Headscratchers / Dragon Quest VII

• What is the timeline for when the Almighty was sealed compared to when the islands were sealed? If Orgodemir was fought the first time by Auster's team after Sharkeye was frozen, which would imply that fight was after the islands were sealed, then why couldn't the Almighty stop the islands from being sealed?
• Are the the island plinths actually sending the team back in time, or are they some type of simulation that exist in the tablets themselves?
  • Back in time; Nottagen establishes that your actions in the past can and do have effects on the present.
    • Similarly, you have seen some time progression: the priest from Vogogard appearing, the two from Regenstein appeared to warn people, and of course, Greenthumb Gardens.
• How did Orgodemir get into the altar and impersonate the Almighty? Was that the entire purpose of the alter to begin with?
  • Orgodemir is a powerful evil spirit and a shapeshifter and the islands disappeared specifically due to his cursed powers; it's not far-fetched to assume he hid his own remains within the Altar and sealed it off.
• There's the Almighty and the four Spirits, but who is the Goddess that the monster-repelling statue is based off of?
  • Probably Rubiss. Side material shows that Kiefer is a descendant of Erdrick, so it’s safe to assume it’s the same goddess as prior entries. How The Almighty and Rubiss fit into the same cosmology is anyone’s guess.
  • The Almighty's wife? Or another interpretation of the Almighty?
• Why does whatever Orgodemir does to the towns seal them off? A few of his plans are reality warping in nature, but a lot of them are just smashing up the town and killing everyone.
• Dialac is a desert town that had everyone praying for water. The monsters made an evil rain that turns everyone to stone. 50 years later you are unable to save those people because weather has damaged the stone statues too much... What rain? The town is a desert with a prayer ceremony to summon rain.
  • You could consider wind damage; however, even more can be found. The strongest man of the village was not turned to stone. He lives in Dialac for another fifty years. Why didn't he move the statues into a building to stop his friend from breaking apart?
  • Sadly, Clayman didn't think of doing that before he left to find a cure. He searched high and low, far and wide, and took so many years to track it down that by the time he returned, it was too late. In hindsight, moving everyone to safety first would've been a smart move, but he was so shocked and grief stricken at the time he simply didn't think of it. I imagine he beat himself up over that oversight afterwards, though. He had plenty of time then for 'could've, should've, would've'.
  • This is actually expanded upon in the 3DS version wherein it mentions that the statues were weathered, but not how - one can easily assume they were eroded by sand. This is a desert.
  • The PSX version says "His/Her body has eroded from long exposure to the elements." Nothing about rain.
• The forces of good and evil fought to a stalemate a long, long time ago. So you'd expect Orgodemir and God to be around the same level of power, no? Wrong. God is the Nintendo Hard Superboss that far, far, FAR surpasses Orgodemir in every way. Even if you defeat God He brushes off the fight as if it meant nothing to him. How did the conflict end in a stalemate if God should easily have been able to trample over Orgodemir and his forces all by Himself?
  • Orgodemir spends most of the game expending his power through proxies: the army of automatons, the Grey Rain, et cetera. God's moves in their cosmic chessgame are comparatively minor.
  • It's also explained later in the game that God actually WON the conflict, but he trusted humanity and the elemental spirits with the responsibility of fixing the world.
  • Oregodemir is never actually fought at full power. The first time the party fights him, he had just been seriously wounded after the battle with God. The final battle took place shortly after his resurrection in the present, [i]and[/i] he had just beeen in a fight with the elemental spirits, so he may not have regained his peak strength.