Japanese role playing video games (JRPGs) mix anime tropes with combat and character interactions. The player has some agency in how parts of the story progress, but most of the writing leads to pre-determined outcomes. In Final Fantasy VII, no matter what the player does there will always be the scene near the end of Disc One that leads to a boss battle with alternative sad music. Cloud will always hand over what the bad guy needs, he will always fall, and he will always lose himself. But that also means Tifa will always be there to save him. It's basically a Dig by Incubus situation.
A week into playing Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis, Tifa has been the leader of my squad. Her Lifeguard Wraps give her the ability to heal all three party members at the same cost as others. It takes the slot of other abilities, but keeping everyone alive is obviously important to progressing through the game.
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| New five star gear. |
I also like her expanded backstory, which explains the gap between the start of the original FF7 with that one time she was a martial artist and tour guide in her home town. The big bad evil guy, Sephiroth, burns everything down and slays her dad in front of her. Sephiroth seriously injures her before he finally gets pushed into some ooze by Cloud, her spiky-haired childhood friend. Tifa survives but has to pay off medical debt in the big city. She works at a fast food gig, meets some new friends, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge. She then joins the fight for freedom and a clean planet by joining Avalanche. She stumbles upon Cloud right before the start of the game.
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| Reunited five years later. |
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| Their first mission together sets the stage for lots of falling from high down to places that push character growth. |
FF7 can be a long video game during a normal playthrough. In short the Lifestream, the blood of the planet gets pumped up and used for energy in reactors by a big evil corporation. Her home town had one of those reactors, which sparked all the background events for FF7 and its spinoffs.
The Promise
She doesn't have to start off tsundere-mean. There's only one scene in the game where she's actually mad, when she gets into a slap fight with the head of the big evil corporation's head of weapons development. She understands some of the hesitancy Cloud has, but feels compelled to action. She's the only person who sees how Cloud can help. She invokes Mufasa from the Lion King with an implied "You have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the Circle of Life." All of that packed into one line
"You forgot the promise, too."
-Tifa Lockhart, Final Fantasy VII
It literally triggers an iconic flashback and is immediately convincing. Cloud only fulfills the promise at the end of FF7, but she digs him out so many other times before then.
FF7:EC has a lot of overlapping art styles, but the scenes have been portrayed in other FF7 media, so it's still fresh and pivotal.
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| Right after getting served, so he can't leave. |
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| The call to action and adventure. |
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| She ult'd. |
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| Seven years ago. |
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| I want this to work out. |
Aunt Tifa
Her inital role as a pro-environment anti-fascist nudges Cloud into being a reluctant hero. Tifa works as a bartender but also a babysitter for Marlene, who is fostered by another party member, Barret. In the sequel movie, Advent Children, she also helps raise an orphan, Denzel, who starts the story with an illness called Geostigma. She lets other people process what they need to which lets them all heal in their own way. In FF7, they have both actual magic and high-technology solutions for bodily healing, but not much in the way of therapy.
Overall, Tifa is very patient and caring. Barret has a gun for an arm, but she calmly deals with bar patrons to get them to come back. She's patient with Marlene and Denzel, especially since their father figures tend to be itinerent. She also kicks butt, and her Limit Breaks in the original game combined slot reels with different combos.
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| When Tifa taps into the satsui no hado and does a shun goku satsu. |
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| Victory stretches among cherry blossoms. |
(I've only watched the first season of Peaky Blinders so far, but I think my perceptions of Grace were based on my associations with Tifa, but nah, they're completely different.)
Dillay Dally, Shilly Shally
"So many things to tell her, but how to make her see? The truth about my past? Impossible! She'd turn away from me." Cloud is oblivious. It's so much worse than Squall who warms up by the end of FF8. Cloud has to deal with more stuff before the start of the game and reuniting with Tifa (his home town burns down by his childhood hero, he gets stuck in a tube for a few years, his best friend literally fights off an army). His original game dialogue would probably be "...Dunno. (Sublime!)" and it takes the end of the world to figure things out, and he still messes it up until the end of Advent Children. There's a piece of music called "Cloud Smiles" and it's music that finally reflects happiness in the FF7 world.
Discussion
I thought about what makes Tifa stand out as a fictional heroine. Part of it has to be the specific genre of video game. She's characterized in a particular way over tens of hours of gameplay, even more than other Final Fantasy counterparts who follow her. Yuna from FFX gets two games, but has more of Aerith's story beats. Tifa appears in other games outside of the main series, and her portrayal remains consistent, even without having to interact with Cloud. She even has a whole sequence where she travels the world, leading the group. Her name origins come from Hebrew, like Sephiroth's etmology.
Other party members have less backstory than Tifa and Cloud. Even Aerith (I finally mentioned her) doesn't have as much of a backstory besides vague "powers and lineage." Cloud's story is more cerebral and convoluted, but Tifa is a compelling static character with humble beginnings put into extreme situations. She doesn't have to be quippy, but all of her major dialog is spoiler and context heavy. Her wins are earned. Her visual design, how she plays, her voice acting in some games, and her relationship to the overall narrative of FF7 are all uniquely Tifa Lockhart.
“Words aren’t the only thing that tell people what you’re thinking."
-Tifa Lockhart, Final Fantasy VII
More on FF7
Here are some more posts I've written about Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis.
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