In order to mash up to work, various influences need to be woven together in a way that feels coherent and complementary, and the lack of coherency is has been my main frustration about the ending. I know that every time I post here I look like I'm looking for the excuses to bash the game, but I'm trying to find some thread to pull that will actually lead me somewhere, but so far has been nothing but dead ends. And the justification that I can't expect to have any resolution because it's a middle part of the trilogy doesn't fly, when someone made a self-contained and satisfying movie out of the first half of the first Dune book.
It really is just a case of are you okay with not having the answer now or is that something that bothers you because you're left with things that don't immediately add up to something that you can make a complete logically picture out of. I hear you, I understand your perspective - you're not okay with that and that is a perfectly reasonable point of view. We all have different preferences when it comes to things like this.
I think they are deliberately making it so can't figure out the answer, I feel that comes across as very clear. I'm totally fine about it, I enjoy figuring it out.
There's some issues with what she's saying since there's clearly multiple of Elmyra and Marelene, Johnny, Kyrie (the creators even say that the characters we see in these other worlds are different versions of each other). The white nothingness space is probably representing the core soul that inhabits the planet and from here souls echo or diverge into the planet's memorial cycle system that manifest these different worlds. I use the term "memory" since that's what they use in game but its more of an omniscient essence that can create worlds that come in and out of existence.
I think this is a case where they are flying a little bit to close to the reference material though since what the hell does the planet look like to an outside observer? You just end up in a version of their world depending on the frequency of your existence in a plane?
Did the creators specifically say that all of the characters (Elmyra and Marlene, Johnny, Kyrie) seen in these different dog worlds are different versions? I think I recall they just said that the Aerith that is taking Cloud around during that sector 5 date is a different Aerith than the one we gave the White Materia back to but I don't remember them mentioning the other characters.
I don't personally have a solid theory concerning this myself, I mean, even if they are manifestations of Aerith dream or something you can could technically say they are different versions as well, just dream versions so I'm not sure how to make anything concrete out of that point.
I would argue all the scenes with the Zack/and or / other world segments all come across as very dreamlike, even the music is always very dreamy and hazy in it's approach. It has this sort of eternal longing quality to it.
At the same time, I think that Zack and Biggs are real in terms of their conscious awareness, it's not like we are witnessing an Aerith mind created version of them play out or anything. Marlene also comes across as real as far as I can tell given that they deliberately show you the callback to Remake where she got information from hugging Aerith at 7th Heaven.
In terms of what they show us, we are always in Midgar and these worlds are all about to end. It's like we are getting snapshots of a very specific moment in time where they are always at the very end of their lifespan. Also, we know that they are not equal in terms of longevity based on Sepiroth's exposition. It's like the world has fractalized and created possibilities but as soon as this occurred it resorts to becoming one with the planet to keep with the cycle of life and death.
They all exist in it, including beagle. The crack in the sky that Cloud can see confirms this. Aerith was able to see it immediately after leaving Midgar in Remake.
If that is the case, the first question that pops into my mind is: Why can all of the people of these others worlds see the crack in the sky but no one in the beagle world (except decidedly Aerith and now Cloud) can see it?
There is a differentiation between the beagle world and all of the other worlds we see, it seems. Also, the Ultimania seems to suggest that the crack in the sky that Cloud see's may not represent the same thing that it does for the Dog Worlds. So what would that difference be? Personally I'm thinking that the Beagle world is not in the lifestream.
