leaving is even an option.

Thus, in this rewrite, in Episode 5 when Lumiere offers Urd an invitation to stay in the castle, she actually seriously considers it. Of course Hermod and Xehanort are not happy to hear this, especially after what happened with Vor, and thus try to convince her to reconsider, but Urd is conflicted and doesn’t know what to do. She explains her concerns about being stuck in Scala forever, but is understandably reluctant to talk about how Eraqus and Xehanort’s strong bond has only reminded her of the closeness she desires and yet lacks. She loves her friends, but she doesn’t feel like she has a best friend who understands her on a deeper level, and she’s too scared of potentially hurting her friends’ feelings to admit this, so she keeps it to herself.

Xehanort doesn’t say it out loud, but he understands exactly the feeling of being stuck somewhere against your will and desiring connection and fulfillment in the outside worlds. He tells Urd that she should follow her heart on this. Hermod is taken aback and anguished at the situation, but doesn’t know what he can say to make Urd change her mind. They decide to just shelf the conversation for later so that they can focus on their mission of finding the culprits who stole the rose.

Vala witnesses this argument and decides to use what she's learned about Urd to her advantage (much like how Vidar witnessed Vor's conversation with the Mirror and then used that to his advantage). So when Vala finally approaches Urd, rather than trying to order Urd around (which didn’t make much sense as a tactic to begin with; that approach would have worked far better on Hermod, if you ask me) instead Vala tries to convince Urd that she can have the freedom she wants if she joins Vidar’s crew. She can explore to her heart’s content, with the benefit of having comrades at her side to keep her safe on her journey rather than having to run away and travel alone.

Vala, perhaps through her ambigious "vision" abilities, also correctly guesses about Urd's loneliness and tries to appeal to Urd’s desire to be understood by claiming that she and Urd are very much the same. They are both level-headed, analytical individuals who crave knowledge, and sometimes people are just too blind in their pre-existing beliefs to understand their (Urd + Vala's) "vision" of the world. However, Urd is unsure. She still doesn’t understand what Vidar is trying to accomplish, and as much as she wants to run away and find meaning elsewhere, if securing her freedom means having to harm the worlds alongside the upperclassmen, then she doesn’t want to do it. Plus, the thought of traveling the worlds with the upperclassmen rather than with her friends doesn’t sit right with her, despite everything.

Much like in the base game, Xehanort eavesdrops on this conversation, but this time Hermod has tagged along as well. In the base game, Xehanort alone eavesdropping on Urd and Vala doesn't really lead to much in the story as far as I can tell, because Urd reveals her conversation with Vala in the very next episode. I think this might be a dropped plot thread where Xehanort was supposed to sit on this secret information for a while longer before acting on it somehow, but in any case, it's no longer necessary for my rewrite, thus Hermod is now here as well. Perhaps Hermod initially tries to approach Urd right away, but Xehanort pulls him back and convinces him to stay in the shadows in the hopes that Vala will reveal something important about Vidar's plans.

As they eavesdrop on the conversation, they finally learn of Urd’s secret loneliness, and see that Vala might successfully persuade Urd to leave them just like Vidar did with Vor. Hermod simply can't let this happen, and so against Xehanort's wishes he bursts into the room, interrupting Urd and Vala’s conversation to grab Urd’s hands and tell her how much she means to him and their friends. He doesn’t invalidate her feelings, but apologies for making her feel so lonely. He never meant to make her feel like she was different or weird for her interests; he may not always understand her, but he thinks she’s amazing and brilliant. And he’s willing to help her in any way he can and support her in whatever she decides to do. Perhaps he and Xehanort even bring up how her interest in the worlds was essential to saving their friends in Episode 2, to show her that she's valuable and appreciated.

Hermod's impassioned and sincere speech along with her own misgivings about Vala's offer help Urd realize two important things. One, that she enjoys exploring the worlds so much precisely because she gets to share that experience with her friends; it wouldn’t be the same without them. Yes, maybe there’s still this feeling of loneliness inside of her, and maybe she still wishes that her friends and her were more on the same page about certain things, but sharing a laugh, fighting by their side, and just getting to spend time with them are still precious experiences for her, and not to mention, her loneliness would be so much worse if she didn’t have her friends by her side at all. It’s not perfect, but she still loves them dearly, and she knows they love her back. And who knows, maybe they’ll be able to help her work through her feelings now that the cat's out the bag.

The second thing she realizes, is that exploring and learning about the worlds and its people, though a big part of her motivation, is ultimately secondary to wanting to protect the worlds and its people. Which is what being a Keyblade Master is all about, really; a goal that can only be achieved by staying in Scala and continuing her training. And a goal that would certainly be jeopardized by assisting the upperclassmen.

I imagine Urd directly talking about at least some of her thought process here when she refuses Vala's offer and explains to her why, but the rest should probably just be implied. In any case, these two realizations make her change her mind about running away. As she says to Lumiere later:

Her home is with her friends in Scala, and she has the important responsibility of protecting the worlds she holds so dear.

And when Urd says “[The Beast’s] wish will come true, I know it.” she’s implicitly including herself in this statement. She knows she’ll gain her freedom one day and form the bonds she's looking for, she just has to be patient and believe in herself. Additionally, I want this line to now invite comparisons between the Beast and Urd: the Beast, lonely, trapped inside his castle, wishing for a genuine connection, ignorant of how he is surrounded by servants who love him unconditionally; and Urd, stuck in her little world of Scala, wanting to find fulfillment in the worlds outside, feeling distant from her friends despite them loving her deeply. Oh, and, perhaps Urd telling the servants to help keep the Beast's spirits up could parallel how Urd is now going to allow herself to rely on her friends for emotional support.

Finally, to make her untimely demise a bit more of a gut punch, I think it’d be fitting if Urd got to have some dying words. Maybe something like “But I never...got to...” Got to what? Become a Keyblade Master? See all her friends one last time? Explore all the worlds? Who knows, she doesn’t get to finish. That’s for your imagination to decide.

And yeah, that's my pitch. Thanks for reading this far. If you have any feedback, ideas, or criticisms, feel free to add on.

#khdr #kingdom hearts dark road #kh urd #kingdom hearts #rambling about dim path #ch tag: ur #khdr spoilers

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