Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > Final Fantasy: The Quickening > Final Fantasy VIII > Rinoa is Ultemicia

[Serapy]

Remember that this game is not meant to be simple and straight, the designers want the audience to create interpretations. This game is more like art.
In other words, the game is not very clear, so it becomes open interpretation for everybody.
This principle is one of the reasons why FF8 was such a good game.

If you e-mail SquareEnix, asking them about the the truth of whether R is U, they won't answer you, simply because they care about that principle. If they have answered you, it would ruin the game in some sense.

There's an evidence that Ultimecia is Rinoa.
There's an evidence that Ultimecia is not Rinoa.

See what I mean? You can believe what you want, it's meant to be like that.
I personally believe that Rinoa is Ultimecia in a multi-dimension world.

[Skyblade]

Excuse me for a sec. Where does anything in game say that sealing a sorceress, as with what happened to Adel and it was going to happen to Rinoa before Squall rescued her, preserves their life indefinitely? Adel's war was only 17 years before the game, well within the average human lifespan. I don't remember anything either in game or in Ultimania stating that the seals have life-preserving side-effects.

[Sir Bahamut]

Originally Posted by Serapy

Remember that this game is not meant to be simple and straight, the designers want the audience to create interpretations. This game is more like art.
In other words, the game is not very clear, so it becomes open interpretation for everybody.

The thing is, for an interpretation to be valid in any meaningful sense, it needs to be sufficiently backed up by the game itself. Multiple interpretations are fine as long as sound evidence is given in each case. R=U doesn't given sound evidence.

Originally Posted by Skyblade

Excuse me for a sec. Where does anything in game say that sealing a sorceress, as with what happened to Adel and it was going to happen to Rinoa before Squall rescued her, preserves their life indefinitely? Adel's war was only 17 years before the game, well within the average human lifespan. I don't remember anything either in game or in Ultimania stating that the seals have life-preserving side-effects.

That's a very good point actually. I thought there seemed to be a pretty straightforward argument which indicates it, but decided to check to see if the tutorial had anything to say, which it did:

Adel's Tomb
A high-tech device intended for weakening and confining a sorceress' power.
Shot into the moon's orbit after going through a special sealing process. Used
to confine Sorceress Adel. It is the main cause of radio interference on the
planet.

No mention of it sustaining life. I figured that they wanted to avoid her death because it could mean her powers being passed on to someone else, which would sorta imply it sustains life (or else what'd the point be?), but perhaps not. If all it did was suppress her powers though, would they really just leave her to die of old age? What's the point of keeping her alive for that long?

Still, your point still demonstrates that this other possible R=U scenario rests upon more assumptions.

[Skyblade]

You're assuming that they had the ability to kill her. Remember, Laguna and friends only got her into the tomb by trickery, they didn't force her. They trick her into the tomb, and shoot her into space. Had they tried to fight her head on, they would've been slaughtered. Leaving her to die of old age in space seems a much safer option. Remember, to seal her powers they had to keep her in orbit and have a seal so strong that it kept up worldwide signal interference from orbit. That is a lot of power being spent, just to keep hers in check. Killing her was hardly an option, until Squall and company showed up.

[Big D]

Originally Posted by Skyblade ^

You're assuming that they had the ability to kill her. Remember, Laguna and friends only got her into the tomb by trickery, they didn't force her. They trick her into the tomb, and shoot her into space. Had they tried to fight her head on, they would've been slaughtered. Leaving her to die of old age in space seems a much safer option. Remember, to seal her powers they had to keep her in orbit and have a seal so strong that it kept up worldwide signal interference from orbit. That is a lot of power being spent, just to keep hers in check. Killing her was hardly an option, until Squall and company showed up.

Indeed - and we know for certain that she wasn't kept completely inert by the containment device. She was at least partly conscious, as shown by her 'messages' in the worldwide interference - "I am still alive" and so forth. That adds to the idea that time - and thus, age - were passing normally for her in containment.

[Tallulah]

Originally Posted by ljkkjlcm9 ^

Squall is Headmaster Cid... It's a fact

THE JACKAL

THIS MAN SPEAKETH THE TRUTH!

[Sir Bahamut]

Well, I agree they wouldn't have been able to take her head on, but if they had her sealed up it seems to me that they could have easily just blown up the whole thing or launched her into the sun or something rather than keep her in orbit? =P Could her powers really have prevented that from killing her? Doubtful, considering Edea could have been killed by a single bullet. But then why did they keep her there in the first place? Was Laguna perhaps vehemently against the death penalty?

I guess it boils down to the fact that her containment in space was primarily a plot necessity rather than something very well thought out. But if we just assume that they had a good reason for keeping her in orbit, then I agree, there is no real indication that the sealing prevents aging entirely. Well, the argument is still there that they perhaps put her in orbit and sealed her because they didn't want her to die because that might mean her powers being passed on, but we actually have no idea if that was why they did it in the first place, so doesn't amount to that strong an argument.

Hm, will have to put that in the next update of the Time/Ultimecia Plot FAQ over at GameFAQs. Will put your name in the credits Skyblade, if you don't mind (Big D's already there).

[Bloodline666]

Originally Posted by Sir Bahamut ^

Well, I agree they wouldn't have been able to take her head on, but if they had her sealed up it seems to me that they could have easily just blown up the whole thing or launched her into the sun or something rather than keep her in orbit? =P Could her powers really have prevented that from killing her? Doubtful, considering Edea could have been killed by a single bullet. But then why did they keep her there in the first place? Was Laguna perhaps vehemently against the death penalty?

Whether or not Laguna was against the death penalty seems to be of little relevance as to why he kept Adel in orbit. Laguna may be clumsy, but he's nowhere near as moronic as he comes across to be. He knows full well that a Sorceress must be free of all her powers before she can die, and can only do so by passing them onto a potential sorceress candidate (hence, one of the reasons Adel captured Ellone in the first place, possibly because she was paranoid that someone had a plot to assassinate her, a paranoia that is normally held by ANY dictator, even real life dictators such as Hitler). With a Sorceress as treacherous and tyrannical as Adel, Laguna was extremely fearful at the time of the consequences of Adel dying and passing her powers onto someone, especially if that someone happened to be Ellone (considering her own innate powers). He basically felt that it was safer to keep Adel in orbit, in suspended animation, and under constant surveillance, instead of killing her off and risking her powers being transfered to someone else, and thereby running the risk of the new Sorceress being just as vile (I have reason to believe that Adel's tyrannical rule over Esthar is the primary reason for Sorceresses being feared by the masses). Even if she was launched to the sun or blown up, her powers would eventually find a way to a new Sorceress. With Adel's powers in Rinoa's hands, those fears should remain unfounded for as long as Squall lives and stays by her side (remember, he alone holds the key to Rinoa's sanity).