Kingdom Hearts/YMMV

I know now, without a doubt, the Kingdom Hearts fandom is... never going to agree on anything!

General
"Aqua: "The friendship between boys...it almost makes me jealous.""
 * Alternative Character Interpretation: Are the members of Organization XIII evil, or misunderstood? Can they feel emotions, or are they just really good actors?
 * The game did this to Goofy, having him go from a Good Is Dumb guy to the one of the main trio with the most common sense.
 * Americans Hate Tingle: Reports on the Japanese KH fandon report significantly less Kairi/Namine/Xion hate from fangirls than there is in the US; even most of the ones who don't care for them don't hate on them. To be fair, most of this hate comes from the Yaoi Fangirls for obvious reasons.
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff: It should be noted that some characters are more popular with certain segments of the fandom. While Ensemble Darkhorse Bishonen characters such as Demyx and Zexion are popular with fangirls, Rated "M" for Manly Badass characters such as "Ansem", Xemnas, Saix and Terra are popular with male Kingdom Hearts fans. Kairi and girls similar to her aren't very well-liked among fangirls (as stated above), but tend to be popular with younger/girlier girls, Disney fans and horny males.
 * Sora is something of a Base Breaker amongst the American fandom. In Japan, he's the most popular character from the series, and in a Famitsu reader poll, he ranked 5th as the most liked Video Game Character.
 * Roxas is an even bigger Base Breaker in the West, but according to a poll is the second-most popular character after Sora in Japan.
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: Christopher. Fucking. Lee. That is all.
 * Leonard. Fucking. Nimoy. THAT is all.
 * Mark. Fucking. Hamill. Are we done yet?
 * Leonard Fucking Nimoy and Mark Fucking Hamill in the same game.
 * David Boreanaz WAS Squall Leonhart. "You're messing with forces beyond your comprehension, Buf--er, Sora!" Doug Erholtz is alright, but he's no Boreanaz.
 * Angst? What Angst?:
 * Talking to Sora even at length will reveal him to a be a cheerful, optimistic, happy teenager. Who happens to have been put into a coma for a year, watched his home get destroyed, had to deal with Fighting Your Friend several times, routinely fights the forces of darkness, and has been Mind Raped a couple times over.
 * Finally subverted as of Dream Drop Distance..
 * Bambi prances around pretty happily for someone whose world was destroyed...
 * Anvilicious: About all of its moral messages, even the... unusual ones.
 * Author's Saving Throw: listed here as this example spans over multiple games. To clarify, Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep and Kingdom Hearts Re Coded both feature additional bosses that, gameplay-wise, turn out to be close enough to the ones previously exclusive to the Final Mix version of Kingdom Hearts I and Kingdom Hearts II, and therefore confined to Japan. So, the "Unknown" (Xemnas) gets an expy through the new Unknown in Birth By Sleep, thus covering KHIFM territory, while Terra's Lingering Will from KHIIFM+ gets his expy thanks to Vanitas' Lingering Will, still in BBS. About Roxas, upgraded from a cutscene (KHII) to a full-fledged boss (KHIIFM+), the fact he was still a storyline boss instead of a bonus boss allowed him to be used as a Final Boss instead, in Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded. You can basically see Tetsuya Nomura saying "sorry, western fans".
 * Awesome Music: Yoko Shimomura, folks.
 * A Wizard Did It: The reason casting fire spells works in Atlantica, or how casting electricity-based spells doesn't completely fry Sora, Donald, or Ariel. It's magic, I ain't got to explain shit.
 * Base Breaker: Many characters, but especially the members of Organization XIII.
 * Kairi and any girl who is similar to her are also notable examples. Which means not Aqua.
 * Sora and Roxas have, to put it lightly, dueling fandoms. The fact that  is the root of the animosity between the two camps.
 * Terra from Birth By Sleep is either a tragic character, or a complete moron that got everyone in the mess they were in because he always seems to trust subtlety challenged villains.
 * Broken Base: From Kingdom Hearts II onwards, it's become increasingly harder and harder to satisfy the entire fanbase.
 * Cargo Ship: Xemnas/Kingdom Hearts and Sora/Keyblade.
 * The Chris Carter Effect: Good luck trying to make sense of the cosmology, especially when the characters who would theoretically be best qualified to explain are of somewhat questionable sanity.
 * Complete Monster: Any and all incarnations of Xehanort go out of their way to become just that little bit more powerful and evil than before.
 * Continuity Lock Out: If you start the series from a later game, you may be a bit lost when it comes to the plot.
 * To be fair, if you've played the series in order from the beginning AND read all of the extra canon information not available outside Japan, you may still be lost when it comes to the plot. It's one of those series.
 * 358/2 Days might be the worst offender of this for the series. It takes place between 1 and 2, as well as during Chain of Memories, and is mostly about character development, depending on the player to have a considerable knowledge of the series. It doesn't help that it also has a few scenes that only truly make sense if the player has also played Birth By Sleep, which came out a year after Days. You have to feel sorry for the unlucky few who picked this up without prior knowledge of the series.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: Organization XIII is one of the more infamous video game examples of the trope. They cast Ansem into darkness, go around worlds ruining lives to create more Heartless, manipulate Roxas, Xion, Riku and Sora for their own ends, Mind Rape Sora forcing him to be put into a coma for a year, and kidnap Kairi. And yet, fans insist Sora is a horrible person for being as mean to them as he is.
 * Ear Worm: Most of the soundtrack, but specifically the opening song "Simple And Clean," used in several of the games.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Axel, Axel, AXEL. Got it memorized?
 * Among the bosses, Chernabog (of Fantasia fame) also falls into this. He's got no reason to really be there and is never referenced again, but it's Chernabog, Disney's king of Nightmare Fuel! How could the developers resist putting him in?
 * He even got "Night on Bald Mountain" as his boss theme, something NONE of the other Disney villains have gotten (having a theme or song from their films as their boss theme, that is). This was only in the American version, however; in the Japanese version, he just has the regular boss music.
 * Xigbar/Braig is starting to get here, thanks to mastering the art of deadpanned snarking and by being, by far, the biggest Troll in the series.
 * Any Disney character that was popular to begin with is bound to be this, as long as the games don't Flanderize them or ruin their portrayal in other ways. In particular, both Jacks (Skellington and Sparrow) seem to be the most popular world-specific allies, to the point that they receive more exposure and merchandise than some of the more important original characters.
 * Everyone Is Ansem in Purgatory
 * Evil Is Cool:
 * Hades. Although anyone with magical powers and the voice of James Woods would be cool.
 * Maleficent, the MISTRESS OF ALL EVIL!
 * Much of Organization XIII, particularly Axel and Xemnas.
 * Xehanort in general. "Ansem", Xemnas, Master Xehanort, Terra-Xehanort... you name it, he's a guaranteed Badass.
 * Again, Chernabog.
 * Evil Is Sexy: Much of the Organization qualifies.
 * Fandom Heresy: Claiming that Dark Riku (and by extension, Vanitas) wears a skirt will get you brutally murdered by the fandom.
 * Fan Dumb AND Hate Dumb: Don't get us started....
 * Game Breaker: The difficulty in KH and KH2 is considerably lowered once you get the Second Chance and Once More abilities. And by considerably, I mean that maybe two or three bosses can now kill you if you play well. Even less if you've got MP Rage, Concentrate, and Petal Guard, allowing more or less constant Curagas.
 * And Oblivion keychain from KH1. Oathkeeper too, to an extent.
 * Sora's Final Form in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * The Tinkerbell summon in the first game basically makes you invincible. You can more or less not even care about dodging boss' attacks and come out no worse for the wear with her summoned.
 * Goddamned Bats: Air Pirates and Fat Bandits, especially in the first game.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: In Transformers, Shockwave (voiced by Corey Burton) seemed to be impersonating David Warner's portrayal of Sark in Tron. Guess who winds up voicing Sark in Kingdom Hearts 2...
 * Internet Backdraft: Even TV Tropes is not immune.
 * Jerkass Woobie: All the Organization may qualify, with the possible exception of Xemnas himself..
 * Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Axel and Roxas are pretty much the fandom's whores.
 * Axel and Roxas are nothing compared to Demyx. I have seen Demyx paired with everyone in the Organization and then some. There was even a comic about it which I can't find right now.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Xehanort. While there are other Magnificent Bastards in the Kingdom Hearts series (Maleficent, Hades, Axel, and Marluxia), Xehanort is the biggest and greatest of them all.
 * Memetic Badass: The Beast, the best party member EVAH!
 * There is also Mickey Mouse, Aqua, and Vanitas.
 * Memetic Mutation:
 * "GOT IT MEMORIZED"
 * "AS IF!"
 * "That was undeniable proof that we TOTALLY owned you lamers!"
 * Ven's goldfish.
 * Terra's pants.
 * Aqua's boobs.
 * Vanitas's creepy-ass laugh.
 * DARKNESS!!!
 * Sora, Donald, Goofy!
 * GET UP ON THE HYDRA'S BACK!!!
 * The Meme That Never Was
 * RAGE AWAKENED.
 * "Roxas, that's a stick."
 * WHO WILL I EAT ICE CREAM WITH?
 * On Youtube videos of the boss theme "The Encounter" (which plays when fighting Disney bosses in Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep), it's popular to make up battle quotes for Disney bosses (or other bosses) one wishes were in a Kingdom Hearts game.
 * "Kingdom Hearts is... LIGHT!"
 * Mis Blamed: Some fans hate Sora because of how Roxas
 * Not just that, but Sora is probably the only character who doesn't shoulder some of the blame for Given that he was, you know... asleep.
 * Hell, if it weren't for Sora, Roxas wouldn't have existed at all.
 * Moe: The original female characters to some degree, such as Kairi, Naminé, and Xion.
 * Never Live It Down: Kairi only gets properly kidnapped twice (both in II, and in the first instance she actually escapes on her own; the first game had her lifeless body held captive by Riku but her heart/essence safe with Sora, and Riku himself only had her body captive because he was trying to restore her), yet most of the Fan Dumb apparently will forever deem her a Damsel Scrappy regardless.
 * Nightmare Fuel: As long as Disney is involved, there's bound to be some. That's not even including the bizarre Nobodies.
 * Check here for more info.
 * Periphery Demographic: Although the series is aimed to teenagers and young adults, the series has tons of fans in practically every single demographic imaginable. Including the most obvious ones of all.
 * Player Punch: Poor, poor ...
 * Birth By Sleep is practically made of this. You remember Aqua, Terra and Ventus, the three characters you spent at least 45 hours playing as? It's softened a bit by Birth By Sleep's secret ending, which suggests that, but it's still pretty harsh.
 * Portmanteau Couple Name: AkuRoku for Axel/Roxas. SoKai(i) for Sora/Kairi. SoRiku for Sora/Riku. Namixas has been used too. Come to that, even the crack pairings tend to get names made for them.
 * Real Women Never Wear Dresses: A "justification" for bashing toward Kairi and Naminé (and Xion, despite the fact that she has the same role in Organization XIII as Roxas.)
 * Relationship Writing Fumble: The series kinda overdoes it with some of the deeper male friendships. The shippers have noticed.


 * Ron the Death Eater:
 * Sora for rabid Organization XIII fans and Kairi for rabid yaoi fans.
 * Diz. Granted, DiZ was a revenge-driven asshole, but he had reasons for it (he was in the darkness for so long) and he genuinely atoned for it in the end . Yet much of the Fan Dumb still see him as an irredeemable racist monster who is more evil than . And it got worse now that it's been revealed that DiZ.
 * The Scrappy: Kairi, usually for Die for Our Ship reasons. Naminé has been known to be this as well, and Xion is a very controversial character too. Generally, female characters don't get it too good in the fandom.
 * Not entirely surprising, however. To be fair, non yaoi fangirls have also been known to hate these characters too, but even then it's usually for less than reasonable "reasons."
 * Don't forget Roxas; a G4 review of Days likened him to Scrappy-Doo himself.
 * Notice that most characters have their defenders, though; arguably the closest that the series has to a bona fide Scrappy is Xion, and she's still a Base Breaker.
 * Scrappy Level: The Olympus Coliseum visits are starting to wear out their welcome, largely because there's usually little to no exploration and the player simply enters the tournament to fight several waves of enemies until they get to the boss. Also repetitive are the pot-smashing Mini Game, the overused "two words" Running Gag, and Hercules and Phil treating Sora like a rookie hero-wannabe. Made up for slightly by James Woods and the surprise of seeing which Final Fantasy hero Hades has roped into service this time through.
 * Agrabah gets even more flak for constant re-appearances. It was considered a terrific level back in the original game, but it's lost more and more luster with each passing appearance, and it generally has less going for it than Olympus Coliseum does.
 * Atlantica in II, full stop. Not so much that it was a musical world, but many people found the songs to be downright embarassing.
 * Scrappy Mechanic: The Gummi ship levels, until they were Rescued From the Scrappy Heap in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * Silent Majority: Despite having one of the biggest (and most infamous) Yaoi Fangirl bases in fandom, such fangirls make up a much smaller portion of the overall Kingdom Hearts fanbase than one might think, like with many other JRPG series and shonen anime/manga. Sadly, the Vocal Minority is so loud and obnoxious that it turns off many potential fans.
 * That's sadly how it always goes with any fandom....the internet makes it so, so easy for the vocal minority to make their voices heard over everyone else's, and thus they're the ones people associate the whole fandom with.
 * Ship-to-Ship Combat: Particularly in regards to the Ho Yay.
 * So Bad It's Good: The manga adaptations by Shiro Amano, which turns the whole thing into a farce, and is filled to the brim with Pandering to The Base / Running the Asylum in regards to Fanon elemnts.
 * Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Arguably the original characters to the Disney/Final Fantasy ones. The original intention of the franchise was a crossover between Disney and Square, but now any cameo appearances from existing properties are completely overshadowed by the likes of the Organization or Keyblade Masters.
 * Tear Jerker: 358/2 Days and Birth By Sleep  will turn the waterworks on like a faucet. Basically, everything starting an hour or so before the first in the series of final boss battles, and increasing in severity as the final sequence approaches in each of those games is tailor made to be simultaneously awesome and the most depressing thing ever. In the latter case, at least one of the characters is driven to tears by what's happened, and he has no idea that anything actually happened, the aura of tragedy is simply that palpable.
 * That One Boss:
 * Xaldin from Kingdom Hearts 2 comes very very very close to Nintendo Hard difficulty.
 * Then there's Demyx. Never has a simple sitarist-slash-waterbender been so very dreaded.
 * Maleficent's dragon form in the first game, followed by  Yes, two in a row!
 * True Art Is Incomprehensible: Really just all of the games and the plot tend to fall into this territory.
 * Ugly Cute:
 * Several kinds of Heartless fall under this.
 * Jack Skellington's supposed to be the scariest looking monster in his world. The "common people" of his world probably have never seen a heartless or a Nobody.
 * Unfortunate Implications: So, traveling unprotected through the darkness corrupts you and turns your skin dark? Hmm...
 * It should be noted that this only happens to two people: and  Everyone else keeps whatever skin color they had. The implication is still there, just not as strong as the above troper makes it out to be.
 * Viewer Gender Confusion: The main offender of this trope is Marluxia; he's got a feminine name, has pink hair, a pink scythe, and flower petals around him. According to Nomura in a Japanese-only publication, the staff actually originally intended for him to be a woman, but when the Organization traitor plotline was thought up, they had to change him to male, otherwise it would have been two women trying to oppose a male-dominated group and getting squashed for it in the end.
 * Villain Decay: One name: Maleficent. She's paired with Pete in the sequel, for gods' sake.
 * Meanwhile Axel passed from being the Manipulative Bastard into a much smaller role, with an unusual fixation on the newest member of the Organization in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * Were Still Relevant Dammit: Refreshingly averted.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: Nomura maintains this position on the series, as seen here.
 * The Woobie: Naminé in Chain of Memories and Roxas in Kingdom Hearts II. Both of them are the only Nobodies to not be total emotionless sociopaths (save for Axel after spending alot of time with Roxas, and even then he's not a good person) and they both wind up being put through hell by the Organization and DiZ. At least they find happiness in the end. Sort of.
 * Kairi definitely falls under this. She is first separated from the people she cares for most and eventually kidnapped, then she learns that, then she is separated from her friends further, and later when she finally , she is still cut off from Sora and Riku by Xemnas. Oh, and the real kicker? The fangirls hate her guts for all this.
 * Woolseyism: COM's "stock techniques" were changed to "sleights" (as in sleight of hand).
 * Lots of weapons were renamed, especially in the first game. Some make sense. ("Wonder of Abyss" to "Mysterious Abyss".) Others don't. ("Holy Pumpkin" to "Decisive Pumpkin".)
 * "Decisive Pumpkin" actually makes sense if you think about it: the name comes from Jack (Skellington) wanting to combine Christmas with Halloween instead of leaving the Holidays be, and eventually learning that it's best he do his own thing instead of riffing off "Sandy Claws's" holiday.
 * Days also renamed many weapons, most notably Xaldin's and Lexaeus's, which had a Chinese/Japanese respectively name theme going in the Japanese version.
 * Xemnas's weapon type got changed from "Aerial Blade" to "Ethereal Blades", which helps get the point across to those who actually speak English.
 * Xigbar's title is the Japanese title of the opera Der Freischuetz, so his English title is the English translation of the opera's title ("the Freeshooter").
 * In a Continuity Nod, Seifer still calls you a "chicken-wuss".

Kingdom Hearts
""Kairi... Kairi's inside me?""
 * Accidental Innuendo: When Sora finds out :


 * Alas, Poor Villain: Clayton was technically controlled by the Heartless through his heart's obvious darkness, and Sora, Tarzan, and co. express pity after he's killed, which might be strange seeing as he was nothing but a Jerkass to them before getting controlled.
 * Best Level Ever: There just hasn't been a world in this series yet that has been able to top this game's visit to Hollow Bastion in awesomeness.
 * Aside from perhaps the sheer unnerving beauty (and frequent terror) of End of the World, this games final world.
 * Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The battle with Chernabog could be considered this.
 * Also the second battle with Oogie Boogie when he possesses his own manor!
 * Complete Monster:
 * Draco in Leather Pants: while he's on the dark side. His fangirls just can't seem to admit he was ever in the wrong, and usually blame shifts to Sora or Kairi for some absurd reason or other.
 * It's worth noting that his Dark Mode clothes even look like they are made of black leather.
 * Or muscle tissue...
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Why Chernobog was included. This also applies to his reception in the series- he's regarded as one of the candidates for the series's example Best Boss Ever, at least thematically.
 * First Installment Wins: The series goes on, but the debut installment seems to be destined to be the one everyone will remember the most due to the sheer hype and reaction surrounding the concept.
 * Goddamned Boss: Yuffie. She's constantly backing away from you, she throws homing shurikens, she spams healing spells, and she never shuts up. When you face her and Leon in the Colosseum, you'll want to take her out first.
 * And in the sequel, she gains the ability to Teleport Spam.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: At Halloween Town, when Oogie Boogie says "You want it?" in the cutscene before the actual battle, a certain shopkeeper can come to mind.
 * Inferred Holocaust: The Heartless invasion. Although this fact is pretty heavily glossed over and not really discussed much, it is stated at least once that it has completely destroyed several entire worlds by the time the game starts, presumably killing hundreds of billions of people. The few survivors in Traverse Town are, for all intents and purposes, interdimensional refugees, condemned to spend the rest of their existence well and truly homeless, huddling together and trying to preserve what remains of their culture and civilization. It's basically an After the End scenario on a hilariously massive scale.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Both Maleficent and ..
 * Most Annoying Sound: Queen of Hearts? More like Queen of Needstoshutthefuckup. GET THEM, YOU FOOLS! GET THEM, YOU FOOLS! GET THEM, YOU FOOLS! GET THEM, YOU FOOLS!
 * On the plus side, you can vent your frustrations against the queen by locking onto her fat ass and wailing on her, which knocks her out for a minute or two.
 * Also, Pinocchio when he's trapped in Parasite Cage. GET ME OUTTA HERE!!! HEEEELP!
 * Don't forget Jasmine. ALAAADIIINNNN! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!
 * This game predated auto-restock, so hearing your other two party members call out Sora's name at the same time in battle can get pretty annoying because it means they both just used an item on him, likely the same one. And Sora can heal himself.
 * A variant of this is also very annoying: hearing someone call Sora's name just before or immediately after you heal yourself, because you probably just used an item (or magic, which is recoverable) for nothing. Made even worse in KH 2, since Cure/Cura/Curaga drains all of the user's MP and gives them a 60 second recharge time.
 * WHY DO YOU DESPISE THE VOID?
 * Nightmare Fuel: Most of the stuff in End of the World.
 * The only way to land in Monstro is to let the giant angry monster whale swallow you whole.
 * Not to mention that when it happens, you first see the Space Whale "swimming" on its own, then it spots you and swims towards you, and finally opens its mouth. It gets worse when you see everything from behind the Gummi ship, and therefore you get to see Monstro's mouth as it covers the entire screen. Combine that with the final Fade to Black and what you get... isn't a pretty image.
 * Scrappy Level: Atlantica is usually the first example that comes to mind.
 * Every single Gummi sequence. This is one thing almost everyone agrees was improved in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * Monstro is a prime example of terrible level design, mostly being a confusing maze of passageways that look nearly exactly the same.
 * So Cool It's Awesome: By rule of First Installment Wins, if any game in the series can be called this, it'd be this one.
 * That One Boss: Reports differ widely, but both Ursula battles, Maleficent-Dragon, and are usually brought up.
 * WTH Casting Agency: Lance Bass as Sephiroth? Really?
 * Woolseyism: In the Japanese version, the Chernabog battle has the same music as the other Disney villain battle. In the West? What else?
 * Woolseyism: In the Japanese version, the Chernabog battle has the same music as the other Disney villain battle. In the West? What else?

For the YMMV pages of other game in the series, please click on the appropriate link.

 * Chain of Memories
 * Kingdom Hearts II
 * coded
 * 358/2 Days
 * Birth by Sleep
 * 3D