New things and plot points I want to see (spoilers)

[Flare]

then again they could put the destruction of corel earlier, and still make her older, but that probably fucks up the timeline somehow?

Timeline is already fucked up. I don't mind if they change some things in the timeline for the Remake, in order to make things work out sensibly.

 

[hian]

Marlene not being old enough to know anyone other then Barret as her father is important to the Dyne story as is Barret only recently embarking on his revenge against Shinra. I'd prefer the babysitter idea.

Bumping her up to something like six wouldn't really change things all that much IMO, and it would at least mean she had the mental faculties to read, write, and talk coherently with customers.
Four does not.

 

[Ite]

She always seemed more six to me. She's six in AC, and seems 10. I have no idea how that girl became so gifted, being on the lam from Shinra and all, living in the slums or the wilderness her whole life.

But, it's also a major plot point that Barret does not have allies, aside from AVALANCHE and Tifa (who I presume took care of Marlene during the first mission). If anything, they should leave Biggs, Wedge, or Jessie behind when Tifa decides to join them on the mission. Or perhaps give AVALANCHE a couple more members who hang out at base all the time so that Marlene isn't alone.

Or... leave her alone. None of these people are exactly role models. I can buy that they wouldn't give enough of a shit about a little girl in a world this harsh and unforgiving, with lives this brief and meaningless. They're going out with the full knowledge that they could all blow up before coming home, and then its up to Marlene whether she starves to death or finds a better life for herself. Everyone at one point had to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and move forward, if Marlene can't hack it well she don't deserve to roll with AVALANCHE.

 

[Tashasaurous]

She always seemed more six to me. She's six in AC, and seems 10. I have no idea how that girl became so gifted, being on the l am from Shinra and all, living in the slums or the wilderness her whole life.

She always seens three or four to me and being six in AC. Then again, like some people at such a young age in reality, maybe she was one of those types who quickly understood some kinds of situations on recongising who to trust or not and such, being the type of child to slowly become mature for her age.

Some children in the world do have to recongise certain things, though. I mean, given the fact that Marlene grew up in the Slums and that her father went off to try and set things right for her future and such. Plus, she was nervous when she first met Cloud.

 

[Channy]

I have five year old (neices) who can barely hold an open glass without spilling it within seconds. The farfetched'ness of Marlene the bartender to me lies in her ability to mix or shake a drink without knocking everything over/spilling/breaking everything in sight.

 

[hian]

As I said - I've taught hundreds of kids in the 1-6 age bracket now after juggling a day-job as an English teacher at a score of Japanese nurseries before I could transition more fully into my game related work, and I have yet to meet a single 4 year old that can read and write to any meaningful extent, think lucidly about time (understanding the concept of what time of day, what day of the week/month/year etc.), have sufficient hand-eye coordination etc. to be able to do anything even remotely similar to what Marlene is shown to be doing, or would have to be capable of doing to not suffer enormously by being left to fend for herself in that environment.

Marlene being able to take care of that bar to any meaningful degree at the age of 4 is not only a statistical anomaly of genius proportions, it's almost certainly beyond the realm of what healthy developing children are capable of in terms of human biological limitations.

Who's cooking that girl's meals when everyone's gone? Who's preventing her from trying to make her own food, and say spilling boiling water on her face, clogging up the toilet with huge amounts of toilet paper, or getting sick because she can't operate the hair dryer and goes to sleep with her hair wet at night, or any of the countless other impending screw-ups a child of that age is prone to cause?

Anyone who thinks Marlene being alone in that bar at the age of 4 is anything but a recipe for disaster that might even end in the death of that child, has never raised a kid, or spent sufficient amount of time around 4 year olds.

 

[fancy]

Plot twist! Marlene is actually Matilda Wormood, girl genius

In reality though, I could see them playing at the "Marlene is exceptionally intelligent for her age." angle combined with the whole, "This harsh world has forced her to grow up faster than she should have to" sentiment. Even if it's a little inconceivable in reality, they might be able to play it off in the fantasy setting of the remake.

She came across to me as someone who, at least, holds a good measure of emotional intelligence in AC and the 'On the Way to a Smile' novella. *shrugs, scratches necks, slinks away*

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

(I agree with everything else, but nobody ever got sick going to bed with wet hair. I do it all the time)

 

[ChipNoir]

In my experience, 5 is about the age where children cross the threshold from pure Id to at least having some form of ego/super ego, and the logical skills that come with it. From there, it depends on the child's nature, and environment.

In my observations, its not so much 'how mature' a child is, so much as how consistently they can hold onto those mature moments. I've been able to hold surprisingly sophisticated conversations with my kid niece, whose closer on the side of 6 now. She has lapses of immaturity, but I feel that sort of thing fluctuates depending on mood and subject.

Also lets not forget, age is kind of a sketchy thing in FFVII. We have children at the age of 14 going off to join the military, and men like Cid that are 32, but look 50. I'm only 3 years younger than Cid damnit! I do not look that old!

Generally when it comes to anime, or anything anime inspired, everyone seems to be 5-6 years older than they actually are. Anyone remember Nanako from persona 4? She's only 6, and she does all the chores, often the cooking, and is far, far too self-reliant because her Dad is always out chasing criminals.




Also Dad Dojima is Best Man. Hawt.

 

[Ite]

Cognitively, four year olds don't have Theory of Mind yet. If you show two four-year-olds a box, send one of the four-year-olds out of the room, then show the other one what's inside the box (a toy) then ask that four-year-old what the missing kid will think is inside the box, the child will think that the kid in the hallway knows what is inside the box! They literally don't have the brain capacity to understand that other people have different experiences than them, they're one step above thinking that if they can't see you you don't exist.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Also lets not forget, age is kind of a sketchy thing in FFVII. We have children at the age of 14 going off to join the military, and men like Cid that are 32, but look 50. I'm only 3 years younger than Cid damnit! I do not look that old!.

I think, unless they redesign him to look a little bit younger in the Remake, it's due to the fact that 1), he smokes, and 2), given his choice to save Shera from getting killed while sacrificing his chance to fly sky high into the stars he was practically grouchy that made him look older than he actually is.

This year, I'll be a year older than Cloud because, given Dirge of Cerberus set three years after the OG(and Remake) and one year after Advent Children, we're both 24 at the moment.

And to those who watch the Pokemon anime starting from 1997, 20 years ago, Ash Ketchum is still ten years old, as last stated in the Black and White series.

 

[Channy]

Plot twist! Marlene is actually Matilda Wormood, girl genius

don't introduce a new headcanon this late into the game

 

[fancy]

You know you love it

 

[hian]

(I agree with everything else, but nobody ever got sick going to bed with wet hair. I do it all the time)

Just because you do, does not mean that others don't. I could just as well say, more often than not, if I got to bed with my hair wet, I'll wake up with a sore throat - which is true. It of course does not negate the fact that it doesn't happen to you. Neither of those personal experiences bear any relevance to whether or not, statistically speaking, sleeping with wet hair is likely to give you a cold.

Plenty of people get sick by sleeping with wet hair. Why? Because sleeping with wet hair draws heat away from your head, which like any other kind of loss of body heat, improves your likelihood of developing colds. Now let's consider that common colds used to kill people a couple of hundred years ago.

Of course - it isn't that wet hair inherently makes you sick. Just like running around naked doesn't inherently makes you sick. If you think running around naked in say, mid-winter Norway isn't likely to make you sick though, you're clearly missing some integral part of your education on health.
Sleeping with wet hair is like that, in that, it's not a particularly bright thing to do unless you have good heating in your bed-room.

 

[Tetsujin]

Neither of those personal experiences bear any relevance to whether or not, statistically speaking, sleeping with wet hair is likely to give you a cold.

Is it though?

I doubt wet hair affects body temperature all that much and the effects of cold temperature on viruses that cause the cold seem to be kinda inconclusive.

 

[hian]

I doubt wet hair affects body temperature all that much and the effects of cold temperature on viruses that cause the cold seem to be kinda inconclusive.

Not all colds are viral. Many are bacterial. Secondly the way lowered temperatures effect your health is not the cold, it's because your body's immune system performs poorer than usual when the body looses heat, which makes you more vulnerable to both viral and bacterial infections.

As for how wet hair affects your body temperature - that again, depends on the temperature. Wet hair, like being wet in general, effects the rate with which your temperature drops in cold temperatures.
People wear head-wear in winter for a reason - and that's even when your head is dry.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/out-in-the-cold

Cold weather and respiratory disease, including flu, also go hand in hand. Research has shown that cold spells are reliably followed by upticks in the number of deaths from respiratory disease. Some of this may have to do with a few infectious organisms, like flu viruses, thriving in colder temperatures, but there's also evidence that exposure to cold temperatures suppresses the immune system, so the opportunities for infection increase. A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in the late 1970s famously debunked the belief that the common cold is linked to cold exposure, but British cold researchers have maintained that there is a cold–to–common cold connection. Their hypothesis: cold air rushing into the nasal passages makes infections more probable by diminishing the local immune response there.

The idea that cold is unrelated to the protracting of colds dates back to the 70's - meanwhile, more recent studies show that immune system functions are decreased when cold, and most health professionals, my wife among them, will tell you that leaving your hair out to dry naturally over time in cold temps is a great way of getting cold.

I'm not saying here that going to bed with wet hair is a sure-fire way of getting sick. I'm simply saying that the idea that nobody get's sick from going to bed with wet hair is absurd, and that drying your hair is one of those habits (like washing your hands, or changing towels once in a while) that is generally good for you, but also something generally 4 year olds won't be doing unless an adult is around to remind them of it.

 

[Tetsujin]

Not all colds are viral.

What other colds are there? I was under the assumption that the common cold is always viral.

And yes, cold temperatures and such but how relevant is that to a normal sleeping environment, how many people actually do get sick after sleeping with wet hair, are there actual studies specifically about this etc etc etc

But I don't want to derail the thread with off-topic stuff so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Octo]

No I like where this thread is going

 

[Clement Rage]

DAMMIT LICORICE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

As my stance on wet hair is underdeveloped, I shall return to the previous topic.

Marlene is not running the bar. She's in the bar, which is closed, Tifa just told her to 'watch the bar' the way kids get told to watch the house so they don't get disappointed about being left out and try to follow you.

Why does it make more sense that they went in the morning?

I think it is the morning, because you meet the Shinra manager on the train going back to work after meeting him going home the day before.

Re Marlene being alone. Is it ideal parenting, no, but I'm not sure I'd even call it unusual. Or unsympathetic, being a single parent is hard enough with two good hands and a non death risking job. She is not alone for long

The problem with a babysitter is that then this happens:

Aeris: Marlene? I need you to come with me.

Babysitter: Who the fuck are you?

Aeris: Tifa sent me for Marlene.

Babysitter: I'm meant to believe that? Back off, last warning.

And then they fight to the death.

Who's cooking that girl's meals when everyone's gone? Who's preventing her from trying to make her own food, and say spilling boiling water on her face, clogging up the toilet with huge amounts of toilet paper, or getting sick because she can't operate the hair dryer and goes to sleep with her hair wet at night, or any of the countless other impending screw-ups a child of that age is prone to cause?

Um... she's not left alone for days, it's like two hours tops before Biggs/Wedge/Jessie get back. She can't reach the appliances, Tifa might have food left out, and if she clogs the toilet... so what? You have a young child in the house, cleaning up is half your life anyway.

It is inadvisable to leave her alone, but it's not like she self destructs if no one is looking at her. Lock up the sharp things/matches/guns, tape shut drawers and stuff she can use to climb, and it is reasonable to expect that she will still be alive when you come back.

 

[hian]

Not all colds are viral.

What other colds are there? I was under the assumption that the common cold is always viral.

Please read my posts before replying. You're literally asking me to tell you something I already told you in the first sentence of the post you just replied to.

Bacterial colds.

https://www.summitmedicalgroup.com/...-cold-virus-or-bacterium-how-tell-difference/

Now I'll grant there is a problem of language here. Both in Norway and in Japanese, colds are often referred to and thought of by virtue of their bacterial forms after the common cold virus occupies the immune system.
A cold that has no bacterial symptom is rarely regarded as a cold at all in either country.

And yes, cold temperatures and such but how relevant is that to a normal sleeping environment, how many people actually do get sick after sleeping with wet hair, are there actual studies specifically about this etc etc etc

What is a normal sleeping environment? Most Norwegians sleep with their windows open in mid-winter. Meanwhile, Japanese houses hardly ever have "proper"(by which I mean to say by European standards) insulation, nor central heating, which means that at night-time in winter your "normal sleeping environment" in Japan frequently dips below 10 degrees Celsius.

I'm not making a claim here about how many people this is true for. I'm contending the statement that no one has ever gotten sick as a result of wet hair.

The problem with this discussion even among health professionals in the west, and especially the entertainment science pieces in popular media written by people looking to make add revenue more than making actual informative and nuanced articles, is that they're too obtuse to recognize the difference between the statement "being cold (literally) makes you sick"(which is categorically wrong) and "being cold makes you more susceptible to protracting viral agents and develop bacterial infections due to decreased immune system function" - which pretty much goes without saying, since we already know that body heat impacts immune system response, and also impacts cortisol balance, which in turn also effects immune system response.

Again, nobody is magically getting sick from being cold, or having wet hair. They're getting sick from virus and bacterias they protract which the immune system then fails to catch in time due to set-backs caused by the body dealing with dips in temperature.

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/3/827

https://www.univadis.co.uk/viewarti...rce=TrendMD&utm_campaign=Univadis_Acquisition

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111101130200.htm

No, obviously there are not tons of studies on exactly how many are likely to protract a cold from sleeping with wet hair. Then again, there are very few studies on how many people are likely to suffer from loss of sight if, specifically, someone throws a golf-ball in their left eye.
That's not an indication of golf balls not having blinding potential though. We understand the mechanics of surrounding the function of the eye well enough to determine, even without conducting specific experiments for every conceivable type of eye trauma, what kind of impacts are likely to cause it to be damaged.

Now I'm not claiming body temperature loss and its relation to the functions of the immune system is as well understood. Certainly not. It is however understood to an extent that carries with it a set of specific implication.

- Increased reduction in body-temperature due to wetness is not in contention scientifically.

- Lowered body-heat is very likely to effect immune system response.

- When you loose body heat in the area surrounding your mouth and nose blood vessels in the nose and throat constrict. Those vessels deliver white blood cells, and so if less white blood cells reach the nose and throat your defenses against a cold virus or other bacterias would be lowered until your temp goes back up.

- Changes in immune system response can be seen as early on as in one or two degrees change at the local area of the nose, mouth etc.

I.E People who sleep with wet hair in relatively cold environments (let's say below 15 Celsius), will therefore lose local body temperature around the head, which in turn will make their immune system operate less efficiently, which in turn makes them more prone to develop colds.

Is this a surefire theory on part with the theory of evolution?
No. It's still a pretty solid one though, that many health care professions give credence to, which neatly explains what we observe to be happening.

When you add those facts together with countless of people's experiences, myself among them, of hitting the sack with we hair and waking up with a sore throat, I think it's arrogant and uninformed to say "sleeping with wet hair never made anyone sick" - which is what I'm contended.

Um... she's not left alone for days, it's like two hours tops before Biggs/Wedge/Jessie get back. She can't reach the appliances, Tifa might have food left out, and if she clogs the toilet... so what? You have a young child in the house, cleaning up is half your life anyway.

I don't think it's established when and even if they come back.
In the discussion of responsible parenting though, that is completely irrelevant.
These people are heading off to fight a war of terror on a militarized global monopoly. They might not come back at all, and indeed they should be prepared for that.

The fact that they leave Marlene alone, knowing they might never be able to return for her, is indicative of bad parenting. The fact that they happen to have the good luck to return does not change that, and as such is a red herring.

As for possible solutions to some of the practical concerns I raised - this also entirely misses the point.
Tifa could have left food out - Marlene could also choke to death on that food as she might not be able to pace herself properly when eating, and nobody will be there to help her.

The clogging of the toilet could have a huge taxing effect on their personal economy and ability to properly feed Marlene. Hey, Barret takes money out of Marlene's schooling to pay Cloud to help him commit terror.

The point here is that, by not being here, there's a million and one ways in which Marlene can fetch herself up, which would not happen if they were there. For every convenient solution you can dream up there's another problem waiting around the corner.
This is why parenting in early stages is largely about being present and awake, because only by being present and awake can you respond to the variety of issues that will inevitable occur as you raise a small child.

It is inadvisable to leave her alone, but it's not like she self destructs if no one is looking at her. Lock up the sharp things/matches/guns, tape shut drawers and stuff she can use to climb, and it is reasonable to expect that she will still be alive when you come back.

Hope you're never tasked with baby-sitting. Leaving a four year old alone is very, very ill advised. There's not enough tape in the world, unless you're taping the kid down, to prevent a four year old from messing stuff up.
On of the most common things kids in that age group are brought into the emergency room with, is burns. Usually they acquire them when parents leave them unwatched.

In either case, it's irrelevant - because the issue here is the irresponsible nature of leaving to chance whether your kid ends up in trouble or not, by leaving them alone at that age.
Yes, the kid might be fine when and if you return.
The issue here is though, Barret and Tifa can't know that, and they can't even know if they'll return at all.
That is not good parenting.

I hope for the sake if your kids/potential future kids, that you give this some more thought.

 

[Tetsujin]

Please read my posts before replying. You're literally asking me to tell you something I already told you in the first sentence of the post you just replied to.

I read your post just fine and I don't appreciate that condescending tone to be honest. It's not the first time either that I noticed you responding to people like they're fucking dummies who don't read your posts right and it makes you come across like a twat.

Also, I already said I don't plan on derailing the thread with off-topic stuff so your wall of text response was kind of pointless as it'll go unread now.

 

[hian]

You obviously didn't though when you asked me something I literally told you in the first sentence of the post you quoted when asking the question. If you feel it's condescending to point that out, how about you provide me an alternative?

Is it wrong to point out when people didn't read my posts right? Are you a suitable arbiter of that when you still claim you read my post right despite asking me a question whose answer was contained in the very post that prompted you asking that question?
If my tone is indeed so bad (I contend that it is given the fact that I'm not the one swearing here or accusing people of coming off as twats, but whatever),　is it conceivable that it's on the back of the provocation of being routinely objected to on basic points that I've provided both evidence for and clear argumentation for in several posts, by someone who comes off as entirely disinterested in actually reading those posts before objecting?

Also, how is not derailing this thread preventing you from reading my post? The two are in no way related.
That's entirely on you. If anything is condescending here it's the fact that you feel the need to make a post, informing me of the fact that you haven't read my post, and then say I come off as a twat. It's ironic though that in so doing, while stating you don't want to derail the thread, you are in fact still participating in that "derailment" despite that for everything else my last post was, it also contained several on-topic paragraphs.

 

[Pixel]

Ugh I just remembered why I always scroll past Hian's posts.

 

[ChipNoir]

You obviously didn't though when you asked me something I literally told you in the first sentence of the post you quoted when asking the question. If you feel it's condescending to point that out, how about you provide me an alternative?

Is it wrong to point out when people didn't read my posts right? Are you a suitable arbiter of that when you still claim you read my post right despite asking me a question whose answer was contained in the very post that prompted you asking that question?
If my tone is indeed so bad (I contend that it is given the fact that I'm not the one swearing here or accusing people of coming off as twats, but whatever),　is it conceivable that it's on the back of the provocation of being routinely objected to on basic points that I've provided both evidence for and clear argumentation for in several posts, by someone who comes off as entirely disinterested in actually reading those posts before objecting?

Also, how is not derailing this thread preventing you from reading my post? The two are in no way related.
That's entirely on you. If anything is condescending here it's the fact that you feel the need to make a post, informing me of the fact that you haven't read my post, and then say I come off as a twat. It's ironic though that in so doing, while stating you don't want to derail the thread, you are in fact still participating in that "derailment" despite that for everything else my last post was, it also contained several on-topic paragraphs.

--;; Your posts have all the personality of a stock market read out. That tends to be where people interpret you as condescending. You don't talk with anyone here. You lecture.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

If it's caused by a bacteria it's not a cold. Maybe there's some kind of translation problem here, but I can assure you no bacterial illness translates into English as "a cold" because colds are by definition viral in nature, hence the current crisis of antibiotic resistance caused by prescribing antibiotics for cold symptoms against which they are utterly useless. There's no scientific sense whatsoever in the suggestion that going to sleep with wet hair makes you sick. Why would you get sick sleeping with wet hair but not being awake with wet hair? It's an old wive's tale told to stop people being sluts in the old-fashioned meaning of the term, i.e. slobs, just like the old wive's tale that if you swim less than an hour after eating you'll get cramp. That is not how you get cramp.