SPOILERS FFVII:R Chapter 18 Spoiler Discussion

[Eerie]

@Pizzachu it's the drop from the hidden boss.

 

[Pizzachu]

@Pizzachu it's the drop from the hidden boss.

Hahaha, I knew that. I was wondering if it could possibly be more than a simple necklace.

 

[Eerie]

Probably not, at least the player doesn't mention it haha. Maybe it has a use we'll find much later on though, who knows (I doubt this). I think it's more something they made to add to the fate theme - BTW it was already a theme of FFVII, wasn't it? With Aerith who had to die, it just looks like the stake are much bigger this time around?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Ragnarok has appeared in numerous Final Fantasy titles.

And yes, Götterdämmerung literally means, "twilight of the gods." The name of the final battle that will end the world and decide it's fate.

I think that accessory references not just the ending of the Remake, but also the inevitable fight Cloud and the others will face which will decide the fate of the Planet. The original final battle against Sephiroth was literally a clash where the fate of the world hinged on the outcome. And given the fact Sephiroth is clearly more than he was before, the eventually clash against his ascended form will be something fitting of the name, "Ragnarok."

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Fate was not a theme of the original FFVII. The discussion of fate by any of the characters is nowhere to be found. Which is why I find its inclusion in FFVIIR so bizarre.

The closets thing I can think of that maybe counts is Aerith talking about taking up her roll as a Ceta and committing to it. But even that is something she views as a decision she made for herself. Not some fate that was decided for her by some outside being.

Aerith "having to die" is one of the biggest... misinterpretations... of her death. The entire point of Aerith's death is that it truly is meaningless. It doesn't do anything to help Sephiroth. The big thing Aerith did was summon Holy, and she did not need to die to acomplish that. And she had already summoned Holy by the time Sephrioth killed her. Sephrioth is simply too late to stop Aerith from playing her roll in saving the Planet. He tries to have Cloud kill her to mess with Cloud. And when Cloud throws of Sephrioth's influence, Sephrioth himself kills her just to try to demoralize the party. It ends up having the opposite effect in the long run.

 

[rkss]

So apparently, this is not Biggs' glove. I'm not sure what does it mean but..
Jessie might've survived as well.

 

[Wol]

So apparently, this is not Biggs' glove. I'm not sure what does it mean but..
Jessie might've survived as well.

LOL

death and any sense of consequence becomes meaningless when rewriting a timeline is a thing in your story.

 

[Eerie]

I'm not against one Avalanche member surviving, but the 3 seem a bit too much???

 

[Makoeyes987]

That doesn't mean Jessie has survived.

Once again, people take one element, jump to the wildest conclusion, and then make a snap critical judgment from that conclusion without even considering it's form or function.

I'm not against one Avalanche member surviving, but the 3 seem a bit too much???

Who says Wedge now survived?

 

[Eerie]

Earlier in another thread someone said that he was with the mayor here. I now wonder if that's optional tho, because people wondered if you could save either Biggs OR Wedge, depending on some choices you'd make? I haven't seen that cutscene myself, I stopped chasing videos for now, I just look at what's posted here haha.

And yeah, the gauntlet can be here as a memento, I agree.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Earlier in another thread someone said that he was with the mayor here. I now wonder if that's optional tho, because people wondered if you could save either Biggs OR Wedge, depending on some choices you'd make? I haven't seen that cutscene myself, I stopped chasing videos for now, I just look at what's posted here haha.

And yeah, the gauntlet can be here as a memento, I agree.

Pretty sure that's before he gets gobbled up by the Whispers.

And yeah, that gauntlet being a memento was where I went. Not that she was somehow alive despite what was shown.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

It is ... curious, though. Both Biggs and Jessie have similar seemingly definite "death scenes," only for Biggs to end up alive at the very, very end (apparently with Jessie's glove).

As for Wedge, the Whispers seemingly pushed him through the glass elevator on the 64th floor of the Shin-Ra building. =( You can hear the glass shatter as he's forced into the elevator.

But then again, Biggs seemingly died from injuries he had suffered in battle before an entire sector then fell on top of him -- and he still turned up alive. So fuck knows.

 

[jeronimus]

I’ve obviously not played the game yet, so I’ll probably revise my thoughts about what all of this means once I have, but I feel like I want to get this written down before I forget.

In the past, I’ve thought about part two of this game, and how in it, every character has to come to terms with an aspect of their past. Barret faces what Dyne became after he ruined Corel. Red realises that his father died a hero. Cloud faces the fact that his memories aren’t genuine.

Regardless of what the ending really "means", the Whispers basically seem to show up in the story when things are about to diverge from the original plot - so with an element of “changing the timeline” introduced into the story; there is the opportunity to have all of those characters reflect on how this is how things were “meant to go” for them. They might want to change their past, but it would have serious repercussions on “the story” - and so, they accept, as they did in the OG, but with a mechanical representation of it. I don’t think it would be necessary, but it could be what they’re going for.

Either way, once you get to the point where Aerith dies, maybe the fact that it ISN’T reversed in any way; the fact that it happens regardless - maybe by that point, the characters recognise that this is the ONLY way this story could go and that bringing her back would be garbage.

It’d be wild if they went to such roundabout lengths to drive a point home that didn't need to be made. Even so, it could just be made by having it be a story that works on its own merits, without having to include fate LITERALLY in the story.

For the most part the game sounds phenomenal - the characters in particularly have better characterization than they've ever had. Which makes it so weird that which such a devotion to what makes the story WORK, that they choose to SO EXPLICITLY feature the idea of changing it. I worry this won't make any sense to the people who have been told this will be their chance to play an updated version of a classic game, if it barely makes sense to the people who've played the original over and over.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I worry this won't make any sense to the people who have been told this will be their chance to play an updated version of a classic game, if it barely makes sense to the people who've played the original over and over.

This is my biggest concern as well -- that the abrupt, jarring introduction of fate as a force with agency (along with its accompanying notions of temporal manipulation) may leave all the good work done up to that point hopelessly T-boned. I fear that the big "This is what FFVII is about" takeaway for newcomers will be misunderstood to be the vague shounen anime babble about "Captial D" Destiny.

Which is frustrating on multiple levels, because the ending gets more interesting the more I think about it, and I'm excited to see where the story is going with this unexpected stuff ... while simultaneously feeling like it's obscuring what makes FFVII what it is.

 

[Theozilla]

One interesting thing I heard thrown around is that the brawler, gunner, and sword Whispers in the second to last battle could potential be references to Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo instead of Barret, Tifa, and Cloud.

Honestly I feel like most of the Whispers and fate stuff was added to give this first installment “justification” to have a big spectacle for its climax, as well as (as RPG Site put it in their review) extremely hard meta winking to any in audience who are familiar with FFVII (regardless of whether it is a detriment or not). I am extremely confident that all of the base plots are still going to be followed through, and even if the Whispers will be used in future Remake installments I think their primary Doylistic purpose is to make things more grandiose (particularly in regards to Sephiroth and Jenova spectacle).

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I'll probably find that even more frustrating if it's the case. lol

I think I'd feel like they confuzzled "This is what FFVII is about" for no good reason if they aren't at least going somewhere with it. They may as well go ahead and be properly daring and challenge us at this point.
---


Slight topic detour back to the Jessie thing: Biggs would have been in no shape to make it to where Jessie's body was left even if some of the stairs hadn't been destroyed after Cloud and Tifa went up. But they were. So between his injuries and the damage to the structure, it would have been basically impossible for him to get to her to claim that glove as a memento.

What's going on here? ?

 

[Theozilla]

Perhaps whoever found Biggs alive in the wreckage also found Jessie’s body and/or gloves left them at Biggs’ bedside.

 

[Makoeyes987]

We can only speculate what form of recovery and excavation may have happened that allowed bodies to be discovered, or if that's simply a spare glove from Jessie's personal effects that has been shown.

And I think FFVII means a lot of things over many topics. And with a new adaption, new avenues of exploration can be charted and entertained, even those that are seemingly unconnected to what came before. I think a key factor of what has allowed FFVII to endure for so long are it's characters. The characters working within the confines of their stories to illustrate the themes and distinctiveness that encompasses what FFVII means over a spectrum of topics. Even in a story that goes in a new direction beyond what was the case in '97, that essence endures.

In a recent interview that came out today, Yoshinori Kitase talked about what were some of his favorite movies, stories, television shows and memorable events from the 90s, and the answers were interesting. Twin Peaks was his favorite TV show from the early 90s. And that's a pretty interesting choice, seeing as how that show ran the gamut of genres and eclectic themes. What started as an investigation of a high school girl's murder leads to a surreal story involving the occult, small town secrets, delving into the unconscious mind, the nature of dreams, alternate realities, non-linear time progression, time-travel, and even slapstick comedy. Not to mention Kitase's favorite author is Stephen King.

There's usually a lot more than a single unifying theme that gets expressed in popular, acclaimed and long-running works. Perspectives inevitably drift and move to look at all sorts of new aspects that allow creative freedom and spontaneity. For this part of the Remake, an exploration of the concept of time and how it too is fated for mutability was but one direction where the writers wished to tread. Whatever new concepts the Remake looks into next will inevitably be something shocking and new because of the story's solidification within the minds of people. But that too will inevitably brush against change with time, because change is always a constant.

 

[Theozilla]

Also I would argue that even if the Whispers can be/are overly vague/confusing additions, they don’t inherently or automatically change (or confuzzle) the core of “this is what FFVII is about”. To use the TLotR movies as an example, Peter Jackson added a number of significant additions/changes to the trilogy (e.g. made Aragorn far more conflicted about taking the throne than his book counterpart, or had Frodo wrestle Gollum for the ring instead of Gollum just dance and trip to his doom) but I think most would agree the The Lord of the Ring films retain the core of “this is what TLotR is about”. Likewise I think the Remake has the capacity to do the same (and considering how different the medium of triple AAA video games are now compared to 1997, the concept of video games remakes intersect very much with the concept of adaptation).

 

[Arianna]

So, just to make sure I'm correct, the original game is the true story, the correct sequence of events?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

So, just to make sure I'm correct, the original game is the true story, the correct sequence of events?

I don't want to use either of those descriptors, so I'll instead say "The events of the original game are what the Arbiters of Fate wish to preserve."

 

[Makoeyes987]

So, just to make sure I'm correct, the original game is the true story, the correct sequence of events?

This is an ambiguous, and loaded question. In terms of the Remake, it's adhering to the events we know of from the original game. The Whispers are preserving that sequence of events. Outside of the final battle with Sephiroth, the events of the OG are preserved and protected.

But, what you consider "the true..correct sequence" lol.. That's a loaded question.

But in terms of the Remake, as I've said. The OG happens even alongside of the new additions we see at the end. Rufus becomes President. President Shinra dies, etc etc. We also see new stuff with AVALANCHE too so... It's all there and then some.

 

[Theozilla]

Opening scenes of Chapter 18, really interesting that Rufus can see the Whispers swarming the Shinra building but Tseng can’t. I like how the party are just as confused by the Whispers as we are

 

[SpacemanZero]

I looked up what Götterdämmerung meant and I came across these definitions:

• (Germanic mythology) The myth of the destruction of the gods in a final battle with the forces of evil; the apocalypse.
• Any cataclysmic downfall or momentous, apocalyptic event, especially of a regime or an institution.

dictionary.com's definition:
German Mythology. the destruction of the gods and of all things in a final battle with evil powers: erroneous modern translation of the Old Icelandic Ragnarǫk, meaning “fate of the gods,” misunderstood as Ragnarökkr, meaning “twilight of the gods.”

What is that necklace...?

Götterdämmerung is the last part of Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelum. Götterdämmerung is a German translation of Ragnarök, but the story is different from the Norse mythology.

I'm using wikipedia to help with my memory: in the prologue of the Ring of the Nibelum the three Norns, daughters of Erda, gather beside Brünnhilde's rock, weaving the rope of Destiny. They sing of the past and the present, and of the future when Wotan will set fire to Valhalla to signal the end of the gods. Without warning, their rope breaks. Lamenting the loss of their wisdom, the Norns disappear.

I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like a lot like the ending of the remake is an adaptation of that prologue, if you replace the three Norns with the three faith entities and replace Wotan with Sephiroth. And the end of the prologue is the destruction of the faith entities thus preventing them from seeing the past, present and future and so "the unknown journey awaits".

 

[Theozilla]

Since I'm not sure where this takes place, here is the secret boss that someone beat on reddit, and what he drops.

That necklace is going to make people talk even more now, I'm out (still reading though, a lot of theories are great and I'm having a lot of fun reading :') thanks guys!).

Apparently the necklace is the same (or almost identical) as Ifalna’s necklace that she was wearing when she died.