Why Merida is Not in Kingdom Hearts 3
Channel: Video Game Story Time
Date: 2019-02-15

Kingdom Hearts 3 focuses on a mash-up of CGI Disney princesses and Pixar characters. But one character is notably absent, for a very depressing reason.

At Video Game Story Time, we love Merida. We're not quite as sold on the princess of DuBroch's movie, though, as Brave is a disjointed, lacklustre film. This is all thanks to behind-the-scenes drama that has likely become the reason why Merida is not more aggressively marketed, or present in games like the Kingdom Hearts series.

We haven't done one of these chalkboard videos in a while, but as we were pondering Kingdom Hearts (and while we were researching a Storytime episode on KH3), we got thinking about what our daughter would make of the game, and whether she'd be more pleased with it if Kingdom Hearts III featured her favourite princess.

A video idea began to take shape, but it wasn't until we considered Delaney King's recent Twitter thread about transitioning to a woman in the gaming industry that we realised what this needed to be about.

For those who don't particularly love feminist video essays, we'll be sure to do something else next time. But this felt like an important discussion to have, and we're looking forward to lively (yet polite) debate in the comments, as with our previous videos on this kind of topic (such as anything we've done about Amy Rose).

Oh, and by the way, we found an unopened Merida Disney Infinity starter set on eBay for £10, which is probably going to give our daughter more entertainment than Kingdom Hearts 3 anyway!

Hope you're having a lovely day. We can't guarantee what our next video will be at this point, but we hope to see you again soon regardless.

Much love,

BretonStripes (http://twitter.com/bretonstriped - currently without Twitter as her phone is broken) and Kotor (http://twitter.com/kotorcomics - on Twitter just fine, even if he probably shouldn't be)

Title music by Tee Lopes (http://twitter.com/teelopesmusic)

Sources:

https://www.khinsider.com/news/Mobile01-Star-Wars-Marvel-unlikely-Frozen-and-the-Black-Pearl-12462
https://www.kh13.com/news/nomura-sheds-light-on-the-caribbeans-inclusion-in-kingdom-hearts-iii
https://www.mcvuk.com/business/star-wars-and-marvel-in-kingdom-hearts-iii-nothings-off-limits
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/pixar-john-lasseter-boys-club
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/arianelange/creative-work-in-connection-with-preparing-the-cartoons#.cs8KjLNNM
https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/17/18131286/the-prince-of-egypt-director-brenda-chapman-dreamworks
https://ew.com/article/2012/08/15/brave-director-brenda-chapman-breaks-silence-getting-taken-off-film-heartbreaking-devastating-distressing/
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/08/14/how-can-women-gain-influence-in-hollywood/stand-up-for-yourself-and-mentor-others
https://variety.com/2018/film/news/pixar-boys-club-john-lasseter-cassandra-smolcic-1202858982/
https://twitter.com/delaneykingrox/status/1090402436995473408