Pap the Disney Gamer
Presents a Year Long Celebration...

Ten Years of Hearts,
Keyblades and Disney Magic: A Kingdom Hearts
10th Anniversary Celebration
Last time on the Kingdom Hearts
Retrospective...
'Classic fairy tales!
Adaptations! Original complex stories!'
And now...
Part 7: Themes of light and
darkness
In literature, themes are bound
to make appearances time and time again. These
themes are often based on beliefs created by
societies throughout the ages that reflect how
we have evolved since the beginning of time.
Some were founded on a basic truth, while others
were created with the belief of a higher being
controlling us all or an unseen force that walks
amongst us. One of the most common themes found
in literature is that of good and evil, two
equally powerful forces that are constantly at
war over who gets to reign over the thoughts and
actions of humanity. Even real world history has
often been told with a clear good versus evil
perspective. This concept has influenced some of
the greatest literary works of all time in
various mediums, from books like J.R.R Tolkien's
Lord of the Ring series to George Lucas's Star
Wars franchise.

Some of the most iconic battles of all time are
those between good and evil, involving the
people consumed by these forces. In Darth
Vader's case, he is a tragic figure forced to
fight his son because in his younger days, he
was tempted by the dark side
Both Disney and Square Enix have
presented us a vision of what evil could be and
how it would always seem to be at war with good
since their inception. No matter who the
protagonist and the antagonist was and how their
respective stories ended in one story, the war
always seemed to continue on another story with
another set of characters and events. Disney in
particular has put a clear effort in presenting
the idea of good and evil. Good was always
portrayed as always being a one of kind nature,
courageous, innocent, and always willing to
learn. Evil, on the other hand, was always
jealous, pompous, arrogant, greedy, and selfish.
These themes have received such a clear
definition that whenever a character presents
any traits from any of these two factions,
people begin to wonder if they should be called
heroes or villains.


As an example of how Square Enix has developed
the concept of good and evil, in Dissidia: Final
Fantasy for the PSP, this world is ruled by two
opposing forces: Cosmos, the goddess of harmony
(left) and Chaos, the god of discord (right).
Both have a faction of warriors that fight in
their name
The stories that fuel the Final
Fantasy/Square Enix Japanese have also been
inspired by the struggle between good and evil.
They, however, go even further as they have
presented us clear manifestations of these two
forces, often in the form of crystals, natural
elements, and defined representatives of good
and evil such as gods, monsters and legendary
heroes. The Final Fantasy series have also been
influenced by everything from pop culture (such
as in the design of the characters themselves to
the music), to world mythology. As an example,
one of the themes their critically acclaimed hit
Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation One) is that all
of us are connected to the spirit of the earth,
and as we move onto the next life we return to
that spirit, but if we abuse it thanks to our
greed we will create an unbalance that will hurt
all living beings.
The fabled Disney RPG the two
companies would be producing would have to tell
a story with these themes set in motion,
especially after they decided that the game had
to be appealing to the same gaming audience that
loved the Square Enix RPGs before it. The end
result is Kingdom Hearts, a game that has clear
representations of good and evil while giving us
characters and events that are in a clear shade
of gray in terms of morality.
In Kingdom Hearts, the worlds
are ruled by light and darkness. In any form of
fiction, good is often represented as being
light, as in the light we can see the world
around us, understand its beauty and find our
paths easily. Evil, however, is darkness. You
can't see anything, you lose yourself and you
are confused as to what you should be. These two
elements are often said to be found within one's
soul, or as Kingdom Hearts explains it, our
hearts.
When Sora meets Leon for the
first time as the game is starting its first
chapters in Traverse Town, Leon tells him that
there is darkness within every heart. What he
says then is that all of us are ruled by light
and darkness as they are natural parts of our
beings, yet only we are the ones that can
control them by our decisions. In literature,
the hero is often forced to choose between these
sides as they struggle between what they must do
versus what they want to do. It is an internal
struggle that has fueled the adventures of many
a character; our hero Sora not being the
exception.

Maleficent, from the 1959 Disney animated
classic Sleeping Beauty, is the leader of the
Disney villains and the representation of
Disney's dark side in the Kingdom Hearts games
Kingdom Hearts set out to pay
tribute to Disney in almost every manner, the
themes of light and darkness being one of them.
The best characters that represent that ideal
are the Disney Villains, and Kingdom Hearts
gathered some of the most iconic characters that
were ever created. In the Disney films, these
characters have a clear motivation often fueled
by the things I mentioned earlier, inspired by
darkness within their being. It makes sense that
they were picked to be the main antagonists of
Kingdom Hearts, but Square Enix decided to go
further. The Disney characters already have a
legacy behind them. The good guys are good guys
and the villains are villains. That's why in
Kingdom Hearts the original characters exist as
they allow them to tell other sides of the story
that couldn't be possible with some of the
Disney characters.
While an analysis on each main
character will be coming soon to this
retrospective, let's take a brief look at the
character of Riku, Sora's best friend and rival.
He is a character that is full of confidence,
charm and a sense of maturity that surpasses
that of Sora's. Yet, he is a character that is
quickly persuaded by the darkness. He didn't
accept it because of the power it would bring
him, but because he wanted to save his home and
his friends. As he allows the darkness to take
over, he slowly de-evolves into a puppet that
exists only to fuel the desires of a far bigger
threat in the Kingdom Hearts universe, a threat
that we are still fighting to this day.

Much like Darth Vader before him, Riku was
tempted by darkness with promises of his world
and friends being rescued, but instead became an
unwilling servant. It is the light seen in
friendship, however, that is able to save him in
the end
Riku represents the theme that
sometimes good and evil aren't always as clear
as they appear to be. Sometimes the nicest of
intentions can become the most evil of all, and
just because someone presents a better sense of
leadership it doesn't mean that they are capable
of wielding the power of good. Sora is a
character that represents that. In contrast to
Riku, he is more like a young child that has
discovered a very fun, new thing. And yet, it is
Sora that gets to wield the mighty Keyblade
(more on that on the next installment of the
retrospective). He wasn't the absolute bravest,
courageous and physically fit character to take
on the role of the hero, but it was his heart's
light that made him fit to be the keyblade's
wielder.
As you can probably see, Square
Enix took a very clear concept of good and evil
as developed by Disney throughout the years and
gave it a better sense of development, showing
that people's actions are not as clear cut as we
believe they are. Story-wise, the Kingdom Hearts
franchise is complex to the point where people
have criticized it for taking the story down new
paths rather than developing and finishing the
ones it already has. But at the same time, it is
also one of the reasons why the franchise, after
ten years since its creation, still has a great
fan following, thanks to the classic themes of
good and evil and unforgettable characters that
rule this world.
Next month, I will be discussing
the Disney worlds that have been chosen in the
first Kingdom Hearts game and how they were
adapted into this clearly defined world torn by
good and evil.