Aeris or Aerith

[Sephiroth]

This is precisely what, according to my post, "Aerith" fails to accomplish.

Sorry, I was not aware you were one of the people ignoring author intention and other facts like the rest of the post showed. And you are contradicting yourself with your "convert back and forth" as the allusion to Earth is reflected the most appropriate with "su" as "th" and not "s", as a matter of fact it would hardly be recognizable as an allusion to Earth with this "s" and instead just be mistaken as the Latin word for Air, which people do all the time.

Edit: Oh, you're talking about the Japanese manual. Honestly, they're lucky Barret didn't come out as Ballett in that thing. Guess I'll go read the rest of the thread...

Intentionally provoking and non-sensical. Barett is written as Barett exactly as the head gear thing is written and it has nothing to do with "them being lucky".

This kind of stuff was also all over the place back in the day, perhaps sparking the early Internet buzz you mentioned. But I'll bet that, for every person who concluded at that time that it was mistranslated, there was another who stood ground with the official release...because at the end of the day, Square was silent on the matter.

That was no conclusion out of nothing, it came from the mere facts of Square themselves, included stuff like manuals and other official things that you are so eager to ignore.

The guy didn't have a TH, so he used SU. He didn't have an -R, so he used R* and picked his favorite variant. So if we consider mapping SU back to TH, then we need to consider mapping RI to R.

Not at all as it is a mere fact that most of the time for a single r "ru" is used as the "u" is often ignored, other than the "i" in "ri". By your logic "s" is always the most authentic one, totally ignoring the rest that is needed for understanding the message of the one who has put thought into it.

And it was almost certainly not written with any final Romanization already in mind:

Which is wrong many creators think of Western versions exactly when they make up the stuff. Heck, even nowadays you can see the names of areas and whatever else exists in games in Japanese and then in English, like wirth FFXIII for example which firsts writes "Arukakiruti" and then not "Archacylte" but "Archylte", which already shows they have certain names in mind. And your "Cloud is not the same as Aerith" thing is perfect for my first quote: It is not. Indeed. But it reflects what was intended. If you really only want to go for writing alone, then okay, you are wrong at calling him Sephiroth with an English "th" because then it is either Sephiroth with a hard "t" or Sephiros.

But that is not how things work, He was intended as Sephiroth. With English pronounciation. Just as Cait Sith was intended as the (Irish?) creature of Legend pronounced as "Cat Shee" and not like some guy from Star Wars. And you cannot just say "but those are existing words so we know xy" because that is incomplete thinking. Have you ever thought that someone adds something to that? Like "I am gonna use that name but in my version it is supposed to have that meaning and that pronounciation". Like I had a girl which hated it when people called her "Ee-lay-na" and said "NO, my name is pronounced Eh-leh-na". She has the right to decide that. And Square has the right to take "Earth", make a new word out of it and decides how it is pronounced and written. We can take the Origins of the word to explain something to people. But that is not in all cases, when it comes to different words, the entirety needed for the explanation.

Maybe we should go with his early Romanization then, "Earith". Do we even know who came up with the name in the first place? (Nomura wasn't even the first one to draw concepts for Earisu.)

First of all, her early Romanization is Aerith, as shown in the original manual and everything. Second, it should be really easy to understand that not every idea that someone initially has it set in stone. That means, even if they have an idea, if they later decide to take a different approach that is also okay (everything else would mean that it is not allowed to have the idea that Aerith dies because it was not meant first and that Aerith and Sephiroth had to be lovers or siblings, et cetera). That is how things are created. And as their mindset was and is Aerith, it is Aerith.

I am not talking about Nomura-san as the namegiver but to show you how important the context (in this case the intention) of the one is, who in every individual case intends aspect x. Hell, if I would go fór Tetsuya Nomura-san for this example as a namegiver it would not work because he wrote "Sefiros" on his artwork, which is exactly the point. Sephiroth's name is not Sefiros either. A person intended him to have a certain name. And exactly he gave him that certain name. Same goes for Aerith. And, as I have used Nomura-san, in his case, the Organisation XIII.

We don't buy your assertion because not only is there a lack of satisfactory evidence for it, there is evidence for the contrary as well.

There is no lack of it, you are just the kind of person that stands on a road with a car driving towards him and say "there is no car". I know people like you for over 10 years now. It has nothing to do with "lack of satisfactory evidence", it is just not wanting to admit something at any cost. But it will not change the fact that the car will hit you if you do not accept it or at least move away. The manuals, the code, the Kaitai Shinsho, the fact that they corrected it later, everything proves the intention. If anything, you lack the evidence of the opposite which is no wonder, because you cannot have evidence against the intention of a creator. People already bring out stuff to show and correct and you still say "no, they didn't" or treat it as worthless. This results in you not being satisfied with anything and just saying "oh yes, she was never intended as Aerith even though everything shows she was and then they changed it to Aerith for no reason even though she was never intended and still is not intended as Aerith". I am sorry but for someone who wants "satisfactory evidence" your posts show a lot of the signs I see from everyone else I have every argued on the internet. And that is not "justified doubt because of facts".

Where was the statement from Square on this matter in 1998? Because if they cared as much as you said, and if "Aeris" was a problem, then they could have ended it right there. Heck, they had several chances, demo releases and re-releases, to get it right. This all looks like a case of someone changing their mind. Or someone else deciding for himself later on that a mistake had been made.

Why would Square go out and have a hold a speech about every mistranslation that ever exists? They had their official stuff that showed it, the Kaitai Shinsho was released with the explanation of Aerith, they released Kingdom Hearts after a while. They provided us with enough information.

I hope this post shows why my camp has ongoing skepticism about the change.

There is a significant difference between your "camp" being biased and ignoring everything just out of personal preference and justified doubt, especially when it is a mere fact that even if it would have been a retcon and not a correction (which it is) they have all the right in the world to decide what is true about their property. A post like you wrote it will not change that. I have seen enough of those posts from many people concerning many different topics and just saying "I like Aeris more" would save way more time instead of covering your eyes and ears and say "n, no, that's npt how it is, I cannot see the tree that is actually out there". Mistranslations exist. That is just how it is. They happen all the time and everywhere. People just do not like to say "I like the (in the important context) wrong one" they want to say "but I like this so it has to be the right one in the important context instead of just being right when it comes to "legitimacy"". And I will point it out once more: She will only be Aeris when Square allows her to be Aeris and that is then because it is their mindset and not ours. Same goes for "Super Ninja Battle Star" or every other name.

Edit #3: I actually just finished reading the rest of this thread, and it is hilarious. I absolutely regret posting a serious response.

If you so freely say what you think by calling it hilarous, writing posts which partially are supposed to provoke and ignore everything, then I have no problem doing the same as well: Square owns the characters Aerith and the brand Final Fantasy. They say she is Aerith. She is Aerith.