verse1994 said:
I just hope I won't see poor jealous Tifa hidden in the background without saying a word while Aerith keeps flirting with Cloud like Cait Sith‘s scene and intentionally having Tifa witness in real life and Zack witness in lifestream. After finished reading the ToTP, I think Tifa deserves so much better , should not be just one of the love interests since she is the grail of the main plot
I doubt they'd do that, since these OG scenes 1) the girls get catty in Don Corneo's cellar 2) Shinra tower where Tifa gets jealous while Cloud and Aerith talk about their date were taken out.
But the "Tifa deserves better" also gives me mixed feelings about ToTP too. If SE's goal was to build a story around Tifa's character to give her a hard life and show that she'd suffered a lot, they could have diminished Cloud's presence to the bare minimum, and still be able to achieve a high level of player / reader empathy for her. There's a lot more that could have been said of her hatred of Shinra and Sephiroth to fuel her initiation into Avalanche, and really question if their motives really align with hers. The relationship between her mother could have been explored more as well, the same way Ifalna / Elmyra's impact was shown for Aerith's story, and extrapolate this in terms of her then wanting to be a good mother figure for Marlene.
But when they decide to instead pivot to devoting pages to "Cloud is an unreachable star" /"she fell in love with Cloud / want to live with him" / dokidoki onomatopoeia and blushing....and even Thea Lockhart just seemed to exist briefly to compliment Cloud...this emphasis on Cloud will just make people who root for her feel like she needs to be "rewarded" with Cloud as the prize. I'm not fond of that, unless there is a reason for it in Part 2.
Life (and fiction) doesn't just hand you your love interest just because you've endured difficulty.
Humming said:
Maybe I'm interpreted wrong what 'wavers' means, but if wavering requires an equal footing for both options to choose, I don't think it was the case for the LTD.
Again, without going into the LTD, this is precisely the reason why I don't like this whole "wavering". If Cloud's characterization in Part 2 is him being all, Tifa or Aerith? Aerith or Tifa?...it's just really unappealing.
I'd play part 2 thinking "Tifa baby gurl, you don't need this undecisive man-child in your life cos you're going to kick Sephiroth's ass, then you gonna hustle and make 7th Heaven the biggest franchise ever, get seed funding from Rufus Shinra and you're going to front page the Midgar Times's 30 under 30 and get centre spread as well"