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aerith gainsborough is, undoubtedly, the most important character in ffvii, if not final fantasy's entire history as a series. her traits, personality, and ultimate fate all serve to make her one of the most well-written and tragic characters ever... and i love her more than anything! i can't hear her theme song without getting teary-eyed. i can't help but relate to the best and worst parts of her. she's certainly important. ffvii could not exist without her.
so why, then, is it that people love to write off her importance? or forget her perfect characterization in favor of watering her down to fit a certain mould? well... let's talk about that!
imo, it's because she's SO important that people willfully ignore her and try to write her off as "that girl who dies for plot purposes". that girl who "doesn't matter anymore". the girl who "can finally be with her dead boyfriend and how dare you insinuate that she doesn't want to be!" ... that girl.
aerith gainsborough is many things... she's a flower peddler. she's zack fair's "ex-girlfriend" (though their relationship is incredibly vague and not very fun, interesting, or inspiring... even in cc), tifa lockheart's best friend, a valued member of the party even after her death, savior of the planet, and cloud strife's friend & lover.
but most importantly... she is her own person. she's the last cetra! she's a healer who grows flower's in her adopted mother's garden and an abandoned church to sell for exorbitant prices just for fun! she's goofy! she's silly! she's quirky and strange and unique! she wants to save the world but she desperately wants to live... she's a girl who knows things she shouldn't know...
despite all of her connections to people in the story, she is, ultimately, her own person. aerith is aerith. aerith is not JUST the last living cetra and she's not JUST the love of cloud strife's life (though she is both... heh.) when i talked about tifa, the biggest criticism i had of her character is that, without her connections to the people around her, she barely has a presence or existence of her own to be spoken of... it's a tragically bad misrepresentation of tifa's character potential that i hope they fix in the remake. aerith however... she is MORE than just ffvii. you can feel that she exists somewhere out there, in some form. she's REAL... for all her fanatastical characterization.
i find that fact to be incredible tbh... that despite the fact that you know she isn't real... she feels real. and that's why it's so easy for players to get attached to her. why it was so easy for CLOUD to get attached to her. she's spunky and funny and free and lively and so so soooo many things. i could go on all day tbh but i won't, so let's get to the point.
once aerith dies, the game feels... cold. i've seen people say this a lot... and that's the point! it's constantly reinforced after her death, that part of your party is gone. part of your family. one of your friends. someone you loved. she's gone... you can never get her back, no matter how hard you try.she leaves an empty space left in the games menus and cutscenes. it feels like things hit a peak and then everything is just. there. for awhile, at least. nothing matters now that she's gone.
later, when everyone starts talking about aerith again, you feel just as resolved as cloud does. we have to save the planet, for aerith. if we don't, aerith died in vain. the funny thing is that... even in the end? cloud and the others aren't the ones that save the planet. it's aerith... commanding the lifestream while inside of it, all because of her love for cloud and the rest of her friends. she must protect them, no matter what. it's so poetic and beautiful tbh. how cloud couldn't protect her or see past her happy facade in life but aerith can see through him and everybody in the party and saves them even after she's no longer on the planet.
she's a character the plot revolves around so... obviously she's pretty important. however... every other character in ffvii gets time in the story to explore their reasons for fighting to save the planet and though they might not be as "important" as aerith, their stories are still lovely, interesting, and matter a lot. tifa doesn't get that time BY DESIGN... she has nothing but cloud tying her to the story at that point. that's what makes her character feel so barren in comparison to aerith and everyone else... it makes me sad and angry!
anyways, that's why the love triangle feels so skewed. tifa seems like the obvious choice to some because she has literally nothing else going on in her life except her attachment to cloud lol... might as well let her have that. however... i'll raise you one!
tifa and aerith are best friends. they love each other, too. they're seen talking in every town when the party splits up, always having fun with each other. tifa is described as having "complicated feelings" about aerith, even 2 years after her death. she loves her but she's jealous of how much cloud loves her and that makes her act selfishly towards both of them. i can't really even blame her... she's used to getting everything she wants and she's the youngest main character (besides yuffie who is optional in the og) so she's bound to act a little bratty. aerith would no doubt concede to her feelings if she knew how tifa felt about cloud... but would she do the same?
aerith is used to being ignored and left behind and unwanted. this is obvious... she holds that grief in the weight of her soul and keeps it buried inside her until someone will speak to her about it. she doesn't believe anyone will ever try hard enough to see it in her but she wants cloud to be that person. she wants to meet him without his and her bullshit in the way. she sees him for what he is and wants him to see her but by the time he does, she's already gone. that's the real tragedy on the surface level of ffvii, not realizing how much someone means to you until they're gone. not realizing how much they needed your help.
tifa sees aerith, sometimes, more deeply than cloud does, though i don't really blame him for that. he says himself in hollow that he was consumed by his "emptiness". for tifa, as much as a shat on her in the last post, i really do think she has an uncanny ability to recognize how others feel... she's like a mother in that way. she points out to cloud, after aerith's death, that aerith was always looking forward to the future more than any of them. she wanted to live, tifa says. in just those few lines (but throughout the whole game it's made pretty obvious) you can see that tifa loved aerith. aerith loved tifa too, even if there are less examples of that for some reason... lol. the whole love triangle is just fucked up tbh when you think about it longer than three seconds or don't exist in an echo chamber.
anyways.
aerith is so special tbh. she runs headlong into dangerous situations, knowing full well how to handle herself. she doesn't mind being saved but wants people to know that she can save herself if need be. she never really got to be a child so she has a tendency to act childishly. i love how cloud and her can be children around each other, too. i think that's a really cathartic part of their relationship. cloud acts like how i imagine a young boy would around her. she gets to act like a child around him, too... they entertain those feelings in each others. that's why i love that a large portion of your time with her in the remake is spent with children, too. but lol... people hate the fact that they get along like children bc cloud and tifa are supposed to be the "childhood friends" trope but i ultimately think that dealing with your various childhood traumas by allowing yourself to act like the child you never got to be around the person you love is infinitely better than the "childhood friends" trope anyways lol. plus they... weren't even childhood friends. :|
aerith constantly supports cloud's mental health and memory loss, too! she sees through all of his problems to the real him. she isn't afraid to call him out on the fact that he isn't acting like himself. she doesn't and shouldn't even recognize those things but she does... because she loves him. cloud, in the remake, tries his very hardest to do the same for her. he offers her words of support and encouragement when she seems to need them, seemingly taking marle's words from the beginning (hilariously about tifa, not aerith) to heart and is there for her as a friend and confidante. he asks her about her life... conversation comes easy between the two of them. even if both of them are putting on an act, they still find it easier to tell the truth to each other than anybody else and that allows themc to open up to the others too, to a much smaller degree, eventually.
cloud's friendship and the friendships that he brings into her life, i think, are the first times she's ever felt truly loved and important. she tells cloud in the og, after visiting zack's parents' house, that she just assumed he never came back to meet her because he'd found somebody else. that she wouldn't have been surprised because he was a ladies' man anyways. she's never felt truly accepted for everything she is. she finally gets that after cloud, unceremoniously, falls into her life. she WAS saved by him. he made all of the pain and trauma worth it by being there and bringing their friends into her life. so even when she dies, she's only a little sad. that sadness seems to come more from the fact that she can't console her friends about it, though.
aerith seemingly gleans pretty early on that she's going to die. she doesn't want to, though. even after she meets cloud and the others. she wants to die even LESS after meeting them... but at some point she just knows that's how it "has to be"... she can't do much about it. she's a bit grateful that cloud feels sad (or maybe feels anything at all) after her death and wants to comfort him desperately. he just isn't the same after that, tifa notices. tifa wants to comfort him, too... but she knows that after aerith's death, a part of him is gone.
the best thing about aerith's death, though, is that she isn't gone. she isn't even "really" dead. she's just travelling through the planet via the lifestream, helping people because she wants to. she gets to watch over her friends and save the planet and absolve cloud of his guilt and heal people of geostigma and she's just... there. she still gets to BE and she gets to feel important and she still loves cloud in spite of everything... probably even more than she did before. i don't think she should have to die for all of that to be true, though.
aerith being important in this day and age (23 years after the original) means that she has a heavy burden. her character has to uphold the original's and has to somehow be even better and carry a large portion of the game. she might even have to die in a different way. because she's so important... because her DEATH is so important... she "has" to die. that sucks, but i get it... i guess. she can't shake that fate of hers. it's constantly remembered by cloud (clearly emphasizing that it was the thing that hurt the most from the original, the thing he remembered and wanted to change more than anything) in the remake... it's so important that it's an elephant in a fridge instead of a woman in a fridge LMAO. i'm not sure they're gonna kill her off this time but what if she has an ever WORSE fate because of that? i think there's a new context that the remake is exploring tbh... less about the permanence of death and more about changing fate. theoretically they should change her fate to play into that but WHO KNOWS!!!! nobody knows where the remake is planning to head tbh...
i don't know whether i'm excited or terrified.
so why, then, is it that people love to write off her importance? or forget her perfect characterization in favor of watering her down to fit a certain mould? well... let's talk about that!
imo, it's because she's SO important that people willfully ignore her and try to write her off as "that girl who dies for plot purposes". that girl who "doesn't matter anymore". the girl who "can finally be with her dead boyfriend and how dare you insinuate that she doesn't want to be!" ... that girl.
aerith gainsborough is many things... she's a flower peddler. she's zack fair's "ex-girlfriend" (though their relationship is incredibly vague and not very fun, interesting, or inspiring... even in cc), tifa lockheart's best friend, a valued member of the party even after her death, savior of the planet, and cloud strife's friend & lover.
but most importantly... she is her own person. she's the last cetra! she's a healer who grows flower's in her adopted mother's garden and an abandoned church to sell for exorbitant prices just for fun! she's goofy! she's silly! she's quirky and strange and unique! she wants to save the world but she desperately wants to live... she's a girl who knows things she shouldn't know...
despite all of her connections to people in the story, she is, ultimately, her own person. aerith is aerith. aerith is not JUST the last living cetra and she's not JUST the love of cloud strife's life (though she is both... heh.) when i talked about tifa, the biggest criticism i had of her character is that, without her connections to the people around her, she barely has a presence or existence of her own to be spoken of... it's a tragically bad misrepresentation of tifa's character potential that i hope they fix in the remake. aerith however... she is MORE than just ffvii. you can feel that she exists somewhere out there, in some form. she's REAL... for all her fanatastical characterization.
i find that fact to be incredible tbh... that despite the fact that you know she isn't real... she feels real. and that's why it's so easy for players to get attached to her. why it was so easy for CLOUD to get attached to her. she's spunky and funny and free and lively and so so soooo many things. i could go on all day tbh but i won't, so let's get to the point.
once aerith dies, the game feels... cold. i've seen people say this a lot... and that's the point! it's constantly reinforced after her death, that part of your party is gone. part of your family. one of your friends. someone you loved. she's gone... you can never get her back, no matter how hard you try.she leaves an empty space left in the games menus and cutscenes. it feels like things hit a peak and then everything is just. there. for awhile, at least. nothing matters now that she's gone.
later, when everyone starts talking about aerith again, you feel just as resolved as cloud does. we have to save the planet, for aerith. if we don't, aerith died in vain. the funny thing is that... even in the end? cloud and the others aren't the ones that save the planet. it's aerith... commanding the lifestream while inside of it, all because of her love for cloud and the rest of her friends. she must protect them, no matter what. it's so poetic and beautiful tbh. how cloud couldn't protect her or see past her happy facade in life but aerith can see through him and everybody in the party and saves them even after she's no longer on the planet.
she's a character the plot revolves around so... obviously she's pretty important. however... every other character in ffvii gets time in the story to explore their reasons for fighting to save the planet and though they might not be as "important" as aerith, their stories are still lovely, interesting, and matter a lot. tifa doesn't get that time BY DESIGN... she has nothing but cloud tying her to the story at that point. that's what makes her character feel so barren in comparison to aerith and everyone else... it makes me sad and angry!
anyways, that's why the love triangle feels so skewed. tifa seems like the obvious choice to some because she has literally nothing else going on in her life except her attachment to cloud lol... might as well let her have that. however... i'll raise you one!
tifa and aerith are best friends. they love each other, too. they're seen talking in every town when the party splits up, always having fun with each other. tifa is described as having "complicated feelings" about aerith, even 2 years after her death. she loves her but she's jealous of how much cloud loves her and that makes her act selfishly towards both of them. i can't really even blame her... she's used to getting everything she wants and she's the youngest main character (besides yuffie who is optional in the og) so she's bound to act a little bratty. aerith would no doubt concede to her feelings if she knew how tifa felt about cloud... but would she do the same?
aerith is used to being ignored and left behind and unwanted. this is obvious... she holds that grief in the weight of her soul and keeps it buried inside her until someone will speak to her about it. she doesn't believe anyone will ever try hard enough to see it in her but she wants cloud to be that person. she wants to meet him without his and her bullshit in the way. she sees him for what he is and wants him to see her but by the time he does, she's already gone. that's the real tragedy on the surface level of ffvii, not realizing how much someone means to you until they're gone. not realizing how much they needed your help.
tifa sees aerith, sometimes, more deeply than cloud does, though i don't really blame him for that. he says himself in hollow that he was consumed by his "emptiness". for tifa, as much as a shat on her in the last post, i really do think she has an uncanny ability to recognize how others feel... she's like a mother in that way. she points out to cloud, after aerith's death, that aerith was always looking forward to the future more than any of them. she wanted to live, tifa says. in just those few lines (but throughout the whole game it's made pretty obvious) you can see that tifa loved aerith. aerith loved tifa too, even if there are less examples of that for some reason... lol. the whole love triangle is just fucked up tbh when you think about it longer than three seconds or don't exist in an echo chamber.
anyways.
aerith is so special tbh. she runs headlong into dangerous situations, knowing full well how to handle herself. she doesn't mind being saved but wants people to know that she can save herself if need be. she never really got to be a child so she has a tendency to act childishly. i love how cloud and her can be children around each other, too. i think that's a really cathartic part of their relationship. cloud acts like how i imagine a young boy would around her. she gets to act like a child around him, too... they entertain those feelings in each others. that's why i love that a large portion of your time with her in the remake is spent with children, too. but lol... people hate the fact that they get along like children bc cloud and tifa are supposed to be the "childhood friends" trope but i ultimately think that dealing with your various childhood traumas by allowing yourself to act like the child you never got to be around the person you love is infinitely better than the "childhood friends" trope anyways lol. plus they... weren't even childhood friends. :|
aerith constantly supports cloud's mental health and memory loss, too! she sees through all of his problems to the real him. she isn't afraid to call him out on the fact that he isn't acting like himself. she doesn't and shouldn't even recognize those things but she does... because she loves him. cloud, in the remake, tries his very hardest to do the same for her. he offers her words of support and encouragement when she seems to need them, seemingly taking marle's words from the beginning (hilariously about tifa, not aerith) to heart and is there for her as a friend and confidante. he asks her about her life... conversation comes easy between the two of them. even if both of them are putting on an act, they still find it easier to tell the truth to each other than anybody else and that allows themc to open up to the others too, to a much smaller degree, eventually.
cloud's friendship and the friendships that he brings into her life, i think, are the first times she's ever felt truly loved and important. she tells cloud in the og, after visiting zack's parents' house, that she just assumed he never came back to meet her because he'd found somebody else. that she wouldn't have been surprised because he was a ladies' man anyways. she's never felt truly accepted for everything she is. she finally gets that after cloud, unceremoniously, falls into her life. she WAS saved by him. he made all of the pain and trauma worth it by being there and bringing their friends into her life. so even when she dies, she's only a little sad. that sadness seems to come more from the fact that she can't console her friends about it, though.
aerith seemingly gleans pretty early on that she's going to die. she doesn't want to, though. even after she meets cloud and the others. she wants to die even LESS after meeting them... but at some point she just knows that's how it "has to be"... she can't do much about it. she's a bit grateful that cloud feels sad (or maybe feels anything at all) after her death and wants to comfort him desperately. he just isn't the same after that, tifa notices. tifa wants to comfort him, too... but she knows that after aerith's death, a part of him is gone.
the best thing about aerith's death, though, is that she isn't gone. she isn't even "really" dead. she's just travelling through the planet via the lifestream, helping people because she wants to. she gets to watch over her friends and save the planet and absolve cloud of his guilt and heal people of geostigma and she's just... there. she still gets to BE and she gets to feel important and she still loves cloud in spite of everything... probably even more than she did before. i don't think she should have to die for all of that to be true, though.
aerith being important in this day and age (23 years after the original) means that she has a heavy burden. her character has to uphold the original's and has to somehow be even better and carry a large portion of the game. she might even have to die in a different way. because she's so important... because her DEATH is so important... she "has" to die. that sucks, but i get it... i guess. she can't shake that fate of hers. it's constantly remembered by cloud (clearly emphasizing that it was the thing that hurt the most from the original, the thing he remembered and wanted to change more than anything) in the remake... it's so important that it's an elephant in a fridge instead of a woman in a fridge LMAO. i'm not sure they're gonna kill her off this time but what if she has an ever WORSE fate because of that? i think there's a new context that the remake is exploring tbh... less about the permanence of death and more about changing fate. theoretically they should change her fate to play into that but WHO KNOWS!!!! nobody knows where the remake is planning to head tbh...
i don't know whether i'm excited or terrified.
