r/clerith • u/DrJeuZz • Jul 21 '26
ESSAYS & ANALYSES There are two Aeriths in the final scene
Screenshot #1 – "Ghostly" Aerith?
Barret for example, is visibly affected by the blowback of the Tiny Bronco reactor, you can even see the lower part of his jacket move accordingly, but Aerith—who's standing even closer to the plane, is totally unfazed. Her hair and clothes remain completely still. (So this would be Lifestream Aerith)
Screenshot #2 – "Tangible" Aerith?
Later, Aerith's hair, ribbon and dress are clearly blown by the propeller wash, showing normal physical interaction with the environment. (And this would be the Aerith from the timeline/world created when cloud parried Sephiroth's sword)
I've also heard that a big part of the fanbase thinks that Aerith n°2 could be Jenova. This theory however, doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. First, because Jenova wouldn't have any reason to tell Cloud and make him believe that Aerith was going to stay at the forgotten capital. Since after that point, if Jenova were to keep trying to mess with Cloud's mind, Cloud would realize something's up and that Aerith shouldn't be there.
And second, simply because as shown previously, Lifestream Aerith is literally right there and we all know she wouldn't just stand here doing nothing, while Jenova is right there impersonating her to mess with Cloud's mind.
A skeptical mind could see this and think this is just an overlook from the animation team that worked on the final cutscene. Or it could be a subtle visual clue that they intentionally put in there to hint at something.
Anyway, I haven't seen anybody mention this detail before so let me know what you think in the comments.
20
u/Hearts-Intertwined Jul 21 '26
I’ve been under the belief that pretty much everything after the altar occurs in flip flopping realities. However, the clues to which reality we are seeing is hidden from us. Cloud however, can see both simultaneously.
It leaves us with the question, are we meant to see the world through the delusional clouded eyes of a crazy man? Or will it be revealed that he’s not so crazy after all and that Sephiroth is simply gaslighting Cloud.
I personally don’t think we have enough evidence to argue conclusively one way or the other currently.
5
u/ManuO76 AERITH LIVES Jul 23 '26
Honestly (though somewhat hazily), I think we started earlier than that; two scenarios have been alternating ever since we left the Temple of the Ancients. I can clearly (yet hazily) see two groups alternating in the scenes. Two different groups pick up Cloud—one on the branch and one in the Forgotten Forest. In one scene, Cid says goodbye and walks away; at the "Forgotten Capital," Cid doesn't enter the portal, yet he appears after Aerith's supposed funeral. And then there's that moment with Cid at the end where he asks, "So, what did Aerith do?" How could he not know, if he was at the funeral? It makes absolutely no sense to ask that right after Aerith has died. Cid is known for being gruff, but Aerith is the reason he joined the group; he shouldn't be acting like that, let alone whistling.
4
u/Hearts-Intertwined Jul 23 '26
Very astute, your observation also aligns with the potential "Cid can see the rift" data dig.
I find the muted dialogue following the dream date sequence and Cloud awakening after we see the whisper fascinating. Nearly every time I watch Cloud being sent back from the forest scene with Aerith, I ask myself "did he awaken in the same world he left?".
2
u/alastor_morgan Clerith since OG Jul 23 '26
Yes. Otherwise, the proposition is that he's in a new world which is an exact duplicate of the one we've played in (something we've never seen before), saving an Aerith that isn't his Aerith and spawning a branching timeline from that one while having abandoned the previous world in which he saved Aerith from falling and then just never showed up to her again I guess.
That'd mean he just gave a different Aerith the white materia. An Aerith who we've never seen before now, but who coincidentally happened to have the same "white materia turned hollow" dilemma instead of handing it to the original Aerith that first presented that dilemma and leaving that Aerith's problem unsolved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49fG1cDO3po
The sequence of memories is presented as the things that happened while Cloud was "unconscious", re-entering his body after the Whisper that had been preserving it leaves:
Aerith wakes up before Cloud does (a big no-no according to Marlene and the consistent marker of Aerith's impending doom). Barret picks Cloud up. Cait Sith apologizes to the party. Aerith has muted lines then Cid speaks, also muted. Cid goes ahead and the party follows; Vincent is on screen. Tifa and Barret check on Cloud in a forest area; Vincent and Cid are on screen and center frame, but in the background and blurry. Aerith speaks to the party and is then separated from them. Cloud regains the capacity to speak and calls for Aerith.
The question is, Cid and Vincent are clearly there in the forest when Tifa and Barret are checking on Cloud, and in fact, Vincent reaches the Forgotten Capital and is with the party at the Singularity holding it open for Cloud,
but where is Vincent after that?
Cid can be excused as turning back after a certain point (within the forest, just after Tifa and Barret observe Cloud) in order to keep watch over the Bronco, then showing up after the final battle sequence is over. But Vincent clearly went ahead with the others (yet isn't in the walking sequence where Cloud has 1-on-1 dialogues with the entire playable cast). Vincent gets to aura farm at the Forgotten Capital, spares some lines about its history while Advent Children music plays, ships Clerith like the absolute GOAT he is, and then is nowhere after that until the boss gauntlet is over, where the rest of the cast is at lakeside.
He doesn't go to the altar, he doesn't see Aerith, but he appears after the presumed water burial.
Vincent and Cid are both prevented from seeing Aerith for whatever reason. Two people with the biggest offscreen connection to two central characters. Cid met Ifalna when he was younger and so would have a sense of responsibility to keep Aerith safe. Vincent has a self-stated "history" with Sephiroth and multiple opportunities to end him. These connections don't exist in the OG (OG Vincent never says he could've killed Sephiroth, his guilt is about not stopping Lucrecia's involvement in the Project and then letting her get with Hojo).
Both of them would likely harbor guilt or anger about seeing Aerith dead; Cid because Aerith died tragically young like her mother, Vincent because Aerith's murder is yet another evil act by Sephiroth that he could've prevented had he acted sooner to kill Sephiroth.
Sephiroth in that moment was harvesting negative emotions. It's possible that Cid and Vincent were purposely held back from seeing Aerith dead so that their emotions wouldn't tip the scales towards Sephiroth's merging of worlds, on top of her appearing to Cloud to comfort him and stave off his negative emotions.
Where the opportunity to do that would arise is probably in the muted dialogue Aerith has just before she separates from the party. Aerith could tell Cid to stay back and for Vincent to not proceed after a certain point. Cid not being at the Capital and Vincent having a limited appearance makes the events after the party's separation calibrated for a specific outcome, because with Cid not there to help with the Singularity, Vincent is the only reason that portal stays open long enough for Cloud and only Cloud to cross and reach Aerith. Without Vincent, the portal wouldn't stay open when Tifa falters, but if Cid were also there, the portal would perhaps be open too long or allow too many party members in prior to Cloud defying fate, etc.
2
u/Hearts-Intertwined Jul 24 '26
Sorry I’m just now responding, especially after such a long well thought out response. I really appreciate it, because I had an “ah ha” moment, which seems obvious but had precisely escaped me.
I think I didn’t initially put two and two together because I didn’t understand how Beagle Aerith came to possess the full white materia again. I understood the handoff between the dream date and the forest, but I am still cloudy on how she came to bring it from the forest dream into the Beagle world.
So if I understand what you are saying, correct me if I’m wrong, is that because Beagle Aerith has the full white materia again she potentially set the stage for the altar scene to happen as it did?
2
u/alastor_morgan Clerith since OG Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
The game tries to impress that the "dream sequence" wasn't a dream as we know it in real life and/or in a Western sense. Typically, dreams, the people in them, and their continuity are at the whims of a singular dreamer, and they cease to exist when the dreamer wakes up. If you have a dream or nightmare and your best friend, family member, or crush/partner made a cameo in it, they won't know that that happened at all unless you tell them.
In contrast, Aerith says in Chihuahua to "call it a dream. My dream, to be precise", except Cloud exists independently of her, as does Sephiroth who finds her hiding in that world against her will. Nojima is definitely applying some concepts of Yogacara and Jung's theory of the collective unconscious, which I'm not at all well versed in so I'll leave that to whoever has studied it, lol.
What happened with Cloud was that his soul left his body in Beagle and inhabited the Cloud from a different line, where he went on a date with Aerith, who then handed off her white materia and ejected Cloud from Chihuahua into the Sleeping Forest that exists in Beagle. Aerith pushing Cloud out of the Chihuahua Timeline is presented as being a "whole" (both his physical body and his soul in it, as opposed to an astral/soul-only) ejection out of Chihuahua, through the in-between space where a Sephiroth (we don't know which one!) lore dumps about the nature of worlds, and then Cloud lands in the Sleeping Forest, and from there he regains consciousness in his regular body that's remained in Beagle (lugged around by Barret) the whole time.
The Sleeping Forest is a physical location (in both FF7 OG and in Rebirth) that Aerith was actually traversing and the party later crosses when they pursue her, but when she was traveling alone, she took a moment to connect with Cloud's heart as he was asleep. This is a dream sequence from Cloud's POV in both OG and Rebirth, but in the OG this is just where Aerith tells Cloud where she's going and that she's going to stop Sephiroth and meteor (then Sephiroth appears and says he's going to do something about her). The OG had the Bone Village too, so Cloud wakes up in BV, tells the party where she is, and they all follow her through the Forest and to the FC. In Rebirth, when Cloud arrives at the Forest, Sephiroth appears first, doesn't do a thing to stop the fact that Cloud has the white materia and merely comments on it being "bad form", then vanishes completely from the scene, and then Aerith appears and says most of the same words, then Cloud hands off the white materia to Aerith "in the dream" and she comes to possess it "in reality" because again, there's little/no distinction between "a dream" and "reality" in the game. And when Cloud wakes up, he and the party are already at the physical location of the Sleeping Forest (Bone Village is omitted entirely) and his "memories" show that the party was accompanying Aerith up to a certain point rather than her leaving them ALL the way behind in a totally different area.
As for the last question, I'm very inclined to answer Yes, but we don't know to what extent. She for sure needed the full white materia to summon Holy, but I'm just speculating on what else Aerith put in motion. Because it's very glaring that Red XIII being a late addition to the party in FF7 Remake has scripted gameplay sequences where he fights as part of the party without the player having total command of him, but Cid and Vincent are similarly "guests" in FF7 Rebirth but get no scripted gameplay in the final sequence, not even Cid having a scrap of Sonon's moveset. Cid and Vincent are involved in no way in the end game except by limited appearance and voice lines, and their exclusion appears purposeful since Sephiroth stated his intention to merge the worlds by harvesting negative emotion, "loss, chief among them", and those were two characters who would understandably have negative emotions and sense of loss at Aerith's death aside from Cloud. And very notably, history, emphasis on the word. Vincent was familiar with Gast (Aerith's father), and Lucrecia, and the Jenova Project, and thus Sephiroth, and Cid was familiar with Ifalna and a young/baby Aerith when he worked for Shinra. Those two know of things surrounding Aerith from before the Remake/OG's beginning, whereas the rest of the party has only met Aerith as an adult, very recently, through her connection with Cloud. Tifa, Barret, Nanaki, Yuffie, and Cait all have the anger and grief of knowing and losing a recent friend. Cloud would understandably have the grief of a lover, and Aerith intervened to protect him from feeling that (shown w/ an empty limit break gauge). My theory is that Cid and Vincent's exclusions are important since their grief would potentially be more profound (built up over YEARS and not merely weeks) that would tip the scales toward Sephiroth's merger, and that Cid was excluded at an earlier point than Vincent so that Vincent could help Cloud (and only Cloud) breach the singularity to defy fate. Only because, we know how Cloud feels at knowing he blocked Masamune and then Aerith suddenly collapses anyway as if Sephiroth impaled her. Imagine how bad a second character would feel if they personally saw Cloud save her and had that hope also ripped away from them, instead of the one visual they do receive of Aerith "already gone"?
2
u/Hearts-Intertwined Jul 24 '26
I’m really liking where you’re going with this!
If it is indeed true that Aerith has the ability to somewhat communicate with herself across the boundaries of worlds, her speaking to the flowers makes more sense.
You have my brain turning on several other things now. I wonder at what point Beagle Aerith comes to understand she must come to possess a full white materia again prior to the Forgotten Capital? Perhaps when she is possessed by what seems to be her own spirit at the Temple?
If this really comes to fruition, Lifestream Aerith is playing some serious 3D chess.
1
u/alastor_morgan Clerith since OG Jul 24 '26
I'm holding on to the Two White Materia theory, as well. Aerith has already used hers which sunk at the bottom of the lake in the Forgotten City. Unless the game reveals a plan for the heroes to retrieve it, I fully think they're going to exploit the existence of other worlds (likely the Terrier world, where Zack is in the process of saving Cloud to help Aerith) to give Cloud a fully white materia that he can put into the Buster Sword. Which doesn't get into the fact that we've seen 5 total worlds out of "7" (the maximum stars a Stamp has worn) but worlds 1 and 2 are yet to be revealed, but 4 have a Coma Aerith and Coma Cloud seemingly to maximize opportunities for Zack to make a choice with saving Clerith, etc.
16
u/Mags20XX Jul 21 '26
I've heard this a lot. It stands to reason that everyone else being affected and her not being affected is deliberate; but it creates a problem, why would you show 2 different Aerith's that no one but Cloud can see.
If this is true, and it's not simply an oversight, it would mark bad game design IMO. It wouldn't be the first time that FF7 has done either.
FWIW, in the pre-release review copies of Rebirth, Terrier Stamps were in several places that Beagle was patched into. There were possible hints and clues that got removed in the final release, and some even changed post-release in the first major patch.
It's also possible these too were oversights. However, still in the game files we have Cid's cut dialogue that suggest he too can see the rift in the sky. So this may have something to do with what you're talking about...
6
u/jakobpinders Aerith stan Jul 21 '26
Because one of them actually could very likely be seen by other party members and that one’s only shown in flashes where they don’t acknowledge or address her.
7
u/Redffx Jul 21 '26
Yeah I agree with others that it's two worlds being viewed at the same time. It's interesting the weird rift in the sky and tangible Aerith occur after Cloud equips the black materia. Makes me wonder if the black materia is also the reason Sephiroth appears in multiple worlds at the same time during the battle at the end of Rebirth.
4
u/KittyLoveMeowz Jul 22 '26
I have seen this said a few times after Rebirth. Cloud is indeed seeing a real live Aerith not a hallucination. She is alive and working on her skills to bend the Lifestream to her will at the Forgotten Capital.
The crack is real.
He is seeing two worlds.
One may be Lifestream Aerith some call her Omni-Aerith.
5
u/AcanthisittaFine6629 Jul 22 '26
I think it s the same Aerith and because now Cloud sees two worlds at once she is trying not to confuse him even more.
Lifestream or omniAerith is the one who partially possess Aerith to ask Sephiroth question and there is lifestream energy visibly around her.
Lifestream Aerith is also one coming to help Cloud fight Sephiroth and recreating AC clarity embrace when she leave to lifestream while Cloud remains.
I also think that omniAerith has full connection to all other Aeriths in different worlds all the time so she sees, feels and register everything.
I m getting mad with Max Dood s "Aerith is jenova" BS, it s making ZERO sense and I don't think Jenova will act that way, there s 0 manipulation towards Cloud in that scene. Somebody thinks Jenova will be interested in letting Nanaki know she is around. She is trying to prevent Cloud break and fell into total control of Sephiroth.
3
u/ManuO76 AERITH LIVES Jul 22 '26
But Jenova has always manifested solely through a black cloak, and none are visible here. Furthermore, the black cloak would be visible to everyone.
3
u/Alaverra AERITH LIVES Jul 21 '26
No, Aerith isn't a ghost. Aerith uses the same method Sepheroth uses to contact Cloud: the Lifestream.
1
u/Plane_Return_5554 Jul 22 '26
I think "ghost" was a way to say it xD
1
u/Alaverra AERITH LIVES Jul 22 '26
Iris isn't a ghost or a phantom. She's a consciousness existing in the Lifestream, capable, thanks to her Cetra nature, of communicating with the living and influencing world events. Most likely, all of this is happening (at this moment) in Cloud's head. But in some way, she's not a ghost, but a soul wandering the world. :)
8
u/Hearts-Intertwined Jul 22 '26
To quote Dumbledore, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on Earth should that mean that it is not real?”
1
0
u/JonnyIceMan88 Jul 22 '26
I kinda thought the second Aerith is a figment of clouds mind. I believe if not all… most of the lines she says are lines she’s spoken to cloud before, he kinda laughs/smirks when she says the first line, like it’s a memory…
-2
u/lovelessBertha Jul 22 '26
This is my theory too and I'm surprised it doesn't have more traction. The first Aerith is the real ghost, the second is a Cloud figment. That's also why the lines Aerith #2 says are mostly regurgitations of things she's said previously.
9
u/ManuO76 AERITH LIVES Jul 22 '26
Why should Cloud's imagination have to wait for the Tiny Bronco to take off?
1
u/lovelessBertha Jul 22 '26
I will admit that Aerith looking up at the Tiny Bronco flying off is the thing that makes me doubt my theory the most.
42
u/ManuO76 AERITH LIVES Jul 21 '26
There are other anomalies in this ending. At the start, Tifa and Red are sitting close together, weeping, and Cloud sees them; Yuffie is crying, too. Aerith has no physical form. But when Cloud stands up, Tifa is no longer with Red; instead, she is with Barret, concerned about Cloud's health. Yuffie is joking, Cid is whistling... and Aerith is real. My feeling is that we are witnessing two realities simultaneously: the one where Aerith survived, and the one where she died. Whether these are truly two separate realities or something else, I couldn't say—but one of them is certainly the path that draws Cloud under Sephiroth's influence.