Naminé

**Naminé** was the Nobody of Kairi until the Kingdom Hearts 3, and wields the power to manipulate the memories of Sora and those close to him. The first part of her name, *nami* means "wave" in Japanese, similar to Kairi's name, which is derived from the word for "sea".

Naminé was born when Sora became a Heartless in order to free Kairi's heart during *Kingdom Hearts*. Kairi's own body never became a Nobody because her heart lacked darkness (since she was one of the Princesses of Heart), so her body and soul were never able to leave the Realm of Light and thus made it seem like Kairi was in a comatose state until she regained her heart. The absence of darkness also meant that a heartless wasn't created. This made Naminé a very strange Nobody, born from Kairi's heart and Sora's body and soul.

However, this means that Naminé was also born without Kairi's memories, only furthering her unique status as an unprecedented Nobody. Yet she and Kairi are incomplete without each other, similar to Sora and Roxas. Because of the fact that Naminé is formed from Sora's body, she has the power to manipulate his memories as well as the memories of those who are connected to him, prompting several others, even herself, to call her a "witch". Ansem the Wise stated in his ninth Secret Ansem Report that Naminé is a highly unusual Nobody, due to possessing neither the body nor the memories that a Nobody is usually made from.

## Appearance

As the Nobody of Kairi, Naminé bears a resemblance to her, though, like with Roxas and Sora, this resemblance is a bit more subdued than most. Naminé shares Kairi's blue eyes and general body structure. Naminé remains virtually unchanged from her appearance in *Chain of Memories* to *Kingdom Hearts II*, wearing the same plain, white, lace dress and light blue sandals. However, in *Chain of Memories*, it was more obvious that she had rosy cheeks and pale, pink lips.

She looks more mature and taller in *Kingdom Hearts II*, which results in the dress reaching to about mid-thigh as opposed to just above her knee as it was in *Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories*. In both of her appearances, Naminé has blonde hair that is somewhat longer than Kairi's that usually drapes over her right shoulder.

## Personality

Naminé was born without memories and without the knowledge that she had emotions, due to the unusual nature of her birth. Because of this, she had no basis of any acting upon her birth. She simply followed the orders of whoever was close to her because it was the only obvious guidance she had, effectively making her very quiet, fragile, peaceful, forgiving and generous in personality. This led to her discovery of her ability to feel, as often times she found that blindly following her captors hurt others, something that made Naminé feel responsible and guilty.

Naminé often rebelled against her captors because of this guilt in favor of trying to redeem herself by helping someone, sometimes leading to her being extremely trustful, faithful and generous. Rebelling and constantly switching sides caused Naminé's determination and drive to grow significantly from her first appearance. Her more driven personality was put to good use, often going about in a Corridor of Darkness to help the games' other protagonists. She is also apparently very talented with her drawing, as seen when she finished a complex drawing of Castle Oblivion in *Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories*.

Like Roxas, Naminé seems to possess true emotions, being a special and unusual Nobody. While most Nobodies pretend to have emotions by acting on the memories of their past lives in order to react to a specific situation, Roxas and Naminé had no memories of their past lives, and thus had no basis for any acting.

Examples of Naminé's emotional capacity are as follows:

* She felt lonely, which eventually led her to attract Sora to Castle Oblivion.
* She feared for Sora's life when he was about to be killed by the Riku Replica, even going so far as to completely shatter the replica's false memories.
* She willingly threw herself between Sora and Larxene to keep her from killing Sora.
* She showed genuine remorse and guilt for what she had done to Sora, Donald, and Goofy.
* She laughed in amusement at Donald and Goofy's teasing comments and jokes about how Sora always acts around girls.
* She was surprised and frozen in fear when Marluxia used her as a shield against Axel.
* She angrily refused to destroy Sora's heart even when threatened with death by Marluxia.
* She was a little hurt that Sora should forget her in order to become normal again.
* She willingly accepted that Sora chose to forget her and despite being hurt, respected his wishes.
* She began to cry after she put Sora into slumber in his memory pod.
* She was willing to go against DiZ's orders to assist Roxas.
* She happily smiled at Roxas, through Kairi, when Sora returned to the islands with Riku in the FMV ending of *Kingdom Hearts II*.

## Powers and Abilities

### Memory Manipulation

Unlike other humanoid Nobodies, Naminé's talents do not lie in battle, but in the ability to control memories, making her a "witch". The ability comes from the fact that she is formed from Sora's soul and body, rather than Kairi's. Because of this connection, Naminé can move around the "links" of his memories that are located within his heart to her liking, as well as the ones of those who are connected to Sora. She can even sever them completely, turning the victim into little more than an empty shell.

In addition, she can create objects affected by the new memories, evidenced by turning a card into a good luck charm for the Riku Replica and altering the appearance of Kairi's Wayfinder to resemble that of a Paopu Fruit. It is noted in *Kingdom Hearts II*that everybody who Sora, Donald, and Goofy met and worked with in *Kingdom Hearts* had mostly forgotten about them until recently; this could mean that the Castle Oblivion incident also somehow caused the other characters to lose their memories of Sora, and they regained all of them when Sora awakened. She also displays the ability to "break" the Riku Replica's heart through her connection to him.

She can also cover up Sora's memory of Kairi with her own image, but as she is Kairi's Nobody, it is impossible for Naminé to completely snuff out Kairi from anyone's memories, as shown when he regained a small memory of her even though he couldn't think of her name. Conversely, those with the greatest connections to Sora cannot ever completely forget him, as evidenced by Kairi, who still slightly remembered Sora, but not his name, his face, or the sound of his voice, while all other citizens of the Destiny Islands(along with all the people in other worlds) had completely forgotten about Sora's existence.

Naminé also has another limitation to her power. When Naminé took on the task of re-chaining Sora's memories together so that he will remember everything he had forgotten, but lose his memories of Castle Oblivion, she was unable to make much progress. DiZ reasons that it must be because Sora's other half, Roxas, is missing, and in order to completely restore Sora, Roxas and Sora must join with one another. This is half-true; the main reason of this is because of Xion, a memory-based replica of Sora created by Xemnas and Vexen.

How Naminé actually manipulates memories is something to be noted. As she is always drawing pictures on her sketchpad, DiZ believes that she draws in order to capture the memories she needs to chain together. Because of this, the walls of her room are covered by pictures of events, places, and people that are in Sora's memory. Several of them are also of Roxas, implying her ability to fiddle with Roxas's memories as well.

Naminé can sew in the manga, as shown when she fixed up Axel's coat, though he remarks that she has no talent for it.

### Darkness

Naminé, being a Nobody, can also access the Corridors of Darkness to her liking, but she only does so three times; once to communicate with Roxas and inform him that he will not cease to exist when he joins with Sora, once to help Kairi and Pluto escape from their prison cell, and then to return Sora and co. to Destiny Islands. She also seems to be able to use the power of darkness to change her physical appearance, as seen when she uses Kairi's form to help Riku; however, this could be because of her connection to Kairi. Aside from being a Nobody, during the early events of Kingdom Hearts II, after Roxas returns to Sora, Naminé is seen with Axel and Riku (as Ansem; Seek of Darkness) in Twilight Town. In the manga, it can be shown that Axel showed and taught Naminé how to travel to different worlds using the Corridors of Darkness.

## Creation and Birth

A Nobody is born when the strong heart of a person leaves the body, and is consumed by darkness, which creates their heartless and causes the body and soul to disappear and be reborn as a Nobody in one of the worlds that reside in The Realm in Between.

In the case of Kairi, when her heart left her body at Destiny Islands, while simultaneously hiding inside Sora's, only part of Naminé was formed as a foundation in Castle Oblivion. This is because Kairi could not fully complete her own process of creating a Nobody for herself as she is a Princess of Heart - a being whose heart is of pure light that can't be corrupted by darkness. So even though her heart left her body, her heart couldn't be consumed by darkness, and thus, her heartless wasn't created and her body stayed in the Realm of Light, in a comatose state, instead of going to the world in between to be reborn as Naminé.

It is also because Naminé was partly created when Kairi's heart left her body, while simultaneously hiding in Sora's, that a connection was formed between them in which that causes Ansem to describe Naminé as *"the alter ego of the Kairi that directly interfered with Sora's heart*" and the reason why Naminé has powers over Sora's memories and those connected to him - a feat which prompts Ansem and Larxene to call her a witch.Moreover, as Kairi's heart never fell to darkness Naminé was also left without any memories of Kairi when she was later fully born.

Eventually, when Sora uses the Keyblade of Heart to release his and Kairi's hearts from his body at Hollow Bastion, his body acted as the medium which would indirectly trigger the last process of making a Nobody for Kairi as he had a heart that can be consumed by darkness and a body that can be cast off because of it. However, even though Naminé was finally born through the full normal process of creating a Nobody, via Sora, she was still born lacking even his body and soul as it all had to be used, first and foremost, for his own Nobody, Roxas.

This left Naminé with nothing, and yet, the previously existing foundation of Naminé was still able to gain and reform itself as an unstable physical existence of a Nobody because Sora still essentially tricked the rules of creating a Nobody, for Kairi, into giving Naminé a physical existence. This unique and complex process is why it can be said that Roxas and Namine were born at the same time - with Naminé in particular being born from Kairi's heart and through the medium of Sora's body and soul yet still lacking her Nobody element.

Henceforth, she is described as the *"Shadow of Kairi"*, *"an extremely unstable being"*, *"having a pale appearance as if she could fade away any minute "*, and *"having not even become a Nobody"* with Nomura stating that *"she had a complicated birth that differed to proper Nobodies and could even be placed as a subspecies, which contributes to her extremely ephemeral atmosphere"*.

Ultimately, despite her complex birth, in which she was essentially manifested and born out of nothing, she and Kairi are still considered to be incomplete without eachother as Roxas and Sora are to each other.

## Role in Sora’s Adventures

She appeared in the series she even had her Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony before the series.

## Trivia

* Naminé's name can also be translated to "sound of the wave" in Japanese, since the character 音 (oto) can be pronounced as "ne". Alternatively, her name can mean "born from the wave", because of the French "né" at the end of her name ("né" is the past participle of the verb "naître", which means "to be born"). However, this may have just been added in the English releases to ensure that her name was pronounced the same way it was intended in the Japanese original.
* Naminé is the only character from the boxart cover of *Kingdom Hearts III* to not be featured in the opening of the *Kingdom Hearts III* game.
	+ Aside from this, she is the last person to reunite with protagonist characters (Sora, Roxas, and the rest of the protagonists) at *Kingdom Hearts III.*
* At *The* *Final World* in *Kingdom Hearts III,* Naminé made an appearance as a star-shaped heart. The reason for this is because she had formed her own heart before first merging with Kairi. When the Demon Tide attacked, it split Naminé away from Kairi's heart but Naminé managed to retain her own heart and her existence because Kairi holding onto to those deeply connected to her; this being Naminé herself, and Sora. She was unable to retain her form/body because she is Kairi's nobody, and she already had merged with Kairi at the end of *Kingdom Hearts II.*
* Naminé, along with the Wayfinder trio, and Roxas are the only protagonist characters who remained in their same outfit throughout the series since their debut thus far.
* Naminé, followed by Olette, Skuld, Strelitzia have their hair longer than the majority of the female characters.
* On interesting note, if wasn't for Sora having Kairi's heart in his body in *Kingdom Hearts I*, her heart would've been taken with the other princesses that were already captured, then by extension the Door to Darkness would've been opened sooner as well as Naminé not being born.