Females in Kingdom Hearts: A problem that needs addressing?

[rokudamia2]

I saw this on one of the blogs I follow on tumblr and thought that it could be an interesting discussion.

The Kingdom Hearts Info Block.

I agree with this for the most part. Namine and Xion are the only female characters to grow as characters. I also think Olette is a great supporting character, and Larxene is my favorite villain n the series.

But then we come to Kairi and Aqua. The writers seem to have a hard time deciding what to do with Kairi. She was completely absent for 99.9% of 3d, and her meeting with Aqua in BBS wasnt as important as Sora or Riku's meetings with Ven, and Terra. There is a chance she could grow in KH3 but, based on the series history and Hashimoto's comments I doubt it.

As for Aqua, I feel that though she is a strong character both physically and emotionally, I find her personality very shallow.

So what do you guys think?

 

[Wehrmacht]

Some problems right off the bat: Women of color don’t exist. Women who aren’t skinny don’t exist. Women who aren’t straight don’t exist. Women beyond the age of maybe twenty don’t exist except for one token grandmother character who literally only exists to tell the same fairy tale over and over and over and never has a single, solitary other identifiable feature.

Tumblr at its finest lol

She's not really wrong, but I find that it's symptomatic of the writing for Kingdom Hearts not being that good in general. It honestly affects Kairi more than anyone else, she's a pretty flat character all around and given how important everyone else is and how things there are to tie up in KH3 I doubt they're going to even be able to do much with her character until the next saga starts.

 

[Zettaflare]

I agree, xion and namine are the only female characters that have had some decent character development.

Kairi really is an underdeveloped character, and given the fact that she is part of the main trio, makes that fact much worse. When you take into conserderation of how much kh3 has to cover, i dont think kairi will get much character development. Aqua, i don t have as much of a problem with, but I thought she came off as a bit bland

 

[SRKTAVRXAYGDM]

We need to get this person on the Forums. Something tells me they REALLY understand the series good and bad points.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Lol I think most of us are aware on a subconscious level that the series does not pass the Bechdel test. If you aren't aware what the Bechdel test is, it is three tasks/standards a piece of media must fulfill to show that it is not gender biased:

1. It has to have at least two women in it,
2. who talk to each other,
3. about something besides a man.

Kingdom Hearts fails this test. Not one single game in the series truly fulfills any of those three tasks. Only one but it is by the hair of its chin. Going to ignore FF and Disney characters who most certainly do not fulfill these standards, and will instead do this for each game with just the original characters.

KH1: Kairi & Kairi's Grandmother are our only original female characters. They talk to each other...sort of. The grandmother kind of talks at Kairi. And they don't talk about a man! Well shit, it almost passed by a baby hair even though this is all in a flashback and in the shortest scene ever. Can we even count this? No. Not really. They don't really have any dialogue between each other so... = No Pass.

CoM: Namine, Larxene, & references to Kairi. Do Namine and Larxene talk to each other? YES! Bless! Okay, do they not talk about a man? NO. THEY TALK ABOUT MANY MEN. They talk about Sora, Repliku, Riku, the male Organization members... = No Pass

KH2: Oh, this is somewhat better? Maybe? Kairi, Olette, & Namine. For sure Kairi and Olette interact. What do they talk about, Kairi's looking for her male friends and is running from another male! Aw, well we still have Kairi and Namine. Well they first talk and it isn't about a man! Thank god. So tired of this man talk. They pass! Except when you realize Namine is indirectly referring to Saix when she is trying to help Kairi escape. Then Namine's next words after this scene are "You can take it from here, Riku." *sigh* = No Pass

Days: Haha. Larxene, Namine, Xion and references to Kairi. Xion and Larxene never interact so no. Xion and Namine is where we have to concentrate. What do they talk about? Sora, Roxas, and Axel. Ugh. = No Pass

coded: ...Namine and references to Kairi. = No Pass

BBS: Aqua, Kairi, Kairi's Grandmother. So, I honestly think this is the only game that passes the test. Kairi and her grandmother actually interact this time rather than one-sided discussion, Aqua and Kairi talk briefly. We're good! It gets a pass, but it really doesn't deserve it since Aqua spends most of her time looking for her male friends and most of everything that happens in the game is because of men + Aqua. = PASS...but barely.

KH3D: Ha. HAHA. Kairi, Namine, Xion, Aqua. None of these characters interact at any point in this game. The game is essentially about two guys fighting some guys, then one of the good guys gets kidnapped by the bad guys so the remaining good guy and horde of bad guys fight over the kidnapped guy and who gets his body for themselves. It's like the basic plot of a shounen ai/yaoi manga/anime/novel. I'm being dramatic, but you should get the idea. = No Diddly Pass

My post looks ridiculous, but this series is honestly shit when it comes to female characters. Their entire existences are centered on men.

There is a chance she could grow in KH3 but, based on the series history and Hashimoto's comments I doubt it.

Hashimoto's not commenting about her does not mean she will not be in the game. He didn't mention Roxas, so does that mean Roxas won't have a role in the game? Please stop taking his lack of mentioning her as something it is not.

He even discredits himself a few sentences later saying he's just producer and doesn't really know what is going on in Nomura's head.

 

[rokudamia2]

Wow, I never thought about that. Wow. This diddlying series.

Also, I understand about the Hashimoto part. I really should have just mentioned the series history.

 

[LightUpTheSky452]

Well, I was going to say something about this, but Master Spockanort mentioned everything I really could have, though I will say that I think Aqua's a better character than some of you are saying. And actually, I'd even say she's better than Xion (and I love Xion!), and Namine who--in my opinion, at least--regresses in her character development a lot, and makes the same mistakes over and over.

I'd say when Aqua steps up to fight Hades on her own is really when we start seeing her step into her own, and develop as a great character. Even moreso later in the game, when she lets Ven choose where to go, after telling him where to go the entire game, etc.

And about the whole Hashimoto thing, I should probably apologize for that. I can recognize now that I overreacted and started something I probably shouldn't have. But after eleven years of waiting and waiting for something to happen with Kairi, and always having it turn out to be for naught, I think I had the right for one major flip out, for all the reasons Master Spockanort mentioned above (and for all the females: not just Kairi).

And honestly, I have felt like they've been mentioning Kairi a lot less, than they even had been before, lately. So, yeah. I take back my freak out with Hashimoto, but I don't necessarily take back all my other feelings about the whole Kairi matter. Honestly, there is no denying these games are very, very sexist in many regards.

 

[Chaser]

And about the whole Hashimoto thing, I should probably apologize for that. I can recognize now that I overreacted and started something I probably shouldn't have. But after eleven years of waiting and waiting for something to happen with Kairi, and always having it turn out to be for naught,

You and many other people got angry at a man who does not know that much about Kingdom Hearts III, and got angry at him for not mentioning one female character because it is not her time yet. If a company isn't ready to talk about something, then it is fair game that they can't talk about it anytime soon. In fact, Nomura even said we would see Kairi soon.

These are Sora and his friends in KINGDOM HEARTS III. The CG renders feel like heartwarming illustrations. You will see characters such as Riku and Kairi soon.

Kairi's time is coming. She will play a role in Kingdom Hearts III.
Nomura even said this;

During the summit announcement at E3, we did not mention Kairi at all. We will share information when we are ready, so please be patient during the wait (laughs)

They aren't ready to share the information just yet. They went 2-3 years before even announcing Aqua despite it being completely obvious she was the third player in Birth by Sleep.

 

[rokudamia2]

I really shouldn't have mentiond Hashimoto. It's weird how this series is with women.

 

[Ruran]

Some of the points I was a little "eh" about but I agree with about 98.99% of it. KH certainly isn't malicious when it comes to it's female characters but it doesn't know how to write them either. For starters, out of a cast of about two dozen characters only about a quarter are female so they're sort of forced in a position where they "can't" communicate with other female characters very often and when they do, they talk about the men in their lives by virtue of the majority of characters being male. Or to put it more simply, as Spock pointed out, this series just totally fails the Bechdel test.

Kairi isn't so much a character than she is an object that just so happens to walk and talk. Occasionally.

Aqua's the "strong independent women" whose mama bear tendencies effectively make her the "antagonist" to Ven and Terra's bromance.

Namine was decently handled, it's just that most of her story depends on Sora to the point that when her work with him is over she believes that her existence no longer has a point.

Xion. Xion's an odd one. Mostly because she's a clone of Sora. She's identified as female and she's one of the better handled female characters but because she's supposed to be directly based off off Sora I don't know how much that factors into her development. Basically, I don't know by how much the writers went into it thinking of her as "female". Although Days had Kanemaki and from what I understand she's the only female writer KH has had so far.

Larxene is cool, though she feel into the Square female villain stereotype (being sadistic because lol).

Olette I actually don't have much of an opinion on.

 

[Orion]

KHI is generally very light on character development, even when it goes its 'deepest' into things. No one is particularly complex, everyone's motivations can be summarised in a quick sentence, there are incredibly few factions going around doing stuff. Considering this is a Japanese development team we're focusing a somewhat-traditionally-Western feminised* lens onto, it's no surprise that female characters come up short. Most big Japanese games and series are pretty paltry at it.
*using this as a shorthand, not a political way

 

[Wehrmacht]

KHI is generally very light on character development, even when it goes its 'deepest' into things. No one is particularly complex, everyone's motivations can be summarised in a quick sentence, there are incredibly few factions going around doing stuff. Considering this is a Japanese development team we're focusing a somewhat-traditionally-Western feminised* lens onto, it's no surprise that female characters come up short. Most big Japanese games and series are pretty paltry at it.

I would say most games and series japanese or otherwise aren't very good at it, though it does bear mentioning that the most notable example of a prominent female cast I've seen in a while is from a japanese game (drakengard 3)

 

[flyingfishstick]

I don't think Darkengard 3 is a great example of a feminist friendly game.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

There is just one thing I would like to say. It isn't bad that the female characters in Kingdom Hearts are male-centered, but the problem is that they have nothing outside of that. All of their development and personal drive come from the large male cast that surrounds them.

All of their potential development must either be driven by the male cast, or the female characters must remove themselves from the ongoing plot and have their own individual development.

Because the second option is nearly impossible considering where we are at right now, all development we'll see from Kairi, Aqua, Xion, and Namine will be done because of the male characters. Kairi's motivation for learning how to use the Keyblade will be because she wants to fight side-by-side with Sora and Riku and save the universe. Aqua's drive for stopping Xehanort will be because of Terra and Ven. Xion's desire to exist will be because she wants to spend time with Roxas and Lea like they used to. Namine...well...idk. She remains to be the biggest enigma.

I don't think Darkengard 3 is a great example of a feminist friendly game.

But it does have a prominent female cast that have stations of power, and the game features the objectification of men. It's already got an edge if we are only looking at the cast and their roles. Drakengard 3 isn't supposed to be a feminist friendly game, though. I'm pretty sure a feminist would say "Cool, female cast, but what the diddly?" at nearly everything from characterization to the clothes they all wear.

People tend to say "what the diddly" over Drakengard, anyways...

 

[rokudamia2]

It's sad, but true. I don't think it's done intentionally, But it's there.

 

[Orion]

One thing that I think Kingdom Hearts very well illustrates is that there's lazy writing in relation to gender, and there's a potentially harmful version thereof. We know that - for the most part - race, background, sexuality, and many other things don't matter when it comes to character interactions and relationships. Spockanort said the female characters revolve around the male ones, and I won't deny that, but I'll try to add more nuance to that: How many of these relationships could be said to occur because the male characters are male?

The only one I can think of (where there are no other confounding elements, such as who has what part of someone's being) is in the instance of Sora, Riku and Kairi. All other relationships seem to only occur with characters who are coincidentally male, and maybe don't even have any male-centric traits that wind up being important or necessary down the line.

 

[FudgemintGuardian]

Master Spockanort said everything I wanted too, so I'll just say I hope Kairi gets plenty of screen time in III and that in that screen time she does useful things.

 

[skyfoxx]

Some problems right off the bat: Women of color don’t exist. Women who aren’t skinny don’t exist. Women who aren’t straight don’t exist. Women beyond the age of maybe twenty don’t exist except for one token grandmother character who literally only exists to tell the same fairy tale over and over and over and never has a single, solitary other identifiable feature.

I hate this article already.
You can turn this exact thing around to the guy's side. "Guys who aren't skinny don't exist. Guys who aren't straight don't exist. Guys beyond the age of maybe twenty don't exist unless they are villains or the token old mentors." None of these things are issues, this is just more feministic bullcrap who thinks that things need to be "more diverse." If a writer writes a character as a gay, fat, 40-year old woman then that's all well and good. But you're basically saying, "We need to force diversity even if the writers did not intend their characters to be that way in the first place."

But you know who you can blame? The writers. Because they put Kairi in a coma for ninety percent of the game, thereby depriving her of any chance in the world to develop any skills, to build any experience, or to find any usefulness or worth in herself. I don’t mind that they made her “in distress.” I mind that they made her “in distress” in such a way that erased her from the plot and robbed her of any chance to do anything.

Yes, how DARE the writers write the story the way they wanted to do it and chose NOT to force this female into the story when that was not what was intended. How DARE they write the plot so that Kairi's heart was in Sora this whole time so that they can have an interesting plot-twist towards the end of the game. How DARE they write a 14-year old female character who has lived in an island for most of her life who does not have any weapons and does not know how to fight. How DARE they not write the story so that they can force down a "strong independent woman who can fight because feminists want that to happen!" How freakin' DARE they!

In fact, they DID somewhat do that... in KH2. And you know what? It felt super forced! Making Kairi go to other worlds just to get kidnapped again because she needs more screentime? Felt forced! Her getting a keyblade for 10 seconds just to stop the feminists complaining? Felt forced! As much as you guys hate to admit it, KH2 was Square's response to all the whiny feminists out there that wanted Kairi to have a Keyblade. And in the end, who did it please? Nobody. Which is why I'm more fearful for what will happen in KH3 in regards to Kairi than anything else. Because anytime they tried to "throw her into action," it felt forced. This is why KH1 was perfect. They knew what Kairi was and did not force her into action just for the sake of throwing her into action.

Even in BBS, where the kids only make brief cameos, the boys get incredible, character-building, emotionally meaningful cameos. Sora gets to save Ven’s life. Riku shows so much heart and character, he earns himself a Bequeathing from a hero. But Kairi? She gets the Bequeathing by accident. Aqua doesn’t even realize it happened. And little Kairi doesn’t get to do anything, solve a problem, display a character trait… She just gets to be saved from the Unversed even though neither of the boys needed saving, and then she gets to hear the fairy tale that we’d already seen her listen and react to all the way back in KH1. She’s just given passive, rehashed content instead of anything worthwhile or good.

What did you honestly expect?! Oh yeah, a 4-year old girl by herself in Radiant Garden, who's only plot that we know leads to future KH games is that she telaports to Destiny Islands and she eventually gets a Keyblade for 5 seconds. We've got LOOOADS of material for that! Anything more than that would have (once again) felt forced. I'm using this word a lot because a lot of you seem to want Kairi to be forced into the story when in reality, that does more harm than anything else.

Namine - Generally better handled than Kairi. Even though she spends all of CoM “in distress,” her wants and needs — specifically, her desire for a friend and her need to matter in someone’s life — actively drive the plot, and she plays a big role by ultimately revealing the truth to Sora on her own terms.

Oh, so NAMINE'S fine if her distress actively drives the plot and reveals a truth in the plot towards the end, but if KH1 Kairi's story is exactly like that, it's suddenly bad? >_>

Olette - Easily the most likable of the HPO trio. A great side character whose role is minor but very well utilized.

lolwut?

Xion - Fantastic.

LOLWUT?!

Only then to be followed by:

Aqua - Shallow, dry, somewhat inconsistently written,

LOLWUUUUUT?!

Part of me is honestly wondering if this article is a joke after you call Xion fantastic and then literally the next line under, call Aqua shallow and dry.


...Oh wait, I just realized this is tumblr.................... That explains a whole lot.

 

[rokudamia2]

You do know that this is just the writers opinion right? And I also prefer Xion to Aqua, so the writer's not alone.

 

[Ruran]

I hate this article already.
You can turn this exact thing around to the guy's side. "Guys who aren't skinny don't exist. Guys who aren't straight don't exist. Guys beyond the age of maybe twenty don't exist unless they are villains or the token old mentors." None of these things are issues, this is just more feministic bullcrap who thinks that things need to be "more diverse." If a writer writes a character as a gay, fat, 40-year old woman then that's all well and good. But you're basically saying, "We need to force diversity even if the writers did not intend their characters to be that way in the first place."

Dude...then you wonder why people interpret your posts as angry. :/

This is the only thing about the blog I was kind of "eh" about, but what the writer is trying to get at is that the few female characters follow a very streamlined idea of what's considered pretty, although you can probably chalk this up to literally half the girls looking identical for plot reasons. I was sort of bothered by how skinny Aqua is though considering that she's supposed to be a master who spent years in combat training. I wasn't expecting her to be a beef cake or anything, but at the very least giving her Korra level muscles would have been a nice change of pace. Aside from that the issue doesn't bother me much.

I disagree about how "you can turn this around on the guys". No, no you can't. There are at the very least skinny, beefy, and medium sized guys who go beyond the age of twenty. There's more variety if only by virtue of there being more male characters.

Yes, how DARE the writers write the story the way they wanted to do it and chose NOT to force this female into the story when that was not what was intended. How DARE they write the plot so that Kairi's heart was in Sora this whole time so that they can have an interesting plot-twist towards the end of the game. How DARE they write a 14-year old female character who has lived in an island for most of her life who does not have any weapons and does not know how to fight. How DARE they not write the story so that they can force down a "strong independent woman who can fight because feminists want that to happen!" How freakin' DARE they!

Stop that, you're being obnoxious about it and missing the point.

It's not that Kairi was made into a damsel in distress and wasn't "forced" into the story enough, it's that they don't do anything with her character and she's on the same level as a prize. We're told that Kairi is really important to the plot and to the characters, but her role is passive to the point that she fulfilled it while being incapacitated throughout most of the game. One has to wonder why she's even a character at all, much less a main character. As a character Kairi contributes nothing and could have easily been replaced with either another character or with an object of equal value outright. It's more annoying because she happens to be a girl fulfilling a generic damsel in distress role without doing anything interesting with it. Gender issue aside it's also poor writing.

In fact, they DID somewhat do that... in KH2. And you know what? It felt super forced! Making Kairi go to other worlds just to get kidnapped again because she needs more screentime? Felt forced! Her getting a keyblade for 10 seconds just to stop the feminists complaining? Felt forced! As much as you guys hate to admit it, KH2 was Square's response to all the whiny feminists out there that wanted Kairi to have a Keyblade. And in the end, who did it please? Nobody. Which is why I'm more fearful for what will happen in KH3 in regards to Kairi than anything else. Because anytime they tried to "throw her into action," it felt forced. This is why KH1 was perfect. They knew what Kairi was and did not force her into action just for the sake of throwing her into action.

I think you need to take your "a feminazi wrote this!!11!!1" goggles off.

The blogger doesn't want Kairi forced into the plot more, just for her presence to be relevant outside of total plot device. Again, the issue is that Kairi does nothing as a character and what little she does participate in completely revolves around her not-boyfriend. She has little to no character development, a problem which we all recognize, partly because she exists to push Sora's story along, which is a shame because she's interesting on a conceptual level.

What did you honestly expect?! Oh yeah, a 4-year old girl by herself in Radiant Garden, who's only plot that we know leads to future KH games is that she telaports to Destiny Islands and she eventually gets a Keyblade for 5 seconds. We've got LOOOADS of material for that! Anything more than that would have (once again) felt forced. I'm using this word a lot because a lot of you seem to want Kairi to be forced into the story when in reality, that does more harm than anything else.

They were apparently able to do more with Sora and Riku. Sora saved someone's life before he was even born proper and Riku apparently oozed so much awesome that Terra decided to wielderfy him on the spot. Kairi gets the damsel in distress treatment again and we learn she's an accident. She didn't have to have her own in depth subplot or anything but compared to Sora and Riku her involvement was sad.

Oh, so NAMINE'S fine if her distress actively drives the plot and reveals a truth in the plot towards the end, but if KH1 Kairi's story is exactly like that, it's suddenly bad? >_>



lolwut?



LOLWUT?!

Only then to be followed by:


LOLWUUUUUT?!

The blogger doesn't have a problem with damsels in distress, it's only when they're not done well. Namine is an example of how a DiD is done decently. Kairi isn't.

Part of me is honestly wondering if this article is a joke after you call Xion fantastic and then literally the next line under, call Aqua shallow and dry.


...Oh wait, I just realized this is tumblr.................... That explains a whole lot.

That's probably the only other thing I disagree with, the quality of Xion's writing, but I know where they're coming from. Aqua, I also found to be shallow and dry.