Thanks to Lebagel for the inspiration!

So while talking about INFP characters with Lebagel, who mentioned:

What Squall doesn’t understand, which comes across as introverted, is why so much responsibility falls on him so quickly. Of course, this is because he has come to Cid from the future and revealed he kills the sorceress, but he doesn’t know that.

So then, perhaps, Cid gets the idea to create SeeD and puts the children to use. Notice now how the Orphanage scene, which seems hokey when Irvine says it, becomes disturbing and creepy. And that the SeeD members wax poetic about the good memories they have, before becoming child soldiers, is somewhat depressing.

At least, I think the scene could have been, with a better execution.

I also think most people are linear thinkers. We don’t always loop information back into itself. Which of course, as we know, Final Fantasy VIII contains an actual time loop. The logical consistency of the time loop isn’t as important as the amount of emotional ground it covers. The time loop is just a vehicle clarify feelings.

WonderWasada talks about Cid as mastermind here and here.

For example, didn’t Selphie fail a lot of SeeD test requirements (jumping off a cliff, for example)? But she still made SeeD, because she’s that awesome. Cid wanted her to be in SeeD with Squall because they were all friends. Nina and Xu might have been in the orphanage as well. In fact, all SeeD members were probably in Edea’s core orphanage. And this is why they become SeeD.

Edea most likely discussed this with Cid, and he formulated a plan covering as many bases as possible. He involved children she knew, who might hesitate to kill their “mother”. The White SeeD protect Edea, just in case the Balamb Garden SeeD went awry.

But this would have been better if we saw mysterious White SeeD members hiding in the parade.

Unfortunately, don’t the kids lose their memory of “Matron”? Maybe Cid was hoping they’d remember Edea and not kill his wife. He wanted to take care of things his way. This was the best way. In many ways, Final Fantasy VIII is about Cid trying to save his wife by reverse engineering his future idea.

If we knew why Cid gathered the children, we might forgive the orphanage scene. I think we needed something to tie in the ending with the middle game. By making it subtle, the game presents the scene in a much more mature way.

So far, many gamers simply have trouble seeing how the orphanage relates to the plot. We see the orphanage scene from SeeD’s side, without understanding the bigger picture. I’m sure someone won’t get this far and say “too convenient” rather than think that main it was a coincidence.

Not unless Cid was the mastermind.