Midgar...The Promised Land?

[neo_rufus]

Ok so this theory isn't one of my best but I felt it was still worth sharing. You know just to keep the community alive, lol. So my friend asked me a very interesting question regarding the Red 13 scene at the end of the game. Notice how Midgar was full of tress and looked like a splendid jungle of some sort, surrounded by beautiful blue water.

Comments

[tweel]

As I recall it, the Promised Land was misunderstood by ShinRa. They understood it as "a place where Mako is rich and abundant". As in, the Lifestream. The Promised Land = Lifestream. But you see, Lifestream is deep in the earth, or so they make it out. So that's where ShinRa was wrong: whether the Mako had the ability to be mined or not.

I think.

[neo_rufus]

But isn't it interesting how the ShinRa's belief in the Promised Land gave us high hopes? Lol. After reading all of the comments relating to this deep topic, I'm starting to understand that everybody has awesome views about the Promised Land, and what it represents. Your way of looking at it is pretty darn cool. The Promised Land being the Lifestream...that's deep. :D

Nice one. ;)

[summonerluna]

From Aerith's dialogue at the Gold Saucer after Cait Sith betrays you, I understood the Promised Land to be a spiritual place for the Cetra, not a physical place--she says the Cetra "just know" when they arrive there...to me it implied that the Promised Land could be anywhere and at any time...it could be a place the individual has visted once before and felt nothing, but later on in that Cetra's life the same place suddenly has extreme significance...the idea of it being a physical place abundant in Mako was ShinRa's mistake. Which is to be allowed as only the original Cetra truly understood what the Promised Land meant--millenia later the Cetra descendants could only use guesswork and intuition so it is to be expected that a company with no spiritual connection ot the planet would make that mistake

[neo_rufus]

Hi there. Welcome back. Missed yah. :D

[summonerluna]

Yeah...I do wonder what other races survived over 500 years...a lot can change in that time....but maybe other races survived, but just evolved? Humans on earth have changed in the last 500 years...maybe Cloud and Tifa's great great great great great great grandchildren are running things now? Lol.

I hope they don't keep things going to span that 500 year period...while it is nice having a lot of questions answered and getting more and more in depth character and story backgrounds...if you carry it out to far, so much of the mystery is taken away...right now we can all guess about what happened in that time, but if they answer it...there isn't much left for the fans' imaginations...and that is one of the things I love so much about FF games :)

[mimi_sardinia]

I don't think Midgar is the Promised Land - I have to go with a theory I found elsewhere: the Promised Land is different for everyone.

As clocksareevil said, I think the game implies that the Cetra's opinion of the Promised Land was that the Lifestream was it.

Other people may have different Promised Lands - for the Shinra family Midgar probably was their Promised Land and later the mako cave in the Northern Crater sure looked like it to Rufus, but that was because what the Shinra family held in the highest regard was money and power.

If you read Maiden Who Travels the Planet and the part where Aeris encounters Shinra Snr's spirit, he went on about how money meant everything and how pathetic Aeris was for being poor. For him Midgar probably was his promised Land - a place he could screw money out of to make himself more rich

[neo_rufus]

Interesting theory. I've never heard of it, so I'm glad you posted it up

[mimi_sardinia]

I just went looking for the site that I knew of that had a translation of Maiden to find that it is down. Best bet I think will be to look on Advenchildren.net to see if translations are located there.

Don't guard me from spoilers, it annoys me because I'm a total spoiler whore. I can guess who you mean though, it the opening video which I've seen (and in the english version!).

I think the idea was that the villa one can buy in Costa Del Sol may have once been Shinra property. Makes me wonder why it was up for sale then - maybe Rufus was the one who didn't want it and put it up for sale after his father was killed.
I could see that because a villa in Costa sounds like one of those things rich people would buy which would fit in with Shinra Snr.

[neo_rufus]

Also, what would you consider Cloud's Promised Land to be? His one is pretty hard to figure out. Or maybe Aerith's forgiveness is all he cares about. Hmm.

[enjolras]

Actually, I don't think that idea is too far-fetched at all. Aeris's church in the slums had Lifestream flowing under it (bad wording there). This is obvious from when it burst out of the earth and healed Cloud when he was fighting with Kadaj. Perhaps there is two Promised Lands. The one you find in yourself, which is the figurative sense, and the physical one. However, just my opinion.

[neo_rufus]

Awesome! I am happy to hear you like my theory. The idea of Two Promised Lands sounds even better. To be honest, I always wondered about how the water rose from the floor like that. Not to mention the convenience of the spot. It really does make you wonder. So yeah, I'll keep your point in my thoughts.

[ff7aeris]

My long reply is in this post

http://community.livejournal.com/new_shinra87/51876.html

It was to fricking long to put it elsewhere ^^;

[neo_rufus]

Thanks for letting me know. I'll be sure to leave a comment today ;)