Summons
From Beyond A Wiki
The people of Gaia have no stated system of religion in the game canon storyline...however, several scenes in both the game and Advent Children take place in Aerith's church. If there are churches, then clearly there must be gods the people pray to; and what is a god but a great unnamed creature called forth from the heavens when the people who have sworn fielty are in need of some devine intervention? Whatever the characters call them, be they summons, espers, guardians, eidolons, aeons, or avatars, these creatures are the closest things to heavenly beings that the Final Fantasy universes are granted. Especially in FFX, these creatures are likened very much to gods, as only summoners can call upon their power, and only after they have reached the end of the highest of holy journeys are they considered strong and capable enough to fully harness the power of these beings.
Thus, it served to reason that perhaps the people of the Final Fantasy worlds would refer to these creatures as their gods. You won't hear any of the characters in this story call upon "God"; they may breathe oath to multiple "gods", but if they speak of a single deity, He or She will be called by name.
In the same way many of the religions of the world today have multiple gods who are all responsible for different elements of life, we decided that perhaps the summons--or gods--of Final Fantasy might also be responsible for certain factions of existence. Some summons are shared by both FFX and FFVII, however most are not. Below is a detailed description of the system of religion we've set up for our take on the world of FFVII and the gods of Gaia.
The Aeons of Spira
As Spira and the world of FFX were precursors to FFVII, the roots of the religions of FFVII would be heavily influenced by the religions and Aeons of Spira. Yevonism was debunked as a sham in the story of FFX, however despite the hoax of the false god Yevon, the power of the Aeons could not be written off as a political scam against the people. So while the Fayths of Yevon were probably fast to crumble in the face of glaring exposure, the summoners would have likely remained loyal to the might of the Aeons and continued to call upon their assistance in times of need.
The Ultimania states that Spirans went to Gaia a thousand years after the events of FFX2, where they settled and became the ancient race called the Cetra that are referenced in FFVII. According to FFVII, Jenova came to Gaia and threatened the life of the Cetra two thousand years prior to the events in the game, but gives no indication of how long the Cetra were there on Gaia before Jenova arrived. Therefore, the events of FFVII take place at least three thousand years after those in FFX2, but it could have easily been much longer than that.
Through the course of the thousand years on Spira after which Yevonism was debunked, it is plausible that a sort of Aeonism evolved. The summons of FFX were always associated with divinity and holiness, and it is easily conceivable that with Yevon exposed as a false god, the Aeons themselves would slowly climb the ranks of divinity from holy guardians to gods themselves. So we can conclude that the religion of the Spirans at the point where they first ventured to Gaia was something of a pantheon of these holy protectors who would come to your aid and fight for you. Though the Aeons could be vanquished in battle, they never truly died; they merely returned to their ethereal plane of existence, ready to be called again after a brief respite. Obviously, these gods would not be viewed as infallible, but rather as very humanized, each with a personality and specific traits and powers suggested by their elements and attack styles, much like the ancient Greek pantheon of gods, all of which had character flaws and made mistakes.
Welcome to Gaia: From Aeon to Summon
The Spirans would have naturally brought their religion to Gaia after they settled there. The summoners of Spira, these holy priests who had the ability to call upon the power of the gods, wouldn't have lost their abilities after changing locations; logically, the Spirans on Gaia, who we can assume were the ancient Cetra, would still have been able to summon the Aeons to fight for them in battle. This holy knowledge would have been passed down through the Cetra, but since the Cetra in FFVII are considered an ancient race that died out millenia ago, this knowledge would have been lost to the world as the Cetra dwindled into nothing.
What is interesting to note is that in FFX, the Aeons are actually called into being and will stay with you, take your damage and fight for you, until they lose all their HP and return to wherever it is they came from, but in FFVII, the summons don't really have a physical manifestation at all. In the game, when a summon materia is used, the summon appears, casts a spell, and then disappears again, taking no damage for you and lasting for only one turn. In fact, there are only two instances in all the FFVII compilations where a summon actually battles its opponents--Zirconiade in Before Crisis, and Bahamut Sin in Advent Children. These two instances are covered in detail below.
In FFX, a sphere grid was used to improve character stats, and while nothing in FFVII is comparable to that kind of personalized customization of party members, it does imply that the Spirans--and therefore the ancient Cetra--were quite familiar with the concept of shiny spheres having magical uses. It really wouldn't have taken them long to figure out that the Lifestream was Gaia's version of the Farplane, and that crystallized Lifestream could be refined into spheres and used for magical purposes. The different colors indicate different usages, another concept that would have been familiar to those used to sphere grids.
The Cetra probably refined as much crystallized Lifestream as they could find into materia, but as with the power to summon Aeons into battle, the knowledge of materia usage would have died out with them, leaving Gaia without magic until the ShinRa company discovered how to use materia. For that duration of time, materia were probably viewed as ancient relics, artifacts of the extinct Cetra with no known utility. It wasn't until Professor Hojo discovered how to use refined Lifestream called mako that it really occurred to anyone that perhaps these spheres of crystallized Lifestream served any particular function.
Under scientific scrutiny, the different abilities afforded by different materia would have come to light. Green materia cast magic spells; blue materia link to other materia and afford the user useful boosts and bonuses in battle. Purple materia are much like blue materia, except they work independently and do not need to be linked, and yellow materia allow the user more skills to weild in battle. These four colors can exist in duplicate, meaning more than one of each specific materia could exist, so someone could have two Fire, Elemental, Cover, or Steal materia. Despite the fact that some materia of these colors can only be obtained once in the game itself, we can assume that they all can and do exist in duplicate, though some (like W-Item) are certainly more rare than others (Fire, Lightning, etc).
The last type of materia, the red materia, exist as singularities, only one of each type in all of Gaia. These materia are the summons of FFVII, and allow the weilder to call upon a summon, who will then arrive, cast a spell, and vanish again. When the Cetra first discovered these materia, it is quite likely that they equated them to the Aeons that their holy summoners could call upon. The summoners were most likely viewed as sacred priests or clergy members, and so it would have made perfect sense to the Cetra that the power of the gods called upon by non-priests with the help of materia would have been more fleeting and transient, and less controllable, than the Aeons of the summoners. Of course the gods would provide more reliable aid to their devoted priests than your average devotee; materia were miraculous enough in that they allowed regular people to call upon the power of the gods at all.
Thusly, the Aeons of the summoners would have been the gods themselves, and the magical apparitions drawn forth by materia would have been viewed as aspects of these gods, much like the multi-faceted aspects of the gods of modern-day Hinduism. These aspects could take on different names and appearances than the gods themselves, but could still be considered the same as long as the Aeon and summon shared the same basic powers and characteristics. The Cetra mythology surrounding these Aeons and their aspects probably grew rich and colorful, much like the Hindi and ancient Greek mythologies of Earth, and were then passed down and slowly changed over the millenia of oral history, so that the evolution of the Spiran pantheon became the traditional old religion of the people of Gaia, despite the fact that the ability to call the Aeons forth and the knowledge of how to use materia were lost over time.
The Original Pantheon
Since we decided the Aeons of Spira are considered the gods proper, we had to go through the whole arsenal of FFX's Aeons before we could figure out where the summons of FFVII fit into the religious picture. The following are our conjectures of what part each Aeon plays in the Cetra's pantheon, and quite honestly has no real bearing on anything in the story at all. 8D
Bahamut: The God King
The strongest Aeon in FFX, Bahamut's attacks can often obliterate enemies in one attack from the moment he is obtained. His strength, defense, and magic capabilities are all high, and he can damage multiple targets regularly. Powerful and adept at black magic, Bahamut is obviously the reigning king of the gods, his wings splayed in royal colors and his scaled armor wrought with gold. He is the god of power, both physical strength and political rule, a grand and venerable king capable of mastering black magic without succumbing to its corrupting power. Bahamut symbolizes strength of body and strength of mind; his endurance and fortitude are unmatched throughout the pantheon.
Shiva: The Wise Queen
Tall and breathtakingly beautiful, Shiva is a graceful and agile Aeon who uses ice-based attacks to annihilate her enemies. She can delay an opponent's next turn and can freeze and shatter any that stand in her way, controlling the powers of ice with little more than a snap of her fingers. A fitting queen to Bahamut's king, Shiva is likely the goddess of beauty and grace in addition to the goddess of ice. Her ability to slow her enemies suggests she may also embody wisdom and strategy. As queen of the gods, Shiva likely also symbolizes love in the gentler sense, a beautiful and tender love between partners.
Ifrit: The Blazing Prince
A strong, hulking beast with ferocious horns, Ifrit is a fire-elemental through and through, blasting his enemies with raging flames and explosions. He can also use a non-elemental attack that can pierce through defensive spells, though it takes him longer to recover after performing it. The god of fire, rage, and passion, Ifrit likely has a short temper and tends to leave destruction in his wake. His low defense against both physical and magical attacks suggests youth, as does his short fuse, suggesting that perhaps he is the prince of the gods, much like the Egyptian sun god Horus. Like Horus, Ifrit could be seen as god of the sun due to his affinity for flames, and could represent light, enthusiasm, and earnestness; he is likely the god of truth and honesty, a beacon of morality as he fights for good and seeks to burn the shadows from the hearts of others. Quick to anger, Ifrit is also quick to forgive, and is perhaps characterized by a touch of naivete due to his youth and intense appreciation of the truth. Bold and unafraid, Ifrit is likely reckless but always good-intentioned, a tragically rare and endearing quality in a deity.
Anima: The Tempered Judge
Bound and skeletal, chained as if to protect the summoner from the very power they call upon, Anima is the most monstrous and haunting of the Aeons in Spira's repertoire. Casting spells of indescribable agony and often inflicting a death effect, Anima holds in his mummified clawlike hands the power over who lives and who dies--a very frightening deity indeed. The eerily chilling chained Aeon of pain and death, Anima's obvious role is the god of death and judgement or the Farplane, much like the Egyptian jackal god Anubis, who weighs the hearts of the dead, or the Greek god Hades, who rules the whole of the underworld.
Interestingly enough, the name Anima comes from the Latin word for soul, strength of heart, or breath of life; perhaps not just the god of death and the Farplane, Anima may also be the god of life as well, the great balancer who does not simply bring about death indiscriminately, but who peers into the souls of mortals and passes His judgement upon them all. Also, similar to the Roman two-faced god Janus, the god of foresight (and bridges wtf), Anima has two halves, once which rises above the surface of the earth and one which resides below it.
Overall, the mummified and ghastly Anima can be considered a harbringer of death, ruling the underworld and yet chained there with the rest of the dead, possibly as punishment for some destructive deed. With his two halves, Anima can also be a god of foresight and insight, which makes him a prime candidate as the god of final judgement, and his overwhelming power makes him suitable as the god of ruthless vengeance. As he is bound and chained, he may also be the god of temperance and self-control, who casts judgement upon those who have great power and do not weild it conscientiously. However, due to the symbolism of his name, Anima may also be the god of life, the symbol of balance and the cycles of life and death. Though he kills and destroys, Anima also leaves the chance for life to rise from the chaos of destruction; he brings about ruin but also embodies the hope of rebirth from the ashes.
Anima's great power gives rise to the idea that he is Bahamut's brother and temperance, always there to make sure the great god king never falls into corruption. It is likely that Anima and Ifrit work in tandem to punish the wicked, though Anima is undoubtedly more ruthless than his youthful nephew.
Ixion: The Victorious General
A mighty horned beast, Ixion can call upon the powers of thunder and lightning. Weilding not only electric elemental power, this unicorn-like creature also deals non-elemental damage with razor-sharp discs, and has the capability to negate positive status effects such as sheilds or time spells. Ixion should most likely be cast as a god of storms, akin to the Norse god Thor, the god of war and storms.
The name Ixion is actually a character of Greek mythology, though the Greek Ixion bears no particular resemblance to the Ixion of this universe. In Greek mythology, Ixion is the son of Aries, who killed his father-in-law and was thus the first man to have shed the blood of a kinsman, eventually sent to Tartarus for the many sins he committed in his life. He was said to be the father of centaurs, which may be why his name was given to an equine creature.
Ixion's rather unique ability to enact both elemental and non-elemental attacks suggests that he is a powerful warrior, capable and verstatile in battle. Because he can negate protection and enhancement spells, Ixion could be construed as a symbol of pride and courage, the crashing of his thunder striking fear into the hearts of his enemies. He is a bold leader and a fierce general, leading his troops fearlessly in times of war. Though not the king of the gods, Ixion could be easily viewed as the king's right-hand-man, or horse, as it were, so perhaps Ixion also embodies the concepts of loyalty and fealty.
Valefor: The Lucky Protector
A great winged beast that bears some resemblance to the Aztec avian serpent-god Quetzalcoatl, Valefor casts no elemental attack, but instead delays the enemy's ability to strike back. This would logically make him a god of protection, perhaps a god of luck, bringing good tidings and winds of safety to those who ask. As the first summon available to Yuuna in FFX, Valefor is painted as a gentle and benevolent creature with a short recovery time, able to perform rapid-fire attacks to keep the enemy at bay. Perhaps Valefor's greatest power was not in his attack itself, but rather in his defense and ability to prevent the enemy from striking; he is a shielding god above all else.
The natural defense to Ixion's offense, it seems most likely that Valefor is Ixion's brother. Their dichotomy is nearly immaculate, one a stout-hearted attacker capable of nullifying protective spells, and one a protective shielder capable of delaying attacks.
Yojimbo: The Opulent Prankster
A most intriguing and tricksy summon, Yojimbo will only join your party in FFX if you first defeat him, and then pay him a hefty price. The more you pay to get him to join you, the more helpful Yojimbo will prove--the damage he deals is proportional to the bounty you are willing to initially pay him, you could say. Perhaps most easily likened to Loki, the Nordic trickster god, Yojimbo can cast devastating attacks, but it is almost humorous how devil-may-care he seems to be. You cannot choose his attack, nor does he have an Overdrive function the way the other Aeons do; as a mercenary, his offensive will be based solely on how much he has been paid and...how cooperative he feels like being at the moment.
Obviously a trickster god himself, Yojimbo likely also encompasses the realm of merriment and play, making him almost akin to the Greek god Dionysus, god of wine. Yojimbo is brightly colored and quite ornate, and judging from his infatuation with money, he is likely the god of wealth and good fortune as well. The wild card Aeon with loyalties to no one, Yojimbo is something of a singularity in a pantheon of family. His only companion is his dog, Daigoro, who aids him in one of his attacks. Because of this, Yojimbo may also be construed as the god of beasts and ruler of the animals, the final third to the ruler of the cosmos, Bahamut, and the ruler of the Farplane, Anima.
The Magus Sisters: The Unbreakable Trinity
A trio of insectlike siblings, the Magus Sisters cast three individual non-elemental attacks. The summoner who would call upon them has little control over what these three sisters do, making them wild card goddesses if anything. Individually, the three attacks the sisters can do are not particularly noteworthy; however, when they combine their powers, the attack they unleash is quite literally one of the most devastating offensives available in the game.
These three might well be viewed as goddesses of teamwork or family, especially as their power is exponentially stronger when combined. The girls will heal each other as well, something none of the other Aeons can do, so they might also embody concepts like reciprocation and karma--do unto others and they will do so unto you. Perhaps standing above all for unity, these three represent the sacredness of family and the indestructable bonds between hearts who love each other. The love they would naturally symbolize is a fierce one, love to be fought for, defended and championed against all odds; they are the goddesses of passion, devotion, and dedication.
Because of their constancy, these three could possibly be the original three goddesses who created the cosmos out of its primordial chaos. They give an impression of eternity that none of the other Aeons possess. It is quite possible that each of the three sisters created two of the other six adult deities--one created the brothers Bahamut and Anima, another the brothers Ixion and Valefor, and the third made Shiva and Yojimbo. However, the sisters are too close and too connected to ever view their creations as individual efforts. It doesn't matter who made who; the three of them made all the others, aside from young Ifrit, who was born of Shiva and Bahamut later on.
The Cetra's Aspects
Gaia's summon materia allowed anyone, not just summoners, to call upon the power of the gods. But, as mentioned above, the summon materia can only call down an aspect of a god to cast a spell for the materia's user, as opposed to the Aeons who will answer the call of a summoner. The following conjectures correlate the summons of FFVII as aspects of their FFX counterparts.
Odin: Bahamut's Reign
Odin is one of the strongest summons available in the game. Often dealing deathblows to enemies (who are not of boss-status), Odin weilds his mighty sword from atop his six-legged steed. His power is legendary, as is his strength; Odin is nothing if not the king of the gods embodied.
Leviathan: Shiva's Tide
Leviathan is the great water beast, a ferocious sea monster who casts powerful water-elemental damage on enemies, and is probably an aspect of Shiva, using the element of water instead of her traditional ice.
Titan: Ifrit's Rage
A great figure made of stone, Titan crushes your enemies much like Ifrit does with his Meteor Strike, smashing them beneath a giant hunk of rock. All of Ifrit's might and fury are encompassed in Titan, making him a fitting aspect of the Aeon's anger.
Alexander: Anima's Judgement
A great tanklike creation, Alexander is less a sentient creature and more a great machine of holy judgement. The only summon that can inflict Holy damage, Alexander is less creature and more machine than anything, so it seems that he is an aspect of Anima, symbolizing the machinations of judgement and the cold mechanic process of weighing the lives of the deceased. He can also encompass the foresight and insight of Anima, those powers which let him pass judgement.
Hades: Anima's Reaper
Hades casts multiple negative status effects, and bears fierce resemblance to the Grim Reaper himself; a skeletal figure swathed in heavy robes. While the visual representations of Anima and Hades bear no similarities, their attacks are so similar that the connection between the two is obvious. Hades is the part of Anima that brings about death, reaping the souls of those he's come to harvest and dragging them off to their final judgement.
Phoenix: Anima's Rebirth
The fiery bird of rebirth, Phoenix casts fire damage to enemies while healing fallen party members. Though flight and fire are not normally attributed to Anima, it is the overriding concept of ressurection and salvation that characterizes Phoenix, and so it makes sense that he be the symbol of the redemption Anima brings about after destruction has already happened.
Knights of the Round: Ixion's Loyal
This summon depicts King Aurther and his twelve knights, each attacking the enemy in succession to total thirteen blows for over 120,000 points of damage. If Ixion is the god of war and the divine general, this summon is obviously Ixion and the generals who follow him, embodying the sense of duty and fealty associated with him.
Ramuh: Ixion's Storm
A lightning elemental, Ramuh appears as an imposing old wizard with a fearsome stare and a mighty staff, calling down great bolts of lightning to attack your enemies.
Kujata: Ixion's Warrior
Like Ixion, Kujata is a hoofed, horned beast that can cast lightning damage to an enemy. Capable of casting lightning, ice, and fire attacks, and with powerful physical attacks as well, Kujata represents Ixion's prowess on the battlefield.
Choco Mog: Valefor's Luck
Weilding the rare element of wind, this summon attacks with the chance that a fat chocobo will fall from the sky and sit on your enemies. Clearly, he embodies the luck Valefor symbolizes, though he is significantly more ridiculous.
Typhon: Yojimbo's Trickery
A rather gastly summon, this strange mauve creature is one of the rare wind elementals of the FFVII world. Unique and strange, this summon can be considered to be a prank of Yojimbo. The ethereal nature of the wind element also lends itself to Yojimbo's lack of ties with anyone else; this summon with its strange coloring and rare elemental attacks is surely an embodiment of Yojimbo's love of practical jokes.
Shared Summons
The following summons of FFVII are also Aeons of FFX. These summons aren't really considered full-fleged aspects, but rather fall halfway between aspects and the actual gods themselves. Because the Cetra believed that materia could not summon Aeons, only their aspects, these shared summons came to be viewed as something of fledgeling gods. Ifrit, Shiva, and the three Bahamut summons in FFVII are thusly not actually considered analogus to the gods themselves, but in the style of being an intricate and complicated theology, as aspects that encompass the all the qualities of the deity, or as apparitions which act as conduits, allowing the magic of the gods to be cast by mortals.
Shiva's Ice
The Shiva summon freezes her enemies much like the Aeon does, and though she looks a bit different, is still beautiful and graceful. This summon is Shiva's Ice, construed as a spell the weilder casts which brings the ice of Shiva down upon the enemy.
Ifrit's Fire
The Ifrit summon emerges in a ball of fire and then hurtles at your enemies, ensconced in a burning corona. He too looks different from the original Aeon, moreso than Shiva does, and could even be viewed as a messenger of Ifrit, bringing his fires to the aid of mortals.
The Bahamut Summons: Fortitude, Strength, and Power
The Bahamut summons can be viewed more easily as aspects of Bahamut than the Shiva and Ifrit summons can, because there are three of increasing power. The first is a fearsome black dragon, shares its Aeon's name. Powerful and unblockable, he can be considered the will of the god king, Bahamut's Fortitude. The second summon is dubbed Neo Bahamut, a red dragon that is a stronger, more powerful version of the first summon. He is Bahamut's Strength. Finally, Bahamut ZERO, the third and most powerful of the three Bahamut summons, is a six-winged black dragon attacks from space. He's nothing if not a compelling display of Bahamut's Power.
The Black and White Materia
Each the only one of its kind, the black and white materia of FFVII impose an interesting facet of this reconstructed Cetra theology. Both call upon great powers; Aerith's white materia summons Holy, and the black materia summons Meteor, but neither of these is really a god or aspect thereof at all. Rather, Meteor is quite literally a giant asteroid hurtling toward the planet, ready to destroy it, and Holy causes all the Lifestream of the planet to surge up from the depths of the earth and deflect Meteor. It seems these two are in perfect balance, black and white, which is why they aren't red like the other summons and exist as a unique and isolated set. Perhaps the Cetra came to construe these two as the concepts of light and dark, of good and evil, and so they are not represented in the pantheon but instead viewed as an eternal balance throughout the universe, in the hearts of men and gods alike.
When Summons Battle
As mentioned above, there are two rather confounding instances in which summons actually remain on the physical plane for an extended period of time, doing battle like Aeons of old rather than vanishing after their spells are cast. These two summons, Zirconiade from Before Crisis and Bahamut Sin from Advent Children, are unique in that regard, but we managed to come up with satisfactory explanations for these two abberant phenomenon. Both beings are summoned under unusual circumstances and with unusual materia; the analysis below offers an interpretation of how these summons came to act within the physical plane long enough to do battle.
Zirconiade
Zirconiade is called "The One That Will Burn The World" and is a summon materia like those above. However, the materia was shattered at some point, possibly by the Cetra to prevent its devestation, and is now imperfect. In Before Crisis, Fuhito gathers up these pieces and implants them into Elfe with the intention of summoning Zirconiade so it will destroy all the life on the planet, restoring the Lifestream to its full potential and eradicating any dangers to the planet through native life.
The materia embedded into Elfe is still imperfect, and requires the use of several support materia to even begin the summon. As the legend goes, the true Zirconiade summon is unbeatable and will destroy the world. Because the Turks manage to defeat Zirconiade and the world is not destroyed, we can safely assume that this Zirconiade summon was still imperfect.
Traditionally, materia of all types must be equipped to some piece of metal, either a weapon or armor, in order to be used. The meteria shards within Elfe were not equipped to anything, and are actually feeding off of her life force, the Lifestream that is locked away within her living body and would normally return to the Lifestream when she dies.
The most sound conclusion we could draw was that because this summon was not called upon in the normal way and instead had numerous support materia and someone's very life force at its disposal, it had the energy to stay on the physical plane and do battle with the Turks. Perhaps because a summon is not intended to fight the way an Aeon would, Zirconiade simply couldn't keep up its manifestation and weakened over time, such that the Turks could defeat what was said to be an unbeatable summon.
Bahamut Sin
Similarly, Bahamut Sin in Advent Children is summoned by a materia that was physically inside someone's flesh. As Kadaj emerged from the Lifestream and is less a living creature as a manifestation of Jenova-infested Lifestream, it makes sense that he can absorb materia directly into himself, as materia is nothing but a crystallized form of the Lifestream he is made of.
When summoning Bahamut Sin, Kadaj is shown weilding a blue materia, not a summon materia at all, which had a lot of fans up in arms, as if the creators had forgotten their own canon.
We believe we've come up with a more positive explanation for his use of a blue materia to summon Bahamut Sin. Like Zirconiade before it, Bahamut Sin is summoned with the help of support materia, which allows it to stay in the physical realm and fight.
Two More Summons
And so, after coming to the conclusion that both Zirconiade and Bahamut Sin were once summon materia used by the Cetra, it served to reason that they, too, would have become aspects of deities in the Cetra's pantheon. Here are our conjectures of the nature of these two summons.
Zirconiade: Anima's Annihilation
This is obviously the part of Anima that obliterates all life, as Zirconiade is actually alledged to do just that. Anima is the god of destruction and rebirth, so as Hades is the reaping of life and Phoenix is the rebirth from total destruction, Zirconiade is the one that falls between the two, destroying everything and creating the ashen chaos from which hope, and life, can rise again.
Bahamut Sin: Bahamut's Endurance
This summon is strong and powerful like all the Bahamut summons, worthy of bearing the title of his namesake, but what makes Bahamut Sin so unique is his ability to withstand so much before finally going down. Though we don't know anything about the legend around this summon, or his usual fighting spells as he was summoned in such an unusual way, we do see that Bahamut Sin withstands many attacks and sustains a lot of damage before he finally goes down. Cloud has to physically cut him open for him to drop from the sky; nothing else embodies Bahamut's great endurance than does Bahamut Sin.
