Was Cait Sith afraid to die?

of Aerith's death, and the fact that she didn't choose to die and was not a "willing sacrifice". For me this is one of the more profound points made by the game, which is why it really irks me when Aerith is represented as a kind of Jesus figure.

PS Also, when Aerith died, she seemed to have been cut short in her prayer and it looked as if she had achieved nothing, just as in real life people are cut down in the middle of what they're doing and their death seems pointless. Of course in a sense Aerith's death was pointless, since she didn't need to die to summon holy - but what nobody, including Aerith herself, knew, was that she had succeeded in the summons, or succeeded enough to get the Planet to do the rest. The significance of her actions only became fully apparent after her death; the effects of her actions survived her death, and were finally understood by the people who loved her only some time after her death - which is also the case in real life.

Multiple times my characters would “die” throughout the game. But with the magical healing power of Phoenix Down or inns that inexplicable are outfitted with an Intensive Care Unit, my allies would be back to fighting shape in no time. The game even throws a misdirection at us towards the end of the first disk, when we are led to believe that the robotic character Cait Sith is about to perish for good. This illusion lasts for around fifteen minutes of gameplay until it is revealed that he has been replaced by “Cait Sith 2.0”. Apparently the good thing about robots is that they are, in fact, replaceable. Cait Sith himself even sets this up in the scene where he perishes.


Cait Sith: There's plenty of stuffed toys like my body around, but there's only one me! Don't forget me, even if another Cait Sith comes along. Goodbye, then! (Final Fantasy VII, Disk 1)


While it might seem a touch silly to have this fake death scene so close to another (and unfortunately more legitimate) death scene, this was an artistic decision to impact the player. About an hour of gameplay after this touching scene the player will find themselves in the Forgotten Capitol. After a bit of exploration they will find their missing comrade Aerith, and in a cutscene that will live in infamy we will witness her get cut down by the game's antagonist Sephiroth. This scene did not make me sad. Many other gamers confessed to having cried at this moment when they realized that, as Cloud put it:


Cloud: Aerith is gone. Aerith will no longer talk, no longer laugh, cry or get angry! (Final
Fantasy VII, Disk 1)


But I wasn't sad. Because I was an observant player, and noticed even then that there had been another tragic death scene that turned out to be resolved immediately. Through the magic of Deus Ex Machina, Aerith would come back. My first Final Fantasy was Final Fantasy VI. This game also has a mid-game catastrophe that leaves you believing that all of your comrades are dead. However after a message of hope you set off to find them all again and, of course, all of your allies are still alive; albeit suffering various forms of emotional scarring. After that I played Final Fantasy VIII, going paradoxically out of order which would normally bother me, but as each game is stand alone I bore it. That game also has a mid-game tragedy where a long term female party member, Rinoa, is stuck in a coma. There is a long process to revive her and then to save her from peril, but it is accomplished in the same way.


So I continued to play the game, fully waiting for her dramatic rebirth. After going through many of the events of Disk 2, I finally uncovered the Ancients Key and the game prompted me to return to the Forgotten Capitol. I was certain that this was it. I was about to revive my friend. But instead I found only a last message from the character I'd parted with nearly ten hours prior. This was when it began to sink in. Aerith really was dead.


I wasn't sad when Aerith died. I was sad when I realized she wasn't coming back.