InsaneJournal

Current mood:	bitchy
Entry tags:	meta: ffvii

Some more blatherings
The thing with an on-going fandom, especially with canon that comes out slowly is that sometimes people just can't wait for the full story. And when that happens, people start growing attached to the characters before they know everything that's happened, start building elaborate back stories for these characters that they don't really actually know will be revealed some decades down the line and then BAM!

Canon disagrees.

Things can get pretty hard to swallow.

I know, for this is one of the reasons why Tezuka/Atobe pairing has been my OTP yet I feel less and less desire to write for it. Canon just fucks with my perception of these characters too much.

But this isn't about Tenipuri. No, this is yet another FFVII rambling.

I think it's fair to say that it's hard to truly grasp the characterization of characters whom you didn't create. While the story usually gives a good chunk of background, it's never the whole story. And trying to piece together the whole story when not given all the facts is down right difficult, impossible even when the author deliberately keeps things vague. In some ways, FFVII suffers this, especially Zack (oh Zack!).

First, I need to re-emphasize the importance Zack holds in the FFVII story. Advent Children Complete ends the movie with Cloud still thinking about Zack. That's pretty damn powerful right there. In fact, he thinks about him so much that he's brought back the flowers growing at the site of Zack's death so that he can be part of the "nakama" group. Sure, the rest of the FFVII gang might not know Zack or only barely know of him, but for Cloud, Zack was/is important and FFVII is Cloud's story.

Now, admittedly, before Crisis Core there isn't a lot of information on Zack. We know that he's important to Cloud, that his behavior was something Cloud tried to emulate, and that he was what gave Cloud the strength to continue on ("Live. You are the proof that I existed." T^T) Hell, before Crisis Core, the best we got was knowing that Cloud took his buster sword from Zack and we didn't even know how important the Buster Sword really was!

But therein lies the advantage of coming into a fandom late. Not having gotten into the FFVII franchise until after the release of almost all of canon material (although apparently there's still more in the works), I don't have any pet theories to cling to. I call them as I see them and try to make my interpretation of the characters fit with all materials presented. Unfortunately for the older fans, after 10 years of liking a certain character, that character has mutated into something no longer resembling canon and when canon shows something that was not as how the older fans imagined, they decry retcon.

Yes fandom, I'm bitching at you.

Let's take another look at Zack.

The original game gives barely any actual information on Zack. We know his first name (his last name is unknown until Crisis Core), we know he saved Cloud's ass, we know he does squats when cooped up during travel and we known that much of Cloud's early behavior came from Zack. We also know that Zack was almost not affected by the mako and Jenova treatments while Cloud was heavily poisoned. We know that he was shot to death by three troopers who then left Cloud to die.

But the problem is we didn't know who really is Zack Fair? Oh, sure, we can deduce that Zack was probably quite powerful, was probably something of a friend to Cloud, had Sephiroth's grudging respect, and...that's it. Any more attempts at figuring out who Zack Fair really is becomes a minute dissection of Cloud's character, trying to separate the "Cloud" from the "Zack" and without all of the story at hand and being handicapped by Cloud's less than reliable narration/memory, the exercise is one of futility.

Until Crisis Core.

Crisis Core gives us Zack Fair as he was, unclouded (no pun intended) by mistaken memories and unbiased by any other character's personal interactions. We see his story in full and can finally begin a meaningful analysis of who is Zack Fair. And the fans cried retcon.

Two biggest problems I have with this debate:

1. Genesis is a rip off of Sephiroth. His story screws with the original canon!

I'm a little confused and find it rather absurd that people are angry at the Genesis subplot. (Yes, yes, Genesis was introduce in Dirge of Cereberus, sometime before Crisis Core, but bear with me.) Crisis Core takes pains to make sure that none of the FFVII crew ever even learns of the existence of the Genesis project. The entire conflict is Zack's fight and Zack's only. Furthermore, Genesis' story actually fills in the holes for the FFVII story, such as explaining where the monsters came from. An actual in-game canon explanation for why you need to fight monsters (science experimentation gone horribly wrong) is actually rarely found. Usually you're just expected to accept that monsters exist, the end, go whack something.

Suddenly monsters and creatures you fight aren't just some canon fodder. No, they've become almost tragic; humans who underwent too much modification and lost their humanity and thus becoming nothing but mindless killing machines. And it also explains why Sephiroth gone off the deep end after finding out his origin. Normal people go into shock at finding out that they are monsters, Sephiroth makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy. (BTW, Sephiroth is still crazy and evil in FFVII, this does not excuse his fangirls/bois.)

2. Zack is too immature!

My brain boggles. First, this is almost always from people who played half the game, aka when Zack was sixteen. Let me rephrase that, Zack is sixteen. Of course he's immature! The entire story is about him growing up, so you see his immature side first. Second, Zack is still described as being "like a child" even during the Nibelheim mission. He was never that mature to begin with. So why is everyone convinced that somehow Zack should be the paragon of virtue?

Oh, that's right, fanon. See what happens when you make assumptions about characters you know nothing about?

Another, more minor problem, is people's decrying that Zack facing off an entire battalion of Shinra grunts goes against the original FFVII hidden cut scene canon.

*takes a deep, deep breath*

So, so many things wrong with this assumption. Thing the first, the secret cut scene is from Cloud's point of view, which is already established as being quite shoddy at this point in the story. Two, the reason he doesn't see the entire battalion of Shinra grunts that Zack fights against in the final battle is because...get this, he never saw it. He has some sort of memory of it according to ACC, but not a lot and certainly not much memory of how taxing the fight was. Lastly, due to the graphical limitation at the time, one can chalk up the change due to technology rather than story telling. If anything, Crisis Core is the more canonical version of this particular story than FFVII's hidden cut scene.

In fact, most would agree that the Crisis Core ending made this scene far more emotional and clarified a shit ton of confusion thanks to Advent Children, but that's another kettle.

I understand that it's difficult to accept new material from canon that goes against preconceived notions/pet theories, but you cannot simply ignore it when the original creators pretty much came out and said that this specific part of the FFVII canon (Crisis Core) was ten years in the making. They simply ran out of room in the original story to get the full backstory out, thus resorting to a prequel. This is not retcon, because nothing is actually being changed from what it originally was. You cannot use retcon as an excuse to disregard everything about canon that you hate. It just doesn't work that way.

On the other hand, you're totally free to interpret a character however you damn well like and write fanfiction about it. Just be prepared to be called out on OOCness.

Now that I've gotten that stuff out of the way, I can get to the actual meat of the rant:

Zack and Cloud were good friends. Whether you interpret this as something more than friends, platonic, romantic, fraternal, what the fuck ever, you cannot deny that Zack and Cloud were good friends. To deny that would be to deny the impact Zack had on Cloud and that's just wrong.

Yes, Zack had only two instances in Crisis Core where he interacted with Cloud (three if you count a minor interaction during cadet training). Yes, we don't see much of Zack and Cloud interacting outside of missions. However, one has to remember that Zack has a life outside of Cloud. I know it hurts your yaoi fangirl heart that Zack doesn't exist solely to cheer Cloud on and has problems and demons of his own, but that's the canon. Zack has his own unique problems, has his own fucking job in the Shinra military, and he's as much as his own person as Cloud is.

But on the other hand, you cannot simply dismiss the fact that the two had a deep bond. While Zack is very much earnest and caring, he's not the type of person who will risk life and limb for an infantry trooper if he doesn't have some emotional attachment to the guy. He's also not going to randomly entrust his mentor's sword to anyone he saves. These actions speak louder than any prolonged interaction and establishes that Zack does indeed value Cloud as a friend (if not something more).

Conversely, I did mention the ending to ACC, yes? If Zack was nothing more than someone who Cloud was assigned to work with, why in the world would he keep alive Zack's memory by bringing his flower into his office? Why would he continue to be a delivery boy? Why would he continue to think of Zack at his lowest points in life? Zack is important to Cloud on an emotional level and to dismiss his importance is ignorant and unfeeling.

And because I need to drive this point home, notice in the following screencap:

Notice how there is a very obvious, very yellow flower in the foreground? Pay attention to that, because here's another screencap from the very next scene:

Notice how it is the exact same flower that grows on Zack's grave?

What do you think this symbolizes?

And finally, why do you think that ACC, a story supposedly about Cloud gets the following as the final last scene?

Because as far as Cloud is concerned, the beginning and ending of his story is Zack Fair.

If this cannot convince you just how important Zack is to Cloud, then I don't know what can.