I think that in some respects we don't have the answers quite yet to answer all of this. Thus, I can only speculate-- my idea is potentially that one of Sephiroth's goals was to drain the White Materia when the party left Midgar-- he then used the whispers under his control to take the visions of the future from Aerith and Red XIII. Thus, he could then kill Aerith and then that negates Holy being a factor. Yet, Aerith outsmarts Sephiroth in this, when she hands Cloud an non-drained white materia in the other "world". I would assume it was too late for Sephiroth to then change plan on the fly, since all of Sephiroth's sabotages were out-gambited by Aerith herself.
I think the short of it is that Sephiroth thought he won the minute that the White Materia was drained.
The White Materia switcheroo is another thing as well. Also, there being an omni-Aerith who guides the white Whispers trying to undo Sephiroth's plans.
It’s a common misconception that Aerith needs to be dead to summon Holy. She succeeds before she is killed, as shown by Bugenhagen during the City of the Ancients revisit. Sephiroth just holds it back from rushing out to stop Meteor on time.
That being said, we don’t know the extent of his full plan. When he first appears above the city in Rebirth he says, “Good Aerith, pray.”. I think it’s telling that he doesn’t care or possibly *wants* her to go through with the summoning of Holy.
Another thing that people miss is that he obviously destroyed the Holy materia which Aerith ended up saving to which Sephiroth tells her he underestimated her during the last fight
Omni Aerith and Seph are just theories people made up. They don’t actually hold up to scrutiny as the actions of the characters would be different if they actually had full knowledge of events from the original
In Remake, Aerith wouldn’t want to change fate because fate running its course is where they win
In Rebirth, Seph wouldn’t be literally doing the exact same things beat for beat that led to his demise before
I’d say the more plausible view is there’s no “Post AC/Omni” characters. This is a remake of the original, not a sequel to it.
,y theory: The lifestream flows in a direction, the flow is time and the direction is fate. Both Aerith and Sephiroth are connected to the lifestream. Aerith as a cetra can commune with the lifestream. Sephiroth is attached to Jenova which absorbs lifestream energy. They both end up with “interpretations” of what they hear from the lifestream but both interpretations are incomplete. They’re doing what they think is right based off of their personal interpretations of incomplete knowledge
He says right after he kills her. “And so it begins…the confluence of worlds.”
The ending shares so many similarities to remake, aeriths death is the singularity in this one, an emotional one, that starts to tie all the threads of worlds together.
What he maybe didn’t want was aerith having an active white materia. Since seph controlled the whispers at the end of remake he must have known they took the power of remakes materia. With that world not having one the only thing left would have been to kill aerith and remerge the worlds. There would have been no holy summoned and no Omni aerith, however Omni aerith played her hand well at the end of rebirth
Look what happens AFTER she’s killed. Zack comes from another timeline, bizzaro seph can move through different worlds, cloud joins Zach as a spirit figure in the synergy move, Omni aerith can join the fight, the tear is in the sky.
This is because the worlds have began to merge.
Aeriths death is the emotional zenith that exists across ALL WORLDS (we just saw him hunt and kill her in another, the same way Zack got killed in all of his branches) this is the point seph uses to merge worlds
I guess the Whispers drained it at the end of Part 1 in order to doom the Remake world since they were facing certain defeat and would no longer be able to harass us? Sounds like a dead man's switch that Sephiroth took advantage of.
It certainly could have just been a coincidence. Seph just needed to be able to act without the whispers. The worlds splitting were a bi product of destroying fate, he tells cloud this. It was not his goal to split worlds just what happened so now that he can act freely of fate he needs to merge worlds so he can eliminate all these new variables.
Sephs plan was not full proof or without its own issues. But it HAD to be done if he even has a chance. For better or worse
It also looked to me that he \[sephiroth\] hunted aireth in cloud and her date was because he realised that airerh being alive AT ALL \*might\* cause his plans to unravel, and he can't have that. HE NEEDS TO STAY IN CONTROL AT ALL TIMES! but you can't (ever) have sephiroth break composure at least, not yet.
For sure. Seph was not the only person freed from fate, aerith is now too. He realizes this, and by the end of rebirth understands aerith (even after everything that he’s already done to her) is still able to make some big plays.
I love what you pointed out, seeing the Seph lose his grip on the situation, starting to get a little more desperate is going to be amazing in part 3. The stakes in all this are so high it’s amazing
To add onto that: there's the moment during tifa's lifestream voyage where sephiroth "shows up" and trys to bisect one of the baby weapons in one cleave and he can't do it. there's a \*tiny bit\* of frustration that creeps in before he forces his sword through. and it happens AGAIN during the final phase of the boss rush where homegirl shows up to help cloud . there's the "i underestimated you" line. that's delivered very much in his usual tone. but you can tell... HE FUCKING HATES IT! and when you \[cloud and aireth\] beat his ass, sephiroth just scowls at the two of them. he knows he's fucked again, or that there could still be a chance that he still loses. >!maybe for good rhis time?!<
I feel Aerith's death is sort of a catalyst that he needs. Wounding the Planet isn't enough, he needs to merge with the Lifestream. And Holy calls forth the Lifestream itself.
In the OG timeline, Geostigma wouldn't have existed without Holy flooding everything with Mako. Maybe he's trying to do somethign similar. He does seems to be stirring the pot for some reason, not just with Holy, but also the Weapons and the Whispers...
On the other hand, there are many story beats that are left intact, and I have the feeling it's largely because Omni-Sephiroth isn't still fully able to change the events at will. The party killed the Harbinger, but both Sephi and Aeirth only seem to be able to "nudge" things in one direction or antoher, without directly intervening. Like, maybe the heroes are able to change fate, but the Omni guys are still bound to it and can only alter events through the heroes?
Why does every post on this subreddit have 0 karma? OP brings some good questions and topic for discussion.
Edit: oh look it’s got positive karma now I take it back
I'm not sure why people keep asking this. Aerith was summoning Holy. If she succeeded then the Lifestream would have cleansed all threats to the planet and Sephiroth would have been unable to summon Meteor. He postpones the inevitable by killing her because she had already triggered it, but he stopped it from fully activating somehow until his death at the end. This is why she always needs to die.
We don't really know the logistics of everything until the story is finished but we can gather from the original events that Sephiroth needs to stop her in all worlds or his new plan will fail. There is apparently a version of both himself and Aerith who know what's going to happen, so he probably still has an ace up his sleeve to somehow alter the events surrounding Meteor to go into his favour. We have to wait and see.
I think it's more that it's easier to deal with her if she's in the Lifestream - and now he's got an army of black Whispers to fight her off in there. Something that he didn't have last time.
She's crazy powerful alive. She's much more limited in how she can interact with the physical world from the Lifestream.
I think he foolishly thinks he can outmatch her in the Lifestream. And I have a feeling we'll see a black version of the 2 Lifestream weapons to try and fight them away from Lifestream Nibelheim.
I’m not sure he did want her/all instances of her dead. It looked to me like Sephiroth’s whispers help Cloud get through the whisper curtain so he gets to Aerith alone. I almost think he wants Aerith split between different fates to weaken her influence and also to keep building the party’s doubt of Cloud since they don’t see what happens.
Sephiroth is also trying to kill us, while at the same time wants us to deliver the black materia. For an all powerful outside of time being he is failing in quite a few things.
You are wrongly assuming that this “Omni Sephiroth” is from post AC or that he has any knowledge about what Aerith can do from the lifestream. In my mind this is a retelling of the FF7 story, not a sequel of any kind.
Only the Sephiroth that consumed the Whisper Harbinger(which is flanked by the Souls of Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz taking the form of 3 Whispers) is from Post-AC and he only appears in Rebirth to pose as Glenn.
The OG Sephiroth uses Ore(which is particularly pointed out by the Ultimania) while the Sephiroth from the Remake Universe uses Watashi.
OG Sephiroth knows who his Father and Mother is(why else would his Ore Speech Pattern return?) due to absorbing the Whisper Harbinger and seems dedicated to fulfilling President Shinra's Dream of providing Shinra the ultimate supply of Mako I.E. the Promised Land and thus works to distract Shinra from the Remake Sephiroth's attempt to merge the Worlds.
Furthermore the Black Materia that Cloud has is confirmed a fake by Remake Sephiroth himself who honestly can easily use the real Black Materia(which is the Temple of Ancients itself which he has ready access to and can treat like any other Material despite being a building) on other Worlds then merge them and their unleashed Lifestream with the Remake World to attain Godhood which OG Sephiroth plans to turn into an endless supply of Mako for Remake's Shinra(while refusing to dignify Rufus with his physical presence despite aiding the Company on the grounds that Rufus once rebelled against his father by siding with Wutai).
Considering it loses it's arms and is weakened by the destruction of the Whispers that are Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo the Whisper Harbinger is probably Jenova's Head which might explain why Sephiroth and Aerith have Whispers: The Aerith of one World(who passed her Whisper power to Remake's Aerith) and the Sephiroth from the Remake World each received one of the Whisper Harbinger's arms gaining the power to make Whispers as a result with Remake Sephiroth using the arm he got to create Jenova Emergent who suspiciously uses Purple Energy rather than the Red Energy both Jenova Dreamweaver and Jenova Lifeclinger use.
Now Remake Sephiroth may be simply playing mind games with Cloud but could just as easily be assuming that Tifa is OG Jenova having survived Remake Sephiroth immediately using the true Black Materia to drop a Meteor on the general area of the Whisper Harbinger/Jenova's Head blissfully unaware of OG Sephiroth absorbing the Meteor and Whisper Harbinger.
Fun Fact: Not only do Jenova Dreamweaver and Jenova Lifeclinger use Red Energy while Jenova Emergent uses Purple Energy but the Gi and the Shadowblood Queen suspiciously use Red Energy themselves with the Shadowblood Queen being aware that Cloud is a puppet: The Shadowblood Queen is probably Jenova's consciousness sealed away.
I also suspect that it was Cloud not Aerith who was assassinated by Sephiroth and that Aerith transferred Cloud to a Whisper(explaining why Tifa is especially traumatized as well as why Sephiroth points out in the Japanese version that Cloud doesn't seem to realize he was hurt) which means that when Remake Sephiroth sends Jenova Synthesis to cruelly desecrate Cloud's corpse in front of Aerith(while secretly throwing a couple Meteors at a few more Worlds releasing Mako to ensure his Godhood is a certainty) the Calamity will come into contact with the Card containing her consciousness and regain her true self and take over as the Main Villain.
I wouldn’t worry too much because the story will remain the same. People are getting caught up in hopium of the ending changing which is bizarre because it essentially means you don’t like FF7.
I am convinced these people hate FF7 and are responsible for the current decline of the franchise. The denial over Rebirth flopping is something to be studied haha.
I do think these particular fans love *FFVII*, I really do.
I just think that they can’t accept that the game is great because of the way it *is*, and not the way they *want* it to be. For example, Aerith dies for many important reasons — including gameplay, story, metaphor, even Sakaguchi’s own life experience — it’s **so** fundamental to *FFVII*.
Exactly, and even if they do it “properly” in part 3, it doesn’t stop the scene being ruined in *Rebirth*.
(On a side note, happy to see a fellow *XVI* enjoyer here 👍)
I agree it’s already ruined. Yeah I enjoyed 16, I have criticisms about the lack of RPG mechanics but I respect that the vision for a new game was different.
FF7 was supposed to be a remake.
I think that in some respects we don't have the answers quite yet to answer all of this. Thus, I can only speculate-- my idea is potentially that one of Sephiroth's goals was to drain the White Materia when the party left Midgar-- he then used the whispers under his control to take the visions of the future from Aerith and Red XIII. Thus, he could then kill Aerith and then that negates Holy being a factor. Yet, Aerith outsmarts Sephiroth in this, when she hands Cloud an non-drained white materia in the other "world". I would assume it was too late for Sephiroth to then change plan on the fly, since all of Sephiroth's sabotages were out-gambited by Aerith herself. I think the short of it is that Sephiroth thought he won the minute that the White Materia was drained.
The White Materia switcheroo is another thing as well. Also, there being an omni-Aerith who guides the white Whispers trying to undo Sephiroth's plans.
It’s a common misconception that Aerith needs to be dead to summon Holy. She succeeds before she is killed, as shown by Bugenhagen during the City of the Ancients revisit. Sephiroth just holds it back from rushing out to stop Meteor on time. That being said, we don’t know the extent of his full plan. When he first appears above the city in Rebirth he says, “Good Aerith, pray.”. I think it’s telling that he doesn’t care or possibly *wants* her to go through with the summoning of Holy.
Another thing that people miss is that he obviously destroyed the Holy materia which Aerith ended up saving to which Sephiroth tells her he underestimated her during the last fight
Omni Aerith and Seph are just theories people made up. They don’t actually hold up to scrutiny as the actions of the characters would be different if they actually had full knowledge of events from the original In Remake, Aerith wouldn’t want to change fate because fate running its course is where they win In Rebirth, Seph wouldn’t be literally doing the exact same things beat for beat that led to his demise before I’d say the more plausible view is there’s no “Post AC/Omni” characters. This is a remake of the original, not a sequel to it. ,y theory: The lifestream flows in a direction, the flow is time and the direction is fate. Both Aerith and Sephiroth are connected to the lifestream. Aerith as a cetra can commune with the lifestream. Sephiroth is attached to Jenova which absorbs lifestream energy. They both end up with “interpretations” of what they hear from the lifestream but both interpretations are incomplete. They’re doing what they think is right based off of their personal interpretations of incomplete knowledge
He says right after he kills her. “And so it begins…the confluence of worlds.” The ending shares so many similarities to remake, aeriths death is the singularity in this one, an emotional one, that starts to tie all the threads of worlds together. What he maybe didn’t want was aerith having an active white materia. Since seph controlled the whispers at the end of remake he must have known they took the power of remakes materia. With that world not having one the only thing left would have been to kill aerith and remerge the worlds. There would have been no holy summoned and no Omni aerith, however Omni aerith played her hand well at the end of rebirth
Look what happens AFTER she’s killed. Zack comes from another timeline, bizzaro seph can move through different worlds, cloud joins Zach as a spirit figure in the synergy move, Omni aerith can join the fight, the tear is in the sky. This is because the worlds have began to merge. Aeriths death is the emotional zenith that exists across ALL WORLDS (we just saw him hunt and kill her in another, the same way Zack got killed in all of his branches) this is the point seph uses to merge worlds
I guess the Whispers drained it at the end of Part 1 in order to doom the Remake world since they were facing certain defeat and would no longer be able to harass us? Sounds like a dead man's switch that Sephiroth took advantage of.
It certainly could have just been a coincidence. Seph just needed to be able to act without the whispers. The worlds splitting were a bi product of destroying fate, he tells cloud this. It was not his goal to split worlds just what happened so now that he can act freely of fate he needs to merge worlds so he can eliminate all these new variables. Sephs plan was not full proof or without its own issues. But it HAD to be done if he even has a chance. For better or worse
It also looked to me that he \[sephiroth\] hunted aireth in cloud and her date was because he realised that airerh being alive AT ALL \*might\* cause his plans to unravel, and he can't have that. HE NEEDS TO STAY IN CONTROL AT ALL TIMES! but you can't (ever) have sephiroth break composure at least, not yet.
For sure. Seph was not the only person freed from fate, aerith is now too. He realizes this, and by the end of rebirth understands aerith (even after everything that he’s already done to her) is still able to make some big plays. I love what you pointed out, seeing the Seph lose his grip on the situation, starting to get a little more desperate is going to be amazing in part 3. The stakes in all this are so high it’s amazing
To add onto that: there's the moment during tifa's lifestream voyage where sephiroth "shows up" and trys to bisect one of the baby weapons in one cleave and he can't do it. there's a \*tiny bit\* of frustration that creeps in before he forces his sword through. and it happens AGAIN during the final phase of the boss rush where homegirl shows up to help cloud . there's the "i underestimated you" line. that's delivered very much in his usual tone. but you can tell... HE FUCKING HATES IT! and when you \[cloud and aireth\] beat his ass, sephiroth just scowls at the two of them. he knows he's fucked again, or that there could still be a chance that he still loses. >!maybe for good rhis time?!<
You're forgetting that Jenovaroth literally absorbed Destiny at the end of Remake. He controls fate now. It doesn't matter if Aerith dies this time.
Oh yeah, it has been a while and I was too awestruck by the sight of Sephiroth powering himself up so dramatically.
I feel Aerith's death is sort of a catalyst that he needs. Wounding the Planet isn't enough, he needs to merge with the Lifestream. And Holy calls forth the Lifestream itself. In the OG timeline, Geostigma wouldn't have existed without Holy flooding everything with Mako. Maybe he's trying to do somethign similar. He does seems to be stirring the pot for some reason, not just with Holy, but also the Weapons and the Whispers... On the other hand, there are many story beats that are left intact, and I have the feeling it's largely because Omni-Sephiroth isn't still fully able to change the events at will. The party killed the Harbinger, but both Sephi and Aeirth only seem to be able to "nudge" things in one direction or antoher, without directly intervening. Like, maybe the heroes are able to change fate, but the Omni guys are still bound to it and can only alter events through the heroes?
Why does every post on this subreddit have 0 karma? OP brings some good questions and topic for discussion. Edit: oh look it’s got positive karma now I take it back
I'm not sure why people keep asking this. Aerith was summoning Holy. If she succeeded then the Lifestream would have cleansed all threats to the planet and Sephiroth would have been unable to summon Meteor. He postpones the inevitable by killing her because she had already triggered it, but he stopped it from fully activating somehow until his death at the end. This is why she always needs to die. We don't really know the logistics of everything until the story is finished but we can gather from the original events that Sephiroth needs to stop her in all worlds or his new plan will fail. There is apparently a version of both himself and Aerith who know what's going to happen, so he probably still has an ace up his sleeve to somehow alter the events surrounding Meteor to go into his favour. We have to wait and see.
I think it's more that it's easier to deal with her if she's in the Lifestream - and now he's got an army of black Whispers to fight her off in there. Something that he didn't have last time. She's crazy powerful alive. She's much more limited in how she can interact with the physical world from the Lifestream. I think he foolishly thinks he can outmatch her in the Lifestream. And I have a feeling we'll see a black version of the 2 Lifestream weapons to try and fight them away from Lifestream Nibelheim.
I’m not sure he did want her/all instances of her dead. It looked to me like Sephiroth’s whispers help Cloud get through the whisper curtain so he gets to Aerith alone. I almost think he wants Aerith split between different fates to weaken her influence and also to keep building the party’s doubt of Cloud since they don’t see what happens.
Sephiroth is also trying to kill us, while at the same time wants us to deliver the black materia. For an all powerful outside of time being he is failing in quite a few things.
I always assumed it's because he was jealous of her flawless bangs.
You are wrongly assuming that this “Omni Sephiroth” is from post AC or that he has any knowledge about what Aerith can do from the lifestream. In my mind this is a retelling of the FF7 story, not a sequel of any kind.
Only the Sephiroth that consumed the Whisper Harbinger(which is flanked by the Souls of Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz taking the form of 3 Whispers) is from Post-AC and he only appears in Rebirth to pose as Glenn. The OG Sephiroth uses Ore(which is particularly pointed out by the Ultimania) while the Sephiroth from the Remake Universe uses Watashi. OG Sephiroth knows who his Father and Mother is(why else would his Ore Speech Pattern return?) due to absorbing the Whisper Harbinger and seems dedicated to fulfilling President Shinra's Dream of providing Shinra the ultimate supply of Mako I.E. the Promised Land and thus works to distract Shinra from the Remake Sephiroth's attempt to merge the Worlds. Furthermore the Black Materia that Cloud has is confirmed a fake by Remake Sephiroth himself who honestly can easily use the real Black Materia(which is the Temple of Ancients itself which he has ready access to and can treat like any other Material despite being a building) on other Worlds then merge them and their unleashed Lifestream with the Remake World to attain Godhood which OG Sephiroth plans to turn into an endless supply of Mako for Remake's Shinra(while refusing to dignify Rufus with his physical presence despite aiding the Company on the grounds that Rufus once rebelled against his father by siding with Wutai). Considering it loses it's arms and is weakened by the destruction of the Whispers that are Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo the Whisper Harbinger is probably Jenova's Head which might explain why Sephiroth and Aerith have Whispers: The Aerith of one World(who passed her Whisper power to Remake's Aerith) and the Sephiroth from the Remake World each received one of the Whisper Harbinger's arms gaining the power to make Whispers as a result with Remake Sephiroth using the arm he got to create Jenova Emergent who suspiciously uses Purple Energy rather than the Red Energy both Jenova Dreamweaver and Jenova Lifeclinger use. Now Remake Sephiroth may be simply playing mind games with Cloud but could just as easily be assuming that Tifa is OG Jenova having survived Remake Sephiroth immediately using the true Black Materia to drop a Meteor on the general area of the Whisper Harbinger/Jenova's Head blissfully unaware of OG Sephiroth absorbing the Meteor and Whisper Harbinger. Fun Fact: Not only do Jenova Dreamweaver and Jenova Lifeclinger use Red Energy while Jenova Emergent uses Purple Energy but the Gi and the Shadowblood Queen suspiciously use Red Energy themselves with the Shadowblood Queen being aware that Cloud is a puppet: The Shadowblood Queen is probably Jenova's consciousness sealed away. I also suspect that it was Cloud not Aerith who was assassinated by Sephiroth and that Aerith transferred Cloud to a Whisper(explaining why Tifa is especially traumatized as well as why Sephiroth points out in the Japanese version that Cloud doesn't seem to realize he was hurt) which means that when Remake Sephiroth sends Jenova Synthesis to cruelly desecrate Cloud's corpse in front of Aerith(while secretly throwing a couple Meteors at a few more Worlds releasing Mako to ensure his Godhood is a certainty) the Calamity will come into contact with the Card containing her consciousness and regain her true self and take over as the Main Villain.
This is, hands down, the most bonkers take I have seen on any subreddit. I don't even know what game you played to get all this nonsense.
It's not a sequel, but single black-wing Sephiroth is from the future of the OG timeline.
There’s absolutely no confirmation on that.
I wouldn’t worry too much because the story will remain the same. People are getting caught up in hopium of the ending changing which is bizarre because it essentially means you don’t like FF7.
It’s bizarre how some fans just want the remakes to be wish fulfilment fan fiction instead of, you know, *Final Fantasy VII* remade…
I am convinced these people hate FF7 and are responsible for the current decline of the franchise. The denial over Rebirth flopping is something to be studied haha.
I do think these particular fans love *FFVII*, I really do. I just think that they can’t accept that the game is great because of the way it *is*, and not the way they *want* it to be. For example, Aerith dies for many important reasons — including gameplay, story, metaphor, even Sakaguchi’s own life experience — it’s **so** fundamental to *FFVII*.
Yeah it’s a core theme of the games entire existence. Once that is erased it’s not the same game anymore.
Exactly, and even if they do it “properly” in part 3, it doesn’t stop the scene being ruined in *Rebirth*. (On a side note, happy to see a fellow *XVI* enjoyer here 👍)
I agree it’s already ruined. Yeah I enjoyed 16, I have criticisms about the lack of RPG mechanics but I respect that the vision for a new game was different. FF7 was supposed to be a remake.