Maybe I'm stupid, but the ending...***Soilers throughout***

Maybe I'm stupid, but the ending of FFVII...

Is it just me, or did you lose the game?! Holy failed to stop Meteor, and from what I could tell it seemed like nothing else managed to stop it either!

Yet, we can clearly see that the planet still exists...

So what happened?!

Did the Meteor not impact, and life went on as normal with Shinra in charge?

Did the meteor impact, taking out Midgar and the Shinra HQ? If you ask me, the deaths of all those in Midgar is a small price to pay to remove Shinra from power...

What actually happened? It all made very little sense to me...

Still the best game I've ever played though. (Apart from maybe Blitzball - I mean, erm, FFX...)

Spoilers, obviously.





What I think happened was that, though Holy couldn't stop Meteor, the Lifestream could, and did. Although whether human life was destroyed or not, it's hard to say. There is definitely life still on the Planet though- you see that with the baby Nanaki's at the end.

Shinra. Shinra probably fell with the deaths of Rufus, Scarlett and Heidegger. Midgar was probably totally destroyed too- the FMV shows a lot of Midgar getting wrecked.


But yeah. Just what I think. And I do think FFVII had the most confusing ending I have ever seen :P

You'll also notice that that vine-covered thing in the end is the ruins of Midgar.

SPOILERS AHEAD


personaly i don't think Holy failed at all, i think it succeded in manipulating the lifestream in order to stop Meteor, yes Midgar was destroyed in the process since it was one of the best places for the Holy/Lifestream to escape and stop Meteor, since Midgar was a huge city-sized Mako Reactor any way, as well as the 2nd biggest scar on the planet, and there was obviously life left since we see Nanaki and his pups, as well as the sounds of human children laughing and playing in the valley below echoing through the canyon...

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we see Nanaki and his pups, as well as the sounds of human children laughing and playing

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How do you know those were human children? The laughter sounded when the screen was black, and since Nanaki can talk, why couldn't it be his kids' laughter?

Cloud and co were onboard the Highwind, eveloped within Holy itself when they were ejected from the Northern Crater. If Holy was going to eradicate Humanity, it would've started with them. They weren't affected; it stands to reason that other Humans weren't either.
As for Midgar: the upper levels were destroyed, but Reeve had evactuated everyone into the slums underneath. Kind of ironic, I think. Midgar spent years using the slums as a dump, oppressing and poisoning the lives of the 'lower' class, but in the end the slums provided the only sanctuary from a crisis of ShinRa's own making...

I thought the Lifestream was just combining its powers with Holy's. Of course, it has been a while since I saw the ending... Oh well. I'll try to beat it again before summer's over. :eep:

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I thought the Lifestream was just combining its powers with Holy's.

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That's exactly right.:)

Slums evacuated? Wow, I forgot that...

True true, how very happliy ironic! :)

the ending is open to individual interpretation, but i believe it was human children laughing because traditionaly in anime and animation when there is a beast-like character their voice has a slight growl to it and normaly it caries over to all their enunciations including laughter and crying and that was not the case with the laughter we hear...

Wow I never thought of that, shinigami_xero, that the laughter in the end was human children laughing. I hope that is true, because it seems way too depressing to think that all human life ended, and only Nanaki's kind survived, which is what I always thought after seeing the ending. There were references in the game saying how humans kept damaging the planet, and if they kept going they would eventually destroy it- so I assumed after seeing the end that the lifestream ended all the humans lives because they hurt the planet so much. :( Also, when they show Nanaki and his pups looking at a ruined Midgar, wasn't it like years into the future? If humans still lived on the planet I figured they would've had enough time to rebuild Midgar and live there again. Plus it seemed as if Nanaki was looking at Midgar as if he was remembering his old friends, like they weren't around anymore. I don't know, sorry for writing so much I just felt I had to get my feelings out on the strange ending of FF7.

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Also, when they show Nanaki and his pups looking at a ruined Midgar, wasn't it like years into the future?

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yes it was actually 500 years into the future which is odd because nanaki says he is 45 but in human years that is 15 so his kind ages faster so how did he live for 500 years??

but anyway i believe that ff7 lets you believe what you want to believe as shinigami_xero said. I always thought that humans were "deemed unworthy" by the planet and destroyed which is why you only see nanaki post meteor. I never even realised about the laughing i just took it in as part of the atmosphere.

About Nanaki's age... he's been alive for forty-five or so years, but he's only an adolescent by the standards of his kind. Bugenhagem says that they have incredible longevity, up to (or in excess of) five hundred years.

I think that Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Yuffie, Vincent and Cid surviving their exposure to Holy and the Lifestream is solid evidence that Humans didn't suffer annihilation.

Good enough for me.

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Originally posted by one_winged_angel
yes it was actually 500 years into the future which is odd because nanaki says he is 45 but in human years that is 15 so his kind ages faster so how did he live for 500 years??

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if that were the case... then it would have only been about 33 years later, assuming that it was 500 years in nanaki's life, and that he ages 3 times as fast as humans. but as for bugenhagen who know... that would make nanaki about 48 or 49, the others would be anywehere from their late 40s (yuffie) to late 70s (cid) but it wouldnt leave anything open for a sequel...

cid has retired, nanaki is a father, cloud and tifa prolly got married, yuffie prolly succeded her father and lead wutai, barret is prolly being taken care of by marlene, if she hasnt left him already due to the fact (SPOILER) she is not realted to him in any way. vincent prolly disappeared and was never heard from again. reeve stopped acting as cait sith, lead midgar into a new life (outside of midgar maybe?) and then died. theres nothing left for aeris, maybe elmyra, but she would've passed on by then too

unless the sequel revolved around those 33 years, which would make a pointless game and would flop dearly... almost like FFX-2, except it really didnt flop, it sold well (go figgure) then thats pretty much what it would be like.

but if nanaki is still alive, and the 500 years was in his life, then i dont see why the others wouldnt be alive. and knowing that the highwind was very close to meteor when it struck, and nanaki was on the ship, the others should still be alive if it was only 33 human years.