Who is Cloud? (spoilers accepted)

[Dark Soul]

...and who is Zack?

[Plantman Knows Where Plants Grow]

I can even tell you the level you find out and the game tells you:
It's after their first visit to meteor, when cloud has mako poisoning, after the town cloud is in explodes with mako and while Cid is the leader of the party. The level features Tifa and Cloud in a mako pit with them inside Cloud's mind trying to sort out who cloud is.

Cloud was one of the two soldiers dressed in blue in the Nibelhim flashback, Zack was actually the person Cloud claims he remembers being in the flash back, Cloud wanted to returm to Nibel as a successful member of Soldier and when he failed he hid his identity when he went to visit.

After this he and Zack end up fighting Sepheroth when Seph goes mad, Zack is killed I think, Tifa ends up putting the final blow on Seph,Cloud is mortally wounded, and Tifa is too, Tifa's martial arts teacher rescues her and Shinra rescues Cloud,

Cloud is infused with Sepheroth DNA and mako durring his treatment but manages to escape while Shinra rebuilds Nibelheim and hires actors to cover up the incident with Seph,

and finally Tifa falls in with Avalanche and whle at Midgar finds Cloud who had jus escaped Shinra custody while under mako poisoning but recovers as soon as he meets her.

[Chris1984]

This storyline alone, (even while excluding all the genius Sepinroth and Jenova stuff), makes this whole gaming experience a thousand times more exciting that FF6 (which I just finished) could ever achieve.

It is great when you are uncovering plotlines at times and even have to discuss their meaning and outcomes years later.

[Larry]

Major spoilers... Be warned.

I strongly suggest you unsub from this thread and just play the game. The whole who is Zack/Who is Cloud plot is a significant plot twist in the game and one worth experiencing without being spoiled.






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Cloud was never in soldier. He was a regular marine or whatever they called the normal grunts in FF7. He accompanied Zack and Sephiroth on a number of missions and became very friendly with Zack but never actually was in Soldier(He didn't make the cut). All of his memories and recollections in the game of him being Soldier 1st Class are actually of Zack.

Basically when you "kill" Sephiroth in the Mt.Nibelhem reactor you and Zack get captured and brought back to the Shinra Mansion then get tested on and held in test tubes. Zack didn't die in the reactor he survived that. If you read the text describing both test subjects they're actually written logs about Cloud and Zack referring to Cloud as the normal foot soldier and how the other(Zack/Soldier 1st class) was too weak or something(Been a while, need clarification) with unexpected effects on Cloud which were promising(This ties in with the whole Sephiroth/Jenova project and why Cloud is influenced by Sephiroth/Jenova). When he escaped Cloud was left in a poor mental state and lost his mind because of Mako poisoning and restructures his memories around his fantasy of being a Soldier 1st class which leads to him meeting Tifa in Midgar. He takes on the persona of Zack.

If you play Crisis Core(Don't. It's terrible) you find out that Zack died shortly after Cloud and he escaped from Shinra Mansion. Zack died protecting Cloud as Cloud was far too gone at that point to do anything. All you really need to take from the entirity of Crisis Core is the fact Zack died and cloud wound up making it to Midgar without being caught. Nothing else is really cannon to FF7 other than that fact(Seriously, forge the whole wings ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ -- No FF7 fan actually considers that cannon. It was a spin off, really, just to kind of tie into the reasoning behind Sephiroth's wing in Kingdom Hearts).

So, yeah. Cloud is cloud. He's still the boy Tifa remembers from when they were children but there's a significant gap from the time he left as a teenager to join Soldier to the time he meets with Tifa for the first time in Midgar(Shortly before the game starts and you take on the mission) that aren't really his memories. Those memories are memories of Zack, but he was physically there and present, he was just a regular soldier hiding behind a helmet. The flashbacks throughout of him as a child telling him to remember is basically a representation of when his memories were really his which is why it's always a child until Cloud finally comes to terms with his past and who he really was. He wasn't a clone. He and Zack were early tests to see the effects of a special experiment of Jenova cells or something like that which happened when they were both captured in Nibelhem(Explained in Crisis Core but just get a summary on a wiki instead of wasting your time and money).

The game never really explains how Cloud managed to overpower Sephiroth to at the reactor in Mt.Nibelhem... He just kind of did... Makes very little sense and is never explained in any of the games or in the movie.

[Larry]

AGENT Plant Manson ★O.S.I.★님이 먼저 게시:

I can even tell you the level you find out and the game tells you:
It's after their first visit to meteor, when cloud has mako poisoning, after the town cloud is in explodes with mako and while Cid is the leader of the party. The level features Tifa and Cloud in a mako pit with them inside Cloud's mind trying to sort out who cloud is.

Cloud was one of the two soldiers dressed in blue in the Nibelhim flashback, Zack was actually the person Cloud claims he remembers being in the flash back, Cloud wanted to returm to Nibel as a successful member of Soldier and when he failed he hid his identity when he went to visit.

After this he and Zack end up fighting Sepheroth when Seph goes mad, Zack is killed I think, Tifa ends up putting the final blow on Seph,Cloud is mortally wounded, and Tifa is too, Tifa's martial arts teacher rescues her and Shinra rescues Cloud,

Cloud is infused with Sepheroth DNA and mako durring his treatment but manages to escape while Shinra rebuilds Nibelheim and hires actors to cover up the incident with Seph,

and finally Tifa falls in with Avalanche and whle at Midgar finds Cloud who had jus escaped Shinra custody while under mako poisoning but recovers as soon as he meets her.

This is incorrect... Tifa lashes out at Sephiroth but doesn't land the hit. He grabs the sword off her and strikes her instead. Zack then goes in, sees Tifa, and rushes ahead to take on Sephiroth but quickly gets defeated. Straight after this Cloud runs in and sees what's happened. He grabs Zack's Busterblade and surprises Sephiroth by stabbing him in the back. No one dies here.

This here is what actually happened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPK6hVeKbAA

It's actually Zack but at this point Cloud has taken on the memories of being Zack thus the fade out and him not remembering at this point as to what actually happened. Everything that happened in the above link is what happened with Zack NOT Cloud which is why the actual fight is missing from his memories and mixed with what Cloud had actually said to Sephiroth a bit later.

The bit where it flashes at the end is basically the battle between Zack and Sephiroth which we don't see in the game because Cloud didn't see it, he just pieced that much together.

Here's him piecing his memories together with the help of Tifa much later in the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xotiaPXTpI

That pretty much explains everything.

Basically Cloud surprised Sephiroth and wounded him by stabbing him in the back. Sephiroth takes Jenova's head("Mother") and limps out of the reactor chamber, past Cloud(While he's taking care of Tifa to make sure she's safe). He ignores Cloud who then pursues Sephiroth onto the bridge entrance to the reactor chamber and the tries to kill Cloud. Cloud gets stabbed but overpowers Sephiroth somehow... It's never explained but people surmise it was a feat of strength and endurance brought on by an adrenaline rush due to the amount of pain and emotional distress Sephiroth had caused Cloud(Destroying his town, killing his mother, harming his crush and wounding his friend who he looked up to).

It should be noted that the scenes in Crisis Core and the anime they came out with(Haven't seen it but watched a clip) are different to what actually happened in the game.

[Dark Soul]

thanks!

but Sephiroth said...

[Larry]

"You are a puppet"? He insinuates that Cloud is a clone throughout but the reality is he's not. Either Sephiroth knew he wasn't a clone but infused with Jenova cells thus his passion for chasing after Sephiroth to fulfill his part in Jenova's second coming or he genuinely believes Cloud is a clone and always was. Either Sephiroth was manipulating Cloud knowing he wasn't a clone or he genuinely thought Cloud was a clone but it's suggested Sephiroth is simply manipulating Cloud.

Cloud is basically a puppet until he gets his memories together. The Jenova cells he was exposed to basically manipulated him and allowed Sephiroth to control him to a degree, at least give him the drive to chase after Sephiroth and do half of the things he does such as giving away a very specific item he should never have given to him.

Honestly, just play the game before reading any further... There are a lot of nice little extras in the game that add a lot of background to the characters and events that happened. Pretty much every character has some kind of secret background or optional side quest/story besides, from what I can recall. It's worth exploring the game world and finding them yourself as they're not that hard to come by.



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The story of Sephiroth is that he was basically infused with Jenova cells from inception, he was one of a kind and an experiment of Hojo's. This spins into the Vincent/Lucrecia subplot. I won't spoil it too much but if you bring Vincent with you and go exploring the under water caves in the Sub after Disc 3(Or was it 4?) you'll come across some nice little game extra that explains a lot about Vincent, Hojo, Lucrecia and Sephiroth.

[Dark Soul]

thanks guys! excellent story so far...

i wondered, why Sephiroth had this power over Cloud? or was it Jenova? (her cells)

and what exactly happened to Cloud? was it that Hojo's experiments messed with his mind and memory or does Cloud is a schisophrenic guy?

[Dark Soul]

I am at the Northern Crater : ) oh boy, what a game...

1 moar question - why did Cloud haven't remembered Zack?

[Chris1984]

Do not wanna spoil the story fun, but you already know who really killed Aeris right? ;)

[Dark Soul]

El Coco님이 먼저 게시:

Do not wanna spoil the story fun, but you already know who really killed Aeris right? ;)

...jenova? and sephiroth?

[Chris1984]

It was not Sephiroth ;)

[Dark Soul]

El Coco님이 먼저 게시:

It was not Sephiroth ;)

jenova?

[Larry]

El Coco님이 먼저 게시:

It was not Sephiroth ;)

It was Sephiroth. It wasn't Cloud. That theory has no bearing what so ever so don't confuse the guy. It's like the Squall's Dead theory. Might make some semblence of sence but overall it's just grasping at straws and forcing two very different pieces of jigsaw to fit. The scene was plagued with inconsistencies and that's all.

[Chris1984]

never said it was Cloud!
Everybody knows nowadays that this was NOT Sephiroth, he was not even awake that time.
It was another disguised part of Jenova.

If you do not believe me, you can read it up everywhere :)

[Larry]

Well, technically you can say it was Jenova in that sense but it was Sephiroth. Sephiroth was basically controlling it through the lifestream and even Cloud, right up until the end, blames Sephiroth.