[Image] People say different things about the plot of FF8. One thing is that it is very bad, and very poorly done, with lots of plot holes. I personally don't think that is right; there is a lot of stuff in the game that seems to be aiming towards...something else... And that something else is what I believe is supposed to be the true plot of Final Fantasy VIII. So let me try and explain my theories, and hopefully you might see what I'm talking about. I really shouldn't call these my theories, for they are the theories I follow, as I have heard many of the ideas elsewhere. Some of it is original though. Part 1: Laguna and Squall A long time before Squall was born, Laguna, Kiros, and Ward went on their little exploits. These are detailed in the game, for the most part. However, there is one part that is not explained fully. What happened to Raine and Ellone? At one point we hear Raine had a child. This is after Laguna has gone to Esthar. She then dies. With no one to protect them, Ellone is taken to the orphanage and taken care of by Ellone. But what about the other child? It would be stupid for the other child to have died, there would have been no point of mentioning it otherwise. But if it lived, wouldn't it have stayed with Ellone? The mystery child is none other than Squall. This is nothing too extraordinary; at one point Kiros and Ward mention something about Squall's mother and father; most logically they're talking about Laguna and Raine, especially considering the way they joke about the father. Laguna is Squall's father, and Ellone is Squall's adopted sister... Part 2: The Source of Ultimecia's Power This is where it starts to get screwy... Ultimecia is a combination of Edea's powers and the powers of one more sorceress...Ultimecia. Ultimecia's power comes from Ultimecia herself. Remember back to the end. As time went back to normal, Ultimecia appeared in the past and died. Her power was taken by Edea. Follow through the line of sorceresses, and you will eventually get to Ultimecia. Ultimecia is, in fact, a paradox. Her power was gathered, or created, or however you want to describe it, by no one. Because of her existence, she exists. Part 3: Rinoa Remember where Rinoa got her powers from...Edea. In the ending, shortly before Squall goes into the trippy scene, we see that Edea gets power from Ultimecia. Shortly after she gets the powers, she realizes that the guy is Squall, only grown up. Now, this is quite an assumption to make, even with some hints from Squall. Edea suddenly knew who Squall was because she learned it from Ultimecia. Ultimecia, is, in fact, Rinoa. Squall realizes this, and the trippy scene begins. Rinoa's face goes black. He goes nuts. Things fall apart. And in the middle of it all, Ultimecia appears. Square's finding new ways to hide stuff. No more vague comments, hinting at certain ideas; they hid it in a movie. A quick flash of the screen, that could very well be Squall going nuts. In the middle of the trippy scene, three images of Ultimecia flash extremely quickly. You can't see them without going through it on slow motion. But it is definitely Ultimecia. I recently found a program that let me rip the FMV files off of some Playstation games off of Zophar's Domain. After ripping the movie with the trippy scene out, I then went to CNET's Download.com. After searching on there, I found a program that let me open up AVI files and view them frame by frame. So, I opened the movie, found the three images, and saved them. Each image appears for a total of one-fifteenth of a second; the entire sequence of the three, separated by two unrelated frames, is one-fifth of a second. She doesn't appear for long. [Image] The first shot; somewhat of a sideview [Image] The second shot [Image] Does she look scary or what? And remember: Rinoa got the power of Ultimecia from Edea. Rinoa could have easily become as strong as Ultimecia, because she obtained her power during the events of the game. Part 4: Ellone At one point, Ellone tells Squall that, "I can only send people I know in the present into people I knew in the past." She doesn't know Rinoa. The two have never met; yet Ellone still does it. Maybe they have met. But where? Remember, Ultimecia was taken in by Edea. Edea now had the essence of Ultimecia. If Ultimecia is Rinoa, then Ellone could very well have "met" Rinoa through Edea. Part 5: Rinoa in Space Rinoa freaked out in outer space, and was taken under control by Ultimecia. Now, she then floats her way out to space, under Ultimecia's control. Squall is thrown into her immediate past by Ellone, and we see Rinoa run out of air, stop breathing, and she's basically dying. Now, that's in the past, and then Squall floats out, finds her and gets to her. The flow of time at this point in the game is fuzzy. The game doesn't explain what the order of events is. It skips around a lot, and it's difficult to figure out the sequence of events. This is a mix up in time. See, Rinoa is Ultimecia, and having possessed herself, she sent herself out into space. However, if she dies when she was younger, she fails to exist later. Rinoa couldn't die as a result of Ultimecia's actions for that reason. Part 5: Griever Remember Squall's ring, that you name during the game? The default name for it is Griever. At the end of the game, you fight the GF Griever. If you change the name of the ring, then that name is the name of what you fight at the end. In short, the enemy at the end is a manifestation of Squall's ring. Remember that Rinoa had Squall's ring. She had gotten it from Squall, and was going to make an identical ring. She very well may have kep the ring over time, and in the future, a physical manifestation of it was created. Maybe even after Squall died, the ring that had been such a huge part of his life created a physical manifestation of his power. And since Squall was such a loner for so long; always just doing his job, devoid of all emotion, the manifestation could have been that of a monster. Part 6: The Paradox I've heard lots of explanations as to what's going on in the trippy scene at the end. This one makes the most sense to me. Squall dies early in the game. I just threw you a mouthful; let me explain. Go back to disc 1. At the end, Ultimecia uses Edea and throws the ice shards into Squall. [Image] Looks just a LITTLE painful... [Image] 'Tis but a flesh wound! The next time we see Squall, he is perfectly fine. That is only days later, and he is able to live through some vicious torture. Now, looking back at the end of disc 1, the injury seems a lot more dangerous than just a few days of rest and ready for torture. I mean, if you had a piece of ice sticking straight through you, you'd be in pain for a long time, wouldn't you? Squall died. It killed him. His last vision was seeing Rinoa trying to grab him as he fell. However, keep in mind that Rinoa is Ultimecia, as I said before. In disc 3, Rinoa goes into outerspace, and dies without Squall there to protect her. Remember the part of the trippy scene where it shows the mask of the space suit shattered? Squall had died, and wasn't there to save her. So Rinoa doesn't turn into Ultimecia, and Ultimecia doesn't come into existence. Then, Ultimecia doesn't go back in time, doesn't possess Edea, and doesn't kill Squall. So then, Squall saves Rinoa, and...you get the idea. Squall still exists as a result of the paradox. Remember the island Squall is on during the ending? That's his non-existance. He realizes that he is dead. And he realizes what happened during the trippy scene, and the paradox performs itself. Rinoa sent him in, Rinoa helps him out. We don't experience time paradoxes, so we have no clue what it would be like in the real world, so Square just made it up. Part 7: Why Why would Rinoa kill Squall? The common theory is that she went nuts when Squall died. I have my own theory that I came up with on my own. Rinoa got Edea's power on the Ragnarok. With that power came Ultimecia's power, which Edea took when Squall was a child. Rinoa realized that she was, in fact, Ultimecia. She was afraid. She wanted to stop herself, but at the same time, she wanted to live. And she decided to stop herself, and gave herself to Esthar to be sealed up like Adel. However, Squall saved her. Time passes, and Rinoa becomes Ultimecia. She wants to get rid of herself. She is nearly immortal, the SeeD are trying to stop her for some reason, Squall is dead, and she may very well not be doing anything bad, but just want to die. So she sends herself back using her power, possesses Edea, and kills Squall. Rinoa attacks Squall simply to stop herself from existing. If Squall dies, then he doesn't save her. Now, why doesn't Ultimecia go back and just kill Rinoa? Very simply, she doesn't know how to. She can only possess a few people. She goes inside of Edea. However, her plan failed since the paradox was created by Squall's death. But, at the same time, she succeeded, because Squall came to her and killed her because of her actions. How ironic.