There are so many wonderful, deep and interesting analysis of Riku and his character development, including yours, but not so much if any on Sora. Could you maybe point at some if you've encountered any?
Sorry this took so long for me to answer, I needed some time to think how to respond and then it got buried with everything happening…but anyway…Unfortunately I can’t think of any in-depth analysis of Sora I’ve come across (If anyone else has, please link, I’d love to read them too), but I think I have an idea why they are so rare compared to analysis of Riku, and maybe give you a little analysis of Sora myself.
For one thing, I think Riku is just easy for people to relate to because his insecurities are such an up-front, significant part of the narrative. It’s easy to relate to Riku’s struggles, while it’s less easy for people to relate to Sora’s. This is because Riku’s major struggles are internal, and even his struggle with Ansem is always framed as an internal struggle with his own darkness and dark emotions. At the end of the day- supernatural darkness powers and possession taken metaphorically- Riku’s story is a very human one. He deals with jealousy, anger, loneliness, anxiety, shame, etc- and we as the audience get to see him work to overcome these things. The fact that Riku changes and grows so much as a person is what makes him so easy to write about.
But now look at Sora. I do not think Sora is a shallow character, but unlike Riku, so far the majority of his struggles have been external, and fantastical in nature..which makes him harder to relate to. With almost every horrible thing that happens in his life- his home being destroyed and getting blasted alone to another world, almost being killed by his best friend, being separated from his friends, etc- he seems to have an almost unnatural ability to take everything in stride. He has his sad moments, moments of anger, but for the most part he stays the same cheerful, optimistic Sora (except maybe when he’s being manipulated by false memories in CoM). Sora hasn’t really had to change himself or have his beliefs challenged in order to deal with his problems. It is only at the end of DDD that I think we start to see that Sora’s way of dealing with things is beginning to be challenged- and I think this will continue in KH3 (which will hopefully mean lots of material for analysis).
There is one major thing I think Sora will have to learn to deal with internally in a better way- that is his own pain and hurt (which in this series tends to manifest as darkness- and we know Sora will be dealing with internal darkness in kh3). One consistent pattern we’ve seen from Sora is that he tends to push down his own pain (and the pain of other hearts within him) and put on a cheerful smile whenever it slips out in front of other people. A few times we see this happen in kh2. He pushes down the pain but doesn’t deal with it. Eventually it’s going to become too much for him.
We know from Re:Coded that eventually Sora will have to awaken the memories within him that belong to the people connected to him. Namine explains:
“These memories, all of them are too painful. Handled the wrong way, they could damage Sora’s heart, even break it.”.
It could be that this is what the Xehanorts want to happen, and part of why they seem to want Sora to bring back Roxas. Maybe they are hoping it will weaken Sora’s heart. Also in Re:Coded, Data Riku tells Data Sora
“On the road ahead, more than one truth will come to light. You’ll forget things. Lose things that you care about, and it won’t always make sense. It’ll be frustrating, and it’ll make you angry. It may even hurt so badly you’ll feel you’re about to lose yourself. But don’t worry Sora. That won’t happen to you. You won’t let it. You’re like a sponge. No matter how much pain they throw at you, you’ll suck it up and leave things a little bit better.”
The problem is, even a sponge eventually overflows and can’t take any more. Data Riku was wrong about the real Sora. Sora already would have lost himself had it not been for his friends, and especially Riku diving back in his heart to save him. And I suspect Sora’s struggles in dealing with the pain/darkness inside himself will still have a big role to play in KH3. Let’s hope he is able to ask for help from the one person who has learned to deal with those things best- Riku. But then again, Riku has never had to also deal with the pain of multiple other hearts within him…it might still be too much for Sora even with his help…
