13 of my Favourite Characters from Kingdom Hearts

The Main Cast of Kingdom Hearts

So yeah, I’ve found myself rambling on and on to some of my friends about Kingdom Hearts for quite some time now, so in an effort to get it at least a little bit out of my system, I’m gonna take a look at 13 of my favourite characters from the series, be they the ones I love like mad, or the ones I love to hate (villains). These will be characters exclusive to Kingdom Hearts, so none of the Disney or Final Fantasy characters, and I will be going in-depth on them, so sorry folks, but there will be spoilers here.

Riku

In his first appearance, Riku comes off as someone who had to have what he wanted so badly that he was willing to sell out his friends, his loved ones, his home, even his own heart to the darkness. As a result of these actions, he can come off as a bit excessively emo in his later appearances, hating himself for what he’d done, though not in a way that we can’t understand why he goes so far. As of the end of Kingdom Hearts 3D, he seems to be well on his way of letting go what he’s done, accepting his friends’ forgiveness and having faith in himself as the new Keyblade Master. Also, the guy is a total badass. He’s beaten Ansem a multitude of times, he fought Saïx to a stand-off, he battled the devil himself and won, and even had the balls to call Master Xehanort a failure to his face.

Sora giving support to Riku

Oh, and if I don’t bring this up, someone else will…There’s a VERY long-standing theory that Sora and Riku are…well, how should I put this? That Riku wants to use his Keyblade on Sora’s Keyhole. And yeah, there’s a lot of evidence that suggests it, and it’s of course easy to joke about and also for shippers to believe in. Now, the more meaningful relationship I’ve always found in them is that because we never see their families, Sora and Riku kind of operate as super-close brothers. So yeah, that’s always been my take on their relationship, but it’s obviously so much more fun to joke that they’re gay. LOL

Roxas, the Key of Destiny

I swear, with every game to come out in the series, I feel progressively worse for Roxas. The poor guy comes off as this universe’s punching bag at times for all the crap he’s had to endure. He’s enlisted into the Organization so that they can use him to create a massive Kingdom Hearts, all the while the higher members keep on keeping information from him and sometimes outright lying to him. He makes best friends with Axel and Xion, only for Xion to be revealed as a copy of him and Sora that was to inevitably absorb him into her being to that the Organization would have the perfect puppet, and he’s forced to absorb her first, not only losing his best friend but also forgetting her face and her name. Then he’s kidnapped by DiZ and made to recombine with Sora, effectively ceasing to exist in an orthodox manner in the physical plane of existence. Now we find out his physical form and parts of his personality are actually influenced by Ventus, and who knows what will happen to poor Roxas when Ventus wakes up. Add in that he’s a strong willed wielder of the Keyblade and is a generally likeable character, and by the end of his story, you weren’t really so sure you wanted Sora to wake up in Kingdom Hearts 2.

Axel, the Flurry of Dancing Flames

Be he Lea or Axel, this character has appeared in every game except the first and has thus undergone one of the longest and strongest evolutions of the various characters. His first appearance in Chain of Memories left us to believe he was a wild card within the Organization, acting out of his own agenda and seemingly aligned with no one specifically. Since then, we’ve learned all about his backstory, his complex histories with Roxas and Isa, and just how far he was willing to stretch his neck out for his friends. In his most recent appearance, he’s been re-completed as a person again and is now aligned with Sora and co. against Master Xehanort, even managing to gain his own Keyblade in the process. Bottom line, this is a complex character with equal opportunities spent to make him badass and comic relief. In short, this is an awesome character. Got it memorized?

Aqua

………Humina…Uh, I mean, Master Aqua! Well, she’s a Keyblade Master, making her the most powerful of all the female protagonists of the games, potentially of all the protagonists period. If nothing else, her mastery of magic is far superior to that of Sora or Riku, possibly even King Mickey himself. Aqua is the reliable one in her trio of herself, Terra, and Ventus, and will always do whatever is necessary to protect them, making her strong of will as well as her powers…And yeah, I’m just gonna say it, I LOVE this character. She’s so devoted to her friends and is such a powerhouse of a Keyblade Wielder and, let’s be honest, is such a HUGE hottie, what’s not to love? I really hope that she’s playable in future games.

Hmm…That’s four Keyblade Wielders in a row. Should probably do a villain next…Ah, I know!

Marluxia, the Graceful Assassin

This is one of the few villains I can think of that makes the rose pedals thing badass. Even that thing he does where he pulls back his hood and rose pedals fly around, yeah it looks girly, but just try and tell him that when he’s got that giant scythe pointed in your direction. He’s arrogant, vein, and deceptive, trying to stage a takeover of Organization XIII and using Sora for his plot, and as with most of the really great villains in fiction, he probably would’ve gotten away with it if it hadn’t have been for those meddling kids. lol

Hayner

Attitudinal and impulsive as all heck, but still a loyal and true friend, Hayner is one of those characters you always like to see appear. He’s just so much fun to see him and his antics and those of the Twilight Town Gang, which makes it sad that they’ve only appeared in two games thus far, three if you count their cameo at the end of Re:Chain of Memories, four if you count their appearance in the teaser for Birth By Sleep Volume 2. So yeah, here’s hoping that when THAT game comes out, we see plenty more Hayner awesomeness.

Kairi

Both a Princess of Heart and a wielder of the Keyblade, Kairi is charismatic and kind-hearted. She also is perfectly willing to get her hands dirty if it means being able to help her friends. My only issue with Kairi is that she’s played the damsel in distress on a number of occasions, although if the secret ending of Kingdom Hearts 3D is any indication, it seems she won’t be in distress all that much in the future…

Sora

Of course, how could I do a list of my 13 favourite characters without talking about the protagonist himself? I think what I love most about Sora is that he’s very much the opposite of the modern Square-Enix protagonist in terms of personality. He’s kind and forgiving to nearly everyone, even on occasion to his worst enemies. He puts his friends as top priority, be they Riku and Kairi or his new friends that he’s met on his journeys. He spends a very small amount of time brooding over bad stuff that happens, if any at all, he doesn’t flip off people trying to help him, and while he can get really angry over stuff, it’s surprisingly easy for him to get over it. When Riku is made a Master over him in Kingdom Hearts 3D, he isn’t sad or resentful or obsessed with his own mistakes like Terra was in Birth By Sleep, he was genuinely happy for his friend and as excited as he would have been had he become Master himself. Is he a perfect character? No. But he’s most certainly a welcome change from the norm.

Ventus

Sadly, there’s not a lot to say about Ventus that I haven’t already said about Sora and Roxas, as all three of them have VERY similar personalities. I will say though that he excels in bravery, willing to give up his life and possibly shatter his heart to save his friends from Vanitas. He’s also one of the more unique Keyblade Wielders in that he uses a backhand grip, and while Ven’s likely one of the weakest Keyblade Wielders in the game, he more than makes up for it with his sometimes ludicrous speed.

And speaking of his other half…

Vanitas

Vanitas creeps me the hell out. That laugh, the fact that he looks and sounds like Sora, and just how frigging remorseless he is for everything he does. He goads Ventus into battle by threatening to murder Aqua and Terra before his eyes, he snaps the wooden Keyblade that Terra gave him in half, and he creates the Unversed to run rampant across the worlds. But the sad thing is that, for all that he does wrong, it’s all due to the evil deeds of this man…

Xehanort

The one true villain of the series. It is Xehanort’s actions that causes the events that occur within the series. He tells Maleficent of the darkness, of the other worlds, and of the Princesses of Light, thus causing the massive invasion of the Heartless upon many of the worlds and the kidnapping of the Princesses. He possesses Terra, using his body for a number of horrible deeds. He recruits Braig, who later saves his apparent amnesiac self and helps him get within Ansem The Wise’s group. His Heartless, Ansem, takes over the runnings of the Heartless when Maleficent outlives her usefulness to him. His Nobody, Xemnas, creates Organization XIII with the intent to create thirteen incarnations of Xehanort, all the while lying to them about not having hearts, meaning every last terrible deed they did was over a lie. And along the way, he becomes directly or indirectly responsible for the sufferings of Ventus, Terra, Aqua, Vanitas, Roxas, Xion, and countless others. He pretty much gives us every single reason possible to hate him. But I will give him this much: Being voiced by Leonard Nimoy does give him a certain level of awesomeness. lol

Zexion, the Cloaked Schemer

Ienzo is observant and curious about the world around him, and his a hard worker at his studies, traits that was carried over to his Nobody, Zexion. Of course, where he differed was that he was a sick bastard that toyed with Riku in the cruellest of manners and was taking bets with Axel in Chain of Memories as to who would be the next member of their roster to die. But then again, I’ve never had my Heart taken away, lied to in order to make me think I can’t ever have another, and basically was told that I know longer have any moralities to ad-hear to, so who knows? Maybe that just does really messed up things to ya. What’s also notable about Ienzo is that after he’s re-completed, he doesn’t waste time being emo or remorseful over his actions, he gets right to work trying to figure out their immediate issues and actually talks to Lea in a rather pleasant tone, seemingly not holding any grudges for Axel leading to his death. Although now that I think about it, the destruction of his Heartless and his Nobody let to his re-completion, so I guess he would actually owe Lea for that.

Terra

Okay, this mostly comes from a gameplay perspective. Not that Terra is a bad character, just VERY easily led on. Like, even more so than Riku in Kingdom Hearts 1, and he’s supposed to be older and wiser than him. I mean for crying out loud, why can’t he see that Xehanort is the bad guy until he murders Master Eraqus? Do you need someone to draw a curly moustache on his face or something? Still, he’s at least a little easy to sympathise with. I mean, he could be worse.

What, you thought I was gonna go with something less obvious? Please. lol

But yeah, Terra is probably the heaviest hitter of all the main protagonists in Kingdom Hearts, without decreasing his speed so much that a turtle could outrun him. If you find yourself in his way in the middle of a fight, get out of his way or you’re going to be levelled. Bottom line.

Anyway, that’s my 13 Favourite Characters from Kingdom Hearts. Leave your comments below on what you think of these characters, who is on your top 13, and just comments on Kingdom Hearts overall. Ja ne!