For the next few days, we’ll be posting articles on various topics regarding FFVII, written by Squall_of_SeeD. You may recognize this name. He has authored several other in-depth, and well written FAQs on Final Fantasy and its elements. Whether it’s disproving the speculation of Ultimecia being Rinoa Heartily of the future, comparing the thematic similarities between FFVII and FFIX or explaining the origins of the remnants of Sephiroth, Squall_of_SeeD’s analyses dissect and offer incredible insight in some of the more intricate plot elements of Final Fantasy.

It’s with great pleasure we host the first segment of his FAQ here, that answers some of the frequently asked questions and plot points regarding FFVII and the Compilation. You’ll be able to read the entirety of his FAQ on Gamefaqs where he will host the entire FAQ, which will include this information and much more. So for now, enjoy the first post in this series!

*Q: The box that held Jenova’s “head” in AC was a bit small for holding an
entire head. Was that what was actually in it?

*A: According to Takeshi Nozue, co-director of the film, the contents of the
box were referred to as the head, but what the box actually contains is just
random remains of Jenova.

Of course, this might mean that some material from her head was within the
box, but Nozue doesn’t indicate it to necessarily be the case. They simply
refer to the box’s contents as “the head” for simplicity’s sake.

*Source: Advent Children prologue book (pg. 62)

*Q: Why does Kadaj scream out in anguish when he looks into the box holding
Jenova’s remains?

*A: According to the script of the film packaged with the Advent Pieces
edition in Japan, as well as the script included with the Limited Edition
release in North America, Cloud damaged the box further than Rufus’ earlier
shot already had.

The contents of the box were damaged as a result of the attacks on it, and
Kadaj probably assumed that what should have been a healthy looking part of
Jenova had been mangled, and that she had, thus, been hurt. So he was
grieving, basically.

*Q: What was that rain that Aerith brought which cleansed people of Jenova’s
cells and disintegrated Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz?

*A: It was most likely a representation of Aerith’s Great Gospel Limit Break,
which would completely heal party members in Final Fantasy VII and fell from the sky as rain.

As far as what it was in plainer terms, it looked like Lifestream mixed with
water. When looking at the hole that Kadaj blasted into the floor of Aerith’s
old church, one can clearly see the Lifestream mixing with water.

Once Sephiroth was out of the picture, Aerith unleashed the city-
wide Great Gospel seen at the end of the film.

Q: What were those dark clouds Sephiroth called forth before his battle with
Cloud began? Some of them took the form of tendrils like the Lifestream.

*A: It was a Lifestream composed of the spirit energy of those who had died
of geostigma. Their spirit energy became contaminated by the influence of
Jenova’s cells and was, thus, under Sephiroth’s control.

*Source:Staff commentary from Japanese Limited Edition of AC; FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania (pg. 32)

The silver-haired men, Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz, also had limited control over
this “negative Lifestream,” as seen when they summoned the Shadow Creeper
monsters who were composed of it.

*Q: What is the black substance that permeates the water at the City of the
Ancients when Kadaj steps into it? Why do the silver-haired men have the
children drink the water?

*A: It was Kadaj’s will. He had them drink the water to activate the Jenova
cells within them — specifically, the instinct for Reunion.

*Source: Staff commentary from Japanese Limited Edition of AC

The idea was that the children would then be drawn to the location of
Jenova’s remains, allowing the silver-haired men to locate their
“mother.” They couldn’t track her themselves because they didn’t have any
Jenova cells in their bodies.

*Q: Why didn’t Rufus die in Final Fantasy VII when Diamond Weapon blasted
his office? He started to explain, but Cloud interrupted him.

*A: He got lucky, I guess. It wasn’t the first time a Final Fantasy
character survived a large explosion at close range. Final Fantasy IV has
more than one case of it.

*Q: Didn’t Tseng die in Final Fantasy VII? Elena said to Cloud “…you really
got guts doin’ my boss in like that!”.

*A: While the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy VII released in North
America certainly made it seem that Tseng had died due to Elena’s statement,
this was, in fact, a major mistranslation. It was corrected with the PC
release, in which Elena says “…you really got guts messin’ my boss up like
that!”

Also, if one speaks to the wounded Tseng in the Temple of the Ancients after
he has given Cloud and company the Keystone, he will say “I’m… still
alive….” Apparently, while Cloud and the others were inside the Temple of
the Ancients, Tseng was discovered and rescued.

That he was discovered before the Temple of the Ancients became the Black
Materia would actually go lengths toward explaining how the other Turks would
have known about him being injured in the first place.

Still, Tseng’s absence throughout the rest of the game suggested to many,
myself included, that he had probably died, even with Elena’s corrected line.
Certainly, though, the writers of the original game left themselves plausible
room to bring him back.

*Q: What is written on the plaque on the monument in Edge?

*A:

METEORFALL
v-Era 0008 0121
Keep on Rockin’ in
MIDGAR

In the original release of Advent Children, the second “1″ in the date was
obscured. In Advent Children Complete, the full date is visible. The “v,” by
the way, is the lowercase form of Nu, the thirteenth letter of the Greek
alphabet.

*Q: What was the name of the Bahamut that Kadaj summoned?

*A: Bahamut Sin (official romanization; technically “Shin” is also accurate),
meaning “Bahamut Tremor.”

This name and those of the alternate forms of Bahamut seen in the original
game came from old Japanese fighter planes. For instance, Bahamut Zero is
Bahamut Reishiki in Japanese (“Bahamut Zero Style”), and Neo Bahamut is
Bahamut Kai (“Bahamut Remodeled”).

*Source:Staff commentary from Japanese Limited Edition of AC;
Advent Children: Prologue book (pg. 45); AC Reunion Files book (pg. 76)

*Q: What does the wolf that appears at Zack’s place of death, Aerith’s church,
and the City of the Ancients symbolize?

*A: It’s a symbol of the guilt and regret Cloud experienced as a result of
being unable to do anything to save Aerith and Zack, so it appears in
locations related to them.

*Source: Staff commentary from Japanese Limited Edition of AC; AC Reunion
Files book (pg. 86)

The symbolism of the wolf also brings to mind the expression “lone wolf,” as
Cloud has chosen to live away from others while he awaited death from
geostigma. Continuing this line of symbolism, Cloud wears the design of a
wolf’s head on his outfit, and his motorcycle is named Fenrir, the name bore
by Loki’s wolf-child in Norse Mythology.

*Q: What are the names of Cloud’s new swords?

*A: Takeyuki Takeya, the swords’ designer, has commented that he didn’t give
them or their united form proper names. The developers just called them the
Fusion Swords (Gattai Ken) during development.

*Source: AC Reunion Files book (pp. 77-78)

While it doesn’t seem that any of the swords have been otherwise given
official names, the base sword the others attach to has been called the First
Sword (Saisho no Ken in Japanese) by Nomura.

*Source: Staff commentary from Japanese Limited Edition of AC

This FAQ originally gave the sword’s name as First Tsurugi, which has
apparently been a common misunderstanding since the kanji for “sword” can be
read and pronounced both “ken” and “tsurugi.” The pronunciation Nomura
actually used was “ken.”

*Q: What were the names of Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz’s weapons? What kind of
weapons were they?

*A: -Kadaj’s weapon-
The Souba (a double-bladed katana)

-Yazoo’s weapon-
A Velvet Nightmare (a double-barreled gun that vaguely resembles a
sword)

-Loz’s weapons-
A Velvet Nightmare (a double-barreled gun designed to look like two
swords set side-by-side)
The Dual Hound (a pile bunker designed to function as a stun gun)

*Source: Official North American Advent Children website; Advent Children:
Prologue book (pg. 72); AC Reunion Files book (pg. 79)

*Q: Do the Velvet Nightmare weapons function as swords as well or only as
guns?

*A: They function only as guns. While Yazoo does use his Velvet Nightmare to
block Cloud’s sword during a fight, the weapons lack an actual blade. Both the
official North American and Japanese Advent Children websites state that the
Velvet Nightmares lack any sword function:

(Yazoo’s profile on the official North American Advent Children website)
“A youth who is unbound by worldly matters and thus a bit of an enigma. Yazoo
carries the ‘Velvet Nightmare,’ a firearm designed after two parallel swords,
but with gun functionality only.”

*Q: Can Cloud fly?

*A: Not anytime he wants to like Vincent apparently can, but he does fly
briefly when performing Omnislash Version 5/6 on Sephiroth at the end of the
film.

Presumably, anyone could do it via a surge in their spirit energy — what we
otherwise know as a Limit Break — and we do witness Aerith’s staff
levitating during battles in the original game while she performed Limit
Breaks or was casting spells.

*Q: What is the name of the planet of FFVII?

*A: Its name is Gaia. This became evident after the 2004 Electronics
Entertainment Expo (E3), when the Square Enix booth gave away pamphlets
concerning Advent Children that refer to the world by that name. Here
is a scan of one of those pamphlets:

With this in mind, recall that in Final Fantasy VII, the frozen area that must
be scaled to reach the Northern Crater is called Gaea’s Cliffs. “Gaea” and
“Gaia” are simply alternate romanizations of the same name, so the precedent
for this name had been in place since the original game’s release.

*Q: Is Jenova male or female?

*A: While it typically appears as a female during the main events of the game,
in light of its ability to change its shape and in light of it — or parts of
it to be more specific — taking the form of Sephiroth during the course of
the game, it cannot be reasonably classified as male or female with any strong
measure of certainty. It may very well be without a biological sex.

In the years immediately following the release of the game, it was often
believed that Jenova was considered a male by the Cetra based on a bad
translation of lines from Ifalna in the original U.S. release of the game:

Gast
“Who is the person that appeared at the North Cave? I haven’t any idea.”

Ifalna
“That’s when the one who injured the Planet… or the ‘crisis from the sky’,
as we call it, came.”
“He first approached as a friend, deceived them, and finally…… gave them
the virus.”
“The Cetra were attacked by the virus and went mad… transforming into
monsters.”
“Then, just as he had at the Knowlespole.”
“He approached other Cetra clans…… infecting them with… the virus…”

While this PlayStation Version of the game’s script had Jenova referred to
as a male at this point, in the later PC Version of the script — in which
many errors were corrected — “it” was used in place of “he.”

*Q: Is Vincent immortal?

*A: Essentially. After being mortally wounded by Hojo approximately 23 years
before the original game began and then being brought back to life through
experimentation, Vincent has eternal youth. He’s now immortal, continuing to
retain the youth he had at 27 years old decades later.

*Source: FFVII Ultimania Omega guide (pg. 46); FFVII 10th Anniversary
Ultimania guide (pg. 68)

*Q: What is written on the plaque on the helmet Jenova wears in the Nibelheim
flashback?
*A: It varies from one version of that scene to another. Thus far, there have
been three different versions of the writing on the plaque. In the FMV from
the original game, it said the following:

“JENOVA
MADE IN HONG KONG
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1996
SQUER COMPANY LIMITED”

In Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, it said this:

“JENOVA
|µ|-Era 19591010 Hakken
|µ|-Era 19670702 Fuuin”

or

“JENOVA
Discovered Mu-Era October 10, 1959
Sealed Mu-Era July 2, 1967″

The alphabet character between the two vertical bars is the lowercase form of
Mu, the twelfth letter of the Greek alphabet. When I first wrote this FAQ, and
even when I last left it, I had believed that this use of the letter was
intended to identify the era in question as the “Middle-Era.”

I think I’d reached that conclusion because I’d read that this character was
historically used to denote “middle” — as it is the twelfth of the twenty-four
characters in the Greek alphabet — the same way alpha and omega were
used to denote “beginning” and “end.”

Not really sure why I thought that made so much sense, though. The Greek
letter on the monument in Edge is the lowercase form of the thirteenth letter
in the alphabet, Nu (v), which — as far as I know — wasn’t used for any such
purpose.

Even though we’re not counting Last Order in continuity, the
plaque bore this inscription there:

“JENOVA
STRICT SECRECY
SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY SECTION
SHIN-RA COMPANY LIMITED”