How some people are reading One Chapter and Calling It the Whole Book: What Hollow Is Really About
TLDR: Trying to reduce Hollow to a song about Aerith is like watching an entire movie and claiming it's only about one scene where the protagonist loses someone he cares about. That chapter is important of course BUT it isn't the whole story.
Hollow is Cloud's overarching story in song form. It's about the emptiness inside him, the identity he built on lies, the guilt he carries, the promises he failed to keep and his struggle to find himself.
Aerith's loss is undoubtedly part of that emptiness, BUT SHE ISN'T ITS BEGINNING AND FRANKLY SHE ISN'T ITS END EITHER.
Cloud's inner conflict didn't begin when Aerith died. It began long before he met her, when he stood beneath the water tower as an insecure boy who wanted to become someone worthy of Tifa's notice. It is the reason he created his false SOLDIER persona after the trauma in Nibelheim. And it ultimately reaches its resolution in the Lifestream sequence, where Tifa helps him piece together his true self.
That's why reducing Hollow to a "Clerith song" misses the overarching narrative of FFVII. The song is about Cloud's hollowness itself.
Aerith is one piece of Cloud's journey, not the entirety of his character arc.
In other words, Hollow isn't about who Cloud loves, it's about the parts of himself that he has lost and the journey of becoming whole again. All of which were never entirely focused on Aerith alone, nor did they begin or end with her.
