Talk:Aerith Gainsborough/Archive 1

Trojans!

There is a torjan in the following links:

• http://www.ff7citadel.com/efiction/viewstory.php?sid=1
• http://www.ff7citadel.com/efiction/viewstory.php?sid=2

I clicked on it and Norton automatically removed it from my computer.

The links are found in this sentence under the subtopic, Fandom:

"One of the earliest and most notorious of these rumors was put out by Ben Lansing [1] who unsuccessfully tried to retract it later [2] after his "authoritative" article had snowballed into a big debate."

--Hobbes3k 04:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so Norton freaks out when a site author does some weird changes. Guess why I use Linux. =/ Apparently, there was some technical problems in the ff7citadel site earlier this month. They've apparently been fixed now. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 16:19, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Spirit in the Church

Hi, I'm fairly sure that the spirit in the church was actually supposed to be a full fledged conversation between cloud and Aerith, that was not put in due to there not being enough time. I would just go and change it, but I thought i should put something here. Actually i will change it , if anyone has any objections, feel free to change it back and I'll leave it alone. Vespertilio 4 October 2005

I, on the other hand, based on the evidence in the game, am convinced that present state suggests it was nothing but a glitch. An appropriate glitch, but a glitch nevertheless. I wrote a little bit more about this in the wikibook some while ago. However, I don't think this thing is a significant enough a fact to be mentioned in a Wikipedia article - it's a very small part of the game, which to my knowledge hasn't been confirmed by Square to be an intended feature either! If it were, it might be inclusion-worthy due to it's unusual execution and debate-worthiness. Now it's just a small detail in the game that gets a lot of discussion. --Wwwwolf 13:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I have always been under the impression that it was an Easter egg - considering the location (Aerith's Church), and the time that it appears (third disk) - it seems that it was added as an Easter egg to possibly remind the player about what had happened before the went to the North Crater for the final confirmation. Also as a programmer myself I would like to note that I find it to be far fetched that this is a glitch for very basic reason of the fact that her avatar is transparent, where as other character glitches in the game occur with the standard, non-transparent. It is my understanding - based on game play - that there is some code for transparent character models (due to the various ghost monsters) but this is not tied to standard NPC characters, as such a glitch in that area would be extremely unlikely. Also, the Aerith avatar only shows up in two different locations - either by the flower bed, or be the benches, there have been some reports that this is related to how she was treated thought out the game. If either of these items is true than that means that there is code tied to the appearance and that it would be an Easter egg as opposed to glitch. Also, it should be noted that she will consistently appear in one of the two expected locations – if this was a true glitch then the appearance area would be pseudo-random and there would also be a chance for no appearance. However, I do doubt that it was intended to be a full scene of any type, the impact of just seeing her before the final battle is enough to stir most players emotionally. Darkstar949 16:23, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

1) As another programmer, I have a different theory - game loads up static data and then corrects its mistake as soon as it catches up with itself: The game loads up the church area, looks at the static data and sees "Hmm, Aerith should be in either of those spots", loads up the character model, and sticks it there. Then it checks what content really should go in the church and notices "Oops, Aerith isn't here after all" and removes the model. 2) Is the character really transparent or anything? Last time I could see it, Aerith was full visible before disappearing. ... in short, I have plenty of reasons to believe this is just a glitch until either Square confirms this or someone figures out the game script format enough to figure out what was really going on here (ie, if there really is specific code that causes this behavior, then this is deliberate and definitely an easter egg). And I still think this is borderline fancruft. --Wwwwolf 19:44, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it is fancruft in the context of the current article - it is better suited to being in the Easter eggs/glitches article. However, IIRC the PC version of the game came out after the PSX version - is the spirit confirmed to be in that version of the game as well? I will do some checking to see if the PC version is x86 native, or if they used an interpreter for that version of the game. If it is x86 native, and the spirit appears that might be another clue towards the nature of the spirit. Also, do we have a list where/when Aeirth appears in the church to determine if the location syncs with the location of the spirit? Darkstar949 20:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm taking a flying leap and guessing that a large part of the PS version of the game was written in portable C or something (32-bit era was when people quit writing everything in assembly anyway). I think most modern games implement some form of virtual machine / interpreter that runs the game script and interprets game data. Plus even if the thing was in native code, so what? It definitely wasn't a 100% rewrite, and they would definitely not bother rewriting code that was in the *game script*. They just ported the game engine. Just proves that Square knows how to write portable code, even their glitches are portable. =) And by the way, This ghost doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Advent Children's end; has anyone thought that, like, this church is, like, an important location for Aeris? The end of AC boils down to "hey, look, this healing spring appeared in Aerith's church! Cloud is cured! The children are cured! And look, there's that flower girl's ghost! She used to hang around here, right?" Good, we've nailed down the correlation, now where's the causation? --Wwwwolf 22:10, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Alright, I just remembered something I had read back in the day - here's the link to it: Ghost in the Church. Based on this information my conclusion is a Easter egg and glitch in the same area. The Easter egg is her appearance in the church as a "ghost" - the glitch is that Square had the code written so that it did not activate until after her death (as it should have been written), instead, wrote it so that the various church events keep the flag for the code turned off. So the glitch is in the fact that Square did not anticipate people back tracking to the church before they left Midgar. Also, if you take into account how she appears in Advent Children at the end of the movie it seems that they are treating it as an official canon reference to the game. Darkstar949 15:15, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

The PC version is a direct port from the playstation, but the port was created by EIDOS, not Square. JQF 22:37, 5 October 2005

You really suppose Eidos wrote the whole thing from scratch, remade all game script and all data from scratch, and in no way did Square give any data and code to Eidos? "Oh, hi, we need you to port our flagship game. Blindfolded and with your hands tied between your back." Pssshw. Get real. Eidos probably got full FF7 source code, just rewrote the Playstation-specific parts and checked up the game script. --Wwwwolf 08:31, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Just so everybody knows, you can see Aerith in the Church anytime RIGHT AFTER resucing her from the Turks on disk one. If you backtrack to the church, you will have Cloud and Aerith in your party, and the Spirit will be right their. This is all on Disk one. JQF 16:37, 5 October 2005

Place of death

I originally added this bit to the article:

It has also been frequently suggested that Aerith's death was supposed to take place slightly later in the game (possibly Northern Crater); evidence for this isn't extensive but at least more substantial than any of the rumors for her resurrection.

I think I'll now remove it (and maybe put it in Wikibooks later, when and if it gets Really Extensive which it isn't now), because I think I went a little bit fancruftaceous here. Changing small details like this are not really noteworthy; A lot of games get a lot of changes, sometimes far more dramatic, during the development. This was probably just one detail that the developers bounced around until settling it where it is in the final product, and as such I don't think it's not worth mentioning. --Wwwwolf 10:15, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

== HOLY did noy cause Geostigma==This is an erroneous statement. jenovas cells caused Geostigma not holy

Linkspam

Um... there's a whole bunch of External Links here! Should these go, as most are to fansites? I've often viewed these as linkspam unless the fan site is really notable and extensive (like ff7citadel.com, in case of the main FF7 article). It started to go this way in the Tifa article, but I just added note along the lines of "hey, the Offoapropated Fanlisting has a nice list of fansites, take a look there, WP:NOT a linkfarm" as a comment. The problem is, in Aerith's case, there isn't a nice list of fansites anywhere - We could just say "well, just look at Aerith fanlisting", but unlike in Tifa's case, they don't have a nice list of fansites, just a list of fans in general. So does anyone have any other ideas? I hesitate to do anything about this right now. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 18:59, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Theme

Just so there won't be a war here, I'll put it in the discussions. It does NOT matter than most people don't have a musical ear -- the piece is SIMILAR, yes, but it's not in any way "based on" Aria De Mezzo. It's not really relevent (at least in my opinion) or at the very least it should be clear that they they are merely similar. Melodia Chaconne 17:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree --- Aerith's Theme is so similar that piece that you can actually sing portions of it along with it. Agent0042 19:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

So what if they are, Uematsu-san created them both. Many artists redux their works for use in other things, which in effect creates a completely new work (depending on certain elements of course). I don't see why this is an issue, personally. Eluchil 11:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Is this going to keep going? I was going to just give up on it, but somebody put it back up and now you've removed it again, Melodia? Agent0042 22:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Kingdom Hearts 2 Spoiler

Do you think it's worth it putting a KH2 spoiler tag for one word?[[1]] Zero1328 02:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand. What's the spoiler in question? Agent0042 06:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I'm pretty sure that Tifa was never mentioned to be in the game, that's why. Zero1328 11:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

since people talk here often.

Why do each of the FFVII characters have "(In Final Fantasy VII)" next to their age in their infoboxes? It doesnt make sense to me and Aerith's infobox has it. -- Psi edit 00:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I would assume it's because ages change from year to year, so age is only meaningful when you define the point of measurement. --Pagrashtak 02:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

probably because FFVII has prequels and sequels. ie, Advent Children is two years later, so everyone is 2 years older. before chrisis is so and so years earlier (too lazy to click and look up the date) so in that game their that many years younger. the original games serves as a reference point. Spencer 03:40, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok I just realized. Couldnt we just put "Present age" for all the characters. Psi edit 02:57, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

What exactly is present? You're dealing with fictional characters; there's no immediately obvious time point reference. --Pagrashtak 03:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Dirge of Cerberus is the latest setting for the FFVII world. Taking place 3 years after the first game. -- Psi edit 01:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Per Spencer1337. FFVII is the main game therefore it should be the main reference point. DoC is just a game branched off of FFVII (it wasn't the main game)--it was FFVII that started it all. That's why the images for each of the FFVII characters are from FFVII, not DoC. —Mirlen 01:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'd be interested to see someone win the argument that Aeristh (deliberate) is three years older now than she was when she died. - 211.28.80.58 13:13, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Personality

It's worth pointing out that the content under "Personality" has been lifted almost word-for-word from [2]. I know that it was the Wikipedia editor that did the lifting, because I am the original author. I don't particularly mind, because my opinion gets more airtime this way, and obviously there's no way to prove that I was the original author, nor am I going to bother trying, but I feel like pointing it out in case people believe that I plagarised my work. (- Mary) --80.4.205.50 00:58, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sort of confused at what you're saying. Forgive this stupid mind of mind of mine's, but do you want to be credited or no? I noticed that you removed the link, so I am confused as of what you are trying to propose. —Mirlen 01:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC):

I'd like to be credited, but it's not necessary. I removed the link because a friend told me he added it, and I preferred to see what was said here first... I did add a link in the "External Links" section, though, and I hope that's okay. (- Mary)--80.4.205.50 01:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Yup, definately your site should be put on External links and credited :-). Thanks for not minding. One of these days, when I up to it, I'll reword/rephrase it, but still link to you :). One thing, though, I don't know if putting 'source for "personality" section is the right format, though...I'll check. —Mirlen 02:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

It's appreciated, Mary. The problem is that many would prefer to spam the Wiki with any old website that has topical information, regardless of style and address than approach it in an appropriate manner. Cheers. Eluchil 03:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Retyped and reworded personality in own words so Wikipedia has some originality. I hope you don't take this as an offence, Mary. I do greatly appreciate for your help and understanding of not being mad at being plagarized. You may edit as you see fit. — Mirlen 03:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't. To be honest, I think the way it was worded was pretty awkward anyway, which was one of the things that surprised me so much about the fact that someone had decided to copy it. Thanks for all your help, everyone. :) (- Mary)--80.4.205.50 15:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Romantic Issues Edit

Hi. I've been trying to edit the Romantic Issues section of the article to reflect Aerith's actual feelings for Cloud, but it keeps getting changed back. As of right now, it's giving misleading information. This is what it says at the moment:

In Benny Matsuyama's novel Maiden Who Travels The Planet, some fans interpret the following quote below as that most of what she saw in Cloud had been emulated from Zack, believing that Aerith loved Cloud because of the striking similarities between the two.

"But she couldn't figure out the truth. Her thoughts just went in circles. Aerith delved into her memories again. Memories that showed Cloud's individuality. The way he walked. She remembered all his actions one by one...

Most of those thoughts merged into the Sea of Mako and awakened a character. The character recognized the image she recalled and he [Zack] woke up."

At the same time, however, she mentions that both Cloud and Zack are different people. Also, it has been revealed that she truly loved Cloud for who he is and more than her first love, as she claims early in the novella.

"At first, she thought he somehow had some similarities to her first love. Even so, his looks, voice and personality weren't similar, and he also made her think of him as a mysterious person... But it soon didn't matter. She loved him much more than her first love."

This is simply wrong. This is like quoting the flashback sequence in Mideel first, and then later quoting Sephiroth and Hojo's lines at the Northern Crater and trying to claim that Cloud's not a real person. Aerith never got to know Cloud for who he was order to love him for who he was. Maiden Who Travels the Planet never says that she loved him for who he was. It merely says that she loved him more than she loved Zack, and that's it. This was also during Chapter 1. In Chapter 5 when she begins thinking about all the things about Cloud that she liked -- ironically, the things that she thought displayed his individuality -- it caused Zack to awaken, because those things were characteristic of him.

It is not "at the same time" that she mentions that they are different people. It is after Zack awakens, with the fact that the things about Cloud that she remembered being the characteristics he had adopted from Zack. For that matter, the only things she brings up that express a difference between the two are that Cloud's simplistic, as well as awkward around girls (some aspects of his personality), his appearance (though he still moved and walked like Zack), and his voice. Not exactly a huge list.

As the article's worded, it is highly misleading, and I can only conclude that it is being worded in that manner intentionally. This is an encyclopedia, which should be reporting facts, not twisting statements around across several chapters to make things look differently than they are.

Maiden even goes so far as to have Aerith point out that she herself could not be the one to free Cloud's mind in the Lifestream because she simply didn't know the real him. She didn't know the truth about his past. Only Tifa could do it, because only Tifa was there. It's pretty hard to make an argument that Aerith loved him for the real him when she never met him and only met the nigh-complete imitation of Zack that he deluded himself into being, and when she even admits that she couldn't help him because she didn't know him. Hell, after Tifa helps him reconstruct his mind, it even says that it was only then that she knew the real Cloud:

"She was happy. She was happy that she now knew the real Cloud and was able to watch over him, even though it was just for a short while."

So I'm going to change it back again, and I ask that anyone who deems it appropriate or necessary to alter it after that please explain why here. There's no point in an edit war going on and on here.

Ryu Kaze February 7, 2006

It's only wrong in your opinion because things like this are more out of interpretation than simply stating a fact. SE is vague when it comes to concerning the LT because they, as Nomura had said in a Kingdom Hearts interview, that it was really all up to the reader and their own interpretation.

Xcomp's translation was down yesterday (the link didn't work for me), so I didn't know the order of the quotes. I am sorry if that came out intentionally—but whether or not, I meant to, I apologize for whatever I did wrong in being misleading with the intepretation. I was following in what I thought was a "factual interpretation", so maybe that does make it intentional (but not with a thought to maliciously twist facts);because MotP is not the only thing that I base on the whole interpretation of this only 'Romantic issue' on.

Anyway, I am satisfied with the current version. I did not exactly follow the first version, because you seem to be stating that Aerith did not love Cloud, trying to rebuttle the last quote in the beginning of novella. In my opinion, I thought ending with the Zack quote was misleading in concluding that she did not really love Cloud—just as you thought that I was being misleading and twisting quotes. So all again, it's interpretation. However, now that you've added the last quote and paragraph, I am satisfied.

Anyway, I hope that misunderstandings will be cleared up now...so, peace? —Mirlen 22:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The easiest way to handle this is state all the facts without interpretation or pretense. Or, if you must add an interpretation, include both (or all) sides, but make it clear that neither is any less right or wrong than the other, and it is simply up to individual preference. So, state the facts as they are presented, and go from there. Be as neutral and objective as possible. Done deal. Eluchil 00:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I was trying to do: keep it NPOV as possible. Including Zerith and Clerith views, but I guess it didn't turn out that way :P. —Mirlen 02:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it was definitely my intention that I only mention the facts involved. And, yes, Mirlen, there may be peace. Now that I've thought about it, I most definitely should have added that Aerith continued to love Cloud just as much as before once she knew who he really was the first time around. I never doubted that she loved him, and the novella doesn't indicate that she didn't, and I apologize if I made it appear that way. I just wanted to emphasise the fact that she loved him without knowing the real him, but she definitely did continue to love him just as much even after she knew who he really was.

If you're satisfied with the current form of the citations, then I guess all is well. No hard feelings and sorry if I came off a bit heated. I was just a bit frustrated, and that was probably made all the worse because I've got a cold.

By the way, I think XComp's site is dead and won't be coming back. Kind of a shame. If you can find Maiden online somewhere (you could probably request it on a forum; I'm sure someone saved it; you might be able to get someone to post it), then save it to your computer or e-mail or something.

Anyway, have a good one.

Ryu Kaze 7:50 PM February 7, 2006

Ah, I'm so glad we've got this resolved. Having conflicts just creates thorns that just continously build up in the heart if not fixed—not good. Anyway, hope you get better, Ryu Kaze.

Yeah, I checked out XComp's site again, and it works :). He said he had to switch FTP or something like that, not sure if I remember. Thanks for telling me anyway. —Mirlen 02:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah, good that his site's back up. It would be a shame if it were to be gone. It's a really good piece of work.

And, yes, it is good to get conflicts resolved. Thanks for the well wishes, and, again, have a good one.

Ryu Kaze 10:36 PM February 7, 2006

I think some elements from the Crisis Core trailer should be included. Perhaps mentioning something about her and Zack's "promise". Granted not much else is known, but I think it's notable nonetheless. Eluchil 01:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

What the hell...?

I was wondering who -- and why they did it -- posted this in the opening of the article?:

"The alternative spelling was subsequently used in the English translation of Kingdom Hearts, spoken by Leon (aka Squall Leonhart), as 'Aye-ree-ith'. However, both Aerith and Aeris may possibly be pronounced the same, as 'air-is'."

There's no audio for that part of Kingdom Hearts. It's just text. I'm going to fix this.

Ryu Kaze February 9, 2006

I'd be remised if I didn't direct you to the writers' rules of engagement. For your own reference. Eluchil 06:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Calling the Lifestream

In a recent edit, Midnight Wolf wrote that in "Maiden Who Travels The Planet", the writers revealed "the fact that it was [Aeris] who called the Lifesteam into action to defeat the Meteor". I'm pretty sure that fact was obvious from the FF7 ending. Marlene says "The flower girl?" when the Lifestream starts to move, and in the end, we see Aeris' face glowing green. I'm changing it to say that Maiden confirms that fact. Viltris 08:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Oops! Sorry 'bout that. There were a couple other things I forgot about the game too ;). Thanks for correcting my mistake. MidnightWolf 05:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Women in Refrigerators

I already know that happens to her at the end of disc 1 of FF7, but do you think that she could be an example of the "Women in Refrigerators" syndrome? Duo 05:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Uh... maybe, but it doesn't have very specific criteria, and the "syndrome" itself is a debatable concept. I don't see it as relevant to this article. Ryu Kaze 04:09, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

She almost certainly fits the profile: killed by a supervillain as a plot device and to create dramatic turmoil for the male hero. However, while the concept is easily amenable to other media, I don't think the term is frequently used outside of comic books. Indeed, the article on the concept doesn't really talk about it at length outside of comics. – Seancdaug 04:45, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd agree with that, but while her death -- and Jessie's -- does serve as a plot device, so did Zack's, Bigg's and Wedge's. It seems like a kind of... selective criteria that could be applied to many things if one tried to. I've heard that some people don't even think it should be used unless the character who was killed was killed because their reason for being targeted somehow related to them being female (like GL's girlfriend), so I can't really see the point myself. Ryu Kaze 00:33, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Looking at it from the perspective of the fictional aspects of the story, a WiR victim generally isn't targetted because she's female: she's not the victim of hate crimes or anything similar. GL's girlfriend wasn't killed because she was female, she was killed because she was a convenient way to get at the male hero. From a authorial perspective, it has everything to do with gender, of course: female characters are generally seen as more "disposable" than male characters, an attitude which is frequently defended by the argument that most of the audience for comic books are male, and theoretically more likely to identify/associate with male characters. By eliminating a major female character, you get the emotional impact of killing a major character, and all the drama that comes from that, but without losing a major male character and alienating your core audience. Aerith really is a textbook example of this kind of thing. Looking at the key points outlined in the WiR article, we've got

• "...a gruesome injury or murder of a female character..." – quasi-ritualistic impalement would seem to qualify
• "...at the hands of a supervillain..." – if Sephiroth isn't a supervillain, I'm not sure what he is
• "...as a motivating personal tragedy for a male superhero..." – the specter of Aerith's death hangs over the remainder of the storyline, and according to Sakaguchi, it was a reflection of his own suffering following the death of his mother
• "...[whose] death or injury... then helps cement the hatred between the hero and the villain responsible." – a given, really, but it's also worth pointing out that the death serves to cement the hatred of the player for Sephiroth by dramatically dispelling any sympathy for the character lingering from the Nibelheim flashback

While these criteria apply, in the broad sense, to the other deaths you mention (excluding the obvious "female" bit), there are very different connotations to Aerith's death, if only because Aerith's is a much more central character, and because her death is treated as more important by the story itself. How often are the other members of AVALANCHE even mentioned after the first disk? And, of course, the fact that Aerith is female is relevant: the concept of WiR was coined in response to the fact that such dramatically-charged, "motivational" deaths occur far more frequently to female characters than male characters. Considering how closely Aerith's murder matches the profile, it's very hard to write it all off as coincidence. It's rather sexist, IMO, but it's also deeply ingrained in our culture: part of the reason I don't think it's worth bringing it up here is because I think that expanding the definition of "WiR" to include all types of fiction would open the floodgates a little too wide. The other part of the reason is that it would be literary criticism, and litcrit is basically another form of original research. – Seancdaug 07:21, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd say that we should keep this from enlarging to a debate on this discussion page since Wikipedia isn't a forum. But on the other hand, I can see how Aerith being a WiR is certainly arguable, but nevertheless, it isn't really all that important to the article so I don't think there's any reason to include this part in. —Mirlen 01:15, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

When you put it all out there like that, Sean, I do agree with it; in the sense that it's ingrained into our culture, though, the concept itself is something of a literary criticism, so it does come off as OR. Ryu Kaze 22:23, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge with Maiden

Someone's created a Maiden Who Travels the Planet page, but I really don't see the need for it, as there's very little information to even speak of on it, and the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII page already makes mention of it, while quite a bit of its relevant information is contained here on Aerith's page (including the link to the translation). In fact, there's more info about it here than on its own page. I think that it should be merged here. Ryu Kaze 16:28, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

As there's no objections, I'm carrying out this merge now. Ryu Kaze 02:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

As the page has been merged I removed the link in the Aerith article to "Maiden who Travels the Planet" as it only redirects right back to Aerith. Mikya 05:25, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Congrats, everyone!

All of you who helped this page make GA, take a bow!  :) Kasreyn 19:41, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Square-Enix Character Profile

The "Official" website that redirects from http://www.square-enix-usa.com/games/ff7/aeris-char.html and http://na.square-enix.com/games/ff7/aeris-char.html note her Romanized, English name as "Aeris Gainsborough". Repeatedly. In the link name and in her profile itself. If it's on Square's official website, why is that somehow not the final word? 22 July 2006

Because that page is ancient, and hasn't been updated since September 09, 1998. Square has since released other games that mention the character, spelling her name "Aerith". And then there's Advent Children, in which she is also called "Aerith", both in the original Japanese credits, and throughout the English release (dub, subtitles, etc.) The facts of the matter are pretty simple, despite the incredible amount of discussion on this page. Her name is, and has always been, "Aerith". Due to a translation error on Sony's part, or for other, unknown reasons, she was originally introduced to English-speaking countries as "Aeris" in Final Fantasy VII. This error propogated through the media of the day, including the English manual, strategy guide, web site, and so on. It also occurred in Final Fantasy Tactics, which was released in America only 5 months after the American release of FFVII. Sheesh... If we could only get a statement from Kitase or Nomura spelling it out for people, that might finally lay this matter to rest. I doubt that we're ever going to get it though, as they probably don't know that this misunderstanding exists, or that it's this big of a deal among the fanbase. And they're too high-profile to attend conventions, where someone could ask them the question, a member of the media could record the answer, and we could cite them. -- Rablari Dash 08:09, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

redirect

The article currently says "Aeris" redirects here. but this is incorrect. Aeris redirects to the disambiguation page. I don't know if I should A) change the redirect or B) change this article from {{redirect}} to {{otheruses}}. ~ Amalas rawr ^{=^_^=} 18:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

• Hearing no comment on this, I've changed the article to use {{otheruses2}} since Aeris does NOT redirect here. ~ Amalas rawr ^{=^_^=} 20:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way... This page needs archiving.

This talk page is getting pretty long, weighing in at over 100KB. I propose that it be archived by topic, with the lengthy name debates (which consume a good chunk of the page) being archived on Aerith Gainsborough/Name Debate Archive (with minor formatting edits to improve readability), with a section either on this talk page or at the head of the archive page summarizing the arguments, so that newcomers to the article will be able to grasp the situation faster, and avoid bringing up the same arguments over and over again. The section at the head of the talk page here summarizes the current consensus, but doesn't explain it or summarize the arguments.

I'm willing to do all this, but I realise that the process of archiving a talk page (particularly one with so much controversy) requires a certain amount of trust in the archiver, and I don't want to just nominate myself for the position, being relatively new here. That, and I don't have as much time for the Wikipedia as I might like, or as much experience with it as others here. So, any comments? Nominations? Volunteers? -- Rablari Dash 09:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. Ryu Kaze 14:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)