Warning! The following will contain major spoilers for the video game Final Fantasy 10.
Greetings from GuardianTree12!
Though I will admit this scene is weird.
Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day, so I thought for my next analysis I will discuss one of my favorite duos in all of Fictiondom (Fiction + Kingdom). But why stop with just one duo analysis? For the next two weeks, I will be discussing couples who I think shared the most interesting and/or inspiring bonds. Not all of these dynamic duo analyses will be about romantic couples because even though I’m a girl, I’m not into romance that much and romance isn’t the only bond two people share. I might talk about the bond between two best friends, or the bond between mother and daughter, father and son, brothers or sisters. Any two characters who shared a bond that left the most impact on me I will talk about. So without further ado, here is my first Dynamic Duo Analysis.
Tidus and Yuna, this will probably be the only romantic couple analysis that I will do because like I said before, I don’t like romance that much. Most of the time I find them either completely boring, pointless, cliché, and unrealistic (Romeo and Juliet), or mind-numbingly annoying (Sonic and Amy). And stories that focus on romance is just torture to me. But what I like about Tidus and Yuna’s relationship is that it isn’t the focus of the story, sure it’s still a major part of the story, but their journey together is nothing short of inspiring and it isn’t the “love at first sight” cliché we see all the time.
Their relationship begins when after Tidus arrives on the island of Besaid, a priest expresses his concerns to Wakka about a summoner (Yuna) that has been in the Cloister of Trials for three days. Also concerned, Tidus enters the Cloister of Trials to look for the summoner despite protests from both the priest and Wakka. Once at the end of the Trials, he sees that the summoner is not some wise old man as he expected the summoner to be but a young, teenage girl. They talk briefly that night, nothing big or spectacular or romantic, just a short introduction. Afterwards he joins Yuna on her pilgrimage but doesn’t officially become part of the group until after the tournament in Luca. He only joins then to face his father who he has just learned is Sin, the monster rampaging across Spira and the whole reason for the summoners and their pilgrimages, and because he can’t really do anything else. Tidus is a stranger in a strange land; he really has no place to go except with the group. He grows closer to Yuna as the journey goes on because she is the only one he seems to believe he really is from Zanarkand and because he is curious of her status and powers as a summoner. And she grows closer to him because she is curious about his Zanarkand and because his father was one of her father’s guardians.
Irony is a bitch.
After Yuna is captured by the Al Bhed, Tidus becomes really guilty for talking so nonchalant about Zanarkand and the end of their journey when he learns that all summoners die when they defeat Sin. Then after the group obtains the airship, rescues Yuna, and escapes Bevelle, Tidus apologizes to Yuna and promises to help her defeat Sin without her dying. Their relationship is then kind of put on hold for a while. At the end of the game after defeating Sin for the final time, Yuna confesses her love for him as he fades away. This scene here is the saddest event in the game and possibly one of the saddest moments in gaming history.
If this guy was my father, I’d hate him too.
Yuna and Tidus have the most character development in the game. At the beginning of the game, Yuna is shown to be kind and strong willed but she only acts like this because she feels she has to. A lot of pressure is put on her because she is both a summoner and Braska’s daughter; deep down, she’s just as scared of dying as anyone else is and she’s really unsure of herself. Her speech after the end of the final battle indicates she now has confidence in herself and shows how much she has matured. Tidus is young and naïve (they both are) and a little bit of a crybaby, but you’ve got to respect a guy who continues to fight even after learning that at the end of the battle, his very existence will be wiped out. He fights not to save the world or because it’s the right thing to do, but because if he doesn’t, Yuna will die and he’ll never get over his daddy issues. It’s sad that they don’t end up together but their growing bond and the way they help each other overcome their own personal obstacles is really inspiring.
Burn abomination! Burn!
And I know that Tidus comes back at the end of X-2 but you have to complete a certain amount of the game for that to happen and once that sad excuse of a game, I guarantee you will destroy the game and everything it touched, imagine a slow, agonizing, gruesome death on all of the characters you once cherished, and wage an all-out ragewar against SquareEnix within the first five minutes of playing. Besides, resurrecting Tidus takes away the impact the end of the last game had.
GuardianTree12 out.
