Lack of Summoners...

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Serah

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Well, I was originally going to post this in the FFX-2 section, but then I thought, well the game doesn't get as much hype as X does. In fact, it's always thrown down and slagged off. So I feared my thread might not be seen.

Anyway, to get to the point of what I was originally going to post, I just played FFX and beat it about a week ago. I am now currently replaying FFX-2. Some thoughts just crossed my mind. During FFX, people who died in Spira needed to be sent or they'd become fiends. If the summoner did not send them to the Farplane, their souls would never find peace, right? Re-playing X-2, stuff got me thinking...

Now that Spira is without the art of the summoners, people who die in Spira, whether killed by fiends, out of control machina or even murder (because not everybody in Spira has a pure heart...), how on earth are their souls sent to the Farplane, so they can rest in peace and not become fiends, without the summoner's dance?

Discuss...
 
Well technically summoners aren't gone, they simply cannot summon any more. There are no more fayth to control but they should still have every power over pyreflies that they always have. I'd imagine that while the title of "summoner" probably loses some of its validity, it doesn't necessarily mean that all the tasks and rituals a summoner might perform are suddenly non-existent.

It is interesting that you really don't see anyone being sent in Final Fantasy X-2. It's not a subject Square-Enix discusses or brings up but I would imagine it occurs the same as it always has. People either accept death before they go, or someone with the power to control pyreflies helps direct the spirits to the Farplane.

On a sidenote, I could see more people becoming "summoners" now that the job does not have the extreme consequences the position once held. In FFX-2, if the only real job of the summoner is to heal with white magic and send the dead, more people might consider entering into the position.
 
I wondered that as well really, especially since they didn't show sending in FFX-2. I'd imagine that Summoners could still do that, or it wasn't necessary anymore? Like, perhaps with Sin gone, less people would be dying unclean deaths, and therefore Summoners wouldn't be needed? Or, as Aztec said, perhaps Summoners would still be there, but they'd have less prestige attached to their name and just perform sendings and white magic stuffs.
 
That's an interesting observation.

Well, as said, summoners IMO lost their abilities to summon but not their basic abilities to send off the unsent. Just like how you still can have white magic, black magic and stuff in X-2. With Sin and the fayth gone, summoners ironically lost their abilities to summon cause they have nothing to summon. But other than that, they should still be able to send of the unsent. It's interesting though suddenly Spira in X-2 becomes just slightly more 'pure' and 'cleansed'.
 
How do we know that though? Did Square ever actually specify that summoners lost their abilities to send people? I mean we never see any of that going on in FFX-2. I mean even if these people in Spira were to die more clean deaths, they'd still need to be sent because they resent the living. Also, as I mentioned above, not everybody is going to die a clean death. One person might get accidentally killed by a fiend and hadn't meant to die or wasn't ready to die or accept death. I mean Aztec, yours is certainly a logical explanation, but if that's true, why didn't the creators ever specify it I wonder? I dunno, just thinking out loud I suppose. :P

Also domon, what do you mean about Spira being cleansed and pure? It was by far from that, considering all the secrets hidden under Bevelle by the New Yevonites. Though of course that could be a totally different topic on it's own. xD
 
No, it's a perfectly legit question. And honestly, I don't think it's so much an unclean/clean death that determines whether or not you can pass without a summoner. The only reason Tidus's mom made it to the Farplane without a summoner is because she gave up on life while she was still living it. They used that fact to show why Tidus truly resented his father. So even though I refered to it earlier, people dying in natural ways might not always mean they reach the farplane without being sent. All it really means is they're given the chance to accept their death beforehand, which is not a gift which people who die unexpectedly are given.

There's also another point I'd like to make. I think we're all forgetting one very strong possibility: people aren't being sent. Notice that in the world of FFX-2, while Sin is definitely gone, there are still tons of fiends around. In fact, there are stronger fiends in FFX-2 than there were in the original. If anything this tells us that more people are not being sent. And if you think about it, which person is more likely to get sent... a person who dies in a massive town attack by Sin or a person who dies alone on the road from Djose to the Moonflow? Probably the first person because more attention is given to the situation. So while Sin is not around killing more people, less people could actually be sent post-Sin because people are no longer dying en mass.
 
I personally thought that there were no summoners after FFX. Mostly because the main point of a summoner was to fight sin. No more sin, no more summoners. Yuna doesn't display any 'summoner abilities' in X-2 ..although it's possible the whole hting just traumatized her and stopped her form ever wanting to.:blink:

As for the sending I guess, now that I think of it, that I always considered Sin to be some sort of..block..that prevented the spirits of the dead from reaching the farplane. Like, even when Sin wasn't corporeal there must have been some kind of...Sin energy flloating around (sketchy thought, yeah?) and I kind of thought that was what somehow prevented the spirits from passing on on their own. So I figured that once Sin was destroyed for good, that energy would be gone and there wouldn't need to be a sending anymore.
 
Maybe that's why there's so many fiends on the Mi'hen Highroad place, on the way to the Youth League HQ. When the fog gets dense, more fiends come. Maybe they just hang around there. This time found in FFX-2 they have a series fiend problem, maybe triggered by the whole hole in the temples business or just the fact no-one is getting sent.

Wait, I just said what Aztec said. XD

Yeah I agree with him. :D
 
Hmmm thats actually a really good question. I dont think theres ever been an official answer to that has there?
Uhmm i would assume that summoners are still able to do the dance and send them to the farplane. Without the fayth, yes, they cant summon, but i dont see how that would stop them from sending souls to the farplane.
Only summoners can perform sendings am i right? Or it it a dance that anyone can perform with the right instruction?
 
♥Shiva♥;504613 said:
Also domon, what do you mean about Spira being cleansed and pure? It was by far from that, considering all the secrets hidden under Bevelle by the New Yevonites. Though of course that could be a totally different topic on it's own. xD
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Haha if you noticed I put them under quotation marks. So to say, Spira isn't really as 'cleansed' and 'pure' as it seems on the surface. We all know about the Yevon's new underground machina, and that plus all the tussles within the 3 main dominant parties. All those just didn't seem as imminent a threat as Sin back during the old Spira. So yea that was what I meant.

And just to keep my post in topic, although Spira in X-2 just didn't have as many unsent for summoners to send them to the Farplane, I believe their abilities don't just disappear like that. IMO it has been learnt and acquired so its forever with the summoners, just a markedly lack of opportunities to use them in the Post-Sin Spira.
 
I had one question I wanted to add to this thread, even if it is a tad off-topic. When you kill fiends does it send them to the farplane or simply disperse them to reform later?

I was wondering this last night after admiring the pyreflies flying away after critical hitting a Great Marlboro. Because those pyreflies being knocked out of him aren't really him going to the farplane, it's just you knocking him around and breaking him up. If those pyreflies were never directed to the farplane, he could just reform later (or become of something larger)
 
If those pyreflies were never directed to the farplane, he could just reform later (or become of something larger)
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Well that would just majorly suck. "Yeah, congrats on killing that thing...you realize it just turned into something a million times stronger yeah? Well..have fun"

I always assumed they went to the farplane or just kind of...floated around harmlessy? Maybe that's why the Moonflow is so pretty.
 
Pyreflies do a lot of different things asides from reforming memories or being manipulated by the fayth. With a fiend, since it doesn't really have a soul, I assume they gather around the Moonflow or a place where lots of pyreflies gather and just stay there, or they just disperse and don't come back. I mean everytime you kill a fiend you don't just see the pyreflies floating around and staying there where they just died now do you? If that were the case, Spira would be covered in those bloody things! :lol:

But yeah, I'm going to say they'll either gather somewhere were lots of them reside or they just disappear and move on. Really it's souls of the departed that's sent to the Farplane, not fiends as I don't believe they have souls considering they attack mercilessly and without second thought. That's why people who die and are unsent become fiends. They lose their soul, no longer human, all that jazz. I don't think you can really send something to the Farplane that's not there.
 
"People become fiends when their attachment to the world was so great that their jealousy of the living turns into hatred", or something to that effect, is what Lulu tells us in Kilika.

I've pondered this question myself, during play, and I came to the conclusion that people would only cling to the world when their lives were stripped from them (i.e. murdered by Sin); why would they cling to life when they die of natural causes, for example?

With Sin gone, a smaller number of people were dying in such a way that they would feel as though life was stolen from them and, so, there were fewer people becoming jealous of the living and fewer people becoming fiends. As such, there would be less of a need for Summoners to perform the sending for masses of souls.

In short, I think that less murders = less attachment to life = less fiends = less need for Summoners.

The odd fiend wandering into a town because one person didn't deal with death very well was probably more managable than, say, how many fiends would have come out of Operation: Mi'ihen.
 
Pyreflies do a lot of different things asides from reforming memories or being manipulated by the fayth
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Oh yeah, pyreflies aren't necesarrily souls. They are basically...the life force of that world. There was actually an interview where it was said tht pyreflies and the lifestream in FFVII were made of the same stuff. So...think less of them as souls and more this kind of energy that has like...a thousand different forms and uses..
 
...I never referred to the pyreflies as souls. I said that humans who have died and are no longer human lose their souls. Not once did I reference pyreflies as souls. And yes, they are because FFX and FFVII are connected. It's been stated before by the creators themselves.
 
I didn't mean to say that you reffered to them as souls:wacko: I was just agreeing with you saying that they do a lot of different things...and therefore don't necesarrily all have to be sent to the farplane....because if you think of the sending the pyreflies in that particular scene do seem to represent souls in a way...so I was just stating that they are not necesarrily souls in general...if that makes any sense...
 
Ifrit said:
"People become fiends when their attachment to the world was so great that their jealousy of the living turns into hatred", or something to that effect, is what Lulu tells us in Kilika.

I've pondered this question myself, during play, and I came to the conclusion that people would only cling to the world when their lives were stripped from them (i.e. murdered by Sin); why would they cling to life when they die of natural causes, for example?
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lol That's wrong, btw. You're confusing two different thing. You learn in Guadosalam that when people die unclean deaths or they have some great attachment to this world they can remain in their previous form as unsents. However, unsents are not the same thing as fiends. Fiends, as Lulu tells us in Kilika, are simply people who die any old way and are never sent. They resent the living and that hatred turns them into monsters.
 
Aztec Triogal said:
lol That's wrong, btw. You're confusing two different thing. You learn in Guadosalam that when people die unclean deaths or they have some great attachment to this world they can remain in their previous form as unsents. However, unsents are not the same thing as fiends. Fiends, as Lulu tells us in Kilika, are simply people who die any old way and are never sent. They resent the living and that hatred turns them into monsters.
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I'm not confusing them, I was trying to tie them together into an explanation for this topic. <.<

There's nothing to say that tying those two ideas together is absurd.
 
Sylvanius said:
As for the sending I guess, now that I think of it, that I always considered Sin to be some sort of..block..that prevented the spirits of the dead from reaching the farplane. Like, even when Sin wasn't corporeal there must have been some kind of...Sin energy flloating around (sketchy thought, yeah?) and I kind of thought that was what somehow prevented the spirits from passing on on their own. So I figured that once Sin was destroyed for good, that energy would be gone and there wouldn't need to be a sending anymore.
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I found Sylvanius' reasoning agreeable. Before the whole Sin thing 1,000+ years prior to the game, how were they sent? I knew that towards the creation of Sin 1,000 years ago that Yunalesca was a summoner. But were there summoners before then who sent the dead or was the whole Sending thing another one of Yevon's creations? That's one thing I want to know. ^_^
 
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