Aerith or Tifa?

[DrakeClawfang]

I know it isn't universal Ryu, I know a lot of Tifa fans actually like her for her. But you can't tell me other fans don't like her just because of her "physical attributes".

 

[Ryushikaze]

I know it isn't universal Ryu, I know a lot of Tifa fans actually like her for her. But you can't tell me other fans don't like her just because of her "physical attributes".

True, but similarly, a lot of Aerith fans have been overly fixated with her heiny as well.
What I'm saying, in essence, is you'd expect these people to equally favor characters like Lulu and, say, Fran, over other characters because they also have these physical attributes, which is not the case.
As for the bevy of tits jokes it IS destructoid. They are fond of vulgar humor.

 

[DrakeClawfang]

True, but similarly, a lot of Aerith fans have been overly fixated with her heiny as well.

Really? Hm, never seen anything like that.

What I'm saying, in essence, is you'd expect these people to equally favor characters like Lulu and, say, Fran, over other characters because they also have these physical attributes, which is not the case

I've seen it for them too. One user on the FF Wiki (won't name names) made note of how much he loves FF12 because Fran's ass is bare and he can move the camera and zoom in right up to it.

As for the bevy of tits jokes it IS destructoid. They are fond of vulgar humor.

Ah. I don't frequent the site so I'm unaware of that.

 

[Tennyo]

You overlooked this comment, Drake:

Even if the tits were reversed, I'd still pick Tifa as not only could she fight, she could also sling drinks at a bar.

 

[Vendel]

Your reply itself assumes I care about your opinion.

You do. deeply.

That's a curious phrase though, "care less". Wouldn't that imply that you *do* care, since you can "care less" about it? I would think "I could care more" would make more sense, implying the level of which you care is low and could be higher, as opposed to the inverse.

[Q] From Leland Woodbury, New York; related questions came from Marc Schoenfeld in San Francisco and many others.: Your discussion of the contradictory interpretations of cheap at half the price reminds me of a similar conundrum that keeps flustering me in comparing the phrases I couldn’t care less and I could care less, each of which (at least here in America) is used to mean the same thing (which is basically I really don’t care), even though their syntax suggests that they should be opposites.

[A] The form I could care less has provoked a vast amount of comment and criticism in the past thirty years or so. Few people have had a kind word for it, and many have been vehemently opposed to it (William and Mary Morris, for example, in the Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, back in 1975, called it “an ignorant debasement of language”, which seems much too powerful a condemnation). Writers are less inclined to abuse it these days, perhaps because Americans have had time to get used to it.

A bit of history first: the original expression, of course, was I couldn’t care less, meaning “it is impossible for me to have less interest or concern in this matter, since I am already utterly indifferent”. It is originally British. The first record of it in print I know of is in 1946, as the title of a book by Anthony Phelps, recording his experiences in Air Transport Auxiliary during World War II. By then it had clearly become sufficiently well known that he could rely on its being recognised. It seems to have reached the US some time in the 1950s and to have become popular in the latter part of that decade. The inverted form I could care less was coined in the US and is found only there. It may have begun to be used in the early 1960s, though it turns up in a written form only in 1966.

Why it lost its negative has been much discussed. It’s clear that the process is different from the shift in meaning that took place with cheap at half the price. In that case, the inversion was due to a mistaken interpretation of its meaning, as has happened, for example, with beg the question.

In these cases people have tried to apply logic, and it has failed them. Attempts to be logical about I could care less also fail. Taken literally, if one could care less, then one must care at least a little, which is obviously the opposite of what is meant. It is so clearly logical nonsense that to condemn it for being so (as some commentators have done) misses the point. The intent is obviously sarcastic — the speaker is really saying, “As if there was something in the world that I care less about”.

However, this doesn’t explain how it came about in the first place. Something caused the negative to vanish even while the original form of the expression was still very much in vogue and available for comparison. Stephen Pinker, in The Language Instinct, points out that the pattern of intonation in the two versions is very different.

There’s a close link between the stress pattern of I could care less and the kind that appears in certain sarcastic or self-deprecatory phrases that are associated with the Yiddish heritage and (especially) New York Jewish speech. Perhaps the best known is I should be so lucky!, in which the real sense is often “I have no hope of being so lucky”, a closely similar stress pattern with the same sarcastic inversion of meaning. There’s no evidence to suggest that I could care less came directly from Yiddish, but the similarity is suggestive. There are other American expressions that have a similar sarcastic inversion of apparent sense, such as Tell me about it!, which usually means “Don’t tell me about it, because I know all about it already”. These may come from similar sources.

So it’s actually a very interesting linguistic development. But it is still regarded as slangy, and also has some social class stigma attached. And because it is hard to be sarcastic in writing, it loses its force when put on paper and just ends up looking stupid. In such cases, the older form, while still rather colloquial, at least will communicate your meaning — at least to those who really could care less.

 

[DrakeClawfang]

You do. deeply.

Nope. I also don't care for six page essays on an off-hand joke, hence not reading that mess.

You overlooked this comment, Drake:

Lol.

 

[Alessa Gillespie]

I like Tifa and Rikku is my favorite FFX girl. I think I just find Aerith a bit harder to relate to than I find Tifa.

 

[Isabella]

I think a lot of these guys mention Tifa's boobs because it's the cool thing to do around other young guys.

I agree with tenn though, I find her body too ridiculously out of proportion to be attractive. There are some scenes in AC where I swear she's leaning backward in order to balance herself. I just find the whole thing ridiculous.

 

[Vendel]

I just find the whole thing ridiculous.

As opposed to fighting dragons and cutting buildings in half with swords?

 

[Isabella]

Those are qualities of a fantasy, yes, and I guess you could say Tifa's boobs are some guys' fantasy as well. But that in itself is disturbing. There's something wrong with the idea that the "ideal" female form is something you won't find in nature.

I'm not antiboob, mind you, but it should look like something mother nature created. That CG render of her is gorgeous. She has the boobs but they still fit the rest of her body.

 

[Vendel]

There's something wrong with the idea that the "ideal" female form is something you won't find in nature.

No one said Tifa was the ideal form. And if you haven't seen similar builds in nature then you obviously haven't looked hard enough.

Don't hate Tifa because she buys a proper bra.

 

[Isabella]

*snort* If you only knew how far off you are.

Large boobs are found in nature, but not on tiny bodies with no hips and sticks for arms.

 

[Ryushikaze]

I've seen it happen. Girl was extremely self conscious about the genetic card she'd been dealt.

Cloud and Barret are actually even bigger freaks in their own ways, but no one really seems to care about that.

 

[Vendel]

Large boobs are found in nature, but not on tiny bodies with no hips and sticks for arms.

Trust me Bella. I have seen it first hand. Felt also.

 

[Isabella]

Their freakishness wasn't designed to be titillating (yes, I went there lol) to pubescent boys, though.

 

[Ryushikaze]

I'm just saying it's a bit of confirmation bias to see Tifa as the freak, instead of the bigger freaks around her.

 

[DrakeClawfang]

Tifa: "I'M the freak? Talk to my friends. Who do you want first, the guy with the Megaman arm, the talking dog, the robot cat, or the vampire?"

 

[Vendel]

Tifa: "I'M the freak? Talk to my friends. Who do you want first, the guy with the Megaman arm, the talking dog, the robot cat, or the vampire?"

Oh Drake. You so crazy.

 

[DrakeClawfang]

Duh, you just realize this? I put up with you don't I?

 

[Sunstrider]

I voted Tifa because of the tits.

No really. Who do you think I voted for?

That's right. President Shinra.

 

[null]

Because of those rocking man-tits. You're so transparent.

I find both women lacking for different reasons. Aerith, if only because she's a product of over-ambition. SE tried to create that super special snowflake/one-in-a-million/rainbow in a colorless world, to make the players fall in love with for the express purpose of breaking their hearts. And to be fair, they got her mostly right. They gave her the perfect leitmotif, and did a great job using subtlety to make the lack of her presence felt. But she definitely benefits from the Kurt Cobain effect. Is she awesome because she's well written, or because she's dead? Take away Cloud, Zack, and all the eye-batting self insertion. What's left that really makes me give a shit that she's gone?

Tifa has the opposite problem - she's a walking contradiction, a strong character utilized in an illogical and utterly fucking retarded manner. An astoundingly beautiful, self-made martial arts master, one-time ecoterrorist, and surrogate mother - by definition, an independent woman - should not even remotely depend on a man for happiness. And yet they make her entire story involve waiting by the phone for Cloud, literally and figuratively wringing her hands. It's even less plausible than Megan Fox getting stood up for an internet date by Shia LeDouche. Kyrie from DMC4 is the childhood friend they needed for this part. She can whimper and smile and wait patiently for the kiss from her angsty, facial-hairless sweetheart that never arrives. Instead they created the ultimate emancipated woman, and then decided to shoehorn her into the polar opposite role.

 

[I Am Not Me]

self-made martial arts master

Wasn't she taught by Zangan though?

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

I got the impression that her instruction in martial arts by Zangan ended after the Nibelheim Massacre, based on what he says in the letter you find with Final Heaven included. He gave her her foundation, but she made herself a master.

 

[I Am Not Me]

But she couldn't have made herself a master if she didn't have foundation in the first place, right? So she's not entirely self-made. o.o

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

Well, she technically could have become a master fighter without Zangan's foundation, the first martial art in each country has to start somewhere. Escrima, Karate, Wushu, someone had to take the first step in each of them.

But you're right IANM, Tifa did have Zangan's teachings for a foundation, so she is not 100% self-trained, and therefore not self-made. Self-mastered might be a better term.