Hi, I'm sorry if this question has been answered before, but what are your views on the whole Cloud not answering Tifa when she asks if he loves her. I'm not entirely sure where it's from, sorry.
Sure, it might have been asked before, I know I've answered it before, but I've talked about this subject in many places so it might not have been on Tumblr.
Either way, the question doesn't bother me, it's a good question since people bring it up a lot, so having a chance to reiterate the answer isn't a bad thing.
The scene you're talking about is from the short story: " On the way to a smile - Episode Tifa".
Like with all these supposed rebuttals to Cloti this argument fails when you look at the situation honestly for more than two seconds, and is actually Pro-Cloti.
Firstly, this argument suffers from the same problem that I brought up a while back in my article concerning "the most misunderstood quote in the LTD". Namely that for this argument to make sense you already have to admit that Cloud and Tifa are in a relationship. There is not a person on earth who would walk up to random friends in the middle of the night and wake them up to ask them whether they love them. The scene is framed as Tifa being in Clouds bedroom, and since Tifa is never mentioned to go to his room and Cloud seems to not be surprised about her being there Occams razor will tell you the most likely reason she's in his room is because they're sleeping together.
So even if we look at this situation in the most pro-Cleriths way possible then we still already have a situation where Cloud and Tifa are in a relationship, because only in a relationship does it make sense to talk about relationship issues. And since the very notion of stories is to have a resolution we can also surmise that by the end of the story these relationship issues are in some way fixed, either by them going their separate ways, or them working it out. And since we've discussed the nature of the issues Cloud is facing in depth on this page and have discussed how they are resolved, we know the answer to these questions. The issues are resolved by Cloud returning to Tifa and the children, as has been explicitly stated by the developers.
Inside, I felt one thing was for sure: Cloud and Tifa would be together. Everybody would be back home where they belonged.
~ Nojima - Reunion files - pg. 70
Let me stress this again, the most PRO-Clerith version of this argument has Tifa and Cloud being in a relationship and working it out by the end. And in reality it's even more pro-Cloti than that. The very fact that Tifa is concerned about Cloud not loving her implies that him loving her is in some way the standard. It's not that Tifa and Cloud are friends and it's going so well that Tifa is wondering "wait, does he maybe like me more as just friends? does he perhaps....LOVE me?" no, the implication is that the accepted state of affairs is that they were two people in love, and that she is now questioning whether that's actually the case.
Now note that Tifas insecurities by themselves mean nothing. Tifa can be extremely jealous of Aerith and completely convinced that Cloud is depressed because he actually loves another woman, and yet be completely wrong about that, as is clearly the case. Whatever insecurities Tifa might reasonably have, they're pretty clearly shown to be false by the sub-sequent events of Advent Children and all the quotes surrounding it. We know the reason Cloud was depressed, we know the reason he left. As I have discussed in depth here: "why does Cloud think about Aerith if he's not in love with her" as well as on other articles. In short, Cloud is depressed because of Cherophobia, PTSD, Fear of failure, and guilt, and his ultimate reason for leaving is due to his Geostigma. Tifas romantic worries are shown to be unfounded.
Concerning the scene itself, a lot of people pretend that Cloud doesn't answer Tifa, that is incorrect. Cloud is asleep when Tifa asks the quote. When this wakes him Tifa changes the question to "do you love Marlene". The reason she does this is most likely because she's scared of the answer, she chickens out and instead of repeating the question, which he missed on account of BEING ASLEEP, she changes it to something less directly threatening to her heart, "do you love Marlene". The most important thing to note is that Cloud answers in the affirmative, he DOES love Marlene. Most importantly, this answer also serves as an answer to "do you love me?", either because Cloud straight up heard Tifa (I don't think he did, but some people pretend he did) and is answering her indirectly, or because this is how you use storytelling to provide an indirect answer to the viewer. The scene illustrates, in general, that Clouds issues are not due to a lack of love. There is a different problem, what is that problem? Well, I've already provided you with a link showing just that.
Let me also quickly touch on what happens later on in the short story in general:
Cloud is looking for a way to atone, which he finds through Denzel.
“So the problem was resolved?” Tifa asked.
“Which problem?” Cloud responded.
“Your problem.”
“Oh…”
Cloud thought about it.
“It’s ok if you don’t want to tell me.”
“I can’t really explain it well…” Cloud warned before starting to talk. “The problem isn’t resolved. Well, I never tried resolving it for a long time, I think. You can’t retrieve lost lives.”
Tifa nodded silently.
“But maybe we can save the lives who are in a crisis just now. Maybe even I can do it.”
“You mean Denzel?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, do you remember what you said when you brought Denzel here?”
“What did I say?”
“A lot of things. Even if I opposed it, you would bring him back with you. I could just feel it.”
“That…”
Cloud was making a face like a kid who thought he would get scolded.
“Tell me. I’ll decide whether I’m angry or not after I listen.”
Cloud nodded and continued.
“Denzel had collapsed in front of Aerith’s church. That’s why I thought Aerith lead him to me.”
Saying all that in one breath, Cloud looked away.
“You went to the church.”
“I didn’t intend to hide it from you.”
“You did hide it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not saying you couldn’t go. But next time, I’ll go with you.”
“I understand.”
“And you’re wrong, Cloud.”
Cloud was perplexed as he looked at Tifa.
“Aerith didn’t bring Denzel to you.”
“Ahh, I only thought that…..”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Aerith brought Denzel to our home.”
Cloud gazed at Tifa and finally smiled.
__________________________________
This provides further evidence that the issues between Tifa and Cloud weren't due to a lack of love, but were due to Cloud suffering from the guilt of failing to protect Aerith. He doesn't know how to deal with that because this is not something he can take back: "You can’t retrieve lost lives.”.
However, he is looking for a way to atone and thinks he's found one by protecting those who are still alive, in this case Denzel. Subsequently his situation with Tifa seemingly improves. But then the story ends with Clouds sudden disappearance, and Tifa wondering if the improvement, and the accompanying smiles, were a lie. The story lets that question linger, it is a cliff hanger, the set-up for Advent Children, advent children is supposed to answer the question, and it does. The answer to the mystery of why Cloud suddenly disappeared when things appeared to be improving, is that he contracted Geostigma.
Cloud never had a candid personality to begin with, and although he started living with Tifa and even started working, he obtained a peaceful living he’s never experienced before, and this conversely made him anxious. And in the midst of this he contracts Geostigma himself, and rather than being able to protect the people dear to him, he instead was forced to face his own death, and so ran away.”-Nojima in AC prologue.
Case closed, Cloti wins again. Like always, whenever you look at any scene in the larger context you come to the conclusion that it perfectly fits the overall story and concepts proposed by Clotis. It's the remarkable coherency of this interpretation that in my opinion is it's best proof. Cleriths propose a very shallow story, they never look deeper than "Clouds actions revolve around romantic love, therefore, if any action has to either directly prove romance, or disprove it". There is no nuance there, no understanding of deeper concepts. There can't be, because as soon as you try to add those the interpretation falls apart at the seems, you run into a hundred conflicting quotes and a thousand themes that don't fit together or are downright bad. You get stories about a man abandoning sick kids because he wants die die to be with a dead girl, for no other reason than that he knew her for one week and now is obsessed with her. There is no story here, no beauty, no lessons, no morality, just a weird shallow death cult, and the biggest proof that it is a cult is how they can look at a scene like the one you proposed, and delude themselves into actually believing their shallow misrepresentations constitute "a good argument".
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