What do you HATE or LIKE about Final Fantasy Series?

[Tai_MT]

@Touchfuzzy

They cared about her plenty.  She was actually treated very well simply for being the daughter of the last Summoner who brought the calm.  Then, you had all the people who met her and treated her very well as a human being (and not even as an idol!  Not even as a savior!  I'm not even talking about the people who randomly give you items because you're a Summoner).  Seymore was wildly more popular than Yuna was in the land of Spira and there were even some who "had doubts about her ability", but still treated her almost like an angel come to earth.

I'm not sure you could call that "not giving two ****s about her, except in what she could do for them", especially considering a vast many characters liked her long before she ever embarked upon being a Summoner (or was I the only one who talked to NPCs in Besaid?  Or NPCs in other places she had been before then?).  I guess that's one interpretation of the game world, and it's probably an equally valid one.  It's just not my experience with the game.  I got the distinct impression for much of the game that the NPCs didn't give two donkey farts about who stopped Sin, so long as someone did it.  As in, nobody really cared enough about the way to stop Sin because there were plenty of Summoners in the world embarked upon the path, who were not named "Yuna".  In Spira, it seemed like no "Summoner to be" was really treated like royalty or really well because there was the chance they could fail along the path.  They only became revered and cared about after they'd sacrificed themselves to beat Sin and bring The Calm.  Otherwise, NPCs were just like, "oh?  You're a summoner? that's cool, here, take a tonic and get out of my face, I got more important stuff to do".  That's the impression I got, anyway.  Maybe your experience was different?

@hian

I tried to wade through your text, but I just kept running up against ad hominem attacks and insinuations about my lack of intelligence because I didn't understand the sublime glory that is "Yuna" as a character.  I am reading a serious amount of bias in your reply towards "Yuna is the best ever and is in no way a Mary Sue!".

Okay, let me be a bit blunt here.  I replied to your initial reply to me about only the stuff I found interesting in the 22 minutes I had in the morning to write a reply.  It was the most relevant and interesting thing I found in the whole reply and figured I could knock out a decent reply in 20 or so odd minutes.  The rest of my post, had I had the time to reply to, would've just been me explaining to you how you actually missed every single point I was trying to make in the same way you spelled out in detail every single point I failed to understand of your own.  Your new post isn't really shaping up to be any different than that.  More, "You don't understand what I was saying and now you're pedestrian for not getting it!".

So, let me be brief with you.  Literature is often open to interpretation.  So is storyline.  In fact, if you knew anything about "Mary Sue", you would know that there isn't a single definition of it and very few people agree upon its exact definition.  My definition of Mary Sue is "the character is little more than a plot device with no personality".  Needless to say, not many characters I run across fall into that definition.  The fact that you got something entirely different out of Yuna than I did merely highlights that like anything "artsie fartsie", that it's open to interpretation.  I am not knocking your interpretation of Yuna.  By all means, if that's what you see in her, you're welcome to it.  I see her, and a vast many Healer classes (not just in Final Fantasy, either) to be fairly boring and bland characters with little defining character traits beyond "I'm the goodest person evar because nobody even slightly bad as a human being could wield white holy magic!".  It's a trope that I'm railing against.  I don't care for it, and I'd like it to stop.  I would like well-rounded personalities for my "White Mage" classes because I want them to be more interesting than their station as the token love interest to the protagonist or the party healer in combat.  I would prefer if they defied convention a little.  As for Yuna being unique because she's also a "Summoner"...  I guess that's true.  It's just, her summons are so powerful that it's really not important 'cause you'll only ever use 'em against bosses since it's a waste of time and resources to summon them anywhere else.  Plus, in all honesty, with the Sphere Grid...  She's not really a "healer" anyway.  She's a Summoner who starts with Healing skills.  Get far enough in the game and everyone can be a healer, with the stats to match.  So, my own argument about her being a "bland healer" falls flat on its face right there.

In any case, interpret Yuna as however you like.  I'll continue to interpret Tidus how I like (mainly that he's not an annoying adorable person and actually is a very interesting literary device that people often misunderstand because of your aforementioned "personal bias" complaints).

But, I'll let you in on a little secret.  Even though I think Yuna is the most Mary Sue character I've ever encountered (aside from the main character in the "My Immortal" fanfiction), I still like her as a character.  That's right, I don't actually hate her.  I have criticisms about the way she's written and the way she fits into the plot.  But, I don't actually hate her as a character.  I find her charming, a bit cute, and at times a mature character.  I found her personal arc to be one of the more interesting among the cast in FFX.  It's just too bad that the writers of the game didn't feel she deserved much more time to be more well-rounded as a character and less "Mary Sue" like.

Also, let's be gravely honest here.  If you have one or two people saying she's a Mary Sue, then that's just those people.  But, if you have enough that someone has to blog about the complaint because it's so common...  Then it's the fault of the writing staff behind her character.  Someone at that point did not do their job.  I find Tidus to be a great character.  Lots of people hate him.  Obviously, he was written really terribly if all those people think he's a whiny adorable person who is good for little other than being an immature brat.  Clearly, if you have a lot of people thinking Yuna is a Mary Sue...  You have some issues with her as a character and the way she's written.  Good writers try not to leave that up to chance.

Now, if you'd like to argue all those individual points and toss insults back and forth at each other all day long, I am more than happy to respond in PM.  I just don't think this topic is really the place for getting tempers flared over something so meaningless.  If it helps, I can even admit that I didn't quite understand what you meant the first time by "background noise".  "Background noise" to me in terms of characters is anyone who isn't in your party and the main focus of your team and gameplay.  Anyone not used is what I consider 'background noise' and that's why you thought I didn't understand what you were saying.  I didn't understand what you meant.  Because you and I have different definitions of "background noise characters".  I deem them as "anyone a person is not inclined to use as a character for any kind of reason".  You mean it in a way that talks about how AI works.  It was a little confusing.  Sorry.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

Mary Sue is almost useless as a term, because people just toss it at any character they don't like with the vaguest amount of power who doesn't suffer from crippling character flaws.

And let me restate: People liked Yuna because of her Father, and what she herself could do. The people of Besaid, admittedly, are different, but they are also the people of her home town. Of course they are going to know her a bit better. Most people in the world only knew OF her, they didn't know her at all. They liked the IDEA of her.

I exaggerate of course when I say that no one gives two ****s about her, but its not that far off the mark. You don't see an entire society of people who care about someone sending them on suicide missions. And there is reason for them to treat her this way though: This person could bring about another Calm, and her father brought the last one.

And to be honest, she was a flawed character. She let people dictate her actions constantly. She had very little control, she occasionally SAYS she has control, but everything is about tradition and what the people expect of her. She is really a weak protagonist, she NEEDS the rest of the party, and Tidus in particular, in X to even get her through everything, because she honestly doesn't have the force of will to do it alone.

 

[Tai_MT]

I try not to toss around "Mary Sue" that often because I often find it just doesn't apply to characters.  Most characters are at least developed enough to not be a "Mary Sue", though some get fairly close.  More often that not, I just throw the term "undeveloped character" at the problem as it covers a wide range of problems.  I just consider Yuna a Mary Sue because her problems really aren't problems much of the time.  They don't really cause any kind of strife in the storyline or among the people who know her.  It's like the whole "Bella Swan" thing from Twilight.  She's clumsy as her trait, but it doesn't really do anything in the story, never really comes up, never really causes many issues (or if it does, they're resolved rather quickly).  A lot of her other flaws then play into "reasons why Edward loves me" storyline, so they cease to be flaws either.  The flaws are essentially non-issues.  That's one of the major reasons I consider her a Mary Sue.  But, that's just me.  Others have defined the term much differently.

Yeah, people liked Yuna because of her father, and they treated her like sunshine and rainbows.  But, it wasn't necessarily because she was a Summoner.  She was universally loved and adored because at that point in time, she was basically what equated to "royalty".  She'd have received the same kind of adoration and following had she not been a Summoner.  But, even after people came into contact with her and got to know her, she was still pretty much adored.  There was only that one other lady in the entire world that didn't like Yuna and she was simply jealous of Yuna's rockstar status in the world.  I would think there would be more people in the world like that (or at least more Summoners like that), or even some people in the world irritated/angry with her constant naïve nature and ability to get kidnapped so often.

I will agree that she was very demure and weak-willed, but it kind of falls back into that issue of "it's a non-issue".  She's got a large group of friends that doesn't even so much as get slightly annoyed by her weak will.  Everyone just says, "ah, don't worry about it, we'll keep bailing you out and making your decisions for you".  You could say because of this character flaw that she's not a Mary Sue, definitely.  I just can't bring myself to do it when nobody in her group even has the sense to yell at her once in a while for being such a weak-willed person who is just so willing to go along with anything she's told to do.  Heck, even when it's revealed that Summoners die during the final summoning... Tidus doesn't get angry at her for not telling him.  He gets angry at everyone else for not telling him.  He conveniently excludes her in his anger.  My problem with it is that there just aren't any real kind of repercussions for it.  But, that's just my take on it.  I think it would've been really nice if we'd got to see her confront that part of her nature more and have some of the characters yell "BS!" at her a few times for it.  Maybe even if we'd gotten to learn if she was in any way scarred or screwed up as a human being because she'd basically been setting up her entire life with the intent of committing suicide to bring about a 10 year Calm, and then because Tidus says he won't let that happen, she throws it away.  That, to me, might've been interesting to explore for her character.  Would her life have any kind of meaning at that point?  Something to ponder.

 

[Tuxedo Leila]

Lulu and Wakka (I think Kimahri as well) did try to stop Yuna when she told them she wanted to be a summoner. But when they realized she wouldn't budge, they began to support her with all that they could by being her guardians.

As for her getting kidnapped often, we should think of the circumstances at the time.

1) Luca - People from all over Spira gathered for this one opportunity to forget their sorrow and Sin. She was kidnapped by the Al Bhed Psyches (I think) who wanted to use her as leverage for the Besaid team to give up. It was Wakka's last match and if the people found out that the daughter of the high summoner was caught, there would be havoc.

2) Moonflow - Al Bhed again; this time they actually wanted Yuna to give up her pilgramage after the disaster of the Djose Rock Operation. Yuna was put into a summoner container thingy underwater so she wouldn't escape.

3) Home - They were being assaulted by the Guado, taking Yuna away to Bevelle to marry Seymour. Yuna might've thought that if she goes with them, they'll stop killing the Al Bhed.

Even the other summoners in the game were captured as well at one point. What matters is that Yuna had trust in her guardians to rescue her and they did. It's Yuna's duty to do the final summoning, and her guardians' task to protect her until then.