Advent Children posits that Zack did not die when he was shot, instead surviving long enough to speak with Cloud. Instead of Cloud waking up to an already killed Zack, the man now gets to pass on his last will and testament. A SOLDIER 1st Class competent enough to work alongside the war hero Sephiroth, Zack is quite literally everything Cloud wants to be but death does not discriminate and Zack does not die a hero, essentially dying alone.Įight years after the fact, Advent Children– Final Fantasy VII’s cinematic sequel– saw fit to retcon Zack Fair’s death. More importantly, Zack’s death reinforces Final Fantasy VII’s raw & real depiction of death. Cloud’s secret flashback in Nibelheim allows us to see what Cloud saw in Zack while putting the SOLDIER front & center without getting in the way of the core plot.
While he had some narrative presence, Zack is treated as little more than a piece of Cloud’s backstory in-game– albeit an important one. That’s arguably what made him so compelling, to begin with. Zack was always supposed to be a smaller piece of a larger puzzle. Cloud awakens to an already dead Zack and breaks down, putting into perspective just how much Zack influenced Cloud. In sight of Midgar, Zack is silently gunned down while Cloud is left to die. The two hit the road as fugitives, with Zack doing his damndest to keep a catatonic & psychologically deteriorated Cloud alive. Experimented on together by Hojo, Zack eventually breaks free from captivity, taking Cloud with him.
By visiting the Shinra Mansion’s basement after Cloud & Tifa rejoin the party midway through Disc 2, a series of cutscenes will be triggered detailing how Zack saved Cloud’s life. In an RPG stuffed with plenty of memorable optional content, the death of Zack Fair is arguably Final Fantasy VII’s greatest secret.
0 kommentar(er)
