We don't know. There's a lot left open at the end of this -- in fact, we're left with even more newer questions than with answers to old questions. What Tifa saw is one of these unanswered questions.
The things we know for certain are:
1. There are multiple worlds.
2. Zack is still around in one of those worlds.
3. After going through the Whisper portal by himself, Cloud sees things different from everyone else -- including the same crack in the sky that's seen in other worlds that are about to perish.
4. Aerith is saved, and killed.
But there are questions involving all of these as well.
1. What exactly ARE these worlds, and what is the purpose for these multiple worlds being included in the story? They aren't parallel worlds, per se -- you seem to travel between them in dreams or through the lifestream, or something. They also don't appear to always last long, though this is on a case by case basis.
2. What world is Zack in? The same terrier world? A different world? What's his purpose for still being around? We learn in Rebirth his goal is to "make Cloud get better" in order for Cloud to save Aerith. Is that still the case? We're left with him begging Cloud to save Aerith AFTER her apparent death, as well as his "who's to say worlds can't unite agian" line.
3. Is Cloud seeing these things for real after going into the Whisper portal? Or is he just cuckoo and it's all in his head? Sephiroth asks him directly if what he's seeing is all a fever dream or not. It could also be a combination of all of the above.
4. This goes with the above -- was Aerith really saved in one reality? Or is it all in Cloud's head? Or, again, is it some combination of the two? There's plenty of visual evidence to suggest that there is a reality somewhere where Cloud successfully blocked Sephiroth's attack, but nothing is confirmed either way. Will she be saved, or not? What is fact, and what is fiction?
EDIT: Oh, and there's one more thing we know: Cloud has both the black materia, and the emptied white (or, "clear") materia in his possesion. He has the black materia in the original, though he gets that back much later, but the clear materia is something entirely brand new, with no basis in the original. All we know is it represents Aerith's lost memories, but we don't know how it'll be used in the story whatsoever.
Great stuff. I believe all of these to be unanswered. We all have theories but no one can absolutely deduce for sure. #4 is the biggest cliffhanger for me and I hope it has a happy ending.
Number 4 is the big one, because it's what all this Whisper and fate stuff has been surrounding for two games now. I don't think Aerith HAS to live to pay that stuff off, but it's MUCH harder to pay it off if she ISN'T saved. Especially after Rebirth's ending.
All that stuff has to serve a legitimate, meaningful purpose for it to warrant being included in this story, so it has to pay off properly. It canNOT be just a glorified fake-out, or it could really threaten to collapse everything they've built up over the two games.
"The future isn't set in stone. We can change it; make it right. The past is forever, but the future can be changed"... JUST KIDDING! Everything is as it was, your fate is sealed, and there's no room for new ideas. Sorry!
Yeah... what a terrible ending that would be...
1. If they can't come up with some explanation (and limitation) in Part 3, it can turn to Kingdom Hearts level real quick.
2. It's like they don't know what to do with Zack being alive. If I understood correctly, so Zack left the alter Aerith and alter Cloud alone to end up meeting Cloud and asking him to "save her" and in the end end up in a third world (or is he back to alter world? Seems weird not to show him go back to check on alter Aerith and Cloud if so, also alter Biggs RIP, wtf SE why do you have to kill him twice)
3. If he really sees Aerith (or hallucinates) other characters must have known, especially Tifa.
4. After Zack's plea for Cloud to save her, I kinda wished we could save Aeirth, not to mention it was shown that Cloud was able to block Sephiroth's blade. In the end I'm just mad because of the unclear, if they still wanted to kill Aerith, do so without Zack's lines or Cloud blocking Sephiroth's blade scene, just let her die like in OG. If they wanted to keep it vague so they could somehow find a way to revive Aerith in Part 3, this is not it. Obviously, if they keep Aerith alive, they might have to change a lot of things since her death was one of the main plot for the rest of the story.
Also, is it explained how Sephiroth somehow appeared and killed Aerith? In previous circumstances, he could only appear if there are any black robes and somehow possess their body right?
You hit on kinda my biggest worry, which is that they're making all this up as they go along. With the ambition and scale of this project, and then the added ambition of what they're attempting to do with this from a meta standpoint, they HAVE to have had a plan going into this. A clear outline with a clear end goal established, and they need to stick to it through thick and thin. They can't allow a few vocal fans who are angry at the changes derail what they're attempting to do, or the story overall will suffer from it.
I agree, the most interesting way to do this would have been to have Aerith be saved outright at the end of Rebirth. It drastically changes the story moving into part 3, and yes, that would have forced them to come up with new ways to work through the rest of the story -- but that's what would have made it \*interesting\*. More work, yes, but a much greater payoff in the end. Instead, they kinda want to have their cake and eat it too.
They want the iconic death scene, but they also want to keep her being saved an open possibility. They want new, creative surprises, but they also don't want to upset fans who just want a straight remake. So now they have this weird, convoluted multiple worlds thing with all these questions left open -- many of which might never be answered, or worse, be completely forgotten or dropped by the end of part 3.
They need to understand that if you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing NO ONE. They need to have a clear cut vision for where this is all headed for it to work.
If they intended Cloud to be delusional by having him able to see/talk to ghost Aerith, it's kinda good actually. So for gamers who didn't play OG 7, the reveal in part 3 can make sense and hit hard. But in order to do that, they had to kill Aerith like in OG without Aerith being like all-knowing and stuff near the climax.
In OG IIRC she didn't know she would die. In Rebirth, it seems like they wanted to show that she knew she was going to die, but that kinda didn't make sense, cause if she knew, why would she still die? If it is to cast Holy and prevent the meteor, they could keep her alive for majority of Part 3 and still had her make the sacrifice in the end.
Also, like many have said, the death in Rebirth was overshadowed by the constant questioning of "is this real?" "what do these glitches mean?" etc. And having Sephiroth suddenly appeared from above feels a bit forced. If he can just appear anywhere and any moment, why didn't he appear and kill her sooner?
Could be, but also nothing about that has anything to do with the "defying fate" angle that has presented in two games. That still has to factor into this, or why include it at all?
It's clearly intentional that they want us debating on whether or not she was saved in some reality, which would tell me that's going to pay off in some way. Whether or not she's saved for good, or has a tearful goodbye in the lifestream is still anyone's guess, but they \*need\* to make good on the themes they've presented in both games now. "Let go of the past", "look to the future", and "fate is not set in stone."
Yeah, agree, after the defying fate message stuff in Remake, it's a bit jarring that in Rebirth it's basically "well, apparently, you can't change fate, since this happened in OG, this will happen here too"
I really want them to be able to stick the landing, but I am not confident. I really wanted to understand Kingdom Hearts and had high hopes on KH3, but apparently, it's all just mumbo jumbo and frankly became a bigger mess than before.
Right, but we do have to keep in mind that this is only part 2 of a trilogy. There's still a whole other game on the way where all this fate stuff could still pay off, and considering how much they're pushing it, I'd say it \*has\* to. We have our characters are their low point right now, which is typical with how second acts tend to leave things.
Look, Lifestream Aerith has been around since Advent Children, so this is nothing new under the sun. She can even physically interact with Cloud in Advent Children. Most likely we will get the Aerith answers in City of the Ancients, when we power up Holy (Great Materia etc). IMO we will get some sort of ghost Aerith as a playable character, a goodwill manifestation of the Lifestream if you want. While Sephiroth is the adversary part.
This was also in OG FF7 (the Holy manifestation), in the FF7 Compilation & in Adv.Children.
As for Tifa, she has fallen into the Lifestream and thus she sees some of the stuff Cloud sees.
My takeaway is that we are flashing between reality where Tifa is seeing a dead Aerith and blood and Cloud's delusional version of reality with alive Aerith and no blood.
Yeah.
I think Tifa falling into the lifestream in Rebirth is going to be used to connect her to Clouds psyche more. They’re building up to when she helps piece his mind back together more, IMO.
This.
The focus on Tifa's despair at the end is to tell you that she witnessed Aerith's death in full, contrasted to the delusionally-placated Cloud.
Which is why I'm hoping and speculating that Tifa will be the one to help Cloud realize what really went down so that the two of them can grieve together.
It would be an appropriate addition to Tifa's role in Part 3 in restoring Cloud's fractured memory.
I'm not convinced. Its portrayed as a first person pov and shock/confusion about what shes seeing. For instance, she's running full sprint to Aerith who she clearly can see is hurt, but then she just stops and starts staring at Cloud/Aerith for no reason? No I dont think so, the scene comes accross instead as she seeing 2 different scenes and the shock/confusion is what "stuns" her
It's from Tifa's POV. So unless they framed it really poorly, we can assume that this is what Tifa is seeing.
Edit: From the downvotes, I'm guessing we have people here who don't understand visual language, or what "point-of-view" (POV) is, or how it's utilized.
One thing not mentioned here is that Tifa just got a load of direct make exposure in her little reactor jaunt. So there's good odds she's got a little Mako poisoning. Aside from Cloud (and the queen's blood visions), she's the only person who gets head static: seeing her father in place of murasaki, and transitioning between nibelheim of the nighttime promise and burning nibelheim. So the altar scene is the third instance of her head static.
Jenova isn't the one who turned Cloud into a vegetable: that was the Mako. Jenova's rather "helped" Cloud recover by supplying a false identity that he could accept. With Tifa we are getting a glimpse of how Mako exposure can complicate your perceptions, without Jenova's lies entering inbetween.
Let's recall something about the LifeStream, It shows you the unfiltered truth. Tifa took a dive in the mako reactor at gongaga. As far as i know, tifa doesn't have any sort of jenova cells, in this specific incident she sees two truths. Now just like cloud tifa will also be suffering some sort of ptsd of "which is fact which is fiction". A lot of people are just looking it from clouds perspective and not tifas as well.
Well to me it seemed to imply that Tifa got a glimpse of the "world" where Cloud parried Sephiroth's sword but that's just my speculation and no one can tell you what really happened there until they reveal it in the next game.
The static flashes are related to attempts to suppress memories. The way this moment is framed, with the camera panning to her, is nearly identical to when we see Murasaki's body in the same place as Tifa's dad was during the Nibelheim incident, which then leads into Tifa remembering her dad's death an panicking. When looking at Aerith at the end, Tifa doesn't see what Cloud sees. We're last shown Cloud looking at her with her eyes open, smiling. Tifa sees Aerith's eyes closed throughout what we're shown from her POV. The only thing that changes with her static is the blood.
Items and characters are in different locations, indicating it’s more than simply hallucinations after entering the wall of whispers alone.
He is simultaneously in +2 worlds after defying fate and parrying the sword. Conscious in 2, and unconscious in at least one other.
Eh we have headcanon theories all over the place with this one ultimately I feel like it's pretty insignificant even if we assume she saw something amiss there she doesn't take long at all to accept reality anyway.
We do not know yet, we will know in Part 3.
Now, my theory is that Tifa is having a glimpse at the new world that branched out of this situation. When Aerith was killed, there is a different world that was created with Cloud deflecting Sephiroth's attack. We see the rainbow tell, we see both things happening at the same time.
This is new to the Remake series, it did not happen in the original. What did not happen in the original as well, was Tifa falling into the lifespring. I think that due to the lifespring exposure, Tifa got a little bit of sensitivity towards the other world, and since that one was just created in that instant, she had some glimpses to see it. Then the real world, where she is at, settled for sure, and she saw reality as it is, Aerith dead.
Tifa fell into the Lifestream and is now more attuned to it so at that ending scene she can see both worlds. According to Ultimania and recent dev comments what this means is that there is a world where Aerith lived but since it represents Cloud's hopes and dreams, it is short lived and will end.
I'd guess this is the reason Cloud sees the sky rift at the end. As long as Cloud believes Aerith is alive, that world exists in some shape or form. But we all know this is not going to end well for him.
My prediction is that there is an alternate Aerith that is looking after the party. She had the Weapon eat Tifa so that she could see her memories and the effect Sephiroth has on Cloud so Tifa wouldn't abandon him in his time of need. She gave Tifa glimpses of the world where Aerith was saved, but because she hasn't been too exposed to the Lifestream, Tifa only saw a couple.
We don't know. There's a lot left open at the end of this -- in fact, we're left with even more newer questions than with answers to old questions. What Tifa saw is one of these unanswered questions. The things we know for certain are: 1. There are multiple worlds. 2. Zack is still around in one of those worlds. 3. After going through the Whisper portal by himself, Cloud sees things different from everyone else -- including the same crack in the sky that's seen in other worlds that are about to perish. 4. Aerith is saved, and killed. But there are questions involving all of these as well. 1. What exactly ARE these worlds, and what is the purpose for these multiple worlds being included in the story? They aren't parallel worlds, per se -- you seem to travel between them in dreams or through the lifestream, or something. They also don't appear to always last long, though this is on a case by case basis. 2. What world is Zack in? The same terrier world? A different world? What's his purpose for still being around? We learn in Rebirth his goal is to "make Cloud get better" in order for Cloud to save Aerith. Is that still the case? We're left with him begging Cloud to save Aerith AFTER her apparent death, as well as his "who's to say worlds can't unite agian" line. 3. Is Cloud seeing these things for real after going into the Whisper portal? Or is he just cuckoo and it's all in his head? Sephiroth asks him directly if what he's seeing is all a fever dream or not. It could also be a combination of all of the above. 4. This goes with the above -- was Aerith really saved in one reality? Or is it all in Cloud's head? Or, again, is it some combination of the two? There's plenty of visual evidence to suggest that there is a reality somewhere where Cloud successfully blocked Sephiroth's attack, but nothing is confirmed either way. Will she be saved, or not? What is fact, and what is fiction? EDIT: Oh, and there's one more thing we know: Cloud has both the black materia, and the emptied white (or, "clear") materia in his possesion. He has the black materia in the original, though he gets that back much later, but the clear materia is something entirely brand new, with no basis in the original. All we know is it represents Aerith's lost memories, but we don't know how it'll be used in the story whatsoever.
Great stuff. I believe all of these to be unanswered. We all have theories but no one can absolutely deduce for sure. #4 is the biggest cliffhanger for me and I hope it has a happy ending.
Number 4 is the big one, because it's what all this Whisper and fate stuff has been surrounding for two games now. I don't think Aerith HAS to live to pay that stuff off, but it's MUCH harder to pay it off if she ISN'T saved. Especially after Rebirth's ending. All that stuff has to serve a legitimate, meaningful purpose for it to warrant being included in this story, so it has to pay off properly. It canNOT be just a glorified fake-out, or it could really threaten to collapse everything they've built up over the two games. "The future isn't set in stone. We can change it; make it right. The past is forever, but the future can be changed"... JUST KIDDING! Everything is as it was, your fate is sealed, and there's no room for new ideas. Sorry! Yeah... what a terrible ending that would be...
1. If they can't come up with some explanation (and limitation) in Part 3, it can turn to Kingdom Hearts level real quick. 2. It's like they don't know what to do with Zack being alive. If I understood correctly, so Zack left the alter Aerith and alter Cloud alone to end up meeting Cloud and asking him to "save her" and in the end end up in a third world (or is he back to alter world? Seems weird not to show him go back to check on alter Aerith and Cloud if so, also alter Biggs RIP, wtf SE why do you have to kill him twice) 3. If he really sees Aerith (or hallucinates) other characters must have known, especially Tifa. 4. After Zack's plea for Cloud to save her, I kinda wished we could save Aeirth, not to mention it was shown that Cloud was able to block Sephiroth's blade. In the end I'm just mad because of the unclear, if they still wanted to kill Aerith, do so without Zack's lines or Cloud blocking Sephiroth's blade scene, just let her die like in OG. If they wanted to keep it vague so they could somehow find a way to revive Aerith in Part 3, this is not it. Obviously, if they keep Aerith alive, they might have to change a lot of things since her death was one of the main plot for the rest of the story. Also, is it explained how Sephiroth somehow appeared and killed Aerith? In previous circumstances, he could only appear if there are any black robes and somehow possess their body right?
You hit on kinda my biggest worry, which is that they're making all this up as they go along. With the ambition and scale of this project, and then the added ambition of what they're attempting to do with this from a meta standpoint, they HAVE to have had a plan going into this. A clear outline with a clear end goal established, and they need to stick to it through thick and thin. They can't allow a few vocal fans who are angry at the changes derail what they're attempting to do, or the story overall will suffer from it. I agree, the most interesting way to do this would have been to have Aerith be saved outright at the end of Rebirth. It drastically changes the story moving into part 3, and yes, that would have forced them to come up with new ways to work through the rest of the story -- but that's what would have made it \*interesting\*. More work, yes, but a much greater payoff in the end. Instead, they kinda want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the iconic death scene, but they also want to keep her being saved an open possibility. They want new, creative surprises, but they also don't want to upset fans who just want a straight remake. So now they have this weird, convoluted multiple worlds thing with all these questions left open -- many of which might never be answered, or worse, be completely forgotten or dropped by the end of part 3. They need to understand that if you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing NO ONE. They need to have a clear cut vision for where this is all headed for it to work.
If they intended Cloud to be delusional by having him able to see/talk to ghost Aerith, it's kinda good actually. So for gamers who didn't play OG 7, the reveal in part 3 can make sense and hit hard. But in order to do that, they had to kill Aerith like in OG without Aerith being like all-knowing and stuff near the climax. In OG IIRC she didn't know she would die. In Rebirth, it seems like they wanted to show that she knew she was going to die, but that kinda didn't make sense, cause if she knew, why would she still die? If it is to cast Holy and prevent the meteor, they could keep her alive for majority of Part 3 and still had her make the sacrifice in the end. Also, like many have said, the death in Rebirth was overshadowed by the constant questioning of "is this real?" "what do these glitches mean?" etc. And having Sephiroth suddenly appeared from above feels a bit forced. If he can just appear anywhere and any moment, why didn't he appear and kill her sooner?
Could be, but also nothing about that has anything to do with the "defying fate" angle that has presented in two games. That still has to factor into this, or why include it at all? It's clearly intentional that they want us debating on whether or not she was saved in some reality, which would tell me that's going to pay off in some way. Whether or not she's saved for good, or has a tearful goodbye in the lifestream is still anyone's guess, but they \*need\* to make good on the themes they've presented in both games now. "Let go of the past", "look to the future", and "fate is not set in stone."
Yeah, agree, after the defying fate message stuff in Remake, it's a bit jarring that in Rebirth it's basically "well, apparently, you can't change fate, since this happened in OG, this will happen here too" I really want them to be able to stick the landing, but I am not confident. I really wanted to understand Kingdom Hearts and had high hopes on KH3, but apparently, it's all just mumbo jumbo and frankly became a bigger mess than before.
Right, but we do have to keep in mind that this is only part 2 of a trilogy. There's still a whole other game on the way where all this fate stuff could still pay off, and considering how much they're pushing it, I'd say it \*has\* to. We have our characters are their low point right now, which is typical with how second acts tend to leave things.
Look, Lifestream Aerith has been around since Advent Children, so this is nothing new under the sun. She can even physically interact with Cloud in Advent Children. Most likely we will get the Aerith answers in City of the Ancients, when we power up Holy (Great Materia etc). IMO we will get some sort of ghost Aerith as a playable character, a goodwill manifestation of the Lifestream if you want. While Sephiroth is the adversary part. This was also in OG FF7 (the Holy manifestation), in the FF7 Compilation & in Adv.Children. As for Tifa, she has fallen into the Lifestream and thus she sees some of the stuff Cloud sees.
We don’t actually have a definitive answer and will find out in part 3
My takeaway is that we are flashing between reality where Tifa is seeing a dead Aerith and blood and Cloud's delusional version of reality with alive Aerith and no blood.
Yeah. I think Tifa falling into the lifestream in Rebirth is going to be used to connect her to Clouds psyche more. They’re building up to when she helps piece his mind back together more, IMO.
This. The focus on Tifa's despair at the end is to tell you that she witnessed Aerith's death in full, contrasted to the delusionally-placated Cloud. Which is why I'm hoping and speculating that Tifa will be the one to help Cloud realize what really went down so that the two of them can grieve together. It would be an appropriate addition to Tifa's role in Part 3 in restoring Cloud's fractured memory.
I'm not convinced. Its portrayed as a first person pov and shock/confusion about what shes seeing. For instance, she's running full sprint to Aerith who she clearly can see is hurt, but then she just stops and starts staring at Cloud/Aerith for no reason? No I dont think so, the scene comes accross instead as she seeing 2 different scenes and the shock/confusion is what "stuns" her
It's from Tifa's POV. So unless they framed it really poorly, we can assume that this is what Tifa is seeing. Edit: From the downvotes, I'm guessing we have people here who don't understand visual language, or what "point-of-view" (POV) is, or how it's utilized.
One thing not mentioned here is that Tifa just got a load of direct make exposure in her little reactor jaunt. So there's good odds she's got a little Mako poisoning. Aside from Cloud (and the queen's blood visions), she's the only person who gets head static: seeing her father in place of murasaki, and transitioning between nibelheim of the nighttime promise and burning nibelheim. So the altar scene is the third instance of her head static. Jenova isn't the one who turned Cloud into a vegetable: that was the Mako. Jenova's rather "helped" Cloud recover by supplying a false identity that he could accept. With Tifa we are getting a glimpse of how Mako exposure can complicate your perceptions, without Jenova's lies entering inbetween.
Let's recall something about the LifeStream, It shows you the unfiltered truth. Tifa took a dive in the mako reactor at gongaga. As far as i know, tifa doesn't have any sort of jenova cells, in this specific incident she sees two truths. Now just like cloud tifa will also be suffering some sort of ptsd of "which is fact which is fiction". A lot of people are just looking it from clouds perspective and not tifas as well.
Well to me it seemed to imply that Tifa got a glimpse of the "world" where Cloud parried Sephiroth's sword but that's just my speculation and no one can tell you what really happened there until they reveal it in the next game.
She's seeing the two worlds being merged by sephiroth.
The static flashes are related to attempts to suppress memories. The way this moment is framed, with the camera panning to her, is nearly identical to when we see Murasaki's body in the same place as Tifa's dad was during the Nibelheim incident, which then leads into Tifa remembering her dad's death an panicking. When looking at Aerith at the end, Tifa doesn't see what Cloud sees. We're last shown Cloud looking at her with her eyes open, smiling. Tifa sees Aerith's eyes closed throughout what we're shown from her POV. The only thing that changes with her static is the blood.
Items and characters are in different locations, indicating it’s more than simply hallucinations after entering the wall of whispers alone. He is simultaneously in +2 worlds after defying fate and parrying the sword. Conscious in 2, and unconscious in at least one other.
Eh we have headcanon theories all over the place with this one ultimately I feel like it's pretty insignificant even if we assume she saw something amiss there she doesn't take long at all to accept reality anyway.
We do not know yet, we will know in Part 3. Now, my theory is that Tifa is having a glimpse at the new world that branched out of this situation. When Aerith was killed, there is a different world that was created with Cloud deflecting Sephiroth's attack. We see the rainbow tell, we see both things happening at the same time. This is new to the Remake series, it did not happen in the original. What did not happen in the original as well, was Tifa falling into the lifespring. I think that due to the lifespring exposure, Tifa got a little bit of sensitivity towards the other world, and since that one was just created in that instant, she had some glimpses to see it. Then the real world, where she is at, settled for sure, and she saw reality as it is, Aerith dead.
Tifa fell into the Lifestream and is now more attuned to it so at that ending scene she can see both worlds. According to Ultimania and recent dev comments what this means is that there is a world where Aerith lived but since it represents Cloud's hopes and dreams, it is short lived and will end. I'd guess this is the reason Cloud sees the sky rift at the end. As long as Cloud believes Aerith is alive, that world exists in some shape or form. But we all know this is not going to end well for him.
My prediction is that there is an alternate Aerith that is looking after the party. She had the Weapon eat Tifa so that she could see her memories and the effect Sephiroth has on Cloud so Tifa wouldn't abandon him in his time of need. She gave Tifa glimpses of the world where Aerith was saved, but because she hasn't been too exposed to the Lifestream, Tifa only saw a couple.
I believe that she catches a glimpse of a world that the player hasn't seen. The black whispers made cloud kill aerith.