This is part of an ongoing series about my favorite memories
from video games. You can find the original list and table of contents in last
month's post or by clicking here. Please be aware that these posts are going to be full
of spoilers which may ruin the impact of these events on anyone who wishes
to experience them on their own in the future.
#2 - The Death of Aerith Gainsborough
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| Aerith's face is the first and last thing you see in the game (excluding the epilogue). |
So after a terrible setback against their primary adversary,
Sephiroth, regarding an object capable of destroying the entire planet, the party's morale hits an all-time low. Without the consent of her
companions, Aerith sets off on her own to commune with the planet and stop
Sephiroth from using this ultimate magic to destroy the world. Once they
realize she’s gone, the party chases after her and the trail leads them to an
ancient Cetra ruin, called the Forgotten City. Aerith is found praying upon a dais.
As Cloud approaches she looks up to him and smiles, which is the exact moment
Sephiroth descends from somewhere high above and impales her on the end of his
sword. The moment is shocking and abrupt to say the least.
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| This is not what I was expecting, right then. |
Aerith was not the first “Final Fantasy” character to meet
an untimely end. Even in North America, Tellah from Final Fantasy IV gave his life to avenge
his daughter, and Shadow from Final Fantasy VI can meet an unpleasant
demise if the player isn’t careful. These deaths are more like blazes of glory,
however. They are dramatic, significant and meaningful. Aerith’s death feels arbitrary
and meaningless. It catches the player completely off-guard, and leaves the desperate desire for some way to reverse this tragedy. It made me
despise Sephiroth and really wish to hunt him down and hold him responsible for these actions. That's one aspect of
my long dissertation about what makes Sephiroth a very compelling villain that
I won’t get into in this article. He takes something precious away, and it isn’t
coming back.
So I asked myself when I started this project, “What makes Aerith different?” I considered it may be due to the game being the first to leave behind 2D sprite-based characters for 3D models thereby giving the player a more meaningful connection to the character as they become more human. Ultimately, I don’t believe that to be true. I think what is really powerful about Aerith’s death is the scope and tone described above. First, she’s likeable. Her shortcomings are possibly being “too kind” or “too peaceful.” That ties into the second factor, she’s a civilian. The girl was selling flowers on the street. She wasn’t fighting a crusade against Shinra, or trained to battle in any way. She was just pulled into this conflict almost against her will. Then finally, she’s taken away in one of the most unconventional means possible in dramatic storytelling – very little drama. In the short blink of an eye, she goes from being happy to be reunited with her teammates to permanently lost. Because they make her likeable and innocent, for the player who has gotten to know her, the scene feels closer to a real death than any other death scene in a video game that I’ve played.
So I asked myself when I started this project, “What makes Aerith different?” I considered it may be due to the game being the first to leave behind 2D sprite-based characters for 3D models thereby giving the player a more meaningful connection to the character as they become more human. Ultimately, I don’t believe that to be true. I think what is really powerful about Aerith’s death is the scope and tone described above. First, she’s likeable. Her shortcomings are possibly being “too kind” or “too peaceful.” That ties into the second factor, she’s a civilian. The girl was selling flowers on the street. She wasn’t fighting a crusade against Shinra, or trained to battle in any way. She was just pulled into this conflict almost against her will. Then finally, she’s taken away in one of the most unconventional means possible in dramatic storytelling – very little drama. In the short blink of an eye, she goes from being happy to be reunited with her teammates to permanently lost. Because they make her likeable and innocent, for the player who has gotten to know her, the scene feels closer to a real death than any other death scene in a video game that I’ve played.
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| Return to the Lifestream |
It's interesting to see that the first time I watched Aerith die, I briefly passed
through the iconic stages of grief. Of course, my first natural reaction was shock and disbelief. I could not believe this was happening to Aerith of all
possible characters. As I’ve said, she is the most innocent of the whole lot. I
thought she would live, or we could bring her back. I was in that denial for most of the rest of the
game. It was a fiction, a fantasy, these things weren’t outside the realm of
possibility. I was so extremely angry
at Sephiroth. I wanted to kill him. It’s weird to think about, because over
time I really love him as a fictional character, in part because he was able to
elicit such strong emotions, but at the time I just wanted his head. It was
incredibly depressing as I
approached the final dungeon and realized there was either no way to bring her
back, or I simply messed up and couldn’t find the way. Although this is perhaps
a stretch of the bargaining stage, I
spent a great deal of time looking into the rampant rumors that she could be brought
back, assessing and analyzing every single aspect of every rumor to try and fix
what was wrong with the game. Eventually (and I mean years later) I came to
understand how important it was to the story that she die and stay dead. Though
different than acceptance in true
grieving, I understood that she was part of something much greater, and ultimately
more meaningful than I’d given credit in the past. I could not only accept that
she dies, but agree that from a literary standpoint it was the best possible
way to have a game player experience all these complex emotions. I am over
analyzing all this, but it’s safe to say no other video game, television, or
movie death has ever pushed me this close to real grief.
As I turned these things over in my head, I found this quote on Wikipedia regarding Aerith from one of the men who worked on the story of Final Fantasy VII which mirrors my thoughts.
As I turned these things over in my head, I found this quote on Wikipedia regarding Aerith from one of the men who worked on the story of Final Fantasy VII which mirrors my thoughts.
“People die of disease and accident. Death comes suddenly and there is no notion of good or bad. It leaves, not a dramatic feeling but a great emptiness. When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think ‘If I had known this was coming, I would have done things differently.’”
–Yoshinori Kitase, Edge, May 2003
When you look to television, Hollywood movies, and video
games for portrayals of death you are mostly surrounded with warm fuzzy
feelings that the heroes died for a good reason, or the villains died because
they deserved it. Although it’s great for marketing to have everyone walk away from your product feeling fulfilled and justified, every now and then a scene that resonates with
real life will really stick with people. So I think, for me particularly,
Aerith’s death was one of the first times I was confronted with a glimpse of
the reality of death. I had never lost anyone I was especially close to at the
time, though even at seventeen I’d known a few people here and there who just
disappeared without warning. Because they weren’t terribly close to me, though,
I didn’t think much about mortality. That’s why I think this scene hit me so hard.
It really forces it right in my face. It’s not something I can ignore, or walk
away from, or pretend it doesn’t bother me. It’s a powerful scene.
The last thing I’d touch on is the music of this scene. There is no music leading up to Aerith’s death. It’s eerily quiet for a game full of wonderful music. It’s not until a shining white marble drops from her hair and touches on the dais that music starts. The white marble she’s been wearing was given to her by her mother (and turns out to be pretty important, which explains why Sephiroth wanted to kill Aerith). As this marble bounces down the dias and drops into the water below, the song called “Aerith’s Theme” begins to play. Like Aerith herself, the piece is soft, peaceful and harmonious. The music plays through the ensuing boss fight (a monster left behind by Sephiroth) and through Aerith’s burial in the waters of the Forgotten City. Although it never took on this aspect previously, when its playing now it seems infinitely sadder, although nothing in the music itself has changed. The song is included in Theatrhythm Final Fantasy and during it you are treated? to the full scene of Aerith dying and being returned to the planet. It’s very distracting and I try not to focus on it, but as a result I can’t seem to do well in that song. As I’ve mentioned many times already, music has a way of reconnecting me to moments in video games and this is no different. I’m often fighting tears while trying to focus on keeping the rhythm going. Two versions of "Aerith's Theme" are included in my widget today.
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| This song continues to thwart my efforts. |
This moment is easily my #1 moment in terms of most
emotional, as opposed to strictly memorable. The scene is shocking and
unbelievable sad, which is a combination not often found in video game stories.
It has stuck with me for fifteen years, and still manages to get me all choked
up when I’m confronted with the scene or the music. I do believe this kind of
attachment to characters is unique to the video game medium, because unlike
characters in a book or in a film which you watch and (hopefully) relate to,
characters in a video game are an extension of you. They succeed as you
succeed. You grow with them. It’s can be a very rewarding, emotional
experience, depending on how well the story and characters are portrayed. I would never begin to say that the death of Aerith is
anything close to the pain we feel when someone we truly know and love, but
what I am saying is that for a piece of literature the loss of Aerith has left
a considerable, and unique emptiness in my heart that is unlike any other
emotional wound I’ve ever received from a novel, film, or game.
-TOP
@TOPGamingBlog
Related Links
TOP Ten Memorable Moments
The scene on YouTube - http://youtu.be/I8hyffZ49Ho
