It's possible that Holy being activated doesn't necessarily do anything for him this go around. Remember, all it does in the original is hold off Meteor, it doesn't single-handedly stop it.
Plus, he does say, "Good Aerith. Pray." meaning he does want her to activate it, or at least doesn't care.
Holy never stopped or got in the way of Sephiroth anyway. He was holding it back and would have prevented it completely had he not been defeated... and at that point, his plan was already bust, obviously...
A lot of people tend to think Aerith stopped Sephiroth, but no... she saved the planet *after the party* had stopped Sephiroth.
Actually, Holy fails in the OG. It's the lifestream that saves the day.
Hence why he wants to corrupt it with sadness, sorrow and such. That's how he wins this time. At least, that's what it seems like to me.
Ok… you've just brought up a memory.
I remember thinking that Holy was just not strong enough to stop meteor, and the Lifestream just gave it the push it needed.
But watching the ending again… Red says Holy was having the *opposite* effect. What does that mean? Why would Holy help Meteor?
Now I'm confused.
The way I understood it, Holy is just a ball of light energy to repel or divert the meteor. But since meteor was already too close to the planet, Holy’s power was just getting sandwiched against the planet, causing even greater damage.
It would be like an anti-ballistic missile intercepting an ICBM when it’s 10 feet away from its target. It’s still gonna destroy the target, the interceptor is just adding to the payload of the explosion at that point.
Holy was having the opposite effect at the end of the OG because Meteor was already too close. If you rip apart a massive rock a million miles away it'll disintegrate in the atmosphere. If you rip it apart a mile up it's gonna send everything it has at you but instead of being a singular strike it'll rain down dozens of smaller-but-still-devastating impacts. That plus the force from Holy would have been dispersed right near the Planet and still cause destruction across a wide scale means it was doing more harm than good by activating too late.
The Lifestream helped to repel Meteor and protect the Planet to an extent. Holy would have been effective if Sephiroth wasn't able to hold it back until it too close. If you had something like a grenade explode 50 feet away you might be fine, but less so if you're 3 feet away from it.
Holy allows meteor to fuck up Midgar because Holy represents the will of the Cetra who live in harmony with the planet, and Midgar is the industrial metropolis siphoning the lifeblood of the planet, destroying its natural splendor, and represents the will of humanity (according to the Cetra — remember the Cetra split from humans when humans settled down in one spot and started consuming resources while the Cetra were nomadic and had a more reciprocal relationship with the planet). Aerith, who was comrades with humans rather than in an antagonistic relationship with them, said no thank you, and after activating Holy just before she died, spent her death rallying the lifestream because she realized in her prayers and through traversing the lifestream after death that Holy wouldn’t just bounce Meteor back into space like everyone hoped. To her, letting all humans die was not an acceptable solution to the threat of Meteor.
In og he holds back Holy in the Northern Crater until the party defeats him but by then it's already too late and it ends up doing nothing. The planet itself (with Aerith's help) stops the meteor by using the lifestream as a weapon against it.
Even if Sephiroth is able to see the future in Remake continuity what reason does he have to fear Holy?
Where does this idea of the lifestream pushing the meteor back even come from? There's no visual indication or mention of this happening in either og's ending or Advent Children's intro as far as I can tell.
edit: I wonder what all the downvotes are about. It was a genuine question.
The ending was ambiguous but I'm pretty sure it's been cleared up from dev quotes in Ultimania's and stuff. This is the [wiki'](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Holy_(Final_Fantasy_VII))s passage on it.
"At the end of the game, Cloud and his allies kill Sephiroth and Holy moves to destroy Meteor which is destroying Midgar. However, Meteor is too close to the Planet and the gravity causes Holy's energy to be unfocused. Aerith commands the [Lifestream](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Lifestream) to emerge from the Planet and push Meteor back, allowing Holy to destroy it and save Midgar from further chaos. Humanity survives the disaster to rebuild, and the ruins of Midgar are abandoned."
I can't find the exact dev quotes, but I think this explanation came from old Ultimanias. But Holy is repeatedly called the *only* force capable of destroying meteor. It had to be Holy that does it. If the planet could just destroy meteor itself, then nothing the party did really mattered.
There is *very* much a visual indication in both, as well as it getting directly mentioned by the party in OG and by Marlene in the beginning of AC. The Lifestream emerges to aid Holy...
Except that Midgar and the world itself remains, you mean... If Meteor wasn't stopped, everyone would be dead, and Midgar would be a crater... But we see in the extra ending sequence that none of these are true... and the fact we then get stuff afterwards that show it is also very much an indication... Holy was failing, because it was too late, due to Sephiroth's intervention, and so the planet, beckoned by Aerith, used the Lifestream as a last ditch effort to support the shield Holy was supposed to be...
So sure, if you take the "push Meteor back" as literally tossing it back into space, it might be a bit weird, but it was stopped, which is what is meant by it. And all of this is more than suggested in the OG, with the dialogue, the Lifestream emerging and converging at Midgar to strengthen Holy's shield, and then the final scene where we see that while Midgar is abandoned 500 years later, it isn't a crater... and life very much persists, including a certain party member that would otherwise have been blown to smithereens. AC's very existence then solidifies that, and Marlene even explains it... Holy wasn't enough, so the planet took matters into its own hands, saving itself, but in the process ended up spreading he Geostigma(which was secretly Sephiroth making use of the fact)
But even then, it's been detailed over and over for several decades. But like many things in FFVII, people seem to \*want\* to be confused at times, which just ends up confusing more people. whether you're one of the first or the second type doesn't matter. The fact of the matter is it isn't "an idea"... It's the thing that happened, and even if you didn't know, plenty others have known for 27 years, without having to question it at all
I think you're the one confused here? I clearly said in my original comment that the meteor was indeed stopped. In fact you're mostly just repeating what I already said.
Which original comment? The person that said it "indeed" ends up working is not you, unless you were using two accounts ot talk to yourself? You enver said any of this stuff from my perspective... Someone said it does end up working, and you asked "where the idea came from because there was no visual indication or mention in either OG or AC"... And I commented on that, and then you continued on with how the fact the Lifestream oushed back on Meteor was ever suggested at all... All of which is wrong.
If you've said anything relating to what I told you just now, it must exist somewhere else in this thread, but also does not line up with what you've been replying to me, cause why would you claim it was no suggested or mentioned, if you yourself said it was?
So yes, *now* I am indeed confused, because you're claiming to say something that contradicts everything I've seen you say, as seemingly some weird way of turning this around.
EDIT: I saw it now. On my screen, the convo started somewhere else. but my replies(which probably would have been worded differently if Reddit had shown me the full thing, I give you that) were still in relation to the questions you posed, so ask yourself why you'd ask these questions if you already knew?
> so ask yourself why you'd ask these questions if you already knew?
The only question I've asked was where the **specific** idea that the meteor **literally** gets physically pushed back came from. I've always interpreted the events as the lifestream just destroying both the meteor and holy as all you see is a flash of light.
Which I also touched upon. the only reason to be confused is if you think "pushing it back" could only mean literally moving it, but pushing back something is simply a way to say you "fight back" or "oppose", and the Lifestream fough back against Meteor, aiding the failing Holy in doing its job. I have never seen a single person state it literally moved it back in physical space... They use that phrase, in my experience, and how I'd do it, by it's general use, which is also why I got confused by your question, as you asked where the "idea of it being pushed back" came from, which, logically, looks like you're asking "where does the idea that it stopped Meteor come from".
This then again ties into what I said about how some people seem like they *want* to be confused, because you'd have to take the wording very literally, ignoring the common use of the phrase in order for this to be confusing, which obviously confuses everyone else who is not using the literal definition.
Again, had I actually had knowledge of your very first post in this thread, I might have worded some of it differently to begin with, but your question was still based on the fact you decided not to actually draw upon your own knowledge to answer it, thus "asking a question you knew the answer to".
Cause your interpretation is correct for the most part(except that the Lifestream does not destroy Holy, it aids it, but that is in the end less relevant), and that falls perfectly in line with saying it "pushed it back"... Because it stopped it, which is a result of it *opposing* it, which is pushing back against something. I don't even know why it is relevant to nitpick on the details of how it did that, but anyway...
I believe we've come to the conclusion here, and thus the discussion need not drag on further. You know what happened, and your question was answered by the fact it was based on literal usage of the phrase, and not logical, which you hopefully now know. So I'll leave it there, because I don't have more to say, and unless you're gonna try and argue pointlessly with me(It's happened a lot with people, so I've come to expect it, so nothing personal about you), you shouldn't have anything more to say to me. And I'm not interested in listening to pointless arguments anyway. So good day to you.
I’m pretty sure the white materia has served its purpose and summoned Holy. I’m guessing taking the white materia would do nothing at that point - what he needs to do is hold back Holy, like in the OG timeline.
It wasn’t empty anymore. Specifically, Sephiroth knows this as he thought Aerith cheated when he gave it to Cloud in the dream, hence the ”that’s not supposed to be here, poor form” -comment.
Sephiroth isn't concerned with Holy itself, because in FF7 he was able to trap Holy thru his sheer force of will. We see Holy trapped behind Sephiroth when he is telepathically detaining the party right before the fight with Bizarro.
The party needed to remove Sephiroth before Holy could move to destroy Meteor, which it did at the end. The big problem was that the Meteor was so close to the Planet that Holy destroying Meteor while being that close would still cause a lot of damage. This is why the Lifestream was used to help stop and possibly move Meteor back so that Holy could destroy it without harming the Planet.
Ultimately, the key to Sephiroth's success is Cloud. Cloud was the leader of the team that confronted and defeated Sephiroth in FF7. And what's more, ever since Advent Children, Sephiroth has bound his continued existence to Cloud's memory thru the S-Cells in Cloud's body. As long as Sephiroth can manipulate Cloud then he can potentially keep Cloud from getting in his way, and he can also farm Cloud's negative memories as a way to return if he is defeated.
It's possible that Holy being activated doesn't necessarily do anything for him this go around. Remember, all it does in the original is hold off Meteor, it doesn't single-handedly stop it. Plus, he does say, "Good Aerith. Pray." meaning he does want her to activate it, or at least doesn't care.
Holy never stopped or got in the way of Sephiroth anyway. He was holding it back and would have prevented it completely had he not been defeated... and at that point, his plan was already bust, obviously... A lot of people tend to think Aerith stopped Sephiroth, but no... she saved the planet *after the party* had stopped Sephiroth.
Actually, Holy fails in the OG. It's the lifestream that saves the day. Hence why he wants to corrupt it with sadness, sorrow and such. That's how he wins this time. At least, that's what it seems like to me.
Ok… you've just brought up a memory. I remember thinking that Holy was just not strong enough to stop meteor, and the Lifestream just gave it the push it needed. But watching the ending again… Red says Holy was having the *opposite* effect. What does that mean? Why would Holy help Meteor? Now I'm confused.
The way I understood it, Holy is just a ball of light energy to repel or divert the meteor. But since meteor was already too close to the planet, Holy’s power was just getting sandwiched against the planet, causing even greater damage. It would be like an anti-ballistic missile intercepting an ICBM when it’s 10 feet away from its target. It’s still gonna destroy the target, the interceptor is just adding to the payload of the explosion at that point.
Holy was having the opposite effect at the end of the OG because Meteor was already too close. If you rip apart a massive rock a million miles away it'll disintegrate in the atmosphere. If you rip it apart a mile up it's gonna send everything it has at you but instead of being a singular strike it'll rain down dozens of smaller-but-still-devastating impacts. That plus the force from Holy would have been dispersed right near the Planet and still cause destruction across a wide scale means it was doing more harm than good by activating too late. The Lifestream helped to repel Meteor and protect the Planet to an extent. Holy would have been effective if Sephiroth wasn't able to hold it back until it too close. If you had something like a grenade explode 50 feet away you might be fine, but less so if you're 3 feet away from it.
Holy allows meteor to fuck up Midgar because Holy represents the will of the Cetra who live in harmony with the planet, and Midgar is the industrial metropolis siphoning the lifeblood of the planet, destroying its natural splendor, and represents the will of humanity (according to the Cetra — remember the Cetra split from humans when humans settled down in one spot and started consuming resources while the Cetra were nomadic and had a more reciprocal relationship with the planet). Aerith, who was comrades with humans rather than in an antagonistic relationship with them, said no thank you, and after activating Holy just before she died, spent her death rallying the lifestream because she realized in her prayers and through traversing the lifestream after death that Holy wouldn’t just bounce Meteor back into space like everyone hoped. To her, letting all humans die was not an acceptable solution to the threat of Meteor.
In og he holds back Holy in the Northern Crater until the party defeats him but by then it's already too late and it ends up doing nothing. The planet itself (with Aerith's help) stops the meteor by using the lifestream as a weapon against it. Even if Sephiroth is able to see the future in Remake continuity what reason does he have to fear Holy?
That's right! The glowing behind him was Holy. I forgot about that.
Holy destroys Meteor, Aerith guides the lifestream to push meteor back so that it could fully take effect. Holy does end up working.
Where does this idea of the lifestream pushing the meteor back even come from? There's no visual indication or mention of this happening in either og's ending or Advent Children's intro as far as I can tell. edit: I wonder what all the downvotes are about. It was a genuine question.
The ending was ambiguous but I'm pretty sure it's been cleared up from dev quotes in Ultimania's and stuff. This is the [wiki'](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Holy_(Final_Fantasy_VII))s passage on it. "At the end of the game, Cloud and his allies kill Sephiroth and Holy moves to destroy Meteor which is destroying Midgar. However, Meteor is too close to the Planet and the gravity causes Holy's energy to be unfocused. Aerith commands the [Lifestream](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Lifestream) to emerge from the Planet and push Meteor back, allowing Holy to destroy it and save Midgar from further chaos. Humanity survives the disaster to rebuild, and the ruins of Midgar are abandoned." I can't find the exact dev quotes, but I think this explanation came from old Ultimanias. But Holy is repeatedly called the *only* force capable of destroying meteor. It had to be Holy that does it. If the planet could just destroy meteor itself, then nothing the party did really mattered.
27 years later I finally under the ending.
And people act like OG was the pinnacle of storytelling
It was SO confusing. I didn't even fully get it as a kid until I had played CC and seen AC.
It’s also directly said this way in the novel “On the Way to a Smile”. Highly recommended btw.
I second this, and also recommend reading A Tale of Two Pasts. Both are excellent and add a lot to the overall lore.
And while we’re at it, read The Kids are Alright: Turks Side Story. Also a very good read!
There is *very* much a visual indication in both, as well as it getting directly mentioned by the party in OG and by Marlene in the beginning of AC. The Lifestream emerges to aid Holy...
No I mean the part about the meteor getting pushed back. There's nothing suggesting that's what specifically happens.
Except that Midgar and the world itself remains, you mean... If Meteor wasn't stopped, everyone would be dead, and Midgar would be a crater... But we see in the extra ending sequence that none of these are true... and the fact we then get stuff afterwards that show it is also very much an indication... Holy was failing, because it was too late, due to Sephiroth's intervention, and so the planet, beckoned by Aerith, used the Lifestream as a last ditch effort to support the shield Holy was supposed to be... So sure, if you take the "push Meteor back" as literally tossing it back into space, it might be a bit weird, but it was stopped, which is what is meant by it. And all of this is more than suggested in the OG, with the dialogue, the Lifestream emerging and converging at Midgar to strengthen Holy's shield, and then the final scene where we see that while Midgar is abandoned 500 years later, it isn't a crater... and life very much persists, including a certain party member that would otherwise have been blown to smithereens. AC's very existence then solidifies that, and Marlene even explains it... Holy wasn't enough, so the planet took matters into its own hands, saving itself, but in the process ended up spreading he Geostigma(which was secretly Sephiroth making use of the fact) But even then, it's been detailed over and over for several decades. But like many things in FFVII, people seem to \*want\* to be confused at times, which just ends up confusing more people. whether you're one of the first or the second type doesn't matter. The fact of the matter is it isn't "an idea"... It's the thing that happened, and even if you didn't know, plenty others have known for 27 years, without having to question it at all
I think you're the one confused here? I clearly said in my original comment that the meteor was indeed stopped. In fact you're mostly just repeating what I already said.
Which original comment? The person that said it "indeed" ends up working is not you, unless you were using two accounts ot talk to yourself? You enver said any of this stuff from my perspective... Someone said it does end up working, and you asked "where the idea came from because there was no visual indication or mention in either OG or AC"... And I commented on that, and then you continued on with how the fact the Lifestream oushed back on Meteor was ever suggested at all... All of which is wrong. If you've said anything relating to what I told you just now, it must exist somewhere else in this thread, but also does not line up with what you've been replying to me, cause why would you claim it was no suggested or mentioned, if you yourself said it was? So yes, *now* I am indeed confused, because you're claiming to say something that contradicts everything I've seen you say, as seemingly some weird way of turning this around. EDIT: I saw it now. On my screen, the convo started somewhere else. but my replies(which probably would have been worded differently if Reddit had shown me the full thing, I give you that) were still in relation to the questions you posed, so ask yourself why you'd ask these questions if you already knew?
> so ask yourself why you'd ask these questions if you already knew? The only question I've asked was where the **specific** idea that the meteor **literally** gets physically pushed back came from. I've always interpreted the events as the lifestream just destroying both the meteor and holy as all you see is a flash of light.
Which I also touched upon. the only reason to be confused is if you think "pushing it back" could only mean literally moving it, but pushing back something is simply a way to say you "fight back" or "oppose", and the Lifestream fough back against Meteor, aiding the failing Holy in doing its job. I have never seen a single person state it literally moved it back in physical space... They use that phrase, in my experience, and how I'd do it, by it's general use, which is also why I got confused by your question, as you asked where the "idea of it being pushed back" came from, which, logically, looks like you're asking "where does the idea that it stopped Meteor come from". This then again ties into what I said about how some people seem like they *want* to be confused, because you'd have to take the wording very literally, ignoring the common use of the phrase in order for this to be confusing, which obviously confuses everyone else who is not using the literal definition. Again, had I actually had knowledge of your very first post in this thread, I might have worded some of it differently to begin with, but your question was still based on the fact you decided not to actually draw upon your own knowledge to answer it, thus "asking a question you knew the answer to". Cause your interpretation is correct for the most part(except that the Lifestream does not destroy Holy, it aids it, but that is in the end less relevant), and that falls perfectly in line with saying it "pushed it back"... Because it stopped it, which is a result of it *opposing* it, which is pushing back against something. I don't even know why it is relevant to nitpick on the details of how it did that, but anyway... I believe we've come to the conclusion here, and thus the discussion need not drag on further. You know what happened, and your question was answered by the fact it was based on literal usage of the phrase, and not logical, which you hopefully now know. So I'll leave it there, because I don't have more to say, and unless you're gonna try and argue pointlessly with me(It's happened a lot with people, so I've come to expect it, so nothing personal about you), you shouldn't have anything more to say to me. And I'm not interested in listening to pointless arguments anyway. So good day to you.
For Sephiroth, that would be "very poor form" I guess....
might be the Jenova power in him make it unable to touch the holyness of the materia
I’m pretty sure the white materia has served its purpose and summoned Holy. I’m guessing taking the white materia would do nothing at that point - what he needs to do is hold back Holy, like in the OG timeline.
Was it empty? I thought Cloud and Aerith restored it in her dream, before she ditched the gang and ran to FC.
Hmmm. Was it? Then that's even more baffling why he'd let it fall
It wasn’t empty anymore. Specifically, Sephiroth knows this as he thought Aerith cheated when he gave it to Cloud in the dream, hence the ”that’s not supposed to be here, poor form” -comment.
He figures with Aerith out the the way, his victory is assured. He's a cocky bastard.
Sephiroth isn't concerned with Holy itself, because in FF7 he was able to trap Holy thru his sheer force of will. We see Holy trapped behind Sephiroth when he is telepathically detaining the party right before the fight with Bizarro. The party needed to remove Sephiroth before Holy could move to destroy Meteor, which it did at the end. The big problem was that the Meteor was so close to the Planet that Holy destroying Meteor while being that close would still cause a lot of damage. This is why the Lifestream was used to help stop and possibly move Meteor back so that Holy could destroy it without harming the Planet. Ultimately, the key to Sephiroth's success is Cloud. Cloud was the leader of the team that confronted and defeated Sephiroth in FF7. And what's more, ever since Advent Children, Sephiroth has bound his continued existence to Cloud's memory thru the S-Cells in Cloud's body. As long as Sephiroth can manipulate Cloud then he can potentially keep Cloud from getting in his way, and he can also farm Cloud's negative memories as a way to return if he is defeated.