Also, something slightly off-topic -- I was re-watching Cloud's fight with Seph in KH2, and it really struck me how much Sephiroth's lines confirm the Cloti perspective.
-First of all, he outright says "You turn your back on the present and live in the past." Cloud's past you say? Didn't he fall in love with Tifa and make a promise to her in the past? I mean hell don't the Cleriths always say it's Aerith in the present and Tifa in the past? So here we can see that he chooses to cherish the memories of Tifa and turns his back on Aerith. To me, this is the answer to the "will you choose a memory or us" question. He chooses the memory (Tifa).
-Sephiroth reasserts this by saying "You'll never let go of your past." Again, Tifa is in Cloud's past. So Cloud never letting go of his past = never letting go of Tifa.
-Then Sephiroth explains "No matter how many times I fall, your darkness keeps calling me back." The memory of Tifa will always be tied to the memory of Sephiroth because of Nibelhiem and stuff. No one can remember her without remembering that Sephiroth burned down her home town when Cloud was there. So the fact that Cloud will never let go of Tifa's memory naturally means that he can never let go of Sephiroth's either. Every time he remembers Tifa, he will remember Sephiroth, thus calling him back into being. The feelings of guilt and inadequacy for his family which accompany these memories are what Seph is calling his darkness. This is paralleled by the AC/C plot, in which guilt is eating Cloud alive and Sephiroth returns to tell Cloud very similar things -- basically "It's your guilt which keeps bringing me back."
Since he feels guilty about not protecting his family and Aerith see?
So with the number of times Seph has reappeared throughout all the games/films, Cloud must be thinking of Tifa a lot, right? But of course, we already knew this because he himself confesses to the feelings he was holding for her in the Lifestream.
I've heard some people say that what happens in the KH world doesn't apply to things that happened in the FF7 world, but I don't think that's entirely true. Cloud's perpetual struggle with Sephiroth still applies. Cloud & Seph's struggle still applies. Their personalities and
appearances still apply.
THEY LOOK THE SAME GUYS. THIS IS IMPORTANT! So I think it's reasonable to consider their dialogue as applicable as well.
If nothing was supposed to apply to the original story/characters at all, the original characters wouldn't even be used in KH. If it were supposed to be a totally new story, wouldn't new characters have been used? Even in fanfiction (from any fandom, not just FF), alternate universe stories still allude to characterizations and relationships from the source. Otherwise, it would just be original fiction and not fanfiction. So yes, things that happen in KH do apply to FF7, in my opinion. Because of fanfiction.
Okay, I'm off of my tangent now. I just wanted to throw that last bit out there in case anybody runs into that excuse in a debate or something.
did I put down Aerith enough? What's my prize?