Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days/Fridge

Looking for Fridge Logic and such for the rest of the series, excluding Kingdom Hearts: 358 Days Over 2? Check here. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep has its own page here.


 * Fridge Brilliance: So, if Axel's such an asshole, why did he choose to be so nice to Roxas, of all people?
 * Except Axel isn't an asshole. He was just acting like one for the sake of his goals. Underneath it, he's a pretty laid back guy.
 * Let's review the people who met both Roxas and Ventus. Lea, who didn't meet Ven for long enough to remember him, but did develop enough of a connection to piggyback some rudimentary emotions off of Roxas from the semi-inert Ven heart shaping Roxas; Tinkerbell and Stitch, both of whom are incapable of speaking English, and so might have actually noticed something, but couldn't say so; Philoteces, who wasn't paying much attention when he met Ven, and would only really remember Terra the Hero and maybe Sexy Aqua (Herc would recognize him, but a big deal was made about how Roxas kept juuust missing him). 358/2 was, it appears, carefully planned so that Roxas either gets sent only to places where Ven didn't go, or to places where Ven went but only at times when the people who could say something weren't there. Braig/Xigbar probably knew the entire time, but didn't say anything out of fear of waking Ven's memories up, since he knew that would be a Bad Thing.
 * Tinkerbell almost certainly remembered -- she latched onto Roxas immediately and repeatedly. Not to mention that Roxas remaining eternally young would be perfectly normal for her.


 * In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Roxas and his friends always end the day by eating ice cream. This bothered this Troper for a while, "Yes, yes, it was funny how it kept showing up in KH 2, let's move on already!" until she thought about it for a while. Where else would three people sit around together, enjoying a food that brought them closer? That's right! The ice cream is Roxas's paopu fruit.
 * Let's tack on another Kingdom Hearts example courtesy of this troper. One thing always bothered me in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and that was that occasionally, during cutscenes with Xion, her hood would alternate between being on and off (in the same scene) while it never showed her putting it up or down. I thought it was just shoddy use of models. I learned that due to the nature of Xion's existence, the Organization members all see her, literally see her, differently. This didn't really click with me until about a month after I had beaten the game and I was thinking about my hood peeve -- I realized that the scenes in which that happens all happen around Organization members who view her as a puppet without an identity, so it would only make sense for them to only see her with her hood up (i.e. faceless), while Roxas would be able to see her face!
 * Xion from 358/2 Days is another intentional Mary Sue. The (rather weak) promotional stuff for the game made her seem like a Canon Sue straight out of a fanfiction. All Common Mary Sue Traits were there; fourteenth member of Organization XIII, Kairi lookalike, wields a keyblade, and has a big impact on Roxas and Axel) Then the game came out. Xion's true (and twisted) identity was revealed. And suddenly EVERYTHING made sense!
 * This troper just had his own eureka moment. Xion was intentionally made out to be a Mary Sue, so we would not bother trying to guess her story.
 * It gets better. Xion isn't just based on Kairi,
 * For this troper, the title Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days didn't make sense. Then it hit him after re-reviewing the entire series as a whole. Kingdom Hearts II is supposed to take place about one year after the original Kingdom Hearts. One year equals 365 days. The 358 days Roxas spends in Organization XIII, plus the beginning prologue he goes through in II lasts six days, and the day Sora wakes up, the 7th day, should equal 365. The training sequence for 358/2 Days also starts on the 7th day. All those ways connect Roxas' 358 days over to Kingdom Hearts II's 7 days remaining in which Sora wakes up!
 * Happy Birthday Roxas!!!
 * And of course, the "Over 2" refers to.
 * Didn't Word of God confirm the "Over 2" referred to the night Roxas went to sleep and woke up in the Twilight Town simulation?
 * Your Mileage May Vary on whether this is Fridge Brilliance or not, generally depending on whether you're male or female, but I realized one day that though there are (however slight) canonical implications of Riku/Xion, thus making him unfortunately straight, if one thinks about who Xion really is...
 * Does that mean that Riku is bisexual?
 * That adds a whole new level to Xion's intentional Mary Sue ness. The made it seem like every thing Yaoi Fangirls would hate, but in honesty, if the supposedly het subtext was Canon, that means that Riku and Roxas are at least partially gay.
 * Does it matter? To quote a very excellent Kingdom Hearts OT 3 fanfic, you don't fall in love with bodies, you fall in love with people.
 * It matters to the fangirls.
 * Apparently, logic doesn't.
 * About Roxas's Keyblades... Oblivion represents the awareness that he is incomplete, and his destruction would leave nothing behind. However, his Oathkeeper represents the duty of taking down Orginization XIII that he feels so obligated towards on behalf of Xion. His dual-wield is basically making the statement "Yeah, what happens to me doesn't matter, and I've got nothing to lose. But I have a promise to keep."
 * Rather, look at it this way: we can theorize that, out of Roxas's two Keyblades, Oblivion is Xion's, because when Riku is holding it, he gets flashes of her memories and can remember her more clearly than Roxas. Roxas's Keyblade, therefore, is the one that became Oathkeeper. Roxas had to keep his promise to Xion, while Xion faded away into a more profound nothingness than the rest of Organization XIII, she fell into true oblivion.
 * I always thought it was the beginning of Sora influencing Roxas, like the dreams Roxas has at the beginning of KH 2. Oathkeeper being Sora's promise to Kairi, and Oblivion representing Riku, who, when he and Sora parted ways at the end of the first game, was.
 * Much simpler explanation: Roxas wields the Oathkeeper beause he's trying to keep his promise to and the Oblivion because he's forgetting about.
 * Sorry to burst your bubbles, but Word of God states that Oathkeeper and Oblivion represent Sora's memories of Kairi (Light = Oathkeeper) and Riku (Dark = Oblivion).
 * Doesn't say that's the only explanation though. And we know multiple things in the series, like Xion's name, are supposed to mean multiple things.
 * True, very true.
 * Is this the only troper who always had a feeling that Oblivion represented Roxas's connection with Axel?
 * The logic can be seen, only, to expand, it could represent the Oblivion of his friendship with both Axel and Xion (even though, technically, they never stopped being friends, but you get where I'm coming from, right?)
 * This Troper was initially annoyed by how flat and two-dimensional the Nobodies were, but... of course their personalities are shallow. The whole point is that their third dimension was their heart. They're shadows of the people they once were.
 * For once, it's not just an excuse for bad character development, it's actually completely intentional. Notice how, especially in 358/2 days, a few of the Nobodies end up blatantly overusing certain catchphrases (like Axel's "Got it memorized?" or Xigbar's "As if.")? And in at least one case (Xigbar), it actually gets more noticeable as the game progresses, as if Roxas and Xion are becoming less and less like shadows as they get closer to Sora.
 * This just dawned on this troper from reading this page. Roxas blacks out when he It dawned on this troper, that because of how close the connection Roxas had to   he ended blacking out. Could it be that Roxas had, and it wanted to reconnect with him, yet couldn't? Maybe. Mind equals blown for this troper.
 * Confirmed by Word of God.
 * At some point early in the game, Roxas gets the day off. He generally spends this day derping around and trying to figure out what he's supposed to do with himself, but that's beside the point. This vacation occurs on Day 118 of Roxas's time in the Organization. Now, to me, Kingdom Hearts 2 has always taken place in late Summer/early Fall, as we see, during the course of kh2, the Struggle Match, which according to DTT residents, always happens right before school starts. Since Roxas spent exactly one year as a separate being from Sora, this means he was born some time in late summer/early fall. There are exactly 116 days between September 1 and December 25. Yes, fellow tropers, Xemnas gave the Organization a Christmas/New Year's vacation.
 * After completing the Neverland stage in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, this troper suddenly had one of these -- Tinkerbell seemed so insistent on getting Roxas to go somewhere in 358/2 because he looks exactly like Ventus - And Tinkerbell knew Ventus from 10 years ago. Heck, that's probably also why Peter Pan never appeared in Kingdom Hearts 358 Days Over 2 (other than the fact that they were supposed to operate in stealth). Because if Tinkerbell remembered Roxas as Ventus, so would Peter Pan. And Peter Pan would probably wind up giving away some of Birth By Sleep's plot, even if the Neverland portion was relatively minor. Of course, I don't know why Tinkerbell never thought of saying "Hey Peter Pan! Ventus is back! Remember him from 10 years ago?!" That's also probably why we're lucky that Captain Hook never looked over in Roxas's direction -- because he looks just like Ventus, the kid who kicked his ass 10 years ago (after slowing him, that is.)
 * Axel and Saïx are sun and moon. Yeah, Saïx obviously draws power from the moon and that's the symbolism there, but what's Axel's? Look at his weapon - The chakrams actually look like a sun. And sun is often associated with fire...
 * An extension of this: Axel's "You know why the sun sets red?" talk... He was talking about himself: He's the color red, the one member of the Organization, who "traveled the farthest", ergo, got closest to regaining his heart: By formining a friendship with Roxas and becoming a piece of his/Ventus' heart.
 * Why did Riku call Xion and her keyblade a sham? We know about Xion, but what about her keyblade? Answer: It's a counterfeit Kingdom Key, a pale imitation of the real Kingdom Key. Assuming the Kingdom Key of Light is indeed half of the X-blade, there can't be two of them. Therefore, Xion's Kingdom Key of Light must be a fake.
 * Unfortunately, there must be two of them, because Roxas was also using the Kingdom Key for the period of time between the end of KHI and the end of Co M... at the same time as Sora. I'm pretty sure Nomura even confirmed somewhere that they were using the same Keyblade. Besides, how would Riku know about the X-blade, much less about the Kingdom Key being half of it?
 * However, Xion's keyblade is indeed a fake. Xion being a
 * It always annoyed me how  I mean, "Forgot how to use it?" What? Then I played Birth By Sleep and realized what really happened. Roxas   And Xion was already a Keyblade Weilder, that means  Therefore
 * Fridge Brilliance / Tearjerker: In the scene where Roxas and Xion meet Genie, Genie remarks that they could do better than a simple, "Nice to meet you too," kind of thing. Tearjerker comes in when you realize that because they're Nobodies, they actually CAN'T do better. Whenever they go into worlds and meet people with Hearts, they're doomed to see everyone around them all enthusiastic and happy/sad/angry/etc while they themselves cannot. Brilliance comes in when you realize that it may be one of the reasons they are to remain stealthy. Interacting with normal people, with the Tearjerker in mind, would most definitely lower morale in the group.
 * But if they don't have emotions, how can they have morale?
 * Fridge Brilliance:
 * Saix is pretty much the biggest douche in the game, but when you think about how.


 * Why does the Moogle still want your Heart points (the money) after you leave the castle?
 * Black market double dealing would be entirely in character for a black cloak wearing shop-moogle.
 * That, and according to the game, Roxas was the only one who actually bought anything from the Org-Moogle.


 * The infamous translation errors between KH1 and KH2 may seem particularly odd at first... until you realise they AREN'T translation miscues. Would Organization 13 have known or cared about what Jimminy Cricket named the Heartless? Nope. They named them what they wanted.