Who is Ultimecia? I think I know...

by Peter Williams

I'll give my opinion on Ultimecia soon, but let's review the evidence first.

I've just beaten Final Fantasy VIII and I was thinking about the sorceresses. I noticed that all the sorceri were human, yet had some inhuman features. Edea had that curly horn and the veins on her face; Adel was a huge, grey-skinned, manly lady that could move her hair with her own will; Ultimecia had those shredded black wings; and don't forget that slug-like sorceress that you fight during time compression. It got me thinking that when a sorceress uses her powers, her looks gradually change. Also, since Edea looked like a normal lady at the end of FFVIII, I'm guessing that the weird looks go away if the sorceress stops using her powers. I then speculated as to what Rinoa might look like if she used her powers a lot, and I came to a startling thought:

Rinoa might look like Ultimecia if she uses her powers a lot, therefore Ultimecia might be Rinoa!

How would I come to this conclusion? Well, let's see what we know.
1. Ultimecia is from the future. The game never says how distant a future this is. Still, Ultimecia knows about Odine's time invention, so it can't be so distant that someone would forget about Odine's invention.
2. Ultimecia has wings. I thought that Rinoa would definitely have wings if her looks changed. Coincidence?
3. At Edea's house, Rinoa makes a speech about Squall will someday kill her. That never seemed to happen in the game, but when I played, Squall dealt the final blow to Ultimecia.
4. Ultimecia summoned Griever. How would Ulty know about griever!? Remember that Rinoa supposedly made a copy of Squall's ring. Maybe Ulty had Squall's ring! Maybe Squall's ring contained the GF Griever (much like Solomon ring had Doomtrain).

What do you make of this? I just thought that since we knew so little about Ultimecia, maybe I could fill in her past. I just can't think of why Rinoa would want to become Ultimecia, though...