Final Fantasy X/WMG

FFX is an Elseworlds of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Seymour is Shinji. A young boy who is forced to see his mother die to become a weapon against the threat to humanity, then forced to wield that weapon himself. In this world, Shinji snapped and decided everything can just die.
 * Thusly, Anima is Unit 01. There is a very strong resemblance between Anima and 01, especially if you compare when 01 was heavily bandaged. Whats more, Anima's many restraints (chains, hooks and arms strangling itself) are analogous to the armor worn by Eva 01 to inhibit it, and both reveal their true power by seemingly effortlessly bypassing said Restraining Bolt.
 * Agreed, this is EVA, this is Anima. Hopefully your plans for the near future didn't involve sleep...
 * Actually, it would explain a lot about Blitzball if it was actually being played in LCL. The ability to breathe normally, the way solid objects move and pass through it as if it were air...
 * The Bevelle-Zanarkand War 1000 years ago probably represents Second Impact, Sin is the Angels... so then, who's Gendo? And whom do the player characters represent?

Auron is from the Aburame Clan

 * Let's see, both him and Shino wear sunglasses, high collars, and have stoic personalities. His father is an even bigger Expy (depending on who came first). The reason he left the clan was because, like Lee, wasn't able to use Nin or Genjutsu, so he went on to be a swordsman.

Blitzballers are a bit "slow" (mostly Wakka) or even noticeably stupid (mostly the AI, but to an extent the less vocal Besaid Aurochs could be interpreted as this) due to oxygen deprivation.
They hold their breaths for five minutes at a time, two times in a row, while endu strenuous exercise, plus however long they hold their breath in training (wakka even says some blitzball players can sleep underwater, and that can't be healthy). This is the reason for Yuna's character derailment in X-2: brain damage (your mileage may vary as to whether the results were good or not worth it). The Al Bhed Psyches cheat (mouth breather things), since the technology is only banned by religion and not by the sport's rules, and I'm sure that if we got a more in-depth look at the Luca Goers, they'd be total dunces. Truly, Drownball is not that far from Blitzball, if only in the meta-game.

Explanation for Blitzball water breathing
Simple really. Players in Spira all use the breathing devices noted above (if any machina is allowed, letting people breathe is one), the graphics are just too poor to show them in game. The players in Zanarkand however, have the technology to just implant gills or somesuch onto the blitz players.
 * I always assumed something along the lines of "liquid oxygen" or something being what filled the spheres during blitzball games.
 * Do you have any idea how cold oxygen has to be to liquefy? Oxygen, the element, has to be nearly -300Â°F to become a liquid.
 * There are oxygen rich liquids that can actually be 'breathed'. I believe theyre usually used for deep sea diving, to help equalize pressures.
 * Or that Spiran "humans" really are humanoids who have a limited, but not entirely explained, amphibious aspect to their physiology.
 * Nice theory, but it's scientifically confirmed in Truth in Television, that one's lungs will enlarge when spending long times underwater, allowing to hold more air. Maybe it's just all the practice?
 * In the interquel movie "Eternal Calm", set between X and X-2, Yuna is seen training to hold her breath for long periods of time, so it does seem that it's all down to extensive training. In the first game, one of the Aurochs also mentions that it takes a lot of training to become a blitzball player, and says that the very best blitzball players can even sleep underwater...
 * ... which still wouldn't work, if only because cells need oxygen. I vote a combination of slightly-different-physiology and training.
 * I figured that all water in Spira was oxygen-soaked and breathable, but because Humans are still land-based, even trying makes most people panic, gag and try for the surface. "Holding one's breath" is a carryover colloquialism for the psychological training needed to breathe liquid for periods of time without having a panic attack.

Blitzball players have gills

 * Blitzballers are mutants, either by birth or by some kind of eldritch alteration, and possess a set of water-breathing gills. It explains everything, including the bizarre designs of the team uniforms. (They all cover the sides of the ribs.)
 * This also explains why Yuna didn't drown in the kiss scene. Tidus was passing oxygen to her, mouth-to-mouth, like the mermaids in Hook.

There's a very simple reason why nobody ever mentions Tidus's name in FFX-2
He never actually told anybody his name. I mean, you never hear Tidus introduce himself, Auron never brings it up. And Jehct just calls him "kid" and stuff. So in FFX-2 they all just called him "him" because they didn't know what it is.
 * Not quite - Jassu, the Auroch player, apparently knows his name. After the Sending in Kilika, the Aurochs will be working on repairing the damaged homes - approaching the site causes Jassu to say (in text boxes, of course) something along the lines of "Watch your step, Tidus!".
 * Jassu miraculously gained the ability to read minds from the aforementioned oxygen deprivation brain damage.

Al Bhed isn't a foreign language - it's a cipher.
Definitions of "language" and "cipher" and all that jazz aside, the Al Bhed originally spoke the exact same language as the rest of Spira. However, when everyone else started turning against them, they developed a code to protect important information from spies. You know, like real world nations do. And somewhere in the interim between then and the present, speaking entirely in the cipher just became natural - some of them never even bothered learning how to speak the normal language. People long since forgot how the Al Bhed cipher came to be, and started treating it like a normal language.
 * This also explains why the grammatical structures of Al Bhed differ from normal English.

Machina runs off Spiral Power.
The Al Bhed have spiraling pupils, indicating they have massive reserves of Spiral Power. This is why they're so good with machina; it's because they can simply will the machina to work. The reason why Bevelle's machina are so weak is compared to the Al Bhed's is the difference in spiral power.
 * Following from that, Yevon (the organization) is run by the Anti-Spirals, who have managed to successfully subjugate most of humanity and turn them against the descendants of Team Dai-Gurren. Sin is an Anti-Spiral construct created to inspire fear and restrain the Spiral Instinct. Notice that the plot begins with the appearance of the Hot-Blooded Memetic Badass Jecht, who is clearly the reincarnation of Kamina, who true to form, really sets things up for his son, Tidus. Which leads to Fridge Brilliance upon realizing that of COURSE Tidus isn't as manly as his dad! a) Kamina is one of the manliest characters in all of fiction to begin with, and b) Kamina/Jecht's manliness was diluted by his wife, but was made up for it with Tidus not inheriting the Leeroy Jenkins trait, which would only have gotten him killed sooner as he isn't quite manly enough to get away with it.

Tidus is an alternate-universe version of Kefka
Check out this video and tell me it isn't eerily fitting.
 * There's one little problem with that: Kefka is freakin' evil!
 * Hence the "Alternate Universe" thing, FFX may just be set in an alt-universe where its kefka is a good guy.

'Aeons' is a reference to H.P. Lovecraft
'That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons, even death may die.' Go on. You know it makes sense.

Penance is what the Yu Yevon boss fight would have been if he hadn't degenerated into a Tiny Space Flea From Nowhere.
Same music, same epic intro scene, similar backdrop (the Penance fight takes place on the airship, while the party lands on the airship after beating Yu Yevon). Also, notice how the whole machine bears a striking resemblance to the Yevon symbols you find all throughout the game? Obviously Square picked up on how the real Yu Yevon fight was anticlimatic and added Penance to make up for it. Imagine if you had fought a (toned-down) version of Penance, either after beating Braska's Final Aeon or after beating the old version of Yu Yevon, and without the aeon's protection? That would be a proper final boss fight.

Penance was Yunalesca's Final Aeon.
Similar reasons as laid out above, just as an alternate theory.
 * Jossed, the superboss in Via Infinito called Paragon is Yunalesca's Final Aeon.

Penance was actually Gandof's Final Aeon.

 * Since it's possible for Final Aeons to survive as Fiends after being killed, like what happened to Paragon, there is absolutely nothing stopping Penance from being Gandof's Final Aeon. Also, The Battle between Sin and Gandof's Final Aeon created the Calm Lands Gorge. That's exactly where Penance first appeared from when he first awoke. Probably a coincidence, but it DOES make sense.

Yu Yevon was an Anti-spiral angent.
Simply put, Yu Yevon basically put a big giant full stop on any human development for at least a thousand years. Also, the Al Bhed have spiral patterns in their eyes. It could be theorised that the Anti Spiral race, like they did to Nia, installed the agency into Yu Yevon which activated when it was clear Zanarkand was screwed. Leading to Sin, leading to the Spiral of Death.

Not all Final Summonings succeed at defeating Sin.
It may just be Gameplay and Story Segregation, but those battles against Sin were way too easy for something that can allegedly only be defeated via the Final Summoning. Surely, if summoners have been known to chicken out, someone would have gotten the idea to try summoning Bahamut against Sin, and if it were as strong as your Bahamut summoning, that plan would have worked. At the very least, you'd have a surviving High Summoner and a vastly weaker Sin. This leads me to believe that the Final Summoning doesn't always work, and instead the Aeon's power is directly linked with the Summoner's power. After all, multiple summoners are continuously making pilgrimages to Zanarkand whenever Sin is active, yet only five previous summoners defeated Sin. Yuna is just a lot stronger than most, and so she was able to defeat Sin without the Final Summoning (I'm neglecting No Summoning runs, because canonically you shouldn't be able to do that, per Bahamut's fayth).
 * Possibly confirmed by my own WMG: Anima (Mommy Dearest) appears to be Seymour's Final Aeon, which he chose to keep on a leash instead of fulfilling his destiny as sacrificial lamb. Making Seymour's mother rather Lucrecia Crescent, and the aeon itself a bit Jenova-ish. But anyway, Anima's power is strong because she's an FA, but she did NOT defeat Sin. Nor could she. Try summoning Anima as Yuna during the final Sin Boss Battles. She's too slow, and Sin would probably munch the airship long before Anima won, unless you'd overleveled her greatly. -- auronlu
 * Isn't it canon that Final Summons are much stronger (for their Summoner) because of the emotional link that affects how the aeon works?
 * Yes, but shouldn't Seymour's Anima have been much more powerful than Yuna's? Seymour's Anima was pretty easy to beat when we fought her. Or perhaps Gameplay and Story Segregation?
 * Fridge Brilliance: Could be that Seymour's Anima was much stronger than Yuna's Anima.... relative to their level. Similar to the bosses in Final Fantasy XIII, Seymour has an extremely low level with absurdly disproportionate stats. He doesn't really seem to get out that much, so it stands to reason that Anima would also be rather low-level. The reason that Yuna's Anima is so much stronger than Seymour's is because Yuna actually does stuff, so her Anima is at a high enough level that the disproportionate stats for Seymour's Anima are pretty much a non-factor. Hypothetically, an Anima summoned by Seymour Omnis would've been about as strong as Yuna's, except that by that point he relies exclusively on going One-Winged Angel.
 * I think it's confirmed - I know out of about 13 summoners in the game, 5 (including Yuna) have defeated Sin. We know Seymour wouldn't finish it, and Lulu's first charge didn't.
 * Lulu's first charge was killed before she got the chance. Yunalesca, Gandof, Braska, and Yuna are the only summoners I know of who've beaten Sin. Belgemine also died, and it's implied that she died fighting Sin.

Gaia was colonized by Spirans at some point.
According to someone over at the general series WMG page, it's been confirmed that Shinra's little bit about using the Farplane for power wasn't just a shout out (although I'd like a link to this Word of God, myself:) FFX and FFVII take place in the same universe, on different planets, and Shinra's an ancestor of the humans on Gaia.

So, some time after FFX-2, Spira invents (or reinvents, depending on if old Zanarkand/Bevelle had gotten that far) space travel. Possibly they start from existing airship technology. They discover another life-bearing planet- Gaia- and a party, including Shinra or possibly his children or grandchildren, heads out to settle it.

The Shinra Company is founded by Shinra/his direct descendants, and eventually they do something with his ideas regarding tapping the afterlife for fuel.

... Does that make Aeons the Spiran equivalent of Materia?
 * Actually, when you get the first Jecht Sphere it is mentioned that spheres ar formed from the weird water there, rather similar to how materia grow from crystal pools. One can assume then that, for instance, a Fire materia is a black mage's memories of using fire magic. Presumably they were created as a quick method to teach magic to people with no aptitude. Over time, people got too reliant on this method and lost the ability to remember the spells themself.

Lulu didn't show signs of being pregnant because she wasn't
Wakka was. However, he'd be passing successfully for so long, so Lulu pretended the baby was hers while Wakka took a break. A very long break.
 * Instead of being transgender he had a seahorse pregnancy which would match up to the idea of Blitz players being able to breathe underwater. Everybody is a fish.

Tidus is pronounced Tie-dus not Tee-dus
Because he keeps washing up on the tides
 * Too bad you have Word of God against that argument.

The Reavers will eventually show up.
X-2 was too soon, but this is now, after all, a world without Sin...

Sendings don't actually send a person's soul to the Farplayne
It's just another false belief, like Yevon's teachings. Rikku was right when she said you go to the Farplayne to see memories rather than people. You see, Pyreflies carry the memories of dead people, as evidenced in Zanarkand and, but only memories. The people of Spira cling to these memories, so the Pyreflies eventually become fiends because the living cannot let go. A sending merely sends these Pyreflies to the Farplayne. When the sending is performed, people truly believe their loved ones souls have been sent to the afterlife, so they accept that and no longer cling to the memories. Their belief that their loved ones have safely entered the afterlife keeps the Pyreflies from becoming fiends. This is also why Tidus' mom was seen at the Farplayne, despite not having been sent. The people of his Zanarkand do not know nor believe in sendings, so when a person dies, the living have already accepted the departure of their loved ones, keeping the Pyreflies from becoming fiends. Tidus saw his mom in the Farplayne because of his memories of her; the person he saw there wasn't his mother, just his memory of her. As for Wakka not having accepted his brother's death, even though Chappu was never sent yet was at the Farplayne, Chappu DID become a fiend; when fiends are destroyed, the Pyreflies of the original person are still there. Destroying the fiend destroys their vessel (the bodies of fiends seem to truly disintegrate when destroyed, unlike the bodies of humans), and the end up at the Farplayne. They end up at the Farplayne because people believed they would only after the fiend was destroyed. What the Pyreflies did all depended on the beliefs of Spira's people. This is also why summoners are no longer necessary in X-2. After Yevon's false teachings were outed, the people of Spira no longer believe that sendings work, so Pyreflies just become fiends anyway due to having no "command", so to speak, to follow. That, or the people of New Yevon still believe in sendings, but lack summoners, so their beliefs keep the Pyreflies transformation into fiends in motion. Or the Farplayne is now out of whack and Pyreflies are unable to go there properly, so they have to linger in Spira, becoming fiends.

The Al Bhed are actually descendants of the people of Zanarkand
Knowing Square, it is no coincidence that the Blitzball team playing against the Zanarkand Abes in the beginning of the game, look suspiciously much like the Al Bhed Phyches, based on their outfits. The people who survived the destruction of Zanarkand simply chose to defy the teachings of Yevon (even more than they already did) and outright started mass-producing machina, but were attacked by Bevelle, and eventually settled in the Bikanel Desert, where they built their Home, and used that as a base of operations.
 * They are probably also descended from the people who rejected Yu Yevon's call to become fayth to summon Dream Zanarkand. Thus, Yevon villified them even further, considering them traitors.

Issaru is gay and Maroda isn't his brother...
They're a couple. That's just a cover the two are using to make things easier for them. We don't know Yevon's view of homosexuality, so it's hard to say if they needed to hide their relationship. Pacce may be Isaaru's biological brother and it's common to view the lovers of siblings in committed relationships as siblings themselves. I'm basing this on the fact that Isaaru and Maroda share no physical similarities to show their biologically related. Of course, what's canon is plausible too as people who look nothing alike are confirmed to be biologically related (Jecht and Tidus). Or Maroda could be adopted.

Part of making the final aeon is that the summoner has to personally, physically carve the fayth themselves.
Yes, that includes Seymour. Even with Yunalesca's help, the summoner must put their effort into carving meaning into every detail of the fayth, which says who the fayth is, who the summoner is, and the defining personal connection, feelings, and attributes that guide the design and power of the final aeon. Part the connection between the summoner and the aeon is strengthened by the summoner having to know beyond words who  is, and be able to express it, and not just the emption behind their connection and the sacrifice. The process is probably guided by the ritual so that the summoner doesn't need to actually have much carving/sculpting skill, in a way similar to how Jedi don't need to know the exact mechanics and formulae of how to find a crystal and make their first lightsaber because the Force guides them, but even when guided by the mystical intuition provided by the ritual (and probably Yunalesca), the summoner still needs to have the feelings and knowledge to guide the ritual.

Bahamut and/or Valefor stayed behind to give Tidus his chance at a happy ending.
When, one must have stayed behind to give Tidus and Yuna their chance. There's no reason for Tidus to, and I like to think that Bahamut felt a favor to a couple of friends was worth adding a few small years to the thousand he had already given. Valefor, on the other hand, has shown what appeared to be genuine care for both Tidus and Yuna.

Tidus was able to stick around because of Yuna, and because of everyone else who loved him and needed him to stay.
I'm not sure how that would work, other than Yuna's  summoner ability acting as the catalyst, but it seems remotely plausible.

The reason Auron's arm is under his coat in a sling sometimes...
Is because that's where ; he's clutching his side in pain because it aches when he moves.

== Part of the reason Kimahri and other human-familiar Ronso use You No Take Candle is that the Ronso language and culture have different cultural meanings for parts of their speech (such as pronouns). == Think of how a Japanese person might retain their ideas of Kotobagari or an English person might be careful telling people to strike something/someone when Trapped in the Past with a group of proto-Germanic speakers. It's plausible that pronouns for the Ronso are always the Royal We, and that to use "me" or "you" would be a sign of arrogance or excessive responsibility-attribution/sarcastic honor, respectively. After leaving out such a basic part of the language as pronouns, it seems much more personable and less stilted to use a simplified version of the Human Spiran language than to carefully excise all pronouns, and possibly makes it easier to speak more of the language without becoming physically sore. Some characters don't count under this, because they're young (and wouldn't be expected to have already learned a second language well), disrespectful (like Kimahri's friend), or because they use Received Pronunciation Spiran for diplomatic purposes (like the Maester Ronso, who also commonly needs to be more clear when speaking to humans than would the typical Ronso).

Yu Yevon will receive more development in the remake.
A common complaint about Final Fantasy X is the lack of depth in Yu Yevon, who, despite being the driving force behind the story and the heart of the spiral of death, is essentially a blank slate. There is much untapped potential in his character, so it's likely that the developers, who are no doubt aware of these criticisms, will attempt to rectify them. This can be accomplished in several ways:

1) It's been confirmed that the developers intended to show portraits of Yu Yevon at some point in the original draft. This could easily be incorporated into the remake. Even better, a flashback to the final days of Zanarkand could be included, allowing us to see just what he was like, his relationship with Yunalesca, and so on. We received a brief flashback about Yunalesca and Zaon, so there's really no excuse not to give one to the primary villain himself.

2) Include more references to Yevon as a godlike figure. There are a few passing mentions of Yevon being a deity rather than simply the name of the religion, but they are so few and far-between that some players are surprised he even exists. Moreover, it could help to have religious characters like Yuna and Wakka react to the fact that their god is the one responsible for the whole mess in the first place.

3) The final battle. Yu Yevon is by far the easiest boss in the entire game; and since the Final Aeon can become something of a joke with proper grinding, the whole final confrontation becomes something of an anticlimax. Although the developers intentionally wanted to evoke a "parasitic feeling" with Yu Yevon to show what he's become, it would be interesting to see them take this idea further by turning him into a Body Horror Eldritch Abomination instead of a mere tick. It'd be especially interesting if they turned Yu Yevon into one hell of a That One Boss, possibly one that scales with the characters like Safer Sephiroth.

It's a bit unlikely that they'll completely change Yu Yevon, but the best bet is that Square Enix will at least turn him into a bitch of a final boss this time around.

The remake will severely nerf chocobo racing and lightning dodging.
Please, Square...? ;_;

== Yunalesca's resemblance to the Cloud of Darkness isn't just a Shout-Out. Yuna's sending of her ultimately failed, and she was banished to the Realm of Darkness instead of the Farplane. There, she became even more deranged, eventually turning into a very unique Fiend. That Fiend is the Cloud of Darkness. ==

Yunalesca not only looks like the Cloud of Darkness, but the Co D's attitude is what hers would be if what little remained of her humanity was stripped away. In that vein...

Anima eventually became Jenova.
Word of God has already established that the world of Final Fantasy VII is the future of Final Fantasy X. X-2 establishes that the Aeons remain intact in the Farplane, so it isn't far-fetched to assume that their Fayth do as well. Furthermore, it's establish that the Aeons can still leave the Farplane under certain circumstances. What if Shuyin's corruption of the Aeons was actually a corruption of their Fayth? What if, following that corruption, the Fayth of Seymour's mother escaped from the Farplane and degraded into a Fiend? What if that Fiend was banished by a Meteor spell, only to survive it and crash along with the meteor on another planet? Both Jenova and Anima have only their left eyes exposed (and glowing), and it isn't far-fetched to believe that "Jenova" is just as obsessed with her "sons" as they are with her. Freudian Excuse, anyone?

From the above, the Al Bhed later became The Cetra/Ancients.
Because how ironic would it be for the formerly demonized outcasts to have ascended to being the holy people?