Aerith, Tifa and Violence Against Women in FFVII
G’day websurfers, editing Kabba here. I wanna take the time to elaborate on the false equivalent between Cloud being forced to assault Aerith in OG, and him being forced to assault Tifa in Rebirth. Needless to say, violent loss of autonomy via alien DNA in a fictional story is not comparable to real life assault cases. The onus should NEVER be on a victim to fix their abuser, and any extenuating circumstances like conditions or substances affecting cognition and emotional regulation should be appropriately treated but not used to completely sidestep accountability and justice. None of the following is a condonation of real life domestic abuse. With all that being said, let’s break this down.
On the surface, OG Aerith and Re- project Tifa seem to share a similar experience with Cloud’s violence under Sephiroth’s influence - Cloud is extremely remorseful in both cases, and both women forgive him before resolving to help fix the problem. However, there’s two very important factors setting these instances apart: 1) the situational awareness of the victim, and 2) the consequences attached to the assault.
In OG, Cloud’s symptoms don’t become overt until Sephiroth reveals his true motives in the Temple of the Ancients, where he forces Cloud to hand the Black Materia to his clone and assault Aerith by pushing her to the ground and repeatedly hitting her. It’s clear the devs chose her to be the victim in this scene to maximise its emotional impact. Not only is she the biggest threat to Sephiroth’s plans due to her Cetra heritage, but as a mage with relatively low strength, agility and endurance, Aerith is naturally vulnerable to physical attacks, more than just about anyone else in the party. Combined with her exceptionally strong bond with Cloud and bright, warm personality, these factors make the assault all the more horrific and devastating to witness.
When the two meet in a shared dream shortly afterwards, Cloud apologises for what he did, and Aerith responds by encouraging him to take care of his mental health while she deals with Sephiroth. She forgives him because she‘s fully aware that Sephiroth is puppeteering him. She then shifts her focus to fixing the underlying problem because she has a risky but tangible plan for doing so: as the last Cetra, she’s the only one capable of summoning Holy which is needed to counter Sephiroth’s Meteor summoning. She needs to do this, not just Cloud’s sake but for everyone else’s too.
We may never know how her and Cloud’s dynamic might’ve changed had she not died right after this incident, but it still has severe, long-lasting consequences for the rest of the story. The third party member immediately pulls Cloud off Aerith and knocks him out. Recognising how much he’s suffering, Aerith decides to go off to the Forgotten City by herself to spare him further suffering. Barret and Tifa both fail to empathise with his anxieties around hurting Aerith again, showing they’ve begun to lose faith in him. Once the party catches up with Aerith, Sephiroth validates these fears by attempting to make Cloud kill her. When Cloud is able to defy his will, he kills her himself, both to eliminate the biggest threat to his plans and to further destabilise Cloud. By the time the party arrives at North Crater, the guilt and grief around Aerith’s death, the anguish of Sephiroth, Hojo and Jenova’s gaslighting, and the insecurity around Tifa’s inability to articulate the truth of their relationship, causes Cloud to have a mental breakdown and give Sephiroth the Black Materia, allowing him to summon Meteor. Given how long Sephiroth was able to delay Holy before the party defeated him, he would’ve succeeded, had Aerith not harnessed the Lifestream to help Holy repel Meteor. But this Hail Mary was avoidable - it took over a week for the party to be reunited and for Cloud to recover from the fallout of the events at North Crater, a disasterous setback which almost costed the party their lives and those of everyone and everything they ever loved. All of that happened because of the assault back in the Temple of the Ancients. The world almost ended because hurting and watching Aerith die greatly helped break Cloud’s already fragile psyche, and subtly caused a rift between him and his allies.
Meanwhile, in terms of situational awareness and impact, Re- project Tifa’s case couldn’t be more different from OG Aerith’s. Despite weeks of observing some pretty fucking obvious correlations, none of Cloud‘s companions, including Tifa, seem to suspect that Sephiroth is controlling him. In the aftermath of the assault, Cloud never tells her the identity of the “voices“ inside his head, and she never tries to ask him about the vision of him and Sephiroth together to see whether it has any plausibility. Even when Cloud expresses great guilt for assaulting her and confides in her about his degradation concerns, she doesn’t set any boundaries or offer to find him specialised help. Her main takeaway from her near-death experience is to fixate on the childhood flashbacks - Cloud was always her hero, so she should return the favour… somehow. It’s a wish-washy, hyper-romanticised perspective that fails to address either of their problems, and that is painfully apparent for the rest of Rebirth.
Tifa’s approach to the situation doesn’t change to reflect the new insight she supposedly has. She isn’t shown discussing Cloud’s welfare with anyone but Aerith, and even then all their conversations happen offscreen and only seem to concern his possible connection to Zack. Despite being fully aware that Cloud thinks she’s an imposter, a distrust that has already escalated to violence, she continues to withhold the truth from him, enable his delusions and offer nothing but the same old empty platitudes in the face of his growing anxieties. Not only that but she actively prevents him from directly communicating with Aerith, and in the Temple of the Ancients she doesn't disclose her suspicions around his worsening behaviour to anyone.
How exactly is this her “saving” him? Unlike OG Aerith, Tifa doesn’t fully understand why Cloud attacked her and her resolve to help him is centred around her romantic feelings, so there’s some pretty heavy domestic abuse undertones at play here. Let’s put her arc for the rest of Rebirth into perspective: a young woman gets near-fatally assaulted by the man she loves. She quickly forgives him because of one act of kindness 12 years ago she just remembered about, and then avoids acknowledging his role in her near-death experience despite seeking therapy for it in Cosmo Canyon. She optionally goes on a date with him where he only makes on her in lieu of another woman’s affections. In Temple of the Ancients she ends up getting assaulted AGAIN, watches him be able to pull his punches for that same other woman and then demurely asks him not to call her an imposter anymore. It’s really not a good look when you lay it all out like that, is it?
It gets even worse when you factor the rest of the party into this. Even though they didn’t directly witness the assault for themselves, they should’ve been able to deduce what happened. Whether or not they’re clued into the Sephiroth factor, none of them should be okay with Tifa being left with him, especially alone. Barret does slap Cloud in the face, but only to snap him out of his dissociation because… she “needs“ him?! This incident should’ve fractured the party - intentionally or not, Cloud almost killed Tifa. There should be consequences for what happened, because a man assaulting a woman deserves is an addition that warrants a high level of sensitivity and narrative weight. Even if they’re dead-set on staying together to optimise their chances against Sephiroth like in OG, at the very least we should be seeing a significant change in tone for the rest of the story - less levity and zaniness, more tension and conflict. But the party just goes on like nothing ever happened, continuing to ignore or performatively express concern for his behaviour and then act surprised when it escalates.
Cloud assaulting Aerith kickstarted a catastrophic chain of events in OG, while him assaulting Tifa is just another flash in the pan in Rebirth. OG had the sense to not downplay assault as a cheap bit of drama with no meaningful consequences, Rebirth did not. OG respected the victim enough to not reduce her to her romantic feelings for the (unwilling) perpetrator, Rebirth did not. Just one more sensitive topic Re- project carelessly bulldozes over, but anywho that’s all for now. Back to the playthrough.