Randomly Rambling

Riku

Of all the scenes in the first Kingdom Hearts game, one of the ones that always stuck with me happened near the very end.   Standing on a  corroded  shore, Riku stared out at a sea of darkness all around the island.   Except it wasn’t Riku.

Xehanort’s Heartless stood on the destroyed shores of his own homeworld in Riku’s image as he proceeded to single handedly explain Riku’s entire character effortlessly to the boy who cared about Riku the most, but wasn’t able to save him from himself.   The words hauntingly spoken by the enemy held a double meaning for he wasn’t speaking of just Riku, but of himself.   Within these words we’re shown how both he and Riku fell from where they were, and, if Riku continued down that road, the place that he would eventually end up.

“Take a look at this tiny place.   To the heart seeking freedom this island was a prison surrounded by water.   And so this boy sought out to escape from his prison. He sought a way to cross over into other worlds and he opened his heart to darkness.”

The problem, however, is that Xehanort mistook what he saw in Riku as the exact same thing as what he saw in himself.   They both had turned to darkness as a way to gain power, but their reasons why were completely different.   Xehanort accepted the darkness to gain power and knowledge for the sake of having it.   Riku turned to darkness because he was desperate for freedom—but for a freedom that would lead to him gaining the power to protect the things that matter to him: his friends.   And this one distinction is why Riku would never become Xehanort, no matter how much darkness entered his heart.   Riku’s darkness was his own—it wasn’t Xehanort’s.

Ever since Riku was little his heart craved freedom from the world he was born into.   He wanted to leave the small islands for the big adventures that rested just beyond the horizon.   But, more than anything, he didn’t want to do this alone.   He wanted to go on adventures with his best friend to become strong so he’d be able to protect him.   And then, one day, someone promised him all of those things and more.

When Terra showed up on the islands he did more than simply pass on the ability to wield the Keyblade.   In that one meeting was the set-up for what would inevitably set Riku on the path to darkness.   In that meeting came a promise: a promise that therewas  more to the world than just their islands.   That there was so much more out there waiting for Riku once the sea stopped caging him.   It was a promise that, one day, Terra and Riku would be together and Terra would teach him everything.   That Terra could show Riku the world that he had always dreamed about and help get him the strength and freedom he craved in order to champion the ones he loved.   It was, however, the beginning of Riku’s true desperation.

Once Terra had left, Riku was alone with a secret.   Over time he probably wondered if it had ever happened at all, meeting this stranger who promised him all these things.   Perhaps over time, he convinced himself he had made it all up.   After all, it wasn’t like he could talk about it to anyone.   And the more time passed the more it seemed that Terra was never coming back.

But then, within the same day, Riku received two separate confirmations that therewas  something to believe in.   One night, nine years before the events of Kingdom Hearts, Xehanort sent Kairi out in the hopes that she would lead him to the Keyblade Bearer.   An act of fate brought her to Destiny Islands, and to Riku.   The man that had promised Riku that there was something more out there had unknowingly sent him proof.   Kairi landed on Destiny Islands and Riku was reminded that there  was  another world out there beyond his own.   And the next day, for the very first time, he saw the keyhole.

And while his friendship with Kairi blossomed over the years, there was still no sign of Terra himself.   But Riku had new hope now.   Every day he had confirmation that there was something beyond the prison walls and slowly that fact grew into an even deeper desperation to break free.   Darkness grew within his heart from his obsession with freedom, and the hope that a promise would be fulfilled.