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Kingdom Hearts
For your information, the number of pouches, belts and zippers in this series is over 9000. And yes, it's Tetsuya Nomura's doing

"I've been having these weird thoughts lately, like is any of this for real or not?"
—Sora

"The worlds are made of Light and Darkness. You can't have one without the other."
—King Mickey

Upon hearing the premise of the game, even the very concept, fans had very mixed expectations.

The king of the RPG, SquareSoft (now Square Enix), was to team up with Disney to produce the ultimate Cross Over game. Characters from Disney's beloved animated classics would join forces with characters from Square's Final Fantasy series, in a game equivalent of the Trapped In TV Land trope. An Anime-esque hero named Sora in Mickey Mouse pants hits inky black creatures with a giant key. He joins forces with Donald Duck and Goofy to fight evil in settings from Disney's library of classics. If anyone but Square had been involved, it would have been laughed off as some fluke, crazy marketing synergy strategy given life in a boardroom.

And then it was released.

RPG fans and newcomers alike fell in love with it. The characters are true to their origins while still fitting in to the larger world, partly due to how iconic both universes have become. The story is heartwarming, exciting, and emotional. The combat is bloodless, yet action-oriented and extremely fun.

Its content is appropriate for any age, but the difficulty and some subject matter may be too much for the youngest.

Proving incredibly popular, it has now become one of Square Enix's flagship series.
The series consists of the following games:

The series contains appearances by characters and locations from the following games, films and franchises:

This series also has a character sheet.

The Crowners:
Awesome
Funny
Heartwarming
Sadness
Music

This series as a whole provides examples of:

  • Achilles Heel: Sora and Saix may be extremely powerful, but deriving them of their weapons would render them almost powerless. If Sora is without his Keyblade, it would take many hits to take down even the weakest of enemies.
  • Adaptation Decay: The Kingdom Hearts manga and novelizations.
    • In a recent interview, Nomura comments on this; saying that the manga and novels come out of the authors' requests that Square then grants, but that there's always the trouble of game canon contradicting it as the games continue developing. Of course, there were some parts of the novels that ended up integrated into canon as Final Mix cutscenes, albeit differently portrayed.
  • All There In The Manual: Much of explanations for the Kingdom Hearts mysteries are in the Ultimania guides which, surprise surprise, will never see the light of day outside of Japan.
    • One of the most prominent examples being cutscenes from KH2: Final Mix+ being included in the opening for 358/2 Days, as well as mention of the Chambers of Repose and Waking. Which were also only mentioned in Final Mix+. Which was only released in Japan. It seems a lot of the time like Square just assumes the player finds out about all this elsewhere. (Which we do, but only because they make it necessary to do so...)
  • Alternate Continuity: All characters from previous works.
  • Anachronic Order: The (Secret) Ansem Reports. You never collect them in numerical order, leaving holes in the story for earlier entries to fill in. It either makes them confusing or deeper. Your choice.
  • And I Must Scream: The Birth By Sleep video at the end of Final Mix + shows Ventus being frozen comleptely and thrown off a cliff, and still conscious at the end of it (You can see his eyes moving).
  • An Ice Person: Vexen.
  • Animated Armor: The Guard Armor in the first game and 358/2 Days. The latter game also has a Palette Swap called the "Powered Armor".
  • Anvilicious: About all of its moral messages, even the... unusual ones
  • Art Evolution: The hand-drawn artwork has gotten much more anime-influenced, angular, and thick-lined over time, but this is less an aspect of this series and more one of Tetsuya Nomura himself. There's also a good deal of evolution in the character models, but that makes sense due to better technology. Even so, it's hard to tell Aurora from KH1 and Aurora from Birth by Sleep are the same person.
  • Author Appeal: Tetsuya Nomura's obsession with zippers and belts is all over the games.
    • Similarly, after Nomura had tried some Sea-Salt Ice Cream at a Disney resort, he liked it so much that he worked it into Kingdom Hearts II as a recurring thing.
  • Awesome By Analysis: Sora's universe saving feats and daring swordplay are made even more impressive when you realize that unlike his predecessors, he is completely self-taught in using his Keyblade. Oh, and he defeats evil forces such as Maleficent that the protagonists of Birth By Sleep were apparently unable to do as well as beating the Lingering Sentiment.
  • Badass Longcoat: Mickey Mouse(!)
    • Pretty much anyone trying to hide their identity is this by default.
  • Bag Of Spilling: Sora, Donald, Goofy all downgrade from world-saving heroes to nigh-powerless rookies between games, as does Roxas between 358/2 Days and KHII. Given all the memory-tampering that takes place, however, it's completely understandable.
  • Base Breaker: Organization XIII (and, to a lesser extent, Riku.)
  • Beehive Barrier: Protective spells and other areas
  • Beta Test Baddie: Organization XIII.
  • Better Than It Sounds: A fusion between Final Fantasy and Disney, a lot of Final Fantasy fans hated it right off the bat and didn't even want to look at it. Then they played it.
  • Big Bad: Ansem in the first and Xemnas in the second.
    • Xehanort as a whole ruined everything forever for everyone.
  • Bishonen Line: Nobodies are stated to take forms closer to their original bodies as they grow more powerful with the weakest looking like twitching white jumpsuits and the very strongest being physically indistinguishable from normal humans.
  • Black Cloak
  • Black Magic: The ever-vague 'darkness' everyone keeps talking about can be controlled by strong people, but for those who aren't...
  • The Blank: Apparently, Xion was like this at one point or another.
  • Blow You Away: Xaldin.
  • Blue Bishonen Ghetto: Despite many players' first impressions, only one or is it two, now? of Organization XIII is actually a girl. Good luck guessing which one!
  • Cargo Ship: Xemnas/Kingdom Hearts and Sora/Keyblade
  • Cerebus Syndrome
  • Chained By Fashion: The Shadow Stalker/Dark Thorn boss
  • Chaos Architecture: Kingdom Hearts II; Same worlds, radically different layout
    • 358/2 Days. Same worlds, just plain smaller (and entirely new in Neverland's case.)
  • Cherry Blossoms: Part of Marluxia's power. Apparently, sakura symbolize death among other things, so this is actually appropriate in a What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic kind of way. Or they're just rose petals. The jury's still out on that.
  • 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.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Organization XIII has a real problem with this.
    • Axel especially. At one point in Chain of Memories, he betrays a senior membor of the Organization, killing him, to get into the good graces of another faction betraying the main Organization. However, he's actually The Mole, set to betray that faction under Xemnas's orders, while secretly planning to betray Xemnas alongside Saïx, becasuse Xemnas is betraying the whole Organization. And then later on, during Days, he betrays that alliance when he develops friendship with Roxas and Xion, and then inadvertently betrays them, too! You need a friggin' flowchart to keep track of this dude. Lexaeus said it best:
    "And then there is Axel. Who knows what that one is thinking."
  • Collectible Card Game: Both as a gameplay mechanic in Chain of Memories and as an actual collectible card game
  • 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.
  • Cosmic Keystone: The Keyholes serve this purpose for each individual world.
  • Crouching Moron Hidden Badass: Demyx
  • Crowning Music Of Awesome: Yoko Shimomura, folks.
  • Cue Cullen: Christopher. Fucking. Lee. That is all.
  • Cute Shotaro Boy: Sora, Roxas, and Ventus.
  • Cutscene Incompetence: Sora is a big offender of this, while Goofy is not.
  • Cutscene Power To The Max: Near the end of Kingdom Hearts 2, Sora basically turns into an overpowered action movie character. Case in point: he carves his way through entire buildings using a key. Depending on your equipment at the time, this key might be round and lack a cutting edge.
  • Dark Action Girl: Larxene
  • Dark Is Not Evil: It just happens to attract a lot of bad guys, is all.
  • Did Not Do The Research: Rule #1: A genie can't kill anyone. Other than that, the trope is surprisingly averted.
    • It's not that genies can't kill people, their masters can't wish/order them to kill people. Outside of that, they can still do grieveous bodily harm to anyone they want.
  • Disappears Into Darkness: When Nobodies die.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Lexaeus.
  • Disney Death: Well, Disney did help produce the game.
  • Doomed By Canon: Try not to get too attached to ANYONE or NOBODY in the prequels, kay?
    • Well Birth By Sleep is ok. They'll probably wind up ok in the end. Days however.....
      • Sure, the other characters don't remember her... but we do! *sob*
  • Draco In Leather Pants: All of Organization XIII. Ye gods. There are fans who think Kairi is more evil than the Organization.
    • Nomura has confirmed in an interview that, though several members of the Organization have sympathetic motives, their goal to claim Kingdom Hearts was little different from what the Heartless was doing and was, in fact, EVIL. Not that Fan Dumb will listen...
    • People are already trying to make up random excuses for Vanitas' evilness. His heart is pure darkness, for God's Sake! That's the only valid excuse!
  • Dream Mirror: Everyone has a Heart, Soul and Body.
    • Well, every normal person.
  • Duel Boss
  • Eldritch Abomination: The Heartless are some of the cutest ones ever.
    • It really depends on how you play them out to be. Shadow Heartless jumping around? Freaking adorable. A Soldier Heartless ripping someone's heart out? Holy cow...
    • The Nobodies are worse. Even by the cosmology of the series, it's stated that their existence simply doesn't make sense. It doesn't help that most of them look and move like animated clothing.
  • Elemental Powers: Organization XIII. Most of them. Their individual powers are accurately "attributes", or themes to their abilities. This gets corrupted into "elements" by fans.
    • Some of them aren't quite what they're made out to be anyway. For example: Xemnas has "Nothingness" and Luxord has "Time", but they turn out to be more like "Yin Yang Bomb" and "Timed Mission" in practice.
    • However, the ones who indeed have traditional elements as their "attributes" (Axel, Demyx, Larxene, Xaldin, Lexeaus, Vexen, and Roxas to a certain extent) have traditional elemental powers.
  • Empathic Weapon: The Keyblades
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Axel, Axel, AXEL. Got it memorized?
  • Evil Makeover: All of Organization XIII
  • Expy: Axel to Reno. The character's creator said they are "different people, but subconsciously alike."
  • Fan Dumb: Don't get us started....
  • Fighting From The Inside: Riku in the first game
    • Terra at the end of Birth by Sleep
  • Five Man Band: The heroes form one at the end of the second game.
  • Flashback With The Other Darrin: Happens a lot, notably to "Ansem", Leon, Aerith, and Kairi.
  • The Force: The Light; among other possibilities, this is the stuff of which worlds and people are made. It's apparently also the source and distributor of the Keyblades and Sora's initial visions. Can also impart Mysterious Monologues with the best of them.
  • For Doom The Bell Tolls: "Showdown at Hollow Bastion", replacing the usual piano chords in the Organization's leitmotif.
  • Funny Animal: Mickey and Co.
  • Goddamn Orks: While they are also obviously The Heartless, the Heartless and Nobodies are also Goddamn Orks.
  • Go Karting With Bowser: Or, Tournament Fighting with Hades. Most bizarre in the original, where the Hades Cup is harmless.
  • Good Is Dumb: Riku's ambition and independence radically decreases with each game until he's perfectly content to play the Mysterious Protector and wait for Sora to finish the real work. This stems from a not inconsiderable amount of shame from failing to control the darkness and being possessed by Ansem in the first game, and from the Keyblade quite pointedly rejecting him in favor of Sora.
    • While they don't turn good, the Organization XIII members that you control in mission/multiplayer mode in 358/2 Days are a good deal weaker than their incarnations as boss-fights in Chain of Memories and KH2. Most of them have their signature attacks reduced to only being used as their Limit Break, and some abilities (Larxene's after-images, Demyx's water-clones, Xaldin's whirlwind-spear-dragon) are missing entirely.
  • Grand Theft Me: Introduced at the end of the first game, the rest of the series more or less revolves around it.
  • Gratuitous Foreign Language: On the soundtracks, Italian in Kingdom Hearts and Chain of Memories and French in 358/2 Days.
  • Green Lantern Corps: If the previews are anything to go by, Keyblade wielders were a knighthood.
  • Green Lantern Ring: OK, as of Birth By Sleep, Keyblade wielders can smack you up, cast magic, lock and unlock pretty much anything, teleport the Keyblade back to their hand, create portals to other worlds, generate armor, turn their Keyblades into spaceships, and create elaborate castles out of rubble. Are we forgetting anything?
    • Xehanort used his to possess Terra with help from Kingdom Hearts, create the Guardian Heartless, summon a portal to the Realm of Darkness, and create Vanitas.
  • Green Thumb: Marluxia.
  • Guest Star Party Member: Most worlds have one.
  • Hammer Space: Where else do you think the Keyblade goes when Sora's not carrying it?
    • Completely justified in Roxas' case. The intelligent Nobodies can call forth spiritual weapons at will, or at least most of them can. Naturally, Roxas' would be the Kingdom Key.
  • Hartman Hips: It's kind of hard to tell under the cloak, but Larxene, the only actual female in Organization XIII (most of the time).
    • Hilariously, Sora gets these when he's in his mer-dolphin Atlantica form.
  • The Heartless: The creatures from which the trope is named.
  • Heroes Want Redheads: Kairi.
  • Hey Its That Voice: Ye gods, this. One of the games' most acclaimed features, in fact.
    • Again: Christopher. Fucking. Lee.
  • Hijacked By Ganon: If something's going wrong, nine times out of ten, Xehanort (in some form or another) is behind it.
  • Ho Yay: There's an awful lot of strong bonding between males in these games. Sora and Riku, Roxas and Axel...(Athough 358/2 days toned it down.)
  • Hollywood Scribbling: Some of Naminé's drawings, which may be forgiveable as she is working in crayon then. In pencil, of course, she's completely amazing.
  • Humanoid Abomination: The entirety of Organization XIII and Nobodies in general.
  • Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Beginner, Standard, Hard, Proud, and Critical.
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes: Zippers galore, even on hats!
    • Dusks actually have zippers for mouths.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Sora's giant key, Goofy's shield, Demyx's sitar, Zexion's lexicon...
  • Infinity Plus One Sword: The Ultima Weapon. Good luck hunting down all the synthesis items. Also, Final Form is an Infinity Plus One Super Mode
  • Instrument Of Murder: Demyx's sitar.
  • Internet Backdraft: Even TV Tropes is not immune.
  • Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Donald Duck.
  • Kid Hero: Sora
  • Kudzu Plot: Just try to figure things out without a wiki and mastery of string theory.
    • Even the Ansem Reports say parts of the story don't make sense
  • The Lancer: Though they only technically "meet" once, Roxas manages to be this to Sora.
  • Leitmotif: Kairi, Sora, Riku, Roxas, Namine, Xion, Ventus, Aqua, and Terra all have their own theme tunes (although Xion's uses riffs from Kairi's, Ventus's is a combination of Roxas's and Sora's, and Aqua's and Terra's are lifted wholesale from "Fate of the Unknown"). Battles against Riku and/or "Ansem" in the first two games also open with identical organ chords. The vast majority of tunes related to Organization XIII use some part of "Another Side"'s melody, as well.
    • All of the Nobodies' themes seem to be the normal characters' themes (for those that have them) slightly altered.
  • Lets Get Dangerous: See, Demyx has all the work ethic of a bar of soap. He goes above and beyond the call of Dismotivation, running and hiding at the first sign of combat. Saix tries and fails to get Roxas to motivate him. But put a betrayer in front of him, and... Never mind that Sora is not Roxas (although the latter is the former...it's weird).
  • Letter Motif: X for Organization XIII.
  • Light The Way: Roxas and Xion.
  • Literal Split Personality: Sora from the first game ends up being split into "Heartfull/Heartless" Sora (his Heart), and Roxas (body and soul), plus Xion absorbing his memories. They're put back together in one being by the end, but Roxas and Xion still exist somewhere in Sora, somehow - but the games never really explore any possible future consequences of Sora having two extra people inside of him might have. Hopefully this will eventually be expanded upon, maybe.
    • Some argue that he can communicate with Roxas, as Naminé told him that he will not fade but be whole. Xion seems pretty dead/absorbed, though.
      • Actually, in 358/2 Days, we can actually hear Xion communicating with Riku even after having been dead/absorbed. So it seems her consciousness is still there somewhere.
      • On the upside, Sora will never be lonely again. On the downside, he is now, medically speaking, suffering from a mix of dissociative identity disorder and schizophrenia. Better hope the three don't converse in public.
    • Birth by Sleep shows that part of Ventus' spirit was absorbed into Sora, so by the end of KH 2, he has three people inside him.
      • And that's ruling out the possibility that Vanitas might also still exist inside Ventus' heart, which is in Sora's.
  • Living Shadow: The Heartless, some varieties moreso than others.
  • Loads And Loads Of Characters: Mostly from the Disney Animated Canon.
  • Lunacy: Saix gets his power from the moon, and his character design looks like that of a warewolf in human form.
  • Mac Guffin Location: The Chamber of Waking, which may be in Castle Oblivion. Somewhere.
  • Magic Knight: All keyblade wielders and most of Organization XIII.
  • Making A Splash: Demyx.
  • Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Between Disney and Square Enix.
  • Master Of Illusion: Zexion.
  • Meaningful Name: Sora means sky, the "kai" in Kairi means sea, and Riku means land. Also, the Keyblade Knights in Birth by Sleep happen to be called Ven(tus), Aqua, and Terra. Hmmmmm.)
    • There's also Namine. "Nami" is a word for "ocean wave". Remember whose Nobody she is?
      • The first part of Xion's name- "shio"- is the word for "tide".
    • To be specific, Ventus, Aqua, and Terra stand for wind, water, and earth respectively.
    • "There are many worlds, but they all share the same sky."
  • Metal Slime: White Mushrooms and Rare Truffes to some degree, Black Fungus all the way.
  • Mind Screw: If Kingdom Hearts II's plot isn't insane enough, it gets even worse in 358/2 Days.
  • Names To Run Away From Really Fast: All of the X obsessed Organization XIII.
  • Nice Job Breaking It Hero: The progress the Organization has made with its plans is due to the unwitting help of Sora, Roxas and to a metaphysical extent, the player himself.
  • Nightmare Fuel: As long as Disney is involved, there's bound to be some. That's not even including the bizarre Nobodies.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: The recently revealed master of Terra, Aqua, and Ven, who bears a very◊ striking◊ resemblance to Squaresoft founder and Final Fantasy creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi. And to further drive the point home, guess what his name is. Master Eraqus. Now unscramble those letters and guess what it says.
  • No Export For You: Kingdom Hearts owns this trope (unfortunately).
  • Non Lethal KO: Party members just get dazed when defeated. After a breather (or some healing) they'll be ready for action again. This doesn't apply to Sora unless it's a battle Mickey shows up in.
  • Now Where Was I Going Again: Jiminy Cricket's Journal.
  • Ominous Italian Chanting: "Destati" and all its derivatives.
  • Ominous Pipe Organ: "Forze Del Male" and "Beyond the Door" from Kingdom Hearts; "Struggle Away", "The Force in You", "Revenge of Chaos", "The 13th Struggle", "Castle Oblivion", "Forgotten Challenge", "Graceful Assassin", and "Scythe of Petals" from Chain of Memories; "Tension Rising", "The Corrupted", "The 13th Dilemma", and "Darkness of the Unknown" from Kingdom Hearts II; "Struggle Away (Fight for my Friends)" from 358/2 Days.
  • The Omniscient Council Of Vagueness: In the first game, Chain of Memories, and II Final Mix, overlaps with the Legion Of Doom.
  • One Winged Angel: Most final bosses do this at least once. Sephiroth notably does not (though he does have one angel wing). His regular form is enough to constitute a Bonus Boss.
  • The Other Darrin: Quite a few. A bad example being Mandy Moore replaced by the absolutely wooden Mena Suvari. A good example would be Lance Bass being replaced by George Newbern (who made it clear that the line is "Descend, Heartless Angel", not "Sin Harvest" as Bass' rushed delivery had many believing.)
  • Palette Swap: Many, many enemies in Days get this treatment.
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: King Mickey
  • Player Punch: Happens a lot in 358/2 Days.
  • Playing With Fire: Axel.
  • Peek A Bangs: Zexion.
  • Pop Star Composer: Utada Hikaru writes the theme music for the series.
  • 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.
  • The Power Of Friendship: This concept is key to the series, but it's done in such a well-executed manner as to still feel natural, despite being idealistic. Keyblades in particular appear to be drawn to individuals who have strong hearts, and thus, exemplify this trope.
  • Power Trio: Sora! Donald! Goofy! Trinity Attack!
  • Prime Directive: Mentioned a couple times, but it's violated so thoroughly that nobody even cares anymore.
  • Real Women Never Wear Dresses: A "justification" for bashing toward Kairi and Namine (and Xion, even though she doesn't technically wear a dress.)
  • Refused By The Call
  • Relationship Writing Fumble: The series kinda overdoes it with some of the deeper male friendships. The shippers have noticed.
  • Ret Gone: A LOT of it.
    • One example of the trope occurs with Sora during the year between Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II: while Sora is sleeping and Namine is reconstructing his memories, everyone who knew him forgets that he existed until he awakens again.
    • Ret Con: The whole reveal about Ansem being evil in the first game. Come Kingdom Hearts 2? Oh, actually, that was just his apprentice. Ansem's actually good. Really.
  • Roaring Rampage Of Revenge: For the player rather than anyone in the game. Seriously, name something from a Disney film that scared the bejeezus out of you as a kid. Maleficent, Chernobog, Ursula, Oogie Boogie... odds are good that whatever you named, you're gonna get to dish out some long overdue payback on.
  • Ron The Death Eater: Sora for rabid Organization XIII fans and Kairi for rabid yaoi fans.
  • Rule Of Three: There are apparently three enemy types, but we only know that Nobodies are the third (Unversed and Heartless are, presumably, the first two).
  • Saving The World: Worlds, plural.
  • Say My Name: In the Secret End of "Birth By Sleep" regardless of their state of existence, Namine, Roxas, Axel, Xion, Ven, Terra and Aqua pray to Sora's name across time and space.
  • The Scrappy: Kairi, usually for Die For Our Ship reasons. Namine 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.
  • Self Imposed Challenge: The Critical Mode (Nintendo Hard) Lvl. 1 Challenge with NO DAMAGE for scripted fights, boss fights and Data battles (more Nintendo Hard) from KHIIFM+.
    • Enter Bizkit047, who meets the above description and has more restrictions for several of these fights.
      • Want to get an idea of what it takes to be this good? Watch some of these hard Lvl. 1 CM no damage fights with restrictions: Terra and Saïx Data.
      • Xigbar Datawith all these restrictions is simply insane.
      • Do not forget his several hacked fights. One Sephiroth? Make it two. Watch this Xigbar x2 + Xaldin fight. Make sure to look at related videos and look at the other hacked fights from there (such as triple Sephiroth and quintuple Sephiroth/Terra).
    • In Re:Chain of Memories, Bizkit047 also takes up the no HP+ Challenge on Proud.
    • Meanwhile, apulapul2000 has some very good time attack videos.
    • 358/2 Days: Everything is equipped in the panel grid, including level ups, so it's quite easy to impose a level 1 challenge on yourself, among other things.
  • Sequel Hook: The Hundred Percent Completion secret movies. Especially the ones in the Final Mixes.
  • Sequential Boss: No self-respecting final boss in this series would be caught dead without at least three forms.
  • Ship Tease: Kingdom Hearts II in particular.
  • Ship To Ship Combat: Particularly in regards to the Ho Yay.
  • Ship Sinking: Xemnas/Saïx is torpedoed in 358/2 Days.
    • It kind of sinks Axel/Roxas as well, as Axel specifically states that he considers romantic love (the kind between Belle and Beast being the topic-starter) and love between best friends to be completely separate. But will this stop Aku Roku from being shipped in the fandom? Veeeeeeery slim chance there...
  • Shock And Awe: Larexene.
  • Shoot Em Ups: With the gummi ships.
  • Shout Out: The majority of Nobodies are named after the various job classes in the Final Fantasy series, and often behave as such.
  • Sigil Spam: The Heartless emblem and the Nobody sigil both show up on pretty much anything connected to their groups.
    • And you can pretty much bet on the Unversed sigil getting the same treatment.
    • Curiously enough, Hayner's T-Shirt has a skull-and-crossbones designed the same way as the Heartless emblem.
  • Significant Anagram: All of Organization XIII. Leads to Epileptic Trees about the original names of the "other" members.
    • Xehanort, too. Get rid of the X and we get both "No Heart" and "Another". Nomura says both were entirely intentional.
      • Given what happens to Terra in Birth By Sleep, we have a third one - "No Earth".
    • And Ansem can be rearranged as "Names", though this one is probably unintentional, but hilarious considering the number of characters using his name.
  • Sinister Scythe: Marluxia
    • Uh... "sinister"? That thing is pink and has a flower motif.
  • Slasher Smile: See the Tokyo Game Show 2003 Trailer. Axel, when he's facing Roxas in the final tutorial battle. He does do a milder version in the actual game.
    • He does another one in another scene-that-never-was in the E3 2004 Trailer.
  • SORAS: No, not a cameo from a double-vision-affected BRIAN BLESSED. Just some tinkering with the Final Fantasy characters.
  • Shadow Archetype: Sora and Xenahort. Xenahort steals the bodies of others to extend his life. Sora lets others share his body to extend their lives.
  • The Soulless: Well heartless, if you want to get technical, but the Nobodies fit this like a glove.
  • Spanner In The Works: Sora and Co. have an amazing ability to tear complicated schemes to pieces by without ever fully understanding them. (Though they do have help.)
  • Spiritual Successor: The Mana Series was succeeded by Kingdom Hearts, more or less. And now it looks like Disney Fantasy Online will be a spiritual successor to Kingdom Hearts, as it's essentially Kingdom Hearts online with the Square Enix properties filed off but with the Nomura art style and core concepts retained.
    • To be fair, it appears to just bring the concept to a MMORPG.
  • Squishy Wizard: Donald, in spades.
  • Standard Female Grab Area
  • Super Mode: Drive Forms
  • Take My Hand: Seen a lot with Riku and Sora (especially Riku, who makes it his pose in the opening cinematics of both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II.)
    • And Vanitas takes the same pose in the opening for Birth by Sleep, facing Ventus.
    • Axel does it in Chain of Memories to Sora, but he doesn't accept it. Seeing what we learn of Axel later, that was definately the right choice to make.
  • Tear Jerker: Especially in 358/2 Days.
  • Technical Pacifist: It's stated in the manual that Goofy fights with a shield because he dislikes conventional weapons.
  • Teens Are Short: Sora, Riku, Kairi, Roxas, Namine, etc... are all shorter than almost all of the adults in the game. "Shorter than some" would be understandable, as would "slightly shorter than most", but there is a significant height gap most of the way through, at least for the males. Although Riku does hit a growth spurt after Chain of Memories and becomes "adult height" for Kingdom Hearts II.
    • Sora's growth spurt was nothing to scoff at either. The pants that reached his ankles in the original didn't even pass his knees in the sequel.
    • Not really a teen, but seeing Goofy next to some of these other characters makes you realize that he's not so tall as much as all of his friends are just short.
  • That One Boss: Xaldin from Kingdom Hearts 2 comes very very very close to Nintendo Hard difficulty (YMMV for a few though).
  • Theme Naming: All the names of the Organization XIII members are anagrams of the names they had before they became Nobodies with an "x" added in.
  • Thirteen Is Unlucky: Organization XIII.
  • Thirty Xanatos Pileup: Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts II, 358/2 Days...And we'll soon find out if Birth By Sleep follows this trend.
  • Time Master: Luxord.
  • Title Drop: In every game so far.
    • Except not quite in 358/2 Days.
  • Took A Level In Badass: Mickey is shown to have been clumsy at keyblading when training under Yen Sid in Birth By Sleep. In the present day, he's the most skilled keyblade wielder of all.
    • Roxas gains a level in badass when he absorbs Xion, gaining his signature power to dual-wield two Keyblades.
    • Sora in Kingdom Hearts II not only gets Roxas' dual-wielding, but later on takes his own level in badass when he gets the power to use Drive Forms.
    • Riku and Kairi both get their own Keyblades in Kingdom Hearts II.
  • Two Guys And A Girl: Sora, Riku, Kairi; Terra, Ven, Aqua; Hayner, Pence, Olette (if you don't count Roxas); Roxas, Axel, Xion. Not to mention the evil, non-friendship version with Marluxia, Axel, and Larxene in "Chain of Memories". This series loves this trope.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Quite a few characters like sea-salt ice cream, which serves as a minor plot point.
  • Updated Rerelease: Only available in Japan, naturally.
    • Not Re: Chain of Memories, though. But that doesn't have vital new plot information, unlike the Final Mixes.
  • Uncanny Valley: What the Nobodies, humanlike and otherwise, of Organization XIII are supposed to be the epitome of — all attempts to put Draco In Leather Pants aside.
    • Even worse are the upcoming Unversed.
    • And, just like in their own movie, the characters from Halloweentown fall here intentionally (after all, it is supposed to be a scary place). But so do the Christmas Town people.
  • The Unchosen One: Sora. While it is debatable as to whether or not the Keyblade was originally intended for Riku, his theft of it in Kingdom Hearts I forced Sora to have to fight to reclaim his title as Keybearer.
    • Pretty much spelled out when Sora meets Terra, one of the previous Keybearers. The latter flips out upon seeing the Keyblade in the hands of someone other than the one he chose. Cue Bonus Boss.
  • Unscaled Merfolk: Sora and co when the are in Atlantica.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: You'd think someone like Jack Sparrow would say something when faced with an anthropomorphic duck. In fact, someone would probably comment on there being several people looking like they just stepped out of a cartoon in a place that clearly doesn't have that kind of stuff. In fact, if we add the reactions to Barbossa's crew being undead, we've progressed from Epic Weirdness Censor through Fridge Logic into borderline Wall Banger.
    • Only once is the fact that Donald and Goofy are anything other than human mentioned at all - Genie refers to Donald as "my fine feathered friend" in the first game.
    • Maybe they use some magic to appear human to everyone else other than Sora (and the player)? It wouldn't be strange for KH characters at all, since Xion looks different to everyone who looks at her as well.
      • Xion is completely different and a very unique case. She and the protagonists disguising themselves are completely incomparable.
  • Victory Pose: By Sora. They're Mythology Gags toward Final Fantasies VII, VIII, and X.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Organization XIII. The girl passes for a boy, half the boys look like girls... Two-dimensional sprite artwork (in Chain of Memories anyway) is partly to blame.
  • Villain Based Franchise:Master Xehanort (or one component of him) managed to cause every single problem in the series in some manner.
  • 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.
  • Villain Teleportation: Maleficent and Riku.
  • Watching The Sunset
  • We're Still Relevant, Dammit: Refreshingly averted.
  • We Could Have Avoided All This: So many things could have been made easier if people would just tell Sora and Co. what they want done instead of insisting on using annoying secrecy and dangerous experiments/powers.
    • The Director's Secret Report XIII gave this, if it makes any sense: "...the Organization itself was using Sora for their ultimate goal. Soon enough, each of the Organization's expectations differed. By changing Sora and Roxas's movements, eventually they became unable to use Sora for their true meaning. As a result, Sora became an obstacle to the movements of the Organization itself and he had to be defeated."
  • What An Idiot: A lot of examples could be justified. One, however, stands out. At the end of Chain of Memories Jiminy Cricket knows that Sora and his Nakama, including Jiminy himself, are going to be out of action for a while, and for certain reasons won't remember any of this. He wants to remember it, though, so he decides to write it in his journal. Since they just beat the Big Bad of this game, and they have all the time they need, does he write a complex explanation? No, just two words. "Thank Naminé." Cue confusion at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts 2 proper.
  • What Could Have Been: An Early design of Sora◊ shows him as a chainsaw-sword wielding, half lion/monkey. Yeah, sounds ridiculous right?
  • What Kind Of Lame Power Is Heart Anyway: Oh so averted...
  • What Measure Is A Non Human: Hoo boy. The Nobodies. Sora in particular sticks to his "You don't exist, you don't feel anything" mantra right until the end, even after one of them pulls a Heroic Sacrifice for his sake... One might think he was speaking directly to Disney's censors. Meanwhile other, non-Nobody villains succumb to The Heartless, a Karmic Death, get One Winged Angel enough to get covered by this trope or survive for a while.
  • White Haired Pretty Boy: Several—though two or three, depending how you count, are kinda the same person.
  • White Void Room: Most of the rooms in Castle Oblivion. Most notably Namine's.
    • Also Namine's room in the Old Mansion in Kingdom Hearts 2, and also the Pod Room where Sora sleeps. Also, while not technically a room, the Realm of Nothingness where the final battle against the really, REALLY final form of Xemnas is fought.
  • Whole Plot Reference: Several, if not most worlds—but none as strictly as Pirates of the Caribbean, seemingly reconstructed in abridged form with Sora and the Heartless slapdashily thrown in.
  • Woman In White: Namine.
  • 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.
      • Actually, all of Xaldin's English weapons are correct translations, and specifically use archaic English to communicate the "archaic Japanese" of the original names. Lexaeus kind of got the shaft, though, since all of his were based on Japanese poetry.
    • Some Heartless got little renames. "Bulk Vendor" to "Bulky Vendor". "Flare Globe" to "Fiery Globe". "Mad Dog" to "Rabid Dog". "Gate Guardian" to "Thresholder".
      • Conversely, very many Heartless were renamed in Days.
    • 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 Freischütz, 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".
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: Xemnas, Di Z, and even Mickey Mouse are masters of this.
  • Your Mileage May Vary: Has the Kingdom Hearts series improved/is as good as it's ever been, or has it grown weaker over time?

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