i think iâve managed to compose my thoughts on kairi enough into semi-coherence. so, letâs chat. spoilers.
something iâve learned about kairi through considering my portrayal in 2014 / 15, compared to how i think about her now, is that i didnât give her the credit in the past that i now do for her social intelligence, and her inherent understanding of her friends.
i still hold to the criticism that kairi has been engineered into a plot device for sora to follow through on his self-facilitated heroâs journey. i believe kairiâs rendering as a goal, and an ultimate reward for sora, functions more within the narrative that sora is attempting to create for himself.
sora is obsessed with becoming a hero, because his greatest fear is to not be needed; to be forgotten by his friends, and to lose his standing in the hearts of others. ( this is something that is explicitly drawn to attention in the exchange between sora and pooh in the hundred acre wood. )
we are explicitly shown by the game that the over-arching theme is love: romantic. platonic. familial. above all, unconditional. he reflects upon these displays of unconditional love that he has witnessed, and perceives this to be the goal: this is how his narrative is resolved. thus, he projects these feelings onto kairi without truly understanding what unconditional love really feels like.
this isnât farfetched, and i donât think itâs an inherent flaw? who can really say that they know, without a doubt, what it feels like to love someone unconditionally? for sora, however, kairi is the closest equivalent. she has been the central peril to his persistence in conducting dramatic rescues to the point where he is subconsciously benching her, and undermining her attempts to break the cycle of risk and rescue.
kairi is, to me, the only person who isnât actively enabling sora to participate in his heroic fantasy. everyone else around him, even riku, will not tell sora that his decisions are rash, that he chooses his battles poorly, or that he needs to collaborate more willingly with others. kairi is an intuitive person who interprets and understands the motivations of her friends; while she is able to unfailingly see good in others, she is conscious of those traits, particularly in sora and riku, that will undermine them in some way.
as for kairiâs lack of proficiency in combat compared to her peers... i believe that she was never meant to be combat-proficient, in the context of her own narrative, and not necessarily the meta narrative. kairi has the ability to wield a keyblade, but that doesnât mean she was always destined to become a champion. we first see her summon it because she feels that she needs to physically protect sora from making a potentially hazardous decision. she goes off to train because she doesnât have a resounding faith in sora to choose his battles wisely, and to understand that she isnât something that needs to be guarded and monitored at all times.
sora enforces this narrative of end-goal, unconditional love on kairi throughout their entire relationship as depicted by the games. he explicitly tells her in kingdom hearts, when she expresses a desire to go with him to the end of the world, that she would âonly get in the way.â ( despite kairiâs magical heart powers that could keep you alive, SORA. ) during kingdom hearts 3, when theyâre about to share the paopu fruit, kairi actively rebuffs soraâs further insistence of this narrative by insisting that she wants to protect him.
( remember that, especially in these games, protection is never necessarily physical. kairi is expressing here, especially in offering the paopu to sora, that she wants him to put her safety and well-being to the back of his mind, to focus on making correctly-motivated decisions, and to let things be, if they donât turn out well for her. )
because kairi is at peace with how she regards sora. kairi knows she loves him; but love, to kairi, looks and feels substantially different to how sora envisions it, and it means something entirely different. kairi is a rational, emotionally mature person who believes in supporting the best in people, but is not afraid to demonstrate to them that they need to rethink themselves, at times. she does it to riku, she does it to lea, and sheâs trying to do it to sora by removing herself from this ideology that sheâs been placed in.
so, while riku and sora actively build one another up and reinforce their perceptions of one another, kairi is trying to actively deconstruct the heroâs journey that sora has paved for himself. she stands to represent that the people who truly love him will never forget him, will always support him, and will always be there; she resorts to engaging in a role that she isnât comfortable with in order to distance herself from the role that sora has assigned her.
this is not to say that i dislike sora in any capacity. quite the opposite. the way i read his arc is not to influence othersâ readings; i feel that by exhibiting some of his most endearing traits as some of his greatest flaws make sora that much more human. heâs still a kid who shoulders a tremendous amount of responsibility, which has led to him understanding his place in the world within this very narrow framework influenced by the worlds around him.
kairi suffers for it, just a little.
