DID GARLAND'S PLAN SUCCEED? | Final Fantasy IX PS4 celebration story THEORY & LORE dive!

16:45 The Black Mages are made from the Mist, which is actually the expelled Souls of Gaia, so if anything the black Mages are reincarnated Gaians in artificial bodies.

I somehow always just assumed this is what happened at the end. There is a pretty obvious symbolic scene all the way at the end of the credits, where we see the shot of Zidane and Garnet hugging from the end cutscene and then (featuring their respective planets fading in in their place) Gaia and Terra merging to form a new crystal (notably, the shape of the first crystal which Kuja tried to destroy). I always thought that was supposed to be exactly this: Garnet and Zidane symbolizing the succesfull and peaceful integration of Terras life into Gaia.

And this is why FFIX is one of the best ff of them all, it's a shame that not as many people got it. It's such an underrated game 😔

Such a damn beautiful game. Everything about FF9 is amazing. Plot, visuals, game play, music. Truly a culmination of Square's skill in making RPGs. Fantastic theory too. Really makes me want to play it again. Gg Pez.

Well, FFIX was supposed to be highly symbolic and allegorical from the start, it was Square's send-off to the previous generation of JRPG gaming. That was the entire inspiration behind the game, that they were bidding farewell to the previous generation of gaming and welcoming in the great changes that were about to occur in the industry in response to the higher spec systems coming out on the market. This being the case, any theory about FFIX should keep this allegory of the older FF games and JRPGs of PSX era and earlier contrasted against the newer FF games and JRPGs of the PS2 era and later in mind. This is not to say that other themes can't be there too, but the shadow of that allegorical meaning will always be a 2nd or 3rd meaning to every case of symbolism or allegory that you might find in the game. In this case, the whole aspect of assimilation and the merging of the 2 world's souls I think is likely the most significant among those allegorical meanings. As to whether or not this assimilation has succeeded, well, that question may have been left vague on purpose. Whether or not the Terran souls assimilated successfully into the new world, or if they were crushed and destroyed. Well, let me ask you, do you think the soul of the older final fantasy games still lives in the newer games we have seen coming out of Square Enix? However you answer that question is going to be the same as the answer to the in-world case of FFIX. (and holy crap, this begs the question as to whether or not the FF staff knew the merger with Enix was going to be a thing back when they made FFIX.)

At the end of FF9 when Zidane goes down into the tentacle monster Iifa tree (when he's going to rescue Kuja), he falls and while he's falling you can see a huge group of what looks like petrified humans holding weapons and whatnot, like a huge terracotta army inside the tree. That's one thing I really want to know the story for.

I'll just say that the concept of Kingdom Hearts nobodies started hear

If they ever make a sequel of FF9 please make Alexander a functional summon/eidolon!

My personal interpretation (head-canon) of what Terra represents is that of a civilization that became so advanced they all achieved immortality, and along with it, overpopulation. Overpopulation is actually BS myth IRL, but following the themes of the game, their crime was that they are willing to do anything it takes to live forever. And if everyone is literally immortal, then overpopulation might actually start being a thing. The Red crystal of Terra is the heart of the planet, which creates new souls and recycles old ones into new life. The problem was, since nobody on Terra would die, the crystal was forced to create new souls for every new Terran that was born. Eventually the planet became so strained and exhausted, that the planet was actually dying. Trees and plants began to decay, which made food and resources scarce (it was specifically mentioned in the game that flora and fauna had died and Garland was trying to preserve it). Everthing was going to hell for the Terran's fast, untill they found a solution. They all clinged to life so desperately they searched for other planets and absorbed their life force like parasites to save their own planet and their way of life. This saved them for a few thousand years, until it started getting increasingly difficult to find planets to absorb. They needed planets with strong crystals, but weaker than their own. When they found Gaia, it had an unusually strong crystal, and it was already populated by some primitive civilizations. But they where running out of time, so they made a gamble. And like we see in the game, the results where cataclysmic. Gaia's surface was scorched (some Gaians survived by hiding inside Fossil/Gargan Roo) and Terra was stuck in a inbetween half-way dimension. The game says this happened 5000 years ago, but I think 50 000 would have been more fitting.  It seemed like they were fucked, plantlife was already mostly gone and it was to late to find another planet now. If they didn't find a new solution chaos would break out and they would destroy eachother before they ran out of food. Fortunately, there was still some hope. They created the artificial lifeform Garland, and every single Terran went into stasis sleep for a few thousand years. Garland couldn't finish the assimilation quick enough so all the Terran bodies died in stasis anyway. But their souls could still be transfered into new bodies, which is why he created the genomes. The rest, we know. Terra was for me basically like our planet (first time I played it, I literally thought it was our Earth in the future), some billion people trying to live forever. Pretty tragic.

9:52 Oh my god! That's mine! I'm so pleased you would use it, thank you!!

how funny that garnet's true name is sarah and her real mother is jane.... much reference to the original

You almost sent me over the edge when you said Vivi was a crap character 😂

Umm.. Blue is Gaia, Terra is red. The genomes finds the blue unpleasant. And they said that they will get a soul when the Gaia's blue light turn into Terra's red. Terra looked blue because it's inside Gaia. Kinda like being inside someone's blood vessel makes you surrounded by dark red. And pretty sure the whole plan was to keep Gaian souls from going back to the crystal, weakening it, let it be assimilated by Terra red crystal, and then recycle Terran souls back unto neo-terra/former-gaia surface as living beings (filled-up Genomes). When Genome/Terrans die, the red crystal that ate up Gaia blue crystal recycles the soul like normal. Who knows what would happen to mist-ified Gaian souls then. Probably stay as mist. Probably get sucked into the nothing like the Terrans feared. So... Gaia's crystal is still blue, still processing Gaian souls instead of Terran, and majority of Terran souls got wiped. I'd say plan failed.

This video made me think about FF9 in a new way. Nicely done.

I like this theory. That the evil of Garland was because he got desperate. His goal wasn't wrong. He just felt the crushing weight of his duty and it made him feel he had to do whatever he could to achieve that goal. It was, after all, what he was made for. He owed his creators all he was for both his life and chance to experience the wonders that it was filled with. To return their trust with his loyalty. And maybe he still succeeded. Just not in the way he intended.

Pez! It's called Iifa Tree, not Lifa. I had it wrong too for over 13 years! XD

Am I the only one who renamed Garnet as Garnet instead of Dagger? lol

I never really felt like Garland was a bad guy when i played a few weeks ago. He just went about things maybe not in the best way, at least IMO. And i assumed his plan succeeded, just didn't really feel like it was a bad thing. Also just saying, Zidane wouldn't become king by marrying Garnet. The highest title he could get is like Duke or Lord or something since he only married into royalty.

This vid makes me go back and play ff9 again

Im absolutely flabbergasted that it's iifa tree not lifa tree! :O my whole life has been a lie... I don't even know lmao. This entire time I thought it was an L