Final Fantasy VIII Has a Secret No One Talks About

Final fantasy VIII has a secret. Somebody has been telling a very big lie.

No, it’s not that Rinoa is Ultimecia. That's for the next video.

Music by @EnricoDeianamusic

Extra footage by @Dansg08 and @Jon2ne1 (thank you!)

Tag city incoming!!

#finalfantasyviii #finalfantasy #videogames #videogamesecrets #ff8remastered #ff8

[DiscoCokkroach]

Cid: Here, Squall. Have this magic lamp. It should help you.

Squall: _uses lamp and summons an extra-dimensional demon that nearly kills the party_

Cid: Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that it's cursed LOL

[PrincessNine]

Actually the GF memory loss is directly taught in the the curriculum. It's in the optional school desk tutorial before you leave class. However it says something like "these effects have not been proven"

[ASteveVaiFan]

Counterpoint: Cid has no passion for what he is doing and is just winging it. He knows how the future will unfold, who why commit more than he had to? It’s his buffoonery that forced Squall to take leadership, because Cid wasn’t doing it. His perspective on everything is basically “idk dude figure it out”.
“You kids going on a mission? Here’s a magic lamp with a demon in it lol figure it out”.
“How long should you work with Rinoa? Idk man until Timber’s independent lol figure it out”.

He is purposefully dispassionate toward the kids so he doesn’t get attached, because he believes it’s them or his wife. Like the only time Cid shows passion is when he’s cussing out Norg. Then when you find him at the orphanage he’s finally honest: he couldn’t handle the reality of the situation. The garden battle would end with his wife’s death, or the kids he’s been dealing with, so he ran away.

Seriously, this might be the hottest take out there but the more I think about Cid’s predicament and what I’d do in his shoes, the more fascinating he becomes.

[Renyth]

Of course Garden is a failure, they never have enough hot dogs? It's why Ultimecia wants to compress time. You can't run out of them if they always exist.

[MathewPatrick]

Finally, a FF8 theory/discussion that's not "Squale was dead the whole time!" Thank you.

[orangefoster]

I couldn't find Esther for the life of me, but 13 years later, I bought the remastered version and am gonna finish this game!!! Wish me luck!

[TurboNemesis]

One of the cutest details about FF8 is that Laguna flashback where you're playing a knight protecting a sorceress in a movie.

The way Laguna hold his sword, straight out with the flat of the blade facing up, is how Seifer holds his gunblade. Seifer leaves Garden to become the personal bodyguard of Sorceress Edea and always talks about his "romantic dream."

His "romantic dream" and even the way he fights he got from this same movie.

[EricLadish]

VIII is a personal favorite of mine, love to see more people talking about it!

[hamos]

Liberi Fatali - Fated Child. Your take is quite accurate, but in the end wrong. Squall (the fated child) is the one that gives Edea the idea of Garden as in order to succeed he wants nothing to change, creating that paradox that concludes the story. Also in the end the power of the Guardian Forces and the military training that Squall and his companions have are the reason that they manage their way through this terrible road that they have to take. Nothing has to change, not even the mistakes. That is actually a part of the charm of this amazing game with that amazing story. Squall should be "forced" and get trained to be strong and a leading personality. Every harsh bit of his life, every loving touch, should be there to succeed. Furthermore Squall chooses that he wants nothing to change as he wants in every possible fate to end up not only succeeding, but with the same people loving him and he loving them. It is a beautiful story of choosing that very outcome as it is, including every pain in it.

[samuelpipe]

FFVIII's biggest secret is it's a soundtrack disguised as a game.

[rimjobledouche]

It was awfully nice of Square to package a whole game with Triple Triad.

[QuidamByMoonlight]

It would seem that FFVIII is one of those “closed time loop” stories like Terminator and many others. Cid and Edea raise the children in the orphanage, and Edea becomes a sorcerous because Ultimacia ends up on the beach after Squall and party defeat her. She goes to the same place that Squall and Rinoa promise to meet. Edea, without knowing this context, and simply getting her powers from Ultimacia on the beach, create SEeD and Garden with Cid and his business partner who live in the basement of Balamb (this story is nuts). Anyway, I think it’s a bit of the point that the more we fight our destiny, the more it finds us. Cid and Edea create the Garden out of fear Edea will be taken over by the other sorcerous. And she does have that happen. But if they didn’t train Squall and team to be fighters since they were children, they would have never defeated the sorcerous…but that also means that she would not have washed up at Edea’s lighthouse, either. So it’s a Catch-22. A time loop. The characters are destined to do what they do, and the end and the beginning are the same. Squall and crew are living in the time compressed world before anyone even knows it…

[fromthelostdays]

To be fair to Cid, Garden exists to train SeeDs to defeat the sorceress because Squall told Edea that she "had the idea for" Garden to train SeeDs to defeat the sorceress. Cid would never have been running any sort of military training facility to begin with on his own, and now he's just desperately running around trying to figure out how he apparently manages to train Squall, specifically, so he one day apparently defeats some sorceress somewhere and also time travel(?).

Also, smaller things, separating him from Ellone had nothing to do with training him (she was already gone when he drops into the past, that's all on Laguna) and if you Squall's lessons they _do_ teach SeeDs that memory loss is a potential side effect of using GFs, it seems like it's the Shumi tribe members (the people we later learn are there on behalf of the financier to milk these kids for as much money as possible regardless of their well-being) who are pushing "No no no, that's just some radicals making things up! Ignore it, use the weapons that will let you get through more enemies faster!" because the actual lesson is very straightforwardly "While it hasn't been proven yet this is a possible side-effect you need to be aware of."

[shanaeverowe]

I always viewed seifer was what happens when there are two candidates for being the chosen one. One is given all the opportunities to succeed, the other is forced to fight for everything they have. In another world you would be routing for seifer.

[lucialudens]

FFVIII is about:
“You can't change the past, you can only change yourself."
—Ellone

[mafcho]

Interesting analysis. Garden also struggles because of the tension between Norg and Cid. I think it's fair to say Garden was a failure.
At the same time, I don't think Cid was wrong to push Squall. The push from Cid was a large part of Squall realizing he didn't have to think inside the SeeD box.. he could do what he wanted to do. Which amusingly enough lined up with Cid's goal too

[Benseventysevenmillion]

Fascinating vid! Never really considered how often the characters' immaturity comes into play, but it makes perfect sense that they'd mess up the way they do. Btw for a second I honestly thought this was going to be about how the White SeeD Ship was a malevolent entity

[MCPunk]

Memory loss is a small price to pay to have a giant horned lion drop a gigantic meteor on someone's head.

[samfowler]

That rant about the white seed ship, I felt that in my soul.

[GMetzo]

This was a very well done video. And congratulations for not needing a 3 hour long essay for this.
Final Fantasy 8 has a very special place in my mind. No other FF has proved so fertile a ground for all sorts of theories and wacky ideas.
It's so wacky in so many ways especially in the second half. And obviously every time time travel is thrown in things are bound to become very interesting.
On one hand I want them to remake it and tie things together.
On the other hand I don't want them to ever touch it again and maintain this air of mystery.
My favorite theory is Rhinoa being Ultimecia. I know this has been turned down from Square themselves but I don't care! :D
Again thank you for the video and I'll be definitely subscribing!