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

[a_apple 2.0]

I found the video, I got what you are saying. My first time around, I didn't see it as a shippy moment, but I can see how it could be. I mainly saw it as Cloud checking on everyone that was in the truck and Aerith answering him. Also, and the reason I say this is because right after Red XIII ask if Cloud is alright. So, I could assume when Cloud asked it wasn't specially to Aerith but mostly to the group that was in the truck. Especailly after the Whispers "saved" them from dying back there.

Edited to fix the timing on the video.
PSS: Edited to add some more thoughts.

What does he say in the JP version?

 

[Eerie]

I honestly feel that it would be an arse move from CLoud to chek only on Aerith, you know? I don't know, I don't really like to think so low about Cloud personally - he's still one of my favourites in this game.

 

[RhinoKart]

I found the video, I got what you are saying. My first time around, I didn't see it as a shippy moment, but I can see how it could be. I mainly saw it as Cloud checking on everyone that was in the truck and Aerith answering him. Also, and the reason I say this is because right after Red XIII ask if Cloud is alright. So, I could assume when Cloud asked it wasn't specially to Aerith but mostly to the group that was in the truck. Especailly after the Whispers "saved" them from dying back there.

Edited to fix the timing on the video.
PSS: Edited to add some more thoughts.

I mean I also don't really think it is shippy and totally agree with you but I guess I feel kind of compelled to point things out because I also know I'm one of the people who annoyingly goes "BUT HE LOOKED AT TIFA FIRST" as ship moments. And I will continue to do that in my head (and the fan club lol) but am trying hard not to do it here.

Also thank you for finding the video, I knew I should have but was being super lazy.

 

[Yumelinh]

2) Generally not a good idea to bring up personal anecdotes during a debate. It invites drama. I'll simply respond with Cloud's guilt does not equate to love. Although it wouldn't surprise me if Cloud and/or the audience confuses his guilt for romantic love. It never occurs to people, but it can actually be the "lack of closure" which is generating the emotions, not the actual memories of the person. That's not a comment on your anecdote.

At what timeline are you referring here when speaking about Cloud's guilt? OG timeline or Post-OG timeline?

Cloud's feelings for Aerith have only been referring to as 'guilty' by the devs/ultimanias in the post-OG timeline (as far as I'm aware), so we only know were his feelings for Aerith stand Post-OG. They never specify Cloud's feelings for Aerith in OG, hence why it's up to player's interpretation and can be interpreted as romantic ( since there's evidence to be interpreted as such).

To claim that Cloud is "wavering" between two women is to imply that Cloud is actively pursuing these women. He's not. Cloud is never shown making use of his agency to that degree in the original game. The player is given the illusion of choice based on who he's nicer to, and then the player is stripped of that illusion when Aerith dies. At no point does Cloud "waver" or behave as if he's torn between two women. That's not how the mechanics or story of the original ff7 are setup.

He was simply saying there's a love triangle. Why sometimes we act like there's no such a thing in media as love-triangles and it's something that has only ever happened in FFVII? The boy/girl wavers between two love interests. That's how love triangles work.

 

[Graymouse]

What does he say in the JP version?

大丈夫です?

Spoiler

だいじょうぶですか Are you alright?

 

[Master Bates]

Isn’t it great we can do this nitpicking now because these polygons now have actual facial expressions and audible dialogue?

I will forever love the OG polygons.

 

[Eerie]

I mean I also don't really think it is shippy and totally agree with you but I guess I feel kind of compelled to point things out because I also know I'm one of the people who annoyingly goes "BUT HE LOOKED AT TIFA FIRST" as ship moments. And I will continue to do that in my head (and the fan club lol) but am trying hard not to do it here.

I honestly don't think that the devs went as far as this for LTD purposes, they thoughts about the little scenes, but honestly, normal interactions seem far off to me, even as cloti :')

 

[MasterMoogle]

Isn’t it great we can do this nitpicking now because these polygons now have actual facial expressions and audible dialogue?

In other news, I think we’re gonna be in for some Zack/Aerith stuff in future installments given Zack’s “return.”

Thank god, because that's the only way to spare Aerith from this oh so romantic "love" triangle.

 

[a_apple 2.0]

大丈夫です?

Spoiler

だいじょうぶですか Are you alright?

So which one is it?

 

[minami758]

So which one is it?

If this is a joke I'm sorry for taking it seriously, lol. It's the same phrase, just one is in kanji and the other is hiragana.

 

[RhinoKart]

I honestly don't think that the devs went as far as this for LTD purposes, they thoughts about the little scecnes, but honestly, normal interactions seem far off to me, even as cloti :')

Yep, which is why I don't post that stuff in the LTD thread lol, cause I know that it probably isn't relevant and that I'm just annoyingly being a shipper/fan girl. But I've got my headcanons and they probably won't change. I'll just keep them contained to the appropriate places.

 

[Graymouse]

So which one is it?

Yeah, I was being a bit tongue in cheek here. They both mean the same. One is in Kanji and the other is in Hiragana.
(since the resident shitposter isn't with us right now) @Cat on Mars I thought I fill in for a bit.

 

[MasterMoogle]

At what timeline are you referring here when speaking about Cloud's guilt? OG timeline or Post-OG timeline?

Cloud's feelings for Aerith have only been referring to as 'guilty' by the devs/ultimanias in the post-OG timeline (as far as I'm aware), so we only know were his feelings for Aerith stand Post-OG. They never specify Cloud's feelings for Aerith in OG, hence why it's up to player's interpretation and can be interpreted as romantic ( since there's evidence to be interpreted as such).

It's the same timeline, isn't it? AC is canon to the original, as far as I know.

He was simply saying there's a love triangle. Why sometimes we act like there's no such a thing in media as love-triangles and it's something that has only ever happened in FFVII? The boy/girl wavers between two love interests. That's how love triangles work.

Please refer to my exchange with @Cat on Mars. The wavering isn't on Cloud's part. It's on the part of the player. Apparently, this mechanic is meant to show how Cloud isn't himself, and that the real Cloud is being subjugated by the player's choices.

 

[Maidenofwar]

I honestly feel that it would be an arse move from CLoud to chek only on Aerith, you know? I don't know, I don't really like to think so low about Cloud personally - he's still one of my favourites in this game.

Nah, because at the end of the highway chase he speeds and zooms up to pull himself and the bike up in front of the truck to protect BOTH of the ladies from the sudden Sephiroth!

 

[Graymouse]

Nah, because at the end of the highway chase he speeds and zooms up to pull himself and the bike up in front of the truck to protect BOTH of the ladies from the sudden Sephiroth!

Hey! Barret and Red XIII are in the truck also you know.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Is it operating in good faith to ignore the majority of someone's argument?

It isn't, so you should stop.

As a rule of thumb I tend to ignore anecdotes in debates because they tend to lead to expressions of righteous indignation and drama. Again, not about you. Just personal experience.

The basis of your implication was literally assertion of mass anecdote. =|

Trying to attach ulterior motives to me is not operating in good faith either.

Dude, you deflected the critique of your writ-large three-weeks comment by jumping behind that "It's generally not a good idea to bring up personal anecdotes during a debate" nonsense. Again, it was plain for all to see that you were speaking to a general assertion of how people are in real life.

So when was Cloud ever her "boyfriend/lover"? Because that is what the word means.

That is the colloquial use of the word. What it means is the recipient of another's romantic affection -- thus why I referenced it in response to your erroneous claim that "There really aren't any quotes(canonically) that make Aerith's feelings for Cloud seem like more than confusion mixed with attraction."

Cloud never agreed to Jessie's pizza either, but he still mentioned it during her death scene as if he agreed to it. Same situation with Aerith and being her bodyguard. Aerith's assertiveness dominated in that situation. He went along with it, and allowed her to dictate the nature of their partnership. Call it "implied consent" if you want, but no deal was struck.

If Cloud had shown up the next evening and eaten Jessie's pizza (that one too), any reasonable person would say he agreed to it. Along similar lines, in the case with Aerith, Cloud actually did the thing that Aerith asked of him (being a bodyguard).

I am being intellectually honest. Sometimes I'm not responding to you specifically. You were quoting Kitase rhetorically, and so I am responding to Kitase's quote. Sorry to say, but Kitase is wrong.

If you want to discuss the matter from a literary analysis angle based solely on the content of the original game, there's a thread for that. Please stop derailing this one with easily refuted falsehoods and plain pigheadedness.

After going back to some scenes in the original, I'll also mention Aerith's death is also meant to help Cloud reconnect with his emotions and realize he's not just a "puppet" as Seph calls him.

As for guilt:

"I'm sorry I didn't understand what you were trying to do, but I'll finish what you started" is not the "I let you die. And I deserve to die too. But I hope you'll forgive me before I do" thing we see from him in AC(C). No reasonable interpretation of Cloud's association with Aerith in the original game would be that it's all focused around guilt on the basis of that scene. =|

 

[Graymouse]

Something I'm curious about, what does Aerith's line "follow the yellow flowers" mean? She said this in relation to mentioning how everytime the Whispers touch her, she loses a piece of herself, if that helps.

I don't know why but when Aerith said that I immediately thought of the Wizard of Oz and "Follow the yellowbrick road" I would like to know this as well.

 

[odekopeko]

I honestly feel that it would be an arse move from CLoud to chek only on Aerith, you know? I don't know, I don't really like to think so low about Cloud personally - he's still one of my favourites in this game.

I remember this happens in the Train Graveyard chapter too. He does the "You good?" to Aerith cause she gets up first. Later, he asks Tifa if she's okay, and I recall him throwing his body over her to protect her. Or the hand reach thing, he's done with Tifa when the Whispers bound her, and then again with Aerith when the ghosts whisk her away.

I just think he does this with whichever girl is in the nearest line of sight, or his body just automatically responds. I don't think it's deep or indicative of his feelings for any of the girls, just his desire to protect them both.

 

[Eerie]

Yes, Cloud does have a hero complex (thanks to Tifa... lol). That's why I don't give too much credence to those scenes, even if I think that they are nice and shippy, because those you mentioned have been thought out by the devs like that (they literally answer each other, so it's totally done on purpose). It's ok to consider them shippy I mean, they are, but to me that's not the deep root of my own ship.

 

[MasterMoogle]

It isn't, so you should stop.

Not owning up to your actions is also not arguing in good faith. You did it again, and I'll address that at the bottom of this post.

The basis of your implication was literally assertion of mass anecdote. =|

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here.

Dude, you deflected the critique of your writ-large three-weeks comment by jumping behind that "It's generally not a good idea to bring up personal anecdotes during a debate" nonsense. Again, it was plain for all to see that you were speaking to a general assertion of how people are in real life.

No, I didn't. That's just you attributing ulterior motives to me. If you had read the rest of my argument, you'd notice that I added to my original comment ("three weeks") by asserting that guilt is not the same as love, and that a "lack of closure" can actually make people believe that what they felt for a person was love. And yes, that's making the whole "real world" argument.

That is the colloquial use of the word. What it means is the recipient of another's romantic affection -- thus why I referenced it in response to your erroneous claim that "There really aren't any quotes(canonically) that make Aerith's feelings for Cloud seem like more than confusion mixed with attraction."

Fair enough. I don't speak japanese. Though I'd argue even that is a deluded interpretation of their relationship.

If Cloud had shown up the next evening and eaten Jessie's pizza (that one too), any reasonable person would say he agreed to it. Along similar lines, in the case with Aerith, Cloud actually did the thing that Aerith asked of him (being a bodyguard).

No, he just let her frame the nature of their partnership while he just tagged along as they made their escape back to Sector 5. If you can point me to a specific quote where he agreed to be her bodyguard in exchange for a date, I'd love to hear it.

If you want to discuss the matter from a literary analysis angle based solely on the content of the original game, there's a thread for that. Please stop derailing this one with easily refuted falsehoods and plain pigheadedness.

You were the one who quoted Kitase, who was talking about the original, if I recall. Neither you, nor I are the only ones guilty of bringing up the original, or the compilation, or external material.

Maybe we should go back to talking about Tifa's panties if we want to get this thread back on track?

"I'm sorry I didn't understand what you were trying to do, but I'll finish what you started" is not the "I let you die. And I deserve to die too. But I hope you'll forgive me before I do" thing we see from him in AC(C). No reasonable interpretation of Cloud's association with Aerith in the original game would be that it's all focused around guilt on the basis of that scene. =|

As far as I know, AC is still canon(correct me if I'm wrong). You can't just write it off because it came out a decade later. Oh, and you're again ignoring the entirety of my post. To quote myself:

"After going back to some scenes in the original, I'll also mention Aerith's death is also meant to help Cloud reconnect with his emotions and realize he's not just a "puppet" as Seph calls him. "

If you no longer want to have this debate under the pretense that it's off-topic, that's fine by me.

 

[Yumelinh]

It's the same timeline, isn't it? AC is canon to the original, as far as I know.

They are! Timeline wasn't the right word to be used there, but I simply couldn't find a better one. I was simply stating that Cloud's feelings for Aerith have only be referred to as guilty post-OG. In OG, they remain up to the player's interpretation and there's enough evidence to be considered romantic.

Please refer to my exchange with @Cat on Mars. The wavering isn't on Cloud's part. It's on the part of the player. Apparently, this mechanic is meant to show how Cloud isn't himself, and that the real Cloud is being subjugated by the player's choices.

I get your point here, but if we start to nitpicking things like this there will be no end to it. For example, we know for a fact that, storywise, the HA Highwind version is canon but due to game mechanics we have two variants of it, so if we start to diminish things because they served a propose ( either "game" wise or plot-wise) then a lot of things will be caught in this as well.

Also, we can entirely diminish Cloud's feelings when he wasn't truly himself either because Aerith wasn't the only person he interacts at the time, so a lot of people would be caught up in this whirlwind as well such as the Avalanche trio, the rest of the party and even Tifa.

Like, I agree with a lot of things you say here and there. I do get the point you trying to make. It's your refusal to accept that there are romantic undertones in many of Cloud and Aerith interactions that really throw me off most of the time. You don't need to see it as love per se if you don't want to (we extensively discuss it here bf about how people perceive feelings in different ways), but there was a mutual attraction there and this alone is already a romantic intention. She wouldn't be a part of this love triangle if there weren't any feelings there.

 

[Graymouse]

I mean I also don't really think it is shippy and totally agree with you but I guess I feel kind of compelled to point things out because I also know I'm one of the people who annoyingly goes "BUT HE LOOKED AT TIFA FIRST" as ship moments. And I will continue to do that in my head (and the fan club lol) but am trying hard not to do it here.

Also thank you for finding the video, I knew I should have but was being super lazy.

To me asking if someone is OK really isn't a ship moment for anyone, whither it be for Tifa, Aerith, Barret or in this case Wedge.

If you watch Cloud he is really taking a look at Wedge to make sure that he isn't bleeding or something isn't really broken. I just think it just Cloud protecting and making sure that his friends are all good. Nothing more Nothing less.

 

[MasterMoogle]

They are! Timeline wasn't the right word to be used there, but I simply couldn't find a better one. I was simply stating that Cloud's feelings for Aerith have only be referred to as guilty post-OG. In OG, they remain up to the player's interpretation and there's enough evidence to be considered romantic.



I get your point here, but if we start to nitpicking things like this there will be no end to it. For example, we know for a fact that, storywise, the HA Highwind version is canon but due to game mechanics we have two variants of it, so if we start to diminish things because they served a propose ( either "game" wise or plot-wise) then a lot of things will be caught in this as well.

Also, we can entirely diminish Cloud's feelings when he wasn't truly himself either because Aerith wasn't the only person he interacts at the time, so a lot of people would be caught up in this whirlwind as well such as the Avalanche trio, the rest of the party and even Tifa.

Like, I agree with a lot of things you say here and there. I do get the point you trying to make. It's your refusal to accept that there are romantic undertones in many of Cloud and Aerith interactions that really throw me off most of the time. You don't need to see it as love per se if you don't want to (we extensively discuss it here bf about how people perceive feelings in different ways), but there was a mutual attraction there and this alone is already a romantic intention. She wouldn't be a part of this love triangle if there weren't any feelings there.

My position is that there was something there, but nothing on the same level as what Cloud has with Tifa, and surely not enough to be called romantic love. Attraction? Sure. Affection? I could see that too.

The problem of course is that both of their feelings are being tainted by Zack, and so much is left to player choice, despite Cloud not actually having a choice as to who he ends up with.

 

[Maidenofwar]

"Cloud becomes Aerith's bodyguard and fends off the Turk who attacks them" From "Second Chance Meeting" story digest/play by play/playback in the game (L2)

 

[RhinoKart]

Yes, Cloud does have a hero complex (thanks to Tifa... lol). That's why I don't give too much credence to those scenes, even if I think that they are nice and shippy, because those you mentioned have been thought out by the devs like that (they literally answer each other, so it's totally done on purpose). It's ok to consider them shippy I mean, they are, but to me that's not the deep root of my own ship.

One thing that makes me feel like some of these moments are shippy is just their inclusion in general

To me asking if someone is OK really isn't a ship moment for anyone, whither it be for Tifa, Aerith, Barret or in this case Wedge.

If you watch Cloud he is really taking a look at Wedge to make sure that he isn't bleeding or something isn't really broken. I just think it just Cloud protecting and making sure that his friends are all good. Nothing more Nothing less.

Umm excuse me, why are you putting down my CloudxWedge OTP like that?!

But yeah you are totally right. Cloud is just a protective/friendly person, despite trying hard to not appear that way.