If Edea had been kept in FFVII...

[Dionysos]

It was revealed by Kitase some time ago that FFVIII's Edea Kramer was originally designed for FFVII as some sort of witch character. The concept was later developed into the sorceress character which we know in FFVIII.

How much of the Edea concept later reworked into FFVIII was already written for FFVII? Do we know?

Would we have seen Edea dealing with ancient Cetra ruins (the FFVII ancients) instead of Centra ruins (the similarly named FFVIII ruins)?

I believe that Edea's design (by Nomura) was heavily inspired by Amano's style (hence the eccentric stripey shells on her headgear)... But what if it was more than that? FFVII's Forgotten Capital / City of the Ancients used shell and coral motifs. Many homes and public buildings appear to have been made out of giant shells.

Is this design for Edea dated as early as this, and were such eccentric elements of her design meant to suggest a Cetran influence (either her appreciation for antiquity, or some sort of claim of descent similar to Sephiroth's claims)?


Is her being reinterpreted for FFVIII the reason why they had to introduce a similar sounding ancient civilisation (the Centra) in FFVIII in order to use the concepts that they were brainstorming for FFVII?


If they had fitted Edea into the FFVII universe, how might she have behaved?


It would be interesting to read your opinions on this!

 

[Shaissa]

well with Edea still in FFVII how much of the original idea's were going stay, such as it taking place in a "New York" setting and having a detective story feel to it...

But for the sake of this thread I am going assume only Edea is what comes out of the original idea for Final Fantasy VII, how would she fit in and in what way? Would she become the main villain, would she be more of a Jenova type of character? How far into the story would she go? Would she be in it the whole time or killed off earlier?

Well I think she would be in it the whole time, because if you look at the other really big villains, Shinra, Turks, Sephiroth and Jenova, they stay in it till either the end of disk 2 (Shinra and Turks) or the end of disk 3 (Sephiroth and Jenova) so with that I assume she would be a huge role in the story for the whole game. I feel like assuming we are not going change the whole Final Fantasy VII story, she would actually be the role of Lucretia, that she would be Sephiroth's real mother, but instead of the small glimps we get through Vincent story, we would actually see her with Jenova's power and become the sorceress, and be like Hojo and be trying to help Sephiroth with his goal of getting to the promise land. Basically another thorn in your way for the ultimate fight with Sephiroth.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I imagine the Edea design being nothing but the human form Jenova takes to hide herself among the Cetra. So less of a full, unique character, and more of a side of Jenova's story that was mostly scrapped to focus more on Sephiroth.

 

[Dionysos]

well with Edea still in FFVII how much of the original idea's were going stay, such as it taking place in a "New York" setting and having a detective story feel to it.

I've read about that and that the original main character was going to be a certain 'Detective Joe'... That would have been a very different game!

I wasn't certain at what stage they had designed Edea / the witch character. If they had designed her for the New York plot then I guess she does look a bit like a 1920s flapper era lady of glamour.

But if she was designed later but scrapped before they finalised their drafts then I wonder if she was intended to fit in with an early draft of the world which became FFVII.

 

[Lioncourt]

Building on what you said ZaXo Ken'Ichi , I always wished that they'd have done more with Jenova. You didn't know a lot about her as a personality, save for her destructive similarities to Sephiroth.

On topic: I'm glad they saved Edea for VIII. I'll never forget the goosebumps of her presence in Disc One, the stirring music playing as she introduces us into the deeper story at large. Oh, and the Parade scene! I can't imagine a life without it

 

[Six]

I think had they added Edea to FFVII it wouldn't been extremely out of place.

Jenova is a much better fit, in my opinion. Maybe that's because it's hard to imagine her in FF VII now that it's been out for like... a lifetime.

 

[The Witch]

Wow, I had no idea Edea was first created for VII, but as you pointed out the Cetran detils in VIII make a lot of sense. Perhaps she would have been used to go back in time, though.

 

[Vivi-Gamer]

It's hard to imagine how to place Edea within the story - if She was more than just a standard boss encounter, which if I had to place her anyway it would be within the Temple of the Ancients at the point where you walk over the clock dial to a passage.

If anything I think It of Edea as a motherly figure, so maybe in an earlier version she could have been Ifalna (Aries Mother). But of course there is no evidence at what Edea was like at the time of VII so maybe she didn't even have such characteristics. Fun to think on though.

 

[Soulcorruptor]

If Edea was kept in VII maybe she would have been a surviving ancient like Aerith except still living in the city and not in the temple like those weird ones. Maybe she would have been a ghost that was kind of watching over it that could have helped give the party knowledge about the city and more insight on to where things like the key of the ancients would have been. I think essentially Nanaki's grandfather is what they possibly replaced her with but then retooled him to be the sage dude.

 

[sly]

The role of Edea is important in 8 because she's part of their past. She's not important as a character though. The game doesn't revolve around her as such. In 7, I think she would have been an afterthought that went barely noticed. She's a neat looking character picked up off the cutting room floor and made into something more.

Tangent
The time between Detective Joe (Missed out on MMM there), Chrono, FF7, and FF8.... was so short, and bred so much intermingling that I think they just went with some vague concepts and plugged the rest in along the way. Because 7 and 8 aren't in the same universe it allowed them to do things like this that almost seem like Easter eggs now, but they were really just a matter of convenience at the time.

I think the success of those games, and eventually IX to a lesser degree, should be a guiding light to the company now. What they made organically there, they try to reproduce in a lab now. That set of games mentioned are imperfect. They have errors, crossover, and they have hits and mistakes. Yet, as a group they're great. There's an endless debate about your favorite. Because what people like is subjective, you can't produce the "perfect" that they spend years trying to make. (Produce more games, faster, make mistakes, not every grain of sand needs a back story, we have imaginations let us fill in some blanks, etc.)
/Tangent

 

[Jack's Smirking Revenge]

I had never heard this before, but that sounds so interesting. Obviously without any proper knowledge/context you can't say anything for sure, but I can imagine her fitting in as another surviving ancient, or some sort of alternative to/different version of Jenova. It's very interesting to think how much of the Edea we had in FF8 was the Edea they envisioned for FF7; how much of 8 was born because of the remains of this cut character? What might 8 have been if Edea had been included in 7 as originally planned?

 

[Dionysos]

I had never heard this before, but that sounds so interesting. Obviously without any proper knowledge/context you can't say anything for sure, but I can imagine her fitting in as another surviving ancient, or some sort of alternative to/different version of Jenova. It's very interesting to think how much of the Edea we had in FF8 was the Edea they envisioned for FF7; how much of 8 was born because of the remains of this cut character? What might 8 have been if Edea had been included in 7 as originally planned?

There's a neat little Easter egg for this connection in the FFVII Remake.

Her circlet appears and can be equipped. It'll be overlooked by many but if you look closely it is actually Edea's circlet and the item description says "A circlet said to have been worn by a fairy-tale sorceress."

It is difficult to say for sure what was planned for Edea already when she was cut, if much was planned at all (perhaps we could compare Faris' original design as a gambler rather than a pirate in FFV which was later reworked and reimagined into FFVI's Setzer). However, with the Norse allusions throughout FFVII in general I can think of a few prominent places for a sorceress character.

 

[SaferSeph]

Honestly I'm not sure where she would fit in, I'm guessing she would be in Jenova's place in the story since it would be a terrible waste of a character to use her as a one and done boss fight.

 

[Miko]

I think a good fit would have been somewhere in the Great Glacier where the "Snow" Witch is. There really isn't much story there, but it is curious that you can steal a Circlet from her! There isn't much story that I can imagine for Edea in this scenario, as I'm sure her current story from FFVIII wouldn't be very fitting, however I think her concept art Dionysos posted earlier would look very cool with an icy pallet!

Maybe her back piece would actually be icicles!


Actually, that entire area, as tedious as it was, could really benefit with some extra story added to it, though the game is already long as is But that'd be a great spot to incorporate additional story in to.