>>11933363
>Garland flat out says he was the garland from the first game.
No, he does not. It IS a reference (like Garnet's real name being Sarah), but nowhere is it even implied that he is the same Garland.
He sucks planets of their life essence to keep Terra alive, and you took that to mean "all of the planets exist in the same universe, Terra is FFI's world, and Garland is keeping it alive." That's too much of a stretch for me.
He's also a reference to Darth Vader, are you going to say that all FFs canonically exist in the Star Wars universe? No.