I have a theory about Ultimecia... (Major Spoilers)

[Felixrush]

First of all, I'd like to state that yes, I know it's been done before, and yes I know about the Ultimania. However, I'd like to point out two things.

1.) If the Ultimania was created by Tetsuya Nomura then I shall refuse to believe any information from it. Tetsuya Nomura didn't write the story of FF8. He only did the artwork. Apart from that, He can't write his way out of a paper bag. The proof is Kingdom Hearts. Quite frankly, I consider anything that man has written as invalid.

2.) This is not about 'alternate dimensions' or a discussion about how paradoxes make no sense or whatnot. This is a video game we're discussing not a religion or real life events. Let's keep it that way. The title of the series isn't called Final Fantasy for no reason.

anyway, you're free to call this bogus for whatever reasons but I do believe in the Rinoa = Ultimecia idea but I disagree in exactly how it happened. It's long though so if you don't care enough to read my long in-depth video game nerd explanations then don't bother.

Here is my theory:

Rinoa gains Edea's powers through transfer in Disc 1, in Disc 2 the player learns that most of the cast have lost their memories of the orphanage they grew-up in because of their use of GFs, Disc 3 we discover that Rinoa survives in her space suit because the ring Squall gave her (Griever GF inside), in Disc 4 Adel junctions Rinoa into her and after the fight Rinoa gains Adel's memories as a young sorceress. She specifically mentions this after that fight.

In the final fight, Ultimecia summons Griever, before that she speaks in the same fashion Adel did, and her and Adel's designs are parallel. Ultimecia wanted to 'change a certain event' in the past and that event happened before Squall's journey with Rinoa at the age of 17 since she was going to use Ellone to go back further into the past.

Now, since Griever is the strongest GF it could mean that it makes people lose their memories faster (this is speculation, feel free to call me an idiot here). Rinoa always had it on her after disc 2. Therefore, her memories could've been wiped away... and then all she would remember is being Adel.

Their dress style (look at Adel and Ultimecia side to side to see the similarities) and their speech are the same. The 'certain event' that Ultimecia wanted to change using Ellone was Adel being sealed by Laguna (in Ultimecia's mind, it would be herself being sealed by Laguna even though that's untrue), and after that was taking far too long she used herself(Rinoa) from the past (whom she thinks of as some nameless pawn) to unseal Adel. She wanted to time compress so that only Adel would exist as to get back at those who 'wronged' her (Adel) and she wouldn't have to deal with SeeD in the future.

Anyway, that's what I got from the plot. I'm not gonna argue about alternate dimensions, or how stupid paradoxes are (I actually liked this game's paradoxes such as Squall meeting his younger self).

If some Ultimania written by someone who didn't even write the story of FF8 and made Kingdom Hearts disagrees then that's fine. If you're offended that I'm speaking ill of Kingdom Hearts then that's fine. I apologize as well for my outspoken behavior.

Well, that's my theory. The game wasn't about alternate dimensions or paradoxes or whatever. I keep the game in context with the events of the story. Unlike the absurd 'Squall is dead' theory, which has no real proof besides some stab wound even though we see them dreaming of people in the past and Rinoa falling for Squall as early as disc 1. If anything, it makes perfect sense for Ultimecia to torture SeeD people because they've been a thorn on her side for years. I'd also like to point out that Doc Odine is speculating in regards to Ultimecia's birth in the future and even his time machine idea. He doesn't know for sure who or what Ultimecia the sorceress is, he is merely speculating given the information he has on her through his research and possibly to stroke his own ego.

[Carl the Llama]

Interesting theory, but I disagree, for a start, you claim that Squall's ring was the summon itself, but I beg to differ, if squall had this GF then why did he not use it during the game?

Secondly I would like to point out that Ultimercia is from the distant future, the game itself states this.

Thirdly, when Squall and Co go to Trabia, didn't they agree to keep a diary or some such? coupled with the fact that they are all seen through the camcorder at the final scene, Squall and Rinoa are together... hell, Ultimercia could even be a descendant of Squall and Rinoa's progeny (now waits for Seraphy to pounce on the idea).

Fourthly, why would Rinoa a girl who claims she feels like she gets left behind when the others have a focus, suddenly completely change from being kind and gentle to being ruthless and merciless, even if the Griever had wiped her memories out (which incidentally would also have wiped out the infected memories from Adell's childhood) she would still have the same personality as proven by the fact that Squall and Seifer are always at each others throats.

And finally the nail in the coffin for me is this: if Rinoa is Ultimercia and she lost her memories because she had Griever junctioned all this time, then why did she announce that she was going to junction Griever "unto herself" half way through the fight? wouldn't it make more sense to have this creature junctioned all the time so she can destory all the "kursed SeeD's".

[Jessweeee♪]

I've always felt that the events in FFVIII are always how things happened. There was no changing time. Since Squall & Co. had fought and defeated her knowing she was from the future, everyone just kept an eye out for that big bad Ultimecia that would inevitably come into existence. And so she was persecuted before she had a chance to do anything wrong. So she was just like "what you want Ultimecia, well fine then you get Ultimecia :nonono:" She was just an ordinary woman who became a sorceress during an era where they were more feared and hated than ever.

But that's just my opinion.

[Wolf Kanno]

I have good news and bad news for you. Nomura didn't write the Ultimania, but... Kazushige Nojima, the scenario writer for FFVIII, also happens to be the scenario writer for the Kingdom Hearts games. Take with that, what you will.

Anyway... to tell you the truth, while I can't say much about the original FFVIII Ultimania, the FF 20th Anniversary Ultimania File 1: Character Guide does have a few things to say about Ultimecia, but I'm afraid it is very little. For the most part, it just states what the game presented, Ultimecia is an evil Sorceress from the future, who possessed modern day witches so she can find Ellone and instigate Time Compression so she can live as a god. Here's a link to a wonderful translation by Squall_of_SeeD from theLifestream.net (http://thelifestream.net/final-fantasy-vii/ultimania-translations-final-fantasy-vii/6043/ffviii-ultimania-and-related-translations-continue/).

It should be interesting to note, that he also stumbled upon the fact that the Japanese version of Edea's speech in Deling is quite different, and gives a pretty nasty blow to the theory Ultimecia was driven mad through persecution in her time, which the English translation gives the impression of. Her Japanese speech is more general and mocking about the type of stories humans tell themselves to make them feel better.

The Ultimania basically states that Ultimecia's goal was to get Ellone, so she can travel farther into the past, in order to cast the spell for Time Compression. Rinoa also, never said she had Adel's memories, she only stated that after Ellone took both her and Ultimecia farther into the past (which was part of Laguna and Dr. Odine's plan) she simply stated her consciousness was sent back to a young Adel's body.



Rinoa: I...was inside Adel... The young Adel...
</pre>There is no mention of having her memories. Griever also never existed as a Guardian Force, until Ultimecia created it from Squall's mind in the final battle. Pretty much like how Gozer created the StayPuff Marshmallow Man from Vankmen's head in Ghostbusters 1. I'm afraid I can't agree with your theory.

[Felixrush]

Interesting theory, but I disagree, for a start, you claim that Squall's ring was the summon itself, but I beg to differ, if squall had this GF then why did he not use it during the game?

Secondly I would like to point out that Ultimercia is from the distant future, the game itself states this.

Thirdly, when Squall and Co go to Trabia, didn't they agree to keep a diary or some such? coupled with the fact that they are all seen through the camcorder at the final scene, Squall and Rinoa are together... hell, Ultimercia could even be a descendant of Squall and Rinoa's progeny (now waits for Seraphy to pounce on the idea).

Fourthly, why would Rinoa a girl who claims she feels like she gets left behind when the others have a focus, suddenly completely change from being kind and gentle to being ruthless and merciless, even if the Griever had wiped her memories out (which incidentally would also have wiped out the infected memories from Adell's childhood) she would still have the same personality as proven by the fact that Squall and Seifer are always at each others throats.

And finally the nail in the coffin for me is this: if Rinoa is Ultimercia and she lost her memories because she had Griever junctioned all this time, then why did she announce that she was going to junction Griever "unto herself" half way through the fight? wouldn't it make more sense to have this creature junctioned all the time so she can destory all the "kursed SeeD's".

It could be for the same reason as Solom Ring. He may not have had the right materials and he may not have realized it was a summon. Regardless, it had to be a summon if it saved Rinoa's life in the spacesuit. Why else would they put emphasis on it during that scene?

Rinoa obviously saw Adel's life when junctioned to her. There would be no other reason to mention such a statement. Squall and Seifer knew Garden and had grown up there a majority of their life, in this instance, Rinoa would lose her earliest memories (those of her life in Galbadia) and then she could only have Adel's memories to draw from, which she gained at 17. While that may not make a lot of sense, you have to recognize that GF's seem to specifically target a persons earliest memories (one of the reasons for the Orphanage scene) so Adel's memories wouldn't have been her earliest. It's obvious she saw Adel's memories, perhaps in a similar fashion that the party saw Laguna's (the only example we can really draw from), and I believe she did comment that they scared her.

[Carl the Llama]

It could be for the same reason as Solom Ring. He may not have had the right materials and he may not have realized it was a summon. Regardless, it had to be a summon if it saved Rinoa's life in the spacesuit. Why else would they put emphasis on it during that scene?

Rinoa obviously saw Adel's life when junctioned to her. There would be no other reason to mention such a statement. Squall and Seifer knew Garden and had grown up there a majority of their life, in this instance, Rinoa would lose her earliest memories (those of her life in Galbadia) and then she could only have Adel's memories to draw from, which she gained at 17. While that may not make a lot of sense, you have to recognize that GF's seem to specifically target a persons earliest memories (one of the reasons for the Orphanage scene) so Adel's memories wouldn't have been her earliest. It's obvious she saw Adel's memories, perhaps in a similar fashion that the party saw Laguna's (the only example we can really draw from), and I believe she did comment that they scared her.

The emphasis on the ring was - to me at least - her thinking of Squall, how can an inanimate object give her life? it could have been her Sorceress' powers that saved her, it could have been any number of the GF's she could have equiped at the time that saved her, imo, the focus on the ring was no more then her thinking of Squall at the time... just before he saved her.

Also how do you explain the fact that after Griever "saves her life" that he is not usable in the game?

Finally you did not explain that how she could have changed he perception from being Kind and Friendly to being Ruthless and Merciless. GF's wipe out memories, not a persons being. Like I said, what happened to the memories she made with Squall and Co. after Adell had junctioned her?

[Felixrush]

It could be for the same reason as Solom Ring. He may not have had the right materials and he may not have realized it was a summon. Regardless, it had to be a summon if it saved Rinoa's life in the spacesuit. Why else would they put emphasis on it during that scene?

Rinoa obviously saw Adel's life when junctioned to her. There would be no other reason to mention such a statement. Squall and Seifer knew Garden and had grown up there a majority of their life, in this instance, Rinoa would lose her earliest memories (those of her life in Galbadia) and then she could only have Adel's memories to draw from, which she gained at 17. While that may not make a lot of sense, you have to recognize that GF's seem to specifically target a persons earliest memories (one of the reasons for the Orphanage scene) so Adel's memories wouldn't have been her earliest. It's obvious she saw Adel's memories, perhaps in a similar fashion that the party saw Laguna's (the only example we can really draw from), and I believe she did comment that they scared her.

The emphasis on the ring was - to me at least - her thinking of Squall, how can an inanimate object give her life? it could have been her Sorceress' powers that saved her, it could have been any number of the GF's she could have equiped at the time that saved her, imo, the focus on the ring was no more then her thinking of Squall at the time... just before he saved her.

Also how do you explain the fact that after Griever "saves her life" that he is not usable in the game?

Finally you did not explain that how she could have changed he perception from being Kind and Friendly to being Ruthless and Merciless. GF's wipe out memories, not a persons being. Like I said, what happened to the memories she made with Squall and Co. after Adell had junctioned her?

Actually, she isn't equipped with any GFs for the portion of the story she is incapacitated. If she had them, she would've used them to rescue herself regardless. Her sorceress powers aren't ever focused on unless she's being controlled. Don't you find it even the least bit curious that after her oxygen ran out, the only thing emphsized was Squall's ring?

Finally, I'm not sure what you mean by 'the persons being' part. People grow into whom they are based on their experiences in the past. If her earliest memories faded away and all that was left was Adel's then all she could draw from would be Adel's memories.

I'm not entirely sure what could've happened to those memories. It's not implausible that the year long decades eventually wiped them entirely and left her with only Adel's memories.

I must admit, your point is valid. It doesn't make sense for her to not remember her friends and Squall. But here's something rather peculiar, Ultimecia seems to have some sort of vague manipulative fondness for Seifer yet when Squall dives into Rinoa's mind, Ultimecia's 'mental image' turns to him and is confused by his very presence. She outright asks him whom he is. This is the only time Ultimecia addresses him apart from his SeeD identity and sees Squall for himself and not as just another SeeD.

Do you not find it odd that Ultimecia goes so far as to junction herself in the final battle to a summon that, for the entirety of the game, figuratively represented Squall? I think it's possible that she didn't 'remember' Squall or the others but still 'loved' Squall so she fused with a GF that physically represented what he was all about to aid her in her misguided judgement.

[Wolf Kanno]

[QUOTE=KaiserDragon;3016503][QUOTE=Felixrush;3016436]
It could be for the same reason as Solom Ring. He may not have had the right materials and he may not have realized it was a summon. Regardless, it had to be a summon if it saved Rinoa's life in the spacesuit. Why else would they put emphasis on it during that scene?

Because Rinoa's final thoughts are about Squall? I'm with KaiserDragon here, this whole scene is simply just Rinoa thinking about Squall, the Ring is a symbol of Squall, she even is talking about Squall after her life support goes out, and when Squall is time jumping through Rinoa's memories, he winds up in her body at this time and encourages her to live. That's when she wakes up and sees the necklace, after Squall has been encouraging, her, I feel this pretty much shows that the necklace is meant to be symbolizing Squall, not just an arbitrary plot device that the game never goes into, but supposedly is connected to a major plot twist that neither source materials support, and is so subtly hidden in the plot that it takes careful interpretations of the scene to realize what is "really going on".


Rinoa obviously saw Adel's life when junctioned to her. There would be no other reason to mention such a statement. Squall and Seifer knew Garden and had grown up there a majority of their life, in this instance, Rinoa would lose her earliest memories (those of her life in Galbadia) and then she could only have Adel's memories to draw from, which she gained at 17. While that may not make a lot of sense, you have to recognize that GF's seem to specifically target a persons earliest memories (one of the reasons for the Orphanage scene) so Adel's memories wouldn't have been her earliest. It's obvious she saw Adel's memories, perhaps in a similar fashion that the party saw Laguna's (the only example we can really draw from), and I believe she did comment that they scared her.

She never comments on her feelings about Adel's memories, she simply stated she was in her younger body, before Ellone ejected her. I've already quoted the only thing she said about Adel above. The big issues with the theory, is that we have to assume Rinoa spent a significant amount of time in Adel's past to mistake them for her own memory, but the game kind of shows that the time traveler and their body experiences the past in the same amount of time. Whenever Squall and Zell are knocked out from time travel, they remain that way until whatever in the past is resolved, and comments from other party members suggest this is a significant amount of time. Whereas, Rinoa was briefly in Adel's past before Ellone pulled the plug. Hardly enough time for any significant amount of memories to be assimilated in Rinoa's body.

There is also the argument that this requires years of being in contact with Greiver to eventually wipe out her memories so she can confuse Adel's with hers. This still requires that you assume that Adel's memories are not targeted by the GF, which, without any really direct evidence to state contrary, is a bit far fetched.

The other issue here, is that Ultimecia is stated to exist in a future several generations from their own time, which means she's at least 60 to 90 years into the future, but the Ultimania, specifically states that Witches have normal human lifespans. So now we have to find evidence that explains how Rinoa could live that long to become Ultimecia.



Actually, she isn't equipped with any GFs for the portion of the story she is incapacitated. If she had them, she would've used them to rescue herself regardless. Her sorceress powers aren't ever focused on unless she's being controlled. Don't you find it even the least bit curious that after her oxygen ran out, the only thing emphsized was Squall's ring?

Finally, I'm not sure what you mean by 'the persons being' part. People grow into whom they are based on their experiences in the past. If her earliest memories faded away and all that was left was Adel's then all she could draw from would be Adel's memories.

I'm not entirely sure what could've happened to those memories. It's not implausible that the year long decades eventually wiped them entirely and left her with only Adel's memories.

Actually the scene leading up to Rinoa seeing the ring, is Squall's consciousness in her body, encouraging her to not give up. I also would like to think that if Griever saved her, the game would have made it more obvious with a flash of light or something. I think this is just a matter of willpower. Even with her oxygen gone, it would still takes anywhere from 6-8 minutes minutes for the lack of oxygen to irreversibly damage her organs and kill her. Losing consciousness would take less time and I feel Squall's encouragement simply kept her from doing so.


I must admit, your point is valid. It doesn't make sense for her to not remember her friends and Squall. But here's something rather peculiar, Ultimecia seems to have some sort of vague manipulative fondness for Seifer yet when Squall dives into Rinoa's mind, Ultimecia's 'mental image' turns to him and is confused by his very presence. She outright asks him whom he is. This is the only time Ultimecia addresses him apart from his SeeD identity and sees Squall for himself and not as just another SeeD.

Her fondness from Seifer stems from Seifer's dream to be a Knight that protects a Sorceress. He's just easily manipulated because of this, as well as him apparently recognizing who Matron was from the start. As for the scene where she asks Squall who he is, they are both occupying Rinoa's body at this time. It stand to reason, she simply felt Squall's consciousness enter Rinoa's body and was simply trying o figure out who this other consciousness was. Her reaction is really not far fetch.


Do you not find it odd that Ultimecia goes so far as to junction herself in the final battle to a summon that, for the entirety of the game, figuratively represented Squall? I think it's possible that she didn't 'remember' Squall or the others but still 'loved' Squall so she fused with a GF that physically represented what he was all about to aid her in her misguided judgement.

Using Scan on Griever suggests that Griever is simply born from Squall's interpretation of what he feels the Ultimate Summon is. The party kicked her ass, they finally kicked Griever's ass, why not Junction to him and see how they fare with their combined power?

I just don't think their is enough evidence to suggest R=U, on the contrary, I feel there is more evidence to suggest Ultimecia is simply what she appears to be, a psycho, power hungry witch from the future.

[Roogle]

I've always felt that the events in FFVIII are always how things happened. There was no changing time. Since Squall & Co. had fought and defeated her knowing she was from the future, everyone just kept an eye out for that big bad Ultimecia that would inevitably come into existence. And so she was persecuted before she had a chance to do anything wrong. So she was just like "what you want Ultimecia, well fine then you get Ultimecia :nonono:" She was just an ordinary woman who became a sorceress during an era where they were more feared and hated than ever.

Yes, I agree with this completely. I guess it can be hard to envision how time loops like Final Fantasy VIII come into existence. Consider this statement: a circle has no beginning.

[Felixrush]

Because Rinoa's final thoughts are about Squall? I'm with KaiserDragon here, this whole scene is simply just Rinoa thinking about Squall, the Ring is a symbol of Squall, she even is talking about Squall after her life support goes out, and when Squall is time jumping through Rinoa's memories, he winds up in her body at this time and encourages her to live. That's when she wakes up and sees the necklace, after Squall has been encouraging, her, I feel this pretty much shows that the necklace is meant to be symbolizing Squall, not just an arbitrary plot device that the game never goes into, but supposedly is connected to a major plot twist that neither source materials support, and is so subtly hidden in the plot that it takes careful interpretations of the scene to realize what is "really going on".

It's not arbitrary source material. You get to name the summon earlier than that. It also wouldn't technically be a plot device either. GFs were established since the beginning of disc 1. Having one save Rinoa in outerspace is far more consistent then a dues ex machina in which she can somehow breathe in outside space because she's being instilled with hope.


She never comments on her feelings about Adel's memories, she simply stated she was in her younger body, before Ellone ejected her. I've already quoted the only thing she said about Adel above. The big issues with the theory, is that we have to assume Rinoa spent a significant amount of time in Adel's past to mistake them for her own memory, but the game kind of shows that the time traveler and their body experiences the past in the same amount of time. Whenever Squall and Zell are knocked out from time travel, they remain that way until whatever in the past is resolved, and comments from other party members suggest this is a significant amount of time. Whereas, Rinoa was briefly in Adel's past before Ellone pulled the plug. Hardly enough time for any significant amount of memories to be assimilated in Rinoa's body.


I'm afraid you're mistaken on a few things here. First, Ellone had nothing to do with the ejection. In fact, she wasn't even there until afterwards so they could properly send the party into time compression after Ultimecia. Rinoa was forcibly put into Adel's past by Adel herself. Rinoa obviously looks into Adel's memories for an indefinite amount of time during a fight between Adel and Squall's party. Squall's party is forced to go easy otherwise Rinoa will die. Also, Rinoa was obviously not consciously active during the fight otherwise she most likely would've said more than just "aaah!".

Also, take a look at just how Rinoa is junctioned. There is an obvious Cross-symbolism in the way she's junctioned unto Adel. Typically, the cross is a symbol of suffering or eventual death. Rinoa doesn't suffer or die because of Adel so why was that symbolism there? Unless... she eventually did? I also find it a bit curious that the music being played when Edea's powers are transferred to her and when Adel junctions her was 'A Sacrifice'.


There is also the argument that this requires years of being in contact with Greiver to eventually wipe out her memories so she can confuse Adel's with hers. This still requires that you assume that Adel's memories are not targeted by the GF, which, without any really direct evidence to state contrary, is a bit far fetched.

It's not at all. Rinoa never took off the Griever ring, why would she? It's a symbol of her and Squall's love. That we can agree on. Again, I stated before, it would logically target her earliest memories (as shown by the entire orphanage twist in disc 2),and Adel's memories wouldn't be her earliest. It would be her own childhood that was targeted first.


The other issue here, is that Ultimecia is stated to exist in a future several generations from their own time, which means she's at least 60 to 90 years into the future, but the Ultimania, specifically states that Witches have normal human lifespans. So now we have to find evidence that explains how Rinoa could live that long to become Ultimecia.

Not to be insulting but I believe it is you who are making indefinite conclusions based off inconclusive proof. I apologize if that comes off as rude but I don't like being accused of doing something and then see the accusor do the same actions themselves. We're never told how far into the future Ultimecia exists. Even if it was 60 to 90 years, it honestly doesn't make it impossible to be Rinoa. There have been rulers of ancient civilizations that started out at the ripe young age of 81 and this was during the time the life expectancy limit was 35.



Actually, she isn't equipped with any GFs for the portion of the story she is incapacitated. If she had them, she would've used them to rescue herself regardless. Her sorceress powers aren't ever focused on unless she's being controlled. Don't you find it even the least bit curious that after her oxygen ran out, the only thing emphsized was Squall's ring?

Finally, I'm not sure what you mean by 'the persons being' part. People grow into whom they are based on their experiences in the past. If her earliest memories faded away and all that was left was Adel's then all she could draw from would be Adel's memories.

I'm not entirely sure what could've happened to those memories. It's not implausible that the year long decades eventually wiped them entirely and left her with only Adel's memories.


Actually the scene leading up to Rinoa seeing the ring, is Squall's consciousness in her body, encouraging her to not give up. I also would like to think that if Griever saved her, the game would have made it more obvious with a flash of light or something. I think this is just a matter of willpower. Even with her oxygen gone, it would still takes anywhere from 6-8 minutes minutes for the lack of oxygen to irreversibly damage her organs and kill her. Losing consciousness would take less time and I feel Squall's encouragement simply kept her from doing so.


Ah, but the game is known for subtle hints. Good ones too. Look at the orphanage cut scene, Irvine's actions after first meeting him were subtle hints about it. Most people didn't even catch that, which was why the orphanage scene 'came out of nowhere'. There were other little things too, Cid giving Squall the commander position and Squall's short comment 'don't act like you've decided this since my childhood' hinting at an event in the ending, the President of Esthar's actions in space hinting that it was Laguna, the 'silent man' showing up after Squall saves Rinoa from the chamber and allowing them to escape being Ward, etc.

The point is, subtlety was a definite strong suit in Final Fantasy 8. It had a lot of it and it was done quite well.


Her fondness from Seifer stems from Seifer's dream to be a Knight that protects a Sorceress. He's just easily manipulated because of this, as well as him apparently recognizing who Matron was from the start. As for the scene where she asks Squall who he is, they are both occupying Rinoa's body at this time. It stand to reason, she simply felt Squall's consciousness enter Rinoa's body and was simply trying o figure out who this other consciousness was. Her reaction is really not far fetch.

A valid point. I suppose I saw the scene differently. I assumed Ultimecia could 'see' Squall just as Squall saw her but perhaps I'm mistaken about that...


Using Scan on Griever suggests that Griever is simply born from Squall's interpretation of what he feels the Ultimate Summon is. The party kicked her ass, they finally kicked Griever's ass, why not Junction to him and see how they fare with their combined power?

I just don't think their is enough evidence to suggest R=U, on the contrary, I feel there is more evidence to suggest Ultimecia is simply what she appears to be, a psycho, power hungry witch from the future.

But why Squall's mind and don't you find it odd that she uses the same strategy Adel used? Junctioning with something else to make yourself stronger. Why not create more GFs like the ones you fight before you get to her? Why junction herself unto a monster that Squall has a fondness for?

And, actually, regardless of if she's Rinoa's future self or not, she's still a power-hungry psycho witch from the future.

[Wolf Kanno]

It's not arbitrary source material. You get to name the summon earlier than that. It also wouldn't technically be a plot device either. GFs were established since the beginning of disc 1. Having one save Rinoa in outerspace is far more consistent then a dues ex machina in which she can somehow breathe in outside space because she's being instilled with hope.

Considering the game has up until that point, spent a good 60 hours trying to hook these two up and Squall is giving encouraging words, and this whole event is followed by the two finally hooking up, I feel that a Deus ex Machina by the "power of love" is not far fetched here. Poor writing? Maybe, but hardly not far fetch for a game whose theme is Love. Don't forget this is also the game where believing in the memory and power of loved ones, allows you to exist in a Time Compressed world. ;)

The issue with Griever, is that if the ring contained Griever, how did Squall not know? How did he get the ring if it contained such an important plot element? If its laying dormant, why did it choose then to activate and help, and why does Rinoa neither remember or mention it? Why didn't it help her during the battle with Adel, Ultimecia, or Future Griever itself? The issue here, is that saying it was Griever, opens a can of worms of questions and plot holes. If it was so important to the plot, don't you think the game might have at least addressed some of these questions?


I'm afraid you're mistaken on a few things here. First, Ellone had nothing to do with the ejection. In fact, she wasn't even there until afterwards so they could properly send the party into time compression after Ultimecia. Rinoa was forcibly put into Adel's past by Adel herself. Rinoa obviously looks into Adel's memories for an indefinite amount of time during a fight between Adel and Squall's party. Squall's party is forced to go easy otherwise Rinoa will die. Also, Rinoa was obviously not consciously active during the fight otherwise she most likely would've said more than just "aaah!".

Also, take a look at just how Rinoa is junctioned. There is an obvious Cross-symbolism in the way she's junctioned unto Adel. Typically, the cross is a symbol of suffering or eventual death. Rinoa doesn't suffer or die because of Adel so why was that symbolism there? Unless... she eventually did? I also find it a bit curious that the music being played when Edea's powers are transferred to her and when Adel junctions her was 'A Sacrifice'.

Actually, Ellone does have to do with the ejection, cause the whole plan was to get Rinoa as the final Sorceress, so they can get Ultimecia to instigate Time Compression, so they can travel to the future.



Dr. Odine: You vant to go outside!? You vant to fisticuffs!? Ok, we continue ze story! Let's see... There is only one way to defeat Ultimecia. You must kill her in ze future. There iz nothing we can do unless we go to ze future. There is no way to jump to ze future under normal circumstances. But there iz still a way! It iz because Sorceress Ultimecia plans to compress time. Compressing time with magic... Vat good will it do for ze sorceress to compress time? There may be many reasons, but it doesn't matter. Let's just figure out vat Ultimecia iz up to. In order for Ultimecia to exist in this time, she must take over ze body of a sorceress from ze present. But ze machine must have a limit. Ultimecia probably needs to go back further in time to achieve time compression. Only Ellone can take her back further into ze past. Zat iz why she iz desperately seeking her. We must take advantage of Ellone's power. There are 2 sorceresses in our time. Sorceress Rinoa and Sorceress Adel. Of ze two, Adel has not awaken yet. Once regeneration is completed, neither Laguna not I will be safe. Sorceress Adel is probably in ze process of awakening inside of Lunatic Pandora. Ultimecia will want to possess Adel, if Adel wakes up. Zat vill be a horrible event. Adel iz a horrible sorceress. If Adel's consciousness wins over Ultimecia, Adel will first destroy this era. So we must use Sorceress Rinoa to inherit Ultimecia's powers. Zat's all for ze mission briefing. First, go to Lunatic Pandora. Ellone's probably being held captive inside, so rescue her first. Then kill Sorceress Adel before ze awakening process is completed. Now, we're left with Rinoa as ze only sorceress of this era. Then wait for Ultimecia to possess Rinoa. When Ultimecia arrives, it's Ellone's turn. Ellone will send Rinoa back to ze past with Ultimecia. Ellone will have to send Rinoa and Ultimecia inside another sorceress she knows in the past. Edea or Adel... Zat's up to Ellone. Once Ultimecia iz in ze past, she'll use ze time compression magic. We will see some influence here. I don't know vat kind of influence, but once Ellone feels it, she'll cut Rinoa and Ultimecia off from ze past. Rinoa will come back to this world. Ultimecia also goes back to her own world. Vat would be left is ze time compressed world. Past, present future will all get mixed together. You will keep moving through ze time compression toward ze future. Once you're out of ze time compression, zat will be Ultimecia's world. It's all up to you after zat.

also, here is the entire scene of Adel in Lunatic Pandora. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uINMgwdNEk) No mention of memories whatsoever, just that Ellone sent Rinoa and Ultimecia into a younger Adel she knew, so Ultimecia could start Time Compression.

The other issue here, is that according to the 20th anniversary Ultimania, Ultimecia was actually controlling Adel during the fight.




....Initially, she “connected” to Edea, and via her memories, pursued Ellone’s trail; during this time, Edea was aware of all that was taking place, but had no control until she was defeated by Squall’s team of SeeD, at which point her witch powers transferred to Rinoa; at that point, Ultimecia used Rinoa as her puppet to free the evil witch, Adel, who had been sealed in space. Controlling the revived Adel, she again sought to bring Ellone into her hands.

So chances are, that Rinoa is unconscious cause Ultimecia is running the show, and if she's dominating, then Adel is basically doing nothing at this point cause she's in the same boat as Rinoa. Of anything, she's probably having a psychic battle with Ultimecia and doesn't have time to corrupt Rinoa.

**************************************************************


It's not at all. Rinoa never took off the Griever ring, why would she? It's a symbol of her and Squall's love. That we can agree on. Again, I stated before, it would logically target her earliest memories (as shown by the entire orphanage twist in disc 2),and Adel's memories wouldn't be her earliest. It would be her own childhood that was targeted first.

Except Squall is able to hold onto his memories of Ellone, so there are limits to how much the memory wipe works. The other issue here, comes back to KaiserDragon's argument, how does Rinoa go from being her happy self and then turn into a bat-tit crazy time witch? Especially since we know VIII ends with her and Squall living happily ever after? Do you think Squall would just sit back and let Rinoa go crazy, especially after all the the crap she put him through in the first place? You now have to explain how if VIII ended "happily ever after" how does Rinoa become corrupt and evil without the intervention of friends? What happened to Squall and the rest of SeeD? How do they not figure out about Griever? How does Rinoa not figure it out considering she's a Witch who is absorbing all energy waves around her, not aware of the sentient energy force hanging around her neck?

While the game presents a moment for Rinoa to be corrupted, the ending creates several questions and plot holes concerning the logic of the theory.



Not to be insulting but I believe it is you who are making indefinite conclusions based off inconclusive proof. I apologize if that comes off as rude but I don't like being accused of doing something and then see the accusor do the same actions themselves. We're never told how far into the future Ultimecia exists. Even if it was 60 to 90 years, it honestly doesn't make it impossible to be Rinoa. There have been rulers of ancient civilizations that started out at the ripe young age of 81 and this was during the time the life expectancy limit was 35.

I don't mean to sound rude, and I'm sorry if I offended you, but remember the game explicitly states that Ultimecia is a sorceress that hails from several generations in the future.



Edea: ...I have been possessed all this time. I was at the mercy of Sorceress Ultimecia. Ultimecia is a sorceress from the future. A sorceress many generations ahead of our time. Ultimecia's objective is to find Ellone. She is after Ellone's mysterious power. I knew Ellone very well. Ultimecia is a very fearful sorceress. Her heart is filled with anger and hate. There was no way I was going to let Ultimecia get a hold of Ellone. The only thing I could do was... ...Surrender my soul to Ultimecia and lose control of my mind. That was the only way I could save Ellone. And the end result... Well, you all know. The sorceress that appeared in Galbadia was in fact Ultimecia...inside my shell...


Filled with endless anger, a dreadful witch from the far future. In her time, she used the apparatus known as “Junction Machine Ellone” — which allows one person’s consciousness to connect to that of another person — to possess witches of the world’s past as she sought to capture Ellone, who possesses a special power.

If a generation is a 30 year period and we know that Ultemicia hails from several generations ahead of time, that puts her in a time frame that can at the least be 60 years, but since the language of the statement is so ambiguous, she can also be 600 years into the future for all we know cause the game never gives a direct idea. Also, considering Ultemicia looks like this:
34862

34863

34864

I'd say she's one foxy and youthful looking 80 year old.

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Ah, but the game is known for subtle hints. Good ones too. Look at the orphanage cut scene, Irvine's actions after first meeting him were subtle hints about it. Most people didn't even catch that, which was why the orphanage scene 'came out of nowhere'. There were other little things too, Cid giving Squall the commander position and Squall's short comment 'don't act like you've decided this since my childhood' hinting at an event in the ending, the President of Esthar's actions in space hinting that it was Laguna, the 'silent man' showing up after Squall saves Rinoa from the chamber and allowing them to escape being Ward, etc.

The point is, subtlety was a definite strong suit in Final Fantasy 8. It had a lot of it and it was done quite well.

I'd say the fact most people missed the fact that the game hints to the orphanage scene is pretty much the opposite of subtitly done well. I'll give you Laguna but I don't feel the game was really subtle about that one. Actually I'd say Laguna and Squall's familial relationship was probably done well but the problem with these compared to the Griever/R=U theory you are proposing is that the game doesn't leave any questions unanswered concerning the Squall/Laguna twist. Ellone mentions that Raine had a child that Laguna never met, Squall is always Laguna in the dream sequences, and Kiros practically tells you if you talk to him on the Ragnarok before going to Lunatic Pandora by telling Squall he's lucky he takes after his mother and not his father.

It may not have been directly stated but the evidence is more than just flashing an image. Its not like Squall spends his time focusing on a journal for no reason, and this was the hint that he's tryin to remember his journalist father. The twist has a moment that acts as a definitive conclusion, its never stated outright but the evidence is very obvious when put together. The same happens in VII concerning Zack, which is a person who had been hinted too from the very beginning of the game, and was consistently hinted to throughout the first disc by both Aerith and Tifa. There is also the relationship between Relm and Shadow, which is hinted at strongly by not only subte hints in Thamasa when Relm is first introduced, but downright thrown in the players face thanks to Shadow's dreams and the one Relm has. Not to mention the subtle hint in the FMV opening in Anthologies where an Amano portrait of Relm is quickly flashed over Shadow, before he dices up some ghosts.

The point is, that each subtle twist has a major moment of confirmation. Whether its indirect like Squall/Laguna and Shadow/Relm relationships to the not so subtle one like Zack or Golbez being Cecil's brother. There is always an a-ha moment and R=U really doesn't have one. There is no major subtle hint in the game that truly confirms R=U, its always just another incredible subtle hint that involves major analysis of scenes or minor elements, to even realize its existence. Ultemicia never blurts out something to kind of give her true identity away, no special words for Squall, no major element of her past to explain how she went from being happy and in-love Rinoa to Time Compressed crazy bitch. Rinoa never mentions that Ultemicia's consciousness feels familiar, hell no one even stops to say she kind of looks familiar when they meet her face to face.

The other nail in the coffin here is the Ultimania's, which have confirmed a conncection between Squall and Laguna, as well as Shadow and Relm, but not one Ultimania I've found has ever given any evidence to support R=U. The only connection confirmed is that Ultemicia at some point in VIII gives Rinoa Sorceress power and then possesses her. There is no character relation tree that puts a "wink wink, nudge nudge" ? line between the two, like it does for the two sets of people with ambiguous relationships. The Ultimania's address a connection between Squall and Laguna, but nothing for Rinoa and any of the sorceresses. So in 12 years, SE has never once confirmed it, whereas other ambiguous plot threads have been acknowledged.


But why Squall's mind and don't you find it odd that she uses the same strategy Adel used? Junctioning with something else to make yourself stronger. Why not create more GFs like the ones you fight before you get to her? Why junction herself unto a monster that Squall has a fondness for?

And, actually, regardless of if she's Rinoa's future self or not, she's still a power-hungry psycho witch from the future.

Mostly cause he's the main character but a more fulfilling answer is that Squall has always been at every point of conflict with Ultemicia, so chances are she knows him better, there is also the notion that she referrs to him as the Legendary SeeD in the Garden Battle (course this could be a mis-translation since the Deling speech is so off) so its possible that Squall does hold some significiance in Ultemicia's time.

As for Junctioning with Griever being similar to Rina and Adel, I feel there are big differences. Rinoa is stretched out in a cross shape, and only her hands and feet appear to be fused to her, whereas most of her body is exposed (though I feel the theme of Sacrifice is more likely because Rinoa was sacrificed to Adel to be a power generator, and because rinoa is the sacrificial lamb for Odine's plan to reach Ultemicia by allowing her to do Time Compression by possessing Rinoa). Whereas, Ultemicia is mostly fused with Griever and only her torso is exposed with her arms crossed to cover her naughty bits. Adel spends the battle srawing magic and life out of Rinoa, whereas Ultemicia/Griever act as one being.

As for why she didn't creat more of them, there are two possible theories:

1) Her power does have some limitations and I do kind of feel that making a GF out of some mnemories and mostly thin air might take more oomph than one would expect, especially since Ultemicia most likely drained a good part of her power casting the spell for Time Compression. Chances are, the party may not have fought Ultemicia at full strength.

or....

2) Its all a stalling tactic cause Ultemicia's true goal is simply to create her Time Compressed world and Squall's party is simply trying to kill her before the spell is completed. Basically she's stalling until she can transform into her final form, where she's slurping up time and spcae like it was a milkshake, and getting stronger by the minute. Its not like her casle of Nightmares wasn't keeping the party busy either. She probably just needed a few more minutes for Time Compression to send her into god mode.

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I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I'm just proposing some issues with your theory for the sake of conversation. I'm more of an asshole in the FFXIII forum. ;) I've just done this song and dance before with other R=U theorist, and I'm happy you're willing to create a proper dialogue for discussion about your theory.

[Felixrush]

Considering the game has up until that point, spent a good 60 hours trying to hook these two up and Squall is giving encouraging words, and this whole event is followed by the two finally hooking up, I feel that a Deus ex Machina by the "power of love" is not far fetched here. Poor writing? Maybe, but hardly not far fetch for a game whose theme is Love. Don't forget this is also the game where believing in the memory and power of loved ones, allows you to exist in a Time Compressed world. ;)

The issue with Griever, is that if the ring contained Griever, how did Squall not know? How did he get the ring if it contained such an important plot element? If its laying dormant, why did it choose then to activate and help, and why does Rinoa neither remember or mention it? Why didn't it help her during the battle with Adel, Ultimecia, or Future Griever itself? The issue here, is that saying it was Griever, opens a can of worms of questions and plot holes. If it was so important to the plot, don't you think the game might have at least addressed some of these questions?

Memory loss. Aside from which, how would he know it was a GF to begin with? Squall mentions she should keep it as a good luck charm. And I don't believe the game would've done that. FF8 is unlike other final fantasies in this regard. They never even directly state that Squall is the son of Raine and Laguna but the player knows it with Kiros's words near the end.


Actually, Ellone does have to do with the ejection, cause the whole plan was to get Rinoa as the final Sorceress, so they can get Ultimecia to instigate Time Compression, so they can travel to the future.

That's sending Rinoa into someone else's consciousness. Though, I admit, I forgot the small scene in which Ellone brought Rinoa back before plunging her into Ultimecia's mixed consciousness of Adel's.


also, here is the entire scene of Adel in Lunatic Pandora. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uINMgwdNEk) No mention of memories whatsoever, just that Ellone sent Rinoa and Ultimecia into a younger Adel she knew, so Ultimecia could start Time Compression.

She would obviously have to have seen Adel's memories to even know she was inside a younger Adel. You contradicted yourself here.


The other issue here, is that according to the 20th anniversary Ultimania, Ultimecia was actually controlling Adel during the fight.

Ultimania's have often been incorrectly translated. Such as FF7's compilation info. The fan translation stated that Sephiroth was 'the strongest' FF villain, and later retracted that statement stating they were incorrect and that he was simply the strongest in the planet he resided in. Therefore, it's better to take these 'translations' with a grain of salt instead of complete truth. We honestly have no way to verify the integrity of the information or the translation of the information thereof.


So chances are, that Rinoa is unconscious cause Ultimecia is running the show, and if she's dominating, then Adel is basically doing nothing at this point cause she's in the same boat as Rinoa. Of anything, she's probably having a psychic battle with Ultimecia and doesn't have time to corrupt Rinoa.


And yet, Rinoa saw Adel's past self and not Ultimecia's.
**************************************************************


Except Squall is able to hold onto his memories of Ellone, so there are limits to how much the memory wipe works. The other issue here, comes back to KaiserDragon's argument, how does Rinoa go from being her happy self and then turn into a bat-tit crazy time witch? Especially since we know VIII ends with her and Squall living happily ever after? Do you think Squall would just sit back and let Rinoa go crazy, especially after all the the crap she put him through in the first place? You now have to explain how if VIII ended "happily ever after" how does Rinoa become corrupt and evil without the intervention of friends? What happened to Squall and the rest of SeeD? How do they not figure out about Griever? How does Rinoa not figure it out considering she's a Witch who is absorbing all energy waves around her, not aware of the sentient energy force hanging around her neck?

Squall didn't even recognize Ellone when he saw her twice in her adult form. Granted, the first time was brief, the second time however he didn't even realize 'Ellone' and 'Elle' were the same person. All he seemed to really remember was the emotional pain of Ellone mysteriously vanishing from the orphanage.

And the ending of FF8 was obviously made to be interpreted openly. Why else was there a scene in which Squall continuously sees Rinoa in a repeated memory in which her face is blocked off most of the time, Ultimecia is seen briefly, before we see Rinoa in space with her helmet break apart and the Griever ring fly off into space (an event that never even happened)? Obviously, it was meant for individual interpretation. Heck, I've seen no comments about the ending from this supposed 'Ultimania' which doesn't even have an official translation and can't be verified.


While the game presents a moment for Rinoa to be corrupted, the ending creates several questions and plot holes concerning the logic of the theory.

Final Fantasy VIII full ending (HQ remastered) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK6zp3ospF0#t=3m57s)

You quite clearly see how open the ending is right here. In fact, Ultimecia's face is the only one that stays for any significant length of time (however brief) besides Rinoa's. I also find it curious that nearly all the segments were short clips of when Rinoa was bewitched by Ultimecia apart from the clips of the friends.



I don't mean to sound rude, and I'm sorry if I offended you, but remember the game explicitly states that Ultimecia is a sorceress that hails from several generations in the future.



Edea: ...I have been possessed all this time. I was at the mercy of Sorceress Ultimecia. Ultimecia is a sorceress from the future. A sorceress many generations ahead of our time. Ultimecia's objective is to find Ellone. She is after Ellone's mysterious power. I knew Ellone very well. Ultimecia is a very fearful sorceress. Her heart is filled with anger and hate. There was no way I was going to let Ultimecia get a hold of Ellone. The only thing I could do was... ...Surrender my soul to Ultimecia and lose control of my mind. That was the only way I could save Ellone. And the end result... Well, you all know. The sorceress that appeared in Galbadia was in fact Ultimecia...inside my shell...


Filled with endless anger, a dreadful witch from the far future. In her time, she used the apparatus known as “Junction Machine Ellone” — which allows one person’s consciousness to connect to that of another person — to possess witches of the world’s past as she sought to capture Ellone, who possesses a special power.

If a generation is a 30 year period and we know that Ultemicia hails from several generations ahead of time, that puts her in a time frame that can at the least be 60 years, but since the language of the statement is so ambiguous, she can also be 600 years into the future for all we know cause the game never gives a direct idea. Also, considering Ultemicia looks like this:
http://forums.eyesonff.com/attachments/final-fantasy-viii/34862-i-have-theory-about-ultimecia-major-spoilers-250px-ultimecia_ff8.jpg

http://forums.eyesonff.com/attachments/final-fantasy-viii/34863-i-have-theory-about-ultimecia-major-spoilers-256px-dissidia_ultimecia.png

http://forums.eyesonff.com/attachments/final-fantasy-viii/34864-i-have-theory-about-ultimecia-major-spoilers-8ultimecia-b.jpg

I'd say she's one foxy and youthful looking 80 year old.

You're missing the point. The time stated is never definite and Odine's words barely hold any weight. We never see this Junction machine she supposedly uses and the fact the Orphanage has been rebuilt and is in the same geographic location leads me to believe that the 'far' future isn't really an absurd length of time long into the future. Hell, SeeD still exists during Ultimecia's time period. You would think this organization would have long died out if it was something like 600 years into the future. Also, these assumptions aren't based on much either. If anything 'far into the future' could mean 30 years or even less.

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I'd say the fact most people missed the fact that the game hints to the orphanage scene is pretty much the opposite of subtitly done well. I'll give you Laguna but I don't feel the game was really subtle about that one. Actually I'd say Laguna and Squall's familial relationship was probably done well but the problem with these compared to the Griever/R=U theory you are proposing is that the game doesn't leave any questions unanswered concerning the Squall/Laguna twist. Ellone mentions that Raine had a child that Laguna never met, Squall is always Laguna in the dream sequences, and Kiros practically tells you if you talk to him on the Ragnarok before going to Lunatic Pandora by telling Squall he's lucky he takes after his mother and not his father.

It may not have been directly stated but the evidence is more than just flashing an image. Its not like Squall spends his time focusing on a journal for no reason, and this was the hint that he's tryin to remember his journalist father. The twist has a moment that acts as a definitive conclusion, its never stated outright but the evidence is very obvious when put together. The same happens in VII concerning Zack, which is a person who had been hinted too from the very beginning of the game, and was consistently hinted to throughout the first disc by both Aerith and Tifa. There is also the relationship between Relm and Shadow, which is hinted at strongly by not only subte hints in Thamasa when Relm is first introduced, but downright thrown in the players face thanks to Shadow's dreams and the one Relm has. Not to mention the subtle hint in the FMV opening in Anthologies where an Amano portrait of Relm is quickly flashed over Shadow, before he dices up some ghosts.

The point is, that each subtle twist has a major moment of confirmation. Whether its indirect like Squall/Laguna and Shadow/Relm relationships to the not so subtle one like Zack or Golbez being Cecil's brother. There is always an a-ha moment and R=U really doesn't have one. There is no major subtle hint in the game that truly confirms R=U, its always just another incredible subtle hint that involves major analysis of scenes or minor elements, to even realize its existence. Ultemicia never blurts out something to kind of give her true identity away, no special words for Squall, no major element of her past to explain how she went from being happy and in-love Rinoa to Time Compressed crazy bitch. Rinoa never mentions that Ultemicia's consciousness feels familiar, hell no one even stops to say she kind of looks familiar when they meet her face to face.


Reflect on your...Childhood...Your sensation...Your words...Your emotions...Time...It will not wait...No matter...How hard you hold on...It escapes you...And...

Perhaps she was saying these things because time made her lose her memories?

I'd say Griever's entire existence in that fight, the junctioning, and then that quote really put up a lot of openness in the theory.


The other nail in the coffin here is the Ultimania's, which have confirmed a conncection between Squall and Laguna, as well as Shadow and Relm, but not one Ultimania I've found has ever given any evidence to support R=U. The only connection confirmed is that Ultemicia at some point in VIII gives Rinoa Sorceress power and then possesses her. There is no character relation tree that puts a "wink wink, nudge nudge" ? line between the two, like it does for the two sets of people with ambiguous relationships. The Ultimania's address a connection between Squall and Laguna, but nothing for Rinoa and any of the sorceresses. So in 12 years, SE has never once confirmed it, whereas other ambiguous plot threads have been acknowledged.

Except, fan translations shouldn't be taken literally. If they could make a mistake in translating FF7's information about Sephiroth then I don't see why they couldn't have made mistakes here as well. Was Square Enix ever asked to confirm or deny anything by any fans? If a 'nudge, nudge - wink wink' is what you're looking for then check out Squall's story in the first Dissidia, in which Ultimecia's equipment is a 'dark' version of Rinoa's and she asks to dance with Squall as a joke.


Mostly cause he's the main character but a more fulfilling answer is that Squall has always been at every point of conflict with Ultemicia, so chances are she knows him better, there is also the notion that she referrs to him as the Legendary SeeD in the Garden Battle (course this could be a mis-translation since the Deling speech is so off) so its possible that Squall does hold some significiance in Ultemicia's time.

As for Junctioning with Griever being similar to Rina and Adel, I feel there are big differences. Rinoa is stretched out in a cross shape, and only her hands and feet appear to be fused to her, whereas most of her body is exposed (though I feel the theme of Sacrifice is more likely because Rinoa was sacrificed to Adel to be a power generator, and because rinoa is the sacrificial lamb for Odine's plan to reach Ultemicia by allowing her to do Time Compression by possessing Rinoa). Whereas, Ultemicia is mostly fused with Griever and only her torso is exposed with her arms crossed to cover her naughty bits. Adel spends the battle srawing magic and life out of Rinoa, whereas Ultemicia/Griever act as one being.

If Ultimecia lived so long into the future as you claim it would be more logical to presume that history forgot him. Anyway, the problem isn't the junctioning itself but the obvious symbolism. Rinoa can't really be a 'sacrifice' if she survived.


As for why she didn't creat more of them, there are two possible theories:

1) Her power does have some limitations and I do kind of feel that making a GF out of some mnemories and mostly thin air might take more oomph than one would expect, especially since Ultemicia most likely drained a good part of her power casting the spell for Time Compression. Chances are, the party may not have fought Ultemicia at full strength.

If that was the case then why did she make those abominations out of GFs she acquired? The ones in her castle that you can fight before facing her.


or....

2) Its all a stalling tactic cause Ultemicia's true goal is simply to create her Time Compressed world and Squall's party is simply trying to kill her before the spell is completed. Basically she's stalling until she can transform into her final form, where she's slurping up time and spcae like it was a milkshake, and getting stronger by the minute. Its not like her casle of Nightmares wasn't keeping the party busy either. She probably just needed a few more minutes for Time Compression to send her into god mode.

It seemed more like Time compression was slowly desolving to me. She could've just gone into her final form and attempted to trounce the party or done it anytime before the party reached her.



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I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I'm just proposing some issues with your theory for the sake of conversation. I'm more of an asshole in the FFXIII forum. ;) I've just done this song and dance before with other R=U theorist, and I'm happy you're willing to create a proper dialogue for discussion about your theory.

Nah, it's all good. I just wish you hadn't wrote such long-winded paragraphs. I use to write a lot like that back at gamefaqs but later felt silly over arguing so much over video games. xD

But yeah, no reason to get moody over video games. I suppose this discussion is rather pointless since no matter what, it seems like both of us are set in our beliefs. I honestly cannot stand Final Fantasy 'ultimanias' and 'compilations'. Tetsuya Nomura seems hellbent on turning Sephiroth into some sort of Galactus-wannabe and I never liked that.

When I found out the compilation was nothing but fan translations, inaccurate ones at that since Sephiroth was never actually stated to be the strongest in all of Final Fantasy, I feel like it's faulty to rely on unless localized and therefore verifiable by all fans instead of believing whatever fan translators, whose credentials are questionable, say.

[Wolf Kanno]

Memory loss. Aside from which, how would he know it was a GF to begin with? Squall mentions she should keep it as a good luck charm. And I don't believe the game would've done that. FF8 is unlike other final fantasies in this regard. They never even directly state that Squall is the son of Raine and Laguna but the player knows it with Kiros's words near the end.

Yes, because Kiros pretty much says it and there are a number of signs and dialogue in the game to confirm it. Whereas Griever has one incredibly ambiguous scene that I feel within context was meant to be a symbol of Squall which made sense cause his consciousness was within Rinoa at the time. Even if Rinoa can't remember it cause of memory loss or being unconscious, Squall was there in spirit, yet he says nothing. Also, Squall and Laguna's relationship is intriguing, but not actually important to the plot, its indirectness can be forgiven cause its actually irrelevant to the plot, whereas the Griever issue sounds like a significant plot element if it saved Rinoa's life and eventually caused her to be R=U. That's not a plot element you leave minor breadcrumbs for only a select few to catch onto, that's a game changer and I feel only an amateur or a complete pretentious douche of writer would pull.

My real question here, is why does Squall have a ring when he always wears gloves? :confused:



also, here is the entire scene of Adel in Lunatic Pandora. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uINMgwdNEk) No mention of memories whatsoever, just that Ellone sent Rinoa and Ultimecia into a younger Adel she knew, so Ultimecia could start Time Compression.

She would obviously have to have seen Adel's memories to even know she was inside a younger Adel. You contradicted yourself here.

That I did, but considering we know that Ellone's powers work in real time(every Dream sequence is followed up by one not participant, usually Rinoa, mentioning the characters had been out for a good chunk of time, and yet Squall is only bale to experience very small parts of Laguna's life), means that Rinoa was most likely not able to see a good chunk of her memory, Ellone pretty much brought her back immediately so its very unlikely Rinoa saw anything significant. Even if she did, its surprising it goes completely unmentioned by her. As soon as the ordeal is over, Rinoa never mentions anything concerning her brief moment in time in Adel's past. Once again, if this was meant to be a significant plot element, I feel it would have been elaborated on much more than just one line of dialogue and then forgotten completely.



Ultimania's have often been incorrectly translated. Such as FF7's compilation info. The fan translation stated that Sephiroth was 'the strongest' FF villain, and later retracted that statement stating they were incorrect and that he was simply the strongest in the planet he resided in. Therefore, it's better to take these 'translations' with a grain of salt instead of complete truth. We honestly have no way to verify the integrity of the information or the translation of the information thereof.

If they were often incorrect, then I feel you could give more than one example, especially one that the fan-translators themselves found and later corrected. The other issue here, is that we know VIII has translation errors and localization changes of its own, so its not like we can even use the games own script as absolute truth either since by your definition its just as faulty.

There really is no reason to discount translation projects that are the result of a collaboration of die hard fans. Of anything, I feel that die hard fans are more likely to be as accurate as possible because they care more, as opposed to some guy who is simply hired for the job and this will be one of a stack of other translation projects they will be working on. Its not like SE has ever proofread or cared about the translation and localization quality of their games, as long as they are readable and bring in a profit. The series has been marred with translation errors and poor localization all the way up to FFX. So honestly, I would rather place my lot with the fans who actually have a reason to care about the accuracy of the work. Especially if they are willing to admit they are wrong, and mistranslated. I study Japanese, its a very ambiguous language based on context rather than definitive statementsm mistakes can happen.

Also, while the Sephiroth example you gave is from the Ultimania, I can elaborate further by pointing out its from the Creator Interview section of the Advent Children Ultimania (for smurf sake, I hate the Compilation , yet I know this how?) which was a statement made by Kitase if I remember correctly. The translation error comes from him saying "there is no one above Sephiroth on the Planet" and honestly, if you took this line out of the interview's context, it does sound like a definitive statement about Sephiroth in the FF mythos, but when put into the context of knowing the interviewer asked about how strong Sephy was in AC when he fought Cloud, it makes more sense that he meant in VII's world. I honestly don't see this as a major mistake. Even if Kitase did make such a statement, he's already admitted that VII is his favorite game he made, and he was the most gung-ho about the Compilation (Nomura just wanted to do a simple 30 minute video), and can only claim creative contribution on five FF titles out of 14 games total, so I don't think anyone but fans of VII would take his statement clearly. Even then, there has been other off the wall statements made by Kitase and Nojima that received such negative outcry that SE has never brought it up again, making some fans believe they have gone back on that statement.



And yet, Rinoa saw Adel's past self and not Ultimecia's.

Well yeah, Ultimecia is from the future and Ellone can't send people to the future. Also, Ultimecia was a consciousness inside Rinoa that was sent along with her. Its no different from when she would send Zell or Squall in the past, or when Squall's consciousness was sent into Rinoa's while Ultimecia was in control. Squall (and the player) didn't see Ultimecia's past,he simply heard her thoughts when she noticed him. It would be no different here.
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Squall didn't even recognize Ellone when he saw her twice in her adult form. Granted, the first time was brief, the second time however he didn't even realize 'Ellone' and 'Elle' were the same person. All he seemed to really remember was the emotional pain of Ellone mysteriously vanishing from the orphanage.

You forgot to mention that years went by, its not like little Squall's Elle looks like grown up Ellone. So its not just the GFs here. I know I couldn't recognize people I went to high school with, if I saw them now. :D

The issue here, is that other people like Quistis and Zell have completely forgotten about the orphanage yet Squall remember part of, the part that is most important.

You're avoiding my question though, if Rinoa was going to have her memories lost due to having a hidden GF on her and then have Adel's memories corrupt her personality, how is this possible if the last scene in the game clearly shows Squall and Rinoa kissing and implying a happy ever after? What happened to Squall and the others, how did they let Rinoa degenerate this badly and not done anything? I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't do anything, and this creates a major plot hole in the R=U theory that I feel should be addressed to establish this theory as canon.



And the ending of FF8 was obviously made to be interpreted openly. Why else was there a scene in which Squall continuously sees Rinoa in a repeated memory in which her face is blocked off most of the time, Ultimecia is seen briefly, before we see Rinoa in space with her helmet break apart and the Griever ring fly off into space (an event that never even happened)? Obviously, it was meant for individual interpretation. Heck, I've seen no comments about the ending from this supposed 'Ultimania' which doesn't even have an official translation and can't be verified.

The Ultimania doesn't touch on the ending (the actual VIII Ultimania doesn't even go into Adel or Ultimecia, most of the ubfo on these two come from the FF 20th Anniversary Character Ultimania, There is a scenario Ultimania as well but not much has been translated from that), mainly cause VIII's Ultimania is simply glorified strategy guide with a few extra tidbits of info (mostly on the machines and vehicles, and notable NPCs in towns) like explaining terms in the game, like what GFs are, what is a witch, and a short story by Nojima about Hyne and the origin of the Witches.

Personally, I feel that witnessing an event that didn't happen in the game, right there disqualifies taking anything in the first five minutes of the ending as having significant plot value, pretty much null and void. Squall is obviously hallucinating, not getting the 2001: Space Odyssey treatment, o some kind of divine revelation. I just don't think its significant evidence. So what if it flashes an image of Ultimecia's final form for a split second that is so fast if you blinked, you would miss it, that doesn't make it significant, that makes it so obtuse, only someone really bored would pick up on it. As for her getting some airtime in the ending, its in the middle of you watching a massive collage of every cast member from every cutscene in the game. Hell the first of these flash images in the ending is of Seifer but it doesn't mean its actually significant.

I feel that Squall is simply trying to hold onto something. He's trapped in the remnants of Time Compression and needs to find something to hold onto in order to get back to his own time. Course, having spent most of the game as a loner, he doesn't have the strong emotional bonds to do this easily and simply is struggling to remember Rinoa while the warping of time and space takes its toll on his psyche. That's the reason why he flashbacks to so many events in the game, its because Squall is practically watching his life flash before his eyes. Its not until he finds his most honest feeling about Rinoa, which was when he thought she died in space, that Squall makes his connection, and what do you know, two seconds later in the video, Rinoa shows up to comfort him from the post-TC existence he found himself trapped in. That's my interpretation of the beginning sequence at least.

I feel the ending was suppose to be ambiguous but I feel it still correlates to the games theme of love and opening up to others, and I feel the end finds a bizarre way of getting a last little moment of throwing the theme into the players face. At least it sticks with you.

This is pretty much the Evangelion ending all over again, except no one is claiming that Gendo Ikari is an older Shinji who has time traveled into the past to affect the Instrumentality Project, and change the future.



Final Fantasy VIII full ending (HQ remastered) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK6zp3ospF0#t=3m57s)

You quite clearly see how open the ending is right here. In fact, Ultimecia's face is the only one that stays for any significant length of time (however brief) besides Rinoa's. I also find it curious that nearly all the segments were short clips of when Rinoa was bewitched by Ultimecia apart from the clips of the friends.

Incorrect, all the Rinoa footage is simply from the cutscenes and the closest you get to "possessed Rinoa" is the FMV sequence where Rinoa tries to place the Odine Bangle on Edea. Most of the footage of Rinoa that isn't the warped Dance party intro, are just a hodge podge of the sequences from the games opening FMV to Squall rescuing Rinoa at the Garden Battle and the Sorceress Memorial. There is no footage of possessed Rinoa. Just events from the games story, that go along with the clips with other cast members. Hell, several of the scenes from the opening FMV involving Rinoa never actually happen in the game, and some like I pointed out are just other story events with new backgrounds, like the Squall/Rinoa embrace at the sunset which is based off the cutscene when Squall frees Rinoa from the cryo-freeze.



You're missing the point. The time stated is never definite and Odine's words barely hold any weight. We never see this Junction machine she supposedly uses and the fact the Orphanage has been rebuilt and is in the same geographic location leads me to believe that the 'far' future isn't really an absurd length of time long into the future. Hell, SeeD still exists during Ultimecia's time period. You would think this organization would have long died out if it was something like 600 years into the future. Also, these assumptions aren't based on much either. If anything 'far into the future' could mean 30 years or even less.

I wouldn't discount Odine, he is the games premier specialist on Sorceress' and considering he spent time with Edea who does have significant knowledge on Ultimecia and was the first to mention she hails from the future. Odine uses the term "many generations", generations are a span of 30 years (give or take) but he also mentions its many, implying more than one generation in the future. The least amount of time is going to be 60, and its claimed by the most reliable sources in the game. I really can't see how much more proof is needed than that.

As for the Orphanage, you forget it shorly transforms into a nightmare structure as soon as the party gets to the beach. The whole structure changes into a ghastily structure of pipes and chains, they are also moving through Time Compression itself so its very likely the Orphanage they are going through is the one of their memories as kids, which changes into reality when they reach the outskirts of Ultimecia's castle.

For the SeeD's, its all members of the Whie SeeDs, who are such a secret faction even the regular SeeDs didn't know they existed until the events of the game. I can see that kind of secretive organization lasting much longer than a mercenary force. Century old secret orders are not even uncommon in our world.
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Reflect on your...Childhood...Your sensation...Your words...Your emotions...Time...It will not wait...No matter...How hard you hold on...It escapes you...And...

Perhaps she was saying these things because time made her lose her memories?

I'd say Griever's entire existence in that fight, the junctioning, and then that quote really put up a lot of openness in the theory.

Considering Rinoa is not involved at all in the casts childhood, I would argue her words would hold more meaning if we were debating if Ultimecia is Edea. Rinoa does not have to be in the final battle party, so her lines don't necessarly apply. I would argue that her lines are just a very poetic way of speaking her own regret and fear of death.

I still say Griever's existence is simply Ultimecia intimidating the party and trying to unnerve Squall, while stalling for time.



Except, fan translations shouldn't be taken literally. If they could make a mistake in translating FF7's information about Sephiroth then I don't see why they couldn't have made mistakes here as well. Was Square Enix ever asked to confirm or deny anything by any fans? If a 'nudge, nudge - wink wink' is what you're looking for then check out Squall's story in the first Dissidia, in which Ultimecia's equipment is a 'dark' version of Rinoa's and she asks to dance with Squall as a joke.

This would literally be a visual example (its literally a relationship chart), nothing you can screw up there,by translation. It outright confirms Squall and Laguna's relationship. As for fans asking, R=U is popular on the net, but from what I've gathered, its a minority. Chances are most fans wouldn't ask about it.

Her weapons are named after Rinoa's but they are not dark versions of them. Ultimecia borrows a lot from other elements in the game. She has Pulsar Shockwave, most of her attacks are named with a Knight motif, her Ultimate Attack is a play on Squall's Renzoken, even being called No Heart as opposed to Lionheart. Squall also confirms to Ultimecia that he has to go back and meet up with someone (a reference to his famous promise to Rinoa). Once again, no one blinks about this as though we should allude that Ultimecia is Rinoa. Hell Ultimecia states her only goal with Time Compression was to create a world of frozen time where everyone would worship her as a god.

Yet the real issue here is that Ultimecia isn't the only character whose weapon set-up is either wrong or a reference to another character in Dissidia, most of the villains have altered weapon set-ups since they were never confirmed in the original. Terra uses Rods and Staffs despite them being one of the few types of weapons she can't equip in VI, Kefka's Ultimate weapons are Flutes and Harps despite the weapon type not being in VI, all of Tidus' weapons are actually Wakka's weapons, and a good chunk of the specialty weapons are made up. I'd say they wanted to include Rinoa in some capacity into the game much like Wakka and the best way is to incorporate their weapons.



If Ultimecia lived so long into the future as you claim it would be more logical to presume that history forgot him. Anyway, the problem isn't the junctioning itself but the obvious symbolism. Rinoa can't really be a 'sacrifice' if she survived.

I'm mostly trying to stay open to the idea she may be closer to their time, but I do believe Ultimecia is from a distant future by a few hundred years.

Sacrifice doesn't mean it has to be killed, but really, she was technically sacrificed by Seifer, since Adel is slowly killing Rinoa and is only prevented from doing so by your parties intervention.

If we're going by symbolism though, Greiver is said to come from Squall's mind in the Scan. Assuming she didn't create Griever in thin air but simply summoned him, wouldn't the Scan info imply Griever is with Squall and not Rinoa? Especially when the game states that GFs rest in a section of a persons bran which causes the memory loss? The theme itself that plays when Ultimecia junctions with Griever is Maybe I'm a Lion, which the title clearly points to Squall whose symbol is the lion.

Going back to Rinoa being Junctioned to Adel, she's not really in a cross figuration, of anything, she's being worn like a necklace and is more of a Y shape than anything. The other issue here is that the cross has a different meaning in Japanese than it would in Western Cultures, so its very likely the imagery is more meaningful to us than the writers and artists.



If that was the case then why did she make those abominations out of GFs she acquired? The ones in her castle that you can fight before facing her.

The bosses you face in her castle are simply monsters and they could have been there all the time as guardians of her fortress.If she did create them, she could have done it long before the party ever got there. She does rule the future.



It seemed more like Time compression was slowly desolving to me. She could've just gone into her final form and attempted to trounce the party or done it anytime before the party reached her.

She's killing time to get Time Compression going, only in her final form do they mention she's absorbing time and space through the Scan spell. She even implies to the party when they meet that Time Compression is incomplete. I feel this is the safe bet here. Besides, if the whole point of this was to get powerful enough to avoid death, then it seems silly to me to piuck a fight with a hlaf completed spell when she could have simply ran away, and tried again later. Besides, when characters are killed in battle they get absorbed into time, and I don't think that would be going on if Time Compression was winding down. The truly mind freaky stuff doesn't even begin until after Ultimecia is killed anyway.


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Nah, it's all good. I just wish you hadn't wrote such long-winded paragraphs. I use to write a lot like that back at gamefaqs but later felt silly over arguing so much over video games. xD

This is normal for me. You should have been here in the old days when I used to debate about FFVII. Those threads went on forever...


But yeah, no reason to get moody over video games. I suppose this discussion is rather pointless since no matter what, it seems like both of us are set in our beliefs. I honestly cannot stand Final Fantasy 'ultimanias' and 'compilations'. Tetsuya Nomura seems hellbent on turning Sephiroth into some sort of Galactus-wannabe and I never liked that.

From what I've read, Kitase is more to blame, though Nomura has been the one to deny that Sephiroth is sympathetic and should be thought of as pure evil. Nomura certainly has a hand in writing the 10th Anninversary VII Ultimania but in actuallity, he hasn't done much for the Compilation. Mostly AC and Last Order, the rest of his contribution is just character designs, but yeah, Sephiroth is an overrated villain.

[Felixrush]

Yes, because Kiros pretty much says it and there are a number of signs and dialogue in the game to confirm it. Whereas Griever has one incredibly ambiguous scene that I feel within context was meant to be a symbol of Squall which made sense cause his consciousness was within Rinoa at the time. Even if Rinoa can't remember it cause of memory loss or being unconscious, Squall was there in spirit, yet he says nothing. Also, Squall and Laguna's relationship is intriguing, but not actually important to the plot, its indirectness can be forgiven cause its actually irrelevant to the plot, whereas the Griever issue sounds like a significant plot element if it saved Rinoa's life and eventually caused her to be R=U. That's not a plot element you leave minor breadcrumbs for only a select few to catch onto, that's a game changer and I feel only an amateur or a complete pretentious douche of writer would pull.

My real question here, is why does Squall have a ring when he always wears gloves? :confused:

Except FF8 thrives off being as subtle as possible. Many people compare it to other FFs in which those games make it a point to tell the watcher what the plot is. FF8 doesn't do that. FF8's plot and ending is specifically made not to do that. You're never even told the full effects of Time compression and heck, there's never any real confirmation about Julia being Rinoa's mother either but we know that it is true.


That I did, but considering we know that Ellone's powers work in real time(every Dream sequence is followed up by one not participant, usually Rinoa, mentioning the characters had been out for a good chunk of time, and yet Squall is only bale to experience very small parts of Laguna's life), means that Rinoa was most likely not able to see a good chunk of her memory, Ellone pretty much brought her back immediately so its very unlikely Rinoa saw anything significant. Even if she did, its surprising it goes completely unmentioned by her. As soon as the ordeal is over, Rinoa never mentions anything concerning her brief moment in time in Adel's past. Once again, if this was meant to be a significant plot element, I feel it would have been elaborated on much more than just one line of dialogue and then forgotten completely.

Again, FF8 was about subtlety. Notice how there are lots of, including in the ending, seemingly 'insignificant' moments.



If they were often incorrect, then I feel you could give more than one example, especially one that the fan-translators themselves found and later corrected. The other issue here, is that we know VIII has translation errors and localization changes of its own, so its not like we can even use the games own script as absolute truth either since by your definition its just as faulty.

Uh, no. Professional translators are obviously more reliable than a bunch of fans, with questionable credentials, giving answers on things.


There really is no reason to discount translation projects that are the result of a collaboration of die hard fans. Of anything, I feel that die hard fans are more likely to be as accurate as possible because they care more, as opposed to some guy who is simply hired for the job and this will be one of a stack of other translation projects they will be working on. Its not like SE has ever proofread or cared about the translation and localization quality of their games, as long as they are readable and bring in a profit. The series has been marred with translation errors and poor localization all the way up to FFX. So honestly, I would rather place my lot with the fans who actually have a reason to care about the accuracy of the work. Especially if they are willing to admit they are wrong, and mistranslated. I study Japanese, its a very ambiguous language based on context rather than definitive statementsm mistakes can happen.

FFX's 'mistranslations' usually had to do with certain aspects in Japanese culture that couldn't properly be translated into Western cultural beliefs. The ambiguity didn't help. Thus they changed some lines. And if you're gonna argue FF7's translation then let me stop you there by pointing out that was entirely Sony's fault as they did the translation.


Also, while the Sephiroth example you gave is from the Ultimania, I can elaborate further by pointing out its from the Creator Interview section of the Advent Children Ultimania (for smurf sake, I hate the Compilation , yet I know this how?) which was a statement made by Kitase if I remember correctly. The translation error comes from him saying "there is no one above Sephiroth on the Planet" and honestly, if you took this line out of the interview's context, it does sound like a definitive statement about Sephiroth in the FF mythos, but when put into the context of knowing the interviewer asked about how strong Sephy was in AC when he fought Cloud, it makes more sense that he meant in VII's world. I honestly don't see this as a major mistake. Even if Kitase did make such a statement, he's already admitted that VII is his favorite game he made, and he was the most gung-ho about the Compilation (Nomura just wanted to do a simple 30 minute video), and can only claim creative contribution on five FF titles out of 14 games total, so I don't think anyone but fans of VII would take his statement clearly. Even then, there has been other off the wall statements made by Kitase and Nojima that received such negative outcry that SE has never brought it up again, making some fans believe they have gone back on that statement.

And I can similarly argue about the ambiguity of Japanese regarding such statements as you have done. People go off-the-wall on the percieved meaning behind the words and they may be completely out of context. Fan translators do not seem to recognize the significance of context when making translations. They translate things to their most literal meaning. A professional translator typically doesn't make such obvious mistakes.



Well yeah, Ultimecia is from the future and Ellone can't send people to the future. Also, Ultimecia was a consciousness inside Rinoa that was sent along with her. Its no different from when she would send Zell or Squall in the past, or when Squall's consciousness was sent into Rinoa's while Ultimecia was in control. Squall (and the player) didn't see Ultimecia's past,he simply heard her thoughts when she noticed him. It would be no different here.

Except we're speaking of memories and they're not relative to time in this respect.
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You forgot to mention that years went by, its not like little Squall's Elle looks like grown up Ellone. So its not just the GFs here. I know I couldn't recognize people I went to high school with, if I saw them now. :D

We're speaking of the only person he loved as a child, not random high schoolers. Squall didn't even remember her real name, just the nickname he had for her.


The issue here, is that other people like Quistis and Zell have completely forgotten about the orphanage yet Squall remember part of, the part that is most important.

He doesn't remember her though. You're forgetting that he didn't even recognize Ellone in Laguna's past. That shows profound memory loss.


You're avoiding my question though, if Rinoa was going to have her memories lost due to having a hidden GF on her and then have Adel's memories corrupt her personality, how is this possible if the last scene in the game clearly shows Squall and Rinoa kissing and implying a happy ever after? What happened to Squall and the others, how did they let Rinoa degenerate this badly and not done anything? I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't do anything, and this creates a major plot hole in the R=U theory that I feel should be addressed to establish this theory as canon.

Except, you're ignoring the earlier scenes of the ending. You're saying there are 'holes' based off only your interpretation of the ending. Your interpretation isn't an absolute. And the ending showing that things are fine after Ultimecia's defeat doesn't mean that they always will be in the future. Heck, the entire last segment could just be a dream. It's open enough of an ending to be considered such.



The Ultimania doesn't touch on the ending (the actual VIII Ultimania doesn't even go into Adel or Ultimecia, most of the ubfo on these two come from the FF 20th Anniversary Character Ultimania, There is a scenario Ultimania as well but not much has been translated from that), mainly cause VIII's Ultimania is simply glorified strategy guide with a few extra tidbits of info (mostly on the machines and vehicles, and notable NPCs in towns) like explaining terms in the game, like what GFs are, what is a witch, and a short story by Nojima about Hyne and the origin of the Witches.

All of which was included in the original game. A 20th anniversary Ultimania is obvious cash cows to manipulate peoples appreciation for past final fantasies. After so many years, you can't expect the creators to be keeping tabs on a story they completed decades ago and are obviously prone to error. In fact, this is what I hate most about Ultimania's. There could be a mistake in translation and the fan dumb will argue it's 'irrefutible truth' when the creators could just be lazily adding info that contradicts the original game's information. If it contradicts the original game then it's obviously wrong and the creators have made an error but no one sees it that way.


Personally, I feel that witnessing an event that didn't happen in the game, right there disqualifies taking anything in the first five minutes of the ending as having significant plot value, pretty much null and void. Squall is obviously hallucinating, not getting the 2001: Space Odyssey treatment, o some kind of divine revelation. I just don't think its significant evidence. So what if it flashes an image of Ultimecia's final form for a split second that is so fast if you blinked, you would miss it, that doesn't make it significant, that makes it so obtuse, only someone really bored would pick up on it. As for her getting some airtime in the ending, its in the middle of you watching a massive collage of every cast member from every cutscene in the game. Hell the first of these flash images in the ending is of Seifer but it doesn't mean its actually significant.

Again, your personal interpretation is not absolute fact. Aside from which, the image with Seifer was from the cut scene where he pushed Rinoa towards Adel. For all we know, Squall may be dreaming, he may be witnessing the original timeline, or he could even be losing his memories. There's even an image of Squall with a black hole for a face near the end before the scene with Rinoa's spacesuit shattering in space. For all we know, he could be witnessing a world in which he ceased to exist or never did in the first place and it wouldn't even be stretching any elements of the plot for that to be accurate.


I feel that Squall is simply trying to hold onto something. He's trapped in the remnants of Time Compression and needs to find something to hold onto in order to get back to his own time. Course, having spent most of the game as a loner, he doesn't have the strong emotional bonds to do this easily and simply is struggling to remember Rinoa while the warping of time and space takes its toll on his psyche. That's the reason why he flashbacks to so many events in the game, its because Squall is practically watching his life flash before his eyes. Its not until he finds his most honest feeling about Rinoa, which was when he thought she died in space, that Squall makes his connection, and what do you know, two seconds later in the video, Rinoa shows up to comfort him from the post-TC existence he found himself trapped in. That's my interpretation of the beginning sequence at least.

Key word being interpretation.


I feel the ending was suppose to be ambiguous but I feel it still correlates to the games theme of love and opening up to others, and I feel the end finds a bizarre way of getting a last little moment of throwing the theme into the players face. At least it sticks with you.

The ending could just be there to give the player a false sense of happiness. Now why would they do that? Do you think it unlikely? Why did they show Laguna proposing to Raine only to see the image of her gravestone a few moments later? That obviously wasn't a happy ending.


This is pretty much the Evangelion ending all over again, except no one is claiming that Gendo Ikari is an older Shinji who has time traveled into the past to affect the Instrumentality Project, and change the future.

No, instrumentality was about moving on from loss and being able to change your life at any given point based solely on your attitude towards yourself. It wasn't really shown to have much, if anything, to do with time travel. But that's my interpretation so take it with a grain of salt.



Incorrect, all the Rinoa footage is simply from the cutscenes and the closest you get to "possessed Rinoa" is the FMV sequence where Rinoa tries to place the Odine Bangle on Edea. Most of the footage of Rinoa that isn't the warped Dance party intro, are just a hodge podge of the sequences from the games opening FMV to Squall rescuing Rinoa at the Garden Battle and the Sorceress Memorial. There is no footage of possessed Rinoa. Just events from the games story, that go along with the clips with other cast members. Hell, several of the scenes from the opening FMV involving Rinoa never actually happen in the game, and some like I pointed out are just other story events with new backgrounds, like the Squall/Rinoa embrace at the sunset which is based off the cutscene when Squall frees Rinoa from the cryo-freeze.

Actually, the cut scene with Seifer is an image after he pushed Rinoa to Adel, the cut scene with Rinoa was when she was turned dizzy thanks to Edea's hair magic, and the other cut scenes have events that supposedly never happened. In all honesty, they could have embraced in the sunset after Rinoa rescues him. Rinoa dancing around in the field of flowers and other such things also could've happened. It's all meant to be open to interpretation anyway. We could be looking at the original events before Ultimecia's time mess-up for all we know.
But again, it's all interpretation, and specifically geared for individual interpretation.


I wouldn't discount Odine, he is the games premier specialist on Sorceress' and considering he spent time with Edea who does have significant knowledge on Ultimecia and was the first to mention she hails from the future. Odine uses the term "many generations", generations are a span of 30 years (give or take) but he also mentions its many, implying more than one generation in the future. The least amount of time is going to be 60, and its claimed by the most reliable sources in the game. I really can't see how much more proof is needed than that.

Again, he has absolutely no proof of anything he says about her. If anything, he's just stroking his own ego. The fact SeeD even exists in her timeline leads me to believe that Odine overshot how far into the future it was. The landscape hasn't even changed, neither has the orphanages look after apparently being rebuilt.


As for the Orphanage, you forget it shorly transforms into a nightmare structure as soon as the party gets to the beach. The whole structure changes into a ghastily structure of pipes and chains, they are also moving through Time Compression itself so its very likely the Orphanage they are going through is the one of their memories as kids, which changes into reality when they reach the outskirts of Ultimecia's castle.

No, they get forced into time compression, fight a bunch of sorcercesses all over time, and then they seem to land into the future, in which the orphanage seems to have been rebuilt in the relatively same decourium. The party exits the orphanage to find Ultimecia's castle and the chains as well as dead SeeDs.


For the SeeD's, its all members of the Whie SeeDs, who are such a secret faction even the regular SeeDs didn't know they existed until the events of the game. I can see that kind of secretive organization lasting much longer than a mercenary force. Century old secret orders are not even uncommon in our world.

The White SeeDs make even less sense since it's a bunch of kids growing up together on a ship. Unless they took in more people, it couldn't be possible. Even then, you would expect some changes if it's really an absurdly long time in the future, not just with SeeD but with the overall structure of the world. Doc Odine doesn't even give you a definite time on how far into the future it is. It's all speculation.
********************************************************************



Considering Rinoa is not involved at all in the casts childhood, I would argue her words would hold more meaning if we were debating if Ultimecia is Edea. Rinoa does not have to be in the final battle party, so her lines don't necessarly apply. I would argue that her lines are just a very poetic way of speaking her own regret and fear of death.

'Childhood' could easily mean Squall's entire FF8 journey. He's roughly 17-18 near the end of the game. Holding on, with time not waiting, could easily be a reference to his love for Rinoa. But again, it's open to interpretation.


I still say Griever's existence is simply Ultimecia intimidating the party and trying to unnerve Squall, while stalling for time.

It would essentially be the same thing for either of our theories.



This would literally be a visual example (its literally a relationship chart), nothing you can screw up there,by translation. It outright confirms Squall and Laguna's relationship. As for fans asking, R=U is popular on the net, but from what I've gathered, its a minority. Chances are most fans wouldn't ask about it.

Her weapons are named after Rinoa's but they are not dark versions of them. Ultimecia borrows a lot from other elements in the game. She has Pulsar Shockwave, most of her attacks are named with a Knight motif, her Ultimate Attack is a play on Squall's Renzoken, even being called No Heart as opposed to Lionheart. Squall also confirms to Ultimecia that he has to go back and meet up with someone (a reference to his famous promise to Rinoa). Once again, no one blinks about this as though we should allude that Ultimecia is Rinoa. Hell Ultimecia states her only goal with Time Compression was to create a world of frozen time where everyone would worship her as a god.

A visual example isn't a translation then. Ultimecia also never stated such a thing... not to my knowledge. The entire game alluded to time compression and what it was but it was never outright stated.


Yet the real issue here is that Ultimecia isn't the only character whose weapon set-up is either wrong or a reference to another character in Dissidia, most of the villains have altered weapon set-ups since they were never confirmed in the original. Terra uses Rods and Staffs despite them being one of the few types of weapons she can't equip in VI, Kefka's Ultimate weapons are Flutes and Harps despite the weapon type not being in VI, all of Tidus' weapons are actually Wakka's weapons, and a good chunk of the specialty weapons are made up. I'd say they wanted to include Rinoa in some capacity into the game much like Wakka and the best way is to incorporate their weapons.

But did the others have quotes alluding to an event that happened between the main character and female lead?


I'm mostly trying to stay open to the idea she may be closer to their time, but I do believe Ultimecia is from a distant future by a few hundred years.

I believe I've already mentioned the problems with this, such as landscape, and our own interpretation of the same information.


Sacrifice doesn't mean it has to be killed, but really, she was technically sacrificed by Seifer, since Adel is slowly killing Rinoa and is only prevented from doing so by your parties intervention.

Sacrifice does mean they're killed... it's most commonly used as mentions of a ritual killing and considering the symbolism...


If we're going by symbolism though, Greiver is said to come from Squall's mind in the Scan. Assuming she didn't create Griever in thin air but simply summoned him, wouldn't the Scan info imply Griever is with Squall and not Rinoa? Especially when the game states that GFs rest in a section of a persons bran which causes the memory loss? The theme itself that plays when Ultimecia junctions with Griever is Maybe I'm a Lion, which the title clearly points to Squall whose symbol is the lion.

I believe I mentioned Ultimecia's subconscious continued love for Squall, whom she forgot. At least, that's how I interpreted it.


Going back to Rinoa being Junctioned to Adel, she's not really in a cross figuration, of anything, she's being worn like a necklace and is more of a Y shape than anything. The other issue here is that the cross has a different meaning in Japanese than it would in Western Cultures, so its very likely the imagery is more meaningful to us than the writers and artists.

There a several problems with your conclusions here. First, the Y-shape is also a symbol for the cross, especially with how Rinoa is junctioned. Second, most people wear the symbol of the cross around their neck..., and finally, the cross has had the same meaning regardless of the religion. It's not solely unique to just Western religion such as Christianity. It's in Buddhism, Hinduism, and other Eastern religions. The tales and symbols of what is commonly regarded as 'the Cross' have existed before the story of Jesus Christ was ever mentioned. The cross has always meant suffering and eventual death. It's happened to every 'Messiah'-like character in ancient religious or folklore stories. There's Christ, there is Buddha (Buddhism being the dominant religion in Japan), there's Kristna, and a whole lot of other mythos that have been lost in history.

Regardless, however, the symbol is not different depending on the region. Much unlike the swatstika symbol, which is commonly held as an image of Nazism in Western culture, yet (ironically enough) means love, peace, and mercy in Eastern Cultures long before the Nazi's stole the symbol.


The bosses you face in her castle are simply monsters and they could have been there all the time as guardians of her fortress.If she did create them, she could have done it long before the party ever got there. She does rule the future.


The scans mention that they were formerly GFs. It probably isn't even a stretch to say that some of them are twisted versions of what the party uses, regardless of if you believe the R=U theory or not.


She's killing time to get Time Compression going, only in her final form do they mention she's absorbing time and space through the Scan spell. She even implies to the party when they meet that Time Compression is incomplete. I feel this is the safe bet here. Besides, if the whole point of this was to get powerful enough to avoid death, then it seems silly to me to piuck a fight with a hlaf completed spell when she could have simply ran away, and tried again later. Besides, when characters are killed in battle they get absorbed into time, and I don't think that would be going on if Time Compression was winding down. The truly mind freaky stuff doesn't even begin until after Ultimecia is killed anyway.

I'll actually agree on this part. Though, it seems to be that she may have started it up a second time during the battle so the party would disappear by being absorbed into time. They also do comeback once you've defeated (not killed) her which could mean that she brought them back herself after being defeated. I also find it a bit curious that she has two of herself in her final form. Possibly a split personality?


********************************************************************


This is normal for me. You should have been here in the old days when I used to debate about FFVII. Those threads went on forever...

X_x; Nah, I've had FF7 debates to last a lifetime. lol


From what I've read, Kitase is more to blame, though Nomura has been the one to deny that Sephiroth is sympathetic and should be thought of as pure evil. Nomura certainly has a hand in writing the 10th Anninversary VII Ultimania but in actuallity, he hasn't done much for the Compilation. Mostly AC and Last Order, the rest of his contribution is just character designs, but yeah, Sephiroth is an overrated villain.

Possible spoilers for FF7 below:



I wish they hadn't even bothered. Not only did they make Sephiroth into Galactus's wannabe version, but they made him look more girly, and gave him this strange homosexual interest in Cloud. Now, it seemed to me that Jenova was the one torturing Cloud and that Sephiroth didn't care to bother with Cloud and only wanted the black materia... but even that's interpretation and I suppose wrong thanks to the compilation.

[Serapy]

I agree with the norm that we shouldn't use the Ultimania as a only-one-thing to prove or disprove something from the original game completely. For example, using the "Witches have normal lifespans" text from the Ultimania to disprove the R=U theory completely.

There are certain inconsistencies, retcons, changes and new additions between Ultimanias and thier original games. Not to mention thier spin-off games as well. The Ultimanias may be canon but they're still not the best material to question a theory. This is why I refuse people who says "R=U is not true because the Ultimania says so!"


Interesting theory, but I disagree, for a start, you claim that Squall's ring was the summon itself, but I beg to differ, if squall had this GF then why did he not use it during the game?

Griever may be a GF but it doesn't function like the other normal GFs. Griever is more like a symbol of character or simply put, a very special GF. To summon this special GF, you need to have a stronger magic, such as Ultimecia's power.



Thirdly, when Squall and Co go to Trabia, didn't they agree to keep a diary or some such? coupled with the fact that they are all seen through the camcorder at the final scene, Squall and Rinoa are together... hell, Ultimercia could even be a descendant of Squall and Rinoa's progeny (now waits for Seraphy to pounce on the idea).

The diary and computer incident in Trabia? Well, that's a different story because it's relevant to S=R (Selphie = Rinoa).

I'm falling apart but as for the ending, honestly, there's just something spooky about the ending.

This is the picture after when Selphie tells the cameraman to point at Rinoa:

http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/2306/92529496.gif

Forget the blue texts. Everything before this picture and the next two pictures, Squall never showed up.

Ok, then right when the battery of the camcoder dies, you will then see the symbolism of Rinoa's (she starts pointing at the star) towards Squall. Coincidence? This is the picture of when she's completing her symbolism:

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7984/88937836.gif

Then I captured a picture of herself about 100 msec before the camcorder FMV ends and then I compared it to the next FMV when Squall showed up:

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/5155/rinoadifferences.gif

Ok, let me tell you. From the camcorder FMV, she SMILED with her teeth visible. Whereas, in the final FMV (where Squall shows up), she smiles with lips closed... JUST like the one from the beginning (at the party).

Look, if you say to me "oh, just an animation error". Well, seriously... you cannot accidently make someone smile with teeth visible. What I'm sayin is... they did this on purpose. I'm sure of it!

I'm not gonna tell you what all of this means. I don't wanna de-rail this thread. I'll create a thread about it later in the future.

[Carl the Llama]

Griever may be a GF but it doesn't function like the other normal GFs. Griever is more like a symbol of character or simply put, a very special GF. To summon this special GF, you need to have a stronger magic, such as Ultimecia's power.

Seeing as you always ignore my soundly given arguments I will just say this: Where is your proof?

I could make up stuff if I liked, like say... "Ultimercia is really a MAN with big hairy balls" but without a shred of evidence I can't prove it.

Please Note: I only accept real evidence, not convoluted backwards and insideout theories but SOLID PROOF, like say, Ultimania or some game script.

[Felixrush]

Griever may be a GF but it doesn't function like the other normal GFs. Griever is more like a symbol of character or simply put, a very special GF. To summon this special GF, you need to have a stronger magic, such as Ultimecia's power.

Seeing as you always ignore my soundly given arguments I will just say this: Where is your proof?

I could make up stuff if I liked, like say... "Ultimercia is really a MAN with big hairy balls" but without a shred of evidence I can't prove it.

Please Note: I only accept real evidence, not convoluted backwards and insideout theories but SOLID PROOF, like say, Ultimania or some game script.

But as stated, numerous times, before: Ultimania's aren't always reliable... in fact, 20 year anniversary ultimania's are likely more prone to err than not.

[Serapy]

Griever may be a GF but it doesn't function like the other normal GFs. Griever is more like a symbol of character or simply put, a very special GF. To summon this special GF, you need to have a stronger magic, such as Ultimecia's power.

Seeing as you always ignore my soundly given arguments I will just say this: Where is your proof?

I could make up stuff if I liked, like say... "Ultimercia is really a MAN with big hairy balls" but without a shred of evidence I can't prove it.

Please Note: I only accept real evidence, not convoluted backwards and insideout theories but SOLID PROOF, like say, Ultimania or some game script.

Cool, it's nice knowing that you haven't changed at all. Anyways, here goes:

According to Griever's scan, "In Squall's mind, the strongest GF. Through Ultimecia's power, continues fighting without vanishing."

To summarise it up, Ultimecia possessed Rinoa earlier and acknowledged Griever. Then she used her power to summon Griever for the final battle. This is the implication of how and where did Ultimecia get Griever from. She didn't extract Griever from Squall's mind straight away because her power doesn't work on normal people. My point is that if Squall had the same power as Ultimecia, then he could do what she did; summon... basically anything. The normal GFs are different in this case because the characters didn't make them up.

To emphasise my argument, let's consider for a moment that if the quote above is not true, then ANYBODY could simply pull whatever they think out of thier minds and then make them reality without the use of Ultimecia's power. Obviously, this didn't happen in the game.

It's interesting about why Ultimecia chose Griever to use. Ultimecia knew that Squall was really vastly fond of both Griever AND Rinoa (she gathered all of that information from Rinoa's mind). Ultimecia knew the difference between Griever and Rinoa. Don't we agree that Rinoa is more important than Griever, emotionally wise? Yet she chose Griever because she actually thought it'd help her defeat Squall and the party with ease.

But imagine that what if she actually summoned a clone of Rinoa as the final boss instead? Would that have overwhelmed and confused Squall? Would that have even helped Ultimecia win the fight better? ;) Unless, of course, there are reasons why she chose Griever but I'm not bothered to list all of them. Please use your imagination.

[Carl the Llama]

Griever may be a GF but it doesn't function like the other normal GFs. Griever is more like a symbol of character or simply put, a very special GF. To summon this special GF, you need to have a stronger magic, such as Ultimecia's power.

Seeing as you always ignore my soundly given arguments I will just say this: Where is your proof?

I could make up stuff if I liked, like say... "Ultimercia is really a MAN with big hairy balls" but without a shred of evidence I can't prove it.

Please Note: I only accept real evidence, not convoluted backwards and insideout theories but SOLID PROOF, like say, Ultimania or some game script.

Cool, it's nice knowing that you haven't changed at all. Anyways, here goes:

According to Griever's scan, "In Squall's mind, the strongest GF. Through Ultimecia's power, continues fighting without vanishing."


Ah, seems YOU are the one who is wrong (as usual), allow me to elaborate:

1) Is Griever the Strongest GF? Yes, he is.

2) Whats the difference between the way he is summoned and other GF's? He sticks around instead of disappearing after being summoned.

3) Why? Because Ultimercia uses her power to keep him about even though he has performed a move.

4) So fundamentally the only difference between say Ifrit and Griever, is that the latter sticks around even though he has performed a move? Pretty much.

5) So what your saying is that if Ultimercia decided to summon... say Bahamut for instance, she could make him stick around after performing 1 move? THATS RIGHT!

6) Is this post going to be ignored? More then likely.

[Serapy]

Ah, seems YOU are the one who is wrong (as usual), allow me to elaborate:

You initally asked for a reason why didn't Squall summon Griever BASED on the claim that he has Griever on his ring. In that post, you impiled that Squall doesn't actually have Griever.

I then provided a simple explanation that he does have Griever but won't be able to summon it. That Griever doesn't function the same way as the other GFs (Griever was created and extracted by a mind, whereas the other GFs were functioned in a different way... they weren't created by a mind). You then asked for proof, which I did so.

And in the end, you called me wrong AS USUAL! Arrogance much? Tsk tsk. If I had a superior personality, I'd quote your old posts where you were actually wrong but I'm not going to. Why? Because I ain't like that, buddy.



1) Is Griever the Strongest GF? Yes, he is.

Not literally. In Squall's mind, yes, Griever is the strongest GF. In a general world, no, because we don't know what are the fantasies of the other characters'.



2) Whats the difference between the way he is summoned and other GF's? He sticks around instead of disappearing after being summoned.

Griever is just like that because of the Ultimecia theme. Griever disappearing like a normal GF and then her 3rd form comes out of thin air would be an unappealing move, wouldn't it?

The real difference between Griever and the normal GFs you should be saying is that Griever came from the mind of a person which is Squall in this case, whereas the normal GFs didn't. These normal GFs weren't created by any "normal" mind. By normal, I mean people like Squall. Hell, Griever and these normal GFs shouldn't be compared ... I thought we were talking about the story plot, not gameplay mechanisms >>;



3) Why? Because Ultimercia uses her power to keep him about even though he has performed a move.

Ultimecia's theme. Boss purposes. Gameplay purposes for the final battle. The FF8 devs had to make something unique, interesting and moving for the final battle...

You seriously expect the final boss to act like a normal GF, do you?



4) So fundamentally the only difference between say Ifrit and Griever, is that the latter sticks around even though he has performed a move? Pretty much.

So fundamentally the only difference between say Ifrit and Griever, is that the former can blow fire even though he has performed a move? Pretty much.

Seriously, I don't get your point. It's the theme, man. Not to mention that the devs had to keep the moving of Griever consistent to fit the flow for Ultimecia's 3rd form...



5) So what your saying is that if Ultimercia decided to summon... say Bahamut for instance, she could make him stick around after performing 1 move? THATS RIGHT!

If it was the final battle or any important boss fight, yes... duh? Bosses and attainable GFs are different... gameplay wise.



6) Is this post going to be ignored? More then likely.

So, you're asserting that these beautiful points of yours disproves the game's statement that Griever was summoned by Ultimecia's power, disproves my claim about where/how Ultimecia gets Griever from, disproves my claim that Griever and the normal GFs are different to each other? Oh, ok. I see.

Sorry, Felixrush. Didn't mean to interrupt your thread.

[Carl the Llama]

Omg dude... allow me to show you something.


Griever may be a GF but it doesn't function like the other normal GFs. Griever is more like a symbol of character or simply put, a very special GF. To summon this special GF, you need to have a stronger magic, such as Ultimecia's power.


Seeing as you always ignore my soundly given arguments I will just say this: Where is your proof?

Please Note: I only accept real evidence, not convoluted backwards and insideout theories but SOLID PROOF, like say, Ultimania or some game script.


According to Griever's scan, "In Squall's mind, the strongest GF. Through Ultimecia's power, continues fighting without vanishing."


YOU said that he could only be summoned by Ultimercia.

My post is an argument against that, I would like to say more, but in all seriousness your just a clear and obvious troll, ignoring even your own posts now just to get a rise out of someone, well guess what, I am no longing interested in anything you have t say.

Oh and I am not your "buddy".

[Jiro]

I have not been following the thread closely, but I just want to leave a friendly reminder that we're all civil here and we can argue without attacking anyone else.

I'm not here singling anyone out, just a blanket warning that Wolf Kanno will smurf you up if you overstep the line!

(And I'll smurf Wolf Kanno up if he oversteps the line :greenie:)

[Felixrush]

Well, it appears to me that no further discussion can really be garnered on the subject of the R=U theory I presented. It's definitely been derailed since even passable FF8 arguments have just turned into "you're a troll and I won't explain my reasons!" from both these individuals.

I suppose it's better if a mod just locks this topic at this point since no further intelligent discussion seems likely.

[Serapy]

YOU said that he could only be summoned by Ultimercia. My post is an argument against that,

Which is wrong. The scan of Griever explictly tells you that he was summoned through Ultimecia's power. This impiles that Ultimecia was the only one in the FF8 world that summoned Griever. Nobody else.

Secondly, Griever was made up INSIDE the mind of Squall. Were the normal GFs made that way? No. As the game shows us, the SeeDs have a certain power (Draw) that allows them catch certain already-existing (non-made up) GFs and the power to summon such drawed GFs... this works both ways (gameplay and story).

From the facts above and Ultimecia's actions, it's pretty obvious that in order for a made-up thing from your mind to be summoned, you would need a higher power... like Ultimecia.



I would like to say more, but in all seriousness your just a clear and obvious troll, ignoring even your own posts now just to get a rise out of someone, well guess what, I am no longing interested in anything you have t say.

Uh, troll? Restorting to using cheap excuses, are you now? Man up and accept it. Everybody loses sometimes...

[Wolf Kanno]

Except FF8 thrives off being as subtle as possible. Many people compare it to other FFs in which those games make it a point to tell the watcher what the plot is. FF8 doesn't do that. FF8's plot and ending is specifically made not to do that. You're never even told the full effects of Time compression and heck, there's never any real confirmation about Julia being Rinoa's mother either but we know that it is true.

I completely disagree, because only the orphanage twist and squall and Laguna's link is ever utilized in the story with subtle hints. One is addressed halfway through Disc 2 and the other is actually irrelevant to the plot. There is nothing else in the plot that is told through hints. Julie is Rinoa's mother cause the game flat out tells you. Not only does neither Rinoa or Caraway give you any impression that she isn't, but the Info section in the Tutorial mode flat out tells you in in section on "Eyes on Me" saying she marries Caraway, gives birth to a baby girl a year later, and then released Eyes on Me.




Again, FF8 was about subtlety. Notice how there are lots of, including in the ending, seemingly 'insignificant' moments.

I feel you are just ove-ranalyzing this, I can't think of anything that can be described as "seems insignificant" that can't be explained away. The Ring is Rinoa's symbol for Squall, Ultimecia challenges Squall by creating his ideal GF and making him do battle with it, Squall is hallucinating around him as Time Compression collapses, the game ends with them having a kiss on the balcony. There are no Da'Vinci code hints everywhere, its just mundane stuff.



Uh, no. Professional translators are obviously more reliable than a bunch of fans, with questionable credentials, giving answers on things.

Except a translator is on a time limit to translate a script in six months (on top of several other projects cause one job isn't going to pay all your bills for a year) so the programmers can then implement it and get it out the door in time. There are time issues, oversights, and judement calls that make any translation from one language to another that still leaves plenty of room for error.

Let's not forget that VIII has more discrepancies between each region it was released in, like how Adel is referred to as being a hermaphrodite in the French version but its never mentioned in any other, that's a pretty big mistake that changes a alot about the character, so what makes the English (or wherever you hail from) any more accurate? Not to mention crap like this has been pretty common up until even recent FFs like FFXII where the english script omitted details of Gabranth explaining why he hates his brother. That's another big plot element glossed over and changed by "professionals" so I can't agree they are any less infallible.

Translators make mistakes, and anyone familiar with the anime scene in the 90s would know that none of them went out of their way for total authenticity back then, and its these same guys translating the games as well. As far as I'm concerned the fan-translation is just as credible cause while only a hanful of them are on the same level as the professiona;ls, they have plenty of time and a community effory behind it. If the mistake about Sephy was done by one guy alone, no one would have caught it, and fanboys would be using it as ammo for any FF villain debate. Instead it was done by a group and someone went over the work and noticed the problem, going so far as to admit they made a mistake. The other issue here, who else besides fans actually care if the translation is accurate besides a fan. You really think they are just haphazardly going to translate stuff and leave it at that? Considering the maount of OCD super nerds there are in the community who sit around and watch FMV films in slow motion to see if they notice something off, and these type are somehow not going to anal about the accuracy of a translation on support materials.

My point is, that professionals have their own history of making mistakes with these games, so being fallible shouldn't be an issue as long as it gets fixed and a community effort of fanboys who actually care about the material can do an equally good effort as a professional (though not nearly as quickly) and has a fail safe for problems in interpretating the meaning by context. If their is a mistake, thebn chances are pretty good some snobby Japanese speaking fanboy will come along and set it strait.



FFX's 'mistranslations' usually had to do with certain aspects in Japanese culture that couldn't properly be translated into Western cultural beliefs. The ambiguity didn't help. Thus they changed some lines. And if you're gonna argue FF7's translation then let me stop you there by pointing out that was entirely Sony's fault as they did the translation.

You forget about the issue of matching dialogue to voice flaps, which requires complete changes in the script to write dialogue that creates the same meaning but fits the language and the on-screen voice flaps. Not to mention pre-VA titles have to deal with hardware limitations like having fixed character counts in dialogue boxes, which creates the same issues as VA work.

Also, I would like to point out that Ted Woosely was a Square employee back in the SNES days and that still didn't change liberties from being taken in the script. Its not like Square couldn't have gone back and given just a smidgen of more character totals for dialogue boxs. I just don't think Square really cared about accuracy. I don't really think SE does either.



And I can similarly argue about the ambiguity of Japanese regarding such statements as you have done. People go off-the-wall on the percieved meaning behind the words and they may be completely out of context. Fan translators do not seem to recognize the significance of context when making translations. They translate things to their most literal meaning. A professional translator typically doesn't make such obvious mistakes.

You know, the irony of this statement in this thread is amusing me. How many fan translations have you read? For the most part, context in the Ultimania's is pretty simple cause 98% of it is stuff you know from playing the game. Most of the time, you just learn physical stats (Age, birthday, height... etc) and the rest is just a re-hash of crap you already know. The only Ultimania type books I know that have ever given startling backstory information is FFIV and FFX. X is chocked up to lost in translations or just being poorly integrated into the dialogue, usually involving listening to Maechen's monotone old man voice go on forever and the most stupid times in the game, and most of FFIV's info doesn't change the story, but it adds more weight to the importance of the love triangle, and some of the characters, as well as a FFII reference in the backstory of the Deathblade. The rest, simply state what you already know from playing the games.

The VIII Ultimania's only noteworthy contribution to the game was explaining that Witches have normal lifespans, and that GFs are snetient collections of energy. A hundred page books and that's the most noteworthy "I didn't know that" elements in the whole thing. The only other thing is just development stuff that is irrelevant for enjoying the game like Edea, and Seifer's two cronies were originally developed for FFVII or that Nomura created Squall's accessories cause he had a silver fetish at the time. Nothing important, its not like these books are saying Squall is actually a PuPu sent from Venus from our galaxy to impregenate Zell and create a spanw of Zell aliens who will start crazy time share pyramid scheme.




Well yeah, Ultimecia is from the future and Ellone can't send people to the future. Also, Ultimecia was a consciousness inside Rinoa that was sent along with her. Its no different from when she would send Zell or Squall in the past, or when Squall's consciousness was sent into Rinoa's while Ultimecia was in control. Squall (and the player) didn't see Ultimecia's past,he simply heard her thoughts when she noticed him. It would be no different here.

Except we're speaking of memories and they're not relative to time in this respect.

Except as I said, we know cause the game shows us several times that time in Squall's time, while in the dream world, still passes significantly and all we get from Laguna's life are just small snippets. Rinoa was in Adel's past for less than a minute, meaning she was not likely to see anything more than a few minutes of her past and chances are since Time Compression occured, all Rinoa witnessed was Ultimecia taking over Adels' body to perform the spell for Time Compression, which we know happens cause TC occured a few minutes after Rinoa returned.

I don't think Rinoa could have seen anything, due to her being there for a moment and we know Ultimecia was in control at the time. We also know that Squall and company never recieve any memories of Laguna and company that they don't experieince, so... since Rinoa most likely, only experieinced Ultimecia casting the spell for Time Compression, she not only did not actually get any of Adel's real memories but most likely didn't recieve anykind of negative feedback beyond just being in Adel's creepy body with a crazy time witch from the future, who spent most of her time subjugating Adel and casting the TC spell. Also, we know from when Squall jumped into Rinoa's body while it was occupied by Ultimecia, that he could only communicate with her conscious inner voice, and not her memories beyond whatever event was happening at the time, so the likely hood of Adel passing on stuff to Rinoa is not only unlikely from this evidence, but is also pretty much disproven cause the game never directly states this happened.

There are just too much in-game evidence to disprove Rinoa got Adel's memories, and if you're only real logical counter is that the game never said it wasn't impossible is just not going to cut it as real proof I'm afraid.


**************************************************************





We're speaking of the only person he loved as a child, not random high schoolers. Squall didn't even remember her real name, just the nickname he had for her.


I'd say just remember that much shows that the GF memory loss is not 100% guaranteed and its possible to hold onto some memories, also, the game has shown that its easy to regain the memory if someone or something can jost your memory, isn't Ultimecia not going to get some kind of deja vu from all this and question her own memories, much like Squall has familiarity with Ellone before he remember her? Considering Rinoa would be re-witnissing her memories, doesn't it strike you odd she doesn't remember anything or even mentions anything to the party?



He doesn't remember her though. You're forgetting that he didn't even recognize Ellone in Laguna's past. That shows profound memory loss.

Except Squall never met Ellone when she was that age either. Hell, we never get to see what Ellone looked like at the orphange, I doubt if they put her character model for that age range we would be able to guess it was her. Do you think you could spot your parents in their kindergarten pictures if they didn't have names attached to them or some crumbly old relative pointing and mumbling who is who? Squall may only know what a 12 year old Ellone looks like, not her mid 20s incarnation, or her 1st grader form.

The issue here is that he still remembers her, and he still remembers her as his "Sis" which is a lot more than the rest of the cast who were not as emotionally invested in the orphanage as Squall seemed to be. Yet, he still remembers something.





You're avoiding my question though, if Rinoa was going to have her memories lost due to having a hidden GF on her and then have Adel's memories corrupt her personality, how is this possible if the last scene in the game clearly shows Squall and Rinoa kissing and implying a happy ever after? What happened to Squall and the others, how did they let Rinoa degenerate this badly and not done anything? I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't do anything, and this creates a major plot hole in the R=U theory that I feel should be addressed to establish this theory as canon.

Except, you're ignoring the earlier scenes of the ending. You're saying there are 'holes' based off only your interpretation of the ending. Your interpretation isn't an absolute. And the ending showing that things are fine after Ultimecia's defeat doesn't mean that they always will be in the future. Heck, the entire last segment could just be a dream. It's open enough of an ending to be considered such.

You're contradicting yourself here, I'm wrong because I interpreted the first part of the ending as just being Squall hallucinating in TC and only through thinking about losing Rinoa forever does he finally escape it, in which we are treated to the rest of the ending which is quite happy and showing that everyone is alright, but you're correct bcause that five minute sequence has clues you can miss if you blink and the next 15 minutes of the ending of everyone being happy is not true cause R=U and they are all going to die anyway or its a dream...

Yeah, my question stands, if my interpretation is wrong, then explain the last 15 happy minutes in the ending in your theory, and then proceed to give a sceanrio of what happens afterwards based on your theory while quoting parts of the game that confirms directly it happened and isn't just Rinoa staring at a piece of jewelery for 20 seconds, that can simply be shown through the context of the events prior to it and after it, that she was simply thinking about Squall. The issue here, is that each evidence you show has a more rational and simply explanation.

In terms of context of what's going on, my interpretation makes sense, Squall slipped through time, told Edea about Garden and SeeD tried to get home and found himself utterly lost, the game states twice by Laguna of all people, that only ones strong memories can get you out of TC (which is two direct pieces of evidence supporting my interpretation), and Squall struggles to even remember Rinoa's face as he's assulted by a montage of the games events. and its only when he remembers the fear of losing Rinoa that he finally escapes. We watch a happy ending. The game offers a direct explanation for my interpretation to be plausible, whereas this theory requires you to make several assumptions that are mostly backed by the argument that the game never said it wasn't possible.



All of which was included in the original game. A 20th anniversary Ultimania is obvious cash cows to manipulate peoples appreciation for past final fantasies. After so many years, you can't expect the creators to be keeping tabs on a story they completed decades ago and are obviously prone to error. In fact, this is what I hate most about Ultimania's. There could be a mistake in translation and the fan dumb will argue it's 'irrefutible truth' when the creators could just be lazily adding info that contradicts the original game's information. If it contradicts the original game then it's obviously wrong and the creators have made an error but no one sees it that way.

Its called a retcon when that happens but as I said, the Ultimania doesn't state anything you didn't directly witness in the game. It confirms wink wink nudge nudge, but if R=U is so trivial to be forgotten 10 years down the road then it wasn't that much of a relevant plot twist or it siomply was never true to begin with. It is seriously not like any of this info seriously changes the story or game. VII got some retcons through the Ultimania but that's what happens when you try to add to a story you wrote a decade ago and don't bother checking what you wrote in the first place.

While certainly selling an information book is cashing in, I don't think SE would alter games stores, especially ones like VIII which weren't that popular to begin with. Seriosuly, if you actually just paged through one, you would get the gist of all the info from the pictures and relaize its not some kind of silly consciracy to rewrite the franchise for an extra buck. They call it a sequel and Compialtion when they do that.



Again, your personal interpretation is not absolute fact. Aside from which, the image with Seifer was from the cut scene where he pushed Rinoa towards Adel. For all we know, Squall may be dreaming, he may be witnessing the original timeline, or he could even be losing his memories. There's even an image of Squall with a black hole for a face near the end before the scene with Rinoa's spacesuit shattering in space. For all we know, he could be witnessing a world in which he ceased to exist or never did in the first place and it wouldn't even be stretching any elements of the plot for that to be accurate.

Which I just backed up with in-game references, by Laguna and Odine, that creates a simple logical way of looking at the scene that doesn't require thinking everything shown in an acid trip sequece has any special significance. To quote Freudian scholoar about whether every element of the dream is a subconscious message:


"Sometiimes a cigar is just a cigar"



Key word being interpretation.

So basically your argument is that I interpret FFVIII's plot to be relative, and thus it can be whatever I want, but because I say it has a definitive plot, and show evidence, I'm simply just making an interpretation that doesn't prove anything despite giving you evidence that is supported by references in the game, source materials, and just plain common sense?

Here's he issue with your interpretation of VIII, it allows for any backwater idea to be valid, case in point:


Its obvious that we are all wrong and the truth is that Ultimecia is Squall. I will now present the S=U theory.

Ultimecia is actually Squall in the future who forever punishes himself due to his lack of strength and in ability to protect anyone. Ultimecia's true goal is not Time Compression as much as its to keep "himself" in an eternal time loop.

The proof is that Ultimecia never directly tries to kill Squall when hshe had the chance on several occasions when he possessed Edea and Rinoa. Ultemacia also chooses to create Griever from Squall's mind and use its power, Ultimecia being actually Squall would also believe that Griever is the Ultimate GF and thus creates him to crush Squall's hope since Ultemacia knows how to screw with his head.

The wings Ultimecia uses are also a refernce to each of the witches that Squall faces, he wears two wings on the back to represent Rinoa, their gnarled and long wingspan represents the similarities to Adel's and the black feathers are from the feathers adorned on Edea's dress. Thus his design is an inspiration from the wing symbolism common in all the witches in the game.

Ultimecia's final lines in her/his ultimate form are also evidence.

Reflect on your...
Childhood...
Your sensations...
Your words...
Your emnotions...
Time...
it will not wait...
no matter...
...how hard you hold on...
It escapes you...

In my theory its obvious that this line is directed at Squall as a last ditch effort to try and make Squall into Ultemacia eventually and continue the time loop of punishment that he created for himself. He asks himself to reflect upon his childhood where he was abonadoned by his father and "big sister" and lost his mother. A childhood that fuels Squall's anti-social behaviour and self loathing. The very elements that personify Ultemacia her/himslef.

How does Squall become a Sorceror/Sorceress?

The ending sequence of the game in which Squall visits his past self and gives Edea the idea of SeeD shows through her dialogue that any of the children could accept the power. Squall gained his power from Rinoa in an alternate timeline in which he doesn't save her. This is presented in the sequence of the ending's dream in which Rinoa's suit breaks in outer space. This is not an illusion caused by Time Compression but rather Squall reliving the memory of the alternate timeline in which he doesn't save her. This leads to his emotional breakdown at the end cause he finally realizes the truth that he is the cause of everyone's misery. Its only When Rinoa saves him that he is able to finally forgive himself.


How did Squall get into the future?
Obviously, Squall was sealed away perhaps by his own will in the cryo freezer Esthar created. In the games Timeline (we'll call it T2 since its the secondary timeline and T1 will be the alternate timeline), Rinoa is sealed away but Squall is the only one who comes and rescues her, which leads us to believe that the others would not be so inclined to save Squall of whom the party has a much rockier relationship with than Rinoa. This is how Squall is able to make it to the future, and beat the "human lifespan' issue of the Ultimania.

Why does he seek to destroy the past?
His frozen slumber is not enough to punish him and eventually Squall falls into depression and madness over the guilt of not saving Rinoa. He instead chooses to punish himslef, to do this he must utilize Time compression to keep an eternal time loop. Time travel is normally impossible but through Time compression, Ultemacia can skip through the "folded"pockets of time and directly affect things. Ultemacia, creates the scenario to lead up to Squall's eventually failure and eventual acquisition of power. He possesses Edea and starts the Galbadia conflict, eventually possessing Rinoa to keep his future self from harm and to place Rinoa in mortal danger that will lead to her death and Squall gaining her powers. After Squall is frozen, Ultemacia possesses Ellone and starts Time Compression which allows Ultemacia to travel back in time and tell Edea about SeeDs. This is why Ultemacia appears at the same place as Squall in the ending cause its the place Ultemacia has to directly affect except in the ending time has been altered.

Why not directly control Squall or Ellone?
Due to the butterfly effect, Ultimecia must be careful not to enter his own body. Though he may have lived the life, memory is a funny a thing. In order to keep his own existence as Ultimecia a reality, he cannot take the chance to alter Squall's feeling more than he should. Thus Ultimecia only indirectly affect Squall by putting pressure on him and placing Rinoa and the others in danger. Ultimecia already knows how Squall will react regardless of the situation and as long as it fuels his anger and inadequecy then Ultemacia's existene is safe to continually punish himself.

Ellone is more for the Time Compression itself and he does eventually possess her but only after reaching the events in which S becomes U.

Why a woman?
Partially to hide his identity, but looking at Squall's past and general psychology, its obvious he has the traits of a man who has Image dissociation. He hates woman yet idolizes them. In the dialogue, he is generally meaner to Rinoa, Quistis, and Selphie. More so than other woman in the game. He only seems to idolize his "big sister". From his past, we see he has abandonement issues concerning women and that they always seemed more powerful to him. The few sorceress' he met are strong willed women. Even Quistis and Rinoa prove to be rather bossy types that force him to go along and with Squall's desire to be strong, does it not seem obvious he would choose a woman to be the ultimate form of power when becomes omnipotent.

Through the poers shown of changing Edea's appearance to bringing thought to life, its obvious that its not impossible for Squall to change his appearance. Though it must be noted that Ultimecia reatins the feathered ruffles from his bomber jacket on his dress in her alternate form. He changed the color from white to black in order to signify his fall from grace.

Why does time change in the course of the game?
This is partially due to the butterfly effect. Squall obviously cannot control every factor and obviously screwing with the space/time continuum would result in minor factors changing that eventually lead to Squall finally succeeding in rescuing Rinoa in space. This completely alters events and forces Ultimecia to go ahead with Time Compression to stop the party. This is very important as its the only way to save his current state before the time backlash he created changes the future. His final moments battling himself are spent not only intimidating himslef and destroying his self confidence but also to try and bring forth the elements that will lead Squall onto the road of becoming Ultimecia. This is reflected in Ultimecia's final words. Even though he's killed, Squall still goes along with his noraml plan and uses Time Compression to visit Edea in the past except it also launches the past Squall to the same moment. The past Squall tells Edea about SeeD but his future self in its dead and limited capacity is only able to transfer his powers to Edea instead of his past self.

;););););););););););););););););););););););)

I pulled this out of my ass, and made minor but obscure reference to support my argument and by your interpretation of the game this is completely valid as a real option of the games plot. Despite the fact I told you I just made up most of the evidence and most of the evidence happens off screen, but minor details like Squall's attitude and looking at how he thinks of Ellone all the time can equally validate that Squall secretly wants a sex change, despite nothing in the dialogue or FMVs can back this up.





I feel the ending was suppose to be ambiguous but I feel it still correlates to the games theme of love and opening up to others, and I feel the end finds a bizarre way of getting a last little moment of throwing the theme into the players face. At least it sticks with you.

The ending could just be there to give the player a false sense of happiness. Now why would they do that? Do you think it unlikely? Why did they show Laguna proposing to Raine only to see the image of her gravestone a few moments later? That obviously wasn't a happy ending.

Except he gets to finally be with the daughter he spent half his life and searched all over the world for, and to finally meet the sun he never knew from the woman he loved. Laguna is remembering Raine, but his memory is not of regret, he;s thinking about when he proposed to her. If it was meant to be a downer moment, like everything else in the story, Laguna screws it up. Its bittersweet but everything else is Squall in a field of flowers, Seifer fishing with his friends, the whole cast throwing a party, Zell even get together with that librarian chick evn if you never completed that quest, and finally Squall smiling for the first time all game, and kissing Rinoa, which is the most on screen romantic action we've scene in the sereis since Cecil and Rosa. All this done, to quite possibly the sappiest love song in video game histoy. There is no dun-dun-dun The End? shenanigans going on here, and if you are saying that was the five minute acid trip before all this, I would ay the writer fucked up when he wrote the ending cause its hard to remember a split second downer/gotcha moment, that is then followed by 15 minutes of the equivalent of gingerbread men having happy fun picnic time with the unicorns down the road.









This is pretty much the Evangelion ending all over again, except no one is claiming that Gendo Ikari is an older Shinji who has time traveled into the past to affect the Instrumentality Project, and change the future.

No, instrumentality was about moving on from loss and being able to change your life at any given point based solely on your attitude towards yourself. It wasn't really shown to have much, if anything, to do with time travel. But that's my interpretation so take it with a grain of salt.

Cute, but I'm making a reference to how much fan wanking goes on about what Eva meant and its ending. Which is still hotly debated by fans today.




Actually, the cut scene with Seifer is an image after he pushed Rinoa to Adel, the cut scene with Rinoa was when she was turned dizzy thanks to Edea's hair magic, and the other cut scenes have events that supposedly never happened. In all honesty, they could have embraced in the sunset after Rinoa rescues him. Rinoa dancing around in the field of flowers and other such things also could've happened. It's all meant to be open to interpretation anyway. We could be looking at the original events before Ultimecia's time mess-up for all we know.
But again, it's all interpretation, and specifically geared for individual interpretation.

Or your just interpreting that the game was meant to be relative, when there is no evidence to support this interpretation.



Again, he has absolutely no proof of anything he says about her. If anything, he's just stroking his own ego. The fact SeeD even exists in her timeline leads me to believe that Odine overshot how far into the future it was. The landscape hasn't even changed, neither has the orphanages look after apparently being rebuilt.

Fuck man, if you're not even going to take the game directly telling you information as actual fact then why are you wasting my time? Its not like Odine wasn't spending a lot of time with Edea while your party was chasing down Lunatic Pandora, and waiting for Squall and Rinoa to come back. Edea herself says she far from the future, and Odine and expands on this later after spending time with her. He got how Time Compression worked and even created the plan to beat Ultimecia, despite him unlikely to know any of this, so how can he be right on two points and wrong about the third when your evidence for being wrong means he should have been wrong on the other two points? So basically he's wrong cause he disproves your interpretation of the game world.



No, they get forced into time compression, fight a bunch of sorcercesses all over time, and then they seem to land into the future, in which the orphanage seems to have been rebuilt in the relatively same decourium. The party exits the orphanage to find Ultimecia's castle and the chains as well as dead SeeDs.

You're assuming its the future, as soon as they see Ultimecia's castle the entire landscape transforms, with no explanantion, considering they traveled through several locations they've already been to before, is it not possible they simply traveled to the Orphanage of the past and waited for it to reach the future? It would explain why the stone structured changed so dramatically, when they walked out on the beach.



The White SeeDs make even less sense since it's a bunch of kids growing up together on a ship. Unless they took in more people, it couldn't be possible. Even then, you would expect some changes if it's really an absurdly long time in the future, not just with SeeD but with the overall structure of the world. Doc Odine doesn't even give you a definite time on how far into the future it is. It's all speculation.

And that makes the White SeeDs any differnet from regular SeeDs how exactly? Traditions hold, so the SeeDs could just be wearing tradtional uniforms, its not like the Catholics haven't been doing it for over a millenia, also the structure does change, the party walks outside to the beach, anbd then the whole area transformes to reveal a gothic steampunk nightmare, skip to the end and watch for yourself.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oamu-PufTgA&feature=related)

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A visual example isn't a translation then. Ultimecia also never stated such a thing... not to my knowledge. The entire game alluded to time compression and what it was but it was never outright stated.

I'll clarify, Ultimecia makes this statement about TC in Dissidia, though the literal translation of her speech to the party before the final battle says the same thing more or less, though its one of those dirty fan translations you hate so much.

As for the relationship chart, Rinoa only points to five people, Squall, Seifer, her parents, SeeDs (your party), and Edea. Ultimecia only points to three, Ellone, Edea, and Squall. I'll need to upload it sometime cause the ones available online are pretty awful.



But did the others have quotes alluding to an event that happened between the main character and female lead?

Yeah, actually a lot of the characters allude to their games through most of their dialogue. Hell Kuja and Garland(FF1) hate each other, and its simply an in-joke about Kuja's realtionship to the Garland of his game. Several of Onion Knights dialogue with Terra is an allsuion to what Locke tells her in the game, Bartz even gives Squall a chocobo feather which both represents Boko and for Squall is an allusion to feathers and Rinoa. Several characters help make references to other events in the game. The whole game is about spotting all of the allusions and references to other games. That's why some try to ignore anything from it as canon. Kefka calls Cecil a Goody Two-shoes which is what he called Leo before killing him.



I believe I've already mentioned the problems with this, such as landscape, and our own interpretation of the same information.

Just check the link, as you'll see they walk onto the beach, and when Ultimecia's castle appears the entire landscape changes into something completely different.




Sacrifice doesn't mean it has to be killed, but really, she was technically sacrificed by Seifer, since Adel is slowly killing Rinoa and is only prevented from doing so by your parties intervention.

Sacrifice does mean they're killed... it's most commonly used as mentions of a ritual killing and considering the symbolism...

I've sacrificed my time and energy explaining this to you...



There a several problems with your conclusions here. First, the Y-shape is also a symbol for the cross, especially with how Rinoa is junctioned. Second, most people wear the symbol of the cross around their neck..., and finally, the cross has had the same meaning regardless of the religion. It's not solely unique to just Western religion such as Christianity. It's in Buddhism, Hinduism, and other Eastern religions. The tales and symbols of what is commonly regarded as 'the Cross' have existed before the story of Jesus Christ was ever mentioned. The cross has always meant suffering and eventual death. It's happened to every 'Messiah'-like character in ancient religious or folklore stories. There's Christ, there is Buddha (Buddhism being the dominant religion in Japan), there's Kristna, and a whole lot of other mythos that have been lost in history.

Regardless, however, the symbol is not different depending on the region. Much unlike the swatstika symbol, which is commonly held as an image of Nazism in Western culture, yet (ironically enough) means love, peace, and mercy in Eastern Cultures long before the Nazi's stole the symbol.



The cross's origins date back to Ancient Egypt as the Ankh where it was a symbol of life, not death and suffering. Even in Christian beleif, the Cross means redemption and life cause the main diety figure sacrificed himself for the transgressions of others but rose from the dead later like his followers will. I didn't spend 12 years in a Baptist School hellhole having that drilled into my head for nothng after all. As for Japan, the symbol, as far as I know never appears in Buddhist teaching and if it does, is obviously not as important as other more prominent symbols like Buddha, besides, you've never heard of the Japanese phrase, born Shinto, live Shinto, Die Buddhist. In Japan, the cross is a symbol of crucifixition which amusingly, was used by the Japanese government to kill Christians. It is not a universal term for death, and even its nature as a symbol of life predates the Christian belief, though the Christian belief doesn't recognize it for that either.



The bosses you face in her castle are simply monsters and they could have been there all the time as guardians of her fortress.If she did create them, she could have done it long before the party ever got there. She does rule the future.


The scans mention that they were formerly GFs. It probably isn't even a stretch to say that some of them are twisted versions of what the party uses, regardless of if you believe the R=U theory or not.

The scans only mention Tiamat was a GF the others are all regular monsters. Tiamat himself was turned into a monster according to the scan. (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Tiamat_%28Final_Fantasy_VIII%29)


I'll actually agree on this part. Though, it seems to be that she may have started it up a second time during the battle so the party would disappear by being absorbed into time. They also do comeback once you've defeated (not killed) her which could mean that she brought them back herself after being defeated. I also find it a bit curious that she has two of herself in her final form. Possibly a split personality?

Who knows, maybe the top half is Hyne, there was a plot element that never seemed like it went anywhere. Its amusing that Anima follows a similar design though.


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This is normal for me. You should have been here in the old days when I used to debate about FFVII. Those threads went on forever...

X_x; Nah, I've had FF7 debates to last a lifetime. lol

Same here, but occasionally someone says something that stirs my inner fanboy back from the grave.



I wish they hadn't even bothered. Not only did they make Sephiroth into Galactus's wannabe version, but they made him look more girly, and gave him this strange homosexual interest in Cloud. Now, it seemed to me that Jenova was the one torturing Cloud and that Sephiroth didn't care to bother with Cloud and only wanted the black materia... but even that's interpretation and I suppose wrong thanks to the compilation.

Its a retcon, I feel both Cloud and Sephy got some serious character decay from the Compilation, and I also felt like Sephiroth was mostly indifferent to Cloud except when he finally reveals Zack. I often feel that Sephy with the one black wing on his back, his heated rivalry with Cloud and their obsession with each other is mostly just fan wanking that was so popular that SE just canonized it for the hell of it. Most of that stuff was in fan work back when VIII came around.

*************************************************************************

At this point, I feel we're going in circles here and I agree neither of us is going to budge on this subject. Perhaps in the future we can have a more casual discussion on some other topic and not have to worry about 10 page size replys

[Felixrush]

Meh. At this point, I'm pretty tired of writing ridiculously long-winded paragraphs just to get my point across. I could continue on but the lack of any middle-ground established between us (particularly regarding interpretations of the ending and our own beliefs on how subtle FF8 was) and the topic essentially being hijacked by two people have made me lose interest in further 'discussion'. At some point, it's probably going to lead to some flame war or other.

Count it as a victory, whatever. I think it's best to just close the topic. I have no interest in further exacerbating this.

[McLovin']

The only way R=U makes sense is in the very first iteration of the FF8 timeline; before the closed loop when there was no SeeD or evil Edea or anything. If the events of the original FF8 play out and somehow Rinoa lives till the future and becomes Ultimecia she then meddles with time and affects the original timeline of FF8 and that's what we play through. So there is no evidence in the actual game's timeline that we play in that shows that R=U. Most likely the ending of FF8 shows that they've come out of the loop finally and time is moving linearly once again, for them. All theories would be concerning the original timeline and there's no evidence to argue anything that went on during it. Just fanfiction.

[demondude]

This game doesn't even have a good story. If it was like, a classic work of fiction or something it would be understandable, but it's a bunch of Japanese guys in an office on meth thinking 'what would make a really cool story about gun swords and dragons and tit' and then probably orally servicing each other before writing a plot in five minutes.

[Carl the Llama]

Well, it appears to me that no further discussion can really be garnered on the subject of the R=U theory I presented. It's definitely been derailed since even passable FF8 arguments have just turned into "you're a troll and I won't explain my reasons!" from both these individuals.

I suppose it's better if a mod just locks this topic at this point since no further intelligent discussion seems likely.


Meh. At this point, I'm pretty tired of writing ridiculously long-winded paragraphs just to get my point across. I could continue on but the lack of any middle-ground established between us (particularly regarding interpretations of the ending and our own beliefs on how subtle FF8 was) and the topic essentially being hijacked by two people have made me lose interest in further 'discussion'. At some point, it's probably going to lead to some flame war or other.

Count it as a victory, whatever. I think it's best to just close the topic. I have no interest in further exacerbating this.

Ok, I do not understand this, I responded to your original post, you replied, then I replied back in one of these posts I mentioned Serapy, Serapy like magic appeared and contradicted everything I said and did not contribute to the thread and even apologized at the end for derailing the thread, note, Nothing he said was relevant to the thread, he posted just to troll me into an argument and lo and behold, I stupidly responded, mentioning only one thing because as I explained to you in a PM Serapy has a big tendency to ignore posts that took me over 3 hours to write, so I simply picked up one thing from the list and asked him to prove it, note my part in the discussion was relatively small, 5 or 6 lines, just to prove a point, and yet somehow I am to blame for the fact that the thread got derailed? At least I took part in the thread before Serapy reared his head.

You will also note, the thing I decided to ask him for evidence of was part of the discussion when I mentioned it, it was pertaining to this thread as YOUR theory mentioned the fact that you believed the ring was Griever brining Rinoa back to life, I knew this, you knew this, so my post was completely non derailment, and completely ON topic, I do not appreciate having my arguments called unintelligent, and having gone to the trouble of PMing you the reason I responded the way I responded, I would have thought (given the intellect of your previous posts) that you would have understood.

OOC: Serapy, I am a man of my word, you are now on my ignore list.

[Jiro]

We can continue this another time.