I’ve mentioned this before, but before any Remakes came out I wasn’t that into FFVII at all. I never played the OG. And at the time I thought that Aerith was the “Zelda” to Cloud’s “Link” lol. I only vaguely knew Tifa by name. So I don’t think it’s too far fetched to say by default, a decent amount of people may have been like me. It wasn’t even until I played the Remakes that I realized there was an amazing story underneath and who Tifa really was.
Needless to say that definitely shifted my perspective lol.
Yeah I'm not saying the majority defaulted to thinking Aerith was the main love interest. If it really was that most people agreed on one girl it wouldn't have been much of debate. People were definitely divided. It was pretty chaotic. It's just that nowadays some act like the idea of people seeing Clerith as a thing was so surprising when honestly it really wasn't farfetched people got to that conclusion, especially at the time. I think maybe it's due to looking at it in retrospect not realizing we really had very little information for long periods of time and that did affect how we viewed things.
I think maybe it really does depend on experience for those who have joined the LTD how they respond to it that colors our understanding. In my personal experience has made it so maybe I was fine with either way the story would go so I didn't get too entrenched in just one way of thinking.
I played OG when I was 16. Because of fate and my brother erasing it accidentally I had to play it again all the way to Northern Crater then I got inspired to get every scene in my players guide and played it multiple more times.
I was deep in online fandom in highschool and college but mostly a lurker. I lurked Deviant arts, GeoCities, xangas, and LiveJournals, multiple forums. I just never got involved with LTD myself watching other people talk about it instead because it was interesting. I didn't really understand much back then though.
AC came out when I was in college. I thought it was cool. It made me like Tifa a lot and consider CT as a couple. I used to make AMVs at the time and so I saw this movie like a gajillion times to edit its scenes for my AMVs. Really made me appreciate every frame of that movie lol. It's burned in my memory (I still have my AC x KH AMV and I will always remember how proud I was of the perfect transition I found between Sora finding Kairi unconscious and a cut to Cloud finding Tifa unconscious in AC church. That AMV took me hours. I got really aquainted w AC and learned to love it.)
Crisis Core came out. I played it very upset at first as I said, then I liked it. I didn't really think too much besides I like this Zack guy.
Then in 2010 I joined the Lifestream forums. I learned what the word Ultimania meant but honestly didn't understand why it was so important. I read essays on LTD. I still didn't get involved myself.
At one point between like 2007-2014 I had gotten really into Jpop and Jdramas and tv shows and so I started this phase of following as much Japanese sites and Japanese artists as possible to stay updated. This included following stuff related to my other interests. Most of my CA fanart fix was now through Japanese sites, Twitter etc and so I would see their ideas and stuff.
It was when Remake came out I got the most involved I'd ever been in LTD just by talking about my opinions on my blog. I had been a fan for almost 18 years by that time thus I had a lot to say lol.
But all through this time I only really talked about what I observed. I think all my time basically observing and not really arguing myself for a long time made it so I never really got too attached to any point of view. All throughout I enjoyed reading different perspectives. Even those that didn't align with mine. But a lot of people arguing for canon did get attached, very attached and I can definitely see how those attachments have made it hard to accept any challenge to their opinions.
Thus over 27 years these opinions are solidified as a steel hill no one wants to leave. I can definitely see why.
And yeah in general you basically get what I'm trying to say. I'm not arguing about canon just saying that yes these conclusions people made weren't that farfetched it also depended heavily on their experience did they favour Aerith or Tifa, did they know what an Ultimania was, etc.
Edit:
forgot how old I am for a second lol
Changed bizzare to surprising as it makes more sense