Part 56: Cold Exposition, Part I

Chapter 56 - Cold Exposition, Part I



Ah, Icicle Inn. The moment you enter you're greeted with this amazing theme.



Icicle Inn is also one of my favorite towns in the game, art-wise.



It's cold, but it just feels so warm. These glowing window lights add so much to the composition. This is the kind of place that would be much harder to do right in a full 3D game.



Right, let's start with the weapons shop.



Unfortunately, because I haven't battled much and because the game doesn't really reward you with Gil for doing progression (not much anyway)...



...I don't have a lot of money right now to buy all these sweet, sweet weapons. So I sell a lot of the junk I've got.



Technically the Nail Bat deals more damage, but these no-slot weapons are mostly gimmicky and as much as it pleases me, I don't wanna use them forever. I also buy Cait's weapon since he's definitely gonna benefit from another materia slot. Anyway, next house!



Why would you move to this place, anyway? Then again, I suppose it's the cleanest city on the planet.



Now now, you can't break an omelet without making some eggs.



I go out of the way to show you this entire background. APPRECIATE IT.



While this snowboard obviously stands out from the background due to, you know, being an actual 3D model in real-time, I'd like to point out that the little kid plays with dolls. He also owns balls, toy cars, a giant teddy bear and a wooden truck. I'm gonna give you extra points if you figure out what the posters on the walls are, besides the one that is obviously Link.

Sadly enough, the cat is blocking our way to the snowboard. So let's move on and check the house to the far east.



Hooray for objects greatly standing out.



Riiight. I think I'm gonna keep it.



Actually, let's rob the entire house.



A [Hero Drink] and a [Vaccine]. The Hero Drink would be useful if I actually used it for progression battles.











Well that truly sucks.



I hate to say but odds are that he's dead, madam. The alternative would be that the most desolate, cold and dead place in the world is better than your company.





It's like these people live in a permanent state of denial.



Alright. Let's move on.



Yes and so far everything indicates we'll have to go there



Hmmm. Reminds me of something...



Oh.



I like these little throwbacks in the game. It's easy to miss.



Huh.



Interesting. We'll have to look into that.



We're right on track.



Talk about this "thing" that fell from the sky has been present everywhere. As early as the Nibelheim flashback when Sephiroth talks about how "Long ago, disaster struck this planet", and the planet survived by "sacrificing the Cetra".



Alright, I'm not sure how this information made to you but I trust it will be useful soon enough.



Weee. One house left, let's check it.



A warm family environment.



Holy moly, talk about plot dump. And we haven't even started yet!





"We're gonna make millions out of YouTube Ads, I tell you! It'll be like Marble Hornets except real."



2000 years ago. This is important.



I mean, not important in the sense that 2000 years ago had some Christian symbolism.



And that Jenova is a corruption of Jehovah, one of the interpretations for the Hebrew name of God, the tetragrammaton YHWH.



No, not that. Important in the sense that it's relevant to the plot.



We've seen that multiple times, from Aeris.



Another hint towards that event.



It's very likely that the original crash was from a Meteor.



Maybe someone originally used the Black Materia, hence why they built an entire temple to safeguard it once they saw what happened?



Nevertheless, that is definitely not the important aspect of what caused the crater.







Also, note how there are vegetation and trees in the city, reinforcing the contrast between here (a cold and remote, but clean place) and the rest of the world (full of mako reactors).





The scientist asks if Ifalna wants to take a break.







Ok, this is really important to the plot. Hold this image, we'll get back to it soon.















Right, I think we now have enough info to make some assumptions.

We know that the Cetra all sacrificed themselves to kill this one entity. According to Sephiroth in the Shinra Mansion, "An Ancient named Jenova was found in the geological stratum of 2000 years ago."

We know that Jenova is not an Ancient. Sephiroth himself thought he was a Cetra because he is her "son" (though we still don't know who are his biological parents), but Aeris denied that.

We also know that that entity infected creatures, mutating them into horrible monsters. Remember in the Nibelheim Reactor, what was causing the creatures in the area to become monsters?

It was a leak in one of the valves draining Jenova blood. I think it's 100% safe to assume at this point that what fell from the Sky either was or contained Jenova.

Either way, we now know the following things about Jenova:

* It can manipulate people's minds, thoughts and emotions.
* It can assume any shape and form. This is important because, for all we know, it might (and probably) not even look humanoid at all like the blue disfigured woman people seen. Ifalna refers to Jenova as "him", reinforcing this idea.
* It took an entire civilization of psychic hippie magic users to seal her down. Ironically, it was a byproduct of her (Sephiroth) who finished her job and killed the last Ancient.

I think this kinda shows how this shit is more serious than a crazy rampant psychopath wandering around killing shit. We're starting to connect the dots from this crazy plot, but there's still much more.



Right, next video.



Thanks for clearing it up.



So, it makes sense to assume Jenova is an alien lifeform that came from space. The Japanese love that.





It's an interesting concept, that links back to the Gaia theory, in a more anthropomorphic way.



In this case, Jenova represents a planet-scale virus (literally), Lifestream is the blood, and the Weapons are created by an adaptive immune system to combat the issue at hand.





Either way, let's be a bit savvy here.



Through Chekov's Gun we can imagine that this wouldn't be presented to us if it isn't going to become a plot point sometime soon.



In fact, there's very few dialogue in this game that is 100% useless. Most dialogue is meaningful in some way, even if to give us characterization or background story that ultimately links to Shinra, Sephiroth or one of the player characters.



Which is what makes this game good to play for a second time. A lot of Fight-Clubesque information that people miss or don't pay attention for the first time going on.



Even within this update, we're referencing other chapters to make sense of what is going on.



Well, it can't be very far, we've sure travelled through 90% of the world already.



This has been quite the plot dump. One last video and...



Oh cmon, more videos. We'll conclude this update for now.


Next Time:

More revelations! Slapstick comedy!



Music we've listened to in this update:

Buried in the Snow - Icicle Inn's theme. Absolutely fantastic. Make sure not to read any Youtube comment for your own sanity.

Frozen Landscape - A great ocremix from the Voices of Lifestream album, by Tweek. One of my favorite remixes.