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I am mildly confused!
So over on F!S, there's a secret about how Alice shouldn't have been a Princess of Heart, Pocahontas deserved it more - and just about every single reply is along the lines of "Hey, yeah! I never thought of that before! Pocahontas should be a Princess instead of her!"
And I'm just over here going "Uh... but...?"
See, one of the things that made KH1 so great, and which KH2 really fell down on, was that every character, every world, had reasons to be there. All characters filled particular roles, and were pretty well integrated - it's why, in KH1, the Disney-Square fusion feels so much stronger. The Disney worlds, in particular, all had two or three reasons for Sora to be there other than "O HAI U HAS PROBLEMS. I FIX K. O R MAI FRENDZ HEER?" They introduced some plot element, or developed a character, or furthered the conflict... etc. (As opposed to KH2, where the majority of the worlds are "Oh, well, we need some worlds to fill out space and I think we had characters from this one, let's toss it in.") I can think of quite a few off the top of my head for Alice and Wonderland:
- Wonderland's probably the first world you're gonna go to. As a design choice, leading off with a classical world that's an iconic example of Disney whimsy is a pretty solid one. Sora's had his dose of darkness and despair already, Wonderland is playful and lightens the mood, and gives Sora a decent threat to combat without making it feel DIRE AND TERRIFYING right off the bat.
- There's a couple plot hooks you need to introduce early on: there are Heartless everywhere, someone out there has nefarious plans and is kidnapping particular girls. Wonderland fills these nicely. It seems simple and straightforward to help Alice, but then she's gone, leaving you to wonder WTF just happened, and want to go find out.
- Alice is there to be a good person, an innocent, who's coming under fire and that Sora has to save, so he can properly get his hero boots on. She's also there to then disappear mysteriously. I don't like it much, but pretty much her whole purpose is to be a victim, so that Sora can be a hero and see there's something for her to be a victim of.
Granted it's been a long damn time since I watched Pocahontas, but I'm trying to replace Alice with her and Wonderland with her world and... no. Her world doesn't serve the same you've-had-your-angst-now-have-some-silly-crack aesthetic purpose that Wonderland served. Given what I remember of Pocahontas, it would be an insult and a disservice to her to stick her with Alice's role of Victim For The Plot. It suits Alice pretty well, because Alice's whole thing was that she wandered haplessly into and got lost in a world that was FREAKING INSANE, but those aren't Pocahontas's themes at all.
Another point of contention from the secret was that Alice isn't even a princess, how'd she get to be a Princess of Heart? Uh... same way Belle, Cinderella, and possibly Kairi did, I guess. Belle and Cinderella married into royalty, if I recall? Belle especially was a simple French country girl who liked to read. (And isn't even married to the Beast yet, therefore not technically ranked a princess). We know jack diddly squat about Kairi's life in Hollow Bastion, so we don't know if she's royal or not, but even if she is I think it's pretty plain she's left all that behind. Let's not forget Ariel was a princess too, but not a Princess of Heart even though she arguably deserves the status too. And Wendy was under investigation for the possibility of being a Princess, even though she's also not royalty. The whole point of the Princesses of Heart is that they aren't necessarily literal princesses. They can be, sure, but the important thing is their hearts.
I dunno. Maybe I analyze the themes too much. But Pocahontas and her world really wouldn't work in Alice's place, I can see why they went with Alice.
There is also the matter of Pocahontas being Native American, and KH being a Japanese game made by Japanese people in Japan. Yes, it's Disney. Disney in Japan. I dooooon't think I want to see the fallout of them trying to do Pocahontas's story in KH, especially when Disney already bastardized her over here. XD;
So over on F!S, there's a secret about how Alice shouldn't have been a Princess of Heart, Pocahontas deserved it more - and just about every single reply is along the lines of "Hey, yeah! I never thought of that before! Pocahontas should be a Princess instead of her!"
And I'm just over here going "Uh... but...?"
See, one of the things that made KH1 so great, and which KH2 really fell down on, was that every character, every world, had reasons to be there. All characters filled particular roles, and were pretty well integrated - it's why, in KH1, the Disney-Square fusion feels so much stronger. The Disney worlds, in particular, all had two or three reasons for Sora to be there other than "O HAI U HAS PROBLEMS. I FIX K. O R MAI FRENDZ HEER?" They introduced some plot element, or developed a character, or furthered the conflict... etc. (As opposed to KH2, where the majority of the worlds are "Oh, well, we need some worlds to fill out space and I think we had characters from this one, let's toss it in.") I can think of quite a few off the top of my head for Alice and Wonderland:
- Wonderland's probably the first world you're gonna go to. As a design choice, leading off with a classical world that's an iconic example of Disney whimsy is a pretty solid one. Sora's had his dose of darkness and despair already, Wonderland is playful and lightens the mood, and gives Sora a decent threat to combat without making it feel DIRE AND TERRIFYING right off the bat.
- There's a couple plot hooks you need to introduce early on: there are Heartless everywhere, someone out there has nefarious plans and is kidnapping particular girls. Wonderland fills these nicely. It seems simple and straightforward to help Alice, but then she's gone, leaving you to wonder WTF just happened, and want to go find out.
- Alice is there to be a good person, an innocent, who's coming under fire and that Sora has to save, so he can properly get his hero boots on. She's also there to then disappear mysteriously. I don't like it much, but pretty much her whole purpose is to be a victim, so that Sora can be a hero and see there's something for her to be a victim of.
Granted it's been a long damn time since I watched Pocahontas, but I'm trying to replace Alice with her and Wonderland with her world and... no. Her world doesn't serve the same you've-had-your-angst-now-have-some-silly-crack aesthetic purpose that Wonderland served. Given what I remember of Pocahontas, it would be an insult and a disservice to her to stick her with Alice's role of Victim For The Plot. It suits Alice pretty well, because Alice's whole thing was that she wandered haplessly into and got lost in a world that was FREAKING INSANE, but those aren't Pocahontas's themes at all.
Another point of contention from the secret was that Alice isn't even a princess, how'd she get to be a Princess of Heart? Uh... same way Belle, Cinderella, and possibly Kairi did, I guess. Belle and Cinderella married into royalty, if I recall? Belle especially was a simple French country girl who liked to read. (And isn't even married to the Beast yet, therefore not technically ranked a princess). We know jack diddly squat about Kairi's life in Hollow Bastion, so we don't know if she's royal or not, but even if she is I think it's pretty plain she's left all that behind. Let's not forget Ariel was a princess too, but not a Princess of Heart even though she arguably deserves the status too. And Wendy was under investigation for the possibility of being a Princess, even though she's also not royalty. The whole point of the Princesses of Heart is that they aren't necessarily literal princesses. They can be, sure, but the important thing is their hearts.
I dunno. Maybe I analyze the themes too much. But Pocahontas and her world really wouldn't work in Alice's place, I can see why they went with Alice.
There is also the matter of Pocahontas being Native American, and KH being a Japanese game made by Japanese people in Japan. Yes, it's Disney. Disney in Japan. I dooooon't think I want to see the fallout of them trying to do Pocahontas's story in KH, especially when Disney already bastardized her over here. XD;
Coming in late to the party, but...
Not because of the "princess" part, but because of the "heart" portion of the title -- just about every Disney heroine I can think of has demonstrated more strength of heart than Alice. Alice just wanders around Wonderland (and Looking-Glass Land, for that matter) going "OMGWTFBBQ!"
I wonder whether it would have worked storywise to switch Alice and Wendy? Either the world entire, or just the princess/mistaken for princess part?
(I have yet to play all the way through the original KH; caveat debator.)
Re: Coming in late to the party, but...
See, the thing with the Princesses is more "purity" than "strength"; they don't have to be great strong heroines, just free of darkness.
I don't think swapping either the worlds or the Princess status would work. Neverland is an intermediate world, with a whole different set of thematic purposes. Storywise, it's where (slight spoilers) Sora finds Kairi and learns of her condition, and sees how far Riku has fallen - this is heavy story stuff, and works better on a pirate ship with a pixie and a flying boy than in the LOLCRACK of Wonderland. Also, it's full of affirmation, "you can do anything if you believe!", and galvanizing Sora's will and resolve. This is all stuff Sora needs later in the game, rather than earlier, when he's been through the wringer a bit and is about to REALLY get into the thick of it. The simpler choice of swapping the Princess status doesn't help much either - if Alice isn't really a princess, that gums up the story early on when she's kidnapped. Too much to keep track of too early. Wendy being under investigation but not actually a Princess gets you further into the Princess plot at a good point in the story, after you have the basic idea.
See, one of the things about KH1 that I love, and one of the reason it holds up better than its sequel(s), is how tightly plotted and designed it is. The story is just put together so well. :D
Re: Coming in late to the party, but...
(Of course, I still think that Wendy's got more purity than some of the others, but one of them is kind of tied up storywise, one of them is the token non-European-or-whatever-Kairi-is, and there's probably something in the contract that wouldn't let the gamemakers swap out Cinderella.) ^_^
I like analysis of how stories or games hold together, and I really hope that I will have the pleasure of playing the first game through.