NAMESAKE
LADY YUNALESCA
Yu Yevon is the heart of Yevon, and Sin its blazing sword. What then is Yunalesca, lovely lady of Zanarkand? She waits at the end of the pilgrimage, at the end of everything. It is she who breaks the news: what hope there has been is a false hope, and more than one must die in order to renew it. What was her true role in the shaping of the Yevon religion? What could her motives have been?

The fall of Zanarkand to the machina of Bevelle began a cycle that would continue for a thousand years. Doomed, Zanarkand’s people turned to Yu Yevon for a plan—if not a plan to emerge victorious, at least a plan to save their beloved home. So it was that the survivors of the war gave themselves to become fayth on the icy slopes of Gagazet, allowing Yu Yevon to summon from their memories an eternal Zanarkand. A dream Zanarkand. His armor, Sin, would protect him as he surrendered himself to the summoning. However, this plan went awry. Sin annihilated Bevelle, and then the rest of Spira, devastating the once proud cities of machines and shining monuments. It is here, at this point in the story, that Yunalesca emerges. It is also here that I begin to wonder…what was Yunalesca thinking? What did she mean to accomplish, by offering to kill her own father? Or, what did she hope to gain? Was it really the guarantee that her father would always be remembered in the teachings of Yevon that would bear his name? Was it her own prestige as the only one with the power to bestow the Final Aeon and thus destroy Sin?

When you defeat Yunalesca in Zanarkand dome, her last words are an apology to her husband Zaon and a lamentation that the light of hope has been extinguished. She speaks often of hope, the concept of hope, and yet her idea of it seems completely deluded. Does she truly believe wholeheartedly that a false hope is better than no hope at all? The summoners and guardians who die in order to give Spira that false hope are also ensuring that Sin is reborn. It must have been Yunalesca who decided, a thousand years before, that Sin must be eternal, that the rebirth of Sin must always continue. Perhaps she wishes her father to continue living through Sin, perhaps she relishes the fame and prestige this gives them in the teachings of Yevon, or perhaps she honestly believes that there is no other way to destroy Sin. I think, though, that she does know the cycle can be broken, and she simply doesn’t want anyone to break it. And in a way, I think also that some part of her believes in that same false hope...believes in it wholeheartedly.