I highly doubt I'm the first to notice this/point this out, but I can't find any posts about it anywhere? So I'm just gonna leave this here for posterity's sake. 🫶

Replaced.

Soriku (+ MoM) adventures in Quadratum

Namine got scared. She was crying and said, “If a star falls on the island, what should we do?”

What should we do, Riku?

I said, “If a star comes falling, I’ll definitely hit it back!”

Like this, I made a promise by striking a pose with a toy sword.

I still remember that promise I made

“I’ll protect Namine from crying”

If they arrived at Hollow Bastion together…

So.... I was reading the Chain of Memories manga and...

that's gay

That's SO-

(I had to draw this)

More out of bounds stuff that makes me insane

a Soriku Endgame, Actually essay on Light and Darkness

Kingdom Hearts, with Sora and Riku in particular, has been on my mind as of late. It’s always been on my mind, to be honest, ever since I first got into the series. It’s grabbed my hand and hasn’t let go, especially with all the new lore. And yet, I’ve been struggling to make peace with myself. 

On one hand, I don't want to get my hopes up, thinking that Sora and Riku would ever become something 'more' or that what I’m seeing is anything other than in-depth speculation. I've had my heart broken before and this series means too much to me for me to foolishly dive in like this. 

On the other hand, I can't ignore what the story is telling me, as a literary analysis enthusiast and as a diehard fan. There have been parallels established, setups finally going through, and Nomura has said before that “this series is not intended to be child-focused, and so the complexity of the story is purposely made prominent.” I can’t keep turning a blind eye, knowing everything I know, thinking everything I think. If I did, I feel like I would be doing a disservice to both my experiences with the series and my experiences as a person. 

So yeah—Soriku Endgame, Actually. Today, I’m arguing its canonicality because of the balance of Light and Darkness (or lack thereof) throughout the series. Please enjoy my messy and impassioned essay!

I love how it never occurs to Sora that bringing people back from the dead is not something you’re supposed to do actually

Also love how Riku — who is literally Sora’s dream eater — spends a whole year having reoccurring dreams about a strange city he feels like Sora’s in and just decides not to tell anyone about that. Man is literally Sora’s dream eater. But dreams related to Sora? No, they can’t possibly mean anything. That’s just Riku being gay, and Riku’s gay dreams are between him and god. and the fairy godmother apparently

This makes me laugh and provides a good distraction from the angstier interpretation of Riku hearing the Fairy Godmother’s words and thinking “how could my bond with Sora be that important compared to his bond with Kairi or his connections with Roxas and Xion?”

Oh😔… guess haha funny times Ove r….

GUYS

LET ME LIVE 😭😭😭

I made it!

Back when I read the CoM novel, one of the most exciting things for me was discovering the implication that Riku had a “forgotten promise” that he wanted to remake with Sora, along with the other possible hints that I was onto something with the necklace theory.  But even though the novels did sometimes contain information that wasn’t revealed as canon until later games, this particular bit still wasn’t necessarily canon to the games…I thought.  I found out that after the credits of Sora’s and Riku’s stories in Re:Chain of Memories, there are two poems that directly correlate with the lines at the end of Sora and Riku’s stories in the novel.  So that forgotten promise?  It’s there.  In the games.  Incorporated into- honestly- a romantic as hell poem.

The GBA version of CoM also has versions of these lines which are more similar to the ones found in the novel.  Starting with Sora’s story, here are the three versions:

Novel (Sora has just fallen asleep in the pod.  These are the words seen at the very end.) :

This clearly seems to be talking about Sora sleeping while forgetting his memories of Castle Oblvion (memories fading), and remembering everything he had forgotten while there (memories reborn).  And he is dreaming of someone- “A dream of you in a world without you.”  We don’t know who he is dreaming about, but it’s interesting to know that immediately after these lines, Riku’s story begins…with the words “I was dreaming.”

GBA CoM:

Virtually the same as the novel.  These words appear after the credits, after showing a (kinda creepy) image of Sora sleeping in the pod.

Re:CoM:

Man, the writers really stepped up their game with this :’‘)  This poem appears with a short cutscene of Sora sleeping in the pod:

“There is always sleep between part and meet.”  Sleep always seems to be a part of Sora’s story, doesn’t it?  Sora enters Castle Oblivion hoping to find Riku there, but by the end, when Riku finally finds Sora, he’s already sleeping.  And again in DDD, Sora’s sleep is what keeps him and Riku separated.  “with our usual words on the usual street”  This line gives me the feeling that whoever this is about is someone very close to Sora, a familiarity and comfort in “usual words”, as there is with friends met with every day.  “So let us part like we always do…”  Two people constantly separated by this sleep… “When I come to, let us meet.”  The first thing Sora wants to do after he wakes up?

Alright, so that’s the poem on Sora’s side.  Now for Riku.  Here are the three versions that go with his story.

Novel (For context, I’m including the scene that immediately precedes the lines):

In this context it seems clear that those last lines are from the perspective of Riku (More on this quote here: x) .  He is walking the daybreak path without Sora, so he can remake some forgotten promise he had made with him.  And not only does he hope to meet Sora on the road ahead, the wording here (”So that”) seems to imply he believes that his fulfillment of this remade promise is the key to being able to meet him again in the future.  And we all know the lengths Riku went to in Days to protect Sora and reclaim his memories from Roxas and Xion…. As Riku says twice in the Days novel: “Everything…is for Sora.”

GBA CoM:

Basically the same as the novel.  Though here, an ending image comes up after the poem- Sora and Riku back to back:

Re:CoM  (hold onto your seat for this one OOF):

The thing about this poem is that it appears over scenes of Roxas in the Data Twilight Town, with Hayner, Pence, and Olette.  And there’s no doubt this poem also fits some aspects of Roxas- his forgotten promise to Xion- but taking the whole thing into consideration, the context of the novel, the fact that it plays after Riku’s story (after Riku has chosen the dawn path), and the ending image that comes up immediately after the poem:

Yeah, I think it’s still safe to think this poem is coming from Riku’s perspective, about Sora, just like Sora’s poem came from his own perspective. “Beyond the path without you is a forgotten promise to keep.”  Just like the novel quote, Riku is walking the Dawn path without Sora- and there’s a forgotten promise he needs to keep. 

“We may have walked side by side, but now we go on back to back.”  Best friends that used to walk side by side, but now their paths have split (I’ve talked here about how since CoM Riku has been on the road to dawn while Sora has been on the road to twilight).  “Back to back” is a recurring theme for Sora and Riku (representing light and dark) in imagery, especially in CoM as shown above and on the cover of the game:

“And though our paths may not cross, all paths are connected somewhere.” No matter how far apart the paths they are on take them, they will always be connected. 

“When I arrive at where you are, we may not appear to be as we were…“  When Sora and Riku finally meet again, they have both changed.  Sora has grown and matured, while Riku has taken on the appearance of Ansem.  They don’t appear to be as they were before.

“But we’ll make another promise to keep.“ They’ll make another promise…or as the novel says, remake the old promise…  What will this promise be about?  I don’t know, but for the necklace theory, I have my hopes up :) I can’t help but connect this with the quote we saw at the beginning of the E3 trailer: “The light is gathering together.  Hearts driven by one oath, one purpose.” Maybe, just maybe…an oath, a promise to protect Sora?

From Re: Chain of Memories

Sora’s poem:

Riku’s poem: