| “ | Poor creature. You would throw away hope. Well... I will free you before you can drown in your sorrow. It is better for you to die in hope than to live in despair. Let me be your liberator. | „ |
| ~ Lady Yunalesca preparing to battle and kill the party after Yuna rejects the reception of her Final Aeon. |
| “ | Ah... Zaon... Forgive me... Spira has been robbed of the light of hope... All that remains is sorrow. | „ |
| ~ Lady Yunalesca, after the party defeat her, and before she fades from the living world. |
Lady Yunalesca is the guardian of Zanarkand and a major antagonist of Final Fantasy X. She was the first summoner to defeat Sin and save Spira from its ravages long ago, as well as the daughter of Yu Yevon, after whom the Yevon religion was named, and now exists as a spirit involved in bestowing the Final Aeon for future summoners, requiring one of their guardians with whom they shared a strong, true bond to be sacrificed to become the fayth for the Final Summoning. Yunalesca actually sacrificed her own husband, Lord Zaon, in her case.
She was voiced by Julia Fletcher.
History[]
Founding of Yevon[]
Lady Yunalesca is the daughter of Yu Yevon - namesake of the religion of Yevon. Yunalesca is the goal marker of the Pilgrimate Yevonites engage in, in a ritual called a Pilgrimage as they all head north to Zanarkand, Yunalesca's home and resting place. Long ago, Yunalesca's father was a great and powerful summoner of Zanarkand but the city fell in a war with, Bevelle. Bevelle is currently the center of the Yevonite religion, they had raided Zanarkand just as the most terrifying sight to be seen before and since arose - Sin, a massive flying whale-like monster larger than most cities. Sin came and destroyed the Bevelle armies, but it did not stop, it plummeted the land into chaos and raided civilization, starting with industrialized areas, retaliation for the technologically advanced and warmongering Bevelle. The land would be overcome with fear and superstition, Bevelle delved into summoning rites like those of Yu Yevon to try to defeat Sin, but no one could summon anything close to what Sin was, however years of studying the summoning, trying to placate Sin and reacting to the outcry of the populace eventually saw a religion take place, and Brevelle began a religion - Yevon. Modern Bevelle is filled with opportunists keeping their religion alive for power over the hearts of the people; how opportunistic the Church of Yevon was in the past is highly subjective, but whether desperate spiritualists trying to make sense of disaster or opportunists even hundreds of years ago, Church officials perfected a rite to summon an ultra powerful Aeon to beat Sin - but to complete said rite they needed Yunalesca. Yunalesca had died in the war, but remained as an "Unsent", a spirit who clings to life, similar to a ghost, but physical, with great magical aptitude and most becoming warped as time wares on, until they become "fiends" demons of a sort, propagated by Sin.
The Pilgrimage[]
Church officials were glad to see an Unsent of the daughter of the name-sake of their religion, they wished an answer to Sin, in origin and in solution. Yunalesca told them of the war, of her father, that she and the rest of the souls of her city were kept alive as Fayth - stable physical spirits that exist as anchors to the world to summon something, in Zanarkand's case, the populace were summoning a dream-state where the city was still there, alive and well - in effect the people of Zanarkand were being used to summon their own perpetual and happy afterlife within Sin. With much of their questions answered, the Church still needed Yunalesca to help them defeat Sin, as the daughter of a master summoner, they had hoped she had the expertise to counter her father. Yunalesca had the knowledge needed, but without a city-sized number of Fayth like her father used, she could not create a permanent Aeon to counter Sin. What Yunalesca could do was teach the Church the rites to turn the honored dead into Fayth, and from them, create/anchor Aeons to the world as summonable guardians. Yunalesca came up with a ritual, a summoner would go to each of these training centers, or "Temples" as the Church was calling them, and if a summoner went to all of them to perform the summoning rites, the Church would package as prayers, the summoner would grow stronger and eventually be able to summon something on par with Sin, however the summoner needed at least one guardian - a traveling companion, ideally to guard them from danger, but ultimately to form a strong emotional bond with, and when the summoner arrived at Zanarkand as the last leg of their journey, Yunalesca would turn the guardian into a Fayth, whose journey until then would instinctively bind them to the summoner in death and then allow the summoner to summon them as a massive new Aeon, which would be able to take on Sin. Yunalesca had tried to do the same to stop her father, but not only had she been killed in the process, but the summon was possessed by Yu Yevon instinctively; In her case, her guardian had been her husband, Zaon. It had taken a decade for Zaon's summon to be warped into a new Sin, but during those years the land had an era of peace it was otherwise starved for, hence the Church knowing to head to Zanarkand to find what the source had been.
Yunalesca knew the other summoners would be caught in the same cycle - a massive ritual journey to be able to summon the "Final Aeon" to beat Sin, die yet in the process the new Aeon would become the new Sin. However Yunalesca saw a temporary reprieve from her father's entranced rampage to be the best of a bad situation. She agreed to sanctify the rite, and turn whoever made it to Zanarkand into a High-Summoner and Final Aeon and send them to at least temporarily bring peace to the land; The Church would be pivotal in hope against Sin, Yunalesca would keep her father's honor intact and the land would have a decade of peace in exchange for a systematic suicide-ritual.
Encounters[]
Final Fantasy X[]
The summoner, Yuna, daughter of the previous High-Summoner, Braska, and named in honor of Yunalesca, had started her pilgrimage when the main protagonist, Tidus, arrives in Spira - Tidus was a confused Fayth of one of the residents of Zanarkand who Sin had spat out - due to the Fayth used to create the latest Sin, being his father Jecht - who had also been spat out of Sin, though by accident, and become Braska's guardian on the previous pilgrimage. Tidus spends the game coming to terms with what is going on in Spira - when he meets his father's previous co-guardian, Auron, and is told the truth about Sin, in effect being his possessed father, he becomes outraged at the situation, but keeps following Yuna as one of her guardians to bring peace to the land, see Zanarkand again, and possibly find his father.
Yuna, Tidus, Auron and her other guardians - Kimari, Lulu and Wakka - as well as her cousin Rikku, eventually reach the end of their pilgrimage and come to Zanarkand. By the end of their journey they have encountered a fully corrupt Church of Yevon, but maintaining their journey for the hope of peace and answers in Zanarkand. At last encountering Lady Yunalesca, they wish to ask her some questions before the Final Summoning. Yunalesca casually admits everything to them, other than her father's part in the process. Yunalesca is a pillar of the Church but largely removed from their social power structure and thus not under any obligation to lie for them. Yunalesca seems to want Yuna to have the conviction to do what she must do, so answers all her questions honestly.
Yuna is alarmed and outraged, the Church had taught that with complete atonement Sin would stop coming and the Calm decade was just something to give them a chance to attune, Yunalesca mournfully tells her the notion is a lie, but goes on to reassure her that some hope, even false hope, is better than despair and she is still helping the people with hope and temporary peace. By the point Yuna is told the truth, she is so disillusioned with the Church, hearing from Yunalesca that there was never any true hope, that her father died in vain, that Sir Jecht was trapped in a possessed state as the monster he fought, that one of her guardians would soon be possessed too, shatters the last of her waning faith. Yuna views the Pilgrimage as a false ritual that must be thrown away, and they must find another way to defeat Sin to stop the cycle of death Yevon has built out of Yunalesca's ritual.
Yunalesca is disappointed Yuna will not complete the ritual. She decides to kill Yuna and her guardians. While stopping Yuna means the Pilgrimage will be maintained as Yunalesca just waits for the next summoner, Yunalesca seems more distraught on a philosophical level than trying to cover-up - she says if Yuna's faith is so shattered that she'd discontinue the practice of the Pilgrimage she has truly given up on hope as a concept and it is better for her to die as part of a false hope, than to live in despair and has resolved to execute her, less for her own interests than to give Yuna a mercy-kill.
The battle with Yunelesca is one of the toughest fights in the story-run of the game. Yunalesca has three stages of combat, and with each unleashes more health and more tricks. In particular Yunalesca has a tactic of petrifying or zombifying random party members. She can greatly hurt zombified characters with high level heals she knows, and they cannot be healed during their zombification, or she can just outright kill them by casting a revive spell on them while undead. Petrification requires extra time to cure, because if everyone still standing is petrified, the battle is automatically lost. Yuanlesca can also casually cast an instant death spell that will fell everyone who isn't zombified or petrified; It is because of these tactics Yunalesca is somewhat infamous within the game as a boss with simple yet effectively hard tactics. With wise item use and determination Yunalesca will be beaten though.
Defeated, Yunalesca cannot maintain her physical presence in Zanarkand and begins to fade. Her final words are of regret that the population are about to lose their only hope for reprieve from Sin. But her final words are of abject despair that she let her husband die for nothing now, and aches to see him again in death. With Yunalesca gone, Yuna and Tidus make up their minds to return to the head of Yevon - Maester Mika to ask what he knows about alternatives to the Final Summoning, as unlike Yunalesca he was intentionally keeping the system going out of greed and now without her, there is nothing to be gained from maintaining the farce.
Final Fantasy X-2[]
Yunalesca is encountered again in the sequel game Final Fantasy X-2. A now-purposeless Yunalesca returns, as a guardian in the Via Infinito dungeon, with the soul of her husband, Zaon as her co-fayth where she takes the form of a giant basilisk called "Chac" as part of the sacred trials of Bevelle. After being defeated here by Yuna, Rikku, and their new friend, Paine, Yunalesca is finally put to rest and is sent to join Lord Zaon on the Farplane.
Personality[]
Lady Yunalesca is largely acting on good intentions. While there is a ring of pride in wanting to protect her father's name, she is mostly acting on behalf of those terrorized by Sin. She firmly believes that false hope is better than no hope. Unlike the Church of Yevon officials like Mika and Seymour, she gains no political influence for the existence of Yevon. Yevon sought her out, and when the Church officials arrived to set up the Pilgrimage with her, she was largely taking advantage of the situation to undo her father's madness without needing to tarnish his name. She is so resigned to the spiral of death, she truly believes Yuna would be better off killed than rejecting the Pilgrimage and living in the same despair that has claimed her.
Appearances in other media[]
Yunalesca appears in Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade as an enemy during an event called "Showdown". In battle, Yunalesca uses Mind Blast.
Yunalesca's boss form made an appearance as an Ice-elemental card in Final Fantasy Trading Card Game.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Yunalesca's human form resembles artist Yoshitaka Amano's original design for Cloud of Darkness of Final Fantasy III.
- In Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, one of Yuna's exclusive weapons is known as Yunalesca's Staff, which raises start Bravery by 34 points and Attack by 62.
- She is the only human female boss in Final Fantasy X.
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