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

[ForceStealer]

I'm not sure the Italian version is relevant to the original intent of the scene. SE seems to be quite irresponsible with their dubbing and localization.

Or it's simply that Japanese is often less specific with this sort of thing than other languages are so it leaves it up to some interpretation on the part of the localization team. I haven't seen the Japanese line but I'm sure it's very likely that it leaves out the subject entirely, so whether she's implying "we" or "you" is up to context.

All these allusions of possible prior knowledge and I'm just really amused with this image in my head of Aerith (and Sephiroth) actually and physically reading the OG script lmao.

 

[a_apple 2.0]

Something I also wanted to bring up was that this Cloud has already experienced a sense of loss when it comes to Aerith, Sector 6 scenario (it's not Zack because in story recap it says "Cloud's heart skips a beat"), as well as what Nojima said in the Ultimania, about if you know what happens to Aerith later in the story the c14 stuff would make sense immediately.

To me that interview hints much more to the fact that Aerith is talking about Clouds feelings, well not being real.

"Especially during the resolution scene in Chapter 14 where she says “But whatever happens, you can't fall in love with me. Even if you think you have... It's not real.” Those who are familiar with the original will understand the weight behind her words."

https://game8.co/games/Final-Fantasy-VII-Remake/archives/286914

But even without it, like I already mentioned the idea that Aerith suddenly makes something like that up to make Cloud distrust his own feelings, while he is in such a delicate state doesn't fit with anything we know of her. Also why would she even say that? Where does that idea come from?

 

[MasterMoogle]

Or it's simply that Japanese is often less specific with this sort of thing than other languages are so it leaves it up to some interpretation on the part of the localization team. I haven't seen the Japanese line but I'm sure it's very likely that it leaves out the subject entirely, so whether she's implying "we" or "you" is up to context.

But it's not just the subject. The entire meaning of the phrase has been changed. Considering Cloud's response, it probably wasn't we.

Cloud: "That's awfully one-sided."

Whatever the intent, I think it's objectively a horrible line to have included, as evidenced by all the confusion surrounding it. Not only that, but it seems to completely disregard the nature of the relationship between Cloud and Aerith in order to almost break the fourth wall. In this game, they just met, making the line even more nonsensical.

 

[eleamaya]

This is Clerith 'til the dream scene/gold saucer date:

Til her last breath, the one Aerith wants to move on and love (Real Cloud) is a different person from the one she keep falling in love with (Zack, and Cloud who took memory from & mimic persona of Zack). Tho' both are described as her Koibito (CC Complete Guide & OTWTAS: COLW)

 

[Eerie]

Looking at the French one, Aerith says "even if you believe it, it's an illusion", which is a little, ouch XD Isn't it awesome, now that the game is translated directly into several languages that we can argue in EVERY ONE OF THEM?

 

[Maidenofwar]

I was thinking of Nojima " (3) But if you know what happens to Aerith later in the story, you will understand what she means immediately" The previous part is from the interviewer I think.

Anyway now is probably a good time to say quite satisfied here and to bring up that CxA had not one, not two, but three (that's known so far) that was confirmed as done with romance/relationship developing/etc in mind

 

[a_apple 2.0]

But it's not just the subject. The entire meaning of the phrase has been changed. Considering Cloud's response, it probably wasn't we.

Cloud: "That's awfully one-sided."

Whatever the intent, I think it's objectively a horrible line to have included, as evidenced by all the confusion surrounding it. Not only that, but it seems to completely disregard the nature of the relationship between Cloud and Aerith in order to almost break the fourth wall. They were never that serious in the original game to begin with. Cloud never alluded to being in love with Aerith in the original. In this game, they just met, making the line even more nonsensical.

I think Cloud tried it to play it cool in that scene, but the entire situation was overwhelming him. He could clearly see and feel that Aerith was in pain and that she needs help, but I don't think Cloud is in love with any of the girls at that point of the game.
I mean when he talks to the mayor and he asks why Cloud and the others came to Shinra HQ he says because of a friend, I think if chapter 14 was actually suppose to show that Cloud declared his love to Aerith than the scene would be different framed. Same when Cloud and Aerith meet again, that's definitely not two separate lovers who finally see each other again.

 

[a_apple 2.0]

I was thinking of Nojima " (3) But if you know what happens to Aerith later in the story, you will understand what she means immediately" The previous part is from the interviewer I think.

Huh, I only found this
"Nojima: Honestly I got a lot of pushback for putting that line in. Apparently some of the staff thought she might seem like she's looking down on Cloud. If we work under the assumption that Aerith knows the future then it's a powerful line, but if not then the meaning changes completely. I thought the contrast there was pretty interesting. "

(sorry for the double post)

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Or it's simply that Japanese is often less specific with this sort of thing than other languages are so it leaves it up to some interpretation on the part of the localization team. I haven't seen the Japanese line but I'm sure it's very likely that it leaves out the subject entirely, so whether she's implying "we" or "you" is up to context.

Here's the Japanese line to satisfy your curiosity/further confuse you: でもね好きにならないで

To me, it seems fairly clear that it's about him in particular, especially with the follow-up (もしそうなっても 気のせいだよ; "Even if you do, it's only your imagination").

Whatever the intent, I think it's objectively a horrible line to have included, as evidenced by all the confusion surrounding it. Not only that, but it seems to completely disregard the nature of the relationship between Cloud and Aerith in order to almost break the fourth wall. They were never that serious in the original game to begin with. Cloud never alluded to being in love with Aerith in the original. In this game, they just met, making the line even more nonsensical.

It's only nonsensical if it isn't accurate.

 

[Eerie]

but I don't think Cloud is in love with any of the girls at that point of the game.

I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. The current persona of Cloud isn't in love with any of the girls yet, but I think that the real Cloud that we do see surface when Tifa is around is very much still lovestruck with her. That's why he tries to play it cool by giving her the flower (she didn't ask for it, she asked where he got it), or when he complimented her... Later, he's distraught when he realises that Tifa was in a pinch (her dialogue at the bar and him remembering the promise), or when she cried when Jessie died, or even in her ch14 scene. He's mostly a 16 years old boy trying to do his damn best to learn through experience.

It's the same with Aerith, he gets to learn a god damn lot around her too, but with Aerith his true persona doesn't really get out, it's more his idea of a hero that shines up. He still learns though. Materwelonz noted that Cloud didn't talk much and had bad social skills very early in the game, and I think Aerith manages to break out that a little.

 

[Strangelove]

I got curious about the Italian translation since people mentioned it, and apparently Aerith doesn't say "You can't fall in love with me", but "We can't fall in love (with each other). It'd be pointless". The dialogues are generally much more synthetic and condensed, too, probably because it's just subtitles.

this made me curious about the spanish translation so i went to find out a video of that (i still haven't unlocked this scene myself but i've heard about this line already it's. fine. )

Pero... pase lo que pase, no te enamores de mí.
Aunque te sientas enamorado, no es real.

my spanish isn't great and i usually have to run into my old spanish teacher every couple of years to shame me into working on it more (last saw her in february as she was walking out of a screening of parasite, but i had also seen parasite the previous week and decided i should learn korean instead). so i shouldn't comment

but i will

it looks to me like it's saying 'but whatever happens, don't fall in love me. although you feel in love, it's not real'? idk if i'm missing any nuances there


also the japanese one since that was mentioned

でも…　でもね　好きにならないで
もしそうなっても　気のせいだよ

edit; tres don't take advantage of me taking ages to post to ninja me like that, it's very rude

 

[Final_Heaven]

Huh, I only found this
"Nojima: Honestly I got a lot of pushback for putting that line in. Apparently some of the staff thought she might seem like she's looking down on Cloud. If we work under the assumption that Aerith knows the future then it's a powerful line, but if not then the meaning changes completely. I thought the contrast there was pretty interesting. "

(sorry for the double post)

I was thinking of Nojima " (3) But if you know what happens to Aerith later in the story, you will understand what she means immediately" The previous part is from the interviewer I think.

Anyway now is probably a good time to say quite satisfied here and to bring up that CxA had not one, not two, but three (that's known so far) that was confirmed as done with romance/relationship developing/etc in mind

Yeah, I'm wondering which of those quotes are more correctly translated.

For the record, I looked at where apple got that translated line and they were more accurate by saying Cloud acts more like himself with Tifa.

@maiden Don't worry, I don't think that anyone is arguing that Cloud and Aerith don't have romantic development. She and Tifa are the canonical love interests in the OG after all.

this made me curious about the spanish translation so i went to find out a video of that (i still haven't unlocked this scene myself but i've heard about this line already it's. fine. )


my spanish isn't great and i usually have to run into my old spanish teacher every couple of years to shame me into working on it more (last saw her in february as she was walking out of a screening of parasite, but i had also seen parasite the previous week and decided i should learn korean instead). so i shouldn't comment

but i will

it looks to me like it's saying 'but whatever happens, don't fall in love me. although you feel in love, it's not real'? idk if i'm missing any nuances there


also the japanese one since that was mentioned

でも…　でもね　好きにならないで
もしそうなっても　気のせいだよ

edit; tres don't take advantage of me taking ages to post to ninja me like that, it's very rude

I know Spanish. She's pretty much saying the exact same thing as she said in English.

Spanish translated to English: "Whatever happens , don't fall in fall in love with me. Even if you feel that way, it's not real."

 

[MasterMoogle]

this made me curious about the spanish translation so i went to find out a video of that (i still haven't unlocked this scene myself but i've heard about this line already it's. fine. )


my spanish isn't great and i usually have to run into my old spanish teacher every couple of years to shame me into working on it more (last saw her in february as she was walking out of a screening of parasite, but i had also seen parasite the previous week and decided i should learn korean instead). so i shouldn't comment

but i will

it looks to me like it's saying 'but whatever happens, don't fall in love me. although you feel in love, it's not real'? idk if i'm missing any nuances there


also the japanese one since that was mentioned

でも…　でもね　好きにならないで
もしそうなっても　気のせいだよ

edit; tres don't take advantage of me taking ages to post to ninja me like that, it's very rude

Regarding the spanish text, it's definitely referring only to Cloud.

 

[Yumelinh]

Well, I don't know what to say. In my mind it only makes sense the other way around. XD It can only be somehow "pointless" if it isn't real, but it can't be pointless if it is real.

It would be 'pointless' regardless of if it's real or not because she dies/won't be around to reciprocate those feelings. So, if the idea was to allure at her death ( as a way of protecting his feelings), "pointless" would be more fitting, imo. Using "It's not real/your imagination!" goes to a completely other direction that allures much less about her future death and more about Cloud's state of mind.

Tbh, this particular quote is so vague! It could be more what you said, it could be more what I said... or It could also be Aerith using Cloud's feelings as a way to speak to the audience as a warning?! who knows?? D:

I know Spanish. She's pretty much saying the exact same thing as she said in English.

In Portuguese, too. Both seem to be just a straight translation from the English lines. So, not of much help in this discussion :/

 

[looneymoon]

Tbh, this particular quote is so vague! It could be more what you said, it could be more what I said... or It could also be Aerith using Cloud's feelings as a way to speak to the audience as a warning?! who knows?? D:

tbh I think this take really hits the nail on the head.

Even before the remake was released, I would've bet good money that Square would do some sort of fake-out Aerith doesn't die-but actually she does type of thing. I didn't expect them to do that with... literally everyone who dies in the game, but that makes me more certain that this will happen. Everyone will die as they are intended to.

The subtext is that she's looking directly at the player, breaking the fourth wall in order to say "Don't believe Ondore's Sephiroth's lies!"

That's the message, and I think it was conveyed appropriately. Don't get too attached to the idea that Aerith can live, and Cloud can have a happy ending with her. That's not on the table and never has been.

 

[Eerie]

Ahah you know, I was remembering reading this here way b efore the release "for older players, I believe that they'll find a way to make us believe that we can save Aerith just to stomp on our hearts again" and damn, it's so fitting lol, since the release everyone is like "Aerith will live! Tifa will die instead!" and I'm like ha, everyone's falling for the trap lol.

 

[Graymouse]

A curious question came to mind after reading through the last couple of pages.What do "we", as in here on this forum, consider the canon language?

Edited to add: In my opinion it would be Japanese. The reason is that the script and storyboard orginally came from Japaneae writters.

 

[Eerie]

We all have headcanons I believe. And we all pray St Ultimanias too

 

[Final_Heaven]

It would be 'pointless' regardless of if it's real or not because she dies/won't be around to reciprocate those feelings. So, if the idea was to allure at her death ( as a way of protecting his feelings), "pointless" would be more fitting, imo. Using "It's not real/your imagination!" goes to a completely other direction that allures much less about her future death and more about Cloud's state of mind.

Tbh, this particular quote is so vague! It could be more what you said, it could be more what I said... or It could also be Aerith using Cloud's feelings as a way to speak to the audience as a warning?! who knows?? D:



In Portuguese, too. Both seem to be just a straight translation from the English lines. So, not of much help in this discussion :/

I mean...we have the Japanese. We know that it's meant to be "It's all in your head/imagination" and every other language translates it similarly besides Italian.

In Mandarin, Aerith says "it's an illusion".

I'm guessing the Italian localization didn't get that Cloud has identity issues and thought it was all about her death so they localized it that way so they changed the meaning of the sentence without realizing it.

A curious question came to mind after reading through the last couple of pages. What do "we", as in here on this forum, consider the canon language?

Japanese.

 

[Graymouse]

I mean...we have the Japanese. We know that it's meant to be "It's all in your head/imagination" and every other language translates it similarly besides Italian.

In Mandarin, Aerith says "it's an illusion".

I'm guessing the Italian localization didn't get that Cloud has identity issues and thought it was all about her death so they localized it that way so they changed the meaning of the sentence without realizing it.



Japanese.

If that is the case then why is this CH14 scene even being discussed. The answer is obvious

 

[Ⓐaron]

Pero... pase lo que pase, no te enamores de mí.
Aunque te sientas enamorado, no es real.

my spanish isn't great and i usually have to run into my old spanish teacher every couple of years to shame me into working on it more (last saw her in february as she was walking out of a screening of parasite, but i had also seen parasite the previous week and decided i should learn korean instead). so i shouldn't comment

but i will

it looks to me like it's saying 'but whatever happens, don't fall in love me. although you feel in love, it's not real'? idk if i'm missing any nuances there

My Spanish is fairly rusty as well, but I think you got it pretty close. I’d go with:

“But… but whatever happens, don’t fall in love with me. Although you feel enamoured, it’s not real.”

So some pretty minimal changes. (I try to use cognates wherever possible when translating, unless it feels awkward or inaccurate to do so, but that’s just a stylistic choice on my part – “feel in love” is fine. I could’ve even used “don’t be enamoured with me”, but that just didn’t feel as accurate to the sentiment it expressed. However, the version I went with misses some beautiful parallelism in the Spanish version, which is one of the dilemmas one encounters when translating. Maybe I should’ve gone with “Although you feel like you’re in love, it’s not real” for the second sentence.)

A curious question came to mind after reading through the last couple of pages.What do "we", as in here on this forum, consider the canon language?

Edited to add: In my opinion it would be Japanese. The reason is that the script and storyboard orginally came from Japaneae writters.

It’s Japanese, yeah. It’s the language the game was originally written in, so that’s the most accurate reflection of authorial intent. To me, this is like asking “what’s the canon language for The Brothers Karamazov?” To which the answer is obviously Russian. The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, for example, may be a literary masterpiece in its own right, but it’s not a canonical representation of Dostoevsky’s literary intentions. Only the Russian text qualifies as such. And for Final Fantasy VII*, it’s the same with the Japanese text.

*Not that I’d quite put FFVII on the same literary level shelf as Dostoevsky. Don’t get me wrong: it’s good, but I wouldn’t put it quite at the level of Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Pynchon, or Fitzgerald, or probably even at the level of Vonnegut, Le Guin, or Pratchett, to name some of the best “genre” novelists of the last 60 years. Final Fantasy games such as VI and VII have had top-tier video game writing, but I don’t think video games have quite reached the pinnacle of literary excellence that novels have… yet, though they may be getting at least close to matching the standards of graphic novels like Watchmen or The Sandman. Also, oddly enough, some of the best game writing I’ve seen has been in free third-party game mods.

 

[odekopeko]

Well, she is a big girl. A girl with a big heart, I mean.

And that's a wonderful...asset to have ngl.

tbh I think this take really hits the nail on the head.

Even before the remake was released, I would've bet good money that Square would do some sort of fake-out Aerith doesn't die-but actually she does type of thing. I didn't expect them to do that with... literally everyone who dies in the game, but that makes me more certain that this will happen. Everyone will die as they are intended to.

The subtext is that she's looking directly at the player, breaking the fourth wall in order to say "Don't believe Ondore's Sephiroth's lies!"

That's the message, and I think it was conveyed appropriately. Don't get too attached to the idea that Aerith can live, and Cloud can have a happy ending with her. That's not on the table and never has been.

Aw shit. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach reading this. I thought I was the only one who felt like she was looking straight at ME when she said that. I'm already so attached to her character.

 

[looneymoon]

*Not that I’d quite put FFVII on the same literary level shelf as Dostoevsky. Don’t get me wrong: it’s good, but I wouldn’t put it quite at the level of Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Pynchon, or Fitzgerald, or probably even at the level of Vonnegut, Le Guin, or Pratchett, to name some of the best “genre” novelists of the last 60 years. Final Fantasy games such as VI and VII have had top-tier video game writing, but I don’t think video games have quite reached the pinnacle of literary excellence that novels have… yet, though they may be getting at least close to matching the standards of graphic novels like Watchmen or The Sandman. Also, oddly enough, some of the best game writing I’ve seen has been in free third-party game mods.

Spoiler

Super off topic, but I am curious about whether or not you've played The Last of Us and how that holds up in comparison to something like Cormac McCarthey's The Road ?

 

[Ⓐaron]

In case anyone is interested in my response, I’ll make it in a profile comment because yeah, don’t want to drag this even more off-topic and get yelled at lol.

ETA: response here

 

[Strangelove]

i remember the topic (or a similar one) coming up at some point in the Dark Times, The Before Times, about what language(s) has a precedent over others in terms of what you base your interpretation on, particularly for an audience whose main exposure to something has been derivatives like localised/translated version.

it feels a bit snobbish and elitist to be like 'only 100+ iq chads weeaboos can truly understand this game' but in a sense, kinda? i think even in cases where the original author work closely with translators, there's going to be some things that have to be altered from the source language because that's just a thing that happens. they presumably wrote the thing in their native language no matter how involved they were in translating it, that's what everything is based on. it doesn't necessarily mean that you will miss out on big major elements of plot or whatever, but i think there'd be differences in how you can interpret dialogue or such in ways that might not in a translation.

so ultimately, to get closer to the original intent without going through filters you would go to the original language.

but this makes it a limiting conversation since it requires a skill that (unless you were raised bilingual) requires effort and time to acquire, and it might suck to hear that you can't take an active part in some discussion because you don't know the original language. how are you meant to reply to someone dismissing your reading of something you have strong feelings about, because the original language says something different but you don't speak it so you won't get it? and this is the internet, where everyone must have a take on everything, so it's no fun to be gated out from a topic.

but it's just a game. not being able to analyse it in the most pure form isn't a character flaw, it's just a thing that at the end of the day doesn't matter.


my brain peaced out like half way through writing that and i don't know what my point was anymore. i think i'm disassociating and just floating away from my body now so i am going to stop here.