Kingdom Hearts Redemption Arcs: Isa/Saix
To begin with, there are a few things to consider about Saix when looking at his actions in the original Organisation. Firstly, he became a Nobody when he was a teenager, before critical parts of his psyche had fully matured, and because he was heavily groomed and gaslit into believing he couldn’t ever feel emotions while he remained a Nobody (more so than any other member), this guaranteed that this part of him would remain stunted. Secondly, he was suffering an unbearable amount of pain at the time that he clearly could not cope with and had to deal with inwardly on his own, but due to Xemnas’ gaslighting likely didn’t have the self-awareness or emotional intelligence at the time to understand what he was feeling and realise he was deceiving himself. Thirdly, he had been possessed by Xehanort for at least a good while before the events of Days and 2, possibly for years, and unlike Xigbar he was not even aware of it, let alone consensual of it. The details are very unclear as to how exactly this affected him, all we can know is that he became a much colder, crueller person who was still driven by Isa’s personal motivations and capable of consciously working against Xemnas. These things don’t lessen the pain he caused, but they are so intertwined with him that it is impossible to separate him from these influences to clearly determine how reasonable it is to expect self-control or for him to be any different, and therefore how much responsibility he has over his actions, let alone how much atonement he must do. Of all the atoners, his situation is easily the woolliest.
As for his actions, Saix is a character with very clear reasoning and consistent motivations he never truly wavers from, so it’s fairly easy to understand why he did everything that he did.
The Castle Oblivion situation is a very tricky one, since we don’t know for sure how much of what happened came from Xemnas, Saix or Axel’s own initiative. All we know is that Saix gave Axel orders to eliminate some traitors that were sent to Castle Oblivion, which ended up being Marluxia and Larxene. However, since the founding members of the Organisation are either complicit in or directly responsible for keeping Saix and Axel captive there since they were children, the plot against them can be justified as an act of self-defence. The only apprentice Isa is shown interacting with since the end of the original Organisation is Even/Vexen, and the two would have had to work out any differences for cooperation to be possible in their plot to betray Xehanort in KH3.
Taking Kairi away from Axel, imprisoning her and using her to antagonise Sora was all done on Xemnas’ orders as part of the plot to control Sora and have him complete Kingdom Hearts, and it is made very clear that openly defying Xemnas is tantamount to death. His final scenes in 2 imply that he never even really wanted to toy with Sora in the first place, he would much rather take his revenge on him in proxy of Roxas for taking his best and only friend away and instigating events that ruined his life (more on this in a bit). Isa has yet to properly interact with Sora or Kairi post recompletion, and so has not had any opportunity yet to apologise and personally make it up to them beyond his contribution to Xehanort’s defeat in 3.
Manipulating Roxas and Xion into killing each other was definitely messed up, but again was done under orders from Xemnas once it became clear the two couldn’t co-exist due to Xion’s out-of-control powers. Neither of which was Saix’s fault. The pair can’t really blame him too much and say he shouldn’t have done it without expecting him to at least risk getting dusked or destroyed for them. It doesn’t make their situation any better, but it is understandable that Saix would choose goals and a friend he sacrificed everything for over a decade over a couple of kids he didn’t even know and one of which he thought wasn’t a real person, accepting their fates as unfortunate and unavoidable collateral.
Making Axel choose between a friendship with him and a friendship with Roxas and Xion was also complicated. While he was definitely trying to get Axel to choose him, Saix wasn’t the source of this conflict, the situation itself was. Axel couldn’t help earn Xemnas’ trust and carry out Saix’s plans to take control of the Organisation, find Subject X and get their lives back while he was deliberately defying Xemnas to protect Roxas and Xion. Jealousy was at play here, but Saix was also laying out a cold hard truth that their interests were mutually exclusive, and by nobody’s fault. If we’re also including their confrontation in the manga when Axel tries to rescue Kairi, I fault Axel more than Saix here. Not only was Saix at his most possessed here, he was also in Berserk form with limited awareness and memory, driven only by a desire to take out anything considered a threat, and Axel put Saix’s life at risk the moment he turned his back on him and put him in a kill-or-be-killed situation.
Lastly, the main one people think of, his unnecessarily cruel treatment of Roxas and Xion. This is the only one not motivated at least partly by some form of self-preservation or ulterior motive. One big point to get out of the way is the fact that Saix was fully aware of Xion’s nature from the get-go and she only ever looked like the white featureless animated mannequin Vexen showed him in the lab, no more human-looking than a Dusk, just dressed up in a black coat, and was likely under the impression from Vexen that she was merely an imitation of life. It’s understandable that perceptions like this would influence his treatment, though it was still a horrible way to treat someone regardless.
Sadly there is much more to it than that. His main reason for this is lashing out from suffering a colossal betrayal from Axel. He was forced to watch the three form bonds of friendship and get their hearts and humanity back while his own friendship with Axel crumbled and he remained empty, when out of all the organisation members, Saix was the most desperate to get those things back. The only friend he had - and a friend he constantly risked his neck for - ditched and replaced him when he needed him most. Despite warning Axel that their interests were mutually exclusive, Axel still chose to abandon Saix and an entire decade’s worth of goals Saix had sacrificed everything for and did nothing to stop their destruction until it was almost too late, all to protect Roxas and Xion. He lost everything he still had and cared about in the name of the trio’s friendship, and he became a hollow broken man and a brainwashed slave trapped under the command of an abuser he hated with almost no hope of escape or happiness. To make things worse, at no point does he ever understand why his life has gone so horribly wrong. His treatment of Roxas and Xion was reprehensible, completely undeserved and unfair regardless of how much control he had and unjustified for as much control he did have, but I am sadly not surprised in the least that this was enough to drive him beyond breaking point.
What he did to make it up to the three though is something that often gets overlooked because of how subtly it was implied in game (and possibly some wilful ignorance and denial from Saix haters), though Re:Mind helps a lot with this. As soon as he became more himself, he self-reflected, recontextualised his actions through his original values, felt remorse for what he did, put all his rage and jealousy and pain and pride aside, admitted his flaws and vulnerabilities, corrected toxic behaviour and saved the people he hurt. The idea to have Vexen and Demyx create and deliver the replicas for Roxas and Xion was his. He planned to bring back Roxas and Xion, betray Xehanort and orchestrate his defeat to save the world and craft the brightest future, and he risked his life to make that a reality. There is literally nothing more he could have done for them by this point in the story. The only thing I can fault with this is that it could have perhaps been made a bit clearer, an official apology is still owed and it wouldn’t have taken much effort to briefly add one during his “death” scene even if there is still a lot of talking out to do, though Isa is a man who speaks with actions more than words, and his actions spoke loud and clear. Overall, a great redemption that I can only fault for not getting quite enough spotlight.
(Interestingly his story has a lot of parallels with Riku, but with some critical differences. Riku was manipulated and possessed for a few weeks altogether, Saix went through years of it, and secondly Riku turned against Sora after mistakenly believing Sora would abandon him and Kairi, while Saix was absolutely abandoned by Axel when Axel turned against him.)
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