Cloud on the Couch: A Psychological Character Analysis of the Protagonist of Final Fantasy VII
Version 1.03 (first public version)
By: Robert M. Kirkpatrick, © 2005
Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy VI, and the respective characters of those games discussed herein are copyright © of Square-Enix Co., Ltd. This document itself is copyright © 2005 of the author, Robert M. Kirkpatrick, and was entirely written and is entirely owned by him. All copyrights and trademarks are hereby acknowledged where not specifically mentioned. This document may not be redistributed unless it remains entirely unaltered and full credit is given to the author.
SPOILER ALERT!!!
Do not read unless you have completed Final Fantasy VII, or you don’t mind having surprises spoiled for you!
Version history:
· 1.00-1.02: drafts
· 1.03: first public version
Introduction
Cloud Strife of Final Fantasy VII is one of the most complex characters in the realm of video games, and it is his psychological depth that most contributes to this complexity. Many people perceive Cloud as the victim of an “inferiority complex”—and correctly so.1 We learn much about the origin of this “inferiority complex” when we witness Tifa’s journey with Cloud deep into his psyche, and much that had lain dormant in our protagonist’s subconscious becomes revealed. However, I believe that the origin of Cloud’s problems goes back even further in his childhood than what we see when Tifa and Cloud are floating in the Lifestream—possibly so far back that even Cloud, as a whole person again, still is not aware of it. If you believe that Cloud is fully developed as a character and fully explained, you will think me guilty of “reading too much into things.” With this in mind, I will say from the start that I make no claims of having a “grand unified theory of Cloud” that is superior to all others. My objective is to explain Cloud’s character in terms of theories of psychology that can (theoretically) be applied to humans in general. If this interests you, read on. Note the article will begin by addressing the genesis of Cloud’s “inferiority complex,” and will then continue by describing how it played out through the backstory of the game; it will conclude by briefly summarizing Cloud’s intrapsychic conflicts that occur during the “present” of the game.
Part 1
To come straight to the point: The primary and most fundamental cause of Cloud’s problems is the fact that he grew up without knowing his father. As he says himself in the flashback (to five years prior, in Nibelheim) in the inn at Kalm: “I don't know if you could call it a 'family'........ My father... died when I was still very young.” The lack of a father in the home is a risk factor for all kinds of problems in boys and young men. In one classic study, Blanchard and Biller (1971) found that boys whose fathers had been absent since their early childhood had the worst grades and achievement scores in the study’s sample. In contrast, boys who lived with fathers that were present most of the time had the best grades and achievement scores. Another classic study by Hoffman (1971) found that father-absent boys were significantly less conscientious on most measures used, and were significantly more physically aggressive than father-present boys. However, this difference did not hold true for father-absent versus father-present girls. Nugent (1991) observed that paternal involvement with infants had an effect on cognitive development scores at one year of age. In a relatively recent and comprehensive review of the literature, Popenoe (1996) noted that:
· “changes in family structure” accounted for 51% of the increase in child poverty observed in the 1980s (p. 54)
· compared to children who grow up with both biological parents, children who grow up with only one parent (who is almost always the mother) are three times more likely to have a child out of wedlock, 2.5 times more likely to become teen mothers, and twice as likely to drop out of school—even after controlling for a host of other sociological variables (p. 56)
· 60% of America’s rapists, 72% of adolescent murderers, and 70% of long-term prison inmates come from fatherless homes (p. 63)
· boys who live only with their mothers are at greater risk of problem behavior, including depression, antisocial behavior, impulsiveness/hyperactivity, and acting up in school (p. 62)
Why is having a father so important for boys? This article draws heavily from Freudian psychoanalytic theory in its explanation for this. I wish to emphasize that I am not a “Freudian” per se, since I do not champion Freud’s theories as superior to alternate theories. Rather, I am invoking Freudian psychoanalysis because of its utility in explaining Cloud’s characterization. Freud believed that the psychosexual development of boys and girls is similar up until the phallic stage of development, which occurs roughly between the ages of four and seven, and during which time the genitals become the dominant erogenous zone of the child’s body. Prior to this time, a boy believes that all persons have the same genitalia as he—in other words, he assumes that everyone has a penis (Freud, 1933/1966). Eventually, however, he learns that girls and women do not—and he experiences “the severest trauma of his young life” (Freud, 1949/1969, p. 72). In his immature psyche, he is forced to conclude that girls have had their penis taken away through castration. The shock of this realization is compounded immeasurably if, at about the same time, a parent threatens to castrate him. Such a threat is usually made to deter him from masturbation, a behavior that becomes prevalent early in the phallic stage of development.
The effect of this “castration anxiety” is inextricably intertwined with the other chief fact of the phallic stage: the boy’s sexual attraction to his mother, and corollary perception of his father as a rival for the mother—the conflict of the Oedipal complex (Freud, 1949/1969, 1923/1961) (a concept far more complicated than the treatment I will give it here). For one, the mother is usually the object of the boy’s masturbatory behavior; sometimes, the boy brazenly exhibits his masturbation to her for the purpose—to put it crudely—of “showing off” his penis. Additionally, the boy comes to believe that females have been castrated because they attempted to take possession of their mothers, and were punished by their fathers for doing so. Threatened with the loss of his penis (which is the dominant erogenous zone at this stage of development), the boy represses his erotic feelings for his mother. He also identifies with his father. He does this partly to eliminate the adversarial tension between him and his father, that he might be protected from punishment—and outright castration—by the father. He also does it because some kind of identification with the father pre-existed the Oedipal complex, as this is simply a young boy’s way of relating to his father. Whether this initial identification is strengthened at the resolution of the Oedipal complex or not depends on the extent of the boy’s innate masculine disposition (Freud believed that all children are originally bisexual to some extent). Lastly, Freud seems to imply that the boy subconsciously settles for “second-best” by identifying with his father, in that he hopes that by becoming like his father he will one day possess a female like his mother.
This identification at the healthy resolution of the Oedipal complex has far-reaching significance. It is through this identification that the boy internalizes his father’s moral principles, giving rise to the part of the psyche Freud termed the superego (Freud, 1923/1961, 1928/1959, 1924/1959). More to the point, he also internalizes the masculine gender roles exhibited by the father. Quite simply, the father becomes a male role model for the boy.
What has been described above is a brief description of Freud’s conception of a boy’s ideal and healthy negotiation of the Oedipal complex. I emphasize “ideal,” however, because there are often problems encountered during this Conflict. For example, what happens if there is no father present during the phallic stage of development? We can reasonably infer that, in the absence of a male role model, the boy does not adequately internalize masculine gender roles or moral behavior, and that latent castration anxiety remains embedded within the boy’s psyche.2 In the case of Cloud, I wish to emphasize the failure to internalize masculine gender roles and the implications of same: due to the lack of a male role model, Cloud has an unclear conception of what it means to “be a man,” and thus, has an unclear sense of his own masculinity; further, he doubts his worth as a person because he knows that society has certain expectations of males and he doubts his capability of meeting these expectations, having never had a male role model to teach him how.
So what does it mean to “be a man?” As the psychological jargon has so succinctly described it since the early 1970s, conventional masculine gender roles are “agentic;” that is, to be masculine is to be generally capable of action upon the environment. 3 Specific examples of “agentic” qualities would include competence, initiative and assertiveness, and physical strength. And, since we have established that Cloud’s sense of his own masculinity is unclear, we can also further establish that he doubts his own agentic capacity (including his own competence and physical strength). It is therefore not inaccurate to say that Cloud suffers from an “inferiority complex,” and we now understand clearly that his insecurity about his masculinity is at the root of his feelings of inferiority. Indeed, his latent and unresolved castration anxiety only serves to heighten this insecurity, for—at least on some level of consciousness—he still fears that his “manhood” will be taken from him.4
This early disturbance in Cloud’s early psychosexual development might not have dominated his later mental life had his childhood not been full of failures and frustrations. First, for whatever reason, he was never socially accepted among his peers. This is something he recalls when he and Tifa are floating in the Lifestream, and it is the apparent prima causa of his feelings of inferiority. Although this article asserts that Cloud’s fatherless early childhood deserves that distinction, there is no question that his social isolation during late childhood had major influence on his personality development; at the very least, it was the secondary cause of Cloud’s “inferiority complex.” Additionally, I am inclined to identify Cloud’s social isolation as an independent cause of his “inferiority complex” that is unrelated to his fatherless childhood.5
Corollary to Cloud’s social isolation was the frustration of his unfulfilled feelings for Tifa—his “sealed up secret...... wish”—to which our discussion must now necessarily turn. It is important to note that these feelings went almost entirely unexpressed. After all, how does a man learn to express love for a woman? I am convinced: chiefly from his father’s example! And I am not alone in this belief: as Biller (1981, p. 335) concludes, “a positive father-child relationship can greatly facilitate the boy’s security in interacting with females. The boy who has developed a positive masculine self-image has much more confidence in heterosexual interaction.” But Cloud, who grew up fatherless, knew no such example. He knew no behavioral script for relating to females in heterosexual relationships, and thus, did not even know “where to begin” in expressing his feelings for Tifa.6 I suspect that, even if he had been accepted into her social circle, he would nevertheless have had difficulty conveying his affection to her.
Finally, we come to the greatest and most devastating failure of Cloud’s later childhood: his failure to save Tifa from falling off the cliff on Mt. Nibel. This failure is arguably the sine qua non of his “inferiority complex.” It reinforced his sense of inadequacy beyond any point of denial on his part (a “real man” would have been strong enough and capable enough to save Tifa from falling!), and left him believing that Tifa, his love-object, also blamed him for his failure to save her. As if all this weren’t bad enough, Tifa’s father did indeed blame Cloud for Tifa’s injury, which left her in a coma for a week. 7 Cloud’s words speak for themselves:
I don't remember what path I walked. Tifa missed her step. I ran to her... but didn't make it in time. Both of us fell off the cliff. Back then, I only scarred my knees, but...... Tifa was in a coma for seven days. We all thought she wouldn't make it. If only I could've saved her... I was so angry... Angry at myself for my weakness. Ever since then, I felt Tifa blamed me...
Because the rest of this article will address how Cloud’s “inferiority complex” plays itself out in other parts of the game, I wish to use this paragraph to briefly summarize what I have established thus far about the origins of his insecurity. First, because Cloud grew up with no father, he had no male role model with which to identify. Therefore, he was unable to internalize male gender roles, and was left with latent castration anxiety. Thus, Cloud was unsure of his masculinity, and doubted his ability to live up to socially-mandated standards of “male” behavior. Furthermore, due to his latent castration anxiety, he believed his “manhood” was constantly threatened. Also, since masculinity is associated with agentic qualities, Cloud doubted his competence, physical strength, etc. Second, the pathological effects of Cloud’s fatherless early childhood were compounded by three frustrations/failures that occurred in later childhood: (1) his social isolation, which was probably, though not necessarily, a secondary independent cause of his “inferiority complex;” (2) his unfulfilled feelings for Tifa; and most importantly, (3) his failure to save Tifa from her fall on Mt. Nibel. All these factors together left Cloud believing he was weak, incompetent, unworthy, and rejected by Tifa.
And then, he first heard about Sephiroth…
Part 2
During Cloud’s later childhood and early adolescence, Sephiroth had been rising through the ranks of SOLDIER and earning a hero’s reputation in the “meaningless war” between Shinra and Wutai. Indeed, Sephiroth had already become a legend in his own time. He was commonly referred to as “the Great Sephiroth.” At one point, President Shinra says of him: “He was brilliant…Perhaps too brilliant.” As Cloud himself would later say, “Sephiroth's strength is unreal. He is far stronger in reality than any story you might have heard about him.…I was mesmerized by the way Sephiroth fought.” When Cloud announced to Tifa his decision to join SOLDIER out by the well in Nibelheim, he told her, “I'm going to be the best there is, just like Sephiroth.” While he and Tifa are floating in the Lifestream, Cloud recalls that he first heard about Sephiroth soon after Tifa’s fall on Mt. Nibel, and that he had hoped “if I got strong like Sephiroth, then everyone might…If I could just get stronger...... Then even Tifa would have to notice me......” Cloud had finally found a male role model.
Indeed, Sephiroth was the kind of father-figure to whose influence Cloud was most receptive at the time: he is physically strong (to the point of being supernaturally so), he is competent both as a fighter and as a military leader (and even as an engineer—as we see in the flashback in the inn at Kalm, he knew exactly what was wrong with the Nibelheim reactor, what to do to fix it, and realized quickly what its true purpose was), and he is the kind of person people notice and admire. Finally, as if to drive home the point that Sephiroth is “the MAN,” his weapon--the sword, Masamune--is one gigantic phallic symbol.8
What happened next in Cloud’s psyche resembles a bizarre recapitulation of his unresolved Oedipal complex. Cloud had been subconsciously hungering for a father-figure since his early childhood, and then, without having even met Sephiroth, he began to identify with him (such was the power of the Sephiroth mythos). Sephiroth had the masculine qualities that Cloud felt he lacked himself—including, as I mentioned, a gigantic sword, which served as a symbol of both his phallic endowment and his capacity to “cut” (read “castrate”) others. This is why Cloud identified with him so readily—first, to resolve his own latent castration anxiety (believing that if he became like Sephiroth, he would possess a mighty phallus and would become a potential perpetrator of castration, rather than a potential victim), and second, to obtain the social recognition that Sephiroth enjoyed. The first of these reasons has obvious parallels with a young boy’s identification with his father in the healthy resolution of the Oedipal complex, but the parallels of the second are somewhat obscure. Recall that it seems reasonable to conclude that a boy identifies with his father partly because he hopes that, by becoming like his father, he will someday possess a woman like his mother. In Cloud’s case here, he was identifying with the father-figure of Sephiroth in the hopes that by becoming like him, he will be able to possess a specific female love-object, namely, Tifa.
Thus, Cloud resolved to leave Nibelheim and join SOLDIER. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t make the cut, and entered the Shinra army as a regular. This was a devastating blow to his already-fragile self-esteem. He was so ashamed of this additional failure that he cut off contact with his hometown. We know that between his departure to enlist and his return to Nibelheim (a span of two years), he would have met Zack, a SOLDIER First-class whom he came to admire considerably. We do not know how much Cloud would have fought alongside Zack or Sephiroth, since the war against Wutai ended shortly after Cloud’s enlistment. However, we do know that Cloud volunteered to accompany both Zack and Sephiroth on a special mission to Nibelheim two years after his enlistment. Upon his return to his hometown, Cloud kept on his helmet and mask the entire time, only revealing his identity to his mother when he went to visit her.
The events of that mission to Nibelheim are familiar enough to anyone who has ever played Final Fantasy VII. The events that were psychologically significant for Cloud began on the night when Sephiroth burns Nibelheim and leaves many of its citizens dead, including Cloud’s mother. By the end of the night’s holocaust, Cloud’s mother and Tifa’s father were dead by Sephiroth’s hand, Zack and Tifa were wounded, and Cloud cast Sephiroth off the bridge in the reactor into the Lifestream below. Tifa was rescued and spirited away by her karate instructor, Zangan, but Cloud and Zack, along with the surviving townsfolk, were captured by Shinra and subjected to experimentation under Hojo’s direction. About five years later, Cloud and Zack escape the laboratory, with Cloud’s mind turned to mush from the one-two punch of an injection of Jenova cells and an infusion of Mako. The two are caught near Midgar, and Zack is shot to death. Cloud, however, is left alive, as it is believed that he will soon be a complete vegetable due to his reaction to the treatment he received. Already clad in a spare SOLDIER uniform, a semiconscious Cloud takes Zack’s Buster Sword after the Shinra troops leave, and makes his way to Midgar.
Psychologically speaking, what happened here? The short answer—quite a bit! The first question that needs answering is this: if Cloud was so insecure, why didn’t he later remember his defeat of Sephiroth? After all, apparently besting the greatest fighter in the world ought to provide a huge boost to anyone’s self-esteem! This is a question with which I, too, grappled for a long time, until I formulated my ideas about Cloud’s desire for a father-figure. Sephiroth was a man Cloud admired and identified with, his male role model, the “dad he never had.” And yet, this same Sephiroth had just burned Cloud’s hometown, killed his mother, and gravely—perhaps even mortally—wounded his love-object, Tifa. These crimes could not go unanswered! After all of the trauma that had already transpired that night, Cloud’s confrontation of Sephiroth was the coup de grace. Further, I suspect that Cloud’s repudiation of Sephiroth in his mind was even more traumatic than physically defeating him. After the crimes Sephiroth had committed, Cloud’s psyche could no longer accept him as a role model, and yet, to relinquish identification with Sephiroth would mean a return to the uncomfortable state of having no male role model. Quite simply, Cloud repressed his memory of defeating Sephiroth because, to him, he was physically killing and psychologically rejecting the only father he had ever known.
However, a new male role model soon stepped in to replace Sephiroth: Zack. Zack was almost as worthy a role-model as Sephiroth. He was physically strong and self-confident, successful with the ladies, and was much friendlier than Sephiroth (even with his subordinates). He was even unaffected by motion sickness! And of course, he too carried a gigantic phallic symbol as a weapon. Symbolically, Cloud had already begun to identify with Zack when he took up his Buster Sword to confront Sephiroth. This is the point where our discussion of the workings of Cloud’s psyche must leave the realm of “real-world” psychology and introduce supernatural elements, namely, Jenova cells and Mako. Further, Cloud’s identification with Zack is not “normal” and straightforward; rather, it is inextricably tied up with these supernatural elements.
First, I will address Cloud’s Mako exposure, which led to what I call his “memory distortion.” As the doctor in Mideel explains on Disc 2 of the game, Mako poisoning, which results from a sudden infusion of a large amount of spirit energy into a person, is very mentally debilitating. As we see in the flashback in the Shinra Mansion laboratory much later in the game, Cloud was in a near-catatonic stupor when he and Zack escaped the clutches of Hojo. I believe that the Mako poisoning Cloud experienced while being held captive in Nibelheim caused him to experience a sort of amnesia that caused him to forget the experiences of Hojo’s experimentation and his escape with Zack. After he recovered, he pieced together in his mind a confabulated memory of what had happened over the past seven years from snippets of his own actual experiences and from stories he had heard from Zack. Of course, to protect his ego from the painful truth, Cloud’s psyche reconstructed these memories with distortions, such as Cloud being SOLDIER First-Class, and with repressed deletions, such as Cloud’s defeat of Sephiroth (about which he would have gladly forgotten, and which his psyche therefore did not include in his reconstructed memory). Further, his psyche reconstructed these memories to be consistent with his identification with Zack. Cloud’s subconscious identification with Zack was so strong that in his reconstructed memories, Zack’s experiences were his; so strong that for most intents and purposes, he was Zack! After all, when he fully regained consciousness, he was wearing a SOLDIER uniform, carrying a Buster Sword, and had “Mako eyes,” so his rational, conscious ego had no reason to question the false memories.
Is it reasonable to believe that someone could reconstruct a false memory? Without a doubt! This is because memory is not reproductive, it is (as I have said) reconstructive. This means that when you are remembering something, you are not calling up a verbatim copy of it from inside your memory. Instead, you are rebuilding the thing you are recalling, with influence from your current knowledge. Perhaps the most noteworthy pioneer in reconstructive memory research is Elizabeth Loftus, who has shown through experiments that misleading information about an experience, presented after the fact, can cause people to remember seeing things that they did not in fact see—for example, a yield sign where a stop sign had actually been (Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978), or broken glass where there was none (Loftus & Palmer, 1974). Loftus tackled the controversial topic of repressed memories of abuse with a skeptical article on the topic (1993), in which she reviewed studies in which researchers had intentionally and successfully led participants to form, and genuinely believe in, a false memory.
What is the mechanism whereby false memories are created? Marcia Johnson’s source monitoring theory—as lucidly and succinctly described by Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay (1993)—provides a thorough and plausible explanation. The basic premise of this theory is that the information contained in a memory is not indelibly marked at encoding with a “tag” that indicates where it came from. Rather, when the memory is retrieved, the “source” of its information must be determined (again emphasizing the reconstructive nature of memory recall!). “Source” refers to a broad “variety of characteristics that, collectively, specify the conditions under which a memory is acquired” (p. 3). These characteristics can include, among many other things, the time and place or social context in which the information was obtained, and the sensory modality through which the information was obtained. Source monitoring is defined as “the set of processes involved in making attributions about the origins of memories, knowledge, and beliefs” (p. 3). Johnson et al. identify three different types of source monitoring. One type is “reality monitoring,” which refers to “discriminating memories of internally generated information from memories of externally derived information,” (p. 4), for example, distinguishing a memory of something one imagined from something that really happened. Another type is “external source monitoring,” which refers to “discriminating between externally derived sources…for example, discriminating memories of statements that were made by person A from those made by person B” (p. 4). A third type is “internal source monitoring,” which refers to “discriminating between internally generated sources…for example, discriminating memories of what one thought from memories of what one said” (p.4). Source monitoring is essentially a decision-making process that takes into account records of various sorts of information encoded with the memory. It is usually automatic and “heuristic,” but sometimes it must be deliberate and “systematic” and require reasoning based on knowledge extraneous to the memory itself. For instance, suppose I am trying to remember whether or not I locked my car door. If I can clearly recall the sound of the lock clicking into place (perceptual details) and can clearly picture myself standing by the door and turning the key (contextual details), I will probably decide that I did indeed lock it with little thought (i.e., “heuristically”). Conversely, if I cannot conjure up such details, or if my memory of locking up is dim or fuzzy, I may heuristically decide that I forgot to lock the door this time, and that what I am remembering is my imagining that I locked my door, or perhaps my locking the door on a previous occasion. In this instance, I am making a “reality-monitoring” decision. For another example, suppose I am trying to remember who told a particular joke at a recent party, and suppose further that I cannot remember where I was sitting when I heard the joke (contextual details), or the voice of the person who told it (perceptual details). I may have to deliberately and “systematically” reason out the source of the joke by using information extraneous to my memory of it (e.g., “it probably wasn’t person A, because he had to get up early the next morning and therefore wasn’t at the party for very long.”). In this instance, I am making an “external source monitoring” decision.
Johnson et al. make several points that are particularly relevant to our present discussion of Cloud’s memory distortion. Indeed, within the framework of source monitoring theory, delusions, confabulations, and hallucinations result from severe disruption of source monitoring processes (usually, “reality-monitoring”). Furthermore, Johnson et al. note that the criteria for making a source-monitoring decision vary from person to person and from situation to situation. Notably, they say source-monitoring decisions can be influenced by present biases, agendas, and goals, and the many motivational and social factors that influence any goal-oriented activity (the example they give is that a person will have much more stringent criteria for deciding upon the source of a memory if they are testifying in court than if they are recounting an anecdote in a social situation). I wish to point out that one of the most pervasive biases in human beings is the “self-serving bias” (the tendency to be biased in one’s own favor), and that the preservation of self-esteem is one of the most fundamental motivational forces. With this in mind, I do not think it far-fetched that Cloud would have had very lax criteria for making “reality-monitoring” decisions when his already-fragile ego was at stake. The motivated source-monitoring errors that resulted, combined with his identification with Zack, explains why he remembered Zack’s stories as his own experiences, and why he remembered as his own actions those actions of Zack that he had merely observed.
There is indeed evidence that people tend to remember—or misremember!—past events in ways that make them “look good.” Stephen Ceci (1995) gives several famous examples of this in his chapter on false beliefs. One such example comes from Sigmund Freud himself, who admitted on one occasion to be guilty of “cryptomnesia” (i.e., inadvertent plagiarism resulting when one believes an idea to be original and one’s own, while in fact one has been exposed to it from an outside source—in other words, a particular type of source-monitoring error). Freud conceded that his theory of original bisexuality of the individual was not his own, but had been suggested to him by a colleague, and that he was quite resistant to the suggestion at that time. Another such example comes from a New York Times story on the death of Tony Conigliaro in 1990. Conigliaro, who had played for the Boston Red Sox, led the American League in home runs at age 20. By age 22, he was the youngest major league player to have hit 100 home runs. However, his career was cut short in 1967, when he was hit in the head with a fastball by California Angels pitcher Jack Hamilton, which fractured his cheekbone, dislocated his jaw, and caused his vision to become seriously blurred. His blurred vision ultimately led to his retirement two seasons later. When interviewed shortly after Conigliaro’s death, Hamilton insisted that he did not intentionally bean Conigliaro, and that there was no strategic reason for him to do so. However, Hamilton’s recollection of the circumstances is riddled with inaccuracies (wrong inning, wrong position in batting order for Conigliaro, etc.), and de-emphasizes the potential gain that the Angels would have achieved if Conigliaro had been removed from the game due to injury. Furthermore, Hamilton claims to have tried to visit Conigliaro in that same afternoon, but since the injury occurred during a night game, Hamilton would only have visited Conigliaro the next day at the very earliest. As Ceci concludes, “[Hamilton] has constructed an account that permits him to view his role in the termination of Conigliaro’s career (and nearly his life) as being more benign than it may have been on that summer evening.”
In any event, as it would turn out, Cloud’s memory distortion and its resultant confounding of his identity with Zack’s was one of the best things that ever happened to him. While the delusion was still intact, he was able to believe that he had made SOLDIER First-Class and forget about his vulnerability and insecurity. His lack of self-doubt enabled him to live up to his full potential—as a mercenary, bodyguard, motorcycle daredevil, guerilla commander, chocobo jockey, snowboarder…in fact, as a dramatic example of “mind over body,” he even stopped suffering from motion sickness!
It is important to note, however, that while Cloud’s conscious self believed in the reconstructed, confabulated memory, his “true” memories were still locked away in his subconscious. Further, there was still a “true” self deep in his subconscious that had not confounded its own identity with that of Zack. This “true” self of Cloud’s occasionally breaks into Cloud’s awareness, mostly as the “gray voice” that Cloud often hears on Disc 1 when he is at the edge of consciousness after being asleep or knocked out. This is one of the keys to understanding Cloud as a character. As he himself says in the Respectable Inn in Junon, when explaining the division of materia: “People tell me that my personality is divided. But I don’t think so, but maybe it is…”
Cloud has yet another division to his personality, though—a third “self.” Cloud is not aware of this third self at the start of the game, but by the end of Disc 1, he is able to say:
I came here by my own free will... Or so I thought. However... ...To tell the truth, I'm afraid of myself. ...There is a part of me that I don't understand. That part that made me give the Black Materia to Sephiroth...There's something inside of me. A person who is not really me.
This third self is the presence of Jenova in Cloud’s mind. It had been lying dormant ever since his injection with Jenova cells, but as Jenova emerges from its suspended animation, it begins to “pull on Cloud’s puppet strings.” This third self is very different qualitatively from the “second self,” the one whose identity is confounded with Zack’s. Cloud identified with Zack after he was forced to reject Sephiroth, and the later effects of the Mako poisoning took this identification to extremes. Cloud integrated Zack into his personality, with the result being a “second self.” As pathological as this integration and resultant “second self” may be, there is no question that, for well or for ill, this self was a true part of Cloud, even if it wasn’t the “true” Cloud. The Jenova presence, on the other hand, was not integrated into Cloud’s personality. It is there only by virtue of the presence of the foreign, virus-like Jenova cells, and it was never something that Cloud’s psyche (even pathologically) “drew into itself.” Whereas Cloud’s “conscious” and “true” selves resulted from a sort of split in his identity, the “third self” was the presence of a completely foreign mind that had supernaturally gained a foothold inside Cloud’s psyche. We might say that Cloud’s mind “swallowed” Jenova, but did not “digest” it. It would be ironic that Sephiroth should have an unwelcome presence in Cloud’s mind through the Jenova cells, in spite of Cloud’s psychological rejection of him. But this is exactly the situation, for Jenova and Sephiroth are, for most intents and purposes, one and the same.9
Conclusion
Of course, at the start of the game, Cloud is happily oblivious to the fragmentation of his personality and the inaccuracy of his memories. How do these complications play out through the action in the “present” of the game world? The answer is fairly straightforward, since the backstory is the truly complicated part of the game.
During the entire pursuit of Sephiroth that begins in Midgar, Cloud is not following Sephiroth by his own free will. Instead, he is fulfilling the natural inclination of the Jenova cells in his body. As stated by the Jenova Reunion theory, if Jenova’s body is broken apart, the pieces will reunite, and this seems to include individuals who carry Jenova cells in their bodies. Of course, Cloud does not realize this. He believes that he is chasing Sephiroth so that he can “settle the score,” and so he can find out what really happened in Nibelheim five years ago. He is not unlike Sophocles’ King Oedipus (the namesake of Freud’s “Oedipal complex”), whose blind pursuit of justice and truth led to his downfall.
The “third self” is even capable of completely taking control of Cloud for brief moments, such as when he gives the Black Materia to Sephiroth at the ruins of the Temple of the Ancients…or, for example, at the Water Altar in the Forgotten City, where Cloud almost performs that unspeakable deed himself… But in the latter example, Cloud regains control of himself just in time, called back to consciousness by the vociferous protests of his on-looking friends, and Jenova/Sephiroth has to act on its own. After the tragedy, at the end of Disc 1, Cloud is fully aware of the “third self,” but he nevertheless declares, “I… I must go on,” and asks of the others present, “…I have a favor to ask of you. Will you all come with me? …To save me from doing something terrible.” Because Cloud is aware that someone can “pull on his puppet strings,” and has his friends to protect him from himself, Jenova/Sephiroth is never again able to assert direct control.
Instead, it tries a different tactic. Knowing that Cloud’s memory distortion is the chink in his psychological armor, Sephiroth exploits the gaps in Cloud’s memory in his illusion at the Northern Cave crater. Though Cloud is naturally disbelieving at first, his belief in his reconstructed memories is thoroughly shaken. Sephiroth eventually succeeds in making him believe that he was constructed in a laboratory as a failed experiment, and Cloud is turned into a craven, docile servant of Sephiroth, who willingly surrenders the Black Materia, and does not flee when Weapon awakens and the Lifestream floods the crater.
Ironically, just as Cloud was poisoned with Mako when his memory was first distorted and his personality first split, so is he also poisoned with Mako—in fact, veritably swimming in it—when his memory is restored and his personality is defragmented. While Cloud and Tifa are floating about in the Lifestream in Mideel, the two take a journey together deep into Cloud’s psyche that is reminiscent of the hypnosis scenes from the 1976 movie Sybil, and much that was hidden is revealed. Perhaps most importantly of all, Cloud is finally able to express his true feelings for Tifa. After this therapeutic and cathartic experience, Cloud is finally able to accept himself, confident that he will always have Tifa by his side (indeed, later in the game, depending on the choices the player has made, he and Tifa may consummate their relationship physically!). Cloud is finally strong enough to stand on his own without neurotic defense mechanisms, and is ready to save the Planet from Meteor.
However Cloud’s final intrapsychic struggle has yet to transpire, for indeed, it is the true final battle of Final Fantasy VII. Even after the physical form(s) of Jenova/Sephiroth are defeated, Cloud is not yet victorious, for there is still his “third self,” the Jenova/Sephiroth in his mind. This is the meaning of the battle after the One-Winged Angel is defeated, wherein Cloud hurtles through ethereal tunnels to confront a specter of Sephiroth: in an act of pure will, he Omnislashes the last vestige of Jenova/Sephiroth out of his psyche and into the Lifestream, where—nature taking its course—it dissolves.
Endnotes
1. In this article, I use the expression “inferiority complex” to refer generally to Cloud’s feelings of inferiority, insecurity, and inadequacy, and the psychological problems associated with these feelings. Though this article takes a decidedly Freudian perspective, “inferiority complex” is an idea associated with the theories of Alfred Adler, a student and later a rival of Freud. As an aside, I believe that an Adlerian analysis of Cloud Strife might prove very illuminating indeed.
2. We might also predict that there would be latent erotic attraction to the mother, but this does not appear to be relevant for Cloud’s case. The fact that this prediction does not hold true for him is definitely a weak point of the orthodox Freudian interpretation I present here, and it suggests that alternate theories (such as post-Freudian theory—see note 4) would have some utility in interpreting Cloud as a character. As an aside, I would cite Sephiroth, and Seifer from Final Fantasy VIII, as examples of video game characters with “mommy issues” of this type.
3. This is in contrast to conventional feminine gender roles, which are described as being generally “communal,” i.e. relationship-centered. One of the notable contributions of psychologists such as Sandra L. Bem (1984) and her contemporaries is that her Bem Sex Role Inventory (first published in 1971) does not treat masculinity and femininity as polar opposites. Rather, the inventory has two axes, one for masculinity and one for femininity; thus, it is possible for a respondent to the Inventory to be both masculine and feminine (“androgynous”) or even neither masculine nor feminine (termed “undifferentiated”).
4. I wish at this point to discuss, as a brief aside, the applicability of an alternate theory of male psychosexual development. Specifically, this theory would be the contributions of several post-Freudian ego psychologists as summarized by Gilmore (1990) his book on social constructions of masculinity. “Post-Freudian theory” postulates that during infancy, the child does not distinguish between self and mother, living in a state similar to what Freud termed “primary narcissism.” However, as the child grows, it becomes aware of its existence as an individual separate from the mother. Corollary to the child’s emerging sense of separate individuality is a sense of separate gender identity. The child must come to conceive of itself as distinctly male or female, as appropriate, since societies in which it is acceptable to be both or neither are very few indeed. Girls have an easier time doing this, because the initial psychic union between mother and daughter reinforces the girl’s sense of her femininity. Boys, on the other hand, in addition to psychically separating from the mother, must also assume a social role that is different from hers. To become a man, then, a boy must “break the chain to his mother.” Always there is the lure of the warmth and safety of the infantile oneness with his primary caregiver, and the regressive tendency to return to it. Thus, post-Freudians believe that ambivalence—the desire to regress combined with the fear of losing one’s independence—rather than castration anxiety is the key to answering why so many cultures feel they must forcibly mold their boys into men. Permit me to point out that molding boys into men is usually the father’s role, and that this helps to explain why the lack of a father may adversely affect a boy’s development. Perhaps the fatherless Cloud was allowed to indulge his regressive wish to remain attached to his mother, and therefore had little confidence in his ability to function as a man. In any event, a thorough discussion of this interpretation is beyond the scope of the present article.
5. However, I think it is possible that the former did indeed result from the latter. First of all, based on what I have discussed thus far in this article, I think it is reasonable to believe that, even at a young age, Cloud did not accept himself because he doubted his ability to live up to society’s expectations of “male” behavior. I suspect that, to protect his conscious ego from these feelings of self-rejection, his psyche employed the defense mechanism that Freud called “projection” (Freud, 1915/1961), and he projected his hostility toward himself onto his peers. In other words, he couldn’t accept that he couldn’t accept himself, so he came to believe that others around him did not accept him. I do not dispute that Cloud—or at least part of him—genuinely wanted to be socially accepted, but I suggest that this was his conscious desire, and that his subconscious had other objectives in mind. Cloud recalls, “I really wanted to play with everyone, but I was never allowed into the group,” but note that he does not say who never allowed him into the group. His use of passive voice is quite telling, and I suspect that Cloud, without being aware of it, did not allow himself into the group, because it was less painful for his psyche that he be rejected by others than rejected by himself. Although part of him genuinely wanted to be socially accepted, he relinquished this frustrated wish by believing himself to be superior to those with whom he wanted to associate. As he tells Tifa:
I used to think... they were all stupid. You were all childish, laughing at every little stupid thing…Then later... I began to think I was different... That I was different from those immature kids… I was so prejudiced. And... weak.
“Sour grapes”—since his subconscious wouldn’t allow him to have what he wanted, he decided that he didn’t really want it anyway.
6. There is a belief, growing in popularity, that a home with both a mother and a father is no more beneficial for children than any other parental arrangement. I do not wish to castigate single parents or homosexual couples with children, and recognize that many such people are good parents. However, in light of what I have just discussed here, I feel I must condemn this belief in the strongest possible terms. I believe that children who grow up with both a mother and a father observe firsthand a heterosexual relationship that is (at least somewhat) successful, and they internalize “scripts” for behavior in such a relationship. For a discussion on the importance of children growing up with both a mother and a father, see Stanton (2003). For a more scholarly review of the unique functions of fathers, see Popenoe (1996), who flatly declares, “I know of few other bodies of evidence whose weight leans so much in one direction as does the evidence about family structure: On the whole, two parents—a father and a mother—are better for the child than one parent” (p. 8).
7. Cloud’s situation is comparable to that of Locke from Final Fantasy VI, who was tormented by his failure to save Rachel from falling when a bridge in the mountains gave way underneath her. Rachel was left with no memory of Locke, who was forbidden by her father to see her anymore, and she later died.
8. It is interesting to note that some people ironically find Sephiroth to be somewhat feminine in appearance, presumably due to his sharp, delicate features, his big eyes, and his long hair. I think this little inconsistency only adds to the aura of creepy charisma that hangs about him.
9. If I must choose either Sephiroth or Jenova as the dominant entity of the two, then I am inclined to agree with Glenn “Squall of SeeD” Morrow’s assertion that Jenova is the “puppet-master” (see http://www.geocities.com/ff7analysis/index.html). Jenova does not “control” Sephiroth; rather, Sephiroth furthers the ends of Jenova because he has had Jenova cells in his body since before birth. It is in his nature to further the ends of Jenova, just as, say, it is in the nature of a cat to hunt mice. However, for my purposes in this article, it is enough to say that Sephiroth and Jenova are one and the same.
References
Bem, S. L. (1984). Androgyny and gender schema theory: a conceptual and empirical integration. In T.B. Sonderegger (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 32, 179-226.
Biller, H. B. (1981). The father and sex role development. In M. E. Lamb (Ed.), The Role of the Father in Child Development (pp. 319-358). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Blanchard, R. W., & Biller, H. B. (1971). Father availability and academic performance among third-grade boys. Developmental Psychology, 4, 301-305.
Ceci, S. J. (1995). False beliefs: Some developmental and clinical considerations. In Schacter, D. L., et al. (Eds.), Memory distortions: How minds, brains, and societies reconstruct the past (pp. 91-125). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Freud, S. (1959). The passing of the Oedipus-Complex. In J. Riviere (Trans) & E. Jones (Ed.), Sigmund Freud: collected papers Vol. II (pp. 269-276). New York: Basic Books, Inc. (Original work published in 1924).
Freud, S. (1959). Dostoevsky and parricide. In J. Strachey (Ed.), Sigmund Freud: collected papers Vol. V (pp. 222-242). New York: Basic Books, Inc. (Original work published 1928).
Freud, S. (1961). The unconscious. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 159-216). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1915).
Freud, S. (1961). The ego and the id. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 19, pp. 3-66). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1923).
Freud, S. (1966). The complete introductory lectures on psychoanalysis (J. Strachey, Ed. & Trans). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. (Original work published 1933).
Freud, S. (1969). An outline of psycho-analysis (J. Strachey, Ed. & Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. (Original work published 1949).
Gilmore, D. D. (1990). Manhood in the making: Cultural concepts of masculinity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Hoffman, M. L. (1971). Father absence and conscience development. Developmental Psychology, 4, 400-406.
Johnson, M. K., Hashtroudi, S., & Lindsay, D. S. (1993). Source monitoring. Psychological Bulletin, 114(1), 3-28.
Loftus, E. F. (1993). The reality of repressed memories. American Psychologist, 48, 518-537.
Loftus, E. F., Miller, D. G., & Burns, H. J. (1978). Semantic integration of verbal information into a visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning, 4, 19-31.
Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 585-589.
Nugent, J. K. (1991). Cultural and psychological influences on the father’s role in infant development. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53, 475-485.
Popenoe, D. (1996). Life without father. New York: The Free Press.
Stanton, G. T. (2003, August 29). Why children need father-love and mother-love. CitizenLink. Retrieved July 17, 2005 from http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/marriage/ssuap/a0027554.cfm
Special Thanks
Glenn “Squall of SeeD” Morrow, for his “Final Fantasy VII Analysis” (http://www.geocities.com/ff7analysis/index.html), and particularly for his insightful points regarding the relationship between Jenova and Sephiroth. Additionally, I am grateful to “Squall of SeeD” for reading a draft of this article and offering his criticism.
Maou, for his “The Jenova Project~A Timeline” (http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff7/info/JenovaProject.txt), and Sophie “falsehead” Cheshire, for her “Final Fantasy VII Plot Analysis” (http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/file/final_fantasy_vii_plot.txt). Both of these helped me keep everything straight in my head, and stimulated thought. Additionally, I am grateful to Maou for reading a draft of this article and offering his criticism.
“Little Chiba,” for her/his complete script of Final Fantasy VII (http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff7/ff7cscript.html), which was always useful when I needed a direct quote from the game!
“ToasterThief,” from the Awful Forums (forums.somethingawful.com), for his insightful comments about Final Fantasy VII.
My sister, Margaret, for letting me play her copy of Final Fantasy VII, and for always being willing to discuss it with me.
This article is dedicated to the memory of Aeris Gainsborough…
“She’s like a cherry blossom: great beauty, short life, dramatic death.”
--Robert M. Kirkpatrick
“She was smiling to the end.”
--Cloud Strife
