Final Fantasy X/Headscratchers


 * Why are they running head first into a killer whale/demon/planet destroyer/eater with an army of chocobo's?
 * No. They were running head first into the sinspawn, not Sin himself. Those crusaders were tasked with holding off the dozens of monsters that come from Sin while the ones with the cannons try to take the big guy out.
 * Why, in the opening sequence, is everyone except Tidus running towards the wall of water that you can see when the fayth stops time?
 * They are running from the Sin Spawn, Zanarkand is a city that relies heavily on water so presumably most of the populace can swim. Would you rather take your chances with water or an army of murderous bugs?


 * Why did the Al Bhed break into the temple holding Tidus? They don't explore for treasure or Big Prizes.
 * For the Al Bhed, I am quite certain they were down there investigating the sunken Farenheit; presumably they heard Tidus making a ruckus and decided to check it out.


 * Rikku helps you kill the monster and everyone leaves. Why did the various guys with guns not use them to shoot the monster?
 * You're forgetting that the fiend in question (assuming you're referring to the Klikk fought in Baaj Temple) was FAST (watch it running around the walls of the room in the cutscene before the fight, it moves so quickly it's practically a blur) and bullets are limited. The fact that you're able to damage it is Gameplay and Story Segregation, but keep in mind also that Tidus, as a professional blitzball player, is also very fast on his feet. It's possible that if that battle had been a cutscene, we would have seen Tidus and the fiend rapidly dodging and exchanging blows in a very fast-paced battle. In other words, they didn't shoot it because it would have been too hard to hit it, they would have risked shooting Tidus (and later Rikku when she joined the battle) and they didn't have ammo to waste. Another possibility is that, since Rikku stepped in to join the battle, they essentially interpreted that action as her saying "Stand back, I'll take care of this" and held their fire out of respect for her. She is their leader's daughter, after all, she most likely ranks fairly high in the group.
 * They didn't shoot the monster because bullets aren't effective past like 2 feet when fired into water.
 * But... They weren't underwater, and YES, damnit, because these points Just Bug Me.
 * Look at what the poster above you wrote: fired into water.
 * What the original poster is presumably referring to is when Tidus is alone in the temple or dungeon or whatever, and the Al Bhed come storming in while he's fighting the fiend. On land. Rikku joins up and helps him, but the rest of the Al Bhed (Brother et al) just kind of stand there and watch.
 * Maybe because shrapnel from the grenades (it couldn't have been fire element grenades, or they wouldn't have worked) would be more effective than the guns that the other Al Bhed had, which could have been no stronger than gunpowder-powered slingshots?
 * Also, the other Al Bhed were thinking somehow that Tidus might be a fiend so maybe they decided to stay away, armed with their guns just in case.
 * Since guns were forbidden Machnia it may not be all that easy for the Al Bhed to find/produce ammo for them. Maybe they were confident rikku could take on the beast and so decided to conserve a limited resource.


 * Why did Rikku leave it to Tidus to activate the computer in the airship (while it's underwater) when he obviously knew jack shit about them, what with his whacking it? Why did it activate from Tidus whacking it?
 * Sure, Tidus didn't know how to activate the ship, but how do you know Rikku would have? She hadn't seen it before either.
 * Cid even mention in the game much later that because of Bevelle's taboo on machinas, they are in the dark when it comes to how they works. As for whacking, everyone does that when a device don't work!
 * Rule of Funny?
 * Well, if you look at her in the background of that scene, she's facepalming, so it's likely he just got to it before she could. And like the other person said, Rule of Funny.


 * Why did Yuna suddenly decide that dying to get rid of Sin (if only for ten years) wasn't worth it three quarters through the game when she's been saying that it IS worth it for the whole time beforehand?
 * As to the last point, I'm guessing it's that one of her guardians has to become a fayth, too.
 * Actually, players discover during the talk with Yunalesca that Yuna's real aim is to defeat Sin forever, and she hopes that her victory will be Sin's final appearance. After learning that her hope is impossible, she stays true to this real aim by rejecting the "die for ten years" thing and commits to finding a final answer.
 * Specifically, although Yuna was willing to sacrifice herself for a chance that it would get rid of Sin for good, she was not willing to sacrifice both herself and one of her guardians for a temporary Calm after which Sin was guaranteed to come back. She rejected the Final Summoning in order to continue to pursue her goal of permanently defeating Sin.
 * Wait, what? It was specifically stated by Yuna within the game that she didn't care if the Calm was temporary. She wanted to make people happy even if it was just for a while. The first person who made her question how futile this is was Tidus. It's really not that unbelievable to assume that Tidus planted a seed of doubt that finally sprouted when Yunalesca revealed the entire Pilgrimage to be bullshit.
 * This is me just being anal here, but a Calm has never lasted for ten years. Yes, it was ten years since Sin was defeated the last time, but the Ultimania (and some NPCs) state that the Calm only really lasts for a few months.
 * I was under the impression that the Calm lasted about four years. It's far from unknown for guides to be incorrect on the flavor info, but which NPCs stated that it was only a few months (I plan to watch for any "four years" or other specific time references next time I play, anyway)?
 * It wasn't that the Calm lasted 10 years, it was that that's how long it's been since Braska defeated Sin. The Calm refers to the period of time where Sin isn't around at all.
 * There have been 5 High Summoners during 1000 years of Sin. Braska's Calm lasted 10 years; the others probably defeated Sin so soundly the Calm lasted much longer. Only High Summoners who beat Sin explicitly 'seal' him off for however long, there can't have been others unless the game mentioned otherwise.
 * Actually, I think it's mentioned that Braska's Calm was a particularly long one. It's not that the earlier Summoners defeated Sin more soundly that it lasted longer; it's that Sin is so unbelievably powerful that it's very rare for a Summoner to defeat Sin at all.
 * Auron
 * Braska's Calm lasted a few months just like all previous Calms. Yuna is determined to kill Sin even if it lasts for a few months because she has hope in Yevon's teachings about Sin being the punishment for the sins of people. When she finds that no matter what she does Sin will keep coming and therefore the spiral of death will continue, because her religion was just a lie, she decides that there must be a true way to defeat Sin because he is just another monster, not a punishment from the gods.
 * And because she learns that a guardian is sacrificed as part of the Final Summoning. She wasn't willing to do that to another person.
 * It has never been stated explicitly how long a Calm lasts. Final Fantasy Wiki defines a Calm as "an unset amount of time of peace that follows when a summoner defeats Sin, dies and posthumously gains the title of High Summoner." The only amount of time defined in the game, 10 years, refers to how long it has been since High Summoner Braska's defeat of Sin. It most likely varies how long it takes for Sin to come back due to each Final Aeon being different and thus a different amount of time to be turned into Sin, and so the Calm's length also varies.


 * How can people breathe underwater in FFX?
 * They can't, they can just hold their breath for a really long time through extensive training.
 * For all we know, Spirians can have gills.
 * Part of it can be handwaved by Blitzball: having a lung capacity that can hold air for at least 5 minutes is going to help off the Blitzball court as well as on it. Of course this only applies to Blitzball players...
 * I guess Blitzball players get all the chicks. Then it's basic natural selection.
 * Well, this is just Wild Mass Guessing but... they're all descended from GUYBRUSH THREEPWOOD!
 * True, but only Blitzball players can breathe underwater by themselves. Rikku can breathe underwater because she's got that SCUBA suit we see in the initial mission with her. (Now, how she retains the ability after she's taken the suit off, I don't know -- too much trouble to program?) You'll note that, in the underwater section in Gagazet, you're forced to use Tidus, Wakka, and Rikku ... no one else could enter that section of the dungeon, because only Blitzball players and Al Bhed with their SCUBA can go underwater.
 * Training. Just talk to the entire team (repeatedly) when you first wash up on Besaid and you'll find this out from one of them. He also says that the best Blitzball players can even sleep underwater.
 * Yep, they train. You can even see Yuna doing it in this video.
 * My theory is that Spira's water just doesn't work the same way as our water.
 * I say that they have some sort of device in their mouth. With that, it takes on the function of gills, and makes water breathable. Of course, cause you never see them actually PUT IT ON, its quite possible that its just drilled in their mouths.
 * Last I heard, Word of God said it was because Pyreflies.
 * The answer from the Word of God is indeed Pyreflies. Sure, it takes training to be able to do it effectively and longer than others, but in the world of FFX, breathing underwater is a form of Pyreflie manipulation.
 * Wait a second! Don't the Pyreflies also summon fiends and the images of lost loved ones? What, are these things the MacGuffin of everything now?
 * Yes. The impression I got was that if it weren't for the Farplane and Pyreflies, Spira's physics and metaphysics wouldn't be too different from Real Life.
 * "Pyreflies" is basically saying "A wizard did it".
 * But don't you have to be a summoner to manipulate Pyreflies?
 * I can accept numerous reasons for why blitzball players can breath underwater (or hold their breath for up to five minutes at a time), but what got me is how Wakka can apparently TALK underwater, when you dive off the Shoopuff to rescue Yuna when you're crossing the Moonflow.
 * He can't, he makes signs to Tidus. You can't see him talking at all.
 * Actually, he does talk, you hear him say "Yuna, we'll save you!" as he swims towards the Extractor.
 * If you transferred all Al Bhed dictionaries to a new save then you will see that the thing Brother wants to give Tidus before getting under water again is some kind of breathing device. That's probably what Rikku uses. And since Tidus had no idea what it was it is easy to assume that he just can hold his breath long enough himself.
 * I haven't played the game in a while but the item Brother is holding resembles a pair of Al Bhed goggles to me. To a native Spiran that would be all the visual clue they need for You've been drafted into the Al Bhed pal.
 * I think it's more like "you will need this in order to see underwater". And why he doesn't need them when playing or in Via Purifico is because Baaj Temple and it's surroundings are a stormy zone where probably the sea makes people unable to see, as opposed to the former places.


 * Why did they even bother fighting Seymour after the first time? Why didn't Yuna just send him?
 * It would seem that Unsent have a tremendous amount of willpower to stay around. More than likely he would have fought against the Sending, to say nothing of attacking her directly, which is another concern. Which is why they didn't Send him until they beat him again: he wasn't strong enough to fight.
 * Also, the first time they meet him as an Unsent, they have to run away shortly after beating him to avoid being captured, and the second time, he falls down Mount Gagazet.
 * They try sending him after killing him the first time, but Tromell interferes.
 * True - but we are talking about a group of people that can summon monsters, cast ridiculously powerful black magic, has enough grenades to equip an army and in which has Sir Auron as a member. Tromell and his couple of weakling guards wouldn't have stood a chance in hell if Yuna had really wanted to send Seymour.
 * They were already in enough trouble for murdering one important Guado, they didn't want to make it worse by killing two.
 * No, it's more like "a whole army of Guado". Even our group would have problems fighting them. When you try to escape from Macalania you are pursued by unlimited Guado, no matter how many you defeat they will keep coming unless you flee and fight your boss battle as you are supposed to. Also, they can send him anytime when he is undead, Yuna tries sending him when they're marrying, but when they find him transformed it would be a difficult task to send anyone while they're throwing spells at you (Reflect is Game Breaker the first time, but Flux is That One Boss for something).


 * If the Unsent characters are basically undead, why aren't they damaged by healing spells?
 * Because they don't have Zombie status.
 * It's because their extreme willingness to live makes them alive, not undead.
 * It would screw up The Reveal about Auron.
 * Not to mention produce gameplay balance issues that would make Auron virtually unusable. Not being able to heal him, or damaging him while healing the party, is a significant issue.
 * The Unsent and the Undead are essentially two different types of species. The Undead are basically zombies - walking corpses that exist only to kill. Unsent are more like solid ghosts that survive solely on their will to live.


 * Why doesn't Auron get sent after Yuna sends Seymour or at least go away from the sending so he won't be sent?
 * He doesn't get sent because he resists the Sending, but he doesn't leave because that would be too conspicuous.
 * It's possible that when sending an Unsent, one must "aim," focus on who or what they're sending, with a target or target zone. (In fact, the same could go for corpses, and Yuna had the focus area as the water the bodies were in.)
 * There's actually a scene somewhere in the game where Yuna performs a Sending, and Auron, standing some ways away, is visibly pained enough for Tidus to notice. It's no stretch to assume that the Sending is pulling at him, but he can resist because Yuna's not focusing on him. When Yuna sends all of Sin at the end, Auron goes along because he's inside Sin along with them, and because he's willing to go.
 * I'm fairly certain that Auron collapses (in Guadosalam) before Yuna actually begins the sending, which is strange, because I can't see why that would happen. You can check a script of the game and see this.
 * It's possible he collapsed due to his proximity to the entrance  and   which would theoretically cause other unsent people to be hurt, if only because of resonance. Not the best explanation, but still relatively reasonable.
 * Proximity seems to be the answer. If you're next to someone performing a Sending you might be sent. Determinator does not truly apply because all Unsent are Determinators, if they hadn't a strong will they wouldn't be Unsent in the first place.


 * What does Yojimbo do with the money?
 * Hookers, booze, and illegal substances in dream!Zanarkand. As the Bahamut kid shows, the Fayth can pop over there and make themselves visible, if they so choose.
 * Or dog food.
 * Tradition? He is a Samurai.
 * First he uses it to get laid. Then he gets laid some more. Then he gets some crack and gets laid again. Because that's what Yojimbo's about. Gettin' fucked.
 * Remembering Usagi Yojimbo, maybe he is a Ronin and works as a sword for hire. and carries on his former occupation even in... well, aeon-ness.


 * Why is Blitzball still played the same way 1,000 years in the future? For that matter, why does everyone speak the same language? I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to communicate with someone from 1,000 years ago.
 * Because Tidus' Zanarkand isn't ancient, its a dream of the modern Fayth. Since the faith get frequent exposure to modern Spira via summoners, keeping up with lingual trends to ensure communication, it makes sense that their dream would change as their knowledge changes.
 * The implication in the game was that the Fayth made Dream Zanarkand similar to Spira specifically so Tidus and Jecht would be accepted there to some extent. Think about it, why pick two Blitzball players in the first place? Because it's the world wide sport everyone can recognize, and people will accept a couple of silly guys who think they're from Zanarkand if they're that good at Blitzball. And the cheer/signal given by fans of Dream Blitzball is identical to the salute to Yevon, mostly so Jecht and Tidus would recognize it. Everything points to the Fayth doing it on purpose, not by coincidence. Think of when Tidus meets Wakka. Wakka's reaction is, basically, "Yeah, sure, you're from Zanarkand...But holy crap can you play. Wanna join us?"
 * Um no remember Tidus was based off of a famous blitzball player, as was Jecht. The reason why Blitzball is still played is because according to Yuna it takes people's minds off of Sin even for a little while. Its viewed sort of like a comfort food.
 * I meant the reason Blitzball is played in Dream Zanarkand is to have them be familiar to the real Spira. And it still points to the Fayth deliberately picking Blitzballers so they have that connection with the real world; they might seem a little crazy to the average person, but they'll accept the eccentricities if they're that good at the world wide sport.
 * It's stretching things pretty far to say that the Fayth deliberately shaped Dream Zanarkand just so Tidus would blend in better. A more likely explanation is that, with Sin leaving Spira in a virtually non-stop After the End state, people are too busy trying to stay alive to worry about building a better Blitzball game. Besides, changing the one thing in their dying world that makes life fun is bound to spark They Changed It Now It Sucks on a lynch-mob level. Blitzball's probably the only thing in life that the people of Spira can be sure won't change.
 * The whole game, though, was a Batman Gambit on the part of the Fayth to end their dream. They deliberately sent Tidus in so he could beat Jecht and find a way to end things; it's not like it happened by accident. Remember, it's a dream world, powered by magic. You don't think they'd be able to manipulate things in their own dream world? So they make sure the Blitzball they play in Dream Zanarkand is the same as in Spira, so Tidus and Jecht will be accepted in the world, rather than put in an institution for going on and on about how they're from Zanarkand. They might not have changed the whole world (otherwise, Zanarkand would've been a lot closer to Spira), but they did keep Blitzball the same and throw in some other references so Tidus would be familiar with it.
 * Spira is a world stuck in complete stagnation in just about everything, including technology and religion, so it wouldn't be hard to think that sports would stagnate as well. There's just no time or money for people to sit around thinking up a new sport, creating technologies to play it, and getting people excited about it or wanting to play it, especially since they already have a well-loved sport.
 * That's right. Also, Blitzball was a sport played everywhere before the war, Dream Zanarkand was the same as Zanarkand was (it's a plot point after all, the Faith say they're dreaming Zanarkand as it was in it's glory days) so Blitzball was still played there.
 * The question was why is it still played 'the same way'. It's because there's no room for it to advance. If they tried to advance technology to make it better and different, Sin would rise up and destroy that technology(because that's one of two commands Sin was taught when created).


 * So, what's the diff between an Unsent and a Summon? And before you say "They're giant monsters", Seymour in later appearances looked for all intents and purposes like a Summon of himself.
 * Well, first of all, Unsent wouldn't be summons, they'd be Fayth- the summons are constructs created by the Fayth. And second, the Fayth are unsent because they're trapped in the magical mountain, their souls tied to this life by hatred of Sin, not by a lack of Sending. A lack of sending results in similar symptoms- magic powers and the ability to reconstruct onesself as a monster- but they're not a Fayth per se. Its sorta a political difference. Fayth create Summons, Unsent create Fiends.
 * This troper saw it as the Fayth statues being the tie that the Fayth/aeons had to the world, and their job/their hatred of Sin kept them sane. Comparatively. The Aeons themselves beign exactly the same as the Unsent, just with a purpose (to help Summoners) and their "core" being elsewhere (whereas  as well as the other Unsent and Fiends kept their core self inside their physical self).
 * They're all made out of pyreflies, it's just a matter of what's controlling them. An Unsent is a person's dying will imprinted on the pyreflies into a human-like form. A Fiend is a person's dying emotions, with no strong will behind it, getting imprinted instead. And an Aeon is sort of like a remote-control Unsent or Fiend: the pyreflies react to the Fayth's power, which is being channeled from afar by the summoner (which is why they disperse again when the summoning stops).


 * Sin seems to be some kind of marine thing or something, so couldn't they just avert the problem by not living near the water?
 * Sin prefers water just like the pyreflies, but he can still fly around just fine(though it does seem that places near water get attacked more often).
 * Dude, take a look at the map. Most of the planet's islands, so there isn't much choice unless you want to all cram onto Mt. Gagazet or onto the Calm Lands.
 * Even the Calm Lands aren't safe, judging by the rift's origin story. And who's to say that every incarnation of Sin was water-based? Jecht liked the water, he was a professional Blitzball player, so it's kind of useful that this Sin's abilities and environment were reminiscent of Blitzball. Why would you move to a monster-infested mountain or forest or ice plain if you were just going to have to move back in as little as five years?
 * Sin is always the same monster, so it's always water-based. If Sin changed every time a summoner defeats him I think the whole thing about him being a creature that returns from death (that's what people believe in Spira) would make no sense.
 * Also keep in mind that throughout human history most people have lived near the coast or other large bodies of water. It's just more convenient in terms of getting food, water, and natural resources. The Calm Lands, by contrast, are basically wind-blasted wastes and grasslands on high plateaus, not terribly suitable for settlement.
 * Am I the only one who remembers that ugly whale flying at the end of the game? It looks like Sin prefers to stay in water, but can go anywhere he damn pleases.
 * I posted this before.
 * Sin most definitely can fly and has done so before (as in, before the game).
 * I think what everybody's forgetting here is that Sin can fly.
 * Sin can fly? It can't be!


 * Wait, wait wait. Wait. What is Yojimbo's dog? Is it part of him, like Anima's other head presumably is, or is it an extra bit that got thrown in to make the summon better, like each of the Magus sisters?
 * I believe Yojimbo's fayth had a dog entombed with him (if nothing else, it appears when the fayth talks to Tidus). So apparently, Yojimbo's dog is the projection of the fayth dog.


 * When fighting that one fiend on the airship, Wakka throws a blitzball maybe a few hundred feet, nails it, and it still has the power to return to his hands. How the crap did the Aurochs lose for ten years!? I understand there's some difference between air and water, but... c'mon, man!
 * One can only assume the fault lay in the rest of the Aurochs' general lack of talent and the team's overall lack of motivation.
 * You sure? I kept the Aurochs (except throwing Tidus in) and as usual, Tidus was my only decent player. We dominated. I suppose if Wakka's one of those "make sure everyone else" gets a turn people, though...
 * The Aurochs are the Cubs and, just like the Luca Goers are the Spira equivalent of the Yankees. Or.. they just don't have the luxury of state of the art training facilities and practicing at the beach would run the risk of Sin swooping down or some other fiends attacking.
 * Also, maybe the only really good player they had all this time WAS just Wakka? In relation, if you use the Blitzball Characters then the Original Auroch's Team, the only one who is any good is Wakka. And his Auroch's Spirit Shot "is" the most powerful Shot in the game, reaching 99 easily before anyone can come close to 70, and that's with a full power Sphere Shot. The rest of the Auroch's are mostly just average at best, though ironically it's the Luca Goers who end up garbage later on.
 * Wakka's Auroch Spirit Shot depends on how many original Aurochs you have in your team, their SH is added to yours. Also, have you seen the Albhed Psyches monstruous goalkeeper? Albhed Psyches can easily own your original team unless you're lucky at first stages of the game.
 * That's easy. In a Blitzball match most shots are made by kicking the ball not throwing it. Sure Wakka can THROW a ball a few hundred feet, but maybe he's not so good at kicking?
 * It's obvious that Evrae is a good sport and hits it back to him.
 * Having one good thrower doesn't make your entire team the stuff of legends. Even if Wakka had the SH and accuracy to score consistently, maybe he's a horrible defender, or his teammates were easy to tackle, or there was no coordination among the Aurochs, or they panicked when they had possession and freaked during defense, or any number of things. It's really obvious, but in sports, having one teammate with one extraordinary attribute is not enough to win you games.
 * It's heavily implied that the whole reason the Besaid Aurochs had such a bad record was because of a severe lack of motivation. When every other team strove for "VICTORY!", the Aurochs' goal was simply "to do their best". They essentially didn't care if they won, hence they never really tried to win, and so they got utterly trashed by the teams who DID want to win, e.g. the Luca Goers. You can see from your encounters with the Goers in the game that they do have a strong motivation and enthusiasm to win, even if they are jerks about it. Once Tidus gives the Aurochs their new goal - "VICTORY!" - they get a pretty huge motivation boost and (if the player does well enough) go on to win the Blitzball tournament in Luca for the first time in the team's history. So long story short, it's not that Wakka was a bad Blitzball player, it was just that he was never really motivated enough to win before.


 * The Al Bhed language. Just changing one letter for each letter? Fryd dra vilg fana drao drehgehk?
 * Nima Uv Luum un Qdnasa Guum Maddanw, E tuh'd ghuf.
 * Maybe they were thinking it would be easier to create, work with, and translate a cipher language than trying to make up an entirely new language from scratch?
 * The weird thing here is that Rin the Al Bhed trader that keeps cropping up, mentions the cipher language is part of the cultural barrier that fosters prejudice towards the Al Bhed, and laments few people like the protagonists are trying to learn it. In turn, very few Al Bhed know un-ciphered English, so it doesn't seem like they all got together and decided to do it just for pyreflies and giggles (at least, not the present generation, maybe it's all a big joke of their ancestors?)
 * I think we can chalk it up to Gameplay and Story Segregation. As far as Spira's concerned, the Al Bhed really do speak a different language. Having the language presented to the player as a simple cipher is just the developers' way of making sure we can solve the puzzles and enjoy the Al Bhed's Bilingual Bonus dialogue (and it saved them the trouble of having to actually invent a fictional language).
 * What is strange is that if you only have partial knowledge of Al Bhed, you can see words partially deciphered, rather than a word being completely known or unknown to you. Then again, it is a step above most depictions of fictional languages (like Tho Fan in Jade Empire, which, if you listen closely, has the same sets of phrases for various groups of people, like old men or young women, regardless of context), and a nice touch of detail.
 * It can be asumed that you're still learning so you get some things but not them all because you still don't get the accent. Or something like that.


 * Why is there no Water-elemental summon? Sure, you could use Zombie Evrae as a Leviathan Expy, but why don't they give it to you?
 * Because Water-elemental Magic sucks.
 * To me, it seemed like Anima might have been meant to be a water-themed aeon originally (I doubt it, but it did look like that to me). Her temple is in a cluster of extremely small islands at the edge of the map, she looks sort of like a mutilated cross between a Sin(spawn) and a human, her temple is flooded, and her lower half is sunk into... someplace (think about how various water creatures are floating or partially submerged when on land). It seemed to me (even if it isn't how it happened, and Anima was planned that way the whole time) that Anima could originally have been water-themed, but they decided to make her Darkness themed to make Seymour that much more sinister and Anima' story that much more of a Tear Jerker, as wll as lessen the paralells to Sin. Plus, they already had an ice summon, which is often a subdomain of the Water summon in various ganes I've played.
 * It's a spectacularly noticeable lack since the other three elements each have a summon. It seemed pretty obvious to me that Besaid was the water temple just from the animations associated with the Besaid sphere. Which in no way explains why Valefor wasn't even vaguely almost water elemental.
 * Perhaps the designers didn't want your starter summon to be one that some enemies were strong against. But having a water summon would make sense, since Besaid is an island, and they could use an obscure summon like Bismark or make up a new one (while Ramuh is often the Thunder-Element summon, he sometimes gets replaced; by Quetzalcoatl in VIII and Ixion in this game). On the other hand, it's somewhat surprising that X promoted water to being alongside fire, ice and lightning in the main caster elements, instead of a less-used one like wind, earth, dark and (offensive)Holy.
 * FFX was water-themed.
 * Perhaps there was a water-summon. Perhaps there were many temples with their own fayths that existed in the past, but were lost when Sin attacked them (like Baaj temple) or simply abandoned when newer paths along the pilgrimage were developed (like Remiem Temple).
 * Tidus and Sin are both water themed Aeons. What else do you want?


 * How the hell Tidus even knows how to handle a sword? Because when Auron gives him one, right at the beginning, he seems pretty comfortable with it, and later Wakka even comments how good he is in battle with the fiends... He's a blitzball star, alright, but would blitzball training include sword-fighting :D ?
 * Keep in mind that Auron's been keeping an eye on him for years, and ostensibly had some idea that Tidus might be pulled into Spira at some point. He seems to know what's going on when Sin shows up. Therefore, it's entirely plausible that Auron taught him how to handle a blade over the years. Also, at one point Wakka asks if fiends are a problem in Zanarkand, and Tidus mentions they usually stay away, but when they do show up, they're a big problem. Therefore, it'd make sense for someone in that world to know how to take care of themselves, just in case.
 * On the other hand, the first time Auron gives him the sword he practically falls over because of its weight. As for "handling" it, Tidus's only move for the first part of the game is running up to a monster, slashing it, and running away. It's not like he goes in for complicated swordplay, nor does he have a shield or any other accoutrements.
 * Instructions for swordfighting: put the pointy part towards the enemy.
 * He DOESN'T know how to handle a sword. The game even says he's "inexperienced" with the sword, which is why he's not as strong physically as Auron, who does have experience. His stance is awkward and he holds the sword in a strange way. Wakka's comment about him being good in battle might not necessarily refer to his skill with a sword specifically - Wakka's actual line is "You handled yourself pretty well", which might mean that Tidus kept calm and didn't panic or something, rather than that he was a good fighter. Then again, he is fast, and it's reasonable to assume he has very good upper body strength (he can throw a ball through WATER at enough force to make it travel very far and very fast), so it's likely that despite his inexperience, he could still do some damage when he whacked the enemies with the sharp end of his blade.


 * What the heck is that gigantic water bridge/tentacle that hovers over Dream Zanarkand? At first I figured it was Sin's wake as it emerged from the ocean (for that matter, what's up with Sin's sphere of water in the opening scene? It does kinda make sense for a flying ocean creature, but Sin never uses it again), but it's also there during Tidus's experience with the Fayth, and it's there in the official artwork too, suggesting it's a permanent structure.
 * You mean that waterfall like structure? It's just a part of Zanarkands architecture, probably magical in nature. Given that the world of FFX is dominated by magic, its not really a shock or anything to the possibility, ESPECIALLY considering the origins.
 * If you're going to resort to A Wizard Did It, don't act so self-righteous about. Also, Dream Zanarkand doesn't have magic, hence Tidus freaking out and the other characters giving him a Justified Tutorial to explain it. So unless they're all being programmed to not notice the big water bridge (which would raise the question of why it's there at all), there must be some other reason for it in their minds. I can come up with an explanation myself, such as it's a technological sculpture using the same kind of energy field that created the blitzball water sphere, but I thought it'd make a fun discussion. You, on the other hand, seem to assume that anyone who asks questions is too stupid to think up their own answers.
 * This troper thinks you're being oversensitive. No one is calling or implying that someone is stupid for not assuming that its magical. But however, given that the city's very nature is magical, its not something that's impossible to assume. I don't mean a magician is literally conjuring it up. But perhaps its just magical architecture of some kind. Besides, who said that Dream Zanarkand didn't have Magic? I don't remember Tidus freaking out when he saw it. Maybe a 'whoa that's cool' but not a 'whoa what is that I've never seen it before.' But, to be fair, the explanation you came up with, the energy field thing, that's a good theory.
 * Tidus definitely freaks out about, saying he's never seen anything like that, and the others are likewise confused that he's never seen magic before. It's kinda odd, since it never comes up after the tutorial on how to use magic, but if I had to guess the answer, I'd say magic runs the risk of destabilizing Dream Zanarkand (just as Sin's presence seemed to be warping the buildings when it flew into the city), so its inhabitants are "programmed" not to know about it.
 * It's just a background decoration, probably meant to imply that Zanarkand is such an advanced civilization (look at their Magitek blitzball stadium, far more hi-tech than Luca's) that they can afford to show off their control of the elements with such awe-striking monuments.
 * Given that the sequel] establishes that Zanarkand was the magic city it's likely that it's a remnant of original Zanarkand that remained because it was a huge landmark (possibly the aspect of the skyline the city was known for,) even if over the next millenium magic was retconned out of the illusion.


 * What did people do in Spira before Sending was invented? How did life ever develop on Spira? Unless someone dies at peace (something so rare it's almost unheard of, if Yuna's reaction to seeing Tidus's mom in the Farplane is any indication) or they get sent, then they turn into a Fiend or an Unsent, and the huge majority of them turn into Fiends. So while people were still figuring out the whole Sending thing, what kept the world from being totally overrun with Fiends? Even during Final Fantasy X, there are schools of aquatic, voraciously predatory Fiends that would probably wreak havoc on the ocean's ecosystem, and every land environment has Fiends roaming all over the place. I'd ask why we don't see more native animals, but there seems to be a reasonable explanation... the Fiends are killing them all, just like the Chocobo Eater preys on chocobos! So what happened for those first few millions years while humanity was still banging on rocks and nobody knew what a Sending was? If Spira's overrun with fiends now, with summoners all over the place, what in the world was it like when nobody was getting sent and almost every single person who died turned into a Fiend? How is Spira not a Fiend-ruled wasteland by the time the present day rolls around?
 * I can come up with one explanation while thinking about it: humans in Spira didn't develop civilization on their own, but were created by gods who gave them the knowledge to send the spirits of the dead right from the start. But that goes against the rest of the story, which seems bent on debunking its own mythology: the Aeons, at first explained as angels, turn out to come from humans, and Yu Yevon turns out to be a human ruler gone mad. There are fantasy elements in Spira, but they all come from humans (the Fiends, the Unsent, the Fayth, the Aeons, Sin, Yu Yevon...), not vice versa.
 * The only other explanation I can think of is that maybe the Fiends only arose as a result of using magic. Life developed normally in Spira until people began to use magic, and the pyreflies giving rise to Fiends and Unsents (heck, maybe the whole existence of the pyreflies themselves) was just a side effect, sort of a magical pollution that's built up in Spira. That way, by the time the Fiends started appearing, people already knew enough about magic to create the Sending.
 * The simplest explanation is that people only turn into fiends if they died in a manner that incited unacceptance, rage, or resentment, or in a manner that they cannot accept. Some old dude dying in his sleep wouldn't turn into a Fiend. When Sin came about, there were a lot of people dying horrible, violent deaths, therefore turning into fiends. Not everyone who dies turns into one, especially given that the game gives us a very good example; Tidus' mother. I have to wonder how some of my fellow tropers are thinking up these theories.
 * Because your "fellow tropers" are aware that death, pretty much by definition, incites "unacceptance, rage, or resentment", and that very few people are actually happy to die when their time comes. Yuna even made a big deal about that, which your fellow tropers were apparently paying attention to. What's more, even if we assume that you have to die a violent death to become a Fiend, that means every crime victim, everyone killed by a wild animal, everyone who suffers a fatal accident, everyone who dies in any way that's grueling and painful becomes a fiend (and then violently kills more people, creating more fiends). So how about just giving your personal Wild Mass Guess without the snide little insults towards your "fellow tropers"?
 * I think my fellow tropers are being oversensitive. While any theory is as good as the next in this discussion (besides the created by gods theory which the Ultimania seems to disprove), I suppose if I had to guess, it's just a stupid idea that the plot never really ties up. If I HAD to guess, I would say that Sending is tied to Sin's appearance and presence.
 * That's not a bad answer: maybe Sin and the Sinspawn are responsible for most of the fiends we see in the game. Once Sin was defeated, the world might be gradually turning back to normal, where the fiends are as rare as Tidus described them being in Dream Zanarkand (which might be how rare they really were in the old days, before Sin threw the world into a never-ending apocalypse).
 * Who says Spira isn't a fiend-ruled wasteland? Aside from the chocobos, shoopufs and the occasional dog or cat, how often do you see any "normal" animals? Meanwhile, the endless fiends you fight are numerous and varied and often take on relatively unassuming forms like wolves or birds, or even bees (which play an absolutely vital environmental role through pollination). This troper's WMG is that after 1000 years of Sin, Spira has actually evolved quite a lush and thriving necrosystem.
 * That sounds about right. Fiends seem to have grown into their own ecological niche in Spira, along with "non-Fiend" animals, and both this game and its sequel show that they can even be tamed and kept as guardians or pets. Additionally, a person (or another animal) getting killed by a Fiend is not much different from one getting killed by natural causes, a regular animal, or another person, so the origin, and presence of Fiends at all doesn't pose much of an issue for the growth of life as a whole (whether it poses issues for the afterlife is another matter. The Farplane is probably pretty vacant, all things considered.)
 * Rikku mentions that the Al-Bhed perform their own sendings by dancing togther, and get the power to do so from eachother. Even in reality, many cultures perform dances and rituals(Even in ancient times) to send off their loved ones. It's not farfetched to say Sending has always existed, the method to do so just changed throughtout time and culture.
 * A small question, but what happens to the Fayth of the Final Aeon? Yunalesca uses a summoner's guardian to create the Final Aeon, which then turns into Sin after Yu Yevon possesses it. But does the process create a Fayth and, if so, what happens to it? If we assume Anima is an unused Final Aeon, then we saw that it had a Fayth, but it's not clear that Anima's a Final Aeon (if it is, then why is the Fayth in Baaj Temple instead of the Zanarkand Ruins?). Jecht, on the other hand, seemed to have actually become the Aeon. Perhaps the Final Aeon process is different and doesn't make a Fayth, or maybe the Fayth shatters once Yu Yevon takes over the Aeon. Still, it'd have been interesting if you could go around the world, tracking down the Fayths of the previous four Final Aeons to hear their firsthand accounts of what happened.
 * Anima can't be a Final Aeon, because Seymour never intended to complete his pilgrimage, choosing to be a member of the church instead. Presumably, a physical Fayth is not made, as the Final Aeon will only be used once, and therefore does not need to be anchored into reality for very long. Also, there have been far more than four final aeons.
 * According to the Ultimania (and the game itself, considering that whether he intended to finish his pilgramage or not, Seymour and his mother did go through the 'Final Aeon' process), Anima is indeed his Final Aeon. Of course, since a Final Aeon's power is tied to the summoner it was meant for, Anima is just a regular Aeon to everyone but Seymour. Also, there were probably more than five Final Aeons, but Sin was only actually beaten five times, so take that as you will.
 * This troper finds it quite reasonable that Anima be a Final Aeon, she's far and away the most powerful of the "conventional" summons in the game, the two unconventional summons, while potentially more powerful are hampered by their costs (paying Yojimbo a million-plus yen for him to maybe use Zanmato) and unpredictability (Get Mindy to unleash Passado on command. Go on, I'll wait). As for Seymour "never intending to complete his pilgrimage," I've always read the story of his pilgrimage as going like this: Seymour and his mother have already, it seems, spent the majority of his life in exile at Baaj because the majority of Spirans are xenophobic bastards who don't accept Seymour. From her line in the Zanarkand flashback the player sees, his mother may be in the final stages of a terminal illness ("I...don't have much time left"). His mother is desperate: The entire world is hostile to her child--who is, remember, about eight years old--and he, despite being Jyscal's legitimate heir, doesn't seem to have much in the way of a future. On top of that, she's going to die soon and with her possibly the last person in the world who loves this little boy (the game is silent about Jyscal's thoughts about his son at this stage in his life, but clearly Seymour's mother didn't think he could or would help). Her final effort to ease her child's pain is to have him become a High Summoner, revered by Spirans as their savior. He'll die in the process and she'll perish soon after from her illness (remember, information on where the Final Aeon comes from is released by Yunalesca and the order of Maesters on a strictly need-to-know basis and they think very few people need to know), safe in the knowledge that Seymour can no longer be hurt and will live forever both in the memory of Spira and the Farplane. It's sad and wrong, yes, especially knowing what we as players know about the reality of Spira and Yevon, but check the news; a parent or parents in dire straits deciding that essentially death is the best/only option for them and/or their children is hardly rare. So she goes with her son on a pilgrimage. Seymour himself, this troper theorizes, was persuaded by his mother into thinking this was the best or only way, remember, he's a small child and thus both not exactly clear on the concept of death and very likely to believe his beloved mother wholeheartedly and even if he didn't, he's not in a position of enough power to effectively defy her. And so the pilgrimage goes on, until they reach Zanarkand and have the awful truth revealed to them. Seymour's mother offers herself as Seymour's Final Aeon, either because she is his only Guardian or because she is the most qualified, given that whole "bond of love" thing Yunalesca stresses as being so important. Yunalesca accepts her offer and turns her into the fayth, effectively killing her. Now, think of the situation Seymour is in right now. His dearly loved mother is suddenly gone, he is all alone in Zanarkand which is plenty terrifying and dangerous even for adults, the only person with him is the dead woman who just killed his mother and is insisting now that he go and summon his mother's soul in a pitched battle with a mountain-sized cosmic abomination so that the controller of said abomination can possess his mother's soul and turn it into another hideous monstrosity, killing him in the process. And at the time all of this happens, he is somewhere around eight years old. In short, I believe that insofar as a small child can consent to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, at the beginning of his pilgrimage Seymour did intend to go through with it, but at the end, deprived of his caretaker and guardian, facing down the reality of death all alone, he could not go through with it and this troper finds herself unable to blame him for backing out.
 * That's actually a really nice theory and this troper really likes it. Unfortunately, there's just two holes in it: Anima has both a Fayth and a Temple built around that Fayth, which has since collapsed (possibly destroyed by Seymour to keep it secret?), whereas the Final Aeon does not. It's also stated that the act of summoning the Final Aeon is what kills the summoner. If Anima was Seymour's Final Aeon, the moment he summoned her in Luca, the force of the summon would have killed him then and there, and that's assuming it's the first time he's used her. A simpler and, regrettably, less interesting explanation is just that Seymour's mother became the Fayth of Baaj Temple so that she could protect her son.
 * Maybe Yunalesca had just about enough human left in her to let a kid go. She never had any, so maybe she felt sorry for Seymour then and left him alone.
 * It's revealed at the end of FFX in the conversation with Yunalesca that the summoning isn't what kills the summoner, rather it's Yevon, whom after being defeated, possesses the new Final Aeon and kills the summoner with it. Therefore, anyone who has the Final Aeon can use it at will, like with the other summons, but will be killed if they are able to defeat sin. This brings about the question of how Seymour, who is about eight or nine at the time, was able to escape from Yunalesca and live to be his ripe age(Yunalesca has already shown that she doesn't like letting people go after they find out the secret), and it also brings about the question of why Yuna didn't just use Seymour's Final Aeon and have her guardians protect her. Yeah, some may argue that the Final Aeon is supposed to be extremely strong, but think about it. Not only does she have the most guardians in history(Which can be pieced together by Donna, Yunalesca, and the sphere memories), but they were also able to defeat Braska's Final Aeon, AND they defeated both Seymour's Final Aeon AND Seymour's final Aeon form, AND when Yevon begins possessing Yuna's summons, they were STILL able to beat him. Though not all of this information was available when they jumped into the belly of the beast, and Anima is an extra summon, so it wouldn't have worked if Tidus hadn't wanted revenge on that huge damned fish...
 * The summoner isn't killed in the final summoning by being physically attacked by the final aeon. The act of possesion itself is what kills the summoner because it simultaneously severs the mental bond between summoner and final aeon that allowed the aeon to be created in the first place. Guardians can't protect against that no matter how many there are or how capable.
 * As to the original question regarding the Fayth of the Final Aeon, I always assumed that it was carried within Sin. That's why Jecht is there, standing in his recreation of Zanarkand. Because he IS the Fayth of the most recent Final Aeon; the Fayth of Sin.
 * The first final aeon had a fayth, you walk over the stone tablet/statue thingie's remains when approaching Yunalesca. Which brings another question to mind, do fayths get "used up" from being summoned or does the fayth just vanish to nothingness after some hundred years?
 * It's possible that the Fayths of the succesful Final Aeons are stored somewhere in Zanarkand (Yunalesca's personal trophy room perhaps?). Also it's possible that Yunalesca (working with Yevon) arranged to have Anima's Fayth taken out of Zanarkand and placed in Baaj. Also, and this is a personal theory of mine, what's to keep the other Aeons (Valefor, Ixion, Shiva etc) from also being Final Aeons, just of unsuccesful summoners. There are obvious many summoners in the world of Spira, some of them must be able to reach Zanarkand and make the deal but not finish off Sin. It'd definately explain how and from where all the Fayth come from.
 * If the Fayths of the succesful Final Aeons are stored in Zanarkand, are they the ones chanting the Hymn of the Faith in Zanarkand's temple?
 * Auron died 10 years prior to the beginning of the game, and his younger form is shown being killed by Yunalesca in a cutscene. Yet 10 years later, he's actually physically aged. Since he watched over Tidus after Jecht's disappearance, Tidus would have seen him aging. None of the other unsent are seen to be capable of doing this. Why is that?
 * Unsent are capable of controlling their 'aging' to appear normal. We don't see any other unsent doing this because Auron is the only one we really see over the course of a long time.
 * Plus, all the other unsent are already really old men by the time we meet them, except for Seymour, who doesn't last long enough to noticeably age.
 * Shuyin, Belgemine, one of Lulu's dead summoners... Most noticeable on Shuyin who has at least 1000 years on him. Really the only old looking unsent is the head of the church who's name I forget. With Auron, I can understand the aging thing, maybe, but then, if he can change his form enough to do that; why did he hang onto the scar?
 * Ahem. Badass.
 * Alternatively, the scar is a reminder of his failure and the promise he made to Yuna and Tidus' fathers.
 * I figured it was a result of hanging around Dream Zanarkand for ten years. Tidus clearly grew from a child to a teenager in that time, so people there do get older, despite being made of pyreflies like the Unsent. Auron was probably affected as well.
 * Tidus' mother shows up in the Farplane. Tidus' Zanarkand was never real to begin with. Only Tidus and Jecht become real by virtue of being granted that reality by the Fayth. Does this mean that the Al-Bhed are right about that place and it really is just made of memories?
 * This is left deliberately ambiguous (also consider that Seymour's father's spirit tries to escape the Farplane). Tidus' mother may be as 'real' as Tidus himself is; there's no indication that the Fayth actually changed Tidus when he went into Spira. More that he was just moved from one to the other.
 * It turns out that thanks to information from the Ultimanias, that Tidus' Zanarkand is actually a real, physical place somewhere far out in the ocean. There's even a spot for in in the world map in the Ultimania book. According to the book, Yu Yevon 'resets' the citizens that wander too far out (which is why that no one wonders 'whats out there' beyond the city), but Jecht and Tidus circumvent this by hitching a ride on Sin. Auron of course, is exempt from Yu Yevon's influence.
 * Just like the Aeons have a physical presence, a solid manifestation of the dreams of the Fayth (and presumably constructed out of pyreflies during the Summoning,) maybe the population of Dream Zanarkand is every bit as that of Spira, except that they need the Fayth atop Gagazet to dream about them constantly to even exist. Tidus eats just the same, Jecht can get drunk, everyone in Dream Zanarkand can grow up and grow old; it's not much of a stretch to think they have their own souls and minds, that they can have children, and that they can pass on when the Fayth's dream makes it so. Then again, this makes one wonder whether Jecht-as-Sin really killed the entire population of his hometown when he absorbed it at the beginning of the game. Also, even if the Al-Bhed are wrong about the Farplane, who's to say that the spirit of Tidus' mother continued to exist in there once the Fayth stopped dreaming?
 * Or it might just be Shuyin's mom, if Dream Zanarkand is really supposed to be a recreation of the original. Tidus may be recalling the mother of the actual person he was modeled after.

"10 Summon Dream Zanarkand
 * Bit meta because this is about the FFX entry itself: Auron being referred to as a Cool Old Guy (emphasis on old) and a Badass Grandpa. The man's 35, and that's just chronologically. Biologically, he probably hasn't aged since ... well, you know. He's older than the rest of them because this is Final Fantasy and the average protagonist is about 17, but he's not even middle-aged! Anyone unfamiliar with the game would probably assume he was some wrinkled, doddering old dude.
 * The artists even designed Auron as looking like he's easily in his 50's, and Cid had the same problem in Final Fantasy VII (he was also supposed to be in his 30's). It really seems sometimes like aging in the Squeenix games goes from kids to teenagers to... late middle-aged, with nothing in between at all. In-universe, I'd chalk Auron's appearance up to his feeling world-weary and tired, and his Unsent form reflecting it, and the other characters' treatment of him to his being a legendary guardian who seemingly vanished for 10 years; they don't necessarily think of him as "old", just as a legendary warrior (Tidus jokes about him being old, but Tidus was partly raised by Auron, so it could just be a running joke with him). But still, Square-Enix seems to have a far too narrow Competence Zone in their post-SNES games: while Final Fantasy VI had player characters ranging everywhere from 10 to 80, the more recent games all seem to hover around 15-18 years old, with anyone much above that either an NPC or, as you said, treated like a Badass Grandpa.
 * For pretty much any Japanese popular media, any similarities between between stated (and especially "stated") ages and actual ages is purely coincidental.
 * There is a Fayth at the bottom of the Cloister in Zanarkand, right at the foot of the elevator and outside the antechamber to Yunalesca's court. What is this Fayth for? Has anyone seen what it looks like, or what its Aeon might be?
 * It's where the Fayth of the Final Aeon is supposed to go, I think. Since Braska was the last High Summoner, it's possible or even probable that that's where Jecht became the Fayth.
 * Really? This Troper thought (what I could see of) the statue looked like Zaon from the flashbacks of him and Yunalesca. I didn't see anything of Jecht in there at all.
 * The fayth statue at the bottom of the lift in Zanarkand used to be Zaon's fayth - it's stated outright in the game. Yuna mentions that it's just an empty statue, and one of the ghosts replies "That statue lost its power as a fayth long ago. It is Lord Zaon, the first fayth of the Final Summoning. What you see before you is all that remains of him. Lord Zaon is...his soul is gone."
 * Oh, I see. Do you remember where this dialogue pops up? I probably missed it, and I want to find it in-game too in case I missed something else.
 * Pretty sure it is the first time you get down there right after defeating that boss with the floating platforms.
 * How can the fayth say that Yevon is neither good nor evil when his main plan seems to keep everyone in Dream Zanarkand alive and continually exact revenge on the rest of the world for his city's destruction? I can imagine him going insane when he sees what's happening to his city, but aside from that he's still keeping his city enslaved (the fayth even say at one point that they're tired of dreaming), committing mass murder through Sin, and perpetrating a false religion to glorify himself and maintain his grip on Spira? How can that not be construed as evil?
 * I think what they mean is, by this point, Yu Yevon has no motivation. He just keeps doing what he's doing, without any conscious thought as to why. He just is. The same way a hurricane can't be good or evil. Yu Yevon has lost whatever humanity he originally had; there is no "plan", he is simply doing what he's always been doing.
 * Yeah, Yu Yevon started with a plan that may or may not be evil (that answer really depends on what his long-term plan was once DZ was created and he was protected within Sin), but his mind was completely destroyed by the summoning. By the time of Final Fantasy X he's not so much a summoner as a kind of unthinking, magical computer program stuck in an endless loop...

20 Attack mainland

30 If Sin destroyed then recreate Sin

40 Goto 10"


 * One thing I find both annoying and hilarious, is that everyone in the game, instantly takes a disliking to Seymour, even when he hasn't done anything. They take every word he says as some kind of sadistic stab into their own souls. Even going in knowing he was a villain, I found myself sympathizing with the bugger. When you're treated like shit the way he was, no wonder he lost his mind. I admit I'm not very good at seeing things beyond face value, so can someone tell me what about seymour is so loathsome,mother than his appearance, because most guado share features with him?
 * For this troper personally, it's his voice. He positively drips Smug Snake with every word he speaks. That and he's a religious figure, which in video games rarely works out well. The game makers were also deliberately attempting to give him an untrustworthy vibe with the camera work...most of the cutscene shots involving him were typical villain angles, tight zooms and dramatic upshots with subtly ominous sound effects, etc...which probably worked to help fuel the sense that This Is Not A Good Person.
 * Its the haircut. Only a mother could love whatever the heck is going on with Seymour's haircut.
 * ...That's terribly insensitive. You realize what happened to Seymour's mother, right?
 * He was just making a joke but you got to admit if you met someone with blue hair that really is impossible unless you used industrial bonding agent you would think he's a douche too.
 * Even his mother wants him dead after a certain point. Hell, you can use her to KILL HIM in the fourth fight.
 * For this troper, and likely the party members, it's just the vibe that he gives off. Playing through FFX as we speak (with the controller literally in my lap), none of the party members really outright cast any extreme judgement on the guy, he just gives off a creepy first impression that he never really manages to shake off...and then he tries to kill everyone.
 * The only one who instantly disliked Seymour was Tidus and he only mentions this in his narration during second meeting. Probably he just didn't like his attitude. Until Seymour attacked them he was just another Yevon Maester in Rikku's eyes, Auron had nothing against wedding plan as long Seymour didn't want to stop Yuna's journey and Yuna, Lulu and Wakka were respecting him as a Maester.
 * The guy wanted to marry Yuna. That's reason enough for Tidus not to like him.
 * In Guadosalam, Kimahri states that he doesn't like Seymour if you talk to him, and Wakka says, albeit after the revelation that Seymour killed his father and tried to kill the party, that he never liked Seymour.
 * Speaking only for, I kept getting mixed vibes from him. I was going he's so obviously evil! ... so he must be a Red Herring, he's not really done anything bad. He and his elfy bodyguards are even completely defensive in your first fight against him. Up to the whole forced marriage bit I kept expecting him to turn out to be an okay guy.
 * I must be the only one who thinks this, but his introduction, especially his "Well, pretend I didn't say it," line, to me looked like he was being set up as a Reasonable Authority Figure to make his villainy a twist. I mean, that line seems to separate him from other Yevonites, like Wakka, who are far more critical of the Al Bhed and Machina. Instead, he's set up as a guy who's willing to not be an Obstructive Clergyman if he thinks this might work.
 * That line was probably why Wakka disliked him. Watching a powerful figure in his religion openly breaking the tenets of said religion wouldn't sit well with him, methinks. Imagine a fundamentalist Christian's reaction to an Archbishop saying "well, the seven deadly sins aren't all that bad, really".
 * I for one find him evil because he's the polar opposite of Auron: Bishonen, Smug Snake, magic user... Also that friggin' potbelly he has.
 * He didn't have a potbelly, his robe was just really really loose around his waist for some reason.


 * Does Tromell's shift from someone who helps cover up his master's patricide, order the party's deaths for killing Seymour, and prevent them from Sending him in X (which results in him killing many more people, including much of the Ronso tribe) to someone who wants desperately to atone for the Guado's sins in X-2 strike anyone else as somewhat jarring?
 * Hoooooo-yay~ But seriously, no. He felt like a tool and tried to make up for it, even if he had to drag the entire Guado race kicking and screaming into forgiveness. Not jarring at all.
 * And the entire Guado race suffered a collective case of My God, What Have We Done? and exiled themselves to the Macalania Woods. If you go to Guadosalam after you get the airship in the first game and talk to the Guado, you can already start to see it when they realize what they've done and how they're probably going to be the most hated race in Spira, rather than the Al Bhed.


 * Yuna being neglected after her father's death. No, not the treatment from the rest of Spira, that's explainable by Fantastic Racism, since Yuna is half-Al Bhed. It's a major dose of What the Hell Townspeople, but It Makes Sense in Context. What bugs me is where was her Uncle Cid all those years?
 * I don't think she was neglected - apart from Dona, everyone loves Yuna, and Dona only has a grudge against her because everyone else loves her. It seemed to me like she had an idyllic life in Besaid up until she went on her pilgramege, and nobody seemed to be judging her for being half Al-Bhed. I'm not sure how well she knew Cid back then, but by the time the news reached him and he figured out where she'd been taken, she was probably adjusting quickly enough in Besaid (especially with Wakka, Lulu, Chappu and Kimahri all becoming her new Nakama) that he didn't want to uproot her yet again.
 * ...She was neglected? Did "neglected" gain some other meaning like, "living an idyllic life on a tropical island with her close friends, being honored as the daughter of the world's hero, and being looked up to by the world at large for undertaking a dangerous pilgrimage" while I wasn't looking? If that's neglect, I wish I'd been neglected like that.


 * The placement of the tournament just after Sin attacked. They could have placed it before the attack and given the game a feeling of gradually getting more serious. Instead they place it just days after a huge number of people died, making the protagonists look even worse for wasting time on a game when they could be doing more to save the entire world from an imminent threat. IIRC correctly the team doesn't even mention the village at any point later on.
 * That's one way to look at it. Another way is that they did that on purpose to illustrate the real significance of Blitzball: It takes the peoples' minds off of Sin. By placing it after that slaughter, it's also taking your mind off of it.
 * Tidus actually comments on it shortly after Kilika's attacked, before they've left Kilika. "Is now really the right time for this?" To which Wakka responds, "Now is the only time!" It's a matter of perspective, really - from our (and Tidus's) point of view, death is not omnipresent. We're shielded from it by a variety of means - long lifespans, hospitals, and medicines among them (meaning that in many cases, death is at least somewhat anticipated; if you're 80 years old, you don't expect to live forever). When we see death or hear about death, it's usually either fictional (nobody really died in the filming of that movie) or faceless/anonymous (which tends to reduce empathy toward the death; it's harder to feel the same way about the death of someone you've never met who lives halfway across the country as the death of a family member or close friend (or even a casual acquaintance)). Because we're not constantly at risk of death anywhere and anytime from a force who can only (so far as they knew) be stopped by sacrificing two people at the end of a journey they might not survive anyway, we tend to have a lot more opportunities for fun and entertainment during the large parts of our lives that aren't affected by death. But every Spiran is at risk of being killed by Sin at any time with minimal hope of recourse, the meager opportunities to have fun are taken full advantage of, and as Yuna says, "Blitzball is really the only entertainment that we have."

himself? Yu Yevon no longer had the final summoning to rely on for a new host, nor did he have any aeons to possess until Yuna summoned her own in the final battle. He would have been left flying around chaotically within the corpse of Sin, unable to follow his "programming." It would have been an asshole move toward the fayth, but unless I'm missing something the party could have just walked away at that point with Tidus alive and well. Moreover, they could have easily had someone else destroy Yu Yevon after Tidus died of old age, giving the fayth the rest they so desperately wanted. I'd imagine he would still be flying around in the corpse of Sin looking for an aeon to possess.
 * Although I understand the party felt obligated to defeat Yu Yevon so that the fayth could finally rest, I'm not entirely convinced that his death was necessary to ensure the final destruction of Sin. The final aeon acts as the central core of Sin, so after Jecht was killed it must have been permanently incapacitated. If what I am saying is correct, isn't it safe to assume that the party could have left without taking out the tick
 * Tidus was already set on killing Yu Yevon. And besides, it didn't look like there was any way out from where they were anyway. I mean, they were fighting on Jecht's giant sword.
 * So long as he's alive, there's still a chance that somehow Sin will be revived. Possessing a Final Summoning may not be the only way to create Sin--after all, it had to come from somewhere initially. Safer for the whole world to finish him off--at that point, it's simply selfish of them to do otherwise.
 * Its been a few years since I've played, but I seem to remember Yu Yevon being able to possess your aeons during the bossfight. If they had walked away, presumably he could do the same to any aeon that was summoned anywhere in the world.
 * Maechen, I believe, explains to that Sin is created from the souls of those who gave their life in Zanarkand -- remember the huge wall of fayth embedded in the ice on Mount Gagazet? That's where Sin came from originally. Even without a final aeon to possess, if they had left Yu Yevon after the final battle with Jecht and Yuna's summons, yes, Yu Yevon would have been significantly weakened, but there's a good chance he would have regrouped, drawing upon the power of the fayth embedded in the mountain to create Sin anew. So they kind of HAD to destroy Yu Yevon in order to finish the job.


 * HUGE failure of common sense in every single Cloister of Trials: You go to pick up a sphere while Tidus has a sphere in one hand. Game says you can only carry one sphere at a time. While I can understand needing to keep a hand free to do stuff, what force on Spira is stopping him from just doing a quick swap? Grab new sphere, replace with old sphere, toss new sphere from left hand to right, BAM, DONE. (Perhaps Tidus is just Too Dumb to Live?)
 * Yeah, this bothered me too. My assumption is that one sphere alone carries so much power that if he were to touch two at once his body would explode from the overwhelming amount of energy it would absorb.
 * Maybe the spheres are like magnets and repel each other. Or there's some kind of magically-enforced rule in the temple that says you can only carry one sphere at a time, in order to make potential summoners use their heads.


 * The first 30 hours of the game are told in flashback, with Tidus sitting around a fire telling it to the party. Why is Tidus telling the story of the game to the people who were there and witnessed it first hand? I'd totally get it if he were in a camp and writing all this down in his journal, or maybe they're in a village and he's explaining all of this to a village elder, but seriously? To his own party memebers? Does he think they suffer from acute memory loss? If this was after Sin toxin'd the party to unconsiousness...it doesn't make sense. So everyone BUT Tidus suddenly got laser-guided amnesia and he's retelling the story for them?
 * He's not just telling them the events, he's telling them his perspective on the events.
 * So they all basically said, "Hey! Tidus! Why don't you tell us what you're thinking of the mission, from the very beginning!"
 * Or they said "okay, now that we've been through a lot together and we're pretty confident that, despite your first claims, you're not a delirious Sin-toxin amnesiac, why don't you try explaining to us again exactly where you really came from and how you ended up here." Or, judging by Tidus's opening words, he might have stubbornly insisted on explaining it all regardless of whether they asked. It's not like he's really recounting it in the same detail we're seeing: they're just hearing his voiceovers.
 * Tidus doesn't actually start telling the story until after he has left the party by the fire and walked up the hill. This troper always figured he was telling his story to the player.
 * Maybe he was recording a sphere, telling his story, and embedding his memories into it, just as Yuna had recorded a sphere to say thank you to her guardians?
 * My assumption is that since they were reaching Zanarkand and Yuna would die soon Tidus wanted to cheer them up talking about his perception of the Pilgrimage. I can't remember well, but I think that when you reach that point in the game they keep on telling things like "and do you remember when Wakka did X" or something like that. They were sharing good memories and points of view so they didn't have to think about Yuna dying in a day or so.


 * Does anyone else feel that Auron and Paine were both acting like incredible douches in refusing to tell the other party members what they knew about Yevon and Shuyin, respectively? Auron knows that any attempt to summon the Final Aeon and defeat Sin will end in failure, and yet he lets Tidus and Yuna very nearly get themselves killed on multiple occasions until they find out for themselves. Paine is even worse, knowing full well from the beginning what's wrong with Nooj and the rest of her ex-teammates and why they're doing what they do, but when Yuna and Rikku try and get her to tell them she flat-out refuses, instead reverting to Deadpan Snarker status by telling Rikku she's lost four "respect points." Instead, Paine lets the rest of the Gullwings charge headlong into danger without knowing what exactly it is they're up against, which to my mind would have made them perfectly justified in throwing her off the damn team. Exactly what justifiable grounds do they have for not telling the rest of the party what's really going on?
 * In Auron's case, learning that the whole faith you believe in is a lie and everything you, your father, and previous generations fought for is all for naught isn't really the thing you can expect people to believe if you just tell them. Some things you really need to experience yourself in order to understand the full scope of what's happening. Think of a child; what's going to dissuade them more from playing with fire? The parent saying, "Don't do it, it'll hurt," or actually getting burned?
 * But the party had already respected Auron greatly, and he had accompanied Braska on his Summoning as well. Auron's also not exactly the kind of guy to joke or lie, especially about something like that. I think that the party would have believed him with no issue. Though I also think that telling them wouldn't have solved anything; they'd still only have the choice of defeating Sin with Yuna dying and another party member becoming Sin, or not doing anything and continuing to let Sin massacre innocent people. By waiting until they were close to Sin to tell them, Auron had let them learn enough about the situation so that they could Take a Third Option and destroy Sin and Yu Yevon once and for all.
 * Because it's their story and it should be written by them alone. They'll eventually find out on their own and he probably wanted them to grow in experience and maturity once they reach that destination. After all, what kind of story gives away the ending before the climax?