Final Fantasy and Philosophy: The Ultimate Walkthrough (18 page)

While Sartre considered our inherent lack of an essence to be liberating, insofar as it opens up an infinite number of possibilities for us, he also recognized that such a condition can be largely
unsettling
. The Buster Sword, whose essence is determined in advance of its creation, for example, need not worry about what it is in fact. Indeed, the Buster Sword is just that,
a sword
, and it will always
be
a sword until it no longer functions as such. The human individual, however, has no determinate essence and must choose what he or she will become. We may, one day, choose to become a member of SOLDIER, as Cloud did in his childhood, or, just as well, we may choose to become a member of AVALANCHE and fight against the malevolent Shinra corporation instead. In either case, what we become is determined purely by the choices that we make and by how we project ourselves toward our own freely chosen goals. The catch, of course, is that our freedom is
absolute
: we cannot escape the fact that we
must
make our own choices, nor can we have anyone choose for us in our place—even choosing
not
to choose is a choice in itself!

As one might imagine, this absolute freedom can be quite cumbersome at times. So long as we are living in a world without a God-determined essence, we have no choice but to act according to our own free will—and by our own free will
alone
. Because of this, we are to be held completely responsible for our own actions, no exceptions. If we perform an act that we later decide to be reprehensible, such as the destruction of an entire sector of Midgar, citizens included, we have nobody to blame for it but ourselves. In such a case, I could not truthfully say that God created me in order to perform such a terrible act, because, as a free being whose existence precedes his essence, I am always free to choose otherwise (namely, to refuse to carry out the destructive act). Cloud is, of course, no exception to the rule. He must, at nearly every turn, choose which course of action to take, and we, as the game’s players, must guide him along the way. In encountering Aeris for the first time, for example, we can choose to address or ignore her concerns. Similarly, we can choose to buy a flower from her or instead tell her to “forget it.” We cannot, however, avoid making these choices altogether. In fact, as we come to learn later on, the choices we do make will, in part, determine how we are perceived by others. If we choose to treat Aeris poorly, we should not be surprised if she does not show up as Cloud’s late-night date at the Gold Saucer in disc 1.
⁴
Of course, while there are times in which we might want to escape the consequences of our choices, it would appear that, in reality, it is not possible for us to do so. Indeed, we are, as Sartre himself would say,
condemned to be free
and must, as a result, accept the responsibility that accompanies our absolute freedom.

The
Bad Faith
of SOLDIER

Although it is true that the human individual is necessarily free, Sartre contended that we often attempt to deny our own freedom through various means. We might, for example, pretend that we are people whose jobs or roles within society completely determine the choices we make and that, as a result, we could
not
choose otherwise. A weapon salesman, for example, might excuse his cowardice in times of war on the grounds that he is
merely
a salesman and that it’s not in his “salesman nature” to participate in acts of combat. Of course, in reality, the salesman isn’t
only
just that: he could, at any time, choose to arm himself with his own wares and fend off the waves of incoming monsters—whether he would be
wise
to do so is, of course, another matter altogether!

What’s interesting to note about these personal cover-ups, however, is that we as human beings have the peculiar capacity to actually
believe
them ourselves. Unlike blatant lies in which the liar fully understands that he is being dishonest, acts of
self-deception
, Sartre contended, call for the liar to dupe himself. Sartre explained the phenomenon by describing the motions of a particular waiter in a café:

Let us consider this waiter in the café. His movement is quick and forward, a little too precise, a little too rapid. He comes toward the patrons with a step a little too quick. He bends forward a little too eagerly; his voice, his eyes express an interest a little too solicitous for the order of the customer. . . . He is playing, he is amusing himself. But what is he playing? We need not watch long before we can explain it: he is playing at
being
a waiter in a café.
⁵

The key word here really is
being
. The waiter’s rigid movements are not merely an attempt at imitating the characteristics that one might find present in a perfect waiter. More fundamentally, his attempt is that of passing himself off completely as some
thing
that he is not. To be sure, the waiter is not merely a waiter: he certainly has a life outside of the café, complete with his own hobbies, interests, and desires (at least, we would hope!). Nevertheless, he has chosen to portray himself as some sort of waiterlike “robot” by ignoring everything that’s irrelevant to being a waiter and adopting instead a series of actions that are clearly not natural to him. But worst of all, he believes that he can actually pull it off! This belief, that it might be possible for us to sever our ties with our freedom and act as if we are not actually responsible for our own actions, is called
bad faith
and was considered by Sartre to be a mode of inauthentic being that is all too common in each of our lives, the lives of
Final Fantasy VII
being no exception.

Consider the case of Cloud. In his initial appearances, he portrays himself as a cold and arrogant mercenary whose only care is to be reimbursed for his contributions to AVALANCHE. His responses to others are short and to the point, and he has no apparent desire go beyond what is strictly required of him. His oversized Buster Sword, perhaps a bit too large for his comparatively small frame, is displayed with pride, and his uniform, while matching that of his enemy, is worn without shame. When asked for his opinion or in times when others might express theirs, he is quick to disclose that such matters are insignificant to him and that the only matter of relevance is that hefty sum of gil at the end of the day. But what can we say to this? Well, to Sartre, the answer is clear: Cloud is playing at
being
a SOLDIER!

Inauthenticity and the Life of the Mercenary

Existentialist philosophers such as Sartre, Heidegger, and Nietzsche would all agree that not only is the human life solely what we make of it, but that what we make of it can be determined only by our own free choices and actions. They also tend to agree that the choices we do make will inevitably lead us down one of two possible paths in life: the
authentic
path, marked by the acceptance of the factical conditions of existence and the will to perpetually create new values, and the
inauthentic
path, marked by the denial of human freedom and the adherence to faulty or stagnant values. Authentic individuals thus possess a strong degree of self-mastery and creativity, whereas inauthentic individuals wallow in slavishness, seeking largely to relieve themselves of the weight of their own responsibilities.

The evolution of Cloud’s story is of particular interest in this regard, as the choices that Cloud makes would seem to carry him from one extreme to the other. Indeed, one might even go so far as to say that Cloud’s “quest” in
Final Fantasy VII
is not so much one to save the world, but rather to come to terms with the coherence of his own role within it. To begin, in his earliest incarnations (shown to us in the Lifestream flashbacks after the destruction of Mideel in disc 2), we find a young Cloud yearning for attention and acceptance in the world:

Cloud: I really wanted to play with everyone, but was never allowed into the group.

Then later:

Cloud: I began to think I was different. . . . That I was different from those immature kids. That then . . . may be . . . just maybe, they would invite me in. I thought that might happen, so I hung around. . . . I was so prejudiced. And . . . weak.

Of course, as we know, Cloud never won acceptance into Tifa’s childhood gang. The open possibilities of the world, however, would soon provide him with new opportunities to prove to Tifa that perhaps he is not as weak as the others think:

Cloud: Come this spring . . . I’m leaving this town for Midgar.

Tifa: . . . All boys are leaving our town.

Cloud: But I’m different from all of them. I’m not just going to find a job. . . . I want to join SOLDIER. I’m going to be the best there is, just like Sephiroth.

While Cloud’s boyhood dream could perhaps be passed off as just that, his decision to pursue a career in SOLDIER would certainly prove to be life-changing. One might even liken this event to the Nietzschean death of God for Cloud, insofar as it marks the adoption of a radical new set of values. Indeed, in these latter stages of his childhood, Cloud comes to the realization that the values of his youth that have been bestowed on him by his community have essentially become obsolete: his attempts to fit in with his peers by “being himself” have failed, and he finds himself left only to his own devices and the breadth of the open world. The decision to climb the ranks to SOLDIERhood would seem to offer the potential solution to his growing nihilism, but in that same decision also lurks the danger of growing further away from his goal of true independence.

Unfortunately, Cloud’s choice seems only to have led him down the latter path. In the first half of the game, Cloud comports himself wholly as if he succeeded in rising up to the top rank of First Class SOLDIER. Even his own memories (as disclosed to us in the early flashback scene at Kalm in disc 1) portray him as having fought side by side with Sephiroth against the dangerous monsters of Mount Nibel. What we learn in the second half, however, is a completely different story: Cloud never became a First Class SOLDIER. In fact, Cloud never joined SOLDIER at all. As we learn in the Lifestream flashback scenes in disc 2, his service to Shinra’s military forces never went beyond that of a common guard:

Cloud: I . . . never made it as a member of SOLDIER. I even left my hometown telling everyone I was going to join, but . . . I was so embarrassed. . . . I didn’t want to see anybody.

And by this, the truth is revealed: Cloud’s initial “tough guy” attitude of the game’s first half was never of his own making but rather was adopted entirely through his own conception of what a First Class SOLDIER should
be
. In the optional Shinra mansion flashback sequence of disc 3, we learn that Cloud’s idea to work as a mercenary in Midgar, as well as his SOLDIER uniform and characteristic Buster Sword, all belonged to Zack, Aeris’s then boyfriend and a true First Class SOLDIER:

Zack: Listen, I’m gonna become a mercenary and that’s that. Boring stuff, dangerous stuff, anything for money. I’m gonna be rich! . . . Cloud? What are YOU gonna do?

Having just escaped his Mako containment chamber in the mansion’s basement laboratory and seemingly unable (or unwilling) to respond, Cloud remains silent in contrast to Zack’s excitement, leaving Zack to choose his future for him:

Zack: Mercenaries, Cloud. That’s what you an’ me are gonna be.

As we soon find out, however, Zack never gets to live out his dream and is quickly shot down by Shinra guards on his arrival at Midgar. Cloud, however, appearing in a near-dead state, survives the onslaught unscathed, and, after waking up from the events that just transpired, he claims Zack’s sword, as well as Zack’s dream of a mercenary life, as his own.

From SOLDIER to Savior: Cloud’s Turn to Authenticity

The Cloud of the game’s first half is, without doubt, a Cloud living in
bad faith
. His choice to leave Nibelheim was a choice made on the grounds of trying to become some
thing
that he is not, namely, a person of great strength who is respected for his high-standing status among Shinra’s military elite. Of course, the Cloud we eventually come to know possesses neither of these two features. He is merely an ordinary person seeking his own path in the world, perhaps no different in this regard from you or me. Unfortunately, rather than abiding by his own free will and working to create his
own
values, Cloud chooses instead to take the inauthentic route and adopt a persona that is already well established—a persona that he believes will readily propel him into a position of respect and admiration. These mistakes, however, are not entirely unrecoverable. Cloud, as a free human being, is endowed with the capacity to choose otherwise and, more specifically, to make the choice to change his ways. And although we may have reason to believe that Cloud’s exposure to Mako radiation is detrimental to his ability to function autonomously, his willingness to face the darkness of his past at the start of the second half of the game is a strong indication of his desire to start anew, indeed, to start life
authentically
.

After Tifa and Cloud wake up from their submergence in the Lifestream after the attacks on Mideel in disc 2, Tifa finds herself, by whatever means, capable of entering Cloud’s mind and following him through the depths of his own memories. Together, they revisit the fateful mission at Mount Nibel as it frequently appears in the game’s earlier scenes. It is here that Cloud, by his own will, is able to come to terms with the inauthenticity of his past and ultimately give new meaning to his future. We learn, first off, that Cloud’s boyhood weakness and desire to impress Tifa were indeed his primary reasons for pursuing a career with SOLDIER: