Sora: Difference between revisions

Although Square Enix originally wanted [[Mickey Mouse]] to be the main protagonist of the ''Kingdom Hearts'' series, and Disney wanted Donald Duck as the protagonist, the role was eventually set as Sora, because Tetsuya Nomura wanted a human protagonist. Early on, Sora was designed as a young lion/human hybrid, wielding a chainsaw-like weapon with a lion's head Keychain. The merging of Sora's design with elements from Square's proposal is referenced by his original costume, which shares many elements with Mickey's.

After Ventus's heart is damaged by the creation of [[Vanitas]], [[Master Xehanort]] brings the unconscious Ven to the Destiny Islands. Here, Sora's newly born heart encounters Ven in his [[Dive to the Heart]]. He offers to join hearts with Ven until Ven's heart can heal. This connection mends Ven's damaged Station, and as a side effect, it causes Vanitas's face to resemble Sora's.

[[File:Sora and Riku 01 KHBBS.png|thumb|left|Sora and Riku are visited by a Aqua, who tells Sora to always be there for Riku.]]

Sora falls through a [[Corridor of Darkness]] into Traverse Town, where he finds more Heartless before meeting [[Leon]] and [[Yuffie]], who explain the nature of the Keyblade, the Heartless, and [[Ansem, Seeker of Darkness|Ansem]] to him. When they are attacked by Heartless, Sora is forced to part with Leon and Yuffie. He makes his way to the town's Third District where he meets Donald Duck and Goofy, and the three of them take down a swarm of Heartless and the [[Guard Armor]]. After introductions, Donald and Goofy ask Sora to come with them to other worlds, as per King Mickey's request, and Sora agrees, hoping to find Riku and Kairi.

The three travel from floor to floor, exploring memory-based facsimiles of worlds they have visited in the past, and learning lessons about memory from their residents. They eventually discover that their memories are disappearing as they continue, along with the contents of [[Jiminy's Journal]]. They also encounter other members of the mysterious [[Organization XIII]], who taunt and coax Sora along the way. Gradually, Sora begins to remember a girl he once knew on the Destiny Islands, [[Naminé]]. As his memories paradoxically become stronger, and upon discovering from [[Larxene]] that Naminé is being held in the castle, Sora becomes determined to find her.

After Sora clears the seventh floor of Castle Oblivion, he encounters [[Riku Replica|Riku]], who declares that he will be the one to rescue Naminé and that she doesn't want to see Sora. The two fight multiple times in the castle's halls, with increasing ferocity. As Sora's memories of Naminé become stronger, and as his memories of Kairi fade away, Sora becomes obsessed with finding Naminé. [[Vexen]], hoping to undermine Marluxia's plans, warns Sora not to blindly trust his memory, after luring him into a memory-based [[Twilight Town]]; however, before Vexen can tell Sora about the memories from "the other side of [his] heart" and the existence of Roxas, he is eliminated by [[Axel]].

Riku appears before Sora again, as he leaves the eleventh floor. They discover that they both have exactly the same memories of Naminé, as well as identical charms, supposedly given by Naminé. Riku angrily fights Sora, calling his charm fake, and runs off after being defeated. Sora becomes even more fixated on finding Naminé, and Donald and Goofy worriedly warn Sora to be careful. Sora runs off in a fury and enters the next memory-world, Destiny Islands, alone. After defeating the Darkside, Sora finally meets Naminé, who has escaped Marluxia's custody at Axel's prompting. Naminé tries to remind Sora of Kairi, but Riku interrupts, challenging Sora again for the right to protect Naminé. In order to stop Riku, Naminé breaks the memories in his heart. Larxene arrives, and she reveals that Riku is a replica created by Vexen and that Naminé has been manipulating both his and Sora's memories as part of Marluxia's plot to take control of the Organization by controlling Sora. When Larxene attacks, Donald and Goofy arrive to support Sora, who manages to eliminate her.

Several weeks after Sora goes to sleep, Naminé and [[DiZ]] move the Memory Pods to Twilight Town's [[Twilight Town#Old Mansion|Old Mansion]], making it their base of operations. During the course of restoring Sora's memories, Naminé discovers that some memories are not returning. She realizes that the cause is the existence of Roxas, Sora's Nobody, and Xion, a replica of Roxas created by Organization XIII. Xion, designed to become a duplicate of Sora, absorbs Sora's memories through Roxas, which causes her to dream, to collapse during missions, and, eventually, to take Sora's form. Eventually, the flow of memories slows to a stop, even after Xion is defeated and absorbed by Roxas. In response, DiZ sends Riku to capture Roxas, with the intention of merging him with Sora.

The train takes them to the [[Mysterious Tower]], where they encounter [[Pete]], who has been working under Maleficent. After defeating Pete's squad of Heartless, they ascend the tower to meet the sorcerer [[Yen Sid]]. Yen Sid fills the trio in on the current state of the worlds, as well as introducing them to the [[Nobody|Nobodies]] and Organization XIII. Afterwards, [[Flora, Fauna and Merryweather]] provide Sora with new clothes containing new powers, and Yen Sid sends them on their way in the [[Gummi Ship]].

Their first stop is Hollow Bastion, currently being reconstructed by the [[Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee]], made up of Leon and company. Organization XIII sets a group of Nobodies on the town, but Sora and Leon drive off the attackers. The members of the Organization appear briefly to confront Sora before leaving, except for [[Xigbar]], who hangs back to comment cryptically about Sora's similarity to Ventus before exiting. Shortly after, the Keyblade opens the path to the next world, and Sora and company head out. They visit a number of worlds, defeating the Heartless unleashed upon them by the Organization and Pete, as well as meeting old and new friends.

The trio resume their travels across the worlds, hoping to find a way to Organization XIII's headquarters, and despite Sora's worries about using the Keyblade, they continue taking out the Heartless and Nobodies the Organization has released into the worlds. They also counter a number of Organization members' plots, eliminating [[Xaldin]] along the way. Eventually, they return to Twilight Town, where they find Hayner, Pence, and Olette at the Old Mansion, looking for clues leading to an |alternate Twilight Town. They are ambushed by Nobodies, but Mickey arrives to assist. They enter the mansion and use the basement computer to enter the simulated Twilight Town's mansion, where they find [[Twilight Town#Betwixt and Between|a passageway]]. They are ambushed within by a horde of Nobodies, but Axel arrives to help, and he sacrifices himself to wipe out the enemies. As he lays fading away, Axel apologizes for kidnapping Kairi and opens a portal to the Organization's world, [[The World That Never Was]].

While traveling through the [[The World That Never Was#Dark City|Dark City]], Sora is confronted by Roxas, who transports them to his Station of Awakening. Roxas attacks Sora relentlessly, at one point asking why the Keyblade chose Sora, but Sora gets the upper hand and defeats Roxas, returning to the real world to rejoin Donald, Goofy, and Mickey. They make their way to the Organization's castle, where Kingdom Hearts is nearly complete. Sora makes his way through the castle with Donald and Goofy while Mickey goes ahead. Saïx corners the three in the Hall of Empty Melodies and sets a massive swarm of Heartless on them, but the battle is joined on the upper level by Kairi, who was freed by Naminé, and Riku, in the form of Xehanort's Heartless, while Maleficent and Pete take the opportunity to infiltrate the castle. While Mickey reunites with DiZ, really Ansem the Wise, Xigbar takes out the remaining Heartless and challenges Sora, while calling him by Roxas's name and cryptically comparing him to his predecessors. Sora, Donald, and Goofy defeat him and work their way to the upper level, where Sora is reunited with his friends. Together, the group continue onward, and Sora encounters and destroys [[Luxord]] and Saïx. They then reach Mickey and Ansem, who tries and fails to seal Kingdom Hearts by encoding it as data. The encoder explodes, severely damaging Kingdom Hearts, restoring Riku to his true form, and apparently killing Ansem. The damage to Kingdom Hearts causes an endless wave of Heartless to spawn, but Maleficent and Pete hold them off while everyone heads for Xemnas.

Soon after, Sora is walking around in the Secret Place. He smiles while looking at all the pictures he and Kairi had drawn over the years. He glances down at the picture of Kairi and himself, and sees that Kairi drew the other half of a Paopu Fruit, and smiles to himself, mimicking Kairi's actions from a year ago. Outside of the cave, Sora asks Riku what he thinks the door to light was. Riku replies that it was Sora's heart; "''It's always closer than you think''". Kairi runs up to them breathlessly with Mickey's bottled letter, which Sora reads with Riku and Kairi.{{storylink|Kingdom Hearts II}}

In response to the imminent return of Master Xehanort, Sora and Riku are summoned to the Mysterious Tower in order to take the [[Mark of Mastery exam]] and become Keyblade Masters. Despite having the enormity of Master Xehanort explained to him, Sora initially objects, convinced that he can already defeat Master Xehanort, but when Riku agrees to the exam as a way of proving that he has overcome his darkness, Sora also agrees. Yen Sid sets the pair the task of entering the [[Sleeping Worlds]] and awakening seven worlds which were left submerged in sleep following Ansem's defeat.

Riku tracks Sora to the castle and only barely manages to save Sora from the newly-revived Master Xehanort, with help from Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and [[Lea]]. Sora, still comatose, is brought back to the Mysterious Tower, where Yen Sid tells Riku he now has the power to wake Sora up. Riku dives into Sora's Dive to the Heart, where he captures the fragments of Sora's shattered heart and battles Sora in Ventus's armor, which has been possessed by a [[Armored Ventus Nightmare|Nightmare]]. Riku defeats the Nightmare, then meets projections of Roxas, Ventus, and Xion, deep inside Sora's heart. A projection of Ansem the Wise informs Riku that Sora has awakened and tells him about the data he hid inside Sora, and about Sora's power to connect with people's hearts. Riku returns to the real world and reunites with Sora.

Sora has a remarkable capacity to forgive, even to his sworn enemies; when Maleficent loses control of the Heartless to Organization XIII and is overwhelmed by Dusks in order to allow Sora's group to escape, Sora is clearly concerned for her and is only stopped from helping her by being restrained by Donald. Another prominent example is when he forgives Naminé for rewriting the majority of his memories, despite the severity of her doings. On the other hand, Sora shows little tolerance for cowardice and selfishness, criticizing both Hades and Iago, though ultimately forgiving the latter when he proved genuinely sorry for his actions.

Sora possesses a rather strong competitive streak, as he often competes with Riku over numerous things, mostly for Kairi's affection and attention. Also, when he asks to fight Hercules alone in the [[Hercules Cup]], Donald calls him a show-off, and Goofy says in ''Chain of Memories'', "Whenever there's a contest, you're always rarin' to sign up". Sora also appears to have confidence in his abilities to the point of slight arrogance; in ''Dream Drop Distance'', Sora initially objects to taking the Mark of Mastery exam under Yen Sid, claiming that he is already unbeatable even after the threat of Master Xehanort has been explained to him. It is only after Master Xehanort damages Sora's heart and almost turns him into a vessel for his own heart when Sora realizes his shortcomings when compared to a Keyblade Master, and humbly accepts his failure of the exam, even after Riku saves him and becomes a Master himself.

The default form of Sora's Keyblade is the Kingdom Key, which uses a {{w|Hidden Mickey}} as its token.

File:Kingdom Key KHII.png|Kingdom Key

Sora is capable of wielding two Keyblades at one time, through the [[Synch Blade]] ability, due to his possessing Ventus's heart within his own.<ref>'''''[[Kingdom Hearts Ultimania|Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Ultimania]]''''' "Sora can wield two Keyblades at once because he has Ventus's as well as his own."</ref> While using [[Drive Form]]s, he can summon the second Keyblade himself, but he can also wield someone else's Keyblade, such as when Riku lends Sora his [[Way to the Dawn]] during their final battle with Xemnas. During his fight with Roxas, Sora can steal Roxas's [[Oathkeeper & Oblivion|Keyblades]] and use them telepathically, in conjunction with his own Keyblade.

Sora is also very skilled in various basic magic spells (such as [[Fire]], [[Blizzard]], or [[Thunder]]), even more so after training with Merlin. These spells allow him to weaken Heartless that are more vulnerable to certain elements. He can also use [[Cure]] to heal himself and his allies from injuries as well as restore HP and revive a fallen party member. In ''Kingdom Hearts II'', his basic combo is much stronger and he gains the Drive Form ability after obtaining new clothes, which give him more mastery over his strengths, speed, magic, and Keyblade. In addition to the abilities that each form grants him, Sora's speed and strength stats are also increased.

Sora becomes very powerful over the length of the series, and is eventually able to slay over a thousand Heartless in one sitting with only slight fatigue, and hold his own against master swordsmen such as Cloud, Leon, [[Sephiroth]], as well as defeat highly skilled Keyblade wielders like the [[Lingering Will]] and Riku; he is even able to trounce actual gods like [[Hades]], or allegedly omnipotent beings like [[Jafar]] in his Genie form. He becomes even more powerful when he uses his Drive Forms, which unlock some of his hidden power, though he requires the power of his party members to do this. After he defeats Roxas, he unlocks [[Final Form]], regaining his lost power.

Early on, however, Sora is nearly helpless without his Keyblade; even Shadow Heartless take a huge number of hits to be destroyed with just his Wooden Sword. However, before he left Destiny Islands, he could not even damage the Heartless with the Wooden Sword. Despite this, he is eventually able to defeat enemies without the Keyblade while in [[Anti Form]] or while using [[Flowmotion]] or spells.

On many occasions, Sora demonstrates physical abilities that could be considered superhuman. In the [[Deep Jungle]], he shows great durability when he falls a great distance and crashes headfirst through the roof of the treehouse, emerging alive and uninjured, but slightly dazed. Similarly, when [[Sabor]] slashes him with his claws and knocks him back into a wall, he quickly gets up and fights back. Sora can either glide or actually fly, the latter of which only in the End of the World, and the final battle with Ansem. He is capable of leaping incredible distances, such as jumping up to the ceiling of the ballroom in [[Beast's Castle]] and between buildings and Xemnas's two cannons in the final battle with him in ''Kingdom Hearts II''. Sora is able to cut through solid concrete and other durable forms of matter, even whole buildings. He can teleport when he uses the "Warp Snipe" Reaction Command, the Teleport Sleight, or Final Form's Final Arts.

Sora's memories seem to bind every character in the story, connecting them to himself in some way. Ansem the Wise, after the plans he set up for the boy while in sleep go awry, theorized that Sora's selflessness and ability to connect with others' hearts may have been the reason how he returned to his human form after being turned into a Heartless without needing to destroy Roxas prior. Furthermore, Ansem believed that Sora may also have the power to bring back those that have been lost or no longer exist.