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I think Aerith probably doesn't want to die.
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May 20, 2020 10:00
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One problem I have with that theory is that if Aerith knew she had to die in order for Sephiroth to lose, should she have fought as much as she did against the Whispers? After all, if she has complete clarity on what happened, she could have gone along with what the Whispers were doing, since she knows Sephiroth will lose eventually. I think either Aerith has complete clarity on Sephiroth's level but wants to change things so that she doesn't have to die, or she doesn't have 100% hindsight like he does and is operating on the basis of incomplete glimpses of the future like everybody else on the team. E: Clarste 
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May 20, 2020 10:02
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anakha posted:One problem I have with that theory is that if Aerith knew she had to die in order for Sephiroth to lose, should she have fought as much as she did against the Whispers? After all, if she has complete clarity on what happened, she could have gone along with what the Whispers were doing, since she knows Sephiroth will lose eventually. No, that one's easy. It's because Sephiroth managed to send back at least some knowledge in time, which is what led to the events of the Remake, and if he can do it once then what's to say that he can't do it again? So the OG timeline no longer works out for Aerith and the Planet because if you just keep playing along with fate you're essentially giving Sephiroth an infinite amount of mulligans which means that he's going to succeed eventually. For that matter, are we certain that this is the first remake? What if this poo poo has been going on for an arbitrary amount of cycles already and it turns out that you just can't keep Sephiroth down within the constraints of fate, so Aerith decides to roll the bones this time around?
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May 20, 2020 10:12
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Cerebral Bore posted:No, that one's easy. It's because Sephiroth managed to send back at least some knowledge in time, which is what led to the events of the Remake, and if he can do it once then what's to say that he can't do it again? So the OG timeline no longer works out for Aerith and the Planet because if you just keep playing along with fate you're essentially giving Sephiroth an infinite amount of mulligans which means that he's going to succeed eventually. Counterpoint - if the Whispers win, Sephiroth remains as he is and can continually try and keep loving with Cloud's mind, but Aerith can also continually go back (by sending memories of what happened to her younger self) and keep things in check along with the Whispers. Stalemate. The Whispers losing means Aerith can break the stalemate, but it also means Sephiroth now has a chance to do the same. The argument can be made that Sephiroth's chances of winning were lower if the status quo was maintained.
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May 20, 2020 10:20
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Aerith hints that she's been trying to change Fate for a while. During her discovery scene in Chapter 8, she tells Cloud that she'll probably give up "It's what I'm best at" which Cloud finds odd, because she doesn't seem the kind to give up, which she basically says is because she's met him and he's given her hope and energy again. For me, it's clear she's been trying to change things for years and has failed over and over. Another important thing to bring up is that Aerith living or dying actually had zilch to do with Sephiroth failing in the long run. Oh yes, she directed the Lifestream to push Meteor and Holy away from the planet when it was too close and going to wipe out all life, but if Holy had never been summoned (something that did not involve Aerith's death, it was done while she was alive) it wouldn't have meant anything. This is actually super important because Nomura, Kitase and Sakaguchi all have said that Aerith's death is meant to be random and utterly lacking in meaning. They wanted to de-hollywood the death, Aerith dying didn't save the planet, she didn't sacrifice herself, things didn't only go the way they did because Sephiroth killed her. Her death is not intended to leave a feeling of dramatic good or bad, but an empty space of loss and confusion. Essentially the culture of worshipping Aerith's death like it's Jesus on the cross is the unintentional meaning derived from people seeking to find meaning. Original FF7 even brings this up, they have the party wonder if Aerith went to the City of the Ancients knowing she'd die, and then immediately stamp it out and say "No, she intended to come back, she never planned to die, there is no greater meaning in her death." So the idea that Aerith is the guardian of the timeline who, in the end, is trying to save herself, or would willingly offer her life for the planet, is as far removed from the actual point of her death as anything.
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May 20, 2020 10:27
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anakha posted:The argument can be made that Sephiroth's chances of winning were lower if the status quo was maintained. He's not meaningfully alive, he can just gently caress off for a century and murder the planet after all these losers are dead. And the time ghosts were completely ineffective at even slowing him down. So you have two options: gently caress those ghosts up so brutally they stop getting in your way, and you can start changing things like he is. or Try to stay with a script that he isn't following, and be constantly left behind as he improvises at will. There is no reality in which they could have played out the same story. That possibility ended when the time ghosts proved ineffective at managing Sephiroth.
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May 20, 2020 10:36
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Mulva posted:He's not meaningfully alive, he can just gently caress off for a century and murder the planet after all these losers are dead. Going by On The Way To A Smile, the reason Sephiroth is still able to maintain some form of himself in the lifestream is because Cloud refuses to let the memory of him go as he's hung up that he couldn't protect Aerith from him. If Sephiroth waited until those nerds were dead, he would simply dissipate into the lifestream.
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May 20, 2020 10:47
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anakha posted:Counterpoint - if the Whispers win, Sephiroth remains as he is and can continually try and keep loving with Cloud's mind, but Aerith can also continually go back (by sending memories of what happened to her younger self) and keep things in check along with the Whispers. Stalemate. Well, for this to work we have to assume that there's no way for Sephiroth to ultimately win within the constraints of fate and that the status quo ending is acceptable to Aerith. Another galaxy brain thing I stumbled across is that it's pretty heavily implied that the original ending of FF7 is a bad one, as I recall humanity gets wiped out completely at some point in the future, so it's entirely possible that Aerith eventually comes to the conclusion that she has to play for keeps and not just for a stalemate, which is why she's to forceful about the necessity of punching fate in the balls in the ending. Onmi posted:Aerith hints that she's been trying to change Fate for a while. During her discovery scene in Chapter 8, she tells Cloud that she'll probably give up "It's what I'm best at" which Cloud finds odd, because she doesn't seem the kind to give up, which she basically says is because she's met him and he's given her hope and energy again. In the original game, yes, but we're pretty clearly not dealing with original Aerith or the original themes of the game here.
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May 20, 2020 10:56
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Aeris didn't want to die in the original and planned to come back, but to say her death had "no meaning" demonstrates a degree of incuriosity to the concept of fiction. FF7 is tragic, but it is not naturalist fiction, and poo poo happens for a reason because it is a construct, not a documentary. Therefore, any statement about something "meaning nothing" is inherently contradictory. I'm not just talking about coherent causality here, either. Her death is still important to the narrative and does, in fact, save the day at the end - it's just not your typical "I'm giving my life away" sacrifice. It's dramatic irony, and she might not have wanted it or planned for it, but that doesn't change that it's there. Meteor and Holy would've destroyed the Planet if not for her intervention on mankind's behalf. It's not a projection of the Christ narrative by a desperate audience searching for reason in the narrative aperture - it's a clear and deliberate twist on a martyr narrative. Tifa's "no, she wanted to come back" isn't the end of the argument for it all being meaningless, because the story wasn't over yet and Aeris hadn't gotten in her proverbial final words until the end cutscene. The story would not have played out the same way if she had survived, neither thematically nor in terms of the plot's progression. It's not just a cheap shock death meant to elicit some chills outside of the actual diegesis. EDIT: If we're going into material beyond the original game, Advent Children ends with people getting purified through an Aeris-given baptism. Beefstew fucked around with this message at 11:00 on May 20, 2020 |
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May 20, 2020 10:58
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gredgie posted:Going by On The Way To A Smile, the reason Sephiroth is still able to maintain some form of himself in the lifestream is because Cloud refuses to let the memory of him go as he's hung up that he couldn't protect Aerith from him. If Sephiroth waited until those nerds were dead, he would simply dissipate into the lifestream. Cloud is Jenova infected too, technically he shouldn't be absorbed into the lifestream either. Everyone dies, Sephiroth gets to blow ghost Cloud forever, win win!
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May 20, 2020 10:58
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Mulva posted:He's not meaningfully alive, he can just gently caress off for a century and murder the planet after all these losers are dead. If he could afford to wait far into the future, why bother coming back and trying to remake history? He was actively trying to prevent Cloud and Aerith from ever meeting up in Chapter 2. Mulva posted:And the time ghosts were completely ineffective at even slowing him down. In the same chapter, the Whispers held Aerith in place so she could still meet Cloud. In Chapter 17, all the 'Sephiroth' appearances were actually more of Jenova and the clones which was in line with the original storyline - I never got the impression Sephiroth-from-the-future was actually trying to change events in that chapter. Could you point me to events in the remake (prior to Chapter 18, which is going to be a separate argument by itself) showing Sephiroth was successfully changing events despite the best efforts of the Whispers?
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May 20, 2020 11:00
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Beefstew posted:Aeris didn't want to die in the original and planned to come back, but to say her death had "no meaning" demonstrates a degree of incuriosity to the concept of fiction. FF7 is tragic, but it is not naturalist fiction, and poo poo happens for a reason because it is a construct, not a documentary. Therefore, any statement about something "meaning nothing" is inherently contradictory. I'm not just talking about coherent causality here, either. Her death is still important to the narrative and does, in fact, save the day at the end - it's just not your typical "I'm giving my life away" sacrifice. It's dramatic irony, and she might not have wanted it or planned for it, but that doesn't change that it's there. Meteor and Holy would've destroyed the Planet if not for her intervention on mankind's behalf. It's not a projection of the Christ narrative by a desperate audience searching for reason in the narrative aperture - it's a clear and deliberate twist on a martyr narrative. Personally, I have never once thought that the ending of FF7 meant that Aeris had to die to beat meteor. I just saw it as "look, Aeris is still helping you out from beyond the grave." It was just a nice "we have not forgotten about her" moment. It didn't retroactively make her death necessary, and frankly that's a pretty horrifying way to view it, imo. The narrative point of her death wasn't so she could save the world, but to make the other characters feel sad and lost just in time for things to get even worse in Act 3.
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May 20, 2020 11:04
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Beefstew posted:Aeris didn't want to die in the original and planned to come back, but to say her death had "no meaning" demonstrates a degree of incuriosity to the concept of fiction. FF7 is tragic, but it is not naturalist fiction, and poo poo happens for a reason because it is a construct, not a documentary. Therefore, any statement about something "meaning nothing" is inherently contradictory. I'm not just talking about coherent causality here, either. Her death is still important to the narrative and does, in fact, save the day at the end - it's just not your typical "I'm giving my life away" sacrifice. It's dramatic irony, and she might not have wanted it or planned for it, but that doesn't change that it's there. Meteor and Holy would've destroyed the Planet if not for her intervention on mankind's behalf. It's not a projection of the Christ narrative by a desperate audience searching for reason in the narrative aperture - it's a clear and deliberate twist on a martyr narrative. Yeah, Aerith clearly expected Holy to do the trick of stopping Sephiroth and Meteor, which is why she expected to come back. However, as it turns out Holy alone wouldn't have led to an outcome acceptable to her, so clearly an Aerith with some benefit of hindsight would end up making different choices. That's the entire point here, really, things don't turn out the way they "should" because the real players have far more information available to them than in the original. Clarste posted:Personally, I have never once thought that the ending of FF7 meant that Aeris had to die to beat meteor. I just saw it as "look, Aeris is still helping you out from beyond the grave." It was just a nice "we have not forgotten about her" moment. It didn't retroactively make her death necessary, and frankly that's a pretty horrifying way to view it, imo. Well, the alternative is that the Planet could just have Lifestreamed away Meteor on its own at any point, thus removing the stakes from the entire central conflict of the game, which is also pretty dumb.
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May 20, 2020 11:07
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Cerebral Bore posted:Well, the alternative is that the Planet could just have Lifestreamed away Meteor on its own at any point, thus removing the stakes from the entire central conflict of the game, which is also pretty dumb. You needed both Holy and the Lifestream working together to stop Meteor. The way I read it was just that the Planet isn't quite as helpless as the characters often act.
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May 20, 2020 11:08
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Aeris' death is actually mitigated by her spirituality. Even as a child she was in touch with life and communicating with the dead. It's effective at demoralizing and traumatizing the party because she was such as source of positivity, but in FF7's world, a mystical pseudo-existence beyond death is an indisputable fact. And Aeris seems to be able to maintain her ego more because she's an Ancient. It would've been more tragic for literally anyone else to die. If we're equating "meaninglessness" to "this does not have any redeeming qualities for the good guys whatsoever", killing Tifa would've been a better (i.e. worse) choice. Spirituality isn't a part of her character, but having her life loving suck and (especially in the remake) having a healthy dose of survivor's guilt is. Killing her wouldn't really accomplish anything other than fridging a love interest for angst purposes. And while there's a reasonable argument to be made that Aeris' death accomplishes those same angsty goals, there's clearly more going on in that case.
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May 20, 2020 11:14
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I mean, yeah, Aerith died with a smile. We know that. But does that make Cloud feel any better about it? No. And that's the point. Maybe you can call it a "woman in a refrigerator" or whatever, but Aerith's death was more tragic for the people that survived than it was for her. Edit: The point was that Aerith was the only one in the party who knew exactly who she was and what she wanted, and was willing to take the steps necessary to get it. She was the "confidence" of the party, and without her they're pretty much lost. Clarste fucked around with this message at 11:46 on May 20, 2020 |
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May 20, 2020 11:41
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Beefstew posted:Aeris' death is actually mitigated by her spirituality. Even as a child she was in touch with life and communicating with the dead. It's effective at demoralizing and traumatizing the party because she was such as source of positivity, but in FF7's world, a mystical pseudo-existence beyond death is an indisputable fact. And Aeris seems to be able to maintain her ego more because she's an Ancient. It would've been more tragic for literally anyone else to die. It's meaningless in that it accomplished nothing that couldn't have been accomplished with her alive but does strip her of a future where she can find love and friendship with those outside the lifestream and continue to grow and mature. Thematically, it doesn't represent the end of her character arc - that gets cut short too, before we can see her achieve things beyond summoning Holy. We don't see what she's going to do with Cloud, or develop into the leader of the party. We also get to see how the party devolves without her, almost to the point of a complete breakdown if Tifa hadn't helped Cloud piece his true self back together. There's a lot left unfinished for her that is left that way for no positive outcome, which is what people mean by meaningless. Tifa wouldn't have worked because the only comparable moment for her would be after Mideel and that would have a whole bunch of grossness attached to her getting shelved after saving the leading man that isn't there for Aerith, it would be a completely different dynamic. It feels like you're taking "meaningless" to mean "thematically meaningless" at times, which is not what people are arguing. People are arguing that meaninglessness of death is the theme and if you disagree with that reading of it focus on why you disagree with that, instead of trying to pin down a definition of the word meaningless which is a fruitless endeavor. Anyway, all of that makes her decision at the end of the remake even more exciting for me. I really want her to live, I want to see what her plans after the city were.
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May 20, 2020 11:50
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Beefstew posted:Aeris didn't want to die in the original and planned to come back, but to say her death had "no meaning" demonstrates a degree of incuriosity to the concept of fiction. FF7 is tragic, but it is not naturalist fiction, and poo poo happens for a reason because it is a construct, not a documentary. Therefore, any statement about something "meaning nothing" is inherently contradictory. I am literally repeating the statements of the people who wrote and created the game. https://web.archive.org/web/20090608163157/https://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the-making-of-final-fantasy-vii unfortunately the magazine version has the full interview, not the archived online one quote:Tetsuya Nomura, character designer, conceived both the characters of Sephiroth and Aerith. “The main issues of contention for fans worldwide are still Aerith’s death and the ending sequence with Sephiroth. With the plot I wanted people to feel something intense, to understand something. Back at the time we were designing the game I was frustrated with the perennial dramatic cliché where the protagonist loves someone very much and so has to sacrifice himself and die in a dramatic fashion in order to express that love. We found this was the case in both games and movies, both eastern and western. But I wanted to say something different, something realistic. I mean is it right to set such an example to people?”  Clarste posted:I mean, yeah, Aerith died with a smile. We know that. But does that make Cloud feel any better about it? No. And that's the point. Also this, Aerith was the only one with her poo poo together, of the collection of broken, horrid messes of humans barely able to function she knew what she wants, and was able to help, which of course, was the point, Motomu Toriyama said once it was decided only Aerith would die, he set about to write her in a way that made her implacable- Cavelcade posted:It's meaningless in that it accomplished nothing that couldn't have been accomplished with her alive but does strip her of a future where she can find love and friendship with those outside the lifestream and continue to grow and mature. Yes this, thank you. Compare it to Tellah or Galuf or anyone in Final Fantasy who previously died for the heroes, they died, passing on their inherited will, even those who die in accidents like Cid in FF2, pass on the airships to the heroes so they can go to Hell and fight the Emperor. But no one inherited Aerith's will, there was no will to inherit, there is no replacement like Krile to fulfill the same role Aerith brought, there was no knowledge that "Well, Aerith died, but in dying for us, the world was saved." That's why the thing that I think hurts Aerith's death far more than her living in the remake, is making her death a heroic sacrifice done by choice, or making it so "She's always destined to die." Because it removes the inherent tragedy. It takes her death and it makes it hollywood. EDIT: Also, arguing that post-FF7 content clearly puts spiritual meaning on her death like 'purifying people through aerith-baptism' don't forget that Advent Children decided that the rightful progression for their story about pro-environmentalism was for Barret, the Eco-terrorist, to become an Oil Baron. Onmi fucked around with this message at 12:07 on May 20, 2020 |
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May 20, 2020 12:00
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The remake isn't the same game with the same themes, though. We've already seen them diverge wildly from that what with having a lot of people survive where they died in the original.
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May 20, 2020 12:16
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anakha posted:If he could afford to wait far into the future, why bother coming back and trying to remake history? He was actively trying to prevent Cloud and Aerith from ever meeting up in Chapter 2. Wants the d. quote:Could you point me to events in the remake (prior to Chapter 18, which is going to be a separate argument by itself) showing Sephiroth was successfully changing events despite the best efforts of the Whispers? It's literally everything he does. When Cloud tries to drop a Turk in the Church, what happens? They carry him and Aerith off into the back, where they are supposed to be. When Sephiroth decides to gently caress up Barret's day, what happens? They have to fix Barret after the fact because they are completely incapable of stopping Sephiroth from doing things. He is not constrained by the ghosts in the same way as everyone else, the best they can do is try to clean up after Sephiroth. That gives him the advantage. What if he just stood there and hosed up the ghosts trying to fix Barret, is there any evidence the ghosts could have kept that up forever? The party ultimately defeats them, so they aren't omnipotent. Is there even the slightest sign they can make Sephiroth do what he's supposed to? No? Because if they can't the idea of fate is meaningless. It's a bunch of dumb ghosts killing people to maintain a story that was never going back to normal, no matter what.
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May 20, 2020 12:17
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Mulva posted:When Cloud tries to drop a Turk in the Church, what happens? They carry him and Aerith off into the back, where they are supposed to be. Sephiroth wasn't involved in that Cloud-Reno scene at all. In what way was he trying to change history there? Unless you're trying to argue that he was attempting to get Cloud to off Reno in his appearance at the start of Chapter 8, but there's no evidence suggesting that. Mulva posted:When Sephiroth decides to gently caress up Barret's day, what happens? They have to fix Barret after the fact because they are completely incapable of stopping Sephiroth from doing things. As I mentioned earlier, all the 'Sephiroth' appearances in Chapter 17 are actually Jenova and the clones, not Sephiroth-from-the-future. Even Ultimania confirms that the Sephiroth in Chapter 17 is different from the ones who appeared to Cloud in prior chapters. Maybe you can push the argument that Sephiroth-from-the-future is already controlling Jenova and the clones, but there's no clear evidence of that. What other examples can you point to of Sephiroth-from-the-future actively trying to change history and succeeding despite the Whispers? VV The Whispers are specifically trying to stop Sephiroth-from-the-future (as well as anybody else) from altering the original timeline - they're not interested in anything else. From what I understood, their intervention in the top floor of the Shinra building in Chapter 17 was first to prevent Barret from stopping Jenova being taken away, then to prevent Barret from dying after that. So it's hard to make the argument they were trying to stop everything Sephiroth (whether the original one or Sephiroth-from-the-future) was trying to do. anakha fucked around with this message at 16:18 on May 20, 2020 |
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May 20, 2020 13:56
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If the plot ghosts could stop any of the Sephiroths from doing things then he shouldn't even be appearing in the game. The first time we see him in the original is in the Kalm flashback after all.
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May 20, 2020 14:14
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So, here's my 2 cents because I've had time to think about things more. Just so everything's clear, I don't think the plot ghosts are supposed to be a 1:1 representation of fan boys. I think it's the story itself, as I think we're supposed to take the concept of fate to be the structure of the story. Maybe I was just conditioned to do that from JoJo, but whatever, let's just look at it that way. They're totally fine with changes that are add ons and only try to fix major deviations because the story would change drastically otherwise and they're trying to "help" the characters. Given that and the fact that even Cloud has been having visions, I don't think this is anyone's first rodeo. I think this has all happened before, maybe even several times, both because it literally DID happen before and the fact that the Whispers are here means that they're going off of what's happened in the first go round. We don't actually know how many people in the party are seeing future visions toward the beginning of the game. We only know about Cloud's because he's the perspective character. What about Barret? Did he see a contextless vision of Cloud falling to his "death" and decide to change his plans, or did he just want to save money? Has Tifa been seeing some poo poo and that's why she's more nervous than usual about Cloud potentially leaving and is trying to probe him more, or is her nervousness just being made more obvious? Or is this just characters having vague "bad feelings"? It's pure speculation, but when you add in something like "these characters are getting visions from the future", it can put interactions like that in a different context when you ask "How many of them are getting these?" Now, what about Sephiroth? Weirdly, this isn't the first time he's been sort of meta-aware. He's acting pretty similarly to how he was in the Dissidia games: he's either subconsciously aware of what's going on without having to be told or he figures things out pretty quickly. He also seems to be more aware that he's the villain in those games, that his role is to egg Cloud on or to be some kind of "guide". Even in the original game, he fucks with the player directly by wresting control from you and other minor 4th wall breaking things. And he's doing this here too, which implies that he's aware of what his real "role" is this time. The Whispers are the story and Sephiroth read the script. He was never the "hero", Cloud was. So he's decided to role with it and change the story to his liking, maybe try to appeal to how Cloud used to see him, if the Edge of Creation scene is any indication. It's interesting because he seems aware of his real role and totally fine with it, except for the whole "losing" part. It almost comes across to me like he wants to see how far Cloud can go without the safety net of the story helping him.
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May 20, 2020 14:47
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I feel like making Aerith's death an immutable part of destiny would be the most obnoxious kind of fanservice, the kind where just because it was important to the fans means they have to retroactively make it more important than it was in-universe. Like how of course Darth Vader wasn't just a fallen Jedi who served as the Emperor's attack dog while the officers mocked his religion behind his back, he was the chosen one of prophecy and a lynchpin to Sheev's plan to create the Empire. It would also be a bit weak if the remake, which has so far hemmed the characterization closer to what was actually there in the original rather than what the later Compilation implied of them, continued the dumb hack Jesusification of Aerith.
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May 20, 2020 15:00
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anakha posted:VV The Whispers are specifically trying to stop Sephiroth-from-the-future (as well as anybody else) from altering the original timeline - they're not interested in anything else. From what I understood, their intervention in the top floor of the Shinra building in Chapter 17 was first to prevent Barret from stopping Jenova being taken away, then to prevent Barret from dying after that. So it's hard to make the argument they were trying to stop everything Sephiroth (whether the original one or Sephiroth-from-the-future) was trying to do. But with everybody else the plot ghosts actively intervene to stop them from going off the script, by force if necessary. And every Sephiroth appearance in the game except the Shinra Building one isn't supposed to happen, so why aren't the ghosts swarming him to stop that the first time he even tries to appear? Shouldn't make a difference which Sephiroth we're talking about as long as he's not supposed to do the things he's doing. Waffleman_ posted:I feel like making Aerith's death an immutable part of destiny would be the most obnoxious kind of fanservice, the kind where just because it was important to the fans means they have to retroactively make it more important than it was in-universe. Like how of course Darth Vader wasn't just a fallen Jedi who served as the Emperor's attack dog while the officers mocked his religion behind his back, he was the chosen one of prophecy and a lynchpin to Sheev's plan to create the Empire. It would also be a bit weak if the remake, which has so far hemmed the characterization closer to what was actually there in the original rather than what the later Compilation implied of them, continued the dumb hack Jesusification of Aerith. No, destiny is most definitely dead and buried at this point. And Sephiroth has no actual motive to kill Aerith in this timeline because he knows it's not going to help him. Which is what makes the whole thing interesting, because if she still dies it would have to be in some other way.
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May 20, 2020 15:12
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I wonder if Marlene (probably) also being an Ancient is going to factor into things at all. Aerith knows enough about the future to volunteer to go save Marlene despite nobody telling her who Marlene even is, so she's got more concrete knowledge about what's going to go down than a few mere hazy glimpses like what Cloud inexplicably got.Cerebral Bore posted:No, destiny is most definitely dead and buried at this point. And Sephiroth has no actual motive to kill Aerith in this timeline because he knows it's not going to help him. Which is what makes the whole thing interesting, because if she still dies it would have to be in some other way. well, which Sephiroth though. He definitely has no motive to shank Barret but he does it anyway. Possibly just to flex.
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May 20, 2020 15:25
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Yeah, but in the case of Aerith killing her is probably counterproductive since she can still gently caress him over down in the Lifestream. By contrast Barret is just some rando. Also he could have known that it wouldn't take because plot ghosts.
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May 20, 2020 15:33
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Sapozhnik posted:well, which Sephiroth though. He definitely has no motive to shank Barret but he does it anyway. Possibly just to flex. Arguably also applies to the final boss fight.
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May 20, 2020 15:33
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Cerebral Bore posted:And every Sephiroth appearance in the game except the Shinra Building one isn't supposed to happen, so why aren't the ghosts swarming him to stop that the first time he even tries to appear? Shouldn't make a difference which Sephiroth we're talking about as long as he's not supposed to do the things he's doing. Prior to the Shinra building, when has Sephiroth appeared other then as an illusion only Cloud is seeing? I can make the argument that the Whispers can't see those things happening because no one else can either. Their intervention in Chapter 2 to keep Aerith in place can also be argued as a response to Cloud being delayed, not because they could see Sephiroth messing with him. They react to events that could throw the original storyline off course, but there's no evidence they can see more than the events themselves occurring.
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May 20, 2020 15:47
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Sapozhnik posted:I wonder if Marlene (probably) also being an Ancient is going to factor into things at all. Aerith knows enough about the future to volunteer to go save Marlene despite nobody telling her who Marlene even is, so she's got more concrete knowledge about what's going to go down than a few mere hazy glimpses like what Cloud inexplicably got. She knows who Marlene is because of the ghosts in the train graveyard taking on her appearance and Tifa saying her name. There doesn't need to be any future vision nonsense for that.
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May 20, 2020 15:48
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anakha posted:Prior to the Shinra building, when has Sephiroth appeared other then as an illusion only Cloud is seeing? I can make the argument that the Whispers can't see those things happening because no one else can either. The illusions aren't supposed to happen either, but they do and they're very clearly caused by some version of Sephiroth. And Cloud isn't supposed to go into a PTSD fugue either, so why aren't the ghosts stopping that? Even if they can't see Sephiroth they should be able to see the effects his meddling has on Cloud, which are not supposed to happen. And yes, the ghosts are clearly hassling Aerith because Cloud is delayed, but if they could it seems that they should just make sure that Could is where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be there instead, because that's a smaller deviation from the original timeline. So the obvious conclusion here is that for some reason the plot ghosts are unable to stop Sephiroth from loving around. Cerebral Bore fucked around with this message at 16:00 on May 20, 2020 |
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May 20, 2020 15:57
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Cerebral Bore posted:The illusions aren't supposed to happen either, but they do and they're very clearly caused by some version of Sephiroth. And Cloud isn't supposed to go into a PTSD fugue either, so why aren't the ghosts stopping that? Even if they can't see Sephiroth they should be able to see the effects his meddling has on Cloud, which are not supposed to happen. And yes, the ghosts are clearly hassling Aerith because Cloud is delayed, but if they could it seems that they should just make sure that Could is where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be there instead, because that's a smaller deviation from the original timeline. The Whispers can't see the poo poo Sephiroth is doing to Cloud's head, like I was saying. There's nothing for them to react to. Cloud's PTSD episodes didn't change events, so again, there's nothing for the Whispers to react to. The only exception is again Chapter 2, because that episode had Cloud going in a different direction and threw the timing of his original meeting with Aerith off. That, the Whispers reacted to. The point I was making in my previous post is that the Whispers appear when events occur that could throw off the original timeline. If Cloud clutches his head for a second like in Chapter 1 but is still able to set the bomb, then from the Whispers' perspective, nothing has happened yet that requires intervention. anakha fucked around with this message at 16:10 on May 20, 2020 |
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May 20, 2020 16:07
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Sapozhnik posted:I wonder if Marlene (probably) also being an Ancient is going to factor into things at all. Aerith knows enough about the future to volunteer to go save Marlene despite nobody telling her who Marlene even is, so she's got more concrete knowledge about what's going to go down than a few mere hazy glimpses like what Cloud inexplicably got. Marlene isn't an Ancient, where on earth did you get that idea from?
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May 20, 2020 17:44
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Dell_Zincht posted:Marlene isn't an Ancient, where on earth did you get that idea from? It's a fun theory being tossed around based on that scene with Aerith in Chapter 12, as well as her somehow being able to hear Barret during the ending, despite the distance.
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May 20, 2020 17:47
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anakha posted:It's a fun theory being tossed around based on that scene with Aerith in Chapter 12, as well as her somehow being able to hear Barret during the ending, despite the distance. Oh right, I never saw it like that. Ugh, I hope they don't go down that route.
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May 20, 2020 17:50
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anakha posted:It's a fun theory being tossed around based on that scene with Aerith in Chapter 12, as well as her somehow being able to hear Barret during the ending, despite the distance. The original alluded to it as well; in the ending sequence, Marlene visibly reacts to Aeris' presence in the Lifestream. Also it's suggested that Dyne and/or his wife were; when he meets Barret again, he says something like "I really wanna kill you, but my wife just told me not to" and she had been dead for years at that point.
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May 20, 2020 17:52
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Zarin posted:The original alluded to it as well; in the ending sequence, Marlene visibly reacts to Aeris' presence in the Lifestream. Hmm, I always just attributed that to Dyne having completely lost his mind by that point. Also the quite chilling line "Marlene wants to see her mom, don't she?" being an allusion to Dyne murdering her and then killing himself so they can all be reunited in death. Let's not forget FFVII is a pretty dark game in places.
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May 20, 2020 17:57
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Dell_Zincht posted:Hmm, I always just attributed that to Dyne having completely lost his mind by that point. I think I originally took it as Dyne being insane, too. But now I'm not so sure. I'm fine if they expand on it, or leave it a mystery. It's little things like that that really help made the original what it was.
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May 20, 2020 18:07
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Aren't regular humans just supposed to be Ancients who eventually lost their Planet communing skills? So I guess it wouldn't be entirely impossible that someone could be born with the ability even if their parents were regular humans.anakha posted:The Whispers can't see the poo poo Sephiroth is doing to Cloud's head, like I was saying. There's nothing for them to react to. Sephiroth isn't supposed to open the portal to the Time Kompression dimension either, but he very visibly does and the ghosts clearly don't even try to stop him. There's just too much poo poo that he fucks around with for it to make sense that the literal entities responsible for keeping the plot on the rails never even try to intervene to stop him at any point if they're capable of doing so.
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May 20, 2020 18:09
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Cerebral Bore posted:Sephiroth isn't supposed to open the portal to the Time Kompression dimension either, but he very visibly does and the ghosts clearly don't even try to stop him. There's just too much poo poo that he fucks around with for it to make sense that the literal entities responsible for keeping the plot on the rails never even try to intervene to stop him at any point if they're capable of doing so. I'll just say that Chapter 18 is another debate entirely. Ultimania does hint that the Sephiroth appearances in Chapter 18 are different in nature from all the other times the player sees him appear in the previous chapters. Aside from Chapter 18, there really isn't anything overt Sephiroth-from-the-future tried that wasn't responded to by the Whispers. It stands to reason that he benefits from their loss as that's one less obstacle in his way.
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May 20, 2020 18:19
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