la_belle_laide | FFVII HUGE essay thingie thing HOLY JESUS THIS IS LONG.

Okay, so lookit: if you're one of these "zzzOMGS MCR doing the theme song from Final Fantaseee!!111" then please don't bother. I try not to be all "I was here first" or whatever, and if you're discovering FFVII for the first time, hey, that's great! But, discover Final Fantasy VII. Not just Advent Children because some LA raaaawkstah did a song that bumped the original ending song. >_<

I realize that the original game is very hard to come by these days, and it doesn't play on PS3 (WTF?) but there has got to be a way to download it and still play it on your PC or something, right? Right? Don't be a Compilation whore. If you're going to be a fan of the story, play the damn original.

If you're a FFVII geek and you want to show Advent Children to your friends, but you have freaking no clue how to sum up the entire plot and its subplots without skipping this and going back to that and then changing so and so, then maybe something like this can help you keep track. I know this because I have attempted to show AC to friends and myself gotten completely lost trying to explain the plot. Or maybe you want to write a fic and you want a reminder or two of what happened when.

But really I just wrote it because I wanted to. :)

Believe it or not, I also made a two part, twenty-minutes-all-told video recap of the game.

PART ONE:

PART TWO:

Keep in mind always that all of this is up for interpretation, and yours might be different from mine! Or if I made a total mistake, feel free to let me know and I will correct it. ^_^ I am open to all sorts of conversations about how other people saw these events.

When Square-Soft released FFVII back in late 1997, they probably didn't have any idea exactly what they were getting into. They wanted the newest installment of Final Fantasy to be popular and successful, of course, but I doubt they set out to make a masterpiece. Which, I think, is exactly why it is a masterpiece; a spiritual cyberpunk tragedy told in the medium of an RPG.

The story takes place on a planet known as, well, "The Planet." Its themes are environmental; science vs. nature; the tenuous and mutable nature of reality and how belief affects it; deceit and self-deceit; preservation and sacrifice; and the hazy areas between "good guys" and "bad guys."

Truth is an illusion.

Battles are fought not only with weapons and skill, but with Materia, a condensed form of Mako with specific powers. Mako comes from the Lifestream: a green, glowing, physical construct which surrounds and permeates the Planet; a kind of Planetery Qi. There are hypotheses that Mako and Lifestream are made up of human consciousness that has left the Planet, or a "world soul," or things like that.

Some Materia has the ability to summon creatures of great destruction in order to fight enemies.

The Planet is in jeopardy. The people are ruled by the greedy ShinRa corporation. ShinRa uses Mako reactors to suck up the Mako from the Planet to fuel the world; and the Planet is beginning to run dry. President ShinRa is at the head of the mega-corporation, and seems to be the the de facto president of the entire world.

The first graphics you see in the game--stars and space, some space, a lot of stars, and some space, and then some stars in space--really don't say much (on the surface) other than, "Hey, lookit! We can do 3D these days!"

Then the "camera" pans down and we see a girl with a pink bow in her hair, surrounded by a green aura. There are white-green sparks flying around her face. It all looks kinds of peaceful and mystical. There's a graceful bit of music: three sweet notes to begin the scene as the girl looks into the camera. Then the camera pans out, and as the character stands up, we see that she's standing in an alley, looking at a malfunctioning circuit box that is throwing off green sparks. With a basket of flowers in her hand, she walks out of the alley and onto the street, where she's cut off by a speeding car. Above the street, a sign advertises a play called "Loveless." The camera pans back further. Finally we see that the flower girl is in a kind of enclosed, covered city, surrounded around the top by seven buildings spewing green smoke. It looks polluted and claustrophobic.

Welcome to Midgar, the city of seven sectors, where rich people live above the enclosed space, on the "plates," and the poor people live below them, literally where the sun don't shine.

Pan back into a different section of the city now, flashing every few seconds to the wheels of a speeding train. When we get into the innards of this part of the city, the train pulls into the station and stops. A spikey-headed, badly rendered blond guy with big blocks for arms leaps off of the top of the train towards his first mission. Then you spend a good few minutes figuring out how to make him run.

So forget the flower girl for right now. Start with the crazy, spikey-headed, badly rendered blonde.

Cloud Strife, 21 year old ex SOLDIER, mercenary for hire. SOLDIER is ShinRa's elite army: men and women exposed to large amounts of Mako in order to enhance their abilities. Some are showered with it until their eyes glow, giving rise to the phrase, "Mako eyes." The highest rank in SOLDIER is "First Class." They are the elite of the elite; the unbeatable ones. In ShinRa's heyday, they were heroes.

But why would a 21 year old be an ex SOLDIER?

Cloud has joined a rebel group known as Avalanche, who are fighting against ShinRa, and his first mission with Avalanche is to blow up a Mako reactor. Avalanche's leader, Barret Wallace, is a 35 year old man with a gun grafted onto his missing arm. He lost his arm in a firefight with ShinRa years ago. He has an adopted daughter, Marlene, whose father was Barret's best friend, a man named Dyne who was in the same firefight.

During the bombing mission, Cloud mentions that he knows his way around a Mako reactor. After all, he was a SOLDIER. Although during the mission, he acts distracted and strange.

After the mission we go to a bar called Tifa's Seventh Heaven in Sector Seven of Midgar: Avalanche's headquarters. There we meet Marlene, a girl of around 3 or 4. And running the bar--an active member of Avalanche--is Tifa Lockhart, 20. (Corrected. ^_^ ) She is Cloud's childhood friend. They grew up together in Nibelheim.

Cloud's and Tifa's hometown of Nibelheim was torched by the legendary SOLDIER First Class Sephiroth, after he went on a mission to check out a malfunctioning Mako reactor, learned something about his past there, and went insane. Sephiroth disappeared after that and is presumed dead.

Cloud seems to have amnesia of sorts, and so far all we know of him is that he grew up with Tifa, he joined SOLDIER at a young age, and he is distant and cold to everyone.

And also, he has "episodes" - seizures, hears voices, and has flashes of abstract memories. Of what, we don't yet know.

During the second mission, blowing up another Mako reactor, Avalanche are trapped by president ShinRa himself, who sends in a machine to kill Avalanche off. Avalanche destroy the machine, but the bridge they are all on breaks, and Cloud is left dangling from the Mako reactor, way above Sector Five. Finally the Mako reactor explodes, and Cloud falls through the metal plate into the darkness.

He wakes up on the floor of a church, and there he meets Aeris Gainsborough, 22, who is tending her flowers. Aha: The Flower Girl from the opening sequence! Hers are the only flowers that grow under the metal plate, and she sells them. Quickly enough, we find out that Aeris is being chased by ShinRa's black ops specialty group: the Turks. Reno of the Turks comes in with his henchmen to kidnap her, but Cloud helps Aeris escape. She asks him to be her bodyguard. It's clear right away that Aeris is interested in Cloud as more than just a bodyguard. We suspect her interest in him is romantic. Is it?

On his way out, Reno notes that he recognizes Cloud's eyes as Mako eyes.

We later find out that ShinRa is interested in Aeris because she is what's known as an Ancient, or "Cetra," which means that she's descended from a line of people who were the first to inhabit the Planet. They also had the power to converse with the Planet. ShinRa wants her because they think she can lead them to the Promised Land, to which supposedly only Ancients could lead the way. ShinRa's main interest in the mythical Promised Land, however, is the fact that it's bubbling over with Mako that they can use for fuel.

However, the head of ShinRa's Science Department, professor Hojo, has another interest in Aeris. He's been studying Ancients for years, and also kidnapped Aeris' mother Ifalna many years before. Aeris' father and Ifalna's husband, we later find out, was Professor Gast, who had been working on the studies with Hojo, unaware that Hojo would turn against him and try to kidnap his wife and daughter. Hojo killed Gast, but not before Gast hid Aeris. After Ifalna died, leaving Aeris at the train station, Aeris was found by Elmyra Gainsborough, who then raised her.

There have been attempts to kidnap Aeris since she was little. She has been under ShinRa's almost constant surveillance, mostly by the man who would later become the field commander of the Turks: Tseng. Tseng, we find out, was actually friendly with Aeris, and seems to never have had the heart to go through with actually kidnapping her. As Aeris grew up, Tseng seems to have fallen in love, or at least in fascination with her. (We only know this because Reno and Rude--another Turk and Reno's beffie-- discuss their crushes at one point, and Reno tells Rude that Tseng has a thing for Aeris. Rude admits that he has a crush on Tifa. O_O )

Cloud and Aeris talk about Materia, and she mentions that she keeps White Materia with her. It was given to her by her mother. She says that the White Materia is useless. She insists that it does nothing.

Meanwhile, as Cloud and Aeris are getting to know each other, they see Tifa go by on a cart heading towards Wall Market. Tifa is trying to infiltrate the home of ShinRa informant Don Corneo. Don Corneo is also a pimp and he runs a whorehouse. Only pretty women can get to him, and while Aeris can get into his home, Cloud can't. And they have to help Tifa, so clearly there is only one thing to do.

In this section, you must trade and barter your way to getting all of the right items for Cloud's full-drag escapade: blond wig, shiny dress, sexy underwear, sexy cologne and a tiara. Infiltrate the Honey Bee Inn, where burlesque girls dressed as bees will put makeup on Cloud's face. While there, you can look into different rooms and spy on President ShinRa playing some kind of perverted role-play with some of his underlings (a game which seems to foreshadow future events.) You can also spy on (what could only be) another noteworthy ShinRa employee's parents trying to do their thing in a fancy room that their son rented for them. This character, Reeve, ShinRa's Head of Urban Development, is the guy who designed Midgar. He will have a much bigger role down the road so keep your eyes peeled for him.

During this section--although before he is in drag--Cloud gets picked up by a group of men who want him to bathe with them (you can,) and join their "young bubby's group." Unfortunately, Cloud chooses this moment to have another seizure, leading to much physical weirdness involving him and this group of spandex-clad muscle-men.

No one said this game was anything other than "not right."

Anyway, play your cards right and Don Corneo will pick Cloud as his "bride" for the evening, leading to an insane bedroom romp sequence, and Cloud's best line of dialog: "Whatever YOU want, Daddy!"

They find out their information from the Don: ShinRa plans to blow up the support pillar over Sector Seven, and blame Avalanche for the destruction! They race back to Midgar to find that the mission is already almost complete. On top of the pillar they find Reno of the Turks. Reno carries out President ShinRa's order and Sector Seven is destroyed. (Why did Midgar get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.)

Also, Tseng has finally captured Aeris. He is bitchslapping her in his helicopter before fleeing with her to ShinRa's headquarters. She manages to inform Barret that Marlene is safe from the destruction.

Avalanche goes to ShinRa headquarters to rescue Aeris. While they're there, they find Hojo preparing to do an experiment on her. Also captured with her is a lionesque (or perhaps canid?) sentient, intelligent animal labeled Red XIII. (His age is given as 50 something.) His real name is Nanaki. What is very disturbing, yet bears mentioning, is that Hojo is trying to create a long-lived "breed" of Ancient, and that Red XIII's rare species is extremely long-lived, upwards of a few hundred years, and he has put Aeris and Red XIII in a tank together.

Hojo is about as depraved a character as you will find in this series.

In the lab, we get our first look at Jenova: a headless, humanoid specimen in a tank. The sight of her triggers a pretty decent seizure in our hero Cloud.

Avalanche succeed in releasing both Aeris and Red XIII from their tank, but are all captured and put into cells. The next night, their cell doors are mysteriously unlocked. (Red XIII / Nanaki decides to join with Avalanche, but only until they reach his hometown of Cosmo Canyon,) and together they all begin their escape. On their way out, they find the hallways awash with fresh blood. They follow the trail, and eventually find President Shinra dead behind his desk, and the murder weapon sticking out of him is one that is familiar to Cloud.

It is Sephiroth's legendary katana, the Masamune. A ShinRa employee insists that he saw Sephiroth with his own eyes. But, isn't Sephiroth dead? How could this be? More on that later.

Old Man ShinRa's son Rufus takes over the corporation. Unfortunately, he seems even more ruthless than his father.

Avalanche goes to a town called Kalm, chasing after Sephiroth. While there, Cloud tells Sephiroth's story to the others:

Five years ago, Cloud, Sephiroth, and two other infantrymen (all SOLDIERs under First Class wore helmets that concealed their faces, so we don't see who the two infantrymen were,) went on the mission to Nibelheim, to inspect a malfunctioning Mako reactor. Their tour guide up the mountain to the reactor is a young girl who is familiar with the path: Tifa Lockhart. (In re-telling the story, Cloud remembers visiting Tifa's house, but we never see him interact with her there, and Tifa seems very uncomfortable with his recollection of events.) When they got to the Mako reactor, they discovered a bunch of mutants and monsters in Mako pods, all labeled "The Jenova Project." Sephiroth, who has always been told that his mother's name was Jenova, puts this all together and realizes that he has probably come from these experiments, and it begins to explain why he's so different. He goes crazy seeing all of these mutants, realizing he is one, and runs out of the reactor. He runs to ShinRa's Nibelheim mansion, where Hojo and Gast used to work together and run a lab, and finds the files on himself. The files tell him that Jenova was an Ancient, and that he was more or less created like Frankenstein's monster, than he was actually born to her. The files also tell about how the Ancients are the rightful owners of the Planet and how all of mankind is destroying the Planet, just as surely as they wiped out the Ancients. He stays up all night and reads his own classified files.

(However, Cloud has since found out that Hojo’s and Gast’s studies were wrong: Jenova was not truly an Ancient. Jenova was actually a mutation virus from outer space, what the Ancients called the "Crisis From The Sky." In fact, Jenova destroyed most of the Ancients.)

The next day Cloud finds Sephiroth completely insane in the basement of ShinRa mansion. Sephiroth goes running out of the mansion saying "I'm going to see my mother." Cloud follows him back to the reactor, where Sephiroth finally goes past the pods of mutants (really just pre-Sephiroth experiments gone wrong,) and finally finds Jenova: the body of what is obviously a female kind of thing, hidden behind a big metal-plated facade. Sephiroth rips the facade away, finds the body of Jenova, takes her damn HEAD, and runs out of the reactor, cutting down everything that's in his way. This includes Tifa Lockhart, her father, and another SOLDIER who challenges and injures Sephiroth. He torches the entire town, killing Cloud's mother as well. Tifa and Cloud are apparently the only survivors. (Although we do later find out that Tifa's martial arts teacher Zangan survived as well.)

Sephiroth disappeared, was presumed dead, and never came back. (<---noteworthy)

Now, five years later, Sephiroth has come back. (huh?) No one knows how. There are a bunch of black cloaked Sephiroth CLONES running around Nibelheim, half sentient, raving about a "reunion" and "becoming one with Sephiroth." (For the purposes of this summary, until Sephiroth does come back into the story, just assume that when I say "Sephiroth" I mean one of his clones.)

The group, following rumors of a man in a long black coat with a tremendous sword, go after him. (And, WTF? Did they clone Masamune, too? Anyway.) They cross the Mythril Mines, and find that the Turks are one step ahead of them. Tseng is there, and Reno is gone (injured by Cloud in their fight atop the Sector Seven pillar is the official story.) Taking his place is rookie Elena, who slips up in front of Avalanche as to where they are chasing Sephiroth. Tseng sees Aeris there, and lets her walk. In this scene we find out that Elena has an obvious crush on Tseng.

They chase Sephiroth and eventually find him on a ShinRa boat out of Junon Harbor to Costa Del Sol. Sephiroth babbles about taking over the Planet, and the team fights with a form of Jenova and defeats her (it?) and Sephiroth escapes once again.

Chasing the rumors, Avalanche goes through North Corel, Barret's home town. In this sub-plot, we learn the story of how Barret came to adopt Marlene, and how he and his best friend Dyne (Marlene's father,) lost their arms. As it happens, in the beginning Barret supported ShinRa, against the wishes of the rest of Corel, which was a mining town. Until the vampy Scarlet (Head of ShinRa's Weapons Development) razes the town, which costs Barret and Dyne their wives, and starts the firefight that will cost them their arms. This is part of why Barret is so passionate about fighting ShinRa.

Close to North Corel is a Disneyworld-like place called the Gold Saucer. Cloud and company stop there, and there they meet a robotic cat who rides on a stuffed Mog. The cat is called Cait Sith. Cait Sith is a fortune telling machine as well, and he immediately joins Avalanche for reasons we can't even fathom. BUT! If we looked veeeeerry carefully, we saw this Mog-perched robot cat somewhere else. It was at the Honeybee in, in a room with that ShinRa employee's parents. Hmm.

From there they head to Gongaga Village, and there find out that Aeris's first boyfriend was from there. His name was Zack, and he was also SOLDIER, first class. He had spikey black hair and carried a Buster Sword just like Cloud's. Zack disappeared five years ago and no one has heard from him since. Anytime anyone mentions the words "SOLDIER FIRST CLASS," and often when Zack is mentioned, Cloud has one of his little mini-seizures. Which is odd, considering he tells Aeris that he didn't know Zack.

Reno and Rude are there as well, also chasing Sephiroth. Avalanche once again fight the Turks, and everyone lives to tell about it.

From there they go to Cosmo canyon, Nanaki's hometown. They meet his grandfather Bugenhagen, who has an observatory and an elaborate planetarium sort of thing where you can learn about Materia.

Nanaki also has his own backstory. Years ago (and remember: Nanaki is a teenager for his lifespan but is actually in his forties or perhaps fifties,) Cosmo Canyon was invaded. Nanaki's father Seto disappeared from the battle and his mother was killed. Nanaki always assumed that his father was a coward who had run away. After many trials, he learns the truth: that his father Seto ran to the mountaintop to defend Cosmo Canyon, where he was shot with arrows that turned him to stone. Learning of his father's fate, Nanaki decides to continue traveling with Avalanche, so that he can do his share of protecting others as well.

After learning about the fate of Seto, as well as some lessons on the Planet and Materia, Avalanche finally head back to Nibelheim. Cloud and Tifa expect to find it in ruins, as it was after Sephiroth torched it. But to their surprise everything is as it was before the fire five years earlier. (Minus a few key townspeople, most importantly Tifa's father and Cloud's mother.) Even more disturbing is the fact that no one in town seems to remember anything about any fire. There are more Sephiroth clones walking around babbling about this "reunion."

In Nibelheim, they visit the ShinRa mansion. Locked in the basement in a coffin since around the time of the birth of Sephiroth, (which would be around thirty years ago,) is Vincent Valentine. (Officially his age is listed as 27, though one has to assume that 27 is just when he stopped aging. He is probably actually 57.) He used to be a Turk, but he fell in love with the woman he was assigned to protect. Her name was Lucrezia, and she was a scientist working with Hojo. Hojo was also "in love" with Lucrezia and she was (strangely) torn between him and Vincent. Hojo was jealous, and he shot Vincent, then kept him alive for his experiments. Among his many other guessed-at cruelties, he injected Vincent with Jenova cells. As a result of Hojo's tampering, Vincent can change into all sorts of monsters. He has been sleeping in the coffin, enduring nightmares as "punishment for his sin."

Later on we will find out that Hojo and Lucrezia had a son. While she was pregnant, Lucrezia offered herself and her unborn son to Hojo for experiments. Hojo began "creating" this life-form in Lucrezia, injecting the unborn child with Mako and Jenova cells. Before she gave birth, Lucrezia became ill, and after she gave birth, Hojo took the boy and used him in more Jenova experiments. He was trying to create the perfect SOLDIER, more god than man, created to be the most powerful person on the Planet. Who could that son have been? That's an easy one. ^_^

Vincent's punishment is self-imposed. His sin, in his mind, was not being able to stop Lucrezia from deciding to go through with the experiment. Cloud tells him that they are chasing Sephiroth, and when he mentions Hojo's name, Vincent is interested. He leaves his coffin and joins Avalanche.

Together they all head to Rocket Town, a town that was supposed to be the site of ShinRa's first rocket launch into space. There they meet a man who's now a pilot, but who was supposed to be the first man in space: Cid Highwind, 32. He was ShinRa's astronaut, but because of one of Cid's assistants (Shera, the woman he now lives with and treats really badly!) taking too long to thoroughly check the rocket, he had to cancel the launch. In the time between the failed launch and what was supposed to be the next launch, the ShinRa corporation pulled the funding for the space program. The rocket is still there, hence the name Rocket Town. Now Rufus ShinRa is back in town, thinking about re-investing in his father's aborted plan. Cid Highwind wants that more than anything.

However, Palmer from ShinRa finds out that Avalanche is in town, and ends up fighing with them. To escape ShinRa, Avalanche needs Cid's plane, the Tiny Bronco. Cid Highwind joins with them and they all leave Rocket Town together.

Traveling through the fields outside of a place called Wutai, Cloud and company meet a 16 year old ninja named Yuffie Kisaragi. She's also a Materia thief. She also joins Avalanche, but once they all get to her hometown of Wutai, she ends up stealing their Materia. While chasing Yuffie through Wutai, Avalanche meet up with the Turks again, who are on vacation there. Yuffie and Elena are both kidnapped by Don Corneo, the owner of the brothel from earlier in the game. Avalanche and the Turks team up to rescue them, vow to work together and trust each other for this one mission, rescue their party members, then go their separate ways again. Reno lets Corneo fall of a cliff, and Yuffie and Elena are rescued. Yuffie gives back the Materia, and stays with Avalanche. (The reason she stole it is because Wutai has no Materia. Years ago ShinRa waged war on Wutai, leaving them with nothing but tourist attractions as their source of income and national pride. This was the war in which Sephiroth became a hero, for resolving conflicts with as few casualties as possible.)

Cloud has heard of a special Materia called the Black Materia, which has regenerative / restorative (and destructive) powers beyond imagination. This must be what Sephiroth is after. In order to get it, they need something called a Keystone, which is on display at the Gold Saucer, so they head back there.

At the Gold Saucer, they get the keystone, only to be betrayed by Cait Sith. It ends up that Cait Sith has been working for ShinRa all the while. Tseng of the Turks sends a message to Avalanche telling them that he's taken Marlene, and Elmyra, (Aeris' foster mother,) and they won't be hurt as long as they keep Cait Sith with them. We now find out that the ShinRa employee speaking through the robotic cat is having a change of heart. He wants to be one of the good guys. Everyone in Avalanche knows he's the one who's been leaking secrets to Tseng, and they have no choice but to take him along with them. He asks them to trust him anyway. Like morons, they do.

With Cait Sith tagging along, Avalanche chases the Turks to the Temple of the Ancients, where the Black Materia is supposed to be.

Once there, they find that Tseng is already in the Temple. Tseng is nearly dead, having been butchered by a Sephiroth clone. He hands the Keystone to Avalanche, tells them how to use it to get into the Temple, and tells them to keep the Black Materia from Sephiroth. Aeris is only vaguely emotional about Tseng's death, (OR IS HE etc...) even though they've known each other for a long time. She could help him, but she chooses not to.

Inside, they find out what Jenova already knows: that there is a way to summon a giant meteor to all but obliterate the Planet. This is what Sephiroth apparently wants, and also why he wants the Black Materia. Then, they find out that the Temple itself IS the Black Materia. The only way to actually win the Black Materia is to shrink the Temple down by solving a puzzle from the inside.

Cait Sith, being a robot, offers to stay behind and do it. He apologizes for his duplicity, and Avalanche leave the Temple, leaving Cait Sith to solve the puzzle. The Temple then shrinks and becomes the Black Materia, and it is in Cloud's possession.

Cloud begins to freak out. Once he has the Black Materia, Sephiroth appears and begins to control him like a puppet. And then, in what is maybe the most disturbing turn of events in the game, Cloud throws Aeris to the ground, jumps on her, and beats the crap out of her. Then he falls into a hallucination, with no idea about why he’s just done what he’s done.

Cloud has a dream that Aeris tells him that it's all right, she forgives him, and she's on her way to the City of the Ancients. She tells him, "Then, I'll be going now. I'll come back when it's all over." He wakes up to find that Aeris is gone.

Now Avalanche, with Cait Sith II, is on the trail of Aeris. Aeris understands that as a true Ancient, she can pray for Holy, which is the only thing that can stop Sephiroth's Meteor. This is the use of the White Materia!

Cloud and the others find Aeris praying at the altar, in a trance. Cloud freaks out again and raises his sword to kill her. Why would Cloud try to kill Aeris? We know that he is troubled, that he is unable to control himself, that he is often unaware of his surroundings or even of who he is. But to kill Aeris? The only thing that stops him from going through with it is the fact that the members of his party call out to him and stop him. Otherwise, he would have cut her in half.

Cloud seems unaware of what he was about to do. Aeris comes out of her trance and smiles at Cloud.

In what was maybe the most shocking video game moment--at least at its time--Sephiroth flies down from the rafters and skewers her. Every gamer in the world cries when the White Materia falls from her hair clangs on the steps and the music plays. (To reiterate: The real Sephiroth is still dead, as we will later find out. A clone actually killed Aeris. Cloud very nearly killed her himself. Who is in control here? Who is in control of Cloud? Is it Sephiroth? Or is Sephiroth being controlled as well? What do Sephiroth and Cloud have in common?)

Sephiroth tells Cloud that he can't be sad, because he doesn't have any emotions. He begins the sentence, "Because, Cloud, you are...."

And as often is the case in these battles, Jenova shows up and finishes the sentence for him:

"Because you are a puppet." (It is worth mentioning at this point that Sephiroth and Jenova together are telling him he is a puppet. But what might be more noteworthy is how Jenova always follows Sephiroth, always finishing his thoughts for him. Or is she beginning them?)

Avalanche fight her together, except for Aeris--clearly--who is dead. They give her a funeral, (well, Cloud lets her sink into the water,) and hope that she has prayed enough to summon Holy to counter Meteor.

Cloud is more confused than ever. He is afraid of who he is, afraid of his actions, afraid to go on. But now he wants revenge. And so together, they all continue chasing Sephiroth.

They head north past the Icicle area, trying to get Sephiroth before Meteor comes. Sephiroth's plan is that Meteor will make such a big hole in the Planet that he'll be able to take all of the Mako for himself and become a god.

In the mountains, ShinRa is once again one step ahead of Avalanche. Rufus, Hojo, and Scarlet are there. ShinRa are also still looking for the Promised Land. However, instead of Sephiroth or the Promised Land, they find the first WEAPON. WEAPON is something that the Planet creates by itself, to defend itself, mostly from Jenova. Sensing Jenova's revived will, WEAPON begins to awaken, and will destroy everything, people included, if it's not stopped.

Hojo sees Cloud there and tells him that he is nothing more than a failed Sephiroth clone, and that's why Sephiroth can control him so easily. Sephiroth (or his clone) has also taunted Cloud with this information, saying that he is nothing but a conglomerate of Mako, Jenova's will, and Tifa's memories. Hojo asks to see Cloud's number tattoo, and Cloud says he doesn't have one. Hojo tells him that's because he is a failed experiment, and too weak to merit a number. Tifa falls to her knees; she seems repentant and desperate. Why? We're not yet sure. Cloud apologizes profusely to everyone, and then he turns his back on his friends and begs Hojo to give him a number.

Cloud then gets sucked into a huge tree in the mountains, once again carrying the Black Materia. Voices begin to call him again, and he is doing all sorts of weird upside down walking things, ignoring gravity, and generally going crazy. In the tree, inside a Mako / Materia crystal, is the real body of Sephiroth. This is where the real Sephiroth enters the story. Everything they saw before that was nothing but clones.

Unable to control himself, Cloud slips the Black Materia into the Mako crystal where Sephiroth's body is. The materia brings the body back to life.

With Sephiroth awake (and the Jenova cells inside him awake,) WEAPON also awakens and begins to rampage. Everyone escapes the first WEAPON, but Tifa is injured as they all fly away in Cid's airship, the Highwind. She wakes up seven days later to find that she and Barret are ShinRa's prisoners. ShinRa plans to execute them live on television, in the gas chamber.

And in the meantime, Sephiroth has summoned Meteor.

Tifa and Scarlet--who seems to have a soft spot for Rufus ShinRa--have a fight outside of the gas chamber as Tifa escapes. Tifa has escaped the gas chamber with the help of Cait Sith, who attacks Scarlet with sleeping gas, saying "I really hate that broad."

After Tifa escapes, WEAPON catches up with them. ShinRa fights WEAPON this time, using Scarlet's creation, a weapon called the Sister Ray. However, during this battle, the ground is blown open and Cloud falls into the Lifestream. He really can't catch a break, can he?

Avalanche searches for Cloud, and they finally find him in a hospital in Mideel. Cloud is wheelchair-bound and incoherent. Being in the Lifestream has given him severe Mako poisoning and he can't remember anything and he can't walk or speak. Tifa decides to stay with him.

Another WEAPON attacks, and the remaining members of Avalanche fight it, but Mideel is destroyed and the ground is blown open yet again, revealing the Lifestream underneath. Cloud and Tifa both fall into the Lifestream together this time.

In it, they find each other. Cloud is split up into three different personalities, with his consciousness visually writhing above all of them. Tifa realizes that he is searching for his true self, his past. She must help Cloud find out who he really is. It's time for the truth.

They begin by going over their childhood memories. Cloud was fond of Tifa, but she had her own group of friends. When her mother died, Tifa, in her grief, went over the mountains to search for her. Cloud followed her. She fell from a bridge and went into a coma. The adults blamed Cloud, and Cloud blamed himself as well. After Tifa recovered, Cloud called Tifa out to the wishing well one night. They were both still children; around 14 and 15 years old. Cloud told Tifa that he was going to join SOLDIER and become a hero like Sephiroth. (He didn't admit to her back then that he was doing it for her, to be famous in order to gain her attention. "A sealed up secret wish.") Tifa asked Cloud to promise that if she is ever in trouble, he will come to her aid.

This is a memory that they share, so how can Cloud's memories be made up? How can their entire reality be someone else's construct?

Yet, why is Tifa so afraid to talk about what happened at Nibelheim five years ago?

Tifa finally tells Cloud the truth: that she never actually saw him return to Nibelheim on the ill-fated trip with Sephiroth. All the while, Cloud has believed that he was there with Sephiroth, as his second in command, as SOLDIER First Class. Tifa had been too afraid and confused to tell him that she never even saw him there.

Tifa wonders, though: if Cloud wasn't really there, then how does he know everything that happened? How does he know every last detail?

The answer is simple: he was actually one of the infantrymen, and he was wearing the face-concealing helmet. He was on the mission, he did see Tifa, he did go to the reactor. But had been ashamed to tell Tifa that he never made First Class, so he never showed his face.

The story that Cloud told everyone was actually Zack's story. ZACK was SOLDIER, First Class. ZACK was Sephiroth's friend. ZACK carried the Buster Sword.

What really happened at the reactor that day five years ago was this: After Sephiroth torched Nibelheim and ran up to meet his mother, slicing and dicing Tifa on his way, Cloud found Tifa injured and helped her, (fulfilling his promise to come to her aid,) although she doesn't remember it. Then he ran after Sephiroth. Cloud was 16 at this time, untrained and weak, but he was pissed off, and he challenged Sephiroth anyway. Cloud managed to stab Sephiroth, who turned around and stabbed Cloud right back, impaling him on the Masamune. Sephiroth then lifted him up in the air with the sword and told him, "Don't push your luck." Somehow, Cloud was able to will himself back down, pull himself further along the blade of the katana, and throw Sephiroth off a bridge and into a river of Lifestream below.

Cloud killed Sephiroth five years ago.

After battling Sephiroth, Cloud and Zack were both badly wounded. They were captured by Hojo, and used for his experiments for the entire five years between the razing of Nibelheim and the beginning of the story. Cloud spent his formative years in a tank of Mako, subject to Hojo's experiments. After five years, it was Zack who initiated their escape. He had to drag Cloud out of the building, fighting ShinRa soldiers all the way. He finally got them a ride in the back of a pickup truck, going to Midgar. During the ride, Zack kept trying to talk to Cloud about what they were going to do when they got to Midgar. He didn't seem to realize that Cloud was dying--or maybe he did, and was trying to will him to live. Before they got to Midgar, they were caught by ShinRa again.

A cadre of ShinRa soldiers shot bejeezus out of Zack, then they shot him some more. And then, for good measure, they shot him some more, still. Then after a bit more shooting, they shot him a bit and then pretty much figured he was dead. They also figured that Cloud was close enough to death that he didn't matter, and they left him on the side of the road next to Zack.

Zack still had some dying to do. Before he did so, he gave Cloud the Buster Sword and told him to live for both of them. He told him to take his dreams and his hopes of being a hero; to be his legacy

Cloud took the Buster Sword. And, apparently he also took his bullet-hole-ridden, bloody clothes, which he then put on himself. He took Zack's dreams and hopes. He also took his identity.

Having convinced himself that he was SOLDIER, First Class, he made his way into Midgar on the top of a train. He ended up at the train station, hours or perhaps days after Zack's death, where Tifa found him on accident. One can only imagine what he looked like in Zack's bloody clothes, but the game shows him constantly buzzing in and out of reality as he talks to her. Cloud didn't remember his name, but by listening to Tifa talk to him, he more or less figured it out.

In the Lifestream with Tifa, he finally remembers all of this. Cloud and Tifa both come out of the Lifestream with their memories returned.

The rest of the party catches up with Cloud and Tifa. Avalanche is reunited (minus Aeris--dead,) and they go on after Sephiroth again.

Meanwhile, ShinRa has its own plan (really Scarlet's plan,) to counter Meteor. They have found something called Huge Materia, and plan to shoot Meteor down with it. They're using the old ShinRa 27--Cid's rocket--to do so.

Avalanche knows this won't work, and they get on board the rocket to try and stop the launch. However, the rocket launches with them onboard, and Cid, Cloud, and another Avalanche member (depending on who you put in the party,) end up being the first people in space after all. Cid also finds out that Shera, the woman who stopped the original launch, was actually correct in her assumptions about the poor safety of the rocket, and actually saved Cid's life.

Cid is able to re-route the rocket and get them back down to the Planet. Avalanche take the Huge materia away from ShinRa.

After that, another WEAPON arises, and is going to destroy the rest of Midgar. Avalanche heads back to stop it. They also learn that ShinRa is going to use the Junon Cannon, another or Scarlet's weapons, to destroy it. This will also destroy the entire city. Reeve tries to stop them.

Avalanche goes to fight WEAPON, ShinRa decides to use the canon anyway, and in the fray, amid the destruction in Midgar, Rufus is killed. (OR IS HE?!!1111)

Now it comes down to Avalanche and what's left of the ShinRa corporation each trying to stop Sephiroth, and also trying to stop each other from trying to stop Sephiroth. ShinRa's methods are almost as destructive as Sephiroth's plan. Also, Hojo is still afoot and he WANTS Sephiroth to succeed. This is where he admits that he is Sephiroth's father, but that Sephiroth doesn't know this. Sephiroth never finds out that he's human.

It is very much worth noting another of my favorite lines: Cloud telling Hojo, "I can't believe you're the one responsible for this. This illusionary crime against Sephiroth." Cloud is the only character in the game who has the grasp of the situation, as well as the compassion, to acknowledge that Sephiroth is the victim as much as he is the villain.

What is Cloud but someone so very much like Sephiroth, only with a group of friends to stop him from constantly succumbing to Jenova's will?

(Later, Vincent will express his hesitation about killing Sephiroth too, but not out of mercy or compassion for him. Rather because he would be killing "the son of that beloved woman." I should also add that Cloud is only tempered by mercy; he is not driven by it. He wants his revenge on Sephiroth for killing Aeris.)

Reeve, from the ShinRa building, tries to stop Hojo from helping Sephiroth. As Reeve is doing this, Cait Sith begins to act strangely. The execs at ShinRa also notice Reeve beginning to act strangely. In this scene that was butchered by the translators, we find out that Reeve has been controlling Cait Sith all the while. However, it seems that most of ShinRa was in the dark about this. (Yet Tseng knew.) When ShinRa finds that Reeve's been using Cait Sith to actually help Avalanche, Reeve is captured. However, for some reason, Cait Sith is still working with Avalanche and still helping them, and there's nothing that ShinRa can do about that. (One can assume from this that Cait Sith can also act independently of Reeve.)

Avalanche defeats Hojo. (It is satisfying, for the sake of retribution, to have Vincent in your party for this battle.)

As they chase Sephiroth, Avalanche meet up with the Turks one more time. In the game, you have the option of either fighting them or calling a truce with them.

No matter which one you choose, Scarlet and Heidegger, (Heidegger is the guy who hires out the Turks,) are still after Avalanche. Scarlet's new weapon is the Proud Clod, and Avalanche defeats it before moving on.

Sephiroth has gone to the Northern Crater to await Meteor, which no one's been able to stop yet. It ends up that Sephiroth's presence is countering Holy--remember Holy, what Aeris was praying for? As long as Sephiroth lives, Holy won't be able to do its work, and Meteor will still fall and destroy the Planet.

Avalanche finds Sephiroth waiting in the Northern Crater and they fight him there. Sephiroth transforms into a bunch of different forms: Bizarro-Sephiroth, Savior Sephiroth (or "Safer-Sephiroth" depending on your translation,) etc. This is not the power of Mako, so he must be something completely other than human by now. Since the dialog does point out that Jenova has the power to change one's physical form (hence Vincent's transformations,) we can pretty much only assume that Jenova is in control of Sephiroth.

(Has she always been? Has Sephiroth ever been in control of himself? Of his actions, or of anything? Or has Jenova been at the helm the entire time? The thing that Sephiroth and Cloud have in common is this: they are loaded with Jenova cells. Cloud has done everything that Jenova has wanted him to do when she was around, from handing the Black Materia to Sephiroth, to putting the smack down on Aeris. He very nearly wasn't able to stop himself from killing Aeris. Why would Sephiroth be any different?)

Avalanche defeats Sephiroth, and waits for Holy to come. But Meteor is already falling, so they might be too late. In the meantime, Cloud collapses again and falls into a weird limbo sort of thing. It ends up that Sephiroth, or whatever he was, has pulled Cloud into his consciousness for one last battle. This is Sephiroth in his human form. Cloud opens up a can of Omnislash and wipes out whatever of Sephiroth's consciousness was left.

Cloud awakens to find that the Northern Crater is collapsing around them. He thinks he's reaching out for Aeris, but he wakes up to find that he's reaching for Tifa, who's about to fall off the cliff. The ground gives out below Cloud just as Tifa falls, and he runs to catch her. As they both hang from the cliff, Cloud babbles something about an answer from the Planet, and says, "I think I can meet her there," meaning Aeris. It's hard to tell what's really going on here, because this scene was also botched by the translators. Tifa agrees with Cloud that they should "go meet her," but she looks heartbroken. Cloud pulls them both back up, and they see that the rest of Avalanche has also survived. Cid wishes for "Lady Luck" to be on his side, and surely enough, the Highwind comes falling into the crater, stopping just before killing them. They get into the Highwind and fly to safety.

Meanwhile, Meteor is still falling. It ends up hovering right over Midgar, destroying whatever was left of it. However, before Meteor can make its true impact, the Lifestream itself comes flying out from all over the Planet and obliterates it.

The Lifestream? But how? Who is controlling it?

The screen goes dark and then we see that aura of green-white sparks that we saw in the beginning. Aeris, surrounded by this aura, looks up and smiles; the exact same scene from the very beginning, only now we know that the green aura is the Lifestream. We hear the same three notes of music we heard the first time we saw this scene when we first put Disk 1 into Playstation and fired it up, hours, days, weeks or months ago.

And that's the end.

...Until after the credits, when we shoot to 500 years later, and we see Nanaki running through the fields with his offspring. They crest a rocky cliff and look down from it. In the distance below, we see the grass and moss covered remains of civilization, the ShinRa logo visible through the green: what used to be Midgar. After the logo and the city fade to black, we can hear the sounds of children laughing in the distance. Whether they symbolize a new civilization, or voices from the Lifestream, is left up to our interpretation.

Keep in mind, always, that most of FFVII was left up to the player's interpretation. There was a lot of freedom to make minor story-altering choices in this game, so it's likely that other people didn't get the same exact story. Also, much of the plot is left to personal interpretation, too; most of all the question of, who was the real villain? Sephiroth, Jenova, Hojo? Some combination of all of them? It's up to you to figure that out. This is just the way I saw it all when I played it. And I may or may not see it that way again the next time I play it.

The game is left open in many other ways, too. The Planet has been saved (at what cost?) and Jenova and Sephiroth have been vanquished... except for the fact that some people--most notably the hero, as well as Vincent and probably many leftover SOLDIERS--still carry her cells in their bodies. There are still Sephiroth clones. Midgar is still in ruins. The circle is not closed.

While watching Advent Children, it's interesting to note the differences between the original game and the new, stylized version of the characters and stories.

In the game, the Turks--particularly Reno--had teeth and were not afraid to show them. Reno unrepentantly blew Sector Seven to crap, killing thousands of people, and then went on his merry way. He was also gleefully drunk for much of the game.

Avalanche were as much terrorists as they were heroes. Reeve is the only one to point out the fact that in their bombing of the reactors, they also killed civilians, people who were just doing their job. Sure, those people worked for ShinRa. But didn't Cloud, at one time? And Cid? And Vincent?

Barret wasn't only a few lines of Mr. T rip-offs. He was angry, resentful, devoted to Marlene and yet conflicted about his actions, about the world, about fighting for the Planet and leaving Marlene alone so often.

Yuffie wasn't a genki-girl. She was a desperate Materia thief, ashamed of her family but proud of her heritage.

Rufus ShinRa was a spoiled bully. But his character shift is given credence by his own words in Advent Children. ^_^ Repentance and redemption, I get. ;)

Cid, Nanaki, and Cait Sith/Reeve actually had stories, emotions and personalities in the game. Reeve had an awesome character arc. But one must make allowances for time limits so it's understandable that their arcs got cut out of the movie.

Aeris was not a delicate, martyred flower or a typical damsel in distress. She was a tough chick who fought alongside the rest of them, and who didn't take crap from anyone. She was also chilly, slightly detached, fairly dispassionate and completely unforgiving as she allowed Tseng to suffer and (it seemed at the time,) die from his wounds.

Tifa is actually similar to what she was in the game: passionate, tough, devoted to her friends but willing to put the smack down when needed. If anything, she's a tougher broad in the movie than she was in the game.

Vincent more or less remains the same, too: quiet, lonely, and kind of a snarky bitch sometimes.

The biggest discrepency is Cloud. In the game, Cloud was not a sulking, guilt-ridden, pretty-angst-machine emo. (That was Vincent's job. ;D ) He was an unpredictable psycho. But he was funny, quick with one-liners, able to laugh at himself, willing to dress in full drag, vengeful, merciful, self-doubting but driven to go on. Also he was an avid snowboarder (if the player chooses to make him one,) as well as a skilled chocobo jockey. (Chocobos are giant ridiculous chicken-like creatures that you ride around the world of Final Fantasy.) He was just a total freak of nature, and he remains one of the most compelling game heroes in the history of games.

It is unfortunate that the writers of Advent Children chose to water him down. (The same thing happened to Leon Kennedy of Resident Evil 4!)

BUT!! Advent Children is a whole different creature. It is gorgeously rendered with an awesome soundtrack, it's total eye-candy and it's a really fun ride if you let it be one. I feel free to enjoy it without reservation, because the original game is still there to play, unchanged. And because Squenix dedicated it to the fanpoodles. ;D

Should Square Enix ever decide to remake FFVII, I'm sure they will butcher it by leaving out all the best parts: Wall Market, the Wutai arc, all the random and quirky dumb little things you could do that made the game what it was. But I would still totally buy that bitch and I would play the crap out of it. Nothing can take away the original. :)

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed this fangirl's perspective, if indeed you managed to sit through it.

I am totally open to all discussions of interpretation! ^_^