Introducing Kairi: The Grey Blob of the Kingdom Hearts Series
Kairi was once a resident of the Radiant Garden before Maleficent came and took it over and then covered the world in darkness. This led to many of the residents of Radiant Garden, now called Hollow Bastion, either ceasing to exist or becoming a heartless, but a few chosen hearts that shined the most light were able to escape and make it to other worlds. Kairi was one of these chosen few. One of the seven princesses of purest heart sought out by Maleficent in the first Kingdom Hearts , Kairi found herself on Destiny Islands where she befriended Sora and Riku. They grew up together on the islands until the day the heartless came and drowned their world into darkness. All three escaped, but they all ended up walking different paths. Sora’s heart, filled with light, would walk that such path. Riku’s heart accepted the darkness and walked that path. Kairi’s heart on the other hand, in defense from the darkness, took shelter within Sora’s heart. It hid there until it was freed by a keyblade that could unlock hearts after the defeat of Riku and Maleficent. From that point on she spent the rest of the series cheering on and worrying sick over Sora, getting kidnapped by Organization XIII, discovering she too can wield a Keyblade, and is supposedly to be trained in order to wield it properly as implied at the end of Dream Distance Drop.
WHOOPDIE-FUCKIN-DO! Right?
I’ll be honest, there are a lot of characters I like, nay LOVE from Kingdom Hearts, but there are some I literally despise. Kairi doesn’t fall under either of those categories. I am very indifferent to her and that, my friends, is why she is the worst character in Kingdom Hearts.
She serves as the possible love interest (are romantic relationships even allowed in this game) for Sora and close friend to both him and Riku, and its safe to say
Can now wield a keyblade. Still has a boring personality.
that a lot of shitty stuff happens to the poor girl. Her life-less body gets kidnapped by Maleficent, while her heart is cramped up in Sora’s heart which you later find out is also housing another dudes heart and, let’s face it, three is a crowd. She loses her home, her only identifiable family is her grandma of which we have no fucking clue what happened to her when her home was drowned in darkness, her two best friends are constantly risking their lives, and even when she tries to do something about it she ends up getting kidnapped again.
With so much adversity and struggle you’d think a character like this would have fantastic development, right? NO! Kairi’s plot is all events and literally no background. This would be fine and if she wasn’t that much of a central focus to the game, but she is. Almost the entire first game is revolved around saving her and then when you finally do you get this emotional little reunion and then she gives you a lucky charm, wishes you the best of luck, and just fades behind the fact that you still have to save the world. You’d think being one of the seven keys to unlock the secrets of Kingdom Hearts she’d show a little bit of color in her character.
So then maybe, she’ll just kind of be that girl Sora can come home to and that’s the greatest extent of her story. Nope! In the second game she sets out to find Sora and gets cornered by an Organization XIII member named Axel who in turn causes her to get kidnapped by said Organization. Well shit, now she’s the center of attention again and we need to save her. So you go up to save her and it turns out Riku was already one step ahead of you on that one and she is now wielding a Keyblade. Of course that bears the initial question,“How the fuck did that happen?”
It is explained minimally in Birth By Sleep that while Keyblade Master Aqua was wondering around Radiant Garden, Kairi was still living in there at the time and an interaction of theirs triggered an event that transferred some of her power to Kairi. That still doesn’t really explain much and that game came out three years later. Way to just throw that shit together on a whim Tetsuya Nomura.
The Kingdom Hearts series revolves around these three characters, Sora, Kairi, and Riku. Sora and Riku have amazing story and character development filled with emotions both separately and through their relationship as friends, enemies, and rivals. So if Sora and Riku are the charge into battle, rash thinking, boys will be boys type of guys, that means Kairi acts as the supportive character who also is a voice of reason. So show me dammit! Show me how Kairi feels knowing that her two closest friends may not come out of these battles alive. Show me the fear of being trapped and lost in a strange world with strangers who want nothing more than to kill your friend Sora. Show the frustration with the fact that Sora and Riku are always leaving you behind to go face danger. However, she hardly shows any emotion besides being stoked to see her friends after being separated for so long and then fading into the background as they go on to fight another battle.
The real killer though is this. Since then there have been three major female roles to surface in the game; Namine, Xion, and Master Aqua. What makes their characters so significant? It’s that they all have direct ties to Kairi. Hell, Xion and Namine wouldn’t even exist if Kairi didn’t. Yet all three of them have great stories, solid development and a real emotional appeal to the player. When Xion dies it is one of the most heart breaking moments of the entire series. In 358/2 Days, Xion is not only wiped from existence, but she is also wiped from memory so its like she never existed to begin with. That’s some harsh shit. Come on, Kairi! Put some heart into it. Just because people are suffering because of you doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to suffer with them.
Now all this bashing of Kairi may seem like I straight hate the girl, but the truth is I don’t. I just think the series so far has done a terrible job constructing her character. There is still some room for this to be done though. At the end of Dream Distance Drop master Yen Sid summons her leading the player to assume that Kairi will soon be joining the fight for the light. This is the perfect time Nomura! Don’t just throw Kairi into the action without showing her true self along the way. This series is too damn good to be held back by such an important character’s poor development. I know you got it in you, you crazy ingenious bastard!
Quote: Sora…..don’t ever change.
The only solid quote I could find from her.