Okay so the other day, I stumbled across a post asking why Sora forgave Riku for everything he did in KH1. And of course my Soriku brain went "It's because he loves him, duh," but I realized that something a lot of us Soriku Endgame Actually believers discuss quite a bit... might not be common knowledge. And so I got to thinking.
Sora doesn't really know when Riku got possessed in KH1.
Sora didn't see Riku get possessed. And Riku had been acting weird ever since the night of the storm. So it's reasonable to assume that Riku had been possessed before they even left the islands.
...Right?
Everything that Riku did after the islands got destroyed?
Sora thinks that was Ansem. That it was always Ansem.
We, as the players, know it wasn't, but Sora doesn't know what we know.
He doesn't realize that everything before their final confrontation was Riku. And yeah, Riku wasn't in the most mentally stable position, and Maleficent was gaslight-gatekeep-girlbossing him, but he still had control over his body. Everything he said were his own words and feelings.
And this is made even more clear by CoM, right after SDG (and Jiminy) first meet Repliku.
But... it's not. In the few scenes where Ansem was possessing Riku, he had the double-voice, and he spoke like Ansem, not like Riku. Repliku's behavior is much more like Riku's than Ansem's; he's cocky and volatile, while Ansem-Riku had an air of "untouchability" that would've made Repliku absolutely insufferable as a character.
It's clear that Sora thinks Riku was not in control during KH1. That's why Sora forgives Riku; because he thinks his friend was just another pawn in Xehanort's 5D chess game and had no autonomy throughout KH1. But that's not true. And they're going to have to talk about this.
Sora believed Riku did nothing wrong. Riku believes he did everything wrong. Sora's been trying to ignore the way Riku's words had hurt him - by deflecting the blame from his friend, by not dwelling on the events of KH1.
But with KH4 upcoming - with its focus on Sora and Riku stuck in a fictional world together, and the likelihood that Sora will have to learn to work through his darkness - Sora and Riku will have to discuss this.
And maybe, Sora and Riku will be able to have a true heart-to-heart conversation: no secrets, no lies, no misunderstandings. A KH2 Dark Margin 2.0.
And maybe they'll admit that there is a little bit of homo between them.
I was inspired by all the theories I’ve seen recently about Soriku and decided to add my two cents (Not that it’s really worth anything, but still). Oathkeeper and Oblivion are supposed to represent Sora’s memories of Kairi and Riku respectively. But looking at Oath keepers design, It honestly looks like it could represent Sora. If you subscribe to the Necklace theory, then Riku promising to protect Sora would have been a promise Riku broke in the first game, but Sora kept his promise to bring Kairi’s good luck charm back to her if you consider that Namine is Kairi’s nobody. Another thing that makes me think Oathkeeper isn’t meant to represent Kairi is the hilt. If you look at Nightmares End’s keychain, you can see the heart has an angels wing that has similar coloring to the wing design on Oathkeeper. Finally, the heart on Oathkeeper is made up of light and dark. If the keyblade is meant to represent Sora’s memories of Kairi, this makes no sense at all. But if It is supposed to be a representation of Sora, it could be a promise he kept to, or is keeping to Riku. What do you think?
This is just my speculation but...I really feel like KH3 will involve romance. I’ve seen many people dreading this possible aspect of actually happening, saying it will only ruin the friendship dynamic of the entire game series. I just hope there won’t be any backlash towards the creators IF it does happen.
What I find interesting about the full ver. Of Don’t think twice’s lyrics is that it speaks about an impossible love from another person’s POV, someone who is very closed off and doesn’t believe it could happen. But the lyrics indicate they’re trying to change their mindset,
“If you want to make it happen nothing's impossible all you gotta do is say the word your walls will crumble...” There’s literally only one character who has built walls around themselves from the beginning and it’s Riku. And they made it very clear in KH3D...
Then Riku answers with
So Don’t Think Twice could be seen in Sora’s POV towards Riku. 👀
