Roxas-The Nobody with a Heart

Roxas is a key character in the ever-complicated story of Kingdom Hearts.

Roxas was created when Sora released his own heart to restore Kairi’s, making Sora become a heartless for a short while but long enough for Roxas to come into existence. Thus Roxas and Sora co-existed but Roxas lacked any memories. And Roxas being Sora’s nobody, he obtained the power to use the Keyblade, something Organization XIII needed to achieve their goal. Therefore Roxas became the 13^th member or Organization XIII.

Axel and Roxas and later Xion become best friends. But once Xion learns the truth about her origins she escapes the Organization and later forces Roxas to fight her. After the intense battle she dies in Roxas’s arms and vanishes becoming part of Roxas. This causes Roxas to be able to use 2 Keyblades. He then runs from the Organization where he encounters and battles Riku. Riku defeats Roxas after unleashing tthe darkness within his heart and taking the Appearance of Xehanort’s Heartless. This is where DiZ comes into play and places Roxas in the Virtual Twilight Town where Kingdom Hearts II begins.

DiZ’s goal is to unite Roxas and Sora so that Sora may regain all of his memories and strength after the events of Castle Oblivion. DiZ somehow changes Roxas’s memory so that he believes he lives a normal life in Twlight Town with his three best friends Hayner, Pence, and Olette. As Sora’s memories are restored by Naminé, Roxas begins to see flashes of these memories. Roxas encounters Naminé, Riku, and even has a connection with Kairi. The Organization sent Axel to find Roxas and bring him back. DiZ stops Axel from capturing Roxas and tells him to go to the Old Mansion. Here is when Roxas learns he must reunite with Sora to become whole. Naminé tells him that they will meet again even if they do not recognize each other. Axel tries to stop him, but Roxas, with regret, defeats him. Roxas then rejoins Sora to become his original self.

During most of KH II the Orgainzation members refer to Sora as if he is Roxas. This is confusing the first play through KH II but one a second play through it makes perfect sense. When Axel dies after saving Sora before entering The World that Never Was, it awakens Roxas. Roxas then attacks Sora, wondering why Axel sacrificed himself to save Sora. Roxas then realizes that Sora is who he is because of his friends. This is all takes place in Sora’s mind as a mental struggle between the two.

Roxas appears beside Naminé before Sora and Kairi before the final battle. They are all happy to meet again and become whole. As long as Sora and Kairi are together, Roxas and Naminé will be together.

Now why do Roxas and Ventus look so similar? Since Ventus’s heart resides inside Sora’s, when Roxas was created his appearance was influenced by Ventus’s heart. In fact Roxas’s 2^nd Keyblade is Ventus’s keyblade awakened after many years. Since Xion became part of Roxas, their keyblades became the same.

Roxas is a key character in the story and plays a big role throughout KH II.

Thanks for reading!

Axel: The Nobody with a Heart's Influence

Axel is a very popular character from the Organization. For most people, he's even their favorite member, and why not? He's funny, cool and has a pretty dominant role in three Kingdom Hearts games.

Lea in Birth by Sleep:
As we know, a Nobody is created when someone who has a very strong will succumbs to the darkness and becomes a Heartless. The body that is left behind becomes reanimated, but it doesn't have a heart, thus a Nobody is born.
Lea is the Somebody to Axel's Nobody. The only time we see Lea is during Ventus's story. Ven is feeling very down and thinking that he doesn't have any friends and is sitting around Radiant Garden when Lea and Isa (Isa being Saix's Somebody) come walking by and see him holding his makeshift Keyblade.
After a bit of talking Ven and Lea have a battle of sorts, which we don't actually get to witness, and Ventus appears to be the winner. The two talk a little bit longer and say that they are friends now.

Axel in (Re:)Chain of Memories:
Appearing in quite a few different key moments within the game, Axel has a major role within these games. The first "boss battle" in the game for Sora is fighting Axel.
As seen in 358/2 Days Axel and the rest of the Organization that goes there, are sent to capture the keyblade wielder. But during their time there, Marluxia is trying to gather some dissenters in the Organization and take over the rest of the Organization. Axel, being a double agent, helps put a stop to Marluxia and in the end Sora is able to deafeat the pink-haired member because of it.
A cool side note, Axel is the only Organization member to appear in both Sora's story and Riku's.

Axel in 358/2 Days:
This is probably Axel's biggest role within the series. In KH2 we are able to glean that Axel and Roxas are best friends, but how come and why, we weren't actually able to discern. So with the installment of 358/2 Days we saw everything that transpired between them. Literally every day (except those at the very beginning and when Axel was at C.O. and lost) Axel went to the top of Twilight Clock Tower and had ice cream with Roxas, and eventually Xion as well.
There is a lot of character development that goes on in these short conversations between Axel and his friends. But one of the biggest revelations from the game is that Axel appears to have feelings, but not only that a heart. No official reason behind this exists, but it is to be believed that a major reason Axel acts the way he does is because he's so close to Roxas, who in fact does have a heart, so he's "borrowing" the feelings from Roxas, when he can't do it himself.


Axel in Kingdom Hearts II:
In the beginning of the game when you're still playing as Roxas, Axel is very predominant. When this game came out, nobody knew who Roxas was, or what Axel had to do with him, so it was really confusing. Having this dude chase you and tell you things like, "I'm your best friend," was strange. But you couldn't help but like the guy.
Within the first couple of hours as Roxas you are actually forced to fight Axel two different times, and the second time is pretty amazing. It reveals the power Axel really has and that, yeah, he really is cool.
After the intro with Roxas, Axel kind of disappears for a while. There are a couple of cut scenes with Pluto running around through Destiny Islands and The World that Never Was, finding Axel and taking him to Kairi, but beyond that we don't really see much.
The end of the KH2 is where Axel is probably the coolest character you've ever seen. Sora is trapped in a room with thousands of Dusk Nobodies and you have Axel fighting with you to defeat all of them. Eventually Axel goes all out and uses an amazingly powerful attack and destroys the rest of the Dusks. This pushes Axel to the limits and causes him to exhaust himself enough that he actually dies.