What is the extent of DiZ's fuck-things-up-ery?

[fuyu]

I just had a creepy thought.

As of the beginning of KH2 proper, Sora has been sleeping in a pod and just woken up after eating Roxas.

Roxas has some pretty bizarre personality issues - the Roxas we meet in the prologue is not the same guy who was beating the crap out of Heartless in Deep Dive. That was the original Roxas, who's pretty much gone. He's starting to come back a little by the end of the prologue, but when he meets Sora he's still mostly operating under the Twilight Town personality.

Which was programmed.

By a guy who hates Nobodies.

And the programmed personality is actually pretty similar to a more sarcastic, sedate version of Sora. Were Sora to absorb that personality into his own, we wouldn't see much change, except he'd be maybe a little calmer and a bit snarkier...

... oh, wait.

Now, I'm not saying DiZ intentionally programmed Roxas to be hostile towards other Nobodies. He doesn't strike me as that evil, and besides he wouldn't see the point. But this is still a personality, designed and imposed on this kid by a guy who really does have a hate on for all Nobodies, even the one who's helping him. Writers in the audience, you know how sometimes it's hard to write a character with whom you strongly disagree on issues that are important to you? ... Yeah.

And, I mean, doesn't it make sense? Sora can be short-sighted and inclined to trust authority figures he sees as wiser, yes. But, I mean, he has no sympathy, and he's a character typically defined by his love of Absolutely Freaking Everyone, Yes, Even You There In The Back. He is, as they say on khfanficrants, like Jesus with more asskicking. And you can't tell me he just doesn't have sympathy for the enemy, because, you know, Maleficent.

And near the end of the game, he has that weird fight with Roxas. The original Roxas, the cold and ruthless Organization member instead of the kid who likes ice cream. But why did it take so long? Roxas was in there the whole time...

... responding to Twilight Town-related things...

... and it's in the general timeframe of this fight that Sora begins showing sympathy for the Org. He's still angry and frustrated with them in general, and his sympathy is admittedly very limited, but once he finds out about Roxas he expresses a wistful desire to meet him. He allies easily with Axel shortly before the fight with Roxas. He even has a moment of sadness over Xemnas. Xemnas, who is one of the heads of the Let's Fuck Things Up And Make Sora's Life Difficult Committee.

I'm just sayin'.

And, you know, just to make this even worse... DiZ did plan to send Sora after the Org. It's even possible that he did intentionally program Roxas with Nobody-hate, planning on that personality holding long enough for him to return to Sora, taking the programmed personality with him...

You know, it's getting really hard to hold on to my liking of DiZ.

Comments

[rubyd.livejournal.com]

DiZ, that ass :|
Very interesting theory - I can see it.

[fuyu]

He really is. An ass that I still - despite it all - feel somewhat sorry for, but an ass nonetheless.

Thanks. It kind of just dropped into my head, I'm glad it's coherent and makes sense.

[nekokoban]

You know, I remember some of my other friends being all >( at Sora for not having any sympathy about Demyx, especially -- especially with how Demyx screams when he dies, but.

Wow, you know, that makes a creepy degree of sense. One could argue that traveling to the World That Never Was sort of kicked Roxas' true self into awakening.

... CREEEEEEPY~

[fuyu]

Heck, I'm one of the people who gets a little mad at Sora for that. XD

One could! Or at least that it greatly facilitated the process.

IT IS CREEPY ISN'T IT 8D

[libekory.livejournal.com]

Oooh~~. Love this. ♥

*kind of would put in that she doesn't think the timing of roxas's appearance to sora is coincidental -- axel just died.*

I imagine Roxas sitting inside Sora, watching Axel sacrifice himself.

First I see him being confused. Then suspicious -- wtf is that sneaky guy up to? Then incredulous.

One thing to remember is that Roxas, despite considering Axel his best friend, didn't think Axel meant it when Axel said he'd miss him. The novels state that this is because Roxas doesn't think Nobodies have feelings. That's fine, dandy, but think about it -- Roxas thinks Axel is lying to him about liking him.

One would therefore assume that Roxas wouldn't expect Axel to sacrifice his life for, hell, any reason. And then as Axel dies he basically says it's because Sora reminds him of Roxas. (The way I like to think of this is that, if Saix was being honest earlier and Axel really did want to make Sora a Heartless to get Roxas back, this is the scene where Axel decides and acts on the notion that there's still enough of Roxas left in Sora, that maybe he really is WHOLE and hasn't just been consumed and vanished.)

[Although all the Nobodies want their hearts back, none of them seem to like the method through which Roxas got his. They talk to Sora like Roxas is inside him somewhere, and can be woken up and encouraged to take control -- which, given the way Roxas shows up when he finally does show up, would indicate that none of them really understand what happened to Roxas. I think that assuming they think what happened to him was a negative thing isn't much of a stretch.]

So you have Roxas watching this guy he didn't even believe would miss him die to save a part of him.

I think that'd snap anyone out of complacency. ;)

Man, poor Roxas. I keep getting this mental image of him yelling at Axel from inside Sora. Like a spoiled little kid -- what're you doing, that's not what I want, STOP THAT. D< And then quieter and softer but in the same refrain when he's dying...

So Sora'd be hit with it on two fronts -- one, omg, a not-evil Nobody, wtf, and this well of confusion and misery. (Sora doesn't cry because Roxas doesn't cry -- Twilight Town!Roxas cried at losing his friends, clearly, but this isn't Twilight Town!Roxas anymore, this is Nobody!Roxas, the real Roxas, and he doesn't feel anything. [Only...he's clearly feeling something, and I imagine that causes a kind of outrage and confusion and a little fear.]) So he almost seems subdued -- helpless, and worried, and kind of twitchy, and I like to think that's from feeling a lot of different things at once.

(As an aside, both Sora and Roxas are very straightforward people, so it's not surprising that neither one of them really deal well with a lot of emotional ambiguity. They can cry, they can be happy, they can be mad, but give 'em all at once, and they'll shut down. It's a pretty typically male thing, actually, I think. And add in that Nobody!Roxas thinks he can't feel anything at all, and, well...)

Anyway~.

Take this and add it to the duel itself; when Roxas attacks Sora, he demands to know why the keyblade chose Sora. The answer he comes up with, visibly, is that Kairi and Riku, Sora's FRIENDS, are what gives him the strength the keyblade prizes. ("So that's why," he says, looking down at Sora standing between the images of Kairi and Riku.)

[continued...]

[libekory.livejournal.com]

Remember that Roxas's initial question when he left the Organization wasn't why the keyblade chose Sora, but why the keyblade chose him. And if he's decided that the answer for Sora will be the same as the answer for him, then he just lost the only friend he's ever had.

(I'm frustrated, because Nomura admits that there was supposed to be more to the game's ending, something to do with Axel, and also that he wanted to have members of the Organization show up in the Underworld. So I'm doing a lot of what seems like ridiculous guessing and theorizing, because Roxas in the end game seems so HAPPY and there's no mention of Axel ever again -- but damn it, there was SUPPOSED to be some mention of Axel before that scene.)

And, yeah.

Imagining that Roxas was full of Nobody hate until that scene, and then got smacked back to his OWN Nobody self, well. I just find the timing of Roxas's duel with him and thusly Sora's sudden sympathy very understandable, is all. ;)

[fuyu]

Oh, I absolutely don't think the timing of Axel's death and the fight at Memory's Skyscraper were coincidental at all. I think someone else suggested this on khfanficrants or something - maybe Roxas was kind of struggling with his conflicting personalities even inside Sora. I think maybe Org!Roxas was trying to throw off the programmed personality, and making headway but not quite there until the World That Never Was, where Axel's death and all the shocks and shattering of assumptions that come with it put the fatal cracks in the programming, allowing Org!Roxas to break out very soon after - angry and upset and determined to learn what he set out to learn in the first place, which set all this crap into motion in the first place.

Note that that fight is a prerequisite for Final Form, which not only makes Sora like unto a tiny god but also dramatically reduces his chances of ever being overwhelmed and going into Antiform again. It's fair, possibly even obvious, to say that that's when Roxas is finally ready to really cooperate with Sora. And when he next appears, he really is happy, but... not so much cheerful as content. Serene, even.

See, by the end of the prologue, Roxas knew he was a Nobody. But I don't think he'd accepted it. He's not thinking of himself as half a person, and he says "My heart belongs to me!" in a way that implies he still thinks he has his own heart. I mean, obviously finding out that you're a Nobody must be unpleasant, but his behavior would also be consistent with actually having a bias against Nobodies, whether he's aware of it or not.

And then when he talks to Sora at the end, he's content. He's still appearing as TT!Roxas, but he acknowledges Sora as his original self and goes back to him without hesitation, when in the beginning he fought that to the last.

So by the end, Roxas has fought off his programming and accepted himself as Sora's Nobody - but is still appearing as and acting like TT!Roxas. Which I actually think makes sense, because even though that was an artificial personality, it's closer to Sora's, works better that Org!Roxas's for someone with a heart, and it's probably nicer to be TT!Roxas than Org!Roxas. Org!Roxas is cold, ruthless, and angry, TT!Roxas likes ice cream.

I sorta think that after the Memory's Skyscraper fight, there was some internal scuffling with the two Roxases (Roxii?) which ended in a mutual decision to just keep the best traits of each personality. (I'm pretty sure this was put forth on khfanficrants too.) Which would totally account for Roxas's predominantly Twilight Town disposition in the endgame.

... How his feelings for Axel fit into this I really don't know. D:

[sister-coyote.livejournal.com]

Augh, that's... creepily plausible. Whether DiZ is manipulative/malicious enough to do it on purpose, or simply so thoroughly entrenched in his hatred of Nobodies that any personality he created would be tainted with it... either way, it makes sense.

In addition to the meeting with actual Roxas (as opposed to programmed-Roxas), I think Axel's death would have had something to do with 'breaking' the anti-Nobody programming. As much as rabid AkuRoku fans have made me disinclined to credit Axel with too much in Sora's development, I think it makes sense -- he sees a demonstration that definitely doesn't fit his preconceived notion of Nobodies. I don't think it's accidental that the Organization Roxas gets a chance to come out not long after that, because the cracks have been made.

(I don't like DiZ, although I feel sorry for him. I think he's Sora's dark echo, actually. Like Sora, he lost his home and was betrayed by a pretty silver-haired friend and companion, but he lacked Sora's saving grace, which is, as you say, the ability to see the good in everybody, and even to see the potential for good when no actual good exists. That grace is why Sora never gave up on Riku; DiZ, lacking it, saw his betrayers as at best objects, at worst a cancer that had to be cut out. Sora -- in the normal case -- privileges love over justice, and DiZ is the opposite [from his own point of view, in which 'justice' meant punishing his apprentices for their betrayal]. Ultimately, Sora's essential virtue saves him, and DiZ's hubris destroys him.)

[fuyu]

Personally, I'm giving him the benefit of that last fragment of doubt... it would be plausible for him to do it intentionally, but I'd like to believe it was just his own biases slipping through. That's much more forgivable to me.

Yeah, I really think Axel's death was kind of the last straw. Both for Sora's own conceptions, and the programming that was affecting him and Roxas.

(You have a point there! I'd never thought of it like that, that's very interesting... He's not quite Sora's foil the way Riku is, but there are similarities there. Very interesting idea.)