Always sad to see arguments of the kind of "this is not how people act/speak in real life" make their way into conversations that might have some value. I'm not going to lie i don't care for any of the conversation going on ITT except for discussing the women in the game. I watched Nina Freeman play this game before playing it myself and went in with her own positive impressions of Aerith, Tifa, etc, so i'm always interested to see other takes on them if they seem good/researched/genuine.
And the idea that their femininity is being used as a way to convey a saccharine, defanged ideal of women is a good, strong argument to be made (though i'd argue the question here is how exploitative it is, how it exists later in the game after a whole lot has happened, and how it relates to other aspects of their personality, because "saccharineness" can be a means for something else too sometimes), but this idealization of how people act in real life being being used kind of shows off an obvious misunderstanding of what's going on, the game is highly theatrical and IIRC there is only one section where the game even hints at wanting some naturalistic dialogue (the section where you're leaving the church with Aerith through the rooftops). The game is extremely theatrical in fact in the same way pretty much about 99% of all things are these days, i can think of honestly only a couple of games that try that kind of naturalistic human expression/conversation, and even those might be more adequately described as leaning towards premium television "naturalistic". Truth is even the women in media that can be said to be good women characters are probably not like how people are in real life either.
Anyway. My point is, i wish people would make a better effort in these discussions to make more informed arguments, even if they are in fact aware of all this but not putting it in their posts (which ??? because i don't know these people i can't give that kind of good faith).
