nitramXIII
Lv. 1 Adventurer
- AKA
- lab rat dog
Here is an image of the strokes shape/order/direction
sorry for the bad drawing
sorry for the bad drawing
Life, Death, & The Sefirot: FFVII's History & Remake's Future in a New Symbol of Reunion
- Thread starter X-SOLDIER
- Start date
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
There's a lot about the trio dynamics in the game that comes from directly the Buddhism side of things, so I'm extra excited to get to poke around at that more in what I'll be doing next.
Definitely is rough going through it again, but it's been helpful to sort of be in the mindset of thinking about all this already, since when it comes down to it – it's an inevitable, normal, and natural part of life. I think it's made coping with everything a ton easier, tbh. Definitely gonna be slow going in responding to stuff for a bit though.
EDIT: @nitramXIII Thank you!! I'll jump onto checking that out in detail tomorrow!
X
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
Here is an image of the strokes shape/order/direction
sorry for the bad drawing
So, with this interpretation, the main differences that you have are that the direction of C moves down the same way that B does, and that A exists as its own stroke. D, F, & G should all be the same as they’re unchanged. E just has the start moved over to A.
The change with A is mainly that would establish the initial state of the Keter/Dat’at duality between Sephiroth & Jenova first on its own.
B & C are largely the same regardless of the stroke’s direction. However, since A is first now, they’re both representative of the Project G & Project S-related connections solely going to Sephiroth, since you don’t have later-removed connection between Keter to worry about if it’s already being represented in Sephiroth.
This simplifies things in some of the initial states which is definitely nice!
Of note, when we looked at the pattern – That stroke you have listed as A seemed like a calligraphy brush being set down on the paper, and the thin trail that goes up from there and then down through E looks like it was formed by lifting the brush up from that placement until it was mostly off of the surface and letting the tip trail before reaching the apex and then having more weight being applied on the down-stroke which is why we see the bristles separated more by the end of that stroke.
While the Japanese stroke order was the primary guiding rule, we also tried to look at the physical appearance of the lines since they look to’ve been drawn manually. This was to try and assess if there were any physical details that we could compare with other calligraphic depictions of kanji with known stroke orders that would help provide supporting evidence – like the drop dot at the end of F making it clear that it goes top-to-bottom.
Either way, it's a relief to know that the interpretation using the elements that I picked for the Sefirot between both versions still stays almost entirely the same. Hopefully one of us is correct and we didn't manage to totally overlook something!
X
nitramXIII
Lv. 1 Adventurer
- AKA
- lab rat dog
Yeah definitely!
It really looks like i was wrong about the E stroke.
the first part of it as seen in the picture i posted is more of a link between A and E stroke, created by the paint marks of the brush, and giving details about the order of the strokes, the movement of the calligrapher from stroke to stroke, and the "path" he decides to take while writing the character.
You can have a closer look at the symbol in chapter 3, and the calligraphic style becomes easy to recognize, with paint splashes and added paint marks between strokes.
So i think that E stroke's real shape is the exact same shape as your article's 5th stroke.
And between A and E, clearly, it's not a stroke.
This said, i tried 4 other combinations that i find the most plausible given this calligraphic style and the brush trails.
DBCGFAE / DBCFGAE / BCGDFAE / BCGFDAE
é
It really looks like i was wrong about the E stroke.
the first part of it as seen in the picture i posted is more of a link between A and E stroke, created by the paint marks of the brush, and giving details about the order of the strokes, the movement of the calligrapher from stroke to stroke, and the "path" he decides to take while writing the character.
You can have a closer look at the symbol in chapter 3, and the calligraphic style becomes easy to recognize, with paint splashes and added paint marks between strokes.
So i think that E stroke's real shape is the exact same shape as your article's 5th stroke.
And between A and E, clearly, it's not a stroke.
This said, i tried 4 other combinations that i find the most plausible given this calligraphic style and the brush trails.
DBCGFAE / DBCFGAE / BCGDFAE / BCGFDAE
é
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
It occurs to me that I forgot to come back and add some closing thoughts on the Black Materia matter. 
I actually wouldn't discount the notion that the developers having Cloud give Seph the materia was inspired by/symbolic of the Malkhut parameter -- possibly as a distortion/perversion. That seems like something they would do and did plenty elsewhere.
Where I'm in disagreement is that the mechanics as they function in the setting include this (in)convenienty overlooked requirement. To me that's only slightly more plausible than something like Tifa originating as a piece of God in human form with no knowledge of her divine, balance-nurturing nature. =P
There can be symbolism as flavor, symbolism as inspiration, and even symbolism as roadmap, but if symbolism is to be an actual plot element, it needs to announce itself alongside the rest of the plot.
I actually wouldn't discount the notion that the developers having Cloud give Seph the materia was inspired by/symbolic of the Malkhut parameter -- possibly as a distortion/perversion. That seems like something they would do and did plenty elsewhere.
Where I'm in disagreement is that the mechanics as they function in the setting include this (in)convenienty overlooked requirement. To me that's only slightly more plausible than something like Tifa originating as a piece of God in human form with no knowledge of her divine, balance-nurturing nature. =P
There can be symbolism as flavor, symbolism as inspiration, and even symbolism as roadmap, but if symbolism is to be an actual plot element, it needs to announce itself alongside the rest of the plot.
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
Been super busy trying to catch up on a lot of stuff IRL, so sorry about the slower responses here.
I think that this is the key point where we're just talking past each other.
Designers tend to engineer metaphor, intent, symbolism, and structure that is explicitly laid out according to very clear rulesets out all over the place in what they're doing all the time. However, they'll tend to take that and then design from it without ever feeling the need to give their audience that roadmap directly, unless having that serves a purpose of its own.
One of the reasons for that is that while those rulesets and metaphor are monumentally important for the designers to know inside and out, they're using them in order to communicate to the audience directly. The communication tool for the audience is everything that they design that's already using that set of constraints. It's because they build directly off of those things that you can determine unstated information definitively based on that ruleset if you happen to know what it is.
It's just like 10 Things I Hate About You being an adaptation of Taming of the Shrew. If you know that, there are things that you can determine about the actions in the film, because Taming of the Shrew is the set of constraints that the writers operate within. In the case of Final Fantasy VII, it's not based on something that explicit though.
To pick an example that's more overt because it literally takes place directly WITHIN mythology is the end of the new God of War. The director Cory Barlog talks about how they pulled back on digging into the specifics of the mythology – in a game that's literally all about mythology – because it's focusing on things that are establishing connections for the players & better serving the story within it. That doesn't mean that they adhere to the rules of the mythology any less, even if they're less up-front about those things to the player. But especially when it comes to the ending.
Most specifically, if you listen to how Cory Barlog influences things in design & planning meetings with writers & artists and the way that he hits on things about wrapping in feelings and references to film & pop-culture that meant things to him in ways that link to the messages that they're trying to portray in the story, you'll get a perfect idea of how those sorts of things happen in software development.
So, while God of War is literally existing within a world of shared explicit mythology that sets rules for who its characters are & how they act, Final Fantasy VII has its own creation & spiritual mythology that we learn from Bugenhagen. THAT mythology is constructed within the framework of the Sefirot as viewed through a Japanese cultural lens.
For some fun context – I work with people exactly like him. I've been involved in those sorts of design meetings that are just as thorough and meticulous about features' narrative intent, word choice, color, metaphor, and presentation... for workflows on personal development software. It is a very, VERY interesting environment to be a part of, but even more interesting when understanding how those things get focused for narrative game development, which is why I watch things like this a lot and also why I started all the tl;dr about the software end of things. My article at its core is really still just an analysis of things that you can tell given knowledge about how software development works & intersects with the world of producers, directors, & designers.
Tifa's character being designed around the elements of Tif'eret is just a part of that design framework. Her character is created such that her character history, attitude, and actions will have her primary drive & motivations operating within that set of parameters in order to allow her role in the story to fulfill Tif'eret's role of the symbolism that they're looking to express within the game's narrative. Using that, they can then build other interactions for the story that use & enhance that role for her. Given that, we also know that they're not going to set up something in the story that will break that connection. The Sefirot itself isn't its own thing in Final Fantasy VII's world, so it's never explained to players directly, but it's a story built by people, who built that story by following rules laid out elsewhere.
Tifa is always a character whose behaviours are dictated based off of that, because that concept serves what the designers need her character to be. The same is true of all of the actors in the game's core story that draw from that mythology – it's just that in this case the White & Black Materia are actors in the story in the same capacity as the 5 original core characters, Jenova, and the Planet itself are. Those things all exist in a way that fulfill specific roles for the narrative, which is framed within a regular world, which is framed with the game-world mythology, which is constrained within the real-world spiritual mythological structures that they're borrowing those themes from.
Also, as if on cue, Kitase's interview from Famitsu had these extremely topically relevant bits:
Avoiding referencing older films that younger generations wouldn't know, and being very particular about, "a starry sky that represents the overall themes of Final Fantasy VII." so... those are just... yup. This is basically all of what my attempt to explain above is in a nutshell. Just look at that sentence, and think about the fact that the design team knows exactly what that's about, but also that that's even something that he explicitly requested & was particular about.
That's why there's so much to tl;dr about, and why you can tell so much about what they will or won't do based on their own design rules outside of the game.
X
I think that this is the key point where we're just talking past each other.
Designers tend to engineer metaphor, intent, symbolism, and structure that is explicitly laid out according to very clear rulesets out all over the place in what they're doing all the time. However, they'll tend to take that and then design from it without ever feeling the need to give their audience that roadmap directly, unless having that serves a purpose of its own.
One of the reasons for that is that while those rulesets and metaphor are monumentally important for the designers to know inside and out, they're using them in order to communicate to the audience directly. The communication tool for the audience is everything that they design that's already using that set of constraints. It's because they build directly off of those things that you can determine unstated information definitively based on that ruleset if you happen to know what it is.
It's just like 10 Things I Hate About You being an adaptation of Taming of the Shrew. If you know that, there are things that you can determine about the actions in the film, because Taming of the Shrew is the set of constraints that the writers operate within. In the case of Final Fantasy VII, it's not based on something that explicit though.
To pick an example that's more overt because it literally takes place directly WITHIN mythology is the end of the new God of War. The director Cory Barlog talks about how they pulled back on digging into the specifics of the mythology – in a game that's literally all about mythology – because it's focusing on things that are establishing connections for the players & better serving the story within it. That doesn't mean that they adhere to the rules of the mythology any less, even if they're less up-front about those things to the player. But especially when it comes to the ending.
Atreus being Loki is something that wasn't decided upon immediately. However – once they decided on it – the details about Atreus' character were constrained in order to match those elements, because there is now a layer of mythology providing a particular set of rules upon that character. The difference is that, depending on the story – most of the time you'll never get to see what those rules are.
Most specifically, if you listen to how Cory Barlog influences things in design & planning meetings with writers & artists and the way that he hits on things about wrapping in feelings and references to film & pop-culture that meant things to him in ways that link to the messages that they're trying to portray in the story, you'll get a perfect idea of how those sorts of things happen in software development.
So, while God of War is literally existing within a world of shared explicit mythology that sets rules for who its characters are & how they act, Final Fantasy VII has its own creation & spiritual mythology that we learn from Bugenhagen. THAT mythology is constructed within the framework of the Sefirot as viewed through a Japanese cultural lens.
For some fun context – I work with people exactly like him. I've been involved in those sorts of design meetings that are just as thorough and meticulous about features' narrative intent, word choice, color, metaphor, and presentation... for workflows on personal development software. It is a very, VERY interesting environment to be a part of, but even more interesting when understanding how those things get focused for narrative game development, which is why I watch things like this a lot and also why I started all the tl;dr about the software end of things. My article at its core is really still just an analysis of things that you can tell given knowledge about how software development works & intersects with the world of producers, directors, & designers.
Tifa's character being designed around the elements of Tif'eret is just a part of that design framework. Her character is created such that her character history, attitude, and actions will have her primary drive & motivations operating within that set of parameters in order to allow her role in the story to fulfill Tif'eret's role of the symbolism that they're looking to express within the game's narrative. Using that, they can then build other interactions for the story that use & enhance that role for her. Given that, we also know that they're not going to set up something in the story that will break that connection. The Sefirot itself isn't its own thing in Final Fantasy VII's world, so it's never explained to players directly, but it's a story built by people, who built that story by following rules laid out elsewhere.
Tifa is always a character whose behaviours are dictated based off of that, because that concept serves what the designers need her character to be. The same is true of all of the actors in the game's core story that draw from that mythology – it's just that in this case the White & Black Materia are actors in the story in the same capacity as the 5 original core characters, Jenova, and the Planet itself are. Those things all exist in a way that fulfill specific roles for the narrative, which is framed within a regular world, which is framed with the game-world mythology, which is constrained within the real-world spiritual mythological structures that they're borrowing those themes from.
Also, as if on cue, Kitase's interview from Famitsu had these extremely topically relevant bits:
Famitsu said:
Avoiding referencing older films that younger generations wouldn't know, and being very particular about, "a starry sky that represents the overall themes of Final Fantasy VII." so... those are just... yup. This is basically all of what my attempt to explain above is in a nutshell. Just look at that sentence, and think about the fact that the design team knows exactly what that's about, but also that that's even something that he explicitly requested & was particular about.
That's why there's so much to tl;dr about, and why you can tell so much about what they will or won't do based on their own design rules outside of the game.
X
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
The "God of War" series is probably one of the last places one should go looking for fidelity to source material. 
Within the fictional setting itself, Tifa's behavior is not being dictated by cosmic leylines and the Black Materia doesn't have to be handed from one person to another in order for the otherwise stated rules of its function to be an option -- regardless of how closely her behavior in the narrative or the depiction of the materia's activation may hew to associated ideas in the real world.
Sure, that may inform what decisions they will or won't make with the storytelling (e.g. the directions the narrative may take, how it will be presented, etc.). Those are real-world considerations, though.
Within the fictional setting itself, Tifa's behavior is not being dictated by cosmic leylines and the Black Materia doesn't have to be handed from one person to another in order for the otherwise stated rules of its function to be an option -- regardless of how closely her behavior in the narrative or the depiction of the materia's activation may hew to associated ideas in the real world.
Obsidian Fire
Ahk Morn!
- AKA
- The Engineer
There's also the element where some rules do have to be stated for them to really work in the setting of the story. The Black Materia and White Materia are two such objects. The Black Materia (Meteor) is... a lot more straight forward because it's called "ultimate destructive magic". Its effect of "destruction" is used to describe what it is/does. What is specificly does is smash a small moon/meteor into the Planet.
The White Materia (Holy) is more nebulous because "ultimate creation magic" or "ultimate restorative magic" is never used anywhere to describe what it is/does. It's simply called "ultimate White Magic spell" with no given definition for what "White Magic" actually is. To identity what "White Magic" is, you really need to go look at White Magic across the FF franchise. Which reveals White Magic is mainly about healing and sometimes status effects. Except for Holy; which is always a damaging spell. But none of that is actually in FF7 itself. So appealing to that is very... Doyalist.
What is in FF7 is a specific description of what Holy does. Which is "make anything that is bad for the Planet disappear". Which is... essentially complete annihilation for anything the Planet thinks shouldn't be around. If anything, Holy sounds like it's a Planet-wide "Warp/Banish" spell which has bounced around in the Black/Time Magic spells for a while. How Holy can be thematically linked to "creation" as a concept makes... very little sense to me. Unless there is some sort of system already in place that needs it's "creation" aspect filled in. Which makes perfect sense except for the fact that that makes Holy into the opposite of what the game actually says it is.
What does make me think of "creation" in a thematic sense is Aerith rallying the Lifestream after Holy fails to stop Meteor. At the very least, she's getting the lifeforce of the Planet to do something to prevent destruction. Great Gospel in ACC also seems like it would fit the "creation/restoration" theme very well, if not better. It even has Geostigma to be the "destruction" counterpart.
The White Materia (Holy) is more nebulous because "ultimate creation magic" or "ultimate restorative magic" is never used anywhere to describe what it is/does. It's simply called "ultimate White Magic spell" with no given definition for what "White Magic" actually is. To identity what "White Magic" is, you really need to go look at White Magic across the FF franchise. Which reveals White Magic is mainly about healing and sometimes status effects. Except for Holy; which is always a damaging spell. But none of that is actually in FF7 itself. So appealing to that is very... Doyalist.
What is in FF7 is a specific description of what Holy does. Which is "make anything that is bad for the Planet disappear". Which is... essentially complete annihilation for anything the Planet thinks shouldn't be around. If anything, Holy sounds like it's a Planet-wide "Warp/Banish" spell which has bounced around in the Black/Time Magic spells for a while. How Holy can be thematically linked to "creation" as a concept makes... very little sense to me. Unless there is some sort of system already in place that needs it's "creation" aspect filled in. Which makes perfect sense except for the fact that that makes Holy into the opposite of what the game actually says it is.
What does make me think of "creation" in a thematic sense is Aerith rallying the Lifestream after Holy fails to stop Meteor. At the very least, she's getting the lifeforce of the Planet to do something to prevent destruction. Great Gospel in ACC also seems like it would fit the "creation/restoration" theme very well, if not better. It even has Geostigma to be the "destruction" counterpart.
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
The "God of War" series is probably one of the last places one should go looking for fidelity to source material.
But... I wasn't referring to the series in the comment, just specifically what's covered in that interview about the most recent game.
Sure, that may inform what decisions they will or won't make with the storytelling (e.g. the directions the narrative may take, how it will be presented, etc.). Those are real-world considerations, though. Within the fictional setting itself, Tifa's behavior is not being dictated by cosmic leylines and the Black Materia doesn't have to be handed from one person to another in order for the otherwise stated rules of its function to be an option -- regardless of how closely her behavior in the narrative or the depiction of the materia's activation may hew to associated ideas in the real world.
Also, yes.
The story is designed with those real world constraints to the elements that it presents, such that the scenarios that are designed for those things always function in a particular way, regardless of if those constraints explicitly exist in-world.
I think that the main differentiation here is that in a Western RPG, because they're more D&D open-world-like, you'd look at world-building as the core "source of truth" for how everything works. Whereas in a JPRG, the mechanics of the story are much more focused, and typically the in-world details are primarily built to serve that end.
First – Thanks SO MUCH for making me aware of the term Doylist, as this makes my life a ton easier (and seems like where Tres & I are talking past each other most often). It is precisely the viewpoint that I'm taking here, as the whole article is a Doylist analysis of what makes FFVII what it is by looking at the religious & pop culture influences on the story itself. Then using them to track how that storytelling is being done & reinforced within Remake. It's also the perspective that I'm using in all my responses as well.
Second – I genuinely love this conversation, but I have hold off on talking about these particular functions of the Black & White Materia in this particular thread, and just focus on the connections to the Kabbalist side of things.
The questions that you're bringing up are things I am VERY excited to talk about, but they're all connected to specifics about the interpretation of "divinity" in the Sefirot not being based on an Abrahamic Paternal God, but instead using the Sefirot's spiritual energy system with a Japanese interpretation of those themes with "the Planet" as its divine spiritual entity. While I mentioned that was the case in the article for context on covering when those things differed from the Kabbalist views, the specific details of what that is all about aren't covered in this article, because I wanted to make sure to outline just the framework of the Sefirot-based stuff as much as possible.
What I'm currently writing is about the other Japanese spiritual elements that get used to actually finalize those particular themes in the game, and also how they shape the specific structure of the views of what things around life & death that Remake is examining. – So, I will totally have that conversation with you in the next thread, because the non-Western spiritual side of things has a HUGE amount of detail for why the odd mismatched-feeling dichotomy that you're mentioning exists.
X