I've always kind of wondered about this and the compilation has amplified it. Does everyone on Gaia know about the Lifestream? I mean, I suppose after FF7 when everyone WATCHED it stop Meteor I'm sure they do, but before that. This may seem like a dumb question but this is where it stems from:
1) Besides Cosmo Canyon, did any NPCs ever make any mention of it? It kind of made it out to be the sole place for the 'Study of Planet Life'. And if everyone already knew, why would Bugenhagen have to explain it to AVALANCHE?
2)Churches. There are churches (at least) in Sector 5 and Kalm. What do they worship? The Lifestream? Ancestors? Or do they believe in a different kind of afterlife? The latter is supported by this set of dialogue in the game:
3) Elmyra: "...That child loved to talk. She used to talk to me about everything. She told me she escaped from some kind of research laboratory somewhere. And that her mother had already returned to the planet, so she wasn't lonely... and many other things."
Barret: "Returned to the planet?"
Elmyra: "I didn’t know what she meant. I asked her if she meant a star in the sky, but she assured me that she meant the planet..."
That line certainly seems to imply that Elmyra held a different belief of what happens after death, now that could be because she's living in the slums a poor and likely uneducated woman. Everyone knows about Mako, but the game implies that people don't know what it is apart from a viable power source. Even in Dirge of Cerberus, the flashback of Shalua and Shelke at their mother's grave. Shalua says their mom said that things move in a cycle, whether that's a simple explanation for kids or simply not knowing about the Lifestream is another matter.
I'm not quite sure the people in Shinra know either. I'm sure they've heard it, but believing it is something else altogether. But in Advent Children Rufus certainly seems to know.
One thing that the Compilation has been doing (and which I have not been particularly fond of), is having people 'return to the planet' almost instantaneously at their death. It makes sense when Sephiroth did because they were fighting IN the Lifestream (or even just in Cloud's head, so anything could happen). The remnants were being purified/destroyed by Great Gospel, so that works too. But Grimoire Valentine, Hollander, Lazard, and perhaps even Zack disintegrate into Spirit Energy very soon after dying, if that's really how things happen, than everyone must have known about the Lifestream, no?
...Sorry about the essay, what do you guys think?
1) Besides Cosmo Canyon, did any NPCs ever make any mention of it? It kind of made it out to be the sole place for the 'Study of Planet Life'. And if everyone already knew, why would Bugenhagen have to explain it to AVALANCHE?
2)Churches. There are churches (at least) in Sector 5 and Kalm. What do they worship? The Lifestream? Ancestors? Or do they believe in a different kind of afterlife? The latter is supported by this set of dialogue in the game:
3) Elmyra: "...That child loved to talk. She used to talk to me about everything. She told me she escaped from some kind of research laboratory somewhere. And that her mother had already returned to the planet, so she wasn't lonely... and many other things."
Barret: "Returned to the planet?"
Elmyra: "I didn’t know what she meant. I asked her if she meant a star in the sky, but she assured me that she meant the planet..."
That line certainly seems to imply that Elmyra held a different belief of what happens after death, now that could be because she's living in the slums a poor and likely uneducated woman. Everyone knows about Mako, but the game implies that people don't know what it is apart from a viable power source. Even in Dirge of Cerberus, the flashback of Shalua and Shelke at their mother's grave. Shalua says their mom said that things move in a cycle, whether that's a simple explanation for kids or simply not knowing about the Lifestream is another matter.
I'm not quite sure the people in Shinra know either. I'm sure they've heard it, but believing it is something else altogether. But in Advent Children Rufus certainly seems to know.
One thing that the Compilation has been doing (and which I have not been particularly fond of), is having people 'return to the planet' almost instantaneously at their death. It makes sense when Sephiroth did because they were fighting IN the Lifestream (or even just in Cloud's head, so anything could happen). The remnants were being purified/destroyed by Great Gospel, so that works too. But Grimoire Valentine, Hollander, Lazard, and perhaps even Zack disintegrate into Spirit Energy very soon after dying, if that's really how things happen, than everyone must have known about the Lifestream, no?
...Sorry about the essay, what do you guys think?
