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PoH subverted?



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I had a thought while I was trying to sleep, like it always happens.

What if the new seven lights aren't princesses? Or even, female at all?

Over the last decade or so, we've seen a lot of tropes subverted and even ground out of existence.

Even Disney has done so, what with their 'non-traditional' take on true love with Frozen and Maleficent. What if Rapunzel isn't the pure light... but Flynn ? Sure he tries to be a rakish rogue playboy, but he spends the whole time helping her out, and in the end gives his life for her. That's pretty damn pure. Upending this trope opens up a realm of possibilities for who exactly these 'seven pure lights' really are.

Has it ever been explicitly stated that the seven pure lights are also princesses? If so please correct me, I'm not caught up with every dribble of information dropped over the years. But I think it'd be a super cool twist if a princess has to rescue a prince. ;)
 

Luminary

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Yeah Nomura confirmed that the new seven pure lights would all be female, unfortunately.
 

Antifa Lockhart

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Well enough then I stand corrected. It would still be subverting their own trope to have non princesses. Having it just be 'female' also opens it up a ton. I suppose we could also argue semantics depending on if Nomura means men or male but that's a bit pedantic.

Female nonhuman characters, perhaps? Plenty of those in Disney too, also a few in FFverse Terraaaaaa even though there's already a Terra? Spell her name with one r! I'm still holding out that Kiara is one of the lights. She's also a princess, she just happens to be a lioness.
 

raccoonscity

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It would still be subverting their own trope to have non princesses. Having it just be 'female' also opens it up a ton.

I mean, not really. It's not anymore subversive than having Alice and Kairi, who weren't royalty, as princesses in KH1. Especially because the point of them, both times it seems, is to collect them for power. I don't think Nomura's trying to really do anything that different, just have the Xehanorts gather them as a backup. Out of the confirmed new princess, Kairi is still the only one who is not royalty. Rapunzel, Anna, and Elsa are targeted as princesses are they were royalty in their respective movies.
 

kirabook

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They are "Princesses" of Heart yes, but not necessarily actual royal princesses. When people think about the PoH, they shouldn't restrict themselves to the official princess list.
 

mytomxxx

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I don't think Nomura's trying to really do anything that different


I expect to see the princesses fighting to not get caught this time. In Kh1 we only met the princess in the end, except Jasmine, who is more like, hoping to get rescued by Aladin. I thik now the princesses will show action by themselfs.
Elsa have icy magicpowers, Rapunzel is fighting alongside with us, Kairi is training to be a Keyblade Weilder, Anna is resistent? Really feeling this time the princesses will have some strong presence.

7 guardians of light and 7 ninja princesses of heart
 

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I'm curious why Nomura opted not to have any princes of heart. It would have made sense to have male counterparts. Especially when you consider that one technically exists in the form of Ven. Oh well.
 

raccoonscity

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I'm curious why Nomura opted not to have any princes of heart. It would have made sense to have male counterparts. Especially when you consider that one technically exists in the form of Ven. Oh well.

I don't know if Ven could actually count as a "Prince of Heart" because he wasn't born with a pure heart, even if he and Vanitas are separate people now. Not that it matters in terms of the new princesses, anyway. It doesn't seem like they actually need to have pure or light-filled hearts since Elsa seems to be on the borderline.
 

Luminary

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I'm curious why Nomura opted not to have any princes of heart. It would have made sense to have male counterparts. Especially when you consider that one technically exists in the form of Ven. Oh well.

I think it may have been because the Organization and likely the Guardians will be predominantly male. Maybe they thought this would balance the gender ratio a bit within the whole group of 13 champions of light.
 

redcrown

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I'm curious why Nomura opted not to have any princes of heart. It would have made sense to have male counterparts. Especially when you consider that one technically exists in the form of Ven. Oh well.

I agree it would have been refreshing to have Princes of Heart instead of princesses again, just to have something new and maybe subvert the implied theme of "only women can have innocence worth defending and be pure of heart" but oh well.

Also hearing Elsa will be a PoH is even more disappointing; having her struggle with her ice powers be a correlation to the darkness in her heart she's trying to suppress is out the window now.
 

FudgemintGuardian

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Also hearing Elsa will be a PoH is even more disappointing; having her struggle with her ice powers be a correlation to the darkness in her heart she's trying to suppress is out the window now.
Larxene: "Light? Or Darkness? I know I wanna know."

Then read the interviews, Larxene.

It's annoying. The big point of Arendelle's story seems to be on finding out whether Elsa is a PoH or not. Larxene's dialogue implies this is the first time Sora's learning about this new seven hearts thing and that Organization XIII has no clue if Elsa is, but will find out by letting the movie run its course. But...the mystery is ruined because WE already know!

I'll say this though; as annoying as the confirmation is, we don't actually know if she's a PoH from the start. Going with what we know, my guess is Elsa does struggle with her darkness, but Anna's sacrifice i.e. the act of true love thawing a frozen heart i.e. filling her with light or something probably, and that triggers the PoH powers. Then Larxene kidnaps Elsa.
 

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Male Princes would've been cool and made at least more sense than "oh, there are NEW Princesses of Light, however that might work, but not all of them, Kairi is still one because reasons."
Really, would it kill them to introduce/rewrite something with a bit of sense or coherency? Geez.

I'm like, so curious about what happened with the old ones. Are they unusable now? What, did using their powers in KH1 gave them a bunch of Anti points so their hearts aren't pure anymore? Could the Norts truly not bring Cinderella to the table again?

That being said, I'm still hopeful for something new. Perhaps what Larxene is saying implies these new Princesses might not be the old "sweet maiden with a pure heart" shtick.
If I'm not wrong, the known Princesses from the new generation are from newer Disney movies, with slightly different takes on morality than the classics (Rapunzel being raised by the evil "mother", Elsa struggling with her own powers). I'd love if they used this to build up a different reinterpretation of the Princesses, where they COULD theoretically be in balance between Light and Darkness.
 

mytomxxx

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If they want to, they could make Elsa fall to darkness? It would be against Disney or something like that?
Because if it can happen, even with the enterviews making us understand that, she is a PoH, in the deep of my heart, in a scene where larxene is making Anna suffer, or blakemailing Elsa, i'll probably be thinking, no it can't happen, she will fall? she will fall? OMG
 

Megavoltage

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If they want to, they could make Elsa fall to darkness?
Why even make it a possibility if not a single POH goes with darkness? It should happen to one just for the sake of variety, and we know she'd get a happy ending at the very end anyways. And the game already has a theme of good people getting corrupted going, let's bring a princess into it.
 

mytomxxx

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I don't think it is possible for a PoH fall to darkness, I was asking if her (assuming she is not a PoH, which i think she is) could fall. I have the feeling that it is over the limits that Disney permits.
If she can't fall to darkness, even not being a PoH, there will never be a surprise in that sense. In the same way, you never expect to a princess in Disney movies to die in the middle of the film.
But if she can, there will be possible surprise that she is not a PoH, which would make a cool plot twist. Even if she comes back to normal in the end
 

alexis.anagram

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Not subversive, just redundant to the point that it's almost like a cliche of itself: the female purity standard set by Disney and leaned into with KH1 now rehashed as some kind of self-referential mess that almost seems like it's missing the point. Getting pretty tired of seeing women brought into KH just to pull the plot device lever and act as bad guy bait. They had a real opportunity to pick up on the Princess of Heart angle and deepen our understanding of these women as characters with Kairi (supposedly) getting her big arc, but it's like one step forward two steps back. It's hard not to feel like KH3 is intent on squandering its potential sometimes.
 

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It just seems so unnecessary to announce a new generation
This is the part of that sentence I agree most strongly with, haha.
But yeah the lack of variety like, at all, is also questionable. I honestly have to wonder what Nomura was thinking? It would be one thing if he just retconned the story to have more PoH which would still have me sighing but probably not super concerned since it wouldn't be the first time. But what exactly is the benefit of dropping the "classic" PoH just to replace them with what essentially amount to clones of them? And then keeping Kairi as a PoH just highlights how arbitrary and poorly conceived this was. And in this installment in particular, it's just really souring.
 

mytomxxx

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They had a real opportunity to pick up on the Princess of Heart angle and deepen our understanding of these women as characters with Kairi (supposedly) getting her big arc, but it's like one step forward two steps back.

I think they still have this opportunity, nothing to revolutionare, but less cliche. If Kairi have more screentime this time, she can take lead sometimes, do some action. But I doubt it will happen, probably she will keep being just the romantic part of Sora. I like their romance but, she is just this right now.
Maybe Merida of Brave would be really interesting to have in this game, imo she is the most independent princess.
And we can have some variety, I think it can be fruitive to have new PoHs. The previous PoHs where the princesses who really could not fight at all, they were really inofensive. Now with this new model of princesses, they can have more relevance at the end, putting more difficulties to the True Org by them selves. But they will keep being the bad guy bait, just because this is what PoH are of relevant, saddly.
 
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