The Unfortunate Pattern of Nice Girls in Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts is a decades-old series with a large cast of unique, colorful, and memorable characters who encompass a wide range of complex personalities. You’ve got Sora, the plucky, all-loving, endearingly dumb protagonist. There’s Riku, the cool, aloof rival turned atoner and unfailingly loyal protector. Roxas, the serious, brooding and troubled boy who just wants a simple life with his friends. Axel, the sly jokester whose lighthearted demeanor masks his inner ruthlessness. Ven: sweet, even purer of heart than Sora, a good boy with a troubling penchant for playing the martyr. Even Terra, my least favorite of all the protagonists, has something of a definable personality, being straightforward, protective of his friends, self conscious of his weaknesses, and desiring of validation.
Then you have the female characters. The heroine Kairi, the sweet and loving girl next door whose story becomes increasingly sadder over the course of the games. Namine, the sad but sweet young girl with a tragic backstory. Xion, the sad but sweet young girl with a tragic backstory. Aqua, the sad but determined young woman who befalls a tragic fate over the course of the games…wait, are you seeing a pattern here? Why do all the main female characters in this game run off the same basic template?
Whether Nomura is being actively sexist or not, I don’t think I can say. I just think it’s unfortunate that he always falls back on traditional female tropes when he needs to write a sympathetic female character. Kairi, Xion, Aqua, and Namine are all very traditionally feminine characters. They embody standard female archetypes: the girl next door, the mysterious waif, the older sister/mother figure; and they all share the same basic personality traits: sweet and friendly, knows right from wrong, the quiet pillar of strength for their male protagonist friends. Contrast that with said male protagonists, all of whom have much more varied and complex personalities. Sora, Riku, Roxas, Axel, Ventus, and Terra all have very distinct personalities from each other, and even those that share narrative roles or archetypes do so in different ways. When you put the range of male personalities in Kingdom Hearts next to the female personalities the contrast becomes pretty clear. If you’re a male character, you get to be unique. If you’re a female character, you’re a nice girl and that’s it. There is a pattern in the way Nomura utilizes female characters in Kingdom Hearts that reveals a limited at best and unconsciously sexist at worst approach to writing.
Nomura frequently falls into the pitfall of writing the Faux Action Girl as well–the female character who is touted by the story as a fantastic fighter, but never actually does anything significant. Aqua, who left Birth By Sleep as the fandom’s favorite, is handily defeated by Vanitas in what should have been her big moment in KH3, requiring Sora to jump in and save her. She is also bailed out earlier in the game by Riku after succumbing to the Realm of Darkness. Most recently and perhaps infamously, Kairi’s treatment in Melody of Memory is mind-boggling in how deliberately it strips her of any sort of power or agency, using the game’s entire narrative framing device of searching her heart and her memories as a stepping stone for Riku to take over as the protagonist of the next game.
The repeated use of two guys and a girl for each trio doesn’t help either. If there were more female characters in the cast, it might be easier to write them with more distinct personalities. It would also help if the female characters would consistently interact with each other onscreen, so you could see different personalities bouncing off each other. But because each game usually only has one major female character present at a time, it’s down to her to prevent the game from becoming a complete sausage fest, which in turn requires that she be noticeably feminine, to stand out as The Girl.
The inevitable defense for this is “just because a female character is traditionally feminine doesn’t mean she’s bad”. I’m aware of this. I’m not saying it’s bad writing because they’re feminine. I’m saying it’s bad because all the female characters have the same basic personality, which leads to a boring, underdeveloped female cast.
Interestingly, there is one female character in the series who breaks the mold of “quiet nice girl” and that is Larxene. Larxene is a great example of a female character who is memorable, entertaining, and distinct. Of course, she’s also an antagonist, which means Nomura doesn’t have to adhere to the societal convention of good girls being sweet and demure when writing her. Larxene gets to be as foul mouthed and sadistic and nasty as she wants, because she’s a villain. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the female character who is the least traditionally feminine is also the one who is an antagonist. There’s some unfortunate implications there, and should be a reminder that this balance swings both ways. If we ever get more female villains in Kingdom Hearts, I would hope that they too get to be as varied as their male counterparts.
Ultimately, the problem with the series as a whole is that Nomura consistently treats the female characters in Kingdom Hearts as plot devices first, characters second. He’s done it to Kairi in every single numbered Kingdom Hearts game. He did it to Xion in 358/2. He did it to Strelitzia in Union X. He even does it to Yozora’s girlfriend in the fictional trailer for Verum Rex. Over and over again, he uses female characters as a walking piece of motivation for a male protagonist. It’s a pattern that relies on outdated gender roles in writing, and it just makes me disappointed when I think of all the cool and interesting stuff that could be happening with the female characters in Kingdom Hearts. It doesn’t have to stay that way though. I do think there’s a lot of potential in the female characters, and even Kairi might be saved, if Nomura will just recognize the problem and give them the spotlight for a game. I don’t want to pin too many of my hopes on that happening, but it’s at the very least a possibility.
