I had a revelation about the FF7 OG Ending and what it means for FF7Remake
Popular theories to be aware of
- A common understandings of the ending scene of OG Final Fantasy is that Meteor was stopped, and Aerith wakes up in lifestream.
- A lesser known theory is that Meteor was not stopped, humanity was destroyed, and Aerith still wakes up in the lifestream
- An even less popular one is that Meteor was not stopped, humanity is destroyed, and Aerith does NOT wake up in the lifestream. Rather, she is in Midgar.
I believe that the third one is correct. Here is why:
FF7 Opening and Ending - Aerith is in Midgar
After revisiting the opening & ending of FF7 I am pretty sure Aerith is in Midgar in both of them. The blue dots around Aerith's face were thought to represent the lifestream that she is now inside, but it looks like it is simply some glowing lights in a random side street in Midgar. See image:
Compare the screenshots above of FF7 OG with the opening of FF7 Remake: https://giphy.com/gifs/ifRa6PwOT6E6iz0QJL
As you can see, Aerith is not in the lifestream in these images, she's in Midgar.
What does this mean?
It means that potentially, revisiting timelines and altering the events of the future was always the intent of the creators of FF7 even in the original, or at least a possibly they intentionally left open to explore. It further supports the evidence based theory that humanity was destroyed at the end of FF7. Thus, the ending of FF7 OG was not of Aerith waking up in the lifestream, but rather of her waking up in the past or in an alternate timeline where the effects of the Meteor crash are known to the lifestream and are somehow communicated to Sephiroth, and later to Aerith. Somehow, the impact of Meteor into the planet caused this.
I also noticed that the line at the end of FF7 Remake that Sephiroth delivers to cloud supports this as well. He says to cloud, "I will not end, nor will I have you end". Yes, Sephiroth was defeated, but humanity was also destroyed (that's why the ending of FF7 showed only RED XIII and no humans, with nature covering Midgar). There are more hints that this is what happened throughout FF7, including but not limited to the conversation that the party had with Copenhagen where he states that Holy will determine who is and is not a danger to the planet, if the planet is to be saved. It seems that at the end of FF7 OG, the planet decided that keeping humans around was not in the best interest of the planet. And for some reason, although Sephiroth is trying to succeed this time, he also does not want humanity to be destroyed.
And it seems likely that this telling of FF7 has been the intent of the writers since the beginning, for the 1997 release.
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What are your thoughts?
Posted Apr 20, 2020, 4:19 PM UTC · edited
Yeah, this is more or less what I think. Having said that, I think the main story beats will STILL be kept the same - there will be slight variations that add up to perhaps a reduced Holy/Lifestream damage impact. I think that the resolution of this game will in fact be the one that leads to AC and Dirge, and that the OG "vision" resulted in everyone dying. It'll tie things up nicely and mean that THIS FF7 is actually the definitive one.
Also I think Zack is dead, Biggs and Jessie are still dead, all that stuff at the end was a glimpse of an alternate timeline to show us that we have the power to make some changes going forward. Given how close to perfect most of the game was, I think we're in for a similar re-experience in Part 2. It's clearly the development tack they're on, and adding all that stuff at the end doesn't change that their overall process seems to be one where they take the main story beats and expand. Given that they've moved straight into the production of Part 2, they're likely still on that same tip, as some of the pre-production work would have been done during Part 1's development.