VG Vivisection

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When I frantically presented this idea to my friends, it was met with much skepticism. I recognize that my argument and analysis is predicated on several key ideas, and the implications of this I have only begun to scratch the surface of. But allow me to lay down a few underlying notions I will be relying on:

1. The Keyblade is NOT a weapon. The phrase “blade” being in the name at all is quite misleading, as none of the incarnations (save for Riku’s) actually have a blade to speak of. It’s a key, simple as that, and it is not used for violence.

2. Combat, in its most literal sense, involves intent of inflicting violent harm on an opponent (with its most extreme result being death). As such, an opponent must be capable of both receiving pain or harm, and must be capable of death, as a cessation of life.

With that, I can present my idea: Kingdom Hearts has little, arguably no, violent combat whatsoever.

Now, it’s silly for me to say that, as the game is literally presented, no combat takes place—how else would one turn Heartless into experience and munny, and keep them from whittling down your health points? But with a little closer inspection, and metaphorical abstraction, the game loses its seemingly fight-based (but remember, child-friendly) mechanic. It’s worth noting that the game, being at least partially meant for children, eschews blood and any explicit death scenes for more lighthearted, shiny, sparkley animations; the one genuinely terrifying bit of violence is the Traverse Town scene where a man becomes a Heartless (but maybe that’s just me—I suppose it’s more fair to say it’s symbolically terrifying, and not something that would unsettle any halfway innocent child); as such, it might simply be a censorship (or, rather, audience-based discretion) issue, rather than a metaphorical one. But my attitude is this: even if it is an accident, it’s still there, and still capable of being interpreted—and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.

It might help clarify my argument if an examination of the Heartless shadows themselves is provided. One important note is that they are inherently incorporeal. In the two instances where Sora attempts to strike at them with a wooden sword, they are unaffected; as for the Awakening scene, the sword (if the player so chooses) used against them is a metaphor, rather than an actual weapon (remember that a shield and staff are just as easily substituted for the same purpose). Clearly, the objective is not to do these creatures damage, given that the Keyblade is not a weapon, and anything Sora uses to try to fend them off besides it yields no results. Another important characteristic is that they lack any autonomy—Maleficent and Riku and others are simply able to conjure them to do their evil biddings. A final detail is that, despite what the HP meter might suggest, they are not trying to kill Sora, or anyone else—they’re trying to steal Hearts.

The question then arises regarding the point of using the Keyblade against them. If not damage, what is being inflicted on the creatures with its strikes? First, a look at Heartless “anatomy”: Heartless are meant to be monsters hungry for Hearts, and this principle is illustrated after each boss battle, wherein as the enemy dissipates, an ethereal Heart rises from their bodies and disappears. It can be extrapolated that these bosses are just Heartless with more consumed Hearts inside of them, and when each Heartless drone is knocked out, a similar sequence happens—it’s just not explicitly shown. The function of the Keyblade, in that way, is to separate the Heart itself—the quintessence of humanity—from the darkness engulfing it; by using the Keyblade, the shadows are banished, and the Heart itself returns (appropriately enough) to the eponymous “Kingdom Hearts” (SPOILER!!! where all Hearts reside). Thus, using the weapon is not an act of violence or destruction; it is merely releasing trapped Hearts (as for bodies, I have no clue where to start figuring that out—afterall, Sora just popped back up, but the Princesses still exists without Hearts…there seems to be a very complex, possibly incongruent interplay between body and Heart that I just don’t want to get mired in).

But what of the epic, legendary weapons (terms being culled from both Exalted and Magic: the Gathering mythos) I referenced a few posts back? They’re certainly not Keyblades, and things like Cloud’s Buster Sword are obviously weapons. Their symbolic combat function is rooted in the stories each character emerges from: Peter Pan, of course, has his dagger, and when he uses it, it is to dispel the Heartless influence from his world and restore it to the innocence he once knew—which is the exact same function that I proposed for Sora, Donald and Goofy when I first began examining this game. In the same way the Keyblade is the tool used to rescue Hearts in the grander Kingdom Hearts universe, each weapon wielded by a world’s hero is likewise a tool for defending the Hearts of their worlds—essentially, a Keyblade in a more recognizable and canon-friendly form, without the whole World-sealing function.

Why does any of this matter, though? Why is the (lack of) attack-driven combat important? Essentially, it’s to illustrate that darkness is not something to simply be attacked—the game is not a war of light versus dark, good versus evil. One cannot simply kill light or harm darkness; they are too intertwined, and too all-encompassing, to be attacked and destroyed in such a brutish manner. What would happen if someone were capable of killing darkness? Would light simply take over? Would evil disappear? Hell no—that’s why Sora has a much more complex mission, and must navigate a more confusing morality in order to fulfill his duty as the Keyblade master to defend the Hearts.