FFVIIR Yuffie DLC After Credit’s Scene

˗ˏˋ 2月7日 HAPPY BIRTHDAY AERITH! ˎˊ˗

Truth

Since forever and I hope I'll never change

Do you ever feel so detached from the world because you’re constantly living in the fictional/fantasy worlds in your head given that reality is just too boring, too limiting, and too uneventful????

Today's lucky lady is the big-boned girl!

Is Sonon really dead?

Yuffie’s mission in Midgar ended unsuccessfully. Shinra destroyed the base of her allies in Sector 7, she couldn’t get hold of the Ultimate Materia and, most importantly, Sonon died in order to save her.

His death gives a sense of closure to this newly introduced character. Although being quite short, the DLC is full of clever parallels between Yuffie and Melphie, Sonon's younger sister who got killed in front of his eyes during the Wutai war. He failed to save Melphie back then, but he can save Yuffie now.

But the big question is: is Sonon really dead?

The OST playing during the death scene is Seeing Melphie again. After getting stabbed, he has a vision of his little sister (a very touching moment tied to FFVII theme of reunion in the afterlife) accompanied by a bitterweet piano melody, that gets always softer until his last breath. But just when Nero seems to finish Sonon off, instead of mercilessly swallowing him into the darkness, he gently picks him up while the music digresses in an ominious and mysterious tone, hinting that his role may be not over yet.

But what could Nero want from Sonon?

I think the answer may be deduced diggin a bit into Dirge of Cerberus lore.

There's a not very well known entry related to the main DoC game (especially by the western audience since it had been released only in Japan and for a very short period of time): Dirge of Cerberus Multiplayer on-line. While some of the missions were later included in the international release of DoC, the plot of this game got lost despite its importance for the full understanding of the Deepground dynamics.

Here is a link for an excellent article from thelifestream.net that tries to keep a record of this expired entry, and here's a playlist of cutscenes from the game with English subtitles that helps understanding the main plot (btw, a great YT channel where you can also find localized playthroughs of rarities like DoC Lost Episode and Before Crisis).

A quick summary about Deepground and the Multiplayer game.

Deepground is a top secret facility created by President Shinra and located beneath the slums (remember that underground lab where Cloud, Barret and Tifa went to save Wedge? That's Deepground) where troopers and SOLDIERs - but also unaware civilians - endure severe experimentations that push their bodies and minds to the limit, aiming to create ruthless SOLDIERs with no moral boundaries. The elite DG SOLDIERs are known as Tsviets, like Weiss, Nero, Argento, Shelke, Rosso and Azul. To avoid any rebellion each candidate and Tsviet has a restriction chip implanted in their brain controlled by four Restrictors loyal to President Shinra. This mechanism is particoularly useful to control those Tsviets who don't make a distinction between allies and enemies.

Because of this the Tsviets started to secretly plot against Shinra until they finally understood how to cheat the system. Shelke and Argento found a way to implant a non-working chip in a candidate, so that they could kill the Restrictors. The protagonist of DoC Multiplayer is indeed this candidate (gender and name chosen by the player). Thanks to her special abilities Shelke tricked the candidate into seeing a supporting partner, Usher, who helped them into ranking as a Tsviet, and most importantly she instilled the hatred towards the Restrictors giving to the candidate false memories of a little sister brutally killed by one of them. In the end the candidate managed to kill one of the Restrictors but got stabbed as well. This is the final dialogue of the game:

Weiss: Can this one still be of any use?

Shelke: Negative. The prolonged SND [Synaptic Net Dive] has rendered most of the brain inaccessible. It's only a matter of time before it breaks down completely.

Rosso: Really? After all that hard work. What a shame.

Weiss: Then hurry up and find a suitable replacement. After all no one knows what the Restrictors really look like.

Azul: So we have to find another one? This is becoming frustrating.

Weiss: It can't be helped. Only one out of hundreds can make it this far.

Rosso: Ordinary humans simply aren't as strong as we are.

Weiss: Precisely.

Shelke: Well, it's actually quite simple. With the help of the HJ Virus I am able to hack into Patricia [computer system] and bypass security. Then all that's needed is to pick a suitable subject before it's implanted with the chip.

Weiss: Shelke, find a new one quickly.

The devs had never provided any time reference for the Multiplayer story but now, with Intergrade, we know for sure that the Tsviets are still under Shinra's control when Yuffie and Sonon met Nero on December 12, and, while the President will be killed the next night, it seems clear that Scarlet is the one who will take full control of Deepground until her defeat the next month.

Conclusion

My theory is that Sonon could be the perfect person to replace the Tsviet-candidate and the dead Restrictor, so that Weiss and the gang can pursure their plan of rebellion gainst Shinra:

Unlike many soldiers Sonon has proved to be an extremely strong and capable fighter standing up to Nero.

He has the right motivation as he seeks revenge against Shinra - especially Scarlet - for the death of his younger sister, which Shelke could further manipulate.

Unlike any other Deepground candidate, he has no working restriction chip implanted.

Sure, one could argue that Nero severely wounded him, but the game clearly reminded us before the battle that Nero can easily disintegrate the bodies of his victims, while he reserves a different treatment to this particoular character. And, by the way, this wouldn't even be the first time a Tsviet pretends to kill someone as Shelke did the same with the Tsviet-candidate. As far as I know the main DoC game never explained how the Tsviets overpowered the remaining Restrictors, who replaced the Tsviet-candidate or what happened to Argento - who isn't part of the DoC cast. Sonon might be the missing piece of this sub-plot that may lead to new secondary arcs that could tie a bit more Deepground to the main FFVII story.

Flowers.

Happy Birthday Aerith 🌸

A Glimpse into Cloud's Mentality in Advent Children

This is kind of meant to serve as a companion piece to my three-part series on Cloud's psychology in Final Fantasy VII. I haven't addressed Advent Children Cloud yet, who arguably has an entirely different set of psychological problems to deal with. While OG Cloud was certainly driven by trauma, trauma was not his primary demon. Yet I often hear people say that AC Cloud definitely has PTSD or disorder XYZ. So, I thought I'd use my clinical background to break down what happened in Cloud's head during AC. I will not be discussing disorders here, since I'm saving those for another post.

Trauma

I know I literally just said trauma wasn't OG Cloud's primary demon, but that's why I specified OG Cloud. AC Cloud is in an entirely new context with a new set of problems, part of which involves how trauma affects his life after the main conflict is over. So to start, let's first answer the question of "Why does trauma stay with a person even after the cause of the trauma is no longer there?"

Think of the traumatized brain as a brain stuck in survival mode. It learned from a past traumatic experience that you can't afford to turn off this survival mentality, that you need to constantly be on alert. This is part of the primitive fight, flight, or freeze response that humans have, and for someone who is in a traumatizing situation, that response is absolutely necessary for coping with it. But, when you are finally safe and no longer in a dangerous situation, the traumatized brain may not know how to turn survival mode off. Therefore, it continues to provide a trauma response even in the absence of danger. This kind of mentality exhausts you and is why traumatized people still struggle even after they've been removed from their traumatizing situation. It's not that they don't realize they're safe now, but it's that their brains are stuck in this pattern of survival.

Although I wouldn't necessarily describe Cloud this way, this is still a great framework to explain what happened to him. During the events of FFVII, Cloud was in a perpetual state of survival. Once the planet was saved and Cloud could finally settle down in a place to call home, he was no longer in a state where he needed to constantly fend for his life. Cloud might still travel the planet for his delivery job and defend himself from monsters on the road, but the difference post-Meteorfall is that he now has a safe and secure home to return to in Edge. On the Way to a Smile: Case of Tifa even clarifies that Cloud was hopeful for the future right after the OG ended, that he had optimism towards the prospect of starting his newly peaceful life. Yet, he becomes unsettled by this peace partly because he was too used to surviving for so long. His trauma mindset couldn't turn off properly even when he wanted to relax and enjoy the peace he's earned, setting Cloud down a path of cognitive distress.

Oftentimes, when someone who has experienced trauma finally has the opportunity to process it, he is prone to something called rumination. In clinical terms, rumination can be described as a maladaptive perseverative cognition, or in simpler terms, a repetitive focus on distress. It's typically connected to catastrophic thinking (pondering about the worst possible outcomes/scenarios) and a fixation on loss. The American Psychological Association describes it as "obsessional thinking involving excessive, repetitive thoughts or themes that interfere with other forms of mental activity." Another working definition of it from the National Center for Biotechnology Information describes it as "a detrimental psychological process characterized by perseverative thinking around negative content that generates emotional discomfort" (Sansone & Sansone, 2012). The key to rumination is that though it can be self-reflective, it more often resembles brooding. Rumination is a feature of many different disorders, but most commonly associated with anxiety and depressive disorders.

Part of what sent Cloud spiraling was a pattern of ruminative thoughts in the absence of immediate external threats. He's living a peaceful life, but his survival mentality can't shut down easily. He has the time to ruminate on his past failures to the point of interfering with his ability to enjoy his life. If Cloud had used this rumination to put more effort into his job and his family, then he would've been using self-reflection. However, what he's fixated on is his own regrets, which created a pattern of brooding and pessimism. This type of regretful thinking surrounding death even has its own term.

Survivor Guilt

Survivor guilt used to be a diagnosable disorder in the DSM-III, but the DSM-IV reconceptualized it as a symptom of PTSD and the DSM-5 removed it as a symptom entirely (Murray, Pethania, & Medin, 2021). I believe it's because survivor guilt isn't a well-defined or well-researched phenomenon, currently putting it in an undefined territory between a disorder and a symptom. Once there's more empirical research in the field exploring survivor guilt, it may be reintroduced into the DSM, but otherwise it's an open avenue of continuous exploration. Regardless, this doesn't make survivor guilt any less significant or valid in the field of mental health, especially since it is often a part of complex trauma and grief.

Despite the grayness surrounding survivor guilt as a term, I can't think of a better one to describe what Cloud went through. Definition debates aside, survivor guilt generally applies to people who "survived" a traumatic event when others did not. Even though guilt is already a common symptom of PTSD, people with survivor guilt usually feel responsible for another person's death or injury, even when they never really had any power or influence over the situation. Cloud ruminates over Zack and Aerith's deaths due to survivor guilt, and he explicitly states his survivor guilt over Aerith's death in AC. Though neither death was directly his fault, he feels responsible for them in different ways.

For Zack, he felt helpless about how his mako poisoning left him completely dependent on Zack. Zack didn't have to save Cloud. He didn't have to carry him across the world for a year, only to die when they nearly reached their destination. Cloud's guilt surrounding Zack's death is very much in the thought of "it should've been me." Cloud should've been the one to perish, or if Zack simply abandoned Cloud, perhaps he would've made it to Midgar alive.

For Aerith, Cloud feels a greater sense of responsibility for her wellbeing. Their dynamic was established with the notion of Cloud being her bodyguard, as someone whose job is to protect her. Yet, he hurt her at the Temple of the Ancients, and he almost struck her when the party finally reunites with her at the Forgotten City. He was doing the exact opposite of what he was supposed to do. To cap it off, Sephiroth impales Aerith right before Cloud's eyes. Was Jenova preventing him from moving forward to try and save her? Or was Cloud just too paralyzed in the moment to act? Cloud would probably never truly know the answer.

Even when Tifa urges him to think of the present, Cloud feels weighed down by the past. He also asks Vincent if sins can be forgiven, showing that he feels deeply responsible for the deaths he could not prevent. We know that neither Zack's nor Aerith's deaths were Cloud's responsibility, yet he shoulders them anyway as though the blood was on his own hands. Survivor guilt is tough because it always concerns something that happened in the past that can't be changed. It's a product of rumination, of thought patterns stuck on the what-ifs and should-haves.

Grieving and Healing

The reality is, Cloud will very likely continue to struggle with this guilt throughout his life. He will never be able to answer the what-ifs, and never know what the should-haves could've done to change the course of history. If Cloud's going through a particularly tough emotional patch, he might fall back a bit into his old pattern of rumination. The dual process model of grief, depicted above, portrays how healing from grief is not a linear, one-way process. Rather, it can be a lifelong process where Cloud must grow around his grief, rather than letting it become a fixture in his life.

So, how do we know that Cloud is truly on the way to healing at the end of the day? At the very end of AC, after all the credits have rolled, we hear one final exchange between Cloud and Denzel.

Denzel: Is this somebody’s grave? Cloud: No. This is where a hero began his journey.

If I'm not mistaken, this may be the first and only time we've seen Cloud truly acknowledge himself as a hero. While this line can also refer to Zack ("Would you say I [finally] became a hero?"), this also clearly refers to the moment that Cloud took on Zack's legacy, therefore his hero's journey by extension. This is a far cry from "I'm not fit to help anyone."

The other beautiful aspect of this final scene is that it visually shows up how Cloud dealt with his guilt and grief. Look at Zack's final resting place at the start of AC compared to after. Before, Zack's grave was more or less neglected. The buster sword was left to rust and the ground is completely barren. The wolf, meant to represent Cloud's guilt and regret, is present there. Afterwards, when Cloud took the buster sword away, flowers bloomed in its place. The wolf is also no longer present. I like to think of this as a representation of how Cloud made the transition from guilt over Zack's death to celebrating Zack's life. Celebrating the life of a loved one who passed is one of the key ways to work through grief over loss in a healthy way. Rather than fixating on the what-ifs and regrets, grief work focuses on how to honor the loved one and keep their memory close.

The final shot then, with the buster sword placed in the tranquil Sector 5 church, is nothing less than a memorial to Zack and Aerith. The buster sword is clean again and free of rust, now in a sheltered place surrounded by Aerith's healing rain. It is now surrounded by life, in the place where Cloud was welcomed back by his loved ones and resolved to move forward. He can now think of the beautiful parts of Zack and Aerith's lives and cherish their memories, rather than ruminate on them. I can't say that Cloud's journey is a pinnacle example of healing from guilt and grief, but it certainly has a beautifully symbolic depiction of what healing looks like.

One thing about fandom culture is that it sort of trains you to interact with and analyze media in a very specific way. Not a BAD way, just a SPECIFIC way.

And the kind of media that attracts fandoms lends itself well (normally) to those kinds of analysis. Mainly, you're supposed to LIKE and AGREE with the main characters. Themes are built around agreeing with the protagonists and condemning the antagonists, and taking the protagonists at their word.

Which is fine if you're looking at, like, 99% of popular anime and YA fiction and Marvel movies.

But it can completely fall apart with certain kinds of media. If someone who has only ever analyzed media this way is all of a sudden handed Lolita or 1984 or Gatsby, which deal in shitty unreliable narrators; or even books like Beloved or Catcher in the Rye (VERY different books) that have narrators dealing with and reacting to challenging situations- well... that's how you get some hilariously bad literary analysis.

I dont know what my point here is, really, except...like...I find it very funny when people are like "ugh. I hate Gatsby and Catcher because all the characters are shitty" which like....isnt....the point. Lololol you arent supposed to kin Gatsby.

Final Fantasy VII Illustration by:  魚與花雕 @Anu_yu on twitter 

During the dates with Aerith, Tifa or Yuffie at Gold Saucer, Cloud is involved in a theatre play.

It's a very simple and innocent tale where the player has multiple choices. Leaving aside the jokes, the story is about an Evil Dragon King who arrives in a peaceful kingdom, kidnaps the princess and takes her on the peak of a dangerous mountain. The hero goes to rescue her and can ask for the help of a knight or a wizard: if he asks the knight to intervene he's knocked down immediately, while the wizard says that love is the key to defeat the dragon. At the end of the play the dragon is defeated by the power of love.

It's only a fairy tale but...

Nibelheim was a peaceful town before the arrival of Sephiroth. In the area there are several dragons and Sephiroth burns down the whole town. Tifa, the daughter of the village chief, follows him in the reactor on Mt Nibel. Zack tries to fight Sephiroth and he's knocked down, but when Cloud arrives and sees Tifa unconscious, he finds the strenght to stab Sephiroth.

...

What a coincidence.