[Sir Bahamut]

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Also, are we going to stick to the facts/experience gained from the English one alone? Or both English and Japanese? As the Japanese version can be somewhat radically different from the English version in respects. I would advise we just stick to facts/experience gained from the English version. Do you agree?

It is true they can contain some rather large differences. However, since the japanese version is the actual original script, I think the japanese version should be used as canon. Of course, we don't(I don't anyway) have the entire japanese script at hand, so we can't cross reference everything.

Instead I would propose we stick to the english script as being correct unless we find out that the japanese version has a differing angle to whatever it is we'ære discussing.
For instance, the english version implies Ultimecia had Griever all along, while the japanese version very directly implies that Griever was created from Squalls mind. I for one would definitely hold the japanese implications(so to speak) over the english ones.

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So, are we to assume then that the FF 8 world is totally independent from ours in terms of physics, etc.? Or, shall we assume that the physics of the FF 8 world is the same as ours? Either way, I think either choice is going to be problematic. I would suggest that we should assume that the FF 8 world operates on the same physics as our own, otherwise, like I said, basically anything would be possible and we wouldn't be able to explain it. Besides, I believe we should assume that FF 8 physics is the same as ours because we can't know the FF 8 world's physics anyway (if it was any different to ours).

I don't think we should operate on the assumption that FF8 physics is exactly the same as ours. I think that since we can't ever be sure, and adding the fact that including modern day physics into the discussion would leave all of us(I'm assuming none of us has a Ph.D in physics here...) unfit for discussion, as far as I'm concerned.

Also assuming the creators would have incorperated quantum physics and such seems a bit of a long shot. Also note that this game was created many years ago, and our(modern physics) view on time travel has changed repeatedly from that time.

So basically, I think we should work on creating as simple a picture as possible for the FF8 world. For instance, I don't think we should assume that when Squall travels to the past that he creates a seperate universe or anything like that. I think we should rather assume all timetravel was a set event on the line of time to begin with(check out the FAQ I linked to for more info.). Using the simplest picture available is probably the most "scientific" way anyway, considering Occams razor and the fact that we can't examine the FF8 world like you said. It also makes it easily understandable, which a full blown discussion on M-theory and superstrings wouldn't be =P

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1) Sorceresses have a long lifespan. This idea was aquired from the game's images of Edea. You may note that durring the credits Edea looks just like she did durring the orphanage flash backs. This leads us to assume that the sorceress powers have some effect on ageing and it's logical to assume that if the ageing process has been altered, then the lifespan has also been altered. Much assumption is used in this point, but none of it is far-fetched. Of course there's always the chance that Square just didn't want to go through the trouble of makeing Edea look older or simplily overlooked the point. But with Square's reputation for paying attention details, it's not likely.

Square may arguable put time into details, but they don't have a habut for details like this. In several games(like Vagrant Story) they created apparent plot holes by lazily not changing a character model.
Also, since Edea could change the length of her hair drastically in a few seconds(parade FMV where Rinoa tries to give her the neclace) it seems likely she could, and probably would keep herself young and healthy looking.

Of course, all that aside, it definitely could point towards it. I made a bigger argument for it in that FAQ I linked to, so check it out when you can.

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2) Sorceress powers can drasticaly alter the owner's apperance.

Completely agree. I'd put this up as a given actually, solely because of Adels blue skin and HUGE physique.

This post has been edited by Sir Bahamut: 25 January 2005 - 07:59 PM

[Solar Oni]

I'm sorry brother, but I still can't read it. I clicked on it and got a page that said "Link Error". I'll try again in a few minutes.

Now, something else I forgot- when I said 'all she remembered was that she was a sorceress' in the origonal post, I was just trying to sound dramatic. She would, of course, still have little peices of memories here and there. I appologize if it was missleading, it's just my nature as a writer.

But something bothers me on the idea of Ultimecia lifting Greiver from Squall's mind right then and there. In order to do as such, Ultimecia would need to be able to read minds, right? But when I thought about it I found something that would suggest that she has no such abbility. Early on in the game Ultimecia (throught Edea) had Seifer interogate Squall in an attempt to try and lern "SeeD's true perpose". Later in the game you see many murdered SeeDs scatterd all over Ultimecia's "front yard" (for lack of a better term). If she was able to read people's minds, then she could have lifted SeeD's true perpose from any one of those SeeD members' before doing away with them. This may be an area where the origonal script differs from the English. Tell me, Bahamut, so you know of any mind reading ability being mentioned in the origonal?

[Sir Bahamut]

The only clear mention of it is exactly the mentioning in the ending, where Ultimecia says she will summon something from [Squalls] feelings. Since we then know Griever was the the strongest thing in Squalls MIND, the implications seem pretty obvious.

As for the interrerogation, I would guess her powers were limited in Edeas body, which could explain it. And any major fight with SeeDs in her own time in which she could have captured a SeeD and read his mind might not have happened until after the interrogation scene.

Or perhaps she could only scan emotions, and not minds at all. She does only say "feelings" after all, so perhaps that's it.

I dunno what the error was about, I can access it just fine. If you're still having problems you could always go to Gamefaqs, FF8, FAQS and Guides and clik the link from there. It's the "Time/Ultimecia Plot FAQ", and NOT the "Plot Analysis FAQ".

This post has been edited by Sir Bahamut: 26 January 2005 - 07:07 PM

[Solar Oni]

Another thing. If Greiver was lifted from Squall's mind, then Squall would have to be on the battle feild when she brought the lion out. But Greiver always comes out at the same point in the battle, reguardless of who's on the feild.

With a small ammount of speculateion, this idea of where Ultimecia obtained Greiver could help support the RU Theory. Consider this, if Ultimecia is unable to read minds- then in order to create Greiver from Squall's feelings, she would need to have already known how Squall feels about the lion on his ring. And, as far as we know, the only person he's told about that is Rinoa. Now here's where the speculation comes in. If Rinoa is Ultimecia then she must have lost her memories. And if she lost her memories then she wouldn't remember Greiver. It may be posipal, however, that seeing Squall in person caused her to regain a small tidbit of a memory, in particular- the ring and how Squall feels about it. Of course, it would be an equaly logical assumption that when Ultimecia took over Rinoa's body she was also able to see Rinoa's memories and got Greiver from there. Eather way it explains how she could get Greiver with or without mind reading skills.

[Sir Bahamut]

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Another thing. If Greiver was lifted from Squall's mind, then Squall would have to be on the battle feild when she brought the lion out. But Greiver always comes out at the same point in the battle, reguardless of who's on the fe

That's irrelevant really. Square can't mix battle and reallife anyway so there will be always some discrepancies. But regardless, it's simple to postulate that she scanned the party when talking to you to before the battle, realised Squall was the leader, and targetted him for her creation.

As for your other arguments, they are of course all possible, but I think it's definitely the most simple and logical assumption to assume she scanned the parties "emotions" or minds to get Griever. That's what the japanese version implies, and it's certainly a very logical move(set the leader up against what he thinks of as the strongest thing ever) of her.

That's my opinion anyway.

[Jade]

How do you know that Griever isn't an actual GF? When it said "in Squall's mind", couldn't that just mean that he THOUGHT that Griever was the strongest GF? There's no veritable evidence that states that Griever only exists inside Squall's own imagination.

[Sir Bahamut]

Well, Griever IS a GF, definitely, that is also made clear in the japanese version.
However, since it is also made clear in the japanese version that he is summoned from the parties "emotions" or minds, combined with the scan info we can reach two conclusions:

1) Griever was a GF created by Ultimecia there and then based on Squalls thoughts.
2) Griever was a GF residing inside Squall which Ultimecia simply drew from him like we draw Carbuncle from the Iguions.

Of course, even if she created him there and then, he may have been a GF in the past too, and Ultimecia just created a clone basically.
But the main point is that it is obvious Ultimecia didn't have Griever until right there and then.

This post has been edited by Sir Bahamut: 29 January 2005 - 11:21 AM

[ShadowMage]

ff8 -- Scanning Griever said:

In Squall's mind, the strongest GF. Through Ultimecia's power, continues fighting without vanishing.

Just to clear out that Griever IS infact according to Squall the strongest GF.

Now let's take a look at what Ultimecia was trying to do. Let's not jump into anything yet, let's just look at the simple outline:

ff8 -- Scanning Ultimecia said:

A sorceress trying to change the world by compressing time and taking power from all sorceresses

I'm sure everyone agrees that everything has a purpose no? Why put herself through this exercise to "compress time". To change the world in some way or another right? And ofcourse, doing something so massive, there must have been a reason. She just didn't wanna do it for fun
Now, there are assumptions that can be made regarding why she wanted to do such a thing. But before getting into any of that, let's take a look at her name

Now i'm not sure about this, but if we say Ultimecia in Japanese, it would be pronounced along the lines of "Artemisia" (I think her name's different in the japanese version though, gimme some time to confirm that)

Now, we have Artemisia, the queen of Caria who had spent the rest of her life building the great Mausoleum for her beloved dead husband after his passing (which can be seen as Ultimecia's Castle).

How is this relevant?

Well, now let's bring Rinoa into play. This theory seems to focus around how Rinoa loses her friends one by one until she loses squall, and remains alive since she is the sorceress. After their passing, her memory slowly fades until she has little or no memory of them and turns towards evil.

If such is the case, then Artemisia = Ultimecia = Rinoa. Rinoa loses all her friends and is left alone. Supposedly, in memory of her "knight" and her love, she builds the castle (It is safe to assume she probably started constructing the castle when she still had memories of Squall, regardless of what volume). The castle is also built right on the spot where the two of them made their promise.

Anyway, when we look at the scan of Ultimecia, we see that she is trying to change the world. What could be the reason? If she is infact Rinoa, then the most logical thing to say is she is trying to bring Squall back (she also talks about how time doesn't wait for anyone no matter how hard you try, possibly referring to how she tried so hard but was still unable to prevent the deaths of the ones she loved). We can't know how many memories she still had, if any. Maybe she still had a few broken pieces of memories in there, at a subconscious level. She probably wasn't trying to change the world in terms of Squall alone (she probably didn't even remember him), but instead she remembered that something very near and dear to her was taken away from her due to time, and so, she carried the scar of that terrible memory, whether she remembered Squall, the person, or just as a painful event, she wanted to get what she lost back.

If the passing of Squall was as painful as I think it was, she probably never forgot it. Even if she forgot Squall, she never forgot the fact that she had lost something very dear to her.

These are my opinions anyway.

This post has been edited by ShadowMage: 29 January 2005 - 07:35 PM

[Sir Bahamut]

Ultimecias japanese name is to be exact "Arutimishia", which could refer either to Artemisia, as I also mention in the FAQ I linked to(which apparently no one seems to have bothered reading yet =P), or to the spell Ultima(spelled Arituma in japanese).

As for her reasons ti want to compress time, take in mind that her needs need not be rational at all. She could simply be crazy, in which case there is no point in looking for reasons.

[Solar Oni]

The idea of a villain who's simply crazy is always posipal. But it wouldn't be very likely. After spending the entire game working up to the battle against Ultimecia, it just wouldn't be right to end it with flat, motiveless character for an enemy. Now, I went to my favorite Japanise translation site to try and find some words similar to Arituma. Maybe we can find some hints in that.

These are the words I found that have the 'ari' begining. I didn't find it to be very usefull, but maybe one of you can get some use out of it:


aritsuku
(v5k) to get; to obtain; to come by; to find



ariamaru
(v5r) to be superfluous; to be in excess


ariarito
(adv) distinctly; clearly; vividly


arienaihodo
(n) unbelievable

arigatameiwaku
(adj-na,n) an unwelcome favor


arigatanamida
(n) tears of gratitude

arikata
(n) the way something ought to be

arishihi
(n-t) (1) days of yore; the olden days; (2) during one's lifetime

This post has been edited by solar oni: 30 January 2005 - 01:00 AM

[ShadowMage]

Sir Bahamut said:

which apparently no one seems to have bothered reading yet =P

I did read that, when you posted it in the previous thread. (Which you seemed to have removed)
As for the one on GameFaqs, I'll go check it out but anyway, moving on:

Her reference to Artimishia makes more sense then Ultima, when in one hand we have the connection between the Mausoleum and The Castle, and in the other we have the possibility of Rinoa being Ultimecia.
It fits into the R=U theory well.

I'm sure she wasn't compressing time out of insanity, there had to be a motive. But yeah, that is just my opinion, and there is always a difference in opinion.

[Solar Oni]

I finaly got to read the page you linked to, brother. Very good, a vast improvement over the bull-shit site that Utopia-X linked to durring the first RU debate. I love how well you covered the details and looked deep into Ultimecia's character. To often do I hear people state that Ultimecia dosn't appear in the game untill the very end. These people clearly havn't payed any attention to the game at all. I may make referace to your work the next time someone trys to argue that VIII had insuperior villains. But don't worry, you'll get your due credit. As an artist in various deffinitons of the word their's only a handfull of things that I hate more than plagerism.

But there is one detail that I would disagree with. You state that Ultimecia intended to enslave the human race with time compression. But when Ultimecia tells you that she'll send you to a place where you'll be her slaves, she isn't talking about the world's population, but rather reffering specificaly to Squall and his party. That is why instead of dieing in the final battle, defeated characters are '"Absorbed into time". If Ultimecia is Rinoa, she may have done this because when she finaly meets the group face to face she feels that their's something special about them (a fragment of her memory trying to return) and decideds to keep them at least untill she can figure out why. If she isn't Rinoa, she's probably just pissed off that this same group of SeeDs keeps fucking with her and decideds to take them with her so she can punish them for it for all eternity.

An idea came to me while reading your work. Not actualy an idea of my own, but rather a combination of two of yours. You point out the evidecnce that SeeD may have attacked Ultimecia while she was makeing the castle, Later -after leaving the RU subject- you provide evidence that she wanted to use Time Compression to punish those who had hated and attacked her with no reason other than that she was a sorceress. With both these ideas in mind, their's a posibility that when Ultimecia started createing the castel in memory of her loved ones as in the legend of her namesake, SeeD assumed that she had evil perposes for makeing it (once again, just because she's a sorceress) and tryed hard to stop her. Ultimecia then accuired a vendetta against SeeD because they had tryed to prevent her from honoring her dear friends and her lover. This vendetta, along with her collapseing mental stability, would be what leads her to desire Time Compression. This gives the future Rinoa form of Ultimecia a bit more of a motive than simply trying to relive her past happyness.

I also rememberd that at one point in Ultimecia's castel you have to give a painting a specific name to call out one of Ultimecia's guardians. The Laten (?) name that you must give it translates to "In The Garden Sleeps A Messenger". Could this posipaly be a refferance to Squall? Ultimecia knows that Squall will eventualy kill her, be her "Messenger of Death". And Squall lives in the Garden.

Also, why dose someone as strong as Ultimecia need to have so many guardians in the first place? Are they simply there to deal with the SeeD problem, or could Rinoa posipaly be trying to compensate for loseing her knight?

One last thing (for now) that's been on my mind. Greiver is connected strongly to Squall and partialy to Rinoa, but noone else (unless you count Ultimecia). So, if Greiver is only connected to those two, why dose he have Quistis' strongest attack? I'm not sure if this is relevent to the topic or not (probably not) but it's something to think about.

This post has been edited by solar oni: 01 February 2005 - 05:07 AM

[ShadowMage]

Those are really interesting Solar, it's all a possibility, but then again, despite it's plausibility, they are still somewhat assumptions so yeah, we can only speculate....

I believe Shockwave Pulsar doesn't limit to Quistis only. While it is her strongest attack, that doesn't mean it's exclusive to her, as Griever has it as well.

Another thing, if Ultimecia scanned the entire party's emotions to create Griever, then it's possible that Shockwave pulsar came from Quistis and how she thinks it is the strongest spell but that is unlikely, as whether you have shockwave pulsar with you or not, Griever will still use it.

solar oni said:

Very good, a vast improvement over the bull-shit site that Utopia-X linked to durring the first RU debate.

Anyone who isn't gunna contribute anything to the thread other then "Even though that's convincing, I still don't believe it; sorry, but I just can't believe that; that is complete bs, I won't tell you why, it just is" will be bull shit...

This post has been edited by ShadowMage: 01 February 2005 - 12:01 PM

[Sir Bahamut]

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But there is one detail that I would disagree with. You state that Ultimecia intended to enslave the human race with time compression.

No, TheOnionKnight proposed it as a definite possibility in his own thesis on Ultimecia.
There is a split between the R=U theory written by me and the "Unjust Persecution" written by him. In the R=U theory I only assign madness to Rinoa/Ultimecia, leaving it open after that.

But you're right, it could be that she had some small memory awakened.

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With both these ideas in mind, their's a posibility that when Ultimecia started createing the castel in memory of her loved ones as in the legend of her namesake, SeeD assumed that she had evil perposes for makeing it (once again, just because she's a sorceress) and tryed hard to stop her. Ultimecia then accuired a vendetta against SeeD because they had tryed to prevent her from honoring her dear friends and her lover. This vendetta, along with her collapseing mental stability, would be what leads her to desire Time Compression. This gives the future Rinoa form of Ultimecia a bit more of a motive than simply trying to relive her past happyness.

I want to make it clear again that the section on Ultimecia called "The Unjust Persecution" was NOt written by me, but by someone else.

Anyway, definitely a possibility. They might even have attacked Rinoa without her building her castle, seeing her as a growing threat, and getting paranoid, driving her to anger and madness.

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This gives the future Rinoa form of Ultimecia a bit more of a motive than simply trying to relive her past happyness.

I never put this up as a motive. I only postulated that conditions were such that Rinoa could have gone insane. That's all. Where you take it from there is your own decision.

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I also rememberd that at one point in Ultimecia's castel you have to give a painting a specific name to call out one of Ultimecia's guardians. The Laten (?) name that you must give it translates to "In The Garden Sleeps A Messenger". Could this posipaly be a refferance to Squall? Ultimecia knows that Squall will eventualy kill her, be her "Messenger of Death". And Squall lives in the Garden.

Well, you have to add "death" to messenger which seems to be a bad start, so I wouldn't see that as a clue.

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Also, why dose someone as strong as Ultimecia need to have so many guardians in the first place? Are they simply there to deal with the SeeD problem, or could Rinoa posipaly be trying to compensate for loseing her knight?

Probably just so she doesn't have to personally deal with every single SeeD who tries to attack her. It could be a bit tiring, no? And it was probably the easiest thing in the world for her to make a set of guardians to

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One last thing (for now) that's been on my mind. Greiver is connected strongly to Squall and partialy to Rinoa, but noone else (unless you count Ultimecia). So, if Greiver is only connected to those two, why dose he have Quistis' strongest attack? I'm not sure if this is relevent to the topic or not (probably not) but it's something to think about.

Definitely doesn't mean anything. After all, Quistis can use Caterchipillars(sp?) special attack but that doesn't hint at anything between Quistis and the Catterchipillar =P

[Utopia-X]

solar oni, on Feb 1 2005, 05:59 AM, said:

Very good, a vast improvement over the bull-shit site that Utopia-X linked to durring the first RU debate.

That site could have been inscribed in human feces and it still would've held more truth than this theory.

And besides, you have about as much proof that that site is false as you have that your precious theory is true: none at all. Are you an assumption fetishist or something?