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I watched the movie Final Fantasy VII: advent children with much bemusement a decade ago. One thing that stood out for me was the huge lumps of metal they swing around, that can literally carve buildings in two - and yet can rest on their shoulders like a baseball bat.

It's pretty difficult to justify the physics of such a weapon - see How would a weapon act if it negates the effects of gravity for itself? .

I have a rationalization for how these swords can be wielded.

Essentially, the sword is a portal to infinite multiverses, and the wielder synchronises this universe with an untold number of universes wherein atoms or molecules of sword-matter (steel/titanium/adamantium molecules) are moving in the same trajectory as the "sword", as if they are part of the "sword". The "magic" involved here is the portal technology, the precise timing and infinitesimally low probability of alignment between the sword swing and sword matter trajectory in a parallel universe. but hey...

(of course, there may be far more effective and destructive effects you could create with such a portal. But this is just my attempt to rationalize the special effects of the movie.)

So my question is... is this rationalization valid to justify the effects in the movie?

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    $\begingroup$ This site is about helping authors build their worlds. For people who need help understanding third party worlds there is Science-Fiction & Fantasy StackExchange. (And you are asking about how physics works in a cartoon. I suggest starting with an easier problem, such as explaining the physics of Road Runner.) $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Commented Oct 1 at 20:07
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    $\begingroup$ Asking to rationalize what happens in a movie is not worldbuilding it's speculating about an existing world. We are not here to do that. $\endgroup$
    – sphennings
    Commented Oct 1 at 20:54
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    $\begingroup$ If you were building your own world and trying to achieve an effect similar to that in a 3rd party world then it might be possible to construct a question that would be valid for the rules of this site. However, you are explicitly in both the title and the text of the question asking a question about a 3rd party world - as @AlexP said that is off-topic here, the same way a query about how the Force works in the Star Wars universe would be. $\endgroup$
    – KerrAvon2055
    Commented Oct 1 at 22:40
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    $\begingroup$ In reading your conversation with Alex and Sphennings, the issue isn't the meaning of the word "rationalistaion". The issue they're trying to get at is that you're asking about someone else's work. Really, the only truly competent authority who can answer your question and eliminate all doubts is the individual or team involved in creating the lore surrounding the FFVII swords. That's not what this forum is for. Even over on SF&F, they're just going to compare your rationalisation against whatever canon lore might already be known! $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Oct 2 at 2:25
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    $\begingroup$ I’m voting to close this question because we do not answer questions about 3rd-party or commercial worlds. Our purpose is to help you build imaginary worlds of your own creation. Questions a bout 3rd-party and commercial worlds should be asked (if considered on-topic) at Science Fiction & Fantasy. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Commented Oct 2 at 2:37

2 Answers 2

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This is not a valid justification, and neither does the sword need any justification at all.

When you try and explain obviously-magical things (like FF swords) with science, you inevitably run into the wall where science tells you that what you’re trying to do is fundamentally impossible. Then, you delve into less-well-understood and more-theoretical regions of science (like alternate universes, portals, etc.) and try and apply them in very extreme ways to the situation to get a “scientific” justification. These justifications have two issues:

  1. These justifications (like yours) would literally never happen in nature, so they would require artifice of some sort, which begs the question: why a sword and not just a gun? Whoever built the sword is clearly smart enough to unify gravity with the other forces and develop an automatic nanoscale inter-universe portalling system that’s ten thousand years ahead of our current understanding of physics; why can’t they hit a bullet with a spring-loaded hammer?

  2. These justifications inevitably end up so far away from actual realistic science and engineering that they’re functionally magic. Even actual physicists would read many such explanations and afterwards mentally paste the word “magic” in big letters over the ten-page explanation of how Cloud can wield a two-ton sword as easily as he does, or why anything in FF works at all.

And that’s okay. You don’t need to scientifically justify everything. That’s the point of fantasy. Just let completely-unrealistic swords be completely-unrealistic, and justify them with magic.

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  • $\begingroup$ This isn't an answer. I asked if the rationalization makes sense, you responded A) don't try to rationalize it B) if that's the rationale, why don't they make something better and C) the science behind the rationale is magic. Read my question again $\endgroup$
    – Chani
    Commented Oct 1 at 20:44
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    $\begingroup$ A) The first six words of my answer were "This is not a valid justification" which I believe answers the question "does this rationalization make sense". B) Because there isn't anything better, because what they're trying to do is magic. C) If you're willing to call it magic, why not just make it boilerplate it-works-because-magic magic instead of trying to explain the magic with alternate universes/portal technology? That's primarily what my answer is trying to say. $\endgroup$
    – controlgroup
    Commented Oct 1 at 20:51
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    $\begingroup$ This may not be the kind of answer the OP wanted, but it was a good worldbuilding answer that explains the limits of mixing magic/fantasy and science/reality and therefore the kind of answer the OP should have expected from this Stack. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Commented Oct 2 at 2:40
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The sequence of words "the sword is a portal to infinite multiverses, and the wielder synchronises this universe with an untold number of universes" is meaningless. It is not even wrong. It is not a rationalization, it is technobabble.

In linguistics, such sequences of words which obey the rules of grammar but have no meaning are considered gramatically well-formed but semantically nonsensical; such examples are often used to illustrate the distinction beween syntax and semantics. The canonical example is Chomsky's "colorless green ideas sleep furiously".

In real physics,

  • There is no such thing as a portal.

  • There is no such thing as a multiverse, much less an infinite amount of them. In fact, the word multiverse has no meaning.

  • The universe is not something that can be synchronized. This is a category error.

  • There is only one universe by definition. (The uni- prefix should be a giveaway.)

Since the sequence of words is pure unadulterated technobabble, there is no point in asking whether it is right or wrong, or whether it is valid, or whether it can have this or that effect. It is effectively a magic incantation, which can have whatever effect the author of the story wants it to have.

But the greatest sin of this piece of technobabble is that it is not canon. It is not part of the world created by Tetsuya Nomura. One is of course free to write fan-fiction extending the canon; but the author of such fan-fiction needs permission from the rights holders if they want to publish their work.

Please note that there is nothing wrong with using technobabble or with inserting magic in a fantasy world. Both are perfectly fine when done right. However, they should serve a purpose in the story, and they shoud make sense in the context of the fantasy world.

A good critic should never attempt to explicate the magic or the technobbable of a fantasy world by even more magic or technobabble; avoid explaining the unknown by even more unknowns, obscurum per obscurius. What the critic may do is to try to elucidate how the magic or the technobabble fits within the fantasy world, while supporting their explications on the material present in the work being analyzed.

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    $\begingroup$ That's the most elegant way of saying "don't eat other people's lunches" I've ever read. +1. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Commented Oct 2 at 2:47

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