SPOILERS FFVII:R Chapter 18 Spoiler Discussion

Wol

Wol

None Shall Remember Those Who Do Not Fight
AKA
Rosarian Shield
Sephiroth's words aren't random nonsense. They hold meaning as we've discovered through the Ultimania. He actually revealed quite a bit.
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I didn't see any grand meaning, just vaguely implied with cryptic misterious lines, so cryptic that they can serve to justify any plot development going forward in fact lol. It can mean anything, kinda moot if the characters dialogue is all like this.

It might mean something interesting for the future, I guess.
 
ForceStealer

ForceStealer

Double Growth
snatchr said:
For some reason people like to act as if fleshing out elements of the original, adding new characters that fit naturally into the world, and plot protecting fate steering metaphysical wikipedia editors that exist to die so the story can run off on its own tracks, as the same thing. You simply cannot have one without the other!

I'm aware of the ultimania stuff, and its tempered some of my fears, but I'm far from blindly trusting them.
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snatchr said:
The rub is most of this remake IS a dramatic reimagination that takes the skeleton of the 1997 game and expands and improves upon it while leaving its own prestige stamp on franchises lasting legacy. Its not some basic 1:1 remaster when the whispers arent dicking around. Its reimagined in a way that compliments and improves. People arent out in force poo pooing how radically different the wall market events are, the visit to Jessies parents, the expansion on virtually every character in Midgar and turning a screen of 3 houses and 4 characters into entire functioning neighbourhoods.
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Well said. It's fine to be on board with the ending stuff. But I have no idea why some people present the options as EITHER 100%-exact-why-don't-you-just-play-the-original-re-creation, OR killing-fate-dementors-to-break-the-shackles-of-90s-storytelling-and-spread-its-one-black-wing-into-bold-meta-insanity. Especially when, as you just said, the first 90% of the game is almost exactly the middle ground of fleshing-out/faithfulness people said they wanted.
 
oty

oty

Pro Adventurer
AKA
ex-soldier boy
Classifying it, or rather, trying to, doesnt work at all. Like, "they could have done 1:1 or completely different, or kind of 1:1 or 50/50 1:1 etc etc". There are no rules to a Remake. Trying to "number" it down is downright crazy, probably impossible. Each person has their own take and this was theirs. I mean, look at the situation we have right here. "95% very similar, 5% extremely different except, that 5% can actually mean a whole lot more, therefore it is not really 5% but actually a very important part of story even though it is just a small portion of the story and-"

We would get some completely arbitrary, downright maddening category for this which we could only describe it as the "SE" way. From the looks of it, they follow a plan. If there is actually a plan, or more importantly, if that plan is going to suffice for us, it's a whole other talk.
 
Makoeyes987

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
See that tripped me out for two reasons.

Number one, it shows that the planet is somehow all seeing, all aware, but obviously not all-powerful. Because while it carries this omniscient awareness of what is necessary for "fate" to go down how it chooses, it possesses no way of seeing how it's interjections or attempts at correction may inadvertently create more situations that require correction.

The arbiters of fate are working on the fly.

The fact their method of correction created a situation where Cloud had to chop a helicopter's propeller off, which would have crashed into the car everyone else was in, essentially means destiny doesn't exist. Not in any omnipotent sense.

Also, it raises the question of just how "same" the circumstance, or destiny really is. Yes, the events happen. Yes, the actors are all present. But that doesn't necessarily mean it will follow the same course that the planet is going by. The Sector 7 plate fall is a perfect example of this.

The Whispers prevented Cloud and the others from getting there early. The Whispers made sure the Turks got to do their thing. However, Rude now was there, thanks to the situation at the church where Reno apparently was so salty over Cloud nearly killing him after beating the shit out of him. So the planet had to essentially compromise the integrity of the destiny to ensure it went down, but it nearly didn't.

So they let Rude do it, which preserved the overall cohesion of the event.

That's a lot like someone trying to ensure a particular script is followed, versus an all-knowing, powerful destiny guiding the threads of fate that exist.
 
Odysseus

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
I don't think it was "everything has to happen this way down to the atom" as much as it is "this basic series of events needs to take place." Cloud needs to go to reactor 5 so he can meet Aerith in the church, so they injure Jessie to keep him on the team even though originally Jessie and Wedge were on the mission too. The pillar had to explode, but it wasn't amazingly important who did the deed. Wedge can help with the escape from Shinra HQ, but he can't be there when the party leaves Midgar. The vague semblance of the original progression is what they were trying to preserve, not the fine details.
 
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Makoeyes987

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
But I think the fact the Whispers make a correction that could lead into making their own work more difficult speaks to a limit of their power and perspective.

There's just no way it makes sense to keep making corrections and compromises to a general event, even to the point you have to correct your corrections. That shows that it's not so much destiny, as a desire to see something come to pass because... Reasons.
 
snatchr

snatchr

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Snatchr
ForceStealer said:
Well said. It's fine to be on board with the ending stuff. But I have no idea why some people present the options as EITHER 100%-exact-why-don't-you-just-play-the-original-re-creation, OR killing-fate-dementors-to-break-the-shackles-of-90s-storytelling-and-spread-its-one-black-wing-into-bold-meta-insanity. Especially when, as you just said, the first 90% of the game is almost exactly the middle ground of fleshing-out/faithfulness people said they wanted.
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I wonder if people were out there twiddling their thumbs for two decades thinking "gee I hope they remake FF7 some day, except when they do they should just tell a completely different story :)"

I aint buying it. :awesome:
 
Odysseus

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
Makoeyes987 said:
But I think the fact the Whispers make a correction that could lead into making their own work more difficult speaks to a limit of their power and perspective.

There's just no way it makes sense to keep making corrections and compromises to a general event, even to the point you have to correct your corrections. That shows that it's not so much destiny, as a desire to see something come to pass because... Reasons.
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Well it is pretty clear by chapter 17 and 18 the Planet was losing its grip on the situation and starting to panic. The whispers aren't as good at their jobs as the Planet would probably like.
 
snatchr

snatchr

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Snatchr
The planet is pretty terrible at its job. I'm still not sure how most of avalanche became aware of the whispers when none of them came into contact with Aerith, or why they attacked in a hurricane of angry sperms to take out Jessie instead of just givin her a shove when nobody was looking or something.
 
Theozilla

Theozilla

Kaiju Member
snatchr said:
The planet is pretty terrible at its job. I'm still not sure how most of avalanche became aware of the whispers when none of them came into contact with Aerith, or why they attacked in a hurricane of angry sperms to take out Jessie instead of just givin her a shove when nobody was looking or something.
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The implication from the Ultimania IIRC (if you don't already have it because special individual reasons) is that Whisper-sight spreads upon contact/interaction between individuals who gain it. So Cloud got it from Aerith and thus gave it to rest of the Avalanche members and so on.
 
Sasseli

Sasseli

~*:Newbie:*~
Wol said:
Wall of Sperms.
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That killed me!

What I ask myself is: do they really need to be there? There hasn't been a need for them until now, that's why they seem so out of place for me. Has there ever been any hint that entities like that could possibly exist in the world of FFVII or do I just have to come to terms with them being a whole new invention? If so, I hope we'll get more information on them in the future parts. Something that makes them and everything they changed a bit more plausible and believable to me.
I'm open to possibly liking them in the future, just right now, they annoy the heck out of me.
 
oty

oty

Pro Adventurer
AKA
ex-soldier boy
Sasseli said:
That killed me!

What I ask myself is: do they really need to be there? There hasn't been a need for them until now, that's why they seem so out of place for me. Has there ever been any hint that entities like that could possibly exist in the world of FFVII or do I just have to come to terms with them being a whole new invention? If so, I hope we'll get more information on them in the future parts. Something that makes them and everything they changed a bit more plausible and believable to me.
I'm open to possibly liking them in the future, just right now, they annoy the heck out of me.
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The ultimania states them as one of the mysteries for the next installments, so pretty sure there will be more light on the subject. However, if you want to find the reason of their addition, you would have to ask the development team yourself. And it probably will have plenty. I mean, discussion amd theorising is clearly one of their objectives and it has been working a lot. They are also a device for the metanarrative of a "Remake", and so forth. We are not Square One anymore, but there is a lot of ground to cover
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
I've just got the platinum - my last trophy was completing the game on Hard Mode, I'd gotten to chapter 16 a week and a half ago and haven't played the game since then (until tonight).

Second proper time through it and I got to enjoy it a bit more because I wasn't stabbed in the stomach, paralysed with horror and rage at what they'd done to my story this time (because I knew it was coming, obviously). Visually enjoyable, aside from the whispers. That's some 2D weirdness in the sky so it is.

That said, this run really solidified to me how garbage the harbinger boss fight is. It interrupts you every minute while you're in the middle of fighting so it can show you some on-the-nose attack name being cast by the big shoehorn monster, "CORRECTION" etc. Dude I'm already suffering here, I forgot to block and now I'm being thrown up and down this floating bit of road. I was JUST about to hit it with counterstance but no, you have to pan away for no reason and interrupt my shit. Intensely frustrating.

Anyway I didn't really have an major problems. I died to Whisper Bahambababamamab once and had to start again which isn't ideal, but hey ho. Then I got Cloud, Tifa and Barret on the Sephiroth fight which was a disaster because Healing-Magnify was on Aerith, so I started the fight again and swapped out their materia.

Yay plat!
 
Kain424

Kain424

Old Man in the Room
Makoeyes987 said:
But I think the fact the Whispers make a correction that could lead into making their own work more difficult speaks to a limit of their power and perspective.

There's just no way it makes sense to keep making corrections and compromises to a general event, even to the point you have to correct your corrections. That shows that it's not so much destiny, as a desire to see something come to pass because... Reasons.
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That's just it, isn't it? The Whispers are an incredibly sloppy addition. If, in fact, they exist to "maintain the plot of the original game", they are wildly inconsistent to a bewildering degree. Going out of their way to change the plot of the original, in order to make some parts fit.

As a narrative choice... it's just bad. Especially when you consider they're already changing the plot to make it a modern game. It just muddies the waters. It takes the simplest part of the story (the set-up) and needlessly complicates it.
 
oty

oty

Pro Adventurer
AKA
ex-soldier boy
Kain424 said:
That's just it, isn't it? The Whispers are an incredibly sloppy addition. If, in fact, they exist to "maintain the plot of the original game", they are wildly inconsistent to a bewildering degree. Going out of their way to change the plot of the original, in order to make some parts fit.

As a narrative choice... it's just bad. Especially when you consider they're already changing the plot to make it a modern game. It just muddies the waters. It takes the simplest part of the story (the set-up) and needlessly complicates it.
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The Whispers are one of the four mysteries the Ultimania itself chose to put it front center. We are far from understanding them. Right now the Ultimania gave us a strict categorization of every scene they appear, and that clarified a lot. But, there are still many ways to go.
 
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