Yes, I’m still fussing over Kingdom Hearts 3.  Though I did enjoy the game to some extent, enough to keep playing until I got Platinum, I wanted to discuss a little something regarding the plot that I thought was rather baffling.  And I’d really like to know if I’m the only person bothered by this because I don’t think I’ve heard this point brought up before.  Spoilers follow, so if you haven’t yet completed the game, you may want to steer clear for the time being.

Okay, so the issue I have involves the Organization’s role in this game compared to that of Kingdom Hearts 2.  To recap, Xehanort wants a clash between 13 darknesses and 7 lights in order to create the X-Blade and summon Kingdom Hearts.  So while the Organization is busy gathering a new set of 13 members, the heroes are trying to gather up 7 people of their own.  Makes sense.

Where things get confusing is the fact that Organization XIII seems to be interested in gathering the 7 lights on their own, in case the heroes fail.  To fulfill this goal, they turn to seeking out basically a new 7 princesses of light.  In particular, Marluxia and Larxene appear in the Kingdom of Corona and Arendelle, respectively, to warn Sora not to interfere with Rapunzel and Elsa, respectively.

Did anyone else catch that?  These two villains are warning Sora, of all people, to leave their potential princesses of light alone.  I know Sora and the Organization are enemies, but the notion of Sora being a possible hindrance in this situation seems utterly absurd to me.  Yes, Marluxia is under the apparent impression that Rapunzel is safer with Mother Gothel (um…are you serious?) and Larxene, well, she seems to want Elsa to choose for herself whether or not her magic is good or bad.  So rather than have Sora interfere in what would no doubt be a positive way, she’d rather leave Elsa’s decision up to chance, which doesn’t seem like the most foolproof way of ensuring a potential princess of light remains pure.

What this leaves us with is the Organization basically sitting on the sidelines, hoping their plans will work out, as they interfere with the one person who is there to help.  This makes the Organization seem quite ineffectual indeed and their hindrance to Sora counterproductive.

Compare this to Kingdom Hearts 2, where Organization XIII’s goals in the Disney worlds were to turn powerful hearts to darkness with the hopes of creating powerful Nobodies that they could command.  (Or was it to create powerful Heartless that could be defeated in order to build Kingdom Hearts…?  Or both?)  In the Beauty and the Beast world, for example, Xaldin was trying to corrupt Beast and was doing a fairly successful job of it.  This left Sora and his allies to try to stop him before Beast completely fell to the darkness in his heart.  Here we have Organization XIII actively working towards a goal that makes sense for them as the villains, and our heroes have to stop them.  It couldn’t get any more simple and clean that that (ha ha).

In part, I kind of understand the decisions made in KH3.  If the X-Blade can only be created when 13 darknesses and 7 lights clash, then our heroes would really have no motivation to gather 7 lights.  To create a sense of urgency, the Organization is choosing 7 innocent people to serve as the 7 lights, leaving our heroes desperate to gather up 7 of their own to prevent the Organization from going after innocent people.

I understand all of that, and it may seem as if I’ve just defended the point I was trying to refute.  But just because I understand Square’s motivation behind a decision, that still doesn’t mean I understand the motivations of the characters in the game.

Rather than merely complain about a plot point I find perplexing, I offer a solution.  Wouldn’t it have made much more sense if the heroes needed 7 lights to defeat the 13 darknesses?  What if Organization XIII didn’t want 7 lights to be gathered?  What if the 7 lights were gathered as the game progressed, rather than being completed as a group at the end?  What if each Disney world served the purpose of helping Sora and his allies save Aqua or awaken Ven or so on and so forth?  And the Organization’s goals were to stop them?  Not only would this have created more believable motives behind the characters’ actions (as I had illustrated with KH2), but it would have fixed the game’s pacing issues, as well, as opposed to every plot point being rushed at the end, like items being hurriedly marked off a checklist (I see this analogy all over the Internet, and it is immensely fitting).

I understand that my opinions ultimately mean nothing when regarding an already finished game made by a company for whom I am not an employee.  Nevertheless, this is something that has been on my mind, and I was curious if anyone else felt that the Organization’s motives in KH3 were inconsistent.

What do you think, dear readers?  Do you agree with the points I made above?  Do you have a solution of your own that you think would have improved the game’s story?  Or do you think everything was handled as it should be?  Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Screenshot by The Duck of Indeed