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

To begin, I defend that I did not drop anything last round. I fully intend to rebut all of my opponents counterpoints this round. This debate I wanted to challenge myself to say what needs said in fewer words with a 6,000 character limit. Like many things we are initially bad at, when we challenge ourselves to them…we are still pretty lousy at it for a while. Because I knew I said “no new arguments in round 4” I knew that rebuttal could wait, I had to get all my new cases in before then, and that took up all the space. The following is my rebuttal. 1) My opponent makes a case about her death defying cliché and yet seemed to concede killing off characters is itself an overused plot device. Overused being another term for cliché. 2) I admitted to last actions of deceased still driving some plot earlier already, and as I stated is quickly used up to its end. Besides this, it’s the plane fact that death of a character diminishes what you can do with them. Aries can no longer be developed or grow as a character, and the story tellers can not show how she would handle new situations in further plot. Because for Aries the plot is done 3) My opponent conceded that whatever kind of plot importance you put on her death it must be considered in of itself, because it had no important bearing on the rest of the plot. 4) Who are we kidding about the gamers? The gamers know all the way to the end of the game that Sephoroth will be the last boss to beat. 5) You could argue it made the game more challenging but you would fail. The game is as challenging as the gamer makes it. The last fight was a cakewalk for me but I wasted a ton of time tp create all the Master Materia. Sephorath never even got to use his best attack before he was finished off. The Great Replay ability factor in a game like a RPG is being able to go back and finish it with other means, like a different party combination for example. The more possibilities the better and all the party combinations involving Aries are locked away from us due to her irrevocable death. I can replay the game also to here a final battle speech from every character if I pare up the teams right with the exception of Cait Sith, and Aries. The game would be much better if I had the possibility of using 3 full 3 party teams against the last Boss’s 3 sides. 6) The “vagueness” of the term ‘cinematic moment’ is what undercuts the whole authority of Gamespys ranking system. If they think great moments can be judged by putting theme tune intros against plot changing twist then they clearly have no decent standard for calling something a great moment. 7) I ask the readers should I call a Slasher film good story just because it is great at instilling an emotional response of me or other viewers. Emotion stirring scenes are okay but they are like the pepper I add to a cooking burger, It may add to the flavor of the burger but I still cant call it part of the meat. In film, game or book, the emotional half of the experience reflects its entertainment value, but it can often say nothing of the other half of a story that makes up the meat of the plot, the mental intrigue. Aries death does not grip us into thinking about any of the ongoing plot, it only holds us into moment of the death itself, threatening to not let us move on. 8) The quick death of by the sword can hardly be called brutal. She died without a brews 9) My opponent admitted to a disconnect caused by the game play elements like Revive matiria. My point is if Aries death is supposed to show us anything about how ‘death really is’ then it ultimately fails because of the disconnect admittedly caused by the gameplay elements phoenix down and life2 magic and angle whisper command. 10) My point was about another disconnect (caused by story and not gameplay) in clouds breaking the barriers between the realm of life and the realm of death and yet we are to believe that Aries can’t? 11) Often in War? Does Pro have statistics to show if its often in peace? We die from long battles with lung cancer, alcohol addiction, suicidal depression, simple old age, heart attacks, accidents, ect. What makes these deaths any less ‘real’ to a reader of a story than the sudden meaningless death like Aries? 12) Death and ‘absurd coincidences’ are not of the same nature of things we want good escapism away from. Sure, I may want a game to be real enough to not have absurd coincidences in it, but if there is any factor at all that one would want to escape from in there actual life, I would say it be the things like death of a close family member or special friend you know who recently lost his life. Can we not agree that its good thing when the game I turn on can help me escape my grief for just 5 minutes without reminding me about my friend? 13) My opponent repeatedly say’s bringing Aries back to life would cheapen the death, but repeating it does not make it less a tautology. Her death, as I have stated, is cheapened regardless by gameplay elements and clouds trip to the lifestream. Even forgetting that Pro never gives us a reason why we should think the death cheapened. When I saw Aries death for the first time I did not learn until later that she does not come back, and likewise I would not know that she did if she had later on. 14) Calling Mr T a raciest stereotype is kind of raciest. All the plot elements are there for player to be affect so by Barrettes death. Founder of Avalanche, He started you on the quest to save the planet in the first thing you do at all in the game. And after his promise to not get himself killed in the Dyne incident for so he can raise Marlene the way Dyne coudn't….the tragedy behind how heroic resolutions like that can still mean nothing faced up against threats like Sephoroth is still heartbreaking.Point is more could be done with Barrettes death, though its apparent the story writers found nothing more to do with him in life. But as I have pointed out that’s not the case with Aries.