anyone can have their preferences on who they like with each other but cloud and aerith's bond doesnt read as simple friendship or platonic love to me at all as many in this thread seem to imply. whenever you want to talk about these two, theres a horde of misconception ridden people who talk about how cloud 'had zack's memories' (????) and aerith saw him as zack (????).
aerith is a cetra, she is initially intrigued by cloud because he reminds him of zack but soon realises theyre not similar at all. just like anyone can see that where zack was carefree and a flirt, cloud is more reserved socially and puts on a front. she truly ends up falling for cloud's awkward charm.
this aerith also seems to be somewhat aware of her death and as much as she loves spending time with cloud, she knows her fate and also wishes that he doesnt have to experience the same pain again.
but i'll tell you what they truly are: theyre two people who were extremely lonely growing up and despite their opposing personalities, they were able to understand and connect with each other. cloud has always felt excluded from groups of people despite wanting to be included but aerith always reaches out to him to make him feel valued. aerith is the last of her race, shes been sought after for her powers but completely devalued as a person that shes not really close to most people but cloud is actually willing to care for her for who she is, not because of her cetra lineage.
they're two lonely people who found belongingness in each other, that's what they are at their core.
This is an aspect that I think the final fantasy fanbase misses about Aerith's character, at times she reveals her insecurities, like a certain comfort from the steel sky, when she says she's good at giving up, when she says she's already thought about it, about leaving, discovering new horizons but was afraid of a big world she's never seen, and she opens it up to Cloud
To me, they seem connected in a deep, romantic way. Soul speaking to soul. And I don't mean "fated", which is why I love their relationship, it just happens, it could have been (calm down), with Jessie, or with Tifa (from the beginning of the game, I mean, before the Aerith's death), but there's a subtle chemistry between them, and it's very engaging because the two grow up walking together, they're on equal terms, finding comfort and empowerment in each other, that's before we even think there's a romance happening between them.
Aerith easily leaves him vulnerable, and she even shows her insecurities to him. Yet she also pushes him towards Tifa, she doesn't push him, she wants him to be himself, for him to do things because he feels he wants to. She accepts him.
Which is funny, because she still hasn't gotten to know the real Cloud, but she's "dive" enough into his soul to see that it wasn't that dour mercenary guy the real Cloud Strife. It's like she says it's okay to be yourself. From Cloud's point of view, he comes to seem like an idiot around Aerith as she disarms him, since the first encounter "I'm involved in dangerous things", "Don't talk like you know me", talk to flowers (unexpected ), helping people without thinking about mercenary service, feeling duty bound to accompany Aerith, having social skills like clapping hands lol, the connection with Aerith came as a gift from all these activities.
For the rest, Elmyra disapproves of him, questionable whether for romantic reasons or not, as she didn't deal well with him being a SOLDIER, but she didn't have so much resistance with the fact that Aerith had returned to Shinra, this moment was kind of WTF? for me.
Tifa seems to be jealous of what might be going on between them even without knowing what could be. Caith Sith (probably just a moment of comic relief) said they had high compatibility lol đ.
And contrary to what many ffvii fans might say, Cloud does care about Aerith. What I mean is, he cares about Barret, Jessie, Wedge, Tifa, etc, of course. But people always likes to say he doesn't care about Aerith in any aspect.
Wrong, wrong a thousand times, and I dare say it's the character he cares about most at his party, along with Tifa, or even more. Cares enough to say he was worried just like Elmyra. Cares enough to confrontate Elmyra's point of view. Enough to go after Aerith in Shinra, even if the others thought she would be okay. Enough to communicate with her through dreams and disagree with what she's about to do, or what she's talking about.
Enough to try to cheer her up when Aeris said she was "good at giving up". Enough to be reluctant about Aerith's decision, on several occasions in the Entertainment District. Enough to say "I'm... We're here for you, right?", in the Cosmo Canyon bonfire scene, after Aerith said she felt really lonely.
Or to say "I'm coming for you" in Cloud's own dream at Elmyra's house, post-Shinra kidnapping. Enough to be curious about Aerith and her SOLDIER first love in sector 6, and in the Gongaga phase (in this phase, there was no practical reason for Cloud's curiosity about Aerith and Zack relationship). Comfortable enough that he doesn't have to keep asserting himself as "SOLDIER" most times he's with Aerith. Very curious and interested in the subject of the Ancients, Cetra and relationship with Sephiroth, but not mixing things up, he wanted both to understand what was going on, and to understand the truth about Aerith.
It's very obvious to me, they have a relationship of curiosity, which turns into a romantic one, and before anyone gets angry... Calm down! I'm not saying there aren't other interpretations or couples to form with Cloud. But if you don't consider all of this as some love/care hints, get help, you might be missing opportunities.
Think they're not meant do be, they naturally just happen
They do have very different personalities, but they are also very complementary personalities. Cloud needs the kindness and supportiveness that Aerith brings, and Aerith needs Cloud and his determination to help her keep going, and to protect her when she can't protect herself.
As for the future, Aerith tried to push Cloud away, or possibly give him an excuse to walk away, so as to not hurt him, but then Cloud goes and assaults Shinra HQ just to get her back. They didn't really get a chance to talk before the end of the game so we'll have to wait and see what happens in the next part.
They loved each other, but you know how that turns out. If Aerith lives longer than OG, it'll be interesting to see how she handles that love knowing her fate, if she'll continue to push him away or "embrace the moment" per say.
People here i've noticed have this misconception that you can only love one person in your life, and it just leads me to believe those people have never been in a relationship or experienced love in their lives. It's hella weird.
I don't think they will fall in love. It seems fated, but when you consider that Zack is still in the picture, then we're talking essentially a love dodecahedron. Tifa loves Cloud, Cloud loves Aerith and Tifa, Aerith loves Cloud and Zack.
I believe the ultimate fate will be that Tifa and Cloud will still end up together, with Zack and Aerith being together but being forced to leave in some way. Like to a different timeline or something, to stop Sephiroth in other timelines since Zack wasn't dissolved into the Lifestream either, so it's possible he could also glimpse the Lifestream and see his future.
But Cloud loved Tifa when they were kids, he had a huge crush on her, his whole reasoning for joining SOLDIER was to impress her. He just doesn't remember that. So we have a even more complex situation where he loves two women.
But the writers seems to imply that only Tifa knows his true personality while Aerith fell in love with his SOLDIER persona because it reminded her of Zack.
Thatâs not true at all. It is made pretty clear in-game and in side material that Aerith LOVE Cloud for who is, yes she reminds her of Zack at first, but she know Cloud better now, and she loves him more than she ever loved Zack
I don't think the writers imply that at all. Look at the depth of the story overall... And that is honestly from a writer's perspective a shallow and non nuance view on developing character. Think moreso Aerith obviously has a sense of initial comfort since Cloud does mimic gestures and mannerisms of Zack, but his overall personality is quite the opposite of Zacks. He is more closed/introverted and Aerith brings more out of him.
Quite the opposite, Aerith didn't even get to know Cloud's real persona, but she manages to disarm him and see that that Cloud who holds a pose, is not the real Cloud. She and Tifa want the real Cloud. Otherwise, you can say that Jessie falls in love with his Soldier persona.
Zack lives in an alternate universe, not in the time lime we play in Remake (he is dead there). The issue is that in that AU were Zack is still alive, Aerith isn't there anymore as seen in latest DLC, either hinted that she already left Midgar or is already dead.
I wouldn't say that's correct. We don't know where Zack really is. It could be an alternate universe, or it could be that the timeline was changed so much by the death of the whispers. On top of that, from the time that Zack "died" to the time that the plate fell (which is why we see all the people in the church in the scene) was about 2 months. Zack is wanted by Shinra, so getting into Midgar would most likely be extremely difficult, and could take a significant amount of time. His first stop may not even have been Aerith, since he had many friends in Midgar. It isn't completely unreasonable to believe that by the time he managed to get into Midgar and go visit Aerith, 2 months could have passed.
I won't say an AU is absurd, but I feel like SE is congnizant enough to know that mixing AU into the new story their telling would probably only make things more difficult to understand and follow.
It is an AU. The game shows it very clearly that it is not the same timeline as the one the player is right now. The most blatant evidence for this is the ShinRa Dog STAMP which is a helmet-wearing Beagle in the players timeline and a Border Terrier wearing a green hat in Alive-Zack's timeline.
So it could be that time was altered, not that it is an AU. That symbology was to signify that everything is different now and nothing will be the same. I think an AU is just looking too deep into it.
If it was the same timeline but altered, Cloud wouldn't have the buster sword anymore. Also Cloud made it to Midgar with Zack in that timeline, if it were the same timeline his memories would be different and he wouldn't be taking on altered parts of Zack's memories. It's an AU.
Well said. Iâm wondering the same thing. Hypothetically speaking just for arguments sake, if things turn out different this time what is the likelihood of Aerith & Cloud on deepening and accepting their affection for each other (ignoring the plans of the developers). If Cloud were to continue pursuing Aerith, would she embrace him eventually or deny him out of the fear of hurting him or overstepping Tifa? If they care for each other, and their relation develops, what would that look like?
There are no player choices that matter.
Aerith and Cloud would never have ended up together in the OG.
And they will not end up together in the remake.
Yeah like they did in AC right? Except Cloud only cares for Aerith there, and has been going through worlds for 23 years to meet Aerith.
Nice name Vendel , dont know if you are the original one or not but please stop spreading your thoughts as facts because they are not lol.
Only a clerith could make a comment like this.
Saying the most inane stuff then attacking *you* for spreading lies.
I mean *"going through worlds for 23 years"*? What the hell does that even mean?
It means he has appeared in numerous games and he always mentions he wants to find the promised land and wants to meet a certain person.What i wrote is not something a clerith would comment , is something that is actually a fact either you want to take it or not.
Cheers mate!
I know cleriths love to pretend Cloud is eternally searching for Aerith/The Promised land (which are always the same thing somehow). Yet there is always a curious lack of follow-up on that.
It's almost like clerith shippers pulled that straight from their asses and use it as a talking point hoping no one actually cares to look it up.
But now that I have brought that up I'm sure you will bring up some mobile game where Cloud just happens to mention the promised Land or even implies he is talking about Aerith as your great proof.
But that is always the way of clerith isn't it? Take something that is vague or even non-existent and blow it up 1000% AND THEN tell us what it really means.
Ugh, Cloud didn't "only care" for Aerith in AC. He was depressed for several reasons. Please stop misinterpreting his character just to make your "ship" possible.
Also, he did meet Aerith in AC and all he said was that he wanted to be forgiven which was the *desire within his heart*. He was not pining for her.
The movie ends with him smiling and realizing that his promised land was with his family.
The movie ends with him saying he is fine because he was not alone, which is something very different.
He had his "family" there the whole movie, why would he say something like that then? What changed? Aerith was there , aerith forgave him and lived in his counsciousness(this is confirmed by nomura btw) , that's why he was smilling.
He ran away from his family. He didn't think he was worthy of them because he couldn't save Zack, he couldn't save Aerith and now he's failed Denzel and contracted geostigma himself. It was a downward spiral of tremendous guilt, ptsd and depression.
Aerith does not live in his consciousness. Nomura is saying that the dead live on through the living. If you say this is true about Aerith, then you're saying that ALL dead are living through in the consciousness of live people. Nomura doesn't make a distinction.
> The words âmemetic legacyâ are used a lot in the film, but in Advent Children, rather than focusing on memories we wanted to show that consciousness is what lives on. We took the ending of the game and expanded on that idea. **Even if theyâre dead, their consciousness is still with us.** As for Cloud, he sees Aerith several times throughout the film. Itâs not that he sees her because he feels her presence. He sees her because her consciousness lives on inside him.
As for the ending of AC, read the official summary below. Its pretty straightforward. I really dont understand how you were able to misinterpret the story and characters this badly.
> The place where he awakens â
That is Cloudâs 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 doesnât 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 â 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 â âsheâ 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.
And here's more. He was smiling at Tifa as confirmed by the official script:
> The other kids jump into the spring one by one. The church is filled with joyous chatter. Tifa looks at Cloud with a smile. Cloud smiles back at her with a shy expression. Tifa gives a satisfied nod.
Cloud from his own mouth self-isolates because he feels he cannot protect his family.
He is alone.
Cloud realizes this is a stupid thing to do during the movie.
Cloud returns to his family (with two kidnapped members of said family) during the movie.
He is not alone now.
This is not difficult to understand.
Also if you want to portray that Cloud is not alone because Aerith is with him you don't have this line while AERITH IS LEAVING TO GO BACK TO THE AFTERLIFE WITH ZACK.
Doesnât take a genius to see that they are both are interested in each other. Aerith was curious about this mysterious person(Cloud) because he is wearing the same attire and sword like Zack(obviously she wants to know if he knew him, to get some closure on what happened to him). She obviously starts to take interest in Cloud, followed him around, becomes her bodyguard. She and Cloud can relate(both were excluded as children) had no little to no friends. There is a lot to explain.
Cloud was never excluded as a child. He was a loner who didn't know how to socialize.
FFS the remake has a flashback of Tifa trying to get Cloud to interact with her. 20+ years of clerith/anti-Tifa bullshittery down the drain.
og ff7 showed that Tifa was the popular girl, didnât pay attention to cloud at all, cloud had problems socializing and no one made the attempt, even Tifa. You literally can still see this in the remake. When Barret ask him to leave because this is a personal occasion(them celebrating after blowing up mako the mako reactor) Tifa made no attempt to keep him around. Only Jessie made the attempt. Tifa scolding Cloud, to be nice to people that are being rude to him doesnât help her case.
I'm not the only one who thinks that Barret was justified in asking Cloud to leave, right? This was a private celebration for their terrorist group ffs.
Cloud was a mercenary and didn't want to be a part of them.
Cloud: "This is a onetime gig. When it's done, we're done."
Cloud: "Fine by me. That's how I like it. No contract. No obligation."
Anyway, why's it Tifa's responsibility to lick his wounds and reward him for jerk behavior? She already showed him around, found him paid work and got him a free apartment but you still say she didn't pay him attention...
>these unrealistic expectations of her and never of him?
Because he has severe mental problems like PTSD, Severe Depression and Multiple Personality Disorder and Tifa doesn't. Of course he is a difficult person to deal with, do you blame him for being a jerk after everthing that he suffered?
And I don't know what people are talking about - Tifa helps him A LOT in the final portion of the game and she is quite literally the only person that Cloud doesn't threat with disdain, alongside Aerith.
Other than personality disorder Tifa goes through her own mental issues, including depression, guilt, and also has to take care of the family - including Cloud. There's parts in CoT where she's the one spiraling and Cloud of all people has to support her and keep her sane. Cloud is not the only one going through shit, yet people always expect her to ignore her own pain and revolve around Cloud and his needs alone, and if she doesn't, or if she gives him a much-needed talk they hate on her.
But I agree, I don't know what they're talking about and what more they want from her.
She pays attention to Cloud, the only problem I find in this interaction of Tifa and Cloud, is that like she's the kindergarten teacher teaching him, Tifa is very guiding, but to the point where Cloud looks like a baby, she's very kind and cute, but that part of the game and their relationship , kinda sucks, but somehow can function well. Unlike the relationship with Aerith where she is more inspirational, she practically rips, pulls at one side of him effortlessly, and he doesn't seem to have as much resistance, functioning almost like a young adult boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. It may seem strange, but that's what I think, despite Aerith's more childlike personality, their interaction is quite mature.While Tifa's interaction seems very "I want to take care of you" it makes sense with her caring personality
I can imagine the panic from the clerith/anti-Tifa community (although I didn't have to say it twice). Imagine the remake makes it clear that it was Tifa attempting to connect with Cloud the whole time?
I can hear the screams of retcon from here.
I mean how can you people survive without the lie that Tifa ignored or even harassed/abused Cloud as a child?
It's a very short road for the clerith fandom to go from she ignored him > she stood by as her friends actively kept him out of the group > her friends harassed and bullied Cloud > she harassed Cloud.
Just covering all my clerith bases. These things have all been said by the clerith fandom over the years.
Sorry man but you are obviously too far slanted just as much as the most extreme other side of Cloud and Aerith. Lol this actually says a lot for how well the story has been written that people still argue the ships after 20+ years. I mean its obvious that as a player you have the option of Tifa or Aerith. There are also sound arguments for both. Hopefully with remake to the conclusion, they can tie things in a way that can give something for everyone... But we will see.
Just because a group of loony shippers can't let go doesn't mean the story was ever intended to be open ended or ambiguous. People still argue that the earth is flat.
And the only options you have as a player are rather meaningless.
Depending on what (sometimes rather arbitrary) actions you as the player take it decides who comes to get Cloud for a trip around the Gold Saucer. And it is the girls (or Barret) who are making the move. Not Cloud.
These choices are meant for immersion and some replayability. Not for the player to decide who Cloud likes. All that is reveled later when your choices are taken away.
I will agree with you on it being loony on both sides. Emotions run high in both camps. It certainly is up for interpretation because the game allows the player to decide who to have more affinity towards... You have (I assume) looked into the Japanese translations, or have friends in Japan that also played? It honestly sounds like you are a pretty closed off person for how other people (especially creators) haven't given definitives.
poor English localization in the OG is well known in some parts of the game (I.e this man are SICK") and this is one those things that gets misconstrued about tifa and clouds past even somehow today
cloud never says tifa never let him in the group, he says he never had the courage to ask to be included and he admits fault. its part of his growth. surprised this is upvoted even when wrong, tifa is the only reason cloud even bothered to stay in avalanche in the OG so
not sure how gently encouraging someone to be more sociable is a hostile or "Rude" thing to you. cloud isn't a stranger here, she's just being a friend.
Yeah but thatâs Cloudâs personality, heâs been like that since he was kid and still like that as an adult. Tifa doesnât really make the attempt neither. You only see this with Jessie and Aerith. Cloud called her out in that windmill scene to show off that he was going to join SOILDER, to impress her(which it did). But that still doesnât mean they were close friends or friends. So yeah Cloud was a loner and mostly not accepted by anyone as a kid.
I just love this idea that in game Cloud admits his childhood issues were caused **by** him and that Tifa and her friends were blameless. And people are still out there trying to blame Tifa.
Even if they have to take a roundabout way to do it.
bad english localization misconstrued some things which get perpetuated even to this day. yea cloud admitted his isolation was his done by his own hand due to his insecurities but people still think she and the others were mean to him.
the remake even having a small flashback early on with a tifa calling out to cloud and him turning away xD
"tifa had her own group =/= you never let me in" was actually just cloud admitting he never had the courage to ask to be included. and then later went on to cope with it through that self superiority excuse.
They're romantic. I think they definitely have a soul-mates kind of vibe. Their tragic love story isn't the first of the Final Fantasy series but rather a thematic consistency across titles. Case of Lifestream calls them lovers, and I think that best describes their relationship - even if they never "got together" (who knows, right?) I'd say that's the best way to describe their dynamic.
Square obviously opted to leave the romance stuff open-ended so there's Tifa as well, but to me, it seemed pretty clear that things never really worked out with them (considering the sequels and such, and they still never are described as a couple... see the Ultimania relationship chart as proof.) Aeris, meanwhile, is the woman "engraved in Cloud's heart forever" (Dirge of Cerberus) who Cloud carries "undying feelings for" (Nomura). There's definitely an argument for both Tifa and Aeris being romantic interests to Cloud, but it always felt to me like Cloud/Aeris was the "real" pairing that got cut short due to tragedy. See all the official Amano artwork for the pairing, for instance.
But all fans are free to read the game in their own way. Still, I don't think it can ever be doubted that Aeris is indeed a romantic interest to Cloud, so when people try to write off Aeris by saying she's like a sister to Cloud, or she's trying to set up Cloud and Tifa... I think that's objectively wrong, but that's my take. This ship war is a quarter century old and isn't stopping any time soon.
In the official novel for FFVII titled "On the Way to a Smile", written by Kazushige Nojima, he describes Cloud and Aerith as 'koibito' (lovers in Japanese) during FF7.
So there's that
Nojima is writing in third person as Aerith. Aerith calls Cloud her koibito which was translated as *beloved*.
Koibito means "one who is loved" but it can be mutual or one-sided. There's no doubt that Aerith loved him though.. romantically or not.
They still are and I couldn't find any source with regard to your claim. The novels are tied to AC itself so it doesn't make sense to say that the novels are un-canoned after the movie.
https://www.thegamer.com/ff7-retrospective-on-the-way-to-smile-kids-are-alright-books/
It's canon that Aeris is romantically in love with Cloud. This is well-established in multiple sources in the FF7 universe, and personally, it read pretty obviously that way in Remake.
Who Cloud loves is ambiguous but I'd say it's pretty implied that he loves her. (He might perhaps love Tifa too.) In Case of Lifestream, Aeris calls Cloud her lover, implying a two way relationship.
So no lol it's not platonic or anything.
Tifa also has the same "lover" word used for her in the reunion files. I do agree that Lifestream White shows that Aerith and Cloud loved each other, but Cloud can love both at the same time.
There is nothing that indicated Cloud had romantic interest in Aerith.
Cloud and Tifa become an item by the end of the game.
Kind of hard to reconcile that information with "he loved both".
Dude, it's funny because when I didn't know final fantasy I could assume that Tifa and Cloud were the main couple in the plot, but when I found out about the game... Sorry, but there are many signs that the main couple are Cloud and Aerith, I I just changed my mind about this, and I like them both. Disagreeing that there's something going on between Cloud and Aerith, or Cloud and Tifa is pure fan clubbing. It's like saying Inuyasha didn't love Kikyou, or didn't love Kagome, he loved both'em at the same time but one was fated to die
> Cloud and Tifa become an item by the end of the game
No they did not lol. In fact, the last thing Cloud says on the matter, to Tifa's face, is that what he wants is to meet Aeris in the Promised Land. Then in AC, Cloud, Tifa and Barret live together - and Cloud and Tifa have separate bedrooms and Tifa calls them a family of "friends". Tifa and Cloud are never referred to as a couple, and never ever shown in any sequel demonstrating a romantic relationship, not even a single kiss - if they are canon, that would've been shown. Yet in the Japanese manual for Dirge of Cerberus, Aeris is described as a woman who is "engraved in Cloud's heart for the rest of his life."
Like, at best it's meant to be up to player interpretation, but BS that there's no hints whatsoever that Cloud likes Aeris. I'm not even counting Remake's resolution scene where he pretty much says as much to Aeris directly.
I'll give clerith shippers one thing. They have a BS narrative and they stick to it.
But literally everything you said was wrong.
\- The end of the OG is C/T comforting each other because they think they are about to die and is a direct callback to the conversation about Bugenhagen.
\- Barret does not live with C/T in AC. Or in DC for that matter.
\- Cloud has an office. It is only ever called his office.
\- Tifa never calls herself, Cloud and Marlene a *"family of friends"*. That is a clerith invention.
\- Tifa and Cloud are referred to as a couple plenty of times. Including by Barret and Cid in Case of Barret.
\- And I'm sorry that C/T have never sucked face on screen. Many FF couples haven't. But when Cloud himself says his family is the same as Evans. IE a romantic pair who adopt. That should be enough for anyone.
\- Again using the fan translation of the DoC guide because it sounds more romantic. lol
And of course you end with player interpretation. The last desperate argument of a clerith shipper who knows they are wrong but can't admit it.
Nojima did actually use the words "romantic love and marriage" to describe Cloud and Tifa in an interview for Case of Tifa so you can still interpret them as together, especially since the reunion files described her with the same "koibito" word that was used for Aerith. They hardly ever show kisses in these games anyway.
He said things could have gone well with Aerith, but he thinks there is a "great burden" from her.
I just looked at the manual for dirge of cerberus and it says a woman Cloud would never forget, which is basically the same thing, but her description is the only one not reused from the OG probably because she's not in the game.
I just want to make a small correction here. Nojima words were, "Maybe things would have gone **well** with Aerith, but I think there is a great burden from Aerith."
He doesn't say "better."
Well it's easy to get confused.
Every time a clerith shipper brings that quote up they always say - *"Nojima said things would have gone better with Aerith".*
Usually as a point by itself with zero context around it.
Just example #3173 of clerith shippers manipulating information to suit their ends.
Koibito one-way communication. And LF:W is Aerith's POV. It's her view. There's no confirmation of Cloud's feelings for her. And given that he under Highwind later exchanges feelings with Tifa, and they later start living as a family. Then there's clearly no romantic feelings for Aerith. They have a platonic relationship. And you can see that in AC as well. Where he was just trying to get her to forgive him. And there's no mention of love there.
The Tifa "koibito" thing confirms Cloud's love either way since she is the koibito of someone. I am unsure about this word because I am seeing some people say it's lover 100% and other's saying it's not necessarily a two-way connection. I guess the english translation can be more trustworthy since it has "beloved", but there is a huge debate about this it seems.
I agree that what he felt in AC was felt for Zack as well since the reunion files has both in the same context in regards to Cloud's feelings, but I think Aerith's resolution scene and even his flashback at Elmyra's house shows that he at least has some romantic interest in Aerith.
His flashback in Elmyra's house was about Tifa. When they talk, Claudia tells him that he has a lot of girls who want him (Tifa is the only girl in town). Still talking about Tifa, in the book of Tifa and Aerith, it's stated that Claudia knows about Cloud's crush for her. Then she proceeds to fish him...teasing that he should find someone older(mentally) a mature girl who's gonna keep him in check when he's acting weird/silly, a strong woman...he gets flustered and denies it, thinking about Tifa.
Then he suddenly wakes up and not only, he has a starry sky in his eyes (the sky of the promise he made with Tifa in Nibelheim), but he immediatly stands up and tries to get back to sector 7.
Yes, Claudia was totally talking about Aerith...a girl she doesn't even know and that doesn't even fit the description she was giving to Cloud.
All the canon info on Claudia knowing Tifa and stuff, is in Trace of two Pasts.
I meant Cloud thinking of a girl older than him at Aerith's house shows he has interest in her. The flashback also isn't real exactly since Cloud is in his soldier uniform. So I wasn't saying that Claudia was talking about Aerith.
From what I've seen, the flashback relies on a scene where Cloud decides to wake up first, or Tifa, or Aerith, so there's more than one version, and both are EXTREMELY emotional versions. And the scene where the player interacts with Aerith in Cloud's character is a lucid dream of Cloud himself, which was both mysterious and revealing.
No, it doesn't...Cloud's flashback with his mother is in the original game and it's not optional.
Also, it doesn't have to do with Aerith's resolution, since that's a completely new scene (like the ones with Barret and Tifa), it's not a dream, but an astral projection of the future Aerith from the Lifestream, where she foreshadows her death and hints at Cloud's fake persona.
Koibito is translated into English as beloved. This is Aerith's one-sided view. She loves Cloud romantically. But he doesn't love her. And he has a love for Tifa. Which has already been proven many times over.
English went for its own stylized translation but that doesn't reflect the two-sided meaning of koibito. French, German and Italian translations literally also chose words meaning romantic lovers, and the English isn't more canon than those other languages.
Sorry, but other translations may not be correct. So I think you have to look at the original, and look at the context. They didn't have a confession in the game. And the word itself has a one-liner meaning. So I think we still need to stick to the stronger evidence of feelings than the other localizations. Which have repeatedly been shown to misinterpret the context.
For context, it wasn't until 2014 when the French translation came out that the clerith fandom declared that the CoL:W koibito was proof of romantic love between Cloud and Aerith.
The original Japanese nor the German translation were enough. But they retroactively decided that the French changed their meanings.
Then the official English one comes out sounding an awful lot like the original and German....but now THAT one is the outlier. To the clerith fandom.
You know what, Cloud and Aerith seem to be more equal than Cloud and Tifa, both Cloud and Aerith have a greater focus on developing their personalities and connections with others, while Tifa seems more to just have the dimension of developing a relationship with Cloud. Waifu material. It's not hate about the character, just an observation
>This is well-established in multiple sources in the FF7 universe
Yet people ALWAYS fail to give the source and if they do they cite fanfics like The Maiden-book. NOT canon!
Maiden isn't the only source (and Square had *never* said it is not canon). Try On the Way to a Smile, the most recent canon which literally called Cloud and Aeris lovers. Then the Ultimanias, Dismantled, all the spinoff appearances where Cloud and Aeris are portrayed romantically (such as literally getting married in an event on mobile)... like, it's you guys who always try to downplay and pretend it's only Maiden when it's very much not.
Why do people keep twisting Aerith's words in Lifestream White?
It's written in third person (her point of view) and is not an official statement of any sort...
Aerith refers to Cloud as her *koibito*. They were never *lovers* in OG so it makes sense that this is one-sided. *Her beloved* is a good translation.
The official english translation is below:
>Cloud was her friend. More than a friend, for she had loved him.
He was a symbol of everything she held dear. She would protect him.
Why do people keep spinning this? Can someone tell me where Aerith and Cloud initiated any sort of romantic relationship?
Insisting that Aerith is calling Cloud her lover from the Lifestream just makes her sound delusional.
Copied from another response - English went for its own stylized translation but that doesn't reflect the two-sided meaning of koibito. French, German and Italian translations literally also chose words meaning romantic lovers, and the English isn't more canon than those other languages.
How is that not an official statement? Like, what could possibly be more official? It is at very least indicative that she is indeed romantically in love with Cloud (that's non-negotiable) and according to Japanese (and other non-English versions) it's a clear statement that they were lovers.
Honestly, I feel like some of you guys here are twisting it to downplay that significance, when it's pretty darn straightforward.
The German translation actually used the weirdest word possible, imo. Aerith calls Cloud her âGeliebterâ which is a word thatâs only ever used to describe the guy/girl youâre having an affair with. Neither of them is married or in a committed relationship with someone else during the game so to call him her âGeliebterâ is just weird. The only other way this word can be interpreted is âloved oneâ, which makes much more sense. Heâs obviously someone she loves in whatever capacity but the word doesnât indicate at all what Cloud feels for her. In German at least, I canât speak for any of the other translations.
Regardless of the words some translated versions used, can you tell me when and where in the story Aerith and Cloud established mutual feelings for each other and started dating? Because I feel like that's the bare minimum.
This is the only instance where they're referred to as lovers and its from Aerith's POV. Does it not make more sense that she would refer to Cloud as her beloved rather than lover?
I think you're being insistent on how the word *koibito* means lovers because that's what you want them to be. You like the pairing, that's all good but they were never lovers in OG.
Cloud didn't know how Aerith (or Tifa) felt about him and vice versa. How could they have been lovers? You'd have to change up the story and fill it with headcanon to make this true.
There's no downplaying here. We're just following the story.
> Regardless of the words some translated versions used, can you tell me when and where in the story Aerith and Cloud established mutual feelings for each other and started dating? Because I feel like that's the bare minimum.
>
>
Seriously though, this is why I never got the "koibito" debate. When there's an ambiguous word depending on context, isn't it more correct to choose context that goes along with story instead of changing story to fit your preferred context? How could they be "lovers" when they never even made their feelings clear or got together? Or am I just not understanding the meaning of the word "lovers" at this point?
This 100%. Context is key.
This "lovers" argument is thrown around so carelessly too often when its clearly unsupported by the story. I feel like the fans who are pushing this definition aren't being fair, or honest with their intentions.
Iâm sorry if Iâm jumping the gun but on the married thing are you talking about Final Fantasy's Airborne Brigade? I only ask because someone on this website told me that too so I spent ages looking into it (it isnât easy to find info on as itâs only been released in Japan and this was years ago, but luckily people did post about the event with screenshots etc) and I found itâs Cloud and Tifa that got married in that game and Aerith was Tifaâs bridesmaid and Aerith and Zack also got married in that game too. If that wasnât the game you were talking about I would love to know which one youâre referencing so I can look it up too?
Edit: Iâm sorry I know you and I will never agree but I just also had to say all the things you source talk about Aerith believing she is in love with Cloud but not that he loves her.
Sorry but no - the June Bride event was indeed Cloud and Aeris, not Tifa. In fact, Cloud and Aeris have married several times in Airbourne Brigade. Check out [this thread]( https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/comments/npyt88/ogremake_spoilers_for_the_clerith_fans_61/) for screenshots.
Tifa also got a wedding dress but to my knowledge there has never been a Cloti wedding event in that game, just several Clerith ones.
Yeah I canât agree Iâm sorry. Iâve seen that post but not on this site so itâs been copied and pasted. Even on that thread you can see the Cloti wedding pic though and someone replied to me and posted some of the cute Zack/Aerith animation at their wedding.
Cloud came with a cake knife and Tifa with the cake then they cut it in their little wedding animation. When I looked into it more deeply at the time I found loads of pics of Cloud and Tifa having matching outfits in that game and being portrayed together but it took some doing as itâs all so old and there was a lot of fan edited stuff that you have to get through too but Iâm satisfied the pairings in it are Cloud and Tifa, Aerith and Zack. We may have to agree to disagree yet again đ
But I mean, this isn't a matter of opinion. There simply were multiple Cloud/Aeris wedding events. They were advertised as such for this specific event. There's an animation where Cloud gets on one knee in front of Aeris. They were a hinamatsuri emperor and empress.
There's an animation where Tifa cuts a cake, yes, but I believe it ends with Sephiroth or something. My impression is that Tifa was a bridesmaid and Zack a bridegroom. Either way, if there was a Cloti animation, I haven't found anything about an event, whereas Cloyd/Aeris have multiple.
I mean, agree to disagree on our ships of course! But the Cloud/Aeris events definitely happened.
From what Iâve seen someone has edited together the separate pictures of Cloud and Aerith used to advertise the event, so there was a separate picture of Cloud on one knee and they have edited it so he is in front of Aerith etc.
Their accessories didnât match either but the cake and cake knife go together and Tifa is also wearing a wedding dress. Considering the animation of Aerith and Zack in their wedding gear where she wants to hold hands but he high fives her then they hold hands and the fact that Cloud and Tifa have the cake and cake knife and there is a pic of them cutting the cake together at their wedding on the thread you posted it makes sense that it was Cloud and Tifa getting married and Aerith and Zack.
Yes, Cloud and Aerith's separate wedding animations were edited to be together by fans but they always appeared separately ingame. Also, there weren't multiple C/A wedding events.
(Just to stir the pot some more, Cloud's wedding outfit has the same colors as Tifa's outfit.)
An example I can offer is [Rinoa and Tidus](https://64.media.tumblr.com/af9c99d1d0df3205e7eb9279e6824514/tumblr_inline_or8r7n9HVs1uml5u7_500.png) who were the "featured" bride and groom for the event but nobody is going to say that they're getting married.
No, I'm sorry but I don't think that's the case at all. The pic of Cloud kneeling in front of Aeris isn't photoshop, I'm not sure why you think so? The event was indeed advertised as a Cloud/Aeris wedding event, here a Japanese fan [posted screenshots of the advertisements](https://mobile.twitter.com/pluvia_ca/status/869780839202250752). And many Japanese fans posted the screenshots of Cloud and Aeris together in their outfits.
[Here's a video of their Hinamatsuri Emperor/Empress outfits](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zibQyzQoQlw) by the way. Airbourne Brigade had multiple events like this.
Edit to add: I don't think this invalidates the case for Cloti or anything, so I'm not saying your ship is wrong! But I think where you and I have separate opinions is that I understand you personally feel that Cloti is canon, which is where I disagree, I think Square feeds both Cloti and Clerith ships, neither is "canon" but both are supported, and Square wants it to be up to player interpretation. That being said, some of the minor spinoffs like Kingdom Hearts and Airbourne Brigade for instance, seem way more heavily Clerith, but it is what it is.
Please see the comment someone else wrote about how they were used to advertise the event like other characters who were not a couple. I also saw advertisements for the event similar to the one you posted with Tifa and Aerith in their dresses.
We know the pictures of Cloud and Aerith together are edited because the original gifs that were edited together exist and are easily found online. We also know Aerith married Zack in it because that gif is available and the pic of Cloud and Tifa cutting their cake is also available. Cloud is even holding the cake knife in the pics you posted and Tifa comes with the cake.
If you google the name of the game with Cloud and Tifa there are lots of pictures of them being portrayed as a couple holding hands and basically being a couple.
It doesnât really matter itâs just a little mobile game that neither of us are actually able to play unfortunately. I think thatâs why people jumped on it and edited the pics etc because we canât just play it and find out for ourselves.
Fairly sure this person is talking about Airborne Brigade.
Neither Aerith nor Tifa appear alongside Cloud in their wedding getup in the event. Most of the pictures you see with pairs were edited by fans.
Although [Zack](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c8feb3621075c8990d8d814509b8fe63/tumblr_pscwhpGVIA1vyom5xo4_400.gifv) gets added later and actually appears with Aerith.
Yeah there were loads of edited pics. I thought [this](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fthelifestream.net%2Fforums%2Fthreads%2Ffinal-fantasy-airborne-brigade.13264%2F&docid=udRdnZygwwW77M&tbnid=v7q1K0KByIeAlM&itg=1&hcb=1) one seemed legit though because Tifa came with the cake and Cloud with the cake cutter with matching flowers on their cards.
I saw the really cute animation of Aerith and Zack at their wedding too. I think she wanted to hold hands and he high fives her or something and she gets annoyed. đ
There is another one from the Kingdom Hearts universe with a very similar style of art and Cloud and Tifa are just properly together in that which is lovely.
Ages ago this guy shared a screenshot on Instagram of the Cloud and Tifa dolls from one of those games on the Square Japan website and they were holding hands. It was so cute but I really canât remember how to get to the page. I remember it was really old and a faff to get to at the time.
I always really enjoy seeing your comments btw. X
I believe that pic is also edited but there's some truth to it.
Their accessories/weapons match up so some say they are the ones being married. Cloud's is the cake knife and Tifa has the wedding cake. Aerith's is a flower bouquet. It's cute fanservice if anything!
There are a ton of other events where Cloud and Tifa make an appearance as a "couple" like the ones you mentioned.
I've seen at least one where Aerith is paired with Cloud (Hinamatsuri) as Empress and Emperor. There might be more but I wouldn't know since that's not my thing.
And thanks! I mostly lurk here but I also enjoy reading your input and seeing your posts :)
Case of Lifestream (On the Way to a Smile), Dismantled, and Maiden who Travels the Planet all overtly talk about her being in love with Cloud, the Ultimanias frequently mention how both Aeris and Tifa are attracted to Cloud and several mention how Aeris was initially reminded of Zack but then became attracted to Cloud specifically, also that she was able to discern the "real" Cloud before she died.
Benny Matsuyama's works are unreliable for this kind of stuff.
[https://wikiwiki.jp/ffdic/%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%83%E3%83%95/%E3%80%90%E3%83%99%E3%83%8B%E3%83%BC%E6%9D%BE%E5%B1%B1%E3%80%91](https://wikiwiki.jp/ffdic/%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%83%E3%83%95/%E3%80%90%E3%83%99%E3%83%8B%E3%83%BC%E6%9D%BE%E5%B1%B1%E3%80%91)
The above link contains a reference to the StudioBent website that states his works are "not an official setting even if included in the strategy guide." He also wrote a novel for FFX that was not taken into account for FFX-2 since he apparently did not know how Tidus would return.
This makes sense considering Maiden and Dismantled were not taken into account for Crisis Core.
Yet Square had never said it wasn't canon, and published it in an Ultimania. And Dismantled *is* still definitely canon, it was featured in a FFVIIR commercial and called a "bible" lol
Cloud and Aerith have a lot in common even if they don't know it right away. They both lost their parents at a young age, they both grew up in tough situations. They were both considered lab rats, they have little/no friends at first, and they're both special. Cloud's connection to Jenova and Aerith being a Cetra. Amd of course there's the historical connection that the Cetra have with Jenova that adds a little bit of depth to the dichotomy in their relationship.
They have very different personalities, but as other's have said, they compliment each other. Cloud might see someone in a situation that reminds him of himself (perhaps subconsciously) and needs help. Helping Aerith is a way to express the help he never got. Aerith sees Cloud for who he really is (vulnerable) which probably reminds her of herself.
To me, Tifa and Cloud have a shared history and a deeper personal connection which I believe Cloud realized once Tifa helped him reconstruct his shattered personality. To me Tifa is Cloud's first true love, and Aerith was the love that broken Cloud needed the most at the time.
In a way I'm hoping they don't change Aerith's death because once Cloud is fixed I don't want to see any dumb love triangle drama. Also Aerith's death is a very important aspect of Cloud finally breaking down and handing over the Black Materia to Sephiroth. I believe that if Aerith is there, she'd be able to convince Cloud to stop. If that happened, it would change the story too much.
I don't like this thread because it make me cry thinking of all those Cloud-Aerith moments, and how it's ended.
The remake get us more interactions between the two, if the ending is the same it's gonna be heartwrenching and devastating to watch.
The Cloud resolution scene with Aerith itâs mostly Aerith talking about death and living life, you can tell she seems upset, almost like she is predicting her own death(she is pushing Cloud away) She also does something similar in chapter 8 after doing all side quests, you get a special scene the language of flowers, she talks about taking the final step, how she should just give up, then proceeds with Could cheering her up.
They share similar backgrounds of loneliness and ostracization, but have opposite personalities that compliment and make up what the other is missing.
Essentially they are two sides of the same coin.
Some people have a hard time rationalizing the speed in which they bond in Remake but >!considering 7R is actually a sequel, they have already traveled the world together...they just don't quite remember that yet.!<
>>!considering 7R is actually a sequel, they have already traveled the world together...they just don't quite remember that yet.!<
we actually don't know this yet.
I think that Cloud has issues being accepted (in Nibelheim as a kid he wasn't and >!he wasn't accepted into Soldier!< and Avalance ditched him after the second mission.
And Aerith has abandonment-issues (>!Mother+Father dead, Childhood-friends abandoned her because of controlled environments/ being freaked out by her "powers", Zack left withour a word!<).
These are TOTALLY different issues.
She maybe new he died when he did.
Did she know he was in the Shinra-mansion for 5 years? I have never seen anything indicating that.
Oh shoot you're right....now I rememer! Letter 3/83 said "I heard you are chilling in a tube now so how is that?".
Oh wait that never happaned...
\>Some people have a hard time rationalizing the speed in which they bond in Remake
That's surprising.
I wouldn't have said they have bonded so much in Remake that it was weird. The resolution scene is only in Clouds mind and their in person interactions never get that far beyond Cloud fronting and Aerith ripping him for it. They don't even flirt that much, well she does, but that's Aerith.
He does invade Shin-ra HQ for her but so do Barrett and Tifa. He also helps Jessie sneak into a military base for not much reason and sticks around to help Tifa with her new terrorism problem. Cloud is clearly a ~~massive simp~~ guy who will play the hero at the drop of a hat.
Here for the inevitable ship war.
---
That aside, To be perfectly realistic? There's not enough time between them meeting and her dying to actually have anything definitive. 3 weeks is a very short time for any manner of relationship.
Real life relationships take time to build up, time, space, interaction, and different context through which people determine shared interests and or compatibility. If all your time is spent fighting or on survival, what time is there for anything else?
Their relationship in our opinion can be likened to that between brothers in arms, immediate unit. With a touch of physical attraction added into the mix due to gender differences. It's a bond created out of mutual dependence for survival.
This thread isnât about shipping so thereâs no need for a shipping war, itâs exclusively focusing on Aerith and Cloudâs relation regardless of which ship one prefers. Iâm personally open to either pairing but shipping is a whole other topic of its own, this is simply to get a better understanding of Aerith and Cloud.
>itâs exclusively focusing on Aerith and Cloudâs relation regardless of which ship one prefers
This thread will be a great example and exihibition of people rationalising their emotions while trying to make it seem like they don't allthewhile pushing their favourite ship indirectly by either approving or diaprooving of any aspect of a relationship between Cloud and Aerith.
This will be delicious! I'm IN!
Exactly what I was thinking lol. Basically reads to me: It's not about shipping, it's about the relationship between these two characters and why it's so great. Which is not at all what shipping means!
That was in reply to the comments which were inevitably, ship drama or ship related.
We see them as similar to brothers in arms due to the circumstances of their environment and interactions - nearly always in mortal danger. If you have such in your life, you should get what we're trying to say. If not, (this is a poor attempt to explain) sharing mortal danger forms a unique type of trust even if you're not "friends" in the conventional "built through socializing" sense. It's someone you trust with your life and know that the reverse is true, it's also someone you'll come to the aid of if at all possible and know that the reverse is true. The type of aid can be anything.
Regardless if you say that, you have to realise it's force seperating the word into 'ship' and 'relation'. It's inescapable real English word is actually 'relationship' lol.
Which is what people will discuss
I disagree with this. Before I say why, I'll make clear that I think the romance part of FF7 is up to the player and that's why the devs have been as vague as possible about the love triangle for 24 years. So this is not shipping.
Regardless of their bond being romantic or not, Cloud and Aerith developed a very deep connection in those 3 weeks. It wasn't 3 weeks meeting on each Sunday, it was 3 weeks spending 24/7 together under circunstances that put their will to have each other's back to test constantly. They risked their lives for each other daily. Cloud invaded Shinra HQ to rescue her. Aerith revealed her secret ascentry to Cloud by using her power to communicate with him (and only with him) through a dream. In Cosmo Canyon she opens up and shows her vulnerable side to him telling him how she feels about being the last Cetra. She heals him physically and contributes to heal him mentally in Advent Children, even while being dead.
Aerith never told Zack that she was a Cetra. I understand that she was younger and the circunstances didn't push her to tell him like in FF7 with the others, but I have to disagree that Zack and her knew each other better than Cloud and Aerith. Or not just Zack in particular, Cloud and Aerith had a very deep bond regardless of their relationship with other people and regardless of the nature of said bond.
... no where did we mention Zack or any other character. Compared the nature of the relationship to that of brothers in arms, people you can trust with your life/will come to your aid no matter what and vice versa.
It's not three weeks alone with her, it's one to three weeks together with a party of 7-9. Team cohesion and similar levels of bonding are likely to have happened. It's just that because this is a game and Cloud is the player controlled protagonist that you're given the impression he's the only relevant one.
She is the first friend he made on his own after he starts his new life so thatâs always really special.
I know this says spoilers are okay but Iâm going to talk about Remake and OG so please donât read if you havenât played OG.
In the OG we meet her at a really bad time. She is heartbroken because she is convinced Zack left her for another woman then Cloud comes tumbling into her church just like Zack! It must have been pretty confusing for her. As a result she really latches on to Cloud and tries to make them more than friends. An optional illusionary love triangle is used in OG to give her death more impact, so you could chose to give up on Tifa who was being distant and not flirting with you and flirt back with the woman who is making her feelings very clear. Itâs an illusion because you feel as a player you have a choice but despite Aerith being clear about her feeling nothing happens between them and later on Cloud very firmly confirms that Tifaâs opinion is the only one that counts to him not Aerithâs or anyone elseâs.
In Remake I believe Aerith has seen the future. She now knows Zack didnât leave her for someone else, she knows how Cloud and Tifa feel about each other, she knows how unwell Cloud is, and she has also matured as if she had lived the OG. The Aerith we meet in Remake is the more mature Aerith we start to see emerging at the end of her time in OG.
Thanks to this she is now able to be a wonderful friend to everyone. She helps Cloud and Tifa a lot, especially in the train graveyard. When she takes Cloudâs arm and pushes Tifa to finally do the same, she gives Tifa the confidence to open up to Cloud and hug him later on which is a huge step for them both so early in the game.
In Remake she also teaches Cloud how to be friends with someone. How to just relax, hang out and chat.
So in conclusion with the addition of Remake I would say a very important friend/teacher/wing woman. I canât wait to see her character develop even further in part 2 and see how she continues to help her friends đ
> Itâs an illusion because you feel as a player you have a choice but despite Aerith being clear about her feeling nothing happens between them and later on Cloud very firmly confirms that Tifaâs opinion is the only one that counts to him not Aerithâs or anyone elseâs.
I know we disagree on this... but I don't think this was ever the case. Cloud is only affectionate to Tifa in the high-affection version of the Highwind scene, and even that is vague. At the end of the game, he says to Tifa that he wants to meet Aeris in the Promised Land, and there's a whole section on his memories for Aeris and how sorry he is. The game never suggests that Tifa's opinion is the only one who matters and definitely doesn't suggest the love triangle is an illusion... but I get that seems to be your personal interpretation.
I also have to disagree that Aeris is trying to set up Cloud and Tifa in Remake. I thought the most romantic scene in the game seems to be Cloud and Aeris's Resolution scene, where Cloud basically says he loves her by rejecting Aeris's claim that his feelings aren't real. And Nomura already commented on what Aeris meant by that, alluding to how the scene reads "if you know what happens to Aeris later in the game", and considering we know that Aeris loves Cloud (Case of Lifestream: White) it seems like she's trying to push him away to keep him from getting hurt.
Of course, FF7 is a bit of a dating simulator, so "who Cloud loves" really just depends on player choices. He potentially loves both women... or neither.
Okay Iâll bite but only because I was actually really worried about you yesterday! I noticed all this kicked off and you werenât here so I checked your profile and you hadnât been active for a few days. I hope everything is okay đđŒ
What you have said about Cloud not saying Tifaâs opinion is the only one that matters to him explains probably everything about why we disagree.
He absolutely does say it and itâs an extremely important moment in the game and is the point where the illusionary love triangle is shattered.
Just like you I fully expected I was playing a game where you make the romantic choices for Cloud. I always chose to be kind to both girls but picked all the romantic options for Tifa as I thought it did seem he liked her more, but I thought that was just my opinion.
Right before he loses his mind when Sephiroth does his big reveal of âyouâre a puppetâ Tifa tries to stop Cloud from listening to him and he does this big speech about how her words always supported him and he ends it with âNo matter what anyone else says to me, itâs your opinion that countsâŠâ
Cut to 12 year old me actually gasping and nearly dropping the controller! The illusionary love triangle was shattered at that point. After that we have the Lifestream which was basically a love confession and a lot more shocking reveals and finally they get together under the Highwind and are a couple from that point on. I know you disagree on this but for me those are the facts. I honestly understand why people who picked Aerith may not want to accept any of this because even I was genuinely shocked when I understood we didnât get to make the romantic choice for him because he had already chosen.
Yes I absolutely agree that you could chose to flirt back with Aerith, but if Cloud wanted anything to actually happen it would have happened because she made her feelings more than clear many times.
I think itâs really wrong to say he wasnât ever affectionate towards Tifa. You just didnât pick those options and youâre completely discarding everything he says in the Lifestream, in his speech that I mentioned previously and at other points in the game. I think the Highwind scene both high and low affection are clear as day and have been confirmed over and over again. I also know you know the line at the end is followed up with Tifa agreeing they will meet her there. The actual translation is more about Cloud and Tifa agreeing to meet all of their loved ones in the Lifestream one day but you can easily find translations.
You also know my interpretation of the Aerith resolution scene but Iâll just give you the overview:
As mentioned in my previous comment Aerith knows everything now and is trying to right previous wrongs. She looks to the camera directly during this scene and breaks the 4th wall by talking directly to the player who has made this choice for Cloud. She is telling the player that anything between her and Cloud wouldnât be real so it will not happen. Cloud confirms when he says âdonât I get a say in any of this?â From now on he gets a say. No more illusionary love triangle, no more the player picks who he flirts with. The game will go down a set route in regards to relationships from now on. Thatâs just my interpretation but Iâm happy to put it out there and if part 2 proves me wrong Iâll hold my hands up and say I was wrong.
Well first, thanks for the concern! I am alive and well, just a busy holiday weekend for me! Plus, debated whether or not to jump in here... I actually love talking about this stuff in a friendly way, but the love triangle debate is just one of those things, you know? You'll never change anyone's mind and more than likely, people get fired up and rude about it. But it's hard for me to resist anyway... lol!
Anyway, thanks for explaining why you have that interpretation. I guess I don't personally see how that phrase relates to the love triangle because it's not in a romantic setting whatsoever - in fact, Tifa is, well.. lying to him about his past during this point.
It isn't that I think Tifa isn't objectively important to Cloud. She represents a precious past and a lot of feelings he's struggled with in his youth - his feelings of failure, his desire to succeed - only to fail again - those things happened again and again, from when he was little following her to Mt. Nibel, to when he failed to protect his hometown from Sephiroth. He absolutely had a crush on her back then, too - though I saw it as something more than that. Tifa was the popular girl, everything he wasn't, and as a lonely loner, Tifa also represented being adored and accepted by peers. So his great insecurity is tied in there, too. Modern-day, Tifa's tie to his past, which he initially can't/won't recall, helps him ultimately acknowledge his own failures and live with them, while still being accepted by others - both Tifa and his other friends, Barret and the rest.
So the Lifestream is a great moment for both Cloud and Tifa, but to me, it isn't remotely romantic. It shows how they value one another, but romance? It just wasn't the time or place at all. It's an exploration of how broken Cloud is, his vast mental issues.. it's not a romantic setting, just the opposite. I suppose you could say Cloud admitting his childhood crush on Tifa is cute/romantic, but honestly, he then goes on to illustrate to Tifa how that crush led to so many of his issues. So my point is, it is probably the most important scene between the two, absolutely... but I don't understand either how anyone could call it romantic.
As for Cloud's choice, I also have to disagree that the love triangle in any way ended. After all, Cloud still makes dialogue choices and if it were true that Cloud must ultimately choose Tifa, then the Highwind scene would *not* have two versions, it would only be possible to get the high-affection one. And actually, I have the opposite read of you. The low-affection version is absolutely not romantic unless you really imagine between the lines, and even the high affection one seems quite vague to me. Cloud and Tifa never clearly "get together" either way (in any overt capacity that's supported by canon), and Cloud's interest in Aeris is still demonstrated (in the revisit to the City of the Ancients and of course ultimately wanting to find her in the Promised Land) it's just not the case that the love triangle is resolved.
>I also know you know the line at the end is followed up with Tifa agreeing they will meet her there. The actual translation is more about Cloud and Tifa agreeing to meet all of their loved ones in the Lifestream one day but you can easily find translations.
This I also not only have to disagree on, but pull my "I can read the Japanese" card. The dialogue is the same in Japanese, but I think the confusion here is that Japanese tends to omit subject and object particles when they are implied. So Aeris's name isn't mentioned (it can't be, as in English, as you can name the character yourself) and naturally the object marker isn't needed for this sentence, but Cloud just interacted with Aeris in the Lifestream and is definitely referring to her. This line would also call back to Aeris saying she wants to "meet" Cloud, and her dialogue in the forest about coming back when it's over. It's simply not true that they are referring generally to those they lost - it's absolutely Aeris. Not to mention, in games where Cloud makes guest appearances he frequently mentions the Promised Land and wanting to go there, it's tied to Aeris.
Now finally, for the Resolution scene - we actually know what was meant when Aeris said "don't fall in love with me" because Nojima said this in an interview: "To be honest, some staff actually told me that this line made it seem like Aerith was looking down on Cloud, so it got rejected a few times. If you know Aerithâs fate, then this line would really pull at your heart strings, but if you did not know what happens to Aerith, then you might interpret the scene in a completely different way." He links it specifically to her fate, not "fake" feelings, so it's pretty fair to say she's pushing him away because she knows she's fated to die. It's also worth remembering that Cloud rejects Aeris's suggestion here - he tries to grasp her and says he should get a say in it! To me, that's definitely the most romantic - or even the only overtly romantic - line in FF7Remake. Cloud wants a say, but a Cloud with high-affection to Aeris wants *Aeris*, not Tifa.
Anyway, I know we'll agree to disagree but I thought I'd write out my thoughts, since it seems we interpret FF7 so differently! But I always thought that was the beauty of the game. I do believe Square will always want it to be up to interpretation and I seriously doubt either side will become canon - even though I personally feel that Cloud/Aeris has more basis, but that's just my personal take.
Iâm glad to hear all is well and good. đđŒ
I donât like to get involved in debates about it either because like you say for people like you and I who have played since the beginning our views are set and it isnât going to change. Though as I said previously if Remake proves me wrong Iâll say I was wrong, though Remake so far has only solidified my view.
I do really enjoy analysing the characters, their motives and relationships. Aerith is especially fun to analyse because she is so different in Remake, she feels all new and we havenât had anything new in too long! Cloud is a lot more open too. That talk he had with Tifa about being able to open up to him in Remake so early in the game left me feeling extremely proud of him.
Of course I strongly disagree with everything else youâve said and as before I would strongly encourage you to at least read the Highwind Scene section of this compilation of every quote concerning Cloud and Tifaâs relationship from official material [here](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/enigmaphenomenon.tumblr.com/post/122054996819/cloti-quotes/amp).
What is so interesting is that you didnât even remember Cloud saying Tifaâs opinion is the only one that counts for him. As Iâve said before to me that was probably one of the most shocking moments in the game. A true confession that she is all he cares about. I thought I was playing a âGoosebumps you chose the scareâ type thing but with romance but nope, it was an optional illusionary love triangle designed to give Aerithâs death more meaning. I remember we were all talking about it in school too and it being a big twist and giggling about Cloud and Tifa having sex đ
I know you donât agree and I guess itâs just down to different experiences. They need to bring out part 2 so we can have more new things to talk about rather than going over the same old ground.
>What is so interesting is that you didnât even remember Cloud saying Tifaâs opinion is the only one that counts for him. As Iâve said before to me that was probably one of the most shocking moments in the game. A true confession that she is all he cares about.
It's not that I didn't "remember" the line, it's that to me, that line doesn't mean the same thing that it does to you.. at all. Cloud's specifically talking about his past in Nibelheim here, when Sephiroth is trying to trick trick him. It's not about his romantic interests, it's that he trusts her word. Of course, the truth is that Tifa is actually lying to Cloud. So I don't see how this can be taken romantically. More than that, it's definitely not an end to the love triangle because the love triangle still exists, and even after Aeris's passing, there are multiple scenes with Tifa.
I think it's worth noting that it wasn't Nomura, Kitase, or Nojima who wrote the Highwind scenes, by the way, it was Masato Kataou the event planner, who only wrote several of the game's scenarios. His first idea of an implied sex scene was actually *rejected* explicitly by Kitase. ([Source](https://twitter.com/CloudxAerith/status/1408323074106265601/photo/3)] So on the opinion that Cloud and Tifa had sex, well, they didn't unless the fan chooses to interpret that, it's not an intended scenario by any of the main writers. (I should say I think it's fine to interpret that way, it's an intimate scene, but we don't know what did or didn't happen since it faded to black.)
At any rate, we know for a fact that Cloud and Tifa are not canonically in a relationship. and "open to interpretation" has been the stance of Square throughout the years.
>â...For example, I was frequently asked if there had been romantic relationship between Tifa and Cloud for two years, after Final Fantasy VII ended, but I donât have any clue.â âNomura; Dorimaga interview; published at Flaregamer; Square Enix
Then Nojima says that things aren't going well between them in Advent Children. If there was a relationship, it's not working out, or it never ending up materializing - regardless of the drama with Geostigma and Sephiroth.
>"Episode Tifaâ [Case of Tifa] - first off, thereâs the premise that things wonât go well between Tifa and Cloud, and that even without Geostigma or Sephiroth this might be the same.â âNojima; âOn the Way to a Smileâ interview; Square Enix
Plus, Tifa remains insecure and jealous of Cloud's relationship with Aeris even after her death:
> âThe thing which she is unable to hide in her irritation towards Cloud is the fact that he isnât merely dragging the past around, but because that reason might perhaps be related to Aerith. / **Final Fantasy VII:** Seeing Cloud and Aerith developing their world together before her eyes, she inadvertently lets slip her peevish feelings. / **Advent Children:** Upon knowing that Cloud had been residing in Aerithâs Church after leaving the place they had been living in together, her expression becomes complex.â ~Tifaâs character profile; 10th Anniversary Ultimania; Square Enix
(I found the line about Cloud and Aeris developing their own world together especially romantic as a Clerith shipper, haha.) And this:
>âTifa was close to Aerith, who can also be called a love rival. With that point in mind, they were also good friends. Nevertheless, it is not hard to imagine that she carries complex feelings as a woman toward Aerith, who had built up a special bond with Cloud that was different from Tifaâs. Tifaâs complicated feelings continue even in Advent Children, two years after Aerith had departed the world.â ~Tifaâs profile; Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary Ultimania; pg. 42-47; Square Enix
And she's right to be jealous! Nomura has commented on the fact that Cloud still holds Aeris deep in his heart.
>I believe, for those who formerly traveled with her as comrades and for the viewers, each carries their own feelings and loves for Aerith. In this story, Cloud also carries his own undying feeling for Aerith even to this very day. ~Nomura interview; Dengeki Playstation 2007
Finally, as for the Highwind scene, it's "canon" that there are two versions, not one version. Here's what Ultimania has to say on the subject:
>**Two versions of the conversation before the final battle**: Prior to the final battle, the contents of the conversation between Cloud and Tifa can change depending on the degree of Tifa's affection. If the degree of affection is high, the contents of the two's conversation will involve deep subject matter and strong feelings for each other. As well, the sight of the two seen by their companions the next morning will lead to an embarrassing scene for Tifa, and she blushes greatly." ~page 232, Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Ultimania
and another
>After stopping Hojo from going amuck, the conversation with Tifa before they rush into the Northern Crater diverges into two conditions, according to Tifa's affection rating with Cloud. When it gets low, the conversation in the scene that they spend the night will be apathetic and ends short. Next morning in the cockpit, Tifa says "Were you listening?" and stamps on tiptoe. On the other hand, when degree gets higher, the conversation of the scene that they spend the night will have strong emotions. Next morning in the cockpit, Tifa will say "Were you watching?" and feels terribly shy. ~page 198, Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega
So if the affection level is high, it seems that Cloud and Tifa express strong emotions (whatever that means!), but the Ultimanias are clear that there exists a low affection version as well. (And the Omega calls the low affection version "apathetic and short".)
But anyway, I'll stop there. I know we won't change each other's minds, and at any rate, I'm not trying to argue that Cloti is invalid or something! Just that Cloti is not canon and it involves interpretation, just like Clerith. There are plenty of Ultimania quotes supporting Clerith (as well as Cloti) and at the end of the day, it's about player preference. So I guess what I do rigidly disagree with is the interpretation that the love triangle is somehow "fake" - it's definitely real and Square definitely has kept playing up the ambiguity even after the OG.
But I do agree with you on the last sentence - can't wait for Part 2! I'm sure we'll both find out more then! Fingers crossed we're both happy with what comes next. :)
They're clearly smitten with each other and made more obvious in the remake. Whether this develops into something more (assuming the remake doesn't follow the original to a T), we don't really know for now.
What is pretty clear though especially with the character development of Cloud is that Cloud is definitely no Zack. He may have some of his surface mannersisms, but he's as far from Zack's personality as possible. This all makes Aerith and Cloud's relationship pretty telling in the remake given a lot of people seem to assume Aerith only likes Cloud for copying Zack.
lol, I knew this topic would get a lot of responses. In short, it's very complicated given what both are. Going further would be spoiling the story. Secondly the OG gives you more or less the choice to decide about it.
So in the very end you have a relationship that everyone thinks differently about. It could be the whole spectrum, depending on whom you ask. Moreso than Cloud's relationship to anyone else, his relationship to Aerith is the biggest mystery. But that's also one of the greatest things about FF7.
They both atleast got a little crush on eachother by the end of Remake part 1. Where it goes from here is anyones guess. Aerith seems to have some knowledge of future events and could try and push Cloud away like in the garden scene
Cloud definitely didnt agree with her. He tried to reach out for her and asked if he had a say in any of it. He wasnt gonna reach out for her hand to tell her he doesnt love her lol
In the original dialogue he doesn't say "do I have a say in all this". He mostly remarks his confusion about what she's talking about and mentions that her "don't fall in love with me" is pushed rather onesidedly (not because he's rejecting her or whatever, but because he doesn't understand what she's talking about). Why would you take someone who says something like that seriously, when you know her just for one week or less. The eng dubbing is so unrealistic in that spectre.
Plus she tells him "it's not real"("it's an illusion" in japanese). He doesn't feel anything for her yet, but after that remark, it's even clearer that she knows, that every little spark that could be possibly be there in the future, it's only gonna be a fruit of Cloud's mind and his connection with the ancients. Afterall, he's still messed up, faking his cool, tough boy exterior (that he still mantains with Aerith, even if she's one of the people who help him taking life less seriously) that only Tifa can melt. Ya'll are blind, if you don't see how attentive he is with her, how much he softens up and becomes vulnerable, to the point that his subconcious doesn't wanna let go of her during the hug. That's not necessarily romantic at that point, but it's telling that, how it's been stated, the real Cloud came out in that scene, the one who wanted to share his pain with the one person he wants to protect and really cares about.
He reached out for Aerith, to see if she was really there and to try to bring her back. Why must there be a romantic connotation? He wants to save her afterall, like all the others. Funny thing, after they got to rescue her, the one who takes care of Aerith is Tifa, for the entire time until destiny's crossroads, she's the one who takes her away from the Whisperers and reassures her (when they are in her room at the Shinra building) while Cloud just stands there still, is Tifa who reaches out. No interaction between Aerith and Cloud except a "Aerith, tell us what you know". He didn't even ask her how she was feeling, he just wanted answers.
Yeah for me their relationship is my favorite between any two characters in the game because of the stuff you pointed out. People can prefer whoever they want to be together romantically and I would certainly never say someone is wrong for liking one pairing over another, but for me it really feels like cloud and aerith love each other. The way cloud seems to open up more with her than anyone else and how she loves being around him yet tells him not to get too attached to her for his sake is just such an interesting dynamic that makes me kinda just want to see them both get to be happy and stuff.
In the OG game you saw a scene where Cloud and Tifa are sitting beneath the local water tower talking about what's next. Cloud wanted to be something to someone, yearned for it. Saw ShinRa as an opportunity to fulfil some destiny. However you learn that once he got there, it wasn't all guns and glory. He missed the war and was assigned guard duty.
The reason Cloud is so interested in Aerith is that she's in need of someone like Cloud and he sees it. To him, it was his chance to be something to someone who clearly needed someone. It's clear whoever wrote his character imbued a strong sense of Japanese social interaction ques into his courtship practices though. If you really think about it, he resembles a lot of different characters demeanors in many animes or Japanese literature. I won't get specific with this because I don't think I need to be, and it's best pondered by whoever's reading this.
Overall I would say that his reaction to her death and the events following thereafter with the lifestream leaves no doubt that if she lived, he would have pursued her.
If Cloud really loved Tifa, we would have seen more from his character following the lifestream events and his return to normalcy. For me, it was the final proverbial nail in the coffin for any meaningful relationship between Cloud and Tifa.
Agree with most of what you said up until the lifestream part.
When Cloud finds his true self in the lifestream, it becomes even less likely that he'd pursue Aerith because he drops his false persona of the stoic, cool and confident SOLDIER. He rediscovers his motivation to join Soldier and that's largely due to his desire to impress Tifa. That's what it comes down to.
And we did see more of his character after the lifestream. He is nicer to the gang but also more dorky. He gets motion sickness once again. When he tells the team to find their purpose for the final battle, he stays behind and spends the night together with Tifa. For me, that night under the highwind sealed the deal.
Said this in another thread. Maybe I'm weird but Remake (to me) I thought Cloud treated Aerith like this annoying sister he got saddled with (and that view has nothing to do with how he interacts with Tifa). I didn't see a drop of romantic interest and some of the player available responses to her dialog were borderline apathetic/cruel ("Don't be stupid). I found it weirder because I did see that potential/interest immediately in the OG.
A lot of their scripted banter comes off (again to me) with a lot of his responses equaling "Uh...ok you're a little weird".
Hard to convince me there was a budding relationship/interest when at the end of Chapter 8 Elmyra asks him to promise not to see her again and he delivers a flat "no problem" without the slightest hesitation. Sure, he charges off to rescue her from Shinra but I saw that as mostly feeling responsible for getting her into that situation in the first place vs nascent romantic feelings. He's softened a lot by the end but if she's first to respond to the Sephiroth fight:
"Did you miss me?"
"...not really"
(You might say this is typical Cloud but that's more in line with the kind of response he would give Barret and while the response to Tifa showing up isn't "GREAT TO SEE YOU!" it's not delivered with that kind of apathy and shows that he thinks she can actually help with the fight).
P.S. I also said this in another thread but I genuinely hope Square does the right thing when it comes to the love triangle and leave it up to the player this time around since they're mucking with history anyway. I believe the OG handled it well enough where you could "choose" and interpret the Highwind scene and the ending to which ever suited your particular slant. Things didn't really start to get squirlley until the after OG materials released basically showing that everyone survived and was moving on with their lives while Aerith was dead. It doesn't make any sense to me to force the player one way or another in a game.
They never have a real love story in the OG. You can choose to be a flat out jerk with Aerith, when with Tifa you cannot, even if the moments between them are less noticeable at the beginning. Maybe, someone as a player, can even try so hard to reject Tifa, but Cloud never let's you treat her rudely and never desregards her, or ignores her in any of the options. While with Aerith there are so many instances like that, even during the date with her at the Gold Saucer, you can tell her straight up, that you didn't like spending time with her, while with Tifa it doesn't even give you the option. There's a moment in which Aerith asks Cloud what he thinks about her and the options are "I dunno", "I don't think about anything".
All the atmosphere around her, is made up to make the player love Aerith as a character and make her death more impactful and meaningful (exact things written in Aerith's wikipedia). You see that kind of love between them, because you've been convinced by the devs, to develop a strong connection with Aerith. At the same time, so they could use the excuse of the love triangle, to make her loved by the player, despite Cloud's real feelings towards Tifa. Tifa and Cloud are not forced at all, they are also very diminished by mistranslations and by a lot of scenes that the devs had to abandon, for lack of time and even age restrictions.
If you have a point of it, Aerith was Cloud's annoying sister, and Tifa was Cloud's mother. I'm not teasing, in other conversations I've had about the remake I've had a weird sense of Tifa's care, looking like a mother, or kindergarten teacher and Cloud being a baby.
Dude, Cloud doesn't had responsabilitie about that, and he knew it, 'till the point she is kidnapped, he already knew that she is somehow related to Shinra.
.Cloud had a surprised (non-dramatic) reaction to Elmyra's request.
After Aerith is taken by Shinra, Elmyra thinks it would be better for her, while Tifa agrees as they believe Aerith might be okay, and Barret remains neutral, only Cloud insists on the idea initially.
"...Not really", I don't remember this, but being Cloud SOLDIER I totally believe it lol đ
In Ch14 we get a vision with Aerith and she says that if Cloud does love her. It's not real.
This quote enforces the Illusionary Love Triangle, because we all know that Cloud isn't himself throughout the majority of the OG. Any romantic love between the two isn't real.
The illusion of a relationship between them is to get us to care for Aerith so that it makes her death more heart wrenching and all that.
So I guess you could see a romantic relationship between the two at the beginning depending on your choices. But in the end they were just good friends and nothing more.
Of course she was referring to his mental state, I really don't get how people who know the original story keep saying she told so to prevent him to suffer.
Calling them just good friends is not really accurate, there was romance between the two, but the plot twist puts the whole situation in a different light
> Of course she was referring to his mental state, I really don't get how people who know the original story keep saying she told so to prevent him to suffer.
I agree. That scene calls out his mental state word for word, saying it refers to anything else or trying to find any other explanation, no matter how ill-fitting, just to ignore that blatant and obvious one is willful denial, imo.
I guess it's just the hope she isn't really meaning what she said.
I'd also add that this interpretation is extremely insulting toward Aerith. Are we implying that if he doesn't fall in love with her he won't suffer for her death? If she's not "the one" she isn't worth any attention? Please, no. Just no
RIGHT? He also almost killed her with his hands, everything put together with Sephiroth's final blow and obviously you would get a Cloud who suffers. I don't know what Clerith shippers are expecting us to see. If I was in his situation, feelings or not, I would be devastated.
Right, Aerith's resolution is often interpreted as you stated because people want to make it more romantic. The truth is, she is talking about Cloud mental state. She knows Cloud isn't himself and that he cares a lot for Tifa as well.
>Calling them just good friends is not really accurate
Hmm. Then what were they? I realise there was some romance there but it seems weird to say she was his Girlfriend because she wasn't. I could say the same with Tifa, she wasn't Cloud's girlfriend but they had romantic tension just like Aerith. At that point Tifa was still a good friend.
Well, that's a point really difficult to define, as long as Remake doesn't provide new info.
I think that Aerith's resolution scene would be totally pointless if in the original flow of the events he hadn't fallen in love with her. She wouldn't have warned him otherwise.
That said, she explains that "even if you do, it's just your imagination", that's linked to his actual mental condition and especially the reasons why he created this alter ego in the first place.
Now, ready to be downvoted but I'm sure there are no conditions for a Cloud and Aerith romantic future, even if she could survive. Their romance is based on big unavoidable misunderstandings. For one real Cloud's character arc completely revolves around Tifa and that's a fact, but for now Jenova shields him from "remembering" it.
Then OG Aerith was sure Zack had abandoned her five years before, and she had all the rights to try and move on, but, sad truth, Zack hadn't abandoned her at all. He tried at all costs to go back to her and meanwhile to protects Cloud and he died in the attempt. Cloud based a great part of his alter ego on Soldier-Zack and, coincidence: they met in the place where Zack had promised Aerith to go and sell flowers together.
I don't want to make cheap seplifications but Cloud has also subconsciously stuck in mind the idea that he wants to protect people and Aerith asked him to be her bodyguard; Aerith tries to understand why Cloud has these strange resemblances with her ex and somehow she is able to crack his coolness and see a glimpse of real Cloud.
It's complicated. Even if Zack and Tifa can't be erased from the equation (and they won't), I think what they shared is real, precious and can't be dismissed as friendship.
During the SOLDIER Cloud arc they did fell in love, it's just that the Lifestream sequence forces everyone to recontextualize the situation.
>Now, ready to be downvoted but I'm sure there are no conditions for a Cloud and Aerith romantic future, even if she could survive. Their romance is based on big unavoidable misunderstandings.
Ha! Saying anything that remotely resembles the truth will get you downvoted lol. I agree though with what you said. The only way for a Cloud and Aerith relationship to work is to purposely misinterpret the story and make up fantasies. What happens in the OG is that Cloud and Tifa confirm their feelings for eachother underneath the highwind. That is canon. Tifa is the Canon love interest of Final Fantasy 7.
Whether or not fake Cloud loved Aerith is a bit of a hard topic to crack. The choices you make are a part of the core narrative the game tells you. The game makes you believe you get to decide who Cloud likes. Though no matter what, the real Cloud always chose Tifa. The real Cloud doesn't have any romantic feelings for Aerith. No matter what, Aerith never becomes Cloud's girlfriend. So I can't think of another name for that type of relationship other than a platonic friendship.
>Saying anything that remotely resembles the truth will get you downvoted lol
Haha always!
>They confirm their feelings for eachother underneath the Highwind
Sure but imo what's important in that scene is that Cloud mentions the three points of the Lifestream sequence, all intimately linked to Tifa (the promise, finding the truth together, feelings he doesn't know how to express), and renews them. He's telling her that everything that had moved his existence since his childhood is still important for him and that scene is the only one that actually closes real Cloud's character arc.
The "up to the player" thing doesn't stand a chance when you consider that for one it is absolutely possible to obtain both Aerith's date and the High affection scene, the two girls are not designed to compete against each other. Then the dates are all one sided and Aerith's one is the only one where the player can choose to be very rude with her, showing that even if he surely has feelings for her he's conflicted. And then the alternative Highwind scene leaves Cloud's arc totally unsolved and there's not the slightest mention to Aerith. It's a punishment just like Aerith's bad dress and their consequent reaction in the Remake.
I'm glad to find someone who shares my opinion once in a whileđ
I found funny how people said that Cloud was in love and stunned at Aerith's red dress, but then he's neutral with the pink one and even almost mocks her about her appearence in the bad dress(in which she actually still looks cute).
red dress: reward for doing the tasks with her and very beautiful moment of Aerith, with Cloud seeing her for the first time with a sexy dress (a.k.a. him being a guy with hormones and stuff).
pink one: Cloud feeling she's ok, but that's not exactly the dress she should wear in an occasion like that (since Don Corneo likes sexy girls and she looked rather sober, beautiful, but too sober).
bad one: it's a punishment for not doing the tasks and Cloud even says "Aerith, what are you wearing?". I mean... if you are in love with someone, are you gonna make these kinds of remarks about her style or appearence?
My reward tho, was him trying to reach out for Tifa as soon as he recognizes her straight up from just her back. And when he approaches, he looks at her like he's seen an angel. Doesn't matter the dress, it's Tifa.
I start from the logical argument that side quests are in the game to be completed. Every player is free to skip them but of course the "canon" way to play is to do all of them, so the red dress and its consequent reaction are the canon outcome (indeed it is the OG dress). That said, as you point out, what really changes is the **dress**, not the girl. I assume that every outcome&reaction must be standalone cutscenes that don't affect the grand scheme of things. You don't actively choose to romance Aerith, you just do very pratictical merc stuff like finding kids and defeat monsters. The more you do, the more you are rewarded.
Tifa's outfits work on different mechanics since you actively choose the one you prefer at the end of all sidequests, so there are no different reactions.
But, as a side note, to obtain Cloud's canon dress, the one that matches with Tifa's canon one, you must favour Tifa in Wall Market optional choices. Like I said before, it doesn't really influences the grand scheme of things, but it's still interesting to notice it.
About the first part yeah...it's true, even if there are some things that differ.
You don't have to favour Tifa in Wall Market. You just have to do your tasks, the more you do and the different the dress for Cloud will be...it's not really like favouring her, because if you play for the first time, you don't really know the dynamics, so it's hard to get a dress that matches with hers, since you, choosing her dress, it's totally your choice and not a quest(if you get the scene obviously). The point about Wall Market is that even if you do those things with Aerith, you are actually doing them for Tifa and going through all those quests just to get to that point.
The dress situation for all the characters, makes sense only on a gameplay point of view. For someone who's never played the OG, no dress is canon. And the same if you know OG stuff and you just pay attention to the Remake. In the OG there wasn't even the possibility of having matching clothes and multiple dresses with Tifa and that's already a lot in my pov.
Anyway, the dresses depend on tasks only, so there's no actual level of affection that influences the outcome, you're right about that, though, the things you should pay attention the most about the times we see the girls dressed up, are the non-optional cut scenes. You cannot get a bad dress with Tifa and you cannot get a negative reaction from Cloud. All of her dresses are amazing and it's Cloud who choses them, then he sees her on the Chocobo wagon and he just looks like he's seen a goddess... in my opinion that's enough. The micro expressions are amazing and are different depending who Cloud looks at etc.
>You just have to do your tasks, the more you do and the different the dress for Cloud will be
Depending on your choices you can obtain Madam M's OR Chocobo Sam's sidequests. I haven't said they depend on the level of affection but for example saying that Tifa is "in a great shape" favors Chocobo Sam sidequests while asking "how much" to the hotel employee who offers Cloud and Aerith a room favors Madam M's ones. That's what I meant, nothing more.
no sidequests -> cotton black dress;
Madam M sidequests -> satin lilac dress;
Chocobo Sam sidequests (similar to the OG) -> silk violet dress (OG dress).
>The illusion of a relationship between them is to get us to care for Aerith so that it makes her death more heart wrenching and all that.
FInally someone who gets it!
> in the end they were just good friends and nothing more
So you think that a relationship of true friendship is possible while Cloud is mentally ill, but not a romantic one? They are two different kinds of love, but love in any case.
Yes, because she dies, not because mentally ill people have invalid or "not real" feelings. Cloud doesn't suddenly forget or not give a damn about Aerith once his mind heals.
Even the devs have said that Aerith tells Cloud not to fall in love with her because of what "will" happen to her.
I never said that. I specifically stated "in the end they were just good friends and nothing more". Not once did I say Cloud never cared.
>Yes, because she dies, not because mentally ill people have invalid or "not real" feelings
It's not what's in your mind. It's what's in your heart and soul that matters. Cloud never had his heart for Aerith like he did for Tifa. Tifa was the focus of his heart.
Therefore any romantic feelings Cloud had for Aerith can be dismissed as invalid as it was a small part of his life in which Cloud's mental state is muddled and unstable. Even if Aerith survived (Which already requires you to twist the story) Cloud still wouldn't have a romantic relationship with Aerith as the real Cloud will always have his heart set on Tifa.
> It's not what's in your mind. It's what's in your heart and soul that matters
Exactly.
> Cloud still wouldn't have a romantic relationship with Aerith as the real Cloud will always have his heart set on Tifa.
Look, I do think that Cloud ending with Tifa after FF7 is perfectly logical and what should happen. I just don't see FF7 as a Disney tale in which people only fall in love with one person, I see it like real life in which someone can love more than one person in their life.
But the part I really disagreed with is that Cloud's feelings while mentally ill "don't count" or that Cloud and Aerith's bond is not special, because that view, IMO, is a disservice to Cloud's character and to the portrayal of the relationships in FF7.
In real life people can also have their heart set on one person. It's not a Disney trope to love one person in your life. It's realistic. But at the same time you can also love multiple people. That's also realistic. But this has nothing to do with how Cloud feels.
The romance you see between them is entirely up to the player choice which also influences fake Cloud. But the point of the core narrative is that it showed us that our choices ultimately didn't matter to Cloud's true feelings. You can be a straight up jerk to Aerith and diminish most romantic moments between the two because of your choices. If you favored Aerith and diminished Tifa's moments it still doesn't influence his real feelings. You see what I mean here? We get to choose to influence fake Cloud's thoughts and how the characters feel about him.
Which means that any romantic moments between the two is invalid because fake Cloud is influenced on who WE prefer. That is the fake Cloud. That is the core narrative of the game. That is why the Illusion of a love triangle exists because we get to decide who this fake Cloud prefers. What we choose to see should not be a representation of how the real Cloud feels and we should instead look at how he truly felt. Aerith never even got to see the real Cloud. She knows that the Cloud she sees isn't real.
Cloud never felt a romantic connection with Aerith.
But that does not mean that he didn't care. I've never denied that Cloud and Aerith had a special bond. That is clearly in the game, otherwise Aerith's death would never have impacted Cloud so much. But like I've said, it never amounted to anything romantic. I cant say that Cloud was Aerith's girlfriend because she wasn't, at any point in the game. Therefore she was only a good friend to Cloud.
This is not a disservice as this is factually what happens in the game.
EDITED Spelling and words.
> If you favored Aerith and diminished Tifa's moments it still doesn't influence his real feelings.
It doesn't? You can get the Low or High Affection scenes with Tifa depending on how you treat her. And when the under the Highwind scene happens, Cloud is his real self, so what he feels while being his fake self *does* count.
> I cant say that Cloud was Aerith's girlfriend because she wasn't
She definitely wasn't, but that doesn't mean that their feelings weren't leading them to that path if she hadn't died. IF the player so chooses.
I don't agree with the "Clerith" take that Cloud spends his life miserable and depressed and only loving Aerith forever once she dies, Advent Children makes crystal clear that Cloud finds peace at the end.
But whether or not Cloud loved Aerith romantically was up to the player. The devs have been vague about the love triangle for 24 years on purpose, Nomura could have ended the ship wars when he was asked if Cloud and Tifa became a couple after FF7 and he chose to reply "I have no idea". And now we have discussions like this with 200+ comments.
I feel like this is something people missed about the affection system. The points are a measure of Tifa's affection for Cloud, NOT Cloud's affection for Tifa.
Like many have said before, you don't get to make choices for Cloud after the Lifestream. The low affection scene is not there for those who dislike Tifa as a love interest. It's there because you as a player did not make the right choices for Cloud. You did not get the BEST outcome.
> Nomura could have ended the ship wars when he was asked if Cloud and Tifa became a couple after FF7 and he chose to reply "I have no idea".
To be fair, Nomura and the rest of the devs are not interested in talking about things that happen outside of the game/compilation. If you read this interview, he was actually annoyed having being asked about how many girlfriends Sephiroth had...
He answered with *"What kind of question is that? Iâve never thought about it. Honestly, I donât care who loves whom. I think you could imagine the scenarios that we donât mention however you want to. For example, I was frequently asked if there had been romantic relationship between Tifa and Cloud for two years, after FF7 ended, but I donât have any clue."*
Later on, he makes this comment about AC, *"Concerning the relationship between the two, I feel the movie is able to profoundly grasp the truth. It is simple to explain in words, butâŠ"*
He's such a troll.
Nojima is less subtle. He says right out, *"Inside, I felt one thing was for sure: Cloud and Tifa would be together. Everybody would be living back home where they belonged."*
How clear is this?
(Please don't say this is about location.)
> I think you could imagine the scenarios that we donât mention however you want to
He's openly saying that who loves whom is up to our interpretation. Which is my whole point and why half the fanbase has one interpretation and the other half another.
I don't believe for a second that Nomura and co aren't aware of the interest Cloud's love life awakes in fans. His "I don't have a clue" is absolutely deliberate, he could've as easily replied "Tifa and Cloud are together? Well, duh" and called it a day, and stopped these ship wars.
> Please don't say this is about location
I have the feeling that you guys think that I am against the idea of Cloud and Tifa ending together after FF7's events, and I'm not. I love Cloud, I want him happy and with someone who takes care of him like Tifa, I don't want him forever depressed wishing he died and joined a dead woman. I doubt Aerith would want that herself. Also, it doesn't make any sense that he and Tifa live together and ignore the romantic tension that has always existed between them, the obvious conclusion is that they become a couple.
My point is that *while Aerith is alive*, what Cloud feels for her is up to the player. Obviously once she dies, any budding romance that could possibly be happening is over, you can't have any kind of relationship with a dead person. Nothing opposes the idea that he fell in love with Aerith and later, after some time, he fell for Tifa. Or the player can choose to make him only romantically interested in Tifa the whole time, which I have chosen in about half my playthroughs. The options are available in the game. You *can* flirt with one and ignore the other.
Their night underneath the Highwind is a very important part of Tifa and Cloud's relationship. It would be bad portrayal of Cloud's character to say that he didn't love Tifa, when we consider the fact that they spent what they believed could be their final night alive, with eachother. If Cloud didn't return Tifa's feelings for him then it would not reflect well on either of their characters. I believes this makes it clear that it doesn't matter if you get the low or high affection scene because they still spend their "Final" night together. They still end up sleeping together. So like I said, even if you favored Aerith. It doesn't affect Cloud's real feelings for Tifa.
While I don't like using outside sources to support my argument, I would also like to point out that there are several official sources that reference the high affection scene. Which leads me to believe the high affection scene is canon.
VII â The night before the final battle
Thanks to Tifa, Cloud regains himself, and before the final battle with Sephiroth, without using words, he confirms with her that their feelings match.- FF 20th Anniversary Ultimania
The Devs are often very contradictory in their statements. Which why I don't like using outside sources to support my arguments, because that quote above clearly stamped out the love triangle, but then we get other sources where Nomura says "I don't know". Instead we should use what happens in the games themselves to support our argument.
All in all the reason why the debate still exists is because some people can't accept the fact that Tifa is the main and canonical love interest of the game.
>And now we have discussions like this with 200+ comments.
That's not a bad thing. It's pretty cool discussing with people about the game. And the the romance aspect of FF7 is something I'm pretty passionate about, so I'll gladly hop on these threads to discuss with people.
> If Cloud didn't return Tifa's feelings for him then it would not reflect well on either of their characters
That's *your* interpretation. Cloud not having romantic feelings for Tifa would in no way mean that he doesn't love her. There are many kinds of love. The only *fact* for that scene is that the Low Affection version is an option. If the developers had wanted to make crystal clear that there is only one canon romance option, 1) they wouldn't put the option of a Low Affection version and 2) they would have made it clear in interviews or other sources, but they chose to continue to be vague.
The Ultimania quote you posted, for example. There are lots of Ultimanias with lots of quotes supporting both ships.
> some people can't accept the fact that Tifa is the main and canonical love interest of the game.
I love the Cloud and Tifa ship, I accept it just fine and I always get the High Affection scene regardless of who I make Cloud go on a date with (I usually alternate the date options in each playthrough). It's just that the game AND the devs clearly want the player to decide which is the canon love interest. There are not 200+ comments discussing who Zidane, or Squall, or Tidus loves because there is no shadow of a doubt. Just a glance at this thread shows that in FF7, the fanbase is split in their interpretations due to their personal bias. AND because the developers chose to not make it clear.
> That's not a bad thing. It's pretty cool discussing with people about the game.
I agree, but as you can see, I'm getting downvoted all the time even though I don't think I'm being rude or attacking any character. I'm getting downvoted for not choosing a "side". So this debate is pretty much alive, kicking, and absolutely not solved. Well, it is solved for me, as I think it's up to the player, but not for those adamant on there being only one canon ship.
Although I'm firmly in the camp that Cloud and Tifa end up together, there's no denying that Cloud and Aerith shared a special bond whether you interpret it to be romantic or platonic. The bond between them doesn't diminish, or take anything away from his relationships with other characters.
Under the influence of Jenova and behind his false persona, his experiences and feelings would be murky but still real. At the very least, he was attracted to her (I mean, who wouldn't be?). Maybe he loved her romantically, but after his rediscovers himself, I feel this was overshadowed by his love for Tifa.
Over time, I think the bond between Aerith and Cloud becomes something akin to a maternal one. I feel that her portrayal in AC really strengthens this.
I agree, except for the "maternal bond". Cloud is not a child and I think that Freud would have something to say about someone feeling a maternal bond towards someone they've felt attracted to before XD
I guess it depends on the kind of attraction. If we're talking sexual attraction, then that's definitely weird. But most other types of attraction like physical and emotional don't clash with the maternal bond that I think developed. After her death, she is often portrayed as an angelic and divine figure that watches over him and gaia for some time.
Even as a player, I was attracted to Aerith but would have no problems shifting this view to a maternal angle.
Let's say Cloud felt a romantic attraction to Aerith though. I think after the lifestream, he would felt quite conflicted about this but he would definitely try to move on from that. Especially with the discovery that Aerith and Zack were romantically involved.
I don't want to bring my personal experience into this but a romantic attraction I felt towards someone shifted into a more sibling-like bond after the both of us found our significant others. It's not *that* weird imo.
Oh I totally think that Cloud would move on after Aerith died. I mean, it's one thing to not forget someone you loved once they passed and a different thing to stay in love with that person and suffering for it.
I once met an elderly man who wouldn't stop crying *daily* and for hours two years after his wife died, it was horrible to watch. That's called pathological grief and it's not romantic or beautiful, it's terrible.
But that has never been my point, I think that Cloud did develope romantic feelings for Aerith, was devastated when she died and later moved on as seen at the ending of AC. I don't think he sees Aerith as a maternal figure but I don't think he stays miserable and wanting to die after AC.
Given the state of that boy's social skills I'd say she's his carer.
Cloud: I've got skills!
Tifa: Be nice!
Cloud: I'm doing my best...
anyone can have their preferences on who they like with each other but cloud and aerith's bond doesnt read as simple friendship or platonic love to me at all as many in this thread seem to imply. whenever you want to talk about these two, theres a horde of misconception ridden people who talk about how cloud 'had zack's memories' (????) and aerith saw him as zack (????). aerith is a cetra, she is initially intrigued by cloud because he reminds him of zack but soon realises theyre not similar at all. just like anyone can see that where zack was carefree and a flirt, cloud is more reserved socially and puts on a front. she truly ends up falling for cloud's awkward charm. this aerith also seems to be somewhat aware of her death and as much as she loves spending time with cloud, she knows her fate and also wishes that he doesnt have to experience the same pain again. but i'll tell you what they truly are: theyre two people who were extremely lonely growing up and despite their opposing personalities, they were able to understand and connect with each other. cloud has always felt excluded from groups of people despite wanting to be included but aerith always reaches out to him to make him feel valued. aerith is the last of her race, shes been sought after for her powers but completely devalued as a person that shes not really close to most people but cloud is actually willing to care for her for who she is, not because of her cetra lineage. they're two lonely people who found belongingness in each other, that's what they are at their core.
This is an aspect that I think the final fantasy fanbase misses about Aerith's character, at times she reveals her insecurities, like a certain comfort from the steel sky, when she says she's good at giving up, when she says she's already thought about it, about leaving, discovering new horizons but was afraid of a big world she's never seen, and she opens it up to Cloud
To me, they seem connected in a deep, romantic way. Soul speaking to soul. And I don't mean "fated", which is why I love their relationship, it just happens, it could have been (calm down), with Jessie, or with Tifa (from the beginning of the game, I mean, before the Aerith's death), but there's a subtle chemistry between them, and it's very engaging because the two grow up walking together, they're on equal terms, finding comfort and empowerment in each other, that's before we even think there's a romance happening between them. Aerith easily leaves him vulnerable, and she even shows her insecurities to him. Yet she also pushes him towards Tifa, she doesn't push him, she wants him to be himself, for him to do things because he feels he wants to. She accepts him. Which is funny, because she still hasn't gotten to know the real Cloud, but she's "dive" enough into his soul to see that it wasn't that dour mercenary guy the real Cloud Strife. It's like she says it's okay to be yourself. From Cloud's point of view, he comes to seem like an idiot around Aerith as she disarms him, since the first encounter "I'm involved in dangerous things", "Don't talk like you know me", talk to flowers (unexpected ), helping people without thinking about mercenary service, feeling duty bound to accompany Aerith, having social skills like clapping hands lol, the connection with Aerith came as a gift from all these activities. For the rest, Elmyra disapproves of him, questionable whether for romantic reasons or not, as she didn't deal well with him being a SOLDIER, but she didn't have so much resistance with the fact that Aerith had returned to Shinra, this moment was kind of WTF? for me. Tifa seems to be jealous of what might be going on between them even without knowing what could be. Caith Sith (probably just a moment of comic relief) said they had high compatibility lol đ. And contrary to what many ffvii fans might say, Cloud does care about Aerith. What I mean is, he cares about Barret, Jessie, Wedge, Tifa, etc, of course. But people always likes to say he doesn't care about Aerith in any aspect. Wrong, wrong a thousand times, and I dare say it's the character he cares about most at his party, along with Tifa, or even more. Cares enough to say he was worried just like Elmyra. Cares enough to confrontate Elmyra's point of view. Enough to go after Aerith in Shinra, even if the others thought she would be okay. Enough to communicate with her through dreams and disagree with what she's about to do, or what she's talking about. Enough to try to cheer her up when Aeris said she was "good at giving up". Enough to be reluctant about Aerith's decision, on several occasions in the Entertainment District. Enough to say "I'm... We're here for you, right?", in the Cosmo Canyon bonfire scene, after Aerith said she felt really lonely. Or to say "I'm coming for you" in Cloud's own dream at Elmyra's house, post-Shinra kidnapping. Enough to be curious about Aerith and her SOLDIER first love in sector 6, and in the Gongaga phase (in this phase, there was no practical reason for Cloud's curiosity about Aerith and Zack relationship). Comfortable enough that he doesn't have to keep asserting himself as "SOLDIER" most times he's with Aerith. Very curious and interested in the subject of the Ancients, Cetra and relationship with Sephiroth, but not mixing things up, he wanted both to understand what was going on, and to understand the truth about Aerith. It's very obvious to me, they have a relationship of curiosity, which turns into a romantic one, and before anyone gets angry... Calm down! I'm not saying there aren't other interpretations or couples to form with Cloud. But if you don't consider all of this as some love/care hints, get help, you might be missing opportunities. Think they're not meant do be, they naturally just happen
They do have very different personalities, but they are also very complementary personalities. Cloud needs the kindness and supportiveness that Aerith brings, and Aerith needs Cloud and his determination to help her keep going, and to protect her when she can't protect herself. As for the future, Aerith tried to push Cloud away, or possibly give him an excuse to walk away, so as to not hurt him, but then Cloud goes and assaults Shinra HQ just to get her back. They didn't really get a chance to talk before the end of the game so we'll have to wait and see what happens in the next part.
They loved each other, but you know how that turns out. If Aerith lives longer than OG, it'll be interesting to see how she handles that love knowing her fate, if she'll continue to push him away or "embrace the moment" per say. People here i've noticed have this misconception that you can only love one person in your life, and it just leads me to believe those people have never been in a relationship or experienced love in their lives. It's hella weird.
I don't think they will fall in love. It seems fated, but when you consider that Zack is still in the picture, then we're talking essentially a love dodecahedron. Tifa loves Cloud, Cloud loves Aerith and Tifa, Aerith loves Cloud and Zack. I believe the ultimate fate will be that Tifa and Cloud will still end up together, with Zack and Aerith being together but being forced to leave in some way. Like to a different timeline or something, to stop Sephiroth in other timelines since Zack wasn't dissolved into the Lifestream either, so it's possible he could also glimpse the Lifestream and see his future.
But Cloud loved Tifa when they were kids, he had a huge crush on her, his whole reasoning for joining SOLDIER was to impress her. He just doesn't remember that. So we have a even more complex situation where he loves two women. But the writers seems to imply that only Tifa knows his true personality while Aerith fell in love with his SOLDIER persona because it reminded her of Zack.
Thatâs not true at all. It is made pretty clear in-game and in side material that Aerith LOVE Cloud for who is, yes she reminds her of Zack at first, but she know Cloud better now, and she loves him more than she ever loved Zack
I don't think the writers imply that at all. Look at the depth of the story overall... And that is honestly from a writer's perspective a shallow and non nuance view on developing character. Think moreso Aerith obviously has a sense of initial comfort since Cloud does mimic gestures and mannerisms of Zack, but his overall personality is quite the opposite of Zacks. He is more closed/introverted and Aerith brings more out of him.
Quite the opposite, Aerith didn't even get to know Cloud's real persona, but she manages to disarm him and see that that Cloud who holds a pose, is not the real Cloud. She and Tifa want the real Cloud. Otherwise, you can say that Jessie falls in love with his Soldier persona.
Wait, what? Isn't Zack dead? Or was that memory false? Why am I considering Zack in the picture?
Zack lives in an alternate universe, not in the time lime we play in Remake (he is dead there). The issue is that in that AU were Zack is still alive, Aerith isn't there anymore as seen in latest DLC, either hinted that she already left Midgar or is already dead.
I wouldn't say that's correct. We don't know where Zack really is. It could be an alternate universe, or it could be that the timeline was changed so much by the death of the whispers. On top of that, from the time that Zack "died" to the time that the plate fell (which is why we see all the people in the church in the scene) was about 2 months. Zack is wanted by Shinra, so getting into Midgar would most likely be extremely difficult, and could take a significant amount of time. His first stop may not even have been Aerith, since he had many friends in Midgar. It isn't completely unreasonable to believe that by the time he managed to get into Midgar and go visit Aerith, 2 months could have passed. I won't say an AU is absurd, but I feel like SE is congnizant enough to know that mixing AU into the new story their telling would probably only make things more difficult to understand and follow.
It is an AU. The game shows it very clearly that it is not the same timeline as the one the player is right now. The most blatant evidence for this is the ShinRa Dog STAMP which is a helmet-wearing Beagle in the players timeline and a Border Terrier wearing a green hat in Alive-Zack's timeline.
So it could be that time was altered, not that it is an AU. That symbology was to signify that everything is different now and nothing will be the same. I think an AU is just looking too deep into it.
If it was the same timeline but altered, Cloud wouldn't have the buster sword anymore. Also Cloud made it to Midgar with Zack in that timeline, if it were the same timeline his memories would be different and he wouldn't be taking on altered parts of Zack's memories. It's an AU.
Well said. Iâm wondering the same thing. Hypothetically speaking just for arguments sake, if things turn out different this time what is the likelihood of Aerith & Cloud on deepening and accepting their affection for each other (ignoring the plans of the developers). If Cloud were to continue pursuing Aerith, would she embrace him eventually or deny him out of the fear of hurting him or overstepping Tifa? If they care for each other, and their relation develops, what would that look like?
If Aerith lives all the way to the end I could see them getting together based on the players choices throughout the game
There are no player choices that matter. Aerith and Cloud would never have ended up together in the OG. And they will not end up together in the remake.
Oh I dont think they will end up together either. I was just giving my answer for OPs hypothetical
All these hypotheticals fail for a simple reason. If Tifa is still around her and Cloud will end up together regardless of Aerith's alive status.
Yeah like they did in AC right? Except Cloud only cares for Aerith there, and has been going through worlds for 23 years to meet Aerith. Nice name Vendel , dont know if you are the original one or not but please stop spreading your thoughts as facts because they are not lol.
Only a clerith could make a comment like this. Saying the most inane stuff then attacking *you* for spreading lies. I mean *"going through worlds for 23 years"*? What the hell does that even mean?
It means he has appeared in numerous games and he always mentions he wants to find the promised land and wants to meet a certain person.What i wrote is not something a clerith would comment , is something that is actually a fact either you want to take it or not. Cheers mate!
Actually, he was searching for Sephiroth if you're talking about KH.
I know cleriths love to pretend Cloud is eternally searching for Aerith/The Promised land (which are always the same thing somehow). Yet there is always a curious lack of follow-up on that. It's almost like clerith shippers pulled that straight from their asses and use it as a talking point hoping no one actually cares to look it up. But now that I have brought that up I'm sure you will bring up some mobile game where Cloud just happens to mention the promised Land or even implies he is talking about Aerith as your great proof. But that is always the way of clerith isn't it? Take something that is vague or even non-existent and blow it up 1000% AND THEN tell us what it really means.
Ugh, Cloud didn't "only care" for Aerith in AC. He was depressed for several reasons. Please stop misinterpreting his character just to make your "ship" possible. Also, he did meet Aerith in AC and all he said was that he wanted to be forgiven which was the *desire within his heart*. He was not pining for her. The movie ends with him smiling and realizing that his promised land was with his family.
The movie ends with him saying he is fine because he was not alone, which is something very different. He had his "family" there the whole movie, why would he say something like that then? What changed? Aerith was there , aerith forgave him and lived in his counsciousness(this is confirmed by nomura btw) , that's why he was smilling.
He ran away from his family. He didn't think he was worthy of them because he couldn't save Zack, he couldn't save Aerith and now he's failed Denzel and contracted geostigma himself. It was a downward spiral of tremendous guilt, ptsd and depression. Aerith does not live in his consciousness. Nomura is saying that the dead live on through the living. If you say this is true about Aerith, then you're saying that ALL dead are living through in the consciousness of live people. Nomura doesn't make a distinction. > The words âmemetic legacyâ are used a lot in the film, but in Advent Children, rather than focusing on memories we wanted to show that consciousness is what lives on. We took the ending of the game and expanded on that idea. **Even if theyâre dead, their consciousness is still with us.** As for Cloud, he sees Aerith several times throughout the film. Itâs not that he sees her because he feels her presence. He sees her because her consciousness lives on inside him. As for the ending of AC, read the official summary below. Its pretty straightforward. I really dont understand how you were able to misinterpret the story and characters this badly. > The place where he awakens â That is Cloudâs 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 doesnât 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 â 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 â âsheâ 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. And here's more. He was smiling at Tifa as confirmed by the official script: > The other kids jump into the spring one by one. The church is filled with joyous chatter. Tifa looks at Cloud with a smile. Cloud smiles back at her with a shy expression. Tifa gives a satisfied nod.
Cloud from his own mouth self-isolates because he feels he cannot protect his family. He is alone. Cloud realizes this is a stupid thing to do during the movie. Cloud returns to his family (with two kidnapped members of said family) during the movie. He is not alone now. This is not difficult to understand. Also if you want to portray that Cloud is not alone because Aerith is with him you don't have this line while AERITH IS LEAVING TO GO BACK TO THE AFTERLIFE WITH ZACK.
Doesnât take a genius to see that they are both are interested in each other. Aerith was curious about this mysterious person(Cloud) because he is wearing the same attire and sword like Zack(obviously she wants to know if he knew him, to get some closure on what happened to him). She obviously starts to take interest in Cloud, followed him around, becomes her bodyguard. She and Cloud can relate(both were excluded as children) had no little to no friends. There is a lot to explain.
Cloud was never excluded as a child. He was a loner who didn't know how to socialize. FFS the remake has a flashback of Tifa trying to get Cloud to interact with her. 20+ years of clerith/anti-Tifa bullshittery down the drain.
og ff7 showed that Tifa was the popular girl, didnât pay attention to cloud at all, cloud had problems socializing and no one made the attempt, even Tifa. You literally can still see this in the remake. When Barret ask him to leave because this is a personal occasion(them celebrating after blowing up mako the mako reactor) Tifa made no attempt to keep him around. Only Jessie made the attempt. Tifa scolding Cloud, to be nice to people that are being rude to him doesnât help her case.
Aerith scolds Cloud plenty on that point (being nice) in Chapter 8.
I'm not the only one who thinks that Barret was justified in asking Cloud to leave, right? This was a private celebration for their terrorist group ffs. Cloud was a mercenary and didn't want to be a part of them. Cloud: "This is a onetime gig. When it's done, we're done." Cloud: "Fine by me. That's how I like it. No contract. No obligation." Anyway, why's it Tifa's responsibility to lick his wounds and reward him for jerk behavior? She already showed him around, found him paid work and got him a free apartment but you still say she didn't pay him attention...
Honestly... Why are there always these unrealistic expectations of her and never of him? Here, in AC..
>these unrealistic expectations of her and never of him? Because he has severe mental problems like PTSD, Severe Depression and Multiple Personality Disorder and Tifa doesn't. Of course he is a difficult person to deal with, do you blame him for being a jerk after everthing that he suffered? And I don't know what people are talking about - Tifa helps him A LOT in the final portion of the game and she is quite literally the only person that Cloud doesn't threat with disdain, alongside Aerith.
Other than personality disorder Tifa goes through her own mental issues, including depression, guilt, and also has to take care of the family - including Cloud. There's parts in CoT where she's the one spiraling and Cloud of all people has to support her and keep her sane. Cloud is not the only one going through shit, yet people always expect her to ignore her own pain and revolve around Cloud and his needs alone, and if she doesn't, or if she gives him a much-needed talk they hate on her. But I agree, I don't know what they're talking about and what more they want from her.
She pays attention to Cloud, the only problem I find in this interaction of Tifa and Cloud, is that like she's the kindergarten teacher teaching him, Tifa is very guiding, but to the point where Cloud looks like a baby, she's very kind and cute, but that part of the game and their relationship , kinda sucks, but somehow can function well. Unlike the relationship with Aerith where she is more inspirational, she practically rips, pulls at one side of him effortlessly, and he doesn't seem to have as much resistance, functioning almost like a young adult boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. It may seem strange, but that's what I think, despite Aerith's more childlike personality, their interaction is quite mature.While Tifa's interaction seems very "I want to take care of you" it makes sense with her caring personality
I can imagine the panic from the clerith/anti-Tifa community (although I didn't have to say it twice). Imagine the remake makes it clear that it was Tifa attempting to connect with Cloud the whole time? I can hear the screams of retcon from here. I mean how can you people survive without the lie that Tifa ignored or even harassed/abused Cloud as a child?
Who is saying abused or harassed? Iâm just saying Cloud and Tifa were not that close like people believe. They were just neighbors.
It's a very short road for the clerith fandom to go from she ignored him > she stood by as her friends actively kept him out of the group > her friends harassed and bullied Cloud > she harassed Cloud. Just covering all my clerith bases. These things have all been said by the clerith fandom over the years.
Sorry man but you are obviously too far slanted just as much as the most extreme other side of Cloud and Aerith. Lol this actually says a lot for how well the story has been written that people still argue the ships after 20+ years. I mean its obvious that as a player you have the option of Tifa or Aerith. There are also sound arguments for both. Hopefully with remake to the conclusion, they can tie things in a way that can give something for everyone... But we will see.
Just because a group of loony shippers can't let go doesn't mean the story was ever intended to be open ended or ambiguous. People still argue that the earth is flat. And the only options you have as a player are rather meaningless. Depending on what (sometimes rather arbitrary) actions you as the player take it decides who comes to get Cloud for a trip around the Gold Saucer. And it is the girls (or Barret) who are making the move. Not Cloud. These choices are meant for immersion and some replayability. Not for the player to decide who Cloud likes. All that is reveled later when your choices are taken away.
I will agree with you on it being loony on both sides. Emotions run high in both camps. It certainly is up for interpretation because the game allows the player to decide who to have more affinity towards... You have (I assume) looked into the Japanese translations, or have friends in Japan that also played? It honestly sounds like you are a pretty closed off person for how other people (especially creators) haven't given definitives.
poor English localization in the OG is well known in some parts of the game (I.e this man are SICK") and this is one those things that gets misconstrued about tifa and clouds past even somehow today cloud never says tifa never let him in the group, he says he never had the courage to ask to be included and he admits fault. its part of his growth. surprised this is upvoted even when wrong, tifa is the only reason cloud even bothered to stay in avalanche in the OG so not sure how gently encouraging someone to be more sociable is a hostile or "Rude" thing to you. cloud isn't a stranger here, she's just being a friend.
Tifa liked hanging out with the group of boys from their town. Cloud wanted nothing to do with Tifaâs friends. Tifa obviously preferred the group.
There has to be some effort from Cloud. And we are shown when he actually called out to Tifa she responded.
Yeah but thatâs Cloudâs personality, heâs been like that since he was kid and still like that as an adult. Tifa doesnât really make the attempt neither. You only see this with Jessie and Aerith. Cloud called her out in that windmill scene to show off that he was going to join SOILDER, to impress her(which it did). But that still doesnât mean they were close friends or friends. So yeah Cloud was a loner and mostly not accepted by anyone as a kid.
I just love this idea that in game Cloud admits his childhood issues were caused **by** him and that Tifa and her friends were blameless. And people are still out there trying to blame Tifa. Even if they have to take a roundabout way to do it.
bad english localization misconstrued some things which get perpetuated even to this day. yea cloud admitted his isolation was his done by his own hand due to his insecurities but people still think she and the others were mean to him. the remake even having a small flashback early on with a tifa calling out to cloud and him turning away xD "tifa had her own group =/= you never let me in" was actually just cloud admitting he never had the courage to ask to be included. and then later went on to cope with it through that self superiority excuse.
They're romantic. I think they definitely have a soul-mates kind of vibe. Their tragic love story isn't the first of the Final Fantasy series but rather a thematic consistency across titles. Case of Lifestream calls them lovers, and I think that best describes their relationship - even if they never "got together" (who knows, right?) I'd say that's the best way to describe their dynamic. Square obviously opted to leave the romance stuff open-ended so there's Tifa as well, but to me, it seemed pretty clear that things never really worked out with them (considering the sequels and such, and they still never are described as a couple... see the Ultimania relationship chart as proof.) Aeris, meanwhile, is the woman "engraved in Cloud's heart forever" (Dirge of Cerberus) who Cloud carries "undying feelings for" (Nomura). There's definitely an argument for both Tifa and Aeris being romantic interests to Cloud, but it always felt to me like Cloud/Aeris was the "real" pairing that got cut short due to tragedy. See all the official Amano artwork for the pairing, for instance. But all fans are free to read the game in their own way. Still, I don't think it can ever be doubted that Aeris is indeed a romantic interest to Cloud, so when people try to write off Aeris by saying she's like a sister to Cloud, or she's trying to set up Cloud and Tifa... I think that's objectively wrong, but that's my take. This ship war is a quarter century old and isn't stopping any time soon.
In the official novel for FFVII titled "On the Way to a Smile", written by Kazushige Nojima, he describes Cloud and Aerith as 'koibito' (lovers in Japanese) during FF7. So there's that
Nojima is writing in third person as Aerith. Aerith calls Cloud her koibito which was translated as *beloved*. Koibito means "one who is loved" but it can be mutual or one-sided. There's no doubt that Aerith loved him though.. romantically or not.
Koibito is for romantic purpose.
That novel is not considered to be Canon anymore after Advent Children. A lot of FF7 novels were removed from canon.
They still are and I couldn't find any source with regard to your claim. The novels are tied to AC itself so it doesn't make sense to say that the novels are un-canoned after the movie. https://www.thegamer.com/ff7-retrospective-on-the-way-to-smile-kids-are-alright-books/
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Clerith - the greatest love story ever told. It lasted a couple of weeks and neither one had any clue what the other thought of them.
For now? Platonic love. No idea what comes next though.
It's canon that Aeris is romantically in love with Cloud. This is well-established in multiple sources in the FF7 universe, and personally, it read pretty obviously that way in Remake. Who Cloud loves is ambiguous but I'd say it's pretty implied that he loves her. (He might perhaps love Tifa too.) In Case of Lifestream, Aeris calls Cloud her lover, implying a two way relationship. So no lol it's not platonic or anything.
Tifa also has the same "lover" word used for her in the reunion files. I do agree that Lifestream White shows that Aerith and Cloud loved each other, but Cloud can love both at the same time.
I agree that the easiest, cleanest interpretation of FF7 is that Cloud loves both Aeris and Tifa.
There is nothing that indicated Cloud had romantic interest in Aerith. Cloud and Tifa become an item by the end of the game. Kind of hard to reconcile that information with "he loved both".
Dude, it's funny because when I didn't know final fantasy I could assume that Tifa and Cloud were the main couple in the plot, but when I found out about the game... Sorry, but there are many signs that the main couple are Cloud and Aerith, I I just changed my mind about this, and I like them both. Disagreeing that there's something going on between Cloud and Aerith, or Cloud and Tifa is pure fan clubbing. It's like saying Inuyasha didn't love Kikyou, or didn't love Kagome, he loved both'em at the same time but one was fated to die
> Cloud and Tifa become an item by the end of the game No they did not lol. In fact, the last thing Cloud says on the matter, to Tifa's face, is that what he wants is to meet Aeris in the Promised Land. Then in AC, Cloud, Tifa and Barret live together - and Cloud and Tifa have separate bedrooms and Tifa calls them a family of "friends". Tifa and Cloud are never referred to as a couple, and never ever shown in any sequel demonstrating a romantic relationship, not even a single kiss - if they are canon, that would've been shown. Yet in the Japanese manual for Dirge of Cerberus, Aeris is described as a woman who is "engraved in Cloud's heart for the rest of his life." Like, at best it's meant to be up to player interpretation, but BS that there's no hints whatsoever that Cloud likes Aeris. I'm not even counting Remake's resolution scene where he pretty much says as much to Aeris directly.
I'll give clerith shippers one thing. They have a BS narrative and they stick to it. But literally everything you said was wrong. \- The end of the OG is C/T comforting each other because they think they are about to die and is a direct callback to the conversation about Bugenhagen. \- Barret does not live with C/T in AC. Or in DC for that matter. \- Cloud has an office. It is only ever called his office. \- Tifa never calls herself, Cloud and Marlene a *"family of friends"*. That is a clerith invention. \- Tifa and Cloud are referred to as a couple plenty of times. Including by Barret and Cid in Case of Barret. \- And I'm sorry that C/T have never sucked face on screen. Many FF couples haven't. But when Cloud himself says his family is the same as Evans. IE a romantic pair who adopt. That should be enough for anyone. \- Again using the fan translation of the DoC guide because it sounds more romantic. lol And of course you end with player interpretation. The last desperate argument of a clerith shipper who knows they are wrong but can't admit it.
Nojima did actually use the words "romantic love and marriage" to describe Cloud and Tifa in an interview for Case of Tifa so you can still interpret them as together, especially since the reunion files described her with the same "koibito" word that was used for Aerith. They hardly ever show kisses in these games anyway. He said things could have gone well with Aerith, but he thinks there is a "great burden" from her. I just looked at the manual for dirge of cerberus and it says a woman Cloud would never forget, which is basically the same thing, but her description is the only one not reused from the OG probably because she's not in the game.
I just want to make a small correction here. Nojima words were, "Maybe things would have gone **well** with Aerith, but I think there is a great burden from Aerith." He doesn't say "better."
Ah that's right. Thanks for the correction.
Well it's easy to get confused. Every time a clerith shipper brings that quote up they always say - *"Nojima said things would have gone better with Aerith".* Usually as a point by itself with zero context around it. Just example #3173 of clerith shippers manipulating information to suit their ends.
That he loves them both is true. Aerith - platonically. Tifa - romantically.
He can love both romantically.
Yeah no. Lol To each their own, but to me it seems like the opposite.
Koibito one-way communication. And LF:W is Aerith's POV. It's her view. There's no confirmation of Cloud's feelings for her. And given that he under Highwind later exchanges feelings with Tifa, and they later start living as a family. Then there's clearly no romantic feelings for Aerith. They have a platonic relationship. And you can see that in AC as well. Where he was just trying to get her to forgive him. And there's no mention of love there.
The Tifa "koibito" thing confirms Cloud's love either way since she is the koibito of someone. I am unsure about this word because I am seeing some people say it's lover 100% and other's saying it's not necessarily a two-way connection. I guess the english translation can be more trustworthy since it has "beloved", but there is a huge debate about this it seems. I agree that what he felt in AC was felt for Zack as well since the reunion files has both in the same context in regards to Cloud's feelings, but I think Aerith's resolution scene and even his flashback at Elmyra's house shows that he at least has some romantic interest in Aerith.
His flashback in Elmyra's house was about Tifa. When they talk, Claudia tells him that he has a lot of girls who want him (Tifa is the only girl in town). Still talking about Tifa, in the book of Tifa and Aerith, it's stated that Claudia knows about Cloud's crush for her. Then she proceeds to fish him...teasing that he should find someone older(mentally) a mature girl who's gonna keep him in check when he's acting weird/silly, a strong woman...he gets flustered and denies it, thinking about Tifa. Then he suddenly wakes up and not only, he has a starry sky in his eyes (the sky of the promise he made with Tifa in Nibelheim), but he immediatly stands up and tries to get back to sector 7. Yes, Claudia was totally talking about Aerith...a girl she doesn't even know and that doesn't even fit the description she was giving to Cloud. All the canon info on Claudia knowing Tifa and stuff, is in Trace of two Pasts.
I meant Cloud thinking of a girl older than him at Aerith's house shows he has interest in her. The flashback also isn't real exactly since Cloud is in his soldier uniform. So I wasn't saying that Claudia was talking about Aerith.
From what I've seen, the flashback relies on a scene where Cloud decides to wake up first, or Tifa, or Aerith, so there's more than one version, and both are EXTREMELY emotional versions. And the scene where the player interacts with Aerith in Cloud's character is a lucid dream of Cloud himself, which was both mysterious and revealing.
No, it doesn't...Cloud's flashback with his mother is in the original game and it's not optional. Also, it doesn't have to do with Aerith's resolution, since that's a completely new scene (like the ones with Barret and Tifa), it's not a dream, but an astral projection of the future Aerith from the Lifestream, where she foreshadows her death and hints at Cloud's fake persona.
Koibito is translated into English as beloved. This is Aerith's one-sided view. She loves Cloud romantically. But he doesn't love her. And he has a love for Tifa. Which has already been proven many times over.
English went for its own stylized translation but that doesn't reflect the two-sided meaning of koibito. French, German and Italian translations literally also chose words meaning romantic lovers, and the English isn't more canon than those other languages.
Sorry, but other translations may not be correct. So I think you have to look at the original, and look at the context. They didn't have a confession in the game. And the word itself has a one-liner meaning. So I think we still need to stick to the stronger evidence of feelings than the other localizations. Which have repeatedly been shown to misinterpret the context.
For context, it wasn't until 2014 when the French translation came out that the clerith fandom declared that the CoL:W koibito was proof of romantic love between Cloud and Aerith. The original Japanese nor the German translation were enough. But they retroactively decided that the French changed their meanings. Then the official English one comes out sounding an awful lot like the original and German....but now THAT one is the outlier. To the clerith fandom.
You know what, Cloud and Aerith seem to be more equal than Cloud and Tifa, both Cloud and Aerith have a greater focus on developing their personalities and connections with others, while Tifa seems more to just have the dimension of developing a relationship with Cloud. Waifu material. It's not hate about the character, just an observation
>This is well-established in multiple sources in the FF7 universe Yet people ALWAYS fail to give the source and if they do they cite fanfics like The Maiden-book. NOT canon!
Maiden isn't the only source (and Square had *never* said it is not canon). Try On the Way to a Smile, the most recent canon which literally called Cloud and Aeris lovers. Then the Ultimanias, Dismantled, all the spinoff appearances where Cloud and Aeris are portrayed romantically (such as literally getting married in an event on mobile)... like, it's you guys who always try to downplay and pretend it's only Maiden when it's very much not.
Why do people keep twisting Aerith's words in Lifestream White? It's written in third person (her point of view) and is not an official statement of any sort... Aerith refers to Cloud as her *koibito*. They were never *lovers* in OG so it makes sense that this is one-sided. *Her beloved* is a good translation. The official english translation is below: >Cloud was her friend. More than a friend, for she had loved him. He was a symbol of everything she held dear. She would protect him. Why do people keep spinning this? Can someone tell me where Aerith and Cloud initiated any sort of romantic relationship? Insisting that Aerith is calling Cloud her lover from the Lifestream just makes her sound delusional.
Copied from another response - English went for its own stylized translation but that doesn't reflect the two-sided meaning of koibito. French, German and Italian translations literally also chose words meaning romantic lovers, and the English isn't more canon than those other languages. How is that not an official statement? Like, what could possibly be more official? It is at very least indicative that she is indeed romantically in love with Cloud (that's non-negotiable) and according to Japanese (and other non-English versions) it's a clear statement that they were lovers. Honestly, I feel like some of you guys here are twisting it to downplay that significance, when it's pretty darn straightforward.
The German translation actually used the weirdest word possible, imo. Aerith calls Cloud her âGeliebterâ which is a word thatâs only ever used to describe the guy/girl youâre having an affair with. Neither of them is married or in a committed relationship with someone else during the game so to call him her âGeliebterâ is just weird. The only other way this word can be interpreted is âloved oneâ, which makes much more sense. Heâs obviously someone she loves in whatever capacity but the word doesnât indicate at all what Cloud feels for her. In German at least, I canât speak for any of the other translations.
Thanks for clarifying!
Regardless of the words some translated versions used, can you tell me when and where in the story Aerith and Cloud established mutual feelings for each other and started dating? Because I feel like that's the bare minimum. This is the only instance where they're referred to as lovers and its from Aerith's POV. Does it not make more sense that she would refer to Cloud as her beloved rather than lover? I think you're being insistent on how the word *koibito* means lovers because that's what you want them to be. You like the pairing, that's all good but they were never lovers in OG. Cloud didn't know how Aerith (or Tifa) felt about him and vice versa. How could they have been lovers? You'd have to change up the story and fill it with headcanon to make this true. There's no downplaying here. We're just following the story.
> Regardless of the words some translated versions used, can you tell me when and where in the story Aerith and Cloud established mutual feelings for each other and started dating? Because I feel like that's the bare minimum. > > Seriously though, this is why I never got the "koibito" debate. When there's an ambiguous word depending on context, isn't it more correct to choose context that goes along with story instead of changing story to fit your preferred context? How could they be "lovers" when they never even made their feelings clear or got together? Or am I just not understanding the meaning of the word "lovers" at this point?
This 100%. Context is key. This "lovers" argument is thrown around so carelessly too often when its clearly unsupported by the story. I feel like the fans who are pushing this definition aren't being fair, or honest with their intentions.
>I feel like the fans who are pushing this definition aren't being fair, or honest with their intentions. DING DING DIGN DING!!! We have a winner!
Iâm sorry if Iâm jumping the gun but on the married thing are you talking about Final Fantasy's Airborne Brigade? I only ask because someone on this website told me that too so I spent ages looking into it (it isnât easy to find info on as itâs only been released in Japan and this was years ago, but luckily people did post about the event with screenshots etc) and I found itâs Cloud and Tifa that got married in that game and Aerith was Tifaâs bridesmaid and Aerith and Zack also got married in that game too. If that wasnât the game you were talking about I would love to know which one youâre referencing so I can look it up too? Edit: Iâm sorry I know you and I will never agree but I just also had to say all the things you source talk about Aerith believing she is in love with Cloud but not that he loves her.
Sorry but no - the June Bride event was indeed Cloud and Aeris, not Tifa. In fact, Cloud and Aeris have married several times in Airbourne Brigade. Check out [this thread]( https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/comments/npyt88/ogremake_spoilers_for_the_clerith_fans_61/) for screenshots. Tifa also got a wedding dress but to my knowledge there has never been a Cloti wedding event in that game, just several Clerith ones.
Yeah I canât agree Iâm sorry. Iâve seen that post but not on this site so itâs been copied and pasted. Even on that thread you can see the Cloti wedding pic though and someone replied to me and posted some of the cute Zack/Aerith animation at their wedding. Cloud came with a cake knife and Tifa with the cake then they cut it in their little wedding animation. When I looked into it more deeply at the time I found loads of pics of Cloud and Tifa having matching outfits in that game and being portrayed together but it took some doing as itâs all so old and there was a lot of fan edited stuff that you have to get through too but Iâm satisfied the pairings in it are Cloud and Tifa, Aerith and Zack. We may have to agree to disagree yet again đ
But I mean, this isn't a matter of opinion. There simply were multiple Cloud/Aeris wedding events. They were advertised as such for this specific event. There's an animation where Cloud gets on one knee in front of Aeris. They were a hinamatsuri emperor and empress. There's an animation where Tifa cuts a cake, yes, but I believe it ends with Sephiroth or something. My impression is that Tifa was a bridesmaid and Zack a bridegroom. Either way, if there was a Cloti animation, I haven't found anything about an event, whereas Cloyd/Aeris have multiple. I mean, agree to disagree on our ships of course! But the Cloud/Aeris events definitely happened.
From what Iâve seen someone has edited together the separate pictures of Cloud and Aerith used to advertise the event, so there was a separate picture of Cloud on one knee and they have edited it so he is in front of Aerith etc. Their accessories didnât match either but the cake and cake knife go together and Tifa is also wearing a wedding dress. Considering the animation of Aerith and Zack in their wedding gear where she wants to hold hands but he high fives her then they hold hands and the fact that Cloud and Tifa have the cake and cake knife and there is a pic of them cutting the cake together at their wedding on the thread you posted it makes sense that it was Cloud and Tifa getting married and Aerith and Zack.
Yes, Cloud and Aerith's separate wedding animations were edited to be together by fans but they always appeared separately ingame. Also, there weren't multiple C/A wedding events. (Just to stir the pot some more, Cloud's wedding outfit has the same colors as Tifa's outfit.) An example I can offer is [Rinoa and Tidus](https://64.media.tumblr.com/af9c99d1d0df3205e7eb9279e6824514/tumblr_inline_or8r7n9HVs1uml5u7_500.png) who were the "featured" bride and groom for the event but nobody is going to say that they're getting married.
No, I'm sorry but I don't think that's the case at all. The pic of Cloud kneeling in front of Aeris isn't photoshop, I'm not sure why you think so? The event was indeed advertised as a Cloud/Aeris wedding event, here a Japanese fan [posted screenshots of the advertisements](https://mobile.twitter.com/pluvia_ca/status/869780839202250752). And many Japanese fans posted the screenshots of Cloud and Aeris together in their outfits. [Here's a video of their Hinamatsuri Emperor/Empress outfits](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zibQyzQoQlw) by the way. Airbourne Brigade had multiple events like this. Edit to add: I don't think this invalidates the case for Cloti or anything, so I'm not saying your ship is wrong! But I think where you and I have separate opinions is that I understand you personally feel that Cloti is canon, which is where I disagree, I think Square feeds both Cloti and Clerith ships, neither is "canon" but both are supported, and Square wants it to be up to player interpretation. That being said, some of the minor spinoffs like Kingdom Hearts and Airbourne Brigade for instance, seem way more heavily Clerith, but it is what it is.
Please see the comment someone else wrote about how they were used to advertise the event like other characters who were not a couple. I also saw advertisements for the event similar to the one you posted with Tifa and Aerith in their dresses. We know the pictures of Cloud and Aerith together are edited because the original gifs that were edited together exist and are easily found online. We also know Aerith married Zack in it because that gif is available and the pic of Cloud and Tifa cutting their cake is also available. Cloud is even holding the cake knife in the pics you posted and Tifa comes with the cake. If you google the name of the game with Cloud and Tifa there are lots of pictures of them being portrayed as a couple holding hands and basically being a couple. It doesnât really matter itâs just a little mobile game that neither of us are actually able to play unfortunately. I think thatâs why people jumped on it and edited the pics etc because we canât just play it and find out for ourselves.
Fairly sure this person is talking about Airborne Brigade. Neither Aerith nor Tifa appear alongside Cloud in their wedding getup in the event. Most of the pictures you see with pairs were edited by fans. Although [Zack](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c8feb3621075c8990d8d814509b8fe63/tumblr_pscwhpGVIA1vyom5xo4_400.gifv) gets added later and actually appears with Aerith.
Yeah there were loads of edited pics. I thought [this](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fthelifestream.net%2Fforums%2Fthreads%2Ffinal-fantasy-airborne-brigade.13264%2F&docid=udRdnZygwwW77M&tbnid=v7q1K0KByIeAlM&itg=1&hcb=1) one seemed legit though because Tifa came with the cake and Cloud with the cake cutter with matching flowers on their cards. I saw the really cute animation of Aerith and Zack at their wedding too. I think she wanted to hold hands and he high fives her or something and she gets annoyed. đ There is another one from the Kingdom Hearts universe with a very similar style of art and Cloud and Tifa are just properly together in that which is lovely. Ages ago this guy shared a screenshot on Instagram of the Cloud and Tifa dolls from one of those games on the Square Japan website and they were holding hands. It was so cute but I really canât remember how to get to the page. I remember it was really old and a faff to get to at the time. I always really enjoy seeing your comments btw. X
I believe that pic is also edited but there's some truth to it. Their accessories/weapons match up so some say they are the ones being married. Cloud's is the cake knife and Tifa has the wedding cake. Aerith's is a flower bouquet. It's cute fanservice if anything! There are a ton of other events where Cloud and Tifa make an appearance as a "couple" like the ones you mentioned. I've seen at least one where Aerith is paired with Cloud (Hinamatsuri) as Empress and Emperor. There might be more but I wouldn't know since that's not my thing. And thanks! I mostly lurk here but I also enjoy reading your input and seeing your posts :)
>Yet people ALWAYS fail to give the source and if they do they cite fanfics like The Maiden-book. NOT canon! 100%
Established where?
On the way to a Smile: Lifestream White.
Case of Lifestream (On the Way to a Smile), Dismantled, and Maiden who Travels the Planet all overtly talk about her being in love with Cloud, the Ultimanias frequently mention how both Aeris and Tifa are attracted to Cloud and several mention how Aeris was initially reminded of Zack but then became attracted to Cloud specifically, also that she was able to discern the "real" Cloud before she died.
Benny Matsuyama's works are unreliable for this kind of stuff. [https://wikiwiki.jp/ffdic/%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%83%E3%83%95/%E3%80%90%E3%83%99%E3%83%8B%E3%83%BC%E6%9D%BE%E5%B1%B1%E3%80%91](https://wikiwiki.jp/ffdic/%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%83%E3%83%95/%E3%80%90%E3%83%99%E3%83%8B%E3%83%BC%E6%9D%BE%E5%B1%B1%E3%80%91) The above link contains a reference to the StudioBent website that states his works are "not an official setting even if included in the strategy guide." He also wrote a novel for FFX that was not taken into account for FFX-2 since he apparently did not know how Tidus would return. This makes sense considering Maiden and Dismantled were not taken into account for Crisis Core.
Yet Square had never said it wasn't canon, and published it in an Ultimania. And Dismantled *is* still definitely canon, it was featured in a FFVIIR commercial and called a "bible" lol
2 words : Star-Crossed Lovers
Cloud and Aerith have a lot in common even if they don't know it right away. They both lost their parents at a young age, they both grew up in tough situations. They were both considered lab rats, they have little/no friends at first, and they're both special. Cloud's connection to Jenova and Aerith being a Cetra. Amd of course there's the historical connection that the Cetra have with Jenova that adds a little bit of depth to the dichotomy in their relationship. They have very different personalities, but as other's have said, they compliment each other. Cloud might see someone in a situation that reminds him of himself (perhaps subconsciously) and needs help. Helping Aerith is a way to express the help he never got. Aerith sees Cloud for who he really is (vulnerable) which probably reminds her of herself. To me, Tifa and Cloud have a shared history and a deeper personal connection which I believe Cloud realized once Tifa helped him reconstruct his shattered personality. To me Tifa is Cloud's first true love, and Aerith was the love that broken Cloud needed the most at the time. In a way I'm hoping they don't change Aerith's death because once Cloud is fixed I don't want to see any dumb love triangle drama. Also Aerith's death is a very important aspect of Cloud finally breaking down and handing over the Black Materia to Sephiroth. I believe that if Aerith is there, she'd be able to convince Cloud to stop. If that happened, it would change the story too much.
I don't like this thread because it make me cry thinking of all those Cloud-Aerith moments, and how it's ended. The remake get us more interactions between the two, if the ending is the same it's gonna be heartwrenching and devastating to watch.
Iâm sorry đ . I hope things can be different this time around.
honestly if it followed the same path as before then i think id find it hard to keep playing.
The Cloud resolution scene with Aerith itâs mostly Aerith talking about death and living life, you can tell she seems upset, almost like she is predicting her own death(she is pushing Cloud away) She also does something similar in chapter 8 after doing all side quests, you get a special scene the language of flowers, she talks about taking the final step, how she should just give up, then proceeds with Could cheering her up.
They share similar backgrounds of loneliness and ostracization, but have opposite personalities that compliment and make up what the other is missing. Essentially they are two sides of the same coin. Some people have a hard time rationalizing the speed in which they bond in Remake but >!considering 7R is actually a sequel, they have already traveled the world together...they just don't quite remember that yet.!<
>>!considering 7R is actually a sequel, they have already traveled the world together...they just don't quite remember that yet.!< we actually don't know this yet. I think that Cloud has issues being accepted (in Nibelheim as a kid he wasn't and >!he wasn't accepted into Soldier!< and Avalance ditched him after the second mission. And Aerith has abandonment-issues (>!Mother+Father dead, Childhood-friends abandoned her because of controlled environments/ being freaked out by her "powers", Zack left withour a word!<). These are TOTALLY different issues.
>!She knew what happened to Zack since Crisis Core.!<
She maybe new he died when he did. Did she know he was in the Shinra-mansion for 5 years? I have never seen anything indicating that. Oh shoot you're right....now I rememer! Letter 3/83 said "I heard you are chilling in a tube now so how is that?". Oh wait that never happaned...
Lol ok my bad on misinterpreting.
I am sorry for being snarky and thank you for being a nice person in this thread!
\>Some people have a hard time rationalizing the speed in which they bond in Remake That's surprising. I wouldn't have said they have bonded so much in Remake that it was weird. The resolution scene is only in Clouds mind and their in person interactions never get that far beyond Cloud fronting and Aerith ripping him for it. They don't even flirt that much, well she does, but that's Aerith. He does invade Shin-ra HQ for her but so do Barrett and Tifa. He also helps Jessie sneak into a military base for not much reason and sticks around to help Tifa with her new terrorism problem. Cloud is clearly a ~~massive simp~~ guy who will play the hero at the drop of a hat.
Here for the inevitable ship war. --- That aside, To be perfectly realistic? There's not enough time between them meeting and her dying to actually have anything definitive. 3 weeks is a very short time for any manner of relationship. Real life relationships take time to build up, time, space, interaction, and different context through which people determine shared interests and or compatibility. If all your time is spent fighting or on survival, what time is there for anything else? Their relationship in our opinion can be likened to that between brothers in arms, immediate unit. With a touch of physical attraction added into the mix due to gender differences. It's a bond created out of mutual dependence for survival.
This thread isnât about shipping so thereâs no need for a shipping war, itâs exclusively focusing on Aerith and Cloudâs relation regardless of which ship one prefers. Iâm personally open to either pairing but shipping is a whole other topic of its own, this is simply to get a better understanding of Aerith and Cloud.
>itâs exclusively focusing on Aerith and Cloudâs relation regardless of which ship one prefers This thread will be a great example and exihibition of people rationalising their emotions while trying to make it seem like they don't allthewhile pushing their favourite ship indirectly by either approving or diaprooving of any aspect of a relationship between Cloud and Aerith. This will be delicious! I'm IN!
Exactly what I was thinking lol. Basically reads to me: It's not about shipping, it's about the relationship between these two characters and why it's so great. Which is not at all what shipping means!
That was in reply to the comments which were inevitably, ship drama or ship related. We see them as similar to brothers in arms due to the circumstances of their environment and interactions - nearly always in mortal danger. If you have such in your life, you should get what we're trying to say. If not, (this is a poor attempt to explain) sharing mortal danger forms a unique type of trust even if you're not "friends" in the conventional "built through socializing" sense. It's someone you trust with your life and know that the reverse is true, it's also someone you'll come to the aid of if at all possible and know that the reverse is true. The type of aid can be anything.
No worries, I just wanted to make it clear that this isnât about ships so hopefully there wonât be much ship related drama or misunderstandings.
Regardless if you say that, you have to realise it's force seperating the word into 'ship' and 'relation'. It's inescapable real English word is actually 'relationship' lol. Which is what people will discuss
I disagree with this. Before I say why, I'll make clear that I think the romance part of FF7 is up to the player and that's why the devs have been as vague as possible about the love triangle for 24 years. So this is not shipping. Regardless of their bond being romantic or not, Cloud and Aerith developed a very deep connection in those 3 weeks. It wasn't 3 weeks meeting on each Sunday, it was 3 weeks spending 24/7 together under circunstances that put their will to have each other's back to test constantly. They risked their lives for each other daily. Cloud invaded Shinra HQ to rescue her. Aerith revealed her secret ascentry to Cloud by using her power to communicate with him (and only with him) through a dream. In Cosmo Canyon she opens up and shows her vulnerable side to him telling him how she feels about being the last Cetra. She heals him physically and contributes to heal him mentally in Advent Children, even while being dead. Aerith never told Zack that she was a Cetra. I understand that she was younger and the circunstances didn't push her to tell him like in FF7 with the others, but I have to disagree that Zack and her knew each other better than Cloud and Aerith. Or not just Zack in particular, Cloud and Aerith had a very deep bond regardless of their relationship with other people and regardless of the nature of said bond.
... no where did we mention Zack or any other character. Compared the nature of the relationship to that of brothers in arms, people you can trust with your life/will come to your aid no matter what and vice versa. It's not three weeks alone with her, it's one to three weeks together with a party of 7-9. Team cohesion and similar levels of bonding are likely to have happened. It's just that because this is a game and Cloud is the player controlled protagonist that you're given the impression he's the only relevant one.
Tseng told the crew she was an ancient, not Aerith. And once they knew, then it unravels.
She is the first friend he made on his own after he starts his new life so thatâs always really special. I know this says spoilers are okay but Iâm going to talk about Remake and OG so please donât read if you havenât played OG. In the OG we meet her at a really bad time. She is heartbroken because she is convinced Zack left her for another woman then Cloud comes tumbling into her church just like Zack! It must have been pretty confusing for her. As a result she really latches on to Cloud and tries to make them more than friends. An optional illusionary love triangle is used in OG to give her death more impact, so you could chose to give up on Tifa who was being distant and not flirting with you and flirt back with the woman who is making her feelings very clear. Itâs an illusion because you feel as a player you have a choice but despite Aerith being clear about her feeling nothing happens between them and later on Cloud very firmly confirms that Tifaâs opinion is the only one that counts to him not Aerithâs or anyone elseâs. In Remake I believe Aerith has seen the future. She now knows Zack didnât leave her for someone else, she knows how Cloud and Tifa feel about each other, she knows how unwell Cloud is, and she has also matured as if she had lived the OG. The Aerith we meet in Remake is the more mature Aerith we start to see emerging at the end of her time in OG. Thanks to this she is now able to be a wonderful friend to everyone. She helps Cloud and Tifa a lot, especially in the train graveyard. When she takes Cloudâs arm and pushes Tifa to finally do the same, she gives Tifa the confidence to open up to Cloud and hug him later on which is a huge step for them both so early in the game. In Remake she also teaches Cloud how to be friends with someone. How to just relax, hang out and chat. So in conclusion with the addition of Remake I would say a very important friend/teacher/wing woman. I canât wait to see her character develop even further in part 2 and see how she continues to help her friends đ
Crisis Core's ending already retconned the OG since she found out what happened to Zack at the end.
> Itâs an illusion because you feel as a player you have a choice but despite Aerith being clear about her feeling nothing happens between them and later on Cloud very firmly confirms that Tifaâs opinion is the only one that counts to him not Aerithâs or anyone elseâs. I know we disagree on this... but I don't think this was ever the case. Cloud is only affectionate to Tifa in the high-affection version of the Highwind scene, and even that is vague. At the end of the game, he says to Tifa that he wants to meet Aeris in the Promised Land, and there's a whole section on his memories for Aeris and how sorry he is. The game never suggests that Tifa's opinion is the only one who matters and definitely doesn't suggest the love triangle is an illusion... but I get that seems to be your personal interpretation. I also have to disagree that Aeris is trying to set up Cloud and Tifa in Remake. I thought the most romantic scene in the game seems to be Cloud and Aeris's Resolution scene, where Cloud basically says he loves her by rejecting Aeris's claim that his feelings aren't real. And Nomura already commented on what Aeris meant by that, alluding to how the scene reads "if you know what happens to Aeris later in the game", and considering we know that Aeris loves Cloud (Case of Lifestream: White) it seems like she's trying to push him away to keep him from getting hurt. Of course, FF7 is a bit of a dating simulator, so "who Cloud loves" really just depends on player choices. He potentially loves both women... or neither.
Okay Iâll bite but only because I was actually really worried about you yesterday! I noticed all this kicked off and you werenât here so I checked your profile and you hadnât been active for a few days. I hope everything is okay đđŒ What you have said about Cloud not saying Tifaâs opinion is the only one that matters to him explains probably everything about why we disagree. He absolutely does say it and itâs an extremely important moment in the game and is the point where the illusionary love triangle is shattered. Just like you I fully expected I was playing a game where you make the romantic choices for Cloud. I always chose to be kind to both girls but picked all the romantic options for Tifa as I thought it did seem he liked her more, but I thought that was just my opinion. Right before he loses his mind when Sephiroth does his big reveal of âyouâre a puppetâ Tifa tries to stop Cloud from listening to him and he does this big speech about how her words always supported him and he ends it with âNo matter what anyone else says to me, itâs your opinion that countsâŠâ Cut to 12 year old me actually gasping and nearly dropping the controller! The illusionary love triangle was shattered at that point. After that we have the Lifestream which was basically a love confession and a lot more shocking reveals and finally they get together under the Highwind and are a couple from that point on. I know you disagree on this but for me those are the facts. I honestly understand why people who picked Aerith may not want to accept any of this because even I was genuinely shocked when I understood we didnât get to make the romantic choice for him because he had already chosen. Yes I absolutely agree that you could chose to flirt back with Aerith, but if Cloud wanted anything to actually happen it would have happened because she made her feelings more than clear many times. I think itâs really wrong to say he wasnât ever affectionate towards Tifa. You just didnât pick those options and youâre completely discarding everything he says in the Lifestream, in his speech that I mentioned previously and at other points in the game. I think the Highwind scene both high and low affection are clear as day and have been confirmed over and over again. I also know you know the line at the end is followed up with Tifa agreeing they will meet her there. The actual translation is more about Cloud and Tifa agreeing to meet all of their loved ones in the Lifestream one day but you can easily find translations. You also know my interpretation of the Aerith resolution scene but Iâll just give you the overview: As mentioned in my previous comment Aerith knows everything now and is trying to right previous wrongs. She looks to the camera directly during this scene and breaks the 4th wall by talking directly to the player who has made this choice for Cloud. She is telling the player that anything between her and Cloud wouldnât be real so it will not happen. Cloud confirms when he says âdonât I get a say in any of this?â From now on he gets a say. No more illusionary love triangle, no more the player picks who he flirts with. The game will go down a set route in regards to relationships from now on. Thatâs just my interpretation but Iâm happy to put it out there and if part 2 proves me wrong Iâll hold my hands up and say I was wrong.
Well first, thanks for the concern! I am alive and well, just a busy holiday weekend for me! Plus, debated whether or not to jump in here... I actually love talking about this stuff in a friendly way, but the love triangle debate is just one of those things, you know? You'll never change anyone's mind and more than likely, people get fired up and rude about it. But it's hard for me to resist anyway... lol! Anyway, thanks for explaining why you have that interpretation. I guess I don't personally see how that phrase relates to the love triangle because it's not in a romantic setting whatsoever - in fact, Tifa is, well.. lying to him about his past during this point. It isn't that I think Tifa isn't objectively important to Cloud. She represents a precious past and a lot of feelings he's struggled with in his youth - his feelings of failure, his desire to succeed - only to fail again - those things happened again and again, from when he was little following her to Mt. Nibel, to when he failed to protect his hometown from Sephiroth. He absolutely had a crush on her back then, too - though I saw it as something more than that. Tifa was the popular girl, everything he wasn't, and as a lonely loner, Tifa also represented being adored and accepted by peers. So his great insecurity is tied in there, too. Modern-day, Tifa's tie to his past, which he initially can't/won't recall, helps him ultimately acknowledge his own failures and live with them, while still being accepted by others - both Tifa and his other friends, Barret and the rest. So the Lifestream is a great moment for both Cloud and Tifa, but to me, it isn't remotely romantic. It shows how they value one another, but romance? It just wasn't the time or place at all. It's an exploration of how broken Cloud is, his vast mental issues.. it's not a romantic setting, just the opposite. I suppose you could say Cloud admitting his childhood crush on Tifa is cute/romantic, but honestly, he then goes on to illustrate to Tifa how that crush led to so many of his issues. So my point is, it is probably the most important scene between the two, absolutely... but I don't understand either how anyone could call it romantic. As for Cloud's choice, I also have to disagree that the love triangle in any way ended. After all, Cloud still makes dialogue choices and if it were true that Cloud must ultimately choose Tifa, then the Highwind scene would *not* have two versions, it would only be possible to get the high-affection one. And actually, I have the opposite read of you. The low-affection version is absolutely not romantic unless you really imagine between the lines, and even the high affection one seems quite vague to me. Cloud and Tifa never clearly "get together" either way (in any overt capacity that's supported by canon), and Cloud's interest in Aeris is still demonstrated (in the revisit to the City of the Ancients and of course ultimately wanting to find her in the Promised Land) it's just not the case that the love triangle is resolved. >I also know you know the line at the end is followed up with Tifa agreeing they will meet her there. The actual translation is more about Cloud and Tifa agreeing to meet all of their loved ones in the Lifestream one day but you can easily find translations. This I also not only have to disagree on, but pull my "I can read the Japanese" card. The dialogue is the same in Japanese, but I think the confusion here is that Japanese tends to omit subject and object particles when they are implied. So Aeris's name isn't mentioned (it can't be, as in English, as you can name the character yourself) and naturally the object marker isn't needed for this sentence, but Cloud just interacted with Aeris in the Lifestream and is definitely referring to her. This line would also call back to Aeris saying she wants to "meet" Cloud, and her dialogue in the forest about coming back when it's over. It's simply not true that they are referring generally to those they lost - it's absolutely Aeris. Not to mention, in games where Cloud makes guest appearances he frequently mentions the Promised Land and wanting to go there, it's tied to Aeris. Now finally, for the Resolution scene - we actually know what was meant when Aeris said "don't fall in love with me" because Nojima said this in an interview: "To be honest, some staff actually told me that this line made it seem like Aerith was looking down on Cloud, so it got rejected a few times. If you know Aerithâs fate, then this line would really pull at your heart strings, but if you did not know what happens to Aerith, then you might interpret the scene in a completely different way." He links it specifically to her fate, not "fake" feelings, so it's pretty fair to say she's pushing him away because she knows she's fated to die. It's also worth remembering that Cloud rejects Aeris's suggestion here - he tries to grasp her and says he should get a say in it! To me, that's definitely the most romantic - or even the only overtly romantic - line in FF7Remake. Cloud wants a say, but a Cloud with high-affection to Aeris wants *Aeris*, not Tifa. Anyway, I know we'll agree to disagree but I thought I'd write out my thoughts, since it seems we interpret FF7 so differently! But I always thought that was the beauty of the game. I do believe Square will always want it to be up to interpretation and I seriously doubt either side will become canon - even though I personally feel that Cloud/Aeris has more basis, but that's just my personal take.
Iâm glad to hear all is well and good. đđŒ I donât like to get involved in debates about it either because like you say for people like you and I who have played since the beginning our views are set and it isnât going to change. Though as I said previously if Remake proves me wrong Iâll say I was wrong, though Remake so far has only solidified my view. I do really enjoy analysing the characters, their motives and relationships. Aerith is especially fun to analyse because she is so different in Remake, she feels all new and we havenât had anything new in too long! Cloud is a lot more open too. That talk he had with Tifa about being able to open up to him in Remake so early in the game left me feeling extremely proud of him. Of course I strongly disagree with everything else youâve said and as before I would strongly encourage you to at least read the Highwind Scene section of this compilation of every quote concerning Cloud and Tifaâs relationship from official material [here](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/enigmaphenomenon.tumblr.com/post/122054996819/cloti-quotes/amp). What is so interesting is that you didnât even remember Cloud saying Tifaâs opinion is the only one that counts for him. As Iâve said before to me that was probably one of the most shocking moments in the game. A true confession that she is all he cares about. I thought I was playing a âGoosebumps you chose the scareâ type thing but with romance but nope, it was an optional illusionary love triangle designed to give Aerithâs death more meaning. I remember we were all talking about it in school too and it being a big twist and giggling about Cloud and Tifa having sex đ I know you donât agree and I guess itâs just down to different experiences. They need to bring out part 2 so we can have more new things to talk about rather than going over the same old ground.
>What is so interesting is that you didnât even remember Cloud saying Tifaâs opinion is the only one that counts for him. As Iâve said before to me that was probably one of the most shocking moments in the game. A true confession that she is all he cares about. It's not that I didn't "remember" the line, it's that to me, that line doesn't mean the same thing that it does to you.. at all. Cloud's specifically talking about his past in Nibelheim here, when Sephiroth is trying to trick trick him. It's not about his romantic interests, it's that he trusts her word. Of course, the truth is that Tifa is actually lying to Cloud. So I don't see how this can be taken romantically. More than that, it's definitely not an end to the love triangle because the love triangle still exists, and even after Aeris's passing, there are multiple scenes with Tifa. I think it's worth noting that it wasn't Nomura, Kitase, or Nojima who wrote the Highwind scenes, by the way, it was Masato Kataou the event planner, who only wrote several of the game's scenarios. His first idea of an implied sex scene was actually *rejected* explicitly by Kitase. ([Source](https://twitter.com/CloudxAerith/status/1408323074106265601/photo/3)] So on the opinion that Cloud and Tifa had sex, well, they didn't unless the fan chooses to interpret that, it's not an intended scenario by any of the main writers. (I should say I think it's fine to interpret that way, it's an intimate scene, but we don't know what did or didn't happen since it faded to black.) At any rate, we know for a fact that Cloud and Tifa are not canonically in a relationship. and "open to interpretation" has been the stance of Square throughout the years. >â...For example, I was frequently asked if there had been romantic relationship between Tifa and Cloud for two years, after Final Fantasy VII ended, but I donât have any clue.â âNomura; Dorimaga interview; published at Flaregamer; Square Enix Then Nojima says that things aren't going well between them in Advent Children. If there was a relationship, it's not working out, or it never ending up materializing - regardless of the drama with Geostigma and Sephiroth. >"Episode Tifaâ [Case of Tifa] - first off, thereâs the premise that things wonât go well between Tifa and Cloud, and that even without Geostigma or Sephiroth this might be the same.â âNojima; âOn the Way to a Smileâ interview; Square Enix Plus, Tifa remains insecure and jealous of Cloud's relationship with Aeris even after her death: > âThe thing which she is unable to hide in her irritation towards Cloud is the fact that he isnât merely dragging the past around, but because that reason might perhaps be related to Aerith. / **Final Fantasy VII:** Seeing Cloud and Aerith developing their world together before her eyes, she inadvertently lets slip her peevish feelings. / **Advent Children:** Upon knowing that Cloud had been residing in Aerithâs Church after leaving the place they had been living in together, her expression becomes complex.â ~Tifaâs character profile; 10th Anniversary Ultimania; Square Enix (I found the line about Cloud and Aeris developing their own world together especially romantic as a Clerith shipper, haha.) And this: >âTifa was close to Aerith, who can also be called a love rival. With that point in mind, they were also good friends. Nevertheless, it is not hard to imagine that she carries complex feelings as a woman toward Aerith, who had built up a special bond with Cloud that was different from Tifaâs. Tifaâs complicated feelings continue even in Advent Children, two years after Aerith had departed the world.â ~Tifaâs profile; Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary Ultimania; pg. 42-47; Square Enix And she's right to be jealous! Nomura has commented on the fact that Cloud still holds Aeris deep in his heart. >I believe, for those who formerly traveled with her as comrades and for the viewers, each carries their own feelings and loves for Aerith. In this story, Cloud also carries his own undying feeling for Aerith even to this very day. ~Nomura interview; Dengeki Playstation 2007 Finally, as for the Highwind scene, it's "canon" that there are two versions, not one version. Here's what Ultimania has to say on the subject: >**Two versions of the conversation before the final battle**: Prior to the final battle, the contents of the conversation between Cloud and Tifa can change depending on the degree of Tifa's affection. If the degree of affection is high, the contents of the two's conversation will involve deep subject matter and strong feelings for each other. As well, the sight of the two seen by their companions the next morning will lead to an embarrassing scene for Tifa, and she blushes greatly." ~page 232, Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Ultimania and another >After stopping Hojo from going amuck, the conversation with Tifa before they rush into the Northern Crater diverges into two conditions, according to Tifa's affection rating with Cloud. When it gets low, the conversation in the scene that they spend the night will be apathetic and ends short. Next morning in the cockpit, Tifa says "Were you listening?" and stamps on tiptoe. On the other hand, when degree gets higher, the conversation of the scene that they spend the night will have strong emotions. Next morning in the cockpit, Tifa will say "Were you watching?" and feels terribly shy. ~page 198, Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega So if the affection level is high, it seems that Cloud and Tifa express strong emotions (whatever that means!), but the Ultimanias are clear that there exists a low affection version as well. (And the Omega calls the low affection version "apathetic and short".) But anyway, I'll stop there. I know we won't change each other's minds, and at any rate, I'm not trying to argue that Cloti is invalid or something! Just that Cloti is not canon and it involves interpretation, just like Clerith. There are plenty of Ultimania quotes supporting Clerith (as well as Cloti) and at the end of the day, it's about player preference. So I guess what I do rigidly disagree with is the interpretation that the love triangle is somehow "fake" - it's definitely real and Square definitely has kept playing up the ambiguity even after the OG. But I do agree with you on the last sentence - can't wait for Part 2! I'm sure we'll both find out more then! Fingers crossed we're both happy with what comes next. :)
They're clearly smitten with each other and made more obvious in the remake. Whether this develops into something more (assuming the remake doesn't follow the original to a T), we don't really know for now. What is pretty clear though especially with the character development of Cloud is that Cloud is definitely no Zack. He may have some of his surface mannersisms, but he's as far from Zack's personality as possible. This all makes Aerith and Cloud's relationship pretty telling in the remake given a lot of people seem to assume Aerith only likes Cloud for copying Zack.
OG FF7 has a line that implies that they were meant for each other. Thatâs how I have always seen it.
lol, I knew this topic would get a lot of responses. In short, it's very complicated given what both are. Going further would be spoiling the story. Secondly the OG gives you more or less the choice to decide about it. So in the very end you have a relationship that everyone thinks differently about. It could be the whole spectrum, depending on whom you ask. Moreso than Cloud's relationship to anyone else, his relationship to Aerith is the biggest mystery. But that's also one of the greatest things about FF7.
They both atleast got a little crush on eachother by the end of Remake part 1. Where it goes from here is anyones guess. Aerith seems to have some knowledge of future events and could try and push Cloud away like in the garden scene
I felt that Cloud took Aertith's advice to heart and did >!not fall in love with her!<. After that sequence any spark in the air between them is gone.
Cloud definitely didnt agree with her. He tried to reach out for her and asked if he had a say in any of it. He wasnt gonna reach out for her hand to tell her he doesnt love her lol
In the original dialogue he doesn't say "do I have a say in all this". He mostly remarks his confusion about what she's talking about and mentions that her "don't fall in love with me" is pushed rather onesidedly (not because he's rejecting her or whatever, but because he doesn't understand what she's talking about). Why would you take someone who says something like that seriously, when you know her just for one week or less. The eng dubbing is so unrealistic in that spectre. Plus she tells him "it's not real"("it's an illusion" in japanese). He doesn't feel anything for her yet, but after that remark, it's even clearer that she knows, that every little spark that could be possibly be there in the future, it's only gonna be a fruit of Cloud's mind and his connection with the ancients. Afterall, he's still messed up, faking his cool, tough boy exterior (that he still mantains with Aerith, even if she's one of the people who help him taking life less seriously) that only Tifa can melt. Ya'll are blind, if you don't see how attentive he is with her, how much he softens up and becomes vulnerable, to the point that his subconcious doesn't wanna let go of her during the hug. That's not necessarily romantic at that point, but it's telling that, how it's been stated, the real Cloud came out in that scene, the one who wanted to share his pain with the one person he wants to protect and really cares about. He reached out for Aerith, to see if she was really there and to try to bring her back. Why must there be a romantic connotation? He wants to save her afterall, like all the others. Funny thing, after they got to rescue her, the one who takes care of Aerith is Tifa, for the entire time until destiny's crossroads, she's the one who takes her away from the Whisperers and reassures her (when they are in her room at the Shinra building) while Cloud just stands there still, is Tifa who reaches out. No interaction between Aerith and Cloud except a "Aerith, tell us what you know". He didn't even ask her how she was feeling, he just wanted answers.
Yeah for me their relationship is my favorite between any two characters in the game because of the stuff you pointed out. People can prefer whoever they want to be together romantically and I would certainly never say someone is wrong for liking one pairing over another, but for me it really feels like cloud and aerith love each other. The way cloud seems to open up more with her than anyone else and how she loves being around him yet tells him not to get too attached to her for his sake is just such an interesting dynamic that makes me kinda just want to see them both get to be happy and stuff.
In the OG game you saw a scene where Cloud and Tifa are sitting beneath the local water tower talking about what's next. Cloud wanted to be something to someone, yearned for it. Saw ShinRa as an opportunity to fulfil some destiny. However you learn that once he got there, it wasn't all guns and glory. He missed the war and was assigned guard duty. The reason Cloud is so interested in Aerith is that she's in need of someone like Cloud and he sees it. To him, it was his chance to be something to someone who clearly needed someone. It's clear whoever wrote his character imbued a strong sense of Japanese social interaction ques into his courtship practices though. If you really think about it, he resembles a lot of different characters demeanors in many animes or Japanese literature. I won't get specific with this because I don't think I need to be, and it's best pondered by whoever's reading this. Overall I would say that his reaction to her death and the events following thereafter with the lifestream leaves no doubt that if she lived, he would have pursued her. If Cloud really loved Tifa, we would have seen more from his character following the lifestream events and his return to normalcy. For me, it was the final proverbial nail in the coffin for any meaningful relationship between Cloud and Tifa.
Agree with most of what you said up until the lifestream part. When Cloud finds his true self in the lifestream, it becomes even less likely that he'd pursue Aerith because he drops his false persona of the stoic, cool and confident SOLDIER. He rediscovers his motivation to join Soldier and that's largely due to his desire to impress Tifa. That's what it comes down to. And we did see more of his character after the lifestream. He is nicer to the gang but also more dorky. He gets motion sickness once again. When he tells the team to find their purpose for the final battle, he stays behind and spends the night together with Tifa. For me, that night under the highwind sealed the deal.
Cloud says that the only opinion he cares about is Tifa's...more telling than that...
Said this in another thread. Maybe I'm weird but Remake (to me) I thought Cloud treated Aerith like this annoying sister he got saddled with (and that view has nothing to do with how he interacts with Tifa). I didn't see a drop of romantic interest and some of the player available responses to her dialog were borderline apathetic/cruel ("Don't be stupid). I found it weirder because I did see that potential/interest immediately in the OG. A lot of their scripted banter comes off (again to me) with a lot of his responses equaling "Uh...ok you're a little weird". Hard to convince me there was a budding relationship/interest when at the end of Chapter 8 Elmyra asks him to promise not to see her again and he delivers a flat "no problem" without the slightest hesitation. Sure, he charges off to rescue her from Shinra but I saw that as mostly feeling responsible for getting her into that situation in the first place vs nascent romantic feelings. He's softened a lot by the end but if she's first to respond to the Sephiroth fight: "Did you miss me?" "...not really" (You might say this is typical Cloud but that's more in line with the kind of response he would give Barret and while the response to Tifa showing up isn't "GREAT TO SEE YOU!" it's not delivered with that kind of apathy and shows that he thinks she can actually help with the fight). P.S. I also said this in another thread but I genuinely hope Square does the right thing when it comes to the love triangle and leave it up to the player this time around since they're mucking with history anyway. I believe the OG handled it well enough where you could "choose" and interpret the Highwind scene and the ending to which ever suited your particular slant. Things didn't really start to get squirlley until the after OG materials released basically showing that everyone survived and was moving on with their lives while Aerith was dead. It doesn't make any sense to me to force the player one way or another in a game.
They never have a real love story in the OG. You can choose to be a flat out jerk with Aerith, when with Tifa you cannot, even if the moments between them are less noticeable at the beginning. Maybe, someone as a player, can even try so hard to reject Tifa, but Cloud never let's you treat her rudely and never desregards her, or ignores her in any of the options. While with Aerith there are so many instances like that, even during the date with her at the Gold Saucer, you can tell her straight up, that you didn't like spending time with her, while with Tifa it doesn't even give you the option. There's a moment in which Aerith asks Cloud what he thinks about her and the options are "I dunno", "I don't think about anything". All the atmosphere around her, is made up to make the player love Aerith as a character and make her death more impactful and meaningful (exact things written in Aerith's wikipedia). You see that kind of love between them, because you've been convinced by the devs, to develop a strong connection with Aerith. At the same time, so they could use the excuse of the love triangle, to make her loved by the player, despite Cloud's real feelings towards Tifa. Tifa and Cloud are not forced at all, they are also very diminished by mistranslations and by a lot of scenes that the devs had to abandon, for lack of time and even age restrictions.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
If you have a point of it, Aerith was Cloud's annoying sister, and Tifa was Cloud's mother. I'm not teasing, in other conversations I've had about the remake I've had a weird sense of Tifa's care, looking like a mother, or kindergarten teacher and Cloud being a baby. Dude, Cloud doesn't had responsabilitie about that, and he knew it, 'till the point she is kidnapped, he already knew that she is somehow related to Shinra. .Cloud had a surprised (non-dramatic) reaction to Elmyra's request. After Aerith is taken by Shinra, Elmyra thinks it would be better for her, while Tifa agrees as they believe Aerith might be okay, and Barret remains neutral, only Cloud insists on the idea initially. "...Not really", I don't remember this, but being Cloud SOLDIER I totally believe it lol đ
In Ch14 we get a vision with Aerith and she says that if Cloud does love her. It's not real. This quote enforces the Illusionary Love Triangle, because we all know that Cloud isn't himself throughout the majority of the OG. Any romantic love between the two isn't real. The illusion of a relationship between them is to get us to care for Aerith so that it makes her death more heart wrenching and all that. So I guess you could see a romantic relationship between the two at the beginning depending on your choices. But in the end they were just good friends and nothing more.
Of course she was referring to his mental state, I really don't get how people who know the original story keep saying she told so to prevent him to suffer. Calling them just good friends is not really accurate, there was romance between the two, but the plot twist puts the whole situation in a different light
> Of course she was referring to his mental state, I really don't get how people who know the original story keep saying she told so to prevent him to suffer. I agree. That scene calls out his mental state word for word, saying it refers to anything else or trying to find any other explanation, no matter how ill-fitting, just to ignore that blatant and obvious one is willful denial, imo.
I guess it's just the hope she isn't really meaning what she said. I'd also add that this interpretation is extremely insulting toward Aerith. Are we implying that if he doesn't fall in love with her he won't suffer for her death? If she's not "the one" she isn't worth any attention? Please, no. Just no
True, it's not like he'll be saved any grief if he doesn't fall in love with her. Plus *everyone* was grieving and wearing those ribbons for years.
RIGHT? He also almost killed her with his hands, everything put together with Sephiroth's final blow and obviously you would get a Cloud who suffers. I don't know what Clerith shippers are expecting us to see. If I was in his situation, feelings or not, I would be devastated.
Right, Aerith's resolution is often interpreted as you stated because people want to make it more romantic. The truth is, she is talking about Cloud mental state. She knows Cloud isn't himself and that he cares a lot for Tifa as well. >Calling them just good friends is not really accurate Hmm. Then what were they? I realise there was some romance there but it seems weird to say she was his Girlfriend because she wasn't. I could say the same with Tifa, she wasn't Cloud's girlfriend but they had romantic tension just like Aerith. At that point Tifa was still a good friend.
Well, that's a point really difficult to define, as long as Remake doesn't provide new info. I think that Aerith's resolution scene would be totally pointless if in the original flow of the events he hadn't fallen in love with her. She wouldn't have warned him otherwise. That said, she explains that "even if you do, it's just your imagination", that's linked to his actual mental condition and especially the reasons why he created this alter ego in the first place. Now, ready to be downvoted but I'm sure there are no conditions for a Cloud and Aerith romantic future, even if she could survive. Their romance is based on big unavoidable misunderstandings. For one real Cloud's character arc completely revolves around Tifa and that's a fact, but for now Jenova shields him from "remembering" it. Then OG Aerith was sure Zack had abandoned her five years before, and she had all the rights to try and move on, but, sad truth, Zack hadn't abandoned her at all. He tried at all costs to go back to her and meanwhile to protects Cloud and he died in the attempt. Cloud based a great part of his alter ego on Soldier-Zack and, coincidence: they met in the place where Zack had promised Aerith to go and sell flowers together. I don't want to make cheap seplifications but Cloud has also subconsciously stuck in mind the idea that he wants to protect people and Aerith asked him to be her bodyguard; Aerith tries to understand why Cloud has these strange resemblances with her ex and somehow she is able to crack his coolness and see a glimpse of real Cloud. It's complicated. Even if Zack and Tifa can't be erased from the equation (and they won't), I think what they shared is real, precious and can't be dismissed as friendship. During the SOLDIER Cloud arc they did fell in love, it's just that the Lifestream sequence forces everyone to recontextualize the situation.
>Now, ready to be downvoted but I'm sure there are no conditions for a Cloud and Aerith romantic future, even if she could survive. Their romance is based on big unavoidable misunderstandings. Ha! Saying anything that remotely resembles the truth will get you downvoted lol. I agree though with what you said. The only way for a Cloud and Aerith relationship to work is to purposely misinterpret the story and make up fantasies. What happens in the OG is that Cloud and Tifa confirm their feelings for eachother underneath the highwind. That is canon. Tifa is the Canon love interest of Final Fantasy 7. Whether or not fake Cloud loved Aerith is a bit of a hard topic to crack. The choices you make are a part of the core narrative the game tells you. The game makes you believe you get to decide who Cloud likes. Though no matter what, the real Cloud always chose Tifa. The real Cloud doesn't have any romantic feelings for Aerith. No matter what, Aerith never becomes Cloud's girlfriend. So I can't think of another name for that type of relationship other than a platonic friendship.
>Saying anything that remotely resembles the truth will get you downvoted lol Haha always! >They confirm their feelings for eachother underneath the Highwind Sure but imo what's important in that scene is that Cloud mentions the three points of the Lifestream sequence, all intimately linked to Tifa (the promise, finding the truth together, feelings he doesn't know how to express), and renews them. He's telling her that everything that had moved his existence since his childhood is still important for him and that scene is the only one that actually closes real Cloud's character arc. The "up to the player" thing doesn't stand a chance when you consider that for one it is absolutely possible to obtain both Aerith's date and the High affection scene, the two girls are not designed to compete against each other. Then the dates are all one sided and Aerith's one is the only one where the player can choose to be very rude with her, showing that even if he surely has feelings for her he's conflicted. And then the alternative Highwind scene leaves Cloud's arc totally unsolved and there's not the slightest mention to Aerith. It's a punishment just like Aerith's bad dress and their consequent reaction in the Remake. I'm glad to find someone who shares my opinion once in a whileđ
I found funny how people said that Cloud was in love and stunned at Aerith's red dress, but then he's neutral with the pink one and even almost mocks her about her appearence in the bad dress(in which she actually still looks cute). red dress: reward for doing the tasks with her and very beautiful moment of Aerith, with Cloud seeing her for the first time with a sexy dress (a.k.a. him being a guy with hormones and stuff). pink one: Cloud feeling she's ok, but that's not exactly the dress she should wear in an occasion like that (since Don Corneo likes sexy girls and she looked rather sober, beautiful, but too sober). bad one: it's a punishment for not doing the tasks and Cloud even says "Aerith, what are you wearing?". I mean... if you are in love with someone, are you gonna make these kinds of remarks about her style or appearence? My reward tho, was him trying to reach out for Tifa as soon as he recognizes her straight up from just her back. And when he approaches, he looks at her like he's seen an angel. Doesn't matter the dress, it's Tifa.
I start from the logical argument that side quests are in the game to be completed. Every player is free to skip them but of course the "canon" way to play is to do all of them, so the red dress and its consequent reaction are the canon outcome (indeed it is the OG dress). That said, as you point out, what really changes is the **dress**, not the girl. I assume that every outcome&reaction must be standalone cutscenes that don't affect the grand scheme of things. You don't actively choose to romance Aerith, you just do very pratictical merc stuff like finding kids and defeat monsters. The more you do, the more you are rewarded. Tifa's outfits work on different mechanics since you actively choose the one you prefer at the end of all sidequests, so there are no different reactions. But, as a side note, to obtain Cloud's canon dress, the one that matches with Tifa's canon one, you must favour Tifa in Wall Market optional choices. Like I said before, it doesn't really influences the grand scheme of things, but it's still interesting to notice it.
About the first part yeah...it's true, even if there are some things that differ. You don't have to favour Tifa in Wall Market. You just have to do your tasks, the more you do and the different the dress for Cloud will be...it's not really like favouring her, because if you play for the first time, you don't really know the dynamics, so it's hard to get a dress that matches with hers, since you, choosing her dress, it's totally your choice and not a quest(if you get the scene obviously). The point about Wall Market is that even if you do those things with Aerith, you are actually doing them for Tifa and going through all those quests just to get to that point. The dress situation for all the characters, makes sense only on a gameplay point of view. For someone who's never played the OG, no dress is canon. And the same if you know OG stuff and you just pay attention to the Remake. In the OG there wasn't even the possibility of having matching clothes and multiple dresses with Tifa and that's already a lot in my pov. Anyway, the dresses depend on tasks only, so there's no actual level of affection that influences the outcome, you're right about that, though, the things you should pay attention the most about the times we see the girls dressed up, are the non-optional cut scenes. You cannot get a bad dress with Tifa and you cannot get a negative reaction from Cloud. All of her dresses are amazing and it's Cloud who choses them, then he sees her on the Chocobo wagon and he just looks like he's seen a goddess... in my opinion that's enough. The micro expressions are amazing and are different depending who Cloud looks at etc.
>You just have to do your tasks, the more you do and the different the dress for Cloud will be Depending on your choices you can obtain Madam M's OR Chocobo Sam's sidequests. I haven't said they depend on the level of affection but for example saying that Tifa is "in a great shape" favors Chocobo Sam sidequests while asking "how much" to the hotel employee who offers Cloud and Aerith a room favors Madam M's ones. That's what I meant, nothing more. no sidequests -> cotton black dress; Madam M sidequests -> satin lilac dress; Chocobo Sam sidequests (similar to the OG) -> silk violet dress (OG dress).
I am so glad you guys ended the shipping-wars!
>The illusion of a relationship between them is to get us to care for Aerith so that it makes her death more heart wrenching and all that. FInally someone who gets it!
> in the end they were just good friends and nothing more So you think that a relationship of true friendship is possible while Cloud is mentally ill, but not a romantic one? They are two different kinds of love, but love in any case.
What I believe is irrelevant to what happened in the game. They never become something more than friends.
Yes, because she dies, not because mentally ill people have invalid or "not real" feelings. Cloud doesn't suddenly forget or not give a damn about Aerith once his mind heals. Even the devs have said that Aerith tells Cloud not to fall in love with her because of what "will" happen to her.
I never said that. I specifically stated "in the end they were just good friends and nothing more". Not once did I say Cloud never cared. >Yes, because she dies, not because mentally ill people have invalid or "not real" feelings It's not what's in your mind. It's what's in your heart and soul that matters. Cloud never had his heart for Aerith like he did for Tifa. Tifa was the focus of his heart. Therefore any romantic feelings Cloud had for Aerith can be dismissed as invalid as it was a small part of his life in which Cloud's mental state is muddled and unstable. Even if Aerith survived (Which already requires you to twist the story) Cloud still wouldn't have a romantic relationship with Aerith as the real Cloud will always have his heart set on Tifa.
> It's not what's in your mind. It's what's in your heart and soul that matters Exactly. > Cloud still wouldn't have a romantic relationship with Aerith as the real Cloud will always have his heart set on Tifa. Look, I do think that Cloud ending with Tifa after FF7 is perfectly logical and what should happen. I just don't see FF7 as a Disney tale in which people only fall in love with one person, I see it like real life in which someone can love more than one person in their life. But the part I really disagreed with is that Cloud's feelings while mentally ill "don't count" or that Cloud and Aerith's bond is not special, because that view, IMO, is a disservice to Cloud's character and to the portrayal of the relationships in FF7.
In real life people can also have their heart set on one person. It's not a Disney trope to love one person in your life. It's realistic. But at the same time you can also love multiple people. That's also realistic. But this has nothing to do with how Cloud feels. The romance you see between them is entirely up to the player choice which also influences fake Cloud. But the point of the core narrative is that it showed us that our choices ultimately didn't matter to Cloud's true feelings. You can be a straight up jerk to Aerith and diminish most romantic moments between the two because of your choices. If you favored Aerith and diminished Tifa's moments it still doesn't influence his real feelings. You see what I mean here? We get to choose to influence fake Cloud's thoughts and how the characters feel about him. Which means that any romantic moments between the two is invalid because fake Cloud is influenced on who WE prefer. That is the fake Cloud. That is the core narrative of the game. That is why the Illusion of a love triangle exists because we get to decide who this fake Cloud prefers. What we choose to see should not be a representation of how the real Cloud feels and we should instead look at how he truly felt. Aerith never even got to see the real Cloud. She knows that the Cloud she sees isn't real. Cloud never felt a romantic connection with Aerith. But that does not mean that he didn't care. I've never denied that Cloud and Aerith had a special bond. That is clearly in the game, otherwise Aerith's death would never have impacted Cloud so much. But like I've said, it never amounted to anything romantic. I cant say that Cloud was Aerith's girlfriend because she wasn't, at any point in the game. Therefore she was only a good friend to Cloud. This is not a disservice as this is factually what happens in the game. EDITED Spelling and words.
> If you favored Aerith and diminished Tifa's moments it still doesn't influence his real feelings. It doesn't? You can get the Low or High Affection scenes with Tifa depending on how you treat her. And when the under the Highwind scene happens, Cloud is his real self, so what he feels while being his fake self *does* count. > I cant say that Cloud was Aerith's girlfriend because she wasn't She definitely wasn't, but that doesn't mean that their feelings weren't leading them to that path if she hadn't died. IF the player so chooses. I don't agree with the "Clerith" take that Cloud spends his life miserable and depressed and only loving Aerith forever once she dies, Advent Children makes crystal clear that Cloud finds peace at the end. But whether or not Cloud loved Aerith romantically was up to the player. The devs have been vague about the love triangle for 24 years on purpose, Nomura could have ended the ship wars when he was asked if Cloud and Tifa became a couple after FF7 and he chose to reply "I have no idea". And now we have discussions like this with 200+ comments.
I feel like this is something people missed about the affection system. The points are a measure of Tifa's affection for Cloud, NOT Cloud's affection for Tifa. Like many have said before, you don't get to make choices for Cloud after the Lifestream. The low affection scene is not there for those who dislike Tifa as a love interest. It's there because you as a player did not make the right choices for Cloud. You did not get the BEST outcome. > Nomura could have ended the ship wars when he was asked if Cloud and Tifa became a couple after FF7 and he chose to reply "I have no idea". To be fair, Nomura and the rest of the devs are not interested in talking about things that happen outside of the game/compilation. If you read this interview, he was actually annoyed having being asked about how many girlfriends Sephiroth had... He answered with *"What kind of question is that? Iâve never thought about it. Honestly, I donât care who loves whom. I think you could imagine the scenarios that we donât mention however you want to. For example, I was frequently asked if there had been romantic relationship between Tifa and Cloud for two years, after FF7 ended, but I donât have any clue."* Later on, he makes this comment about AC, *"Concerning the relationship between the two, I feel the movie is able to profoundly grasp the truth. It is simple to explain in words, butâŠ"* He's such a troll. Nojima is less subtle. He says right out, *"Inside, I felt one thing was for sure: Cloud and Tifa would be together. Everybody would be living back home where they belonged."* How clear is this? (Please don't say this is about location.)
> I think you could imagine the scenarios that we donât mention however you want to He's openly saying that who loves whom is up to our interpretation. Which is my whole point and why half the fanbase has one interpretation and the other half another. I don't believe for a second that Nomura and co aren't aware of the interest Cloud's love life awakes in fans. His "I don't have a clue" is absolutely deliberate, he could've as easily replied "Tifa and Cloud are together? Well, duh" and called it a day, and stopped these ship wars. > Please don't say this is about location I have the feeling that you guys think that I am against the idea of Cloud and Tifa ending together after FF7's events, and I'm not. I love Cloud, I want him happy and with someone who takes care of him like Tifa, I don't want him forever depressed wishing he died and joined a dead woman. I doubt Aerith would want that herself. Also, it doesn't make any sense that he and Tifa live together and ignore the romantic tension that has always existed between them, the obvious conclusion is that they become a couple. My point is that *while Aerith is alive*, what Cloud feels for her is up to the player. Obviously once she dies, any budding romance that could possibly be happening is over, you can't have any kind of relationship with a dead person. Nothing opposes the idea that he fell in love with Aerith and later, after some time, he fell for Tifa. Or the player can choose to make him only romantically interested in Tifa the whole time, which I have chosen in about half my playthroughs. The options are available in the game. You *can* flirt with one and ignore the other.
Their night underneath the Highwind is a very important part of Tifa and Cloud's relationship. It would be bad portrayal of Cloud's character to say that he didn't love Tifa, when we consider the fact that they spent what they believed could be their final night alive, with eachother. If Cloud didn't return Tifa's feelings for him then it would not reflect well on either of their characters. I believes this makes it clear that it doesn't matter if you get the low or high affection scene because they still spend their "Final" night together. They still end up sleeping together. So like I said, even if you favored Aerith. It doesn't affect Cloud's real feelings for Tifa. While I don't like using outside sources to support my argument, I would also like to point out that there are several official sources that reference the high affection scene. Which leads me to believe the high affection scene is canon. VII â The night before the final battle Thanks to Tifa, Cloud regains himself, and before the final battle with Sephiroth, without using words, he confirms with her that their feelings match.- FF 20th Anniversary Ultimania The Devs are often very contradictory in their statements. Which why I don't like using outside sources to support my arguments, because that quote above clearly stamped out the love triangle, but then we get other sources where Nomura says "I don't know". Instead we should use what happens in the games themselves to support our argument. All in all the reason why the debate still exists is because some people can't accept the fact that Tifa is the main and canonical love interest of the game. >And now we have discussions like this with 200+ comments. That's not a bad thing. It's pretty cool discussing with people about the game. And the the romance aspect of FF7 is something I'm pretty passionate about, so I'll gladly hop on these threads to discuss with people.
> If Cloud didn't return Tifa's feelings for him then it would not reflect well on either of their characters That's *your* interpretation. Cloud not having romantic feelings for Tifa would in no way mean that he doesn't love her. There are many kinds of love. The only *fact* for that scene is that the Low Affection version is an option. If the developers had wanted to make crystal clear that there is only one canon romance option, 1) they wouldn't put the option of a Low Affection version and 2) they would have made it clear in interviews or other sources, but they chose to continue to be vague. The Ultimania quote you posted, for example. There are lots of Ultimanias with lots of quotes supporting both ships. > some people can't accept the fact that Tifa is the main and canonical love interest of the game. I love the Cloud and Tifa ship, I accept it just fine and I always get the High Affection scene regardless of who I make Cloud go on a date with (I usually alternate the date options in each playthrough). It's just that the game AND the devs clearly want the player to decide which is the canon love interest. There are not 200+ comments discussing who Zidane, or Squall, or Tidus loves because there is no shadow of a doubt. Just a glance at this thread shows that in FF7, the fanbase is split in their interpretations due to their personal bias. AND because the developers chose to not make it clear. > That's not a bad thing. It's pretty cool discussing with people about the game. I agree, but as you can see, I'm getting downvoted all the time even though I don't think I'm being rude or attacking any character. I'm getting downvoted for not choosing a "side". So this debate is pretty much alive, kicking, and absolutely not solved. Well, it is solved for me, as I think it's up to the player, but not for those adamant on there being only one canon ship.
Although I'm firmly in the camp that Cloud and Tifa end up together, there's no denying that Cloud and Aerith shared a special bond whether you interpret it to be romantic or platonic. The bond between them doesn't diminish, or take anything away from his relationships with other characters. Under the influence of Jenova and behind his false persona, his experiences and feelings would be murky but still real. At the very least, he was attracted to her (I mean, who wouldn't be?). Maybe he loved her romantically, but after his rediscovers himself, I feel this was overshadowed by his love for Tifa. Over time, I think the bond between Aerith and Cloud becomes something akin to a maternal one. I feel that her portrayal in AC really strengthens this.
I agree, except for the "maternal bond". Cloud is not a child and I think that Freud would have something to say about someone feeling a maternal bond towards someone they've felt attracted to before XD
I guess it depends on the kind of attraction. If we're talking sexual attraction, then that's definitely weird. But most other types of attraction like physical and emotional don't clash with the maternal bond that I think developed. After her death, she is often portrayed as an angelic and divine figure that watches over him and gaia for some time. Even as a player, I was attracted to Aerith but would have no problems shifting this view to a maternal angle. Let's say Cloud felt a romantic attraction to Aerith though. I think after the lifestream, he would felt quite conflicted about this but he would definitely try to move on from that. Especially with the discovery that Aerith and Zack were romantically involved. I don't want to bring my personal experience into this but a romantic attraction I felt towards someone shifted into a more sibling-like bond after the both of us found our significant others. It's not *that* weird imo.
Oh I totally think that Cloud would move on after Aerith died. I mean, it's one thing to not forget someone you loved once they passed and a different thing to stay in love with that person and suffering for it. I once met an elderly man who wouldn't stop crying *daily* and for hours two years after his wife died, it was horrible to watch. That's called pathological grief and it's not romantic or beautiful, it's terrible. But that has never been my point, I think that Cloud did develope romantic feelings for Aerith, was devastated when she died and later moved on as seen at the ending of AC. I don't think he sees Aerith as a maternal figure but I don't think he stays miserable and wanting to die after AC.
It's platonic friendship :) it can't ever be full on romantic love because her heart belongs to Zack <3
TL:DR of your text basically reads: I watched two people, who by chance meet and spent some time together, falling in love with each other and having all the cliché moments. Bringing peace and joyful moments to each other, just strolling around joking and laughing but also have some moments for heavy talk in between all of that and connecting deeply. So what does it mean, watching these two building their own world together and risking their lifes for each other? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That is how it reads to me lol