Fridge / Final Fantasy X

As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Fridge Brilliance:

• Tidus' fighting style is improvised but awesome and practical. Most of his moves are based on typical blitzball moves, but entail wielding a sword.
  • But Tidus is rubbish at offense in blitzball. His strength lies entirely in shooting (with his feet, which he does not use to wield his sword).
• One of the few lines from Tidus' mother is telling her son that he should confess to his father that he hates him. Tidus already overcomes his problems midway through the game and loves his father, but once he sees him, he says "I hate you." He says that just like his mother wanted, but it's obvious to anybody that he loved his father. In a way, Tidus' mother understood her child and told him to say to test if he really hated his father.
  • By the by the end of the game when they finally meet up, Tidus is bawling; when he says he hates Jecht, he means he's unhappy with him for all the crap he put him and his mother through, but since he sees Jecht is dying, he clearly doesn't care as much anymore; he's just happy they're reunited and is about to forgive him. Jecht seems to understand this; all he can say in response is "I know.", meaning he was probably beating himself up about it all and would be mad at him if he was Tidus, too.
• Auron appears to be dependable and trustworthy but his repeated interactions with Tidus make it look as if he is actually the one needing help from somebody. For example, in one occasion Auron tells Tidus he should say "I'm sorry" but Tidus instead whistles. The Ultimania guidebook actually reveals that Auron did not believe in Yuna, afraid she would follow her father's steps and decided to seek help from Tidus to discover another way to defeat Sin forever.
• Auron could have mentioned at any point to Tidus that the Final Summoning kills the summoner. He didn't, because Tidus finding out on his own after his feelings for Yuna were blossoming was a much stronger motivation to Screw Destiny.
• The Overdrive Moves.
  • Why does Tidus' Overdrive involve a timed hit? Because, as a blitzball player, he's trained to have split-second reflexes.
  • Why is Lulu's wild flailing registered on the analogue sticks? Because she's furious and when you're in a rage, what do you do? You expend more energy.
  • Auron's is a sequence. Why? As a samurai and a monk, he must have exact, flawless technique.
  • What about Wakka's, then? Well... just listen to him speak. Discern his attitude. Is he not a laid-back, happy-go-lucky person?
• The fact that Rikku can dismantle machina in battle with the steal command screams Fridge Brilliance. She's Al Bhed, so she would have the knowledge to do so.
  • One better: where would anything that would be worth stealing be on a machine? Inside it. So to get at anything to steal, Rikku would have to just flat out dismantle the machine...not to mention, those "Grenades" you stole? More than likely a less than stable component of the machine. Brilliant!
  • Stealing to destroy machina doesn't work on Yevon's machina. While part of this could be chalked up to the church's machina being far more advanced, as they're the ones hoarding it while telling the rest of civiliation that machina use is a sin, it's likely also simply that while she's familiar with her own culture's machina and probably studied their blueprints inside and out, Yevon's machina is built differently. It would be like a Windows-only technician trying to troubleshoot a Mac.
• The entire party has a natural immunity to the Threaten skill. Why? Because 1) they're all friends, 2) they all know each other's strengths and weaknesses, and 3) no other characters (that is, none of their actual battle opponents) can learn it. Even when some of them go up against each other early in the game, they don't know the move and it's too early for them to have learned it; they aren't Tidus's friends, aren't members of the party, and aren't on the Sphere Grid and capable of learning it yet. Maybe the move was included in the game just so they could defend themselves and each other.
• The infamous laughing scene: Even with every other member of the party looking at the two like they're insane, Tidus and Yuna degenerate into genuine, happy laughter.
  • When you really thinked about it, Tidus didnt laugh for YEARS, all that because of his dad.
  • I always thought the scene was ridiculous and stupid, but now that I watch it again, I find it sweet. With the world they live in, Tidus and Yuna haven't really had anything to laugh about in ages. It's just two people acting a bit silly in order to lighten the mood, and they really could use a good laugh.
• Ignoring the fact that several major summons are missing, let's focus on Alexander. Did it cross anyone else's mind that his absence could have to do with being both Holy elemental and a machine, two things that don't really click with Yevon?
  • There might be a technical "expy" of Alexander hidden within. The Dream Zanarkand is made through the same method that creates Aeon, making it and the residents technically aeons themselves.
• Sin usually executes a Class 0 Apocalypse How on any settlement that gets bigger than an average town, yet Bevelle and Luca are still standing. Tidus even lampshades it when you first get to Luca, and the answer he gets is "The Crusaders protect the Blitzball Stadium with everything they have." Then it hits you; it's not the Red Shirt Crusaders protecting it (he wiped out a good 90% of them in one shot after all), it's the Stadium itself that stops him, because Jecht used to be a star Blitzball player and that stadium would be almost sacred to him.
  • Question: Sin's been around for about a good 1000 years, with a new sacrificial human replacing the previous Sin every 10 years. If the current Luca/Bevelle is kept from being destroyed by the current Sin (Jecht) because of his love for Blitzball, what about during all the previous decades before Jecht turned into Sin? Considering that a city the size of Luca and Bevelle would take more than 10 years to build to those magnitudes, there has to be some other reason that Sin doesn't attack Luca or Bevelle (unless every incarnation of Sin happened to have been star Blitzball players for the last 1000 years).
    • Sin isn't killed every ten years; it's just the calm that started before the events of the game lasted ten years. Sin is killed whenever there's a summoner powerful enough to do it, which is a lot less frequent than every 10 years. Sin might not be able to get killed without a Final Summon, but it seems possible to cause it pain and drive it off, which is most likely how the Crusaders have been protecting Bevelle and the stadium. The reason Sin doubled down at Operation Mi'ihen is because the crusaders were literally torturing captured sinspawn to force Sin to make a beeline for the area.
    • It's not every 10 years. There's only been six Sins total:
    • First Sin: Created by Yevon himself, entirely intended to attack Bevelle (that was, after all, the whole point) but was stopped by his daughter, Yunalesca.
    • Second Sin: Yunalesca's husband, Zaon; refused to attack Bevelle because he was from Bevelle.
    • Third Sin: Gandolf's guardian; whoever it was is unknown.
    • Fourth Sin: Some friend of Ohalland, who as Wakka mentions several times was a blitzball player before he became a summoner. It's pretty likely whoever his Final Aeon was, was also a blitzball player.
    • Fifth Sin: Yocun's guardian; since Yocun was a Crusader her guardian almost certainly was also, and as Crusaders they would definitely NOT want to attack a city defended by their companions.
    • Sixth Sin: Obviously, this was Jecht, who was a great Blitzball player himself.
    • There's another reason that Bevelle and Luca are safe. Sin was originally created to destroy all machina; although Yevon hadn't been formed yet, one of its prime directives was basically "uphold Yevon by destroying shit". Bevelle is devout, so it's safe from Sin (which is the whole reason it created Yevon). Blitzball is also used in order to entertain people and stop them from becoming like Seymour (which is why it's such a major part of the world), so Luca, a major Blitzball location, is safe.
    • Didn't realize this until the number of Sins had been pointed out. If Seymour had succeeded in his plan, there would have been a seventh — Seven deadly Sins!
• Seymour seems to get stronger with each subsequent battle, but then you think back to when he killed Kinoc and remember that he gets stronger every time he absorbs pyreflies. Then you realize every rematch (prior to the last) came after he killed someone. The first was absorbing one person, the second was after absorbing several.
  • It's also shown in the secondary bosses that join Seymour that get bigger as he gains power. When he just killed one person, it was smaller than him. When he killed several people, it was much larger than him and could act as a vehicle. It makes you wonder how many he killed to get the four that were roughly the same size as the second.
  • Adds a bit of fridge horror when you realize that he lives close to a huge source of pyreflies that also houses the souls of the dead.
• In-game, Anima is a near Game-Breaker for the average player, as her attacks are very powerful. In-universe, this is justified, as she's actually a Final Aeon, just like Jecht. She sacrificed herself to become a fayth so that Seymour could kill Sin, but Seymour never actually used her to battle Sin (Maybe he couldn't bring himself to do it?), so she remained an aeon.
• Seymour's plan to Put Spira Out Of Its Misery. Yevon's core principle is that death is an end to suffering, so they shouldn't grieve over lost loved ones because they're "in a better place." They're actually letting Sin rampage to encourage dependence on Yevon's summoners via the Calms, but by that principle, wiping out all life in Spira would be the ethical thing to do and he's the only one willing to do it.
  • In addition to this, Seymour most likely picked up the idea from Yunalesca, who tells Summoners that "Death is the ultimate and final liberation." So, why shouldn't he do so for Spira itself?
• Flashbacks show that Tidus isn't a natural blond. It's likely that he dyed his hair to wipe out as much resemblance to his dark-haired father as possible.
  • And wasn't he dark-haired like Jecht in some of the early demos of FFX, as well? Could be a throwback to that concept, as well.
  • It could just be that Tidus is bleach-blonde from being a star blitzball player and spending so much time in the water.
• The Yevonites believe that sacrificing summoners to fight Sin is a fair price to pay for the Calms. The Al Bhed believe that sacrificing summoners didn't work the last five times, so to keep trying is a waste of human life. Yuna is half-Al Bhed and half-Yevonite... so she eventually settles on a little of both. And, by doing so, she breaks the cycle.
• During the wedding, Yuna attempts to send Seymour but is halted when Maester Mika threatens to kill her guardians. Upon replaying the game, you realize that since Maester Mika was already dead and unsent at that point, if he hadn't intervened, Seymour would not have been to only person to disappear.
• When you get to Home, and Tidus learns the truth of Yuna's journey, all those poignant moments while leaving all the new areas finally hit home, and all of Tidus' well-meaning "we'll come back here when we've beaten Sin"s takes on new meanings. With all of Tidus' claims that "this is his story", it really isn't: it's all about Yuna — leaving on this selfless quest to literally give everything to stop Sin, and eventually to stop the endless cycle of Calms. Tidus was consigned to be an irritating love interest and viewpiece for the player, whereas Yuna becomes the real protagonist.
  • Tidus didn't really belong in the story to the save the world plot and remained dangerously close to The Scrappy, until the Fayth Cluster at Zanarkand. At this point, Tidus realizes that if Sin is defeated, the Fayth that are summoning all of Dream Zanarkand, including him, will awaken, and he will vanish. This is when the game really does become his story. The most brilliant moment in the game appeared after Yuna and company decide to Take a Third Option to stop Sin for good. Not only does this change the tone of the game from cynical to idealistic in one fell swoop, it basically switches Yuna and Tidus's positions in the story. Tidus is the one who has to die for the world to be saved, and Yuna is the one unaware of it. The game isn't really just his or her story at this point anymore; it's their story.
    • More proof that the entire FFX saga is the story of both Yuna and Tidus is when you consider their ideologies. In the first game, Tidus is on the Idealist side of the Sliding Scaleof Idealism Versus Cynicism. When told by Lulu that "if you want everything, you'll get nothing", he immaturely shouts back "but I want everything"! Yuna, however, starts out the story by stating that she'll gladly sacrifice anything if it just means bringing a little happiness to the world, showing how the Cynical nature of the world has colored her views. Now, flash forward to the end of the game. Tidus doesn't even hesitate to put his own life (hell, existence) in jeopardy to truly save the world, even though he essentially earns NOTHING for his trouble; furthermore, even his narration becomes a lot more Cynical and fatalistic. Now, let's flash forward again to X-2. A character offers to sacrifice himself to stop the Big Bad of that game, but Yuna vehemently opposes this idea and says that she's tired of "losing" to win. So, let's just do a brief summation of all that: By the end of each game, Yuna and Tidus have reversed their positions on the scale. At the end of FFX, Tidus became Yuna and at the end of FFX-2, Yuna became Tidus.
  • In a meta-sense, the polarity of Yuna and Tidus is directly reflected with the way their Japanese translation of their names mean. Moon and Sun alike, which Spira as Earth Yuna giving the Moonlight on the darkness of the world that is Tidus's Sunlight that reflects of Yuna. So it's a funny eclipse story about how the Light and Darkness show each other that when there is something that is challenging they both can be tools to make the world a better place.
  • New, more general flash of insight: The spirals don't just go inward and down in Spira, they also go up. The whole point is that while Spira is falling in on itself, the main characters' journey is making them mature enough to force Spira into a new cycle of growth, but it's mostly a gentle enough incline that, except for maybe four points in the entire story, it's hardly noticeable at all. Tidus and Wakka being less Jerk Jocks and more of a couple of decent people; Yuna going from someone following in her father's footsteps to someone who wants to really make things better, no matter the personal cost (considering she didn't actually have much to lose before the start of the journey, and her two-ish friends would have suffered more than her); Lulu becoming less emo and blunt and more kindly (as shown by the difference between the first temple and the snowmobile ride) to the point that she could forgive herself for the previous failure, and confront her former charge, whether spiritually or the actual ghost; and Rikku being less Usagi and more post-Wutai Yuffie. The two spirals work in direct opposition to each other. this adds a whole new dimension of suck to X-2, though.
    • You can also argue that there are spirals inside the spirals. Draw a spiral on a piece of paper. Notice the white spiral you just outlined in the process? Now, look at the Besaid Aurochs pre-Tidus. They're only determined to "do their best", not aim at victory (notice the dejection in Wakka's voice when he first utters it). Sounds a lot like Spira's quandary — not just in that Tidus catalyzes the spiral going up rather than down, but also the psychic shattering to the point where it's believed that victory is impossible, and all one can hope for is to temper the pain of defeat as much as possible. The Aurochs' debacle was meant as a kind of precursor to what Tidus would find afflicting Spira (in this case, "doing their best" would be sealing off Sin as quickly as possible; minimizing as much as possible, rather than outright thwarting, the wreckage). Perhaps one could even argue that the first drawn spiral was Yu Yevon's despair at saving the real Zanarkand from Bevelle, and so decided all he could do was "do his best"—by turning Zanarkand's ghost into an eternal punisher of the victor. He and Zanarkand didn't win the conflict, but they could at least bring the ruin-scores as close to even as possible...
  • Tidus's role in the story is to be exactly what he is: an obnoxious, loud-mouthed jock who demands answers for everything and tries to push his worldview onto everyone else. At the beginning of the story, Tidus is told that he cannot enter the Cloister of Trials because it's forbidden, to which he responds, "Like I care!" and runs in anyways. This simple act defines his purpose in the story: he challenges the dogmatic truths of a nation that accepts what Yevon tells them as absolute. This is the thing that sets him apart from the rest of Spira: he asks why, and when he doesn't like the answer he gets, he denounces it and demands a better one. Tidus is effectively the ringleader for what becomes a full-blown insurrection against the theocracy that governs Spira through his bull-headed refusal to abide by the traditions and roles that have existed for centuries. Tidus, ultimately, was exactly what Yuna needed in order to rise above the role she was cast in, and avoid becoming just another High Summoner who died to temporarily delay Sin: an obnoxious jerk to go, "That rule is stupid. Don't tell me everyone follows it, I don't care, it's dumb and I'm not doing it, and you shouldn't, either."
• While YMMV on this one, a big thing was coming to the realization about how Zanarkand was not all smiles and goodness, and was truly just as bad as Bevelle. Admittedly, according to Maechen and Bahamut, Zanarkand was definitely the unwilling victim of the Machina War. However, what did Yu Yevon do after the end of the war was certain? Not only did he create a monster to house a shadow of Zanarkand inside, not only did he use his own people to do it (and a bit of Fridge Horror: did anyone ever say they went willingly?), but he designed it to essentially wipe out any advanced human settlement. Let's repeat that: Zanarkand put all of Spira in a stranglehold, killing hundreds of thousands of people, forcing culture and technology back several thousand years, and putting the entire world in metaphorical limbo to create an unchanging shadow of its former self. Yikes.
• Bevelle and Zanarkand were at war 1000 years ago. Yevon, concentrated in Bevelle, has been battling for 1000 years against Sin, which contains the remains of Zanarkand. Yuna is from Bevelle. Tidus is from Zanarkand. Good show.
• Auron doesn't hang around whenever Yuna sends the dead because as an unsent himself, a sending would compromise his continued existence outside of the Farplane. Not only does he not want to leave yet, but he still has a promise to fulfill, which explains why he doesn't allow himself to be sent until the endgame.
• The whole game is about the dead — the maesters, Yu Yevon, etc. etc. — keeping the living from truly going on and living their lives, because the dead have been around for longer and deserve to keep on going, however static they might be. This game comes from Japan, in which the younger generations are expected to care for their elders (sometimes to their own seeming detriment), and which had just recently been in a state of stasis because, if this troper understands correctly, nobody wanted to invest their savings into spending and thus, into the next generations. ^note  the expectation exists in America, too, but it isn't this strong because more emphasis is placed on individual success . Subtle social commentary much?
  • Better yet, just about all religions — eastern reincarnation-based religions most of all — treat death as a release from woe, simply because they can't think of anything else to do about it. Yevon simply takes that to its ultimate conclusion — "Summoners challenge the bringer of death, Sin, and die doing so (even if they succeed, since the Final Aeon kills the summoner). Guardians give their lives to protect their summoner (and the most beloved one sacrifices himself to help their summoner defeat Sin). The Fayth are the souls of the dead (granted powers greater than the living). Even the maesters of Yevon are unsent (supposedly wiser than the living). Spira is full of death (which Yevon insists is "Good"). Only Sin is reborn (because summoners keep sacrificing guardians to it), and then only to bring more death. It is a cycle of death, spiraling endlessly (because no one bothers to fight it)." So Auron's cry of "Die and be free of pain, or live and fight your sorrow!", is the Eastern equivalent of Jesse Custer's realization that "(God) wants us... to love him and (it's) much more satisfyin'... when the hell of this Earth makes the choice so god-damned hard!"
    • Furthermore, while the Church of Yevon has the veneer of Catholicism, it is nothing of the sort. Catholicism regards death as an enemy. Death is regarded as a release from suffering only for the righteous, and even then only because of the promise of the resurrection. Catholic teaching is that the human body was built for eternity, and that death is but a temporary sleep before the body rises for eternity, either holy and glorious or wretched and fuel for everlasting fire that burns but does not consume.
• There is no water fayth. Tidus is an star Blitzball player, a sport that takes place underwater (bonus points since "Blitz" is German for "lighting" water's polar opposite), and to take it further; Anima's fayth (Seymore's mother, who became a fayth in an act of love for Seymore if the one flashback she's in is any indicator) is found in the flooded Baaj Temple.
  • It might be because the water is already home to Sin, who fits the traditional ideal of a "leviathan" more than the (presumably) aeon Leviathan.
    • Considering both Leviathan and Sin have biblical roots, there is merit to this.
• The Instant Runes aren't just there to look pretty. The big circular runes are yantras, the Yevonite letters in the middle of those symbols are mantras, and the Fayth is the anthropomorphic embodiment of the same divine power. These concepts are widespread in esoteric branches of Hinduism and Buddhism. Sure enough, these concepts are embraced by a medieval Japanese sect, Shingon Buddhism, which also uses the archaic Sanskrit alphabet on which Final Fantasy X's Yevonite alphabet is based. See **Fans Final Fantasy X Symbols & Glyphs for a full explanation; some of the symbolic meanings add a deep layer to the game much like the Zodiac symbolism in XII.
• Wakka using a blitzball as a weapon: It seems like a classic case of Improbable Weapon User until you realize that a blitzball would have to be pretty heavy in order to overcome water resistance, a quality that would also make them effective at dealing damage, provided that one was strong enough to hurl them through the air.
  • If you can hurl something like that through the water hard enough for it to make it past defending players including a goalkeeper, it's practically a given that the amount of force involved would be lethal.
  • Unfortunately, whilst this would be a good theory, we see when Kilika is destroyed by Sin that blitzballs float, and we see in the the prologue that they are light enough to be effortlessly carried and headed by small children. Which means that in order for this to work, they would have to be simultaneously as light as a soccer ball and as heavy as a bowling ball. The only way to explain this would be some kind of active spell that can alter the density of the blitzball in real time according to the needs of its user; the balls being magical in nature may also explain their ability to inflict status effects.
• Operation Mi'ihen involved getting Sinspawns in one place in order to lure Sin so the Crusaders can blast it away using various machina. The reasoning behind this is because Sin, for some reason, always returns for his spawn. Coincidentally, Yuna's party just happen to be there. As expected, Sin does appear, and everyone thinks it returned for the gathered Sinspawn, except Auron. Therefore, Sin coming for his spawn that time did not refer to the Sinspawn. Sin is Jecht, and he came for his son, Tidus. If Yuna and the others weren't in that place, Operation Mi'ihen would've not happened.
• Al Bhed being a simple cypher rather than a language seems to be a bit of a copout...until you realize that their origins were likely a resistance against Yevon. Rather than risk being exposed, they likely developed a code and over the centuries, it likely just evolved into an actual language.
• Are you sure you want to board a ship called "S.S. Liki"?
• The introduction includes this bit of narration:
  I was in a coffee shop, running away from home when I heard the news. Our hero, Jecht, gone. Vanished into thin air! My dad must have been his biggest fan. I knew how sad he'd be. Heck, we all were that day. 'Zanar,' I says to myself. 'What are you thinking?' I went running straight back home. We sat up talking 'bout Jecht all night. My dad and I never talked so much. Whoa... Didn't mean to reminisce, folks.

This seems like a mostly irrelevant reminiscence, but it does foreshadow two of the game's themes. First, it's a story about parental conflict and reconciliation, which is most important for the story of Tidus and Jecht, but also crops in plots with other characters (e.g. Seymour). More subtly, the story has a "looping" journey, of leaving and returning afterwards — something all the main characters will do over the course of the game's plot.

• Tidus cannot stand seeing a woman be miserable, likely stemming from how his mother ended up. This appears as early at the Prologue where he cheers up a female fan he fears he's hurt by saying he'll score a goal just for her. Yuna is the most miserable woman he's ever met, and his attempts to get to know her and make her smile are the source of their initial chemistry.
  • How on earth is Yuna 'miserable'? Granted she's more of a Stepford Smiler given her situation, but not once does she come across as being miserable; a massive part of her character is that she has the ability to smile and appear happy to inspire everyone around her. Auron later states that this is even a fault of Yuna's, that she keeps her negative feelings to herself. Tidus is interested in her at the start because she's a pretty girl his own age with mysterious powers, and she's kind and friendly from the moment she meets him. If Tidus really was out to cheer up “miserable” girls wouldn't he have honed in on Lulu instead?
• Why is the normally cheerful, laid-back Wakka such a hardass about following the traditions and precepts of Yevon before his Character Development? Well, early on in the game, there's a scene where the party goes to pray for safe passage before leaving Besaid. Wakka explains that this is an ancient Besaid tradition and adds that Chappu didn't pray for safe passage on the day he died because he was worried he'd miss his boat. In Wakka's mind, his brother died because he failed pray and follow church tradition. Who wouldn't become a stickler for Yevon's customs and precepts after that?
  • He then went on to use machina in a fight, soon after dying. So not only is Wakka much more serious about tradition and religion, but he blames the Al Bhed as well.
• Why is Seymour Omnis a much easier fight than the previous one? In the second battle against him, he absorbed the souls of a few Guado and soldiers. In the third battle, he had absorbed the souls of all the Ronso he killed. In his final battle, he was alone and had no flunkies/victims to draw any extra power from.
• On the way from Besaid to Luca, Gatta and Luzzu are standing guard outside a room and say they're embarking on a dangerous mission they can't disclose. It's not made clear until later that they were actually transporting a Sinspawn for Operation Mi'ihen... but you also learn later that Sin always returns for its spawn and attacks. Gatta and Luzzu are responsible for Sin's attack on Kilika and all the dead villagers by unknowingly drawing Sin to their ship.
  • Objection: when they were in the sea, Sin didn't even notice a ship until it attack with ballista. Even then, when attack stopped, Sin ignored ship (with its spawn on board) and go to Kilika.
• The party can still play Blitzball even when they're on the run from Yevon, because the league says that none of that matters in the arena. Of course it doesn't; the league already had the heretical Al Bhed Psyches!
• Something that went over this Troper's head the first few times, but the Glyphs that glow in the Cloisters of Trial have a meaning. Most of the time, they write the names of the temples (Besaid, Kilika, Djose, Macalania, Bevelle and Zanarkand). It's also established that to get the secret treasure in each Cloister, the player must use a destruction sphere to destroy a wall behind which is hidden said secret treasure. What's written on the wall? SIN. In short, to really master the Trial, the player must symbolically destroy Sin.
• One thing that occurs to me is just how unfair Blitzball is to anyone who isn't the Luca Goers or (possibly) the Al Bhed Psyches as it must be almost impossibly hard to effectively train for a game that involves a fifty foot high sphere of water without a stadium that has a machina capable of creating a fifty foot high sphere of water. No wonder they're the best. At least the Kilika team only has a short distance to travel to book themselves some practice time. The Aurochs have to make four boat trips there and back, and presumably they have part time jobs of some description to attend to in the meantime as there is no way being last for ten years nets you much gil to eat with. And the Ronso? The team that arguably levels up the worst in the game? They are stated to practice in that underground, fiend-filled lake. Good for building endurance, bad for practicing the dynamics of a game centered around a fifty-foot high sphere of water.
  • And keep in mind - even when the Al Bhed (of all people) stole a summoner and demanded that Wakka forfeit a game for her return, it wasn't penalized in any way. Imagine how simple it would be for the Luca Goers, so adored by locals, to create such a situation.
• The game's mechanic of having ice attacks be the most effective against fire based fiends and elementals, (and vice-versa, with fire working best against ice based fiends and elementals) makes a fair amount of sense if you know about the effect temperature has on molecules and their bonds. Gross oversimplification from someone who isn't a chemistry/physics expert: the hotter something is, and the closer it comes to its heat of combustion, (the point where it will catch fire) the more the bonds inside it tend to break down and atoms inside move and vibrate with potential energy, until it hits the heat of combustion and with oxygen to feed the sparks, at which point it releases that energy in the form of fire. Cold, on the other hand, helps force those atoms into an orderly lattice and encourages the strengthening of atomic bonds, essentially dampening that potential energy and preventing it from breaking out into a fire or changing its physical state. So it's pretty natural that heat would help break down the internal structure of an ice creature, and cold would be weaken a fire creature. What's more, there are all sorts of fires where throwing water on it would either do nothing or even create an explosive reaction. (With electrical and grease fires, for example, it would be a very bad idea to try to put them out with water, and the same goes for quite a range of chemical fires.) So it really does make some sense that those spells work the way they do, and that water isn't used for attacking fire creatures.
• In Yuna's farewell sphere, she says that when she first met Kimahri he told her that he was there because it was the wish of a man facing death. At the time, you think this is Braska, who had just died fighting Sin, but once Auron tells Tidus that he is an unsent, you realise that Kimahri was actually talking about Auron himself!
• Why are Iron Giants first encountered in the Thunder Plains, when they are very weak to thunder? Remember that Fiends are Unsent. Iron Giants are probably the Fiend forms of the people who helped build the lightning rod towers, and their strong desire to stop people being struck by lightning still exists. Iron Giants' helmets are even shaped like the towers!
• Seymour is the High Priest of Macalania Temple. Shiva's fayth was also a Macalanian priestess prior to becoming the fayth for said temple. And she can be summoned in the first battle with Seymour, before you've technically even obtained her (she shows up as a ???? on the list of Aeons). So it seems likely that the two knew each other, and that Shiva would have further warned Yuna about Seymour's sinister plot while she was praying in the back room of the temple.
• Tidus starts out with very mediocre Blitzball stats for someone repeatedly touted as the star player of the Zanarkand Abes. He is only barely above the perrenially bottom table Aurochs and is overshadowed by several members of the Luca Goers, the Al Bhed Psyches and even some of the random civilians that you can recruit. However, when you think about it, there are only three people who ever actually call him that: Tidus himself, Yuna whilst in fangirl mode, and the commentator at the Blitzball stadium during the a cup thrown in Jecht's memory, giving a plausible reason why he might be biased in favour of Jecht's blood as he puts it. And this is compounded by the fact that we don't actually know anything about the Zanarkand Abes beyond that during the time of Jecht they were the best. For all we know in present day they could easily be one of those legacy teams that you find in every sport who live off old glory whilst bouncing about the mid-tables. It is not hard to be the star player of a fallen team, nor is it hard for a boy as good looking, charismatic and famous as Tidus to get himself some good press.
  • Alternatively, it makes sense when one remembers that Tidus is from the dream version of a long-dead nation. No matter how good a player he may have been, his skills are quite literally a thousand years out-of-date. Much like how in the real life sporting events/Olympics an impressive record decades ago is merely decent or average now due to athletes becoming more skilled and having more avenues to grow their performance, what was peak performance when Tidus was a star is only mediocre at best in the present day.
  • Another thing to note is that Tidus' best role in blitzball is making shots, given he can learn the Jecht Shot. A lot of Tidus' interactions show him as being very direct and focused, so as a player, he's at his best when he can get close enough to make the winning shot. In other areas, he's not amazing, but when you go for the winning shot, he's one of the best options you can use to do so.
  • The other reason why could be the heavy Gameplay and Story Segregation evident compared to the FMVs of Blitzball compared to the turned based minigame we get. Tidus is an excellent player, but the gameplay is leaning towards you having a really hard time to get very good at blitzball. In the story, Tidus really is an excellent blitzballer but gameplay doesn't work that way.
• It always struck me as weird that Blitzball is a mixed gender sport given how contact sports in real life almost never are (especially back when the game was made), but recently I noticed something: the Besaid Aurochs - one of the worst teams in living memory - is the only all-male team in the whole of Final Fantasy X. Everyone else has a mixture of men and women - and that includes the Abes and the Duggles. This therefore implies that the best teams know that there is some inherent advantage to this set up or they would not all universally play it. Perhaps in the real Blitzball that we see in the opening FMV as opposed to the in-game turn-based version, the favoured tactic is to have the men act as blockers whilst the smaller and more agile women chase down the ball like sharks.
• Lulu's statements about Yuna getting married - how she would prefer she Marry for Love but if she did choose to do so, she would have to object - make a lot more sense after The Reveal. If Yuna weren't a summoner, Lulu would want her to marry the one she loved as opposed to a good political match. But as Yuna has her pilgrimage to complete, Lulu wouldn't want her to marry someone she loved - because she doesn't want Yuna's potential husband to have only a short time with her and then have to watch her die to save Spira. Lulu knows first hand how horrible that feels from what happened with Chappu.
• If you choose Luzzu to survive instead of Gatta, he takes the death much harder. He's now realising what he put Lulu and Wakka through.
• Seymour's plan to "become Sin" seems like the raving of a lunatic in a first playthrough, and his desire to marry Yuna totally out of place. Then you find out how Sin is made: a Guardian with a strong bond to the summoner is made into the Final Aeon, who becomes the new Sin once the old one is killed. Seymour grew up isolated, with only his mother as company, believing his father and everyone else hated him. Of course Seymour wants to marry Yuna: he honestly thinks that that will forge a bond strong enough to be chosen as a Final Aeon. He grew up being told that if he didn't defeat Sin, no one would ever love or even like him. He doesn't know what love really is and thinks marrying Yuna is good enough.
• Trommel is visibly flustered when he thanks the party for the rescue at the Macalania Lake, presenting them with a Shell Targe. It becomes obvious why, when you figure out that the armour in question is meant for Rikku, an Al Bhed, who are depicted as heathens at best, universal villains for Yevonites at worst. Him actually acknowledging Rikku as a Guardian and helping her out (his future actions notwithstanding) puts him in a totally different light. He may have learned a thing or two about tolerance, since his late master wed a human woman, something maybe not unheard of before, but certainly not commonplace, especially for the Guado in power.
• When Auron declares that the party is going to cross the Moonflow right now instead of taking a night so they can see it get all pretty, it seems like a hardass move—especially given that it would be the only chance for Yuna to see it (and probably the others, but especially her). But Auron is there for one reason: to save his best friend's daughter and incidentally smash the pilgrimage system to bits. He's not thinking it's her only chance—he's so determined to succeed that he's thinking she will get to come back and see it. (And he succeeds, because you can go there at will in X-2... though sadly the area doesn't get any night scenes.)
• Auron tends to invoke Continue Your Mission, Dammit! whenever Yuna seems hesitant or making choices that could delay the pilgrimage, which initially seems to be because of his blunt personality and history as a guardian. However, Auron doesn't intend for Yuna to go through with the Final Aeon, he wants to rid Spira of Sin for good. His insistence on pushing for the group to continue isn't him just being blunt, its to ensure the cycle truly ends and he can fulfill his promise to Braska and Jecht.
• Early on a lot of characters make a big deal about guardians, and Tidus doing the first two Cloister of Trials without being one is seen as a bad thing by the people of Spira. But when Tidus becomes a guardian, there isn't any fanfare, no special process, or even any big deal made about it; Auron basically tells Yuna he's a guardian now, and that's it. In hindsight, this shows how the whole Yevon faith is built upon a lie: guardians are supposed to be big deals, but they are just basically titles given to those a Summoner wishes to keep around, and a way to ensure a Summoner has someone close to them to give to the Final Aeon.

Fridge Horror:

• Crops up when it comes to the Final Aeon. First, there's the cross between this and a Harsher in Hindsight when Tidus first learns about what exactly happens between the Grand Summoner and their Final Aeon. Then, when fighting Jecht, you are told right before the battle that he "might not be able to hold back." And then the Talk command stops working.
• Everything about Anima. The most worrying part is when you learn it's Seymour's mother. And judging by the way her fayth asks if you hate her son and says it's okay if you do. The poor thing must have been forced to do a LOT of stuff against its will.
  • Anima being forced to do Seymour's bidding might also explain why her strength fluctuates wildly in-between her appearances. When Anima is first introduced, Seymour uses her to kill the Sinspawn attacking Luca; something that she wouldn't object to normally. Hence, she annihilates them with no problem. Then, when you fight her, she knows that Seymour is doing wrong by attacking the party, and weakens her attacks accordingly to give the party a chance. Then, when she joins Yuna's Aeons, she's fighting of her own free will (which makes her stronger than any of Yuna's other summons), but Yuna is not Seymour and doesn't have the same emotional bond with Anima that he does, so she never reaches her full potential as a Final Aeon.
• The dude at the monster arena creates fiends. But... aren't fiends made of, uh, unsent people? Where is he getting an infinite stock of unsent people?
  • Pyreflies.
  • Since fiends are essentially masses of pyreflies, and you're bringing him these fiends alive, maybe he's personally hacking them up and forcefully merging the pyreflies together like some kind of Dr. Frankenstein.
• On a related note, at the end of the game, the fayth dissipate, which means no more summoners. So... who's going to send the dead? X-2 states that fiends are still around, but nobody is sure why. Feel free to get on with that Heroic BSoD now...
  • There still are summoners around presently to send the dead. But long term, there's going to be no more people getting killed by Sin so less unhappy dead people. Less people are going to die young so it means less fiends.
    • Actually, they're known as Senders, according to Final Fantasy X-Will.
• Sin has only been beaten 6 times in the thousand years that the thing has been running around, and judging by the fact that Braska defeated Sin 10 years before the start of the game, that means that it takes about 10 years for Sin to be recreated. So that means that overall the people of Spira have had to live with Sin randomly destroying them for about 940 years, and that comes to an minimum of 156 and a half years between each Calm. it's no wonder the people of Spira are always so eternally depressed, unless Yuna or another summoner succeeds in killing Sin soon, many of them will have to live their entire lives in fear of it.
  • No, the Calms themselves are part of the spiral and aren't static, fixed periods. It's somewhere near the beginning of FFX that one of the characters (Wakka or Lulu, I think) explains that the Calms are getting shorter and that Sin only took ten years to come back this time. That fits in with the concept of spirals; Sin is spiraling up, coming back faster and larger with each reincarnation, even as Spira and life on Spira is spiraling down.
  • Oh, it's even worse than that. There's a single NPC in Luca you can encounter during the endgame who will tell the player he's hoping for the Calm to last a year at least, musing on whether or not asking for two would be too much. Assuming he's working off of a pattern, in the 1000 years that Sin has been around the people of Spira have only been free from it for less than ten years. Holy crap.
    • Not true. According to the Ultimania Omega guide, there have been four Calms. The first lasted 500 years, while the fourth (the one that happened ten years before the game) lasted less than a year. Coupled with each Calm getting shorter and people knowing it, he was just hoping the trend would reverse.
    • What, really? 500 years? That must be some mistake. That's half the time of the entire reign of Sin. And the first Sin didn't even last all that long considering Yunalesca was the one who defeated it. There's no way the entire system could be established as depicted if the first Calm was that long. That's not a cycle, that's a second coming. Besides I'm pretty sure someone in game says that Braska's Calm was a pretty lengthy one (though still not nearly as long as the ten years people mistakenly assume since Auron needed Sin to get to Dream Zanarkand while Tidus was still a child).
• So, we know that Jecht was holding back Sin's destructive impulses for years, with varying degrees of success. This also implies that the other Sins, most of whom were Guardians, also held back their destructive urges. But remember how Seymour actually wants to become Sin and murder everyone? Since Sin has killed so many with hosts holding it back, imagine how many it would kill if someone actively directed it to destroy. Seymour's plan to kill everyone suddenly becomes very attainable.
• Tidus and Yuna and their underwater love scene in the Spring, one of the most romantic scenes in the entire franchise right? That is until you see the Mid-Equal "Eternal Calm" in which Yuna has been measuring how long she can hold her breath, 2:41 is her best yet after two years of practicing. We see that she and Tidus had been completely submerged for at least 1:40, that is only what we see, they could have been under for much longer, and this was before Yuna began training, Tidus is a professional blitz ball, he has been working on his breath control for years, what the hell prevented Yuna from drowning?
  • Mouth to mouth. Lots of mouth to mouth.
• Presumably, Zanarkand (that is, Dream Zanarkand) contains people other than Tidus (or at least sentient entities other than Tidus). When the group decides to Take a Third Option in the final act, Tidus knows that successfully destroying Yu Yevon will mean the end of his existence, as Dream Zanarkand will be destroyed as well. It's fine for him — he makes an informed choice about his fate. But what about the other inhabitants of Dream Zanarkand? They're all about to have their existence snuffed out without a moment's notice. Any explanation for why there is No Endor Holocaust here?
  • Because Dream Zanarkand is a product of the Fayth, and the Fayth was literally asking to be put down.
    • All that tells us is that the Fayth are willing to kill the entire population of a large city in order to find peace. Unless the inhabitants of Dream Zanarkand don't possess true consciousness and Tidus only gained it as a by-product of being sucked into Spira, it's still pretty horrifying. Even under that scenario the Fayth effectively commit murder to end their dream.
    • While still pretty depressing, there's a very probable interpretation where no one is intentionally choosing to commit genocide. The fayth remarks that the reason they're putting an end to Dream Zanarkand is because, "We've been dreaming for so long, we're tired." So while a whole large city of people and the entire culture of Zanarkand did probably just die, most of them without "informed consent," there's a strong implication that the fayth might not be doing so out of any selfish desire, but instead because they literally don't have the power to maintain dream Zanarkand for very much longer (relatively speaking). Yes, even despite maintaining it for 1,000 years so far. Bonus points: if you interpret that line this way, and believe without intervention from Dream Zanarkandites like Tidus and Jecht Sin could never have been defeated, then this means this was (probably) literally the last chance to save the world.
    • Well, yes, they would all die, but considering Jecht went to town on Dream Zanarkand at the start of the game, there's hardly going to be that many of them left. The genocide already happened. We saw it. The dream people who die at the end of the game other than Tidus and Jecht were probably a few dozen survivors slowly starving to death in the middle of the ocean after their metropolis had been grounded into the dust.
• Yunalesca is shown to be one of the most powerful fiends/Unsent in the game, using the thousands of pyreflies in Zanarkand to increase her power throughout the fight. She is also the only enemy in the game to use the powerful draining move "Absorb," which she especially likes to use against Aeons. Given that all life on Spira is made of pyreflies, it's quite likely that instead of the usual energy taken using the Drain spell, she's actually directly ripping the pyreflies out of the characters and adding them to her own. The Ultimania guide confirms that Sin's durability comes from being able to draw in surrounding pyreflies into its body, so this wouldn't be unprecedented.
• When the players first meet the Summoner Isaaru, his guardians Maroda and Pacce they may think, "Aww, he's letting his little brother tag along! That's so cute!" But then it's observed that Pacce is probably a guardian. Then it becomes "Isaaru let his little brother come to protect him?!" It's wildly dangerous along the Pilgrimage route. Even though kids probably have to grow up quickly in Spira, how could anyone let a child make such a dangerous journey? And if Isaaru had made it to the end of his Pilgrimage, who would he have picked to become the Final Aeon? Probably best he didn't make it. Thank goodness for the Al Bhed.
  • It gets even worse if you think about it. He has two possibilities: Either use Pacce as the Final Aeon, or use the other brother and leave the little guy behind, probably to get killed by the first fiend he encounters.
    • There's no reason for him to be left anywhere dangerous. Isaaru would have still been around until he chose to confront Sin so there's nothing stopping him from dropping the kid off at a village before the fight starts. Leaving him alone and with the knowledge that his brothers killed themselves is still pretty horrific but it's no death sentence.
• The phrase refused the hand of the priest's daughter in marriage really sounds as if Auron refused an arranged marriage, which from X-2 we know to be a thing in Spira as Yuna was arranged to wed Baralai. Given how he was poised to become a maester and she was the daughter of the incredibly powerful Yevon priesthood, it is obvious what both families sought to gain and how much they lost when he refused. What starts to make this Fridge Horror however is what the circumstances surrounding the marriage were given how corrupt we learn the Yevon church to be as well as what happened to her after Auron refused. Was she offered to Wen Kinoc instead? If she was then Kinoc presumably accepted, which may have been one of the reasons why Auron had taken a dislike to his old friend. Was it only Auron that refused or did she do so as well, leading to her being exiled alongside him or worse? If she could not wield a sword or magic then such a fate would have been a death sentence in Spira.
• Granted, it's insensitive when Wakka says the destruction of Rikku's home is "Like a bunch of festival fireworks", but remember Wakka's situation. He lives around Besaid and Kilika, two of the most Sin-ravaged towns in Spira (you think they live in straw huts because they like it?). For Wakka, the destruction of one's home is called Tuesday. That shaped his attitude of him and the residents of Kilika who pick up and move on soon after a Sin attack. Rikku at least still has her dad, Wakka's lost everything to Sin.
• Yu Yevon. He created Sin as a sort of 'object lesson'; it was never meant to be permanent. He also created Dream Zanarkand. Unfortunately, he did both at once and it wiped his mind clean, overwriting it with his instructions for Sin. He can't stop. Ever. He's been rendered braindead to the extent that he's essentially a machine following a program. He died at some point. He never noticed.
  • Talk to Maechen at Mount Gagazet after getting the airship. If you take the time to listen to his exposition and put things together, you realize that Yu Yevon basically rules the entire world with the power of fear and death... and he's been doing this for a thousand years, with no one able to stop him completely until Yuna's party comes along.
• Fiends used to be people. For added Squick, consider that when you hear Wakka and Rikku's humanitarian jokes about eating Behemoths and Dark Flans.
• Sin itself. A human soul, changed into a monstrous summon to defeat the previous Sin, then forced to kill the person that summoned them, someone they loved enough to die for. And this goes on for a thousand years. The sound it makes is unnerving.
• Wait... so just how long were they planning to wait until they told Tidus that Yuna was going to die when she called the Final Aeon? They only ended up telling him when they did because they were forced to. At the rate they were going they could easily have made Zanarkand if the whole mess with Seymour never happened.
  • None of them except for Auron knew that one guardian would also be a part of this sacrifice as well, and Auron had brought Tidus into the party specifically because he has his own Screw Destiny agenda. Tidus getting that dropped on him would be compounded by the other 5 also learning about the guardian becoming a Final Aeon. Auron may actually have been counting on Tidus snapping at that point and attacking Yunalesca, as he himself had tried to do 10 years earlier, except this time he'd have backup. The detour to Bikanel Island and going on the run from the Yevon religion itself has Auron change up his strategy, specifically in how he starts calling out the teachings of Yevon (like his Captain Obvious snarky comment towards Kinoc at the wedding), so that Wakka, Lulu, and Yuna herself would be more inclined to join his side instead.
• The child in Kilika who "Wants to be a blitzball," when he grows up isn't mis-speaking. Among the wreckage of Sin's attack that left homes destroyed and people dead, a lone blitzball can be seen floating intact amongst it all.
• During the Cactuar Village sidequest, you can capture the Cactaurs when you fight them. Given they have their own quirks and lives, you've just captured all the guardians of the village, leaving it defenseless.
• When Lord Zaon became a Final Aeon, he got a statue. And when Seymour's mother became a Final Aeon, she got a statue. And when Jecht became a Final Aeon... he doesn't get a statue. At least, not as far as we see. Because based purely on how we see every other aeon work in this game, it seems highly probable that somewhere in Zanarkand still rests Jecht's petrified corpse.
  • That could also be because Jecht is himself already a "summon" of sorts, being from Dream Zanarkand. The Fayth "dreaming" him up would up somewhere up on Mt. Gagazet, and would likely be the source for that particular Final Aeon.
• Have a good look around Besaid village. Notice anything missing? Yep. Baths and toilets. This leads us to the logical conclusion that the beautiful looking lake that Tidus swam through on his first visit to the village is actually the communal bathroom and he was wading through excrement. But what shifts this into true Fridge Horror territory is the fact that it's full of monsterous piranah that roam in packs and attack on sight. Which means that every time you're relieving yourself or having a wash you'll run the risk of having your face bitten off. Of course, they could be washing in the sea instead of the lake. As in, that place where Sin and his spawn comes from - and is also full of flesh-eating fish and monsters on the level of Geosgaeno.
• Why did Sin never attack the dream Zanarkand until the beginning of the game? Because while Yu Yevon is the summoner responsible for its existence, it's also on record that he can't think for himself anymore, acting more like a mindless automaton, and thus may not even know where he put the dream Zanarkand that he's actively summoning anymore, or that it even exists. The previous incarnations of Sin wouldn't have this knowledge either, since they were all living individuals from Spira. But then Jecht enters into the equation. Tidus only mentions that Jecht went to sea for training and never came back, which means either he got to Spira through completely mundane means, or Sin picked him up far away from the city. But now that Jecht is in the driver's seat, Sin would be able to get there.

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