- AKA
- Smooth Criminal
Aerith is not living. LOL
That's like imagining Tifa is suddenly gonna reveal herself as the true form of Jenova.
That's like imagining Tifa is suddenly gonna reveal herself as the true form of Jenova.
Plot Changes a Possibility?
- Thread starter Wimbly
- Start date
Just out of interest, how do we know that it wasn't Wutai who started the war with Shinra? Just because Shinra is an amoral power-hungry corporation, it doesn't necessarily follow that they must have been the ones who started the war. We don't really know much about this war except that SOLDIER fought in it and Wutai suffered a humiliating defeat. For all we know, pre-war Wutai could have been as aggressive as pre-war Japan in a Pacific region dominated by the USA and Britain.
InterfaceLeader
Pro Adventurer
Yah, plus the fact Wutai stood up to Shinra for 10 years or so suggests they weren't some peaceful farming nation...
Random Nobody
local roach
then allow me to be as clear as possible:
- mans is a hedgehog with ~5 lines. the primary source of information about zack's overall personality is given to us by characters' insistence that dizzy!cloud is very similar to him, a similarity striking enough (sword notwithstanding) that it catches the attention of zack's ex-girlfriend.
- though the severity of cloud's dickhead syndrome is largely (player) determinant, his constant (and defining) characteristics are his self-assurance (sometimes to the point of being cocky or arrogant), his charisma (especially relative to his real self), and his pride in his title and work (despite personal distaste for his former employer).
- zack was at the highest echelons of the company's [imperial] military force. he wasn't trying to be; he was. given this, he was at best witness and was (much more) likely party to targeted killings, acts of destabilisation, subversion, other special operations and what-have-you. obviously the exact nature of the organisation's activities is pure speculation, but given sephiroth's career (and his celebrity in-universe), we can at least safely conclude they involve quite a bit of bloodshed.
- despite this, at no point does zack express misgivings about his position or his involvement with the company (granted the scope of his role doesn't allow him much opportunity) until they harm him. from the little we see, i question if he would have defected at all if shinra had an even moderately reasonable response to the nibelheim incident and hadn't handed him down to the local crackhead with the phd from the university of clownery.
- immediately after escaping, his plan is to run to shinra's seat of power (??) and "get rich" plying the same skills he learnt from them as part of the circuit. and whilst i have my doubts that this would include...assassination or something, nothing about his so-far expressed scruples (or lack thereof) and his (apparent) lack of reflection encourage me to believe all these jobs would toe the line of moral discretion, particularly given a city like midgar. for his own part, cloud did become a mercenary. and immediately fell into it with a gang of terrorists.
the confluence of all of these things -- with the added cliche of a somewhat superficial approach to romantic entanglements that the woman/his partner is far more invested in -- is what suggests to me the (very 90's) archetype of the fast and loose anti-hero who is mostly heroic in name only, and represents a certain kind of masculine ideal. these kind of characters are usually still meant to be sympathetic regardless, and are/were humanised by their humour/affability/loyalty to individuals/a team/an ideal/whatever. there is also probably a straight line that you could trace from this type of hero to wartime/post-war/pro-state literature and propaganda, but i realised like two sentences into this post that i don't give that much of a shit about all this. so i will not.
i am not saying that zack ran around town scalping old folks with butter knives. but someone who is charismatic, given to impulsivity, has a talent for violence and enacting it (that he doesn't try to interrogate or abandon), and doesn't really think too deeply about his actions (even and especially when they are consistently heinous with heinous consequences) unless they negatively affect him...all these combine into a megazord of traits that i, personally, would at least describe as "vaguely assholish." perhaps you would use a different term. but for me, regardless of their interpersonal skills, that is not the type of person i would enjoy being around.
he was a frontline super soldier who climbed the ranks through efficient and lethal executions of shinra's will (and like...literal executions also). not a financial management officer hunched over a desk on floor 69 (kek). his precise duties would involve a large amount of theorisation, but unless you take his characterisation in the compilation and retroactively use it to interpret what we see of him in ffvii [and even his development in cc revolves mostly around the effect shinra has on him and the people close to him, not necessarily the effect it had on his victims], the idea that zack existed as some all-loving hero with the heart of superman is not convincing to me. the original game gives me zero reason to believe that at all...even if he truly did think what he was doing was moral.
for that matter, the og doesn't give me cause to believe it's even possible for a character like that to exist (particularly within zack's circumstances) in it's world. it seems to (thematically) go out of its way to discourage that. even with literal saviours like aerith.
edit:
unless i'm just dumb (very possible) and have shit memory (i do), the war was instigated by shinra when wutai refused to allow a reactor to be built on their soil (and by extension, submit to economic domination). and a nation doesn't have to be completely helpless or pacifistic for an imperial campaign launched against them (and attempts to undermine their government) to be illegal/immoral.
in any case, i honestly can't remember if all that was compilation nonsense or not, but i think i vaguely remember the suggestion it was defensive regardeless.
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- AKA
- TresDias
But without taking the CC arc into account, that leaves one without the examples of him being "the front line of an invasion force that slaughters the citizens of a sovereign nation on their own soil."
The original game never established that he personally had a role in the Wutai War.I wouldn't put it past them -- the Aerith thing. Not the Tifa thing.Aerith is not living. LOL
That's like imagining Tifa is suddenly gonna reveal herself as the true form of Jenova.
Going just by the original game, I suppose it was never made altogether clear who started it. Godo does mention wanting the war, but based on his line "To protect Wutai, we cannot afford to stand up to Shinra," I always felt that it wasn't Wutai who had been the initial aggressors.
Random Nobody
local roach
it didn't. which is why i acknowledge that it is dependent on extrapolation. but again, knowing that sephiroth got booted to the front so enemies could [black uncle voice] throw hands with a 13-year-old, i'm seriously sceptical of the idea that they spared any of their best soldiers, named SOLDIER who were created to soldier, soldiering. and anyway, failing that, even if he by chance wasn't at all involved with wutai, there's no way they had him sit on his hands and do nothing for X years.But without taking the CC arc into account, that leaves one without the examples of him being "the front line of an invasion force that slaughters the citizens of a sovereign nation on their own soil."
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Yes, they seem to have a very highly developed militaristic culture and martial values.
@ Random Nobody: the reactor was the causus belli, but which side first progressed the conflict from diplomatic negotiation to open war is not known (I think; am open to correction on this point). Any number of different things could have happened. Given what we know it seems probable that Shinra was the aggressor, but on the other hand Wutai could have said, "Fuck this shit, they're not nearly as powerful as they think they are, let's take back what's rightfully ours and end this once and for all," and launched an invasion of the western continent, or even the Grasslands.
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- AKA
- Minato
Zack actually quite specifically says the war was over before he made First Class and as such he couldn't be hero like Sephiroth. Demanding he must have had an extensive part in Wutai conflict all the same seems counterintuitive. Most of his career at Shinra would've been like the mission we saw in Nibelheim flashback. Maintaining public safety (and minimizing damage to Shinra property) after Shinra had already de facto conquered the planet.
Kain424
Old Man in the Room
Well, there is the matter of him going out of his way to help Cloud. I suppose you could chalk it up to a late-term character turn, but he is trying to turn over a new leaf.
But other than that, I got nothing. I think you've made me think differently about a character. Nice.
rimavelle
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- rima
Real Tifa was in North Crater all along, and has bigger boobs!Aerith is not living. LOL
That's like imagining Tifa is suddenly gonna reveal herself as the true form of Jenova.
I chuckled. Also, it's weirdly correct.
- AKA
- TresDias
Ah, that is right. During the truck ride to Nibelheim. The original game actually offered less reason to think he participated in the war (i.e. not at all) than Crisis Core, where he only participated in the one mission.
CC ironically makes him look worse.
He does seem a bit goofy when rushing through Fort Tamblin slaughtering everything that crosses his path, only to get into a debate with the last man he kills:
"ZACK: I heard that if we could process the mako here, it would help people live better lives. But then you attacked us without even hearing us out!"
He gets random attacks of conscience at the strangest times.
But look - this is a guy who, in both the OG and Crisis Core, left home with the express purpose of becoming a heroic killing machine. It's hard to see how, in that respect, Crisis Core makes him look worse than the OG, just because he was unlucky to miss a war he really really wanted to fight (and kill) in.
"ZACK: I heard that if we could process the mako here, it would help people live better lives. But then you attacked us without even hearing us out!"
He gets random attacks of conscience at the strangest times.
But look - this is a guy who, in both the OG and Crisis Core, left home with the express purpose of becoming a heroic killing machine. It's hard to see how, in that respect, Crisis Core makes him look worse than the OG, just because he was unlucky to miss a war he really really wanted to fight (and kill) in.
- AKA
- TresDias
Fair points.
I still contend that he is FFVII's stand-in for the Typical Shounen Hero, and that this is important to the themes of FFVII -- which has a lot to do with subverting those 90s themes @Random Nobody was talking about.
Cloud replaced that more Typical Shounen Hero and then acts like the Gritty Badass Typical 90s Hero. An archetype that takes the traits of the Typical Shounen Hero, cranks them up to 11, and excises most of characteristics that would at least keep them likable if they were a real person. All this happens before the game actually starts, only for Cloud to then be revealed as a thoroughly messed up and weak-willed kid.
I still think Zack's a bit of an idiot, mind you, and that there was some sort of poetic karma at work with his fate in CC (he screwed Wutai over; there's no two ways about it), but he's definitely always come across as a Naruto-like character for me.
I still contend that he is FFVII's stand-in for the Typical Shounen Hero, and that this is important to the themes of FFVII -- which has a lot to do with subverting those 90s themes @Random Nobody was talking about.
Cloud replaced that more Typical Shounen Hero and then acts like the Gritty Badass Typical 90s Hero. An archetype that takes the traits of the Typical Shounen Hero, cranks them up to 11, and excises most of characteristics that would at least keep them likable if they were a real person. All this happens before the game actually starts, only for Cloud to then be revealed as a thoroughly messed up and weak-willed kid.
I still think Zack's a bit of an idiot, mind you, and that there was some sort of poetic karma at work with his fate in CC (he screwed Wutai over; there's no two ways about it), but he's definitely always come across as a Naruto-like character for me.
I 100% agree.
- AKA
- Alex T
Aerith is not living. LOL
That's like imagining Tifa is suddenly gonna reveal herself as the true form of Jenova.
It’s just a thought. I often think of this quote from Kitase when building my expectations for the Remake: “We were the people who created it, so in that sense, we don't think anything is untouchable.”
https://www.destructoid.com/kitase-...t-think-anything-is-untouchable--354716.phtml
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- AKA
- Fancy
Fair points.
I still contend that he is FFVII's stand-in for the Typical Shounen Hero, and that this is important to the themes of FFVII -- which has a lot to do with subverting those 90s themes @Random Nobody was talking about.
Cloud replaced that more Typical Shounen Hero and then acts like the Gritty Badass Typical 90s Hero. An archetype that takes the traits of the Typical Shounen Hero, cranks them up to 11, and excises most of characteristics that would at least keep them likable if they were a real person. All this happens before the game actually starts, only for Cloud to then be revealed as a thoroughly messed up and weak-willed kid.
I still think Zack's a bit of an idiot, mind you, and that there was some sort of poetic karma at work with his fate in CC (he screwed Wutai over; there's no two ways about it), but he's definitely always come across as a Naruto-like character for me.
I largely agree with this whole poast here, though I take issue with the assessment that Cloud's revealed to be "weak-willed" given that I can think of three immediate examples where he's shown to be very determined indeed when he wants to be, even under extraordinary circumstances:
- Following Tifa into the mountains when everyone else threw up peace signs saying "deuces."
- Picking up a sword the size of a smol house and stabbing the person who has just burnt down his whole village, and whom he looked up to and knew to be a skilled fighter/war hero.
- After Cloud himself gets stabbed by Masamune, he literally picks Sephiroth up by the blade of his katana and just sorta "No u"s him into the pit of mako below. I reckon most folks would've just laid down and died bruh.
- Finally, after surviving his Blue Screen of Death episode in Mideel and regaining his memories with Tifa's help, he more or less tells Cid and the others, "Yo, so this is mad awkward, but if you'll have me, I'm still determined to try and save the planet." like even after being shaken up by the revelation of his true memories and self.
Plot possibilities: even moar moments where Cloud reveals himself to be a Crouching Dork, Hidden Badass??
- AKA
- Minato
I largely agree with this whole poast here, though I take issue with the assessment that Cloud's revealed to be "weak-willed" given that I can think of three immediate examples where he's shown to be very determined indeed when he wants to be, even under extraordinary circumstances:
HAHAHA I am so sorry I do not mean to sound like a whinging fangirl but bruh I felt like I couldn't not say anything, ya know??
- Following Tifa into the mountains when everyone else threw up peace signs saying "deuces."
- Picking up a sword the size of a smol house and stabbing the person who has just burnt down his whole village, and whom he looked up to and knew to be a skilled fighter/war hero.
- After Cloud himself gets stabbed by Masamune, he literally picks Sephiroth up by the blade of his katana and just sorta "No u"s him into the pit of mako below. I reckon most folks would've just laid down and died bruh.
- Finally, after surviving his Blue Screen of Death episode in Mideel and regaining his memories with Tifa's help, he more or less tells Cid and the others, "Yo, so this is mad awkward, but if you'll have me, I'm still determined to try and save the planet." like even after being shaken up by the revelation of his true memories and self.
Plot possibilities: even moar moments where Cloud reveals himself to be a Crouching Dork, Hidden Badass??
I agree, his assessment for SOLDIER came after 6 years of negative reinforcement in Nibelheim, where the adults saw him as primarily responsible for Tifa's coma and the kids other then Tifa were keen on keeping that way leading to tensions between them and Cloud. When provided with the right reasons to take action Cloud's solid. His attempting to join SOLDIER was more the result an empty bravado to impress Tifa.
Mayo Master
Pro Adventurer
I always had the personal interpretation that Cloud's desire to join SOLDIER wasn't just for the sake of impressing Tifa - he first needed to accomplish something that would impress himself. Achieving this goal was a means of overcoming his crippling lack of self-confidence.
- AKA
- TresDias
You're right, "thoroughly messed up and weak-willed kid" was the wrong choice of words. He's not lacking in will at a pinch. "Thoroughly messed up kid with cripplingly low self-esteem" is more what I'm going for. It's his personal sense of identity that was weak, contrary to the image he portrayed.
Did nobody invent a more proper term for his case?
The lack of a strong personal sense of identity, as Tres put it, is the reason. The Shinra scientists in charge of the procedure rightly determined that Jenova would be able to dominate his mind. Perhaps the strong will buried in there is why he wasn't just another babbling Sephiroth clone, but his lack of identity is what allowed Sephiroth/Jenova, and himself to manufacture one wholesale.