Alright man, excellent writeup. Pretty much epitomizes my love for that character. Is she my favorite Final Fantasy female? Are you kiddin'? It ain't even remotely close, and I do like quite a few of them. Excellent, excellent, ace character, Yuna.
Now my opinions on X-2 are not exactly kept close to my heart. Everyone here who knows me from Adam knows I loathe that piece of trash game, but in so doing I don't even count it with regard to Yuna, so I just think of her as "that stellar chick from FFX and only FFX" and I sometimes replay that game with the primary reason of seeing that character grow and kick ass all over again.
From: Panthera | #449 From: LeonhartFour | #445 Bonus Question: Who is your favorite Final Fantasy female? You've kind of stolen my thunder on this one by writing two posts worth about her You rock, Panthera!
From: LeonhartFour | #459 Don't worry, I am sure some silly person will come in to break it up eventually. Post another write up and knowing our respective tastes, I could do it myself!
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny
Yuna for me, too. Also, I still don't get the issues with Hedy Buress's voice acting, but there ya go!
I think the reason people don't like Yuna (at least the most common reason) is that she's not believable as a person because she's too 'nice'. Not something I agree with myself, but there you go.
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Yunalesca: “Yevon’s teachings and the Final Summoning give the people of Spira hope. Without hope, they would drown in their sorrow. Now, choose. Who will be your fayth? Who will be the one to renew Spira’s hope?” Yuna: “No one. I would have gladly died. I live for the people of Spira, and would have gladly died for them. But no more! The Final Summoning…is a false tradition that should be thrown away.” Yunalesca: “No. It’s our only hope. Your father sacrificed himself to give that hope to the people. So they would forget sorrow.” Yuna: “Wrong. My father…My father wanted…to make Spira’s sorrow go away. Not just cover it up with lies!” Yunalesca: “Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try.” Yuna: “My father…I loved him. So I…I will live with my sorrow, I will live my own life! I will defeat sorrow, in his place. I will stand my ground and be strong. I don’t know when it will be but someday, I will conquer it. And I will do it without…false hope.”
Yes! The Yunalesca speech is soo good. People generally seem to love that moment because of Auron's speech, but I think Yuna's part is even better.
And I've already answered the Yuna question when you asked about my favorite female character period. EDIT: The answer was, of course, Yunie.
Well I can break up the agreement parade by saying Yuffie is the best Final Fantasy Female
Hell Yuna ain't even the best female in her own game that goes to Rikku.
I dunno Yuna never really resonated with me. I can step back and see why people like her, but to me she's kinda boring and a bit of a Mary Sue in some ways. Like yeah she's naive and shy/awkward at times but I don't seem to recall it ever being presented as a flaw or hurting her in the sense that "hey it was your fault for screwing that up." I also dislike that any sort of new or bold move she makes generally comes from inspiration from Tidus or Rikku or someone else. That's probably debatable to some since she's generally been getting praise in the write-up for how bold she is and stuff but that's how it always felt to me.
I also don't see why one would try to separate voice acting from characters, unless like, the VA's presentation totally doesn't fit the dialogue or something. Generally VAs are chosen for a reason and I would say they're a real part of the character. The only argument you could have otherwise would be if a character has an actor/VA in a book adaptation. FFX is no book, though, and I'm sure just as much care was taken in selecting the English VA as the Japanese one so yeah.
Though on that note I actually think Hedy Burress was an excellent choice for the VA for Yuna. Any awkward lines she has generally fit the character, I think.
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Agreeing with Lopen on Yuna. Not offensive, but totally zzz. At least in FFX. FFX-2 on the other hand...
Favorite FF Female is hard to pick because most of them are pretty bad. Faris is alright (though probably -because- of lack of depth instead of in spite of it), Rydia, Celes, Aerith/Yuffie, Quistis, Beatrix, Ashe, Lightning/Fang is probably the short list. The rest range from average/boring/forgettable to totally intolerable.
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As for something much better, favorite Shadow Hearts moment is absurdly hard to pick. Might go with the Amon/Asmodeus fight atop the airship just for "whoa" factor and general badassery. But it's really hard to pick.
Second place is obviously SHLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP.
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That's one of those things where it's like, "In a game where only a select few things are voice acted, they chose this scene to be one of them," and it's hard to wrap your mind around. I mean, the scene would obviously be much less notable without it, but still.
From: Lopen | #470 Like yeah she's naive and shy/awkward at times but I don't seem to recall it ever being presented as a flaw or hurting her in the sense that "hey it was your fault for screwing that up." I also dislike that any sort of new or bold move she makes generally comes from inspiration from Tidus or Rikku or someone else. That's probably debatable to some since she's generally been getting praise in the write-up for how bold she is and stuff but that's how it always felt to me. Oh right, I overlooked this earlier. The naive thing comes into play where she decides she's going to agree to marry Seymour just so she can talk to him privately about Jyscal, thinking she can convince him to turn himself in to Yevon, and she thinks she can do it all by herself.
And the "Believe" thing definitely didn't come from Tidus or Rikku, nor did the big speech I posted that Ultima quoted. That was all Yuna.
Nah I disagree with that. That speech definitely gave the vibe that she was heavily influenced by Tidus's revolts against tradition and such from earlier in the game. Like I'm not saying Tidus was actively pushing her to do it but at the same time it's not something I'd expect Yuna to do without playing copycat. Like I'm not trying to belittle the scene cause the scene is good either way regardless of what led Yuna to do it, but it does matter in how much it reaffirms my feelings that Yuna doesn't ever really stand entirely on her own two feet. Now I'm not saying a character being influenced by other characters is a bad thing but in Yuna's case she never feels like anything special she does comes straight from her.
I don't recall the "believe" thing offhand, but I'm pretty sure I'd feel similarly about that.
Also I'm not saying the naive thing doesn't come into play, but it isn't presented as a flaw. It's not "Yuna you're stupid for doing this that's never going to work." It's "good try Yuna your heart was in the right place."
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Well if you want to say "nah it doesn't count because of Tidus's influence" then virtually nobody anything else did in FFX counts for anything. You get that level of influence when you're the main character. Yes, Tidus's way of thinking changed her own, but that doesn't mean Yuna is no longer responsible for her own decisions. Influence is not the same as "Tidus told her what to do so she did it." Tidus wanted them just to jump ship and get out of there. Yuna was still wanting to go through with it if there was a way to assure things wouldn't repeat themselves, but when she was flatly told that nothing would change, then she made her own decision. She also made her own decision to continue the pilgrimage when virtually everyone else (especially Tidus and Rikku) was trying to convince her to quit after all the stuff that happened at Bevelle (or at the very least, they wouldn't have opposed her doing so), so again, her decision.
"Believe" is the wedding scene where she says "I can fly" and I'm pretty sure no one ever told her to do that. And again, the whole "I'm going to marry Seymour so I can give him what he deserves" was certainly not anyone else's idea. And I don't think anyone thought "Your heart was in the right place" when Yuna decided to go off on her own to talk to Seymour to try to persuade him to turn himself in. Everyone was thinking, "What is she crazy? That's never going to work."
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"So cold. I am always by your side." "There ain't no gettin' off of this train we on!"
That's not exactly what I meant. Yeah the mc will tend to influence people but in Yuna's case it's a lot more directly significant than say, Auron's or Rikku's or whoever. Like it's not that Yuna changed her way of thinking it's that she basically stole a speech that would come directly out of Tidus's mouth. Varying degrees of influence I guess?
I'm not saying Yuna's not responsible for that moment, I'm saying it would be nice to see her do something interesting that was a direct result of her own way of thinking. Yuna to me feels like a character that is always led along by some thinker that's stronger willed than she is. Be it Yu Yevon (or whoever pushes her to do the pilgrimage) early in the game when she's sticking to her guns with the pilgrimage, Tidus when she decides to rebel against the idea of the pilgrimage, or Rikku in FFX-2 when she decides to become a ditz. She doesn't seem to have a strong sense of her own identity. She's a follower. Not that that's bad but it makes her character less interesting to me.
It's not a matter of "Tidus influenced that decision so it cheapens it" it's a matter of "I was getting at she has no moment in the games that's all her driving it forward and this is no exception."
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I disagree that Tidus would have said something even remotely similar to that speech in that situation. That was Yuna making an informed decision possessing all the facts. I think it's pretty silly to say "well Tidus changed Yuna so she gets no credit for anything she says or does because of it." Every darn moment I gave you in that writeup was Yuna. If we want to detract from someone"s accomplishments because someone else influenced them, then nobody has ever truly accomplished anything.
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"I couldn't stand a day without a past or future. I need to live each moment to keep fighting here and now."
Like I said it's a question of degree. You think Yuna being influenced by Tidus was something similar to how much Tidus influenced pretty much everyone-- I just have to disagree. Yuna definitely feels like the type of character that lets people influence her quite a bit. That's not necessarily bad or even something I expect you to agree with but the evidence is kinda there. All of her character developments or motivations can pretty much be directly tied to one character or organization You can't really say, do the same thing with Wakka's development for instance.
But yeah like I said we're not going to agree on this and I'm not trying to convince you either-- just explaining that what I'm saying is not what you're saying I'm saying.
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I think this argument is fallacious because you're exaggerating how easily led Yuna is. If she had no strong convictions of her own, she would've just quit after Bevelle. Yet she didn't, despite the insistence of the two people you say she allows to influence and lead her along too easily. You can say Yuna's influence is more easily shown than other characters, although I would not be inclined to agree with that assessment nor would I say it somehow detracts from her character in any way even if it did.
You keep saying the evidence is "kinda there," but I've given counterexamples and you've been using mostly generalizations without any solid examples. Tidus obviously helped to change the way Yuna thinks, yes, but that doesn't mean she just lets him lead her along and she just thinks what she thinks he wants her to think. Yuna contradicts Tidus and Rikku often, and none of the other party members ever really try to tell her what to do.
Just pay attention to how the entire Zanarkand arc goes, and you can see that the decisions Yuna makes are her own. Yes, the influence of Tidus over the course of the game is clearly there (and it's not hard to see it in other party members like Lulu or Wakka either, actually), but that doesn't make her decisions less meaningful. That's the part of your argument I don't understand. So she wouldn't have been the same character had she never met Tidus and FFX probably plays out very differently for all involved if he is absent from the story, but so what?
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"I couldn't stand a day without a past or future. I need to live each moment to keep fighting here and now."
Yeah she has conviction. But any time she's doing stuff that feels like it's driven by herself it's to resist change, not to initiate it. Which does matter. You claim that sticking to your beliefs in the face of adversity is a difficult thing... I actually think it's oftentimes the easier way out, personally. Making changes in yourself can be difficult, even if said changes are things that would make your life easier. That's why archaic worthless traditions like Yuna's pilgrimage are so enduring.
To elaborate on what I meant by comparing her to Wakka... I feel his development in the game was shaped more by absorbing events, and coming to conclusions on his own based on seeing what's happening, simply because of what was the catalyst for it. Yuna I feel her development in the game was shaped more by being influenced by people around her, and coming to conclusions with their thoughts in mind. There are no specific events that make things "click" for her. Like at Zanarkand I felt like it was more like... she was thinking it was wrong for a while now due to grievances from Tidus and such and just got the nerve to come out with it when Yunalesca decides to be a jerk about it all.
But I mean, I'm not saying she's putty or something. I think you may be over exaggerating what I'm saying in your mind due to me presenting it as a flaw in my eyes (because it's not, necessarily, depending on your perspective). Obviously she has convictions and can make decisions for herself. I'm just saying that she's not someone who actively spurs on change in herself for the better (or the worse, as in FFX-2)-- she has to look to other people to draw the strength to do these things. Not necessarily a bad thing-- you could actually paint it favorably and say it's a sign she has a lot of empathy (which she clearly does)-- but something that makes her less appealing to me. She can surely make decisions on her own, but I feel any significant change in her thought process or attitude or course of action involves drawing from others to make it, based on the events of the games.
Maybe that's just a flaw in the writing of the games, though, that every bit of significant change she has is first seen in another character's way of thinking, I don't know. I'm just saying you've got people like Wakka who have change that isn't clearly tied to an individual so it's clear that that kinda development does exist in the game, at least...
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From: Lopen | #494 But any time she's doing stuff that feels like it's driven by herself it's to resist change, not to initiate it. Which does matter. You claim that sticking to your beliefs in the face of adversity is a difficult thing... I actually think it's oftentimes the easier way out, personally. Making changes in yourself can be difficult, even if said changes are things that would make your life easier. That's why archaic worthless traditions like Yuna's pilgrimage are so enduring. The entire goal of the pilgrimage is to bring change, at least in the mind of the summoner (The actual truth of the pilgrimage is irrelevant in this regard). When she finds out the truth in Zanarkand, she certainly goes about trying to initiate change (and she IS the one who initiates it, though Tidus's influence shines through in that decision, because she could've just said 'eh forget it let's just keep the cycle going' which certainly would have been the easy thing to do in that case, and she didn't take the easy way out there). Yuna does make plenty of changes in herself because she's clearly a different person at the end of the game. Yeah, it took Tidus's "outsider" perspective to make her rethink things, but Yuna is a pensive person, and the conclusions she arrives at are her own after she's weighed out the facts (and that's not really different from anyone else. Virtually everyone's beliefs are shaped by the influences of others around them). And those changes weren't easy to make because she basically ends up the enemy of the state for it. She publicly resists the status quo of Yevon before the maesters when it's presented to her at the trial in Bevelle, when she could've easily said 'yeah that sounds about right to me' and gotten acquitted. So I'm definitely not seeing your point on this one.