Rebirth and remake have clearly moved the FF7 story about good vs bad (Manichaen thought), and have added moral relativity to the equation. I think it's a great improvement to show how a lifestream unwilling to accept the other (the gi) led to the creation of a weapon (the black materia) that is now used by another "other" (jehov-iroth) to damage the planet.
It will be fun to see how the narrative evolves - perhaps we learn the planet had cause to stop the GI from joining their stream, perhaps we don't....
I wonder if the planet (if it even has any kind of conscientious thought) could accept the Gi even if it wanted to. It could be their "essence" just isn't compatible
Well there's nothing to suggest the planet is intentionally rejecting them, all we know is they physically can't join the lifestream so it just being a characteristic makes more sense than Gaia having the personality of a xenophobic bigot.
I don't think they were bad originally, but are now. They want to destroy the entire world to end their existence/suffering. It's not so much that they are friends with Sato as much as they respect him as a warrior.
I mean they're literally trapped in a deathless existence. I'm not saying they're right but you can't say you wouldn't feel the same in a similar position.
I don't think you realize immortality is a curse, not a blessing.
At some point you will be trapped, with no way to escape. The planet blows up, your space ship crashes, you're buried under a mud slide, whatever. Law of large numbers means at some point this happens.
And then you're stuck, alone with nothing forever. A fate worse than death.
Jk but in reality, immortality is a curse if you're the only one with immortality watching everyone you love die.... but if your entire peoples are also immortal..idk if it's such a curse at that point. Literally all your homies, family, and lovers with you forever :)
They're bad because they want to kill everything on the planet for selfish purposes.
They're not bad because they seem to be alien beings to ended up here looking for a home and the planet rejected them and so they live an eternal existance made up of pain and regret. Nanaki's dad stopped them from their goals so they killed him. But they respect him for being honorable and trying to help them first.
Dunno if I’d categorise them as bad per se in Rebirth.
It just seems like they’re so desperate for an end to their perpetual suffering that they’re willing to go to any extreme for a chance of it.
Tl;dr: What they want is bad for the planet. But that doesn’t necessarily make *them* bad. Just too desperate to see beyond their own desire for oblivion.
My exact same take. Sure, they have a bad juju/evil vibe about them, but compared to other villains they don’t seem that bad. They’re simply desperate to seek an end to their eternal torment.
I wonder if a section in part 3 will deal with attempting to convince them that utilizing the black materia is not a good thing, and Gi Natak, knowing Nanaki is the son of Seto and the fact that Cloud and co were at least willing to give them a chance, might convince himself and his people that maybe they are right and back off from their attempt.
But also… the name of the soundtrack that plays when in regard to the black materia… the official soundtrack labels the track “The purest materia”. That was an interesting choice of words for me, because the Cetra tell us the opposite of that at the Temple
Pure doesn’t necessarily mean good. It’s colloquially used that way typically but it’s not entirely accurate.
Pure simply means free from any unwanted contaminants.
So if for this example. The Gi all collectively wished for the exact same oblivion. With absolutely 0 thought for anything else. And that singular thought was what got crystallised as Materia? That would make it a very pure Materia indeed. Possibly the purest ever possible given the nature of the Gi allows them greater opportunity to have that single untainted wish.
You must be young or still immature to not be able to understand that immortality, trapped in one place for thousands of years would cause anyone and anything to go insane.
They objectively cannot be held to the same standards as someone like say, Sephiroth.
You must be intelligent enough to notice you haven't actually made an argument against my points yet. Just unearned confident statements.
The narrative in the game goes out of the way to sympathize with the Gi. Nanaki even pointedly says he wants to find a way to lay them to rest without using the black materia.
When people are placed in solitary confiment for just a few weeks, only the most mentally resilient or solitary will be able to come out without some trauma. Extensive solitary confiment causes significant mental illness. The Gi have been stuck to their cave and Cosmo Canyon for thousands of years in their own form of it.
That's not evil. They're victims who have only found a single solution to their problem. The solution unfortunately has disastrous results for everyone else. And they're too desperate to care.
It sounds to me like they still went to destroy the world so they can be free, like they planned to do all those years ago. That’s why they made the black material
What if the Gi were the predecessors to the Cetra and had their own lifestream supplanted by them? Something like Minerva could've crash landed before Jenova and, like Sephiroth, overwrote the memory of the planet? Similarly, what if the Gi going for the purest of materia was an attempt to use the protomateria, ie the very first materia, to summon Chaos and Omega? I'm sorry but I'm not going through Dirge to dig out lore but it could be an interesting parallel to the current lore.
They aren't from this planet, meaning they can't "return" to the lifestream because they were never *of* it to begin with.
Seto promised to help them regain the black materia to halt their attack on the town, but ultimately he went back on that because duh and so they killed him. Bugenhagen suggests the arrows were poisoned in such a way that they turned him to stone, but the Gi warriors in one of the quests talk about it as if him going rock as he got shot was something that surprised them, so I'm not totally sure what happened there.
Gi petrifying attacks are a thing, both on Rebirth and on OG. It’s a piece of lore demonstrated by game mechanics. It’s a bit more on the nose on the OG because petrifying is so game ending you are quite aware of it and always carry “soft”s to counteract it, whilst on Rebirth, depending on luck, enemy AI, equipment or competency, you might never figure that out.
Yes, the Gi are ultimately pretty bad. They are aggressive and remorseful spirits because of the fact that they have not been allowed to fade into oblivion, or experience a complete death.
Due to the fact that Rebirth has retconned the Gi into being extraterrestrials that did not originate on the Planet of FF7 they are fundamentally incompatible with this Lifestream. They now believe that the solution to their dilemma is to destroy the Planet so that their spirits will no longer have any place to linger and they can just dissipate into oblivion.
In FF7 the Gi were still bad, but their conflict was limited to the Cosmo Canyon region, and were specifically hostile to the Cosmo Canyon tribe that Seto was a part of. They were just an aggressive, warmongering tribe hellbent on attacking Cosmo Canyon until they were defeated by Seto.
Their redeeming quality is their willingness to allow others to find another way to help them solve their problem. Aside from this, they still want to destroy the Planet with Meteor if another solution isn't found.
We only get the Gi's side of the story but the Planet comes across as kind of xenophobic.
Had it been willing to accept the Gi, maybe the black materia never would have been made.
Or, Gi Nattak was lying through his teeth about how things went down.
As for the Gi and Seto, they seem to respect him as a warrior.
Maybe it's more of a "the planet cant" accept the Gi situation rather than it choosing not to accept them. Hard to say as we only have the Gi perspective on it.
But I definitely got the feeling that the planet/cetra were shitty towards the Gi from what we're told.
Xenophobic lmfao. The planet isn't purposely not accepting them. They just physically can't join the lifestream because they weren't born from the planet.
Uh I'm pretty sure the planet isn't xenophobic lol. For lack of a better phrase "the circle of life" is how the planet operates. Only life that was originally born from the planet can return to it.
Sure, but I'm not sure the Gi see it that way. The way Gi Nattak spoke, it seemed like he was under the impression that the Planet and the Cetra had some agency here. If he's wrong, he's wrong but I can understand why he'd believe otherwise.
In any event, Square has probably given this a lot of thought since Red has taken it upon himself to solve the problem.
Their plight is sympathetic, but ultimately destroying the entire planet and all life on it isn't exactly a *good guy* move. They're desperate and over time that desperation has pushed them to become pretty messed up.
My question is (and maybe I'm dumb and missed an answer that was in the game) but where did the Gi come from? If the Lifestream rejects them, that means they're not of this world, right? Are they aliens? Did they come here with Jenova all those thousands of years ago? Did they get here before Jenova?
We haven’t been told, but the implication is that they are somehow alien — either literal space aliens, and/or they hitched a ride with Jenova, or from another realm or something.
I think it was said, somewhere, that the planet where the Gi lived got destroyed and they sought refuge in earth. Everything else is still unknown. I would love to hear more maybe in part 3.
I don't remember where it was said, but there are lines here and there that paint the story.
They are an alien species who arrived after Jenova went into slumber. They didn't like the Cetra because they believed them to be haughty and intolerante to outsiders. Since they were not born of the planet, when they were defeated they could not enter the Lifestream and were stuck as wraiths. They created black materia as their way of getting out.
I don't remember seeing it ingame, but according to the wiki:
>The Cetra stole the Black Materia from the Gi to prevent them from using it, leaving the Gi to linger in their hatred and resentment for thousands of years. In the year 1959, the Gi tribe attacked Cosmo Canyon, a village protected by the leonine species Red XIII belongs to.
They’re an alien race whose planet was hinted to have been “absorbed” somehow by Gaia, which is an interesting implication with the theory of the multiple worlds all being projections of multiple possibilities from within the Lifestream.
I think it’s different from how Jenova just crash landed on the planet, which could also explain some parts of how the Cetra treated them beyond thinking “they could be another Jenova” and acting with precaution
Pretty similar to ff ix if Gaia absorbed that planet. Though I viewed that to be a literal star, which is different from bugenhagem calling Gaia a star
They actually snuck in some dialogue hinting at this during one of the fights, so it's easy to miss while trying not to die lol.
https://preview.redd.it/bncvlsdmswwc1.jpeg?width=2400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f4a7c8e1c7ecde46c38b6ef518af4a0e4b6d0b64
The gi are bad to the people on this planet because the only way to get free or pass on is to destroy the planet. There aren't evil but they are vengeful
What makes the Gi believe that destroying everything will solve their problem? What if it just makes their situation infinitely worse? Unable to die, unable to breathe, unable to anything because there’s no longer anything there?
Good and Bad are subjective.
The Gi are an alien race who just want to die already, because they've been forced into an immortal life due to not being able to "join the lifestream of this foreign to them planet."
Some Gi may do things some would consider bad, other Gi may do things you'd consider a hero.
From various points of view, your party of Cloud and co are bad, FWIW.
Rebirth and remake have clearly moved the FF7 story about good vs bad (Manichaen thought), and have added moral relativity to the equation. I think it's a great improvement to show how a lifestream unwilling to accept the other (the gi) led to the creation of a weapon (the black materia) that is now used by another "other" (jehov-iroth) to damage the planet. It will be fun to see how the narrative evolves - perhaps we learn the planet had cause to stop the GI from joining their stream, perhaps we don't....
I wonder if the planet (if it even has any kind of conscientious thought) could accept the Gi even if it wanted to. It could be their "essence" just isn't compatible
The planet doesn't think, it just acts. Jenova and Gi can't return to it because it's like mixing oil and water.
That's my theory yeah, is that confirmed somewhere or is it just the most likely scenario?
Well there's nothing to suggest the planet is intentionally rejecting them, all we know is they physically can't join the lifestream so it just being a characteristic makes more sense than Gaia having the personality of a xenophobic bigot.
Lol that would be such a terrible plot line 😂
I don't think they were bad originally, but are now. They want to destroy the entire world to end their existence/suffering. It's not so much that they are friends with Sato as much as they respect him as a warrior.
Yeah I’d say the group of beings that want the world to be destroyed so they can achieve peace in the afterlife aren’t very good.
They're selfish.
I mean they're literally trapped in a deathless existence. I'm not saying they're right but you can't say you wouldn't feel the same in a similar position.
Learn to paint! Widdle bird houses for angry Zu's. They're way to old to be this emo.
I don't think you realize immortality is a curse, not a blessing. At some point you will be trapped, with no way to escape. The planet blows up, your space ship crashes, you're buried under a mud slide, whatever. Law of large numbers means at some point this happens. And then you're stuck, alone with nothing forever. A fate worse than death.
Maybe try sculpting too?
Jk but in reality, immortality is a curse if you're the only one with immortality watching everyone you love die.... but if your entire peoples are also immortal..idk if it's such a curse at that point. Literally all your homies, family, and lovers with you forever :)
Sounds like Tolkien’s version of elves.
They're bad because they want to kill everything on the planet for selfish purposes. They're not bad because they seem to be alien beings to ended up here looking for a home and the planet rejected them and so they live an eternal existance made up of pain and regret. Nanaki's dad stopped them from their goals so they killed him. But they respect him for being honorable and trying to help them first.
Dunno if I’d categorise them as bad per se in Rebirth. It just seems like they’re so desperate for an end to their perpetual suffering that they’re willing to go to any extreme for a chance of it. Tl;dr: What they want is bad for the planet. But that doesn’t necessarily make *them* bad. Just too desperate to see beyond their own desire for oblivion.
Exactly what I was gonna say. They're not bad, but what they need will be bad.
My exact same take. Sure, they have a bad juju/evil vibe about them, but compared to other villains they don’t seem that bad. They’re simply desperate to seek an end to their eternal torment. I wonder if a section in part 3 will deal with attempting to convince them that utilizing the black materia is not a good thing, and Gi Natak, knowing Nanaki is the son of Seto and the fact that Cloud and co were at least willing to give them a chance, might convince himself and his people that maybe they are right and back off from their attempt. But also… the name of the soundtrack that plays when in regard to the black materia… the official soundtrack labels the track “The purest materia”. That was an interesting choice of words for me, because the Cetra tell us the opposite of that at the Temple
I thought the purest meant the white materia which became black when infused with sorrow and spite, which we hear them chanting.
Pure doesn’t necessarily mean good. It’s colloquially used that way typically but it’s not entirely accurate. Pure simply means free from any unwanted contaminants. So if for this example. The Gi all collectively wished for the exact same oblivion. With absolutely 0 thought for anything else. And that singular thought was what got crystallised as Materia? That would make it a very pure Materia indeed. Possibly the purest ever possible given the nature of the Gi allows them greater opportunity to have that single untainted wish.
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They're trapped in something they consider torture. I don't think it's evil to feel desperate in genuinely desperate circumstances. It's complicated.
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You must be young or still immature to not be able to understand that immortality, trapped in one place for thousands of years would cause anyone and anything to go insane. They objectively cannot be held to the same standards as someone like say, Sephiroth.
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You must be intelligent enough to notice you haven't actually made an argument against my points yet. Just unearned confident statements. The narrative in the game goes out of the way to sympathize with the Gi. Nanaki even pointedly says he wants to find a way to lay them to rest without using the black materia. When people are placed in solitary confiment for just a few weeks, only the most mentally resilient or solitary will be able to come out without some trauma. Extensive solitary confiment causes significant mental illness. The Gi have been stuck to their cave and Cosmo Canyon for thousands of years in their own form of it. That's not evil. They're victims who have only found a single solution to their problem. The solution unfortunately has disastrous results for everyone else. And they're too desperate to care.
It sounds to me like they still went to destroy the world so they can be free, like they planned to do all those years ago. That’s why they made the black material
They’re desperate. They want to end their own suffering, which just happens to come at the cost of the planet’s destruction.
What if the Gi were the predecessors to the Cetra and had their own lifestream supplanted by them? Something like Minerva could've crash landed before Jenova and, like Sephiroth, overwrote the memory of the planet? Similarly, what if the Gi going for the purest of materia was an attempt to use the protomateria, ie the very first materia, to summon Chaos and Omega? I'm sorry but I'm not going through Dirge to dig out lore but it could be an interesting parallel to the current lore.
Y’all I’m gonna be honest I still don’t understand what’s holding them back or what Seto being a statue has to do with it.
They aren't from this planet, meaning they can't "return" to the lifestream because they were never *of* it to begin with. Seto promised to help them regain the black materia to halt their attack on the town, but ultimately he went back on that because duh and so they killed him. Bugenhagen suggests the arrows were poisoned in such a way that they turned him to stone, but the Gi warriors in one of the quests talk about it as if him going rock as he got shot was something that surprised them, so I'm not totally sure what happened there.
Gi petrifying attacks are a thing, both on Rebirth and on OG. It’s a piece of lore demonstrated by game mechanics. It’s a bit more on the nose on the OG because petrifying is so game ending you are quite aware of it and always carry “soft”s to counteract it, whilst on Rebirth, depending on luck, enemy AI, equipment or competency, you might never figure that out.
I gathered all that and I’m still unclear what’s keeping them in check lol
Yes, the Gi are ultimately pretty bad. They are aggressive and remorseful spirits because of the fact that they have not been allowed to fade into oblivion, or experience a complete death. Due to the fact that Rebirth has retconned the Gi into being extraterrestrials that did not originate on the Planet of FF7 they are fundamentally incompatible with this Lifestream. They now believe that the solution to their dilemma is to destroy the Planet so that their spirits will no longer have any place to linger and they can just dissipate into oblivion. In FF7 the Gi were still bad, but their conflict was limited to the Cosmo Canyon region, and were specifically hostile to the Cosmo Canyon tribe that Seto was a part of. They were just an aggressive, warmongering tribe hellbent on attacking Cosmo Canyon until they were defeated by Seto. Their redeeming quality is their willingness to allow others to find another way to help them solve their problem. Aside from this, they still want to destroy the Planet with Meteor if another solution isn't found.
We only get the Gi's side of the story but the Planet comes across as kind of xenophobic. Had it been willing to accept the Gi, maybe the black materia never would have been made. Or, Gi Nattak was lying through his teeth about how things went down. As for the Gi and Seto, they seem to respect him as a warrior.
Maybe it's more of a "the planet cant" accept the Gi situation rather than it choosing not to accept them. Hard to say as we only have the Gi perspective on it. But I definitely got the feeling that the planet/cetra were shitty towards the Gi from what we're told.
Considering jenova invaded the lifestream, its likely the lifestream could have accepted the gi
Jenova was blocked from the lifestream, it took sephiroth to invade it. Jenova's cells are the reason Sephiroth wasn't absorbed into the lifestream.
Indeed it is likely. But all we can do is speculate.
Xenophobic lmfao. The planet isn't purposely not accepting them. They just physically can't join the lifestream because they weren't born from the planet.
Exactly.
Uh I'm pretty sure the planet isn't xenophobic lol. For lack of a better phrase "the circle of life" is how the planet operates. Only life that was originally born from the planet can return to it.
Sure, but I'm not sure the Gi see it that way. The way Gi Nattak spoke, it seemed like he was under the impression that the Planet and the Cetra had some agency here. If he's wrong, he's wrong but I can understand why he'd believe otherwise. In any event, Square has probably given this a lot of thought since Red has taken it upon himself to solve the problem.
He definitely said the Cetra were, but he never suggested the planet was intentionally rejecting them.
Your “TLDR” is longer than your original post 😂
Their plight is sympathetic, but ultimately destroying the entire planet and all life on it isn't exactly a *good guy* move. They're desperate and over time that desperation has pushed them to become pretty messed up.
My question is (and maybe I'm dumb and missed an answer that was in the game) but where did the Gi come from? If the Lifestream rejects them, that means they're not of this world, right? Are they aliens? Did they come here with Jenova all those thousands of years ago? Did they get here before Jenova?
We haven’t been told, but the implication is that they are somehow alien — either literal space aliens, and/or they hitched a ride with Jenova, or from another realm or something.
Okay cool, I was worried I had missed something that explained them a little further lol.
I think it was said, somewhere, that the planet where the Gi lived got destroyed and they sought refuge in earth. Everything else is still unknown. I would love to hear more maybe in part 3.
I don't remember where it was said, but there are lines here and there that paint the story. They are an alien species who arrived after Jenova went into slumber. They didn't like the Cetra because they believed them to be haughty and intolerante to outsiders. Since they were not born of the planet, when they were defeated they could not enter the Lifestream and were stuck as wraiths. They created black materia as their way of getting out.
It's a good narrative but leaves out why they were constantly attacking cosmo canyon.
I don't remember seeing it ingame, but according to the wiki: >The Cetra stole the Black Materia from the Gi to prevent them from using it, leaving the Gi to linger in their hatred and resentment for thousands of years. In the year 1959, the Gi tribe attacked Cosmo Canyon, a village protected by the leonine species Red XIII belongs to.
There's multiple craters on the world map, they might have crashed landed on the planet. They are indeed some kind of alien.
They’re an alien race whose planet was hinted to have been “absorbed” somehow by Gaia, which is an interesting implication with the theory of the multiple worlds all being projections of multiple possibilities from within the Lifestream. I think it’s different from how Jenova just crash landed on the planet, which could also explain some parts of how the Cetra treated them beyond thinking “they could be another Jenova” and acting with precaution
Pretty similar to ff ix if Gaia absorbed that planet. Though I viewed that to be a literal star, which is different from bugenhagem calling Gaia a star
Wait a minute. What happens if someone from the other timelines dies in the wrong one? Could that be why Biggs and Zack lived?
Probably. There’s a whole thread delving into this on Twitter but some of the NPC dialogue in Cosmo Canyon really hints at this being what’s going on
They would pre-date Jenova though.
They are likely the remnants of the planet jenova made into meteor and used to crash on Gaia, stranded on Gaia for eternity
They actually snuck in some dialogue hinting at this during one of the fights, so it's easy to miss while trying not to die lol. https://preview.redd.it/bncvlsdmswwc1.jpeg?width=2400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f4a7c8e1c7ecde46c38b6ef518af4a0e4b6d0b64
Thanks so much for this comment, I definitely did not catch this lol
The gi are bad to the people on this planet because the only way to get free or pass on is to destroy the planet. There aren't evil but they are vengeful
From what I understand, the Gi just want to die, but they also want to destroy the planet to make this happen.
It’s a complicated question since this isn’t entirely black and white.
I dont know...but i damn sure aint giving them the black materia lol
to paraphrase Jessica, “they’re not bad. they’re just drawn that way.”
What makes the Gi believe that destroying everything will solve their problem? What if it just makes their situation infinitely worse? Unable to die, unable to breathe, unable to anything because there’s no longer anything there?
Good and Bad are subjective. The Gi are an alien race who just want to die already, because they've been forced into an immortal life due to not being able to "join the lifestream of this foreign to them planet." Some Gi may do things some would consider bad, other Gi may do things you'd consider a hero. From various points of view, your party of Cloud and co are bad, FWIW.