Of Zack Fair, Genesis Rhapsodos And The Strange Narrative POV Of FFVII-Crisis Core (Part IIIb)

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

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

Part IIIa: https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/655899595763859456/of-zack-fair-genesis-rhapsodos-and-the-strange 

________________________________________

Warning: Sincerely, this part takes on an even more controversial route than last part. 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.

________________________________________

The Mails (b) 

So we have the fundamental basic on how reliable the mails from the fanclubs could be. One person’s fanclub is mostly right when they wrote about their idol, but they may not be right about the others in the trio. 

Last time, we took a look in the Keepers of Honor’s mail, this time, we will take a look in the Silver Elite’s mail. 

Like, I think you would have already guessed out which mail it is, it’s not that hard.  

“The memory of silver winds

Sephiroth is known to value his private life, but there was a time when he had two best friends. We’d like to share a story of this threesome guaranteed to raise a smile.

The SOLDIER trio would use the training room exclusively as their playground, but in order to retain their 1st Class dignity, they would sneak in only after the 2nd Class members had gone home. Then they would proceed to have one of the three stand with a dumbapple on his head, while the other two would throw their swords at the apple to pierce it!

Sephiroth always won, his Masamune always striking every dumbapple dead center.” 

So, what’s the problem with this mail? It’s just a fun snippet about what the trio do in their free time, right? 

The first thing we notice about this mail is it’s title, “The memory of silver winds”. It then raises the very first problem about this. 

In the last part, I introduce the “Rashoumon Effect” to you guys, and it’s really important to bring it back here again. 

When you realize that you are facing a problem affected by Rashoumon effect, you should be aware of two things: one is that you don’t have enough proofs to confirm what the heck happened and two is the witnesses may not provide accurate testimony, either because of their memory got tampered by emotion, situation or even their own decision. 

Therefore, the title of this mail has a red flag that it’s just a “memory”, thus, it can totally be not accurate, due to, a lot of reasons. But of course, it can still be accurate, right? Then let’s move on to the next problems this mail brings about.  

“The SOLDIER trio would use the training room exclusively as their playground, but in order to retain their 1st Class dignity, they would sneak in only after the 2nd Class members had gone home.” 

In one of the very first mail Zack got from Kunsel, we got some information. 

Kunsel points out that “Genesis never found group activities appealing”, so it contradicts with the info “The SOLDIER trio would use the training room exclusively as their playground”. However, taken in the famous “training simulation room” cutscene, we find details contradict even more. 

Yes, we actually have a cutscene, which is trustable, of the trio in the training room and the mail from Silver Elite did say that too, we can assume that Kunsel’s stating was a wrong point of view on Genesis. The part “in order of retain their 1st Class dignity” shows that “Genesis never found group activities appealing” is a facade, Genesis acted like he doesn’t enjoy group activities, but in truth, he does, similarly to Angeal and Sephiroth. 

Therefore we can confirm that at least, to this part, the mail from Silver Elite is not wrong about the trio. 

Moving on to the next problem, and I repeat again, from the warning, this is the controversial part. 

“Then they would proceed to have one of the three stand with a dumbapple on his head, while the other two would throw their swords at the apple to pierce it!”

While this sentence sounds fun, what I want to discuss is the reliability. 

First of all, about the dumbapples. We don’t see much dumbapples around in Crisis Core, and especially in Shinra HQ. The places we can spot dumbapples are in Banora, in that one weird room of Shinra Mansion, and a few times Genesis takes it out.  

So to say that the trio would use dumbapples as a dartboard, would mean you have to see those apples around very much, but of course, you don’t. Since the dumbapples are not in abundance, wasting them as a sword throwing boards would be extremely illogical. 

The second issue with this comes from Genesis’s side. To say that the trio would get into the apple sword throwing game means that Genesis would have to agree to play on his own will, so would Angeal, and this may not be true. 

Genesis doesn’t bring the dumbapple out that frequently. We don’t even see him holding the dumabpple until Junon event. In which, he held out the apple as a way to reminisce about Angeal, who has just passed away not long ago. Besides, the Junon’s Sister Ray is a special place to him, it’s the place where the trio had had their very last friendly moment with each other (before the disaster occurred).

The other times he hold the dumbapple are: 

- Nibelheim Reactor, where he offered the apple to Sephiroth, as a way to ask Sephiroth to join him. 

- The bridge scene, where he is seen holding the apple and caressing it to his cheek. 

- In Gongaga, where he offers the apple along with “proving” his theory about the gift of the Goddess for Zack, but when Zack refuses, Genesis simply drops the apple into Zack’s hand. This later proves useful as Zack finally realized that Genesis could be in Banora due to the apple. (I’m pretty sure that when Angeal called Zack as “puppy”, he means Zack’s brain is of a puppy due to how slow he realizes the hints).  

Something to take note about is when Zack found Genesis’s diary. 

Overall, this very small amount of times we see Genesis holding out the dumbapple, his gestures towards it, and his dream to “serve the hero Sephiroth” the apples one day, show that he literally treasures those apples. He held the apple in reminiscence to his dead friend, he wished to serve the apples to his “hero” and he used the apples as a way to invite people to join him. Such a person, with that much respect for the dumbapples, would agree to use them as sword throwing boards? I don’t think so. 

Therefore, this part of the mail about the trio throwing swords at apples as a game may sound fine with Sephiroth, but it doesn’t with Genesis. And knowing Angeal, he grows up in Banora, he sees the dumbapples as precious fruit, and he comes from a poor family, thus, wasting food for games would not sound acceptable to him. 

In conclusion, this mail of Silver Elite can only be trusted from the first half, the rest is totally made up, whether is is made up by Sephiroth’s fans, or even by Sephiroth himself, I am not sure, but I can be sure, the trio would logically never come in the training room to just throw swords at dumbapples. 

Thanks for coming to my Ted-Talk. I will see you later, with a new problem.  ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ 

_______________________________________

Part IV: 

One big happy chaotic family ✨

So I welcomed another member into Final Fantasy Void BroTP, the Trash Uncle, Ardyn Izunia.  They are now an extremely chaotic gang. 

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.

Void bros. 

Examination into the naming of FFVII - Before Crisis’s Zirconiade

Yeah, I mean, why don’t we look a bit more into why this thing below has a weird name? 

Despite having a structure similar to the WEAPON, this thing is considered as a Summon, as its title in Before Crisis is “Ultimate Weapon” and “World Burner”.  Besides, it doesn’t have the word “WEAPON” when we call it so, let’s just agree that this thing is a Summon. 

What I want to point out here is the name. “Zirconiade” is a non-existing word, it is totally fabricated by the writer.  Nonetheless, even made-up things come from things that really exist, as a base, or reference.  So let’s see where this “Zirconiade” thing comes from. 

First of all, we have the prefix “zircon”. Zirconium (Zr) is the 40th element in the periodic table. The name zirconium is taken from the name of the mineral zircon (the word is related to Persian zargun (zircon; zar-gun, “gold-like” or “as gold”)), the most important source of zirconium. Then we have the suffix “iade”, which is close to “iad”, in Greek, it means “relate to”. Therefore, we can translate the name “Zirconiade” into “Something relates to zircon”.  So the first thing you think of when talking about a metal is probably its crystal form, right?  Here is a crystal of zircon:

See the similarity in color theme yet? So crystallize zirconium has a range of color from yellow, orange to red, and the Zirconiade has a theme color of mainly red with gold blades.  So, there you go, you got a reference for what the thing is based on.  The point is, that crystal does have a name. It’s called as “Hyacinth” or “Jacinth”.  In religious aspect, jacinth has been supposed to designate the same stone as the ligure (Hebrew leshem) mentioned in Exodus 28:19 as the first stone of the third row in the breastplate (Hoshen/choshen) of the tunic (ephod) of the High Priest of Israel. In Revelation 9:17, the word is simply descriptive of colour. In Revelation 21:19–20, it is mentioned as one of the foundational stones of the New Jerusalem. This leads my research a bit further into reading about the “breastplate of the Israeli High Priest”. So here is what I found: 

“The priestly breastplate (Hebrew: חֹשֶׁן‎ ẖošen) was a sacred breastplate worn by the High Priest of the Israelites, according to the Book of Exodus. In the biblical account, the breastplate is sometimes termed the breastplate of judgment, because the Urim and Thummim were placed within it. These stones were, at times, used to determine God’s will in a particular situation (Exodus 28:30). Using these stones did not always determine God’s will (Samuel 28:6)“. “Whether there is any pattern to the choice of gemstones depends on their identity. Taking the majority view of scholars in regard to the identity of the gems, and including the implication from the Book of Revelation that the onyx at the end of the fourth row was a sardonyx, there are four colours – red, green, yellow, and blue – each represented by a clear gem (red – carbuncle, green – heliodor, yellow – chrysolite, blue – amethyst), an opaque gem (red – carnelian/red jasper, green – green jasper, yellow – yellow jasper/yellow serpentine, blue – lapis lazuli), and a striped gem (red – sardonyx, green – malachite, yellow – pale golden agate, blue – sky-blue agate). The four colours of red, green, yellow, and blue, are the first four colours (apart from black and white) distinguished by languages, and are distinguished in all cultures with at least six colour distinctions (the other two being black and white). These colours roughly correspond to the sensitivities of the retinal ganglion cells. (The retinal ganglia process colour by positioning it within a blue to yellow range, and separately positioning it within a red to green range.)“ What we can take out from this is that the stones on the High Priest’s breastplate were “at times, used to determine God’s will” but not always “determine God’s will” and that those stones have a pattern of four colors: red, green, yellow and blue. So, does this has any connection to FFVII anyway? Well, yes. If you look at how Fuhito wanted to use Zirconiade, you can see the reference of “determine God’s will”. Fuhito is a student of Bubenhagen while idolizing Hojo at the same, he believes that the Planet needs to heal and deems humanity as the source of harm, so humanity needs to return to the Planet so the Planet could heal. Fuhito thinks he himself acted on behalf of the Planet’s will, so, yeah, you see where this is going. Besides, the pattern of four colors is also seen in Before Crisis, because the Zirconiade needs to be empowered by four support materias, which have the exact colors according to the pattern described above: red, green, yellow and blue.  In conclusion, we can see that the Zirconiade literally represents a force that serves the will of the Planet. Although, by the time Fuhito summoned it, it’s not really representing the will of the Planet, is it?  Let’s get back to the other name, “Hyacinth”. So hyacinth comes from “hyacinthus”, a flower with the name of Greek origin.  

If you are familiar with Greek Mythology, then you may have heard about Apollo’s affair with Hyacinthus. It ended up in tragedy but we won’t talk about it here. The flower itself in Greek culture, is associated with springs and rebirth, while in Roman Catholic tradition, it represents prudence, constancy, desire of heaven and peace of mind.  The problem here is that Zirconiade is meant to be “World Burner”, the destruction of the whole world while “Hyacinth” represents “rebirth”, “desire of heaven”. If we combine these two very opposite meanings, we can get something hideous, like Zirconiade brings about rebirth from the ashes or it shows desire for heaven achieved by destruction. Overall, it fits with Fuhito’s mindset of burning the world, so that the Planet can heal. 

Thanks for coming to my Ted-Talk. I’m glad this doesn’t become a series of writing :’). 

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

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

Part IV conclusion: https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/658109128619802624/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.”  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.  ______________________________________

Do you sometimes find that when you are focusing on a scene in a movie, suddenly the screen goes black, and then you couldn’t remember all the details that appear on the screen just several seconds before it? 

Or when you focus your sight too much on an object in front of you, you cannot see clearly what is going around the two sides of your face? Or when you focus too much on an event happening, you lose your attention on the other events happening in the background?

These are normal phenomena happen with your brain when you force it to focus on something, either it’s your temporal memory or your peripheral senses, they all cause you to lose grasp on the events or details happening in the background of a scenario. 

And believe it or not, the writers/directors of FFVII, especially Crisis Core, know that you love Zack so much, that you will simply focus on him, without paying attention to what’s going on in the background. I did say this in the other parts, but I have to repeat it here, in case you forget about it.

So, in this part, we will talk about another problem in the narrative of Crisis Core. Since I don’t have a proper definition for it, I will simply call it… 

Desyncing Information. 

Do you feel like there are some certain information that you should have seen/read at a certain scene in the game, but instead, you get it a lot sooner, or a lot later than it should be given to you?  Well, that’s exactly the problem here. 

The first detail I want to point out is the “four years” information that was given to you through Aerith’s letter at the end of Crisis Core. It gave you the knowledge that Zack and Cloud has been stuck in the underground laboratory for approximately four years since the event of Nibelheim. 

So, what’s the matter to it? 

While focusing on Zack, you didn’t realize that Genesis’ degradation didn’t even change at all through out all four years, you can see clearly that in Nibelheim, Genesis was greyed from his head to his chest, and during the scene on the bridge, it stayed the same.  According to the 10th Anniversary Ultimania, the time that the incident in the training room was midsummer [ μ ] - εγλ 0000. We see Genesis started to get greyed by the degradation was on April 2nd, [ ν ] - εγλ 0001, during the event of Modeioheim, less than one year since he got the injury. 

And after that, we see him changed from half greyed to fully greyed, if we count from the time Zack met him after breaking out of the laboratory, December 19th  [ ν ] - εγλ 0006, then the time we see him fully greyed, is on September  [ ν ] - εγλ 0007, in Banora Underground.  

Without the “four years” information, you would normally think that his degradation is not weird, because you assume that it only took Zack less than one year to break out of the laboratory. But now you realize that huge time gap of 4 years, and Genesis just stayed the same.  Don’t you find it weird that those four years that Genesis’s degradation stayed the same is also the four years that Zack is stuck in the laboratory?  Could there be any relation between Zack and Genesis’ degradation?  Welp, at first, we literally see nothing relating between them, but if you consider one factor, that Zack is the only one chasing and killing Genesis’ copies, then there may be something.  Remember that to create those copies, Genesis literally cuts off his cells and give them to his followers. My theory is that, if the connection between Genesis and his copies are kind of similar to the connection between Angeal and the A-copies, then Genesis would have a part of him inside each of the G-copies. Therefore, it works like the hocruxes in Harry Potter, each copy carries one part of Genesis, so when they die, Genesis get weakened. And without anyone going around killing the copies during those 4 years, Genesis doesn’t degrade more. 

So… that’s it, for the first section of part V.  I will see you in the next section. 

(do you remember what Genesis was holding in his hand during the first time Zack encountered him in Banora?)  _____________________________________ Part Vb: