SPOILERS INTERmission Chapter 2 Spoiler Discussion

[ForceStealer]

I assumed they were talking about Huge Materia. At least, that Scarlet was, I dunno that Yuffie ever knew what she was talking about.

 

[Makoeyes987]

The implication of the "New Wutai Government" is that its a newly installed governmental body dedicated to resisting and continuing the war that the previous government, led by Godo Kisaragi, negotiated a ceasefire for.

No, I find it very unlikely that it's simply a fake mission or a lie Yuffie is telling. For one, the alliance between Wutai and AVALANCHE has been alluded to even before Episode Intermission. In Chapter 4, when AVALANCHE HQ assists Cloud, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie, Biggs explains that AVALANCHE HQ recently negotiated an alliance with the New Wutai Government in exchange for any materia plundered from Shinra going straight to them.

Yuffie traveling to Midgar to meet with AVALANCHE HQ is a natural progression of that alliance. And Yuffie alone wouldn't be able to provide AVALANCHE HQ with money, military gear and support. She's got genuine Wutai backing, because like her, they feel Wutai needs to keep fighting. And the "Ultimate Materia" is clearly an allusion to the Huge Materia. Yuffie and Sonon sincerely hoped to at least pilfer that materia from Shinra in hopes of sabotaging their efforts and crushing Shinra's morale. They simply underestimated how dangerous Shinra's HQ would be.

The fact is, in the Remake, Wutai's not done fighting just yet. They want to bring Shinra down. And apparently Godo suffered a penalty in surrendering because there are others who feel that its in Wutai's best interest to continue fighting. So now he's in jail or house arrest for not being willing to fight.

So no, this is not something that's just going nowhere. Wutai's fighting days aren't over. Yuffie's not the only one who believes Wutai should fight until the end.

 

[Tetsujin]

Will be really interesting to see what they do with Wutai in Remake. To think it and Yuffie used to be entirely optional...

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Biggs does not explain that Avalanche HQ and the new Wutai government have an alliance. He says he's heard it might be so, and asks whether Cloud thinks it's true:

Biggs: Word is they've cut a deal with Wutai... Promised 'em all the materia in Midgar, apparently. Think there's any truth to that?
Cloud: You tell me.
Biggs: Sometimes I think we're the only ones who've realized the war is over.

Barret emphatically thinks it cannot possibly be true. He's outraged by the suggestion that Avalanche are in league with Wutai. Now, of course, he's been exiled from HQ and doesn't know what they're up to.

There's a strong implication that Shinra is deliberately linking two things that aren't actually linked - Avalanche and Wutai - so as to tar Wutai with Avalanche's terrorisms and thus gain popular support for a renewal of the war. That's why Barret calls Heidegger the Chief Warmonger.

I'm not convinced that the ultimate materia is the same thing as huge materia.

Also, when the troopers with the Nerf guns were interrogating Zhijie? He gave them two lies and a truth.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Clearly it is true, because why else would the narrative even posit the idea in the first place? Why would Biggs have even heard that relevant piece of info if it was merely a red herring? It'd be a strange coincidence for that info to be fake yet Yuffie somehow happened to make it to Midgar anyways along with having a companion who also was there as a liaison to AVALANCHE on behalf of Wutai, waiting to unite with her on said mission.

We know that Yuffie was there on behalf of the Wutai government to unite with AVALANCHE and take Shinra down. And we know there is actually a new Wutai Government because said government has imprisoned Godo Kisaragi, the one who negotiated the ceasefire with Shinra.

Sonon and Yuffie discuss amongst themselves how they will never forget or forgive Shinra for what they did during the war. Even though AVALANCHE and Wutai may not see eye to eye regarding the scope of their conflict, they've unified in their opposition to Shinra.

Yeah, Shinra is trying to propagandize the possibility of Wutai and AVALANCHE being connected but... It's true. They are connected.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

We did find the scene about Godo in Intermission... and it turns out to be the case that the New Wutai Government placed Godo under house arrest. Because he "stopped fighting for what he believed in". Yuffie even thinks Godo *deserved* to be locked up!

Yuffie
Just look at this place.
Weapons here, weapons there, weapons everywhere!
They're ready for some serious action.
It sounds like you are, too.

Sonon
Sounds like you are too.

Yuffie
Duh. Unlike my old man, I'm not some lazy drunk.
I fight or what I believe in, something he'd never understand.

Sonon
Wonder how he's holding up...

Yuffie
Behind bars, you mean?
Not well, if the government's got anything to say about it.
Good on 'em. Jail's where he belongs.

Sonon
That's my master you're talking about.
Mind laying off him a little?

Yuffie
You know what? Let's drop it.
Not exactly my favorite topic.

If you know Godo from the OG, the irony of this is... really good. It fits into Godo not wanting to fight Shinra anymore in the OG for more philosophical reasons, while others in Wutai keep fighting Shinra after the "cease fire" in Crisis Core and Remake. And Yuffie is on the side of the New Wutai Government.

If the New Wutai Government *did* initiate some kind of coup against Godo... then they might need a reason to stay in power over Godo's faction. And heating up the war against Shinra would do that for them. Allying with Avalanche... would also fit with that. Wutai at this stage would *need* something to keep them together.

As it is, all of this feels like the set-up for some major irony way down the line when we finally get to Wutai.

The thing with Shinra is that it usually doesn't make up lies whole-sale, especially when the truth serves them much better in the first place. It's more a question of the "scale" of the lie that they fudge on. And how much retribution they dole out for it.

 

[looneymoon]

Little thing I wish Remake did was have Yuffie button her shorts.

Having a 14 year old's crotch on the brink of being exposed made me wince a bit.

Tres I'm gonna stop you here before the quote response.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Yuffie's 16, not 14!

This isn't Crisis Core

 

[cold_spirit]

Sorry to backtrack discussion. I had to sleep.

For me personally, I think the differences from the OG would need to be more substantial for me to believe beagle world is it's own seperate thing.

In my mind, three timelines allows Square Enix to "have it all":

• The original game timeline preserves those events and our memories of them (especially of Aerith's death)
• The Beagle timeline is both a remake and continuation, expanding old events and concluding the Compilation
• The Terrier timeline incorporates Zack, a fan favorite, earlier into the story. I don't see this timeline as just fan service though. I think it’ll influence Beagle in a future part

This also positions Sephiroth as the singular "big bad" throughout the series. His mind will have traveled from the original game to the last Remake part.

And this is what the you guys think is happening:

First off, wow I love that diagram. Though I don't see Sephiroth as "going back in time". With asynchronous timelines, December in Beagle is October in Terrier. This would be how the party fought Whisper Harbinger in Beagle at the same time as Zack's last stand in Terrier. Likewise, the original game might've happened before Remake's events.

In my mind, it’s not that Sephiroth is traveling to another timeline and to the past. He’s just sidestepping to another timeline where the Jenova War hasn’t happened yet.

Just requiring a whole extra timeline to accommodate a potential plot hole with the Yuffie DLC is kinda silly imo.

This hasn't come about because of Intermission. I made a thread introducing my "three timelines" theory back in October, and believe me, I didn’t get many “likes” haha. So I’m pretty happy to see Intermission fit nicely into what I already proposed.

 

[Odysseus]

• The original game timeline preserves those events and our memories of them (especially of Aerith's death)

• The Beagle timeline is both a remake and continuation, expanding old events and concluding the Compilation

• The Terrier timeline incorporates Zack, a fan favorite, earlier into the story. I don't see this timeline as just fan service though. I think it’ll influence Beagle in a future part

Even in the "how I think it is" diagram, the remake is still meant to be an offshoot, not overwriting the original version of events, just so you know.

In my mind, it’s not that Sephiroth is traveling to another timeline and to the past. He’s just sidestepping to another timeline where the Jenova War hasn’t happened yet.

In my mind it might as well be the same thing.

Yeah, we don't need to keep this conversation going any longer though.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Throughout that conversation between Sonon and Yufie, it's unclear whether they are speaking of themselves and their feelings, or for Wutai generally and its government's goals. For me, the question mark over who they are working for - themselves? some Wutaian NGO like the Crescent Unit in CC? A 'new government'? - remains.

Anyway it's quite interesting that the new Wutai government wants to renew the war with Shinra and is sending its agents into Midgar to carry out missions that could legitimately be used by Shinra as causus belli, while at the same time Shinra has to exploit the actions of Barret's cell to generate propaganda for its own war machine. If Wutai wants to fight Shinra and Shinra wants to fight Wutai, what's stopping them? Why all the maneuvering and PR shenanigans?

Sending a couple of teenage ninjas and the four members of the high school enviro-club to fight Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com was a totally predictable failure. What kind of government would do that? An incompetent one.

Rumours are flying thick and fast. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Shinra, Avalanche and Wutai are all riven by factions. Lines of allegiance are unclear, and allies don't trust each other. Double-dealing is the order of the day.

PS At the end of the DLC, Yuffie says "I can't do this alone", and basically sends up a prayer to the heavens to bring her new companions. If she's a bona fide agent under the command of the Wutai government and Sonon was her assigned partner, surely she would know that she didn't have to be alone; after she reported Sonon's death, they would either recall her or provide her with a new partner.

 

[KindOfBlue]

Sorry I’ve fallen behind on the discussion

Edit: @KindOfBlue, if we dismiss the filmmaking and how Nomura did his job, we might as well dismiss everything that is told because anyone can interpret how they want. The point of filmmaking is to use tropes and smoke to tell you how to feel when you see a scene. Why some scenes hit more than others? Because of how they're told.

It’s not a dismissal, it’s an acknowledgement that things aren’t always what they seen, surely you of all people would understand this from the way Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is built up only for it to go in a different direction than what it seemed, there’s a reason people still argue about it to this day

I personally think this is a leap too far, because I think the remake is meant to close out the compilation rather than existing separately from it.

Wanted to touch on this because whether we’re talking about Zack or Yuffie, I think it’s worth pointing out that we can still close the compilation AND be separate from the OG continuity…as far as I’m concerned, none of the changes in the remake retroactively change the events of the OG continuity, but at least we can still get some kind of resolution to compilation elements even if they play out differently this time

 

[Eerie]

It’s not a dismissal, it’s an acknowledgement that things aren’t always what they seen, surely you of all people would understand this from the way Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is built up only for it to go in a different direction than what it seemed, there’s a reason people still argue about it to this day

Well yeah. But I would say that Remake is very straightforward and explicit most of the times, and that when it's not, slowing it down make you understand the difference between what's happening on screen and what the devs want you to feel. In that way, it's very neat. However here, there are no difference between what is told and what the devs want you to feel. Unease. Something's happening. And the feeling matches what you see on screen. They aren't always pulling you in a way and making you feel another way. They want you to notice that something is wrong when they do that - look at the way they've changed the way Cloud's memories happen, they have added a sound, you see it's different from how the promise scene happens. In a general way, I think that SE gives us all the keys to understand what truly is going on in a scene. The only mysteries are the ones they pointed out *themselves* in the Ultimania, and the only ones truly obscured and that deserve truly a lot of thoughts.

 

[MelodicEnigma]

It’s not a dismissal, it’s an acknowledgement that things aren’t always what they seen, surely you of all people would understand this from the way Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is built up only for it to go in a different direction than what it seemed, there’s a reason people still argue about it to this day.

I've been a bit lost on what the specific contention here is, though. Do you mean things may not be as they seem in specifics to the tone of the scene? Or just what it might mean for Aerith later on?

 

[KindOfBlue]

Well yeah. But I would say that Remake is very straightforward and explicit most of the times, and that when it's not, slowing it down make you understand the difference between what's happening on screen and what the devs want you to feel. In that way, it's very neat. However here, there are no difference between what is told and what the devs want you to feel. Unease. Something's happening. And the feeling matches what you see on screen. They aren't always pulling you in a way and making you feel another way. They want you to notice that something is wrong when they do that - look at the way they've changed the way Cloud's memories happen, they have added a sound, you see it's different from how the promise scene happens. In a general way, I think that SE gives us all the keys to understand what truly is going on in a scene. The only mysteries are the ones they pointed out *themselves* in the Ultimania, and the only ones truly obscured and that deserve truly a lot of thoughts.

That’s kind of my whole point though, I think we can all agree that something is wrong here it’s just a matter of what that something is

I've been a bit lost on what the specific contention here is, though. Do you mean things may not be as they seem in specifics to the tone of the scene? Or just what it might mean for Aerith later on?

Specifically Aerith’s status at the point in time when Zack reaches the church, generally I think people might be reading too much into the fade-to-black on Zack’s “Aerith…?” because even if the scene didn’t end that way, Zack should not be in Midgar in the first place so regardless, something is wrong here (though like I said, I’ll concede if the ultimania tells me to)

 

[Eerie]

That’s kind of my whole point though, I think we can all agree that something is wrong here it’s just a matter of what that something is

But then, Zack says "Aerith..." and her name appears as the screen fade to black... this is what the devs are pointing at. They want us to think about Aerith.

 

[KindOfBlue]

But then, Zack says "Aerith..." and her name appears as the screen fade to black... this is what the devs are pointing at. They want us to think about Aerith.

Of course they want us to think of her, that’s why he’s there…I’m talking about all the theorizing about her being dead / in another timeline that comes after that observation, like I said, my brain is too small to keep up with every crazy ass theory this fanbase comes up with so I refuse to let myself think too much about anything until I know without a shadow of a doubt that it’s worth losing brain cells over lol

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Maybe she's there but she's... changed...?

 

[Eerie]

Hey, she ain't Jenova lol!

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Evil Aerith in the alternate timeline....

 

[Fiz]

Okay, so let me know if I'm understanding correctly.

This is what I think is happenening:

Spoiler

View attachment 10382

And this is what the you guys think is happening:

Spoiler

View attachment 10383

Is that correct?

I have an alternate reading on this, assuming multiple timelines.

That there were multiple timelines, Sephiroth travelled back in time/across timelines, Cloud and Co defeated the whispers and now all timelines are merged into one. Or the singularity is it’s own timeline. They’re now there. Something like that.

 

[KindOfBlue]

“Maybe I’ll head over to her place and see if she’s there…”

(“Flowers Blooming in the Church” plays)

“There! In the window, it’s…Aerith and her mother, eating dinner with…Tseng?!”

(Tseng winks at Zack a la James Franco in Spider-Man 3)


“NOOOOOOOOO—!!”

(“Hollow” plays)

 

[grooveorganic]

Maybe she's there but she's... changed...?

You might be on to something. I've seen very little mention of her reaction to when it started raining again in the end of Intermission. It's the total opposite of how she reacts at the end of the base game.

She went from this...




To this...



Knowing the symbolism behind water/rain in relation to Zack, her reaction is supposed to mean something. Zack is alive, so the sadness she'd have at the coming of the rain should be gone/never existed. Either Aerith doesn't seem to understand this connection to her feelings/senses and the rain anymore, or this could possibly be one of the things that changed about her in regards to them passing through the singularity.




We beat the Whispers (I still find it super strange she knew an actual battle was coming for us to even have to fight and win) and I'm of the mind that she's lost her connection to the Planet after everything that went down. We might have to spend some time in part 2 helping her reconnect to it.

But, in her own words...

 

[ForceStealer]

I thought her comment about the rain was just her wryly highlighting the lack of a plate above them, but I did forget that she already commented on that in the main ending, so iunno

 

[Fiz]

You might be on to something. I've seen very little mention of her reaction to when it started raining again in the end of Intermission. It's the total opposite of how she reacts at the end of the base game.

She went from this...

View attachment 10403


To this...

View attachment 10404

Knowing the symbolism behind water/rain in relation to Zack, her reaction is supposed to mean something. Zack is alive, so the sadness she'd have at the coming of the rain should be gone/never existed. Either Aerith doesn't seem to understand this connection to her feelings/senses and the rain anymore, or this could possibly be one of the things that changed about her in regards to them passing through the singularity.

View attachment 10405


We beat the Whispers (I still find it super strange she knew an actual battle was coming for us to even have to fight and win) and I'm of the mind that she's lost her connection to the Planet after everything that went down. We might have to spend some time in part 2 helping her reconnect to it.

But, in her own words...

View attachment 10408

That’s a good point, I think you might be onto a few things there.

Off topic, kinda, that last pic creeps me out. She looks like she’s made of plastic.