When discussing the metaphysical dreamscapes and
mysteries of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s ending, it’s easy to view things in a vacuum.
Lost in a sea of exciting new questions, we can forget that the event that kicked off this entire niche community of predictions and
appreciation was a plot beat about destiny. “Like capital D destiny?” At first glance, the focus on these narrative
themes appeared to be a divergence from the themes of the original FF7. When we
ask ourselves what the 1997 story was really about, our minds are likely
to think of environmentalism, loss, the cycle of life and death,
and coping with mortality. “Loss, chief among them.” Among these narrative themes, I don’t think
fighting fate comes to mind for many of us, at least not in an obvious way. The inclusion of
these in FF7 Remake therefore came as a surprise, and was interpreted by many as a small red
flag, suggesting that the final 2 games in the Remake project might not stick as
close to the original game’s soul as we had hoped. What made it more concerning
was the connection between these themes and recent stories from the Final Fantasy creators,
which didn’t hit as hard for fans as intended. “We live to make the impossible
possible. That is our focus.” Although I personally enjoy the storytelling of
games like Final Fantasy 13, I can understand why including tropey themes like fate
and destiny in a remake of a game with such a mature and subtle approach
to its concepts can be worrisome. “Call it what you will… fate… destiny…” “A horse…” Upon further inspection, though, I think there’s
a lot more connective tissue between the narrative of Final Fantasy 7 and fighting fate than you
might think, implying that the Remake project is simply embellishing upon a sturdy foundation. Like
many of the metaphysical aspects of Remake and Rebirth, the deeper you look, the more artistic
consistency you find. It may seem tropey at first, but I believe the writers of the Retrilogy
have been using the theme of fighting fate to cleverly set up a massive emotional payoff
in part 3 that connects back to the original game in ways far deeper and philosophical
than any of us expected--ways that involve more direct ties to environmentalism, a stronger
sense of closure in the story’s final moments, and maybe even the controversial
inclusion of multiple endings. “But the future, even if it has
been written, can be changed.” To casual gamers, a common takeaway after
finishing both Remake and Rebirth is that the plot has been, depending on who
you ask, either enhanced or enfeebled by timelines and literal multiverses. But when
we follow the trail of clues left by the devs, we realize the metaphysical landscape we’re
dealing with is closer to something like The Good Place or the final season of Lost,
than it is to Back to the Future or the MCU. After a thorough examination of Rebirth,
it becomes very clear that, no matter how real the alternate worlds turn out to be, they
are part of the lifestream--representing a spiritual plane of existence made up
of memories, fears, hopes, and dreams. “So what if spiritual energy doesn’t
distinguish between our real, lived memories and the unrealized
desires buried deep in our hearts?” Dreams and wishes represent the core
of the Retrilogy’s most embellished thematic exploration. Clinging to our dreams
despite facing strong resistance is the most quintessential representation
of fighting fate you can get. In regards to basic characterization, Cloud’s
backstory is all about the dream of becoming the person his inner child would be proud
of. He quite literally thinks he’s a heroic figure outside of himself, only to learn that
reality is closer to his nightmares. If the story remains intact in part 3, it will be
so powerful when he eventually realizes he never actually needed that false image to stay
true to his childhood promise. Beyond this, Cloud’s fate is to become a mindless puppet of
Sephiroth, but pushing back against this death of the mind through the power of his friends is
the most cathartic momentum in the entire story. In Rebirth, specifically, Cloud, along
with a few other characters, experience new literal dreamworlds to fight for. When Cloud
attempts to stop Sephiroth from killing Aerith, we get a glimpse into his dream of a world
without loss. We also see the ever-optimistic Zack fighting fate in his dream of a world without
sacrifice. Most notably, Aerith takes Cloud into a plane of reality that she describes verbatim as
her dream. In this world, she seeks to escape the crushing weight of her responsibilities, if only
for a moment, while her destiny literally hunts her down. Even Sephiroth’s core motivation is
to avoid the death sentence we’re all born with, by inheriting a dream of annihilation
from his eldritch abomination of a mother. Quite often when the game is exploring
these dreams of wishful thinking, rainbows cover the screen. There’s plenty
of ways to interpret these screen effects, but I personally see them as a representation of character agency. No matter what the ultimate
reconciliation of the dreamworlds ends up being, they thematically represent a person’s ability
to choose to move forward. At every turn, the characters in Rebirth cling to any scrap
of hope they can find, using it as ammunition to power their dreams and fight against their
fates in the face of ultimate meaninglessness. “Embrace your dreams. And, whatever
happens… Protect your honor… as a SOLDIER!” Throughout these dreams, we’re presented
with a dichotomy. On one end of the spectrum, we have worlds of optimism, such as Aerith’s dream
where everyone in the sector 5 slums is using the end of the world as an opportunity to milk every
last drop of happiness from life. On the flipside, we have worlds of pessimism, like Zack’s
interlude where everyone in those same slums is sapped of all joy by their impending
doom. Tying these dreamworlds into the Edge of Creation scene from the ending of Remake,
we can apply this war between pessimism and optimism to the universes of light and
dark presented to Cloud by Sephiroth. When we think about what Nojima, the lead writer
of the series, had to say about being inspired by Carl Jung and the Buddhist tradition
of Yogachara, we start to see a thematic throughline. Within these philosophies lies the
idea of the mind, or dreams, influencing reality. When Sephiroth asks Cloud what he’ll do with
the little time he has left, it’s as if he’s asking him to choose which dream to manifest into
reality, posing the Retrilogy as a war of ideals between optimism and pessimism, life and death, or
in the game’s own terminology, creation and death. “7 seconds till the end. Time enough for you,
perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let’s see.” I believe this choice will play a major role in
the finale of part 3, but more on that later. When taken literally, we can place this war of
ideals side by side with how Rebirth explores Aerith’s death. We’re left in a place
of uncertainty with how her demise will impact the finale of the story. It seems
pretty clear that her primary life is over, but plenty of opportunities
remain for her death’s impact to be felt long into the future,
and even to possibly be reversed. It’s almost like the Retrilogy’s exploration of
life and death was created from the discourse following the original FF7’s release.
Back then, her death marked a shift in how video game storytelling was perceived,
and helped elevate the medium beyond the lightheartedness so many associated with
it. Many fans refused to believe she was dead, and spent years scouring the game’s 3 discs
for a way to revive her. The second the Remake project was announced, one of the first
questions on everyone’s mind was “do you think they’re still gonna kill her this time?” This
sparked much debate about the nature of remakes and the meaning of life and death, making it no
surprise that this time around the storytelling dives hard into metaphorical and literal
explorations of these topics. I believe the ultimate resolution to Aerith’s
death will play a major role is how the story of the series thematically plays
out, but we’ll get to that in a bit. It was once up for debate whether Final
Fantasy 7 had a happy ending. Aerith was dead, the damage done to Midgar was potentially
catastrophic, and after the credits, it’s even hinted that humanity may have died off
entirely within the next 500 years. Eventually, Advent Children released, removing all
ambiguity from FF7’s ending, and providing us with extra closure, though the emotional
effectiveness of it depends on who you ask. Regardless of what Advent Children did or did
not add to the story, FF7’s finale wasn’t exactly a celebration, and there’s certainly nothing
wrong with that. There was a lot of sadness in the original story, and a huge narrative theme
was coming to terms with the cycle of life and death—of ourselves, of those we love, and of the
planet. The suffering of the characters was a part of life, and eventually led to the planet bouncing
back from its terminal state. The ending was a glimmer of a dream of hope in a sea of darkness,
at the end of an extremely memorable journey. Fast forward to April 2020. Upon reaching
the end of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, we were met with one hell of a twist. The game
we were playing wasn’t actually a true remake, but a self-aware remix in which the characters
made it their sworn duty to defeat destiny and prevent the events of the original story
from ever happening. Understandably, it took some of us a while
to come to terms with this, but when we did, we were greeted with years of
fun speculation, community, friends, and memories. Especially after finishing Rebirth, my concerns
about the trilogy straying far from the source material are substantially minimized. This is
partially because both Remake and Rebirth have done such a great job of providing us
with an incredibly faithful adaptation, regardless of what the small bits of added
metaphysically have changed. But another reason I’m less worried now is that I’ve spent so
many hours in this reinvented world, with these reimagined characters, that I find myself caring
more about them getting a satisfying end to their story than I do about the project perfectly
emulating my nostalgic memories. Which means that my biggest curiosity is now how the setups
in Remake and Rebirth will pay off, and the most notable setup among them is about fate. I believe
this is a core element of what the Retrilogy is building towards with its ending, and I think
it can go down one of 2 thematic crossroads. “What will we find on the other side?”
“Boundless, terrifying freedom.” Of the 2 thematic crossroads I think
the ending of part 3 may go down, Road A is certainly the least controversial,
and it’s the one that, given the choice, I’d probably prefer. Revisiting the idea that Cloud
must choose, whether literally or metaphorically across his journey, between the worlds of life
and death, Road A represents death, with a caveat. Just like in the original game, this road sees
Cloud and company learning to accept loss as a natural part of life. They’ll say their final
goodbyes to Aerith and Zack, and defeat Sephiroth and Jenova, likely for good this time. All in all,
the end result will mostly be the same as the OG, especially since when 7 came out there
was no such thing as Advent Children, and everyone just assumed Sephiroth and Jenova
were gone for good. It would be a nostalgic sense of everything being put right back where it
was supposed to be, but with the added layer of finality that comes with being the period on the
sentence that is the entire Final Fantasy 7 saga. And assuming this is the end of the story, or at least of the primary conflict, I think
we’re gonna get a bigger send off than simply defeating the bad guys. I would bet money
that we’re gonna get an epilogue of sorts. Building off the metaphysical dreams
of Rebirth, I can see a scene in which, after defeating Sephiroth, Cloud falls
into the lifestream or some cosmic goop, and wakes up in the church, and Aerith’s spirit
is there. Just like in the series finale of Lost, she tells him that he died, but not in the fight
against Sephiroth. He died much later after living a full and happy life. We then either
watch or play a montage of Cloud’s life after the Retrilogy, hanging out with Tifa and
Denzel, and whatever other wish fulfillment you can dream of. When he’s done remembering,
Aerith tells him that everyone is waiting. “Everybody’s waiting.” Cloud and Aerith then join
with Zack, Tifa, Barret, and everyone else. They embrace and
walk into The Promised Land together. Of course, maybe they wouldn’t do any of
this overall idea EXACTLY because of just how close it is to Lost, but I’m just sayin’,
the ingredients have all been laid out for this to happen. Regardless, I think this would be a
beautiful final moment with these characters, leaving us to contemplate the finality
of death, from a hopeful vantage point. “The journey doesn’t end here. Death is just
another path. One that we all must take.” This overall approach to the ending also
leaves room for it to be revealed that all of the Retrilogy was a lifestream
dream Cloud goes through in his final moment of death at some point in the future;
a representation of all of our memories and nostalgia of the original game, brought
to life for one last beautiful goodbye. I don’t think this is actually what
they’re doing, but I’d be down with it. “Of course it’s happening inside your head,
Harry. Why should that mean that it’s not real?” Now, there is one problem with taking
this overall approach I’ve pitched, and that’s that the message about environmentalism may become overshadowed, which leads us
to the potentially controversial Road B. Over the past 4 years, whenever
anyone brought up the possibility of Aerith surviving Rebirth or this
trilogy, I would scoff. At the time, the only reason I could imagine for having her
survive would be shock value, or to shake things up, neither of which seemed like good excuses to
veer away from absolutely classic source material. But that was then, and this is now. Taking
into account all that I’ve experienced through Remake and Rebirth, and having countless
conversations about the games with people like SchrodingersBabySeal, Sleepezi, and SubTxt,
I think there is actually a very valid argument for why an ending where Aerith lives would be
thematically appropriate, and maybe even more relevant to the themes of environmentalism and
promoting life than any other potential outcome. So, I’ve said for a while that I’ve never seen
this trilogy as a replacement for the original FF7, which will always exist as a great game on
its own. I don’t see it as a straight remake, or even a sequel. I see it more as a companion
piece, designed to enhance our appreciation of the original, and provide us with a fresh,
yet nostalgic remembrance. Because of this, I don’t think it needs to tell the same
story down to each moment. We’re still getting all the greatest hits, and with
an added layer of metatextual complexity that rewards us for being hardcore fans.
To me, this all means that the Retrilogy presenting a thematic flipside to the Final
Fantasy 7 coin is perfectly appropriate. If the ending of FF7, and my pitch for
Road A, were about accepting death as a part of life and making the most
you can out of a universe of death, the thematic flipside of the coin would be
a celebration of life, and a total rejection of death. I totally understand that at first
reaction, this may seem like a terrible idea, and maybe even a damaging one. It’s
true that death is a part of life, and refusing to accept that could directly go
against everything Cloud’s journey stands for. But on the other hand, think about how
thematically relevant a lot of this could be, if executed properly. The very concept
of environmentalism is to defy fate, and reject death. The planet in
FF7, as well as our own planet, are on a collision course with destruction. To
save the planet, we must fight for life against all odds. We must ignore the fact that
everyone dies as an excuse to do nothing. This idea reminds me of the film Godzilla
Minus One. In it, they set you up to expect a ton of death, but the catharsis they
end up delivering is the opposite. It’s a Kaiju movie, but it’s also a war movie. In
a landscape filled to the brim with death, the message they leave you with is:
maybe it’s time for a little life? Wouldn’t it be valiant to try to resurrect someone
whose death meant the literal end to the entire Cetra species. Wouldn’t it be nice that after
all this suffering, she got a little happiness? And a part of this that I think would make it
relevant, is that Rebirth spent so much time focusing on the concept of wishful thinking,
hopes, dreams, etc. that I actually think it would be a payoff that was earned, especially
when compounded by the life-affirming message that with enough drive and support, we can change
the future of life on our planet. Would it cause too many conflicts with the other themes in the
story? Maybe. But I’d be curious to find out. Of course, however part 3 ships, it’s likely not
gonna overtly follow either of these predictions, but thematically, I think it will land
somewhere in between them. But there is one other option here, and that’s the
complicated topic that is multiple endings. I normally am not a big fan of multiple
endings. I’m left struggling to decide if the one I end up getting is canon, and beating
myself up if I messed up at one crucial moment and ended up with an objectively worse one. And
then there’s the insanity of games forcing you to beat them multiple times, or to do tedious
tasks, in order to get the quote unquote true ending. Both Final Fantasy X-2 and Sea of
Stars really ground my gears in regards to this. What even is the point if the only
ending most players get isn’t even real? Despite this, the possibility of the third
FF7 Remake game having multiple endings actually doesn’t bother me that much. For one,
I kind of think it’s the natural next step for the affinity system. Instead of a garden
resolution scene or a Gold Saucer date, your relationships to those
in your party, to the world, and maybe even to your own ideals could play
into the game’s finale very organically. But beyond this, there’s a very specific
reason I might hypothetically be okay with it, and that reason ties in to just how metaphysical
the storytelling in the Remake series is. I don’t know about you, but on my first playthroughs I
got Tifa for the Remake garden scene, and Aerith for the Rebirth Gold Saucer date. But when I
watch the alternate versions of those scenes, I don’t feel like any one scene is the true canon
moment for me. You’d think it would be the scenes I got on my first playthrough, but that’s
not how my mind sees it. They all feel real, and they all feel important. I can’t imagine
Remake without the hug Tifa and Cloud share, which I view as Cloud’s moment of change
in his Remake arc. On the flipside, Aerith’s scene has some very relevant plot
and lore importance. Likewise, in Rebirth, every date scene is great, relevant,
and I have no true version in my mind. If the third game offered multiple endings,
depending on the execution, I don’t think I’d be mad. I’d watch them all, I’d appreciate
them all, and they’d all be equally canon to me, because to me, the Retrilogy at its core is the
manifestation of our Final Fantasy 7 dreams. Even if we forgo the multiple endings idea,
and the embellished theme of fighting for life, I think we can all agree on one thing. The
Remake trilogy is building towards a cathartic, fate-defying finale the likes
of which we’ve almost never seen in this medium before. It will be
the Return of the King of video games, a final chapter filled to the brim with payoffs
to the previous 8 years of setups. Some of these moments will be enhanced interpretations of the
original story, but some will be entirely new. So much of the thematic focus in the story
is now on memories, dreams, wishful thinking, and the mind. Even if the main world isn’t a
dream experience like the others we’ve seen, the thematic relevance still
permeates the entire story. “Sleep. And dream the sweetest dreams...” “Yet with each fond remembrance we knew…
Perhaps it was no more than wishful thinking.” The Remake project doesn’t even try
to detach itself from comparisons to the original game. It rather exists alongside
it, representing our own childhood memories, bending and dancing like the Lifestream
itself. It’s a celebration of remembrance, where everything is just like we remember
from 1997. A place where our memories both old and new can merge, and maybe even
our deepest wishes can be granted.
