Trace of Two Pasts novel discussion

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Blaming yourself for being unable to save the people you care about isn't by any stretch of the imagination the same thing as believing you have to be perfect in order to deserve love. The first is guilt, which is a fairly normal human emotion. The second is a form of narcissism.

 

[kathy202]

Not if they're so perfectionist they can never finish anything because nothing they do can match up to the ideal of perfection in their mind.
But tbh I suspect many of the girls I deal with use "perfectionism" as an excuse for laziness because it's considered acceptable, even obligatory, for a girl to seek to be as perfect as possible. In reality, they didn't get the work done because they stayed up all night playing Minecraft.

Now I see why our teachers would give us a big fat zero if we were even a minute late in turning in an assignment lol, no excuses allowed

And yeah, I don't really get the perfectionist vibe from Cloud either. Fragile ego and therefore wants to prove himself, yes. Perfectionist, not quite? If there's anyone close to being a perfectionist in this game I think it might be Tseng or one of the Turks. It would need to be someone who doesn't accept failure easily, and not because they're afraid of how others would perceive it, but they just don't accept it in themselves.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I would say Cloud has an idealist streak more than a perfectionist one... but those are *awfully* close and result in a lot of the same behaviors.

Cloud certainly wants to be perceived as what he sees as his own "ideal": that of a confident SOLDIER who can protect the people important to him. Which he then fails to do time and time again... A large part of Cloud learning to accept himself revolves around accepting that he isn't what he claims to be and that he is a screw-up and never lived up to his own ideal.

A large part of Cloud's emotional growth is learning to accept the reality of who he is rather than who he isn't. And that involves letting go of trying to be the "perfect/ideal" SOLDIER. Which ironically is what frees Cloud up to actually save the world and save the people he cares about.

There's a big theme of self-delusion in Cloud's character growth. And self-delusion can stem from *either* perfectionism or idealism...

 

[KindOfBlue]

And self-delusion can stem from *either* perfectionism or idealism...

Or in Cloud’s case, horniness

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Actually, Cloud usually does manage to protect the people he cares about. However, he fails on three significant occassions
1. After the death of Tifa's mother, when he and Tifa fall off the bridge and he is blamed for her inuries.
2. When Sephiroth kills his mother in Nibelheim.
3. When Sephiroth kills Aerith.

It appears to be after the first incident that he become even more withdrawn and solitary, and at some point forms the resolution to become a powerful warrior, 'the best of the best', like Sephiroth. Psychologically, his motives seem obvious, even if he himself is unaware of them.

The other two crucial losses are (ironically, as if to rub in his failure) inflicted by the very man he idolised).

He fails to become a SOLDIER, and his mother dies; he then kills Sephiroth, which is something only a First Class SOLDIER ought to be able to do. When he finally emerges from his mako coma, he's convinced that he is a First Class SOLDIER. Again, what's going on in his subconscious seems fairly obvious, though his delusion must make it even harder for him to explain to himself why he couldn't save his mother.

However, he isn't a real SOLDIER, and Aerith dies.

If a part of your subconscious believes that you're not capable of protecting the people you care about, the obvious solution is to not care about people. Hence Cloud's gruff and cold persona, which in reality is the thinnest of shells. This is why his subconscious understands that Tifa poses a threat to that protective persona in several ways. She has memories which contradict the ones his subconscious has fabricated, and he really, deeply cares about her.

 

[Thenir]

I have never got this vibe off Cloud. I don't think that's what his story is about at all.

In AC he states that he left the bar because he couldn't even take care of himself, let alone his family (can't recall the exact lines). Guilt is a huge component of this character but in this case I had the impression he also felt like he didn't deserve them anymore.
The context is different but I don't find it too different from his behaviour when he was a kid and he thought he had to become strong in order to be noticed by Tifa, and when consequently he hid himself because he failed to become a Soldier. He thought he had to reach his ideal of perfection to deserve attention. Of course it's just my personal interpretation of the character.

 

[Eerie]

The next 12 pages of the story are out: I thank Zangan as he is the reason why Tifa walks so cutely!

There are interesting bits in these pages about the villagers and their mindset. I'll comment later, I'm a bit tired right now, but wow, so many things make sense. I love how Nojima has gone through giving explanations for how Tifa and Cloud react. I have a lot to say because the past translations have given me a lot of food for thoughts ^^'

 

[kathy202]

I would say Cloud has an idealist streak more than a perfectionist one... but those are *awfully* close and result in a lot of the same behaviors.

I like this distinction between an idealist and a perfectionist. I'm a hopeless perfectionist (every therapist I've seen has told me that, I suspect it's more a case of OCD). I don't get upset with myself for failing unless I knowingly allowed standards to slip.

I get puzzled when people make the claim of "I'm a perfectionist so I can't do anything unless I'm happy with the result", yet the things they do lack the level of detail that I would expect of a fellow perfectionist. They also don't show the same frustration towards others who lack standards.

I think idealism, not perfectionism, is a much stronger driver of any self-induced disappointment. And yeah, I think that form of idealism describes Cloud perfectly.

 

[Eerie]

New part translated

Brian grew on me, he's really such a nice dad - he must have had difficult time with Tifa when she was a young teen XD

I wonder if the Nibelheim village will be bigger in Remake - it certainly feels that there are more villagers than houses there!

 

[frosty]

The puzzling thing to me is the clear nod towards Before Crisis i.e. Tifa runs after Maru, meets insect creatures, gets saved by Player Turk and recruited as the guide by Player Turk....stuff that wasn't in Crisis Core.

Am wondering which "version" of Nibelhiem incident we'll be getting in Part2.

 

[Shademp]

Rule #1 of Final Fantasy VII lore: The number of iterations of the Nibelheim incident will only increase with time

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

That is a lovely translation, and I really like the characterisation Nojima gives Tifa. As Eerie points out, she's not an easy kid, and she's living in psychologically difficult circumstances. Imagine having to spend every morning teaching the old village gossips callisthentics and listening to them talk about your mum and dad and your own physical development. She spends all day every day working out; this behaviour reminds me of the line in the OG when she says "right now, I feel as if I have to really push myself to the limit". She's a teen who has little respect for adults. Zangan is the first one ever to earn it from her, and that's probably because he's uncompromising and demands so much from her. I also loved her line about not wanting to lose to anyone who left the village.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

@frosty The only place the BC version of the Nibelheim event *really* runs afoul of the CC version is that Sephiroth jumps in rather than gets thrown in. Everything else works more or less... Or even helps it make more sense. I'd always wonder how Shinra *knew* to send Sephiroth to Nibelheim and BC having the Turks show up earlier to check on the reactor explained that.

 

[frosty]

The only place the BC version of the Nibelheim event *really* runs afoul of the CC version is that Sephiroth jumps in rather than gets thrown in. Everything else works more or less... Or even helps it make more sense. I'd always wonder how Shinra *knew* to send Sephiroth to Nibelheim and BC having the Turks show up earlier to check on the reactor explained that.

Yeah. The turks being there works out. It's just the interactions between the characters that have small inconsistencies. Like one of the differences was that in BC, its the player Turk that meets up with Cloud/Zack/Sephiroth in front of the Inn and, then has conversation with Cloud about Tifa. Cloud asks the player Turk not to reveal he's in town and not to give his identity away and she thinks to herself that she now knows why his helmet is on.

But in CC, it's Tifa that runs up to Zack in front of the Inn and asks if there are only 2 SOLDIERS sent to Nibelhiem. Then Zack is the one to ask Cloud why his helmet is on.

So that leads me to wonder if ToTP addresses the Turks being in Nibelhiem, will they be shown or alluded to in Remake Part 2 vs completely not shown like in CC or OG.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Maybe everybody asks Cloud why he's keeping his helmet on. It seems like a guaranteed way to draw attention to himself. "Who's the weirdo who won't take his helmet off? What's wrong with him?"

 

[Thenir]

The problem with BC is that it forced the player Turk to be the protagonist of all the main moments of the story. Probably they'll just mix both versions in a more believable way, Cloud and Zack will meet the Turk and then Zack will talk with Tifa (or the contrary). The player Turk being there during Nibelheim incident is shown also in LO and I think it makes sense, since someone had to call Shinra and advise them about what happened.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

"The problem with BC is that it forced the player Turk to be the protagonist of all the main moments of the story." Good point.

 

[Torrie]

I feel so much excitement reading the new part! As if all these compilation entries are coming together into something bigger and greater, and everything is finally coherent and makes sense.

 

[Torrie]

Double post but

“A lady from Shinra saved me. She was wearing a black suit.”

AAAAHHHHHHH

I'm being super emotional right now.

I also need to vent a little because this novella reads like a good fanfic but it's official, you know. I've been working on a piece of fanfic of my own since late 2020, but it's been going really slowly and I always felt like some parts of the lore were missing. It's about the seven days in Nibelheim that the boys had to kill while waiting for Sephiroth to come out. So I involved Shotgun heavily. I came up with an old Nibelheim saying -- although it's obviously quite different from the one in the novella but is still about the deceased. I explored the issue with the lack of mobile signal. I tried to come up with jobs Tifa and Claudia could be doing at that time and both involved cooking. I know that I relied on common knowledge and intuition, because some things were easy to reconstruct, but I'm sort of shocked that it played out super closely to what I had imagined, and I'm glad writing has been taking me that long because I can rewrite some tiny bits that now contradict the lore or feel unnecessary.

For a second thought... Imagine the woman in a black suit could be Cissnei in the Remake?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

 

[Thenir]

According to LO (not sure but I think it was also stated somewhere else, maybe in an Untimania? I should check) it's Martial Art (female)

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

It's whoever is your Player Turk.
But I wouldn't be surprised if the Remake made it Cissnei. I also wouldn't be surprised if they made it Shotgun, as she's very popular.
The somewhat sad thing is that the Remake may definitively make it someone, and thus exclude everyone else's favourite female Turk from the role. Or the Remake may not show us this part of the story at all, since it has been dealt with in the novel.
I also won't be surprised if the Remake forgets about Chief Zonder and makes Brian Lockhart the mayor again.
Do you think Zangan is part of Avalanche? It's not impossible.

Zangan: “But I won’t need any further payments. I don’t charge any of my other students, you see. May I donate this to the organization that I belong to?”

Brian Lockhart: “The money’s yours to spend however you like, but I’m very curious. What kind of organization is it?”

Zangan: “One that works daily for the future of our children. You could say we’re volunteers. We simply call ourselves a liaison group or a network. Our activities branch out in so many directions that we have not yet settled on a name.”

 

[Eerie]

I've wondered too for Zangan, but I don't know when Avalanche was created, so I can't bet on it 100%. It definitely did cross my mind though!

As Peko pointed out, now we feel much closer to the villagers... and we know they all die. I wonder if we'll see Joanna though, at first it seemed like she was dead, but her mother seems to believe otherwise. It would be trippy to meet her somewhere in Remake!

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Are Joanna and Jasmine the same person? Isn't there a Joanna in the short Aerith novella about the drawings?

Edited to add: on a different note, I really love Tifa's teenage self-centredness, it rings really true. She'll do calisthenics with the old ladies but she doesn't have to like it. She's overconfident, ambitious, secretive, and will tell lies. She comes across as very real.

 

[Thenir]

It's whoever is your Player Turk.

In BC yes, in Last Order they turned the "player turk" into Martial Art, just like CC tuned the player turk Zack faces on the shore after escaping Nibelheim into Shuriken/Cissnei.

 

[Eerie]

Sorry I wrote Joanna I don't know why haha, I thought Jasmine!

Yes, Tifa's description as a teenager really rings true. Yet she already shows her determination and pride. I love it. But while growing up, she also got rid of her bad habits - I remember going through a phase like this myself to get rid of my anger XD