Understanding Cloud Strife

Contains Major Spoilers for the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII

Cloud Strife is an incredibly deep character with a character arc spanning over a multitude of entries in the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7. I often hear it said that the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7 ruined Cloud’s character and that Advent Children in particular made him an emo instead of the radical hero he was in Final Fantasy 7. I disagree with this very strongly. Calling Advent Children Cloud emo is just ignorance at the wider progression of Cloud’s broad and complex character arc.

Chronologically, Cloud is introduced in the employment of Shinra during Crisis Core where he meets Zack. Crisis Core reveals that before the Nibelheim Incident while Cloud was just an ordinary Shinra grunt, he was rather reserved and quiet. After driving off Sephiroth in the Mt Nibel Reactor, he and Zack are captured by Hojo for his Reunion experiment. The two of them are stuck in capsules and subjected to intense Jenova cell and Mako infusion. This gives Cloud intense Mako poisoning and begins corroding his consciousness. Eventually Zack escapes with Cloud, but is shot down during an ambush by Shinra. Mentally unstable from both the Mako poisoning and the shock from seeing his best friend die, Cloud accepts Zack’s request to “be my living legacy” and subconsciously adopts Zack’s stories into his own memories and persona. Rather than simply matching Zack’s personality he instead becomes a mix of the two. He’s not as excitable as Zack but he’s not as stoic as Cloud.

After Cloud falls into the Lifestream during the Ultimate Weapon’s assault on Mideel during Final Fantasy 7, Tifa decides to come clean with all the concerns she’d been hiding and confronts Cloud about the inconsistencies in his identity. By struggling through his memories alongside him, she is able to help Cloud to remember the truth about who he is –  that he never made SOLDIER, that he hid from Tifa during his return to Nibelheim, and that above all, he wasn’t Zack Fair.

At this point Cloud mellows out a bit. He starts to resemble the character from Advent Children and Crisis Core more. He becomes a touch more laidback and reserved in his commandeering of the party compared to before.

Just like that Final Fantasy 7 ends, and so does the Cloud that most people know. So then what happens after Final Fantasy 7, how do we get to emo Cloud? Well the answer is we don’t. Calling him emo is disrespectful to his development. I think a lot of fans are simply bothered by how downtrodden and depressed Cloud was without trying to understand the reasons why.

A major theme that plays out in Final Fantasy 7 is the characters committing a great sin and how that sin then affects them. Vincent’s sin was letting Lucrecia give birth to Sephiroth and seal herself in crystal, Tifa’s sin that fills her with grief is the guilt of causing so much death when the Sector 7 plate was dropped on the slums in order to crush AVALANCHE, and Barret’s sin was letting Corel be exploited and destroyed by Shinra. The sin that was plaguing Cloud was his regret over letting both Zack and Aerith die, that he couldn’t save them. They were people who were irreplaceable to him and they both died right in front of him while he was unable to do anything.  Then add Denzel into the mix. Denzel was an orphan that Cloud found and welcomed into his family, he was precious to him. But unfortunately, Denzel soon began slowly dying of Geostigma. With no cure existing, Cloud could do nothing but watch. Once again someone irreplaceable to him was going to disappear and there was not a single thing he could do against it. Not only would he be struggling to face the current issue, but it would also be evoking painful memories of Zack and Aerith. You have to forgive the guy for being depressed.

Throughout the course of Final Fantasy 7 you get to see just how much Aerith’s death affected Cloud and how much guilt he has over it. There’s constantly moments where he doubts himself and wonders if it was all worth it, whether it was worth her dying for. But he always shakes those thoughts off. He pushes them away because he had a job to do in leading AVALANCHE against Sephiroth, there wasn’t any time to grieve.

This is why Cloud from Advent Children makes sense. It was easy enough to suppress those feelings while he had a villain to distract and motivate him, but once the problem of Sephiroth was dealt with the journey would be over and he would have to try and return to a normal life. AVALANCHE had a mantra that “There ain’t no getting offa this train we’re on til we get to the end of the line”. With Sephiroth eliminated and Meteor destroyed the train had finally reached its destination and the passengers departed. With the world in denouement after the end of Final Fantasy 7, Cloud had achieved his goal of stopping Sephiroth and subsequently lost his reason to live and fight. Aimless and searching for purpose, it would be easy for those suppressed regrets to resurface and start eating away at him.

In fact, all of the party goes through this. Part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7 is a novella called On the Way to a Smile. It’s a collection of short stories following the cast in the time between the end of Final Fantasy 7 and the beginning of Advent Children. Each character gets their own story that follows them as they attempt to come to terms with their grief while they work towards happiness and acceptance. Case of Tifa is about her guilt towards the sector 7 plate drop, Case of Nanaki is about his fear of outliving all of his friends and being left alone, Case of Barret is about him feeling like a monster due to his gun arm, and so forth. It’s a fantastic addition to the characters and world of Final Fantasy 7 and I’d encourage every fan to check it out, TheLifeStream.net put out great audiobook versions of them featuring voice acting, music and sound effects to really make it an immersive experience.

Speaking of Advent Children, I’d like to also briefly touch upon the symbolism in Cloud and Tifa’s new outfits. The reason that Cloud had a SOLDIER First Class uniform in the first place despite never actually making SOLDIER is that Zack dressed him in one after escaping from the Shinra Manor. The SOLDIER uniform was Cloud’s living lie incarnate. By abandoning the uniform and Zack’s Buster Sword it shows that Cloud is finding his own reason to live and fight instead of simply being Zack’s shadow.

The second point is that Cloud and Tifa’s outfits match, which shows that they’re a family together with Marlene and Denzel.

About halfway into the film there are these four sequential shots that draw visual parallels between the imminent danger Denzel and Tifa are in with the other past tragedies. However this time Cloud is able to act. He sweeps Tifa out of danger on Fenrir, and lobs the Fusion blade to kill the monsters around Denzel. This shows us that at this point Cloud has begun confronting his regrets and started his journey to recovery (following on from his discussion about forgiveness with Vincent where he says “I’m gonna try” and walks away with Marlene). And indeed this rings true as he takes more prominent action throughout the rest of the film.

Cloud’s confrontation with Sephiroth is the final step of this growth. Sephiroth is the singular demon of Cloud’s past. By battling and defeating Sephiroth once more he is able to reassure himself that the fighting is really over, that the Jenova War belongs in his memories, and that he is able to live together with his friends and family in peace.  By defeating Sephiroth, he defeats his past to reaffirms his present and future together with his family.

Having finally accepted himself, Aerith and Zack visit him one last time in the church to let them know that he doesn’t need to beg for forgiveness, and that they still love him. And that was really all Cloud needed. They were cut out of his life so suddenly during such a hectic time that he never got a chance to grieve or say goodbye. Seeing them one last time gave Cloud the chance he needed to accept their forgiveness and move on. Midway through the film Cloud meets Aerith in his subconscious and she asks him “So…why did you come?” which he answers with “I think…I want to be forgiven” and Aerith responds “By who?” Even after Cloud tries to deny her by saying “But… I let you die” she retorts with “Dilly dally shilly shally! Isn’t it time you did the forgiving?” Seeing their smiling faces once more, Cloud finally realises what she meant by that. Cloud never needed them to forgive him, because they never blamed him, not once. The only one he needed to forgive was himself.  Amidst the light and water of the Church in the slums, in the company of his precious friends and family, he finally accepts himself, Cloud smiles.

Thus ends Cloud’s story arc. He was a kid who dreamed of being a famous hero who could protect Tifa, but failed to make SOLDIER and ended up a Shinra grunt on the tail end of one of Hojo’s experiments. Through hardships he was able to save the world from Jenova and enact his vengeance on Sephiroth, eventually overcoming his depression and reaching a point in life where he was truly able to smile alongside his family and friends. I think Cloud’s growth throughout the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7 is beautiful, and I don’t think it would have been as well fleshed out or impactful if left to Final Fantasy 7 alone. I don’t think Advent Children ruined Cloud at all. Rather I think it elevated him to a higher level of emotional complexity that makes him perhaps my favourite character of all time.

As a side note, a more technical thing I thought was very poignant is that Cloud has no theme song in Final Fantasy 7, despite all the other major characters receiving one. He doesn’t get his own theme song until the very end of his story in Advent Children where he finally accepts himself and receives the theme song titled Cloud Smiles.