Hyne

[Wolf Kanno]

Am I the only person who felt a bit disappointed this background info never really materialized into anything? Considering how he got name dropped, I figured Hyne was going to figure into the story somehow, like Ultimecia's goal was to gain his other half of power or some such nonsense. Thoughts?

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I'd never given much thought to Hyne when I played the game. I just always looked at Hyne as a legend passed down through the oral tradition. They have two different stories in the game about Hyne, once in Balamb and once on the White SeeD ship if I remember right. I figured it was just a story to flesh out the world more.

That being said, I think it would have made a lot of sense to have the big bad of the game actually be Hyne. Since he was split in half, he could have been trying to create time compression in order to reunite with his other half. I think I've heard theories before that Ultimecia might actually be Hyne or somehow related to Hyne... which would help build motivation for what she was trying to do; however, there is not much in the game that I remember that could hint towards this.

[Futan]

Around the time I first got here I was reading/thinking about Hyne a bit and came up with my own lil H = U theory. lol. What got me started thinking about it was how it's such a random, out of place, primitive story for a seemingly modern world with no other mention of religion in it(that I remember). And I felt like there had to be something more to it since they felt the need to mention it twice. I honestly don't remember my theory much and IIRC it left kind of a major plot hole(which I can't remember). I half-believe H = U was the original intention until they realized the plot hole. /tinfoilhat

IIRC the game mentions that the half the humans received from Hyne was just powerless skin. And if you look at Ultimecia's final form, the bottom half of her appears to just be a lifeless sack of skin. Then it mentions that they believed that Hyne separated his powers amongst women to hide. So each sorceress has a little bit of Hyne in them. And since sorceresses prefer to give their powers to other sorceresses, the number of them is always dwindling. Eventually until there is only one who has all of Hyne's powers. Ultimecia. As I mentioned in the What is Time Compression? thread, if I understand theoretical physics correctly, compressing time would also be compressing space and thus forming a singularity. Which is what the universe was before the Big Bang. Basically it would give Hyne a chance to recreate the universe the way he wanted it without those pesky humans.

Sorry for how all over the place that is. I was trying to keep it short and was remembering things as I wrote it.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

On an unrelated note, I've always wanted to see what the future with Ultimecia was like before time compression happened. If we could spend more time with her, we may be able to gain a greater sense of exactly who she is and what motivates her...

I've heard other people mention the lifeless body in Ultimecia's final form as a part of their H = U theories. I think it is kind of interesting. The main thing is that I feel like if Ultimecia was Hyne, there would have been some mention of that within the game. Rinoa or Edea would have mentioned those thoughts from Ultimecia I think, or we would have heard Ultimecia mention Hyne in her speeches at the end. Considering the story of Hyne seems to be something everyone knows, Ultimecia being Hyne or wanting to absorb the powers of Hyne would have been a big deal. I do still think it would make the story more interesting, and I wished the story of Hyne could have become more apart of the game.

[Futan]

Yeah, like I said, I don't think it's actually what the 'official' story is. I think, if anything, it was axed in the late planning or early production phases. But yeah, as long as we don't have any motive for Ultimecia's actions there's going to be wacky theories about what they are. XD

[Sephiroth]

At least there is a version of "Hyne" in Final Fantasy III.

In my story The Burning Circle Hyne is the main antagonist of Final Fantasy VIII. So the sorcerer god. He is the father of Hora Oblivion, who is named "Ultimecia" among the witches.

I love writing stories.

But yeah, as long as we don't have any motive for Ultimecia's actions there's going to be wacky theories about what they are. XD

The motive is mentioned partly in the Ultimania including the explanation of her hating the SEEDs simply because her other-time period body was destroyed by Squall which is also the reason why she calls him the "legendary SEED".

So I can't help but feel like Hyne and his story was meant to have a more prominent role in the game's plot because its very rare for a game to mention repeatably an ancient myth story and not have it figure into the plot somehow.

The Centra were not mentioned that much either. And I already said in the other thread that the Ultimania explains the Time Compression. they would have written it being Ultimecia's plan to become a new Hyne in case it would be true.

[Wolf Kanno]

Part of me also wonders if perhaps Ultimecia's goal was to become a new Hyne by merging all of the witches powers together through Time Compression. This may make sense if its true about some of the dummied out info in the Information sections hold true, which states that a Witches power weakens with each passing, making it plausible for Time Compression being the only means to become a new Hyne. Still most of this is theoretical conjecture with no real proof to back it up.

Still, I know from interviews that Seifer was intended to have a larger role in the story and just sort of got shuffled about for one reason or another. So I can't help but feel like Hyne and his story was meant to have a more prominent role in the game's plot because its very rare for a game to mention repeatably an ancient myth story and not have it figure into the plot somehow.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

That would also make sense if she was simply trying to become the new Hyne by merging the sorceress' powers. Really, that makes sense to me considering you have this creation myth of Hyne creating mankind, and then mankind rebelling. Ultimecia is essentially becoming like Hyne by compressing time to a point where only she can exist (no humanity), and she has merged all of the sorceress' powers into herself.

This would make more sense just if she was Hyne trying to undo his mistake of creating humanity.... Though, if she was just wanting to become Hyne herself, compressing time would also ensure that that she wouldn't have to worry about humanity turning on her. This wouldn't have been that hard to include in the game, I think. Even a mention of this possibility would have helped the ending sequences make more sense. FFVIII is my favorite of the series, but I feel like the story does get more and more weak the closer you get to Ultimecia.

I also have to wonder what the SeeD of the future was doing. Was Ultimecia just sitting around in the shadows, trying to pull strings in the past so that she was largely unknown in her time? Based on her speech at the end, it would seem that she had run in with the kursed SeeDs. The more I think about Hyne and Ultimecia, the more I want to actually see what was going on in Ultimecia's time.

[qwertysaur]

Hyne is a reference to Hine from FF III.

[Roogle]

I assume that they would have delved into the origins of the Sorceresses and Hyne if the party had more of a chance to interact with Ultimecia. I find it sad that the game never explains much about the true nature of the sorceresses, and extraneous material outside of the game gives us explanations on things like this and Ultimecia's motivations.