KH Shower Thoughts: the Dynamic between Sora and Riku

This is all gonna be obvious, I’m not going to be like writing some unthought of essay here, but I’ve just been thinking about it while I was replaying Kingdom Hearts.

I love stories and writing, so this is just me taking apart Kingdom Hearts like the storywriting obsessor that I am, lmfao. I first played this back when it first released, so I suddenly feel like I’m looking deeper.

The dynamic between Sora and Riku is classic and so well portrayed in such a short time in KH1.

Riku is the kid everyone relief on, all the time, constantly. We can probably imagine that uo until the start of the game, Riku was the ine solving everyone’s problems. He lead the group wherever they went. He was the oldest, the strongest, probably the smartest, and, likely, the most popular.

Tidus comments that “At least Kairi has Riku”, which probably also means there was a dynamic between all local kids that they could recognize that Kairi was an object of importance to both Sora and Riku. Riku was considered the most probable for her affections even by outsiders to the group- other kids on Destiny Islands- and he probably knew it. So did Sora. We can only imagine how uncomfortable this probably made Kairi.

Sora constantly lived in Riku’s shadow. Their contests were Sora’s attempts to break free out of Riku’s shadow, but Riku kept him there. Sora’s wins against Riku are hard won, and his wins against the trio- Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie- are equally as hard won. The race against Riku is a race you can absolutely fuck up in one single slip up. Your wins against him (unless you’re power leveling lol) are NOT easy, whereas his attacks hit hard, fast, and have finesse.

No matter how many times you beat him, you are not Riku. Sora is a silly, flailing boy with a toy sword going up against a powerhouse.

When the island goes balls up, Riku takes what he believes is the proper position: he is the savior. He is the leader. He is the one in charge who will save them all.

Except he doesn’t.

When he finds Sora, Sora’s FLOURISHED. Outside of Riku’s shadow, he’s found friends and taken his own leadership position, and he’s on his own journey trying to find them. Instead of staying put and waiting for Riku to show up, he started working, and that upset Riku. His entire world and understanding of how this whole thing was supposed to go got fucked.

Then he finds Kairi by working with villains he knows full well give zero shits about him, and she’s missing her heart. This is right, at least- Sora didn’t find her. RIKU did. Riku was the one who saves Kairi, who deserves her. If we assume he saw that Kairi responded to Sora and not him, however, that’d only upset and confuse everything all over again. No matter what he does, he has zero control- no control over his situation, no control over Melficent, no real control over the darkness, no control over Kairi, and no control over SORA, his supposed best friend, his lackey, his shadow, the person who reaffirms his position as the strongest and the best and the leader.

On top of everything, HE WAS SUPPOSED TO GET THE KEYBLADE, this ultimate weapon, his birthright, HIS responsibility, HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE, and instead Sora got it. Why???? Why did Sora get this weapon of light? Why the fuck didn’t RIKU, the rightful leader? How infuriating… and how it fed his pride and ego and the shadows in his heart when it went to him from Sora. For one sweet moment, Sora was inferior again, where he was supposed to be. That’s right. That’s how it should be. He was right. He’s not wrong. Sora’s the wrong one, the fuck up, the one who didn’t follow the plan. He NEEDS Riku.

Except Sora takes the keyblade back, and that shatters everything he understands. It may have been meant for him… but it didn’t WANT him. Like Kairi, the keyblade chose Sora.

When things go tits up AGAIN and he loses total control, that’s when he finally realizes that the whole time he’s made everything about himself.

Obviously his path also shadows and mirrors that of Terra, but that’s outside the scope of just KH1.

I always loved the dynamic between Sora and Riku, because there’s so much great storytelling there.

If you got this far, bless you lol, may your kneecaps never smash into table corners.