Headscratchers / Final Fantasy VII Remake

"Seven seconds till the end. Time enough for you. Perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see."

What did it mean? Did Sephy give Cloud 7 seconds in the edge of creation to do a Cosmic Retcon as a sort of Deal with the Devil? Is he saying if Cloud could last another 7 seconds he could kill Sephiroth like he did in their original Final Battle?

• It's implied that Cloud uses those seven seconds to avert Zacks death outside of Midgar, where he was originally killed by Shinra troops.
  • How is it implied, like exactly? Like we have Cloud in the edge of creation, then scenes of Shinra in the present, then Zack in the past (?) surviving and the golden explosion and particles, then the survivors of sector 7 also getting rained on by the golden particles back in the present, and then Cloud and co also back in the present finally outside Midgar, at which point past (?) Cloud and Zack pass them. The crosscutting makes it seem like what's happening with Zack is happening at the same time as everything else, and yet Cloud and Aerith can't actually see him, and it's supposed to be before the events of the game, so it's not at the same time? It's confusing enough for me at least to not understand the correlation between Zack's situation and the other scenes particularly clearly.
    • Fair point, maybe its more of a personal interpretation. The way I saw it, the gang defeat the Arbiters of Fate, which seems to be Sephiroth's (or perhaps Jenova's) grand plan this time around, allowing the major players involved to change past events. Sephiroth and Cloud have their encounter at the edge of creation, and Sephiroth allows Cloud time to make a change, that being saving Zack in the past. Past Zack and Cloud passing the gang in the present I saw as more a dramatic flair, rather than something that literally happened.
    • I guess the Shinra scene being where it is just confuses me. Like if they were trying to show Cloud pulled a Cosmic Retcon, shouldn’t the scene order be Cloud in edge of creation -> Stamp poster (which they’ve associated with Cloud) flies by and now Zack survives and the Arbiters all disappear in the past -> then do all the present scenes with sector 7, Shinra and the now returned cast? Why crosscut between past and present scenes like that?
    • The Shinra scene definitely could have been put somewhere else, that is for sure. I don't personally get the feeling, though, that anyone has literally travelled through time. Cloud saved Zack, and we don't get to see how he actually did it, but Sephiroth calling their final meeting place the Edge of Creation could clue us in to that. All the other consequences of Cloud changing the past, we'll have to wait and see (if that even is what actually happened).
  • The problem with that, is that Cloud doesn’t have any memory of Zack at this point, and has migraines whenever presented with evidence that Zack existed. With that in mind, Cloud rewriting history to save Zack doesn’t make any sense.
    • He clearly does have memories of him to some extent though, otherwise Aerith saying his name wouldn't have had any effect.
    • Regardless if having memories of Zack, Cloud (at this point in the game) doesn’t remember Zack - his memories are a mixture of Cloud’s memories & Zack’s memories. He literally can’t remember Zack, hence why he has that reaction whenever he’s presented with anything that contradicts the idea that Zack’s memories are his own. How is he able to rewrite the timeline to save Zack when he literally cannot remember him?
    • It's possible that while Cloud doesn't remember Zack, he knows that there's someone that's supposed to be there that isn't. A hole in a picture, if you will. So he rewrites the timeline to save that someone.
  • Sorry, folks: The summary of the chapter selection screen◊ straight up says that Sephiroth is referring to how much time is left until the end of the world.
    • Sephiroth himself told Cloud what he would do with the remaining 7 seconds before the Planet ends. Since they were in the Edge of Creation, Cloud created a new timeline based on the knowledge given to them during the fight against the Whispers where an Alternate Timeline has Jessie, Biggs, Wedge and Zack alive and proof is shown via the Freeze-Frame Bonus of a different dog breed instead of the Beagle. Tifa saw Meteor and Aerith decided to challenge not only the Planet's but also her own fate. Even Red XIII himself stated what could happen if they do not settle matters there and then.
  • There's also something to keep in mind: We don't actually know how much Cloud remembers. There were a few differences in Cloud's character this time around. His hatred towards Hojo and the Shinra Science Dept. is something new to Remake; in the original, Cloud was disgusted with them, but it was never the outright venomous loathing that he shows in Remake. The game is also more obvious that there is something wrong with Cloud's Cookooclock, and Cloud seems to be aware of it on some level (though he denies it). Now all this could just be a natural expansion of Cloud's character from the original game, or it could mean something more. The latter option gains a bit more weight in chapter 13, when one of Hojo's experiments triggers a memory of Cloud in a similar situation before the Wispers appear and derail the thought. This seems to suggest that Cloud is starting to become aware of his situation much sooner than he did in the original. Or it could mean nothing; there's really no way to know at this point. While we can be sure that Cloud is working on a Jury-Rigged system (it wouldn't be Cloud if it wasn't) how much of it is the same is up in the air.
    • And remember in Chapter 2 or 3, while Cloud is walking around Midgad trying to get to the train, he has a Vision of Selphiroth and he states that Selphiroth can't be there because he killed him. Cloud doesn't remember this till MUCH later in the original game. This shows that he does have at least SOME of his original memories.

Remarkably intact

So the Sector Seven Slums had basically a whole town dropped on it. When you visit it later, you can walk around and you're in a heavily damaged slums, including what is a destroyed but still recognizable Seventh Heaven. Shouldn't there be several meters of ruined upper Sector Seventh on top of it? I get that the plate didn't fall as a whole piece like in the original, but the Slum seems to have been hit with a bunch of rubble, rather than crushed under a falling town.

• You only get to walk through a portion of it, remember each sector supposedly holds about 50,000 residents, probably more, given the shanty-town feel of the slums, and the area where Seventh Heaven stands seems to be relatively close to the central pillar, which would have been the least hit area, as the plate fell outward edge first into the undercity.
• Also, did you even look out at sector 7 when climbing up to the Shinra HQ? "Intact" was the opposite of what it looked like.

Possible foreshadowing

Remember when we saw Jessie's glove on the desk next to a recovering Biggs? If we're running the assumption that she's Spared by the Adaptation. Could it be Foreshadowing that her body didn't vanish into the lifestream during her death scene? And how could Cloud possibly save Zack and Jessie's lives within 7 seconds?

• It could be a result of the ripple effect. By saving Zack, all events after that play out slightly differently. If he's alive, then AVALANCHE may have a second ace in the hole, even if he's staying largely under the radar to avoid drawing Shin-Ra's attention. Perhaps during that moment, he was there and could grab Jessie to get her to safety or prevent the blast from harming her. Or perhaps his presence altered other events (something like, say, awakening Genesis early and bringing him around to the side of the heroes), and allowed another player to intervene (such as Genesis, Kunsel, or Cissnei).
• Another interpretation is that after the final battle with the Whisper Harbinger and Sephiroth, the Whispers were erased across all of time, undoing the major actions that they themselves took to keep things in order. As we saw in the first flashback to Zack, the Whispers went as far as assisting the Shinra troops and swarming around the entirety of Midgar to keep him from surviving. Due to the heroes, however, they disintegrate in the second flashback and Zack survives. In the case of Jessie, the only reason why she died in Remake was due to the Whispers making her grenade backfire on her. But without their interference, she would have been perfectly fine and could have gone back to rescue Biggs the moment Cloud and Tifa caught up to her. This would explain how Biggs survived. As for the glove and bandanna, perhaps the destruction of Sector 7 on top of her already existing guilt convinced Jessie to leave Avalanche, and she left the items behind as a farewell to Biggs.

Casually carrying around weapons

It wasn't as noticeable in the original games since weapons (and party members) disappeared, and it's not an issue in the slums since everyone there is packing heat for protection, but I find it weird that no one bats an eye in the trains or on the plates on seeing these random dudes walking around with huge swords or having miniguns for arms... Specially at times where there's a terrorist group on the loose, bombing stuff...

• Could be a combination of oversight (nobody would expect someone who's a wanted terrorist to just walk openly around) and intimidation (would you want to mess with people who purportedly are willing to kill thousands, and include a man effortlessly carrying a sword the size of a small vehicle and a man with a literal minigun for an arm?)
• Possibly. Though at the beginning of Chapter 8, Aerith gives Cloud a materia she says he dropped, and mentions that she has one too (referring to Holy). He replies somewhat annoyed "You, and everyone and their mother." So materia is a common resource and usually you need some kind of weapon, armor or jewelry to use them (Sephiroth remnants notwithstanding). And since there are street vendors for these kinds of goods, and the Sector 7 slums' weapons vendor does say that business is booming after Cloud started doing jobs around... Maybe Midgar has similar weapon carrying laws (broadly speaking) as the U.S. After all, we see there's a lot of commute between the slums and plates, and in the slums you DO need protection at all times... I was thinking that maybe his SOLDIER uniform would make people relax a bit, although we see him being identified as such because of Mako infusion in his eyes and his sword.
• In the Shinra HQ, at least, one random employee NPC simply assumes Cloud, Barrett, and Tifa are third-party private security hires. If Shinra were to "cheap out," hiring local contractors (who have to procure their own weapons and gear) on a temporary basis is likely cheaper than training and equipping more security grunts (owing to the losses inflicted upon the company during the Wutai War). The fact that Shinra's rank-and-file security grunts at the Mako reactors are barely capable of handling Cloud alone says much about wartime attrition and how corporate authorities have to cut funding accordingly.
• Monsters are commonplace and sometimes they infest different areas of the city. It’s possible that other people assume the main party is just a group of monster exterminators. Shinra has a hard time dealing with the monsters already, if conversations between the security officers reveals anything.
• Both Sector 5 and 7 have people wielding firearms that use them for hunting monsters and security. While the main characters' weapons do stand out, it's likely just a case of people not wanting to make a scene. Plus, several people do comment on Cloud and Barret's weapons.
• In Crisis Core, Zack, and pretty much all of SOLDIER casually walk around Midgar with their BFS. And Cloud HAS a SOLDIER uniform...
• Another possibility is that due to the sheer impracticality of the weapons that we always see (Cloud's Buster Sword and Barrett's gunarm), most people assume they're not ACTUAL weapons, and more for show/not really operational (Crisis Core showed us that the 1st Class SOLDIER boys have significant fanbases (as in Sephiroth's fans are obsessive enough to know about his haircare routine and preferred shampoo and conditioner), so Cloud might just be a weird fanboy of Angeal/Zack who made himself a copy of the Buster Sword for show (especially when paired with the mistakes in his "costume" (SOLDIER gear has two pauldrons and no bolt studs), and Barret may simply be wearing a fake minigun to make himself look even more intimidating to deter would-be robbers)

Retconning then re-Retconning

So the original game portrayed the Buster Sword as having a steel, bolted hilt which Crisis Core and Advent Children changed to be a gold hilt with ornate inlays, even during scenes that took place during the game. I always assumed that Cloud just had the sword modified at some point after receiving it from Zack but now we've seen Zack at the end of the game with the Buster Sword but now it has the classic bolted look back. Considering enough care was put into this cutscene to make it a shot for shot remake of the ending of Crisis Core, it's likely this wasn't just a case of them reusing an asset out of laziness or time constraints. So what was the point in changing the design in the first place if it had no narrative purpose?

• The Remake version has a Steel guard as you said, but the dull part has that weird cybernetic-esque pattern from AC and CC, I'd say that it got broken between the Nibbelheim incident and the beginning of the game, the hilt is tightly wrapped in purple leather, but if you look closely the original red hilt is below it. So yeah, it has a narrative purpose, just a subtle one.

Computer can do anything

• The computer on top of the Sector 7 pillar. After Rude hits the button to drop the plate, Barret fills the thing with lead from his arm cannon. Yet a moment later, it suddenly becomes a real-time communications screen when Tseng appears on the monitor, which doesn't have a single bullet hole in it. What is this thing made out of?
  • If you notice, Barret only targets the console (which is smart, considering how many works of fiction have people targeting monitors and calling it a day). Unfortunately it seems like it was just a control panel, and the CPU itself is housed on the spire. Which also makes sense to protect it from damage like, well, getting a fistful of lead. Thus it can still receive communications. It's akin to only breaking the keyboard and mouse. Barret had the right idea (destroying the computer core), but Shinra already anticipated it years before it happened.
    • Heck, it's possible the console was just a red herring/diffuser of responsibility (if the plate drops, Shinra has a way to claim it wasn't them if they need to (say, having one of theirs in plainclothes futz with the console, them claim it was a Wutai sabotage), with the real power being held by Shinra in the HQ proper (where it's both impossible to accidentally trigger, and almost impossible to stop)

On the Edge

• Why is President Shinra hanging off the edge of the building when we find him? What set of circumstances could have possibly lead to that?
  • Behind his desk, there's a broken window which indicates he was thrown through the glass and barely saved himself from falling off by grabbing the ledge. The better question is why would Marco do that instead of just executing him at his desk.
  • Cloud and company may have arrived just as Sephiroth/Marco were walking outside to finish the job, causing them to decide to mess with the heroes as well. Sephiroth seems to have a much stronger interest in messing with Cloud than getting revenge for Jenova (the reason he wanted to kill President Shinra) this time around.

Andrea's Trio status post-crossdressing

• One of the (seemingly) major duties of Wall Market's Trio is to find girls for Don Corneo. Both Chocobo Sam and Madam M make a big deal out of knowing and catering to Don Corneo's specific tastes in women - Madam M going so far as to say that sending Aerith in her everyday clothes would threaten her standing in Wall Market. Andrea Rodea, on the other hand, sends Corneo a man in (admittedly convincing) drag who then proceeds to draw a sword on him and shake him down for information. Why are there seemingly no consequences for Andrea after pulling that stunt? He couldn't have known Cloud was working for AVALANCHE, but surely he can't have expected the Don to be pleased to have a man infiltrate his audition under the best of circumstances.
  • He was too busy trying to stay alive. It's easy to forget with how fast the story moves along, but the plate collapse happens just a few hours later, and almost immediately after the collapse, Shinra troopers are all over Wall Market and raiding his mansion. The morning after, Corneo is hiding in the sewers with most of his organization either having fled, killed by Shinra, or otherwise incapacitated like Kotch being locked up in the torture chamber. The few men Corneo has left, such as the thugs in the "Malicious Goons" sidequest, are tasked with searching for AVALANCHE members instead, likely as a desperate attempt to appease Shinra.
  • It had always been my understanding that Andrea had been looking for a way to undermine Don Corneo. He already had an inside man in Leslie and out of the Trio, he appeared to have the most power or at least the most influence thanks to his flourishing business with the Honey Bee Inn. Perhaps upon seeing Cloud's performance in the coliseum, he saw an opportunity to get one up on Don Corneo and potentially take over. Dressing Cloud up in drag to save Tifa could've been a part of a much larger plan to take full control of Wall Market. Leslie working for Andrea is the strongest evidence shown so far that this may be the case.

Why was Aerith allowed to roam free for so long?

• The TURKs know where she lives, they have known so for at least ten years. As shown later in the game, Shinra has no qualms about psychologically torturing Aerith to get to the Promised Land, as long as they keep Aerith "intact" enough for her to be of use to them. Then why didn't they recapture her as soon as they learned where she was? What was this stuff about her coming "willingly", and couldn't they "just" threaten Elmyria to get Aerith to come to them?
  • Tseng is given a remade personality. Including Reno and Rude. They are not happy about bombing Sector 7's plate but they had no choice or they would be branded as traitors. That is why Tseng plays the waiting game, even allowing Aerith to have Marlene be taken to Elmyra before leaving with Tseng. Threatening Elmyra is the same thing as forcing Aerith. She has to make the decision herself to willingly follow. No threats, no blackmail, none of that.
  • Yes even Elmyra says that Aerith has to go willingly or whatever they want from her won't work, as told by Tseng. But why? Not only that, both Aerith and Elmyra had a somewhat chummy and casual relationship with the Turks... To the extent that Aerith defends them from Cloud.
    • Elmyra was lying to herself, as shown when she admitted that she was not fully ready to have Aerith leave her yet when Cloud, Tifa and Barret decided to go rescue her. And Aerith got visions of the original FFVII future where she learns that the Turks, namely Tseng, Reno, Rude and the still not introduced in the Remake yet Elena are not really bad people, just them doing their jobs. Further cemented in Advent Children Complete where the Turks are anti-villains with a bit of heroic traits allies of Cloud and gang.
  • The whole "come along willingly" bit seems to be the Remake's attempt at a Hand Wave, as the original game never gave a proper explanation why they didn't just capture her in a snatch operation. As for the in-universe reason, who knows. Maybe the eggheads in Shinra's science division figured the location of the Promised Land is some Genetic Memory component that a Cetra has to consciously allow to come to the surface... but anyone's guess is just as good. Perhaps the Whispers simply prevented any kidnapping attempt and thus made the Turks think that Aerith could not be taken against her will.
    • It's essentially an aversion of Torture Always Works. Aerith might be able to pull up the memory/location any time she wanted, or they might be able to force the memory to the surface, they have no way of forcing her to tell them to truth. If they could have found the Promised Land on their own by this point they would have. And it was also implied that they were afraid there might have been locks/protection barring normal humans from entry that only a Cetra could disable. They have ONE Cetra, if they screw it up they will not get a second chance, so they want her full cooperation. Hojo especially isn't in any particular hurry.
• It’s a bit of a rational fill in. The Cetra’s abilities are difficult to study using clinical methods, especially since President Shinra wants to find the Promised Land. If he were to throw soldiers to nab Aerith, she does have some measure of protection in her silence; they need her, but not vice-versa. Tseng also does seem to have a soft spot for her (at least in the expanded setting), and the rest of the Turks probably want to avoid dragging a girl before Hojo if it could be avoided, so they probably also chime in with regards to that. Hojo, for his part, doesn’t believe in the Promised Land and could hardly care less about the Cetra anymore (he’s basically Jenova’s high cultist at this point and probably knows she wasn’t a Cetra), so he doesn’t push the envelope either.
• Given that Cetras are so in-tune with the planet, that Aerith's father was completely human and that what her Hojo did to her mother, it's possible Hojo let Aerith roam free to develop her Cetra powers and/or theorized she can't force it out of her. This all could had also been a lie Hojo told Shinra so he could extend the search for the promise land (which he doesn't believe exist) as much as possible until his plans for Sephiroth started to go into motion again.

Rufus Shinra is Stronger than Cloud Now?

• In the battle itself, Rufus is shown to be leagues faster than Cloud and able to cover insane distances in an instant. Rufus' reload and attack speed are equally impressive, allowing him to backdash in midair, land, reload, and suddenly be in Cloud's face again before Cloud has a chance to react. The cutscene cinematics during their confrontation clearly show Rufus is toying with him the entire time, much like Sephiroth does. The question is: How is it possible? Rufus isn't SOLDIER enhanced, yet in the Remake, he can casually (and literally) run circles around one of their best who can barely keep up with him now.
  • Technological developments off-screen and Rufus's past have something to do with this. Rufus tried to have his father killed, you know. To prevent the same from happening to him, Rufus would have to train himself to out-fight any would-be assassin.
  • There is only so much the game engine allows Rufus and Darkstar to do during their battle against Cloud in the original. He was probably meant to be that formidable but is still easily beaten anyway when timed right with Braver after Rufus reloads each time.
  • Point of fact. Rufus isn't that fast. He's using his guns as a dash.
  • Recall that Cloud’s been stuffed in tube, unable to move for a couple of years, and has barely been active for a couple of months. While Cloud’s potential is at Sephiroth’s level, he’s a lot weaker as a result from wasting away. Presumably, Cloud recovers and grows stronger through the story until he achieves that potential. Also, Rufus is the son of the richest guy on the planet and direct access to magical superpowers in a ball and the cutting edge in high tech; he’s probably got cyber tech, and a load of Speed Up Materia in his gun and coat.
  • I'd chalk it up to power versus skill. Because despite what he thinks, Cloud isn't one of SOLDIER's best. He's not even one of their worst. He's a heavily traumatized young man who has deluded himself into thinking he's a SOLDIER. He make have the mako enhancements, but that doesn't mean he knows how to properly use them.

Tifa not reacting to Sephiroth?

• Why does Tifa have no reaction to seeing Sephiroth in the last two chapters of the game? This is the man who gutted her father like a fish, and she almost got herself killed trying to avenge him. She should have the strongest emotional reaction besides Cloud when it comes to seeing Sephiroth again. Some would say it's because we're not seeing the real Sephiroth at the end, that it's the Clone #2 that is projecting a Sephiroth illusion that only Cloud (and Aerith) can see, but then that explanation also falls apart because Palmer of all people sees Sephiroth in Chapter 16 walking the halls of Shinra HQ.
  • Very true but Tifa underwent training under Zangan. She most likely should not lose her cool. The last time she did so, she nearly lost her life to Sephiroth, being sliced and all. Cloud easily losing his cool because it is way too personal for not only him but Zack as well. Additionally, Sephiroth is good at messing with the minds of others to the point that one would have difficulty wondering whether who and what they are seeing is real or fake.
  • Something else to consider is that Tifa KNOWS what happened last time she lost her cool against Sephiroth. Namely, she nearly died. So she's trained herself to keep her cool, stay level-headed, and channel her fear and anger inward to sharpen her focus to avoid that. Cloud doesn't have that kind of personality (being much more reactive to danger), so his response is fear into blind aggression.
  • A third point would be that Tifa is mentally stable, while Cloud is not. She's had years to process her grief and at least somewhat move on, while he's repressing his trauma, so he gets triggered every time he sees the man partly responsible for it.

Sephiroth is the planet's biggest enemy?

• Fair warning: I've only played the Remake, never the original, and am just vaguely aware of two things (Aerith's fate and who Zack is) that happen in FF7 and haven't been revealed in the Remake so far. Near the end, Aerith explains that Sephiroth has shut down his emotions, and only cares about the survival of himself and the planet. Then she concludes he is the planet's biggest enemy. I'm not quite seeing the connection of "only cares about the planet's survival" and "is the planet's biggest enemy". Of course, he might stubbornly do what he thinks is right, but is actually harmful - But unless I missed it, Aerith never specifies what. Can the planet only be saved by people who enjoy life?
  • It's because Aerith has some information about the original game. In the original game, Sephiroth summons Meteor to try and destroy all life on the planet, absorb the Lifestream that comes to tend to the resulting wound, turn himself into a god, and attack other planets.

Serial killer?

• Is Don Corneo being a serial killer something invented in the remake? Because I don't remember reading anything about it in the original although it does make sense in hindsight.
  • Compared to the remake it wasn't as heavily implied that the Don was feeding his brides to Aps/Abzu after he was finished with them in the original game. However both games made it very obvious through dialogue that the 'losers' where handed over to his men to (presumably) be gangraped.

Arbiters of Fate in Sector 7

• When you return to Sector 7 after the Mako Reactor 1 bombing, Cloud is visited by the Arbiters of Fate after encountering a guy complaining about Avalanche. Why did the Arbiters show up here? Cloud wasn't defying fate. He was going to Seventh Heaven, just like he did in the original game. Was it because he had a vision of the plate collapse?

Sector 7 still destroyed?

• The end of the game seems to imply that Cloud retgonned the Arbiters of Fate, but in the ensuing Alternate Timeline, Sector 7 is as trashed as ever. Shouldn't that have been undone if the Arbiters weren't there to enforce it? Avalanche was in pretty good position to stop it before The Arbiters interfered.
  • The best explanation I can come up with is that the whispers are time-traveling entities, and so destroying the whisper harbinger did not wipe them out from history entirely, but it did erase those which were still "bound" to the whisper harbinger and just happened to be in the past trying to ensure that Zack didn't survive (as if they realized that they had "unfinished business" or something). (For comparison, think of how in Back to the Future, Marty nearly disappears from existence when his parents almost don't kiss and fall in love at the dance. The fact that Marty is in 1955 is irrelevant to the fact his parents not getting together would still erase him from existence.) From this, we can perhaps extrapolate that the whispers that were trying to ensure Zack's death were from the future (at roughly the same time that, or after, our heroes ended up killing the whisper harbinger), meanwhile the whispers who ensured that the plate collapsed were still from the present moment (i.e. not time-travellers), and the later death of the whisper harbinger did not "undo" anything that they did in the past. In short: killing the whisper harbinger did not erase the arbiters of fate across all of history; it just erased those who were time-traveling from the present/future.
  • The short answer is no - because by that logic Barrett should have also been retgonned since he was DEAD and the Arbiters resurrected him, and they aren't killing Barrett off. The Arbiters changed a LOT of things, and it would have simply been too complicated to even attempt to deal with the fallout from all of the things the Arbiters changed.

Why Does The Party Decide to Fight the Whispers?

• Red XIII explicitly states in Aerith's home prison cell that the whispers are 'bound to the planet's will,' and thus we can extrapolate that they are acting to defend and ensure the planet's survival (otherwise the planet itself would have to be either suicidal or Too Dumb to Live). Likewise, the party also knows that Sephiroth wants to destroy the planet (Aerith explains this just before they go into destiny's crossroads), which thus implies that the whispers and Sephiroth are squarely at odds with each other (the former wants to defend the planet; the latter wants to destroy it). So with that in mind, why does the party decide that killing the whispers is going to help them stop Sephiroth? Are they really that stupid as to believe that the planet is not trying to preserve itself? That it wants to be destroyed by Sephiroth's meteor? How does this make any sense at all?
  • Hold it! We're talking about a party of people who have just been mind-screwed by the Whispers. For all they know, the Whispers might be ensuring that everything on the planet's surface (aside from a select few individuals) is completely wiped out of existence altogether. That means "goodbye, humanity" and Sephiroth wins. Sephiroth's goal isn't destroying the world just for destruction's sake but wiping out the human race that betrayed his supposed ancestors. Also, we're not supposed to kill Sephiroth at this point in the canonical story (Cloud can't actually "fight the script" and get rid of the final boss early!). Put those things together and Cloud & company come to a nasty conclusion. Somehow, the Whispers MUST be forcing the party to fail in making any difference in the fate of the planet (like saving the Avalanche trio, stopping the plate from falling, or even clearing Avalanche's name of particular wrongdoings), sparing the heroes only to have them defeated so a tragedy could be preserved.
  • It's nowhere near as simple as, "They're acting on the Planet's orders, therefore they are good guys, don't stop them," even in the original. The Weapons, for instance, were agents of the Planet's will, and the party had to stop them from doing things like wiping out the people in Junon or Midgar. Think about the visions they're seeing — they're getting out-of-context views of things like Aerith dying, and Meteor falling, without the rest of the story showing, say, Holy and the Lifestream stopping Meteor. You're calling them stupid for not acting on information that they do not have.

Where does the Remake timeline come from?

• So the remake takes place in a new timeline (and potentially a third separate one created at the end in which Zack survives) that takes place after the original timeline. So far so good. But how did this new timeline come to be? Where did it come from? What happened to create it?
  • This is a question to which we don't know the answer thus far. Hopefully it'll be explained in the future installments, but my current theory is that the Sephiroth we see in this game is either from, or has knowledge of, the future. It's a common theory that the Sephiroth we see during Chapter 2 and Chapter 18 is in fact the same one from after the events of Advent Children (thus explaining his angel wing and "beg for forgiveness" line). As for how this might be the case? Well, it's possible that Jenova—being an inter-dimensional Eldritch Abomination—has either given Sephiroth the ability to time-travel, or has at some point "tainted" the lifestream with its Dormammu-esque abilities, thus enabling both him and Aerith to see glimpses of the future, and that said tainting of the lifestream has driven the planet to respond by creating the whispers as a sort of countermeasure. This to me seems like the most plausible explanation not just for why the timeline is changing, but also for how the whispers came to be in the first place, as it doesn't make any sense to me that a planet—magic or not—would somehow have interdimensional/time-travel abilities. It would also explain why Sephiroth is suddenly able to control the whispers during the climax, after the main whisper harbinger is defeated.

What makes Biggs, Wedge and Jessie so important?

• We have seen that the Arbiters Of Fate, even though they are tasked with preserving the timeline, are not too fussy about the details in how to achieve that. We have witnessed as much in the fight you have with them in Sector 7 in which Jessie gets injured. So what makes it so important that Biggs, Wedge and Jessie die at the fall of the Sector 7 plate that the Arbiters are actively ensuring their death? Are they that much of a loose canon?
  • To inspire Avalanche to avenge them?
  • As Wedge demonstrates later when he shows up at Shinra HQ (an event he was dead for in the first game), if they were capable of going with Barrett and Tifa they would have, and their presence with the party might have significantly altered later events and character interactions. Any number of events small to large would have been altered by their presence and their input into events.

Is Sam even cheating during the coin toss?

• So Chocobo Sam challenges Cloud and Aerith to a coin toss for information. He flips, has Cloud pick a side, and shows that he lost. Cloud asks to see the coin and shock, Sam cheated because the coin is a twin-sided coin of whatever face the player didn't pick. Aerith and Cloud agree Sam cheated and that's the Wall Market way. Except, you know, Sam had Cloud pick the face. Meaning whether the coin was both heads or both tails, Cloud still had an even chance of guessing the right face. So Sam isn't really rigging the coin toss, is he?
  • We see that Sam has multiple trick coins. He possibly lets them choose a side, then uses slight of hand to swap to a coin that doesn't have their selection, ensuring that he wins every time.
    • That would be a good explanation... IF the coin changed between choices. The complaint is that regardless of what you pick, he shows the SAME symbol and alternately claims it is 'heads' or 'tails' and says you lose - the same symbol can't represent both heads AND tails. Its an error by the developers - if that were their explanation then they needed to have a different symbol showing on the coin.
    • I was always under the impression that it's a custom coin (unless Shinra puts chocobos on their currency) that Sam had made for his chocobo business. Since people wouldn't have seen the coin before, they'd have no way of knowing what 'heads' or 'tails' looks like on it so he can just say it landed on whatever side he feels like saying.

How much does Aerith know about the original timeline?

• It's heavily implied that Aerith knows some details about the original timeline/destiny, but how much does she know? If she knows the entirety of the original timeline, why would she try to change destiny considering that the heroes won?
  • She might not know everything. Also, she kind of died in the original timeline, that's the sort of thing one would want to change if they knew it was coming.
    • Sure, but the original timeline ended with Sephiroth defeated and the Planet saved. If Aerith does know everything - which is not certain - it seems awfully selfish to put literally everyone at risk to try and save herself.
    • Aerith does get awfully reluctant when the fight with the Whispers approaches. After they win, her comment about missing the steel sky can be interpreted as a metaphor for the enclosed nature of destiny being opened up. It's easy to read Aerith's character as being selfish, aware of it, and not entirely happy about it.
    • It's possible that Aerith knows she's going to die in the future, but perhaps doesn't know why she has to die (to cast Holy and prevent the planet being destroyed by Meteor). Thus, it's possible that she'll find this out in the later installments and realize that her trying to change destiny was pointless.
  • Another possibility is that this Aerith is more willing to put her trust in her friends, and has the makings of a plan that relies on bringing everyone together and using their power to change fate.

Cloud's muscle mass

• I don't know how canon has changed due to certain storyline changes but I'm curious as to why people early on when the first few Remake screenshots were released kept saying Cloud should be thin after his and Zack's escape from the Nibelheim Mansion. I mean considering that he and Zack underwent toned down versions of the experiments that created the Makonoids inside the reactor that benefitted from increased mutant muscle mass, wouldn't it make sense for both of them to receive a lesser version of those benefits as well like a lesser muscle mass increase or maybe maintaining the muscle mass he already had before he got shoved into the tank by Hojo? And since he was an infantryman in all that gear (heavy cloth layers, combat boots, metal pauldron/kneepads/helmet and assault rifle), Cloud would already have a decent amount of muscle mass, right? And considering that SOLDIER's are more durable than the average human, wouldn't Zack taking care of him on their one year road trip to Midgar allow Cloud enough time to physically recover some muscle mass with the help of his new superhuman body? And considering the fact that Cloud's fall when he was a kid on Mount Nibel, maybe he'd be more durable than a normal person even before Hojo's experiments and would suffer more damage mentally instead of physically? There's also the fact that he didn't need the experiments to lift the Buster Sword when he fought Sephiroth in the Nibelheim Reactor. And I think that since those experiments did increase his physical strength, that increase would need to somehow manifest on his physical body as well, right? Hence, Cloud being toned instead of scrawny. I might be beating a dead horse (I'm sorry) but I'm just really confused.

The Church in Intergrade

• So Zack walks up to the door of the church at the end of Intergrade and opens it to find people crying. Are those people the refugees from Sector 7? And if so, does that mean Zack has been pulled into the Remake timeline? (And if he did, how did he not notice the gaping hole in Midgar's plate?)
• Cloud has a Buster Sword. Zack has a Buster Sword. Two of the same sword exist in one timeline, so which is the original, and how is there a copy?

Undoing History or Creating Alternate Realities?

So, did defeating the Whispers completely change history or allow for alternate realties to be created at divergent points? With Zack being alive but Cloud still having his sword, and him not finding Aerith in Intergrade, I want to say it's the later, but I've seen others think the former.

Midgar has a church?

• Who is worshipped at the Church in Sector 5? I know The Ancients treated The Planet like a sort of holy figure, but Aerith is the only one of them left. Is their religion still practiced in Midgar?
  • It does seem to be practiced as a niche religion by the members of Avalanche and others under the name of Planetology, though whether the church was dedicated to that religion or another is up in the air.
  • Also worth noting that Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII has a goddess in it, and naturally, she's a hidden bonus boss.

Who knocked out the guards in Chapter 4?

• Cloud, Biggs, and Wedge find guards already knocked out at the depot. It’s set up as a shock to the characters but then never really explained.
  • Avalanche's main group shows up and attacks shortly after Cloud's boss fight. The perimeter guards were likely knocked out for whatever mission that group was there for.

Other

• Since Zack's memories and SOLDIER training are imprinted on Cloud, it suggests that Cloud isn't really that good a dancer, yet he still pulls some more very impressive moves in his dance-off with Andrea. When, and how, did Zack learn to dance like that?
• The characters' strength seems quite variable at times. This is most notable in "pull the character up" situations, which happen surprisingly often. In one section of the sewers, it takes both Tifa and Aerith to pull Cloud a foot so he could get a hand on the ledge. However, Tifa effortlessly catches Cloud one-handed at the top of the Shinra Tower, and she holds onto Barret's grappling gun despite Barret's size. Similarly, Cloud can jump twenty feet in the air, but was unable to leap far at all during the sewer fall mentioned earlier. This is actually fairly realistic. The characters do have super strength, but are limited by leverage or their footing. Tifa can effortlessly lift both Cloud and his BFS. However, she needs a good footing to pull him up a ledge without falling over herself. Cloud can jump huge distances, but not if there isn't anything to push against.
• At the end of INTERmission, it's never explained how exactly Yuffie managed to get down from the topside of Midgar for her epilogue scene on the Chocobo, since Shinra shuts down all transport to the slums after the Sector 7 plate drop. The only possible method would be via parachute like Jessie did earlier in the Remake storyline.