Part 4: Hey, I Just Met You, and This Is Crazy . . .

Hello again! When we last left Waffles he had just charged into the cryptic recesses of the Cloister of Trials with all the reserve of a feral chocobo. And this is why we love him.

The Yevon inscriptions here are (clockwise from top) O, G, I, and K. I thought they'd be compass directions or elements or something, but those are represented by different symbols.  My question about them was answered by AuronLu on DW.

It's actually Valefor's seal, and the "I" glyph means "light" (I had forgotten that Yevon symbols can stand for entire words.)

After Wakka says this, we walk into a room containing a big blue lion man and a mysterious-looking lady. My first assumption was that the lion was supposed to be the one with the temper and the aloof, cryptic one was the woman but . . .

That assumption was debunked immediately. 

Kimahri's not even going to dignify Waffles with his attention. He glances at him briefly and then resumes what he was doing. (Kimahri has one job, and he takes it very seriously.) Ronso are Yevonites, and this is an important day for Yuna, so he's annoyed that this stranger has come barging in here in violation of all kinds of Yevon taboos, but he either feels that it's not his place to deal with Tidus, or that it's not worth his time.

I only got a low-res screenshot from an earlier run of this scene but Wakka braces himself as Lulu storms over. He's not an official guardian himself so he's technically not supposed to be in here either, even without a noisy otherworlder in tow, so he knows he's in trouble. And that Lulu was probably already in a bad mood before he got there. Guardians don't come out of the Cloister of Trials until the summoner does, so she's been parked in this underground room with only a mostly-silent Ronso for company and nothing to do except worry about Yuna for the past 24 hours.

Lulu doesn't actually pay much attention to Tidus either until he addresses her to ask if the summoner is all right. Then she whips her head around and stares at him. Later she mentions that she's surprised to see him because of his resemblance to Chappu, but I always thought that her first reaction was simple outrage that this overalls-clad weirdo she's never seen before has the nerve to intrude on this sacred place and cast doubt on her ability to protect her summoner.


Fortunately for him, Yuna diffuses the tension by finally arriving. And her first act as summoner is to fall down the stairs like a champion. But like I said, Kimahri takes his one job very seriously. :)

I wonder if the term "fayth" is another label given by the Church of Yevon like "Sin", given the spiritual connotations of the word. The priest outside calls the aeons "the blessing of Yevon," a gift to the summoner as a result of their faith/the fayth.

(I learned from AuronLu that in Japanese they are called inorigo, "Child of Prayer," which has a slightly different connotation but the same meaning of something being given to the summoner by an act of piety on their part.)

I'm not sure how he came to that conclusion, considering nobody ever says anything to him about the age (or gender) of summoners. Given, he's only had about five minutes of Spiran historical education, but looking around at the temple statues would seem to imply otherwise. An overwhelming majority of summoners must die young. Of course, he is a teenage boy, so anybody Braska's age or older might seem impossibly old to him. ;)

(Kimahri, what do you think is going to happen when Lulu tries to step forward? You might want to move your foot.)

Fortunately for Waffles the people of Besaid are, for the most part, very forgiving.

Kimahri frequently stands way in the back keeping an eye on Yuna from a distance. Maybe he doesn't like crowds, or maybe, even after ten years of living in Besaid, he doesn't feel like he belongs. I wonder where exactly he lives, if he has one of the theoretical houses in the village, or if he has a room in the temple, or if maybe even he built his own house nearby out in the jungle. (Where DO Ronso live normally?? What does a Ronso dwelling look like? When we go to Mt. Gagazet they're all just standing around. There are no houses. Do they live in caves? Do they have houses elsewhere on the mountain? Do they live communally, or separately?)

These people in the background wisely get out of the way of Tidus' windmilling limbs.

White pants man is being careful not to step on Lulu's dress. It's even bunched up out of the way, which is a nice detail. Lulu is strikingly different from everyone else around her in appearance, mannerisms, and dress. In my headcanon (and therefore my comic) she is not native to Besaid but came from another village (which no longer exists), and is from the same background as Paine. (They were an austere community of people living in a harsh northern climate, with a tendency towards pale complexions and red eyes, and a penchant for belts.)

Valefor is my favorite. :)

Of all the aeons, Valefor is the one most like Yuna. Her fayth was a young girl, she has a similar color scheme, and her design suggests a kind of ethereality and delicateness. Tidus comments on her gentleness, despite her being an otherworldly monster he has never seen anything like before. I always imagined that Yuna has a particular bond with Valefor over her other aeons, because they are so alike and because she was her first one. In X-2, after having to confront Dark Valefor, Yuna sounds absolutely heartbroken when she says "That was my very first aeon."

I had an interesting conversation with cumuluscastle on the last entry about the freedom and agency of aeons. I mentioned that several of them incorporate chains of some sort in their design, symbolizing servitude. You can see Valefor's here.

Also look at poor Waffles back there! He just wants to be included.

Or maybe he's just flabbergasted that Yuna pulled a monster out of thin air, but he looks like he really wants to come over and join them in celebrating.

They're so proud of her. :)

Wakka and Lulu both know that this is the beginning of the end: by receiving an aeon Yuna is a real summoner now and has already taken the first step on the pilgrimage that will, in a best-case scenario, end with her death. They didn't want her to be a summoner for this reason, but it was her dream, and this is the biggest accomplishment of her life so far, so they're happy for her.

(Also I've always been amused that the line "I could feel a strange kind of gentleness coming from it" is superimposed over Lulu.)

It took a few tries but I managed to get a picture of Lulu petting Yuna's head with both of her hands. (And pretty forcefully too, haha.) She is really excited. This scene is one of the few times we see her unguardedly happy, and possibly the happiest we ever see her in the entire game. (Of course, we can't see her face, so I still haven't found an answer for my question Do we ever see Lulu smiling at Yuna? She smiles very, very rarely.) It's definitely the most effusive we ever see her with her affections, though.

"Um, guys, I know you're happy and all, but . . . do I really need to be here for this?"

I hope the summoner isn't really tasked with naming her aeons on the spot because I would fail badly.

I am not exactly sure what he's alluding to here other than that he and Yuna developed a crush on each other. But – and this is probably a controversial opinion – I don't feel that the lovestory is really the focus of FFX. The overarching plot is much deeper than that.

And the thing that really changed him was his contact with Sin, which made him "more than a dream" and therefore unique. He doesn't think about becoming a guardian until Kilika and he doesn't officially become part of Yuna's pilgrimage, the action that ends up having world-shaking repercussions, until Auron drags him along in Luca. He would have come along by Auron's request (and by proxy, Jecht's) regardless of whether he had feelings for Yuna. So I'm not sure what exactly changed that night in Besaid. Unless it just means that this was really the beginning of his unexpected journey, although he didn't know it yet.

(I have a feeling it might be a Tidus/Yuna issue, so Tuna shippers who have given more thought to their relationship than I have, feel free to weigh in.)

Everyone's favorite line. :D (Also an injunction which almost nobody in the game will follow, as she gets kidnapped about 12 times, haha.)

Yuna is sitting over here with the village elders and this little girl. I wonder what her relationship is with them, because we never see her with them again.  Also, is this the aforementioned "old hubby" who bears a supposed resemblance to Lord Ohalland?  Because he doesn't look ANYTHING like him.  Maybe she was referencing a former husband, or maybe these two aren't even a couple.  They could be brother and sister or just friends.

Little Miss Red Pantaloons contributes to the Waffles Shaming Circle for good measure.

Calm down, old dude, he's just a toxin-addled, taboo-breaking, blitzball-punting maniac with poor fashion sense claiming to be from a civilization a thousand years in the past! I'm sure he's harmless.

It makes me kind of sad that Yuna takes responsibility for what happened in the Chamber of the Fayth. And she's not just taking the blame for him in front of everyone so he doesn't get in trouble, either; she really believes it was her fault. (From her perspective, she took too long to receive her aeon, causing everyone to worry and therefore causing him to come in after her. She tends to get distressed when she causes her friends worry, and sees herself as the problem rather than whatever it was putting her in peril.)

Her confession that she was "overconfident" and the inordinate length of time it took her to commune with the fayth makes me wonder if she wasn't quite ready to become a summoner, and I wonder if it was her decision to enter the trials early or if someone else prompted her. She makes it sound like she took it upon herself, but that is also the sort of thing that she would take responsibility for even if someone else had talked her into it.

I automatically discount any Tidus/Yuna playlist that doesn't have "Call Me Maybe" on it because it is, in my opinion, perfect for them. They are goofy awkward teenagers crushing on each other in a way that can only be expressed by a silly catchy pop song.

"Your stare was holding,
Ripped jeans, skin was showing,
Hot night wind was blowing,
Where do you think you're going, baby?
Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy . . ." etc.

/ruining everything

I have no doubt this little girl was deployed by the grandparents to cut off any further flirtation.

Apparently Spirans are strangers to the high-five.

There is no safe way to answer this question, haha. But the first one gets you a big boost in Yuna Friendship Points. (And actually, a lesser one in Wakka Friendship Points as well I think.)

Somewhat cruelly, you can make any of the three women in the game fall for Tidus by manipulating the hidden friendship mechanics and picking certain dialogue options. (But no matter what you do, he's still going to jump in the lake with Yuna, so Rikku or Lulu's (!!) crush on him will go forever unrequited.) I didn't know this existed until after my first playthrough, so I was really confused about why Lulu seemed so attached to him.

Does anybody even sincerely ship Lulu/Tidus?  I've seen various other combinations but that one just seems really far-fetched.  Although she was dating a guy who was supposedly just like him only a year ago.

Where did everybody go? This isn't much of a party. Apparently Kimahri and Lulu slipped off to have a moment alone or something.  (Still a more believable ship than the aforementioned.)

I don't really feel like psychoanalyzing Waffles' tripped-out dream sequences so I'm just going to leave this here without comment.

Afterwards, he wakes up to hear this going on outside and goes to investigate:



This is Lulu's fmv introduction, and it's great. Supposedly, her dress was designed as a challenge to the CGI team (who then got around it by only showing her from behind or the waist up after this one scene) but I'm pretty sure that Tetsuya Nomura's belt fetish had something to do with it. There's a reason Lulu is the longstanding poster girl for the Too Many Belts trope. I love the long slow vertical pan from the ground showing her outfit in all its crazy detail and I just wish it was all one shot, all the way up to her hairsticks. I love the way she jingles when she moves because of all the buckles and I love the way the beads on her braids clack when she turns her head. I love how she moves like her dress has actual weight to it.

Now, the belt dress is a thing that serves absolutely no practical purpose, especially in a tropical climate, worn by an otherwise very sensible person preparing to undertake a journey that will involve literally walking across continents. But then, she fights with dolls, so it seems that Lulu has a penchant for flair over function. She also seems to have designed her outfit to annoy herself at every opportunity so it could also serve as a kind of conditioning, to test her patience and endurance for discomfort, or perhaps even as a kind of self-punishment. Underneath her harsh and angry belt-wrapped exterior Lulu is still carrying the guilt of her past failures and has internalized it rather than seeking forgiveness.

And I am probably reading way, way too far into what was just meant to be a cool/sexy design, but (in case somehow you couldn't tell) I really like Lulu and I think she is a complex character that a lot of people are too quick to dismiss as simple fanservice.

Humorously, I was also really wary of her the first time I played the game and actually afraid that she was going to turn out to be evil at first, but I am probably going to make a separate post for that because there is some backstory involved. At any rate, I remember the sudden start of nervousness when Wakka turns around and sees Tidus, like I had been caught watching something I wasn't supposed to see too.

"Yeah, well, he never used it."

This is a generous gesture on Wakka's part, but it's also pretty sad. He has already seen that Tidus has a perfectly serviceable sword, but he wants him to have the one that was meant for his brother. He's only known Tidus since yesterday, but it's clear he wants to regard him as a surrogate little brother, and wants Tidus to look up to him like a big brother. He's not necessarily looking to replace Chappu, he just misses having a kid brother around.

Lulu on the other hand is starting to get annoyed by what looks like a continued effort to replace Chappu, or at least forget that he's gone. She does not have the same immediate bond with Tidus on the basis of him being like Chappu that Wakka does.

(Tidus gets impatient and asks why they're waiting for Yuna. They reply with some backstory.)

One of my favorite things about this game is the family dynamics between characters. I really, really like stories about families that are built from characters that are not necessarily biologically related. Whether it's a group of people who come together in adversity and come to love and trust each other like family, or a group of orphans who have to take it upon themselves to take care of each other, or siblings who have lost their parents so the older one has to take responsibility for the younger. I like message that love is more important than blood ties, and that adopted families are just as strong as biological ones. I would imagine that in Spira, with so many families pulled apart by Sin, that there are a lot of patchwork families like this.

I also really enjoy the relationship between Yuna and her adopted siblings. I have two younger sisters, but we were not close or even on good terms with each other until we were all in college. I think we were too close in age to get along – I'm the oldest by less than two years – and they're twins, so they share a bond with each other and also with my mother, who is also a twin, that I didn't have. I always hated having to be the oldest and spent a lot my childhood feeling lonely and excluded and wishing that I had a big brother or sister of my "own" to look up to. So it makes me happy that Yuna has this.

There's something resigned and a little wistful about the way he phrases "She's been like a little sister to us . . . but she had the talent." When she discovered her potential as a summoner (two years ago, according to Ultimania) that was the day they first knew that they wouldn't be able to keep her forever. This is the first clue that Yuna's becoming a summoner is not as joyous an occasion for them as it is for the other people in the village.

Lulu's emphasis on "This is our journey," is more direct. She is not happy that Tidus is tagging along. This was meant to be their last trip together as a family, her measurably last days with Yuna, and now Wakka has invited along some guy he found in the ocean yesterday who is completely oblivious to their customs, who has no idea where he's going or if he will ever find anyone who knows him, but whom Yuna is already infatuated with and who bears a striking resemblance to her own dead boyfriend, to boot. It's no wonder she's so icy towards him in the beginning.

The conversation is broken off by the tumbling thump of Yuna's suitcase falling down the stairs. Lulu tells her to leave it behind, I guess because the wheeled suitcase has not been invented yet and they don't want to have to drag it all the way to Bevelle, but the implication that they can't accommodate a few gifts for the temples is kind of harsh coming from a woman who is apparently able to carry up to 99 potions down the front of her dress. (And, if you teach her the Use skill, she can fit the whole damn inventory in there! If you can fit chocobo wings, monster fangs, whatever the heck an Underdog's Secret is, and DARK MATTER in your cleavage, Lulu, you really aren't in the position to be telling Yuna that the party can't make room for five presents.)

And she just leaves it on the steps and walks away sadly, pausing to look back at the place she has lived for ten years and will never see again. I bet she hand-made all those presents, Lulu. DON'T YOU FEEL TERRIBLE??

Oh thank you doggie it is just what I needed.  You're so generous.

I forgot to go talk to the dog girl's sister, but she has one of my favorite NPC lines: "If there's anything you need to know about guardians, ask Lulu. Lulu knows everything. She'll be a bigger help than Wakka for sure." This girl knows how things are, haha. And she's right; Lulu steps up into the position of Ms. Exposition when it becomes clear that Tidus has no idea what he's doing.

It's the Sassy Flan!!! I wonder if he remembers Lulu.

I don’t know why this isn't the quote people stick on photosets of Lulu all over tumblr instead of that uncharacteristically-optimistic thing about morning always coming. It's much more suited to her personality.

Of course, I like to annoy the heck out of everyone by doing it wrong, because I am a pest.

Judging by everyone's behavior you might think that Yuna is just sad because she thinks she won't be coming home for a long time. NOPE.

(I just liked this shot, which was surprisingly hard to catch.)

Wakka frequently tries to rationalize Chappu's death, trying to convince himself that if he had done one thing differently, it wouldn't have happened. Maybe if he had prayed that day, maybe if he had used the sword instead of a gun, he'd still be alive. He tries to gain some sense of control over an otherwise senseless event that was out of his control.

In Japan, roadside Shinto shrines are smaller shrines that house minor spirits generally intended to protect travelers from harm. They serve a similar function as this one, although FFX rarely mentions who or what everyone is praying to. They don't seem to invoke Yevon as a deity, and unless they are praying specifically to a summoner for assistance, it seems that prayer is a more meditative ritual than an invocative one.

Lulu bows a lot less deeply than everyone else. (And it's not because she can't in that dress, as her victory pose clearly reveals.) Perhaps it's a sign that her faith in Yevon is weaker than Wakka's and Yuna's, after everything that Yevon has made her put up with, although the breaking point in her faith doesn't come until much later.

And then as they're walking along Kimahri comes bounding in out of freaking nowhere and corners the unsuspecting Waffles like the world's most inefficiently hostile toll collector.


I always thought this scene was kind of odd. It's the most aggressive we ever see Kimahri in the game, even up against Seymour. (Also, the only time we see him bounding on four legs like this and looking so beasty, which is too bad because it looks really cool.) The rest of the time he's mainly quiet and reserved. And the other guardians let this go on for several rounds before interfering and even afterwards they just kind of shrug the incident off. (And Lulu gives some incredibly vague exposition about his being a blue mage, which does not answer any questions.) Is it commonplace for Kimahri to assault random travelers to Besaid on the road? Why is nobody concerned that he just fell out of the sky and initiated a fight with Waffles? Yuna just carelessly says "Sometimes we don't understand him, either," which is a strange thing to say about her oldest friend and the guy she's been trusting with her life since she was seven. Apparently he doesn't say much, even to her.

I assume he was testing his combat skills, or his worthiness to stand next to Yuna or something, but at this point Tidus isn't even part of the pilgrimage yet. He's not a guardian. He is just a guy walking down to the dock to get on the boat to go to Luca! Also, Kimahri doesn't even join up with the party (as a useable party member) until Kilika. So I don't really know what's going on here.

I spent forever trying to get to these treasure chests the first time I played, haha. Some nice Besaid scenery. Everybody likes the little secret cove on the beach, but I think under this waterfall has to be a destination for romantic Besaiders too.

I wonder if this guy has an unspoken crush on Yuna. Which he never could express to her, because she's constantly surrounded by grumpy overprotective people. It's probably for the best, Green Shirt Man.

Learning what the pilgrimage is really for, and what happens at the end, must be a kind of rite of passage for kids in Spira. (Like finding out the truth about Santa Claus, only HORRIBLE.) Something they eventually learn from their parents or from other kids via rumor. Because this child clearly has no idea.

But this one does. Maybe he's just sad that she's leaving, but he's so upset he seems to know that she's never coming back. :(

Look at the complexity of the emotion in her face! You can see her struggling to fix a smile to her face even though her eyes are sad. And that's not even revealed as a thing that she does until later.

DO NOT SCREW THIS UP, HD REMAKE!!

 

 Next time: I will try to pick up the pace, haha. We just met a bunch of my favorite characters so I got a little starry-eyed there.