I don’t think any of us are saying it wasn’t bad writing. I’ll yell that at the top of my lungs until the end of days. But the thing is… everyone tries to use this all as a way to hate Kairi, when it wasn’t her fault but the writing’s. And even if you tell people that, most of the time they don’t care (because they then go “Meh meh meh meh meh! So why should I care about her, if her own writers don’t?” So then the only way to defend her there, is in the writing: as hard as that may be). So I think that’s where a lot of these arguments come in. And to be fair, there is something here. Not so much with the toy Sora comparison, but the fact that… a friend of a friend–who’s a trainer, apparently–looked at that scene where she got kidnapped and said there was nothing she could have done. Nor could she have when Xehanort summoned her unconscious to kill her (the trainer didn’t say that. That’s me saying this obvious thing). So with these two things put together, is me saying that fans shouldn’t be putting the blame on Kairi here. And really… that’s what this entire argument is about. If you want to hate Kairi (not that I think anyone should. And especially not her KHII self–despite the point I’m about to make–who is my favorite), hate her KHII self: where she got kidnapped by Axel just barely touching her dainty little hand and pulling her away that way. Not when Xemnas seriously hurt her–and was near breaking her arm–and when again: she was summoned unconscious and killed that way, without even given a fighting chance. As sucky as the situation is, I think Nomura going as far as to have those two things done to her in III–as opposed to her weak kidnapping in II–was to show that she has grown, and is somewhat of a threat now: which is why the villains had to cripple her. But I’ll still never defend this writing decision no matter what.
I’m going to say to start with that I’m sticking with the toy angle for a reason, because - be it Pride Lands, Atlantica, Toy Box or whatever - Donald’s magic physically changes their bodies to adhere to the rules of the world. Unless you suggest in places like the Pride Lands Sora was just pretending and crawling on his knees the whole time. Otherwise Sora has certain disadvantages in these forms that someone like Young Xehanort, someone unaffected by these rules, is given an advantage over.
And if ‘everyone’ used this just as a reason to hate Kairi, I wouldn’t have made the post. Because while it’s true in some cases, it’s not in others. The posts I see most often are stans calling attention to it as ‘everyone stop talking about this scene/what about the others!!!’ or jumping in on Kairi critique to make them stop critiquing her writing all together. As someone who adores Kairi, there are too many people willing to use this as a means to shut down criticism all together. Does it stem from a reason? Yeah, absolutely, I’m sick to death of seeing tagged hate of Kairi surrounding superficial reasons, but that doesn’t make this better.
And tbh the iteration in KH2 that you’re referencing is a lot more understandable considering she’d had absolutely no combat experience by that point, and no, a 15 year old girl who’s never shown to have been in a fight getting dragged off by the wrist is not ‘barely touching her dainty wrist’, especially when she struggled the whole way and turns around the first chance she gets and throws herself in the fight headfirst. And sure, and we could generously apply this somewhat to KH3 Kairi as well, but the insult to injury being that despite all the training we’re told she had (training that should have had unlimited results considering she was in a timeless realm), she wasn’t allowed to grow to the extent that this wouldn’t have been a problem in the first place. I’ve always headcanon’d that idea of yours, a princess of light battle-ready and on the front lines should be seen as a threat. But my issue? We weren’t allowed to see her be a ‘threat’. She wasn’t addressed as a ‘threat’. She was treated as a means to hurt Sora and fridged immediately afterwards for it. She had death flags waving since the moment she stepped out of the timeless zone. Sitting aside that it’s 2019 and that trope is gross, in-game battle prowess is not a replacement for narrative framing, and the framing around her is passive and used as a tool to push Sora despite her having a good battle AI. As an aside, ‘a friend of a friend who i guess is a trainer’ isn’t really a credible source of why this is Totally Plausible when there are multiple references in different styles, methods, and techniques in how to escape wrist holds.
Nevermind that out of all the weird Final Fantasy-style fights, holds and attacks we see in this series, we apparently have to be Super Realistic about this one thing but ok. Additionally, claiming that she was ‘injured’ and ‘nearly had her arm broken’ is somewhat of a reach when we only see her somewhat struggle, because the focus wasn’t on her - it was on Sora and Xemnas, because that’s who the narrative thought was important in this scene. We never see her being injured just from being held vaguely upward.
And that’s one of the primary issues with kh3. We don’t see things. We’re left to assume. Which is half the fandom’s current problem, and why it’s hard to address multiple points of yours directly. So many of these things run on assumptions because we don’t see anything.
Overall this? This is my issue. People jumping in with ‘BUT ITS NOT HER’ just derails genuine conversation. That it’s ‘not her’ is a given - Kairi is not a real person. I don’t doubt that people use this to mindlessly bash her, but that wasn’t my direction. Hate and criticism aren’t mutually exclusive, but they aren’t the same thing either. I won’t excuse its presence or execution because it’s unarguably a bad scene just because people don’t like it being brought up. There are a thousand things they could have gone with that wasn’t that, and critique of it isn’t a bad thing. If the fandom wants to defend Kairi from mindless hate, there are plenty of scenes and moments in 1, 2 and 3 to counter with that isn’t fluffing up that.
