Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Dissidia Final Fantasy – An Analysis by Squall_of_SeeD & Makoeyes987
by Makoeyes987 October 23, 2009 0 commentsAs if it weren’t apparent from our site’s coverage, Dissidia: Final Fantasy is a game that’s very close to my heart. And as it turns out, it’s a game that’s very close to Squall_of_SeeD’s heart too.
So it was only natural that the two of us would geek out and combine our resources and compile a FAQ of the most commonly asked questions regarding the game that celebrates Final Fantasy’s 20th Anniversary. Below you’ll find this site exclusive FAQ, the fruit of our research and understanding. Enjoy, and hopefully it’ll allow you to further enjoy the game and it’s storyline!
*Q: What are the Crystals in Dissidia Final Fantasy?
The crystals are the embodiment of the harmonious power wielded by Cosmos, the Goddess of Harmony. They allowed the heroes to exist within the world of Dissidia, even when Cosmos herself was killed by Chaos.
Cosmos surrendered her power to the heroes, in order to fully put an end to the cycle of conflict. By giving them her power to fully defeat Chaos and give him a true death, she hoped to finally end the endless cycle of battle, and restore the universe’s order.
Each crystal could only manifest to a hero, when their strength and resolve was at its peak while facing off against their respective opponent. By obtaining a crystal, the hero proved themselves worthy of wielding a portion of Cosmos’s power.
The shape and appearance a crystal took for each character, referenced a particular type of crystal from their originating story.
*Q: What was Emperor Mateus’s plan in Dissidia?
The Emperor’s original plan was to use Jecht, who had been a warrior of Cosmos, as the means to ensure his own survival once Chaos eradicated everything.
Though he was brought over to Chaos’ side, Jecht still had a bond with Cosmos and the light, and, thus, when he fought Tidus, both of them received a crystal. However, the Emperor captured the light of Jecht’s crystal for himself.
Due to Jecht’s allegiance with Chaos and his unwilling connection to darkness, the Emperor was able to use the crystal he created from that light for the same purpose as the crystals Cosmos had left with the heroes — to preserve himself after the death of the god whose side he fought upon, Chaos. Basically, by using the dark crystal Jecht’s bond with Tidus created, he was able to ensure that should Chaos disappear, he would still exist and be able to re-shape the universe as he saw fit, becoming the new god himself.
*Q: What were Sephiroth’s intentions in Dissidia?
The villains of Dissidia each held a personal goal that allowed them to overcome their differences in order to enact their plan to ensure Cosmos’s demise. One schemed the world’s return to the Void, while another wished its ultimate destruction, while others intended to survive the conflict’s end and fashion a new world with themselves as its sole ruler. But one particular villain’s goal was opaque compared to the rest…what were Sephiroth’s intentions within Dissidia? Did they go beyond merely settling his grudge against Cloud?
In Destiny Odyssey scene 50, Emperor Mateus and Ultimecia approach Sephiroth, hopeful in persuading him to join their plan in fashioning the demise of the gods. Sephiroth rebuffs their invitation and walks off. However, as seen in Cloud’s Destiny Odyssey, he clearly participates in Cloud obtaining his crystal, and goes so far to state that he led him to it… as if he intended and desired for Cloud to achieve his goal in the first place. Why would Sephiroth purposefully go forward with the Emperor’s plan of guiding the heroes to their individual crystals, after clearly stating he was not interested?
Sephiroth’s true intentions lie within his desire to be free of the conflict of the gods and allowed back to his originating world, so that he can continue to be the master of his own destiny. As stated in Destiny Odyssey II-7, Sephiroth sees the members of the conflict as “Mere puppets who cannot see their own strings.” In the previous cycle of conflict between the gods, Sephiroth was not content merely playing his role as an emissary of discord. At the end of the previous cycle, Sephiroth ended his own life to see what truth lied in a world he felt was full of illusions.
At some point, he became aware of the cyclical nature of the conflict, and believed that despite his death, he would return again. As shown in Shade Impulse Chapter 3-2, Sephiroth did not fear his demise, believing that the spirit would live on as spirit energy, instead of merely vanishing. A metaphysical perspective that is consistent with the world he originated from.
In the end, he realized that for him to truly be free to control his own destiny (and the destiny of others in his originating world), the heroes had to succeed in eliminating Chaos. Sephiroth coyly discusses with Garland, what fate would befall each of the worlds should Chaos truly be defeated, hinting at his desire for reality to return to what it once was. For that reason, Sephiroth played his part in Emperor Mateus’s plan while simultaneously allowing Chaos’s own forces to deliberately sabotage themselves.
In Destiny Odyssey scene 32, Sephiroth is shown to be aware of Golbez’s betrayal to Mateus’s plan. However, he remained quiet on the subject so that Golbez could continue allying himself with the heroes and working against his fellow warriors of Chaos. All this was done, so that he could be allowed to return home. After all, Sephiroth had his own personal plan to ensure his immortality and godhood…Geostigma.
In his final confrontation with Cloud in Shade Impulse, upon his defeat, Sephiroth ominously references his intent to face Cloud once more. Explicit references are made to his plan to use Cloud as a way of ensuring his return once again, as expressed in the Lifestream Black novella, where he states:
As long as Cloud remembers me, I can continue to exist. Within the Lifestream, and on the surface. Even if my spirit disseminates, even if just one fragment of a memory courses around the planet, in the end I can count on Cloud’s consciousness to bring me back…
In the end, Sephiroth’s true intent and desire in Dissidia was the fulfillment of his own ambitions. This included Chaos’s defeat and the success of the heroes so that he could return to the Gaia of FFVII, and enact his own plan to ensure his resurrection and the completion of his original goal of godhood.
*Q: Why do some of the villains remember the previous turn of the cycle, but others do not? Also, none of the heroes do. Why?
Retaining one’s memories from a previous turn of the cycle to the next seems to be dependent on being “wrapped in some strong emotion” (per Chaos Report #6) and being alive at the time of the new turn’s beginning. Thus, the heroes — who lost the time before — would have never remembered the previous turns of the cycle before. Sephiroth — who killed himself at the end of the previous turn of the cycle — did not remember things until very late in Shade Impulse.
*Q:Why did Chaos have a dream about governing the world alongside Cosmos?
In the distant past, Chaos was a god who ruled along side Cosmos, and suppressed discord, destroying only when it was necessary. However, as shown in Chaos Report 1, the Lufenians wanted to fully utilize and control the power of discord for themselves, and thus, removed Chaos’s memories of his purpose, and made him the total destroyer we see him as in Dissidia and FF1. The creation of Garland was apparently the result of Chaos losing his memories. Given the Final Fantasy theme of memories as life and power, it is likely that the memories extracted from Chaos themselves became the being known as Garland.
*Q: Who is Garland really?
Garland is the manufactured being talked about in the Cosmos and Chaos Reports who had control over the ethereal discord and was used as a tool of war for the Lufenians. He’s likely the “new being” created by the Lufenians when they wiped Chaos’s memory — the “one of harmony that could subdue and control discord.”
*Q: Who is Warrior of Light really? And what is his past?
The past and identity of Warrior of Light is truly a mystery. Even to himself. As stated by himself, he has no memory of his past, his name, or where he even is supposed to go.
The Guiding Light accessory, which is necessary to create Warrior of Light’s final exclusive weapon, gives a telling message to presumably, Warrior of Light himself:
Lukahn prophesized: a nameless warrior guided by the light will purge the chaos from the world.
So whoever the Warrior of Light is, is a purposeful enduring mystery within the scenario of Final Fantasy and Dissidia Final Fantasy.
*Q: What is the sword the Warrior of Light uses in Dissidia?
The heroes of Dissidia each carry and wield their iconic weapons from their respective stories. Cloud wields the Buster Sword, Squall wields his Revolver gunblade, Zidane uses two Mage Mashers, Firion wields the Blood Sword, etc. But what of the Warrior of Light? He has no iconic weapon from his previous game in Dissidia.
…Or does he?
Here is a screenshot from the PSP 20th Anniversary edition of Final Fantasy, showing the Warrior of Light wielding the sword Excalibur.
The sword the Warrior of Light is wielding in Dissidia appears to be the Excalibur from Final Fantasy. The designs of the weapon in both games are extremely similar.
*Q: What are the weapons used by the Onion Knight in Dissidia?
As with the Warrior of Light, the Onion Knight of Final Fantasy III did not have an iconic weapon from his original game. The two swords the Onion Knight uses in Dissidia are from the Amano cover illustration from Japanese boxart for the game.
But do these swords appear anywhere in Final Fantasy III? I’d say yes… At least, in the DS remake.
Two swords that appear in Final Fantasy III for the DS resemble the yellow and red weapons from Amano’s artwork of the nameless Warrior of Light on FFIII’s cover.
The yellow sword held by Onion Knight Luneth is the Ragnarok. The red sword held by Ninja Arc is the Muramasa. And the staff held by Sage Ingus is the Elder Staff. The colors and blade shape of both swords strongly resemble the stylized weapons Onion Knight wields in Dissidia.
What’s also interesting is that the Muramasa is a Ninja and Dark Knight exclusive weapon. Furthermore, the Muramasa is only awarded by the Legendary Swordsmith in FFIII DS when the Ninja job class is mastered. The fact that Onion Knight only wields this sword when class changing to a Ninja seems to further cement that this is the sword’s true name.
In regard to the Sage’s staff in Dissidia, the staff held by Sage Ingus is the Elder Staff, and bears a slight resemblance in terms of its shape to said staff used by Onion Knight in Dissidia. However, the strongest matches in terms of weaponry lie with the Ragnarok and Muramasa weapons.
*Q: Who is the “Great Will?”
In a metatextual capacity, the player is identified as the Great Will at the end of Inward Chaos. As far as the story itself goes, however, Cid of the Lufaine is confirmed as the Great Will in the Chaos Reports, specifically Chaos Report #10. Earlier hints to this came from Garland telling Chaos that he had guided him “in accordance to the Great Will’s wish,” while Chaos Report #4 had Cid mention that he’d gotten Garland to agree to “stand at the right hand of discord.” As well, both Shinryu’s profile in the Museum and Shinryu’s brief dialogue with Chaos near the end of Shade Impulse makes it clear that he had been assigned a task by the Great Will. In Chaos Report #3, Cid mentions that he’d made a pact with “a certain dragon wandering through space and time” (Shinryu).
*Q: For what purpose was Cid trying to turn Chaos into the “ultimate weapon?”
To get revenge on the world for what happened to himself and his wife as revealed by her in the Cosmos Reports. The reason the cycle was necessary was because Cid wanted an absolute ending — the destruction of all reality. He needed Chaos — “the ultimate weapon” — to do this. But Chaos winning the war wouldn’t alone achieve this. Cid had to get rid of Cosmos for good so that Chaos would despair and destroy himself.
To deliver an absolute death to the gods, they had to choose to die. Cosmos had to kill herself by dividing her power into the 10 crystals. Once she was actually dead, Chaos would feel despair and decide to end his own life, along with the universe.
*Q:How is Cosmos alive during the Secret Ending?
The defeat of Chaos returned all that was lost from the discord he controlled. Presumably, this included Cosmos, and because of that, harmony was allowed to once again take control and restore all that was lost. As Cid said in the Secret Ending of the game, there will be conflict as long as the world exists, for harmony and discord are concepts born of the human mind — so as long as there are people, there will also be the embodiments of those concepts, Cosmos and Chaos. Since Chaos failed to destroy the universe prior to his death, there was still life — and with everything lost to the discord then restored, so too was Cosmos. Which would then tie into the plot of FF1 being allowed to finally resolve.
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Awesome, thanks guys. I really couldn’t make heads or tails of the Emperor’s plan beyond ‘he wants to rule the world’, not totally sure how you did. 😛 But well done.
Defeating dark by keeping a balance between it and light is a theme of SE titles LATELY?
Well, fair enough moreso lately, but as far back as FF3, keeping the balance between light and dark was the purpose of the light AND the dark warriors.
You also defeat excess light by balancing with the darkness.
Maybe Cosmos ruling alone, or something like it, led to the events of the Dark warriors in FF3…
LOL that’s a good point. Added. Thanks for pointing that out Ryu!
Nice job, you two!
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Ryu, you’re definitely right about FFIII, and I thank you for mentioning it. The only reason I didn’t include it in the FAQ is because the theme didn’t really show up between 1990 and the time of the Kingdom Hearts series.
Arguments could be made that it was implied at times, but more often than not, light was blatantly vanquishing darkness.
The theme has, however, been highly prevalent in the last few years.
For me, it’s rather funny. I was largely unfamiliar with FFIII until after I’d already gotten to know the KH series. It was the second-to-last FF for me (FFII being the last).
Experiencing FFIII at that point, I felt like it was a recent production given its theme of balance. It almost feels like an anomaly given how it seems to fit in with recent titles more than older ones.
In any case, I like the inclusion of it in the article and prefer the new wording in that sentence.
A big thanks, by the way, is due to Ryu and others who have debated Dissidia here on the site. Several of your observations or arguments contributed to Mako’s and my own thoughts during this project.
My biggest thanks, though, has to go to Mako Eyes himself. First, for the great debates between us that led to and then refined this FAQ. Secondly, for selecting the awesome screenshots that really added so much flavor to this thing. And thirdly, for inspiring me to actually get started on it when we were both kicking around the idea as something we’d like to do — but which either of us alone probably wouldn’t have ever gotten around to in the absence of the mutual encouragement that kept us going.
It’s not the biggest FAQ in the world by any means, nor the biggest project either of us has done in the FF fandom, but we’ve both been so busy of late that I don’t think one of us alone would have bothered, despite our passion for Dissidia. It really was the enjoyment of the collaborative process that kept us both coming back to it over the last couple of weeks.
It was definitely fun. A labor of love.
Great work, great work. ^_^
I like Garland’s origin story. It grants some explanation and depth into his nature as a ‘fallen knight’. He becomes a more relatable villain.
Haha, Sephiroth, you machiavellian sob.
Awesome FAQ =)
I think SE should give WoL a little backstory… He’s too mysterious for his own good.
An interesting read, thanks guys! xd;
Is it possible that Cosmos created WoL as a way to counteract Garland? Or could WoL and Garland have been born from the same process, thus in a way being brothers?
Pure speculation on my part, there is no real basis here.
Awesome job!
Great work on the anallysis as always 🙂
I was trying to figure out Sephiroth’s motives before someone did one of these FAQs and I got half way. XD I’m surprised I was on the right track.
It’s all very interesting, and it cleared so much up for me since I’ve only played FFVII and X.
Thanks for the analysis guys! I was so confused about the different villains’ motives throughout the story, but most people I know don’t want to discuss it seriously due to the pure cheesiness of the heroes’ story mode. ^^;; The plot is actually much deeper than is seen on the surface and I really do appreciate all the links Dissidia made to the games (especially their homage to FFI). It makes me want to work through all the FF’s in order. X]
I do agree. People only look at the superficial aspects of Dissidia, conclude that it’s cliché, stupid, & shallow, & then refuse to think about it. But it does have a surprisingly deep story, at least in the context of what they had to work with. I don’t know of anyone who really wants to talk about it either, so with that in mind, I respond with a few items:
I think there’s a tiny bit missing about Mateus’s plan. A crystal from Cosmos alone wouldn’t be enough to do it. The trick was that he could make a crystal that had the essence of both Cosmos & Chaos. I’m not entirely sure whether or not his plan was sound, though. One would think the crystal would just be destroyed when Chaos destroyed the world, anyway. I’m also not sure how he created this crystal. He didn’t resolve any internal conflict. And, although I’ve heard that he fought Jecht, the only time I remember them in a position to fight, Jecht just walked away. The only explanation I can come to is “with magic.”
I don’t think that was Sephiroth’s exact plan. He DOES makes mention of fusing with the world to become a god. Furthermore, it’s suggested that none of the warriors are “real,” save for WoL & Garland, & so one would think that Sephiroth would understand that he couldn’t really return. His goal, as stated in AC, is to “travel the cosmos,” consuming other worlds in his quest to become a god. I think that’s what he was doing in Dissidia: He chose to fuse with the world he had been thrust in, in order to survive the conflict & rise above the gods. So, then, why lead Cloud to his crystal? Probably the same intention Cid had: To get Cosmos & Chaos to destroy themselves.
The idea about how they retain their memories sounds plausible, but doesn’t one of the reports say that it’s dependent on the person’s will? I don’t recall whether or not any of the heroes “remembered” the other battles, but I think they were at least aware of the cycle.
I used to think the dream was another possibility. That explanation does make sense, although again, I’m wondering where it’s stated that “things used to be this way,” rather than just “things could go this way.”
I figured out that Garland was the created being, but the idea that he’s Chaos without memories is interesting. Where does that idea come from?
I don’t think that Cosmos “created” Warrior of Light. It just doesn’t seem like her. It’s also not really suggested anywhere that Garland had any siblings. Although, I think I recall Cid mentioning creating a force that could wield harmony. I’d been concluding that was Cosmos, but maybe it’s WoL?
I thought that the Great Will was some sort of anonymous “god” being of debatable existence, above Shinryu. At least plot-wise.
A little constructive criticism: The ideas in this guide are pretty solid, but it is desperately in need of sources &/or quotes.* Also, some things that could be addressed: If Kefka, Exdeath, Cloud of Darkness, & Kuja weren’t in on the Emperor’s plan, then how did they plan to destroy everything? What was Shinryu’s role in all of this? How, exactly, is the broken world structured? That’s all I can think of, at the moment.
*=Obviously, I can dig up where I get my ideas, if asked. I’m just hoping people will go, “Oh yeah, I remember that!” so I don’t have to. I can also elaborate on anything if need be, but I feel this comment is too long to do that right now.
Lithp, thanks for your comments. Responses below:
-I don’t believe it was implied that there was anything of Chaos in the crystal Jecht received. The crystals were, after all, manifestations of Cosmos herself. Chaos wasn’t dividing up his own essence like that. The other villains don’t receive crystals when they fight their hero counterparts — only Jecht, who was really a pawn of Cosmos.
-Sephiroth only mentions bonding with the world in the event that you fight him in Shade Impulse without Cloud. Obviously you’re supposed to, though. In any case, it’s not like that idea and going back to Gaia are mutually exclusive.
As for him trying to get Cosmos and Chaos to destroy themselves, he didn’t know Mateus’ plan. When the Emperor and Ulty tried to get him in on it, he just walked away from them.
He also had no knowledge of the cycle that was at work. Mateus’ plan was based around ending that cycle, so not knowing about the cycle indicates that Seph didn’t know about the true purpose of the crystals — he only knew what Cosmos had told the heroes.
-It’s never implied that the characters aren’t the real ones that were seen in their original games. In fact, it seems pounded into our heads constantly that they are.
-The explanation about retaining one’s memories doesn’t exclude what’s said in the Chaos Reports. It’s just that this seems to apply in addition to what’s in the Chaos Reports. The article assumes that the reader already knows about what’s said in the CR — though the language should be adjusted, really.
-It’s not outright stated that things “used to be this way” as they were seen in Chaos’ dream, but since he’s said to have had no memory prior to the end of the game, and since the point is made that the dream felt very real, and since Chaos has begun receiving the totality of the world’s memories at that point in the story, the only plausible explanation is that he had just recovered a memory.
As well, Garland’s reaction would suggest it.
-Exdeath was in on the Emperor’s plan, as was Kefka. Kuja was also aware of it, though not really taking part. CoD didn’t know of it until Shade Impulse when Ultimecia explained things to her. As to how she would destroy things, she’d do that by being the Cloud of Darkness. XD That’s what she does. Always was, even in FFIII.
-The idea about Garland that we’ve proposed isn’t that he’s Chaos without memories, but that he was created from the memories extracted from Chaos.
-I agree that the article could be sourced better, as well as reasoning included.
Forgot to reply concerning the Great Will:
Garland tells Chaos that he guided him in accordance with the Great Will’s wishes. Cid speaks in the Chaos Reports of getting Garland to agree to his plan to stand at the right hand of discord.
Also, Cid speaks of his agreement with Shinryu, and Shinryu speaks to Chaos of gaining “an understanding of the tale of the Great Will.”
As well, Cid seems to refer to himself as the Great Will in the last Chaos Report.
It sort of makes sense that Chaos had recovered a memory, but it seems sort of off to me. Mostly because, as noted, neither of them say that it ever was that way. Wait…sratch that, I found where in the Chaos Reports it’s stated.
Ah, found it:
Chaos Report #05Harmony and discord are both created beings.
While observing how they acquired pawns to
fight in their conflict, I found that a great
number of the consciousnesses had drifted to
this world from other dimensions.
I wondered if I might be able to give those
consciousnesses physical form. After countless
experiments, finally my testing reached success.
The failures were dealed in the Interdimensional
Rift.
Within the created pawns were some whose
faith in themselves wavered–who questioned
their very reason for living. It seemed that
existence itself was not sufficient incentive.
It causes me to wonder…Were those drifting
consciousnesses remnants created in the
past? Or spirits meant to exist into the future?
This is something no one can know.
Chaos Report 5 says a few interesting things. Firstly, it implies that Cosmos & Chaos were artifiicial. Secondly, it talks about consciousness drifting in from the Rift & being given physical form. This is typically assumed to be the Manikins.
But he says that some of them developed a higher intellect, questioned their purpose for living, etc. This sounds exactly like the warriors themselves.
And if you think about it, it’s an explanation that allows for the possibility of Dissidia being canonical, without actually messing with any of the other titles, besides FF1.
Also:
Yet, the one bearing that power had no desire
to destroy any more than was necessary.
Frustrated, the country culled his memories
to create a new being…one of harmony
that could subdue and control discord.
This seems to imply that Chaos’s memories went to create Cosmos, rather than Garland. So, it would seem that Garland was just created to use Chaos, without having any connection to Chaos himself, until the whole time travel episode. Also, some of the things Cid says leads me to believe that Cosmos has the likeness of his wife. Not really important to the plot, more of a side-note.
I can’t find anything on the origins of WoL. I suppose it’s just like the original game: He arrived mysteriously from somewhere in the outside world & took a job.
Oh, forgot about the villains themselves.
Mateus talks about how Jecht having a body of dark but a heart of light is integral to his plans. How, exactly, he came into possession of the crystal makes sense. To me, it just sort of seems implied that, if he got a crystal, it would have Chaos’s essance in it, as an unintended side-effect.
Furthermore, it makes sense that his plan would require some of Chaos’s essance, or else he’d just disappear when Cosmos did.
All speculation, of course. I suppose I’d have to re-play that part to find out anything meaningful.
As far as Sephiroth is concerned, he figured out that Golbez was a traitor first. It’s entirely possible that he figured out what the crystals were for without the Emperor’s help.
Other than that, the only reason I could think of is trying to take over Cloud’s body like he does at the end of FFVII, & there’s nothing to suggest that.
The things the characters say if you fight them with the “wrong” person always seemed to be condensed versions of their goals, to me. Besides, all of the villains were following their original goal in some way.
Maybe his plan was to go back to Gaia, but that seems rather narrow-minded for someone who basically wants to become God of Everything.
And, lastly, Cloud of Darkness: Of course that works, but it didn’t really DO anything destructive, which is what makes me wonder. It seemed to follow the Emperor’s plan strangely to the letter, for something that didn’t know about it. Of course, it could be argued that Kefka was responsible for keeping it “in line,” so to speak.
Thanks for continuing this discussion with me. Replies below:
-Cosmos and Chaos certainly are created beings in that they didn’t always exist. Remember what Cid says in the Secret Ending: “But as long as the world exists, there will be no end to conflict. Even harmony and discord are concepts born of the human mind, after all.”
They’re comparable to the Endless of “The Sandman” series. Embodiments of concepts and possessing great power, but they exist only because mortals exist to have conceived of them.
-I believe that Cid was just talking about the manikins when he spoke of those beings who questioned their existence. We’re told that — and Cid mentions it — that Chaos and Cosmos themselves selected their pawns and brought them there.
The beings that Cid speaks of were ones he had given physical form. It’s never implied that Cid had any role in the selection or application of C&C’s pawns.
As well, the fact that the heroes and villains have memories from their original games — and even gain more of these memories as time goes on — would suggest that these guys are the real deal.
In any case, I don’t really remember a time that the characters were en masse questioning their existence. Kuja seems to go through this, but no one else, really.
Terra and Cloud come closest, but even then, they’re not questioning their existence so much as their own power (Terra), the use in fighting without knowing why (Cloud), or their capacity to be of use to others (Cloud).
None of them seem to go through the ontological crisis that Vivi did in FFIX.
-I don’t believe Chaos’ memories would have led to the creation of Cosmos because there’s no reason Chaos should have existed without Cosmos in the first place. Also, because Cid mentioned both discord *and* harmony being born of the human mind.
Furthermore, it’s never demonstrated that Cosmos has the capacity to subdue or control Chaos. They’re presented as more or less equal, but, if anything, she loses to *him* early in Dissidia.
Also, assuming that Chaos’ dream was a real memory, that entirely rules out the possibility that his memories were used to create Cosmos.
In any case, the created life form spoken of in the Cosmos Reports is the most likely candidate for being the entity created from Chaos’ memories. Cid is known to have had a role in both cases, and the being from the Cosmos Reports demonstrates control over the ethereal discord.
As well, Garland being the entity created from Chaos’ lost memories would explain his surprise at Chaos recovering a memory he had lost. Not to mention, it makes the seemingly random selection of Garland to become Chaos in FFI make a lot more sense. If he’s been selected because he *already* was part of Chaos, there’s no mystery there.
-I can’t recall anything that Cid said that would indicate Cosmos has the appearance of his wife. I don’t think that this was the case.
-I don’t think any of Chaos’ essence would have been in the crystal Jecht received/Mateus stole, if only because — as I said earlier — Chaos wasn’t deliberately dividing himself like Cosmos.
He’d have also probably noticed if a chunk of him disappeared. XD
No, I think the relevance of Jecht having a body of darkness while receiving a crystal from the Goddess of Harmony is that it means the purpose Cosmos intended for the crystals would be applicable, then, to one of Chaos’ pawns.
I don’t doubt that Jecht had some of Chaos’ power, of course, or — as you said — he would have disappeared when Cosmos did. However, whether you would call that “some of Chaos’ essence” the same way you would with the crystals being manifestations of Cosmos’ essence, I don’t believe so.
At any rate, the villains were all definitely connected to Chaos’ power, so if you want to call that Chaos’ essence, I guess I don’t really see a problem with that. I don’t disagree with you that this power/essence of Chaos being connected to a crystal manifested from Cosmos was necessary for Mateus’ plan.
I guess we’re probably in agreement on this point but are just having a semantic disagreement.
-I suppose it’s possible that Seph figured out the purpose of the crystals, but I don’t believe he did. At any rate, it’s never mentioned. While he did figure out that Golbez was a traitor, he may not have known what Golbez did — that the crystals would lead to Cosmos’ death.
In any case, assuming that this is Sephiroth after the original FFVII and before Advent Children — as Cloud definitely comes from this time period — it makes sense that Seph would be trying to get back to his world, where he has a plan to take over involving geostigma.
-I think Kefka was keeping CoD from screwing things up, yeah. She was ready to blast Terra and OK from a distance, after all, and Kefka stopped her. Also, when he slipped up and mentioned “as long as [Terra] performs as well as she did before” around her, he quickly corrected himself.
Woah. It just me, or are these getting longer?
-Point 1 makes sense. I’ll give you that.
-They questioned their motives all of the time. Firion as to whether or not he was just a puppet, that whole “follow your heart” bullshit they did with Onion Knight, the list goes on & on.
The Manikins never showed any sign of doing that. Indeed, they were quite mindless. And, since Shanttoto states that she got the ones in her Distant Glory mode from the Interdimensional Rift for research, that would seem to indicate that they are the failures Cid spoke of.
Having memories from previous games would not invalidate this, either. Remember, they’re bits of consciousness from other worlds. Cid even throws a mind screw in there, asking if they already existed, or if they were simply going to exist one day.
I think there’s ample evidene to support this. Besides, as I said, it’s the only way that Dissidia could actually be a canon addition to FF1. It would just ruin the story of the other games if Cloud one day turned to Tifa & said, “So, last Thursday, I went to a parallel universe & fought the God of Chaos. I won.”
-The part about Chaos’s memories creating Cosmos confuses me as well, but who else could it be? The Reports surrounding it even mention Cosmos.
The dream being a memory may actually help. If that was the case, then discord was just a force that existed for the greater good, IE harmony. In that way, although Cosmos didn’t exist as a personification, the force was already subduing discord.
On the other hand, the created life is mentioned as controlling discord, & is obviously Garland. It would seem as though the entities are mutually exclusive. Furthermore, although the idea that Garland was once part of Chaos does make sense, the Reports establish that Garland had an ability to subconsciously control the Void, which is technically enough of an explanation for how he could become Chaos already.
-This raises a new question: Where, exactly, in the timeline of FF1 do all off these events fit in?
-Cid mentions that him creating the force of harmony has a lot to do with what happened to his wife. It’s also mentioned in close conjunction with the unnamed Kingdom’s attempt at replicating his wife. Call it a hunch. As I said, it really doesn’t affect anything either way.
-A semantic disagreement? Perhaps. I’m basically suggesting that Chaos didn’t willingly distribute his essance. It was an unintended side-effect of being tied with Jecht, whose conflict created a crystal because of Cosmos’s scheme.
I suppose this is another minor issue that really doesn’t matter. It would be better if some of these things were better communicated by the game itself, though.
-Sephiroth is easily my favorite villain, so some of what I’m saying is possibly bias. But, let’s say there are 2 different Sephiroths. Call them Kingdom Hearts Sephiroth & FFVII Sephiroth.
KH Sephiroth always waited around for Cloud to show up and fight him. He had no ambitions. He wasn’t the one trying to take over the worlds.
FFVII Sephiroth was very different. He actively schemed to become a god, and regularly messed with the protagonists.
I just think that the kind of motivation mentioned in the article is not indicative of FFVII Sephiroth.
-So, then, that means that the only villains who weren’t in on the plan were Jecht and Cloud of Darkness? Not including Sephiroth, as he may or may not have figured it out.
These have definitely gotten longer. XD
If you want, we can take it to the forum proper. Or continue here. Up to you.
-Regarding point 1: Coo.
-They questioned their motives, sure, but their very existence?
Certainly we never get insight into the manikins’ thoughts, but the fact that they’re copying the appearances and fighting styles of the heroes and villains may well indicate that they were trying to establish some kind of identity of their own.
While it does seem that there’s a difference established between those beings sealed in the Rift (the manikins we fight) and Cid’s successful experiments, the main problem I have with the idea that Cid created the heroes and villains is that we’re told outright — including by Cid himself — that Chaos and Cosmos selected the heroes and villains.
It’s also not necessary that Cid’s successful experiments aren’t among those fought during the game. As well, the manikins from the Rift have physical form, which Cid had said was the objective of his experiments.
In any case, even if Cid were somehow responsible for these specific heroes and villains gaining physical form (which, to me, runs counterintuitive to Kuja being new to the cycle rather than there from the beginning anyway) that wouldn’t seem to preclude them being the real deal given their memories and all the talk of going back to their own worlds.
-I don’t see why it would be a problem for the other games if, for example, in the two-year interim between FFVII and AC — which is where it would have to be anyway given his behavior during Dissidia — Cloud was pulled away to fight in the Dissidia war and then went back to his world after it was restored.
As well, with the other heroes and villains, they would all obviously be from after their original stories had taken place. It wouldn’t interfere with those original games at all.
-It’s not a parallel universe. Dissidia’s world was made up of the fragments of many worlds.
-I don’t think the two created entities in the Cosmos and Chaos Reports have to be mutually exclusive at all. As you yourself alluded to, the discord — and, thus, Chaos himself — was part of the overall balance (i.e. harmony).
Thus, “a being of harmony” that can wield discord (e.g. Garland) isn’t a contradiction in terms.
-While Garland being able to tap into the discord is certainly enough of an explanation as to why he might be selected to become Chaos, there’s one gaping hole in the plot left by not assuming that Garland is the being created from Chaos’ memories:
We’re left with no other explanation for how the Lufenians created him. Obviously if the Lufenians were able to draw on the discord and create a being from it, as you’re saying they did to create Cosmos, then that being should have *some* relationship to the discord, shouldn’t it?
Also, why is a being like Cosmos more likely to have been created from discord than a being like Garland?
-As for when Dissidia takes place with regard to the story of FFI, see the second page of the FAQ. It should have taken place immediately prior to the turn of the time loop seen in actual play of FFI.
In other words, it’s events should be the anomaly that cropped up that allowed for the time loop in that game to finally break.
-Cid never says that creating the “being of harmony” has anything to do with the loss of his wife. He says that even though he’s capable of doing something like that, he’s incapable of bringing back his wife:
“Even if I can create a being of harmony to manipulate discord, I cannot recreate the one I loved.”
Also, keep in mind that the present in which Cid is speaking there is after he’s already been dumped into the Interdimensional Rift, and after the clone of his wife — which he had no involvement with since he was locked up in a cave at the time — had been created.
Cid went straight from losing his wife to the Interdimensional Rift, and there’s no “being of harmony” that Cid is creating in the Rift. He’s talking about when he was still in Lufenia. See the last line of the previous Chaos Report:
“Frustrated, the country culled his memories to create a new being…one of harmony that could subdue and control discord.”
The only relationship he speaks of his wife having to what he’s doing in the Rift is his quest to create the “ultimate weapon” to destroy everything.
-The country doesn’t go unnamed, by the way. It’s Lufenia, as Cid is Cid of the Lufaine.
-Yeah, I don’t think it really matters about Chaos’ essence and the crystal. What it boils down to is what we both agree on: Jecht’s connection to Cosmos granted him a crystal when he fought Tidus, and his connection to Chaos allowed that crystal to be used by pawns of Chaos to survive the death of both gods.
-You don’t think the motivation mentioned in the article sounds like Sephiroth? That sounds exactly like what you described to me: Someone actively scheming to become god and regularly messing with the protagonists.
If he’s trying to get back to his world where he knows he has a plan to take over the Lifestream of Gaia — which he’ll then use to travel the universe taking over other planets — then that’s actively scheming to become a god-like being, no?
And he definitely messes with the protagonists of Dissidia. Obviously he messes with Cloud a lot, but he also fucks with Firion and Warrior of Light some.
-I’d say the only villains who weren’t aware of the plan were Jecht, Sephiroth and CoD, yeah. I think Sephiroth was actively trying to undermine the other villains and ended up helping their plan along as a result, while Golbez was trying to undermine it under the guise of helping it.
Kuja may or may not have known the full plan, but Ulty did tell him about the cycle. He sets out to kill Zidane and just ends up helping Mateus’ plan as a result.
CoD definitely didn’t know about the plan, and also ended up helping it.
Also, remember that the Emperor says during Shade Impulse that some of the villains were overzealous, but that the heroes still have the villains to thank for guiding them to their crystals. It was all part of the plan, and some of the villains fulfilled their function without realizing it.
Eh, let’s keep the forum out of it for now.
-“They questioned their motives, sure, but their very existence?”
That’s sort of a semantics issue. Are they not questioning their purpose in life?
That Cid created the heroes does seem to run counter to some other pieces of information, but there’s no actual contradiction. There’s still a selection of warriors going on. One could argue that the entire reason the consciousness(es?) came in the first place was to answer the respective calls of Cosmos and Chaos.
-It doesn’t matter so much that there’s a timeframe where it COULD happen, the problem is that if it DOES happen, it’s guaranteed to run counter to the established lore of at least some of the worlds.
Besides that, there are a few cases where it would directly contradict. Kuja, for instance, expresses surprise that Zidane would help him, & seems to have a change of heart. He does the same thing at the end of FFIX.
No matter which event came first, the question that is inevitably raised is why he would behave the exact same way twice, having already experienced the scenario.
This is the beauty of the theory that they’re “shadows” of the heroes: It doesn’t matter where they get picked up in the storyline, because they’re just approximations.
-It’s not a parallel universe. Dissidia’s world was made up of the fragments of many worlds.
Which would make it a parallel universe. Also, in the end, they all get dumped in FF1’s world. Ergo, I assume that Dissidia takes place in the same space as FF1.
That last part doesn’t really matter, though. The point is that Dissidia must obviously be another universe for at least some of the characters, IE a parallel universe.
-It’s not a contradiction per se, but Garland already existed at the time. Cid implies that his wife is already dead, which happened after she rescued the created life (Garland) from the kingdom.
Cid also talks about a knight who calls out to discord, having apparently forgotten who Garland even was, or not recognizing him underneath the armor, or something. It seems sort of odd that Cid wouldn’t recognize the thing he had just recently created.
-How the Lufenians created Garland is not a plot hole. Without that assumption, most people would just assume that he was bio-engineered, weird as that might sound.
“Also, why is a being like Cosmos more likely to have been created from discord than a being like Garland?”
Because it specifically mentions a being of harmony and Garland exhibits absolutely no harmonious behavior.
-There’s a second page? Has that always been there?
Honestly, I’m not sure how Garland was broken from Chaos in FF1. From what I understand, FF1 was pretty open-ended. Don’t quote me on that, though.
I’m still not exactly seeing it, though. What is there to prevent it from coming afterwards?
There’s also the events in the backstory. If Garland was created by the Lufenians, did he time travel to Cornelia? Was that when he was in his weakened state?
-He says, in response to claims that it’s about what happens to his wife that, “I’m a scientist. I know where the line is drawn. And it’s drawn right here.”
Obviously, Cid could not bring his wife back, or else the plot couldn’t move. That does not prevent him from fashioning Cosmos in her likeness.
-The country doesn’t go unnamed, by the way. It’s Lufenia, as Cid is Cid of the Lufaine.
You noticed that. I didn’t want to make assumptions as to where this was taking place. My original instinct, in fact, was Cornelia.
-It IS, but like I said, it’s surprisingly small-minded. Why does he have to back to Gaia, when he already has a world that he can take over? From there, he could presumably move to other universes, like Gaia, anyway.
It also really can’t be because of Geostigma. Sephiroth’s will in the Lifestream causes Geostigma. If you remove Sephiroth from the Lifestream, it erases Geostigma, as well as causing a slew of other plot holes, such as how Sephiroth gets back INTO the Lifestream.
“And he definitely messes with the protagonists of Dissidia. Obviously he messes with Cloud a lot, but he also fucks with Firion and Warrior of Light some.”
The effect was somewhat dampened, but I suppose that’s to be expected from a game featuring only main characters with relatively resolved plotlines.
-Maybe. But one has to wonder (besides the plot) why Sephiroth wouldn’t just try to kill Chaos himself. If he believed Cloud could do it, he would have been certain that he could have.
It really isn’t that hard to believe he might have figured it out. I’m not sure why I didn’t the first time around. Cosmos was getting weaker each time they got a crystal, & they were harmonious forces of unknown origin. Hmm…something’s fishy, there.
NEW THINGS! WOOT!
-For FFV, is there any guarantee that Shinryu was destroyed? I mean, it’s a godlike dragon that traverses time & space.
-Again, for the section analyzing the continuity, the explanation that they’re shadows of the characters allows them to have the same basic personalities without the pesky problem of where in the storyline they were picked up, or why Kefka isn’t the source of all magic, or whatever. It may seem to cheapen it somewhat, but I think it’s a lot less cheap of an explanation than, “All of this magically happened, but none of the characters are ever going to mention it again.” Or, as the article aptly puts it, “A wizard did it” …then everyone else forgot about it.
-“That’s sort of a semantics issue. Are they not questioning their purpose in life?”
Fair enough.
-“That Cid created the heroes does seem to run counter to some other pieces of information, but there’s no actual contradiction. There’s still a selection of warriors going on. One could argue that the entire reason the consciousness(es?) came in the first place was to answer the respective calls of Cosmos and Chaos.”
It seems unlikely to me that Chaos and Cosmos would have called these free-floating consciousnesses to be their warriors — only to then not be able to give them physical shape themselves, instead relying upon an entity that’s probably inferior to them to begin with.
The very fact of Cosmos and Chaos selecting these warriors suggests that they had physical shape when called.
Also, like I mentioned before, Cid doesn’t seem to treat his experiments involving these consciousnesses as an ongoing thing. It sounds like something he did once and then moved on from — yet Kuja is new to the cycle.
In any case, I’d say it’s easier to assume that these consciousnesses are floating around due to the universes and worlds being shattered and combined.
-“It doesn’t matter so much that there’s a timeframe where it COULD happen, the problem is that if it DOES happen, it’s guaranteed to run counter to the established lore of at least some of the worlds.”
As many examples as you can think of, please.
-“Besides that, there are a few cases where it would directly contradict. Kuja, for instance, expresses surprise that Zidane would help him, & seems to have a change of heart. He does the same thing at the end of FFIX.
No matter which event came first, the question that is inevitably raised is why he would behave the exact same way twice, having already experienced the scenario.”
I’m not sure that I see a reason for this to be a contradiction. Kuja had just been trying to kill Zidane and his friends *again* — yet Zidane was *still* willing to help him. That he asks “Why?” when Zidane extends his hand makes sense just fine.
-“Which would make it a parallel universe. … The point is that Dissidia must obviously be another universe for at least some of the characters, IE a parallel universe.”
Maybe this is just another semantics issue, but I’m going to pursue this one.
A parallel universe implies that you have more than one universe. An original, and then a separate one that runs parallel.
What we have in Dissidia is an amalgamated monstrosity created from shattering all universes and shoving them together into something reminiscent of a Katamari ball. Notice that the characters are freely walking from the Northern Crater of FFVII’s world to the clock tower in Ultimecia’s castle that came from FFVIII’s world, etc.
It’s not a parallel universe at all.
-“Also, in the end, they all get dumped in FF1’s world. Ergo, I assume that Dissidia takes place in the same space as FF1.”
FFI’s world is probably the one to which all the other fragments of dimensions were pulled, so I don’t disagree with you on this particular point. When Chaos is defeated and all the worlds go back to the way they’re supposed to be, the heroes were on FFI’s world because that’s where they had been all along.
-“It’s not a contradiction per se, but Garland already existed at the time. Cid implies that his wife is already dead, which happened after she rescued the created life (Garland) from the kingdom.”
But he wasn’t talking about creating such a being in the present. He was talking about something he’d already done, comparing this incredible feat in the past — it was literally the last thing he’d talked about from the previous Chaos Report — to the impossible feat he wishes he could accomplish in the present.
-“Cid also talks about a knight who calls out to discord, having apparently forgotten who Garland even was, or not recognizing him underneath the armor, or something. It seems sort of odd that Cid wouldn’t recognize the thing he had just recently created.”
Not really. Like you said, Garland is decked out head to toe in armor.
With Garland and Cid both winding up in the Interdimensional Rift, Garland had likely been wandering for decades relative to his perspective. Even if he met up with Cid again only hours later from the Lufenian’s perspective, it had still been a long time for Garland.
-“How the Lufenians created Garland is not a plot hole. Without that assumption, most people would just assume that he was bio-engineered, weird as that might sound.”
More than weird, it would sound ridiculous. The kid Cid created was not just some random experiment — he was a being created to harness discord as a weapon for the Lufenians since the primary being who harnessed it (Chaos) would not destroy any more than the proper balance of the universe called for.
That’s kind of a big deal, and for him to have such power over the discord, it only makes sense to look for his creation to have had something to do with the discord. Which it does if he’s the entity created by culling Chaos’ memories.
-“Because it specifically mentions a being of harmony and Garland exhibits absolutely no harmonious behavior.”
Yet prior to losing his memories, Chaos was “a god that suppressed disorder” and “had no desire to destroy any more than was necessary.” That sounds like a god who plays a role in harmony and balance to me.
Thus, I can easily see a being created from the very memories of this function being referred to as “a being of harmony.”
While we’re on that topic, by the way, read the following lines for me:
“Long, long ago, my entire homeland quaked in fear of the attack of unknown destroyers. … Frustrated, the country culled his memories to create a new being…one of harmony that could subdue and control discord.”
“The child was tiny, nothing about him hinting at the unimaginable power hidden within.”
“The child was different. He was a tool of war.”
“The neighboring country had powerful weapons in the form of summons and Omega. We had no other way to stand up to them.”
“However, that pleasant time was soon to end. War had finally begun.
The child was taken from us. The army’s decision was swift; they would use the child.”
Does all of that not seem to tell a straightforward story? The Lufenians feared invasion, sought to use the discord as a means to defeat the invaders, Chaos wasn’t interested, they somehow took his memories, created the child — the being of harmony who could manipulate the discord — and had Cid and his wife raise him in preparation for war against the invaders.
I don’t see how it gets any more straightforward than that.
If Cosmos was the being of harmony, where was she when this war was going down? And why would Chaos exist before her when both of them were said to be born of human conceptualization?
Furthermore, once Chaos’ memories were drawn to create the child, he obviously became the god of destruction we see in Dissidia — so where, then, would his memory of peaceful coexistence alongside Cosmos fit in with a theory that Cosmos came to exist *after* Chaos lost his memories?
-“There’s a second page? Has that always been there?”
Yeah. You’re not the first to miss it, though, actually.
-“I’m still not exactly seeing it, though. What is there to prevent it from coming afterwards?”
Garland says this at one point in Dissidia: “…There is no end to my cycle, Golbez. Not as long as he and I are one…”
FFI ended with the breaking of the time loop in which Garland becomes Chaos. So if that has yet to occur during Dissidia, then Dissidia is a prequel to FFI.
In any event, didn’t you ever wonder why the time loop finally broke during the turn of the loop that we play through? Presumably, all events should repeat the same way in a time loop each time, right?
That’s what makes it a time loop, after all.
Yet *something* happens differently during the turn of things we play. Looking at the ending of Dissidia, we see the Warrior of Light walking toward Cornelia with a blue crystal in his hand — one of the crystals that allowed the four Warriors of Light in FFI to travel back in time and defeat the Four Fiends, as well as Chaos himself, thus finally breaking the time loop.
The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the anomaly that messed with the time loop and finally allowed it to break was the events of Dissidia. It may even be that the Warriors of Light were previously unable to travel back in time to break the loop in the first place, thus causing it to repeat forever until the main Warrior of Light gained that blue crystal during the events of Dissidia.
Obviously they couldn’t have gone back in time without that crystal. The end of Dissidia mirrors the beginning of FFI. *Something* from outside the time loop had to influence events to cause it to break.
It’s just a matter of moving from A to B to C to see that it’s Dissidia’s events that caused the time loop of FFI to be breakable.
-“There’s also the events in the backstory. If Garland was created by the Lufenians, did he time travel to Cornelia? Was that when he was in his weakened state?”
Given that Garland and Cid wound up in the Interdimensional Rift — connecting all time and dimension, and allowing Gilgamesh to show up all over the place during the FF series — it’s not at all difficult to imagine that he journeyed to a different time.
-“Obviously, Cid could not bring his wife back, or else the plot couldn’t move. That does not prevent him from fashioning Cosmos in her likeness.”
And if he had the power to create Cosmos, he’d obviously be powerful enough to bring his wife back given that Cosmos and Chaos could and do bring dead people out to play (most of the villains fit the bill) — even calling heroes and villains from different time periods but from the same dimensions (Squall and Ultimecia are from different eras, but the same universe; Cloud and Sephiroth come from a different era than Tidus and Jecht, yet still the same universe).
Clearly, time and mortality are irrelevant to Cosmos and Chaos. If Cid has the power to create them, he should be able to manage a feat that they seem to have no trouble pulling off — or at least then tell Cosmos to bring his wife back after creating her for goodness’ sake!
In any case, what are you suggesting exactly? That the clone of Cid’s wife is Cosmos? If so, you need to remember that the clone was created after Cid was branded a traitor and locked up underground:
“I steadfastly refused to help the next time the
child was called to duty. My husband and I were
named traitors and locked deep underground.
As I suffered under the grief of having abetted
the murder of countless innocent people, I
overheard word of another research project
being conducted by the army.
This was to make a clone… one of myself.”
Seriously, there’s absolutely nothing that would indicate that Cosmos looks like Cid’s wife, nor that she is in any way a clone of her.
-“It IS, but like I said, it’s surprisingly small-minded. Why does he have to back to Gaia, when he already has a world that he can take over? From there, he could presumably move to other universes, like Gaia, anyway.”
Yet there were no other universes to go to. There was a Katamari ball and not much else as Dissidia’s world/universe. If the free-floating consciousnesses Cid played around with are any indication, the heroes and villains were the only remaining beings in existence aside from the two gods, Shinryu and Cid.
-“It also really can’t be because of Geostigma. Sephiroth’s will in the Lifestream causes Geostigma. If you remove Sephiroth from the Lifestream, it erases Geostigma …”
Correct. So when things go back to the way they’re supposed to be, he’s dead and in the Lifestream causing geostigma.
“… as well as causing a slew of other plot holes, such as how Sephiroth gets back INTO the Lifestream.”
As you can see right above, there’s no plot hole. Given Cloud’s concerns during Dissidia, he’s obviously from between FFVII and Advent Children. Presumably, Sephiroth would be as well.
With things restored to their proper places at the end of Dissidia, Sephiroth goes right back to the Lifestream to carry out his plan involving geostigma.
-“Maybe. But one has to wonder (besides the plot) why Sephiroth wouldn’t just try to kill Chaos himself. If he believed Cloud could do it, he would have been certain that he could have.”
Probably because Cosmos seemed to imply that if they got the crystals they would be able to defeat Chaos.
In any case, Seph wasn’t counting on Cloud fighting Chaos alone. He knew all 10 of the heroes would be going to that battle, the same as Golbez: “They have the strength to defeat Chaos!”
Really, you might as well be asking why Golbez didn’t attack Chaos.
-“It really isn’t that hard to believe he might have figured it out.”
It isn’t, but it’s also not that hard to believe that Seph wouldn’t have wanted the villains to win during Dissidia. Does he seem like the type to share to you?
-“For FFV, is there any guarantee that Shinryu was destroyed?”
Not really. The fact that Bartz and his team lived to fight Exdeath, though, would suggest it to me, but it’s not necessarily the case.
-“It may seem to cheapen it somewhat, but I think it’s a lot less cheap of an explanation than, ‘All of this magically happened, but none of the characters are ever going to mention it again.'”
For me, it’s not a matter of cheapening the story or enriching it. I have no problem with the FF characters in Kingdom Hearts not being the originals, for example.
It’s entirely a matter of the story either meaning what it tells us — with the *enormous* number of references to the characters coming from and returning to their home worlds — or doing exactly the opposite of what its plot and that particular motif are telling us is going on.
Why is it easy for you to accept that FFVII’s universe was shattered and part of its world shoved into the ball of yarn that is Dissidia’s world — but you can’t picture a couple denizens of that world being there despite lines like “the two gods had gathered warriors from all lands to lead them in savage war”?
If the story is enriched for you by the characters not being the genuine articles, then, by all means, look at them that way. Looking at it on the basis of what the story is telling us, though, it’s plain to see that they’re the real McCoys.
Lithp, this is in response to your comment that ended up over here due to some technical issues we were having with the site:
http://thelifestream.net/final-fantasy-vii/4543/news-of-an-ffvii-remake-from-square-enix-soon/#comment-16191
I’m reposting my message from over there in case you didn’t see it. Please note that this repost corrects some grammatical errors in the original and is easier to read, so you may want to stick to the one I’m reposting now.
And here it is:
-”I just think that the discussion needs to be pulled back into focus.”
Well, it does now. Several of your newest statements have obfuscated what’s being discussed, as well as the material around which the discussion revolves.
For example: ” … you keep mentioning references. We keep mentioning Kingdom Hearts. It makes references to the characters all of the time. Sephiroth’s attacks are named after moves from FFVII, he uses meteor-themed abilities, etc. They don’t prove anything.”
I wasn’t talking about easter eggs when I said “references.” I’m talking about that, throughout the story of Dissidia, not only is there acknowledgement of these characters’ pasts, but the point is also made on numerous occasions about them going home.
So, again, this issue is that the story is either meaning what it tells us or — despite no indication to the effect — doing exactly the opposite of what it tells us is going on.
By the way, *you* keep talking about Kingdom Hearts. *I* haven’t brought it up at all.
-”The answer you gave–let’s be honest, it makes no sense.”
If we’re being honest, then,yes, it makes sufficiently cogent sense. “I tried to kill you and your friends *again* and yet you’re still trying to help me? Wtf?!”
You don’t think that’s a believable reaction? If you say no, then we’re not being honest.
Zidane’s willingness to take yet another chance on him *is* something to wtf over.
-”He can’t find out that he’s destined to die twice.”
He doesn’t, so why bring it up? He’s not suffering from the ticking time-bomb he was in FFIX.
-”You could hypothetically say that the characters don’t remember what happens at the end of the game. The problem is that the more ‘what ifs’ you have to come up with, the less the interpretation of the plot works.”
The only one I see bringing in “What if” scenarios is yourself. “Kuja is baffled that Zidane would take yet another chance on him” is not a “What if” — it’s observing what is plainly shown to us via Kuja’s bafflement.
In any case, absolutely *nothing* is dependent on the characters not having their memories of Dissidia’s events once the war is over. There is no hole in any of the other game’s plots created by this.
Those stories have already happened. They’re over. The characters existed *beyond* those endings.
-“You also have this tendency of using justifications for ideas that themselves need to be justified. For example, the idea that Cosmos and Chaos can bring people back to life.”
I don’t have to justify anything when a major element of the plot involves the villains coming back to life every time they’re killed. Hell, look at Mateus alone — he dies at least three times (killed by WoL, Firion and Jecht) during the story, but keeps coming back.
As well, both the words “resurrected” and “reborn” are used in reference to the villains coming back, and when the Emperor says “As long as Chaos exists, so will we,” he is outright asked “You mean, back from the dead?” — to which he replies “Indeed.”
So, yes, Cosmos and Chaos very much have the power to bring back the dead. I don’t have to prove this because the story has already done so, and stated it blatantly numerous times.
-”However, the dialogue between him and Garland seems to indicate that, when Dissidia’s world breaks up, it will end up creating other worlds. In other words, if Sephiroth combines with Dissidia’s world, he can be God of about 10 worlds, instead of just 1.
In theory.”
“In theory”? So — given that it’s not suggested by the story itself — it’s a “What if,” isn’t it?
All that we’re told about what the state of the worlds will be should Chaos fall is this: “… the shards would be released, returning to where they once were.”
In other words, we’re told that things will go back to the way they were before the universes were shattered. For all you even know, if Seph *had* attempted to assimilate Dissidia’s world, the results would no longer even be in effect after Chaos was defeated.
-”The idea that FF1’s world gives life to the other worlds is a pretty obvious reference.”
Except it’s not implied at all.
Golbez explicitly says this: “This world is formed of shards brought from different realms by the two gods. As long as Chaos reigns, the shards are fated to sink into endless darkness. But if Chaos perishes, the shards would be released, returning to where they once were.”
Garland says the same thing: “This world is composed of elements collected from different realms. If Chaos were to perish, all would be released to give life to new worlds.”
If things have been pulled from different realms to create Dissidia’s world, and they’ll be going back to “where they once were,” then they clearly existed in some capacity — not that it matters anyway given that Cosmos and Chaos obviously transcend time, seeing as how they have pawns from different eras.
-”I think you’re focusing way too much on the ‘Cosmos might be fashioned after Cid’s wife’ thing. It’s just an idea.”
An idea which you brought up for us to discuss, yes?
-”With my question of ‘when did the events in the backstory take place?’ I am asking just that. I’m not declaring anything a plot hole.”
Well, it’s impossible to pinpoint. It would have had to be before Tiamat took the Flying Fortress from the Lufenians, but that’s as much as we can be sure of.
-”I’m not convinced the time loop broke at all.”
Then you’re ignoring what the game outright told you, as the first line from the ending narration is, “The time loop was severed at last”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP3SdizUgmM
-”Even if it did, Dissidia could still come after the events of FF1.”
Based on what? During Dissidia, Garland still refers to himself and Chaos as one — yet the time loop of FFI broke when the event of Garland being pulled to the past to become Chaos was prevented.
-”Garland was still alive. Presumably, so were the Fiends.”
The Four Fiends were killed 2000 years in the past. They’re dead.
-”He could have become Chaos again.”
Sounds like a baseless “What if” to me. I thought you said I was the one throwing out “What if” scenarios while you were the one just going off what was shown to us?
Your hypocrisy — and general intellectual dishonesty within this debate — has become offensive and downright insulting.
-“Not that I don’t see what you’re saying or even outright disagree with it. The point of presenting another workable hypothesis is to see if either are defeated by the evidence.”
If you were seeking the most workable of theories, you wouldn’t be attributing things to me that I haven’t said (mention of Kingdom Hearts), distorting the meaning of words I have used (”references”), denying the validity of basic premises that are the most simple of observations (Kuja’s “Why?” line, for example), ignoring blatant statements (the villains being resurrected during Dissidia, and the very first line of FFI’s ending), and you wouldn’t be applying copious double-standards (the “What if” matters).
While you started out this discussion as a stimulating enough quarry, at this point, the debate has deterioriated to the point that I feel you’re donwright impossible to debate with.
-”Wait, didn’t we previously establish that Cid was talking about creating the being of harmony when Garland already existed?”
No. No, we didn’t.
That has been your assertion, which you’ve yet to reconcile with the fact that he spoke of creating the being of harmony while still following the orders of the Lufenian nation. Not to mention that other pesky fact — that the child with power over the discord was used to defend Lufenia from invaders, while the “being of harmony” who could control the discord was created to defend Lufenia from invaders.
-”Am I misssing something, here? Forgive me if I am, but due to whatever mix-up* is currently going on with this page, I don’t have the previous comments to draw reference from.
*=For some reason, the comments are all from the article about a potential FFVII remake.”
I’m unsure why the page is like that. The site’s owner upgraded something and there’s some bugs in it, obviously. I’m hoping it gets fixed soon. [Note: It now has been.]
In the meantime, sorry for the inconvenience.
-”Let me get this straight: ‘Garland was bio-engineered with the ability to control Discord” sounds more ridiculous than “He was somehow created out of memories stolen from a god given form’?”
Given that we *already* know that *a* being was created out of memories stolen from a god and that this being was able to control discord, I’m going to go with yes.
If they’d had other means of tapping into the power of discord and harnessing it, what would have been the purpose in bio-engineering the kid to begin with?
-”I honestly don’t need examples to show you that the characters being real messes with the original stories.”
Actually, you kind of do. You have made an assertion with a debate. You must now support your assertion with evidence.
That’s how debate works.
-“I gave you 1 in the form of Kuja, but it should be obvious that this idea could only be justified with the original characters just never talking about it again.”
And why is that a problem? Does the characters in Dissidia being real necessitate that they make a two-minute sequel to FFIX in which Zidane talks about the war seen in Dissidia?
No.
For that matter, even where we have sequel material in play (FFVII), it’s not a problem. If Cloud’s not going to tell us every time he goes to the bathroom, then I don’t expect him to randomly talk about Dissidia’s war.
That said, a sensible theory has been posited in the following thread, giving credence to the idea that Cloud *does* acknowledge his time in Dissidia’s war:
http://thelifestream.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3585
-“This, of course, is ridiculous. Think about if you were one of these characters. Your world was just blinked out of existence. You travelled to another universe. You fought with people from other universes. You not only met God, you met TWO Gods. You took part in a battle that saved not only the world but everything to ever exist ever anywhere. In other words, it doesn’t work because of Occam’s Razor.”
So, again, what are you suggesting? That a bunch of two-minute sequels are now required?
That Cloud constantly make reference to Dissidia in Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus?
Seriously *what* are you driving at?
-”Even so, there are already several character contradictions that are named on the 2nd page & justified with ‘God did it.’”
In a story where gods did, in fact, do quite a bit.
In any event, the only instance where that was even used is with regard to Kefka’s powers, and — to a lesser extent — Terra’s.
Still building that bridge to dishonest debate, I see.
-”There are also numerous issues of where, precisely in the story, these characters are picked up.”
Given that their profiles refer to their adventures from the previous games in the past tense, it’s simple enough to simply take it at how it’s been said, no?
So there’s not numerous issues raised. In fact, there’s not even one.
-”If Terra already beat Kefka, how come she can’t control her powers?”
Because she’s Terra. Even the full-blooded Espers lost control and caused heavy damage to Vector’s main city during the original game.
“If she hasn’t, why can Kefka go into his god mode?”
If his EX Mode is any indincation, he can — just not whenever and however long he feels like it.
-“If Sephiroth has the Black Materia, why doesn’t he just blow everyone to shit with Meteor?”
You know as well as I that Meteor moves extremely slowly and requires a great deal of power to cast at the level seen in FFVII. Besides, Black Materia *is* a move that Seph has in Dissidia, so whatever.
-“If the Emperor has already become the Emperor of Hell, how come Firion is surprised that he came back to life?”
Maybe because he didn’t come back when they killed him while he was the Emperor of Hell in FFII?
You’re really grasping at straws now.
-”How come Kuja can go into Trance mode without taking someone’s soul?”
There’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to go into a Trance of his own. Emotions are all that are required for Trance according to FFIX’s Ultimania:
http://thelifestream.net/final-fantasy-ix-ultimania-translations/1908/world-establishment-development-materials-continued-p-42-of-the-ffix-ultimania/
Certainly by the end of FFIX, at the least, Kuja had gone through a number of experiences that should have provided him with emotions.
-”How come Jecht doesn’t become a giant when he turns into the Final Aeon?”
Are you really going to nitpick over why a spiritual entity doesn’t always appear the same size? When Shiva from FFX was the same size as normal people anyway?
And when it would have been problematic for the developers to have portrayed Braska’s Final Aeon from that size?
-”The reason the theory that the characters are shadows is valid is not because it ‘cheapens’ or ‘enriches’ anything. It’s because it can explain all of these with the least amount of extra-content justification.”
As I imagine is probably obvious, I disagree. I think it creates a lot of issues.
You didn’t answer me, by the way, on why you believe that Dissidia’s world could plausibly include a chunk of FFVII’s world, but not the real people from that world.
-”Cid says that he took part in the Manikin experiment through ‘observing how the gods called followers.’ The problem is that this doesn’t really tell us anything. Were they calling them from the same worlds? Different worlds?”
From the opening FMV: “… the two gods had gathered warriors from
all lands.”
-”The initial cutscene implies that there used to be more heroes that we never see. It’s…honestly pretty obvious that the ones in the game are advanced Manikins. I feel this is spelled out several times & the only evidence you’ve really given me against it is entirely dependent on an incredibly vague portion of the storyline. It’s suppositional, in other words.”
While your argument is entirely dependent on ignoring what the game constantly tells us about them going home, as well as their memories.
Furthermore, you still refuse to even address the point I’ve asked you about more than once: How is it that Kuja is new to the cycle if Cid is responsible for the personalities of the heroes and villains — despite speaking of his experimentation with manikins in the past tense?
If you can’t even address such a simple question, then you’re being dishonest.
Here NeoBahamut, I’m going to repost my reply to your comment here so it’ll be easier for you to actually reply to the correct article, now that the frontpage is back to normal.
Anyways, you’re not making any sense at all, and your shifting of the goal posts is quite tiresome to read. No, they didn’t retcon FF1’s plot at all. You just failed to understand it. Why is Garland good now? Because he’s no longer chained to his fate as Chaos and is free to be his own person. You keep looking for inconsistencies where none exist.
And Squall_of_SeeD never said that theory about Omnislash Version 6 was definitive or the real answer. Just some theorizing for fun. Good job taking it out of context. And no, Cloud’s abilities don’t have anything to do with Jenova, seeing as how his Jenova cells are gone during the final fight with Sephiroth in ACC. Another erroneous conclusion.
I’d like you to give an example of Dissidia’s story contradicting specifically they are not the genuine article please. And by specific, I mean definitively stating so. Because your interpretation and/or twisting of the narrative does not suffice.
As for Kuja, again you look for inconsistencies where there are none. His surprise that Zidane would offer him his help after he once again tried to kill him and harm his friends is completely in character and justified. He is surprised Zidane would give him another chance, after having before, tried to defeat him. Why your mind can’t wrap itself around that is beyond me. Where does Ultimecia inform Kuja he will die? She tells him:
“I’m afraid not. Sadly, you are no more than a vessel…a flawed
one at that.”
Which doesn’t say anything about him going to die. Furthermore, the original Japanese script has Ultimecia say:
” No, unfortunately, it is the truth. You are the only one who uses
lies to manipulate people…”
So once more, it looks like an unfortunate mistranslation by the US version. There is nothing indicative at all of Ultimecia telling Kuja he’s going to die. Not in the US version, and especially not the original Japanese dialogue. You are wrong.
FYI, Kuja is said to be new to the war by Garland. He says to Kuja:
“Not at all. You and I are the same. Not just me. We are all the
same. Even that witch, Ultimecia… We all bear the same fate. You have only
been…directed…because you are new.”
Apparently you can’t even find the script or actually pay attention to the game proper.
Distant Glory: Villains shows that when a warrior dies and is cast aside by their diety they go to a Hell-like realm, yes. However that does that contradict Squall_of_SeeD in the least.
“As long as Chaos exists, so will we.” is what Emperor Mateus states, and that is true. As long as Chaos desires the villains to fight for his side, and be his pawns, he will keep bringing them back. That is what is shown. Gabranth was cast off so of course he wasn’t allowed to come back. You can’t argue that with your semantic word games and argumentative fallacies.
And good job comparing Dissidia to Bleach’s filler arcs. Except none of Bleach’s filler arcs are explicitly stated by the creators as being actual genuine installments of Final Fantasy, and were crafted with the intent of them NOT being considered a gaiden/side story. Your comparison is fail.
The fiends don’t fuse with Garland to make him Chaos either. You kill them before Garland absorbs their power and becomes Chaos. Another point of FF1’s plot you’ve missed, that renders your argument null and void.
Squall_of_SeeD isn’t the only one annoyed with your haphazard and shifty debate tactics.
First and foresmost, I believe the mask is no longer necessary. I wanted to do this without any negative stigma attached because of my past experiences here, but I see now that it doesn’t matter. Bad arguments & butthurt will follow me so long as I bother to post here, regardless of what I call myself. This failed little experiment has been noted, & I will fade into obscurity as soon as you’re done–ahem–“debating” me.
Secondly, throwing around terms like “fallacies” and “shifting the goal posts” does not make you right.
So I’m not arguing with you. You can say what you want, celebrate your imaginary victory over me, I don’t care. This is stupid. I came here to have a structured debate about the plot of Dissidia, and see if I couldn’t fix some holes in my interpretation or yours. I did not come here to be insulted because I don’t agree with people.
To an extent, I’ve furthered my knowledge on the subject. More could be done, but it’s not worth the childish namecalling and accusations.
You’re so intent on lashing out at me that you’re not even trying to form a coherent response.
Take the Bleach thing for instance. I predicted that someone would declare it irrelevant, and you did. You accuse me of shifting the goal posts or using shifty debating tactics, but the point was never that the Bount arcs were canon. By saying my comparison “is fail” because of that, you’ve done nothing but straw man me.
I also never suggested that Garland was or was not good, nor did I ask why, although it is interesting that if Garland is Chaos, he can be “free” from the cycle at all.
Then you accuse me of using semantics, but say something idiotic like, “Garland didn’t fuse with the fiends, he just absorbed their power! Obviously, you don’t understand the story at all.”
If Squall did not mean for me to take what he said as objective facts, then he should not have submitted it as evidence. He also should not be telling me not to throw out interpretations as fact.
I’m not making sense because you refuse to see the point, & that’s why this is dumb.
I’m not gonna get upset. Again, things didn’t turn out like I’d hoped. It sucks, but that’s the way it goes. Point is, you don’t hurl out accusations at people because they don’t agree with you, then assert that you’re some kind of superior paragon of debating. Likewise, getting irritible and throwing it right back at you isn’t going to help my case at all.
So, I’ve about said my peace. You want to ignore it? Whatever, dude.
I usually get annoyed when people tell me this, but it’s just a game. Seriously. There’s no point in getting into a fight about it.
This is dumb, & I will not perpetuate it any longer.
Later.
Lithp/NeoBahamut, this is in response to your message posted here:
http://thelifestream.net/final-fantasy-vii/4543/news-of-an-ffvii-remake-from-square-enix-soon/comment-page-2/#comment-16330
-“You refuse to let go of an interpretation that obviously does not work. You keep making up absurd justifications for it, refusing to see that’s what you’re doing.”
If it obviously didn’t work, it shouldn’t be difficult at all for you to present an argument of why. But “Kuja is surprised a guy he tried to kill twice would give him yet another chance, so he’s not the real deal” is *not* an intuitive argument.
I’m sorry, it just isn’t.
-“Look, if you didn’t expect someone to disagree with you, then why the Hell did you agree to this conversation?”
Disagreement is welcome, but cogent arguments are still desired, as is an actual address to points that I keep asking you to refute or accept.
-“While we’re at it, let’s talk about twisting things. You are focusing a lot on the ‘Cosmos might be fashioned after Cid’s wife’ thing. When I pointed this out, you said, “Well, you brought it up!” Yeah. At the time, I even said that it was just an idea, not a major point. You’re making it out to be a cornerstone of my argument when it is not.”
How am I making it out to be a cornerstone of the debate when that’s a separate discussion from the rest of what we’re talking about? It has *nothing* to do with whether the heroes and villains are the real deal.
We *are* capable of discussing two different things in the same debate, are we not?
-“Honestly, this is why I don’t really like this place. The standing interpretation is right and anyone who disagrees with it is just an idiot.”
Considering that I disagree with Mako on issues of interpretation daily, I’m going to have to take offense at your claim, buddy. I guarantee he’s used more ellipses in debate with me than he ever did with you.
-“This is ‘Sephiroth can’t come back to life after AC’ all over again.”
For the record, my position on that is, “He’ll come back again if SE wants him to.” As it is, though, I think they could leave him dead and no one would think it was an unresolved plot thread, as his most recent death was very convincing.
-“As to FF1…I’ve never played it. I have been looking into the past games’ stories since Dissidia came out, but yeah.”
Wait. So you were calling me out on a story you weren’t familiar with?
And you’re wondering why I might feel you’ve been intellectually dishonest? Okie dokie.
That, by the way, is not an ad hominem. Ad hominem involves attacking a person in refutation of their arguments rather than attacking their arguments in refutation of their arguments.
Not that I feel I’m insulting you either. Intellectual dishonesty, if perpetrated, is an insult to others, so calling it out is a request that someone stop their own disrespectful conduct.
-“The problem most people have with this ending is that Garland is waiting for the Warriors. This is open-ended. Why? Is he good now? Why can’t he conceivably just time travel AGAIN?”
As you said, it’s open-ended. Is he good now? What do you think? I don’t have an opinion on it one way or another. Maybe. Maybe not.
As for time travel, I imagine he *could* do it again via the Interdimensional Rift. But the specific manner in which he traveled through time to become Chaos — via the Four Fiends in the past — is over and done with. *That* specific means of travel is gone, and, thus, the time loop is over.
-” Having read that thread…that’s ridiculous. Cloud can perform Omnislash Ver. 6 because he learned it from Firion? THAT’S your evidence and I’M grasping at straws?”
Evidence? Dude, I threw it in there as a response to how you demand reference to Dissidia be made despite there being no need for there to be.
That was *never* my primary argument and you know it. Again with the dishonest debate?
You know very well that my primary argument was this: “Does the characters in Dissidia being real necessitate that they make a two-minute sequel to FFIX in which Zidane talks about the war seen in Dissidia? … If Cloud’s not going to tell us every time he goes to the bathroom, then I don’t expect him to randomly talk about Dissidia’s war.”
The only evidence in play here is yet another piece of evidence that you were never interested in having an honest debate.
-“Actually, I’m going to say that’s not only unsupported, it’s blatantly contradicted. We are told that everyone with Jenova’s cells has Jenova’s powers to a certain degree. Jenova can use telekinesis and flight. In fact, most of Cloud’s limit breaks can probably be attributed to Jenova’s influence.”
Like Mako said, Cloud’s JENOVA cells are gone during that fight — thus, why he’s no longer suffering from Geostigma.
-“My point is that references don’t prove anything.”
Again with the dishonest, eh? Let me repeat myself *once again*: “I wasn’t talking about easter eggs when I said ‘references.’”
Referring to one’s past, though, is usually an indication that they have memory of it.
-” Alright, so the characters believe they’re the genuine article. Also doesn’t prove anything when the backstory seems to tell us, verbatim, that they are not.”
Except it tells us no such thing — and even according to your own argument, it’s not verbatim. Verbatim would be, “I gave form to the pawns chosen by the gods, a process aided as they began to question their existence — fashioning identities for themselves based on fragments of memory that drifted here from other dimensions.”
*That* would be verbatim. However, we get nothing of the sort.
And you *still* continue to refuse to address these questions:
1) “Furthermore, you still refuse to even address the point I’ve asked you about more than once: How is it that Kuja is new to the cycle if Cid is responsible for the personalities of the heroes and villains — despite speaking of his experimentation with manikins in the past tense?”
2) “It seems unlikely to me that Chaos and Cosmos would have called these free-floating consciousnesses to be their warriors — only to then not be able to give them physical shape themselves, instead relying upon an entity that’s probably inferior to them to begin with.
The very fact of Cosmos and Chaos selecting these warriors suggests that they had physical shape when called.”
3) “You didn’t answer me, by the way, on why you believe that Dissidia’s world could plausibly include a chunk of FFVII’s world, but not the real people from that world.”
Forgive me if I have to assume dishonesty on your part when you won’t even acknowledge that I’m asking you over and over to respond to things. What the hell else can I assume?
-“No, your answer does not make sense. Kuja never gave any indication that it happened before.”
Does he need to? Does Firion talk about fighting the Emperor before even though he talks about other things from FFII? Do Cecil and Golbez talk about *anything* from FFIV? Do they talk about Advent Children’s events during Dirge of Cerberus?
I guess that must mean AC/C didn’t happen according to your reasoning where we demand that any future titles allude to previous titles — even when not relevant to the current title.
Hell, at least you could make something of an argument for that one considering that the Shin-Ra building is presented as intact in Dirge of Cerberus, whereas Seph ripped it in half during AC/C.
-” Moreover, why WOULD Kuja be surprised, if he already knows Zidane is like this? Your justification does not make any sense.”
Because even forgiving people have limits, and even those who give second chances can’t be expected to offer a third when you’ve attempted to murder them and their friends yet again?
You serious?
-“And yes, during the course of Dissidia, Ultimecia informs Kuja that he’s going to die and he goes apeshit. That’s why he joins Kefka/Cloud of Darkness/Exdeath’s plot.”
Only not. Why you even think she would know is a mystery to me, but in any case, what she had told him about was the cycle and the Emperor’s plan.
Here’s that conversation from the Japanese:
Kuja: “You are lying… Such a thing can’t be…!”
Ultimecia: “No, unfortunately, it is the truth. You are the only one who uses
lies to manipulate people…”
Kuja: “…Do not look down on me!”
Kuja: “…Just you wait and see. I will execute a plan better than anyone
else’s.”
Notice how Kuja jumps right into talking about making a better plan than anyone else? He does this in the English version too, only with more theatrical language: “My performance will be the brightest in this entire cast! Just you watch. When the curtain falls, even you will give me a standing ovation!”
For that matter, given that his reaction to this news is *completely different* from his reaction to learning he was going to die in FFIX, why would you even conclude she was talking about that?
-“We could justify all of this by saying that he was ressurrected without his memory, but as I said, the more you have to make excuses for a plot interpretation, the less it’s working.”
You won’t even make excuses for your own argument about Kuja being both new to the cycle and yet created along with everyone else, so double-you tee eff, dude?
Anyway, as Mako pointed out, Kuja’s not an issue at all for the FAQ’s conclusion since Ulty wasn’t talking to him about him dying there. Notice you didn’t respond to him about it, though.
-“You are also incorrect in how the heroes and villains come back. Distant Glory: Villains shows us that they fight their way back from some kind of underworld. They exist in the world so long as their respective deity does–that’s all the quote you gave said. You’re attaching extra meaning to it.”
Only I’m not. The Emperor states outright that he’s talking about coming back from the dead when he says “As long as Chaos exists, so will we”:
Emperor: “But this is not the end. As long as Chaos exists, so will we. I shall return to rule again…”
Firion: “You mean, back from the dead?”
Emperor: “Indeed… From the depths of hell, to this world once more–”
By the way, the Emperor dies in DO scene 92, only to be alive again in DO scene 93. It’s beyond clear that if Chaos wants them to come back, he brings them back.
-“If you take another anime like, say, Naruto, and he’s flashing back to all of the times he went Nine-Tailed Fox, clips from the filler arcs will be conspicuously absent. If they actually happened, he should have remembered them, should he not?”
Again, do they need to make a bunch of two-minute sequels to FFII through VI and VIII through X — just to reference Dissidia? How can you even throw out an argument like “If they actually happened, he should have remembered them” when those FFs are already over with and Dissidia is the only time we’ve seen these characters again?
Cloud, of course, being the only exception — but, again, why would he be referencing Dissidia in stories that have absolutely dick to do with Dissidia?
I keep asking you, but what are you driving at? What are you looking for? Is Cloud supposed to slice the mako tendril in Dirge of Cerberus, pull out his phone, say “Late again — oh, and you remember that time the universe was shattered and I went and fought the god of discord? Man, that was something! I realize that has nothing to do with what’s going on right now and that there’s nothing about this incident that in any way should remind me of that time, but … yeah, you remember that? Because I sure do!”?
Seriously, are you looking for something like that?
Is Cloud supposed to bring it up during the fight with Sephiroth in Advent Children, or is he supposed to ask him about what’s relevant in the present?
Should his first line to Seph have been “Yo, Seph, what it do! Haven’t seen you since we got pulled to that shitfest by Cosmos and Chaos!”? Or should he have done what he actually did and asked him, “What do you want?”
-“Since you’re so God damn obsessed with Kuja being new, I don’t remember where that was mentioned.”
Mako covered that one, and you conveniently ignored it.
-“Better to not address a point than to make half-baked justifications such as “Terra lost control because she’s Terra.”
Would you prefer “because she’s an esper”? Because that was the point being made.
-“At the end of FFVI, she had full control of her powers until the magic disappeared. This is a blatant contradiction of the original story! You can’t sweep that under the rug and call it a ‘counteargument.'”
Yet you’re casually sweeping the full-blooded espers losing control of their power and wrecking Vector under the rug.
In any event, why do you think it makes more sense for Terra to lose all her magical powers and get them back later — but instantly be able to wield them perfectly again? You don’t think it makes sense at all for her to have difficulty with them again?
-” Lastly, FF1’s story being before Dissidia. Hypothetical: The Fiends are still alive and so is Garland. They fuse, make Chaos, and bring Garland from the past.
Now, before you get all anal & start quoting my “what ifs” thing, you asked me how Dissidia could be after FF1.”
Why would we even assume that? The Warriors of Light *killed* the Fiends and prevented Garland from being Chaos. Again, we’re told the time loop is over — that’s not debatable.
-“There is the part where Garland says he will be sent 2K years into the past to become Chaos, but if time is looping, not linear, then “before” and “after” become irrelevant terms.”
Not really. Look at FFVIII with its time loop. Can you really say you have difficulty establishing what is after the events involved in the time loop there?
If not, then it should be even easier to establish an “after” to a time loop that has been *broken*.
-“Furthermore, it is strange that Garland, who supposedly loses his memory of becoming Chaos, knows all of this.”
Are you talking about it in Dissidia? Because that would be *before* he stopped becoming Chaos, as the time loop wasn’t sundered yet.
In any event, I don’t believe I’ve ever said that Garland shouldn’t have his memories after the time loop is broken. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t.
-“I said ‘in theory’ because one could argue that Sephiroth fusing with the Core of the Planet would only affect that stage, in much the same way that Time Compression only seems to affect Ultimecia’s castle.”
Ultimecia wasn’t casting Time Compression when she froze time during her first fight with Squall. Freezing things time is something different from TC, and is something we saw her do in the original game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuKTzaBaDWc#t=32m20s
-“It is not a ‘what if’ in any sense of the word.”
Given how you go after everyone else for speculation — even reasonable speculation — it looks like hypocrisy. Don’t do it.
-“It is an acknowledgement that Sephiroth’s plan may be unsound, but it doesn’t matter, because that isn’t what the argument is about.”
Then you can drop it as reasoning that this isn’t the real Seph because he chose not to do that, can’t you? If you’re saying that he may not have gained 10 worlds from the deal — only one — then you’re going to kind of have to acknowledge that he may not have gained *any* and was just waiting to get back to his world, where he already had a plan.
In any event, Seph would need a Meteor-like incident on Dissidia’s world in order to execute the plan he tried to use in FFVII, wouldn’t he?
-“Actually, there is something important that I keep forgetting to specify: Garland and Warrior of Light are obviously the actual characters. There’s really no problem with them being in their own world, anyway.”
You did say that earlier, actually.
-“First and foresmost, I believe the mask is no longer necessary. I wanted to do this without any negative stigma attached because of my past experiences here, but I see now that it doesn’t matter. Bad arguments & butthurt will follow me so long as I bother to post here, regardless of what I call myself.”
Just want to put it on the record that I barely remember you and don’t think I was involved in whatever incident that led to you leaving. For that matter, I didn’t even know you were NeoBahamut until I started writing this reply.
So, at the least, I’ve been debating you with a fresh perspective.
-“Secondly, throwing around terms like ‘fallacies’ and ‘shifting the goal posts’ does not make you right.”
In fairness, if you’re doing those things — and you have been — that *would* make you wrong even if it didn’t make anyone else right.
-“I did not come here to be insulted because I don’t agree with people.”
Yet you’ve insulted me constantly, most obviously via refusing to acknowledge questions that I keep asking you.
-“Take the Bleach thing for instance. I predicted that someone would declare it irrelevant, and you did.”
In fairness, it *is* irrelevant. You’re asking why characters haven’t been acknowledging Dissidia’s events later on down the road when — for most of these characters — Dissidia is the last time we saw them. The only exceptions, of course, being Cloud and Sephiroth, and there’s no reason they should have brought up Dissidia in Advent Children.
-“By saying my comparison “is fail” because of that, you’ve done nothing but straw man me.”
And what do you think your “Naruto” argument was given that the situations are in no way comparable? You specifically referred to flashbacks to going Nine-Tailed Fox — and, as far as “Naruto” is concerned, yes, that’s a valid enough argument. If the filler arcs were canon, those incidents should be among a comprehensive recollection of events.
Yet where post-Dissidia should Cloud or Sephiroth be reflecting on all the times they’ve fought gods? *What* should have incited them to recall or mention Dissidia’s events during AC/C?
As far as I can tell, nothing.
It’s also convenient that you ignore all the developer comments regarding Dissidia being canon when you make a claim like this. Seriously, how do you believe in your own mind that you’re making a legitimate argument when you *ignore* half the material presented to you?
-“This is dumb, & I will not perpetuate it any longer.”
Whatever issues you may have with Mako, I want you to acknowledge my response. This time, without cherry picking, please.
Fair warning: This post contains absolutely no counterarguments. Don’t expect to find any. I’m reasonably certain further involvement in this will serve no logical purpose but to annoy me.
There are a few people I remember fighting. Mako Eyes was not one of them. I don’t know if I did or not.
Believe it or not, I have an issue with both of you. Did you say some things that I’d like to clear up? Yeah.
Do I feel the need to stick around dealing with shit like this?
“I keep asking you, but what are you driving at? What are you looking for? Is Cloud supposed to slice the mako tendril in Dirge of Cerberus, pull out his phone, say “Late again — oh, and you remember that time the universe was shattered and I went and fought the god of discord? Man, that was something! I realize that has nothing to do with what’s going on right now and that there’s nothing about this incident that in any way should remind me of that time, but … yeah, you remember that? Because I sure do!”?”
No. No I don’t. Where are you even getting this? I specifically said “where it’s relevant.” This is an incredibly ridiculous charicature of the point I was making. This is the very DEFINITION of a straw man.
I think I made it pretty damn clear in my previous response that I wasn’t interested in a petty fight. If you want to make baseless accusations like I’m intellectually dishonest, then fine. Whatever. I don’t care.
But I’m not gonna try to make a point while sitting through that. I can hit up YouTube & get that sort of response. Frankly, I’d rather go back to having no one to talk about it with.
-“I specifically said ‘where it’s relevant.’”
Only you didn’t. Feel free to go back through this entire discussion we’ve had. You never said that even once.
Nor did you ever bother to present a time it would have been relevant for Cloud to mention it, despite being asked to clarify your position.
-“This is an incredibly ridiculous charicature of the point I was making. This is the very DEFINITION of a straw man.”
Dude, you are *not* going to sit there and whine that your argument has been misrepresented when you *refused to provide it* in the first place.
You feel that your argument was misrepresented in me asking you if that’s what you were advocating? Maybe you should have clarified yourself when asked, because from where I was sitting — and where I’m still sitting — all I see is you asserting that Cloud should have mentioned Dissidia later on if, indeed, it happened.
You refused to explain why.
It’s impossible for the straw man fallacy to even apply in this debate, because you’ve given me nothing to distort and tear down! I’m literally left trying to figure out what you’re claiming and why.
-” I think I made it pretty damn clear in my previous response that I wasn’t interested in a petty fight. If you want to make baseless accusations like I’m intellectually dishonest, then fine. Whatever. I don’t care.”
You might want to reread my posts. Rather than just making assertions, I’ve offered *reasoning* for how you’ve been intellectually dishonest. “Baseless” is antonymous with “offered reasoning,” so do try again, please.
–” But I’m not gonna try to make a point while sitting through that.”
That’s the problem. You *don’t* try to make a point. You make an *assertion* and then won’t back it up or clarify where you’re coming from or going toward.
That’s going to piss anybody off in a debate, whether here or anywhere else — so before you go and feel like you’ve been the victim of some organized assault at this place, sit back and figure out that the common denominator in these shit-storms is yourself.
Your self-righteousness will not convince me that this fiasco is worth continuing.
Fine with me. As long as your tendency to ignore things you wish weren’t there hasn’t convinced you that you’re in no way responsible for the decay of this discussion, then this exercise actually accomplished something productive.
…That was incredible. You…you don’t even realize the irony in that, do you? Did you even READ your last comment?
Was I perhaps not clear enough? Maybe. Am I going to take the blame for you jumping to conclusions about me & trying to pass them off as fact? Fuck no.
This exercise did accomplish something productive, in that it cleared a few minor plot points up for me. Unfortunately, you seem to be just as closed-minded & dogmatic as ever.
NB, have you ever spoken with SoS before?
Because otherwise, the comment that he’s ‘just as closed-minded & dogmatic as ever’ is utterly meaningless, and really just stinks of the pattens you fell into just before the last time you flounced.
And why is it that people never want to take these long discussions to forums, where they belong?
Not that he’s coming back, of course.
Until he does, that is.