FFVII and the nature of grief

[LicoriceAllsorts]

There's a great meta post by the materiodictable over at tumble on how FFVII OG uses game mechanics to explore the nature of grief.

It's worth reading the whole thing but here's an extract

Aeris dying permanently is meant to put you off-kilter. Going by the logic of the game you’ll ask yourself: how could we revive her earlier in the game and now we can’t anymore? The player may be expecting her to return within the story, maybe if they keep progressing the plot something will happen and she’ll come back? And she doesn’t. She doesn’t get revived and although the player is given more explanations for why she died, there’s still plenty of ambiguity left over.

The fascinating thing that happened with a lot of players was all the ways they began to approach the gameplay as some means to resolve this leftover ambiguity. They looked for solutions to revive Aeris or even prevent her death entirely. There was a real feeling that the game would offer an answer, just like the phoenix downs did in the right context.

And so people would replay the game and do things differently! They would give the flower to Marlene or Tifa, they would try to find all the niche soldier figurines, they would wait in a playground park for EIGHT HOURS hoping it would change the outcome.

She also gives the famous Kitase quotation, "“When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think, ‘If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently.’ ”

Thinkking about this post, it seems to me that in some ways the Remake is trying to respond to Kitase's question. It's saying, "Okay, let's suppose we did know this was coming, what would we do differently? Would it make any difference?" But of couse Kitase wasn't asking a question, he was making an observation about the nature of grief and loss. To the extent that players interpreted the observation as a question, they answered it themselves. The Remake has taken that element out of the gameplay and put it into the plot. And I think that for me personally, this is the thing I don't like about the Remake; it's the change that really bothers me.

 

[Eerie]

Having never grieved Aerith in the OG, I'm always fascinated by that side of FFVII that did escape me the first time around.

Regarding Aerith's death, I wonder if she knows her fate; by defeating the whispers, she can think that the future has changed - and something did, too, with Zack, or at least seemingly. And it seems to me that even though she knows about it, she doesn't know anything about it - when, how. To me, the biggest question is Sephiroth - he knows more, so he knows that by killing Aerith, he also allows her to counter him - but since he seems to enjoy torturing Cloud, we can guess that if he will do it again, it will be only for that purpose.

However, Remake has always posed the question about Aerith's death, and if we would be able to prevent it, even before it was released. The question hangs bigger than ever, but IMHO if they hadn't incorporated the question into Remake, it would still be pregnant amongst the fans. From the very beginning, from the announcement, fans have wondered if we could save Aerith. It's not Remake's fault, it really is the fans. Because personally, when I look at Remake, I still don't think it's possible - and if it is, then not only I'll be surprised, but also glad since I like Aerith now. I still think a lot of it is speculations (as proven by the other thread) and that since the devs have seen how much speculation it does spark, the devs have for over a year now warned that the OG events were still to be followed. I don't think fans have caught that - many even here think they're trolling or outright lying - but I think they're warning fans that Aerith is still dying this time around. I think that's why they keep warning people because they are making such huge assumptions in directions they aren't going to, so it worries them that they'll be let down too much.

 

[Makoeyes987]

A lot of aspects of the story and characters were manifested through gameplay in the OG because that was the most direct and clear way to convey those moments with such limited graphics and models. Especially when there were no voices either.

How that will manifest in the Remake remains to be seen. I certainly do think that this will be explored albeit in a more modern and storyline integrated way, because that's what the AAA gaming with its advanced technological abilities was made for. While presenting these themes as gameplay worked for before when the audience had to fill in the gaps of limited hardware/software, that's not going to work for a AAA title in 2022/whatever-year. It's going to have to utilize actual dramatic storytelling, writing and technological prowess to convey human emotions through human models. Which I find more appealing given how the models are able to express so much with the most subtle and nuanced of facial expressions. Their ability to emote with their eyes, lips, and natural body language feels a lot more intriguing and immersive than just watching lego people. Not to say that the OG was bad, but there's something inherently more dramatic and fascinating now seeing these moments play out in much more realistic and human ways. The player immersion and interaction will still be there, but not in actually conveying the story; the story will flow outward in a more natural way to utilize what the medium has been built for. Instead of expecting the player to inject themselves into the story to make it actually play out.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I don't know what you mean by "storyline integrated", Mako. For me, gameplay is part of the story. I'm also not sure what you mean by 'natural', unless you mean 'inherent in the nature of this medium'.

I'm not saying you're wrong, because nobody can be wrong about how they feel and react. However, for me the Lego people were more fascinating and emotive. I think it's because I had to fill in the blanks using my own imagination; I was the co-creator of the story and so much more of a stakeholder. When it's all laid out for me on a silver platter, telling me what to think and feel, and all I need to do is sit back and consume - and worry about battle mechanics - for me personally it's less interesting. None of these fancy AAA games move me the way the old ones did. Maybe I'm just a nostalgia addict.

 

[Makoeyes987]

As I said, the gameplay is part of the OG story because the game is the story. And gameplay is used to convey aspects of the story due to the nature of the medium.

However, the story of FFVII will no longer rely solely on gameplay to convey it's narrative. It can express those storyline moments through actual modernized methods, akin to cinema or just human communication. Motion capture, game development technology with state of the art graphics, voice acting, realistic facial expressions, and all the things we take for granted in communicating are able to be expressed in ways thar didn't exist 20 years ago.

Yeah the power of imagination is "limitless," until you consider the personal biases and wish fulfillment one brings to filling in a story. That ends up becoming a feedback loop that just feeds you essentially what you want to see. So yeah, you're a stakeholder because you're sorta creating the scenario you wish to see. That's admittedly fun but seeing what's possible outside of one's self and the potential of bringing the characters to life beyond imagination projection is appealing to me. Because it's dynamic; these depictions have never existed at all until now.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Unfortunately even AAA graphics fall short of depicting Cloud & Co as the fully fleshed out humans I always imagined them to be. One big problem for me is that, facially, they are often very similar to each other.

I'm not convinced that I, or any other player, simply "create the scenario we wish to see". I think it's a lot more complicated than that, a much more complex interplay of many different factors. If this weren't the case, then playing an old-fashioned game wouldn't be able to give us ideas we had never thought of before. I'm also not convinced that players of the Remake don't also 'create the scenario they wish to see'. You can't shut off people's imaginations with high-res graphics and mo-cap. Since the world of FFVII is an entirely fictional world, re-creating it in high-res doesn't make it any more 'real' than it was before - although, the human mind being what it is, it may seem that way. In some ways, high-res shuts off as many possibilities as it opens up.

Anyway, I didn't want to get into an argument about high res 'naturalistic' graphics. For me they are not an important part of any game (although I do like a game to be visually appealing); for other people, they're one of the top priorities.

It does seem inevitable that SE would take the 'question' raised in the OG - what if we had done things differently? - and make it the basis for the Remake, since, as Eerie points out, it's a question at the forefront in the minds of fans.

 

[Shademp]

FFVII, both the original game and the franchise as a whole, has a frustrating history with the topic of loss.

On one hand, Aerith's death is a good example of expressing loss in gameplay. Her limit breaks are unique and powerful but without cheats you'll never have the joy of using these against Emerald Weapon or Safer Sephiroth. You permanently lose the weapon and armor she had equipped when she left. There also is no "replacement character" to simply pick up her staff, stats and limit breaks. The game stuck to its guns here by not diminishing the impact of her death in gameplay.

On the other hand, the impact of her death remains always under the influence of the game's fantastical elements. Aerith's death can never be a "normal" death, the way that you might feel the impact of a friend dying in a random car crash. Aerith's life and death is always linked to her role as the last Cetran and her goal to summon Holy. True, she didn't *need* to die in order for Holy to be summoned but she still died "under the line of divine, planet-saving duty". Glorious purpose!

Before we even had Advent Children to turn Aerith into a full-fledged Star Wars Force Ghost, thus making it feel like she never died at all, the original game's ending still did plenty to elevate Aerith into a presence who persists in spiritual form. That's why Kitase's quote is so frustrating to me. Aerith's death has only ever temporarily represented the terrible void and 'big empty space' of death. Sooner or later, that void is always filled with her ghost-presence or her higher purpose.

May 2003 edition of Edge Magazine, complete Kitase quote​

Kitase-san is adamant that cultural art puts too high a value on the dramatically meaningful death,​

"In the real world things are very different. You just need to look around you. Nobody wants to die that way. People die of disease and accident. Death comes suddenly and there is no notion of good or bad. It leaves, not a dramatic feeling but great emptiness. When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think, 'If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently.' These are the feelings I wanted to arouse in the players with Aerith's death relatively early in the game. Feelings of reality and not Hollywood."​

Because FFVII has proven time and time again that it can't (for most of the time) ground Aerith's death in reality, but rather in "fantasy", I think Remake will continue doubling down on this approach. Will be interesting to see if they go full Jesus-mode with Aerith and make her aware this time around that she is definitely going to her own sacrificial altar.

To old players, Aerith's death is now primarily about destiny and the topic of narrators playing with audience expectations. Will we still cry when we see Cloud and friends mourning Aerith? Probably. We will reminisce about the time we spent with Aerith in these awesome AAA games. But by and large I doubt that the topic of loss and grief is what will linger. The metaphysics of destiny, the lifestream, the meta-narratives of storytelling is what will dominate the forum threads.


In summary, what is the point that I'm arguing? I think that in the narrative Aerith has always been a flawed representation of loss and mourning. Her death has great staying power on the player and because we like the main characters. But no matter what Kitase said back in 2003, Aerith's death will always transcend grief in the narrative by being so intrinsically linked with the game's fantastical elements. In this sense, Remake does (and probably will continue doing) what the original game did but only moreso. Will this approach work? Maybe, maybe not.

 

[Makoeyes987]

It doesn't feel that ungrounded in reality given how people relate to the spirit realm. I don't think how FFVII deals with it is flawed, that's the point they're reflecting from reality. Most people don't think death is as permanent and/or removed from a "fantastical" frame of thinking, and that belief system is reality to them. It's very real for people to carry on and deal in that transcendent perspective of the soul, and it's sorta why her death's impact has remained and even strengthened with the depiction of her soul. Because spirituality and the supernatural aren't seen as that fantastical for most folks at all. It's reinforcing and reflective of their beliefs and hopes.

Some people have faith and believe their loved ones are literally with them all the time. People believe in spirits, angels, miracles, the hereafter, the eternity of the soul, etc. That's as real as gravity for them. It's comforting and something that's all too common in regards to the human condition. Aerith's presence and hope that's carried by Cloud and the others, even after her death is grounded when you think about how the average person carries on when they lose those they love, especially in tragic circumstances. There's a paradoxical permanent removal and immortality that exists side by side with death. FFVII carried a reality in the depiction of death, but it was never a gritty reality or one removed from the spiritual optimism of being close to those we've lost. After all, Cloud had a vision of Aerith's hand reaching for him after vanquishing Sephiroth in the ending, and that hand was what got Cloud to reach out and grab on for dear life where if he hadn't, he'd have fallen to his death. Miracles are not uncommon in FFVII's world at all.

And yes, the crying will happen. I have no doubt in my mind that the death of Aerith will retain its impact despite its knowledge and context because the medium, depiction and characterization has changed entirely. It's not the same thing as the OG and unless someone is completely cool to Aerith, her character and energy will be mourned.

 

[Clement Rage]

What they seem to be going for is 'will we or won't we do it?'

If they follow the plot precisely, then everything to do with the whispers is wasted time, and themes are broken. If they don't, the fandom rage will burn out the sun. So they're now kind of between a rock and a hard place.

 

[MelodicEnigma]

Well, as long as Aerith and Zack don't start building a house on Lifestream snake way and participating in afterlife fighting tournaments, I think the Remake will still be able to retain that sense of loss with the death of its characters. But obviously with the capabilities of expanding presentation, it'll be done in a more thematic fashion. I don't feel like I'm approaching this any differently than Crisis Core—though that game lacked additional content approaches like the Remake, for the Remake I still feel a certain interesting grief of playing this story towards Aerith's eventual death scene.

 

[Makoeyes987]

What they seem to be going for is 'will we or won't we do it?'

If they follow the plot precisely, then everything to do with the whispers is wasted time, and themes are broken. If they don't, the fandom rage will burn out the sun. So they're now kind of between a rock and a hard place.

That's hilariously black and white and it completely ignores how a story can examine themes on a gradient and not just either/or dichotomy.

The Whispers aren't there to simply undo Aerith's death or not. And their existence is not about making the Remake completely go 180 from the OG script or not.

I've honestly only seen that perspective from either those who do not like the Whispers in the first place, or are wanting an entirely new experience completely removed from the original FFVII, so it's self fulfilling prophecy. If you're already cold to their existence, didn't want them in the first place or expected big and/or preferred changes and were denied that payoff, yeah. You're going to think its pointless to have ever included them. If they do end up radically changing everything, yes you're going to think they were completely awful and upended the story. So, it's a feedback loop and it ignores the rest of everything by reductively pinning this input/output conclusion to their purpose. And there's more to the story than just simply expecting either conformity to the OG or wasted time ruining the Remake.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

To be fair, the people who are enthusiastic about the Whispers are also the ones who tend to be enthusiastic about the developers taking FFVII in the direction of timey-wimey shenanigans, multiple timelines, and the concept of Schroedinger's destiny. However, that wasn't the only direction the Re-makers could have chosen to go in, and not the only way they could have mixed things up.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I don't think enthusiasm is necessary. I know I'm certainly not "enthusiastic" about their existence, but I'm willing to see where they go. I'm mostly just neutral. They have some interest and there's a certain meta commentary with them and Sephiroth that I think is intriguing and worthwhile. And I just don't think their existence precludes an "FFVII" story from existing within the Remake itself. That also means I don't think that getting that story means their inclusion was pointless, because the themes, characterizations and overall interactions which spawned from their participation in the narrative offered interesting perspectives that simply wouldn't have been possible had they not been written in. It's essentially the saying, "the journey is more than just the destination." Wherever the destination lies, the journey hasn't been pointless.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

What I wonder is if Remake is dealing less with the idea of "loss" with Aerith and more the idea of "loss of loss".

The FFVII community is expecting to get hit to the gut with the sorrow and loss of Aerith;s death. But... I kinda wonder if what wouldn't get the feeling of *unforseen* loss the OG had across better is *not* having Aerith die at all. Instead of getting the catharsis of the *expected* sense of loss her death would bring, it just... doesn't happen. So the players are left with the felling of loss of something they were expecting to happen rather than the loss of a character.

Catharsis denied is... a really frustrating feeling. And that frustrated feeling is what was so prevalent in the OG surrounding Aerith's death. I'm not sure they can get that frutstrated feeling of loss back if Aerith dies again. After all...

Kitase-san is adamant that cultural art puts too high a value on the dramatically meaningful death

This is exactly what the FFVII community does with Aerith's death nowadays. Aerith's death is the *definition* of a dramatic video game death. If NKN really want to stick to the meaning of Aeirth's death that it was supposed to have in the OG... then they wouldn't put it in the game. If they did, it would just be seen as a "dramatically meaningful death" again...

 

[Clement Rage]

I've honestly only seen that perspective from either those who do not like the Whispers in the first place, or are wanting an entirely new experience completely removed from the original FFVII, so it's self fulfilling prophecy.

Well, now you have, because this does not describe me. I have nothing against the Whispers, I initially thought they were completely hilarious, and then thought they were a necessary narrative tool to keep the audience from becoming complacent.

Timeline rewriting and retcons are my bread and butter, my favourite video game series is Legacy of Kain. (I do object to the mean spirited kind of retcon where a new author fucks over something their predecessors have done out of malice, but that's not in question here.

Spoiler: remake

The remalke ends with the leads destroying the entities keeping them chained on the old path. If they kick down the door but don't even put their toes over the threshold, then why kill the guards in the first place? I'm not expecting a completely divergent path, but if they stick rigidly to the previous story beats, then killing the Whispers neednt have happened at all.

p

 

[Makoeyes987]

But you're missing the context and nuance that exists within the role the Whispers serve in being the guardians of "fate."

The characters want the Planet to be protected. Those Feelers exist to ensure the Planet survives Sephiroth and that there's a future at all. An important aspect regarding the characters' desire to defy "fate" is the truth that it's actually the fate they wanted in the first place. They are unaware of what they're fighting against, and that ambiguity and mystery towards their choices means they have to reconcile their grasping of "terrifying freedom" with the desire to protect what they hold close to them. There will be a clash of these two goals.

There exist aspects of FFVII that are beyond just "destiny" and are rooted in the choices they make to confront the multitude of difficulties that will exist on the road ahead. There's no way that will change just because the Planet no longer has feelers out to ensure things move on the surface to their liking. The Planet is now left to just have faith and hope that what happens, happens in a way that will ensure its protection. That leaves a lot of room for things to be different and things be the same.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Why can't the Planet generate some more Feelers? It seems to be able to do this kind of thing whenever it likes.

My memory is a bit hazy and tbh the script can be a bit cryptic in places, but are Cloud & Co aware that they are "fighting fate"? Do they really understand that by defeating the Whispers they open up the possibility of changing the fate of the Planet - and not for the better? Aerith and Red XIII are dropping hints and fragments of information, but I don't think they really get it either. They don't know what they're doing. They just think they're fighting Sephiroth. They get whizzed off to an alternate dimension where they have no choice - I assume - but to defeat the Whispers, which seems to be what Sephiroth wants though it's a bit of a mystery why he couldn't just defeat them himself. How come he can't, but Cloud can? Also, why did they have to go into a singularity to fight the Whispers? Why couldn't the battle have taken place in Midgar's current space-time coordinates?

 

[Makoeyes987]

For the same reason the Planet doesn't just pop out more Weapons. Life isn't something that just can be created in an instant.

The Whispers aren't just "things" the Planet can manufacture. They're spirits. They're seemingly from the future and exist to protect the present that created them. With their destruction, they're gone. They seemingly disappear in a flash of light and golden rain.

And no, I don't think they fully get the implication of destroying the Whispers. Red XIII doesn't even grasp the knowledge that was poured into his mind, since it was too much for him. Aerith only gets fragmented premonitions/memories. They're not working from a full script.

And I don't think the Whispers can be hurt in reality, as you see in all the times you fight them. They're like ghosts. They can't be killed or destroyed. They only disappear when their work is finished. I don't think Sephiroth could destroy them all either in his current state for reasons unknown. But it's just like how Sephiroth couldn't fully take control of the Planet from the Northern Crater, from within the Lifestream. He has power over it, but it still has limits.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

She also gives the famous Kitase quotation, "“When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think, ‘If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently.’ ”

Having had 3 of my friends die in the last two years, this is something that I think about CONSTANTLY, because it's you continually recontextualizing how important those people were to you, and how you felt like you might have failed to convey those things to them or potentially have altered the outcome of events.

What it forces you to consider is if you're changing those things for yourself or if you're changing those things for the other person who's no longer there.

That's why it's really important to look at in terms of FF7, because in AC, Cloud's looking for forgiveness – but Zack & Aerith never thought that he needed to be forgiven for what happened to them. Their death represented a tragedy that he regretted and wished didn't happen, but they never blamed him for it, or held him accountable for their deaths. That's why Remake is looking at the idea of a "Remake" where if you were offered the chance to change things, is that something that you can or should ever choose to do? Are you doing that for yourself, or are you doing that for them? What is the emotion that you're attempting to soothe that's at the center of that grief, and what are you attempting to process by running through those scenarios in your mind? Essentially is the Fate that you're attempting to alter your own where they're gone, or is it someone else's – and is doing that just removing the agency over the choices that they made that brought them to that moment?

Grief is a weird and complicated thing, and this is actually why I've liked Remake because of how well it leans in to those aspects of the nature of grief. It also nails all of the nostalgic cues and ways that it establishes the framework of what loss and emptiness feels like in the bittersweet experiences of things that you once shared together. It's all about the way that we hold on to people in the memories that we have of them, and how we have to reshape those memories to carry what they were, rather than having them unexpectedly carry the emptiness of how they're not there any more. It's why I like things like how the theme from Advent Children plays the first time Cloud encounters Sephiroth and is then left alone in Sector 8, whereas the theme Hollow plays the first time that he's properly acquainted with Aerith and then left alone at the Leaf House.

Any time I end up reminiscing about one of my deceased friends while doing something we used to enjoy together, I'm always hit hardest by knowing that they'd find it unacceptable if my emotional memories of their loss were stronger than the ones of their life enjoying those things with me – because they'd never want me to not have just as much love for the things we enjoyed together when they were gone, but it's still sort of a messy feeling to experience, and Remake nails that in spades.

Also – the Jessie pizza line is also perfect.

That all being said, I think that the Whispers are definitely a facet of this in the story of Remake, that is added to the plot. However, they're also there for another and more fundamentally important purpose when it comes to ensuring that the original narrative and Remake still tell the same story. That's more about free will and predestination, which are important frameworks to consider about the nature of existence, and the original was its own unique narrative. Because Remake exists in the real world where that narrative already exists and it doesn't address that already, it's important to clarify how those mechanics work – because if predestination was the nature of the world in Remake being forced to follow the story of the original game... then Sephiroth would actually be the true good guy in the story now. And that type of total reversal and reveal is EXTREMELY common in Japanese storytelling (and is actually also true of some of the characters that Sephiroth is designed after), so it's one of those things where that's more about a necessary change to the story in order to make sure that the same story is still being told.

The fact that they do that while ALSO providing an important lens into those existential themes as they connect to grief and the want to change a fate we experienced is why I actually love Remake as much as I do, because the more time I spend with those things, the more value I find in how they're utilized in ways that mirror the experience of grief exceedingly well, because of how much it puts Aerith in a position where she's the one helping you come to terms with how to handle those things – because she experiences death more than anyone else in the world because of what her abilities as a Cetra allow her to know when peoples' loved ones die. There's so much emphasis on doing things to create the moment that you want, NOT to change the outcome – while also seeing how tempting it would be to do that.




X

 

[KindOfBlue]

Yeah, I really don’t see how else this game could’ve had anything worthwhile to say about grief that wasn’t already said in 1997 without going in a direction that we can’t predict, much like how death itself is often unpredictable. I know it’s safer to just do the thing we know we like, but clearly the devs would rather you play the old game if that’s the experience you’re looking for.

They wanted to make a modern, triple-AAA game with voiceover, HD graphics, mo-cap, all while existing in a world that already knows FF7 and has played countless games since then that have left their own impacts on gaming. Those adaptions to modern sensibilities make it inevitable that at least some aspects that you may have liked in the OG get pushed to the side in favor of what comes with a new and modern experience, so realistically there’s only so much the remake can do to live up to the blanks you filled in with your imagination and everyone else’s (something that exists outside of the devs) unless they play it safe and just remaster the old game. I mean, they didn’t put all this work into the acting and visual presentation just so we can ignore it and pretend we’re still in ‘97 lol.