Someone said I should post this here, so I guess I will.
It's not really a proof concerning any shipping. A ship can mean different things, that you think two people are together canonically, or should be together canonically, or that you simply enjoy the concept of them together, or that you think the story works better with them together.
In this case, it is more an analysis of a part of the story and why it work so well in my opinion, specifically when analyzed through the lens of one particular ship. You can use that as an indication that this was probably intentional, or you can see it as a happy accident that this just simply HAPPENED to turn out very well. To me personally, I don't make a conclusion about it, I think it's probably partially intentional, but I mostly think that this, along with some (honestly, "all") other aspects of the story, simply works better and more naturally when analyzed through the lens of a Cloud and Tifa pairing.
Hope someone finds it interesting to read. FFVII (and IX) caused me to study game design so I spent a LOT of time thinking and analyzing it.
I posted it in response to a discussion about who the heroine of FFVII is, Aerith or Tifa. So this is my, for lack of a better word, "professional" opinion.
Stories generally have both internal and external struggles, the internal struggles need to be resolved before the hero can resolve the external struggles, they are usually the more important part of a story, they are what gives it depth, weight, and meaning. The external struggles are usually just the vehicle which is used to deliver the actual soul of the story, which is the internal, human element.
Aerith in FFVII is the heroine of the external struggle. Tifa is the heroine of the internal struggle.
While Aerith has the task of stopping Sephiroth and Meteor, a very tangible and obvious goal, Tifa's is tasked with helping Cloud resolve his internal struggles (which are resolves as a direct consequence of Tifa resolving her own).
It's that resolving of the internal struggle that puts Cloud in the narrative position where he is able to succeed where he failed before.
He faces Sephiroth while his internal issues weren't solved yet and loses, then resolves them and through doing so finds the hidden power to succeed. This is classic writing.
This is the result of a choice that Aerith and Tifa both have to make in FFVII which cements their position within the story that's being told, while their relative roles are presented as relatively free and fluid in the early parts of the game, resulting in the LTD, those roles are firmly determined by the end.
Tifa and Aerith mirror each other throughout the story, Aerith is like Tifas reflection, the same, yet opposite.
The classic example of this is how Tifa looks sexy and outgoing when she's actually more shy and reserved, while Aerith is actually the flirty outgoing one despite her looking shy and reserved. But it goes deeper than that. The mirroring is present throughout their character arcs, starting 7 years before the beginning of the game.
About 2 years before Nibleheim, Cloud leaves Nibleheim and Tifa, an action that instigates Tifas romantic interest in him. Something that simmers in her for the next two years. Around the same time, Aerith meets Zack and starts being attracted to him. This lasts for 2 years.
When we get to Nibleheim, we see Cloud pining after Tifa and Zack after Aerith, both are having problems communicating, Cloud because he's literally too ashamed to talk to Tifa, Zack because his job keeps getting in the way.
We also see Tifa and Aerith both making attempts to approach their respective love interests in some way. Aerith is attempting to call Zack, Tifa is asking about Cloud, and talking about dreaming of being saved by a blond soldier or something to that nature.
Both Cloud and Zack have a promise that needs to be fulfilled, but, spoiler, seemingly won't be until the resolution of FFVII.
Cloud has promised to come protect Tifa when she's in need. Zack has promised to make Aeriths 23 tiny wishes come true, which eventually turns out to be one wish "I want to spend more time with you".
Nibleheim happens, and Cloud, for the second time in his life, fails to protect Tifa, he fails his promise, and for the next 5 years, Zack and Cloud seemingly disappear from the face of the planet. During this time, both Aerith and Tifa in some way are trying to cope with what they've lost, and are left feeling alone.
Tifa has lost nibleheim, her connection to Soldier, and therefore, Cloud. She doesn't know the truth of Cloud being there 5 years ago, and that that's really when he was torn from her.
Likewise, Zack is torn from Aerith, a guy she was developing strong feelings for, and in a way, a representation that not everything Shinra is bad in her Shinra dominated life.
She doesn't know what happened to Zack, but in some way feels that he's still alive, and still wears pink 5 years later in remembrance of her promise to him, to wear pink on their next date.
Zack and Cloud escape and Zack dies. Being drenched in Mako, having mind reading Jenova cells, Sephiroths influence, as well as his own insecurities cause Cloud to become a twisted amalgamation of himself and memories and ideas about Zack and who Cloud believes he should be. Instead of a weak failure, he's a stoic badass hero, who is able to protect the girl and do everything by himself, he's Zacks living legacy. Aerith feels Zack die, knows deep down something is wrong, and reluctantly tells herself that she needs to move on.
The stage of our play is set.
From this moment on Zack can be seen as Clouds reflection, both represented by this one entity (ZaCloud), and everything about Tifas bond and story with Cloud is mirrored in Aeriths bond and story with Zack.
Act 1: Our heroines meet ZaCloud, and in him, both are in a way reunited with their past love, to both, he represents something they thought they had lost, now unexpectedly returned to them. To Tifa, here is a last connection to Nibleheim and her childhood, and the boy she had developed a crush on. To Aerith, here is history repeating itself, another Soldier falls through her roof, and in him she sees Zack.
Both girls waste no time treating him as the person they believe and want him to be. Tifa talks to him like he's a precious friend whose she's always shared feelings with, and the soldier she thought he'd become, her Hero, finally come back to save her in her hour of need. When she realizes he is planning to leave, she panics, not wanting to lose him again.
Aerith conversely immediately starts trying to relive her time with Zack vicariously through Cloud. She immediately offers him a date in payment, something she learned from Zack, and starts interviewing him about this guy she's supposedly "over".
Even though Cloud on the surface clearly doesn't enjoy being interacted in with in that way, Aerith still talks to him the way she would with Zack, assuming, hoping, and wanting him to actually be like that. When Zack left, she lost him, and now she goes out of her way to stay with Cloud this time.
However, it doesn't take long for both girls to realize that there is something wrong with ZaCloud, he's clearly not who he's pretending to be.
Both the girls have a pre-existing relationship and ties with ZaCloud.
The difference is that Tifa's ties with ZaCloud come from his ties with the real Cloud, while in a perfect mirroring, Aeriths ties with ZaCloud come from her ties with Zack.
Intellectually, Tifa knows this has to be her Cloud in some way, but emotionally, she's afraid that he's not. Tifa wants the real Cloud back but is afraid that the "real Cloud" is not who she thinks he is.
Aerith knows intellectually that Cloud is not Zack, but emotionally she doesn't. Her feelings for Zack have latched onto this person, and she doesn't understand how or why. She tries to rationalize her feelings and wants to meet the real Cloud, and the hopes that that would explain and resolve her emotions.
Both girls are looking for the "real Cloud", and want the real Cloud to be who they are looking for, but as it tragically turns out, for only one of the girls the "real Cloud" will be the person her heart is searching for.
Act 2:
Throughout FFVII Cloud interacts with both girls, and both girls enable his delusions in some ways, Tifa refuses to refute Clouds fake persona. Even so, she's symbolic of who he actually is, a reminder of the person he's running away from, she is reality.
With Aerith he's literally living out his delusion of being Zack's living legacy, a cliché fantasy of being a powerful hero soldier out to save the magical girl, she is fantasy.
However, then reality hits like a freight train, Sephiroth kills Aerith, and Cloud, even now, even as a soldier, once again, fails to save anyone. He is no different, it's Nibleheim all over again. His delusions weren't real, and now he needs to pay the price of trying to live a fantasy.
Cloud loses his grip on what is reality and what is fantasy, not knowing who he is he is taken over by Sephiroth, hands him the black Materia, and falls into the lifestream.
This is ZaClouds final act.
Now throughout act 2, we've seen Clouds psyche break down. And both Aerith and Tifa are put in a position where they have to make a choice in their heart concerning Cloud, what he means to them, and what they are to him. For Aerith, this happens near the end of act 2.
Cloud gives the Black materia to Sephiroth at the temple of the ancients, and proceeds to violently beat Aerith. Afterwards Cloud has a vision of Aerith running away from him, going where he can't follow, and telling him to take care. When Cloud wakes up, Aerith is gone.
While Aerith doesn't blame Cloud for beating her, she realizes that she can't take on the burden of saving the planet and Cloud as well. She realizes that she'd been selfish, doing Cloud a disservice by bringing him along on a quest that clearly was having a toll on him mentally. She realizes that she shouldn't have been relying on him and burdening him with her past. She'd been trying to save him, thinking that was her role, the Zack connection made her think that Clouds broken identity was "their story", but now acknowledges that she didn't really know who he was and that perhaps, her desire to see Zack again in Cloud made her insert herself into a story that perhaps, was about someone else.
Aerith is put in a position where she has to make a choice, between going off and saving the planet, leaving Clouds fate in the hands of others, or staying with Cloud, and letting other people go and save the planet. She chooses to go save the planet. This is her vital decision within the story, the decision that defines what her part in the play is. This decision directly results in her resolving the external conflict of the game by summoning holy and stopping meteor. I also directly results in her death, and subsequent "reunion" with Zack, bringing her character arc full circle.
By the end of the game she discovers the truth about Cloud, her confusion is lifted, and she finally understands how she, Cloud, Tifa, and Zack, all fit into each others stories, and in a way, Zacks promise has been upheld, through ZaCloud, Aerith was able to fullwill her wish and spend a little more time with him.
Aeriths choice has cemented her role as the heroine of the external conflict of FFVII.
Qeue, act 3:
However, the game goes on, Cloud breaks down, and we are treated with a strangely familiar scene mirroring the one we had with Aerith in the forest of the ancients.
Cloud once again hands the black materia to Sephiroth, we then see a vision of Cloud running away from Tifa into darkness, going where she presumably can't follow. We see Tifas backstory, we see the doubt and fear in her heart, and the conflict she's feeling about the truth of who Cloud is. She finds Cloud, poisoned with Mako, completely catatonic, and is forced to make the same choice that Aerith was forced to make in the city of the ancients.
Should she stay with Cloud, and leave the fate of the world in the hands of the others, or should she leave Cloud, and go save the planet?
And opposite of Aerith, Tifa decides that no matter what, her place is at Clouds side. Before even entering the life stream she decides in her heart that the man in front of her IS the real Cloud, just Cloud after going through god knows what. It's no longer what he went through, when she decides to stay by his side no matter what, it becomes what "THEY" have gone through. Whatever happened in the past happened to THEM, and whatever happens in the future will happen to THEM, this is "their story".
This is her vital decision in the story, the decision that defines what her part in the play is, as a direct result of this, she falls into the lifesteam, enters Clouds sub-concious, and resolves Clouds inner struggle by retracing who he is, and what makes Cloud Cloud. The plotpoint of the promise is resolved when it is discovered that Cloud came for her in Nibleheim, that they did go through that together, that it was indeed "their story". That from the beginning, the person who had set it all in motion for Cloud, and was the one person who could resolve it, was Tifa, through the feelings he had locked inside his heart, for "Tifa Lockhart".
Tifas choice cements her role as the Heroine of the internal conflict of FFVII.
Cloud is restored, he faces reality and realizes and accepts that he's not Zack, that he can't do it alone, and together with and through his friends he finds the strength to defeat Sephiroth as a result of his internal struggle being overcome.
So both Tifa and Aerith are the heroine in their own way.
It's not a proof of any specific ship, but it's an example of why I think one ship is superior to the other, because I've noticed that to me it just universally enriches the characters and stories, and makes them flow more naturally within the grounded, complicated nature of FFVII.
