Talk:Final Fantasy VII/Archive 1

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FF7

Anyone think that we should make a page regarding the ending of FFVII and any speculation/theories regarding it? Paul Soth and I spent most of today arguing over the "backstory" section in Sephiroth's character bio because it exposes most of the plot details about the ending. So, perhaps, rather than having the ending restated in a bunch of different places surrounding this article, we should just devote a page to it? -- StellarFury 22:27, 12 Jul 2004

I don't think we should do that, considering how open the storyline is for discussion. It would be nice to have a mention of the very open ending and what we know for certain regarding the end, but I think we should avoid speculation because anything we come up with is based on well... Nothing but our own imaginations. To be honest, the FF7 ending always makes me think of an impending FF7 sequel or a few storyline writers who were short of a few sheets of paper to write down their ideas. Great stuff to imagine about, not very encyclopedia-worthy, though. DarkLordSeth 01:48, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Okay. Speculation doesn't belong. But my main point was more that the information about FFVII here is entirely hodgepodged. You get bits of the ending all over the place. My thoughts are that, if divulging plot details is "encyclopedia-worthy," then at the very least, we should do it all in one place. Then, any references to the plot in character bios and such can be linked to the plot section. StellarFury 14:24, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

True, but another point would be that the FF7 ending simply doesn't make much sense... We see Red XIII with two cubs, but wasn't he the last of his race? What did they do, clone him? Also, why is Midgar so desolate? It almost looks destroyed. I read someone that a portion of the FF7 fanbase thinks that Holy whacked all humans as well as Meteor, but that would be silly. And it would not be in canon with the upcoming FF movie, Advent Children. Nevertheless, something a bit more central would be nice, yes. Considering the many plots, maybe a seperate article describing the ending from each important character's point of view along with a collection of detailed endings which has a large following among the FF7 fanbase? Sounds like a plan? DarkLordSeth 02:34, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh God, aren't there enough FF7 articles already? -Sean Curtin 06:14, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)

Considering some people are still confused about the actual ending, I guess not. Good point though. DarkLordSeth 14:45, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

(Spoilers I suppose) I added a sentence at the start of the "Aeris rumor" section. It seemed confusing that the article discussed her resurrection without mentioning that she died; I tried to reveal as little as possible in clarifying it though.--Chris 03:59, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)

I need to majorly clean up this page because a flurry of unregistered users took it upon themselves to drop on in and, quite simply, **** up things by putting every single non-playable character in the ENTIRE game. Guys, there is a recommended 32kb limit which this page ABOUT A VIDEO GAME has surpassed! Ridiculous. --Klestrob44 04:16, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, we can always split that off into a separate article. --Paul Soth 16:21, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cast for live-action/supercrappynation movie version by Sony

Rumors started in September 2004 state that Final Fantasy VII could be released in late 2007 by United Artists. Who would you consider casting if the rumor was true and you were selected to direct? -- Ryan F

Character & Location lists

As comprehensive as they are, I reckon that the big lists of characters and locations here and in Final Fantasy VIII could do with being put in their own articles (with the major characters and locations listed as required in the plot section of the main article, perhaps). Right now they just shove a big spoilerly gap in the middle of the article which probably won't help outsiders looking to find out a bit about the game. Thoughts? Sockatume 14:39, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Confused?

(spoiler) In ff7 clouds not a clone right? It says he is at one point but i think he was just injected with jenova cells.

re:Confused?

A clone in FFVII is a person who was injected with Jenova cells and exposed to Mako radiation to try and turn them into a copy of Sephiroth. In contrast to a clone in the "real world", these were already people who were fully developed. In that sense, Cloud was a failed clone because Zack and he escaped before the process could be completed on Cloud and Zack was not being responsive to the procedure.

Removed picture...?

Recently the "FFVII last cutscene.jpg" image was removed from the page by anonymous user, log saying it was a "huge spoiler". I sort of agree with this, aside of a few small things:

1. There's already a big, fat Spoiler Warning up there. I agree pictures are kind of tricky even in pages with spoiler warnings...
2. The article says what happens to Aeris in the spoiler'd section.
3. And also, look at the picture - that's just Cloud and Aeris. Without the complete context from the game, it's hard to tell what exactly has been going on.
4. And the big reason why I agree it should be there: At least on my Playstation Platinium version of the game, there's exact same picture on the back of the game case! Sony doesn't think it's a "huge spoiler", why should we?

Also, this whole ordeal is a very, very, very widely known fact. You just can't avoid reading about this in one way or another...

So, I put the picture back, with a less revealing caption! --Wwwwolf 18:09, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree. This is an encyclopedia article, not a fansite. Which means everything is covered extensively and unbiasedly. It's for people who want to know all about a topic. If you don't want to know about the subject as a whole, don't look it up. EreinionFile:RAHSymbol.JPG 21:18, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

E3 2005 Demo

It might be nice to mention the re-production of FF7's opening as a PlayStation3 demo at E3 2005, but I don't see where that would fit in the current article. One option would be to break out a "releases" section that spoke to the PlayStation and PC releases, and then mentioned this tech demo (with the caveat that Square explicitly said it is not, in fact, remaking FF7 for PS3). Thoughts? User:Invalidname 15:47, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

EGM magazine said in there rumor mill that in fact there is a remake of the Game in production for ps3, and when u think about it has square ever done a tech demo from a game they havent already finished and/or started development for? hmmmmmm... But seriously the game is well under production and as seen in the trailer it seems the character designs are going to be taken from the redesign of the Advent Children character models, however wardrobe would probably be the same as the original game, since AC takes place 2 years after the game. This is my favorite game of all time so im pretty excited myself.

Based On A Book?

I read somewhere that the game's storyline was based on a book by someone or other. Does anybody know anything about this?

Summon Spells

I just thought - why aren't the summons described in the characters section? I don't know enough about them (I haven't touched the game in years) but I'm sure somebody out there has some knowledge on the subject...

Well, to be fair, they're not exactly characters, per se. Although they probably should be mentioned somewhere in the article. I've been busy organizing the Category:Final Fantasy section over the past week or so, and, in general, there seems to be a lack of information of various gameplay elements of the series in general. Particularly, I think we should have a seperate article on FF summon magic (and probably another article on FF magic in general). As it is right now, information about particular summons is sort of shoved into the Summoner (character class) article, but that's far from being an ideal solution. I'm going see about putting something together that covers all the games, and using the individual game articles to point to it and cover any game-specific information. – Seancdaug 03:00, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! It'd be great to finally clean up all this random FF stuff everywhere...

Vincent info inaccurate?

Spoilers!

I was playing through again recently and realized that the information regarding Vincent is slightly inaccurate, but I wanted to run it past the discussion before changing anything. His information says, "He is injected with Jenova cell samples by Hojo, who then encases Vincent in a coffin for years..."

What I wanted to point out is that it is only implicit (although admittedly HIGHLY likely given his further transformations, etc.) that Hojo injects him with Jenova cells. Granted, what we've seen of these affects would imply all manner of cellular re-arrangement (especially Hojo's transformation), but there's no dialogue there--we cannot KNOW what happened, though it makes sense. This, I think, can stay, just thought it should be out there.

However, it says Hojo puts Vincent in the coffin, which simply isn't so. Vincent himself says:

Vincent: There was no way to cancel the experiment. I couldn't stop her. That was my sin. I let the one I loved, the one I respected most, face the worst. Barret: That why you started sleepin' in a box? Gimme a break!

And later, concerning his flashback:

Vincent: This body is... the punishment that's been given to me... I was unable...... to stop Professor Gast and Hojo... And Lucrecia... I was unable to stop them... All that I was able to do was watch... That is my punishment...

Thus, it would definitely seem that Vincent put himself in the coffin to punish himself and keep his sins fresh in his mind. So...Should it be changed?--Erazzmus 04:26, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

After what you said, and after reading a few online scripts of FF7 - you're right. There's no actual mention that Vincent was injected with Jenova cells. It's highly likely though, as Vincent is mutating (and becoming more and more mutant as the game progresses - as he says himself when you achieve a new limit break) and Hojo was experimenting with Jenova cells in the first place.

I'm not sure (it's been a long time since I played FF7) but I think there's a conversation if you battle Hojo on Sister Ray with Vincent in your party. Don't quote me on that.

I was bold, and I edited it - but feel free to change it to fit your wording mate. Good catch there - Cuahl 11:52, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Stop deleting side characters!

Seriously, this is an online GNU encyclopedia, if you want people to have a digest version of FFVII, go tell them to read a videogame article or review. Who's to decide which characters are worthy of mention? You? Me? Bob?

It's a question of notability. The more non-notable cruft we include and the harder it gets to filter it all out and actually find the entries that the vast majority of readers would want to locate. If you can't find more to say about a character than half a sentence, then it's profoundly unlikely anyone is going to be looking for information on that character. Furthermore, yes, it is an encyclopedia. A general interest encyclopedia. The kind of information you keep adding is specialized information that, for the reasons stated above, is at best unlikely to interest and at worst likely to confuse people who aren't interested in, as Sockatume put it, "a game design document." – Seancdaug 06:03, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

That's the most retarded response I've ever come across. Merely because YOU don't consider it to be information worth noting doesn't make it so. Either do it the right way or don't do it at all. I may put in a sentence or two about a character (gee... seeing as how I'm the only person putting in ten or twelve at a time) doesn't mean that somebody else can't add to it. Until then, stop LIMITING INFORMATION. Think about it, if we were truly following your concept of what this section would by, why would Mr. Coates be acceptable? How about Mayor Domino? Both characters are seen, at most, TWICE, and play no role in the story except allowing the characters to advance. Myrna and Eleanor are barely mentioned and play no real role in the story except for character backgrounds. Hart just gives you clues. You have these people but you don't put in a character like Priscilla whom Cloud actually saves. It's selective information and nothing more. By your own argument, the reverted section fails.

Of course it's selective. That's the point, innit? The point of an encyclopedia article is to present a basic overview of a thing, and one cannot help but be selective in doing so. Just because you may or may agree with my personal selections does not change that basic fact, and I'm not sure how "my argument fails" on those grounds, as I certainly never suggested otherwise. You haven't, however, addressed the notability aspect, which is, in fact, my argument, and I'd be very interested in hearing why a character like Choco Billy, who, in your words, "play no real role in the story" are noteworthy enough to include here and not just a textbook example of fancruft. – Seancdaug 13:05, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

First of all, don't be vulgar. Secondly, I would propose a separate section for such characters that are both mentioned, but do not have any major significance in the game. Fancruft may often be needless information, but it does have the virtue of allowing a subject to be fully explored as long as it does not delve into the irrelevant, or digress into something off-topic (or ramble needlessly). The question is, are these characters really irrelevent. The thing is, with games like this, that everything contributes, whether you realize it or not. Obviously the creators have spent time and energy planning every place, character, situation and dialogue to give a person a full submersive experience. If you feel that these characters are worthy of being noted, then explain how they are so along with their descriptions. EreinionFile:RAHSymbol.JPG 09:05, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the clear head, Ereinion. My only concern, as I've stated before, is why we are bothering with characters without "any major significance in the game" to begin with. To quote the aforementioned Wikipedia:Fancruft page, "too much detail is present that will bore, distract or confuse a non-fan, when its exclusion would not significantly harm the factual coverage as a whole." This is, and always has been, my major and stated complaint, and I've yet to see anyone actually acknowledge it, let alone address it. – Seancdaug 13:05, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

If you ask me, any character that features in an ingame cutscene or significantly moves the plot forward, or otherwise is a key character, should be listed. That certainly doesn't include Choco Billy - I found that almost comical. But it certainly includes the Shinra President, Elmyra, Dyne. I think it's not hard to decide which characters are key to the story and which ones you can simply skip out. The old sleeping man is NO ONE. He should not be here. I agree that this page shouldn't have fancruft, but I also agree that it should have explorative detail. Mr. Coates is going too far, Elmyra is not. She has a significant part as Aeris' mother.--alfakim 13:57, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree, yes. If the character has a significant impact upon the game, then that character can and should be included. Exactly which characters qualify and which do not can be debated, and I imagine there are a number of gray area cases that one could argue for either way. But to throw everyone in is silly. – Seancdaug 16:41, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

You know, you can always move the character index to a new article or two. Either Characters in Final Fantasy VII, or Major Characters in Final Fantasy VII and Minor Characters in Final Fantasy VII. --Paul Soth 14:05, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is worth pointing out that there is List of Final Fantasy characters. It's a bit of mess itself, mind you, and I still am a bit skeptical that we should include some of the less relevant entries at all, but at least that seems a more logical place to put them if we do. – Seancdaug 16:41, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's just a list of names. What I'm thinking of would be more like Characters in Guilty Gear or Rurouni Kenshin minor characters. Someplace to move the descriptions while taking weight off the main article. --Paul Soth 17:10, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

True, but I would think that it would make more sense to expand that article (even if it does ultimately entail a name change) than to spread the information even more thinly, which just creates more and more of an editorial nightmare, IMO. It's also worth pointing out that even the so-called "minor" characters listed in the Rurouni Kenshin article have substantially more information than anyone can provide for many of these entries. What else, for example, is there to say about Skotch other than that he is "one of Don Corneo's lackeys"? And under what circumstances would the average individual looking for information regarding Final Fantasy VII characters ever want or need to know this? – Seancdaug 17:24, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Here we go with the concept of deciding what people want to know. I argue that these characters should be included in the list because 1) they are named characters and stand out above the multitude of NPCs with no names 2) many play some role in furthering the game (eg Choco Billy selling your greens to help capture a Chocobo to cross the marsh) 3) it adds to the completeness of the game description without diluding the central point - there are no paragraphs on the implication of the characters or their connections to other games or auxiliary detail. Simply put, if there's a side characters section, all the side characters should be included. Nobody is putting in pages on a minor character. "And under what circumstances would the average individual looking for information regarding Final Fantasy VII characters ever want or need to know this?" Who wants to know what the capital of Peru is? Do you? Do I? Does Bob? Yet there are people who do.

Simply put, one can easily imagine reasons why someone would wish to know the capital of Peru. Under what circumstances would anyone need particularly want to know the name of Mayor Domino's assistant? You keep attacking this as arbitrary, and, as I've repeatedly pointed out, it's exactly the sort of thing that needs to be done for an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is designed as a general reference source. The kind of detail your list presents is in all likelihood not useful to any more than a statistically insignificant number of readers (if any), distracting to the vast majority (who need to look through a substantially longer list to find a character they might actually want to see), and an administrative nightmare when it comes to updating and organizing the site. And, furthermore, it does dilute the central point: a character like Elmyra Gainsborough is actually important to the development of the story and the characters, and yet throwing her in the same section as, oh, Elder Hargo makes the entire list seem trivial and thereby impacts important characters. As I've stated repeatedly now, it's considered inappropriate for a source like Wikipedia, and belongs, if anywhere, in a more specialized resource like Final Fantasy Wiki. Probably the most important part of editing an encyclopedia is making informed guesses as to what "people want to know," and focusing on that, not the almost infinite number of comparatively insignificant details that would very quickly turn this article into an incomprehensibly large and worthless example of fancruft. – Seancdaug 18:04, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

And I can easily imagine the reasons why someone would wish to know the names of Corneo's lackeys. Your point is moot, which is exactly what I was aiming in the first place, someone will want to know about it. It does not need to be done, but I include it to give a fuller, more encompassing image of the game. Go look at FFX-2's wiki page, you'll notice that there are more side characters listed and with less information overall than here. If you're truly concerned about administrative duties, then go bug them about it, go start organizing the multitudes of unorganized pages on Wikipedia. "who need to look through a substantially longer list to find a character they might actually want to see" have you heard of CTR+F, guess you haven't. Suggesting that a person will be put off in searching for a main or significant character WHICH ARE LISTED FIRST, MIND YOU is like saying somebody will be put off in searching for the definition of a zebra because it appears near the end of the dictionary. If you don't like it, fine, but I consider it necessary, and I will keep posting it until a better solution is found.

Firstly, the list is currently organized alphabetically, and "important" characters are most certainly not "LISTED FIRST," unless I'm seriously misremembering the role of Sephiroth in comparision to, say, Ester. And any look at my edit history will clearly show that I have been spending a great deal of my time trying to clean up numerous Final Fantasy-related articles. I have not spent much time editing the Final Fantasy X-2 page simply because I have not beaten Final Fantasy X-2 and don't consider myself qualified to make those distinctions regarding that game. Furthermore, that argument is a non-sequitur: the issue isn't whether or not some other article is well-crafted, it's whether or not this article is. And, though I recognize that you feel strongly on the subject, you are clearly in the minority here. As it currently stands, your additions have already been reverted by several people, and every comment coming from someone other than yourself in this discussion agrees that, even if your list has some place on Wikipedia, it isn't here in the form it is currently in. Consensus would seem to be against you, no matter how "necessary" you consider it. Paul Soth has offered a possible alternative that might be worth discussing, but for now I'm going to revert the article. If you want to carry this any further, then we can hold a consensus vote. In the meantime, I would suggest you read a little more on proper wikiquette and other policies and guidelines for editing Wikipedia. and – Seancdaug 19:01, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I organized it alphabetically. Before, it was willy-nilly in some sort of nonexistant pseud-logical list. The important characters Main Characters, Shin-Ra etc are listed first. Perhaps Sephiroth shouldn't be in "other" as he's more than an NPC? You keep going on and on how Wikipedia is a general reference, but I point out other pages that have the same type information thus setting a precedent. If you think it's a non-sequitor, then you have to ignore other pages with the same sort of information. You use Wikipedia guidelines to try and push your perspective on this issue, but you're not willing to apply them globally.

In all fairness to Seancdaug, he is not responsible for the actions of the entire encyclopedia. His charge is only those topics in his scope of interest and collaboration, as it is yours (i.e. we don't see you doing anything about applying said guidelines to the rest of encyclopedia either, so let's not focus on the nonsense of who should be doing what). Also, those said actions of other articles in of themselves do not negate the fact that what he has to say on the matter is true, and for this article, he is trying to uphold them. You reverted the article again without explaining their worthiness to be mentioned. If you feel they are so necessary to be mentioned, it would only be reasonable that you should, and could, explain your reasoning to everyone else by explaining their relevance to the storyline in the main article. EreinionFile:RAHSymbol.JPG 20:55, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not claiming to fall back on some regulations or rules which is why the argument does not apply to me. I didn't bring up any pseudo-logic as to etiquette or regulations. All I did was show how an existing precedent refutes his argument of form or whatnot. I'm not trying to change anything except this page to what I see fit. Seacdaug tries to use external examples of form and protocol which aren't upheld in a similar page. I ask, "if it's okay there, why not here?" If he were truly worried about uholding form and protocol, which he isn't, he'd be over there getting that changed. As for my reasons, it has taken a while to write them all down, but I did post them on your discussion page.

I'm not "over there," as I've said, because I'm not qualified to make that call. I don't have the knowledge necessary to judge what Final Fantasy X-2 characters are significant and which are not, so it would be inappropriate for me to start barging in and brow-beating other editors, who actually do have knowledge of the game in question, into changing their work. Do I suspect that there's a lot of cruft there that can and should be trimmed? Yes. But I can't identify any of it for sure, so I'm not sticking my nose in. That doesn't in any way, shape, or form make it anymore "okay there" than it is here: if there is substantial fancruft cluttering up the FFX-2 page, then it should be sliced out of that article just as much as it should be sliced out of this article.

For what it's worth, I have spent a great deal of time "organizing the multitudes of unorganized pages," most notably in imposing order on the Final Fantasy category and creating numerous subcategories thereof. But, again, this is completely irrelevant and pretty much beside the point: if the characters you keep adding are not relevant, then they don't belong, and if they are relevant, then their relevance needs to be explained. If the most information we can dredge up for a given character is a half-sentence job description ("Don Corneo's lackey"), then that is hardly a shining endorsement of their importance. And rather than citing some nebulous "precedence," that may or may not mean anything more than a poorly edited article, I would once again suggest you read the various Wikipedia namespace guidelines I've previously posted. After that, you might also want to check out some examples of featured articles, which is a more meaningful rubric, anyway, as there are any number of poorly written, fancrufty articles on Wikipedia that you could point to as justification for just about any inclusion. Just because they exist does not mean there's any kind of recognized and embraced consensus that articles shouldn't try to be better than them. – Seancdaug 23:17, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Compromise?

Anon. editor, I read several of the reasons you posted on your talk page (why not here?), and with several of them, you have a valid point. But there's still the notability question. Yes, every character plays some role in the game, but what is the notability threshold? "Providing statistics on Chocobos" would hardly seem notable (by that rubric I could argue that the status menu is an important character), nor would simply "having a name and interacting with the character." But I do grant that your expanded entries on several characters are worthwhile, and that some of them should be included (Zangan, in particular, was definitely a worthwhile addition, and Elder Bugah probably as well). Again, however, can I please ask you to consider Paul Soth's suggestion and move them to a related article. In light of your expanded entries, I accept that they have their place, but I still feel throwing everything onto this page does a disservice to people who would come to this page looking for a general overview of the game and who are instead greeted with borderline fancruft clutter. Something like List of Final Fantasy VII characters, which we can then link from this article? How does that sound? – Seancdaug 23:46, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

I think the seperate article for massive expanded lists is an excellent idea. As for this page, the only characters to be spoken of I personally propose should be as follows:

• Playables
• Of the Nonplayables:

• Just one bullet for "The Turks". Within the bullet, you can list the names if you want.
• Just one bullet for "Avalanche", which can list the nonplayable avalanche members Jessie Biggs and Wedge.
• The major players of Shinra: The President, Rufus, Hojo, Sephiroth. NOT Reeve, etc.
• Characters' parents and relations if they have large speaking roles. Elmyra, Professor Gast, Budenhagen, Lucrecia. NOT Marlene, Barrett's wife.
• Zack
• Other major characters that play significant roles in the plot, on the spot I can think of Zangan, Weapons and Jenova.

• NOT Choco Billy or the Menu Screen ! And NOT Dyne, Domino, Don Corneo - they are too much just parts of small irrelevent subplots to be part of a detailed overview.

I bolded some characters because their sections should be a little larger than the others which only need a little explanation.--alfakim 16:51, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Square / Nintendo

Someone added two paragraphs on the infamous Square/Nintendo parting of the ways. Unfortunately, there were several problems I could see. First of all, it referred to "content restrictions" as being a major part of the problem, which is absolutely the first I've heard of it, and doesn't make a great deal of sense, anyway. While Nintendo of America was somewhat infamous for its content guidelines during the SNES era, Nintendo's main Japanese branch was not, and, in any case, NoA's restrictions were pretty much relaxed by the N64's release, anyway. Does anyone have a cite for that claim? Second of all, Square did not categorically refuse to develop any games for a Nintendo-released system for close to a decade. When the WonderSwan Color remakes of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II were starting to be released in 1999 or so, Hironobu Sakaguchi made several statements about how he felt the WSC couldn't handle remakes of the later, SNES-era games, and how he wanted to develop remakes of those for the GBA. This never happened, to my understanding, because of Nintendo's licensing agreements at the time, which made development for the N64/GC a prerequisite for development on the GBA. There's some blurbs about that here. At most, we're talking about four years. And lastly, and probably most importantly, the relationship between the two companies in 2003 is not, strictly speaking, relevant to an article regarding a game released in 1997, and should be mentioned in the Square Co., Ltd. or Final Fantasy articles, not here, to begin with. – Seancdaug 13:24, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Well, sort it out. This page is collecting a lot of extraneous and partisan information.--alfakim 19:58, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I removed it from this page before I posted this comment, actually. There's a brief little blurb over on the main Final Fantasy article, but it's my personal feeling that the entire "feud" was never the near-apocalyptic thing that fan circles make it out to be, and, given the lack of solid evidence, spending too much time on the subject is close to promoting hearsay. – Seancdaug 02:50, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

No one is stopping you, alfakim. By all means, feel free to take some initiative. EreinionFile:RAHSymbol.JPG

Aeris or Aerith

This is mainly in response to an edit made today by Alfakim but I thought it should be discussed. Should the page spell the characters name as Aeris Gainsborough or Aerith Gainsbourg? On the character's page, it was decided on Aerith - why not here? - Cuahl 19:56, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Either Aeris or Aerith is acceptable really, however I think Aeris should be used before Aerith simply by having the virtue of it being established in both the manual and authorized strategy guide (unless Square has made a retraction and has stated that Aerith is the proper or preferred version). As far as her last name, it isn't really in question because no matter the variation of the first name, everyone seems to agree that "Gainsborough" is the correct form. EreinionFile:RAHSymbol.JPG 04:35, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)

AeriS is actually the official spelling. Plus, a lot of other links and pages would have to be changed to accommodate an alteration to AeriTH. It DOES mention in that bullet that the alternative spelling holds weight, but the spelling with an S is the standard. --alfakim 28 June 2005 13:43 (UTC)

Erm, what other links and pages? The Wikipedia article is called Aerith Gainsbourg, not "Aeris Gainsborough." And the question of officiality is a running debate, given that her name has been given as "Aerith" in most of her recent appearances (Kingdom Hearts, apparently also Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, judging from promo documentation, etc.). If we're trying to keep consistent across Wikipedia, then we really should go with the "Aerith" spelling. That being said, as she was called "Aeris" in the original English language localization of this game, there's a pretty strong case for that, as well, provided we make it clear that the two are simply different translations of the same name. – Seancdaug June 28, 2005 16:41 (UTC)

Quote: (from Aerith Gainsbourg) "Aerith Gainsbourg (formerly Aeris Gainsborough in older official SquareSoft English language localizations)..."

Also, where is this idea of a standard coming from anyway? - CuaHL 28 June 2005 18:12 (UTC)

I'd hate to leave this to a matter of preferrence or interpretation of translation. Perhaps inclusion of both on equal terms, that way we don't have to worry about an inaccuracy problem while we sort it out. EreinionFile:RAHSymbol.JPG June 28, 2005 20:01 (UTC)

Maybe that would be the perfect solution anyway, but it might become matter of fact that Aerith is the term people are most familiar with soon, especially with the new FF7 media coming out soon. - CuaHL 28 June 2005 20:40 (UTC)

Agreed. EreinionFile:RAHSymbol.JPG June 28, 2005 20:45 (UTC)

This really is a big discussion for a small topic. To be honest, as far as I was aware, AeriS was the official english version. However, I didn't know that Advent Children was going to use AeriTH, and if so it should probably use the version used in the movie. I never knew there was ANY trouble over her second name though. I resign from this particular discussion. --alfakim 28 June 2005 21:18 (UTC)

It may be a point that Aerith will be the spelling used in Advent Children, but we can't forget this article is Final Fantasy VII and the way the character's name is spelled on the article should relate to this game only (and a mention should be placed of course). However, it's said that the Japanese translation is Aerith, but Aeris was used. I'd say Aeris as being the primary translation because this is an English version of the article, but we should mention Aerith somewhere - if anyone knows where these two alternates came from.
And, Alfakim, this discussion was started on an edit you made, why not be involved? - CuaHL 28 June 2005 21:29 (UTC)

Eheheh.. because 1) actually it was started on an edit made from Aeris to Aerith - not mine, and 2) I no longer have qualms about what it ends up as. If I don't any longer have a standpoint, what's the point arguing? :D --alfakim 29 June 2005 11:17 (UTC)