SPOILERS LTD Remake — It's like New Coke except ... no, it's exactly like New Coke

[KindOfBlue]

Normally I’d prefer that things aren’t spelled out so blatantly but at this point, I’d prefer that Cloud’s feelings are made so explicitly clear that there’s little to no room for shippers to misinterpret the story without obviously looking ignorant or dishonest.

Some shippers want Cloud’s feelings to be just vague enough that they can interpret his character as they see fit. What that sometimes amounts to is Cloud being painted as so stuck on one girl that his relationship with the other doesn’t matter.

Nojima: As a motif for them, Tifa is “the childhood friend who’s been with you since nursery school”, and Aerith is “the girl who transfers school mid-term and quickly leaves for another school.” Since she doesn’t have many scenes, you’ve got to make it so that the transfer student has a big impact. That was what I thought.

Fully commit to the bit, I say. Don’t be coy just to appease all shippers. All that does is minimize the impact of some of the most powerful moments of the story. For the full weight of Aerith’s death, we should really want her and Cloud to have the potential for a relationship, only for their time to be tragically cut short.

And whoever doesn’t like that outcome, too bad. The fact is, Aerith dies. That shouldn’t mean her short-lived time with Cloud was meaningless, but it also shouldn’t mean that Cloud is so eternally hung up on her that he can’t develop his relationship with Tifa either.

Just as with Aerith’s death, for the full weight of Cloud’s mind being healed, we need him and Tifa to establish their feelings for each other. And for Odin’s sake, give their post-FF7 relationship a proper definition so that we can put this tired topic to rest already.

 

[frosty]

Fully commit to the bit, I say. Don’t be coy just to appease all shippers. All that does is minimize the impact of some of the most powerful moments of the story. For the full weight of Aerith’s death, we should really want her and Cloud to have the potential for a relationship, only for their time to be tragically cut short.

I kind of....no longer trust SE to do this lol. I think the shock of OG was that Aerith died so suddenly, with no commentary, no resolution that made the player, as Cloud, felt like they were slapped across the face with her loss. This girl who was throwing herself at me (and I the player, could respond) is no longer here? My date! My healer! My Limit Break! My Princess Guard! All the time I spent on her! GONE. W.T.F.

Every remake death scene has been painfully drawn out so far in the name of exposition and added context and I'm not looking forward to her death. Even if they kill her fast, here's probably what's going to happen. I'll drink a shot, for each of the below - remind me in Feb you guys.

- The whole game has allusions to her death - in every "character building" opportunity with Aerith, she's gonna meta her fate and Brianna White is going tell people sappy things like "appreciate your loved ones before they're gone" in a breathy voice
- Only like, 10 flashfowards of her materia falling off the alter
- With the whispers and feathers around her iconic death scene, they're going to build up the WILL SHE OR WON'T SHE for a good, say, 10 minutes
- Even if Sephiroth comes to make quick work of the death, the conversation between Sephiroth and the party is going to be...long. He's gonna give a damn key note address, y'all
- I expect that as her body is put into the lake, there's going to be some kind of slow pan on everyone's faces, with an Aerith montage playing in sepia of ther time with the party ala Sonon/Melphie - cut to Loren Allred warbling the credits, with the same Aerith montage

And then she pops up in Zack's timeline / lifestream purgatory - SURPRISE Y'ALL!

 

[ForceStealer]

I kind of....no longer trust SE to do this lol. I think the shock of OG was that Aerith died so suddenly, with no commentary, no resolution that made the player, as Cloud, felt like they were slapped across the face with her loss. This girl who was throwing herself at me (and I the player, could respond) is no longer here? My date! My healer! My Limit Break! My Princess Guard! All the time I spent on her! GONE. W.T.F.

Every remake death scene has been painfully drawn out so far in the name of exposition and added context and I'm not looking forward to her death. Even if they kill her fast, here's probably what's going to happen. I'll drink a shot, for each of the below - remind me in Feb you guys.

- The whole game has allusions to her death - in every "character building" opportunity with Aerith, she's gonna meta her fate and Brianna White is going tell people sappy things like "appreciate your loved ones before they're gone" in a breathy voice
- Only like, 10 flashfowards of her materia falling off the alter
- With the whispers and feathers around her iconic death scene, they're going to build up the WILL SHE OR WON'T SHE for a good, say, 10 minutes
- Even if Sephiroth comes to make quick work of the death, the conversation between Sephiroth and the party is going to be...long. He's gonna give a damn key note address, y'all
- I expect that as her body is put into the lake, there's going to be some kind of slow pan on everyone's faces, with an Aerith montage playing in sepia of ther time with the party ala Sonon/Melphie - cut to Loren Allred warbling the credits, with the same Aerith montage

And then she pops up in Zack's timeline / lifestream purgatory - SURPRISE Y'ALL!

Can't wait

 

[null]

I mean they could pull off the saddest death scene since Old Yeller, but all roads lead to Advent Children. We already know everything's gonna be OK, because Aerith will literally tell Cloud in person that everything's OK. And absolve him, give him pep talks, revive him when he gets himself exploded, cure his incurable cooties, and participate in teambuilding exercises. Quite frankly there's no downside to her being dead, except she apparently can't go on Gold Saucer dates anymore, so Rebirth might as well lean into that.

 

[Stiggie]

Neither want's to admit that Cloud had feelings for both. If you take away Cloud leaning towards Aerith pre death, you'd have to change Cloud's characterization post death

...why? Clouds post death characterization is completely separate from his feelings for Aerith. Whether he was in love with her or just liked her as a person changes nothing about his post death characterization. Him being in love with her makes it slightly more shallow and clouds the issues a bit (pardon the pun) but for the most part the nature of his affection for Aerith changes very little about how it characterizes his actions following it.

Also, plenty of Clotis think that soldier Cloud had some romantic affection for Aerith, the real argument is about how said affection should be weighed and interpreted in regards to his feelings regarding Tifa, and his connection to Zack.

Normally I’d prefer that things aren’t spelled out so blatantly but at this point, I’d prefer that Cloud’s feelings are made so explicitly clear that there’s little to no room for shippers to misinterpret the story without obviously looking ignorant or dishonest.

Yes and no. I want them to be explicit about Clouds feelings, but I want them to be explicit about his feelings being vague.
What I mean is, I don't want a situation where Cloud is fully aware that he loves only Tifa, or only Aerith, or both, and where we the viewer don't know what the right answer is. But I do want a situation where Cloud himself doesn't know whether he liked Aerith and where it's made explicit to the player that THAT is the quandary Cloud is in. That would be congruent storytelling that fits with the concepts of his soldier persona, Aeriths death, and the importance of Zack. The idea that Cloud ONLY ever knew Aerith while he wasn't himself, and is not sure of what exactly she meant to him. And if that question has to be answered then I think the story works a lot better if the conclusion is that it doesn't matter if he had a crush on her, because ultimately that pales in comparison to the importance she had to him in general.

 

[Lex]

- The whole game has allusions to her death - in every "character building" opportunity with Aerith, she's gonna meta her fate and Brianna White is going tell people sappy things like "appreciate your loved ones before they're gone" in a breathy voice
- Only like, 10 flashfowards of her materia falling off the alter
- With the whispers and feathers around her iconic death scene, they're going to build up the WILL SHE OR WON'T SHE for a good, say, 10 minutes
- Even if Sephiroth comes to make quick work of the death, the conversation between Sephiroth and the party is going to be...long. He's gonna give a damn key note address, y'all
- I expect that as her body is put into the lake, there's going to be some kind of slow pan on everyone's faces, with an Aerith montage playing in sepia of ther time with the party ala Sonon/Melphie - cut to Loren Allred warbling the credits, with the same Aerith montage

Why do I feel like this is exactly what's coming

The best thing about fandom is happening across a post like this that just perfectly encapsulates your own slightly-bitter misgivings and gives them a voice. Kudos to you, good person. Reading this was darkly hilarious and a tonic for the soul. It's like doomsday prep - hopefully not necessary, but at least we're prepared!

 

[LNK]

...why? Clouds post death characterization is completely separate from his feelings for Aerith. Whether he was in love with her or just liked her as a person changes nothing about his post death characterization.

I disagree. Now I'm not saying his characterization post death is solely due to his feelings towards Aerith, nor have I ever, but there is definitely some overlap. Advent Children shows that. As does OtwtaS

 

[Stiggie]

I disagree. Now I'm not saying his characterization post death is solely due to his feelings towards Aerith, nor have I ever, but there is definitely some overlap. Advent Children shows that. As does OtwtaS

In what sense? In advent children especially his personal feelings for Aerith are completely irrelevant, if anything they serve only to muddy the waters. Advent children is a continuation of Clouds issues concerning fear of failure, his guilt concerning his failures of the past (specifically in regards to Aerith and Zack), his shame about being happy when they are dead, and his own coming death, aka his upcoming failure to protect people yet again.
These issues there are about Cloud, not Aerith, the problem with adding in romance as a contribution factor here is that the story works perfectly fine without it, adding in romance adds nothing of value, all it does is detract from what is actually being explored through the story.

There is a question here that the viewer tries to answer. That question being: "why is Cloud so haunted by Aeriths death?". And by answering "because he loved her, you've now created an extremely shallow and cliché motivation that serves to hide the actual answer. It no longer becomes a story about who Cloud is, but about who Aerith was to Cloud. By doing so you rob the story of the very thing that gives every story its depth, the exploration of humanity.

When you say "Cloud is this way because he lost 'the girl he loved' " you add in an implication that he would not have acted the same way had it just been a friend, which in turn assassinates Clouds character. Which is what leads to a lot of the complaints that you hear about Cloud in advent children. That he's an edgy asshole who abandoned Tifa to go sulk in a church. And in this characterization, they're right, Cloud is an awful character in this telling of the story, because the only thing this story tells us about Cloud is "Cloud is the kind of guy who gets very sad when the girl he loves dies, so much that he will abandon his girlfriend and his kids to sit in a church and wish for death so that he can be with his deceased lover".
It's a revolting story that romanticizes depression and makes the hero irredeemably awful. This Cloud would allow children to die because he's sad his girlfriend is dead.

Ofcourse, this isn't the real answer, even IF Cloud had romantic feelings for Aerith they have nothing to do with his actions in advent children. The problem is that by postulating that the feelings exist you automatically create the assumption that these feelings are relevant, why else would they be there? This is a version of Chekovs gun, the thought goes like this: "if something is in the story, then it must have relevance, otherwise why would it even be there?". So the belief that Cloud loves Aerith leads to the belief that those feelings are what cause his actions in AC, which leads to the destruction of Clouds character, struggles, and character arc.

Regardless of whether Cloud is in love with Aerith, the answer to "why is Cloud so haunted by Aeriths death?" is that "he blames himself for it". His failure to protect Aerith is the culmination of a story arc that started all the way back when Tifa fell into a coma and Cloud blamed himself. The answer is that Cloud failed to protect Tifa as a child, was blamed by her father, and blamed himself, he then thought that by getting stronger he'd get her to notice him, he made a promise, then he failed to become a soldier, then he failed to save nibelheim, then he failed to save Tifa from getting stabbed by Sephiroth, then Zack dies because of him. And after all this failure lead him to develop an alter ego that was everything he wished he was, a hero, a soldier first class, he still failed at saving Aerith. Everyone is dead because of him and yet he's still alive, and happy, and it's eating him up inside, he feels like he shouldn't be allowed to be happy when they are dead. He hates himself, and his weakness, his incompetence, his incompetence that gets people killed.

He tries to atone, THAT is what we see in otwtas, he tries to atone through Denzel, but Denzel gets geostigma and will die, Cloud has failed yet again. He tries to atone through living, and we see him succeeding at times, it's even stated that he's happier than ever living with Tifa, but that this makes him feel guilty, as well as anxious about losing said happiness. Things get better though, as stated in OTWAS, however, suddenly Cloud leaves....why?... Because ultimately he himself gets geostigma, which to Cloud means failing again, whats more a failure he can't get back from. He can't protect his family, he will leave them behind. It's this self hatred, this guilt, this utter dejection that motivates Clouds actions. The reason he refuses to go save the children is because he legitimately thinks that he can't save anyone, as he explicitly states in the movie, that's not about Aerith, that's about Cloud. He's not in the church because it's a happy place that reminds him of Aerith while with Tifa he was miserable, no, he's miserable in the church, that's why he went there, because he hates himself and has given up and will now accept dying as punishment for not being able to atone in life.
Cloud in Advent children is a hauntingly realistic depiction of depression, feelings of inadequacy, survivors guilt, and a host of other issues, and the implication that what's really going on is that he's 'love sick' just makes a mockery of that. I really don't see how anyone could think the addition of Cloud having feelings for Aerith would somehow benefit the story. I don't even know what they're proposing as a character arc here, that story has no middle and ending, it supposedly starts with him pining about being with Aerith after death, and ends with him pining about being with Aerith after death, the growth supposedly being that he's now enjoying his time till he gets to die or something.

I could spend hours more talking about all the symbolism and meaning in Clouds character arc in AC that is lost when you suppose romantic feelings, but I think that would be counterproductive, what matters here is what I said earlier, namely that this is the story whether Cloud was in love with Aerith or not, his feelings for her change NOTHING..... EXCEPT that it makes people misunderstand Clouds motivations, which then leads to the collapse of the entire story as I laid out.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I think you two are ironically in agreement but using completely different words here

I disagree. Now I'm not saying his characterization post death is solely due to his feelings towards Aerith, nor have I ever, but there is definitely some overlap. Advent Children shows that. As does OtwtaS

I think that overlap you're talking about is the impact her being killed had on Cloud and the resulting guilt and sadness he felt because of it, right?

 

[LNK]

I think you two are ironically in agreement but using completely different words here



I think that overlap you're talking about is the impact her being killed had on Cloud and the resulting guilt and sadness he felt because of it, right?

Yes

 

[LNK]

In what sense? In advent children especially his personal feelings for Aerith are completely irrelevant, if anything they serve only to muddy the waters. Advent children is a continuation of Clouds issues concerning fear of failure, his guilt concerning his failures of the past (specifically in regards to Aerith and Zack), his shame about being happy when they are dead, and his own coming death, aka his upcoming failure to protect people yet again.
These issues there are about Cloud, not Aerith, the problem with adding in romance as a contribution factor here is that the story works perfectly fine without it, adding in romance adds nothing of value, all it does is detract from what is actually being explored through the story.

How are his feelings irrelevant when those feelings are part of why he has such massive guilt around her death? Again, it's not the sole reason as you keep trying to say I'm saying. Waters being muddied is apart of human connections and interactions. It's not all black and white. If you take away Cloud liking Aerith in FF7, Tifa's jealousy (OtwtaS) and Cloud living in Aerith's church (AC) make much less sense.

There is a question here that the viewer tries to answer. That question being: "why is Cloud so haunted by Aeriths death?". And by answering "because he loved her, you've now created an extremely shallow and cliché motivation that serves to hide the actual answer. It no longer becomes a story about who Cloud is, but about who Aerith was to Cloud. By doing so you rob the story of the very thing that gives every story its depth, the exploration of humanity.

When you say "Cloud is this way because he lost 'the girl he loved' " you add in an implication that he would not have acted the same way had it just been a friend, which in turn assassinates Clouds character. Which is what leads to a lot of the complaints that you hear about Cloud in advent children. That he's an edgy asshole who abandoned Tifa to go sulk in a church. And in this characterization, they're right, Cloud is an awful character in this telling of the story, because the only thing this story tells us about Cloud is "Cloud is the kind of guy who gets very sad when the girl he loves dies, so much that he will abandon his girlfriend and his kids to sit in a church and wish for death so that he can be with his deceased lover".
It's a revolting story that romanticizes depression and makes the hero irredeemably awful. This Cloud would allow children to die because he's sad his girlfriend is dead.

I'm not giving that answer, so why bring that up? I actually agree with you here though. The rest of your comment would be better served to someone who thinks Cloud's feelings towards Aerith is the reason why he does what he does in OtwtaS and AC. I've never said that though. I've only said it's part of why.

 

[Stiggie]

How are his feelings irrelevant when those feelings are part of why he has such massive guilt around her death?

Because they're not a part of that, how does having a crush on someone have relevance to whether you feel guilt about their death? Only thing that matter is that 1: you care about them, and 2: you think it's your fault. Does Cloud also have a crush on Zack? Like I explained, if Cloud needs to be in love to feel guilt then he's an awful person, and if he doesn't need it, then why put it in the story when it muddies the waters? I repeat, whether Cloud had feelings for Aerith in FFVII is a separate issue and has no relevance to the story, events, or motivations of Cloud in AC.

I'm not giving that answer, so why bring that up? I actually agree with you here though. The rest of your comment would be better served to someone who thinks Cloud's feelings towards Aerith is the reason why he does what he does in OtwtaS and AC. I've never said that though. I've only said it's part of why.

This was the proverbial you, not you in particular, anyone can read our conversation after all. And I said it because, as I explained, adding in unnecessary emotions into the story leads to said misconception. It doesn't matter if you personally don't subscribe to it, because we've seen thousands of people subscribe to it.

If you take away Cloud liking Aerith in FF7, Tifa's jealousy (OtwtaS) and Cloud living in Aerith's church (AC) make much less sense.

How? Tifa feeling jealous is about Tifas insecurities, again, Cloud feelings are completely irrelevant to it, I'd even argue that her being wrong about the reason Cloud left is precisely the point, and that THAT is what's being explored. "have we lost to a memory?" potentially implying Aerith "stay were you belong, in my memories" revealing that no, it's Sephiroth, or rather the metaphorical demons of the past.

Cloud languishing in Aeriths church (and Zacks grave) also gains nothing from us postulating feelings for Aerith (again, why not for Zack?). In fact, you're doing what I said earlier concerning forcing feelings to be relevant. When you say that him staying in the church is because he had feelings for Aerith you are necessarily saying that him staying in the church is meaningfully motivated by him being in love. Which then circles back to the assassination of Clouds character and everything he goes through by just turning him into a love-sick emo. And again I have to ask, why is no one saying that Cloud hanging around Zacks grave makes more sense if he was in love?

 

[LNK]

Because they're not a part of that, how does having a crush on someone have relevance to whether you feel guilt about their death? Only thing that matter is that 1: you care about them, and 2: you think it's your fault.

If you don't have strong feelings towards someone, that guilt you have surrounding their death, would be much smaller than if you did. It's very similar to deaths that people experience in life. There are different levels of feelings depending on who dies and what kind of connections you have towards them. It's a little more complex than "you cared about them," and "you think it's your fault."

Like I explained, if Cloud needs to be in love to feel guilt then he's an awful person, and if he doesn't need it, then why put it in the story when it muddies the waters?

This was the proverbial you, not you in particular. And I said it because, as I explained, adding in unnecessary emotions into the story leads to said misconception. It doesn't matter if you personally don't subscribe to it, because we've seen thousands of people subscribe to it.

If I didn't say this, then there is no point of you bringing it up, and then explaining why it's wrong. I'm not making that argument. Please either engage with what I'm actually saying, and leave that kind of stuff out.

How? Tifa feeling jealous is about Tifas insecurities, again, Cloud feelings are completely irrelevant to it, I'd even argue that her being wrong about the reason Cloud left is precisely the point, and that THAT is what's being explored.

How are his feelings irrelevant, if those are part of what drives him to do what he does, which in turn Tifa is now insecure about?

In fact, you're doing what I said earlier concerning forcing feelings to be relevant

I can't force something to be relevant, if it's already relevant. You're ignoring that things are more complex than how you're characterizing things.

When you say that him staying in the church is because he had feelings for Aerith you are necessarily saying that him staying in the church is meaningfully motivated by him being in love. Which then circles back to the assassination of Clouds character and everything he goes through by just turning him into a love-sick emo

But this isn't what I'm saying though. Having feelings for someone does not inherently mean someone is in love. You're using such a broad brush to paint Cloud's motivations for why he did what he did. We are more than broad strokes.

And again I have to ask, why is no one saying that Cloud hanging around Zacks grave makes more sense if he was in love?

Idk why you're even asking this

 

[Stiggie]

If you don't have strong feelings towards someone, that guilt you have surrounding their death, would be much smaller than if you did

“Those who cannot conceive of friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a friend.” - C.S. Lewis

Him being in love with her doesn't make the feelings stronger. All it does is shift the nature of the guilt away from being focussed on Aerith as an individual and towards what she meant to Cloud, it essentially objectifies her because her value as a person is now defined in relation to what she means to the main character rather than being of importance as a thing "an sich".

Aka, rather than feeling guilty because the girl he failed was "an amazing person who was the last of her race, an innocence who had a unique bond with the planet and was loved by all that knew her, a special existence who was in tune with nature and has now been snuffed out leaving only us sinful humans on a dying planet", he instead feels guilty because the girl he failed was "someone he wants to bang".

This is a classic case of "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” (Douglas adams)

It doesn't make sense to feel guilty about damage done to oneself. I prefer the nature of Clouds guilt to be rooted in the loss he feels he inflicted the world and the damage he feels like he inflicted onto Aerith, rather than the weight of his guilt coming from how much he himself is suffering from losing her, which is both inherently selfish, and not truly guilt at all. "I regret doing this to you because it ended up hurting me" is inherently more selfish than "I regret doing this to you because it ended up hurting YOU".

If I didn't say this, then there is no point of you bringing it up, and then explaining why it's wrong. I'm not making that argument. Please either engage with what I'm actually saying, and leave that kind of stuff out.

If you still don't understand why it matters and why I brought it up after I explained it as in depth as I have, then I doubt there is a point to continuing this conversation, plus, I am sensing some hostility that I don't think is warranted. The subject we were discussing isn't your beliefs but the impact that changing Clouds feelings for Aerith into romantic ones would have on his characterization in Advent children. The point being that while it doesn't change the actual characterizations I would change how they're perceived and whether that perception becomes reasonable. If a story does a bad job at conveying its themes, messages, character arcs, whatever, then that's the same thing as it simply having bad themes, messages, and character arcs. The end result is the same, namely a bad product.

Idk why you're even asking this

....really? You really don't know? After saying that Cloud hanging around Aeriths church makes more sense if he's in love with her you don't understand why someone would ask if Cloud hanging around Zacks grave also makes more sense if he's in love with him? You really don't see the connection there or why it was worth bringing up?

 

[LNK]

Him being in love with her doesn't make the feelings stronger. All it does is shift the nature of the guilt away from being focussed on Aerith as an individual and towards what she meant to Cloud, it essentially objectifies her because her value as a person is now defined in relation to what she means to the main character rather than being of importance as a thing "an sich".

It's not so black and white, as you're painting it out to be. If it was, you could say the same about Tifa. That would be so boring though. These characters, like humans have many layers and colors to them. Aerith is much much more than who she was to Cloud. But, she still was more than a friend to Cloud.

rather than feeling guilty because the girl he failed was "an amazing person who was the last of her race, an innocence who had a unique bond with the planet and was loved by all that knew her, a special existence who was in tune with nature and has now been snuffed out leaving only us sinful humans on a dying planet", he instead feels guilty because the girl he failed was "someone he wants to bang".

It's not an either or situation. It's both. As I've said this whole time. Not specifically that he wanted to bang her, but someone who he liked more than a friend.

This is a classic case of "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” (Douglas adams)

This doesn't fit in this situation though. Cloud has more than friendship feelings towards Aerith. If you pretend they don't exist, you're being no different from the Clerith's who pretend like Cloud didn't feel the way he did about Tifa.

If you still don't understand why it matters and why I brought it up after I explained it as in depth as I have, then I doubt there is a point to continuing this conversation, plus, I am sensing some hostility that I don't think is warranted.

This I also agree on. Bringing that up is irrelevant to what I'm saying, because none of it addresses what I'm actually saying. It's pointless.

Not hostility, little bit of irritation though.

The subject we were discussing isn't your beliefs but the impact that changing Clouds feelings for Aerith into romantic ones would have on his characterization in Advent children

But those feelings aren't being changed into something. They already were in the original game. Just not to the extent that Clerith's and you're making it out to be.

I'm saying, if you remove those feelings, it would have an impact on his characterization.

really? You really don't know? After saying that Cloud hanging around Aeriths church makes more sense if he's in love with her you don't understand why someone would ask if Cloud hanging around Zacks grave also makes more sense if he's in love with him? You really don't see the connection there or why it was worth bringing up?

1. I never said Cloud hanging around the church makes more sense if he's in love with Aerith.

2. Zack and Aerith are two different people, who Cloud had different feelings for, why think things are the same for both? Relationships are a bit more complex than that.

 

[KindOfBlue]

The story goes out of its way to make the player think Cloud and Aerith have a chance at being a couple for a reason. The whole point is that they could have been, but ultimately aren’t. The funny thing is that both sides of the Clerith vs Cloti aisle have a tendency to emphasize one side of that statement and ignore the other.

Cleriths tend to romanticize what could have been between Cloud and Aerith (saying “oh, but death doesn’t truly mean the end of—” no, stop it) instead of just appreciating their short time with each other and accepting why they ultimately don’t end up together.

And Clotis often get so hung up on Cloud and Aerith’s relationship being cut short (or that “he wasn’t truly himself”) that they downplay the romantic element of the impact of her loss. Which I find uneccesary because validating that they could have been a thing only serves to reinforce that they aren’t.

I don’t think Cloud having feelings for Aerith would be the thing that would make him seem shallow. I think what would make him seem shallow is the idea of him being so stuck on Aerith that his development with Tifa is stunted, which is where I take issue with SE’s execution particularly in Advent Children.

I think Cloud’s feelings for Aerith should only mirror how he views Tifa, seeing as Tifa was almost the original Aerith (being the first girl that he blames himself for failing to save twice, though she survives in her case). It’s a complex issue that requires far more storytelling finesse than what AC demonstrated but it seems they at least tried to make up for it with ACC.

I’m still surprised by how direct Aerith’s statement to Cloud is in Remake (“You can’t fall in love with me. Even if you think you have, it’s not real.”) and I hope it sets a precedent for not beating around the bush. I’ve been pleasantly surprised and satisfied with how the love triangle is being handled so far (annoying affection mechanics notwithstanding) and I hope it wasn’t a fluke.

The way the devs have consistently commented on the relationships between the characters gives me hope that the maturity displayed in Remake isn’t just a happy accident. I mean, imagine if Crisis Core treated Zack and Aerith’s feelings with such kid gloves. All SE needs to do is say Cloud and Tifa are boyfriend and girlfriend post-FF7 and just call it a day.

 

[LNK]

The whole point is that they could have been, but ultimately aren’t.

Which is why I think if the devs didn't lean into that, it would change the characterizations of these characters for the worse. It would remove a layer to them. No thank you.

Shippers gonna ship no matter what. I've never been into it, but I do like how complicated feelings are handled in the "love triangle." It's pretty reflective of real life. Especially at a young age.

 

[cloud7]

I’m still surprised by how direct Aerith’s statement to Cloud is in Remake (“You can’t fall in love with me. Even if you think you have, it’s not real.”)

Clouds response was even more direct ("Don't I get a say in all this? I'm coming for you"). Also dev interview confirming Aerith's words were only to protect Cloud since she knows her tragic fate and that her true heart is being closed off as she says them. A very lovely Clerith scene

 

[Maidenofwar]

Something I wanted to bring up as a point of discussion is the possibility of Rebirth/remake trilogy incorporating Maiden Who Travels The Planet.

In Maiden we learn Aerith guides Tifa to Cloud so she can help him, in the lifestrream. Even in the original game there is NPC that refers to a guardian angel looking out for Cloud.

Zack is also in MWTTP. So Aerith and Zack are also sort of helpers along with Tifa. I wonder if they are doing something along the lines of this in remake, where all three of them help "complete" Cloud, perhaps earlier than it would happen in OG

 

[LNK]

Yeah, I brought this up after playing Remake when it first came out. Maiden isn't canon, but I've always believed this trilogy was doing something similar to it.

 

[null]

The crotchety old fan in me says: no, don't fix something that isn't broken. The Lifestream scene is Tifa's moment as much as it is Cloud's. It's their moment where they open up to each other, and it should be private. Anyone else getting involved is just a distraction.

Having said that... like Batman I have one rule and that is: don't suck. If we get an updated scene that integrates Maiden and feels natural and true to all the characters involved, then I won't complain. But right now it's hard to imagine with what little information we have to go on. (Like, will Aerith be too busy body hopping to get things done in the Lifestream? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

 

[Stiggie]

The story goes out of its way to make the player think Cloud and Aerith have a chance at being a couple for a reason. The whole point is that they could have been, but ultimately aren’t. The funny thing is that both sides of the Clerith vs Cloti aisle have a tendency to emphasize one side of that statement and ignore the other.

Cleriths tend to romanticize what could have been between Cloud and Aerith (saying “oh, but death doesn’t truly mean the end of—” no, stop it) instead of just appreciating their short time with each other and accepting why they ultimately don’t end up together.

And Clotis often get so hung up on Cloud and Aerith’s relationship being cut short (or that “he wasn’t truly himself”) that they downplay the romantic element of the impact of her loss. Which I find uneccesary because validating that they could have been a thing only serves to reinforce that they aren’t.

I don’t think Cloud having feelings for Aerith would be the thing that would make him seem shallow. I think what would make him seem shallow is the idea of him being so stuck on Aerith that his development with Tifa is stunted, which is where I take issue with SE’s execution particularly in Advent Children.

I think Cloud’s feelings for Aerith should only mirror how he views Tifa, seeing as Tifa was almost the original Aerith (being the first girl that he blames himself for failing to save twice, though she survives in her case). It’s a complex issue that requires far more storytelling finesse than what AC demonstrated but it seems they at least tried to make up for it with ACC.

I’m still surprised by how direct Aerith’s statement to Cloud is in Remake (“You can’t fall in love with me. Even if you think you have, it’s not real.”) and I hope it sets a precedent for not beating around the bush. I’ve been pleasantly surprised and satisfied with how the love triangle is being handled so far (annoying affection mechanics notwithstanding) and I hope it wasn’t a fluke.

The way the devs have consistently commented on the relationships between the characters gives me hope that the maturity displayed in Remake isn’t just a happy accident. I mean, imagine if Crisis Core treated Zack and Aerith’s feelings with such kid gloves. All SE needs to do is say Cloud and Tifa are boyfriend and girlfriend post-FF7 and just call it a day.

I don't have a problem with a "they could have been" but that's not what people are advocating for, they're advocating for "they WOULD have been", which is an entirely different thing all together.

People have said they wish for SE to be more explicit and I concur to some degree, but they should be more explicit about it being vague. That is, Clouds feelings prior to regaining his true self shouldn't be clear, they should be vague, and it should be clear that THAT'S the point. "Yeah, he might have had feelings for Aerith, it might have been one of these other conflicting emotions, we can never know because she died, what we do know is that Tifa is the love of his life."

Aerith is a girl Cloud knows for only a week or two while not being right in his mind, who helps him through a host of issues, and who dies before he ever got a chance to really analyze what she meant to him. What's more she's the true love of his best friend, a person whose characteristics he's been mimicking. Cloud should be confused about what she meant to him and what her death meant. Did he have romantic feelings for her that were genuine? Was she a replacement for his mother helping him work through her death? Was she just a friend? Was she a symbol? It should be explicit that this is vague because she's bits and pieces of all those things and it's only later in AC where Zack and Aerith more explicitly take on the role of metaphorical parents with Cloud being their living legacy that Cloud is really able to give this a more proper place and this becomes more cemented.

But I find this idea that, had Aerith lived, they WOULD have been romantically involved, even though Tifa, the girl he's loved his entire life, is right there, Is just the worst storytelling I have ever heard. It's completely unfair towards Tifas character, who is already overshadowed far too often by a fandom and a developer that seems hell bent on treating Aerith as if she's the offspring of mother Theressa and Jesus. But its also just creepy in a thousand different ways because of Aeriths role of Clouds mother, the light mirroring of Jenova, as well as her being Clouds best friends ex. Dating Zacks ex also is just completely thematically incongruent with the idea that Cloud should stop pretending to be Zack and should accept his true self, which is explicitly linked with his feelings for Tifa.

I just can't overstate how much my love and respect for this story would die if this were to happen.
It just takes a complex and brilliantly written story with many important characters and facets and stupifies it down to a cliche romeo/juliet story where everyone and everything revolves around the main character. Only even worse because this story would simultaneously also try to sell the idea that this MC is NOT some storybook hero around whom the world revolves, even though this regular soldier would apparently also be the true love of every woman involved, who would replace the guy they've been pining over for 5 years after only a week with him, despite not even being right in the head and pretending to be said guy, something you'd think has some bearing on the story and the genuineness of the emotions but in this telling apparently not.

And that's not even getting into how much it ruins Aeriths character by making her time with Cloud no longer about getting to grips with Zacks death, with the past and what she must now do, but about replacing him with the newer and younger model. And poor Tifa, apparently spending one week with Aerith already makes her a competitor in the feelings department opposed to a lifetime of Tifa, clearly if Aerith had lived it WOULD have been, not COULD have been, know your place Tifa.....
Even things like Cloud defeating Sephiroth in Nibelheim loses its lustre, in the current telling of events there isn't really anything special about Cloud that allowed him to do that, it was because of Tifa and the promise, the strength of the concept of them together, that gave Cloud the strength in that moment. It's a poignant scene where two humans, through Clouds feelings for Tifa, prevail over the superhuman evil where ancients and soldiers 1st classes couldn't. It's a moment where the dead can look down on the scene and see the beauty of a point in time shared between two people who are truly special to each other. But with the addition of Aerith as a love interest it just becomes another example of Cloud just being the main character.

It's just all around poison on the entire franchise. So no, I don't think they should make it clear that Cloud and Aerith Would have been a couple had she lived. They can make it clear that Cloud while in his Soldier persona has conflicting feelings, but those feelings should be resolved by having Cloud come to terms with who he really is in the lifestream, and what Tifa means to him, as happened in the original game.

Romantic feelings between Aerith and Cloud should never be more than "yeah, maybe if Cloud didn't love Tifa, and they had had more time, and Cloud wasn't working through the death of his mother, and Aerith wasn't the love of Zack, and Aerith wasn't working through the death of Zack, and Cloud wasn't pretending to be Zack, then maybe there could have been some timeline where they'd have been a thing".

 

[Maidenofwar]

Hmm, I don't agree with a lot, but mainly for me Cloud and Tifa's feelings for each other don't mature until they are adults, post lifestream event. Cloud spent years in a test tube and wasn't his whole self while spending time with everyone not just Aerith. Also I don't think Aerith is Cloud's mother, any more than Tifa is for seeing Cloud as a big kid in the novel.

 

[Stiggie]

Hmm, I don't agree with a lot, but mainly for me Cloud and Tifa's feelings for each other don't mature until they are adults, post lifestream event. Cloud spent years in a test tube and wasn't his whole self while spending time with everyone not just Aerith. Also I don't think Aerith is Cloud's mother, any more than Tifa is for seeing Cloud as a big kid in the novel.

The difference is that Aerith is constantly portrayed as such. From a symbological level, the cetra being the precursors of humanity, the general concept of "mother earth", etc, to the more explicit examples of Cloud and Kadai literally calling Aerith Mother when she's directly represented as the positive counterpart to Jenova, who is of course also referred to as mother by Cloud, Sephiroth, and Kadai. Cloud and Aerith mirroring Sephiroth and Jenova isn't exactly subtle, nor is the relation between Cloud losing his mother (and to a lesser extent father), his search of identity, and the influence that Jenova and Aerith both have as supernatural manifestations of that. I honestly didn't expect I'd have to defend the existence of the "aerith as a mother" plot beat since it's essentially as in your face as the connection between Sephiroths obsession with identifying himself through his past, and him replacing his real parents with the figure of Jenova. The two are directly paralleled to the point where you really can't have one without the other.

Even Tifa calling Cloud a big kid is a reference to this, to the fact that Cloud is essentially a child who is working through these issues, that doesn't make Tifa his mother, just him a kid. It reinforces the theme of Aerith and Zack as parents, being the ones who molded him and died, leaving him as their "living legacy". And we all know that the very theme of "life" was inspired by the death of Sakaguchis mother. And that's not even getting into all the quotes that paint Aerith in this role, or all the other examples of parental issues or "found family" in the story, Barret and Marlene, redXII, avalanche, Sephiroth, Kadai, it's everywhere.
Aeriths death and Clouds reunion with Tifa very much have the air of a mother leaving her son in the care of someone who will, not replace her (that'd be creepy) but do what she can't. Tifa and Cloud together are essentially the next generation who takes the reigns from Aerith and Zack. And then those themes are continued in Cloud and Tifas fostering of the next generation in Marlene and Denzel.

But yeah, this really only exists as long as you accept the traditional "Tifa is Clouds true love" interpretation of the story. It's one of the many facets of the story that is lost if they change Aerith to a genuine explicit love interest. Which is why that change which may seem minute when viewed superficially is exactly the thing that for me differentiates FFVII from being an actual multi-faceted diamond, or a turd in roughly the shape of a diamond, and the thing that differentiates me from seeing FFVII as one of my top 3 or so favorite stories of all time, and me seeing FFVII as the same poorly written generic shlob that I see all the time.

 

[Maidenofwar]

Ehhhh doesn't that make it all kind of creepy though. If Cloud is still a kid working through his issues post FFVII and Tifa sees him that way as a big kid who hasn't really properly grown up yet because reasons, while Tifa herself is mentally older than him.