Gaming Final Fantasy themes explored: SPOILERS INSIDE

[GinnyLyn]

Time for some cultured discussion. :bluesweat

I originally wanted to start this thread with the intent of discussing the purpose/focus of each game's symbol in relation to each game's storyline, but due to lack of time at the moment, I'll start with something a little easier.

In FFX, do you think the suave speaking Maester Seymour was really in love with Yuna?

[Guest Zeh]

[color=003399]Well, no.

From my point of view, he was pretty much using her. Maybe to make the people happy? I'm not sure.... it seemed to slip my mind, what i was gonna say >_< [/color]

[Angelus]

I dont think he loved her, I think he was just in love with what he could become.

[Charles]

I do not think that Seymour was capable of loving Yuna.

[spoiler]When his mother sacrificed herself to Sin, Seymour lost a huge part of himself--the only person he cared about. It ruined his outlook on life. If you think about it, growing up in Spira is a savage struggle. The inhabitants of the planet are very pessimistic. They live in a state of constant fear, losing ones they love and fearing for their own lives. It's an existence of helplessness and defeat. No one can ever [i]beat[/i] Sin. It's something everyone has to live with.

When Seymour lost his mother, he lost the maternal influence in his life; he lost warmth, compassion, [i][b]love[/b][/i], and security. He was just left with the fear and chaos of a world plagued with Sin--there is no room for love in that world. Thus, his primary motivation would be to recapture the love he once had, or erase his pain altogether by destroying the terrible world he grew up in.

Did you see the way Yuna and Seymour exchanged glances upon first meeting? Perhaps he saw something in Yuna--that reminded him of his mother. He saw a young summoner willing to sacrifice her own life to provide a temporary calm. That ignited something within him. Hatred, resentment, fascination, false love, who knows? But, there was a connection there.

Whatever feelings Seymour might have had for Yuna were not genuine--they were misplaced. Furthermore, they were overshadowed by his own selfish agenda. He wanted to become one with Sin so that he could destroy the world. But, couldn't his secret motivation be more intimate? Maybe his true purpose was to unite with Sin because it would bring him closer to his mother in a way.[/spoiler]

Seymour probably sees Yuna as an object, an object he can hold a false emotional attachment to, and a tool he can use to satisfy his own desires. I hope that some of what I said makes sense, heh.

Anyway, nice thread Ginny. It really made me think--probably too much. lol.

[Guest Zeh]

[color=003399]Whoa o_O

Everything you said actually makes good sence CWB, I'd have never thought of that...

[spoiler]Although what you said about Seymours mum, her sacrificing herself to Sin, i don't think thats how she became Fayth, unless i'm mistaken, which usually happens [/spoiler][/color]:bluesweat

[Sandy]

Okay, if I got the meaning of this thread correctly, we are supposed to ponder the "mysteries" or theories of the FF-games, right?

Well, I've been thinking about the whole basic plotline of FF7: I just don't get it!

I mean, [spoiler]Cloud is supposed to be Sephiroth's minion, but suddenly he isn't - a guy named Zack is! By coincidence, Zack is an ex of Aeris, girl that Cloud meets by accident, and who poses such a threat (why?) to Sephiroth that he has to slay her!

I got that Jenova was a result of some experiments of Shinra and Hojo, right? And Sephiroth was Jenova's and Hojo's son, but... how? And why?

Then there's Vincent Valentine, an ex-worker of Hojo: he worked with Sephiroth and Cloud/Zack (still don't know which one it was!), but what happened to him then? He just fell into a coffin and became a Dracula-wannabe?

Aeris's mother was an ancient, wasn't she? And the father was somekind of professor (forgot the name), but why did she pose such a threat to Sephiroth? Surely he wasn't just allergic to her flowers?![/spoiler]

So if people could clear the dephts of this game to me, so that I can sleep my nights in peace. Please? Oh, and of course some spirited discussion is always fun! :D

[GinnyLyn]

I have to leave for work in a few, so let me cover what I can and get the rest later:

[spoiler]There is a "cutscene" many people miss that explains the connection between Cloud and Zak. I believe you need to return to Shinra mansion and go to the basement again...2nd or 3rd disk, I forget which.
Anywho, all those stories Cloud told about how great he was were [i]wrong.[/i] Zak was the excited SOLDIER, Zak was the one that accompanied Sephiroth, and so on and so forth. Cloud was a weak level peon (and the Rookie that got sick on the way to Nibelhiem).
If I recall correctly (and someone can correct me if I didn't), Cloud and Zak were both caught in the utter desolation Sephiroth caused on Nibelhiem, and after Seph left, Hojo and some of his people showed up. They took both SOLDIERS back into the mansion to experiment on them with Mako. (Tifa was saved by her mentor, who took her away from Nibelhiem. Most of the other villagers did not survive.)
If you recall, there are large canisters--large enough to hold humans--in the basement of the Mansion. Cloud and Zak were both kept there, and bided their time until they could break free. I believe it was during this time that Zak told Cloud about his life, hopes, dreams, etc.
One day, the pair [i]did[/i] break free...but Hojo sent soldiers to capture "his specimens". Zak was mortally wounded, but Cloud survived and escaped. He took Zak's Buster Sword, his SOLDIER clothing, and his identity with him.
That's about the time Tifa found Cloud and brought him to Barrett, to help AVALANCHE out. [/spoiler]

And that's just for question one. ^___^ Not even all of it, really.

[Guest Zeh]

[color=003399]Actually, i think [spoiler]Zack actually died, he was plowed down by guns. Then.... Cloud got some sort of Amnesia, and thought he was Zack, so he lived Zacks life.[/spoiler]

I'm a bit rusty on my FFVII knowledge though.[/color]

[conpiracymonki]

[b][size=1]
Hmmm... (some of this might be wrong/theories)
[spoiler]Jenova isn't an Ancient. She/It's something that came from the skies and wiped out most of the Ancients. The Ancients stopped her or something, until Shin-Ra found it, and started doing experiments with it.
I don't think Sephiroth is Hojo's son either. For one, he looks and behaves nothing like him. The way I see it (and a lot of people here) is:
Lucrecia and Vincent fall in love.
They're having a baby.
Hojo appears, and Vincent leaves Lucrecia because she seems happy.
Hojo injects mako and Jenova cells or something into the baby before it's born. Vincent tries to stop this all, and he's experimented on instead, and put in a coffin. (That's probably why his limits are all him turning into different creatures... and his claw)
Hojo sees all his experiments like children, and Sephiroth being his most successful, obviously he's going to love him in his own twisted way. So um.. Sephiroth's not an Ancient.

If that's right, it's kinda sad how Jenova's child kills the last child of the Ancients..[/spoiler]
..sounds right to me, anyway
*shrugs and insists he still hates Aeris*[/b][/size]

[GinnyLyn]

As for the Aeris thing:

[spoiler]Aeris' mother was an Ancient that landed on Earth. She fell in love with a ShinRa person (scientist? not sure), and they had a child. The ShinRa guy knew he had to get his wife and daughter to a safe area, away from Hojo, because Hojo was determined to harness the power of the Ancients, or Cetra.
The Cetra also had mortal enemies, of whom JENOVA was one. Both races were so similiar that, when Hojo found the JENOVA specimen frozen in the Northern Continent, he was convinced that he had found an Ancient. He was wrong.
Because Sephiroth is part JENOVA (more on that later), it is in his genes to seek out and destroy the Cetra. That included Aeris.[/spoiler]

Now about JENOVA:
[spoiler]As mentioned above, JENOVA and the Cetra were both alien races that seemed remarkably similar. If memory serves, the Cetra went from planet to planet, bringing life and magic (Mako) to where they visited; they would then move on. Certain Cetra, however, wanted to settle, and this might have been the start of JENOVA's race--I am not certain.
As you know, the Cetra and JENOVA's race are enemies, plain and simple.
One day, long long ago, JENOVA crashed into the planet, causing a massive gash in the planet (that may be the crater you see in Northern Continent). The planet began to die from this wound, until the Cetra came to repair it. For some reason, this drained a lot of them and most of the Cetra died saving the planet. JENOVA was frozen into the ice.
Much much later, a scientist by the name of Hojo was learning about the Ancients/Cetra and their massive power, and wanted to use that power to make super strong soldiers for ShinRa. When he found JENOVA, he thought he had found a Cetra, which, as I mentioned, proved to be wrong.
He instantly began experimenting, placing fully grown humans into small cells injected with Mako and the essence of JENOVA (remember the scene in the Nibelheim reactor of the cell pods? Each one had a hose running from it to JENOVA.). When his specimens continued to mutate (making monsters) or die from the process, he decided to try something else.
He injected his pregnant wife Lucretia with JENOVA cells.
Sick, I know. His thought process was that, if the babe inside could develop with the JENOVA cells in its body, then the cell pods would no longer be necessary.
It worked. Sephiroth was born. And he turned out to be much more than Hojo could have ever predicted.
So in a sense, Sephiroth is JENOVA and Hojo's son.[/spoiler]

More later, I'm running out of time again.

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]Here's the way I remember things:

[b]About the Cetra[/b]
[spoiler]The Cetra, like Ginny said, went from planet to planet. Some of them, though, broke off and wanted to settle. The ancestors of these settlers is the human race.[/spoiler]

[b]About Jenova[/b]
[spoiler]Jenova is an alien life form, that crashed into the planet and caused the crater on the northern continent. It wounded the planet, but didn't kill it, and Jenova ended up frozen down in the crater.

After who knows how long, Professor Gast (a scientist studying the Cetra/Ancients) found Jenova, and took it back to his lab to study it. Before he could finish his research, though, Gast died, and passed on his work to Hojo.

Hojo started performing experiments that involved injecting humans with Jenova cells, and Mako. The monsters inside the Nibelheim reactor were a result of some of those experiments.[/spoiler]

[b]About Sephiroth[/b]
[spoiler]Vincent, who was then a member of the Turks, was going to have a baby with Lucrecia. Hojo wanted to try injecting Jenova cells and maki into the baby, but Vincent wouldn't let him. He ended up getting kicked out of the Turks, probably experimented on by Hojo, and locked in the basement of the Shinra Mansion.

Lucrecia had the baby, who was named Sephiroth. He ended up being more powerful than anything Hojo had "created" before. And, because he was injected with Jenova cells be Hojo, Jenova was his "mother," and Hojo was his "father."[/spoiler]

[b]About Aeris[/b]
[spoiler]Prof. Gast was, at one point, studying an ancient. He became involved with her, and they ended up having a baby--Aeris. Knowing that when Hojo took over, he'd try to find the baby to use in his experiments, Gast sent Aeris away to live with...um...what's her name, living in the Sector 5 slums... But, yeah, the person you find her living with at the start of the game. (No, that's not her real mother that she's living with, in case you were wondering).

So, since Aeris' mother was an Ancient, Aeris is a sort of half Ancient. Therefore, she can still use the White Materia (which I think her real mother gave her before she left) to summon Holy. And, her being able to summon Holy is the reason Sephiroth killed her, since Holy had the power to stop Meteor.[/spoiler]

[b]About Cloud & Zack[/b]
[spoiler]Cloud leaves Nibelheim to join SOLDIER, as does Zack. (Though he came from Gongaga). Zack makes it, but Cloud doesn't, and ends up becoming a Shinra soldier. So, in Cloud's story at Kalm, he's really the soldier on the truck that has motion sickness, and Zack is member of SOLDIER with Sephiroth. So, when they get to Nibelheim, they go up to inspect the reactor. Sephiroth freaks out about being "created" like the monsters in the capsule things. He goes back to the Shinra Mansion, down to the basement, and reads about Jenova, and Gast's and Hojo's experiments, learning how he was injected with Jenova cells and Mako.

So, in his rage, he torches the town, and goes back up to the reactor to get Jenova, which was being stored there. In the reactor, in the room with the capsules, Zack tries to stop him, but ends up getting mortally wounded, along with Tifa who's also there. He goes in, gets Jenova. While he's in there, one of the wounded Shinra soldiers out in the same room with Zack and Tifa wakes up. Guess what, it's Cloud! Zack tells Cloud to kill Sephiroth, so Cloud takes his Buster Sword.

Confronting Sephiroth in the room just before the capsule room, with the walkway over the big Mako pit, Sephiroth stabs Cloud right through the middle with his Masamune and holds him up in the air a bit. Cloud, though, being the total bad*** that he is, pushes himself back to the ground, lifts Sephiroth into the air, and tosses him off into the Mako pit below. All without the use of his arms. Cloud carries Tifa back to Nibelheim before he calapses, and Hojo ends up finding him and Zack. Hojo saves both Cloud and Zack, and experiments on them down in the basement of the Shinra Mansion. This is where Cloud gets injected with Jenova cells and Mako.

After they escape the Shinra Mansion, they head off to Midgar together. Zack tells Cloud about his life and how he's going to become a mercenary on the way there, so that's where Cloud gets all the info about Zack. Hojo had sent out some Shinra soldiers to capture them, though, and just before they get to Midgar they get caught. Zack ends up getting killed, but again, Cloud takes Zack's Buster Sword and kills the soldiers. This time, he keeps it, though, and heads into Midgar. Still messed up from the experiments that Hojo did on him, Cloud ends up thinking he is Zack, so that's why he's a mercenary at the start of the game.

So, when he gets into Midgar, Tifa finds him, and from there tries to get him to join AVALANCHE. After that is what you actually play through in the game.[/spoiler]

Well, that's how I remember everything. It may not be exact, but it's at least pretty close. Hope it answers some questions.[/color]

[GinnyLyn]

*claps mightily* Well done, Desbreko!

[spoiler]Though I want someone to tell me how Sephiroth isn't Hojo's real son, physically/genetically/whichever. I missed that part, apparentally. ><;

Granted, Hojo doesn't seem like the type, but both he and Lucretia were scientists. And yes, I know Vincent and Lucretia were in love, but...

Dang, where is that [i]excellent[/i] fanfic I read about this?

Anyways, I can see Hojo marrying Lucretia so he could use her to incubate his newest experiment. I would think that the JENOVA cells would transform Sephiroth far beyond what he would have been if he had stayed normal. Remember what happened to Hojo when he injected himself with JENOVA cells? The guy got freaking powerful freaking fast...the skinny, brains over brawn geeky type guy. So it doesn't take much imagination to see how Sephiroth could reach his level, even with Hojo as his biological dad.[/spoiler]

That's my take on it, anyway. ^___^;;;

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]Well, I'm not positive, but I don't think it ever actually says flat out who Sephiroth's real father is. Sure, Hojo says he's Sephiroth's father, but are you going to trust a madman who was hopped-up on Jenova cells at the time? :p[/color]

[Mitch]

[color=red] Dessy got most of what I was going to say, so I'm not going to repeat it all. :Gives dessy a pat on the back: Good job, slave. :)[/color]

[GinnyLyn]

Heh, weirdos, all of you. :p

OK, next up:
Have you ever really stopped to take a look at the logo for each game? How does this shift your idea of where the focus lies for the game?
(And how many of you sit and wait for the chance to say, "Oh, [i]that's[/i] what that logo means!" I know I do. :bluesweat)

[jitoya]

Like 10s logo (Yuna dancing on water)

[Guest Zeh]

[COLOR=003399]I found some pics of the logo's... just to help some people out :p

[img]http://evilgames.online.fr/fichiers/images/final%20fantasy/ffx%20logo.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.ffinsider.net/ffx2/pix/logo.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.ffinsider.net/ff11/pix/logo.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.brillianet.com/games/final_fantasy_viii/final_fantasy_viii_logo.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.returnergames.com/worldbooks/ff7/ff7logo.gif[/img]

[img]http://square-haven.com/games/gb/ffta/index/ffta-logo.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/UltimaFF/ff5logo.jpg[/img]


Now, what do you think?[/COLOR]

[GinnyLyn]

You left out both FF4 AND FF9. What's wrong with you, Tasis? :p :rotflmao:

[Guest Zeh]

[color=003399]I did, didn't I?

Well, it was only a quick search, i could of found the box for every game, with the logo on it.... but i didn't want to... i had to go for supper :p

Whats wrong with [i]you?[/i] Too lazy to go and look for them? ;)

[size=1]hahahahaha! o_O[/size][/color]

[GinnyLyn]

*laughs* Inded I am. I'm too busy downloading stuff for my FF music video project. :p

In FF4, we see Cecil (that's his name, right?) doing his weird pose. Easy here: the development of Cecil as a character is the focus.

FF5 I've never played. Shame.

FF6--oh DANG IT, Tasis, again! *helpless laughter*

OK, here we go: FF7.
Incidentally, it drove me nuts trying to figure out what the heck a comet had to do with the game. Third disk told all, naturally.
But the point is, you think (or I did, anyway), that the focus of the game is Cloud and his true identity. Instead, it seems to be your common struggle between good and evil, Aeris and her Holy Materia (the tiny thing above the comet) and Sephiroth and his Meteor (the large chunk of the logo).

FF8:
Love story, easy to see. What threw me is that those two are NOT actually in love when the game starts. I think that is why I didn't care for it. It didn't go like I thought it would.

FF9:
Big crystal. Crystal=Eidolon. And that was the big focus of FF9. Who controlled the Eidolons, where they came from, etc. To a lesser extent, this dealt with Garnet's past.

FFX:
I was a bit disappointed on this one, for some reason. Early in the game, we see the scene it is taken from, instead of looking back on the logo in retrospect and going, "Oh yeah, that's why it was there." I thought the story line was focused on Tidus, but really, it's all about Yuna, her quest to save her world (not about Tidus getting home), and what it meant to be a summoner. That last part was quite the shocker, too.

More later, I'm tired. :p

[Semjaza]

[IMG]http://www.ffinsider.net/ff1/pix/logo.jpg[/IMG]
Origins version of the FF logo.

[IMG]http://square-haven.com/games/ps/ff2-ps/index/ff2-logo.jpg[/IMG]
That's the Origins version of FF2. Don't have a good Famicom shot.

[IMG]http://www.ffinsider.net/ff3/pix/logo.gif[/IMG]
That's the Famicom version of FF3

[IMG]http://www.ffinsider.net/ff4/pix/logo.jpg[/IMG]
FF4...

[IMG]http://www.ffinsider.net/ff9/pix/logo.jpg[/IMG]
FF9 obviously.

[IMG]http://www.otakuboards.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=364939[/IMG]
Tiny FF12 one.

[Guest Zeh]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by GinnyLyn [/i]
[B]*laughs* Inded I am. I'm too busy downloading stuff for my FF music video project. :p [/B][/QUOTE]

[COLOR=003399]Ohhhh... sounds interesting...

[img]http://ffalpha.com/ff/images/ff1-box.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ffalpha.com/ff4/images/ff4_us-box.gif[/img]
[img]http://ff6.guide.free.fr/packaging/box-front_small.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~uw7g-bwr/sfc/ffantasy5/ffantasy5box.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.cdromshop.com/cdshop/img/p.711719416326.gif[/img]
[img]http://shenlongonline.net/ff8/ff8_us.jpg[/img]
[img]http://64.95.118.51/images/opti/37/ca/700566-601363-games_cover-resized200.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ffwa.org/news/images/2001/17%6011%602001/ff10-usboxart.jpg[/img]

Theres a few of them... [/COLOR]

[conpiracymonki]

[b][size=1]
Hehe. When I got FFVII, I couldn't make heads or tales out of the cover logo, lol. So many thoughts... I actually thought that it was an image of a planet and a moon at first, lol.
[/b]
Anyway, some semi-decent logos..[/size]

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]I guess I'll add a bit to what Ginny put down...

For the FFIV logo, that looks more like Kain to me, than Cecil, mainly because he's holding a spear, and not a sword. Kain is a rather big character in the game, though. (And also my favorite--first you like him because of his cool jump ability, then you hate him, then you learn that it wasn't his fault, and you like him again).

For the FFVI logo, we have some Magitek Armor. Reasonable enough, seeing as magic/Espers is the focus of the game.[/color]

[GinnyLyn]

Destroying the thread of discussion here, I want to backtrack to the parental figure of Sephiroth argument.

[spoiler]If the child had been by Vincent, as many suspect, and Lucretia's love is as strong for him as we think, then what are the chances that she would willingly give her unborn up to Hojo for experimentation? Quite unlikely. The babe could have been a promise to wreak vengance on Hojo for his parents, and as such, Lucretia would keep it safe until then.

As for Hojo being the father, it seems a bit more plausible, to me anyway. Lucretia loved him in the sense of fellow scientists, almost as if he were the mentor and she would do as he said. And yet the "affair" (if you will) with Vincent helped her to see a part of life she never experienced. But before she could explore this, Hojo got her pregnant, and in her shame, she turned Vincent away, so that he would never know (though he did find out).
If the babe was Hojo's, and Lucretia's newly increasing loathing for him is as I suggest on account of Vincent, then she would offer both the baby and herself to Hojo's experimentation. It would be like a form of self-destruction: because of her shame, pain, and despair at losing a better life, Lucretia no longer cared what happened. Hojo may have caught her at a moment of weakness when he injected her, but you can tell she cared about Sephiroth when you speak to her. Perhaps he was still a promise of vengance on Hojo, especially with his enhanced abilites. If he died, Lucretia would be cleansed of Hojo.

But the birth of Sephiroth was a death of a new life for Lucretia and Vincent (ah how dramatic).[/spoiler]

Anyways, that's my two cents.

Now back to the Logo discussion.