#means square doesn't wanna give her flaws or a character arc to overcome

[nimbostrxtus]

Since the subject of Tifa’s character has come up once again, I felt like throwing in my two pence because I had a similar conversation with a friend a while back about why the internet adores Aerith but far too often shoves Tifa to the side.

I appreciate Square Enix turning Tifa into a role model. She is the most heroic character out of the rosta; with Cloud only being in it for the money, Barret being blinded by his hatred for ShinRa and hiding behind the excuse he's fighting for the planet, and Aerith who is dealing with her own issues at the moment and is the damsel in distress in later chapters. Tifa is the only one whose moral compass never sways and she is a pillar of support for the other characters to lean on. She knows what the right thing to do is and will not compromise her morals, even for the greater good.

Tifa as a character is fine, she's one of the best in both the original and remake, her role as "Team Mum" keeping the party together and her friendship with Aerith and eventual grief over losing her best friend is just as tragic as Cloud's loss.

The only reason fans seem to take issue with Tifa as a character and put Aerith on a pedestal is because Tifa does not have a backstory. Let me re-phrase that. Tifa does not have a backstory that belongs to her and her alone. Tifa’s entire character revolves around her relationship with other people and supporting their character arcs. Every other character in the party is dealing with baggage that is unique to them. Aerith is the last of the Cetra and the only one who can stop Sephiroth, Barret lost his home town and had to raise his best friend's daughter by himself while becoming an eco-terrorist, Nanaki was experimented on by Hojo, is the last of his species and has issues with his father, Cait Sith is a ShinRa employee who wants to help the people in Midgar but feels trapped, Cid never got to fulfil his life long dream of going into space before Shinra cut the space program budget, Vincent has an entire backstory revolving around Lucretia and shines some light on Sephiroth's own backstory, and Yuffie's home of Wutai is a major factor in the game's lore since the very beginning. In comparison, Tifa doesn't have a backstory that belongs to her and her alone.

Now, Tifa obviously has a history, but the problem is her backstory is Cloud's backstory. Tifa's loss over her mother, Cloud leaving her, her father dying at Sephiroth's hands and her hometown burning to the ground isn't given as much weight as it deserves, because we only see it from Cloud's perspective and we're meant to feel his pain over the events, not hers. A lot of fans seem to forget Tifa knows Sephiroth and has just as much grudge against him as Cloud does. It just takes a backseat over Cloud's rivalry with Sephiroth.

You can take Tifa out of Cloud's backstory, but you can't take Cloud out of Tifa's backstory. Cloud still exists without Tifa. We still have his friendship with Zack and the damage Zack's death left on Cloud's fragile psyche and shaped him into the person we see at the beginning of the game, as well as his hero-worshipping over Sephiroth and the eventual betrayal he feels when Sephiroth kills his mother and burns Nibleheim. You don't really need to know anything about Nibleheim to understand Cloud as a character.

Tifa, in contrast, lost her mother at a young age and went into the mountains to go and be with her, leading to her and Cloud falling off the bridge. But this backstory only exists to further push the idea into Cloud's head that had he been stronger he would have saved Tifa. Tifa’s own turmoil about her mother is never brought up again after that flashback. Even her martial arts instructor, Zangan, we only ever see in a flashback sequence and is only brought up again when you find a letter he left Tifa in her piano. He only exists to explain to the audience why Tifa fights monsters with only her fists.

And that is very disappointing because there is a lot to work with here. The game never flat out states whether Tifa was feeling suicidal or genuinely thought her mother was waiting for her in the mountains, but her perspective of events after her friends abandoned her on the bridge and the bullied outcast was the only one who tried to rescue her would have been interesting. Tifa wanting to get close to this kid who proved to be her only friend and feeling lonely after he leaves would have been good motivation for her to become stronger too. Perhaps she meant for their promise to go both ways, Cloud will come help her when she needs him and she'll do the same for him. Maybe that was the motivation behind her learning martial arts, so she can become strong enough to protect the people she loves so she'll never have to worry about them leaving her.

I really hope the remake delves deeper into Tifa's time without Cloud and how she became her own person, her relationship with her mother, the strain between her and father,  and her time training under Zangan.