A Glimpse Into Cloud's Mentality In Advent Children

Talk about a coincidence!

(Previous post here)

Aerith's key art

Since the release of the original FF7 each main character's had a dedicated key art.

They mostly remained unaltered in the Remake because their symbolism applies to both entries, while Aerith and Yuffie's changed in order to fit the themes of this new installment.

In the first picture Aerith was looking at the Highwind, but in the new one the airship's disappeared...why?

In the OG she wished she could fly on the Highwind one day. Probably this key art was meant to give to the player the illusion she could fulfill her dream and continue the adventure with her companions, in order to make more painful and unexpected her destiny.

I think her Remake key art has a totally different meaning. The central point of this picture is not the absence of the airship but the fact that she's staring at the blue sky:

The last line of the Remake makes more sense in Japanese

The sky, I hate it.

It links up better with the scene of Crisis Core where she perceived Zack's death while it started raining.

But maybe this time there's a chance...

This new picture has also a parallel with Tifa's key art: both staring at the sky, both relating it to a special person❤️

What a nice coincidence!

"With you by my side, I'll never give up no matter how bad it gets."

He's correct and he should say it.

I've been thinking about Sephiroth's having a tendency in Ever Crisis First Soldier to put his hand on his chest and that it seems to have made it into Rebirth as something he does.

The revelation that he used to wear a locket with his mothers picture there really does change the gesture meaning. I think he's reaching for for that. The idea he's still reaching for her roughly a decade after losing the locket really breaks my heart.

Rainy Sunday afternoon

SOMEONE IS FINALLY SAYING THIS

i see it's that time of the year again where people start hating on the english localization of remake/rebirth despite having next to no understanding of how large scale translation projects work 🙃

What makes the identification of a character should start at their character construction—as a writer, this is when you’re determining the existence of this character, the motivation that drives their agency and purpose in the story (or even that of the story itself), etc. If this is layered [depth], only then would I personally say they’re a “complex character”.

What flows through that and becomes a part of the character’s “dynamic range”, like their personality and the range of elements attached to their character that is shown in different situations—like the, “this character acted this way here”, and “they showed this there”, “they have this significant item to represent this”, etc. This can easily be synonymous to that construction, or it can really just be it’s own thing if written that way. This in of itself can be interesting and “layered” in the sense that there is variety, hence the “dynamic range” terminology, but the understanding of that is different than what is for the sake of describing a character’s depth for identification. I would argue this is defined at the construction stage as opposed to in the counted showings of dynamic range, that otherwise, doesn’t have to be dependent upon what’s established in the construction. If you can see the flow in the range, chances are it started at the construction either way. A character’s growth is also NOT what defines their complexity, but that too can be synonymous to the construction and flow through for better storytelling. If their purpose is what changes and adds layers, depths—the WHY to what their purpose is, the it definitely applies. In most cases, you’d hope it does, but of course, you can have character’s undergo change for a specific element (or just learn something, becoming better on that front), but what sets their purpose is still 1 layer. Basically, the “lesson learned” could be an isolated thing that doesn’t really interact with their purpose as a character.

And to make it clear, whether a character is “complex” or not DOES NOT determine if they’re a good/poorly written character. I will never not stop fighting that as the art of simplicity or “less is more” is literally a thing that translates in a lot of different things. A simple character can absolutely be fine.

This is really primarily in the perspective of how we identify characters and really why—at least on this level of identification (things like complex, simple, protagonist, antagonist, etc.), the construction level makes more sense than the conditional moments alone. And it can be important as to not create a misleading, if inefficient label on the character. You can’t just identify a character as a “fan-service character” because the author wrote a few moments like that (which is typically more about their style than it is about the character), or if to go even more general, to be like, this is a “video game character” for a character that originated and immediate source material is that of a “anime or manga”. Like, the type of answer you’d give if you’re answering “who is this?” Of course, complex vs simple is a weird answer to give, but if for the sake of identifying FOR a character’s existence, then the logic still applies.

Some examples I’d look at are three well known shonen protags of Naruto, Goku, and Luffy.

Continua a leggere

I have written and rewritten the Gast Post wayyy too many times and put more time thinking about it then it's worth so now here it is, just so it will begone from my drafts, here's my beef with Gast Faremis and the two big narrative issues that make thinking about him fill me with rage

Also I'm gonna put a TW for grooming here actually because Gast's lack of a canon age makes it seem like he might have met Ifalna when she was very young and they have a weird power imbalance thing going that I kind of talk about

The Jenova Project

It is basically impossible to make a sound judgement on Gast's ethics because we have no idea when he left the Jenova project or really why beyond that he knew he misidentified Jenova. I know one of the ultimanias said he felt guilt/remorse. But to be quite frank, until they show this remorse in-game it means nothing to me. It's one thing to reveal details like ages in the ultimanias, but Gast is a far too critical player in the plot for his characterization to be getting done secondhand in supplemental materials. Do not get me started on how he never shows up in Dirge. They just... ignore him a lot of the time, which is really weird since his discovery of Jenova is the plot catalyst for the entire series.

Also, I've noticed people tend to passively talk about him like he's *the good one* on the team or that he would have saved Sephiroth from Hojo. I'm not really sure where this comes from? Sephiroth speaks highly of him, but i don't trust Seph to be an accurate judge of character when it comes to Gast. Sephiroth would have been, at the very vert latest, probably around 4 when Gast left the company. If he even remembers Gast at all, his memories are not gonna be a full picture of what the man was like. Besides that, I think it's incredibly likely Sephiroth has a mystical, idealized version of Gast in his head, because Gast is someone who could, in theory, give him the answers about his origins Hojo refuses to. Hojo also probably shit talks Gast if be ever comes up, which would only make him more appealing to Sephiroth. Gast is not Hojo. He has cleared the bar past literally the worst person Sephiroth has ever met. It is akin to praising a candle for being able to burn compared to a crumpled, broken, wet match. Gast being less abhorrent then Hojo doesn't mean he was a good person.

I think people also tend to automatically assume Gast was a good person bc he's Aerith's dad, but being a good person isn't genetic. He didn't have the opportunity to be a father to her for more then about 3 weeks. That's not his fault, obviously, but it means he had no hand in raising her, so him being her father really isn't indicative of anything outside of him being involved with Ifalna, which we will get to in a second.

Honestly, it seems to me like Gast was ambivalent to Sephiroth at best. Remember that a perfect weapon was not what they were designing Sephiroth to be; they wanted him to be an Ancient. Of course, Jenova is not one, meaning that in terms of achieving its original goal, Gast's goal, Project S was a failure from the outset. I can't help but wonder if Gast saw Sephiroth that way, or else as a horrible mistake, especially considering that after leaving the company and abandoning Sephiroth (and maybe Lucrecia depending on who left first) to Hojo, Gast on his own time achieves his original goal of making an Ancient, by fathering Aerith. Speaking of...

Ifalna

We know from the guides that Ifalna was 29 when she died. Aerith was 7, meaning Ifalna had her at around 22. If Gast was around Hojo' age, he would've been in his early 30s when Sephiroth was born. Sephiroth is 5-6 years older then Aerith, which would put him at around his mid thirties when he had a child with Ifalna. If Gast left the project shortly after Sephiroth was born or during Lucrecia's pregnancy, he might have met Ifalna as early as her being 18. I sincerely do not believe the devs want to imply their relationship was predatory. I honestly don't think all that much thought has been put into it at all, and while it's reasonable to sideline it since it's not the most urgent bit of lore, this sidelining makes trying to figure out what their dynamic was a nightmare.

Apparently the ultimanias are contradictory about whether the two of them met at Shinra or outside of it. The only time we've ever seen the two of them together was the Icicle Inn tapes, wherein their interactions seem mostly professional until the last tape. In this last tape, the dev's clumsy way of showing that these two are in a relationship was to have Ifalna start to address him as Professor, then correct herself and call him 'honey' instead, which is a hell of a Freudian slip for her to make, given that this tape takes place almost a month after the birth of their daughter.

Again, I think this was just a very awkward blinking neon sign hung up in order to quickly convey THESE TWO WERE IN LOVE, but if you take it at face value, it is strange at best and downright chilling at worst. Gast was the leader of the Make An Ancient Baby project, and when he realized he didn't actually make an Ancient, he left the project and went and had a baby *old school style* with the last Ancient while she was undergrad age. It is fully possible he and Ifalna did have real feelings for each other, but that context with the age gap just makes it... eugh. And it's not like they had a professional friendship and he just served as a sperm donor for Ifalna because she wanted to start repopulating her species or smth. She calls him by a pet name, they are in some kind of romantic entanglement.

At this point I don't think the devs have put nearly as much thought towards this as I have, we're probably just supposed to assume they were happy together because it makes Gast dying more tragic. But them neglecting this relationship leaves it uncomfortably unclear. For example, because they don't think about this relationship a lot, Aerith never mentions her mom telling her about her dad, which is very easily read as Ifalna not wanting to tell her daughter about Gast. That would just be because it hurts Ifalna to talk about his death, but... she also told Aerith stories about the Ancients, which must have also been painful since they were the last two, stuck in a lab away from nature. We know Ifalna gets emotional when talking about the Cetra, she gets worked up seemingly to the point of crying while talking about Jenova in the interviews. The only explanation I can see for why she wouldn't want to talk about Gast if they were happy toghether was that Hojo might punish her if she did. (Worth noting i have traces of two pasts but haven't gotten to reading it yet, she might mention him in there but again supplemental materials, Aerith has never knce mentioned a dad in the actual games)

If the goal is that we are supposed to see Gast as a bad or even morally compromised person who went straight after leaving the company, that's perfectly fine, but everything about him is so muddy that I genuinely can't tell what to make of him. Hojo and Hollander we're clearly supposed to hate, and Lucrecia has settled herself pretty comfortably in the "did fucked up things but has since paid for it" niche, but Gast is just... here. Floating around in the back of the narrative, not even really haunting it because his main contribution as the guy who discovered Jenova gets usurped by Hojo being the one to spread its cells. His other main contribution is being Aerith's bio dad, and she has never once seemed to give it any thought. The only person in the modern era who seems to give a rat's ass about his role in everything is Sephiroth, for like 2 seconds during his meltdown at Nibelheim before he's back to huffing the mommy issue fumes. He is just... such a bizarre, frustrating nothingburger, and I desperately hope they rectify it in remake 3.

I can't grasp the reason why on this website there's this sort of unwritten rule that doesn't allow you to use the Clerith (or Cloti, I guess?) tag unless you're going to celebrate that one ship (does it work this way for every argument or is it just a FF7 LTD related thing?). Otherwise some self-proclaimed tags-controllers will order you to change your writing, in spite of basic common sense and freedom of expression.

As if this sort of cultic anon intimidations could actually scare anybody.

It's tremendously silly, why can't someone tag clerith if the enterity of their article is going to be about clerith and the tone, despite their opinion, is being polite and unagressive? If someone doesn't agree and really can't live with it, there's a useful, easy tool called "block button".

In a way it's hilarious, if the anon was reacting to OP's recent post, they missed the chance to say something productive and give an alternative answer to his last ask, explaining how and why clerith is the end-game pairing.

But, weird, it didn't happen.

All flash, no substance.

Bruh, we don't want to hear about your negative views about cleriths. Cloud loves Aerith and he always has. He lives in her church because he loves her. He thought of Aerith a lot in OG , On the Way to A Smile, and AC. He went to live in her church. Why tf would he go live in her church if it wasn't for Aerith? There are millions of places he could've gone but he chose the church. You don't have to believe our way of thinking if you don't want to, but don't tag clerith in your posts.

Thanks for your question. I think it's important to have these conversations so we can clear up these misunderstandings. Clouds motivations have been well documented so it's unfortunate that large swaths of the fandom seemingly are still in the dark about something that has been known for quite a long time, and I blame lack of communication. Before I answer your question though I'd like to address the style of it, since I find it amusing that in response to my article concerning productive conversation styles you not only used one of the styles I described, but even the same exact argument. This is a nice confirmation for me that I am right on the money. In my article, I said that the "dishonest inquiry" is the Clerith conversation style of choice. The example I gave was as follows:

The dishonest inquiry: “Why don’t you admit that Clouds actions in AC show that he doesn’t love Tifa?”

You mirrored this approach by saying "Why tf would he go live in her church if it wasn't for Aerith?". The defining characteristic of the dishonest inquiry is that the question isn't asked with the goal of seeking clarification, but as an offensive tactic meant to attack the others position, you're not trying to evaluate your position, you're trying to get others to re-evaluate their position under the guise of a question. If we look at the rest of your post we can see the indicators I described for someone who has reached the last stage of the debate style. "Cloud loves Aerith and he always has. He lives in her church because he loves her". As I noted in my article:

If assertions are backed up, they are backed up with other assertions designed to dissuade rebuttals, rather than investigating veracity.

This "argument" had no actual arguments, it was a meaningless assertion. Stating that you are correct in an attempt to avoid having to actual show that you're correct. "Cloud loves Aerith and he always has. He lives in her church because he loves her": This is what you're trying to prove, you can't state what you're trying to prove as your starting premise.

If you're honestly interested in learning more about FFVII then leave out the baseless assertions, they literally just waste peoples time and makes them less willing to engage with you.

If I had to rephrase your question in a way that's more inviting for a productive discussion it would be something like this:

"Why do you believe Cloud chose Aeriths Church as his hiding place in AC? He thinks about Aerith a lot, what do you think the reason is for that if it's not love?".

The answer to this is pretty simple of course, it's been restated several times, this is not something that is some grand mystery, it's not even an aspect of FFVII that's particularly ambiguous. The reason he stays in Aeriths church is the same reason he's seen lingering at Zacks "grave", it's guilt. As stated in the 10th anniversary ultimania, and several other times:

when Cloud contracts Geostigma he disappears. Behind these actions lies feelings of guilt towards his past failure to protect people who were important to him

While this is an element of the story that has been explicitly confirmed through ultimanias and quotes, this is not an element of the story that was ever in any way unclear, its a direct continuation of Clouds character arc in FFVII. Infact, Clouds mental health issues are the central part of the fake persona storyarc, and is arguably the core of the story. The rough order of events shown in FFVII, on the way to a smile, and Advent children (and also CC) concerning Clouds mental health is as follows. 1: Cloud as a boy want to protect Tifa. 2: Cloud fails to protect Tifa. 3: Cloud and townspeople blame Cloud for Tifas injuries. 4: Cloud internalizes this and beats himself up over his failure to protect Tifa. He develops a fear of failure. 5: Cloud starts acting up, starts wanting to prove himself, and decides to join Soldier to impress Tifa. 6: Cloud fails to get into Soldier, develops an inferiority complex. 7: Cloud is too ashamed of his failure to face Tifa. 8: Cloud fails to save his mother. 9: Cloud fails to save Nibleheim. 10: Cloud fails to save Tifa, again. 11: Cloud fails to save Zack. 12: Cloud develops a soldier alter ego that is everything that he isn't, as a defense mechanism. He hides from his own weakness. 13: Even as a soldier, Cloud fails to save Aerith. 14: Cloud regains his memories in the lifestream, and discovers he did fulfill his promise to come save Tifa. Here we basically end FFVII, and go into on the way to a smile. At this point Cloud has overcome the alien parasite messing with his mind by establishing a stronger sense of who he is. However, now that he's lost his fake soldier defense mechanism he's forced to deal with the past. His past failures haven't been fixed, he doesn't suddenly think he's a great person now, he simply can no longer use his fake persona to hide from his own weakness, and is forced to confront it. 15: Cloud still blames his own weakness for the deaths of Aerith and Zack, he thinks that he needs to atone for his sins, and thinks that the only way to do this is through living* 16: Cloud starts living with Tifa and experiences happiness and peace for the first time in his adult life.** 17: Cloud develops cherophobia and survivors guilt. He feels ashamed for being alive and happy while Aerith and Zack are dead because of him.*** 18: Clouds mental health deteriorates because of these feelings.**** 19: Cloud finds Denzel and sees him as a way to atone, having found a pathway to redemption, Clouds situation improves.***** 20: Cloud is unable to save Denzel from geostigma, and contracts it himself. 21: Clouds mental health worsens again, he failed again, he is unable to save Denzel, he is even unable to save himself, he won't be able to atone for his sins through living. He potentially brought an infectious disease into the house and as a result of his actions Tifa and Marlene will now lose him. 22: Depressed and ashamed, Cloud runs away. He thinks Tifa and Marlene are better off without him, he doesn't want them to see him waste away and die, he feels like he doesn't deserve to be happy and should instead die alone, Etc. Classic depression. (Some quotes concerning the *** are at the bottom of the article)

As for why he thinks about Aerith and Zack a lot, and hangs around the places that are connected with them, what else do you expect? Of course he's thinking about them, they're the people he failed, they're DEAD because of him. Cloud is a caring man, he beats himself up over it, of course he'd be thinking about them. And where else would a man wallowing in guilt and self-pity go than to those places? But the important thing to remember is that none of this is supposed to be seen as romantic. It's supposed to be viewed as sad and negative. Every internal character arc has something to overcome and this is what Cloud has to overcome in Advent children.****** Tifa to Cloud: "have we lost to our memories?" Cloud to Sephiroth: "Stay where you belong, in my memories" A well written story has internal and external obstacles to overcome, and ties the two together. In the case of advent children, the return of Sephiroth is the physical representation of Clouds internal character arc, which is that he should stop living in the past, and should move on. The past here isn't a positive thing he wants to get back to, Clouds past has always been a thing he's ran away from, but then is forced to accept. The past in Clouds case is a bad thing, his failures, and is something he should stop dwelling on. If you've ever seen the lion king, this resembles the scene where Rafiki hits Simba with a stick. "What does it matter, it's in the past", "yeah but it still hurts", "Oh Yes, the past can hurt, but the way I see it you can either run from it, or learn from it".

When Cloud returned to his normal self, he stopped running from the past, but as a result, he started dwelling in it. That's what he's doing in Aeriths church; dwelling in misery.

If we juxtapose Aeriths church with the 7th heaven, we can start to see where peoples misunderstandings are taking place. When some people look at the events of ACC they think that 7th heaven is a place of sadness, which Cloud leaves to be happy at Aeriths church, the place of happiness. The "have we lost to our memories" is then seen as a confirmation of this and that the memory, which they think corresponds to Aerith, is better than life with Tifa. This character arc then concludes with Cloud being happy by finally leaving Tifa behind, and riding off in the sun-set in search of Aerith at the end of the movie. But this interpretation falls apart as soon as you apply context to it, both narratively, and factually, it doesn't fit with with developer quotes, as well as the fundamental story themes of FFVII. 1: If 7th Heaven/Tifa is a place of sadness, then why has Cloud been consistently quoted to experience happiness there? 2: If 7th Heaven/Tifa is a place of sadness, and Cloud leaves at the end of the movie, then why has it been stated to be his promised land, aka, his land of supreme happiness (the reason it's literally called 7th heaven), and why is he stated to return there? ******* 3: If Clouds "memories" are positive, why is the plotarc resolved by Cloud telling the villain to "stay there"? 4: If Cloud is happy at the church, why is he living in self-deprecating squalor? 5: If Cloud loved Aerith and thought Denzel was sent to him by her, why did he abandon him? 6: Do you really think SE would write a story about a "hero" whose main emotional hurdle concerning the past comes down to. "I am sick of the girl I am with, I prefer the one that is dead, so I will get over the past by letting go of the girl I am with, as well as my adoptive children, to go chase the dead girl"? 7: Don't you think this would do Tifas character a tremendous disservice and do you think SE would be that preferential in their treatment? I could go on, but I think the point is clear. While the "Aeriths church is a happy place" interpretation is semi-coherent when looked at in isolation, it becomes exceedingly bizarre as soon as you place it in context. As I am fond of saying, this is not a matter of personal interpretation, it's a matter of lying to yourself vs not lying to yourself. I also suspect that this is the reason why SE changed the ending to advent Children, because people were misinterpreting it in this bizarre way, so they made it more in your face. In context, the following interpretation is much more fitting. Aeriths church is a place of sadness that Cloud runs to because of his guilt and depression. The "memories" line refers to Cloud dwelling on his past mistakes, as evidenced by his constant quotes about needing forgiveness. The character arc of moving on from the past is then resolved when he forgives himself, and as a result, defeats sephiroth, the metaphorical demon of his past. This allows him to return to his place of joy, his promised land, the 7th heaven, with a more positive outlook on the past. Instead of tarnishing Aerith and Zacks memories by wallowing in the past he instead moves on from it, thereby allowing it to become beautiful, which is represented by him planting Aeriths flowers on Zacks grave, and placing Zacks sword in the church. Instead of Zacks grave being the place where Zack died, it is now the place where a hero was born. Cloud has moved on, he has let his mistakes go, and has learned to come to terms with himself. I think it's hard to argue that this version of events is much less shallow, and much more meaningful than the story of a lovesick guy who abandons his partner and adoptive kids to go chase after a dead girl, but that's just me, what's more important is that it's the only version of events that's corroborated by the evidence. Thanks for the question. __________________________________________________

Corroborating quotes (not comprehensive)

* from case of Tifa: "“I’m going to live. I think that’s the only way I can be forgiven. All sorts of things…"

** Nojima in AC prologue: "“Cloud never had a candid personality to begin with, and although he started living with Tifa and even started working, he obtained a peaceful livinghe’s never experienced before, and this conversely made him anxious. And in the midst of this he contracts Geostigma himself, and rather than being able to protect the people dear to him, he instead was forced to face his own death, and so ran away.” (among other quotes)

*** 10th anniversary ultimania: "when Cloud contracts Geostigma he disappears. Behind these actions lies feelings of guilt towards his past failure to protect people who were important to him"

Aeriths 10th anniversary profile : Aerith still lives on in the hearts of her friends who saved the planet. And in particular to Cloud, as a symbol of his failure to having being unable protect those dear to him, she was a major factor in causing him to close himself off. -Aerith’s 10th anniversay profile.

And more, really this is reiterated constantly.

**** From case of Tifa: "During that time, it was Marlene who noticed a change in Cloud. She told Tifa how Cloud would sometimes space out and not listen to her.

Transporting mail around the world meant he was traveling around his past too. She knew that Cloud was in great pain because he couldn’t protect Aerith. Cloud was trying to overcome that and live on. But, going back to the place where he parted from Aerith might mean that his sorrow and regret was going to tear his heart again.

It was night, and they had closed the bar. Cloud was drinking alcohol even though he rarely did. He drained his glass. Tifa thought about it before going over and filling his glass.

***** From case of Tifa: "Tifa wondered if they became a real family after Denzel appeared. Cloud was clearly taking less jobs. At night, he would always make sure he had time to spend with the children. The silly little conversations he had with Tifa were also back."

****** Reunion files, page 58: "As long as Cloud blames himself for Aerith’s death, he won’t be able to move on with his life. One of the first ideas we had for Advent Children was to have Cloud overcome and resolve that immense feeling of guilt. For Cloud, no one other than Aerith can solve that problem for him."

- Takahiro Sakurai pg. 15 reunion files: After Cloud was told, “Which is it? A memory or us?: by Tifa, he tells Sephiroth, “Stay where you belong. In my memories,” just before he defeats him. I think Cloud finally becomes free at this moment. Deep down, Cloud knew that he shouldn’t be so hard on himself, but at the same time he couldn’t let go of those feelings of guilt for what happened to Aerith and Zack, or the thought that he could never forgive himself for it. But then his companions made him feel better by telling him to let go. ******* "The place where he awakens—- That is Cloud’s Promised Land As he sleeps, Cloud hears two voices. The voices of two people very dear to him, who are no longer with him. Playfully and kindly, they give him a message: he doesn’t belong here yet. When he awakes, there was his friends. There were the children, freed from their fatal illness. Tifa and Marlene, and Denzel asking for Cloud to heal his Geostigma— his family were waiting. Engulfed in celebration, he realizes where he is meant to live."

"Aerith lends her power to the people suffering from Geostigma in Edge, and personally provides for Cloud’s recovery. Geostigma is cured. Cloud returns to Tifa and the children."

-  FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania Complete Timeline

Cloud’s character arc in a single sentence