The Love Triangle of FFVII – An Analysis by Squall_of_SeeD

An often debated area where Tifa pulls ahead, though, is in terms of who knows Cloud better and is closest to him. While Aerith’s Cetra abilities allowed her to see Cloud for who he really was according to the Crisis Core Ultimania (pg. 223) and the 10th Anniversary Ultimania (pg. 48), Tifa’s Dengeki PlayStation 3 profile for ACC describes her as the only person who knows Cloud’s past and the one person who understands him.

That same profile credits her not only for mentally supporting Cloud in the original game, but also for inciting Cloud to regain his will to fight.

Though Nojima said in the Reunion Files that Tifa still doesn’t fully get
Cloud (pg. 19), she certainly is described as coming closer than anyone else. For that matter, completely understanding another person is a life-long journey.

And speaking of balance, one really has to ask: If there were no Tifa, would there still be enough evidence post-FFVII to suggest that Cloud is in love with Aerith? He loves her, sure, but would he otherwise seem romantically interested?

That’s not to say he wasn’t attracted in her in the original game, but it is to say that the strongest and most consistent emotion he expresses where she’s concerned post-FFVII is guilt. Even when he thinks that Aerith sent Denzel to him in OtWtaS: CoT, the context is hardly romantic. He believes it’s part of his redemption, the same as Tifa, who feels that Aerith sent Denzel to her as well.

The strongest and most consistent emotion he expresses where she’s concerned is guilt. Even when he thinks that Aerith sent Denzel to him in OtWtaS: CoT, the context is hardly romantic. He believes it’s part of his redemption, the same as Tifa, who feels that Aerith sent Denzel to her as well.

On the other hand, were there no Aerith, I don’t think anyone would question what’s established by the Highwind scene, the Case of Tifa and Case of Barret dialogue, and the family structure with Tifa.

The only points left that might be seen as favorable to CloudxAerith are Cait Sith’s fortunetelling prediction in the original game about Cloud and Aerith having a “great future” and marriage, and Cloud’s line from the ending of the original game, “The Promised Land… I think I can meet her… there.”

With regard to the first matter, Caith Sith’s prediction was way off. It was very soon after that when Aerith died on Sephiroth’s sword. Have fun playing with that line metaphorically, by the way.

Anyway, Caith Sith’s predictions are unreliable to begin with. The FFVII Ultimania Omega describes them as such, and says they’re usually wrong (pg. 41). And, again, we see Aerith get impaled only shortly after Cait Sith makes a prediction for her to have a happy future with Cloud. That really says it all right there.

On the second matter, indeed, that commercial from 1997 shows Cloud and Aerith on-screen while a caption appears that says “Love” and the narrator says, “A story … of a love that can never be”:

However, it goes without saying that the game’s developers had no hand in its marketing in the U.S. The commercial was just throwing out lines that made the
game sound all the more interesting, regardless of their accuracy where the story was concerned.

For instance, the very next line from the narrator accompanies a shot of Sephiroth while saying, “… and a hatred that always was.” Whether this is referring to Cloud’s hatred of Sephiroth or Sephiroth’s hatred of Cloud, neither “always was.” Cloud once admired Sephiroth, and Sephiroth once regarded Cloud as simply another ordinary Shin-Ra soldier.

For that matter, the idea that Cloud and Aerith are “a love that can never be” runs counter to the philosophy of Clerith to begin with, so it’s probably not the best piece of evidence to turn to in support of it.

In any case, one wouldn’t reference Final Fantasy VIII’s U.S. commercial as evidence that Squall was out to win Rinoa’s heart simply because the ad says that game was a story of Squall’s “struggle to save mankind from extinction and his quest to win the heart of the woman he loves.” While Squall was certainly trying to prevent the end of the world — the whole universe, actually — he never had a quest to win Rinoa’s heart. It was actually much the opposite — she was trying to win his heart.

As for the third issue at hand, Cloud being able to sense Aerith’s
whereabouts in the City of the Ancients and hear her voice from afar has been seen as a sign of a powerful bond between them since the game’s release in 1997. Indeed, Cloud says that he can feel it in his soul that Aerith is there.

While Cloud is certainly able to sense her presence when AVALANCHE goes to search for her in the City of the Ancients, this alone can’t be taken as an indication of a romantic connection given that — in the same breath — Cloud also says that he senses Sephiroth’s presence: “Aerith is here. …and so is Sephiroth.”

Given that both Sephiroth and Aerith had been in telepathic contact with Cloud before this moment — and very recently at that — it stands to reason that Cloud could be sensing either or both of them because of this, and through either one of them. Sephiroth, after all, *wanted* Cloud to find Aerith so that he could force him to kill her.

Of much greater significance, however, is Cloud’s line from the ending of the game about meeting Aerith again. Until the Compilation of FFVII came along, this line was seen by many Cleriths as the clencher that Cloud preferred Aerith, and by many Clotis and neutrals as the line that left things just ambiguous enough.

Though I would have once argued otherwise, looking at things more objectively today, I have to agree that this line left matters in the original game more in favor of Aerith than of Tifa. Due to the existence of the newer Compilation materials, however, that no longer holds true in the wider scheme of things.

While this, no doubt, expressed a sentiment on Cloud’s part to see Aerith again — a desire that continued through Dissidia: Final Fantasy and On the Way to a Smile into Advent Children — he was already feeling guilt over her death and wanted absolution from it. In Case of Tifa, even as he stood on the Highwind watching the Lifestream and Holy defeat Meteor, he was already speaking of a need to be forgiven:

“I’m going to live. I’ll never be forgiven unless I do.”

Also, if you happen to count ‘The Maiden Who Travels the Planet’ as in-continuity, then the meeting Cloud referred to in the ending was resolved by he and the rest of the team seeing Aerith’s image in the Lifestream as Meteor was overcome.

Even if you don’t count Maiden though, the matter is resolved by the end of Advent Children/Advent Children Complete and pg. 131 of the FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania.

There, a statement that has been counted in favor of both pairings is made, identifying Cloud’s Promised Land as “the place where he awakens” at the end of AC/ACC:
(Scan and translation by hitoshura)

“The place where he awakens—
That is Cloud’s Promised Land

As he sleeps, Cloud hears two voices. The voices of two people very dear to him, who are no longer with him. Playfully and kindly, they give him a message: he doesn’t belong here yet.

When he awakes, there was his friends. There were the children, freed from their fatal illness. Tifa and Marlene, and Denzel asking for Cloud to heal his Geostigma– his family were waiting. Engulfed in celebration, he realises where he is meant to live. He realises that he was able to forgive himself.

And when he turns around— ‘she’ is starting to leave. Together with the friend who had given Cloud his life. Cloud no longer has to suffer in loneliness… And so they too go back to where they belong.

Back to the current of life flowing around the planet—.”

As “the place where he awakens” is Aerith’s church, a number of Clerith fans have taken this as an indication that Cloud was and still is in love with her. Many Cloti fans, on the other hand, have taken the presence of his family, the defeat of geostigma, and the release from his guilt as the reason for this place being his Promised Land.

I would argue that the latter is closer to the truth.

As established by Case of Tifa, Cloud was already blaming himself for “sins” by the end of the original game, shortly after he spoke of meeting Aerith in the Promised Land. Here — in this place identified as Cloud’s Promised Land — he not only sees Aerith, but gets what he had been hoping to get from her when he saw her again: a sense of absolution from his guilt.

Cloud realizes that he has forgiven himself and can move on with his life. He’ll go back to “where he is meant to live.”

And what is this place where he is meant to live? As mentioned earlier, pg. 33 of the Crisis Core Ultimania confirms that it is with Tifa and the children Cloud lives after the events of AC/ACC, even on into the time of Dirge of Cerberus.

I would also make the argument that the physical place itself in which
Cloud awoke is not on its own capable of giving him the supreme joy
that comes with finding the Promised Land. He had been staying there even while at his most miserable, after all.

It’s what he found in that place with him that gave him that joy.

For example, Sephiroth and Shin-Ra’s Promised Lands were identified as the Northern Crater in the FFVII Ultimania Omega (pp. 214, 586) — in both cases, a place that facilitated their ultimate desire, but which weren’t that desire in and of themselves.

Sephiroth wanted the energy to cast Meteor. Shin-Ra wanted to acquire further power and wealth. Neither of those things were granted inherently by being at the Northern Crater — but the doors were opened.

We know Cloud had been searching for his Promised Land and absolution from his “sins” since the end of the original game. It was there in the church at the end of AC/ACC that he found it. Surrounded by his friends and family, he realized that he belonged with them, and that he had forgiven himself for Aerith and Zack’s deaths.

The church is Cloud’s Promised Land not because of romantic feelings for Aerith, but because it is where Cloud finally had laid his past to rest and began a new life with his family.

In any case, Cloud hardly seemed to have been left emotionally crippled by Aerith’s loss at the time of the “I think I can meet her… there” line given how quickly he went about establishing himself with Tifa. In light of that and the comments referenced above, it’s unlikely that it was romantic feelings that led Cloud to a desire to seek Aerith out.

Prior to the publication of FFVII’s 10th Anniversary Ultimania, a number of people who held the Clerith perspective had believed that Cloud’s Promised Land was the field of flowers he drives past in the ending of AC/ACC. The idea was derived from and reinforced by Aerith watching him as he passes in the original AC’s credits, as well as the sight of Cloud’s bike parked by the side of the road at the flower field in FFVII Reminiscence.

The flowers on Cloud’s desk at the end of AC’s credits and photos of the field certainly showed that he had been there at any rate. Many a Clerith took this to mean that Cloud had spent the day with Aerith in the field, thus fulfilling his wish to meet her again. It was, after all, not long after the video had recapped the ending of the game that Cloud’s bike was shown parked by the flower field.

Even before FFVII’s 10th Anniversary Ultimania, however, this idea was at odds with AC, where Cloud had already met Aerith again. FFVII Reminiscence takes place after the events of AC/ACC — evident by Vincent now owning a cell phone — so Cloud had already fulfilled that wish to meeet Aerith again in his Promised Land.

For that matter, when Aerith is shown in the credits of the film, Cloud is not shown stopping at the field, nor even seeing her. He simply keeps on driving around the bend.

Furthermore, the passage from the FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania referenced above gives the impression that, while Zack and Aerith will continue to watch over Cloud, they won’t actually be interacting with him in the living world. It’s said both in that passage and by Zack in the film itself that Cloud’s place wasn’t with them yet. As well, that section of the book states that Aerith and Zack also “go back to where they belong … the current of life flowing around the planet.”

In like with that, the script of Advent Children included with the film’s
Limited Edition release in North America stated that the apparition of Aerith seen in the field was simply “vestiges of Aerith (nothing with any presence in reality).”

Aerith wasn’t even really there to begin with.

Statements like this would seem to preclude Cloud and Aerith getting together in the flower field.

Another element of the Ultimania passage discussed above still considered to be pro-Clerith is the statement that Cloud “no longer has to suffer in loneliness.” Coupled with his response in the ending to Aerith’s statement that everything’s alright — “I’m not alone. Not anymore” — this is seen from the Clerith perspective to mean that Cloud no longer feels alone because he knows that Aerith is still with him in a sense.

Certainly that’s one possible reading of the material, but it doesn’t fit given that Cloud still felt lonely and useless until after his conversation with Vincent in the Sleeping Forest. Before that point, he’d already spoken with Aerith in his mind, so he knew she was still with him — yet his feelings of despair were still there regardless.

In any case, even were the knowledge that Aerith remains with him spiritually to be the reason for Cloud no longer having to suffer in loneliness, like so much else related to Aerith and Cloud in Advent Children, this could apply to Zack as well. Zack shows up almost as many times as Aerith, and certainly also means a great deal to Cloud.

In any case, this article would argue that the real reasons for Cloud’s
loneliness were that he isolated himself. He chose to be both lonely and alone, as he felt he didn’t deserve the people he cared about if he couldn’t protect them.