FF7 Headcanons and Discussion

[Kassi]

2) Forever trying to convince yourself that the church roof and the flowerbed could plausibly have broken Cloud's fall.

My headcanon explains it to me this way: physics work differently in that world. Also falling damage is nearly nonexistent. Thus Cloud's survival, Dyne's survival, ACC near-infinite floats & launching from horizontal surfaces et cetera. But that's my headcanon!

And even allowing, for 'special physics,' I was still at:

5) How does the rocket, having been at a 30 degree angle for years, manage to take off vertically?

Mm... unrealistic fantasy.

<3
Kassi

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Their entire planet is about the size of New Zealand, if that. In their world, gravity is just another word for HP sucking materia. Didn't you ever wonder why everybody wears such big boots? Not to mention Cloud's hair, Aerith's bangs, Sephiroth's bangs, and how Tifa remains so... perky.

 

[Kassi]

Their entire planet is about the size of New Zealand, if that.

OMH yes! During the race I realized that in the ending sequence you see Midgar from the Cosmo Canyon observatory, and looking at the map & flying around in the Highwind, the two should be planetary opposites! If the planet was a disc (or rectangle), one shouldn't be able to fly west from Wutai and arrive at Chocobo Farm, so... maybe Holy & Meteor warped space and time during Meteorfall so the whole world could see. Or maybe it was just for dramatic effect.

<3
Kassi

 

[Obsidian Fire]

^^And when you fly North you come out the South Pole. Has anyone tried to make a globe out of a Final Fantasy world? Major, major headache.

 

[Unlucky]

1) Never mind terrorist activities, Barret should have been locked up for allowing his 4 year old daughter to run the bar while he was off on a mission. That has got FAIL written all over it.

True, that. I just like to think that they have a few people working in the kitchen and attending the tables. Same goes with Tifa's new 7th Heaven bar in Edge. She can't possibly operate alone, right? She needs a few more folks to help her with the cooking and cleaning. Marlene and Denzel can help of course, but not all the time, because that's child labor

It's funny, I'm really loving the headcanons here, they seem to be more appealing and some even make more sense than the canon itself

 

[Shademp]

- Prolonged use of Materia makes it easier for the wielder to do high jumps and slow their descent when falling, even long after unequipping the Materia. Ergo why Yuffie is able to run up vertical walls, despite her (presumed) lack of practice with the meditative aspects of employing one's own spirit energy for gravity-defying stunts.


- Hojo's experiment on Vincent was a test to "surgically" remove a summon creature from a Summon Materia (or at least replicate "Summon" effects outside of Materia) and merging it with Vincent's DNA. This is why the transformation back and from Galian Beast is not physical, but magical instead. Vincent's connection with the former Galian Beast summon makes him tied to the ethereal/spiritual realm in which summons reside. This existence inbetween the physical and ethereal realm is what makes Vincent so adept at gliding and hi-jumping; he redirects his "physical mass" to the other realm. This is why he can easily move around as though he was on a planet with lower gravity.
(This anti-gravity method is not exactly the same as those Cloud & the rest uses.)

- "Death Gigas" and "Hellmasker" are transformations created from Vincent's memory. They are deeply inspired by horror movies Vincent often watched as a kid.

- Vincent writes poetry from OG and forward and will some years after DoC publish his work. It will be published under a pseudonym, both because of his desire for privacy and the pride of not wanting the book to sell due to his already established relative fame.
Themes permeating his work are the relentless passages of time, the impermanence of all things, hope in the midst of endless nightmares and the cycles of the Universe. At first only Nanaki and Reeve knows he wrote the book.

The two lines in OG that got stuck in my head and sealed my image of Vincent as a thinker and poet.
Vincent:
&#8220;City of the Ancients&#8230;&#8221;
&#8220;The Ancients&#8230;in time that is probably what later generations will call us.&#8221;
&#8220;Hmm&#8230;hwa ha ha ha&#8230; It's only a matter of time for us.&#8221;

Vincent:
&#8220;Cloud&#8230;take the ship to the Northern Cave.&#8221;
&#8220;The time for flying is now past.&#8221;
&#8220;Our battlefield is now beneath the earth&#8230;&#8221;
&#8220;The gate to tomorrow is not the light of heaven, but the darkness of the depths of the earth.&#8221;

 

[Flintlock]

^^And when you fly North you come out the South Pole. Has anyone tried to make a globe out of a Final Fantasy world? Major, major headache.

It would have to be a toroidal world, or to give it its common name, a donut.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Shademp, my spirit energy has absorbed your head canon and made it a part of my own expanded consciousness.

Seriously, I love those ideas about Vincent, both the scientific explanation for his transformations and why they work like summons (and not like Dr Banner and the Hulk), and his future career as a poet, which totally rings true.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

It would have to be a toroidal world, or to give it its common name, a donut.

Well that would explain why FFVII's gravity is so weak/weird.

It really doesn't help that the world is portrayed as a globe in the planetarium...

 

[Captain Jack Harkness]

the electric saw is part of Hellmasker's body, just like the mask and the blood.
and like the Deathpenalty is part of Chaos's body in DC

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Maybe Hellmasker is Vincent projecting himself onto and identifying with his captor and torturer, Hojo - it's the personfication of how he perceived Hojo during those weeks when Hojo was experimenting on him: an irresistible and all-powerful masked monster, cutting him up with cruel instruments of torture.

Final Freudian Fantasy.

 

[Ryushikaze]

Shademp, my spirit energy has absorbed your head canon and made it a part of my own expanded consciousness.

Seriously, I love those ideas about Vincent, both the scientific explanation for his transformations and why they work like summons (and not like Dr Banner and the Hulk),

Mass Shifting and Gammquantumgammaslternategammerunigammaverse is how Banner/Hulk works.

Also, Gravity isn't any lower on Gaia than on earth. You're looking at increased thrust capacity and force redistribution for landings.

 

[Masamune]

I always took Vincent's "transformations" for a strain of the Jenova virus. Just made more sense to me that way. Most of the freaky shit that came out of Shinra was connected to Jenova. You only have to look at the enemies you fight in the Shinra building (Sample:H0512, for example), and then there's the abominations on the Sunken Gelnika, as well. Okay, there's no definitive proof that they were born from Jenova but a picture paints a thousand words. So yeah, Jenova was Hojo's favourite plaything (when he wasn't supporting bestiality), and I'd throw Vincent into the mix as another victim of that sick obsession.

 

[Flintlock]

Well that would explain why FFVII's gravity is so weak/weird.

It really doesn't help that the world is portrayed as a globe in the planetarium...

Yeah, that's a pretty glaring contradiction. Although, having said that, the world map is a world map, not an actual globe. The town of Kalm is not actually smaller than Cloud, for example. That could go some way to explaining it.

Your comment about gravity, though, has got me thinking about what it would be like on a torus. It would definitely be stronger at the outer equator than the inner equator, making life very difficult. On a small scale, the surface of our curved earth acts flat, because of gravity, whereas on a toroidal world, it'd be like living on a slope, with objects rolling down the sides of the doughnut's cross-section towards the inner equator. Hopefully that makes at least a little sense - if not, I'll have to draw a diagram!

 

[Edley]

I don't know if the world map in VII can be viewed as a physical representation of time and space. It's more of a cartographic representation wrapped around a sphere like a map stretched to fit around a globe.


Donut Shaped Planet

If you were standing on the planet, then each little piece of the planet is putting a little bit of force on you, attracting you towards it. If you were standing on the outside, with the center of the donut hole exactly beneath your feet, then you would feel a strong gravitational force straight down, because all the parts of the donut are on the same side of you, and the average direction is straight down. If you were standing on the inside, with your head pointing to the donut hole center, then you would feel a somewhat weaker gravitational force keeping your feet on the donut.

The near parts of the donut are exerting the stronger force, and so keeping you attached, but the other side of the donut is above your head, and is exerting a weak force in that direction so that the force keeping your feet down is partially counteracted. If you stand at any other point on the rim, then the force on you is not quite vertical - the net force does not point through your feet, but there will be a small amount due to the other side of the donut pulling you towards it.

Such a planet certainly could exist. However, if it were the size of the earth it would quickly collapse into something like a sphere, due to the gravitational action of one side of the donut on the other -for a really big mass (like the earth) the force is so strong that no material would be strong enough to oppose it.

 

[Flintlock]

Donut Shaped Planet

That's pretty much what I wrote and thought. Which I'm happy about

 

[S and G]

- I love the idea that Vincent doesn't have a phone because he is uncomfortable with technology that wasn't around when he was a Turk.
- Reeve knows where to find Elmyra and Marlene because Cait Sith overhears Barret talking about Elmyra leaving Midgar (presumably going to Kalm).
- Scarlet has undoubtedly slept her way to the top.
- Palmer has no reason for being anywhere near the Executive.
- Only Sephiroth can use the Masamune which means whatever killed President Shinra is a fake as a) it wasn't even the real Sephiroth and b) Sephiroth has a sword with him later in the game which means he had a new sword or returned to HQ to get it. (Although AC kinda fucked up that theory)
- No matter how many times you meet Johnny outside of Midgar, he seems not to mention that his parents were living in Sector 7 when it was brought down
- Why didn't just Cait Sith and not the stuffed mog solve the riddles in the Temple. Seems like a waste of a stuffed mog to me.
- Half of the murals on the wall in the Temple don't add to the story of the Black Materia at all.
- The Shinra Army are a total disgrace if they have been unable for years to overpower Fort Condor. Makes you wonder how long the Wutai War would have lasted if Shinra had a half-decent military existed. I can just picture that scene from Naked Gun where they are shooting at each other from behind bins 3 feet apart.
- The BC Turks were brought on in response to Genesis killing the Turks sent to Banora
- Yoshiyuki and Club Bat are a waste of time. But, Organics...now there's a fucking sword!!!

 

[Ite]

I find the idea that Scarlet slept her way to the top kind of wrong. She's one of the most ruthless people on the board, and completely well suited for a Weapons Department head. Why do people think that she's a talentless whore, in addition to being inscrutable and evil? Is it the red dress? Is it because *gasp* she's a woman with power?

 

[Unlucky]

Personally I think she's a whore, but that she is also competent. She just 'slept her way to the top', if you will, because competition is tight, or maybe there's some sexism issues in the Weapons Dept and people were having a hard time taking her seriously.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

I find the idea that Scarlet slept her way to the top kind of wrong. She's one of the most ruthless people on the board, and completely well suited for a Weapons Department head. Why do people think that she's a talentless whore, in addition to being inscrutable and evil? Is it the red dress? Is it because *gasp* she's a woman with power?

This is how I've always felt.

 

[looneymoon]

She's probably has got the entire company by the balls in any case.

Save for a select few, everyone is terrified of her.

 

[Flintlock]

- Yoshiyuki and Club Bat are a waste of time. But, Organics...now there's a fucking sword!!!

Huh. I was enjoying your post up to that point My Lvl 39 Cloud did 9770 damage with the Yoshiyuki against an enemy in the Great Glacier the other day. What other weapon can do that much damage so early in the game? Maybe the Powersoul, but that's it. And that needs you to keep Tifa at dangerously low HP and cast Death Sentence on her every battle. The Nail Bat (I assume that's what you mean by Club Bat) is very good for one thing: getting Omnislash on disc one. It's far and away the strongest weapon Cloud has available to him, and the Yoshiyuki doesn't benefit from dead party members because they're not on the battlefield. Both those weapons are also free, while the Organics is very expensive.

 

[Masamune]

I find the idea that Scarlet slept her way to the top kind of wrong. She's one of the most ruthless people on the board, and completely well suited for a Weapons Department head. Why do people think that she's a talentless whore, in addition to being inscrutable and evil? Is it the red dress? Is it because *gasp* she's a woman with power?

Spoiler: Hmmm

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I find the idea that Scarlet slept her way to the top kind of wrong. She's one of the most ruthless people on the board, and completely well suited for a Weapons Department head. Why do people think that she's a talentless whore, in addition to being inscrutable and evil? Is it the red dress? Is it because *gasp* she's a woman with power?

She's the Iron Lady of Midgar.

[sorry it's Meryl Streep and not the real Maggie. I couldn't find any pictures of Margaret Thatcher wearing red. She was a Tory.]

She's probably got a Denis of her own tucked away in the background, running some kind of import/export business that stays afloat on its contracts from Shinra's Weapons Manufacturing Department.

 

[S and G]

Huh. I was enjoying your post up to that point My Lvl 39 Cloud did 9770 damage with the Yoshiyuki against an enemy in the Great Glacier the other day. What other weapon can do that much damage so early in the game? Maybe the Powersoul, but that's it. And that needs you to keep Tifa at dangerously low HP and cast Death Sentence on her every battle. The Nail Bat (I assume that's what you mean by Club Bat) is very good for one thing: getting Omnislash on disc one. It's far and away the strongest weapon Cloud has available to him, and the Yoshiyuki doesn't benefit from dead party members because they're not on the battlefield. Both those weapons are also free, while the Organics is very expensive.

I was actually meaning on purely appearance as otherwise you are totally correct.

I find the idea that Scarlet slept her way to the top kind of wrong. She's one of the most ruthless people on the board, and completely well suited for a Weapons Department head. Why do people think that she's a talentless whore, in addition to being inscrutable and evil? Is it the red dress? Is it because *gasp* she's a woman with power?

This is precisely my point. I'm not suggesting she is incompetent - far from it. What I'm getting at is that she seems a bit young (say 40s or something?) to have become the head of the Weapons Dept with a seat at the President's table. This is a major part of the business and let's not forget the origins of Shinra. The fact that she is female in what seems an otherwise predominantly older male setup suggests that she has been ruthless in making her way to the top as, sad though it is in reality, females who are genuinely the better candidates are often overlooked for a job because of their gender. (Case and point - I cannot think of another single lady in a position of power anywhere in the game). My guess is that Scarlet has taken advantage of her femininity and done what she had to to blackmail her way up the chain. Let's face it, it is certainly not beyond her character limits.