Now, I'm genuinely curious, because I don't like her, what traits/characteristics of Aerith are the ones that you found you liked?
I CAN ANSWER THIS AND AT LENGTH TOO.
Based on character designs, I initially thought that I would like Tifa a lot more than Aerith. And I did at first.
Anyways, one of the big reasons I like Aerith so much is that she's a lot different than I expected her to be. She was the speshul character, the girl who can hear the voice of the Planet and ends up having this huge destiny she has to fulfill or however you want to put it. Still, she isn't like the usual character that has this roll. She's flawed. She's pushy. She puts her foot in her mouth. She doesn't always do ~the right thing~ in every situation, and she isn't a saint. She didn't react to Barret in the best of ways. She didn't always consider that Tifa might be hurt by the way she acted toward Cloud. I enjoy her because she wasn't this demure, sweet, innocent, perfect ball of pink fluff. She made mistakes, and it made her a much more relatable character. It also made it harder, in my opinion, to watch her die. This wasn't some divine saint fulfilling her higher purpose. This was a girl who loved life, loved people, and loved the idea of just being normal.
Aside from all that, I found her endearing. I felt much the way I imagine Tifa did. She went after Cloud despite how it obviously made Tifa feel uncomfortable (though we all know there were reasons for this, the player was hardly aware of them at first). She didn't always handle delicate situations like the whole Barret thing well. Still, it was hard for me to dislike her in spite of all this. She was fun, outgoing, and funny. She spoke her mind, and she wasn't afraid to poke fun at Cloud when he was being all ~serious business~.
So, I pretty much always liked her. A lot. It was when she left on her own to "handle Sephiroth" that I think I started to love her. Aerith wanted to be a normal girl. She tried so hard to hide what she was and what she could do from people. Still, when it came down to it, she took up her responsibility and shouldered it for the sake of Gaia and for the people she cared about. She looked to the future, and, no, I don't think she knew she was going to die. I do think she was aware that there was no small degree of danger in going off alone to summon Holy, but she was optimistic. I loved her parting words to Cloud. They were so simple. No profound goodbyes. She just told him to take care of himself and not to have a breakdown. She was so full of hope for the future.
When it broke my heart to know she wasn't going to come back like she promised, I realized that she'd become my favorite character somewhere along the line. Don't get me wrong; I don't like Aerith because she died. I knew going in she was going to, and I was prepared not to grow attached to her because she wasn't going to be around for a long time. Somehow, I ended up loving her character, flaws and all.
I think the problem with some Aerith fans' impressions of her are that they find out what she is, that she dies, and they label her the speshul snowflake martyr of the game without even stopping to look at who she was as a character and the real tragedy behind her death.
So, um, I had this plan for that to make a lot of sense, and it probably didn't. I ended up rambling. I should stick to spamming.
Only because you're doing it wrong. Or trying to work with Premium hand and her limit breaks, instead of using tricks with her Godhand or Master fist.
I should explain. I was just being retarded and tossing a random WoW reference in there because I'd just gotten through a raid. Tifa's a decent fighter and was always in my party. No need to Ryu me in the face.
That's right. I made Ryu a verb.
I think her reservation of emotion is actually one of her flaws. Had she simply come out and said, "Cloud, look, I love you," on the Gondola I think I would have cheered instead of muttered, "Oh, for fuck's sake, just TELL him."... But alas, no.
