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demispark · 26 days

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I Swear Mickey Did Not Abandon a Woman in Hell For Over A Decade (In Defense of Kingdom Heart's Mickey Mouse)

Excellent question! @notbrucewayne48 and @mintchocolatemagic , Mickey Mouse did not do anything wrong, and I will explain why.

Firstly, please leave you The Walt Disney Company-based opinions of Mickey by the door. If you have negative opinions of Mickey as a result of him being the mascot of an evil all-consuming corporation, those don't really apply here. Mickey Mouse, in Kingdom Hearts, is the king of Disney Castle and a talented Keyblade Wielder.

People seem to have a lot of animosity towards Mickey Mouse in Kingdom Hearts. Maybe its because his reputation has been ruined by the corporation he represents, I can't say for sure. It's fine if you don't like the guy or think he's annoying, but it personally grates on my nerves when people let that color his depiction and actions in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.

This post ended up pretty long, so if this is way too long of a post, I recommend reading the first two paragraphs, watching the video, and reading the last paragraph. Maybe not as good as a TL;DR, but it should give you enough context and understanding without taking up too much of your time.

Beyond this point, SPOILERS for basically the entire Kingdom Hearts series up to KHIII, excluding the mobile games.

To begin with, what am I even on about? That title is a pretty extreme and ridiculous statement, after all. So, here's the plan: I'm going to show you the clip, and then we'll go through the relevant points on the timeline to examine the truth of this claim.

Here is the claim, made by the supposed victim herself: Keyblade Master Aqua.

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Aqua claims that Mickey abandoned her in the Realm of Darkness, knowing full well what a decade trapped there would do to her. However, her statements contradict reality at multiple points, likely due to the effects that sustaining an attack filled with darkness and being submerged in the waters of The Dark Margin, as well as the mental toll of being stuck in the Realm of Darkness for over a decade.

To figure out where everything went wrong, let's turn back the clock by about 11 years, to see where this all started.

At the end of Birth By Sleep, a prequel taking place a decade prior to KH1, Aqua is with Mickey in the tower of the wizard Yen Sid. Following the final battle at the Keyblade Graveyard against Master Xehanort and Vanitas (we'll get to them later, don't worry), Aqua and her friends are in bad shape. Aqua was really the only survivor, with Terra going missing and Ventus' heart being shattered, leading it to sleep elsewhere until it could recover (we'll get to them as well). Mickey, Aqua, and Ven were blown away after defeating Vanitas and destroying Xehanort's attempt to forge the X-Blade (Pronounced the same as Keyblade, and good lord we will get to that later), and Mickey brought Aqua and Ven to Yen Sid.

Leaving alone, and not really having told anyone at the tower where she was going, Aqua returns to her old home, the Land of Departure. There, she drops off Ven's sleeping body, and uses the Keyblade of her now-deceased Master to transform the land into a confounding castle that we'll come to know as Castle Oblivion. Following this, she senses Terra's voice and goes to a world called Radiant Garden. It is here that Aqua discovers the truth of Terra's disappearance. Terra had been manipulated throughout his journey to be consumed by darkness, which Xehanort took advantage of. Using his own Keyblade, he removed his heart and sent it into Terra's body, possessing it.

Long story short, Aqua won the fight but failed to free Terra, and he began to sink into the darkness. Aqua dove in after him, using her Keyblade Armor to protect herself and her glider to attempt to get herself and Terra out of the darkness. Realizing that herself and Terra were too heavy and wouldn't make it out in time, Aqua sent Terra ahead with her Keyblade and armor, launching him out of the darkness as she sank into it.

This will be very important later, so remember it, I won't be getting into it in this post, but it will come back later.

This is where she spent the next decade, wandering through the Dark World and the remnants of worlds that had fallen into the darkness, plagued by hallucinations, phantoms, wave after wave of Heartless, and even a dark reflection of herself that pointed out all of her mistakes and gave a voice to all of her intrusive thoughts.

Mickey didn't know where Aqua went, and it isn't easy to just enter the Dark World, so he was not able to find her. Between being the King of a world and training to become a Keyblade Master, he likely didn't have time to look for her forever, either.

Do we see Aqua sitting around waiting for help to come, as she claims? Nope.

... 0.2 - A Fragmentary Passage is an interesting game.

Anyway, silly new accessories aside, we see Aqua traveling though the Realm of Darkness, enduring the previously mentioned hardships. Here, she encounters Mickey, who slipped in via a world that was in the process of falling to darkness. He explains that the worlds are in trouble, and that he is searching for a Keyblade of the darkness, a counterpart to Sora's that will allow them to seal the Door to Darkness.

This coincides with the ending of Kingdom Hearts 1. After battling through more powerful Heartless, Aqua and Mickey see Riku running towards the Door to Darkness, and are beset by a Demon Tide, a powerful storm of basic Heartless known as Shadows. Aqua attempts to hold them off, which allows Mickey and Riku to assist Sora, Donald, and Goofy in sealing the Door from their side. Aqua tells Mickey to go on without her, before losing control of the Demon Tide and getting swept away. Her ending monologue is resolute, however, prepared to face the darkness and act as a guiding light for whomever finds themself trapped in the Realm of Darkness next.

Not only was this Aqua's choice, her sacrifice, but she stood by it. So what happened, and why didn't Mickey return for her immediately? The simple answer is that Mickey had a lot of more urgent things to worry about than assuming a Keyblade Master couldn't take care of themself.

Immediately after this, Mickey needs to look after Riku and get them out of the Realm of Darkness. This leads into Re:Chain of Memories.

Sora and Co. could help, except that they had their memories tampered with, and will spend the next year asleep while false memories are removed and their forgotten memories are put back in place.

Riku has been struggling with the darkness throughout KH1 and Re:CoM, so he isn't in the best place to be thrust back into the darkness.

Over this next year, the threat of creatures called Nobodies and the sinister Organization XII rears its head, and Riku doesn't exactly get better with his darkness.

Forced to rely on the darkness, Riku transforms into the spitting image of the man who used his darkness and possessed him - Ansem, Seeker of Darkness - and this isn't exactly great for his mental state, either.

Sora was weakened by his journey through Castle Oblivion in Re:CoM, and with the threat of the Organization looming, the hero had his work cut out for him before Mickey would even dare asking him for help.

Sora and Riku, who has finally gotten his darkness under control, end up at the Dark Margin by the end of KHII, but do not encounter Aqua there. Since Aqua was not there, the attack that overwhelmed her with darkness and sent her flying into the water that was mentioned earlier must have happened between the final world of KHII and this scene. They manage to escape, and return to the Realm of Light.

Sora and Riku rest back at their home, the Destiny Islands, during the events of Re:Coded, and eventually receive a message from Mickey calling them to Yen Sid's tower. These boys need to get better, hopefully becoming Keyblade Masters, in order to rescue the fallen Keyblade Wielders from their fates and prepare for the upcoming final battle. Dream Drop Distance comes and goes, and Riku is named a Keyblade Master.

Prior to the events of Kingdom Hearts 3, Mickey relays his experience in the Realm of Darkness with Aqua, to which Riku angrily questions why Mickey never told him or attempted a rescue.

You should know the answer to that by now.

Mickey explains that he respected Aqua's wishes, just as he did for Riku in the past, stubbornly refusing to tell Sora anything about his missing friend during KHII, as Riku was dealing with the whole Ansem and darkness thing and made Mickey promise not to tell Sora.

Yen Sid also chimes in, pointing out that if Sora and Riku had found out, they would've recklessly tried to find a way into the Realm of Darkness to stage an ill-fated rescue mission.

Now, however, the time has finally come. Since Mickey's Kingdom Key D is a Keyblade from the Dark Realm, he could use it to enter the Realm of Darkness without having to use the incredibly unreliable and dangerous method of waiting for a world to fall into darkness.

Mickey and Riku suit up in some new darkness-resistant threads made by Yen Sid and the Three Good Fairies (of Sleeping Beauty fame), and set out for the Dark Realm.

This doesn't go well, to say the least, leading to Mickey and Riku's Keyblades being damaged. Mickey's is recovered and used to create the Star Cluster (which Aqua can be seen picking up in the video shown at the beginning of this post), while Riku leaves the pieces of his behind and recieves a brand-new Keyblade.

Second time's the charm, and now we are all caught up to the aforementioned clip from KHIII.

Anti-Aqua happens, Sora shows up via the power of friendship and following his heart (oversimplification, you know KH isn't that simple), and Aqua is finally rescued from this dark hell.

So, to wrap it all up, Mickey very much did not abandon Aqua. Aqua disappeared off the face of the worlds - literally all of them - for ten years, sacrificed herself to protect Mickey, Riku, and the worlds when Mickey finally did find her, and then Mickey simply did not have the time or resources to stage a rescue mission that actually would've worked in the year or two following his original trip in the Realm of Darkness.

Thank you for joining me on this rather long-winded case. I feel like my writing ended up being a little stiff due to all of the recapping I was doing, so if you have any critiques I would love to hear them!

Until next time, may your heart be your guiding key.

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holly-natnicole · 4 months

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In my K.H. rewrite timeline, all the children have at least 1 mentor.

Vanitas' are Xehanort (who is emotionally & physically abusive) and Cloud (who starts out aloof & not even meaning to be zir mentor, but ends up giving zem advice often by accident then later on purpose teaches various skills to Vanitas).

Ven's are Xehanort (who is emotionally & physically abusive), Eraqus (who is genuinely nice despite his strict nature, but their last interaction is him trying to murder Ventus for the greater good without even trying to think of an alternative solution), and Leon (who initially reminds Ven of Eraqus, which makes their platonic friendship toxic since the lack of communication between Ven & Leon causes both to severely misinterpret what's going on; but they learn to talk properly to each other thus causing them to become close and Ven to slowly regain his trust in adults). (Terra and Aqua are more not-biological-nor-legally-adoptive older siblings to Ven than being his mentors.)

Roxas' are Axel/Lea (their not-biological-nor-legally-adoptive-siblinghood starts out casual then becomes toxic, but they work through their issues with some help; especially since Lea/Axel was the one causing all the toxicity and had learned the hard way that many of his decisions in regards to Roxas & Xion have been mean at best & cruel at worst) and Merlin (who helps Roxas study and provides a safe space to work through his various emotions).

Shion/Xion's are Axel/Lea (coz Lea/Axel is in Castle Oblivion when Shion first starts gaining personhood through Sora's lost memories, it takes a few weeks after his mission for him to warm up to her; then their not-biological-nor-legally-adoptive siblinghood gets toxic before it eventually improves), Saïx/Isa (starts out toxic, stays that way for many months whilst his firm belief that she's solely a puppet with no thoughts nor feelings bit by bit gets disproven, and slowly improves when an incident forces him to accept that she's actually a person then he bit by bit starts to platonically love her as a daughter or little sister when continuing to teach her things), and Barret (who helps Shion find her individuality and provides a safe space for her to talk through how she feels 'bout everything that happened in her short life so far plus he very much holds Lea/Axel and Saïx/Isa accountable for their treatment of the children).

Sora's are Donald & Goofy (who initially see her solely as a means to an end, but quickly grow to sincerely care 'bout Sora then – aside from 1 incident where they abandon Sora in favour of Riku who got 1 of the Keyblades from the enbe thus Goofy & Donald obeyed Mickey's order to stick by the Keyblade-wielder, but less than half an hour later they chose Sora over their mission – stick by her no matter what Mickey or anyone else says; they learn through Aerith shouting at them that their student's/not-biological-nor-legally-adopted child's mental health has taken a fast nosedive & that their meant-to-be-harmless teasing is why, so they apologise to Sora & make amends to the kid who they've been helping keep up with school ever since the Trinity Trio formed in Traverse Town), and Aerith (who platonically bonds with Sora coz he has an affinity for healing magic same as Aerith does then later she's who he confides in 'bout everything he has gone through on her adventures and Aerith helps Sora become less insecure in the enbe's abilities & skills).

Naminé's are Ienzo/Zexion (who starts out manipulative, but redeems themself after she changes from a Nobody into a Somebody since regaining his Heart awakens his conscience), Demyx/Myde (who aids Naminé in learning to simply relax & to take care of themself instead of being filled by self-hatred), and Tifa (who helps them become a badass fighter and is a confidant who they tells every insecurity & issue to then eventually Naminé tells her 'bout the emotional abuse from Marluxia/Lauriam and the emotional & physical & magical abuse from Relena/Elrena/Larxene, plus Tifa realises thanks to Naminé how hurtful secrets from people who the secrets are 'bout can be thus she grows as a person).

Kairi's are Minnie (who teaches Kairi music magic and helps her learn how to use her pure Light instead of throwing herself – and Selphie, who literally jumped through the Corridor of Light when Kairi semi-accidentally created it & fell into it – into unfamiliar places with no clue what she's doing plus Minnie assigns Pluto to guard the girls and gives them a Star Shard to travel with since it's not safe for non-Guardians of Heart to use Corridors of Light or Corridors of Darkness) and Aqua (who she specifically requests to be her mentor, as Kairi is the only one who explicitly feels the need to find someone to teach her new skills; Aqua quickly becomes a not-biological-nor-legally-adoptive big sister to Kairi who she helps regain self-confidence and improve as a fighter).

Selphie's is Daisy (who gladly teaches her how to use hand-to-hand combat whilst Kairi is busy with Minnie's lessons on music magic & intentionally using Light and she's the one who Selphie talks through with all the wild stuff that's been going on, their conversations helping the girl make sense of everything).

Riku's are Maleficent (who manipulates him), Xehanort's Heartless/Ansem the Seeker of Darkness (who manipulates him then in Castle Oblivion literally controls Riku's body for a short time twice thus taking away his autonomy before Riku finally kills the human-looking Heartless), Terra (whose Heart is freed from the Guardian Heartless form it was stuck in when Riku defeats Ansem, as the boy used his ability to communicate with Heartless therefore finding out Guardian was Ansem's victim just as much as he was plus Kairi purifying Riku from the lingering taint of Ansem lets Terra to regain his Heart & properly communicate with Riku instead of staying as Guardian Heartless; they both learn from each other to be better people just as much as Riku learns new fighting skills from Terra), and Mickey (whose support is pivotal in Riku not being stuck as Ansem's victim forever).

Shiro/the Riku Replica's is Cid (who is a very grumpy man, but still good at teaching him various computer & aeroplane skills) and his wife Shera (who takes over handling the lessons whenever he has to go do something very important same as how he helps Shiro learn whilst she's busy plus both help the enbe find hir individuality).

Ephemer's is Ava (who in some ways is more a not-biological-nor-legally-adoptive older sister than a mentor, but does teach the enbe a lot 'bout various magic).

Skuld, Strelitzia, Olette, Pence, Hayner, James, Amber, Sofia, Lani, Kari, Ruby, Jade, Yufi, Yuna, Paine, Rikku, Tidus, and Wakka each have a mentor too. But this post is getting kinda long already, so maybe someday I'll write a Part 2 & a Part 3 covering theirs. Plus some of the adults had their own mentors, so I might do a Part 4 for them.

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