FFVII – Part 30: Circle of Life

Summary: Cosmo Canyon. Some Red backstory, and lots about the lifestream and what happens to souls on when they die. More reasons why Shinra sucks.
 

Cosmo Canyon

-We head west, across a river, up a mountain, and arrive at Cosmo Canyon.

-This is Red’s hometown?????

-His real name is Nanaki??????? He’s friends with someone named “Bugenhagen”?????????????????

-This is Cosmo Canyon, where people “seek the Study of Planet Life.” I think this just means that it’s a center of earth and nature science, but maybe there’s an actual building called “the Study of Planet Life.”

-Red’s mother fought here, and his “cowardly father” fled and died. He’s the last of his race, and his mission ends here. Aw.

-RED’S GRANDPA?!?!?!

-The weapon shop here shows a non-Barret ranged weapon, which has been a recurring thing. I don’t quite get it. I have no character who has the option to use one. I feel like I missed a character along the way. Oh well.

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Bugenhagen’s Observatory

-We meet Grandpa Bugenhagen. He says Red… ahem, Nanaki… is only a child really. Just 45 years old in a long-lived race.

BUGENHAGEN: “Reaching up into the heavens, threatening to snatch the very stars from the great city of Midgar! You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” I’ll bet this prophecy of doom has something to do with whatever shenanigans Sephiroth is up to.

-Bugenhagen hears the “cries of the Planet.” Is he related to the Ancients somehow?

-By the way, we’re in the bottom of Bugenhagen’s planetarium. The most horrifying planetarium ever. It hears the sounds of dying stars, and we also hear what sounds like whale song. Except instead of whales, it’s the sound OF THE DYING PLANET EEEEK.

-Uh oh. Some other folks showed up. I don’t think they’re with us.

-Oh. Lol. I was wrong. They are with us. One of them can come join me in the observatory.

-I go grab Tifa and Cait Sith, and we head up to the telescope.

-This is so, so, so cool.

-Ok. Time to build on the explanation Aeris had given us before. When we die, our bodies return to the planet (circle of life and all), but so do our souls. The souls of all living creatures. There’s a whole lifestream thing that keeps recycling and dividing and reusing souls and energy.

-The cinematic here is a person and tree dying, dissolving into energy, spreading elsewhere on the planet, and a new person popping up. It’s really quite beautiful.

-If the spirit energy were to disappear, the world would wither, crack, and die. This must be what Mako energy is, and also must be why Avalanche is so against it. I wish I had brought Barret and Aeris with me to see this rather than Tifa and Cait Sith.

-Bugenhagen hears that Nanaki thinks his father is a coward: “So that’s what he’s been thinking this whole time…” Yeah, something tells me the story of Nanaki’s dad isn’t as simple as “he was a coward.”

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Cosmo Canyon

-One of the elders here believes the Promised Land is the ultimate resting place for the souls of the Ancients.

-Hey, I was right! This place is where AVALANCHE was born.

-Poor Barret. So guilty about the deaths of his comrades, but determined to press on to save the Planet, even as he’s aware that his reasons aren’t all pure.

What a great character.

-Tifa to Cloud: “It feels like… like you’re going really, really far away.” Uh oh.

-OH GOD

-OH GOD I’M SO FREAKED OUT

-Ok. Chill. Elder Bughe mentions Professor Gast, who was super excited to find the corpse of an Ancient, Jenova. Fine. We know that. But then Gast found Jenova wasn’t what he thought she was.

-This just… it reframes so much of what I thought. This means Sephiroth isn’t an Ancient. But he thinks he is, so it means Jenova’s actually manipulating him in some way. WHO ARE YOU JENOVA

-When the Gi tribe attacked, Red’s father ran off. Bugenhagen seems like he knows more, and beckons Nanaki, Cloud, and one more (Tifa) to join him to see a secret room.

Going down.

-This looks like a toxic pit. Where the hell are we going?

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Next time: Cave of the Gi.