The Meaning of FFVII's Ending: One More Way To Look At Things

by Marty Barnier 

Ok, how about this? We all know that the whole point of Holy's existence wasn't for destroying Meteor. It was to destroy all that was bad for the planet. While this DOES mean "Meteor," it doesn't mean Midgar, which is currently sucking life from the Planet(and had just took what was most likely a large chuck of it to kill Weapon with the Sister Ray). Everybody assumes that when Holy attacked Meteor in the ending cinema, Holy fails to stop Meteor and the Lifestream comes to the rescue. I, however, see things a different way(of course).

Since Holy's purpose is to destroy all that is bad for the Planet, instead of stopping Meteor, it sees Meteor as a quick and easy to way to rid the world of Midgar, and lets Meteor continue it's approach on Midgar. Of course, this obviously isn't the right choice, seeing as Meteor will also destroy the whole Planet along with Midgar. So, as Midgar gets ripped to pieces, the Planet takes things into its own hands. The Lifestream emerges from the ground and focuses all of it's energy on Midgar, which, if you watch the last flash of Midgar before Aeris' face appears, shows Meteor falling to pieces along with Midgar.

Another thing I sort of want to point out is that the area around Midgar was green(according to the world map and stuff). After the movie, the surrounding area with Nanaki and his children is a desert, while Midgar is a lush forest. The only thing I get out of this is that when the Lifestream left the ground to converge on Midgar, all of it's life-giving energy was focused there as well, transforming the Planet into a desert, except for Midgar. Another thing that others have said in other editorials is that all humans were destroyed. Not true(well, most likely not true), because you hear children laughing. Square put a whole crap-load of time, effort, and thought into this story, and the fact that it goes so deep and cuts the story off without resolving everything and making it clear what exactly happened is either laziness(not likely) or the fact that the writers themselves gave themselves too many options iwth the ending and couldn't decide exactly what happened(as you can tell from other editorials on RPGamer.com, there's plenty of possibilities, and they are all excellent, and a lot better than mine). Then there's the possibility of the writers saying "Hey, let's f*** with these guys" and every time they wrote a plot twist they'd grin and mimble "Yeah, this'll really f***'em up" which is sort of in the middle.

The point is, Holy wasn't the ultimate magic, nor was Meteor. The Lifestream was, and IT was the "magic" that destroyed all that was bad for the Planet. Too bad Square couldn't just give us a straight answer after all this time. Or maybe they have and I'm out of the loop. Whatever. Well, that's my two cents. I wish my first editorial wasn't on a subject everyone else was discussing, but oh well. I'll come up with something creative later. I swear.