AncientGrimoire
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Grim
I’ve only seen the ending on YouTube, and haven’t seen it myself in my playthrough to fully appreciate the complete and entire context of it within the whole game (and I won’t for a while lol I’ve just reached Chapter 7 and I’m sitting at around 85 hours of playtime)
But from what I’ve seen, and thought more on after discussing it these past few weeks, is that, the constant bait and switch with Aerith is the worst writing and storytelling choice across the two games. And I’m not talking about the theories beyond whether she actually died or not or any of the multiverse stuff.
It’s the fact that on four (maybe even five) different occasions they lure you into thinking that maybe we’re allowed to actually sit with her death for a minute, but then in the most creepy, unsettling way possible, they have Aerith alive, but then nope she’s covered in blood she’s dead, but then she’s caressing Cloud’s cheek and then she pops up to fight Sephiroth, but then she lifestream fades away, so she’s back to being dead, but nope they make her creepily open her eyes again in full uncanny valley territory now
Then we get to the party at the lake and you think they’ve finally stopped this now, but nope she be chilling with the others at the lake too
And then she’s with everyone at the Tiny Bronco having fun, cheering them on, having a very weird conversation with Cloud before saying goodbye
It’s just an absolute mess
I completely understand what they are going for. I can see what the intent was.
This isn’t Aerith’s moment anymore. It’s Cloud’s. It’s all about his unreliability as a narrator, what is fact to him what is fiction. And they completely ruin any opportunity for the audience themselves to be able to feel anything other than bewilderment about Aerith’s fate here because far too much emphasis is put on Cloud’s perspective, and enhancing the whole multiple realities, tear in the sky nonsense that the rest of the party aren’t even aware of.
And I don’t know whether it’s the animations, the lighting or what but the two times Aerith “wakes up” after seemingly being dead is just pure nightmare fuel. She looks terrifying.
I don’t think that was their intent but that’s the impression it gave. It felt creepy and just wrong. And for them to do it twice. On top of all the other times they choose to pull the rug out from under the audience here.
But from what I’ve seen, and thought more on after discussing it these past few weeks, is that, the constant bait and switch with Aerith is the worst writing and storytelling choice across the two games. And I’m not talking about the theories beyond whether she actually died or not or any of the multiverse stuff.
It’s the fact that on four (maybe even five) different occasions they lure you into thinking that maybe we’re allowed to actually sit with her death for a minute, but then in the most creepy, unsettling way possible, they have Aerith alive, but then nope she’s covered in blood she’s dead, but then she’s caressing Cloud’s cheek and then she pops up to fight Sephiroth, but then she lifestream fades away, so she’s back to being dead, but nope they make her creepily open her eyes again in full uncanny valley territory now
Then we get to the party at the lake and you think they’ve finally stopped this now, but nope she be chilling with the others at the lake too
And then she’s with everyone at the Tiny Bronco having fun, cheering them on, having a very weird conversation with Cloud before saying goodbye
It’s just an absolute mess
I completely understand what they are going for. I can see what the intent was.
This isn’t Aerith’s moment anymore. It’s Cloud’s. It’s all about his unreliability as a narrator, what is fact to him what is fiction. And they completely ruin any opportunity for the audience themselves to be able to feel anything other than bewilderment about Aerith’s fate here because far too much emphasis is put on Cloud’s perspective, and enhancing the whole multiple realities, tear in the sky nonsense that the rest of the party aren’t even aware of.
And I don’t know whether it’s the animations, the lighting or what but the two times Aerith “wakes up” after seemingly being dead is just pure nightmare fuel. She looks terrifying.
I don’t think that was their intent but that’s the impression it gave. It felt creepy and just wrong. And for them to do it twice. On top of all the other times they choose to pull the rug out from under the audience here.