Ffvii - Blog Posts
⭐️
Cait Sith's prediction in the OG
Cait Sith's DMW in Crisis Core
Guess who's the real star ⭐️
“I promise”
The importance of the “promise” through FFVII compilation
For many years part of FF7 fans stated that the promise shared between Cloud and Tifa before he left to join SOLDIER was “not so relevant” or that Tifa “pushed the promise on Cloud against his own will”. Basically it was passed off as a plot device whose only narrative purpose was to convince Cloud to join Avalanche. I think this kind of statements were faulty from the very beginning. If each one of us can have their own interpretation of a specific scene of the OG, due to the stylized graphics and the lack of voice acting, the reiterated prensence of this scene from the start to the end of the game should have been enough to appreciate its importance.
The aim of this article is to go over the compilation to try to understand if the promise was really just presented as a plot device or if we can safely assume it has a deeper and wider meaning in the narrative context of the story.
Tifa: Hey, why don't we make a promise? Umm, if you get really famous and I'm ever in a bind......You come save me, all right?
Cloud: What?
Tifa: Whenever I'm in trouble, my hero will come and rescue me. I want to at least experience that once.
Cloud: What?
Tifa: Come on--! Promise me----!
Cloud: All right......I promise.
1997: Final Fantasy VII
In the original FF7 the promise was brought up by Tifa after the first bombing mission in order to convince Cloud not to leave Sector 7 and join Avalanche. After remembering the promise Cloud behaved dismissively, but nonetheless he agreeed to join the next mission.
During the flashback in Kalm, Cloud recalled Tifa mentioning the promise when he found her in the reactor (it’s important to point out that during the flashback Cloud’s mind is still highly messed up and that it’s a mix of his own memories, Tifa’s memories and Zack’s stories. Cloud still can’t contextualize what he “remembers” but it’s relevant to notice that even in this state of confusion Tifa’s words are stuck in his mind).
The memory of the promise is one of the three sections of Cloud’s subconscious during the Lifestream sequence.
When Cloud finally remembers the truth about his past, Tifa realizes that he really kept his promise.
During the high affection scene under the Highwind Cloud finally renews his promise to Tifa.
2004: Before Crisis
The Player Turk meets Tifa on 21st September 0002 on Mt Nibel and asks her to be the guide for the SOLDIERs sent to check Nibelheim Mako reactor. Tifa asks if he/she knows Cloud and talks about the promise they shared two years before (video).
The Player Turk meets Cloud twice:
On 0001/6/28 Cloud takes part to a mission to protect a Shinra scientist from Avalanche and he ends up fighting alongside the Player Turk. If he dies these are his last words (video):
When Cloud comes to know that Tifa will be their guide to Mt Nibel, he asks to the Player Turk not to tell her that he's in town because he's ashamed of his failure (video).
A shot of Cloud and Tifa at the water tower appears in both scenes:
2005: Last Order
Last Order is an OVA based on the events of Nibelheim incident and the escape of Zack and Cloud from Shinra's army.
When Tifa gets injured she wishes Cloud could be there (video) (she says more or less the same lines Cloud “remembered” in OG Kalm flashback [see above]). Contrary to the other prequels, when Cloud finally arrives Tifa sees him and she thanks him for fulfilling the promise (video) (same dialogue they share in OG Lifestream sequence when they find out the truth).
2007: Crisis Core
Tifa sends an e-mail to Zack where she mentions the promise:
Sephiroth—I don't get him at all. Is everyone in SOLDIER like him? Oh, and are there any blond guys in SOLDIER? Well, it's just a dream...Any girl would love to have a blond SOLDIER guy protect her when she's in a pinch. Well, it's no good just waiting for my blond knight in shining armor to show up, so I've started learning how to fight, myself. My teacher tells me I've got a knack for it.
I almost forgot. Please don't tell anyone in SOLDIER that I asked about the blond guy. Okay?
In one of the DMW flashbacks regarding Cloud, Zack finds him staring at the water tower "thinking about the past" (video)
A parallel: Zack promises Aerith to go back to her in Midgar, under Nibelheim water tower where Cloud and Tifa shared their promise two years before (video). In my opinion this parallel reinforces the idea that the first reason Tifa asked Cloud to share a promise was to meet him again.
* I think also On the way to a smile and consequently Advent Children subtly refer to the promise but it’s less evident so I’ll leave it for another post.
2020: FFVII Remake
Like in the OG also in the Remake there’s the flashback of the promise. The devs fixed the old OG misconception - Cloud remembers it on his own - so that it is impossible to state now that Tifa forced it on Cloud. Cloud is also the first one to bring up the matter telling Tifa that he won’t leave Sector 7 because he wants to help her.
Finally, the promise is referenced again in Wall Market. At the Karaoke Bar there’s a singer, Akila, whose career started 7 years before (when Cloud and Tifa shared the promise) and he hopes his new song, Midgar Blues, will be his greatest success. The song talks about a man who left his loved one to go to Midgar, and he recalls staring at the stars with her (song). I already wrote a post about this song.
In conclusion, I think that not only the original game but the whole compilation made sure the audience could percieve the fundamental importance of the promise, not just as a plot device but as the motive force that led Cloud to become a hero.
The Unifying Theme of FFVII
So I recently got an ask that was very interesting and which I think I did a piss poor job answering. Republished here:
what is the biggest theme of FF7 that ties every character together to you? life? pro environmentalism? identity? connections?
My answer was, in a nutshell, "existentialism." It's broadly true, and was certainly an influence on the game (see: Martin Heidegger, Existentialist philosopher and known bastard) but it's a reductive and Western take overall.
So, here's the long version, and a disclaimer up-front that I'm a simple Western weeb doing internet research to the best of my ability; apologies to those who know more than me.
Square has always stated that the theme of the game is "life". This is wholly accurate, but comes off as a little twee to a Western ear. This is because "life" is a translation of the Japanese word "inochi" (命). It is a broader, more holistic concept than the English "life," with different nuances and connotations.
For a longer and much more informed read on inochi specifically, see The Concept of Life in Contemporary Japan by Masahiro Morioka. Otherwise, keep reading after the cut!
In addition to meaning life or lifespan, "inochi" also encompasses the idea of a "spirit" or vital force. It extends beyond referring to life in the general sense. Much like any one person's mind, spirit, and lived existence isn't interchangeable with anyone else's, one's "inochi" is unique and individualistic.
This concept extends beyond just human life. Animals, mountains, rivers, and trees all have "inochi" too. An illuminating quote From Aspects of Shinto in Japanese Communication by Kazuya Hara (and his primary source):
From the viewpoint of Shinto, nature itself is seen to have a spirit and life. For example, Japanese people have looked upon even a tree, a rock, or a river in nature as a figure of life. Kamata (2000) argues that the Japanese word inochi connotes the dynamic motion, flow, and circulation of all the universe.
That circulation also includes the idea that "inochi" does not refer to only a single individual life, but a chain of all the lives that have gone before. It encompasses the fleeting and finite life of the individual as well as the ecosystem in which they lived, and the influence and impact which will survive them and create the next link in the chain.
You'll recognize many of these concepts as being expressed through the Lifestream, and extant in the environmentalist elements of the game. Navigating the apparent paradox of a finite and infinite "inochi" also pulls our cast in, all of whom are characters struggling with their individual existence in the context of a greater, deeply interconnected crisis.
"Inochi" is also connected to FFVII's strong themes of navigating identity and uncovering the fundamental self. The word can also be used to refer to the core or fundamental part of something, its "most essential quality." This echoes Cloud's journey to rediscover himself, and it's noteworthy that he find again within the Lifestream, the manifestation of "inochi" itself.
"Inochi" is definitely a very accurate unifying theme. We've touched on how that connects to Shinto themes, but Buddhist philosophies of life and existence are just as culturally prevalent in Japan and influential on the themes of VII in turn. So, let's talk about Buddhism, with another disclaimer that I'm not expert by any means whatsoever.
A foundational concept in Buddhism is the Three Marks of Existence: Impermanence, the non-self, and suffering. We'll mainly focus on the first two.
The first, impermanence, is as it says on the tin. According to Buddhist thought, impermanence is inherent to the natural world, and failing to recognize this will bring suffering. The bad passes along with the good, the big as well as the small. The strain of Buddhist thought through the game is part of why FFVII's original ending is so appropriate, and Aeris' death so integral to the rest of its themes.
The second is the non-self. Related to the concept of impermanence, the idea here is that there is no permanent incarnation of the self, and there is no way to separate the self as an individual from its myriad pieces and its context. From What Are The Three Marks of Existence by Dana Nourie:
When you start to see how you aren’t a solid, unchanging self, but a impermanent, dynamic person, you also loosen your clinging to thoughts, ideas, emotions, and the idea of a “real you”.
The connection to Cloud's personal journey throughout the game is obvious - an abundance of attachment to an artificial self causes him to suffer until he is able to reconcile it and let it go. Sephiroth, meanwhile, faces a similar challenge to his own identity and slips sideways into Nihilism, unable to overcome (or even admit) his own suffering.
There's a connection between Buddhist and Existentialist/Existential Nihilist thought. While Buddhism incorporates the concept of suffering as an inherent and endless facet of life until nirvana can be reached, Existentialists struggle with a post-modern feeling of dread or anxiety fundamental to living in a meaningless and chaotic world. There's also been plenty of cultural exchange between eastern and western concepts here - Heidegger is one notable participant.
Another is Keiji Nishitani from the influential Kyoto University of Philosophy. Engaging with western Existentialist thinkers, he wrote Religion and Nothingness on the connection between the concept of the non-self and the western philosophy of Nihilism. He compared the similarities between the two, while ultimately refuting Nietzche's perspective. This quote (helpfully, from his Wikipedia page) seems particularly instructive, especially in returning back to some of the initial concepts expressed by "inochi":
"All things that are in the world are linked together, one way or the other. Not a single thing comes into being without some relationship to every other thing."
My original answer to this question was Existentialism because there simply isn't a word or a tidy concept in my vocabulary that can convey all of this disparate information. Existentialism seemed to me like the most familiar and broad concept to encompass these themes, always in the form of questions: How do we live? How do we separate subjectivity from objective truth? How do we preserve the sense that our lives are meaningful?
You must decide for yourself; you must remember your connections to other lives; you must let go.
Great post!
I guess the problem and the cause of all these (convenient) misinterpretations is indeed her persistent presence in the compilation. Or better, all the characters are present in more or less all the entries but she is the only character who is always shown indissolubly linked to Cloud. Which is what bothers part of the fandom.
If her physical presence can't be ignored, the only other way to make her "unharmful" is to try to diminish her relevance in the story.
But is there a greater proof of her importance than the fact itself that fans need to spend so much energy in twisting her role to make her seem an ininfluent or even a villainous character?
So the Lifestream sequence becomes unimportant, she's irrelevant, she's bully, she's insensitive, she's just fancervice, she gets rejected, she's a rebound, she lacks a character arc...let alone Case of Tifa and Advent Children... She is just there watching the other characters playing their roles.
The question is: does it ever work?
Because whenever the fandom spent too much effort spreading misinterpretations SE took advantage of the following entries to debunk them. Remake is no exception.
And it's just part 1.
Tifa is important to the FF7 story (OG and Remake) straight up due to her abundant, consistent involvement in the story—you know, the actual events of what is being written. She has more than this, but that’s the most basic level that a character can be important to a story….by simply being a prime force within it. Get out of here with anything even less than this as this understanding shouldn’t be skipped over.
“Being Important” in storytelling is something I think people perceive very weirdly in fandom for characters. Importance can be judged on different levels, but the level of that for characters should be looked at on the level of story involvement first and foremost.
Any character that is one of the protagonists, a part of your party, and literally is involved and thus affects and interacts with all story beats—something so basic needs to be understood as important. Tifa is one of the heroes, she’s on the journey from the beginning and continues throughout…you can’t get any more straight forward than this for the story. Describing it as “just being there” or “occupying space” is just stupid, I won’t sugarcoat that honestly. And the interaction she has in the story obviously goes beyond that of just “Cloud’s love interest”. She’s not just standing around, T-posing in the background while being that, and it’s a gross view of how that information is even expressed in the story itself. Any good writer that has a character interacting so much with the story [actual events] is bound to have them interacting with plot [the “what”/overall story event chain that sets the “what”] , if not the overall narrative [”how and why”/purpose of plot and structure], eventually. That’s not always the case, at least directly anyway, but even in those cases it can be examined on a micro level. But even if it doesn’t track to the line of narrative, this won’t stop them from having an involvement with story and plot if they’re included all the way through these things.
Now granted, especially in an extended series, there can be a difference between being an “important character” and being “important to a story”. Both Tifa and Cloud aren’t the primary characters in Dirge of Cerberus or Before Crisis, but obviously they still remain to be important to FF7 (OG and Remake), AC, or even Crisis Core as their roles there interact directly with key plot points for FF7. So like, still, “Tifa isn’t an important character” doesn’t stand to be a thought from a knowledgeable mind of the series.
During the dates with Aerith, Tifa or Yuffie at Gold Saucer, Cloud is involved in a theatre play.
It's a very simple and innocent tale where the player has multiple choices. Leaving aside the jokes, the story is about an Evil Dragon King who arrives in a peaceful kingdom, kidnaps the princess and takes her on the peak of a dangerous mountain. The hero goes to rescue her and can ask for the help of a knight or a wizard: if he asks the knight to intervene he's knocked down immediately, while the wizard says that love is the key to defeat the dragon. At the end of the play the dragon is defeated by the power of love.
It's only a fairy tale but...
Nibelheim was a peaceful town before the arrival of Sephiroth. In the area there are several dragons and Sephiroth burns down the whole town. Tifa, the daughter of the village chief, follows him in the reactor on Mt Nibel. Zack tries to fight Sephiroth and he's knocked down, but when Cloud arrives and sees Tifa unconscious, he finds the strenght to stab Sephiroth.
...
What a 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.
A couple of interesting references
Toward the end of Chapter 8 of the Remake - like in the OG - Cloud sneaks away from Aerith's house headed to Sector 7, but Aerith is already waiting for him at the border to Sector 6.
This scene is very important since it's the one where Aerith willingly decides to follow Cloud, the moment that sets into motion her adventure and that will lead her to her destiny.
Fans immediately noticed that the way Aerith appears from behind the debris and the way she walks away recall what happened in the dream that Cloud had in the OG, where Aerith told him she was going to stop Sephiroth alone.
When she starts walking Cloud has one of his headaches, the camera focuses on his right hand (the one he stretched trying to stop her in the dream) and he sheds a tear.
This seems to be another omen of her death - probably it is -, like he previously had at the church, but this short sequence hides also another compilation reference that probably most of western players didn't notice, since it went lost in the English localization:
When Aerith approaches Cloud saying "Because I'm not sick of you yet!", in Japanese she uses a sentence that she already used in Crisis Core with Zack: "I'd like to spend more time with you"(the comparison between the two Japanese lines will sound clearer here). Also her pose, with her hands behind her back, is the same of Crisis Core, and I can't say to what extent it is relevant in this scene, since the Zack-Cloud relation is often matter of debate, but Zack took the note with his right hand too.
I don't think this is casual. At first I thought it was just another Zack-Aerith references like many others during Chapters 8 and 9, but I think this one has a deeper meaning:
Aerith gave Zack the note before he left for Nibelheim, and she apperared in Cloud's dream when she left to go to the Forgotten City:
in both cases it was the last time the characters "spent" time together
in both scenes they promised to go back after they accomplished their missions (very Loveless)
and in both cases...they never came back again.
Aerith's decision to go alone to summon Holy led her to her death, and Zack's decision to go back to Midgar after reading the note - the most dangerous place for him - led him to his death too.
I can't say if this correlation will be relevant in the future parts of the Remake but I thought it was noteworthy, especially because it links up so well with the leitmotiv of Reunion.
Aerith's ribbon: is it still a gift from Zack?
It has been rumored by some fans that the Crisis Core scene where Zack gave Aerith the pink ribbon is no more canon, because kid Aerith has a pink ribbon too.
I don't mean to sound pretentious but...they're evidently different. Kid Aerith's ribbon has four ends, adult Aerith's ribbon has just two.
Since the original FFVII kid Aerith's had two outfits. She wore the blue outfit in the first part of Elmyra's flashback and the orange one when Tseng tried to convince her to return to Shinra.
In the Remake she wears the orange outfit only in the train graveyard vision and the blue one in all of Elmyra's flashback, from the moment she found her at the station up to when Tseng showed up. It's definitely not very evident because of the sepia tone filter, but we can compare her dress to the concept art and to the orange dress: she has no ribbon on the chest but wears a pinafore dress and a light shirt with bell sleeves.
This means that in the sepia toned scene she was wearing the green ribbon, as we can see from the concept art.
The scene at the train graveyard bears many similarities with the situation described in Picturing the Past, so she was wearing the orange outfit before escaping Shinra HQ.
When Elmyra found her and brought her in Sector 5 she had the green ribbon, not the pink one.
Someone tried to say Aerith stated the ribbon was a gift from her mother when she met Cloud at the church...
Nice try, but she was talking about White Materia. (Leaving a couple of links in case anybody wanted to check: OG, Remake)
So, not only there's no evidence that the pink ribbon is no more Zack's gift but that scene influenced also an important moment of the Remake: Aerith and Cloud's first encounter.
And in both cases the gift was made in order to thank the other for their help
CC: To show you my gratitude for that "hello" that woke me up.
Remake: You know, for scaring those things away.
Ehhh...can I say what a coincidence again?
SOLDIER-Cloud VS Real-Cloud
Aerith & Marlene: a special bond
Marlene Wallace is a little sweet 4 years old child and Barret’s adoptive daughter.
The strange interaction between Aerith and Marlene in Chapter 12 of the Remake raises the mistery: what kind of information did Aerith share with this kid? And, more importantly, why?
This scene brought up a longstanding question too: is Marlene a Cetra?
I don't presume to have an answer! I have no idea about what the devs have in mind for this character. With this post I'll just try to highlight all the elements that showed the bond between Aerith and Marlene in the FFVII compilation.
Key Art
Since the early concepts of this character, Marlene’s been represented holding a flower. Nothing really strange, if it were not for the fact that flowers in Midgar are true rarety and are mainly related to Aerith.
Marlene is in Barret’s key art. The picture is more or less the same both for the OG and for the Remake and it depicts Barret and Marlene staring at the flower bed in Aerith’s church, even if this specific scene has never been showed in any entry.
Final Fantasy VII
In the OG Tifa asked Aerith to rescue Marlene from Seventh Heaven before the collapse of Sector 7 plate. They spent a relatively short time together, but Marlene became immediately very fond of Aerith and never forgot her.
The player could find again Marlene with Elmyra, while Aerith had been kidnapped by Shinra. Marlene told Cloud that Aerith liked him and she got really angry if he didn't answer in an interested way (”Stupid!”). But if he answered in a positive way she was also aware that it was the kind of information that could hurt Tifa (”I won’t tell Tifa”).
If the player had the date with Aerith, Marlene recognized her voice and, later, Cait Sith said she got really sad when she came to know about Aerith's death.
Marlene appeared again at the very end of the game where she perceived Aerith's presence when the Lifestream started to erupt from the surface of earth to reject Meteor.
On the Way to a Smile
Marlene appears also in the novel On the way to a smile, especially in Case of Tifa. She is described to be a very sensitive and mature child:
It was Marlene who noticed the changes in Cloud (...) Marlene was an observant child, sensitive to the grown-ups’ moods.
Maybe Marlene thought Tifa wasn’t listening when she said in a small, lonely voice, “Cloud and Tifa aren’t getting along”.
This would mean nothing if taken out of context but I think it fits the continuity of her character development until Advent Children, the entry where she is openly depicted to be a little copy of Aerith.
Advent Children
At the beginning of the movie Marlene is the narrator that resumes the events concerning Meteorfall, the Lifestream and the battle against Sephiroth.
She has the same hairstyle and pink ribbon as Aerith, and her white outfit slightly recalls Aerith’s dress from Crisis Core. Her skirt and socks are decorated with floral motives.
She behaves like Aerith: she is blunt, encouraging and she always sais what she thinks
Her room is full of interesting elements:
There’s a pink sleeveless dress in a corner
There are various pictures of flowers hung on the walls and a vase of Aerith’s flowers on the windowsill
There’s a picture of a church and the photo of the flower bed in Aerith’s church
(Yes I know, the quality of the images is really bad. I’m looking forward for the 4K version of the movie in June).
Marlene has sort of a healing role toward Denzel, since she takes care of him when he has Gestigma symptoms (in the movie and the novels) and she is the only child who has no Geostigma. The Remnants seem to understand that she’s different from the other children and they keep a close watch on her
When she arrives at the church she tends the flowers like Aerith used to
When Loz’s going to kill Tifa she distracts him throwing a globe of Materia that looks exactly like White materia
She senses where Cloud has Geostigma (he has a puzzled look when she askes if it hurts, as if she wasn’t supposed to know it)
When Aerith intervenes in the battle she can feel her presence (in the Japanese version she sais お姉ちゃん, which means “older sister”).
Final Fantasy VII Remake
In the Remake Aerith meets Marlene in the same way as she did in the OG but this time Tseng finds them immediately at Seventh Heaven (I’m not sure if this is meant to be a relevant change or just a revised and more realistic way to show the scene, all we know is that the Whispers didn’t intervene). Despite this change something “strange” happens between them anyway...
Marlene, who was crying frightened, immediately calms down and hugs Aerith again. She notices that she smells like “their flower”, to which Aerith answers:
as if she already knew they won’t spend much time together in the future.
Before Barret and the others leave to save Aerith from Shinra, Marlene tries to warn her father saying he should help Aerith but she can’t explain the real reason.
And dulcis in fundo, at the end of the game, Marlene, once again, can perceive the “presence” of someone. In this case it’s her daddy calling her name.
And that’s all for now!
I have no idea how the story is going to develop in the next entries of the Remake, but maybe it is not so wrong to think that this young character will have a more important role in the future!
Why Tifa is the only person, living or dead, who can resolve Cloud’s crisis
Alternate title: “What really happened in the Lifestream”
Of course the Lifestream scene has been discussed to death within the fandom. While some consider it one of the greatest triumphs of the Cloud/Tifa relationship and the game in general, others are quick to diminish its events and Tifa’s role. “Oh, any other childhood friend character who knew Cloud could do the job.” “Oh, Cloud only needed Tifa as moral support, he could have figured everything out himself.” “Oh, Aerith (maybe +Zack) could have done it by accessing her Cetra/time machine/empath/Planet powers.”
The Lifestream sequence is extraordinarily dense with many subtle visual cues, so there’s a lot to untangle and interpret. But no matter how you slice it, any take which downplays or eliminates Tifa is fundamentally missing the point of this scene, both for the plot and for Cloud’s character arc.
A lot of the confusion stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what actually needs to happen in the Lifestream and why. Thus, using specific details from the sequence, I’d like to present my take on the following:
Part 1: What Cloud needs to accomplish in the Lifestream to advance the plot
Part 2: Why Tifa is the only person, living or dead, who can resolve Cloud’s crisis, where we will discuss fun things such as:
Why Tifa is the the focus of his greatest flaw
What Tifa’s presence in the Lifestream accomplishes
Part 3: Why those “Tifa-less” fan theories just can’t work
This is a very long ride so let’s get to it!
Continua a leggere
Cloud’s flashback in Kalm:
Cloud recalls the days before Nibelheim incident.
Real-Cloud (the Shinra infantryman) patrols Nibelheim square and continuously stops to stare at the water tower and Tifa’s house.
Since 1997.
Just saying.
Graphics enhancement, 23 years later!
