Auron of Final Fantasy X is a thirty-five-year-old warrior known as the Legendary Guardian who helped Jecht and Braska defeat Sin.
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Shortly after Sin's defeat, Auron started watching over Tidus from afar at Jecht's request. In the game's present day, he sends Tidus to Spira using the new Sin that is Jecht. After meeting Tidus once again, the two start serving as guardians for Yuna, Braska's daughter, in another journey to defeat Sin. It is eventually revealed during the game that Auron attacked the unsent summoner Yunalesca in a fit of rage after she revealed that Braska and Jecht needlessly gave their lives against Sin, and that she struck him down with a mortal wound. Despite his injuries, Auron managed to make it down Mt. Gagazet before his strength abandoned him just outside Bevelle. As he was dying, he met Kimahri Ronso and asked him to fulfill the promise he had made to Braska: that Yuna be moved from Bevelle to Besaid so she can have a peaceful childhood. Afterward, he became an unsent, and secretly held this status for nearly the entire duration of the game. At the end of the game, when Sin's creator, Yu Yevon, is defeated, he is laid to rest. Auron has a brief appearance in Final Fantasy X-2, where his voice helps Yuna during her battle in the Farplane with Vegnagun. The updated International version added Auron both as a boss and as an optional playable character.
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Auron is voiced by Matt McKenzie in the English version and Hideo Ishikawa in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy X. While the developers originally considered having Final Fantasy X-2 follow the story of Auron and Jecht's generation, they eventually let this idea pass due to the concept making the game "too traditional", deciding instead to go with the trio of Yuna, Rikku, and Paine. In initial versions of Auron was a Crusader, an exterminator of monsters from Zanarkand, but as the story involved deceased people, the staff decided to make him an Unsent. Auron was planned to be Jecht in disguise, but such idea was scrapped.
Auron appears in Kingdom Hearts II as a one-world ally in the Olympus Coliseum. He is brought back to life by Hades in order to kill Hercules but Auron refuses to aid him. He joins Sora's group in escaping from the Underworld, but he is later brainwashed by Hades into fighting Hercules. During the battle, Sora restores Auron's free will, and he joins them and Hercules to defeat Hades. A super-deformed version of Auron appears in Itadaki Street Special.
In 2008, GamesRadar ranked Auron's glasses tenth in "The top 10 famous glasses". Auron ranked fifth on Electronic Gaming Monthly's Top Ten Badass Undead. In a Famitsu poll done in February 2010, Auron was voted by readers as the thirty-third most popular video game character. In its December 2010 cover feature, Game Informer named Auron one of their "30 characters who defined a decade," describing him as "one of the most complex RPG companions in gaming history." In 2011, GamesRadar used Auron as an example of a badasss commenting: "a smooth-talking, shades-wearing, longcoat rocking snarker who can wield a huge sword with his one good arm. He is a badass, and nobody can deny it. With that perfect storm of cool, he has nothing to worry about." In 2013, Complex ranked Auron fourth in "The 20 Greatest Final Fantasy Characters of All Time" and eighteenth in their "25 Dead Video Game Characters We Wish Were Still Here".