Seymour Guado

Seymour Guado
Final Fantasy character
First appearance	Final Fantasy X (2001)
Last appearance	Theatrhythm Final Bar Line (2023)
Created by	Kazushige Nojima
Designed by	Tetsuya Nomura
Voiced by	English: Alex Fernandez Japanese: Junichi Suwabe
Motion capture	Ichiro Kato
Information
Race	Half Guado
Occupation	Maester in the Church of Yevon
Weapon	Staff
Home	Baaj (prior to the events of Final Fantasy X), Guadosalam (during Final Fantasy X)

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Seymour Guado (Japanese: シーモア＝グアド, Hepburn: Shīmoa-Guado) is a fictional video game character in Square Enix's Final Fantasy series who appears as a major antagonist and temporarily playable character in the 2001 role-playing video game Final Fantasy X. Seymour is a 28-year-old mage and priest of the fictional religion of Yevon. He is half-human and half Guado, as his father Jyscal Guado married a human woman in hopes that it would improve relations between their races. His father was a maester in the Church of Yevon, which controls the fictional and theocratic world of Spira. Prior to the events of the game, Seymour killed Jyscal in order to inherit his position. Seymour also holds the position of Minister of Temple Affairs, which oversees summoners. A summoner himself, he attempts to use his stature to manipulate the fledgling summoner Yuna into aiding him with his goal of becoming the monster Sin.

He has appeared in other video games in the Final Fantasy franchise, including the Final Fantasy X sequel Final Fantasy X-2 during a flashback cutscene and can be obtained as an optional playable character in the Final Fantasy X-2 international version. The character also makes recurring appearences in the Theatrhythm Final Fantasy series, as well as other spin-off games such as Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, and others.

Seymour has been generally well-received by video game critics for his role in the narrative and challenge level. He frequently ranks as one of the most memorable antagonists in the Final Fantasy series due to his nihilistic personality and his unwillingness to accept defeat.

Creation and development

Seymour's design was created by Final Fantasy artist Tetsuya Nomura. During development of Final Fantasy X, it was proposed that characters grow stronger through a "tattoo system" where the player would have leveled up by placing tattoes on a grid. To reflect this, Seymour — as well as Jecht and Brother — were designed with large, prominent tattoos. Though this proposed system was scrapped during development, Seymour's final character design retained his chest tattoo.

Junichi Suwabe, the character's Japanese voice actor, was not originally planning on auditioning for the role of Seymour. He first auditioned to play the roles of Tidus and Jecht, later trying to read Auron's lines before finding Seymour's dialogue in his additional materials.

Appearances

Final Fantasy X

Seymour is a major antagonist in Final Fantasy X, who first appears as a nominal ally. Prior to the events of the game, his father Jyscal Guado married a human woman in hopes that it would improve relations between their races, but their union had the opposite effect. Viewed as an abomination by both races, Seymour and his mother were exiled to the remote island of Baaj. Believing there was no other way for him to be accepted, his mother brought him to Zanarkand where she sacrificed herself to become the aeon Anima and intended for him to use her powers to defeat Sin. He would instead spend the remainder of his youth isolated in the Baaj temple, forming twisted views on life and death. Two weeks before the events of Final Fantasy X, Seymour assassinated his father to inherit his power and influence, putting into motion his plans to become Sin.

Tidus and his party first encounter Seymour shortly before a blitzball game, where the leader of Spira introduces him as Yevon's newest maester. Seymour secretly unleashed monsters into the sports stadium, only so that he could eliminate them using Anima to gain the trust of the public. He would later make efforts to gain the trust of the summoner Yuna, believing that a bond with her would enable him to become her final aeon upon her reaching Zanarkand, as he knew that the final aeon that defeats Sin would ultimately become the next Sin. Once he believed Yuna trusted him, he asked her to marry him. To his dismay, she was shocked by his proposal and did not answer. Yuna later encountered the spirit of Seymour's father Jyscal, who informed Yuna of his murder and implored her to stop Seymour. When the party meets him at Macalania Temple, Tidus and Yuna confront him. Realizing that he can no longer achieve his goals by gaining her trust, Seymour instead chooses to enact his plans by force, and attempts to kill her party. Seymour dies in battle, but remains in the world as an unsent spirit.

Following his defeat, Seymour orders the Guado people to find Yuna and bring her to Bevelle, the capital of Spira's theocracy. Tidus and the party arrive to find Seymour and Yuna at a wedding ceremony. The party tries to prevent the wedding, but they end up being held at gunpoint and used as leverage to force Yuna to marry Seymour. As soon as the wedding is over, Yuna and her party are captured and put on trial for treason. The trial is judged by the four maesters of Yevon, including Seymour. Yuna is sentenced to death, and Seymour offers to kill her personally. Distrustful of him, maester Kinoc insists on joining him. As Yuna tries to escape, Seymour kills Kinoc and presents his corpse to the party. He reveals his plan to become Sin, and proceeds to absorb Kinoc's spirit as he shapeshifts into the monster Seymour Natus (シーモア:異体, Shīmoa Itai, "Seymour: Variant"). The party defeats him a second time and continues their journey, now viewed as traitors by the Church. Seymour tries to stop Yuna from reaching Zanarkand a final time, killing numerous members of the Ronso tribe and transforming into Seymour Flux (シーモア:終異体, Shīmoa: Shū Itai, "Seymour: Ending Variant"). Defeated a third time, Seymour is unable to stop the party from reaching Zanarkand without him.

At Zanarkand, the party learns that attaining the final aeon would require Yuna to sacrifice someone close to her, only for this new aeon to become the next Sin. Yuna refuses to sacrifice her friends and defeats Yunalesca in battle, making the attainment of the final aeon impossible and ensuring that Sin cannot be reborn, making Seymour's goal of becoming the next Sin with Yuna's help unattainable. Yuna and her party then travel inside of Sin to defeat it, only to find that Seymour's spirit had been absorbed by it. He reveals that his new strategy is to control Sin from within, and morphs into his Seymour Omnis form (シーモア:最終異体, Shīmoa: Saishū Itai, "Seymour: Final Variant") and battles the party a final time. After the battle, a defeated Seymour asserts that Spira's cycle of suffering will continue without him. Yuna sends his spirit to the afterlife, ending his presence in the world.

Other games

Theatrythm Final Fantasy series

Seymour appears as a playable character in Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: All-Star Carnival and Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Final Bar Line. The character also appears as a non-playable enemy character in his Seymour Natus form in Curtain Call, All-Star Carnival, and Final Bar Line.

Musical themes

Main article: Music of Final Fantasy X

In Final Fantasy X, Seymour is the focus of several pieces of music written by series composer Nobuo Uematsu.

His character theme, "Seymour's Theme" (シーモアのテーマ, Shīmoa no Tēma), is a slow-paced track composed primarily of string and brass instruments. Several other tracks based off of "Seymour's Theme" play at various points throughout the game, such as "Permitted Passage", "My Father's Murderer", and "The Unsent Laugh." The character's leitmotif is also the basis of the track "Seymour's Ambition", which plays in the party's first battle against him.

The most notable piece representing the character is "Fight with Seymour" (シーモアバトル, Shīmoa Batoru, lit. "Seymour Battle"), a fast-paced song which uses a combination of synth, orchestral, and rock instruments. In Final Fantasy X, "Fight with Seymour" plays in the final confrontation against the character. The song is used as one of the selected tracks to represent Final Fantasy X in other games in the franchise, including Final Fantasy XV and in the Theatrhythm Final Fantasy spin-off series. Remixes of the track are present in the Dissidia Final Fantasy and Chocobo Racing games. In an interview by Destructoid of composer Nobuo Uematsu and conductor Arnie Roth, Roth stated that Fight with Seymour was one of the most requested tracks to be included in Final Fantasy concerts.

Reception

Character design

An article in TheGamer praised Seymour's character design and personality, commenting that his traditional robes reflect that he is part of the old guard, while the boldness of his design makes him stand out, reflecting his own ambitions. IGN was more critical of his appearance, listing Seymour's hairstyle as one of the worst in video game history in a satirical article. The entertainment website Việt Giải Tri wrote that his character design and theme music communicate to the player that Seymour is an antagonist before the game's story makes this clear.

Appearance in Final Fantasy X

WhatCulture praised Seymour's personality and challenge level, describing his character as the personification of nihilism and remarking that the battle against his Seymour Flux form "will inspire nightmarish flashbacks to most Final Fantasy X players." CBR was critical of Seymour, stating that he was too unsympathetic to be an effective tragic villain, adding that other villains in the series such as Kefka Palazzo and Sephiroth were more memorable. Green Man Gaming opined that Seymour is the most memorable villain for fans of Final Fantasy X due to his influential role in the game's world and his sinister intentions. In a Yahoo! Voices article, Seymour's familiar Anima was praised for its symbolism. An article in The Outline mentioned that the character's challenging battles contributed to Final Fantasy X having "exciting and strategic" gameplay. Engadget praised that the character was "created to be resented," making it more satisfying to defeat him, commenting that he inspired a "near-instant hatred" which "only deepened with each of his appearances." The sports and esports website Sportskeeda praised Seymour's appearance in Final Fantasy X, regarding the character as one of the most memorable temporarily playable characters and as one of the most impactful side characters in the Final Fantasy franchise. Seymour was compared favorably to other Final Fantasy X antagonists such as Jecht and Yu Yevon by the IDN Times, which argued that the character's comparative amount of screentime throughout the main storyline and his more villainous motivations made him a more memorable antagonist.

Yuna's abortive wedding with Seymour was ranked as the third most memorable matrimony in the history of PlayStation by Official PlayStation Magazine in 2014.

See also

• Characters of Final Fantasy X and X-2

References

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