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ashkirynFor the record, I'll be calling her 'Aerith', as opposed to 'Aeris', from here on out, because I was introduced to her through Kingdom Hearts, and that's what they called her. Plus, they also call her that in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, which I've actually beaten, which is more than I've been able to do for Final Fantasy VII itself (*shakes fist at PS3*). *shrugs*
Just like there was a reason for Rarity being #1 on this Inspirational Character list, there's a reason why Aerith is #2. A while ago, I filled out a meme on Deviant Art, and one of the questions asked me for a character that I wanted to be like. This kind of threw me, as I'd never really thought about that before---sure, I know and recognize my fictional soul twins (Zexion and Terra from Kingdom Hearts in specific, but also Raistlin Majere from Dragonlance), but I'm already like them, and in the case of Raistlin, who I feel is like an extreme version of me, I really don't want to become even more like him. So, I had to think. Who would I want to be more like, who do I think is really admirable and inspiring?
My answer is, obviously, Aerith Gainsborough.
When I was a kid, I only ever had three video game systems, and they were the only ones I had up until about three years ago: a Nintendo 64 passed down from my older brother Jason, a yellow Gameboy Color, and a Gamecube that my parents saved up to buy for me and Lys one Christmas. As such, I had absolutely no experience with any Playstation or with any other video games/systems until after I'd graduated high school. So basically what I'm saying is that I'm not one of those people who played this game when it first came out and I didn't have my childhood scarred by Aerith's iconic and infamous death.
Nope, I first encountered Aerith, as I mentioned above, when I became obsessed with Kingdom Hearts, that summer after I graduated high school and before I left for my freshmen year of college. And while I loved Mandy Moore voicing KH1 Aerith, and passionately hated her KH2 voice actress (oh Mandy Moore, why did you leave us?!), I otherwise didn't have much to do with her (or honestly, with hardly any of the Final Fantasy characters, with the exceptions of 'Leon' (whom I think of as quite different from Squall anyway) and Auron) up until a year ago. It wasn't even me playing Crisis Core that made me love her as much as I do (though she is quite adorable in the game), and it definitely wasn't Advent Children. No, it was me discovering her original Final Fantasy VII self that sealed the deal.
See, there's this Thing about Aerith, that's come to annoy me a great deal. There tend to be huge differences between her fanon and canon characterizations. And unfortunately, with each new appearance by Aerith, Square seems to be taking more and more lead from that fanon characterization, and ignoring a majority of the things that, in my opinion, make her awesome.
Fanon!Aerith is essentially a flanderization of canon!Aerith, the same way that Cloud Strife's emo keeps getting more and more flanderized. Fanon!Aerith is this pure, virginal saint, that belongs to Zack/Cloud, and who is so child-like and pure that she can only heal, and not actually dirty her hands with the rest of them or hurt a fly, and is basically the fucked up Final Fantasy version of Jesus, or something.
In short, very different from canon!Aerith.
I really, really hate it when people constantly go on and on about Tifa's badassery, and then bash Aerith, or else completely ignore the fact that Aerith is just as badass as Tifa; indeed a lot of the traits people assign to Tifa actually fit Aerith better.
(Note, lest the Tifa fans find this and bitch me out: I'm not saying that Tifa isn't a badass, or undeserving of the love that she gets. She is badass, and she's a very admirable character. It's just different from Aerith, and I don't like that Aerith's badassery is more consistently ignored in favor of Tifa. Okay? Okay.)
Canon!Aerith, the Aerith that I fell in love with, is plucky, fierce, flirty, mischievous (she seems to enjoy giving her Turk watchers the run around when the fancy takes her), pulls her weight just as much as any party member (and more than some, really), and is the one who came up with the idea of taking Cloud to a bunch of transvestites and cross-dressing him in order to get into Don Corneo's mansion to rescue Tifa, and then she proceeds to to threaten to rip off the Mafia don's balls. Canon!Aerith is street smart and savvy, who flirts with strangers to sell her flowers, and the kind of person who would lead you around by the nose with a smile on her face, and is a strong, independent woman that doesn't let heartbreak slow her down, optimistic, and she just so happens to like the color pink, gardening, and she talks to the Planet. Along with Tifa, she's actually a brilliant subversion of the usual trope: her looks and all of her hobbies make Aerith seem like she'd be a girly girl, but in personality she's actually a tomboy; busty, martial artist Tifa that runs a bar would seem like a tomboy, but she's actually a motherly girly girl.
So, okay, Kiryn, you love Aerith forever and ever. But why do you consider her so inspirational that you would put her in the #2 spot, and that you would want to be like her just about above every other character?
It's because her life fucking sucks. Her father is murdered when she's only twenty days old, and she and her mother are then taken captive by Hojo (aka, a complete fucking monster, and my second least favorite character of all time), who then performs horrific experiments on them for the next seven years. When her mother managed to escape with Aerith, she only made it to the train station before dying, leaving Aerith to be adopted by Elmyra Gainsborough. Aerith isn't human, she's now the last Cetra (and why Hojo killed her father and wanted to experiment on her and her mother, the true last Cetra (as Aerith's father was human, thus making Aerith half-Cetra, half-human)), causing the ShinRa Power Company to basically stalk her and try to manipulate her into coming back into their clutches. She continues refusing, and lives a life of poverty in the Slums. Then, her first love, Zack Fair, ends up getting captured by Hojo and brutally experimented upon for four years, and he's gunned down by an entire army after he escapes and tries to get back to her; but Aerith doesn't know any of that, and instead is forced to believe that Zack, who was something of a playboy, just ran off and left her. And her falling in with Cloud and Company ends up getting her murdered by Sephiroth.
I repeat, Aerith's life is shitty. But through it all, she never loses that optimism of hers. Aerith rolls with the punches, and doesn't let the numerous heartbreaks of her life take all of the joy out of it. And then there's the fact that she's managed to find joy in her life at all---but she does. Aerith's the kind of person who appreciates the little things in life, things as simple as dirt and grass and flowers. And you wouldn't expect, growing up as she did, that she'd end up as headstrong as she is---look at how Cloud turned out. But she did. And in the end, it's Aerith's prayer that saves their Planet from being obliterated.
(So, yes, she is kind of like a fucked up Jesus. AERITH DIED FOR OUR SINS.)
In some ways, it's really Aerith that's the hero of the Final Fantasy VII---and she manages to continuously save everyone long after her own death. When people die in FFVII, they're supposed to be absorbed into the Lifestream---Aerith is one of only two people (the other being Sephiroth, obviously) who has enough will power and determination to continue existing as her own self within it.
That optimism, that determination to continue living and enjoying life no matter what sucker punches it throws at her, is what I find to be so inspiring about Aerith. That she takes so many expectations and turns them on end by being the exact opposite is just more icing on the cake of awesomeness, and it's a big part of why Aerith Gainsborough is my favorite Final Fantasy girl of all time, and why she's #2 on my list.
o - o - o
Cloud Strife: But...I let you die.
Aerith Gainsborough: Dilly-dally, shilly-shally. Isn't it time you do the forgiving?
- Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
o - o - o
Just like there was a reason for Rarity being #1 on this Inspirational Character list, there's a reason why Aerith is #2. A while ago, I filled out a meme on Deviant Art, and one of the questions asked me for a character that I wanted to be like. This kind of threw me, as I'd never really thought about that before---sure, I know and recognize my fictional soul twins (Zexion and Terra from Kingdom Hearts in specific, but also Raistlin Majere from Dragonlance), but I'm already like them, and in the case of Raistlin, who I feel is like an extreme version of me, I really don't want to become even more like him. So, I had to think. Who would I want to be more like, who do I think is really admirable and inspiring?
My answer is, obviously, Aerith Gainsborough.
When I was a kid, I only ever had three video game systems, and they were the only ones I had up until about three years ago: a Nintendo 64 passed down from my older brother Jason, a yellow Gameboy Color, and a Gamecube that my parents saved up to buy for me and Lys one Christmas. As such, I had absolutely no experience with any Playstation or with any other video games/systems until after I'd graduated high school. So basically what I'm saying is that I'm not one of those people who played this game when it first came out and I didn't have my childhood scarred by Aerith's iconic and infamous death.
Nope, I first encountered Aerith, as I mentioned above, when I became obsessed with Kingdom Hearts, that summer after I graduated high school and before I left for my freshmen year of college. And while I loved Mandy Moore voicing KH1 Aerith, and passionately hated her KH2 voice actress (oh Mandy Moore, why did you leave us?!), I otherwise didn't have much to do with her (or honestly, with hardly any of the Final Fantasy characters, with the exceptions of 'Leon' (whom I think of as quite different from Squall anyway) and Auron) up until a year ago. It wasn't even me playing Crisis Core that made me love her as much as I do (though she is quite adorable in the game), and it definitely wasn't Advent Children. No, it was me discovering her original Final Fantasy VII self that sealed the deal.
See, there's this Thing about Aerith, that's come to annoy me a great deal. There tend to be huge differences between her fanon and canon characterizations. And unfortunately, with each new appearance by Aerith, Square seems to be taking more and more lead from that fanon characterization, and ignoring a majority of the things that, in my opinion, make her awesome.
Fanon!Aerith is essentially a flanderization of canon!Aerith, the same way that Cloud Strife's emo keeps getting more and more flanderized. Fanon!Aerith is this pure, virginal saint, that belongs to Zack/Cloud, and who is so child-like and pure that she can only heal, and not actually dirty her hands with the rest of them or hurt a fly, and is basically the fucked up Final Fantasy version of Jesus, or something.
In short, very different from canon!Aerith.
I really, really hate it when people constantly go on and on about Tifa's badassery, and then bash Aerith, or else completely ignore the fact that Aerith is just as badass as Tifa; indeed a lot of the traits people assign to Tifa actually fit Aerith better.
(Note, lest the Tifa fans find this and bitch me out: I'm not saying that Tifa isn't a badass, or undeserving of the love that she gets. She is badass, and she's a very admirable character. It's just different from Aerith, and I don't like that Aerith's badassery is more consistently ignored in favor of Tifa. Okay? Okay.)
Canon!Aerith, the Aerith that I fell in love with, is plucky, fierce, flirty, mischievous (she seems to enjoy giving her Turk watchers the run around when the fancy takes her), pulls her weight just as much as any party member (and more than some, really), and is the one who came up with the idea of taking Cloud to a bunch of transvestites and cross-dressing him in order to get into Don Corneo's mansion to rescue Tifa, and then she proceeds to to threaten to rip off the Mafia don's balls. Canon!Aerith is street smart and savvy, who flirts with strangers to sell her flowers, and the kind of person who would lead you around by the nose with a smile on her face, and is a strong, independent woman that doesn't let heartbreak slow her down, optimistic, and she just so happens to like the color pink, gardening, and she talks to the Planet. Along with Tifa, she's actually a brilliant subversion of the usual trope: her looks and all of her hobbies make Aerith seem like she'd be a girly girl, but in personality she's actually a tomboy; busty, martial artist Tifa that runs a bar would seem like a tomboy, but she's actually a motherly girly girl.
So, okay, Kiryn, you love Aerith forever and ever. But why do you consider her so inspirational that you would put her in the #2 spot, and that you would want to be like her just about above every other character?
It's because her life fucking sucks. Her father is murdered when she's only twenty days old, and she and her mother are then taken captive by Hojo (aka, a complete fucking monster, and my second least favorite character of all time), who then performs horrific experiments on them for the next seven years. When her mother managed to escape with Aerith, she only made it to the train station before dying, leaving Aerith to be adopted by Elmyra Gainsborough. Aerith isn't human, she's now the last Cetra (and why Hojo killed her father and wanted to experiment on her and her mother, the true last Cetra (as Aerith's father was human, thus making Aerith half-Cetra, half-human)), causing the ShinRa Power Company to basically stalk her and try to manipulate her into coming back into their clutches. She continues refusing, and lives a life of poverty in the Slums. Then, her first love, Zack Fair, ends up getting captured by Hojo and brutally experimented upon for four years, and he's gunned down by an entire army after he escapes and tries to get back to her; but Aerith doesn't know any of that, and instead is forced to believe that Zack, who was something of a playboy, just ran off and left her. And her falling in with Cloud and Company ends up getting her murdered by Sephiroth.
I repeat, Aerith's life is shitty. But through it all, she never loses that optimism of hers. Aerith rolls with the punches, and doesn't let the numerous heartbreaks of her life take all of the joy out of it. And then there's the fact that she's managed to find joy in her life at all---but she does. Aerith's the kind of person who appreciates the little things in life, things as simple as dirt and grass and flowers. And you wouldn't expect, growing up as she did, that she'd end up as headstrong as she is---look at how Cloud turned out. But she did. And in the end, it's Aerith's prayer that saves their Planet from being obliterated.
(So, yes, she is kind of like a fucked up Jesus. AERITH DIED FOR OUR SINS.)
In some ways, it's really Aerith that's the hero of the Final Fantasy VII---and she manages to continuously save everyone long after her own death. When people die in FFVII, they're supposed to be absorbed into the Lifestream---Aerith is one of only two people (the other being Sephiroth, obviously) who has enough will power and determination to continue existing as her own self within it.
That optimism, that determination to continue living and enjoying life no matter what sucker punches it throws at her, is what I find to be so inspiring about Aerith. That she takes so many expectations and turns them on end by being the exact opposite is just more icing on the cake of awesomeness, and it's a big part of why Aerith Gainsborough is my favorite Final Fantasy girl of all time, and why she's #2 on my list.
o - o - o
Cloud Strife: But...I let you die.
Aerith Gainsborough: Dilly-dally, shilly-shally. Isn't it time you do the forgiving?
- Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
o - o - o
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-07 03:38 am (UTC)Lol, she was already dead in Advent Children where I first saw her.
I love how you point out the way Tifa's & Aeris's actual personalities are the opposite of their imagery. :D
*cries for Zack and Zack/Aeris*
*cries some more*
Ugh, literary Christ figures annoy me, because everyone who tries to write them never has any clue what they're talking about. (Aslan doesn't count even though he works just fine, because he's like a more direct representation of Jesus Christ rather than a "literary Christ figure.") Aeris doesn't work, Ender doesn't work, Simon doesn't work, Gandalf doesn't work, Sailor Freaking Moon will NOT EVER WORK, EVER; the only true Jesus-like character I've ever seen was actually never intended to be a Christ figure at all, and it's Himura Kenshin. I could write an essay on all the Christian parallels in RuroKen, and poor Watsuki Nobuhiro would stare at me like I'm a nutcase. ^^;
Anyway. Yeah, I'd agree that Aeris is the true hero of FF7. And you make a good point about her and Seph (and Zack, and possibly Angeal) still keeping themselves together in the Lifestream. Why Waist Length? is what got me mildly shipping Seph/Aeris, their interaction in the Lifestream made me laugh. ^^;
And I do love characters who are determined to enjoy life even when it sucks. :) That's such an admirable quality, and so difficult to pull off. (I mean, not difficult to write it, but difficult for the character to do.)
I like how you're including canon quotes at the bottom!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-08 05:34 am (UTC)*joins in the weeping*
Yeah...who's Simon, though? 'Cause the one that's coming to my mind is the one that they kill in "Lord of the Flies", which I suppose I could see....but, I'm with you...for probably a different reason, but I'm there. :P
It seriously is. And now that I've got depression, I've been appreciating characters like Aerith more than ever.
Anyway, thanks for commenting, and I'm glad! :)