Wonderful Worlds Application

[homnomhearts]

Player

Name: Marvel
Personal Journal: blondandflannel
Contact Info: AIM: crownedcaduceus | blondandflannel
Timezone: EST
Characters Played: None!

Character

Name: Sora
Source: Kingdom Hearts (OU)
Type: Player
Canon Point: Post-KH3D
History: A fairly detailed and accurate canon history can be found here! Since Sora does not die in canon, I'm going to assume something strange happened in the Lanes Between on his way back to Traverse Town to thank the Dream Eaters, resulting in his sort-of death.

Personality: Sora is, in general, an upbeat kid who encourages others to do what they feel is right and to think positively. Despite losing his home and the only friends he’s ever known in the beginning of the first game, he retains a positive outlook throughout most of the story events that follow. He’s quick to make friends with everyone he meets, and despite what personal goals he may have (i.e. finding his friends and protecting the worlds from Heartless using the Keyblade), he can generally be relied upon to help out with almost anything at a moment’s notice. He also has a tendency to peptalk anyone feeling down on their luck. Sora wants to be a hero, and does everything he can to act the part--sacrificing his own well-being for the sake of others.

This hero complex stems from that fact that, above all else, Sora values his friends. His overall purpose in both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II is to find his friends from the islands (Riku and Kairi) and return home with them. In KH3D, he protests when asked to take the Mark of Mastery test until Riku agrees, at which point he decides to take it with him. When he was convinced it would save Kairi, he was willing to stab himself in the heart with a special Keyblade designed to unlock hearts, essentially sacrificing himself to save her (turning himself into a heartless when he could have easily been stuck that way forever if it weren’t for later events). In Kingdom Hearts II, he continues to search for Riku despite his home being restored and Kairi having already returned there. Finding Riku is his first priority, and he prefaces his first visit to each world with some variant of “maybe Riku’s there.” When he does finally find him, he breaks down crying in front of everyone.

While this is not quite as surprising as it sounds--Sora is very emotionally open and is actually seen in the background wiping his eyes during touching moments between other characters in KHII--it is still a significant event, and helps to illustrate how much the safety of his friends comes first. Always. He believes strongly (and reiterates in each game at least once) that his heart is connected to all of his friends' hearts, and that they are the source of all his power. When Xigbar uses this against him in KH3D and points out that there is nothing inherently special about him, Sora replies that he doesn't care, and that he's okay with being a small part of something bigger.

Two of the easiest ways to hurt Sora are 1) befriend and betray him, and 2) make him think he’s failed his friends in some way. Even if a good friend (like Riku) turns their back on him, Sora will follow them to the ends of the earth to make amends even if no hope of reconciliation seems possible. He can’t stand the thought of having failed a friend, either, and quickly becomes obsessed with making it up to them. We see both of these situations collide in Chain of Memories, and the result is a Sora who is so unsettled that he becomes angry at his companions for trying to talk sense into him and storms off alone. Sora seems incapable of holding negative actions against those he would call friends, and will always readily forgive them if at any point they do come around--when Neku betrays him in KH3D and tries to turn him over to Xehanort, Sora thinks nothing of it because it's clear that Neku had been manipulated. As long as someone is still his friend, Sora's capacity for trust and forgiveness is quite literally endless.

While Sora’s general positivity is one of his greatest strengths, it is also one of his most devastating faults. He will often shove worries to the back of his mind and simply ignore or refuse to think about things that bother him, perhaps trying too hard to be the hero everyone needs him to be. When troubled, he rarely voices what it is he’s worried about—for example, when he must fight someone who he suspects is in fact Riku (who for unknown reasons is wearing the uniform of their enemies), he does not voice his concerns to the rest of the party and actually brushes off their inquiries as to whether he’s okay. When the party is discussing the mechanics of curses and traveling between worlds, Sora says wistfully, “Yeah... we're always just passing through... Wonder when we'll see home again...” only to contradict himself with a, “Just kiddin' you. Lucky we didn't get cursed, huh?” when his companions express concern. In addition to repressing these feelings around others, there are indications that he also represses them within himself. When it is briefly believed that one of his companions is dead, Sora simply says, “This is not happening. It can't be happening. It can't.” He seems to have a lot of trouble understanding that more negative traits and emotions--"darkness"--can sometimes be warranted, and therefore has difficulties understanding the motivations of characters like Riku who are not overwhelmingly positive and choose to walk the "twilight road" between light and darkness.

His strong friendships and endless trust in his friends, another of his greatest strengths, is also a source of weakness. In KH3D, when Sora must do things by himself much of the time, his usual badassery is notably absent. In several situations, when it falls to him and him alone to make things right, he ends up getting knocked out and letting the bad guys escape. When he fights Xemnas alone in The World That Never Was, instead of beating him, he wears himself out, leaving himself susceptible to the Organization's plot. While he's certainly capable of acting alone sometimes--there are moments in KHII where he's separated briefly from his companions, and he functions fine then--when separated from his friends for an extended length of time he appears to falter slightly, becoming unsure of himself enough to render his usually stellar abilities less so.

Another fault of Sora’s is his incredibly black and white sense of justice. Based on the word of someone he trusts, he is willing to essentially commit murder without hesitation if he believes the guilty party to be a “bad guy” and himself to be on the side of the “good guys.” For the most part this approach is a good fit for the Disney-style villains, but when it comes to the Nobodies, things become more ambiguous. However, Sora is just as merciless with them as he is with the Disney villains—perhaps even more so. He can be surprisingly quick to anger, especially when confused, and the Nobodies confuse him more than any of his other enemies because they do not feel emotion like normal human beings—according to some, they cannot feel at all. However, their self-expression is remarkably similar to true emotional reaction in some cases. Being such an emotional person himself, Sora seems disturbed by this and reacts with anger in most cases. Because Sora was told that the Nobodies are enemies and will deceive him, he ignores the ambiguities almost to the point of cruelty, wiping out the Nobodies despite evidence that they're not all bad because he has been told they have no right to exist anyway. He then ends up feeling severely conflicted about this later, when he discovers that Nobodies can actually grow hearts given the chance.

Sora also tends to be somewhat gullible, and can be oblivious to things that should be obvious. He has a tendency to take people at their word unless he’s been specifically told not to by someone else he trusts more than said person. Fitting with his tendency to be the hero, he can be highly impulsive, often jumping into things without thinking and trusting that everything will simply work itself out while ignoring obvious dangers. He’s also got a competitive streak that can make him very hardheaded—he and Riku built most of their friendship growing up around constant rivalry, and he and Donald actually crashed their ship in the first game fighting over the wheel. Overall, these negative traits help to balance out his more positive ones.

Abilities: Sora can summon and dismiss a Keyblade at will to aid him in battle. The Keyblade is not necessarily what one would call an entirely tangible object, as it may disappear and reappear at the will of the wielder--although the wielder may carry many keychains, which are physical objects and which may alter the appearance and specific attributes of the Keyblade. The Keyblade, besides being a weapon, can also seal or unseal the barriers between worlds as well as lock or unlock any lock. Keyblade wielders can sometimes summon a second Keyblade to dual-wield.

Keyblades enable the wielder to use magic, and Sora uses his as a conduit for magical attacks. These include basic spells like fire, blizzard, thunder, and cure. Sora’s magical power is measured in MP in-game, and will run out after using several spells. However, it does restore itself over time.

Apart from the Keyblade, Sora’s clothes hold certain special properties. They were made for him by the fairies of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, and in times of need can suddenly change color and boost Sora’s stats depending on the form used (there are several).

He also has a few purely physical abilities--these include the ability to glide (not fly--think flying squirrel rather than bird) and jump higher than most normal humans (i.e. "high jump" in game).

Entry Fee: His Keyblade and magical powers will obviously be going away. He will also be losing his memories of home--Destiny Islands, where he grew up with his best friends Riku and Kairi at his side. The islands, to him, are a symbol of everything he lost at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts and everything he fears to lose still.
Starting Pin: Eyes Full of Hope

Samples: Sora's thread on the Test Drive Meme!