Let's Talk About Rebirth's Ending.... Ft. Maximilian Dood *SPOILERS*
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
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With Rebirth completed, it's time to figure out what the hell just happened. And thankfully, I have some help when @Maximilian_Dood hops in call to give me the low down.
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GAME: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
AUTHOR: Square Enix
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. It is a sequel to Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) and the second in a planned trilogy of games remaking the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII. Like its predecessor, the gameplay combines real-time action with strategic and role-playing elements. Set immediately after Remake's events, players control mercenary Cloud Strife and a party of characters principally comprising the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE, who embark on a journey across the Planet to prevent the megacorporation Shinra from exploiting its life essence, the Lifestream, as an energy source, and defeat former elite SOLDIER Sephiroth, who seeks to unite with the Planet to achieve greater power.
#ff7 #ff7r #rebirth
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Where do we even start??
Seemingly by the end
From the begining
Nomura BS strikes again
@@johans3164 not nomura, he isnt a writer. That was nojima. Cmon, just a quick search away
How about “Stop turning FF7 into Kingdom hearts”?
I love the idea that Max is just sitting around waiting for other people to finish Rebirth so he can talk more about it. Dood is a fiend for FF7 discussions!
thank the planet. he’s one of the only things keeping me sane waiting for these games to come out
That's what I've been doing
"The ending happened" - Nico 2024
And it was awesome
LOLLLLLLLLL!!!!
He is objectively correct.
If you think im gonna sit here and listen to Max talk about Final Fantasy 7 for ANOTHER 2 hours, then you thought right
The Tenth Doctor said it best, I think. "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a nonlinear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff."
The most quotable Dr Who quote ever.
It all has to do with how the lifestream and the planet itself is mostly the memories of those who have lived. So it’s a tad bit more metaphysical than strictly timelines and alternate realities per se.
The fact that FF7 now canonically has the planet being something like a four dimensional entity is so wild and fascinating
@@sanddry738I think the scene where Sephiroth tells us that there is only one planet gave me a lot more confidence in this “timeline” stuff, since it eliminated all possibility of it being an actual multiverse.
I also think it’s an incredibly important point since Jenova and the Gi do not come from the planet, and their stories will be very important in part 3.
to quote a certain fey: “time is a weird soup”
back when the show was good :(
unbelievebly enough, the timeline rules seems to be similer to.... Homestuck, of all things. In Homestuck, there is one TRUE timeline, sometimes refer to as Canon, and whenever anyone travel in time to change the past they eiather work to create that timeline, or to diverge from it. Whenever a new timeline that diverge from the true timeline is created, it is considered a doomed timeline, and everyone and everything in it would eventually die. However, there are multiple instences where a doomed timeline is needed in order to help facilitate the true timeline.
homestuck is some bullshit though lol
What's Homestuck? Another game??
@OneColdRepublican it's a webcomic with some game logic in it. Very infamous for toxic fanbase. I actually don't recommend reading it, I used to like it, but not anymore.
@@OneColdRepublican
Webcomic. First few Acts are pretty funny but then it goes off the rails and lands on another track you never knew existed. 4 internet friends play a videogames that ends the workd and more shenanigans are involved. You just gotta read if you want to comprehend.
Me: I swear max has been on at least 5 different channels so far talking about the ending, lol
Max: ILL MAKE IT 50
Honestly I’m hear for it. The guy has been cooking like crazy and seeing other people hear about the theories is great
I just came here to see if Max shits on Genesis.
@@thatstheway2429 Max is onboard for the Gackt redemption arc
And I’ll eat it up every time!
@@oreotaku4017 "Gackt R͟e͟d͟e͟m͟p͟t͟i͟o͟n͟ arc"
I see what you did there.
The whole “re-doing” of the ending (Advent Children, etc.) through learning how to accept grief also continues to track Neon Genesis Evangelion Rebuild. I really feel like that was the template for the whole FF7R project.
Might be coincidence cuz most of the main plot was actually an idea Nojima started plotting 10 years after the OG came out. There is a lot of similarities for sure. But when FF7 fans talk about the "30 Year Cook" they ain't lying
No it was how do we bring aerith back to life. lol
@@jeffwolfplays0513she’s dead tho
@@mindxfuneral which version? lol
Cloud becomes Omni-Cloud
Cloud learns Omnislash
And Omnislash is basically "I cut reality open"
no he cuts himself because he is sephiroth
Love this idea!!
I mean, if Cloud saved Aerith in one of these alternative timelines who are doomed to die, and he can see and speak with her just fine while staying in his actual timeline with everyone else, it makes sense he would be able to see other things from the aerith is alive timeline, including that timeline's tear in the sky. So the tear is really there for him and aerith, he's just justifying it as an hallucination, its not there for everyone else
The devs even said that the big TWIST with Cloud will be less of a 'unreliable narrator' and more of a 'unreliable world' so in this case CLOUD isn't crazy, the world is splitting apart at the seams and it seems now Cloud is one of the only people who can perceive it. Interesting twist on the original story.
Right, he can see both worlds at the same time, because he's been between worlds. And maybe that was the blessing Sephiroth gave him.
I'm more in this boat for the ending. Cloud exists in both timelines at the end (Remake & Rebirth Zack's where they're sleeping and wake up). This happened when Zack touches Cloud during the ending fight. Touching him pulls him away from the party members and in to a timeline where they are fighting Sephiroth. Sephiroth himself goes between timelines as you battle him. Sephiroth separates Zack and Cloud creating another timeline in which Zack fights him as "a" world is ending. Beats him and Angeal or Aerith saves him again and sends him to another timeline.
0:53 I think it's also important to note one thing that, not many people bring up. It was seemingly revealed in the FF7 Rebirth Ultimania that........the Reunion was ATTEMPTED at the end of Rebirth. Like, it wasn't just a big multiversal boss fight to cap off the end of the game and the scene with Aerith, according to Ultimania Sephiorth was basically doing his big bad master plan THERE and was apparently thwarted by Cloud, Aerith and the party. Now I know Sephiorth has got a back up and we still don't seem to be clear on what this shit is supposed to do, but whatever Sephiorth is doing in part 3.........is not the way he originally planned it. This is plan B we're talking about here, and I'm kind of curious to see what that will entail.
He wanted to reunite the worlds before casting meteor. Having all the "worlds" in one place maximizes the amount of potential energy he can absorb, giving him more power than his OG VII plan.
3:25 i interpreted it as the Aerith who died in the.....let's call it 'prime' timeline helping Cloud beat Sephiorth. It's why she says " I saw what you did there", referring to witnessing the other universe be created (it was also confirmed in the ultimania that Cloud SAVED Aerith and it wasn't ultimately part of a illusion (him saving her at the very least) and also why she fades away seemingly into the lifestream at the end of the battle. I can not 100% confirm this either but there is a strong possibility that 'prime' Aerith may have moved into the body of AU aerith. We've seen Cloud and Aerith specifically shown to be connected to their AU selves and Cloud was seemingly pulled into his AU body for the 'date' and then sent back. We see AU aerith being laid down to go to sleep, Cloud fights Sephiorth with 'prime' aerith and then goes back and we see him with AU Aerith and her 'waking up' why would she need to be 'asleep'? I think it was to possibly wait for 'prime' aerith to kind of hop into her body which is why she 'wakes' up at the end.
Timestamps:
33:22 Max joins the stream!
Legend
I believe it was Nojima that said they were inspired by Carl Jung's philosophy on the Collective Unconscious? That would help explain the story perfectly, and even fits into the concepts that make up the original game. I'm pretty sure these "alternate timelines" are purely a metaphysical space comprised of the world's collective memories, emotions, dreams, etc. The scenes at the end that display the rainbow effect are absolutely transpiring in Cloud's head or something along those lines. I absolutely don't buy into the explanation of the multiverse in the same sense of how multiverses are generally described.
Well you know what?, the story wont be that complex everyone is overdoing it with the theories
@@zacatkinson3926 It'll be a lot simpler than people are expecting. It's really just going to be an extensive embellishment of the original story. The lifestream and Cloud's subconscious are really the only key factors that I feel people are missing, and getting dragged into the notion of some "alternate realities". But it does set up well for some good surprises.
@@ExploitedWorker I don’t agree on that sorry
@@zacatkinson3926 on what, exactly?
@@ExploitedWorker I wish to believe that, I really do, but it won't turn out like that. Simply because they went all in already with all of it. If it was "simple" it would just lead the whole of Rebirth ad absurdum. I can buy into the Zack projected into the fight at the end being in "Cloud's head", but what about all the scenes where he does stuff on his own...? Like how is that supposed to happen just in Cloud's head. It feels like an appropriate theory if we are talking about everything weird that happens when Cloud is on screen, but what about every other scene that doesn't make any sense? Like they absolutely made clear it IS some pocket dimension bs writing.
47:38 That's not the theme Max is talking about, he's talking about the scene where Aerith shows up to Cloud when the party is crying at the place where her body is laid to rest, you can hear a very somber and creepy music for like 5 seconds.
Obviously spoilers
When Sephiroth is talking about worlds, he is talking about a person's mind.
A mind encompasses feelings, thoughts, emotions.
The biggest giveaway is the name of Chapter 14 "End of the world" as in End = Death World = Aerith.
Aerith's world has ended, she died.
In the latest Ultimania Nomura confirmed that he wanted to depict how Cloud's mind behaves when confronting a very awful situation, with that idea in mind we can infer that Cloud is actively suppressing Aerith's dead (just as he did it for Zack) with the help of Aerith within the lifestream at the exact same moment she died.
Devs are just trying to enforce us to discuss us which is nice, buy the Copium I am seeing that "aErIth iS aLivE" just sets all these people believing it to disappointment in part 3.
Although I do believe she will be back, just like Zack.
nah shes saved in another timeline/world
I wish it turned out like that, just an enhanced version of Cloud's state of mind and perception of reality, but how do you explain all the bs alternate timeline stuff that happens isolated from him? Like all the Zack stuff. How is that just in Cloud's mind? It was clearly made with alternate timelines and pocketdimensions in mind. All of Rebirth was about it.
But I would have very much liked, if it just was a spawn of Cloud's twisted and manipulated mind, just like it was in the OG, but they went all overboard already.
Regardless of the existence of the other worlds, the point is that the other worlds provide an out for Cloud's repression and make it more difficult to accept the truth: she died and they can't get her back. The mideel reveal is going to include her death as well as Zack's. @@dshearwf
A FF7 Rebirth discussion video with Max?! I’m here penguins.
We're never fully finishing rebirth are we?
probably not.
Nope
I bet we’ll feel the same after part 3
This got me 😪😴
42:51 There's a couple of issues with the "Jenova-Aerith" Theory. The first is that any time there's an interaction with Jenova-as-(insert character) there is a Black Cloak or SOLDIER in the immediate vicinity. This is established in Kalm the first time Cloud sees Sephiroth in the Inn. They highlight the Inn Keeper specifically and we learn later that he's a former SOLDIER. "Glen" is also a Black Cloak.
Sephiroth does appear at times without Black Cloaks but there are Black Whispers involved at those times. There are no Black Cloaks or Whispers in that final scene.
The second is that you can hand off the Black Materia to Barret, Tifa, Red XIII or Cid in the OG.
It's established near Corel that Red XIII can sense far more than animals. I think it's suggested he can sense, to some degree, the lifestream.
The Jenova-Aerith theory has too many contradictions to work.
Good points except that Cloud himself is referred to Jenova and Sephiroth as a clone…because he is. At least from the persecute that he was injected with Jenova and Sephiroth cells with the goal of created a Sephiroth clone, initially deemed a failure by Hojo. (Ultimately he would be deemed a success though)
All of the clones you reference have Jenova cells. Well, so does Cloud.
I would say Red XIII does too but it’s never specified (as far as I know) whether Red XIII has Jenova cells or not. Either way, Jenova-Aerith makes sense if you include Cloud as a “hooded figure”. The only difference between those hooded figures and Cloud is that the hooded figures have all succumbed to extreme mako poisoning
@@Griever8686 and I admit that could be the case. I just don't personally think it is.
It wouldn't be the first time I was wrong.
in remake ch13 beginning, cloud sees sephiroth with no cloaked guys and no whispers present, just straight up hallucinating. same thing happened in ch2 when the big midgar turns into nibelheim vision happens, neither were present but there is sephiroth. the difference is that in these times, only he can see him because it’s all in his head, like jenovaerith
red xiii having jenova cells might be similar to how they tried to do it to zack but it failed for some reason, which is why zack is seemingly immune to jenova’s influence
I wasn’t sure how this game was gonna end……. I did not expect it to be Steins;Gate though.
Steins Gate is like a million times more coherent though, FF7 is a jrpg plot and Rebirth is a (jrpg plot)^2
@@0y1onFF7R is coherent with its story. It's just that we are missing 1/3 of it so we don't have full knowledge and answers yet.
@@soul6733 So can you really say its coherent? Why so much grace? Would you accept reading a book full of swiss cheese holes? I've seen intrigue and mystery is built in many other series well. But the subversion is so on the nose in this game, its as if the devs are subverting you just for the sake of subversion.
@@McLovinYoMuffin Except it's not. The game does give you hints and explanations for what is happening. We just don't have answer to everything yet because we are missing one last part which will have additional explanation. Or do you perharps judge a book halfway in?
@@soul6733 The hints and explanations given are diluted by the parts of the story which are subversive and there to intentionally mislead the audience.
If it were a book I would naturally think... "This feels bad, I dont like this, something is wrong."
I'm just no longer willing to give them any grace. We are all putting our hopes that everything will make sense in pt 3, after looking at the other directors works I am lowering my expectations.
Other muti part series make grand stories work, but without the immense amount of subversion.
This has more of the makings of a convoluted disaster in the end and we grasp at straws to make it make sense.
I'd laugh so hard if they trolled everyone by ditching the naming convention and calling it FFvii Sephiroth's End or something stupid like that
it’s gonna be “Reborn” i think. one winged angel at the end of remake was called OWA: Rebirth, and at the time we didn’t think anything of it until the 2nd game was called that.. and the one in rebirth’s soundtrack was called OWA: Reborn. it makes sense that they would do that again to reward those looking
A lot of people missed it. The black materia was indeed fake. It wasn't glowing.. The fake sephiroth picked it up, and summoned the whispers and found the real black materia. Then it glowed but dropped through his fingers. That was when aerith was like noooo! And cloud passed it back to sephiroth. That was the real glowing black materia
When Nico pulled up a clip from an episode of Scrubs during the ending discussion I knew this was gonna be a doozy lmao
What'd be cool? The empty materia becomes a summon materia, a materia that summons AERITH! Like we can Gilgamesh, Titan, etc.
I don’t know if this gets mentioned in the video or not yet, but I think it’s so interesting that Cid also doesn’t seem to care that Aerith is dead. Especially since he was the only one that didn’t go into the temple or the ancient city. I wonder if something happened to the rest of the party to affect their perception (most easily seen in Tifa’s version of Cloud holding Aerith) that doesn’t affect Cid.
Didn’t think about that, he does ask about Aerith but it’s still in an upbeat demeanour
Remember in the Jenova Lifeclinger battle, Cloud says something like, "You've done it before, you can do it again." I took that as him remembering defeating this version of Jenova from the past.
I think Max has lost the plot just a little bit due to slapping new theories over old theories each time a new bit of information is revealed. Needs to strip all that away and apply Occam's Razor, rebuild the theory from scratch with the totality of information available.
Take the Doylist approach to interpreting the narrative. The devs have said they won't fundamentally change the outcome of the game, nor its themes. What is the central theme of FFVII? The acceptance of death. How is that illustrated? Sephiroth rejects death and Aerith accepts death. That is the core conflict at play here, and always has been.
Sephiroth says that their world is destined to become part of the universe of death (the space beyond the edge of creation, as named in Ultimania), but he won't allow the world to end, nor will he allow Cloud to end. It's stated quite explicitly that his goal is to unify fractured spacetime and create eternity. Sephiroth's goal is to make an eternal world where nothing dies -- his Promised Land. Aerith's goal, as always, is to stop him, to live in the moment -- her Promised Land.
There's also the metanarrative element, which is quite simple. Just as the whispers in _Remake_ represent players' wishes to keep things the same, the unstable alternate worlds in _Rebirth_ represent players' wishes to change things. Ultimately those worlds are destined to end, and Aerith is destined to foil Sephiroth, meaning that players will also eventually have to accept reality -- Aerith and Zack died, and they died for a reason. There are things that you simply can't change. And this will reinforce the core theme of accepting death to players.
As for the alternate worlds, we essentially already have an explanation for them and how they operate. The Planet produces a multitude of worlds, rising from the Lifestream which is comprised of information -- thoughts and memories. Wishes and dreams people have produce these unstable worlds that deteriorate rapidly, bereft of spiritual energy, because hopes are simple, fleeting things.
Cloud was given Sephiroth's gift, so he can perceive these other worlds. And he's seeing the reality in which he saves Aerith and rejecting the reality in which he failed. Simple as that. Sephiroth wants to harness pain and suffering not necessarily to cause harm, but to convince Cloud to accept his interpretation of the Promise Land, a reality where nobody dies and nothing changes.
Personally i dont think he did lose the plot, especially when he said that "every body is wrong" and the part about breadcrumbs leading to dead ends.
You totally nailed it. I think there's a ton of head-spinning stuff with the insanity of the final chapter, but if you stay rooted in the themes of the story and characters like the devs have said, THIS is the conclusion we've got to come to.
In this same vein, how do you interpret Zack having autonomy among these worlds? I feel that that is what's tripping people up and causing a lot more overthinking. I think the best way I can think to tie it in is when Cloud falls into the lifestream in Mideel, and all the character-defining reveals and acceptance are happening, maybe this is also where the memory of the lifestream ifself becomes confused, rippling back through time and because Cloud's identity is confused with Zack's, that's why Zack is the one who is able to make decisions, splitting worlds and defying destiny. Maybe I'm off-base here, but I really fully agree with you with how this all will be simple and thematically resonant in the end. This is just the best way I can think of to factor Zack's experiences into that.
I think you might fundamentally misunderstand the themes of Final Fantasy VII but under the assumption that the game is about "the acceptance of death" and not celebrating life (though AC I'll give you as that entire movie is about Cloud accepting Zack and especially Aerith's deaths) this is a great theory. And I also agree that Max has gone a little off the deep end with how wild his theory has gotten.
I think Cloud's subconscious of blocking out Aerith's death was the glitching part. The scene with him letting her drift off in the water will happen in the 3rd game when Cloud's actual memories are unlocked. It's a great way to string along OG players, and a great reveal for new players.
I think Omni-Aerith is who Aerith is talking about when she says she can’t wait to meet her “future self.” Her future self is dead, but Aerith foresees some power and wisdom in it, even if she isn’t fully aware in the moment what that means for her
i hate this ending. they could've either committed fully to the changing fates scenario and have us save her and celebrate, or to the fact she's dead and let us mourn her properly in set up for later. What we got was just a weird KH-like mess of an ending that pandered to both scenarios without committing to either. total cop outs
EDITED Hope we get to see the Gold Saucer dates before the of this week 😅
Anyway, given that last goodbye at the end, and how Cloud seems to believe that Aerith is alive and safe somewhere else, it seems to imply that this Aerith is a combination of an illusion and her from an alternate timeline; though her saying "Goodbye" at the end might just be Cloud's inner self expessing that deep down he knows that she's never coming back. Honestly I'm not too keen on the idea of her being brought back as some sort of force ghost that appears every now and again; it can very easily make her death feel like less of a significance if they strip us of the cold reality that none of them will be able to actually speak to her again, and it can be seen as disrespectful to her and the original game.
Now given what we know of the second half of the OG game, Tifa will probably play more of a protagonist role in part 3, which I'm hoping gets greatly expanded upon. But did anyone notice something strange when Tifa arrived at the alter; for just a brief moment there's static in her vision, and she seemed to perceive a scene very similar to what Cloud was seeing, of Aerith surviving, like she was briefly seeing what her heart desired at that very moment, much like Cloud. Could this have something to do with her very recent dip in a pool of Mako? Will this be brought up in part 3? I think I might have some idea on how this will play out in the next game:
Cloud won't necessarily see illusions of Aerith accompanying them; his current mindset is that he's absolutely certain that she's safe somewhere else after he saved her successfully, that he beautifully played his role as the hero he promised Tifa he would become. He is in such absolute denial that he has failed to make good on this promise even after becoming as powerful as he is today, and that it cost one of his most precious companions life. He can't accept that, that he is an unmitigated failure of a hero. Thus the sad reality was blocked out almost completely, replaced with nothing but success in this last endeavour.
Now Tifa on the other hand knows the truth in her head, that her friend that she grew to love is no longer with her; but her heart, much like Cloud's, is filled with a desire to see her, alive and well. Cloud won't be the one who will be frequently haunted by illusions of Aerith throughout part 3, because he's not stuck between acceptance and denial, unlike Tifa. It's because Tifa is stuck with her desire to see Aerith that I believe that she will be the one constantly seeing Aerith's image flashing in and out of her vision. It'll get stronger and more frequent as the story proceeds, to the point where she's eventually able to communicate with the illusion; a good time for this to happen is during her execution in Junon, where she's at her absolute lowest point, more so than even in the original. She comes to realise that the Aerith in front of her is not only just her illusion, but just another side of Tifa herself in the form of the one she deeply admired. Nevertheless the illusionary Aerith pleads with her not to give up, that she can still save Cloud; "If you didn't believe you could go on, I wouldn't even be here giving you this cheesy speech", she'd probably say 😉
Missed opportunity not saying, "He sends his Space Ghosts Coast-to-Coast to find the Black Materia."
Max says in the final scene on the hillside Aerith is never there unless Cloud is looking at her - not true. After the Bronco flies away, we see Aerith's POV, standing alone, Cloud is long gone in the plane, and she's still there and even says, "Goodbye" to no one around. If this is supposed to be Jenova, that really makes no sense and is just bad storytelling.
Yes agreed
Both scenes happened. Cloud blocks Sephiroth, and Aerith still dies. The only difference is Sephiroth didn't stab Aerith, Cloud did. The sword lands on the ground next to Cloud, then Sephiroth makes him pick up the sword and kill Aerith. Watch the scene again and it makes sense. The party was blocked off by the whispers, so they only have Cloud's fractured recollection of what happened. All of Rebirth, especially in the Temple of the Ancients, showed Cloud losing control of his body. When it's revealed that Cloud killed Aerith, it will be a HUGE gut punch and possibly even more impactful than the original. THAT is how you make Aerith's death hit again, even for long time fans.
While I like this scenario, there is no way that happened considering how nice everyone was to Cloud afterward. Barret, at least, would have beat the $h!t out of him
@@jessemiller3108 the thing is none of them saw it happen, the whispers were blocking them. They arrive at the altar with Aerith in Cloud’s arms after she’s already been stabbed.
Long awaited crossover is here! Nico will never get off the crazy FF7 train and im all for it lol
1:31:48 A lot of the themes of FF7 are explorations of the philosophical idea of ‘eternal return’: that we are shaped by our experiences good and bad, and if we don’t accept that we are the sum of our bad moments as much as our good ones we are doomed to repeat ourselves. This is why I think ‘Return’ is the most likely name of the next game.
Thank you so much for posting this, fr. Max Dood's voice shows up about 33 minutes in
It’s super obvious that the final aerith is a jenova manipulation. Not sure why so many ppl are struggling with that. I can’t wait for part 3 - seeing this all unravel is going to be epic.
Cloud will see Aerith’s death in the northern crater.
Where is the video that they talk about, Jenova Lifeclinger/Aerith theme?
I don’t mind them having Ever Crisis contain relevant info. To me it's not really all that different than having this kind of stuff in Ultimania's, novels, prequel games, and other extra materials.
That’s just how a lot of Japanese media seems to be. Tons of games, manga, all have data or guid books.
All I can really say about all this is the multiverse is a concept about which we know frighteningly little.
Not really. We know it's not a multiverse but rather a creation of the Lifestream. Small worlds created when something doesn't go as intended and will eventually get erased and returned to the Lifestream.
Cloud didn't save any Aerith. It's setting up for Advent Children and his regret for not saving her, until his lifestream arc he's mental and right now doesn't think she's dead, cause she can talk to him from the lifestream just like AC and he hasn't realized since it just happened.
Max is awesome; he helps to recall even the tiniest details from the various ff7 games and AC. I could listen to his theories for hours!
Hopefully Jenova is being really sneaky deaky shapeshifting and mental shenanigans, that would make everything really dark and I'm here for it. If that's not the case, I'm kinda dissapointed.
I just finished. The way I see it is the time line is no longer bound to fate but time as it is has already happened technically for example cloud cannot be cloud without Zack dying and the reason for those existing is the main timeline. The sky rift seems more like a means of worlds uniting or possible for union and in turn that world dies. Kind of like Xenoblade maybe
“We need to talk”. - Dood
What’s so crazy to me about the Remake series is how everyone is at different points when it comes to theories.
People new to FF7 experience the concepts totally new. OG FF7 players see some of the themes and how things are changing. And people who know more about the full Compilation of FF7 content know about the finer details and possibly where things are going.
(Example like how the lifestream/worlds works and wtf is going on with Aerith and Sephiroth)
It’s honestly so fun to watch different people’s conclusions and theories. Also so surprised and glad to see Max and Nico talk about things. (47:53 HOLY SHIT the fact he got Alex Mukala himself to analyze that music is crazy. Dude does great musical breakdowns of songs.)
when max is there. the click comes.
Where I THOUGHT it was going with Zack/Biggs, "OMG Zack and Biggs have been dead this WHOLE time! I'm playing them in the afterlife!" - Where it was "Alternate reality" ---
Where I THOUGHT it was going with Aerith, "OMG They're going to make it like the cannon despite the sword deflection thing!" - Where it was "Schrodinger's Aerith" ---
Where I THOUGHT it was going with the ending, "OMG they're gonna have us fight Jenova with the impactful music, then end the game with her burial!" - Where it was "Oh... we're fighting Sephiroth... again."
Thank you NicoB!! Awesome!!!!
I knew of the original death scene, but in a weird way? I watched my brother play this game when I was young, like 9-10. I would sneak downstairs and watch him play, and eventually, I got pulled in. I remembered Aerith dying, but I didn't remember the specifics.
I'm also a major video game analyzing in every regard, and the remakes for this game have been an absolute adventure to dig into. Characters, story, music, animations, even the damn UI. So much love was put into this game, and it shows.
Crazy Cloud is so 90's. Lifestream worlds traveler Cloud is where its at. Look at how Barret treats him while walking the Sleeping Forest, he thinks Cloud is crazy. How Tifa and Barret reacts to him while boarding the TB. But we know that what Cloud is talking about just happened, he's not really crazy, just trapped in LS shenanigans. Those "Timelines" arent really timelines, are "realities unfolding", they are happening inside the LS, they're real, the whispers were supposed to not let that happen.
It matters because while most fade, these "timelines" (I like to call them worlds) are not "what ifs", are realities. There is a reason why Zack and the white materia are real in the main Timeline/world, to the planet, they are as real as OG's events. This is why it was important for Sephy the "conflunce of worlds", have her die once, have her dissapear from all. To the planet, she would be as dead as disco. Now, knowing that, Cloud is looking crazier by the minute, but he aint 100% crazy, he just cant verbalize the clusterfuck he is trapped in. Not to say he is completely sane, its still Cloud, he's still kinda effed in the head.
But, its dangerous, he is dissociating himself from his actual reality, Aerith is dead yet since hes peeking into the LS he might think she's not. Aerith is still around, in the LS and whatever timeline/world Cloud deflected the sword, but in the game mainstream reality, she is not.
While they keept from us the Aerith death, they will most probably have us make her death part ot the united world/timeline after we dispose of Sephy, I think that will be the emotional part theyre talking about. They tell us so in the trailers, the world will be saved. Or who knows, maybe SE is cooking a less depressing ending than OG/AC, they've been milkin that flow of depression ever since.
I've been saying Return since end of remake. If you want an idea about theory crafting, you should check out Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks:The return
Idk, after watching the ending a bunch of times, I feel like Aerith is actually dead and she's just influencing cloud through the LifeStream the same way sephiroth is
Max Dood on Genesis: "They can fix him!!!!!"
I don't think there are timelines per se. Just different memories from the Lifestream which can be considered different worlds.
Sounds to me Sepheroth wants to bring the world [HEAVEN].
I have not followed the FF7 remake series very much at all, but played the original. Hearing the discussion around 1:32 makes me think that each of the titles so far have had a subtitle beginning with the letter "R" and there is speculation on what the final subtitle will be. I am guessing "Reset" based on these few minutes of discussion.
This SCREAMS Strangers of Paradise timeloop like FF1 to FF7. Where you are playing characters trying to regain previous memories.
as a writer, everything was made so clearly ambiguous. think of it as the devs crowd sourcing to the audience and making a big poll out of it to know what exactly the audiences think of, what the audience want, what they could improve, what to lessen, where they could surprise the audience and how to end the trilogy with as much of the audience being happy without sacrificing what they want with 7r3.
9:20 I loved the OG story more than words, and these new endings still made me say that.
I saw on Landi Lodges ending explained video that he thinks Sephiroth made all the mini pocket worlds at the end of Remake so he could create a feeding ground of despair. Because you see all the people are scared and depressed they know they are gonna die because there is the tear in the sky and they know their world is ending. Landi Lodge suggested that Sephiroth is feeding on this despair which is increasing his power exponentially.
Thanks for uploading your FF7 Rebirth ending discussion with Max and chat! It was a lot of fun trying to piece this ending and story together and I can’t wait to see what Part 3 has in store for us!
@21:38; You forget that, if Sephiroth is able to take control of the Hooded Men like he can in FF7 ReMake and ReBirth, that gives him about 50 billion Sephiroths to 3 Billion Aeriths.
Yes bro I had to pause the game My eyes were too watery to fight the battle the music just hit me in the feels an the flood gates opened
So the convergence. I'm starting to see that Sephiroth has combined the timelines and cloud can see both. But I still think he's being manipulated by Sephiroth or jenova because he still has to bring the black materia to the crater which he has at the end if the game
My theory: The Lifestream is going to be an even more significant part of Part 3 than it was in OG (in fact, I think Part 3 will be called "Return" with a Lifestream green color and will be referencing Cloud's return from the Lifestream). This time, he will talk to Tifa, Zack, and Aerith, who will all help him put together his sense of self and spell out what's happening. I think Aerith will actually be the biggest part of this, and that when Cloud returns from the Lifestream, he will get part of Aerith's kit from Remake/Rebirth to symbolize she's still with him.
EDIT: Also, I think the Aerith with the flower pin from the end of Rebirth is going to come back in some capacity. Maybe it's the Lifestream, maybe it's in an "alternate world," I don't know. But adding an instantly recognizable accessory is a great way to differentiate versions of Aerith, and I think that will ultimately be the purpose of that pin. Because we're going to see that Aerith again. And when Cloud's memories return to him in full, his empty materia will get filled in. And what color will it be? Pale green, the color of the Lifestream.
The third game will start with heading to iccle inn, and the info dump/story time moment (like the flashback scene in kalm) will be the hojo/sephiroth/aerith tapes in Ghast's lab.
So how about this? The white materia Cloud is looking at in the final cg cut scene isnt the white materia at all. Its the black materia. Cloud just doesnt really see it then. You never see him handling both at the same time. Which speaks to Maxs theory that one of these Aeriths isnt Aerith. Its actually Jenova
Calling it now, Cloud is the one who killed Aerith. He was able to stop himself in OG. But in this timeline, he wasn't able to. You see flashes of blood on Aerith's hand/arm from Tifas point of view. Aerith was praying at the alter, if Cloud slashed downwards at her, her arms would be all messed up too.
In the OG timeline, Cloud immediately accepted Aeriths death. So why not this time? Why is he in such denial? Because he's the one that did it this time.
I like how they brought up the cell degredation and thats why Tifa and Barret dont really confront Cloud about his weirdness because they are just assuming thats whats causing it.
So I think the first chunk of the final entry is going to focus on everything that’s been setup with Wutai in Intergrade & Rebirth. It’s a very good way to block off the party from reaching the Northern Crater and gives us time to get to play with a full party, focus further on Cloud’s mental state, etc. The world is already on a precipice of chaos with a renewed war on the horizon. Imagine the emotional gut punch for the people of the Planet if that war is averted, only for the Meteor to show up days later? The negativity would be off the charts, absolutely what Sephiroth wants.
Disagree with Maxdood on a 3 points:
1. The end was life stream/Omni Aerith not Jenova Aerith.
2. You were right at first, there is another Aerith that we saved his sword caused a rainbow effect is around the buster when he tried to block masamune. That empty materia in the final cutscene literally shows the two worlds (timeline of memories) in the reflection. The rip is probably the second timeline where she exists that only Cloud can perceive.
3. Zack can't be in their timeline at the end of Rebirth if the stamps don't match up. Johnny is carrying a corgi plush and the OG tl was beagle, which the main party returned to after the big whisper fight in Remake.
Sidenote, why does no one care about Hojo's angle in this lol? He seemed aware of what Omni Sephiroth's intentions are, especially with that "Has it finally begun" helicopter scene. Max saying part 3 will be the end of Sephiroth arc is interesting. That implies that there'll be more to the VII and I think Hojo plays a big part in that.
Any time Max is involved in an FF7 discussion, you know things are going to get wild.
I would argue that we get hints of Omni-Cloud burgeoning even before the walk with Aerith towards Sector 7 begins. Remember when Cloud first thinks he sees Sephiroth just after Mako Reactor 1 blew up and how people noticed that the arm he grabs is the one where Geostigma was developing? I’m thinking that was the first moment. Also all this Omni stuff may just give new meaning to Cloud’s ultimate Limit Break too, like it’s all the Clouds from across all worlds or timelines or what have you doing this series of slashes.
Nobody has yet to give me an answer, so hopefully you guys can... When Cloid was asleep in that wheelchair, he was wearing two shoulder pads and it's very similar to Zack's. When Aerith wakes up Cloud, he's wearing only one shoulder pad, the one he wears throughout the game. And when on Aerith's dream date, he does not have his buster sword, BUT when Aerith pushes him in the church, his buster suddenly appears. So, what gives? Two timelines?
idk man Max has been right about SOOO much and normally on the same page with him but he loses me hard with the Jenova Aerith thing, thats not to say it wont happen in some shape or form in part 3 tho, Like i can buy that there will be a scene where Jenova pretends to be Aerith but I just about nothing indicated thats what is happening at the end of Rebirth. I also dont think Cloud is recalling the water burial from OG, I think it actually happened in Rebirth just Cloud just Suppressed the memory of it like Zack.
I will use a comparison for why i don't like the divergence ending.
Imagine you order your favorite meal on doordash, you could get any number of different delivery persons. But why would we ever CHOOSE the weird, gaslighting, talkative and annoying driver? We just want our meal.
My theory for the Remake trilogy is based on the idea that keeps getting repeated during every discussion video. The original ending of FF7 was a bad ending. The "good" ending of FF7 was that humanity/sentient life got wiped out so the planet could recover from the damage. Between that idea, learning about the history and suffering of the Gi, and the fact that the planet creates alternate worlds when things don't go EXACTLY to its plans just so it can feed off them like some kind of parasite, it makes me wonder if the Planet itself is going to be just a big a threat next game as Jenova and Sephiroth.
I feel like we actually don't even know the true horrors of the Weapons. The planet is just going to casually start throwing Godzilla level threats around because it is afraid, and I dread to see the level of destruction that entails. I genuinely believe the penultimate boss of the next game won't be Jenova, I think it might be Gaia.
The speculation is the best part of the Retriliogy.
As for the final scene, one could speculate that while Cloud is holding the clear materia its the real aerith (acts normal: cheering with the team, wind doesnt affect her dress, no dialogue, red notices her presence) and then Cloud pulls out the Black materia, (has a migrane ****warning) and then a different Aerith appears to him whether its his psyche or jenova, this is the off Aerith. I believe the biggest indicator of it being a different aerith is actually just the wind from the tiny bronco affects her dress which i found odd.
Personally i believe its just his psyche. To me Aerith is saying things that cloud wants to say to himself and hes just projecting aerith as a means to build confidence. But i mean i could absolutely see it as a jenova manipulation as well.
Multiple timelines... That's about life in general. Your choices will shape your reality aka. shift you from one timeline to another.
I don't like multiverse in games or movies when it is poorly made, so I'm bittersweet about the ending. It juste sounds like an excuse to save characters by pulling them from another world.
An example where I didn't mind it was Into / Across the Spiderverse. And I thought it worked because their personality and appearance are different from one another. So when one of them dies, you know his world is screwed, there is no option available anymore (like the world Miles's spider came from).
In Rebirth, since they are literally clones of each other, even though one dies in a dimension you don't feel any emotion because the first reaction you have is: "Oh well, there are still a million left... Who cares?"
I think the only way I could "accept" this is if all timelines are not real and just living rent free in Cloud's head, but I don't think it is. I didn't play the original btw, so nostalgia doesn't work on me, it probably influences things.
So around the 46 Min mark, Max brings up Red being manipulated by Jenova in OG. IIRC, that can end up as either Red or Barret, so possible Barret manipulation incoming as well?
1:10:25 And what if that materia ends up being the Pre-Emptive materia, the one materia that made the first strike on Sephiroth possible in Nibelheim.
The Sephiroth you saw for most of OG FF7 was Jenova. You didn't actually see the real Sephiroth, besides the flash back, until the Northern Crater. Jenova is known to take many forms, it's how she tricked the original Cetra and waged war against them. It's why you always fight a part of Jenova after running into "Sephiroth" in their journey, like on the boat to Costa Del Sol. In fact Cloud isn't even on Sephiroth's radar at all until Temple of the Ancients at the earliest and that's only because he got his hands on the Black Materia. This is what makes the scene in Chapter 2 of Remake so telling (all the fire after the bombing and Cloud seeing/hallucinating his home town)... because that conversation makes absolutely no sense and would never have happened with normal Sephiroth.
fantastic video! really enjoyed listening to it
Great stuff Nico and man oh man that is an incredibly revealing informational find about that onetime theme being analyzed by Max’s composer friend. Well done Max for such attention to detail.
The implications are big, especially when factored in with Aerith at the very end.
Also can anyone please tell me what the song is at 50:16? Thanks.
I dunno why, but, when you guys started talking about the ending of OG FF7, I thought to myself: these two should do a Podcast together.
Crazy crossover
I definitely think the game will start with the party going to the northern crater because in rebirth you get the nibelheim flashback and later in the game you return to nibelheim and when you revisit the northern crater at the end of part 3 everything goes down
One of the things that made ff7og my fav game of all time was the retcon factor. Every time you learn something new, it changes the entire story. It took years to break down the whole plot. I hope it takes us years to piece this "timeline" shit together. And then be thankful that the retcon doesn't involve Disney characters
I know this is late, and you probably want see this, but even tho we didn't get to see the death but I still cried for it, and it still him
It’s extra messed up looking at it from the perspective that he only saw the tear in the sky for the first time with Aerith in the world that was about to die, sephiroth “bestows the gift” of him being able to see it after but cloud probably thinks it’s a remnant of some kind of illusion from the world with Aerith (maybe) and Aerith potentially made Cloud believe she’s still alive in order to not break him but this can ultimately give an advantage to sephiroth by rendering him even more f*cked up in the end as a result
The tinfoil hats and chalkboards are coming out.
Time to stock up on string, corkboards, and pins.
@14:54; Here's my thought on that - Aerith showed him the tear in Zack's "Timeline", and we know from the original (In Disc 2, when Sephiroth is claiming that Cloud is just a Sephiroth clone that has Jenova cells that are making him look like Cloud) that Jenova cells can make up memories, can also make up appearances.
Even in ReBirth, Cloud's attack at Tifa is based on the knowledge that Jenova can shape-shift to fit another person's memories of the person they're imitating (In part because Sephiroth is letting to clear to Cloud to sow doubt about Tifa to him.).
So what I think ended up happening? Aerith isn't alive in either timeline, but much like how Cloud imagined himself as Zack at Nibelheim during the flashback he told them, and was able to tell stories about stuff he *definitely* shouldn't know about, because Jenova's pulling from Tifa's memories, and Cloud's Grunt Memories, and from Zack's Soldier memories..and how Cloud went from "Near Hooded Man" state before Tifa first found him to "Cloud the man who remembers Tifa, and the stuff that happened at the Nibelheim incident really well, but now has to go after he gets his money from the Avalanche mission.". Or in other words, Aerith imprinted onto Jenova, and now *Jenova* is stuck in charge of keeping up the Aerith illusion so that Cloud thinks she's there, essentially the way Jenova as Sephiroth had tried to claim that Jenova was doing wtih Tifa.
TL:DR; Aerith isn't alive, but Cloud's Jenova cells imprinted on Aerith so heavily because of the close contact they had throughout ReMake and ReBirth that the Jenova cells in Cloud are, in an attempt to prevent Cloud from RROD'ing, making an entirely illusionary Aerith based on how Cloud knew her...and is presenting that Aerith only to him, because nobody else is going to believe that Aerith is alive.
~~~~
As to why Aerith did that imprinting so heavily? That was her plan to get away from Jenova and Sephiroth - they think "Well, she's dead, she can't do anything anymore", but...Jenova-imprint Aerith *can* help Cloud the way that Aerith would have helped him, and Jenova hasn't caught on that Cloud's Jenova cells are the ones keeping her going to help Cloud in moments of heavy amounts of weakness, because Jenova can't control Aerith, and can't kill her, because she's in the Lifestream now...but Aerith may have planned to use Cloud's Jenova cell's illusion of herself to communicate past the Lifestream, to Cloud, in his moments of weakness.
Or to TL:DR; all of that - the timelines is a red herring for how Cloud can see Aerith, but the scar in the sky is happening because Jenova's cells in Cloud are trying to make sense to Cloud of how Cloud can even see Aerith - and is basing it on the time they were in Zack's timeline area and saw the crack in the sky there. And that's Aerith doing the imprinting on Jenova that *that* is a way that it looks like she's still alive that would make sense to Cloud.
@44:56; I still think that while it's Jenova, it's not Jenova on purpose - Just Jenova trying to handle the fact that Cloud has memories of Aerith, and because Jenova's trying to not have him crash before he delivers the Black Materia to Sephiroth at the ReUnion, Jenova isn't aware that Aerith is what they're reproducing through Cloud's cells (If it wasn't Cloud's cells doing the reproduction, then the others would be able to see her), and it's entirely possible if, because Sephiroth and Jenova were in the Lifestream together in the Crater, and now Aerith is in the Lifestream...she might be able to use that connection to Jenova to control Cloud's Jenova cell's representation of herself, from the Lifestream.
For Part3 I predict the first half of the game will wrap up every single mystery and loose thread introduced throughout Remake, Rebirth, AC, Dirge, all of it...
and THEN for the second half of the game, it's the OG timeline, except Cloud was an unreliable narrator in the OG, too, so a simple shift in perspective recontextualizes everything you ever thought you knew about FF7 for the last 30 years.
And that is going to piss people off. And people will say, no way! They wouldn't do that! That's going too far!
And that is EXACTLY the reason I think they're going to do it!
1:32:30 FF7 Revelation which either means The End or Cloud remembers everything and answers reveal.
1:14:09 I actually kind of feel a bit of an opposite direction with that instead of a flash bag after cloud has his awakening, he the buster sword probably to the desert to that spot places down there and pick up a new sword that he made called the fusion sword prototype mark one and then there’s just gonna be this weird quest line words, functionally, making the fusion sword better all the way to Mark seven
It also sounds like the story could end up repeating itself
On the 'Sepiroth jobs Jenova' idea. What if Sephiroth isn't killing Aerith, but Jenova taking her form?
Do we think Nomura is enough of a bastard to make us fight a Jenova disguised as Aerith with Cloud, Zack and Sephiroth?