Trace of Two Pasts novel discussion

[a_apple 2.0]

Yeah obviously, but stuff like characters regretting their actions and the fact that they didn't act when they still had the time to do so fits pretty neatly into FF7s story I would say, also it's a nice build up to what's to come with another friend who will also most likely die lol

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Maybe Tifa and Aerith will also have a big off-screen fight about the best way to handle Cloud and his identity issues.

 

[Eerie]

It felt like even on her deathbed Jessie held some kind of resentment against Tifa.

I disagree about that, there wasn't any resentment, I felt that Jessie was sad to see Tifa sad. This is why to me there's such a big gap between chapter 3 and chapter 12 that has not been covered.

@Makoeyes987 the filmography there is upsetting. Everything is made so that you'd be mad. Yes, Tifa is having her doubts, everyone knows that. But, look, this is why I say that (putting that into spoilers as there are big pictures, taken from this video if you want to watch it; as a side note, Jessie in slomo in French sounds completely drunk so it's hilarious ):

Spoiler

*sighs* "Tifa must accompany us for this mission, but I admit that she doesn't look like she approves of our methods."

Jessie's feelings are hidden, and Cloud turns around to listen what she has to say about Tifa. This scene, I will agree, is here to give Cloud AND the player context about Tifa's feelings about the mission. But I just think she sounds like a bitch in French when she says those lines; she sounds very harsh compared to her usual flirty tone. And it's not something I can easily explain.



"She doesn't agree to use bombs. She could hesitate, and..."

That's the beginning of this sentence (Jessie moves a lot, while Cloud remains static, turned to listen. This is probably his POV, he doesn't really know what Jessie is thinking about.



This is the only time when we see Jessie's feelings. I think she is sad. And yes, I think her and Tifa had at least one fight about it, if not several.



"We often end up in life and death situations."

Again, Jessie moves a lot and Cloud is the static point of view.



"When it's like that... it's best to be supported by someone efficient like you."

And as she ends her sentence, we have a close up on Cloud who turns away from her. And to me... it's that last line that BUGS ME TO DEATH. She sounds really like she's dissing Tifa there. Doubting has its limits. If she had said "when it's like that, I would like to have someone like you as well" I would be like "OK". But here she's clearly saying she doesn't trust Tifa at all and... how are you friends if you can't trust each other? Cloud's reaction feel like he disagrees with her too although he says nothing lol, but he's seen Tifa fighting by his side and he does trust her. It's the way Jessie's going on about it that really bugs me. Yes, she's dissing Tifa, because she thinks Tifa is not trustworthy, I'm sorry, how is that not dissing exactly? She's even back to her usual smiley, a little flirty self at that point (compared to the previous picture).

And this is why I wanted a scene with Tifa and Jessie making up because really, really, chapter 12 is hard to compute. We are missing this scene and IMHO it does show. And I mean, it's not going to show up anywhere, part 2 will already be super busy with the main plotline and running after Sephiroth.

 

[a_apple 2.0]

@LicoriceAllsorts The conflict between Jessie and Tifa stems most likely from the fact that Jessie actually is full on Avalanchepilled where the ends justify the means, while Tifa is on the fence with what's right and wrong. So that's a huge gab between them.
I think Tifa and Aerith are mostly on the same page regarding Cloud, they kinda ignore it whenever he acts strange and just try to help him as much they can. This doesn't really give that much material for a conflict between them.
And just from a more meta perspective. I think the devs know how insane the fanbase of those two characters can be, so any conflict between them would most likely result in a full on flamewar, where even years later they would still argue who was in the right and who was in the wrong in that instance, so this has to be avoided at all cost

 

[Makoeyes987]

In anime and Japanese visual media, when the top half of a character's face is hidden like that it either means:

1.) Their identity is meant to be secret.

2.) Their face is meant to be hidden because it's either a dream, surreal experience, hallucination, or otherwise.

3.) The character is hiding how they feel and want you (the audience) to know they're turning their back to who they're speaking to so only their words are heard.

4.) They're revealing an important secret that's been hidden up until now. And want you (the audience) to pay attention to this revelation.

Examples 1 and 2 are clearly not applicable here. Example 3 could be true, if not for the fact Jessie turns to face Cloud in the next scene and show Cloud her concerned and serious expression over the subject she's talking about.

So that leaves example 4. The scene is showcasing Jessie's lips and words to the audience to place extra emphasis on the up until now unknown fact that Tifa is feeling conflicted over the mission. Tifa had been hiding her feelings all day and Cloud learned this unknown fact about Tifa from Jessie, which he ignores. This revelation comes into play later where Tifa reveals this to be true.

Jessie doesn't look sad at all. That expression is not sadness. That's grave concern and worry. Her words match her expressions. She's talking about a mission involving the stakes of life and death. She understands this and takes this seriously, hence her ditching the flirty excited tone and getting down to business. There's literally nothing whatsoever implying a diss or insult to Tifa. Her words are not subtle or ambivalent. Unless Jessie should never prefer to have Cloud as an ally in combat, particularly in matters where hesitation can get one killed.

Never once does Jessie say or even allude to "never trusting" Tifa. Trust is never mentioned once by anyone. The entire conversation is centered on the specific mission to bomb a reactor. A mission Tifa, by her own admission, does not exactly agree with. So what's the diss or insult here? It's all grounded in fact further revealed by the scene itself. This all just sounds like injecting several outside implications to a pretty straightforward text.

The conflict between Jessie and Tifa stems most likely from the fact that Jessie actually is full on Avalanchepilled where the ends justify the means, while Tifa is on the fence with what's right and wrong. So that's a huge gab between them.

Why are you making this about Tifa and Jessie, when Tifa is in disagreement with all of AVALANCHE? The meeting involved all members, this isn't about just them. And Tifa certainly didn't have a "fight" so much as a disagreement. And the gap can't be that huge because she ultimately decides to accompany Cloud and Barret anyways.

 

[ph14basicbitch]

"Tifa and Jessie are friends" and "Jessie finds Tifa ineffective at terrorist stuff" aren't mutually exclusive. Them being friends, or Jessie caring about Tifa, might be why Jessie says this to Cloud and not Tifa.

 

[a_apple 2.0]

Why are you making this about Tifa and Jessie, when Tifa is in disagreement with all of AVALANCHE? The meeting involved all members, this isn't about just them. And Tifa certainly didn't have a "fight" so much as a disagreement. And the gap can't be that huge because she ultimately decides to accompany Cloud and Barret anyways.

Because we were talking about a what if scenario where the question was if it was possible that Aerith and Tifa relationship could end up in a similar situation as we have seen between her and Jessie lol?

 

[Makoeyes987]

"Tifa and Jessie are friends" and "Jessie finds Tifa ineffective at terrorist stuff" aren't mutually exclusive. Them being friends, or Jessie caring about Tifa, might be why Jessie says this to Cloud and not Tifa.

That's exactly why I think the scene was constructed as it was. It just all went over Cloud's head. Which is sadly not uncommon given his circumstances.

Because we were talking about a what if scenario where the question was if it was possible that Aerith and Tifa relationship could end up in a similar situation as we have seen between her and Jessie lol?

But I don't think this situation parallels Aerith and Tifa at all? I mean, maybe in the sense Aerith would be concerned for Tifa's sake because she knows she's bottling up her emotions and pushing herself to do something she may not fully want to... But what type of situation in FFVII is that going to happen? They're not bombing reactors anymore. Part 1 and Midgar is done.

 

[Eerie]

Jessie doesn't look sad at all.

I blind checked with Peko, she felt like me that Jessie was sad in this picture (I wanted to see if I imagined things, but I'm not the only one to see Jessie as sad there). So booh, I still rest my case.

Never once does Jessie say or even allude to "never trusting" Tifa. Trust is never mentioned once by anyone

This is exactly what the last line implies, that she does not trust Tifa, and that's why she would prefer to have Cloud by her side instead : "We often end up in life and death situations." "When it's like that... it's best to be supported by someone efficient like you."

I mean, I'm not making up this shit ok. This sentence made me angry for the right reason, because she did not trust Tifa at all and dissed her right there. This happens at a time when we've spent all day with Tifa. We know there is something bothering her - that Avalanche uses bombs, Jessie drops it to us at that moment - but we also know that if she's fighting by our side, then she's very reliable - it was uncalled for. And this scene bothers me a lot because we don't have the resolution for it, it has been deleted by the devs who could not include it in time for Remake's release.

 

[a_apple 2.0]

But I don't think this situation parallels Aerith and Tifa at all? I mean, maybe in the sense Aerith would be concerned for Tifa's sake because she knows she's bottling up her emotions and pushing herself to do something she may not fully want to... But what type of situation in FFVII is that going to happen? They're not bombing reactors anymore. Part 1 and Midgar is done.

Maybe You should read the post before you comment on it?

 

[Makoeyes987]

I blind checked with Peko, she felt like me that Jessie was sad in this picture (I wanted to see if I imagined things, but I'm not the only one to see Jessie as sad there). So booh, I still rest my case.

I mean, if you were to just observe Jessie's face and mute her words, sure. Grave concern can appear as just general sadness. But listen to her dialogue. Her vocalization and context is clear on it's surface and her words match her expression. She's concerned over the mission and Tifa's hesitation over it. This isn't even personal.

This is exactly what the last line implies, that she does not trust Tifa, and that's why she would prefer to have Cloud by her side instead : "We often end up in life and death situations." "When it's like that... it's best to be supported by someone efficient like you."

You quoted the line Jessie says and nowhere in the text is "trust" ever mentioned. You're making a claim it's implied. But listen to her own words, you've shifted a specific concern over safety completing a clandestine attack against Shinra's reactor, to mean Jessie does not trust Tifa whatsoever in a personal way and is insulting her behind her back.

When she's saying she'd prefer having Cloud around. So where is the implication? The shift I'm pointing out is how you have Jessie discussing the very real concern of the mission, to making this about Jessie insulting Tifa and saying she can't be trusted.

I mean, I'm not making up this shit ok. This sentence made me angry for the right reason, because she did not trust Tifa at all and dissed her right there.

"Diss" means insult or disrespect right? Just so we're on the same page.

Where is the lie? Tifa literally confirms Jessie's words as truth when she speaks to Cloud minutes later. Is it wrong or insulting for Jessie to prefer Cloud, a supposed Ex-SOLDIER who performed flawlessly in blowing up a reactor, for a mission involving blowing up another reactor? Over someone who has confirmed she has reservations blowing up reactors because she finds the direct action too violent?

but we also know that if she's fighting by our side, then she's very reliable - it was uncalled for. And this scene bothers me a lot because we don't have the resolution for it

But Tifa's overall reliability isn't being questioned. This is hesitancy, something different. And it was confirmed and brought up over this specific mission, which Tifa herself admits. Jessie didn't even call Tifa "unreliable." She's referring to this specific bombing mission.

Maybe You should read the post before you comment on it?

Dude, I just read it. What are you talking about?

 

[kathy202]

I think it's easy to feel uncomfortable over Jessie's words because it's something people can be uncomfortable with doing themselves. But I don't think Jessie did anything wrong. Everything she said was true and Tifa confirmed it. Is Jessie not allowed to express her concerns, privately to someone else, about a mission that she's invested in just because it doesn't sound nice to another friend?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I made that comment about Aerith having a fight with Tifa to point out how absurd it is to picture Tifa having a big fight with anyone. (In the OG, Aerith handles Barret's grief-stricken depresssion over Corel in a very harsh way. Tifa has her misgivings about Aerith's method, but Aerith quickly over-rules her, and they don't get into a fight about it.) Like I said before, Tifa is conflict-averse with her friends. When conflict arises, the first person she blames is herself. The impression I got from TOTP is that deep down she's always afraid that her friends will abandon her. That's why she's always striving so hard to be useful and kind to everyone. It wouldn't be at all surprising if deep in her psyche she feared that people only valued her for her looks and for what she could do for them.

I think it would be a terrible shame if the creators of this game allowed their fear of fan reactions to compromise the integrity of their vision. Why, after all, should they care if Tifa-stans and Aerith-stans continue with their stupid social media war for another generation? How does that hurt SE?

 

[MelodicEnigma]

Haha Well, it just kind of seems like word choice affects how each of us are describing things, doesn't it? I've seen how this can be a huge wall in conversations based on observations. I think we can agree some words have connotations that are a little less reliable if your goal is to be as concise to the text/context as possible, and sliver of differences is where people find contention. Of course, it depends if you're having a conversation that has that goal, anyway. If we are, I'd agree that "insult"/"doesn't trust Tifa" is a bit of a harsh way of putting it and places a much more negative outlook on Jessie's thoughts towards Tifa's inner-conflict in this short, more serious end to her conversation with Cloud (which tonally, "sad" isn't that reliable either for what Jessie is expressing here, as opposed to just "serious" or "concerned" for the conversation).

I mean, expressing your own reservations about confirmed doubts and hesitance that your comrade and friend has, in a situation where there's a "do or die"/"life or death" outcome—this isn't exactly a targeted rude remark. It's just truth, and the point itself isn't a disrespectful or scornful thing. If Jessie had a reaction towards Tifa's hesitance akin to Barret's early treatment to Cloud, then it'd be more clear. Should we say Jessie unintentionally insulted Tifa unknowingly by the nature of her words—including the added remark of wanting to rely on Cloud to avoid the bad-end outcome instead if it comes down to it? Eh, when what's being pointed out is just a truth about that person's hesitance for the mission objective—"insult" is still too much, or a general "she doesn't trust Tifa". It is pretty specific to the mission objective and about her hesitance, and as far as we're concerned, it's written in for the purpose of setting up Tifa's scene and getting a view about it from someone else in the group. People are going to feel whatever they do on personal level when making observations, and as @kathy202 points out, personally something like this might make someone uncomfortable in their shoes. If for the sake of wanting to look at it outside ourselves a bit, though, my own stance is that I don't think it's efficient to paint the direction of this interaction as Jessie essentially talking shit behind Tifa's back.

I don't think that was even Cloud's take away from Jessie's words either, as much as it was just "I heard you were having second thoughts" and appealing to these thoughts by "if it feels wrong, don't do it". If it was the other connotation for Cloud, I'd say we'd have gotten something conducive of "it seems like they don't trust you, but I do, you can do it". Just doesn't seem to be the point really.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

This sentence made me angry for the right reason, because she did not trust Tifa at all and dissed her right there.

I mean, I would trust my wife to take care of my bank account while I'm in a coma ... but I can't say that she's my first choice for who to have on hand at the onset of the medical emergency that resulted in my coma. She doesn't do emergencies well. Situation-specific confidence is a thing.

And this scene bothers me a lot because we don't have the resolution for it ...

I feel like we do. Tifa is sad when Jessie is dying, and Jessie is sad that Tifa is sad. That's a resolution to me.

 

[kathy202]

Back to the topic of Tifa being constantly called cute/hot/pretty. I can't tell if they're trying to make the point about how annoying it is to be in her shoes and constantly having people make comments about the way you look, or if they're trying drive in the "cute" factor as a part of her character because she has so many fans who love her just for that.

For me, it comes across more as the latter because it's done so excessively it becomes annoying to me as the reader. I feel like the point might be better delivered if they had just a few outstanding instances of it where it's clearly disturbing and leave it at that.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

For me I have to say it comes across as the former. After all, we already all know what she looks like.

 

[Ryeleigh]

Back to the topic of Tifa being constantly called cute/hot/pretty. I can't tell if they're trying to make the point about how annoying it is to be in her shoes and constantly having people make comments about the way you look, or if they're trying drive in the "cute" factor as a part of her character because she has so many fans who love her just for that.

For me, it comes across more as the latter because it's done so excessively it becomes annoying to me as the reader. I feel like the point might be better delivered if they had just a few outstanding instances of it where it's clearly disturbing and leave it at that.

For me, it comes across as "boosting her desirability".

 

[Thenir]

For me, it's meant to stress her reaction of discomfort in response to these comments, as if nobody could go beyond her physical appearance and appreciate her as a person.
I have a feeling this will be used during the Lifestream sequence to show that Cloud really liked her while the other boys were only attracted by her beauty.

 

[kathy202]

We also know what Jessie, Aerith and Yuffie look like, and they're all beautiful, but the "she's cute" thing doesn't come up as frequently with them, if it comes up at all. In fact, we get a rather hilarious opposite with Yuffie. Maybe they're not cute enough by Midgar's standards. Though I think it's because there's just no need to make the same point with all characters and Tifa fits this point well.

This reminds me of the time back in high school and college when we were horny kids in our late teens to early 20s. "Intelligent and beautiful" was practically a thing boys went nuts over. And too intelligent but beautiful isn't good, it has to be very beautiful and quite intelligent. If someone wanted to make a girl popular (to win a pageant or just set someone up for a date), it would go like, "Here's a list of her achievements... etc etc. (remember to include excelling in a sport), and to top if off, she's cute". Totally disturbing yet it totally works. What's even more disturbing is that only a fraction of these boys actually grew out of that by the time they're 30. Ugh.

Now if we did it the other way around: "I'll introduce you to a cute polite girl who smiles a lot", and on the first date she starts talking about some math theorem from class, it sometimes becomes "She's cute, but wtf is wrong with her? So weird! Who cares about that stuff?". Other times it becomes, "she's so smart I have no idea what she's talking about but I don't care cos she's cute. I'm dating an intelligent and beautiful girl *posts on Facebook*"

Jesus Christ... This world is insane.

 

[KindOfBlue]

Straight up, it’s because Tifa has big breasts. Really, all of the girls are beautiful but Tifa’s curves are what make her even more of a target to be sexualized. The real life fanbase is guilty of it, hell, the devs themselves are guilty of it for creating this situation in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some tig ol’ bitties but it does make it hard to enjoy fan art of Tifa when artists seem to believe what she already has STILL isn’t big enough to the point where it’s just grotesque lol.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

We also know what Jessie, Aerith and Yuffie look like, and they're all beautiful, but the "she's cute" thing doesn't come up as frequently with them, if it comes up at all

Doesn't that just underscore Lic's take (i.e. your first proposed possibility)? The situation is only emphasized for one of these characters when it logically should apply to them all, and Lord knows they all have their own real-life stans proclaiming their desirability.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

So... her fans are guilty of the same attitude as the people of Midgar?

It's a bit hard on large-breasted women if they must always be defined by their tits and can never be fully-rounded human beings with hopes and dreams, values and beliefs, griefs and sorrows and adventures. If creators of fiction can never create a large-breasted heroine because the fan-base will never look beyond her breasts, then maybe the fan-base should take a long hard look at itself in the mirror?

Re Jessie, Aerith, and Yuffie: Every single individual in FFVII is impossibly good-looking. SE is incapable of creating an average-looking PC, let alone a plain one (god forbid, who would care about a plain one?). It's frequently stressed that Aerith is kind of cute, but nobody really notices how gorgeous she is until Mme. M puts her into that dress. And Yuffie is just a scruffy kid.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

It's a bit hard on large-breasted women if they must always be defined by their tits and can never be fully-rounded human beings

Ain't you seen them thighs and hoo-hahs?

 

[KindOfBlue]

It's a bit hard on large-breasted women if they must always be defined by their tits and can never be fully-rounded human beings with hopes and dreams, values and beliefs, griefs and sorrows and adventures. If creators of fiction can never create a large-breasted heroine because the fan-base will never look beyond her breasts, then maybe the fan-base should take a long hard look at itself in the mirror?

I consider it an extension of the human condition, sadly, people are just the absolute worst