Flawed Perfect Heroes — Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)
Very few games have ascended to such heights they seem almost unattainable, or faultless, and carry such an aura of mysticism and nostalgia that probing them can be a daunting and frightful task. Final Fantasy VII is one of those games, a behemoth of a game launched in 1997 by Square Soft (currently Square Enix) for the original PlayStation complete with new rich mythos, unlike anything Final Fantasy touched until then. It’s the story of Cloud Strife, an elite soldier who embarks on a quest to ultimately save the world from destruction.
I remember playing this game for the first time in the early 2000s on a PC port and was completely hooked on this fantastic story of friendship, parental relationships, set in the backdrop of the eccentric cyberpunk city of Midgar, flying casinos and the lush plains of the planet.
I, as many fans of the game, have been waiting for 15 years for the game to be remade in true splendour, away from the low poly characters and (still gorgeous) pre-rendered backgrounds. As the first game I preordered, it’s safe to say I was excited and beyond happy to finally play this story again in a much more immersive and detailed way. And now that I finished the game what better time to revisit the classic?
There will be significant spoilers so please, if you haven’t played the game, do yourself a favour and play it!
We are first introduced to the merc with the giant sword while on a train with some characters part of an eco-terrorist group called AVALANCHE, including the rough but lovable Mr T wannabe Barret. This group, having hired Cloud as a mercenary, plan on destroying a Mako Reactor (an energy plant) to help bring down an evil corporation bleeding the planet dry.
This brings our character in a cyberpunk adventure with some pretty incredible companions on their own, on a crusade to defeat an evil corporation and an even bigger bad guy wanting (what else?) to destroy the world. Along the way, the backstory of Cloud is revealed in a series of flashbacks and interactions with other characters like his childhood friend Tifa or the evil Sephirot with whom he has an established past. What makes this character so unique, and by association, the game itself is the details in Cloud’s journey. In the classical sense, it’s a reasonably straightforward approach: Cloud has a call to action to save the world, goes on an unknown adventure where he faces trials after trials until the point where it seems all hope is lost, and then due to sheer willpower and the heroicness of his character and his friends is rebirthed into the saviour of this world.
However, the interesting details of the character are revealed through his own past traumas, predating the game, and his relationships with the main characters of the game, mainly Barret, Tifa and Aerith. These relationships are also extraordinary, for Barret represents the sense of duty, justice, fairness and these are values that Cloud needs to be reintroduced to by having been alone and detached from his own humanity and past in the beginning. Tifa is the link to the past, and the help Cloud needs to unlock his own story and deal with his own demons and trauma. And Aerith is the renewed hope in the world and the driving force to fight and, post her killing, a catalyst that will force Cloud to deal with death, failure and other heartbreaking feelings that he has until that point shut himself off of.
Supporting characters are the backbone of any main character on any audiovisual medium as they are the one offering the clues and unlocking the story as the hero journeys into the world. And in Final Fantasy VII, these supporting characters are so complex and full of life that they help elevate the main character to even greater heights.
A champion with memory loss and personality disorder.
Another incredibly empathic characteristic of Cloud is his own struggle with mental issues. We are introduced to a character that besides holding a huge and impractical sword, is reserved and an introvert. This works particularly well in a video game scenario where the player may see himself in character, and through the character’s adventures may find some sort of catharsis and use these fictional characters as a way of dealing with their own emotions. There’s a reason why Aerith’s death has resonated with so many, and it has to do with how essential her involvement seems to the development of Cloud’s story and his mental healing. The bond they share is such that the breaking of that bond is akin to breaking of a genuine relationship between the player and Aerith as well.
If Aerith is the key to unlock Cloud’s trauma, then we need to go back and reexamine what made Cloud the character he is at this moment in the game. Although we are introduced to Cloud as an ex 1st Class SOLDIER member, it’s not an accurate telling. Having dreamed of joining SOLDIER in the war against Wutai, Cloud never made it past the smallest ranks in the organization. On a mission to his childhood home, he is confronted with the madness of his childhood hero and commander, Sephiroth. Marking the first of many traumatic experiences. He is then subsequentially incarcerated and experimented upon by mad scientist and manages to escape with the help a 1st Class SOLDIER, Zack. Zack and Cloud then travel back to Midgar after years of oppression and are stopped by Shinra forces right at the edge of Midgar. The confrontation ends with the end of Zach and Cloud’s obtaining the buster sword. The succession of traumas and the inability to analyze and cope with each of them individually drives Cloud to create a persona which merges Zack and Cloud’s attributes and removes the feelings and memories of pain, loss and heartbreak, giving us one of the first instances of the “unreliable narrator” in a AAA game.
This wrapped up past that is ever so slightly being revealed throughout the game is very much a staple in character-driven stories in Hollywood predating back to The Empire Strikes Back (1980). And still used as a powerful storytelling device in more contemporary movies such as Christopher Nolan’s “Memento” (2000), Scorcese’s “Shutter Island” (2010) or Abram’s “The Rise of Skywalker” (2019).
The Unwilling Hero
The journey to defeat Sephiroth and save the world becomes Cloud’s launch pad for the self-discovery, and it’s through the unlock of his traumas, both past and present, that he can gather the force needed to succeed in his mission. As most classical narratives, this promotes the idea of symbolic death and rebirth of the main character, the point in the story that is so void of hope that facing those internal demons head-on is the only way to ensure victory.
So what makes Cloud an interesting, complex and ultimately perfect hero is the fact that his life up until the moment the player get the control in his hands, has been filled with pain. And through the navigation of the world and the support of his friends, the character experiences an internal transformation. In the same way, the player can use this journey to go through their traumas and relate deeply to this character’s struggles and aspirations. There are other nuances throughout the approximately 80 hours of gameplay (from both the original and Remake) combined that add to this list, such as the shame for not being able to accomplish his dreams of becoming a 1st Class SOLDIER and his crushed admiration of Sephiroth as a fatherly figure. All adding to a thoroughly complex and damaged character from the start. Moreover, the journey of Cloud is extremely cyclical, and each new adventure presented both in the prequel FFVII Crisis Core, and the sequel movie FFVII Advent Children, launch Cloud in the same traditional voyage through unknown worlds and the confrontation of internalized traumas.
Although overpowered physically, Cloud never feels like the sort of hero who has everything under control when, in fact, his mental and social needs are the obstacle for him to reach a genuinely satisfying life. This journey, however, is pealed off slowly and gives time to the player to get more acquainted with the character’s struggles while being the sort of hero who’s shyer and more introverted than the average. The ability to overcome his shortcomings through perseverance, the support of his friends and his willpower makes Cloud Strife an extraordinarily relatable and flawed being, but a perfect hero for any player to experience.
This was extremely fun to write!
It never ceases to wonder me how complex and full of details this game is, and although I have skipped many, many of those details, I think it’s possible to fill a dissertation with the amount of information. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed the journey and a big “thank you” to Yoshinori Kitase and the team of the original FFVII for crafting one of the most beloved stories in videogame history.
