Marle's Dog...??

“As long as we’re together, I won’t be afraid.” “Yes, I promise.”

@zerith-week day 2: promise

Talk about a coincidence!

A debated canonicity

(Previous post here)

Mad1en who Trave1s the P1anet (adding typos to prevent unpleasant comments) is one of the most controversial entries of FFVII lore.

It was included in FFVII Ultimania Omega, published in 2005. Fans have debated ever since if this short story is part of the canon entries of the compilation, as it was written by an external writer that never took part to the realisation of the game.

Part of the fandom thinks it's canon because Square Enix never said it isn't, another part thinks it's not canon because Square Enix never mentioned it again ever since it was published (neither ever provided an official translation nor decided to sell it outside Japan. Quite self-explanatory, considering that "Picturing the Past" has been immediately translated and it's sold everywhere in the world).

The particularity of this novel is that here Aerith states she loves Cloud more than Zack. Not a word is spent to describe how she feels when she understands that Zack didn't cheat on her but endured experimetations for years and died to save Cloud, and that Cloud had created an alter ego based on Zack's traits. These lines started to divide the fans after the release of Crisis Core, that describes a tender and sincere romantic relationship between Zack and Aerith.

Yes, SE never officially said if this novel is canon or not, but I'd like to point out a fact:

The Remake includes tons of references to all the entries of the compilation.

Some examples?

The Avalanche members that show up in Chapter 4 wear the original uniforms of Before Crisis:

Crisis Core references can be found everywhere in the game, for one thing, Zack's last stand:

Dirge of Cerberus was already hinted in the game when Cloud, Tifa and Barret fell in the misterious lab beneath Sector 7 and is going to be heavily referred in the Intergrade. From the trailer we can see Weiss:

There are many references to Advent Children too. For example, Sephiroth has the black wing that he only showed in the movie:

Last order is quite difficult to refrence, as it doesn't add anything new to the story but it's rather a reinterpretation of Nibelheim incident. Anyway, it is mentioned in FFVII Remake World Preview (Square Enix book that includes "Picturing the Past"):

And now talk about the novels:

New characters, like Kyrie, come from The Kids are alright, a Turks side Story:

And here's an example from On the Way to a Smile too: from a dialogue with Jessie it's revealed that Cloud doesn't know the names of vegetables:

...turned out he [Cloud] didn't know a carrot from a gysal green. At first, Tifa was amused that mighty Cloud's new life started with learning vegetables names... (Case of Tifa)

So:

Before Crisis

Crisis Core

Advent Children

Dirge of Cerberus

Last Order

The Kids are alright

On the way to a Smile...

Picturing the Past was written alongise the Remake to clarify the origins of the mural painting in Aerith's room...

They are all abundantly referenced multiple times during the game. Find a more exhaustive list here.

And now it's the turn of Ma1den who trave1s the P1anet.

The author of this novel based himself on the original dialogues and story of the OG and reinterpreted them adding some new elements to create a coherent narration (full of discrepancies that, ehm, have already been disproved years ago, like Aerith's age when she met Zack, Hojo being not really dead, Zack's personality being totally different from Crisis Core, Aerith already knowing about Zack's death, normal souls that should merge immediately in the Lifestream, Omnislash being not Zack's ability...not that this ever convinced anyone).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

There are no references at all in the whole game. Not a single word that inequivocally refers to this novel.

Not a word to hint the fact that bad people's souls will rot in the Lifestream and won't be part of it because their spirits are beyond redemption (like what happened in the novel to President Shinra and Hojo).

In the novel Biggs, Wedge and Jessie are tormented by the deaths caused by the explosion of Mako reactor n.1. Jessie feels guilty both in the OG and in the Remake but Biggs and Wedge don't show much regret and the Remake shows that Shinra caused the massive explosion of the reactor, not Jessie. But wasn't the Lifestream supposed to be the place where all knowledges are merged together? I may be wrong but this would suggest that Jessie would have known it after her death.

There are hints that suggest the Aerith of the resolution scene is the one who already died in the OG: she talks to Cloud as if they had passed a long time together, she talks about death and finally disappears in a sparkling greenish light.

It would have been a great scene to put any reference to Ma1den but...it didn't happen.

Well...wierd the devs forgot to mention just this entry...

What a coincidence.

Talk about a coincidence!

(Previous post here)

Aerith and Tifa parallel 

Eyes are the window to the soul

Cloud has the so-called Mako-Eyes, due to Mako infusion treatment. This is normally a distinctive mark of SOLDIERS and during the game many characters notice them: President Shinra, Reno, Rude, Elmyra...

Aerith

Aerith commenting about Cloud’s eyes was an important plot point of the OG as it was the first hint about her connection with Zack.

This dialogue takes place when they escape from the church across the rooftops of Sector 5 slums.

The devs decided to change this scene for the Remake and replace it with one that recreates step by step a romantic moment between Aerith and Zack from Crisis Core (for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, 0:13).

When Cloud and Aerith arrive in Evergreen Park, a place that's special for her, she starts talking about Zack and her cheerfulness fades away for the first time.

Zack’s name causes Cloud one of his migraine attacks. When he opens his eyes again she comments about their beauty and when he points out that’s because of the Mako she just sais “...I know”.

Tifa

In Chapter 3 Johnny is arrested by Shinra Public Security and Cloud and Tifa have to intervene to make sure he doesn’t talk about Avalanche. Cloud seems to have no hesitation to kill Johnny but Tifa stops him. 

This is the first time during the game where she openly states how much he’s changed and, coincidentally, she does it commenting about his eyes. Of course she’s not talking about their color. Here too he answers in a similar way, saying it's because of the Mako, to which she replies “I remember...”.

---

To sum up

Aerith:

likes SOLDIER eyes

because they remind her of Zack, the guy she loved.

She gets sad because she misses Zack.

In Crisis Core Mako eyes were described as “color of the sky - but not scary at all”.

Tifa: 

doesn’t like SOLDIER eyes

because they are different from those of the guy she had a crush on.

She gets sad because she misses the Cloud of 7 years ago.

The camera focuses on his eyes while she says that he’s scaring her.

...

WAIT! 

The devs can’t be saying that SOLDIER-Cloud is NOT real-Cloud, that Aerith likes his Zack-side and that real-Cloud doesn’t use to cut civilians in half with a massive sword...

... Right?!

What an unexpected & unexplainable coincidence!

“I thought you would never come”

Over the course of the game, OG FFVII plays with the mystery of Cloud and Tifa’s childhood relationship. We’re primed to think that while they may have known each other as children, there was nothing particularly noteworthy or significant about their childhood together. The framing of the Promise is a great example of this.

The first time Cloud mentions the Promise is in Midgar, when he still thinks he’s an Ex-SOLDIER. When they recount the the story together, Ex-SOLDIER Cloud says he thought Tifa would never come.

Ex-SOLDIER Cloud: I thought you would never come, and I was getting a little cold.

We assume Cloud thinks this way because Cloud was like any other boy with an adolescent crush on a girl. Just an average boy being relatably nervous about an average girl. While the story of the Promise is cute, it’s only notable in that it seems to remind Cloud of their seemingly tenuous connection (or if the player is feeling uncharitable, it seems to force an obligation between the two).

Midway through the Lifestream, we discover why Cloud thought Tifa would never come: he thought Tifa hated him.

True Cloud: That night I called Tifa out to the well… I thought to myself Tifa would never come… that she hated me.

This twist changes how we perceive Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. In the first half of this memory, Cloud reveals that he had never been inside Tifa’s room, and we learn that the two “weren’t THAT close.” (There is also the regrettable mistranslation: where the line “I really wanted to play with everyone, but I was never allowed into the group” should have been translated to something like “I really wanted to play with everyone, but I could never bring myself to ask.”) This reveal in conjunction with the line “she hated me” makes us question the true nature of their relationship. Was Tifa a stereotypical popular girl and was Cloud an outcast? Did Cloud think he’d get stood up because Tifa, in a moment of childhood cruelty, arbitrarily considered Cloud to be beneath her?

While this is certainly a dramatic twist, it still paints a relatively mundane relationship. Sure, it might suggest that Tifa might have been unkind as a child, but this isn’t particularly unusual childhood dynamic. (Even if it is a regrettable one.)

But finally, we learn why Cloud thought Tifa hated him and why she might not have met him at the well…

True Cloud:  Tifa was in a coma for seven days. We all thought she wouldn’t make it. If only I could’ve saved her… I was so angry… Angry at myself for my weakness. Ever since then, I felt Tifa blamed me…

We learn that Cloud wasn’t afraid that Tifa hated him for an arbitrary, superficial reason. Cloud’s true fear was that Tifa would want nothing to do with him because she held him responsible for her near-fatal fall at Mt. Nibel. (And of course, we later learn that this is unequivocally false–Tifa never blamed him for this incident.)

With this final reveal, we learn how significant their childhood relationship truly was. 

On Cloud’s part, we learn how deeply he cared for Tifa–so deeply that his failure to save her makes a lasting impression on him. Cloud’s failure to save Tifa weighs so heavily on his mind that even five years later on the night of the Promise, Cloud worries that she might not show up. On top of that, this failure weighs so heavily on his mind that Cloud decides to become a SOLDIER so he can be strong enough to win her notice. Cloud’s failure to save Tifa is the reason why Cloud is the way he is–both his true self and his ex-SOLDIER persona. 

On Tifa’s part, we learn that she wasn’t a superficial girl who was arbitrarily unkind to Cloud. She herself was acting in good faith, and her lateness to the well was not out of cruelty. While they may not have been “THAT close,” Tifa still cared enough to get dressed up and go out to the well to meet Cloud. This speaks to how Tifa held Cloud in her esteem and never held ill will towards him.

And yes, this last part is confirmed:

As a small boy, he didn’t get along with others apart from Tifa. So when Tifa’s mother died and three of her friends decided to take her up the mountains where the dead were believed to go, Cloud wasn’t invited. But even so, Cloud secretly went after them wanting to cheer Tifa up. –Cloud profile AC prologue.

(Source: this excellent post) 

(Yes, poor Cloud really went through the better part of a decade thinking he lost the only person who treated him with kindness because he failed her….)

So through the context of the Promise, we slowly learn how important Tifa has always been to Cloud–and the answer is, she is really, REALLY important. But if you miss that final twist that ties in Mt. Nibel, then you miss this bigger story that the context of the Promise tells us.

What about Remake?

Interestingly, Remake removed the setup for the mystery of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. Ex-SOLDIER Cloud remembers the Promise on his own, and doesn’t comment on Tifa’s lateness at all! The player is given no reason to doubt Tifa’s good intentions towards Cloud, and thus no reason to doubt their importance to one another as children.

In a game that nails the small callbacks, this is would be a massive oversight… meaning that it’s not an oversight, but an intentional change. This seems to be yet another example of Remake clarifying Cloud and Tifa’s relationship, be it by removing OG’s red herrings or removing the ambiguous moments that generated confusion in the first place.

SOMEONE IS FINALLY SAYING THIS

i see it's that time of the year again where people start hating on the english localization of remake/rebirth despite having next to no understanding of how large scale translation projects work 🙃

Truth

We'd seriously need a clear paraphrase to get over the misinterpretations about this song.

Guitar is the main instrument in both Hollow and Hollow Sky, just like Crisis Core soundtrack, especially CC Aerith's theme, The price of freedom and Why, all playing at the end of the game to narrate THAT scene. And Why has a guitar acoustic version too.

Hollow sky plays in Sector 5, an homage to Crisis Core, "sky" is the symbol of Zack and, coincidentally, the new key art of Aerith has her staring at the sky.

Funny: Aerith's final line is about the sky and Hollow starts when Zack shows up at the end.

All coincidences I guess.

Tetsuya Nomura discussing the Final Fantasy VII Remake theme song

Zack’s Last Stad 

Find the differences!

CRISIS CORE vs FF7R comparison

There's quite an interesting tendency in the various "analysis" of this character. On the one side she's accused to lack a character arc because it's too interwoven with Cloud's - which is enough of a weird accuse, as if she, of all characters, was expected to have a life disjointed from sociality..? Isn't every person the product of their social experiences and relationships with other human beings? How comes nobody accuses Vincent to lack a character arc because it revolves around Lucrecia? - while on the other hand she's harshly accused to be a regrettable character because she's too busy trying to overcome her personal issues to tell immediately Cloud her version of Nibelheim incident, or because she scolded him during AC - as if all of this happened for no reason.

So either she lacks a character arc and she's completely devoted to Cloud, or she has one and Cloud is not her only concern, people should pick one or just stop "analyzing" characters in purposeful bad faith, to push the idea that if Aerith could have been in that situation instead of her things would have been better, which is wrong by all means, but still it is a groundless comparison with the only purpose to trick the interlocutor and reach the consensus that this character is bad/shallow/uninteresting/unworthy, so by default the other one must be "the good one" aka the winner of "the competition".

If she's constantly portrayed in every single entry of the story by Cloud's side, then Cloud is involved in her life just like she's involved in his. Hell, Cloud devoted his youth trying to be worth her attention, and later created a fake persona based on her perception of him, to cope with the sense of guilt for failing to save her twice. HE revolves around her.

It's pointless to try to describe her as a sort of annoying insect that stubbornly keeps flying around him. It's a matter of common sense.

Seriously, nothing ruins this story and its characters for me more than these bad takes.

As a Cloti, what do you think about the criticism of OG FF7 where Tifa revolves around Cloud too much?

I think people need to get over the fact Tifa's story entwines with Cloud's because she's the deuteragonist and her role is to support the protagonist.