What if Chapman was identical twins and Hendrick Chapman is Vice-Principal Chapman's (probably dead) twin brother?
IT ALL FITS. This explains why Chapman is so selfish and conniving in Andalite Chronicles but so selfless and honest in #2. Hedrick Chapman died in the black hole because Elfangor and Loren straight-up FORGOT HIM on the Jahar. His identical twin Bobson Chapman is living on Earth with no idea this happened. It's perfect because we never learn the first name of the kids' vice principal.
No wonder Chapman gives Loren a blank look when she comes up to him and starts talking about yeerks; he's never met this woman before in his life. No wonder Chapman ends up joining the Sharing as an adult despite getting yeerk-controlled as a teen; for all he knows his brother ran off and aliens don't exist. The Ellimist didn't intervene in Chapman's life at all; that's just Elfangor rationalizing after the fact because did I mention that he FORGOT to save Chapman from the killer asteroids?
I don’t usually do this because my fan theories are never very original, and these ones probably aren’t either, but here we go. Just so you know, I don’t take this stuff super seriously, so you probably shouldn’t either.
Full disclosure: I’ve been following the lore closely, but have not had a chance to play the games yet other than the OG. I was holding out until I could get a PS5 for the Remake, but we all know how well that’s going for everyone. That said, I think I have a pretty good grasp on what’s going on, but if I get anything wrong-especially something that totally Josses these theories-don’t be shy and let me know. To make it easier, I’ve put an asterisk by the ones that I’m not 100% sure about.
This post contains some pretty heavy spoilers for FFVII Remake and “that scene” in Intergrade/Intermission so consider yourself warned.
Seriously, don’t come crying to me if you read ahead and see something you don’t want to.
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Still plenty of time to turn back, folks.
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To start off, let’s talk about the Whispers. These guys are neither an enemy nor are they allies, neither good nor evil. If this was Dungeons and Dragons, their alignment would be True Neutral. Their singular purpose is to keep everything and everyone on a path that leads to a predetermined outcome. If someone survives who was supposed to die, the Whispers kill them later. If someone dies who was supposed to survive, the Whispers bring them back to life. If someone goes left when they were supposed to go right, the Whispers are there to make sure the latter happens as it was supposed to. It would also appear that one of their jobs is to keep the timeline from splitting and alternate universes from being created.*
Now, after Sephiroth is defeated, the Whispers go on to coalesce into the Whisper Harbinger, who the party ultimately defeats, which would suggest that the Whispers have been obliterated as well. There’s now nothing to prevent this person from living, that person from dying and the other person from turning left. There’s also nothing to prevent the creation of multiple timelines. Determinism has been obliterated and nothing is predestined now.
Update 12/15/22: Yeah, I got the boss battles in the wrong order and the Whisper kaijus got got first. I'm a dumbass. But there are still Whisperers floating around during the Sephiroth boss battle, so this ship ain't sunk yet.
THEORY 1: ZACK TO THE FUTURE (WELL, THE PAST)
The common theory I’ve seen regarding Zack’s survival is that he is in a different timeline, and this timeline was created due to the elimination of the Whispers/Harbingers. We know this because in the Remake’s timeline, Shinra’s mascot Stamp is a beagle. In the timeline where Zack survives and makes it to Midgar, Stamp is a terrier. For the sake of brevity, the Remake’s timeline and Zack’s timeline will be called the Beagleverse and Terrierverse, respectively.
But there are hints that not only are Zack and a version of Cloud in the Terrierverse now, they’ve been deposited a number of years into that timeline’s past. A few things stand out, but are just vague enough to keep everyone guessing and, because this is fandom we’re talking about, fighting about it.
· The church in the Beagleverse is weathered, run down, dirty and the floors are torn up in spots. It looks just like how you would expect a derelict building to look. In the Terrierverse, the church is bright, clean and well-kept, and the floors appear to be intact. It doesn’t look like a building that has been crumbling for 5+ years, suggesting that this is the church as it looked in the past. This could be chalked up to Intergrade/Intermission having better graphics than FFVIIR, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s not that.
· The church is full of injured and traumatized people, suggesting that these people took refuge there following the dropping of the Sector 7 plate. But at some point in the Remake, Aerith remarks that years before, a section of the Sector 5 plate broke loose and fell.* That’s a pretty big piece of information to just toss out as throwaway dialogue, so it’s got to mean something down the road. What if these refugees are survivors of the Sector 5 disaster and not the dropping of the Sector 7 plate, which would not have happened yet?
· Zack bursts through the door and is crestfallen upon seeing the refugees. But when the camera is back on his face, his mouth drops open in shock. The screen goes black and he quietly says Aerith’s name in a questioning tone. We don’t see what he’s reacting to, but why would he just say her name instead of calling it out like he was looking for her if she wasn’t there? And why would he have a look on his face like he was seeing something shocking? Could it be that the Aerith he sees hasn’t aged a day since he last saw her or may even be a bit younger? Now I could have this all wrong and what I see as shock could be awe instead and he’s reacting to seeing what a beautiful woman his age-appropriate long lost love has become after 5 years. But since I’m theorizing, I’ll go with my version.
So there are things that point to Zack not only existing in a new timeline but in that timeline’s past. How did he get there? Hard to say. Perhaps the destruction of the Whisper Harbinger caused a temporal glitch that allowed it to happen. Or perhaps the rules governing time and space in the FFVII universe don’t apply anymore without the Whispers there to enforce them. It would appear so, because the last scene in the Remake shows Terrierverse Zack and Cloud passing by Beagleverse Cloud and Aerith and none of them acknowledge each other because we’re actually viewing two timelines at once and one is not aware of the existence of the other. But. Buuuuuuut. Cloud’s arrival at Midgar actually happened several days/weeks before that moment in the Beagleverse. I’m going to go ahead and say that time is far, far less linear and more malleable in this new world.
So why has this happened to Zack? Even if it was an accident in-universe, the developers didn’t just do it for shits and giggles or because it seemed cool at the time. This is going to be a factor in future installments. For now we have to assume that Zack will be left to figure out what’s going on without any kind of cosmic guide to help him. If he’s far enough into the past with knowledge of what will happen in Nibelheim, there’s a good chance that he would try to get to Sephiroth before the trip to Nibelheim to tell him what will happen if he goes. He, Cloud and Sephiroth would be connected due to the S-cells in their systems, not to mention they would have something in common since all three were subject to Hojo’s abuse. Sephiroth wouldn’t be so alone in the world. The three of them would probably become pretty good friends because of that. This would be even more interesting if they went far enough back that they could try to prevent what happened to Genesis and Angeal.
THEORY 2: WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY SEPH
Going back to what I said about the old rules of space/time not applying anymore, this might offer a little insight into the identity of the version of Sephiroth that appears at the Edge of Creation. The version of Sephiroth who tries to be helpful to Cloud and asks for his help in return. The version that could have easily ended Cloud right then and there and won but instead chose only to defend himself and fight to a draw. The version that uses “ore” as a pronoun in the Japanese version. The version who speaks as though he’s seen the beginning of time, the end and everything in between. The version who seems to be able to transport himself and others to some point outside time and space that he calls the Edge of Creation. That’s not the Sephiroth we know, so who is he?
Sephiroth is a very powerful man, both physically and magically, and can do things that no one else can even with materia. He was always this way, even before Jenova got a hold of him, and the stories about him actually downplay his strength. If anyone could figure out a way to travel through time, hop between timelines and pull it off like a boss, it’s him. And in this scenario, his descent into homicidal madness may not have happened in the Terrierverse.
As for what he’s doing and why he needs help doing it, that’s not clear. He knows to take Cloud by the wrist to snap him out of one of his fits/visions, implying he has done this before either for Cloud or for someone else in similar distress. He asks Cloud to lend him his strength, but since when does Sephiroth need anyone’s strength to supplement his? It seems like he has discovered a threat so massive that even he can’t handle it on his own. Perhaps the destruction or domination of the Lifestream in the Beagleverse would be cataclysmic to the Terrierverse.
PROBLEMS WITH THIS ONE: if Ore!Sephiroth is from the Terrierverse, why does he fight the party in the singularity? Why does he appear to be controlling the Whispers? It could be that he’s not controlling them, but that they’re controlling him. Aerith says that each time she’s touched by them she loses a bit of herself. What if the Whispers managed to ambush Sephiroth and displace enough of his will to force him to do their bidding, but not enough to have full control? This is touched on more thoroughly in the next theory.
THEORY 3:SANDBAGGIN’ SEPHIROTH
So the version of Sephiroth the party fights as a final boss and the one in the Edge of Creation are one in the same, but the version fought as a boss behaves similarly to the one seen throughout the rest of the Remake and Compilation. He uses “watashi” instead of “ore” in Japanese and appears to have the same motives as our usual boy. But the differences between Final Boss Sephiroth and Edge of Creation Sephiroth are pretty striking.
What does this mean? Well for starters, Final Boss Sephiroth wanted the party to defeat him in order to free himself from the Whispers.
What may have happened is that Sephiroth jumped from the Terrierverse to the Beagleverse at some point in the past to do…something. I’m not sure yet. Maybe he just wanted to see if he could. The Whispers would see it as being wildly out of place and would do whatever was necessary to contain this threat to the timeline and to destiny. Even Aerith notices this in the English version (“you’re wrong! Everything about you is wrong!”). Of course it’s wrong that he’s there, that version of him isn’t supposed to exist in that timeline.
So as many Whispers as it took to subdue Sephiroth and get him under control would be sent to literally go and live inside him. The best they can do, though, is to try to turn him into as close of a version of Beagleverse Sephiroth as they can get. You can see that with the wing and such. Terrierverse Sephiroth, however, is still somewhat in possession of his will because it’s too strong for even the Whispers to defeat. He manages little escapes, and allowing the party to defeat him is one of them. This defeat breaks the Whispers’ hold on him, and he’s free. Once the party defeats all of the Whispers, he is no longer in danger of being subdued again.
This is supported by his talk of following destiny before the boss fight but talking about how he needs Cloud’s help to defy it afterward.
Update 12/15/22: Yeah, I got the boss battles in the wrong order and I'm an idiot for that, but there's still Whispers milling around during the boss fight with Sephiroth, so this one may still hold water.
THEORY 4: MAMA’S GONNA MAKE ALL OF YOUR NIGHTMARES COME TRUE
So in Part I, there are four versions of Sephiroth according to Word of God. There’s Hallucination Sephiroth, who only Cloud can see. His appearance is preceded by Cloud having one of his seizures. There’s Flashback Sephiroth, who exists only in Cloud’s memory. There’s Black Cloak Sephiroth, which is one of the black-cloaked, tattooed men being hijacked and assuming Sephiroth’s appearance. Then, of course, there’s Ore Sephiroth, who is a wild card.
Let’s talk about Hallucination and Black Cloak. People mostly seem to be on the same page that this is Sephiroth manifesting, but what if it’s not? What if it’s Jenova herself?
In the original game, Jenova has the ability to scan people’s memories and morph into any person she sees in them. It’s how she managed to infiltrate the Cetra and nearly destroy them. Sephiroth can do this as well, as we see in OTWTAS. He abandoned all of his memories to the Lifestream and doesn’t remember what he looked like, so he has to dig into the memories of those who remember him.
If it’s Jenova who is warging into the black cloak guys and appearing to Cloud as a vision, and if it’s maximum psychological impact she’s after, she probably wouldn’t appear looking the way she did when Gast found her buried, because that wouldn’t have much of an impact on Cloud and Tifa. She’d be just another boss to fight. But imagine how devastating to them it would be if they were confronted and taunted by the man responsible for the worst tragedy in their lives. Imagine what it would do to Cloud to have his dead mother’s last words smugly repeated back to him. If it’s psychological warfare that Jenova is waging, these are some pretty good tactics to use.
The thing is, the fans that first played the OG when they were 13 are in their 30s now, for the most part, and are more likely to appreciate a well-crafted story with characters that have far more shades of gray than the types that would appeal to a kid. And in my observation, the older teens and twentysomethings that may be new to the FFVII-Verse are pretty on the ball, too (seriously, some of the more interesting theories I’ve seen have come from this demographic). Sephiroth the mysterious boogeyman was terrifying to a 13-year-old, but not necessarily to an adult, who might be more inclined to take his origin story into account and see him as a borderline sympathetic if not completely sympathetic character who was done wrong. The developers painted themselves into a corner when they showed what he was like pre-Nibelheim in Crisis Core, not gonna lie. But they also gave themselves an opportunity.
THEORY 5: SPEAKING OF NIGHTMARES…
In the original, Jenova is regarded as more of a dumb animal fulfilling basic instinct and isn’t sentient. I think the Remake is going to play around with that, because while she’s like that in the OG, in other mentions, her actions are carried out with purpose. She’s not just hunting out of hunger or attacking out of fear, she’s actively trying to wipe the planet she’s on of its dominant species. And she’s not just attacking, she’s manipulating. She’s infiltrating. Think of the Predator, but instead of her being an interstellar trophy hunter, she’s looking for a new planet to devour before moving on to the next one.
Ifalna talks of her impersonating the Cetra’s dead friends and relatives. One of the novellas talks of how she would generate paranoia and suspicion in an attempt to turn the Cetra against each other so they would wipe each other out. Those aren’t merely the instincts of a mindless animal trying to survive, those are the purposeful actions of a malevolent force. She would know exactly how to get into someone’s head like an alien Hannibal Lecter and turn them into a bloodthirsty willing accomplice before they even realized something was off, especially if her target was mentally vulnerable at the time.
Does that someone sound like someone we know? Sure it does.
Now I’m not on board with the notion that Jenova was literally controlling Sephiroth’s every move like he was a drone she was piloting. I do believe that he was heavily influenced by her, though. He was in a very vulnerable state even before he got to Nibelheim. He was grieving, he was disillusioned with his job and Shinra, which had defined his entire life up to that point, he was likely drowning in self-doubt and on top of all of that he was almost certainly suffering from untreated PTSD from the war. Entering the Shinra mansion’s library signaled what was probably the lowest point in his life. In real life, these are the kinds of lonely, angry and vulnerable young men who are targeted for recruitment into cults and terrorist organizations because the recruiter offers them a human connection and a way to punish those who have wronged them. It's how extremists are made, and post-Nibelheim Sephiroth is most certainly an extremist. On top of that, he believed she was his mother, who he thought had died in childbirth. Take the emotional impact of that and combine it with all the crap that traumatized him up to that point, and he didn’t stand a chance against her.
Jenova would pick and pick at his shattered psyche, manipulating him, angering him and molding him into what she wanted him to be until she had herself a live nuclear warhead to deploy at will. In his moment of extreme vulnerability, he allowed himself to be radicalized by her and probably didn’t even realize it.
And she would be able to do it. What the Shinra scientists call “reunion” is a property of Jenova’s cells to be drawn to the main body. If someone has a high concentration of Jenova’s cells in their body-as Sephiroth does-the pull toward her would be unbearable. We can also assume that these cells allow someone to communicate psychically with another person with the same cells, as suggested by Cloud’s hallucinations/visions of Sephiroth in the Remake (assuming that’s what’s happening here, and Cloud isn’t just losing his mind). Sephiroth has so much Jenova in him that he’s essentially a human/alien hybrid. She wouldn’t have a problem poisoning his mind, because he was halfway there from the start.
There are a few things that suggest that Sephiroth is carrying out Jenova’s agenda, perhaps even thinking it was his idea the whole time.
One example is his megalomania post-Nibelheim. In Crisis Core, he didn’t appear to be interested in fame or glory. Leadership was just his job, and he was more than happy to hand the mantle of Hero to Genesis. But post-Nibelheim his plan is to become a god? That’s quite a leap. And he plans to become a god by absorbing the Lifestream and gaining control over it. That’s Jenova’s gig, and she may have sold him on that.
In Advent Children, his famous line about sailing the cosmos until he finds a new planet to create a shining future on is basically also Jenova’s thing. She goes from planet to planet, devouring what’s there and moving on like a swarm of locusts. Sephiroth may think he’s writing off this planet as doomed and using it to find a better place, but he’s carrying out Jenova’s agenda.
Welp, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’m sure that when Part 2 comes out, the theory machine will start rumbling again. One of the things Square Enix excels at is keeping things just vague enough that fandom speculation can go on for years. Maybe by then I’ll have finally gotten my hands on the unicorn known as the PS5. Or I’ll die of old age. Whichever comes first.
Epileptic trees: In the finale, Andrew will return Akko's hat in a similar fashion to how Akihito returned Mirai's glasses.
Epileptic trees: The hat will become a Checkhov's Gun.
Though these wild guesses are pretty much already confirmed or jossed in Japan.
It’s been suggested that the BOOTH creates new buttons for new functions in order that the audience doesn’t suspend its belief in the programme.
This actually dates back to the days when Leslie French portrayed the Inspector, as he insisted that eagle-eyed viewers would notice if he pressed a different button to get the BOOTH to activate the viewscreen from one serial to the next.
Why does our era Mark keep telling us “Because I care”, yet we keep profiling that phrase to asshole!Mark? When, in WKM, it was Damien who was the one who cared and wanted people to care?
What if Damien didn’t really die? What if he’s still in his own body, only suppressed by asshole!Mark having possessed him? What if the Damien we saw in the upside-down was a fake created by the darkness in the house? What if it turned out Damien was never a part of Darkiplier all along, and the darkness just fiddled with the dead Celine’s emotions to think he was there with her so its plan to escape the house could succeed?
Or alternatively, what if what little remained of Damien’s non-corrupted soul found its way to his original body?
