No toxic shipping here.
I'm not demanding that Namine be with Riku, that's what I would prefer if they ever do actual relationships in KH. I just rather Roxas be alone and be a star on his own, and not get pulled into a Nomura-written relationship that will devalue him because Roxas is the best (this applies to Xion as well).
And even though the "biology" behind Namine's creation is still vague ie "she's a special nobody", she is obviously connected to Sora somehow since she can control HIS MEMORIES. She can't even control Kairi's memories. Also, if it was so horrible of Namine to "brainwash" Riku Replica into loving her, then why isn't the same mentality applied to Namine brainwashing Roxas into probably the worst existence possible - believing that your normal life is your normal life, then pulling the rug out from under you and revealing it was all a lie, and that you only had 7 more days to live. That is probably the biggest reason I don't want Roxas/Namine to happen because I will always remember what she did to precious Roxas.
The fact is that the only person that saw through all of Namine's brainwashing and manipulation (albeit she was forced into it) was Riku. He wasn't a subject of her manipulation and saw her for more than just a tool (like DiZ did). Granted, Riku was more obsessed with fixing Sora than really caring for Namine at that point, but he was going through his own struggle at that time. But Riku still cared for her WITHOUT being controlled by her in some form.
Naminè can control Sora's memories and those connected to him because Kairi's Heart and his interacted within him. It's the reason why he at times could see a phantom vision of her and feel things are "familiar" in KHI. Of course, considering how much of an anomaly Naminè is and how mysterious her powers
still are (and why it had to be about memories in the first place), that may be retconned later. But fact of the matter is she posseses no part of Sora, and therefore can't be related to Roxas (who is Sora's body).
Also, it took Naminè a
long time to brainwash Sora and pick apart his memories. Riku Replica was a blank slate she could work with, but with Sora, she had to redirect his feelings for Kairi towards her by replacing her position in his memories and throw Kairi off as a normal friend of the group. It took
days. So to expect that she'll be able to erase and replace Roxas' memory bank in legit a few hours is prepostorous. I'm pretty sure it was implied Diz covered up his memories of his time in the Organization with data. It's why it was such a bad job. Roxas
himself was converted to data to be in data Twilight Town. We see this being done in a scene.
On top of that, it makes no sense that Naminè will then not only risk Sora's recovery, but disobey Diz's orders, by hacking into said data town all for the sake of attempting to help him figure things out. It's contradictory.
Which brings me to the obvious
logical conclusion that she hadn't done anything to him in terms of memory altering.
Trying to paint Riku as the only source of possible romantic companionship is also flimsy. The one scene we see of them in 358/2 Days was him just straight out being professional about Sora's progress. He didn't talk to Naminè as a person there, but as a business partner of sorts. Not to mention he had to be
updated by her, which means that they have hardly seen each other throughout the year. And this was in what, Day 250 something. I think he spent more time gallivating off with Xion for a month (if we are to believe that official Days timeline) than spending time with Naminè.
The whole "they spent a year offscreen together" is a myth.
Then in KHIII he didn't breathe her name or cared until Riku Replica reminded him she existed, and now had to see through his last wish. At least Sora, Kairi, and Roxas remembered her in their own way without needing to be told. Even Aqua got more of his attention. That's not the behavior of someone that loves or wants to be with another person.
And in all these moments, there's legit zero romantic interest on Riku's end. And Naminè's too for that matter. For 8+ games. Pack that with Nomura himself debunking RikuNami, and there has to be a certain point where it's like, okay, it's not a thing.
Shipping or not, it feels strange that Namine doesn't interact with Roxas at all in KH3.
Heck, there's a whole lot of characters that should've interacted in KH3. Kairi and Riku barely spoke with each other, they seemed to have dropped the Xemnas + Aqua's armor plot point for some reason (a bit dissappointed because I did ship Xemaqua). etc. Also, wasn't Xemnas trying to look for Ventus or am I remembering things wrong?
They haven't been in physical existence since KHII, so stuff post-KHII has been more meta than anything aside from DDD and KHIII (for example, those 2.8. ending credits and KHUx art). And I put DDD here because Roxas shared her pain with Sora in that scene with him as the memories of data TT flowed into him. You even see Naminè a few times. Sora himself confirmed it in KHIII with the flashback added in to boot. Cause you know, we need to make sure we get the point and all.
I think the set up with Roxas was great. You see him being triggered emotionally to the point that he flashes over Sora and Sora feels his sadness. This happens both in San Fransokyo (and we visualize HPO) and when Roxas within Sora is gazing at Naminè's room window. The problem comes in
when there is no delivery on it. In writing, when you build up things like that, there's expectations of a payoff to come eventually. Otherwise, why do it at all? Yet we never got to witness Roxas reunite with HPO
or Naminè. Once the black hole trio returned, it was like nobody remembered they had relationships with other characters. And Lea. Not only did he not react to her taken away or react to hearing about what occurred to her, having him see Xion in her at the start made it look like he's just compensating for something missing. His own friendship with Kairi got cheapened as a result if you ask me.
It's the same with Kairi and Naminè. You had this fantastic, meaningful rendition about her Nobody's right to exist at the very beginning...and nothing. At one point I thought that she was to embark on a journey to help her. But she doesn't. They don't talk, they don't even hug. Nothing. She was just Sora-focused and got fridged to give him man angst.
KHIII sucked narrative wise, but the worst part of it were the characters. It seems Nomura cared more about wanting to close the door on trios and leftover, hanging threads than do anything with the characters at present time. He also views this as not the end of KH, so he's also in the mentality that interactions will occur in the future. It screws everything up when you have characters being so non-reactive however. They could have at least freaking blinked. I mean, shit, I know death means nothing in KH, but we have to buy that these people give a damn about one another here. And then we skip to Roxas having a race with Riku of all people on the beach. Did the dude even apologize?
We don’t know!
They're just BFFs now.
