urban legends ✓

squall is dead ☹

Final Fantasy VII and VIII are the two primary reasons twenty-somethings will never be able to play a Final Fantasy game without being disappointed, because nothing can compare to them. Those two games were ahead of their time and featured a handful of memorable characters. Squall is one of those memorable characters. He is the main character in Final Fantasy VIII, and much like the "Paul is dead" conspiracy theory about The Beatles, there are many who believe that Squall is dead as well.

At the end of disc one, Squall is impaled by an ice shard while fighting one of the games main bosses, Edea. Squall awakens at the beginning of disc two with no wounds at all from the battle and no one ever brings up that Squall was killed. It is also at this point when the game goes from being a fairly realistic fantasy game to being an over the top, fantasy where all realism goes out the window. I mean a good portion of the plot takes place in outer space. It is believed that Squall actually dies from his wounds that he suffers during his fight with Edea at the end of disc one. The rest of the game is simply a dream Squall is having as he passes away. This would explain why the game has such a surrealist tone after disc one. It would also explain the collage of images we see at the end of the game as Squall's life flashes before his eyes. Among those images is a shot of Squall without a face which just adds icing to the creepy cake.