Part 13: From Hell’s Heart I Stab at Thee
We’ve waited long and hard for this people and we are finally here. The world where we finally, finally get high jump.
Also there is some shit about Pinocchio and Riku does unambiguously evil shit and the nature of the soul is discussed. So let’s do this!
Before we get there, though, we need to go back to Traverse Town and actually meet Pinocchio. Once you get the green trinity and can unlock the moogle shop, head to the Accessory Shop. Pinocchio is chilling on the ground and talking to him unlocks a cutscene. Jiminy and Pinocchio have a whole conversation about lying. Both of them seem to have assumed that Geppetto was with the other.
With that out of the way, try to fly somewhere on the right side of the map past Agrabah. Unfortunately we aren’t getting there anytime soon, because right the fuck out of nowhere Monstro comes and swallows the gummi ship. (Also, in my most recent play through, I realized I’d never met Pinocchio after Agrabah and I decided to just go back to my last save to meet him, only to find I never saved following beating Jafar and had to go through those fights again. Whoops!)
This leads into a flashback I’m pretty sure is a Final Mix addition with Sora and Riku when they were roughly five and six respectively. Sora tries to convince Riku that there is a monster in the secret place on Destiny Islands, but the exploration there shows it was just the wind howling through the hole in the roof of the cave. One thing I noticed is that the walls don’t have all the graffiti on them, so I guess my assumption that generations of kids were drawing there was wrong. Riku notices the very obvious door, but since it won’t open, he quickly deems it boring. Riku then makes Sora promise that when they are older, they are going to leave the Destiny Islands and go exploring places that aren’t so dull. That’s cool with Sora, but for now they are going to have to settle for going to see the new girl at the mayor’s house.
Sora wakes up inside the mouth of the whale and it is clear that the whale has been swallowing a lot of ships, but they are all wooden. Who the fuck is using wooden ships to fly around space? Like, that can’t be airtight? I mean, I guess this universe has an atmosphere in outer space because that’s the only way Monstro makes sense. Probably is oxygen rich too, judging by his size.
Anyway, Donald and Goofy are pissed because someone keeps throwing items at them from on top of a woodpile, and wouldn’t you know, it’s Pinocchio! This is somewhat worrying because he was last seen in Traverse Town. Pinocchio grabs a thing and heads back to the only intact boat in the whale’s mouth.
When you catch up to Pinocchio, Sora asked how he got there. GOOD FUCKING QUESTION. We never get an answer, by the way. Geppetto introduces himself as Pinocchio’s father instead.
Gepetto apparently never bothered to instill his child with a fear of strangers, because Pinocchio goes wandering off after Riku. How long does everyone think Pinocchio is going to last as a real boy before he gets himself killed through negligence? Yeah Blue Fairy, giving him a sense of honesty was a way more important priority that teaching the kid common sense.
It’s pretty gross that this level is the literal belly of a whale. Walking around makes all these little squishing noises. But it does mean I’m singing the Decemberists to myself the whole time. I also wish the heartless in here were more themed after bacteria like the boss. I’ve never gotten the ghosts either here or in Atlantica. Never.
A bigger issue with the level design is that all of the chambers basically look the same and they all seem to cross back into each other. It makes navigating around confusing as all hell. There are also sections that are easy to fall off and you have to start completely over.
Anyway, you run after Pinocchio. Sora tells the puppet that now is not the time to be playing games, but a voice behind says “But I thought you liked playing games, Sora.” Riku follows up with asking if maybe Sora’s too cool for that now that he’s the keyblade wielder. Riku grabs Pinocchio and drags him off.
After going through the awful maze that is the inside of Monstro, Sora and co. manage to catch up. Before they do, we do get a little scene with Riku and Maleficent. She wants to know if he still cares about Sora. Riku brushes that off, saying he’s just messing with his ex-bff, and Maleficent gives some of her usual “beware the darkness in your heart” advice, which Riku does not appreciate. When Sora gets there, we get a fight. Sora wants to know what’s up with Riku and Riku retorts that all Sora seems to do now is “run around and show off that keyblade”. He frames it as “Do you even want to save Kairi?” Their fight is derailed by Pinocchio screaming in the next room.
Heading to the bowels (ew), we find that Pinocchio’s managed to get himself trapped by the Parasite Cage. Riku is more than happy to jump into battle with Sora and company, and for a moment, we get what should have been if Riku hadn’t ended up at Hollow Bastion. They work well together. Too bad it won’t last.
Parasite Cage coughs out Pinocchio and Riku immediately follows the pupped down the hole. When Sora goes to, he finds Geppetto pleading with Riku to return Pinocchio. Riku refuses. See he’s there because Pinocchio is a puppet with a heart and he gives us our first hint that Kairi has lost hers. However, he’s not going to elaborate.
The fight with Parasite Cage disturbed Monstro enough that the water in his mouth has gone down, allowing more areas to be accessed. Even better, there’s a new chest on Geppetto’s boat that gives us the best gift of all. Oh high jump, how I’ve missed thee.
Heading to the stomach by way of the throat (again, ew, and also does the internal anatomy of this whale make any sense?) we find Riku and a non-responsive Pinocchio. Riku hopes that “a puppet that’s lost its heart to the heartless” is the key to saving Kairi. He tries to convince Sora to join him but Sora isn’t having it. This isn’t right. Riku is angered that Sora would choose a puppet over him and Kairi. Sora’s retort, “Heart or no heart, at least he still has a conscious” is great from both a comeback point of view and also because said conscious runs over to beg Pinocchio to wake up. For probably the first time, Jiminy is thrilled when Pinocchio lies, saying he isn’t going to make it, so it turns out that Pinocchio is actually totally fine. Sora and Riku gear up to fight when Parasite Cage shows up again to crash the party. Riku teleports away and we get a reprise of the previous fight, now with acid! After killing the Parasite Cage, Sora tries to find Riku, having not seen him leave.
Monstro sneezes you out and everything’s okay! The team do go “hm, I’m sure Pinocchio and Geppetto are fine” which is kind of a dick move. I would be way more concerned considering that they are traveling space in a wooden boat. Which for the record they didn’t even take, it is still in Monstro on subsequent visits.
The last bit we get is Riku and Maleficent on Hook’s ship. Riku has indeed managed to find Kairi, but her heart is gone. Maleficent says it was the heartless’s doing and that the only way to find out how to save her is to open the door to Kingdom Hearts with the seven princesses of heart. I think that this is the first title drop, by the by. Riku agrees to help, because he’s gone too far down this road to stop now, and Maleficent gives him the power to control the heartless. This will end well.
I’m torn about how I feel about Monstro. The level design is, as I said before, terrible. But storywise, this stuff is great. The contrast between the technically not alive Pinocchio with a heart and the real girl Kairi without one is fantastic. Honestly it might be the best use of a Disney character within the first game. Pinocchio having a heart is also somewhat retroactively foreshadowing for Dream Drop Distance, so put a pin in that. We will be revisiting this idea.
Riku’s arc also gets a lot of development here. Earlier I said that I believed Riku is mainly jealous that Sora is special now but I’m revising that theory a bit. Don’t get me wrong, jealousy is still a big component of this fall to the dark side (especially considering his “too cool now that you’ve got a keyblade” comments), but I think that Riku ultimately is more upset about Sora having new friends than I originally gave him credit for. Riku strikes me as the kind of person that makes friends with a lot of effort, unlike Sora who is your friend if you are within each other’s general proximity and you aren’t actively evil. Even worse, while Sora has trusted companions, Riku is surrounded by the villains who he knows better than to trust completely. I think that Riku is also refusing to acknowledge the jealousy that is going on by convincing himself that Sora really never cared about him or Kairi. To Riku, he’s the one that’s actually doing something to help her. And Maleficent is fueling these thoughts for her own gain. But she hasn’t been totally successful and knows it. Riku’s attempts to convince Sora to help him at the end are definitely from a place of wanting them to go back to their previous dynamic. But it’s too late.
Speaking of Maleficent, I honestly couldn’t remember if she already knows that Kairi is one of the princesses of heart or not. The more I think about it, the more I want to say no, she thinks Wendy is the last one. Right? We’ll see, I guess.
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