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I don't think "our" Rinoa will become Ultimecia, no, but I always felt like we were supposed to see the potential for it to go that way, especially with the big surprise of her summoning Griever, as well as the black wings motif. Not to mention her castle being at the place Squall and Rinoa promised they'd return to. But then the ending tells us it will be okay when Squall and Rinoa find each other in the void, and finally, Squall smiles. I think the implication is that Ultimecia might have been somebody's Rinoa, once. Maybe even the Rinoa of another instance of the time loop. An ordinary girl with hopes and dreams who didn't get the happy ending. And this gives weight to the bond and love between Squall and Rinoa being more than just a teen fling. As a sorceress and her knight, they are bonded forever. And partly because of that bond, they will never become like Ultimecia, or Seifer. Just my interpretation.
I like it! A lot! It makes me think of a different round of the time loop where Squall and Rinoa weren’t able to reunite when time starts collapsing in on itself.. It would make sense with Rinoa losing herself in her grief (Griever??), Rinoa then becoming Ultimecia and building her castle in the same spot, maybe initially hoping in vain that Squall might pop up in that spot just at a different point in time (which he did, just further back in time, at least in our POV timeline), and why Ultimecia would want to recreate the time compression event in the first place! 🤠
I definitely see it this way, too. I think Ultimecia is an excellent example of a foil to Rinoa. Adel, Ultimecia, and Edea show that the powers of a sorceress can lean her down a dark path, and they make the player understand what the stakes are for Rinoa. She risks becoming a monster, like the other sorceresses did. It's really well connected, I think.
You've hit the nail on the head. Final Fantasy VIII introduces many intriguing elements and leaves them undeveloped. Our desire for cohesion and connections leads us to create theories to fill in the gaps. I don't see this as a flaw of the story writing. Indeed, these gaps have captured our imagination for the last 25 years. Though it may not be my favourite game, there's no doubt that FFVIII is the video game world that I think of the most.
I couldn’t agree more! That’s why I get partially bummed out when the creative people involved in the development confirm or deny fan theories because it takes a little bit of the fun out of it, not much, but a little
@@trufreedom Oh, you mean like how THERE ARE MONSTERS ON THE MOON?! Seriously, they just nonchalantly mention that from time to time throughout history, monsters rain down from the moon, and all the ruins we see on the map were civilizations wiped out by the lunar cries, and then just don't elaborate. And then everyone goes about their business, like they didn't just say what theu just said.
Really? Because I agree with what you've said except that I do consider it a flaw of the writing. The audience is covering for the weakness of the writing that created too much setup without enough payoff. I will say it's interesting that a flawed piece of writing will capture our interest for longer than a good one, however. A counter-example that is probably only relevant to me (lol) would be Steins;Gate. Tons of setup, but also tons of satisfying payoff. By the end, the questions raised in the beginning make total sense, and that doesn't diminish the experience one bit. I will always remember S;G as a timeless classic, but FF8 is more like... that weird thing lol.
@@SunRiza7 True enough, you certainly can see some of the glossed over plot points as flaws. Like Jeezes718 mentioned, the fact that an enormous number of monsters rain down from the moon and destroy entire civilizations is barely brought up and easily missed until it happens to Esthar. But that's just another source of imagination fodder for me. It leads me to wonder more about Centra's destruction and what it might have been like before the Lunar Cry there, and it makes me think how Esthar could become uninhabitable in the future too. The writers didn't aim to a story about the world itself but a story of how Squall and his friends ̈(plus Squall's dad and his friends) defeated sorceresses and built relationships with each other. They could have told a story that focused on the world, and then we'd have had a very different game. In a seven-part book/movie series like Harry Potter, we get plenty of world building and relationship building, but Final Fantasy VIII is much shorter and focused on the relationships. I still appreciate that, because the morsels of world building it does give us are so intriguing and original.
I've always considered FF8 to be the weirdest, trippyist FF game. There is a lot of things in it that can be open to interpretation, so I guess it makes sense that there are all these strange theories about the game. The Rinoa/Utimecia theory exists because the villain doesn't have a backstory so people wanted to give her one. Though I don't believe in the theory, it could be an interesting, tragic story if done right.
Yeah, it def has a weird dream/nightmare feel to the whole thing. Even just the premise of a military academy where basically kids are commissioned to be specialized mercenaries to hunt sorceresses and do other military type activities is enough to feel off. Not to mention the whole Ellone mystery (which, now that I think about it, seems to hint at the loss of memory plot point) and the characters literally passing out and traveling in time to live out certain events in other peoples bodies.. Definitely eery, but in a good way 😎
Ultimecia has a backstory, it's just not spoonfed to the player. A lot of it goes unnoticed because Ultimecia tells it to us while she's in Edea's body, and a lot of it is just implied - for instance, in the scene where Seifer interrogates Squall, the questions he asks tell us that Ultimecia doesn't know why SeeD has been targeting her for her whole life. She sees herself, justifiably, as a victim, and her plan to compress time is a means of defeating her persecutors, ironically making that persecution necessary in the first place.
@@chebghobbi I assume her use of GFs has erased her memories and all that is left is her goals and emotions. She probably doesn't even remember why she wants Time Compression, just that she needs to achieve it. I think there could have been an interesting character there if we had spent any time with her throughout the game.
I think something like "squall is dead" is just insulting, it's basically saying "I didn't like the story beyond disc 1 so I'm going to pretend it's all bullshit", it's a refusal to engage with the story on it's own terms and it brings nothing. Something like "rinoa is ultimecia" is a lot more interesting cause it does have value when it comes to the themes of the game and it's genuinely trying to engage with the story. The issue here is more that it's based on a lot of cherry picking aswell as using the translation to support things that are just not there in japanese (which is not necessarily the fault of the person who came up with that more of a failure of the translation to convey some important things properly). But it endured because it certainly was an interesting decision to take the story although it makes it into a tragedy which I don't think was ever the point. Ultimately my issue with those fan theory is more that they ended up being discussed more than what's actually in the game.and I think that's a shame.
Totally agree. I can give some credit to the "Ultimecia = future/alternate timeline Rinoa" theory because it somehow fits well with certain elements and themes shown in the game, but the "Squall is dead" is nonsense through and through that falls apart easily. I believe the reason because these theories are still so discussed is precisely because FF VIII has probably one of the most bizarre and ambiguous story-lines of the entire franchise. Maybe it was done on purpose or just a side effect of rushed development.
I agree on the 'Squall is dead' theory. It's basically a version of the 'it was all a dream' trope, which is one of the worst tropes (if not the worst trope) in any form of storytelling, rendering any engagement and tension developed for the story meaningless.
@@ithinkimaybelosingit Exactly. I'm pretty sure that, like the video tells, the theory was originally just meant to be a silly satirical fanfiction/comment by someone who didn't like the game's story-line, but some people took it too seriously. Unlike the U = R fan headcanon, it does a poor job linking and fleshing out some lore and plot points.
I think it depends on the situation, but sometimes I find stories that don't give you all the answers or leave certain things ambiguous even more fun. Those are often the stories that really get my imagination running, and as a result, they're often the stories I become most passionate about. Especially since there's a lot of opportunity to engage with fandom in speculation and theory that just doesn't exist when you have a story that wraps everything up in a neat little bow. I think some ambiguity can, in some cases, let fans connect with media in a deeper way, because it lets them come up with their own ideas and sort of take ownership of the story in ways they might not be able to do otherwise. Of course, this also opens up greater opportunities for the spread of toxic fandom I think. So it can be a double-edged sword.
You’re absolutely right, it seems like there’s a super fine line between ambiguous and highly engaging gaps of information in a story and apparent laziness with not telling the whole story.. The only examples I can think of off the top of my head are the SoulCom games vs JJ Abrams stupid mystery box method of story writing (I know it’s not a fair comparison but here we are 😅)
I personally would have loved the R=U story to be correct. It would be a refreshing bittersweet ending for an FF. I’d have leant into this reveal by some suggestion that the Future SeeDs seen in the time compressed world became the GFs of Squalls time (e.g. a SeeD killed by fire magic becomes Ifrit)
@@burtblando8806 It's not even his chest, it's his right shoulder. Significantly less fatal. Also, as far as explaining how it got healed, they probably used cure. Theu took him to a prison to interrogate him, and we see Zell draw cure from within the prison to heal everyone. So, the prison has a stable draw point for cure magic, and they intended to question him. They probably jist drew cure from the prison to heal him so he wouldn't die before they could question him.
This game made me learn to read faster since I was too young to understand the junction system. This is is the only game in the series where I couldn’t get anywhere just by winging it on a prayer, so my reading comprehension advanced rapidly so I could actually get anywhere in the game lol
A favorite recent detail/easter egg: Laguna's gesture to Julia when he shows her his ring at the end of the game is identical with the SeeD salute. So, clearly the rings symbolize something important. Another youtube account has done a lot of research into this specific detail. It's kinda mind-blowing.
The first 7 Final Fantasy games had fairly straightforward plots but FF8 has a lot of ambiguity to it. It also feels like the original script was much longer and was cut down due to time constraints. That's why you have these weird events that come out of nowhere, like the NORG subplot, and why Seifer was almost entirely offscreen in the last two CDs.
The original script being longer and had to be cut down may very well be the case. I recall reading somewhere that during development the game was going to require 8 discs and Laguna's sections were going to be much more involved. Even when cut down to 4 discs they still had to shift things around like moving Adel's fight from the end of disc 3 to the start of disc 4 (due to the cutscene not fitting on disc 3) which broke the intended pattern of a sorceress fight at the end of each disc.
I meeeean it is fun to to have head cannons and believe that Rhinoa becomes Ultimercia to control time magic to go back in time and not kill Squall when she possesses Edea to be to have gotten completely corrupted and actually becomes the final baddy. Boy do I clutch at straws. I loved this video, academic vibes.
I have to admit, the theory that final form Ultimecia is Hyne's magical form junctioned to Ultimecia's body, while Ultima Weapon is an ancient king junctioned to Hyne's discarded husk, is kind of awesome.
@@trufreedomhonestly I also want to believe it cause it kind of connects itself with the "Squall is Griever theory" therefore making it these two a single theory
I just like the idea of T-rexaurs flailing around with their little arms in the red, goopy liquid the monsters travel in during the Cry. You see some that make sense, swimming through the goo (like the Fastitocalons you see up-close), but a lot of the monsters would probably have an AWFUL time as they fall...
Hearing that there was so much cut content explains a lot. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for VIII even though it feels like it's not always greater than the sum of its parts--as others have said, really great individual bits but doesn't quite nail the landing. I've always thought Adel should have been the ultimate villain, rather than Ultemecia. Probably going to be thinking about all that cut story for the rest of my life now lol
FF8 is not for everyone, these theories was created by someone that really didn't understand the story (which is not described easily if you don't explore the whole game). Never understood the Squall's Dead theory, it's really insane and nonsense, Rinoa/Ultimecia is interesting, but i prefer the original story without these things.
I've always described FF8 as an odd potpourri where they just threw in every cool idea any of the scenario writers had and don't fully develop any of them, where the game comes off a little bit like a golden retriever bounding after the last ball it sees thrown. So many of those ideas are either so tantalizing (the origin of the sorceresses, the history of Esthar, Adel scrambling radio communication from orbit, etc.) or seem to gesture at grand themes (the unconditional love/bond of a sorceress and her knight) that players naturally try to build them up. The Sorceress's Knight motif is a good example of both, where it feels kind of underbaked (we don't know how this became a romantic/heroic trope in this world where sorceresses are all monstrous villains) but also seems like it should work itself into the romance story that the game presents itself as. Rinoa being Ultimecia and Squall being Griever is ultimately not supported by the text at all, but it's attractive to players because it pays off that theme by having Squall devoted to Rinoa to even a monstrous end.
The "Rinoa is Ultimecia" theory is still legit in my mind for the exact reasons mentioned in the video. The main antagonist has no ties to Squall, unlike any other FF games. And because of the emptiness, fan theories fill the void. - Sorceresses seemingly are eternal and can possibly live forever. - FF8 ends - Squall and Rinoa live happilly ever after... until Squall dies of old age. - Rinoa gets lonely, and is still probably persecuted for being a sorceress, so she goes into seclusion. - She then starts honing her skill as a sorceress and discovers new powers... like OP Time magic. - She gets even lonelier, and begins Junctioning Griever to feel closer to him. - Junctioning deletes your memory over time. - An unfathomable amount of time later, Rinoa isn't herself anymore, but is still longing to be reunited with her "knight". - Starts cooking up a plan to achieve Time Compression, uniting Past, Present and Future. - Find Odine's Machine which uses Ellone's power. I mean really. Main villain bad. Main villain does bad-bad magic. Main villain destroy world in Time Spaghetti. It sounds so stupid for what was Squaresoft's most mature and down-to-earth story yet. But I understand fans who deny this theory because it turns the story from hopeful and dreamy to sour and dark.
I really like game stories that leave some questions unanswered or up to interpretation, because I think it leaves more room for fans to grow attached to and invested in the characters and their tales. As long as the themes are strong and the narrative finishes in a satisfying way, then the weird or ambiguous details can be forgiven. FFVII Remake’s story comes to mind and I think it was handled very well in not explaining everything.
I mean I am a massive X fan but don’t want an action based remake :/ give me conditional turn based X-3. But I love VIII more than I feel most people so would love a remake.
@@RikkuPhD heck yeah!! I really want them to continue where the story left off (including Will and the other post FFX-2 content, can’t think of the name right now!)
The only way I would want an 8 Remake is if they rewrite about 80% of it. Lets be honest, it's a complete mess in story. It's got great Design, but the whole thing is a mess.
Is 'Squall is dead' or 'Rinoa is Ultimecia' really all that different to 'Sephiroth died in Nibelheim and it was all Jenova?' 'Cloud is Shinra's son' was very popular during the 2000s as well, and that's the worst FF fan theory of all time. Thankfully it has more or less died off now.
The Jenova-Sephiroth is a good comparison, but does the Cloud Shinra theory really change anything? Just curious.. Also, you made me realize that a consistent theme in the series is an even bigger bad behind the big bad pulling the strings, with different games pulling off the plot point with varying amounts of success
I have never heard the claim of cloud being Shinra's son. Maybe it's bc I was already working full time by then but I still spent tons of time on gamefaqs and never once saw that come up
Edea when possessed by Ultimecia look sad instead of happy when squall was impaled by her ice shard. Seifer was rinoa first crush before squall came along and become her serious lover. Ultimecia choose seifer to be her knight. Ultimecia castle was build above the flower field where squall and rinoa made the promise to be reunired back again after defeating ultimecia. Ultimecia have squall pendant which is a legendary gf call griever which was never found by anyone in squall era but ultimecia managed to found it. Ultimecia was trying to crawl back to the flower field in her dying moment before she could find peace in death. The ending which confuses so many people is actually squall amnesia starting to act up when he was trying to remember and will himself back to his own world and he couldnt so he become lost in limbo forever which devastated rinoa and cause her to become ultimecia afterward. Only when rinoa was able to find squall in the limbo can the closed time loop paradox be finally broken.
Have you considered the "recent developments" on these theories? ruclips.net/video/O-wBs8rY_As/видео.html And also the other videos on that channel, they put a lot of hard to get information and compile it incredibly well, and pretty much everything adds up in the Ultemicia is both Rinoa and Hyne theories. The amount of intentional detail behind some of the clues is undeniable, they are not randomly there. I was baffled by the sound effect video, amazing attention to detail that cannot be "just there" by accident. The channel also gives a good explanation for the "death" of Squall against Edea, it's a ride I highly suggest their videos on the subject.
Kitase can't make definitive statements about what is or isn't canonical because he doesn't own the story, Square Enix does, and if SE decides to retcon the story they're within their rights to do so. But he's been quite clear that the FF8 he wrote did not include Rinoa and Ultimecia being the same person.
FF8 has fan theories because it's poorly written. It has great ideas, great cinematography, but ultimately falls flat tying everything together. It has things in it because they are cool, but they never really put it together.
You could say that about every facet of the game. The gameplay mechanics are in the same boat; some brilliant concepts that arent properly implemented and are able to be abused in multiple ways as a result
Agreed. I just played through it about a month ago and had this exact thought. The whole "Squall is dead" theory is just an attempt to explain all the poor writing.
When I finished FF8, I was so underwhelmed with the story that I was like "Damn, no wonder this game has so many theories, this story is like a plate of a fried egg, potatoes and cauliflower!"
Having many fan theories is often a sign of bad writing. The writers put in something that doesn’t make sense, and the fans fill in the gaps. Lack of agreement between fan theories is evidence that the gaps could be anything, and therefore the writers did a bad job of both covering that specific thing, and the broader themes. That isn’t to say ambiguity is always bad. Just that massive amounts of fan speculation and arguments is a bad sign of something beneath the surface.
FF8 is one of my favourite games of all time, I spent my entire childhood playing it. I absolutely loved it, and still do today. However, I’ve come to the conclusion its fanbase absolutely sucks. The “fan theories” for this game are outstandingly egregious. Even after the team behind the game publicly shut down these theories, people still insist on using them as their weird little head canons. Is the Rinoa/Ultimecia theory interesting? Yes. But as you’ve touched on, it’s at the expense of undermining the game’s entire central themes.
I think there's a reason Final Fantasy veterans latched onto the "Rinoa is Ultimecia" theory, and it can be summed up in one word: ZEROMUS. The devs weren't going to get away with pulling that again. The series should have grown past it.
Simple answer: It's a beloved videogame due to its superb sense of aesthetic, magnific overall artistic design and beautifully crafted ambiance and atmosphere, whose story is so filled with plotholes, inconsistencies and deus ex machina that seems to be mysteriously incomplete, alluding to some grand design to excuse it's own blatant mediocrity, which has been further fueled by its core fanbase across decades, now. This will ultimately work because they're engineering a plot through sheer strength of will, because they like it so much *it HAS to have a secret meaning* . It's like Flat Earthers believing in some pointless conspiracy theory for the sake of believing in it or believing in something.
I think, as someone else pointed out, the way they tried to tie everything together was getting contrived. I suppose it's a fictional story so the whole thing is bloody contrived but too many coincidences. I was okay with the Laguna/Squall and Julia/Rinoa rekindling a love that never got to be, but by the time when the orphanage linked everyone together I really was losing my belief in the writing. Yes yes everyone dumps on the orphanage plot point... It wasn't the only thing. It was the sun of it all and it just lost me as an 8 year old to give a damn anymore. Replaying it over the years I continued to feel the same.
The Squall is dead theory is unironically a more compelling narrative to me, but it was obviously never true, and if I'm not mistaken square themselves have debunked it.
The Squall is dead and Ultemicia theory in very stupid to begin with as first they Squall and Rinoa love started at Disk 2 and in Disk 1 they often bicker and hate how each other act from Squall POV Rinoa is a bratty girl that always compromise the plan and for Rinoa POV Squall is a bossy and brooding guy that never like to interact with oher people (it felt that he is superior to other and just project her Father to Squall)
I disagree with the squall's dead wouldn't account for the dream sequence's. I think a dying orphan would construct some story as to why the parents weren't around. Its not that dad didn't love me its because he fell off a cliff and lost his memory and got sent to the moon...
Actually Squall being dead makes Rinoa being ultimecia a little more plausible due to the psychosomatic nature of it. Think Donnie Darko but what the potential future reality could look like in a fantasy setting. if you look at Squalls affinity with goombas (baby ifrit), his first mission summon in a cave (caves represents searching inner self), Squalls necklace, the last boss theme "Maybe I'm a Lion", last weapon "Lion Heart", last name "Leonhart", changing his name to Leon in KH. theres even an image in FFX showing "Hymn of the Fayth Ifrit" the image looks like Squall turning into ifrit 😂 I think theres a core theme for ifrit (or even certain summons, Lightning bring Odin as an example) that is focused on in certain games
Ultimecia is Rinoa. Ultimecia and Rinoa lost squall in the limbo when the time compression magic ended and time was restored which mean Squall was forever lost and can never be found again. This cause rinoa to go mad with grief and ultimecia to go into the past to redo the time compression magic to see and bring squall to her era again. Its just a pity this loss was so long that ultimecia have forgotten she used to be rinoa and what she was looking for by doing the time compression magic was to see squall again in life.
This game accidentally does my favorite thing, which is let my imagination fill in the gaps. Now I just need all the developers to shut up about what theories are and are not valid and let me cook
This is all standard par for the course in serious cinema and literature. Videogame simps these days get so worked up whenever they have to use extra brain cells 😂
I'd rather have an interesting and unique story that's under-developed over a story that's bland, generic and/or plain uninteresting like most stories in games. If we didn't overall enjoy FF8's story, if we weren't so engaged by it, we wouldn't care so much about trying to fill the holes. We'd just move on and chalk it up as a bad game or story. We don't because there's something special here.
Yep. This is the real reason. There are two types of fan theories: One type tries to explain what is at best hinted at but still clearly there. The other type, the more wild type, is just trying to resolve the authors own ´conflicted feelings. FF8 fan theories fall into the latter category. For a more modern example just look at Zelda timeline and lore theorists.
The reason is because noone understood the story completely. And maybe the english translation was somewhat competent but I'm certain the german translation just like FF7 was based on the english one not the japanese one and the content is completely random as far as I can tell.
@@trufreedom I don't know, I haven't played it in a long time, but with how complex the story is I figured it's gotta have a handful of them, that or unexplained gaps in the story.
Is hatred of ambiguity the real motive though? If I like steak does that mean I _hate_ cows? Ambiguity means you _get to_ fill in the blanks, then replay the game with that theory in mind and see how it fits... Ambiguity can be fun.
Final Fantasy VIII is the game I’ve played the most in the series (not because it’s my favorite, because it’s not) and I still had no idea that Laguna was Squalls dad until I learned about it from this channel.. Seems to me, a game that hides even plot ‘crucial’ info like Squalls lineage and even Hynes’ importance is ripe for theories.. 😅🫠
Yeah I didn't know either. It's so annoying when games are that vague and I have no idea what compels some writers to do this. I can only guess they just didn't have the time or ability to write a satisfying explanation and decided to leave it as all setup and no payoff. Edit: Welp I commented before watching lol. I didn't know so much of the story had to be cut... that would do it.
@@SunRiza7 idk if you’re into the souls (SoulCom) games but the developers of those games seemingly, can’t remember if it’s confirmed or not, cut out pieces of actually crucial story to allow people to kinda piece things together. As a lifelong Final Fantasy fan it took an adjustment period for me to get into that kind of story telling but now I’m hooked lol
![The Downfall of Adel [The Complete Unabridged Timeline of FF8]](/img/1.gif)
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I don't think "our" Rinoa will become Ultimecia, no, but I always felt like we were supposed to see the potential for it to go that way, especially with the big surprise of her summoning Griever, as well as the black wings motif. Not to mention her castle being at the place Squall and Rinoa promised they'd return to. But then the ending tells us it will be okay when Squall and Rinoa find each other in the void, and finally, Squall smiles. I think the implication is that Ultimecia might have been somebody's Rinoa, once. Maybe even the Rinoa of another instance of the time loop. An ordinary girl with hopes and dreams who didn't get the happy ending. And this gives weight to the bond and love between Squall and Rinoa being more than just a teen fling. As a sorceress and her knight, they are bonded forever. And partly because of that bond, they will never become like Ultimecia, or Seifer. Just my interpretation.
I like it! A lot! It makes me think of a different round of the time loop where Squall and Rinoa weren’t able to reunite when time starts collapsing in on itself..
It would make sense with Rinoa losing herself in her grief (Griever??), Rinoa then becoming Ultimecia and building her castle in the same spot, maybe initially hoping in vain that Squall might pop up in that spot just at a different point in time (which he did, just further back in time, at least in our POV timeline), and why Ultimecia would want to recreate the time compression event in the first place! 🤠
I definitely see it this way, too. I think Ultimecia is an excellent example of a foil to Rinoa. Adel, Ultimecia, and Edea show that the powers of a sorceress can lean her down a dark path, and they make the player understand what the stakes are for Rinoa. She risks becoming a monster, like the other sorceresses did. It's really well connected, I think.
You've hit the nail on the head. Final Fantasy VIII introduces many intriguing elements and leaves them undeveloped. Our desire for cohesion and connections leads us to create theories to fill in the gaps. I don't see this as a flaw of the story writing. Indeed, these gaps have captured our imagination for the last 25 years. Though it may not be my favourite game, there's no doubt that FFVIII is the video game world that I think of the most.
I couldn’t agree more!
That’s why I get partially bummed out when the creative people involved in the development confirm or deny fan theories because it takes a little bit of the fun out of it, not much, but a little
@@trufreedom
Oh, you mean like how THERE ARE MONSTERS ON THE MOON?!
Seriously, they just nonchalantly mention that from time to time throughout history, monsters rain down from the moon, and all the ruins we see on the map were civilizations wiped out by the lunar cries, and then just don't elaborate.
And then everyone goes about their business, like they didn't just say what theu just said.
Really? Because I agree with what you've said except that I do consider it a flaw of the writing. The audience is covering for the weakness of the writing that created too much setup without enough payoff.
I will say it's interesting that a flawed piece of writing will capture our interest for longer than a good one, however.
A counter-example that is probably only relevant to me (lol) would be Steins;Gate. Tons of setup, but also tons of satisfying payoff. By the end, the questions raised in the beginning make total sense, and that doesn't diminish the experience one bit. I will always remember S;G as a timeless classic, but FF8 is more like... that weird thing lol.
@@SunRiza7 lol good point! And now I’ve got another one to check out because you’ve piqued my interest! Cheers!
@@SunRiza7 True enough, you certainly can see some of the glossed over plot points as flaws. Like Jeezes718 mentioned, the fact that an enormous number of monsters rain down from the moon and destroy entire civilizations is barely brought up and easily missed until it happens to Esthar. But that's just another source of imagination fodder for me. It leads me to wonder more about Centra's destruction and what it might have been like before the Lunar Cry there, and it makes me think how Esthar could become uninhabitable in the future too. The writers didn't aim to a story about the world itself but a story of how Squall and his friends ̈(plus Squall's dad and his friends) defeated sorceresses and built relationships with each other. They could have told a story that focused on the world, and then we'd have had a very different game. In a seven-part book/movie series like Harry Potter, we get plenty of world building and relationship building, but Final Fantasy VIII is much shorter and focused on the relationships. I still appreciate that, because the morsels of world building it does give us are so intriguing and original.
Literally never clicked a RUclips video faster. I live for FF8 content and you do it so well.
Welcome to Balamb Garden!
9:41 you say "bicycle limit break attack" and now I'm picturing Edea attacking Squall by throwing a bike at him.
I've always considered FF8 to be the weirdest, trippyist FF game. There is a lot of things in it that can be open to interpretation, so I guess it makes sense that there are all these strange theories about the game.
The Rinoa/Utimecia theory exists because the villain doesn't have a backstory so people wanted to give her one. Though I don't believe in the theory, it could be an interesting, tragic story if done right.
Yeah, it def has a weird dream/nightmare feel to the whole thing. Even just the premise of a military academy where basically kids are commissioned to be specialized mercenaries to hunt sorceresses and do other military type activities is enough to feel off.
Not to mention the whole Ellone mystery (which, now that I think about it, seems to hint at the loss of memory plot point) and the characters literally passing out and traveling in time to live out certain events in other peoples bodies..
Definitely eery, but in a good way 😎
Ultimecia has a backstory, it's just not spoonfed to the player. A lot of it goes unnoticed because Ultimecia tells it to us while she's in Edea's body, and a lot of it is just implied - for instance, in the scene where Seifer interrogates Squall, the questions he asks tell us that Ultimecia doesn't know why SeeD has been targeting her for her whole life. She sees herself, justifiably, as a victim, and her plan to compress time is a means of defeating her persecutors, ironically making that persecution necessary in the first place.
@@chebghobbi I assume her use of GFs has erased her memories and all that is left is her goals and emotions. She probably doesn't even remember why she wants Time Compression, just that she needs to achieve it.
I think there could have been an interesting character there if we had spent any time with her throughout the game.
I think something like "squall is dead" is just insulting, it's basically saying "I didn't like the story beyond disc 1 so I'm going to pretend it's all bullshit", it's a refusal to engage with the story on it's own terms and it brings nothing.
Something like "rinoa is ultimecia" is a lot more interesting cause it does have value when it comes to the themes of the game and it's genuinely trying to engage with the story. The issue here is more that it's based on a lot of cherry picking aswell as using the translation to support things that are just not there in japanese (which is not necessarily the fault of the person who came up with that more of a failure of the translation to convey some important things properly). But it endured because it certainly was an interesting decision to take the story although it makes it into a tragedy which I don't think was ever the point.
Ultimately my issue with those fan theory is more that they ended up being discussed more than what's actually in the game.and I think that's a shame.
Totally agree. I can give some credit to the "Ultimecia = future/alternate timeline Rinoa" theory because it somehow fits well with certain elements and themes shown in the game, but the "Squall is dead" is nonsense through and through that falls apart easily.
I believe the reason because these theories are still so discussed is precisely because FF VIII has probably one of the most bizarre and ambiguous story-lines of the entire franchise. Maybe it was done on purpose or just a side effect of rushed development.
I agree on the 'Squall is dead' theory. It's basically a version of the 'it was all a dream' trope, which is one of the worst tropes (if not the worst trope) in any form of storytelling, rendering any engagement and tension developed for the story meaningless.
@@ithinkimaybelosingit Exactly. I'm pretty sure that, like the video tells, the theory was originally just meant to be a silly satirical fanfiction/comment by someone who didn't like the game's story-line, but some people took it too seriously.
Unlike the U = R fan headcanon, it does a poor job linking and fleshing out some lore and plot points.
I think it depends on the situation, but sometimes I find stories that don't give you all the answers or leave certain things ambiguous even more fun. Those are often the stories that really get my imagination running, and as a result, they're often the stories I become most passionate about. Especially since there's a lot of opportunity to engage with fandom in speculation and theory that just doesn't exist when you have a story that wraps everything up in a neat little bow. I think some ambiguity can, in some cases, let fans connect with media in a deeper way, because it lets them come up with their own ideas and sort of take ownership of the story in ways they might not be able to do otherwise.
Of course, this also opens up greater opportunities for the spread of toxic fandom I think. So it can be a double-edged sword.
You’re absolutely right, it seems like there’s a super fine line between ambiguous and highly engaging gaps of information in a story and apparent laziness with not telling the whole story..
The only examples I can think of off the top of my head are the SoulCom games vs JJ Abrams stupid mystery box method of story writing (I know it’s not a fair comparison but here we are 😅)
I personally would have loved the R=U story to be correct. It would be a refreshing bittersweet ending for an FF. I’d have leant into this reveal by some suggestion that the Future SeeDs seen in the time compressed world became the GFs of Squalls time (e.g. a SeeD killed by fire magic becomes Ifrit)
The "Squall is Dead" theory always seemed silly but interesting to me. His injury at the end of Disc 1 wasn't even fatal.
Squall has a scar on his face that remains there the whole game but he takes a huge icicle through his chest and he's fine 10 minutes later.
@@burtblando8806 Do we ever see Squalls chest after that point in the game? (Not being a jerk, just curious)
@@trufreedom His character model is unchanged, if that's what you mean.
@@burtblando8806
It's not even his chest, it's his right shoulder.
Significantly less fatal.
Also, as far as explaining how it got healed, they probably used cure.
Theu took him to a prison to interrogate him, and we see Zell draw cure from within the prison to heal everyone.
So, the prison has a stable draw point for cure magic, and they intended to question him.
They probably jist drew cure from the prison to heal him so he wouldn't die before they could question him.
Wow, I've never heard such a comprehensive and strong explanation for this phenomenon with VIII. Thanks for making it so clear!
Thank you 🙏
Those theories have been the basis of my newly reimagined FF8 fan made story.
Is it a sequel? Side story?
I was 13 when FFVIII came out. It was the first in the series that I played and it will always be my favorite. One of the most underrated FF games.
I was about the same age and it had a profound effect on my teen self.
Saaaaaaame. When you get the opening cinematic and then I summoned shiva for the time. Instant fan.
This game made me learn to read faster since I was too young to understand the junction system.
This is is the only game in the series where I couldn’t get anywhere just by winging it on a prayer, so my reading comprehension advanced rapidly so I could actually get anywhere in the game lol
You’re making some good videos here, keep them coming!
Heck yeah, my favorite Final Fantasy channel!
🙏
A favorite recent detail/easter egg: Laguna's gesture to Julia when he shows her his ring at the end of the game is identical with the SeeD salute. So, clearly the rings symbolize something important. Another youtube account has done a lot of research into this specific detail. It's kinda mind-blowing.
The first 7 Final Fantasy games had fairly straightforward plots but FF8 has a lot of ambiguity to it. It also feels like the original script was much longer and was cut down due to time constraints. That's why you have these weird events that come out of nowhere, like the NORG subplot, and why Seifer was almost entirely offscreen in the last two CDs.
It does seem like one of the only ones in the first ten games that could have legitimately had or needed a sequel possibly
The original script being longer and had to be cut down may very well be the case. I recall reading somewhere that during development the game was going to require 8 discs and Laguna's sections were going to be much more involved. Even when cut down to 4 discs they still had to shift things around like moving Adel's fight from the end of disc 3 to the start of disc 4 (due to the cutscene not fitting on disc 3) which broke the intended pattern of a sorceress fight at the end of each disc.
I meeeean it is fun to to have head cannons and believe that Rhinoa becomes Ultimercia to control time magic to go back in time and not kill Squall when she possesses Edea to be to have gotten completely corrupted and actually becomes the final baddy.
Boy do I clutch at straws.
I loved this video, academic vibes.
I have to admit, the theory that final form Ultimecia is Hyne's magical form junctioned to Ultimecia's body, while Ultima Weapon is an ancient king junctioned to Hyne's discarded husk, is kind of awesome.
I don't believe the Rinoa=Artemisia theory, but I admit it's really fascinating.
Same but I really want to believe it’s true because it makes Ultimecia intriguing for more reasons to me
@@trufreedomhonestly I also want to believe it cause it kind of connects itself with the "Squall is Griever theory" therefore making it these two a single theory
I just finished the game 5 minutes ago, opened RUclips to search videos on its ending and this video was on my home page. Crazy how things work haha.
Love your FF8 videos!
I feel like whenever Kitase and team would go home for the day, Nomura sneak in from design department and change bits of the plot
I just like the idea of T-rexaurs flailing around with their little arms in the red, goopy liquid the monsters travel in during the Cry.
You see some that make sense, swimming through the goo (like the Fastitocalons you see up-close), but a lot of the monsters would probably have an AWFUL time as they fall...
I've been doing an annual playthrough of FF6 to FF8 for 15 years now and always love to see the buzz around my favorite games to this day.
Hearing that there was so much cut content explains a lot. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for VIII even though it feels like it's not always greater than the sum of its parts--as others have said, really great individual bits but doesn't quite nail the landing. I've always thought Adel should have been the ultimate villain, rather than Ultemecia.
Probably going to be thinking about all that cut story for the rest of my life now lol
FF8 is not for everyone, these theories was created by someone that really didn't understand the story (which is not described easily if you don't explore the whole game).
Never understood the Squall's Dead theory, it's really insane and nonsense, Rinoa/Ultimecia is interesting, but i prefer the original story without these things.
I've always described FF8 as an odd potpourri where they just threw in every cool idea any of the scenario writers had and don't fully develop any of them, where the game comes off a little bit like a golden retriever bounding after the last ball it sees thrown. So many of those ideas are either so tantalizing (the origin of the sorceresses, the history of Esthar, Adel scrambling radio communication from orbit, etc.) or seem to gesture at grand themes (the unconditional love/bond of a sorceress and her knight) that players naturally try to build them up.
The Sorceress's Knight motif is a good example of both, where it feels kind of underbaked (we don't know how this became a romantic/heroic trope in this world where sorceresses are all monstrous villains) but also seems like it should work itself into the romance story that the game presents itself as. Rinoa being Ultimecia and Squall being Griever is ultimately not supported by the text at all, but it's attractive to players because it pays off that theme by having Squall devoted to Rinoa to even a monstrous end.
The "Rinoa is Ultimecia" theory is still legit in my mind for the exact reasons mentioned in the video. The main antagonist has no ties to Squall, unlike any other FF games. And because of the emptiness, fan theories fill the void.
- Sorceresses seemingly are eternal and can possibly live forever.
- FF8 ends
- Squall and Rinoa live happilly ever after... until Squall dies of old age.
- Rinoa gets lonely, and is still probably persecuted for being a sorceress, so she goes into seclusion.
- She then starts honing her skill as a sorceress and discovers new powers... like OP Time magic.
- She gets even lonelier, and begins Junctioning Griever to feel closer to him.
- Junctioning deletes your memory over time.
- An unfathomable amount of time later, Rinoa isn't herself anymore, but is still longing to be reunited with her "knight".
- Starts cooking up a plan to achieve Time Compression, uniting Past, Present and Future.
- Find Odine's Machine which uses Ellone's power.
I mean really. Main villain bad. Main villain does bad-bad magic. Main villain destroy world in Time Spaghetti. It sounds so stupid for what was Squaresoft's most mature and down-to-earth story yet. But I understand fans who deny this theory because it turns the story from hopeful and dreamy to sour and dark.
I really like game stories that leave some questions unanswered or up to interpretation, because I think it leaves more room for fans to grow attached to and invested in the characters and their tales. As long as the themes are strong and the narrative finishes in a satisfying way, then the weird or ambiguous details can be forgiven. FFVII Remake’s story comes to mind and I think it was handled very well in not explaining everything.
this just proves that fans are hungry for a remake. more than 6, 7, 9 or 10.
I still prefer new games over remakes but i agree that 8 is overdue for a legit remake
I mean I am a massive X fan but don’t want an action based remake :/ give me conditional turn based X-3. But I love VIII more than I feel most people so would love a remake.
@@RikkuPhD heck yeah!! I really want them to continue where the story left off (including Will and the other post FFX-2 content, can’t think of the name right now!)
The only way I would want an 8 Remake is if they rewrite about 80% of it. Lets be honest, it's a complete mess in story. It's got great Design, but the whole thing is a mess.
@@trufreedom I’ll be nostalgia driven, I want Auron’s story with his journey with Jecht and Braska more! But I’d take anything really!
I like the RU theory.
To me it completes the circle
Is 'Squall is dead' or 'Rinoa is Ultimecia' really all that different to 'Sephiroth died in Nibelheim and it was all Jenova?'
'Cloud is Shinra's son' was very popular during the 2000s as well, and that's the worst FF fan theory of all time. Thankfully it has more or less died off now.
The Jenova-Sephiroth is a good comparison, but does the Cloud Shinra theory really change anything? Just curious..
Also, you made me realize that a consistent theme in the series is an even bigger bad behind the big bad pulling the strings, with different games pulling off the plot point with varying amounts of success
I have never heard the claim of cloud being Shinra's son. Maybe it's bc I was already working full time by then but I still spent tons of time on gamefaqs and never once saw that come up
Great video!! Also enjoy your cadence. Thankyou!
I really enjoy your videos.
Glad to hear it. Thank you 🙏
Edea when possessed by Ultimecia look sad instead of happy when squall was impaled by her ice shard.
Seifer was rinoa first crush before squall came along and become her serious lover.
Ultimecia choose seifer to be her knight.
Ultimecia castle was build above the flower field where squall and rinoa made the promise to be reunired back again after defeating ultimecia.
Ultimecia have squall pendant which is a legendary gf call griever which was never found by anyone in squall era but ultimecia managed to found it.
Ultimecia was trying to crawl back to the flower field in her dying moment before she could find peace in death.
The ending which confuses so many people is actually squall amnesia starting to act up when he was trying to remember and will himself back to his own world and he couldnt so he become lost in limbo forever which devastated rinoa and cause her to become ultimecia afterward. Only when rinoa was able to find squall in the limbo can the closed time loop paradox be finally broken.
Rinoa is Ultimecia.
@@anglo-saxonconnor817No she's not.
I think as FF8 fans we feel abandoned and are trying to cope with the fact that we'll never get any more of this game again.
I wish there was a redheaded antagonist who squared the soup of FF8... good video!!!
Jokes aside, good vid 👍
Have you considered the "recent developments" on these theories?
ruclips.net/video/O-wBs8rY_As/видео.html
And also the other videos on that channel, they put a lot of hard to get information and compile it incredibly well, and pretty much everything adds up in the Ultemicia is both Rinoa and Hyne theories.
The amount of intentional detail behind some of the clues is undeniable, they are not randomly there.
I was baffled by the sound effect video, amazing attention to detail that cannot be "just there" by accident.
The channel also gives a good explanation for the "death" of Squall against Edea, it's a ride I highly suggest their videos on the subject.
Kitase can't make definitive statements about what is or isn't canonical because he doesn't own the story, Square Enix does, and if SE decides to retcon the story they're within their rights to do so. But he's been quite clear that the FF8 he wrote did not include Rinoa and Ultimecia being the same person.
FF8 has fan theories because it's poorly written. It has great ideas, great cinematography, but ultimately falls flat tying everything together. It has things in it because they are cool, but they never really put it together.
You nailed right on the brother
You could say that about every facet of the game. The gameplay mechanics are in the same boat; some brilliant concepts that arent properly implemented and are able to be abused in multiple ways as a result
@@phillystevesteak6982 Yep. Totally agree. It's not bad, but it all poorly put together. Desperately in need of a second pass.
Agreed. I just played through it about a month ago and had this exact thought. The whole "Squall is dead" theory is just an attempt to explain all the poor writing.
When I finished FF8, I was so underwhelmed with the story that I was like "Damn, no wonder this game has so many theories, this story is like a plate of a fried egg, potatoes and cauliflower!"
Having many fan theories is often a sign of bad writing. The writers put in something that doesn’t make sense, and the fans fill in the gaps. Lack of agreement between fan theories is evidence that the gaps could be anything, and therefore the writers did a bad job of both covering that specific thing, and the broader themes.
That isn’t to say ambiguity is always bad. Just that massive amounts of fan speculation and arguments is a bad sign of something beneath the surface.
FF8 is one of my favourite games of all time, I spent my entire childhood playing it. I absolutely loved it, and still do today. However, I’ve come to the conclusion its fanbase absolutely sucks. The “fan theories” for this game are outstandingly egregious. Even after the team behind the game publicly shut down these theories, people still insist on using them as their weird little head canons.
Is the Rinoa/Ultimecia theory interesting? Yes. But as you’ve touched on, it’s at the expense of undermining the game’s entire central themes.
Good question
I think there's a reason Final Fantasy veterans latched onto the "Rinoa is Ultimecia" theory, and it can be summed up in one word: ZEROMUS.
The devs weren't going to get away with pulling that again. The series should have grown past it.
Simple answer: It's a beloved videogame due to its superb sense of aesthetic, magnific overall artistic design and beautifully crafted ambiance and atmosphere, whose story is so filled with plotholes, inconsistencies and deus ex machina that seems to be mysteriously incomplete, alluding to some grand design to excuse it's own blatant mediocrity, which has been further fueled by its core fanbase across decades, now.
This will ultimately work because they're engineering a plot through sheer strength of will, because they like it so much *it HAS to have a secret meaning* . It's like Flat Earthers believing in some pointless conspiracy theory for the sake of believing in it or believing in something.
I think, as someone else pointed out, the way they tried to tie everything together was getting contrived. I suppose it's a fictional story so the whole thing is bloody contrived but too many coincidences. I was okay with the Laguna/Squall and Julia/Rinoa rekindling a love that never got to be, but by the time when the orphanage linked everyone together I really was losing my belief in the writing. Yes yes everyone dumps on the orphanage plot point... It wasn't the only thing. It was the sun of it all and it just lost me as an 8 year old to give a damn anymore. Replaying it over the years I continued to feel the same.
The Squall is dead theory is unironically a more compelling narrative to me, but it was obviously never true, and if I'm not mistaken square themselves have debunked it.
They have.
Kitase posted out he got stabbed in the shoulder, so his injury was never fatal.
The Squall is dead and Ultemicia theory in very stupid to begin with as first they Squall and Rinoa love started at Disk 2 and in Disk 1 they often bicker and hate how each other act from Squall POV Rinoa is a bratty girl that always compromise the plan and for Rinoa POV Squall is a bossy and brooding guy that never like to interact with oher people (it felt that he is superior to other and just project her Father to Squall)
I disagree with the squall's dead wouldn't account for the dream sequence's.
I think a dying orphan would construct some story as to why the parents weren't around.
Its not that dad didn't love me its because he fell off a cliff and lost his memory and got sent to the moon...
Actually Squall being dead makes Rinoa being ultimecia a little more plausible due to the psychosomatic nature of it. Think Donnie Darko but what the potential future reality could look like in a fantasy setting.
if you look at Squalls affinity with goombas (baby ifrit), his first mission summon in a cave (caves represents searching inner self), Squalls necklace, the last boss theme "Maybe I'm a Lion", last weapon "Lion Heart", last name "Leonhart", changing his name to Leon in KH. theres even an image in FFX showing "Hymn of the Fayth Ifrit" the image looks like Squall turning into ifrit 😂
I think theres a core theme for ifrit (or even certain summons, Lightning bring Odin as an example) that is focused on in certain games
FF8 is my favorite.
Every "main character is dead"-theory is stupid,esp in something as well written as FF8.
Ultimecia is Rinoa. Ultimecia and Rinoa lost squall in the limbo when the time compression magic ended and time was restored which mean Squall was forever lost and can never be found again. This cause rinoa to go mad with grief and ultimecia to go into the past to redo the time compression magic to see and bring squall to her era again. Its just a pity this loss was so long that ultimecia have forgotten she used to be rinoa and what she was looking for by doing the time compression magic was to see squall again in life.
Ultimecia is Ultimecia and Rinoa is Rinoa. Two powerful sorceresses in two different times.
This game accidentally does my favorite thing, which is let my imagination fill in the gaps.
Now I just need all the developers to shut up about what theories are and are not valid and let me cook
This is all standard par for the course in serious cinema and literature. Videogame simps these days get so worked up whenever they have to use extra brain cells 😂
I'd rather have an interesting and unique story that's under-developed over a story that's bland, generic and/or plain uninteresting like most stories in games. If we didn't overall enjoy FF8's story, if we weren't so engaged by it, we wouldn't care so much about trying to fill the holes. We'd just move on and chalk it up as a bad game or story. We don't because there's something special here.
5-word explanation:
Because the story is underwhelming
Yep. This is the real reason. There are two types of fan theories: One type tries to explain what is at best hinted at but still clearly there. The other type, the more wild type, is just trying to resolve the authors own ´conflicted feelings. FF8 fan theories fall into the latter category. For a more modern example just look at Zelda timeline and lore theorists.
The reason is because noone understood the story completely. And maybe the english translation was somewhat competent but I'm certain the german translation just like FF7 was based on the english one not the japanese one and the content is completely random as far as I can tell.
First CD of the 4 was perfekt, then it went downhill story wise
Well, because it has so many plot holes of course
Possibly, but which ones are you referring to? (Not being a jerk, just curious)
@@trufreedom I don't know, I haven't played it in a long time, but with how complex the story is I figured it's gotta have a handful of them, that or unexplained gaps in the story.
Is hatred of ambiguity the real motive though? If I like steak does that mean I _hate_ cows? Ambiguity means you _get to_ fill in the blanks, then replay the game with that theory in mind and see how it fits... Ambiguity can be fun.
I hate Squall is dead theory, it just lazy, far more lazy than the official story...
_BECAUSE IT'S A HORRIBLE GAME_
Final Fantasy VIII is the game I’ve played the most in the series (not because it’s my favorite, because it’s not) and I still had no idea that Laguna was Squalls dad until I learned about it from this channel..
Seems to me, a game that hides even plot ‘crucial’ info like Squalls lineage and even Hynes’ importance is ripe for theories.. 😅🫠
Agreed 🎉
Yeah I didn't know either. It's so annoying when games are that vague and I have no idea what compels some writers to do this.
I can only guess they just didn't have the time or ability to write a satisfying explanation and decided to leave it as all setup and no payoff.
Edit: Welp I commented before watching lol. I didn't know so much of the story had to be cut... that would do it.
@@SunRiza7 idk if you’re into the souls (SoulCom) games but the developers of those games seemingly, can’t remember if it’s confirmed or not, cut out pieces of actually crucial story to allow people to kinda piece things together. As a lifelong Final Fantasy fan it took an adjustment period for me to get into that kind of story telling but now I’m hooked lol
I didn't even know Shadow was a father in ff6 had i not watched a things you didn't know video
@@zeuscliff9676 and now it turns out Kain was the father of Rydia all along!
Jk (at least I think 🤔)