Recently I was reminded of how Tifa’s been through some traumatic events that people grossly overlook. One of - if not the most - horrifying events in her life has to be the Nibelheim incident. Remember that Tifa is only fifteen at the time and that there are extremely horrifying parts of the entire ordeal that people don’t really discuss. For instance, I had an American history teacher back in the 11th grade who had been in on a medical team in the Gulf War. He told us a story about how they had to go into this recently bombed area to try and retrieve bodies. One of the details he specifically mentioned was how he could smell the burnt flesh, putting emphasis on how bad it smelled and how it wasn’t a smell you could ever forget.
Now jump back to Nibelheim which is currently burning to the ground. What did Tifa most likely smell? Burnt bodies. Again this is extremely horrifying considering Tifa’s age and her background at the time. While we do know that some of the villagers survived and escaped the town (only to be tracked and murdered by Shinra later), it’s not likely everyone got alive. People that Tifa has known for her entire life are either dying or trying to escape Sephiroth’s madness. But that’s not even the worst that happened that night. Tifa also watched her father die in front of her, murdered by a man that was supposed to be a world wide ‘hero’. When an enraged Tifa goes after him, said hero then slices her from the front which causes her to fall down a set of (most likely) metal stairs. If Zangan hadn’t been there to take her to Midgar, she would have definitely died from what Sephiroth did to her.
So in a matter of hours, Tifa’s home is destroyed, her father murdered, and she’s practically near death herself. The longterm effects the events at Nibelheim have on Tifa are deeply unexplored in canon outside of her wanting revenge and her foggy memory (which is basically just a prop to reveal that - surprise surprise - Cloud had really been there the entire time) and it would’ve be nice to see more of it. So after experiencing this highly traumatic event she wakes up alone to find that her mentor and master (of all people) completely abandons her in an unfamiliar, highly dangerous city at the age of fifteen. Yet not only did she manage to survive but she even thrived (as far as someone in the slums can thrive that is). She had a successful bar and a new, dysfunctional family but a family nonetheless.
Then what happens next? Biggs, Jessie, Wedge, and 7th Heaven are crushed beneath the weight of the sector seven plate. So now there is an extra layer of guilt because she feels that all those deaths are because of her (and AVALANCHE’S) actions and she considers it one of her ‘sins’ in Case of Tifa. Finally there is Aerith. During flashbacks of Tifa as a child all her friends were boys and we also don’t see (or hear) of her relationship with Jessie, so I’m going to assume that Aerith was her first close female friend and vice versa. So not only does Aerith dies but she dies very brutally in front of Tifa (a reoccurring trend when it comes to love ones dying). Cloud’s reaction to Aerith’s death is so heavily focused on that people forget that Tifa ran away crying after seeing Aerith’s dead body. Then when the party visits Aerith’s resting place in Case of Tifa, she begins sobbing over Aerith again and thinks she hears her voice (Disapproving the silly notion that they weren’t friends).
I’ve even seen people call Tifa selfish and it’s one of the most baffling things I’ve ever heard about her character. Tifa is a lot of things but selfish is not one of them. This is the same woman who took in orphans (Denzel and Shelke) without question, helped raise Marlene, and found Cloud on the streets of Midgar and took him in when she didn’t have to. Tifa has seen so much death yet still manages to try to live her life as a good, positive person considering she could have easily developed into being someone extremely jaded and hateful. Tifa is not a flawless character (complex characters never are) and I get it if she isn’t your cup of tea; different strokes for different folks. However, don’t ever say she’s just some big-boobed bimbo only meant to be Cloud’s love interest. Tifa is a lot more than that and then some, you just happen to fail at seeing it.
