In Xion's Defense: Perspective of a Non-Fan

The fourteenth member of Organization XIII.  A recolor of one of the main characters.  Best buddies with Roxas and Axel.  Can wield a keyblade like Roxas.  Friends bend over backwards to help her.  No prior indication of her existence.  Even gets a tragic death scene.  If you play Kingdom Hearts, I think you know who we're talking about here.  Mainly because it's sort of in the title.

Xion.  Or Xarmy Sue, as people like to call her.  Let's not beat around the bush here; Xion is the embodiment of just about every Organization Sue in existence, for all the reasons stated above.  People need not look any further for reasons to hate her.

So they stop where they are, refusing to look any deeper.

Make no mistake, people, my hatred for Mary Sues is on a level few people can reach.  Borderline unhealthy, I'd say.  I recall vivid memories of all the loathing directed towards these shitty fan characters and their unoriginality.  The Sonic the Hedgehog fandom was and still is awful about it; that's where the hatred came from, but it expanded towards all my fandoms.  Granted, I didn't get into the Kingdom Hearts series until around 2010, around two years ago as of this writing.  Looking back, it was a good thing I played 358/2 Days when I did instead of when it came out, because it wasn't until around I got into Kingdom Hearts—after Days came out and Xion's existence and nature revealed—that I started to change my attitude.

I don't remember how this epiphany came up—maybe around the time I started focusing on characterization in my story ideas.  Y'know, depth of personality, varied dynamics with other characters, blah blah blah.  I began looking at things by the sum of their parts, rather than the general idea, because when you look at how the individual elements add together to create a whole, you see the big picture in greater detail.  Knowing how it's put together allows you to better understand all the aspects that make a character tick.

Through this mindset, I finally understood something TV Tropes and the good Mary Sue litmus tests said:  it's not the presence of certain tropes that makes something bad, it's how they're used.  And believe me, context makes a huge difference.

You might be able to tell where this is going in relation to Xion.  She embodies so many common Sue traits that people despised her even before the game came out.  They're so blatant and numerous that not even playing the game changed their minds.  I had accidentally spoiled myself about Xion's true nature before I played Days, and I was well aware of all the hatred she had garnered.

I eventually got Days, and I'll admit that despite what I've learned, my attitude towards Xion had been skewed by what I knew of her.  I tried to look at things objectively, but I couldn't get all those Sue traits out of my mind.  I leaned towards disliking her, but I tried to keep an open mind, hoping for something to change my opinion.

And it worked.  I finished the game, and Xion didn't bug me.

In fact, she never bugged me.  Do I like her?  Not really.  I got 358/2 Days for Roxas and that's what I paid attention to.  I was more interested in his story, because it's his game.  Xion just happened to be a part of it.  The game introduced her role, and she fulfilled it in a way that I didn't hate.

So while I didn't care much for her, I couldn't bring myself to dislike her.  The presence of all those Sue traits turned me off, but then I played the game, saw how her character used those traits, and I thought to myself: "THAT was Xarmy Sue?"

I've been on the fanfiction circuit for years, and one important difference I've noticed between original fiction and fanfiction is that, well, they're different.  Duh, of course they are!  You're using someone else's characters and setting, but that's not what I mean.  I'm talking about the differences in attitude, in what you can get away with.  Ideas that would make a decent original story would never fly in a fanfic.  Two shapeshifting wizards struggling to survive in a world where magic is outlawed is fine for an original story, but in a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, where the wizards are Roxas and Axel?  Not so much.

Some things are just plain bad form in fanfiction.  When you write fanfics, you're playing by someone else's rules instead of your own, and you're subject to more scrutiny than you'd be when writing original fiction.  I think that's where the problem here lies:  we're judging Xion by the rules of fanfiction when 358/2 Days is an original story.

And the reason they judge her by fanfiction standards is because, well, just look at all those traits.  Like I said, they're so numerous that many people can't or refuse to look at Xion as she is, and not as an idea hundreds of Organization XIII fangirls thought of years before Nomura did.  Like it or not, Xion is a part of Kingdom Hearts canon.  She's a canon character, not a fan character, and should be treated as such.  And here's the difference between Xion and your run-of-the-mill Organization XIII Sue copying interesting traits from the main character.

The Sue resembling a main character and having a keyblade is presented as the charm point.  She has those traits because the author thought it would be cool or interesting, and the story would treat it that way.

Xion resembling a main character and having a keyblade is NOT presented as a good thing.  The traits that make her seem like a Mary Sue, are also the reasons so many characters—including herself—consider her an abomination that needs to be destroyed or go back to where she belongs.  She knows her identity is a copy of someone else's, she knows her very existence shouldn't be, and her role in the story is to find out this truth and correct it.

Haters argue her story overshadows Roxas's, but I disagree.  The game is still Roxas's story; Xion's just happened to intertwine with it, just like Axel's did.  Roxas, Axel, and Xion are a trinity.  This trio dynamic is one of Kingdom Hearts's things, and while one part of the trio takes precedence, the other two are still a part of it.  Some may argue Namine should've been the third one, except that she was busy chaining back Sora's memories with DiZ—forming her own trio with him and Riku.

The point is that every one of Xion's Mary Sue traits all have explanations that make her not a Mary Sue.  Now that I've gone over the big picture, I can refute the common complaints against her using the evidence presented in canon and in Nomura's interviews.

-It's Organization XIII, not XIV!-

Very true.  Saix agrees.  Quoth him: "Count the chairs.  When have we ever been more than thirteen?"

Xion wasn't considered a true member of the Organization because she wasn't a true Nobody, just a Sora clone that can use a keyblade in case Sora or Roxas didn't work out.  Speaking of which…

-She can use a keyblade!-

Related to the above, she can use a keyblade not because it's cool or makes her unique.  It's because she's a Replica designed to leech off of Sora's (and indirectly, Roxas's) memories so she can wield a keyblade for their goals.(1)  Organization XIII wanted a keyblade wielder and they couldn't guarantee they could use Sora, so they recruited Roxas and created Xion just in case.  Xion's keyblade is a sham, and Riku tells her just that.  Her's isn't a real keyblade, just one her Replica powers copied.

In fact, I'd say Xion's the sole character in the series who doesn't have a keyblade for the sake of being important/cool.  Her Replica status is what makes her unique, and her copied keyblade is nothing more than an offset of that.  Xion even says herself that she and Roxas were special, but not in the same way.

-She's just a Kairi recolor!-

Nomura made her look like Kairi to throw players off.(2)  Within canon, she looks like Kairi because she's a Sora clone that happened to take the shape of his strongest memories, Kairi in this case.  Xion doesn't look like her just because, or because she's some long-lost relative who oh so coincidentally also has the power to wield a keyblade.  It's a side-effect of her true nature as a Replica.

-All the important guys care about her!-

The important guys in this case being Roxas, Axel, and Riku.  Roxas, Axel, and Xion form another one of Kingdom Hearts's triads, and one of the major themes in the series is the bond between friends; of course Roxas and Axel are gonna care about her.  And the reason she even blipped on Riku's radar is because A) she's an _unofficial Organization XIII member AKA the enemy, and B) without her, Sora would never wake up, which is why Riku collaborated with DiZ to begin with.

As for why Riku was so nice to her?  Probably because he's a decent human being who realized Xion is sentient and not malicious like her coworkers.  If she disagreed, in the end, Riku would've just hauled her ass back to Sora, and he's more than capable of it.  He just gave her a choice first because he's not a dick, no matter what some fans believe.  (I've seen plenty of vicious Riku hate before, but that's an essay for another time.)

And remember, guys, she's a canon character, not a fan character.  She's allowed to interact with them.

-Roxas and Axel always have to go out of their way to help her!  She's so worthless!-

I often see complaints about the mission where Roxas lends his keyblade to Xion so he has to use a stick (that he somehow found in the middle of a castle basement), and the one where his level is halved because Xion was leeching too much power off him.  To those who found those missions difficult and blamed Xion for it, I have this to say:  get over it, you wusses, those missions weren't hard.  I didn't even go out of my way to level grind and I cleared them just fine.  On Proud mode.

Really, it goes back to the themes of friendship and what people are willing to do for those they care about.  I know of a comic here on dA, created by a Xion hater, mocking Xion for being emo during the time she was unable to use her keyblade and Roxas and Axel had to kill extra Heartless to pull her weight.  In the comic, Axel's response to the emo was to hipcheck Xion off the clock tower because she's stupid and pointless and emo and Xarmy Sue.  Y'know, I'd be pretty emo too if I were under threat of death/Duskification/whatever Saix does to people who can't work, because of circumstances beyond my control.  It's not like Xion's happy that her friends have to pull her weight for her, and it's clear she feels guilty for inconveniencing them.  They do it anyway because they care about her.  Close relationships are just like owning a dog:  you get happiness and companionship, but every once in a while you have to deal with the shit that comes with it.

I'll admit Xion isn't the strongest character, personality-wise and power-wise.  She loses most of her plot-relevant battles, but even so, it's because she was either tired after being in a coma (the Darkside at Twilight Town), challenging people out of her league (Riku and Axel), or being the final boss of a video game (guess).  Not the best way to handle her character, I admit, but I don't hold it against her personally.

-Everyone else hates her!  People hating her for no reason is totally a Mary Sue trait!-

And you're right, except that no one actually does hate her.  Saix treats her poorly because he sees her as a faceless doll and doesn't understand why anyone can get attached to her.  Xemnas treats her like a tool because in a technical sense, she is.  And Xigbar's just a jerk.  Everyone else in the Organization bar Axel treats her the same way they do Roxas: with apathy, or annoyance.

-She came out of nowhere!-

Well, okay, this is one of the more legitimate complaints against her.  There was definitely zero prior indication of her existence, but I'll argue that if you're reading this, then you're a fellow Kingdom Hearts fan, and if you're a fellow Kingdom Hearts fan, then you must be able to put up with and follow the series's confusing additions to its plot.

Things like the Nobodies, Terra, Aqua, and Ventus, and the concept of keyblade wielders being a knighthood, also came out of nowhere, but they were all at least alluded to within the secret movies.  But Xion?  Popped outta thin air, as far as the fandom was concerned.  She had the dual misfortune of blindsiding the fandom by showing up, and by embodying a multitude of Mary Sue traits.

But even though she came out of nowhere, the game goes to lengths to justify why we've never heard of the girl before.  They didn't give us some half-assed reason and expect us to go along with it because hey look at our cool new original character!  Her erasure was so thorough that everyone forgets her.  She entered and left the picture without creating any holes, so while her inclusion itself may not have been the wisest decision, I believe it was handled well.

And the stuff alluded to in the secret movies?  Nomura doesn't think of the details about their nature until it's time to actually work with them.  It seems like foreshadowing, but it's more like Nomura setting up the Next Cool Thing and working from there.

-She's pointless to the story!-

Maybe Days could've been taken in a different direction, but Nomura stated he wanted the game to be a slice-of-life sort of deal, and that the story is the sum of all those days.(3)  He also said that even during KH2's production phase that he wanted Roxas's reasons for leaving the Organization to be related to someone close to him, so sometime during Days's production, he thought of Xion.(4)

I think Axel alone would've sufficed, even though he had his own hand in Roxas's departure by lying to him.  Still, many of those lies related to Xion, so she played the bigger role.  I would never give a fan character that level of significance in a fanfic (in fact, I try to avoid fan characters completely), but just in case you forgot, Days isn't a fanfic and Xion isn't a fan character.  She's allowed to have that sort of importance in furthering the plot.

And by furthering the plot at all, by definition, she's not pointless to the story.  Pointless to Kingdom Hearts as a whole?  Well… I won't say she was a good addition to the series.  But I also won't say her inclusion was bad, either.  She's part of the canon, and I'm fine with that.  If she weren't, I'd be fine with that, too.

-She cockblocks Axel and Roxas!-

I'm going to be blunt about this one.

Grow.  The fuck.  Up.

Getting in the way of a pairing you love is the shallowest, stupidest reason to hate a character.  That goes for any character for any pairing for any fandom.  To anyone who hates a character for this reason, do yourself a favor and get your head out of your ass.  Sorry, there's no way for me to say any of this without sounding like a condescending bitch.  Except that I'm not sorry.  I have no reason to apologize to you.

–

Maybe it's my natural tendency to protect the underdog, or maybe it's because the haters are often more inane than the fans.  I think it's mainly because the common reasons for hating Xion are too shallow for me to consider them, and because I don't indulge much in character hate anymore.

Now that I think about it, hating characters goes against my thought process.  As a writer, I've trained myself to think hard about my characters, which has influenced how I write fanfiction.  When I write fanfics, I'm using characters who I didn't think of or develop.  To get to know them, I have to step inside from the outside, and look at how the character is put together through observation and logic, presented in canon or by probable assumptions of how/why they have the personality they do.

I believe most characters bring something likable to the plate, if you're willing to look for it.  Some are more likable and interesting than others, sure, for their personalities, role in the story, or both.  Just because some characters may not be as good or interesting as the others, or even possess some qualities that make them unlikable, doesn't mean they deserve to be hated.

Like I said, I'm not a fan of Xion, but I can't hate her.  I have yet to be convinced of her Xarmy Sueness because most of the arguments about it can be refuted somehow or are rules to judge fanfiction on, not original fiction.  And I suppose, in the end, it depends on how much you're willing to tolerate in a character.  Me?  I have a very high tolerance.  If I don't like a character, then I'm probably neutral about it.  If I ever hate a character, then it's either in a comedy series not meant to be taken seriously, or you have royally messed up.  Why do you think I hate Mary Sues so much?  To get to that level of awfulness takes an unenviable lack of talent.

I'm lukewarm towards Xion.  She's a part of Kingdom Hearts canon and I welcome her, perhaps not with open arms, but with a smile and a nod to acknowledge and dismiss her so I can focus on what I do care about.  I'm aware that there are just as many fans, and that they appear to outnumber the haters a bit, but the haters seem to be more vocal.

I'm not saying they have to like her, but it might do the haters some good to cool their jets a bit, dig deeper into her character, and at the very least, to not spend energy bashing her.