[Ed. note: The following contains spoilers for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, as well as the original Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake.]

What does it mean for Aerith to die?

In Final Fantasy 7, Aerith represents that idea that no world is saved from calamity without cost. She represents senseless and sudden loss, how death can take someone you love at any time. As Polygon’s own Maddy Myers said to me once, she’s a stand-in for the planet, in a story about the planet’s impending death. She needs to die for the story to work. Character designer and scenario writer for the OG FF7 Tetsuya Nomura once said that it was important that her death be “sudden and unexpected,” contrasting Aerith with the types of characters who had sacrificed themselves in earlier FF games. Our shock and grief at a nice girl who never hurt anyone being killed while she prays for salvation is meant to motivate us, to push us forward, to anchor our emotional experience of the story.

From the very first moment, FF7 Remake traded on the question: Would Aerith survive? Her death could no longer be “sudden and unexpected”; that ship sailed decades ago. Remake centered a huge section of its plot around the Whispers, supernatural beings attempting to keep the “story” on track; at the end of the game, Cloud and company literally kill them. It’s Aerith herself who claims that this opens up the possibility of “boundless, terrifying freedom.”

They may as well whisper in your ear, “This time it might be different. This time you can save her.”

Rebirth leans into this just as hard from the very first second, when a newly alive Zack cradles a seemingly dead Aerith’s body in the exact pose Cloud used to cradle her corpse in 1997, as her hair ribbon is undone and the White Materia clatters to the floor in ultra close-up. “Will Aerith die?” is not the only motor driving Rebirth’s story, but it is by far one of the strongest and loudest, particularly for players of the original. As I played the game, I am ashamed to admit, I felt a certain... vigilance, looking for any sign of what the plot was going to do.

The game’s final hours really begin when the party heads back to the Gold Saucer in search of the Keystone that opens the Temple of the Ancients. Just as in the original, Cloud is asked on a date by a party member, but unlike in the original, part of this date is taking in a show: a production of Loveless, a play that has haunted the background of the FF7 metaseries through multiple games. At the end of this stage show, Aerith sings the game’s theme song for the audience while the party members who took part in the QTE minigame of the show itself watch from the wings.

Y’all, the literal title of the song is “No Promises to Keep.”

Even a tiny bit of scrutiny reveals the lyrics are Aerith writing about her relationship with Cloud: “I won’t say that it was fate / I won’t say that it was destiny / but if not, what could it be / that drew you towards me?” She goes on to sing about how she wishes she could have lived without “all the burdens I was born to bear / lived a life without a care / in the world save for you.”

Aerith’s growing sense of........

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