Final Fantasy VII from a Writer's Standpoint

by Thad Boyd 

It's now forty-nine minutes, fifty-three seconds since my completion (and I use the term loosely, as I was missing a great deal of materia, as well as Vincent) of Final Fantasy VII. Straightaway, I went ahead and read all the editorials on the UnOfficial Square Soft HomePage marked "spoiler", knowing FOR SURE (though, since Aeris' death, I had assumed) they wouldn't be spoiling anything for me.

Sure enough, here we have some brilliant cases against fans' ridiculous demands that Aeris be brought back to life. Still, only one of them gets into the STORY-RELATED reasons Aeris should stay dead, and then, not deeply enough for my liking.

I'm a writer, and also a reader. I've seen my favorite characters in books written by others martyred; I've martyred my OWN favorite character in my OWN writing.

Why did Aeris die? BECAUSE SHE'S A MORE POWERFUL FIGURE IN DEATH THAN IN LIFE. THAT is virtually ALWAYS the reason for a character's death. As Sephiroth descended on her, I tensed. I KNEW it was coming, that there would be no escape. My eyes welled up with tears -- this is the ONLY GAME other than Suikoden ever to evoke such a response. I epitomized what Cloud said: "My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning."

Tell me...if Aeris had NOT died, would the game have had the same impact? NOT A CHANCE. Cloud said it best: the heroes WERE fighting to save the planet, but they weren't doing it just for the planet's sake. They were doing it for their own, for Marlene's...and, most importantly, for Aeris'.

And Sephiroth...he killed Cloud's mother, Tifa's father, psychologically tore Cloud himself to shreds, he tried to destroy the planet...but would that alone have made him so evil? No. He would have been, as I've said before, "the FF7 equivalent of Magus" ... he's manipulative; he has the blood of countless innocents on his hands; he's working only for his own selfish ends...but, when it comes down to it, he and the heroes share a common enemy. Or, at worst, like Kefka; a man possessed with the destruction of everything around him, but who, when you come right down to it, never actually SUCCEEDED in harming anybody the player has feelings for. But when Sephiroth killed Aeris, he crossed the line between being a human (augmented or otherwise) and a soulless demon; he became, easily, the most horrible, contemptible monster I've ever seen in a video game.

Aeris' death evoked profound feelings in all of us; if it had been reversed, the most poignant point of the game would have been for naught. For I have NEVER, in ANY kind of literature, felt anything but betrayal at seeing a dead character brought back to life.