Sorry to bring this back up again but I just saw a take that said “the promise” was a guilt trip by Tifa to Cloud and that’s all it ever was.
Sigh. I think this is the same way I feel about some extreme Clotis too.
The bad faith mischaracterization is just… annoying for both girls.
Yeah extreme Clotis do this too, unfortunately, particularly in mischaracterizing Aerith as being annoying or a bad faith actor in her perceived relentless pursuit of Cloud's affections.
I would say though, perhaps controversially, that while these are the views of only an extremist fringe of CTs, that CA by it's very nature relies on mischaracterizing the characters in possibly the worst way.
One only has to see how close the crew have become in Rebirth, the comradery between the team is definitely that of a close-knit group of "nakama" that has developed seemingly overnight. It's a reason why many struggle to imagine how they'll tie-in Yuffie stealing our materia - also, to a lesser extent, Cait Sith being Cait Sith - because we've seen how close she's become with everyone, as opposed to in OG when she was just, kinda, there. But also because we know she's really just a genuinely good person.
The same holds true for Cloud. He may be in the throes of his SOLDIER fantasy persona - the flames of which stoked by Aerith's offer for him to be her bodyguard - but underneath all that is a genuine, pure and good guy. That much shines through, as the devs have been at pains to show, when he's with Tifa.
Nevertheless, if CA is a thing then Cloud is actually really a pretty selfish person underneath it all. Eschewing the long-held affections of the girl who dedicates herself to healing him, he switches his own affections on a dime to someone he met mere days earlier. Cloud gives in to his most base of desires with her and this is not even halted by the realization that his best friend Zack, who gave his life that he may live, was and is her boyfriend. Indeed, neither is it slowed by
Aerith's death as he refuses to move on and becomes a depressing mess of a man, either actively looking to die or sitting around waiting for it and ignoring the family who love and support him so dearly. Instead of supporting Cloud against this specter of depression, as Advent Children wants us to do, Cleriths outright romanticize it.
So too Aerith supposedly seems content to watch Cloud go through all of the above, perhaps even actively encouraging it. To punctuate this, she uses her Cetra abilities to keep Zack around in the Lifestream as a way to remind him that he sucks and will never get the girl. His punishment, despite having done nothing wrong whatsoever, is an eternity of watching the man he saved stick the middle finger in his direction while being eternally alone and unloved. These are not the characters we have come to love and appreciate since 1997.
It beggars belief that anyone can look at the plot at face value, see where we've come from, and think that when Aerith and Zack inevitably meet in part 3 she's going to reject him. Similarly, that Cloud - who has been shown to be unambiguously romantic with one, and only one, girl - will have a change of heart, after a decade of every ounce of him loving (and let's be honest, thirsting for) Tifa.
Yes, people who ship this ship only see what's in front of them. CA are cute, I like their dynamic, they should be together, the end. That's fine in a vacuum, but nearly 30 years on these characters, all of them, deserve a happy ending.
The devs have said that's what they aim to give them and, honestly, it's simply not possible to do that with CA as the end game.
, it was a response yeah.
