realizing a headcanon of yours happens to make an element of canon even more heartbreaking when you hadn't even considered it from that angle previously
[ID from alt: emoji rubbing their hands together and grinning evilly. End ID.]
Literally the definition of imperialism and classism. Doesn’t matter how many peasants you sacrifice as long as the most powerful piece is left standing
He's no stranger to nightmares. He wonders if perhaps it's stress related. With everything going on, it's remarkable he hasn't had one sooner, honestly.
Hylia Settlement is enduring a difficult winter. The harvest from the summer was poor, as the cold had come early, and it had not left since its arrival. Although everyone tried to be as prepared as possible, this is proving to be their worst winter yet.
It isn't just them, though, and that is where the main stress lies.
Link, Zelda, all of the Skyloftians are familiar with the Zonai. They're a brilliant people, highly innovative and cunning. That is the problem. Before the cloud barrier was dissolved, the Zonai were struggling in their domain, trying to find better ways of travel to obtain resources.
Loftwings are native to the skies and exclusive to the people blessed to live up there. The Zonai had used their technology to try and reach the skies, but they knew they couldn't survive if they couldn't travel across the islands for resources. So they tried to steal loftwings to further their goal.
It had not been a good decision. The war that broke out created such animosity that, even now, generations later, the settlement warily watches their new neighbors.
The Zonai are struggling in this winter too. The ones on the Surface, at least. Link doesn't know if some of their people still try to taste the sky as his people do. But a common difficulty brings them together now.
That, and the Zonai's discovery that Link is the reason the cloud barrier is gone.
It was a diplomatic conversation, one speaking of blessing from the goddesses and how the cloud barrier had finally dissolved, allowing them all the resources that Farore had to offer. Zelda, being proud of Link as always, and trying to ensure relations between the two tribes remained civil, pointed out that Link is the reason it no longer exists.
The Zonai had been ecstatic. It had been a breakthrough in their relationship. And they'd given Link a gift.
Link sighs, getting out of bed, grumpy that he can no longer sleep. He knows that the most recent negotiation of food and other resources from today was a tense one, though infinitely relieved by Zelda bringing up Link's contribution. But this gift of theirs is certainly a strange one.
It doesn't really matter, it's a blessed rock of some sort, and Link has no way of knowing more about it aside from what the Zonai told him. But it at least give shim something to preoccupy his mind as he checks on the children and then bundles himself up in three blankets, holding the smooth, tear shaped stone in his hand.
It glows faintly gold, and it feels warm. He holds it to his chest to help him stop shivering in this frigid air. The winter truly is brutal this year.
He wonders what sort of magic it has, and he wishes Fi could tell him. But it's been years since he's heard his faithful companion's songful voice, and he knows it's silly to think about it now.
But honestly, it's probably because of the nightmare. He dreamed he was fighting Demise, though he looked a little different.
Everything had looked a little different, honestly. And it makes him a little anxious that he thought about Demise at all, honestly. He hasn't had such dreams in well over a decade. He's pretty sure he was still a teenager when he last was haunted by such images.
Link squeezes the magical stone like he can push his stress and anxiety into it. At least it's warm. He looks at it curiously, ruminating on what the Zonai had said as they'd gifted it to him.
"These stones are precious to us. They are gifts from the goddess, blessing the user with enhanced skill."
Link asked Zelda if she knew anything about these stones, and she said she didn't remember. He doesn't push, although he is curious. Perhaps there's a different goddess? He knows Zelda doesn't remember every detail of her past life, but it leaves him wondering. He isn't sure what enhancing skill means either. He assumes it'll just improve his fighting ability.
Heavens, maybe it'll actually give him some stamina. Wouldn't that be nice.
Sighing, he finally resigns himself to go back to bed, sliding under the blankets and snuggling close to Zelda.
And then he has another nightmare, more vivid than the last. He wears something akin to his old school uniform, though something about it is off. There's a fairy at his side, and a monstrous creature in front of him. It looks like some kind of form of the Imprisoned, though its shape is quite different, but the malicious intent, the wrongness in the air feels the same.
Link fights the beast and triumphs. But then he loses everything, his beloved fairy, his purpose, his--
Link wakes up, feeling nauseous.
What... is happening?
Far more anxious, he slips out of bed, realizing the sun is up and Zelda is already awake. She's in the kitchen making some breakfast as she hums and manages their children cheerily and expertly. But as soon as she notices his pale face, she pauses.
"Link?" she questions, taking a step towards him, eyes worried. "Are you alright?"
Link swallows, and he's about to tell her about the nightmares when he realizes how silly he sounds. They have actual problems to deal with right now, like ensuring they can feed their children. He has no reason to worry her about nightmares. He shouldn't even be worried.
So he says, "Weird dreams. I just didn't sleep well. What's for breakfast?"
Zelda watches him a moment, examining him with eyes that are far too knowing. He doesn't see this level of scrutiny very often, but he stands his ground. It's okay, Zel. Just dumb dreams.
His beloved finally relaxes, and starts to tell him all about the wonderful food she has ready for everyone while the children happily offer to help so she can hurry up.
The rest of the day goes well. After their talk with the Zonai yesterday, the settlement is far more well supplied than it had been. Things are looking up overall, and Link's honestly surprised at how well the negotiations with the Zonai have gone. He's proud of Zelda for handling it so well.
And then, that night, he has another nightmare. He's fighting a monster, similar to the one the night before, but now he's on all fours, and something is on his back. He wakes as the beast's claws dig into him, and he can still feel the wound in his abdomen.
This is... getting a little unsettling. But it's... probably nothing.
Until he has another vivid dream the next night, seeing his children have their own families. It's a pleasant dream, watching generations of his family continue on, until darkness comes and burns it all. Link stays awake the rest of the night, alarmed.
He takes a tonic to help him sleep the night after. It doesn't keep the dreams away. He has more nightmares that night. And the next. And the next.
They're all variations of the same thing, visions of darkness overtaking the land, and he's fighting some form of Demise, clothed slightly differently, having different friends cheer him on, but the pain and fear are all the same.
And he... starts to worry. Because this... this is starting to echo the dreams he had long, long ago, when...
Link clutches the warm stone to his chest one night after a particularly bad nightmare, where a man with hateful eyes struck him down. But it wasn't him, it was a child, no older than one of his own, and...
And this time he hears words. Words that are hauntingly familiar.
"My hate... never perishes. It is born anew in a cycle with no end! I will rise again! Those like you... those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero... they are eternally bound to this curse."
It's absurd. It's absurd. Ghirahim babbled so much in the past that Link never took such monologues seriously. It was rhetoric, nothing more. How could Demise possibly still linger on, when Link had killed him twice over and sealed away his darkness with Fi's help?
Nevertheless, Link fights Demise in his dreams. Again and again he sees his settlement grow and be destroyed. Again and again, his family rises to face darkness and suffers for it. Again and again, a Hero rises to meet the darkness, scared, determined, cursed.
This can't be real. It can't. Link finally gives in, telling Zelda about the dreams, and as she asks clarifying questions, they both realize something.
The dreams started when he'd gotten the stone from the Zonai. Zelda wonders if they're connected somehow, and Link isn't sure if that makes things better or worse. But one night, out of sheer desperation, having barely slept for the past month, he goes to the Sealed Temple, kneeling in front of the Master Sword.
He wishes Fi could speak, could tell him about the stone, about his dreams, about some sort of direction he should go to parse this out. Zelda is growing steadily more worried about it as well, and he hates seeing how her shoulders grow heavier with the burden of these nightmares. The children are seeing it too, constantly asking him if he's okay.
He can't possibly give it back to the Zonai. That would be an insult. Both he and Zelda know it. But perhaps Zelda can ask more about it, while Link...
While Link sits here, shivering, begging Fi to help him.
He eventually falls asleep on the floor, curled into himself in front of the pedestal, and it's the first night he isn't woken up at least three times by visions of a future he somehow created.
If so do you think he materializes his intrusive thoughts through envisioning the stuffy talking to him?
"You don't help anybody sora" says the stuffy staring into his soul
do you think he has to cover up the stuffy with a towel to get it to stop?
many thoughts about this stuffy I have many wonders enter the cave of stuffy wonders with me
oh Sora WOULD have intrusive thoughts, yeah. me projecting OCD onto this boy so much rn
floppy sweet Shadow stuffy. big ol eyes and silly little ears and sometimes is little buddy he hugs and holds and carries outside with him because so what if he holds stuffy while grocery shopping??? you the stuffy cops???? he does what he wants
sometimes helps to contextualize his intrusive thoughts as TRYING to help him. stuffy tells him Sora is useless, can't help anybody, doomed to start hurting people and repeat the cycle that's hurt him so much. so Sora hugs the Heartless and tells himself these fears exist for a reason, because WANTS to be useful, WANTS to help people, WANTS to make sure he avoids hurting people wherever possible. thoughts are just so loud because he has such big feelings, they're hard to ignore. is okay though, can let these thoughts pass him by because he's doing his best to counteract these fears
but other times just too loud. doesn't know how to talk to himself, or his stuffy, or even really at all. so stuffy holds him for them, tells himself the Heartless contains within himself every fear every ounce of rage every intrusive thought so loud and unstoppable. holds them and frees up space in his mind so can breathe a little easier
and so stuffy takes a nap, big infinite eyes and threatening ears folded down into an old beanie and tucked under his blankets so it sleeps and sleeps and sleeps and the intrusive thoughts can sleep too. Sora promises himself can rest for a minute, maybe an hour, because the thoughts are sleeping and he can keep going no matter what they're doing
then later stuffy wakes up, and Sora hugs, and maybe takes outside on a walk because while sometimes thoughts sleep, other times thoughts deserve a little fresh air to breathe and maybe even float away if Sora's doing a real good job of taking care of self
One thing I love about KH3 is how it gives Sora the option to do these more mundane, everyday activites, and how this makes his disappearance at the end of the game feel a bit more tragic (to me, anyway).
Sora hasn't really been a normal kid in...well, several years, I suppose. But in KH3 he's doing things like: getting a phone for the first time and taking selfies + picture of his friends, snapping photos of new locales he visits like one would when traveling for recreation, sledding down a snowy mountain, learning how to cook, dancing at a festival with strangers, playing a video game, etc. These are all optional diversions and minigames of course, but they're slightly less video game-y in the sense that they involve very normal activites that a real person would do, and aren't something like...hanging by a balloon helping a stuffed bear get honey from a tree, as an example.
For once, he's getting the chance to enjoy life's simpler pleasures. But it's almost like he's finally getting the opportunity to do these things again precisely because it's his last chance to. I feel like this is conveyed in a really poignant way when Re:Mind's ending reveals that Sora decides to spend what little time he has left with a good friend he's unintentionally been neglecting, engaging in simple, human activities like watching fireworks or watching the sunset.
And I can't help but imagine that, after he disappears, Kairi and Riku go looking through his phone for clues...only to come across his photo roll, documenting his journey throughout KH3. Silly selfies, photos of the dishes he's made with Little Chef, beautiful vistas, captured moments of joy and whimsy. And it's the last remaining record of the normal life that destiny simply won't let him have.
I can't look at the end of KH3, with rose colored glasses.
I felt it in my heart from the first time I saw it, and in all my years of study has never changed my feelings on it. In fact everything I found only solidified it.
There are two threads in KH3, both of which start in Olympus. The angle that Sora's arc closely mirrors Hercules, in that Sora would sacrifice himself for Kairi. Someone to fight for with all his heart.
This I call the romantic, or Disney angle, and it isn't wrong. However, it isn't the only thread here. There is another, and it starts with Xigbar.
Xigbar of course comes across Sora and Co. after a cave in that Herc was under. This frames Xigbar's words, and punctuates it, as for a brief moment Sora wasn't sure his friend would make it.
It's in the words that follow, that Xigbar plants a seed of doubt. Was it really good that Sora relied on his friends so much? Or would doing so hurt those he cared about?
This is a thread that continues throughout the story. Pulling Sora further and further away from his friends, and relying on them. In the graveyard he discovers he could go on without his friends, without his connections.
So while Sora truly wanted to save Kairi and wanted her by his side, it wasn't the joyful and loving sacrifice he made in KH1. It was also born out of not wanting to hurt anyone anymore, and if that meant destroying himself, then so be it.
And so, the ending of KH3 breaks my heart. There is nothing fluffy or romantic about it, not deep down. It would make the ending easier to take. But the story goes out of its way to say "yes it is this, but it also that." Hence, I'm always left with this thought:
Sora shattered his own bonds. And that...is darkness.
I've been thinking about the friendship between Sora, Donald and Goofy lately. I haven't really studied the friendship before, though I've always liked it.
I have questions though. Especially with how it is shown in KH3. At times Donald and Goofy seem to be unkind toward Sora, especially if King Mickey is around. Some of Donald's teasing seems to go too far.
Usually I'd brush it off, knowing I'm a bit sensitive to all that personally, and never like seeing someone at the brunt of jokes. However, the story shows Sora not taking it all that well either. Getting defensive, and seemingly getting a tad bit tense over it, though he'd never say anything directly.
It all makes me wonder if I'm missing something important. Did Donald tease Sora that much in earlier games? Was Mickey that important to the two, even then? Did I just not notice, because Sora, and in turn the game, doesn't make much of it?
Or was there something lost in translation? With the recent realization that the "Sora can't count" line doesn't exist in the Japanese, makes me wonder if there is something there that could explain all this?
If there is a connecting thread in KH3, it is this friendship between those three, so it is quite important to KH3 and the story as a whole. I just wish I understood it better.
The heartbreaking nature of the time travel in KH3 means that Sora’s heart was never heard by his friends. The scream might as well have been into the void, and the words lost to the ether.
Knowledge can be isolating, heartbreaking for those who carry it. This, I think is what drives Sora to do what he does at the end of KH3. The narrative isolates the young keyblade wielder, so he feels he has to shoulder everything alone. Breaking his heart, and those connected to him.
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