 In early planning stages of Final Fantasy VII , Aerith was to be one of only three protagonists ; herself , Cloud and <unk> . During a phone call to Kitase , it was suggested that at some point in the game , one of the main characters should die , and after much discussion as to whether it should be <unk> or Aerith , the producers chose Aerith . Nomura stated in a 2005 Electronic Gaming Monthly interview : " Cloud 's the main character , so you can 't really kill him . And Barrett ... [ sic ] well , that 's maybe too obvious . " While designing Final Fantasy VII , Nomura was frustrated with the " perennial cliché where the protagonist loves someone very much and so has to sacrifice himself and die in a dramatic fashion to express that love . " He found this <unk> appeared in both films and video games from North America and Japan , and asked " Is it right to set such an example to people ? " Kitase concluded : " In the real world things are very different . You just need to look around you . Nobody wants to die that way . People die of disease and accident . Death comes suddenly and there is no notion of good or bad . It leaves , not a dramatic feeling but great <unk> . When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think , ' If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently . ' These are the feelings I wanted to <unk> in the players with Aerith 's death relatively early in the game . Feelings of reality and not Hollywood . " 
