Square Enix
This clause contain pamperer forFinal Fantasy VIIandFinal Fantasy VII Rebirth .
Midway through1997’sFinal Fantasy VII , Cloud Strife walks up a small stairway and obtain his comrade , Aerith , kneel on a small weapons platform . She ’s lock in prayer as holy - looking luminousness streaks in through the windows around her . That calm moment present way to a shocking tragedy . Aerith looks at Cloud and calmly smiles before the camera cooking pan above her headland . A black phantasm outburst out of the visible light above her ; it ’s the nefarious Sephiroth , massive brand in towage . Before Cloud can process what ’s happening , Sephiroth plunge his sword through Aerith ’s back , obliterate her .
Square Enix
Her body go wilted as Sephiroth pulls his blade out . There ’s no long good-by . There ’s no closure . Aerith become flat .
It ’s a second that traumatized an integral multiplication of gamers . No matter how many time you playFinal Fantasy VII , the event never vary . Both Cloud and the instrumentalist controlling him are left sense like they ’ve failed their most valuable company fellow member , a healer who has expend the adventure heroically protecting everyone . It ’s a barbarous twist of circumstances , one that leaves a grief - stricken Cloud wondering if could have done anything to save her . Maybe if he ’d shown up one 2nd rather , she ’d still be active .
Rather than dancing around that moment , Final Fantasy VII Rebirthmakes that dramatic satire the focus of its write up . The remaking continuation use Aerith ’s impending fate as a fuel for an emotional , quality - driven story about heroes overcoming self - uncertainty to struggle for a skillful future . That approach come with a major — and very polarizing — change to the original ending . While it ’s sure to infuriate some purist , the grand last is the precise issue that Rebirth ’s subversive story called for .
A future without destiny
Right fromFinal Fantasy VII Rebirth ’s first chapter , it ’s clear that the subsequence is entirely build around Aerith ’s well - know fortune . That ’s made extravagantly clear right from the starting time . Its shocking first chapter sees Zack Fair , miraculously alert after escapinghisCrisis Coredeath , taste to rescue Cloud and the gang from Shinra custody . The operation goes all wrong when a chopper crashes . Zack pull Aerith out of the wreckage and have her as her body goes limp , just as it did in the originalFinal Fantasy VII . For a second , it appears that Aerith is , once again , dead .
And then , lash .
Suddenly , we ’re back with Cloud and his pals , including a very much alive Aerith , as they continue their journeying to stop Sephiroth . Everyone is carrying on as if nothing ’s happened . It ’s a maddening mo , and one thatRebirthtakes its cherubic time following up on . For a long chunk of the story , instrumentalist are left in the dark . Where ’s Zack ? Are we manage with alternative universes ? Is Aerith drained ? Those doubtfulness give ear over the peppy adventure for an torturously foresighted meter , with answer teased out through a handful of cryptic interstitial picture .
That moment creates a tension that stock through the entire adventure . Right from the start , Aerith ’s tower destruction feels like a tangible terror . Even though the party successfully killed the concept of lot inFinal Fantasy VII Remake , that does n’t mean Aerith is good . calamity can still strike at any moment . But by the same item , it ’s not too late to save her either . Despite being the most know spoiler in video game history , Rebirthsuccessfully turns Aerith ’s fate into a total mystery .
That dynamic is cardinal to accepting howRebirtheventually subverts gaming ’s most memorable sequence . Strip aside all of its wacky timeline shenanigans and you ’ll incur thatRebirthtells a ground , human story about characters who rightfully believe their futurity are unsalvageable . Despite definitively regaining their free will at the destruction ofRemake , each member of the crew has become their own worst opposition . Cloud is convinced that he ’s bound to become like Sephiroth , with any warmth succumbing to callous nonchalance throughout the tale . Barret is petrify that his overprotective hold over his girl , Marlene , will suffocate her . Everyone is dish out with some form of grief or injury , all of which have planted seeds of self - uncertainty in their question .
InRemake , the team had to get the best the God - like materialization of fate to regain their free will . In Rebirth , they have to get the better of much fiercer foes : themselves . It ’s not a low - stakes fight to tame personal anxiousness ; Aerith ’s back is on the line .
A call to action
En itinerary to the City of the Ancients , Rebirthwaits to play its full thematic hand until a key sequence with Zack . halfway through the story , we finally get a loyal idea of what ’s going on in his asides . Zack finds himself in some sort of alternate timeline apart from the human race we get it on . There , the residents of Midgar face an impending apocalypse — one whose arrival is signaled by a fractured sky . If it takes a while to to the full assemble that together , it ’s because that ’s concentrated to glean from the hoi polloi around Zack . Everyone in Midgar scarcely acknowledges the berth or seems particularly interested in save up themselves . They ’re resigned to their fate .
Zack is n’t having any of that . In a short speech , he expresses his frustrations with the fact that everyone has pass up so well . That moment uncover his part as a arrant foil to Cloud . Where our light-haired hero is brooding and hopeless , Zack is bright - eyed and determined . He has good reason to be too ; he withstand his own last against all odds . possibly his edition of Gaia is beyond saving . Maybe Midgar ’s residents are veracious to suppose they are too small-scale to prevent an apocalypse . But that does n’t stand for that everyone should just wander over and have it fall out .
Even when face with the impossible , it ’s always worth press for a better future .
Zack ’s call to activity position the cornerstone forRebirth ’s finale . In its next-to-last chapter , Aerith ’s fate begins to sense more inevitable as the populace quite literally narrows . Where most of the game takes place in astray - open biomes where musician can stretch their leg and explore freely , Chapter 13 takes the gang to the Temple of the Ancients . It ’s a farsighted and linear dungeon that call back to the restrictive level purpose ofRemake , back when characters were plump to move in one predetermined direction . Rebirthsubtly evokes that claustrophobic notion again as Aerith ’s dancing with destiny approaches . The tension make its stewing distributor point .
The arduous chapter pays off — not with a flashy hirer conflict , but with primal moments of growth for our champion . At the inwardness of the temple , each company member undergoes a tryout where they ’re forced to confront their insecurities . They see their pasts : the hoi polloi they ’ve lost , their failures , all of the excited luggage . It ’s a therapeutic moment , one where everyone is force to root for up the anchorperson holding them back . By the oddment of it , there ’s a sensation that the gang has avoid becoming like the hopeless resident of Zack ’s timeline .
With self - defeat cast away , they ’re finally ready for their nifty challenge … even if it means face another tragedy .
Schrodinger’s Aerith
No matter how intimately you know the originalFinal Fantasy VII , nothing can train you forRebirth ’s final chapter . Rather than simply heading to the City of the Ancients and watching Aerith die , Cloud finds himself in a surreal sequence that almost plays like an RPG edition ofAn American in Paris . It ’s a phantasmagoric , balletic chronological sequence whose arrival is wire two chapters earlier by a performance of Loveless , an epic play within theFinal Fantasy VIIuniverse . It ’s not just a lover service for those who ’ve always wanted to see a in full realize version of the play ; it ’s preparing participant for the theatrical finale .
Much of the grander patch is let out in the stopping point stretching , too . We learn that when something deviates from fate , like Zack surviving a discharge squad , it create a raw timeline . Sephiroth ’s ultimate plan is to reunite those fractured timeline , cutting out any variables in his ultimate pursuit . The firmly you read into it on a stark plot level , the more hole you ’ll find .
ButRebirth ’s ending is n’t meant to be take so literally ; it deal in some good old - fashioned symbolism . Before the big ending , Cloud and Aerith find oneself themselves divagate through Zack ’s world on something of a day of the month . One sequence sees Cloud going to different street trafficker and given a choice of gift to grease one’s palms for Aerith . No matter what he choose , the merchant instead offers him something wholly dissimilar . It ’s a terminal demonstration of his ultimate anxiety : that he wo n’t have a choice in Aerith ’s luck .
It ’s the last moment of self - reflection Cloud gets before he ’s forced to finally face his greatest fright . In a tense chronological sequence following the surreal sequence , he enters the City of the Ancients and finds Aerith in a familiar pose . She ’s once again pray , surrounded by holy light . Everything begins to diddle out properly on cue . Black feather go down from the sky as the tv camera whips up . A black fuzz on the ceiling quickly gains its form . Sephiroth dives down , brand in handwriting . History is about to ingeminate itself … and then , a clash of steel .
Sephiroth ’s blade does n’t thrust Aerith ; it ’s stop by Cloud ’s Buster Sword . Decades of abreaction burst out . Aerith is carry through .
That ministration is curtly - lived . In a disorderly sequence reminiscent of Michael Haneke ’s deviousFunny Games , we suddenly flash into a more familiar timeline . Aerith lies bloody , the sick result of Sephiroth ’s timeline reunion . A world - bend clangoring ensues , where Cloud contend the One Winged Angel alongside both Aerith and , eventually , Zack They overcome Sephiroth , but it ’s another timeline fake out . Sephiroth in the end leavesRebirthvictorious . Zack is send back to his domain , Aerith lies dead , and a grief - stricken Cloud is apparently left shoot between worlds , able-bodied to see the dying sky of Zack ’s timeline and Aerith ’s ghost .
It ’s a lot to take out .
What does it all mean?
LikeRemake ’s polarizing ending , the sequence is sure to antagonizeFinal Fantasy VIIpurists . A justifiably vital read could leave behind one miff with a “ multiverse ” curveball that softens gaming ’s greatest catastrophe . Square Enix does n’t wimp out on killing Aerith , but it does give players the omit closure of her 1997 decease . Rebirth has its cake and eats it too by creating a Schrodinger ’s Aerith : She ’s both saved and killed , alive and dead . There ’s even a glimmer of Bob Hope that she could be permanently rescued in part three by undoing Sephiroth ’s reunification .
Though it may be an emotionally complicate ending for fan , Rebirthcouldn’t have end any other way .
Aerith ’s pseud - death creates a multilayered conclusion for the political party ’s corporate arc , one that ’s full-bodied with nuance . Yes , Rebirthis a story of heroes overcoming self - doubt and learning that they are masters of their own fate , but it ’s realistic in its optimism too . Even if you have the tycoon to modify something , that does n’t imply you always can . Aerith ’s fatal trip to the City of the Ancients is something of a self-destruction mission . It ’s a long - standing buff theory that ’s made more expressed inRebirthwhen the Aerith in Zack ’s timeline tells Cloud that she ’s going to buy the farm . Like Zack’sCrisis Coredeath , she have intercourse she may be sacrificing herself to stop over Sephiroth in the long term . That ’s her option to make , not Cloud ’s .
We do n’t always get the chance to save the people we get laid . We can try on our best to watch over out for them , just as Barret headache that he ’s obsessively doing so for Marlene , but there ’s no way to fully protect someone in this unknown journeying of life . That can be frustrating . When I mean back to friends I ’ve lost , I still have moments where I beat myself up . Since fall behind one friend to a freak automobile stroke a few geezerhood ago , I ’ve often wonder if I could have prevented it by inviting them to hang out that twenty-four hours . Maybe that would have deplumate them away from the intersection where he was struck by a car . It ’s a total phantasy , but it still ghost me from metre to time . I ’ve had to work through that sorrow over the retiring few years , and not permit the at - time random inevitability of death terminate me from fighting for my loved ones .
Cloud undergo a similar arc inRebirth ’s finis , though it ’s one that plays out on a more supernatural scurf . The here and now where he temporarily save Aerith is n’t a physical triumph , but a genial one . In that present moment , Cloud has to the full overcome his self - defeating view of fate . For a brief moment , he sees that he ’s not incompetent of being a grinder . He has the power and decision within himself to bring through Aerith . That ’s not ultimately what befall , but it ’s not his fault , nor is it destiny . life story shakes out another way .
The empathic beauty of FinalFantasy VII Rebirth‘s subversive finish comes in how it allows Cloud to accept that Aerith ’s death is n’t a personal nonstarter . He did everything he could to economize her , get the best his own nihilism to protect someone he loves . That ’s a heroic turn that deserves to be celebrated , even if it does n’t keep her murder . Life pass on in the backwash of catastrophe ; you ca n’t just terminate fighting .
At the end of the dangerous undertaking , there ’s a rekindle decision in the grief - stricken Cloud . He is reborn . He ’s more motivated than ever to get the better of Sephiroth , even if he ’s left haunted by Aerith . He wo n’t become like the sad saps of Midgar , wait for the inevitable apocalypse to wipe them all away . Cloud is run to press for a better futurity and the people he loves right down to his last breath , even if the odds seem impossible . He have it away he ’s able of it ; he ’s find out his blade change history just long enough to accept he has the top executive .
Life is n’t delineate by our retiring struggle . It ’s how you rise to cope with the next challenge that matter .
Final Fantasy VII Rebirthis out now on PlayStation 5 .
