3 Least Favorite Final Fantasy Theories

One of my favorite things to do when it comes to the Final Fantasy series is reading theories. I really enjoy to see the amount of creativity and effort put into most of them and it also can make you see a certain game from a completely different perspective. With that being said, I also noticed recently that I'm not really fond of some popular theories that are still discussed to this day. So I thought about it for a while and it was much easier for me to make a decision here compared to my favorite theories, which is why I'll be talking about my least favorite Final Fantasy theories in this post. I decided to limit myself to a top 3, since some of these theories require a more in-depth look at them and going into detail about all would take way too long and would lead to a post worth for each theory alone.

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3. Rufus Is Secretly Helping The Party

This is probably one of the most popular Final Fantasy VII theories out there. Here Rufus Shinra is supposed to be the one behind his father's murder and also someone who secretly helps the party throughout the entire game. I honestly never really understood how Rufus's actions could be interpreted as helpful, he clearly tried to get in their way with the turks and while it is true that he often happens to be in the same area as the main party, he isn't the main reason they accomplish their goal at that particular moment. He was completely fine with killing them off after the party woke up separated from Cloud and overall just made it very obvious that he did everything for his own benefit. If the theory was simply about how Rufus planned to kill his father so he could take over Shinra then I wouldn't mind it as much, even though there are still flaws in the theory, since quite a lot of people were killed that night and President Shinra was obviously killed with the Masamune, Sephiroth's signature weapon. I can imagine that this theory also exists to defend his actions, since he is a surprisingly popular character and the idea of him helping the party can definitely be appealing. Although I like his character as well, I don't think that's a reason to come up with excuses for his actions and that's just the feeling I get when reading through this theory. It's just excuses that lead nowhere.

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2. Cloud Killed Aerith

Oh the classic. Talking about this theory will take a while for sure. Some people believe that Sephiroth's Masamune didn't actually cause a fatal stab wound in Aerith's abdomen, but a severed spine that would result in her losing the ability to walk and control her abdominal muscles, which ultimately leads to her losing her consciousness due to shock. Instead it was Cloud who killed Aerith by drowning her. Not that he intended this, it's supposed to make the scene even more tragic that Cloud wasn't aware she was still alive. Before I get to this theory I have to bring up one thing and that is how many still to this day joke about why they never use phoenix downs in these cases. I'm sure there's a fair amount of people who already know this, but just to clarify: phoenix down doesn't revive the dead. When your hp drops to 0 you're not actually dead, but knocked out and unable to continue fighting, so you can still use a phoenix down to get your party back. Now back to the theory. Out of all the theories listed here this one actually provides the most amount of evidence. There is no blood to be seen and you can hear the blade slash her spine when Sephiroth draws his katana back. After Cloud lets go of her body in the lake it sinks, which doesn't apply to dead bodies before they get invaded by enough water to sink. Now that I brought up all the evidence I can say that pretty much all of it can be debunked with canon sources provided by Square and a fair amount of knowledge about Japanese culture.

The most important thing here to keep in mind is Sephiroth's katana. The Masamune is often used in Japanese media and is a cursed blade usually made by the blacksmith of the same name. It's famous for only belonging to calm and skillful warriors and having the inability to draw blood from its victims. "But the Shinra building was full of blood after Sephiroth killed the people inside it," some might think and that's totally true. There are two ways to interpret and explain this, since both are often used. One is that the blade can't draw blood from the innocent, which would explain why Aerith's injury looked less severe than those of the people who worked with Shinra. The other explanation is that the blade simply doesn't cause instant bleeding, yet it causes severe internal damage and can only be seen after a certain amount of time es. This leads me to the second argument, provided by the "Maiden of the Planet" story. In this story the scene is described in a very detailed matter through Aerith's point of view, like how she can feel the blood gushing up her throat after getting stabbed. It's also safe to assume that she died within a few minutes due to the internal damage caused by piercing her abdomen, the main reason most likely being the release of stomach acid spreading throughout her body. As for the sinking body part, it's quite easy to imagine that the stab wound was big enough for the water to quickly invade her body, since the Masamune is originally a blade designed after the odachi, a katana made to slash enemies. And my last argument is about Cloud himself. I know he had just escaped mind control before this moment and was in a state of confusion for the most part in the beginning, but he's not stupid and would've still noticed that Aerith was breathing if Sephiroth's attack had not killed her. I might not enjoy this theory since to me it tries way too hard to make an already tragic scene even more tragic, but I respect the amount of effort many people put into this theory that makes it one of the most popular and famous ones within the series.

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Before talking about my least favorite theory I thought it would only make sense to briefly mention the other theories that almost made it into my top 3, so here are my honorable mentions:

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FFXIII is a Dream

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This theory states that all the events within FFXIII were just a dream made up by Noctis while he was resting inside the crystal for 10 years. Obviously a lot of people made this connection due to versus XIII having been a part of the same universe. However, I'm not that fond of the theory because it just seems like an excuse for people who disliked XIII to pretend like it didn't happen.

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Kefka is Baram

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This one isn't too complicated, so it can be covered rather quickly. This theory states that Kefka is actually Baram, Shadow's former partner. My main issue with this theory is that the key evidence used for it is Shadow staying behind in Kefka's tower and nothing else. I also don't think much of creating such theories simply because a character like Baram only appears in a few flashbacks and barely has any backstory. There's very little evidence and the game doesn't reveal whether Baram is dead or alive in the first place, so it's a clear miss for me.

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The Flower Girl

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The theory first explains that Aerith is introduced in the game as a flower girl, and while most people wouldn't think much of it, the term can have a different meaning in the Japanese language when used in slang. I'm not going into detail since the theory is kind of inappropriate, but I believe it was just trying way too hard to make Aerith a darker character and can be easily ignored, since it obviously goes against her personaliy.

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FFIV is a

Sequel to FFII

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Pretty simple and straightforward theory, FFIV is supposed to be a sequel to FFII that occurs 20 years after the main events of the second installment in the series. My problem with this theory is that many just use the "Kain's father is named Ricard and there's a dragoon kid named Kain in FFII" argument as their key evidence. Even excluding this piece of evidence, all of it can easily be debunked with canon information. The dragoons aren't extinct in FFIV, the world maps look way too different from each other for a 20 year gap, Kain's backstory doesn't add up with the information given about FFII's Kain, and much more.

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Tidus is Jecht

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Tidus isn't real

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These are two different theories for FFX that have the same issue. They both seem to have misunderstood the concept of Tidus and Jecht's characters, since one theory claims that Tidus doesn't exist and the main character in FFX is Shuyin, who is introduced in FFX-2, while the other seems to assume that since Tidus isn't real he therefore is his own father somehow. I really tried to find better explanations for these theories, but I can't really say anything more about them. To me they have really obvious flaws and barely make any sense, so the majority of people who played FFX would dismiss these theories right away.

Now that all of these are out of the way it's time to talk about my least favorite theory:

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1. Kain is Ceodore's Father

This final theory upsets me in so many ways. It claims that Kain took advantage of Rosa while Golbez kidnapped her, which lead to the birth of Ceodore and makes him his son instead of Cecil's. Where do I even begin with this? I really don't care how exaggerated and out of nowhere this theory is, a lot of theories appear that way, but this one completely disregards Kain's entire character. The great thing about him and something many people love about Kain is his character development and how much he cared about Cecil and Rosa, so much that he decided to leave his own feelings behind so they could be happy together. And someone like that is supposed to have taken advantage of the woman he loved and respected since his childhood? I honestly don't care much for Ceodore, since I wasn't particularly fond of FFIV: The After Years, but I still know and accept him as Cecil's son and don't understand why this theory even exists. The theory has pretty much no evidence ing it and more importantly, completely ignores Kain's character, which makes it stand out as my least favorite Final Fantasy theory.

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I really enjoyed looking into these theories with more detail. If anyone thinks I missed some aspects or an entire theory that would've deserved to be on here feel free to bring it up and discuss.