① Nomura proposed that one of them be removed
—So had the "tragedy of Aerith," that shockingly iconic scene, already been decided on at this point?
[Nomura]: At that time I did indeed suggest to Mr. Nojima, "How about having either Aerith or Tifa disappear?" and then tried to develop the story in that direction
② Nomura proposed killing Aerith
[Nomura]: Actually, at first there was only Aerith, no Tifa. One Sunday evening, I called supervisor Mr. Kitase and proposed "Let's kill off Aerith and bring in Tifa instead (laugh). The kind of setup where two heroines appear and one of them dies."
③ Nomura says the interview is not real
Past FFVII Aerith-related remarks that caused misunderstandings, and a look back at Nomura's past statements
“The interview is not real”
(Does this specifically refer to the matter of “killing Aerith”?)
④Nomura may have killed Aerith
【Nomura】: All these years later, people still come up to me and ask, “You killed Aerith!?”
【Kitase】: Are you going to blame me? (laughs)
【Nomura】: Well, maybe I really did kill Aerith. But if I hadn't stopped you, you were planning to kill off everyone except the last three members of the main party!
…omitted
【Nojima】: Clearly, I'm the scenario writer, I'm the one who wrote Aerith's death. But for that decision, we discussed it with the core members of the team. We talked a lot about how the story would develop.
【Nomura】: The theme of Final Fantasy VII is “life.”We sacrificed Aerith's life in exchange for the weight and depth of the game's theme。
…omitted
【Uematsu】: When I was playing the game, I was really surprised, because she died so early. Everyone thought she would stay with the protagonist until the end, but she just died like that. Perhaps precisely because of that, it left a deep impression on everyone.
【Nomura】: When a character in a game dies, nobody thinks it's all that sad. They're just game characters—you restart the game and they come back to life. I felt their lives didn't carry that much weight. The theme of Final Fantasy VII is “life,” and I thought we should try to depict the death of a character who would never come back. For a death to resonate, an important character had to make the sacrifice. We believed that killing the heroine would make players think more deeply about the theme.
【Uematsu】: When I wrote that piece of music (the music played at Aerith's death), what I had in mind was not her death. I felt she wasn't a happy character. She was innocent and pure, yet had a tragic life. I clearly realized this would be an important piece.
If I had known that scene would make so many people cry, I might have written something completely different—the kind of piece written to make you cry. Instead, I wrote a sad but beautiful melody. It's not the kind of melody commonly used in tragic scenes, and perhaps the common kind would have been more effective. When something is missing, people tend to dig into their memories. This piece doesn't express one hundred percent of the emotion, but players will fill in the rest with what's in their own minds. Probably.
【Nomura】: Making people cry at that scene was not my intention. I wanted people to understand the pain, to feel the sense of loss.
The post was reposted by Hironobu Sakaguchi
