i’m not sure if this is the devs showing us that cloud has gone absolutely nuts, even more so than in the og. or, if aerith is actually is there with him and is projecting herself through the lifestream. red xiii maybe sensed her presence in that final cutscene but its too much of a maybe.
i’m also super creeped out by clouds behaviour. his smile is so unhinged as they leave the forgotten capital and he doesn’t seem at all phased by what happened. there could be multiple reasons for this, but there’s something that i think is quite interesting in relation to remake here. you know how at the end of remake, everyone walks through the portal at the end of the expressway, thus the whole team experiences that alternate timeline? in this game at the forgotten capital, only cloud walks through the portal created by the whispers and the rest of the party hold the door open for him, thus only cloud experiences what happens at that point. therefore, what was portrayed albeit rather clumsily, is that the events occurred simultaneously:
timeline a) aerith dies.
timeline b) cloud saves aerith at the uh…death.
now, we have an extremely mentally unstable cloud, who has experienced an alternate timeline where he saves aerith (“aerith wake up”), in the current timeline where she has died. in his mind, he still believes she’s alive, but in reality she’s dead.
now the question remains, WHO is this aerith that is appearing to cloud? is this the real aerith who is projecting herself through the lifestream, which to me doesn’t seem like something someone who knows that their mentally fragile friend wouldn’t be able to handle, would do. is it cloud himself projecting aerith into his world? or is it sephiroth and jenova messing with him even more?
as cloud has interacted with an alternate world, where he and aerith have their date, and is able to now see the confluence of worlds (the crack in the sky) where as no one else is able to. this could lead to him losing his mind even more, and leads to the party having to beat the crap out of him at the northern crater in the next game and thus tifa is able to mend his mind and memories after falling through the lifestream in mideel.
idk if any of this makes sense, and if i need to be corrected pls do.