Was Yunalesca Evil?

[Guernsey]

this may had been touched before but Yunalesca truly evil? In FFX, she was basically preforming a duty to her father and Spira but in the sequel she seemed somewhat remorseful. Do you guys consider Yunalesca evil?

 

[Zeroxys]

I dont believe she was, like you said she was just doing her duties to her father and to spira, she tried stopping the group from what she thought was gonna be a suicide run, and they resisted so she tried to stop them. nothing more worse/better than what tidus was doing.

 

[Guernsey]

I kind of see Yunalesca as being somewhat misguided or at least corrupted. It may be an anime cliche but Yunalesca probably thoguht what she was doing was right, she only wanted to help Spira and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. She is basically the Anti-Yuna whereas Yuna learned the truth and sought to change the status quo, Yunalesca started the trend and kept nearly everyone in statis for the past one thousand years.

 

[Shaissa]

I never saw Yunalesca (or most of Yevon for that matter) as "evil".
Yunalesca showed people how to defeat sin, when there was really no way to defeat it at the time.
Is it really Yunalesca's fault that no one besides Yuna, Tidus and the rest tried to find a new way to defeat sin?
I mean Yunalesca did the only thing she knew how to do, and in doing so, gave up her love and lived trapped in Zanarkand to show summoners how to defeat sin.

 

[RainKing]

More corrupted than evil.

Mod edit: RainKing
Hi there, I would like to inform you that the forums discourage short posts like this, because they can be considered spammy. In the future, I would appreciate if you can elaborate your points more. Thank you and enjoy your stay in the forums! =)

 

[JamesJX]

The main reason for the story were those chocobo knights which are a piece of the story. Additionally better believe it I concur with the majority of you the scaled down amusement was terrible and you just ride them in 2 spots so it kinda makes them futile dissimilar to IX and VII.

 

[Ed Elric]

She was definitely bad-- but not evil bad, in my opinion. She had wanted the calm to begin, but she felt like there was only one way: to sacrifice. I can't say I blame her for how she carried that 'tradition' because she believed it was the only choice to defeat Sin. There is something unmoral about thinking that way, but no one knew otherwise what the right choice was.

 

[AuronX]

I think this actually may relate to something I've been pondering about life recently: truth must be interpreted in light of truth, not in light of tradition or fads. While there are things we can learn about truth from both, going for either wholesale will ultimately lead to the same place: emptiness. I think Final Fantasy X and X-2 together actually demonstrate this sort of thinking with impressive depth. Whatever good intentions Yevon had in establishing the means for Spira's peace, it instantly became wrong the moment that means started being protected as a sacred tradition. That's not to say all sacred traditions are wrong, but when they can only continue existing by the deception of the elite, there's obviously a problem. When that sort of thing happens, the people perpetuating it have become so blindly loyal to their tradition that they can't see anything outside of it. They've deceived themselves, really. And that's where Yevon finds itself as an organization in FFX, I think: self-deceived to the point of willingly deceiving others and blindly hating anyone who sees through it.

EDIT: As an additional thought, maybe this is why Yunalesca turns into a form of Medusa? Many-faced, most of them snakes...that's all classic symbolism of deception. It also stands in sharp contrast to the beauty of her human form--revealing her true colors, as the saying goes.

 

[Bambi]

Whilst I agree with all the above points, i do wonder if she kept up that cycle to actually keep spirans (would they be spirans? spiranites? lol) suffering, rather than to save it.... maybe she thought that it kept people in check, and that the calms giving people hope meant they weren't despairing and living as peaceful and as good a life as was wanted when zanarkand existed, and perhaps, she thought they needed sin to make them behave.

Whether she believed Sin could ever be defeated or not I don't know and my half baked idea doesn't explain why she would offer herself up in the first instance herself to defeat Sin.... it was just a thought that popped in my head last time I played. An eternal redemption for the war that bevelle started 1000 years ago?

 

[LinnyCockle]

She was in the sequel? Lol oh yeah I gave up half-way through it.
I guess she wasn't supposed to be evil in X, just innocently going through the motions. Although, if you make that assumption, you've got a lotta explaining to do regarding the seriously evil looking boss form.