Cloud is not emo dammit!

[Cat Rage Room]

I think that it's less that people think he's actually 'emo', but they're using the word as a substitute for something else that they just fail to articulate; in this case, 'mentally/emotionally weak'. A lot of Western audiences are used to a certain type of hero, one who never falters, has an iron resolve 100% of the time, and never has any personal neuroses ever. So when they see Cloud, an insecure, less than enthusiastic guy who spends much of his time clutching his head, 'emo' is just the closet word they formulate, even when they mean something else.

Not to say that such a character is bad! It's not bad or good in itself to have a character that's generally upbeat most of the time and nothing ever really gets him down (Zidane, for example), or to have a character that has some shit on his plate and on his mind that bothers him most of the time (Cloud). What matters is how that character is written and presented.

For a non FF example, Fei from Xenogears, looking at it from an overall perspective, well, he's kind of a pussy. Very, very emotionally weak, and his entire character was written based on that. He spends a good part of the game either saying how much he 'hates Gears and fighting', or holding his head in his hands whining about something. The first five or so party members you meet have different ways of telling him to man the fuck up within five minutes of their appearance (Elly taking him to 'take responsibility!'/Bart telling him that 'Hey, I like to fight, but I least I fight for a noble cause. What do you do?'/Rico not saying too much of anything, but beating the shit out of him for not fighting back). Hell, Fei is literally psychologically unable to properly express turmoil and handle stress like a normal person, and if he finds himself too much in a stressful situation, bad [URL="http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Xenogears/Update%208/27-SLUS_006.64_21062007_063959_0243.jpg"]stuff [/URL]happens.

Like it was mentioned before. Cloud is not a badly written character in itself, but a lot of people aren't used to such a character, so they lash out at him. While this isn't fair, I kind of sort of blame the translation (which falls into presentation). The story itself was written pretty well, but the presentation can leave people sort of confused!

 

[Edley]

Spoiler

... It's a bit of a juvenile idea. I could get in to the makeup of Cloud and why he's anything but a so called "emo", but then I'd have to talk about existentialism vs. nihilism and wonderful concepts of 20th century philosophy which pervade the whole game and to a varied extent the compilation. But the fact that they would name a character Heidegger speaks volumes to me about the head space those dudes were in.

 

[ForceStealer]

A lot of Western audiences are used to a certain type of hero, one who never falters, has an iron resolve 100% of the time, and never has any personal neuroses ever.

I hear this a lot...but is it really all that true? There are of course characters like that, but the period of disillusionment is an incredibly common plot point even among stalwart western heroes like Superman or James Bond.
I mean I can think of western heroes that fit this bill, Indiana Jones, for example. But are these pillars of fortitude unique to western storytelling? Do classical Japanese stories not have the heroes with unshakable resolve?

I seem to remember Cloud being a unique (video game, at least) hero at the time and I kinda of assumed that to be true on both coasts.

This is almost completely off-topic, just musing now