;) if aeris didnt die wat do u guys think mightve happened? how i wish there was like an alternative ending or somethin.. hopefully she wouldve lived happilly ever after with cloud:>

Well as lovely as it would have been if she wouldn't have died, I think FF7 wouldn't be as great if it wasn't for her death. It made the story so much more emotional and tragic. Her death is like a backbone of the story, a pillar that allows it to rise higher than most would have thought it ever could! ^_^

But if she wouldn't have died I doubt the story would have been that different. Sure, there would need to be a new ending as Aerith couldn't summon the Lifestream to help lilke she did in the game. But other than that I believe the story would have remained quite the same. :)

If she hadn't died, there would be no Love Triangle arguments and no one would doubt that Cloud and Aerith are the true couple of the game, which I would love. It was such a romantic story despite her death because of Cloud wanting to search for Aerith, and his love for her enduring beyond her death. I really wish Aerith had lived, but I wish they hadn't incorporated the Love Triangle into the game. If they hadn't put the LT into the game, then Cloud and Aerith's love would be unquestioned - it would be similar to the story of Yuna and Tidus. Funny how no one questions Yuna's love for Tidus, even though they couldn't be together at the end of FFX... yet, they question Cloud and Aerith, who were basically in the same situation at the end of FFVII. Go figure.

At any rate, the story did seem much different before they decided on the death of Aerith. If you look at Amano's drawings, which may show part of the original story line, Sephiroth apparently takes Aerith hostage in a manner similar to Seymour and Yuna. There would be no Tifa in the story, since she was only brought in because there would be no other female character left in the game after Aerith's death except Yuffie, who is optional. With no Tifa in the story, there would probably be no Lifestream Event, since there was no one else who could confirm his identity as a resident of Nibelheim rather than a product of Hojo's experiments.

I think much would have been different in the story - even so, I wish that they had never killed Aerith. From the articles Wilhelm has shown us, I would guess that they chose to kill Aerith because it would have the greatest effect on Cloud. It's a beautiful and tragic love story, yet they should never have put the Love Triangle in with it. The Love Triangle forced a great many players to lose sight of the whole significance of Cloud and Aerith's love.

If she didn't die, Final Fantasy 7 wouldn't be as exciting as it had became when she died. ;)

I think tragic things like those make people think and ponder about what could have been and what might have been, compared to happy endings wherein you just leave it at that...
With Aerith's death, the game became more exciting and more complicated and not as easy-going as Final Fantasy 8. :huh:

:blink: Sephiroth took Aeris hostage in Amano's drawings? Never knew that. I just knew that Amano really emphasized the Cloud and Aeris pairing in his drawings. Well, you do know something everyday. :)

If Aeris didn't die, than FF7 won't be as --- almost everyone says here --- tragic. There would also be no Tifa, because she was just added to balance the feminine scale thingamajiggy. Not that I'm saying she's unimportant, she inspired Cloud and was a main character in the plot.

So yeah, if Aeris hadn't died, there would be no awesome, twisted plot, no Tifa, and no defiance of the Cloud and Aeris couple. It's up to the player to decide if that's a good thing. :)

Amano's Sephiroth and Aerith illustrations: http://www.geocities.com/king_flee/telecardpgs/ffvii.html

I think that Aeris shouldn't have died at all. I also agree with Anastar.

In my opinion I think that Square should've made it an option for Aeris to die, because there are alot of Cloud and Aeris fans out there who would want to keep Aeris alive. I think that just killing Sephiroth would've destroyed the Meteor and the Holy wouldn't have to be released or the WEAPONS could've used there power to destroy it. I know that Cloud and Aeris are the offical couple of Final Fantasy VII!

I have to agree that Aeris's death made the story better, but I also think that SE should have included the part they left out. They left out a sequence of events that ultimatly led to Aeris being revived. SE had to cut that out because of supposed time constraints.

There is one part you can see however. The split second image of Aeris in the church after she dies is part of those events that they cut out. If I recall there would have been a scene there in which Aeris's ghost appears and talks with cloud.

But still even without those events the game is still awesome. Aeris's death gives the story a huge dose of emotion. It is very sad :( ,yet very important.

*sigh* yeah it would have been great if Aeris was resurrected, it would have shut the cloti's up, that's for sure. But I don't know, now there can be that "love across the miles" and "eternal love" you always hear about. It's so romantic, yet so tragic.

The writer of that "article" has admitted that it was all a sham dear, let's see if I've got that link...blast, it's on my mom's. Anyways, he pretty much tells the whole story of how he pretended to be someone from Square as a joke, and it snowballed from there. Very interesting, PM me some time and I'll dig the link out for ya ;)
I personally think it wouldn't have been great to ressurect Aeris. The story's much better the way it is. However, a GOOD ressurection in AC isn't gonna hurt me!

Bah, I never get to post any intresting information first. :angry:
Well I can still nitpick: It wasn't Square-Enix who made FF7, It was Squaresoft, who later became Square-Enix.

As for a ressurection in AC, I'm withholding judgement until they actually do it or not, since at the moment it seems more likely that Cloud is going to end up dying (Which would be a rather bold step, since he has become sort-of the Final Fantasy Poster Child).

Sefie's right... that was all a rumor started by Ben Lansing. You can read about it at the Citadel here: http://ff7citadel.blueshinra.com/efiction/...8&parentcatid=8

Here's Ben Lansing's original letter, which started the rumor that Aerith's resurretion was left out of the game due to time constraints:
http://ff7citadel.blueshinra.com/efiction/...story.php?sid=1

And here's his retraction, in which he later admitted that the whole thing was a hoax: http://ff7citadel.blueshinra.com/efiction/...story.php?sid=2

Another rumor is that Aerith can be resurrected in the Japanese version of the game. That is also false.

I just feel that if they had to kill her, they should have left the love triangle out of the game. It's not Aerith's death that makes Cloud's love for her questionable - it's the inclusion of the Love Triangle. Without the Love Triangle, there would be no question about who Cloud loved. I would have preferred that there be no question about it.

Even if it was a total sham it still is fun to think about isn't it? ;) Anyway, I also have to agree with Anastar that they could have left the Love Triangle out. <_< I would have made things so much better.
I can't believe I was fooled so easily! :angry: *hits his head on the wall for being dumb and gullible*

Aaack! EK! Anastar left all those nice links and you made me do all that digging!? Jk, it was worth it ;)

I'm wondering, if there were no Tifa, then I guess Cloud decided to join SOLDIER for no real reason, because there would have been no one to leave him out and reject him, unless they just used the boys Tifa hung out with. My guess is, if there was a Lifestream scene at all, Aeris would have helped him through it, if there was one. I guess they would just end up defeating Sephiroth normally, or whatever. Maybe like in Chrono Cross and FF8 *spoilers* Aeris would have been injured by Sephy and be controlled by the dark side. I know during the first disk of CC, Kid is stabbed by "Serge" (Lynx in Serge's body) and falls into a wierd coma, and then fights on "Serge's" side. And in VIII, Rinoa gets hurt or whatever (can't quite remember) and gets possessed. Maybe it would have been similar with Aeris. It would explain Amano drawings!! [/half-formed thought]

And I do agree, the plot would have been just fine with without the Love Triangle. They shoulda made Tifa Cloud's long-lost sister or something ...

Another question for my list of things to ask Nomura when I meet him. (which I SHALL!!!)

Don't worry, EK... many people believed that rumor. You weren't the only one. :rolleyes:

It's always been my impression that the Lifestream Event was written late and sorta "stuck on" to the story. I have a feeling it was added on after the inclusion of Tifa into the game.

There's two lines in the translation of the Japanese script at RPGamer for the Lifestream Event that I'd like Wilhelm to check out - if you would, please, Wilhelm? This is right after Cloud remembers the bit about Tifa falling off the bridge when they were kids:

Claude2: Tifa, you were in a coma for 7 days...I thought you would die. Because of me! I hated myself for not being able to do anything... from then on, I started to think that everything you said or did was mean. I started to carry a chip on my shoulder, always picking fights...
...It was then, I heard of Sephiroth. I wanted to be like Sephiroth. If I could be stronger, everyone might look at me in a different way...
That's from here: http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff7/text/trans/tifa.txt

This is quite different from what the NA version says:
"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..." "I got out of control... I'd get into fights not even caring who it was."
"That was the first time I heard about Sephiroth." "If I got strong like Sephiroth, then everyone might..." "If I could just get stronger...... Then even Tifa would have to notice me......"

Notice that in the Japanese translation, Cloud implies that he started to "hate" Tifa after the Bridge incident - although as a defense mechanism. But the Japanese version also never says anything about "even Tifa would have to notice me".

The translation of the Japanese game also shows that Cloud never said Tifa's name as he went in to fight Sephiroth at the Mt. Nibel reactor.

(A minor soldier dressed in blue uniform runs up the stairs, goes inside the Jenova room and stabs Sephiroth through his back)
>>Sephiroth: (groans in pain)....!!...Who..is it!? (Seph turns around, sees the soldier who ambushed him, then slumps against Jenova's glass case)
>>Blue soldier: Give me back my mother! ...This whole town!!... I always had looked up to you....

The NA script reads like this:
Blue Soldier "Mom.... Tifa.... my town.... give it back"

So according to the translation at RPGamer, Cloud never said Tifa's name as he went into the reactor to defeat Sephiroth and he actually started to "hate" Tifa as a child after the Bridge incident. Would you please check the translation of those parts of the Lifestream Event, Wilhelm?

I have to say I agree more with what the NA translation says (Cloud feeling Tifa blamed him rather than everything she said or did was mean).

『それからティファがいつも俺を責めているような気がしてさ』
"Sore kara Tifa ga itsumo ore wo semete iru you na ki ga shite sa"

Semeru = to blame

I see that line in the Japanese script as well.

『強くなりさえすれば……ティファだって、俺のこと認めてくれると……』
"Tsuyoku nari sae sureba... Tifa datte, ore no koto mitomete kureru to..."

Tifa datte = even Tifa

In the script I have he mentions Tifa (it goes his mother, then Tifa, then the village).

「母さんを……ティファを……村を返せ……」
"Kaasan wo... Tifa wo... mura wo kaese..."

If Aeris didn't die? I wouldn't cry so much when I play the game, and, the the world would have been destroyed. Yes. Aeris' prayer had to reach the lifestream, and the only way for that to happen was for her soul to go there. She died for the planet. :(

Did she really have to DIE to summon Holy? I mean, The Sleeping Forest scene and FFVII have shown us that one's spirit can travel without one being dead. Besides, in the Japanese version it was a "prayer" that had to reach the planet.
I don't think she had to die for Holy to be summoned, but she did to be able to control the Lifestream.

I get what you mean, from what Bugenhagen said, all she needed to do was to pray for Holy and that if a person is successful, the materia would glow a pale green. The materia glowed a pale green before she died, which meant she was successful, but like Cloud said, even if she was successful , it was stuck due to Sephiroth's plan to become a God.

If she hadn't die, I might not like her as much. I mean, other than her confidence, indepedence, and caring personality, her self-sacrifice was such a statement to me. Even though that halts the possibility of Cloud and Aeris coming together physically, the spirituality that's binds them strengthened with her death, and that means more to me than anything.

I'm not unhappy there was a Love triangle. I thought it was cute and fun, sometimes frustrating but that's how life is. I appreciate complexities in movies, games and stories. Nothing is cut clean, you know? I think that's what FFVII was all about.

Edit: Took me almost two days to figure out I made that typo. Sorry!

I agree with you, and nice words.

I don't know if I'd have as much respect for Aeris now, if she didn't die. Sure, she was a good person, great personality, caring, warmhearted, but risking her own life, willing to let go of the person she loved, her friends... She was willing to die for them. How unselfish, and loyal she is.

Like I've said many times before, it was her death that brought so much more to the game and without that tragic turn of events I doubt people would have ever got as emotionally involved with the characters of FFVII (especially Cloud and Aerith) as they now have.

I liked Aerith very much when I was first playing through FFVII but it was her death that really made me see how important part of the game she was for me. Like the old saying goes, you do not truly know how much you love someone until that someone is gone. :rolleyes:

Sigh, as much as I hate to admit it, but you've got a point there. One does value a loved one more when they are gone. When she died, all I did was try to find out whether all the rumours of how to revive her really work, but apparently not, unless I missed out something. It was then I gave up and will just sit back and wait for the movie. :(

Hmmm....I dunno. I would had like her to lived. If Aeris didn't die, it wouldn't ruin the story. If she was in a coma or disappear, than Cloud would be like Squall, searching for Aeris and finding her, realizing how Aeris, like Rinoa, made a big impact to his life. That's what I always imagine, it'll be something like FFVIII and Aeris would be in almost the same situation as Rinoa. I don't believe and never had that it would ruin the story if she didn't died. And if she was resurrected, it would be fine with me. Because other characters from other games/anime/manga been brought back with some kind of reason to back it up. And if that happen to Aeris, I already have a reason for that. The powers she doesn't know as a Cetra, the lifestream helping her out, even the Planet can do that. :P

wilhelm,
Is there a link to that script so that others like me can check it out?
You provided something that is different than what Anastar provided...I guess I have my doubts on which one is true. I don't think the people at RPGamer translated it wrong, but seeing that there are two different responses, I want to check it out for myself. :lol: