Yeah, but it did work out in terms of... well, terms. I mean, life is indeed a cycle, or a circle. Either or.
Especially in KH, where all you need to do to come back from the dead is wake up.
And yeah, exactly. Also, I enjoyed how they even showed Xion manifesting as Ven in the vision of Xigbar. Though, honestly, the fact he said "You always looked like I just drowned your goldfish," made me think that Braig knew Ven better than he actually did.
Braig seemed to take his few interactions with Ven to heart. I'm not sure why. Even in BBS, he seemed particularly interested in Ven during his short meeting with him in the Keyblade Graveyard, taunting him and singling out his circumstances. He basically ignored Aqua even though she was his opponent. It's likely nothing, but perhaps there's a history there that we don't know about.
Also, I wonder if Axel got any closure after sacrificing himself for Sora.
As a character? Certainly. He finally put his friends before himself. That was his greatest conflict, in many ways; his inability to commit to sacrifice left him incapable of coping with situations that demanded compromise, so he generally ended up hurting everyone in order to manifest his own desired outcome. Axel liked being the wild card because it meant he never had to lose, but it also meant he could never really be a part of anything beyond himself; before Days, he likely didn't care, but as he observed the willingness with which Roxas involved himself with others he was moved considerably. Axel's thematic arc was his transition from a policy of self-isolationism in a vain effort to manipulate fate and circumstance to a fuller human character who was willing to be guided and to be hopeless-- ultimately, to give everything and receive nothing. His story is karmic in nature. Although, considering Axel is carrying on as Lea in DDD, I think his story's total closure is still to come.
Well it's because Xion is one of the biggest conundrums in the series, one that many find useless. As I said previously, people see Xion in the game and because of their feelings regarding her overall role, the rest of the game suffers immensely in their opinions. She tends to overshadow the rest of the game when people think about it.
I don't in any way believe that people should disregard Xion's impact in the game, I just think it's useless to evaluate it independent of how it informs Roxas's and Axel's behaviors and characters. Xion is in every way a dependent character; dependent upon a story that has already been told, upon characters who have already been established and upon an arc that is borrowed from the line of storytelling which had already been formulated. That's why I think she's sort of ingenious as a plot device-- she has no purpose other than to be there, yet her existence is self-correcting.
I think another reason that he lost so much when she died is because through her taking his energy (even manifesting in a mission where his level is halved due to Xion's presence as his partner) he grew somewhat dependent on her. He lost a lot of himself to her draining presence (which was as the Organization wanted), and when she vanished those parts of himself vanished with her. They're probably back once Roxas returned to Sora, but during the last day of Days, he is wounded by his loss. And that's probably another reason why he was so angry; not only had he lost Xion, but he'd also lost a large part of himself in the process.
One could certainly make fine arguments in that vein, as you have. Literally, Xion and Roxas were a part of each other; although technically Xion became a part of Roxas again at the end of the game and he was restored to his original state, more or less, it doesn't make the impact any less visceral or relative. The worst part is, Roxas was never given the freedom to form a decision in any of this, and as we're constantly reminded throughout the series, his motif is portrayed as a lack of any
right to decide. DiZ tells Roxas he "doesn't have a right to know" what his purpose is, because he doesn't even have a right to exist. Xemnas uses Roxas without remorse, and even Xion ultimately tells Roxas what she is doing
for him, without his informed consent. Roxas's entire existence is determined by everyone around him (and as I've mentioned before, how he and Xion react to this similar function in different manners is one of the more interesting points in the series), so his redemption can ultimately only come in finally making a choice to do what is right for his own reasons.
I mean at first he tried really hard to convince us that nobodies were supposed to look like their full persons. But then there was the inconsistency of some nobodies looking EXACTLY like their human counterparts, and some like Roxas/Namine looking quite different. But Nomura tried to convince you that Sora/Roxas and Kairi/Namine looked the same anyway, when in BBS he somehow became aware that Sora and Roxas look nothing alike and that it's all due to Ventus being involved.
He could take a question like "Why does Xion have black hair but kinda look like Kairi?" and make an entire damn game about it if he wanted. It's so stupid.
The thing about your argument is that so much of what we learn within the series at any given point is anecdotal; unless Nomura specifically speaks on the matter, it's hard to ever truly know what the reality of the situation is based on any character's personal exposition, as every character in KH is liable to lie or be mistaken or manipulated. However, it was clear beginning with KH2 that Roxas was not a normal Nobody, and numerous characters stated throughout the game that Namine isn't even properly a Nobody to begin with. I don't remember Nomura ever stating differently; from what I understand, when he talks about Nobodies in general, he is almost always referring to Nobodies who follow the conventional laws of their existence. Neither Roxas nor Namine, nor Sora's and Kairi's connections to them, have ever been considered conventional within the story, by anyone.
Also, he explained why Xion looks like Kairi with different hair in Days and it didn't take the entire game to do it. Hyperbole much.
He stuffed Xion in there, when she was supposed to be gone.
Xion wasn't totally gone at that point. Roxas still remembered her, as did Riku; she was fading, but she still held onto some shred of existence within Roxas (remember, when she "died" she was absorbed into Roxas; it's not like she just disappeared).
This is completely cross-canon and I know that goes against every rule of plot discussion in existence, but it seems relevant, so I'm going to cite a quote from Doctor Who which I believe is totally applicable to this perspective:
"Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely. And if something can be remembered, it can come back."
And she talks to them through the grave, and told Riku to stop Roxas from what she told him to do in the first place.
She wasn't talking to them from the grave because she wasn't dead because she was never alive (even by KH standards, she didn't have a Heart, so she would be considered symbolically nonexistent). She became a part of Roxas. And she never told Roxas to storm into the Organization's stronghold by his lonesome in order to wipe out Xemnas (whom he was nowhere near strong enough to face and she knew it). She didn't want Roxas to be destroyed, because she knew that would mean all hope was lost. Xion forced Roxas to absorb her because she wanted to become a part of Sora again; that was clearly specified as her intention. What she wanted Roxas to do was join with Sora, however, for Roxas, it wasn't as easy a decision as it was for Xion. I've talked about this with Mirby; Xion submitted to her fate because she built her identity upon her surroundings. Roxas couldn't bring himself to do that because he had constructed a powerful sense of Self which was grounded in his own beliefs and goals-- whereas Xion already had come to consider herself a part of everything and therefore was able to accept that she should disappear for the sake of the existence of everything, Roxas felt distinctly separate from the world and those around him. Throughout Days, he was constantly seeking affirmation of his spiritual and cognitive relationship to others; instead, all he discovered was how irrelevant he was truly thought to be by them. Roxas did the exact opposite of what Xion wanted him to do, because he was functioning from an opposing mindset. So, Xion appealed to Riku to see that Roxas did what was necessary, and once again, Roxas was denied affirmation of his individual significance. Brilliant thematic characterization tied directly into the plot in a clean way that makes sense and, far from detracting from it, actually adds a great deal of depth to that established story moment.
It was so epic before. Just Roxas vs Riku, with no other character involved or intervening.
It had no motivation before. Why did Roxas toss the key to Riku? Why did Riku turn so readily on Roxas? What was their common relationship? Before, it was a battle; Roxas tossed the key to Riku in order to fight Heartless, Riku turned on Roxas in order to force him to join with Sora, they didn't have a relationship except in their opposing interests. Days gives that scene so much-- everything from before remains true, yet it has become more than just a battle. It becomes a thematic crossroads; Roxas tosses the key to Riku in order to enact his own final tragedy at the behest of his closest ally, Riku turns on Roxas in order to ensure that Xion's sacrifice is not in vain, they are both effectively linked by the fading memory of a mutual friend and as such, they are not fixed enemies so much as they are manifestations of will. Simultaneously, there's an underlying inequity in Riku's victory; Roxas is fighting as much for Xion as Riku is for Sora. There isn't any justice in Riku's defeat of Roxas, which only compounds the tragic nature of the drama; where Riku finds his best friend, Roxas loses his.
I honestly don't see how people can disregard the strength of this kind of storytelling in Days. There is so much to sink your teeth into and much of what people complain about are misrepresentations of its strongest asset; enhancing the established narrative by offering informative subtext to what was initially resigned to the fallacy of circumstance.