SPOILERS The Case for a OG Lore-Based Explanation for REMAKE

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I can more easily get on board with the Planet being a Japanese-style deity.

Many schools of thought view God as being part of everything in existence, and thus people hurting each other/the planet are equivalent to hurting God.

And the prescient all-powerful God which is the Planet is getting ready to wipe out humanity in a form of extreme chemotherapy, a bit like the Old Testament God sending the Flood. So I say again, if the Planet can foresee the future and has the power and the will to do this, why didn't it save everybody a lot of trouble and smother President Shinra in his cradle? The Planet has zero vested interest in allowing its cells free will, unlike the Judaeo-Christian god. The Planet doesn't care if people are happy, and it doesn't seek to be loved. It just wants to live.

 

[Theozilla]

I can more easily get on board with the Planet being a Japanese-style deity.



And the prescient all-powerful God which is the Planet is getting ready to wipe out humanity in a form of extreme chemotherapy, a bit like the Old Testament God sending the Flood. So I say again, if the Planet can foresee the future and has the power and the will to do this, why didn't it save everybody a lot of trouble and smother President Shinra in his cradle? The Planet has zero vested interest in allowing its cells free will, unlike the Judaeo-Christian god. The Planet doesn't care if people are happy, and it doesn't seek to be loved. It just wants to live.

Yeah, the same Old Testament God that was capable of drowning the world, also decided for some reason to not teleport the Hebrews out of Egypt and instead deliberately “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” just to put Egypt through plagues.
My general point being that deities (be they Abrahamic or polytheistic myths) acting irrationally/illogically is nothing new in history of humanity and storytelling. Whether or not the Planet being more deity like in the Remake makes things more illogical or not isn’t really my point/argument. I’m more just saying that making stories about deities almost inherently involves a level of irrationality when you get to that level of supposed power but also arbitrary limitations.

 

[Girl Named Captain]

I don't think we can assume that the Planet itself has decided its own destiny. Doesn't Red mention something in Ch. 17 about planets being born with destinies? I might have made that up... Anyway, I don't think Remake implies much more "sentience" on the part of the Planet than the OG does. It adds a dimension to the lifestream, destiny. It adds a system that acts to protect that dimension, probably semi-autonomously, like the Weapons. (Before Harbinger's name popped up, I figured it was gonna be called Obsidian Weapon or something.) To me, it seems that none of that requires active decision-making on the part of the Planet.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

You keep missing my point. The OT God punished humans for being morally bad. He wasn't protecting himself. Being all powerful, he needed no such protection.

The Planet, on the other hand, is acting entirely in self-defense. So for it to have powers to defend itself, yet not use them, only to use them later, doesn't make narrative sense, if it has knowledge of what is to come. By not throttling baby Pres, it's basically standing on the railway tracks seeing a train coming and not bothering to get out of its way.

I agree with you, Girl Named Captain.

 

[Theozilla]

You keep missing my point. The OT God punished humans for being morally bad. He wasn't protecting himself. Being all powerful, he needed no such protection.

The Planet, on the other hand, is acting entirely in self-defense. So for it to have powers to defend itself, yet not use them, only to use them later, doesn't make narrative sense, if it has knowledge of what is to come. By not throttling baby Pres, it's basically standing on the railway tracks seeing a train coming and not bothering to get out of its way.

I agree with you, Girl Named Captain.

And I am saying that distinction isn’t particularly relevant to me. Both are cases of deities acting irrationally in the face of some desired objectives, regardless of whether the objective has to do with themselves or others. Like in the Exodus example the Old Testament God literally makes Pharaoh refuse to set the Hebrews despite God wanting the Hebrews to be free. To use a train track analogy, it like telling someone to get off the tracks then deliberately pushing them back on the tracks when they try to get off them. Both are illogical is my point. (likewise similar cases of irrationally can be found in other polytheistic myths too)

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Well, it is the entire crux of my argument, so we are clearly talking about two different things.

OT God's irrationality harms others, and does not contradict any of his goals. I don't know if OT God makes Pharoah refuse to set the Hebrews free or simply allows him to make that choice for himself. Given he's a God who allows free will, I suspect it's the latter. However, even if he makes Pharaoh refuse, that's not an entirely random or irrational choice, given that He knows what impact Pharoah's refusal will have down the line and for all future generations to come; all the opportunities for displays of power that it will provide to God and Moses. Him making Pharoah refuse is not out of line with His ultimate goals, and like I said, it doesn't harm Him.

The Planet's irrationality in letting Shinra and Hojo live harms itself, which directly contradicts its own goal of preserving itself, and isn't justified by any other motive or goal.

Making the planet into a self-aware prescient entity that knows and actively manages its own destiny, is effectively saying that it foretold what Shinra would do, and wanted to stop them, but it didn't when it could, for no obvious reason, but then it did... Which is so needlessly complicated, when it could have been a semi-sentient reactive organism like it was in the first place.

Like why the hell did the Whispers not just push pregnant Lucrecia off a cliff?

 

[Theozilla]

Well, it is the entire crux of my argument, so we are clearly talking about two different things.

OT God's irrationality harms others, and does not contradict any of his goals. I don't know if OT God makes Pharoah refuse to set the Hebrews free or simply allows him to make that choice for himself. Given he's a God who allows free will, I suspect it's the latter. However, even if he makes Pharaoh refuse, that's not an entirely random or irrational choice, given that He knows what impact Pharoah's refusal will have down the line and for all future generations to come; all the opportunities for displays of power that it will provide to God and Moses. Him making Pharoah refuse is not out of line with His ultimate goals, and like I said, it doesn't harm Him.

The Planet's irrationality in letting Shinra and Hojo live harms itself, which directly contradicts its own goal of preserving itself, and isn't justified by any other motive or goal.

Sure, that’s fine my original comment wasn’t even meant to support or argue against either argument, it was just a funny observation I noticed.

And yes in the actual Exodus text, the OT God says he will harden Pharaoh’s heart, so he is literally making Pharaoh refuse. Even with the morality play justification it’s still very illogical, especially for claims of omnipotence.

As for actual speculation on the Planet, perhaps it’s only capable of responding to threats/events when they reach a certain noticeable “size” for lack of a better word. Like how some infections are hard to catch until they have progressed a degree. Or to use a cell analogy, we’re unable to remove our own cancerous cells on our own when they have become tumors, sometimes we can’t even see them; we need outside assistance and even then it can be hard to ensure all the cancerous cells have been removed.

 

[Girl Named Captain]

Hmm... This has been something I've been wrestling with since finishing the game. I think that, from the Planet's perspective, Sephiroth is currently less of a threat than the party is. Which is the cleverness of Remake Sephiroth's plan, as I understand it. Sephiroth causes events which are, from our perspective, disastrous. But he is destined to lose, no matter how much damage he does in the process.

The party, however, are the ones threatening to divert fate's course by preventing the plate fall, etc. From fate's perspective, they threaten to ruin a sure thing. Sephiroth probably knows this, and shows them just enough ("Hey I'm gonna summon a meteor," "hey I'm gonna murder your friends,") to make them want to change the course of fate, which in turn gives him a chance to win again.

 

[Theozilla]

Well Jenova and Sephiroth have often been compared to an auto-immune disease in regards to how the Planet can’t “detect” them. That’s an interpretation that’s existed since the OG (or at least AC/C).

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

As for actual speculation on the Planet, perhaps it’s only capable of responding to threats/events when they reach a certain noticeable “size” for lack of a better word.

That makes more sense, and it's what I thought, too. Could it then "see" what future Shinra, Hojo, Gast and Sephiroth would bring, but be powerless to stop them until the threat reaches critical level and "triggers its immune response" so to speak?

But that doesn't really explain why it had to kill Wedge. Even if Wedge living and tagging along with the party on the hunt for Sephiroth would ultimately have ended in disaster for the planet, surely the threat he posed had not yet reached a level critical enough to trigger that immune response?

Girl Named Captain, I really like your posts. They are clarfying a lot for me.

 

[Girl Named Captain]

I think that comparison's probably still valid. Sephiroth definitely takes actions that cause fate to diverge, mostly by showing people images and talking to them in order to influence THEIR actions, but these are subtle enough that the Whispers don't stop him. Instead they stop the people who act based on his suggestions.

 

[Theozilla]

That makes more sense, and it's what I thought, too. Could it then "see" what future Shinra, Hojo, Gast and Sephiroth would bring, but be powerless to stop them until the threat reaches critical level and "triggers its immune response" so to speak?

But that doesn't really explain why it had to kill Wedge. Even if Wedge living and tagging along with the party on the hunt for Sephiroth would ultimately have ended in disaster for the planet, surely the threat he posed had not yet reached a level critical enough to trigger that immune response?

Girl Named Captain, I really like your posts. They are clarfying a lot for me.

Perhaps the Planet doesn’t respond based on individual threat levels but more on events building up to a tipping point. So that once the story of FFVII starts the Planet is able to finally start responding as a whole, including even people like Wedge because the collective threat level is finally past orange level so to speak.

 

[Clean Cut Chaos]

But I am inclined to believe the Whispers look like that simply because it's cool to Nomura.

It was hard for me to not immediately make a Seph/Jenova connection to the whispers because they look like the hooded figures, only flying. It made me that much more confused when it seem to be something Seph was at odds with instead of controlling. It seemed to me like a tool to purposely mislead the OG fans, but it is indeed Nomura so... iono.

 

[Roger]

Perhaps the Planet doesn’t respond based on individual threat levels but more on events building up to a tipping point. So that once the story of FFVII starts the Planet is able to finally start responding as a whole, including even people like Wedge because the collective threat level is finally past orange level so to speak.

The plate has already dropped, the president is already dead, Jenova has already escaped and the crew is already on their march to stop Sephiroth. I feel at this point Wedge's existence, who has already missed the elevator, isn't doing much to harm the Planet. Aerith has already decided that Sephiroth is the greater threat to the Planet, Cloud is gonna follow due to Reunion instinct, that'll put them on the path to finding the Black Materia, and using Holy in response and so on. I feel Wedge is still being harrassed by the Whisper cause he was fated to die, not because he is still the greatest threat to the planet in Midgar.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

If it comes down to Cloud's free will to save the Planet at this point (which it probably will) it meant the Planet tried to commit suicide by Sephiroth, it did it's best to help Sephiroth win.

I think that this actually is that to a degree, but with both Cloud & Aerith both acting of their own free will.

That's guided by the rules of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life – Sefirot that I tl;dr'd about in my other analysis thread.

The paths are all feeding into a single system, and the only two entities in there that can achieve the reveal of the "Divine Light" AKA Holy in FFVII. Those two things are God by being in unity with all things (which is the system that Sephiroth is disrupting and usurping) which is why the Planet can interrupt and intervene, but it can't activate Holy itself – because it's not in unity. The other way is externally through God's creation (man) and only through an act of selflessness/altruism.

That's why the Whisper Entities are trying to guide the events that the individual people follow that cause all of this to come to pass. The Planet can't actually activate Holy or force people to act, but it can Whisper and try to ensure that a path that will lead to that will come about, even though it can't literally MAKE someone do that. It also can't defeat Sephiroth through its own actions because being half human, he's a corrupted part of the Planet itself, and it can't activate the methods to save itself while it's not in unity because of those rules. That's also why AFTER Sephiroth is defeated Holy activates, but then the Planet itself also intervenes of its own accord to stop Meteor and save humanity in return.

That much of the framework at least exists purely in the religious mythology structure that the OG was drawing from.


EDIT: Vis-a-vis Wedge, we don't know what other things he & Avalanche might end up doing that could disrupt the main characters' paths, which is why I think that it's trying to control for any elements that don't match the flow of life & death in the original game.




X

 

[oty]

I can more easily get on board with the Planet being a Japanese-style deity.



And the prescient all-powerful God which is the Planet is getting ready to wipe out humanity in a form of extreme chemotherapy, a bit like the Old Testament God sending the Flood. So I say again, if the Planet can foresee the future and has the power and the will to do this, why didn't it save everybody a lot of trouble and smother President Shinra in his cradle? The Planet has zero vested interest in allowing its cells free will, unlike the Judaeo-Christian god. The Planet doesn't care if people are happy, and it doesn't seek to be loved. It just wants to live.

I think the Whispers only purpose is to fix the aberrations that Sephiroth is causing to the "time continuum".

"Everything is wrong about him". That's an extremely powerful line, because it represents so much. He is every much of a plague, a virus to the Planet and right now, somehow, he is actively disrupting the very own fabric of existence, the very own rules that commands life. The Planet just counterattacks, by forcing everything to keep on the only path it is aware of.

I also think that this situation is also very much used as a pretext to the metanarrative that the developers wanted to express. It's like in MGS2. Kojima used the context of "it's all a simulation that's being infected" to literally go ham, and continuously break the fourth wall to just f*ck with the player. In the Remake, it's part of the narrative because it's trying to bring up an argument, a point. It's not just trying to f*ck you. But it is still a metanarrative, that's why it can feel a bit dissonant.

Hell, in MGS2, half of us turned the console off when the Colonel asked for it. It was severely weird, borderline scary. And it worked. God damn that game was so good.....

But anyway, the question is asked: what was the point that the metanarrative brought? There are a lot of possibilities, and it's probably more than just one thing.

 

[ultima786]

This was a nice scene hinting to her own knowledge of her death. Also a beautiful touch was the huge amount of people returning to the Lifestream. This was right after Platefall so the implication is that all those people died and now returning to the planet.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I wonder what the Japanese text says here. Anyone know?

フィーラー＝ロッソ
フィーラー＝ヴェルデ
フィーラー＝ジャッロ

未来の運命から引き出され具現化した存在。剣を振り、己を形成する未来を守ろうとする。

未来の運命から引き出され具現化した存在。体術を駆使し、己を形成する未来を守ろうとする。

未来の運命から引き出され具現化した存在。銃を操り、己を形成する未来を守ろうとする。

---
Fileur Rosso
Fileur Verde
Fileur Giallo

An entity pulled from future destiny and made manifest. [Wields a sword/Uses martial arts/Wields guns] and tries to protect the future that gave it form.
---

Translation note: I went with "Fileur" rather than "Feeler" for the Japanese term for the Whispers because I feel like it would work better if it's the French word for "spinner"/"weaver."

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Aerith cannot be a willing sacrifice. She cannot be Pink Jesus who dies so that we may live. She just can't. That would be a complete travesty, and Nojima and Nomura know this. I am willing to accept that she foresees the possibility of her death. Death is always a possibilty, after all. But she has to go to the Forgotten Capital believing she will triumph and return. She has to.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Aerith cannot be a willing sacrifice. She cannot be Pink Jesus who dies so that we may live. She just can't. That would be a complete travesty, and Nojima and Nomura know this. I am willing to accept that she foresees the possibility of her death. Death is always a possibilty, after all. But she has to go to the Forgotten Capital believing she will triumph and return. She has to.

I'm with you on this. I'm even good with her momentarily deciding to be a sacrificial lamb before getting talked out of it (only to die anyway), but it is the absolute number one most important thing they have left to do with the narrative that her death is ultimately an unwilling one.

 

[Roger]

Aerith cannot be a willing sacrifice. She cannot be Pink Jesus who dies so that we may live. She just can't. That would be a complete travesty, and Nojima and Nomura know this. I am willing to accept that she foresees the possibility of her death. Death is always a possibilty, after all. But she has to go to the Forgotten Capital believing she will triumph and return. She has to.

Have you gotten the Aerith scene in Chapter 14 yet, I don't there's any gettin' offa this train we on.

 

[ForceStealer]

Have you gotten the Aerith scene in Chapter 14 yet, I don't there's any gettin' offa this train we on.

For what it's worth, that scene is before you killed Fate ( :eyeroll: ), so if her dialogue there really was predicated on her believing she was fated to die, as I believe you're saying here, that's not actually the case anymore.

 

[ultima786]

An entity pulled from future destiny and made manifest. [Wields a sword/Uses martial arts/Wields guns] and tries to protect the future that gave it form.

The word "future" here reads better than "future timeline". This is more evidence that there are NOT multiple time-lines, but rather one timeline that is being influenced by the Arbiters.

Aerith cannot be a willing sacrifice. She cannot be Pink Jesus who dies so that we may live. She just can't. That would be a complete travesty, and Nojima and Nomura know this. I am willing to accept that she foresees the possibility of her death. Death is always a possibilty, after all. But she has to go to the Forgotten Capital believing she will triumph and return. She has to.

You don't want her to die? Even though it is so core to the entire theme of LIFE in OG FF7? Not just the theme, but she has to be within the Lifestream to awaken it to save the world at the end. I hope to God she dies, and an entire new generation can feel the impact of this character and narrative.

 

[ultima786]

For what it's worth, that scene is before you killed Fate ( :eyeroll: ), so if her dialogue there really was predicated on her believed she was fated to die, as I believe you're saying here, that's not actually the true anymore.

They didn't kill fate. They killed (or perhaps removed the influence) of the Arbiters. In the end Sephiroth seems to have control of them, and literally throws some Arbiters at you before that really epic scene where all the party members fight against them and Sephiroth.

I am gonna guess that now that they have freedom, Aerith may think that there is another way to save the world. And we'll have that hope, until we realize its hopeless. Some things never change.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

The word "future" here reads better than "future timeline". This is more evidence that there are NOT multiple time-lines, but rather one timeline that is being influenced by the Arbiters.

Hopefully we'll know something more definitive next week after the Ultimania releases.

You don't want her to die? Even though it is so core to the entire theme of LIFE in OG FF7? Not just the theme, but she has to be within the Lifestream to awaken it to save the world at the end. I hope to God she dies, and an entire new generation can feel the impact of this character and narrative.

Lic wants her to die. She doesn't want her to sacrifice herself.