Who I think Zack is

So much of Zack’s character is left to mystery, but I think that was done on purpose. We can see Zack in other places if we know where to look.

For the first disc and a half of the game, Cloud, in essence, is Zack. SOLDIER, first class, friends with Sephiroth--all of that is part of who Zack is, not who Cloud is. Cloud is not the strong willed, uncaring warrior he has fooled everyone, including himself, into thinking he is. Cloud is really nothing more than a scared little boy running from a past he doesn’t want to remember, making up for his own failures by putting himself in someone else’s shoes. (Not to discredit Cloud or anything. He is my second favorite character, after all. His own strength of character just isn’t revealed until later.)

Some of the proof of Cloud’s adoption of Zack’s personality is shown in Aeris. Granted, we have no way of knowing just how much of Zack’s personality and character Cloud adopted as his own, but Aeris saw the similarities. Her exact words from the date (if you pick her) come to play here:

"First off, it bothered me how you looked exactly like. Two completely different people, but look exactly the same. The way you walk, gesture... I think I must have seen him again, in you..."

Gathering what we can from the flashes of Zack we see and the qualities of Cloud’s personality in the earlier parts of the game, we can construct something of a loose personality for Zack. Loyalty seems to play a big role in both of their personalities. For example, rather than leaving Cloud somewhere and going off on his own, which would have been safer and more practical, Zack chose to bring Cloud with him on his trek to Midgar to ensure his safety. Cloud, too, only remained with AVALANCHE because he felt he should remain loyal to an old acquaintance--Tifa. There are other aspects of Zack’s personality shining through in Cloud as well.

That’s not to say that Cloud was an identical copy of Zack. Tifa was the first person Cloud saw, and the fact that he grew up with her influenced his delusions a lot. Suddenly, he was from Nibelheim. He had a past. Here was someone he knew when he was growing up. Cloud couldn’t be Zack when Tifa was there, not completely. When things didn’t make sense, he improvised. He made things up to fill in the blanks in his head, and that’s where the differences start.

I have a very distinct view of Zack in my mind, and it isn’t early game Cloud. But when I think of Zack, I don’t factor in the five years of torture and the escape and all that because Zack never made it to Midgar. When I think of him, it’s his years in Shinra that I think of. If I were to add all this weight, this experience, and place on top of that the death of his best friend, I think maybe that’s where we start to see early game Cloud. Cloud doesn’t even realize a lot of these things, but in the back of his mind, I believe he knows he’s lost someone. He just can’t remember who.

Granted, this is all speculation. But still, there are the snippets of Cloud’s memory where we see him cheerfully informing Cloud that he’s going to get rich in no time as a mercenary and that of course he wouldn’t leave his friend hanging like that. If Cloud was a failure, a weak little boy running away from his past, how did he get so strong? Simple. He took his strength from a man who endured five years of torture and then carried his half dead companion across two continents to ensure his safety...and still could joke about it.

Holy strength of character, Batman.

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