What did Squall mean about dead people being refered to in past tense?
At Galbadia Garden, Squall's team are told that (SPOILER)Seifer has been executed. They all talk about him, already in past tense because he's dead, and we tend to refer people who have died in past tense. Squall thinks about how people would do this with him, if he died, and says he doesn't want people to talk about him in past tense.
Now, for sometime, I took this to mean that he felt that people shouldn't be referred to in past tense, when they died, like saying he was a kind person as opposed to he is a kind person - I took it to mean that it was bad to say was here, like being dead stopped the person being kind, or stopped them being whatever sexuality they were or something. Basically, I found it a bad thing to talk about dead people in past tense, so I stopped, and referred to them in present tense.
However, I was involved in a disagreement with someone, quite a while ago, about this, and this person told me that it was wrong for me (or, if I remember correctly; "stupid of me") to refer to dead people in present tense, as no one does this, and I was quick to mention FFVIII, but the end result is was that it is standard or normal behavior to refer to them in past tense.
So what did Squall mean by not wanting to be referred to in past tense? Was it what I thought, or was it the fact that when someone's dead you can say what you want about them, at least in Squall's fears, because he thought something about "people saying whatever they want"? Please answer, because I'd like to know if I've been basing my values on the wrong thing, and whether I'm wrong to refer to dead people in present tense.
