Trace of Two Pasts novel discussion

LicoriceAllsorts

LicoriceAllsorts

Donator
No, the kids specifically ran away because of the brutal training regime. They are assigned to military units depending on the quality of their performance during training at the facility. This "orphanage" is operational during Zack's time as a SOLDIER which would have been after Biggs reformed The Sector 5 House. So they're not the same. What I can't remember is whether these missions are available to Zack as a 2nd Class or only as a 1st class.
 
Teioh

Teioh

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Teiocho
The mission line for the orphans is unlocked in Chapter 4 (Mission 7-1-1). Zack gets promoted to 1st Class in this chapter but you get the first of the missions unlocked at the beginning of the chapter when he's still 2nd. You have to complete 24 missions before the orphan one unlocks though so for me Zack was definitely 1st when I got around to doing it :mon:
 
LicoriceAllsorts

LicoriceAllsorts

Donator
Latest update of Stan's translation of the Aerith section

I am so delighted they have made Elmyra into a tough gang boss lady who inherited her position from her father-in-law, and has to fight to hang on to her influence. The latest chapter has the threat of a three way gang war between the Corneos, the Mansons, and the Gainsboroughs. Also, nice to know that Sector 5 is the "wholesome side of the slums".

Also, she described Tseng as a "good kid". Given her background, I think she understands Turks.

Elmyra surrenders her position in the gang to her late husband's best friend Carlo. Carlo loves her but distances himself from Elmyra and Aerith to keep them safe. Elmyra works as a cleaner, and thanks to the goodwill created by her late father-in-law, she has plenty of jobs. When the children of Leaf House reach 13, they leave school and go to work. When Aerith hits 13, she also wants a job, though Elmyra doesn't like it

I'm really enjoying the way these novels deal with the practicalities of living and growing up in Midgar's slums.
 
Last edited:
Eerie

Eerie

Fire and Blood
I'm laughing so much because Aerith knows where the house creaks when you walk there (wood+old) and I'm thinking about the devs' comments about the feeling of a horror/haunted house when you do that part and try to leave the house silently, when she has trapped the path to the stairs LOL.

And we see her having a vision. Interestingly, she also states that she cannot have those since they started their journey, so I'm guessing that we're actually going to be closer to OG Aerith thant Remake part 1 Aerith in the next game.

Also, I'm glad Elmyra finally got that much characterisation. An interesting woman, that's for sure :)
 
F

frosty

Pro Adventurer
AKA
The Snowman
Humming said:
I'm so happy with their decision to give Elmyra a badass background instead of just showing us her grieving widow phase. Can't wait to get it translated, hell, I may even buy the original too.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if it it's a spoiler, but from what I gleaned:

Elmyra is later shown to be really protective to the point being controlling of Aerith, and Aerith runs away from home, intending to stay in the church. She bumps into Fuzz, who tries to cajole Aerith into staying with him instead. Elmyra comes to look for Aerith and there is a scuffle, and Elmyra whips out a gun and shoots Fuzz. :D

Now I cannot stop imagining a walk-in gun vault room in the Gainsborough residences lol
 
TurquoiseHammer

TurquoiseHammer

Pro Adventurer
Eerie said:
And we see her having a vision. Interestingly, she also states that she cannot have those since they started their journey, so I'm guessing that we're actually going to be closer to OG Aerith thant Remake part 1 Aerith in the next game.
Click to expand...
Also lends support to Remake Aerith having the help of some other willpower in projecting herself to Cloud from the Shinra building--or that Aerith indeed being the OG dead Aerith.
 
Eerie

Eerie

Fire and Blood
Ultimasamune said:
Also lends support to Remake Aerith having the help of some other willpower in projecting herself to Cloud from the Shinra building--or that Aerith indeed being the OG dead Aerith.
Click to expand...

Not so sure about that myself. I don't feel it's an Aerith from the OG or whatever. I feel this is an Aerith more connected to the Lifestream because the Lifestream is having this big influx of souls joining it? @odekopeko always point out to me that this Aerith is very reminiscent to the one in Lifestream White, and I think that's the goal there. But everything changes when they fight the Whispers, and by the end of the fight, it seems that she loses these visions - except maybe, she's lying to Tifa to not worry her.

Remake part 1 set her up against Sephiroth, to show us what Sephiroth is doing, his big great plan. However, in the OG, Aerith's path is to discover her Cetra heritage, and I'm guessing that for this, they need her to be way less in touch with her powers than what she exhibited in part 1. Hence the battle against Harbinger. This leads to Sephiroth manipulating the Lifestream in some way - hiding in its depths - and I wonder if that has to do with her losing her powers (no more access to the Lifestream and its knowledge). I think the next time she'll be so very aware and powerful will probably be at the Temple of the Ancients, where she can finally reconnect with her roots.
 
LicoriceAllsorts

LicoriceAllsorts

Donator
Unfortunately, by the end of the Remake, it wasn't exactly clear what Sephiroth's big great plan was. I know people have a lot of different ideas.
The novel explains that her powers are greatest when she's close to soil that is rich in mako/Lifestream, and that her childish mind also made it easier for her to access them:

Aerith: “I don’t think it was just my powers, but I think the land had an influence too. It’s because that area around my house was different from others.”

Tifa: “Such as the flowers being able to bloom?”

Aerith: “Yup. I think that’s the same way my mother, Ifalna, was able to come over to my room. But I can’t even aim to try and do that. It’s because I’m not a pure-blooded Cetra, and more importantly, I don’t have the same state of mind as when I was a child. I think that’s a huge factor. I can no longer tame that pure-like feeling similar to when I was a child. I wondered if I became insensitive once I grew up.”

YMMV may vary, but I find this a much better, simpler, and more elegant explanation for her waning powers than Whispers, touches, defeat of Harbingers etc.... She's only half-Cetra, she grew up and lost her childish simplicity, and she needs close proximity to fertile land. The huge concentration of Cetra memories and "power" at the Temple of the Ancients will compensate for these deficits. However, I imagine she'll be able to access her powers whenever the plot requires her to do and there will always be Reasons.

It's possible, isn't it, that it was the Whispers giving her the visions?
 
Eerie

Eerie

Fire and Blood
The Whispers try to take away her visions and knowledge. But I think her explanation in the book about the place (wasn't it theorised already, or even said, that the Lifestream actually surged in her garden? Somewhat like it does in the church too) and the Lifestream boost etc. don't cancel each other actually. When she projects herself to Cloud's consciousness, she is in Shinra tower, and far away from her garden. So to me this explanation doesn't work, and we need to look elsewhere to explain her surge of power and how in tune she is with the Lifestream, her knowledge of the close future, etc.
 
Obsidian Fire

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
From the OG...

------------------------------
Cloud
...Speak with the Planet?

Tifa
Just what does the Planet say?

Aeris
It's full of people and noisy. That's why I can't make out what they are saying.

Cloud
You hear it now?

Aeris
I, I only heard it at the Church in the Slums. Mother said that Midgar was no longer safe. That is... my real mother.
Someday I'll get out of Midgar... Speak with the Planet and find my Promised Land.
...That's what mom said.
I thought I would stop hearing her voice as I grew up, but...
------------------------------

Aerith has always heard the Planet better in some places than in others...
 
TurquoiseHammer

TurquoiseHammer

Pro Adventurer
Eerie said:
Not so sure about that myself. I don't feel it's an Aerith from the OG or whatever. I feel this is an Aerith more connected to the Lifestream because the Lifestream is having this big influx of souls joining it? @odekopeko always point out to me that this Aerith is very reminiscent to the one in Lifestream White, and I think that's the goal there. But everything changes when they fight the Whispers, and by the end of the fight, it seems that she loses these visions - except maybe, she's lying to Tifa to not worry her.
Click to expand...
I agree--I think the "Aerith closest to memories of the future" is our Aerith--but the simplest explanation for who's helping her materialize would be her future Lifestream self. Otherwise the theories start to get a little crazy... Jenova? Minerva? Sephiroth?

Of course, the alternative is that Toriyama's response is garbled and vague and shouldn't be picked over too finely.

@LicoriceAllsorts I think the Ultimania Plus is at least explicit in saying the Whispers aren't intentionally giving Aerith future visions--otherwise there would be no reason to start siphoning them away later. My going theory is that OG Aerith is passing them along to her as a counter to the illusions Sephiroth is showing Cloud. But I don't have any comments from the writers or source text to back this up. I mostly just like the poetic structure of it: Aerith is connected to her future self through a benevolent Lifestream connection; Cloud is connected to Sephiroth through a malevolent Jenova connection
 
Last edited:
LicoriceAllsorts

LicoriceAllsorts

Donator
Do we know for a fact that the Whispers are siphoning away her visions or is that an assumption we're making? Also, do we have any uncontested examples of Aerith sharing a vision of the future as opposed to sharing knowledge of the present? I don't know what she shares with Marlene; she shares knowledge of the Whispers with Red XIII, and in the novella the visions she has are all visions of something happening elsewhere in her present.

"My going theory is that OG Aerith is passing them along to her as a counter to the illusions Sephiroth is showing Cloud."
That could be, but when does she use them as a counter-illusions? She might do, and I just can't remember. The two specific instances I can remember from the game are when she comforts Marlene and calms Red XIII by sharing knowledge with them, which seems to be something she does deliberately. When does she do this with Cloud? I agree with you that the symmetry is pleasing.

Is there any reason why the Aerith in the Garden couldn't be a vision sent by the Lifestream itself? Or - what if it's an illusion sent by Sephiroth?
 
TurquoiseHammer

TurquoiseHammer

Pro Adventurer
LicoriceAllsorts said:
Do we know for a fact that the Whispers are siphoning away her visions or is that an assumption we're making? Also, do we have any uncontested examples of Aerith sharing a vision of the future as opposed to sharing knowledge of the present? I don't know what she shares with Marlene; she shares knowledge of the Whispers with Red XIII, and in the novella the visions she has are all visions of something happening elsewhere in her present.

"My going theory is that OG Aerith is passing them along to her as a counter to the illusions Sephiroth is showing Cloud."
That could be, but when does she use them as a counter-illusions? She might do, and I just can't remember. The two specific instances I can remember from the game are when she comforts Marlene and calms Red XIII by sharing knowledge with them, which seems to be something she does deliberately. When does she do this with Cloud? I agree with you that the symmetry is pleasing.

Is there any reason why the Aerith in the Garden couldn't be a vision sent by the Lifestream itself? Or - what if it's an illusion sent by Sephiroth?
Click to expand...
I can't remember the exact phrasing but we are told in the Chapter 17 script (I think) that the whispers are taking future memories away from Aerith. We're also told that when Aerith touches Red XIII, she passes along a huge store of future knowledge, too much for Red XIII to fully parse so he only gets bits and pieces. Likewise, were told she shows Marlene something she wouldn't ordinarily be capable of seeing.

When I said "as a counter to Sephiroth's illusions" I meant it in the broader narrative sense, like you said--as a symmetrical attempt to offset whatever tampering Sephiroth has going on.

From that Toriyama response I think we can at least assume it's some real version of Aerith talking--not just an illusion created for Cloud. But there are certainly a lot of possibilities when it comes to who facilitated that appearance.
 
KindOfBlue

KindOfBlue

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Blue
Ultimasamune said:
Also lends support to Remake Aerith having the help of some other willpower in projecting herself to Cloud from the Shinra building--or that Aerith indeed being the OG dead Aerith.
Click to expand...
Unless there’s some sort of multiverse in which the OG and remake are both connected but existing parallel to each other, I think it might be less convoluted to just think of her as Aerith from the future

LicoriceAllsorts said:
Do we know for a fact that the Whispers are siphoning away her visions or is that an assumption we're making?
Click to expand...
All we had initially was Aerith saying that she loses part of herself when the Whispers touch her, but Toriyama recently confirmed some of them are trying to steal her memories (I wonder if him saying “some” means anything)
 
LicoriceAllsorts

LicoriceAllsorts

Donator
I wonder what the phase for "lose a part of myself" is in Japanese.
She doesn't specifically share any future knowledge with Red XIII. I mean, she might, but what we know is, "I'm not a rat dog. When Aerith reached out to me...I found this knowledge of the Whispers." The Whispers exist in their present, and all the knowledge Red XIII shares is of their function in the present.
 
Eerie

Eerie

Fire and Blood
LicoriceAllsorts said:
I wonder what the phase for "lose a part of myself" is in Japanese.
She doesn't specifically share any future knowledge with Red XIII. I mean, she might, but what we know is, "I'm not a rat dog. When Aerith reached out to me...I found this knowledge of the Whispers." The Whispers exist in their present, and all the knowledge Red XIII shares is of their function in the present.
Click to expand...

The quote in French is the same "Je perds une part de moi" so I'm guessing it's roughly the same in Japanese.

For the Whispers, they may be in their present time, but they carry the knowledge of the Lifestream, past, present and future. So Red XIII inherited a large part of a knowledge concerning his own future, the 500 next years.
 
TurquoiseHammer

TurquoiseHammer

Pro Adventurer
I think it was because you had that sentence about the whispers right before the sentence about the visions Aerith gave Red XIII.

And just so we're all on the same page I think we're talking about the Ultimania Plus interview response where Toriyama says Aerith transmits a trove of knowledge to Red XIII, which is very large because of his uniquely long lifespan (which, imo, is the part that implies it's knowledge of his future, or at least the future as it played out in the OG).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom