Pmog Answers Questions, pt 2 (Fayth, Unsent, Yu Yevon, Etc)

[Ed. note: originally posted on GameFAQs’ now-defunct FFX forum by pmog]

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/2000008-final-fantasy-x-storyline/21477330?page=11

Bahamut, Dream Zanarkand, the Fayth

Re: Bahamut Fayth – most of the facts relating to him personally are already explained in the game, extra information also includes the aeon-fayth in general.

He’s an old fayth and as such, he’s very knowledgeable about everything – including the circumstances of Sin’s birth. He often visits DZ when he’s not being summoned, which is how he happened to get acquainted with Tidus since he was young (Tidus felt the BF’s presence as well).

Fayth are able to enter DZ (whereas regular people can’t) because they don’t even have physical bodies in the first place (and they can only be seen and heard by people who are either made entirely out of pyreflies (eg. summoned-people/usents) or have summoning ability). In fact, all the aeon-fayth go to DZ in their “spare time” to play. They’re able to blend in and interact with the DZ citizens (as they choose) and pretty much have a good time enjoying themselves in the paradise world. Thus, the situation of Spira’s cycle and DZ’s continued existence suited the fayth just fine until fairly recently. The reason why they didn’t try to end the dreaming earlier was basically because of indifference (and possibly a distorted perspective on things due to the nature of their own eternal existences).

All fayth share a common consciousness with each other, which is why in Tidus’ vision at Gagazet, the BF uses the term “we” when speaking about the fayth who are dreaming up DZ, even though he doesn’t directly have anything to do with its summoning (his own aeon is Bahamut). That’s also how he’s in a position to act as spokesman for *all* the fayth.

Final Aeon and Formation of Sin

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/2000008-final-fantasy-x-storyline/21477330?page=13

When a FA defeats Sin, YY takes over the big bunch of pyreflies (of which the FA is composed) and starts remodelling them into the next Sin (the FA physically becomes the next Sin’s “core”). The figure of Jecht(fayth) standing on the platform before the final battle is his “soul”. It’s not definitively explained whether if the BFA he then “summons” is the exact mass of pyreflies that formed the BFA 10 years ago, or if it’s just a combination of Jecht using the pyreflies in the surrounding area and his thoughts (BFA dream) to form his body into a weapon with which to “defend” himself (BFA).

My feeling is that it’s more the latter theory, because it’s already been shown that the pyreflies in the surrounding area reflect/react to Jecht’s thoughts – the closer the party gets to Sin’s core, the more Sin’s interior looks like a warped version of DZ (eg. blitz stadium, flaming Abes logo). Those are the results of Jecht’s nostalgia for his home combining with the pyreflies to affect the physical environment and/or create solid objects.

Fayth Statues, Jyscal, The Dreaming

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/2000008-final-fantasy-x-storyline/21477330?page=19

Fayth (other than the ones in Gagazet) were created before *and* after the Machina War (by Zanarkand and the Yevon Temples respectively). After Sin appeared, the pre-war fayth statues were then appropriated by the Temples and installed in the various temples around Spira to use for training summoners in their pilgrimage to defeat Sin.

Jyscal was given a sending after his death and that’s why he was in the Farplane. However, he still had strong feelings of regret/attachment (eg. guilt, a desire to warn people about Seymour’s plans), which enabled him to become an unsent and try to come back to Spira. He ended up being sent by Yuna (perhaps weakened by his close proximity to the Farplane), but he at least succeeded in leaving behind a sphere with his warning message on it.

Fayth aren’t really *forced* to keep dreaming, per se. It’s more the case that once a fayth’s dream has been summoned, they’re unable to stop the summoning at their own volition – that matter is left to the discretion of the summoner. Before the actual summoning takes place, fayth have a choice in the matter of who they are willing to let summon their dreams. For example, the Gagazet Fayth were perfectly willing at first to go along with YY’s plan of keeping DZ alive (after all, it was their city too). That situation changed only when Jecht became Sin, and all the fayth realised how pointless and harmful it was to maintain DZ. Likewise, summoners who have quit their pilgrimage still have their sending abilities, but are unable to summon – they no longer have the will to fight Sin and so they lose the support of the fayth. Thus, the Gagazet Fayth couldn’t stop dreaming up DZ because YY didn’t intend to stop summoning it. But it wouldn’t simply be the case that YY *made* them continue.

From what available information there is, Yevon didn’t die (he’s described as being “immortal”) because he became YY when he first summoned DZ. And YY is described as an “inhuman being”, and “living only to summon”. By doing that and losing his human form, maybe it was then possible for YY to avoid some of the disadvantages of human life (eg. short lifespan and death). As for *how* he did it, I’m guessing that YY being one of the most powerful summoners ever comes somewhere into the equation.

Fiends/Unsent

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/2000008-final-fantasy-x-storyline/21477330?page=21

Once they’ve been formed, fiends/unsents can’t simply be sent to the Farplane by a sending – they have to be weakened first (ie. beating the stuffing out of them). Once defeated, fiends will then disappear, and unsents will either be weakened enough for a summoner to send them or dissipate on their own.

The Temples’ Hidden Agenda, Seymour6

The Temples’ true goal (only known to those in the highest ranks like the maesters) is the “continuation of Spira”. They truly believed that Sin could never ever be defeated and were afraid of what would happen when the people drowned in their despair over that fact (the “destruction fo Spira”). Thus, they sought to prevent Spira’s social collapse by offering people “false hope” through the teachings/pilgrimage. *Trying* to defeat Sin (in vain) gave people “hope” that it *could* actually be defeated, and that was meaning in and of itself. However, these actions inadvertently ended up perpetuating the spiral of death (the FA becoming Sin and so on) and before long, the Temples’ objective turned into “maintaining the status quo”. The Temples have always been single-minded about protecting their goals, hence their heavy-handed tactics of oppressing and persecuting potential ideological threats (like traitors/unbelievers).

The maesters didn’t really have any problem with Seymour being an unsent, as all of them had already accepted Yevon’s “truth” about death being an all-encompassing concept on Spira. It was the issue of Seymour murdering his father that didn’t quite sit well with everyone. Not morally corrupt like the other maesters (he was in charge of law and order, after all), Kelk found it hard to excuse Seymour’s crime and resigned in protest. OTOH, Mika was willing to overlook it since Seymour was a valuable asset to Yevon. Seymour simply didn’t *have* any regard for life in the first place. Kinoc was wary after learning about it, but only because Seymour was his political rival and the capacity for such an act only made him more untrustworthy/dangerous (Kinoc’s fears ended up being well-founded).

It’s important to note that the Temples aren’t like a hive-mind. Each individual maester (and follower, for that matter) has their own goals/ideologies/acceptable standards of behaviour, which are often incompatible with one another (eg. Mika’s and Seymour’s differing plans for Spira).

The Hymn of the Fayth: Lyrics & Translation

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/2000008-final-fantasy-x-storyline/21477330?page=22

The exact lyrics for the Hymn of the Fayth are as follows:

i e yu i
no bo me no
re n mi ri
yo ju yo go
ha sa te ka na e
ku ta ma e

Taken at face value, those “words” are pure gibberish. However, they are an anagram of actual Japanese lyrics. Properly arranged, those would be:

inore yo ebon ju
yumemiyo inorigo
hatenaku sakae tamae

That can be loosely translated as:

Pray, Yu Yevon
Dream, oh fayth
Be forever prosperous

Rikku’s Mother and the Al Bhed

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/2000008-final-fantasy-x-storyline/21477330?page=29

Re: Rikku’s mother. Rikku talks about how her mother died in an optional dialogue that takes place at Guadosalam. It’s *Yuna’s mother* whom Rin is talking about on the airship. Incidentally, she was killed by Sin 13 years ago.

Re: Al Bhed home island. Nothing Rikku says in her speech at Home contradicts the fact that Sin’s attack on the Al Bhed home island happened almost 1000 years ago. As a result of that attack, the Al Bhed were scattered to all four corners of the globe, effectively becoming a wandering tribe with no homeland or resources. It was only by using machina that the Al Bhed have somehow managed to survive, and that’s the practical reason for why they haven’t abandoned it. If the Al Bhed’s ancestors had followed Yevon’s teachings, they wouldn’t have been alive today. OTOH, not doing so also makes them a target for Yevon’s persecution. So, it was only fairly recently that Cid’s leadership managed to unite the Al Bhed after such a long time.

Fiends and Unsent

A similar question has come up before, so I’ll just repost what I wrote then.

Though fiends and unsents share a lot of similarities, they are essentially different phenomena. This arises from the fact that the criteria for each “mode of being” is specifically embedded into their respective definitions. For instance:

Fiend: Something that is the result of pyreflies combining together with a dead person’s feelings of hatred/envy towards the living.

Unsent: Someone who has died with intense feelings of regret/attachment to the world and thus remains on Spira, while still retaining their figure from their previous life.

The relevant similarities between them are: the result of not dying peacefully; not willingly heading to the Farplane; being composed entirely of pyreflies; being sustained by thoughts; unable to be dispersed simply by a sending (sometimes an unsent *may* be, if their strength of will/desire to stay are sufficiently weakened/lacking – eg. Seymour/Belgemine).

There are also significant differences between them. For instance, the difference in thoughts that sustain their respective beings (hatred/envy vs regret/attachment); the forms they take (becoming monster-like vs retaining previous figure); the strength of will required (not that much vs extreme amounts – many end up as fiends while relatively few are mentally capable of becoming unsents); purposes (always harmful vs potentially neutral/beneficial); retaining the consciousness of their previous lives (always lost vs case dependent). I also suspect that fiends can be formed in part by any pyreflies that happen to be in the immediate vicinity – not always exclusively from the pyreflies of one’s own dissipated body. OTOH, an unsent’s body is simply their own flesh-and-blood body transformed into a pyrefly-only version.

Spiran Script: Translation of Words on Yojimbo’s Gear

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/2000008-final-fantasy-x-storyline/21477330?page=31

Hey pmog, I know you probobly can’t, but in this imagehttp://www.dustcatchers.com/shirts/anime/ff-yojimbo.jpg
on that sheild type thing, it has some of the Yevon script. Does it mean ANYTHING at all? or just a bunch of jiberish?Thanks man.

It spells out the Latin phrase “mea culpa” which can be translated as “(through) my (own) fault”. That’s also written on the sword scabbard in Spiran script. And in case you were wondering, the kanji on the back of the shirt says “zanmato”.

While we’re on the topic, any idea what the symbols on the ribbon over the fayth mean?http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/4819/yojimbofayth00020gu.jpg

“Seal” in Yevon script.