Maidenofwar said:
People have been bashing Aerith's section because apparently she doesn't suffer enough? Like apparently she didn't suffer enough since being captured as a baby and now because Elmyra has a nice house and garden she's spoilt and doesn't have to do anything?
Who are these "people"? Is this just a small part of the fandom though, who have just...proven to dislike the "other girl" for the sake of their own preferred character?
Anyway, my current thoughts after going through both the Aerith and Tifa bits in the book, (as well as remake) is that SE went through exactly the same thing as my ex-company did when they decided on the live-action remakes of the princess classics in the 1990ies. There was a big PR, marketing and perception sweep of the old source material, and SE picked out all the problematic areas of the OG to tweak them.
The same way, say, Belle was 95% same as her cartoon version in 1991... plotwise, but her 2017 counterpart was bookish, but also an inventor, and they delved into the relationship with her dead mother. Jasmine ended up exactly the same path as her cartoon version (Falling for someone below her station)- but they gave her a new song about how her voice isn't heard as a woman. (Then there was Mulan, which was a bit of a train wreck in feminism, but lets not go there)
You can really see these subtleties in ToTP as well - Aerith has been tweaked to be a bit more "protected" than her OG counterpart - She grew up in a lab, but at 22 has a curfew, lives with her mom, she doesn't know what a "picnic" is, she doesn't know what "hiking" is, she's never seen the sky...or experienced rain, but also grows to stand her ground against Elmyra who is overly protective. Tifa says she's never met "chivalrous / gentlemanly men" because she's grown up with "pretty privilege" and she was objectified, but she's grows up to really hustle - and it's almost laughably predictable that she's going to have a "I like you for you, not just cos you're hot" moment with Cloud, or even Rude - because Rude is written to be really gentlemanly with women.
None of these little tweaks are going to change the story in anyway, but is definitely a modernization process. And when (mostly women) shippers spat over which girl is "better" - know that the huge soc med engine of Square Enix are watching your every move