Speaking of perspective, I think this thread is in desperate need of taking stock of some.
First, look at Dacon and Mog. Here are two dudes who have about 1 positive comment about the Compilation for every 100 comments they make about it.
Next, look at me. As the "Compilatiobn of FFVII Inconsistencies" section of
my FFVII plot FAQ should attest, I am the absolute most unforgiving person in the fandom when it comes to retcons -- even to the point that jokes about retcon discussions being capable of summoning me instantly from a two-week sabbatical (a la negative FFXIII reviews with Daniel) can
and have been made.
Yet all three of us have absolutely no trouble whatsoever swallowing that Rufus could be portrayed as alive in a sequel to FFVII. Why?
Is it because
people in the real world have survived less likely scenarios? Is it because -- within FFVII itself -- equally implausible miraculous survivals occurred involving falling from great heights (Tifa, Cloud, Dyne, Cloud again), being skewered or slashed with large swords (Cloud, Tifa, Tseng), being hit by a large truck and tossed through the air like a cannon-propelled beachball (Palmer), and fighting Cloud in physical combat (Reno, Rude, Elena, Palmer, Rufus himself)?
Yes. Yes, it is, actually.
It still changes nothing, he was hit in the face with a bomb ...
An explosion, actually.
Just reiterating once more that the explosive projectile in question had
already detonated. Rufus was never hit by it.
Daniel said:
... and was clearly blown away, his office along with it and yet he still has all his limbs intact and does not appear to be as damaged as you would expect even assuming it was plausible for him to survive.
One would expect the dude in the van from Dacon's video to be a lot more jacked up than still having all his limbs too, yeah? Or, hell, Dyne falls into a canyon and the only damaged limb is the one that was shot before he fell in? He's already wounded when he goes in, yet he comes out of the mess better than Tifa during her fall.
And while I know you said earlier that it's possible to survive a great fall when trees break your descent and that it was
"a canyon of unspecified depth," the fact that a)
it was so far down you couldn't see the bottom, b)
he kept getting smaller and smaller into the distance, and c)
he eventually completely disappeared from sight -- not to mention d), as there were no trees in the area on the surface, there were probably none in that chasm either -- makes it a far greater leap of suspension of disbelief than Rufus surviving an explosion where no visually confirmed harm is depicted coming to him.
Daniel said:
Somehow though this conversation has got onto plausibility of death or serious injury when the original point was that FF7 made it clear he was dead and that imho they retconned it.
I'm not sure that this alone was the original point, because even from
your first post in the discussion, you were saying "In the case of rufus, he was hit in the face with a large missile like weapon and there is no way he survived it" and "Tifa was sliced and it is possible to survive a slice with a sword. Not likely, but possible. It is not possibe to survive a bomb hittong you direct on."
Plausibility was always being discussed here.
Daniel said:
I stand by that in the same way I stand by Hojo being a retcon, because both clearly are.
Hojo's not a retcon in the same way. He
didn't survive. A copy of his mind -- or the literal thing, if you're Mako -- was transferred into the data network.
Daniel said:
being impaled through the chest with a large sword, and being blown away in an office by a huge missile like weapon are in no way the same thing. I hope you agree on that?
I do. I think the sword wound sounds worse, as, in fiction, people tend to come back from those less often.
For real, though: People come back from explosions
all the time and rarely does anyone in the real world bat an eye over it. Watching someone get pierced through the chest and then
seeing them die -- well, that's a little different.
Daniel said:
If Dyne's revival was unlikely, what does that make Rufus being blown away in his office ?
Acceptable.
