Let's Play Final Fantasy X: Part 5: Dad OMG You're Embarrassing Me

Hello again! When we last left Waffles and Friends we had said goodbye to Besaid and set off on our way to Luca for the big blitzball tournament. But first we have to swing by Kilika for an aeon, space whale tragedy, and one very pretty cutscene.

On board the S.S. Liki, Tidus immediately fails to endear himself to this one poor birdwatcher by jumping on his back, riding him around like a reluctant chocobo, doing a handstand-backflip off his shoulders, stealing his binoculars, and using them to perv on Lulu and Yuna. Somehow, neither the owner of the binoculars, Lulu, or Kimahri dumps him overboard for this. Yuna seems pretty amused by the whole affair.

Lulu is not invested in Your Story, Tidus. She just wants to drop you off in Luca so she can get back to what she was doing. So stop asking.

(She's also probably already tired of listening to Yuna talk about him.)

If you keep talking to her she says "If you interfere with Yuna's pilgrimage, we won't take it lightly." Lulu has already seen two pilgrimages end badly so she's probably got this one planned out in as much detail as she can to make sure that nothing she has control over goes wrong. Now she has to account for Tidus as well, and he's not a variable she can control.

(Of course, he does interfere.)

I stopped to look at these dolphins for a little while. Also the carved details on the boat are really nice.

I'm not really sure why O'aka is considering a market for Tidus' clothes in the first place. Especially, apparently, the set he is currently wearing. I bet his clothes are pretty grody, though; he's been wearing them for awhile. :/

They are transporting sinspawn for Operation Mi'ihen. Probably not a surprise that Sin attacks about ten minutes into the trip, then, since their entire plan hinges on the fact that Sin always returns for its spawn. Maybe you should have thought that through, you guys.

I dunno how to feel about these chocobos being used to power this paddleboat. It doesn't seem like two of them would be enough to power the entire ship easily, even augmented by wind power, so they'd have to work hard. But they seem pretty happy, I guess. At any rate, FFX chocobos are SUPER CUTE.

Rats I think that is an Al Bhed primer on the floor that I forgot to pick up!!

Lulu seems to be the only person in Spira who is not a super blitzball fan. And after hearing Wakka talk about almost nothing else for years, it's no wonder. Wakka has yet to win an argument against Lulu but he's probably used to looking to Chappu to back him up. Tidus knows better than to get involved.

Lulu also doesn't have the same faith in the power of prayer that Wakka does. She obeys Yevon precepts and taboos, but I don't think we ever see her praying independently or reflexively doing the Yevon bow when talking about sacred things like Yuna and Wakka do. She's still a practicing Yevonite, but she's probably had too many of her prayers go unanswered in the past to rely on prayer as a solution to problems.

Kimahri still doesn't want to talk to Waffles. I think this is the part where if you pester him enough times he pushes him but I forgot to try.

I wonder if becoming a summoner confers nobility, or if Braska actually was a noble to begin with, before he married Yuna's mother. All summoners are addressed as Lord and Lady, but the mention of Yuna's "noble blood" makes it sound hereditary. According to the wiki, which probably gets its information from the Ultimania guide, he was a priest before becoming a summoner, and the clergy seems to occupy an elevated social class in Spira, but it's possible that he actually was a member of Bevelle's upper class.

Then he fell in love with and married an Al Bhed woman, causing the Church of Yevon to frown at him and the Al Bhed to frown at her (and their daughter to be frowned at universally), and they were more or less cast out of society. The only way he was able to regain his esteem was by defeating Sin and dying.

So it's kind of hypocritical for people to be making a fuss about Yuna's "noble blood" after she and her family were social outcasts until Braska died for Spira.

"Please take good care of yourself so you can die at the appropriate time."

This line just makes me giggle because of the poor unpopular Aurochs. I wonder if Yuna is usually mobbed by crowds outside of Besaid because of her famous father, or if this is a recent phenomenon since she's become a summoner herself. We don't see Dona or Isaaru with crowds of adoring fans so I would guess it's the former. The people of Spira are super fickle.

Tidus says this with a pointed sigh to Wakka, trying to get him to ask about it so he has an opening to confide to him about Jecht. Wakka does not take the hint. Lulu seems to have had some experience with this type of situation, haha.

It must be lonely for her not having anyone in their immediate social circle of the same maturity and intellectual level to talk to. (Until Auron arrives.) She probably confides some things to Yuna but doesn't want to burden her with all of her concerns (especially since a lot of them are about Yuna) and Kimahri doesn't seem like much of a conversationalist.

Waffles is trying to be smooth and do that yawn-and-stretch thing like they're at the movies. Either that or he just realized they're in the right spot to re-enact the Titanic flying scene and he doesn't want to miss the opportunity.

Yuna attempts to break the ice by making small talk, and then immediately realizes that that was, in fact, extremely small talk. I love how awkward these two are. He's a hotshot hometown celebrity used to showing off to fangirls, and she's almost certainly had some training in social graces in preparation to become a public figure, but put them together and they're both suddenly like "OH GOSH HOW DO I WORDS I FORGOT HOW TO WORDS."

She manages to pull the conversation around by talking about blitzball, because Waffles is a dog and it is the language he recognizes. He asks if she heard about his being from Zanarkand from Wakka, which she confirms. This isn't the only time someone mentions something they heard about Tidus from someone else so apparently they all talk about him when he's not around.

Yuna is also the only person to believe from the start that he's from Ancient Zanarkand, because ten years ago she met a man named Jecht who was also a blitzball player from Zanarkand and she believed everything he told her too. (Granted, she was seven.)

I'm pretty sure it was less "blessing of Yevon" and more "machinations of a space whale." It's definitely not a coincidence that Sin brought Tidus to Yuna right before she was set to leave on her pilgrimage. Jecht may not have much control over his monstery self anymore, but I think that inside he's still struggling to find a way to break the cycle of Sin as he promised he would. He had Auron help bring Tidus here, and now he's ensured that his son and Braska's daughter cross paths.

Also, that is a really short railing. You guys are going to be in trouble if something, say, suddenly shakes the boat really hard.

Tidus says it can't be the same Jecht, because his father died, or rather, disappeared, ten years ago, and suddenly Yuna gets really excited, because that's when her Jecht turned up in Spira.

I don’t think it's ever mentioned why or how the previous Sin brought him here. Tidus just says he went out to sea for training and never went back. Maybe the veil between worlds is thinner out that far, at the edge of Dream Zanarkand, and she just happened to be cruising by and picked him up. (I say "she" because the fayth of Lady Yocun's Final Aeon was a female warrior monk.)

Well, speaking of Jecht, Sin puts an end to any more awkward flirtation between these two by suddenly arriving, much like he did when Tidus was talking to Rikku. Thanks, Giant Whale Dad. Tidus just can't catch a break with the ladies.

The boat shudders, guardians are flung everywhere, and the camera operator is soundly concussed. Yuna almost goes overboard but fortunately Kimahri is on top of things as always.

"Daaaaaad omg you're embarrassing me."

The sailors from Kilika want to shoot harpoons at it in an effort to distract it, despite Wakka's warning that that could pull the entire boat underwater. Yuna only nods solemnly, granting them her forgiveness and permission, even knowing that it could result in the deaths of not only herself, but all her friends. (As clearly evidenced by the framing of this shot.) She's already prepared to make that sacrifice for the people of Spira.

I enjoy Sin's cute corkscrew tail. (It's a spiral!!)

I also enjoy the size contrast between Kimahri's hands and Yuna's. And how he always holds her so gently, like he's afraid of squishing her.

After the fight with Sin's fin, it snaps the harpoon cable and gets away. Afterwards, everyone notices they're down one Waffle and Wakka jumps in to save him. Yuna sincerely looks like she's about to too for a moment, but Kimahri stops her.

Here's some more dolphins.

Afterwards, despite everyone's best efforts, Sin wrecks the heck out of Kilika.

It's a really effective scene to show the dread and horror that the people of Spira have to live with, and the urgency of the summoners' quest to defeat Sin.

When we return to our friends we find Tidus lying with his head in Yuna's lap. I always thought this was kind of weird and uncomfortable. She didn't just revive him or anything because Wakka did that by lobbing a potion at him underwater. Yuna is very generous with her trust and affections, and this gesture shows off her caring nature, but it just seems too intimate for her this early in their relationship, especially with everyone else standing around.

Heehee.

Even from behind Lulu is visibly embarrassed to have to answer this question.

"Filled with grief over their own death, they refuse to face their fate. They yearn to live on, and resent those still alive. You see, they envy the living. And in time, that envy turns to anger, even hate. Should these souls remain in Spira, they become fiends that prey on the living. Sad, isn't it? The sending takes them to the Farplane, where they may rest in peace."

This is the most beautiful cutscene in any video game I've ever played. I don't even get tired of seeing it come around on tumblr all the time.

I love how it's never actually explained how or why Yuna walks on water to do this. We never see her do it again, or another summoner, for that matter. It's just a thing she does. There's probably an explanation that can just be summarized with a shrug of ~*~pyreflies~*~ but I like it better unaddressed. I also like to think that other summoners have different styles or methods of performing the sending and this is unique to Yuna. (Some of their outfits don't look like they'd allow for much dancing, but you never know.)

This is also the moment when I began to suspect that she was supposed to die at the end of the game. It was 2007 so I knew that X-2 was a thing, but I thought she'd die and be resurrected, because Yuna projects a very clear aura of the Messiah. (Which is, mind you, a trope not exclusive to Christianity.) She is willingly going to die to rid the world of its symbolic embodiment of Sin – the people are literally expecting her to die for their sins.

Interestingly, though, the embodiment of the messianic archetype is not limited to Yuna in this game. (I will return to that when it's relevant.)

Blue flames frequently appear in gothic literature, almost always to indicate the presence of spirits or the supernatural, to spooky, otherworldly effect. The flames suddenly burning blue here herald the presence of the departing spirits.

It is intriguing that Yuna, the character so strongly associated with life and healing, is the one with the responsibility for shepherding the dead. In this scene she is literally conducting a spiral of death, a motif which recurs throughout the game.

You can tell by the way that for the HD remake these are the models they remastered. I don't understand why they started with the low-poly ones rather than the more expressive higher-poly but still non-FMV ones but it bothers meeeee.

These are some of my favorite lines, though.

Everyone turns around and stares at them when he naively asks this question. Lulu doesn't answer, and looks very uncomfortable to be standing next to him.

However, the moment was ruined for me when I was cropping my screencaps and realized there are at least three people in this shot wearing their underwear wrong. SPIRANS. That is not how you do clothes.

Waffles has his exposition privileges temporarily revoked when Lulu finally loses patience with him and goes off in a huff, leaving him to wonder what he said wrong. She does not want to have to be the one to explain to him in front of all these people that at the end of this trip, her baby sister is going to die.

Aaaaah I love this exchange but I hope they manage to fix the fact that when the camera angle changes it becomes apparent that Lulu's hands aren't actually touching Yuna and we're just meant to infer that they are.

Lulu herself is very guarded with her emotions, unlike Yuna, who is so open and honest with hers. But Lulu knows that, as a living symbol of hope for the people of Spira, a summoner has to keep her own feelings in check and present a serene and cheerful demeanor to the public, even if it's just a mask. The sending is a performance as much as it is a ritual. I have a feeling it was Lulu who stressed to Yuna the importance of smiling even when she's sad.

I also wish this scene were in higher res because these models don't show a lot of expression, which seems like it would have been an important thing to have for a conversation about crying, but ohhh well.

I assume Yuna actually is crying, and Lulu muffles her against herself, shielding her from all the gawkers until she can regain her composure. Everyone stands three feet away watching her, which Tidus remarks is strange and horrifying, except that he is totally doing the same thing.

He says he hopes never to see it again, which is TOO BAD for him. We are not done with tragic deaths, sendings, or crying. Welcome to Final Fantasy X, Tidus.

FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS.

You can talk to miscellaneous people who were at the sending yesterday. All of their stories are sad. :(

A Cycle of DEATH. (We're not done belaboring this theme.)

You would think that at some point these people living in an area prone to random sea monster calamity would have learned to build their village somewhere other than literally RIGHT ON THE WATER. I mean, I understand their livelihood depends on maritime trade and revolves around the port, but after 1,000 years they would have weighed the advantages (easy access to water) against the disadvantages (periodic giant whale attacks) and moved at least their houses inland.

Best reaction face.

Becoming a guardian is no small responsibility, and Yuna's suddenness in asking someone she's only known for two days reveals how earnest but ingenuous she can be. What she really wants is to keep him around longer than Luca, but she can't think of another way to ask him to come with her.

Lulu quickly interrupts Yuna, partly to give her an escape from the awkward hole she has dug herself into, and partly because she is eager to put off this conversation until later, or better yet, until never. She doesn't want Yuna getting too attached to Tidus out of concern that he might disrupt her pilgrimage in some way, but also out of concern for her feelings. She's already had her own heart broken, and wants to spare Yuna that pain.

Tidus is a star where he's from, confident and used to getting attention from adoring girls, and it's likely that Yuna is not his first girlfriend. Yuna, in contrast, seems like a late bloomer in the thrall of her very first puppy crush. Tidus is kindhearted but sometimes careless, and Yuna is full of tender and vulnerable feelings, and Lulu wants to shut this mess down before she gets hurt.

She and Wakka both are also reluctant to acknowledge that the little sister who has always been an innocent in their eyes is finally growing up and taking an interest in boys.

(Yes I read all that in this little exchange.)

He seems completely unaware of the blisteringly bad pun he just made haha.

Considering I'm about to stomp all over this thing with a completely unleveled party, that doesn't say a whole lot for the Crusaders.

Yeah then he can be a blitz ace/guardian/Crusader! Does this look like someone good at multitasking, Gatta?

There's an interesting owl statue here.

Everyone gathers at the bottom of the eighty million steps up to the temple. Tidus guesses that the blitzball players want to race, despite the fact that they kind of sound like they want to drag him into an alley and empty his pockets. Wakka asks Yuna to signal the start of the race, but she runs ahead of them giggling like a big cheater.

It's nice to see that the pilgrimage hasn't beaten her sense of humor out of her yet. She does have a cheerful, playful side that we don't see very often because there isn't much opportunity for it with everything godawful happening all the time. It comes out more in X-2, which was a shock to some people who apparently weren't paying much attention to the first game.

Waffles, completely confounded by this tricky maneuver, stands there spluttering. I like to talk to Lulu here because she gives the most adorable little chuckle when she says this. I bet he didn't know Lulu even knew how to laugh.

(Says the 22-year-old.)

These pudgy dragon statues are unbearably cute. They're so happy-looking. :) (I am not going to win this race.)

Then there's a rumble, and these heroes come barreling down the steps, having apparently abandoned Yuna to the tender mercies of the giant sinspawn erupting out of the ground. Good job, guys.

(One boss fight later.)

Lulu's back there like, "Yeah, come complain to me after you've done it wearing high heels, a corset, and 15 pounds of belts." And she booked it up all those steps.

Wakka tells him "You handled yourself pretty well. You got talent." It's a well-earned compliment, since ever since he got here Tidus has been bungling around being told he's doing everything wrong, but he brushes the compliment off. He's developing a sense of modesty, and understanding what it's like to be part of a team where he's not the star.

I'm an obsessive-compulsive symbol translator. This one means "Sin." In the middle is the symbol for "Yevon" again.

This one at the corners of the design is also in the middle of Ifrit's seal so presumably stands for Kilika.

On the way to the temple, Wakka casually asks a question about Zanarkand, which Tidus starts to answer and then suddenly remembers that Wakka has never believed him about Zanarkand before. Wakka shuffles around and starts to put forth a new theory he has. Believing in Tidus' Zanarkand opens a little window of hope about his brother:

"Maybe Sin carries 'em through time. Like a thousand years through time. And then one day, maybe they just pop back, see?"

Lulu shuts that window immediately.

"Sin didn't take Chappu anywhere. Sin crushed him and left him on the Djose shore! Your brother won't just pop back."

(Yuna doesn't like it when they fight. :()

Then, in case anyone was still in a good mood today, Lulu turns on the rest of the party and knocks down all their hopes for good measure. Kimahri wisely gets out of the way.

"No one can replace Sir Jecht, for that matter. And there's no replacement for Lord Braska, either. It's pointless to think about it, and sad."

This seems unnecessarily harsh, but she's tired of having Wakka, prompted by the sudden appearance of Tidus, constantly unearthing painful memories about Chappu. He's been dead for a year, but it's difficult for her to let go of her grief and move on when Wakka is still talking like he'll come back. She would rather leave the hope and pain buried together rather than getting her hopes up only to have them dashed again, like he's doing to himself. She also finds it disrespectful to Chappu's memory that he's so eager to replace him with Tidus, and finally tells him this bluntly, because she knows he won't get the point otherwise.

She reminds everyone else that this goes for them and their dead loved ones as well, and then stalks off leaving everybody stunned and dispirited. Yuna, knowing that it's not like her to lose her composure like this, runs after her.

Wakka mopes for a minute but bounces back surprisingly quickly. Excellent life lesson here.

Kilika temple is really interesting looking. I don't know if this is mentioned in the game but I always assumed it was built on a (hopefully dormant) volcano, being fire elemental and on top of a mountain.

The Luca Goers live in an affluent area of Spira, have access to the stadium and best training equipment, more publicity and better sponsors, and therefore have a marked advantage over teams from poorer areas. It makes me think of of the Career Tributes from The Hunger Games, where the prospective tributes from wealthy districts have the same advantages and almost always win the Hunger Games. (Of course, blitzball isn't a tournament to the death, although that would make it a lot more interesting.)

I really like the image of seven-year-old Yuna following Jecht around while he indulged her with stories about Zanarkand. Maybe Braska was a good influence on Jecht, or maybe he was just kind to Yuna because she was adorable. But it's a little sad that he was apparently so gentle with her when he was so harsh with his own son.

There are not a lot of career options for Spira's many orphans. (And she is one; if you talk to her later she mentions that her parents have gone to the "far plain" and asks when they're coming back. :() I would imagine that a lot of them are taken in by the temples and automatically brought up to join the clergy.

Haha oh man. Dona really strikingly reminds me of someone I know in real life. (She is enough like her that she would probably be flattered by the comparison.) Dona has a lot of good points but she definitely has a diva temperament.

It's hard to tell what Dona's deal is and why she's so mean to Yuna. Part of it seems to be jealousy, that Yuna is so famous because of her father, while other summoners who are just as earnest about defeating Sin, and possibly more experienced, get less attention. Some summoners are probably also just by nature competitive about the pilgrimage.

I also once saw someone's headcanon that I really liked on tumblr, but I can't find now, because tumblr's archiving system is terrible. It may have been MacalaniaSpring's, but I'm not sure. Anyway, she put forth the theory that Dona is resentful of Yuna because had wanted to perform the sending herself. As a native Kilikan, it would have been deeply meaningful to her, but she wasn't there, so Yuna got the responsibility and the honors.

Whatever the reason, she never passes up the opportunity to give Yuna a hard time.

I like the slight hesitation as the camera pans over this group of winners and she can't come up with any descriptor than "these . . . people."

"Quality over quantity, my dear. What ever were you thinking?"

Yuna, seeing no problem with her dream team of one outcast Ronso, one gloomy goth, one blitzball failer, and one confused time traveler, steps up to defend her friends. I really like her response here:

Then she asks Dona to please leave them alone, which Dona proceeds to not do, ever.

Psssst Tidus she thinks you're super cute. Even Wakka has figured this out. Why am I the one breaking this news to you?

Tidus is an everything! He's a busy guy.

"YEAH!!!"

This guy is super pumped about everything.

Here's another hint that the Cloister of Trials is more dangerous than it appears. A priest outside did mention that it's full of flames and that "Those who disobey the precepts and enter unsanctioned may forfeit their lives." *pokes Tidus*

Everybody piles into the elevator but leaves Tidus behind because he's not a guardian yet. He's a little sore about this.

Don't be mean, Tidus! It's not Yuna's fault Valefor didn't hear her prayers for like a day. She tries her best. Go get a snack or something if you're bored geez. Play Pokemon with the village kids.

Dona and Barthello just came out of the Cloister of Trials when we got here and then left the temple. Then they come back looking for Yuna, I can only imagine because Dona thought of something else mean and pithy to say to her. Instead, she decides to try to get her in trouble by sending her unsanctioned guest into the Cloister without permission. As we learn that Yuna could really get in serious trouble for this, this is pretty vicious of Dona.

Wakka and Lulu tell him that the penalty for his infraction could be excommunication, which sounds like it would disqualify Yuna from completing the pilgrimage since she wouldn't be allowed to access the temples.

I wonder about these disintegrating/regenerating doors that must reset for every summoner.

"Why are you guys never happy to see me?"

Tidus finally thinks to ask what is inside the room nobody but Yuna is allowed to enter, prompting Lulu to explain the nature of the fayth:

"Yevon took their souls, willingly given from their still-living bodies. Now they live forever, trapped in statues. But when a summoner beckons, the souls of the fayth emerge once again. That's what we call an aeon."

I find it particularly resonant with meaning that Lulu is the one to give this speech, considering she's the one who volunteers to become a fayth for Yuna in the end. (FEELINGS.) But what a bleak existence!

Tidus is kind of freaked out by the intensity of this description. (And rightfully so, haha. Lulu is a vivid storyteller.) I think he's picturing Yuna in a room with a tormented statue surrounded by restless souls. He has an active imagination.

If you try to keep talking to Lulu she just makes this exasperated gesture and shakes her head. She is 500% done with Tidus.

Kimahri just pushes him. But that's what you get for trying to enter a room that you were just told is forbidden.

Yuna almost faceplants outside the Chamber of the Fayth again but at least there are no stairs this time.

Poor Waffles. :( He recognizes the Hymn of the Fayth from hearing Jecht sing it in his childhood, proving there is a connection between Spira and Zanarkand, but he doesn't know how to reach it. And then, seeing Yuna with her family gathered attentively around her, he's suddenly lonely and homesick.