Over the years, it’s become hard work for FFVII fans to keep up with what’s supposed to be canon and what isn’t. Amidst all the games, movies, novellas, guidebooks, and alternate universe titles, what’s a FFVII fan to do?
Read this article, that’s what!
I’m going to take all the work out of it on your end and lay everything out for you, the fans, to digest in a simple, easy-to-follow manner. So, the next time you’re in a debate about FFVII with HeartlessAngel527 or FlowerGoddess777 and they begin to reference Cloud’s wing, Aerith waiting around for a certain spikey-haired emo kid or other stuff you know doesn’t belong, you can go all Phoenix Wright on them.
So, let’s get started.
The Canon
First, let’s list in order of publication all the FFVII games that have come out since 1997 and the release of the original FFVII:
Next, we’ll list all FFVII movies, also in their order of publication:
Next up, a list of FFVII novels and novellas:
Finally, a list of other games that include FFVII characters or plot elements also found in FFVII:
Before going into the whys and wherefores concerning some titles being canon and others not, I will now give you the list of titles that are definitely canon for the FFVII story or its characters:
Next, the list of titles with ambiguous canonicity [editorial note added 1/1/2016: In light of later study of the production credits for the two books these writings can be found in, the conclusion of this author is that as much of the material contained in them as has not been otherwise rendered invalid by later official materials should be considered canon. See Page 2 of this article for more information]:
Now, let’s move on to those whys and wherefores. First, let’s refresh on what the term “canon” means.
[Editorial note added 1/11/2016: In light of George Lucas selling ownership of the “Star Wars” franchise to Disney, the examples and reasoning used below have been updated to reflect this.]
What does “canon” mean?
The word is derived from the Greek word “kanon,” meaning “rule,” “standard” or “measure.” Itself derived from the Hebrew word “kaneh,” it first came into use in its modern meaning from the councils who decided the ecclesiastical laws and official texts of the Catholic Church, those becoming the canon laws and texts.
Eventually adapted from that concept, canon for a fictional universe — or the franchise that depicts it — is what is considered to be the official continuity. For an illustration of this concept, let’s turn to the franchise that pioneered criteria for determining such matters where fictional universes are concerned.
Meet George Lucas, or Your Lord And Savior as he likes to be called
“Star Wars” is George Lucas’s creation. Before he sold the rights of the franchise to Disney in 2012, the supplementary stories and merchandise that are now collected under the “Legends” banner fell under the “Expanded Universe” branding instead.
Being officially licensed creations as they were, while Lucas might take elements added to the so-called Expanded Universe of “Star Wars” by other authors and incorporate them into his projects, only those titles with direct involvement or approval from Lucas himself were considered the “absolute canon, the real story of ‘Star Wars”” as Stephen J. Sansweet, one-time Director of Content Management and Head of Fan Relations for Lucasfilm, referred to it.
Though distinctions could become difficult at times due to Lucas occasionally incorporating characters or terms from the Expanded Universe, as well as due to the EU featuring a great many products that were all officially licensed by Lucasfilm even while Lucas himself typically had no direct involvement in their creation (consequently, the overall franchise had a tiered hierarchy with levels of canonicity rather than a strictly in-or-out policy; fully describing that goes beyond the aims of this article, however), comments from Lucas in the May 2008 issue of Total Film magazine make the matter quite simple: “… the movies and TV shows are all under my control and they are consistent within themselves.”
With that comment as the basis for determining absolute “Star Wars” canon, the overall definitive canon of the franchise before the sale to Disney was the nine films Lucas had made (“The Phantom Menace,” “Attack of the Clones,” “The Clone Wars,” “Revenge of the Sith,” “A New Hope,” “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Return of the Jedi,” “Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure” and “Ewoks: The Battle for Endor”), as well as the animated series “Star Wars: Droids,” “Star Wars: Ewoks” and both “Clone Wars” and “The Clone Wars” (despite persistent confusion over the matter following the second Clone Wars series’ release, Lucasfilm specified early in 2008 that “The new version won’t supersede the events and continuity of that show, but will instead delve more deeply into the story of the Clone Wars” while later that same year the program’s supervising producer, David Filoni, said “I personally as a fan never think of it as discrediting any of the other material”).
Information from interviews with Lucas or his production notes also fell under this umbrella of canon, as did any deleted scenes from the films that were not in conflict with the final products. On the occasion of new Lucas-involved media — including rereleases of past films — that introduced new material or contradicted previous facts, the newer material was considered to replace the old, and the most current vision of events became the new canon.
Though there was near constant disagreement among fans about the exact mechanics of it all where Expanded Universe titles were concerned, a simple standard often followed was that EU titles could be considered in-continuity so long as they did not contradict established facts from the Lucas-involved works. However, due to his lack of involvement, in the event that Lucas put out a new work with elements that didn’t correlate to those in the EU material, they were at risk for being written out of continuity altogether — that is to say, “decanonized.”
Without the overall protection of being a work from Lucas himself, those elements of contradiction could call into question the rest of the work, and — unless otherwise afforded a place in the official continuity by a comment to that effect from Lucas — the entire work itself might be considered struck from canon, or decanonized. If a later EU work continued referencing a title of dubious canonicity, however, the specific point of contradiction would be all that was considered invalid.
Lucas himself kept the concept even more simple than all this, though. As far as he was concerned, there were two “Star Wars” continuities — the universe he worked on, and the parallel Expanded Universe, which included all the details of his own continuity, as well as those added by other authors. As he put it in an August 2005 interview with Starlog magazine, “When I said [other people] could make their own ‘Star Wars’ stories, we decided that, like ‘Star Trek’, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one.”
I know a fast way to increase the Midichlorian count in your bloodstream
Due to examining the “Star Wars” franchise, we’re unavoidably getting a bit far afield of the idea in its most general terms, so the concept of canon as it applies to fiction is best summarized as follows: It is the official continuity of a fictional universe as recognized by the franchise’s creators (or current owners), in which the most recent depiction of events is considered to be the true version.
Obviously, it can become a bit tricky for situations where the original creator no longer holds ownership rights to the creation and it’s then taken in different directions than that creator intended, but these standards generally hold up pretty well. Even now that ownership of “Star Wars” has changed hands from Lucas to Disney, things are fairly clearcut: From April 25, 2014, onward, only the first six films (i.e. Episodes I-VI), “The Clone Wars” movie and TV series, and anything created after that were to be considered canon.
Material that previously fell under the Expanded Universe umbrella, along with the other animated series and two Ewok movies, entered a state of relative limbo where they weren’t immediately canon to the new continuity being constructed under Disney, but were instead viewed as a resource future productions of the new continuity could draw upon, thereby rendering that material canon. This “path to canonicity” was utilized for some EU material right out of the starting gate while others never would be.
Though one might think it becomes more difficult to make determinations about canon when dealing with products such as Final Fantasy VII, where the finished product was the work of several core creators and is also owned by a company that they merely work for, it can actually be much easier, for reasons we’re about to see. Certainly if one can wrap their head around what we’ve gone over thus far, the rest of what we’ll be looking at should pose no difficulty.
Now that we have a standard for determining canonicity, we’ll begin applying it to the various FFVII-related media in order to establish why the list given earlier is the definitive canon of the franchise.
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Your work is highly appreciated. Really, I feel that no words of thanks is enough. *bows*
Well, thank you. =) I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Well you know I disagree on some parts but it’s nice to see you put up the list of not so contradictions from Maiden at least 🙂
Glad you found something to like here, Que. =P
I loved the “Axis of Evil” picture. 1000% true.
Loved the article. And I actually didn’t know FFT was considered canon, that’s pretty awesome.
Glad you got a kick out of that, Zee. It seemed so appropriate.
Thanks for reading (and enjoying).
There’s one thing that still doesn’t make sense though. In the original FF7, Tseng is seen convincing Aerith to return to Shinra and Aerith refuses. In this scene, Tseng is a full grown adult and Aerith looks like a 10 year old! Yet in Crisis Core, its implied they’re closer in age than one would think. Even so, what’s the deal there!? And is Lucretia alive or what?! Gillian Hewely got to commit suicide after being injected with Jenova cells but Lucretia had to wait 30+ years and then at the end of Dirge make us think she’s alive? I’m still not even sure about Shaluia Rui and Argento! Are they alive?! Rosso is dead right? I also can’t help but to question travel times in the world of FF7. In Advent Children it takes a day to travel from continent to continent but in Crisis Core it took six months to a year. I love the series and I’m sorry for being so critical but these questions are splinters in my mind! And I’m still trying to comprehend Genesis’ genetic ties to the Tsviets and the supposed ‘World Wide Network’.
Tseng’s age is one of those things that’s really hard to peg. Case of Shin-Ra mentions that he was a Turk even when Ifalna died — when Aerith was 7! That means that during the present day of FFVII, he’s been a Turk for at least 15 years.
Supposing he was 15 to 20 at that time, he could be anywhere from 30 to 35 in FFVII. He must have at least been in his mid-20s during Crisis Core, rather than close to Aerith’s age (she was 15, 16 and 17 throughout CC, and 22 in the ending).
Again, when she was 7 he was already a Turk — and the one with the important responsibility of handling Aerith and her mother at that. No way was anybody around her age in charge of seeing to the Ancients who were so important to Shin-Ra.
Cissnei/Shuriken (Female) is the youngest individual to ever join the Turks (the age at which she did so is unknown), but Tseng, Reno and Rude all must have come pretty close to holding the record.
As for Lucrecia, yes, she’s still alive. The creators of Dirge of Cerberus said as much in an interview in the DC Official Complete Guide, actually:
http://thelifestream.net/dirge-of-cerberus/1494/dirge-of-cerberus-interview-with-the-creators/
As for why she failed to kill herself when Gillian seemed to succeed easily, your guess is as good as mine. I call it Square being inconsisent, but I suppose you could reason that Gillian either tried harder or had a better idea of what would work.
As for Shalua, I’d assume she’s dead at the moment, but that interview I linked you to a moment ago implies that they’d toy with the idea of bringing her back if a sequel was made — possibly resurrected via the “mako snow” that rained down at the end of DC.
Argento, though, I have no idea. Bothers me too that we don’t know shit about her status.
With Rosso, it’s the same deal as Shalua. Assume she’s dead for now, but never put it past SE to bring someone back.
On the subject of world travel, I think Advent Children made it way easier to travel great distances than we all assumed it would have been, but then, the Turks and others in Shin-Ra did get around pretty quickly throughout the original game. One can only assume that all the wandering AVALANCHE did is what tacked time on.
You could also reason that a cause for the slow trip in CC was that Zack had to take care of Cloud and that dragging him around slowed him down.
As for Genesis and the Tsviets, all we really know is that they had some kind of gene mapping done from he to them. Not sure why that plot point was ever put in, really, since nothing significant ever really came of it.
Hope I was able to help you out on some of that.
Thanks for this, I now have to deal with the fact that Tseng was rescued by a Toysaurus! lol
@Whitney, I feel your pain. However regarding Tseng and Aeriths age difference – knowing what we now know about the young age that Turks are recruited it is possible that Tseng was 16-17 around then. The only contradiction that leaves is his hair!
All that other stuff….I guess we have to wait until the developers deign to tell us!
You’re welcome. =) Thanks for reading.
That was a very well written piece, although I’m not really one for arguing about minute details of stories. Chances are the creators lose track of what’s going on themselves, and don’t care, and when approached by fans they merely give a satisfactory answer to shut them up. But if every series must have a group of people examining every specific detail, I’m glad it’s here.
Thank you for the compliment, and thanks for reading.
Thanks for all the info! I do agree that there is difficulty in keeping up the consistency of the mythology as it expands but it’s research like this that needs to be done before any radical declarations are made via the Compilation. Granted most inconsistencies are minor but to those of us who invest the time, it’s kind of a big deal at times. I still love the series and would like to see a conclusion in the near future. (I’ve got an idea for the finale from one of the previous posts but I haven’t written it down yet…)
You’re welcome. =) Thanks for reading!
Thanks for this, and i didn’t know that FFT was canon either.
And about the omnislash being a Zack limit, that could be truth because in kingdom hearts he uses an atack that looks pretty much like the omnislash (hero’s pride i think),
and i know that kingdom hearts isn’t canon but still it’s possible.
Thanks for reading, and you’re very welcome.
As for Omnislash, until we get something that definitively states that it’s Zack’s (and Crisis Core would have definitely been the place for it), I’d think it best to assume it isn’t.
Hero’s Pride, by the way, while similar, is still not identical. That one was probably based on Octaslash from Crisis Core.
Also, as you mentioned, KH isn’t canon anyway, so even if Zack in KH had an attack called Omnislash, we’d have to be hesitant before making any connection between the Zack of KH and the Zack of FFVII.
Using SW as an analogy, Maiden is like the old Marvel Comics. There are bits of it that could be canon, but no one in Lucasfilms really gives a crap.
Also, not to be terribly nitpicking, but there is a further line to the ‘two worlds’ quote, where his universe is a very specific period of time no one is allowed to play in, and the other universe is another one entirely (and then comes the infinities universes.)
As far as BC, CC, and DC goes, the executions of all of those are definitely flawed- not quite as bad as runny egg Maiden- but with some polish and removal of offending material (Y’know, like Genesis) and the idiot ball that is Nanaki in BC, they could be much much better.
So it’s time for DoC, BC, and CC Complete, now with 75% less idiot ball and plot hole!
The old Marvel Comics analogy is a good one, I think, Ryu.
I’m curious, though: Why do you feel that Maiden’s execution was more flawed than BC and CC’s? I would say theirs was far greater. As visually based titles like the original game, they had the opportunity to make everything from both story and on-screen depictions easily match up across the Compilation.
Instead, we ended up seeing contradictions not just between the Compilation and the original game, but also between the titles within the Compilation.
So, no. No BC or CC Complete. Not even a DC Complete. Just no. Please, no.
Could you show me the rest of that quote from Lucas, by the way? I feel like what you’re describing there is what I was trying to say here. Hope I worded it well enough.
I realize that the SW comparison isn’t the focus of the article, but I want to make sure I communicated everything accurately.
I’m speaking to the writing quality rather than the continuity quality. Maiden was meh writing, but CC at least had some heights in it. BC not so much, but it has potential I don’t really see in Maiden, which is about Case of Red Meh.
The full Lucas quote is “There are two worlds here … There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don’t intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don’t get too involved in the parallel universe”
When you’re dealing with an ongoing fiction, I’d say continuity quality is a large part of the overall writing quality. If that’s completely shot, then any quality otherwise achieved is a missed opportunity.
And Case of Nanaki levels of Meh? That’s an insult I wouldn’t even cast upon Soulcalibur Legends — and that was as bad as BC.
That Lucas quote, by the way, is a different one than either that I referenced. The one you quoted is from a 2001 interview in “Cinescape” magazine. I quoted a 2005 interview from “Starlog” and a 2008 interview in “Total Film.”
Thanks for this, and i didn’t know that FFT was canon either. And about the omnislash being a Zack limit, that could be truth because in kingdom hearts he uses an atack that looks pretty much like the omnislash (hero’s pride i think), and i know that kingdom hearts isn’t canon but still it’s possible.
Hi!, firstly let me say that you did a amazing job with that entry , congratulations!
Now I have a question to you, is ok if I translated that post to spanish ?, I am from south america , and Im sure a lot of people from my country and other european sites could find your job very interesting .
I want to upload the entry to a site of my country (videojuegos cr, Costa Rica ) and a site from spain (base avalancha).
Obviously I gonna give all the credit to you and to the Lifestream.net , and I gonna add a link to the original post in the Listream.net.
What do you think? let me know?
Greetings!
[email protected]
Pablo, that would be fine. =)
Thanks for your interest. I’m glad you enjoyed the article.
the animation and the atoicn in the full 8 minutes of video then perhaps you should check out the behind the scenes images and explanation on this link. In the opinion of OSM this is a very well made clip and as always you can view it at the bottom of
Thanks I really apreciate it , actually I want to translate many others entrys … who is the forum administrator ?….whatever ,thanks again , when I finish the traslation I gonna send you a link …..
Happy new year by the way!
Go to our forum and try contacting one of these guys. They’re all administrators:
http://thelifestream.net/forums/member.php?u=2
http://thelifestream.net/forums/member.php?u=15
http://thelifestream.net/forums/member.php?u=3
I’m looking forward to that link, and Happy New Year to you too. =)
So is this a book I can buy somewhere? And is the book in English?
Which book are you wondering about?
Great, now I have to play FF Tactics.
Loved this article, the FFX and Tactics stuff was news to me.
I dont get why FF X is considered an FF 7 canon. care to explain?
Thank you a lot for this article!!! REALLY GOOD JOB! ;))
Really glad that after all this time people are still catching such an interest in this
It was nice to hear more about the Zack/Cloud talk when it concerns Aerith. It really does make a lot of sense considering that Cloud, due to his mental state and what I’d refer to as eventually seeing Zack as a hero and someone to live up to (as seen in Crisis Core more far more than FF7) mirrors him to such a degree that even Aerith has a difficult time remembering a difference between them, even if she knows there is. Remembering a person that’s so much like someone else, what else would be the result? I think a lot of people forget (and really, its not so well explained in FF7 if your glossing over it) that Cloud is merely mirroring Zack, not having a personality himself for most of it and Tifa’s dialog in the game suggests as early as Kalm she knows something is amiss. Its an element that I really enjoy in the games so in Maiden its something that addresses that. And thank you, I hadn’t actually known they wrote novels about it. It would stand very well to be canon and Im a little sad its not
Good news! Nomura doesn’t support any 1 official pairing between Clotis and Cleriths. He shows this by saying, “Well, what do you think? If indeed it was Aerith, then the bit in the ending was the answer. You might say it was made so you can take it that way. Cloud is a popular character, and I don’t really want to decide myself, yes he is like this. Because players make strong conclusions by themselves, I want to leave room for everyone’s line of thought.”
In other words, this should end ALL Cloti VS Clerith wars and we can all be friends again. Phew. However, saying that Aerith didn’t love Cloud and only loved/ is still in love with Zack is false. It seems that Aerith’s current love is Cloud because in the canon novels On the Way to a Smile Lifestream White 1 she says, “Cloud was her friend, her beloved — a symbol of what was important to her, and someone to be protected,” with the Japanese word Koibito which could be translated as boyfriend, lover, sweetheart. In this case, the translator chose to use beloved. Lifestream White 1 takes place after FFVII right before Advent Children. So currently, she considers Cloud as her Koibito (beloved, sweetheart, etc.) not Zack.
I in no way agree with Tactics and Dissidia being including but nice article and a great site all-around – a big thanks for everything you guys have done for the FF7 fanbase.
^
Actually, I have changed my mind about your inclusion of Dissidia.
(Sorry about the spelling error too! *including -> included)