This topic is old and dead, but I just happened upon it and it is a topic I'm very vocal about *ask anybody here who's from the old forum I came from xD* so I feel a need to add a reply. And I'd say Zargabaath has the gist of it.

Quote Originally Posted by Zargabaath View Post
Tidus is part of the dream of the Fayth that used the real Zanarkand and its inhabitants as a model for the Dream Zanarkand and its people ... Shuyin's spirit, conscious, soul, etc was not a part of Tidus. Shuyin and Tidus are seperate beings. Tidus was modeled from Shuyin, but Tidus is not Shuyin reincarnated.
Quote Originally Posted by Petros View Post
Another theory though is that if the war between Bevelle and Zanarkand was the true end of Zanarkand and that Zanrkand used Summoners as their main line of defence such as Lenne, why doesn't Tidus know who the Summoners were. So it would suggest that the Fayth didn't create a fully accurate version of the original Zanarkand, so perhaps it was "their version of a utopian Zanarkand" which would make sense as it was their "dream" and dreams are never completely accurate, just an expression of subconscious thoughts breaking a conscious mental barrier whist in an unconscious physical state (try say that ten times fast).
The Dream Zanarkand was created as a utopia of sorts by the citizens who would become fayth. Summoners are a reminder of the Machina War and I'm sure they wouldn't want to include this in such a fantasy.

As for Jecht, we know how famous he was especially considering we are introduced to his fame right from the start and that it has been ten years since his disappearance. Few celebrities have such a lasting impression on media. And judging from his personality, it is likely Jecht is even the real person's name as well. Jecht doesn't seem to be the type of celebrity that shied away from his fandom and considering how much of Tidus' personal life is seen in the game as it relates to Jecht, Jecht is likely to be the most accurate to reality incarnation made by the fayth.

Quote Originally Posted by Yuna View Post
Tidus is just a dream of the Faith, "built" thanks to the memory of a real citizen of the real Zanarkand, Shuyin. The coincidence are enough, IMMO, to say that the Faith wants to use a old memory to give the same will and feelings of the original one ... Despite that, the two of them are pretty different: looks like Shuyin is more hot bloodeed, he wants to destroy all Spira if it's usefull for save Lenne, Tidus is happier , he has suffer enough for Jech and her mother and he wants to come back to Zanarkand, so he tends to be gentle and more introspective.
I like to think that Tidus is the Shuyin that the regular Zanarkand citizens knew. He's just a blitzball player and fairly shallow in characterisation as a result. However, once he moved into Spira, he was made real and developed as any living person does.

Additionally, Shuyin was part of a war that was becoming more costly as it went on. It's understandable the extreme Shuyin undertook in his last days. The summoners were being sent to the front in what was fairly certain to everyone to be Zanarkand's fall. Shuyin himself wasn't the one with the most extreme counterattack strategy either. After all, the ultimate strategy was Yu Yevon's Sin and the creation of Dream Zanarkand, which would plunge the whole of the planet into the Age of Sin and that is far beyond the scope of Shuyin's plan.

Given the same conditions and limited resources, it is likely Tidus would have evolved similarly to Shuyin. After all, once Seymour abducts Yuna, we see Tidus also has a darker side.

Quote Originally Posted by Arron'the Egg' View Post
Tidas is a dream of the fayth but he exists just as much as the aeons do infact he is just a aeon. play the games again just for fun i keep finding new things out every time
Tidus is an Aeon. You know, that's a very interesting idea and I believe it is accurate to an extent. After all, what we learn of FFX is that the fayth have dreamt up their own version of Zanarkand and that that dream was made real by Yu Yevon. As the most powerful summoner in Spira's history, it stands to reason that Dream Zanarkand is an immense Aeon of sorts, some creation of fayth brought to life.

However, Tidus himself feels more of an extension of the "Aeon" Zanarkand. Looking back on exactly how Tidus was brought into Spira, there's a secondary layer to his incarnation. Whereas most denizens of Zanarkand remain dreams that cannot interact with the real world, Tidus was pulled by Sin out of the dream. This was done without Yu Yevon's knowledge by the core of the Sin armour, Jecht.

If I had to put a name to it, I'd say Tidus is an Aeon's special ability given physical form. Anima's Overdrive pushes real people down into some alternate reality where Anima's other half resides. In this reality, that form of Anima is able to attack and deal real damage to people. However, it only exists in this alternate reality and only it's top half ever physically manifests. Tidus is a being in such an alternate reality, this time Zanarkand's reality contained within the sphere of water that comprises its outer shell. Only through Sin is Tidus made. (Silence your dirty minds! You know who you are! >=( )

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I, personally, have written an entire fanfiction on the subject with my own personal take on the relationship between the two characters. I feel that Dream Zanarkand was the fayth's honest attempt at recreating the beloved city they lost, while actively removing any hints of the Machina War that took it away from them. Therefore, the fact that Tidus isn't Shuyin's name and how he's reacted poorly to Jecht's disappearance and his mother's subsequent death led me to believe that Shuyin, too, experienced these very public events. *Being the child of a celebrity isn't easy* It is likely that Jecht kept next to nothing of his personal life hidden and so all of Zanarkand knew about his wife and, at least, that he had a son. However, when it came to Shuyin, he must have become withdrawn from public life, both as a result of his hatred of his father, that he blamed him for his mother's death, and that mass media and the Zanarkand public didn't really care about the tragedy in his life. Therefore, he wasn't remembered. Then Tidus exists and has a personality that contrasts heavily with Shuyin's, though there are lingering similarities. Why is that? In my fanfiction, I had Shuyin eventually drawn back into public life thanks to his friends, one in particular. However, still impacted by his previous grievances against them, Shuyin decided to create a public persona as a mask to use on them while keeping his true self hidden away. That mask is Tidus. Oftentime, we find that our favourite celebrities aren't the same in their personal lives as they are in public. Some even adopt pseudonyms. So it works out for Shuyin to have been one of them and, therefore, a dream of him developed by the public would assume his public name and persona.

Serendipitously, Tidus was then also free of most of the scars Shuyin bore and thus was a healthier individual by comparison. My fanfiction would discuss this by having Shuyin dislike the goofier Tidus, at first, though eventually come to realise that it is Tidus who is the better person. Without Shuyin's baggage, Tidus is allowed to make more level-headed decisions and to see the silver lining in situations - which in his game was that his own death, or potentially worse considering he's not even alive and only a manifestation of the fayth's dream - would still lead to the best outcome for his loved ones and so he didn't hesitate. Contrary to that, Shuyin was set on destroying Spira because he was tired of seeing the endless bickering. In my fanfiction, this was further illustrated by Shuyin's inability to accept the new circumstances he's been made to confront, which then forces Tidus to step in.

Sadly, if I ever get around to it, it's only going to get worse for Shuyin. xD