#YEAH SO MATERIA JUST BEING THE SOLIDIFICATION OF NOT JUST MAKO AND THE LIFESTREAM

[demigod-of-the-agni]

FF7 REBIRTH SPOILERS ft A THEORY OF MINE

"Emptiness"

I may be reading too deep into this but bear with me. Sephiroth doing his damned best to reinforce that Cloud is nothing, that everything he feels his fake, that he's a puppet pulled along by Sephiroth's strings with no real purpose of his own. "Your tears are empty" is a line that really stands out to me, because Sephiroth insinuates that Cloud isn't a person and has no true substance as an individual. He's a shell.

Then much later, in the dream-esque Sleeping Forest, Aerith wants to spend one of their final moments focusing on Cloud, focusing on "finding the real [him]". Then Cloud hands Holy to Aerith, and she gifts him the clear materia in return, presumably having taken up Holy before she leaves. Aerith theorised earlier in the game that Holy was probably powered by her memories and dreams, and having lost them to the Whispers, to fate, has rendered the materia useless.

Basically, Cloud aptly describes not-Holy with, "It looks empty".

An empty man holding onto an empty materia.

I don't know, man. The thing about being given an empty thing after being told and tortured with the idea that you yourself are an empty thing is getting to me.

Part 3 is most likely going to deal with the fallout of Cloud's broken psyche and piecing him back together to "find the real [him]". I'm theorising not-Holy is only restored once Cloud has finally figured out who he is and what he wants to do.

Because materia isn't just the crystallisation of mako and the Lifestream. It's the physical representation of hopes and dreams and desires. The Black Materia was created to deliver the Gi from their unending existence. The White Materia ensures the prayers of the planet are answered.

And now not-Holy belongs to Cloud, so that whatever he finds in himself will fuel not-Holy and provide it with new purpose, maybe even allow him to finally heal after over two decades of suffering, because as Aerith said, "it's about saving the world — and you"

That is all