Categories > Games > Final Fantasy X
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Send Off
(#) nidrig 2006-03-05
For the first time, I read an ending that made honor to both characters.
Sad, yet not depressing.
Author\'s Response: :) And the delightful thing is, it's really exactly what happened -- I was totally stymied in the last battle with the wretched monster using Osmose every few rounds and healing everything except the second of Lu's and Yuna's doublecasts. I was very pleased when I finally hit on an elegant solution, and Auron and Lu working together won the battle and saved the world. There was even an odd poetry in the fact that the last blow Sir Auron ever struck was...not to strike.That was MY story!Send Off
(#) fyre_byrd 2006-03-07
Your description of the battle with the parasitic Yu Yevon is quite well written. I like your elaborate descriptions of spells. They sound like fireworks the way you write them. You are quite poetic about describing Lulu's black magic attacks.
I think it is quite interesting the way that Lulu wishes the battle would never end. I also like that your Lulu realizes that Auron is dead. I like how she admires his fighting.
It's very astute of you to observe that Lulu feels helpless in the face of Auron's death in part due to the fact there her skills are for black and not white magic.
About Lulu's thoughts in italics, I am not sure how attached she was supposed to be to Auron, but the stylized nature of those phrases don't seem like a grief-stricken response to a lover (or near lover's) death. I would think such a reaction would be more hysterical and less restrained. I can see Lulu restraining herself outwardly, however.
I think that this phrase in particular is very lovely ". . . painting the air with grace and strength and sorrow and gentle leavetaking, a mute homage to all of the slain, to Braska, to Jecht, to a Legendary Hero who had overstayed life"
An interesting and insightful story indeed.
Some nitpicking:
I am pretty crazy about ellipses, but if I were you I'd get rid of them here:
"Everyone stood dazed and stunned, gaping at Yuna's graceful movements... was this a dream? Would they wake up? Would Tidus vanish now?" Using a single period instead of three and capitalizing "was."
Author\'s Response: Thanks for the nitpicking. I'm still trying to wean myself off some bad melodramatic habits, and that is one of them! As for Lulu's response to Auron, this piece is a little more ambivalent than the others about the relationship between Auron and Lulu; it could be canon instead of my AU placing the two of them together. (Then again I deliberately quoted a line of Auron's from my second story -- "Don't think, feel".) I may or may not rewrite this to fit with my conception of them as lovers, when I've finished the Resurrection series. This could wind up being the final chapter. Or it could remain separate. Also, even when I do imagine them together, I tend to make them a little reserved, because the characters are reserved. In the game, Lulu knows Chappu is dead and it's pointless to imagine otherwise, Auron grouses about "no regrets" and generally hasn't got much patience for wallowing. Both of them are incredibly strong in how they deal with loss. One of the themes I'm poking at is whether it is possible to love, lose, and move on, without dying or breaking inside. If you know LOTR, think of Arwen -- she couldn't live without Aragorn, and had the normal hysterical reaction. I respect that, but Lulu's manner of "surviving" Chappu's death makes me think that she could face loss in a different way. Remember her facing Lady Ginnem's Unsent ghost without a tear? She is stronger than she used to be. How strong-- how much can she bear and remain "so together", as Rikku puts it? That is a question that intrigues me with both her and Auron. And all of this is not to take away from Auron, because the piece is really about Auron, but he's an odd character -- he keeps everyone and everything at arm's length, including the writer! So we can only admire him from a distance, even when our hearts go out to him for his courage, quiet strength, and pain.
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