Glon's Workshop

The main question of the ending if, of course, rather obvious: did Aerith die or not?

Cloud sees her alive and well, but the rest of the party doesn’t and is grieving her death. With how Cloud was set up since Remake and especially throughout Rebirth to be the one with hallucinations and delusions, one would think the answer to the question of “what is truth, what is fiction?” should be obvious, right? But… what if it’s not as clear-cut as the most obvious answer? What if Cloud is the one who sees reality and not his teammates? What if we have (finally, for some) left the “original world” of the OG behind and are now 100% in a different world, similarly to how Remake dangled that option in our face more subtly?

Yes, you read that right. My personal belief is that Aerith didn’t actually die, at least not in the world we see in the ending scene. There is a world where she died, of course. The world of the OG. But this is not the world we get to see at the end of Rebirth, and possibly not the one we will play in Part 3.

Hear me out.

1) The framing of Aerith’s death.

In many other “ending explanation/interpretation/theory” videos I watched on YouTube these past few days, everyone always comments on how we’re “teased” with Aerith surviving before ultimately seeing her die. But in none of them did I see anyone comment or talk about the way this vision of a death is brought about. It’s not the the first thing we see. It’s not that we see her live and then get a fade-to-black or fade-to-white like in other parts of the game. No. Instead, the shift is done in a very telling, very specific manner: the static that indicates Jenova’s interference with what is being remembered or perceived. Whichever of the two is the truth, Jenova is making Cloud (and us) see the other option. It’s not a glimpse at what was or what could have been. It’s all Jenova.

So, having established that, why do I think Jenova is fabricating the vision of Aerith’s death, and not her survival? Well, let’s look a bit closer at both the framing and how Jenova’s interference is portrayed through most of the game.

A) The “mechanism” of Jenova’s memory and perception editing

We’ve seen Jenova (also referred to as Mimic for the particular ability to copy a person’s memories) interfere with Cloud’s memories and his perception of reality many times throughout both games. In Remake, this was mostly in cases when:

- Jenova had to edit memories in the background so Cloud’s fake persona was still believable, for example in the very first chapter where he went “I’ve never been to a reactor like this before” because “the layout depends on when a reactor was built”.

- Jenova interfered with Cloud’s immediate perception to block some things out, primarily any mention of Zack.

- Sephiroth appeared before Cloud.

In Rebirth, it goes a bit further than that. We see Jenova edit Cloud’s memories in real time in Nibelheim when he first remembers Zack. We see Jenova ensuring he doesn’t see Tifa’s scar when she shows it to him a second time in Gongaga, with the implication that his memory of seeing it in Kalm has also been altered, only for everything to be edited back once Tifa falls into the mako. And of course, there are again the appearances of Sephiroth, as well as the frantic editing going on in the ending itself (very reminiscent of Nibelheim, might I add).

Of note here is how it’s all portrayed, which is what I mean by “mechanism”. There might be some discrepancies between Remake and Rebirth as Cloud’s situation changes, but throughout Rebirth itself, there is one definite consistency to every time Jenova messes with Cloud’s mind, be it his memories or his immediate perception. Namely, that we as the player first get a look at reality (whether obvious, brief, or much earlier in the game in the case of Tifa’s scar) before the editing kicks in and we see Jenova interfering, if not outright seeing how it changes Cloud’s memories or perception. In a lot of cases, we also see reality againafter the interference is over, to further drive home that Cloud is seeing things the other characters are not.

Why is this important? Because assuming the ending doesn’t pull a (rather random) deviation from that set-up, the first thing we saw was Cloud managing to save Aerith before the camera zoomed in on the clean blade. Only then did Jenova’s interference start. Looking at it from how it worked for the rest of the game, Jenova was attempting to alter Cloud’s perception and see blood where there was none, rather than the opposite.

B) The general framing of the scene

Setting aside whether we see reality first and the lie second or the other way around purely from an “it’s been like this the rest of the game” assumption, there is another thing. Namely, Jenova’s interference was only ever present in regards to Cloud. He was the one whose memories were tampered with, he was the one who didn’t always see things as they actually were, he’s the one who can (and sometimes is) controlled by Jenova/Sephiroth. But in the ending, there’s one interesting detail that I think warrants consideration.

When the rest of the party is allowed to enter the City of the Ancients and come running, it is after the first bout of Jenova’s interference ends. After Aerith tells Cloud that “it’s okay” and he’s relieved because she actually looks fine after all.

The first shot we get of the two as the others arrive is this one.

We can argue until we’re all blue in the face if the dark spot under Aerith in this shot is blood or just a shadow, though I do agree it looks a whole lot like blood. Still, we can tell that that spot aside, there is no blood anywhere else. There are no dark spots on Aerith herself (on her hand), or on Masamune. And then an interesting thing happens as the camera swoops in on Tifa as if to tell us “this is a PoV change, we see what she’s seeing now”. Which makes sense. Throughout Rebirth, Tifa has been set up as the main person who can notice when Cloud is being weird, or when his memories are weird, which was also pretty much the case in the OG. She’s the one we, the players, are supposed to trust when Cloud is acting off or remembering things she thinks are odd. Unlike Cloud, she’s not affected by Jenova. She sees the truth.

Except when she doesn’t. The thing is, we get the camera swooping in on her to indicate the PoV change to her… and then the following shots are full of Jenova’s interference all over again, shifting between seeing blood and not seeing any. However, Tifa’s (and Barrets) reactions make it clear what it is they actually see: Aerith, dying or already dead.

Question: if Aerith dying is reality, why is there a Jenova static effect in what Tifa sees? Just to throw us off? To confuse us?

Maybe so, but honestly, it feels a little odd to throw it in if Jenova wasn’t actually manipulating someone’s perception. And those of us who played the OG know very well that Jenova’s ability to make people see something else than reality isn’t limited to those who have her biological material in them. Otherwise, she never could have fooled the Cetra.

And there is another thing: the last scene with Rufus and “Glenn”, who turns out to be nothing but a Shadow of Sephiroth.

Rufus has never been in contact with Jenova. He doesn’t have her biological material in him. But he has been made to see Glenn (and then briefly Sephiroth) in the place of a simple Shadow of Sephiroth (or Sephiroth Clone, as they were called in the OG localization). This feels like the game reminding us – or letting those who never played the OG know – that Jenova indeed isn’t limited to Cloud in fucking up in their perception.

But wait. There’s an issue here, isn’t there? After all, even after the fight and after Sephiroth is gone from the City of the Ancients, Cloud is still the only one who can see Aerith just fine. The others don’t see her at all and still think her dead. If it’s indeed their perception being messed with and not Cloud’s, why is it not lifting? Any other time Jenova tried fucking with Cloud, he saw the truth eventually. Well, let’s look a bit closer at what we, and the characters, know of Jenova’s abilities, shall we?

2) Jenova’s Abilities and Limitations

I’ll be pulling mostly from Rebirth here (since Sephiroth and the Cetra so kindly gave us so much Jenova lore), but also a little bit from the OG regarding details I believe to be important even if they have yet to come up properly in the Remake trilogy, as well as CC(R) as a source of additional proof where necessary.

Jenova’s abilities are, to be frank, a terrifying combo. To summarize, it can

- appear as someone else, usually taking the form of a deceased whom its current victim used to know

- edit someone’s immediate perception of the things around them in real time (which is probably how the implied shapeshifting actually works, but as far as I know there’s no hard confirmation on that; not that it really matters for this meta)

- copy someone’s memories (a form of mind reading, I guess)

- edit its own DNA and memories (or the memories of a host some of its biological material is stuck in)

- a form of telepathy where it can put images/thoughts in people’s heads (as evidenced by Sephiroth, Cloud, and also strongly implied through Angeal and possibly Genesis in CC(R))

- furthermore, these abilities aren’t restricted to Jenova as a “complex lifeform”, but can be used and called upon even when it it’s in scattered pieces as small singular cells.

So, in short, we’re talking about an intelligent life-form capable of mind-altering/affecting abilities with possibly full on shapeshifting to top it all off (not that Jenova needs it), and with every single piece of it capable of using those abilities on its own. Of note here is that the players know all this (and even then only those who played the OG; newcomers can certainly guess at some of those abilities because they’ve been shown in action, but they haven’t had them explained in detail). The characters, on the other hand? All they got is what Sephiroth told them of Jenova’s abilities on the ship to Costa del Sol.

“They say she’s a monster. That she can peer inside you - into the very depths of your soul. That she can become those you hate. Those you fear. Those you love. And they call her… Jenova.”

He tells them about the mind-reading. He tells them about the “shape-shifting” which we, the players, know could work in two ways. He certainly doesn’t mention the ability she has of putting thoughts in your head or visions in your mind, altering your perception of things, though. Which is why Cloud thinks these things happen to him because of Degradation instead. It’s the only explanation he (or anyone else in the party) have.

There are also some limitations to Jenova’s powers (thank God for that, right? LOL). For one thing, distance. Jenova doesn’t seem able to affect someone without being in their close vicinity or, alternatively, having someone with its biological material in the vicinity of the manipulated person. This, of course, doesn’t apply to someone who already has Jenova’s biological material inside them, because they’re as close to the source as they can get.

The second limitation is rather more interesting, but also requires a little more assumption and, like the shapeshifting, can go two ways.

Any time we see Sephiroth, it is quickly revealed that it’s actually a Shadow of Sephiroth instead whom Cloud and the party perceived as Sephiroth (or whom Rufus perceived as Glenn). This implies one of two things:

a) Jenova  can’t make people hallucinate something “from thin air”. By that I mean, Jenova can’t create a hallucination of a whole-ass person acting all normal if there is nothing but air in reality. It needs a base to build off of. That’s why, in Rebirth, whenever Cloud sees Sephiroth, it’s in actuality a Black Robe. Or

b) Jenova could create a hallucination from thin air, but chooses not to because of a different limitation: it can trick the eyes and ears, but not the sense of touch.

If it’s the first one, then the Aerith Cloud sees cannot be a fake created by Jenova because Jenova wouldn’t be able to make Cloud hallucinate her. In which case, if she’s not real, then Cloud is hallucinating her all by herself. Which, sure, is possible, but it definitely creates very big narrative problems in that it indicates a mental break the likes of which Cloud didn’t have in the OG, and for good reason. While he has more then enough reasons to be messed up and traumatized, most of Cloud’s serious mental issues in the OG were all created by Jenova. His hallucinations, his fake personality, his uncertainty of whether or not he was ever a real person… all because of Jenova messing with his memories and Sephiroth exploiting that and manipulating him. Which means the source wasn’t Cloud’s own mind, but an eldritch abomination from space. And as such, the problem could largely be fixed by just “doing something to set him straight”, which in the OG was what the Lifestream Sequence accomplished.

If Cloud is now hallucinating Aerith without Jenova’s input because he can’t face her death, then that’s an entirely different ball game and I cannot see it being satisfactorily resolved without Cloud having to be benched and someone else taking over and finishing things. Which, granted, happens for a time in the OG as well while Cloud is mako poisoned in Mideel, but it’s not nearly for a long enough time for Cloud to recover from a mental break such a this. That would take years. And unless he passes the “main character and hero of the story” baton to someone else, it ain’t happening.

I don’t know about you, but that wouldn’t just be a letdown for me, it would be downright insulting and dismissive of mental illnesses in a way in which FFVII never was.

Okay, so let’s say Cloud hasn’t completely broken down mentally and hasn’t started hallucinating Aerith all by himself. Let’s also say that Jenova isn’t making him hallucinate her from thin air. So, she’s real. That still leaves us with one glaring problem.

Why can’t the others see her?

Well… there is one last thing Jenova can do that I haven’t mentioned yet. Something Remake has exploited and very vaguely teased.

Jenova can warp one’s perception so they don’t see or hear someone who is actually there.

This ability comes the most prominently to the front in the OG when the party visits the Northern Cave and shortly before Cloud gives Sephiroth the Black Materia again. During that scene, Tifa yells and yells at Cloud to not do it, but what she says is no longer in the typical speech bubble, but rather almost like a narrator voice over the screen. One of her questions at that point is “you can’t hear my voice?”

No. Cloud can’t. And in fact, none of the other characters in the scene act like they see or hear Tifa at all.

Rebirth hasn’t really touched on this ability yet. But Remake has alluded to it several times when Cloud saw Sephiroth (who was likely a Shadow of Sephiroth again), and then nothing and no one at all. In one scene, when Cloud, Barret and Tifa are on the way to Aerith’s house after the Platefall, we even get a direct comparison when Cloud sees Sephiroth, and then we get to see through Tifa that there is seemingly no one there.And then, there is the scene in the Drum, where Cloud is experiencing another Jenova episode and Tifa slowly approaches him. We see there is no one on the walkway up ahead. Then we get a close-up of Tifa and Cloud as she asks him if he’s okay before looking ahead again, and her eyes grow wide. Because suddenly, Sephiroth is there.

It’s subtle, but it is a hint at that particular part of Jenova’s perception-manipulating abilities, I believe.

It doesn’t help that in Rebirth’s final scene, Aerith doesn’t even really try to talk to anyone but Cloud. She doeslay a hand on Nanaki’s shoulder and he does acknowledge it, but is it a case of him sensing her spirit, or him feeling her physical touch but still being unable to see her? Both are equally possible, but I think you don’t need me to tell you which one I believe is happening.

But wait. I said myself that one of Jenova’s limits regarding mind manipulation seems to be distance. If so, how can the rest of the party still not see Aerith after Sephiroth and Jenova are gone?

Well, we’ve already established that Jenova can manipulate someone – anyone – and that she doesn’t need to be whole to do that. A fragment of her is enough. That’s why it can constantly play with Cloud’s mind whenever. Because he does have her cells (or Sephiroth’s cells) inside him. And here’s the thing: by the end of Rebirth, he’s, in my opinion, more than close enough to a Shadow of Sephiroth to be the “conduit” for Jenova to manipulate the others. He was basically completely taken over for most of the Temple of the Ancients, for one thing, something that was made painfully obvious when you still controlled Aerith rather than him when the group reunited (something that didn’t happen at any other point of any other character), and then when you played him going after Aerith and the Black Materia after the Temple’s collapsed. If you try to not go after her and pull the joystick back, Cloud starts shifting and contorting very much like a Shadow of Sephiroth that is being pulled towards a given destination. The only real difference between Cloud and them would be that he’s not as Degraded – not in body and not in mind – and so he isn’t fully lost or at the “I can only slowly shuffle forward” stage.Alternatively, of course, there can also be a Shadow of Sephiroth somewhere close by without the party knowing, but that demands a little more suspension of disbelief and, at least to me, feels like reaching.

3) A Different World

All right, so I think I’ve established why it’s possible for Aerith to still be alive. That leaves one last part of my claim still to be discussed: that we’re in a different world at the end of Rebirth than at its beginning.

Let’s go back to the framing of the scene again. If you look at the exact moment when Cloud breaks free of the Whispers and parries Sephiroth’s blade, we see a brief flash of a “rainbow” before Sephiroth is pushed back. From that point onwards, up until Cloud catches Aerith in his arms as she falls, the entire altar is circled not just by Sephiroth’s Black Whispers (which quickly leave), but also this rainbow glow.This glow is the effect Rebirth uses to show a creation of a different world. A different possibility. A fork in the timeline. We’ve seen it multiple times with Zack, as obvious as in this scene and far more subtle, whenever he made a choice. The most blatant example that comes to mind is the scene where he was picking the left or the right tunnels to go to either Hojo or Biggs.

There is one thing to note, though: whenever this effect made an appearance to indicate that “multiple possibilities have been created”, we didn’t immediately jump between them. We followed the first choice made and remained in the same world. When Zack chose to go to Hojo, we saw the possibility being created that he went to Biggs instead, but the next scene of him we got was still at the Shinra Building where he wanted to meet with Hojo. What’s more, we didn’t see multiple approaches of that (like Zack trying to go in through the front vs Zack trying to enter through the parking lot like the party did – and nobody can tell me there’s no way he didn’t at least think of the option). We see him facing a platoon at the main entrance. We see him confront them. And then we get a “fade-to-white” that… kinda seems to indicate the end of that particular story. Only then do we see the Pug-Stamp world where Zack went to Biggs, and only after that do we see the third option where he went to neither and visited the church to make up his mind instead.

What this means is that when Cloud saved Aerith, he created a fork in the road, a new world, and going by other obvious instances of this, there is little reason for us – or the story – to randomly jump off the road he just created to another alternative. So by pure logic, we should be in the world where Aerith survived.

4) The “problems” such a twist would create

Now, time to hit the most controversial issue. If Aerith actually survived like I believe, I can already imagine the havoc most of the fandom will raise. “But her death is iconic! It must happen! She can’t cast Holy without dying! She can’t save the Planet from the Lifestream if she’s not in it! She can’t stop Meteor!”

To those people I say: kindly shut up and listen for a spell.

Aerith’s death in the OG is indeed iconic… but most of the reason it hit so hard in the OG was because it was so unexpected. That’s a feeling that could never have been replicated in Rebirth, because everybody and their mother seems to know by now that Aerith died in the OG. Everyone was waiting for this moment to see how it would play out. Very few are the exceptions who don’t know. But as for everything else… I’m sorry to burst your nostalgic bubble, but it’s not true. Any of it.

Aerith did not need to die to cast Holy. Holy was already cast and Sephiroth could hold it back by sheer will alone. Aerith dying did not make Holy stronger or anything of the sort. It was not the price for casting Holy, either. If it was, Sephiroth wouldn’t have even needed to impale her.

Aerith also doesn’t need to die to command the Lifestream, something which we see far more reinforced in Rebirth than we did in the OG. She’s using the Lifestream just fine in the Temple to shape it as she needs it, after all. Sure, she first needs to learn how to do it, because she never had the chance to learn before, but she absolutely can do it without being dead. There is no reason to think she’ll need to die to use the Lifestream to stop meteor in this case. What she does need is to learn how to do it.

I hate to have to remind people of this, but in the OG, the whole “point” of Aerith’s death was that it was senseless. It had no narrative meaning. It was no noble sacrifice; it was not something that “needed to happen for the greater good”. It happened, yes, and the remaining characters grieved her, but had she survived, the story’s narrative would not have changed one iota. The emotional impact of her death would be gone because she wouldn’t be dead, sure, but outside of that emotional hit, her death did nothing to advance the story in terms of narrative. It gave the party an additional reason to want to stop Sephiroth, but it’s not like they needed another push, either. Most of the fandom seems to have convinced themselves that she needed to die, and I assume it was a form of coping with the unexpected loss given that she is a fictional character in a story that very typically would paint an MCD as something that was “necessary for the greater good”, but that is not the case here. And that was the whole point.

So, those worries people have about her casting Holy or stopping Meteor? Yup, still possible with her alive. Her survival does not actually doom the Planet.

5) The Narrative Purpose of Having Aerith Live

Finally, one last thing you might be wondering about: narratively speaking, what is the point of having Aerith survive, but have most of the party not be aware of it? Why would Jenova/Sephiroth want that? If Aerith’s death is one big mindfuck created by Jenova, how is Cloud of all people immune to it this time? And why does she stay alone at the City of the Ancients to "pray"?

Well, what Sephiroth wants is basically for Cloud to not trust his companions and vice versa. He wants him isolated and susceptible to his manipulations. He wants to have him as his puppet to use and torment. What can I say? The man is obsessed.

His first attempt at breaking Cloud was, as in the OG, by killing Aerith. When that failed, he tried to have him believe Aerith died anyway.

Except at the end of Rebirth, Cloud is very determined to not believe one word Sephiroth says. And this is important because as powerful as Jenova is, its power and influence can be overcome if one’s willpower, one’s sense of who they are, one’s heart (one’s kokoro, a word that’s often translated as “heart” from Japanese, but the concept of which encompasses all those other things as well) is strong enough. And Cloud does have the potential to be strong enough to overcome it. He does in the OG. It’s a big part of how he ultimately recovers his true self. The problem is, the way Rebirth portrays it at the end, Cloud is in this odd space where he’s on one hand supremely vulnerable to Sephiroth’s and Jenova’s manipulations, and on the other hand begins to tap into that true strength of his that allows him to overcome Jenova.

So what I think happened is that Jenova tried to make Cloud see Aerith as dead, but when she reached out and spoke to him, he broke free of that control and suppressed Jenova’s ability to twist his own perception of things, but not Jenova’s ability to affect others because he doesn’t even know about it. That’s why, for a short moment, we see things as they are again. We see Aerith being fine.

And then the others arrive and Jenova basically flips the coin and starts manipulating them. The end result of which will be the same… if not potentially worse, depending on how things go.

Think about it. Rebirth set Cloud up as the unreliable narrator even better and more poignantly than the OG did. Furthermore, after her first dip in the Lifestream and remembering the whole thing with climbing Mt Nibel as kids, but not experiencing a revisit of any other memories, Tifa has little reason to doubt her recollection of Nibelheim. Especially since Cloud’s recollection changed to partially fit hers once he remembered Zack. Tifa, and the rest of the party, are far more likely to believe their own eyes and Tifa’s version of the past should she speak up than Cloud’s at this point. None of them have any reason to believe they are suddenly the ones seeing things.

Cloud himself is also far more aware of how unreliable his memory is. So if confronted with something he and Tifa remember (or saw) differently, who is he more likely to believe?

This can all further play into Sephiroth’s attempt to convince him that he’s merely a puppet. That nothing he thinks or remembers or believes is real. And the thing is, Sephiroth (whom Cloud resists supremely now) doesn’t even have to do a single thing. The party will do it for him, because I can’t imagine them notaddressing the fact that they believe Aerith died, yet Cloud acts like nothing is wrong.

And who can ever correct them or anything? There’s only two things that could help: one, the Lifestream Sequence as per the OG so Cloud can piece himself together. Or, alternatively, the one person who can confirm that there is some truth to Cloud’s recollection of Nibelheim and that he was indeed there even if Tifa has no clue about it: Zack.

Of course, Zack is in a different world altogether, so him playing this kind of major role is up in the air and very dependent on the exact inner workings of the multiverse created here. I have plenty of thoughts on that, too, but that’s for another time.

Either way, this sets up Cloud to be isolated from the party all by his own and the party’s doing. And you know what this seems to fit? Cait Sith’s fortune from all the way back in chapter 8 of Rebirth.

Yes, yes that fortune.

The fortune that spoke of a “last minute twist” and how Cloud “would lose what he cherished most”.

Those who watched Advent Children know what it is that the real Cloud cherishes most: everything. “There is not a thing I don’t cherish!” And right now, even though Aerith survived, it does seem like he’s set up to lose it all unless something is done.

As for Aerith staying behind, consider this: unlike in the OG, we don't awaken in Gongaga a few days after everything at the Temple. Aerith hasn't been gone for at least a day. We don't have to waste time going after her by figuring out we have to go to Bone Village (factor in Tiny Bronco voyage time here), we don't have to lose time mining for a Lunar Harp. The party enters the Sleeping Forest at the same time as her, but then just "loses her in the fog". When Cloud wakes up, he sees the Whispers and guides them the right way.

Unlike in the OG, we don't get to the City of the Ancients at least one day after Aerith, if not more. We get there a couple hours after her at most, if even that. In fact, when Cloud approaches her, we hear her start praying. Unlike in the OG, there is every chance she didn't finish casting Holy - had barely even started - by the time Sephiroth interrupts and quite literally crashes the party.

Setting Holy aside (because Cloud could very well find some sort of excuse to stick around until she finished, especially given how the rest of the party were reluctant to leave because of grief and the fact that the Tiny Bronco needed fixing for flight), we could also assume she's staying behind to "pray" as in "to learn to control the Lifestream better" - something that's clearly established in the Temple of the Ancients that she needs guidance in, and gets it from the Lifestream itself. Finally, this Aerith has a working White Materia, which seems to have some connection with her future memories... if not downright with a "post-OG Aerith" who already exists in the Lifestream, just like we suspect there is a "post-OG/AC Sephiroth" who's pulling Cloud's strings.

Some explanations seem more farfetched than others, I'll give you that, but there can be reasons found for why she stays behind even if she isn't, in fact, dead.

There is a lot - and I mean a lot - I could talk about regarding Rebirth, and especially its ending. There will probably be a massive meta coming up on how I interpret what happened in it in detail another time, so look forward to that! But this time, I'd like to focus on a different part than the most obvious "so... what happened to Aerith?" Namely, what I think is being set up here for Part 3.

Going back in time a bit, FF7 Remake already ended in a way that kinda-sorta promised deviation from the OG - an idea that was welcomed by some, and despised by others, as these things always go. Those who never played the OG obviously wouldn't have as much sentimental attachment to it as those who did and are "long-time fans", but even among this second set, there were those who would prefer a 1:1 remake with no changes to the story, and those who were looking forward to some things going differently.

At first glance, Rebirth listened to those who yelled for no changes. Zack should not join up with the party. Aerith must not survive. The OG story must remain largely untouched. And for better or for worse, Rebirth seemed to do just that save for a few rearrangements here and there (like the fact we skipped Rocket Town's first visit altogether for example) and some additions that didn't so much change the story, as they expanded it and tied some lose ends from Remake. But was it really all it did? Did it not set up for part 3 to possibly break free of the OG script as Remake already indicated might happen?

I think it did, in more ways than one. I think the last leg of the game is, in a very meta sense, the devs telling the players "we gave you what you wanted, and now we'll do what we want". Allow me to elaborate.

To start, let's once again look at how the "multiverse" works here. This is not the kind of multiverse we usually see in Western media, or at least not yet. Its creation began with the destruction of the Whispers in Remake - the destruction of Fate and the Planet's iron hold on the plot of the story. Instead of the Planet, it is now the characters choices that shape the story, and since they can make different choices, each one always creates a branch leading to a different world and a different outcome. We've seen that with Zack, as the devs promised he would be the one to show us what the world in Rebirth is governed by. But while the Whispers' destruction happened in the Singularity, a place outside of usual space-time, Rebirth reveals that the effects did not, in fact, affect the past, or at least not much.

I can already feel your skepticism here. What am I talking about? Zack still survived and that's a change in the past, isn't it?

Well technically, yes. But there's something very interesting about the whole thing.

First of all, how did Zack survive? Unlike what the rules of different worlds clearly are later on, it wasn't a stroke of luck, a different possibility or any conscious choice he made that affected the outcome. No. When he talks with Biggs about his last stand and his survival, he felt "wind" and we, the players, see the Whispers interfering so that one bullet grazes his cheek instead of hitting him dead between the eyes. And interestingly, it's the only time in Rebirth that we see Whispers as they were in Remake. Not the black ones with a creepy white glow under their hoods that Sephiroth controls. Not the white ones that clearly have something to do with Aerith. The regular, gray Whispers of Fate. (Incidentally, this is also one of the first times we see the rainbow-color-effect that later gets associated with the creation of a new world. More on that later.)

It was not chance or any conscious choice that saved Zack. It was the Planet, presumably right before Fate got nuked. Why? We can only speculate based on what we saw in Rebirth, but my bet is a last ditch attempt to raise the Planet's own chances at survival despite no longer being able to guide the story and characters on the known path that would lead to... well, maybe not a "happy ending", because there's plenty of tragedy incoming, but at least an ending where the Planet survives, humans do as well and Sephiroth is largely taken care of (even if he keeps coming back and annoying people LMAO).

Here's where Zack's survival becomes interesting in how it's handled in Rebirth. In your usual multiverse (at least the way we know them in the West), you would expect this to have a butterfly effect that would, in sum, amount to "Remake can't happen as we've seen it" because Cloud is no longer alone, no longer wakes up, doesn't meet Tifa or the rest of Avalanche and thus wasn't there for the first reactor bombing. But... that isn't the case. We see this already in the beginning of the game, when Zack sees the news of the collapsed express way. It becomes obvious to us, players, that this is right after Remake, and the troopers remark that "one suspect is missing" - i.e. Cloud.

This is something that shouldn't be possible, because Zack sees this news report pretty much as soon as he enters Midgar. Except... Zack died at the end of September [ ν ] – εγλ 0007. The first reactor bombing was in December [ ν ] – εγλ 0007. The end of Remake was somewhere mid-December [ ν ] – εγλ 0007, as we know everything in it only really took a few days, a week or two at most. Even if we assume it took Zack a while to drag himself and Cloud the remaining way to Midgar in the state he was in, it's difficult to believe it would take him a whole-ass month (+/- a few days). He wasn't that far from Midgar at that point. That was the whole tragedy of it.

But then that would mean that somehow, for some reason, Zack skipped ahead in time. Which he also seems to indicate even if he doesn't realize that's what happened. "One minuted, I'm outnumbered. The next, I'm alone." If we assume the Whispers saved him and something somehow made him (and his version of Cloud) skip a month, that would make sense. There would be no Shinra troopers in that spot a month later. And that something might have been either the Whispers themselves, or a side-effect of the Singularity (again, singularity is a point that warps space-time outside of its usual norms and is, in a way, outside of it). Similarly, Biggs "miraculously teleports" from the Sector 7 Support Pillar to the orphanage (since nobody can tell him who brought him or how he got there, that seems to be the implication). One of them travels in time and skips a month ahead, the other remains in the correct time, but skips in space to a different place. Similarly, Biggs's recollection of his survival is also full of the "new world rainbow effect"... but the interesting thing is that despite how it seems to work later (one choice leads to one new world), they both end up in the Terrier world. There was no butterfly effect. The past didn't change. And yet these two men, who should both have died, meet in the same space and time, both remembering their miraculous survivals.

If you're still not convinced, here's another thing: as Marlene points out, Zack was still not there in November or the beginning of December when the bombings happened. And they still happened. We know this because Biggs still knows Cloud as the "badass mercenary" . He still remembers meeting him for the first bombing, even if his memories are getting weird. ("How long ago was that again? [laughs] Weird. My internal clock's busted." "Yeah. Mine too.") And yet, Cloud was not on the express way when everyone else from the party was. He was looked for, but not found. He didn't appear anywhere afterward. There are no two Clouds in this world. There is only the mako poisoned Cloud Zack brought to Midgar. It's almost as if the Planet wanted to save him from being taken by Shinra in this weird world so it still had the Champion that can beat Sephiroth in this off-shot world, too; so it saved Zack to achieve that. (Why did it pick Biggs, though? That we don't know yet. Given his fate in one of the worlds, he almost seems to have been brought back just so the devs can kill him again, but hey, that was only one world, right?)

So. We have a mutliverse that starts off with two worlds. The world of OG/Remake (the "Beagle Stamp" world, where the main party remains) and the world where they lost against Sephiroth on the express way but Fate/the Whispers pulled a couple last strings before it/they disappeared (the "Terrier Stamp" world). But it doesn't remain at only two worlds. We later see a world in which Stamp is a Pug, a Shiba and a Spitz (I assume one of the larger breeds of German Spitz, though I'm by far not a dog breed expert LOL). Of note is that two of these words are Zack's, created by his own choices - the Pug, where he went after Biggs to reactor 6, and the Shiba where he couldn't decide where to go and who to save because he wanted to save Biggs, Cloud and Aerith, so he went to the church first. I assume the world in which he went to Hojo is the Terrier world, but we can't be sure for certain. [edit: Actually, we can. When Zack is pointing out to himself which road leads where in the tunnel, there is a Terrier Stamp drawn on the wall behind him.] As for the German Spitz, this is the world where Cloud and Aerith have their "dream date", and as far as we can tell, Zack is not alive (or at least not around) in this world. It's either that, or he's went off somewhere else entirely, and apparently so did Marlene and Elmyra. But it's not any of the worlds we've seen Zack in thus far.

(I can already imagine you wondering what any of this has to do with "the devs telling us they gave us what we wanted and will now do what they want". Bear with me a little longer. I'm getting to that.)

The particular Spitz World is important for two reasons. On the more obvious side, it's where Cloud gets a working White Materia from Aerith so that Rebirth's main Aerith can cast Holy. On a more subtle side, it shows a limitation to how far this multiverse can go, because in that world, none of Cloud's choices matter. There isn't a world in which Cloud gave Aerith a hair ornament, a world where he gave her a bracelet and a world where he gave her a pendant. There isn't a world in which he chose to pick the different snacks at the food stall. No matter what he chooses, he gets steamrolled into a fourth option, as if the world itself rejects his choices because he's technically not a part of it. He belongs in a different world.

And as we later find out, he can make a difference and create new worlds there. This is exactly what we see when Cloud attempts to save Aerith and when we see him parrying Sephiroth's blow to save her. Remember how I mentioned the "rainbow effect" being indicative of a new world being created? That scene is full of it... right up until Jenova's interference starts playing up.

So. Here we finally are at what I was trying to get at: the devs giving us the message that "they gave us what we wanted". For those fans who wanted Aerith to die, well, they now got to see it in high res. She died. There is a world in this multiverse in which she died. That's the world of the OG. That remained unchanged as they wanted. But... I do not believe this is the world we're in at the very end of Rebirth, nor the world in which Part 3 will take place.

Take another good look at the Pug-Stamp World. More importantly, listen to Zack's lines. Every single line of his in this particular world makes as much sense for him to say as it is a meta-commentary on things. "Fate has a twisted sense of humor, and I'm always the punchline." - this is Zack's character and the summary of the plot of both CC and his appearance in Rebirth to a T. "Well, I'm sick of its bullshit. This is my life! I make the rules!" - I don't know about you, but this really feels like the devs saying "this is our game. We make the rules." Couple that with the back and forth of Aerith's death and the final message at the end of the game: "No promises remain at journey's end", and that message only seems to be driven home even further.

Fans wanted Aerith to die? Well, she did. In one world. The OG world.

Fans wanted Zack to get out of Aerith's way because she's supposed to have moved on? Well, he did. In one world. The world where he asked Marlene about Aerith's feelings for Cloud, got a childish response that still hit him hard and took Aerith's ribbon - which was basically her one memento of him - as if to remove everything that could remind her of him, and himself, from the equation. The world in which he went to Hojo.

Fans wanted Zack to still die? Well, he did that too! Arguably in more worlds than one, even! The world where he went to Hojo for sure, and possibly the world where he went after Biggs and jumped into the dried-out reactor.

The devs have given the fans who screamed for no changes all that they wanted. They kept all the promises from the OG and not changing things too much and then some. Now, no promises remain. Now, unlike Remake where it was still difficult to picture, there is a very real chance that the main party (and the main story) is no longer the OG world, but the world Cloud created when he saved Aerith. Now, the devs can do whatever the Hell they want. This is their game. Their story to tell. They make the rules.