The flirtatiousness and most other Zack-isms are out-of-character for Cloud as well, though. Not as much as attempting to kill her, but still.
I tried to respond to this but Balthea summed it up better than anything I was able to come up with, so fuck it
Aerith's able to figure out that the difference exists because she's half-Cetra, iirc, but she still doesn't have any real idea what the real Cloud's like.
But it's okay for Tifa to love Cloud when she hardly knew him at all before he went off to Soldier. I mean how well did she really know him?... He thought she hated him. If she really knew him that well, why would he even think that?
Yes AFTER, AFTER... but before that... I'm talking about right as Cloud went to join soldier, BEFORE she was in his mind. Tifa apparently fell in love with him. But they weren't that close, even Tifa says that. Why is it okay for Tifa to fall in love when she doesn't know him very well but not Aerith.
Apart from her line in their date, from where do you get this impression? It's been about four years since I played the game last but I distinctly got the opposite impression; she remarks constantly about how much he reminds her of Zack, but the only time she gives even the remotest impression that this bothers her is when she says "I want to meet the real you."
Well yeah, ZaCloud isn't just modelling his personality on Zack's. There's probably a bit of Sephiroth in there and he's still probably acting a bit like the real Cloud as well. Zack is definitely the most dominant element of his personality at this point though.
Ehh, who do you think has been arguing that? I don't think anyone has been arguing that it isn't slightly, well, naïve for them to fall for each other without knowing one another well. I certainly haven't seen anyone holding Cloti up as a textbook example of how a relationship ought to be formed.
On the date Aerith says something along the lines of "Something has been bothering me" and then goes on about Cloud acting like Zack and wanting to meet the real him. Really in the compilation she says that on the date and in CoL so she means business imo. XDThe Kenosha Kid said:
Tifa knows Cloud well enough to know that ZaCloud isn't the real him and that something's up.
They bother her because she knows that IS what's attracting her, and she wants to move on. She says that, but at every opportunity brings up Zack. She also says they weren't that close, which is a lie. She gets upset finding out he wrote home about her. Aerith isn't outright lying about Zack, but she's a very confused girl.
It's a lot more than that. It's a mixture of the real Cloud, what Cloud wants to be, Zack, Jenova's manipulation... which at the end of the day isn't the real Cloud. It may have parts of him in there, but you can't fall in love with parts of a person.
It's not so much 'is it okay', because either way, he really did like her back then. That's not what a relationship should be entirely based on, but that does seem to be what happened.
Was there anything earlier on to indicate she knew something was wrong? I can't remember.
Both of those are pretty late in the compilation. I agree that Aerith generally isn't that delusional but a lot of times characters who are level-headed about other things are completely irrational about romantic matters, especially if they haven't had much experience with them before, which, let's be honest, Aerith hasn't. I wouldn't say it's entirely possible she couldn't just be rationalising at this point. I definitely get the impression that the Zack/Cloud similarities were a large part of the reason she started falling for Cloud. Whether they'd be the reason she continued is, of course, up for debate.
They're both kind of naïve at that point. What I think makes their relationship worth pursuing is the fact that after getting in touch with one another several years later, they still have feelings for each other and are willing to work through them.
I wasn't saying it's wrong for Aerith to have fallen that fast if she had, but it's different circumstances. Cloud grew up with Tifa and fell for her, and she states that she felt something for him too even before he left. When he was actually gone, it finally hit her that he meant more to her than she realized, and she started waiting desperately for his return.
Okay fair enough. I just don't like it when people say that Cloud couldn't love Aerith cause he didn't know her that well when he didn't know Tifa all that well either.
mmmm nah it's cause he's so molestable
Err LS?... OH ... Lifestream.. I'm talking about that night they spent where he made the promise. I don't think what they had then was really "love". I mean they were young and didn't Nomura say that Aerith and Zack were too young to really be in love? Well... it probably goes for Cloud and Tifa too.. not saying they didn't have feelings, it just didn't really hit them that they were really meant to be until the LS event.
At least he wasn't mentally fucked up with Jenova cells when he had a crush on Tifa...
I think I see the issue here. What he's saying (at least from what I understand) is that they are kids and aren't completely in-love with each other... yet. However, we know as kids Tifa feels something for Cloud, and Cloud secretly falls for her. They grow up and those feelings are still there.
Well I think koibito in CoLW proves she loved him... hey... how about that? It all comes back to koibito
Like Zee said, there was sortaish hints on their date in the park, but no besides that I can't think of anything. U_UTerra said:
But as for her own feelings, Aerith has always been praised as one of the most emotionally strong characters in FF, besides from people like Lulu, so she most likely understands if she loves Zack or Cloud. And yes I agree she began falling for Cloud because of her intitial attraction of the Zack qualities, but then when she realized they were different I personally think she liked the Cloud qualities and loved them. <3*facepalm*