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

[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 )

[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 smurfed 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.

smurf 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.


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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.

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.

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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.