Think of it from a logical perspective. If I was the leader of a massive game company currently remaking one of my most popular titles, would I:
1. Change the protagonists end-game ship, or
2. Portray the end-game ship in a more positive light. (<-----)
I think it's clear which one makes more sense. We can see this in the Remake series. The idea of Remaking FFVII just so that C and A can be together at the end is just such a bizarre expectation. Millions of fans would immediately lose trust in SE. To say nothing of the concrete story details.
This is not a logical perspective.
They're just redoing the OG with new tropes. It's not about pushing CT in a "more positive light" because CT has
always been great, to such an extent even with just the OG they made it to my very short OTP list. But they changed how they storytelled FFVII, and decided to not rely on the surprise of finding the truth but rather make a cohesive story where you can finally understand better everyone's motivations. As I always said, in the OG, the only way to understand why Tifa would choose to stay by Cloud's side in Mideel is to follow the Tifa route, except the game kind of tricks you into following the Aerith route, which makes Tifa's choice rather out of there - and that's without getting into the mistranslation that happens at this point.
So how come after all these years, with everything that SE said to support CT, are we still stuck here, with CT being the most controversial canon FF ship? Well, there are several things that led us to where we are:
1. Translations in the OG:
No matter what, it all starts here with a lot of Tifa or CT lines being mistranslated and giving infamously the bad idea to people. It didn't prevent Tifa from becoming super popular, but it took a while I think in the West, compared to Japan where she took off immediately (proof is they added the train station scene because of this according to the devs... scene that was mistranslated BTW).
2. AC + early CoT:
AC was a botch from the devs; they were young and learning a lot but story-wise and character-wise and writing-wise it was a terrible idea. So bad that they had to make ACC a few years later to dispel bad ideas, but it was too late: a lot of people had seen AC, but weren't aware of ACC because they weren't in fandom. It left their perception shafted. As for OtWtaS, including and especially CoT, those were the first novellas Nojima ever wrote, and it shows. CoT missed by a mile showing CT as a couple, seriously, and even its updated version still is poor, compared to TKaA's ending, where they show up for like, a page.
3. Misperceptions and misconceptions:
That one has been talked about recently by one of the devs, and it's really interesting because I had the same conclusion: a lot of fans did not understand FFVII, its story, characters or themes at all. Some of them played once when young, so of course they weren't able to grasp what the game was telling them. Then you have adults who also only played once more than two decades ago and rely on bad memories. The game surely made an impact, but at what price?
It doesn't help that the game sells the player a sweet honey trap, aka Aerith and CA. It was so strong that it did lead people to believe that Cloud loved her and not Tifa, or that he would be with her if she hadn't died, etc. CA is part of the illusion, and personally until the LS scene, I was thinking we'd get Cloud talking about her past his speech... but no. Many actually missed that Cloud, if in love with Aerith, should've voiced it somehow, but instead he went to Tifa to tell her that only her opinions, which was the breaking of the illusion.
4. CAs:
Of course, but I would say they are mostly "in their role", aka they're the ones who don't/can't let go of the idea of being canon (because that's what we're talking about; I don't care if people ship CA, I care if they pretend it's canon). The problem I have of course is the lies, the mistranslations, the perpetual moving goals that really make me raise an eyebrow.
5. Non-shippers:
Basically, this is probably one of the worst part: they perpetuate two myths:
- Cloud loved both girls
- Cloud would have chosen Aerith had she lived
I already talked about the latter, but the ones who say Cloud loved both girls clearly haven't thought this through, what it truly means for Tifa; if Cloud loved both girls, there would be no need for a Tifa. If he loved both girls, it would be very insulting for Tifa, and I don't think that's the devs' plan.
6. Theorybros:
It is especially annoying because those guys are supposed to understand Tifa's role and to some extent, they DO. But they don't think of her as an heroine at all, Aerith is their favourite and they do not understand the Lifestream scene nor what it truly means. They do get that Tifa is the lover, but to them that's all she is; they can't fathom that her role is what it is, as they try to give it to Aerith at every turn - which shows that Aerith is the only one they consider as the only heroine, and by that, why is it that such an important role isn't tied to her? So they only look at Aerith and ignore Tifa, because the former is the Cetra, the last of her kind, so much wasted potential while the latter is just a normal human. It's sad but it's the truth, and they propagate these kind of ideas through their videos, by saying how Aerith is totally going to be in the LS, her death will be shown there etc. Like dudes, you are just showing me how inept you are at theorycrafting, but a good chunk of the fandom eats their words as if that was the truth.
So a mix of all these things really sent bad signals from SE and the fandom both. Because of Aerith's importance to FFVII, people thought that surely she was the lover and it stayed that way. The fact that SE has dispelled this notion but people still hang onto it though? It's MADNESS. And as Ryu said, it's not on SE anymore, as they have pushed CT as the canon pairing for over 15 years now.
