Smartest Version of Sora?

[ReverofE 698]

This isn't counting those connected him, Nobodies, or clones. I mean just between:

KH1, CoM, KH2, and DDD.

Of these versions which do feel Sora put his brains to their best efforts?

Edited March 2, 2016 by ReverofE

[Felixx 6,646]

Birth By Sleep

 

Just kidding, probably a tie between KH1 and CoM, but I'd say KH1.

Though I personally prefer the KH2 Sora

[Shard the Gentleman 2,891]

Sora's "stupid level" didn't really show up much until kh2, so... kh.

[ReverofE 698]

Birth By Sleep

 

Just kidding, probably a tie between KH1 and CoM, but I'd say KH1.

Though I personally prefer the KH2 Sora

 

Is it wrong of me to think that BBS wouldn't be in last place if he was in this competition? 

[Felixx 6,646]

Is it wrong of me to think that BBS wouldn't be in last place if he was in this competition? 

Haha no

Actually he seemed to be pretty smart in BBS, that's why I mentioned it.

[Hero of Winds 2,576]

The problem is, Sora's smart. He's just naive and childish. Which is a totally different thing. It didn't really pick up until KH2 (which was the perfect balance of his childish personality). DDD however threw the personality on you, forced you to deal with an overly childish character who normally would never act as bad as he did in DDD. I love Sora, but in DDD, I really wanted to hate him.

[Trece the Xam ( ▀ ͜͞ʖ▀) 3,859]

Personality wise, like KH1/CoM Sora and hate the rest.

 

Skill/Gameplay-wise, I like all of them (except for the games where he isn't playable and 358/2, I would rather use the Organization Members, Riku, Dolan and Gooby before the dull ordinary boy), but my favourite is KH2.

[ReverofE 698]

The problem is, Sora's smart. He's just naive and childish. Which is a totally different thing. It didn't really pick up until KH2 (which was the perfect balance of his childish personality). DDD however threw the personality on you, forced you to deal with an overly childish character who normally would never act as bad as he did in DDD. I love Sora, but in DDD, I really wanted to hate him.

 

And that just mind boggles me sometimes.Sora gains so much experience and learns so much throughout his journey yet with each new installment it seems like he just throws everything he learned in the previous journey straight into the toilet. CoM and KH2 I could sort of let slide due to the whole memory thing. However, DDD there was no excuse for his attitude.Either the developers are trying to flesh out Sora's personality with each new installment or they just don't want him to have any sort of character development. Or maybe its a combination of both.

[Hero of Light XIV 2,381]

I'll give KH2 and DDD Sora some credit, he WAS much more skeptical in those games. Just because you fall for what the antagonists are planning doesn't make you an idiot. I mean has everyone already forgotten who he was dealing with? An organization headed by several scientists and a master tactician who's favorite hobbies include mind games and toying with people's feelings? Of course Sora was going to play into their hands, they are a formidable threat. I'd honestly be more concerned if he fell for every scheme that somebody like Pete came up with. Just because someone relies on their gut and their emotions more than logic doesn't always mean they're a neanderthal, they think in a different way than most people, and a lot of times it helps in situations where being cold and logical just won't cut it. Sora IS smart, just in a different way than what most people tend to generalize "intelligence".

[Isamu Kuno 2,512]

Hard question, I mean, how many times have we actually seen the real Sora? We all know that Roxas was heavily influencing him in KH2. It's possible the same was true for Ventus in 3D, and in CoM his memories where being actively screwed with by Namine, who knows how that affected his personality. And personality is a factor in this because nievete can easily be confused with stupidity

Edited March 2, 2016 by Isamu_Kuno

[Kaweebo 3,617]

KH1, no questions. Some people have argued that Sora was bland in the first game and he didn't really gain a personality until KHII, but I think those people are confusing bland with realistic. In KHII, Sora's most obvious personality traits (his kindness, naivete and mischievousness) were exaggerated, sometimes for the pure sake of comedy. Story-wise, I think the explanation for this is due to Donald and Goofy's influence rubbing off on Sora, making him cartoon-ish, but in doing so it seems they robbed the character of his critical thinking skills. In KH1, his personality was much more grounded. He could be naive, but never at the sake of his intelligence. 

 

This isn't as evident in KHII, although KHII does play around with Sora being simple-minded for the same of comedy, but in Dream Drop Distance, they go the full nine yards with it and seem to treat Sora like an absolute buffoon. I realize that DDD is a complicated story but how many times can Sora honestly forget he's in the dream worlds before it gets to be a little ridiculous? He seems to get lost in thought trying to work things out, I guess, and it costs him numerous times. (Quorra gets attacked by Rinzler and Sora just stands there, thinking to himself) 

 

It almost even seems like the writers realized this themselves because they wrote Data Sora, who was based off of KH1 Sora, the same way he was written in the first game. Naive, simple-minded, but not stupid. (at least until the 2.5 cutscenes, in which they continued to make him stupid) Hopefully, they emphasized Sora's (lack of) intelligence to make players feel smart since DDD was decently complex, so in KHIII they'll finally bring Sora back full circle to something closer to KHII, at least. At least in KHII, Sora's character made sense to be the way it was and he still felt like an evolution of the character from the first game, but DDD seemed to both regress and evolve it by making him more dumb yet also having him become a better character by moving past his formerly wrong assumptions that the Nobodies were evil monsters with no hearts. 

 

The point is, don't make Sora dumb just to create contrived scenes where he spends some alone time with Xemnas in an abandoned orange control ship. 

Edited March 2, 2016 by Kaweebo

[Headphone Jack 1,147]

idk i'm biased towards the first three games so honestly i could make excuses for why they all have smart Soras and DDD has the dumbest of them all.

even KH2 Sora was smart to some extent.

 

one moment that stands out to me is at the end where Xemnas begins telling Sora and co. his sob story about how Nobodies were cast away from both light and dark and at first you begin to actually feel for the guy but then Sora completely ignores it because he remembers Nobodies don't have hearts and one of their underhanded tricks is to pretend that they have emotions. So credit to him on that one. (except later games retcon this entire point but you get the idea.)

 

if i HAD to give an answer i guess i'd go with KH1 Sora. To be fair, he does seem to have the best blend of not too serious and not too goofy. He definitely has moments where he acts silly and it works because it's not overdone. CoM did a good job of showing another side to Sora's character by having the villains antagonize him frequently. we saw him get frustrated and irrational which was nice to see. then KH2 turned the notch up a bit on the comedy but it wasn't unbearable. I liked it because it felt like it added to the chemistry between Sora, Donald and Goofy. 

[venxas24 544]

I can't decide. I mean, it's pretty stupid that your world gets destroyed and you don't think about your parents but it's also stupid to follow a random ghostly figure so now that I think about it I'll go with KH2 because he found out that DTD stood for Door to Darkness

[Gamerazor247 877]

Sora was dumber then a party of Donald's in 3DDD, his personality drove me away so freakin' much, that it literally made me appreciate Riku in a WHOOOLLLE new way. Please give me a BBS option, I dig the arroganceKappa.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Gamerazor247

[Firaga 5,947]

When has this boy ever been smart?

 

In all seriousness, KHII Sora. He's older, a little more mature, and is able to process some things better than before. 

[Jermaine 79]

Kh1 Sora is one of the best characters in the series. Post kh1 Sora has been manipulated and runs off emotion, but it's hard to watch. In Re:com he was running off pure emotion to seek Namine, missing clear indicators of "something fishy". In 2, he only wanted to find Riku, and Kairi, and ignored logic often just being "do Sora, Kill them Sora."

 

In 1, he may have been running on emotion to find his friends, but it was combined with logic based off experiences. He understood that he had to seal the keyholes (including key ones like HB), had an inkling that Kairi was around him somewhere, he knew his heart was stronger than Riku's, and Riku turned dark, even though Riku was his best friend, knew he had to stop him, but still wanted his friend back in the end, instead of in kh Com where he thought Vexen was controlling Riku. He also thought of the consequences of defeating Ansem, and pondered what would happen.

 

What I'm trying to say here is in Kh1, Sora thought things through deeper, and developed with a certain hint of subtly, and after this, his effects are dramatized, and made him arrogant, rather than a character who questions, and ponders things.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Jermaine

[EchoFox23* 318]

Either KH1 or 2, I was on the verge of just killing him for fun in DDD. I can think of some reason why he's like that for some reason, like if he's dreaming maybe he acts like a kid but it still doesn't add up compared to KH2. And plus, if he were to act like that I almost would rather hear the KH1 voice rather than his KH2 voice. In KH1 he seemed like he was sort of stupid but he didn't know a whole lot which makes some sense, KH2 still had some stupid moments but he still took it more maturely. And finally for COM it's sort of a mixed bag for me since I haven't beaten it yet. He's somewhat stupid but not enough to bother me yet. 

 

In short: I liked KH1 and KH2 Sora, mixed about COM and hate DDD

[Movies798 1,362]

I find Sora smart in both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2. But I vote Kingdom Hearts 2 because he was older and more mature.

[Soul_Seeker 753]

Sora...smart?

...

....

 

 

Mhm.

 

I guess that's just him not being familiar with computers, though.

[Lulcielid 159]

MMM. tought choice....KHII is smart....maybe....

[Ven983 490]

Please tell me the two votes for DDD are a joke...

[Dracozombie 4,554]

I wouldn't call Sora smart (though before later installments I wouldn't call him dumb, either), but I feel that his KH1 incarnation is where his personality is at its most balanced.

[The Transcendent Key 12,109]

I think that I'd have to say that Sora was at his smartest in the first Kingdom Hearts!  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he's dumb or anything, just let me explain!

 

In Kingdom Hearts, he was going on a specific journey to find his friends Riku and Kairi, who were taken by the darkness that engulfed Destiny Islands!  At this point, he's just trying to reunite with the people he cares about, and so, not knowing how to find his friends, he knew the best chance he'd have at finding them was to team up with Donald and Goofy, a smart move, if you ask me!

 

Now then, we go to Chain Of Memories, and with everything that's happened, Sora, Donald and Goofy now go to find Riku and King Mickey!  When they arrive to Castle Oblivion, Namine is put to work on screwing with Sora's memory!  Granted, I can't blame the guy for being reckless and mad over the Organization having Namine, when he's truly convinced she's the person he most cares about!  But hey, I think it'd have been smart if he had listened to the advice of his friends, who knew that something weird was going on!  And when he brushed off his friends in order to keep finding Namine, that's when he failed, and it wasn't a smart choice! Had Donald and Goofy not arrived in time to save him, things would have turned out differently!  Unwillingly, Sora became the Organization's puppet to take out the weak links, and despite his intentions, he didn't stop to think about the wider threat around him.  Granted, I'm not saying he's dumb, because given his situation, he was hell bent on finding Namine, so yeah, he wasn't thinking straight, ya know?

 

With Kingdom Hearts II, he's almost as smart as he was in the first Kingdom Hearts, but he let the Organization's taunts get to him!  His focus still remained in finding Riku and King Mickey with his friends, and while he did put an end to the Organization, he was kind of a jerk for pressuring Mickey into telling him where Riku was.  Granted, Sora only wanted to know if Riku was okay, but Riku had made Mickey swear to not tell what his fate was, and so, Sora should have considered Mickey's words when he couldn't say anything!  The smart thing to do would have been to take the King's word for it and trust in his heart that Riku was okay.  But, he's a human being, like all of us, so when people we care about are missing, we ask a lot of questions as to where they are, am I right?

 

In terms of Dream Drop Distance, he was duped from the very get go at the start of his Mark Of Mastery!  Had he been more aware of the situation at hand, he would've been able to sense that something was off about his test!  But, since he thought that the things happening before him were indeed part of his test and not Xehanort's trap, he fell for his trap headfirst!  I say that when he met Neku, he should't have trusted him from the get go.  Because later, he handed Sora over to Young Xehanort, but things went differently than Neku had expected, and in the end, he apologized to Sora, because he thought that by handing him over to Young Xehanort, he could be reunited with Shiki!  With Sora's forgiving personality, he obviously let it slide.  But I agree with Neku in his first statement. "Wait, time out.  Do you trust every total stranger you meet?"  I mean, okay, Sora can be lovable and friendly, but even he has to have some caution when he meets someone, ya know? But like I said, Sora's a lovable guy, so he befriends everyone he meets!

 

But yeah, this was a very difficult question to answer.  Because it's not that Sora's dumb, he's just put through some unfortunate circumstances that are beyond his control, ya know?  From Namine's memory tampering to Organization XIII's use of him for farming hearts, to Xehanort's attempt at making him a vessel for the Thirteen Seekers Of Darkness!  As you can see, it's not lack of smarts that Sora has, it's the fact that he is forced to react instinctively with the situations he's presented with!

 

Okay, I'm done now.

Edited March 3, 2016 by The Transcendent Key

[catmaster0116 2,676]

I had the impression that data Sora from Re:Coded was smarter than the original Sora.

[ReverofE 698]

I had the impression that data Sora from Re:Coded was smarter than the original Sora.

He was. However, based on his scenes in KH 2.5 you really couldn't see it that much...