Lord of Shadow and Prisoner of Heart in Ultimate Randomness

So there is this one video game series that I play. I have played all but one game in the series across multiple handhelds and platforms. That series is Kingdom Hearts. For those not in the know, which I assume is most of my normal readers and a few others out there, Kingdom Hearts is an RPG series of video games released by Square Enix, the makers of Final Fantasy. Disney and Square work together on this series, so the series features locations and characters from most of the Disney universe, as well as cameos from famous characters from the Final Fantasy series. Sounds like a fun, light-hearted series of games to play, right? Not exactly. For a game that features these Disney characters, and the fact that it is geared toward pre-teens and teens, the series has an incredibly intricate and dark story. And when I say dark, I mean Dark. The series centers around the adventures of Sora and his friends. Sora is an easy going kid from a place called the Destiny Islands, one of few original locales in the series, and aptly named. As there are alot of games in the series, I will just give a brief synopsis, though it really won't do justice to the complexity of the series.

The series talks about many dualities: light and darkness, heart (soul) and body, and two friends who are flip sides of the same coin. The aforementioned Sora and his best friend Riku. See, Sora is of pure heart, but at times in the series, in an attempt to save his friends and the universe from a being named Xehanort, he loses pieces of himself, which manifest bodily in other places. It takes a long time for Sora to regain all of himself, and thus his memories...You know what, I am starting to realize that I am going to have to explain the series game by game for anyone to make any sense of what I am writing. So I will do that because the games tackle alot of philosophical, metaphysical topics including what makes a person, the nature of light, darkness, and shadow, the nature of the "heart" and so forth. Funny, talking about that series always gets me in a better mood. It is one of the few things in my life that just makes me excited. I can't really explain it, but I would love to do a novelization of the games. The themes are so complex, but relatable, that, like Harry Potter, it is something parents and children can enjoy for some of the same reasons but different reasons also. It really does have something for everyone. And the shame of it is that, if you are not a gamer, you probably have never heard of the series. It is truly masterful. I was going to write this entry about how I feel like I live in the shadows. My mind does dark things to me and wants to be angry and destructive, but my heart is light. I am a good person and can't bring myself to do bad things to people, even when I might want to. So I feel alot of the time like I live in a world of shadows, not truly light, but unable to give in to the darkness. If I were to relate to a character in the games, it would probably be Riku, but that will be explained probably in the next entry. But at times, I feel like a prisoner of my own mind and heart. It is something that is really hard to explain to people who have never suffered from depression, or just felt trapped without a way out in general. I want to be happy. I want to believe in myself. I want someone to love and to be loved in return. That is one of the few things I have always known I wanted. Unfortunately, I don't know how to get there. I fear changing myself, because I like the person I am and I am afraid that if I take steps to improve myself, it will change some fundamental piece of myself that I like. On top of that, I have so convinced myself that I am not worthy of happiness that I just can't believe in my own happiness. It affects everything I do. As far as my decision making goes, I have no particular paradigm for making decisions. That is why it is so confusing that my decisions all fail. I do things the way I normally would, I do the opposite of what my gut tells me, I do what my gut tells me, everything goes wrong anyway. It is truly puzzling. Anyway, talking about Kingdom Hearts has pretty much taken all the steam out of me for now, so good night.