Clay Gainsborough[1] is a character mentioned in Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and named in Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts. He was the husband of Elmyra Gainsborough and son of Gabriel Gainsborough, who was sent to fight for the Shinra Electric Power Company in the Wutai War. Clay was born into the Gainsborough family business, and passed away before he was able to meet Elmyra's adopted daughter, Aerith Gainsborough.
History[]
Clay Gainsborough was the only son of Gabriel Gainsborough.[2] As such, he was born into the Gainsborough family business, which was built on organizing people for construction sites, as a contractor for Shinra. Clay was a "number two", and along with Meguro, was one of Gabriel's right-hand men.[3] Clay ultimately intended to succeed Gabriel.[4]
Clay took a young worker named Carlo Kincaid under his wing,[3] and put him on Gabriel's radar.[5] Carlo looked up to Clay as akin to an older brother, but when Clay married Elmyra, was somewhat resentful at first as Elmyra took Clay's attention away, before warming to her.[6] Clay would always advocate for Carlo, covering for his mistakes, and setting him straight.[5]
Though grateful, in time the Sector 5 slums began to resent the Gainsborough family due to how well Shinra treated them. This led Clay to enlist in the Shinra military to stop the gossip and bad mouthing and to bring honor to the Gainsborough name, although Gabriel attempted to stop him.[7] Clay was then sent to fight in the Wutai War. During the war, Clay accumulated enough leave to return home, hoping to be in person to talk over the process over succeeding his father.[4] Clay was supposed to arrive in 1992 six days before Aerith's arrival at the station.[2] Instead, Clay's helicopter crashed in a heavy forest, and his body was found far away from the crash site, as he had left trying to find Elmyra again.[8][note 1]
At the moment of Clay's death, before returning to the planet, he was given the chance to see the one place in the world he wished to be most, and thus returned to the Gainsborough house, seen there by Aerith in a dream.[9] Aerith told Elmyra not to be sad as Clay had returned to the planet, something Elmyra rejected as she did not believe in planetology.[9][10][11] Following this,[note 2] Elmyra received a letter from Shinra informing her that Clay had indeed passed.[10][11][8]
Notes[]
Annotations[]
- ↑ Final Fantasy VII Remake says that Clay was killed in action, possibly suggesting that the helicopter was used for battle and not to take him home for leave. However, since Trace of Two Pasts also retcons how long between Aerith telling Elmyra about Clay's passing and the letter being received, it is possible that this detail is also retconned.
- ↑ In Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Remake, Elmyra says that received a letter about her husband passing several days after Aerith had told her.[10][11] Trace of Two Pasts says that Elmyra received the letter the following day.[8]
Citations[]
- ↑ Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts § "Traces of Aerith"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts, p. 237
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts, p. 244
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts, p. 243
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts, p. 260
- ↑ Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts, p. 266-267
- ↑ Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts, p. 238
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts, p. 257
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts, p. 254-256
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Final Fantasy VII script § "Aeris's Secret"
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Final Fantasy VII Remake script § "Words of Hope"
References[]
- Kazushige Nojima (2023). Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts [Book]. Square Enix. ISBN 978-4-7575-7348-2.