#squall is dead

[johncaden64]

#squallisdead

[level99challenge]

Playthrough 11 Return to the Gold Saucer, Part I

DIO: but if you entertain me in a bloodsport, maybe then i’ll be persuaded...!

aw, dang, i messed up

this is the most concrete piece of evidence for the popular “Squall is Dead” theory

“it’s not for rent, but i’ll let you take it for free if you do a terrible job in the battle arena”

cloud

cloud, how do you not understand this

CLOUD: i’m too tired to tell y’all the hell’s goin’ on

gee, sephiroth and jenova, y’all seem to know a lot about this

CLOUD: no, you’re gonna go mad thirteen

...

do you

do you get it

because “too” sounds like the number “two”

this crossover event with she-ra is a big success and i’m so glad that dreamworks agreed

thank you, dreamworks

Next Time... Someone Visits Cloud’s Room... Who Could it Be...?

(well, if you check back on that poll from a few months ago, then you’ll know)

See you next time, y’all!!

[digitalpenstroke]

Storied Gaming:  The Theory - Squall is Dead

Today I would like to introduce to you the first of the three theories I would like to cover.  Just to give an understanding of what I will do for a format, I will be giving a small introduction of the theory, give a rundown of the theory, say what I liked about it, and what I didn’t.  So, without further adieu, on with the show!

Final Fantasy 8 was a very divisive game back in the late 2000’s.  You had the crowd that adored the chemistry of Squall and Rinoa, that were excited to see the Leon segments, and loved playing Tetra Master (later to be known as Triple Triad for Final Fantasy 14).  Then you had the detractors that despised the Guardian Force (GF) system, the Draw system, Selphie, and how the game ended.  Wait, how did the game end again?  Oh right, it ended with the characters being sent into a dimension which was the result of a Sorceress who managed to create a temporal compression.  Wait, what?  How does that make sense?  Perhaps it doesn’t.  Perhaps, as the theory we are about to look into, all of this didn’t actually happen, and that we are experiencing a death dream from Squall himself.

The Theory’s Rundown

The theory is called Squall is Dead.  It states that at the end of Disk 1, after the confrontation of both Seifer and Sorceress Edea, of whom the latter was to be assassinated by the members of SeeD, Squall dies as a result of Edea throwing Ice related magic into his chest and the subsequent fall from the parade float she was riding.  From there, the rest of the narrative is Squall’s final moments, trying to piece together some unresolved questions and issues in his mind, so that he may pass away peacefully in his resolve.

Some of the examples used for this theory stem from the groundwork of the world as we knew it that wasn’t shown to us until Disk 2.  We are then introduced to the concepts of the Moombas, their life cycle being the final stage for the Shumi, the Shumi people themselves, NORG’s ownership of the Balamb Garden, and the fact that Gardens can fly.  Then the identity of Sorceress Edea, the powers and understanding of the title of Sorceress, the origin of Ultimecia, and Rinoa’s connection to the powers.  As well as Pandora, the Lunar Cry, that the monsters of the world came from the moon.  And finally the relationship of the characters themselves, of how they were all from the same orphanage and found themselves brought back together because of the events of Final Fantasy 8.

Ultimately the theory and the narrative come to a head when it comes to the final cutscene of the game.  What we see as Squall reflects on his first encounter with Rinoa, is his mind trying desperately to recall those precious moments.  They start to degrade, as we see in the cutscene, where the scenery of that moment, and Rinoa herself, become blurry, disfigured, incomprehensible.  That is the moment that Squall’s life had come to an end, that his mind finally fades.  We see other images and scenes flash by, some more obscured and distorted like the rest until we are faced with a ... well faceless Squall for a frame, followed by him looking upward on his knees until it fades to white.  At this point, we are led to understand that his mental state had finally ceased, and he had properly died.  

How Did I Like It?

I will give the creators of this site a lot of credit.  I could not have gone into so much detail into everything from Disk 2 to the end of the game, and attempt to make a credible case.  The inclusion of the Shumi and Moombas did seem a little out of place to me at first, and to be honest the idea of Time Compression being the reason behind Ultimecia’s goals seemed far too ludicrous to be believed for a Final Fantasy game.  It really does explain the end cinematic too when you look at it from just a glance.

The Problems With It.

So when I said that Time Compression was too ludicrous an idea for Final Fantasy?  Well, the thing about that is that they have messed with the idea of time alteration before, and in a Final Fantasy game as well.  In the very first Final Fantasy, the villain Garland - who later turns into the archdemon Chaos - devises a plan to create a sort of temporal paradox, where he would send Four Fiends of the Elements into the future so that they can send him back into the past, thus supposedly creating a cycle where he simply cannot die. So we can't fully dismiss the idea of Chronomancy used in such an extreme.

As it comes to the Moombas, the Shumi, the origins of the monsters and everything else the theory tries to go against, it can be all summed up by the contrivance of this statement:  It’s a Final Fantasy game.  The reason Squall’s ice spike wound healed was because of the curing magic they would have employed before getting into the prison.  The Shumi and Moombas are really no different than other things that come out of nowhere, like the Namingways in FF4, or just Moogles in general, though, I concede that a giant Shumi living in the lower levels of the Balamb Garden did seem to come out of nowhere.

What about them having been in an orphanage together and not remembering each other?  It’s already been established that prolonged exposure to a GF makes you forget certain segments of memory due to their need to inhabit the host’s mind in order to function.  Selphie herself explains how she had junctioned a GF to herself when she was younger, but she cannot remember the details of that GF or what happened to it either.  Given Balamb's reliance on the GFs over other gardens, it would be safe to assume that Quistis, Squall, Zell and Seifer's memories were affected greatly because of it.

Does it also explain the final cutscenes?  That is its own can of worms, and I’ll offer a link here to give the full story of what happened.  Essentially the SeeDs tempted Ultimecia’s plan to compress time itself so that she can possess a Sorceress in the past, as she resides in the future.  What we see in the cutscenes with Squall is him falling into the wrong Time Loop - a possibility that is referenced by Quistis prior to his scenes - and later becoming lost, only trying hard to focus on Rinoa and where to find her, and ultimately failing this.  

To me, the main issue of the story being a death dream is a hard one to swallow.  While it does present itself as an interesting take on a narrative, and very experimental of an idea for a Final Fantasy title, one of which was completely littered with experimental designs, at the same time it’s an ending that wouldn’t be fulfilling to the player.  What would have been the point of looking into the death dream of a failed hero?  Another game comes to mind that would have done the idea properly.  Eternal Sonata, for example, uses the death dreams of Chopin in such a way that it interweaves his musical talents, as well as the societal structure of Chopin’s era, on display in the game and through the narrative.  In a strange way, it could open up young gamers into a classical world they would have otherwise have overlooked.  What benefit would there have been in the case of Squall dying?

I enjoyed working on this theory and talking about it.  It’s definitely worth a discussion and focuses on something I want to talk about more when it comes to Storied Gaming, that being the story of the game.  I do have two more theories planned to talk about, but I wonder if there aren’t any others you would like for me to cover.  Let me know in the comments below, and if you enjoyed this or any of my other work, please don’t hesitate to reblog down below.  Until next time!

[blazehedgehog]

And Then We Started Writing Fanfiction

<BlazeHedgehog> man <BlazeHedgehog> Final Fantasy X is a dumb game. <BlazeHedgehog> Three hours in and Tidus has been lost in two? three? vortexes <BlazeHedgehog> wakes up and is just like "eh whatever" <BlazeHedgehog> "i'll just roll with it" <BlazeHedgehog> "blitzball!!!!" <Kyoma> "This is all a dream, right?" <Kyoma> "I mean..." <BlazeHedgehog> Is any of this for real? <BlazeHedgehog> Or not? <Kyoma> "A magical world that ALSO has an underwater ball game?" <Kyoma> "My only concern is that this may be signs of an undiagnosed brain tumor. But that can't be, right Giant Talking Cat Man?" <BlazeHedgehog> rofl <Kyoma> "You're fine, Star Player of the Zanarkand Abes." <Kyoma> That has to be my favorite part <Kyoma> That they were dedicated to letting you name him <Kyoma> So now nobody can call him Tidus <BlazeHedgehog> "Rikku, I told you to stop speaking in Al Bhed!" "That's not real, Tidus. We told you. Whenever you supposedly write in Al Bhed, you just write in english and replace all the letters with something else." <Kyoma> Man. Everything makes so much more sense if this is Tidus having a nervous breakdown as he dies from a brain tumor <Kyoma> Its like if dyslexia became a language <BlazeHedgehog> I'm going to register tidushadabrainaneurysm.com <Kyoma> lmao <Kyoma> He wakes up to see Doctor Yuna. His nurses Rikku, Wakka and Lulu. A cat in the window stares at him. Auron asks him if he's okay and says his dad came to visit him. "He says you are still a useless cry baby. I told him he might be a dick." <Kyoma> "You'll live. But you'll never play Blitzball again." "Oh, great. One more thing for my old man to give me grief about." <Kyoma> "I had the weirdest dream though. You were there, and you were there, and you, and you, and also that cat. Also just when I thought it was over there was like.. a sequel dream. And some spin-offs. And a really weird novel where I was killed by an exploding blitzball."

[blazehedgehog]

What is the Squall is dead theory. And while we are at it, what is the Rinoa is Ultimecia theory?

I am not well-versed enough in Final Fantasy 8 to know what the “Rinoa is Ultimecia” Theory is because I got sick of the game and gave up before they introduced Ultimecia.

I did, however, play far enough that the “Squall is Dead” theory makes sense to me. Now, I’m probably going to butcher this, because I’m recounting it from memory, so if you want to read it “for real,” you can just hit up squallsdead.com.

Squall is Dead is related to an old trick people apply to many different things. The overarching concept is that “(X) died” is used to explain away why the story gets progressively weirder and more nonsensical as it reaches its conclusion. It ties up loose ends and plugs plotholes under the guise of “it’s SUPPOSED to be broken.” The idea is that as this person dies, and their brain shuts down, they basically live in a dreamworld of their own creation that slowly begins to unravel as the life leaves their body. 

A classic example is in The Simpsons. In one episode, Homer asks God about the meaning of life. God says he can’t tell Homer until after he dies, but Homer demands to know anyway. God jokes, “What, you can’t wait six months?” Exactly six months later, the April Fools episode airs, where Bart hospitalizes Homer after he opens an explosive can of beer. The theory is that every episode from that point onwards takes place in Homer’s mind, explaining the increasingly silly tone the show takes.

In Squall’s case, Disc 1 of Final Fantasy 8 ends with a big assault on the game’s villain, the witch Edea. Squall comes from Balamb Garden, which in this scenario, is basically the Final Fantasy version of Hogwarts. There he’s been studying battle tactics, magic, and more, and this attempted assassination on Edea is his first real mission in the field.

They plan out this whole sequence of events that is supposed to leave Edea defenseless so that Irvine, their sniper, can get a clear shot and kill her. Unfortunately, everything goes double and triple wrong. Rinoa, who is from a neighboring school and helped organize this mission, is literally grounded by her father before they set out on the mission, because if I remember right, her father doesn’t want her “getting hurt.” (That old chestnut)

At the last minute Rinoa disobeys her father and decides she’s going to help, even though they clearly state that they have to stick to their plan no matter what, and any unexpected element can screw everything up (like, say, Rinoa showing up out of nowhere). Unsurprisingly, Rinoa arrives and screws everything up because she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and on top of that, Irvine suddenly gets too nervous to take the shot and wimps out. So now you’ve got this random element running around (Rinoa) and a loser sniper who isn’t going to do anything, leaving the rest of the crew sort of confused as to what they should do next. The plan is in total disarray and everybody might as well surrender.

I think as a last-ditch effort, Squall charges Edea’s parade float and for this he gets three gigantic spears of ice straight through the heart. It’s like a Mortal Kombat X fatality; he should have a hole in his chest the size of a basketball.

Squall falls, and everything goes dark.

Squall wakes up in prison. He immediately feels his chest – no wound, no scars, nothing. Not even torn clothing. It’s like it never happened.

From there, things take a turn for the ridiculous. Squall himself starts acting differently. Whereas before he was a selfish, whiny teenager, suddenly it seems as though Squall becomes the center of the game’s universe. He gains a sudden boost of confidence. The game’s tone begins to shift, it becomes increasingly more wacky.

Cute lion-like creatures are introduced that are apparently core to the game’s plot. Squall returns to Balamb Garden to find its under martial law, controlled by some kind of weird space alien that’s always lived in the basement, but nobody ever noticed. The Headmaster of the school, Cid, is discovered to be married to Edea, and maybe Edea isn’t really the big evil villain we’ve been lead to believe for the last five or six hours.

I gave up about the time Squall’s crew has to stop a missile launch. They fail, and a few members of the party are presumed dead. The missiles are targeted to strike Balamb Garden, Squall’s home school, but we learn that the school is secretly an airship that merely lifts up off the ground and flies out of the way of the missiles moments before they strike.

Apparently the game gets more and more ridiculous from there. Something about amnesia, time compression, how everyone secretly grew up together when they were infants, and they even go to space at some point. I wouldn’t know. “Your School is a secret airship piloted by Headmaster Cid” was the last pointless plot twist I could stomach and I turned the stupid game off.

The idea is that as Squall is dying, he dreams that he’s the hero he’s always wanted to be. He becomes strong, cunning, and charismatic, and in the end, he wins the heart of a pretty lady.

But where things get really weird is when you finally get to Final Fantasy 8′s ending. Rather than explain anything, or provide legitimate closure, it is a nightmare sequence of what appear to be fading memories. Faces blur out of existence as a highlight reel of the game’s most important moments replay again and again, with a particular focus on when Squall got stabbed in the chest by Edea’s ice spears. It’s intentionally very dream-like and more than a little disturbing.

When the nightmare ends, and Rinoa finds Squall wandering around literally in limbo, we get a glimpse of what some say is heaven. All of our characters, even some of the villains, are laughing and having a good time under perfect blue skies and vast green fields. For somewhat undefined reasons, everything’s good and everybody’s happy and nothing is bad. The end.

At the very least, it seems to be an ending that was made to be open to interpretation. The problem with Squall is Dead is that the notion of a character dying is kind of played out. It’s really easy to explain away poor writing by saying “Oh, it stops making sense because he’s dying and this is all metaphorical.”

It’s kind of the textbook case of looking for meaning where there isn’t any. 

So it’s one of those things where, like… I’d appreciate Final Fantasy 8 a lot more if that really was the case, I guess, but I can’t let myself buy in to it, you know? It’s a cool idea to think about, but it’s probably just a bunch of gobbledygook.

[tendercute]

ヽ(￣д￣;)ノ=3=3=3

[garrett-gucci]

Squall is dead

As much as I want to not believe it, the ending of this game wouldn’t make much sense otherwise. I mean, the final cutscene where Squall is looking for Rinoa and is forgetting her, jesus. Something about it hits hard. This whole game as a whole hits me really hard, and I don’t know if it’s just the fact that I relate with Squall so much on a person level, or if it’s something else. I think I’m thinking about this game too much. But then again, I like the idea that I can not accept the “happily ever after” ending, and see it as something so much more.

[drocknation-blog]

Dumb Creepypasta propaganda....