Requisite Tidus bitchery

[fuyu]

The nephew's playing a new game of FFX, so this is kind of sticking in my head again.

Why, why, why does Tidus get so much shit for being a "whiner"?

Okay, yes. He has father issues out the wazoo, and that does get a little annoying. Keep playing. He has reasons for those, and has considerable character development relating to that.

Yes, the narration is a little annoying. That's because the whole first chunk of the game is a recap. He stops narrating when you get to Zanarkand, I promise.

Screaming outside of Kilika Temple? Well, it's better than just bottling up all his discomfort and letting it eat him inside, right? Or hauling off and hitting someone from all the stress? Saying "I kinda wanna scream" and then doing so and getting on with what you need to be doing is actually a quite healthy way of dealing with the situation.

For the most part, Tidus is just kind of a doofy, optimistic dork who tries hard to make the best of his really crummy situation. Hell, by the time you get to Besaid he's already had half a metric fuckton of shit dropped on him, and yet he resolves to make the best of what he's got and try not to worry. Sure, he doesn't entirely succeed, but that he has the presence of mind to decide that after his city's been attacked, he's been sucked into a new world and had to fight monsters, scrape together camp in an old ruin when he's probably never even spent a night without electricity before, then he gets rescued by people who are suspicious of him and the one friend he can make in that situation tells him that everything he knows was destroyed a thousand years ago, and THEN he gets separated from them... I mean, really, and that's just the beginning of what happens to him. This is culture shock x100.

Again, sure, he has father issues up the ying-yang, but other than that he is remarkably well-adjusted. And he gets better as time progresses and he gets used to Spira, and he even eventually overcomes his issues. He's not a whiner, damn it. T_T

*protective of the dork*

Edit: Some spoilers in the comments. For the... one or two people who might read this post and haven't got that far yet. XD

Comments

[akatokuro.livejournal.com]

I never really understood all the "Tidus is a whiny wanker" comments, either. I remember thinking to myself the first time I played FFX that I was surprised at how well he was coping with the entire situation re: seeing Zanarkand get blown up and being displaced into Spira.

[fuyu]

I think it might be partly that we're unused to emotionally expressive males still, and partly that some people were determined to hate him at the beginning for being a jock. (Those of us who didn't squee "OMG! How cute, he has groupies! Aww, and he's genuinely friendly with them, too! Eee we name him via AUTOGRAPH!")

That and I have to admit, some of his behavior in the early game gets a bit annoying. But he does cope well. Especially with the Various Horrible Revelations he keeps getting, particularly that very world-shaking personal one. I was astounded at how well he handled that one, really.

[fuyu]

p.s. also you may find this icon entertaining.

[white_aster]

word. I totally don't get what peoples' problem with Tidus is. I thought he was doofy, yeah, but he got the job done, did what he could, and dealt with everything remarkably well, considering. :pets the dork:

[fuyu]

*woobs on the dork*

Plus, he gets major points for his relationship with Yuna actually being very sweet and realistic. And super extra bonus points for the Lake Scene and knowing exactly what Yuna needed right then. ♥

[white_aster]

Yeah. :) They win points for actually convincing me that those two were in love, but not getting TOO sappy about it.

[laylah.livejournal.com]

Word. Tidus is a good kid. (Not sure if Kiwi is reading you actively or not, but she is a big Tidus fan also.) Okay, he freaks out some, and he complains about his lot in life on occasion, and he and his dad really could have used some therapy years ago. But he's incredibly well-adjusted compared to some of Square's heroes in the past, and considering how much crazy shit he goes through.

There's a kind of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" tendency with video game leads, I think -- not unlike the standards by which people judge RL celebrities. You know, a hero who doesn't talk about his problems is brooding, but a hero who does talk about them is whining. (...and if he doesn't have problems, he sure as hell ain't a Square hero.)

[fuyu]

I can totally forgive the freaking out, because he had really made a pretty idyllic life for himself in Zanarkand, even despite the early trauma with his parents, and then he's yanked out of that and dropped into friggin' Spira, the spiral of death. Take a personality like, say, Cloud or Squall and drop them into the same situation and see how THEY cope. (Well, to be fair, Cloud would be a dork too. Just... a much more introverted and angsty dork.)

You know, a hero who doesn't talk about his problems is brooding, but a hero who does talk about them is whining. (...and if he doesn't have problems, he sure as hell ain't a Square hero.)

Exactly. :/ (Does Zidane get bitched at for this too? Because if so I'll weep.) ... (And I was going to say something about Sora but he's more than half Disney, so, uh. XD)

[laylah.livejournal.com]

Yeah, totally. It's a very calm, very understated level of freaking out, in any kind of "real-life trauma" scale. People tend to hold video game characters to a very different standard on these things, I think. >->

...I suspect Zidane probably gets bitched at for not being angsty enough, knowing the way fandom works. *whaps fandom with stick*

Sora, I think, is mostly doing the Disney-hero role in counterpart to Riku, who does the Square half of it. ...then in KH2 Roxas picks up some of the Square burden, so it's shared around a bit more, but yeah. Sora is mostly not burdened with Square's incredible, doomalicious issues. ^^;

also, forgot to say the first time, but the icon for this post is fabulous.

[jpegasus.livejournal.com]

I totally agree. I mean, okay, in his own time he's ...what, 18? 18 and a sports player. All tidus knows is blitzball, girls who like him, and probably hanging out. This is his Life.

Then all of a sudden one day a big monster destroys his city and flings him 1000 years into the future where the first things he encounters are a)a really big...fish...that tries to eat him. 2)cold 3)another thing that tries to eat him and 4)a group of strangely dressed people with guns who don't speak his language.

After this he learns enough to know he is not in kansas anymore, almost gets eaten again, some more things where he is completely out of his league, and then he finds out that his daddy-issues daddy is not missing at sea but instead a big monster.
YOU'D BE A LITTLE FREAKED OUT TOO

So no, he's not a whiner. I think he handled it all pretty well, considering.

[fuyu]

♥

Not even 18 yet. And that there is perhaps the best summary of his devastating culture shock I've yet seen. XD Poor kid really just goes through shit and a half, yet keeps himself together remarkably well.

It's all a matter of perspective, really. I get irritated when people bitch about Tifa, too, for similar reasons. Oh, you don't like how she handled the situation with Cloud? OKAY YOU TRY IT. XD

[laylah.livejournal.com]

I get irritated when people bitch about Tifa, too, for similar reasons.

*HEARTS*

No, her behavior wasn't perfect. But that's a factor of being human. And it's certainly no argument for putting Cloud in some yaoi pairing that requires a lot of mental gymnastics to justify. >->

[skinship.livejournal.com]

...They are not using the same logic as I. For serious, yo. Tidus is the single most un-whiny kid in Japanese games I've ever run across. If anything, he's positively peppy - he's the guy who's always going around saying, "Can we do it? You bet your ass we can! Say it with me, HELL YEAH WE CAN!" Compare that with, say, almost any character in FF8, especially the main character, who uses dots as some kind of emo morse code.

*joins the Dork Protection League*

[laylah.livejournal.com]

dots as some kind of emo morse code

HAHAHA YOU WIN.
So awesome.

[skinship.livejournal.com]

Thanks to your hilarious icon, I now have that brain-melting song playing in my head. XD

[fuyu]

Exactly! He's a kindred spirit to Zidane and Butz, only even moreso than either of those because of the aforementioned YES WE CAN DO IT LET'S GO GO GO WIN FIGHT attitude. Even Butz isn't that peppy, and he's made of dork. XD (any guy who gets in a playful shoving fight with a little girl and loses = awesomely dork.)

*joins too! do we get cards?*

also why are you not on MSN. XD YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY ONLINE.

[skinship.livejournal.com]

Tidus does that sporty guy thing right, without becoming annoying or a brainless jock. Just for that, he deserves my fangirl wub.

also why are you not on MSN. XD YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY ONLINE.

Because I'm hardly ever on MSN these days. Not only do I have to wake up every morning at 6 AM, but my Windows is also utterly fucked, and I don't have the time or the skillzorz to do anything about it. It can only manage about one program at a time; you can imagine the horrors of opening MSN.

Two weeks of insane work schedule left. That's what I keep telling myself. Maybe after that I can actually do something to help my baby.

[isanah.livejournal.com]

Weeeerd.

I thought Tidus was a bit of a dork at first, but considering what's happened to him, he's remarkably well-adjusted. And Blitz Ace does a lot of heavy damage, what.

Angsty!Tidus would have made me sad. I can't see him being all emo and crying like those fics I come across.

[fuyu]

Oh, Tidus is a total dork. That's not a bad thing. XD Viva la dork. But yes. And he's amazingly mature in the endgame. I know I sure wouldn't have taken that revelation from the fayth as well as he did, holy crap.

Srsly. *still has that picture on her to-do list*

[ziarenete13x.livejournal.com]

I have no videogame dork icon...I must rectify this immediately...

But YUS, I return your proposition of marri~age {my first ever}, and would like to inquire that skinship be our mistress. Together, the DPL will be ours!

[fuyu]

Hee~ VIVA LA DPL!

(In related news, I also weep about Yuna being seen as weak, wishy-washy, or vanilla. She is one of my personal top two coolest video game girls ever.)

[zax-dude.livejournal.com]

... I like Tidus too T.T I don't understand why so manypeople brand hima whiner. If at all, he's one of the only FFX main-characters that has reacted realistically to the problems the games tend to represent... and dude, he took 'not being real' extremely well. GO TIDUS~!

... and I liked it when he screamed, too. It was cute ^_^

[SPOILERS]

[fuyu]

...heyheyheyhey careful! I've got a guy on my friendslist who hasn't finished FFX yet but is going to and he might not know that yet. D:

But yeah. He was a really good main character, a healthier main character than most of Square's heroes. He deserves commendation.

(... also, because I've been meaning to mention this! You have a few of my icons uploaded with 'credit unknown'. If you yoinked them straight from me, plz to note that any icon I have uploaded that doesn't have some form of credit given? Was made by me. So on the "SOLDIER through and through" Zax, the Sapphire Weapon, the 'crazy moon language', and the pouty Cloud, plz to credit me? :3)

[trenchkamen.livejournal.com]

Like everybody else said, wurd.

[bean-bunny.livejournal.com]

TIDUS is a whiny bitch!?

Okay. And Sora is emo. Gotcha.

These people? Did not play FF8.