My Favorite Video Game Character: Roxas from Kingdom Hearts.
Roxas is known as a “nobody” in the Kingdom Hearts world. The idea of a “nobody” is used as a label as someone who had their heart taken away, which implies that their memories, thoughts, and feelings go away with it. A nobody can pretend to have emotions and try to imagine what it is like, but never experience it. Nobodies are driven by sheer willpower, but generally have no purpose.
Roxas was first introduced when Sora (Roxas’ true self) had been sealed away, with his heart disappearing along with him. This caused for Roxas to be created as his “empty shell”, with the letters around his name being rearranged and adding an “X” as they do with everyone who becomes a “nobody”. Shortly, Roxas is recruited by a group known as Organization XIII and joins with the purpose of restoring Kingdom Hearts with the promise that he will be whole again; in other words, becoming “Sora” again. This is the goal for the entire organization which is composed of other “nobodies” who want to become whole again.
I feel like adding context into backstory was necessary in order to explain what makes him my favorite character with greater detail. Roxas worked for the Organization for a bit over one year, just following orders without really understanding what he was doing. He was a child among other nobodies, who were grown adults by the time he joined. Roxas built friendships with two characters: Axel (Lea) and Xion who gave him a reason to pretend to smile, whenever they’d all meet at the clock tower with blueberry ice cream. Every time, they’d wonder would be like to truly feel and how they were previously conceived. His constant questioning of his past without ever receiving any real answers, being used as a pawn in order to advance the organization’s agenda, he started to experience real loss when his friends were missing, and eventually fully disappeared. What made him so intriguing was inability to feel anything, but only being able to imagine what it was like, eventually gave him his own perception of what such feelings would feel like, in turn allowing him to actually feel emotions of any kind. Unfortunately, they were all of suffering after the loss of his friends. The complexity of such a character has to be experienced through the game itself in order to understand him fully, but he is the most interesting character I’ve encountered and hence my favorite for that reason.
