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nooo.... Squall can't be dead XD

It's a nice theory, but it's mostly speculation. There have been a few threads in the main Final Fantasy forum about this, but for the most part they all agree that Squall isn't dead, and so do I. It's a nice idea, but it's wrong.

The theory itself was formulated by taking bits and pieces of the story from the game and make it sound like it makes sense. I can pretty much count it as speculation as the before post has stated. It IS a very thoughtful theory and a very poetic one at that, but clearly even the writer of the game would be stunned to read the piece; as much as he makes sense, he is wrong.

But okay, I'll try to counter some of his statements from his supporting evidences:

1: "You've become just a memory"
-- He considered this part as ominous. A sign supposedly created by the writer to prep the players of what's to come; his death. What he must have failed to see though is something which is already very obvious about Squall; he is emo and is very tsundere about it. What happened there is simply people talking about Seifer in the past tense and Squall starting to feel fear that people will start talking about him that way and didnt like the idea; and as much as he wanted to be cool about it, he gave in to his fear and blurted it all out into something hard to understand: "I don't want to be talked about in the past tense!" This scene simply shows that Squall is not after all as cold as he is portraying himself to be. In a writer's view, this is one way of introducing who the character is.

2: "My wound? No wound..."
-- Here he questions why Squall is all fine after his "death". He has no wound. I will ask him back: Why is a boss fine after being Lionhearted 3 times without a wound? But then, one would ask back, what about Squall and Seifer's scar? And I answer back, the scar... is effing cool. This is a case of looking into too much detail on something that is breaking already a lot of rules of Physics or Medicine for that matter. My only logical answer to why Squall is alive is (1) Edea still has little control over herself despite the Sorceress' control; making her NOT inflict a fatal damage on her child, and (2) Rinoa has enough influence to convince the Galbadian army to treat Squall's wounds and have just arrested instead. It's a speculation, yes; but it makes sense noh? Just like his theory, yes?

3: "I don't know what's going on anymore"
-- Here he has subcategories on things that are said to be ridiculous. From what I read though, he is already talking about Final Fantasy and then saying that it can never happen in real life. Thing is, he is right. BUT at this part, he is already missing the point. In this part, he also mentions Rinoa's interest in Seifer and how it changed "after death". But let's do something logical and put ourselves in Rinoa's shoes: "I am in this school and I only know one guy. I need someone with skills and this guy I know is probably the only guy I can trust with what I want him to do. Oooo! That guy is cute. I think I'll have one dance with him before I look for the guy I know. Hey maybe he knows the guy I know...." Overall though, I don't really understand what he's getting at here. He seems to be in favor of a Rinoa heart Seifer story. (Which is not so bad really so Quistis is wide open if that were the case.)

4: The End
-- Here he points out all the freakiness of the end. Yes, it was freaky, but he seems to forget that in this part of his piece he has mentioned and acknowledged (1) time travel, (2) magic, and (3) memories. What happened in the ending cinematics is an artistic representation of things going back to normal. Squalls memories, his fears, and many other things are flashing before him in a very scary manner and he ends up lost and confused. And who saves him in the end? Lemmi tell you, if it was a moomba, it wouldnt really be as romantic IMO.

So anyways, to wrap things up, I'll quote his conclusion:

Note the phrases I made bold. The theory basically, in the end, was written by someone who didn't understand the story at all. It did not make sense to him. So he took time to over-analyze everything and turned it to something that makes sense to him. In the end, I applaud him for coming up with something like this. It DOES make sense in a way. But overall, he just didn't get the story as simple as FF8 which IMO is the most straight forward story among the FF titles that came out.

Before you start having a go at me, take into account that it was 2 am when I posted my opinion, which is all you asked for, you didn't specify that you wanted me to write a 300 word essay on why I think what I think. Here is the link to the most recent "Squall's dead" thread.

Ok, I'l go through some of the things I read from the article.

1. If someone can be revived with feathers from a mythological bird, then they can sure as hell recover from getting hit by a supercharged blizzaga.

2. Moombas. The reason we don't see them before Squall is "dead" is because of where the natural home of Moombas is. It's like saying, "I never saw a kangaroo until I went to Australia, I must have died when I got on the plane!"

3.
Cid is not the only important older male character, there's Seifer (admittedly only a year older but still), and someone else, oh what's he called? Oh that's right, Laguna! Mind you he's not that important, he's only the president of a technologically advanced continent who aided in the revolution which overthrew the tyrannical regime of Adel.[/sarcasm] And so what if Cid and Edea are married? Is the world of Final Fantasy such a horrible place that 2 people in love can't get married? All in all the reason Cid provides us with this information now, is because it's important to know who Cid is. When you find out about the orphanage, something else becomes apparent, Cid is looking out for the kids, he becomes Headmaster at Balamb Garden to train kids for when another soreceress tries to take over the world. So don't you think then, that there is a good chance that Cid, as the orphanage gang's only father figure, sent them to Garden for that reason? Or maybe another conspiracy is being born: Cid wants his own private army!!![/sarcasm]

4. In the article I'm referring to part 3.d. Rinoa likes Seifer, Squall shows no interest in Rinoa (and vice versa), Squall says that he may have to kill Seifer, Rinoa accepts this because he is an enemy. Then Rinoa never mentions liking Seifer again. Simple explanation again, Rinoa doesn't mentioning liking Seifer because he is the sorceress' knight, he loves her ("Seifer: Maybe someday I'll tell you about my romantic dream!" then refer to the fact that as a kid he saw a movie about a sorceress and her knight.).

I hope that satisfies why I think squall is not dead.

To Pretty_Rinoa_Heartly: That's called ambiguity, where the story may be given more than one interpretation than the original author intended. While the interpretations may never be proven as correct, they are something to think about and discuss with others.

To krozza: Yes, I didn't specify that you should write a 300 word essay, but I was looking for what you posted as your second response.

1. If someone loses an arm, that arm isn't revived by a Phoenix Down, now is it? When you're battling monsters, you don't actually receive scars, and it's more like you were hit by a physical force that simply drains you of vitality. In actual cutscenes, like when Squall and Seifer gave each other scars, the scars could not be healed. Likewise, when Aerith was killed by Sephiroth, she couldn't be revived with feathers from a mythological bird.

2. Your example of "I never saw a kangaroo until I went to Australia, I must have died when I got on the plane!" would be accurate if your possible death happened BEFORE any trip to any place that had kangaroos. In any case, the reason it's plausible is BECAUSE Squall "dies" before he sees the Moombas, and he first meets them when he's detained by Edea and Seifer.

3. It's little twists like Laguna being the president of a technologically advanced continent who aided in the revolution which overthrew the tyrannical regime of Adel or the fact that Balamb Garden is run by a slug-like monster named NORG or the fact that every playable character (with the exception of Laguna, Ward, and Kiros) knew each other at an orphanage that adds to the possibility that everything just wraps up too perfectly.

4. I don't think that your explanation of Rinoa not mentioning liking Seifer because he's the sorceress's knight and he loves Edea doesn't fully explain WHY she was so intent on seeing Seifer again and talking about how she loved him and then suddenly has a change of heart and doesn't even question why Seifer is the sorceress's knight and why he loves Edea.

To Roscoe Reyes: Of course it's just speculation - otherwise, it wouldn't be called a theory.

1. Everything and anything can be taken and simplified, but that doesn't mean it has no deeper meaning than that. In a writer's view, it's not necessarily introducing the character, because he's already been established as emo and very tsundere about things; what I think is that it shows that there are things in the world that DO scare Squall, and what might happen after his death does scare him.

2. Just because the scar is effing cool doesn't excuse the possibility that the injury Squall received from Edea was possibly fatal. If someone loses an arm, that arm isn't revived by a Phoenix Down, now is it? When you're battling monsters, you don't actually receive scars, and it's more like you were hit by a physical force that simply drains you of vitality. In actual cutscenes, like when Squall and Seifer gave each other scars, the scars could not be healed. Likewise, when Aerith was killed by Sephiroth, she couldn't be revived with feathers from a mythological bird. However, you're right - Edea could have enough control over herself to avoid a fatal wound (and some people claim that the ice shard hit too far to the right to deal fatal damage), and Rinoa could have enough influence to convince the enemy to treat the wounds and arrest them (who knows? Maybe they coincide with each other and the small bit of Edea that avoiding killing Squall was the one who ordered him to be healed and arrested).

3. We don't know whether or not he dreamed (because it all seems too perfect or understandable), which is why he tries to use speculation on Rinoa and the Moombas and Griever, for example. In fact, through some of the Final Fantasy games I've played, there have been several spots where I could simply say, "They all died and someone is dreaming this up (which was half-true in Tidus's case)." I think what he was getting at with the Rinoa section was that she was really into Seifer, and it just wouldn't really make much sense for her to suddenly choose Squall and not be clear why.

4. I don't see all of the freakiness as representing things going back to normal. Maybe that's because I'm a writer and not an artist. Yes, his memories, his fears, and many other things are flashing before him, but RINOA keeps disappearing. How is that a return to normalness? And in the theory, it states that when Squall is rescued by Rinoa, he is in his idea of heaven (which, IMO, I would have thought Seifer would be in hell or with GlaDOS, so that kinda messed things up for me).

As per your conclusion, I don't think his conclusion meant he didn't understand the story AT ALL, I think he felt that it all fell into place too snugly to be real and that there might be an alternate solution for simply accepting it as it is. And that's the whole point of the Squall's Dead theory - the story is simple and straight forward, (as you said) "the most straight forward story among the FF titles that came out."

Well, I think if you talk about how Squall is in Kingdom Hearts. I don't think it would really work out for if he is dead or not in his own game. Because for some reason then, Aeris is still alive. So if KH actually kept things correct, Aeris wouldn't have been in the KH 2 or anything. She would have been dead already. I don't think KH, was trying to keep to any of the characters stories in FF.

The idea of Squall being dead, is interesting. It really make the story interesting. But I would hope it wasn't true, because I would have liked to think Squall and Rinoa are together and stayed that way.

Awkie 3nodding



On bold: Exactly my point, so that part of the evidence does not prove his "omen that leads to Squall's death" theory.



Now this is a discussion that's been going on for quite a bit. Cos still, people die in the final fantasy world even with the Life spell and Phoenix downs. My point in the scar is, they kept it cos it's cool. Anyone knows that that can disappear with magic but they didn't. So the writers pretty much decide on who stays and who goes (and what stays) and none of them would have thought of killing Squall. But it's a good way to end disc 1, mind you.



On bold: And this is why I said this game is the most straight forward among all other final fantasies.

As for the Rinoa liking Squall thing: Seifer is an aquiantance; maybe even somebody she had a fling with. She was one of the only people she knows in that school besides Cid. Given that she has a difficult task for him, of course she'd be asking everyone around for him and in turn, everyone will end up thinking they're a couple or something. (which is pretty fine for me cos I was rooting for Quistis.)



On bold: It's his fears. There was a part where they discussed that they may not be able to go back when they enter ultimecia's realm and they all agreed to meet in the orphanage in case they have the chance of going back; also to make Ellone's (who is responsible for sending them to Ultimecia's realm) job easier since at least she has a focus for an exit for them now. His fears caused him to be lost and he was saved by Rinoa.



On bold: On that part, I suppose I'll take back what I said. I apologize to him. But I did applaud him for his theory. It does make sense.

But...


...and that pretty much sums up what it is in the end.