Cloud is "Emo"? How Cloud Strife's Character has Changed over a Decade 

Part of the reason why Cloud is so misunderstood by the western fandom is due to issues with the game's localization: * Cloud's first line in English is "I don't care what your names are. Once this job's over, I'm out of here." The Japanese version of the line is「あんたたちの名前なんて興味ないね。どうせこの仕事が終わったらお別れだ。」"anta tachi no namae nante kyoumi nai ne. douse kono shigoto ga owattara owakare da". The latter is more youthful and playful, and he suddenly switches to a more formal, pretentious choice of wording at the end (「お別れ」 "owakare"), which - just like in English - is something that you would do if you were trying to be funny. The result is that in English he comes off as a straightforward jerkass who only cares about his pay. In Japanese on the other hand, he comes off as a mouthy, condescending poser who thinks that it's appropriate to talk to his coworkers like they're idiots. A loose translation for feel might be, "You know I'm not interested in the names of any of you people, right? Like, once this job's over, I'll be bidding you adieu." In Mobius Final Fantasy, this line was retranslated as "Not interested in your names. Once this is done, I'm gone." This is, if anything, even further from the tone of the original. * The original script gave Cloud a habit of speaking with clichéd idioms, with the idea being that he's someone whose own words weren't his own - a habit strongly associated with the character by Japanese fans, and lampshaded in Dissidia: Final Fantasy. In the English version it's 'woolseyfied' into him using a lot of understatements and undercutting his own words, which isn't as memorable and hasn't carried over to any of his future appearances. * Cloud's catchphrase was inconsistently translated as "not interested", "don't really care", "don't care", "not my thing" etc., with the effect of diluting the fact that he has a catchphrase. His later appearances all strictly used "not interested" (the most accurate translation from Japanese:「興味ないね」"kyoumi nai ne"). This made it obvious to English-speaking fans that it was a catchphrase, and many assumed that it was a retroactive attempt to exaggerate his disaffected attitude and make his character more dark, brooding and apathetic. In fact, it had been part of his character from the very beginning. * English and Japanese do share the same allegorical meanings around the term 'spiky' (e.g. a spiky personality, a pointed comment, etc.), but it's fair to say that calling Cloud 'spiky-headed' in English just sounds like a reference to his hair. In Japanese, it's 'tsun-headed', which comes off like a childish insult about his character as well as a reference to his hair. * You may notice that Cloud's name is even odder than those of the rest of the cast, having two fantastical names, when the rest of the heroes have normal surnames. This is because Cloud's peculiar surname, Strife, was intended as a slight modification/pun on the common Germanic surname "Strauss" (「ストライフ」"Sutoraifu" rather than「ストラウス」"Sutorausu". Note that the name of Cloud's mother was given as 'Claudia Strauss' in the artbook). To Japanese ears, it sounds plausibly like a surname, being only one tweak away from a well-known (albeit foreign) one. In English, it sounds like a ludicrously on-the-nose "Awesome McCool" Name. * During the course of the game's plot, Cloud gets "mako poisoning" - a sensible translation, since mako energy is an allegory for nuclear power. However, the original Japanese called it「魔晄中毒」"makou chuudoku" which can not only mean "mako poisioning", but also "mako addiction". This created a drug-abuse allusion that provided some pop-psychedelic subtext to certain scenes, such as when Tifa finds Cloud lying in a city gutter. It also makes his recovery much later in the game make somewhat more sense (as it is more a psychological problem than a physical one). Crisis Core used "mako addiction" to describe Cloud's symptoms. * There's a clever stealth pun in the fact that Cloud is introduced as a ronin (「浪人」) - a former swordsman who abandoned his masters for unclear reasons and now works as a mercenary. Later on however, we discover that he's a ronin - a young person who failed their entrance exams to get the job they wanted. This is lost in English due to the latter meaning being an unknown cultural concept, and the former archetype being less easy to recognize in the distorted form in which it is presented with Cloud.

I love OG Cloud. AC Cloud is tortured and broody because of Geostigma. I got the impression he didn't want to subject Tifa to watching him die like he was forced to watch Aeris and Zack die. He still blamed himself over their deaths. He also didn't want to watch Denzel suffer and die. I love both. I think AC gives him more dimension. He's still sarcastic. His interaction with Reno shows he can still be a wise ass deep down.

When people say that Cloud is "emo" I can see that they don't know nothing about the character at all. After everything that Cloud have been throught, it's obvious that Cloud behavior after FF VII game will be like the way it is. Cloud is pretty much like a soldier who went to war and when it comes home and finds peace, he just don't know what to do. After so many times of blaming himself for Zack and Aerith death, Cloud finally realizes that not even Aerith blamed him for her death, not once. Zack fought to protect Cloud, to see him live his own life and with it carry his legacy and dreams. And not spent his days living a life that Zack would have been living. I'm glad to know that after the end of FF:AC Cloud come back to live a family life with Tifa, Danzel and Marlene. Cloud finally got a happy ending... Cloud is my favourite protagonist in the series, and will be even after many FF games came out.

I think cloud is basically the "dork that is trying to act cool" like if u pay attention to his body movements and dialogue, especially at the begining of the game he is obviously trying come off as the cool guy but once u know him on a more personal level he really is kinda a dork.

And in the start of FF7 theres hints he was extremely sick and not right in the head... Even from the start of the game he has a breakdown in the reactor... I feel like he's more human then any FF character because they really express how everything he went threw effected him...and with real humans...stuff we go threw does tend to change our personalites

To be fair, I also feel like I didn't really understand Cloud until recently. I just watched Advent children again for the first time in 10 years while lying in bed, and I started thinking about final fantasy and myself, I just came out of bed again to write down a story from the heart at 5 o'clock in the morning and I wanted to share it with you all. I was 12 in 2000 when I walked into my brothers room and he told me he had downloaded some new games. The games in question were final fantasy VII, VIII, and IX. I had never been much of a gamer prior to that, but I saw him playing IX and something about it hit a cord, so I decided to try it. I became obsessed over night. For the first time in my life I felt the genuine joy and thrill of fantasy and adventure, as well as the wanderlust that comes when you suddenly have to return to your own world. For the weeks or months after that I played Final fantasy every day, I first played through IX, then VIII, and then tried to get through VII, but to be honest even in 2000 I found the graphics a bit lacking and I did not finish it. However, my soul was sold on IX and when I was 13 I bought my first console, a Playstation 2, just so I could play FFX. Later that same year Lord of the rings: The fellowship of the ring came out. My brother had told me about the book before, about how I should read it, but I was never really interested, now he'd obtained a cam version from the cinema, and showed it to me. That day and night I spend watching that movie over and over, 3 times in one day until I fell asleep at 4 in the morning. I consider these to be my formative years, the events that defined who I grew to be, the years after childhood where I no longer just consumed what my parents or the tv put in front of me, but where I started searching by myself for what the world had to offer. I started reading fantasy, started buying up DVD's, more than a thousand of them, trying to watch every movie man had ever made, and I started considering myself a bit of a movie buff. Meanwhile I also obtained copies of every Final fantasy, and played through them all as I believed a true fan should. And first on the agenda was final fantasy VII. At 14 being a fan of Final Fantasy had already become such a part of my identity that I was able to ignore the "poor" graphics, as I saw them, and first played through the game. I then played through 1,2, and every other game up till 6. And I loved them. However just now, lying in my bed, I realize I didn't understand them, I loved the fantasy and spectacle, and even enjoyed the human emotions I felt through them. But it was all from a superficial perspective, when the girl I was flirting with died I was mad, but the underlying themes and motivations of the characters might as well have been non-existent to me, I was blind to any of them. I loved Cloud, because Cloud was edgy and "cool". Then, when I was 17, advent children was released. I had just finished high school. And now thought I was an adult. I watched it several times in english and Japanese, got the metallic box set, and thought it was pretty cool, but I thought Cloud being an EMO was childish and "lame". I started studying game design and years passed. When I was 19 Crisis core came out and I loved it, I fell in love with Zack and his story, and started appreciating FFVII more because of it, while before I'd always argued that IX was by far the best game, Zack made me appreciate VII more than ever before.As I learned more and more about storytelling, narration, and generally thought more and more about the human condition I started appreciating FFIX more and more.The more I thought about it, the better it became, meanwhile, when I looked at FFVIII the games design flaws became ever more apparent. VII however, also started entering my thoughts more and more as I grew older. However, I never watched Advent children again, now having realized that when I loved the movie as a teen, I was actually only a child loving fancy graphics, and I was afraid the movie would disappoint me if I watched it again, and feel like a hollow spectacle. I didn't want to stain my memories. Other final fantasies came and went and none of them really gripped me the way I was gripped back in 2000 but in 2015, the FFVII remake was announced and I felt a familiar sense of nostalgia. My mind wandered back to FFVII, and now, as an adult, and with the experience of years of study I started seeing things I never realized before. I played through it again for the first time in over 10 years and I started seeing a beauty in the way the game was built up, especially concerning the Nibelheim incident. At first I marveled at the way the game built up atmosphere, the way it created doubt in the player, and a sense of unnerving. I started analyzing why the twist worked so well, its' simplicity, the way it took advantage of the human arrogance of assuming we are important. I started watching play throughs and reactions, looking at other materials, talking to people online and the closer we got to the release, the more hours in the day I started thinking about the techniques the game used to tell a story from all different angles, until, a few weeks ago, there came this moment of clarity where I just felt I finally understood FFVII. It was as if where I first saw a bunch of beautiful puzzle pieces I now finally saw the entire picture. How every moment in the game fit in the plot, the story, and the narrative. What made the game work, what made the characters work. And for the first time I really loved the story of Cloud not just for what it made me experience as the player, but for the emotional depth of the character. Because of his internal journey. I suddenly experienced the game in an entirely new way. Not from the perspective of the player, who experiences the thrill of combat, experiences romance by flirting with Tifa or Aerith, the thrill and pain of avenging your girl the way we've all done a thousand times through media through these larger than life characters. But an actual understanding of who this character was, his flaws, his fears, why he is who he is, and acts the way he acts. And what was a cool uncaring spiky haired soldier when I was a child, and some "emo" when I was a teenager, now became just an extremely relateable, human figure. A boy, who had a crush on a girl, and thought getting stronger would get her to notice him. Who defined himself his entire life through his weakness and failures. His continual failure to protect Tifa, his failure to join soldier, his failure to protect Nibelheim, the weakness that made it necessary for Zack to give his life defending him. "And then he loses his memories because of the lifestream, BRILLIANT!" became "...and running away from his failures his mind then builds an alter ego that represents everything he believes he should be but is not, cool, strong, aloof....tragic " And only then do we get to the superficial part of the game that I saw when I was a child and what I once believed was just Cloud being emo because he lost a potential love interest now became the final greatest failing of a broken man, even now, even as SOLDIER 1st class Cloud Strife, he was still too weak to save anyone, another person died....because of him. We all know how the plot ends of course, the tender feelings he had for Tifa which began this rollercoaster of a personal story arc are what eventually allow him to once again rediscover who he truly is. And then, after two decades, the star-crossed lovers finally come together underneath the highwind. For the first time I felt I didn't just understand the external plot of what happens to Cloud, but understood Cloud himself. A man who is motivated, on the one hand, by positive tender feelings for Tifa, and on the other hand, driven by negative emotions of doubt, shame, and guilt. A man who is anything but aloof, one that tries to take on every burden by himself so that others don't need to, and feels like every bad thing is therefore his failure and a sign of his inadequacy. It's with this new appreciation for the plot of FFVII and the character of Cloud Strife that I finally watched Advent Children again after 10 years. Wondering how much of what I had learned would help me view the movie in a different light. I don't know if I watched a new directors cut, or if my memory is just that bad because I feel like I've just watched a different movie.... and it was good.While the plot was confusing when I was younger and got in the way of the action, now I was only seeing plot.The simple continuation of Clouds Journey, a compact, coherently told story of a man who seeks external forgiveness, but really needs to find it internally. Where I didn't understand half the scenes back in 2007, now it was like every sentence was just telling the story I had already unraveled. Anyway, I was lying in my bed, thinking about this journey I've been on which has lasted my entire life, and how I think I can finally for the first time in my life say I truly understand FFVII. Both from what the designers tried to do, or else happened to stumble into, and how the people in that world experienced it. Clouds journey, the juxtapostion of Cloud and Tifas simple love story with the complex world ending saga of Sephiroth an Aerith and how the two are so expertly linked. The ways the narrative plays with the players emotions and expectations and why. For the first time it feels like I can truly say that I am a fan of FFVII, not my idea of FFVII, but for what it truly is, and just in time for the remake. I am glad I decided to watch it again one more time before the Remake arrives, and if anyone is like me, and has left it hang, I urge you to give it another try. I promise you the reunion is worth it.

Cloud was emo in Advent Children because he was dying of a seemingly un-curable disease. This is a guy who had defeated Sephiroth once, got mako poising, patched his mind back together (with some of Zack's memories), got mako poising again, patched his mind together again, defeated Sephiroth again, this time to save the world, and then got a F-ING disease that was killing people... anyone would probably be pretty emo at that point.

Cloud has seen his best friend and love interest killed by a Mako Supersoldier, and goes on a magnificent quest to avenge his loved ones and succeeds, saving the world in the process. He's happy at first. Time settles in. He goes off on his own and becomes a delivery boy. He's done a lot for the world, but all he gets in return is a deadly disease. With news of the possibility of Sephiroth's return, Cloud's hard work is relegated to nothing. He's lost two good friends, and doesn't want to lose any more of them. He'd rather try and deal with the problem alone so he doesn't have to see anyone else die. He sees his disease as a divine intervention, he's gotten so strong that he can dual wield and fight three powerful enemies at once, but his disease doesn't care about his status as a hero, he sees it as his karma for being so weak at times. I think Cloud has every right to be depressed in Advent Children.

Cloud is one of the most lovable dorks in games ever. I'm glad they want to go for that again instead of the later versions. I love that we have a main character with split personalities (of sorts) who turns out to be an introvert outsider who turns out to be a great inspiring leader. It's very unlike most video games.

I wouldn't call Cloud a dork. More of an outsider and sometimes a loser. In his hometown, he always wanted to hang out with the others because he had a crush on Tifa, but didn't know how to go about it. Finally, there's the incident where the bridge breaks and Cloud is blamed for Tifa's injuries. Probably thinking he has to redeem himself for this incident as well as make up for the fact that he's not that strong to begin with, he decides to join SOLDIER. Tifa, who never blamed him for a moment nor thought of him as a loser, just thinks it's awesome that he wants to be a hero and that she could be his personal damsel, so her support gives him a huge confidence boost. Cloud goes to Midgar, but doesn't make it to SOLDIER. You can imagine what sort of effect this has on the already I-have-something-to-prove-to-everyone Cloud. Now throw in the shit that happens at Nibelheim when Sephiroth goes crazy, and Cloud has several of his boyhood illusions shattered as well as his home and family destroyed, but in the end, he manages to prove how strong he is by saving Tifa and taking on Sephiroth. This is the true strength and heroism of Cloud; it's not present when he wants to prove himself, but it does show up when those he cares about are threatened. Cloud isn't the cool, stoic "hero" that Sephiroth is; Cloud is the caring, personal hero that Zack and Angeal are--the true ideals of heroism. As for what happens when he returns to Midgar, I think Hojo's experiments and the mako poisoning royally fucked him up. His amnesia makes complete sense, and it's possible that the experiments actually did make him strong enough to be equal to a SOLDIER 1st Class. It's also possible that he chose to block out the memories of Nibelheim and the experiments because they're just so fucked up that he doesn't want to deal with them. As a result, he adopts Zack's persona and memories as his own, but whereas Zack was both cool and personable, Cloud gets it wrong and only imitates the cool side because to him, that is what a hero should be. So, I would say Cloud isn't a dork; just someone trying way too hard and not getting what makes a hero a hero, or that not all heroes are the same. But he completely has it in him to be a hero when he cares. In AC, he may have cared too much and that's what led to his regression thinking he could have been smarter, stronger, or if he had just accepted the truth, Aeris wouldn't have died, and as a result, he sees the Geostigma as his fault because if Aeris was still alive, she would've known what to do about it. Eventually deciding to learn from his mistakes and accepting that his present is more important than worrying about the past, he regains his former strength to save the world again. But generally, Cloud's attitude is one of an outsider looking in and not sure about how to be with his friends until shit gets real. He's most comfortable in these moments because that's when he feels strongest.

To me, Cloud is someone who is always fighting. He fights to protect his friends & family, he fights his inner struggles whether that be emotionally/mentally or against the S-cells that controlled him, and having the strength to overcome so much truely takes a lot outta a person. Cloud to me is persevering strength itself...

Cloud is bae and that's all that matters

I think when talking about expanded media we forget about the Cloud that was in Crisis Core. He was positive and upbeat. His meeting with Zack for the first time was actually pretty heart warming. I don't think the expanded media completely portrays him that way, it's just a case of people seeing what they want to see.

You understand Cloud's development and it's shown with your peek of the character. Both the positive and regression character development. It's quick and beautiful but gets the point across. Thank you~

I enjoyed Advent Children, depite its very different depiction of Cloud. I love that you talked about character regression as a form of character development (and how this "sad deepness" was a sort of popular character trope at the time). I think if Advent Children had been longer and had more focus on story/dialogue, aside from incredibly cool fight scenes, they -could- have pulled it off better. I think Cloud is an extremely complex character, who, in my "headcanon", consistently goes through waves in his life where he grows weaker and then stronger again. What I mean is, I think Cloud is a physically strong, but often mentally weak guy. He's shown to have some mental weakness even in his childhood, before he was tainted by mako (he was unpopular, thought he was better than all of the other kids, and got into fights a lot). He finds mental strength through his support network of friends and "family" (I'm referring to Tifa, Denzel, Marlene, and even Barret), where he then breaks through his mental states and becomes strong and mentally resilient. In the case of the game, Tifa's supportive nature towards Cloud's "mental state" is taken quite literally when she "finds" the truth in him, in the Lifestream. I often think that Advent Children is a sort of artistic interpretation of the effects of depression, grief, and PTSD through Cloud's character. Overall, I see Cloud as a calm, rational, happy and even sweet (sometimes FUN) guy, but he will continue to go through these periods in his life. However, I'd like to think he gets a little bit stronger every time. That's how I relate AC Cloud to OG Cloud and beyond.

Cloud reminds me that it is OK to be myself. I am a generally strange individual and I got teased a lot as a kid. But cloud was inspiration for me to own my flaws and proceed with life. Dante from the DMC games too. But cloud was the first and best.

Clouds not “emo” he just has trouble putting himself together over all the crap he had to go through over the years.

I think he's the most complex protagonist in the series as he's been through more than any other FF character (and I mean the in the whole FF series). Just look at his damn story. He watched his hometown being burned by the guy everyone looked up to, has been trapped in what's basically a poison test tube for 5 years; he was all fucked up in the head when his buddy Zack saved him, just to watch Zack die soon afterwards (I fucking cry every time I get to the end of Crisis Core). Then he meets Avalanche and he *thinks* he's someone he's not (Mako poisoning is a bitch), he watches the girl he loves being murdered by the same god damn asshole that burned his town to the ground (technically she sacrificed herself but yeah, that wouldn't serve as solace to me either)... When Advent Children premiered, I wasn't surprised at all by "mopey Cloud". I mean, he bugged the crap out of me acting like that, but I think it was completely justified. And in the final scene, as he sees Aerith/Aeris and Zack smiling and "heading towards the light", it seems to me that he finally found closure. So cut the guy some slack, I'm surprised that he could just mosey into the final battle after all that happened. But 5 years of ruminations really did a number on him.

I am sick & tired of this “Cloud is Emo” thing.He is not emo. Period. This is valid even during Advent Children. He is just depressed and having a rough time. That is called character development people! Are you a joyful person all your life? Are you a depressed person all your life? Well, no! Certainly not. I cant believe how people can fight over what is clearly just simple character development. Cloud in Advent Children is not "emo" it is just "older" and more “mature” if you like. Anyway, I am glad they are going to respect his "old dorky self". One more thing. Cloud in Advent Children is affected by a mortal disease! How come no one realizes that? Would you still be the same if that (and all that happened previously, like Zack and Aerith deaths) happened to yourself? Cloud in Advent Children makes perfect sense. Perfect character development.

This is spot on. I have a friend who first met Cloud through every medium EXCEPT the original final fantasy 7, and they're adamant in thinking that he's just some mopey depressed guy. I tried to explain to them how he is in FF7 and that he's not originally so "emo" as well as why he became that way in the first place, but they don't seem to get it. It's really too bad.

I hate it when people refer to post-FFVII Cloud as emo. Take a look at everything he has been through...he watched Zack and Aerith die...he was subjected to experimentation for 4 years...he watched his home town go up in flames, destroyed by his hero...he was forced to fight and kill that hero... he was later MIND-CONTROLLED by that hero. Once things had calmed down, he tried to move on with his life and instead came down with a debilitating disease that he knew would end in death. The fact that Cloud is not crumpled up in a heap, sobbing uncontrollably and banging his head against a wall repeatedly, demonstrates how strong of a character he really is. On a personal note...I have watched someone I love die. It took me years to recover, and I still feel responsible for it. It is not something one just...gets over. It changes you. Cloud went through that twice. Whomever developed his character had a good understanding of the grieving process.

Cloud is a fantastic character! I've come across many in my day, but he stands out. The idea behind him is that he's you or me, just a loser who thinks he's a hero but isn't. When he realizes it's all an elaborate hallucination he finally grows up and becomes an adult. Kids think they're special and will be somebody one day, but rarely does anyone accomplish this. To top it off, his hero is only strong because he's a literal science experiment and is a murderous psychopath. What mind blowing truth bombs! You can't be a kid anymore knowing this stuff. Everyone relates because everyone does this childish thing until they know better. He's even ashamed to reveal his identity to his mother and Tifa when he goes back to Nibelheim. Cloud ☁ has a forever fan in me.

I may be late but Cloud reverted back to his old depressed self after Aerith died, remember when he gave Sephiroth the black materia because he gave up on life once he lost the girl he loved? Yes, he ended up killing Sephiroth in the end but that's only because his friends pushed him to do so and because he wanted to avenge Aerith, but for a while after Aerith's death he was basically a dead man walking. Another thing to remember are his last words at the end of the OG, he said he wanted to meet Aerith in the Promised Land and to me those words cemented the fact that he never moved on from her death and that after he beat Sephiroth, the hatred he had for him gave way (once again) to the same depression he felt after losing Aerith, people who don't understand AC Cloud were blind to his character in FF7 too in my opinion and didn't fully understand that he basically was the same way at the end of the game too and not only in the movie

To me Cloud is a character who I really relate to as I really never knew who I truely was at a younger age. I would try to put up different personas but they were never really me. Like Cloud I tend to put up a serious persona since I was bullied as a child and have a bit of trauma of being made fun of. I’ve been disappointed at myself for failing in many things in life and ashamed of myself just like cloud was when he failed to join Soldier and didn’t want to be seen by his peers. Cloud is just a good guy doing the best he can do while acknowledging his weakness and embracing his true self by the end of everything.

Cloud in Advent Children was just perfect, tortured by past.

Cloud is my hero, surelly he has suffered anxiety, stress, ptsd maybe shxizophrenia (thinking he is 1first class in all) but really he is a character trully worked and human like ive little seen before, so that why i really love him. The best character in ff in my way.

I think that the ending of Advent Children was just the beginning of Cloud’s character. I believe that the compilation of Final Fantasy 7 should be explored more because in the original Final Fantasy game there were moments where they talked about space and the universe. I would really love to see square take this compilation of Final Fantasy 7 and have the story expand to Cloud dealing with a universal threat who controlled the villains Shinra, Hojo, Jenova, and Sephiroth, and the villain would have a goal on destroying the universe, the story would take place after Derge of Cerberus. I want to see square expand the story of the compilation of Final Fantasy 7 and have it like the MCU’s Infinity Saga.

Anyone that pays attention to the lore should know that this "emo" phase is a natural development for Cloud. Pretty much the last few days of his time on earth before the whole Sephiroth thing, he was wracked with feelings of inadequacy and inferiority fostered by his lonely upbringing. Then he spent the next 4 years in a tube, then the next year or two thinking he was someone else. Zack wasn't an arrogant jerk like Cloud was in OG FF7, but Cloud being that way is a good indication that he retained more of himself than just simply assuming Zack's persona, which is why Tifa knew something was not right. Then after he discovers who he is and has all of his past trauma laid out, he doesn't have time to think about it or come to terms with it because he's off saving the world. Think about it: Cloud is only 21 at the time of the game's end. He spent the previous year spaced out believing he was someone else and four years before that in a test tube. That's a FOURTH of his lifetime that is missing. Then he comes to find out during that time: "oh yeah, your best friend died trying to save you. Oh and he was in love with one of your other friends that... also died...." You can't expect someone to just get over all of that in two years. And while things were looking up in the On the Way to a Smile novellas, Cloud gets a incurable disease and is slowly falling apart. Depression seems to be a fitting descriptor for Cloud's outlook in this sense.

Dude, your content is amazing. Keep it up!

It always felt stupid to me how people accused cloud in advent children for being an emo.Yes he did find himself by the end of ff7 but that doesn't mean that his character can't regress.I can relate because there were moments in my life when I felt confident with myself but there were also times when I got depressed afterwards.Also can you blame for feeling so broken in advent children?He saw his best friend and the woman he loved die right in front of him and he couldn't do anything about it.I love cloud strife and I will always love him no matter what anyone may say.

That motorcycle scene against Shinra damnn Zack would be proud. He's not Zack's legacy wasted. I'm a VIII fanboy and prefer Squall but Cloud inspired me to make my own character. He's a lot more complex than what people think and you've pointed all the reasons why so I won't need to elaborate on that. Great video thumbs up!

Mind blown mate......could never understand why I never connected with Cloud in every project post 7. Dorky is literally the best way to describe how I had Cloud in my head. Excellent work!

I love Cloud's character so much because I can, in a way, relate to him. He might not be the strong never-faulting hero people would expect him to be, but that's the whole purpose. Cloud is realistic, after all he went through in his childhood and life in general, him being so depressed in Advent Children is only logical. With my own experience with depression, I can say for sure that the way we are when in that state has nothing to do with our real personality. So Cloud being so "emo" as people like to say (I hate that expression, it's such an empty name to describe someone in pain) is not his personality, rather his depression showing up. After seeing people he cares about getting hurt and killed right in front of his eyes (Tifa, his mom, Zack, Jessie, Wedge, Biggs, Aerith) he definitely feels the survivor's guilt. His regression in AC makes total sense, after being so occupied with saving the world, then everything becomes quieter again, he's left only with his thoughts that he tried to deny before. If you look carefully, you can find the real Cloud behind his depressive state : his care for the children he took in, his care for the people he left behind and the guilt he feels, his smile at the very end when the kids run around him in the healing water. I know a lot of people don't like AC Cloud, I find it sad because I find that it is a really important moment for his character arc. In FFVII original he never really came to a complete term with what happened with Zack and Aerith. It'd be weirder for it not to affect him more than that knowing how much he has suffered from their deaths. So AC Cloud isn't Cloud's real personality : his personality is covered by the drape of depression, guilt and hopelessness in front of his illness. He's still there beneath it all, he's not gone. But it's a harsh moment they chose to show us and by the end he can finally come to term with it all and I think it's much better as a conclusion than just finishing with the OG Cloud. I love OG Cloud of course I'm not saying I don't like his development in the game, I'm just saying I think AC completes his character arc well and I can imagine his becoming himself again afterwards.

I used to really like cloud when I first played ff7 as a kid. But as I came across more and more of some of his fans who turned out to be arrogant towards all other ff characters and ff games, I distanced myself from both him and ff7. It's a shame how the toxic part of a fandom can actually ruin the very theme it is cenntered around.

Even though Squall was my first Character, cloud touched deep in my spirit. I feel relatable to him in some ways, dealing with grieve while under the pressure of saving the planet and all the lives on it. Cloud makes me feel no matter how weak we can be at times as long as we struggle forward there is always a chance to find true inner strength to accomplish amazing things. He made us laugh, he made us cry and he's even had us worried and in a sense of wtf. Despite odds stacked against him, he stands tall like a True SOLDIER. I've experienced hopelessness and a feeling of no way of redemption but then there was the scene in Advent children where cloud was finally able to let go and we see him smile again for the first time in a long time. Had the hairs on arms standing and a feeling of redemption within my own self. (Sorry if that was choppy, repetitive and lacking proper words. I'm fighting anxiety to type this,lol)

The problem with Advent Children was that they pretty much omitted all the necessary background information that led to Cloud's depression and put it into some novella instead, resulting in a really boring movie where Cloud just wallows about in self-pity for a long while, without much of a stimulating plot to keep the viewer invested. Another reason why Cloud is perceived as "emo" in the movie is probably because, while the reasons as to why he's depressed are legitimate, the movie still frames his despondent nature in a way that makes it seem "trendy" and "cool." The movie came out in a time where a lot of the anti-social quiet characters were becoming popular in anime, and SE wanted to hop on that bandwagon by having Cloud, a character remembered for going through a lot of messed up nonsense, be reinvented into that archetype too. As a result, when Cloud is being all morose and sad, it feels like it's designed in a way that moody teenagers are meant to relate to him and find it attractive in a weird way (just look at how cool they try and depict him simply walking into the church in that one shot). Another issue is the inconsistency of his problems. One minute, we're told he's dying from a debilitating disease, the next, he's doing a bunch of over the top action sequences and taking down giant dragons, all painted in a really "cool" and "badass" light, completely undermining the debilitating nature of the disease. On top of that, his long search for a cure to it is similarly undermined by having it just handed to him via a deus ex machina. Aerith could've helped him at any time (and no, Sephiroth stopping her is not a valid excuse, as his influence was still in the Lifestream when she healed Cloud), but it's relegated to this overly convenient fix right before the final battle takes place, retroactively painting all his and all the other Geostigma victims' troubles as being not that big of a deal.

Cloud being emo is right up there with the Tidus laugh being bad voice acting as the biggest misconceptions of the whole series.

Now years later with Remake out, I still appreciate AC Cloud. Any one of us could have been like that after the events of the original game. At the end of the day AC Cloud is still my favorite despite being there from the original release. I can relate because I've been there and the redemption he finds at the end of the movie was something satisfying.

I think a problem lies in that a lot of people don't seem to understand regressive character development. Truthfully I think AC Cloud was a perfect direction to take the character and there are some instances, like his conversation with Tifa, that get uncomfortably realistic. Cloud is honestly one of my favorite characters in all of fiction and I like seeing stuff that actually ilunderstands the character.

I've never really understood why people called cloud emo , like he's witnessed his entire town burn to the ground, then he's impaled, his best friend is murdered and that causes his mind to break and now he thinks that he's said friend, Another one of his closest friends being Aeireth was murdered right in front of him, once he found out that there that he's been living is a lie he has another mental breakdown, and to top it all off he ends up with a flesh eating disease lol. With all of that said I understand why he isn't in the highest of spirits.

Cloud then: Upbeat, playful, tries not to be sad. Cloud now: *sitting in a corner, smoking a cigarette and crying*

In FF7 Cloud has quite a few mental breakdowns, but at the same time he doesn't really have time to grieve and reflect properly, because he's busy saving the world with others. In Advent Children times are more calm (until final battle), so he has more time to deal with his trauma, which he tries to do in his own way, plus he's sick, which doesn't add to the happiness. So, it's actually pretty logical, what happens to the character. In the end, he gains his strength and responsibility, and decides to fight for those he loves. At the same time, finally forgives himself and lets people in.

I like Cloud because he makes sense to me as a human being. I mean, most of these characters have been through a lot. You can’t be happy all the time after all they been through. Plus he lost people and got sick. Acceptance is a big deal for a lot of people and takes time. Some people hide it very well. But reality is, a lot of people áre depressed. And I appreciate a character that shows a more common reality instead of the happy hero.

For me Cloud is the most relatable Character in games ever written. I think between the events of the ff7 game and the movie advent children, he had a downfall again because ha was feeling very helpless. He got the deadly Geostigma just when he was building up a family life with Tifa. Then he found Denzel who was infected with the same disease. He says in the movie that he feels like he can not help anyone but he overcomes it again with Tifas help. I like how it is shown that loved partners can give support when someone is in a deep struggle.

I love cloud, he was always the man that I wanted to be when I grow up. Strong, confident, and then we realized that he wasn’t quite who he thought he was. After that, even though he realized he wasn’t as strong as he thought he was he never gave up and And became the leader of his team and become stronger than he ever thought he would initially of been.

Very good video sir.

I knew people who said he is emo never played the original game, mostly saw AC, Crisis Core, Dissidia, and Kingdom Hearts

The second half of ff7r should be the opportunity on how the emo cloud emerged till advent children. Im replaying ff7 right now and im quite surprised that i already forgot that cloud isn't really the emo type.

I'm glad someone else is on the same page as me about the "let's mosey" line.

I personally enjoyed the Advent Children movie and Cloud's more serious attitude since, having played FF7 and Crisis Core, I knew where it stemmed from. I don't know if it was that needed of a change but certainly didn't hurt Cloud's character as much as some people make it to have done. If they did land a "in between" compromise in the Remake I wouldn't mind one bit. Also, did you just compare character developement to smoking? Wow, that's rich man...

What if I'm not a fanboy? What if I'm a fangirl? :P

I dunno why this is getting recommended now but the Thumbnail shot of Cloud is like a Combination of Advent Children Cloud and Remake Cloud.

Funny thing is a lot of the dorkiness people like about cloud is due to miss translation 😂 for example when he said let mosey instead of what’s roughly translated from Japanese as ok everyone let’s go

I was introduced to Cloud in KH1 and later in Advent children to me hes a strong character and along with Prompto from ffxv can be considered strong reps for people who are recovering or suffering from depression like i was (especially during middle school when alot of bad stuff happened to me). Cloud showed me that you can be strong and overcome your depression and you cant let it get in the way of those you love and care about. To me Cloud is one of my heros and i dont know what i would do if he was never around

I was in love with cloud from first game. My first media crush. I am so happy tgey are leaning to the origial character.

JonahtheMann made a comment about the translation earlier, so that means I don't really have to bring it up but tldr: the original Japanese Translation presented Cloud as a different character due to the fact only a single person was doing the translations for that game. Other then that, Kingdom Hearts Cloud is actually a completely separate character from FF7 Cloud altogether so there's no need to fret about him seemingly being different. Because he is. The Heartless destroyed his version of the FF7 World, Sephiroth manifested as the "darkness" inside of him and Aerith manifested as the "light". Everyone in his world either split off from it after the Heartless basically ate it, or died. So him being depressed about that is something natural. Cloud is definitely a very human character, and I can see why he is the way he was during Advent Children. The Geostigma, still having to cope with both Aerith & Zack's Death. It was all very stressful on him, and in return he regressed back into being quiet and "cool" to try and keep himself away from other people. And honestly, I loved the conclusion and what it did for Cloud as a character, as now his past regrets seem to be gone by then, and he took on his own personal demons.

i would love to see how cloud because the person/ NPC we all love.

To me Cloud Strife is one of best, if not the best character of the final fantasy franchise. He is good mix between the hero and the anti hero, the bad ass and the weak. he looks tough but is weak inside and has to fight it.

Cloud is a BAMF.

He's so not a dork, he was teasing you. O Fortuna/Sefirot - he's not going to let the dream die without a fight - Those Who Fight. He just comes back stronger and stronger - relies on no one - becomes the blade (the body is the blade). We adopt the darkness to protect us from the consumers around us, when they bite, it's the rational thing to do. Imagine a world filled with vampires, and a woman passes and smells the smoke and waves her hand and says, eww yuck, then you smile and say, exactly. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and you believe it and the world reminds, you're not ready. Tired of all these mother****ing snakes on this mother****ing plane - snakes on a plane - chaos - water - an infinite plane - did you get your quicksilver cash back? Never trust a world that grows things to consume when you are something that grows and consumes - Cloud (Strife) is the man. He's done dreaming - he's ready to fight.

I played FFVII when I was 7 years old and I always felt kind of attached to Cloud. Like I really saw myself in him. Almost as if we were the same person. Seeing him in Kingdom Hearts, growing up, was an awesome experience bu the way.

Cloud best Jrpg Chara Ever

I mean come on, you have a friend that risks his life to protect you from a company after their lives, then he fights a whole army and dies for you while you were hiding. And then you find the girl you like who was lost, in a cave only to have her be stabbed in front of you by the guy who until recently you looked up to as your role model. Anyone who thinks that shouldn't make cloud emo and insecure about his abilities has probably never put himself in his shoes and imagined how they would react to that happening to them

I completely agree. In the original game, Cloud begins as a character that is cool and collected. He's a mercenary with a rough exterior that is ambivalent towards politics and the environmental crisis at hand. He's not supposed to come off as conflicted or unsure here, he's VERY certain of himself, and the only thing he cares about is money and looking after himself. Towards the end of disc 1 and for about half of disc 2 is when we get a version of Cloud that most closely approximates the KH/Advent Children Cloud. He is being directly and indirectly manipulated mentally, a companion of his has been killed, and his memories don't seem to match reality. Here he is extremely conflicted, but the focus of that confliction is his memories. As an aside, one thing that seems incredibly inconsistent with AC is Cloud lingering on Aerith's death. It makes sense that the movie would want us to relive that moment, but Cloud finds determination in spite of her death in the scene that literally follows it. After the Lifestream sequence, we finally learn who Cloud really is, and this is where Cloud becomes incredibly easy to relate to. We basically learn that he was a kid who was constantly left out. He wanted to be included with the cool kids and had a childhood crush on Tifa. He thinks if he goes off to become some big macho mercenary that always saves the day everyone will come to appreciate him, and he's basically on a quest to undo the way he was treated as a kid. Though his memory becomes hazy because of mako poisoning, he holds on to the abstracted ideal of becoming what is basically a "cool dude". Which is incredibly relatable because we, as the player, are also vicariously living out fantasies of being a cool dude at the beginning of the game. Cloud turns out to be surprisingly like us in that way. I think Advent Children really inflates that second phase for Cloud and makes it his whole character, but it's strange because his conflicted nature in the original game stems from something completely different, at least primarily. It's a simultaneous regression (in terms of writing), while also playing up one of the biggest moments from the game, and it results in a very unrecognizable Cloud. To some extent, the first Kingdom Hearts could also be a factor as well. Cloud's character was combined, both in terms of design and in terms of character, with elements of Vincent Valentine (who was considered for inclusion). He is significantly more brooding, and likewise stuck on Aerith's death, in a way that was a refreshing retake for KH, but ended up being exhausting when made part of the official canon.

I can't imagine Steve Burton saying "Let's mosey." "Let's roll," maybe.

My problem with AC is that Cloud's OG game arc was already perfect and ended in a great place with Tifa and his friends. Nomura admitting himself they made him 'emo' just to make him relateable is like salt on the wound because you realize there was no real reason to regress his iconic development. It also seemed like all his suffering was an excuse to bring back dead fan favorite characters like Sephiroth, Aerith, then Zack through his feelings of guilt, because as we know SE was suffering financially back then - so this makes the movie even more shallow fanservice. I could forgive all this considering that by the end of the movie, yes, he's back, he has let go of his guilt and ghosts with a smile and is happily going back *home* to his family. However!! The big problem is that it's almost like people ignore the positive ending! AC has normalized and popularized the 'emo' middle-of-the-movie version of him and that's how he appears in other games and that's how he's seen by a lot of people and that kinda pisses me off. And not many want to point out that he develops OUT of his 'emo' phase by the end of the movie whether because they.. like.. him like this? ? (idk why, OG Cloud is so good) or some shippers want to think he's gonna spend the rest of his life stuck on Aerith or smth or they don't care much about him. Either way my biggest beef with AC is what it popularized. Compilation was a chance to do so much right, but they ended up doing so much wrong (and little bit right lol).

Cloud really is a good character and calling him an emo is selling him incredibly short. He still isn't my favorite male character, but he's up there

I see Cloud as a cocky smart-aleck, whose "disinterested" nature at the start of FF7 is due to his having forgotten who he is. As the story progresses and his world view is challenged (and as he pieces together those parts of his past that he's forgotten), he becomes more introverted and pensive, while still holding on to that cocky attitude. Later, after his mako poisoning experience, his empathy comes to the fore and he becomes a deeply emotional character, confident but not brash like how he had been in the previous chapters of the story. He uses his humor now to bring people together, instead of being sarcastic and cynical. I never saw the compilation, but I did see advent children, and I think I understand why the writers made Cloud more emo. He feels a deep regret for losing his loved ones, and he feels (due to his deep empathy and compassion) that by staying close to his remaining friends that he might one day let them down. His humor and confidence are all but erased as a brooding self-sacrificing version emerges. I see Cloud post-Advent Children as realizing that life is too short and too precious to be ignored any longer. And although I don't see him becoming the brash, cocky, and "disinterested" Cloud at the start of FF7 ever again, I see him more of the complete character -- deeply emotional, deeply compassionate, a bit pensive, and absolutely loyal to his friends and to the planet at large.

Fuck what a video ❤️❤️❤️ The beauty about cloud is that he is an ever changing character. A character who is inherently consistent in change, showing many angles of human interaction we all understand for ourselves so differently from our individual perspectives, combined into one person. He knows that he has his own internal stability, but outwardly, he doesn’t realize the true, inconsistent impressions he’s giving off to different people due to his insecurities. SPOLER ALERT 🚨: And that leads to another brilliance of ff7 AS A WHOLE, where sephiroth takes advantage of cloud’s everchanging self, and manipulates you to then think that he isn’t even a personality at all, that he is literally no more than a clone of him (a failed one mind you), using his insecurities to instill fear, forcing him to shell his entire true personality away to make him seem robotic and one dimensional, something we’ve all personally experienced by an outside party at some point or another in the presence of others watching, just to a lesser degree and not quite as exaggerated or extreme. I never notice people talk enough about just how amazing this particular twist was. I still always bring this up as a spoiler alert before mentioning this part (whether in text or speech) because it truly blew my mind and I would want people to only ever experience it for themselves instead of just hearing it without the raw context, because I honestly thought there was a possibility “cloud wasn’t cloud”, or at least the cloud we were made to believe that he was throughout the game. Sephiroth’s evidence seemed irrefutable. It was so incredibly written that you weren’t meant to know what the truth was until you actually learned the truth in the lifestream! Or made the sneaky great guess lol kudos if you did! Send me a reply you brilliant people!!!!!!! BUT, even with the odds stacked against him, his willpower and genuine character is what truly comes out to beat sephiroth, and some emotional support from great friends of course. That’s what cloud’s experience, of all the ones inside the lifestream, teaches us✌️

Fuck, I want to play that motorcycle game so bad

I just pretend the compilation never happen

Cloud is everything

Cloud means a storm coming, and so came the lightning, followed by a squall. :P

I personally like Cloud from AC, it honestly makes sense when you keep in mind the character as a whole. People say they don't think being depressed fits a "hero" but that's exactly the point, Cloud was never meant to be a hero. His entire backstory is one of a regular boy from a backwater town joining the army to become one and FAILED. Only through extremely unlikely and unnatural circumstances does he become one during the game and for most of it, he doesn't even remember who he is. FF7's perfect, flawless hero character trope was Zack (which is why i dislike him) and for most of the game Cloud merely emulates him. The dorky overly confident Cloud people remember from the game is Cloud's take on Zack's persona. Yes he does show a lot of heroism and humanity as his true self during the later scenes of the game but at that point, its not like he has any choice. He's on a huge adrenaline rush and pushed as the leader of the only group that has a chance at stopping the world's destruction. So the fact that he crashed down after the events of the game, when the dust has settled, on top of all the other traumas he went through, is what makes him humane.

Yeaaaah first time I saw cloud in KH and he uterd: "YOUR DARKNESS KEEPS CALLING ME BACK!!" Granted I still wanna play the orignal and remake if we are all even alive to see it release XD

I watched Advent Children and played Dissidia on psp before playing FF7 and when i did, i was like "why is the emo king dressing like a girl instead of entering all guns blazing?"

Cloud isn’t “emo” like a certain rip off dual wielding swordsman (I’m looking at you Kirito). After Cloud regained his mind in the og FF7 he had something to push away the thoughts of Aerith’s and Zack’s deaths “being his fault”, and that was beating Sephiroth. After that he was happy for awhile and opened up a business. However when he met Denzel and took him in and saw how he had Geostigma, he was reminded of Aerith and Zack thus causing him to be depressed. This only grew worse when he contracted Geostigma. Advent Children is about Cloud finally being able to forgive himself for their deaths and know that they never blamed him for what happened to them and that they still believe in him and support him even though they’re gone.

I like both of his personalities so I hope they give us some of both in the remake. I think Cloud is naturally more quiet and shy. After Zack dies / during FF7 he tried to be more like Zack. At first it was because he had false memories of things Zack did as being what he did, even after he remembers the truth he tried to keep the upbeat thing going. Later on, as you said, he ends up cracking. Think of all the shit he's gone through. Multiple mako poisonings, his best friend dying to save him, Aerith dying to save the planet, having to kill Sephiroth whom Cloud used to idolize. It'd be more surprising if Cloud wasn't depressed.

I think one of the problems is that cloud has been lost in translation from the original game and his other appearences. Ive been told that in the japanese version of the game he has a more calm,confident and mature attitude, basically he was very relaxed even after his identity crisis,the problem is the translation is so poor that this doesnt get across well. If u listen to his japanese voice he has a very specific tone to signify his calm and collected nature and I think that they are trying to mimic it but to fans it just sounds like he is moopy or trying to sound edgy. Something else that could be brought up is that cloud in the original game was written to be something of a "blank slate", cid actually makes a comment about it, so they probably base his personality of advent children sense it was one of the pieces of work that gave him a personality and there trying to be consistent with that.

I don't have much of a problem with Cloud's personality in AC, since I guess there it made some sense. But then they basically tried to make it look like it was always like that with Crisis Core and even Dissidia (and I guess Kingdom Hearts but I haven't played that one), and that just kindda sucks.

Wow, this is basically what I posted EVERYWHERE I could when Advent Children came out and later on as well. I recently had a discussion with some FF fans and told them that it would be very unfortunate if they depicted Cloud in FF7-remake the way they have since ff7 release. Cloud was definitely dorky, sarcastic and sticks up for his friends. Let's hope he stays that way! I am very pleased to hear the commentator here say that the designer of his character for the remake REALIZES this disconnect and my expectation is that he wont' slaughter his character the way AC and other media (portrayal in other games/shows) has since then.

When people try to slap the " emo " label on Cloud or Squall my reaction is just this... Oh, so you have no patience to actually learn a deep background of a actually complex character that's not one of your easy bite 1 dimensional characters, got it.

You also have to realize cloud had personality disorder due to the mako poisoning when he and zack were experimented on by hojo, and wanting to be just like Zack, he fused both he and his own personality together. You also couple that with him having mental issues as well, and amnesia in some sort and you have one of the most complex and relatable hero’s in video game history. Him Over coming his flaws and weaknesses has always been his story since the first disk of FF7 and it is even expanded upon during the compilation. But I think as humans, like you said, when we deal with traumatic experiences especially over and over again, you are changed. Cloud’s mind just had enough. And when peace was restored after sephiroth and jenova was defeated, he was able to finally grieve for his friends. That’s why the lines in ACC ( advent children complete).

Cloud to me is someone who wants to somebody important. Has a purpose to do something he will do for the good of the world. That's something I wanna do, I don't understand why people assume he's emo. Cloud really had suffered a lot of things, but he is human and at times we all go through obstacles to fully be in the path we all follow :)

One of the symptoms of Geostigma is clinical depression that why Cloud seemed to be Emo in Advent Children. Do people not know that Cloud was fighting an illness in Advent Children?

I hate when people think bes emo when hes not hes thr way he is because of the stuff hes went through him and a lot of toher ff cahracters have the ssme charscyer tyoe lighting and squall too squall is seen as emo by a lot but really hes justvintroverted but as you progress through the game he starts to change and open up

Strength, hope, love, arrogance, dork, Damn this video got to me.

Cloud is my favorite character. People forget that Clouds been through alot to turn him into what he is.

i almost feel like people who dont like the characterization of cloud in the compilation didnt actually play ff7 and really missed the entire "identity crisis" theme of 7 (which was a major theme)

The only reason Cloud was like that in Advent children is that emo shit is really popular in Japan.

Cloud has every right to be depressed and traumatized. Being not negatively effected by those kinds of things is just unrealistic. Being traumatized effects the way your brain works. It changes a person. Also, relapses into old behaviors are common in recovery.

well zack died infront of him,he mixed his persona with zack making his life worse on him to the point where he ends up being some what of a asshole but after being with his friends for some good time he felt like his life was complete but then sephiroth fucks it all up by killing aeris making cloud feel broken on the inside and he now has a urge to kill sephiroth and when he finally kills sephiroth he feels as the anger he used to kill sephiroth he realized hes just as a asshole like sephiroth someone who kills because of anger and now he deals with the fact and he continues his life ignoring it becoming depressed

Original Cloud was my childhood Hero. He was a Hero. AC was around the time I was a teen. Everything else... I guess is lost. Like everything Square pounds out these days feel ungrounded. Cloud is like a cynical adult who forgot he was strong. I liked original Cloud because he lost it and became human. Snarky, cocky and funny but not at all depressing. What was depressing about him is what happened to him. But his attitude toward these events made him a hero in my eyes.

I was excited to see that Cloud had a bit of spunk in the original. I died at that "mosey" comment. I agree, if that's not in the remake I'm gonna be sad

back when there was just ff7, i always viewed cloud as "hardened" rather than emo. i also viewed squall as detached and apathetic rather than emo too.

I think Cloud does get a lot more serious and focused once Tifa gets him out of the livestream. Also, in Advent Children his fear and the relationship issues he and Tifa has make him even more internal and serious. I don’t think he was “mischaracterized” in the compilation, as some seem to think, just that a lot of his personality does come from the upbeat, cocky, and extroverted Zack, which trickles away into the introverted and nervous Cloud. Even in the original he’s pretty quick to go quiet and retreat into his own head when things get tough, not to mention he’s dealing with emotional trauma and a literally fractured psyche. I hope that could gets to be snide and cocky in the remake, but I disagree with the idea that the character has “changed” too much over the years in Nomura’s and Kitase’s heads. But I guess we’ll know for sure when the remake comes out,

Well let's see. He didn't have many friends growing up, failed to get in Soldier, watched one of his idols go insane and kill his mom and almost everyone else in his village. Then, after barely managing yo stop Sephiroth, he gets experimented on by Shinra with Zack, Zack breaks them out, but Cloud's too weak to help him. He finally manages to get up, but by then Zack is dying. The trauma makes him alter his own memories to remain sane. He reunites with Tifa, meets Aerith, and the rest of the gain, Sephiroth returns, kills Aerith, uses him as a puppet, and reveals his memories are fake. Suffers a mental breakdown, luckily Tifa helps him out. They barely manage to stop Sephiroth, but Cloud is left dealing with survivors guilt and PTSD. He and Tifa open a new 7th Heaven, and take care of Marlene for a time. He also finds Denzel, suffering from geostigma. Things get better, but Cloud leaves so as to find a cure, only to learn he himself has geostigma. To say that Cloud went through some shit is to put it mildly.

Cloud was emo in crisis core??? I must've missed that part

I think that Advent Children had a solid concept for Cloud. A soldier who didn't know how to become a civilian, constantly haunted by ghosts of a past he thought settled. That said, I think the execution was somewhat lacking. Maybe not horrible, but not great.

Thank god the remake gave us back our baby boy and not the *baby* baby boy