Sora

Sora is a fictional character and the main protagonist in Square Enix's role-playing game Kingdom Hearts as well as its sequels Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II. His original design was created by Kingdom Hearts series character designer Tetsuya Nomura. Sora's main weapon is the Keyblade though his primary weapon is the Kingdom Key, a type of Keyblade. He is an upbeat, compassionate, kindhearted, and cheerful teenager who, though simple-minded, childish, impulsive, short-tempered, and naïve at times, possesses an extraordinary sense of justice and is always sincere about what he says and does. He originates from Destiny Islands and has been best friends with Riku and Kairi since early childhood.

Sora was not the original Keyblade wielder, but was ultimately chosen over Riku as the true wielder due to Sora's strong heart as compared to Riku's which became vulnerable and temporarily weak due to his turn to darkness. Nomura has stated that Sora's name can be interpreted as "sky" as his name, sora, means sky in Japanese and was also chosen by Nomura to symbolise his role as well as personality in the story. He is voiced by Haley Joel Osment in the English version and Miyu Irino in the Japanese version.

At the beginning of the game, Sora is fourteen years old and lives on Destiny Islands along with his two best friends, Riku, Kairi, and brother Tidus. The three friends origially planned to leave the islands to explore new worlds and have prepared a raft for this purpose. However their plans were destroyed when their world is attacked by a group of dark beings known as the Heartless, the three are separated. During the invasion, he obtains the Keyblade. After the invasion, Sora drifts off to a town known as Traverse Town where he meets Leon who explains to him the true nature of the keyblade and the power of the weapon against the Heartless. Soon after, Sora meets Donald Duck and Goofy, who join forces in search of their friends with Sora looking for Riku and Kairi while helping Donald and Goofy look for King Mickey. To blend in with the inhabitants of the various worlds they visit, the group is occasionally transformed by Donald's magic.

They travel from world to world in search of Sora's friends in their Gummi Ship as well as sealing the keyholes of worlds along the way to protect them from being consumed by the darkness of the Heartless. However they are often opposed by an alliance of Disney villains led by Maleficent who were seeking out the seven Princesses of Heart to unlock the final Keyhole that leads to "Kingdom Hearts", a repository of knowledge and power and the source of all hearts. Maleficent then sows discord into Riku, telling him that Sora has abandoned him and Kairi for new friends and the Keyblade. This causes the two to clash over saving Kairi when Sora later meets Riku on several occasions. An increasingly antagonistic Riku finds Kairi's body, but cannot find her heart, and without it, Kairi is little more than an empty shell, trapped in a catatonic state.

Sora and his friends eventually arrive at Hollow Bastion, headquarters to Maleficent, where he meets Riku as he takes the Keyblade. It was then revealed then Sora only received the keyblade in Riku's absence and that Riku was the true Keyblade master. However, stating that his heart derives strength from his friends which caused the keyblade to return to his possession, Sora regains the Keyblade and defeats Riku before fighting Maleficent. However, when he finds Kairi, Sora encounters Riku after he unknowningly allowed himself possessed by Ansem allowing him to wield a powerful keyblade that unlocks hearts. Ansem explains that Kairi is a Princess of Heart, and that her heart has been hiding within Sora's body since the Destiny Islands were destroyed.

In order to return Kairi's heart, Sora impales himself with Riku's dark Keyblade sacrificing himself and releasing his and Kairi's heart. Kairi's heart returns to her causing her to awaken from her catatonic state, she later saves Sora by leading him back into the light after turning into a Heartless due to losing his heart. In the process of becoming a Heartless, Sora created two Nobodies: his counterpart Roxas and Kairi's nobody, Naminé. After taking her to safety before returning to Hollow Bastion, Kairi loans to Sora her lucky charm which she had made back on the Destiny Islands, having him promise to return the charm to her. It was at Hollow Bastion, Sora is confronted by a mysterious hooded man who tested Sora for his own agenda, tapping into his memories.

Shortly afterwards, Sora and company confront Ansem at End of the World which is the combined remnants of fallen worlds. Defeated, Ansem who opened the Door to Darkness, obliterated by overwhelming light inside it. Beyond the door are King Mickey and Riku who keep the Heartless inside from getting out as Mickey and Sora use their Keyblades to lock the door. The worlds lost to the Heartless reconstruct themselves; as the Destiny Islands reform, Kairi returns there while Sora is forced to part with her. The game concludes as Sora, Donald, and Goofy resolve to find Riku and Mickey.

While on their search for Riku and Mickey, thanks to the action of Marluxia, the three stumble onto a fortress known as Castle Oblivion. Upon entering, Sora's memories are manipulated by Naminé, who was held captive by the mysterious Organization XIII who use castle as their second base of operations. Marluxia has Naminé use her powers to jumble up Sora's memories making him forget the past as well as replace memories of Kairi with herself. However as Sora travels upwards in the castle in begins to unravel the truth as he encounters and defeats many members of the Organization on the way. He finally meets up with Naminé who helps Sora, Donald, and Goofy to restore his memories to their state prior to entering Castle Oblivion, at the cost of losing their memories of the events in the castle. This requires them to sleep for at least one year for the restoration of memories to completed.[21]

During the events after Sora became a Heartless to having his memories restored, Roxas was made a member of Organization XIII, helping his group in destroying vast quantities of Heartless as part of their master plan. However as Sora regains his memories, Roxas begins to experience the process for himself, 'growing' increasingly curious about why he can wield the Keyblade and doubtful of the Organization's motives. This also affected Xion, a newly made member who was actually a replica of Sora created from the memories the Organization's leader acquired. Xion's existence in turn halted Naminé's work, with DiZ sending Riku to fix it. But though Xion was eventually destroyed, Riku captures Roxas for DiZ to resume the restoration. Inserted into a virtual simulation of Twilight Town, with his memories altered before being restored, Roxas eventually merges back into Sora and complete the restoration of his memories.

Taking place a year after Chain of Memories, Sora reawakens along with Donald and Goofy in Twilight Town. As they explore the town they encounter Nobodies before being saved by King Mickey who quickly hurries them to board the train which brings them to visit his master, Yen Sid. Arriving to the tower, the trio confront Pete and the Heartless before meeting Yen Sid, who explains the existence of the Nobodies as well as reintroduce Sora's group to Organization XIII. Then, Sora gains a new outfit by the three fairies Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, bestowing him new powers.

As Sora sets out to find Riku and King Mickey, they traverse new and unfamiliar worlds where they often encounter the remaining members of the Organization who constantly address Sora as "Roxas" even though he repeatedly states his name is Sora. During this new voyage, Sora and party encounter a resurrected Maleficent and her cohort, Pete, attempting to take over Disney Castle. Pete almost succeeds by travelling to the past to change the future, but Sora, Donald and Goofy stop him in save Disney Castle. It is also during this time at Disney Castle where Sora encounters a mysterious armoured keyblade-wielding knight, who battles Sora and acknowledges him as a true Keyblade Master.

Later returning to Twillight Town, Sora learns that Kairi was sighted there before being abducted by the rogue Organization member Axel. Sora later confronts Axel at Hollow Bastion, after learning of the truth behind "Ansem" and encountering his Nobody Xemnas, learning that the Organization now has Kairi captive to force Sora to gather more hearts for them. Eventually, with Mickey joining them, Sora's group finds a way to the Organization's main base in The World That Never Was with Axel sacrficing himself to give Sora safe passage. But Sora enters the city, Roxas reawakens and fights with Sora though he loses it was revealed that the battle was merely an internal struggle. As Mickey takes his leave, the group soon reunites with Riku and Kairi as the Sora learns the truth behind Roxas after taking out the Organization members with only Xemnas left.

Though it seemed that defeated him, Sora and Riku are separated from King Mickey, Goofy, Kairi and Donald as they fight Xemnas for the final time as they had entered the realm of darkness. However, even after defeating Xemnas they remained stranded in the land of darkness with no means of return. As the two sit down and reflect on each other they realised that as long as the realm of light is safe they would be content with staying in the darkness.. Just at that moment a door appeared in front of them revealing a passageway back to light, upon entering the two find themselves back on Destiny Islands where they reunite with all their friends. Sora finally keeps his promise that he made in Kingdom Hearts and returns to Kairi her lucky charm.. At an extra scene featured at the end of the credits, Sora is shown asking Riku what he thinks the door to light was. Riku replies that it was the light of Sora's heart.. Kairi runs up to them and give them a bottle she found, containing a letter from King Mickey. The trio then begins to read the letter, its contents a mystery to the player.

Sora is able to take on many forms in order to either blend in with the inhabitants of worlds or to engage in combat more efficiently with the help of Donald's magic for the former and the power of his outfit granted to him by the three fairies. Most notably a merman form in Atlantica where he has no shirt and a dolphin tail, a vampire in Halloween Town, a lion cub in the Pride Lands, and as a black and white 1920's cartoon version of his original design in the first game design in Timeless River.

He also has five more drive forms which grant him various powers as well as abilities these are namely: Valor, Wisdom, Master, Final, Limit and anti-form. Each of these specialize in a certain areas such as power or speed.

Sora's Keyblade is the Kingdom Key, resembling a classic skeleton key approximately 3.5' long, with a long silver keychain extending from the hilt, and a Hidden Mickey token on the end of the keychain. But through using Keychains, the Kingdom Key can assume a variety of unique forms. Because of their relation to him, Roxas and Xion can access the Kingdom Key as well and use Gears to upgrade it. The Keyblade is a key-shaped weapon able to combat darkness and the only thing that can free hearts from a Heartless form. It also has the ability to lock and unlock all manner of doors and keyholes. A driving element to the first game was the ability to seal the "heart" of a world, preventing it from being destroyed by Heartless. In Kingdom Hearts II, the player uses it to unlock pathways between worlds that were closed after the events of the first game. In addition to the Keyblade wielded by the main character Sora, the only one seen by the player for the majority of the first game, different Keyblades possessed by various characters (Roxas, Xion, and Riku, Xehanort while possessing Riku, King Mickey, Terra, Aqua, Ventus, Master Xehanort, and Vanitas) appear throughout the Kingdom Hearts series. The keyblades can also be used to travel from world to world in Birth by Sleep. Keyblades can take many shapes and various sizes.