u/getalongtryagain99

Although both Cid and Edea have heroic and noble intentions (saving the world), how much did they engineer Squall’s and the others’ entire lives deliberately?

- Did they leverage the orphanage as a transitional breeding ground for Garden soldiers? Was this basically a recruitment center?

- Did they purposefully place Squall, Seifer, Zell, Irvine, Selphie, and Quistis in environments after the orphanage to best foster their attributes as soldiers?

- For example, did they purposefully set up Quistis to fail in her new home to bring out her hyper competency? Or could these “new homes” be experiments to see what environments foster the best soldiers?

- Were GFs a perfect tool to both induce memory loss to have better control over everyone and also provide superpowers to combat sorceresses?

I know the same orphanage and GF memory loss part of the story is usually over-the-top and out-of-nowhere for most people, but when I think about it this entire setup is perfect for accomplishing Cid and Edea’s goals. I think everything was calculated and deliberately setup, and all our main cast had absolutely no choices growing up, in contrast to Rinoa who is all about freedom and choice.

This reminds me of this disturbing documentary about three triplets adopted in different homes as a scientific experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three\_Identical\_Strangers

The past four years all the new cast members have been really strong on bringing authentic drama and stories, but the majority have all gotten driven out by the old guard.

I can see that a show with Noella, Jen Pedantri, Katie, and Carmella would have been a really good and diverse cast that still fit the old-school OC vibes.

Plus they all seem to have a solid group of rich girlfriends they could pick 2-3 additional woman from. Jacqueline Laurita could be really interesting as the new OG anchor from Jersey, plus Lynn Curtin as a friend of.

They’re all comforting and have brought so many incredible moments to the franchise, but I think it’s time to retire Vicky, Shannon, Heather, and Tamra. Gina and Emily should have been fired after season 13.