It’s not uncommon in Western civilization for artistic works to allude to the life of Christ in their plot and characters. Even for those who aren’t believers in Christianity, the religion serves as a convenient cultural common point for transmissions of themes involving sacrifice, atonement, and forgiveness. It should be hardly surprising to find Buddhist themes in a video game that originates in Japan. The storyline of Final Fantasy X, however, seem to be at times a discourse between the two, a conversation that reveals that, while the religions are clearly not one in the same, they are nevertheless also not two. Both have much to learn and much to teach in a face-to-face discourse.
Fair Warning
Since I intend to discuss the plot of Final Fantasy X, including the ending, you can be fairly sure that there will be spoilers involved. If you don’t wish to know plot details of the game, then you really shouldn’t read the article.
Who Belongs on the Crucifix?
In many Buddhist traditions, someone who foregoes the cessation of Nirvana in order to help others who have yet to attain enlightenment is known as a bodhisattva. These beautiful souls manage to transcend the notion of self to such a degree that they seek to help others see the true nature of reality. In Final Fantasy X, summoners seemingly take on the mantle of bodhisattva, leaving behind dreams of a comfortable life in order to ward off the destruction of Sin from those who don’t take up the summoners path. In the course of their pilgrimage, the summoners learn that their sacrifice will only earn a temporary calm, and with that knowledge in place, they still sacrifice themselves in battle for even a pyrrhic victory.
The problem, of course, is that Sin is always reborn in a new form that continues to harm others. Spira, you see, is trapped in what Auron rightly refers to as “a cycle of death spiraling endlessly”. The root of this problem lies in the church of Yevon. This false church teaches that suffering is necessary atonement through Sin, through perpetual sacrifice. The reality, in the end, lies in another path.
Defeating Sin through an adversarial relationship only leaves hate to be reborn in another form…which cycles suffering yet again. We must heal and stop samsara, the endless cycle of suffering, in order to truly resolve conflict. Eventually through bringing about the cessation of Sin’s suffering, Tidus sacrifices his very existence. The difference between the sacrifice of Tidus and the previous summoner sacrifices is key however. Tidus knows that the key to stopping the cycle is to awaken and cease the dreaming of Yu Yevon, who the Fayth tells us “is neither good, nor evil. He is awake, yet he dreams. But…maybe not forever.” The fact that Tidus is the player’s avatar in the world of Spira is the key here. We can’t be content with allowing someone else to sacrifice themselves for us. We have to be willing to take up the cross ourselves and actually be the sacrifice, and we have to give up our notion of self long enough to make that leap from saved to savior in the lives of those hurting around us. The story begins with self and ends with liberation from the very concepts of self and no-self.
This is all very familiar to Buddhists, but what can Christians take from this conversation? Quite frankly, Christ is not the only sacrifice required. You are the sacrifice. By truly sacrificing your self, you are reborn. Stop endlessly crucifying Jesus and take up the cross yourself. When we die with and like Christ, we are indeed reborn as new creatures. When we surrender ourselves to the will of God and become like Christ, we are reborn in the current moment into the fullness of life. Nothing ever changes until you surrender to that choice of choicelessness and change yourself. All else is a hollow shell of a religion. It is building a lie around the truth. As James wrote thousands of years ago, faith without works is dead.
Beyond this, there is a lesson in interdependence and interbeing to be found here. Sin, the characters realize, is just as much a victim as are those suffering on Spira. Sin is always a guardian from the summoner’s party who becomes trapped in the cycle of suffering in an attempt to defeat the cause of the suffering. The only way to liberate Spira from suffering at the hands of Sin is to likewise liberate Sin from the cycle of suffering, to cease the habitual dreamlike reality of Yu Yevon at the core of it all. True liberation and salvation is only possible through universal liberation and salvation.
Video games as a cultural phenomenon are a unique meeting place for East and West. Final Fantasy especially has become a unique fusion of Eastern and Western ideals. That cross cultural fusion serves as a philosophical discourse between systems of thought which previously existed in isolation. Every story has a cultural lesson to teach, and when those lessons meet in an interdependent forum, you have a unique opportunity to learn and to teach that yields returns far beyond the original scale of the initial lessons.
