The Aerith effect

[Laddy]

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? FFVII'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.

[Skyblade]

I've never thought of her as "weak". Don't know anyone who has. I certainly wouldn't characterize her as "normal", though.

Actually, I think she's a bit of a split personality, even more than Cloud is. There's the Ancient part, and the human part. By which I mean, there's the part of her who just wanted to live a happy, friendly life, the cheerful, bubbly, and sometimes really mean part (ah, I love her teasing Barret). And then there's the far more serious, darker part of her that taps into the currents of the Lifestream. The part of her that listened for the death of Elmyra's husband. The part of her that senses the pain of the planet, that seeks out to heal and protect everything she can.

There are two really distinct sides of her, and I'm not sure they're fully integrated (they certainly weren't when she was a kid). The two playing off each other gives some very odd and variable interactions with Cloud. I'd never though of it this distinctly before, but it does kind of explain quite a bit...

[DrAssenov]

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.

...

This chick threatened to rip a guy's balls off. And it was smurfing hilarious. And totally in character. Why have people forgotten that?

I FORGOT ABOUT THAT LINE! I was like, dang, this girl is tough, XD Man, now I think she's even more awesome (if that was even possible.)