The ending of Final Fantasy VII: Remake is obtuse–purposely so. So let’s break it down.
To understand the ending, it’s important to first step back and look at the overall state of the world. The planet, Gaia, is a living organism. The stone is its body, the plants its flesh, and the lifestream–i.e., the mako energy that flows beneath its surface–is its blood. While it’s not exactly conscious the same way we are, the Cetra were able to communicate with it to some degree and live in harmony with it.
But Gaia doesn’t perceive time like the humans or Cetra. Gaia can see its future and knows that, with the imminent return of Sephiroth, it is in danger of destruction. Thus it produces the Whispers, similarly non-linear beings that act as antibodies that make sure that everything unfolds in such a way that the planet is saved. Or to put it another way, they attempt to force events to unfold in the same way as the original Final Fantasy VII.
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Every time the Whispers appear, it is because the plot is in danger of going off the rails. This is why they hurt Jessie’s leg (to insure Cloud has to go on the sector 5 reactor mission), why they stop Cloud from killing Reno in the church, why they save Aerith from falling to her death, and why they stop the party from preventing the fall of the Sector 7 Plate–amongst many other instances. The characters are only allowed to know and do certain things at certain times.
However, two people are able to see the path–the destiny–the Whispers are creating to protect Gaia: Aerith and Sephiroth.
On Aerith’s side, she seems to know things she shouldn’t: the identity of her future friends, when important moments are coming, and even that her death is coming all too soon. Of course, this means she also knows that it is Sephiroth, not Shin-Ra that is the real threat to the world. Yet, should she try to directly share any of this information, the Whispers come for her–and each touch of theirs robs her of her future knowledge. Thus, she is walking a fine line–knowing much of what is to come but unable to change it at will lest she loses that knowledge.
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Sephiroth, on the other hand, has enough power to fight the whispers directly but they’re still able to mitigate any damage he causes. Moreover, he has another limitation: His true body is far from Midgard and he can only control his clones for a limited time. His defeat is still a certainty–as long as the whispers are there, anyway. His only option for victory is to destroy “fate” with his own hands–or get the party to do it for him. He just has to wait for a crossroads of destiny to get his shot–i.e., the events at the end of Final Fantasy VII: Remake.
In the final set of battles, our heroes decide to fight for free will rather than accept the fate they catch only the briefest glimpses of–not knowing they are trading a surefire (though costly) win for something that could easily end much worse. But just when they defeat the main Whisper, the Whisper Harbinger, Sephiroth appears and takes control of the weakened forces of fate to force his own ideal future into being. The party manages to stop him from keeping his control of the remaining whispers but at this point, he has already achieved his goal: he is free from his preordained failure.
And Sephiroth’s not the only one.
Throughout the ending, we see glimpses of another Destiny Crossroads: Zack’s last stand on the hills outside Midgard. In the original game (and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII), Zack faces off against an army of Shin-Ra soldiers and defeats them–only to die of his wounds in Cloud’s arms. His last words to Cloud are to live for him as well–something the then brain-damaged Cloud takes all too literally by subconsciously incorporating Zack’s personality and history with his own to create a new identity (i.e., the Cloud we know and love).
But here’s the thing. It seems that the Destiny Crossroads are interconnected. So by defeating the Whisper Harbinger at one major crossroads, it is defeated at both of them–erasing the Whispers’ interference from the world in both the past and present. Thus, without the Whispers forcing Zack to die for the sake of the story, he is able to overcome the odds and win.
How this affects the timeline is the big question. It’s easy enough to write it off as another timeline–separate from both the original Final Fantasy VII and the one we see in Remake. After all, this change creates a major paradox. Without Zack dying, Cloud would not become the man we know.
Yet, the final scene implies that Zack did live in the Remake timeline. For a brief moment, we see Zack and Cloud arriving at Midgar overlaying the present when Aerith and Cloud are leaving it. While Cloud shows no reaction to this surreal vision, Aerith does, pausing in her tracks, saying the last line of the game.
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Earlier in the chapter, before the battle against the Whisper Harbinger and Sephiroth, Aerith says that if they win, they will gain freedom from fate–a “Boundless, terrifying freedom. Like a great, never-ending sky.” Now, having achieved that, she catches a glimpse of reality that is far different from the one she has seen up until this point. All she can do is lament to herself, “I miss it. The steel sky.”
Aerith’s final words are telling. (Heck, in Japanese they are even more blatant: “I hate the sky.”) Nothing is for certain anymore–not the future nor the past. They no longer have the safety net of fate to protect them. Things can go amazingly right–like with Zack–but they can also go horribly, world-endingly wrong. That knowledge terrifies her…
…and the unknown journey will continue.
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