-Mecha

First of all, Aeris was deliberately cliche–and it’s revealed that she was NEVER the right woman for him. Everythign about Aeris and her relationship with Cloud was stereotypical because they had to trick you into tinking that she and Cloud were emant to be together. In fact, it’s a strike against, in my mind, the tropes it exploits. Cloud ends up with Tifa who, while needlessly busty, has at least slightly more depth of character.

Second, Aeris, while sweet and nurturing, has several things going for her from a feminist standpoint:

A: She’s independent and powerful. She doesn’t start out that way, sure, but she is the only memebr of the cast of characters who is NOT aimless and lost. Shew goes off on her own to the forest of the ancients, and saves the world without needing Cloud’s help.

B: She’s important. I, for one, think it’s nice that, for once, the male lead hero is NOT the subject of prophecy, the one with a grand destiny, or whatever. Aeris deserves some points, I think, for being the single most important character in the story.

C: Yes, she does sacrifice herself. But Squaresoft has a long history of using loss and sacrifice in their stories. Would it be better if it had been a man sacrificing himself instead? I would submit not.

Aeris is not your typical tragic heroine sacrificing herself to save some studly hero. She’s well above that. She sacrifices herself for the world. And, in so doing, achieves immortal life and power. In other words, she’s a bona-fide crhist figure. To me, I think it’s a positive step for women if they are taken seriously enough that a comparison to Christ seems apt.

I’m not saying that FinalFantasy is a feminsit product–far from it. But I think it’s a tad inaccurate to label it as simple sexism. To my mind, there’s nothing simple about it.

Aeris’ character started out with very little depth, she was sweet and “nurturing”…and that was about it. But over the course of her appearance in the game she started to flesh out and have depth, only to be killed off. The fan reaction is still pretty vehement, it seems this particular trope hasn’t gone over well even with the most dense of gamers. Square/Enix seems to have picked up on the discontent, but rather than throw out old tropes, now doesn’t bother to give any of there characters much depth. FFX was the most glaring to me, the whole game seemed to be nothing more than a delivery mechanism for Bliztball.