The Aerith effect

[Sephiroth]

"Wants to meet him" indicates that she is not in love with him. She senses the massive delusion that he's hiding under, she knows that the Zack persona he's presenting is not the real Cloud. You don't love someone you don't know.

She's interested in the real Cloud, sure, but what sort of interest? I don't think it's romantic, because the real Cloud is a mystery to her. Part of her is just the friendly, nice, outgoing person she is, but I think most of her feelings are more motherly. She's worried about the poor child with the skinned knee (or, in this case, the shattered mind).

You're missing a few steps. It is not just Hate-Not interested-Interested and Friend Zone-Romantic Interest/Love. There are many levels between them, Before you love someone there already needs to be a great interest in this person. And Aerith does have this interest, she is climbing up the ladder of the last two mentioned aspects and is not just a true friend you can always count on (which is also between the two last aspects, since "Friend Zone" does not need to mean anything about a true friendship, normally it does not when it comes to really, really important and personal issues). "I want to find/meet you." "But I'm here." "No ... what I mean ... I want to find/meet you." Aerith really is personally interested in Cloud. Of course she is a nice girl who wants to help as many people as possible but the relationship with Cloud is something completely different and all those short dialogues show it, even those you don't need to answer correctly like Cloud intending to fly around with Aerith in the Highwind and all. She is is a Cetra, but she also is a woman.
This "it is not the real Cloud" is not true. She knows Cloud, the Cloud she knows is not some other person as the Cloud you call "real". It is just him having some memories he thinks to be true and what he is confused about, meaning his consciousness and his psychological self which is tried to be awakened by his superego, by his subconsciousness and by Aerith but has the problem of himself being embarassed about his own life and the influence of Sephiroth so he displaces his true past memories.

Yes, we all know Cloud's memories are mixed with Tifa's to swap his life with Zack's and that happened in the same moment he met Tifa again because the JENOVA cells inside of him automatically used that read mind and use mimic ability without him even knowing. But just because I think of some very important aspects about my life different than they have happened, I am "not not" the real person. Do you know how many people have memories which just have not happened they way they remember? Actually we all do. And we also often do that as some defense mechanism - maybe even without noticing. Cloud's memories are just messed up more and of course that also has some great influences in his character. That does not change the fact that the Cloud you see is Cloud who just thinks he was living a life he didn't live. Take away his false SOLDIER-memories the arrogance which mostly comes from it and replaced his doubts about his own skills and everything you see that is shown is the real Cloud. Cloud did not copy any of Zack's personality. He just mixed his life memories with those about Zack. The characteristics are his own. There is much of his original personality which is shown all the time. He is just a very confused person simply because he knows that his past does not make sense and Aerith wants to see him the way he already is minus the false memories plus his real memories and the result of this confusion being gone forever so she can see him without any doubts about his own life and accepting his own life. And as mentioned, not only the Ultimania, but also the heart-breaking scene in Gongaga shows that. There is no doubt that she's really missing Zack but she also tried to continue living her life. And her asking Cait Sith about Cloud and her being a couple was not just for fun. She really wanted to know even if Cait Sith felt sorry for Tifa. Like I have said once before, Aerith had the concept of the girlfriend Cloud's mother wanted him to get. An older girlfriend which cares about him. Final Fantasy VII does have a complicated love triangle. It was intended that way. The three characters were also not intended to be the cliche-type of characters when it comes to expressing admitting their true feelings and all. Some of the events cannot even be watched without paying the full attention to experiencing the story with the key characters of the scenes like the mentioned Gongaga-scene or the longest conversation with Cloud and Tifa once Tifa has a high affection level and all. Final Fantasy VII is not blunt about feelings and that is good. Words are not the only way to express things. Axiom of Communication #4: Communication uses digital and analog modalities.

Maybe I should show you the scenes one day. The one with Gongaga is one of the lines which cannot be seen normally because of errors of Final Fantasy VII and yet it is an intended story sentence of Aerith in Gongaga. And of course there are many other lines like the one in the Temple of the Ancients and the "I ... want to find you." which does not mean Cloud himself only but also expresses her personal feelings for him and her whole behaviour when she talks to Cloud all the time. However, maybe we'll talk about that one day. Otherwise this could be a very long conversation. Which is good, by the way. I love the Cloud-Aerith-Tifa-topic in Final Fantasy VII. You can also write me an E-Mail or a PM. I will most likely notice one of those earlier since both of them are mentioned in my E-Mails and I normally am not looking around here that often as you may have noticed - maybe really 1 month in a year. And I hope I did not seem like someone showing off with some psychological words. I just use them because they are the correct words. Actually I hope you can even read what I wrote because often my sentences get too long for people.

Why has Aerith been retconned into some "sweet, pure, innocent thing" when she was in fact a grown woman with a sometimes dark sense of humor and flirtatious personality.

Aerith wasn't a smurfing warrior, but she wasn't supposed to be. She was essentially fun, feminine, friendly, and nice, but also self-reliant and even mischevious at times. She was a ordinary chick with ordinary interests who had more backbone and drive than the genetically-enhanced supersoldiers. That was her purpose. She pushed the action and often times acted as the voice of reason for the group.

This chick threatened to rip a guy's balls off. And it was smurfing hilarious. And totally in character. Why have people forgotten that? <acronym title="Final Fantasy VII">FFVII</acronym>'s characters are more and more commonly seen a pile of character archetypes, particularly with Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa, that never existed in the game's original release. It puzzles me, and further demonstrates why the Compilation is bad and panders to the character shippers and anime fans way too much. A lot of the soul and originality was lost. What made Aerith special is that she was ordinary, not weak. There is a huge smurfing difference and it irritates me that people have just reinterprated the character that way.

EDIT: She was not retconed into it. She was all that all of the time. You seem to misinterprete her. You only see one side of her character while she has both the cliche type you think she didn't have and the one you like. Same for Cloud and Tifa.