Aerith dies. If you know one thing about Final Fantasy 7, it’s probably that Aerith dies. The praying girl gets cut down by the guy with the massive sword. There’s a reason why this pivotal story beat is one of the most well-known spoilers in gaming: it’s a moment that’s continually stunned players since 1997.
Video games had killed off significant characters before Final Fantasy 7, but this was different. The resonance Aerith had with fans is incomparable, and the emotional impact of her death left many players desperate for a resurrection. Over 25 years, rumour became myth, myth became hoax, and eventually hope became a way to genuinely save the flower girl from Midgar. This is the inside story of the players who re-wrote fate and resurrected Aerith Gainsborough.
Aerith Gainsborough is one of the most beloved characters in RPG history. First introduced as little more than a flower merchant in the opening hour of Final Fantasy 7, she soon becomes a significant figure in the story’s central cast. The revelation that she is the last remaining member of an ancient race positions her as vital to the plot, but it is her multi-layered personality that made fans fall in love with her.
“From the moment you meet her she’s charming, she’s very sweet, but she has a little bit of spunk here and there,” says Ally Tamara, a Final Fantasy fan and cosplayer from Canada. “And she was just one of those characters that immediately I personally fell in love with.”
“I think she’s a really, really fantastic character where you can’t judge her based on her appearance,” says Aequorinn, a UK-based cosplayer. “I kind of assumed because she dresses really conservatively, and you see the pictures of her praying, I thought she was going to be quite sweet but also kind of serious and boring and sort of self-sacrificial. But then it couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“I really like that she’s very teasing,” she adds. “That she’s someone who doesn’t take things too seriously, or rather she’s full of life and tries to get everyone else to enjoy it along with her.”
Aerith’s death comes out of nowhere, and happens just as Final Fantasy 7 gears up for its apocalyptic second half. Having learned that villain Sephiroth plans to force a meteor to crash into the planet as part of his attempt to ascend to godhood, protagonist Cloud and his friends head to the Forgotten City. There, Aerith will call upon the ultimate white magic, Holy, which she hopes will protect the world from the impending doom. Tragically, Sephiroth fatally interrupts the ritual at the final moment.
“It was absolutely earth-shattering,” recalls Tamara. “She was always on my team, always. I just loved her, it was just something about her character, she was so sweet and pure. And for whatever reason, maybe it is her personality and just who she is, it’s life-changing. I still haven’t gotten over her death years later.”
“Aerith does die activating the Holy spell, so there is this temptation to think of it as some noble sacrifice, but it’s really not,” explains Aequorinn. “It’s just a horrible tragedy that happens. And I think that’s quite different to how death is usually handled in video games, certainly at this point in time. I really feel like the tragedy of it is encapsulated by that one key artwork where Aerith is looking up at the Highwind. That becomes really bittersweet for me because she was the most adventurous of the whole party. She would have loved that, but she never gets to ride that airship.”