I’m an Aeris fan. In fact, Aeris is my favorite Final Fantasy female ever. Yes, I’m aware that Aeris has just as many haters as she does fans, but that’s not stopping me. I loved her from the instant she appeared onscreen in the opening sequence to the instant she died at the end of disk 1. But why?

First of all, I love her character design. I tend to like characters that have a design that’s appealing to me. I love her outfit, her hair, eyes, etc. I just love the way she looks. She has a unique design amongst Final Fantasy girls. Think of how many characters in games/anime/manga have the same basic hairstyle/color as Tifa. It’s uncountable. Yuffie also has a great design, but boring hair (also seen in nearly every game/anime/manga). Anywho, Aeris looked very original and new to me, which I appreciated.

Second is the fact that she seems to be a religious character. She prays a lot and has a deep spirituality to her. As a Christian who spends a lot of time praying herself, I liked this. Now, I know that a lot of people aren’t religious, so this is quite possibly a flaw in her character for other people. But keep in mind that I’m going over my own personal reasons for liking her here. And personally, I felt like I could relate to her more because she relies on her faith to give her strength. Now you can argue that she’s not praying to the God I worship and she’s not Christian or whatever you want. That’s not the point. The point is that she prays, and she’s spiritual, and she’s religious. That’s what appeals to me.

Third is that, although she’s traditionally seen as a weak character, she does her best in every situation and stands up to boldly face every obstacle she comes across. Maybe she can’t fight very well by herself. Maybe she can’t make it on her own. Maybe she won’t be the one to save the day in the final battle. But you know what? She fights to the best of her ability, and makes an effort to help out. Think of Yanagi from Flame of Recca, who is also the weak/healer type character. I’ve heard several people compare Aeris to Yanagi, but the main difference here is that Yanagi never attempts to learn how to fight or defend herself. She simply slides back and lets everyone else fight to protect her. Maybe it would be pointless or useless for her to try to learn to fight, since she probably wouldn’t be very good anyway, but if she had at least put in some effort, I would have respected her character a lot more. This is why I respect Aeris. She’s not as strong as the other characters, but she’s always ready and willing to jump into battle and give it her all.

Fourth, she’s not all that different from Tifa. I’m sick of people thinking that it’s impossible to respect both of these characters. People tend to think of them as opposites, but they’re really not. I keep seeing these rants about why Tifa is better, lists of things that make Aeris horrible. But have you noticed that in almost every case, Tifa has done something almost exactly like the things that make people hate Aeris. Okay, so Aeris was demanding of Cloud and practically forced him to protect her and be her bodyguard. What about Tifa forcing Cloud to keep some old promise he made to her years ago (to protect her)? It’s basically the same thing. Both of these women were demanding of Cloud. But where would he be without them? My point is that these two women are not so different that you have to detest one and adore the other.

So yeah, I love Aeris, and I always will. But why don’t I like CloudxAeris? The simple truth is that I think Aeris is too good for Cloud. That, and the fact that it wouldn’t work out because she’s, uh, dead. How can they build a relationship? She’s not even in the picture anymore. And it would be way too fluffy and mushy. Their relationship up until her death was cute and sweet, but that’s it. There was no real drama or anything like that. It was boring.

I have no doubts that Cloud did indeed love Aeris to a certain extent, and that she had some very deep feelings for him. But was it the passionate, romantic sort of love? Or was it more of a friendship-type of love? I believe it was somewhere in the middle, but now their relationship can never be fully explored. It ended before it could blossom. Had she lived, I believe they would have ended up together. Lucky for me (as a diehard Clouffie fan), that didn’t happen (though I am very sad that she died).