SPOILERS INTERmission Chapter 2 Spoiler Discussion

[a_apple 2.0]

>We're back to Zack is actually dead it's all a illusion
I feel like the fandom is moving in circles

The one thing that really hard suggest that this is not the case is the ending of part one. The entire point of it was to proof that "destiny is a blank page" and how was that conveyed? Through Zack surviving his last stand. He lived where he should have died. He/The Party defeated fate. That's why we are shown the different version of Stamp and that's why the camera holds on it for a sec, it's the visualization that Something BIG has changed ergo his fate.
That's why Aerith has that monologue about everything changing should they go through that portal and face whatever awaits them there. And that's why we are shown Zack's last moments before he will die in the first place. It's there to make us understand that whatever action the team will take now, it will affect this moment.
So the idea that in the end he still died makes from a story telling perspective no sense.

 

[Roundhouse]

If you check Twitter, there are a bunch of theories. One person suggested that all the people in the church are dead from the plate fall, so Zack is now hanging out with his fellow ghosts.

 

[Eerie]

But the Lifestream has always been shown as a white goo so... It's not supposed to be a place. We even see it in Remake in chapter 18, there's nothing but a flow of consciousness.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

It's worse than that. In ACC, the Church is full of *very* alive people being healed from Geostigma by Cloud at Aerith's Lifestream Spring. We see Aerith and Zack wave good-by and walk *out* the Church doors into the light/Lifestream.

The scene in Integrade is the *reverse* of that. Zack walks *in* the Church doors from the bright white light. It's almost like it's a deliberate reference and reversal of the ACC scene with him in the Church. So... he's exiting the Lifestream and saying he's back.

And that's not even bringing up the *actual* context of the scene before which shows him outside a very *physical* Church practicing what to say to Aerith before he pulled the doors open.

Unless you think that like... *all* of Sector 5 we see in that scene is something happening in the Lifestream. which... you might as well say the *entire *game is taking place in a projection in the Lifestream at that point. Which kinda makes the entire game a simulation the Lifestream is running for shits and giggles...

 

[Roundhouse]

Calling it now...

Genesis is The Architect.

 

[Torrie]

When Yuffie is riding the chocobo she appears mostly unphased from all the tragedy that just happened. A bit apprehensive in her humming, yes, but way too happy and eager to have others join her. It feels as though the entire tragedy with Sonon never even happened. That's my main complaint with the ending. There is too much missing between Yuffie crying to the sky and the 1-2 days later when she is on the chocobo.

I don't think she's really happy. I think she's trying hard and putting a facade up there. Moving on from losses like this one *is* an FFVII theme, after all, and we all know it's not easy. But she's trying hard, just like Aerith is trying hard to move on from Zack, etc.

yeah it seemed obvious to me that Yuffie was holding in her sadness

I was thinking about that too, trying to imagine what the night was like for her. She had to find a safe place to stay, obviously, so I guess she had to let her grief and rage out and cry a lot. Like, A LOT. Probably beat the pillow, too. But after that, people tend to experience a certain numbness to the tragedy as if they have come to terms with what has happened. It's just Yuffie, young, impulsive, reckless, able to let go easily. She had enjoyed working with Sonon, sure, but she hadn't spent enough time with him to get seriously attached (unlike the players who did get attached to him immediately т_т), so she's actively seeking new companions, because loneliness may be causing heavy thoughts which she'd much prefer to dodge. Why ruminate on the past when there's still so much materia to steal in this big, exciting world.

 

[Wol]

Calling it now...

Genesis is The Architect.

Short awnser:

Please no

 

[LNK]

We're back to Zack is actually dead it's all a illusion

Some people have kept this stance since after playing remake for the first time. Its not like we're back to thinking this.

From what I've seen about Zack, is he is confident. Maybe he thinks he did survive his last stand. In AC him and Aerith we shown inside the church at the end, waving to Cloud. Everyone knows he was dead, but it looked like he was in the church. Remake could be doing something very similar.

 

[Makoeyes987]

@KindOfBlue

Well, I suppose we'll see. Like you said, what you're saying does technically fit. However, I just feel that it's an unnecessary complication when we can simply take what the game shows us and what the writers explained.

And while you and others may scoff at such a clue lying within the designs of the church, this is simply deja-vu for me. Except now I'm on the opposite end, unlike the previous speculation of the chip bag with Stamp. The same intentionality that came from designing Stamp is twice over, is easily applied here. And bear in mind that the writers, particularly Nomura, have all done the exact same subtle burying of storyline hints within layers of inconspicuous background before. Nomura with Kingdom Hearts UnionX/BBS/1/2/3, Dissidia and of course Advent Children. Toriyama did it with the XIII series. The reason I see it is because this is simply their modus operandi.

We'll know something in a month.

 

[a_apple 2.0]

Tbh the ending was pretty bad. The entire dlc leads up to Yuffie having her naive world view shattered (which then happens) just for the game to skip the actual meat of the matter where Yuffie overcomes her grief and grows from her journey. She goes from traumatized and devastated to composed and hopeful again. The story is 5 hours of setup with no pay off which is confusing to me

 

[Roundhouse]

Zack: Aerith?

Genesis: Apropos, she has decided to challenge Sephiroth, to make things right. To save you...at the cost of her own life.

Zack: No!

Genesis: Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning, and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads out of the church and back to the lifestream, which is where many fans wish you to remain. The door to the left leads to Kalm, to her, and to the destruction of the original story as we know it. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you're going to do, don't we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious truth: she is going to die, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.

Zack: Honour....and dreams.

Genesis: Humph. Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

 

[Theozilla]

I see you're tempting people there! Obviously that timeline doesn't fit there!

Actually there is a bird called the Booby, so it does fit!

 

[Obsidian Fire]

By the way... apparently we've forgotten how Aerith's church looked in ACC... where the flowers were growing just fine without her there to take care of them for two years...

 

[a_apple 2.0]

@KindOfBlue

Well, I suppose we'll see. Like you said, what you're saying does technically fit. However, I just feel that it's an unnecessary complication when we can simply take what the game shows us and what the writers explained.

And while you and others may scoff at such a clue lying within the designs of the church, this is deja-vu for me. Except now I'm on the opposite end, unlike the chip bag with Stamp. Bear in mind the writers, particularly Nomura, have all done the exact same subtle burying of hints within the background before. Nomura with Kingdom Hearts UnionX/BBS/1/2/3, Dissidia and of course Advent Children. Toriyama with the XIII series. The reason I see it is because this is their modus operandi.

We'll know something in a month.

Well not to suck my own dick or anything but I was one of the people who from day one said that Terrier Stamp is obviously a intentional choice made by the devs
The church differences aren't even close to that. If the intention was to show us that this is the Stamp version of Aerith's church the changes would be MUCH clearer, like giving it a complete different design maybe turning it into cathedral à la notre dame. The differences we see now are most likely due to the usual differences between CGI and ingame assets.

 

[Eerie]

Actually there is a bird called the Booby, so it does fit!

This smells like a trap

 

[Makoeyes987]

Well not to suck my own dick or anything but I was one of the people who from day one said that Terrier Stamp is obviously a intentional choice made by the devs

Yes you were, as were quite a few others. I remember that.

The church differences aren't even close to that. If the intention was to show us that this is the Stamp version of Aerith's church the change would be MUCH clearer, like giving it a complete different design maybe turning it into cathedral à la notre dame. The differences we see now are most likely due to the usual differences between CGI and ingame assets.

That's not how that works though. Minor CGI character model differences because of motion capture actors aren't the same as stationary objects. The models for background can be reused and the textures are high enough quality for CGI to fit. Also, it's not meant to be shown as a completely different church, just less dilapidated as shown in Crisis Core. They had the same model for the church, and they chose to design new textures for it. New textures for that one scene with Zack. If you think it's simply coincidence it ended up resembling it's iteration from Crisis Core, fair enough. But do keep in mind they wanted to implement a quest called "Crisis Core" with Cloud helping Aerith make a bouquet of flowers she'd then push around in a flower cart. These writers haven't moved beyond referencing small details from the Compilation.


On another non-ending related note, the Dirge of Cerberus references in this game still give me goosebumps of joy.

The opening of the Combat Simulator battle with Weiss on his throne, reciting his memorable first lines, also has frames showing Deepground SOLDIERs brutally killing each other. It's reminiscent of the opening of the Dirge of Cerberus Multiplayer mode beginning cutscenes that show a bunch of SOLDIERs lying dead after a brutal Deepground exercise. All under a sepia filter, since Dirge loved doing that back then.

I'm beginning to believe they've made those memorable lines belonging to Weiss a sort of twisted code he lives and fights by. Especially with his and Nero's emphasis on hunting. Which fits given how things work in Deepground.

Furthermore, I think the appearance of Hojo at the conclusion of Weiss' fight is meant to set up him beginning to take an interest in Weiss as a SOLDIER, and the subject of digitization of consciousness. The experiment was to replicate Weiss's strength and consciousness via data and then import it into the Combat Simulator network. Hojo more than likely oversaw that experiment or may have even tested it out. But it clearly seems to lay the groundwork for Hojo's scheme to cheat death.

 

[Shademp]

On another non-ending related note, the Dirge of Cerberus references in this game still give me goosebumps of joy.

I appreciate Yuffie's line in Chapter 1 about being "the single white rose of Wutai" which is another Dirge of Cerberus line.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Vincent missed out on all the fun, laying up on his ass inside that coffin. Such a shame

 

[Tetsujin]

If part 2 ends at Nibelheim, Episode: INTERmission 2 starring Vincent will be a thing, mark my words.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Yes, and it'd feature playing through Vincent's nightmares.

 

[Tetsujin]

Yes, and it'd feature playing through Vincent's nightmares.

 

[Shademp]

Play as Turk Vincent as he walks through the halls of the Shinra Manor. Reality slowly deteriorates, along with Vincent's sanity, as the walls bleed black goo and he hears a wailing Lucrecia and a screaming baby. FFVIIR2 Intermission: A psychological horror experience.

 

[Torrie]

Also, it's not meant to be shown as a completely different church, just less dilapidated as shown in Crisis Core.

Fun fact: Mako repeated the word "dilapidated" so many times throughout this thread that I couldn't help learning it eventually. Always happy to enrich my vocabulary, thank you

 

[KindOfBlue]

But the Lifestream has always been shown as a white goo so... It's not supposed to be a place. We even see it in Remake in chapter 18, there's nothing but a flow of consciousness.

The real Lifestream was the friends we made along the way

@KindOfBlue

Well, I suppose we'll see. Like you said, what you're saying does technically fit. However, I just feel that it's an unnecessary complication when we can simply take what the game shows us and what the writers explained.

And while you and others may scoff at such a clue lying within the designs of the church, this is simply deja-vu for me. Except now I'm on the opposite end, unlike the previous speculation of the chip bag with Stamp. The same intentionality that came from designing Stamp is twice over, is easily applied here. And bear in mind that the writers, particularly Nomura, have all done the exact same subtle burying of storyline hints within layers of inconspicuous background before. Nomura with Kingdom Hearts UnionX/BBS/1/2/3, Dissidia and of course Advent Children. Toriyama did it with the XIII series. The reason I see it is because this is simply their modus operandi.

We'll know something in a month.

I need the game to show me two parallel timelines before I can get on board because what’s been shown and explained so far still leaves too many questions (as it should). The smoking gun in all this is Stamp, if we see a terrier Stamp as Cloud then we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore lol but that’s what the rest of the games are for. I do think the simplest explanation is the most likely, problem here is what’s simple to one may not be to another. Either way, I think the moral here is not to jump to conclusions.

If there’s two Clouds, what’s the other one been doing? What if we’re the ones in the wrong timeline? Maybe we’ve retained our “beagle” selves due to the singularity but the world around us is “terrier”? Can Terrier!Zack physically meet Beagle!Cloud simply by finding him, or are we really just two separate timelines running parallel? Does what happens in one timeline have any bearing on what happens in the other? And how are we going to merge or intersect the two lines?

I need answers to all those questions before I can commit, but I think they’re only so much we can gather from ultimanias at this point. No matter which way we go, there will be lots of questions. It’s one thing if the whole story was told in one game but since we’re doing multiple parts, I don’t expect the ultimanias to explain everything just yet. Like I said, the story’s just not over yet.

Also, I don’t think the church thing is the craziest idea honestly (that “Jessie is alive because furniture-kanji” bit is pretty hard to top lol) but that question of one timeline versus two still needs a definitive answer. I mean, we wouldn’t be having this discussion otherwise…

 

[Makoeyes987]

I do think the simplest explanation is the most likely, problem here is what’s simple to one may not be to another.

LOL a very good point.

We'll know something in a month with the new Ultimania, including info on Intermission. I find it unlikely they won't say something edifying about that new ending scenes. If the church is mentioned as being designed or different than what we've seen, then I think we'll know which direction we're going. Even if we're not sure of the final destination.