LogFAQs > #980124269

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Main Character 1:
Aerith Gainsborough (aka Aeris)

This is Aerith's game. If Remake proved that they could make Cloud cool, funny, interesting, edgy, and pitiful at the same time, Rebirth proves that Aerith is selfless yet jealous, happy yet unfathomably sad, lonely yet loving of her friends. This game will never get credit for this, but it's one of the most human portrayals of a character in modern videogames. People will point to studios like Larian, Naughty Dog and Remedy as having realistic human characters, and Aerith's portrayal in this game deserves to be mentioned in the same conversation. Again - she won't - and that's a shame.

This entire game is built on the knowledge that players will have the tension of "what's going to happen to Aerith?' That's literally the forward action in the plot. It isn't "we have to follow the black robes." It isn't "let's stop Sephiroth." It's will Aerith live? And beyond this, will Aerith be happy? What was going through Aerith's mind in the original game when she died? And so, much of this game is devoted to answering those questions.

The answers reveal that Aerith is complicated. No scene better encapsulates this than the conversation with her on the water tower in Nibelheim toward the end of the game, a scene that almost single handedly saves the entire return to Nibelheim section. It's fitting that Aerith gets her own Nibel water tower scene. It's a scene where Aerith actually confesses to being angry. Something literally happened to my body during this scene. It was one of the most surprising experiences I'd ever had in a video game. I've known Aeris/Aerith for twenty years. Aerith doesn't get angry. Does she?

And I realized that this wasn't a retcon or a rewrite of her character, and it wasn't her acting out of character. This was Aerith as a real person and this was how she'd always been and I just hadn't seen it before. This isn't even a real cutscene either. It's just a random moment in Nibelheim.

As for the ending:
Aerith is dead. The "date" in the pocket universe is playing with the old rumors about ways to revive Aerith. "If you do x, y, z you can bring Aerith back to life!" "If you choose the hairpin, the choco candy, and the showtime pose, Aerith comes back to life!" Except none of those choices matter. It's the game messing with you.

Aerith is alive. Cloud parries Sephiroth's blade, she fights Sephiroth in the final battle, she wakes up after the battle. Cloud has conversations with her and Red XIII senses her presence.

Both are true. What does this mean? I guess the third game will explain, but I don't think she's a ghost. I think the omissions (Cloud's comments after Aerith gets stabbed, the water scene, Cid's comments about "What die Aerith do exactly?") all suggest that the "death" from the original is not being suppressed by Cloud's mind but is actually being overwritten somehow. But it's fun to speculate.

So yeah. Aerith's the best.