Bahamut saying to Tidus in the beginning "you can't tonight" and Tidus without knowing exactly why obliges to bahamut's words, it does imply that the fayth were manipulating Tidus's actions in Zanarkand.
The shot after Yuna says "I love you", when Tidus turns around and reacts...it always hits me extremely hard. Something about his facial expression and the timing of the music mixes just right. FFX's ending theme has been my favorite song to play on piano for years and years. Going from a (notably non-vocal) "Hymn of the Fayth" melody into a bittersweet piano and finishing with an orchestral To Zanarkand climax, the song is up there with FF8 and FF6's ending tracks! This game has 1 of the best endings ever, I'll never forget it.
i agree, that is why the english translation works. It is as if he was making a longing face that he is now really really does not want to go. Instead of the japanese version where she said "thank you" which that word does not convey much really.
@@evanwoodham6296 and that is why props to the localization team for changing it instead of leaving it with "thank you", they know not everyone understand the implications and the japanese culture.
I understand people trying to defend the different cultural significance of saying "thank you" in Japan, but the end of FFX is precisely why the phrase "Aishiteru" exists. It means "I love you" specifically for special extreme occasions like during a marriage proposal or if somebody is in the middle of dying, which is precisely what is happening to at the end of FFX.
01:06:14 When Tidus jumps off the ship, I don't believe it's simply him "remembering" those three people. Why would Braska be among the first 3 people he thinks about when his life ends? I lean towards the scene stylistically/smoothly transitioning into the Farplane...it just LOOKS like Tidus is still falling from the ship since the pyrefly-rich Farplane has the same color clouds as the ones from Sin's recent fart. Plus, it just makes sense that Braska, Auron, & Jecht were already chillin together in the afterlife/Farplane, and now Tidus has joined them. As Mike brought up, the Aeons burst into Pyreflies and were most likely sent to the Farplane just as any other sentient being. Tidus saw his mother in the Farplane; his mother was also a dream. I think fulfilled unsent, deactivated Fayth, and their aeons can all find their way (or be sent) to FFX's 'heaven' just as any "normal" dead person. I don't believe the Farplane is 100% pyrefly illusions with no sentient souls, as demonstrated by Jyscal's desperate sphere delivery. TLDR: Farplane has real dead people in it, not just memories. Summoned/dreamt beings count as "real".
Yuna's final line about never forgetting the people and dreams lost always hit me as a final goodbye by Squaresoft before the Enix merger. This is the last FF that was released under the Squaresoft name and the last that followed Sakaguchi's storytelling philosophy so this was like a final farewell to the franchise that was surely going to change under the new executives and sure enough, it's never been the same since.
I like this and I feel like it mirrors what the Fayth were doing with dream Zanarkand but with a more holistic take on it. It is like a gift to the Fayth and to the people of Zanarkand.
Lot to respond to this week; to begin with, Final Fantasy X itself does provide some context for the after credits scene. If you revisit Macalania Temple you can speak with its fayth and she says the following: "Should the dreaming end, you too will disappear -- Fade into Spira's sea, Spira's sky." "But do not weep, nor rise in anger." "Even we were once human. That is why we must dream." "Let us summon a sea in a new dream world." "A new sea for you to swim." The after credits scene was most likely always meant to be a fulfilment of that promise. It doesn't answer much more, but it does give it some context on its own, entirely on its own without needing any supplementary material.
"You are a fading dream, but one touched by reality." "Spira will not forget its reality, nor the one who saved it." "Run, dream, run on. Pass beyond the waking and walk into daylight." -Yojimbo's Fayth when you revisit. Still not sure how Tidus could be reborn under known Spiran rules, other than someone new becoming a Fayth to recall him and a summoner conjuring him, possibly years later....idk
Fun fact - you can actually revisit the fayth for every temple in the game before the battle with Sin. Upon entering each chamber you receive some additional cryptic dialogue that alludes to Tidus' eventual fate. You also obtain some useful items I believe. Video here: ruclips.net/video/-Mt-I3oYdBU/видео.html
Isn't that temple and many of the other Fayth actually blocked by Dark Aeons specifically in the international / remaster? Because that would work wayyyy better if you HAD to go see all the Fayth in the original version but now it's basically impossible unless you are end of endgame
Regarding the extent of control of the fayth, my interpretation is that Jecht, Auron and the fayth are all separate entities with their own 'plans' so to speak, and it is Jecht who sets everything else into motion. When you revisit some of the fayth after getting the airship they make reference to for how long they had forgotten to move forward and to change, and that it was "you" (the party, or Tidus) who reminded them they need to. So no I don't think it was the fayth themselves that started it all intentionally, back from making Jecht. Jecht became a hero by happenstance and this 'woke up' the fayth from their lethargy. They did start forming ideas and taking some more control from then onwards (although it's mostly limited to just being visions Bahamut's fayth gives to Tidus). It also feels like it fits FFX quite a bit more for Jecht to have been the one to disrupt a long stale and stagnant people, rather than it being some master plan from the fayth all along. I don't think Jecht knew of a way to truly defeat Sin, rather I believe he just pieces it together by endgame after seeing what the party is doing and as they come to confront him. It seems to me like he showed up in the Ruins of Zanarkand half-anticipating a final battle with Yuna's Final Aeon. Jecht very intentionally brought Tidus to Spira, of course, because he wanted his son to experience life. But this also wasn't his master plan all along up to the ending; Jecht is not the type to set his own son up to become a martyr. His game begins and ends with allowing Tidus to make his own experiences and choices, though I imagine he had an inkling that, like father like son, he would end up choosing to sacrifice himself for the sake of Spira after seeing and coming to understand it and the incredibly exploitative nature by which their home world continues to exist at the expense of so many people's lives. Auron meanwhile simply wishes to honor Jecht's final wish, though he's of course not in his head. Auron would have stayed with Tidus in Dream Zanarkand for the rest of the latter's lifespan if Jecht-Sin had never showed up, and it's only when it attacks that Auron understands that his role in the promise he made to Jecht to "take care of his son" was never to simply stay with him in the 'dream world' (Zanarkand), but rather to guide and guard him in the 'real world' (Spira). Of course he himself also wants both Tidus and Yuna to come to understand Spira and Yevon, for their own sake, for his own sake, and for the sake of both their dead fathers.
I swear I heard an interview or something with a localizer or someone on the ffx team who talked about the decision of the translation of that scene. The Thank you line meaning the Japanese meant to convey was like someone dying at the end of life with thier family at thier side saying thank you for everything you've done almost as a way of saying I love you. I believe they asked the Japanese team what they thought of that and they approved. I could be wrong, it's been years since I heard that but I would look around for that interview. Edit: It was an interview with Alexander O. Smith on rpgsite in 2011
The second time Tidus tells Jecht that he hates him always seemed like not really to me. Like he is telling his dad he hates him, but what he really means is that he understands and actually loves him and is letting go of that hate since he has a better understanding now at the end. I admit to projecting though, because of my own similar circumstance with my own dad who is died before he should have.
I took it to mean like 'look at me. Witness me. I've grown, I've changed, I no longer fear you and perhaps I've even come to understand and love you and I'm telling you that by asserting myself and saying what you always knew but I was too afraid to say'
Fun little detail: Seymour uses pyreflies, in your subsequent fights, the same way yu yevon does to create Sin. He uses Kinoc's dead body and the guardian monks to create Natus and presumably the Ronso to create Flux.
That's very interesting indeed. Does that imply that he is potentially intended to be a sort of modern reincarnation / repeat of Yu Yevon and that point just doesn't land at all?
@@bartandaelus359 I ended up replying the game due to these videos, the point is pretty clearly stated by Seymour that he wants to replace Yu Yevon and control Sin for himself. But his boss forms after his initial death are all exterior to him, he has them attached or surrounding his body itself which he uses like armor. Which is exactly what Sin is for Yu Yevon, a nice bit of visual story telling and foreshadowing as he doesn't state his goal of taking over Sin until Mt Gagazet.
A little thing that I particularly enjoyed was the 'gift from Jecht' of a sword at the beginning of the game and BFA's sword then becoming the platform on which you fight Yu Yevon once he is defeated. One last gift from Jecht. 😪
7:22 "Sin seems to use a lot of gravity magic" Well Spira *IS* caught in a spiral of death. The Event Horizon is Sin and the center of that black hole is Yu Yevon which no one can get to or knows exists.
Theory: The length of a Calm is determined by the amount of time that the new host for Sin can resist its pull. Sin doesn't go away, but its host can resist the desire to destroy soon after being turned into Sin. Jecht mentions that he finds it harder over time so it seems reasonable that the length of Calms are determined by the relative strength of will of Yu Yevon and the fayth for the final summoning.
Personal Theories:: 1) I know the ultimania says that Dream Zanarkand exists out in the deep ocean, but when i played FFX, my uninfluenced interpretation after watching the Credits was that the Water Pillar at Mount Gagazet WAS Dream Zanarkand (or at least, a gateway to it?) because that's the only other place we see the Water Pillars that Casen pointed out in podcast episode 1. 2) 1:06:35 With regards to the state of Tidus soul during Yuna's Final Sending, I figured the Aeons were getting sent normally, because their Fayths are all unsleeping human souls that were purposefully unsent. (which is another gripe with 10-2; apparently Bahamut Kid exists in that game when he should already be Sent). As for what that means for Tidus, I'm not sure. Regarding Next Episode:: I hope Casen gets to walk us through his interpretations of all the Floor Murals in the temples and how they were symbolically spoiling the plot the whole time.
On point 1: I don't really think the water pillar is that deep. I think it's more like a manifestation of the fayth's dream and not a sort of portal or something. If that were the case then surely an explorative summoner or even Ronso would have ended up there too. I think it's just representative of the Collective Unconscious in a sense as deep bodies of water are often associated with the subconscious mind. I also don't really buy the whole few Zanarkand as a physical place thing. I just don't think that there's any satisfying way to make that work without contradicting something else. It also wouldn't make sense that Sin wouldn't then also repeatedly attack it and given that pyreflies are necessary to create an aeon (or dream) into reality, it being in the middle of the sea seems like there would be a distinct lack of them there given they seem to exclusively come from human consciousness. I feel like the intended meaning is that despite it being a dream it has the tangibility of a physical space but doesn't occupy a geographical location within the world. Just the idea that no one ever finds it and that 'dream' Zanarkand is a Laputa / Pleasure Island type location that only exists over every horizon is a little too far for me. Especially when we see the Al Behd venturing as far as the submerged Baaj temple at the very edge of the world. If they can find and chart that, I see it as completely impossible that they DIDNT find the dream Zanarkand unless it posesses intangible qualities that kind of contradict what is being said in the ultimania anyway. I think maybe they were trying to tie the pleasure island / pinnochio idea in a little more in a retcon there and it didn't work. I imagine Dream Zanarkand more as an intangible space between Spira and the Farplane more like the 'macalania' inside of sin. It's an internal construct with no direct means of going there and it doesn't hurt the story if there isn't one. Given Sin has a similar thing inside of it and Yu Yevon is a fayth / summoner too I can fully accept that Sin can reach it but no one else can but just trying to make it a physical place in the world introduces so many more questions and complicates the narrative so much more that I'm just repulsed by the notion tbh.
@@bartandaelus359sin “attacks” dream Zanarkand because Jechts will is stronger at that point, which is the key. The same reason Sin doesn’t attack Tidus and co in operation Mi’hen. Dream Zanarkand is a physical place close to baaj temple which is why Tidus ends up there at the start of the game. It’s also the reason Sin constantly attacks places in spira to stop them having the ability to reach where it is and discovering it. It’s simply an Aeon and as we know Aeons once summoned are physical objects until they’re no longer summoned or dispelled.
One of my favorite FF quotes is by LuLu in Djose. She said no matter how dark the night, morning always comes and our journey begins anew. It’s powerful but even more powerful after listening to Casen talk about the theme of the sun rising and when they defeated Yunalesca in Zanarkand with the sun rising. Made this quote mean even more to me.
It feels that Yu Yevon’s final form resembles something of a parasite. Could be the idea that for so long it’s been “living” in such a manner that serves that form, latching on to the spiral of Sin for so long.
24:39 It always bothered me how Seymour says the epic line, "But there is no salvation for the damned! Rest in peace, in eternal darkness! ", because it makes it seem like he's going to do an epic move, like Ultima or Requiem or something like that, but instead he just uses dispel on your party. 51:54 I think the idea of Yu-Yevon's appearance was to be that of a parasite.
I never heard that line because I just Zanmato'd him right off the bat. That fight felt like filler and I just wanted it to be over so I could progress the story, it felt fitting to just have him turn up and immediately give him the ol' 1-2 you're through with the sword man.
The Tower you were talking about, which we saw at the end of Operation Mi´hen and later within Sin has a name: The Tower of the Dead(if you are in the menu you can see location names), so it seems when Sin kills people their souls/pyreflies end up there somehow.
Yeah, I think we're overanalyzing. Sin has brought about the death of many people. And for all we know those people are sent or unsent, and this tower is the nexus into the underworld (the Farplane). The artist just wants to depict that. The river styx, as it were. Upon defeating Yu Yevon, this ends his summoning, including Dream Zanarkand and Sin. This gets confused because there are two different parts. But both are due to Yu Yevon's summoning. Firstly, you see the souls of the fayth, including those used by Yu Yevon, departing the world from their chambers of the fayth as well as from the Wall of Gagazet. You also see the summons depart-- Yu Yevon and Sin and Dream Zanarkand collapsing. Secondly, you see the pyreflies that make-up Sin return to the farplane. As if a Great Fiend just died. Not to be confused with the fayth that we already see return, these pyreflies are not 1-to-1 souls taken by Sin. Even if there's proof that fireflies are the souls of the dead, none can argue against pyreflies being a sort of essence (sometimes call The Lifestream in FF), or building blocks, of the life energy of the world. The confusion happens because it's difficult to distinguish between what Yu Yevon summoned (Dream Zanarkand), and the power he wields from his excess influx of pyreflies (what he uses to construct Sin), which are related and both could be considered his Summons and it's confusing how they both go away at the same time (the destruction of Yu Yevon causing Sin to disappate).
@@Senyuno I love this podcast but it's basically Overanalyzing: The Show. Whenever they go super in depth on symbolism where I think they're putting more thought into things than the people who made the game did, or they try to come up with a logical explanation for things that are just "Sin needs a weak spot it's a video game, would be kind of weird to just....conk him...his...head....part?" I skip ahead.
Not really side content but there are a few interactions of note on the airship that you've missed by only looking at old footage so I hope you bring them up next week. The first is that by talking to Wakka before the big fight he has a scene where he admits to his ignorance of the Al Bhed and apologises to both Rikku and Cid (and Cid replies that he's been guilty of much the same). The second is that by talking to Auron he reveals that his plan had only been to watch over Tidas for Jecht but when Sin appeared in DZ he chose to bring him to the 'real' world instead. So in essence his whole vendetta against Yunalesca and influencing Yuna's pilgrimage was not something he'd been planning in earnest before the start of the game. The thing with calling the Aeons when fighting Yu Yevon is that if they don't then Yu Yevon will leave to seek them out to make the next Sin. By summoning them all there they keep Yu Yevon there until it has no where to retreat to. They bait it to stay until it has no other options than to fight. Seymour is basically just a placeholder villain. The story of the game does not have a god complex evil person doing evil selfish acts with a "Mwa ha haa", the nemesis of this story is a broken system that needs to be ended. Seymour is written in as a human face to fill the role of mortal enemy and bring the corruption of the church to a head. I agree that he probably should have been sent at the end of the Bevelle sequence but that section ended a bit strangely with a cut to black so maybe he was originally ended there but they kept him around for a bit longer. As for why he wasn't sent at Gagazet that is really easy - he was hovering off the side of the mountain, once defeated he lost his flight and fell down out of range. A bit of a dialogue error happens here when Tidas shouts _"And stay up there!"_ when he should really have said 'down' there. As for why he is in Sin - after the party brought down Sin's first flying form it pulls in and absorbs a massive flood of pyreflies to restore itself to a new winged form, Seymour just got pulled in with this flood and deluded himself that he could just take over from within. Once found and weakened here by the party he has nowhere to retreat to and so Yuna can finally Send him. When we saw Seymour's giant face in the sky they were just trying to sell the idea of Sin accidentally sucking him in but the delivery was a bit weird. One thing of note about Seymour (and Yunalesca) is that he is a talented necromancer, able to craft pyreflies into himself so make himself monstrous. When he transforms in Bevelle he is using the souls/pyreflies of Kinnoc and the guards, on Gagazet he is using the souls of the Ronso he just murdered and within Sin he is using the other pyreflies sucked in with him. All this is similar to what Yu Yevon did to create Sin so maybe he _could_ have eventually controlled Sin... Spira is a world of Necromancy, summoning is basically a branch of necromancy. Over time the pilgrimage became the only way necromancy is studied but true masters (Yu Yevon, Yunalesca, Seymour) are so much more versatile in what they can do, though Seymour has a looong way to go compared to the skills of Yu Yevon. Maester Mika did specifically say that Yu Yevon 'crafts the souls of the dead into unholy armor.' So this is what Sin is, not a summon but a crafted monster made of souls. There are few specifics about the metaphysics of Spira so my best guess on why you see Luzzu/Gatta inside this area of Sin is that this place is like a reflection of the Farplane and we are seeing souls pass through here on they're way there and not necessarily trapped in Sin specifically. My main justification for this is that it really should have come up if no one killed by Sin reaches the Farplane seen through Guadosalam. Chappu was killed by Sin and he was on the Farplane. There does seem to be a mixing or blurring of realms on Spira like how the pilgrimage Fayth can appear in DZ despite not being part of the Gagazet Fayth or how DZ also appears within Sin when we find Jecht. I don't think the rules particularly need solidifying for this story to be told. When mass Pyreflies are involved things get trippy and reality softens. I would have to assume that Jecht can be peaceful enough for them to chat briefly but as soon as the situation escalates Yu Yevon will take over to eliminate the threat, once the weapons come out Sin _will_ defend itself. He is saying he wants to be defeated while he still has some humanity left rather than losing himself completely over the next few years but once this necessary battle begins he won't be able to hold back. Well you skipped over the Jecht fight very fast... No comments on his Brasks's Final Aeon form? No reaction to how Tidas can calm Jecht's overdrive build up with the 'talk' command? One thing you missed from the Aeon fights is seeing how much it emotionally hurts Yuna to be summoning all her Aeons just to be food for Yu Yevon and then destroying them. Also when you fight Bahamut and select him as the target of your attacks instead of just his name in the info bar it reads 'Soon... Eternal Rest.' (or something to that effect) I think Yu Yevon's battle form is supposed to be kinda like a parasitical tick. This little bug leaching off the life of the world. My only note about Auron's Sending is that his theme is just nowhere near as good in the remastered soundtrack as in the original. I felt it let down this scene (and his scene earlier, after Luca I think...) Otherwise it's a great scene. I'm pretty sure I've heard Mike in the past talking about an interview with the FFX translator where they said that just having Yuna say 'thanks' in that scene would not have worked in English. They said it flippantly for emphasis but it still seems like a good localisation to change it in the way they did. I think the issue with questioning Casen's theory on how the Fayth were manipulating Tidas and Jecht is just the level of detail he went into as if they micromanaged every thread of their existence. They were clearly taking an interest in them and manipulating things to a degree but just how far it went can only be speculated at and Casen seems to be speculating a bit too hard in a very specific direction. In my mind the ending is very heavily implying that somehow Tidas is reborn in Spira but they wanted to leave how it happens ambiguous. I find it annoying when people just flat out deny his rebirth and say it takes away from Yuna's story but I think the real issue there is that they don't like _how_ it happens in X-2. It does come across as some sort of reward requiring a bunch of really ambiguous random decisions and acts on her behalf throughout the narrative and coming from that angle I can certainly understand what they mean. My opinion of FFX-2 has always been that it tells a good story but doesn't tell it very well. I'd never realised a Pinochio connection to this story before this podcast but now that i see it it is really obvious, however there is one more fairy tale reference that I see in Tidas returning to Spira and that is Cinderella. The magic did not completely end at midnight, there was still enough for the glass slippers to stay. Mike you've said on this podcast that not holding onto the past is a major theme that Tidas returning betrays but I think that requires a little change of perspective on. From Tidas/Yuna's perspective that is true, having both things you want is the unhealthy selfish option but it is not just their small story it is the story of Dream Zanarkand. Yu Yevon and the Gagazet Fayth are responsible for 1000 years of death and destruction because they desperately tried to hold onto the past however there is not a hideous innate cost to just keeping a small fraction of it going for the length of one human lifespan. Tidas is DZs glass slipper, that one tiny piece that remains of the magic. The Fayth are grateful to him for freeing them after so long and so they repay this kindness with their last act. Though you did not get to explore this yet if you go to the Fayth after gaining the airship they all have a line or two to expand the lore a little but Yojimbo is the most interesting to me as he remarks that 'Spira will not forget its saviour.' (not exact words) Which seems to indicate that they _may_ have a plan for Tidas to be rewarded for his actions..
23:25 Correct, "Fight With Seymour" is the last track on the first Black Mages album. Been listening to that version for almost 2 decades! Just a fun rockin' song that plays right after "Dancing Mad" haha instant mood change
I think the Nucleus within Sin is a sort of sphere projection. We've seen that the pyreflies make record of what they contact, little glimpses of memory. So, perhaps the Nucleus shows us the refracted memories of the pyreflies that comprise Sin. Because all the people who died in Operation Mi'ihen were sent to the Farplane, what we see in the Nucleus is not Luzzu/Gatta's spirit, but Sin's memory of him. As we move deeper through this Nucleus, we find Jecht at the core surrounded by his own memory of the blitzball stadium in Zanarkand. As Yu Yevon was driven to summon Sin in order to protect the memory of Zanarkand, so too is Sin driven by memory.
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. I just assumed it absorbed the souls of those it killed in battle, but it makes sense when you consider that the spheres are the crystals of this installment, and they tend to contain knowledge and memories of those who passed.
57:46 The pillar of water basically stops flowing, as the Fayth stop dreaming (i.e. powering DZ)... And the droplets of people are briefly represented as having lived "in a bubble" their whole lives. Both figuratively and I guess literally. That's kinda the imagery I always got from this series of shots at Mt Gagazet
I always thought that Yu-Yevon looked like a parasite or virus. A parasite is not good or evil. The things it does are harmful, but it is simply doing the only thing it knows how to do. Yu-Yevon only exists for this one thing. He has been doing this for so long it's almost like the instincts of a parasite. It just keeps going. It's really creepy and an interesting twist on the themes of the game. Yu-Yevon exists to make the dream Zanarkand persist long after it is dead. Much like Dream Zanarkand, he has become a mere shell of what he once was. He has held on to life for so long that he has lost his life. Much like the fiends do. So, in this game about death, our heroes are the ones who learn how to let go and accept death. They are willing to let their memories be memories. Wakka and Lulu both let go of Chappu and now live their lives for themselves. Wakka no longer fears the things that he thought caused his brother's death. Lulu embraces her feelings for Wakka. Auron has accepted his own death. Tidus and Yuna both confront the death of each other and themselves throughout the game. The ultimate villain is Yu-Yevon who holds onto life until he is no longer living. He could not let Zanarkand go. And now he has been reduced to a pathetic bug. A super easy boss fight. The themes are just so intricate. it's insane. The Fayth summoning Zanarkand into a physical place is like a literal representation of grief controlling your life. When your memories cease to be memories and become physical, then you have gone too far. It's the ultimate sin (get it. Sin is way out of control. His greif is out of control) Yuna's monologue at the end of the game is perfect. You don't have to forget what you have lost, but you need to rebuild. You need to move on. It's like the final message the game is trying to tell you.
Just a bit surprised you didn’t talk a bit more about the fight with Sin. Mentioned it before but for my money Sin is one of the most powerful FF antagonists (just short of the top actually) and they do a good job of demonstrating its raw power in-story and gameplay. The party is only able to engage Sin directly by exploiting a very specific psychological weakness that might not actually work under different circumstances and magnified on a global scale, utilizing a military-grade airship outfitted heavy artillery to level the playing field, and even then Sin still possesses planet-shaking power and must be entered to be dismantled from within. And while plenty of JRPG villains have seemingly planet busting ultimate attacks (i.e. Supernova, Ragnarok, etc.) you are generally able to survive them (multiple times even) and the world is no worse for wear after the battle. Sin’s Giga Graviton by contrast is rather unique in that there is simply no way to survive it, the game doesn’t even bother displaying damage numbers, it’s just an automatic game over. Anyway, good job on making it through though I was wondering if you guys would have gone over the optional content. Also said this before but I dislike most of it though some does expand upon the story (particularly the quests for Anima and the Magus Sisters). I find X’s story and themes to be among the best in the franchise, but the optional content and structure of the game does make it fall short of 6, 7 and 9 for me (with only Tactics being above them).
I was surprised that there was no talk of the 'weak points' as they're flowers / mandalas and look very reminiscent of a lotus. I was all ready for some real talk about the connections of Sin to Nihilism and the Buddhist / lotus connections
When I first did that fight, I had done a lot of the optional content and was WAAYYYY overleveled to the point I was just destroying everything in 1 hit.
The joy of the after-credit scene: We want Tidus to be real and not fade away. This scene just gets us thinking "Well maybe there's a chance." That's it. That's all it can be! It gets us talking about the "maybe," and that's beautiful in its own way.
Agreed. I don't believe there's a "per the author" answer on what the ending means, intentionally so. No matter what FFX-2 attempts to tack on afterwards.
@@12ealDealOfficial FFX-2 is kind of creatively bankrupt imo. It's really plainly trying to capitalise on the Charlie's angels films that came out in that same period and rode that turn of the millennium trend as far as it could. Much of its content feels... Wrong? Idk. I haven't played it since I was a teenager and intend to play it again but the whole structure of the game made it feel more like a fever dream and not like a real game if you know what I mean, like it's an AU fan mod more than a direct sequel. It's also always bothered me how FF sequels basically take all the characters you grew to love and immediately remove them from the party. I find it to be such a strange and common thing, 13-2 and revenant wings both do this as well and you could argue that crisis core and dirge to Cerberus do the same as well. I genuinely don't think anything is gained from taking X-2 as canon and trying to make the first game for what that thing did instead of it being beholden to the events of X. -2 is the weird and screwy one that introduces the problems, not X, but it often seems like the -2 fanboys want or think that it's the other way around? It's very strange to me.
40:25 Recalling the scene at Mushroom Rock with Operation Mi'ihen, the first wave of attack sent out by Sin vaporizes the front line soldiers. It's possible that's the ability that harvests souls/pyrefly essence, and other attacks or collateral damage from environmental hazards like tidal waves and crashing rocks would not harvest the souls of the dead.
I think this is it. We don't know for certain how many times Sin has used its overdrive ability lol, could have used it hundreds of times over the years and that's the reason why so many souls are in it, whereas when it just does a regular attack like Kilika (or if the bodies aren't vaporized) then summoners can send them regularly before they turn into fiends
That's as satisfying as anything else but I'm also willing to accept that it just doesn't capture all of them when they die, like some are lost to nature, some are sent, some are sin'd. I don't think it needs to be an absolutism about sin's kill count that they ALL come to it, more that some do and many are lost more vaguely to other sources.
@@bartandaelus359 I wasn't trying to imply that all souls that die in Spira are consumed by Sin, it was in reference to how some are and how that might happen.
40:30 I've had the same question on my mind regarding the "nucleus" of Sin where we see the Crusaders' souls entering. We don't really know that the 'The Sending' is the one and only way to send souls to the afterlife. That's been a part of the teachings of Yevon, which we already can discount as a reliable source. Only summoners can perform it, and we know summoning was perfected by Zanarkand mages like Yu Yevon. The same Yu Yevon who 1000 years ago cast a spell that effectively summoned a bunch of pyreflies to one location, crafting the unholy armor of Sin. What if 'The Sending' is just a tool to guide nearby pyreflies to one specific location? You could send them to the Farplane, as is the tradition, which is nice because it seems to have some Guado-made barrier that prevents them from leaving again, but perhaps any large enough concentration of pyreflies could be marked as a destination for other pyreflies to gather at. And perhaps it's only through a large gathering of them that it's possible for some to cross over into the actual afterlife, like an event horizon of a black hole. I think the reason summoners are still needed to perform 'The Sending' as the common people know it is because yes, Sin may be absorbing some souls to replenish what it's lost, but it's like a mindless animal, killing without discretion just to keep the cycle going. Summoners are still needed to follow in its wake to send what remains to a secure location like the Farplane at Guadosalam. The Crusaders at Mi'ihen actually put up a decent fight and penetrated some of Sin's defenses, so in the wake of that battle it may have been hungrier than usual and feasted on more souls than it would usually take in.
I find in a lot of Japanese animation, the phrase "You're so stupid" is often used when a character is in conflict with someone who they can't bring themselves to hate someone out of stubbornness. It always felt more like a sort of reluctantly respectful thing to say.
Excellent podcast I'm happy I caught up during my commutes. I sincerely look forward to the final episode and your future coverage of MGS. Five things: 1) The presence of powerful fiends and the pyreflies in Sin are probably the unsent guardians, summoners, and crusaders who died fighting with or in contact with Sin. After Operation Mihen, we actually never see Yuna perform a sending. It's possible excommunicated crusaders no longer receive Yevon's blessing and instead are not granted sendings. Remember that Luzu/ Gata/ and the character models of crusaders are shown walking in the tower of the dead prior to the minigame portion (or immediately after the operation, if my memory serves). This leads me to: 2) Both explanations as to what the Farplane is are probably true. The biggest fallacy to the Al Bhed theory is Jiscal exiting the Farplane to physically hand Yuna the sphere, therefore, the images of people there are probably real; however, Tidus's mom, Brasca (who gave his life in contact with Sin), and Chappu are also in the Farplane. I believe these three people are memories. I believe the Farplane is more like the essence of the world, like the life stream, than a heavenly plain of existence. What spirits do not actually get to the Farplane are probably fabricated, their images made more complete by the collective memories of those in and interacting with the Farplane. Rikku and Lulu (?) are probably both correct. Those that are still alive (why living people are not manifested by pyreflies) are known in and outside of the Farplane to be as such, so they cannot be "dreamed," the same way we wake from our own dreams when we can no longer accept them. Tidus's mom was not technically ever alive in Spira, but Tidus recalls her anyway, so the pyreflies probably reconstructed her, whether through Tidus or the memories of those before the great war in which a person like Tidus's mom existed 3) Yu Yevon is sort of egg shaped. 4) Rikku's affinity scenes are pretty interesting. Apparently, she wanted a large family and to settle down. 5) I hope you two talk more about the Bevelle and Zanarkand war predating the fall (and rise) of Zanarkand. This is the largest gap in my understanding of FFX. Finally, I again want to congratulate you two on an excellent podcast. This was the best, most interesting analysis I've heard since Ross and Fungo made TRSHE.
I thought this might be worth mentioning re Tidus rebirth after credits. Tidus originates from a city of the dead, the first place he goes to when he meets Sin is the temple ruins, this location acts as a kind of purgatory just before he is born proper into the world of Spira (in this instance the ship he is on with rikku acts kind of like the ferryman of the dead idea). The problem is when he is born into Spira the first time his destiny is already set in stone (like the fayths producing him), he would always have to sacrifice himself to end Sin truly. After the credits and Tidus is floating underwater this is like his second chance. He is literally born again in Besaid where his story began the last time around, except now he is completely free to make his own choices and decisions. Immediately reuniting with yuna may take the focus away from the theme of this being his real birth into the world (not to mention it would slightly hurt the scene where he fades away if they just met up again right away). Just my thoughts! Great Podcast! So weird that I found this pod at exactly the same time as I revisited FFX 20 years after I first played it. Keep up the good work
Man, when Yuna told Tidus she loved him, that hit really hard as an adult. As a kid, I feel like I tried to brush it off or thought it was maybe a little cheesy. But it was a very strong point in the game that kind of sealed the deal for this game to be legendary.
I'd be really interested in seeing Mike and Casen play X-2 in the future, it's got redeemable qualities to the lore and the world IMO (outside of the gameplay which is already fantastic af). (SPOILERS FOR X-2 ENDING REGARDING TIDUS) I believe the explaination behind Tidus coming back is that Bahamut (wiki says "the Fayth" but I remember it being Bahamut specifically iirc) willingly chooses to go back asleep and "dream" Tidus alive, at least until Yuna & co. die I suppose. This also directly references the FFX after credits scene, where at the end of X-2 Tidus wakes up underwater and swims up, in X-2 it continues the scene where he finds himself at Besaid's Beach, he's then greeted by Yuna, Wakka, Lulu and other inhabitants of the island and everything ends happily ever after and nothing else was ever done with the FFX property ever again.
Agreed. I understand the difference of opinion over Tidus, I'm undecided about that myself. But the chance to see how a world that was held in a death spiral for 1,000 years deal with suddenly being freed from that is pretty fascinating. It's a shame you have to dig for the good bits, but they are in there. And yes, the battle system is excellent.
I remembered something Tidus said on the boat ride to Luca where he mentions that Jecht never liked watching other people play Blitzball. And in the beginning of the game when Tidus dives above the arena where he's about to kick the ball, Sin attacks. I don't know if it was a coincidence, or if that was Jecht being funny like "Hey, I'm still the best Blitzer of Zanarkand even if I am sin."
I'm a 36 year old bloke who can't help but tear up at the ending of this and FF10-2 for different reasons. A lot of that could just be nostalgia but I feel like the confluence of music, voice acting and art direction really sell it. Also BIG spoilers regarding the questions at the end of the video, READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL; They didn't show Tidus coming back because it's literally in the sequel! Tidus is brought back alive and well pretty much directly from the end of 10 if you get 100% completion in 10-2. You get that ending after the spirits of the Fayth, who still exist in the Farplane, bring him back as a reward to Yuna for saving Spira again. Somehow Yuna knows he's back and flies to Besaid just as he's come up from the water you see at the end of FF10. It even has an extra scene afterwards between Yuna and Tidus at the very same point in Zanarkand that FF10 begins at, with Yuna standing in place of Tidus at the end, basically bringing the story full circle.
I think the guys kind of explained that they find sequels problematic, especially 'cash grab' / sequels that betray the spirit of the original artwork. So i think they are aware of this but simpy don't pay it any notice in their interpretation. For example many people just simply consider all the expanded FF7 Stuff after the original game non canon for similar reasons.
When you hide your true ending behind 100+ hrs of tedious & annyoing gameplay (not bashing FFX-2, i actually liked it) 👏 How many people you think 100% FFX-2 back in the day? 100? 1000? I mean worldwide...
Regarding Sin absorbing the souls of the dead, Mika does describe Yu Yevon as "he who crafts the souls of the dead into armor", which could be taken as referring to the fayth, but would also make sense with the tower being a sort of nucleus that channels them, especially since that tower is also the direct conduit you use to reach Sin's core
I can't find any source on the internet to back me up on this, but I feel like I remember a line in X-2 that Shuyin was actually from Bevelle, not Zanarkand. It made sense as like an inversion of the TIdus/Yuna relationship: here in the present is a blitz ace from Zanrkand and a summoner from Bevelle, but 1000 years ago it was a blitz ace from Bevelle and a summoner from Zanarkand. In their relationship, Lenne was the sun and Shuyin the moon. Since in that war Zanarkand was using summoners and Bevelle machina, it stood to reason that Lenne would be on one side and it explains how Shuyin knew about the secret machina. It also added to the whole star crossed lovers anime melodrama the game was doing. As to the bigger question about people from the dream Zanarkand, it's something I'm curious to hear more information about. I've always wondered how it worked. Like has Tidus been the same person since the dream was conceived? He seems to have memories of being a kid and growing up. We seem to see a progression of Jecht being at the top of his game and then slipping, which suggests changes over time. People being born and growing and marrying and dying in dream Zanarkand would explain how Tidus seems to not know who Yunalesca or Yuyevon are, and you'd think that two prominent people like that would be recorded in the dream. But people having full lives in the dream would mean that the fayth are creating from whole cloth the images and personas of loads of individuals, which cuts against the whole memorial record nature of the thing. I feel like I can go in loops like that for hours. I wonder if there's any official statements from the devs.
I believe the canon explanation of dream zanarkand is that it's essentially a self-contained world but is otherwise real. People procreate, grow up, die of old age, etc. The energy of it's existence is sourced from the Fayth and the Fayth (and Yu Yevon probably) created the initial state of it(when they were at the height of their power) but that is it.
In my opinion, Seymour's appearances are off and even ridiculous in some regards. But I find the character's motivations interesting, because they fit well in one of the game's main themes: the acceptance of death and pain. Blinded by hatred and lust for power, Seymour wishes to become Sin in order to stop the cycle of death that rules Spira, and by doing so, he intends to eliminate pain itself; especially, in his case, the pain that comes from the loss of loved ones. Seymour has never overcome his grief over the loss of his mother, and his intentions to suppress suffering are rooted in this tragedy. On this view, Seymour's intentions can be seen as an inability to accept what life involves; for the flourishing of life implies, in a complementary and inevitable way, its opposite, which is death, whether ours or loved ones'. But more than that, life is a constant oscillation between joy and pain. Life cannot only be joy and happiness, it is also a struggle. Blinded by a sorrow that he never overcame, Seymour thus failed to accept death and pain, but in this refusal he was ironically led to refuse what he wanted to preserve, namely life itself. Seymour says it several times during the story: "be free of pain". But being absolutely free of pain implies to be absolutely free of its opposite. Wanting to suppress life because he could not accept death: that is the tragic irony that characterizes Seymour's character. And in relation to this thematic of accepting death and grief, the antagonism between the protagonists and Seymour finds, in my opinion, its true meaning here. The protagonists have all faced the loss of loved ones, but unlike Seymour, they have finally managed to overcome their grief. Where Seymour wanted to suppress life because he did not accept death, the protagonists, because they were able to accept death and the sorrow that follows, were able to conceive of the future as something other than a spiral of death; they were able to conceive of and fight for a future from which life would not be suppressed, but could instead spring forth in its immanence. Auron, before the fight against Yunalesca, says: "This is it! It is time to choose. Be free of pain, or live and fight your sorrow!" To die and be free of pain, or to live and fight sorrow... this is for me the true meaning of the fight between the protagonists and Seymour, which is ultimately an allegoric fight for life. In the end, I think Seymour is a very interesting and even deep character who is unfortunately ill exploited.
Also, it is clear that this fight for life also concerns Sin, which itself is an allegory for death - the brutal, impartial death. And its very existence is the direct result of the question: what to do in the face of death? Sin was created by Yu Yevon, a thousand years ago. Yu Yevon is a Summoner who could not accept the near death of his people, as well as the destruction of his city during the war against Bevelle. This is why he embarked on a colossal summoning, transforming hundreds of inhabitants into Faiths: a dreamed Zanarkand materialized, as well as a monster to defend it, Sin, which was instilled with Yu Yevon's hatred and resentment towards machines. This dreamed Zanarkand, as well as Sin itself, are but the embodiment of this fear of death and refusal of dissipation. It is here that FF X in my opinion tackles so well another theme related to death: the inheritance and passing on, and this through a clever use of the symbolism of the spiral. Spira is a world full of death. Not only because Sin destroys everything in its path, but also because death constantly clings to and encroaches on life in such a way that it is omnipresent. Yevon, as an institution, is itself full of Wanderers, who are also, in some ways, individuals who have somewhat refused their dissipation. Fiends that inhabit Spira are notably dead people whose feelings have transformed their life energy (pyreflies) into creatures. The leaders of Spira are literally undead; they are beings from the past who refuse to tear themselves away from the present., Auron sums up Spira's situation perfectly: "Summoners challenge the bringer of death, Sin, and die doing so. Guardians give their lives to protect their summoner. The fayth are the souls of the dead. Even the maesters of Yevon are unsent. Spira is full of death. Only Sin is reborn, and then only to bring more death. It is a cycle of death, spiraling endlessly." Hence the impossibility for Spira to build itself towards the future: the past clings to and dominates the present; death dominates life. Yu Yevon, Sin, the dreamed Zanarkand, Yevon etc. are the result of this fundamental fear; of this refusal of "passing on", of dissipation and inheritance for new generations that could build the future. Hence this imprisonment in a mortifying loop that never ceases to connect the past, that is to say what is dead, to the present, which itself can only conceive of its future by the yardstick of the past, of actions to be endlessly repeated in a vertiginous spiral of death, instead of conceiving of it by the yardstick of a range of possibilities proper to life in its immanent flow. In the end, the symbol of the spiral in FF X primarily refers to this: the domination of the present by the past, which is the domination of life by death. In this respect, I like how FF X was smart enough to go all the way with its thematic approach: the last fight against Yu Yevon is not a classical fight against an overpowered boss. Instead, you face a ridiculous being with the appearance of an insect, with a spell preventing any defeat. This choice is explained by the fact that Yu Yevon is precisely a parasite, the very incarnation of a past that clings desperately to the present in the hope of determining its future. But this past, as death, has no capacity to stand on its own, for that it must "suck the blood", like a vampire, of life. Hence the need for Yu Yevon to parasitize aeons, for without them he is nothing. The fight against Yu Yevon cannot be lost, because the real fight has already been won; it is an allegorical fight. Yuna's speech at the end concludes the treatment of these themes perfectly: now Spira can finally build itself by looking to the future. The previous generations belong to the past, but they must not be forgotten ("Never forget them"), because it is important to take the past into account in order to build the future, just as these people who now belong to the past have helped to build this present world, to change us (Yuna's "Never forget them" therefore applies just as much to this collective dimension of a legacy from the past as to this more personal dimension: the relationships that helped build her as an individual, that deeply changed her). Once the cycle is broken, life can finally spring forth in its immanence without being dominated and imprisoned in a spiral of death that left no other possible outcome than the eternal repetition of the same loop. It is the acceptance of the cycle of life, which implies death, that of oneself and of loved ones... but also the perpetual renewal of life itself, in what can be called the "teleology of life" (a concept of the philosopher Michel Henry). The story of this game, despite its flaws, is very phenomenal. I love FF VII and FF VI but I think that FF X might have the deepest story. Its themes are treated with a lot of intelligence. Anyway thank you guys for this podcast which was very interesting and well done. This is the first of your podcasts I watch and I'll watch the others with pleasure. Take care!
Regarding the post credits scene i have this to say: I think initially (pre X-2) it was always meant to be open ended. And in my opinion it still should be because screw X-2s story and everything else post FFX that Nojima literally shat out of his brain lol. Maybe Tidus is in the afterlife maybe not, it doesn't matter because the story is over. Something like ICOs post credits scene for people who played that game. Just a beautiful "Huh..." moment that's meant to linger in your feelings and not in your head. It's the icing on the cake which is this wonderful ending. Screw X-2 seriously.
I think X-2's ending is fine, I can fully understand people disliking it because it takes away from X's ending, but I liked how the ending was done overall. But 100% agree on anything that came after X-2 - the light novel and audio drama are horrible
@@omensoffate In a literal sense yeah that is what Sin is. But Sin represents a god of Death, perpetuating a cycle of death. Everyone in Spira, no matter what they believe, is influenced by this force of nature. So as they all sing, it becomes unified. A voice even Death itself cannot help but to listen to. Powerful symbolism. The man inside stopped being a man long ago.
Considering that Tidus kinda technically counts as an aeon, imagine if Yu Yevon had possessed him last, and Tidus was the penultimate boss! Tidus used HAHAHA, causing confusion and berserk.
I took Tidus’ “I hate you” in English as “I hate you for making me do this.” He gets to say what he needed to say but it’s in a different context after learning more about his father.
13:48 No one knew the weak spots because they always fought him from the ground and more than likely died, the only reason we can see and attack Sin’s weak spots is because we have the airship.
That would be my assumption too. No one has been able to fight Sin with an airship, so no one would notice glowing weak spots on its arms. I also suspect that those spots on it's arms don't glow until after it uses it's big gravity attacks like we in the FMV cutscene before the fight and at Operation Mi'hen. Which normally would kill almost everyone close to him.
Bingo. And the summons we get are not large enough to carry guardians all at once for an aerial battle, so likely no one ever got the height advantage on Sin prior.
Hello great work as always! A few thoughts 1) the gravity attack you can see from space I always assumed it was Jecht exerting his limited control over sin to expend most of it's destructive power so the party could attack while it was weakened and couldn't use it's shield. 2) like the Lord Zaon's statue in Zanarkand once Yu Yevon takes over an aeon and then is killed the spirit of the aeon is released from the statue it was in. If you killed Yu Yevon without calling your aeons the Fayth in the temples would be trapped in those statues forever. 3) I also assumed Jecht couldn't willingly die and Yu Yevon would instinctively protect himself Jecht does help a bit if you talk to him during the battle 4) if you use scan on each of the aeons once taken over by Yu Yevon they say something unique. 5) Someday the podcast must end :(
The Dark Aeons appear after Bevelle, and are essentially an addition to the plot in a sense as hostile summoners attacking you in Yevon's name. In many cases they are quite literally blocking your path to somewhere. I think the one probably most infamous is Dark Valefor as it blocks you from getting Auron's final limit break if you did not get the memory sphere before Bevelle(as it is probably the least realistic to have done before this point), but there are other examples too such as blocking Anima's acquisition if you didnt get the hidden temple treasures or blocking an item required for Tidus' ultimate weapon. I don't know how I feel about this - it is cool but having maxed out my characters to fight Penance, it also kinda mean. Also, now that we're finally past Zanarkand, the other thing I find ironic about the little boat journey over the ruined city is that while Yevon has shunned this city for it's use of machina leading it to ruin, they regard Zanarkand as a holy place. Despite it both being the ruins of a highly advanced civilization who used machina, and also the fact that it was Bevelle that nearly destroyed it (using machina). Pretty hypocritical if you ask me!
This podcast "bookclub" has a really great format. The balance between Mike's more analytical and hard-facts approach and Casen's more symbolism & semantics focused approach works really well and I can't think of a better team. There are plenty of game reviews out there, but rarely you'll have something like this that dissects plot, characters, art & design, etc, rather than game-play. Only weakness is the sound, Mike will transition into mumbling from time to time, making it nearly impossible to hear him if you are at the gym or something like that, I'm playing with the volume button every time the speaker changes.
Funny that you guys mention yu yevon looking like a spider or squid. When I first played the game and seen yu yevon for the first time I immediately thought it resembled a tick. Never thought of it too much though, I was just a kid
Really great podcast. Always a joy to listen to the analysis of a classic like FFX. Regarding the sending of Seymour and Ginnem, I always interpreted the sending as working best on the recently deceased, but after a point, it becomes less effective. Hence why summoners can’t just send any fiend. Basically there isn’t much humanity left to send. In Seymour’s case, he gradually gets more and more monstrous in form. Ginnem was basically a husk of resentment on auto pilot; lacking much humanity. This seems to line up too with your idea of weakening the fiend enough to send them as that is sort of what we do all game: kill fiends until their pyreflies disperse. This may also help distinguish between unsent like Auron who aren’t hostile or actively resisting (I.e., trying to kill). Just a theory.
I was literally reaching some of the previous parts. I might make comments as I watch but I'm happy you guys are needing the end! I love this game so much, it means so much to me. I have to say though, Tales of the Abyss analysis when!?
Good work here guys. This was impeccably timed for me, as the Steam Deck just came out recently and I was literally playing through this at the same time (roughly 3 episodes or so into this podcast, so I had to catch up, hence my lack of commenting on previous episodes.) Regarding your discussion on the final cut (the post credits Tidus scene), it's actually pretty hard to discuss without thinking about FFX-2 since it really influences my ability about it in the same way we would have in 2002. However, to the best of my recollection, in a pre-FFX2 world my original interpretation was that Tidus was in another realm akin to the farplane. His death in one world lead to a new life and rebirth in the afterlife. This would be symbolically associated with the thematic "spiral" idea, in which life and death is essentially recursive. If you think about the concept of the farplane itself, it essentially shows the player that life after death is a near quantifiable "fact" (though the al bhed theory still presents room to doubt the existence of an afterlife.) This is how I viewed it the first time I played the game, at least. Obviously this interpretation was essentially proven false in light of FFX2 -- but in a world where we pretend that game doesn't exist (which I'm not sure how fair that is, since it's been a long time since I've played that game, though I do remember being disappointed by it) or alternatively in a world where you think that FFX2's non-100% ending is actual cannon (which would be unpopular, but I think it would improve X2 in my eyes) that's how I would actually see the ending. I will add that I'm not sure I'm in love with the idea that Dream-Zanarkand exists physically in the real world. I think you might be right that it might be confirmed within subsequent materials, but it raises some big questions on why nobody was able to locate it using airships or boats. Additionally, there would be no reason to use sin to transport to and from dream zanarkand if it was physically located on the map. My thought was always that dream zanarkand was a pocket universe in the fayth corpse pile, represented by the spherical mass of water. If you look at the effect on the walls, it seems like all of the energy of the fayth of channeled toward that mass. When tidus touches the faith, he is temporarily transported into that pocket universe again. It would also explain how Auron found his way to Zanarkand, since dying on mt. gagazet could have caused his soul to be caught up in the summoning process and allow him to be transported to Jecht's Zanarkand. The only thing I don't know about this is how Sin was able to travel there... I'll note that when the sphere "breaks" as the fayth are disappearing, you can see glimpses into this pocket universe showing all the memories and people within that universe -- illustrating that the dream universe has been destroyed and the summoning is over. Anyway, that was a long rant, but great work!
thoroughly enjoyed this podcast on FFX. I really appreciate (with all your videos in fact) on how in-depth you go with everything, and find references or connections to things I never considered or went completely over my head. you put in so much work and it really stands out on here as being of the highest quality. always look forward to what you guys out next.
Regarding Seymour: I actually don't like the idea of him entering Sin and then finding a way to control it. By that point in the journey I think increasing Seymour's importance and elevating him to the "True Villain" status would have taken the focus away from Yu Yevon and Jecht too much. However, his boss fights do have importance to the story. 1. In Bevelle, he kills Kinoc and causes Kelk Ronso to leave to Gagazet. This causes Yevon to fall into Chaos with 3 of 4 of it's leaders suddenly gone. Which allows the party to make their way across the Calm lands unapposed for the most part. Perhaps it would have been good to see a scene with Mika struggling to maintain order in Bevelle and blaming Seymour for it to make that more clear. Rather than a few lines from Auron explaining that Yevon is in disarray. Also, regarding why the party doesn't send Seymour after defeating him in Bevelle. My assumption was always that they still needed to run away from Yevon and escape into the forest at that time. Here's another opportunity where they could have shown dozens of warrior monks surround the defeated Seymour and have Auron tell the party that they have to run away. A simple 10 second scene at the end of the fight could have fixed this. 2. On Mount Gagazet, Killing all the Ronso doesn't have much impact when it's off-screen. It should have been shown to us, or at the very least have Seymour bring Kelk's body and drop it in front of the party just like he did with Kinoc. Something to give that revelation more impact. But the real story purpose of Seymour's appearance here is to reveal to Yuna that Jecht is Sin. Which is something that Tidus and Auron kept secret from everyone up until this point. Had Seymour never revealed this here, there would be no reason for Tidus or Auron to confirm it until Yunalesca tells them. That wouldn't be good from a writing perspective because now the party has to deal with 2 big revelations in the same scene. First that Sin is Jecht and also the true nature of the final summoning. That 2nd revelation is devastating enough for the party on it's own, so I think it was a good choice to reveal Sin is Jecht to everyone well before this happened. That said, I see no reason why Seymour couldn't have been sent after the battle at Gagazet. I would have had him be sent there and then remove that final encounter with him inside Sin. It's confusing how he got inside Sin in the first place and how he's able to appear in the Clouds in the FMV sequence as you enter. He serves no purpose inside Sin as the story is winding down at that point. He just serves as another obstacle here whereas his 3 previous encounters actually served a story purpose.
The way I see is is that we don't send regular fiends and such through our journey and we are told that unsent can become friends so I think it's more a matter of him becoming a true friend and then killing him being the closest thing to a sending that can occur but maybe it's just because she burst into pyreflies at the end of the fight and they didn't have a chance? Seymour is absolutely the weakest part of the game imo and I almost think that the better use of him would have been to have him usurp Mika and leverage ALL of yevon against the plan to defeat sin with the global hymn-spirit bomb thing they were doing. Imagine, Yuna says 'we need everyone to sing and then we can defeat sin forever' and Seymour says otherwise. They then go to Bevelle to fight Seymour one final time before the showdown with sin and Seymour transforms into his final form for all to witness. This casts Yuna in a heroic light and any remaining suspicions would be dissipated with the church now completely leaderless and Yuna their only hope. They trust her and follow her guidance and we see Yevon destroyed before Yu Yevon is also destroyed. By ending the false religion we end the spiral of suffering that entraps them and it gives Seymour an actual purpose because his 4th fight is basically 'oh shit we didn't wrap this up cram it in here' in a sense. The ending feels a bit rushed and padded because of this fight imo. The entirety of the 'inside don't bit feels overlong to me and disrupts the pacing quite a lot. I was actually a little shocked to find that you could enter sin and then leave to go do endgame stuff. I actually did most of my endgame stuff first because I thought that it was going to lock me in as soon as I selected Sin in the menu.
Yu Yevon and Sin are plot devices, not characters. Jecht isn’t a villain. What they’re suggesting would have given Seymour more plot relevance at the end.
I've always seen Seymore in Sin as evidence that Sin takes in pyreflies and or the souls of the dead. Not all of them, but some of them. But that is just my hypothesis.
@@nobodyshome6792 not even a Hypothesis when then game quite literally tells us how Seymour gets inside Sin, the exact same way Auron does when travelling to and from dream Zanarkand. I don’t understand why so many people seem confused about this.
Sacrificing your Aeons to beat Yu Yevon was so sad to me. I had grown very attached to them, especially since using Aeons was like fighting with Pokemon, which are some of my favorite turn-based games. I've watched some playthrough highlights by folks on YT where they were emotionally wrecked by that stage of the fight, and I am on their side about it. The whole last hour+ of this game just destroys me!
Mannn, finally i catch up playing X to follow this podcast until the end It just make the game wayyy better Hope you guys make podcasts for any other FFs (main series) Im new in FF universe, finished play VII, VIII (excellent 5 episode analysis), and X (because of this podcast) I think i’ll play IV next
I was pretty sure yu Yevon was simply supposed to look like a parasite. Which I think fits well enough for it since it takes over another life force to stay alive
A little late with this reply as I just started listening last week, but at around 40 minutes you guys mention the possibility of Sin absorbing souls, which does make a lot of sense. As far as Yuna doing sendings, those could be for people who weren't directly killed by Sin. In Kilika, Sin does create a tidal wave which may have killed most of the people who would then need sending, and for Operation Mi'hen there could be a number of people who died to sinspawn or died after the battle due to injuries that weren't vaporized and then absorbed by sin like Luzzu/Gatta may have been.
I don't think the fayth have created Jecht or Tidus purposefully for the goal of releasing them from the summoning. First off the fayth we largely speak to are Aeons of Spira, they aren't directly involved in the Zanarkand summoning due to the fact the statues give physical clues when they are actively used for summoning and the fayth statues in the temples are often dormant. We also know that the summoned Zanarkand is not some vision, it's a physical place being actively created and maintained by Yu Yevon and the Gagazet fayth. I believe that when the dream Zanarkand was summoned although it was loosely based on the people of the original it ran more like a simulation that had independent creations and generations, we know there is birth, growing older and death in the dream Zanarkand. It seems to me fayth like Bahamut were waiting for an opportunity to come that the right kind of exceptional people manifested, I don't think it's a coincidence that Jecht who was considered an incredible athlete and the apex of his society ends up being in Spira. I loved the video but was sad to see you had missed my favorite line of dialogue from Auron that kind of confirms a great deal of what happens isn't planned out but reactionary, Auron and Jecht are just kind of hoping that the next generation can "figure it out" and bring an end to the cycle. Before fighting Sin you can speak to Auron on the airship multiple times and he will discuss that he planned to stay in Zanarkand as Tidus' guardian but changed his mind when Sin attacked and that Jecht would want him to experience the real world. I believe that's the X-factor the fayth were looking for, Tidus and Jecht are the pinnacle of their respective worlds and social structure but they share deep and destructive flaws: they had experienced real pain in their lives and it made them perfect candidates for Spira, the perfect people to realize that while the dream is pleasant, it's only a façade that should come to an end and to experience a life worth living is to have pain and suffering. The fact both Jecht and Tidus only fully realize themselves and truly begin to value what is most important in their lives after they experience the horrors of Spira isn't an accident. As Auron says "Outside the dream world, life can be hard -- even cruel. But it is life. He wanted you to have a shot at life."
Just a few things about Seymour. First: when you fight him inside Sin, you can summon Anima and he reacts to it, saying "you would face me as well? So be it." I really like this small detail. Second: I think he is underrated as a villain and is often overlooked for 3 main reasons: 1) like you say, the most villainous things he does are off-screen; 2) part of his back story and motivation (which I find very interesting by the way) is told on the side-quest to get Anima; 3) he is overshadow by the abundance of villains/antagonists: him, the Yevon religion, Sin (the big "whale" who embodies pain and sorrow, Jecht as the final Aeon and Yu Yevon), Yunalesca, ... there is very little left for him to shine.
Seymour is a much better antagonist the older you become as a player, I find. Plenty of Yevonites talk about Seymour as a kindly priest, particularly the kids in the temples. He manages to appeal to Tidus's sensibilities before operation Mihen with his "pretend you didn't see it" (a VERY blunt knock against the way disillusioned adults deal with complex issues). Seymour's status as the most powerful, most well liked figurehead of Spira makes his psychopathy that much more threatening. And he's a serial killer with the quintessential killer's background, in real life. Seymour could probably convince all of Spira that Sin destroying the world to end suffering is a good idea. He's charismatic and untouchable, but insane, leaving Tidus as an outsider who, under different circumstances, could be seen as the outlier; this a scary, but real place, to feel like you're at as an adult. Seymour is a much more grounded antagonist than characters with a ton of theatrics and screen time, like Ardyn and Kefka.
Regarding Seymour: I love Kafka, but when it comes to characterization in FF villains, I think Sephiroth is the gold standard. I think Seymour would have benefitted from a scene similar to when Cloud finds Sephiroth in the basement researching his history, where we learn what Sephiroth’s whole “Thing” is; even if it changes later, and the villain because (literally) inhuman, we still have that earlier experience to ground us. But like you said: Seymour kills his dad offscreen, he loses his mother offscreen, and Tidus isn’t there for any of it. Seymour’s backstory is so fascinating, and Tidus is just never connected to it. If nothing else, I think it would have been useful to connect Seymour to Sin in some more tangible way. Maybe Seymour could be doing something or holding something that prevents the team from getting to Sin or accessing the interior, or they could have more strongly connected his death to the fall of the church, and then more strongly connect the church’s fall to the team’s ability to access Sin. Ah well; still a great game.
here's a theory about the Farplane that I want to add to here: I always thought the Farplane was a physical representation/manifestation of the power that sustains "life" in Spira. From summons, unsent individuals, the fayth, sin, and even regular humans: the farplane sort of like the lifestream in 7, in the sense that it is the source of all these things. it is also the bridge between Spira and a realm of greater unknown. The orb of the moon, obscured by smoke or vapor, reminds me of Yu Yevon, a much smaller smokey orb of eternal life; I'd like to think Yu Yevon's realm inside of Sin is a pocket recreation of the Farplane, in that it is not simply a summoning by pyreflies, but actually somewhat manifested through an immense connection to "the source" of the greater unknown. The Spirans borrow this power in order to use summons and orbs, etc.. However, Yu Yevon's power not just a simple borrowing of the powers that govern this world; I always thought that he was so overpowered, that he was almost a replication of the moon of the Farplane; a purveying being over such great power. Here's what I want to add: Take how Sin is Yu Yevon's armor, maybe the world of Spira is the "armor" of the smokey moon that purveys the Farplane. Maybe it's "celestial" armor, if you will. I say "celestial" to describe the larger scale at which this comparison can be applied (Yu Yevon & Sin, the mysterious moon & Spira), but also because the "celestial weapons" are a set of optional weapons that can be obtained in FFX's famous endgame grind-sessions. They're obtained in Macalania Woods from a glowing crystal orb, with which the party can communicate. The entity with which they communicate is able to bestow great power on their weapons. Who are they communicating with that is capable of bestowing this power?
I followed you guys all the way through and completed FFX for the first time last week. still stunned by the ending. really miss spira and even gave FFX2 a go but it wasn't the same. thanks so much for waking this up for me. this second playthrough opened my eyes to the depth of this game, and I really need to thank you guys for that. I also owe you guys for getting me thru some shit, but thats another story all together. just happy this exists. keep up the good work!
I didn't comment on it, but I don't really like the idea that the Fayth manipulating things so Jecht would become Sin and made Tidus "hate" Jecht. It diminishes the game's point that Jecht was an abusive father and makes Tidus' feelings look "wrong", like he's the one at fault.
I also found it interesting that the proginator of the religion that was posing as a preservation of life was the name of the person who was continually requiring sacrifices to sustain a form that wrought death and eternal life (another yin/yang combo in Yu Yevon and Sin I guess?). The religion was actually a cult that convinced devote people to become summoners, and ultimately sacrificed those summoners to appease a god that only brought death to the land.
As you guys were talking about why some souls are in Sin and others are sent (at around 40:30), I started to think of a reason. This is probably a huge stretch, but what if absorbing souls is kind of like Sin regaining HP? As if he is using an X-potion or something. And as his HP is full, he doesn't need any more souls, so whatever is left, is able to be sent.
For the big finale I would really love to hear more of your thoughts on the voice work in this game, outside of Tidus. You talked quite a bit about James Arnold Taylor's performance, but barely any about the rest of the VA talent! Tell us what you thought of John DiMaggio, Tara Strong, Matt McKenzie, and the rest of the cast!
I really, really liked Matt McKenzie as Auron. A combination of tone, cadence, and lines really made that character stand out for me. My favorite voice performance in all of gaming, even above Guy Cihi. I love it when non-regulars (Blum, Strong, North, Baker, etc) voice characters with that non-standard line delivery. When I hear someone like Tara Strong, even as Rikku, I can't help but recognize them as their actor in a role. I also thought Yuna was perfectly cast. And JAT had his best role of his prolific career as Tidus; I respected his portrayal that much more when I learned about his actual upbringing.
I also really really love Seymour's English voice actor being so edgy and extra compared to the Japanese. I usually like Japanese VAs better, but 10 was cast really well.
@@12ealDealOfficial OMG Burgess as Yuna is a love of mine. Her voice is so sweet and soft. I could talk all day about the inflections in her voice I like that she gave to Yuna.
One thing that should probably be brought up in the last episode is a discussion on levels of canonicity. This last discussion should include some discourse on how firmly you should accept alternate sources from the actual game as canon. While the Ultimanias should certainly be discussed it is not required to accept it as 100% canon. For these sources I personally would put them somewhere between 0 and 100 to average it at 50%, there are strong reasons for both ends of the scale. For information from FFX-2 I'd put it at around 25%, not canon when _this_ game was made so much retcon could be involved but ignoring it flat out would be a mistake, it really just matters how hard it retcons. Questions and thoughts raised in sequels/ultimanias can give an interesting new perspective worthy of discussion. For example Maechen being an Unsent is only a thing in X-2 but is certainly not out of character at all for who he is and how much he knows in _this_ game so is easily worth accepting and the brief discussion you had on Shuyin was a good perspective to include here Information from that FFX-3 _thing_ I'll put at 2% and call that overly generous...
the symbol the 8 lines make around the cyclone might be a reference to the chaos sigil, just more visual symbolism for Sin being the epicenter of everything. Sin so easily losing its left arm all of a sudden might be a visual representation of Yunalesca's death as a part of the whole Sin system. That said, it still makes very little sense from an actual story perspective.
In the opening cinematic when Tidus swims out of the top of the bliztball arena, it can be seen as Tidus leaving the bubble of water/sphere of dream zanarkand that the fayth are keeping. Just that repeated imagery of memories and spheres.
Thank you for this very thorough podcast series. FFX was the first Final Fantasy I played and therefore it has a special place in my heart even though it's not my favorite anymore after growing up and playing the other FF titles. However it is one of the best FF titles and dare I say, one of the best video games of all time and following this podcast has only consolidated that thought in me.
Concerning the nature of Tidus and Jecht as well as all of Dream Zanarkand and her denizens: You're on the right track with how hard it would be to recreate these perfectly. If you've ever played the game Telephone or any variation thereof, recreating even a simple audible message without discrepancies becomes impossible over multiple iterations. Just a phrase uttered from one person to the next. Now take it to the next level, 1000 years of trying to recreate perfectly the world you used to live in while being in a dream-like state, your memory of it will fade over time. Iterations (generations) will become more and more generic. You might remember the significant markers, but even those will become somewhat warped in your memory. There is no way anyone (even Shuyen) would be a perfect recreation of his original self. When you start from this premise and then add in the flavor that Tidus and Jecht were certainly manipulated in some way towards the goal of ending the dream, there is nearly no possible way that Tidus or Jecht or Shuyen (or other characters that we believe were alive 1000 years ago like Yunalesca, Zaon, or Maechen) were perfectly preserved in their images or personality to current-day Spira.
I would LOVE that you have a chance to check scenes when returning to each Fayth Chamber from each temple. They just talk about the sentiments of Yu-Yevon. More like complementary lore, but quite cool.
To add to the discussion of the spheres of water holding memories - Dr. Masaru Emoto wrote a book called The Hidden Messages in Water and wrote that water is shaped by environment, thoughts and emotions.
Would love to see a follow up series covering X-2 but at the same time that game is notoriously specific on what you have to do to for the 100% ending, and in general a good ~70% of the plot and lore is locked behind optional content as well as superbosses, so it'd be a challenge to structure the podcast around both of you seeing everything. Also, I imagine this is going to come up in the next episode as you go back over things in the game but you guys never covered Remiem and Baaj temples and the aeon stories for them so hoping to see that, I was kinda assuming that Baaj would come up during the Seymour in Sin section to tie up his story
40:30 "explain to me..." When someone is NOT sent, they become fiends (unless they have plot armor). Aeons are summoned and constructed of loose pyreflies as well, just like sin, and similar to fiends. The reason given for the sending is to give the soul peace and to avoid it becoming a fiend. So, perhaps, the Kilika and Mi'Hen (sp?) deaths are actually sent to rest on the farplane, whereas unsent pyreflies that might have usually become normal fiends, could be absorbed into a giant fiend/Aeon that is Sin. As far as the crusader that dies on the beach....maybe Sin usurped his pyreflies before the sending could happen? That's the best I've got. One of the best stories ever told but they sure liked to be vague on fiends, unsent, aeons, sin, pyreflies, the farplane and how they actually all tie in together. It's basically a JRPG/anime trope to just randomly decide: this power or force you've always known of? Well now it's being wielded by totally different rules, surprise!
Here's my general understanding of the lore of Spira in regards to how it treats the "physical body" and the "soul" separately. If you're alive and well, you have both. When you die, your physical body perishes while your soul remains. Pyreflies are particles that physically record and mirror souls - partly controlled by the soul itself, partly not - so a soul filled with hatred the pyreflies will manifest as a fiend or one of Seymour's grotesque forms, while an unsent is nothing but a dead person that (still) has such strong self-control that they can manipulate pyreflies to mirror their own body back. The sending is a ritual that itself doesn't actually send anybody anywhere, it simply calms the souls of the dead, which in turn releases their grasp on pyreflies, which makes the pyreflies they use to make up their body float away. A soul without a strong lingering regret or attachment, or pacified by the sending ritual, simply dissipates back into the planet, the center of which is the Farplane, and that same process also makes the pyreflies there record the image of the person the soul used to belong to. Therefore you only see pyrefly mirrors of dead people on the Farplane. It's not unlike a sphere that is recorded when a soul returns to the planet (god this lore really is so much like FF7). By the way, as for why the party doesn't send fiends, or Lady Ginnem, I presume it's simply that the sending ritual doesn't work anymore when someone has lost their humanity to that level; it is merely a calming ritual after all. By physically striking them down you do exhaust them and release their grip on pyreflies, making them dissipate. It can have a similar effect to a sending, but through forced exhaustion rather than forced calming. Summoning in Spira is a very similar process to how an unsent maintains a body or manifests a fiend, with one key difference: an unsent forms a body around their own soul from pyreflies, but a fayth forms a fiend-like body around the _Summoner_ separate and long distance from the fayth's own soul. The actual power of Summoning seems to be to invoke a dead soul's ability to form these physical bodies remotely, and because the fayth are overall calm, the aeons they form remain under control and benevolent. We can see what happens when they too get 'infected' with despair in X-2. Worth noting that aeons like Valefor and Ifrit are never shown to have souls of their own separate from the fayth, while the inhabitants of Dream Zanarkand very much are - Tidus' mother is the prime example of this, clearly having a very real soul that made its way to the Farplane on death, it's just that her physical body was only ever created by a summoning. That's kinda a key thing there - Tidus and all the Dream Zanarkandians have real souls and they have children that themselves have real souls, it's their _physical bodies_ that are not real and only held together by the continued summoning. Edit: Forgot to mention, I believe how Sin works is that it's at the core a gravitational magic so powerful it can even suck in souls of the dead that are trying to return to the planet and use them to craft an ever bigger being from more pyreflies. The souls Yuna sends at the tail end of Operation Mi'ihen are only the ones that are _not_ caught up in Sin's gravitational pull, likewise Chappu was crushed and left on Djose's shore rather than sucked into it, and thus was able to go to the Farplane. Luzzu/Gatta do _not_ show up in the Farplane.
I really really really love this game and specially the ending it makes me tear up every damn time. I really appreciate this through analysis you guys did and I'm looking forward for your next one, keep it up homies
Regarding the souls sucked up by sin, others have also said that Sin does take souls into it. However, when Yuna sent the souls of the dead after the Sin attack in the beginning, it is highly probably that she was sending all those that died as a result of the destruction from Sin, not Sin itself. So, Sin takes on the souls of those it directly kills but leaves the remnants caused by the aftermath of the destruction. I feel like this explanation fits due to the nature of how Sin is presented, very much like a tsunami. If you remember from the Tohoku earthquake, many more people died after the Tsunami had already struck, so I feel like this is the writers effort to present Sin as closer to a natural disaster.
I find it interesting how despite Final Fantasy X being so beloved, not many of us have played X-2, for good reason. That game showed that this was the end of Squaresoft and the beginning of the mediocrity that is Squareenix.
You guys could always bring in Dansg08 for the finale? If anyone has definitive answers on FFX it’s gotta be him, right? Either way it’s been a great journey, boys. Can’t wait for that finale and the eventual Silent Hill 2 series! One of the best games ever made.
I think Yuna realized that Tidus didn't travel through time but he comes from Dream Zanarkand. However, I don't remember how much information she was given about it (or about the faith dreaming and getting tired).
If you plan on doing sidecontent, definitely check out Macalania Temple again and defeat Dark aeon Shiva. Afterwards you can access the chamber of the fayth again and talk to Shiva's fayth - she gives some exposition to what the after credits scene might implicate before it got retconned for the ending of X-2.
I've been rewatching this podcast series on FFX as I replay the game. In regards to Tidus coming back in the scene after the credits. If I'm not mistaken, if you revisit the tenples either for the destruction spheres or just for fun, and if you enter the chambers where you can see the fayth, one of them (Valefor i think), says something like "we the fayth won't forget how you have helped us" (I'm paraphrasing). I've always understood that as the fayth giving Tidis his life in spira as thabks for helping them end the dream.
Re: some people getting absorbed by sin and some not: It's possible that whoever is killed by sin as a direct consequence of his attacks gets absorbed (gravity magic, laser beam stuff, etc) as a result of it 'pulling' their souls in. So Chappu was crushed and left on the Djose shore, so he didn't get absorbed and you see him on the Farplane, but Luzzu/Gotta from what I remember got directly hit, so he did get absorbed. The people who were killed at Kilika were basically drowned, so no absorption there either.
The way Seymour should have been presented was more of a contender in a race to determine whose solution to Sin would prevail-Seymour’s or Yuna’s-because now that Yunalesca is gone, if Seymour manages to become Sin and finds a way to kick and keep the party out (unlike Jecht Sin, the Hymn of the Fayth would not calm him), then he would torment the world in perpetuity, as he wished. The stakes would be higher because it would be a race for the two competing solutions. I know that this is in fact what happened, but it wasn’t executed too well.
Seymore certainly was extremly interesting early on for sure - so many parallels between him, Tidus, and Yuna. But, from his initial death onward, exploration of those parallels is over. He was a sympathetic character, similar with his family history, but with fate and other people's lack of caring turning him towards an extremely different philosophical worldview. But, from Bevelle and on, he's just a caricature of 'Evil RPG villain'.
One of the things I love about FFXV, on this note, is that it went the other way around. Ardyn became more sympathetic as the worlds history unfolds. You understood who he was, and why he did what he did - I feel genuine sympathy for him.
Regarding the "I love you scene" at the end of the game and why that's not said in the Japanese has to do greatly with Japanese culture and the way they regard loved ones. Aishite Imasu (literally I love you in Japanese) is a phrase reserved for very serious situations, such as marriage or a funeral, a situation that truly warrants it being said. That being said, "thank you" can be used to express great affection between people, even lovers, as I've been brought to understand it. Therefore, changing the line "I love you" in the English translation is warranted and probably the best representation of what Yuna is actually meaning and would certainly be the phrase used in English. Just my thoughts based on what I've been told.
Since Seymour was defeated on Gagazet and Sin can be presumed to only be a short distance away because it shows up in Zanarkand, I think we can presume that Sin absorbed his pyreflies before he had a chance to regenerate, which is how he ended up inside of sin. This would help confirm the theory that sin absorbs souls in order to strengthen itself or otherwise do something unmentioned. How Seymour manages to maintain a hold on his sanity or form when presumably millions/billions of other souls are all around him inside sin would have been an interesting story beat and would have given more clarity to him. Instead we get a cool out of nowhere boss fight. Coulda been better implemented, but hindsight is 20/20
I'm not ready for this podcast to end already :( this is one of my favorite games... and you guys cover it so well!!
Check out "4 hour analysis FFX" by Andys Take
yea this podcast is something i look forward to every week. When its not on a game ive played i just have to wait until they pick another banger.
It tickles me that this comment is reflective of a theme in FFX
"Someday the Dream Will End" 😢
It's all good, they still have x-2 to do 😅
Bahamut saying to Tidus in the beginning "you can't tonight" and Tidus without knowing exactly why obliges to bahamut's words, it does imply that the fayth were manipulating Tidus's actions in Zanarkand.
The shot after Yuna says "I love you", when Tidus turns around and reacts...it always hits me extremely hard. Something about his facial expression and the timing of the music mixes just right. FFX's ending theme has been my favorite song to play on piano for years and years. Going from a (notably non-vocal) "Hymn of the Fayth" melody into a bittersweet piano and finishing with an orchestral To Zanarkand climax, the song is up there with FF8 and FF6's ending tracks! This game has 1 of the best endings ever, I'll never forget it.
i agree, that is why the english translation works. It is as if he was making a longing face that he is now really really does not want to go. Instead of the japanese version where she said "thank you" which that word does not convey much really.
@@mobius1250 It means the same thing, Japanese culture is just more restrained and leaves a lot to implication
@@evanwoodham6296 and that is why props to the localization team for changing it instead of leaving it with "thank you", they know not everyone understand the implications and the japanese culture.
I understand people trying to defend the different cultural significance of saying "thank you" in Japan, but the end of FFX is precisely why the phrase "Aishiteru" exists. It means "I love you" specifically for special extreme occasions like during a marriage proposal or if somebody is in the middle of dying, which is precisely what is happening to at the end of FFX.
Yeah, it's like the pain of the moment is all coming to him when she says it.
01:06:14 When Tidus jumps off the ship, I don't believe it's simply him "remembering" those three people. Why would Braska be among the first 3 people he thinks about when his life ends? I lean towards the scene stylistically/smoothly transitioning into the Farplane...it just LOOKS like Tidus is still falling from the ship since the pyrefly-rich Farplane has the same color clouds as the ones from Sin's recent fart. Plus, it just makes sense that Braska, Auron, & Jecht were already chillin together in the afterlife/Farplane, and now Tidus has joined them.
As Mike brought up, the Aeons burst into Pyreflies and were most likely sent to the Farplane just as any other sentient being. Tidus saw his mother in the Farplane; his mother was also a dream. I think fulfilled unsent, deactivated Fayth, and their aeons can all find their way (or be sent) to FFX's 'heaven' just as any "normal" dead person. I don't believe the Farplane is 100% pyrefly illusions with no sentient souls, as demonstrated by Jyscal's desperate sphere delivery.
TLDR: Farplane has real dead people in it, not just memories. Summoned/dreamt beings count as "real".
Yuna's final line about never forgetting the people and dreams lost always hit me as a final goodbye by Squaresoft before the Enix merger. This is the last FF that was released under the Squaresoft name and the last that followed Sakaguchi's storytelling philosophy so this was like a final farewell to the franchise that was surely going to change under the new executives and sure enough, it's never been the same since.
I like this and I feel like it mirrors what the Fayth were doing with dream Zanarkand but with a more holistic take on it. It is like a gift to the Fayth and to the people of Zanarkand.
FFIX was that final farewell
FFX was the beginning of the end
10 was already sooo new & different.
Lot to respond to this week; to begin with, Final Fantasy X itself does provide some context for the after credits scene. If you revisit Macalania Temple you can speak with its fayth and she says the following:
"Should the dreaming end, you too will disappear -- Fade into Spira's sea, Spira's sky."
"But do not weep, nor rise in anger."
"Even we were once human. That is why we must dream."
"Let us summon a sea in a new dream world."
"A new sea for you to swim."
The after credits scene was most likely always meant to be a fulfilment of that promise. It doesn't answer much more, but it does give it some context on its own, entirely on its own without needing any supplementary material.
I never knew this! Never heard that line of dialogue.
"You are a fading dream, but one touched by reality."
"Spira will not forget its reality, nor the one who saved it."
"Run, dream, run on. Pass beyond the waking and walk into daylight." -Yojimbo's Fayth when you revisit.
Still not sure how Tidus could be reborn under known Spiran rules, other than someone new becoming a Fayth to recall him and a summoner conjuring him, possibly years later....idk
Fun fact - you can actually revisit the fayth for every temple in the game before the battle with Sin. Upon entering each chamber you receive some additional cryptic dialogue that alludes to Tidus' eventual fate. You also obtain some useful items I believe. Video here: ruclips.net/video/-Mt-I3oYdBU/видео.html
Yeah I always assumed this is the case, it's poetic and very in line with the game's general tone.
Isn't that temple and many of the other Fayth actually blocked by Dark Aeons specifically in the international / remaster?
Because that would work wayyyy better if you HAD to go see all the Fayth in the original version but now it's basically impossible unless you are end of endgame
Regarding the extent of control of the fayth, my interpretation is that Jecht, Auron and the fayth are all separate entities with their own 'plans' so to speak, and it is Jecht who sets everything else into motion. When you revisit some of the fayth after getting the airship they make reference to for how long they had forgotten to move forward and to change, and that it was "you" (the party, or Tidus) who reminded them they need to. So no I don't think it was the fayth themselves that started it all intentionally, back from making Jecht. Jecht became a hero by happenstance and this 'woke up' the fayth from their lethargy. They did start forming ideas and taking some more control from then onwards (although it's mostly limited to just being visions Bahamut's fayth gives to Tidus). It also feels like it fits FFX quite a bit more for Jecht to have been the one to disrupt a long stale and stagnant people, rather than it being some master plan from the fayth all along.
I don't think Jecht knew of a way to truly defeat Sin, rather I believe he just pieces it together by endgame after seeing what the party is doing and as they come to confront him. It seems to me like he showed up in the Ruins of Zanarkand half-anticipating a final battle with Yuna's Final Aeon. Jecht very intentionally brought Tidus to Spira, of course, because he wanted his son to experience life. But this also wasn't his master plan all along up to the ending; Jecht is not the type to set his own son up to become a martyr. His game begins and ends with allowing Tidus to make his own experiences and choices, though I imagine he had an inkling that, like father like son, he would end up choosing to sacrifice himself for the sake of Spira after seeing and coming to understand it and the incredibly exploitative nature by which their home world continues to exist at the expense of so many people's lives.
Auron meanwhile simply wishes to honor Jecht's final wish, though he's of course not in his head. Auron would have stayed with Tidus in Dream Zanarkand for the rest of the latter's lifespan if Jecht-Sin had never showed up, and it's only when it attacks that Auron understands that his role in the promise he made to Jecht to "take care of his son" was never to simply stay with him in the 'dream world' (Zanarkand), but rather to guide and guard him in the 'real world' (Spira). Of course he himself also wants both Tidus and Yuna to come to understand Spira and Yevon, for their own sake, for his own sake, and for the sake of both their dead fathers.
I swear I heard an interview or something with a localizer or someone on the ffx team who talked about the decision of the translation of that scene. The Thank you line meaning the Japanese meant to convey was like someone dying at the end of life with thier family at thier side saying thank you for everything you've done almost as a way of saying I love you. I believe they asked the Japanese team what they thought of that and they approved. I could be wrong, it's been years since I heard that but I would look around for that interview.
Edit: It was an interview with Alexander O. Smith on rpgsite in 2011
The second time Tidus tells Jecht that he hates him always seemed like not really to me. Like he is telling his dad he hates him, but what he really means is that he understands and actually loves him and is letting go of that hate since he has a better understanding now at the end. I admit to projecting though, because of my own similar circumstance with my own dad who is died before he should have.
I took it to mean like 'look at me. Witness me. I've grown, I've changed, I no longer fear you and perhaps I've even come to understand and love you and I'm telling you that by asserting myself and saying what you always knew but I was too afraid to say'
I like this interpretation. I always understood the 'I hate you' to mean, 'I hate what you put me through, but I still love you despite it'.
Fun little detail: Seymour uses pyreflies, in your subsequent fights, the same way yu yevon does to create Sin. He uses Kinoc's dead body and the guardian monks to create Natus and presumably the Ronso to create Flux.
Oooo that’s good I never picked up on that.
That's very interesting indeed. Does that imply that he is potentially intended to be a sort of modern reincarnation / repeat of Yu Yevon and that point just doesn't land at all?
@@bartandaelus359 I ended up replying the game due to these videos, the point is pretty clearly stated by Seymour that he wants to replace Yu Yevon and control Sin for himself.
But his boss forms after his initial death are all exterior to him, he has them attached or surrounding his body itself which he uses like armor.
Which is exactly what Sin is for Yu Yevon, a nice bit of visual story telling and foreshadowing as he doesn't state his goal of taking over Sin until Mt Gagazet.
interesting. cool that there's an actual reason for the whole final fantasy/jrpg thing of the final bosses becoming big dragon creature thing
A little thing that I particularly enjoyed was the 'gift from Jecht' of a sword at the beginning of the game and BFA's sword then becoming the platform on which you fight Yu Yevon once he is defeated.
One last gift from Jecht. 😪
7:22
"Sin seems to use a lot of gravity magic"
Well Spira *IS* caught in a spiral of death. The Event Horizon is Sin and the center of that black hole is Yu Yevon which no one can get to or knows exists.
I'd also like to think it's Jecht trying to ground himself. Between Tidus and crew and the the hymn.
I'd also like to think it's Jecht trying to ground himself. Between Tidus and crew and the the hymn.
I'd also like to think it's Jecht trying to ground himself. Between Tidus and crew and the the hymn.
Theory: The length of a Calm is determined by the amount of time that the new host for Sin can resist its pull. Sin doesn't go away, but its host can resist the desire to destroy soon after being turned into Sin. Jecht mentions that he finds it harder over time so it seems reasonable that the length of Calms are determined by the relative strength of will of Yu Yevon and the fayth for the final summoning.
Personal Theories::
1) I know the ultimania says that Dream Zanarkand exists out in the deep ocean, but when i played FFX, my uninfluenced interpretation after watching the Credits was that the Water Pillar at Mount Gagazet WAS Dream Zanarkand (or at least, a gateway to it?) because that's the only other place we see the Water Pillars that Casen pointed out in podcast episode 1.
2) 1:06:35 With regards to the state of Tidus soul during Yuna's Final Sending, I figured the Aeons were getting sent normally, because their Fayths are all unsleeping human souls that were purposefully unsent. (which is another gripe with 10-2; apparently Bahamut Kid exists in that game when he should already be Sent). As for what that means for Tidus, I'm not sure.
Regarding Next Episode:: I hope Casen gets to walk us through his interpretations of all the Floor Murals in the temples and how they were symbolically spoiling the plot the whole time.
On point 1:
I don't really think the water pillar is that deep. I think it's more like a manifestation of the fayth's dream and not a sort of portal or something. If that were the case then surely an explorative summoner or even Ronso would have ended up there too. I think it's just representative of the Collective Unconscious in a sense as deep bodies of water are often associated with the subconscious mind.
I also don't really buy the whole few Zanarkand as a physical place thing. I just don't think that there's any satisfying way to make that work without contradicting something else. It also wouldn't make sense that Sin wouldn't then also repeatedly attack it and given that pyreflies are necessary to create an aeon (or dream) into reality, it being in the middle of the sea seems like there would be a distinct lack of them there given they seem to exclusively come from human consciousness.
I feel like the intended meaning is that despite it being a dream it has the tangibility of a physical space but doesn't occupy a geographical location within the world. Just the idea that no one ever finds it and that 'dream' Zanarkand is a Laputa / Pleasure Island type location that only exists over every horizon is a little too far for me. Especially when we see the Al Behd venturing as far as the submerged Baaj temple at the very edge of the world. If they can find and chart that, I see it as completely impossible that they DIDNT find the dream Zanarkand unless it posesses intangible qualities that kind of contradict what is being said in the ultimania anyway.
I think maybe they were trying to tie the pleasure island / pinnochio idea in a little more in a retcon there and it didn't work. I imagine Dream Zanarkand more as an intangible space between Spira and the Farplane more like the 'macalania' inside of sin. It's an internal construct with no direct means of going there and it doesn't hurt the story if there isn't one. Given Sin has a similar thing inside of it and Yu Yevon is a fayth / summoner too I can fully accept that Sin can reach it but no one else can but just trying to make it a physical place in the world introduces so many more questions and complicates the narrative so much more that I'm just repulsed by the notion tbh.
@@bartandaelus359sin “attacks” dream Zanarkand because Jechts will is stronger at that point, which is the key. The same reason Sin doesn’t attack Tidus and co in operation Mi’hen. Dream Zanarkand is a physical place close to baaj temple which is why Tidus ends up there at the start of the game. It’s also the reason Sin constantly attacks places in spira to stop them having the ability to reach where it is and discovering it. It’s simply an Aeon and as we know Aeons once summoned are physical objects until they’re no longer summoned or dispelled.
One of my favorite FF quotes is by LuLu in Djose. She said no matter how dark the night, morning always comes and our journey begins anew. It’s powerful but even more powerful after listening to Casen talk about the theme of the sun rising and when they defeated Yunalesca in Zanarkand with the sun rising. Made this quote mean even more to me.
It feels that Yu Yevon’s final form resembles something of a parasite. Could be the idea that for so long it’s been “living” in such a manner that serves that form, latching on to the spiral of Sin for so long.
A very similar boss to Lavos and the weird unknowable alien thing inside, and even CC with the Dream Devourer concealing... Who was it again?
24:39 It always bothered me how Seymour says the epic line, "But there is no salvation for the damned! Rest in peace, in eternal darkness! ", because it makes it seem like he's going to do an epic move, like Ultima or Requiem or something like that, but instead he just uses dispel on your party.
51:54 I think the idea of Yu-Yevon's appearance was to be that of a parasite.
I never heard that line because I just Zanmato'd him right off the bat. That fight felt like filler and I just wanted it to be over so I could progress the story, it felt fitting to just have him turn up and immediately give him the ol' 1-2 you're through with the sword man.
The Tower you were talking about, which we saw at the end of Operation Mi´hen and later within Sin has a name: The Tower of the Dead(if you are in the menu you can see location names), so it seems when Sin kills people their souls/pyreflies end up there somehow.
Yeah, I think we're overanalyzing. Sin has brought about the death of many people. And for all we know those people are sent or unsent, and this tower is the nexus into the underworld (the Farplane). The artist just wants to depict that. The river styx, as it were.
Upon defeating Yu Yevon, this ends his summoning, including Dream Zanarkand and Sin. This gets confused because there are two different parts. But both are due to Yu Yevon's summoning. Firstly, you see the souls of the fayth, including those used by Yu Yevon, departing the world from their chambers of the fayth as well as from the Wall of Gagazet. You also see the summons depart-- Yu Yevon and Sin and Dream Zanarkand collapsing. Secondly, you see the pyreflies that make-up Sin return to the farplane. As if a Great Fiend just died. Not to be confused with the fayth that we already see return, these pyreflies are not 1-to-1 souls taken by Sin. Even if there's proof that fireflies are the souls of the dead, none can argue against pyreflies being a sort of essence (sometimes call The Lifestream in FF), or building blocks, of the life energy of the world.
The confusion happens because it's difficult to distinguish between what Yu Yevon summoned (Dream Zanarkand), and the power he wields from his excess influx of pyreflies (what he uses to construct Sin), which are related and both could be considered his Summons and it's confusing how they both go away at the same time (the destruction of Yu Yevon causing Sin to disappate).
@@Senyuno I love this podcast but it's basically Overanalyzing: The Show. Whenever they go super in depth on symbolism where I think they're putting more thought into things than the people who made the game did, or they try to come up with a logical explanation for things that are just "Sin needs a weak spot it's a video game, would be kind of weird to just....conk him...his...head....part?" I skip ahead.
Not really side content but there are a few interactions of note on the airship that you've missed by only looking at old footage so I hope you bring them up next week. The first is that by talking to Wakka before the big fight he has a scene where he admits to his ignorance of the Al Bhed and apologises to both Rikku and Cid (and Cid replies that he's been guilty of much the same). The second is that by talking to Auron he reveals that his plan had only been to watch over Tidas for Jecht but when Sin appeared in DZ he chose to bring him to the 'real' world instead. So in essence his whole vendetta against Yunalesca and influencing Yuna's pilgrimage was not something he'd been planning in earnest before the start of the game.
The thing with calling the Aeons when fighting Yu Yevon is that if they don't then Yu Yevon will leave to seek them out to make the next Sin. By summoning them all there they keep Yu Yevon there until it has no where to retreat to. They bait it to stay until it has no other options than to fight.
Seymour is basically just a placeholder villain. The story of the game does not have a god complex evil person doing evil selfish acts with a "Mwa ha haa", the nemesis of this story is a broken system that needs to be ended. Seymour is written in as a human face to fill the role of mortal enemy and bring the corruption of the church to a head. I agree that he probably should have been sent at the end of the Bevelle sequence but that section ended a bit strangely with a cut to black so maybe he was originally ended there but they kept him around for a bit longer.
As for why he wasn't sent at Gagazet that is really easy - he was hovering off the side of the mountain, once defeated he lost his flight and fell down out of range. A bit of a dialogue error happens here when Tidas shouts _"And stay up there!"_ when he should really have said 'down' there.
As for why he is in Sin - after the party brought down Sin's first flying form it pulls in and absorbs a massive flood of pyreflies to restore itself to a new winged form, Seymour just got pulled in with this flood and deluded himself that he could just take over from within. Once found and weakened here by the party he has nowhere to retreat to and so Yuna can finally Send him. When we saw Seymour's giant face in the sky they were just trying to sell the idea of Sin accidentally sucking him in but the delivery was a bit weird.
One thing of note about Seymour (and Yunalesca) is that he is a talented necromancer, able to craft pyreflies into himself so make himself monstrous. When he transforms in Bevelle he is using the souls/pyreflies of Kinnoc and the guards, on Gagazet he is using the souls of the Ronso he just murdered and within Sin he is using the other pyreflies sucked in with him. All this is similar to what Yu Yevon did to create Sin so maybe he _could_ have eventually controlled Sin...
Spira is a world of Necromancy, summoning is basically a branch of necromancy. Over time the pilgrimage became the only way necromancy is studied but true masters (Yu Yevon, Yunalesca, Seymour) are so much more versatile in what they can do, though Seymour has a looong way to go compared to the skills of Yu Yevon.
Maester Mika did specifically say that Yu Yevon 'crafts the souls of the dead into unholy armor.' So this is what Sin is, not a summon but a crafted monster made of souls.
There are few specifics about the metaphysics of Spira so my best guess on why you see Luzzu/Gatta inside this area of Sin is that this place is like a reflection of the Farplane and we are seeing souls pass through here on they're way there and not necessarily trapped in Sin specifically. My main justification for this is that it really should have come up if no one killed by Sin reaches the Farplane seen through Guadosalam. Chappu was killed by Sin and he was on the Farplane. There does seem to be a mixing or blurring of realms on Spira like how the pilgrimage Fayth can appear in DZ despite not being part of the Gagazet Fayth or how DZ also appears within Sin when we find Jecht. I don't think the rules particularly need solidifying for this story to be told. When mass Pyreflies are involved things get trippy and reality softens.
I would have to assume that Jecht can be peaceful enough for them to chat briefly but as soon as the situation escalates Yu Yevon will take over to eliminate the threat, once the weapons come out Sin _will_ defend itself. He is saying he wants to be defeated while he still has some humanity left rather than losing himself completely over the next few years but once this necessary battle begins he won't be able to hold back.
Well you skipped over the Jecht fight very fast... No comments on his Brasks's Final Aeon form? No reaction to how Tidas can calm Jecht's overdrive build up with the 'talk' command?
One thing you missed from the Aeon fights is seeing how much it emotionally hurts Yuna to be summoning all her Aeons just to be food for Yu Yevon and then destroying them. Also when you fight Bahamut and select him as the target of your attacks instead of just his name in the info bar it reads 'Soon... Eternal Rest.' (or something to that effect)
I think Yu Yevon's battle form is supposed to be kinda like a parasitical tick. This little bug leaching off the life of the world.
My only note about Auron's Sending is that his theme is just nowhere near as good in the remastered soundtrack as in the original. I felt it let down this scene (and his scene earlier, after Luca I think...) Otherwise it's a great scene.
I'm pretty sure I've heard Mike in the past talking about an interview with the FFX translator where they said that just having Yuna say 'thanks' in that scene would not have worked in English. They said it flippantly for emphasis but it still seems like a good localisation to change it in the way they did.
I think the issue with questioning Casen's theory on how the Fayth were manipulating Tidas and Jecht is just the level of detail he went into as if they micromanaged every thread of their existence. They were clearly taking an interest in them and manipulating things to a degree but just how far it went can only be speculated at and Casen seems to be speculating a bit too hard in a very specific direction.
In my mind the ending is very heavily implying that somehow Tidas is reborn in Spira but they wanted to leave how it happens ambiguous. I find it annoying when people just flat out deny his rebirth and say it takes away from Yuna's story but I think the real issue there is that they don't like _how_ it happens in X-2. It does come across as some sort of reward requiring a bunch of really ambiguous random decisions and acts on her behalf throughout the narrative and coming from that angle I can certainly understand what they mean. My opinion of FFX-2 has always been that it tells a good story but doesn't tell it very well.
I'd never realised a Pinochio connection to this story before this podcast but now that i see it it is really obvious, however there is one more fairy tale reference that I see in Tidas returning to Spira and that is Cinderella. The magic did not completely end at midnight, there was still enough for the glass slippers to stay. Mike you've said on this podcast that not holding onto the past is a major theme that Tidas returning betrays but I think that requires a little change of perspective on. From Tidas/Yuna's perspective that is true, having both things you want is the unhealthy selfish option but it is not just their small story it is the story of Dream Zanarkand. Yu Yevon and the Gagazet Fayth are responsible for 1000 years of death and destruction because they desperately tried to hold onto the past however there is not a hideous innate cost to just keeping a small fraction of it going for the length of one human lifespan. Tidas is DZs glass slipper, that one tiny piece that remains of the magic. The Fayth are grateful to him for freeing them after so long and so they repay this kindness with their last act.
Though you did not get to explore this yet if you go to the Fayth after gaining the airship they all have a line or two to expand the lore a little but Yojimbo is the most interesting to me as he remarks that 'Spira will not forget its saviour.' (not exact words) Which seems to indicate that they _may_ have a plan for Tidas to be rewarded for his actions..
23:25 Correct, "Fight With Seymour" is the last track on the first Black Mages album. Been listening to that version for almost 2 decades! Just a fun rockin' song that plays right after "Dancing Mad" haha instant mood change
I think the Nucleus within Sin is a sort of sphere projection. We've seen that the pyreflies make record of what they contact, little glimpses of memory. So, perhaps the Nucleus shows us the refracted memories of the pyreflies that comprise Sin. Because all the people who died in Operation Mi'ihen were sent to the Farplane, what we see in the Nucleus is not Luzzu/Gatta's spirit, but Sin's memory of him.
As we move deeper through this Nucleus, we find Jecht at the core surrounded by his own memory of the blitzball stadium in Zanarkand. As Yu Yevon was driven to summon Sin in order to protect the memory of Zanarkand, so too is Sin driven by memory.
I like this, makes more sense than the theory I just posited.
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. I just assumed it absorbed the souls of those it killed in battle, but it makes sense when you consider that the spheres are the crystals of this installment, and they tend to contain knowledge and memories of those who passed.
57:46 The pillar of water basically stops flowing, as the Fayth stop dreaming (i.e. powering DZ)... And the droplets of people are briefly represented as having lived "in a bubble" their whole lives. Both figuratively and I guess literally. That's kinda the imagery I always got from this series of shots at Mt Gagazet
I always thought that Yu-Yevon looked like a parasite or virus. A parasite is not good or evil. The things it does are harmful, but it is simply doing the only thing it knows how to do. Yu-Yevon only exists for this one thing. He has been doing this for so long it's almost like the instincts of a parasite. It just keeps going. It's really creepy and an interesting twist on the themes of the game. Yu-Yevon exists to make the dream Zanarkand persist long after it is dead. Much like Dream Zanarkand, he has become a mere shell of what he once was. He has held on to life for so long that he has lost his life. Much like the fiends do.
So, in this game about death, our heroes are the ones who learn how to let go and accept death. They are willing to let their memories be memories. Wakka and Lulu both let go of Chappu and now live their lives for themselves. Wakka no longer fears the things that he thought caused his brother's death. Lulu embraces her feelings for Wakka. Auron has accepted his own death. Tidus and Yuna both confront the death of each other and themselves throughout the game.
The ultimate villain is Yu-Yevon who holds onto life until he is no longer living. He could not let Zanarkand go. And now he has been reduced to a pathetic bug. A super easy boss fight.
The themes are just so intricate. it's insane. The Fayth summoning Zanarkand into a physical place is like a literal representation of grief controlling your life. When your memories cease to be memories and become physical, then you have gone too far. It's the ultimate sin (get it. Sin is way out of control. His greif is out of control) Yuna's monologue at the end of the game is perfect. You don't have to forget what you have lost, but you need to rebuild. You need to move on. It's like the final message the game is trying to tell you.
Just a bit surprised you didn’t talk a bit more about the fight with Sin. Mentioned it before but for my money Sin is one of the most powerful FF antagonists (just short of the top actually) and they do a good job of demonstrating its raw power in-story and gameplay. The party is only able to engage Sin directly by exploiting a very specific psychological weakness that might not actually work under different circumstances and magnified on a global scale, utilizing a military-grade airship outfitted heavy artillery to level the playing field, and even then Sin still possesses planet-shaking power and must be entered to be dismantled from within.
And while plenty of JRPG villains have seemingly planet busting ultimate attacks (i.e. Supernova, Ragnarok, etc.) you are generally able to survive them (multiple times even) and the world is no worse for wear after the battle. Sin’s Giga Graviton by contrast is rather unique in that there is simply no way to survive it, the game doesn’t even bother displaying damage numbers, it’s just an automatic game over.
Anyway, good job on making it through though I was wondering if you guys would have gone over the optional content. Also said this before but I dislike most of it though some does expand upon the story (particularly the quests for Anima and the Magus Sisters). I find X’s story and themes to be among the best in the franchise, but the optional content and structure of the game does make it fall short of 6, 7 and 9 for me (with only Tactics being above them).
I was surprised that there was no talk of the 'weak points' as they're flowers / mandalas and look very reminiscent of a lotus. I was all ready for some real talk about the connections of Sin to Nihilism and the Buddhist / lotus connections
When I first did that fight, I had done a lot of the optional content and was WAAYYYY overleveled to the point I was just destroying everything in 1 hit.
The joy of the after-credit scene: We want Tidus to be real and not fade away. This scene just gets us thinking "Well maybe there's a chance." That's it. That's all it can be! It gets us talking about the "maybe," and that's beautiful in its own way.
Agreed. I don't believe there's a "per the author" answer on what the ending means, intentionally so. No matter what FFX-2 attempts to tack on afterwards.
@@12ealDealOfficial FFX-2 is kind of creatively bankrupt imo. It's really plainly trying to capitalise on the Charlie's angels films that came out in that same period and rode that turn of the millennium trend as far as it could. Much of its content feels... Wrong? Idk. I haven't played it since I was a teenager and intend to play it again but the whole structure of the game made it feel more like a fever dream and not like a real game if you know what I mean, like it's an AU fan mod more than a direct sequel.
It's also always bothered me how FF sequels basically take all the characters you grew to love and immediately remove them from the party. I find it to be such a strange and common thing, 13-2 and revenant wings both do this as well and you could argue that crisis core and dirge to Cerberus do the same as well.
I genuinely don't think anything is gained from taking X-2 as canon and trying to make the first game for what that thing did instead of it being beholden to the events of X. -2 is the weird and screwy one that introduces the problems, not X, but it often seems like the -2 fanboys want or think that it's the other way around? It's very strange to me.
Auron missed a golden opportunity to return the "why are you still here" line to Seymour
40:25 Recalling the scene at Mushroom Rock with Operation Mi'ihen, the first wave of attack sent out by Sin vaporizes the front line soldiers.
It's possible that's the ability that harvests souls/pyrefly essence, and other attacks or collateral damage from environmental hazards like tidal waves and crashing rocks would not harvest the souls of the dead.
I think this is it. We don't know for certain how many times Sin has used its overdrive ability lol, could have used it hundreds of times over the years and that's the reason why so many souls are in it, whereas when it just does a regular attack like Kilika (or if the bodies aren't vaporized) then summoners can send them regularly before they turn into fiends
That's as satisfying as anything else but I'm also willing to accept that it just doesn't capture all of them when they die, like some are lost to nature, some are sent, some are sin'd. I don't think it needs to be an absolutism about sin's kill count that they ALL come to it, more that some do and many are lost more vaguely to other sources.
@@bartandaelus359 I wasn't trying to imply that all souls that die in Spira are consumed by Sin, it was in reference to how some are and how that might happen.
This doesn’t completely hold because if Gatta dies, you interact with his lifeless body on the beach even though his soul is seen in Sin.
40:30 I've had the same question on my mind regarding the "nucleus" of Sin where we see the Crusaders' souls entering.
We don't really know that the 'The Sending' is the one and only way to send souls to the afterlife. That's been a part of the teachings of Yevon, which we already can discount as a reliable source.
Only summoners can perform it, and we know summoning was perfected by Zanarkand mages like Yu Yevon. The same Yu Yevon who 1000 years ago cast a spell that effectively summoned a bunch of pyreflies to one location, crafting the unholy armor of Sin. What if 'The Sending' is just a tool to guide nearby pyreflies to one specific location? You could send them to the Farplane, as is the tradition, which is nice because it seems to have some Guado-made barrier that prevents them from leaving again, but perhaps any large enough concentration of pyreflies could be marked as a destination for other pyreflies to gather at. And perhaps it's only through a large gathering of them that it's possible for some to cross over into the actual afterlife, like an event horizon of a black hole.
I think the reason summoners are still needed to perform 'The Sending' as the common people know it is because yes, Sin may be absorbing some souls to replenish what it's lost, but it's like a mindless animal, killing without discretion just to keep the cycle going. Summoners are still needed to follow in its wake to send what remains to a secure location like the Farplane at Guadosalam.
The Crusaders at Mi'ihen actually put up a decent fight and penetrated some of Sin's defenses, so in the wake of that battle it may have been hungrier than usual and feasted on more souls than it would usually take in.
I find in a lot of Japanese animation, the phrase "You're so stupid" is often used when a character is in conflict with someone who they can't bring themselves to hate someone out of stubbornness. It always felt more like a sort of reluctantly respectful thing to say.
Excellent podcast I'm happy I caught up during my commutes. I sincerely look forward to the final episode and your future coverage of MGS. Five things:
1) The presence of powerful fiends and the pyreflies in Sin are probably the unsent guardians, summoners, and crusaders who died fighting with or in contact with Sin. After Operation Mihen, we actually never see Yuna perform a sending. It's possible excommunicated crusaders no longer receive Yevon's blessing and instead are not granted sendings. Remember that Luzu/ Gata/ and the character models of crusaders are shown walking in the tower of the dead prior to the minigame portion (or immediately after the operation, if my memory serves). This leads me to:
2) Both explanations as to what the Farplane is are probably true. The biggest fallacy to the Al Bhed theory is Jiscal exiting the Farplane to physically hand Yuna the sphere, therefore, the images of people there are probably real; however, Tidus's mom, Brasca (who gave his life in contact with Sin), and Chappu are also in the Farplane. I believe these three people are memories. I believe the Farplane is more like the essence of the world, like the life stream, than a heavenly plain of existence. What spirits do not actually get to the Farplane are probably fabricated, their images made more complete by the collective memories of those in and interacting with the Farplane. Rikku and Lulu (?) are probably both correct. Those that are still alive (why living people are not manifested by pyreflies) are known in and outside of the Farplane to be as such, so they cannot be "dreamed," the same way we wake from our own dreams when we can no longer accept them. Tidus's mom was not technically ever alive in Spira, but Tidus recalls her anyway, so the pyreflies probably reconstructed her, whether through Tidus or the memories of those before the great war in which a person like Tidus's mom existed
3) Yu Yevon is sort of egg shaped.
4) Rikku's affinity scenes are pretty interesting. Apparently, she wanted a large family and to settle down.
5) I hope you two talk more about the Bevelle and Zanarkand war predating the fall (and rise) of Zanarkand. This is the largest gap in my understanding of FFX.
Finally, I again want to congratulate you two on an excellent podcast. This was the best, most interesting analysis I've heard since Ross and Fungo made TRSHE.
I thought this might be worth mentioning re Tidus rebirth after credits. Tidus originates from a city of the dead, the first place he goes to when he meets Sin is the temple ruins, this location acts as a kind of purgatory just before he is born proper into the world of Spira (in this instance the ship he is on with rikku acts kind of like the ferryman of the dead idea). The problem is when he is born into Spira the first time his destiny is already set in stone (like the fayths producing him), he would always have to sacrifice himself to end Sin truly. After the credits and Tidus is floating underwater this is like his second chance. He is literally born again in Besaid where his story began the last time around, except now he is completely free to make his own choices and decisions. Immediately reuniting with yuna may take the focus away from the theme of this being his real birth into the world (not to mention it would slightly hurt the scene where he fades away if they just met up again right away). Just my thoughts! Great Podcast! So weird that I found this pod at exactly the same time as I revisited FFX 20 years after I first played it. Keep up the good work
Man, when Yuna told Tidus she loved him, that hit really hard as an adult. As a kid, I feel like I tried to brush it off or thought it was maybe a little cheesy. But it was a very strong point in the game that kind of sealed the deal for this game to be legendary.
I'd be really interested in seeing Mike and Casen play X-2 in the future, it's got redeemable qualities to the lore and the world IMO (outside of the gameplay which is already fantastic af).
(SPOILERS FOR X-2 ENDING REGARDING TIDUS)
I believe the explaination behind Tidus coming back is that Bahamut (wiki says "the Fayth" but I remember it being Bahamut specifically iirc) willingly chooses to go back asleep and "dream" Tidus alive, at least until Yuna & co. die I suppose.
This also directly references the FFX after credits scene, where at the end of X-2 Tidus wakes up underwater and swims up, in X-2 it continues the scene where he finds himself at Besaid's Beach, he's then greeted by Yuna, Wakka, Lulu and other inhabitants of the island and everything ends happily ever after and nothing else was ever done with the FFX property ever again.
Agreed. I understand the difference of opinion over Tidus, I'm undecided about that myself. But the chance to see how a world that was held in a death spiral for 1,000 years deal with suddenly being freed from that is pretty fascinating. It's a shame you have to dig for the good bits, but they are in there.
And yes, the battle system is excellent.
I'm really sad and excited at the same time to start this podcast. I don't want it to be over 😭🧡 ily guys tho! Thank you for all u do.
I remembered something Tidus said on the boat ride to Luca where he mentions that Jecht never liked watching other people play Blitzball. And in the beginning of the game when Tidus dives above the arena where he's about to kick the ball, Sin attacks. I don't know if it was a coincidence, or if that was Jecht being funny like "Hey, I'm still the best Blitzer of Zanarkand even if I am sin."
I'm a 36 year old bloke who can't help but tear up at the ending of this and FF10-2 for different reasons. A lot of that could just be nostalgia but I feel like the confluence of music, voice acting and art direction really sell it.
Also BIG spoilers regarding the questions at the end of the video, READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL;
They didn't show Tidus coming back because it's literally in the sequel! Tidus is brought back alive and well pretty much directly from the end of 10 if you get 100% completion in 10-2. You get that ending after the spirits of the Fayth, who still exist in the Farplane, bring him back as a reward to Yuna for saving Spira again. Somehow Yuna knows he's back and flies to Besaid just as he's come up from the water you see at the end of FF10. It even has an extra scene afterwards between Yuna and Tidus at the very same point in Zanarkand that FF10 begins at, with Yuna standing in place of Tidus at the end, basically bringing the story full circle.
I think the guys kind of explained that they find sequels problematic, especially 'cash grab' / sequels that betray the spirit of the original artwork. So i think they are aware of this but simpy don't pay it any notice in their interpretation. For example many people just simply consider all the expanded FF7 Stuff after the original game non canon for similar reasons.
When you hide your true ending behind 100+ hrs of tedious & annyoing gameplay (not bashing FFX-2, i actually liked it) 👏
How many people you think 100% FFX-2 back in the day? 100? 1000? I mean worldwide...
Regarding Sin absorbing the souls of the dead, Mika does describe Yu Yevon as "he who crafts the souls of the dead into armor", which could be taken as referring to the fayth, but would also make sense with the tower being a sort of nucleus that channels them, especially since that tower is also the direct conduit you use to reach Sin's core
I can't find any source on the internet to back me up on this, but I feel like I remember a line in X-2 that Shuyin was actually from Bevelle, not Zanarkand. It made sense as like an inversion of the TIdus/Yuna relationship: here in the present is a blitz ace from Zanrkand and a summoner from Bevelle, but 1000 years ago it was a blitz ace from Bevelle and a summoner from Zanarkand. In their relationship, Lenne was the sun and Shuyin the moon. Since in that war Zanarkand was using summoners and Bevelle machina, it stood to reason that Lenne would be on one side and it explains how Shuyin knew about the secret machina. It also added to the whole star crossed lovers anime melodrama the game was doing.
As to the bigger question about people from the dream Zanarkand, it's something I'm curious to hear more information about. I've always wondered how it worked. Like has Tidus been the same person since the dream was conceived? He seems to have memories of being a kid and growing up. We seem to see a progression of Jecht being at the top of his game and then slipping, which suggests changes over time. People being born and growing and marrying and dying in dream Zanarkand would explain how Tidus seems to not know who Yunalesca or Yuyevon are, and you'd think that two prominent people like that would be recorded in the dream. But people having full lives in the dream would mean that the fayth are creating from whole cloth the images and personas of loads of individuals, which cuts against the whole memorial record nature of the thing. I feel like I can go in loops like that for hours. I wonder if there's any official statements from the devs.
I believe the canon explanation of dream zanarkand is that it's essentially a self-contained world but is otherwise real. People procreate, grow up, die of old age, etc. The energy of it's existence is sourced from the Fayth and the Fayth (and Yu Yevon probably) created the initial state of it(when they were at the height of their power) but that is it.
In my opinion, Seymour's appearances are off and even ridiculous in some regards. But I find the character's motivations interesting, because they fit well in one of the game's main themes: the acceptance of death and pain.
Blinded by hatred and lust for power, Seymour wishes to become Sin in order to stop the cycle of death that rules Spira, and by doing so, he intends to eliminate pain itself; especially, in his case, the pain that comes from the loss of loved ones. Seymour has never overcome his grief over the loss of his mother, and his intentions to suppress suffering are rooted in this tragedy. On this view, Seymour's intentions can be seen as an inability to accept what life involves; for the flourishing of life implies, in a complementary and inevitable way, its opposite, which is death, whether ours or loved ones'. But more than that, life is a constant oscillation between joy and pain. Life cannot only be joy and happiness, it is also a struggle.
Blinded by a sorrow that he never overcame, Seymour thus failed to accept death and pain, but in this refusal he was ironically led to refuse what he wanted to preserve, namely life itself. Seymour says it several times during the story: "be free of pain". But being absolutely free of pain implies to be absolutely free of its opposite.
Wanting to suppress life because he could not accept death: that is the tragic irony that characterizes Seymour's character.
And in relation to this thematic of accepting death and grief, the antagonism between the protagonists and Seymour finds, in my opinion, its true meaning here. The protagonists have all faced the loss of loved ones, but unlike Seymour, they have finally managed to overcome their grief. Where Seymour wanted to suppress life because he did not accept death, the protagonists, because they were able to accept death and the sorrow that follows, were able to conceive of the future as something other than a spiral of death; they were able to conceive of and fight for a future from which life would not be suppressed, but could instead spring forth in its immanence.
Auron, before the fight against Yunalesca, says: "This is it! It is time to choose. Be free of pain, or live and fight your sorrow!" To die and be free of pain, or to live and fight sorrow... this is for me the true meaning of the fight between the protagonists and Seymour, which is ultimately an allegoric fight for life.
In the end, I think Seymour is a very interesting and even deep character who is unfortunately ill exploited.
Also, it is clear that this fight for life also concerns Sin, which itself is an allegory for death - the brutal, impartial death. And its very existence is the direct result of the question: what to do in the face of death? Sin was created by Yu Yevon, a thousand years ago. Yu Yevon is a Summoner who could not accept the near death of his people, as well as the destruction of his city during the war against Bevelle. This is why he embarked on a colossal summoning, transforming hundreds of inhabitants into Faiths: a dreamed Zanarkand materialized, as well as a monster to defend it, Sin, which was instilled with Yu Yevon's hatred and resentment towards machines. This dreamed Zanarkand, as well as Sin itself, are but the embodiment of this fear of death and refusal of dissipation.
It is here that FF X in my opinion tackles so well another theme related to death: the inheritance and passing on, and this through a clever use of the symbolism of the spiral.
Spira is a world full of death. Not only because Sin destroys everything in its path, but also because death constantly clings to and encroaches on life in such a way that it is omnipresent. Yevon, as an institution, is itself full of Wanderers, who are also, in some ways, individuals who have somewhat refused their dissipation. Fiends that inhabit Spira are notably dead people whose feelings have transformed their life energy (pyreflies) into creatures. The leaders of Spira are literally undead; they are beings from the past who refuse to tear themselves away from the present., Auron sums up Spira's situation perfectly: "Summoners challenge the bringer of death, Sin, and die doing so. Guardians give their lives to protect their summoner. The fayth are the souls of the dead. Even the maesters of Yevon are unsent. Spira is full of death. Only Sin is reborn, and then only to bring more death. It is a cycle of death, spiraling endlessly."
Hence the impossibility for Spira to build itself towards the future: the past clings to and dominates the present; death dominates life. Yu Yevon, Sin, the dreamed Zanarkand, Yevon etc. are the result of this fundamental fear; of this refusal of "passing on", of dissipation and inheritance for new generations that could build the future. Hence this imprisonment in a mortifying loop that never ceases to connect the past, that is to say what is dead, to the present, which itself can only conceive of its future by the yardstick of the past, of actions to be endlessly repeated in a vertiginous spiral of death, instead of conceiving of it by the yardstick of a range of possibilities proper to life in its immanent flow. In the end, the symbol of the spiral in FF X primarily refers to this: the domination of the present by the past, which is the domination of life by death.
In this respect, I like how FF X was smart enough to go all the way with its thematic approach: the last fight against Yu Yevon is not a classical fight against an overpowered boss. Instead, you face a ridiculous being with the appearance of an insect, with a spell preventing any defeat. This choice is explained by the fact that Yu Yevon is precisely a parasite, the very incarnation of a past that clings desperately to the present in the hope of determining its future. But this past, as death, has no capacity to stand on its own, for that it must "suck the blood", like a vampire, of life. Hence the need for Yu Yevon to parasitize aeons, for without them he is nothing. The fight against Yu Yevon cannot be lost, because the real fight has already been won; it is an allegorical fight.
Yuna's speech at the end concludes the treatment of these themes perfectly: now Spira can finally build itself by looking to the future. The previous generations belong to the past, but they must not be forgotten ("Never forget them"), because it is important to take the past into account in order to build the future, just as these people who now belong to the past have helped to build this present world, to change us (Yuna's "Never forget them" therefore applies just as much to this collective dimension of a legacy from the past as to this more personal dimension: the relationships that helped build her as an individual, that deeply changed her).
Once the cycle is broken, life can finally spring forth in its immanence without being dominated and imprisoned in a spiral of death that left no other possible outcome than the eternal repetition of the same loop. It is the acceptance of the cycle of life, which implies death, that of oneself and of loved ones... but also the perpetual renewal of life itself, in what can be called the "teleology of life" (a concept of the philosopher Michel Henry).
The story of this game, despite its flaws, is very phenomenal. I love FF VII and FF VI but I think that FF X might have the deepest story. Its themes are treated with a lot of intelligence.
Anyway thank you guys for this podcast which was very interesting and well done. This is the first of your podcasts I watch and I'll watch the others with pleasure. Take care!
>You just ended the book with a question mark!
I'm immediately reminded of the closing sentence of Sun Also Rises: "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
Post-credits Tidus kicking it around with post-credits Lightning, Louis Vuitton and all
Great content guys!
Regarding the post credits scene i have this to say:
I think initially (pre X-2) it was always meant to be open ended. And in my opinion it still should be because screw X-2s story and everything else post FFX that Nojima literally shat out of his brain lol.
Maybe Tidus is in the afterlife maybe not, it doesn't matter because the story is over. Something like ICOs post credits scene for people who played that game.
Just a beautiful "Huh..." moment that's meant to linger in your feelings and not in your head. It's the icing on the cake which is this wonderful ending. Screw X-2 seriously.
I think X-2's ending is fine, I can fully understand people disliking it because it takes away from X's ending, but I liked how the ending was done overall. But 100% agree on anything that came after X-2 - the light novel and audio drama are horrible
The camera spinning in that mini game is almost like it's trying to show them spiralling towards You Yevon, like taking the plug out of a sink
The idea that Sin calms down as everyone sings the hymn...
The idea of people praying unified to reach the ears of God fits here.
Not really sin isn’t a god. Sin the armor is a man that just likes the song.
@@omensoffate In a literal sense yeah that is what Sin is.
But Sin represents a god of Death, perpetuating a cycle of death. Everyone in Spira, no matter what they believe, is influenced by this force of nature.
So as they all sing, it becomes unified. A voice even Death itself cannot help but to listen to. Powerful symbolism.
The man inside stopped being a man long ago.
Considering that Tidus kinda technically counts as an aeon, imagine if Yu Yevon had possessed him last, and Tidus was the penultimate boss!
Tidus used HAHAHA, causing confusion and berserk.
I took Tidus’ “I hate you” in English as “I hate you for making me do this.” He gets to say what he needed to say but it’s in a different context after learning more about his father.
Really great series, guys! Thank you. I really enjoyed replaying this game and watching your fascinating discussion.
13:48 No one knew the weak spots because they always fought him from the ground and more than likely died, the only reason we can see and attack Sin’s weak spots is because we have the airship.
That would be my assumption too. No one has been able to fight Sin with an airship, so no one would notice glowing weak spots on its arms. I also suspect that those spots on it's arms don't glow until after it uses it's big gravity attacks like we in the FMV cutscene before the fight and at Operation Mi'hen. Which normally would kill almost everyone close to him.
Bingo. And the summons we get are not large enough to carry guardians all at once for an aerial battle, so likely no one ever got the height advantage on Sin prior.
Hello great work as always! A few thoughts 1) the gravity attack you can see from space I always assumed it was Jecht exerting his limited control over sin to expend most of it's destructive power so the party could attack while it was weakened and couldn't use it's shield. 2) like the Lord Zaon's statue in Zanarkand once Yu Yevon takes over an aeon and then is killed the spirit of the aeon is released from the statue it was in. If you killed Yu Yevon without calling your aeons the Fayth in the temples would be trapped in those statues forever. 3) I also assumed Jecht couldn't willingly die and Yu Yevon would instinctively protect himself Jecht does help a bit if you talk to him during the battle 4) if you use scan on each of the aeons once taken over by Yu Yevon they say something unique. 5) Someday the podcast must end :(
The Dark Aeons appear after Bevelle, and are essentially an addition to the plot in a sense as hostile summoners attacking you in Yevon's name. In many cases they are quite literally blocking your path to somewhere. I think the one probably most infamous is Dark Valefor as it blocks you from getting Auron's final limit break if you did not get the memory sphere before Bevelle(as it is probably the least realistic to have done before this point), but there are other examples too such as blocking Anima's acquisition if you didnt get the hidden temple treasures or blocking an item required for Tidus' ultimate weapon. I don't know how I feel about this - it is cool but having maxed out my characters to fight Penance, it also kinda mean.
Also, now that we're finally past Zanarkand, the other thing I find ironic about the little boat journey over the ruined city is that while Yevon has shunned this city for it's use of machina leading it to ruin, they regard Zanarkand as a holy place. Despite it both being the ruins of a highly advanced civilization who used machina, and also the fact that it was Bevelle that nearly destroyed it (using machina). Pretty hypocritical if you ask me!
This podcast "bookclub" has a really great format. The balance between Mike's more analytical and hard-facts approach and Casen's more symbolism & semantics focused approach works really well and I can't think of a better team. There are plenty of game reviews out there, but rarely you'll have something like this that dissects plot, characters, art & design, etc, rather than game-play.
Only weakness is the sound, Mike will transition into mumbling from time to time, making it nearly impossible to hear him if you are at the gym or something like that, I'm playing with the volume button every time the speaker changes.
Funny that you guys mention yu yevon looking like a spider or squid. When I first played the game and seen yu yevon for the first time I immediately thought it resembled a tick. Never thought of it too much though, I was just a kid
Really great podcast. Always a joy to listen to the analysis of a classic like FFX. Regarding the sending of Seymour and Ginnem, I always interpreted the sending as working best on the recently deceased, but after a point, it becomes less effective. Hence why summoners can’t just send any fiend. Basically there isn’t much humanity left to send. In Seymour’s case, he gradually gets more and more monstrous in form. Ginnem was basically a husk of resentment on auto pilot; lacking much humanity. This seems to line up too with your idea of weakening the fiend enough to send them as that is sort of what we do all game: kill fiends until their pyreflies disperse. This may also help distinguish between unsent like Auron who aren’t hostile or actively resisting (I.e., trying to kill). Just a theory.
I was literally reaching some of the previous parts. I might make comments as I watch but I'm happy you guys are needing the end! I love this game so much, it means so much to me.
I have to say though, Tales of the Abyss analysis when!?
Good work here guys. This was impeccably timed for me, as the Steam Deck just came out recently and I was literally playing through this at the same time (roughly 3 episodes or so into this podcast, so I had to catch up, hence my lack of commenting on previous episodes.)
Regarding your discussion on the final cut (the post credits Tidus scene), it's actually pretty hard to discuss without thinking about FFX-2 since it really influences my ability about it in the same way we would have in 2002. However, to the best of my recollection, in a pre-FFX2 world my original interpretation was that Tidus was in another realm akin to the farplane. His death in one world lead to a new life and rebirth in the afterlife. This would be symbolically associated with the thematic "spiral" idea, in which life and death is essentially recursive. If you think about the concept of the farplane itself, it essentially shows the player that life after death is a near quantifiable "fact" (though the al bhed theory still presents room to doubt the existence of an afterlife.) This is how I viewed it the first time I played the game, at least.
Obviously this interpretation was essentially proven false in light of FFX2 -- but in a world where we pretend that game doesn't exist (which I'm not sure how fair that is, since it's been a long time since I've played that game, though I do remember being disappointed by it) or alternatively in a world where you think that FFX2's non-100% ending is actual cannon (which would be unpopular, but I think it would improve X2 in my eyes) that's how I would actually see the ending.
I will add that I'm not sure I'm in love with the idea that Dream-Zanarkand exists physically in the real world. I think you might be right that it might be confirmed within subsequent materials, but it raises some big questions on why nobody was able to locate it using airships or boats. Additionally, there would be no reason to use sin to transport to and from dream zanarkand if it was physically located on the map. My thought was always that dream zanarkand was a pocket universe in the fayth corpse pile, represented by the spherical mass of water. If you look at the effect on the walls, it seems like all of the energy of the fayth of channeled toward that mass. When tidus touches the faith, he is temporarily transported into that pocket universe again. It would also explain how Auron found his way to Zanarkand, since dying on mt. gagazet could have caused his soul to be caught up in the summoning process and allow him to be transported to Jecht's Zanarkand. The only thing I don't know about this is how Sin was able to travel there... I'll note that when the sphere "breaks" as the fayth are disappearing, you can see glimpses into this pocket universe showing all the memories and people within that universe -- illustrating that the dream universe has been destroyed and the summoning is over.
Anyway, that was a long rant, but great work!
thoroughly enjoyed this podcast on FFX. I really appreciate (with all your videos in fact) on how in-depth you go with everything, and find references or connections to things I never considered or went completely over my head. you put in so much work and it really stands out on here as being of the highest quality. always look forward to what you guys out next.
Regarding Seymour: I actually don't like the idea of him entering Sin and then finding a way to control it. By that point in the journey I think increasing Seymour's importance and elevating him to the "True Villain" status would have taken the focus away from Yu Yevon and Jecht too much. However, his boss fights do have importance to the story.
1. In Bevelle, he kills Kinoc and causes Kelk Ronso to leave to Gagazet. This causes Yevon to fall into Chaos with 3 of 4 of it's leaders suddenly gone. Which allows the party to make their way across the Calm lands unapposed for the most part. Perhaps it would have been good to see a scene with Mika struggling to maintain order in Bevelle and blaming Seymour for it to make that more clear. Rather than a few lines from Auron explaining that Yevon is in disarray.
Also, regarding why the party doesn't send Seymour after defeating him in Bevelle. My assumption was always that they still needed to run away from Yevon and escape into the forest at that time. Here's another opportunity where they could have shown dozens of warrior monks surround the defeated Seymour and have Auron tell the party that they have to run away. A simple 10 second scene at the end of the fight could have fixed this.
2. On Mount Gagazet, Killing all the Ronso doesn't have much impact when it's off-screen. It should have been shown to us, or at the very least have Seymour bring Kelk's body and drop it in front of the party just like he did with Kinoc. Something to give that revelation more impact. But the real story purpose of Seymour's appearance here is to reveal to Yuna that Jecht is Sin. Which is something that Tidus and Auron kept secret from everyone up until this point.
Had Seymour never revealed this here, there would be no reason for Tidus or Auron to confirm it until Yunalesca tells them. That wouldn't be good from a writing perspective because now the party has to deal with 2 big revelations in the same scene. First that Sin is Jecht and also the true nature of the final summoning. That 2nd revelation is devastating enough for the party on it's own, so I think it was a good choice to reveal Sin is Jecht to everyone well before this happened.
That said, I see no reason why Seymour couldn't have been sent after the battle at Gagazet. I would have had him be sent there and then remove that final encounter with him inside Sin. It's confusing how he got inside Sin in the first place and how he's able to appear in the Clouds in the FMV sequence as you enter. He serves no purpose inside Sin as the story is winding down at that point. He just serves as another obstacle here whereas his 3 previous encounters actually served a story purpose.
The way I see is is that we don't send regular fiends and such through our journey and we are told that unsent can become friends so I think it's more a matter of him becoming a true friend and then killing him being the closest thing to a sending that can occur but maybe it's just because she burst into pyreflies at the end of the fight and they didn't have a chance?
Seymour is absolutely the weakest part of the game imo and I almost think that the better use of him would have been to have him usurp Mika and leverage ALL of yevon against the plan to defeat sin with the global hymn-spirit bomb thing they were doing.
Imagine, Yuna says 'we need everyone to sing and then we can defeat sin forever' and Seymour says otherwise. They then go to Bevelle to fight Seymour one final time before the showdown with sin and Seymour transforms into his final form for all to witness. This casts Yuna in a heroic light and any remaining suspicions would be dissipated with the church now completely leaderless and Yuna their only hope. They trust her and follow her guidance and we see Yevon destroyed before Yu Yevon is also destroyed. By ending the false religion we end the spiral of suffering that entraps them and it gives Seymour an actual purpose because his 4th fight is basically 'oh shit we didn't wrap this up cram it in here' in a sense. The ending feels a bit rushed and padded because of this fight imo. The entirety of the 'inside don't bit feels overlong to me and disrupts the pacing quite a lot. I was actually a little shocked to find that you could enter sin and then leave to go do endgame stuff. I actually did most of my endgame stuff first because I thought that it was going to lock me in as soon as I selected Sin in the menu.
Yu Yevon and Sin are plot devices, not characters. Jecht isn’t a villain. What they’re suggesting would have given Seymour more plot relevance at the end.
I've always seen Seymore in Sin as evidence that Sin takes in pyreflies and or the souls of the dead. Not all of them, but some of them.
But that is just my hypothesis.
@@nobodyshome6792 not even a Hypothesis when then game quite literally tells us how Seymour gets inside Sin, the exact same way Auron does when travelling to and from dream Zanarkand. I don’t understand why so many people seem confused about this.
Sacrificing your Aeons to beat Yu Yevon was so sad to me. I had grown very attached to them, especially since using Aeons was like fighting with Pokemon, which are some of my favorite turn-based games. I've watched some playthrough highlights by folks on YT where they were emotionally wrecked by that stage of the fight, and I am on their side about it. The whole last hour+ of this game just destroys me!
Mannn, finally i catch up playing X to follow this podcast until the end
It just make the game wayyy better
Hope you guys make podcasts for any other FFs (main series)
Im new in FF universe, finished play VII, VIII (excellent 5 episode analysis), and X (because of this podcast)
I think i’ll play IV next
I was pretty sure yu Yevon was simply supposed to look like a parasite. Which I think fits well enough for it since it takes over another life force to stay alive
A little late with this reply as I just started listening last week, but at around 40 minutes you guys mention the possibility of Sin absorbing souls, which does make a lot of sense. As far as Yuna doing sendings, those could be for people who weren't directly killed by Sin. In Kilika, Sin does create a tidal wave which may have killed most of the people who would then need sending, and for Operation Mi'hen there could be a number of people who died to sinspawn or died after the battle due to injuries that weren't vaporized and then absorbed by sin like Luzzu/Gatta may have been.
I just learned about this podcast 2 weeks ago and just can’t up with the group! Totally stoked to be apart of the next discussion.
I don't think the fayth have created Jecht or Tidus purposefully for the goal of releasing them from the summoning. First off the fayth we largely speak to are Aeons of Spira, they aren't directly involved in the Zanarkand summoning due to the fact the statues give physical clues when they are actively used for summoning and the fayth statues in the temples are often dormant. We also know that the summoned Zanarkand is not some vision, it's a physical place being actively created and maintained by Yu Yevon and the Gagazet fayth. I believe that when the dream Zanarkand was summoned although it was loosely based on the people of the original it ran more like a simulation that had independent creations and generations, we know there is birth, growing older and death in the dream Zanarkand. It seems to me fayth like Bahamut were waiting for an opportunity to come that the right kind of exceptional people manifested, I don't think it's a coincidence that Jecht who was considered an incredible athlete and the apex of his society ends up being in Spira.
I loved the video but was sad to see you had missed my favorite line of dialogue from Auron that kind of confirms a great deal of what happens isn't planned out but reactionary, Auron and Jecht are just kind of hoping that the next generation can "figure it out" and bring an end to the cycle. Before fighting Sin you can speak to Auron on the airship multiple times and he will discuss that he planned to stay in Zanarkand as Tidus' guardian but changed his mind when Sin attacked and that Jecht would want him to experience the real world. I believe that's the X-factor the fayth were looking for, Tidus and Jecht are the pinnacle of their respective worlds and social structure but they share deep and destructive flaws: they had experienced real pain in their lives and it made them perfect candidates for Spira, the perfect people to realize that while the dream is pleasant, it's only a façade that should come to an end and to experience a life worth living is to have pain and suffering. The fact both Jecht and Tidus only fully realize themselves and truly begin to value what is most important in their lives after they experience the horrors of Spira isn't an accident.
As Auron says "Outside the dream world, life can be hard -- even cruel. But it is life. He wanted you to have a shot at life."
Just a few things about Seymour. First: when you fight him inside Sin, you can summon Anima and he reacts to it, saying "you would face me as well? So be it." I really like this small detail. Second: I think he is underrated as a villain and is often overlooked for 3 main reasons: 1) like you say, the most villainous things he does are off-screen; 2) part of his back story and motivation (which I find very interesting by the way) is told on the side-quest to get Anima; 3) he is overshadow by the abundance of villains/antagonists: him, the Yevon religion, Sin (the big "whale" who embodies pain and sorrow, Jecht as the final Aeon and Yu Yevon), Yunalesca, ... there is very little left for him to shine.
Seymour is a much better antagonist the older you become as a player, I find. Plenty of Yevonites talk about Seymour as a kindly priest, particularly the kids in the temples. He manages to appeal to Tidus's sensibilities before operation Mihen with his "pretend you didn't see it" (a VERY blunt knock against the way disillusioned adults deal with complex issues). Seymour's status as the most powerful, most well liked figurehead of Spira makes his psychopathy that much more threatening. And he's a serial killer with the quintessential killer's background, in real life. Seymour could probably convince all of Spira that Sin destroying the world to end suffering is a good idea. He's charismatic and untouchable, but insane, leaving Tidus as an outsider who, under different circumstances, could be seen as the outlier; this a scary, but real place, to feel like you're at as an adult. Seymour is a much more grounded antagonist than characters with a ton of theatrics and screen time, like Ardyn and Kefka.
Regarding Seymour: I love Kafka, but when it comes to characterization in FF villains, I think Sephiroth is the gold standard. I think Seymour would have benefitted from a scene similar to when Cloud finds Sephiroth in the basement researching his history, where we learn what Sephiroth’s whole “Thing” is; even if it changes later, and the villain because (literally) inhuman, we still have that earlier experience to ground us. But like you said: Seymour kills his dad offscreen, he loses his mother offscreen, and Tidus isn’t there for any of it. Seymour’s backstory is so fascinating, and Tidus is just never connected to it. If nothing else, I think it would have been useful to connect Seymour to Sin in some more tangible way. Maybe Seymour could be doing something or holding something that prevents the team from getting to Sin or accessing the interior, or they could have more strongly connected his death to the fall of the church, and then more strongly connect the church’s fall to the team’s ability to access Sin. Ah well; still a great game.
here's a theory about the Farplane that I want to add to here:
I always thought the Farplane was a physical representation/manifestation of the power that sustains "life" in Spira. From summons, unsent individuals, the fayth, sin, and even regular humans: the farplane sort of like the lifestream in 7, in the sense that it is the source of all these things. it is also the bridge between Spira and a realm of greater unknown. The orb of the moon, obscured by smoke or vapor, reminds me of Yu Yevon, a much smaller smokey orb of eternal life; I'd like to think Yu Yevon's realm inside of Sin is a pocket recreation of the Farplane, in that it is not simply a summoning by pyreflies, but actually somewhat manifested through an immense connection to "the source" of the greater unknown. The Spirans borrow this power in order to use summons and orbs, etc.. However, Yu Yevon's power not just a simple borrowing of the powers that govern this world; I always thought that he was so overpowered, that he was almost a replication of the moon of the Farplane; a purveying being over such great power.
Here's what I want to add: Take how Sin is Yu Yevon's armor, maybe the world of Spira is the "armor" of the smokey moon that purveys the Farplane. Maybe it's "celestial" armor, if you will. I say "celestial" to describe the larger scale at which this comparison can be applied (Yu Yevon & Sin, the mysterious moon & Spira), but also because the "celestial weapons" are a set of optional weapons that can be obtained in FFX's famous endgame grind-sessions. They're obtained in Macalania Woods from a glowing crystal orb, with which the party can communicate. The entity with which they communicate is able to bestow great power on their weapons. Who are they communicating with that is capable of bestowing this power?
I followed you guys all the way through and completed FFX for the first time last week. still stunned by the ending. really miss spira and even gave FFX2 a go but it wasn't the same. thanks so much for waking this up for me. this second playthrough opened my eyes to the depth of this game, and I really need to thank you guys for that. I also owe you guys for getting me thru some shit, but thats another story all together. just happy this exists. keep up the good work!
I didn't comment on it, but I don't really like the idea that the Fayth manipulating things so Jecht would become Sin and made Tidus "hate" Jecht. It diminishes the game's point that Jecht was an abusive father and makes Tidus' feelings look "wrong", like he's the one at fault.
I also found it interesting that the proginator of the religion that was posing as a preservation of life was the name of the person who was continually requiring sacrifices to sustain a form that wrought death and eternal life (another yin/yang combo in Yu Yevon and Sin I guess?). The religion was actually a cult that convinced devote people to become summoners, and ultimately sacrificed those summoners to appease a god that only brought death to the land.
As you guys were talking about why some souls are in Sin and others are sent (at around 40:30), I started to think of a reason. This is probably a huge stretch, but what if absorbing souls is kind of like Sin regaining HP? As if he is using an X-potion or something. And as his HP is full, he doesn't need any more souls, so whatever is left, is able to be sent.
For the big finale I would really love to hear more of your thoughts on the voice work in this game, outside of Tidus. You talked quite a bit about James Arnold Taylor's performance, but barely any about the rest of the VA talent! Tell us what you thought of John DiMaggio, Tara Strong, Matt McKenzie, and the rest of the cast!
I really, really liked Matt McKenzie as Auron. A combination of tone, cadence, and lines really made that character stand out for me. My favorite voice performance in all of gaming, even above Guy Cihi. I love it when non-regulars (Blum, Strong, North, Baker, etc) voice characters with that non-standard line delivery. When I hear someone like Tara Strong, even as Rikku, I can't help but recognize them as their actor in a role. I also thought Yuna was perfectly cast. And JAT had his best role of his prolific career as Tidus; I respected his portrayal that much more when I learned about his actual upbringing.
I also really really love Seymour's English voice actor being so edgy and extra compared to the Japanese. I usually like Japanese VAs better, but 10 was cast really well.
@@12ealDealOfficial OMG Burgess as Yuna is a love of mine. Her voice is so sweet and soft. I could talk all day about the inflections in her voice I like that she gave to Yuna.
@@bongchoof She is highly underrated. Her little giggle is outright cemented in my mind.
Tidus doesnt need to apologise for not taking Yuna to Zanarkand, home boy Seymour showed her in Guadosolam.
One thing that should probably be brought up in the last episode is a discussion on levels of canonicity.
This last discussion should include some discourse on how firmly you should accept alternate sources from the actual game as canon. While the Ultimanias should certainly be discussed it is not required to accept it as 100% canon. For these sources I personally would put them somewhere between 0 and 100 to average it at 50%, there are strong reasons for both ends of the scale. For information from FFX-2 I'd put it at around 25%, not canon when _this_ game was made so much retcon could be involved but ignoring it flat out would be a mistake, it really just matters how hard it retcons. Questions and thoughts raised in sequels/ultimanias can give an interesting new perspective worthy of discussion.
For example Maechen being an Unsent is only a thing in X-2 but is certainly not out of character at all for who he is and how much he knows in _this_ game so is easily worth accepting and the brief discussion you had on Shuyin was a good perspective to include here
Information from that FFX-3 _thing_ I'll put at 2% and call that overly generous...
the symbol the 8 lines make around the cyclone might be a reference to the chaos sigil, just more visual symbolism for Sin being the epicenter of everything. Sin so easily losing its left arm all of a sudden might be a visual representation of Yunalesca's death as a part of the whole Sin system. That said, it still makes very little sense from an actual story perspective.
In the opening cinematic when Tidus swims out of the top of the bliztball arena, it can be seen as Tidus leaving the bubble of water/sphere of dream zanarkand that the fayth are keeping. Just that repeated imagery of memories and spheres.
Thank you for this very thorough podcast series. FFX was the first Final Fantasy I played and therefore it has a special place in my heart even though it's not my favorite anymore after growing up and playing the other FF titles. However it is one of the best FF titles and dare I say, one of the best video games of all time and following this podcast has only consolidated that thought in me.
Concerning the nature of Tidus and Jecht as well as all of Dream Zanarkand and her denizens: You're on the right track with how hard it would be to recreate these perfectly. If you've ever played the game Telephone or any variation thereof, recreating even a simple audible message without discrepancies becomes impossible over multiple iterations. Just a phrase uttered from one person to the next. Now take it to the next level, 1000 years of trying to recreate perfectly the world you used to live in while being in a dream-like state, your memory of it will fade over time. Iterations (generations) will become more and more generic. You might remember the significant markers, but even those will become somewhat warped in your memory. There is no way anyone (even Shuyen) would be a perfect recreation of his original self. When you start from this premise and then add in the flavor that Tidus and Jecht were certainly manipulated in some way towards the goal of ending the dream, there is nearly no possible way that Tidus or Jecht or Shuyen (or other characters that we believe were alive 1000 years ago like Yunalesca, Zaon, or Maechen) were perfectly preserved in their images or personality to current-day Spira.
I would LOVE that you have a chance to check scenes when returning to each Fayth Chamber from each temple. They just talk about the sentiments of Yu-Yevon. More like complementary lore, but quite cool.
To add to the discussion of the spheres of water holding memories - Dr. Masaru Emoto wrote a book called The Hidden Messages in Water and wrote that water is shaped by environment, thoughts and emotions.
Would love to see a follow up series covering X-2 but at the same time that game is notoriously specific on what you have to do to for the 100% ending, and in general a good ~70% of the plot and lore is locked behind optional content as well as superbosses, so it'd be a challenge to structure the podcast around both of you seeing everything.
Also, I imagine this is going to come up in the next episode as you go back over things in the game but you guys never covered Remiem and Baaj temples and the aeon stories for them so hoping to see that, I was kinda assuming that Baaj would come up during the Seymour in Sin section to tie up his story
Thanks you two for all your hard work.
40:30 "explain to me..."
When someone is NOT sent, they become fiends (unless they have plot armor). Aeons are summoned and constructed of loose pyreflies as well, just like sin, and similar to fiends. The reason given for the sending is to give the soul peace and to avoid it becoming a fiend. So, perhaps, the Kilika and Mi'Hen (sp?) deaths are actually sent to rest on the farplane, whereas unsent pyreflies that might have usually become normal fiends, could be absorbed into a giant fiend/Aeon that is Sin.
As far as the crusader that dies on the beach....maybe Sin usurped his pyreflies before the sending could happen?
That's the best I've got. One of the best stories ever told but they sure liked to be vague on fiends, unsent, aeons, sin, pyreflies, the farplane and how they actually all tie in together. It's basically a JRPG/anime trope to just randomly decide: this power or force you've always known of? Well now it's being wielded by totally different rules, surprise!
Here's my general understanding of the lore of Spira in regards to how it treats the "physical body" and the "soul" separately. If you're alive and well, you have both. When you die, your physical body perishes while your soul remains. Pyreflies are particles that physically record and mirror souls - partly controlled by the soul itself, partly not - so a soul filled with hatred the pyreflies will manifest as a fiend or one of Seymour's grotesque forms, while an unsent is nothing but a dead person that (still) has such strong self-control that they can manipulate pyreflies to mirror their own body back. The sending is a ritual that itself doesn't actually send anybody anywhere, it simply calms the souls of the dead, which in turn releases their grasp on pyreflies, which makes the pyreflies they use to make up their body float away. A soul without a strong lingering regret or attachment, or pacified by the sending ritual, simply dissipates back into the planet, the center of which is the Farplane, and that same process also makes the pyreflies there record the image of the person the soul used to belong to. Therefore you only see pyrefly mirrors of dead people on the Farplane. It's not unlike a sphere that is recorded when a soul returns to the planet (god this lore really is so much like FF7). By the way, as for why the party doesn't send fiends, or Lady Ginnem, I presume it's simply that the sending ritual doesn't work anymore when someone has lost their humanity to that level; it is merely a calming ritual after all. By physically striking them down you do exhaust them and release their grip on pyreflies, making them dissipate. It can have a similar effect to a sending, but through forced exhaustion rather than forced calming.
Summoning in Spira is a very similar process to how an unsent maintains a body or manifests a fiend, with one key difference: an unsent forms a body around their own soul from pyreflies, but a fayth forms a fiend-like body around the _Summoner_ separate and long distance from the fayth's own soul. The actual power of Summoning seems to be to invoke a dead soul's ability to form these physical bodies remotely, and because the fayth are overall calm, the aeons they form remain under control and benevolent. We can see what happens when they too get 'infected' with despair in X-2. Worth noting that aeons like Valefor and Ifrit are never shown to have souls of their own separate from the fayth, while the inhabitants of Dream Zanarkand very much are - Tidus' mother is the prime example of this, clearly having a very real soul that made its way to the Farplane on death, it's just that her physical body was only ever created by a summoning. That's kinda a key thing there - Tidus and all the Dream Zanarkandians have real souls and they have children that themselves have real souls, it's their _physical bodies_ that are not real and only held together by the continued summoning.
Edit: Forgot to mention, I believe how Sin works is that it's at the core a gravitational magic so powerful it can even suck in souls of the dead that are trying to return to the planet and use them to craft an ever bigger being from more pyreflies. The souls Yuna sends at the tail end of Operation Mi'ihen are only the ones that are _not_ caught up in Sin's gravitational pull, likewise Chappu was crushed and left on Djose's shore rather than sucked into it, and thus was able to go to the Farplane. Luzzu/Gatta do _not_ show up in the Farplane.
Thank you for that😊
I really really really love this game and specially the ending it makes me tear up every damn time. I really appreciate this through analysis you guys did and I'm looking forward for your next one, keep it up homies
Regarding the souls sucked up by sin, others have also said that Sin does take souls into it. However, when Yuna sent the souls of the dead after the Sin attack in the beginning, it is highly probably that she was sending all those that died as a result of the destruction from Sin, not Sin itself. So, Sin takes on the souls of those it directly kills but leaves the remnants caused by the aftermath of the destruction. I feel like this explanation fits due to the nature of how Sin is presented, very much like a tsunami. If you remember from the Tohoku earthquake, many more people died after the Tsunami had already struck, so I feel like this is the writers effort to present Sin as closer to a natural disaster.
I feel like it doesn't absorb the souls so much they are drawn to the dream zanarkan which it is my belief that it's contained within sin
I always thought of Yu Yevon as a tick like parasite latching onto its host.
I find it interesting how despite Final Fantasy X being so beloved, not many of us have played X-2, for good reason. That game showed that this was the end of Squaresoft and the beginning of the mediocrity that is Squareenix.
MGS will be so great to see you guys dig into! That game is relatively short but so dense with stuff to discuss.
This was really good, guys. Thanks for making this series.
You guys could always bring in Dansg08 for the finale? If anyone has definitive answers on FFX it’s gotta be him, right? Either way it’s been a great journey, boys. Can’t wait for that finale and the eventual Silent Hill 2 series! One of the best games ever made.
I think Yuna realized that Tidus didn't travel through time but he comes from Dream Zanarkand. However, I don't remember how much information she was given about it (or about the faith dreaming and getting tired).
If you plan on doing sidecontent, definitely check out Macalania Temple again and defeat Dark aeon Shiva. Afterwards you can access the chamber of the fayth again and talk to Shiva's fayth - she gives some exposition to what the after credits scene might implicate before it got retconned for the ending of X-2.
I've been rewatching this podcast series on FFX as I replay the game.
In regards to Tidus coming back in the scene after the credits. If I'm not mistaken, if you revisit the tenples either for the destruction spheres or just for fun, and if you enter the chambers where you can see the fayth, one of them (Valefor i think), says something like "we the fayth won't forget how you have helped us" (I'm paraphrasing). I've always understood that as the fayth giving Tidis his life in spira as thabks for helping them end the dream.
Re: some people getting absorbed by sin and some not:
It's possible that whoever is killed by sin as a direct consequence of his attacks gets absorbed (gravity magic, laser beam stuff, etc) as a result of it 'pulling' their souls in.
So Chappu was crushed and left on the Djose shore, so he didn't get absorbed and you see him on the Farplane, but Luzzu/Gotta from what I remember got directly hit, so he did get absorbed.
The people who were killed at Kilika were basically drowned, so no absorption there either.
The way Seymour should have been presented was more of a contender in a race to determine whose solution to Sin would prevail-Seymour’s or Yuna’s-because now that Yunalesca is gone, if Seymour manages to become Sin and finds a way to kick and keep the party out (unlike Jecht Sin, the Hymn of the Fayth would not calm him), then he would torment the world in perpetuity, as he wished.
The stakes would be higher because it would be a race for the two competing solutions.
I know that this is in fact what happened, but it wasn’t executed too well.
1:05:06 okay this song coming on during this made me laugh out loud
Seymore certainly was extremly interesting early on for sure - so many parallels between him, Tidus, and Yuna. But, from his initial death onward, exploration of those parallels is over. He was a sympathetic character, similar with his family history, but with fate and other people's lack of caring turning him towards an extremely different philosophical worldview. But, from Bevelle and on, he's just a caricature of 'Evil RPG villain'.
One of the things I love about FFXV, on this note, is that it went the other way around. Ardyn became more sympathetic as the worlds history unfolds. You understood who he was, and why he did what he did - I feel genuine sympathy for him.
Regarding the "I love you scene" at the end of the game and why that's not said in the Japanese has to do greatly with Japanese culture and the way they regard loved ones. Aishite Imasu (literally I love you in Japanese) is a phrase reserved for very serious situations, such as marriage or a funeral, a situation that truly warrants it being said. That being said, "thank you" can be used to express great affection between people, even lovers, as I've been brought to understand it. Therefore, changing the line "I love you" in the English translation is warranted and probably the best representation of what Yuna is actually meaning and would certainly be the phrase used in English.
Just my thoughts based on what I've been told.
Since Seymour was defeated on Gagazet and Sin can be presumed to only be a short distance away because it shows up in Zanarkand, I think we can presume that Sin absorbed his pyreflies before he had a chance to regenerate, which is how he ended up inside of sin. This would help confirm the theory that sin absorbs souls in order to strengthen itself or otherwise do something unmentioned. How Seymour manages to maintain a hold on his sanity or form when presumably millions/billions of other souls are all around him inside sin would have been an interesting story beat and would have given more clarity to him. Instead we get a cool out of nowhere boss fight.
Coulda been better implemented, but hindsight is 20/20
I don't want this to end