also for clarity’s sake, the reason belle rejected beast was bc maleficent wanted a pure heart, or a heart filled with pure love or something like that, so belle suppressed her feelings for beast to keep her heart safe from maleficent
also sora’s sprite here is a little interesting to me bc, i feel like, normally, sora would hear the villain’s monologue and have a moment of revelation, a realization that could help the disney character he’s currently helping.
so this for example might’ve had sora’s “surprised” sprite and been more like “she couldn’t hide how she truly felt!” bc he’s spelling it out for both the beast and for the audience/player. In a “so that’s what’s going on!” kinda vibe
or even his “angry” sprite bc he’d be all “righteous anger” at the villain’s schemes, and just had him state “she couldn’t hide how she truly felt.” just a grim realization.
but—he doesn’t. Instead of maybe being happy for beast now that we’ve gotten an explanation for belle’s rejection, he gets this sprite. the “sad introspection” sprite lmao. it isn’t always a deep thinking sprite, sometimes it’s just sad but either way, he gets this sprite, and he gets this dialogue.
he’s almost talking to himself. it’s like that one frame from the meteor shower memory where he says “I really let [Naminé] down…”
No one needs me to overexplain this scene honestly. Sora’s clearly making a connection between Belle and Beast’s situation and his and Repliku’s, whether the connection is actually there or not (it definitely is, bc these worlds and characters are literally forged from sora’s heart/memories).
but obviously it doesn’t actually reflect repliku’s real life reasons for rejecting sora. At least not according to the game logic. This reflects Sora’s feelings and HOPES, honestly, for why repliku fights him, and what could hopefully come from it. He hopes repliku is rejecting sora for sora’s sake, not bc he genuinely dislikes sora now. (“So it’s not that he doesn’t like me—he just forgot?”)
But the reason i rambled so much about this isn’t to fucking explain the soriku parallel bc we know this already. I hella love this scene bc it’s like one of the few significant times Sora himself translates the parallels in his memory worlds to his real life. Sora himself is making the connection where usually the audience would have to interpret it themselves, IF it even occurs to the player to do so (as easy as it is lmao). It gives so much more weight to the in-game concept of the worlds being not only projections but reflections of the state of sora’s heart and emotions and i can’t get enough of it! my gosh
sora’s trying so hard to rationalize why repliku rejects him poor kid 😭😭😭😭 like the three times we run into belle, i think at least two of them belle always reacts happily on instinct, and blatantly lol, only to turn around and reject beast right after—
(also oop gotta mention the shared dialogue between belle and repliku again bc-)
(also gonna clarify those last two belle dialogues were not consecutive, i imagine meleficent and beast spoke between the first and second, but the point still mostly stands)
like belle is very obvious in how she loves beast but rejects him anyway, and i think it’s hilarious bc this is literally sora’s heart putting on a play and this is the shit it comes up with lmao.
sora’s deadass tryna write fix-it fanfiction and it’s so opposite of subtle, i love it
again, the thing here is that sora isn’t consciously doing it? it really is his heart, his hearts deepest memories and desires/feelings, given form.
and finally, sora himself.
