Final Fantasy VII debate: Aerith's........

Fair enough. Thanks for the debate, Con! 1) This is untrue. I said that the 'hero sacrifices himself to save the world' plot line is overused and cliched. It's obviously untrue that characters dying is necessarily cliched, since characters dying have made some of the best plots in storytelling. 2) If this line of argument were valid, then no characters in anything would ever die ever (except perhaps at the the very end of a franchise), so it obviously doesn't work. Besides, as I noted FF7 had a large roster of compelling characters, so killing off one character hardly diminished the overall narrative of the game. Perhaps if aries was the only good character this would be a good point, but she wasn't. 3) To be honest, I didn't bother working out the plot to see if her death was important plotwise. But saying that her death was an important plotpoint in itself is hardly a concession. If anything, that's a positive point in its favour. 4) Misses the point. Some antagonists never do anything to make the protagonists afraid throughout the whole game, and yet at the end they're supposed to be the most fearful, powerful villains in the game. By killing a main character, Sephiroth was roved to be a real threat plotwise. 5) As I recall, FF7 had a battle system that allowed anyone to equip 'materia' which gave them abilities, meaning pretty much any ability could be used by pretty much any character, with the exceptions being limit breaks (which, by the way, has lead to the side quest for hardcore gamers of getting all Aries' limit breaks before her death) so not much gameplay flexibility was lost by Aries' death anyway. Arguing that there aren't as many 'final battle speech's as there would be is Aries was alive is obviously a trivial matter. 6) Firstly, Gamespy was only one of the rankings I listed. And just because some of the criterion were vague doesn't mean the fact that many different people regard Aeries' death as a great moment had no weight. All it means is that many people can't exactly put into words what they regard as so great about the moment - though many people have. 7) This is a pseudo-metaphorical argument I can't really get my head around. I personally didn't feel that Aries' death spoiled the rest of the narrative in any significant sense - indeed, the 'meat' of the plot continued long after Aries' death and the game is famous and highly praised for events that happened after that plot moment. FF7 contained moments of both intellectual interest, plot twists and character development, and emotional punch. The two element combined made FF7 into a better game than many others, and some have praised it as one of the greatest games of all time. If Aries' death was such a mistake it is doubtful that would have happened - and the fact that many people list it as such an important moment makes that even less plausible. 8) In a fantasy world where people rarely die, and if they do it's often in obscure magical ways, being stabbed through the heart is short and brutal in contrast. Obviously it could be worse, but that would've been out of place in a non-dark fantasy game. 9) Con doesn't really acknowledge my counterpoint here. I already addressed this - characters are knocked out during combat, and the story is disconnected from the gameplay. This is just a feature of JRPG games. 10) While she's made of energy and no longer retains her sense of self? I don't think so. 11) This just completely misses the point. I'm not saying they aren't. All I'm saying is that the hero sacrificing himself is cliched, and the makers wanted to break that cliched plotline. 12) The logical conclusion of this is that we should never have a fictional media that causes us distress - this is obviously absurd. Some of the greatest works of fiction ever include dark themes such as death and pain. 13) These points are already addressed, and Aries' death is not cheapened by those things. The point is that if we learned later that Aries had a magical way to come back to life, the moment of her death would no longer retain its significance and it wouldn't have become the iconic moment it is now. 14) Again, it's simply obvious that Barrett's death would not have had the same impact. He wasn't the kind of character that would have the same emotional impact - Cloud putting Barrett to rest in the pool would hardly be as touching. Besides, as pointed out there was still a rich storyline that continued after Aries' death through the other characters, so Aries' death didn't spoil the story. Thanks for the debate!