Aerith's Secret [2/3] - FFVII Remake Mysteries [2/4] | Game Analysis #24
Aerith's Secret [2/3] - FFVII Remake Mysteries [2/4] | Game Analysis #24
Aerith is a very important character in this FFVII Remake project and it's widely known that Aerith knows more than she should. But how and why and what does it all mean? Let's find out!
Table of Contents
Part 1
Part 2 ⟵ you are here
Part 3
Greetings, fellow Scholars of the Lifestream!
This is a continuation of our multi-part analysis about Aerith’s secrets. If you haven’t read the 1st part yet, please do so now as you’d be missing out on a lot of information otherwise.
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All caught up? Fantastic! Let’s jump into the wormhole and continue our journey.
We’re about to spoil the Moogle out of the original Final Fantasy VII, its compilation entries, and the Remake. You’ve been warned.
Evidence (continued)
Save the slums!
At the start of chapter 12, the scene before the battle against the Whispers contains more hints. Aerith can already feel the presence of the Whispers but she doesn’t see them yet, neither does Tifa, who is looking around apprehensively before the scene even starts.
This can mean 2 things: Aerith may feel the power controlling this flock of Whispers. This is the only instance in the game where Aerith is shown feeling their presence before seeing them after gaining the sight, which supports this sentiment. The other possibility is that the Whispers can control their visibility like the ghosts in chapter 11.
When Aerith assumes her praying stance and pleads for passage, the Whispers finally appear in front of everybody and startle Aerith, proving that she couldn’t see them before. She deems the Whispers agents of the planet and therefore assumes her praying stance to communicate to the planet and ask for passage.
However, she probably hasn’t realized yet that the Whispers have been taken over by another force, which is why they don’t listen to her. One of them is, of course, yet another purple Enigmatic Whisper.
Aerith: “We have to get past, whatever it takes.”
This line, while perfectly reasonable in isolation, does have a knowing undertone.
The original chain of events has been preserved for almost 4 chapters now and our party is still not in the process of changing that, which should not trigger the whispers’ appearance here. Aerith knows this and tells the others that they need to break through in order to get to the pillar in time. She knows how this part of the story needs to play out.
Yes, the Ultimania claims that the Whispers appear to ensure that the party doesn’t reach the pillar too early. However, neither we nor the characters get the impression that they would arrive too early.1
Later, when Tifa begins to utter her request for Aerith to get Marlene to safety, Aerith finishes Tifa’s sentence for her, as if she already knows about her upcoming task. Tifa did mention Marlene’s name when looking at the ghost girl, but that’s about it. In her request, Tifa only mentions the bar, 7th Heaven, and nothing more. How did Aerith know that she would ask to save Marlene? She shouldn’t know about anything other than Marlene’s name from chapter 11. Furthermore, Tifa seeing a ghost girl and calling her Marlene would suggest that Marlene is already dead. While subtle, this instance of Aerith’s foresight makes it clear that she already knows everything.
When Wedge fails to convince the gatekeepers to open the passage to sector 6, Aerith manages to encourage him enough to try again and succeed.
Aerith: “Don’t give up hope yet! We can still save a lot of lives!”
Wedge: “You don’t think we’re gonna stop them from dropping the plate, do you?”
Aerith: *Shocked and concerned expression*
Wedge: “I wanna believe that we can still win somehow.”
Aerith: “Mm.” *Affirming but very sad and knowing nod*
Aerith knows that the plate will fall, as we see by her facial expressions.
But, she also has faith in Wedge—who’s still alive and able-bodied, contrary to the original—to take this new opportunity and save a lot more people. However, she needs to encourage him first for him to successfully pull it off.
Wedge: “But…something in my gut tells me we’re due for a reckoning. Just this…feeling. Know what I mean?”
Aerith: “Yeah…I do.” *Very sad expression* “But…that’s no excuse to give up. I don’t wanna look back one day… and wish I’d done it differently. Right here, right now, I need to know I did everything I could.”
Even if certain things are inevitable, like Plate Fall, one can still try and make the best of it, which both she and Wedge are about to do. This is the second instance she talks this way and it will come up again later.
This scene never happened in the original since Wedge never gets up again, at least that we know of. The passage to sector 6 was therefore never going to open, preventing a lot of people from escaping. It’s thanks to Aerith and Wedge that many more people manage to escape this time around. Yet another change enabled by her own meddling.
Shortly after, Aerith talks to Marle as if she knows that the plate will fall and the only thing anyone can do is to get as many people to safety as possible.
Aerith: “You all have to get out of sector 7! Now, please!”
Marle: “Slow down! Do you know what’s going on? What do they want with the pillar?”
Aerith: “Well, there’s still time, but…”
Marle: “They’re going to drop the plate on us?”
Aerith: *sad face and hesitation* “Yes.”
Aerith knows about Shinra’s plans from earlier, yes, but she shouldn’t know about the outcome. Still, she tells everyone to immediately leave sector 7 as if doomsday is inevitable. Saying that there’s still time and her sad expression and hesitation confirm Marle’s and our suspicion.
Marlene
The scene with Marlene is a very important one and contains 3 elements we need to discuss.
Number 1: Barret
When Marlene talks about her daddy, Aerith knows it’s Barret without anyone ever telling her. While she did hear Tifa yell Barret’s name just before Wedge fell off the pillar’s staircase, drawing this conclusion correctly—with such conviction in her voice no less—is too much of a coincidence.
It’s hard to say if Aerith saw parts of Barret’s physique from all the way down there, but if she did, Marlene’s skin color would not naturally lead to this conclusion. Furthermore, after getting so many lucky guesses correct, we’re way past believing in coincidence.
Number 2: new powers
While consoling Marlene, some sort of visual glitch happens, which looks quite similar to Cloud’s memory glitches. This startles little Marlene and causes her to back away from Aerith. However, Aerith silently tells her to keep what she just saw a secret and Marlene agrees. From this point on, Marlene seems to trust Aerith completely.
What exactly happens during that glitch? We know that Aerith is able to transfer memories to other souls as detailed in “Lifestream White.”2 We also hypothesized a memory transfer to Cloud in chapter 2. We do have a confirmed memory transfer in chapter 16 where Aerith deliberately touches Red XIII, but more on that later. Important to note is that, while Aerith lets out a surprised “huh?” when Marlene takes a step back, she doesn’t seem surprised about the memory transfer but rather about Marlene’s reaction to it.
But what did Marlene see or learn there? Aerith might have intended to pass down knowledge or memories about being a Cetra and thus prepare Marlene to eventually become Aerith’s living legacy. Another argument for this sentiment is Marlene’s ability to understand the flower’s message during her ending scene. Though it’s possible that she just showed Marlene her future—a life with Barret, Cloud, and Tifa—to reassure her that everything will be OK, even if it might look bleak right now. Aerith’s touch could also have been the catalyst to unlock Marlene’s potential for understanding the voices of the planet. After all, she already showed signs of that in the original ending.
Whatever she did, it seemed to work as Marlene warms up to Aerith immediately and shows deep trust. She also immediately notices that Aerith smells the same as their yellow flower. Is it just the passing of distress or did Aerith’s memory transfer also include an affinity for it? After Marlene shows Aerith the yellow flower, Aerith tells Marlene to remember it. Which she does as we see in Marlene’s ending scene where she waters the yellow flowers. Speaking of…
Number 3: the yellow flower
Aerith doesn’t look surprised but rather pleased that the flower she forced on Cloud back in sector 8 ended up here after all. As if it was all a part of her plan.
Tseng
Now follow 2 scenes where Tseng is involved, with the first one happening right after the previous scenes.
According to Aerith’s surprised reaction, she didn’t anticipate this encounter here but rather at her home, where it happened in the original.3 Tseng quickly assesses the situation and doesn’t leave Aerith any choice but to cooperate due to the presence of Marlene. This prompts Aerith to immediately propose a deal.
While this scene would also work without her additional knowledge, Aerith resolves the situation too quickly and determinedly for her lacking any knowledge about the original events. With the predicate of her knowing what’s up, this deal is also the only way to preserve fate: Marlene ends up with Elmyra and Aerith in Shinra HQ.
But why was Tseng even able to catch Aerith here already? It’s all thanks to our beloved butterfly effect, mainly caused by Aerith, which we’ll get more into later.
The second scene happens after the plate separation protocol has been activated. Instead of showing up in person, Tseng contacts them via remote video call. This makes sense as flying around underneath the crumbling plate with a helicopter would be too risky. Additionally, thanks to Aerith’s early capture, they had more time to return to Shinra HQ from where this transmission most likely comes from.
But the more interesting part of this scene is that Aerith orders our party to “Run! You have to go now!”. Why would she do that? Even Tseng remarks that they have nowhere to go. Simple: Aerith knows that they’ll make it out because they’re supposed to rescue her later on.
Aerith’s resolution scene
The next opportunity to see Aerith is in her chapter 14 resolution scene, which only happens if the player has garnered more affection points for Aerith than Tifa and 5 or more in total.4
Aerith: “Everyone dies eventually. So we need to make the most of the time we have—to live our lives the way we wanna live. Every minute...every moment, matters.”
Those lines exhibit the same sentiment as her speech to Wedge in chapter 12. In addition to talking about the lives lost in sector 7, she heavily foreshadows her own death. Why? She talks about how everyone dies eventually while in her signature praying stance. Looks uncannily similar to this one event in the original, doesn’t it?
She also experienced death many times in one way or another: sensing Zack’s passing, watching her mother Ifalna die in her arms, listening to the spirit of Elmyra’s late husband and even finding President Shinra stabbed by Sephiroth. Death is inevitable and an intrinsic part of life. One should savor it5 for as long as it lasts.
Aerith: “I'm grateful for all the words we've shared. For all the moments and the memories. You've made me more happy than you know. And I'll always cherish what you've given me.”
Those lines sound too intense and over the top for someone she just met less than a day ago and only really spent time side-questing, approval and costume hunting, and trekking through sewers and a haunted train graveyard with. This strongly suggests she’s talking about their time in the original game and Advent Children as their time spent there was much longer and more profound, especially if you consider their date at the Gold Saucer as canon.
Aerith: “But whatever happens, you can't fall in love with me. Even if you think you have...it's not real.”
This is the line which crushed everyone’s hearts. Furthermore, it has so many implications. Aerith knows she will die not too long from now, which will make circumstances for Cloud this much harder, especially with his fragile heart and mind. She needs him to be able to focus on the main goal and not being clouded—pun intended—by hatred for Sephiroth as that will make Cloud very susceptible to manipulation, as we see in the original game.
Cloud also doesn’t have his original persona and consciousness back and currently operates on one heavily influenced by Zack, and is therefore not real. Aerith knows that Tifa is Cloud’s future in the living world and the one who helps him find his old self again.
When Cloud tells Aerith that he is worried about her as well, not just Elmyra, Aerith apologizes. Not for being a burden but for already having led him on the path of love, which he shouldn’t pursue as explained before. Additionally, since she already knows about the original and Advent Children events, she’s on a completely different emotional level and has a very different relationship to Cloud by now. She transcended from the love interest status a long time ago and can be considered Cloud’s emotional guide to his true self and thus his healer, just as she’s the planet’s healer. It’s her main purpose.
Besides those important lines of dialog, we’d like to highlight another detail. Cloud is clearly dreaming here. However, Aerith herself is not part of the dream. She just uses his dream state as a conduit for communication. At the end, when the sun is about to rise, Aerith dissolves into Lifestream particles and we see Cloud waking up. We don’t see him do that after meeting Tifa or Barret. Moreover, this ability of hers is nothing new. She does the same in the original while on her lone journey to the Forgotten City before Cloud wakes up in Gongaga.
But here’s the big question: is this the Aerith sitting in Shinra HQ or the consciousness of future Aerith sitting in the Lifestream? It’s probably almost impossible to get any meaningful connection to the planet and the Lifestream on the 65th floor roughly 500 meters6 above ground in the lifeless headquarters of the mega corporation which represents the antithesis of nature.
When Aerith enters Cloud’s dream in the original, she has already reached the Sleeping Forest, a place full of life and thus connections to the planet. She also talks in a completely different tone than usual. No sass, understanding, motherly, full of wisdom and knowledge, and thus feels much more distant to Cloud. Because of this, and the fact that she dissolves into Lifestream particles, it’s therefore safe to conclude that Cloud meets future Aerith calling in directly from the Lifestream.
Red XIII
After some side quests, pixelated JPEG backgrounds, and a lot of running around in the enemy’s lair, we finally manage to rescue Aerith. However, Red XIII is also released and startles the party. He looks feral, driven by rage and animal instincts, and immediately rushes after Hojo, only briefly paying attention to our party. Any sane person would run but counter to all sanity, Aerith tells the others with a serious expression to follow her and runs ahead to catch up with Red XIII.
Aerith: “We need to go.”
Tifa: “Aerith!”
Barret: “What the—!?”
Cloud: “Come on.”
Hojo gets away and Red XIII turns around to approach the party. While the others are very apprehensive and get ready for battle, Aerith tells them off, remains calm, and approaches Red XIII fearlessly. She even says “This child’s a friend” while smiling and then extends her hand to calm Red XIII. This only makes sense if she already knows about Red XIII’s nature and role in the story. She wasn’t in Shinra HQ for long enough to get to know him after all and she couldn’t possibly know that he’s still a child. According to Bugenhagen, he’s 48, which translates to 16 in human years.
As an aside: have you noticed that Aerith keeps taking care of children? The ones in sector 5, Cloud with a mental age of 16, Red XIII as mentioned before, and the planet, which Cid calls a child as well. She’s the ultimate mother in the world of Final Fantasy VII. Even Kadaj and Cloud call her “Mother” when being guided by her through the Lifestream in Advent Children.
Now comes the most important part of this scene. When Aerith holds her hand over Red XIII’s head, she casts some sort of healing magic on him after which he’s back to his old and calm self. However, this is no ordinary healing magic. This is something new, an ability she didn’t have as a living person in the original game. She transfers an unknown amount of knowledge to Red XIII accompanied by the same glitch effect we saw earlier with Marlene. We now even see those purple-white memory streaks swirling around Red’s head. This allows him to provide the much-needed exposition about the Whispers’ nature, purpose and role in the planet’s grand plan later in Aerith’s room, which is where we’ll go next.
Aerith’s former room
By chapter 17, Cloud also has caught up to the fact that Aerith knows more than she lets on, which is how this conversation even starts:
Cloud: “Before we break outta here, talk to us. There’s so much we don’t know.”
This leads Aerith to briefly talk about the Ancients, who are called the Cetra, the stewards of the planet. This is why Aerith is such an important individual to Shinra. We know that the Promised Land essentially represents the afterlife: the Lifestream. To find the Promised Land, one must return to the planet first. With extracting Mako from the Planet, Shinra essentially drain their precious and sought after Promised Land. Quite ironic, isn’t it?
Aerith: “Listen to me! Please…”
Tifa: “Aerith.”
Aerith: “The Shinra Electric Power Company isn’t the real enemy. It started with them, sure…but I promise you…there’s a much bigger threat. I just want to do everything in my power to help. All of you… And the Planet.”
Because of the Whispers, Aerith can’t spill the beans completely, so she needs to keep things vague. This threat obviously refers to Sephiroth and Jenova, for which Shinra is responsible. Aerith should not know about any of this yet.
Tifa can’t shake her suspicions about Aerith hiding the truth and prods again:
Tifa: “Aerith. What are you not telling us?”
However, Aerith provides more cryptic statements, adding to the mystery.
Aerith: “I’m lost in a maze, and…every step is taking me further from the path… Every time the Whispers touch me…I lose something. A part of myself.”
In the previous video about the Whispers, we established that they’re able to remove memory. By touching Aerith, they might remove her additional memory as she’s not supposed to have them yet. Those lines have far-reaching implications, so we’ll put a pin in it for now and return to this towards the end.
Aerith: “Follow them. The yellow flowers.”
This line has been cracking skulls and brains all over the fan base. Understandably so. It’s an inaccurate translation. Though it’s strange that the translators added quotation marks (see screenshot above) as there are none in other languages, at least not in German and Japanese. In German, this line merely adds a metaphor to the previous one and describes the upcoming visuals:
Aerith: “Every time the Whispers touch me…I lose a part of myself—like petals of a withering flower.”
In Japanese, she instead says:
Aerith: “The yellow flowers…they were my beacon/guidepost.”
Which means that the falling flower petals represent her loss of direction. Makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it? The Japanese version insinuates that Aerith loses the beacon that guided her up to now, her future self.
The English line on the other hand sounds more like advice or directions for the future. Or directions given to her in the first place...? In the context of the Remake, a yellow flower has been associated with Aerith since the reveal teaser from 2015, so a yellow flower breaking up into pieces represents how she feels when touched by Whispers: losing a part of herself.
We’ll skip an analysis of Aerith’s painting in this room for now as it’s not directly relevant to our current analysis and would fill an entire video on its own. So, let’s move on to the next section.
The Drum
When Sephiroth appears in front of everybody before Jenova’s tank, Aerith recognizes him immediately and turns angry. That’s not the reaction of someone who merely heard about the death of a war hero on the news. She knows about his nature and the threat he poses to the planet, as alluded to in her cryptic speech in her room and her reaction to Cloud thinking that Sephiroth is still alive.
After the first time we switch to Aerith and Tifa using the PHS,7 the latter asks about Cloud’s mental state.
Tifa: “Hey, you think Cloud’s doing ok? He’s been acting really weird lately—more than usual.”
Aerith: “True, but it’s Cloud—I’m sure he’ll be fine. But what about you, Tifa? How are you holding up?”
Tifa: “Huh? Oh I’m fine.”
Aerith knows about Cloud’s identity crisis but dismisses it immediately and redirects the conversation back to Tifa, who is not supposed to know about or dig deeper into Cloud’s issues yet. Aerith wouldn’t behave this way, even with the suspicions she would already have by this point, but rather help Tifa find the truth. That’s probably why Tifa wasn’t expecting this evasive reaction from Aerith but lets it be for now.
Interestingly, the first time Tifa even tried to address Cloud’s issues in the original was after their nap in Lower Junon.8 In Remake, she’s much more inquisitive and has already shed some of her uncertainty.
Very curious is that Aerith calls the elevators safe after their victory over the Swordipede boss.
Tifa: “Could this be a trap?”
Aerith: “Don’t worry. The elevators are safe.”
Tifa: “All right. If you say so.”
She says this with such conviction that we can’t dismiss this as an educated guess. There’s also no indication for their safety other than Aerith’s words. But this whole section wasn’t even in the original game so how would she know for sure?
President’s office
After the image of Sephiroth over the black-cloaked man turns into Jenova, Aerith already knows about its nature, that it’s the source of everything. She was still oblivious to it in the original game at that point. Sure, you could argue that her mother Ifalna told tiny Aerith about the Calamity from the Sky before they escaped from Hojo’s lab. But she wouldn’t know the whole story.9
When Barret is stabbed by Sephiroth, even Red XIII looks very distraught by this act, as if he’s about to lose a dear friend. Which doesn’t make much sense as they just met 1 or 2 hours or so ago. He even sprints towards Barret before Aerith does, who displays a similar reaction. Both seem to feel much closer to Barret than they should after only having met him very recently. This is not surprising if we consider Aerith’s additional knowledge and memories. She might also have transferred many more memories to Red XIII than we are shown, including parts of his own future.
Furthermore, his line about Barret’s resurrection carries conviction and doesn’t just sound like a logical conclusion.
Red XIII: “This death was not the one ordained for you by fate.”
As if he already knew Barret wasn’t supposed to die here, thus Red’s horrified expression when it happened.
Standoff in the Lobby
When surrounded by Shinra troops in the lobby, Barret is about to return the favor for saving Marlene and prepares for a suicide attack. Aerith immediately stops him since they aren’t supposed to fight here. Though she does seem surprised when Cloud comes to their rescue before Tifa arrives with their escape vehicle, as she did in the original. The team didn’t meet up with Cloud until after they reached the first floor to then make their spectacular escape through the window onto the highway below. Now, Cloud arrives early for his epic performance.
Midgar Expressway
When they meet Sephiroth at the end of the highway, Aerith stops being cautious and drops some truth. After all, the Whispers are in doomsday mode anyway, so what could go wrong?
Speaking of: she accuses Sephiroth of being wrong.
Aerith: “And you… You’re wrong.”
Sephiroth: “Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows.”
Aerith: “Everything about you is wrong.”
This Sephiroth we see here should not exist. His existence is against the planet’s will. Aerith knows this, which is only possible if she has the memories of her post Advent Children self and knows about Sephiroth’s current nature. Why? Because this version of Sephiroth also stems from there, but we’ll get into that in another video.
Aerith: “He’d tell you that he only cares about the planet. That he’d do everything in his power to protect and preserve it. But this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. There’s no greater threat to the planet than him. Sephiroth has to be stopped. He has to be. And that’s why…I’m asking you to help me. I know that, together, we can do this.”
Aerith seems to have a very specific view on Sephiroth and what he’s about. It’s possible that she is a bit biased and has “clouded eyes” as Sephiroth put it, possibly due to her one-sided experience within and knowledge gained from the Lifestream. It would be in the planet’s interest for Aerith to be 100% against Sephiroth, which is how he’s able to easily manipulate her and the group into defeating destiny and breaking him free of his prison.10 Interestingly, he claims to want to protect the planet, but he actually doesn’t care about any of the souls residing within, according to Aerith. More on that later.
Let’s back up a bit again. Right after Sephiroth beckons Cloud to follow him and leaves through the portal, Cloud attempts to follow but is then stopped by Aerith. Instead, she steps forward and casts some sort of spell on the portal. It looks a lot like her Healing Wind Limit Break, just with a different color scheme and similarities to the visual effect displayed during her memory transfer to Red XIII. This tells us that Aerith imbues that portal with memories, changing it from a corrupt purple to a calming light yellow.
But why does she do that? We don’t know where exactly Sephiroth’s purple portal would have led to, but we can assume that Aerith wants to make sure it leads to a safer place for them to enter on their terms. What do we see on the other side? A perfect replica of Midgar, as if nothing changed. Aerith’s spell seems to have projected her memories of Midgar in its current state into the other side.
In our previous video about the Whispers, we showed you that the Whisper Harbinger copies fragments of this image of Midgar to gather debris projectiles to hurl at Cloud. During this duplication process, we see purple and white memory streaks, green tinted glitch effects and even green Lifestream particles, similar to Aerith’s memory transfer ability.
Tifa: “What will we find on the other side?”
Aerith: “Freedom. Boundless, terrifying freedom. Like a great, never-ending sky.”
She already talked about being afraid of the sky outside of Midgar in chapter 8 and will mention it again during the ending. We’ll get into that near the end of the video. Here, she references the world outside, especially one unrestricted by destiny and no predefined future.
Aerith: “If we succeed…if we win…we’ll be changing ourselves. I guess…maybe, that’s why I hesitated.”
Singularity
There’s only one scene in the singularity which pertains to Aerith and it’s right after the first glimpse of the future during the battle against Whisper Harbinger. After transitioning back to the party, Barret is confused, and Aerith looks a bit apprehensive about answering. She then gives Red a serious look and with it the permission to reveal the truth. He complies uncomfortably.
Barret: “What the hell did I just see?”
Aerith: *stern gaze*
Red XIII: *resigned expression* “A glimpse of tomorrow if we fail here today.”
Both Aerith and Red seem to know exactly what that memory flash means, which also implies that both know about the original timeline up to at least 500 years after the original game’s events.
Ending
In the ending cinematic, Aerith doesn’t know what comes next as her knowledge of the original timeline won’t help in a world in which events can now go into any direction.
Tifa: “So…what now?”
Aerith: *shakes her head*
After Aerith reassures Cloud that they can and will beat Sephiroth, Red XIII chimes in with a completely different dialog than in the original.
Red XIII: “If it’s to be a hunt, you could use a nose like mine.”
Here, he unconditionally lends his services to Cloud. In the original, he says that he’ll go back to his hometown and will go with the group only as far as that. This is more evidence for Red XIII having received more knowledge than just the portion about the Whispers. Looks like Aerith needs someone who will guide the group after she eventually passes away.
Before it transitions to the credits, Aerith murmurs to herself:
Aerith: “I miss it, the steel sky.”
The direct translation from the Japanese original would say: “The sky, how I hate it.” While it’s a similar sentiment, the English version sounds more like a longing for the safe and known past while the Japanese version condemns the real sky directly. We’ll see why shortly.
During the credits after Hollow ends, several themes important to the story are played in the background. It starts with Aerith’s Theme, followed by the Main Theme, the Whispers’ Theme, and then the Main Theme again. This tells us that Aerith is a very important piece of the Remake’s new narrative, as were the Whispers in this first installment of this multi-part epic.
Intro/2nd Meeting
Now, let’s now go back to the very beginning, the intro cinematic. Here’s where it starts to become interesting.
Unlike in the original, Aerith has her eyes closed and when she opens them, they glow unnaturally green when comparing them to other instances from pre-rendered scenes. This might be the point where she gains the first taste of additional knowledge about the original events. How? Aerith’s post Advent Children essence in the Lifestream connects to her former self through the Mako leak, illuminating her eyes.
How is this possible? 2 reasons:
Time works differently within the Lifestream as detailed in The Maiden Who Travels the Planet novella11 which tells Aerith’s story in the Lifestream starting from her death and concluding with repelling Meteor.
"In this world of Mako—Aerith knew that the concept of time and distance was different from the surface. […] The passing of time in the Mako held no meaning in the first place. The Planet’s history was made up of accumulated memories, all merged together and were always by her side. There were memories of the present and also of the past. […] the events that were inscribed into the memories had surpassed time and were all linked together as a whole. It hinted that time was moving into the future in the world of the living. As those new memories from the surface merged together with the Planet, new life would be brought into the world as the energy from the Planet is delivered."
Source — https://thelifestream.net/the-maiden-who-travels-the-planet-revised/3/
Furthermore, Aerith is able to instill knowledge into other souls and even use an avatar on the surface as described in the “Lifestream White” chapters. Right after this knowledge transfer, Aerith notices the Whispers’ presence,12 which leads to a different behavior of Aerith compared to the original.
Look closely what Aerith is looking at.
In the far back, we see reflections of a purple light source, the area that caught her attention. Also notice the flickering yellow light bulb. When she exits the alleyway, the tiled ground to her right also reflects purple light which captures Aerith’s attention again. This leads her to bump into a guy. As a result, several flowers fall out of her basket, and one gets stepped on by a crate-carrying passerby. Each difference to the original scene is caused by an invisible presence near purple light reflections. These scare her out of the alleyway and cause her to bump into the guy.
Also interesting: the entrance to this alleyway is slightly cast into purple light when Aerith flees from the Whispers back into it in Chapter 2, but that same light reflection is gone afterwards. As if those purple reflections are congruent with the Whispers’ presence. Curious.
We’ll go more into the meaning of the colors purple and yellow in a different video, so let’s return to Aerith. It’s clear she doesn’t know what the Whispers are and only senses an unknown and thus frightening presence. But why does it frighten her? In the interview, Nojima-San tells us that Aerith might have had bad experiences with the Whispers in the past. Why is that? What could have caused her to mess with fate prior to the beginning of the game?
Our dear Scholar Peeps Nibbles had an interesting idea: To make sure this memory transfer into her former self works, Aerith needs to test her skills first. She instills small fragments of knowledge into her former self at earlier points in time to see if it works as intended, which summons forth Whispers who observe or even correct her deviation. Those deviations must have only been minor as she can’t see the Whispers yet, only feel them, thanks to being a Cetra.
There’s also another possibility, but that’s for later.
Why did future Aerith choose this specific point in time? It’s right before Sephiroth starts interfering in the original events. Additionally, using this moment of Aerith communicating with the planet leads to less confusion upon receiving that knowledge.
We theorize that Aerith receives her knowledge about the original timeline here but most of it gets removed again by the Whispers flying around her before she meets Cloud, possibly again before she touches him. That’s why she already knows more than she should but also seems oblivious to some details.
What lead us to this specific conclusion? Music and behavior.
If we get Aerith into view immediately during chapter 2, we can watch her desperately and unsuccessfully trying to sell the yellow flower to several people trying to leave the area after watching the Mako reactor explode. When observing her for longer, she stands in place, fidgets a little, looks around for more customers and occasionally turns her head to peek down Loveless Street, the direction Cloud will be coming from.
Why is she suddenly so desperate to sell flowers, right after such tragic catastrophe no less? She doesn’t even do that in the original and she’s also not in dire need of Gil. It’s possible that she just wants to bring joy to people in an hour of darkness. However, they seem to prefer artificial flowers. One such store lies just down the road on the other side of the plaza.
It’s also possible that she went off-script already, threatening the upcoming meeting’s occurrence, while Avalanche was running through the reactor. This might have caused some loss of knowledge, which is why she tries to find the person who is supposed to receive the flower while being hazy about the details.
Cloud’s weird behavior and similarity to Zack might trigger her instincts. After all, he looks like a SOLDIER 1st Class and carries Zack’s Buster Sword. Aerith’s surprised expression might confirm this. To make sure the meeting actually happens, the Whispers hold Aerith in place to get Cloud’s attention or maybe even just to stop her from selling that flower. However, she feels their presence and gets scared.
What about the music? In chapter 8, from the moment Aerith wakes up Cloud and until Reno shows up, a piano arrangement of Aerith’s theme is playing in the background. It’s the same one that plays in Advent Children during their spiritual conversation while Cloud is riding his bike to the Forgotten Capital.
Please note that this specific section can only be heard in the full piece from the official soundtrack, but it’s the most unique one to any arrangement of Aerith’s theme.
This is a very strong hint that the Aerith we see and play as from chapter 8 and onward possesses the knowledge and abilities from her post Advent Children counterpart in the Lifestream. This is the only instance in this game where this specific track is playing. During Cloud and Aerith’s first meeting, a completely new arrangement of Aerith’s theme is playing while she offers Cloud the flower. They could have easily used the Advent Children arrangement in chapter 2 already, but they didn’t.
On top of that, it’s the second time a track from Advent Children is being used this way, but more on that in the Analysis about Sephiroth.
This concludes part 2 of Aerith’s Secret.
Due to the sheer amount of content, I decided to split it into 3 parts. Not only for the first video releases of this analysis back then but also for their transcripts here, even though I linked the full video up top. The table of contents will also encompass all 3 parts eventually and be present in all 3 transcript articles for easy navigation, all the while keeping the article length and footnotes at a manageable size.
Link to part 3 will appear here once it’s published.
It doesn’t even say anything about arriving “too early” but arriving at all. However, isn’t that what happened in the original game? Seems like the Ultimania only describes what we see and not what actually happens behind the scenes, but that’s for another analysis.
Excerpt from the novel: “She dove into the current and rushed from here to there, seeking out spirits to help her - other Ancients not yet dispersed. The fading shards of their consciousness responded to her call. Heartbreakingly few though they were, she infused them with her memories and gained their help.“
Not quite. Tseng caught her on her way home. While it is not said where exactly, he certainly did not capture her at Seventh Heaven.
The resolution scene’s mechanics are detailed in the Ultimania. Audrey summarized it for us: https://twitter.com/aitaikimochi/status/1256134374367485953
Savor life, not death.
500 meters equal around 1640 feet. Midgar’s plates are around 300 meters above ground in Remake and if we consider 1 floor of the Shinra building to be around 3 meters high, we reach about 500 meters on the 65th floor. Granted, this is all a rough estimation but that is sufficient for making a point about Aerith being too far away from the planet’s surface and nature in general to establish a connection similar to that time in the Sleeping Forest.
The PHS terminals in The Drum are used to switch between the 2 parties. A nice callback to the original game’s Party setup menu called PHS.
Trivia: “A PHS, or Personal Handy-phone System, is a type of mobile phone system that was common in Japan at the time of the development of Final Fantasy VII. In the game, PHS stands for "Party Henshu (Editing) System" (パーティ編成システム, Pāti Hensei Shisutemu)” — Excerpt from https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Cellphone
This is an error in the analysis video. Tifa never confronts Cloud about the discrepancies between their memories from Nibelheim 5 years ago. In Lower Junon, it’s Cloud who initiates the conversation. Tifa even cuts it short by telling him to come outside and check out what’s happening.
Neither about Jenova’s presence in Shinra HQ, its true form, or even the connection to Sephiroth.
This short story was written by Benny Matsuno for the official FFVII Ultimania Omega guidebook. While it was never officially released outside of Japan, fans have taken it upon themselves to translate it into English, like thelifestream.net and the Shinra Archeology Department. While the story itself is not considered canon, this particular segment regarding the flow of time in the Lifestream is backed up by the Lifestream White chapters in the novel On the Way to a Smile which is considered canon.
We know this from an interview in Remake’s Ultimania where Kazushige Nojima, Remake’s scenario writer was asked about this:
—In the Remake’s version of this scene, after she looks at the light, it seems like she’s running from something. Why?
Nojima: She felt the presence of the Whispers and wanted to run away from them. Perhaps it’s because Aerith had several bad experiences with the Whispers up until then?