For something as decidedly family-friendly as Kingdom Hearts claims to be, The Hunchback for Notre Dame is such a strange choice.
For reference, this is the “Hellfire” song I mentioned during this episode when talking about how dark this story is.
First off, I have, since the time of the recording, been informed that “gypsy” is a racist slur. (The correct term being Romani.) Had I known that at the time, I would’ve pointed it out and the conversation that we had would’ve played out quite different. That said, it further underscores the point I was making in this episode.
Even in the lexicon of Disney movies, this isn’t one of their more beloved works. Not to say that it’s bad or that it doesn’t have fans, but it never reached the kind of popularity that a lot of their movies from this time period did. That might explain why it’s in a side game and not one of the bigger games in the Kingdom Hearts canon, but it’s still such an odd choice when it’s dark tone is combined with it’s relative obscurity.
At least we get some good character moments with Sora and Riku out of it, even if I’m left disturbed by Frollo’s Romani/Esmerelda obsession to this day.
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