For today’s Shameless Shipping, I’m going to take on a more controversial post.  This shipping debate has raged for well over a decade, ever since Squaresoft released Final Fantasy VII in 1997.  I’m sure a lot of you can recite the evidence for either side by heart, from Cloud buying a flower from Aerith at the beginning of the game, to the Gold Saucer date formulas.  Today, I will make my attempt to put this debate to rest, and I suppose you can all judge how well I do and flame the living hell out of me after I have presented my case.

Most of the case I will make rests on Advent Children Complete.  This Director’s Cut edition of the movie has numerous improvements, most notably including actual plot elements.  In particular, the story makes much more sense of Denzel, especially in light of the novella releases in the years between the original and the rerelease.  It also elaborates more on points brought up by the other additions to the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.  Even a cursory observation of the material will tell you that both Tifa and Aerith like the guy.  I realized in the process of writing this that just about everything in the debate relies in Cloud and his actions, or lack thereof, so much of this post focuses on him.  In that vein, the movie’s main premise is Cloud’s acceptance of reality as it stands, in three distinct facets.

First, Cloud has to accept the past.  He spends much of the movie obsessing over Aerith, but that obsession doesn’t have a romantic context attached to it.  Cloud took on the job of being her bodyguard, and yet when the time came, he let Sephiroth manipulate him into trying to kill her.  When that failed, all he could do was watch as Sephiroth impaled the girl on his sword.  He feels guilt, and even in two years time he never got over his greatest failure.  It even gets to the point that he’s been caring for the church to gain some sort of redemption.  Aerith comes to assure him that she doesn’t blame him for what happened in the City of the Ancients.  She then spends the rest of the movie aiding him as much as a force of nature can to drive that point home.  This culminates at the end of the movie, where she kicks him out of limbo and back into the world of the living.  We’ll put this on hold for a minute to examine the next two points.

Second, Cloud has to accept himself.  Cloud lost his best friend and ally, Zach, to an attack by Shinra.  The mental strain snapped his mind, and he buried most of his memories to take on the persona of Zach.  He even placed himself in Zach’s position in his memories.  Only one person managed to see through his façade, Tifa.  She kept quiet about it for a long time, and when Cloud was disabled, she stayed behind to watch over him.  Then, when the disaster hit Mideel, she managed to pull him back together and drag him out of there by his spiky head.  Despite that, and Tifa’s assurance that he’s a good person, he never got over his failures.  Yet in the final battle with Sephiroth, Zach appears behind Cloud, and gives him the assurance that he has strength of his own.  It didn’t matter that he never got into Soldier, because he always had it in his heart.  A noticeable change comes over him as he finds his resolve to fight.  Bolstered by this, Cloud charges forth and finishes his antagonist.  Yet we need one more point to tie this all together.

Third, Cloud has to accept his family.  Like it or not, Cloud has lived with Tifa over the past two years.  Together, they’ve raised Marlene while Barret has gallivanted about doing whatever rugged, machine gun armed men do.  In addition, Cloud took in the orphan Denzel, with the intention to raise him as some sort of atonement for his sins.  Yet, despite all that, Tifa comments that he’s never around and impossible to contact.  This holds true in both the movie, and the On the Way to a Smile story before the events.  He is too busy running around, doing jobs and brooding over his past (and presumably looking for a cure).  As he tells Marlene, he felt like he couldn’t care for himself, so he didn’t deserve to care for anyone else.  Fortunately, the trip to save the children from Kadaj and his group reminds him of what he already has and that he needs to protect them.  Despite his behavior, Tifa, Denzel, and Marlene were always there for him, and now he realizes he needs to support them.  He assures all three that he’ll come back home to them, and from the ending to the movie, we all know that happens.

All three of these factors unify at the ending.  The last two lines before the credits are as follows:

Aerith: “You see?  Everything’s alright.”

Cloud: “I know.  I’m not alone.  Not anymore.”

Cloud has finally managed to work through his problems.  He doesn’t feel guilt over letting Aerith die.  He’s gotten over losing Zach and the psychological damage it caused him.  Now he’s ready to support his friends and family around him.  After the credits, we see two short scenes.  Cloud planted Aerith’s flowers at Zach’s grave, and he placed Zach’s sword within the cathedral.  He’s left the dead behind, holding on to his memories and pressing on toward the future.

Cloud and Tifa grew up together in Nibelheim as best friends.  The boy pledged to get into SOLDIER to impress his companion.  Yet even when he failed to do so, Tifa didn’t care, she just wanted him.  She followed him to hell and back, even when she knew he was lying about his past.  She cared for him while at his absolute worst, broken physically, mentally, and emotionally.  While he ran around the city and countryside doing who knows what, she worried incessantly, but always provided a place to come home.  With the Geostigma cleared, they can live in relative peace, raising their adopted son Denzel.  Quit making Cloud into some emotionally bankrupt character that pines after a girl who died in his past.  He’s a healthy character that has gone thorough a self-evolution and can now live happily with his family.  That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

If you would like a more comprehensive look of the debate, examining the game, movie, and other source material in full, please read this article.  While the author does occasionally repeat points, he also exhausts all evidence on both sides.