SPOILERS Final Fantasy 7 Remake SPOILER THREAD - CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT

[Serra]

Also in some wild speculation on my part, I wonder if Sephiroth's goal is to trick you into saving Aerith. From his perspective, he kills Aerith, Aerith returns at the end of the game to destroy Meteor with the Lifestream and stop his plans. But if he interrupts the summoning of Holy without killing her, letting Cloud think he saved her, then she's not there to propel the Lifestream on to empower Holy at the end, Holy fails and Meteor strikes, and Cloud knows that by saving Aerith he doomed the Planet, which is exactly the level of fucking with Cloud this Sephiroth seems to be going for. In the original game Sephiroth didn't care about Cloud at all for most of the game, in this one he's clearly his focus from the start and he's really trying to screw with him. Making him think he's saved Aerith only to find out it means everyone dies now is definitely Sephiroth-level manipulation.

I might be forgetting parts since it's been a few years, but in the original, Cloud was injected with Jenova cells after Nibelheim which made him susceptible to Sephiroth's influences. But everyone who survived Nibelheim was also injected. Sephiroth seemingly messing with Cloud might not be just to mess with him, but likely plays into his greater plan (perhaps like you mentioned, to ensure Meteor succeeds) and it might not be something that's uniquely happening to Cloud, just that we're only seeing the story from Cloud's perspective.

That said, given the way they've developed the story since Advent Children, you're probably right..

[Prothescar]

As i've been saying since last month it seems painfully apparent that Sephiroth is manipulating events from behind the scenes. Every single vision that Cloud is given is carefully curated, every vision given to the party as a whole is as well. In my mind it's all because Sephiroth already knows he will fail if things continue going as they are supposed to go. We're dealing with OWA Sephiroth, there is a clear distinction to be made there. He has seen it all and he doesn't want to fail again, thus, making the ragtag band of heroes believe that they will fail if they keep following fate's course is the most logical way of deterring the same future from happening again, giving Sephiroth a chance to win where he would otherwise assuredly fail.

[Anoat]

How the fuck you on a Final Fantasy forum and claim you played FF7 and not know who Zack is, lol

ok now I’m convinced you trolling and you did pretty good cause you got a couple people to write an essay detailing a huge plot point of the original game.

[Salodin]

How the fuck you on a Final Fantasy forum and claim you played FF7 and not know who Zack is, lol

ok now I’m convinced you trolling and you did pretty good cause you got a couple people to write an essay detailing a huge plot point of the original game.

Yeah honestly if you don't know who Zack is then I understand why this ending was confusing for you, but also I understand that you never played the original lol

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[Uzor]

I suggest you rewatch the final cutscenes of the game and pay extra special attention to the parts that dramatically rewrite the ending of Crisis Core. You only really have to notice two things:

A) Zack survives, which will inextricably attach Zack back into the plot in Timeline B, which will have immediate and far reaching changes in that timeline's story. Whether we get to see these events play out or not remains to be seen.
B) Pay close attention to the depiction of Stamp on the convenient bag of plot flavored potato chips and compare it to that which has been shoved into your face dozens of times throughout the course of the slog known as Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Timeline B's impact on Timeline A could be negligible, but regardless, there are in fact now at least two different timelines where the events of history play out completely differently and will lead to drastically different outcomes. The rest of your confusion would take more effort and time to discuss than I'm willing to put in at 4AM but maybe tomorrow. Nomura claims he will not be drastically altering the story in parts 2, 3, and beyond... but that remains to be proven, and ultimately makes the whole business with the whisperers even more fucking meaningless, ridiculous filler that had no business existing.

I'm pretty sure Zack surviving will have no impact on the story we play as he didn't survive in this timeline. Zack surviving is probably mainly displayed as a way to say that there are several timelines where different things happen, and the remake is detached from the "main" timeline due to defeating the Whispers, so we can't be sure what will happen or how the story will play out. So it's purely symbolic, similar to how the end credit say An unknown journey or whatever the hell it said.

It might even be a symbolism to say that what happens next is up to the players (perhaps actions impact the development of the story), although I doubt they'd diverge from the story that much.

[Anoat]

I kinda wonder if they are gonna go the FF8/Laguna route and like, when Cloud goes to sleep or get knocked out he wakes up in the Zack timeline and you play there for a bit, before popping back to the regular timeline. And eventually the stories will intersect.

[Koyangi]

I'm talking about the original FF7 here for a moment; I thought literally all versions of Sephiroth "existing" during your gameplay was Jenova creating an avatar per se of him, while she is trapped in the meteor crash site area iirc. So if anybody is being manipulated, it's not Sephiroth, but more specifically Jenova doing the manipulating, right? (so unless Cloud doesn't kill Sephiroth in this game's normal timeline in Nibelheim, the Sephiroth we've been seeing is just Jenova being able to do her manipulation already)

[Serra]

I believe Sephiroth was using Jenova cells to do it while trapped in the Lifestream/Northern Crater. I can't remember if he was creating copies or making the Nibelheim clones appear as himself though.

I remember reading a piece years ago that posited that Jenova, not Sephiroth, was the true villain of FF7 since Sephiroth essentially took over Jenova's original task, but I think you could just refer to them interchangeably.

[Prothescar]

I'm talking about the original FF7 here for a moment; I thought literally all versions of Sephiroth "existing" during your gameplay was Jenova creating an avatar per se of him, while she is trapped in the meteor crash site area iirc. So if anybody is being manipulated, it's not Sephiroth, but more specifically Jenova doing the manipulating, right? (so unless Cloud doesn't kill Sephiroth in this game's normal timeline in Nibelheim, the Sephiroth we've been seeing is just Jenova being able to do her manipulation already)

Not quite. Jenova has never been shown to exert any particular strength of will over Sephiroth in the same way that Sephiroth can exert physical domination over any of the Sephiroth clones (Cloud included). His physical existence throughout the story comes from him exerting his will through the Lifestream (which does not or can not fully absorb him) and through the various Sephiroth clones.

It's unclear how much power Jenova would have over Seph if she was conscious, but it is known that Sephiroth has complete control over Jenova's cells just as she used to before being bound by the Cetra. Ergo, the bodies you see are projections of himself from the Lifestream using physical Jenova cells, either those inside of sephiroth clones/soldiers/etc or actual pieces of Jenova's body.

He does have a physical body in the northern crater, but until he gets access to the black materia it isn't fully rendered which is why he has to project himself through his Jenova cell avatars.

[Koyangi]

Thanks for clearing that up. I do remember that now that you brought it up. It's just been so many years since I had played the original.

[Drai]

So since Zack is alive now, what are the odds they just brought him back to be a super puppet for sephiroth to use to hinder/spur on the party since he also was injected with Jenova cells in the basement lab? Or is his will just too much stronger then Clouds and he’ll shrug it off?

[Eurell]

Cloud had a lot of shit going on that made him more susceptible I think. He wasn't as strong as Zack, he had Mako poisoning, he was so fucked in the head that he didn't even know who he was. The inconsistencies in his life story made him question who he even was, so it was easier for Seph to influence him. Zack showed none of those issues in Crisis Core or even in the original CS we got in the nibelheim basement.

[Celeras]

How the fuck you on a Final Fantasy forum and claim you played FF7 and not know who Zack is, lol

ok now I’m convinced you trolling and you did pretty good cause you got a couple people to write an essay detailing a huge plot point of the original game.

Nah I'm serious lol. Shit was 23 years ago bruh. I remember vaguely now that I've been told (mostly the parents thing). "That guy from the flashbacks that is never really in the first game". Got it.

And I'm still going with the whisperers as an excuse for bullshit Nomura filler, no real timeline deviations in future games, and everything to the contrary being red herring.

[Zealot]

I disagree with your interpretation of what they are, but agree with your prediction of what will happen.

[Celeras]

I hope so, but I've recently been told that there is "7 seconds" in the Aerith death cutscene from where you see Sephiroth to when she is stabbed. So... its not looking good.

Meta knowledge Sephiroth and alternative timelines would be the most Nomura fucking thing that could happen.

[AoE]

I think you will be able to influence Aerith's death in multiple endings type deal to see what that entails but it won't be the happy ending some people think it will be. Of course the original ending wasn't really happy either until they decided they wanted to wave their dicks with AC.

[Roundelk]

I think they are going to raise our hopes up and actually have Aerith live but crush us even harder by killing off Tifa. Why not fuck with Cloud harder? I will admit if they do this I'm fucking done lol.

[Yabby]

They take my bae I will riot.

[Anoat]

I think they are going to raise our hopes up and actually have Aerith live but crush us even harder by killing off Tifa. Why not fuck with Cloud harder? I will admit if they do this I'm fucking done lol.

Don’t you put that evil on me Ricky Bobby!

[Lucavi]

So as of right now, who is taking OST of the year? This or Doom?