Parallel #4

REBIRTH

Having a comfort character is great and I think it’s fine to have one but if you can’t handle someone politely saying that they don’t like that character or giving criticism of them that’s probably something to bring up in your next therapy session.

Welcome 🎉

Aerith’s Farewell Monologue at FF 30th Anniversary Exhibition hinting FF7R

The event, entitled “Farewell Stories Exposition,” was held from January 22 to February 28, 2018 in the Mori Arts Center Gallery in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo. It will reportedly feature interactive exhibits featuring various “farewell stories” from the Final Fantasy series, including recreated locations and augmented reality. Final Fantasy VII’s exhibit is described as follows: 

Aerith met a tragic death in the story of the original game. In this exhibition, the “Sector 5 Church” where Aerith and the protagonist Cloud first met will be recreated. Freely walk around the inside of the church while listening to a monologue of Aerith’s memories specially recorded for this exhibition. Additionally, never before seen image boards for the long-awaited Final Fantasy VII Remake and more will also be on display.

Scenario by Kazushige Nojima, voice-over by Maaya Sakamoto

Let’s analyze her monologue with official translation below: 

(1) “I hate the sky, it carries away everyone I Iove” Confirmed by Nomura in FF7R Ultimania as this line is voiced up in FF7R ending. This is because the sky represents losing everyone she loved, including Zack, as CC ending depicts a scene of his spirit soaring to the sky / heaven with Angeal picking him up. Let’s forget OG that depicted she’s unaware of his death. Aerith is Cetra and she could sense it–CC showed us and it doesn’t contradict her sensing Elmyra’s husband passing away. (2) “This is a strange place. Flowers bloom all year long. The seasons never change–my feelings never change. I’m stuck.” I think ‘strange place’ refers to the church. Maybe at first she feel close to planet there despite denying her Cetra ability, place she can detach herself. But then, since that day it was also the place where she always meet him. Nomura stated in CC interviews at Dengeki, that Zack always headed straight to the church whenever something comes up. Her feeling lingers there and she’s stuck. (3) "That’s it. I give up! I can’t stop thinking of you. Ugh, I can’t stand this!” Honestly, all these lines aren’t arranged by order and I don’t know which the right order is. Is this line spoken up during years he’s absent? Or during months after Zack’s death? Or, is it still last even after FF7R ending? The implication would be different. (4) “Helloooo~ Wake up. It’s almost morning.” Pretty clear. Both Zack and Cloud crashed into her church in the same way, talk in their sleep, and she wakes them up in the same way, too. (5) “Don’t step on the flower.” Pretty clear. Aerith scolded Zack, and Reno & Cloud when they are fighting. (6) “Sometimes I see someone who has the same eye. Same as you, I mean. And I wonder, should I ask: do you know him? do you know where he is?” Pretty clear. FF7R change the playground scene different from OG, and this is an explicit reference from Crisis Core. JP lines are even the exact same words for words like when she stared at Zack’s eyes. She even has asked Cloud in Sector 5 if he had any SOLDIER friend or war buddy. (7) “I know goodbye will be hard. But when I think of meeting someone new, I still get so excited. It’s cruel.” I think this is Aerith struggling with her feeling between Zack and Cloud. She knew she has to “Gotta move forwards, not back” as she stated in the playground, but it’s so damn hard that she might have this motivation conflicted for so long even before meeting Cloud. Aerith also stopped walking forward a while when Zack in another timeline passed her by. We knew in the future, she would meet more people… Yuffie, Vincent, Cid. Would she say goodbye again to Zack at that spot? (8) “Stamp… Stamp! Guess, you’re gone too.” We know that the Stamp in Zack’s survival timeline has changed, but does her line refer to the old Stamp? Or just Stamp in general that could make Cloud get buzz on his head ‘cause it represent Zack when Barret mention it?  (9) “Things won’t last forever. Sure, it’s lonely. It’s sad. But I can say "bye” with a smile, right?“ She doesn’t say "bye” to Zack with a smile. I guess this fits the narration in optional dream sequence in chapter 14, as well as the next dream Cloud will get that she goes to Forgotten City alone. (10) “You came. Thank you, I’m glad. But you’re already….” I’m not sure about this. Does this represent the time she prays in Forgotten City that Cloud comes to her but he’s under Sephiroth’s control? Or does this represent a future event in the next installment about her reunion with the Zack who survives and she knew he’s supposed to be dead? Or does this refer to the optional dream sequence that she’s aware Cloud isn’t himself? Too many interpretations. (11) “You’re so far now. I’m so far from you. Oh, I’m rising. The sky is carrying me away. I can see you, you’re crying. Don’t cry, you’ll make it rain.” Cloud gets a future vision where we saw he drops a single tear and this line is 100% her farewell to Cloud when it happened. But…. Is the line foreshadowing her death that would be different from OG? We know in OG, she’s sunk down to the bottom of the lake in Forgotten City. But with all of these lines above correlated with FF7R, we’d probably get her death similar to Kadaj in AC as Cloud holds his dying body… her spirit (like Zack, not her body like Kadaj) then soar to the sky and both scenes are raining (although the Kadaj one is raining from Great Gospel as she heals geostigma around Edge). Her death should happen in the place where the open sky can be clearly seen (whether it’s clear blue or cloudy with rain), and Forgotten City doesn’t fit the definition as it’s surrounded by sleeping forest. If Zack was taken by Angeal and Kadaj was taken by Aerith, I guess Aerith would be taken by Zack here (either showing his glove’s hand like Angeal did in CC or with his voice like Aerith did in AC). And the monologue above would be spoken up later, similar to Zack in CC when he watch over Cloud dragging Buster Sword to Midgar. Or maybe, her death would still happen in Forgotten City but SE now use new meta of the death. So, we would see her soul is separated away as Cloud is laying her body to the lake. It doesn’t mean Aerith is still alive when the party fight Jenova Boss tho′, remember Zack died longer before the sky set the sun to show his spirit goes to the sky.

——

This Aerith’s farewell story above can have two meanings: 

75% her farewell to Zack (as he died before her), start with him

25% her farewell to Cloud (as she died in front of him), end with him 

Why the portion is different? Well, Zack took ‘1.5 years active relationship + 4 years writing 89 letters + 3 months grieving his death’ in her life while Cloud take 2-3 weeks of them being together in her journey. 

1/3 Compliments for your posts, I totally agree. If that, to some extent, is a common tendency of every fandom, it can be said that FFVII one is overly crazy. Zack is another good example of how people try to force the most desperate excuses to deprive a character of its importance because they don't like the consequences of his role.

2/3 "He's just an NPC with insignificant screetime! His scenes are even optional!" So why SE decided to make him the protagonist of a standalone game of the compilation? How can it even be labelled as fan service if he is so irrelevant in the first place? It doesn't take much to realize that without Zack FFVII can't even start in the first place, but before Remake a consistent part of fans even denied CC canonicity. And some are still not convinced.

3/3 It's funny because I've never seen anyone complaining about Cid's behaviour toward Shera but tons of scenes and quotes taken out of context to prove that Zack, Tifa or Aerith are mean characters and should be cut out of the picture. That's pretty self-explanatory of how much people tend to insert themselves in one of the two romantic sub-plots and take it personally, ignoring that neither is the core of the story but they both play a role in the plot. SE really has a tough nut to crack!

They most certainly do, and I would like to believe they aren't taking into consideration all this ridiculous discourse, and just concentrate on their writing. Maybe it helps that, at least from my observation, the JPN side of the fandom doesn't go on about the same stuff we do—at least from these extreme angles.

Zack is another interesting one, and at that point I'd have to have someone define what they exactly mean by "fan-service". The way people view this too, can be strange. Saying Zack was a plot device in the first OG is pretty accurate role-wise, despite being an important one, and I always considered CC to be for the purpose of making up for his characterization by digging into who he was and what his story did for the series. Pretty standard prequel, in this way, with the creative freedom to add more layers not previously known. This is...pretty typical for many franchises. I always felt like, CC is what would've been reminiscent in the OG if the issues of his late development (as a character) and focus in the story had more time. No matter if someone likes it or not, the objective understanding still comes from recognizing its place in continuity and the impact it has on the wider narrative of FFVII—Zack's character literally is written to do this. It's just storytelling. Something that does this is no more fan-service than anything else that's created for an audience and actually has an importance to the story. If CC is fan-service, so is OG, AC (or the separate Complete version), or the Remake. Even if you find it "unnecessary", Zack's character and his story don't abide by this connotation.

Which like, that starts a conversation on the whole "need" ideal that fans have about supplemental materials or extended storytelling, which sort of connects to this based on the "This character or story isn't needed for THIS story!". The issue being that, I think a person's "point of refence" of necessity is off—what they're basing the need for and to. Zack, and all the previously mentioned posts for Tifa, Kairi, Kristoff, etc.—it's like I said, someone an just have a perspective that can write off characters, but that's literally just changing the story, and coming from a point of reference that is just off.

We shouldn't always base an entries "need" in totality only from a reference point of a previous work. This just doesn't always equate to the value of said entry. Any sequel that isn't following a cliffhanger of its predecessor can be deemed "unnecessary" then, by this logic, but obviously it would be beyond trivial to mark any story that continues to extend the storytelling of a world and its characters as this for....what, exactly? To just put it down? The funny thing about CC, is that it IS necessary if your intention is to understand more about that missing slate of the story and to understand Zack's character in more depth.

Part 1: Enter, Ex-SOLDIER! [A Complete Analysis of Final Fantasy VII]

Masterlink: https://hartmonkey.tumblr.com/post/674955243020238848/a-complete-analysis-of-final-fantasy-vii

This is the first post in my chapter-by-chapter analysis of the entire Final Fantasy VII. Each chapter will be primarily based on the 1997 game, with discussion of the Remake and other entries in the compilation where relevant (ie. when they pertain to the original story). Aside from a spoiler-warning for the entire FF7 (this is the only warning I’ll give on that regard), I want to note a few things before we start.

Keep reading

Aerith in light of healthcare provider

So, I’ve wanted to write an analysis about Aerith in light of her medical viewpoint for quite a long time but only recently got the chance to complete it. It is well known in the game that Aerith is the healer of the story. She possessed great MP with a limit break to heal and buff people which greatly affect your gameplay. Of course, you can equip others with Healing and Prayer materias to render them useful for healing as well. But story-wise, no one can take away Aerith’s status as the healer. We know in canon that Aerith provided herbs to the Sector 5 slums doctor to create medicine. And if you finished the Corneo Stash side quest in Chapter 14, you can return to the church and see a couple of elderly sitting on the pew praying. And when you come closer to them you’ll hear them talking about how they didn’t see Aerith around and they’re sure she’s alright and probably be around healing people. You know, since the Sector 7 plate just fell. (Even though Aerith is not alright actually coz she was kidnapped by Shinra by this time) Point is, we are fed by the NPCs on how much Aerith had helped around as a healer. She had been doing this for years.

While being in denial about who she actually is, being a healer had always been implanted in her. She is used to it. When you’re used to being a healer, there’s a certain level when you have different reaction compared to others. The way you think is different. Apart from that, she’s also a Cetra. And we knew for a fact Cetra had a certain affinity towards souls who are returning to the Planet. Meaning, as much as she is used to healing others, she’s also used to sensing death.

My whole point is that, being a Cardiac Anaesthesiologist and Intensivist as I am, I can totally relate my position with Aerith, as we both had constantly helped people and encounter death on daily basis. While I’m pretty confident that majority of these might be coincidence (because I’m pretty sure there were no doctors in the SE team), I thought the coincidence is pretty cool to ponder upon and I’m amazed at how the subtle differences between Aerith’s reaction to events from other characters.

I’m gonna ignore the meta part of Aerith, mainly because I’m not discussing about how much Aerith knew, and if there was anything in jeopardy of what she knew whatsoever. So we’re gonna focus on the fact that she is used to healing and feeling people’s death. People who are used to death on daily basis had a certain unique view on life and death. And that affects how we act upon facing them too. While this is evident throughout Remake, I’m gonna focus on the plate drop event to be more concise. I will also use Tifa as comparison to make it easier to see the difference between the reaction of the two. Let’s start!

1) Aerith is quick in emergency situation.

When you are used to people dying, you developed a certain immunity and you are able to have sound mind and composure at sudden change of event. As healthcare providers, we face stable situations turning into critical real fast. And we have a switch in our minds that turn us from standby mode to rescue mode. This is exactly what happened to Aerith when Don Corneo revealed Shinra’s plan to blow up Sector 7’s support pillar. Tifa is part of Sector 7. It is her home. Which was why her reaction showed how she was super devastated, she slowly stood up and muttered “They wouldn’t…” because she couldn’t believe it. Aerith? She had that switch in her mind, and she immediately turned and say “Come on, guys! We gotta go!”. She switched into that critical mode in a second. It helps that she’s also not personally connected to Sector 7, and thus her judgement was not as impaired. Of course, they both switched into critical mode in the sewer, but it was at the moment of reveal that made it different. Just like how healthcare providers switched at the moment of reveal that their patients are at the brink of death—you immediately jumped into rescue mode.

2) She plans for the worst.

Remember after they defeated Abzu and Tifa started to question Corneo’s information? She didn’t want to believe it, because it didn’t make sense to destroy your years of efforts building the plate just to get back to a small group like AVALANCHE. Think about the money they put in to build it, they’re gonna have to put them all again. In fact, along their way out of the sewer, Tifa voiced out multiple times how this had been bothering her. But I’m intrigued with Aerith’s reply “If he’s telling the truth, then we should go. And if it turns out he was lying, then so what?”. This here is exactly what doctors do. We plan and prepare for the worst. And if the worst didn’t happen, then so what? If you have ever had a life saving surgery, your doctors would tell you “You need this surgery coz you might die. But if you do the surgery, there’s a high chance you’ll survive, but there’s a small chance you’ll die too”. And we prepare for that small chance that our patients die. No, we don’t let our preparations lacking because we hope they’ll survive. We prepare to the worst outcome possible and get all the equipments ready in case they’ll die. If they didn’t, then so what? It doesn’t mean our preparations were futile efforts. It only means we were prepared. And that line of Aerith seriously hits home to me.

3) She hopes for the best.

Before they crossed the water sewer, Tifa once again voiced out how she couldn’t stop thinking about what Corneo said, and she was still hoping that he was lying. And then Aerith said “The future isn’t set in stone”. (Again, I’m gonna ignore the meta part of Aerith) And then she proceeded to set up that small date with Tifa. Believe it or not, this is actually what we do during bad calls. We’d talk about what we would do after all this ends; we’d go out dining, or playing games/darts, or go drinking, or whatever it is that makes us happy. Just to keep our minds calm and to allow us to hope for the future, even if it’s just a few hours away. It gives us hope and courage to go on. We plan for the worst, but we hope for the best. The more critical the situation is, the more you need to be level headed. And needless to say, after this point onwards, Tifa is much more calmed down from her struggle to keep herself focus.

4) She follows orders.

This might sound weird to some, but the ability to cast away your worry and focus on what you can do, instead of what you should do, is important in emergency situations. You need to know what you don’t know. You don’t get in the way of your comrades. If you’re not good in intubating, you don’t insist to intubate in emergency situations just because you wanna help. Seriously, you’ll just make things worse. When Cloud, Tifa and Aerith were attacked before climbing up and out of the sewer, Cloud asked both Tifa and Aerith to keep going. Aerith immediately answers “Okay” and left—without a single but. This is significant, because it shows that Aerith knew she’d be better off leave. She doesn’t need to offer help, coz her help was not needed. This is not the place where she could help. The ability to recognise this is very important for healthcare professionals. Tifa was a bit more reluctant to leave, but that’s probably because she is a martial artist in game. Also, the fact that Aerith could still joke “We’re not delicious” is just so real lol! Yup, we joke sometimes when we’re facing deaths—doesn’t mean we lose focus in saving the dying person in front of us, don’t worry. And then it happens again when they reached Sector 7 when Cloud asked them to stay with Wedge as he goes up, and Aerith immediately answered “sure"—because she can “patch” Wedge up, it’s where her abilities lie. This is even more accentuated when an injured Wedge argued that he can still fight, when he clearly can't—making this point even more obvious. Aerith is someone with the healthcare mind, Wedge was not.

5) She supports her comrades emotionally even when she’s worried too.

When they reached the surface, they spotted Shinra helicopter. Cloud assured them they’re only on patrol. Aerith turned to Tifa and said “Don’t worry, we’ll make it in time”. This moment is also very iconic to me. As I mentioned, I’m an anaesthesiologist. We are the support doctors to surgeons and physicians. Those moments when we’re operating on a AAA surgeries and the patient is losing litres of blood and literally dying, we’re pumping bloods in with our hands and get those Level 1 machines operating, and the surgeons would be panicking because it keeps bleeding? Yep, I did say it before. “We’ll make it. Just concentrate with the surgery and don’t worry about the bleeding”, even though I’m sweating and dying here trying to keep the patient alive. But I pretended to be calm in front of my team and cheered them on. Because the whole team need to keep calm. If one of the team lose hope, then bid your chance farewell. As an anaesthesiologist, we’re almost like the anchor in the room. People look at us to know if everything’s alright. I need to tell them it’s alright, so they need not worry. Aerith knew Tifa is worried. And she tried to keep Tifa calm with reassurance.

6) She doesn’t discriminate.

After they defeated the ghost at the haunted maintainance facility, Cloud tried to kill it, and Aerith didn’t let him. When Cloud said that thing was dangerous, Aerith said she knows and added “but even so…” she didn’t feel right about killing it. (Let’s ignore the fact that the Ghoul was a lonely creature for now) It then goes to drop the train wreck which almost killed them had it not been for Cloud. Now this would have been avoided had Aerith let Cloud killed it—maybe. But here’s the thing. When you’re hyper aware that people are dying left and right, you value life more. No one deserve to die, even the worst criminal in the world. You’re a law-abiding citizen? You’re a criminal? It doesn’t make a difference to us. I know this is something super hard to comprehend. But technically only when the law subject the criminal to death sentence that a person should be left to die. I’ve been a doctor for eleven years, I was a prison doctor for two. I had first hand experience of dealing with criminals. It’s not my job to determine whether they deserved to die or not. It’s not my call whether they will turn a new leaf or not had they lived. I know this is something others find difficult to relate and agree—happens to my non-medical family and friends. The verdict to us is simple. It’s a life. It’s worth saving. Period. (Technically the ghosts are dead though but my point still stands)

7) She tries in her best abilities and lets go of what is out of her control.

Tifa’s emotions are tampered again when they confirmed Shinra was going to drop the plate when they overheard the Turks conversation. Her voice shook, we can literally hear it. Aerith’s response was “all we can do now is keep moving”. And she’s right. When they reached Sector 7 and the Whispers were preventing them, she said “we have to get past whatever it takes”. And later on Tifa left to help Cloud and Barret, and Aerith agreed to get to Seventh Heaven to ensure Marlene’s safety. Wedge had a short mental breakdown when he realised he was no good to anyone up or down the crime scene. And Aerith told him “We can still save a lot of lives”, “That’s no excuse to give up”, “I need to know I did everything I could”. Her encouragement helped Wedge save more people. Some argued, did she not care about the lives that already died? Now here’s my point; no, we don’t. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but really. What can we do for people who are already dead? Nothing. What can we do to people who are still alive? Everything. And this is the core of being a healthcare provider—we prioritise. Yes, we’re also humans. We can get emotional when our own friends and relatives die. (Aerith might not be as calm had it happened at Sector 5) But when we put the healthcare provider cap on, we meant business. That is why when disasters happened, and we triage people with black tag? That’s when we know we couldn’t do anything for them. We don’t mourn at the black tags. We move on to the other tags instead. So that we know we already did everything in our power to help. And yes, it doesn’t matter even if we lost more lives than we saved. It’s worth it, even if we only saved one person out of thousands deaths. Just like how Aerith saved Betty in Sector 7, that one life is worth it.

Crisis Core Transcripts

The long awaited (??? by me) master post of links to the Crisis Core (2007) transcripts. This bs was typed up by hand by yours truly because SOMEONE made UMDs very difficult to rip (<3 u SONY).

Link to gdrive folders hosting transcript documents.

Link to my fancy dedicated tumblr page for this nonsense because I can't not go overboard?? (it is maybe a convenient place to bookmark)

Check below the fold for direct links to specific content.

Complete Transcript                 (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

00. Prologue

01. Embrace Your Dreams       (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

02. Betrayal                              (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

03. Monster                              (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

04. An Angel's Dream              (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

05. Where Are You?                 (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

06. Protect Your Honor           (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

07. Departure                           (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

08. See You Soon                    (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

09. Escape the Nightmare     (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

10. Heroes                               (  Abridged   /   Unabridged  )

Credits

DMW Scenes

Yuffie Missions

Other Missions

SOLDIER-Cloud VS Real-Cloud