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raainstorms

I am your servant. Whatever you need.

raainstorms

You’re smiling.

raainstorms

I need you to be my wings.

dazzlewolf

Riku literally has NO CHILL when it comes to his best friend.

KH1 Riku: Oh, Sora found new friends? Fine, I’m gonna go sulk in darkness for the next few months.

COM Riku: Sora, I’ve finally learned how to handle my dark side - oh, he’s sleeping. Better go on a dangerous journey that could potentially cause darkness to take over me again just for the slightest chance of waking him up.

KH2 Riku: I’m too ashamed for you to see me like this, Sora, but I’m still going to casually stalk you and be helpful. Also, I’d be cool with spending the rest of my life on a beach in the World Between as long as it’s with you.

Coded Riku: I’m not even the real Riku and you’re not even the real Sora, but I feel very concerned about your well-being for some reason. For a journal, I seem to have an awful lot of real emotions. Weird.

358/2 Days Riku: I’m sorry that I’m being a bit of a jerk, Roxas, but Sora can’t wake up if you’re still around. You understand, right?

BBS Riku: I want to be strong so I can protect the people I care about. Sora. I’m talking about Sora.

DDD Riku: So, those two people love each other? I’m going to make blatantly obvious parallels to Sora and I. Dearly Beloved is the combined song of our souls. Sora is in trouble, I’m going to JUMP INTO HIS HEART AND SAVE HIM NO MATTER WHAT THE PERSONAL COST.

lieserli

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) / Kingdom Hearts 3 (2019)

bilosan

generatedreflection

I’m so glad someone finally giffed this! I’ve been wanting to talk about it but I cannot gif to save my life.

During the scene in the Mysterious Tower, I immediately zeroed in on Riku putting his hand on Sora’s shoulder to reassure him, and I started thinking about why it jumped out at me.

Then I realized that Riku really is very hands-off with like… everybody except Mickey, who is well established as the only one he’s vulnerable around. As comfortable as Sora is with him, touch is never something Riku has used as part of his communication. His whole thing is darkness (=isolation), and throughout the series, Riku has struggled with keeping people at a distance in some form or another, whether by playing cool or just self-isolating. He’s aware of this tendency himself in DDD when he calls his heart a prison, and Sora knows, too, when he mentions it in Arendelle. And we can see it reflected in how he generally doesn’t touch anyone, especially when he doesn’t reciprocate or even really respond while Sora hugs him or throws an arm around him in DDD. The fact that Riku is reaching out to Sora here in 3 indicates a shift in him to becoming more open, to feeling ready to reach out to someone else instead of always being reached out to.

So when I saw THIS I just about lost my damn mind (and actually doubted my eyes at first). Even here, he briefly stands at a distance as the last to join. Finally, he steps forward and sort of hovers there awkwardly for a second before he rests a hand on Sora’s shoulder (and maybe Mickey’s head), which is such a Riku way of trying to hug someone, honestly. He doesn’t want to separate himself from this moment, but he doesn’t really know how to participate, I think.

And then Sora goes to bring him the rest of the way in. Riku intentionally moves his hand so Sora can get an arm around him, and then when Riku puts his hand down again, it’s much heavier, more relaxed and comfortable being connected.

It’s such a tiny gesture but it represents so much growth in his character <3

adelelorienne

“Don’t chase the dreams, Sora. You have to wake up.”

Dream Drop Distance. That emotionally staggering, beautiful art-form of a game still keeps me awake at night. WIPs on my Patreon, prints on my Etsy!

databoyreekoo

I have a thing i want to pick your brain on if you don't mind. remember the whole kairi tunnel of light scene and how there was a flashback to moments from frozen and tangled? why those two moments? wouldn't olympus or potc been a better choice if they were aiming for romance? i mean, i have also considered marketing or those two being princesses or something along those lines, but could there be a possibility of something more? what do you think?

Hnn.. I’m gonna be honest, there are two different ways I can answer this; I could be blunt or I could be civil. I know I have followers who enjoy Sora/Kairi, and I want to be respectful towards them.. so I’ll answer this as best as I can without sounding like an insensitive ass.

Those specific flashbacks followed the themes of true love, sacrifice and the reviving power that comes with it.

For Rapunzel, she was willing to be enslaved by Gothel for the rest of her life just to make sure Eugene could continue on living and be safe. For Eugene, as he lay dying, he cut Rapunzel’s hair (the source of Gothel’s “youth”) instead of letting her heal him. He freed Rapunzel from Gothel at that moment, but at the cost of his life. They both were sacrificing themselves for each other, and their true love was what brought Eugene back; the reviving power of Rapunzel’s tears.

As for Frozen; Anna spent her last moments living to shield Elsa from Hans’ attack, lifting her hand to stop his sword. Anna could’ve easily had Kristoff, her true love, stop the ice from poisoning her heart BUT, because she loved her sister, she chose to sacrifice herself instead to save Elsa from Hans. Her act of true love for her sister and her self sacrifice caused the ice that was poisoning her heart to melt.. bringing her back to life. Love was what Elsa needed for her walls to crumble and for the storm she created to finally dissipate. (Don’t forget; Frozen was blunt about the Elsa/Riku parallels).

In my opinion, PotC didn’t really follow the whole “true love, sacrifice and revival” theme. If you remember, Sora asks Jack about saving William, only for Jack to basically say they had to accept it for what it was, to Sora’s dismay. It followed the same theme as San Fransokyo; separation for the betterment of one another. (Also, don’t forget; Sora in PotC admits he still has a lot to learn about love, and San Fransokyo has a parallel to Kairi).

Now, Square could’ve used Olympus, but that would’ve made it a little too obvious… AND YET after what SENA did with kh3, I kind of feel like they should’ve included Olympus too lmao

Remember; after Riku’s first sacrifice, Sora is thrown into the Final World. After piecing himself back together, he returns to the real world only to witness Riku’s sacrifice for a second time. He gets sent into the tunnel of light this time, and what happens?

He sees a light. Instinctively, he knows the light is Riku. He calls out to it and it answers — guess where it takes him..

Olympus. (You see why using Olympus would’ve been too obvious, now?)

After saving Riku, Sora uses the power of waking to traverse worlds in order to reach the hearts of the other Guardians. After saving them all, aside from Kairi, the gateway to the Keyblade Graveyard opens again. That’s when Sora finally runs into Kairi.

She’s off to the side and Sora has to physically move his head in order to look at her. And if that wasn’t enough to get the point across, she physically moves in front of the light because she was literally off to the side — and I’m not trying to be that guy, but.. you can’t be the light and be in the tunnel of light at the same time. In kh1, the tunnel of light gives Sora a flashback to little Kairi and her Grandmother telling her a story — Kairi wasn’t present in the tunnel then because during that time she was Sora’s light.

This is supposed to reveal that Kairi is no longer that light for Sora, it’s someone else. Hearts change. People grow up. They realize things that they didn’t before… but in Sora’s case, he’s been so busy worrying about others that he hasn’t had time to think for himself.

And like I said earlier, instinctively, he knows the light/his light is Riku at this point; it’s in his subconscious. Based off kh1, we can assume that looking into the light is what gave Sora the flashback/vision back then, and that the flashback/vision corresponded with his “light” (who was Kairi at the time).

Keeping that in mind…

Sora receives these visions when he looks directly into the light, who we know is Riku; Square showed his sacrifice twice for a reason — it was a major plot point and a turning point for his and Sora’s relationship.

The whole point of this ENTIRE section in the Keyblade Graveyard — Riku’s first sacrifice, the Final World, Riku’s second sacrifice, first tunnel of light, finding the Guardians’ hearts, second tunnel of light, returning to the Keyblade Graveyard — is so crammed packed with subtle hints and information that it completely flies over people’s heads.

The Sleeping Realm Theory has a section dedicated to explaining this in full. Please check it out, the writers/creators have updated it quite a bit since its initial release and it’s incredible.

Anyway, TL;DR —

The visions in the tunnel relate to Riku, as he is now Sora’s light. This section of the game reveals to the player that Kairi is no longer Sora’s light like she was in kh1, as well as hinting at a possible romance between Sora and Riku in future games. Regardless if that romance happens or not, Kingdom Hearts has always been about the love between friends and the home that you find with them — romance was not the priority in kh3, wrapping up the Dark Seeker Saga was. Expect the future games to be more clear about where the series is going and what that means for Sora and Riku.

blowingoffsteam2

First of all, thank you for basically doing the second part of the “Riku is the Light” analysis I was supposed to do 2 months ago lol.

Olympus would have been good to include in the flashbacks, but I think part of the reason, other than it being too obvious, was that Hercules’ sacrifice for Meg wasn’t shown in kh3 at all, just talked about.

As for PotC, the theme was definitely not about self sacrifice for true love- and while there is an element of “revival”, Will only comes back to life because Jack put the knife into his hand (while Will is unconscious too) and makes him stab Davy Jone’s heart. In the end, while Will and Elizabeth love each other, they must accept a lifetime of separation. And as you said, San Fransokyo follows a similar theme of accepting separation and moving on.

It completely baffles me that people assume/believe Riku’s sacrifice was shown a full two times (and a third time symbolically) for no other purpose than an emotional moment, not when the main theme of the entire game- made explicit in the very first world (which is also a blatant parallel to Sora and Riku)- is the power of true love’s self sacrifice and the power of revival that comes with it. Riku’s sacrifice is not just plot relevant, it’s crucial; it is the “source” that made Sora’s survival possible in the first place.

This is why those two flashbacks were shown when Sora looks into the light. Because it’s supposed to make it clear that Riku’s sacrifice was of the same nature: one of true love. I don’t want this to be taken the wrong way but…Kairi did not sacrifice herself for Sora, so I don’t see how she could be connected to those flashbacks.

One more thing I have to bring up whenever we talk about Riku being the light…is the fact that he is indisputably shown as a literal light that Sora reaches out to in the Dive to the Heart. All the hinting in the graveyard section probably would have been enough to make me think Riku probably is the light after all, but this is the thing that makes me absolutely certain. There is no reason for this other than to make clear that he is indeed the light- and therefore the trigger of those flashbacks to true love that Sora sees.

avale-reves

“I’ll find my strength the way you found yours: something to fight for, with all my heart.”

iamoncewas

Roxas fractured Riku's left wrist during their fight in Days, when Riku sought to capture him and wake Sora from his sleep. This is why in KH2 and DDD he wears the wrap around it. Roxas fractures it with Oblivion, which is ironic, since Oblivion represents Sora's forgotten memories of Riku. [I'm pretty convinced it represents the forgotten memory of his death, and a promise they made as children, specifically]

During the DDD intro rendition of Riku and Sora's fight with Xemnas, you can see it is clearly bothering him. He looks at it and flexes it, before Xemnas punts him. This blow appears to be across the face/left shoulder, but it's not really clear. Probably also hurt super bad.

After this, when Xemnas is about to finish off Sora, Riku deflects the blow and pushes Sora to safety, leaving him open to this blow from Xemnas.

Which I believe also fractured the left side of his hip. This is why he had so much trouble walking after the battle, and had to be helped by Sora.

I find Riku's walk very stiff, especially compared to other characters. And I might be imagining it, but I feel like he has an ever so slight limp, barely there at all. Fractures around joints can cause stiffness and arthritis when they don't set properly.

When Riku stands to protect Sora, he presents the left side of his body foremost. His most damaged side.

When the darkness begins consuming his body, the camera again intentionally focuses on his left leg and left hand, and you can see them falter slightly. Especially his hand, you can see it contort. Riku is actually in a shit ton of pain here. That's why Sora gasped and reached out to him, he could see it hurting him.

Riku has physical handicaps, his left wrist and left hip, that both originated from him protecting Sora. Not to mention how he stood there and literally let the darkness eat him alive trying to protect him.

So I want to point out the significance of this scene at the end of KH2.

Upon seeing Kairi, in his joy Sora immediately seems to forget about Riku's injuries, which came from... Riku protecting him. Riku is shown growing distant in the background, walking slowly, struggling, being left behind by Sora. But he's happy that Sora is happy, and safe, because that's what's most important to him. I imagine however, that he was also incredibly sad watching Sora run to Kairi, knowing that Sora wanted to be next to her at that moment rather than him, even though Riku had suffered so much for his sake.

The way the shot is framed, as Sora runs toward Kairi, he blocks out the sun completely.

If he had stopped, turned around, and looked at Riku, he would have been looking directly at the light.