History Podcast / KingdomSmarts

** After learning that Rikku from Final Fantasy X was removed from the first game to avoid confusion with Riku, Jake is a bit flabbergasted that is a line the franchise didn't cross.

* {{Crossplayer}}: Played with. Shannon is usually dressed as a male character in the title cards, but that's not too surprising because the franchise has a surplus of those in principal roles. It moreso comes into play with the ''Days'' and ''K-Pop Smarts'' cards with Jake wearing outfits for women. Really it has more to do with Shannon's favourite characters in media often being men and Jake's often being women. The topic was discussed near the start of ''Birth by Sleep'' when Shannon recounted how she didn't initially know who to draw them as since Jake wasn't familiar with anyone and Shannon wasn't interested in putting herself in Aqua's outfit...but she did want to put on Xehanort's.

-->'''Jake:''' Didn't...Luxord have...time powers?\\

* EvolvingCredits: The cover art started with Jake and Shannon dressed as Goofy and Donald respectively. Once the series reached ''358/2 Days'' it changed to them dressed as Larxene and Xigbar. For ''Birth by Sleep'' it changed to Eraqus and Xehanort. For ''Re:coded'' it put them in Goofy and Donald's [[Film/{{Tron}} Space Paranoids]] outfits, which stayed for ''Dream Drop Distance'' due to the presence of ''Film/TronLegacy''. For ''χ'', Jake is dressed in one of the default outfits and Shannon is dressed as her OC Xoret, who she had actually [[https://twitter.com/kingdomsmarties/status/1379224127295328257?s=20 recreated]] in the game.

* EvolvingCredits: The cover art started with Jake and Shannon dressed as Goofy and Donald respectively. Once the series reached ''358/2 Days'' it changed to them dressed as Larxene and Xigbar. For ''Birth by Sleep'' it changed to Eraqus and Xehanort. For ''Re:coded'' it put them in ''Film/{{Tron}}''-style outfits, which stayed for ''Dream Drop Distance'' due to the presence of ''Film/TronLegacy''. For ''χ'', Jake is dressed in one of the default outfits and Shannon is dressed as her OC Xoret, who she had actually [[https://twitter.com/kingdomsmarties/status/1379224127295328257?s=20 recreated]] in the game.

* ''KingdomHearts02BirthBySleepAFragmentaryPassage''--Chapters 169--171

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI''--Chapters 001-014
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories''--Chapters 015-031
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII''--Chapters 032-076
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2''--Chapters 077-099
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep''--Chapters 100-123
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsCoded''--Chapters 124-130
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance''--Chapters 131-148

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsX''--Chapters 149--???

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: A big part of the show's humor is reinterpreting characters based on looks or context cues, for example:
** Xaldin is hot for Beast, and his efforts center around seducing him (in BBS) and getting a three way with Belle (KH2).
** Mickey Mouse sees himself as Riku's foster father. Mostly because Mickey is pretty blasé in canon when Sora risks his life, but whenever Riku runs off or is in danger he gets panicky and wants to run after him.
** Queen Minnie is a low key despotic ruler. In BBS, after committing a few crimes, she exiles Pete to be imprisoned ''in an empty void'', and Jake and Shanon joke that King Mickey signed off on that Executive Order.

* AccentOnTheWrongSyllable: Occasionally crops up when a character's name isn't said out loud until several games after they're introduced, but the duo aren't worried because [[MST3KMantra they're made-up names anyway]].
** One notable example: The "a" in Braig is pronounced like "day" in later games, but Jake and Shannon usually pronounce it like "die" as a form of petty vengeance against him.

* BerserkButton: Berserk may be too strong a word since the two are rather cordial about it, but there are some things that they simply no longer tolerate for the sake of the show and their sanity.
** The fact that Jake must be kept in the dark about everything is the most important part of the show, and even joking about spoilers for ''Kingdom Hearts'' games will get a person blocked on social media.

* EntertaininglyWrong: A lot of the fun of the podcast comes from Jake trying to understand the story he's being told and formulating theories based on knowledge that often won't be fully expanded on until later games. An early example from the first episodes has Jake hear how Riku is swallowed by the darkness, followed immediately by Sora's pulling the Keyblade from the darkness, and posits the question "Is ''Riku'' the Keyblade?" This is proven wrong when Riku becomes a major character in the story not too long after. Even when these guesses are wrong, Shannon often concedes that the ideas Jake suggests are the kinds of things ''Kingdom Hearts'' probably ''would'' do.
-->'''Shannon:''' ''*as Jake theorizes about Ventus, Roxas, and Sora*'' You have some of the right words in there, just all the wrong sentences.

* PapaWolf: So far every protagonist and their friends have been jokingly "adopted" by Jake as he tries in vain to protect them from the events of the games, and Jake usually refers to them as his sons and daughters.

-->'''Jake (on twitter)''': I want everyone to respect my privacy in this trying time where a different motherfucker than the one we learned about in [=KH2=] is named Xehanort and it's driving me up a goddamn wall.

-->'''Jake''': Who's this old-man-jaundice eyes? ''Who is Baby?''

* WhamLine: One hits Jake like this at the end of episode 100, just as they start ''Birth By Sleep''.
-->'''Jake''': And that's been ''Kingdom Hearts''.\\

-->'''Shannon''': We still haven't met the ''true'' Organization XIII yet.\\

The premise is simple: every episode, ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' fangirl Shannon has thirty minutes to explain the story of the franchise to Jake, who has managed to know absolutely nothing about it until the podcast began. Alongside recapping the plot Shannon also gives asides on her favourite characters, gameplay elements, and fandom notes. Of course Jake also intervenes with reactions, thoughts, and theories about what he's being told, and occasionally [[TenderTears crying]].

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsX''--CHapters 149--???

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ks_coded.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Cover art during ''Re:coded'' and ''Dream Drop Distance'']]

* EvolvingCredits: The cover art started with Jake and Shannon dressed as Goofy and Donald respectively. Once the series reached ''358/2 Days'' it changed to them dressed as Larxene and Xigbar. For ''Birth by Sleep'' it changed to Eraqus and Xehanort. For ''Re:coded'', it put them in ''Film/{{Tron}}''-style outfits.

The series has a [[https://twitter.com/kingdomsmarties?lang=en twitter]] and a [[https://www.patreon.com/kingdomsmarts Patreon]], the latter of which has spawned the exclusive SpinOff ''K-Pop Smarts'', in which Shannon and Jake watch K-Pop music videos and try to decipher their storylines.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance''--Chapters 131-???

** Keeping Jake as spoiler-free as possible is taken very seriously, since the show's whole premise collapses if he learns too much too early. One episode during their ''Kingdom Hearts II'' episodes opens with Jake explaining that he literally yelled at a co-worker at his day job to not say anything about ''Kingdom Hearts III'' to avoid getting spoiled about the game.

* AccentOnTheWrongSyllable: Occasionally crops up when a character's name isn't said out loud until several games after they're introduced, but the duo aren't worried because they're made-up names anyway.

[[caption-width-right:350:Cover art during ''Re:coded'']]

The show runs through the games of the series in order of release order. As of July 2020 they have covered the following games, with bonus episodes between series for them to catch their breath and answer audience questions:

''*ending music plays*''

* UnderusedGameMechanic: Jake and Shannon agree that ''coded'' could have been a cool game if it went deeper into the gimmick of gameplay being different in every world, but was hampered by all those worlds being retreads of the first game, having to visit those worlds three times over the course of the game, and being originally made for a phone.