Regarding canonicity of the Planet's name

[Ite]

I think so. Loads and loads of FFVII have their characters go "Oh, for Gaia's sake" or something like that. It's really bothersome.

As someone who rabidly read FF7 fanfic from the nineties up until about last year (when it became just too much...) this "For Gaia's Sake" and "Oh my Gaia" crap only started happening after Advent Children came out and the fanbase of FFVII tripled nearly overnight. The resulting schism in the fanbase has snooty old codgers like me using the word "Gaia" as an in-joke and a way to identify people who are more interested in 'being a fan' than producing good fan-work. If fanfic writers cared about anything other than the mollifying back-patting of their friends, they would at least do us the courtesy of having the characters say "Oh my the-Planet," which is also awful but at least canonically tolerable.

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

I hate it when fanfictions use words other than God in place of God, for instance say things like "Ifritdammit!", or "Oh my Goddess!", or "For Minerva's sake!". People in FFVII don't talk like that. They say God. If they did talk like that, then we probably would've heard Cid say "Sit your ass down in that chair and drink Shivadamn TEA!" or something like that.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I hate it when fanfictions use words other than God in place of God, for instance say things like "Ifritdammit!", or "Oh my Goddess!", or "For Minerva's sake!". People in FFVII don't talk like that. They say God. If they did talk like that, then we probably would've heard Cid say "Sit your ass down in that chair and drink Shivadamn TEA!" or something like that.

I agree with this.

In case anyone didn't know, "Gaia" just means Earth in Greek. Gaia the Titan is the personification of Earth. In the sense that any sentiently-inhabited planet is "Earth" to the people who live there, I guess any planet could be Gaia. Personally I preferred it when the Planet had no name, but if Squasre were [ever] going to be consistent [fat chance] it would have been nice if they'd named the Crisis Core Goddess Gaia instead of Minerva. Minerva makes no sense, mythology-wise, unless we're supposed to think that the gift of the goddess is wisdom, or something.

 

[JBedford]

The original game is the only thing that uses "the Planet". Other games in the series use "the planet", no capital "P". I don't know if there are any implications of how it should be in the Japanese text, but the original is the only one that made it seem to me the planet's actual name is "(the) Planet" (like our moon is "(the) Moon").

 

[Shademp]

I actually prefer the name Minerva for the Goddess. First, it has a nice ring to it and second I feel like assigning the name Gaia to an entity has more cheesiness to it.

...
but in terms of substance she is similar to a summon, though it seems that the purpose behind her actions is to follow the intentions of the Lifestream.

Source

I can also buy that Minerva would represent the "wisdom" of the Lifestream, if she is indeed there to follow the will of the Lifestream. In short, I find the name to be refreshing and fitting so I prefer it over "Gaia".

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Well, I guess it is wisdom to follow the intentions of the Lifestream.

 

[Lex]

I didn't mind minerva in CC due to the armour in VII.

 

[Roger]

The original game is the only thing that uses "the Planet". Other games in the series use "the planet", no capital "P". I don't know if there are any implications of how it should be in the Japanese text, but the original is the only one that made it seem to me the planet's actual name is "(the) Planet" (like our moon is "(the) Moon").

Can I ask where you're getting that from? You know Before Crisis and the On the way to Smile are avialable through fantranslations, right? Seeing the planet referred to in CC and DoC in written dialogue is pretty rare.

 

[JBedford]

Can I ask where you're getting that from? You know Before Crisis and the On the way to Smile are avialable through fantranslations, right? Seeing the planet referred to in CC and DoC in written dialogue is pretty rare.

Hmm, maybe you are right. I searched for scripts online of DoC and CC a long time ago, and other people said the same thing.

But I just quickly watched the Nibelheim sequence in Crisis Core where I expected it to be said: Crisis Core. Maybe there is room to argue in that it is in the context of being a planet, idk.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Nothing about the way "planet" is written in Japanese implies it to be a proper name. It's just "hoshi" -- meaning "star" or "celestial body." Usually used in reference to stars, but can mean any object in space, really. Ambiguity is typically avoided with reference to our Earth, sun and moon by those being identified specifically.

Anyway, as it's just the regular word, not in katakana or anything that would set it apart like that, I don't think "the Planet" is intended.

 

[Shademp]

^this topic just became more worthy of its own article. I never thought about the fact before that the Japanese term, in the context of FFVII, does not set itself as a name like "Weapon" or "AVALANCHE". This reveals how, when translating from Japanese to English, there is strictly speaking no necessity to capitalize it as "Planet", unless you're fond of that localization.

 

[Ite]

I am.

 

[Shademp]

Alright, I just did some research. I counted, in a manual fashion, the instances of the writing "planet" versus "Planet" in the original game, PlayStation versus PC version. Keep in mind that because this was a manual count, there is a margin of error of plus/minus 4.

PSX:
Planet -> 75 times
planet -> 93 times

PC:
Planet -> 153 times
planet -> 18 times

(Total count different for both versions because human error when counting)

As you can see, there was an overwhelming change in the PC version that clearly geared the writing towards capitalizing the p.

After researching Advent Children, Advent Children Complete, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, Reminiscence of FFVII Compilation, Reminiscence of FFVII, Episode Denzel and the Reunion Files book I can't find a single passage that reads "the Planet".

I, too, find the localization where the planet's name becomes "The Planet" pleasing. But ultimately it gives the false impression of the planet having a name, albeit a very non-personal one. Which means that in the future I'll refrain from writing the capitalized version.

 

[Lex]

Hmmmmmm. I'd be more inclined to go with what was in the VII PC release, since that's technically the more correct version. "This guy are sick" was fixed in that version after all.

EDIT: I should clarify that I don't think "The Planet" is its actual name because it's capitalised, just that the capitalisation probably represents the importance of the thing rather than it being named.

 

[Strangelove]

Maybe it's just like 'the State' or 'the Empire'.

that is a thing right

 

[Ryushikaze]

Maybe it's just like 'the State' or 'the Empire'.

that is a thing right

The Empire assures you the State is nothing to worry about. The Empire has it fully under control.

I'd have to double check, but doesn't the plaque in AC say "Keep on rocking in Gaia?" That would be additional circumstantial evidence in favor of Gaia as the planet's name.

 

[ForceStealer]

Keep on rockin' in Midgar, I think it said.

What about when Azul tells Shelke "It's time for you to return to the p/Planet?" Is it capitalized there?

 

[Shademp]

What about when Azul tells Shelke "It's time for you to return to the p/Planet?" Is it capitalized there?

I checked that particular case and it is not capitalized. I also checked scenes on the Shera as well as the Omega Report that includes a reference to the planet. The "planet" was all that I saw.

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

Interesting. Capitalizing words that shouldn't be capitalized for no reason seems to be pretty common in old video game localizations. FFIV would inconsistently capitalize the word king, for example. I'm not surprised they capitalized planet for no reason, given all the other instances of shitty localization in the game. It wasn't until VIII that the localizations started to become overall good(well VI's wasn't that bad, but a lot of names were poorly translated[Vicks, Chupon, etc], and they accidentally made Setzer's go against the Empire in spite of them being good for his business, rather than because they were bad for his business). FFVII is the only pre-FFVIII game that hasn't gotten a remake or port with a good localization(Even Tactics got one! Which is good, because Tactics had the worst localization out of all FFs. The original Tactics's translation was so bad, it made Zero Wing look good). That's one of the reasons I think we need to get a FFVII remake, or at least a port that actually bothers to fix its shitty localization.

 

[JBedford]

Although this isn't in-universe, something I forgot about is this.
"Thanks to Gaia's gift of wings, this Weapon has the annoying habit of flying away."

Allegedly, it was Ultimate Weapon's description in All the Bravest.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

One wonders what description the Japanese version of the game gives to Ultima Weapon. I'll try finding out.

At any rate, that's four official references to the planet as "Gaia" now, though still only in English.

 

[Strangelove]

I would be interested in finding out what the Japanese text says, but not quite so interested as to buy ATB

edit; damn you tres

someone get someone to change their phone's language to japanese and check this

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I searched in Japanese. No luck.

 

[Strangelove]

I found a wiki that seems to have the Japanese text, but it didn't have anything for the premium characters

I would do this myself if it didn't mean I'd be spending £5 on a game that involves no actual thinking beyond 'why are you trying to take all my money square'

 

[Shademp]

Although new info may surface which necessitates big edits to the article, I decided to write up an editorial just to ensure that it is not indefinitely postponed.

- What is the name of FFVII's planet?

Article was written very quickly and I will have people do spellchecking. I have a contact who is very knowledgeable about the Japanese FFVII community who has recently returned after being gone for over a year. He is very busy though and I'm not sure when I'll be able to get his input on the topic, but hopefully sometime in the not too distant future.

Not sure how to structure the "Credits" system in the article, but I wrote down contributors in alphabetic order. In a way I'd also like to thank the TLS community for taking part in the discussion, but I'm not sure if that would be too forced.

EDIT: Will not make a newspost about this editorial until we know more about the Japanese side of things.