Yeah, I appreciate the vote of confidence and all, fireemblem, but Sir Bahamut there is easily as much of an expert on this game as I am. It's by first having debated against one another and then later trying to figure out things together that our knowledge of the game has been so enhanced. For that matter, as far as matters of discussing time goes, I'd suggest turning out an ear toward him before anyone else, even me.

While we both have solid conceptions of time, we've never managed to agree on it. He believes that the past is fixed and unmallable, while I've always believed that it can be changed and Ellone's statement that it couldn't stemmed from the fact that her attempts to change the past were only reinforcing it. From the standpoint of discussing this game, my view would probably be considered the more unorthodox of the two. While I recognize that when viewing time as a line, Ultimecia would always appear in the past long before she was ever born, I don't accept that things were always this way.

That said, however, I've tried to look at things his way and he's tried to look at them mine, and we've argued for and against one another's views over the last couple of years. We have a mutual respect born of recognizing an equal in the other (and if I may say so, when we debated against each other, he provided me with the best debate I've ever had the honour to partake of, even if it ended with a draw). My point here is that I consider him to be the premiere individual on the subject of time in Final Fantasy VIII... even if I don't agree with him about it.

This is all a really long-winded way of me saying this: "Just read the FAQ Bahamut linked to."