7 Reasons Why Final Fantasy 7’s Cloud Should Bite The Bullet And Get With Our Best Girl, Aerith
Final Fantasy 7 is arguably the biggest contender for romantic content in the Final Fantasy series. Cloud, our spiky-haired and broodingly jaded protagonist, has his choice between his buxom childhood sweetheart, Tifa, and Aerith, the fascinating flower girl he meets on the streets of Sector 8 after blowing his first Mako reactor sky high.
The debate over who Cloud should have ended up with is age-old by this point, and because all the characters are so well-written, there is no definitive answer. Cloud could quite happily end up with either of these brilliant women, and that narrative will have a satisfactory ending. That said, it’s not entirely equal when taking into consideration what both girls actually do for Cloud, and how he reacts to them, both in the original 1997 release of Final Fantasy 7 and the two new remake games.
So why is Aerith Gainborough the perfect fit for Cloud? Why, when both Tifa and Aerith are so well suited for Mr Grumpy-Pants, does Aerith nudge out in front in the hearts of many? Below, you’ll find 7 very hard-to-argue reasons why Aerith should have won the heart of her handsome prince, or why Cloud should have gotten off of his SOLDIER-tainted butt to do something about it.
#1: Aerith Pushes Cloud’s Boundaries
Does that sound like a red flag to you? In this case, it shouldn’t. The Cloud that we are presented with at the beginning of Final Fantasy 7 is an acerbic shut-off with a hyper-independence problem born of being burnt too much as a younger man. Poor Tifa, who has grown up with Cloud and knows about his particular ticks and triggers, for the most part, is reluctant to push into his space when Cloud seems to be having a tough time because she’s afraid of causing him more damage. It’s a fair and kind response to that kind of trauma that speaks to the empathy of Tifa’s character.
Aerith’s response, however, is to challenge Cloud’s prickling behaviours to make him confront his demons despite how that might hurt him. She’s willing to take the risk to help him to heal. There is a beautiful scene in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake that shows Aerith grabbing onto Cloud’s hand to anchor him during one of his SOLDIER memory attacks. This same scene shows Tifa backing off to give Cloud the space to process, and though Cloud looks at Tifa, it’s Aerith’s hand in his that ultimately anchors him to his reality.
Aerith’s presence and her attitude to Cloud and the sensitivity of his various problems give him a support beam that he otherwise lacks. By stepping forward to meet him in his most vulnerable moments, she invites him to open the doors that he closed, to be vulnerable in a space that’s safe for him, and she shows him that he isn’t going to scare off people who will become potentially important by being damaged. She gives him someone to rely on in a way that he’s never had before, and the way that Cloud then begins to evolve in relation to this care is startlingly dynamic.
#2: Aerith Challenges Cloud’s Perception Of The World
It’s a well-known fact that the slums of Final Fantasy 7’s Midgar aren’t exactly what you would call ‘red carpet living’. With the very air polluted to the point of shortening lives, most of the residents of the slums are looking for ways to get out, to improve their standing enough to either make it up on the plate, or get the Hell out of Do-I mean, Midgar. Aerith shares a little sadness in regards to her misfortunes, but for the most part, she retains a chipper attitude, a gratitude for being alive in this moment, which makes Cloud question his own broodiness as they travel together.
In short terms, she cheers him up and pulls him out of his own hopelessness in a way no other character manages, and to see the way he responds to that with a fair amount of growing awe is, quite frankly, adorable. She becomes his light in a world that has seemed, even with Tifa at his side, too dark.
Not just this, but she is the one to get him to pay attention to the state of the planet. Where Barrett’s heartfelt speech about the planet crying out in pain resulted in Cloud asking him to seek help in the most satisfying burn in Final Fantasy history, when Aerith is found speaking to the flowers, Cloud takes them into account, considers their life, and their life-force as well as his own place in the world with regards to his own involvement in SOLDIER and what may be in store in the future for him and for the planet as a whole.
#3: Cloud’s Body Language Is Different With Aerith
Throughout the course of the Final Fantasy 7 narrative as a whole, Cloud changes how he acts with everyone. He becomes more open, he turns towards them when they speak, and he maintains eye contact for longer in a way that shows he is starting to accept important people back into his life, but the way his body language changes with Aerith in particular is dramatic and incredibly telling.
To start with, he’s not nearly as stand-offish with her as he is with Tifa. There could be a myriad of reasons for this, including the fact that Aerith doesn’t have a predisposition to how he was as a child. With his memories gone, Cloud often feels like he has to live up to Tifa’s expectations of the boy he knew without being able to comprehend what those expectations were.
That drives a notable wedge between them. It makes his skin prickle when they touch because she is expecting to touch someone else. With Aerith, there is no such preconceived notion; Cloud is free to set his own precedent with her, or her with him, as the natural back and forth goes.
Cloud tends to reward her boldness in initiating contact rather than shunning her as Tifa seems to expect whenever physical contact is on the table. The result is him learning to high-five slowly over their journey together, holding hands, and reaching for Aerith in certain physical situations.
#There’s a wonderful scene that supports this in the basement of Don Corneo’s mansion, where Cloud holds Aerith to steady her, asking if she’s okay after falling like that. The same courtesy is not extended to Tifa despite Cloud essentially taking himself through the Black Market to find her and free her. His head, through Aerith’s charms and her effortless grace and beauty, has been turned.
To conclude this little analysis of Cloud’s body language and how it is particularly receptive to Aerith, I leave you with this single statement: Aerith’s ultimate red dress outside of Don Corneo’s mansion made Cloud’s jaw drop. Thank you.
#4: Aerith Wants Cloud, Not A Zack Clone
The problem of Zack Fair ultimately puts a spanner in the works of Cloud and Aerith’s romance. Aerith goes so far as to say that Zack was her first love, and very interestingly, Cloud ends up acting quite jealous.
When the pair speaks about Zack a second time in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Cloud actually goes so far as to ask if Aerith still loves him. She looks at Cloud sadly and says, ‘Wow, you actually went there,’ which is a complicated response in and of itself, showing how Aerith’s feelings are changing, and how she is starting to move on from that failed relationship because of Cloud’s presence in her life. Whether or not Cloud can read that, being the endearing idiot that he is, is debatable.
Aerith makes a point of grounding Cloud in his sense of self throughout the entire game. In this way, she showcases a flat character arc, which is defined by a character that has one of the universal truths of the world and is able to change the world around them using that truth. When Cloud starts to slide into Sephiroth’s odd puppeteering, Aerith gives him a sense of purpose. When Aerith herself gives Cloud the idea that he is like Zack Fair, she is the one to tell Cloud that he is not that person, that he is Cloud, and that is okay.
Because right now, I wanna be with you.
#5: Cloud Doesn’t Deny Himself With Aerith
Upon first hearing about Tifa when Aerith and Cloud first meet in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Aerith’s immediate response is to ask if Cloud and Tifa are a thing. Our best girl does not want to step on someone else’s shoes, thank you, and she will be withdrawing her interest if there is already an established relationship.
Cloud’s immediate response is to say: ‘no’ with a little finite snap in his tone, but when Tifa asks the question about Cloud and Aerith in the sewers beneath the mansion, there is hesitance, there is palpable indecision, there is very clear consideration that makes Tifa kind of mopey for the rest of this section.
This lack of denial is taken one step further when Cloud and Aerith are standing in the flower field towards the end of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake. She says, in all her usual brash glory: ‘You can’t fall in love with me’, to which Cloud responds with a question that we think made the entire world take a collective breath:
Don’t I get a say in all this?
If that is not more or less a flat-out confirmation of romantic feelings, then we don’t know what is.
#6: Cloud Tries To Help Aerith Change Too
Cloud’s demeanor with both Aerith and Tifa changes significantly over the course of Final Fantasy 7. With Tifa, he becomes softer. He becomes more willing to discuss their shared past, to open himself up to the memories he’s lost and the trauma that she’s suffered alone as a result. When he loses Aerith, Tifa is a stunning support for him.
With Aerith, Cloud genuinely becomes a more active protagonist. As his own insecurities wane due to her encouragement, it gives room for her to reward him for his increasing openness and vulnerability by showing her own. She tells him, in a scene on the beach in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, that she harbors dark and ugly thoughts that scare her sometimes. Cloud immediately jumps in with an expression on his face that reads: ‘This is my time’, to tell her to let those dark and ugly thoughts be dark and ugly. He tells her that having those thoughts doesn’t make her dark and ugly, and he makes it clear that she very much isn’t like that.
Cloud is essentially able to teach Aerith her own lesson, to live in the present, and that there is ‘no need to worry about the future until it comes’. In this way, he is able to give back to her the same thing that she gave him, and this makes their partnership equal and healthy. The pair of them bring out the best in each other, each of them feeling needed and feeling free to need in return, a true relationship built on the concept of equal give and take.
#7: Aerith’s Banter Makes Cloud Happy
Both Tifa and Aerith have some truly stunning emotional moments throughout both games, but when it comes to the chemistry of back-and-forth banter, Aerith comes out on top in terms of bringing Cloud out of his shell and matching his level of sass. One of the best scenes to illustrate this is during the Chocobo racing scene in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, when Aerith starts a mock-up commentary about the expectations of the race’s outcome, and Cloud picks it up with a smile, saying it’s based on breeding and plumage.
Similar moments are sprinkled throughout the story of Aerith being playful and then Cloud engaging to amuse both her and himself. At one point, Aerith promises that she’ll kick Cloud’s ass in combat, and Cloud responds by lightly ribbing her. This sort of exchange isn’t seen so much between Cloud and Tifa.
Their interactions, even during their most romantic runs, stay more in line with more stoic declarations, and the pair supports each other as they try to cope with the stressors of the story. Aerith’s light-hearted banter pulls Cloud out of that, and subsequently out of himself, to support the notion of finding out who he really is.
Nobody else is offered the privilege of engaging with Cloud in this way. Though he becomes more open with everyone and more willing to interact, he does so with an awkward sort of air that he retains with everyone but Aerith. With her, his responses are quick and often match her outlandish wit; with others, he responds slowly and carefully, even if he is having a purely positive interaction.
A Doomed Romance
Even if you’re able to play the game so that Cloud is more or less officially dating Aerith, her fate is ultimately sealed, and, judging by some of the scenes within the two games, she already knows that. As Sephiroth pierces her back with the Masamune, Aerith tells Cloud in her final moments that he’s okay. She makes him admit to both her and himself that he’s got this, and that the tools that she has given him to stand tall as himself, not as Zack, not as Sephiroth’s puppet, are enough to make all the difference.
Both Aerith and Tifa love Cloud for who he really is throughout the game, but nobody brings that home as hard as Aerith. Just as she encourages her flowers to grow, so she nurtures Cloud, helping him to open up and change for the better so that he, then, can do the same for her when it matters.
The pair are simply good for each other, and as we sit screaming at our screens for him to bite the bullet and get with our best girl, at least we can rest safe in the knowledge that there is an option in the remake games that allows us to see how their teased romance would play out before her death, rather than have it be entirely ambiguous as it was in the original game.
