SPOILERS FFVII:R Chapter 17 Spoiler Discussion

[Odysseus]

Does that scene ever play again if you revisit this chapter? Or is it a one-time thing?

 

[ultima786]

Does that scene evr play again if you revisit this chapter? Or is it a one-time thing?

I don’t know for sure, but I actually think it’s an intergrade scene and a part of the ps5 game. Maybe you don’t even need to play intermission first.

 

[Scribe]

A 4K unobstructed view of the mural for the sleuths. I was mostly excited to get this screen shot with the photo mode. I do believe the birds on the right mean something. It all probably means something. Cheers!

 

[Eerie]

The message is clear. Cetras were hippies, obviously.

 

[Eerie]

OK, after looking at it for a while, I'm going to bite because this is interesting. Of course there are things that are bound to be over-interpretated, over-analysed, and/or clearly forgotten. but here are the interesting details:



This, to me, represents a ghost. She's wearing white, we know Aerith can see the dead, the representation is very spooky. It reminded me a lot of chapter 11, for some reason.


Here we have the humans, their village, the animals they breed. And maybeeeeeeee a town at the top right, that looks somehow darker, sinister compared to the village.



Here we have the Temple of the Ancients, very visible, the forest that maybe leads to the City of the Ancients, the Cetras manipulating the Lifestream and creating materias, lots of butterflies, a rainbow, flowers, and of course, Ilfana and Aerith. Interestingly, you can see, if you compare this picture to the humans one, they're way less numerous and seem more mystical than humans.



Here we have (some of) the summons fighting something that looks like a black snake. I think because the summons were clearly born from the Lifestream that the Cetras were manipulating, we have Lifestream White vs Lifestream Black here. Hell the red falling star could be an allusion to Jenova herself, or to Meteor directly - but the bright sun riught next to it makes me think more of Jenova, because to depict it twice would be bizarre.



Finally we have at the centre the most important information: the reunion flower that leads Aerith but also connects her with people facing Meteor. And, I reckon, the Lifestream protecting the flower. I think the flower represents the party here, and it alludes to Aerith protecting them and the planet with the Lifestream. The Lifestream is heavily present in this piece, it gives life to the planet and numerous species, including humans and Cetras. What this mural represents is the fight we'll have in FFVII Remake: Cloud and company fighting Sephiroth, trying to save the Planet from Meteor. Having to search for huge materia, for summons (we even see Leviathan there). We see all kind of animals and plants and interestingly enough, it's as if two people did paint it - the childish style of Aerith, and the style of an adult depicting important stuff (tm). This depicts the beauty of the world that Aerith and the party must save, from the past into the future.

Edit: the peacock really bugs me because I think it is important. It's really pretty, it seems to arrive in the back of Sephiroth (he doesn't notice him), he's not a summon (all the creatures around there seem to be summons, except for that black butterfly that ALSO bugs me), and he's heading towards the reunion flower. Soooooooooo I think maybeeeeee it represents Zack and his role in this retelling of FFVII.

 

[Dark and Divine]

(...)Edit: the peacock really bugs me because I think it is important. It's really pretty, it seems to arrive in the back of Sephiroth (he doesn't notice him), he's not a summon (all the creatures around there seem to be summons, except for that black butterfly that ALSO bugs me), and he's heading towards the reunion flower. Soooooooooo I think maybeeeeee it represents Zack and his role in this retelling of FFVII.

I think it's possible that the black butterfly might represent Sephiroth, as it floats over the reunion flower, in a kind of an allusion how he's waiting for Meteor's impact.

Also, the black butterfly is almost immediatly above a black sphere that might represent the Black Materia.

 

[Eerie]

Mmh, so he's clearly heading towards the reunion flower then. He's also kind of...flying in the Lifestream, so yeah... I'm seriously leaning more and more towards a Zack representation there. He's not there yet, but returning. He also has a yellow flower painted on his wing, but I know jack shit about flowers so for the symbolism please go ahead lol.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

We actually know what the picture is of. The story Picturing the Past is all about it. It's essentially from the event when Aerith's Cetra powers "woke up". They're essentially visions she saw from the Lifestream or other dead Cetra.

And... the circumstances of Aerith seeing it are... bad. Hojo essentially starved Aerith and kept Ifalna away from Aerith until Aerith drew enough vision pictures for him. To the point Aerith has PTSD as a kid when she sees drawing/painting supplies.

The drawings where shown to President Shinra who decided they must be locations associated with the Cetra. He though there was mako there and sent Troopers to the locations to find the mako. All but a handful of the Troopers got killed at the locations due to monsters. The ones that did return never found any mako at the locations in Aerith's visions.

So yeah... Aerith's painting is less her seeing a memory/vision of the past/future that she wanted to see... and more the vision a seven year old without any control over their power is having while starving and missing her mom and was being forced to produce what Hojo wanted/expected to see. Whatever was on Aerith's wall... I don't think it means what people would like it to mean.

 

[waw]

I think this is either going to make a lot of fans happy or a lot of fans disappointed. Remake very well may steer into this painting and bring up other Cetra, other summons, and the like in order to make the painting fit better. We might not have enough info to understand it.

On the other hand, the artist could have shoved a lot of allusions and filler into this, knowing it'll never get used again. We don't know yet.

I hope you're wrong on this one, Obsidian Fire. I hope the amount of detail and work went into this to make this think pop in a big, big way.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

If we hadn't gotten an entire story explaining what the circumstances where surrounding Aerith's painting and how and why it was made, I'd be more inclined to thinking it was a big deal. But... I kinda think Nojima expounded on what it did mean in the novella... so the odds of that explanation getting put into the game *again* is a lot lower now.

 

[waw]

I don't disagree. I do think the symbols like the black butterfly will come into play in some manner, perhaps new summons or something like that. Maybe we'll just get to read the scriptures at some point and have this stuff referenced, or we'll see murals of this stuff in the Temple. I just don't think it's totally done and gone, but I also think we won't see like... a cutscene that makes the mural explain everything in game.

 

[Eerie]

@Obsidian Fire: I know the story surrounding the painting and al. I took from the story that Shinra was wrong about what it truly was, so I looked at what it could truly mean. I also think it’s one thing they’ll maybe explain at the very end but in an Ultimania, and it the meantime we are supposed to theorise about it. As for the novel, Nojima clearly wrote it that way (through another character) so he could keep information about what it truly meant while giving us information about it and Aerith’s life as a kid. These are visions so yes, they should interest us to some degree.

But the more I think about it the more I think that’s when she started seeing Whispers - she stopped having visions, remember, my guess is it’s because of the Whispers.

 

[Shademp]

View attachment 10231

This, to me, represents a ghost. She's wearing white, we know Aerith can see the dead, the representation is very spooky. It reminded me a lot of chapter 11, for some reason.

I like this thought. The girl still makes me think of AC Marlene but having this figure be a ghost is simple and clean.

View attachment 10230

Here we have the Temple of the Ancients, very visible, the forest that maybe leads to the City of the Ancients, the Cetras manipulating the Lifestream and creating materias, lots of butterflies, a rainbow, flowers, and of course, Ilfana and Aerith. Interestingly, you can see, if you compare this picture to the humans one, they're way less numerous and seem more mystical than humans.

While the step-like architecture is more akin to the Temple of the Ancients, I can only see a re-imagining of the Cosmo Canyon Observatory to the upper left. Though it would be neat if the Temple of the Ancients originally had an observatory.

And the presence of the Wutai pagoda further motivates my notion that the mural depicts both past, present and future. Wutai could easily have existed millennia ago, but coupled with my interpretation of Bugenhagen's observatory being to the left I'm of course leaning towards this part of the mural focusing on the near-present.

 

[Eerie]

The Wutai pagoda begs to ask... what if that was the real reason behind the invasion of Wutai? Because Shinra thought it was possibly the Promised Land?

 

[Obsidian Fire]

According to CC, Shinra started to build a mako reactor in Wutai without asking Wutai. Wutai got pissed off and... all signs point to Wutai attacking Shinra first interestingly. At the very least, the Wutains Zack is talking to don't deny his accusation that Wutai attacked first like I'd thought they would...

Cue the eight-year long year that ends in a "cease-fire" that really is more the start of a black-opps war and Wutai ending up a tourist site. Everything points to it being a "simple" matter of buisness rather than anything to do with the Cetra. Shinra *is* primarily a company before anything else...

 

[waw]

But with Remake's Shinra exploring photograph locations of Aerith's visions, I thought all mako reactor sites were more testing for promised land levels of mako. So yeah. I too thought Wutai might be a promised land candidate.

 

[LNK]

I think the 5 birds off to the right allude to the Weapons

 

[Obsidian Fire]

The Mako Reactors are there for the same reason as any other power generator. Shinra is an Electrical Power Company and needs power stations to supply to it's customers.

Due to what Mako Reactors *need* though, they can only be built where the Lifestream is close enough to surface to drill down to. So... it's location, location, location. Aerith's drawings were made not for the "Promised Land", but because that where Shinra thinks mako is, which is what Shinra is really interested in.

Most of what Shinra does has nothing to do with the Promised Land and everything to do with economics. Even the Jenova Project was born out of a desire not for the Promised Land, but because the Cetra were... essentially teraformers who could expose the Lifestream to the surface. So Shinra though the Cetra could make building mako reactors easier than it is currently by like... not having to drill down to where the Lifestream is. They could just expose the Lifestream for Shinra which could then build a Mako Reactor there.

Also, the *reason* President Shinra wants to find the "Promised Land" isn't because it's the Promised Land. It's because the "Promised Land" has lots of mako in it. His main goal has always been to find more mako because more mako means more power generation for Shinra, a Power Company. If the "Promised Land" wasn't thought to be a place overflowing with mako, President Shinra wouldn't be interested in it.

 

[waw]

I think we're talking past each other a bit here. I'd like to clarify:

Shinra is interested in Mako. Yes. For a long time, the President has wanted to find the Promised Land due to the high levels of Mako there to build a perfect utopian (dystopian?) city he would control.

Shinra has spent a lot of resources in seeking out the Promised Land, even chasing wild visions of a child.

Wars are incredibly expensive. Fighting Wutai over the placement of a single Mako Reactor has me puzzled on the economics of it. To build a single Reactor and fighting an 7-8 year war over that is pretty nuts economically. I can't imagine a Mako Reactor provides that level of profits (espeically since they don't seem to have a Mako Reactor in OG ff7. The war ends with no Reactor being put into place.)

All that said, the war gained Shinra military dominance but not their direct economic goal of building A mako reactor. Therefore, I don't believe Shirn actually went to war over a single Mako Reactor.

If Shinra believed that Wutai possibly had a mako-reserve large enough to be "the Promised Land" it would be worth warring over.

Most of what Shinra does has nothing to do with the Promised Land and everything to do with economics. Even the Jenova Project was born out of a desire not for the Promised Land, but because the Cetra were... essentially teraformers who could expose the Lifestream to the surface. So Shinra though the Cetra could make building mako reactors easier than it is currently by like... not having to drill down to where the Lifestream is. They could just expose the Lifestream for Shinra which could then build a Mako Reactor there.

I've missed this. Where is this information from? Are you just calculating this to be the logical outcome of why they wanted Cetrans? I don't buy it.

Aerith escapes with Ifalna. The Turks know exactly where she is. For years, they decide not to bring her in. Shinra must have a reason to not need Aerith badly in this time. (Unrelated, testing other Psychics may be the reason?) I don't recall any piece of lore or moment in any of the titles in which Shinra expresses hope that Aeirth, Sephiroth, any SOLDIER, or any Cetran tech would help bring the LIfestream to the surface. His obsession with Cetrans is only for the Promised Land, and that's, yes, for the Mako there.

BUT, Shirna gives 0 chocobos for Midgar, Junon, or anywhere else in the world if he can have Neo-Midgar. (Source: Dropping the plate.) He's not making "business savy" decisions here. Everything's sacrificial if he can get his shiny new city.

Also, the *reason* President Shinra wants to find the "Promised Land" isn't because it's the Promised Land. It's because the "Promised Land" has lots of mako in it. His main goal has always been to find more mako because more mako means more power generation for Shinra, a Power Company. If the "Promised Land" wasn't thought to be a place overflowing with mako, President Shinra wouldn't be interested in it.

I really agree with most of this. They do a lot of experiments and projects though that aren't about mining more Mako or making energy. A lot is strange military applications with no real enemy in sight and no one to sell those weapons to. A big part of the President's story here is accumulating power (not energy, but like, political/military power) for the sake of more power. He wants everything.

The Mako Reactors are there for the same reason as any other power generator. Shinra is an Electrical Power Company and needs power stations to supply to it's customers.

Is this really it though? The Gongaga Reactor seems to have blown in possible hopes for Huge Materia. Scarlet in Remake is actively pumping those Reactors in Midgar to build better Materia. Deepgorund is all about more intense warriors with special powers. Hell, Hojo has a huge lab for Jenova (and other) experiments. So much of their company is not about providing power. Heck, I'm not even sure their "customers" are all that important anymore in the FF7 world. They really do a lot more security and tech stuff than just energy generation (which their stuff requires energy, but it's far beyond that, like police, entertainment, exploration, and more).

If we think of Shinra as an electric company only/primarily, we really discount so much of what we're seeing that's not just about energy production or customers/profits. In OG, Rufus makes it clear, they have a real business: ruling. He plans on ruling through fear, but their business is power, not power.

 

[Eerie]

Shinra is a megacorp in the true Cyberpunk sense. Does it provide electricity? Yes. But where are the governments? Aside Wutai's, the reality is that Shinra IS the government. It imposes its own views and lab tests on everyone. Their propaganda is second to none, and it serves their agenda well. On the surface, yes, Shinra Corp. is a company that sells electricity. But if we look at it, there's so much more that doesn't fit that.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Looking up the history of Shinra in the Ultimanias... they started out as a weapons manufacturer... and then moved into transportation for shipping weapons... and the energy business for powering their shipping empire. Then they discovered mako energy which was so much more efficient than the current energy production method at the time (transition from coal to oil) that they essentially took over the energy production world-wide very, very quickly.

You can also take a look at some of the various timelines that give dates for when mako energy and reactors started being built. And some other interesting dates. There's whole decades of time passing before the Shinra Company as we know it in the OG becomes what it is.

09-23-1959 - Shinra Manufacturing discovers an unknown energy source, calling it "mako"

010-10-1959 - Jenova discovered

07-02-1967 - Jenova contained in the Nibelheim reactor

01-09-1968 - Shinra Manufacturing constructs the first mako reactor in Nibelheim. The company begins to pursue the construction of reactors all over the world.

Circa 1970 - Gast becomes head of Shinra Research and Development division; Jenova Project starts

06-24-1976 - Shinra Manufacturing beings construction in Midgar. Teh Company establishes it's headquarters in the city and rebrands itself as the Shinra Electric Power Company

Circa 1980 - Gast leaves Shinra

1992 - Wutai War begins

02-XX-0001 - Wutai War ends

The Cetra being able to "break open" the Planet is brought up in the OG... In Japanese at least. Unfortunately, the infamously bad English localization buried the reference.

Tifa
Does the Promised Land really exist?


Aeris
...I don't know.
All I know is...
The Cetra were born from the Planet, speak with the Planet, and unlock the Planet.
And...... then...
The Cetra will return to the Promised Land. A land that promises supreme happiness.

"Unlock the Planet" should be more like... "open up the Planet"... as in... literally opening up the Planet. This gets later clarified in Crisis Core where we get a full on report by Shinra about both the Cetra and what the Jenova Project was originally made for.

"The Ancients Project - Outline"
It is now an undisputed fact that the life form
excavated from the earth is indeed of the
ancient race spoken of in legend.
Furthermore, history records that these "Ancients"
channeled the power of this planet to tear the
earth asunder.
Using the cells of the unearthed Ancient, we have
begun research on creating and mass-producing
a race with comparable abilities.
The primary objective of this research is to
significantly reduce mako excavation costs.

The Crisis Core confirms that the Cetra did indeed "open up" the land to the Lifestream. It also gives some more objective context for why they would do this. It was a way to make the land more fertile.

Ancient
A race who lived on the planet from long ago, and who possessed the ability to speak with the planet. Also known as the ‘Cetra’. The Ancients are said to have opened up Lifestream veins in the land, working to make the planet fertile.

Approximately 2000 years ago they sealed away Jenova, but the cost was great and at this point most of the Ancients died out. Thus, the only Ancients to appear throughout the “FFVII” series are Aerith and her mother Ifalna.

It's also confirmed why the Jenova Project was started in the Crisis Core Ultimania

Jenova Project
A project started by Gast approximately 30 years previous, when Jenova was excavated from the earth. This project, also known by its other name of the ‘Ancients Project’, involved using cells from Jenova to artificially create a new generation of Ancients, with the ultimate goal being to make them search for the Promised Land. Project S and G are part of this same project.

This project was started under a fundamentally mistaken idea, that Jenova was an Ancient. When he realised this, Gast quit his post and disappeared from Shinra.

For Shinra, "getting more mako" is the same as the "promised land". Shinra's "Promised Land" is... essentially a world domination powered by mako energy. And Shinra is looking for ever faster and cheaper ways to get more mako energy. If something doesn't work out for it in the long run, it tends to drop it an move onto the next thing. Shinra *needs* people alive to extend it's influence on the world. Most of Shinra isn't so much "cruel" as "apathetic".

Rufus is different from his father in that he *knows* the idea of the "Promised Land" Shinra wants is a pipe dream. And he hates his dad for being an idiot when it comes to applied economics. There's a practicality to Rufus that isn't in his father. Unfortunately, half the board of directors are his father's lackeys and want the job of President for themselves (Heidegger, Scarlet) and one of them is... a loose canon (Hojo). So trying to turn Shinra around will take time. As in... a lot longer than the month the entire FF7 game takes. And it would be nice if he didn't have a world-ending crisis to handle while 1/3 of his board of directors is trying to kill him.

There's a reason why even after FF7, Shinra is still around with Rufus at the helm and shows no signs of going under any time soon. Rufus doesn't so much want to "rule the world" as he wants to "run Shinra efficiently and effectively". If that means playing nice with the WRO and not ruling the world, he's okay with that.

 

[Eerie]

None of what you said have contradicted what I said. The mayor is pretty much a puppet in their hands, he even has his office in the Shinra tower - there doesn't seem to have any other government, at least in the OG, Wutai aside, and Wutai has fallen. Shinra is a megacorp in the true meaning of the word. Shinra is doing everything because they *can* and no one is here to stop them. And they cover their evil deeds with their lies. And I mean, the Promised Land is just a small part of what they're doing, but Rufus' father bet big on it.

 

[waw]

Obsidian Fire, thanks for the incredibly well put together post.

With the more CC related material indicating a desire for Ancients to make Mako Excavation easier (the terraforming comment) it's baffling why it was so readily abandoned with no efforts to 1. get Aerith to do that and 2. continue to make Cetrans that might. The idea of making Mako excavation easier is pretty much entirely dropped and missing. The President never speaks of this himself, it is only for the Promised Land.

If all of that holds up, make a gaggle of Cetrans and just make the Promised Land. Problem solved.

We don't have clear answers why the Ancients project is so abandoned, and we don't have a reason why they quit pursuing this idea. But nothing with OG-Era Shirna makes me think they actually want to crack the earth open with Cetrans for easier excavation. There's no talk around that with Aerith. It seems to have been the original project's intention, that's abandoned by the time Sephiroth is produced and SOLDIER is in full production. Further, we have no evidence they ever started to try and do the Ancients Project right (with Ifalna's cells) that Hojo has.

This isn't a priority.

Rufus is different from his father in that he *knows* the idea of the "Promised Land" Shinra wants is a pipe dream. And he hates his dad for being an idiot when it comes to applied economics. There's a practicality to Rufus that isn't in his father....

Rufus doesn't so much want to "rule the world" as he wants to "run Shinra efficiently and effectively". If that means playing nice with the WRO and not ruling the world, he's okay with that.

I'm a bit lost on some of this. Rufus does speak of ruling in OG FF7, doesn't he? Specifically the bit about ruling through fear. He never really talks about improving economics or returns from what I recall. And in the post-OG materials, he isn't really worried about runnign Shinra "efficiently and effectively" so much as he is worried about survival, coming back on top, and apparently paying his debt to the Planet for his company's roll in all this. He's still seemingly jockeying for a very powerful position. Post-OG Rufus is different than pre-OG Rufus.

I don't understand your emphasis on Shinra being about this bottom-line gil-hungry entity when so much of it is clearly wrapped up in power, not just wealth.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I'm a bit lost on some of this. Rufus does speak of ruling in OG FF7, doesn't he? Specifically the bit about ruling through fear.

This line in the OG is... frankly bizarre. It's quite literally the only place in the entire Compilation Rufus ever talks about it. I'd almost go so far to say it was retconned out of Rufus' character given how he is in both Case of Shinra and Before Crisis (Before Crisis make him learn his lesson a lot earlier than the OG does). It's even more bizarre given some of the scenarios with Rufus in the Early Material Files which... line up rather well with Case of Shinra and Before Crisis and don't match up with that line from the OG. So I have to admit I ignore that particular line most of the time.

*makes a note to track down what the JP OG says there given the myriad localization issues it has*

Like... the OG's localizaiton is so bad that nine times out of ten, if a fact from later in the Compilation contradicts the OG, it's often because the English localization was so sloppy rather then because of a retcon. That said...

Aerith not being brought in seems to have *something* to do with Tseng wanting her to come in of her own volitional rather that being forced to come in. As it is, Hojo is the head of the "Ancient Project". However, he seems to be following it off and on and not on a consistent basis. Which.... is kinda par for the course for him. He goes from project to project as it interests himself rather than because Shinra tells him to do things. It's... a bit insane how little oversight of Research and Development there is.

There's a whole bunch of stuff in Shinra's way of handling *a lot* of economic things that don't make sense even in the OG concerning it. I really hope they get addressed in the Remake TBH. Although, given FFVII's world-building, I also wouldn't be surprised if they're never gone into either.

I mostly chalk it up to Shinra being a massive company with a huge bureaucracy where everyone is out for their own interests rather than the company. Shinra might be a global company that runs the world, but most of the people in it are just using it to further their own agendas. Weather that be engineering cool weapons, materia, robots, or alien-hybrids. Or wanting to kill monsters that really are threatening people because some people actually *do* care. Shinra is a combination of government and company and we all know how well both of those institutions are susceptible to corruption. Esspecially at the high levels all the Shinra Executives are in.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

This line in the OG is... frankly bizarre. It's quite literally the only place in the entire Compilation Rufus ever talks about it. I'd almost go so far to say it was retconned out of Rufus' character given how he is in both Case of Shinra and Before Crisis (Before Crisis make him learn his lesson a lot earlier than the OG does). It's even more bizarre given some of the scenarios with Rufus in the Early Material Files which... line up rather well with Case of Shinra and Before Crisis and don't match up with that line from the OG. So I have to admit I ignore that particular line most of the time.

*makes a note to track down what the JP OG says there given the myriad localization issues it has*

Like... the OG's localizaiton is so bad that nine times out of ten, if a fact from later in the Compilation contradicts the OG, it's often because the English localization was so sloppy rather then because of a retcon.

The Ultimanias point out the irony of Rufus embracing becoming protector of the people when he had so casually spoken of ruling them with fear -- so, nope, it's not a localization misfire. He just understood himself to be very different than he actually was (which became even more clear in "On the Way to A Smile," as he's forced to deal with someone genuinely sadistic, and finds himself repulsed).