The ending wow. Spoilers

[Boomer Click Bait]

This game overall I enjoyed it could have used a lot more exploration and just RPG elements in general, but I enjoyed it. FF games have always had a good story and this one had me confused.

I thought Clive died. The last bit of magic was extinguished and Jill saw the star fade and cried. But Clive told her when she saw the sun rise he would return or come back to her I can't remember the exact line.

The kids at the end are playing and then it shows the book wrote by Joshua. So did did Clive live and take Joshua's name as an alias?

[jordyexists]

The ending is intentionally ambiguous; not a choice I prefer, but some people seem to like it. That being said, there's a lot of textual evidence that Clive did survive and took on Joshua's name to write the book. This video is a pretty good summary of that literary thesis:

https://youtu.be/K8bWYsVI-aY?si=G3_3gGjqD_qJMsdw

[iameatingjam]

Its meant to be ambiguous, like was said above. Its a kind of.... believe what you want to believe as to whether clive died or not.

I mean yeah he clearly had the curse. But jill had the curse the whole game and didn't die. Though his did look pretty bad. Still. IDK. Maybe he just needs a good arm amputation.

[claudimerro]

The ending sucked big time. I mean it took him iminent death to admit to Jill that he loved her and then he dies? That was a huge cold shower :D Iget that its suppose to be ambiguous but to me, that beach death was a big Fcking Suck it Player.

[C1REX]

I personally can't think of a scenario where Clive could survive.
Nobody could suck the magic out of him like he did from other Dominants so he had to release it what always end up with death.

[C1REX]

Originally posted by jordyexists:

The ending is intentionally ambiguous; not a choice I prefer, but some people seem to like it. That being said, there's a lot of textual evidence that Clive did survive and took on Joshua's name to write the book. This video is a pretty good summary of that literary thesis:

https://youtu.be/K8bWYsVI-aY?si=G3_3gGjqD_qJMsdw

I really disagree with his take. If Clive failed to save Joshua, it would be worse than his own death and a very sad ending, in my opinion. For me, Clive clearly revived Joshua, who wrote the book as he always wanted. Joshua wanted to share the real story about magic and bearers. Clive is not the writer type. Clive knowing that he might never survive is also a good explanation for why he never got closer to Jill.

Clive is clearly turning to stone at the end. After getting rid of the final Mothercrystal, taking all Dominants' powers, and killing Ultima himself, it didn’t change the rules and consequences of using all the magic within him. He reacted just like the others, which is clearly visible. Cid and others were only partly petrified when they still had magic within.


However, FF X-2 and FF XIII-3 are a reminder that everyone can be revived from dead if you need the character for their next game, DLC or a remake. In that sense no character ever dies. Not even Aeris from FFVII.

[jordyexists]

Originally posted by C1REX:

Originally posted by jordyexists:

The ending is intentionally ambiguous; not a choice I prefer, but some people seem to like it. That being said, there's a lot of textual evidence that Clive did survive and took on Joshua's name to write the book. This video is a pretty good summary of that literary thesis:

https://youtu.be/K8bWYsVI-aY?si=G3_3gGjqD_qJMsdw

I really disagree with his take. If Clive failed to save Joshua, it would be worse than his own death and a very sad ending, in my opinion. For me, Clive clearly revived Joshua, who wrote the book as he always wanted. Joshua wanted to share the real story about magic and bearers. Clive is not the writer type. Clive knowing that he might never survive is also a good explanation for why he never got closer to Jill.

Clive is clearly turning to stone at the end. After getting rid of the final Mothercrystal, taking all Dominants' powers, and killing Ultima himself, it didn’t change the rules and consequences of using all the magic within him. He reacted just like the others, which is clearly visible. Cid and others were only partly petrified when they still had magic within.


However, FF X-2 and FF XIII-3 are a reminder that everyone can be revived from dead if you need the character for their next game, DLC or a remake. In that sense no character ever dies. Not even Aeris from FFVII.

Clive is not the writer type, but Harpocrates is, and it is Clive's habit throughout the game to tell him, in detail, about his adventures. It seems like the two of them could have written the book together and used Joshua's name as a pseudonym, as is common practice for Clive as well as any ghost writer (Harpocrates in this case.)

I think the video does a better job of showing how "he's turning to stone" isn't a persuasive argument, especially if destroying Origin also removes magic from the world.

Further, I don't think death should be arbitrary in fiction even if it can be. That's not a good practice for maintaining the fundamentals of writing a story, and thus, the audience's enjoyment and suspension of disbelief. The video goes into a fair amount of detail about the various narrative themes that are left broken with Clive's death.

How the author of a work treats the death of a character is very much an aesthetic judgement and a choice; sacrificing the themes of the work for fan-service or to "subvert expectations" is far easier and far less elegant than building an aesthetic theme through an entire text and resolving it.

[iameatingjam]

Originally posted by C1REX:

Clive is not the writer type.

Did you by chance miss a certain convo with harpocrates?

Anyway, I actually agree that Clive died, but I kinda like how they left a sliver of hope in there.

[[JRE] Joe Rogan]

Clive revived Joshua and then died after releasing all that magic and destryoing the Nexus In thought. Who knows I honestly think the story fell off after Ultima came into the picture. I prefered the GoT style story of the Empires battling with Dominants and all that, wish they just focused on that.

[iameatingjam]

Originally posted by NUMBERS 19 Red Heffer:

Clive revived Joshua and then died after releasing all that magic and destryoing the Nexus In thought. Who knows I honestly think the story fell off after Ultima came into the picture. I prefered the GoT style story of the Empires battling with Dominants and all that, wish they just focused on that.

I kind of wish the story was a little closer to politics of it all, rather than that mostly being in the background. But... I still love it.