Sora (Kingdom Hearts)

Sora
Kingdom Hearts series character
File:KH Sora.jpg Sora, as he appears in Kingdom Hearts. His white gloves, red shorts, and big yellow shoes are designed after Mickey Mouse's clothes.
First game	Kingdom Hearts

Sora (ソラ) is the hero of the Kingdom Hearts role-playing video game series. He is an upbeat and cheerful teenager and though he may seem simple-minded and naïve at times, he possesses an unwavering heart and his strong sense of justice is extraordinary. At times, he is impulsive and quick to anger, but he is always sincere about what he says and does. He comes from Destiny Islands and is best friends with Riku and Kairi. Sora is derived from the Japanese word for sky (空, sora), in comparison with sea (海, kai) and land (陸, riku).

In the story of Kingdom Hearts, Sora's being splits in two, producing Roxas (ロクサス, Rokusasu), a Nobody from Sora's body and soul. This "Nobody" plays an important part in Kingdom Hearts II.

Sora is voiced by Haley Joel Osment in the English versions of the Kingdom Hearts video games and by Miyu Irino in the Japanese versions.

Kingdom Hearts

Sora is fourteen years old at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts and lives on the Destiny Islands with his best friends Riku and Kairi, and others including Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka. Sora and his two close friends Riku and Kairi seek to see the world beyond the islands and begin to build a raft. However, a strange dark force storms the islands. Riku welcomes the darkness as a pathway to new worlds, but Sora denies it and is swept away from his home and separated from his friends. He drifted through the corridors of darkness, an interdimensional pathway, and ended up in a place known as Traverse Town.

Here he meets Donald Duck and Goofy, the respective Royal Court Magician and Captain of the Royal Guard of Disney Castle. They are under direct orders found in a letter left behind by their king, Mickey, to find Leon and a mysterious "key". King Mickey has mysteriously disappeared and is on his own mission conducting an investigation into the darkness that is slowly swallowing world after world. The three of them decide to look for their friends together, especially since Donald and Goofy believe Sora will be the one to defeat the dark force because he bears a weapon known as the Keyblade, perhaps this mysterious "key" Mickey was talking about.

In Traverse Town, Sora finds Riku and discovers that neither of them can find Kairi. After finding Riku cast into darkness, Maleficent started poisoning his mind against Sora, making him think that by befriending Donald and Goofy, Sora has forgotten about him and Kairi. He then decides to find Kairi on his own. Sora ends up traversing multiple worlds to stop the Heartless, the creatures that embody the darkness, and also rescue the Seven Princesses of Heart, who are the key to opening the final Keyhole that will show the path to Kingdom Hearts, the objective of the villains controlling the Heartless.

After reaching Hollow Bastion, Sora loses the Keyblade to Riku after he was revealed to be the rightful keyblade master. The reason the keyblade chose Sora is because he chose the light over Riku's darkness, Riku, however, had a stronger heart. This in turn causes Donald and Goofy to abandon him for Riku as per their orders but loyalty soon brings them back to Sora. Riku loses the Keyblade to Sora after he chooses darkness over light of his own free will. Enraged he fights Sora but is defeated.

After this, the party encounters Maleficent. She is defeated by Sora and retreats towards the inner chamber. Riku, who is now possessed by Xehanort's Heartless, offers her help to defeat Sora. Sora and gang arrive and Riku unlocks Maleficent's "true darkness" by impaling her with his dark Keyblade, turning her into a black dragon. She is defeated once more by Sora.

Soon after, Sora meets up with Riku again, where Sora learns that Kairi's heart was within him since the destruction of Destiny Islands. Sora engages in yet another battle with Riku and wins once more. In order to return Kairi's heart and make her conscious again, Sora impales himself with the dark Keyblade that Riku wielded to remove his and her hearts, becoming a Heartless himself for a short period before being saved because of Kairi's voice leading him towards the light. His tenure as a Heartless brings Roxas into existence at Twilight Town, where he is found by Xemnas and inducted into Organization XIII. Naminé, Kairi's Nobody, is also born out of Kairi's heart and Sora's body and soul.

After regrouping in Traverse Town, Kairi gives Sora her lucky charm, since he insists that she should stay behind while he tries to get Riku back.

Sora returns to Hollow Bastion afterwards to seal its Keyhole. Before sealing it, however, Cid warns Sora that once Xehanort's Heartless is defeated, they may no longer be able to see each other. This worries Sora, but he closes the Keyhole regardless.

Sora and his friends manage to defeat Xehanort's Heartless at End of the World, a place where all the lost worlds that fell into darkness converge. As Sora investigates the door to darkness, Riku and King Mickey appear on the other side of the door and together they seal it from both sides; with Sora's Keyblade from the realm of light and Mickey's Keyblade from the realm of darkness.

As the worlds begin to restore themselves, Kairi and Sora are separated. Sora promises to return to her as soon as he finds Riku and the doorway to light.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories begins with Sora encountering a mysterious man in a long black hooded cloak who informs Sora that "ahead lies something you need, but to claim it, you must lose something dear." The man disappears and only one path remains. The trio follow the path which lead them to a mysterious castle known as Castle Oblivion. They enter the castle hoping to find some clues as to the whereabouts of their friends only to discover as they ascend the floors of the fortress, the more memories they lose and the more uncertain they become.

Little do they know, their memories are being manipulated by a mysterious organization that seek to capture and manipulate Sora. To do this, they use Naminé, Kairi's Nobody who can rearrange the "chains" of memories in a person's heart and create new links. In order to make Sora forget Kairi, Naminé begins to replace his memories of her with herself. Meanwhile, a conflict between the Organization's members leads to several encounters between Sora and Riku, whose memories of Kairi also have been replaced with ones containing Naminé.

Their uncertainty builds to a point where they end up in Twilight Town, a place that Sora is fairly certain that he has never been in, thus should not exist in his memory. Organization member IV Vexen reveals that it is a place that exists on the other side of Sora's heart, referring to Roxas, but is eliminated by Axel, another member of the Organization, before he can explain anything.

Axel ends up betraying Marluxia, the lord of Castle Oblivion, revealing that Marluxia and Larxene, new members of their group, intended to use Sora to overthrow the Organization. Axel manipulates Naminé into doing what she believes is right, with her revealing to Sora that she never existed in his memory and that she had been replacing the person most important to him. Riku appears to them again and is defeated by Sora. When Sora tries to help the injured Riku, he attacks Sora. Naminé uses her power to break Riku's memory, and it causes him to collapse. Larxene comes forth to eliminate Sora and Riku, who is revealed to actually be a "Riku Replica", created by Vexen.

Sora defeats Larxene and forgives a regretful Naminé for her actions. She promises to restore the memories of the trio once they reach the 13th Floor of Castle Oblivion, where Marluxia is waiting for them. Axel attempts to destroy Marluxia himself but when Marluxia uses Naminé as a human shield Sora steps in and defeats Axel. Once Marluxia is defeated, Naminé asks that they step into machines that will rearrange their memories back to the way they were at the cost of breaking the links she created. She also informs him that the process will take some time, during which Sora, Donald, and Goofy will sleep as their memories are slowly restored. While they know that they will forget Naminé, Sora promises her that while she is forgotten, she will remain in his heart, never lost.

Kingdom Hearts II

Sora, as he appears in Kingdom Hearts II

During the year after Chain of Memories, Roxas, seeking to find why he is able to use Keyblades, leaves Organization XIII to Axel's disappointment. While in the World That Never Was, Roxas encounters Heartless and Riku. The two assist each other in defeating the Heartless, but battle each other afterwards, with Riku eventually proving to be the victor. Roxas is then sent into a virtual version of Twilight Town, with his memories erased by Naminé to throw off any Organization pursuers. This was all part of DiZ's plan to create a "complete" Sora strong enough to destroy the Organization.

Kingdom Hearts II begins in the Twilight Town simulation, where Roxas believes that he is a friend of three other teenagers. As events in the virtual town progress, Roxas is confronted with confusing sights, such as Axel's appearance, and bizarre dreams filled with Sora's memories and hearkening back to his time with the Organization. Roxas eventually regains his memories, and is forced to merge with Sora.

Sora, now 15, awakens in Twilight Town with Donald and Goofy, with their memories restored, although they cannot remember what happened in Castle Oblivion. Continuing their journey to find Riku and King Mickey, they set out travel across new worlds, meeting old friends and enemies from the original Kingdom Hearts game, battling the Heartless and a new threat, the remaining members of the Organization they encountered in Chain of Memories.

Soon after exploring Twilight Town, Sora and company head off to the Tower and Sora obtains new attire—on the advice of master sorcerer Yen Sid—from Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, the fairies from Sleeping Beauty. In a nod to the film, the three fairies at first all want Sora's new outfit to be their respective color, until finally Sora convinces them to stop fooling around. The new outfit enables Sora to transform into new forms and attain special powers for each of them. The source of the clothing's magic is linked to Sora's heart connected to everyone he had befriended as well as Donald and Goofy, being referred to as a "key that connects everything" by Yen Sid; this is how Naminé's memory manipulation also works.

File:Roxas Twi Tow.png

Roxas after being placed in the Twilight Town simulation.

Throughout the game, Sora expresses his determination to bring Riku back home with him to Destiny Islands, where Kairi is patiently waiting for them. The quest gets more complicated when Kairi herself is kidnapped by Axel. Pete (who works for the resurrected Maleficent) and Organization XIII are causing trouble in the other worlds, and King Mickey refuses to give information regarding Riku. Sora must also discover why some of the members of Organization XIII address him as Roxas even after he clearly states his name is Sora. Also throughout the game Sora becomes rather intrigued and interested in the romances between some of his friends, such as Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner; hinting romantic feelings for Kairi, which Donald and Goofy smugly joke about (especially Donald, who says "I know who you're thinking about!"). Kairi is also hinted to have similar feelings for Sora.

Eventually, Sora, with the help of the Twilight Town kids (the templates of the three friends of Roxas in DiZ's simulated Twilight Town) and Axel, manages to find the route to "the World That Never Was": the stronghold of the Organization, where Kingdom Hearts itself resides. Entering a bizarre world filled with thousands of Nobodies, both Sora and Axel fight together, and Axel sacrifices himself to destroy the marauding horde of Nobodies and with the last of his strength, opens the door to the World That Never Was and revealing his affection for Roxas. Soon after entering the world, Sora's group is ambushed by Nobodies and Sora is forced into a showdown with an Organization member, who turns out to be Roxas in his Organization XIII coat. Afterwards, Sora, Donald, Goofy and King Mickey storm the castle in search of their friends. There, Sora finds Kairi and Riku and the mysteries of Roxas' identity and King Mickey's secrets are finally solved. The group attempts to stop Xemnas, the leader of the Organization. After they seemingly defeat Xemnas, Naminé and Roxas emerge to speak with each other before fusing with Kairi and Sora to complete themselves.

Sora and Riku are separated from King Mickey, Goofy, Kairi and Donald. They fight Xemnas again on their own and defeat him, though they remain stranded on a beach with Riku slightly injured. As Sora and Riku share their thoughts about their adventure and friendship, they come to the conclusion that "if worlds were made of light and darkness, they'll be the darkness since the light realm is safe". As they listen to the waves, a bottle containing Kairi’s letter washes onto the shore. The door to light appears, and both Sora and Riku use it to return to their homeworld: Destiny Islands.

Having brought Riku back home, fused with Roxas and reunited at last with all his friends, Sora returns Kairi's lucky charm with Kairi saying "You're home." During the credits, Sora is walking around in the Secret Place. He smiles while looking at all the pictures he and Kairi had drawn over the years. He glances down at the picture of Kairi and himself. He sees that Kairi drew the other half of a paopu fruit, and smiles to himself.

At the end of the credits, another FMV shows Sora asking Riku what he thinks the door to light was. Riku replies that it was Sora's heart, "it's always closer than you think". Kairi runs up to them and give them a bottle she found, containing a letter from King Mickey. The trio reads the letter, its contents a mystery to the player.

World transformations

When Sora enters certain worlds in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II, his appearance changes to make him able to travel in that particular land.

• In Hollow Bastion during the first game, Sora is turned into a Shadow Heartless after giving up his heart to free Kairi from her comatose state. While in this form, Sora is unable to do anything except jump and move around. Luckily, there are no enemy encounters while he is in this state. Sora is returned to normal upon arriving in the Entrance Hall.

File:Sora (Atlantica).jpg

Sora as he appears in Atlantica

• In Atlantica from The Little Mermaid, Sora becomes a dolphin-like merman. He has no shirt, and his body from the waist down transforms into a dolphin tail. This version of Sora has unique swimming abilities, and is able to breathe underwater. Sora cannot use Drive in this form. Dialogue prior to entering Atlantica in the first game reveals that Donald is the one who transforms Sora into that form. Also, some abilities in the first game are unable to be used while in Atlantica, such as the Sonic Blade and Strike Raid.

• In Halloween Town from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sora dons a Halloween costume, making him appear to be a vampire-like creature. If not for his fearsome appearance, the macabre inhabitants of the town would not receive him. Sora has no special abilities in this form, and when Driving, his mask changes rather than his clothes. In this form, the appearance of Sora's Keyblade also changes to grey-ish tones to match the surroundings of Halloween Town. In the alternate Christmas Town of the same world in Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+, Sora will don a black Santa suit that seems to be a mixture of both the Christmas and Halloween themes. He keeps his dark makeup and overall appearance, though. It is unknown how his new outfit will be affected by Drive, since he does not wear a mask in this form.

• In Space Paranoids, inspired by Tron, Sora appears in robot-like armor, gray in color with glowing cyan circuit lines; essentially the appearance of nearly all non-evil human being or program in the computer world of the Tron universe. Sora has no special abilities in this form, and when Driving, Sora's circuit lines change color to reflect the Form transformed into (i.e. red for Valor Form, blue for Wisdom Form, etc.). In this form, the appearance of Sora's Keyblade also is changed to have glowing blue circuit lines as well.

• In Timeless River, inspired by Steamboat Willie, Sora's costume and his appearance turn black and white, and his face, arms, and figure take on characteristics of 1920's cartoon characters. Also, like everyone else inside of Timeless River, he is in his first appearance design (from the first Kingdom Hearts game). He has no special abilities in this form, and when Driving, the icon of Sora by the HP Bar tints color slightly on the outline to reflect the Form transformed into.
• In the Pride Lands from The Lion King, Sora undergoes the most drastic of the World Transformations. He becomes a brown lion cub, and his hairdo is replaced by a mane; the crown-shaped pendant around his neck is still present, and he runs around with the Keyblade in his mouth. Sora cannot use Drive in this form or perform Summons, although he is able to move with increased agility. Donald says that this transformation is due to Sora's new clothes, instead of Donald's magic, like in Atlantica.

Drive

In Kingdom Hearts II, Sora has a new ability; he can transform to take on more powerful forms. Similar to Summoning, a certain party member linked to the Drive is removed until Sora reverts.

Most Forms also grant Sora a special ability he can equip to himself for use in his normal form only, which is received when he upgrades the Form level for that Form to Level 3 (which can be further enhanced at Level 5 and 7). Although these special abilities that Sora can use are not as powerful in his normal form, it enables him to be able to use any of these abilities at any time.

• Valor Form (Brave Form in the Japanese version of Kingdom Hearts II) is accomplished by Sora's bond with Goofy; Sora dons a red and black outfit and gains the ability to wield two Keyblades. This form of Sora has impressive offense attacks, and his speed is increased greatly, but is unable to use magic. The three fairies give Sora the drive ability for Valor Form.

• Wisdom Form is brought about by Sora's bond with Donald; Sora's outfit turns blue and black and his physical attack is replaced with a magic blast, called Shoot; Sora's other magical skills are doubled. In Wisdom Form, Sora hovers and glides along the floor instead of standing and walking, letting him attack or use magic while moving. This form is obtained when Sora completes the Timeless River.

• Master Form is a combination of Valor and Wisdom Forms, achieved by the bonds with both current party members. Sora's clothes are colored yellow and black. In this form, Sora wields two Keyblades. However, unlike the previous Valor Form, Sora's left handed Keyblade floats instead of being held, this allows a longer swinging range and more power. Although both strength and magic is increased in this Form, the boosts are not as high as Valor and Wisdom. Master Form specializes in aerial attacks, although magic attacks used in Master Form are more powerful and somewhat different. This form is obtained after Sora talks to Mickey in Ansem's Study.

• Final Form is the most powerful of all of Sora's Drive Forms. As with the other Drives, Sora's clothes go through a drastic change, switching from the standard black to a lustrous silver. As with Valor and Master Forms, Sora wields two Keyblades; they float behind him and are able to attack on their own. Sora is also able to hover, as with Wisdom Form. This form can be obtained after Sora fights Roxas at The World That Never Was, but the first transformation occurs randomly. After the first transformation, Final Form is accessible in the Drive Menu, as with the other forms.

• AntiForm is triggered by an unseen counter and chance that increases as the player uses drives more often. The chances increase or decrease in certain situations. AntiForm renders Sora completely black with glowing yellow eyes, similar to those of a Heartless, and he loses his Keyblade and gains claws. He is seemingly feral; he runs on all fours and attacks with his claws. While in AntiForm, Sora is unable to use many options usually available and he takes more damage than normal. However, Sora's combo potential and speed are drastically increased. Unlike the other forms, AntiForm cannot be leveled and it does not give normal Sora any new abilities. Sora can voluntarily change back from this form, but he can only do so once the battle has ended or when the Form Gauge reaches 0, which is obtainable over time. Speeding up the gauge's depletion can be done by collecting Drive Orbs.

Other Forms

• "Card Form" occurs when Sora encounters Gambler Nobodies controlled by Organization XIII's tenth member, Luxord, or Luxord himself. When Sora loses against them in a draw of cards, he is transformed into a playing-card version of himself. He cannot use the Keyblade, Magic, Items, Drives, Summons or Limits while in this form, and can only attack by throwing himself at enemies.
• "Die Form" occurs similarly to Card Form; Sora transforms into a die with his face on it by losing a game to a Gambler Nobody or battling Luxord. He has the same limitations as a card, and his only attack is rolling into enemies.

Sora cannot revert from these forms at will; in both cases, he must wait for the onscreen "Form" bar to drop to zero in order to return to his regular form. However upon leaving a room Sora reverts back to his normal state.