Here’s what I don’t understand about Final Fantasy X. I don’t understand why the general theory seems to be that Tidus is a whiny brat who is essentially good for nothing.
Have you played the game? Tidus is anything but a whiny brat. Sure, in the beginning, he’s a little full of himself. If announcers were talking about how awesome you were on television, and millions of screaming fans came to the arena every week just to see you play, wouldn’t you be a little arrogant, too? Tidus has a lot of stuff thrown at him, out of blue, that he has to deal with, and he deals with all of it with, maybe not exactly grace, but maturity.
Tidus learns so much on his journey, and I feel like maybe that’s why he’s always been my favorite Final Fantasy hero. He doesn’t start all mature and stoic, like Squall or Cloud, or even Zack, goofy as he is sometimes. Tidus is just a kid. He’s only seventeen, and he’s expected to deal with so much. His father is the one causing the destruction and death and endless suffering of an entire nation. His home was destroyed a thousand years earlier, according to the timeline of the world he’s forced to live in. He finally realizes there’s something bigger than just himself out there, and it’s awful and horrible and full of suffering and evil. There are corrupt men trying to murder innocent people, a corrupt government that banishes anyone who begins to discover the truth, summoners who are asked,expected, to sacrifice themselves to save the lives of thousands. He falls in love with a girl who, by logic, should not be as strong and brave as she is considering all she’s been through. And I think it’s that, even more than the suffering he’s forced to witness and all the deaths of all the people who don’t deserve it, that finally brings that maturity about. He realizes there’s more to live for than just himself and he finds that in Yuna. When he finds out she’s going to die, and die willingly and selflessly, everything else stops mattering. He doesn’t care about going home. He doesn’t care about getting to see Zanarkand. He especially doesn’t care about blitzball anymore. All he wants is for Yuna to be safe. All he wants is for her to live.
Even when he finds out he’s nothing but a dream, it doesn’t matter.He’s only a dream who will disappear if Yuna lives, and he doesn’t care. He would rather let the fayth wake up and kill Sin once and for all, so Yuna doesn’t have to die, than continue to live on as a dream without her. He was, essentially, willing to die for her, and a whiny brat doesn’t have that kind of courage. A whiny brat doesn’t have that much selflessness inside them, that they would be able to walk away from life itself in order to save someone they loved. He even keeps it from everyone, because it’s not important enough in the face of everything they’re dealing with. His own non-existence isn’t important enough to him to mention. He’s going to rescue her; he’s going to die succeeding or die trying. And both are noble.
I would argue that Tidus is one of the strongest Final Fantasy heroes there are. He’s essentially a kid, thrown into a place he doesn’t know with people he’s never met, and he becomes a hero. He sacrifices himself so the girl he loves doesn’t have to die. He won’t let the suffering of so many thousands of people continue, knowing he can stop it. He just won’t do it. And there was never any other option for him. He never considered anything else. He knew what he needed to do, and it never occurred to him to even try a different way.
I can’t believe that there are people, even a majority, who think Tidus is just a whiny brat who is self-absorbed and does nothing but complain. He is literally anything but. He grows the most in his journey and he becomes a hero along the way, without even trying. And that is why I’ll love playing as Tidus, through his eyes, more than I will ever love any other game.
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