Aeris Gainsborough's Contest History

Bio
Before Final Fantasy 7 was released in the US, gaming stores had giant signs in their windows that read "AERIS IS DEAD". How this was supposed to be some major spoiler is beyond me, but I digress.

When Cloud gets separated from AVALANCHE near the beginning of the game, he lands in a church that Aeris frequents. She falls for him instantly, but they're forced to leave the church after getting attacked by the Turks. Cloud reminds Aeris of Zack, an old boyfriend of hers, and it doesn't take long for her to have feeling for Cloud and follow him around everywhere. She eventually asks him to be her bodyguard.

Events pass that unite the party, but Shinra finally succeeds in capturing Aeris. As luck would have it, Aeris is one of the few remaining descendants of the Ancients, and Shinra is very desperate to test her for whatever reason.

Cloud and company have no choice but to go in Shinra's Tower and rescure her, and they do so. They decide shortly thereafter to go after Sephiroth and thwart his plans of finding the Promised Land, though they eventually realize Sephiroth's true plans to summon Meteor, then suck up the planet's healing energy as his own. Aeris, being an Ancient is the only member of the party that can stop Sephiroth's plan to do so, decides to run off without telling anyone in her efforts.

The party eventually catches up to Aeris, and after Sephiroth fails to mind control Cloud into killing her, he descends from the sky and slices the bitch to shreds himself.

Or you can be technical and say that he just stabbed her once. Either way, Aeris dies at Sephiroth's hand and at the time, the party thinks that Aeris's effort to summon Holy (the one spell that can stop Meteor) failed. Little do they know that Aeris' death was anything but a failure to summon Holy; in fact, it was about the only way for Sephiroth's plan to truly be stopped.

Aeris plays the role of the damsel in distress that's a little too obsessed with the main character in Final Fantasy 7, though Cloud certainly doesn't do much to get her away from him. The two share a lot of time together in disc 1, and Cloud takes Aeris's death very hard when it happens. Enter Tifa to take Aeris's place next to Cloud with no complaints, but that's a different issue entirely.

On a more related note, Aeris is similar to Tifa in that there are a lot of personality issues to look past if you're going to like her character. That said, a lot of people still find the time to like Aeris and take her death almost as hard as Cloud does. Because after all, a character dying in an RPG automatically makes them have a DEEP, TRAGIC TALE WORTH EMPATHIZING.

''"This guy are sick." ''-Aeris

Contest History
Win-Loss Record: 2-2

Summer 2006 Contest: Spazer Division - 4 Seed

Spazer Round 1 --- Defeated (5) Jade, 74498 [75.89%] - 23669 [24.11%]

Spazer Semifinal --- Lost to (1) Samus, 24923 [20.22%] - 98352 [79.78%]

Extrapolated Strength --- 48th Place [20.22%]

All personal bias and fanboyism aside, Ada's match against Samus was one of a million reasons why the female half of the bracket was bad. She didn't really belong there, though at least she got to win a match before being embarrassed. Which says more about the character she beat than it does her.

But she's still the third best Mercenaries character, XIII and melee attacks be damned.

Summer 2007 Contest: Division 6 - Second Group

Division 6 Round 1 --- 1st place, 43344 [38.42%] - Balthier Bunansa, 37234 [33.00%] - Frank West, 22708 [20.13%] - Jade Curtiss, 9529 [8.45%]

Division 6 Round 2 --- 3rd place, 23800 [19.41%] - Dante Sparda, 53240 [43.41%] - Amaterasu, 25540 [20.83%] - Balthier Bunansa, 20051 [16.35%]

Ada was thought to be a one-and-done this year, and she was, but not quite in the way we predicted. She stunned the board in round one by putting the beat down on hyped newcomer and FFXII fan favorite, Balthier, and then she stunned the board again by placing behind Amaterasu of Okami fame in the second round.

Ada seems to be one of those characters who can get a decent number of votes...as long as there's no one else in the poll that voters care about.

Or if she's facing someone named Jade in the poll. She can only hope she faces the Mortal Kombat version in next year's Character Battle.