Final Fantasy X-2/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• In Final Fantasy X - 2, the head-scratcher was how Yuna was tied to Shuyin and Lenne, or why she seemed to be the key to bringing them back together and calming Shuyin's insane rage. It's said outright that she isn't a reincarnation of Lenne, despite the parallels. Then, it hit me. Sin may be gone, the Fayth may be enjoying their overdue rest...but that doesn't mean Yuna stopped being the most powerful Summoner on Spira. And aside from the task of defeating Sin, a Summoner's duty involve sending the spirits of those who died violently to their rest. I raise a beer to you, Square.
  • This is something I realized while replaying Final Fantasy X-2 and reviewing the pre-requisites for the different endings. You receive a different ending based on your how many completion points that you've gained. If you have low completion points then Yuna will not re-unite with Tidus and will instead choose to continue her adventuring with the Gullwings, if you receive enough points however Yuna returns to Besaid and settles down with Tidus. At first I didn't understand why the game ended this way until I looked back at X. In X though Yuna traveled the world she didn't get a chance to enjoy it and experience it, that's where x-2 comes in. In X-2 the only way to receive a full 100% completion is to have Yuna visit every location on the map multiple times, see new people, and experience new things. The completion percentage represents Yuna's satisfaction with the adventures she has had so far. Once she has felt that she has truly experienced the world then she chooses to settle down with Tidus. In X-2 International+Last Mission which has never been released outside of Japan they reveal that Yuna leaves the Gullwings anyway no matter whether or not you decided to have her re-unite with Tidus. This also explains her behavior in X-2. As society in Spira was very strict during the events of X, Yuna as a summoner was probably never allowed to just be laid back and have fun. Also as a girl this troper can vouch that no matter how proper a girl is if she's around really good friends then she'll let her hair down and have fun, and for Yuna it was the very first time where she could just have and so she didn't know how to act, so she did the next best thing. She copied Rikku's behavior from Final Fantasy X.
• With Rikku's personality it never made sense to this troper why she was so much more laid back until I realized that her situation is the same as Yuna's. Even though Rikku was chipper during X, it was because she like Yuna was a Stepford Smiler, and she being an Albhed had very few choices as to what she could do with her life. Though she traveled the world before Rikku never got a chance to enjoy herself as she was on missions. This is the first time in Rikku's life that she is free to do what she wants and go where she wants. The problem is Rikku never had plans for what she wanted to do with her life, which is why she seems to just go with things. Now that Rikku can be truly carefree she's enjoying every minute of it.
• Lets go over a few facts; Tidus is a dream of the faith, he looks identical to Shuyin, Shuyin snuck behind enemy lines to get a WMD so he could save Lenne proving that he'll do anything to keep her safe, Lenne was a Summoner (ergo she was powerful) so she would be sent to the frontlines in the war (with no guarantee of her safty), Yune looks alot like her and was in a similar scenario...Tidus pulled out all the stops to save her when he learned the truth about the Final Summoning, Sounds alot like Shuyin...doesn't he? The brilliance here is the possibility that Tidus may have been the dream version of Shuyin. However it Really hits you when you remember that Tidus was basically a plan the faiths came up with to end Sin's cycle, could the faiths really have planned out Tidus meeting Yuna (who is again Lenne's look alike...or is it the other way around), falling in love with her, and finaly giving up his life so she would live, cuz lets face it; saving Yuna was his driving force --Ryuki
  • After thinking it about it some more i came up with another idea; what if the faith didn't just plan out the first game, but the second one too? Think about; Yuna see one sphere about a guy who kinda looks and sounds like (but as we find out later he doesn't just kinda look like Tidus) saying he wanted to save the "summoner"...really...just what are the chances that seeing that one sphere would lead her to save the world again, now can anyone say this adventure would have happened had she never met Tidus. Now i'm not sold on the idea, but come on, if they really did plan out that far ahead it would be pretty Badass--Ryuki
• Many people think the monkey matchmaking sidequest's sole purpose is Rule of Funny. But pay attention: The last two monkeys you pair up are named Sol and Luna. Hmm... reuiniting two lovers who are represented by the sun and the moon? What's this game about again?

Fridge Horror

• In Final Fantasy X-2, the characters access different ability sets (ranging from black magic to the power of dancing so badly it causes your enemies to go blind) by using "Dress Spheres". The reason why this works is mentioned in a throwaway line about them being filled with the memories of people who actually had the ability to cast magic or dance or use certain weapons, and you're just borrowing their expertise when you use a Dress Sphere. This becomes much creepier when it also shows that using a Dress Sphere can cause unexpected side effects due to the consciousness downloaded into the Sphere breaking through and forcing the user into performing certain actions; this implies that each Sphere contains at least a part of the original person who was used to program it, instead of being just a set of skills and techniques copied out of someone's head (and the game never mentions how the memories are obtained... or what happens to the "donor" afterward). In other words, it's possible that each Dress Sphere is a tiny prison containing the enslaved mind and/or soul of a once-living individual, trapped forever and used as a source of power by anyone who picks them up.
  • I'm skeptical. It's pretty much outright stated that the Black Mage dressphere is a sphere of Maechen's memories from before the Machina War. In this case, it's more likely that they're very similar to recording spheres, but convey abilities and probably feelings of the person whose memories the sphere contains.
    • Not to mention Maechen's soul clearly not being in that sphere
  • Indeed, It is confirmed that the spheres are merely recording spheres, and the attack data is gathered from a person who appeared on the sphere. And as a final proof that a person's soul is not trapped in there, The Gun mage was derived from Tobli (as shown by Yuna and co sometimes picking up his verbal tick when using it)Considering what he gets up to for the rest of the game, I think his soul is very much in his body. As for the Songstress, Lenne rebuilt herself around the recordings of her in the sphere, so in effect she was willingly using it as a soul jar, and as shown by the ending was not an intrinsic part of it, and could leave whenever she wanted rather than being trapped.