SPOILERS FFVII Remake Open Spoiler Discussion Thread

[Obsidian Fire]

No one knows... It does someting we think, but we're honestly not even sure of that.

 

[Clement Rage]

It's her new limit break, Calming Poke.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

So you know how something happens to people when Aerith touches them? It doesn't happen every time she touches them, but only, it seems, when she wills it to happen. It happened with Marlene and also with Red XIII; those are the instances I can remember. Whatever happens, it calms them down.

So my question is this: is there any WoG or fandom consensus on what happens when she does this? Is she using Cetra powers to calm them? Is she sharing a piece of arcane knowledge with them? Is she showing them a glimpse of the future, something that reassures and encourages them?

Any ideas?

All of those interpretations of what Aerith does have been made. Like nearly everything else in the Remake, no one really knows what is going on and no answers are provided by the game. So it's a huge pile of unanswered questions with no idea of when they'll be answered.

I'm not sure how soon it'll be finished, but you can bet yourself that there's a good part of that information that's insanely thoroughly dissected in my latest tl;dr.



X

 

[cold_spirit]

This got me thinking about another subject (that maybe has been pointed out before):

We know Aerith passed the ability to see the Whispers to Cloud when they first met. Then Cloud passed the ability to the rest of Avalanche. Reno and Rude don't acknowledge the Whispers in Chapter 12 and Tseng definitely doesn't see them in Chapter 18. However, the Turks have known and visited Aerith her whole life. This implies to me that whatever event caused Aerith to start seeing the Whispers must have happened relatively close to the start of the game. She probably didn't see them as a child at least.

@X-SOLDIER, does your analysis include thoughts on Aerith's "Follow them. The yellow flowers" line? Been mulling that over myself.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

What is very weird is that Rufus sees the Whispers almost as soon as he shows up and he's nowhere near Aerith or even Cloud for the entire game. Or at the very least, the only pace Cloud could do... something... to Rufus to trigger whatever it is would have to happen in their fight (can't remember if Rufus sees the Whispers before or after that fight, someone check?). Problem being, Cloud has interacted with way more people on a lot more constant basis than he does with Rufus and no one sees anything.

So there's potentially some unknown way for people to see the Whispers that has nothing to do with Aerith. If you think it's something to do with anything that happened in the future effecting the past in some way though, Rufus had Geostigma and interacted with Kadaj and Jenova's head a lot back in ACC. So the future impacting the past in certain ways might also be a factor?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I don't think Cloud passes the ability to see the Whispers on to Avalanche. He's not a touchy person; he hasn't touched any of them except Jessie. At that point I don't think he's even touched Tifa... although he does hand her that flower.....

Can Hojo see the Whispers? I can't remember. Sometimes the Whispers do things to people, and the people experience the effect but can't see what's causing it.

Someone suggested that an individual can see the Whispers when the Whispers need him/her to see them. This theory has the merit of simplicity, but doesn't explain the effect of Aerith's touch on Cloud.

 

[Clement Rage]

I thought it was that you could see the Whispers when they acted on you. They keep Aeris around so Cloud can meet her.

Hojo does say 'where are you taking me' IIRC when they sweep him off his feet so he can't spoil the plot, so he saw something.

Rufus is the puzzling one. I have no explanation for why they swarm the Shinra building after all our leads and Sephiroth have left.

 

[ForceStealer]

When watching the scene, I didn't gather that Hojo could actually see what was moving him. On rewatch, I'm not sure.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

@X-SOLDIER, does your analysis include thoughts on Aerith's "Follow them. The yellow flowers" line? Been mulling that over myself.

This it most certainly does, and in exceeding amounts of detail as well.



X

 

[cold_spirit]

I don't think Cloud passes the ability to see the Whispers on to Avalanche. He's not a touchy person; he hasn't touched any of them except Jessie. At that point I don't think he's even touched Tifa... although he does hand her that flower.....

Good point about the flower.

I thought it was that you could see the Whispers when they acted on you. They keep Aeris around so Cloud can meet her.

Nomura states that characters see the Whispers when "they come into contact with Aerith." Maybe being around Aerith's flower is what allows Avalanche to see the Whispers?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1285609675145322498

 

[Clement Rage]

Rufus never met Aerith though?

Edit: Feelers is an interesting translation. That implies to me that there is some kind of entity behind the whispers acting through them.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

No he didn't... and he's setill definetly seeing and reacting to the Whispers. Very weird.

 

[Ite]

Rufus could have met Aeris, they’re about the same age and she grew up in Shinra HQ until the age of like 7.

Don’t know if she was a time lord at that point though, or if that starts in Chapter 1.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

If it starts in Chapter 1, then no one in Avalanche aside from Cloud has come into contact with Aerith.
I think Nomura invented the Whispers first because he thought they'd look cool and be an interesting additional element, and now he's figuring out how to justify them.

 

[Clement Rage]

'They try to keep fate on track' is justification enough, I think? Contact with Aeris alone can't be it, because Tseng can't
see them (unless he is randomly trolling Rufus, I suppose?)

It's theoretically possible for Rufus to meet Aeris, but I can't really see it happening outside a shipping fic. Shinra HQ is big, and you don't just wander into the research labs.

 

[Rydeen]

It seems like Rufus never knew all that much about Hojo's research either. For example, the fact that Sephiroth was not an Ancient (or maybe he was blowing smoke). That's from the OG continuity though.. I suppose they could have met, but that doesn't solve the Tseng issue.

I'd always figured Rufus could see them because he always had a strong hand in fate. And everyone who interacts with Aerith at length would inevitably also become woven into fate or the subversion thereof.

Pretty sure they'd implied a few months ago that people don't necessarily have to be in contact with Aerith to see them

Rufus could have met Aeris, they’re about the same age

He's apparently 30 now :/

 

[Theozilla]

The Ultimania also said “special individuals” in addition to contact-ish adjacent interaction to Aerith is what determines the ability to see Whispers IIRC. So the “special individuals” category probably covers plenty of other instances.

 

[Cat on Mars]

The Ultimania also said “special individuals” in addition to contact-ish adjacent interaction to Aerith is what determines the ability to see Whispers IIRC. So the “special individuals” category probably covers plenty of other instances.

How plot convenient!

...so there's no real reason yet.

 

[Wol]

How plot convenient!

...so there's no real reason yet.

and there might not be ever, at least a good one.

 

[ultima786]

I'm not sure how soon it'll be finished, but you can bet yourself that there's a good part of that information that's insanely thoroughly dissected in my latest tl;dr.



X

Where is this?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Where is this?

Still X's mindscape, mostly.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Where is this?

Still X's mindscape, mostly.

In unpublished draft form, but getting much closer to being available outside of my mindscape. I'll make a post here once I get it properly complete.



X

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

This is less of a Scarlet question than a question about Shinra's business model.

On one of the loading screens it says Scarlett was promoted to the Board because her weapons division made such a big profit for Shinra during the war. My question is, since this is presumably the war with Wutai that we're talking about, and since that war was between Shinra and Wutai, to whom exactly was Scarlett's weapons division selling arms in order to make this huge profit?

I mean I suppose Shinra could be selling arms to itself and just doing some fancy accountancy moving sums from one departmental spreadsheet to another, but do we think that's what the loading screen means? Were they selling weapons to Wutai? I wouldn't put it past them.

I'm asking this question here because I know you guys are really good at coming up with plausible explanations for lines that, at first glance, seem to be throwaway nonsense.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Profits aren't strictly tied to sales. Profits are financial gains from expenditures which exceed costs of production, manufacturing, etc.

Considering this was from war, it makes perfect sense that thanks to Scarlet's Weapons manufacturing division, Shinra was able to far exceed their costs of manufacturing and labor through conquest and acquisition of territory and resources. Meaning the costs that were invested in weapon development were exceeded by profit from the victory they earned. Shinra sucessfully conquered Wutai and by definition the world, thereby justifying her division and executive position.

It's very likely they did sell weapons, however. Who knows what private mercenaries or weaponry sales were made to other towns/cities along that time. It's not like Shinra has competition.

 

[kathy202]

Yeah, I imagined they might have sold some to the Shinra-friendly towns who had allowed them to build Mako reactors locally. You could say it's on Shinra to defend their property, but Shinra could also say that it's property that benefits the local population or some other rubbish excuse.

But random towns in the world paying "taxes" likely wouldn't be a huge source of revenue, so yeah, I'm inclined to agree with Makoeyes about the profits being in terms of what they gained from their conquests.