It’s a common complaint in the Kingdom Hearts fandom that series director Testuya Nomura doesn’t seem to know what to do with Kairi. Despite giving her a Keyblade in Kingdom Hearts II, he hasn’t done anything significant with her in the story since then. We all thought that Kingdom Hearts III was going to be her time to shine, but that ended with her getting captured and apparently killed by the bad guys right after her first time as a party member. Sora and Riku have been growing and evolving over the course of the saga, but Kairi has for the most part stayed the same.



@blowingoffsteam2 pointed out parallels between Kairi’s scenes with Sora in Kingdom Hearts III and the events of the 100 Acre Wood in the same game. Pooh has sensed that something about his connection to Sora has changed, and tries to hold onto it while Sora is there helping to harvest Rabbit’s garden. Kairi senses that something about her connection with Sora has changed and tries to hold onto it by sharing a paopu fruit with him. While the parallels make sense when you look at them, it also seemed like something certain subsets of fandom would easily twist out of context to argue that people who noticed the parallels were “infantilizing Kairi” or some other BS accusation. Plus, I couldn’t for the life of me understand why Nomura chose Pooh specifically.

But then I was watching a video on YouTube by Six Degrees of Kylo Ren Podcast analyzing Disney’s live action film Nutcracker and the Four Realms, and they mentioned something that got me thinking. They talked about how in a coming of age narrative, leaving the romantic tension between the two leads unresolved so the protagonist could go home and dance with her father was the storytelling equivalent of cutting her coming of age short to keep her trapped in childhood. That was when it hit me:

From the very beginning, one of the biggest aspects of Kairi’s character is her fear of change. She expresses concern over Riku having changed the night before Destiny Islands is consumed, and of course we all remember how she tells Sora “don’t ever change.” And when you think about her backstory, it’s no wonder that she’d be afraid of change.

Her home world was conquered by Maleficent when she was four, and Xehanort proceeded to fling her out into the universe hoping her powers as a Princess of Heart will lead him to a Keyblade Wielder. She then washed up on Destiny Islands with no memories of where she came from. Of course she’s going to be reluctant to do anything to challenge the status quo. Her life on the islands and friendship with Sora and Riku is all she knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t actually on board with the whole “leave on the raft and explore the worlds” plan from Kingdom Hearts 1 and only went along with it because she didn’t want to be left behind.

So when I started thinking about that “trapped in childhood” comment, it suddenly hit me why Testuya Nomura chose not to give her more to do in the larger narrative of the Dark Seeker saga. While Sora and Riku are out exploring the universe and growing up, Kairi is metaphorically stuck in childhood. Kairi is actively trying to hold on to the past, staying on the islands where everything is comfortable and familiar, sheltered from all the great cosmic battles her friends are fighting out in the wider universe.

The reason that the games have explored her past so little beyond her cameo in Birth by Sleep is that in contrast to Sora’s willingness to take on the burden of other people’s pain, for most of the Dark Seeker saga Kairi isn’t ready to handle the pain of her own past. And she won’t be ready to handle that burden until she accepts that the idyllic life she has on the islands with Sora and Riku won’t last forever.

While it may frustrate the fandom that she hasn’t really done much, there’s a reason that Kairi’s arc hasn’t gotten as much spotlight in the games compared to Riku and Sora’s growth, and it has to do with another Disney parallel.

In Kingdom Hearts 1, her body ends up in Neverland after the destruction of the Destiny Islands and is kept in a cell along with Wendy Darling, who Hook and Riku initially believe is the last Princess of Heart. The central narrative of the film Peter Pan is that Wendy starts out afraid of growing up but comes to accept that it’s not a bad thing. Part of what helps her come to this development is seeing firsthand what the consequences of not growing up are.

For Wendy, she sees the pettiness and immaturity of Never Land’s residents and realizes that staying young forever isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. For Kairi, staying behind on the Destiny Islands means that Sora and Riku continue to leave her behind when they go off on their adventures while she stays the same.

When I thought about the parallels between Pooh and Kairi in Kingdom Hearts III, I realized that those parallels could be accurately described through the lens of a particular Pooh film. In the 1996 Direct-to-Video movie Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin, Christopher Robin has gone off to school and left a note explaining to Pooh where he is. Thanks to Owl misreading the note, the stuffed animals of the 100 Acre Wood believe that Christopher Robin has been kidnapped by a monster and taken to an ominous cave known as Skull. With a map provided by Owl, Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, Tigger, and Eeyore set off to rescue their friend.

While each iteration of the 100 Acre Wood in the Kingdom Hearts franchise includes the iconic locations visible in almost every Pooh film, Pooh’s Grand Adventure is the only specific movie in the Winnie the Pooh franchise to be referenced in a Kingdom Hearts game. The storybook map in the Kingdom Hearts II visits to 100 Acre Wood confirm that the Spooky Cave area is the same Skull cave featured in this movie.

The film begins with Christopher Robin attempting to break the news to Pooh that he’s going off to school and won’t be able to spend all of his time in the 100 Acre Wood anymore, but Pooh continues to brush over his attempts to bring up the subject. The film’s opening musical number, Forever And Ever, hammers the point home that the idea of things changing and the status quo not being the same forever doesn’t even register as a concept in Pooh’s mind. The rest of the movie centers on Pooh coming to accept that things change but that he and Christopher Robin will always be connected. The words “even if we are apart, I’ll always be with you” are central to the movie’s themes of growing up and accepting change.

When you think about Kairi’s character arc as a parallel to the plot of Pooh’s Grand Adventure in addition to the Wendy parallels, it solidified that Kairi’s arc over the course of the Xehanort Saga has been about her letting go of her fear of change and accepting that things won’t stay the same forever, and that it’s a normal part of growing up.

In KH1, we see Kairi trying to stop things from changing, or even deny the possibility of change, when she talks about how Riku has changed and tells Sora not to change. While Riku and Sora were out gathering supplies for the raft, Kairi was making a charm for good luck to ensure that they would return to the islands safely. And when she gives the charm to Sora late in the game, she makes him promise to bring it back to her.

Kingdom Hearts 2 shows her beginning to acknowledge that things are changing and she can’t stop them. She begins to realize that waiting for Sora and Riku to come isn’t good enough for her, but she doesn’t actively seek out a way to leave the islands until Riku covertly presents her with one in the form of a Dark Corridor to Twilight Town. Once she met up with Hayner, Pence, and Olette, her plan went back to “wait for Sora to come back”.

By the end of Kingdom Hearts 3, Kairi has finally accepted that things are changing. Regardless of what shippers assume, the context of the game’s themes frame Kairi sharing Sora a paopu fruit as a promise that even though things have changed between them, they will always be friends. One of the major themes of Kingdom Hearts 3 was accepting separation and letting go. While this certainly applies to Kairi saying goodbye to Sora at the end of the game, it also applies on a deeper level to Kairi finally accepting what she’d been trying to deny since the first game: that things are changing and there’s nothing she can do to stop it.

So despite our frustration at her lack of spotlight, Kingdom Hearts 3 wasn’t Kairi’s true time to shine. Only when she says goodbye to Sora at the end of the game has she finally overcome her fear of change and growing up, and she has a lot of catching up to do. Kairi’s real time to shine will be in the Lost Masters Saga, when she finally starts to confront her past. Kingdom Hearts re:coded involved Data-Namine testing through Data-Sora whether the real Sora was ready to accept the hurt of others into his heart. Kairi’s role in the Dark Seeker Saga was about preparing her to face the hurt in her own heart so that she can move on from her past.

TL;DR: Kairi has lagged behind Sora and Riku because her fear of change was holding her back from growing up and reaching her full potential, but by the end of Kingdom Hearts III she has finally overcome that obstacle.