Why I didn’t like Kingdom Hearts 2 reason #6: Riku
Hey, I haven’t posted in this series in months. You probably thought I was out of reasons. No. Oh, no.
If you think back to the first Kingdom Hearts, you’ll remember Riku as the kinda-sorta-antagonist who looks like this. Sure, he’s all anime and shit, but so’s the whole game. He’s basically a good guy who makes a bad decision — he allows himself to be used by the darkness (going over to the dark side, basically) in order to get the power he believes he needs to save his friends and family. It’s a character we can honestly sort of sympathise with; he was wrong, but not just arbitrarily or malevolently so. He’s also young and confused, and we see him several times being misled by older, more evil characters. So by the end of the game we’re left with this impression that he’s really a good guy at heart, but he’s made mistakes and listened to people he shouldn’t have.
Riku in Kingdom Hearts 2 looks like this. You probably hate him already, yeah? Comb your hair and stand up straight, asshole. Just because you’re a year older now doesn’t mean we’ll let you get away with that. But it’s not just the way he looks — the entire Riku subplot exists basically to paper over the massive plot hole that opened up when the Heartless stopped being the bad guys (as discussed here). And not only is it stupid and mechanical, it’s also rather insulting from a metaphysical standpoint, since the main point it’s getting at is that, really, evil is just another good. People who are evil — people who choose darkness over light — are really in the end still doing the right thing, because at least they still have feelings. And that’s what really counts! It’s not about doing the right thing or sticking up for what’s right, it’s just about making sure you’re passionate about something. Because what’s truly evil is this other guy who’s all cold and rational and just thinks when he could be feeling.
I don’t think I really need to explain why that’s disgusting.
