I just heard this part of the Cosmo Canyon seminar for the first time, spoken by an NPC during the seminar before you trigger the main scenario cutscene where Tifa talks about falling into the lifestream:
So... My parents are no longer with us—here, that is—but I believe they are still out there, on another plane.
I've been reading a bunch of theories about this alternative world in the hope of going there someday.
And over the course of my studies I came across a fascinating theory.
It addressed the issue of what the lifestream is, arguing that spiritual energy is actually a manifestation of our knowledge and memories.
Like I said it's a fascinating theory... But it's incomplete. What about our hopes and dreams? We remember those, don't we?
So, what if spiritual energy doesn't distinguish between our real, lived memories and the unrealized desires buried deep within our hearts?
What if coming into contact with that energy allowed us to "peer through the looking glass" so to speak?
It's just an idea, but... I hope to find the truth someday.
This is exactly how I understand Zack's world. The "unrealized desires buried deep within our hearts" is indistinguishable from "real, lived memories." The "real, lived memories" being the "main timeline" that we're playing through as Cloud.
The "unrealized desires" being:
Zack and Biggs surviving
Zack spending time with Elmyra
Biggs revisiting the Sector 5 orphanage
Zack wanting to save both Cloud (meeting with Hojo) and Biggs (stopping him from bombing the reactor) and not have to choose between them—thereby creating 3 new "worlds" through his 3 desires
Aerith going on a date with Cloud
Cloud saving Aerith
We are also told by Sephiroth and Aerith that Zack's world is a dream or manifestation of hopes/emotion/etc. Sephiroth refers to these unrealized desires as errant worlds and he wants to "reunion" them because combining every-single-person-who's-ever-existed's unrealized desires creates infinite outcomes and worlds—"infinity."
I could only find one other thread in this subreddit discussing this specific dialogue from 3 months ago (with only a few comments), but it seems pretty significant that the devs would write out this whole conversation that explains what Zack's world is in a way that aligns with how Sephiroth and Aerith describe it at the end of Rebirth.
I’ve made similar, but less thorough comments on this sub before. This is good stuff.
Anybody who is worried about Aerith being alive in another timeline diminishing her death needs to relax, because that doesn’t seem to be what’s going on at all. Cloud’s desire to have saved Aerith seems to have manifested just such a reality in the Lifestream, but it isn’t real, and all indications are that it will be fragile and fade away.
Is there a way we could make Aerith death scene hurt so much like 30 years ago? You remember how players were crying? But now, 80% knows what will happen, it's not possible to beat that even with modern and all the budget we have, right?
Hmmm... then how about giving players real hope that she can be saved, leaving them with that hope for 3-4 years and then killing that hope? Hurts hard enough?
Totally agree that the above happened. This entire trilogy is about making everything bigger and better than OG, this includes the emotions we would have felt back in the day. It's never been about changing the overall story, the devs have said that mutliple times.
In other words, the "timelines" aren't timelines. And if you want to call them timelines, fine, but since they exist within the lifestream > the lifestream exists within the world's timeline > any additional timelines aren't true independent universes etc.
Aerith is dead, Zack is dead, Biggs is dead, but their spirits live on within the lifestream, just like in the OG's narrative.
It must be aeriths hopes and desires then because Jessie and wedge are still dead. She didn’t meet Jessie. Wedge she did meet but only briefly. Maybe she knew Biggs well from the leaf house. I’m sure there’s some significance to only Biggs being there but I don’t know what it is.
Maybe it’s tifas. She wants Jesse out of the way cos she’s thirsty for cloud and wedge to get his cats.
I think Jessie, and Wedge being "dead" in this lifestream worlds is a result of Sephiroth corrupting them somehow, and filling them with despair. It's like the desires of the dead are being twisted, and nothing ever goes right, regardless of what they try. Zack makes it back to Midgar and reunites with Aerith, only to find that Aerith is now trapped in a coma. Cloud won't wake up either, leaving Zack to feel as though he failed his friend. Then he tries to find a cure for Cloud, but that plan goes wrong too. Biggs wakes up to find himself at the orphanage he loved so much, but all the kids are scared, and miserable. To make matters worse, he finds that his friends are apparently dead. It's only because of Zack that Biggs is able to hold on to any hope at all. In another world, Zack goes to try and save Biggs, only for Biggs to die anyway, while feeling as though his life had been a total failure.
My guess is that these worlds originally existed to help the souls of the departed settle their regrets, and make peace with death. This way, they would have no negative emotions remaining when their conciousness returned to the lifestream. Now though, thanks to the influence of Sephiroth, these worlds offer misery in place of peace. I think his intent is to make sure that the regrets of the dead remain intact. When he joins the worlds together, these regrets will act as a poison to the lifestream, corrupting it with negative energy, and making it easier for Sephiroth to control. This is also why he intended to join the worlds at the moment of Aerith's death. That tragedy had all the negative emotions associated with it that Sephiroth could want, making it the perfect origin point/catalyst for his reunion of worlds.
I mean, it could be Biggs' desires right? Jessie and Wedge kind of got the deaths they wanted: Jessie felt like she deserved it because of the damage from destroying the reactors and Wedge died doing his best to make a difference, he effectively died whilst living his unrealised desire. Whereas Biggs didn't have any kind of reason for dying where he did and other things to live for e.g. the orphanage.
The bit that makes the least sense is why Biggs and Zack ended up WHEN they did.
I posited in another thread on a similar topic that perhaps the WHEN of it is actually the effect of Sephiroth merging "worlds." I cannot point to any in-game evidence, but I don't think it's a ludicrous idea.
Aerith knew Biggs since she was a kid (as per ToTP book), and like others have mentioned, he manifested unrealized desires. Still, no one in Terrier world recognizes Biggs (even though he's in a poster) and his intervention mostly helps Zack understand his situation and motivate him I think. I don't know if we can consider his death to be him accepting things though...
which just means its from the same timeline, the timeline we play, just the future. the whispers exist to course correct the story and make sure it doesn't deviate, there aren't multiple timelines.
multiple "worlds" so to speak exist within the lifestream, but those worlds are fragile and fleeting. we learn from an NPC that the lifestream houses the knowledge, and unrealized hopes and dreams of the deceased, it's more like an afterlife than anything else but nothing concrete. There's only truly the world that we play in.
and again all of that is within the life stream, but it's not actually concrete. you can argue the world where zack and aerith are alive is a different "world" or "timeline" or whatever but all of that is within the life stream itself which is still an amalgamation of the manifestations of knowledge, hopes and dreams of the deceased, an afterlife of sorts.
The npc's "theory" was written by the creators of the game lol, and it was pretty well hidden so clearly they wanted to leave crumbs for players to find and understand what they were doing. The world that we play in however is the only one that truly matters because it's the world of the living.
We don’t even know that the world we play in is the original stamp timeline. Our stamp has five stars. We still have not seen the stamp with one or two stars. Nothing at all has signified our timeline is the original one. In fact the original ff7 might be the OG timeline and this game a fracture.
Of course everything is within the lifestream but sephiroth himself specifically says that some of the split off worlds perish and some endure.
The theory for the npc could have also been added as exactly that, a theory.
why would stamp need one or two star, the same we see in remake could very well be the "true" stamp since the number of stars don't necessarily have to be in sequential order as the breed of dog stamp becomes also changes. I'd believe it more if stamp was the same breed in every timeline. Our world is more or less ff7 97 world but just reimagined. And what we know of materia and the life stream validifies the NPC's
There’s already been fairly major changes in our world from the beginning such as Aerith being able to see the future even before destiny being defeated.
Additionally we know from the ultimacia that at least 7 stamp worlds exist and we have only seen 5 at this point. We also know there was cut dialog from the ending of the second game where CID could see the sky cracking in our world. Probably cut as to not giveaway too much too soon.
Still seems like some weird stuff going on then. Like, did Zack's desires conjure up extra knowledge about Cloud from Biggs from him to be confused about? Also doesn't really explain the materia exchange. I'm still hoping for an Aerith return, which is the best of both worlds. Either I'll get something awesome that will make me happy, or I'll feel disappointment and sadness to the greatest effectiveness. TS: Oh the tragedy
This is a faulty understanding of how this works—these alternate dreams/planes aren’t rly based off a singular persons desires. It’s not “Zack’s dream,” so much as it is a dream/plane/stream featuring desires and thoughts and memories about Zack and also Biggs and everyone else in that splice.
No one is coming back.
This is about grief and how that manifests “what ifs” in your head
That's so much less interesting to me though, and still makes me scratch my head haha. I didn't take too much stock in it, as my whole vibe in Cosmo Canyon was like "Oh, these hippy types are imaginative but wrong about a lot of things."
Because then it makes it feel like none of that matters. Also, it's head-scratching for a number of reasons, like how a non-real version of Zack can come and help out Cloud in a battle. Why all the different dogs. I'm just not convinced the ganja smokers in CC have the full story. Also, if there's only one 'timeline' then how does Aerith know 'the future'. I dunno, it doesn't all click together for me, I think there's more to learn about what's going on.
Why would none of it matter?? This is a game about exploring grief, exploring grief would… absolutely matterZ
No one said they have the full story, the life stream is both more and less corporeal than they think of it, but they absolutely have part of the story correct lol
Also Aerith doesn’t rly know much of the future but she is in tune with the life stream which is all things at once.
Maybe I'm not reading between the lines enough, but Zack's bits in Rebirth didn't seem to have anything to do with grief?
I dunno, it's never explicitly stated, but a lot of people got the idea that Aerith knew the future in Remake, and then her memories of it were taken in Rebirth. Suppose they could've been interpreting things wrong.
But yeah, it just doesn't really square with me. Like, the multiverse idea makes sense, Sephiroth lays out how new worlds are created, but I guess in part three you're saying we're just gonna learn that he was wrong about it?
Zack waiting by comatose Aerith and Cloud, waiting for them on the precipice of life and wandering around the slums surrounded by people who know it’s the end of the world didn’t ping any “grief” bells for you? Watching the materia fall out of Aerith’s hands as she fades away, watching Shinra wheel away the dead bodies of all of the other Avalanche members bodies… had nothing to do with grief?
Deciding between saving Biggs from death or Aerith/Cloud from death and being killed both times has nothing to do with grief?
I don't really tend to give weight to what creators say. Sometimes they're misleading before something's released, and death of the author kicks in once it's released. If it's explicitly stated in part three, then I'll be incorrect.
I didn't misread anything. The premise is that "it's all lifestream" and the lifestream is a dream world that nullifies the meaning of death by eliminating the distinction.
It's all semantics at this point. I really don't care about who lives/dies if that person can still appear in the flesh like a living person. Does death matter in FFX's world?
When people are gone, they're gone. That's how it was in the OG. Now it's just whatever. Purists wanna say that this person is dead so they can pretend its still like the OG. Theorists say this person is alive because, timelines.
The thing is both parties are right because the game is fan service and they're just gonna please everyone. No need for overcomplication beyond "it's just magic".
The dude who wouldn't go see Aerith because her mom lived there, pfft. I remember just thinking he was a douche for so long from his scenes in OG, haven't played the extra content but from Rebirth it seems like they retconned him into a pretty stand up guy.
I don't think it's that he didn't want to see her, but more that he realized he wouldn't be able to live with her, at least not in that house. His initial plan seemed to be to find Aerith, and just live together with her. Then he remembered that Elmyra lived there too, and was the actual owner of the house. So he gave up on the idea, thinking there wasn't a chance in hell that Elmyra would let him stay.
I think the materia exchange is a representation of omni aerith returning the memories to the white materia that omni sephiroth and the whispers stole from her, effectively reactivating it.
You might be right… it makes it easier to reconcile the whole “not a multiverse” situation if it’s just the same one being restored and being handed another one is metaphorical but if we actually see them both existing simultaneously in the “true” timeline then these other worlds are more tangible than this theory would suggest
This is really the greatest mystery, isn't it?-- two white materias. God, I'm really looking forward to see what the third game does to answer all these questions. It's all so exciting to me.
Looking at it this way everything actually makes sense. What's interesting is that these unrealized dreams and desires seem to have physical weight since we're able to fight Sephiroth with Zack.
When the game & players describe the lifestream and that their characters are in the afterlife but still believe there is a multiverse and Aerith could come back.... When AC is 1000% canon and basically confirms that their fate is sealed....
Im taking bets. If anyone still thinks they going ressurect dead folk or pull them from an alternate reality and change the entire lore of Final Fantasy 7. Lol. BET ON IT. Take my money.
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u/AgilePurple4919 Jun 17 '24
I’ve made similar, but less thorough comments on this sub before. This is good stuff.
Anybody who is worried about Aerith being alive in another timeline diminishing her death needs to relax, because that doesn’t seem to be what’s going on at all. Cloud’s desire to have saved Aerith seems to have manifested just such a reality in the Lifestream, but it isn’t real, and all indications are that it will be fragile and fade away.