Anima is female (She/Her) in FFX and what that means in FFXIV

In Final Fantasy X, Anima is female.

(If you haven't beaten FFX, spoilers are ahead)

Since the Fayth of Anima came from Seymour's mother, I do often see her mistaken for a male from anyone who didn't get that far in FFX. Which is somewhat cringe as FFX shows you Seymour's mother, her speaking about it to him, and her ultimate sacrifice to become the Final Aeon.

Anima's characteristics are innately dark, the kanji for darkness is on the Chamber of Fayth where you acquire her. This follows suit with FFXIV relatively nicely when going to the Moon.

It does bring up some questions as to who she is in this game, but it would only make sense to continue using the same pronouns as the game that the material came from.

It does make me wonder that I couldn't make out her necklace in the image that Yoshi P had posted. Also, how she will be portrayed in this game.

I imagine there will be a lot of guys who say "it doesn't matter" in the same way calling Shiva makes sense being called a he, or "Anima looks cool therefore must be a guy" but since FF follows some respect for the original content, especially Yoshi P's handling of all old content and seeking the approval of the original producers, I imagine it's good to prepare for that now instead of later.

I'm interested in the backstory, though. Where will we find Anima? In Garlemald? On the Moon? On the islands? I couldn't find any indicators for this.

While FFXIV may keep Anima as female, it doesn't mean that she has to have the same/similar background, or any background at all. She could be just a primal that is worshipped by a particular group.

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Originally Posted by linayar

While FFXIV may keep Anima as female, it doesn't mean that she has to have the same/similar background, or any background at all. She could be just a primal that is worshipped by a particular group.

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Agreed. But *who* would worship her?

A guild mate of mine suggested that she might actually be from the End of Days. In terms of how they looked, it would make sense.

When I think Anima I think mother, and a mother's sorrow and fury. Which you could apply those feelings genderless or male, these are just stereotypes, like a father's watch doesn't have to be by a male. I'd probably keep it female if I had a voice, and continue the mother concepts, but I think you could easily describe such an entity genderless- like the fairies.

So if I was looking for a carry emotional conceptual throughput I'm thinking bear mom, but with trappings of sorrow and fury. Actually why I was thinking souls even more for the new job since Anima is in the game, even fury has been associated to Anima in another FF game.

My absolutely baseless thoughts might be due to the insanity going on and ascian meddlings- Anima which watches over the life stream is drawn out where we may have to fight because we will be doing something within the lifestream directly and they're protecting as they can (big repair time, WoL can they fix it? Maybe! Lol). Think backstory of Chaos from FF Dirge of Cerberus. Perhaps as we are combining Zodiark and mother crystal, returning someone, or whatever. Maybe making Anima a summon / primal / entity of souls (not by people). Great mushi watching over the Koumyaku. Etc. On an aside I did want to see a primal born by the dead (although I was suggesting it in context of Sil'dih).

Other thought is Anima might be what causes the deep sound from within, perhaps just the world / mother nature correcting something how mother nature does (hello tornado). Or maybe related to some other place, perhaps represents the will of some other dead / dying star. Terra coming for our land :p. FF spirits within, new Jenova. Marks the new threats. Just me goofing off though.

Anima should stay female. My concern though is just how they are going to use her. She is a very loaded character with a lot of potential backstory but I'm afraid they're just going to use her as a fairly generic boss monster. I'm not saying they need to basically use her in the same way that she was used in FFX but it would be a real shame if such a cool and interesting character was stripped of that and just slapped somewhere as a boss because she looks cool (which she does, of course).

Perhaps a bit outlandish but what if Anima is the corrupted soul of the WoL from the 13th shard? And either Fandaniel summons her in an attempt to stop us or we summon her in an attempt to rejoin our souls before fighting Zenos?

It fits the light/dark and rejoining themes of the entire Ascian story, its also a mirror to hydaelyn/zodiark and is also the kind of oblique head fake the writers like to do.

Well her power is pain itself, which is going to make things interesting. She is also a tormented soul in ffx, but that doesn't mean they need to keep her backstory the same or even similar in xiv. Look how many differences there were in shiva, ifrit, ramuh, etc backstories. They always adapt these characters to fit the game, not adapt the game to fit the characters.

She could literally be a manifestation of the pain the ascians felt in the final days. She could be a primal of Lunarians. She could just be a guardian of some sort and not a primal at all.

She could also be a he or be genderless, it all depends on her backstory. Unlike Shiva, who was always seen as female due to her human or humanoid shape, Anima as an Aeon does not have a physical sex or adhere to any gender roles in her appearance and if her back story is changed than they could easily change her gender or drop it completely to fit the narrative. Just like any non human(oid) summon we have seen in the series. Carby, Ixion, even Bahamut is not given a specific gender in most games and could freely swap between games for narrative purposes. Iirc Phoenix has swapped genders a few times over the course of the series too. So nothing is set in stone.

And to be fair, I often default to calling her a he as well. Just because her sex as Anima, just like most summons, is so ambiguous, and most of us default to "he" for sexless or genderless anything in our normal speech patterns. I know her backstory well, but I still often default to he just due to the visuals and the sheer lack of emphasis put on Anima being a Her.

Also, the Aeon is the physical manifestation of the Fayth's dream and therefore could be a male, female, both or neither and could change at the whim of or due to outside influences surrounding the Fayth. There is nothing "cringe" about it really if you actually understand the lore because Anima does not have a gender. lt's Fayth does, but we do not know if that gender, or any gender, is reflected in the actual Aeon due to their being no signifiers of gender. Not everything needs a label. If it makes you more comfortable and you feel the need to label or give a set of pronouns to a fictional character with no specified gender, you could consider her non-binary and therefore they/them, since the she/her you mentioned is purely you making assumptions.

But to most of us, the gendering of summons doesn't matter and is only really a thing in cases like Shiva, due to tradition. Carby can be a boy or girl, same with Bahamut, Cait Sith, Phoenix, Maduin, Levi etc. Most, I would say, don't care.

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

Anima should stay female. My concern though is just how they are going to use her. She is a very loaded character with a lot of potential backstory but I'm afraid they're just going to use her as a fairly generic boss monster. I'm not saying they need to basically use her in the same way that she was used in FFX but it would be a real shame if such a cool and interesting character was stripped of that and just slapped somewhere as a boss because she looks cool (which she does, of course).

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Hopefully not. Yojimbo was already ruined here :(

I'm personally expecting Anima to just be a particularly unpleasant Terminus beast guarding something of importance and not much more.

So, half of your post here kind of makes no sense....what does Anima's Gender have to do with her being on FFXIV?