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My money is on "there is weird time/space fuckery going on and Cloud saved Aerith in one timeline but it's overlapping with a version where she died, leading to dimensional fuckery." I do not think we're seeing a third game without a playable Aerith, though; she's clearly still an active presence and not just a hallucination, even if she's also a lifestream ghost or liminal being. Red reacts to her, even if he doesn't seem to realize it's her. I saw the observation that both Cloud and Tifa, people who have touched the Lifestream, seem to see both Aerith dead and Aerith alive in that moment when Sephiroth stabs her, and notably Tifa lingers longest by the pool where we can assume they laid her body to rest and looks the most uncomfortable and disturbed by what's going on. Trying to reconcile conflicting memories? Doubting her own sanity? Unclear. That said, I think we didn't see the burial because not only was Cloud possibly not present for it per se in this version of events, but also because it'll be the big reveal that starts the breakdown in the third game, when the rest of the party challenges him on not realizing/acknowledging that Aerith is extremely dead and buried. EDIT: Also, I think the implications of the doomed timeline is that Zack (and Aerith and Cloud when you have your date) is experiencing every one of his deaths. There's not multiple Zacks, there's one Zack who keeps getting cycled through different possibilities that keep ending in his death. But like Aerith for example is wearing all three colors of jewelry bangles from Cloud's "date" with her, indicating she's done this multiple times, I think? Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 09:01
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JBP posted:I definitely think Cloud saved Aerith in one of the realities, but it's not this one. I think she's doing the same holy schtick and it's just nice that Cloud can still see her and that she was able to manifest for a bit as a ghost or whatever. The game does explicitly have Zack observing that timelines can touch again, so I strongly suspect we're going to see Zack and Aerith (and Zack has his own movelist, that's a lot of development for one fight) again whenever the timestreams sync up again, allowing them to jump worldlines. But I think she's dead in the world Cloud is currently in, which judging by the sky he sees is not the "correct" one for him. The question is how, because he did, explicitly in what we see, stop that blow, and it's not depicted just as him hallucinating, Sephiroth responds to it - so did he get shunted over/reverse uno'd to one where she died? I think it is quite likely that she'll still be a playable character in the third game. I am quite possibly wrong, but I think there's a fair bit of evidence. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 09:40
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SyntheticPolygon posted:This is a very Tifa thing to do regardless of anything tbf. This is entirely true. But it does seem interesting and odd that Tifa sees both versions of Aerith in that moment. I don't think Cloud stopping the blade was just a bait and switch hallucination, because that would genuinely feel a bit like just yanking the player's chain in a clumsy fashion. We're supposed to feel like changing events has a meaningful difference here, rather than it just being "ha ha you lose!" Sephiroth is visibly taken aback at his defeat at Aerith and Cloud's hands.
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Mar 30, 2024 17:50
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We see benevolent action taken by the Weapons in the Lifestream to keep Tifa safe, so I don't think we're gonna go with "the Planet is basically amoral." Yes, the Whispers acted to ensure Biggs, Wedge and Jessie died, but that seems more like a "bigger picture" thing. The Whispers don't seem intelligent per se, more like an immune system response. They behave more like cells than independent beings, that's why both Sephiroth and (greater) Aerith can so easily command them to do their being. On their own they don't really seem to think or take complex actions, just rigidly try to ensure events take their proper course.
Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 18:08
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ThisIsACoolGuy posted:I gotta say watching scenes back, when Tseng shoots Sephiroth the formers reaction is really funny "Oh, right, guns."
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Mar 30, 2024 20:01
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ThisIsACoolGuy posted:Actual thing came up when watching cutscenes. Zack and Biggs talk during the boat trip doesn't make a ton of sense to me as it can't just be 'oh it's a different timeline' I still think it's because there's not multiple versions of these characters per se, there's one version who keeps getting made to go through these experiences again and again. Sort of an "oversoul" or essence of the character who gets incarnated repeatedly. It's the same way that Cloud subconsciously remembers the events of the original game at times. Zack experiences each timeline and fated death in sequence, and just refuses to give up, that's why he's on the verge of despair when he sees Biggs go down and the same fate of a bunch of Shinra soldiers about to gun him down as happened in the original ambush outside Midgar and then at the Shinra Building foyer. I also doubt we've actually seen the last of Biggs. The Remake has established the interior of the Lifestream as a place where events meaningfully happen. Someone being dead in the world of the living does not mean they're out of action. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Mar 31, 2024 |
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Mar 31, 2024 18:36
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What amuses me is that "buster sword" is apparently an entire class of in-universe weapons. It's a lot like how Cloud's final weapon in the game is obviously a gunblade, specifically a manatrigger variant as depicted in FF14.
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Mar 31, 2024 22:03
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Just Andi Now posted:I think it's kind of a Loki tv show situation. The original timeline is a kind of Sacred Timeline, and the whispers in Remake basically kept everything going in that direction. When the party defeats the Whisper Harbinger at the end of Remake, perhaps not realizing this was what Sephiroth wanted them to do, the timeline started to fray into these little branch timelines whenever folks made different choices. However, these worlds are doomed to die (probably not enough lifestream to support them all), and Sephiroth is harvesting them for despair and other strong negative emotions. What he didn't plan for was for Aerith to retrieve a fully-charged white materia from one of these dying branches. Yeah, something like this. Sephiroth also indicates that the timelines naturally fuse back into each other as they either run out or are doomed to falter. There's not multiple versions of characters; characters' souls and the Lifestream are spread out across the different timelines. My guess is that's why there's the strange glow in the sky in "doomed" or "improper" timelines, it indicates a timeline that's about to merge into another one, the onset of the different worldline bleeding in. We see timelines splitting and fusing as Sephiroth and Cloud talk in the white void, and it looks a lot like that weird gold-and-dark-hues nebula. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Mar 31, 2024 |
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Mar 31, 2024 22:34
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ThisIsACoolGuy posted:Something else to bring up but in the mural chamber the WIZARDS are battling old knights and stuff, and the knights look like the Loveless actors, which is interesting enough on its own honestly, but when you go further in you see them fighting Ghost Jenova if you look away at the door to the next room Minerva from Crisis Core is there as a ghost and why is the super boss there Isn't the implication that that image is the cultural memory of Jenova adopted among baseline humans, cleaned up over the centuries to a goddess figure? It's mentioned by Bugenhagen that the Cetra didn't engage in temple-oriented religious practices, and although there are various regional tutelary gods, it's not clear whether the Cetra worshipped them. (Shiva at least appears to be a deified Cetra queen.) It's also not clear if said deities are like FF14 primals and more the cultural idea given form (or individuals apotheosized posthumously) than a specific divine entity independent of human existence and worshipped in the Cetra's day. We know Jenova was infecting/subverting Cetra and baseline humans, but we don't really know to this day to what degree it has a personality rather than being a non-anthropomorphized invasive ecosystem. I've often wondered if Sephiroth's assumptions in Nibelheim that "Jenova" was a Cetra woman weren't technically sorta-true, in the sense that the Jenova host body found and harvested was an infected Cetra woman. The other kinda-funny bit is the Shadowblood Queen, who is described as the ancient origin of the world's fiends...much as Jenova was in the original game. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 00:00
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Stim posted:This is broadly where I fall on it. The Lifestream has always been able to conjure up representations of memories into physical realities as we can see in the original game with the Tifa/Cloud flashback and what Tifa experiences in this game in Gongaga. I doubt this is going to end on a City on the Edge of Forever note, because it'd make the entire overarching "Can you change fate?" plotline end with "No, suck it up." And that's lazy and contrary to the overall mood so far. Plus, the directors have said they want this to end on a happy ending for the cast. This is their passion project, their Rebuild of Evangelion.
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Apr 1, 2024 01:48
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The sheer sledgehammer of terror I felt seeing the sword descend towards Aerith and the immediate shock of relief as Cloud blocked the blow was intense, for me. It's one reason I feel certain - alongside all the big obvious cinematic language telegraphs - that Cloud wasn't hallucinating, it'd be total hack writing to go "surprise, we fooled you!" The game doesn't fool around telegraphing when Cloud is hallucinating; he lies to himself, but it doesn't, generally, lie to you. It's always very clear when he is seeing something that isn't there.DeathChicken posted:It'd explain that weird part where Cloud's happily all "Let's go everyone!" while Tifa is having a funeral moment It's not just that Tifa's having a funeral moment, it's that she lingers even longer after everyone else and seems deeply confused and troubled by what she saw? Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 01:57
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Clarste posted:Barret's thing kind of makes sense if you think of mako as a metaphor for nuclear instead of fossil fuels, but that also makes it really dumb. It's not really that dumb - it is dumb, but it's logical for dumb premises - at the time it was made. Mako was originally very unsubtly intended to be seen as nuclear power, because this was the 90s and 90s environmentalism was aggressively anti-nuclear due to the aftermath of Chernobyl and association with nuclear weapons, along with everything else about it that was a sort of unpleasant vaguely anprim degrowth ideology. There's a reason modern environmentalism has a pretty big split between pro-growth, pro-green technology high-density types, who are the more modern sort, and the old-fashioned "environmentalism means we'll let go of our modern creature comforts, feed ourselves with farmers' markets and live simple pastoral lives in harmony with nature" NIMBY no-development fears-of-population bomb types that were much more dominant in the 90s. Mako reactors look pretty overtly like nuclear reactors. Making (unsustainable, clearly some harmonious use of the Lifestream is possible given the Cetra built their civilization on it) Mako use more explicitly about fossil fuels and how vulture capitalism corrupts even good intentions rather than nuclear power is one of those very necessary updates. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Apr 2, 2024 |
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Apr 2, 2024 23:37
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Incidentally, in relation to the whole shift from 90s environmentalism, I kinda appreciate how everyone in the party is disgusted with Cosmo Canyon and how it's basically just a self-help destination peddling cliches and no-hope passivity while relying largely on tourism and (through Bugenhagen) stale out-of-date resting on their laurels rather than being framed as The Enlightened Solution.
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Apr 2, 2024 23:56
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They've indicated Wutai is also significantly bigger than it was in the original game with references to multiple towns being destroyed.
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Apr 3, 2024 21:06
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I'm much more optimistic than you folks. It feels to me clear that something did meaningfully change and that a complete "nah, all that changing fate stuff was a red herring" would be writing that would be far too inept and, honestly, a bit of a vets-only bait and switch with 20 years of buildup.
Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 17:04
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Still don't get how folks see the ending and go "yeah this is gonna be a story about acquiescing to Fate and also Aerith is turbo dead and will never return, after everything related to Zack's arc and the entire climax of the game." It's genuinely baffling.
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Apr 6, 2024 18:06
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Although that kind of gets interestingly weird because Advent Children closes with the implication that the Remnants are being accepted into the Lifestream/redeemed in spirit in some way.
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Apr 6, 2024 18:53
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ImpAtom posted:You know, is it me, or is Heidegger kind of getting the best showing (in terms of like, being least terrible) of the non-Reeve Shinra Gang? Not at all, imo. Scarlet is remarkably competent, she's just a bad person. But she's very good at what she does, far more so than the original game! Heidegger's only actual virtue is his relative physical courage; he's not afraid of getting hurt. But he's never really gotten a chance to show his stuff in any practical way; he's a terrible leader whose plans basically never work out.
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Apr 11, 2024 19:14
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Yeah I think Hojo is textually a loving idiot who's a massive victim of Dunning-Kruger, he's just lucky enough to be working with The Thing such that "stuff Jenova cells into it" basically always (temporarily) "works," if by "works" we mean "does not immediately die." Also, his laboratory discipline is awful given how many monsters are basically "Hojo made an unspeakable abomination for funsies, and then just kinda shrugged when specimens broke out and bred in the wild." He's not really a scientist, he wants to be a scientist, but he's basically a Jenova cultist. That said, Reeve is clearly extremely good at his job, given he and his department are able to keep Midgar functioning (for a given value thereof) despite the active neglect and underfunding they get from the entire rest of Shinra as they funnel all of Shinra's revenue into deranged megaprojects, death robots or crimes against nature. The Urban Development department would probably be able to build a much better world if Shinra didn't keep loving them over! It's just that if they leave, the entire thing collapses. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Apr 11, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 23:13
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Capfalcon posted:Just finished last night, and after sleeping on the ending, I'm in the "Well, let's see how they pull it together in part 3" camp, as I am just as confused at this point of the story as I was in the original. Worse yet, it's not that he just designed it, isn't it implied he beat it? The Middle Manager is a force to be reckoned with.
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Apr 11, 2024 23:40
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:Yeah the funniest thing about yuffie is that her being a trained and seasoned combatant at age 16 is both extremely normal in the setting and also puts her head and shoulders above pretty much all of the rebirth party except cloud and maybe Tifa, depending Yeah Cloud left home to go join the army at 14, and this is explicitly not unusual for a dying town like Nibelheim even if the subtext is that he was leaving because the town blamed him for Tifa getting hurt and he didn't want to be a burden on his mom. Gaia considers teens adults very, very young.
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Apr 14, 2024 21:22
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Honestly I felt Dyne was really well done in Rebirth, particularly the painful note that he simultaneously desperately wants to die, wants to save Barret, and refuses to let him have closure when he dies. That scene was rough, and really effective, because in the original Dyne more or less marked the end of Barret's arc being of great significance, but in the Remake trilogy, as with many other characters (most notably Nanaki by adding his new goal to save the Gi without omnicide), his chapter spurs him on but does not resolve his issues.
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Apr 16, 2024 02:35
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Zedsdeadbaby posted:I think they were still neutral arbiters of fate, but in rebirth they are white to help distinguish from Sephiroth's whispers I don't think so - they literally use abilities based on Aerith's abilities. They're Greater Aerith's minions, I think.
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Apr 16, 2024 09:04
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A thing that struck me when I'm thinking about it is how much more the Remake trilogy has Cloud and co meaningfully making friends and allies. Almost every character in the original game who's not part of the core cast is extremely forgettable - to the point that the Turks end up being the closest thing to buddies the cast has, despite being, you know, complicit in the destruction of Sector 7. By contrast, the Remake trilogy has Cloud making a lot of friends, and those friends just keep coming back. The Wall Market Trio are almost framed as mentors, for example, and even Dio actually shows himself to be a genuine bro (even if he's just Gaia's version of Godbert Manderville). It's nice. It helps reinforce the idea that the world's actually worth fighting for instead of that vaguely misanthropic 90s "maybe humanity is the virus" undertone.
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Apr 16, 2024 19:32
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Somebody pointed out something interesting in regards to the battle against Jenova Lifeclinger, we might actually be jumping between timestreams there. The versions of the party at the start are horrified, enraged, and downcast, but at the climactic descent as they go all Advent Children on Jenova, they're upbeat, confident, and comparatively cheerful, with no signs of distress, just righteous anger. Maybe one set was from Cloud's current world where Aerith falls, another from the version where Aerith lives? And Cloud (and maybe Tifa) are glitching back and forth because they've touched the Lifestream and are cognizant of multiple worlds indirectly that way?
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Apr 20, 2024 00:39
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