Being boring is different than out of character, though, and I think it’s understandable for her and Tidus to be kind of wrapped up in each other for the first few months or so after his return. And comments like “it hurts”, to me, don’t mean she’s weak or dependent. She has strong feelings for someone. That’s…a pretty normal reaction to being ~in love~ or even having a crush, lol.
I just feel like it’s unfair to think she’s “declining” in character just because she’s not adventuring anymore. Yes, we saw the adventurous side of Yuna in X-2, but she’s a complex person, like all people. Very few people iive the way they did at 19 for the rest of their lives! :P Most people do tend to get more “boring” with age, or when they find someone they want to settle down with. It may not be the most exciting thing, no, but I feel like it’s unfair to attack it just because it’s not a personal preference, you know? There’s nothing wrong with being domestic… If it’s unrealistic for her character, that’s another thing, but I don’t think it is. She says in X she’d want to settle down and live a peaceful life. And at the end of X-2, I think she really was ready for that. She’d had her share of adventuring and craziness, and it was “time for [her] to go home.” Besides, that doesn’t mean their relationship is all boring! Sure, the way she described it was… okay, pretty boring, hahah, but… considering it’s Tidus, somehow I think there’s more to their life than long walks on the beach, you know? Doesn’t seem like that’s gonna last forever. xD That’s just my personal ”headcanon”, I guess, though. On that note, though, I agree that I don’t think that being basically a housewife would really fulfill Yuna! I think that Last Mission presented it in a way that showed this kind of life was not permanent for her, because as happy as she appeared to be in Besaid, she expressed some sadness and guilt at leaving her friends and the world behind; she doesn’t have it in her to be completely detached. I got the feeling from that that after the “honeymoon period” is over… things will change. But yea, I’m not trying to attack anyone or anything I just… have strong opinions on the matter. xD I guess it all just comes down to opinion… but I just feel like, okay, if that’s your opinion, cool, but a lot people say it’s out of character, and…just… frankly, it’s just… not? You know?? >__> At least I really don’t think so. x/
I will start out with that I’ve been with my boyfriend for four and a half years. Yes, I miss him when we are separated - but I would feel pretty dumb if it physically “hurt” being apart from him for half a day to hang out with my best friends that I hadn’t seen in three months. I mean, really? I don’t think it’s that normal, but that’s just my experiences, I suppose. (Surely it’s unhealthy, though, if she doesn’t want to see her friends because she’d rather be with ~him!!!!!!!!!!~~, and if she’s not with him it hurts, how is that not dependence??)
Yes, it’s perfectly acceptable that she might want to turn to a quiet life and live the rest of her days walking along a beach and cooking. But don’t you see how that is negative turn in her characters development? It’s uninteresting, which is fine, but it still makes her far less of a character I’d want to read/write about. Her story is done. The chapter is over. There’s no more conflict and so what is there to think about? It still made me feel sick to know that that’s all her character has become - and that that is glorified. Not that everything is a message, of course it isn’t, but it really was quite annoying for me. Was that really the life they envisioned for them? Exactly. She was with Tidus. I would expect their life to be a little more too, and that’s just headcanon because Last Mission showed it to be pretty much not that at all. Is three months not already over the honeymoon period? I guess I just don’t know, because they’ll always develop and change and find new things in their lives.
Last Mission didn’t allude to her going back to adventuring at all. The end of it was essentially “we all have our memories at least!!!” it was definitely a closure. Whatever happened to “memories are nice, but that’s all they are” I don’t know.
I don’t mean to attack or anything at all! But it really is just a matter of opinion. I, too, have strong opinions on the matter - but they’re malleable. All the same, people can ship what they wish to ship and enjoy what they wish to enjoy - but Last Mission for me was just empty and generic and forced Yuna to fall back on archetypes that I just do not want to apply to her.
But it’s just the feeling in my gut, and I think it’s because Tidus and Yuna went through development. A lot of development. And I enjoyed seeing their development and even more than that I enjoyed reading about it in fanfictions and drabbles and other RPers opinions etc. I love writing for it. It’s painful and beautiful and desperate and balanced. But to see them painted in such a generic way, it reeks of bad writing and reminds me that at times X-2 can seem like a poorly written fanfiction that is occasionally zapped with genius. I suppose it brings an emotional reaction out of me because I was so emotionally attached, and I guess I feel my emotions were betrayed? But such is life, you know? C:
Nah, you’re not offending me at all! And I hope I’m not offending you either! Even if you were offending me, I wouldn’t care because my excitement to talk about Final Fantasy X and X-2 would overcome it. :p~
But yea… I’ve been in a relationship almost two years and I still feel that way sometimes. >.>;; lol. I don’t know.I could try to explain it but we’re just… on opposite ends of the spectrum here, heh. I just disagree, with, like… everything you said. xD;;; I DON’T MEAN THAT IN A BAD WAY, lol. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that… it would be pointless of me to argue, because like you’ve said, it’s all just a matter of opinion, and the only thing I could reply with is more of my opinion but then IT WOULD BE AN ENDLESS CYCLE. Ehhhh, I guess the fact that my favorite kind of stories are starkly realistic, domestic, family dramas (i.e. THINGS THAT OLD LADIES READ) is probably giving me a huge bias here, lol. For me I don’t feel like their story is done at all. To me, it just cracks open a whole new world, which I’m really excited about to explore. Because I am lame like that. u_u lol.
I think at the core of the debate here is really two issues that look like one. Whether or not you really like Yuna in her housewife dressphere, the way Last Mission portrays her will colour your view one way or the other.
In my opinion, it was a pretty piss-poor way to tell the story of Yuna's domestic life. The way people enjoy stories is as a sequence of guesses. We're constantly trying to work out what will happen next, and that's how we get so engrossed in these imaginary events. If it's too easy to guess, we lose interest and call the story 'predictable'. If we can't guess because nothing follows logically, we get irritated. Hence why people can rarely get behind deus ex machina plot twists.
I'd argue Last Mission kind of pulls the latter on us. I know it's a flash-forward of three months, but regardless, it's a curve ball out of nowhere. If we were all interested in Yuna's character and guessing what she was going to do next, how in God's name were we supposed to work out she was going to be a housewife!?
The problem isn't who she is; she could develop in any of a million directions at any given time, and we'd all enjoy following her story. But the problem is she didn't develop anywhere in Last Mission. We were just straight up told: she's a housewife now. Any and all character analysis of her becomes moot, because she's different now. She's just changed, for literally no reason we can see (though we can speculate).
I think this is at the root of why people differ on this. Sure, there are a ton of issues I have with Yuna's character in Last Mission, and X-2 in general. There are feminist issues, and some people might find it boring regardless, and any number of other complaints. But really the problem is that we didn't get to see the transition.
Thinking about it now actually, that might be where a lot of the animosity towards X-2 comes from in the first place.
