Let's Talk About Rebirth's Ending.... Ft. Maximilian Dood *SPOILERS* 

..... ..... Where do we even start??

"The ending happened" - Nico 2024

I love the idea that Max is just sitting around waiting for other people to finish Rebirth so he can talk more about it. Dood is a fiend for FF7 discussions!

Me: I swear max has been on at least 5 different channels so far talking about the ending, lol Max: ILL MAKE IT 50

The Tenth Doctor said it best, I think. "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a nonlinear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff."

I think my favorite part about this game is how Sephiroth is legitimately annoyed and angry at Aerith. He’s like, “this bitch is trying to thwart me.” It’s so satisfying seeing that smug, sadistic piece of shit get outsmarted 😂

Cloud becomes Omni-Cloud Cloud learns Omnislash And Omnislash is basically "I cut reality open"

unbelievebly enough, the timeline rules seems to be similer to.... Homestuck, of all things. In Homestuck, there is one TRUE timeline, sometimes refer to as Canon, and whenever anyone travel in time to change the past they eiather work to create that timeline, or to diverge from it. Whenever a new timeline that diverge from the true timeline is created, it is considered a doomed timeline, and everyone and everything in it would eventually die. However, there are multiple instences where a doomed timeline is needed in order to help facilitate the true timeline.

To answer your question, cloud at the end is thinking Aerith is going to stay at the forgotten capital to continue praying. She directly says that she’ll continue praying to stop meteor. That’s the story she’s selling to cloud to explain why she’s not tagging along.

The whole “re-doing” of the ending (Advent Children, etc.) through learning how to accept grief also continues to track Neon Genesis Evangelion Rebuild. I really feel like that was the template for the whole FF7R project.

If you think im gonna sit here and listen to Max talk about Final Fantasy 7 for ANOTHER 2 hours, then you thought right

42:51 There's a couple of issues with the "Jenova-Aerith" Theory. The first is that any time there's an interaction with Jenova-as-(insert character) there is a Black Cloak or SOLDIER in the immediate vicinity. This is established in Kalm the first time Cloud sees Sephiroth in the Inn. They highlight the Inn Keeper specifically and we learn later that he's a former SOLDIER. "Glen" is also a Black Cloak. Sephiroth does appear at times without Black Cloaks but there are Black Whispers involved at those times. There are no Black Cloaks or Whispers in that final scene. The second is that you can hand off the Black Materia to Barret, Tifa, Red XIII or Cid in the OG. It's established near Corel that Red XIII can sense far more than animals. I think it's suggested he can sense, to some degree, the lifestream. The Jenova-Aerith theory has too many contradictions to work.

0:53 I think it's also important to note one thing that, not many people bring up. It was seemingly revealed in the FF7 Rebirth Ultimania that........the Reunion was ATTEMPTED at the end of Rebirth. Like, it wasn't just a big multiversal boss fight to cap off the end of the game and the scene with Aerith, according to Ultimania Sephiorth was basically doing his big bad master plan THERE and was apparently thwarted by Cloud, Aerith and the party. Now I know Sephiorth has got a back up and we still don't seem to be clear on what this shit is supposed to do, but whatever Sephiorth is doing in part 3.........is not the way he originally planned it. This is plan B we're talking about here, and I'm kind of curious to see what that will entail.

What'd be cool? The empty materia becomes a summon materia, a materia that summons AERITH! Like we can Gilgamesh, Titan, etc.

Don't worry Nico. You're a kingdom hearts fan. Exploring story uncertainty to you now is just another Deep Dive.

Rebirth honestly might fuck with Tifa more than it does with Cloud. Tifa has her childhood friend doubt her just cause she survived, watches him go mad killing a bunch of guys then tries to murder her, gets swam around inside a weapon, nearly smooches Cloud while making up with him afterwards, gets hit with the rudest X to doubt by a ball riding grandpa, is forced to relive her worse trauma TWICE first revisiting Nibelhiem then more directly in the temple of the ancients, watches Cloud go insane again, her best friend gets murdered and now Cloud is full nutty mode and during ALL of this she has to be Clouds emotional support waifu WHILE nursing the emotional pain of Jessie Biggs and Wedge dying last game. Cloud atleast has the buffer of being coocoo for Cocoa Puffs if Cocoa Puffs was tall dark and sexy with beautiful hair, Tifa is a normal girl constantly getting beaten with trauma over and over and over again

We're never fully finishing rebirth are we?

I believe it was Nojima that said they were inspired by Carl Jung's philosophy on the Collective Unconscious? That would help explain the story perfectly, and even fits into the concepts that make up the original game. I'm pretty sure these "alternate timelines" are purely a metaphysical space comprised of the world's collective memories, emotions, dreams, etc. The scenes at the end that display the rainbow effect are absolutely transpiring in Cloud's head or something along those lines. I absolutely don't buy into the explanation of the multiverse in the same sense of how multiverses are generally described.

You know things are about to get serious when Max says: "we need to talk" 😂 Best collab I've seen since it's an impromptu one 😁

I mean, if Cloud saved Aerith in one of these alternative timelines who are doomed to die, and he can see and speak with her just fine while staying in his actual timeline with everyone else, it makes sense he would be able to see other things from the aerith is alive timeline, including that timeline's tear in the sky. So the tear is really there for him and aerith, he's just justifying it as an hallucination, its not there for everyone else

Timestamps: 33:22 Max joins the stream!

16:00 Dude, the crack in the sky is just in the 2nd timeline where Aerith survived. It's not in the prime timeline. Cloud is seeing the 2 different worlds superimposed on top of each other. So Aerith and the crack are both real in that 2nd timeline, which only Cloud can see.

A FF7 Rebirth discussion video with Max?! I’m here penguins.

47:38 That's not the theme Max is talking about, he's talking about the scene where Aerith shows up to Cloud when the party is crying at the place where her body is laid to rest, you can hear a very somber and creepy music for like 5 seconds.

3:25 i interpreted it as the Aerith who died in the.....let's call it 'prime' timeline helping Cloud beat Sephiorth. It's why she says " I saw what you did there", referring to witnessing the other universe be created (it was also confirmed in the ultimania that Cloud SAVED Aerith and it wasn't ultimately part of a illusion (him saving her at the very least) and also why she fades away seemingly into the lifestream at the end of the battle. I can not 100% confirm this either but there is a strong possibility that 'prime' Aerith may have moved into the body of AU aerith. We've seen Cloud and Aerith specifically shown to be connected to their AU selves and Cloud was seemingly pulled into his AU body for the 'date' and then sent back. We see AU aerith being laid down to go to sleep, Cloud fights Sephiorth with 'prime' aerith and then goes back and we see him with AU Aerith and her 'waking up' why would she need to be 'asleep'? I think it was to possibly wait for 'prime' aerith to kind of hop into her body which is why she 'wakes' up at the end.

Obviously spoilers When Sephiroth is talking about worlds, he is talking about a person's mind. A mind encompasses feelings, thoughts, emotions. The biggest giveaway is the name of Chapter 14 "End of the world" as in End = Death World = Aerith. Aerith's world has ended, she died. In the latest Ultimania Nomura confirmed that he wanted to depict how Cloud's mind behaves when confronting a very awful situation, with that idea in mind we can infer that Cloud is actively suppressing Aerith's dead (just as he did it for Zack) with the help of Aerith within the lifestream at the exact same moment she died. Devs are just trying to enforce us to discuss us which is nice, buy the Copium I am seeing that "aErIth iS aLivE" just sets all these people believing it to disappointment in part 3. Although I do believe she will be back, just like Zack.

the 30 year Cook got Nico Confused LOl

I wasn’t sure how this game was gonna end……. I did not expect it to be Steins;Gate though.

When Nico pulled up a clip from an episode of Scrubs during the ending discussion I knew this was gonna be a doozy lmao

Think the saddest things with tifa looking dead inside at the end is the fact that she just watched her best friend die, and now she has to watch her other one slowly degrade into someone she doesn't know until he dies too as far as she understands.

An alternative theory, that I'm beginning to believe more now, is that Cloud is less crazy at the end of Rebirth than everyone thinks he is, us as the players and his own party included. He's actually the only one seeing anything close to the truth and that's because of Aerith. 1) Aerith shows him it's possible to travel to an alternate world and shows him the crack in the sky during their dream date, and she totally does this on purpose seemingly to prepare him for the crack he sees at the end of the game. Is it to show him the world they're in is now doomed to fade away? Possibly. 2) Cloud is the only one who sees the version of her who's alive. Yes, I subscribe to the theory that Cloud, upon deflecting Sephiroth's sword, created another alternate world where Aerith actually survived. He's the only one she's able to tell that she's in fact okay. This is to ensure that Cloud doesn't actually go insane after losing her and follows down the same depressive/self-blaming path as OG. Cloud's not hallucinating Aerith at the end. She's communicating with him from the other world she survived in and he's aware of this. She's preparing him for some big chess move in Part 3, which is why she also gave him the empty white materia. Sephiroth will still try to mess with his head, though, and let's not forget, the Black Materia is still at play.

A lot of people missed it. The black materia was indeed fake. It wasn't glowing.. The fake sephiroth picked it up, and summoned the whispers and found the real black materia. Then it glowed but dropped through his fingers. That was when aerith was like noooo! And cloud passed it back to sephiroth. That was the real glowing black materia

The part where Aerith asks if Cloud promises, "No Promises to Keep" is playing in the background. The real Aerith doesn't need to make a promise or ask that of her friends - she shows that through the song talking about her wishes - no force, no pressure, come find me, I'll wait and hope but I won't make you promise to come. I got BLASTED by people trying to um, actually me about it but I still think that's a HUGE clue about who this version of Aerith is.

You reckon that scene with the two Naminés in KH CoM is going to happen with Aerith? Like one's Omni Aerith and the other is Cloud's hallucination or worse Sephiroth/Jenova Aerith. And thet are trying to convince Cloud (Sora) to do two very different things while Cloud is confused.

I'd laugh so hard if they trolled everyone by ditching the naming convention and calling it FFvii Sephiroth's End or something stupid like that

Remember in the Jenova Lifeclinger battle, Cloud says something like, "You've done it before, you can do it again." I took that as him remembering defeating this version of Jenova from the past.

Marlen explains to Zack that cloud tried to save Aerith, but he wasn’t quick enough.

* Cloud kisses Jenova-Aerith * in Part 3 Sephiroth: WTF are my doing with my mom Cloud??

I’m late but one more bit of evidence that seals maxs Omni cloud theory is in the last fight with jenova at the beginning cloud tells himself you did it before you can do it again and at surface level you can see it him talking about fighting jenova but I truly think that’s future cloud telling himself bro you been thru this before you’ll be fine u can do it and knowing everything we know it gotta be the second case and if it is it would be the craziest foreshadowing I ever seen and it all was in a quick dialogue in the beginning of the last fight

Thank you so much for posting this, fr. Max Dood's voice shows up about 33 minutes in

I think Cloud's subconscious of blocking out Aerith's death was the glitching part. The scene with him letting her drift off in the water will happen in the 3rd game when Cloud's actual memories are unlocked. It's a great way to string along OG players, and a great reveal for new players.

Two hours talking about Rebirth?! Hell yeah.

EDITED Hope we get to see the Gold Saucer dates before the of this week 😅 Anyway, given that last goodbye at the end, and how Cloud seems to believe that Aerith is alive and safe somewhere else, it seems to imply that this Aerith is a combination of an illusion and her from an alternate timeline; though her saying "Goodbye" at the end might just be Cloud's inner self expessing that deep down he knows that she's never coming back. Honestly I'm not too keen on the idea of her being brought back as some sort of force ghost that appears every now and again; it can very easily make her death feel like less of a significance if they strip us of the cold reality that none of them will be able to actually speak to her again, and it can be seen as disrespectful to her and the original game. Now given what we know of the second half of the OG game, Tifa will probably play more of a protagonist role in part 3, which I'm hoping gets greatly expanded upon. But did anyone notice something strange when Tifa arrived at the alter; for just a brief moment there's static in her vision, and she seemed to perceive a scene very similar to what Cloud was seeing, of Aerith surviving, like she was briefly seeing what her heart desired at that very moment, much like Cloud. Could this have something to do with her very recent dip in a pool of Mako? Will this be brought up in part 3? I think I might have some idea on how this will play out in the next game: Cloud won't necessarily see illusions of Aerith accompanying them; his current mindset is that he's absolutely certain that she's safe somewhere else after he saved her successfully, that he beautifully played his role as the hero he promised Tifa he would become. He is in such absolute denial that he has failed to make good on this promise even after becoming as powerful as he is today, and that it cost one of his most precious companions life. He can't accept that, that he is an unmitigated failure of a hero. Thus the sad reality was blocked out almost completely, replaced with nothing but success in this last endeavour. Now Tifa on the other hand knows the truth in her head, that her friend that she grew to love is no longer with her; but her heart, much like Cloud's, is filled with a desire to see her, alive and well. Cloud won't be the one who will be frequently haunted by illusions of Aerith throughout part 3, because he's not stuck between acceptance and denial, unlike Tifa. It's because Tifa is stuck with her desire to see Aerith that I believe that she will be the one constantly seeing Aerith's image flashing in and out of her vision. It'll get stronger and more frequent as the story proceeds, to the point where she's eventually able to communicate with the illusion; a good time for this to happen is during her execution in Junon, where she's at her absolute lowest point, more so than even in the original. She comes to realise that the Aerith in front of her is not only just her illusion, but just another side of Tifa herself in the form of the one she deeply admired. Nevertheless the illusionary Aerith pleads with her not to give up, that she can still save Cloud; "If you didn't believe you could go on, I wouldn't even be here giving you this cheesy speech", she'd probably say 😉

Long awaited crossover is here! Nico will never get off the crazy FF7 train and im all for it lol

During the Jenova fight, Cloud says "come on, you've done this before. You can do it again" or something close to that

Zach coming back to the church is after the events of Rebirth I think. Because when he leaves Cloud he says "Cloud, save her" so Zach has no idea she is dead. That's why he doesn’t have limit either.

Let's goo! Nice video discussion.

I saw on Landi Lodges ending explained video that he thinks Sephiroth made all the mini pocket worlds at the end of Remake so he could create a feeding ground of despair. Because you see all the people are scared and depressed they know they are gonna die because there is the tear in the sky and they know their world is ending. Landi Lodge suggested that Sephiroth is feeding on this despair which is increasing his power exponentially.

54:21 I think this is Tifa trying to reject what she is seeing. Her mind doesn't want to accept what it's seeing but she does accept it before that battle.

Love the deep dive Although I feel like I had to take a shot each time Max said "promoting"

I think Max has lost the plot just a little bit due to slapping new theories over old theories each time a new bit of information is revealed. Needs to strip all that away and apply Occam's Razor, rebuild the theory from scratch with the totality of information available. Take the Doylist approach to interpreting the narrative. The devs have said they won't fundamentally change the outcome of the game, nor its themes. What is the central theme of FFVII? The acceptance of death. How is that illustrated? Sephiroth rejects death and Aerith accepts death. That is the core conflict at play here, and always has been. Sephiroth says that their world is destined to become part of the universe of death (the space beyond the edge of creation, as named in Ultimania), but he won't allow the world to end, nor will he allow Cloud to end. It's stated quite explicitly that his goal is to unify fractured spacetime and create eternity. Sephiroth's goal is to make an eternal world where nothing dies -- his Promised Land. Aerith's goal, as always, is to stop him, to live in the moment -- her Promised Land. There's also the metanarrative element, which is quite simple. Just as the whispers in _Remake_ represent players' wishes to keep things the same, the unstable alternate worlds in _Rebirth_ represent players' wishes to change things. Ultimately those worlds are destined to end, and Aerith is destined to foil Sephiroth, meaning that players will also eventually have to accept reality -- Aerith and Zack died, and they died for a reason. There are things that you simply can't change. And this will reinforce the core theme of accepting death to players. As for the alternate worlds, we essentially already have an explanation for them and how they operate. The Planet produces a multitude of worlds, rising from the Lifestream which is comprised of information -- thoughts and memories. Wishes and dreams people have produce these unstable worlds that deteriorate rapidly, bereft of spiritual energy, because hopes are simple, fleeting things. Cloud was given Sephiroth's gift, so he can perceive these other worlds. And he's seeing the reality in which he saves Aerith and rejecting the reality in which he failed. Simple as that. Sephiroth wants to harness pain and suffering not necessarily to cause harm, but to convince Cloud to accept his interpretation of the Promise Land, a reality where nobody dies and nothing changes.

Great stuff Nico and man oh man that is an incredibly revealing informational find about that onetime theme being analyzed by Max’s composer friend. Well done Max for such attention to detail. The implications are big, especially when factored in with Aerith at the very end. Also can anyone please tell me what the song is at 50:16? Thanks.

Is the same timeline. Cloud stays on the place where he blocked Sephiroth's sword, but the whispers move it back to Aerith. Every time that we see Aerith alive it's just Cloud's twisted mind. In Cloud's head Aerith puts her hand on his face, but when Tifa sees them, is Cloud holding Aerith's dead hand. Cloud doesn't even see the blood, He is in complete denial. Furthermore, in the ending scene when Aerith says goodbye, she doesn't says anything new, only repeats lines that Cloud already heard her saying before

Crazy crossover

We could always have the scene with Aeriths death with the north crater. It could be why Cloud has his mind break or at least contribute to it as in the OG Cloud gives the Black Materia because of what Sephirtoh says. So Sephiroth could use her death against him to get him to break enough so he can get control and get the materia

Where is the video that they talk about, Jenova Lifeclinger/Aerith theme?

The Zack Intermission ending has to be intentional because it's a CG cutscene. If we consider Rebirth's context that scene is happening with a clean Zack who isn't carrying Cloud around, so Basically after having arrived and settled in Midgar and since he's clean he's also found Aerith who is also in a coma. For him to be at the church rehearsing how to greet her, must mean he has information about her having woken up already and potentially going missing. The only point I believe this could be happening is after the Zack section in chapter 12 (that one ends with him going back to Aerith's house after discussing with Elmyra that she could be waking up soon and to not let her go outside) but before the one in chapter 14.

@1:34:25; Since you guys were talking about having multiple modes of air travel, here's my bet: After you try to get the Heavy Materia on the space shuttle rocket as it's about to take off, but the space shuttle rocket takes off *with the party in it,* so the party commandeers it to go away from Meteor, and go travelling around in Space, to potentially visit the other planets of the system (Perhaps to discover that Meteor is already on its way as they get near, then turn back.). Just as a miniature section of visiting other planets, maybe some side quests involved with that. Maybe the team gets to name the planets with Bugenhagen somehow taging along for the ride? Then, you go back to FF7's planet, fight Safer Sephiroth...and he pulls off Super Nova - using the names of the planets from *that* galaxy's names of the planets.

By chance does anyone have a link to the video Max references about around 48:00 with the music and possible Jenova theme thing?

All I can really say about all this is the multiverse is a concept about which we know frighteningly little.

What happened with Cloud reminded alot to me with the mechnics of zero escape time dilemma. Where he "Jumped" inside another body of his from another worldline.

9:20 I loved the OG story more than words, and these new endings still made me say that.

“We need to talk”. - Dood

My title is Remembrance, thematically sound with the memories of the Lifestream being the spine of the story.

So I think the first chunk of the final entry is going to focus on everything that’s been setup with Wutai in Intergrade & Rebirth. It’s a very good way to block off the party from reaching the Northern Crater and gives us time to get to play with a full party, focus further on Cloud’s mental state, etc. The world is already on a precipice of chaos with a renewed war on the horizon. Imagine the emotional gut punch for the people of the Planet if that war is averted, only for the Meteor to show up days later? The negativity would be off the charts, absolutely what Sephiroth wants.

I dunno why, but, when you guys started talking about the ending of OG FF7, I thought to myself: these two should do a Podcast together.

I'm fed up with this story of defying destiny which is just there to shit on the fans and bait them, all while keeping them engaged enough to buy the games following. It just proves one thing in my eyes and it level zero in terms of writing. The additions or novelty to the story would not bring anything really significant or concrete to the end of this trilogy and the falsely ambiguous ending of Rebirth is there to prove it to me.

I hope see this coop for part 3 ending talk.

The Zack we play as when fighting Sephiroth is the same one from the start of the game. He doesn’t die.

A crossover! Nice! I love those.

Well this is a pleasant surprise

I disagree with Max's theory that the various worlds the residence folks have no concept of time. Wedge and Zack don't have the time concept because they were thrusted into a new world they weren't originally apart of. For example Marlene doesn't mention the odd time of day, neither does the old woman candy seller tolds the end of the game. Did appreciate the video though, it was a lively talk.

You're all wrong. Theres no way they spent millions of dollars and introduced the whispers just to do the same story again, lmao.

Whenever you hear Aerith talk in an emotionless/monotone voice THAT'S Omni-Aerith... It's the same with Sephiroth (you don't really see it until "The Edge of Creation" at the end of Remake).. The reason Omni-Aerith and Omni-Sephiroth can move throughout the lifestream is because they shed most of their past memories and emotions, in Sephiroth's case he had to cast away almost all of his emotions and his image of himself because part of him is Jenova, basically Sephiroth only remembers what he looks like through Cloud originally (and now Tifa this time around apparently).

Thanks for uploading your FF7 Rebirth ending discussion with Max and chat! It was a lot of fun trying to piece this ending and story together and I can’t wait to see what Part 3 has in store for us!

max: "we need to talk" 🤣

My biggest problem with the ending is that it feels like they didn't actually commit to anything. I get the point that you are supposed to be confused like Cloud is, but what it came off as is the devs being unsure where the story should go, even if they do actually have everything planned out already. It's almost the same way I felt after FF7 Remake where they go "what if things were different this time though" but leave it for the next game. I was okay with it that time but was really hoping we have a big branch-off point in Rebirth, but instead it also just feels like "yeah things happened pretty much exactly the same way, but in the next game, there definitely definitely will be a pay off for all the crazy bullshit we put in here." Just want to also point out that I loved 99.9% of the game except for that fact so it's not like it's gonna keep me from playing the next game.

What’s so crazy to me about the Remake series is how everyone is at different points when it comes to theories. People new to FF7 experience the concepts totally new. OG FF7 players see some of the themes and how things are changing. And people who know more about the full Compilation of FF7 content know about the finer details and possibly where things are going. (Example like how the lifestream/worlds works and wtf is going on with Aerith and Sephiroth) It’s honestly so fun to watch different people’s conclusions and theories. Also so surprised and glad to see Max and Nico talk about things. (47:53 HOLY SHIT the fact he got Alex Mukala himself to analyze that music is crazy. Dude does great musical breakdowns of songs.)

The way the time lines/ Branches work is quite similar to how they work In the fate series. In the fate franchise, the universe itself has what could be considered a lifespan. Each branching timeline drains that lifespan, so the more time lines there are the faster the universe will die. As a way to preserve itself every once in a while the universe picks 1 time line, the timeline where humans have the best chances of survival. It saves that timeline and erases all the others others making them just stop. In theory it converts those stopped timelines into more energy for its life spawn. It's likely to be very different but that's the vibe it gave me. In the fate series is also has the idea people from these stopped and erased universes just travel between them. Often winding up in the "main" timeline

I wonder how the ending of Part 3 will differ from the original.

What if Sephiroth was trying to hunt down every trace of Aerith in the lifestream, but the one place he was unable to reach her was the part that exists within Cloud's mind?

If Sephiroth overcomes Jenova, he too needs to finish unsettled conflict Jenova has with Minerva. Enter Genesis.

So around the 46 Min mark, Max brings up Red being manipulated by Jenova in OG. IIRC, that can end up as either Red or Barret, so possible Barret manipulation incoming as well?

I don’t mind them having Ever Crisis contain relevant info. To me it's not really all that different than having this kind of stuff in Ultimania's, novels, prequel games, and other extra materials.

I know this is late, and you probably want see this, but even tho we didn't get to see the death but I still cried for it, and it still him

What if it was Aerith making Cloud believe she was still alive that deprived Sephiroth of that Clouds sadness and thats how she stopped the confluence of worlds and the reunion

What if the Cloud we have now is from an alternate timeline

Whats the name of the music in the video I forgot but Im pretty sure its rebirth music but I can't find all of it again.

1:14:09 I actually kind of feel a bit of an opposite direction with that instead of a flash bag after cloud has his awakening, he the buster sword probably to the desert to that spot places down there and pick up a new sword that he made called the fusion sword prototype mark one and then there’s just gonna be this weird quest line words, functionally, making the fusion sword better all the way to Mark seven

The Sephiroth you saw for most of OG FF7 was Jenova. You didn't actually see the real Sephiroth, besides the flash back, until the Northern Crater. Jenova is known to take many forms, it's how she tricked the original Cetra and waged war against them. It's why you always fight a part of Jenova after running into "Sephiroth" in their journey, like on the boat to Costa Del Sol. In fact Cloud isn't even on Sephiroth's radar at all until Temple of the Ancients at the earliest and that's only because he got his hands on the Black Materia. This is what makes the scene in Chapter 2 of Remake so telling (all the fire after the bombing and Cloud seeing/hallucinating his home town)... because that conversation makes absolutely no sense and would never have happened with normal Sephiroth.

"we need to talk" you know that shit is going down!

@21:38; You forget that, if Sephiroth is able to take control of the Hooded Men like he can in FF7 ReMake and ReBirth, that gives him about 50 billion Sephiroths to 3 Billion Aeriths.

Nico I’m hoping I can give a different perspective to think about as someone that never played the OG and only know of ff7 through watching your LPs of KH and ff7 remake through the years. First, thank you for introducing me to my emo doppelgänger. Second, I truly believe Cloud is living in 2 timelines at once; where the crack in the sky is the one where Aerith is alive and only he out of the group can see it, and the other timeline where the planet is safe is only as long as she’s in the lifestream. And clearly, developers wouldnt leave us with 2 timelines without plans of somehow merging them into one, hoping in the third game somewhere along the lines of Cloud can see Aerith’s timeline dying and he can somehow pull her back into his prime timeline. Thanks again for years of entertainment💪🏻

It also sounds like the story could end up repeating itself

Disagree with Maxdood on a 3 points: 1. The end was life stream/Omni Aerith not Jenova Aerith. 2. You were right at first, there is another Aerith that we saved his sword caused a rainbow effect is around the buster when he tried to block masamune. That empty materia in the final cutscene literally shows the two worlds (timeline of memories) in the reflection. The rip is probably the second timeline where she exists that only Cloud can perceive. 3. Zack can't be in their timeline at the end of Rebirth if the stamps don't match up. Johnny is carrying a corgi plush and the OG tl was beagle, which the main party returned to after the big whisper fight in Remake. Sidenote, why does no one care about Hojo's angle in this lol? He seemed aware of what Omni Sephiroth's intentions are, especially with that "Has it finally begun" helicopter scene. Max saying part 3 will be the end of Sephiroth arc is interesting. That implies that there'll be more to the VII and I think Hojo plays a big part in that.

I've got the perfect conclusion, they're remaking this whole story for us, just to clarify about exactly happened in the original...nothing crazy happened, nothing changed, cloud is on drugs. End of story, huge disappointment, THE OUTCOME OF THAT ENDING IS INEVITABLE GODDAMMIT!!

The tear is in his head! Just like the other worlds

Your voice and Max's voice are f-ing similar haha but great video!

I feel like the worlds split off for two reasons: actively defying fate causes a branch to split off from the Prime World, while those within that Dying Branch can extend its existence by Making Choices. All of the Zack timelines were filled with people who gave up on living after the Crack appeared in the sky. They were all resigned to die and were thus Dead relative to the Lifestream. If the people of these other worlds give up their will to live, then they get shuffled back into the Prime Timeline where their “Canon selves” act as the Planet expected them to. Because of Zack’s sheer optimism and desire to believe in a future, his choices cause the branching timelines to branch further, as he believes that all of his decisions are actual possibilities, bringing them into being. Nothing is too hopeless for him to stop believing in tomorrow, that things don’t just end here. He’s the flower still striving to live in the fields of mako-starved foliage, bright even when facing the end of the world. It’s kinda like Apathy Syndrome, if we wanna connect the LPs. Futures die when no one believes in them. Giving up all investment in the present just kills them quicker. Everybody and everything is fated to die one day, but that day’s not here yet, so the choices we make to get there still matter. Basically: the world doesn’t end until it does, so don’t let Doomer Thoughts trick you into thinking it’s just around the corner. Just try to live.

The speculation is the best part of the Retriliogy. As for the final scene, one could speculate that while Cloud is holding the clear materia its the real aerith (acts normal: cheering with the team, wind doesnt affect her dress, no dialogue, red notices her presence) and then Cloud pulls out the Black materia, (has a migrane ****warning) and then a different Aerith appears to him whether its his psyche or jenova, this is the off Aerith. I believe the biggest indicator of it being a different aerith is actually just the wind from the tiny bronco affects her dress which i found odd. Personally i believe its just his psyche. To me Aerith is saying things that cloud wants to say to himself and hes just projecting aerith as a means to build confidence. But i mean i could absolutely see it as a jenova manipulation as well.