By the time that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth comes to an end, even though it answers a lot of questions raised in Remake, it raises just as many (if not more) for things yet to come in the remake trilogy’s conclusion. As this new tale continues to expand and change more and more, questions about where it’s heading and how it will end become much more prominent, in Rebirth does an excellent job of tantalizingly teasing you with these questions. Here, we’re going to talk about some of the biggest mysteries that are left lingering after Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s story draws to a conclusion.
NOTE: There are major spoilers ahead for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
IS SEPHIROTH FROM THE FUTURE?
This is something that fans have been asking since Final Fantasy 7 Remake first came out, and though we still don’t have a definitive answer, it is certainly becoming increasingly obvious. Over the course of two games (and especially in Rebirth in particular), Sephiroth is shown to be very much aware of the events of the original Final Fantasy 7, while in Rebirth, he obviously also knows about the multiverse’s existence (even having manipulated Cloud and co into defeating the Whispers and the Arbiter of Fate in remake).
So what does that tell us about Sephiroth and the nature of his very existence? Based on everything that we’ve seen of him in the remake trilogy so far, it does seem like this is perhaps a post-Advent Children version of the character who managed to find his way back to the beginning of the original game’s events and started messing with time to try and change his fate. After all, he’s made it abundantly clear on no few occasions by now that he wants to defy destiny, so it stands to reason that he knows what destiny it is exactly that he is defying.
WILL ZACK SURVIVE?
Seeing Zack Fair at the end of Final Fantasy 7 Remake was a big shock, and seeing him survive the fateful encounter that ends in his death was an even bigger one. In Rebirth, it is revealed that by defeating the Arbiter of Fate, the party inadvertently caused the create of multiple different timelines, including the one where we see Zack still alive and heading to Midgar with a Mako-poisoned Cloud. Throughout the game, he continues to have an important role to play, even briefly overlapping with the main timeline to fight against Sephiroth side-by-side with Cloud. And in the aftermath, it’s clear that his goal is to find a way to join his world with the main timeline.
But is Zack going to come out of this whole thing alive? A big theme in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy so far seems to be that one way or another, no matter how hard you try, destiny cannot be defied. Characters have, one way or another, ended up meeting the fates they were always supposed to. In Zack’s timeline, Biggs survived the fall of Sector 7, but eventually ended up dying anyway. In Remake, Wedge survived longer than he did in the original FF7, but was still eventually pushed to his death by the Whispers. And of course, at the end of Rebirth, Cloud tries his damndest to save Aerith, and for a brief moment it even looks like he succeeded- but she, too, ends up dying at Sephiroth’s hand, just as she was always supposed to.
So are Zack’s attempts at finding a way to avoid his death going to be futile? In its final act, Rebirth shows us two offshoots of Zack’s main timeline, one where he tries to get a cure for Cloud from Professor Hojo in Shinra HQ, and one where he attempts to stop Biggs from blowing up Reactor 6- and in both timelines, he’s gunned down by a squad of Shinra troops, exactly as he was at the end of Crisis Core. Is that the game’s way of telling us that, no matter what happens, one way or another, that’s how Zack’s story will always end?
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE VERSIONS OF AERITH AND CLOUD IN ZACK’S TIMELINE?
Zack is in his own world (literally) for much of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, but he does have some familiar faces around him, of course. In addition to the likes of Biggs, Marlene, and Elmyra, Zack’s story also ropes in versions of Aerith and Cloud who belong to that timeline. Neither is in great shape, to say the lead, with Aerith being in a coma after Avalanche’s failed escape attempt from Midgar, and Cloud being heavily Mako-poisoned and zonked out of his mind.
So what exactly will become of those two in particular? Are both of them going to die? Or, if Zack is indeed going to try to join both timelines the way Rebirth’s ending seems to imply, are there just going to be two Clouds? Will Zack’s version of Aerith end up dying because of her death in the main timeline, or will, conversely, that end up being how Aerith returns to the original timeline?
Speaking of which…
CAN AERITH BE BROUGHT BACK?
Whether or not Aerith would still die in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was one of our biggest questions heading into the game, and though we do now know that she died in similar fashion to how she died in the original game, there also seem to be hints that perhaps she’s not permanently gone. For starters, we do see her spirit not only lingering on, but even having entire conversations with Cloud, promising him that she will stay behind in the forgotten capital to try and stop Meteor. Sure, you might dismiss that as more mako-addled hallucinations drummed up by Cloud’s increasingly deteriorating mental state, since no one else in the party can see her- but Red XIII does very faintly sense her presence, so maybe Cloud isn’t going crazy in this particular case (more on this in a bit).
So does that mean there’s still a way to bring Aerith back? At the very least, even if she does remain dead, it seems like she’ll have more of a role to play (albeit in spirit form) in the trilogy’s third part than she did in that part of the original game’s story. But could the party try and bring her back as well? Will Zack have a say in that? Will the multiverse and its different timelines and their many different versions of Aerith who are still alive end up being the way out from death for the character? Or will the lesson once again be that destiny cannot be defied, and even if Aerith does manage to have a larger presence following her death than she did in the original game, she is still going to remain conclusively dead?
HOW DID SEPHIROTH GAIN CONTROL OF THE WHISPERS?
The Whispers were Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s big, main twist to a familiar story, and though they return in Rebirth, they do so in a different capacity. Originally described as the Arbiters of Fate and mysterious beings who want to ensure that everything happens in the manner that it is prescribed, in Rebirth, Sephiroth has gained control over them- or a faction of them, at any rate. From attacking the Weapons to being outright summoned by Sephiroth from time to time, the black Whispers seem to be answering to him now, while multiple times, we also see them going up against new, white versions of the Whispers.
Of course, the question (or one of them, at least) is- how exactly did Sephiroth manage to gain control of the black Whispers? In the first game, he very clearly did not align with what their ultimate goal was. He constantly prodded Cloud into “defying destiny”, and pulled the strings so that they would be defeated by the party. Are we to assume that, after their defeat, the Whispers, in their weakened state, fell under Sephiroth’s influence and now do his bidding?
Also, what the hell is going on with those white Whispers?
WHO CONTROLS THE WHITE WHISPERS?
A little more than halfway into Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, we’re introduced to a white Whispers. After Tifa falls into the Lifestream, she witnesses the Weapons coming under attack from Sephiroth’s Whispers, only for white, lustrous variants of the so-called Arbiters of Fate to come streaming in and start battling against their black counterparts to protect the Weapons. From that point forward, the white Whispers show up several more times, and at crucial points in the story, each time showing up to fight against the regular, black Whispers.
For starts, where did they come from? Second, who controls them? Are they in service only to the planet and the Lifestream, as their desire to protect the Weapons would suggest? Or are they perhaps controlled by Aerith, as the game strongly implies (and multiple times) throughout the course of the party’s multi-stage final boss fight against Jenova and Sephiroth, where we see the white Whispers seemingly doing Aerith’s bidding? Perhaps they’re Whispers from a different timeline?
WHY CAN ONLY CLOUD SEE AERITH AND THE SKY RIFTS?
Cloud’s mental state has deteriorated significantly by the time Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth comes to a close, thanks a double whammy of Sephiroth’s corrupting influence and Cloud’s own cellular degradation, so when he is the only one in the entire party who can see Aerith’s spirit after her death and also see the great rift in the sky, clearly, the game wants us to wonder whether he’s just continuing to lose his group on reality. Thanks to Zack’s side of the story, however, we know without doubt that the rift in the sky is very real, while Red XIII being able to sort of sense Aerith’s presence at the end suggests she isn’t a hallucation either.
But why is it that Cloud is the only one who can see these things? Is it because of his connection to Sephiroth, and the fact that he, too, has Jenova cells in him? Is it because now that he’s travelled through timelines once, he is now capable of being able to see things that weren’t visible to him before? Sort of how nobody in Remake could see the Whispers until they came into contact with Aerith. Or perhaps there’s some other answer to this question that we can’t begin to guess at yet.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED BETWEEN THE GI AND THE CETRA?
Just as in the original game, in FF7 Rebirth, upon entering Cosmo Canyon, Cloud and co accompany Red XIII and Bugenhagen into the place where the spirits of the ancient extraterrestrial tribe known as the Gi are locked away, and just like the original game, this is where we learn about Red XIII’s father Seto, and the sacrifice he made to protect the people of Cosmo Canyon. But as opposed to the original, in Rebirth, that’s just a fraction of what we find out, thanks to the new revelations that the Black Materia was built by the Gi as part of their conflict with the Cetra.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth does an excellent job of fleshing out this conflict, which had next to no role to play in the original game’s story, and it gives us both sides of the perspective. In Cosmo Canyon, we hear the Gi’s side of the story about how they were betrayed by the Cetra, while in the forgotten city, we hear from the Ancients about how the Gi created the Black Materia with the most destructive of intentions. But which side of that story is the more accurate version of the truth? And on top of that, exactly how is the deal that Cloud strikes with the Gi going to come back to bite him in the future? Because there’s no way the Gi are going to be happy when they find out that Cloud never had any intention of giving them the Black Materia.
WHAT ROLE WILL THE GI PLAY IN PART 3?
The Gi tribe had a much larger to play in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s story than it did in the original game, and it’s looking like something of a guarantee that that will continue to be the case in Part 3 as well. After all, they’re the creators of the Black Materia, which means they’re inherently much more important to the lore, while in the remake trilogy, Cloud and co also lied to Gi Nattak’s face when they told him they would bring the Black Materia back for him and the tribe, something they obviously have no intention of doing, given the fact that the Gi want to destroy the planet.
So what exactly is that going to lead to in the third game? That the Gi will return is looking like a sure bet, and it also seems safe to assume that they’re gonna be pissed at the party, to say the very least. They’re going to continue their hunt for the Black Materia, so given that their goals more or less align with what Sephiroth wants to do, are we headed to a deadly alliance between them?
WILL WE FIGHT THE WEAPONS?
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth introduces Weapons, massive creatures created by the Planet itself to protect it and the Lifestream against world-ending threats. Sensing that such a danger is looming on the horizon, at this point in the remake trilogy, some of the Weapons have awakened, and at several points in the story, they have an important role to play. That they will return in the third game is obvious, but will they end up playing the same role they did in the original game?
In the original, thanks to a magical barrier erected by Sephiroth, the Weapons are unable to sense his presence and instead go on a rampage all over the world, targeting locations with the highest mako concentrations, which, of course, happen to be densely populated urban hubs like Midgar and Junon. To stop them, Cloud and co end up having to take them on in battle and defeat them. Given how epic boss fights against the Weapons would be if properly realized in the remake trilogy, Square Enix might not want to change their role too much- but perhaps, towards the end of the story, instead of being destroyed, they might working against Sephiroth? Just as an example, if the Gi do indeed end up allying with Sephiroth, maybe the Weapons could help even the odds for the good guys?
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