“Power sleeps within you. If you give it form, it will give you strength.”
Destiny Islands falls a week late. Sora wakes up not to a friendly dog but an empty alley. Donald and Goofy already found Traverse Town empty and took their desperate search for the Keybarer to another world, Pluto carving his own path, but following behind. By the time they return, Sora has moved on, taking Riku’s hand like he wanted to on the islands and following him to Hollow Bastion and his new mentors. Sora’s power is the friends he makes in any universe.
I think it really is a testament to how good the storytelling in Kingdom Hearts is that it can make expected moments still feel significant and emotional. Like, even if I ignore the fact that I got spoiled on a lot of story-beats before I ever played the games: We knew that Xion would disappear at the end of Days. We knew that the Wayfinder trio would fall to darkness at the end of BBS. We knew that most of Xehanort's classmates would die, that Roxas would come back, that Sora would save Aqua etc and yet when it happens it's executed so well that it still feels as important as it should be. We know that Scala and the people living in it will probably be fucked at the end of Missing Link and we know that Sora will probably escape from Quadratum in KH4, but you bet I'll cry when it happens nonetheless