shorter, spoiler free version of my relationship with Final Fantasy X

    It began with me growing up in a Christian home that was careful about what media it consumed.  This carefulness kept me from buying Final Fantasy X as close to immediatley after laying eyes on its interesting cover as possible.  Time passed and I stumbled across some beautiful online posters that happened to be for the same game.  This led me to learn more about the game.  What I found out made me pensive about its acceptance in my home, but, sometime after I was fourteen, I got the game anyway.  While playing the game, a scene that reminded me of a Biblical miracle, a scene that appeared to be attacking the church, and the method for defeating the ultimate monster, Sin, left me feeling as if this game shouldn't have been allowed in my family's home.  I still loved the graphics and enjoyed the story, but given the religious connotations and the anti-religious message that I was perceiving at the time, I was left feeling uncertain.  As such, I did some casual online research as to how other Christians responded to the game.  As I was in high school during that time and didn't expect to do a project on this game in the future, I didn't save any of the urls (or I don't think I did.  I have two urls linked on the Additional Reads page that could have come from this research; but more than likely came from later research).  For this project, I tried to find the reviews I read around that time, but nothing looked familiar (except for maybe http://www.cs.mun.ca/~follettm/finalfantasy/ff10.html).  Unable to find the reviews that I did read during that time, I tried to find reviews that had been written around the same time that had content that was similar to what I remembered.  I remembered being surprised that there was no outrage in the articles I had read.  I also remembered that the reviewers noted the attack on the church, but they were able to dismiss it as anti-Catholic or anti-religion instead of anti-Christian.  The reviews I found through a current day Google search with an applied filter of webpages written from 2001 to 2007 gave only a handful of Christian reviews and they all had greater in-depth analysis of the symbolism in the game than I remembered (except for http://www.christcenteredgamer.com/index.php/reviews/59-console/playstation-2/4286-final-fantasy-x-ps2 and the previously linked review).  Some of these reviews (including at least one non-Christian review) are also linked on the Additional Reads page.

   A few years after my initial research, I was mildly educated on the literary device of Christ figures, particularly how they were not supposed to be replacements for Christ.  I was also introduced to Tolkien's views about the fantasy genre.  

     Tolkien's views can be read in his 1939 essay, "On Fairy Stories," which was written during the time that Tolkien was struggling to reconcile his Christian faith and his driving need to write fantasy.  Through his struggle, he determined that in order for a fantasy story to have a place within the Christian community, it needed to accomplish five things:

• Awaken desire or longing

• Have the inner consistency of reality

• Provide Recovery- renewal of health and childlike wonder

• Provide Escape- momentary freedom from things or circumstances that humans were not originally created to experience

• Provide Consolation- a sudden joyous turn

Using this criteria, I re-examined FFX in December 2010.  

• I already knew that this game awakened desire and longing in me.  

  • I longed for the beautiful world 

  • I desired to write as compelling a story in the future.  

• I could see where this game had an inner consistency with reality.

  • this game world was made up of diverse people with varying beliefs

  • these people had to struggle with their beliefs 

  • religion is important

  • the pursuit of truth is even more important 

  • references to our history, mythology, and religions

• This game provided recovery

  • the scene replicating the biblical miracle was so beautiful that it made me wonder just how beautiful the biblical miracles could be

• I could see where this game could provide escape

  • it allowed me to experience the deadly journey without having to die because of it.

• This game provided consolation

  • The end saves the game world from destruction and the lies of their leaders

In addition to these things I discovered that, intentionally or not, this game could point to the story of Christ through the character, Tidus.  This discovery led me to a whole new kind of longing and desire, that of discovering other hidden gems that related to Christianity.  Also, because there were allusions to other religions, a desire to discover what was being said about those other religions also awakened.  These desires will have to be future studies as they are far too large in scope for this study.  As such, for this study, I will be looking at what Final Fantasy did right to keep from seriously offending any given religious party, as it is something that I will need to know if I should try to become the next Tolkien.