Final Fantasy X/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance:

• The Overdrive Moves.
  • Why does Tidus' Overdrive involve a timed hit? Because, as a blitzball player, he's trained to have split-second reflexes.
  • Why is Lulu's wild flailing on the analogue sticks? Because she's furious and when you're in a rage, what do you do? Expend more energy.
  • Auron's is a sequence. Why? As a samurai and a monk, he must have exact, flawless technique.
  • What about Wakka's, then? Well... just listen to him speak. Discern his attitude. Is he not a laid-back, happy-go-lucky person?
• The fact that Rikku can take apart machina in battle with the steal command screams Fridge Brilliance. She's Al Bhed, so she would have the knowledge to do so.
  • One better: where would anything that would be worth stealing be on a machine? Inside it. So to get at anything to steal, Rikku would have to just flat out dismantle the machine...not to mention, those "Grenades" you stole? More than likely a less than stable component of the machine. Brilliant!
• The infamous laughing scene: Even with every other member of the party looking at the two like they're insane, Tidus and Yuna degenerate into genuine, happy laughter.
  • When you really thinked about it, Tidus never laughed in YEARS. All that because of his dad.
  • I always thought the scene was ridiculous and stupid, but now that I watch it again, I find it sweet. With the world they live in, Tidus and Yuna haven't really had anything to laugh about in ages. It's just two people acting a bit silly in order to lighten the mood, and they really could use a good laugh.
• Ignoring the fact that several major summons are missing, let's focus on Alexander. Did it cross anyone else's mind that his absence could have to do with being both Holy elemental and a machine, two things that don't really click with Yevon.
• Sin usually executes a Class 0 Apocalypse How on any settlement that gets bigger than an average town, yet Bevelle and Luca are still standing. Tidus even lampshades it when you first get to Luca, and the answer he gets is "The Crusaders protect the Blitzball Stadium with everything they have." Then it hits you; it's not the Red Shirt Crusaders protecting it (he wiped out a good 90% of them in one shot after all), it's the Stadium itself that stops him, because Jecht used to be a star Blitzball player and that stadium would be almost sacred to him.
  • Question: Sin's been around for about a good 1000 years, with a new sacrificial human replacing the previous Sin every 10 years. If the current Luca/Bevelle is kept from being destroyed by the current Sin (Jecht) because of his love for Blitzball, what about during all the previous decades before Jecht turned into Sin? Considering that a city the size of Luca and Bevelle would take more than 10 years to build to those magnitudes, there has to be some other reason that Sin doesn't attack Luca or Bevelle (unless every incarnation of Sin happened to have been star Blitzball players for the last 1000 years).
    • Sin isn't killed every 10 years. Sin is killed whenever there's a summoner powerful enough to do it, which is a lot less frequent than every 10 years. Sin might not be able to get killed without a Final Summon, but it seems possible to cause it pain and drive it off, which is most likely how the Crusaders have been protecting Bevelle and the stadium.
    • It's not every 10 years. There's only been six Sins total:
      • First Sin: Created by Yevon himself, entirely intended to attack Bevelle (that was, after all, the whole point) but was stopped by his daughter, Yunalesca.
      • Second Sin: Yunalesca's husband, Zaon; refused to attack Bevelle because he was from Bevelle.
      • Third Sin: Gandolf's guardian; whoever it was is unknown.
      • Fourth Sin: Some friend of Ohalland, who as Wakka mentions several times was a blitzball player before he became a summoner. It's pretty likely whoever his Final Aeon was was also.
      • Fifth Sin: Yocun's guardian; since Yocun was a Crusader her guardian almost certainly was also, and as Crusaders they would definitely NOT want to attack a city defended by their companions.
      • Sixth Sin: Obviously, this was Jecht, who was a great Blitzball player himself.
• Seymour's plan to Put Spira Out Of Its Misery. Yevon's core principle is that death is an end to suffering, so they shouldn't grieve over lost loved ones because they're "in a better place." They're actually letting Sin rampage to encourage dependence on Yevon's summoners via the Calms, but by that principle, wiping out all life in Spira would be the ethical thing to do and he's the only one willing to do it.
• Flashbacks show that Tidus isn't a natural blond. It's likely that he dyed his hair to wipe out as much resemblance to his dark-haired father as possible.
  • And wasn't he dark-haired like Jecht in some of the early demos of FFX, as well? Could be a throwback to that concept, as well.
• The Yevonites believe that sacrificing summoners to fight Sin is a fair price to pay for the Calms. The Al Bhed believe that sacrificing summoners didn't worked the last five times, so to keep trying is a waste of human life. Yuna is half-Al Bhed and half-Yevonite... so she eventually settles on a little of both. And, by doing so, she breaks the cycle.

• During the wedding, Yuna attempts to send Seymour but is halted when Maester Mika threatens to kill her guardians. Upon replaying the game, this troper realized that since Maester Mika was already dead and unsent at that point. If he hadn't intervened, Seymour would not have been to only person to disappear.

Fridge Horror:

• Crops up when it comes to the Final Aeon. First, there's the cross between this and a Funny Aneurysm Moment when Tidus first learns about what exactly happens between the Grand Summoner and their Final Aeon. Then, when fighting Jecht, your are told right before the battle that he "might not be able to hold back." And then the Talk command stops working.
• Everything about Anima. The most worrying part is when you learn it's Seymour's mother. And judging by the way her fayth asks if you hate her son and says it's okay if you do. The poor thing must have been forced to do a LOT of stuff against its will.

Fridge Logic:

• If Revive Kills Zombies, why does it work normally on Auron?
  • Given that by that logic you could kill all fiends by simply healing them, it appears safe to say that unsent and undead are two different things.
  • It seems rather stupid of the Maesters and the Bevelle gaurds to throw the three swimmers (and only those three) into the water dungeon while the other four are thrown into a standard dungeon.
    • Not so much because it was trial by ordeal and they were giving them (officially) a chance.
    • And besides, the swimmers had trouble enough.
    • Says you.
  • If Yu Yevon possesses Aeons... why does the game end normally if you skip the extras? Should he not seek them out as well...?
    • They're only Fayth at that point, and Issaru and Donna had long abandoned any notion of completing their pilgrimage.
• Yevon cast out the Crusaders due to Operation Mi'ihen, deeming them "heretics." So, what the hell are Kinoc and Seymour doing there? Kinoc could be explained as being the man in charge of the Yevon military, but Seymour? In fact, Wakka himself stated that with the two of them there, it was like the whole thing was Yevon sponsored anyway. So how in the hell did anyone else not notice this? Moreover, how come Wakka was the only one to notice this?
  • That Guado half breed may be a Maester but he doesn't represent the true Yevon!
  • To reaffirm to the people that the Final Aeon was the only way to defeat Sin. It seemed like many young people weren't interested in joining the church and opted to join the Crusaders instead because they thought they could defeat Sin with the ever increasing power of Al Bhed machinery. Having the Maesters there was just a way to make it seem like Yevon was on their side, when they were really just using them to prove a point and maintain the status quo.

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• Final Fantasy X always used to be my least favorite game of the series, until I played it through for the third time or so. It came, when it really should have in the first coupla run-throughs, when you get to Home and Tidus learns the truth of Yuna's journey. All those poignant moments while leaving all the new areas finally hit home, and all of Tidus' well-meaning "we'll come back here when we've beaten Sin"s took on new meanings. With all of Tidus' claims that "this is his story", it really isn't: it's all about Yuna - leaving on this selfless quest to literally give everything to stop Sin, and eventually to stop the endless cycle of Calms. In my mind, at least, Tidus was consigned to irritating love interest and viewpiece for the player, whereas Yuna becomes the real protagonist.
  • This troper agreed that Tidus didn't really belong in the story to the save the world plot and remained dangerously close to The Scrappy. Until I got to the Fayth Cluster at Zanarkand. At this point, Tidus realizes that if Sin is defeated, the Fayth that are summoning all of Dream Zanarkand, including him, will awaken, and he will vanish. This is when the game really does become his story. The most brilliant moment in the game appeared after Yuna and company decide to Take a Third Option to stop Sin for good. Not only does this change the tone of the game from cynical to idealistic in one fell swoop, it basically switches Yuna and Tidus's positions in the story. Tidus is the one who has to die for the world to be saved, and Yuna is the one unaware of it. The game isn't really just his or her story at this point anymore; it's their story.
    • I'll go you one better. More proof that the entire FFX saga is the story of both Yuna and Tidus is when you consider their ideologies. In the first game, Tidus is on the Idealist side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism. When told by Lulu that "if you want everything, you'll get nothing", he immaturely shouts back "but I want everything"! Yuna, however, starts out the story by stating that she'll gladly sacrifice anything if it just means bringing a little happiness to the world, showing how the Cynical nature of the world has colored her views. Now, flashforward to the end of the game. Tidus doesn't even hesitate to put his own life (hell, existence) in jeopardy to truly save the world, even though he essentially earns NOTHING for his trouble; furthermore, even his narration becomes a lot more Cynical and fatalistic. Now, let's flashforward again to X-2. A character offers to sacrifice himself to stop the Big Bad of that game, but Yuna VEHEMENTLY OPPOSES this idea and says that she's tired of "losing" to win. So, let's just do a brief summation of all that: By the end of each game, Yuna and Tidus have reversed their positions on the scale. At the end of FFX, Tidus became Yuna and at the end of FFX-2, Yuna became Tidus.
  • In a meta-sense, the polarity of Yuna and Tidus is directly reflected with the way their Japanese translation of their names mean. Moon and Sun alike, which Spira as Earth Yuna giving the Moonlight on the darkness of the world that is Tidus's Sunlight that reflects of Yuna. So it's a funny eclipse story about how the Light and Darkness show each other that when there is something that is challenging they both can be tools to make the world a better place.
  • New, more general flash of insight: The spirals don't just go inward and down in Spira, they also go up. The whole point is that while Spira is falling in on itself, the main characters' journey is making them mature enough to force Spira into a new cycle of growth, but it's mostly a gentle enough incline that, except for maybe four points in the entire story, it's hardly noticeable at all. Tidus and Wakka being less Jerk Jocks and more of a couple of decent people. Yuna going from someone following in her father's footsteps to someone who wants to really make things better, no matter the personal cost (considering she didn't actually have much to lose before the start of the journey, and her two-ish friends would have suffered more than her). Lulu becoming less emo and blunt and more kindly (as shown by the difference between the first temple and the snowmobile ride) to the point that she could forgive herself for the previous failure, and confront her former charge, whether spiritually or the actual ghost. And Rikku being less Usagi and more post-Wutai Yuffie. Although this does add a whole new dimension of suck to X-2.
    • You can also argue that there are spirals inside the spirals. Draw a spiral on a piece of paper. Notice the white spiral you just outlined in the process? Now, look at the Besaid Aurochs pre-Tidus. They're only determined to "do their best", not aim at victory (notice the dejection in Wakka's voice when he first utters it). Sounds a lot like Spira's quandary--not just in that Tidus catalyzes the spiral going up rather than down, but also the psychic shattering to the point where it's believed that victory is impossible, and all one can hope for is to temper the pain of defeat as much as possible. I'm probably late to the party, but it took me a little while to realize that the Aurochs' debacle was meant as a kind of precursor to what Tidus would find afflicting Spira (in this case, "doing their best" would be sealing off Sin as quickly as possible; minimizing as much as possible, rather than outright thwarting, the wreckage). Perhaps one could even argue that the first drawn spiral was Yu Yevon's despair at saving the real Zanarkand from Bevelle, and so decided all he could do was "do his best"--by turning Zanarkand's ghost into an eternal punisher of the victor. He and Zanarkand didn't win the conflict, but they could at least bring the ruin-scores as close to even as possible...
• While YMMV on this one, a big thing for this troper was coming to realization about how Zanarkand was not all smiles and goodness, and was truly just as bad as Bevelle. Admittedly, according to Maechen and Bahamut, Zanarkand was definitely the unwilling victim of the Machina War. However, what did Yu Yevon do after the end of the war was certain? Not only did he create a monster to house a shadow of Zanarkand inside, not only did he use his own people to do it (and a bit of Fridge Horror: did anyone ever say they went willingly?), but he designed it to essentially wipe out any advanced human settlement. Let me say that again: Zanarkand put all of Spira in a stranglehold, killing hundreds of thousands of people, forcing culture and technology back several thousand years, and putting the entire world in metaphorical limbo to create an unchanging shadow of its former self. Yikes.
• Bevelle and Zanarkand were at war 1000 years ago. Yevon, concentrated in Bevelle, has been battling for 1000 years against Sin, which contains the remains of Zanarkand. Yuna is from Bevelle. Tidus is from Zanarkand. May seem obvious to some, but this troper nearly dropped her drink. Instead, I'll toast to Square with it. Good show.

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• The whole game is about the dead-- the maesters, Yu Yevon, etc. etc.--keeping the living from truly going on and living their lives, because the dead have been around for longer and deserve to keep on going, however static they might be. This game comes from Japan, in which the younger generations are expected to care for their elders (sometimes to their own seeming detriment), and which had just recently been in a state of stasis because, if this troper understands correctly, nobody wanted to invest their savings into spending and thus, into the next generations. Subtle social commentary much?
  • Better yet, just about all religions(eastern reincarnation-based religions most of all) treat death as a release from woe, simply because they can't think of anything else to do about it. Yevon simply takes that to its ultimate conclusion - "Summoners challenge the bringer of death, Sin, and die doing so(even if they succeed, since the Final Aeon kills the summoner). Guardians give their lives to protect their summoner(and the most beloved one sacrifices himself to help their summoner defeat Sin). The fayth are the souls of the dead(granted powers greater than the living). Even the maesters of Yevon are unsent(supposedly wiser than the living). Spira is full of death(which Yevon insists is "Good"). Only Sin is reborn(because summoners keep sacrificing guardians to it), and then only to bring more death. It is a cycle of death, spiraling endlessly(because no one bothers to fight it)." So Auron's cry of "Die and be free of pain, or live and fight your sorrow!", is the Eastern equivalent of Jesse Custer's realization that "(God) wants us... to love him and (it's) much more satisfyin'... when the hell of this Earth makes the choice so god-damned hard!"
• There is no water faith. Tidus is an star Blitzball player, a sport that takes place underwater (bonus points since "Blitz" is german for "lighting" water's polar opposite), and to take it further; Anima's faith (Seymore's mother, who became a faith in an act of love for Seymore if the one flashback she's in is any indicator) is found in the flooded Baaj Temple. Now i may be just reading into this too much, but i see a small conection--Ryuki
  • I just thought it was because the water is already home to Sin, who fits the traditional ideal of a "leviathan" more than the (presumably) aeon Leviathan. — Ralenys
• Whatever happened to the guardians of all the other high summoners that had more than one guardian? Did they all die when the other was turned into the Final Aeon?
  • Auron's backstory proves that they're left alive, though they apparently have to make their own way out. The reason Auron died was because he decided to go try to kill Yunalesca.
• I've said it before, but Wakka not knowing Yuna is part Al Bhed is a bit of Fridge Logic bordering on fridge squick. If she's got the eye spirals, that means he never once looked her in the eyes. If she doesn't, that means her mother's heritage was swept under the rug from the world, likely by the church of Yevon. Remember, immediately before becoming High Summoner, Braska was a disgraced member of the church for marrying an Al Bhed. And he and others knew it, since he could get away with saying no one would believe in him anyway. That's why he got the "delusional" drunkard Jecht on his team and it didn't knock him down any further.
  • The thing is, she doesn't have the spirals. If you look carefully, she has heterocromia: a blue eye on her left, a green one on her right, but no spirals.