Tidus as an Answer to Toxic Masculinity

[rynling]

This morning I came across an interesting and well-argued essay defending Tidus...

http://femhype.com/2015/10/13/tidus-video-games-answer-to-toxic-masculinity/

What bothers me about Tidus, however, is not that he displays emotions, but rather the intense focus that the game places on him. "This is my story," he says at the beginning, but it's not; it's actually Yuna's story. Sure, Tidus is in a difficult situation, and I understand that he's hurt and confused, but so is Yuna. Lulu and Rikku are going through incredible trials of their own; but, like Yuna, we don't get to see their stories from an inside perspective. By placing Tidus and his trauma at the center of the story, the game is mandating that we care about his pain and emotional development more than we care for the female characters. Because the player-protagonist characters of Final Fantasy VII through XII are also male, it's difficult not to view the privileging of Tidus over the female characters as being representative of a broader privileging of the emotions of men over the emotions of women.

Meanwhile, I apparently somehow still care about Final Fantasy X fifteen years after its release.

Comments

[selenicdistance]

Strongly feeling the why-is-Tidus-in-the-metaphorical-driver's-seat.

The story does gain something from following Tidus's perspective -- he's the newcomer, which allows for slowly feeding the player increasingly worrisome details about Spira before delivering that big reveal. It still doesn't quite work for me. I'm more interested in how Yuna feels than I am in how Tidus feels about how Yuna feels, and Yuna doesn't voice how she's feeling for a long fucking time. One can only fill in the blanks to a certain extent.

(Tangentially related: the dating sim-ish aspects were just bizarre.)

Thinking about the other titles in the range you mentioned. VII's unreliable narrator thing works for me, and a lot of VIII is dependent on being so firmly embedded in Squall's headspace. IX, like VI, flits around a lot between perspectives, but Garnet would have made a more fitting player-protagonist.

XII has it worst out of the lot, and I feel like posting irritably about it seven-or-so years after the fact, but my feelings on the matter aren't anything that hasn't already been said a thousand times. (Short version: Ashe, Basch, and Balthier are all at the center of things, and given how the story plays out, Ashe would make the most reasonable player protagonist.)

[rynling]

I apologize that it's taken me so long to respond to this comment, but I've been thinking about it a lot over the past few days. Basically I agree with everything you've written.

Although it's cool to see Spira from the outsider perspective of Tidus, I think FFX could have just as easily been narrated from Yuna's point of view. Tidus is key to her story, but he could have been treated in the same way as Rinoa is treated in FFVIII, namely, as an outsider of magical provenance whose (mostly) positive attitude serves to open and expand the emotional world of the super-serious main character.

Cloud is a fantastic unreliable narrator, and I love him to death and truly appreciate the growth he experiences. I also have an enormous amount of sympathy for Zidane and Vaan as player-characters, as they are able to move freely where the other characters either cannot or don't wish to.

Tidus makes no sense to me, though. I feel like his "unreliability" as a narrator could have been solved if he had simply been more canny and aggressive about asking the right people the right questions – or if he had just picked up a book and read it. It's also difficult for me to imagine Tidus's clueless and free-roaming presence being tolerated in a number of the game's locations, whereas Yuna is welcome anywhere.

I think what I really want from FFX is something along the lines of the way FFVI was handled, with multiple player-protagonists were allowed to direct the narrative. To me, it would make sense to split FFX into at least two limited first-person perspectives. Like, imagine at the beginning of the game, Tidus says "This is my story," and then Yuna says "This is my story," and then together they say "This is our story."

Wouldn't that be perfect?

[selenicdistance]

Tidus is key to her story, but he could have been treated in the same way as Rinoa is treated in FFVIII, namely, as an outsider of magical provenance whose (mostly) positive attitude serves to open and expand the emotional world of the super-serious main character. Oh, this is good. I like it, since Yuna and Squall are in similar boats -- they've been raised into these self-destructive, -sacrificial roles? To a theoretically positive end, sure, but one that they're better able to pursue/accomplish once they're in a healthier mindset, and more willing to think outside the box, which only happens after they've hooked up with their respective catalysts. (Blah, blah.)

or if he had just picked up a book and read it -- but, see, you're forgetting -- he's a jock. (God, now I'm imagining Jecht harassing Smol Child Tidus the first time he finds the kid reading a book from school. "Boring books are for boring nerds! Come out on deck and practice your blitzing, so I have something to laugh at!")

I'm very glad that Terra became the official FFVI mascot, but I loved the diffuse character focus/POV in the game itself. I liked it in IX as well. X would have benefited from it. Even if it was just juggled between Yuna and Tidus, it would still have offered the opportunity for greater focus on the others at different times through party splits.

[rynling]

but, see, you're forgetting -- he's a jock

THIS IS WHAT KILLS ME.

I'm sympathetic to the fact that Tidus has been violently ripped away from the only environment he's ever known, but I have zero empathy for his almost willful lack of critical thinking. I'm guessing that things were a little strange in dream Zanarkand as well, but for some reason Tidus apparently never thought to question it. I imagine Auron trying to hint to Tidus that his world was more (or less) than it seemed and Tidus being like COOL STORY BRO LET'S BLITZ.

And again, if the series as a whole devoted more attention to the trauma of its female characters - Tifa in particular strikes me as a good parallel to Tidus - then I would be more willing for tolerate FFX's insistence that the player humor Tidus's petulance and mood swings.

I just... I hear you. Thanks for responding, and thanks for good points all around.