Thought I would jump in here and post my lil thoughts. Square has never hit me has being very origional. It is funny to see them try and nail the same story in different lights. Its like taco bell... sam stuff - different wrapping - and i still cannot get enough of it Little nicer on the digestive track though.

Anywho, I see this is very common amongst japanese storyies - the use of ancient lors or religions.. Specifically that with the tree of life. Evangelion for instance - the redone ending - Shinji actually becomes the center of the sepiroth wich makes him balance and human (or god) depending on your take. I see this farse of a tree mixed in with christanity a lot but really have never seen much of a connection.

The whole artificial human/weapon deal mentioned about celes, carries into cloud strife as well then to ViVi and possibly to Tidus...i guess. This is also a belief where an artificial life will disrupt or kill the tree of life, causeing a series of events blah blah - same as most other religions

The god of destruction deal with Kefka ties right into Sepiroth - (Qabbalah - Kabbalah) or the tree of life contains sepiroth - or small entities that make up a theoretical tree of life. http://www.crystalinks.com/kabala.html Although I run across many
The opera scene and theatre has a reacouring role through out the series as well.

Speaking of Kefka - He looks like a shakespearian mad man And the opera is nearly a rip off of Romeo and juliet revisited again in ff9 with the stage crew. I think Final Fantasy 8 was the most origonal... and mabey that is why it was so disliked?

Also - the giant tree in final fantasy IX - oh what did they call it

Just some preliminary drafted thoughts to toss in there - If anyone has more information on this tree of life, look at it and i bet it all ties more into the FF series and a ton of other anime/jap style stories.


Quick Evangelion ? here:
- Adam had one wife - Eve. No lilith. Cain was son of Adam and Eve, and killed his Brother Abel. The first recorded man driven sin. The man on the End of Evangelion commentary, said somthing like:
Adam had a wife named lilith whom was also created from the earth. They begot Cain, but god made Eve outta adams rib to be more loyal. Then cain killed able got sent to the land of Nod with his mother and they produced demons....
Kinda far fetched i know - but wth religion says all this - or was the guy full of it? It has been a while since i have seen the commentary, but i belive that that is close.

Bipper GOES!
I have proof
PS sorry for lack of neatness - was in a hurry and wanted to get my thoughts up