We all have heard/understood that Tifa's new role in the FFVII universe is a "mother" figure, whether it is for the children or for Cloud to an extent. But I have been thinking a bit and I kinda see it in a new way.

People like to say that she is their mother, but has anyone really stopped and thought about her just being a big sister to Marlene and Denzel? Tifa in AC is only 22, hardly typical mother age for children as old as Marlene. I rewatched AC (Japanese version because I cannot stand the NA version's voices, except for Vincent. Steve Blum FTW) with this new idea and to me, the "sister" figure makes more sense. Sisters usually give other younger siblings more room to do what they want while mothers have the tendancy to "keep their children rediculously close". Tifa doesn't smother Marlene or Denzel as shown when they both go running off anywhere they want, including wandering around Edge and even when the SHM took them. Only Reno and Rude seemed to have known where they ended up. Mothers wouldn't let that happen with children so young.

Now when it comes to Cloud, I kinda feel the same way. If you throw the whole love triangle out the window, doesn't Tifa talk to Cloud more in a sisterly way than a motherly way? She gives him space (as demonstrated with his new job that requires travel), she updates him whenever it's needed by calling him, and the only time she lets herself go is when she is genuinely concerned. Now we have proof that Tifa felt some kind of motherly feelings towards Cloud in CoT, but I feel that this is only because she feels the need to steer Cloud towards making the right decisions.

I guess ths is all up as an opinion so don't think I can't see it any other way. :lol:

Anyway, hopefully his thread will give more insight into Tifa's role.

For me, Tifa could be either mother or sister to Cloud, Denzel and Marlene. CloTis generally takes it as Tifa the wife of Cloud :P but we all know Cloud is single. Anyway, the scene Tifa was talking or more like lecturing Cloud in the room. Also, Tifa protects Denzel and Marlene, so that's like, being a mother as well. And more on Tifa, as said on Reunion Files, she has the maternity side to Cloud, so that just pins off the whole 'married' thing.

Haha, actually, you've got some point, Tifa's lecture was kind of down heartening than encouraging, that most of the siblings in the family would do than to even help. :rolleyes:

I kinda see Tifa as a hybrid of both. I guess my closest "realistic" comparison would be an oldest girl in a family of several siblings. The eldest girl would typically try to take on some "motherly" responsibilities by watching out for her younger siblings, and that's what Tifa basically does (with presumably more attention given to Marlene and Denzel than Cloud... maybe XD).

Anti-R once brought up how she'd left Denzel alone while looking for Cloud at the church, and that oversight always reminds me that she's just 22 and is still fumbling her way through. I like to think that Tifa tries extra hard to be a "mom" since she's the only female grown-up in Seventh Heaven, and the pressure bears too much on her sometimes. So you get hilarious scenes like her sending Cloud-- who is OLDER than her!-- to his room. :lol:

I just remembered-- Tifa's mom died when she was pretty young, right? Around 8 years-old? Makes me wonder if that has any impact on her, how she views her responsibilities now since she never had a mother while growing up.

Lynn: I agree with what you said about Tifa and I like that you brought up her mother dying at a young age. I do think that cold factor into how she would want to be viewed by the children and it could also be a big factor on why she feels the need to take on that kind of role. But since she has not had that role model in her life, that could be why she struggles and switches between a mother role and a sister role. Also since both Marlene and Denzel also lost their mothers at young ages, she relates and is trying to fill that gap that she always had growing up.



As for her relationship with Cloud, I think it is too complex to say she is closer to being a mother figure or a sister figure to him. I think she feels both feelings for him at certain times, she is struggling to know what her role is to him and there is still the factor of how she loved him and wanted to be his girlfriend for a long time. I don't know if that would ever go completely away which will always help complicate Cloud for her. But I think the three factors make her have a very strong bond with Cloud along with all the struggles they have faced together, even if they have trouble communicating. and that is why a name for it is hard to come up with.

Tifa seems to be torn by her roles...mother, sister, would be lover. By accepting the first two roles, though, she precluded any chance of landing the third. Tifa threw herself at Cloud too long and too hard to believe that he might've missed it. So she settled into a role that would keep her close to him, even if it didn't give her what she wanted. Perhaps that's why CoT looked like nothing so much as a prelude to a 'divorce'.

By contrast, Aerith does not take multiple roles. She is girlfriend exclusively. Where she is misinterpreted is that her maturity makes her seem older then Cloud...to Cloud. If she seems like a mother...she's hardly the only woman in existence who takes care of her mate. Indeed, all but the most independant women find themselves doing that. Regularly.

Before the release of CoT and the Reunion Files, I always thought that Cloud and Tifa shared a more sisterly/brotherly relationship than mother/son. In AC, she worries over Cloud, but she lets him do his own thing. The only time she does step in is when Cloud won't go to the Sleeping Forest to save the kids. She's more blunt with him than a mother would tend to be with a depressed child, telling him that he thinks he's 'got it so damned hard'. I think a mother would be more likely to try and get through to Cloud, to talk about the reasoning behind his depression and work out a solution, and tell him he doesn't have to do everything alone. I know Tifa did try that route, but she got frustrated in the end and just told him how it was, gave him a wake up call. I know when I've been speaking to my brother about serious matters, I'm nowhere near as patient with him as our mother is.

I think that there are a lot of ways in which Tifa seems to take on more of a 'big sister' role in the family as a whole, for example, as CG pointed out, when she leaves Denzel alone to go to Aerith's church with Marlene. This is the kind of thing a mother wouldn't generally tend to do, mothers often baby their children and like to think their kids are still dependent on them, even though a child of Denzel's age would be perfectly capable of surviving on his own for a few hours.

I think this is reinforced by the fact that when AC begins, Tifa isn't the one taking care of Denzel, Marlene is. Tifa has left them to their own devices. Also, when she finds Denzel out on the streets, although she has been looking for him desperately, she doesn't throw her arms around him and tell him how glad she is that she's found him and how worried she's been, the way a mother would. She notices immediately that something isn't quite right with him, maybe because she isn't blinded by maternal feelings.

Also, when she learns where the children are from Reno and Rude, she doesn't immediately go running off after them. It would be hard to keep a desperate mother from running into danger for her kids, no matter how foolish it would be to do so. Tifa knows from experience that she doesn't have the power to defeat Loz by herself, never mind his brothers as well. Instead of going after them, she relies on Cloud to bring them back safely.

However, I can also see what Lynn is saying - Tifa lost her mother at a young age, so she hasn't had a mother figure in her life since then. Because of this, she may have strong maternal feelings inside, but she doesn't know how to vocalise them.

Hmm, but couldn't that also be said of Tifa too, Alex?

She doesn't act like a mom enough for me. She doesn't project that maternal "protect my kids" instinct enough in AC for me.

No offense to Tifa fans though. She has been doing that in the original game, you know where she lets Marlene fix drinks on her lonesome in Seventh Heaven while she goes with Barret and Cloud blowing stuff. You'd think two years living with two kids would be enough training for her. Guess not.

I was very disapproving of her when she left Denzel, sick with Geostigma that has a penchant of wracking him in pain, all alone while she runs off with the only kid who can take care of him in quite a distance (unless the Church happens to be around the corner of Seventh Heaven). AC calls it drama, I call it sloppy work of a bad parent.

Phew. But any other stuff, Tifa as a fighter, is pretty well done graphicwise. And I'd like to think Tifa grew up from FFVII and is a better person. But as THE mother? No.

I'm somewhat disturbed by the bit in Case of Tifa, where she is jealous that Cloud and Denzel are getting close. She's jealous of Denzel, a little kid, for being able to reach out to Cloud. That doesn't seem motherly to me 0_o

It can be taken that way, and I'm not saying it's incorrect, but I saw it as more like Tifa being annoyed that Denzel valued Cloud's opinion more than hers. I thought she was more jealous of Cloud for being closer to Denzel than the other way around.

I tend to agree with this. However, Tifa all but screams "mother" to me in her mannerisms. She provides, in every sense of the word, a sense of home to everyone in Avalanche. No matter how far everyone goes, they always know they have a place to stay at 7th Heaven. In DoC (not really a spoiler at all) we see Yuffie running around the bar while Nanaki rests outside and another character sips tea at the table. Everyone feels at home there, and Tifa provides the stability of home for all the members of Avalanche.

She does seem to border of mother/sister to Cloud a lot, but I think that has more to do with the fact that when you deal with a created family everyone has to kind of figure out where they stand.

Tifa was never jealous of Denzel. She was jealous of Cloud because the young boy reached out to him more, when Tifa wanted to be closer to him.

In the beginning, I felt a bit like Tifa kind of played the role of the 'nagging wife', although she is neither too naggy nor wifey. But from how she acts throughout FF7, AC and the rest of the Compilation, I see her more as a sisterly figure as oppposed to mother, especially with how she protects the children ie. shielding Denzel with her body, but allowing him to run off to the bar by himself with a huge group of monsters ravaging the city.

I think she's trying to hold everything together and focusing on being the 'pillar' regardless of how she feels about it all. Like the Marlene-church scene, she doesn't make the right decisions, she's young and learning, not neccessarily in the best way - like how a sister would, but not a mother. A sister learns with them, whereas a mother teaches them.

You guys all make excellent points. :lol:

Ah, I just reread it:
Tifa asked Cloud who Denzel's cleaning teacher was. He had told Cloud about it. Tifa was a little hurt.

They were descriptions that would make you ask, "is that all?" but the children seemed content. Soon, Tifa wanted to talk a little about the places too. When she added in more detail, Denzel would ask Cloud if it was true. It annoyed Tifa a little. But she also thought it was all right. That's probabbly what normal families were like.

Yeah, I see. It was more of the other way around. But I can still see Tifa being upset that the boy can reach Cloud better than she can.

As to the first question, I see Tifa as more of a sisterly figure, trying her best to fill in the motherly figure that is absent in these kids lives. It's like a big sister being 'motherly' to her siblings if their parents are not there to do it. Though as already mentioned, she has failures as well.
I think, however, that between her and Cloud, she is the more 'parently' figure, while Cloud is the 'brotherly' one. Look at that scene just mentioned. After all don't little kids value the opinions of their big brothers who knows lots of kewl stuff, more than they trust the bossy mommy who tells them to be in bed by 8? :)

Anti-R

Tifa's tone, words, and actions can easily be seen as both sisterly and motherly, IMO. The way I see it, an elder sister and a mother can be similar in ways. Well, because she's not really a mother, I don't think she would act in the same exact manner that a real mother would towards her children. Secondly, it's difficult to say since I don't think all mothers act alike. Believe it or not, some give their children way more freedom than others do and may not show as much of that "protect my kids" instinct.

Yukari:

I guess I see it a little differently, most likely because my own parents are always so blunt with me. Maybe our different cultural backgrounds have something to do with it. I actually thought her bluntness combined with the firm tone she used made her seem very motherly.

Certainly, her mother-like side has already been confirmed with CoT and Reunion Files, but SE did say that her character was difficult to portray because there were so many different dimensions to it. It makes sense that some would see her as more sisterly even if I personally feel she was most like that of a mother.

I agree with Zelda on this matter. Tifa has definitely been painted as the mother figure for all of AVALANCHE. I think the only reason she acts differently than someone's biological mother is just like Zelda said-- it's a created family, not a "real family".

Anyways, it's pretty easy to speculate on this matter, because Tifa displays qualities of both mother and sister to just about everyone. But, when it comes right down to it, the only one of these two roles that has been confirmed by S-E is that of mother, so... :ermm: Let's see... there was the blurb in CoT about Tifa having "feelings a mother would have" toward Cloud (not to mention all the times she is shown scolding him like a mom, sending him to his room, etc...). Then, in -Reunion Files-, it was stated that Tifa has a maternal bond with Cloud, who is like a "big kid". Then, there is the line in -RF-, directly after the one about the maternal bond that states Tifa's character is like that of a mother, a sweetheart, and an ally in battle. Then, there was another bit about how Tifa and Aerith are both maternal, but in different ways and then related Tifa's maternal side to Cloud (a big hint that there is no chance for romance-- take the hint CloTis, plz). Then, of course, there is the fact that, in AC Barret told Denzel to "take care of mother" during the Bahamut battle. To me, this seemed to point more towards Barrifa than anything. :lol: Barret as the father-figure and Tifa as the mother-figure would be much more stable, IMO, than Cloud as the father-figure when he has already clearly displayed the fact that he is like a big kid or a rebellious teen to everyone.

So, yeah, I agree with just about everyone here. Tifa definitely acts like both mother and sister, but I would say, if I have to choose, that she is more like a mother. Nomura definitely had it right when he said that you cannot easily grasp the relationship between Cloud and Tifa. "More than friends, less than lovers" says it all to me. They are family-- either bro/sis or mom/son, but not lovers... ever.

Something interesting I was thinking about on the whole motherly vs sisterly issue -- some mothers do act all Gilmore Girls style. XD; I happen to have that kind of relationship with my mother - while she does do all the basic motherly things like nag and worry and stuff, when we joke around people have noted that we tend to act more like sisters. I guess it's because every mother has their own way of tending to a family? Some people have the hardcore mothers and some people have the marshmallow (Tifa is totally a marshmallow mom).

*Suddenly gets a mental image of Stay-Puft the Marshmallow Tifa* :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:

ZOMG SPAM... *Bans self* :o

I agree with this. When I try to understand Tifa's role, I get the impression that she wants to be a shoulder for her 'family' when they need support, but she doesn't raise them and teach them lessons like a mother would. I guess the sister role could apply to her, as an older sister who has to the foundation of the family because mom's not around.

She loves Marlene and Denzel, and tries to protect them. But as much as she loves them, she doesn't seem to love them the way a mother would. If a mother's children were kidnapped, she probably would not be as calm as Tifa was during the bedroom scene (not to say that she was calm, but rather to say that a mother would've been more distressed).

I dunno, poor Tifa's been through worse then the marshmallow jokes. Which usually hit Barret cause he dressed up like a sailor once.

But yes, it's true, some moms are more easygoing then others. Some of those easygoing moms are so because they hated how strict their own parents were and rebel against it.

And Yukari, it is true that most lovers are caretakers too, love being a selfless state of mind, but it is not at all true that all caretakers are lovers.

It's one of those "If A then B" type logical arguments.

If someone loves you romantically, then they will take care of you.

Something that takes care of you, however, does not necessarily love you romantically, or even love you at all. Note Doctors.

Don't you guys know, Tifa's role in the family is to have hawt sex with Cloud every night!

I kid, I kid!

I always saw her as a mixture of a mother and sister figure. Kind of like that older sister who takes over the absent mother's roles?

Strangely enough, I thought she was more like a mother at the beginning of FF7 than in Advent Children. But this is comming from someone who though Tifa and Barret were married when I first played the game.

I see Tifa as being a sisterly type in way she takes care of everyone...she has strong maternal/caretaking instincts, but I do see her as being more sisterly than motherly, for some reason :)

:o Doctors don't love me?


I feel so akward now. ... bot that explains so much.

:lmao:

I'm a doctor and I love you, Alan. :huggle:

But, then again, I am a Delusional Old Whore so... :no: