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[Ether_Snake]

I thought it was like this:

All sorceresses go through the same shit. But Rinoa managed to not go down the same path.

Or some such.

Thanks to love.

Or whatever. Never liked that FF much.

 

[GoldandBlue]

lol, anyways I never thought much about it. Then again at the time I was 12 and couldn't really follow the story.

Would make the Squall/Utlimecia story in Dissidia more interesting if it was true.

 

[soultron]

I can barely remember playing this game, which is why I so wish for a youtube video of every FF game played through from beginning to end.

 

[Freshmaker]

Who cares what the creators of FFVIII explictly didn't intend. Art is to be interpreted.

It does help if it's interpreted in a way that makes sense and is supported by the material in the game however.

When Ultimecia and Squall go through time compression, she goes to the same place as Squall - Edea's house. Now the thing is that Edea's house was the party's special place, and what's more, Squall and Rinoa's meeting place. How the hell would she know to come there? And then when I consider that her castle is right at Edea's house in the first place....I just see too many coincidences.

There are a few things here that make it less unlikely.

1) Squall would naturally be attracted to warm, safe childhood memories. Ultimecia would likely follow him in an attempt at the very least not to be wiped out since she already knows that she posessed Edea.
2) Ultimecia is keenly aware of the past history. (She's privy to everything that happened after her death as long as someone wrote it down at some point afterwards.
3) Ultimecia understandably obsesses over the dude who kills her.

 

[Inflammable Slinky]

Ugh, I hate to go into literary criticism mode for something as trashy as a JRPG ( in the sense its for entertainment only), the guys saying that the Ultimania book disproves this are patently wrong. For any work of fiction, the intentions of the creators mean exactly jack shit. To put it in a pretentious hipster way, The Author died in the 60s (when New Criticism became popular, I believe).

That out of the way, I highly doubt there is a coherent narrative to be found in this game.

 

[vas_a_morir]

Ultimecia was about as thought out a final antagonist as Necron... that is to say, totally left field. I love 8. Love 9 way more, though.

And, sorry dude, Ultimecia is not Rinoa. But, I agree, it would have been better if she was.

 

[Freshmaker]

Ultimecia was about as thought out a final antagonist as Necron... that is to say, totally left field. I love 8. Love 9 way more, though.

She actually was fairly carefully thought out. She just makes no sense initially because they kept her perspective consistent, so she ends up ranting at Squall about stuff he has no clue about.

It plays out elegantly once you get to thinking about the way the time loop's been set up in the game.

Cid (Knowing that Squall appeared before him and Edea back before she was posessed and that he announced that he had killed Ultimecia and stopped the diasaster): Squall, you're the leader now. Go kill Ultimecia.
Squall: Huh?
Ultimecia (Knowing that Squall's fated to kill her according to the history books): Demands to know why Squall wants her dead.
Squall: Huh??

Seems out of left field, but Squall kicked the whole loop into action by ending up back at the orphanage and reporting that he'd saved all creation. So he and his team spend the bulk of the game wondering what the hell's going on while Cid and Ultimecia already know 'cause it's part of their past.

 

[Rufus]

I hate time travel stories.

 

[Zanasea]

That out of the way, I highly doubt there is a coherent narrative to be found in this game.

You should play the game before saying trashy things about it.

I have another piece to the (already solved) puzzle: I had the chance to ask Kazushige Nojima, the scenario writer of the game, about the Rinoa=Ultimecia theory, and he answered that they never thought about it this way. He jokingly said that the only link he saw was that all women are witches. Nice guy!

 

[dragonlife]

What else did he say?

THIS.

 

[Soule]

Y'know I've played the game at least 4 times through at least to the third disc but every single time I've gotten that far I've become more interested in triple triad than the actual game and restart for some card I missed or something and never finish the game, although I've watched my brother's friend finish the game I really mean to do that myself sometime but never do... might pick it up again some time.

 

[Freshmaker]

You bring up good points. However, is there really any proof in the game that Ultimecia read up on the fact that Squall kills her? Maybe there's something inside her castle? If there is, I haven't found it in my multiple playthroughs.

She knows someone from SeeD ultimately kills her. She was held captive by SeeD for years before she finally went nuts and broke out, and that much of the history was known in the future. (Otherwise SeeD wouldn't have bothered to arrest her in the first place.) It's borne out by her speech.

Edea: ...Lowlifes. ...Shameless filthy wretches. How you celebrate my
ascension with such joy. Hailing the very one whom you have condemned
for generations. Have you no shame? What happened to the evil, ruthless
sorceress from your fantasies? The cold-blooded tyrant that slaughtered
countless men and destroyed many nations? Where is she now? She stands
before your very eyes to become your new ruler. HAHAHAHAHA.

Then, when she sees Squall.

Edea: ...A SeeD. ...Planted in a run-down Garden.

Squall identifies himself in the end as a SeeD from Balamb and tells Edea that they were her idea to fight the sorceress. Right before Ultimecia possesses her. She might not know exactly who he was up to that point, but things started falling together for her right there.

Later in the torture room where Squall is hung to the wall...

Seifer: I'm sure you can imagine what happens now.

Squall: ...What do you want?

Seifer: Tell me what SeeD is. Edea demands to know.

Squall: SeeD... (...A code name for Balamb Garden's elite mercenary force...
SeeD... Combat specialists...) (......???) ...Don't you already know?

Seifer: I'm not a SeeD. There must be some kind of secret you're given
when you become a SeeD!

Squall: There's nothing. Even if there were, you think I'd tell you?

Bit later

Seifer: Well now, Squall. I'll ask you again. What is SeeD? And why do
they oppose the sorceress?

Squall: (SeeD... Oppose the sorceress...?)

She clearly knows Squall's important at this point.

Not addressed in the game, but it's worth noting that there's no guarantee that the time loop is in it's first go 'round on top of that. The only wildcard is the memory erasure that the GF's cause to their users over time.

 

[charlequin]

How does it go against anything the game established?

Because Squall is the protagonist of FFVIII and his story is about opening up, healing the scars of the past, and becoming a whole person after a lifetime of trauma.

Squall's whole problem is that he's the offspring of people with tragic lives and his childhood has been marked by sadness and pain; he can't trust people and he tries to hide from his own destiny.

Each of the three main sorceresses represents a different aspect of Squall's personality and he "defeats" each one in the course of becoming an actually decent person:

Edea is his "mother" and represents his anger over abandonment and loneliness; in the course of the story, he transforms her from a villain to an ally, reclaiming her motherly identity and healing the conflict.

Rinoa represents the present, friends and lovers trying to break through his shell and his fear that they'll betray him -- and therefore, his unwillingness to attach to them. Squall "defeats" this by going out on a limb and risking his own well-being and life in a desperate attempt to save her.

Ultimecia represents Squall's fear of the future and his own destiny -- the concern that his life will be terrible, that pain and suffering and betrayal by his closest allies (represented by Griever here) will be all that waits for him in the future -- and he defeats her, in one sense just by beating her up, but in another by finally allowing Rinoa's affection for him to lead him back to the present, rather than just floating off into time compression.

Given that Squall's whole character arc is about trust, it's pretty stupid if his trust actually is misplaced in Rinoa, and especially if this plot point exists in the narrative but isn't actually addressed (i.e. Ultimecia's death never actually resolves her anger towards Squall and Squall never has to resolve loving Rinoa in the present with her horrible future destiny.) The story already has enough thematic depth without just adding things that go in the opposite direction.

 

[Calcaneus]

Y'know I've played the game at least 4 times through at least to the third disc but every single time I've gotten that far I've become more interested in triple triad than the actual game and restart for some card I missed or something and never finish the game, although I've watched my brother's friend finish the game I really mean to do that myself sometime but never do... might pick it up again some time.

Yeah, what is up with that? Same kind of thing happened to me, sometime near the Adel fight (I think when I got the Laguna card) I became really interested in Triple Triad and spent a lot of time messing around with it. Its an awesome mini-game, one of the best in the series.

About Rinoa, I remember reading about this theory in the 9th grade, and having my mind blown. Even if it isn't official, its still neat to think about while re-playing it. And OP is totally right, this is the best Final Fantasy.

 

[DarienA]

So this thread in a nutshell is basically... Rinoa is Ultimecia.... no she's not the FFVIII developers have explained explicity that she isn't... well too bad I'm gonna keep believing she is?

 

[Rufus]

So this thread in a nutshell is basically... Rinoa is Ultimecia.... no she's not the FFVIII developers have explained explicity that she isn't... well too bad I'm gonna keep believing she is?

Yes.

 

[Freshmaker]

That is true. Every time I see Edea speak on disc 1 and 2 I think of it as Edea, not Ultimecia. But when Ultimecia makes that speech, I thought she was talking about sorceresses in general. They did the same to Adel, they WERE going to do the same to Rinoa. Sorceresses are to be feared in the world of FF8.

They are widely feared, but she's not talking in generalities. (Bear in mind the ceremony was to welcome her.) She keeps it to the singular, which makes me think she's talking about having to live constantly reminded that she's the hated one who attempted to destroy everything regardless of her original innocence.

 

[Freshmaker]

Yo Freshmaker, what you think about this?

I especially love this post:

I always thought that Ultimecia wasn't so much interested in killing Squall as she was for killing history, which she viewed as her true enemy. She'd been slapped upside the head by fate a long time before she ever met Squall. If history didn't exist, SeeD never would've imprisoned her after all. (Seems like the cleanest pathology to her attempt to destroy everything.)

 

[Freshmaker]

The woman obviously grew up being terrorized for crimes she had yet to commit because they documents the acts of the great Seed Squall Leonheart. Whether her goal was to erase history, or Squall himself so she has no way to be defeated thus, she won't be persecuted in some alternative reality, I don't know. But I just find it funny how folks continue to parade that Ultimecia lacks relevance and has little reason for her evil acts.

I can understand them thinking so. When they first wheel her out, her speeches seem to be incoherent ravings. If that turns a gamer's interest off, they probably don't bother to replay the game, and a lot of the pieces simply don't fall into place as a result.

Um...you didn't answer my question above. Where can I read up on the Ultimania?

Sorry. Dunno. (All Google tells me is that it hasn't really been translated except to debunk the Rinoa = Ultimecia theory) I've never read the Ultimania guide. I've just been basing my conclusions on the game script. (Shame too. Would've been nice to have an explanation for why Lunatic Pandora exists etc)

 

[Freshmaker]

It's clearly leftover tech, but I want to know why they'd buld such a thing, why the moon's populated with monsters etc. The FF8 world's ripe for prequels too.

 

[adamsapple]

its always comferting to know that we got to play the version of the game with the butchered storyline

 

[Papissama]

God I love this theory.

I had never thought about the idea and only a couple years ago learned about it. It gives so much more depth to Ultimecia; a villian who we barely ever see in her own flesh throughout the game is actually a future evil version of the bratty 17 year old love interest? Awesome.

Really wish it was real.

This!

I'm such a big fan of that theory! That alone makes this games one of my favorites.

 

[Aeana]

Do not bump 5-year-old threads.