Aeris being stabbed to her death.
Who is Aeris Gainsborough?[]
Before Final Fantasy 7 was released in the US, gaming stores had giant signs in their windows that read "AERIS IS DEAD". How this was supposed to be some major spoiler is beyond me, but I digress.
When Cloud gets separated from AVALANCHE near the beginning of the game, he lands in a church that Aeris frequents. She falls for him instantly, but they're forced to leave the church after getting attacked by the Turks. Cloud reminds Aeris of Zack, an old boyfriend of hers, and it doesn't take long for her to have feeling for Cloud and follow him around everywhere. She eventually asks him to be her bodyguard.
Events pass that unite the party, but Shinra finally succeeds in capturing Aeris. As luck would have it, Aeris is one of the few remaining descendants of the Ancients, and Shinra is very desperate to test her for whatever reason.
Cloud and company have no choice but to go in Shinra's Tower and rescure her, and they do so. They decide shortly thereafter to go after Sephiroth and thwart his plans of finding the Promised Land, though they eventually realize Sephiroth's true plans to summon Meteor, then suck up the planet's healing energy as his own. Aeris, being an Ancient is the only member of the party that can stop Sephiroth's plan to do so, decides to run off without telling anyone in her efforts.
The party eventually catches up to Aeris, and after Sephiroth fails to mind control Cloud into killing her, he descends from the sky and slices the bitch to shreds himself.
Or you can be technical and say that he just stabbed her once. Either way, Aeris dies at Sephiroth's hand and at the time, the party thinks that Aeris's effort to summon Holy (the one spell that can stop Meteor) failed. Little do they know that Aeris' death was anything but a failure to summon Holy; in fact, it was about the only way for Sephiroth's plan to truly be stopped.
Aeris plays the role of the damsel in distress that's a little too obsessed with the main character in Final Fantasy 7, though Cloud certainly doesn't do much to get her away from him. The two share a lot of time together in disc 1, and Cloud takes Aeris's death very hard when it happens. Enter Tifa to take Aeris's place next to Cloud with no complaints, but that's a different issue entirely.
On a more related note, Aeris is similar to Tifa in that there are a lot of personality issues to look past if you're going to like her character. That said, a lot of people still find the time to like Aeris and take her death almost as hard as Cloud does. Because after all, a character dying in an RPG automatically makes them have a DEEP, TRAGIC TALE WORTH EMPATHIZING.
"This guy are sick." -Aeris
Contest History[]
Win-Loss Record: 8-6
Summer 2002 Contest - East Division - 11 Seed
- Eastern Round 1 --- Defeated (6) Kasumi, 38190 [62.73%] - 22688 [37.27%]
- Eastern Quarterfinal --- Defeated (14) Tina Armstrong, 50055 [76.93%] - 15009 [23.07%]
- Eastern Semifinal --- Lost to (2) Solid Snake, 32702 [43.46%] - 42545 [56.54%]
- Extrapolated Strength --- 12th Place [30.62%]
Summer 2003 Contest - East Division - 11 Seed
- Eastern Round 1 --- Defeated (6) Sora, 65196 [66.66%] - 32614 [33.34%]
- Eastern Quarterfinal --- Defeated (3) Master Chief, 65136 [60.15%] - 43161 [39.85%]
- Eastern Semifinal --- Lost to (2) Sonic the Hedgehog, 50241 [46.98%] - 56701 [53.02%]
- Extrapolated Strength --- 15th Place [32.81%]
In 2002, Aeris was given an 11 seed in the East division. She proceeded to lay waste to her fourpack with ease before a respectable loss against a Noble Nine character in the divisional semis.
How is she thanked for it? By being given an 11 seed in the East division the following year. and in 2003, she again proceeded to lay waste to her fourpack before a respectable loss against a Noble Nine character.
How is she thanked for it? By not being in the field since.
Seriously, what the hell?
Summer 2006 Contest - Triforce Division - 2 Seed
- Triforce Round 1 --- Defeated (7) Marle, 80305 [69.78%] - 34779 [30.22%]
- Triforce Semifinal --- Defeated (3) KOS-MOS, 70006 [61.65%] - 43543 [38.35%]
- Triforce Final --- Lost to (1) Zelda, 54300 [43.13%] - 71597 [56.87%]
- Extrapolated Strength --- 12th Place [38.58%]
Aeris finally returns to the contest, and ends up performing fairly badly in a predictable path. Her only impressive match (relatively) was her loss, oddly enough.
Summer 2007 Contest - Division 8 - First Group
- Division 8 Round 1 --- 2nd place, 33367 [25.48%] - Squall Leonhart, 46278 [35.33%] - Akuma, 30185 [23.05%] - Geno, 21141 [16.14%]
- Division 8 Round 2 --- 3rd place, 22820 [19.15%] - Squall Leonhart, 39993 [33.56%] - Sora, 35650 [29.92%] Lara Croft - 20704 [17.37%]
If you want to talk about a fall from grace, look no further than Aeris. In 2003, she was coming off back-to-back Sweet Sixteen appearances and was thought to be a near elite. She had doubled Sora, and a match against Squall was one that many wanted to see. Fast forward to 2007, where she is beaten soundly by Squall in both rounds, and she didn't even come close to the guy she had once doubled. Sure, the format is different, but this has to be telling of her true strength as well. After all, Aeris struggled to put any distance between characters the likes of Akuma and Lara Croft in those two matches.
She also seemed to debunk the theory that only FFVII could SFF FFVII, as it seems apparent Squall did some damage to her. That may be the one hope she can cling to: That she wasn't at full strength and therefore this contest can't be held against her.
Winter 2010 Contest - Gear Division - 14 seed
- Gear Round 1 --- Lost to (3) Auron, 21870 [42.36%] - 29758 [57.64%]
- Extrapolated Strength --- 25th Place [29.68%]
After missing the previous contest Aeris got her name changed to Aerith in the official poll and was part of the vote-in along with Cid Highwind. She managed to win the poll, but was stuck in an unwinnable match against Auron. Aeris may not be the character to fear, but she can still have a respectable performance. Hopefully for the next contest she will get a proper seed.
Summer 2013 Contest - Division 1 - 20 Seed
- Division 1 Round 1 --- 1st place, 16445 [50.98%] - (8) Hero, 8311 [25.76%] - (11) Rinoa Heartilly, 7503 [23.26%]
- Division 1 Round 2 --- 2nd place, 14507 [39.64%] - (2) Commander Shepard, 15225 [41.60%] - (5) Tharja, 6865 [18.76%]
With the possibility of Final Fantasy VII becoming weaker not a lot was expected out of Aerith. She was able to break 50% against a fellow Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest character, but the board felt she would not be strong enough to deal with Commander Shepard who has had Mass Effect 3 released since we last saw him.
However, she was able to put an impressive result on Shepard where she started with the lead. She was able to hold the lead for around 2.5 hours before Shepard used the day vote to take the win. Had this been a night match it may have been possible that Aerith would have taken the upset to reach the next round.
Fall 2018 Contest - Division 5 - 15 Seed
- Division 5 Round 1 --- Defeated (2) Waluigi, 16553 [57.43%] - 12271 [42.57%]
- Division 5 Round 2 --- Defeated (10) Captain Toad, 17995 [59.99%] - 12000 [40.01%]
- Division 5 Semifinal --- Defeated (11) Fox McCloud, 16362 [52.7%] - 14684 [47.3%]
- Division 5 Final --- Lost to (4) Zelda, 11088 [37.81%] - 18235 [62.19%]
For all that FFVII (and the whole series, in fact) has weakened, Aerith managed to make 2018 her best contest, even facing only Nintendo characters in a contest where the company got boosted as hell. And along the way, helping prove she's better than what hardly counts as an actual character - the memetastic and overseeded flop Waluigi, a Toad who stars in a spin-off - and the protagonist of an oft-neglected series that owes most of his strength to Smash Bros. Still, a rematch with Zelda awaited, which she would never win when the princess had already beaten the same Squall that gave Aerith problems in 2007. And Aerith's first round 4 turned out to be her worst defeat ever.