tamlin_kitsune

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Aerith

I've been slowly working through this for a long time now and I think I'm finally ready to put my thoughts down when it comes to Aerith. Or more specifically Clerith from Aerith's perspective. Warning, what lies ahead is a bit depressing and my opinion only so take it for what it's worth. Not to mention, I did it at 4 in the morning and the writing's clunky.

First, let me state what I consider fanon. In fanon, Aerith crushed on Cloud because he was similar to Zack and, once she died and found Zack, her crush on Cloud changed to a maternal emotion and she and Zack are now forever free to frolic their soul mate way through the Lifestream.

I like fanon.

I just don't think it's canon.

Let me start by again dividing fanon from canon when it comes to Aerith's personality. Aerith was a good person. She was friendly, helpful, honestly sweet and kind. She was also stubborn, determined and a bit self-centered. She was not fanon's 'saint' nor was she selfless. She was known to blatantly disregard other people's feelings in favor of her own from time to time (Barret at the Gold Saucer after his very emotional browbeating by the Coral refugees for example). And, yes, she and Tifa were friends but she also ignored or intentionally ran over Tifa's feelings regarding Cloud (best example is the whole 'tell me if Cloud and I are the perfect couple' to Cait Sith in the Temple of the Ancients when, if you chose her for your party, Tifa is standing right there and even turns away with a huff). Aerith is a good person but she's also human. Having lived all her life having to rely on only herself and on the run from the Turks (and AVALANCHE in it's early stages) she had to be self-focused and take care of herself first. I also believe she was a very emotionally hurt woman by the time the video game started.

So let's begin at the beginning. Crisis Core. Zack falls through the ceiling of Aerith’s church and their sweet, teenage romance begins. He's her first love and he's Zack in all his charming, ‘do anything for you’ glory. She falls hard for him. I don't think there's any debate over that. Years later, her adopted mother will call Zack the one that broke Aerith's heart and will worry that it will happen again, indicating that when it happened it wrecked Aerith enough emotionally that her mother never wanted to see her suffer like that again. Zack goes on a mission, promises to come back to see her - and disappears. She spends over four years writing letters to him. That's not a crush that's going away easily. She has no closure, she's still waiting for him to come back, she's wearing pink and his ribbon in anticipation of the day. And then, finally, one day, as anyone would - she gives up. Her last letter goes out into the world and she forces herself to deal with the 'he's not coming back'. She even has her moment in the church when he dies. Zack was obviously a monumentally important part of her life, one she expected to last and one that had/has a profound impact on who she is by the time the original game begins. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that she loved him and loved him the whole-hearted and once in a lifetime way that only teenagers/first loves can.

Fast-forward a bit to the original game. Cloud falls through the roof of her church and within a minute or two of his waking up, she's hitting him up for a date. Him. A complete stranger she doesn’t know from anyone. And, to me, more telling still, is the question of why she didn't do that when she first saw him. This isn't their first interaction. He bought (or didn't) a flower from her just a few days ago. She even remembers him from it. And yet - she didn't latch on to him at the flower selling point. She didn't even ask what his name was. She simply sold the blond guy a flower and went on her merry way without a backward glance. So why now - suddenly - is she all about keeping him close? To me, the obvious answer is – because this is what we need to do to move the game along. But, if we’re treating the characters like characters with depth, I would say the manner in which he arrived this time is the trigger point. Cloud has just, unintentionally, pulled a 'Zack' - and it won't be the last time that he does. To my mind, Aerith suddenly sees not a spiky blond haired short guy but rather an opportunity. This is a repeat of an event in her life that led to something she wants to not only have again but also, this time, she doesn’t want to lose. Zack fell through her roof, she loved Zack, Zack disappeared. Cloud falls through her roof - but perhaps this time she can keep the good part and stop the disappearing part from happening. Aerith is a strong willed and determined girl. This was her second chance at something that was precious and defining to her. It's not Zack but at the moment, that's not the point. The point is that she's been given a strange opportunity to do things over and make sure they turn out right this time. To me, she's not seeing Cloud when they’re first in the church. She's seeing 'falling through the roof, spiky hair, SOLDIER uniform, mako eyes' guy. Cloud is not a person to her at this point so much as an opportunity. One she's desperate to take advantage of so that she can, finally after all these years, 'fix’ things. Cloud has become in essence, Mr. 'Fill in the Space’. She teases, she flirts, she demands, she basically bosses him into going home with her and then spending the night. It doesn't matter what you say in the game at this point and whether you indicate you're already with Tifa or not - Aerith is not letting Cloud out of her sight. She's not letting Cloud out of her sight to the point that when Cloud sneaks out of her house and heads off to Tifa's on his own, she stalks him! (nice change, eh, Cloud you underwear stealing, teenage stalker, you). You can't ditch Aerith at this point in the game and the reason for that is entirely driven by her. She even goes so far as to bring Cloud to the playground and call a specific stop there - the place of her first date with Zack. She's got a map in her head and she's going to make every single stop along the way to make sure she does it right this time. She's almost frantic in her determination not to let things mess up and she even goes so far as to dismiss her previous relationship with Zack and indicate he's probably off somewhere surrounded by bikini clad women and no matter which canon you pick from (either she's surprised he's dead in Maiden or knows he's dead in Crisis Core) that dismissal goes against the faith of 89 letters over a course of four years. At that point though, this isn't about Zack, it's about setting up her new relationship so that it mimics the one she's missed and never got closure for all those years ago. Zack’s unexplained disappearance from her life hurt Aerith and she's determined not to let the opportunity for a ‘do over’ to pass her by. This time she isn’t going to be passive and she isn’t going to sit and wait for her sweetheart to come back to her.

(lacking any proof or research, I do wonder, given how often Cloud and Tifa say each other’s names during this part of the game, how often Aerith says Cloud’s)

As such, you can see that at this time she's not enamored with Cloud himself. He mocks her on the rooftops. She doesn't care where he wants to go or who he wants to get back to. And she basically drives the entire cross dressing incident (though I don't think that's malicious so much as Aerith finally having someone who will let her get away with her own mischievous, possibly kinky self). I would actually argue that, at this point in the game, she’s more interested in knowing about Tifa than she is about Cloud, taking the time to sound out the other woman on her feelings for Cloud and hitting it off with Tifa friendshipwise almost straight from the start for example. Cloud's a thing to her, an item, a means to an end and strangely, I think if he hadn't been, this entire part of the game could have been the beginning of a friendship between them and possibly the beginning root for something more. This is the part where Aerith is spunky and brave and generous with her help - she really shines as who she really is and it would have been the perfect opportunity. Except Aerith isn't interested in Cloud at this point and she doesn't really see him when they're together. He's still a situation, not a person, to her, something to be used, not interacted with. She dresses him up, she teases him, she's the mover at this point in the game and she’s not interested in anyone else’s plan but her own. I think his physical habits that are mimics of Zack’s only subconsciously feed her approach to attempting to use him to remake the past in the present.

(I will also insert here that I have never felt that Cloud imitates Zack’s personality – or else he’s the worse mimic of ‘cheerful, enthusiastic, friendly, outgoing puppy’ that’s ever existed. He picked up Zack’s physical habits – the personality he begins with strikes me much more as what a young boy would think a tough, competent mercenary SOLDIER would display. I digress.)

I don’t think Aerith’s view of Cloud as an abstract stays that way for long for her though. To me, purely based on my interpretations of her actions, it seems that, after he’s come for her in the Shinra tower, Aerith seems less manic in her clinging to him. She’s still determined, she’s coy and insinuating when she reminds him of the date in the jail cells and then surprised and almost embarrassed when Tifa is there to hear it. However she’s also more open about who she is, about her own insecurities and, to me, she seems more human and approachable at that point - the Aerith shining through isn’t always pink and perfect and powerful, isn’t always in control. I think, for the first time, Cloud has, in coming for her, made himself ‘real’ to her and I think that when she looks at him, she sees someone now instead of just a placeholder. He’s stepped outside of things she could slap ‘Zack’ over and moved into new territory. She’s still determined to have him as her boyfriend but I think the overlap between her living in her past and her moving into the present starts at that point in the game.

To me, the next big jump in her thoughts regarding Cloud romantically must occur somewhere close to the ‘date’ at the Gold Saucer. If you get Aerith for that, she will spend it talking about her ex. I suspect that meeting Zack’s parents in Gongaga visibly shook her and forced her to start dealing with what was really going on inside of her – and by extension what exactly she was feeling for Cloud. I believe that by the Gold Saucer date, Aerith is coming to terms with the fact that Cloud is very much his own person and that wanting to recreate what she had with Zack may not in fact be what she wants at all anymore. The Cloud she knows is fractured and has episodes of insanity but she’s finally paying enough attention to realize that underneath that, and his masks, is someone she would like to get to know for himself, not for his similarities to Zack. She’s finally at the point where she wants to figure him out for himself and just himself. She’s finally starting to think about having a healthy relationship with him.

And then she dies.

Aerith never does get to actually know the true Cloud. She can only watch from the outside as he’s put back together inside the Lifestream and begins to function as himself afterward. According to fanon, she’s proud of Cloud, and her death and reunion with Zack mellow her into motherly feelings toward the blond, a benign guardian angel to watch over him and the rest of her friends. She’s back with her first love and that’s where she always wanted to be in the first place, having only loved Cloud for the Zack she saw in him.

I think canon disagrees.

I think canon disagrees during the game itself and that the date at the Gold Saucer is the biggest indication of that. I think her coming to him in his dream and telling him she’d make things right and stop Sephiroth is also an indication she knew he wasn’t Zack as well as showing the fact that she cared about him as he was, messed up and fractured. I don't think she would have approached Zack the same way if he had been in Cloud's place. And I think her smile at the end when he came for her in the City of Ancients was just for Cloud because she knew he’d come – because he was Cloud. Zack never did come for her. Cloud did consistently. If we take Lifestream White into account (and forgive me I’ve only read it once, it was terrible writing) – I believe Cloud is referred to as her ‘sweetheart’ (the possessive being on her part. Cloud’s sweetheart preference isn’t indicated in LSW). Zack isn’t given that title. In fact, he isn’t mentioned much at all if I remember properly and when Aerith thinks of a male fondly, it’s Cloud she’s wondering if she can touch. If we treat Maiden the Travels the Planet as canon (and ugh, if even SE doesn’t, than thank God I don’t have to either) – Cloud is once again given the title of her sweetheart and Zack gets even worse treatment. Cloud is the one that Aerith’s focus comes back to time and again in the written material, not Zack. In Advent Children Complete, the ‘this is the way it should be’ rewrite of Advent Children, the ending departure order is even changed with Zack no longer following Aerith out of the building like an escort but rather going first and fading as she lingers and then departs as well, two separate entities going their own way.

I could write an entirely different argument regarding Cloud’s feelings throughout all of this of course. My main point would be that he wasn’t himself until his dip into the Lifestream and that after that, he immediately moves to stay with Tifa and talks about letting Aerith go (unfreezing her smile and letting her fade into the Lifestream) to the point that the next time he anticipates seeing her will be when he dies and goes to the Promised land (which, at that point in the game, seemed to him to be the next minute or two and Tifa’s right next to him anticipating dying too). Cloud’s sweetheart I think is very obvious and very canon as well. And, in a way, that makes Aerith’s choosing him over Zack even more tragic and hopeless for her.

Aerith is a strong woman with her own mind and I believe that according to canon by the end of her life, she'd come to a conclusion about where her heart had gone. I think it's canon that Aerith was unrequitedly in love with Cloud and that, by the end of her life, she had let both the pain, and her first love, for Zack fade into comfortable acceptance... which is why I like to stick with fanon and leave everyone happy and where they belong at the end of the story. To me, Aerith's tragedy isn't that she died. It's that she fell in love with someone who's heart has him thinking of her as his 'mother' when she touches him.

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Very interesting read! I enjoyed it muchly.

it was kind of fun to piece together and realize I'd come on the conclusion little bits of thought at a time. Glad it was interesting and not too jumbled to understand - lol

Heh, so many interesting points. I've never played the original game, so it's interesting to read your POV. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Aerith spent time under Hojo, so wouldn't this also be taken into account? I mean, getting experimented on as a child would make her a little unsstable, no? And whether or not she remembers, her mother still died in front of her. All she's had are traumatic experiences of people she loves dying on her.

I liked reading this, in any case. But I need to run off to school now... take care and thanks for a good morning read.:D

I'm glad you enjoyed the read. Yes, Aerith must have spent time under Hojo's 'care' because the game shows her old enough to stand on her own two feet when her mother escaped and died in front of her. The game never really makes any kind of deal of it at all though. In fact, the game really glosses over the trauma of being experimented on for both Aerith, Red, AND Cloud. Weird and one of the 'oh, we've got too much going on already - let's ignore the PTSD issue' that FFVII does so well - lol. That must be what fanfiction is for! They knew they had to leave us something to explore on our own ;)

*applause*

Very well-written, and very thought-provoking.

The vicious Aerith-bashing in some corners of the fandom drives me crazy because it's pointless - by the end of the game, the poor girl has lost everything, including her life. Two years later, she's not only come to grips with her situation but dives into battle to assist her friends. She heals Cloud twice and sends him back to Tifa; if she was truly as obsessed/possessive/ebil as some fans seem to think, she would've tried to keep him with her at the end of AC/ACC, because she had the ability and the opportunity - but she didn't.

Well done!

I'll admit - shhhh - in the game I always found Aerith vaguely annoying. She's so clingy and 'Cloud-centric' that it got old fast for me. Sure, it was a surprisingly mild 'Tifa's standing right there' reaction but more to the point - I HATE clingy people hanging on to me! I kept wanting to shake her and shout 'why do you care what kind of skin tone I like?! Just go do what you think would be fun!' By the time we hit the Temple of the Ancients I was bringing Tifa along just in the hopes she'd keep Aerith off of me. (My nephew ALSO brought Tifa along as the last party member to the Temple and given he'd been using Vincent and Red up to that point, I thought it was interesting).

It also didn't help that there's a small but very vocal set of fandom that get obnoxious over her, misrepresent her terribly to fit their Disney princess mold and bash Tifa. For a long time I was entirely turned off to Aerith as a character and tended to just ignore her when possible.

But you know how it is - you need to write a character into a story somewhere and you start to want to figure out the 'why' of them and the next thing you know, they're actually kind of okay if not downright interesting and/or sympathetic. I kind of started to enjoy Aerith. Especially when I could write her without the clinging. I had a lot of fun with her in TWT and in Almost Had Him I had a blast! She's so conflicting in the way she presents herself often times and so deliciously complex (I love FFVII's complex characters and often suspect the writers had no idea what they were doing when they started that whole ball rolling). It's fun to write her as human - and I agree with you, I do think she found peace at the end. The AC script before the rewrite in which they took her out of the end credits entirely ends with the lines: "Vestiges of Aerith (nothing with any presence in reality) silently watch Cloud as he rides away. Aerith looks a little lonely, but then she smiles."

Verrreee int'resting and thanks for this exploration. I wonder what percentage of fanfic readers (and a seperate count of writers) are gamers and what percent are readers/movie familiars. It's no secret that I am a reader/movie only. Everything I know about these characters comes from someone else's interpretation mixing with my own mental/emotional stuff. I have always KNOWN without a doubt that Tifa and Cloud belonged together. Aerith barely caught my attention--for a long time she was even a distraction. The chat room debates about Clerith or Cloti were such a puzzle: what are they going ON about? The pivotal scenes you mention --from the game-- are of little interest to me even now, after several years of immersion in this story, though I understand intellectually their importance. Well, maybe the Lifestream with Tifa and Cloud. That's impossible to not pay attention to, but it involves Aerith only in the way that she's involved with the Lifestream, powerfully, mystically way. Anyway, I'm still kicking around in this world, not as obsessively as previously, but the reason I love it so is it has the characteristics of epic storytelling. There is so much there. So much for writers and dreamers to take off from. All the themes of Western mythology from Beowulf to, oh say--The Bourne Trilogy movie. So easy to see, hear, and feel the story through my own needs, fears, strengths... I notice that this comment, as well as a lot of "reviews" I submit is very ego centric. All about me and my reaction. But I think that speaks to why this fandom is so longlived and maybe why there's a Cloti-Clerith debate--we ALL feel a part of the story. And, like you said, in my mind I'm Tifa. Aerith is not someone I would hang out with. Complex she may be, and you put forth good evidence that she is, but I would not know how to handle her so I would try to ignore her. Which would be a challenge because it's such a small group.
Ooooops, I've rattled on too long! I like that you have once again pulled me out of real life and plopped me into my alternate reality. Gotta go, time to open the bar (so to speak!). mc

Note to self: Don't read Kitsune's musings just before trying to do some heavy duty meditating. A rich life meets challenges head on, but you (I) know how she stirs you (me) up with juicy thinking....
OK, so it came to me that my thinking is just as compartmentalized as it's always been. The article you shared with us re: courtship "rules" in Japan (which by the I bought wholecloth--just accepted it as true, though I didn't research a second source...but it agreed with what I thought I knew). Great revealing article, and I commented how Aerith/Zack seemed to have an Occidental style relationship--get feelings out on the table, and get going. Tifa/Cloud seem more Japanese-y. A dance of inference and hopeful guessing--to my great frustration. Yet in the article you penned above, I respond that I don't like Aerith much (when I think of her at all) and would find it difficult to be in her presence for any length of time. So am I schizophrenic? It's healthy for me to be up front, but not Aerith?
Mikata-chan wrote a story finished in '07--"Gingerale-based Substance". It's a favorite of mine, and her treatment of Aerith might fit very nicely in with your treatise.
I spent too much time weaving in and out of your article when I was supposed to focus on the breath. I can't say it was wasted time, though. Meeting you never is. Thx, Kitsune! mc

Aerith is an odd character. People seem to either automatically love her or dislike her. I'll admit - her clinging annoyed me during the video game. She was very insistent on being with Cloud, straight up until the end and at the time I felt as if I had to keep prying her proverbial fingers off of my fictional, vicarious video game arm. I like loyalty and determination but as a single girl who's lived her life without men quite comfortably there was something bothering about Aerith's blatant pursuit of Cloud no matter what he or anyone else said or did. For a long time afterward, she was, as you said, just easier to ignore for me than to try to deal with in the FFVII world. The fact that so many of her fans turned her into either an emotionless, flawless martyr or a Disney princess didn't help either. But you can't write in the FFVII world and not at some point have to deal with Aerith. I was surprised what I thought once I went back and looked at her through glasses other than the 'get OFF of me, woman!' frustration of the game. And - because what fun would any character be if they didn't have enough depth to enjoy picking through, once I started exploring I was surprised by what I found. Surprised and rather pleased.

That isn't to say I can let myself get too close to those Disney princess fans before I start feeling annoyed again but I can enjoy Aerith for who she seemed to be to me in the game and beyond on my own. So - I'm right there with you. I'm all for being upfront about being attracted to a guy or being straight forward and honest about a relationship - but Aerith in the game came across as overbearing in her chase and that was the difference to me. Maybe because I've had guys act that way in their pursuit of me and it never ended well for them...

So, I read this the first time while I was at the height of feeling crappy, and so didn't respond. I wanted to be coherent! But, for whatever reason, I was thinking about this today.

I think I pretty much whole-heartedly agree. Except with the caveat that fanon and canon had a nice opportunity to meet and come together at the end of ACC. When I watched AC the first time -- my first exposure to FFVII -- I thought Zack and Aerith were a couple in the afterlife. So I was happy. In ACC, it seems even more like they're supposed to be a partnership -- they're not just a couple, they're also Cloud's guardian angels. So it worked -- I didn't know the story of how they got there or who they were, but it made sense. Playing Crisis Core made it make even more sense. So if I'd been writing Lifestream White, I would probably have made it some sort of reunion/reconciliation/romance thing. Something that would have matched up all the little bits and given a cohesive happy ending picture.

Instead, Lifestream White sort of bludgeon's us with the fact that neither Aerith nor Zack got a happy ending, and I can't wrap my brain around why the powers that be went that way. It doesn't make sense to me continuity- or compilation-wise, and as a clerith fanservice move, it's pretty crap.

Then again, Japanese endings often have me going: What?!

Um... sorry, I think I'm all rambly. I blame the lack of iron!

...I may have to write a lifestream romance/reconciliation thing though, now that it's percolating in my head.

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