FFX Day 3 · 7:32pm Mar 18th, 2017
I'm going to cease the daily blogs, it's a pain, but I do intend to blog semi-regularly as I have thoughts to share. And here, I do.
Forgot to mention it last time, please welcome the newest Aeon to our team, Agunimon.
Ah, a duel of Aeons, one of my fav ideas of the game. I also appreciate the avoidance of the idea of two summoners calling the same Aeon.
Shelinda, like Wakka, annoys me for her blind zealotry. The good of Spira is more important than the good of Yevon, but these to say and act like the opposite is true. Then Wakka tries to tell Seymour how a Maester how to act. Imagine if you walked up to a Catholic Cardinal helping the poor at a mosque and tried to tell them they were heathens for helping those that don't follow the church. It's infuriating. Every time Wakka talks about Yevon and Al Bhed and machina I just want to punch him in the face.
This is one of the major reasons I don't like Final Fantasy X - the portrayal of Yevon. Yevon is a church of lies and hypocrisy run by liars and hypocrites. It is a complete straw religion that exists only to demonstrate these facts and be torn down. I consider myself an agnostic, and I am hardly an expert on religion, but I know that real world religion is complicated. There is no one way to interpret the Bible, duh, it's part of how different sub-groups of Catholicism arose. Catholicism has a lot, complex history of church doctrine and influence shifting.
But not here. Everyone is blindly devoted to Yevon except for the Al Bhed, who are outcasts from society. To go against the church is to be a social pariah on a global scale. And Yevon does nothing but maintain a crappy status quo. Their leaders have no interest in actually stopping Sin or helping the people of Spira, their only interest is in keeping Yevon going and keeping people so afraid of Sin that they will do whatever Yevon tells them.
Yevon is not a church. Yevon is a cult. And the people of Spira, the stupid, foolish, blind people of Spira, follow them because they have no hope for anything better. Yet by the end of the game, our party comes up with an idea to stop Sin, and not only is it a fairly simple plan, but there's no reason it could not have been tried any number of times in the past. Why did none of the leaders of Yevon who knew the truth about Sin try to rally a party to attack its core and destroy the spirit of Yu Yevon? Why did no bitter ex-guardians like Auron denounce the church and tell the world the truth? Why are there no other world factions besides the Al Bhed and the Crusaders?
The world of Final Fantasy X tries to discuss themes of religion, life, death, and hope, but it doesn't know how to. The developers had thought up a good outline for a story, but had no substantial ideas to fill it in. Look at the official timeline of the game. The TL;DR of it is "1000 years ago the Bevelle-Zanarkand War happened, then nothing much happened until around 100 years ago." By contrast, look at VI's timeline. X has a lot more story to tell than VI did and has gotten a lot more attention, yet their timelines are just about the same in activity. I'd argue VI's is more complex because at least it isn't simplified to important events only happening at 100 year intervals.
Final Fantasy X is a simple game that tries to explore complex ideas and fails because it is too simple. Yevon controls everything and always has and they are right about everything and don't question it, you heathen. Oh wait it turns out Yevon is bad, maybe we should try to find a way to permanently kill Sin, hey it turns out killing Sin for good isn't all that hard after all.
Lame.
i personaly think X2 is better than X just some random thoughs
4461615
You're not wrong in some ways. X-2 tied up a lot of loose ends that X just left dangling. It's almost as if the developers knew there was going to be a sequel...
I think the simpler plot was a refreshing change from the constant plot twists and complicated motives of the villains in some of the previous games. IX is one of my favorites in the franchise, but even that has a lot to wrap your mind around. Here, with the brand new (at the time) console, I think SquareEnix wanted to make the story more accessible to newcomers to the series.
Granted, there are still a lot of head-scratching moments within this game. I suppose it comes down to how forgiving you are as you play it.
4461645
it has the better game play as well plus X1 is just to melodramatic
You say that like it doesn't accurately reflect a lot of real-world religions throughout history. Or unusual in JRPGs. Also, if that's how you feel about Yevon, you should probably never read this exceptionally amazing fic, much of the plot of which centers around a Church State founded on hypocrisy. To sum it up (as best memory serves):
The Church State of Tienne is the center of the religion whose symbol is the "Tri-Fan", representing the virtues of the Three Gods. According to the Church, all magic is heresy, and the mystic arts (geomancy, beastmancy, and a few esoteric fringe skills) are just barely skirting the edge of what is and is not permissible. Being caught in the possession of magical knowledge or artifacts, and especially being caught in the commission of any act of magic, is heresy of the highest order, and the punishment for heresy is to be petrified and entombed in the Sinner's Wall for all time.
Where the heresy kicks in? The Three Gods the Church of Tienne worships are Ifrit, Shiva, and Ramuh, the living embodiments of the three most basic elements of magic. Not only that, but the Three Gods themselves are imprisoned in enormous mana crystals and are being used to power a seal that is keeping the Church's greatest enemy trapped in stone. Only the High Priest of the Church is ever allowed to know this; it is the highest, strictest forbidden knowledge, and the foundation for the entire "religion" that controls a good third of the world. Oh, and the crucible where Sinners are petrified and placed in the Wall? What the common folk and acolytes believe is a Holy Prayer that priests use to beseech the gods to punish Sinners? It's the spell Break. The High Priest of the Church of Tienne knows more magic than any "heretic".
This story predates FFX, incidentally. FF9 wasn't even out yet when it was started.
4461884
I imply no such thing, it is absolutely true. But again, real religion is more complex than that. There are going to be dissenters, shifts in dogma. Yevon does not have that. That's a realization I had earlier, actually - Yevon doesn't really have ANY depth to it, What exactly does Yevon teach? We know machina are bad, they train summoners, and people can pray for things.
But what are Yevon's beliefs? Do they conduct rituals and ceremonies to purify people of bad emotions to keep them from turning into fiends if they die? Do they send healers to villages and towns to administer care? Do they offer shelter to displaced citizens fleeing Sin? Are there holy scriptures they study and meditate on? How does one become a maester or summoner, what does the training entail? Do they have specific rules on what type of machina are and are not allowed? Do they have rules on what types of behaviors count as bad for the purposes of angering Sin? Do they say that some behaviors can appease Sin? We know atonement is a part of things, but how does one atone, through prayer and meditation, through donating to the church, through good behavior? Does Yevon have burial rites for the dead beyond the Sending? Do they have holidays, regular meetings like Sunday mass?
For a religion that the game centers around, Yevon is kinda vague on what being a member actually means.
4461884 I'll also bitch about Operation Mi'ihen. An hour or so story sequence spent dedicated to no purpose but to demonstrate to us very thoroughly that convention weaponry do not work against Sin. You can fight a giant lightning cannon at it and it'll just throw up a force field to fend it off without a scratch.
Unless you're the main party, in which case some airship missiles, swords, and magic can destroy its fins. Wonder where that force field was during the final attack.
They could have made it work very easily, have the Crusaders say they did hurt Sin, but it just regenerates and will be back to full strength in a few days at beast. This would demonstrate to us that yes, Sin is vulnerable to conventional weapons, but the amount of manpower that you would need to actually kill it without the Final Aeon is unfeasible.
4461898
4461903 Fair points all.
4461903
I wondered that, too. The best I can think of is that the Song of the Faythe calmed it enough that it didn't use it.
Though, more realistically, the script writers wrote themselves into a corner and thought the best way to deal with it was to never even bring it up. Too bad they didn't at least give a way to disable it.
I hope I can clear up a few questions here.
If they don't follow them and try and go against them, they'll die. Even if they manage to overcome Yevon, they'll die to Sin anyway.
Yevon actually believes that there is no hope of defeating Sin for real. They keep spreading the idea of hope that the Final Aeon can defeat Sin. The Final Aeon has defeated Sin many times, bringing that moment of Calm that allows all of Spira to relax. All of Spira believe that one day, if they atone for their past crimes by continuing to live on this belief, Sin will truly go away. Without that belief, they would stop trying, and there would be no happiness at all while Sin destroys them.
Yevon has already given up. Buy by using these lies, the rest of Spira can still find happiness in their doomed world. That was Yevon's belief.
No one actually knew that Yu Yevon existed, or even heard his name. Only Yunalesca and Mika really mentioned him, and both of them were already dead. Even if they did tell them, even if they made their way to the core, they'd have to face the faith that created the Final Aeon, which, the Final Aeon is capable of defeating Sin. If they can't beat Sin, they can't beat that Final Aeon, and thus have no way of killing Yu Yevon. The only reason the main characters were able to was because, well, being the son of that faith, both Sin and the Final Aeon were tamed to be not as destructive as Operation Mi'ihen.
They died, just like Auron did when he tried getting revenge for Braska's death by facing Yunalesca. Those who opposed afterwards, became fiends. (I gotta wonder what happens to an unsent when they die again.)