Continuing from the previous ask, by the end of each following game/novel after KH1, Riku displays significant moments of growth in overcoming his fear of abandonment (or rather, learning to recognize and deal with it in a healthy way) - coming to completion at the end of DDD. I talked about where CoM left Riku in terms of his growth in dealing with this issue, so that’s where his change really starts to take off.
358/2 Days, KH2: During Sora’s sleep in the pod, Riku does everything he can to make sure Sora will wake up. And when he does, Riku follows him to various worlds and tries to protect Sora whenever he can. In a way, Riku is able fulfill his need to feel needed because he thinks he still needs to protect Sora, even if he refuses to let Sora know it’s him because he feels ashamed. But by the end of KH2, Riku is confronted again with the fact that Sora is equally strong, if not stronger than him. And unlike in KH1, where this would have caused his fear to spur jealousy and anger, he accepts this fact and it’s here I think Riku begins to see clearly that he needs Sora. This moment from the game and novels really distills Riku’s growth here:
“Sora?” Riku said softly. The name of his best friend, who he was leaning on. Literally.
“Yeah?” Sora’s smile was untroubled.
“You lead.” He looked ahead, too.
It’s a simple moment that’s easily missed, but for Riku to ask Sora to lead represents a huge change in him. Riku always saw himself as the leader. He clung to the idea that he was better at everything than Sora because it meant Sora would always look up to him, would always need him. But now he looks up to Sora, and needs Sora to lead him. At the Dark Margin, Riku confesses that he was always jealous of Sora- which certainly influenced his antagonism towards Sora in KH1, but I don’t think was the root cause of it. His jealousy of Sora was mostly just another symptom of his fears.
Dream Drop Distance: By this point, Riku has come a long way from where he was in the first KH, but he still holds feelings of shame over his past, still thinking he might not be worthy of the Keyblade. But this time, he looks up to Sora as his teacher:
Jiminy: “You must have someone, a friend, you can talk to?”
Riku: “Yeah…Actually I do. That stupid grin he’s always wearing. He’s the best teacher I could ever have.”
As we all know, Riku spends DDD singing Sora’s praises- which is cute and all, but Riku tends to forget to give himself credit as well. Then in Symphony of Sorcery, I think Mickey does something important for Riku:
Mickey: “Waddaya know…Riku and Sora. The Sound Ideas you two set free joined together. And when they did, they made a great and powerful harmony.”
Riku: *Nods* “Sora can find the brightest part of anything, and pull off miracles like there’s nothing to it. It’s pretty hard not to smile around him.”
Mickey: “Wow! No wonder the music sounded like so much fun! But I bet he’s got you to thank for that. Having such a good friend means he could really enjoy it.”
Where Riku only sees Sora’s ability to “pull off miracles” here, Mickey reminds Riku that he was also half of the harmony, and that Sora couldn’t have done it without him. While Riku spends the majority of DDD looking up to Sora, Mickey sees them as equally important parts of a whole. I think Riku takes this to heart, because this idea culminates into his “He needs me” speech at the end of DDD (which I don’t think is an accident that it’s so similar to his speech at the end of CoM when he sees Sora sleeping in the pod). Riku has already accepted that he needs Sora, but by the end of DDD he also sees that Sora does still need him. Not in the more selfish way that Riku expressed it in KH1, but rather in the sense that Sora will always need him as a friend, as someone who will protect him when he’s in trouble- and Sora will do the same for Riku. The sound ideas and the reality shift keyblades are representations, or, manifestations of this balance in their *cough* friendship.
In CoM, Riku’s growth was about redeeming himself so he could at least look Sora in the eyes and apologize. In KH2, his growth was about seeing Sora as someone who could guide him, and letting go of his image of himself the leader. In DDD, Riku’s growth in this dynamic between himself and Sora is complete- ending with him realizing that they need each other, to balance one another. There are a lot of aspects of Riku’s character arc you could talk about, but I would argue that the way his relationship to Sora changes throughout the series is one of the most fundamental pieces - from looking down on Sora to try to preserve his own sense of importance (and bury his jealousy), to looking up to Sora while still feeling shame and degrading his own part in their dynamic, and finally, while still looking up to Sora as a teacher, seeing himself as an equally important part of the whole.
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