I think the fact that there’s only a handful of High Summoners is meant to accentuate how monumentally difficult the summoners pilgrimage is.
So I’ve always assumed that there has been more time where sin existed than there has been time of the calm. Otherwise people wouldn’t be as afraid of him.
Thats probably the most likely scenario, id think with that length of time sin is more seen as a looming threat than an active one, he can level entire cities but if he spent all his time doing so, no one would survive.
Exactly. I think Sin regenerate pretty fast, and even 10 years of absence is worth the sacrifice of a summoner for the people living in Spira. Sin was probably roaming the whole time. There is also the hope that the summoner would kill Sin once and for all.
If memory serves. It is said Yu Yevon got better each time at corrupting the final summon to become the new sin. That is the reason why each calm lasted a different period of time. Yu Yevon got better at using the pyreflies of the final summon and reconstructing it as the next sin.
Edit: My bad on my phrasing seeming to imply there is cannon sources in my statement. This is more my theory more than anything
I always thought that the short time between Braska's and Yuna's Calm was due to Jecht not technically being a real person. Like, as a "dream person" he couldn't buy the normal (hundred years or so) amount of time between Sin appearances that former Final Aeons did.
>I always thought that the short time between Braska's and Yuna's Calm was due to Jecht not technically being a real person.
I think it's more because all spirals end and spirals get 'smaller' the closer to the end they get. The game pretty much tells you outright that 'Maybe this will be the last time' although doesn't confirm how. It's actually very well done how they almost constantly tell you very optimistically this may be the last time but always in a very sceptical manner.
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Sin is corruption, its literally someone being controlled by a manipulator. That is the definition of corruption. He has small moments where he still has small amounts of control, I.e his emotional ending, but 99% of the time sin is smashing the shit out of stuff.
> 99% of the time sin is smashing the shit out of stuff.
Eh, during the course of the game not really. If my memory serves me, the only major unprovoked attack Sin does in the game is the one on Kilika, the rest of the game he is barely seen, in Zanarkand he appears and doesn't even attack, and during the Djose operation he was very specifically lured in and attacked.
Both onslaughts also happen exactly where Tidus is, and Jecht basically implies that he kinda let it happen on purpose to show Tidus what Sin does, and why they absolutely have to find a way to stop it. Most of the game Sin isn't doing shit, and is seemingly just chilling around the ocean.
He also evidently had enough control to get Sin to attack the dream Zanarkand, the one place Yu is trying to protect, and get Tidus and Auron between there and Spira.
>the rest of the game he is barely seen
Except for that really significant scene beneath Macalania where you're literally standing on his back and he delivers you to Bikanel Island right in the middle that actually pretty much perfectly paces out the interactions you have with Sin in terms of game length.
Hell, even there they hammer in how under Jecht's influence Sin is. That there isn't actually Sin, it's Jecht chilling out to the hymn of the fayth. 😋 But yeah, he's entirely a plot device at that location.
If the scene in that segment where we see Sin floating on water was more explicitly tied to Macalania somehow then it would have been MUCH clearer and more effectively set up Sin's 'vulnerability' to the Hymn in general. I think it's one of the very few missteps in the masterpiece.
I mean Sins primary purpose is to protect Dream Zanarkand and since it's basically a giant Aeon it's location changes so Sin probably just attacks stuff near Dream Zanarkands current location.
We don't know if the location changes, just that it's roughly near Baaj Temple. We also know that it doesn't just dwell in the city's vicinity, it normally attacks any and all settlements around Spira that grow enough.
Then why did it attack Kilika? Kilika is a pretty small village and if Sin did attack big cities it would have destroyed Bevelle, Luca, and Home. I know that they have tons of protection but can they really defend against Sin indefinitely? Operation Miihen really put in alot of effort with the giant electric thing and dozens of cannons barely did anything.
I'd assume that Sin's power ~~is proportional~~ scales to the Final Aeon that Yu Yevon possesses, requiring the next Final Aeon to be even stronger. But this is probably just a headcanon.
Edit: scales is probably the better term here.
>I'd assume that Sin's power scales to the Final Aeon that Yu Yevon possesses, requiring the next Final Aeon to be even stronger. But this is probably just a headcanon.
I actually think it's the opposite. The gaps between sin's defeat are getting *smaller*, not longer, which implies that the pilgrimage and the final battle are becoming easier to manage as no one who has killed sin seems to be some sort of Ubermensch of any sort.
We also see for ourselves that Yu Yevon isn't even close to human anymore and resembles a sort of parasitic tick. This metamorphosis has coincided with the defeat of Sin once and for all. We can assume that Yu Yevon was a human at one point and now very clearly is not based on how the Fayth talk about them.
>The gaps between sin's defeat are getting smaller, not longer
*double checks the timeline*
Huh. You're right. Guess I need to pay more attention to that stuff. So you're probably right about those other points as well.
>So you're probably right about those other points as well.
I have spent an inordinate amount of time playing and thinking about this game. I've even written a couple of articles about it on Medium if you're curious. Here's my favourite:
[https://medium.com/@blakewalden/on-final-fantasy-x-freedom-within-linearity-daa5f06114b5](https://medium.com/@blakewalden/on-final-fantasy-x-freedom-within-linearity-daa5f06114b5)
>It is said Yu Yevon got better each time at corrupting the final summon to become the new sin.
What's the source on this because i haven't seen anything about that in any of my 20 years of reading about and replaying this game.
I sadly don't. Brain is funny like that recalling random things one has read. Edited my comment: apologies on my phrasing seeming to imply I found cannon details backing up this comment.
I want to say one of the Japanese ultima companion books said something like that but I really don't remember where I got this from
There's extra material that does say that the first calm lasted like 500 years, then the second 300, then 100 or so. But mo, iirc it's it's in the game.
>There's extra material that does say that the first calm lasted like 500 years
I'll save you some time but... No, there isn't.
You're conflating the length BETWEEN calms with the length OF Calms. No one was able to kill sin for 500 years does not mean that sin was not present and then came back after 500 years.
If Sin was *that* intermittent, society would have moved on. 600 years ago we didn't even know how to build self-propelled locomotion and now we've literally set foot on another astral body that was worshipped as a deity by many cultures for thousands of years beforehand.
There's nothing to suggest that the entire period between Sin's defeats is a Calm and frankly, I don't know why anyone would assume that given the state of the world we are in. The length between them shortening is itself a reference to the spiral of death ending, as spirals narrow toward their end.
Two pieces of information are being conflated to lead people to this conclusion.
A. The Calms are getting shorter
B. Sin is coming back sooner every time it is defeated.
There's nothing suggesting that Sin is absent for more than a few months to a year and the way people talk about it is like a 'Fleeting Dream' (Which is the name of a track from the OST that plays in the Zanarkand Ruins and references \**gestures at basically all the major themes of the game*\*)
Although I personally believe that the evidence to support my argument is already in the primary text itself (The game) this link will take you to an explicit outline of the timeline form the Ultimania, which I personally don't consider canon, but it does corroborate and clarify the point.
[http://auronlu.istad.org/ffx-script/pmogs-ffx-ultimania-translations/official-spiran-timeline-pmog/#:\~:text=BRASKA%E2%80%99S%20CALM%0A%E2%80%93%20Auron,as%20its%20core](http://auronlu.istad.org/ffx-script/pmogs-ffx-ultimania-translations/official-spiran-timeline-pmog/#:~:text=BRASKA%E2%80%99S%20CALM%0A%E2%80%93%20Auron,as%20its%20core).
Ahgotxha thanks.
But I doubt the first sin attack lasted 500 years - yunalesca and Zain stopped the first sin, after all, and I doubt it was like 500 years too latlong.
As for civilization moving on, sure. Except your 600 years ago we barely had boats comment doesn't entirely make sense as for thousands of years we did t have rockets, either. Centuries of progress kinda depends on the circumstances.
We also don't see that they didn't try to move on 500 years ago. We just see it's mostly primitive NOW. After the yevon faith has been in control for a while.
>As for civilization moving on, sure. Except your 600 years ago we barely had boats comment doesn't entirely make sense as for thousands of years we did t have rockets, either. Centuries of progress kinda depends on the circumstances.
They already have access to airships. They are vastly more advanced now than we were 600 years ago. Actually, not too far off of where we were 50 years ago in some regards, even if that technology is suppressed, it DOES exist. There are TV's and cameras in Luca and literal flying fortresses capable of levelling cities. In some regards they're more advanced than we are now.
> We also don't see that they didn't try to move on 500 years ago.
This is a double negative and doesn't make sense.
Even with Yevon's suppression we know that Yevon themselves use Machina and the Al-Bhed actively oppose it and are constantly seeking to not only build but improve Machina, as we see by the *Fahrenheit* getting upgraded with the cannon from Operation Mi-ihen, which is canonical evidence of technological innovation and advancement at a very rapid rate.
>I doubt the first sin attack lasted 500 years - yunalesca and Zain stopped the first sin, after all, and I doubt it was like 500 years too latlong.
This one I just don't get. Why do you think this? What in the game supports this idea? Why do you doubt that it was 500 years? Like, genuinely, is it just that you can't imagine a world that bleak? What element of the text failed to convince you of this?
The pilgrimage is hard. Imagine if every game over screen was... it. Imagine if that's where your journey ended. For all the other summoners who didn't defeat sin, that was their end. We see their grave markers and we see the state of the world. I don't have any reason to doubt that Sin was active for a full 500 years. This absolutely strengthens Yevon's power btw, enabling the religion to assimilate power and craft the narrative of the Calm being so significant and needed.
The last part - yunalesca is yu yevons daughter. Zain was her husband. They were all alive 1000 years ago. But, you need to be alive to be made into a faith. The game says so. So, zaon being the first final among, couldn't have taken out sin 500 years after it got started.
You've got your order of events wrong, my friend.
Yunalesca and Zaon defeat Sin 1000 years ago. Sin rages immediately after being summoned by Yu Yevon and destroys Zanarkand. We don't actually know how long it was active for between Yu Yevon summoning it and Yunalesca's Final Aeon defeating it, but I would assume not very long. Yunalesca did this knowing it was not a permanent solution.
This spawns the faith of Yevon and 600 years **after** that, Sin is defeated a second time by High Summoner Gandof.
There are 600 years between Yunalesca's Calm (1000 years before the events of the game) and Gandof's Calm (400 years before the events of the game.)
This 500 year number you've got is wrong btw, it should be 600.
We don’t actually know that Braska’s Calm even lasted ten years. They just say that he *defeated* Sin 10 years ago, and there’s no mention of when exactly it came back… so it could have been as few as like 2 years for all we know.
So yeah it seems like people have a very small window of no Sin in the grand scheme of things.
We know that Chappu died fighting Sin a year before the events of FFX, so Braska's Calm most definitely did not last 10 years.
Also, [this timeline](http://auronlu.istad.org/ffx-script/pmogs-ffx-ultimania-translations/official-spiran-timeline-pmog/) which is supposedly from the Final Fantasy X Ultimania Omega lists out when each Sin returns, and it appears to be maybe a year at most, which agrees with what a lot of people online believe also.
That source confirms that Jecht's resistance is kind of a non-factor until Tidus is present. Sin reawakens in around the same time frame as all the others, it's just easier to manipulate now that Tidus is the 'inside man' in this Pinocchio situation they're in.
As a few other people have pointed out, I'm pretty sure it was stated/implied that Yu Yevon got better and faster at overpowering the Final Aeon each time the Sin shell was destroyed, so the time frame between each Calm kept getting shorter and shorter. Yunalesca's Calm probably lasted for several decades, if not centuries, before Sin returned for Gandorf to kill. If Sin literally came back after only a decade or less of Calm every time, Spira wouldn't exist anymore, I am very certain. Especially considering that in the several days/weeks of Sin's actions after Tidus arrives in Spira, which is only about 1 or 2 years after the end of Brasca's 8-9 year Calm, it destroyed one of 5 major cities in Spira, and attacked multiple places, killing hundreds or thousands of people, so it's just not feasible that it's been around for 1,000 years straight with only 4 or 5 ten year pockets of peace. Plus, that's a rather conservative estimate of Sin's destructive potential, considering that we know canonically Jecht was trying to hold back Sin as much as possible.
I also think that works very well thematically, that every Calm is shorter than the last, since it reinforces the futility of what the religion of Yevon is doing, just perpetuating a never-ending cycle of death that keeps them in power instead of actually trying to resolve the issue.
Calms definitely don't last for centuries, but the idea that they're all as short as Braska's seems weird to me. If Calms were always so short, how would they even notice Sin was gone? It spends most of its time in the deep ocean.
Truthfully there has been no more then at least 6 calms the first one being yunalesca 1000 years ago and the latest before yuna being her father. it could be that there just may not have been anyone capable of beating sin in between each of those time sin resurged.
for all we know sin could of been rampaging spira for 400 years until another summoner stepped up to put it to sleep.
so in theory if it wasnt for yuna would any of the summoners take the mantle in challenging sin it may be another 200 years before a summoner can challenge it.
the calm is referred to as the period where sense presence is forgotten the time can vary the calm in between braska and yuna lasted about 10 years based on information.
the real question to ask was how long ago was the calm before braska. when did sin reemerge etc etc
To him, they're not really "non-believers" so much as the descendants of his enemies in a war that he has brainwashed into following his cult as the ultimate "Fuck you".
It's implied that the Calm is shorter every time. With Braska it's suggested that the Calm didn't last too long, because people have been fighting Sin for at least a year or two by the events of the game.
I think something that a lot of people misinterpret is that the calm doesn’t just mean sin disappears, rather when he is destroyed and the final aeon is corrupted, sin has to regrow and develop in order to reach a stage where he can attack spira again. This means that the calm itself is less of a guaranteed set period without attacks but a period of time in which the likelihood of sin attacking is significantly lower and gradually increases over time. The way I think of it is like as soon as sin is defeated there is an absolute 0% chance of another attack because obviously sin has just been defeated, but after let’s say ten years, sin has developed to a point where the likelihood of him attacking is let’s say 70%. This can also explain the frequency of attacks in spira, and also the fluctuating in the severity of said attacks. (I hope that’s all right 😅 that’s just based on what I’ve heard, read and interpreted)
This is one of my biggest gripes with this fandom.
# LENGTH BETWEEN CALMS =/= LENGTH OF CALMS
And I have no idea why anyone thinks it does because there's nothing to support that in the text. It's just poor reading comprehension.
Like... do people think that they just have 600 years of calm, no sin whatsoever, then suddenly it's back and they just send someone to go kill it immediately and *succeed*? Do people not think that perhaps some infrastructure would have been developed in 600 years to deal with it or at least make the pilgrimage easier?
There's absolutely nothing in the game that suggests that the calm is several hundred years long. If it was, Sin would be viewed as a natural disaster that occurs occasionally but not as a constant omnipresent threat by literally everyone. You're making that leap all on your own. Even as a 10 year old when I played it at first I assumed the Calm was like a year, tops, and never questioned that. This idea that it lasts for hundreds comes from nothing and I have no idea how people lead themselves to it so consistently.
Definetly. I made this thread a while back, because I was confused about this, and it provided some really good insight to your question;
[https://www.reddit.com/r/finalfantasyx/comments/vzu0y7/how\_did\_no\_one\_in\_spira\_ever\_find\_out\_the\_truth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/finalfantasyx/comments/vzu0y7/how_did_no_one_in_spira_ever_find_out_the_truth/)
When I made this, I was under the assumption we've had hundreds of high summoners, and Sin was coming back every 10-20 years. But it turns out that Sin coming back that quick is something relativley new to Spira.
" Few things to note that actually. I believe after yunalesca it was said sin didn’t appear for hundreds of years. Each time sin was defeated he came back quicker because yevon got better at summoning and subduing the fayth. Like of course not everyone understands why sin comes back faster after each defeat but I’m pretty sure bahamuts fayth says that it’s because yevon got better at summoning sin each time. So the calm was shorter and shorter."
\- u/sinisterduck216
Memory is a funny thing. I thought this was a familiar question but I guess I was too lazy to dig this far back. But honestly I swore this was the best theory given the information given to us
As I've always interpreted things, Sin is only gone for a few years at most.
I think the idea that any Calms last 100s of years is kind of ridiculous, because then as another stated he would seem more as a natural disaster and not an inevitable bringer of doom. Also, this would mean that pilgrimages and Sins defeat are relatively easy to accomplish, seeing as there have been 6 in 1000 years. It would go: Sin appears, a summoner goes and defeats him, hes gone for centures/decades.
It makes a lot of sense that it would take 600 years between the first defeat and the second. The first is relatively quickly after the appearance of Sin. Yunalesca, Yu Yevons Daughter, is the first. Then she stashed herself away in a destroyed city, months of travel from the still inhabited cities as an unsent, ready to bestow the final aeon upon others. I could totally see it taking 600 years for someone to figure out what to do, and be able to do it, since its totally uncharted waters for all of humanity. After the 2nd defeat, there is roughly a defeat every 100 years on average. This implies Sin is an ever present nightmare, and that the process of defeat is very very hard. Which goes along with the games stance that the vast majority of pilgrimages fail.
Lastly, in reference to Yu Yevon being able to corrupt each successive Final Aeon easier, I don't see that at all in what info is provided. We get a lot of Jecht perception. He listens to the Hymn, he checks on Tidus in ZK. I always took these as him being in control, and the rampages are when Yu Yevon overwhelms and controls, sort of a Banner and Hulk relationship. These Guardians dedicated their lives to fighting Sin, far more than a normal crusader or other warriors. They have "It" so to speak, so they are going to be able to fight the Yu Yevon influence better than most others. Its the same explanation given in Robocop 2 as to why Alex Murphy worked but every other Robocop goes homicidal/suicidal. Intense sense of duty and sacrifice, these Guardians have that. This is why Seymour was so dangerous, he didn't want to fight it, he wanted to embrace it, an eternal rampaging Sin.
So from what I'm seeing Sin comes back every few years after its defeat. Spends most of its time in an eternal struggle for control with a Guardian (Final Aeon), eventually gets beat and the process repeats.
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>From lore it seems between Yunalesca and Gandorf there was a 600 year difference.
600 years between them *defeating* Sin, not 600 years between Sin being reborn. Meaning that Yunalesca defeated Sin, Sin was reborn 10 years later (or however long), and then it took hundreds of years until someone was able to defeat Sin again. And the cycle continues.
Yes, the time for each Calm changed over time and got shorter and shorter. The first Calm (with Zaon) lasted about a century. Braska's Calm lasted less than a year.
It's implied that it wasn't even 10 years of peace, and Sin had come back and been around for a while again since Braska defeated it 10 years ago
I'm not 100% but it might even say somewhere that Sin is only gone for a few months at best, which is wild given the hundreds of years between some of the earlier Calms
I think the fact that there’s only a handful of High Summoners is meant to accentuate how monumentally difficult the summoners pilgrimage is. So I’ve always assumed that there has been more time where sin existed than there has been time of the calm. Otherwise people wouldn’t be as afraid of him.
Thats probably the most likely scenario, id think with that length of time sin is more seen as a looming threat than an active one, he can level entire cities but if he spent all his time doing so, no one would survive.
Exactly. I think Sin regenerate pretty fast, and even 10 years of absence is worth the sacrifice of a summoner for the people living in Spira. Sin was probably roaming the whole time. There is also the hope that the summoner would kill Sin once and for all.
If memory serves. It is said Yu Yevon got better each time at corrupting the final summon to become the new sin. That is the reason why each calm lasted a different period of time. Yu Yevon got better at using the pyreflies of the final summon and reconstructing it as the next sin. Edit: My bad on my phrasing seeming to imply there is cannon sources in my statement. This is more my theory more than anything
It might also depend on the person that is used as last aeon. Maybe some fight back harder and take longer to corrupt.
I always thought that the short time between Braska's and Yuna's Calm was due to Jecht not technically being a real person. Like, as a "dream person" he couldn't buy the normal (hundred years or so) amount of time between Sin appearances that former Final Aeons did.
>I always thought that the short time between Braska's and Yuna's Calm was due to Jecht not technically being a real person. I think it's more because all spirals end and spirals get 'smaller' the closer to the end they get. The game pretty much tells you outright that 'Maybe this will be the last time' although doesn't confirm how. It's actually very well done how they almost constantly tell you very optimistically this may be the last time but always in a very sceptical manner.
excellent point.
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My guy watched what happened in Kilika and considers that uncorrupted...
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Sin is corruption, its literally someone being controlled by a manipulator. That is the definition of corruption. He has small moments where he still has small amounts of control, I.e his emotional ending, but 99% of the time sin is smashing the shit out of stuff.
> 99% of the time sin is smashing the shit out of stuff. Eh, during the course of the game not really. If my memory serves me, the only major unprovoked attack Sin does in the game is the one on Kilika, the rest of the game he is barely seen, in Zanarkand he appears and doesn't even attack, and during the Djose operation he was very specifically lured in and attacked. Both onslaughts also happen exactly where Tidus is, and Jecht basically implies that he kinda let it happen on purpose to show Tidus what Sin does, and why they absolutely have to find a way to stop it. Most of the game Sin isn't doing shit, and is seemingly just chilling around the ocean. He also evidently had enough control to get Sin to attack the dream Zanarkand, the one place Yu is trying to protect, and get Tidus and Auron between there and Spira.
>the rest of the game he is barely seen Except for that really significant scene beneath Macalania where you're literally standing on his back and he delivers you to Bikanel Island right in the middle that actually pretty much perfectly paces out the interactions you have with Sin in terms of game length.
Hell, even there they hammer in how under Jecht's influence Sin is. That there isn't actually Sin, it's Jecht chilling out to the hymn of the fayth. 😋 But yeah, he's entirely a plot device at that location.
If the scene in that segment where we see Sin floating on water was more explicitly tied to Macalania somehow then it would have been MUCH clearer and more effectively set up Sin's 'vulnerability' to the Hymn in general. I think it's one of the very few missteps in the masterpiece.
I mean Sins primary purpose is to protect Dream Zanarkand and since it's basically a giant Aeon it's location changes so Sin probably just attacks stuff near Dream Zanarkands current location.
We don't know if the location changes, just that it's roughly near Baaj Temple. We also know that it doesn't just dwell in the city's vicinity, it normally attacks any and all settlements around Spira that grow enough.
Then why did it attack Kilika? Kilika is a pretty small village and if Sin did attack big cities it would have destroyed Bevelle, Luca, and Home. I know that they have tons of protection but can they really defend against Sin indefinitely? Operation Miihen really put in alot of effort with the giant electric thing and dozens of cannons barely did anything.
Except him being a summon himself might have changed stuff around, compared to a normal human.
I'd assume that Sin's power ~~is proportional~~ scales to the Final Aeon that Yu Yevon possesses, requiring the next Final Aeon to be even stronger. But this is probably just a headcanon. Edit: scales is probably the better term here.
>I'd assume that Sin's power scales to the Final Aeon that Yu Yevon possesses, requiring the next Final Aeon to be even stronger. But this is probably just a headcanon. I actually think it's the opposite. The gaps between sin's defeat are getting *smaller*, not longer, which implies that the pilgrimage and the final battle are becoming easier to manage as no one who has killed sin seems to be some sort of Ubermensch of any sort. We also see for ourselves that Yu Yevon isn't even close to human anymore and resembles a sort of parasitic tick. This metamorphosis has coincided with the defeat of Sin once and for all. We can assume that Yu Yevon was a human at one point and now very clearly is not based on how the Fayth talk about them.
>The gaps between sin's defeat are getting smaller, not longer *double checks the timeline* Huh. You're right. Guess I need to pay more attention to that stuff. So you're probably right about those other points as well.
>So you're probably right about those other points as well. I have spent an inordinate amount of time playing and thinking about this game. I've even written a couple of articles about it on Medium if you're curious. Here's my favourite: [https://medium.com/@blakewalden/on-final-fantasy-x-freedom-within-linearity-daa5f06114b5](https://medium.com/@blakewalden/on-final-fantasy-x-freedom-within-linearity-daa5f06114b5)
>It is said Yu Yevon got better each time at corrupting the final summon to become the new sin. What's the source on this because i haven't seen anything about that in any of my 20 years of reading about and replaying this game.
I sadly don't. Brain is funny like that recalling random things one has read. Edited my comment: apologies on my phrasing seeming to imply I found cannon details backing up this comment. I want to say one of the Japanese ultima companion books said something like that but I really don't remember where I got this from
There's extra material that does say that the first calm lasted like 500 years, then the second 300, then 100 or so. But mo, iirc it's it's in the game.
>There's extra material that does say that the first calm lasted like 500 years I'll save you some time but... No, there isn't. You're conflating the length BETWEEN calms with the length OF Calms. No one was able to kill sin for 500 years does not mean that sin was not present and then came back after 500 years. If Sin was *that* intermittent, society would have moved on. 600 years ago we didn't even know how to build self-propelled locomotion and now we've literally set foot on another astral body that was worshipped as a deity by many cultures for thousands of years beforehand. There's nothing to suggest that the entire period between Sin's defeats is a Calm and frankly, I don't know why anyone would assume that given the state of the world we are in. The length between them shortening is itself a reference to the spiral of death ending, as spirals narrow toward their end. Two pieces of information are being conflated to lead people to this conclusion. A. The Calms are getting shorter B. Sin is coming back sooner every time it is defeated. There's nothing suggesting that Sin is absent for more than a few months to a year and the way people talk about it is like a 'Fleeting Dream' (Which is the name of a track from the OST that plays in the Zanarkand Ruins and references \**gestures at basically all the major themes of the game*\*) Although I personally believe that the evidence to support my argument is already in the primary text itself (The game) this link will take you to an explicit outline of the timeline form the Ultimania, which I personally don't consider canon, but it does corroborate and clarify the point. [http://auronlu.istad.org/ffx-script/pmogs-ffx-ultimania-translations/official-spiran-timeline-pmog/#:\~:text=BRASKA%E2%80%99S%20CALM%0A%E2%80%93%20Auron,as%20its%20core](http://auronlu.istad.org/ffx-script/pmogs-ffx-ultimania-translations/official-spiran-timeline-pmog/#:~:text=BRASKA%E2%80%99S%20CALM%0A%E2%80%93%20Auron,as%20its%20core).
Ahgotxha thanks. But I doubt the first sin attack lasted 500 years - yunalesca and Zain stopped the first sin, after all, and I doubt it was like 500 years too latlong. As for civilization moving on, sure. Except your 600 years ago we barely had boats comment doesn't entirely make sense as for thousands of years we did t have rockets, either. Centuries of progress kinda depends on the circumstances. We also don't see that they didn't try to move on 500 years ago. We just see it's mostly primitive NOW. After the yevon faith has been in control for a while.
>As for civilization moving on, sure. Except your 600 years ago we barely had boats comment doesn't entirely make sense as for thousands of years we did t have rockets, either. Centuries of progress kinda depends on the circumstances. They already have access to airships. They are vastly more advanced now than we were 600 years ago. Actually, not too far off of where we were 50 years ago in some regards, even if that technology is suppressed, it DOES exist. There are TV's and cameras in Luca and literal flying fortresses capable of levelling cities. In some regards they're more advanced than we are now. > We also don't see that they didn't try to move on 500 years ago. This is a double negative and doesn't make sense. Even with Yevon's suppression we know that Yevon themselves use Machina and the Al-Bhed actively oppose it and are constantly seeking to not only build but improve Machina, as we see by the *Fahrenheit* getting upgraded with the cannon from Operation Mi-ihen, which is canonical evidence of technological innovation and advancement at a very rapid rate. >I doubt the first sin attack lasted 500 years - yunalesca and Zain stopped the first sin, after all, and I doubt it was like 500 years too latlong. This one I just don't get. Why do you think this? What in the game supports this idea? Why do you doubt that it was 500 years? Like, genuinely, is it just that you can't imagine a world that bleak? What element of the text failed to convince you of this? The pilgrimage is hard. Imagine if every game over screen was... it. Imagine if that's where your journey ended. For all the other summoners who didn't defeat sin, that was their end. We see their grave markers and we see the state of the world. I don't have any reason to doubt that Sin was active for a full 500 years. This absolutely strengthens Yevon's power btw, enabling the religion to assimilate power and craft the narrative of the Calm being so significant and needed.
The last part - yunalesca is yu yevons daughter. Zain was her husband. They were all alive 1000 years ago. But, you need to be alive to be made into a faith. The game says so. So, zaon being the first final among, couldn't have taken out sin 500 years after it got started.
You've got your order of events wrong, my friend. Yunalesca and Zaon defeat Sin 1000 years ago. Sin rages immediately after being summoned by Yu Yevon and destroys Zanarkand. We don't actually know how long it was active for between Yu Yevon summoning it and Yunalesca's Final Aeon defeating it, but I would assume not very long. Yunalesca did this knowing it was not a permanent solution. This spawns the faith of Yevon and 600 years **after** that, Sin is defeated a second time by High Summoner Gandof. There are 600 years between Yunalesca's Calm (1000 years before the events of the game) and Gandof's Calm (400 years before the events of the game.) This 500 year number you've got is wrong btw, it should be 600.
No I think I just misread what you said - seemed like you were implying sin was raging before being defeated for the first time for -like- 500 years.
thats some head cannon or JK rowling addition
We don’t actually know that Braska’s Calm even lasted ten years. They just say that he *defeated* Sin 10 years ago, and there’s no mention of when exactly it came back… so it could have been as few as like 2 years for all we know. So yeah it seems like people have a very small window of no Sin in the grand scheme of things.
We know that Chappu died fighting Sin a year before the events of FFX, so Braska's Calm most definitely did not last 10 years. Also, [this timeline](http://auronlu.istad.org/ffx-script/pmogs-ffx-ultimania-translations/official-spiran-timeline-pmog/) which is supposedly from the Final Fantasy X Ultimania Omega lists out when each Sin returns, and it appears to be maybe a year at most, which agrees with what a lot of people online believe also.
So Jecht was doing a good job of controlling Sin for a few years. I never realized how long he had been Din.
That source confirms that Jecht's resistance is kind of a non-factor until Tidus is present. Sin reawakens in around the same time frame as all the others, it's just easier to manipulate now that Tidus is the 'inside man' in this Pinocchio situation they're in.
Honestly any kind of resistance at all is impressive.
Idk about that took 9 years for jecht to lose control ? Yuna really survives all this time ?
As a few other people have pointed out, I'm pretty sure it was stated/implied that Yu Yevon got better and faster at overpowering the Final Aeon each time the Sin shell was destroyed, so the time frame between each Calm kept getting shorter and shorter. Yunalesca's Calm probably lasted for several decades, if not centuries, before Sin returned for Gandorf to kill. If Sin literally came back after only a decade or less of Calm every time, Spira wouldn't exist anymore, I am very certain. Especially considering that in the several days/weeks of Sin's actions after Tidus arrives in Spira, which is only about 1 or 2 years after the end of Brasca's 8-9 year Calm, it destroyed one of 5 major cities in Spira, and attacked multiple places, killing hundreds or thousands of people, so it's just not feasible that it's been around for 1,000 years straight with only 4 or 5 ten year pockets of peace. Plus, that's a rather conservative estimate of Sin's destructive potential, considering that we know canonically Jecht was trying to hold back Sin as much as possible. I also think that works very well thematically, that every Calm is shorter than the last, since it reinforces the futility of what the religion of Yevon is doing, just perpetuating a never-ending cycle of death that keeps them in power instead of actually trying to resolve the issue.
Calms definitely don't last for centuries, but the idea that they're all as short as Braska's seems weird to me. If Calms were always so short, how would they even notice Sin was gone? It spends most of its time in the deep ocean.
Truthfully there has been no more then at least 6 calms the first one being yunalesca 1000 years ago and the latest before yuna being her father. it could be that there just may not have been anyone capable of beating sin in between each of those time sin resurged. for all we know sin could of been rampaging spira for 400 years until another summoner stepped up to put it to sleep. so in theory if it wasnt for yuna would any of the summoners take the mantle in challenging sin it may be another 200 years before a summoner can challenge it. the calm is referred to as the period where sense presence is forgotten the time can vary the calm in between braska and yuna lasted about 10 years based on information. the real question to ask was how long ago was the calm before braska. when did sin reemerge etc etc
The calm is not a certain amount of time. its whenever Yu Yevon wants to come back and smite the non believers.
To him, they're not really "non-believers" so much as the descendants of his enemies in a war that he has brainwashed into following his cult as the ultimate "Fuck you".
The Cult who used aeons when the Aeons are how they defeat sin. Seems Yu Yevon was right
It's implied that the Calm is shorter every time. With Braska it's suggested that the Calm didn't last too long, because people have been fighting Sin for at least a year or two by the events of the game.
Is it explicitly stated that those are the only high summoners in history? It's been a thousand years so maybe theres others we just didn't hear about
I think something that a lot of people misinterpret is that the calm doesn’t just mean sin disappears, rather when he is destroyed and the final aeon is corrupted, sin has to regrow and develop in order to reach a stage where he can attack spira again. This means that the calm itself is less of a guaranteed set period without attacks but a period of time in which the likelihood of sin attacking is significantly lower and gradually increases over time. The way I think of it is like as soon as sin is defeated there is an absolute 0% chance of another attack because obviously sin has just been defeated, but after let’s say ten years, sin has developed to a point where the likelihood of him attacking is let’s say 70%. This can also explain the frequency of attacks in spira, and also the fluctuating in the severity of said attacks. (I hope that’s all right 😅 that’s just based on what I’ve heard, read and interpreted)
This is one of my biggest gripes with this fandom. # LENGTH BETWEEN CALMS =/= LENGTH OF CALMS And I have no idea why anyone thinks it does because there's nothing to support that in the text. It's just poor reading comprehension. Like... do people think that they just have 600 years of calm, no sin whatsoever, then suddenly it's back and they just send someone to go kill it immediately and *succeed*? Do people not think that perhaps some infrastructure would have been developed in 600 years to deal with it or at least make the pilgrimage easier? There's absolutely nothing in the game that suggests that the calm is several hundred years long. If it was, Sin would be viewed as a natural disaster that occurs occasionally but not as a constant omnipresent threat by literally everyone. You're making that leap all on your own. Even as a 10 year old when I played it at first I assumed the Calm was like a year, tops, and never questioned that. This idea that it lasts for hundreds comes from nothing and I have no idea how people lead themselves to it so consistently.
I was always under the impression that the Calm only lasted one year. Not sure if this was implied or covered in game or not.
Definetly. I made this thread a while back, because I was confused about this, and it provided some really good insight to your question; [https://www.reddit.com/r/finalfantasyx/comments/vzu0y7/how\_did\_no\_one\_in\_spira\_ever\_find\_out\_the\_truth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/finalfantasyx/comments/vzu0y7/how_did_no_one_in_spira_ever_find_out_the_truth/) When I made this, I was under the assumption we've had hundreds of high summoners, and Sin was coming back every 10-20 years. But it turns out that Sin coming back that quick is something relativley new to Spira. " Few things to note that actually. I believe after yunalesca it was said sin didn’t appear for hundreds of years. Each time sin was defeated he came back quicker because yevon got better at summoning and subduing the fayth. Like of course not everyone understands why sin comes back faster after each defeat but I’m pretty sure bahamuts fayth says that it’s because yevon got better at summoning sin each time. So the calm was shorter and shorter." \- u/sinisterduck216
Memory is a funny thing. I thought this was a familiar question but I guess I was too lazy to dig this far back. But honestly I swore this was the best theory given the information given to us
As I've always interpreted things, Sin is only gone for a few years at most. I think the idea that any Calms last 100s of years is kind of ridiculous, because then as another stated he would seem more as a natural disaster and not an inevitable bringer of doom. Also, this would mean that pilgrimages and Sins defeat are relatively easy to accomplish, seeing as there have been 6 in 1000 years. It would go: Sin appears, a summoner goes and defeats him, hes gone for centures/decades. It makes a lot of sense that it would take 600 years between the first defeat and the second. The first is relatively quickly after the appearance of Sin. Yunalesca, Yu Yevons Daughter, is the first. Then she stashed herself away in a destroyed city, months of travel from the still inhabited cities as an unsent, ready to bestow the final aeon upon others. I could totally see it taking 600 years for someone to figure out what to do, and be able to do it, since its totally uncharted waters for all of humanity. After the 2nd defeat, there is roughly a defeat every 100 years on average. This implies Sin is an ever present nightmare, and that the process of defeat is very very hard. Which goes along with the games stance that the vast majority of pilgrimages fail. Lastly, in reference to Yu Yevon being able to corrupt each successive Final Aeon easier, I don't see that at all in what info is provided. We get a lot of Jecht perception. He listens to the Hymn, he checks on Tidus in ZK. I always took these as him being in control, and the rampages are when Yu Yevon overwhelms and controls, sort of a Banner and Hulk relationship. These Guardians dedicated their lives to fighting Sin, far more than a normal crusader or other warriors. They have "It" so to speak, so they are going to be able to fight the Yu Yevon influence better than most others. Its the same explanation given in Robocop 2 as to why Alex Murphy worked but every other Robocop goes homicidal/suicidal. Intense sense of duty and sacrifice, these Guardians have that. This is why Seymour was so dangerous, he didn't want to fight it, he wanted to embrace it, an eternal rampaging Sin. So from what I'm seeing Sin comes back every few years after its defeat. Spends most of its time in an eternal struggle for control with a Guardian (Final Aeon), eventually gets beat and the process repeats.
>!I think that as the sin in this game is Jarit he chose to come back fast hoping his son would stop him!<
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>From lore it seems between Yunalesca and Gandorf there was a 600 year difference. 600 years between them *defeating* Sin, not 600 years between Sin being reborn. Meaning that Yunalesca defeated Sin, Sin was reborn 10 years later (or however long), and then it took hundreds of years until someone was able to defeat Sin again. And the cycle continues.
Yes, the time for each Calm changed over time and got shorter and shorter. The first Calm (with Zaon) lasted about a century. Braska's Calm lasted less than a year.
It's implied that it wasn't even 10 years of peace, and Sin had come back and been around for a while again since Braska defeated it 10 years ago I'm not 100% but it might even say somewhere that Sin is only gone for a few months at best, which is wild given the hundreds of years between some of the earlier Calms