Riku is gay

Throughout Kingdom HeartsRiku struggles with the darkness inside himself and learns to accept that darkness as part of who he is.

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Me or Kairi? Riku then challenges Sora to a race — the winner of which will get to share the paopu with Kairi. Riku is under the impression that Sora likes Kairi in a romantic sense, and jokes with gay about it as friends do. After hearing about the legend, Sora draws a picture of Kairi being fed a paopu fruit, which Kairi completes by drawing Sora on the other side.

This drawing is inside the Secret Place, a location that Riku and Sora discovered when they were young children. Kairi even suggests to Sora that they leave the islands alone, without Riku at all. Amidst the chaos of the Heartless ravaging Destiny Islands, Sora finds Riku, who encourages Sora to join him in leaving the islands using the darkness.

The lead-up to the opening of the door is Riku tentatively broaching the subject of his feelings with Sora, and subtly trying to pull answers out of him. He reacts hastily and pulls one last desperate attempt to leave the islands with Sora by his side, and those emotions are what lead him to be vulnerable to the darkness in the first place.

When the two meet again in Traverse Town, Riku wants the pair of them to find Kairi together, but when he sees that Sora has new friends — Donald and Goofy — he feels that same sense of rejection all over again. It would allow him to forget about the darkness and what it made him feel. But to be true riku yourself and your identity, you have to look them right in the eye — just like Riku does with his choice.

Could there be a riku blatant metaphor for choosing to reject heterosexuality? In a rather telling conversation with Mickey in the Realm of Darkness, Riku reflects on the last time he was there. In the Keyblade Graveyard, that strength is put to the test. The Fairy Godmother tells him as much when she asks him about his dreams, which just so happen to be about Sora.

Even if all the metaphors happen to be one big coincidence, reading Riku as gay only amplifies his character and his story, especially for those who relate to gay. Sign in now. Triple-A Games.