It's quite a popular opinion these days that the LTD is over. Since Rebirth, publications such as Polygon and Siliconera have weighed in to suggest the debate is no more, it's finished and any further discussion is merely performative. There's some truth in these contentions. From a purely rational stand point it's hard to argue that the devs have not nailed their colors to the mast in unambiguous terms. One girl gets a kiss, the other doesn't. One girl spends the game struggling to understand her feelings for Cloud, and he-her in return, the other enjoys a long standing and inherently romantic mutual attraction that never relents.
We've talked before about the significance of the CT kiss, or that moment when Aerith admits to Cloud that she still loves Zack, as being clear and obvious evidence that the LTD is no more, but today I want to talk about
the moment in Rebirth in which Clerith dies;
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Yeah it's not the kiss, it's not even the confession, it's this. The moment Cloud starts remembering Zack - and that Zack loves Aerith - is the moment that CA ends.
What we see here is only the tip of the iceberg for what comes later, but I find it quite remarkable that the devs decided to start the process early. Indeed, it should come as no significance that in the game in which Aerith continues to struggle with her inability to make Cloud the Zack she's yearned for for 5 years, that Cloud himself should start to see a little bit behind the scenes.
He remembers they are friends. He remembers they fought together, albeit he still cannot quite shake off the SOLDIER fantasy. Most pivotally, he remembers that
Zack loves Aerith. This fact is reinforced by the scene that Cloud remembers - vis, Zack talking endlessly about Aerith "whether Cloud wants to hear or not."
This is so significant precisely because it happens now, while Aerith is still alive. So often since 1997, CA has been presented as a relationship of "what could have been" but here, unambiguously, the devs have decided to close off that avenue of contemplation. There was minimal, if any, reciprocation by Cloud towards Aerith's advances
before but after this scene it is hard to see his actions towards her as anything more than strictly, though lovingly, platonic. Every detail, large and small, even the Gold Saucer date is viewed by Cloud through the lens of his patchwork memories of Zack and how important Aerith is to him.
It's not, again this must be emphasized, a matter of "owning" or denial of one character's freedom to move on. The fact is that the narrative would not put this massive barricade in the way if Clerith was meant to be. Zack did not need to be remembered here. Indeed, Cloti didn't need it's kiss and Zerith it's confession either. One can argue these things are fanservice, but even if that holds weight (and I don't believe it does) then it doesn't change that
this is the canon and a reflection of the direction the plot has taken and yet intends to take.
Cloud is honorable, underneath it all. The chances of him understanding how much Aerith meant to Zack and yet deciding to nevertheless pursue a relationship with her, never mind the harm such a relationship would deal to everyone else, is zero. It's narratively unthinkable, a character assassination that simply would not happen in the genre and certainly not in a labor of love like the Remake trilogy.
Now imagine further, when Cloud finally remembers that Zack saved his life and was killed as his reward. The DMW slowly breaking, Zack's final thought is Aerith. He tried to get back to Midgar, literally the lion's den, to be with her - and he would have succeeded were it not for saving Cloud. To suggest Cloud would spit on Zack's grave in such a manner is insulting. Aerith never knew how desperate Zack was to get back to her, but Cloud comes to know and even here, in Rebirth, learns just how much she meant to him.
At this stage they were friends, comrades in arms, brothers. That's already enough. Cloud is many things but not one to stab a friend in the back, no, not even if that friend is gone. He counts them all as precious, he holds them all deeply in his heart. Cleriths cannot handwave this scene away without fundamentally changing who Cloud is and making him out to be a monster. Mercifully that's not who the devs had in mind and we see that, though Cloud does humor Aerith to a degree - including on her Sector 5 recreated "dream date" - it ultimately never goes anywhere. This is not who Cloud is and Aerith's arc is her discovering it's not who she is either.
