Life, Death, & The Sefirot: FFVII's History & Remake's Future in a New Symbol of Reunion

[X-SOLDIER]

Well, here it is – the biggest analysis I've ever done.

This originally started out as a small speculative piece on the new symbol on the Sephiroth Clones in Remake.

Along the way, I looked into a couple very odd obscure details for fun, and that ended up cracking some things WIDE open and provided a bunch of interconnected context that just matched up too eerily accurately for me to ignore. Those things kept me digging, and eventually I got enough pieces that brought me full circle to foundational details about the original writing team, and finally allowed me to understand why everything matched up so well. Ultimately, this also helps to show why there was a framework that was solid enough that I kept finding things when I was digging at an otherwise totally obscure symbol, as well as shine some light on a perspective that I don't think that Final Fantasy VII gets too often, but that Remake has already been doubling down on.

Thanks a ton to @CrashOuch for proofing all of my recent tl;dr articles.

Hopefully there's a lot in here to provide some neat conversation and a new direction to look at some things you've probably seen countless times before, and new things to consider when looking at Remake and its sequels. Take your time, because there's a lot in there – and thanks in advance to everybody who helped keep me going, and also for checking these things out & enjoying it all along with me.




X

 

[Tetsujin]

I think this part needs a correction:

"Absolutely all of these motherly entities are lost or unreachable by the children looking for them. All of these metaphors are because Final Fantasy VII‘s story is based around the experiences & struggles that Sakaguchi was grappling with, from his own mother passing away during the development of Final Fantasy VI (quoted in the article as “Final Fantasy III“ due to the North American marketing at the time)."

FFIII here is the actual FFIII - Sakaguchi's mother passed away in 1988. It's a very common misconception that Sakaguchi was still dealing with her loss during FFVII.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Thanks much! I'll go make the corrections on that!



X

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Those should be updated to be Final Fantasy III now!

Of note: The general contextual awareness of loss and the discussions of life & death from that event with his mother is still there. I read through several different articles talking about things being misconstrued from the interview in PlayStation Underground, but not a lot of clarification on what it did mean. There are a lot of little references to how those emotional struggles impact characters in the series, but they're much more obscure and not as overt as things like being an inspiration for Aerith's death.

Aerith's death was very much Nomura's decision when he and the other two were creating the new story off of the underlying framework that Sakaguchi had set up (the main story parts of his story were used for Parasite Eve). There are several other interview links that note that the idea of a story that really focuses on the themes of life and death at its core had things that were set up by Sakaguchi which are connected to why the concepts of Lifestream & Materia were already in place by the time that Nomura, Kitase, & Nojima took over.

Hopefully that all makes sense, and if there's something that still seems off about that, lemme know!




X

 

[Cat on Mars]

I'm still in part 3, that was pretty intense. I'm reserving my opinion for when I finish the whole essay.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Thanks, I hope that it's been going fairly smoothly at least! It's a lot to get through.

What's covered in Page 3 is definitely the part that threw me for a really weird twist when I was initially doing research. I was trying to understand as much as I could about the perspectives that a Japanese Development team would've had on the Sefirot's themes. When I noticed that Bowie's lyrics referenced it, I also knew about the reference in North Crater which meant it was at least worth tossing a little time into. I wanted to try to understand more about what his pop-star influence on someone in Japan would have been if his music was connected to them eventually looking into those religious themes. I never expected it to be more than a passing mention of how those might've occurred as a sentence or two.

When I watched The Man Who Fell to Earth, I was just gobsmacked by how many similar themes existed between it and Final Fantasy VII. That got me poking more at how very nuanced the in-game reference was, the more I understood about it the more I could see why it would be there. What totally sold it for me are things that come later, and how there are little moments in Remake that line up with a lot of those ideas more clearly than the original did. That perspective on thinking about characters as real people and taking those themes deeply seriously even in a work of fiction, made me think a lot harder about the underlying themes & personal questions that drove a lot of what the writers wanted to do with the story. That helped a lot in looking at choices and portrayals that would make sense while still operating inside that primary framework, and let me pull at more details on a lot of things later on.




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get through this whole thing. It's a tad bit long, in case you were wondering.

The extent of David Bowie's unintended influence on conceptualizing some of FFVII's aesthetics and plot structure is really eye-opening -- and seems undeniable now that it has been laid out like this. Truly insightful research there!

Likewise that the cloak Reunion symbol corresponds to a headless Jenova and Keter-less Sephiroth diagram.

I'll confess that much of the Strokes/Paths analysis is not something I can wrap my head around, but I did find the analysis of the parts focusing on "New Game+ Sephiroth" and how he relates to us at a meta level revelatory. The little details you pulled out of the opening cinematic as well.

Other than that, I'm not sure what to say at the moment, regrettably. I'll give it some more time to digest, though.

I do have a few corrective observations to offer, if you're interested:

- Page 5:
"This 'Calamity from the Skies' is especially important because we know that this initial event could only occur if the Black Materia was used."

"Just like Jenova can’t arrive on a world without first being summoned by the Black Materia ..."

I'm unsure where this idea originated. I don't believe anything in the franchise has ever indicated that Jenova's meteor was brought to the planet because of the Black Materia, nor even whether the Black Materia existed prior?

Also, as you reference within your article, Sephiroth intended to use the planet's husk as an interstellar vessel -- presumably without waiting for someone on another planet to use a Black Materia equivalent to pull it there.
----

- Page 10:
"She even gives Cloud a new materia as an excuse to talk about hers ..."

I think that was just supposed to be one of the materia he got from Jessie. Aerith mentions that he dropped it when he crashed through the roof, and there's no on-screen notification of receiving any new materia at this point.
----

- Page 10:
"This starts with the flower that Aerith gives Cloud that symbolizes when lovers were reunited ..."

- Page 11:
"... a flower that Remake has told us symbolically represents lost lovers being reunited."

I don't know if this impacts your overall observations related to the flower (probably not), but the portion about lovers giving one another the flowers when reunited wasn't mentioned in Japanese. Just the "reunion" meaning.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get through this whole thing. It's a tad bit long, in case you were wondering.

The extent of David Bowie's unintended influence on conceptualizing some of FFVII's aesthetics and plot structure is really eye-opening -- and seems undeniable now that it has been laid out like this. Truly insightful research there!

Likewise that the cloak Reunion symbol corresponds to a headless Jenova and Keter-less Sephiroth diagram.

No worries at all. I figured it'd probably be a week or two before anyone started getting me first thoughts on all of this.

Thanks much. The David Bowie stuff really had me feeling like I'd opened up a Pandora's Box of forbidden FFVII madness, so I'm glad that that all came though most clearly along with the Keter-less Sephiroth Sefirot, since those are probably the biggest key points to looking at the rest of the stuff.

I'll confess that much of the Strokes/Paths analysis is not something I can wrap my head around, but I did find the analysis of the parts focusing on "New Game+ Sephiroth" and how he relates to us at a meta level revelatory. The little details you pulled out of the opening cinematic as well.

Other than that, I'm not sure what to say at the moment, regrettably. I'll give it some more time to digest, though.

Honestly, take your time with it. It was several weeks of me going through it before I felt like I had a decent enough interpretation to write, and those bits are still largely speculation moreso than the rest. The bits about NG+ Sephiroth are definitely where the David Bowie connections, as well as the focused on a path of "kindness" really started to pull up a lot of perspective that helped me dig into things.

Also, when I did my first several passes at analysis, Zack, Tifa, Aerith, Cloud & Sephiroth were the only ones who came up in that diagram, and it wasn't until much later on when I went back to add detail about the writing team that I remembered that the core story was written with those 5 characters, so it was another one of those little retroactively reinforced things, since that was even true when analyzing Remake & expanded roles for characters like Barret.

Going back to the meta-level presentation in that first and the opening cinematic afterwards felt REALLY interesting, because it's one of those things where I just dug into all of this crazy context, and it makes all these little pieces that were clearly intentional make more sense as to why just from a high-level design & storytelling perspective. That sort of thing always feels good when something makes more sense from multiple different layers.

I do have a few corrective observations to offer, if you're interested:

Literally always. <4

- Page 5:
"This 'Calamity from the Skies' is especially important because we know that this initial event could only occur if the Black Materia was used."

"Just like Jenova can’t arrive on a world without first being summoned by the Black Materia ..."

I'm unsure where this idea originated. I don't believe anything in the franchise has ever indicated that Jenova's meteor was brought to the planet because of the Black Materia, nor even whether the Black Materia existed prior?

Also, as you reference within your article, Sephiroth intended to use the planet's husk as an interstellar vessel -- presumably without waiting for someone on another planet to use a Black Materia equivalent to pull it there.
----

I didn't dive into this one as much as I could have but it's a two-fold thing:

First is that it's tied into the representations of Malkhut in the game. That means that it has to be activated by a part of creation in order to function and thereby reveal the complete deity. It's not something that the deity can trigger on its own, even despite seeming omniscient & omnipotent power – it's the core relationship between the divine & their creation, in this case, the planet's Lifestream & the beings who are created from it. That's the Sefirot-specific requirement that show what the White Materia & its counterpart the Black Materia are restricted to from a religious-design-level framework. That dictates that they have to operate that way from a storytelling perspective in the narrative, and they do in-game regardless of the fact that those restrictions aren't directly explained in-world. There are enough things about how the Black Materia & White Materia are used in the story in Final Fantasy VII to be able to definitively connect them to Malkhut, and use that to ensure that they behave according to those rules elsewhere in the story – even when we haven't been explicitly given the details. Essentially, we know how they have to work & how they can't work, so there are some specific things that we can understand explicitly, despite only having very limited amounts of loose contextual information.

Second is seeing that this holds true, which is in the Black Materia mural in the Temple of the Ancients – where we see it being used to summon Meteor. There are 7 panels there and I could probably have added in this part, but the religious framework was well enough in place that I just wanted to use the aforementioned reason to keep things moving along, and not confuse things with any more 7-step-interpretive-symbolism.

The 5th panel in the original game background shows Meteor being summoned with the Black Materia. Interestingly, the individual holding the Black Materia & summoning Meteor is the only woman appearing in any of the panels – she's got longer hair, and is the only one wearing clothes that cover her chest – so it's very unlikely that this is a prophetic depiction of Cloud & Sephiroth, but rather a historical recounting of what occurred that's serving as a warning. (Speculation: I think that this also depicts why Jenova has taken the primary physical appearance of a human female). Additionally, the panel where she's summoning Meteor features the only instance of two individuals standing side-by-side & also facing towards one another without another object separating them. This is because Malkhut has to be activated as an act of altruism, and this is showing one individual Giving the Black Materia to the other who is Receiving it, and as a result Meteor is being summoned – just like we'd expect from knowing Malkhut's functional requirements requiring an act of altruism between a Giver & a Receiver (also usually balanced as a Male & Female in that shared role) being required for activation.


This is one of those things where it's always just been assumed that Sephiroth would hunt down another world all on his own – but he never details how he'd find a new world to settle upon, just that it's his goal to do that like Jenova did. The ecological activist perspective around saving the planet that the game sets up always demonstrate that issues are a part of not living in harmony with nature. The divine religious framework establishes that Old Testament apocalyptic punishments are always an act of God as facilitated by the actions/inactions of humanity. So, basically everything about the framework that controls the narrative tells us that it works this way.

I think I'll go back and add in a bit more context on the Black & White Materia terminology section to help clarify this though.

- Page 10:
"She even gives Cloud a new materia as an excuse to talk about hers ..."

I think that was just supposed to be one of the materia he got from Jessie. Aerith mentions that he dropped it when he crashed through the roof, and there's no on-screen notification of receiving any new materia at this point.
----

While there's no on-screen notification, Aerith giving you that also corresponds to a new materia being placed in your inventory though, yeah? I can't recall which one it is off the top of my head, so now I definitely need to go check that again. Even if she does give you a brand new materia under the excuse of it already being yours, it's probably best clarified as being a bit more speculative.

- Page 10:
"This starts with the flower that Aerith gives Cloud that symbolizes when lovers were reunited ..."

- Page 11:
"... a flower that Remake has told us symbolically represents lost lovers being reunited."

I don't know if this impacts your overall observations related to the flower (probably not), but the portion about lovers giving one another the flowers when reunited wasn't mentioned in Japanese. Just the "reunion" meaning.

That's really good to note in translation change. It might be useful to call out the differentiation in the Japanese natural word "reunion" vs. the katakana "Reunion" which I definitely intended to do at one point, but absolutely forgot. Might add in a sentence or something with that depending.





EDIT: Aaaand updated! I made the line about Aerith & the materia a bit less definitive than it was previously, as it should've been. I added in a paragraph about the Temple of the Ancients mural in the White & Black Materia section in Part 5 (presented a bit differently than I did here). And I added in a couple mentions of the Japanese language differentiation of the flower symbolizing "再会" (saikai) vs. Jenova's "リユニオン" (reunion) where it made sense.


Thanks as always for the feedback & assistance!





X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I didn't dive into this one as much as I could have but it's a two-fold thing:

First is that it's tied into the representations of Malkhut in the game. That means that it has to be activated by a part of creation in order to function and thereby reveal the complete deity. It's not something that the deity can trigger on its own, even despite seeming omniscient & omnipotent power – it's the core relationship between the divine & their creation, in this case, the planet's Lifestream & the beings who are created from it.

But Jenova isn't one of the planet's creations.

The 5th panel in the original game background shows Meteor being summoned with the Black Materia. Interestingly, the individual holding the Black Materia & summoning Meteor is the only woman appearing in any of the panels – she's got longer hair, and is the only one wearing clothes that cover her chest – so it's very unlikely that this is a prophetic depiction of Cloud & Sephiroth, but rather a historical recounting of what occurred that's serving as a warning.

The third mural also seems to depict a casting. For that matter, the first portrays the Black Materia as sitting at the heart of the temple -- which means at least one of these murals is meant to be illustrative rather than literal, for obvious reasons.

Setting all that aside, though, and allowing that the fifth mural is the only one serving as a casting instruction manual ... and even allowing for the possibility that the fifth mural is depicting an actual historical casting ... at most that just indicates to us that the Black Materia was used at some point in the past, doesn't it? That doesn't establish a connection to the meteor Jenova arrived on.

For that matter, the point is unequivocally made that a vast amount of spirit energy is required to cast Meteor. The Cetra -- and seemingly the planet -- were caught off guard by the arrival of Jenova's meteor.

Were Jenova's meteor plucked out of space by the spell, there should have been cries from the planet warning that someone was seeking the power to do this, and guidance to the dutiful Cetra to use Holy to prevent it. All that was the case with Aerith two thousand years later.

More importantly, why were the Cetra caught completely off guard despite Meteor's prolonged impact?

Additionally, the panel where she's summoning Meteor features the only instance of two individuals standing side-by-side & also facing towards one another without another object separating them. This is because Malkhut has to be activated as an act of altruism, and this is showing one individual Giving the Black Materia to the other who is Receiving it, and as a result Meteor is being summoned – just like we'd expect from knowing Malkhut's functional requirements requiring an act of altruism between a Giver & a Receiver (also usually balanced as a Male & Female in that shared role) being required for activation.

I'm not sure I see the connection. Neither Cloud nor Sephiroth are female, and there wasn't anything altruistic about either time Cloud gave the Black Materia to Seph.

This is one of those things where it's always just been assumed that Sephiroth would hunt down another world all on his own ...

Well, for lack of a better refutation -- why wouldn't he? =P It would be kind of absurd if he essentially became Omega Weapon yet lacked its mobility.

While there's no on-screen notification, Aerith giving you that also corresponds to a new materia being placed in your inventory though, yeah?

Not that I've noticed or seen anyone mention ...

And even if that is the case, it's just a duplicate of something else you already have by then, like Fire or Ice.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

But Jenova isn't one of the planet's creations.

Correct, but these are rules that are true for the entire universe of all lifeforms in Final Fantasy VII, and not just exclusive to this one planet. Bugenhagen mentions that during his presentation about the Lifestream. By the same token, The Qliphoth isn't a creation of the Sefirot, but it exists as a sort of shadow of it, connected through Malkhut.

The third mural also seems to depict a casting. For that matter, the first portrays the Black Materia as sitting at the heart of the temple -- which means at least one of these murals is meant to be illustrative rather than literal, for obvious reasons.

Setting all that aside, though, and allowing that the fifth mural is the only one serving as a casting instruction manual ... and even allowing for the possibility that the fifth mural is depicting an actual historical casting ... at most that just indicates to us that the Black Materia was used at some point in the past, doesn't it? That doesn't establish a connection to the meteor Jenova arrived on.

Well for the purpose of storytelling & from a design point of view, this is one of those details where that becomes pretty obvious. You're showing the Black Materia being used to cause the arrival of Meteor – which we learn is exactly what it does. That event is meant to be a world-ending catastrophic event and there is only one single recorded instance of this ever occurring in the last several millennia prior to the events in Final Fantasy VII – so why would those murals be referring to any other event, when there's no evidence that this has ever occurred aside from that one 2000-year old story-pivotal instance?

The White Materia is Holy, which in the Sefirot is representative of God's the Divine Light of Creation. It's the power to will things into existence. The Black Materia is its opposite, in that it's a force of ultimate destructive magic. It's meant to be a planet-killer in the way that Bugenhagen describes, with Jenova absorbing the energy from the world. The Planet & Jenova are the deity-equivalent forces of Life & Death at a cosmic scale for the system. They're not creations of each other, but they are interconnected through the lifeforms that reside on the planet, because that's the same relationship that the Sefirot & Qliphot have. A cycle of death isn't a creation of life, it's just something that always exists alongside it.

For that matter, the point is unequivocally made that a vast amount of spirit energy is required to cast Meteor. The Cetra -- and seemingly the planet -- were caught off guard by the arrival of Jenova's meteor.

Were Jenova's meteor plucked out of space by the spell, there should have been cries from the planet warning that someone was seeking the power to do this, and guidance to the dutiful Cetra to use Holy to prevent it. All that was the case with Aerith two thousand years later.

More importantly, why were the Cetra caught completely off guard despite Meteor's prolonged impact?

With the Cetra being in harmony with the Planet, it'd actually have been far easier for one of them to've gathered the energy to use the Black Materia. When the Sefirot are in balance, all of the energy naturally flows directly into Malkhut. Basically that just means that the activation criteria needed to be fulfilled. When Sephiroth shows up, the Planet's been in turmoil for centuries, and that balance doesn't exist, so he needs to amass all of that energy on his own – which are the 7 emotional Sefirot, and what we see as the 6 wings on his body's final form.

So, 2000 years ago, the Cetra heard the Cries of the Planet (these are an emotional reaction, not a direct communication), and then the Cetra tribes up in the Northern area discovered the crater. They began a Planet-reading to try to have a conversation with the Planet about what had happened, where they learn that something fell out of the sky and wounded it. They tried for years to heal the wound by utilizing less of the Planet's energy for themselves – but even that couldn't help it, and the Planet could only slowly recover on its own. The Planet tried to get the Cetra to leave, but then Jenova showed up & decimated them.

This is one of the important things to remember – the Cetra are portrayed in historical and scriptural recounting as being the protectors of the planet, the chosen people – but at the end of the day, they're still basically just humans. They're just as capable of screwing things up as anyone else, which we see in the Old Testament all the damn time leading to these sort of things. Even though they could speak with the Planet, they didn't know everything that was going on all over the world all the time. It's just like the being able to "talk to God" isn't not always as specific or all-knowingly informed as that might indicate.

We know that eventually the Planet made Weapon and managed to contain Jenova, but that's the stalemate where things have been since & where the story starts.

I'm not sure I see the connection. Neither Cloud nor Sephiroth are female, and there wasn't anything altruistic about either time Cloud gave the Black Materia to Seph.

They're both not female, which is the point.

That's showing that this isn't a prophetic thing, but a historical recounting – and there's only one time that this has ever happened before.

The "altruism" rule is one where I think that you're focusing a little bit too literally on the core motivation as we'd describe it in common communication. The game doesn't linger on that part as much, since it's an externally applied structural rule for the story that's based specifically around the Sefirot's functional spiritual mechanics. For Final Fantasy VII's story, it's mostly focused on there being a balanced role of a Giver & a Receiver. It's set up such that the Giver keep or can't use it for themselves only the Receiver can, and the Receiver can't take it for themselves as they have to be given it. It's ruling out the "selfish" actions through that basic framework, but it doesn't always necessarily have to be a "selfless" act of altruism the way that you'd typically think of it.

The reason for those rules in Final Fantasy VII's story connected to the White & Black Materia are because it's looking at the struggle between life & death. The person who dies doesn't get to choose how they're remembered, rather the person who receives the lingering memories from their deceased loved one has to choose how to use them. It's all ultimately an examination of that existential struggle. It's the constant dichotomy where they're always separated but also always connected, and you don't get to have things both ways as much as you will constantly ache for that.

Well, for lack of a better refutation -- why wouldn't he? =P It would be kind of absurd if he essentially became Omega Weapon yet lacked its mobility.

What's worth considering is – How do you know that any world that he decides to land on didn't have someone using Black Materia to call him there first? Believing that you have free will vs. actually having free will are indistinguishable so long as you're unaware of the method of control. Ultimately though, that's what happens when you design a spiritual storytelling framework about life & death based on gods with limitless power & knowledge, who are still ultimately constrained by the actions of mortals.

Not that I've noticed or seen anyone mention ...

And even if that is the case, it's just a duplicate of something else you already have by then, like Fire or Ice.

I recalled it being a duplicate of something else, which is why I was surprised to see it in my inventory after that encounter. It's why it stuck in my head being surprised that Aerith would give you a materia but just say that you'd dropped it.



X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Well for the purpose of storytelling & from a design point of view, this is one of those details where that becomes pretty obvious. You're showing the Black Materia being used to cause the arrival of Meteor – which we learn is exactly what it does. That event is meant to be a world-ending catastrophic event and there is only one single recorded instance of this ever occurring in the last several millennia prior to the events in Final Fantasy VII – so why would those murals be referring to any other event, when there's no evidence that this has ever occurred aside from that one 2000-year old story-pivotal instance?

That's somewhat convincing only if you're already reading the mural as a depiction of a historical event rather than as a hypothetical depiction.

Since, as I mentioned yesterday, the first mural shows the Black Materia as residing at the heart of the temple rather than being the temple, we already know some artistic license is in play with this room. That being the case, I'm not terribly inclined to take a literal reading of this other mural.

For me, it's as obvious from the storytelling/design point of view that Jenova's meteor served as the "inspiration" for the Black Materia, imprinted upon both the planet and its unfortunate residents the way it would have been.

With the Cetra being in harmony with the Planet, it'd actually have been far easier for one of them to've gathered the energy to use the Black Materia.

Probably, but again, that makes it weird that the Cetra at the Knowlespole were caught off guard -- no warning from the planet to vacate the area, no instructions to get Holy off the ground, no one noticing the approaching ball of fiery rock. =P

I recalled it being a duplicate of something else, which is why I was surprised to see it in my inventory after that encounter. It's why it stuck in my head being surprised that Aerith would give you a materia but just say that you'd dropped it.

I checked on this. Aerith comes equipped with a new Ice materia. This is probably what you're thinking of. There's no other green materia gained automatically around the time of meeting her.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

That's somewhat convincing only if you're already reading the mural as a depiction of a historical event rather than as a hypothetical depiction.

Since, as I mentioned yesterday, the first mural shows the Black Materia as residing at the heart of the temple rather than being the temple, we already know some artistic license is in play with this room. That being the case, I'm not terribly inclined to take a literal reading of this other mural.

For me, it's as obvious from the storytelling/design point of view that Jenova's meteor served as the "inspiration" for the Black Materia, imprinted upon both the planet and its unfortunate residents the way it would have been.

Well, given that there is a single corresponding recorded historical event in the game, it makes most sense to be the Ancients' recording of said event.

I'm also not sure how else you'd visually depict the idea of the Black Materia being the temple itself. The "heart" of something is describing the core of what something truly is, so I think that it's about as clear of a literal depiction as you'd be able to get from this hieroglyphic art style.

The other part of all of that is just that Holy/Meteor correspond to the most heavily explored part of the Sefirot in Final Fantasy VII – Malkhut. The themes being explored in tandem as a part of the natural cycle of life & death at a cosmic scale matches to a personal scale. This is why their activation criteria have a framework that the game VERY closely adheres to whenever we see those things used, so it'd be extremely odd to see Jenova's arrival just arbitrarily ignoring the central structural design rule that literally everything else follows in the game.

Probably, but again, that makes it weird that the Cetra at the Knowlespole were caught off guard -- no warning from the planet to vacate the area, no instructions to get Holy off the ground, no one noticing the approaching ball of fiery rock. =P

We don't know how much the Planet would even have been able to perceive about Meteor before its impact, plus the Planet doesn't really talk to the Cetra like that. Conversations between the Cetra & the Planet are an intentional act that require significant effort with the Cetra performing Planet-readings, in order to be able to actually communicate by obtaining knowledge from the Lifestream (as that's them reaching out and listening to the Conscious Intellect aspects of the Sefirot). The cries of the Planet are more direct – but again, those are non-verbal things (the Conscious Emotional aspects of the Sefirot), and the Planet didn't even react like that until after the impact had already occurred, at which point it was concerned about its survival as a whole. When it came to the little entities that lived in harmony upon its surface, the warning came to the Cetra near the Northern Crater to try and get them to leave ONLY really before Jenova arrived, which presented a direct threat to them individually.

This is because as Keter, the Planet really only has a Superconscious state of awareness. The conscious manifestation of that is actually the Cetra themselves, which is why by communing with it, they're able to intellectually understand knowledge that they can obtain from the Lifestream... but the Planet itself doesn't really talk to them or display a state of regular conscious thought the way that you'd think of an entity of some kind doing. The Cetra can speak to it and understand what's happening and learn about danger from it, and the Planet can try to manipulate things from Fate's perspective, and it can even emotionally cry out in pain... but it doesn't just talk to them.

That's because the scope of all of those interactions are VERY specifically constrained by a vast number of limitations on what can functionally take place – because of the spiritual framework that they're all based on & the rules that they are required to adhere to as a result of that.

That's the most useful thing in taking a lot of time to poke at the Sefirot & how Final Fantasy VII uses it, because it acts as a guiding rule set that ensures that those themes are delivered in a way that is consistent with a broad spiritual understanding of those ideas, so that they land with the widest audience. It's why even when there's technically no stated in-universe reason for certain things to behave the way that they do – since we know that they're a part of a storytelling process that prioritizes those spiritual & emotional messages about certain themes, we can use that to determine what they map to on the Sefirot, which allows us to build have an understanding of the rules that they're always going to consistently adhere to within the story's structure.

I checked on this. Aerith comes equipped with a new Ice materia. This is probably what you're thinking of. There's no other green materia gained automatically around the time of meeting her.

Ah, ok. Thank you!




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I'm also not sure how else you'd visually depict the idea of the Black Materia being the temple itself. The "heart" of something is describing the core of what something truly is, so I think that it's about as clear of a literal depiction as you'd be able to get from this hieroglyphic art style.

For similar reasons, one could conclude the murals depicting a casting are for illustrative purposes (i.e. to visually explain the spell) rather than historical education.

We don't know how much the Planet would even have been able to perceive about Meteor before its impact ...

When Sephiroth casts Meteor, the Weapons immediately awaken despite the impact being weeks away.

Also, with the spell being a product of the planet's own power and cast on the planet's own soil, there's next to no reason to think the planet should be incapable of perceiving its plight just as instantaneously as it did during Sephiroth's casting.

... plus the Planet doesn't really talk to the Cetra like that

Despite being only half-Cetra and the very last one, Aerith still received a call asking her to come to the City of the Ancients, where she attempted to cast Holy. Should we conclude that she was a more capable tool for what the planet needed than the entire Cetra race at the height of their civilization?

It's far more simple to surmise that a) there was no White or Black Materia at this time; and b) this particular rock arrived one day out of the blue with no warning and no possible mitigation. As you said: "the Planet didn't even react like that until after the impact had already occurred."

That's the most useful thing in taking a lot of time to poke at the Sefirot & how Final Fantasy VII uses it, because it acts as a guiding rule set that ensures that those themes are delivered in a way that is consistent with a broad spiritual understanding of those ideas, so that they land with the widest audience.

I'm not sure that's the result, though.

Ah, ok. Thank you!

 

[X-SOLDIER]

For similar reasons, one could conclude the murals depicting a casting are for illustrative purposes (i.e. to visually explain the spell) rather than historical education.

When Sephiroth casts Meteor, the Weapons immediately awaken despite the impact being weeks away.

Also, with the spell being a product of the planet's own power and cast on the planet's own soil, there's next to no reason to think the planet should be incapable of perceiving its plight just as instantaneously as it did during Sephiroth's casting.

When Sephiroth cast the spell – the event had already happened once before. That's why the Planet had existing knowledge of that specific threat & also already possessed an entire system of Weapons lying dormant who were explicitly prepared to react to that precise threat appearing – none of which was true when Jenova arrived 2000 years ago.

This is because the system of the Sefirot gives the same issues that the Abrahamic omnipotent & omniscient God has in not being able to control human's free will. It's just that in the case of Final Fantasy VII – God is the Planet and also only exists as a part of everyone's interconnected spiritual lifeforces, rather than being a separate divine entity. Superconscious awareness doesn't necessarily mean that the Planet is technically all-knowing, just that it can perceive all of reality as a system of interconnected energy that can be shaped to form reality itself. Even if there was a spell that would bring about Planetary Death – it doesn't mean that the Planet as an entity knows anything about how that works practically until the people of that world experience it and acquire that knowledge and then return to the Planet... which only happens after it's occurred.

We can see this as even our NG+ Superconscious Sephiroth can see a whole separate possible reality that defies Fate itself, but that doesn't mean that he can control what happens there, nor can he even choose to bring that reality about. The Planet will try to heal itself and also do its best to defend itself as well, but ultimately, both its and humanity's collective fates are still left within the hands of the Planet's creation – humans.

Why? – Them's the rules, man... That's literally the Sefirot.

Despite being only half-Cetra and the very last one, Aerith still received a call asking her to come to the City of the Ancients, where she attempted to cast Holy. Should we conclude that she was a more capable tool for what the planet needed than the entire Cetra race at the height of their civilization?

She knew that Sephiroth was planning to use the Black Materia, and so she listened to the Planet as she went to handle Sephiroth herself, since she has the White Materia. On the way there, when she's communicating with Cloud, she says:

"The secret is just up here. At least it should be. ...I feel it. It feels like I'm being led by something."

She was compelled by a feeling – not a verbal calling. She also knew about Holy already since it was something that only her – as a surviving Cetra – would be able to do (tl;dr about Da'at with the Sefirot). Again, the Planet literally can't just use people as tools. That's not how it works. Even with all of the pushing and shoving that the Whispers do, it still cannot force them to act according to its interest, even if the Planet literally knows what's in their collective best interests. They have to do that of their own will, as Holy cannot be taken or used for one's own ends – it has to be given to another, so it's activation isn't that simple.

– And even then, revealing both Holy & Meteor doesn't actually solve the problem either, so....

It's far more simple to surmise that a) there was no White or Black Materia at this time; and b) this particular rock arrived one day out of the blue with no warning and no possible mitigation. As you said: "the Planet didn't even react like that until after the impact had already occurred."

That's literally the opposite of the more simple assumption in this case, even though it doesn't seem like it – because you have to look at what informs the rules of the story itself, but especially when it comes to matters that involve the Planet & Jenova, but especially concerning the White & Black Materia.

The White & Black Materia are representative of fundamentally critical core components of the Sefirot, which is the spiritual energy system by which all of reality exists, and is what all of the parts of Final Fantasy VII's story based on the Lifestream is designed around. If those two things were just like any other Materia, that's an INCREDIBLY EASY and far more simple assumption to make... but they're very clearly not.

In the game, they're specifically interconnected into a role that is designed to facilitate divine creation & destruction, which is a VERY IMPORTANT as well as explicitly defined part of the Sefirot – Malkhut that Final Fantasy VII uses extremely often and very consistently. It's made even more apparent because those two specific Materia operate on a set of rules that the game world never outright explains, but the Sefirot's role of Malkhut does. It is quite literally the key role that humanity serves as a product of the divine creation, and in the story is the fundamental distillation of the existential question of the struggles with life & death that the entirety of Final Fantasy VII's story is based on, both at a cosmic and at a personal scale.

Essentially the entire core design framework of the game's story exists in 100% stark opposition to your stated simple assumption. So, if you were looking at it in the context of being any other story – that's obviously the most direct and simple answer. However, it is absolutely not that in this case given the subject, and what we know about the framework of how those story elements are constructed. That's the sort of thing that most of what I'm talking about is in that article. Things seem like they'd just be simple decisions like that all the time – but there are REALLY specific hard rules that Final Fantasy VII always follows for some of the pieces of its story that are based in that Abrahamic spiritual framework.

It's a lot like how in Chapter 17 of Remake, I could tell that the character selection in Aerith's room was supposed to be implemented but it's incomplete – because the dialogue interactions in that area violate the fundamental rules about how conversation interactions work throughout the entire rest of the game. That very simple framework informs how every other interaction that takes place between every set of characters is intentionally designed. That way, when you know what to look for, it's very easy to rule out possibilities that intentionally violate those rules, because of how much thought is placed into their implementation. Designers put an INSANE amount on emphasis on those sorts of things.

Final Fantasy VII's framework is as specific as it is because it's not only using existing spiritual systems, but it's one that is less opaque, because Sakaguchi comes from an engineering background. Given that my job involves dissecting the intentions of designers & breaking down the practical implementation of those intentions by engineers all day long – this is what's made it such a fun project to dive into, because all of this stuff is very squarely in my wheelhouse even when I have to go do a bunch of deep diving specialization to get into the weeds as much as I want to.

I'm not sure that's the result, though.

Well, Final Fantasy VII is one of the most beloved games of all time, and Aerith's death is one of the most memorable moments in video game history – so I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that it wasn't absolutely totally effective. The point isn't that everyone can unpack the cornucopia of ridiculous depth of spiritual metaphor, but that the themes are effectively delivered in a way that's near-universally relatable and taps in to the core human emotions that we all have around those things regardless of our individual spiritual & cultural backgrounds.




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

When Sephiroth cast the spell – the event had already happened once before. That's why the Planet had existing knowledge of that specific threat & also already possessed an entire system of Weapons lying dormant who were explicitly prepared to react to that precise threat appearing – none of which was true when Jenova arrived 2000 years ago.

... Even if there was a spell that would bring about Planetary Death – it doesn't mean that the Planet as an entity knows anything about how that works practically until the people of that world experience it and acquire that knowledge and then return to the Planet... which only happens after it's occurred.

For the materia and its associated spell to exist means people have already experienced something comparable. Materia are explicitly formed of such knowledge, which is why I'm saying it strikes me as at least equally straightforward to determine that the Black Materia formed from the traumatic memories flooding the Lifestream in association with the meteorite that brought horror and death to the whole planet.

That's a practical, sequential application of the mechanics of the setting. For the materia and its spell to instead exist before people had experienced a planet-threatening meteor of horror and death, and for the planet to then need people to die so that it could thereafter learn about this materia that brings horror and death -- despite that the materia in question would have already manifest from knowledge within the Lifestream (since that's how materia are made) -- well, that's an altogether roundabout and self-contradictory application of the mechanics.

It would be akin to suggesting putting the roof over the floor of a house before putting up any walls.

She was compelled by a feeling – not a verbal calling. ... Again, the Planet literally can't just use people as tools. That's not how it works

We're talking past one another. At no point have I described the planet as an especially sentient entity engaging in deep conversation. Calling what came to Aerith a feeling rather than a call makes no difference to what I'm describing. I'm referring to the impulse that compelled her to go to the city.

To reiterate, the reason I'm referring to that compulsion is because I'm pointing out that a) Aerith's aptitude is notably limited compared to the multitude of Cetra who lived during Jenova's arrival; and b) despite this comparatively limited aptitude, Aerith still heard the relevant call. Ergo, c) that call seemingly must not have come for that multitude of her predecessors who had greater aptitude than she, or they would have certainly responded to it, being in a better position to do so and having greater ability.

Extrapolating further, I would conclude that the White Materia thus probably didn't exist yet for there to even be a compulsion/feeling/call to come use it.

That line of reasoning and the conclusions I'm drawing from it are fairly cut and dry. Admittedly, from there I am speculating that the White Materia's opposite number most likely didn't yet exist either.

Well, Final Fantasy VII is one of the most beloved games of all time, and Aerith's death is one of the most memorable moments in video game history – so I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that it wasn't absolutely totally effective.

I was speaking to this notion: "a broad spiritual understanding of those ideas, so that they land with the widest audience."

No such understanding comes across, nor do the esoteric ideas in question -- which counterintuitively contradict at least one established underpinning of the setting (i.e. materia formation) -- land with the widest audience possible. Were that the case, an audience of one wouldn't have needed to write a 26,000-word analysis of the subject 23 years after the fact.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

For the materia and its associated spell to exist means people have already experienced something comparable. Materia are explicitly formed of such knowledge, which is why I'm saying it strikes me as at least equally straightforward to determine that the Black Materia formed from the traumatic memories flooding the Lifestream in association with the meteorite that brought horror and death to the whole planet.

That's a practical, sequential application of the mechanics of the setting. For the materia and its spell to instead exist before people had experienced a planet-threatening meteor of horror and death, and for the planet to then need people to die so that it could thereafter learn about this materia that brings horror and death -- despite that the materia in question would have already manifest from knowledge within the Lifestream (since that's how materia are made) -- well, that's an altogether roundabout and self-contradictory application of the mechanics.

It would be akin to suggesting putting the roof over the floor of a house before putting up any walls.

Again, this is because those materia are a part of the nature of the cycles of mortal Life & Death as they're tied cosmic Creation & Destruction. Those are just intrinsic & innate qualities of existence itself. They're a facet of the Lifestream's own lifecycle on a planetary scale, and they're a part of the cosmic ruleset that everything in the universe follows in order for reality itself to even exist at all. That's why they're not like ALL of the other magic materia in the game & they don't play by the same rules as the materia that the Cetra created and left behind. The White & Black are Materia still a condensed facet of knowledge – but their particular dichotomy exists for the same reason that lifeforms exist on the world at all.

As soon as the Lifestream goes from being just an energy source & coalesces into a form of reality and brings life to a planet – that's an act of Creation which is also creating a cycle of life & death – those two Materia are an intrinsic part of that knowledge and that existence, and thus they're connected to the things that live on the Planet. Holy & the Divine Light exists specifically as soon as the act of Creation takes place to bring about life, and that means that so too does death & the source of Destruction as Meteor – just as an intrinsic facet of mortal existence & reality. Malkhut is the Sefirah that represents the Divine Light of Creation outside of the divine in Humans, and as soon as life exists, death also exists because as soon as Creation takes place Destruction exists as its shadow. The White & Black Materia very clearly represent that role all throughout Final Fantasy VII's story in multiple layers. It's one of the dichotomies that Buddhism focuses on a lot as well, which adds in to some of the particular interpretation of the Planet & everything on it as a unified entity (plus some of the added inspiration from the '70s) that shape how those two special White & Black Materia exist & function.

The most important thing to look at is that the Black & White Materia are different from every other materia in the game. Understanding why they're different & the themes that they connect to also outlines the rules by which they operate. Those provide structural boundaries and guidelines based on what they represent, and those control how those things are allowed/required to operate within the story itself. This gets to things in the next point:

We're talking past one another. At no point have I described the planet as an especially sentient entity engaging in deep conversation. Calling what came to Aerith a feeling rather than a call makes no difference to what I'm describing. I'm referring to the impulse that compelled her to go to the city.

To reiterate, the reason I'm referring to that compulsion is because I'm pointing out that a) Aerith's aptitude is notably limited compared to the multitude of Cetra who lived during Jenova's arrival; and b) despite this comparatively limited aptitude, Aerith still heard the relevant call. Ergo, c) that call seemingly must not have come for that multitude of her predecessors who had greater aptitude than she, or they would have certainly responded to it, being in a better position to do so and having greater ability.

Extrapolating further, I would conclude that the White Materia thus probably didn't exist yet for there to even be a compulsion/feeling/call to come use it.

That line of reasoning and the conclusions I'm drawing from it are fairly cut and dry. Admittedly, from there I am speculating that the White Materia's opposite number most likely didn't yet exist either.

So, here's the issue with that from a design standpoint with the structure of the Sefirot as the underlying spiritual framework that the Lifestream system is based on.

The Cetra represent balance with the Planet, which is why they fulfill the role of Da'at in being able to obtain knowledge directly from the Lifestream, as well as their awareness of the superconscious energy system that exists in the Planet at all. Their ability to take that knowledge and coalesce it into materia is an act of Creation, which requires all 10 Sefirot to be in balance for those things to occur naturally. It's not exactly the same as creating lifeforms from the Lifestream, but it is analogous to that in the way that the Divine Light of Creation is like the sun and Malkhut is like the moon, in that it doesn't have a light of its own but can reflect the light of the Divine.

This means that there has to have been an initial revelation of the Divine Light for any facet of Creation to exist at all. Then the system exists to allow the Creation to reflect that light back. That creation is the emergence of Malkhut, and that means Malkhut is a balance of the forces of Life & Death as well as Creation & Destruction that is already present as an intrinsic facet of that act of Divine Creation itself. We already know that the series has shown that the Planet itself creating materia as shown with the Ancient/Protomateria, and that the early idea of the Black Materia with Meteor was that it was bringing about a "big bang" type scenario, so its origins are very clearly tied into the cosmic cycle of ultimate destruction & creation of all of reality itself that are an intrinsic facet of existence. That's why they're not at like all of the other post-creation Cetra-generated spell storage crystals like the other Materia are, or even the artificially created Huge Materia.

The White & Black Materia are not things that the Cetra bring into existence in order to control those forces on the Planet, otherwise they'd behave like every other materia that they created. Rather, they're a part of the Planet's own creation itself which is why their function is one that is exclusively tied to the Cetra. This is why Aerith states that, as a descendant of the Cetra, she's the only one who can use Holy to stop Sephiroth. Additionally, this is why Sephiroth usurping that role is also why he can use the Black Materia, as well as why he's able to contain Holy.

All of the rules for the White & Black Materia exist the way that they do in-world, because the White & Black Materia are designed in order to adhere to the function and properties of Malkhut in the Sefirot. That's why while it's definitely possible that the Cetra created them like any other materia, it's almost certain that it didn't occur that way, and that they're more likely a natural creation of the Planet that came along with the genesis of life itself since they're tied into the core facets of reality that the Sefirot details, and they always adhere to those unspoken design rules throughout everything that they're involved in during the story, where we have any degree of information about them or their function.

That's why when there's a lack of specific information about the Black & White Materia, the most clear understanding is to follow a perspective where they continue to very strictly adhere to the invisible ruleset we can see that they always have done.

I was speaking to this notion: "a broad spiritual understanding of those ideas, so that they land with the widest audience."

I think you're misinterpreting what I meant by, "spiritual understanding" in this sense. I'm talking about the concepts of how we culturally perceive the facets of life & death outside of a physical & emotional sense – but as a conceptual understanding on consciousness itself as spirituality. The idea of people we love still existing as a spiritual memory that still exists past their death & outside of their physical form, while also not being present physically beyond their death for us in the way that we yearn for even if/when we hold that as a belief.

It's the exploration of that concept where, depending on the spiritual background that you come from, stories about those things can end up being structured in ways that don't land with the same weight broadly across cultures. This is especially true depending on how the stories are using the idea of things like Ghosts, Undead, Heaven, Hell, Reincarnation, etc. since those add in more physical attachments to the idea of post-death spiritual existence, but they might be more closely aligned to a particular audience's spiritual background (more on that in a moment). Final Fantasy VII using a cross-cultural hybridized approach to those spiritual frameworks in a fantasy setting where those lines are well-defined, but the connection & struggle is left intact is what allows it to explore the themes of life & death in a way that resonate as well with the messages in the game, and come across in a way that is broadly understandable & relatable – even for people who may not have experienced the death or loss of a loved one at the time that they played the game.

No such understanding comes across, nor do the esoteric ideas in question -- which counterintuitively contradict at least one established underpinning of the setting (i.e. materia formation) -- land with the widest audience possible. Were that the case, an audience of one wouldn't have needed to write a 26,000-word analysis of the subject 23 years after the fact.

The themes don't contradict the underpinning of materia formation at all. What you've mentioned earlier with the Black & White Materia are both in-game, in-story, & in-design wholly distinct from all of the other materia in the game. They are explicitly unique & one-of-a-kind within the game world, as well as in the role that they play in the story, and also in the connection that they have within the world's spiritual framework. Additionally, there's quite a bit more about how core themes about things with the Cetra, Lifestream, & Materia in the terminology section that clarify all of that a bit more, especially around the Cetra & their relationship with the Planet, and specifically how those things are phrased in Remake so far.

Generally speaking & to cite a different example, Asura's Wrath is another game that has an absolutely INSANELY deep & extremely rigid adherence to the religious themes that it uses as a structural framework for its storytelling – but it its this case, they're Buddhist ones. Just because one person decided to do a three part breakdown of a number of those themes in the game since they're not immediately apparent to an audience who doesn't come from that religious background, doesn't mean that the game was less effective in communicating the core of what those ideas are meant to represent. Even if very few people would've caught all of the insane amount of minutiae all over the very specific & intentionally crafted details that are crammed into every scene of that game, it doesn't make the way that they used them any less impactful. (It's one of many reasons that it's one of my all-time favourite games).

It DOES mean that for Asura's Wrath, a significant bulk of the audience in question don't have a huge depth of knowledge of the spiritual framework that its story is based around. That means that a lot of facets of that game's story are significantly more opaque to audiences in the West as a result of not sharing a similar spiritual background to the story's themes around cyclical reincarnation & the facets of human emotion. In the case of Final Fantasy VII, there's a very small number of people who have any level of specific knowledge or background in the spiritual themes of the Sefirot. However, a vast majority of them believe in a religious framework that is loosely built upon the same structure where those themes came from in – Christianity. That means that the audience is still able to identify with the concepts in a more basic sense, even though they won't ever see any of those details, know where they come from, or understand what rules they're adhering to in the story itself.

Lastly, it's a >35,000-word analysis thank you very much.




X

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Just a few observations... I can't find anything in-game that indicates where the Black and White Materia come from. However, I can't see anything that prevents them from being made the same way any other materia is made. That is, some dead Cetran memories crystallizing to make a materia that can do a certain thing. Both of them aren't that hard to think of what kind of memories could be used either. The Black Materia is probably the easiest to think about as natural meteorites are a thing, if rare. The White Materia is a bit harder, but given the Cetra could talk to the Planet even without the White Materia, I'm thinking the memories that went into it were probably based on something like that.

Incidentally, the Black Materia being where it is (a transformed Temple of the Ancients) is rather weird. You'd think that if the Cetra really didn't want anyone to use it, they could have just dropped it into a mako fissue in Mideel or the Northern Crater and have it be lost in the Lifestream. That it's possible to get and use at all (if very difficult to do so) leads me to think that the Cetra wanted it around for some reason. Probably as a last resort, but still. I would not be surprised to find out that the Black Materia was something the Cetra were considering to use against Jenova if binding her in the ice didn't end up working.

What both the White and Black Materia have in common is that the user probably can only make either of them work with the Planet's aid. The White Maeteria is literally giving the Planet the go-ahead to cause whatever is bothering it to disappear. The Black Materia physically smashes something into the Planet. Both of them are... honestly described in terms that are pretty destructive. One is just more of a scalpel (White Materia), the other is a wrecking ball (Black Materia).

As far as Jenova goes... part of what makes her work is that she's alien to the Planet. If her origin is something "of" the Planet, her trying to destory the Cetra takes on a very different meaning. Since Jenova is now something the Planet (or even the Cetra) is ultimately doing to itself. So the story would know have this weird aspect to it where the Planet is both trying to destroy the Cetra with Jenova and trying to warn them of the danger she puts them in. Or itself for that matter with Sephiroth. It makes the Planet out to be it's own worst enemy as Jenova is the worst threat to the Planet in the game.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Just a few observations... I can't find anything in-game that indicates where the Black and White Materia come from. However, I can't see anything that prevents them from being made the same way any other materia is made. That is, some dead Cetran memories crystallizing to make a materia that can do a certain thing. Both of them aren't that hard to think of what kind of memories could be used either. The Black Materia is probably the easiest to think about as natural meteorites are a thing, if rare. The White Materia is a bit harder, but given the Cetra could talk to the Planet even without the White Materia, I'm thinking the memories that went into it were probably based on something like that.

Incidentally, the Black Materia being where it is (a transformed Temple of the Ancients) is rather weird. You'd think that if the Cetra really didn't want anyone to use it, they could have just dropped it into a mako fissue in Mideel or the Northern Crater and have it be lost in the Lifestream. That it's possible to get and use at all (if very difficult to do so) leads me to think that the Cetra wanted it around for some reason. Probably as a last resort, but still. I would not be surprised to find out that the Black Materia was something the Cetra were considering to use against Jenova if binding her in the ice didn't end up working.

What both the White and Black Materia have in common is that the user probably can only make either of them work with the Planet's aid. The White Maeteria is literally giving the Planet the go-ahead to cause whatever is bothering it to disappear. The Black Materia physically smashes something into the Planet. Both of them are... honestly described in terms that are pretty destructive. One is just more of a scalpel (White Materia), the other is a wrecking ball (Black Materia).

There's nothing that's technically preventing them from being made like other materia when you're just looking at what we know about the game's world. What's important to consider about them is how they are exceptional isn't ever explained in the context of the game anywhere. So, there isn't any explicit information in order to understand how & why they're different than all of the other materia in the game.

This is why I make a big point about looking at the Sefirot, because that system very clearly provides all of the information about how & why those materia are exceptional compared to everything else, as well as gives more context about why certain things take place in the story the way that they do with those two Materia. That's why you use the information that you have established about them from the Sefirot's guidelines, and then look back at what rules we know apply to them.


The same thing comes to everything that we learn about the Cetra in Remake as well, and this is another example where the game gives us a mystery, and then the Sefirot outlines all of the rules for how and why those things exist in the story in the way that they're set up. So, let me just break one of those things down that directly covers how normal Materia are created by the Cetra:

"Somehow they learned of the great reservoir of energy pulsing beneath their feet"

The Sefirot is in balance when Mortals & Divine are in harmony, because the final Sefirah needed to bring things into balance is Malkhut which represents the role of Humans being able to influence divine actions (why God can't control Man's free will despite being omniscient & omnipotent). In the case of ancient Final Fantasy VII is how they establish the initial harmonious state between the Cetra & the Planet.

When that occurs, the Sefirah of Da'at – the uncounted "eleventh Sefirot" which serves as a representation of the ten Sefirot in balance and represents "Knowledge" is present. Da'at also represents the awakening of superconscious awareness because there is a shared one-ness between the mortals and the divine. This is how the Cetra "somehow" discovered the wellspring of metaphysical spiritual energy in the Planet that was the Lifestream of Knowledge itself.

"And once they had, the Ancients developed the means to harness this bountiful energy and bend it to their will. The fruits of their labouts have survived to this very day in the form of certain kinds of materia." (Or in the Cetra's own words) "We who are born of the planet, with her we speak, her flesh we shape."

This is because, when the last Sefirah Malkhut comes into balance, the Divine Light of Creation can be reflected out from it to shine through Da'at, allowing them to have a shared will with the Divine & access the power of Divine Creation. This is why the Cetra were able to shape the planet according to their will, but specifically do so in the form of creating Materia from that Knowledge that they they were able observe, interact, and converse with due to their direct connection to the Planet. Those things are human echoes of the process of Divine Creation.

That's what I mean by saying that both the original game & Remake will establish information without providing the reasons in-world – but all of those reasons and mechanics are actually VERY explicitly detailed and articulated in the rules for how the Sefirot functions.



This is also why when looking at things like Jenova's original arrival & the creation of the White & Black Materia, the most important thing to do FIRST is look at the Sefirot and how it's been used for those specific things. That's why when we don't have ANY specific information about where those two special Materia came from & how Jenova first arrived – we can actually know SOME of those things with a high degree of certainty, because we know how the Sefirot's rules for those things has been implemented in Final Fantasy VII. That means that we already know how the existing story choices & design decisions have been constrained to obey the rules within the framework laid out by the Sefirot, so we can use that same set of rules – to establish constraints about missing information.



Even though we don't know where the Black & White Materia came from or why they're special because we're never told those things – the Sefirot details all of them, and we have a TON of information about the role that both of those materia play. There's the fact that Holy is "useless" as well as the activation criteria, and how those elements are the critical final step for Sephiroth's plans tell us a MASSIVE amount about them, but they also very clearly establish the Sefirot's rules that they follow in the story. Because we know that they follow a set of rules within the story in Final Fantasy VII and that those rules are also true before our story takes place, we can look at how they'd have to follow those rules, and why they'd be different than other materia.

The White & Black Materia are a complimentary pair that tie into the themes of Creation & Destruction. We know that they're connected to the Sefirot's rules with Malkhut. We also know that in Malkhut exists at the initial moment of creation, and that the Cetra are "born of the planet" and exist in harmony with it – so that they fulfill the role of Malkhut and being in balance with it. Malkhut always has a balance between both its forces: Life & Death, Creation & Destruction, Male & Female, Concealing & Revelation. This rule establishes why Aerith (a half-Cetra) thematically needs to be the one to use the White Materia in the story (which she explicitly states in the original game). That defines that Sephiroth needed to have the power of the Cetra to be able to use the Black Materia (which is something that he can just mimic, thanks to Jenova) and Aerith's needs a complimentary balance in Malkhut, which is we have Cloud with Jenova cells as the one who acts as the Giver to Sephiroth as the Receiver with the Black Materia.

ALL of those rules establish that the White & Black Materia themselves are intrinsically connected to the life & death of the planet itself and everything that exists on it. The materia represent creation & destruction, and those things don't come after-the-fact. They are a simultaneous part of the act of Creation itself, and they along with the Cetra are the emergence of Malkhut. It's why those two materia are special, they have special activations, and they don't have the same properties as all of the other thousands of materia that the Cetra created.

Everything in the original game VERY rigidly adheres to the Sefirot's structure for the rules that they have about them that are explicitly stated in-game, as well as the rules that they follow without ANY explanation as well. Even when it involves literally "defying fate" in Remake – everything that's laid out there is still following those same pre-set rules that the Sefirot has in place. That's why I can say with pretty near certainty that the Black Materia was used to cause that meteor crash 2000 years ago that wiped out the Cetra. The Black Materia is the complimentary opposite of the White Materia. The complimentary opposite of the Divine Light of Creation (Holy) is the Black Materia's source of destruction in Meteor & Jenova. All of those themes are always perfectly adhered to within the original story's structure regarding all of those things.

So, despite not knowing literally anything about that event originally transpiring, everything that the Sefirot details about Creation, Destruction, & Malkhut points to all of those things existing BEFORE the Calamity from the Skies occurred. Additionally, all of those things directly interact with & control with those exact same literal elements within the story, as well as those thematic elements in the narrative. That means that it follows the same rules now that it would have to have still followed back then. Those two Materia are an intrinsic part of the Planet's act of Creation itself to bring about the Cetra. Additionally, Dirge of Cerberus explicitly established with the "Ancient Materia" that the Planet is capable of creating materia on its own that correspond to the forces of the planetary lifecycle (in that case representing Order vs. Chaos which aren't a part of the Sefirot, but rather were a response to the calamity). So, there's also in-game context that the Planet can generate its own unique & special materia that correspond to things associated with its own macro-scale lifecycle – which also matches what the White & Black Materia are. The only difference being that those two are also a very clearly defined part of the Sefirot.

As far as Jenova goes... part of what makes her work is that she's alien to the Planet. If her origin is something "of" the Planet, her trying to destory the Cetra takes on a very different meaning. Since Jenova is now something the Planet (or even the Cetra) is ultimately doing to itself. So the story would know have this weird aspect to it where the Planet is both trying to destroy the Cetra with Jenova and trying to warn them of the danger she puts them in. Or itself for that matter with Sephiroth. It makes the Planet out to be it's own worst enemy as Jenova is the worst threat to the Planet in the game.

The Qliphoth isn't "of" the Sefirot – it just exists in its shadow.
Destruction isn't "of" Creation – on just exists because of mortality.
Jenova isn't "of" the Planet – it just exists somewhere as the opposite of the Planet's creation.

Death is completely and totally alien to Life.

Life just establishes all the rules & Death exists as the spaces of what life isn't.

There is an ever-present connection between them though – because they ALWAYS exist together. Buddhism is especially HUGE on these sorts of truths around nondualism in consciousness. This is where you see the most Japanese interpretative perspective applied to the rules of the Sefirot. It's why the dualities of Divine (Keter & Da'at), between Divine & Mortals (Da'at & Malkhut), and within mortals themselves (Malkhut) are the bulk of what Final Fantasy VII explores in the most extreme detail. This is where you get everything about the White & Black Materia REALLY starting to hit at the center of everything thematically that it explores with the idea of Life & Death, Creation & Destruction, as well as the two interpretations of the spiritual vs the literal concepts of the "Promised Land" being applied.

One gives a path of a natural lifecycle of growth, death, & rebirth, where after death you live only in the memories of the people you love. It's made of the real world struggles that the living have to face, and it's what Remake is pouring a huge amount of effort into depicting as being "reunited" and using a complimentary concept of reunion to more clearly outline what the Planet's path represents.

The other gives a part that is an unnatural cycle, where after death the spiritual energy of the people that you love can just be reconnected to cells, and then the cells reform themselves into a new shape that matches those memories, and then brings those people back to you again. That's Jenova's Reunion. It spreads and infects all life of the planet, and turns them into monsters. All of the energy gets drawn out of the Sefirot, and becomes a massive shape-shifting one-ness where nothing ever dies, but nothing ever really lives either. It's a moment where eventually there is nothing else to be created at all. The duality between life & death is destroyed. Death's only identity is an opposing mirror of life, because it wasn't ever explicitly created. It just exists as an opposite to whatever form creation takes. It is the shadow that's cast purely because there is light at all. That's how Jenova represents Destruction, and why the concept is a totally alien one that The Thing was perfect to embody.

Remake is INCREDIBLY more specific about all those points than the original game was, and it's going to great lengths to set up even more questions around them as well. But hopefully that clarified things about HOW I'm approaching things in this article when I'm talking about elements in the story that we aren't ever told.


I do plan on actually discussing more of that sort of dichotomy & duality, but there's a shitton of Buddhism layered in to those bits, and I'm saving more of those things for my analysis on the Whispers, since they have a ton more overly Buddhist inspired concepts connected with them, since they're more about how things in the Planet work, and they represent where the thematic departure in the Sefirot exists, since they're not established to have an understanding of an Abrahamic God so much as they are a fusion of those two spiritual frameworks to more broadly discuss concepts around Life & Death at both a literal and a metaphysical level.


(Also, apologies that discussing all of this stuff with me is like attempting to take a nice refreshing drink from a firehose)




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

There's nothing that's technically preventing them from being made like other materia when you're just looking at what we know about the game's world. What's important to consider about them is how they are exceptional isn't ever explained in the context of the game anywhere. So, there isn't any explicit information in order to understand how & why they're different than all of the other materia in the game.

Just by nature of how materia are formed, though, there should inevitably be variation in capability, activation, etc. We end up with many special types of materia in the world building -- e.g. the White and Black Materia, the Ancient Materia (Protomateria), various summon materia with drastic differences in how they're used and what they can do (everything from the more simple stuff to the Goddess Materia and Zirconiade with its support materia).

This rule establishes why Aerith (a half-Cetra) thematically needs to be the one to use the White Materia in the story (which she explicitly states in the original game). That defines that Sephiroth needed to have the power of the Cetra to be able to use the Black Materia (which is something that he can just mimic, thanks to Jenova) and Aerith's needs a complimentary balance in Malkhut, which is we have Cloud with Jenova cells as the one who acts as the Giver to Sephiroth as the Receiver with the Black Materia.

If being Cetra were a requirement, that would have been worth explaining in-game when how each materia works is explained. =P

Aerith says only that an enormous amount of spirit energy is required to use the Black Materia. Meanwhile, if being Cetra were a requirement for using the White Materia, those Ancient memories at the City of the Ancients withheld arguably the most important detail about Holy from Bugenhagen and the team.

It's why those two materia are special, they have special activations, and they don't have the same properties as all of the other thousands of materia that the Cetra created.

Truthfully, we don't really know whether the Cetra created much (or any) materia. We don't even know if they generally needed materia in order to use simple magic. We only know that Shin-Ra's (unreliable) propaganda video presents that idea.

Of course, it also presents the idea that Midgar was built in an empty desert.

Materia can and do form naturally, and the knowledge of the Ancients would make its way into spheres anyone can use that way.

That's why I can say with pretty near certainty that the Black Materia was used to cause that meteor crash 2000 years ago that wiped out the Cetra.

I'm not even opposed to that notion so much in particular as I am the original claims I took issue with:

"This 'Calamity from the Skies' is especially important because we know that this initial event could only occur if the Black Materia was used."

"Just like Jenova can’t arrive on a world without first being summoned by the Black Materia ..."

Jenova is a monster from somewhere in outer space that hitched a ride on a meteor. This meteor may have been an already floating chunk of rock she just latched onto out in the void or it could have been a piece of a world that fell apart after she killed it, a la the Phantoms from "The Spirits Within" coming to Earth on a piece of their homeworld. Regardless of how she came to be attached to this rock, it could have serendipitously been grabbed out of space by the Black Materia or it could have just as serendipitously followed a trajectory that brought it to VII's planet without the Black Materia.

None of that really matters so much as the limiting idea that the creature can only go to a planet that has summoned it.

Additionally, Dirge of Cerberus explicitly established with the "Ancient Materia" that the Planet is capable of creating materia on its own that correspond to the forces of the planetary lifecycle ...

It isn't explicit, though. Lucrecia just speculates that the planet may have made it -- but she also speculates that it was formed in the grotto over a great span of time, in the same way of all natural materia.

It's also worthwhile to consider that Lucrecia speculated the Ancient Materia existed to prevent Chaos from performing its purpose, so as to prolong the planet's life rather than to facilitate this mechanic of the planetary lifecycle. Given it was discovered in the same location as a Cetra inscription about Chaos, it's entirely possible that the materia formed from the memories of Cetra who knew what Chaos is and yearned to delay Omega's awakening as long as possible.

(Also, apologies that discussing all of this stuff with me is like attempting to take a nice refreshing drink from a firehose)

Pff, nah.

It's more like getting a facial from XV's adamantoise.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I think if you're going so far as to look at the David Bowie stuff that is an excellent candidate for being the inspiration for Sephiroth, then it would only be fair to look into John Carpenter's "The Thing" as a good candidate for being the inspiration for Jenova. No matter how you look at it, Jenova and The Thing are just about twins of each other. Not just in their abilities, but also the circumstances surrounding their discovery. And one of those things about... The Thing... is that is an alien. It's not "of" the Earth at all; no one on Earth did anything that caused The Thing to come to Earth. It just randomly showed up in the past and got frozen. And given the lack of anything said about why Jenova came to the FFVII Planet... how The Thing got to Earth sounds like a very reasonable way for Jenova to get to the Planet as well.

My current stance on... just about everything in the Shin-Ra propaganda film about the Cetra is that it's a load of BS. At least until we get more information from more sources later (hopefully). There's enough in there that contradicts what we know from the OG that I can only imagine a lot of Cetra info is getting misrepresented, twisted or just straight made up to fit into Shinra's narrative for what their goals are. So any theorizing that is depending on that propaganda film for proof of it being right has me raising eyebrows at it. 'Cause I'm pretty sure we're going to get a huge "oh that video? yeah, that's not what the Cetra were like at all when you get down to it" later in the series.

The White & Black Materia are a complimentary pair that tie into the themes of Creation & Destruction.

Heh... I actually one time went looking to see what type of magic the White Materia (and Holy) were said to be in the OG and Ultimanias. And... it isn't as the ultimate "restorative" or "creative" magic at all. Holy is just called the Ultimate White Magic. This is a contrast to the Black Materia and Meteor which are called the ultimate "destructive" magic. So... I don't think the White and Black Materia are complimentary at all. At least, not in the way you're describing here. Holy is also never described in terms of restoring anything; it's always described as making things that put the Planet in danger disappear. We even see this in the OG when Holy tries (and fails) to destroy Meteor. I think the most "restorative" you could make Holy out to be is that it's maybe some kind of barrier magic? But that still doesn't address the fact that the clearest explanation we ever get of Holy is that it's purpose is to make things dangerous to the Planet disappear. On the other hand, this fits with the meta fact that the Holy spell is always a destructive White Magic spell everywhere else it show up in the FF franchise; fixing things is never the reason why a Holy spell gets used.

As far as I can tell for FF7, the reason Holy is used is to destroy something hurting the Planet. Both Holy and Meteor's purpose are destroy something; one just destroys what is hurting the Planet, the the other destroys everything (including the Planet) indiscriminately. Both Holy and Meteor are... usually in the roles as the OP damaging spells of their respective schools and I don't see that really changing in FFVII.

 

[Eerie]

What a read that was! First a few details, before I forget, but in ch14, Cloud in French says that "destiny is calling" him, to which Tifa agrees. So I'm not sure whether it's Aerith or destiny - from what my ear tells me, in JP Cloud doesn't seem to mention Aerith either. Will also note that even in English, Tifa mentions that the flower means "reunion" and not "reunion between lovers" as per her resolution scene and the dialogue she shares with Leslie, I am not sure why they changed that from Aerith's line at the beginning (the French matches the JP on that one). And finally, I don't think Cloud saw any of the flashbacks with Zack, because he did not react to them, and Jenova would have for sure blocked them out. Aerith is the only receiver of those flashbacks, IMHO, probably because she is the link between Zack and Cloud, and Zack is also the one she still cares most about, at that moment.

That said! There are several things that Remake made me think about. We know that VII, and Remake, are stories about "life and death". To me, unconsciously, Tifa represents life and Aerith represents death; Tifa because she survives, not only the OG, but also Nibelheim, the plate falling... she literally is a survivor. Aerith represents death not only because she dies, but also because she talks to ghosts, literally. Tifa is afraid of ghosts because they're her anti-thesis. Aerith is friendly with them because she has accepted the role of death (not for herself; but as part of life and death). This is cemented even more in the Remake than what it used to be in the OG, this is part of their duality.

And I feel that Remake presents the choice of changing destiny in an interesting way; if Aerith lives, then what? Who's going to die? Because no matter what, thematically, FFVII is about dealing with loss. If everyone survives, then who did we lose, during the course of the story? If Tifa dies, then why will she die, what will her death bring? It will mean as much torment for Cloud than if Aerith dies, except now she can't help him regain his true self. And eventually, Aerith could not help from beyond - could she from the world of living? That is another question. We know what we lose, but we don't know what we'll gain or lose if we chose another option.

Also I feel that this choice that is given to the player is a red herring; the devs want you to feel that you have the choice, that maybe you'll be able to save Aerith from her fate and change destiny - only to show you that you can't, and shan't make that decision. Aerith and Red XIII think that the future as it stands is a bad outcome. However, they have only partial knowledge, fragments of visions - as such they are unreliable narrators. Maybe it's a bad outcome, but maybe it's also the best outcome that one could hope for, given the cards that were distributed at the beginning. FFVII relies on unreliable narrators Cloud and Tifa and Aerith to make you believe one thing, until you get to the twist and suddenly, everything you knew loses sense to shape the hidden truth. To me, that is what the devs are trying to recreate with Remake - however, the core of the story is still here: Cloud is still not himself, Tifa is still worried about him, knows more but doesn't dare to talk, Aerith still tries to live her life fully and wants to believe in the future. The cards are distributed like they were in the OG, presented IMHO in a better way, but everything at the core is still here. It's the heart of FFVII. So right now, we feel that maybe we'll have a choice, what's with Zack and Biggs who have survived, with that new Sephiroth. But I am quite sure that it's only to follow the same beats as the OG and prove that this ending is maybe not so bad.

Last but not least, I am sorry to hear you lost a dear friend you can't share thoughts with anymore. This sucks, especially in such great times!

 

[nitramXIII]

Amazing analysis!! thanks for that!
I'm sure Nojima&co will hear about it !!!
(it might even impact them who knows?)

being familiar with chinese and japanese for more than 15 years now, i just wanted to give you my feeling about the order of the strokes in the remake new symbol.
IF the order of the strokes in that new symbol follows the rules in the kanjis writing (which could eventually not be the case giving that this symbol has a specific design which does not match with usual kanjis), then i think your friend might have made a few mistakes.

---> i tried various possibilities, and to me, it feels now obvious that IF the order of the strokes in that new symbol follows the rules in the kanjis writing, then the first strike is the first part of the 4th stroke (looking like the head of the symbol but in fact being a little comma, similar to a dot).
the second stroke is correct to me. Then the third is also correct, but the direction is wrong. It should be from right to left instead of left to right. That's because it is opposed to the second stroke movement, which is a very basic rule with certain strokes in kanji writing.

then the first stroke in your article feels to me like the fourth. And the fifth is the combination of the second part of your article's fourth stroke with the article's fifth stroke. It really feels like these two are one in the kanjis writing style&feel.

then 6th and 7th are correct.

Well, all that only applies if the kanjis writing rules are followed. But i'm not sure they are, because like i said, this symbol is quite different from a kanji in its structure.

Anyway, thank you so much for your analysis, i really loved it!!!

 

[nitramXIII]

I dont know if the order of the strokes, or the direction of one stroke can have a real impact on the meaning while looking through the sefirot diagram. But in order to have all the elements to find out (which i absolutely couldnt do myself, i’m an absolute beginner with kabbal), i tried to take this new symbol as it is and list all the possibilities this shape offers.

I’m pretty sure about the strokes and their direction which i depicted before.

Given that the strokes of the symbol are unified in a way you can never have with kanjis, i dont think it’s really pertinent to stick strictly to the kanji writing rules.

That said, it feels like this symbol offers a lot of possibilities with the order of the strokes.

Basically, the order of the strokes in kanjis are made so that you write the kanji in the easiest/fastest/most natural way.

I guess even a native chinese or japanese couldnt guess the order of the strokes here. But it feels like it’s a riddle because there are some hints about it.

First is the strokes going by pairs.

Let’s call ABCDEFG the strokes in the order i wrote before.

Which means A is the dot in the center (da’at on the diagram right ?). Then in every possibility, i’m pretty sure that B&C/D&E/F&G all go together by pair in that order. If that order is reversed, then it’s not the kanji writing system anymore, but strangely, it feels pretty natural to write… But it’s quite complicated because if so, then the pair which comes after should also be reversed to maintain the natural feel. But again, in this symbol, it feels like you could even break the rules of the kanji writing system while still feeling natural to write, it’s quite confusing…

Second, is the shape of the ink trail which is a big hint in my opinion. But that would mean (from what i observed) E is the last stroke. Please, tell me if i’m wrong, but to me the katakana « hu » shaped E stroke looks like it’s on top of C (which is logically ok), and on top of D,F and G, which clearly is a deviation from the kanji writing system (in which you would finish with G).

Also, in kanji writing system, you would start with the central dot (A). But here, A is below B/C/D/E. That case would’nt happen with real kanjis. You do have kanjis with dot between strokes, but if so, then the strokes clearly cross eachother, which is not the case here with B&C. They just stop at their intersection.

That means that the easiest/fastest/most natural way to write the symbol could allow A to be written in 3rd/5th and even 7th place (but 7th place feels very strange).

There is also the ABC strokes which feel like it could be written in many orders, like BCA/CBA/CAB/BAC/ACB. That might be the reason why there’s no such shape within kanjis. (That would be different if A was not a dot but a bigger stroke going down to the intersection of B and C (from keter to da’at ?), that case would feel like a real kanji).

Well then, as you may have understood, the possibilities here are numerous.

Here are a few that i find very possible to be the right one (considering the shape of the ink trail) :

ABCFGDE / BCFGADE / BACFGDE / BCAGFDE (this one is inspired from BCG real kanji) / BCAFGDE / ABCGFDE / ABCFGDE / BACGFDE

But well, i dont think an answer can be found using that very subjective yet logical method of mine though… I think the understanding of the kabbal meanings is required to select possibilities for writing this symbol. But when i think about it, it might even be more confusing perhaps ? I dont have a clue about that… !

And also, i’m sure other possibilities outside of the points i developped here might be correct, given the very special aura that symbol has while trying to write it with kanji writing rules.

I personally would start with A,B or C, but here, why not begin with D, like initially in the article ? Because of the ink trail, i’d finish with E, and that could almost match the rules of calligraphy about maintaining a balance within the character structure.

D is the stroke on the up left corner, i guess that’s why it was initially chosen as the first one. I personally prefer A/B/C because of the structure it forms in the middle. But given that this structure is below D (which can never happen in a real kanji), and given also that E looks like the last stroke, it would match the overall balance of the character in a pretty beautiful way (because D&E are a pair).

So, if D is the first stroke, here are a few possibilities that i find possible :

DBCFGAE (this one feels nice i have to say )/ DBCAFGE / DBCGFAE / DBFCAGE (this one feels fun)

Well, i hope all of that was understandable… ! i’m not an english native speaker, so please feel free to correct me… !

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Thanks for all the responses & sorry it took me a little bit to get back to them, as I needed to take a day off on Friday, and then spend the weekend away a bit.

Spoiler: Personal thing

Found out on Thursday night that a really close online friend of mine passed away suddenly back on June 16th, so I got to to go back through a lot of emotions about all of the sort of concepts that I discuss in this article – and it was still a bit too much to dive back in on discussing it as a more loose framework, until I'd gotten through that.

Just by nature of how materia are formed, though, there should inevitably be variation in capability, activation, etc. We end up with many special types of materia in the world building -- e.g. the White and Black Materia, the Ancient Materia (Protomateria), various summon materia with drastic differences in how they're used and what they can do (everything from the more simple stuff to the Goddess Materia and Zirconiade with its support materia).

If being Cetra were a requirement, that would have been worth explaining in-game when how each materia works is explained. =P

Aerith says only that an enormous amount of spirit energy is required to use the Black Materia. Meanwhile, if being Cetra were a requirement for using the White Materia, those Ancient memories at the City of the Ancients withheld arguably the most important detail about Holy from Bugenhagen and the team.

There aren't any materia that we encounter in the original game that someone could fit into a weapon/armor slot, but that don't function like standard materia with the exception of the Black & White Materia. This is where one of the main points I'm hitting at is that several of the differences they have compared to other materia are restrictions to how we see them being used that directly correlate to things about them that aren't explained directly within the game world.

There's a slight but important difference in the Black Materia not functionally being able to be used without someone giving it to a receiver first Vs. the Black Materia never shown being used in any Final Fantasy VII story without being given to someone else first. The story's restriction essentially function as an unstated literal restriction – because it's a design guideline that the narrative will always follow for reasons that we can understand by looking at how that framework guides things inherent to the Black Materia as a component of that structure. These are things where they don't technically need to be given in-world explanations and oftentimes aren't in Final Fantasy VII.

Essentially, the story only explains as much as it absolutely has to in-world as much as those components are important to it in-world. So, that means that while the in-world stated mechanics of something aren't always known, they're always subjected to the writers implementation of ensuring that they follow that pattern.

Truthfully, we don't really know whether the Cetra created much (or any) materia. We don't even know if they generally needed materia in order to use simple magic. We only know that Shin-Ra's (unreliable) propaganda video presents that idea.
Of course, it also presents the idea that Midgar was built in an empty desert.

Materia can and do form naturally, and the knowledge of the Ancients would make its way into spheres anyone can use that way.

it is definitely true that Shinra is an unreliable narrator there, but they're meant to be conveying facts & scriptural evidence that they have within the perspective that they believe. There's nothing to suggest that they're lying, especially as that's what they actually are placing their goals and ambitions towards. It's definitely meant to be understood that they're looking at a literal rather than a figurative interpretation of things though. When it comes to materia & how they're using synthetic creation processes to generate materia with Scarlet (and Chadley), there's nothing there that would suggest there's any reason for that to be fabricated or baseless in the context of Remake though.

I'm not even opposed to that notion so much in particular as I am the original claims I took issue with:

"This 'Calamity from the Skies' is especially important because we know that this initial event could only occur if the Black Materia was used."

"Just like Jenova can’t arrive on a world without first being summoned by the Black Materia ..."

Jenova is a monster from somewhere in outer space that hitched a ride on a meteor. This meteor may have been an already floating chunk of rock she just latched onto out in the void or it could have been a piece of a world that fell apart after she killed it, a la the Phantoms from "The Spirits Within" coming to Earth on a piece of their homeworld. Regardless of how she came to be attached to this rock, it could have serendipitously been grabbed out of space by the Black Materia or it could have just as serendipitously followed a trajectory that brought it to VII's planet without the Black Materia.

None of that really matters so much as the limiting idea that the creature can only go to a planet that has summoned it.

This is what I means as the storytelling-level rules as a design framework. If Final Fantasy VII's world were an actual simulation of sorts, there're numerous ways that those events could have transpired. However, the elements as they work in the story's narrative structure means that they have two options: If you give all the details about Jenova being summoned originally, you have to establish more explicit rules about those two's connection in-game that serve the story. If you leave them unspoken, but just provide subtle evidence that they're still following those rules, they don't have to be established concretely.

It isn't explicit, though. Lucrecia just speculates that the planet may have made it -- but she also speculates that it was formed in the grotto over a great span of time, in the same way of all natural materia.

It's also worthwhile to consider that Lucrecia speculated the Ancient Materia existed to prevent Chaos from performing its purpose, so as to prolong the planet's life rather than to facilitate this mechanic of the planetary lifecycle. Given it was discovered in the same location as a Cetra inscription about Chaos, it's entirely possible that the materia formed from the memories of Cetra who knew what Chaos is and yearned to delay Omega's awakening as long as possible.

Related: Are there any sections of any of the games that talk about the process of naturally occurring materia outside of the one on Mt. Nibel?

I think if you're going so far as to look at the David Bowie stuff that is an excellent candidate for being the inspiration for Sephiroth, then it would only be fair to look into John Carpenter's "The Thing" as a good candidate for being the inspiration for Jenova. No matter how you look at it, Jenova and The Thing are just about twins of each other. Not just in their abilities, but also the circumstances surrounding their discovery. And one of those things about... The Thing... is that is an alien. It's not "of" the Earth at all; no one on Earth did anything that caused The Thing to come to Earth. It just randomly showed up in the past and got frozen. And given the lack of anything said about why Jenova came to the FFVII Planet... how The Thing got to Earth sounds like a very reasonable way for Jenova to get to the Planet as well.

Oh, don't worry – that's definitely happening.

There's a reason that I mentioned it enough to establish that connection still being present in relation to how she fits in the Kabbalist religious framework with things like the Jehovah/Jenova connection, but didn't spend as much time elaborating on it. There's a lot about her in general that's actually much more closely connected to the Buddhism side of things vis-a-vis Life & Death, and that connection is served WAY better if it's explored outside of her correlations to the Abrahamic religion bits.

It's why the next article I'm focusing on is involving dualism & buddhism, and what I mentioned about Jenova in my last post is a little bit of sort of where that's gonna go – but that's a topic for the future!

My current stance on... just about everything in the Shin-Ra propaganda film about the Cetra is that it's a load of BS. At least until we get more information from more sources later (hopefully). There's enough in there that contradicts what we know from the OG that I can only imagine a lot of Cetra info is getting misrepresented, twisted or just straight made up to fit into Shinra's narrative for what their goals are. So any theorizing that is depending on that propaganda film for proof of it being right has me raising eyebrows at it. 'Cause I'm pretty sure we're going to get a huge "oh that video? yeah, that's not what the Cetra were like at all when you get down to it" later in the series.

Oh, I definitely know that that video is intended to be presented as propaganda. Propaganda works when it has elements of truth, because this is something that Shinra is wanting to ensure that people like their own researchers buy into as well. Everybody is drinking the KoolAid, but that also means that there has to be enough truth to keep themselves believing, too. There's a reason that their presentation is all about the idea of the concept of the Promised Land as a literal location, and what that means within the religious metaphor.

Heh... I actually one time went looking to see what type of magic the White Materia (and Holy) were said to be in the OG and Ultimanias. And... it isn't as the ultimate "restorative" or "creative" magic at all. Holy is just called the Ultimate White Magic. This is a contrast to the Black Materia and Meteor which are called the ultimate "destructive" magic. So... I don't think the White and Black Materia are complimentary at all. At least, not in the way you're describing here. Holy is also never described in terms of restoring anything; it's always described as making things that put the Planet in danger disappear. We even see this in the OG when Holy tries (and fails) to destroy Meteor. I think the most "restorative" you could make Holy out to be is that it's maybe some kind of barrier magic? But that still doesn't address the fact that the clearest explanation we ever get of Holy is that it's purpose is to make things dangerous to the Planet disappear. On the other hand, this fits with the meta fact that the Holy spell is always a destructive White Magic spell everywhere else it show up in the FF franchise; fixing things is never the reason why a Holy spell gets used.

As far as I can tell for FF7, the reason Holy is used is to destroy something hurting the Planet. Both Holy and Meteor's purpose are destroy something; one just destroys what is hurting the Planet, the the other destroys everything (including the Planet) indiscriminately. Both Holy and Meteor are... usually in the roles as the OP damaging spells of their respective schools and I don't see that really changing in FFVII.

As I mentioned earlier, there's a lot more complexity because what we have it a Jewish mythological spiritualism as interpreted by Japanese game developers who come from a background of Shintoism & Buddhism. However, this is something that's at the heart of why understanding the religious source material with the Sefirot first is super important. Holy is the Divine Light of Creation, and the role Holy the White Magic plays within the game's story shows that this element in the story is very much just directly adapted into the fantasy world setting from those things with very little change overall.

What a read that was! First a few details, before I forget, but in ch14, Cloud in French says that "destiny is calling" him, to which Tifa agrees. So I'm not sure whether it's Aerith or destiny - from what my ear tells me, in JP Cloud doesn't seem to mention Aerith either. Will also note that even in English, Tifa mentions that the flower means "reunion" and not "reunion between lovers" as per her resolution scene and the dialogue she shares with Leslie, I am not sure why they changed that from Aerith's line at the beginning (the French matches the JP on that one). And finally, I don't think Cloud saw any of the flashbacks with Zack, because he did not react to them, and Jenova would have for sure blocked them out. Aerith is the only receiver of those flashbacks, IMHO, probably because she is the link between Zack and Cloud, and Zack is also the one she still cares most about, at that moment.

Thanks for the additional details about the French ambiguity around those lines. Additionally, I think that, like with the other flashbacks, Cloud sees them in a way that he doesn't consciously register. It's why there're things like him crying over the Sleeping Forest moment with Aerith but not understanding why. I think that it's information that's still hitting the connection between himself & Aerith even when he's not able to consciously perceive it as the "self" he currently exists as. Cloud's just so very complicated.

That said! There are several things that Remake made me think about. We know that VII, and Remake, are stories about "life and death". To me, unconsciously, Tifa represents life and Aerith represents death; Tifa because she survives, not only the OG, but also Nibelheim, the plate falling... she literally is a survivor. Aerith represents death not only because she dies, but also because she talks to ghosts, literally. Tifa is afraid of ghosts because they're her anti-thesis. Aerith is friendly with them because she has accepted the role of death (not for herself; but as part of life and death). This is cemented even more in the Remake than what it used to be in the OG, this is part of their duality.

I really like that observation about the differentiation between Tifa & Aerith in the train graveyard vis-a-vis being faced with spirits of the dead. That's another example that I really like of Tifa & Aerith portraying the roles of physical life vs. spiritual memory alongside Cloud even before we get into their ultimate fates later on.

And I feel that Remake presents the choice of changing destiny in an interesting way; if Aerith lives, then what? Who's going to die? Because no matter what, thematically, FFVII is about dealing with loss. If everyone survives, then who did we lose, during the course of the story? If Tifa dies, then why will she die, what will her death bring? It will mean as much torment for Cloud than if Aerith dies, except now she can't help him regain his true self. And eventually, Aerith could not help from beyond - could she from the world of living? That is another question. We know what we lose, but we don't know what we'll gain or lose if we chose another option.

Also I feel that this choice that is given to the player is a red herring; the devs want you to feel that you have the choice, that maybe you'll be able to save Aerith from her fate and change destiny - only to show you that you can't, and shan't make that decision. Aerith and Red XIII think that the future as it stands is a bad outcome. However, they have only partial knowledge, fragments of visions - as such they are unreliable narrators. Maybe it's a bad outcome, but maybe it's also the best outcome that one could hope for, given the cards that were distributed at the beginning. FFVII relies on unreliable narrators Cloud and Tifa and Aerith to make you believe one thing, until you get to the twist and suddenly, everything you knew loses sense to shape the hidden truth. To me, that is what the devs are trying to recreate with Remake - however, the core of the story is still here: Cloud is still not himself, Tifa is still worried about him, knows more but doesn't dare to talk, Aerith still tries to live her life fully and wants to believe in the future. The cards are distributed like they were in the OG, presented IMHO in a better way, but everything at the core is still here. It's the heart of FFVII. So right now, we feel that maybe we'll have a choice, what's with Zack and Biggs who have survived, with that new Sephiroth. But I am quite sure that it's only to follow the same beats as the OG and prove that this ending is maybe not so bad.

Yeah, it's definitely interesting and I initially thought that the sense of choice would be like it was in Chapter 12 with it being a bit of a red herring, but the things with Sephiroth and all of the metaphor about Remake & the value of memories is what makes me feel like they might want to know what choices players make, since there's a way that player choices get to give the game developers something back about how people perceive their story, which is super interesting.

Last but not least, I am sorry to hear you lost a dear friend you can't share thoughts with anymore. This sucks, especially in such great times!

Thanks much x2.

Amazing analysis!! thanks for that!
I'm sure Nojima&co will hear about it !!!
(it might even impact them who knows?)

being familiar with chinese and japanese for more than 15 years now, i just wanted to give you my feeling about the order of the strokes in the remake new symbol.
IF the order of the strokes in that new symbol follows the rules in the kanjis writing (which could eventually not be the case giving that this symbol has a specific design which does not match with usual kanjis), then i think your friend might have made a few mistakes.

---> i tried various possibilities, and to me, it feels now obvious that IF the order of the strokes in that new symbol follows the rules in the kanjis writing, then the first strike is the first part of the 4th stroke (looking like the head of the symbol but in fact being a little comma, similar to a dot).
the second stroke is correct to me. Then the third is also correct, but the direction is wrong. It should be from right to left instead of left to right. That's because it is opposed to the second stroke movement, which is a very basic rule with certain strokes in kanji writing.

then the first stroke in your article feels to me like the fourth. And the fifth is the combination of the second part of your article's fourth stroke with the article's fifth stroke. It really feels like these two are one in the kanjis writing style&feel.

then 6th and 7th are correct.

Well, all that only applies if the kanjis writing rules are followed. But i'm not sure they are, because like i said, this symbol is quite different from a kanji in its structure.

Anyway, thank you so much for your analysis, i really loved it!!!

Oh man, thanks a ton for the additional perspective on what the stroke order could be! It's always super helpful getting more information about things like that.

I think that I understand the order that you're suggesting, but if there's any way that you can get an image sort of like the one in the article, I'd love to do a quick run-through of it from that viewpoint! It'd be interesting to run another diagram and go through the same thematic interpretations with a different order, since I think that I'd be able to do so pretty efficiently now that I've got more of the basics down.

Thanks a ton for the feedback & really glad ya loved it!

EDIT: I just saw your reply with more specific breakdown. I'll see if I can map that out and poke around at it a bit tomorrow or so.




X

 

[Eerie]

I really like that observation about the differentiation between Tifa & Aerith in the train graveyard vis-a-vis being faced with spirits of the dead. That's another example that I really like of Tifa & Aerith portraying the roles of physical life vs. spiritual memory alongside Cloud even before we get into their ultimate fates later on.

There's even more; lately it has been discussed that even in the Ultimania, Aerith is not described as one of the two heroine. That description solely refers to Tifa now. Before the game's release, I remember saying "it's to hide her importance, surely Aerith is still one of the two heroines, FFVII has always been like that". But now the Ultimania describe her as "character of utmost importance". And, looking at the game, it is true; they stripped Aerith from the role of "heroine" (support for Cloud), to make her role just... way more. She is just so much more than the heroine, with everything that she knows, with how the game presents her... yup, there is much more.

And interestingly enough, if you look at the relationship and some scenes she has with Cloud and Tifa, Cloud is the one who protect her physically, but Tifa is always the one who makes sure she is good emotionally (train graveyard, but also in the Shinra tower; when they reunite too, the reunion is between the three, not only between Cloud and Aerith). I find the way that balance between the trio has been slightly changed absolutely fascinating. I'm still undeciding as what it means for the future, but I like to think about this these days.

Also, please take care and take all the days off from the internet you need! Losing people who are dear to us is an awful experience, I am so sorry you're going through this again.