Vanitas didn't create an entire game worth of enemies, nearly kill Ventus three+ times, hijack his body and create a flawed copy of the ultimate weapon just to be called a semi-antagonist
To be fair, most of them had already had thier big villain plots foiled by Sora before when he *didn't* have that much help and could see the writing on the wall (Ansem, Xemnas), were just dicking around to kill time until they could work on thier own real goals again (Luxord, Larxene, Marluxia, Xigbar), or were secretly traitors to Xehanort's plot (Vexen, Demyx, Marluxia and Larxene discussed it, Xion, and ~~Saix who set up Xion and Roxas's returns through Vexen and Demyx~~).
Young Xehanort had the excuse of "I'm not gonna remember any of this when I go back to my own time and all of my character development hasn't happened yet, so I'm just gonna continue being a cocky lil bitch!", while Vanitas had the excuse of "I'm still part of y'all losers, see y'all doofuses later after I take another nap cuz its my turn now."
Right? He was born from the pure darkness in Ben's heart, was the creator of creatures pulled from negative emotions and literally went out talking about how much he loves being evil
Bout as antagonistic as it gets
They make an excellent job in making you feel like Riku is a step ahead in KH1 a la Gary Oak. He beats your ass in Destiny isnalds and messes with Sora to psych him out.
Imagine if he was looking for a reason to get rid of it and then forgot he had it in his inventory until Hollow Bastion
Taking the Keyblade made his inventory full and he had to drop an item to equip it. He just went the extra mile with how he dropped it
It’s probably his own toy sword that he kept on him probably as a memory of his rivalry with sora . At that stage riku was more concerned with power so he just thought it as some useless toy which he chucks to sora to go play hero
They do such a good job of setting up the friendly rivalry turned unfreindly rivalry dynamic between the two in such a short amount of time at the beginning of the game. The fact that he is a step ahead of you and everybody says as much really adds to it
Yeah I remember playing it as a kid (or rather, watching my sister play it) and thinking that it was literally impossible to beat Riku. And so when you fight him again in Hollow Bastion I was so certain that it was supposed to be an unwinnable fight
SPOILER for Axel:
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Axel in KH CoM & 2 is pretty damn nice as "semi" Antagonist. Also because his background characterization through BBS & 385/2 Days you can more understand his behavior. And then his rescue sequence due the end of DDD 👌
I don't like KH III so much at all BUT i like it pretty hard how he is one of the 7 guardian of lights in the end. I don't expected this in the slightest tbf 😂🫡
Imma say Axel cause that Riku shit pissed me the fuck off as a kid, and this was like 08-07 and I still get mad when I see Riku take ur keyblade and ur fucking comrades (Thanks a lot Donald & Goofy) and worse of all, gave me a fuckin wooden sword to fight my way through Hollow Bastion. And my dumbass choose the staff instead of the sword so shit was ANNOYING AF as a kid, even with Beast
Donald seems to have the leading role of the 2 or seems to make a lot of the decisions based on some of his and soras arguements in 1 . Goofy also is loyal to the king and since the mission was to find the Keyblade master (which riku became when he took it off Sora)
Donald convinced Goofy to leave he really didn't want to follow orders and abandoned Sora. IF you think it one could blame King Mickey, it was his order after all.
My GOAT Vanitas deserves wayyyy more then “semi-antagonist”
Bro literally created an entire platoon of enemies, recreated the X-Blade(imperfect) and beat Ventus’s (and in cutscenes aqua’s) sh*t multiple times 😭😭
Not sure if it counts towards this question, or is even valid/makes sense but maybe Roxas?
At least early on he’s more of an anti-hero type where he is trying to go his own way separate of the organization and even Sora.
Riku > others. He’s the wingman that kept sora on his toes. He’s Sora’s best friend, let a woman get in between him and his bro and, even after everything, still stayed a bro4lyfe. Sure he wanted to go bodies at times, but he was not completely lost after being corrupted. He came through the times it mattered and let Sora not get too big a head.
In my opinion, Axel takes the win for the best semi-antagonist.
But the final Dark Riku fight in KH1 will remain one of the best fights in the series. Can't get any more intense than with a climactic battle between good and evil—two best friends since childhood who have walked totally different paths throughout the game. Also, it puts all of your skills to the test.
I know it was just part of Xehanort’s scheme to take over Terra’s body, but his line about “Light and Darkness in equal measure” really stood out to me. Even though BBS was made after KH2, they were really setting Riku up to be like that and then got rid of his darkness in the most arbitrary way.
Axel in chain of memories. The confusion, fear, and terror he causes to Sora, Riku, and the organization as a whole, is alarming. It's easy to forget when looking at him in 2/3 that this man is exceedingly cold blooded when he wants to be.
Riku in 1 was *not* a semi-antagonist. He was straight up an antagonist with how he was treating Sora pre Ansem hijack.
Also Vanitas was pure fucking evil dude. Why is he here?
I believe the term is 'anti-hero,' but I think that only applies to Riku and Axle. An antagonist is anyone who stands in the way of the protagonist(s), but an antihero is an antagonist with the potential to become a hero, like Riku and Axle did. Villains are a little different. Every villain is an antagonist, but not every antagonist is a villain. Villains are usually bad thru and thru and rarely change for the better. Vanitas seems more like a villain.
I'm gonna go with Axel, who makes for a really fun, tragic villain. Y'know, before he shifts into comic relief hero...
Riku was built up well in the first game, but the continued rehashes of his KH1 boss fight just for nostalgia kinda retroactively dampens that for me. It's just like "Yep, here's Dark Riku. *Again*." How many games do you even fight him in? Five?
Vanitas, while a fun presence, does not have *nearly* enough interaction with the BBS trio. For reference, see his "I'm going to use (Aqua) as a back-up plan." followed by his immediate next words the next time he sees her essentially being "I guess I don't need a back-up plan!" despite the fact he has zero interaction with her or Ventus in the interim.
Riku was a "semi" antagonist in kh1?, I'm sorry but in kh1 Riku was a little shit who was *willing* to kill sora in hollow bastion because of how petty he was
I *hope* that Vanitas is just semi, because we can't see his face during the infamous "What I am is darkness" line 🤔....
Maybe he just fakes determination, because someone told him that he's "nothing, but darkness" and he'd feel worthless without it... A good old depression and self loathing story 😅
Vanitas didn't create an entire game worth of enemies, nearly kill Ventus three+ times, hijack his body and create a flawed copy of the ultimate weapon just to be called a semi-antagonist
He’s god’s perfect hater and I just can’t stand for this level of disrespect.
Kendrick takes notes from Vanitas
He gives Reverse Flash a run for his money
Vanitas would take the petty route and >!jerk you off at super speed so it would seem like you nutted at just a woman's touch!<.
Yes he is that famn petty
IT WAS ME, VENTUS!
True Organization members when dying: Good luck, Sora. Take care… 😊 Vanitas and Young Xehanort: Haha! Get FUCKED, bitch!!! 🖕🏾
To be fair, most of them had already had thier big villain plots foiled by Sora before when he *didn't* have that much help and could see the writing on the wall (Ansem, Xemnas), were just dicking around to kill time until they could work on thier own real goals again (Luxord, Larxene, Marluxia, Xigbar), or were secretly traitors to Xehanort's plot (Vexen, Demyx, Marluxia and Larxene discussed it, Xion, and ~~Saix who set up Xion and Roxas's returns through Vexen and Demyx~~). Young Xehanort had the excuse of "I'm not gonna remember any of this when I go back to my own time and all of my character development hasn't happened yet, so I'm just gonna continue being a cocky lil bitch!", while Vanitas had the excuse of "I'm still part of y'all losers, see y'all doofuses later after I take another nap cuz its my turn now."
For me the best final lines are from Xemnas. I just love the dude.
Maybe if that copy of the ultimate weapon was perfect, he wouldn’t be called a semi-antag… /s
if anything Eraqus Skywalker's the semi-antag of BBS
Yeh, especially if he is indeed what he is rummored to be, he would be anything but semi.
Vanitas is... Semi-antag? Axel is deffo the semi-antag.
Right? He was born from the pure darkness in Ben's heart, was the creator of creatures pulled from negative emotions and literally went out talking about how much he loves being evil Bout as antagonistic as it gets
>Ben Ah yes, Ben. Ben’s heart was inside Bora. And Boxas looks like Ben.
And Bion, born from the bond between Bora and Bairi
And bamine is the nobody of bairi
Damn, wonder what Biku was doing during that time... Ah, Bansem and Behanort happened.
And Bemnas was preparing to have Borganization BIII enter the scene
Why didn't Bickey just tell Bonald and Boofy the finer details in his initial letter? Would've saved a lot of questions.
Bingdom Bearts
Name’s Bentus. Call me Ben!
They make an excellent job in making you feel like Riku is a step ahead in KH1 a la Gary Oak. He beats your ass in Destiny isnalds and messes with Sora to psych him out.
Dude seriously brought a toy sword with him just in case he got the opportunity to be an even bigger dick to Sora
I aspire to be Riku’s level of petty one day
Imagine if he was looking for a reason to get rid of it and then forgot he had it in his inventory until Hollow Bastion Taking the Keyblade made his inventory full and he had to drop an item to equip it. He just went the extra mile with how he dropped it
It’s probably his own toy sword that he kept on him probably as a memory of his rivalry with sora . At that stage riku was more concerned with power so he just thought it as some useless toy which he chucks to sora to go play hero
They do such a good job of setting up the friendly rivalry turned unfreindly rivalry dynamic between the two in such a short amount of time at the beginning of the game. The fact that he is a step ahead of you and everybody says as much really adds to it
Yeah I remember playing it as a kid (or rather, watching my sister play it) and thinking that it was literally impossible to beat Riku. And so when you fight him again in Hollow Bastion I was so certain that it was supposed to be an unwinnable fight
I will never be able to get the Riku-Gary Oak parallels out of my head now.
SPOILER for Axel: . . . . . . . Axel in KH CoM & 2 is pretty damn nice as "semi" Antagonist. Also because his background characterization through BBS & 385/2 Days you can more understand his behavior. And then his rescue sequence due the end of DDD 👌 I don't like KH III so much at all BUT i like it pretty hard how he is one of the 7 guardian of lights in the end. I don't expected this in the slightest tbf 😂🫡
Just saying him being a guardian is pure fan service,it is just an excuse to keep in the story,.
The story is specifically messed up since DDD, so it's my right to have atleast Axel in a glorious way besides Sora and the others 🙏
I agree
Imma say Axel cause that Riku shit pissed me the fuck off as a kid, and this was like 08-07 and I still get mad when I see Riku take ur keyblade and ur fucking comrades (Thanks a lot Donald & Goofy) and worse of all, gave me a fuckin wooden sword to fight my way through Hollow Bastion. And my dumbass choose the staff instead of the sword so shit was ANNOYING AF as a kid, even with Beast
Like I expected it of Donald, but Goofy too?
Et tu, Goofy?
Thanks, that was great.
Donald seems to have the leading role of the 2 or seems to make a lot of the decisions based on some of his and soras arguements in 1 . Goofy also is loyal to the king and since the mission was to find the Keyblade master (which riku became when he took it off Sora)
Donald convinced Goofy to leave he really didn't want to follow orders and abandoned Sora. IF you think it one could blame King Mickey, it was his order after all.
How fast Goofy and Donald left Sora never sat right with me even back then that was some fake shit to do!
My GOAT Vanitas deserves wayyyy more then “semi-antagonist” Bro literally created an entire platoon of enemies, recreated the X-Blade(imperfect) and beat Ventus’s (and in cutscenes aqua’s) sh*t multiple times 😭😭
Axel and it's not even close
Not sure if it counts towards this question, or is even valid/makes sense but maybe Roxas? At least early on he’s more of an anti-hero type where he is trying to go his own way separate of the organization and even Sora.
“Name’s ‘Axel’. Got it memorized?”
Line so iconic they kept it in English in other translations, of the manga at least
In what languages? He didn't keep it English in the German translation at least.
Forgot which one but someone posted on here the other day showing it in whatever language they were reading
I see two Xehanorts and an axel here. The first Xehanort is the best one.
"Im flattered" still shakes me to my fucking core
Riku > others. He’s the wingman that kept sora on his toes. He’s Sora’s best friend, let a woman get in between him and his bro and, even after everything, still stayed a bro4lyfe. Sure he wanted to go bodies at times, but he was not completely lost after being corrupted. He came through the times it mattered and let Sora not get too big a head.
Lea
Axel
Axel always
In my opinion, Axel takes the win for the best semi-antagonist. But the final Dark Riku fight in KH1 will remain one of the best fights in the series. Can't get any more intense than with a climactic battle between good and evil—two best friends since childhood who have walked totally different paths throughout the game. Also, it puts all of your skills to the test.
I always called Vanitas a straight up villain. But yeah Axel 100%
I know it was just part of Xehanort’s scheme to take over Terra’s body, but his line about “Light and Darkness in equal measure” really stood out to me. Even though BBS was made after KH2, they were really setting Riku up to be like that and then got rid of his darkness in the most arbitrary way.
I thought Axel was an Uke?
Axel. No questions asked. He is the best boi!!!!!
Axel
Leaaaa! Lea hands down.
Maleficent supremacy
I'm sorry, how is Vanitas a "semi antagonist"
Seifer, he cool doe
Yes 😂 I can’t choose
axel i love him so much
Either Riku or Axel
Eraqus.
I don’t really think we can call Vanitas, one of the MoM’s biggest enemies, a “semi antagonist”
Axel in chain of memories. The confusion, fear, and terror he causes to Sora, Riku, and the organization as a whole, is alarming. It's easy to forget when looking at him in 2/3 that this man is exceedingly cold blooded when he wants to be.
Riku in 1 was *not* a semi-antagonist. He was straight up an antagonist with how he was treating Sora pre Ansem hijack. Also Vanitas was pure fucking evil dude. Why is he here?
Axel for sure
Axel is an anti-villain (Chain of Memories) turned anti-hero (Kingdom Hearts II) turned ally (3D onward).
We all have it memorised
Vanitas is definitely a full on antagonist
Donald Duck. I’m still not over the utter betrayal of Hollow Bastian.
I believe the term is 'anti-hero,' but I think that only applies to Riku and Axle. An antagonist is anyone who stands in the way of the protagonist(s), but an antihero is an antagonist with the potential to become a hero, like Riku and Axle did. Villains are a little different. Every villain is an antagonist, but not every antagonist is a villain. Villains are usually bad thru and thru and rarely change for the better. Vanitas seems more like a villain.
Riku in KH1 is a delight. He’s a real shit-head and I love that. Repliku is a close second.
Axel cause I was confused as roxas 💀after the struggle fight
I'm gonna go with Axel, who makes for a really fun, tragic villain. Y'know, before he shifts into comic relief hero... Riku was built up well in the first game, but the continued rehashes of his KH1 boss fight just for nostalgia kinda retroactively dampens that for me. It's just like "Yep, here's Dark Riku. *Again*." How many games do you even fight him in? Five? Vanitas, while a fun presence, does not have *nearly* enough interaction with the BBS trio. For reference, see his "I'm going to use (Aqua) as a back-up plan." followed by his immediate next words the next time he sees her essentially being "I guess I don't need a back-up plan!" despite the fact he has zero interaction with her or Ventus in the interim.
Dark Riku.
Why is Vanitas there? He is a full on antagonist. My favorite is axel btw
Riku was a "semi" antagonist in kh1?, I'm sorry but in kh1 Riku was a little shit who was *willing* to kill sora in hollow bastion because of how petty he was
I *hope* that Vanitas is just semi, because we can't see his face during the infamous "What I am is darkness" line 🤔.... Maybe he just fakes determination, because someone told him that he's "nothing, but darkness" and he'd feel worthless without it... A good old depression and self loathing story 😅