Gillian and Lucrecia - Jenova Cell Affects: * SPOILERS re: Crisis Core *

[Masamune]

Well then Gtfo of a Japanese RPG, Masamune

Try again.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Crisis Core is still tragic, and I don't think you can say any of its tragedy, grit, cruelty, and sense of death and loss is really taken away just because Zack has a few moments before he expires. You can't say it alleviates or negates all of the violence and death of the scene. Yeah, it's different and not the same, but you're portraying it as if the entire game's meaning and point have been somehow invalidated. Death scenes are not that uncommon in media, and there is also importance in conveying emotion and tragedy in a scenario's presentation. Neither scenario is better than the other. They're just two different techniques that convey two important themes and flavors to the story. They're both equally valid.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

No one's looking at it that black and white. We're just saying that it takes a little away from the scene is all.

Geez, Mako!

 

[Makoeyes987]

YOU ARE TOO, SHUDDUP!

 

[Masamune]

I still prefer the original version because it was grim and punchy; but I can understand with Zack being the main character in CC they wanted to dramatize it a little more. But it really felt like they were milking it when he started floating to heaven and the pop music kicked in.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Sorry we're not all cold, and punchy like Raoh here, Masamune.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Well to be fair, that what it is when a soldier is shot to death and dies on the scene. Grim and paunchy. Not all J-pop like and shit.

 

[Masamune]

Sorry we're not all cold, and punchy like Raoh here, Masamune.

 

[Makoeyes987]

...Holy fucking shit, the fact you have a Raoh image of that is hilarious, surprising, and kinda scary.

@Notorious M.O.G.

Out of body experiences and ascensions into heaven beyond death are by their very nature unrealistic and all. I mean, when you include that in a fictional work, you're always doing it to give the reader a cathartic emotional release and semblance of peace and resolution, instead of just leaving the corpse of their character to rot.

 

[Channy]

Jumping in randomly, I agree the ending to CC was rather random and dragged. If they had maybe left it as "You are my living Legacy.. My honour, my dreams, they're yours now..."

And if not that, take out the floating into heaven part. The hand reach scene is symbolic an shit to the rest of the compilation... but it just looked so bad and Zack looked awkward to me. =/ And take out that God awful song.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Out of body experiences and ascensions into heaven beyond death are by their very nature unrealistic and all. I mean, when you include that in a fictional work, you're always doing it to give the reader a cathartic emotional release and semblance of peace and resolution, instead of just leaving the corpse of their character to rot.

I liked the way they did (and the reasoning behind) Aeris' death more.

 

[Makoeyes987]

It makes sense in FFVII's scenario since Aerith's a secondary character and we're not following the story from Aerith's point of view for the entire game. We're to see her loss, as the loss of a friend we just met and were unable to say goodbye to.

I'm sorry, but it'd be kind of a dick move to suddenly end the game with Zack facing down a barrel and then getting shot, with the screen going black and all we see is Cloud going towards Zack's corpse, screaming.

I just would not like a literary kick to the balls like that. Zack's death is not the same as Aerith's. Cathartic release, emotion, and a loving goodbye are nice in this case, since we've followed Zack and for all intents and purposes, we ARE Zack in that scenario. We're experiencing everything from his perspective and an emotional and touching delivery of his final moments are very nice before he's snatched away from us permanently.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

It's subjective, I'd say. There are many works where the main character just dies and that's the end of it. All Quiet on the Western Front is particularly powerful with it.

Nothing fruity about that shit; that ending leaves an impact when you put down the book.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Yeah, it is. And I can appreciate and understand your view point.

...But I'd still find it a dick move to be shot in the face and that be the end of it.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Have you ever read the book?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Oh yes I have, and it was very tragic, yet well written.

I haven't read that book in years though. It's been a good 7 years I'd say since I last read it, to be honest.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Yeah, it's been a while since I read it too, and I still remember. We get all close and comfortable with this character, and at the very end, BAM, he's dead. That's it. Nothing else. The end. That's how war and death is, and to me, that's what makes it all the more powerful.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Yeah, that's definitely a very powerful message to send regarding the reality of war, and death. That it happens in an instant and in a book like "All's Quiet on the Western Front," you see the truth and reality of what war and fighting really is. I mean, that was one of the things that truly..for lack of a better word, frightened me regarding death. How you can just be walking around living, and then all of a sudden something like an air raid can occur and you're just dead from metal sharpnel hitting you in the temple. Just like that. No goodbye, no control, nothing. Your mortality is taken out of your hands. I mean, that's a very powerful message to convey on the fragility of life.

While a message like that would work and be very powerful in CC, I don't think that automatically diminishes the drama and emotion they conveyed in Zack's death. I don't get that grit and message from "All's Quiet on the Western Front" quite as clearly as I do here, but I'm still reminded of mortality and how life can be so easily taken away. Because of one fucker filipping his lid, Zack's life was turned upside down and he died. His fate was sealed.

However, we're allowed to see Zack's feelings and thoughts in this portrayal and while we lack the reality and suddenness of death, we get the emotionality and sense of sadness and regret that Zack feels and are able to empathize and in a sense let go peacefully because of our sense of being there with Zack and seeing him have a few last words before he has to leave the world.

 

[Gale]

As much as I prefer Zack dying without fanfare, I can understand what Mako's getting at. Games, ultimately, are about entertainment, and SE has an audience to worry about. While thematically, as a story, I find Zack dying without any sort of sentimentalism the more appealing of choices. It leaves Cloud truly alone and highlights the nobility of Zack's character: a man who selflessly defended his best friend to the point of being brutally murdered. Cloud is left alone, this person who is like his older brother dead, and it's terrible.

But that works for Cloud's story, and that's a hard pill to swollow for a video game plot. A player does need a sense of accomplishment, and as for how excessive I found the CC ending, it left with the sense that Zack had become a hero, and even if he died nothing could change that.

It's really a matter of tone, and for all I disliked about CC's ending, "Would you say, that I became a hero?" was a closing line I enjoyed.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Oh yeah, the scene and its effect is still there. Zack is still, quite dead when it's all said and done. But the delivery can be a very powerful thing. Sudden death is frighteningly effective at inspiring emotion. It's not like video games haven't done it before! Aeris dying the way she did impacted so many people for a good reason; it came out of nowhere and it left just as quickly.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Yeah, Gale raised another good point. That's very true too. Good one

And yeah, you're right too M.O.G.

Presentation and delivery is everything but I think in the end we are definitely given a sense of emotion and tragedy at Zack's death. It's not like how in Dragonball when you die, it's not so much as dying as..passing into another dimension.

 

[Ravynne Nevyrmore]

Ohay gais remember the topic?

Also, then this makes me think of what Lucrecia meant when she spoke to Vincent about what he was seeing was really just a projection of her, as her real body died/rotted/something away long ago.

What? Lucrecia says, "the real me cumbled away long ago." She says nothing about her body. She speaks of the real 'her.' Even in Japanese she seems to make no reference to her body, at least according to Souya's translations. She is speaking of her mental state.

Some materials (Ultimania Omega) talk about Lucrecia undergoing some kind of physical change because of the experiments, so maybe that had something to do with it. Some kind of special combination of experiences and you'll be more death-proof.

Well I can't read it in Japanese like you can, but Ryu Kaze's translation says this:

A woman who worked in the Shin-Ra Company's Science Department. As a member of
the Jenova Project, she served as assistant to professor Gast. She was
beautiful and intelligent, but after stepping on the road to being Hojo's
lover, she would end up offering the body of her own unborn child for
experimentation. The child who was given Jenova cells -- Sephiroth was born;
and with the effects of the experiment causing irregularities in her own body,
she removed herself from the public eye. She was the woman who was the object
of Vincent's yearning, and the reason he began to hold himself accountable of
"sin."

It caused "irregularities" in her own body. Obviously. She's harder to kill and hasn't aged in 30 years. I'd say that's pretty irregular. It doesn't hint that anything might have happened to her that didn't happen to Gillian also.

Perhaps that's the physical manifestation that the Ultimania Omega was speaking about?

Where does the Ultimania speak of this "physical manifestation"?

Perhaps it did to her what it did to (some of?) the Cetra thousands of years ago, mutated them, made them monsters. It would also explain some other things - but they are speculation, only: why she'd keep herself in a crystal, and perhaps she's only projecting the image of a human body in a crystal to the visible eyes that come across her.

Lucrecia does not have powers of projecting images. That's absurd. Jenova has powers of making you look like something, which is *probably* the cause of her youthful appearance, but it actually physically changes you into that thing that you look like. Nothing ever hints that it's just an optical illusion.

Maybe the fact that Sephiroth was injected with the cells directly while still in the womb, instead of having what you call a filter explains the degeneration process.

Yes, it does. This idea you've come up with is called the premise of Crisis Core. As much was stated plainly. There was never any confusion.

Except that the term is "degrade," not "degenerate."

Maybe, but don't forget that she's a scientist, she should know several ways of committing suicide...

And would have had the means, also. Drugs and such. But she still may not have "tried" hard enough. Maybe on some level she didn't "really" want to die.


I'd say the only real plot hole is why Lucrecia hasn't aged and Gillian did. But maybe Jenova's powers of illusion can pick and choose what they display based on the subject's subconscious, I don't know.

 

[Makoeyes987]

No, we really don't, since it was answered a few pages ago

 

[Masamune]

As much as I prefer Zack dying without fanfare, I can understand what Mako's getting at. Games, ultimately, are about entertainment, and SE has an audience to worry about. While thematically, as a story, I find Zack dying without any sort of sentimentalism the more appealing of choices. It leaves Cloud truly alone and highlights the nobility of Zack's character: a man who selflessly defended his best friend to the point of being brutally murdered. Cloud is left alone, this person who is like his older brother dead, and it's terrible.

But that works for Cloud's story, and that's a hard pill to swollow for a video game plot. A player does need a sense of accomplishment, and as for how excessive I found the CC ending, it left with the sense that Zack had become a hero, and even if he died nothing could change that.

It's really a matter of tone, and for all I disliked about CC's ending, "Would you say, that I became a hero?" was a closing line I enjoyed.

Those points you underlined for Cloud's story are equally as pertinent for Zack. The emotion of the story comes from Zack conferring his life and dreams onto Cloud. There doesn't need to be a slush puppy ending to capture that.

 

[Gale]

Those points you underlined for Cloud's story are equally as pertinent for Zack. The emotion of the story comes from Zack conferring his life and dreams onto Cloud. There doesn't need to be a slush puppy ending to capture that.

I agree, but I also can see why it's possible SE decided that they could appeal to a larger number by, I dunno, fluffing up the ending a bit. I prefer something more realistic and visceral, but I can imagine the cries of other fans if they found the ending of Crisis Core too depressing or something like that.

Not that I don't think doing that is a braver choice, but I can understand why someone might choose not to follow that path.