axel kingdom hearts has such unfathomable aura loss in subsequent games that its easy to forget he is introduced murdering vexen in cold blood as he begs for his life like optimus prime in transformers 3
Kingdom Hearts is really good introducing likeable characters.
It’s also really bad at developing them in the long term.
Which is kind of a problem for one of the very few serialised long running JRPG series.
Axel’s gradual devolution into ‘the funny one’ is far from the only example of how KH really struggles to give anyone stuff to do after one or two entries, but it is one of the most egregious.
i realised talking through it that like. most kh characters are clearly designed for their endings. roxas exists to become sora, xion exists to do similar, the bbs trio are all clearly working backwards from their fates, but they keep everyone around after their story is clearly definitively over