An odd rant on FF7. Also more.

[Abortedj]

I have been doing a thing this year where I keep track of what I play and finish each month. I have posted any of it here to this point. However, in July I finished a play through of Final Fantasy 7, and in this video I do rant about it a bit. It is the first like 2 or 3 minutes of the video. If you take that game too seriously, don't watch.

 

[Rydeen]

Lol. I found this funny but I disagree with the bit about Barrett. It could have been executed a little better, but the team did acknowledge their sins at the end of the game. And I know it's supplementary material, but OtWtaS really further hammers the theme of redemption home for almost every single character.

I have kind of wondered if AVALANCHE's assertions about mako and the planet (and even the existence of the lifestream period) were considered conspiracy theories in universe (at least before all hell broke loose), or if these concepts were accepted as a looming truth and the public/Shinra simply didn't care (much like climate change in our world). Perhaps the public saw the correlation between the presence of mako reactors and poor soil, but did they know that their grandparents and dead pets were a part of the soul of that soil? Rufus seems to be aware of the existence and function of the lifestream during his monologue when his office is blown up in CoS. I wonder if he always knew that, or found out later.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Technically their grandparents and dead pets were part of the lifestream, but all consciousness is soon dissolved once a dead organism's spirit energy returned to the planet, and the lifestream is mixed up and recycled into a new organism which, as far as we know, isn't made up of exactly the same bit of lifestream that animated a previous organism. It could just as easily be made up of a million different bits of lifestream from a million different organisms. There's no hint of reincarnation or that sentient creatures ever have any memory of 'past lives'. The only hint of persistence of memory is in materia, but the memories in materia seem completely detached from whatever mind it was that formed the memory.

 

[Rydeen]

Yes, everyone eventually dissolves into the melting pot to be recycled again, but a person's consciousness only seems to dissolve when it stops resisting the assimilation. Aerith, Zack, and even President Shinra stuck around for a while.

I'm just wondering what facts about the planet, the lifestream, and mako, were common knowledge, and which things were considered the realm of conspiracy. I'm sure a lot of Shinra people knew the key deets, such as Lucrecia. When most people die on screen in the compilation, the lifestream is visible, so I guess it's hard to be completely ignorant about it.

I haven't played the OG in far too long (almost a decade- wtf, it feels like just a few years ago - I just don't have the patience for random encounter mechanics anymore...) so I don't remember a lot of NPC dialogue. So I apologize if this is a stupid inquiry that is easily resolved by material buried in the fugue of my memories.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I seem to remember some of the NPCs knowing about and believing in it, others thinking it was a fairy tale, others having never even heard of it. I imagine the Shinra (Dis)Information Bureau would do its best to discourage all uses of the term 'lifestream'.