Yuna

General

Yuna is a playable character in Final Fantasy X, and the main protagonist of Final Fantasy X-2. In Final Fantasy X, Yuna becomes a summoner like her father before her, and embarks on a pilgrimage to expel Sin, a monstrous creature that terrorizes the world of Spira. She meets Tidus who teaches her there is more to life than sacrifice. In Final Fantasy X-2, Yuna is a sphere hunter on a personal quest to uncover the mystery behind a movie sphere, and becomes involved in rising political tensions and an ancient force that threaten to end Spira's Eternal Calm. Yuna in Final Fantasy X is the only character who can summon aeons into battle, with her Overdrive allowing her to summon an aeon with their Overdrive already full. Her Sphere Grid path grants her curative and defensive Wht Magic abilities, and she equips rods and rings. Her Celestial Weapon, Nirvana, gives all her spells one MP cost. In Final Fantasy X-2, Yuna's default dressphere is a Gunner, and her special dressphere is the Floral Fallal.

Appearance Part 1

In Final Fantasy X, Yuna wears an ensemble similar to, but widely varied from, those worn by Yevonites: a purple pleated, flower-patterned hakama; black boots; a black spaghetti-string camisole under a white sash that wraps around her neck and over her chest; and a yellow patterned obi with a chōchō musubi knot and a decorative obidome to clinch the cords. Two separate, kimono-like pink and white sleeves secured by purple cords complete the outfit. The design of her staff is based on the Khakkhara, a staff used by practitioners of Buddhism. Yuna has shoulder-length brunette hair. She wears a blue-beaded earring on her right ear, hidden by a lock of her hair, woven into blue beads with gold rings around the larger, middle bead. She wears a silver necklace of a hibiscus flower along with a matching ring on the pinky of her right hand. She also wears a silver ring on the middle finger of her left hand and two bracelets, one beaded and one silver, on her right wrist. Yuna has heterochromia: her left eye is blue, while the right is green to represent her half-Al Bhed heritage, though without the characteristic spiral. In Final Fantasy X-2, two years later, Yuna has transformed with a new revealing dress style and a more adventurous personality. Yuna retains her beaded earring and silver hibiscus necklace, but her hair is cropped shorter, resembling Tidus's hairstyle, with a red braid hanging down to her ankles. Yuna's attire changes for each dressphere, with details that distinguish her from Rikku and Paine. Yuna's default appearance is the Gunner dressphere, an outfit given to her by Rikku in Final Fantasy X: Eternal Calm. She dons a modified halter-neck top with the symbol of the Zanarkand Abes across the chest and a pink hood. She wears yellow armbands over her biceps, a black bracelet on her left wrist, and denim bootyshorts. She carries a pouch on her left hip over an ankle-length blue and white half skirt and wears laced knee-high boots.

Appearance Part 2

Wearing the Gunner dressphere in combat, she wields her signature Tiny Bee pistols. In the other dresspheres, Yuna wields her original summoning staves, the Nirvana, Tidus's Brotherhood and Caladbolg swords, a blue variant of Rikku's dagger blades, and Auron's Blurry Moon katana. Her deck theme for the Lady Luck dressphere is spades and her Mascot dressphere is a moogle. Her special dressphere is Floral Fallal whose appearance is designed after the hibiscus flower; yuna is the Japanese name of the Sea Hibiscus, the flower on her obi and her skirt in Final Fantasy X. In a bonus cutscene where the girls spend time in a hot spring in Mt. Gagazet, Yuna wears a pink and cream halter bikini swimsuit.

Personality

Yuna is a kind, loyal, honest, polite and passionate humanitarian who strives to see the best in others and has a strong conviction to complete whatever task she feels is her duty. She is naive, always believing in the best of people, and places the needs of others above her own, becoming apologetic when she feels she has let someone down. Like most summoners, Yuna is a devout follower of Yevon's teachings. She hides her feelings of fear and sadness while encouraging her friends to express themselves in her place. She is willing to carry others' burdens and sacrifice everything she has to destroy Sin, giving up chances for her own happiness if it means helping others. Her interactions with Tidus make her question Yevon's teachings, and she becomes more direct and open. When her faith in Yevon is shaken, Yuna must find her own path in life and pursue her goals without the backing of faith. In Final Fantasy X-2, Yuna has a new lease on life. Though still unflinchingly polite, soft-spoken, and driven, she is now athletic, cosmopolitan, outspoken, and playful. Yuna has not only learned to think and desire for herself, but has developed a go-getter attitude, willing to jump headfirst into danger. She considers resolving issues through creative thinking, only considering violence as a last resort. From her time as a summoner, Yuna is determined to never again let anyone use her as a means to an end. During her time with the Gullwings, Rikku serves as a role model for Yuna, as she mimics some of Rikku's eccentric behaviors and uses some of her expressions, though others reprehend her for this. Yuna has gotten in touch with her Al Bhed heritage by learning the language. Though Yuna's friends tease her for always getting dragged into trouble and being a pushover as she's unable to refuse a call for help, she can be stern and intimidating if angered. Yuna has developed a distaste for sacrifice in the name of victory and peace, a trait Tidus instilled in her.

Abilities

Yuna is a talented summoner despite her youth, besting her more experienced peers in aeon duels (albeit at times with her guardians' aid). She can even summon during a free fall. She performs the sending ritual to send the souls of the deceased to the Farplane, which involves her dancing and at one point, walking on a water's surface. She is adept at white magic, providing healing and support. In Final Fantasy X-2, Yuna has learned how to use dresspheres to imbue herself with new skills and can play blitzball and hold her breath for extended periods of time. She has also learned to speak Al Bhed. It is never specified if Yuna has natural singing talent, as she always sings while wearing the Songstress dressphere, implying that she could have obtained it from Lenne.

Story Part 1

Yuna was born in Bevelle to a Yevonite father, Braska, and an unnamed Al Bhed mother. Yuna was four years old when her mother died in an attack from Sin during her journey to the Al Bhed Home to repair her relationship with her brother, Cid. Her death established Braska's resolve to become a summoner and defeat Sin. A seven-year-old Yuna was left in Bevelle when Braska and his two guardians, Auron and Jecht, left to pilgrimage to Zanarkand. Braska obtained the Final Aeon and defeated Sin, perishing along with Jecht. Braska had requested Auron to bring Yuna to Besaid following Sin's defeat to ensure she'd live a peaceful life, but Auron was mortally wounded when he confronted Yunalesca, and only made it as far as the outskirts of Bevelle before passing on the request to Kimahri Ronso. Back in Bevelle, Yuna heard her father had defeated Sin and met Kimahri who took her to Besaid Village, placed her in the local temple's care, and stayed with her at her request. Yuna grew up with Wakka, Lulu, and Wakka's brother Chappu. Braska's Calm lasted less than a year, and Yuna decided to follow in his footsteps and become a summoner despite her friends' objections. At 15 years of age, she became an apprentice summoner with Kimahri as her guardian. After Summoner Zuke quit his pilgrimage in the Calm Lands, his guardians, Lulu and Wakka, returned to Besaid and became guardians to Yuna. Now 17 years old, Yuna heads into Besaid Temple's Cloister of Trials with Lulu and Kimahri to become a full-fledged summoner. She spends almost a day of prayer to the fayth, and when Wakka and a young man named Tidus arrive to check on her, Yuna emerges and summons her first aeon: Valefor. The villagers celebrate Yuna's achievement and she introduces herself to Tidus. The next morning, Yuna, Wakka, Lulu, Kimahri and Tidus depart Besaid on the ship S.S. Liki for Kilika. En route, Yuna figures through Tidus's mention of Jecht being his father that he must hail from Zanarkand as he claims.

Story Part 2

Sin attacks the boat and destroys most of Kilika Port. Yuna sends the souls of the deceased to the Farplane, the plane of afterlife on Spira, so they would not transform into fiends. After obtaining Kilika Temple's aeon, Ifrit, and meeting a rival summoner named Dona, the group travels to Luca for the Besaid Aurochs' blitzball tournament for which Wakka and Tidus are to take part. When the party splits, Yuna, Tidus, and Kimahri search the city after hearing rumors of Auron being around. When Yuna worries about being separated, Tidus suggests using a whistle signal to find each other. The Al Bhed Psyches kidnap Yuna to force the Aurochs to lose their blitzball game. Her guardians and Tidus save her before the Aurochs are about to play against the Luca Goers. Hearing an Al Bhed ship saved Tidus when he arrived in Spira, Yuna asks if Cid was there, but Tidus answers no. Yuna reveals to him her half-Al Bhed heritage, and how her mother told her to seek out Cid if she ever needed help. Fiends attack the blitzball stadium and Auron appears to help dispatch them. The newest maester of Yevon, Seymour Guado, summons his aeon, Anima, to destroy the fiends and awe the spectators with its power. Auron and Tidus join Yuna's party as guardians and Yuna shows Tidus she has learned how to whistle as he had taught her. She explains she fakes cheeriness to hide her sadness and tries to help him do it too. While crossing the Mi'ihen Highroad, the party stops at Rin's Travel Agency to spend the night, and Yuna takes the time to make a sphere recording to her guardians containing her final farewells, which she intends to give to them before she will perform the Final Summoning. Unaware of what she is doing, Tidus joins her, and the two watch the sunset together, Tidus describing his Zanarkand to her as a metropolis out at sea that never sleeps. The party arrives at the Djose shore to witness the untimely Operation Mi'ihen.

Story Part 3

The group runs into Kinoc, who is one of the four maesters of Yevon. Operation Mi'ihen ends in disaster due to Sin overpowering the Crimson Squad and their machina, which leaves Yuna to perform another sending. Seymour, who was there to supervise the operation, as well as aid in battle, asks to be Yuna's "pillar of strength". When the party arrives at Djose Temple they meet another fellow summoner, Isaaru, who warns Yuna to be careful as summoners on their pilgrimage are disappearing. After receiving the aeon Ixion, the group spends the night at the local inn. Yuna oversleeps and rushes after the others who make fun of her messy hair. They set off for the Moonflow, and while crossing the banks via shoopuf, the Al Bhed kidnap Yuna with the Extractor, but Tidus and Wakka save her. After arriving at the other side of the river, Tidus learns it was Yuna's Al Bhed cousin Rikku who piloted the Extractor. After talking with Rikku in private, Yuna makes Rikku her final guardian, and the assembled party heads for Guadosalam, the town of the Guado. Seymour welcomes them to his manor and shows Yuna and her guardians a sphere with images of the ancient Zanarkand, Yunalesca—the first summoner to have defeated Sin—and her husband, Zaon. Seymour proposes to Yuna, for the union would bring hope to Spira. To help make her decision, Yuna visits the spirits of her parents in the Farplane, but when they leave the spirit of Seymour's deceased father, Jyscal Guado, drops a sphere as Yuna sends him. The party passes through the Thunder Plains as Seymour has already departed to Macalania Temple. When they rest at a travel agency, Yuna learns from Jyscal's sphere that Seymour murdered him, but she does not reveal its contents to anyone. Near the end of their crossing of the Thunder Plains, Yuna announces she will marry, but will continue her pilgrimage. When the party reaches Lake Macalania, the Al Bhed make another attempt to kidnap Yuna, but she and her guardians fight them off.

Story Part 4

Since Yuna is escorted to Macalania Temple ahead of her guardians, she has already received Macalania's aeon, Shiva, by the time her guardians learn the truth about Seymour. Yuna and her guardians confront Seymour over his crimes and the situation escalates when he attacks them and they are forced to kill him. Before Yuna can send him, the Guado force the party to flee the temple and they end up trapped underneath the ice of the frozen lake. Yuna explains she intended to wed Seymour in exchange for him to turn himself in for his crimes. Sin whisks the party away to Bikanel Island. While the guardians reunite in the desert Yuna is nowhere to be found, for the Al Bhed already found her and took her to the Summoners' Sanctum in Home. The Guado attack the settlement and kidnap her to Bevelle to marry the now-unsent Seymour. Rikku reveals to Tidus the Final Summoning needed to defeat Sin not only kills Sin but the summoner as well, meaning Yuna will die if she goes through with her pilgrimage. With help from the Al Bhed, Tidus and the other guardians travel to the Palace of St. Bevelle and crash Yuna and Seymour's wedding on Cid's new airship, the Fahrenheit. While her guardians are held at gunpoint, Yuna complies with Grand Maester Mika's ultimatum and her guardians are forced to watch the ceremony be completed. When Seymour orders her guardians killed, Yuna lets herself fall off the temple rooftop and summons Valefor in midair, who flies her to Bevelle Temple. The guardians escape to the temple where they break into the Chamber of the Fayth. Yuna receives Bahamut, but the party is arrested once Tidus carries her out of the chamber. The maesters of Yevon put Yuna and her guardians on trial for treason, where it is revealed Mika is an unsent. They are branded traitors of Yevon for killing Seymour and imprisoned in the Via Purifico. Yuna, Lulu, Kimahri, and Auron escape the underground dungeon after Yuna bests Isaaru in an aeon duel.

Story Part 5

When the party reunites on the Highbridge, they encounter a slain Kinoc, defeat Seymour's fiendish form, and escape to the Macalania Woods. Her faith in Yevon shaken, Yuna goes off to the spring to be alone with Kimahri keeping watch. Tidus goes after her, and, having discovered the truth behind the Final Summoning, apologizes for his eagerness to defeat Sin and talking how they would visit his Zanarkand, believing he had only depressed her, but Yuna assures he had made her happy. Tidus wants her to quit the pilgrimage and stay with him, and while Yuna considers it, her sense of duty to the rest of Spira is too great. Tidus comforts her and they share a kiss in the spring. She resolves to go on, with Tidus promising he will always remain by her side. Despite being branded traitors of Yevon, the party continues through the Calm Lands toward Zanarkand. At Mt. Gagazet Yuna explains her resolve to save Spira to the Ronso and Maester Kelk lets them pass. While traversing the mountain, they find a movie sphere left by Braska on the slopes in which he lets Yuna know whatever path she chose for her life, whether it be to duty or herself, he would be proud. Seymour Flux attacks them but they defeat him, Yuna reeling from a revelation concerning her goal: Sin is Jecht. Ascending Gagazet, the party finds a mass of fayth performing a summoning. Bahamut's fayth reveals to Tidus "his Zanarkand" is a dream of the fayth, and that Tidus himself is a dream as well. He conceals this from the others. After defeating Sanctuary Keeper at the summit, with the ruins of Zanarkand in view, Rikku despairs about Yuna's impending fate. Yuna thanks her for all she has done and comforts her. Yuna unknowingly drops a sphere and Tidus views it. Having been recorded at the Mi'ihen Highroad, it contains Yuna's reflections and farewells for her guardians at the time, subtly revealing she had already fallen in love with Tidus.

Story Part 6

Within the Zanarkand ruins, the party witnesses images of past summoners and guardians. They meet Yunalesca, the unsent summoner who would transform one of Yuna's guardians into the fayth for the Final Aeon to defeat Sin, as Braska did ten years ago with Jecht. Refusing to sacrifice any of her friends, and knowing that the Final Aeon will in time become the new Sin, Yuna declares the Final Summoning is a false tradition to continue Spira's cycle of death. Resolving to save Spira without the falsity of Yevon's teachings, the party fells Yunalesca, ending the tradition of the Final Summoning. Cid picks them up on his airship and Yuna meets her uncle for the first time. The party returns to Bevelle where they learn of Sin's cyclical existence from Maester Mika. Bahamut's fayth approaches Tidus and Yuna, who learn the means to approach Sin is the "Hymn of the Fayth", and the key to defeating Sin is its core: Yu Yevon, an ancient summoner who exists only to summon Dream Zanarkand. Yu Yevon was Yunalesca's father and the progenitor of the Yevon faith. To ensure the summoning is never halted, and that the mainlanders never find the city of dreams, Yu Yevon clads himself in an armor known as Sin. With the airship, the party launches a head-on attack on Sin that allows them to travel inside it. The party encounters and defeats Seymour for good in his final form, and Yuna finally sends him. At Dream's End they find Jecht who transforms into Braska's Final Aeon. They defeat him and all of Yuna's aeons when Yu Yevon possesses them, and finally Yu Yevon himself. As Yu Yevon's summoning stops, Spira's cycle of death is put to an end. For Yuna, it is a bittersweet victory, for Sin's defeat heralds the disappearance of the aeons and those from Dream Zanarkand—including Tidus. Yuna proclaims her love for him and watches him jump off the airship into the Farplane.

Story Part 7

Back at Luca, Yuna, now high summoner of the Eternal Calm, whistles by the ocean in the hopes Tidus will answer until Lulu sends for her. In the stadium, Yuna addresses the people of Spira the need to stay strong, welcome Spira's long-awaited peace, and rebuild their home. She concludes that the people lost, as well as "the dreams that have faded", should never be forgotten. Two years later, Yuna has led a quiet life back in Besaid, practicing holding her breath for extended periods to play blitzball, her best time being 2 minutes and 41 seconds. Wakka praises her for being able to stay underwater for so long, but Yuna thinks Wakka will always be the pro, though he has gotten a little chubby. At the temple, Yuna sees Wakka talk to a man named Tasgio who is also happy to meet her. Tasgio came to Besaid to talk about his grandson who has joined the Youth League. Yuna contemplates that new groups have formed as everyone wants to be a part of the new age and rebuild Spira. Tasgio only wants what's best for his grandson, but struggles as they disagree a lot. Yuna tells Tasgio that he should talk to his grandson, believing that, though he's on a different path, he wants to rebuild Spira the same way as they all do. At the outskirts of Besaid, Yuna approaches the bridge where Wakka catches up to her, to discuss an arrangement being made between her and the son of New Yevon's chairman. Yuna declines, knowing that he would only use her. A man named Yaibal arrives with a message from Youth League's leader, Nooj. Wakka tells Yaibal that Yuna is not interested in joining them and Yuna says she's not joining any group. Yaibal wonders if Yuna will start a group of her own. Rikku arrives, having been traveling around Spira, salvaging ancient machina and teaching people how to use them. She shows Yuna an ancient sphere Kimahri found on Mt. Gagazet that shows someone bearing an uncanny likeness to Tidus imprisoned in Bevelle, lashing out the guards. This motivates Yuna to journey