How long does it take before a body becomes lifestream particles?

[Gym Leader Devil]

And Tres, haven't you heard? CAIT SITH BREAKS FICTION

Dood, don't go winding Tres up or anything now

 

[Ashiel]

DEATH SPOILERS!

Anyway, it's exactly what the question asks, just curious on what you think about this, and what are the circumstances. Example, Aerith's body stayed there for a while and I assumed that she became particles when she was laid on the lake (I think sinking to the deep water is symbolic and not to be taken as an animation error). Or was it Cloud's awesome timing? Zack and Lazard took a few minutes I guess, and Kadaj went to the Lifestream when he's still pretty much alive.

What do you think?

I just finished replaying through Cosmo Canyon, and after hearing it from the word of grandpa floats, the body doesn't. Quite literally, according to the actual FF VII game, your body does not dissolve into the Lifestream. Your soul does. Your soul enters the Lifestream; while your body returns to the planet in a more traditional sense.

This means that their disintegration is either purely artistic liberty, or it implies something far more fascinating, which I would like to put forth here. According to Bungenhagen, it is your soul and spirit energy that become part of the Lifestream, not your body. Thus, if your body was to dissolve into the Lifestream upon your death, you have thus somehow transcended physical existence and have attained a state where your body and soul have merged. In many ways, you would be akin to Outsiders in Dungeons & Dragons 3.x who exist as a whole being (not a body + a soul but a complete self; though admittedly it's something of a weakness in D&D because it makes resurrecting them a pain).

Perhaps the process that those in SOLDIER undergo, such as being bathed in Mako (literally spiritual energy) causes a change in their bodies, causing their bodies to become spiritual. However, you actually fight members of SOLDIER during the game and nothing suggests killing them is different from killing any other character. Meanwhile, the research notes in the Shinra Mansion basement specifically note that Zack has no reactions to the mako and Jenova cells; which would make it a bit strange if he suddenly burst into spirit-bubbles upon his death. Especially when in the actual original game, he dies in a more...normal fashion. He falls down and doesn't get back up 'cause somebody popped some caps in him.

So, based on what I have just now re-viewed from the original game, where Bungenhagen explains the process of life, death, and the lifestream, peoples bodies do not burst into bubbles of light and rejoin the life stream. It's primarily a spiritual thing. Thus, I would chalk it up to artistic flavor; and it explains why other people such as President Shinra and Aeris didn't disintegrate upon their deaths because it just doesn't work that way.

 

[Torrie]

I just finished replaying through Cosmo Canyon, and after hearing it from the word of grandpa floats, the body doesn't. Quite literally, according to the actual FF VII game, your body does not dissolve into the Lifestream. Your soul does. Your soul enters the Lifestream; while your body returns to the planet in a more traditional sense.

I assume this is how it had been initially designed in the OG. I can remember a tiny graveyard in Gongaga, for instance, and the fact that there were numerous dead bodies in the Shinra HQ, on the ship to Costa Del Sol, and in Gold Saucer. The only person who dissolved in the OG was Sephiroth, but to be honest, I'm not so sure if it was him swirling around Cloud in red and green particles, or if it was the actual Lifestream coming out already.

The Compilation sort of retconned it, because in AC/C we have Kadaj & Co evaporating into Lifestream, but, for the record, Geostigma was dissolving in the same cinematic way... Can we claim that it was absorbed by Lifestream too? CC gave us Lazard, Hollander, all those copies walking around, and, finally, Zack. The latter's ascension is shown more metaphorically, but I still believe he dissolved unless his body was taken away as Tetsujin suggested earlier, or was left there to rot. I don't think Cloud would have managed to look at his best friend's remains if he had returned to the cliff and found him there. Oh, by the way, did anyone dissolve in DC?

Anyway, the Remake retconned it even further, because everyone dissolves there. All monsters, all troopers, all Soldiers... literally, everyone. The only significant character who has died so far is President Shinra. We don't see his body in the hall after the fight with Jenova, which means what? Exactly. He must have dissolved too. Now, there's a graveyard in the Sector 5 slums, but it serves as a battle arena and doesn't look like a graveyard at all. So maybe it simply carries some sentimental value for the locals, I have no clue.

I don't really want to come to any conclusions. I only wish we could die the same way here. Just imagine... No actual graveyards, no ceremonies, no mourning... Nothing of the kind. It would be a great world to live and to die in.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I agree!

 

[Fade]

At a certain point, you do have to remind yourself it's a video game. Most of the characters we see fade on death are those with something kooky about them. Most other occasions occur in gameplay and are, therefore, pretty dubious as a point of reference. Final Fantasy X, for instance, takes pains to not have living human opponents fade into pyreflies when they die, but their bodies still vanish after falling to the ground in a typical combat encounter.

In fact, FFX is probably the best point of reference here, given that the same spiritual mechanics are at play. The kooky (e.g. monsters, aeons, unsent) dissolve into pyreflies after death. Everyone else just...dies. And their pyreflies eventually rise from their corpses--though I expect that part of the process is usually invisible in VII's world.

To "port" that back into the Remake, we can probably take enemies dissolving in combat etc. as a sort of visual short-hand for that same process. But yeah, Cloud and co are probably still leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

My understanding was that the game removes "dead" assets to allow for freedom of movement and a clear playing field. The fade-out of corpses shouldn't be taken literally. When the game requires dead bodies to hang around (eg. President Shinra, the trail of blood in the Shinra Building, the victims of Dyne's random shooting incident in Gold Saucer, even Aerith) they hang around.

And the fact that Wall Market now sells Monster Burgers suggests that even monsters don't dissolve in a haze of mako. If that was what really happened to animals when they died, everybody in Midgar would have to be vegetarian.

 

[Torrie]

And the fact that Wall Market now sells Monster Burgers suggests that even monsters don't dissolve in a haze of mako. If that was what really happened to animals when they died, everybody in Midgar would have to be vegetarian.

Damn, that's a great point

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

My understanding was that the game removes "dead" assets to allow for freedom of movement and a clear playing field.

Yeah, very much this. It's also an unnecessary additional demand on the processor to keep those assets around.

I do think it's fair to say, though, that the visual presentation accompanying removal of assets was designed to gel with both the aesthetics and metaphysical sensibilitiess of the game world. That it does this so well probably has a lot to do with why so many players take it literally.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

In CC, the monsters that do seem to dissolve on death in cutscenes are mainly the Genesis and Angeal copies... which all have something very screwy going on with them. From the looks of it, it seems to be some combination of Jenova genes and mako. But most enemies we fight in FFVII OG/Remake doesn't have that level of screwyness going on with them, at least until we get to Hojo's experiments.

You could probably make a good case for bodies that have lots of mako exposure dissolving faster since so much of them is... all ready mako. This is exactly the case of Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo who are essentially... mako/Lifestream in the shape of a person. And then we've got Jenova's body itself which... doesn't seem to stick around after Cloud and Co. kill it at all. The only part of her that has stayed around long term is her head which Sephiroth brought into the Lifestream with him.

So I think... normal stuff sticking around is probably what is happening. Things with lots of mako or Jenova in them though... might be disappearing faster, if not immediately.

 

[Fade]

And the fact that Wall Market now sells Monster Burgers suggests that even monsters don't dissolve in a haze of mako. If that was what really happened to animals when they died, everybody in Midgar would have to be vegetarian.

Just thought I'd pop into this thread to share a hilariously timely morsel from this evening's session of XII: after beating Ahriman (which, mind, is not the traditional floating eyeball in XII, but a literal ghost) a tavernmaster thanks you for delivering dat delicious Ahriman offal.

So I think we might all be wasting our time applying logic to this

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

In CC, the monsters that do seem to dissolve on death in cutscenes are mainly the Genesis and Angeal copies... which all have something very screwy going on with them. From the looks of it, it seems to be some combination of Jenova genes and mako. But most enemies we fight in FFVII OG/Remake doesn't have that level of screwyness going on with them, at least until we get to Hojo's experiments.

You could probably make a good case for bodies that have lots of mako exposure dissolving faster since so much of them is... all ready mako. This is exactly the case of Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo who are essentially... mako/Lifestream in the shape of a person. And then we've got Jenova's body itself which... doesn't seem to stick around after Cloud and Co. kill it at all. The only part of her that has stayed around long term is her head which Sephiroth brought into the Lifestream with him.

So I think... normal stuff sticking around is probably what is happening. Things with lots of mako or Jenova in them though... might be disappearing faster, if not immediately.

And to add to your observations, the only enemies in VIIR whom I recall seeing dissipate into Lifestream particles within actual cutscenes are either already explicitly ghosts anyway ... or are the Failed Experiment (big version of the Unknown Entity creatures) and HO512. In other words, creatures who had been experimented on with Jenova cells and mako.

The real question is what the fuck is going on at 3:45 in this video?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

OMG - the orphans are actually ghosts! And they don't realise they're dead, and neither does anyone else!!!!

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

OMG - the orphans are actually ghosts! And they don't realise they're dead, and neither does anyone else!!!!

Cloud, Barret, Tifa: "This is very usual. Definitely normal."

 

[Torrie]

The real question is what the fuck is going on at 3:45 in this video?

Errr, I don't think the children ARE ghosts. I interpreted that as if they were possessed temporarily or something. I mean, the same thing could have happened to our party in the Train Graveyard, but, fortunately, didn't

Ok, so mako-infused monsters dissipate, whereas "normal" monsters in their natural habitat don't and can be cooked. Makes sense! But gosh, there are hundreds of mako-infused monsters then. That's a bit too many of them, ne?

 

[Odysseus]

Would a society where all dead bodies disappear have the concept of graveyards?

I think you can just write it off as an artifice of the game-play in the remake, as others have mentioned. If you take that too literally you have to start wondering why their cloths and equipment disappear too.

 

[Torrie]

Would a society where all dead bodies disappear have the concept of graveyards?

Yeah, that's what I mentioned earlier as well. I could argue if Sebastian and Essai's swords were an actual tombstone or just a sort of memorial, but Densel asks Cloud if the cliff with yellow flowers is someone's grave. So... the concept is pretty solid.

Speaking of clothes:

And why do Genesis' clothes deteriorate with him?

I haven't found a rational explanation yet, other than it was dandruff.

 

[Odysseus]

Yeah, that's what I mentioned earlier as well.

I should actually read the other posts before I say something

 

[Fade]

Ok, so mako-infused monsters dissipate, whereas "normal" monsters in their natural habitat don't and can be cooked. Makes sense! But gosh, there are hundreds of mako-infused monsters then. That's a bit too many of them, ne?

It might be easier to think of it as creatures that are exposed to extremely high levels of mako and/or Jenova cells are likely to dissolve, rather than all creatures with mako. That seems the simpler scenario. In short, the majority of things the average person might see die in VII's world die as normal, whereas an extraordinary few will disintegrate. To make a slightly morbid observation, I guess that's not too different from the real world. If something in our world dies in a way that leaves little-to-no trace, then some Bad Shit must have happened--VII's world just has an extra way or two for that to occur.

 

[Master Bates]

Would a society where all dead bodies disappear have the concept of graveyards?

I think you can just write it off as an artifice of the game-play in the remake, as others have mentioned. If you take that too literally you have to start wondering why their cloths and equipment disappear too.

The body disappears with the articles of clothing, but leave behind blood trails. Hmmm... we gotta be sniffing some mako in this case.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Angeal and Genesis' outfits degraded along with their bodies, as if the very fabric of their clothing was woven from G cells.
One of the more ridiculous aspects of Crisis Core.

 

[Makoeyes987]

...I never took that as their clothing literally degrading. We see their clothing covered in a grey-white dust. As if covered in dried/dead skin cells from the degradation of their entire body. Their body "shedding" skin as it breaks down and covering their body in dandruff-like dust explains the worn, faded look they all carry. Especially since their skin is cracking and breaking as if dried out too.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

An ingenious rationale.