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Of Zack Fair, Genesis Rhapsodos and the strange narrative POV of FFVII-Crisis Core (Part IIIa)

Part I: https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/650462647672766464/of-zack-fair-genesis-rhapsodos-and-the-strange

Part II conclusion: https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/653809930861674496/of-zack-fair-genesis-rhapsodos-and-the-strange 

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Warning: Sincerely, this part takes on a very controversial route. Please read the previous parts first before reading further on this part. (I did have the link to part I in case you are new reader)

Also, please keep an open mind when you read this. I appreciate any kind of discussion about theories, but please, try to keep your bias out when we discuss on an objective subject. Thank you. 

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Before we get to the main problem of this part, let me introduce you to a term that maybe you have heard somewhere before: the Rashoumon effect. 

The Rashomon effect is a term related to the notorious unreliability of eyewitnesses. It describes a situation in which an event is given contradictory interpretations or descriptions by the individuals involved. 

This is a kind of effect that is used very frequently in detective stuffs, as a way to fool the audiences, driving them away from the main problem, the objective truth.

Why am I telling you about this? Well, in many Japanese stuffs, ranging from movies, books to games, no matter what the genre is, the Rashoumon effect is utilized to create plot twists. And of course Rashoumon effect is also used in FFVII as well. 

Take one example, the Deepground incident in Dirge of Cerberus. While Vincent and the WRO believed that Weiss is the one leading Deepground at that time, and we don’t even get to know the truth that Nero is the real leader of Deepground until Vincent and Yuffie finally barged in the throne hall in Reactor 0. It’s just one of the clearest example of the Rashoumon effect in FFVII. And if you have read the other parts of this theory series, you may see the pattern of Rashoumon effect in both events that I have pointed out: the Genesis’s parents’ grave and the Seven Wonders. 

So, let’s move onto our main problem this time. 

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The Mails. 

One of the strangest systems that occurred in Crisis Core, is the mail system, 

Zack can access the mails through his phone, along with many other systems like Materia Fusion, Equipment, Shop, DMW, Mission and some others. 

Problem with the Mails is that, reading one mail from one person may give you a contradictive information to the info you took from the mail of another person, and it even contradicts with the details you discovered in places around the game. Because mails are written according to the view point of the writers, will get confused with many info that the mails provide. 

However the worst problem with the mails is that Zack only receives the mails, he never answers them. We never see Zack point of view in this, which in turn, forcing us to use our own point of view to examine the information given by the mails. 

Here, I want to discuss the reliability of one of the most well-known CC mails: the 1sts’ fanclubs’ mails. 

Keepers of Honor 

Fanclub of Angeal, the group releases mails that provide “unauthorized” info about Angeal’s profile. While there is not much to take from the mails of Keeper of Honor, there is one particular mail we have to look into. 

“Angeal Fan Club Newsletter 313

Today’s update features a conversation between Angeal and Genesis.

G: You’d better do something about those plants in your room.

A: Those plants represent nature. Some of us converse with nature to hone our spirit and honor.

G: And some of us are getting bugs in our rooms because of those blasted things.

A: Come on. Don’t you remember? We used to have bugs in our rooms all the time when we were kids.

G: That’s why I hate them. And the past? It can stay there. We’re in Midgar. We’re not supposed to have nature here.

City-born Genesis, and nature-lover Angeal: so completely different, yet friends all the same.” 

Just when Zack came to Fort Tamblin with Angeal, Angeal told Zack about the dumbapple. And one those lines is: 

Angeal confirmed that Genesis, his childhood friend grew up with him in Banora. But in the mail above, the Keeper of Honor believes that Genesis is “city-born”. Although the word itself can be understood in two ways, one is “born in the city” and the other is “having city life style”, if you first read into it, you will immediately think that they mean Genesis is born in the city, which is not true, the other meaning may fit with the situation more, perhaps? So we could agree with them that Angeal loves nature and Genesis has a city lifestyle, thus, Genesis gets annoyed with nature, right? 

Guess what? When Zack found out Genesis’s diary, the info may get contradictive. 

Consider the fact that Genesis won an award for inventing the Banora White Apple juice, it means that he has to have a great love for nature, especially the apple trees and the fruit to actually spend time to invent a the juice. 

This info and Angeal’s confirmation contradicts with the info given by the mail from Keeper of Honor. This means the fanclubs’ mails themselves are just sources with medium liability, especially when the fanclub of one person wrote about a different person in the trio. Besides, the event described in the fanclubs’ mails may not even exist, because in Keeper of Honor’s mails, those are “unauthorized” Angeal’s profile. 

In conclusion, by not showing Zack’s replies to the mails to the players, Crisis Core forced the players to check the reliability of the mails given to Zack through their own perception, not everything written in the mails are true because they are affected by the POV and biases of the ones giving them out. 

I think that’s enough for the beginning of this part, we will continue on the other ambiguous mails in the next parts. Thanks for coming to my Ted-Talk and have a nice day. 

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Part IIIb: 

Of Zack Fair, Genesis Rhapsodos and the strange narrative POV of FFVII-Crisis Core (Part Vb)

Part I: https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/650462647672766464/of-zack-fair-genesis-rhapsodos-and-the-strange

Part Va: https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/658885243477032960/of-zack-fair-genesis-rhapsodos-and-the-strange

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Warning: As always, I copy paste this warning over and over just in case you ignore it and keep reading down. “This series is very controversial, it may not fit with what you know or remember about Crisis Core. So please, read the former parts (I did put the link to Part I in case you are new reader) before putting your foot further down below.” P/s: I welcome all kind of discussion. I love discussion. But this subject is an OBJECTIVE subject, please make sure to keep your bias and prejudice out of discussion, also, I don’t welcome character dissing or using fallacies in arguments, thank you.  ______________________________________

Given several days of me not updating the series, how much do you still remember about it without rereading it? 

Your brain is designed to stay focus on the event that happens right in front of your eyes, that’s why you have the thing called as “temporal memory”. But of course, while it helped you keeping track on upcoming events, temporal memory will erase anything that exceeds its amount of remember time, so you simply can’t rely on your own brain to remember all of the events happening in a scenario. Hence why you are always suggested to note down important stuffs, so you can get noticed about them if you don’t remember. 

Remember last time I asked you about what Genesis held in his hand during his first meeting with Zack in Banora’s apple juice facility?  I know you would instantly say that it was his book, LOVELESS… 

… but of course, it’s not.  It was a torn and either soaked or burnt paper. 

So, again, the question is, why does this information matter? 

Let me ask you another question. Remember that book LOVELESS? Asides from that one single scene in the training room battle cutscene, where else did you see it in the whole game? 

Well, the answer is, nowhere. You don’t see that book appearing anywhere else, except for that one scene. 

Then, where did it go? 

Of course, this again is another case, of Desyncing Information.  You know, Genesis is always considered a douche, for being envious toward Sephiroth, and while I did clear up this mess in the other parts of this series, I want to talk about you feel like Genesis is a douche if you just play the game once and never go back to dig out the hidden things around. 

One is because you see that Genesis treated Zack quite like an asshole, and since you are in love with Zack, you see that Genesis is an asshole. 

Then you are also in love with Sephiroth, so seeing Genesis being envious of Sephiroth’s glory, you think that he is a douche for doing so. 

And then while Angeal and Sephiroth suffered from their mental breakdown after learning that they are “monsters”, Genesis actually doesn’t show any sight of being in a mental breakdown or suffering mentally from learning that he himself is a “monster”. You don’t get any info about his background or see him struggling, nothing blatant to prove that he is a sad, suffering character. 

All those reasons above are why you find it hard to sympathize with Genesis. And I understand, I was like you all too, I have the feeling that he is not truly a douche, but it was hard to look for any proof about it. But then when I actually play the game myself, with the knowledge of what is about to happen, I realized that I should have looks more carefully into minor details. 

Just like how I pointed out that one very small sentence during a dialogue could change a whole understand about a scene, now, one very small detail that you would actually have missed during your first time playing, is about to change your view on Genesis’ character. 

That one paper he held in that Banora’s facility scene is in sync with the one paper you saw flying to the chair during the scene when Weiss and Nero picked Genesis up into the helicopter. The first time you saw Genesis in the game, he was holding one paper, and reciting the first act of LOVELESS. The last time you saw him, there is also a paper, and Genesis’s voice reciting the last act of LOVELESS. 

Coincident? I think not. 

So we can safely assume that torn and damage page we saw is actually a page from Genesis’s LOVELESS book, just like the blank, clean page we saw at the end. Still, where is the book if the pages are now like that? 

You guess it. 

The transition from the book to the torn pages happen outside of what is shown in the game. So here is my theory. 

You saw the book still intact in the training room scene, then Genesis went MIA to rebel against Shinra, when you met him after his whole mess, you saw the page. That means Genesis somehow tore the book apart, even tried to burn it or soak it, because who do you think would be able to touch that book aside from Genesis himself? Like, yeah, obviously it can only be him doing so, that’s why the torn pages stayed with him till the end. And the time the transition happened, was also the time that Genesis suffered from learning that he is a “monster”. Genesis loves that LOVELESS book so much he decorated and brings it to his side anytime, anywhere he goes, then how could it becomes like that. To my speculation, Genesis tore the books out in his rage of mental breakdown, where he damaged the thing he loved the most. 

In conclusion, Genesis is just like Angeal and Sephiroth, he did suffer from the mental breakdown, just that it’s not so clear for you to see, so when you don’t see it, you just deem Genesis as an asshole. 

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Thanks for coming to my Ted-talk, I will see you around in the next part. 

Part Vc: 

Of Zack Fair, Genesis Rhapsodos and the strange narrative POV of FFVII-Crisis Core (Part IVb)

Part I: https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/650462647672766464/of-zack-fair-genesis-rhapsodos-and-the-strange 

Part IVa: https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/657248451885678592/of-zack-fair-genesis-rhapsodos-and-the-strange   _____________________________________

Warning: As always, I copy paste this warning over and over just in case you ignore it and keep reading down.   “This series is very controversial, it may not fit with what you know or remember about Crisis Core. So please, read the former parts (I did put the link to Part I in case you are new reader) before putting your foot further down below.” Also, as a new issue rising with this part, I emphasize this again READ THE OTHER PARTS. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, I put that phrase like two times in just this warning.  P/s: I welcome all kind of discussion. I love discussion. But this subject is an OBJECTIVE subject, please make sure to keep your bias and prejudice out of discussion, also, I don’t welcome character dissing or using fallacies in arguments, thank you.  _____________________________________

Summary of Part IVa:  - Zack’s POV has a lot of misleading aspect, it makes you deliberately choose to look away from the bigger problem and focus on the smaller but more appealing problem to your eyes.  - Sephiroth, whether he really makes an astounding achievement in the Wutai War or not, is still used a propaganda by Shinra to lure in new recruits for the war. This process was repeating over and over, and since Shinra treat SOLDIER members with inequality, there is not a single other SOLDIER gets the privilege to be hailed as “Hero” like Sephiroth. 

Moving on, we will tackle the next problem. 

3. When all for one but one isn’t for all or… 

So we know for sure that Shinra treats SOLDIERs members with unfairness, the problem is, who knows about it, and how do they react against it? 

-This email of Lazard was sent right before you encounter Genesis for the first time in Banora’s apple juice facility. You can see clearly that this email has several words that are very ambiguous: “parental bonds”, “non-biological ties”, “respect”, “appreciation”, “ill blood”. And while this email has many different layers of meaning towards many people, I want to dissect the aspect that this part focuses on. Why would Lazard send Zack this letter just right before Zack encountered Genesis? Well, we later know that Genesis’ parents in Banora are not his biological parents, that line of “Just as happiness can be found in non-biological ties” along with the fact that Genesis’ parents funded the fanclubs for their adopted child probably points out that Lazard knows Genesis got the recognition from his adoptive parents. So when Lazard wrote that other part “Without them, “ill blood” is born”, it means that Lazard knows exactly what the problem with Genesis is, as he states “ill blood is prone to lead to tragedy, and ill blood sometimes affects our missions.” Lazard is one of the people who know about the inequality in SOLDIER, but he can’t do anything more than just issues order down, because everything is still under the control of President Shinra. Therefore, this email, along with Lazard’s betrayal against Shinra later in game shows that Lazard is also frustrated with the state of unfairness circling around SOLDIER department, and since he can’t do anything to change it, he can only choose one thing: betrayal. 

- Genesis and Angeal obviously know about the unfair treatment in SOLDIER, the conversation above pointed out that Genesis told Angeal about that and let Angeal decide whether to join him in rebelling or not. “Can you really live on that side?”, the question hits the nail on Angeal’s head, not only because it questions his decision to not siding with his childhood friend, but also because it strikes directly on his “honor”. You see, Angeal bound himself to a vivid definition, “honor”, you don’t know what kind of honor it is. Is it “honor” of helping Midgar’s civilians, or is it “honor” of doing the right thing, or is it “honor” of serving Shinra? Overall, if you choose “honor” of serving Shinra, then knowing that Shinra is an evil corporation that benefits on the suffering of people, would you really call it an “honor”? Angeal keeps hesitating between siding with Shinra (as he still went back to stop Genesis from raiding the HQ and killing Hojo) and rebelling (as he helped Hollander escape). Point is, hesitation is his own problem, despite knowing about the horrendous things Shinra did, Angeal still didn’t inform Zack about it, his silence keeps Zack in the darkness for more than half the game. Eventually, as the paradox grew too much to fathom, Angeal chooses to end himself with Zack’s hand. 

- What is a petty person? The definition of petty is someone who gets caught up in small details. An example of petty is a person who gets very angry when someone accidentally steps on their foot. Petty is defined as something relatively worthless or unimportant. An example of petty is cash kept on hand for very small purchases. So here you can see Sephiroth replies “Petty” to Genesis’s claim “After all, your glory should have been mine”, it means that Sephiroth deems “glory” as a trivial thing. If Sephiroth deemed “glory” as a trivial thing, then why didn’t he give it up to Genesis easily like how he quickly gave the “Hero” role in a LOVELESS play for Genesis? The question Genesis gave out at the beginning of this conversation “If we were to enact it, would I play the hero, or would you?” acted in sync with the claim “After all, your glory should have been mine”, the former was the metaphor for the latter and they both have the same goal. But Sephiroth answered differently to them, meaning that Sephiroth fell to Genesis’s reverse psychology, all Genesis wanted is for Sephiroth to admit, that he knew about the unfairness in SOLDIER. By saying that Genesis was being “petty”, Sephiroth admitted that Genesis has his share in the achievements that were all given to Sephiroth and that Genesis should be recognized for what he dedicated to the company, but since Sephiroth saw “glory” as trivial, he didn’t feel the same to Genesis about it. To Sephiroth, whom glory was given like daily meal, whether he did the mission or not, glory still becomes his, it’s similar to a spoiled rich kid seeing money as trivial. But to Genesis, who strived to get acknowledged, earning glory is like goal of his life for joining SOLDIER yet never did, it’s similar to a person worked hard to earn the recognition in life but never got recognized for what they do. Sephiroth, although having no ill will to act apathetic to Genesis’ struggle, his inaction towards the problem was also one of the reason the friendship fell apart. 

Overall, while Angeal and Sephiroth didn’t directly contribute to the mess in Crisis Core, their silence and inaction still play a role in the ignition of the crisis.  Try imagine yourself being the witness to a crime, if you can’t do anything to stop, at least speak out against it so the criminal can be brought to light; if you stay quiet, or choose to deliberately ignore it, you will be deemed as the accomplice to the criminal.  ________________________________________

Thanks for coming to my Ted-Talk, we will conclude this part next time. 

Part IV conclusion: 

Read more here:

Vice

Adobe Tells Users They Can Get Sued for Using Old Versions of Photoshop

"You are no longer licensed to use the software," Adobe told them.

“I like nothing better than losing myself in nature and drawing…”

— Vincent Van Gogh, from The Complete Letters (via violentwavesofemotion)

Finally they met!

Chibi Void bros.