@ Khuutra:
I actually never thought of it that way, but Griever being Squall is kinda even more messed up.

The Rinoa is Ult theory has a basic premise where the reason she turned bad is due to Squall's absense; if he was present and realize she was turning into evil psycho bitch AND realize that they will eventually be stopped by their younger self that would just make it even more messed up. Its also very traditional.

'And then they committed lover's suicide' is the phrase you hear in many traditional japanese romance literature. Melancholy and bitter sweet.

There is no happily ever after.

--snip--

There a plenty of interpretation but the basic premise (taken from squareinsider) is as follow:

The Theory:
Due to the long lifespan caused by sorceress powers, Rinoa outlives all the other characters. In order to ease the pain of loseing Squall; Rinoa changes his ring, Greiver, into a GF and junctioned it to herself (or she may have just based the GF off of the ring, something along those lines). To her, Squall was the greatest person to ever live. As a result, Greiver was the strongest GF ("The most powerfull GF.... You shall....Suffer!"). But like the other GF, junctioning Greiver caused the diterioration of memory. Eventualy, all Rinoa knew was that she was a sorceress. She had even forgotten her own name, wich is why she took a new one -Ultimecia. Ultimecia knew only one thing about her past, and that was the fact that she had been happy back then. She wanted to be happy again, she didn't want to feel sorrow any more. That's why she sought out time compression. So that past, present, and future would all become one and the happyness of her past could be felt in her present and on into her future.
--------------------------
Points that support the theory:
-Rinoa and Ultimecia have a very similar apperance.
-Ultimecia has Rinoa's angel wings. Although anyone can obtain magic wings my useing float. Rinoa is the only one capable of obtaining true wings such as the ones Ultimecia has.
-Ultimecia has Greiver, wich she couldn't have without a connection to Squall.
-Ultimecia's castel was located at the very same place where Squall and Rinoa promised each other that they would be.
-Ultimecia's guardians have a few of your GFs wich you can draw if you missed then earlyer in the game. As the last surviving team member, Rinoa had all the team's GFs.
-One of the team's GFs is also a guardian in Ultimecia's castel (Bahamut/Tiamat).
-Ultimecia's strongest guardian is Omega Weapon, an advanced form of Ultima Weapon. Squall and company were the only people to ever see Ultima Weapon and live.

It's not that it doesn't appeal to me per se. I just found the game overall to be pulpy and not that well-written. If what you percieved about Squall and Rinoa was actually there, then the writers weren't  being subtle or clever, they were being cumbersomely oblique. They could have executed the concept much better. If not, than you just have a great imagination. More power to ya. There are much more poignant, effective, and understated ways to show pure love than to slap together a peicemeal, last-minute 'twist' like the one you go on about above.

Compare Ultimecia to, say, Jon Irenicus. Irenicus is not only one of the greatest villains in gaming, but I would go so far as to say one of the greatest characters. He is intricately and gradually developed, his motivations slowly elaborated on. Unravelling his identity is one of the driving mysteries of the game. He goes from an anonymous guy who kidnapped to you to a conflicted, tortured, but nevertheless inarguably evil villain over the course of the game. Ultimecia seems like she was thought up by an 8 year old who spends all his time reading comic books compared to this.

Final Fantasy VIII just felt too self-inflated and contrived for me to be really wowed by it. Like it's "oh, wow!" moments weren't the result of an artistic vision, but a massive budget and severe pressure to make a mind-bending, amazing game.

I'm really surprised this thread hasn't degraded into a Kefka vs Sephiroth argument by page 3.  Sephiroth is lamer, ***spoiler*** he just sits at the Great North cave the entire game.

Necron FF9

Like I said previously; Mindblowing concept for JRPG; there is no correlation of my intellectual palatte in that misinterpreted statement.

That being said, I would still ranked FF8 as one of the best JRPG storey ever. It doesn't hold a candle compared to Baldur's Gate 1-2 much less the legendary Planescape: Torment but it's still a great story. Also don't forget the great cultural divide that seperate the east and west. Literature is never universal. 

I know, I backed off and felt bad about what I said. That post above was in response to Kuutra's speculations; even that sounded more confrontational than I wanted it to.

I'm a literature student. I have a very high tolerance for being willing to dig for meaning where there may be none.

I don't know who Jon Irenicus is or where he's from.

Your last paragraph doesn' really mesh here - you're bsically saying that its "oh wow" moments were technology driven, but that they were also driven by pressure to make a mind-bending, amazing game, which implies that the latter actually happened.

Jon Irenicus is from Baldur's Gate II. If you got that much out of Ultimecia, I suggest you play the game, as it is the closest I personally believe a game has come to rivalling literature in terms of pure storytelling power and heft.

I am also a literature student. I also have a very high tolerance for being willing to dig for meaning where there may be none. That is why I feel confident in saying that the nuances in FF VIII that you allege to are percieved rather than actual. It's the inevitable trap for people like us who spend way too much time scrutinizing every minor detail of everything: we start to see things where they aren't there.

I'll try restate my last paragraph a little more clearly. When I'm reading a good book, there will inevitably be moments where I think "Shit, that was brilliant. This author is a hell of a writer. They clearly have a vision." In the same manner there will inevitably be moments in a shitty book where I think "Wow, for a poor writer with a cliche plot, that was a surprisingly inspired passage/plot development/etc".

Final Fantasy VIII is more like the latter. Lots of ho-hum moments padded by densely packed layers of confusing, unneccesary details with the occasional awesome moment. It's like they told everyone on the team to come up with 10 crazy ideas then put every single one into the game. A few were brilliant, but most were not and should have been winnowed from the final product.

I've given a lot of thought to FF VIII (I do to any game with a reasonable level of complexity), and I believe it's biggest flaw is that it was simply too forced. They were trying to do everything VII had done, but do it better. Instead of creating an original game that was driven by artistic zeal, the whole things feels like a poorly executed mess of ideas jumbled together. Too much science and too little art went into its making.

That is what I mean when I say its few good moments were driven by pressure to make a great game. Even all the good parts feel contrived, not inspired.

Kefka

I actually agree with you, but the operative assumption I had about Squall's characterization (that he became the kind of man who would doom creation to protect Rinoa from loneliness) eally did serve to enrich everything for me. It didn't help the whole "WE ALL CAME FROM THE SAME ORPHANAGE OMG" sequence, it didn't make Ultimecia any less lame as a villain (I still wish Adel had been the big bad), it didn't make Squall any more likable or the game's writing any better, but it gave the game a soul, an idea, a moment of inspired clarity that threw the whole thing into a new light. Sure, it was a mess, but it was a mess with a heart.

But like I said: textual evidence refuted my assumptions.

Now I'm just left with how cool it is to pull off a half-million damage combo with Zell. That's fun, but dammit...