SPOILERS INTERmission Chapter 2 Spoiler Discussion

[cold_spirit]

Same, I’m very much in the single timeline camp. I arrive there because it makes sense that if Zack, Biggs or others are alive they will want to capitalise on the character relationships and drama that brings about. Isolating them and canning those opportunities seems unlikely.

I don’t think it needs a deep analysis.

If it's a single timeline and Zack is in Midgar while Aerith and the party are near Kalm, then yeah she wouldn't be at the church when he goes there. What's the purpose of the scene then? We could've deduced that before Intermission released.

The developers only ever make a few minutes of this high quality prerendered footage. With that little time, why choose to show us Zack discovering that Aerith isn't at the church? With separate timelines, this scene offers a new mystery. Where's Aerith? With a single timeline, it doesn't offer much. We know where Aerith is, she's with the party. Of those two possibilities, and considering this is part 1 of a multi-part series, to me it only makes sense to end the game on a new mystery.

I feel like it's the Stamp situation all over again. Some thought that it was just a bag of chips, some thought the new Stamp design was a reference to Zack and that's all. But now we know from the Ultimania that it's deliberate and purposeful. It's meant to be analyzed and to raise questions. This scene is no different.

The last line of the game is "Aerith...?" That's the last impression the story makes on us. I know I'm repeating myself, but I just can't see the answer to that question being "she's with the party at Kalm." We know that already. I can only justify this scene if it takes place in a different timeline. Then this scene is necessary. It sets up a conflict for this new arc. "Where's Aerith?"

 

[JBedford]

With separate timelines, this scene offers a new mystery. Where's Aerith? With a single timeline, it doesn't offer much. We know where Aerith is, she's with the party. Of those two possibilities, and considering this is part 1 of a multi-part series, to me it only makes sense to end the game on a new mystery.

Since Zack's placement on single vs. multiple timelines is still a mystery itself, no matter what Zack's truth really is "Where's Aerith?" becomes a new question with that scene.

Like every new Question Arc in Higurashi gives more data points for viewers to puzzle things together and craft theories of what's going on, but they don't answer the reader's questions. The reader does not know the basic nature of the world, and therefore every new arc shows new events but only makes them further question what they think they know about the world.

That the new scene expands on the original mysterious scene while still not resolving the mystery is reason enough for the scene.

Before people could speculate "What was that with Zack?". Some people playing the game didn't even know he actually won. People who are not fed into Twitter users' translations of Ultimanias or dedicated FFVII communities now know that he did indeed win. Some people thought showing Zack survive could just be a possibility of how things could change in worlds without whispers, but now they know that Zack is going to be a continuous plot.

But still, everyone's asking "What was that with Zack?".

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Surprised how many people hate Sonon. He's not my favorite or anything, but I think he worked well enough as Yuffie's more mature counterpart. I like that he was clearly more radical and jaded than she was, but presented in a way that doesn't serve as a source of conflict.

The trouble with Sonon is that he bleeds "I'm a charming extroverted character with a tragic backstory that agrees with the Main Character on all the main issues (but teases them about the small ones all the time!) that the player is supposed to very easily like so that when I die only a few hours after the player gets to know me, they'll feel sad that I'm not sticking around".

I've seen his character type so often in games/anime that he feels less like an actual character and more like a character device the devs are trying too hard to make me like because something bad will happen to him later that they need me to feel bad about.

That's not to say he's a bad character; he's just a very familiar one in the corpus of character archtypes. And he's in a game that thrives off subverting common character archetypes. There's so far nothing subverted about Sonon's character, everything is played straight. (*Looks at theory I have for what I think actually happened to him at the end and think that SE is planing to subvert his character archtype a lot, we just won't see the outcome of that for a while*.)

This plays into general character personalities vs how long the character is going to stick around. Characters can afford to have... major friction... with other characters when they are going to be around a long time. Or can start out being unlikable even. But so long as they stick around for a long time, the creator can count on the player eventually liking them once they get more information. With a character that isn't around for a long time, the creator needs the player to like them immediately. And "charming extrovert with tragic backstory" is one of the fastest ways to do that. The inversion of that is when you have an introverted character that doesn't get along well with the main characters but is still part of the main cast. That's a pretty good sign that they're not dying anytime soon... like Cloud and Barret's relationship in the first chapter of Remake. Sonon and Yuffie's in the inversion of it.

 

[Torrie]

I've seen his character type so often in games/anime that he feels less like an actual character and more like a character device the devs are trying too hard to make me like because something bad will happen to him later that they need me to feel bad about.

I sometimes envy your experience, Obsidian. You've consumed more from the world art than most of us put together, so you're able to judge characters and tropes on a profound level. Does Sonon's presence feel so trite to you that you'd prefer another character with another type of personality in his stead? I wonder what you think.

Characters can afford to have... major friction... with other characters when they are going to be around a long time. Or can start out being unlikable even. But so long as they stick around for a long time, the creator can count on the player eventually liking them once they get more information. With a character that isn't around for a long time, the creator needs the player to like them immediately.

That's true, and that's why I'm unhappy with the way the Avalanche trio were implemented. I love the characters, yes, the NPC energy is on point, yes, and I understand we had been given their short bios in order to make them more likable. BUT not everyone follows the official social media, reads Ultimanias and listens to all the NPC dialogues. Why did we learn that Polk uses Fort Condor to devise strategies if no one talks about his skills in the game? Why did we learn that Billy Bob is a super-skilled bar-goer if we can't even enter Seventh Heaven? Why did SE introduce the trio in the Remake in Barret's resolution scene (which is extremely missable, by the way) but never explained if/why they were given nicknames in the DLC?

INTERmission was short enough for these characters not to stick around for a long time, but I have a feeling they could have been exploited a tiny little bit more.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I sometimes envy your experience, Obsidian. You've consumed more from the world art than most of us put together, so you're able to judge characters and tropes on a profound level. Does Sonon's presence feel so trite to you that you'd prefer another character with another type of personality in his stead? I wonder what you think.

I don't think he's wasted. But a large part of that has to do with a theory I posted several pages back that got lost in the "Great Timeline Debate".

Sonon's "death" is... really suspicious. And by suspicious I mean... Nero kinda just flat-out kills everyone else ASAP. And then he drags Sonon's death out and lets Yuffie get away. And Sonon gets the mother of all death flashbacks. And Nero is *very* insistent on bringing Sonon's body into his darkness with him and he doesn't bother doing that for anyone else...

This has me side-eyeing the DoC Multiplayer story and thinking Sonon would make a *really* good candidate for taking the Restrictors out from the Tsivet's point of view. They know he's good enough to at least make problems for Nero. And they know he already hates Shinra enough to get into a fight with Scarlet. And actually win for the most part. And then you have him fighting against Shinra before they even *get* there. So they know they don't need to motivate him a ton to want to take the Restrictors out. Although I do think that part of why Sonon has such a long death flashback is because Shelke is rooting around in his head and seeing what's there (and making him see one "vision" that doesn't look like the others).

And... that last bit's important. It's too much SND that makes the Tsivets use a different person to take each Restrictor down in DoC Multiplayer. And I don't think Shelke would need to use *much* SND on Sonon to get him to want to kill off the Restrictors. If the Tsivets didn't have to keep starting from scratch... that could move up their timeline to kill off all the Restrictors by quite a bit. Enough that DG might break out much earlier than last time around.

Half of me likes this idea because it opens the door for Sonon and Yuffie to get into a situation where they fight each other. The other part of me likes this because this doesn't exactly make Sonon living instantly *fix* anything given how bad DG is. I could totally see Sonon not being alive at all. The other part of me thinks this would be a *really* good way to bring in DoC Multiplayer's story with a character everyone actually cares about and is not a random nobody.

I think they're having Sonon start out as a nice guy so that they can put him through Training From Hell down where everyone else is crazy. Having to survive the likes of Rosso, and Azul... yeah, sanity kinda takes a back-seat to that. Nero and Weiss are locked up for the majority of that based on DoC Multiplayer as well. So Sonon wouldn't actually be interacting with them much and they're... saner than Rosso and Azul are. Shelke though... Yuffie might not need Sonon to be a big brother to her.. But Shelke totally does. It's also... really obvious with Deepground as a whole that for all Deepground fights on Shinra's side, they vast majority of them are all victims of Shinra themselves. None of them ever got a say in what was done to them or what they are doing for Shinra. They all have to do what Shinra wants them to do or they'll get killed for it.

And that's probably going to do a number on Sonon's character and what he actually cares about in the process. It's one thing to be pissed at an organization/country because they won a war against your organization/country. That's just how being on the loosing side of war has worked since forever. It's another thing to be pissed at an organization because that organization is treating it's own people like crap. And that's where I think Sonon's character will see the most adjustment. Going from being anti-Shinra because they won against Wutai to being anti-Shinra because they don't care about *anyone*, including the people they should be all rights be protecting.

So... I think if Sono's arc *ends* in Intermission, then he is a really boring character that they could have replaced with someone more interesting. But I really don't think his character arc is going to end in Intermission. I think it's going to continue in... one of the worst locations to be in the game (to the point him not dying in Intermission is A Fate Worse Than Death). Nojima also loves playing characters against what it looks like their character archtype is in the long-run. So Sonon has *plenty* of room and opportunity to become a more complex and interesting character down the line. That is if they're doing with him what I think they're doing with him.

 

[looneymoon]

Sonon is supposed to be the "straight man" to Yuffie's more overt comedy. The thing about the straight man is that he is also supposed to provide comedy through how their personality reacts to their surroundings. Unfortunately it's like they completely forgot to give Sonon one.

That's not even touching all the really... mind-numbingly clichéd sob story. As is, he may be one of the most uninspired, lazy, and poorly conceived compilation characters brought to the table :/ Which is a shame, because Remake is otherwise very considerate about its character writing - Sonon stands out as a stain on that.

I mean I'm sure they will try to make him more interesting by bringing him back as evil, because death doesn't mean anything in this universe anymore. Unfortunately his debut is so weak, its hard for me to be invested in what the future may hold for him.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I love the characters, yes, the NPC energy is on point, yes, and I understand we had been given their short bios in order to make them more likable. BUT not everyone follows the official social media, reads Ultimanias and listens to all the NPC dialogues. Why did we learn that Polk uses Fort Condor to devise strategies if no one talks about his skills in the game? Why did we learn that Billy Bob is a super-skilled bar-goer if we can't even enter Seventh Heaven? Why did SE introduce the trio in the Remake in Barret's resolution scene (which is extremely missable, by the way) but never explained if/why they were given nicknames in the DLC?

INTERmission was short enough for these characters not to stick around for a long time, but I have a feeling they could have been exploited a tiny little bit more.

The way I think about Remake and Intergrade is that they are like the First Season of a TV series. So we are introduced to a lot of characters, but not a lot details about them. Yet. The seasons afterwards will probably make more use of them.

One thing the the OG *really* suffers from is not having a lot of repeating NPCs on Cloud and Co.s side. They just bump into random NPCs that never show up again in different towns. So I think Remake and Integrade are introducing more named NPCs that we will bump into later. It's just that Remake and Integrade have very tight and fast-paced plots. So there's not a whole lot of longer interaction to do with them just yet.

 

[Fiz]

If it's a single timeline and Zack is in Midgar while Aerith and the party are near Kalm, then yeah she wouldn't be at the church when he goes there. What's the purpose of the scene then? We could've deduced that before Intermission released.

The developers only ever make a few minutes of this high quality prerendered footage. With that little time, why choose to show us Zack discovering that Aerith isn't at the church? With separate timelines, this scene offers a new mystery. Where's Aerith? With a single timeline, it doesn't offer much. We know where Aerith is, she's with the party. Of those two possibilities, and considering this is part 1 of a multi-part series, to me it only makes sense to end the game on a new mystery.

I feel like it's the Stamp situation all over again. Some thought that it was just a bag of chips, some thought the new Stamp design was a reference to Zack and that's all. But now we know from the Ultimania that it's deliberate and purposeful. It's meant to be analyzed and to raise questions. This scene is no different.

The last line of the game is "Aerith...?" That's the last impression the story makes on us. I know I'm repeating myself, but I just can't see the answer to that question being "she's with the party at Kalm." We know that already. I can only justify this scene if it takes place in a different timeline. Then this scene is necessary. It sets up a conflict for this new arc. "Where's Aerith?"

I don’t have an answer for this, but it could simply be a precursor to Zack going on a quest to find her. Which isn’t exactly a big nothing to raise to our attention.

I still think the most likely scenario is that they’re in the same timeline because to have them in separate timelines burns too many storytelling opportunities.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

That's not even touching all the really... mind-numbingly clichéd sob story. As is, he may be one of the most uninspired, lazy, and poorly conceived compilation characters brought to the table :/ Which is a shame, because Remake is otherwise very considerate about its character writing - Sonon stands out as a stain on that.

FF7 really has sob story fatigue. When *everyone* has the same general sob story, it gets hard to care about one more person with one more similar Sob Story. It turns into... Yes, we get it! We know Shinra is horrible and has destroyed things people care about in everyone's background! We don't need yet *another* person with that backstory!

It's honestly one of the reasons why Zack, Genesis and Angeal are so refreshing in a way. They're going through crappy stuff *right now* in front of us. But they didsn't have a tragedy in their background like everyone else does. That they grew up knowing about, at least. All of three of those guys grew up in a normal environment with normal families and basicly nothing bad happened to them in childhood. If anything, it was almost *ideallic* compared to everyone else in the game.

It also means that when really bad stuff happens to them *because* of Shinra, they react in *very* different ways than... literally everyone else in the game. They were genuintly *not expecting* Shinra to be what it is. Or for it to have done what it did to them (or is doing to them if you're Zack). So their emotional arcs of how they cope with it all are... honestly really refreshing compared to the rest of the FFVII cast. Which tend towards, yeah, Shinra sucks and we hate them. Instead it's, Shinra sucks... but we know genuinlly good people who work for them. Heck, *we* are some of the good people who work for Shinra. And they all do something *different* with that. One wants Shinra gone yesterday (which makes sense), the other two are a lot more conflicted (which also makes sense). So on the whole, it's something to shake up the usual "why everyone hates Shinra and what they do about it" motivation.

Sonon... has one of the most *generic* backstories in the game, and that kind just makes him more of a "get in line behind everyone else who has more interesting grievances against Shinra" character. He's not... interesting *enough*. Yet...

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I don’t have an answer for this, but it could simply be a precursor to Zack going on a quest to find her. Which isn’t exactly a big nothing to raise to our attention.

That isn't being newly brought to our attention, though. That has literally been his mission since the last chapters of CC -- a game that came out 14 years ago.

As @cold_spirit commented with regard to Aerith not being in the church when Zack got there, that's another bit of old info. The scene had us literally just cut away from her outside Kalm to transition over to Zack. =P

We, the viewer, already know he's not going to find her when he opens the doors. So what then is meant to be mysterious or unsettling to us about this scene if not "Aerith?" (with a concerned inflection)?

 

[KindOfBlue]

Honestly I didn’t really interpret Zack asking “Aerith?” as making a mystery out of her status in particular, just seemed like a reaction he’d have because he was expecting to find her in the church but didn’t…Zack himself being in Midgar was the mystery as far as I could gather, unless we’re also meant to believe there’s two Aeriths or something

Why did SE introduce the trio in the Remake in Barret's resolution scene (which is extremely missable, by the way) but never explained if/why they were given nicknames in the DLC?

Weren’t those just separate characters altogether?

 

[Obsidian Fire]

We, the viewer, already know he's not going to find her when he opens the doors. So what then is meant to be mysterious or unsettling to us about this scene if not "Aerith?" (with a concerned inflection)?

I vote on people we know who should be on top of the Plate aren't on top of the Plate anymore. Midgar is changing from what we remember in the OG... where it's a very static location as a whole.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Honestly I didn’t really interpret Zack asking “Aerith?” as making a mystery out of her status in particular, just seemed like a reaction he’d have because he was expecting to find her in the church but didn’t…Zack himself being in Midgar was the mystery as far as I could gather ...

Where else would we have thought he went, though? When he was last shown, he was heading directly towards Midgar.

The scene could not have been more nonchalant in its presentation with regard to Zack being in Midgar. We transition from Aerith to (obviously) Midgar, and just ... there he is. There's no confusion or tension about where he is. It's not meant to be a surprise or budding mystery the way what Zack finds (or doesn't find) inside the church is.

unless we’re also meant to believe there’s two Aeriths or something

If we're dealing with two timelines, why wouldn't we believe that?

 

[Lex]

Like a lot of discussion on Remake, this is giving me "there's a slight hint of compilation buster sword gold hilt hidden under the studs" vibes. Remember the cluster of people who were vehemently sure that was going to be a thing and that it was RIGHT THERE!!!!!? I do.

Then there was the time TLS created its own QAnon-level wildness in the chapter 18 thread talking about how the timeline changes at the end because of the seventh heaven sign texture and skybox being slightly different when it was just Square being lazy and/or inattentive and/or fans being cray. Sometimes it's just the most obvious answer.

The most obvious answer seems to me to be that Zack says Aerith's name because... she's not there. I don't think it's indicative of anything other than the fact that she's not actually there when he opens the doors. Maybe you could argue that he's concerned for her welfare because he sees a bunch of people who are in distress, so it's obvious that some big tragic thing has just happened. Anything beyond that is Stretch Armstrong from one end of your house to the other levels of stretch, a bit like the infamous gold hilt of the buster sword thread that I will never let any of you live down

Pointless to argue until we know more IMO, just like timelines vs. Zack is here(tm).

 

[waw]

Why did SE introduce the trio in the Remake in Barret's resolution scene (which is extremely missable, by the way) but never explained if/why they were given nicknames in the DLC?

I've seen a popular FF7 youtuber posit that Nayo, Billy Bob, and Polk are really Nellie, Al, and Finn. He lined them up nicely and even described why they all had nicknames/codenames, but I'm not sure I buy it. Nellie's trio was firmly a part of Barret's Avalanche. Zhije, Nayo, Billy Bob, and Polk seem to be a part of Avalanche HQ. I don't think they're the same characters. I'm open to being wrong.

 

[Odysseus]

Speculation is all well and good, and I like reading what people think, but in the end I'm trying to just assume that everyone will be wrong about everything, even if it sounds like it makes sense. I've seen what happens in fandom when they get too sure their fan theories are right, and are proven wrong in the end, and it's not pretty *cough*Sherlock*cough*SNK*wheeze*

 

[Lex]

Speculation is all well and good, and I like reading what people think

This is it for me yeah. I like reading theories and discussions about those theories. I've long since learned that arguing in favour of any single position is completely pointless because we just don't know what's going to happen, particularly with this game.

Like I can tell you all what I want, which is for "separate timelines" to not even be a thing. I want "Zack is here(tm)". That's just more interesting to me. But I can't argue for that to be the case because we just don't have enough information yet

 

[Roundhouse]

Well said, Lex! As your signature notes, a same timeline situation may bring fear...but let us embrace it, whatever it brings. Huzzah!

Re: Zack and the Church

It's definitely possible that the scene is framed as a way to point to Aerith being gone as a new mystery in a new timeline...but it's also possible that the scene was framed that way for a purely character based reason. We, the audience, know Aerith isn't there...but Zack doesn't, so we get to see him going over apologies out loud, opening the doors with a burst of happiness, then his descent into a sort of sad confusion. All of this tells us something about his state of mind before the surprise and after, and might set the stage for the future.

 

[Shademp]

I am still embarrassed by the fact the developers want us to focus so much on a potato chip bag

 

[Clement Rage]

Spoiler: Ending

That ended up being quite cheap feeling. Nero's darkness is just a tentacle monster now. He's pretty beatable. Sonon had his inevitable death, and was impaled rather than absorbed, Yuffie has way too much knowledge now, even if we assume Weiss VR fighting the gang is non canon.

Big timeline problems. I make jokes about the Whispers being the angry fanbase ghosts, but now that seems to actually be what they are, because they're allowing Yuffie to sequence break, when they should care about preserving the timeline, not just OG Canon.

Acting, character writing, and level design is brilliant. They're really good at padding, like the box buster game in the depths of Shinra HQ. Yuffie's voice actress is phenomenal, I actually looked her up because she sounded so much like the Compilation version, but it is a different person.

Zack's epilogue gives us no new info, he may or may not be in the same timeline.

Okay, now to read the threads.

 

[KindOfBlue]

Where else would we have thought he went, though? When he was last shown, he was heading directly towards Midgar.

The scene could not have been more nonchalant in its presentation with regard to Zack being in Midgar. We transition from Aerith to (obviously) Midgar, and just ... there he is. There's no confusion or tension about where he is. It's not meant to be a surprise or budding mystery the way what Zack finds (or doesn't find) inside the church is.


If we're dealing with two timelines, why wouldn't we believe that?

Because we don’t actually know if it’s two timelines or one or anything really, the fact that Zack is in Midgar is still in itself a mystery as we still don’t know what that means for the story and with him being completely oblivious to everything that happened around him, it’ll be just as much a mystery for him as it is for us figuring out just what the hell is going on…from the reactions I’ve seen from different streamers and on social media, just seeing Zack already raises heaps of questions even though we already saw him survive in the main game since we’ve still learned next to nothing about him since then

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I do remember a lot of people wondering if it was a fake-out and Zack would get shot before he got to Midgar. This is proof that that didn't happen!

 

[Tetsujin]

Like I can tell you all what I want, which is for "separate timelines" to not even be a thing. I want "Zack is here(tm)". That's just more interesting to me.

This is where I'm at. I mean, I don't want Zack to be alive but Pandora's Box has been opened and I have to deal with that.
But if parallel timelines becomes ~A Thing~ I feel like this would veer too much into making FFVII something completely different. Like, the focus would be on time travel and timeline shenanigans and I have no interest in that.
As of now I choose to believe that ultimately this is just a way to bring Zack back into the fold and him being from a parallel timeline is just the handwavey explanation as to how it doesn't completely break continuity.

My speculation is this is how the other Avalanche members are gonna be relevant. Zack is gonna stay in Midgar for now. He's in Sector 5 and...who else is there right now? Biggs.
With Biggs recuperating in Sector 5, Wedge and Jessie maybe potentially also still being alive, Sector 7 being rebuilt in the ending and now the new HQ characters from INTERmission, I've been wondering how all this might be relevant when our group already left Midgar.
Some were speculating that Biggs and others might catch up with the group or maybe we'll meet them again at Fort Condor.

But now I think maybe there's still going to be more Midgar plot. Rebuilding sector 7 and all. And Zack is gonna be our link to it. Zack is gonna be our point of view (maybe even playable?) character for Midgar segments while he figures out what the fuck is going on.
Eventually of course it's all gonna go towards an inevitable meetup. Cloud and Zack are gonna Omni-combo-slash the fuck out of Sephiroth at the end, whether Zack is in a parallel timeline or not. Whatever you believe, I think we can agree it's gonna build up to something like that because otherwise what is even the point?

But if he is now in our timeline, he needs to stay the hell away from Cloud long enough to not break the plot until the Lifestream scene if we are to believe they still wanna follow the overall chain of events like they claimed they would. And I think Midgar is how they'll keep him occupied with other stuff in the meantime.

 

[Clement Rage]

Hey guys, I'm back.

Ignoring all the Zack timeline stuff, except to acknowledge TTM's point that there are two Buster swords.

The entire premise of Dirge is that no one knows what to expect under Shinra HQ until they found garbled Scarlet files, to the point that the rescue team takes a camera crew. Yuffie is employed in WRO intelligence, she would say something.

This matters, because the Whispers are active, and they do act to preserve knowledge, going so far as to cut off a Hojo monologue to prevent him from revealing spoilers. Yuffie's knowledge here is not less important in universe, the only reason to do so is if the Whispers are metagaming and don't care about Dirge (as in, they are playing the PS2 in another dimension).

If you think this is too small to care about...have you seen the rest of this thread?

 

[LegendarySaiyan]

Finally, after 10hours of playing through I am here and can read this topic without worrying for spoilers.

22 PAGES??? Oh well, guess I got nothing better to do atm....