Artemisia and the QM theory

[Serapy]

VIII is not clear cause it was written poorly. It lacks a defined world structure and bounces from one unrelated plot element to the next leaving players to piece together its scattered plot. I still feel its pretty good but definetly poor in its presentation and execution.

I feel the lack of meaningful story ties is enough to justify R does not = U actually. If it was relevant (and I think we can all agree that R=U is a big deal storywise) then I feel the game would have been a little more blunt about it instead of hiding it behind minor background information that can easily be taken out of context. Granted, I feel Nojima is a pretty terrible writer so I could actually see him doing this but thats all I will give in defense of the R=U camp.

Well, I'm inclined to believe that the "poorly plot" explanation is based on your opinion. In my opinion, the "poorly plot" term is not right to use at this point, because it's more like a complex plot, which doesn't make the plot poorly. What I mean is that this specific plot is missing something but that doesn't make it poorly written, because it was meant to be like that.

Poorly explained plots doesn't mean "possiblities are endless." It means the plot was written poorly. R=/U doesn't has plot-holes, because the game has plot-holes. R=U has little supporting evidence, is usually based on other theories, and takes on many of the plot-holes already in the game, sometimes making it worse with ill-supported theories.

Like what I said to WK: it's your opinion for calling the plot poorly written.

Let's consider this: if the plot is genuinely poor, shouldn't the Ultimania Guide be having more details to polish the plot? In fact, it has only mentioned crucial information such as the Human Life Span, which isn't good enough because there are much more than just that that need to be explained. Also, why didn't the writers make announcements to tell the whole world something like "Hey guys, we are here to make [clarifications] about the FF8 plot" ?

Or would this increase the chance of them re-making FF8 for the sake of the plot? As far as I can see, they have no plans about re-making FF8.

So, judging by these, you can tell that the plot is working as intended by the writers.

I'm going to address these theories seperately.

Why Artemisia has very little/no relevance to Final Fantasy 8

If Square-Enix were going to base someone on a mythological Greek character, and considering the high quality of translations throughout VIII, one would think that they would give them the correct name when translating it to English.

It doesn't matter if they didn't translate it into Artemisia in the English version, because they already did it in the Japanese version. I think the Japanese version is the most important version of all other versions because it was the first version to be made.

Why did they name it Ultimecia in the English version? I really don't know but I'm guessing:

1) Final Fantasy. Most of the FF games are based on many things in real life history, but usually the names of specific things in FF are different.

2) In risk of having lawsuits? For example: if FF8 actually renamed the main villian to "God". I can bet that Square would either get sued or create a bad reputation for naming the main villian "God". So they just re-named it to Ultimecia just to be safe.

Anyway, her name isn't the only thing to prove something, but also Ultimecia has similarities as Artemisia. Like what I said in the first post, the messages of the paintings in Ultimecia's castle are based on Greek. If Ultimecia wasn't Artemisia or interested in Greek or whatever else then why did she have them in her castle? Why does her castle exist? Why the greek stuff in her castle? At least, this theory kind of fit all the patterns together to me.

Also, of interest about Artemisia is that her husband, Maussolus, was her brother. Squall & Rinoa are not brother and sister. And one cannot say that Artemisia was in fact mad. I went looking for the ash drinking reference you made, and could only find it in Wikipedia, at this link: Artemisia II of Caria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
where it states:
She is said to have mixed his ashes in her daily drink, and to have gradually pined away during the two years that she survived him.

Now, "She is said to have" from an article on Wikipedia is definitely not a substantiated truth, especially when what is said to have happened does not have any citation. Who is this person who said this? Seeing that I could not find any other article that referred to this ash drinking, I would think this is usual Wikipedia nonsense. Also, considering the way she tactically outclassed and defeated the Rhodians, I would think that her mental facilities were operating quite well, thank you very much.

Excuse me? I actually got this information from:

Artemisia II of Caria

Consisted of:

Ancient Greek Science and Technology

Created by Michael Lahanas (he also has demonstrated many other greek stuff), speaks Greek and he was born in Greece. Do you honestly think that he has made all this up? No, I don't think so.

As for Artemisia being Mausolus's sister, I'm aware of that. But FF8 is a fantasy game and the FF series (including FF8) has represented so many metaphors based on the real life history. Not all the elements represented in FF are correct, that's what Final Fantasy is for.

It doesn't matter if they are real brother/sister, because in a sense, Artemisia loved Mausolus, just like Rinoa loved Squall, since FF8 is kind of based on a love theme.

The Mausoleum of Maussollos was not started by Artemisia, but by Maussolus. This is substantiated out of Wikipedia by articles such as this: Maussolus
There are differing versions on how far along the Mausoleum was when Maussolus' died. One article said that it had just begun, some said that it was almost completed, and some say that Artemisia just commissioned the artists to do the decoration. However, this is irrelevant. The key is that Maussolus, not Artemisia, started the idea.

Just like Squall started the idea of Griever, alias Lion. It's very possible that Squall has died in prior to the future of Ultimecia's existence. Ultimecia has decided to finish building the castle. Why else did she make the castle for? The castle also has Lion statues.

The lion on the coin was quite interesting. But take a look at this article: Caria
On the bottom left hand corner are some pictures of Carian coins, circa 200. And, one is a lion. This is after Maussolus' time. Also, according to this article: Silver Lion Coinage of Mylasa in Caria (Ancient Coins of Miletos)
the Carians stole the lion coin idea from their neighbour, and it first appeared in the time of Maussolus' father.

Indeed, when Mausolus died, his Lion statues and coins as well as his castle show up. Just like after Squall's time, his Lion statues show up. His love between Rinoa were expressed and represented in the game. The coin has a star symbol as Rinoa pointing at the star. Quite hard to reject that comparison, don't you think?

The Mausoleum has a greater resemblance to Edea's house, with the pillars surrounding it. The paintings in Ultimecia's castle are on canvas, and canvas painting only occured much after (like 1400 AD) the building of the Mausoleum. There are also carpets, wooden stairs, etc. which gives Ultimecia's castle a resemblance to a Renaissance era castle, not an ancient Greek castle.

Yes, but remember that there's a reason why Edea's house existed: it's used as an orphanage.

We don't know the reason why Ultimecia's castle existed. That's why, with this theory, it gives you clues to think of how Ultimecia's castle existence start in the first place. Think about it, Ultimecia is a very powerful being, she has had so many options to do. For instance, Ultimecia can fly through the whole universe through her magic, so why does she need a castle for? Usually, most things represented in games have meanings. If a thing in a game has no meaning, that thing wouldn't have existed. Why would the FF8 designers waste thier time making/putting "useless" things in the game? That wouldn't make sense, right? So I'm more inclined to believe that her castle was supposed to have a meaning, which is a symbolism of a thing (you know which) from the history.

This Artemisia connection was far-fetched to begin with, even if all the facts were true. But, after doing a little bit of checking of the facts, NOT ONE RELEVANT FACT IS ACTUALLY TRUE!

Fact 1) The greeks and other religious things in this game.

^ The paintings, her stuff.... and so on.

Fact 2) Ultimecia didn't clarify her motives / objectives.

^ Dr Odine has speculated this one but speculation is a speculation; never a first hand account from Ultimecia herself or anyone close enough to her to know for sure.

Fact 3) The game doesn't tell us anything about her past. Judging by the story, there's also no guarantee that Ultimecia even remembered anything about her past.

^
Artemisia drank ashes for two reasons: surviving Mausolus whom she was with and she was extremely crazy. Who would want to drink ashes anyways?

If Artemisia was extremely crazy, it's very reasonable for her to forget about her past. Just like Ultimecia.

Fact 4) The game doesn't show us events from each timeline. In the end, we got transported to the future's timeline, but did it show us what happened before that timeline? No, it didn't. Same with other missing timelines. Most people (includingthe FF8 designers) know that Time Travel is usually subjective and definitive. FF8 didn't show us extra timelines, so hench they leave us to make our own interpretations (obviously).

Fact 5) The name of Ultimecia is actually Artemisia in the Japanese version.

Oh, and I can answer my first question about why Squaresoft translated it to Ultimecia. It was so people did not get the wrong idea.

In that case, translating Aerith into Aeris in the English version to ensure that people didn't get the wrong idea doesn't sound right.

But if you were actually correct, then why didn't Square translate it into Ultimecia in the Japanese version, instead of Artemisia?

Why the QM Theory is also a bit irrelevant

The QM theory is an interesting article. I suggest you read it. But why it is irrelevant to the R=U debate is quite simple.

This theory is not heavily based on R=U, but rather Ultimecia being Artemisia.

Firstly, just because someone is able to do something, does not mean that they are going to do it. My car can go x km/h. This does not mean I am going to drive it at x km/h. Same applies to Rinoa.


Secondly, there is no evidence from the game that Rinoa is able to travel forwards in time. Excluding time compression, there is no evidence of a being moving their entire being through time to another point. Time compression is a freak occurence, and obviously has never been completed, as the game would not be able to occur if all time was compressed into one state. Ellone and Ultimecia, through her machine, are moving mental consciousnesses to people in the past. And, in Ellone's case, not changing anything. But that is very different to moving one's entire body through time & space.

Thirdly, the QM theory only states that if one moves backwards through time, you will not change the present. But it is possible that it rules out forward time travel (I am no scientist, so I may be wrong). The way I picture it is that we are kind of like a train. From the present, if I look back, there is only a single railway track. If I move back into the past, I will not be able to change the present. However, the future is still uncertain, and as such there is an infinite number of railway tracks, illustrating all my possibilities. Therefore, one cannot move forwards through it, because one cannot know what the future actually is.

Yes, there is evidence. Ellone/Ultimecia can travel through time. If they can travel through time, then someone else can do too.

There is evidence that the game has contained parts of Time Travel.

Most of all, there's no evidence that the game has told us what would really happen if TC was completed.

So I don't get what you're trying to say here. That was what the theory was about. Ultimecia couldn't kill Rinoa, ever, even if she attempts in doing so. Ultimecia certainly did something: interfering Squall and Rinoa's timelines.

Conclusion
In my opinion, Serapy's use of Artimesia to try and prove R=U is completely flawed, as all the evidence brought forward is flawed. The QM theory is irrelevant to the game because of my first two points, and may actually remove the possibility of forward time travel, if my third point is correct. Perhaps someone wise in the mechanics of time travel can have a look at this article and see what they think the implications of this are in terms of forward time travel.

Once again, this theory is not all about R=U.

The reason why I added the QM theory is because the game didn't tell us about the mechanisms behind the Time Travel that they have used.

Completely flawed? Why don't you make a theory to prove that R=U is truly false? Because it's exactly the same thing, there's no evidence that it's truly false (apart from the Human Life Span explanation).