Unfinished Business: Disturbing Implications II
I’m circling back to Unfinished Business ™ this week with another crack at an old, old post I had at the time intended on turning into a series, but spent the next 6 years not writing any such thing.
We’ll start things off with the same game that started the original post, mostly because it’s recently came back in the news cycle.
Beware! Here there be spoilers!
Final Fantasy VII
The end of Disc 1 is more tragic than you thought all these years.
Most of us know that sad, sad setup already. Cloud ambles toward Aerith, breaking free of Jenova’s control a moment before he ends her life… only for one of the proper Sephiroth clones to drop in and stab her through the torso. It’s a powerful, gut-wrenching moment from a time when games didn’t do this in general, even though Final Fantasy has been killing people with impunity since the second game.
And we catch as Cloud mourns over Aerith’s body, while the clone monologues instructions on how to get to the next area of the game and prepares a boss battle. And we go through that boss fight (thankfully, the battle screen doesn’t include Aerith’s body lying off to the side by our party, but rest assured it is still there).
After that, every person in the party has time to have a moment of their own to react to Aerith’s passing. Barrett takes a moment to sob over the body, but then pats Cloud on the shoulder, knowing this turn of events is the roughest on Cloud (excepting Aerith, of course). Yuffie, on the other hand, needs her own comforting as she cries into Clouds chest after praying over Aerith. Red XIII howls as he did for his lost father. Tifa brushes aside Aerith’s hair before running off, trying to hold her composure. Vincent remains stoic, observing Aerith and then Cloud, before walking off. Cait Sith desperately tried to cheer everybody up, but in the end knows it’s futile and even insensitive. Cid, despite his world-weary way, expresses disbelief that things had come to this.
After they all leave Cloud alone with her, he picks up her body and lays it to rest in the pond at the bottom of the City of the Ancients. Not one of them noticing that she was still alive.
Yes, it really was Cloud that killed Aerith, drowning her in the pool. If you followed that first link, you already know why. To correct the most obvious omission from that post: Aerith wasn’t immediately killed by the Sephiroth clone’s attack because her body, unlike Sephiroth’s in the game’s final cutscene, did not dissolve into lifestream at any point during the monologue, during the boss fight, during everyone’s last respects when everybody fussed over the body yet somehow failed to notice a pulse or respiration. She may have lost consciousness, but a Cure or Life spell would probably HAVE worked had anybody tried it. Unfortunately, the cast of Final Fantasy V wasn’t around to help with that.
Now, let’s move on to ruining another timely game.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
Link’s arrival doomed Koholint Island and its residents.
If you were paying attention to the livestream, you know the gist of it: The Wind Fish fell asleep and dreamed up an entire world and its people. At some point afterward, the Nightmare discovered this, and infested the Wind Fish’s dream. The Nightmare preserved the world, but started filling it with a slow but steady trickle of monsters in a bid to take it over.
Then our plucky Hylian adventurer encounters a storm at sea near the Wind Fish. His ship is blown apart by an errant bolt of lightning and he’s knocked out and adrift. Sleeping in proximity of the Wind Fish apparently allows him to enter the dream, where he goes on to defeat the Nightmare and its ilk and awaken both the Wind Fish and himself. I’m assuming if Link took too long, he would have died in the waking world from starvation, dehydration or hypothermia. It’s never mentioned if Link’s ship had a crew, but it certainly looked too big to man all by himself. Since nobody else washed up on Koholint, I’d say they’re just as dead as Prince Alexander of Daventry’s crew.
But that’s not the disturbing implication I’m writing about, here. I’m suggesting that despite the messy situation with the Nightmare, Koholint Island could have survived. But when Link arrived any possibility of that happening ended.
Why? Everything on Koholint Island — the people, the animals, the fetch quests — was dreamed up by the Wind Fish. And the Wind Fish knew exactly what a young hero would need to succeed on his quest and wake the Wind Fish up, and saw to it that those things existed: The Song of Awakening, the Secret Seashells, Heart containers, all the equipment. The Nightmare may have done its utmost to seize and hide these items, but the Wind Fish can shower a hero with keys, maps compasses, rupees and a spirit guide who used its omniscient knowledge to tell you were the Nightmare hid everything.
But the one thing the Wind Fish wouldn’t dream up was a hero. It could have at any time have dreamed the extermination of the Nightmare, but a dream hero would face an impossible demand afterward: Sacrifice his world and all its inhabitants to appease his God. A hero who was part of the dream could go back home and enjoy an idyllic life with their friends and family free of monsters until the Wind Fish itself died.
Once the Wind Fish lucked into Link, a person who needed to wake up to live, it was time to get the quest in motion. That is why the shrine existed, and a mandatory quest item was there. Link would have to learn that this was a dream and infer there were only two possible outcomes for him: Waking up or a slow death in the real world.
Death, of course, was impossible within the dream thanks to the Wind Fish being able to overwhelmingly tilt the scales in the Hero’s favor. The Wind Fish created the world; the Nightmare just lived in it.
Related posts:
Cognition Dissemination: Advent of a Crisis — Final Fantasy VII Remake’s Potential Changes
Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: No Uematsu for Final Fantasy VII Remake? No Problem
Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: The Final Fantasy VII Remake Compilation
Recommended Soundtracks: Horror Tracks from Non-Horror Games
About The Author
Drew
Features Editor | Drew started behind the 8(bit)-ball in the video game world. He first became interested in anime by chance exposure on the Sci-Fi channel. Drew's the creative force behind blog-wide features, works the movie and food beats, and pioneered Damage Control’s entry into video, podcasts and streaming.
