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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth changes some key moments from the original game, but it doesn’t completely answer all the questions players had going into the second part of a massive remake project. Now, it looks like the final part will be the one that finally provides answers to elements that are currently left as mysteries. With Rebirth coming to PC to join FF7R, another group of players can experience the emotional rollercoaster of Cloud’s journey and witness a moment that’s more tragic with the possibility that a new theory could be true.
[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.]
Picking up where FF7R left off, Rebirth joins Cloud and his group after they leave Midgar. Players who experienced the original game will see familiar locations reimagined in new ways, including the popular Golden Saucer section with the romance of the game and the date possibilities that come with it. However, the game ends with what might be the most well-known moment of Final Fantasy 7, but it’s been remade in a confusing way, at best.
Cloud Might’ve Played An Untold Role In Aerith’s Death
Cloud Is Unreliable
Cloud’s perspective is used for the bulk of the game, meaning that the story being told is tinted by how he views the world and its events. However, Cloud isn’t a reliable narrator. He’s clearly being affected by what happened to him after the incident at Nibelheim, and he doesn’t fully understand how many of his memories are his own and how many are actually Zack’s. For a lot of the game, this doesn’t impact the story in a way that leaves players entirely uncertain about events.
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The problem is that Cloud’s perspective is used when Aerith dies in FF7 Rebirth, and that means that the moment she’s injured isn’t shown. Additionally, the wounds aren’t shown either; there’s only a pool of blood in one variation. This is because Cloud seems to start seeing two timelines overlapping at this point, and Aerith lives in one timeline but dies in the other. Cloud’s inability to distinguish reality and fiction becomes important at that moment because it’s only when Aerith dies that he starts seeing two timelines together.
This leads to the theory that Sephiroth took control of Cloud, which is shown before this moment, particularly when he’s trying to get the Black Materia from Aerith and has him deal the fatal strike to Aerith. Cloud has undergone a lot of trauma and stress before this point, and it’s possible that he could’ve been influenced by Sephiroth here, forcing him to kill one of his friends. Because he was forced to kill his friend, this theory suggests that Cloud isn’t seeing another timeline, but he’s unable to cope with Aerith’s death and sees her as a hallucination.
Why The End Of FF7 Rebirth Is So Confusing
Reality And Fiction Are Unclear
In a way, the ending of FF7 Rebirth is a cliffhanger. It doesn’t help that alternate timelines are set up before the ending, making it highly possible that Cloud is simply seeing through multiple timelines. This lets him see Aerith as still alive when she’s dead in his regular timeline. However, Cloud has hallucinated previously, so it’s also possible that Sephiroth used him to kill Aerith, and the trauma of that event has him seeing hallucinations of Aerith being alive to cope.
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The result is that it’s not clear what happens at the end of FF7 Rebirth, and the game has set up so many possibilities to explain Cloud seeing Aerith while the rest of the party can’t that it’s difficult to pick any one of those possibilities and say that it’s the true outcome with certainty. It doesn’t help that Zack is in a similar situation, where he’s alive in some timelines and dead in others. His situation is even more difficult since it looks like he has some control when moving to a new timeline.
Sephiroth also reveals that he’s trying to converge the timelines into one, which makes Cloud’s idea of starting to see through timelines seem like the stronger option. Either way, the ending for Rebirth seems intentionally written and shown in a way that makes it unclear what Aerith’s role might be in the final part of the remake.
Is It Guilt Or Timelines Making Cloud See Aerith?
Both Possibilities Could Be True
The ending is set up so that Cloud could be hallucinating Aerith out of guilt for killing or not saving her, or he could see between timelines after Sephiroth took him between so many timelines. At this point, it could even be both possibilities. Aerith could be alive in another timeline, which lets her help Cloud against Sephiroth, but the Aerith Cloud sees after the fight could be a hallucination. There’s no way to say with certainty which case is true without seeing the next section of the game.
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Although FF7 first came out decades ago, the remake is revitalizing the world of Gaia and the beloved characters who live there. It’s also opened up the world by remaking it and fleshing it out beyond what the original hardware used could do. It also introduced new elements to the story, such as multiple timelines and the possibility that the remake is a sequel to the original. However, true answers about how the story ends won’t be found in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
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