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Post by SPS on Feb 19, 2010 5:50:06 GMT
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Post by Elliot Kane on Feb 19, 2010 8:00:53 GMT
POST CONTAINS MASSIVE GAME SPOILERS!
The ice shard goes through his shoulder, not his chest. It's a really clear slow-motion hit, so this theory is a complete non-starter, I'm afraid.
The idea that the entirely closed-in and unfriendly Squall would have a dream where he finds genuine friendship and true love is also incredibly unlikely. He's just not interested in either, as poor Quistis discovers.
Moreover, given that the power of magic in this game is capable of healing deadly wounds in an instant (As with every other FF), there's absolutely no problem with the idea that Squall could be healed of a near fatal (Or even fatal) wound with no problems.
When you watch the animations for any of the Guardian Forces, they do what has to be utterly lethal damage to a truly insane extent, yet many things survive several hits like that! It's simply the nature of the game that all damage is utterly exaggerated - and that's true before the end of disk one as well as after.
As for the 'unlikely' romance, the writer is forgetting how Rinoa introduces herself to Squall in the first place: she walks up to him at the dance and says: "You're the best looking guy here. Dance with me." In other words, she's definitely interested in being interested and indeed it's her that makes all the running from that point on. She's also looking for Cid at that point, not Seifer, as is made clear on the train where Squall & Rinoa next meet. Squall also rescues her from certain death at the hands of the Sorceress' beasts before the end of disk one, and Rinoa clings to Squall and seeks reassurances from him. She clearly sees him as a protective as well as a handsome figure - IE perfect romance material. Seifer is a Summer fling she still has a soft spot for, not a serious contender for her heart. Given her very innocent nature, I doubt their affair even progressed all that far.
Ulltimecia could have tortured Quistis or one of the others, yes, but she leaves the torturing to Seifer, who has always hated Squall. It doesn't matter who gets tortured if there is some great secret all Seeds know, as all the captives are Seeds. Plus you can certainly get to them later, as you have them all prisoner anyway. As it's a Seed secret, Seifer would not be assumed to know it as he's not a Seed: he's never passed the test. From Seifer's POV, it's all about one-upping Squall and then rubbing his nose in it.
The real clincher, though, is that there are two endings to the game and in one of them Squall definitely DOES die. If you keep him entirely remote from everyone right to the end, Rinoa does not find and rescue him in the void and he dies. It's quite an easy ending to AVOID, mind (Rinoa being virtually irresistible! ;D).
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Post by SPS on Feb 19, 2010 13:41:10 GMT
Ya see I also agree, haven't played it of late but the existence of curaga's in the world shoots this to shreds, and unless Squall has that rare disorder where all his internal organs are on the wrong side, Squall lives any way you look at it.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Feb 19, 2010 16:03:05 GMT
Right. Still fun reading all this kind of stuff, though  (Also reminds me I haven't played FF8 in a while. Hmmm... ;D) |
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Post by Gray Lensman on Feb 19, 2010 16:53:57 GMT
It's an interesting theory and I admire the attempt to try to salvage this story, but yeah, I'm not sure how much I really buy into this either.
Spoony made some interesting points on this theory as well. It's a really anticlimactic interpretation, thinking about it... Edea wins, and everyone dies, with nothing significant being accomplished with their sacrifice. (Granted, that can work sometimes, as with Blake's 7, but it doesn't really fit the tone of Final Fantasy for me.) He gives this theory credit for being more plausible than the story itself, but that's not saying too much.
The thing that bothers me with this idea, though is... what was the point of the Laguna flashbacks early in Disc 1 if Squall dies at the end of it? We know it was a time-shift, since everyone in your party experiences it. So there's a plotline that goes functionally nowhere and is left completely unresolved. I suppose that beats the time-compression stuff, but it nonetheless leaves a huge dangling plot thread open.
And yeah, curative spells and items (and things like Reraise spells) pretty much guarantee that Squall lives through this. Of course, I then have to wonder why Aerith wasn't revived in short order in FF7, but that's neither here nor there... ;D
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Post by Elliot Kane on Feb 19, 2010 17:03:44 GMT
I don't think Square are really all that good on plotting, when it gets right down to it. Granted I haven't played that many of the FF games, but you could drive trucks through the plot holes in the ones I DO have. Especially (X & X-2 spoilers) FFX-2 which is completely unnecessary as Tidus is clearly seen coming back to life at the end of FF10, rendering the entire point of X-2 moot. |
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Post by Gray Lensman on Feb 19, 2010 20:51:53 GMT
No, they're really not that great as far as plotting goes, generally speaking. They do spectacle very well, their characters and worlds are at least interesting, and they can be entertaining if you look past the flaws long enough. But brilliant plotting... nah, not really. At one time, they suffered badly from a tendency to rush the second half of the game. FF6 and FF7 particularly meandered a lot after the first half of the game. (And upon a recent glance back at FF7 some while ago, it strikes me that there are quite a few problems with that story even in the first half. But I won't go into that here.) The later games seem to be more consistent, but also suffer from their share of story problems. Or am I the only one who thought that in FF10, Yuna made some really dumb decisions in a) marrying Seymour and b) not sending Seymour when she had the chance? Some games aren't as bad, though. FF Tactics generally holds pretty well, though it still has some flaws... for one, your party members pretty much become irrelevant to the storyline once you recruit them. I also remember FF9 being a more focused storyline, IIRC. I admit Final Fantasy is kind of a guilty pleasure, though, whatever its flaws are. |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Feb 20, 2010 0:52:47 GMT
Agreed on 10, Steve. I also agree that what FF does best in all its incarnations is spectacle. It has some of the best cinematic cut scenes of any games on any platform and the fantastic worlds it creates, while utterly ludicrous if you look at them logically, are so very beautiful it's easy to overlook the many flaws and logic gaps.
In a way, I guess things like debating all the flaws only add to the enjoyment! ;D
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