(spoiler warning for original FFVII, FFVII Remake & Rebirth)

So, I was wrong about something-

My only firm prediction for Rebirth didn’t pan out.

It did not end at the Whirlwind Maze, in the Northern Crater. It seemed obvious, at the end of Remake, that the second leg of the story would begin almost exactly at Kalm and Cloud’s first telling of the Nibelheim incident. I figured, since the story would begin with Cloud’s recall-narrative…that the Whirlwind Maze would make for the perfect dramatic ending. Cloud’s memory is challenged directly by Sephiroth with the full force of Jenova’s ability to shape-shift and spell-bind.

Cloud seems almost suspiciously vulnerable to Sephiroth’s psychic duress. He soon becomes convinced that he was a failed Sephiroth clone, made in the aftermath of the Nibelheim incident, with DNA samples from Sephiroth in his post-Jenova state (that, I imagine, is what Cloud recalled Hojo keeping in the tanks in the Shinra Mansion, what with the skin and the hair and blood, most of which could probably have been taken forensically after the Nibelheim incident- skewered leg, other tussles during his rampage, etc).

I thought it was a great opportunity for a cliff-hanger that would, at a convenient narrative stopping point, add maximum drama while expanding the scope of the story, boosting the set-up to the third act.

Nonetheless…Lifestream-tinged wind-storms made their appearance in the final act of Rebirth, even if it wasn’t in the Whirlwind Maze. Similar looking phenomena dominates the horizon in the Terrierverse, where we find Zack.

One wonders if these visual cues will come together when the final third of VIIR does portray the Northern Crater and the Whirlwind Maze. If they will mean what they meant in Rebirth but within the Whirlwind Maze, nestled against the edge of the crater.

Before going that far, let’s review what they actually were in Rebirth. They manifested in the sky in a certain cluster of worlds. These include the part of the Terrieverse that Zack wanders into at the end of Remake and the beginning of Rebirth. Elmyra tells Zack that some people think that it heralds the end of the world. Shinra appears completely galvanized around it, in spite of other recent blows to Midgar like the fall of the Sector 7 plate, the bombing of mako reactors and something that was widely perceived as a tornado.

It seems obvious to me that this is because of the interdimensional nature of what happened at the end of Remake. Rather: what usually happens when Sephiroth conjures a wall of destiny. Sure enough, at the end of Rebirth: Sephiroth manifests the wall of destiny on the outside of the Forgotten Capital of the Cetra. The last time this happened, someone (Zack) ended up in a cluster of worlds where the sky is covered with the same Lifestream-like glow as the whirlwinds in the Northern Crater.

One possible reading is that the Whirlwind Maze in the Northern Crater is dimensionally-unique space. The cluster of worlds containing whirlwind-green horizons may be distinguished by the fact that their entire world(s) are covered with the dimensional uniqueness of the crater, rather than a discrete location within a world.

What if: the Northern Crater is where it all came together for extra-dimensional Sephiroth. The event that broke the Sephiroth/Jenova/Whisper-conglomerate out of the first timeline also set them on the rampage that leads to the other two timelines. An interdimensional phenomena arising from a certain place may express itself in the same place across timelines. In a few different worlds, it looks as if a particular location is haunted by interdimensional weirdness. This could be an outside view.

In the world where we spend the most time with Zack, the whirlwind-glow is commonly called the rift in the sky. That looks like an inside view.

From the ease with which extra-dimensional Sephiroth omnipotentally manifests in the worlds with the sky rifts…it seems to follow that those are the worlds that are under the pressure of extra-dimensional Sephiroth’s Whisper-conglomerate. Directly against it, maybe.

How far out can Sephiroth go, exactly? How far out was extra-dimensional Sephiroth during his appearance in Remake and then in Rebirth?

Speaking of him-

Near the end of Remake and throughout Rebirth, the story can be divided between the timeline containing the party and the timeline containing Zack. At the end of my Rebirth review, I considered the relevance of a third timeline, where the extra-dimensional menace originated.

Before now, I’ve assumed that extra-dimensional Sephiroth originated from the “first” possible timeline that we, as gamers, are aware of: that which begins with the first Crisis Core and ends with Advent Children and Dirge Of Cerberus. That, of course, would go with the assumption that Jenova ultimately “won” in that timeline- either at a future date not portrayed or subtly “winning” in the present. Jenova (and, presumably, Sephiroth) won and turned Gaia into another flaming vessel for Meteor, from which to proceed to new planets and timelines to conquer. Maybe the mysterious fate of Genesis (post-Crisis Core and throughout the Deepground program in DoC) had some bearing on Jenova’s apparent victory in that timeline.

The theory has a ring of truth, considering the tone of the ending of the original Final Fantasy VII. Yes, it left room for some hope. Life, post OG VII, continued after the apparent fall of both Jenova and Shinra. Nanaki, at least, fills out the typical lifespan of his kind and begets a family along the way. Midgar, however, suffered damage from both Meteor’s approach and the abrupt, last-minute intervention of Holy. Some hundreds of years later, Nanaki and his cubs unexpectedly find themselves on a cliff, affording a panoramic view of Midgar, completely overgrown with wildlife and greenery.

Yet Midgar is only one human city-state: it’s downfall can only relate to the downfall of Shinra. Maybe humanity isn’t on top, just then, but wasn’t the whole story about humanity’s growing pains anyway?

The tone of the ending is tough on humanity but it is also fair, considering events up until then. A new planet-threatening crisis derived from human meddling (Genesis, post DoC) would cut against any possibility of a positive arc for humanity…but if Sephiroth and Jenova somehow came out on top “in the end”, then maybe it wasn’t looking good for humanity anyway.

Or, if Genesis didn’t “cause” it, then maybe Genesis was the one who brought Sephiroth’s extra-dimensional Whisper-conglomerate over the veil. Maybe the circumstances need to be the same to make contact with other Gaias, hence the insistence of “enforcing” the original timeline (Nanaki’s flash of the original ending near the end of Remake, i.e. “[t]his is what will happen if we fail here, today [sic]”).

Given some lore introduced in Rebirth, though, I’m not sure if extra-dimensional Sephiroth did come from the original timeline. The behavior of the black Whispers in Remake were clearly interested in enforcing the original timeline. We now know that the intentions of the black conglomerate-Whispers are not just enforcement of its creation, though: maybe enforcement of a temporal entry point? One that depends on the unfolding of the original timeline?

The enforcement of that timeline matters at least a little; the ‘analysis’ blurbs for the Whisper Harbinger’s three lesser Whispers say that they are protecting their timeline of origin. In a recent Ultimania guide, some of the creators of Remake effectively told the interviewer that the three end boss Whispers are Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo from Advent Children. The Ultimania statement, the ‘analysis’ blurb in Remake and the behavior of the Whispers in that game all attest to the enforcement of the original timeline. If not for origin, than for an entry-exit causality juncture which (presumably) enabled them to survive the original timeline.

This would also necessarily mean that extra-dimensional Sephrioth did not come from the original timeline, though.

Jenova-facilitated contact from a third timeline would explain some of Cloud’s memory-flashes in Rebirth. One of them dates back to the beginning of Remake, when Cloud encountered a robed cell-carrier living next door in an apartment building. Lots of robed figures, against a windy, rocky background, with some jagged peaks that I find reminiscent of a location from the original. More recent memory-flashes include the deaths of Zack and Tifa.

Strictly speaking, the original Final Fantasy VII furnishes some intuitive answers. By the end of that game, we knew that Cloud was harboring Jenova cells ever since Hojo experimented on him and Zack in the Shinra Mansion. It’s commonly interpreted that the psychic sensitivity and shape-shifiting potential of Jenova caused Cloud’s personal cell colony to fabricate memories, such as the ones demonstrated in his telling of the Nibelheim incident in Kalm.

We also know, from the original, that Sephiroth will use any psychic pressure that could possibly help him. If its helpful for him that Cloud start believing that he’s a Sephiroth clone, Sephiroth will see it through. If Jenova and Sephiroth in Rebirth have that much in common with the original story, then artificial memories of Tifa and Zack dying are definitely something that they might try. The vision of Cloud in the cell-carrier robe, seemingly shuffling around the Whirlwind Maze muttering “reunion”, could also be a whole-cloth fabrication, for that matter.

How many whole-cloth lies have we seen from Sephiroth, though?

The biggest candidate would be the idea that Cloud is a Sephiroth clone. Yet, considering that Hojo likely dosed Zack and Cloud with Jenova cells from biomatter left by Sephiroth, it isn’t entirely off base either. Sephiroth and Jenova will control the framing of apparent information and elimate information but they don’t appear to add information, except in a blunt, copy-paste way. Cloud’s delusions of “being” Zack are crafted around his observations of Zack. Cloud can’t even leave out the traits he doesn’t want idealized- those are given to a random Shinra trooper, who just happens to be in all of the situations Cloud himself actually would have.

The telepathic pressure of Jenova seems to lie more in misrepresentation and projection than outright fabrication.

Obviously, if you think that Jenova can do fabrication, then you can sweep those recent memory-flashes into the ‘deception’ category.

I’m inclined to think that the memory-flashes of Cloud in the robe, the death of Zack and the death of Tifa are probably based on something, even if the source and the meaning isn’t direct. A third timeline accomodates this, especially considering that it was probably a timeline in which Cloud turned as ugly as Sephiroth (to say nothing of the role played by the loss of Zack and Tifa).

In the version of this theory that I arrived at during the end of my Rebirth review…this timeline makes itself known to Cloud (potentially from a young age) for very specific reasons. A very specific reason that can hide in the shadow of existing world-building.

Remember how much the VIIR devs have emphasized their attachment to faithfulness. Any new cosmology innovations will not likely edge out existing cosmology.

Narrative changes have been made, of course, but I think the majority of those arise from the modern graphics, which tie the scale of the perspective to human physical proportions. Things that happened in the overall plot of the original game find their way into comparable places, if they can’t be in the same place (Fort Condor-related sub quest in Junon, even if the actual Fort Condor location isn’t there, etc).

Dramatic changes have also been made with extra-dimensional Sephiroth and the Whisper-conglomerate. But I think those changes are more likely to rhyme with the original cosmology than contradict it.

This rhymes with Cloud’s mental wounds.

The dude has had a painful relationship with self worth. His last commuincation with Tifa, before her childhood accident on Mount Nibel, was urging her not approach the rope bridge because there was nothing to find; the local folklore about Mount Nibel is folklore only and the land of the dead is not there. Cloud only made his presence known once Emilio and others left Tifa alone on the mountain. He accompanied her to the rope bridge and brought her back to Nibelheim. In the original, Cloud was smeared by Emilio and the others- stemming, apparently, from the shame of their abandonment.

His first experience sticking his neck out for someone ended with at least a temporary bad reputation and isolation from Tifa. After that, the quiet anger and resentment of Cloud’s early adulthood began to sink through. At age thirteen, he tells Tifa that he plans to join SOLDIER, in emulation of Sephiroth.

Here, it becomes helpful to remember the beginning of Remake: something happened, with a leaky mako pipe, that had some connection with Aerith’s awareness of the other timelines.

Nibelheim is also the site of the first mako reactor. And it’s known to leak. And early-teen Cloud is nurturing his indignance with power fantasies.

The original story accomodated this with the relationship between Cloud’s inferiority complex and his eventual dosing with Jenova cells. Obviously, both of those things are still present and active in VIIR.

Jenova is known to shape-shift and use psychic manipulation. All she needs is a psychological exploit. But this is a world where Jenova is connected, across timelines, to extra-dimensional Sephiroth. One of the trickier parts of differentiating between extra-dimensional Sephiroth and local Sephiroth is that both rely on Jenova which means telepathic influence could be coming from one, the other or all of the above.

What if Jenova had reference material to use on Cloud, from the Whisper-conglomerate? Say, a timeline in which Cloud became a famous 1st Class SOLDIER alongside Sephiroth? Feeling small can create big dreams.

This timeline, as far as we’re concerned, would look completely random unless it was built up beforehand (Cloud in the robe, Tifa and Zack, etc).

The death of Zack (in the rapids of Mount Nibel instead of outside Midgar) is also clearly not meant to be a throwaway memory-flash. When it happens, Cloud says to Tifa that they need to tell Aerith, for her closure. Tifa tells him that she will take care of it, later, in privacy.

Later, if you end up with Aerith during the second Gold Saucer visit, Aerith delivers a combination of familiar and unfamiliar dialogue. She comments on Cloud’s uncanny resemblance to Zack in his mannerisms and bearing. Cloud assumes that she is beginning to grieve because Tifa told her how Zack died. He says (pretty much) “Tifa told you, huh?”

We then get a brief flashback to that conversation and Tifa apparently choked: she only managed to say that “Cloud remembers Zack now” before losing her nerve.

Aerith, therefore, has no obvious reason to know what Cloud was talking about.

To address some concerns of Aerith’s awareness:

Before now, Aerith had revelatory little memory-flashes about the “original” timeline. Throughout Rebirth, those visions are less available to her. She tells Tifa, in Kalm, that she lost a lot of those memories (presumably when they crossed the wall of destiny on their way out of Midgar). Aerith tells Nanaki that she managed to regain some of them and gain further insights. In spite of that, Aerith doesn’t appear to have the whole, intact, extra-dimensional awareness that she did in Remake. When Aerith touches other people in Remake, they get flashes of the original CC-DoC timeline. That touch-effect isn’t present in Rebirth.

What all that means is: Aerith doesn’t necessarily know how things turned out “first time around.” Meaning, she may or may not have any awareness of how Zack died outside of Midgar, much less Cloud’s memory-flash of him falling into rapids on Mount Nibel.

So. Back to Aerith and Cloud, during their Gold Saucer date. Aerith might be unaware of any subtext that would let her know what Tifa was driving at. Aerith may have no idea what Cloud was talking about with the “Tifa finally told you” line. In any event, Tifa did not tell Aerith what she said she would and Aerith says nothing to imply any contextual knowledge of this.

(Not to stray too far from the Gold Saucer date…but consider what Tifa probably thought of Cloud’s dead-Zack-in-the-rapids flash. Cloud has already voiced the idea that Tifa herself appeared to die after Sephiroth slashed her open. Maybe it’s manipulation from the third timeline but Tifa seems to think it’s psychosis. She has also sat through a telling of the Nibelheim incident by Cloud, with Cloud doing all the Zack stuff. Tifa likely assumed that the memory of Zack’s death on Mount Nibel was purely delusional. In that case, she wouldn’t want to freak Aerith out over Cloud’s problem and therefore froze)

If someone starts with the VIIR games with no knowledge of the original, the vision of the Mount Nibel rapids might appear even more significant.

Another reason I find the possibility of a third timeline compelling: in the original, Sapphire Weapon goes down after taking a mako cannon shell at point-blank range, never to be seen again. If that was meant to be the death of Sapphire, then I wonder if the ending of Remake may have included another hint at the third universe.

Basically, I think the Whisper Harbinger in Remake looks like Sapphire Weapon.

In the original, Sephiroth’s organic body- from which he psychically projects into cell-carriers -is suspended directly above Sapphire Weapon’s head in the Northern Crater.

Dunno about this next comparison exactly but I couldn’t help but notice the narrowed eyes-

To say nothing of the one obvious deviation from Sapphire’s traditional design-

These similarities feel even more significant after seing how Rebirth depicted the Lifestream-view of the interdimensional incursions of Sephiroth between worlds.

VIIR features a new Weapon-being, known to come and go from mako reservoirs in at least two ruined reactors: first in Corel and then Gongaga.

After everyone’s first evening in Gongaga, they wake up to disturbing news. Shinra is fast approaching the mako reactor ruin and Whispers are preventing members of the militia from approaching. The party encounters them on their way to the reactor but they seem far less interested in them then they were in Remake. Cloud sees one of them assume the shape of Sephiroth, which I suspect was simply extra-dimensional Sephiroth making his presence known to him.

At the reservoir (which is still somehow drawing mako despite being non-functional), the Whispers are swarming in a spiral overhead. Cloud is overwhelmed by Shinra troopers when extra-dimensional Sephiroth manifests, telling Cloud that he needs to embrace his anger without reservation. Cloud then becomes an unstoppable BEAST, brutally and efficiently cutting down all in his path.

Tifa is alarmed at this sudden change and approaches him. Sephiroth repeats his assertion that Tifa is dead and that this person is a Jenova cell-carrier. Cloud mumbles this as it’s relayed to him and Tifa is flabbergasted: she already showed Cloud her surgical scar, how could he still be on about this?

The Whispers in the sky disappear and Cloud attacks Tifa, who dodges his blade only to fall backwards into the reservoir. As she falls, extra-dimensional Sephiroth and the Whisper-conglomerate (worst band name ever) withdraw from Cloud and he realizes what he’s done.

Tifa, meanwhile, gets swallowed by the Weapon. This Weapon, by the way, has a Huge Materia socketed into its body. Rufus, earlier, told his cabinet that Weapons appear when the planet is in danger and contain their own Huge Materias. This, apparently, pertains to Weapons in general and not just this specific whale-like one.

Next, we are rooted in Tifa’s perspective, inside the Weapon. The environment has at least a passing resemblance to the Lifestream astral plane from the original- the one Tifa and Cloud end up in after a Lifestream swell erupts in Mideel, where she psychically helped Cloud separate his own memories from the cell-colony illusions.

Here, like Mideel in the original, Tifa concludes that she is within the Lifestream. On this plane, the Weapons are not just defenders of the planet: they are her avatars.

To everyone’s awestruck relief, the Weapon surfaces from the reservoir again, to return Tifa in a flash of green light.

Tifa later tells everyone (after a therapuetic debriefing with Cloud) that she saw the planet in conflict with an outside menace. This maps onto Tifa’s vision of the Corel-Gongaga Weapon fighting against the Whisper-conglomerate. For part of this, Tifa is looking outward at the Lifestream from within the Huge Materia in the Weapon’s belly. After going a few rounds with the Whispers, the conglomerate parts, revealing extra-dimensional Sephiroth, who lunges through the Lifestream and cuts open the Huge Materia, ending the vision.

Speaking of Cloud and Tifa’s Lifestream adventures…they still have a distinctly psychological structure, even with their significance beyond the individual. Weapons represent the will of the planet, much like Holy. The planet contains the Lifestream. Yet Weapons can interact with other continuities from within it, both inside and out like a Russian nesting doll. As if the Lifestream contains avatars from different timelines, like multiple personalities within the same mind.

If Sephiroth and the Whisper-conglomerate are going from timeline to timeline absorbing different Lifestreams, an avatar through which to travel to other timelines would be important. Also: if Jenova’s ultimate goal (perhaps her life cycle) depends on subjugating entire Lifestreams, that could be expressed as bending the planet to her will. The will of the planet would become her own, perhaps capturing the local Holy and the local Weapons.

Meanwhile, in a certain timeline, Sephiroth is suspended in the Northern Crater, directly over Sapphire. Just sayin’.

Here’s my Rebirth review for context

And this is a lore analysis I wrote after Remake came out, dealing with the Whisper Harbinger and the Ultimania interview