Kingdom Hearts has the dumbest internal mythology in video games

As the child of a lawyer, I feel an innate need to put up some disclaimers about the video game series about to be mocked and derided by me (hereafter referred to as "the game"):

1) I love the Kingdom Hearts series. I really do. The basic idea is out there, but they make it work well. The combat is pretty fun and intuitive and every game does its best to spice things up and add something new to the gameplay, which is something a lot of developers wouldn't bother with. The characters are, for the most part, memorable (if not particularly unique) and the tone is upbeat and energetic in a way most modern games aren't. It's a great series and it makes sense that it has maintained its popularity for eleven years.
2) I understand that there's bound to be some peculiarities in the series. The games are developed by a Japanese company and imported to the West, so there are probably some culture or linguistic standards that I'm just not familiar with. Also, it's a series aimed at a younger audience, which means it goes to weirder territory. This has good and bad results.
3) I haven't actually played the first two games in years, so my memory of them may be a little fuzzy. I'm writing this because I've started playing Dream Drop Distance on the 3DS (get it?) and am reminded of how dumb this series can be.
4) This is probably not the literal dumbest internal mythology. Nor can I compare it to every video game ever made. It's hyperbole. Deal with it.

Having said all that, Kingdom Hearts has the dumbest internal mythology in video games.

For those of you out of the loop, let me explain: Kingdom Hearts is a video game series developed by Square Enix, the leading name in Japanese RPGs, makers of the ever-popular Final Fantasy franchise. The first game in the series was released in 2002, an action RPG with an impossibly brilliant hook: our main characters would travel to different worlds based on animated Disney films and team up with the various characters therein. It's honestly just absolute genius. However, KH also has to make a narrative around that, since the Disney worlds (heh) are just a part of the gameplay and story. The result is a confusing, needlessly convoluted mess that just stuns me with its inanity.

Lets start at the start and go over the relatively simple (and I use the term loosely) plot of the first game. Ahem: three teenagers are living on the idyllic but lonely Destiny Islands: Sora the energetic youth full of wide-eyed wonder, Riku the snarky bastard, and Kairi the innocent flower. Their home is overtaken by monsters called "heartless", corrupted hearts which have left their bodies and set out to consume other hearts. This is where the game intially fucks up its story: it never explains what exactly they mean by "heart". We can't really assume it's literal, meaning the organ that pumps blood to the body, but rather metaphorical, with heart by synonymous with what we consider "soul". At least that's what I'm going with.

So it turns out the heartless not only want to consume the hearts of living beings, but also the hearts of worlds, because apparently worlds are now living beings too, because why not. The only thing that can defeat heartless is a keyblade, an oversized/sword that can also do magic and lock away the hearts of worlds, protecting them from darkness. Only a few people can wield keyblades, and lo and behold, one of them is Sora. With his new weapon at hand and party members Donald Duck and Goofy at his side (no, really), the intrepid trio set out to rescue Riku, Kairi, and Donald and Goofy's king, Mickey Mouse, who can also wield a keyblade. With me so far?

Anyway, the Sora and company jump from world to world, teaming up with the likes of Aladdin, Tarzan, and Hercules, and fighting against the Queen of Hearts, Monstro the Whale, and Captain Hook, as well as more heartless. All while this is going on, Riku is being seduced to the dark side of the force - I mean, heart - by Maleficent, Queen of the Disney Villains, while Sora learns more about the heartless's origins and their ties a mysterious scientist (Thought not a "scientist" scientist, the kind of scientist who researches the "power of the heart" scientist), Ansem the Wise. We eventually learn that there are seven princesses of heart, nearly all of whom are kidnapped Disney princesses, who, when brought together by bad guys, can open up the gateway to the titular Kingdom Hearts (though later games disprove that). And just what is Kingdom Hearts? A source of unlimited knowledge and power? The brightest light in the universe? A big fat MacGuffin? You decide!

Plot twist? Riku's gone evil and Kairi's a princess of heart. Additional plot twist? Kairi's heart has been inside Sora the whole time, because apparently that can happen. Sora solves this by stabbing himself with the keyblade, releasing both his and Kairi's hearts. Kairi gets her heart back and Sora gets dead, I think, but then Kairi brings him back to "life" because she can do that. Whatever. Sora and company then go and find Ansem, who was a ghost but now he's not, and defeat him and find King Mickey, who gets locked away in Kingdom Hearts along with Riku for reasons I don't remember because I never actually beat Ansem. He was a tough final boss and I was an impatient teenager.

So that's KH1. It's confusing and a little dumb, but it's not too bad. Plus, it's foreign and a game by Disney, so you can't expect too terribly much from it.

Then Kingdom Hearts 2 rolls around and turns the whole thing around into a great big pot of what-the-fuck stew.

Okay, so heartless are made when a heart (soul) is separated from the body and corrupted and turned evil, yeah? Well what happens to the body? Well, it survives, become a husk called a "nobody", with the strongest ones able to maintain their original forms and knowledge. So to reiterate, there exist in this continuity beings that define themselves by not have hearts, AND beings called "heartless", and they're two different things. What.

Second off is the delicate subject of Ansem. Turns out the guy the fought who was a ghost but then wasn't a ghost but now he's dead and his name was Ansem? Yeah, he's not Ansem. Turns out he's an imposter, the heartless of one of Ansem's followers named Xehanort ('zay-ah-nort'). And the villain of KH2, Xemnas, is Xehanort's nobody. So the series has three villains, and they're all the same guy. What.

Thirdly, remember how Sora's heart was separated from him when he stabbed himself? Well, that became a heartless, which was restored to human form by Kairi, because she can fucking do that. But when a heartless is created, a nobody must also come into being, so Sora's body takes on a life of his own and becomes Roxas, the thirteenth member of Xemnas's bad guy team, Organization XIII. Roxas dies (but not "dies" dies, more like "Disney" dies) pretty early on in KH2, but does some deus ex bullshit by the end. He has a backstory in the tie-in game Kingdom Hearts 358 Days/2 (three-five-eight days over two). It's not interesting or relevant and his game has a dumb title.

There's a bunch of other stuff involving the real Ansem the Wise traveling in secret under the guise of DiZ, plus his assistant Namine who is Kairi's nobody and is also not interesting and barely relevant, and other characters from Organization XIII who don't do much but are popular for some reason.

Do you see why this shit is dumb?

But wait, there's more! Because KH loves itself some tie-in games! First is Chain of Memories, which takes place between KH1 and 2, where Sora and company are apparently in a coma because of reasons and need to fight more Disney villains in their dreams to recover their memories. During this time, there's also the aforementioned 358 Days/2, which details the backstory of Roxas's time with Organization XIII and his friendship with Xion, another Organization member who's a thing that's different, I don't remember what she is and Wiki won't tell me and I don't care to look it up anywhere else and I never beat the game anyway. Birth By Sleep introduces us to three new main characters, none of whom make it to any other game I think, and also shows us some of the backstory of Xehanort (spoiler alert! He was always evil). And now I'm playing Dream Drop Distance, which shows Sora and Riku now trying to "awaken" worlds, since the worlds Sora saved from darkness are all asleep and dreaming themselves into existence, because GAAAAAAAGH!!!!

I give up! I give up on you, Kingdom Hearts! Your gameplay is fun but your story is a mess! The parts that are original are confusing and inane and the parts that aren't original are rehashes of Disney movies I've already seen! And why do characters from Final Fantasy and The World Ends with You show up? And why is Traverse Town the most boring level ever conceived? And why does Ariel go through the plot of The Little Mermaid, like, three times without realizing she shouldn't listen to the Sea Witch? And why does Axel from Organization XIII have fangirls? Why, Kingdom Hearts? WHY?!

Oy, I need a break. Maybe I'll play some video games.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time!