SPOILERS INTERmission Chapter 2 Spoiler Discussion

[Obsidian Fire]

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.

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

I am of the opinion that Intermission is the equivalent of Nero taking the bleeding corpse of the Compilation Timeline the Harbringer of Fate left behind it back behind the shed to make sure we know it is well and truly dead.

Because we apparently didn't get the memo the first time when Remake Ended with "The Unknown Journey Continues"...

I think that a sizable portion of the fanbase will keep hanging on for the plot of the Remake series to circle around back to the compilation no matter what happens until the series is well and truly done. And even after there will be people deep in denail about Remake "counting" for how FFVII is really supposed to end.

 

[Odysseus]

By all rights I should agree with you, but the fact that no whispers get involved with Yuffie's Deepground adventure tells me another story, that Square doesn't consider it contradictory. I guess it's worth noting that she only hears the name "Deepground" once, and brushes it off as Nero being creepy. She might not remember after three years lol.

 

[Clement Rage]

I'm not wedded to the original timeline at all, but the defining feature of the Whispers is that they work to preserve it as it was before. Why do they suddenly not care?

She knows what the uniforms look like, she knows there's a very dangerous guy down there that kills people with swirly black stuff, even if it's just a stock tentacle monster now.

 

[LNK]

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!

I was definitely one of those people! It wasn't a baseless theory though. There was evidence that it could've played out that way. I was wrong though, that's fine

 

[Shademp]

The Whispers are flawed accountants with finite resources and in the end have to settle for general results instead of perfect replications. That's the only way they make sense to me, even though the game stupidly calls them "Arbiters of Fate" and "Destiny".

There's also still a lot we don't know about the Whispers and how they operate(d). Have they operated since the planet first formed, billions of years prior? Or did they only start veering "destiny" very recently? 2000 years prior? 50 years prior?

Are they only steering destiny towards a certain point and if so how far ahead until they get their lunch break? The end of Meteorfall? The end of Advent Children? The end of Dirge of Cerberus? 500 years into the future? The end of the planet's life?

Is there an original timeline, perhaps the original FF7, where the Whispers didn't exist and they were only created afterwards? Why is it so gosh darn important to preserve a very specific series of events and how would the planet suffer from these events not happening?

Sadly, I do not trust Square to elaborate on all these questions that SHOULD be answered about the Whispers. Square will probably continue with hand-wavey, vague statements about the Whispers and how they work because that seems to be their role so far: Plot ghosts that the authors can use in any way they please, rules and limitations be damned.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

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

Speaking for myself, there's nothing to live down. The Remake Buster Sword, as originally depicted, absolutely shared additional traits (no longer present) with the Compilation version -- and that's before getting into how we were outright told the FFVIIR x MobiusFF crossover (in which Cloud uses the Compilation Buster Sword) utilized the actual assets from VIIR's production for its FFVII content.

Hell, the Buster Sword in the final product of VIIR still has a red haft under the leather wrapping.

We had every reason before to believe the Compilation Buster Sword's crossguard being hidden was a legit possible story direction, and I will continue to stand by my reasoning from that time.

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

None of this speaks to my question about your postulation. What was surprising or mysterious about seeing Zack in Midgar when the last time we saw him, he was about to walk into Midgar?

 

[waw]

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.

I disagree. What would she know? She has no idea that these folks are even called Deepground. For all she knows, they're just another Shinra monster that she faces, and the party faces a ton of them. Yuffie never really reached Mako Reactor 0 or the depths under Shinra RQ, just the a weapons development basement. This has changed nothing except for when Yuffie WOULD see Nero, thinking, oh yeah... I guess I saw this before and they killed someone I knew for ~24 hours?

She has nothing to add and knows nothing. This changes nothing.

 

[Eerie]

I don't know. I think the way it's framed, with "Aerith..." just on the black screen, is meant to make us feel that something is wrong with her. The way the church scene is done is absolutely meant to give you a sense of dread - whether it's true or not doesn't really matter, we have 2 years left at least of wondering about that, hopefully less if they talk about it in the next Ultimania. They have given us a clue about what's going on there:

- the church is full of people??? (it wasn't in chapter 14)

- the reunion flowers are wilted (!!! can't meet with Zack anymore)

- look at the kids crying and the adults comforting them

- one kid seems kind of hurt

- Aerith's not there, and Zack worries about her//black screen

Then you do realise that you have never seen so many people there, not even after the plate fall... and you start to wonder what's really going on. It should have been joyous, Zack should have been given an earring, but there was a reunion expected - only it did not happen and something really weird is going on. We are two days after the plate fall, so the first shock is over - kids should not be crying. In the Remake, Aerith's already been kidnapped by Tseng two days ago, so why are the kids crying?

Nah, this scene is meant to give you dread about Aerith's fate, especially if you believe that Zack is in another timeline.

 

[Tetsujin]

By all rights I should agree with you, but the fact that no whispers get involved with Yuffie's Deepground adventure tells me another story, that Square doesn't consider it contradictory. I guess it's worth noting that she only hears the name "Deepground" once, and brushes it off as Nero being creepy. She might not remember after three years lol.

I don't think they care that it's contradictory. I think it's a mistake to assume that everything without Whisper involvement should fall 100% in line with OG continuity. I don't think they were meant to be as literal as that.
The symbolism of us punching out the old continuity is more important than its literal timeline placement. In the end, things are gonna be different just on account of being a new take on FFVII, the Arbiter of Fate fight is just an unnecessarily heavy-handed symbol of that (and a plot device to bring back Zack, apparently )

So the "unknown journey" is gonna apply to all of Remake, including INTERmission. If it doesn't match up with the OG continuity it's because it was never meant to, Whispers or no.

 

[JBedford]

I think they want us to think that Yuffie knowing about Deepground and Nero wouldn't change Dirge that much. They wanted to make a DLC, used Yuffie because her wherabouts at this point in time weren't written about, and messing with Deepground allows for good bosses and fan service in a place that no one knows about anyway so won't interfere with the original story.

I think they care about being contradictory here as much as they cared about contradicting FFVII when they inserted Genesis into Nibelheim.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I don't think they care that it's contradictory. I think it's a mistake to assume that everything without Whisper involvement should fall 100% in line with OG continuity. I don't think they were meant to be as literal as that.
The symbolism of us punching out the old continuity is more important than its literal timeline placement. In the end, things are gonna be different just on account of being a new take on FFVII, the Arbiter of Fight fate is just an unnecessarily heavy-handed symbol of that (and a plot device to bring back Zack, apparently )

To keep this in perspective, though: the Whispers let Yuffie encounter Deepground; they will not let her go in Seventh Heaven. XD

 

[Tetsujin]

To keep this in perspective, though: the Whispers let Yuffie encounter Deepground; they will not let her go in Seventh Heaven. XD

Well yeah, she's not allowed to drink yet

 

[Clement Rage]

I think they care about being contradictory here as much as they cared about contradicting FFVII when they inserted Genesis into Nibelheim.

They did care about that, though. The OG scene faded to black and skipped forward in time, Genesis was in that timeskip. It's not contradictory.

We see how the Whispers work, they have acted frequently to prevent much more trivial things digressions than this, and they have been acting to preserve the old timeline consistently. They don't preserve the timeline perfectly, but they consistently try to, everywhere else. We know they're still active in the DLC because they stop Yuffie from entering Seventh Heaven.

Nero is obviously distinct from everything else down there, Yuffie hears and responds to him saying 'Deepground', she sees the distinctive different uniforms and had an extended fight with things that fought differently than everything else. Given her emotional devastation at the end, Sonon ain't just some guy she knew for 24 hours and forgot about.

It's not that it's not 100pc in line, it's that they have acted in the main game previously multiple times to prevent this exact thing happening. But this time they don't for no apparent reason.

 

[MelodicEnigma]

I don't know. I think the way it's framed, with "Aerith..." just on the black screen, is meant to make us feel that something is wrong with her.

Ah, I didn't even think this was something we were questioning? XD Sorry, I don't have much to give about Timeline theories as I'm in total "wait and see" mode, but I will agree with this sentiment. Zack's reaction isn't exactly the type one would have just from not finding someone in a place they were expecting to find them. Especially, when there's a very easy alternative, like being at her house. Between the atmosphere of everyone else and Zack's expression, it's feels pretty purposely framed that there's a sense of bad vibes he's discovered and is concerned about her in reflection of it.

Edit:

But I'll say again too—his reaction is what I also find very odd, if not the scene itself. The city just went through a whole scary episode, but Zack doesn't really act like someone who was there for all that. If we're suggesting Zack jumped into Timelines and such, is it possible that he somehow skipped all the events that happened and doesn't know? Kind of like a "what happened? I just got here yesterday", sort of deal?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

It's not that it's not 100pc in line, it's that they have acted in the main game previously multiple times to prevent this exact thing happening. But this time they don't for no apparent reason.

Keep in mind the Whispers allowed Cloud, Tifa, and Barret to discover and enter Deepground -- up to a point.

I also think we have to at least consider the possibility this Yuffie stuff happened in the original timeline. At the very least, if something (what?) set Yuffie's original path askew, it was no more so than with CTB.

 

[LNK]

We are two days after the plate fall, so the first shock is over - kids should not be crying

I disagree. How do we know these kids didn't have family who died in the platefall? There are way too many questions about what's going on to say conclusively we know what's going on.

 

[waw]

They did care about that, though. The OG scene faded to black and skipped forward in time, Genesis was in that timeskip. It's not contradictory.

Thank you for this! This is often overlooked. While it was a "retcon" in a sense that it changed our perceptions of continuity, it didn't redo any scenes, it just filled in off-camera ones. Something happened when things faded to black - whether it was Genesis, or Sephy going out to take a leak off the side of Mt. Nibel or what... something happened.

I don't know. I think the way it's framed, with "Aerith..." just on the black screen, is meant to make us feel that something is wrong with her.

Or, he tried to find her and is too late/still missing her.

- look at the kids crying and the adults comforting them

- one kid seems kind of hurt
.... We are two days after the plate fall, so the first shock is over - kids should not be crying. In the Remake, Aerith's already been kidnapped by Tseng two days ago, so why are the kids crying?

Sorry Eerie, but you're way, way off with the "kids shouldn't be crying" at this point. I think if we go to any major disaster in the world, just thinking of Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, and Fukushima to think of a few, and speak to kids who lost family in the platefall... you really think we won't find any kids crying two days later? Especially knowing search and rescues can take days, even weeks, before folks are confirmed dead or not?

You absolutely may be right about this scene not having to do with the plate, but nothing in it disqualifies it from being plate-related sorrow.

 

[KindOfBlue]

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

All they did was simply point us to the bag and the fans ran with it all the way to the ends of the earth, this fanbase needs no help whatsoever overanalyzing the most specific of details lol

By all rights I should agree with you, but the fact that no whispers get involved with Yuffie's Deepground adventure tells me another story, that Square doesn't consider it contradictory. I guess it's worth noting that she only hears the name "Deepground" once, and brushes it off as Nero being creepy. She might not remember after three years lol.

I think whether or not this actually matters depends on whether or not the devs ever intended for the events of DC to still happen in the remake’s future, otherwise it’s not so much a contradiction as it is something that just wasn’t going to happen in the first place

Zack's reaction isn't exactly the type one would have just from not finding someone in a place they were expecting to find them. Especially, when there's a very easy alternative, like being at her house.

I think his reaction still makes sense if he doesn’t know why it’s full of strangers, so perhaps he didn’t even get to Midgar until after the plate fell

The Whispers are flawed accountants with finite resources and in the end have to settle for general results instead of perfect replications. That's the only way they make sense to me, even though the game stupidly calls them "Arbiters of Fate" and "Destiny".

There's also still a lot we don't know about the Whispers and how they operate(d). Have they operated since the planet first formed, billions of years prior? Or did they only start veering "destiny" very recently? 2000 years prior? 50 years prior?

Are they only steering destiny towards a certain point and if so how far ahead until they get their lunch break? The end of Meteorfall? The end of Advent Children? The end of Dirge of Cerberus? 500 years into the future? The end of the planet's life?

Is there an original timeline, perhaps the original FF7, where the Whispers didn't exist and they were only created afterwards? Why is it so gosh darn important to preserve a very specific series of events and how would the planet suffer from these events not happening?

Sadly, I do not trust Square to elaborate on all these questions that SHOULD be answered about the Whispers. Square will probably continue with hand-wavey, vague statements about the Whispers and how they work because that seems to be their role so far: Plot ghosts that the authors can use in any way they please, rules and limitations be damned.

Because the Whispers are some sort of defense conjured by the planet, my guess is that they only appeared as a response to a force that is actively trying to alter the course of destiny, like Sephiroth…my guess is still when Sephiroth was thrown into the Lifestream, he somehow became aware of the future that awaited him so he began working towards fighting fate with whatever 5D chess moves he’s playing

Also, I don’t think it’s fair to treat how SE describes the Whispers now as an indication as to whether or not the story will answer those questions…they’re not just gonna spoil the whole remake now lol

None of this speaks to my question about your postulation. What was surprising or mysterious about seeing Zack in Midgar when the last time we saw him, he was about to walk into Midgar?

Other than confirming that he didn’t get shot right after, I’d say it’s the timing more than anything since a lot of what we’re theorizing here can only go as far as conjecture because despite me believing he arrived after the plate fell for instance, we don’t actually know when exactly he got to Midgar…there’s also the mystery of the buster sword, what happened to the Cloud he brought with him, is he in our time or are we in his, what’s gonna happen next, etc. so pretty much all the questions we didn’t get answered in the main game really

I don't know. I think the way it's framed, with "Aerith..." just on the black screen, is meant to make us feel that something is wrong with her. The way the church scene is done is absolutely meant to give you a sense of dread - whether it's true or not doesn't really matter, we have 2 years left at least of wondering about that, hopefully less if they talk about it in the next Ultimania. They have given us a clue about what's going on there:

- the church is full of people??? (it wasn't in chapter 14)

- the reunion flowers are wilted (!!! can't meet with Zack anymore)

- look at the kids crying and the adults comforting them

- one kid seems kind of hurt

- Aerith's not there, and Zack worries about her//black screen

Then you do realise that you have never seen so many people there, not even after the plate fall... and you start to wonder what's really going on. It should have been joyous, Zack should have been given an earring, but there was a reunion expected - only it did not happen and something really weird is going on. We are two days after the plate fall, so the first shock is over - kids should not be crying. In the Remake, Aerith's already been kidnapped by Tseng two days ago, so why are the kids crying?

Nah, this scene is meant to give you dread about Aerith's fate, especially if you believe that Zack is in another timeline.

Even if Aerith WAS in the church, assuming she wasn’t still captured by Shinra, I’m sure she’d be helping out with relief efforts in some way…I dunno, too much of this can be explained away with inconsistency between the game and the prerendered cutscene for me to go all in on this yet

I don't think they care that it's contradictory. I think it's a mistake to assume that everything without Whisper involvement should fall 100% in line with OG continuity. I don't think they were meant to be as literal as that.
The symbolism of us punching out the old continuity is more important than its literal timeline placement. In the end, things are gonna be different just on account of being a new take on FFVII, the Arbiter of Fate fight is just an unnecessarily heavy-handed symbol of that (and a plot device to bring back Zack, apparently )

So the "unknown journey" is gonna apply to all of Remake, including INTERmission. If it doesn't match up with the OG continuity it's because it was never meant to, Whispers or no.

My thoughts exactly

 

[Obsidian Fire]

My thing with the Whispers is that they're clearly "4th Dimensional" beings. The Dome exists at the same time in the Past as in the Present... until it's destroyed in the Present which also destroys it in the Past. Conveniently *after* Zack's Destiny was changed.

So the Whispers not keeping Yuffie out of DG but keeping her out of 7th Heaven... for all we know, they're still "functioning" when she tries to go into 7th Heaven and they are no longer "functioning" when she makes her way into Deepground.

That said, Yuffie going to Midgar *at all* is framed like her destiny was changed in the tagline to Intermission. So for all we know... the Whispers are just a "left over" from when they were focusing on Cloud and Co. to keep *their* destiny still the same in their own timline. As in, they aren't paying attention to Yuffie in particular, they're just keeping Cloud and Co. from meeting anyone who would change their destiny too soon. While for Yuffie, they're actually not messing with her at all. Kind of like how they're not messing with Zack...

The thing that makes the Whispers weird is well... trying to apply linear timelines to them just doesn't work right.

 

[LNK]

All they did was simply point us to the bag and the fans ran with it all the way to the ends of the earth, this fanbase needs no help whatsoever overanalyzing the most specific of details lol

This! All this! Sometimes all I can do is just "dog head tilt," to the things people come up with. Lol

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Regardless of what Yuffie knows or doesn't know, remembers or doesn't remember about Deepground, the fact remains that many, many grounders now know that Shinra has underground labs under Sector 7 and possibly under other sectors as well. Slum-dwellers are survivors, they are tough, they are scavengers, they form their own paramilitary (the watch). They know that survival entails taking huge risks. The shelves down there are stocked with potions and phoenix down and stuff, not to mention computers, electrical equipment, tools, weapons, and so on. Are we really meant to suppose that none of these people formed armed parties and descended into the depths, if for no other reason than to find stuff they could take and sell? Stuff that could aid them in their fight for survival? There's no way they could avoid stumbling across Deepground.

 

[cold_spirit]

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.

Oh geez, I definitely avoided that debate. For me, what was being suggested didn't match the purpose of the scene. In the case of the Seventh Heaven sign, that scene was meant to show the Sector 7 survivors rebuilding their lives, giving their story closure. Not a great place to drop a timeline hint in my opinion. The Stamp chip bag and Zack's reaction to Aerith's absence though, those two receive special camera treatment in scenes that are new and surprising. That begs for analysis in my opinion.

But I digress! I must sound pretty delusional if I'm being compared to the Seventh Heaven sign debate, so I'll bow out for now haha.

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*

Theory crafting can be fun, but I noticed there's a bit of negativity towards it with Remake. I think the two main issues are that we don't have enough info and that people don't want to be wrong.

Yes, we don't have enough info, but that's the point. Instead of focusing on that, I like to acknowledge the unique opportunity we have here. We get to be creative and piece together an explanation from our vast pre-existing knowledge, perhaps leading to valuable insights along the way.

A lot of people have decided to wait for the answers to become available before deciding if they like Remake's new direction. I think... those people won't like the new direction no matter what the answers are. With that mentality, a person would be approaching every new development with cynicism, and that's going to make any enjoyment an uphill battle.

We are currently in the most unique era with this new series. Someday we'll have the answers and we'll have them for a lot longer than when we didn't. I would say it's better to take advantage of the now than to let it pass us by.

But what if our theories turn out to be wrong? It's okay to be wrong. I think a person should always keep an open mind. I've been wrong. What's fun is letting the person I most disagreed with know that they were right. Then we got to share in the excitement.

Theory crafting can be engaging and collaborative. I've been vocal before that it's a great for the community. I still think that! And of course it's cool to just not like Remake's new direction at all. Just wanted to share my perspective is all.

 

[Shademp]

Beautiful post, cold_spirit!

My main source of emotional investment when it comes to theory crafting for FF7R is the fact that I will forever dislike the existence of the Whispers and all this Destiny-nonsense (and the revival of Zack, even though it's probably temporary), but a part of me is holding onto hope that *at least* by the end of the Remake series that all this nonsense will have MEANT something. That's why I'm invested in the hope of the old post-OG continuity no longer happening and that preferably Sephiroth will be 100% defeated before Meteorfall this time around. "No resurrections this time."

If all FF7R accomplishes is that everything loops back around to old post-OG continuity happening all over again then all the insanity introduced with FF7R Part 1 will have been utterly pointless. It would confirm that the Whispers was just frivolous fluff all along and that Square could have just instead made the FF7 Remake most of us were expecting. That's my opinion and investment and it will continue to be so for years.

Is it unwise of me to be emotionally invested in a specific outcome for FF7R? Yes. My investment in a Peter Jackson-style "Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy take on the FF7 Remake series is a major contributor to why the ending of FF7R Part 1 so utterly destroyed me. It would have been better if I didn't have these emotional investments at all. But I also can't help myself in feeling the way that I do. At best I can take a step away and feel the detachment of distance for a while, but when I return to FF7R all the same opinions and feelings will inevitably return.

 

[Odysseus]

Theories are fine. I enjoy making them, even. I just got burned recently by a different fanbase blowing up after their big dumb fan theory didn't come true, and I'm still seeing the fallout three months later lol. Like I said before, if anyone starts talking about secret weddings I'm leaving.

Okay I'm gonna go back to the Yuffie thing now.

Before I get started, I'm gonna put it plainly that, within the context of the original game, Yuffie having some big adventure in Midgar was not a thought in anyone's mind. That's not a thing that happened. I understand that, okay?

Now then; when asked why Yuffie was chosen as the protagonist of this DLC over someone like Cid or Vincent, Nomura notably stated that it was becauses the remake is "following the plot of the original" and as such, Vincent would be asleep and Cid would still be on Shinra's side. Yuffie was comparatively free to do whatever they wanted within this timeframe. This implies pretty strongly that he doesn't view the events of the DLC as coming into conflict with the original narrative, it's something that could plausibly have happened (your milage may vary.)

So let's examine that. What is Yuffie doing? She's on a secret mission to steal materia from Shinra, for the "new wutai government." Obviously a lot of the details about Wutai itself are different now, Godo is in jail, but I think that's neither here nor there in regards to this. This sort of mission seems right up Yuffie's alley, it doesn't seem like the machinations of outside forces that put her here like the plot divergences of the main story, which Sephiroth is very clearly involved with. This is just a thing she's doing because she's doing it, if that makes sense. If no time bullshit was happening, she'd still be in Midgar doing this, and since this is a period of time we didn't see her originally, it doesn't contradict anything outright anyway. At least until she meets Nero, which is where things get iffy since it seemingly contradicts DoC.

Things to take issue with: Yuffie hears the name "Deepground," and Yuffie's friend is killed by Nero, who in DoC she has no big reaction to meeting (though she does get oddly emotional at Shelke for having such a disregard for her older sister, which kinda reminds me of Sonon now...)
Like I said before, Yuffie could easily forget the name deepground, as she hears it once and never gets context for what it even is anyway, so I'd consider that not a huge deal. We never see her initial reaction to them in DoC, so she could have been like "oh shit it's those guys." It's harder to grapple with her reaction to Nero (obviously when DoC was written, Sonon was not a thing,) so I'm gonna hide behind what I'm still considering the smoking gun of the argument here, the whispers.

Outside of preventing Yuffie from entering the bar, the Whispers never get involved in this story. You can come up with plenty of nice little reasons for that, like "they're only concerned about Yuffie not meeting the main party," or "they have limited resources and are focused only on the main party" (they cover the whole city at one point but okay), "they're dead already from a 4th dimensional perspective," etc. But I feel like that's all just side stepping the real point. It is a huge narrative point that these force of nature plot ghosts exist solely to stop things that shouldn't be happening from happening, arguably the main plot of remake part 1, and yet they don't get involved with Yuffie whatsoever. Say what you will about Square's writing tendencies, but I think the simplest explanation is the correct one here: Square does not view the events of this DLC as contradictory to the original events of the game. There's nothing else too it, even if that seems wrong to you.

 

[Eerie]

You absolutely may be right about this scene not having to do with the plate, but nothing in it disqualifies it from being plate-related sorrow.

Everything in this scene is jarring with what we saw post-plate fall. People were in shock right after. But why two days after are the kids like this? Why is one seemingly hurt? Something went wrong in this timeline (may have it merged with the Remake timeline or not) and the devs stressed on it too much for me to be it plate fall-related. You have to remember that the kids really love Aerith to get the feeling nailed down to her fate.

The Stamp chip bag and Zack's reaction to Aerith's absence though, those two receive special camera treatment in scenes that are new and surprising. That begs for analysis in my opinion.

Exactly. Again, it's the way it's filmed and put together, in a dramatic fashion. Zack wouldn't be asking "Aerith..." but "what happened?" if they didn't want to stress *her* fate. Just saying.

But what if our theories turn out to be wrong? It's okay to be wrong. I think a person should always keep an open mind. I've been wrong. What's fun is letting the person I most disagreed with know that they were right. Then we got to share in the excitement.

Yes! I think the biggest gift the devs have given this communauty is food for thoughts for years to come! Reading others' opinions help me forge my opinion, change it, think about stuff. It's fun being an FFVII fan right now - I had quite forgotten about this. And I'm 99.99% sure I'll be wrong like 99.99% of the fandom. Doesn't matter, it's fun to have those discussions. Seeing people being afraid of being wrong is a little sad to me.