You should know from my other posts that I indeed do use the quote button. I simply used the quotation marks because I was not home when I wrote this and had no time to correct the broken quote that I had. So I used the quotation marks instead.Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
He saved the villain with the same kind of technique he wrote for the first installment - a skill that is not even the ordinary Reunion but simply the shapeshifting ability he used. Sephiroth resisted the lifestream and travelled through it in FFVII already. Then he made use of Jenova's body after initiating the Reunion he shapeshifted the body into an exact duplicate of his own to run around in it while regenerating inside of a giant crystal. Sephiroth has the power to, let's call it in a funny way, use his consciousness like Wireless Lan. He can exist lose of one specific body and project himself into bodies and control them. Which is one of his greatest powers as it is one of his basic "a highly powerful entity with Jenova cells can willingly control the cells, even when not in his own body" aspects. If anything you can say it was "lazy" that he used it again. As a matter of fact if Nojima-san would have wanted to make it again more overkill he would also have made use of the fact that there was no reason for the Silver Haired Men to search the cells because Sephiroth can use them no matter where they are. But he did not. I think you are blaming Nojima-san way too much just because you dislike him as a writer, not seeing how he indeed did write several things that many would see as both appropriate as well as a good choice instead of something else that many others would rant on about as real "asspulls" as the kids would say.Even if it is written by the original author, its still a cop out writing technique and one that is overused in several mediums where the author has to somehow save their villain from certain death for the inevitable sequel.
It makes direct sense with the rules established for Sephiroth's power. First of all, Nojima-san would have never had the obligation to write that Sephiroth became weaker and was about to lose himself to the lifestream. But he did so at least there was some kind of narrative difference and drive for Sephiroth to do what he did instead of simply going all "oh, no I am back" and making him absolutely invincible. So he was not even treated like what he would normally be if you would actually consider all of his powers and using them in the most efficient way possible. And do you see me saying Nojima-san is a bad writer because of that because he did not let Sephiroth, a highly intelligent person, use them like this? No. Because I know it would be absolute overkill.It also doesn't make sense that a guy whom the novella reveals is using the last of his will power to stay existing and even forgot his original form can somehow fully resurrect when one of his shadow copies gets his hands on what little of Jenova is left and come back ten times more powerful when he died back when he had the full body of Jenova, knowledge of the lifestream, and had absorbed a health amount of it.
Second, one of the Jenova powers gives the ability to read minds. It seems you have read On The Way To A Smile so you should know about the whole existential link and all. Kadaj and the others were individual beings, brought back by Sephiroth with him, "living on in them" and them being a part of him even though they are other people and existed once as people that had nothing to do with Sephiroth. They had no idea about their relation with Sephiroth other than that he would return by reuniting. The entire drive to reunite and Sephiroth all the time, it is a dumb word in this situation but let's call it "secretly" lurking behind and making use of the powers gave him enough opportunity to reshape the memories of his own image and thus restore both mentally and physically. Controlling Jenova cells, changing form, reading minds.
What you say has nothing to do with common sense. You just want it to be "bulltrout" and the story is directly conform to the stance of the writers about the power scaling of Sephiroth and Cloud. How do you come to the conclusion that a - where it matters - fully restored Sephiroth that you see as weakened, is defeated by Cloud with ease, a person who is all the time and he himself even admitted, way way weaker than Sephiroth and only ever shown to be dominating in power whenever he follows the fairytale/shonen way of writing that "he gets stronger whenever he needs to protect someone/he fights for what is important for him/he fights with the one he loves/et cetera"? There would not have been a single aspect of the story where Sephiroth would have been defeated in any justified way other than the one they used: The final moment of the battle. Because it followed the way of how Cloud can defeat Sephiroth. Sephiroth cannot even be that "weakened" considering his will is directly related to his power and this will is even for years considered to be the absolute strongest in the Compilation. He reads the Lifestream. He resists it because of his will (only exception after the first game, obviously). That means he can use the power to get stronger. This makes his will stronger. And so on, and so on. Sephiroth WAS weakened. Then he recovered.... despite common sense dictating that it's all bulltrout and Cloud should have beatdown what logically would have been a very weakened Sephiroth. Apparently there is a novella somewhere that reveals that Jenova is secretly Cells sister.
That is purely subjective. I knew AC before the novella and never had a problem with Denzel.Denzel is kind of a jarring experience since he would appear to such people as to coming out of nowhere.
They are no clones, even the FFVII "replicas" are far from that. And Kadaj even hints that they are "fragments" as well as that they want the Reunion and that Sephiroth will come back. And Vincent also explains what Kadaj is. I will give you THAT one, because semantically spoken Vincent's explanation is highly misleading. The book really only goes into the detail that they "are Sephiroth but also are not" and actually are three dead guys that he found in the lifestream and made use of them.Similarly, the three Sephy clones also come out of nowhere, but at least fans can guess their origin at least.
In which way does not knowing more about Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo hurt the movie? By that logic the book is also "bad" because it only gives like 1 more detail about them. The question might be silly because you dislike Final Fantasy VII in general and your answer will be most likely "the book IS bad" but the point is, Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo are, despite being present in the movie not nearly as relevant as people as you might think. And that is exactly what it is about. Because the movie really only wants to present you some tools to "show Sephiroth without actually showing him and in the end really showing him". Do you know how many people in the last 12 years I have ever met or read from that complained about not knowing about the three Silver Haired Men? Not many at all. I only ever read "who were they?" and I answered and they said "ah, okay". They are fragments. (They once were normal guys, not ready to accept death.) Sephiroth uses them to return. They represent Sephiroth. And that's all that is important for the plot. Everything else would lead away from that.You would be left wondering who Han and Chewy are since they just kind of show up with little introduction. Yet it would be okay if George left the scene in place, but still wrote the novel anyway that expands the scenes in ways he couldn't for the film, because it wouldn't really hurt the films narrative and flow. That's the real issue with Squenix's cutting branches. You're promoting a game/film, why are you taking out content for other mediums when the works rarely stand on their own and it weakens the main event?
I think Kingsglaive is a fantastic example. I watched it before the main game. And therefore I knew what happened. And I had absolutely no problem considering "ah, okay that is what happened between chapter 1 and 2. But what Kingsglaive could not do, no matter if it was included or not was solve problems of the main scenario and focus of the game. Which is exactly why I am so glad that there will be more to give further explanation.I'll clarify my stance on supplement material, I don't like it when it remains exclusive from the main work its suppose to be supporting. For example, I feel FFXV would have been a better game as a narrative had Kingsglaive remained within the game. The film was okay, but I didn't feel it warranted being its own thing. After playing FFXV, I feel it would have made the earlier chapters more exciting, and easier to invest in the story and world, had it remained part of the earlier chapters.
But half of the novella is in the game as flashbacks? I agree some more flashbacks that made them more human and all like Lightning swearing on her mother's grave to be there for Serah or Serah and Snow buying the knife while laughing about how Lightning would look with a plushie or the power plant thing with Dahj or Cid and Lightning's talk would have been cool. I also understand that you might think it would be better for it to be in the game to make you feel more immersed but I never ever had a problem taking all of that into account. This must be a personal problem.I feel FFXIII should have had its novella included within the main game because it made it nearly impossible for me to sympathize or care about the characters and world when I was thrown into the plot in media res and all the story bits that would help me understand their motivations and what they were like before the story began to help me care about them, it didn't and I instead wasted forty hours wondering why I was still playing.
I feel like in a way I have covered this already but if there needs to be more clarity I will answer to that as well.If Nojima and Nomura were really worried about wasting just five minutes to give the viewer a recap of why so and so is here and what there dealio is, then maybe they could have cut it from one of the films many over the top fight scenes. Just saying, if the characters and story were really that important, they could have spent a bit more time on them within the film in order to make it a more contained story piece. Its a dick move to do this and I highly doubt its there for artistic integrity and more because the parent company needs an excuse for fans to shelve out an extra twenty bucks for the Ultimate Edition.
Psychologically spoken this is not obvious at all. I cannot even start listing the endless amount of cases and reasons why you could criticise someone like you do and still not do the same thing for yourself. It would already start with having an incredibly inflexible self-concept and not being ready to do anything against it while on the other hand reflecting all of that by instead criticising exactly the same thing on other people, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The possibilities are endless, you see.I feel that if I'm this hard on a guy who is actually making money off their writing, then logic would make it pretty obvious that I'm probably ten times harsher on myself.
That I can agree with.... and I've been told I have at least good ideas
And how in the world is that "amusing"? A story is something someone composes and yes, this "word of god" that you are calling it can also include so called "retroactive continuity". Whenever Nojima-san writes something that is directly conform, it is fine. He is one of those he decides. Whenever he decides to change something of what he wrote before, fine, he is one of those who decides. Saying retcons (if they actually happen) are not following "the word of god" is like saying "you can never change what you said in your life/correct yourself and everything needs to be the first stance you have had for the rest of your life". I respect Sakaguchi-san a lot. But he is neither an officially employed writer for Final Fantasy VII as it stands right now, nor does his stance about sequels and going on and all mean anything about the "word of god" that affects that fictional universe or how fans should see that. If he was still working for Square and said something about the game the story stuff could be different if he were a writer. But even then stances like what should or should not have further installments are nothing that should affect anyone. No person working for Square can affect me when it comes to that because it is something completely different from me saying "that person said this detail x is like y in the game". It just is not the same thing.I find it amusing that you're trying to call me out on this seeing how you yourself were simply saying that any writing changes in AC are fine since it has one of the games original writers working on it.
It was not "inflammatory" against you. I am simply responding in the same manner you once did by without calling my name and yet blunt enough talk about the posts of people who sleep with the Ultimania Omega (paraphrased by me, definitely not respectful and with some very obvious stance), so it is not like you never "tried" anything. Maybe I am wrong about you having talked about me that time? But I can't help feeling that it was meant to target me for real.I'm not going to respond to the rest of this since its largely off topic and mostly inflammatory against me. I will simply say that it would be best for us to focus on the topic at hand and leave such matters to private discourse. As for the reference, I will admit that I was mistaken and the interview I was referencing was not from any of the official guide books but rather an old interview with the main creative staff in Dorimaga magazine if that helps.
Sorry, Shauna.
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