An LTD Video (Vote)

[Starling]

My memory of what happens in Radiant Garden must be rustier than I thought. I don't really remember Cloud doing more than look at Aerith. Don't people still argue about who Cloud's actually looking for?

Depending on how much time it takes to cover the stuff within the compilation, we may have to leave out the non-compilation stuff or make it more of an easter egg thing. I mean, non-canon stuff is more neat stuff that may indicate how SE views the relationships than fact on how the characters behave in canon, though it naturally draws a lot of parallels. It's important to keep in mind that those instances are capable of deviation from the main versions of the characters due to existing outside of canon. I mean, not all the FF characters coming from the same game even know each other, and not necessarily in the same context. We'd have to at least make it clear we're not treating those elements as canon in relation to the compilation.

I agree about finding a different person to translate. Since I can't help with that, I'd be willing to help deal with any issues that may result from the video, should they occur.

Jason, someone already said that a while ago.

 

[Jason Tandro]

You know it may even have been me. Forgive me, if I ever repeat myself, I am a bit of scatterbrain.

 

[Starling]

I'm pretty sure I've done something to that effect as well, though no one commented on it.

 

[Ryushikaze]

Shrouded, stop making an appeal to omniscient to try and claim Tres's analysis is insufficient. It's rude.

 

[Strangelove]

I think that if anything does come of this, Hito and Tres need to be respected in their wishes to have their translations excluded and we'd have to find new people to assist us.

if they come to any kind of conclusion (as in pick one outcome over the other rather than a middle-of-the-road 'no one's right, it could be anything'), it would end up the same. then they wouldn't be 'neutral', they'll be a cloti/clerith and therefore biased

 

[Octo]

What we should do, is round up some old people - like 60+ who have never even played a videogame in their lives and present them with all the evidence, and then see what they say.

TO THE BUS STATION!

 

[Pixel]

I think it would actually be interesting to get kids or young teenagers to play FF7 for the first time. The kids react guys should do that. If I had access to children... that sounds bad :/

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Wow, what's worse here?

Octo trying to absolve herself by thrusting the LTD upon a population with nothing to lose if they decide to check on out to escape it or Pixel's desire to ruin the next generation with exposure?

Okay, that last bit was worded badly on my part too.

 

[GiddyUnicorn]

I've done no such thing Ryu, and if you truly believe that then feel free to provide an example and I'll own up to it. If you think I'm being rude, then I'm pretty sure there's nothing stopping any of you from shutting me up. Throughout these past years, I've found a lot of things that are a lot more worthy of my time and targetting a person is really not one of them. I'm not even sure where you got that claim because I'm pretty sure I didn't include names in most of my posts.

Which is why you look at things objectively. Excessively one-sided interpretations that take things for granted annoy me. It's like when two characters established as friends hug and suddenly everyone's raving about how they're totally in love and I can't find anyone talking about them as friends rather than lovers anywhere. If people are going to do that, I'd rather they explicitly state it's not proven in canon and shouldn't be viewed as such.

It's should be the right thing to do, but it's hard to deny the fact that the effects of these types of analysis are widespread and that's not exactly helping when it comes to trying to solve the love triangle.

Yes, and for that reason, I ask that no one use any of my translations if a project like this does move forward before the remake is released. I obviously can't stop anyone from doing so, but it would be douchey of them if they went ahead anyway. Also, I won't support it and will make every effort to distance myself from it.

If you can't accept an objective look at all available information, then you're probably denying that you're letting a bias color your opinions.

That depends whether the analyst includes *all* available information of course... Which eventually leads me to this conclusion from my own experience. There's really no single article/analysis out there that provides the whole story along with all the available information.

To be fair though, it takes a lot of work given the amount of information both sides have poured into the Love Triangle for the past decade or so, but I don't think it's impossible.

I would claim my last analysis must at least be somewhere in the neighborhood of an upper 90-something% complete. Granted, I'm pulling that number out of my ass, but it's gotta be.

It is missing a few things that may have first appeared after the publication date of the article. The "Nice shirt, Tifa"/"Eyes up here, Cloud" thing from A Realm Reborn comes to mind, for instance. I didn't go back and edit that in since that came after Halloween 2013.

I also didn't have the in-game dialogue from Itadaki Street Special available at that time, so it's missing at least that much information that had existed prior to the article's publication (I'm not sure that I will ever bother; maybe?).

There's some debate points that I left out because they just extend too far into unverifiable analysis (e.g. the old Red String of Fate and lens flare arguments), but I tried to include everything that had at least been an interpretation of an on screen/on page exchange of dialogue, physical interaction, description of feelings, or a translation of a passage from secondary source materials (e.g. Ultimanias, interviews).

I'll concede that there could be more things from before Halloween of that year that were missed, though. I think the Ultimanias were all already thoroughly scoured over the years by fans pushing Cloti and Clerith alike, but how easy would it be to be unaware of some additional forgotten interview comment, piece of licensed merchandise (like another card) or promotional artifact?

You are correct that there is no single 100% complete analysis, but I don't think my final article could be said to be seriously lacking in anything we do know about either.

In either case, at this time, I'm not sure I see much point in anyone putting more time into essays and further analysis since the remake could come along and steamroll over much of what we've all held for granted over the years. We could be looking at things that won't even count pretty soon, so I think it's best that initiative (if anyone still has any for this stuff at this point) be held in reserve or dispensed on other endeavors in the meantime.

Tres? *lol* I really need to check people's aliases in here, because I had no idea this forum makes a list of em. Apparrantly people feel that I'm targetting you, but I really had no one in mind in particular. If it did hit you, then I apologize because this is really more about me and my own generation and how our group may have set a few precedence that I now realize was probably a mistake.

As for your post, yours is arguably one of the most complete and thought out article out there, but I could say the same thing to one of Aly's article. In fact, if the readers were to combine all of TLS' articles and that of DF's then you may have 100% of the story covered.

BUT

Most of us are all too aware that not everyone will agree to it for the same all too familiar reasons we've been hearing for the past decade or so. It's more or less the same reasons that is mainly rooted to what Fangu had just stated:

Regardless, there is source material for this that has not yet had an official translation. Unofficial translations are more likely (but not exclusive) to be disputed and argued against in 'debates' like this.

If the source material was all official, I'd probably feel easier about a video like this. But you can't avoid the Japanese source material for this. And to utilize that source material, you need translators. I assume you guys would like to use the existing translations - which again puts our translators' heads on the chopping block.---Fangu

If the source materials themselves can be questioned and disputed, then how sure are you that the people using them are right? Hell from what I remember, even the official sources was being questioned back then...

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

It's a fair observation. When someone has no experience with another language and even official translations are being questioned, I don't blame them for throwing up their hands and walking away. How many people -- even with an interest in doing so; even people who have ordered materials to help them learn -- ever get around to dabbling in another language as an adult?

It's time consuming, and, honestly, unless they're already really interested in both this topic and the Japanese language, they aren't going to feel like sifting through everything no matter how much of it one lays out for them, no matter how much original Japanese text is provided, no matter how many links are included, no matter how many people from/who have lived in Japan are consulted, etc.

It is such a frustratingly niche topic to cover, and an even more frustratingly inaccessible one. I don't blame anyone for telling all of us who wrote essays and the like to go die in a fire.

No offense/hit taken, by the way. Thanks for your apology, though. I knew what you were trying to say.

 

[Carlie]

What we should do, is round up some old people - like 60+ who have never even played a videogame in their lives and present them with all the evidence, and then see what they say.

TO THE BUS STATION!

No wonder we're in a economic crisis, look at what you stupid young people are focusing your life on. Get off my lawn!

 

[Channy]

I think that if anything does come of this, Hito and Tres need to be respected in their wishes to have their translations excluded and we'd have to find new people to assist us.

if they come to any kind of conclusion (as in pick one outcome over the other rather than a middle-of-the-road 'no one's right, it could be anything'), it would end up the same. then they wouldn't be 'neutral', they'll be a cloti/clerith and therefore biased

But even if you got two unbiased people assisting with translations for each side it would still nailhead reasonable because then we have peopl who aren't you doing it. Ie throw someone else under the bus

 

[Dashell]

Just gonna give my two cents here


If the idea presented is just to talk about Clerith and Cloti in the narrative and maybe get a clerith and a Cloti to talk about why they feel it fits the story and why they like their couple or whatever, that might be kind of cool... I'd be okay with that...

BUT

If we start bringing in translations, and us vs them and what not... then no, that's a bad idea.

Although a while back I had an idea to do a History of FFVII LTD video and interview some people... I just, for obvious reasons, couldn't find enough people to interview

 

[Channy]

If Quex and I run an LTD video we'd have a million views in no time

 

[Starling]

Can I help?