Kingdom Hearts II Kairi's Character

It actually started with talking about nothing but finding Riku and going home. Then Kairi had to go and get herself kidnapped. I'm surprised Sora didn't start splitting hairs. I would have. >>;

 

Kairi is such a shallow, one-dimensional character. You could accurately predict pretty much everything she says, with ease. It's like as if she tries to come across as a strong female character (like Yuna, Ashe, Dagger, Tifa etc etc) but she is in reality completely helpless, and relies on Sora to save her all the time. And God is she annoying. Like in KH II, in the Castle that Never Was, she goes to Riku "You know Sora's completely hopeless without us". I mean WTF you dumb b*tch, Sora got all the way to save her pretty much single handedly (cos Donald and Goofy are next to redundant in KHII) and the only reason he was there in the first place was because she had to go and get kidnapped, repeatedly. Plus the fact that she never technically helped Sora in the first place. GRRRR. I mean, come on, Namine is a much better character, and would make a much better lead. She's the kind of person you can actually care about (despite the fact that she's a Nobody etc.)

 

Kairi will never be a true "fighter" at best she can hope for "healer" or "I can use a little magic!" position of the trio (speaking productively). She can never hope to reach Tifa, Yuffie or ANY one of the Gullwings and doing SOMETHING productive. Seriously, she has as much purpose as the next hapless NPC on the other worlds, except with less personality and less use.

Take for example Mulan and Ariel, both are female, both fight on your party, both have bloody personalities despite only appearing for one world or TWO in the case of Ariel (but god did I hate that sing-a-long mini-game).

Even Aerith who sounds and has the strength of a dying cancer patient (reference to KH2 and her lack of any weapon or aggressive gestures/manners in-game) she can at least toss potions or CURES to her allies while she "cheers them on". What does Kairi do? Run once, lounge about like she's not being chased by a teleporting runaway raver, and then get captured the 2nd time she sees Mr. McCapture the Human Moomba.

And for the last time, if someone mutters "blame Disney" look at the CREDITS at the end of the game, under all of the credits entailing story is NOMURA listed and him alone or one other person who is clearly not of the Disney staff, who is in charge.

 

It's fairly obvious that Kairi does need a bit more personality added to her character, but I wouldn't go so far as to make her a warrior chick. Hard core I can handle, I'd probably even welcome that if it was pulled off reasonably. As she stands now though, Kairi does indeed need a serious personality makeover.

 

Let's think of it this way. Sora and Kairi are on their honeymoon.
Sora: So, Kairi, wanna share this Paopu?
Kairi: Of cour- *Head explodes*
*Maid comes in*
Sora: Hey, wanna share this paopu fruit?

See, wouldn'tchange the plot at all.

 

Why couldn't Kairi be like Bastila from KOTOR? She had a personality. But that's all Kairi is. A plot device who's barely comes of as fanservice.

 

really she plays the "oh so steriotypical" damsel in distress in the first game and the "waiting maiden" in the second which are very effective archetypes in one shot stories but in a series there has to be character deveolopment

as of now all she's been good for is a very small (yet still very appriciated) amount of fan-service and her AWESOME themes

 

I do think is kind of sad that Naminé, her Nobody, has more flaws and character than she could ever hope to have.

The thing is, though, her "strength" comes a bit overdone/random or forced to me in KH2, I don't know how to word it. Is like she's trying so hard to be this bada** chick (she should leave that to Larxene, who does it naturally. Seriously. That girl should've never died. Her and Naminé alone would have represented what should have been represented), but she isn't. It's like watching one girl try to push herself up the popular ranks and acts and pretends to be cool, but looks pathetic. And it's hilarious. A good example, is when she was prancing (that's what it looks like to me) with Naminé down the floors, and when she spotted Saïx, she placed up her fists like she was going to do anything to him. I was already dying of laughter before Saïx mentioned it (I still wonder what was the point of that. That they weren't going to go quietly? Well, that kind of did not work with Axel). We already know Naminé tries to stand up for herself when the occassion calls for it, despite that she knows she's not strong, but she drowned herself good points by following Kairi's actions.

Then, of course, there's the whole jumping off the balcony and flying off, and looking so determined and tough :roll eyes:. For real, since when can she do that? (oh yeah, we can't forget that she got man piled by Heartless after) That was when I started to think if they were trying to make her appear stronger to make up for the lack of it before, which was becoming true. To finalize, there pops up the random out of the blue flowery Keyblade, a.k.a. deus ex machina Riku gave her because it came from a "past memory", and then she swings it as she thinks she's the b*tch not to mess with, and even has the audacity to say, "Come on Riku, you know Sora is helpless without us!". WTF. WTF. Lol xD. Who's the one that has to be saved all the time, to the point where her Nobody had to fetch her out? After that, she goes on to swat, not kill, swat, Heartless away, and when the Keyblades are needed again, with Sora, Mickey, and Riku, "hers" disappears and is never seen or mentioned again -_-. I'm teling you...

Deus ex machina

Which is perfect for the Mary-Sue Kairi already is (after all, she's sweet, nice, brave, strong, gorgeous, is Sora's light that can bring him back from the darkness, Princess Of Heart, can write a letter and make a portal of light due to it, has a strange backstory, can't remember where she came from before, gets into the world of the future heroes, gets a Keyblade, etc. Mind you, this are all positives, because there's no wrong with her), as she's been a deus ex machina herself. Is only fitting.

At least Aqua is shown as a fighter with a Keyblade first off the moment we see her.

 

I thought Namine was the one who put up her fists first, and THEN Kairi followed. Hm, I should go find a video.

I agree with all your points, you wanna know something even more pathetic? Olette had a rather nice personality or at least a better impression despite having only a handful of cut scenes, she could also pull sea salt ice cream out of thin air (then again that's an awesome power as she can do it consistently), but at least she was friendly and interacted enough to give the impression of a good and caring friend. Kairi on the other hand, just....acts like some snooty wench.

 

Sadly, I found Olette to have more personality than either Kairi or Namine. Also, I didn't see that Kairi had no flaws at all.

I mean seriously, she could have just told Sora she wanted to go out with him instead of having the boys keep competing for her attention etc. Riku obviously figured it out which is why he was trying to get Sora to make a move and was joking with him, but really Riku shouldn't have had to do that and it probably upset him a bit which is why later when he was corrupted with Darkness he said some of the awful things he did.

Kairi was made -too delicate- where apparently she was waiting for her 'man' to take notice that he had probably already won. Sora is not the most perceptive and shows some jealousy about Riku's comment that Kairi inspired him to want to leave etc.

Then Kairi in KH tells Sora they should just take the raft -RIKU BUILT- and head off together without him because Riku had changed. Now if Riku had told her something that scared her, why didn't she talk to Riku more or tell Sora so that they could work things out? She really didn't seem to be that much of a friend to Riku and it is stated that Riku did most of the work on the raft in CoM. So why steal what he worked hard to make and run off?

So to me, she did have some flaws and Namine showed the same ones when she was dealing with Repliku and Sora. She messed up Repliku bad and couldn't fix it, broke his heart, and then didn't even apologize to him when Sora was trying to see if he could get Repliku to stay. She only seemed to care about Sora and then immediately she's liking Roxas who is another part of Sora. She also tried to make like Riku was using her in the novel but he was not and she had plans to help Sora all along. Both acted like all that mattered to them was one person, though Kairi at two points did actually show she cared about Riku somewhat. In KH she does say she wants to go with Sora to find Riku after Hollow Bastion and then in KH2, she tells Sora that 'Ansem' is Riku so he'd go over and convince him to stay. That's about her only saving grace.

So the Princess of Heart thing seemed kind of overdone and Kairi was made flimsy but with just a heart and obviously physical attraction to Sora. Namine had the same connection. Riku did kind of get treated less than well by both of them when he seemed to be the one that actually knew what was going on and let go of his 'options with Kairi' at least in the beginning of KH. So to me, those were the flaws of Kairi and Namine and Kairi wasn't as perfect as Nomura possibly wanted to paint her and all she turned into was the damsel in distress who was very weak until KH2 where she shows some spine. Women often in Square games get painted so badly and I do hope at least maybe Aqua might have more of a personality and not just slide into the typical white mage role that Kairi fills. I also still have a shred of hope Kairi will be better too if she keeps on the path she was headed on in KH2. It would be nice though to see more of Kairi and Riku because they are both 2 main characters and yet you have to look to find what they do too often. They deserve some center stage time so we can even evaluate if we care about Kairi or if she's just a hot red head that is another pure healer girl in a skimpy outfit of Square design that is a love interest for the main character to do some stupid things over. No main character deserves that.

 

In the end, Kairi is just not a likeable or appealing character, for so many reasons. That's why people mentioned Namine. Like Kairi, she has flaws, but unlike Kairi, she is a likeable character, the kind you can actually care about. Kairi is seriously lacking in depth.

 

she changed alot i think..

 

Kairi was never exactly my favorite character (You never got to know much about her because she was always in a trance-like state in KH1, other than her joking with Sora.), but I didn't like her personality change in KH2. She jumped off a balcony only to be attacked by heartless. She seemed to have a more egostical personality, which is probably where dimension was supposed to be added, but I think it turned a bad turn, however. No disrespect to anyone who doesn't agree, however.

 

Kairi's not anything. She's nice and she cares. But why does that earn her brownie points? Everyone is nice. That is why I can barely read KH fics. She is so teeth grindingly perfect that any scene with her feels like you wanna slap her and tell that she is **** for no damn reason.

Noruma ****ed up with Kairi. And it is getting WAY too late to fix.

 

You're absolutely right.

I feel kind bad for Kairi, she have so much potential, but Nomura didn't really care about her... She is just a plot device... And I hate the "kidnap" thing... But, well... Whatever.

 

I actually played through TWTNW up till the end of the fights with luxord and saix yesturday and it seemed to me that her part wasn't that bad but once they gave her a keyblade it just was corny they didn't even animate her taking it from riku's hand he just givres it to her and she has it and attacks with it it looked like they just threw it in to make her have more power but she didn't need anymore she is one of the 7 princesses I mean thats really more powerful than any power we've seen yet (save for the power of kingdom hearts)

 

^ Thats why she needs some kind of warrior persona, maybe not hardcore warrior but at least aggresive enough to be decent in a fight. Maybe sora and riku show her how to fight on destiny islands, and riku gets kidnapped, than kairi and sora have gotta go rescue him. I'd like t0o see her as a cross between donald and goofy mage/knight.

 

I only liked Kairi cause shes hot... nothing more.... and yeah the keyblade part was corny (with the exception of Dead Fantasy) kairi is in the second episode i think

 

That Keyblade part is what cemented my disdain for her? I though the Keyblade chose it's wielder? Now, it seems they grow on trees.