Lately, I
have been replaying Kingdom Hearts 2 via the Final Mix in Kingdom
Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX. As many of you are probably aware, I am a very
big fan of the franchise. To that end, especially now that I am
replaying the core games in the franchise, I have been thinking a lot
about the franchise. When reflecting on many of the plots and central
premises of the series, I began to notice some issues. Though I do
have a love for the franchise, I must acknowledge the gripes I have
with it. It is one of these gripes that I wish to more closely
analyze this week.
Specially,
what we will to examine are merely a few of the game's premises. They
are as follows:
- All worlds were all once part of a larger, united world.
- Events in the past separated and segregated the worlds, with impassable walls of light.
- “Special help” is required to bypass these walls and travel between worlds.
The more
I think about it, the more I realize that many scenes in the
mini-plots of the various levels call these central tenets into
question. Some of the small details in these scenarios call into
question, if not outright contradict, these three central tenets.
As an
example, let us examine the scenario for Beast's Castle in Kingdom
Hearts 2. This level comes from the classic Disney film “Beauty and
the Beast”, and, as one would expect, takes place in the castle,
owned by the Beast, from the movie. The castle serves as the entire
location for the world, as indicated by the title. It is also home to
not just the Beast, but Belle and the servants that were transformed
into furniture as well. At a specific point in the scenario, the
Beast asks Belle to leave the castle because he feels that he no
longer deserves her.
For the
purpose of this article, we will not be discussing character
motivations or anything of the like. Instead, our discussion will
mostly stick to the logistical issues regarding this request.
Primarily, the issue at hand is that even if Belle wanted to
acquiesce, leaving the castle, she has nowhere to go. The entire
world she lives in begins and ends with the castle. Without some form
of outside assistance, she has no way of leaving to another world.
The only way she would be able to go to another world is if she
hitched a ride on Sora's Gummi Ship. Since Sora and company are not
allowed to “meddle in the affairs of other worlds”, this is not
an option.
The
other way to approach is to assume that there is a second part to
this world that we never see in the game. Though I suppose it is
certainly possible, it seems extremely unlikely. After all, the title
of “Beast's Castle” implies that there is nothing else to this
world. If there was, then the title would logically be a bit more
broad, describing an entire town or village. Again, this is not to
criticize the notion of Beast asking Belle to leave. This is merely
exploring the fact that this request implies, in the best case, a
whole different element to the level that likely does not exist.
Atlantica
is also another problem spot that opens up this type of conversation.
This world, like how Beast's Castle draws from “Beauty and the
Beast”, takes inspiration from “The Little Mermaid”. In Kingdom
Hearts 2, Ariel falls in love with a surface-dweller named Prince
Eric, just as she does in the movie. Like the case of Beast's Castle,
this raises some logistical problems with the base premises regarding
the worlds and how they are separated.
Chief
among them being that Prince Eric seems to come from nowhere in
particular. Here, we encounter the opposite problem that we
encountered in the Beast's Castle scenario. Instead of trying to
explain how somebody leaves the world, we are trying to understand
how someone could have entered it. Like before, it has been
established that one cannot travel to other worlds without special
help. Though it was possible in the original Kingdom Hearts, since
the darkness destroyed walls between worlds, this is no longer the
case. At the time of Kingdom Hearts 2, the impassable walls are
present once more. Even with the ship Prince Eric sails on, he would
not be able to travel to Atlantica from an outside world.
The
other possibility, similar to the case with Beast's Castle, is that
he hails from a location in the world not known to the player. Again,
this is technically possible, but unlikely. Were it the case, there
are additional questions raised. It would call into question Sora and
companies need to transform themselves into sea creatures to blend in
with the locals. After all, were there to be a whole area of
surface-dwellers, one would just land there instead. Furthermore, the
title, like in Beast's Castle, implies that the sole domain of this
world is King Triton's undersea kingdom. Therefore, I would logically
have to conclude that this hypothetical location that Prince Eric
comes from is unlikely to exist.
Now, the
existence of the contradictions does not necessarily mean that the
storytelling, or even the plot itself, is invalid. What it does
indicate is that the developers at Square-Enix had difficulty either in keeping track of their lore, or adequately explaining it to the
writer(s) of these scenarios. This has been an issue for Square-Enix
for quite a while. For better or worse, Square-Enix, and particularly
Tetsuya Nomura, has now become infamous for convoluted plots and
writing. While I do appreciate the desire to make intellectually
stimulating stories that cause fans to audiences to think about them,
the plot to Kingdom Hearts is frequently criticized for the many
elements that can be astoundingly hard to keep track of without
assistance. Still, the games are extremely fun to play. As for the
2.5 ReMIX, the added content makes it easy to recommend to anyone who
has an interest in the franchise, regardless of whether or not one
has played these games before.
No comments:
Post a Comment