Is Naminé just another damsel in distress?

I have mentioned in the past that Naminé from the very popular Kingdom Hearts series is my favorite character. As you have no doubt noticed, I am in the habit of dissecting things, analyzing every minute detail that I can. Naturally, I have done the same with my favorite characters, especially Naminé.

Kingdom Hearts is not a series with simple characters. In fact, it is not a simple series at all. It is chock full of lore and terms used in our every day that have completely different meanings in the context of the series. Case in point, the term "Nobody" refers to a class of creatures/people who are "shells" of who they once were. A Nobody is born when a person loses their heart, but they are just a shell of that person, meaning they have no emotions and no memories. At the very least, that is true of most Nobodies, but not of the most notable ones in the game, including Naminé.

Naminé is the Nobody of the main protagonist, Sora, as well as another main character, Kairi. The "how" is a little complicated, and, as that is not what this post is about, I will save it for perhaps another time. Naminé was first introduced in the second game of the series, Chain of Memories for the Gameboy Advance. She has since reappeared in every game in the series since (even Birth by Sleep, if you can believe it). She is one of the most unique Nobodies because she has powers that allow her to manipulate the memories of Sora, his memories and those who are connected to him.

In Chain of Memories, she is absolutely, undoubtedly a damsel in distress. She is used by the main antagonist of the game, Marluxia, to mess with Sora's memories, causing him to forget things about his past and replace other things in his memory. It is both clear that she dislikes following orders but also that she is a lonely girl, only used by the others in Castle Oblivion and rarely interacting with them at all. Marluxia has her replace the most important person to Sora with herself so that he is under the illusion that they are great childhood friends and he has to rescue her.

Though still manipulating her, Axel comes to her when no one else is around and convinces her to set things right. Naminé jumps at the opportunity and meets with Sora to tell him that she has been lying to him all along and that, in doing so, he has forgotten who has most important to him, right down to the lucky charm he received in the first game. Sora looks at the star shape charm and finds that she is telling the truth when it retains its familiar shape.

At the climax of the game, Naminé is kidnapped by Marluxia, who senses an upcoming conflict between himself and Axel. He pulls her out as a trump card to either stop Axel from killing him and also to anger Sora into defeating Axel. She is not only a damsel in this case, she is literally being used as an object to up the conflict between three men. Even though he knows Naminé is not who he thought she was, Sora is still angered and fights Axel in order to get at Marluxia, who still has Naminé. Marluxia orders Naminé to erase Sora's memory completely so that she, and Marluxia, can have complete control over Sora and the Keyblade. She, of course, refuses, even though Marluxia threatens her. Even when Sora tells her to do it, she refuses. This would have been a good opportunity for her to hit Marluxia in the stomach or something (she's at the perfect height for it!) but, instead, she has to be saved again. This, at least, shows how much she has developed as a character throughout the game, no longer passively taking orders from Marluxia.

After Sora defeats Marluxia, Naminé tells Sora and the others that she can fix their memories, but they have to forget about her and the events that transpired in Castle Oblivion. Sora, of course, chooses to regain his lost memories.

"Who needs false memories, right?"

(In Re: CoM, her voice actress does a lovely job of making her voice tremble.) Chain of Memories ends with Sora and the others "going to sleep" while Naminé repairs their memories for a year. The script has flipped just a bit in that Naminé tells them that she will "take care of them" which is obviously different from the game's dynamic up until this point. And she does do just that, dutifully watching over Sora and fixing his memories.

In 358/2 Days, Naminé is having trouble actually fixing Sora's memories because of Xion, who is regaining Sora's memories instead. When Xion comes to meet her, she doesn't force Xion into giving the memories back, even though she promised to fix Sora. She talks her through what she wants to do. Naminé has evidently grown quite a bit from her experiences in Chain of Memories, and her helping Xion is the first of what she comes to do a lot for the rest of her time in the games she appears in.

In Kingdom Hearts II, Naminé meets Roxas and seems to always show up when he needs help. As I mentioned above, Naminé is completely different from how she was in her first game, saving and helping others instead of being saved herself. She saves Roxas from fading and she tells him the truth about who he really is, which gets her into a lot of trouble with DiZ. DiZ is sort of the Marluxia of Kingdom Hearts II for Naminé. DiZ orders Naminé around and, even though she is fixing Sora's memories because she wants to, the way DiZ treats her is similar to the way Marluxia treated her, only even harsher. This time, she is in no way a damsel, and she is in control of her own agency.

Naminé goes against DiZ's orders by saving Roxas and making him question who he really is. Even though no one wants her to, she tells Roxas who he truly is, which results into trouble for her. She comforts Roxas about his fate, completely sure that they will meet once again. Shortly after, Naminé is sort of put into the position of a damsel once again. After DiZ separates her from Roxas, he orders Riku to kill her but, of course, the two are friends in some sense of the word, so he frees her to go wherever she wants, and she is in control of her agency again.

Naminé is not seen from or heard from until the end of the game when Kairi is kidnapped and imprisoned. She frees Kairi, and the two escape together, running as Naminé fades in and out of existence. They are confronted, and the two prepare to fight until Riku takes care of their enemy for them. Sure that Kairi is safe, Naminé disappears again. She is seen for the last time (until the ending), summoning a portal for everyone to escape the crumbling the castle. She reunites with Kairi, no longer alone.

In my mind, by the end of Kingdom Hearts II, Naminé deserves to be called a hero. She has progressed from being a damsel in her first appearance, to helping and saving others repeatedly. She is no longer "just a damsel." She is a complete character with complete development. Not to mention, even when she is a damsel in Chain of Memories, she still shows herself to be much more. Throughout the game, she learns to put her own selfishness and fear behind her in order to be honest with Sora and undo the damage she has caused. She is no longer afraid to stand up to her oppressors, even when she is confronted with their violence. This is a theme that runs for the rest of her appearances, standing up to the people who want to control her and doing what she wants to, for the good. Truth be told, I find her to be an inspiring character. She is a character I enjoy because she serves more of a purpose than just being a damsel, used to attract a male character.

While Aqua is clearly the most independent female character in the series and is strong, she is strong in different ways from Naminé, In fact, I would argue that every major female character in the Kingdom Hearts series has some type of strength that differs from the other characters. The reason Naminé sticks with me so much is because she is a character I have enjoyed since I was relatively young, so she will always have the greatest impression on me. I am happy that she develops past her relationship with Sora, even though so much of what she does has to do with him in some way, and that she develops meaningful relationships with other characters, not to mention gaining the strength, on her own, to save others.

She is certainly not "just another damsel in distress."

Why Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories deserves a chance

As you may or may not now, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories is the second game in the Kingdom Hearts series. I say "may or may not know" because Chain of Memories is sort of the black sheep of the series. I, for one, know I went straight from Kingdom Hearts to Kingdom Hearts II, so I was a little confused about the opening of the second game, and the mysterious blonde girl. This post is several years late in the making, so it's a more widely known game now (and the story is easy to find simply by going to Youtube and watching a walkthrough)

Not that you need to play Chain of Memories (hereon referred to as CoM) before Kingdom Hearts II by any means. It's still easy enough to understand the main plot of KH II, though you may be confused about the underlying subplots. However, you miss out on such a great plot and cast of characters by not playing CoM.

So, if you've never played nor heard of CoM, you may be wondering why the game is unpopular. The answer is relatively simple. It's the battle system, which differs widely from the rest of the series. Instead of using hack and slash techniques, the player uses cards to fight. Cards? What? You're crazy! No, really, you use cards, and the reason is as follows:

In the very beginning of the game, Sora wanders into a strange castle known as Castle Oblivion and immediately finds that he has forgotten all of his abilities. He must use cards containing his abilities to fight. It's different, definitely. How it works is that Sora has a deck of cards he uses to fight, each containing different techniques. Some are simple Keyblade slashing cards, some are magic spells, some are party members.

The party system, unsurprisingly enough, differs as well. Instead of having someone fighting by your side, they turn into a card, which will use different abilities. (Donald can heal, or cast spells, for example). The cool thing about this is once you clear a world, you have a card containing a member from that world. For example, you get Cloud after completing the Coliseum. Now you can use Cloud whenever you want! It's great. A drawback is that Donald, Goofy, and regular party members like Jack from Halloween Town or Aladdin from Agrabah, are not always in your deck. They'll appear throughout battles.

I am hardly an unbiased party. My favorite character, Naminé, appears for the first time in this game. As I mentioned, you miss out on many characters. Naminé and Axel, you will see throughout the series, but other Organization XIII members only appear in this game. You won't see them anywhere else, and there are some winners, such as Larxene and Marluxia. This is the first game that introduces Nobodies, and, if you've played any of the more recent games like 358/2 Days or Kingdom Hearts II, you've no doubt heard of them. In the GBA version, the word "Nobody" is never spoken; the Organization members certainly allude to it, though. I am not yet sure about Re: CoM,  as I have not gotten far enough yet.

All in all, this is a game I would recommend. I am planning on doing a review for Re: Chain of Memories once I've finished Sora's story. I may do a separate post for the GBA version whenever I beat it.

On a final note, don't be intimidated by the game or what you've heard. In my opinion, it is more difficult than most of the other games in the series, mostly because you require legitimate strategy, but it is a good game that deserves a chance. If you want to give it a try, I recommend playing the Playstation 2 version, Re: CoM, because there are many benefits to the 3D version, such as it being easier to run around bosses in battle.