futile." Mika then says that while Sin cannot be "truly defeated [as] the rebirth cannot be stopped," the summoner's death is still worthwhile because it brings hope to the people. He then says that this is the true essence of Yevon and that those who do not accept it are traitors. (Martin)  

      So, if I understood this scene properly, this meant that the game makers were making the claim that all Christians were hypocrites and that we praised or worshipped death.  I had wholeheartedly disagreed with the latter.  The former critique was not new to me and I could understand why the Japanese might feel that way, but my upbringing told me that that not all Christians were hypocrites.  At the time, I wasn't sure that I agreed with my upbringing on this issue.  To me, there had seemed to be no escape from appearing hypocritical.  As soon as I labeled myself a Christian, a set of high moral standards were applied to me, and the minute that I failed these standards, I appeared to be a hypocrite.  To then say that not all Christians are hypocrites seemed hypocritical.  However, I knew that the church had an explanation for this that went over my head so I was willing to feel angry at this game for attacking the church.  

      The next scene involved waiting in a prison with Auron until we were sent to different corners of the Via Purifico.  The idiot judges sentenced me, Wakka, and Rikku (the three characters who know how to stay underwater indefinitely) to the aquatic tunnels of the Via Purifico while the remaining four characters are put in the land tunnels.  If they really wanted to kill us, it should have been the reverse.... but I digress as this is also my single, brief chance to play as Yuna in this game.  While I control Yuna, I summon the new monster, Bahamut in order to get passage out of the Via Purifico.  Everyone is reunited and Seymour, with a dead Kinoc, greets us at the exit (again, if they really wanted us to die, they shouldn't have had an exit....).  Seymour becomes a fiend and we fight him before we escape to a corner of Macalania forest.  

     In the forest, Yuna and Tidus have a tender moment while Yuna struggles to decide what she will do now that she's aware of the government/church's hypocrisy.  While the two fantasize about abandoning the pilgrimage, Yuna cannot bring herself to do it.  The party continues across the Calm Lands and Mount Gagazet.  On the mountain, we are at first blocked by Ronso, but then the Ronso Maester is taken by Yuna's resolve to continue her pilgrimage even though she has turned her back on the teachings of Yevon and allows us to pass.  At the peak, we find a lot of fayth being used to summon some unknown thing.  Tidus touches the fayth and has a vision.  In this vision, the fayth from Bevelle tells Tidus that he, his father, and their homeland of Zanarkand are all a dream that is being summoned by the fayth that Tidus has just touched.  The fayth then begs Tidus to help the fayth end their ceaseless dreaming before allowing Tidus to wake.  Tidus does not tell anyone what he saw.

     We continue the journey to the Zanarkand Ruins.  There we meet the unsent spirit of Lady Yunalesca, the first summoner to defeat Sin (and the only woman in this game who can't seem to figure out how to wear more clothing than her underwear).  From her we learn that the final monster summoners need to collect before their battle with Sin is actually unique to each summoner and requires that one of the summoner's bodyguards, one who has a strong bond with the summoner, become the fayth for the final monster.  We also learn that when the final monster defeats Sin, it then becomes the next Sin.  Tidus' father had become the fayth for the previous successful summoner, which is how he was now Sin.  When Yuna says that she will not have Yunalesca make her final monster, Yunalesca turns into a medusa like creature and attacks the group in an attempt to "free [them] before [they] can drown in [their] sorrow" (Martin).  When I defeat her, she "dies" and takes the possibility of other summoners getting their final monsters with her. 

     From Zanarkand on, I either cannot or do not try to understand what might be implied about Christians and the church.  My focus instead is on how they will handle Sin.  When the group left Zanarkand, I go to Bevelle to learn from Mika that Yu Yevon is what runs Sin and turns the final monsters into the new Sin before he willingly goes to the Farplane.  Afterwards, we all go to see Bevelle's fayth where we learn a brief history of Yu Yevon who once was a human summoner.  We also learn that to end Sin, Yu Yevon would need to be defeated.  

    After hearing this, I tried to decide whether or not I should be offended.  If Yu Yevon was separate from the Yevon religion, I could be fine with it.  After all, Yu sounded quite similar to new, so it was possible.  However, if Yu Yevon and the Yevon of this world's religion were the same, I could be offended as it could be a claim that God was the heart and creator of evil.  Although, if Yu Yevon and Yevon were the same and Yevon had once been human, it was my single chance to be "okay" with this game (with the exception of the walking on water scene) because it meant that the whole religious system wasn't necessarily supposed to represent Christianity.  I needed more information to decide.

     So, I collected the remaining optional fayth monsters while attempting to talk to all of the fayth and learn more.  They gave me very little information, so, when I thought I was ready, I started my battle with Sin.  The plan for defeating Sin had become thus:

• get everyone in this world to sing the hymn of the fayth when they saw the airship (because a piece of Tidus' father's humanness was still intact, the song seemed to quiet Sin)

• attack Sin until a way inside becomes apparent

• kill Yu Yevon.

This is pretty much what happened except, once inside Sin, I had to beat Seymour's ghost for the third time (and finally send his butt to the Farplane) and then I had to meet, greet, fight, and say goodbye to Tidus' father before the battle with Yu Yevon began. During the battle, each of my monsters became possessed and defeated until I had no more monsters to summon.  Then I had to fight the last monster to be possessed before I could really fight Yu Yevon.  I'm not sure how many monsters into this string of fights I was before my party died, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the game makers had taken pity on me by programming the Auto-Life spell to activate whenever this occurred.  It was probably semi-poor game design to have this at the end, but it did save me, so I couldn't complain.

    Once Yu Yevon is defeated, Auron, Sin, and the monsters I've gathered travel to the Farplane.  Then the fayths' dreams begin to fade, and my character along with them.  Tidus says his goodbyes which makes Yuna the saddest of all.  Tidus makes his exit and the next scene shows that Yuna holds hope that she will see Tidus again.  She then goes to give a speech to the surviving world as a new chapter in their history begins.  At the end of the credits, we see Tidus awake in some aquatic place before swimming to the surface.

    As immensely beautiful as it was, I felt sad at the ending. It seemed that the overall message was that if we work together and pursue truth, sin and evil in this world will be vanquished, a sentiment that did not match with my beliefs (and yet sounded very American).  I eventually played the sequel which seemed much more superficial, with very little in the way of Christian connotations.  It left me feeling additionally unsatisfied as I didn't properly complete all of the quests to earn the whole story.  Even if I had the entire story, this game did not seem as if it would answer my questions about the first game.

 

My Post-Play Reaction

    This is not where this story ends, however.  In the time that followed, I did some research.  I looked for the Christian's response to this game.  I was surprised to find no one bashing the game.  A few thought that Final Fantasy X (FFX) was anti-Catholic or anti-religion, and was therefore acceptable from a Protestant's perspective.  No one seemed bothered by Yuna walking on water.  Due to this reaction, I tentatively placed FFX in the "okay" category.

     In my senior year of high school, I was asked to read A Prayer for Owen Meaney.  The Christ allusions in this book brought back feelings I had with FFX.  In a group discussion about this book, I was made aware of the literary device of Christ figure.  Through learning more about Christ figures, I came to understand that the Christ figure characters are not supposed to be Christ.  The church small group that I started attending after graduating high school echoed this while referencing J.R.R. Tolkien's (1939) Lord of the Rings series and essay "On Fairy Stories."  C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, which I had read from a young age and used to base my standards of what was acceptable for Christ figures prior to playing FFX, was also discussed.