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LRT - Good take but honestly, why not both? While I really don& #39;t like what KH3 reduced Lea& #39;s character down to (even though it& #39;s understandable given how vast the scope of the game was and how little time side characters had for development) -- it& #39;s not bad?
Like yeah sure, him kind of being turned into this joking wise guy for the last half of the game really didn& #39;t help the fandom perception (especially to new to the series players) about his whole deal. I know a lot of people that get HMPH abt KH3& #39;s characterization of him -
specifically point to CoM (a game with pretty low intractability, which is a damn shame) to go & #39;HIM? the guy that murdered two people in cold blood?& #39; or to KH2 & #39;the guy that kidnapped Kairi???& #39; to argue against this & #39;& #39;clown& #39;& #39; or silly archetype that he has fallen into in --
with the characterization of 3. But this is me saying that both are right. Both exist. Like the meme states he& #39;s a pretty complicated and flawed person throughout the course of the games he& #39;s in, BUT given the nature of fandom and in particular the necessity of
reduction within art and comics in particular-- yeah, he& #39;s bound to get the same treatment that he gets in 3. While that& #39;s a more pragmatic view of the situation, I do want to present a & #39;& #39;defense& #39;& #39; of the silly & #39;clown& #39; stuff we see in 3.
Axelea is an amazing character because he can honest to god be whatever we need him to be. It& #39;s great to be able to have fun with him and to goof on him (I personally enjoy this because I prefer funny over angst like 90% of the time)
That being said, there is a weird thing in the fandom right now where I think a lot of people are shitting on Axelea using this characterization as a way to have other characters (Aqua in particular) rag on him or just provide what I feel to be less fun and mean spirited content
At the end of the day, does this really matter? Not to a degree, because I know what Axelea is like and the depth that he has. I know that he& #39;s been consistently depicted in a humorous light while also as a flawed person.
But it does suck seeing a character that you love and relate to a ton being dunked on because he& #39;s somehow become the fandom joke AND getting placed into boxes (he& #39;s so dumb! no, he& #39;s such a murder boy!) that kiiiind of ignore the complexity of his character.
To be honest, I don& #39;t know where I was going with this, I really just wanted to talk about how I think that Axelea is both a humorous and complex character and both of those characterizations of him are valid as long as they aren& #39;t punching him down!
That being said, Axelea will always be MY favorite murder clown that adopted like 5 people and is trying to better that flaws that we saw he have in past games and that& #39;s all there is to it~
I& #39;m back. I just want to tack on that I love that both the young and older versions of Lea are more humorous depictions of the character while Axel (ofc) is the heartless cold version that parts of that humor and softness shines through. Bc it& #39;s KH, it& #39;s a mess BUUUT
This is why I love fandom members who get explore all these nuances of Axelea (like how he& #39;s super smart! but dumb when it comes to his selfish wants!) and get to kind of show new connections (like him and Aqua! When it& #39;s not her being an ass to him for some reason lmao)
