FFVII Character Details, Easter Eggs, and General What-the-fuckery

[Obsidian Fire]

I just finished up with the Corel/Gold Saucer series of events and my reaction to it was "HUH? This makes no sense SE!"

Most of the confusion comes from Corel/Corel Prison/Gold Saucer's position on the world map. It's in the middle of a desert surrounded by quicksand and apparently no one can get out of it on foot. While that makes sense for the Prison and the Saucer, it makes no sense for the original town.

If Corel Prison/Gold Saucer was built on the old location of Corel, that would mean that Corel was located in the middle of the desert and surrounded by quicksand. That brings up the question of how Corel was founded in the first place as well as how the coal miners in Corel would get to the coal mines which are presumably outside the desert.

 

[Shademp]

Quoting BrutalAl's comment from GlitterBerri's map analysis, part 2:

http://www.glitterberri.com/content/ff_series/ffvii/prerenders/COREL1a.png
"This map contains an unused animation of North Corel not burning, possibly post-blaze as no buildings can be seen.

The geography of North Corel is odd in a number of ways, suggesting the developers messed up big time during planning.

The original town, Corel, was surrounded by forest and mountains, as we can see in the above shot. Judging by the landscape around the original town and the present location of North Corel on a mountinous/foresty area of the world map, it would seem that the new town was built on the location of the original Corel.

So, why are Corel’s remains half a world away in the desert? And why does “ROPEST” show North Corel located beside a desert when its world map location has it a very great distance from any patches of sand?

While the Mako reactor in North Corel isn’t shown on the world map, it seems to take Cloud and party a long time to reach it via foot or speeding train. There is also a banner in North Corel with an arrow pointing northward at the edge of the path that leads to the Mako reactor. This might imply that North Corel was originally meant to be placed a distance south above the desert and the Mako reactor in the mountains should have occupied its current spot on the world map. No explanation for why the landscape around what was once Corel has changed so much, however."

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Here's the funny thing about North Corel's location. It's south of the mako reactor. It's original name implies that the original Corel was further south then North Corel which means it would be further away from the mako reactor.

However, according to the animation of Corel burning. It looks like Corel is to the west of the mako reactor.

Of course, none of the animation screens match up to Corel's location on the world map.

Something screwy was definitely going on at SE about this.

 

[Ite]

Yeah the ruins of Corel are underneath the Gold Saucer, which is across a freaking desert, so I don't know how you figure that one. I just shrug and say "world map trick-of-light" and imagine that part of the world as reaaaallly close together.

It feels to me like the fire burned down the forest and wasted the surrounding land. Four years of mako reactor-ing made the quicksand barrier. But I don't know how a simple fire could change a temperate climate into an arid one. Unless it was a wacky chemical firebombing, which is sounding cooler and cooler the more I think about it.

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

That makes sense if you think about it. I can see it now.

Scarlett: As long as we're burning these people to death, get me that new prototype chemical fire-bomb we were developing. Might as well field test it while we've got such a good opportunity! Kyahaha!

*radio buzzes*

Heidegger: Gyahaha!

And it somehow burned so hot that in conjunction with the Mako Reactor it changed the local climate and made a desert. It was thus labeled a success as a potential resource denial weapon.

And I might possibly overthink things even worse when I'm tired.

 

[Shademp]

Anybody ever wondered why Cloud & Team just didn't destroy the Black Materia when they found it? At least in the Whirlwind Maze they get to hold it for enough time to try and break it.
Is the Black Materia indestructible? Will it hurt the planet to shatter it?

I demand an explanation! If not that, then at least have Gimli come along and try to destroy the Materia with his axe.

Oh, and not to mention, where is the Black Materia after Sephiroth used it during the Reunion? Materia does not simply vanish when used, at least in normal cases. Is it buried in the Northern Crater? Is it inside the Lifestream?

 

[Dark and Divine]

Oh, and not to mention, where is the Black Materia after Sephiroth used it during the Reunion? Materia does not simply vanish when used, at least in normal cases. Is it buried in the Northern Crater? Is it inside the Lifestream?

I had the same doubt for some time. My best guess would be that Sephiroth absorbed it into his body and it was destroyed together with his body after Sephiroth's defeat in the Northen Crater.

On another note, there are some people who believe that the Black Materia is that orb in Safer Sephiroth's black wing.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

You can't destroy materia. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change its shape, or be changed into energy, and out of energy back in to matter.

On an unrelated note, I always wondered why Reno didn't just go to Aerith's house after she and Cloud escaped capture in the church. He knows where she lives.

 

[Shademp]

You can't destroy materia. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change its shape, or be changed into energy, and out of energy back in to matter.

"Materia" happens to be the Swedish word for "Matter". Does the word Materia have something to do with the word 'Matter'? I never tried figuring that out.

Of course when we talk about something being destroyed we simply mean it to change shape. A part of the Lifestream changed into the Black Materia and it could very well be reabsorbed there. Or so much I assume because Materia has to be returned to the Planet eventually.

This also makes me wonder about the origins of the Black Materia. Did it surface naturally or was it created by the Cetra? The Cetra may be depicted as tree hugging hippies but it would not surprise me if two Cetra groups at war would resort to creating something such as the Black Materia.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Yuffie (who has a certain raw native intelligence) does make the interesting point that the majority of materia is used for dealing death and destruction. I can't remember her exact words, but it's something along the lines of "the Ancients must have been very warlike people", or something.

I think materia might be Latin for matter, as well. It IS energy made solid, after all.

 

[Shademp]

Yuffie (who has a certain raw native intelligence) does make the interesting point that the majority of materia is used for dealing death and destruction. I can't remember her exact words, but it's something along the lines of "the Ancients must have been very warlike people", or something.

Yuffie
“Cloud…urp…ugh.”
“You know‚I was thinking…phew…
Why does Materia always have
something to do with
battles or magic?”
“I bet the Ancients must've always been fighting.”
“It must've been…ugh…terrible…”

 

[Alex Strife]

"Materia" happens to be the Swedish word for "Matter".

It is also the Spanish and Catalan word for "Matter". (Being "Materia" in Spanish, and "Matèria" in Catalan). I had the same doubt for a while, and in the end I decided it must be connected, but... wouldn't know for sure.

 

[Shademp]

A quick google search yields this:
"The Latin word for Material is Materia, Materia is defined as: material, substance, matter."
So, yeah, the answer was obvious.

 

[Octo]

On an unrelated note, I always wondered why Reno didn't just go to Aerith's house after she and Cloud escaped capture in the church. He knows where she lives.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here....I don't think he could be arsed.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

On an unrelated note, I always wondered why Reno didn't just go to Aerith's house after she and Cloud escaped capture in the church. He knows where she lives.

Well, if you think BC is canon, it seems reasonable to me that Reno would recognize the Buster Sword and Cloud and remember that Cloud put down Sephiroth at the Nibelheim reactor. From Reno's point of view, it wouldn't be smart for him to go after Cloud because Cloud might limit break, ect. I actually wrote a oneshot of the church scene from Reno's pov.

This also makes me wonder about the origins of the Black Materia. Did it surface naturally or was it created by the Cetra? The Cetra may be depicted as tree hugging hippies but it would not surprise me if two Cetra groups at war would resort to creating something such as the Black Materia.

If you look at the murals in the Temple of the Ancients, they show how to get the Black Materia and what will happen if Meteor is summoned. This means that somehow, the Cetra knew what would happen if Meteor was summoned. How did they know that?

One explanation is that they know just because they are the Cetra and the Planet told them. Another is that they somehow summoned Meteor and saw what happened first hand.

This is what Aerith says about it.

Aerith
...this must be magic. Just what Sephiroth was saying.
The Ultimate Destructive Magic, Meteor.
It finds small drifting planets with its magic.
And then collides with them. This Planet might get wiped out entirely...

The formation of the Black Materia also asks the question of how and why the White Materia was formed. Holy is a direct counter to Meteor so it would seem that the Cetra would have to know what Meteor did before they could make Holy.

It seems to me that the order would be:

Black Materia made---> Meteor cast---> White Materia made/Temple of Ancients made---> Meteor cast/Holy cast

Aerith seems very sure that Holy will work, so it would not surprise me if there were several cycles of Meteor/Holy to prove this. Peaceful, the Cetra were not. It is mentoned that they did work together to stop Jenova. In fact, for all we know, they could have used Meteor to try and destroy her.

 

[GlitterBerri]

I had the same doubt for some time. My best guess would be that Sephiroth absorbed it into his body and it was destroyed together with his body after Sephiroth's defeat in the Northen Crater.

On another note, there are some people who believe that the Black Materia is that orb in Safer Sephiroth's black wing.

The Mako-encased life-size Sephiroth figure in the floor of the Square-Enix store in Tokyo has the Black Materia in front of his genitalia. Does that help?

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Aerith seems very sure that Holy will work, so it would not surprise me if there were several cycles of Meteor/Holy to prove this. Peaceful, the Cetra were not. It is mentoned that they did work together to stop Jenova. In fact, for all we know, they could have used Meteor to try and destroy her.

Well, I guess we know what happened to Spira, and why some of the Al Bhed moved to Gaia...


X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

You can't destroy materia. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change its shape, or be changed into energy, and out of energy back in to matter.

Shears shatters Zirconiade's materia in BC, though, so there is some precedent at this point for materia being destructable. Though given BC's inconsistent status with everything else FFVII-related, who knows how reliable that is for inferring anything beyond the one scene in BC.

 

[Shademp]

An explanation I would buy is that the stronger a materia is the more dense it. Something like the Black Materia would be dense and strong like a diamond.

Though the destruction of the seemingly powerful Zirconiade materia would contradict this explanation. =/

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Well, BC goes out for contradictions on the daily as it is.

 

[ForceStealer]

Hey, be nice. Who are we to say the Junon cannon can't turn 360 degrees?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

And fire around mountains.

 

[Shademp]

This video summarizes my reaction to Before Crisis.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Shears shatters Zirconiade's materia in BC, though, so there is some precedent at this point for materia being destructable. Though given BC's inconsistent status with everything else FFVII-related, who knows how reliable that is for inferring anything beyond the one scene in BC.

Even though I'm writing a novelisation of it, I'm not going to argue with anyone who says that BC is full of stupid, because it is. (Part of the fun of novelising it is trying to spin sense out of nonsense, like a Rumpelstiltskin of fanfic. But I digress...)

That said, Shears may break Zirconiade's materia - although my understanding is that it was "broken" before he came anywhere near it, even before it was put into Elfe's body, and I don't actually remember him doing this - but even so, Zirconiade is not destroyed. Fuhito is able to summon it, and the Turks have to fight and defeat it just as you would any ordinary old summons. "Broken" is not synonymous with "destroyed", and since Zirconiade works perfectly well once it has its support materia, it's hard to see in what sense it is even "broken". I think broken means that its casing is cracked, and the energy is leaking out, which is what gives Elfe her Sephiroth-like strength.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Yes, the materia inside her hand was apparently already cracked and -- despite giving her strength on par with Sephiroth -- was draining her life energy as a result. It was also supposed to be able to summon Zirconiade on its own, though, but was unable to because it was damaged:

Shears
The summon that will rend asunder the world in a burst of flame: Zirconiaide. Originally, that materia Elf・s got fused in her arm by itself should have been able to call it into being. It's been damaged, so it can't do that anymore. If it's just left alone, the summon won't initialize and the world will be safe. But because it's damaged, it's compensating by draining her life force. If we just leave things the way they are, it'll keep draining away her life until there's nothing left for her to give. She'll die.

Sears:
Zirconiade, the creature that will burn the world, could originally be summoned using only Elfe's Materia. However, it can't be used to do that now due to its deficiency. If it's left the way it is, the creature won't appear and the world will remain at peace. But Elfe's life is being absorbed because of the Materia's deficiency. All of Elfe's life will eventually be absorbed completely and she will die if we leave it the way it is now.

Now, while cracked, the materia within Elfe was not already shattered. This is a misunderstanding of BC's story I've come across before, in which people have misunderstood the role of the four materia that AVALANCHE and the Turks seek out during BC.

The misunderstanding in question is that those four materia and the one in Elfe's hand were fragments of the Zirconiade materia, previously shattered before even Elfe's implant. The four materia sought out during BC were actually Support Materia that aided not only in summoning Zirconiade despite the main materia being cracked, but also facilitated its restoration to full power if the combined five materia were given directly to the summon itself.

Anyway, as seen in this video, once Zirconiade was summoned, the four Support Materia combined with the main Zirconiade materia to create a single materia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGI-I-zJfBY

Soon after, Fuhito placed this combined materia into his body, and transformed as a result. When he and Shears killed one another, the player's Turk then comments that the materia was shattered into pieces.

All this can be seen in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3eMZtexZHw

Note, by the way, that even if the materia had previously been shattered, that still entails that materia can be broken and their function impeded. It had not been shattered prior, though, and yet its function was still prevented with the materia in Elfe's hand being simply cracked.

As well, Shears speaks of destroying the Zirconiade Support Materia once it had been summoned, in order to weaken the summon and allow it to be defeated:

If Zirconiaide is summoned using the method I just explained, it'll still be incomplete. Without the four support materia in place, the summon can't be sustained. If we destroy them, we'll have a shot at taking down Zirconiaide.

By summoning Zirconiade this way, it will be in an incomplete form. Without all four Support Materias, it won't be able to maintain its existence. So in other words, if we can destroy these four Materias, it's possible that we can defeat Zirconiade.

So BC definitely presents the idea that materia can be destroyed or even just damaged to the point that their function is no longer available.