Roxas (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
salty_but_sweet) wrote2012-05-19 12:17 am
salty_but_sweet) wrote2012-05-19 12:17 am
Exsilium App
» PLAYER INFORMATION
Player NAME: Marvel
Current AGE: 20
Personal JOURNAL:blondandflannel
IM & SERVICE: AIM | crownedcaduceus
Player PLURK:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
blondandflannel
Current CHARACTERS: None.
» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Roxas
Canon & MEDIUM: Kingdom Hearts | Video Game Series
Canon PULL-POINT: After Axel's death, directly before his fight with Sora.
Character AGE: He's approximately one year old, technically. However, his physical body/mental maturity are that of a 15-year-old.
Character ABILITIES: After absorbing Xion (see history), Roxas is able to dual-wield Keyblades, which apart from functioning as a weapon are also able to open or close any lock. His fighting prowess, even before this, is not to be messed with: he is constantly being sent out on dangerous missions by the Organization, and by the time he leaves it is able to defeat Saix in combat without great difficulty despite Saix being far superior to him in status. He is able to repeatedly best Riku until Riku pulls out the powers Ansem left him with and has no trouble with Axel during his time in Twilight Town either. In terms of overall fighting ability he is probably second only to Sora, and that's a pretty high bar in a heavily combat-based game like Kingdom Hearts.
As a boss in Final Mix he reveals more of his abilities, and his fighting style is reminiscent of Sora's Final Form. He can glide at fast speeds, and uses light energy as a weapon in addition to his keyblades (spheres of light, pillars of light, the works).
He also knows how to skateboard and do skate tricks from his time living under his fake personality in Twilight Town, for what that's worth.
Character HISTORY: Roxas is the nobody that was created with Sora lost his heart saving Kairi. In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, when Roxas is first found by Organization XIII in Twilight Town, most of the Organization pokes fun at him by comparing him to a zombie. Which is a pretty apt comparison, it turns out, as he spends most of his time in a daze and is entirely ignorant as to the ways of the world. His day to day life consists mostly of being sent on missions with other Organization members to knock some sense into him--literally, in the case of Lexaeus. As Roxas learns the ropes, he also learns some basic tenets of human interaction, like friendship. Axel is his first friend, and later on he befriends Xion as she develops her own personality through the memories of Sora that are inside Roxas. Eventually, Roxas's life settles into a simple rhythm: sleep, work, friends. He wakes up, goes on missions, then meets Xion and Axel for ice cream on top of the clock tower in Twilight Town. Lather, rinse, repeat.
And then things start getting less simple. Axel goes to Castle Oblivion and comes back noticeably different due to the blood on his hands. Xion discovers that she is a Replica, something that was created, and leaves the Organization to hang out with Riku while she tries to decide what to do. In getting her back, Axel has to use force, and widens the rift that is slowly being created between himself and Roxas as Roxas realizes that Axel is avoiding telling him things. The strain on Roxas's friendships with both of them slowly increases as Roxas starts having more and more dreams and seems to know less and less about what's going on until finally everything breaks down at the end of Days.
Xion goes missing again, and Axel is ordered to either bring her back or kill her. Axel reveals that he’s been hiding things all along and they have a yelling match in which Roxas decides he doesn’t trust him anymore. Roxas leaves the Organization in search of his own answers to the questions of who Xion is and who he is, kicking Saix’s ass along the way. Xion attacks Roxas and then dies by Roxas’s hand in Roxas’s arms even as Roxas starts to forget her like Namine predicted. Afterwards, Roxas goes back to destroy Kingdom Hearts and is intercepted by Riku, who defeats him bycheating using the power of darkness and drags him to his ultimate doom inside a fake Twilight Town where Roxas is given fake memories and a fake personality until he can rejoin with Sora. There, Roxas lives a fake life with a group of fake friends and is happy for a few days before the Organization finds him. As Axel tries to get him back and DiZ and Riku fight to keep him, Roxas starts trying to figure out his own answers once more and is lead to the mansion that is the connection between the real Twilight Town and the fake one. There, he starts to get his real memories back, and is so enraged that he smashes the computers used to imprison him and goes to confront DiZ. On the way, Axel tries to kill him, but is defeated and they agree to meet again in the next life. Roxas confronts DiZ in the chamber where Sora is sleeping, and the capsule holding Sora opens.
And then Roxas is eaten. By Sora. Semi-literally.
Traces of him still exist, but for all intents and purposes Roxas is now gone forever. Sora cries a single tear while leaving Twilight Town, although he has never met its residents, and has occasional flashes of knowing things he shouldn't (recognizing Roxas from a photo although he has never seen him before, for instance). Roxas only appears as himself again after witnessing Axel's death through Sora's eyes, when he attacks Sora out of rage within some kind of alternate plane of reality, demanding to know why he was picked to survive instead of Roxas. When he realizes that it was because Sora still had friends, his assault gets more violent until Sora finally defeats him. He starts to walk away, at which point Axel contacts his consciousness to say goodbye. Afterwards, Roxas admits: "You make a good other."
I will be pulling him from directly before his encounter with Sora--when they shift to the alternate plane of reality to fight, but before the fight actually takes place.
Character PERSONALITY: As a disclaimer: since Roxas is the nobody of Sora, our beloved protagonist, it’s hard to talk about Roxas without also talking about Sora and comparing and contrasting the two. I will try to keep detailed discussion of Sora to a minimum, but he will probably still come up a lot just because of Roxas’s intrinsic relation to him. He only exists, after all, because he came from Sora.
Roxas goes through a lot of change and development throughout his canon, but he spends the bulk of his one year of life working for Organization XIII—mostly because there’s nowhere else for him, as a Nobody, to go. It’s from this time that his base personality traits—his likes and dislikes, his values—are born.
Roxas, much like Sora, values friendship above all else. During his time working for the Organization, the highlight of his day is simply having ice cream with his friends on top of the clock tower in Twilight Town after the day’s missions are done (which leads to ice cream being intrinsically linked to friendship in his mind, literally at first and then symbolically still as he comes out of his “zombie” phase: he stops being a “zombie” partially by making friends with Axel, and then immediately reaches out to Xion once he has the whole “friendship” thing down). On his first vacation, when told to do what he likes, the only thing he can think of to do is have ice cream with his friends, so that’s what he does. And when Xion dies in his arms the only thing he can say is, “Who else will I have ice cream with?”
In fact, he has a kind of tunnel vision surrounding friendship that is pretty reminiscent of a certain Somebody (coughSoracough). He’s a chronic worrier and is always taking care of his friends while insisting that he is fine (even asking Xion in one scene, “Since when do you worry about me?”). He constantly bargains with Saix for favors so he can help Xion even though he has to fight tooth and nail (or get Axel to step in) for Saix to ever agree. When Xion betrays the Organization, Roxas insists that she can’t have and argues on her behalf even though the effort is proved futile time and time again. The only time he snaps and yells at his superiors is when they start calling Xion things like “it” and “creature,” and he is disgusted with Xigbar when several of their number are killed at Castle Oblivion and Xigbar is openly uncaring.
Roxas: We might have lost a comrade. Maybe multiple comrades. That doesn't bother you at all?
Xigbar: As if.
(Roxas says nothing)
Xigbar: Look, the faster we get this mission done, the sooner you can RTC and get your answers.
Roxas: Fine.
All in all, in an Organization of jerkwads who only care about themselves, Roxas stands out—he cares about his friends and will do anything to help them, and being rather naïve and idealistic he expects the rest of the Organization to do the same. (Ha. Haha.)
Despite the obvious values that he and Sora share (that is, friendship = win), he noticeably lacks Sora’s hero complex and doesn’t make friends with everyone he sees—when Tinkerbell teaches him how to fly, for instance, he feels bad about ditching her but does it anyway because completing the mission is more important to him than helping someone in need who he doesn’t know. He steps in later when she’s directly in harm’s way, but he’s willing to let it slide when she isn’t. In Hercules’s world, he’s confused when Phil tells him not to be a stranger and wonders why he would want him to come back if not for more training, despite the fact that he’s known and trained with the guy for months now and developing some sort of friendship would be natural. For Roxas, friends are different: specific, special people. Not just anyone and definitely not everyone. He may get called a wannabe hero for undergoing “hero training,” but he doesn’t really act the part.
And while he can be just as naïve and idealistic as his Somebody is at times, he’s also quick to call a jerk a jerk, even if it’s his best friend. When Axel fights with Xion and brings her back by force, Roxas demands to know how he could do that to her and then doesn’t talk to him for a while. He does, however, call him a jerk behind his back.
Roxas: I can't believe that jerk would actually attack you.
Xion: So he's a jerk now?
(Roxas says nothing)
Xion: Roxas, I wouldn't be sitting here with you if Axel hadn't done that.
(Roxas still says nothing)
Xion: He's your best friend.
Roxas: So are you.
And despite their handful of important similarities, Roxas is the other side of Sora’s proverbial coin in many, many ways—often the darker side. He can be snarky and sarcastic, even outright passive-aggressive, to people he doesn’t like (read: most of the Organization). His most obvious—and most memorable—passive-aggressive move is when he leaves Axel the “winner” popsicle stick after leaving the Organization for good as a final “fuck you, you got what you wanted.” When Axel refuses to give him a straight answer on when he found out about Xion being a creation of the Organization, Roxas asks, “Didn’t get it memorized, huh?” as a jab at Axel’s catchphrase. He makes fun of Demyx for being lazy and oblivious to the point where even Axel steps up to defend the poor guy, and he gets severely passive-aggressive at Xigbar when he shows how nonchalant he is about the disaster at Castle Oblivion, reminiscent of how Zexion treated him on their first recon mission. (Maybe assholism is contagious?)
Roxas: Big door...
Xigbar: Probably leads right to the royal palace.
Roxas: Probably? Are you just guessing?
The snark’s not just for enemies, though: he gets along well enough with Luxord and still replies to the man’s endless monologues on Lady Luck with a “isn’t that a little dramatic?” He’s quick to throw in a sarcastic “great” or “cheery thought” in everyday conversation, and even early in his “zombie” phase when Axel asks if he’s getting the hang of missions, his response is “I could have done that blindfolded.” And that cheesy romanticism about how friendship lasts forever that is typical Sora fare? Yeah, he’s prone to shoot that right down:
Axel: As long as we remember each other, we'll never be apart. Got it memorized?
Roxas: Ha ha, wow, Axel. That sounded ridiculous.
He might look like a saint compared to the rest of the Organization, but he’s perfectly capable of being a jerk. And while Roxas might be naïve about how the world works, he’s actually very sharp—he’s not quiet and occasionally spacey because he’s a zombie with nothing to say, he’s quiet and occasionally spacey because he’s thinking. He’s observant and people-smart, and he knows when something’s up. Although Axel and Xion both try to hide it when things start going wrong and Roxas never calls them on it out loud, his journal entries reveal that he while he notices and worries, he stays quiet and tries to figure out the cause himself, avoiding asking outright unless all else fails because Axel and Xion don’t always give straight answers (since, as he also states, they’re both hiding things). In Neverland, he’s the first to notice that something’s off about Captain Hook and that he’s attracting heartless. And at one point when Xion collapses, he makes a shockingly astute observation about Axel that stands out mostly because he actually says it out loud:
Roxas: Are you worried about her, Axel?
Axel: Of course I am.
Roxas (smirking): Doesn't seem like you.
Axel: What do you mean?
Roxas: You hate complications.
Axel, of course, immediately changes the subject.
And while friendship is just as important to Roxas as it is to Sora, personal identity and choice are also things Roxas places high value on, sometimes to the detriment of friendships where needed. He eventually splits from the Organization because he realizes they’re using him and not actually telling him anything about who he is or where he came from, and goes off to find his answers on his own (which doesn’t work out so well, but, details) after ripping Axel a new one for hiding things from him for so long. And as Axel observes in a secret report, he talks like a human—with feelings and a heart—despite being told how impossible it is every step of the way. On top of this, he rails against Riku and DiZ throughout their interactions, insisting that his heart belongs to him and that he is Roxas and nobody else, least of all Sora, despite the unfortunate reality of his situation. Despite everyone wanting a say in the matter, Roxas is convinced that he knows who he is and that his identity, his existence, matters—which makes it even more tragic when he ends up being wrong.
Everything leading up to this is Roxas's base personality. That is, his personality before life struts up and kicks him in the face with a steel-toed boot. After the trauma that is the end of 358/2 Days and the beginning of KHII, Roxas is absorbed by Sora, and is supposedly no more.
And when he shows up again anyway, well, he’s not quite the same Roxas we remember.
That sweet, naïve kid that thought ice cream was the ultimate symbol of friendship? After Axel’s death, he attacks Sora, introducing himself as “Someone from the dark.” Sora asks about Riku. Roxas says “I defeated a Riku once.” Which, you know, is technically a lie, but let the kid have his pride. They fight, and eventually Roxas loses, has a brief scene where Axel contacts him on a metaphysical level to say goodbye, and tells Sora he makes a good Other. A good Somebody. Which is a high compliment coming from the guy who yelled “my heart belongs to me!” whilst fighting tooth and nail not to get absorbed by Sora.
And then he’s gone. That’s the last we see of him in current canon save for a brief joining-with-Sora scene. We don’t really get much of an explanation of what, exactly, is going on inside his head. We do, however, get some hints from Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded.
Coded is set post-KHII, and the Roxas in Coded is a data-Roxas. However, since data-Sora and data-Riku retain the personality of the originals, we can assume that data-Roxas does, too. This personality, incidentally, could best be described as blisteringly bitter and cynical--surprisingly so. He taunts Sora in a way that is both manipulative and somewhat mean, saying things like “bet you feel pretty empty” and driving him to question himself and his motivations. His sarcasm is also still in tact; introducing himself, he says, “Me? I'm nobody.” And when Sora refuses to kill him, “Not even worth the effort, right? No point in destroying what never really existed... Heh.”
Roxas is obviously still struggling to accept Sora (although he finally does at the end of their interaction in Coded once Sora understands the hurt he’s feeling). His desire to be recognized as an individual—a desire that will never be fulfilled, as he was “never supposed to exist”—is still strong despite the fact that’s he’s already become part of Sora again.
All in all, he’s definitely not quite the same the naïve kid he used to be. And who can really blame him; the trauma of the end of 358/2 Days would pretty much knock the naïve out of anybody, one would think. Roxas’s short-lived childhood where friendship could be defined by ice cream is gone, and this Roxas is all teenager, and all that that implies. In Twilight Town, when he first starts to get his real memories back, he becomes so angry that he smashes the computers used to imprison him and repeatedly attacks a data projection of the man responsible until it goes away even though he knows it’s just a data projection. He’s still that kid inside, sure, but there’s more there than there used to be. More hurt, more anger, and greater cynicism and bitterness toward those that never let him choose his fate. Because if there’s one thing Roxas never, ever had, it was a choice—the first one he makes on his own is leaving the Organization, and, well, we all know how that worked out. And by the time he even remembers that, it’s go back and never get any answer or go forward and risk ending up being eaten by Sora. So much for a choice.
Remember how I said what he valued most was friendship? Yeah, well, by the end of KHII, all of his friends with the possible exception of Namine are either A) dead or B) fake data projections based on fake memories and a fake personality. At the point in his timeline from which I'm taking him, he just saw one of them die a violent and fiery death in front of him for no apparent reason, and was so upset about it that he attacked Sora out of pure condensed rage. He's close to fully accepting Sora but he's not quite there yet, and there's still hurt there. There's going to be for a while.
In addition to that, the canon point I'm pulling him from is before he's actually able to fight with Sora and let out some of the negative emotions that have been boiling up in him. Deprived of his method of grieving over his friend's death and put in a place he doesn't recognize with no idea why he's been brought there, he's going to be less than pleased and his reaction to his canonmates--i.e., Sora and Riku--may reflect that.
» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: Roxas dualwields Keyblades, and if it's up to him that's what he'll choose. His Keyblades already function as, if not semi-sentient, then extreme user-friendly weapons--they can be summoned and dismissed at will, even unconsciously, and to some degree function as the extension of a person's soul (Riku's Keyblade, for instance, is known to change appearance and name as he changes, and when Roxas defeats Xion his Keyblades cement in form as Oathkeeper and Oblivion).
Chosen SKILLSET: Roxas is most definitely a fighter. During his time with the Organization, however, he also undertook recon missions and other assorted non-combat tasks and can do those as well.
» SAMPLES
First PERSON:
[At first he doesn't even know what to do with this machine he's been handed. He's not sure how he got here, what he's supposed to do, what these people want from him, where Sora is... nothing makes sense. And he doesn't even have the comfort of having someone to blame for it.
After a few seconds of staring at the screen, he starts to type, pressing the keys a little harder than necessary.]
What's.
Going.
On.
[There's a pronounced pause before he decides that this isn't working. Maybe that's not specific enough. Maybe there's no one listening. Maybe he just doesn't get how this thing works.
Part of him wants to throw it at a wall, find a way out of here, and have done with it. Whatever "housing companions" he's supposed to have probably don't want him, anyway. He definitely doesn't want them. Just more people he'll lose when he gets back to where he's supposed to be.
For now, though, he's switching to video, staring at the screen with an expression of barely stable calm determination.]
Where's Sora?
Third PERSON:
Walking into the basement of the mansion was like walking out of his life and into a science fiction movie. There were too many computer screens to count in one corner of the room, flashing glowing images and scrolling text that he only got glimpses of before his head started to hurt, slightly at first but slowly intensifying to a sharp and constant pain. It was as bad as anything he'd ever experienced, and as he grabbed at his temples, fingernails digging into his scalp, his vision went black.
And then the black replaced itself with white. The white castle with its white rooms and white chairs and slithering white Dusks, a stark contrast to the colored lights and darkness of the outside.
It was worse than any of the times before, when he'd gotten flashes of the brown-haired boy and his friends--of Sora. Part of it was the pain, but most of it was that these images didn't carry the detached, dreamy familiarity of the others. These were sharp and immediately recognizable; these were his memories, and he was at the center of every single one of them. Him, not Sora.
Keyblade. Axel. The Organization. Nobodies. At one time, he'd known them--all of them. Six days ago. Six days ago, he'd... and that imposter had... and then they'd rearranged the memories in his mind, like a script they could just rewrite whenever they wanted. DiZ, and that guy--they'd taken his real memories of ice cream on the clock tower and removed Axel from the picture, replaced with Hayner, Pence, and Olette, who he'd barely spoken to. Real friends, but... not his.
The head pain dissipated slowly, replaced with something else that ached just as much. They'd given him what he'd always wanted, only fake. Nothing but data. And now, he had no real life to return to; there was nowhere left to go but deeper into the mansion, where the answers were hidden, just like they wanted.
DiZ and the imposter... it was almost funny: all of this, they'd done to fool the Organization, and in the end they'd just failed anyway. Axel had found him. Would always find him. Would always try to take him back--conscious or not. What was the point of all this? What was it they all wanted him to do, and why couldn't they just explain it? Why couldn't anyone just give him the answers and let him make his own decisions?
He looked at the monitors, with their brightly glowing screens of data, the ingredients for the data world they'd kept him imprisoned in until he could do their work for them. Bright white, just like the castle the Organization had used for the exact same purpose.
The Keyblade practically summoned itself now, no longer strange.
» ADDITIONAL NOTES
None!
Player NAME: Marvel
Current AGE: 20
Personal JOURNAL:
blondandflannelIM & SERVICE: AIM | crownedcaduceus
Player PLURK:
Current CHARACTERS: None.
» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Roxas
Canon & MEDIUM: Kingdom Hearts | Video Game Series
Canon PULL-POINT: After Axel's death, directly before his fight with Sora.
Character AGE: He's approximately one year old, technically. However, his physical body/mental maturity are that of a 15-year-old.
Character ABILITIES: After absorbing Xion (see history), Roxas is able to dual-wield Keyblades, which apart from functioning as a weapon are also able to open or close any lock. His fighting prowess, even before this, is not to be messed with: he is constantly being sent out on dangerous missions by the Organization, and by the time he leaves it is able to defeat Saix in combat without great difficulty despite Saix being far superior to him in status. He is able to repeatedly best Riku until Riku pulls out the powers Ansem left him with and has no trouble with Axel during his time in Twilight Town either. In terms of overall fighting ability he is probably second only to Sora, and that's a pretty high bar in a heavily combat-based game like Kingdom Hearts.
As a boss in Final Mix he reveals more of his abilities, and his fighting style is reminiscent of Sora's Final Form. He can glide at fast speeds, and uses light energy as a weapon in addition to his keyblades (spheres of light, pillars of light, the works).
He also knows how to skateboard and do skate tricks from his time living under his fake personality in Twilight Town, for what that's worth.
Character HISTORY: Roxas is the nobody that was created with Sora lost his heart saving Kairi. In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, when Roxas is first found by Organization XIII in Twilight Town, most of the Organization pokes fun at him by comparing him to a zombie. Which is a pretty apt comparison, it turns out, as he spends most of his time in a daze and is entirely ignorant as to the ways of the world. His day to day life consists mostly of being sent on missions with other Organization members to knock some sense into him--literally, in the case of Lexaeus. As Roxas learns the ropes, he also learns some basic tenets of human interaction, like friendship. Axel is his first friend, and later on he befriends Xion as she develops her own personality through the memories of Sora that are inside Roxas. Eventually, Roxas's life settles into a simple rhythm: sleep, work, friends. He wakes up, goes on missions, then meets Xion and Axel for ice cream on top of the clock tower in Twilight Town. Lather, rinse, repeat.
And then things start getting less simple. Axel goes to Castle Oblivion and comes back noticeably different due to the blood on his hands. Xion discovers that she is a Replica, something that was created, and leaves the Organization to hang out with Riku while she tries to decide what to do. In getting her back, Axel has to use force, and widens the rift that is slowly being created between himself and Roxas as Roxas realizes that Axel is avoiding telling him things. The strain on Roxas's friendships with both of them slowly increases as Roxas starts having more and more dreams and seems to know less and less about what's going on until finally everything breaks down at the end of Days.
Xion goes missing again, and Axel is ordered to either bring her back or kill her. Axel reveals that he’s been hiding things all along and they have a yelling match in which Roxas decides he doesn’t trust him anymore. Roxas leaves the Organization in search of his own answers to the questions of who Xion is and who he is, kicking Saix’s ass along the way. Xion attacks Roxas and then dies by Roxas’s hand in Roxas’s arms even as Roxas starts to forget her like Namine predicted. Afterwards, Roxas goes back to destroy Kingdom Hearts and is intercepted by Riku, who defeats him by
And then Roxas is eaten. By Sora. Semi-literally.
Traces of him still exist, but for all intents and purposes Roxas is now gone forever. Sora cries a single tear while leaving Twilight Town, although he has never met its residents, and has occasional flashes of knowing things he shouldn't (recognizing Roxas from a photo although he has never seen him before, for instance). Roxas only appears as himself again after witnessing Axel's death through Sora's eyes, when he attacks Sora out of rage within some kind of alternate plane of reality, demanding to know why he was picked to survive instead of Roxas. When he realizes that it was because Sora still had friends, his assault gets more violent until Sora finally defeats him. He starts to walk away, at which point Axel contacts his consciousness to say goodbye. Afterwards, Roxas admits: "You make a good other."
I will be pulling him from directly before his encounter with Sora--when they shift to the alternate plane of reality to fight, but before the fight actually takes place.
Character PERSONALITY: As a disclaimer: since Roxas is the nobody of Sora, our beloved protagonist, it’s hard to talk about Roxas without also talking about Sora and comparing and contrasting the two. I will try to keep detailed discussion of Sora to a minimum, but he will probably still come up a lot just because of Roxas’s intrinsic relation to him. He only exists, after all, because he came from Sora.
Roxas goes through a lot of change and development throughout his canon, but he spends the bulk of his one year of life working for Organization XIII—mostly because there’s nowhere else for him, as a Nobody, to go. It’s from this time that his base personality traits—his likes and dislikes, his values—are born.
Roxas, much like Sora, values friendship above all else. During his time working for the Organization, the highlight of his day is simply having ice cream with his friends on top of the clock tower in Twilight Town after the day’s missions are done (which leads to ice cream being intrinsically linked to friendship in his mind, literally at first and then symbolically still as he comes out of his “zombie” phase: he stops being a “zombie” partially by making friends with Axel, and then immediately reaches out to Xion once he has the whole “friendship” thing down). On his first vacation, when told to do what he likes, the only thing he can think of to do is have ice cream with his friends, so that’s what he does. And when Xion dies in his arms the only thing he can say is, “Who else will I have ice cream with?”
In fact, he has a kind of tunnel vision surrounding friendship that is pretty reminiscent of a certain Somebody (coughSoracough). He’s a chronic worrier and is always taking care of his friends while insisting that he is fine (even asking Xion in one scene, “Since when do you worry about me?”). He constantly bargains with Saix for favors so he can help Xion even though he has to fight tooth and nail (or get Axel to step in) for Saix to ever agree. When Xion betrays the Organization, Roxas insists that she can’t have and argues on her behalf even though the effort is proved futile time and time again. The only time he snaps and yells at his superiors is when they start calling Xion things like “it” and “creature,” and he is disgusted with Xigbar when several of their number are killed at Castle Oblivion and Xigbar is openly uncaring.
Roxas: We might have lost a comrade. Maybe multiple comrades. That doesn't bother you at all?
Xigbar: As if.
(Roxas says nothing)
Xigbar: Look, the faster we get this mission done, the sooner you can RTC and get your answers.
Roxas: Fine.
All in all, in an Organization of jerkwads who only care about themselves, Roxas stands out—he cares about his friends and will do anything to help them, and being rather naïve and idealistic he expects the rest of the Organization to do the same. (Ha. Haha.)
Despite the obvious values that he and Sora share (that is, friendship = win), he noticeably lacks Sora’s hero complex and doesn’t make friends with everyone he sees—when Tinkerbell teaches him how to fly, for instance, he feels bad about ditching her but does it anyway because completing the mission is more important to him than helping someone in need who he doesn’t know. He steps in later when she’s directly in harm’s way, but he’s willing to let it slide when she isn’t. In Hercules’s world, he’s confused when Phil tells him not to be a stranger and wonders why he would want him to come back if not for more training, despite the fact that he’s known and trained with the guy for months now and developing some sort of friendship would be natural. For Roxas, friends are different: specific, special people. Not just anyone and definitely not everyone. He may get called a wannabe hero for undergoing “hero training,” but he doesn’t really act the part.
And while he can be just as naïve and idealistic as his Somebody is at times, he’s also quick to call a jerk a jerk, even if it’s his best friend. When Axel fights with Xion and brings her back by force, Roxas demands to know how he could do that to her and then doesn’t talk to him for a while. He does, however, call him a jerk behind his back.
Roxas: I can't believe that jerk would actually attack you.
Xion: So he's a jerk now?
(Roxas says nothing)
Xion: Roxas, I wouldn't be sitting here with you if Axel hadn't done that.
(Roxas still says nothing)
Xion: He's your best friend.
Roxas: So are you.
And despite their handful of important similarities, Roxas is the other side of Sora’s proverbial coin in many, many ways—often the darker side. He can be snarky and sarcastic, even outright passive-aggressive, to people he doesn’t like (read: most of the Organization). His most obvious—and most memorable—passive-aggressive move is when he leaves Axel the “winner” popsicle stick after leaving the Organization for good as a final “fuck you, you got what you wanted.” When Axel refuses to give him a straight answer on when he found out about Xion being a creation of the Organization, Roxas asks, “Didn’t get it memorized, huh?” as a jab at Axel’s catchphrase. He makes fun of Demyx for being lazy and oblivious to the point where even Axel steps up to defend the poor guy, and he gets severely passive-aggressive at Xigbar when he shows how nonchalant he is about the disaster at Castle Oblivion, reminiscent of how Zexion treated him on their first recon mission. (Maybe assholism is contagious?)
Roxas: Big door...
Xigbar: Probably leads right to the royal palace.
Roxas: Probably? Are you just guessing?
The snark’s not just for enemies, though: he gets along well enough with Luxord and still replies to the man’s endless monologues on Lady Luck with a “isn’t that a little dramatic?” He’s quick to throw in a sarcastic “great” or “cheery thought” in everyday conversation, and even early in his “zombie” phase when Axel asks if he’s getting the hang of missions, his response is “I could have done that blindfolded.” And that cheesy romanticism about how friendship lasts forever that is typical Sora fare? Yeah, he’s prone to shoot that right down:
Axel: As long as we remember each other, we'll never be apart. Got it memorized?
Roxas: Ha ha, wow, Axel. That sounded ridiculous.
He might look like a saint compared to the rest of the Organization, but he’s perfectly capable of being a jerk. And while Roxas might be naïve about how the world works, he’s actually very sharp—he’s not quiet and occasionally spacey because he’s a zombie with nothing to say, he’s quiet and occasionally spacey because he’s thinking. He’s observant and people-smart, and he knows when something’s up. Although Axel and Xion both try to hide it when things start going wrong and Roxas never calls them on it out loud, his journal entries reveal that he while he notices and worries, he stays quiet and tries to figure out the cause himself, avoiding asking outright unless all else fails because Axel and Xion don’t always give straight answers (since, as he also states, they’re both hiding things). In Neverland, he’s the first to notice that something’s off about Captain Hook and that he’s attracting heartless. And at one point when Xion collapses, he makes a shockingly astute observation about Axel that stands out mostly because he actually says it out loud:
Roxas: Are you worried about her, Axel?
Axel: Of course I am.
Roxas (smirking): Doesn't seem like you.
Axel: What do you mean?
Roxas: You hate complications.
Axel, of course, immediately changes the subject.
And while friendship is just as important to Roxas as it is to Sora, personal identity and choice are also things Roxas places high value on, sometimes to the detriment of friendships where needed. He eventually splits from the Organization because he realizes they’re using him and not actually telling him anything about who he is or where he came from, and goes off to find his answers on his own (which doesn’t work out so well, but, details) after ripping Axel a new one for hiding things from him for so long. And as Axel observes in a secret report, he talks like a human—with feelings and a heart—despite being told how impossible it is every step of the way. On top of this, he rails against Riku and DiZ throughout their interactions, insisting that his heart belongs to him and that he is Roxas and nobody else, least of all Sora, despite the unfortunate reality of his situation. Despite everyone wanting a say in the matter, Roxas is convinced that he knows who he is and that his identity, his existence, matters—which makes it even more tragic when he ends up being wrong.
Everything leading up to this is Roxas's base personality. That is, his personality before life struts up and kicks him in the face with a steel-toed boot. After the trauma that is the end of 358/2 Days and the beginning of KHII, Roxas is absorbed by Sora, and is supposedly no more.
And when he shows up again anyway, well, he’s not quite the same Roxas we remember.
That sweet, naïve kid that thought ice cream was the ultimate symbol of friendship? After Axel’s death, he attacks Sora, introducing himself as “Someone from the dark.” Sora asks about Riku. Roxas says “I defeated a Riku once.” Which, you know, is technically a lie, but let the kid have his pride. They fight, and eventually Roxas loses, has a brief scene where Axel contacts him on a metaphysical level to say goodbye, and tells Sora he makes a good Other. A good Somebody. Which is a high compliment coming from the guy who yelled “my heart belongs to me!” whilst fighting tooth and nail not to get absorbed by Sora.
And then he’s gone. That’s the last we see of him in current canon save for a brief joining-with-Sora scene. We don’t really get much of an explanation of what, exactly, is going on inside his head. We do, however, get some hints from Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded.
Coded is set post-KHII, and the Roxas in Coded is a data-Roxas. However, since data-Sora and data-Riku retain the personality of the originals, we can assume that data-Roxas does, too. This personality, incidentally, could best be described as blisteringly bitter and cynical--surprisingly so. He taunts Sora in a way that is both manipulative and somewhat mean, saying things like “bet you feel pretty empty” and driving him to question himself and his motivations. His sarcasm is also still in tact; introducing himself, he says, “Me? I'm nobody.” And when Sora refuses to kill him, “Not even worth the effort, right? No point in destroying what never really existed... Heh.”
Roxas is obviously still struggling to accept Sora (although he finally does at the end of their interaction in Coded once Sora understands the hurt he’s feeling). His desire to be recognized as an individual—a desire that will never be fulfilled, as he was “never supposed to exist”—is still strong despite the fact that’s he’s already become part of Sora again.
All in all, he’s definitely not quite the same the naïve kid he used to be. And who can really blame him; the trauma of the end of 358/2 Days would pretty much knock the naïve out of anybody, one would think. Roxas’s short-lived childhood where friendship could be defined by ice cream is gone, and this Roxas is all teenager, and all that that implies. In Twilight Town, when he first starts to get his real memories back, he becomes so angry that he smashes the computers used to imprison him and repeatedly attacks a data projection of the man responsible until it goes away even though he knows it’s just a data projection. He’s still that kid inside, sure, but there’s more there than there used to be. More hurt, more anger, and greater cynicism and bitterness toward those that never let him choose his fate. Because if there’s one thing Roxas never, ever had, it was a choice—the first one he makes on his own is leaving the Organization, and, well, we all know how that worked out. And by the time he even remembers that, it’s go back and never get any answer or go forward and risk ending up being eaten by Sora. So much for a choice.
Remember how I said what he valued most was friendship? Yeah, well, by the end of KHII, all of his friends with the possible exception of Namine are either A) dead or B) fake data projections based on fake memories and a fake personality. At the point in his timeline from which I'm taking him, he just saw one of them die a violent and fiery death in front of him for no apparent reason, and was so upset about it that he attacked Sora out of pure condensed rage. He's close to fully accepting Sora but he's not quite there yet, and there's still hurt there. There's going to be for a while.
In addition to that, the canon point I'm pulling him from is before he's actually able to fight with Sora and let out some of the negative emotions that have been boiling up in him. Deprived of his method of grieving over his friend's death and put in a place he doesn't recognize with no idea why he's been brought there, he's going to be less than pleased and his reaction to his canonmates--i.e., Sora and Riku--may reflect that.
» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: Roxas dualwields Keyblades, and if it's up to him that's what he'll choose. His Keyblades already function as, if not semi-sentient, then extreme user-friendly weapons--they can be summoned and dismissed at will, even unconsciously, and to some degree function as the extension of a person's soul (Riku's Keyblade, for instance, is known to change appearance and name as he changes, and when Roxas defeats Xion his Keyblades cement in form as Oathkeeper and Oblivion).
Chosen SKILLSET: Roxas is most definitely a fighter. During his time with the Organization, however, he also undertook recon missions and other assorted non-combat tasks and can do those as well.
» SAMPLES
First PERSON:
[At first he doesn't even know what to do with this machine he's been handed. He's not sure how he got here, what he's supposed to do, what these people want from him, where Sora is... nothing makes sense. And he doesn't even have the comfort of having someone to blame for it.
After a few seconds of staring at the screen, he starts to type, pressing the keys a little harder than necessary.]
What's.
Going.
On.
[There's a pronounced pause before he decides that this isn't working. Maybe that's not specific enough. Maybe there's no one listening. Maybe he just doesn't get how this thing works.
Part of him wants to throw it at a wall, find a way out of here, and have done with it. Whatever "housing companions" he's supposed to have probably don't want him, anyway. He definitely doesn't want them. Just more people he'll lose when he gets back to where he's supposed to be.
For now, though, he's switching to video, staring at the screen with an expression of barely stable calm determination.]
Where's Sora?
Third PERSON:
Walking into the basement of the mansion was like walking out of his life and into a science fiction movie. There were too many computer screens to count in one corner of the room, flashing glowing images and scrolling text that he only got glimpses of before his head started to hurt, slightly at first but slowly intensifying to a sharp and constant pain. It was as bad as anything he'd ever experienced, and as he grabbed at his temples, fingernails digging into his scalp, his vision went black.
And then the black replaced itself with white. The white castle with its white rooms and white chairs and slithering white Dusks, a stark contrast to the colored lights and darkness of the outside.
It was worse than any of the times before, when he'd gotten flashes of the brown-haired boy and his friends--of Sora. Part of it was the pain, but most of it was that these images didn't carry the detached, dreamy familiarity of the others. These were sharp and immediately recognizable; these were his memories, and he was at the center of every single one of them. Him, not Sora.
Keyblade. Axel. The Organization. Nobodies. At one time, he'd known them--all of them. Six days ago. Six days ago, he'd... and that imposter had... and then they'd rearranged the memories in his mind, like a script they could just rewrite whenever they wanted. DiZ, and that guy--they'd taken his real memories of ice cream on the clock tower and removed Axel from the picture, replaced with Hayner, Pence, and Olette, who he'd barely spoken to. Real friends, but... not his.
The head pain dissipated slowly, replaced with something else that ached just as much. They'd given him what he'd always wanted, only fake. Nothing but data. And now, he had no real life to return to; there was nowhere left to go but deeper into the mansion, where the answers were hidden, just like they wanted.
DiZ and the imposter... it was almost funny: all of this, they'd done to fool the Organization, and in the end they'd just failed anyway. Axel had found him. Would always find him. Would always try to take him back--conscious or not. What was the point of all this? What was it they all wanted him to do, and why couldn't they just explain it? Why couldn't anyone just give him the answers and let him make his own decisions?
He looked at the monitors, with their brightly glowing screens of data, the ingredients for the data world they'd kept him imprisoned in until he could do their work for them. Bright white, just like the castle the Organization had used for the exact same purpose.
The Keyblade practically summoned itself now, no longer strange.
» ADDITIONAL NOTES
None!