The Keyblade?

Entry #6:

Exploring the town some more after stocking up on healing potions, you discover that the town is crawling with dark, shadow creatures. The same ones that attacked the island just before it was all sucked up by the dark creature.

You are forced to defend yourself with the keyblade as you explore the town, while also gaining precious experience points along the way. At the same time, you stay cautious, knowing full well that it’s game over when your HP drops to 0.

After satisfied with knowing the town, you return to the shop, restock on potions, and leave once again. It is then you are faced with another character, who tells you: “They’ll come at you out of nowhere. And they’ll keep on coming at you, as long as you continue to wield the keyblade. But why? Why did it have to choose a kid like you?” He then demands to see the keyblade. Sora, though confused, refuses adamantly, and you then fight this new character, who wields a gun in the shape of a blade.

You fight to the best of your ability, but lose sorely to him. Instead of a “Game Over” message, however, Sora merely faints, and the story continues on from the stranger’s point of view.

Analysis:

In this entry, we see items and weapons play a much bigger role in the scope of the story. Sora’s keyblade is finally finding some significance as we are shed a little more light on what it is. Though a lot is still unclear, one thing seems certain: the keyblade chooses its wielder. This is not unlike the Holy Grail in so many stories, especially in Parzival, where the holy grail chooses its protectors. Likewise, the holy grail seems like a fairly well-known item and is treated like some sort of holy object. Whether these expectations are true or not are still unclear, but it’s at least clear that the keyblade is a very significant object, and seems to signify an item of hope for an incoming (or ongoing) disaster. With the supernatural shadow creatures around, it certainly seems like the case.

This part is also quite interesting because losing or winning seems to be both made into options, unlike a majority of the game. Normally, causing your health bar to drop to 0 will result in a “game over,” or at the least, a restart at your last checkpoint position. However, even when losing in this particular scene, the story itself went on. Such points in a game where there are multiple possibilities really pull at one’s curiosity: what would happen if I had done something else, instead? If I had won, would the other character have said something different?

Expectations: Supernatural Occurrences

Terms:  Signifier/Signified