Aerith--is she..dead?

[olicon]

Spoiler alert (if you've been hiding in a vault for the last decade and a half).

So, do you consider Aerith dead?
I've always wondered if the concept of death actually works on someone/something that lives through the planet itself? So long as Earth is alive and well, can Aerith die? It seems like she can manipulate the lifestream in such a way that she can keep popping up whenever she feels like it (she actually did that at the end of Advent Children).
I'm sure there are a lot of characters that fit into this category as well.

Please don't bring Phoenix Down into the argument. Thanks.

 

[DanielBrown]

A lot of other Ancients were dead, weren't they?
I never read into the story of FFVII that much however. Haven't played it for probably 10 years soon!

 

[Atticus89]

Yes. Yes she is. That girl is no more. She has ceased to be. She has kicked the bucket. She bought the farm.

 

[Xanadu84]

I hate to simplify a story I love like this but...Aeris is dead in the same way Christ was dead in Christianity. In a way she is back, just more in an afterlife, because her life was sacrificed to forgive humans sins. Not exactly dead, but not alive in the bodily sense. I mean really, she pretty much is Christ.

 

[Skorpyo]

Yes. Yes she is. That girl is no more. She has ceased to be. She has kicked the bucket. She bought the farm.

She has become an Ex-Aerith. The spirit has gone out but the body remains.

 

[olicon]

Considering she wills the lifestream into stopping Meteor, I'd say her conscience is very much in tact.
Considering that she caused the rain that cleanses Geostigma at the end of AC, I wouldn't say she's quite gone either.

Is someone really gone if clearly they can step back into the scene any time they want? (Cloud musta bug her loads for her to not just rise from the grave again. Then again, who wouldn't be annoyed to hell by an emo brat like that?)

 

[Phlakes]

Stabbed through chest + being dead = Death by being stabbed through chest. Simple math.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I don't know an Aerith. I know Aeris though. Sorry, couldn't help it. She will always be Aeris to me.

Physically, she's gone. However, as it's pointed out, the Ancients--Certra I think they called themselves--could communicate with the planet and the Lifestream. So much so that they were able to retrain their spirit in it if they chose to do so. So her spirit is alive, and I'm betting it will stay around until Cloud and the others die. She's simply watching them, helping her friends indirectly when she can.
What baffles me is that Zack is able to retain his being in the Lifestream after being dead for so long. One of the books points out that the members of AVALANCHE were able to help Aeris at the end of VII to repel Meteor, so people can remain in the Lifestream for a bit. But Zack's been dead for a long time. How is he still around? Maybe it has something to do with the Jenova cells they implanted in him. I don't know.

 

[Phrytar]

Stabbed through chest + being dead = Death by being stabbed through chest. Simple math.

You explained with a simple math equation what it could've took me a small paragraph to explain. Kudos to you, sir.

 

[oplinger]

Stabbed through chest + being dead = Death by being stabbed through chest. Simple math.

NO! she obviously died because blood stopped flowing. The stab had nothing to do with it.

AWAY WITH YOUR NONSENSE!

 

[Eldarion]

Spoiler alert (if you've been hiding in a vault for the last decade and a half).

So, do you consider Aerith dead?
I've always wondered if the concept of death actually works on someone/something that lives through the planet itself? So long as Earth is alive and well, can Aerith die? It seems like she can manipulate the lifestream in such a way that she can keep popping up whenever she feels like it (she actually did that at the end of Advent Children).
I'm sure there are a lot of characters that fit into this category as well.

Please don't bring Phoenix Down into the argument. Thanks.

That argument could apply to everyone in that universe who died. Therefore she is that worlds equivalent to "dead".

 

[Nooners]

Don't know what you all are talking about. When I played the game, I threw a Phoenix Down on her and she was fine. She then proceeded to pull out a Pokeball, summoned the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and had that use its Bankai on Sephiroth to catch him in a Pokeball as well. Right now, Sephy rests between Pyramid Head and Tommy the Green Ranger on Aerith's belt.

 

[Hectix777]

By that logic, the Ancients weren't living beings so much as they were literal Children of the Earth. In which case, her physical body died but her life-force has bonded with the Earth's own lifestream. In a sense, she hasn't died she just became part of the energy that make the earth, like when Buddhists achieve Enlightenment and go into Nirvana.

 

[lacktheknack]

<youtube=9qnyxd7Vq0Q>

At one minute... sword into gut, sword through gut, girl goes limp, sad music... SHE'S DEAD.

Also, (insert Phoenix Down troll comment here).

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

So, do you consider Aerith dead?

Yes. She is very clearly dead.

However, that has little to do with her incorporeal spirit/soul popping up from the Lifestream. It is never implied that she is taking physical form (only visual, like a ghost) and she never has any direct effect on anything (other than Meteo itself, which was rather the point). Basically, in FF7 you have an eternal soul - death doesn't mean the destruction of the self - the Lifestream is an afterlife. Zack, who got filled with bullet holes, is there too, as noted in Advent Children.

So yeah, being dead doesn't really stop Aeris from getting the job done. Dead =/= gone. But it is still death.