Hey everyone! So, I did skim through these 87 pages of thread
So... I finished the game yesterday, and my first reaction was
....Qu'est-ce que fuck?
Ok, this is going to be a long poast, I hope you'll indulge me. To be honest, I was not thrilled by the ending sequence at first, but chatting with my spouse and browsing this thread has given me a bit more coherence to my thoughts, and right now my thoughts are
well... it's not bad... maybe?
- Ok, so for the battles and visuals, I was overall fine with it. It felt more like fanservice than anything else, but ok.
My own interpretations of the ending (with a lot of redundancy with stuff already posted here):
- During the Singularity, you get a glimpse of mingled timelines.
- I'm under the impression FF7R is an alternate timeline from the OG, which, with reference to the initial Compilation material, finds its roots at the end of AC. Namely I recall the Kadaj / Rufus exchange:
Kadaj said:
As long as you exist, the nightmares will come again and again
Rufus said:
The Lifestream courses through our world… ever flowing between the edge of life and death. If that cycle is the very truth of life, then history, too, will inevitably repeat itself. Go on, bring your Jenovas and your Sephiroths. Cause trouble till your heart’s content. We’ll do as life mandates, we promise. We won’t let you win and we’ll stop you.
- My assumption is that Sephiroth only means of breaking this cycle is to breach an alternate timeline. So he needs to 'defy fate' to get out of the loops.
- The Whispers of fate spend the entire time rigging the plot of FF7R so that it unfolds like the OG. Aerith seems to have some foresight into future events, and seems to be aware of her fated demise.
- When there is the mention 'this is how it would look like if we fail to defeat the Whispers', actually it looks like the OG events. The characters interpret it as a 'bad ending', but I think they're mislead. In fact, having the characters kill the Whispers is playing right into Sephiroth's hand, IMO.
- I'm also suspecting that defeating the Whispers could have been Aerith's wish, for a different reason. Defeating the Whispers gives the possibility for a future where she's not fated to be killed by Sephiroth, so it could represent a path where she could save the day
and survive... which is also the wish of many fans (not mine) clinging on the hope that Aerith will survive this time because the story gets remade.
- From a meta perspective, the Whispers of fate can be viewed as a large portion of the fandom who wanted to preserve the OG plotline 'as it was meant to be', and killing them represents Square deciding to be liberated from these shackles. The 'journey to an unknown tomorrow' is telling me 'all bets are off' from here on out.
- The big question is: even though all bets are off,
what is going to change and
how? Even though Aerith has now a chance of not getting killed doesn't mean she won't...
- Now I'm under the impression that it's actually Aerith that could lead the chase behind Sephiroth, not Cloud. Which could make the Kalm flashback unnecessary from a narrative standpoint. Why would we not want the Kalm flashback? Because likewise, there's little incentive for Tifa to ask Cloud about the Nibelheim events before the Northern Crater confrontation...
- I personally got confused by Zack's appearances, and yet do not understand completely what it described. Namely, one scene looked like an alternate timeline where Zack did manage to kill all the troopers that were after him. He looks astonished that he's still alive, like "I can't belive I managed to pull that off, Cloud check this out!!' My own interpretation so far is that we got a glimpse of an alternate timeline where he did survive, because we're still in the Singularity. To me he didn't look like "3 seconds before he's shot to death by remaining MPs", but that's how I viewed it. However, we can't have Cloud in the timeline of FF7R being where he is without having Zack dead in the same timeline.
- The previous point led me to think...
so then all fanfics are cannon, now? (even the ones shipping Fenrir with the Shinra helicopter?)
- However, then I'm not sure what the last scenes showing Midgar under the rain of glitter were actually about. Same timeline? Another? Who among Biggs/Wedge/Jessie survived for the same timeline as FF7R? No idea. It'd feel
very cheap if all 3 survived, IMO.
My three main comments overall:
- Even though I can make my peace with this ending, I didn't really
like it. I took it mostly from the meta-representation of Square liberating themselves from the 'fated story' as they remake it. Square adding new elements doesn't bother me at all as long as they were coherent with the original story - personally I really did enjoy chapters 4 and 13, which were completely new content with respect to the OG. What bothered me was the introduction of a Plot Device element (Whispers) to forcefully integrate this notion as a
part of the remake. In my personal opinion, Square could have just changed things right of the bat, and assumed these changes right away, like Peter Jackson made deviations from the books when he made LoTR. Adding the Whispers made things convoluted for the sake of being convoluted.
- the 'journey into the
unknown tomorrow' is at the same time interesting, full of new possibilities and terrifying for us fans. I personally compare it as that moment in our lives where for the first time, we get out of our parents' home and start to live by ourselves. That first step into the unknown is an experience that can become great or terrible, and you have no idea beforehand how it's going to turn out.
- Even though I have lukewarm feelings about the Whispers and the Ending, it will not take away all the very positive feels I have for this game. To me, the most essential part was to be given the opportunity to reconnect with well-loved characters, and they
nailed them. The remake versions of Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and Barret are my favorite of all FF7 material, even over the OG (same goes to secondary characters - and the brief time with Red XIII was awesome too!). I loved how they remained faithful to the original but expanded on them, they're more rounded now. So, to me, if the next game is to venture into the unknown with the same crew, sign me up
