#2 - In Which the Fair Labour Standards Act is (Repeatedly) Flaunted

In the last post, I totally blew up the Sector 8 reactor (OORAH!) and then went on to meet this lady.

The flashing 'warning' sign in the background is quite fitting. This girl, wandering the streets selling flowers for a living, is Aeris Gainsborough. The very first interaction between Aeris and Cloud is fleeting, but it marks the beginning of a relationship which is easily one of the most talked about and heralded in gaming history. Her story arc is praised for being filled with intrigue and nuance, and her actions end up rippling through the entire narrative from the very beginning to the very end. She's also a complete bitch.

Before the lead balloon which fell from the end of that statement crashes through my ceiling and kills me, let me justify why I can't stand the sight of Aeris Gainsborough and her big dumb face. She toys with people's emotions for her own amusement, jealously gets in the way of relationships, throws out maddeningly vague and mystical statements instead of just spitting out what she wants to say (the game would be one disc if it wasn't for her little goose chases), gets herself into so much trouble from which she needs rescuing she would try the patience of a saint, can't fight for toffee, leaves more heartache in her wake than she does happiness, thinks she's better than everyone else on a genetic level, probably can't carry a tune and is just a nasty piece of work in general. Oh and her fashion-sense sucks. The jack boots combined with a pink dress don't work, girlfriend. It's a look that screams out 'Sure I love totalitarian regimes, but I love kittens and lipstick even more!" I'm getting so angry as I write this I just gritted my teeth really hard, forgetting I had the biro I was using to make notes in my mouth. Now all I can taste is ink and my lips are blue. So that's Aeris' fault, too. To summarise: screw you, Aeris. The people may love you, but I personally think you're a total c... ...ontinuing on with what I've just remembered is supposed to be a family-friendly adventure, I'll stop racing ahead and report events as they happen, as opposed to what will happen if I live long enough (especially for the benefit of people who aren't familiar with the game and don't know how much of a bastard Aeris is.) With fire and panic spreading through the streets around us, she asks me what happened. I'm given the option to tell her that she best get out of here, or that nothing's going on. Keen to treat her like the idiot that she is, I tell her that nothing is going on. Yup, ignore all the burning cars and collapsing buildings around the reactor. We cool, dawg. We then get onto the topic of her basket of flowers, which are apparently uncommon in the city of Midgar. She offers me a flower for the price of one Gil... I'm given two dialogue choices (yes or no, essentially) which is a shame because I want to ask her if I look like a fish. When she says "what?" I'd yell "Does it look like I'm made of Gil?" and knock the basket out of her arms and ahhh that would have been hilarious. But I can't, so I say no.

Leaving her to it, I make my way through the ruined city square and get apprehended by some guards. Naturally, I cut them into more pieces than they arrived in. Since that isn't socially acceptable in Midgar, more soldiers turn up. Then more. And more. I battle my way through the lot of them (I could run, but they're easy and I want the experience points) and eventually they have me surrounded on a bridge. I would have been happy to keep on fighting until the cows came home, but Cloud musters up all the suave he can gather, says something pithy to the Shinra guards, and leaps off the bridge and onto the roof of a passing train. We don't know much about our hero at this point, but given the game started off with him riding on the roof of a train, we can safely surmise that he hates paying for public transport.

Inside the train, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie are being berated by the perpetually cranky Barrett. They lament the fact that Cloud didn't make it to the train, either because he was killed en route or just didn't care about the gang (where on Earth did they get that notion?) while Barrett yells at them for being useless. He also snaps at Wedge when he asks about money. Not sure what his problem is, given that everyone did their job perfectly. Cloud swings off the roof and through the train car doors, much to the surprise of Biggs, Wedge and Jessie. Barrett is less than impressed and tells Cloud he worried everyone so his pay will be deducted (seriously?) but otherwise all seems well. Back to the slums we go. Jessie call me over to some kind of computer screen, which turns out to be an Exposition-O-Tron 3000. Here's the short version:

Midgar is an odd city, in that most of it is on a plate suspended fifty meters above the ground. A central column supports it all, while eight other columns around the outside support each of the eight sections (which are divided like a pizza). Beneath all of this, on ground level, are the slums - a seedy place which never sees sunlight due to the gigantic plate above. And that's where the AVALANCE crew are headed, racing downwards around the central column on this night train.

We pass the security scan without issue and arrive at the final stop. On the way to the hideout, I come across this guy doing something bizarre in the corner.

 

I'm... er, I'm just going to back away quietly and leave you to it, mate. Sector 7 slums, ladies and gentlemen. Sheesh. Another chap I speak to shares a sobering thought. He had heard of the reactor explosion on the news, and points out that not only are reports coming in of innocent fatalities, but also that the power outage it caused would have floored all kinds of banking systems, businesses and other services. He estimates that the damage could have cost as much as a billion Gil. Terrorists or freedom fighters? The waters have never been so muddy. But Cloud cares not for such issues. All he cares about is... actually, we're not too sure what Cloud cares about at this point in the narrative. But what I care about now is Tifa Lockhart. Lovely, lovely Tifa:

Sorry, wrong pic. Let's try that again:

Much better.

Tifa is the antithesis to Aeris. She's a snappy dresser, extremely good at fighting, cares for the other characters on an intimate and selfless level, is empowering in her femininity yet never pulls the 'oh save me I'm a girl!' card and never backs down or loses her spirit in the face of extreme adversary and she's totally gorgeous and I love her. We all head into 'the hide-out' which is actually Tifa's bar, the 7th Heaven. Tifa has been looking after Marlene, Barrett's five year old daughter, while we've been dicking around with explosives and killing people on the top plate. Parenting 101, dude. Before long, everyone gets into an argument and I think it's my fault. Tifa asked me 'Did you fight with Barrett?' and I assume she means 'Did you fight alongside Barrett during the mission?', so I say 'Yeah'. Based on her reaction, in actual fact she meant did I fight with Barrett, which is exactly what she said but how on Earth was I supposed to know what she was talking about? Tch, women! This leads onto conflict within the team with regards to the next mission. Cloud just wants his money and doesn't care about the planet, the reactors, the team or anything else (I feel we may have covered this already). Barrett once again accuses Cloud of being arrogant in his sense of superior strength just because he used to be in SOLDIER, and for some reason feels the need to punctuate his message by turning around and knocking out Biggs. Barrett's daughter watches on as her Dad, with a machine gun for an arm, physically beats his own staff and talks about blowing up the city. Parenting 102, dude. Here's £10 on her growing up to be a totally balanced adult. Barrett goes on to remind Cloud that no matter how tough he thinks he is, his skinny ass works for AVALANCHE. It'd be a strong argument if it wasn't for the fact that Cloud just quit from the very 'job' you weren't paying him for. Not much you can do with that, B.

BARRETT: DAD OF THE YEAR 2012 But then Tifa leads Cloud to the bar and has a word with him. She reminds him that the three are childhood friends - yeah I know, Barret and Cloud apparently have history before the last mission - and implores him to stick around to help bomb the next reactor. She convinces him via three means: A) She reminds him they have a promise which dates back to their shared childhood. In a flashback, we see the pair meet by a well in their home town under a starry sky - Cloud vows to leave town in the search for glory when he grows up, like all the other boys in town, and will head to Midgar to strive for a place in the elite SOLDIER*****. The promise is that if ever Tifa is in need of a hero, Cloud will come riding in. She calls on that now (ignore me saying that she never pulls the 'damsel in distress' card earlier in this post, yeah?) B) Appeals to Cloud's ego by suggesting the AVALANCHE group are pretty incompetent, and only an ex-SOLDIER member could be capable of leading the group to success and supervising them while using sharp scissors. C) She has a nice butt. Before Cloud is pressed for an answer, Barrett appears in the room. He announces that a promise is a promise (foreshadowing the above?) and throws Cloud his money for the last job... ... a mere 1500 Gil. This is Cloud's pay? Don't make me laugh.

If you can't tell, I'm getting a bit confused as to when I should be narrating in first person as me or the character I'm playing. Cloud states that he'll be on board for the next mission, but for a fee of 3,000 Gil. Barrett balks at this. Tifa mediates, telling him the group is really hurting for help. Barrett whispers to her that the money is supposed to be for Marlene's schooling but if it needs to go to terrorism, so be it (Parenting 103, dude). He barters Cloud down to 2,000 Gil. Cloud agrees. We're off on our second mission.

YAAAAAY! Notes: * Obviously that's what goes on to happen. Right? I mean, it's self-evident that between the childhood flashback with Cloud saying 'I'm going to leave town and join SOLDIER' and now, in which everyone is all 'Hey we saw you leave town and now you're here after your career SOLDIER', Cloud must have left town and gone off to join SOLDIER. Right? No way that string of events might come into dispute somewhere along the line. No way at all. ** ** Am I stealing McClaud's footnote technique for this post? Probably.

MUSIC NOTES: As before, I'll be ending each post in the FFVII series with my favourite versions of the music featured in this part of the game. All links open in a new tab. Anxious Heart (or Heart of Anxiety) A piece used fairly often in the game. It's packed with melancholy, and has a hint of the Sephiroth's theme lietmotif. Tifa's Theme The piano version is totally awesome and in a way I prefer it, but as it's very popular I figured I'd link to this incredibly talented chap playing on a classical guitar. I think the guitar makes it sound warm and fuzzy, which suits the actual music perfectly. He's got a whole bunch of FF7 covers on his channel.