I really think it's grasping at straws to keep believing that the characters like Zack or Biggs aren't really alive and are simply residing in the Lifestream version of the Farplane or something, at this point. I get not wanting to swallow the Time Travel Tea being served with the Remake Meal, but I don't think substitutions are possible at this restaurant.
Like, it's been drilled into our heads that they're alive. And the living don't reside in the Lifestream. A "different world" is the same terminology used in XIII-2 to describe visiting parallel or branching timelines that basically show history on vastly different courses than before. This kind of story isn't unprecedented, in fact this is Toriyama and Kitase's familiar territory.
That plan for Sephiroth sounds exactly like what he did in the OG, so I don't quite see that as being illustrative of the new plot threads going forward. But I do believe this certainly does have to do with Sephiroth trying to make his ideal Promised Land a reality. Maybe he's trying to create a superficial utopia that overlaps the Planet's true fate and willingly get humanity and the life of the Planet to submit itself to him. Who knows. But it's clear he wishes to avert the future end of the Planet to ensure its perpetual survival, so he can end it on his terms.
I think we need another pair of eyes on the "different world" interview response, or better yet a scan of the Japanese. Audrey is a great asset to the fandom but she has made mistakes before, mainly because she's pressured to blaze through content so quickly. If I had to give my interpretation based on her translation, I'd say Toriyama is obliquely confirming that Jessie has also survived, but she and Biggs are in a different timeline (i.e., the one where Zack survived). I think he's saying that "loss" is an essential theme in FFVII, and deaths aren't just being erased willy nilly—there is significance to these characters surviving in an alternate timeline (perhaps they counterbalance other tragedies in that timeline).
Ordering from PlayAsia with my damn Gematsu coupon was a bad idea. My copy hasn't even shipped!
It appears to me that Toriyama is trying to tell us the character is dead. Period. Loss is still a theme of the story. But alive in some other way. I can’t help but read this as, they’re gone, but death isn’t death because they are always alive in our hearts and death is movement to the next world (the promised land).
I really don’t think that’s timeline stuff, but rather, afterlife stuff.
The TerrierStamp Bag in Zack’s scene is maybe symbolic of memories in the Lifestream being misrepresented.
People have looked at the scan and the Japanese and it says "world." I don't think she's mistaken, there's nothing to indicate a separate meaning or misunderstanding here. Hopefully you'll get your copy soon.
So you think the phrase "僕らはお互いに住む世界が違うのだ" means that the speaker and the person they're talking to live in literally physically different separate alternate dimensional worlds? Rather than, you know, figuratively living in different worlds, like the English expression? And also, you claim that Japanese would never be esoteric or ambiguous?
Interesting. Fascinating. I one day hope to achieve your level of Japanese.
Serah: What is that place? Noel, do you know?
Noel: Yeah.
Serah: Wait. What happened to Cocoon? It's not there.
Noel: Well...you're looking at a different time. That's the world I come
from. In my world, Cocoon doesn't exist. When I was born, the sky was
already empty. Tell me, how many years has it been? Since Ragnarok
appeared and Cocoon fell?
Serah: Well, it's 3 AF. So, that was three years ago.
Noel: For me, all that happened 700 years in the past. I was born and
raised in another time. 700 years in the future.
I have to imagine Toriyama would have a strong incentive to equivocate when answering a question like this. "The worlds we each inhabit would be different" isn't quite what I imagined the Japanese to be; it's a little less explicit. I do agree with Mako that multiple/alternate timelines are what's going on in the story, but this quote isn't putting any nails in any coffins.
Idk Mako you seem to be confusing my post with a post that says "the alternate timeline / universe / etc things don't make sense" or "creators said there is no alternate timeline or alternate world", or that, "because Toriyama said [x], all of [y] is invalidated". But uh, I'm pretty sure I didn't say any of that.
As for Audrey, I have DMed Audrey before on Twitter in regards to things she's posted. She thanked me for catching her misreadings. She isn't infallible. I actually have no idea what she even translated this as - someone linked me this thread, asked me about because there was a request for another translation.
Considering that ... Yes. Yes I do.
Perhaps you should look at the example sentence @ph14basicbitch was asking about ... XD
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Anywho! My copy of the book is waiting for me when I get home from work, so I can throw my potentially flawed interpretation into the ring soon as well.
Hm. I don't quite follow how Audrey got "in a different world" from ちがう世界になる, but it's cool. Multiple interpretations and resources are always nice to have.
and if you take it with what Toriyama is talking about (namely that the theme of the Original Final Fantasy VII is about loss)
Ya JP modifiers can be funky. (I think of the fish and cat chart...) But... hm, yeah I don't really see it as "literally another world / timeline" here either. He proposes a hypothetical future, for a hypothetical world.Its the "chigau" doing that, which can be translated a bit more literally as "differently" or "wrong" depending on context, and if you take it with what Toriyama is talking about (namely that the theme of the Original Final Fantasy VII is about loss), saying "This world would be different from the original" is a valid way of rendering it. In addition, seeing that Sekai does make me think Toriyama isn't being literal in the sense of "Zack, Biggs, Wedge, & Jessie are in a new timeline", but a in general and overall "then the world of this story would be different, right?"
Ohhhhhhh, sorry lol. I was just using a random example sentence.Ohh, koda, I thought you were saying Toriyama literally used the phrase "住む世界が違う" in his response... like, as if speaking from the perspective of the surviving characters. Big derp.
But... hm, yeah I don't really see it as "literally another world / timeline" here either. He proposes a hypothetical future, for a hypothetical world.