Conspiracy Theory (spoilers)

[Kahless]

I found this on the web and thought it might be possible. Anyway it's an interesting theory

PlayStation RPG 1997 UK (PAL)

PLOT ANALYSIS (version 1.8) 09/01/2003

Author - falsehead (Sophie Cheshire). Contact me at falsehead@aol.com

THE INCOMPLETE GAME THEORY - contributed by RTSmith005

First I will present the evidence that can be found in the game
and related to the game.

1) The presence of Aeris's ghost in her church is a very small plot point in
the game. In fact, it's barely discussed by any one in the game itself. Why
else would it be in the game. A nostalgic moment? Perhaps.

2) Before the final battle there is an extra ledge that no one is standing on.

3) For the battle against Bizarro-Sephiroth, if you are strong enough to form
three parties, then one party has only two characters. Each party should have
three members...

4) Throughout the game Cloud is in situations in which he must pick Aeris over
Tifa or show that he is an uncaring or a caring guy. However, after Aeris's
death, this entire point is dropped. Considering the number of decisions you
are forced to make (around twenty some) you would think it would have more
bearing than who you get to date...

5) In the Japanese version, why does Aeris speak at certain points after you
use the GameShark to get her back? Why does she only have it in certain spots?

6) Aeris's best weapon has only seven Materia holders and it can gain AP, while
EVERYONE else's best weapon has eight linked slots and gains no AP.

7) Aeris's Umbrella has a higher Attack Power than her best weapon, the
Princess Guard, whereas everyone else's best weapon has a higher Attack Power
than all of their other weapons.

8) When you get Aeris's fourth limit break she has most likely already died.
If you actually do what you need to do to get it before she dies you waste vast
amounts of time (it took me three extra hours of getting her limit breaks up).
The point is that if you get it before she dies, it doesn't seem like you
should have it yet.

9) Right before the pillar steps in the Forgotten City before Aeris dies there
is doorway in the background. If you look at the patterns on the pillar, the
doorway is somewhat similar but markedly different. Programmers usually don't
put extra stuff like that in a game; it's a waste of time and effort. There is
no way to reach the door.

10) If you look at the floor before Cloud is trying to kill Aeris, there is a
spiral staircase leading downward. If you think about the way the City is
shaped it should be the reflection of the stairs above, but if you think on how
the glass around Aeris is shaped, it physically couldn't be so...

11) In the game manual there are FMV drawings of the characters. Every
character's drawing except Aeris (she is looking at the highwind you see it
where disc 1 is in) actually occurs in the game, or could realistically occur.
Aeris's cannot, as she wasn't with Cloud when he first saw the Highwind on the
first trip to Junon. She had already died when Barret and Tifa made their
escape on the Highwind later. In the picture she also dressed in white, and the
entire game she dressed in red...

12) The strongest empirical evidence for this lies in a conversation Cloud has
with Tifa during on the bridge of the Highwind... Tifa:I wonder what Aeris
felt... when she was on that Altar... Cloud: I'm sure she wanted to give her
life for the planet... Tifa: Really? I wonder? I don't think that's it at all.
I think she didn't think she would die at all, but that she planned on coming
back all along. She always used to talk about the "Next Time". She talked about
the future more than any of us'. This is very, very suspect, as anyone can see.

The entire game is ruined, in my opinion, by the loss of Aeris, and the death
of hope and joy. Many argue her death insured the player's hatred of Sephiroth.
Even if she were to be theoretically resurrected, I would still hate Sephiroth.
In my opinion, Square should re-release the game with her resurrection, and a
better ending, one worthy of a Final Fantasy game. Would it make her death
meaningless? Yes, it would, her sacrifice would be null and void and hollow.
But her death makes the game meaningless... Judging by the number of people who
desperately want to resurrect her, I think Square would profit financially from
such a decision. A game, which was already great, could be made truly perfect.
But somehow, I don't think this will ever happen. - XxRTSmithxX.......(thx for
letting me share this falsehead)"

#5 above sounds the most convincing as in order for aeris to speak at those points someone must be making the assumption that she would be around at those points. Unfotunately I don't have a gameshark so I can't really check into it.

[Big D]

Like your screenname, Kahless.

Many of these points have come up before. I've noticed several of them myself, during the game. However, I don't think Aeris was ever 'meant' to come back. That'd just cheapen her sacrifice, and the game's overall meaning, since many believe that Aeris' spirit was responsible for the Lifestream's assistance at the end.

I'll address several of the points in that article.

1) The presence of Aeris's ghost in her church is a very small plot point in
the game. In fact, it's barely discussed by any one in the game itself. Why
else would it be in the game. A nostalgic moment? Perhaps.

It's mentioned in the game that a person's spirit can often linger a while before returning to the Planet. Aeris' 'ghost' vanishes, or 'returns to the planet', as soon as you try to approach it.

2) Before the final battle there is an extra ledge that no one is standing on.

I saw that one. However, there are several smaller rocks too, which are also unoccupied. Why would there be an exact number of rocks available, anyway? It's not like the Planet had received a 'guest list' telling it how many people to expect...

3) For the battle against Bizarro-Sephiroth, if you are strong enough to form
three parties, then one party has only two characters. Each party should have
three members...

If you're strong enough to earn the 'three parties' option, then you're strong enough to fight with one under-manned team.

4) Throughout the game Cloud is in situations in which he must pick Aeris over
Tifa or show that he is an uncaring or a caring guy. However, after Aeris's
death, this entire point is dropped. Considering the number of decisions you
are forced to make (around twenty some) you would think it would have more
bearing than who you get to date...

Your choices do affect who you get to date at the Gold Saucer, whether its Aeris, Tifa, Yuffie or even Barret. They just decided to develop that 'love triangle' with Cloud, Aeris and Tifa in order to add more depth and emotion to the characters. If Aeris wasn't developed and involved as a character, her death would've meant a lot less.

5) In the Japanese version, why does Aeris speak at certain points after you
use the GameShark to get her back? Why does she only have it in certain spots?

The only one I've heard of is a single line uttered after the Icicle Inn snowboarding event. Apparently, they scripted these events - and the characters' responses - before they'd finalised exactly when the events would take place in the story.

7) Aeris's Umbrella has a higher Attack Power than her best weapon, the
Princess Guard, whereas everyone else's best weapon has a higher Attack Power
than all of their other weapons.

Cid's Flayer is stronger than the Venus Gospel, except it doesn't gain the same 'bonus' from Cid's MP. Aeris' ultimate weapon only really needs seven slots, since many players won't ave a huge number of strong Materia at that point. Still, I agree that it's odd that you get her best weapon so soon before her departure...

8) When you get Aeris's fourth limit break she has most likely already died.
If you actually do what you need to do to get it before she dies you waste vast
amounts of time (it took me three extra hours of getting her limit breaks up).
The point is that if you get it before she dies, it doesn't seem like you
should have it yet.

A conscientious player migth notice that many other characters can gain their level 4 limits in disc one, whereas she can't. Also, if they didn't give her one, then people would complain that this is inconsistent with the other characters, and that they wasted hours trying to find it...

9) Right before the pillar steps in the Forgotten City before Aeris dies there
is doorway in the background. If you look at the patterns on the pillar, the
doorway is somewhat similar but markedly different. Programmers usually don't
put extra stuff like that in a game; it's a waste of time and effort. There is
no way to reach the door.

There's also a cliff and a log tunnel just outside the Forgotten Capital that can't be reached. It's possible that they're part of an abandoned side-quest, or maybe they're just there to remind you that the world is even bigger than just what the characters can explore?

11) In the game manual there are FMV drawings of the characters. Every
character's drawing except Aeris (she is looking at the highwind you see it
where disc 1 is in) actually occurs in the game, or could realistically occur.
Aeris's cannot, as she wasn't with Cloud when he first saw the Highwind on the
first trip to Junon. She had already died when Barret and Tifa made their
escape on the Highwind later. In the picture she also dressed in white, and the
entire game she dressed in red...

She saw the Highwind, definitely. On board the Shinra cargo ship, she asks Cloud to take her on it someday. There's nothing 'impossible' about that picture... many of the character portraits aren' totally consistent with what's in the game. Barret and Marlene in Aeris' church, for instance, even though he never met her; Cid, sitting on the Tny Bronco in front of the rocket, apparently before the rocket's first failed launch attempt (notice how it's not leaning over in that picture?).

12) The strongest empirical evidence for this lies in a conversation Cloud has
with Tifa during on the bridge of the Highwind... Tifa:I wonder what Aeris
felt... when she was on that Altar... Cloud: I'm sure she wanted to give her
life for the planet... Tifa: Really? I wonder? I don't think that's it at all.
I think she didn't think she would die at all, but that she planned on coming
back all along. She always used to talk about the "Next Time". She talked about
the future more than any of us'. This is very, very suspect, as anyone can see.

Again, it heightens that tragedy - she had all those hopes and dreams extinguished. But then, her story didn't end with her death - her spirit 'came back' and helped to save the world in its time of greatest need.

The entire game is ruined, in my opinion, by the loss of Aeris, and the death
of hope and joy. Many argue her death insured the player's hatred of Sephiroth.
Even if she were to be theoretically resurrected, I would still hate Sephiroth.
In my opinion, Square should re-release the game with her resurrection, and a
better ending, one worthy of a Final Fantasy game. Would it make her death
meaningless? Yes, it would, her sacrifice would be null and void and hollow.
But her death makes the game meaningless... Judging by the number of people who
desperately want to resurrect her, I think Square would profit financially from
such a decision. A game, which was already great, could be made truly perfect.
But somehow, I don't think this will ever happen. - XxRTSmithxX.......(thx for
letting me share this falsehead)"

Sounds typical of a fan who can't get over the loss of a character. Re-writing the entire plot just to appease a few obsessives wouldn't be very useful, or good in my opinion. A "perfect" story where everyone lives happily ever after in peace and utter harmonious bliss is less meaningful than one coloured by genuine hardship and loss.

[The Man]

I kind of agree with Big D here, but I do vaguely recall hearing that Square might not have been planning to off her character at first, or might have planned for it to happen at a later point in the story. I'm not sure if my memory is accurate or not, though; I could very easily be mixing her up with FFVI SPOILERGeneral Leo.

FFVII was designed and produced when Sakaguchi was going through a bit of a rough patch, and I think Aeris' death in particular reflects that. The fact that the game in its entirety is a lot "darker" than other FFs is another manifestation of that.

[Kahless]

I'm not really sure I believe it either. I haven't finished 7 yet so I don't know anything about the ledges. However the planet shouldn't know that there will be a battle in the crater either.

The speaking line in Icicle *could* be from an earlier time before they decided to make aeris die. Actually I'd kinda be curious to know what she said. If it was a plot point kind of line that could mean she was supposed to be around then and that they had at least a rough idea of where the event fit in the story. If it's a more general "Let's kill Sephoreth!" type of line then the order of events is more likely to have changed. If there are a lot more of them then maybe they did decide to kill aeris late in development.

As far as the other doors you can't reach -- I guess I was spoiled by 10 as I had a hard time figuring out which parts of the environments were walkable and which ones weren't. Especially when climbing up to the top of Midgard . So no comment.

Sephoreth seems evil enough even if aeris had lived. Attempting to destroy the planet to become a god is EVIL. Aeris' death does make it more personal but really who's going to say "Well he tryed to kill the human race with a meteor, and has been manipulating Cloud since the begining, but Aeris is ok, so who cares". Dead Areis helps but really isn't necessary.

The whole idea is up there with UFOs and area 51. It's fun though

[Advent Child]

Aeris' death was part of the STORY. You can't say it's completely un-needed. It's not like it's a small thing. It's THE story. The story if Final Fantasy VII was that Sephiroth and trying to take of the world, Aeris dies. That's the story. If you change it, it's not FFVII anymore.

EDIT: I don't see how it's a conspiracy theory, either. It's just possibilities for Aeris to be in the game when she isn't. Oh, and a couple un-enterable passages.

[TheAbominatrix]

How many years has it been since this game was released? I wonder how long it will take before people stop with the 'Aeris shouldnt have died' nonsense.

[Big D]

[q=Deathjester]FFVII was designed and produced when Sakaguchi was going through a bit of a rough patch, and I think Aeris' death in particular reflects that. The fact that the game in its entirety is a lot "darker" than other FFs is another manifestation of that.[/q]Oh yeah, as I recall his mother had just died; Aeris' death was a reflection of that. I think something was said about how that'd never be changed, because it was a direct reference to his real-life tragedy.

How many years has it been since this game was released? I wonder how long it will take before people stop with the 'Aeris shouldnt have died' nonsense.

It's been going strong since 1997, and it won't stop until people give up on the FFVI spoiler"General Leo shouldn't have died" nonsense.

[TheAbominatrix]

Originally posted by Big D
It's been going strong since 1997, and it won't stop until people give up on the FFVI spoiler"General Leo shouldn't have died" nonsense.

They still do that? I guess I've seen it once or twice.. but the Aerith deal is just MASSIVE. And I've yet to see General Leo's death described as a conspiracy.

[Kahless]

The conspiracy part of it is that the game couldn't be finished in time for its release and so the writers decided to kill off aeris and make the game shorter. Like I said its up there with ufos and black helicoters. fun but its most likely crap.

[TheAbominatrix]

Yes, but how does Aerith's death effect the length of the game? With the way it deeply effects each main character, their reactions, etc... if Aerith had originally been meant to live, they'd have to do A LOT of changes to pull that off, and it'd have taken far longer. Not to mention all the things the others in this thread have already mentioned. The only rumor involved in this is that it was supposed to have been possible to revive Aerith (edit: meaning the rumor was that they were going to include this sidequest, but scrapped it because they were short for time), which is the closest thing that would make sense, though the rumor is most likely b.s.

I never liked her though, so my opinions on all this are rather biased.

[~Tenderness~]

The only one I've heard of is a single line uttered after the Icicle Inn snowboarding event. Apparently, they scripted these events - and the characters' responses - before they'd finalised exactly when the events would take place in the story.

~Interesting. I'd never even thought about the possibility of that happening before - that the creators woud have scripted certain events and the character's responses before they had finalised when the events would have taken place in this story - Thank you for the information Big D ~

~There are a couple of occasions other than after the snowboarding event where Aerith will appear on screen and speak. In some cases her words are generic and in others they apparently are not. The examples that I know about are in my list below ~

~Fun with Aerith -

1: Remember the old man in Rocket Town that talks about jokes? - Well, use the Gameshark to put Aerith into the party, then take her, Cloud and Cid to the joker's house in Rocket Town during the Huge Materia event, talk to him and your party members, including Aerith, will come out of Cloud. She'll make several comments to Cloud - note that to my knowledge the comments in this scenario are not generic, they change for each party member. Take her out of the party before the fight with Rude - the game will freeze if you don't.

2: You can still use her to fight in the Battle Arena on Discs Two and Three.

3: Take her to the Ancient City during the waterfall sceen - Aerith will watch the image of the memory of her praying that is being shown in the tumbling waterfall and then Cloud will turn and nod at her!

4: You can still collect Yuffie and complete the Wutai side quests with Aerith in the party after she's meant to be gone and she'll still speak her lines and you won't experience any glitches. The same with Vincent, take her to his basement, she'll come out, she'll say the lines she normally would.

5: Fort Condor Inn - actually any inns where the party members are supposed to come out of Cloud before/after resting, Aeris will appear and say her lines.

6: Gold Saucer - as well as still being able to fight in the Battle Arena - she can still be taken on the rollercoaster at the Speed Square and the gondola at Round Square, she'll appear as normal.

7: All of the final battles can be fought with Aerith in the party, including the one where (SPOILER) Cloud is meant to face Sephiroth alone. She'll appear there, still fully equipped with her materia ...

8: The Fort Condor Huge Materia Event - Take her there during that event - She comes out and says a few lines. No glitches here.

9: This one is weird and sort of sick ... .... - Have Aerith in the party for the battle with Jenova Life, after the battle she won't be leaning against the altar as she normally is after Sephiroth has (SPOILER)killed her but instead will be lying on the middle of the altar floor and she'll be trying to stand up ... ... - The game then crashes ...~

~Note that I'm not using this information as evidence to support any revival or conspiracy theories - It's just an account of what I experienced when I used the gameshark to put Aeris/Aerith in the party ~

[Kahless]

3: Take her to the Ancient City during the waterfall sceen - Aerith will watch the image of the memory of her praying that is being shown in the tumbling waterfall and then Cloud will turn and nod at her!

9: This one is weird and sort of sick ... .... - Have Aerith in the party for the battle with Jenova Life, after the battle she won't be leaning against the altar as she normally is after Sephiroth has (SPOILER) but instead will be lying on the middle of the altar floor and she'll be trying to stand up ... ... - The game then crashes

Actually these two would support the idea that aeris *might* have been intended to survive the attack.

On the other hand I reamember reading something about star wars. early in the script writing the bad guy wasn't vader but a planet of wookies, and leia was supposed to be luke's mother. thank god for rewrites

[DarkNation]

How wrecked would the story have been if you could resurect her? Think about it! You resurect her, she uses holy, end of game.
No showdown with sephiroth, no crater, no nothing, alot of the included story would be rendered irrelevant and would look completely stupid in the context of the game.
Aeris was obviously never supposed to survive the attack.

[Big D]

[q=Darknation]Aeris was obviously never supposed to survive the attack.[/q]Well, some of the events described by ~Tenderness~, particularly the two details repeated by Kahless, are pretty strong evidence that the programmers originally took steps to cover the possibility that she might be resurrectible. There'd be no reason to program specific responses for her, for those particular scenes unless it were so. It's understandable that Aeris can be 'revived' by GameShark and used for mini-games and events during discs two and three - after all, the entire game (except for FMVs) is recorded on each disc, so her lines will still be there. But for specific events, such as the Waterfall Screen, Jenova LIFE and the Fort Condor Huge Materia quest, they must've gone out of their way to write lines just for her.

If there had been a genuine "revive Aeris" sub-quest, I think it would simply have been a hidden bonus, not something that'd have any effect on the end of the game. so the story would unfold the same way - every event, every scene including references to Aeris' death - but with her available as a member of the party.

[Kahless]

I want a gameshark so I can find out! I love a good mystery.

btw I think I found a gameshark pic but I dont know how to post a pic.


Never mind. I got it. sorry about the double post.

I can fix that ~ Big D

Left is Aeris in the game. Right is the kids in the church looking for her. from different sites. From what I can tell they're not faked.