Lifestream Scene - Blog Posts

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!

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