why do you like him so much?

well i'm glad you asked !!! [FINAL FANTASY 7 SPOILERS]

honestly, its hard to begin with why i like cloud so much without talking about [final fantasy 7]. although its basic, i really do love it as my favorite game ever. i first played it back in 2018 when i found out how to emulate the playstation on my phone. it was really, really, laggy... but i powered through and i loved it anyway. back then as a kid, i didn't /really/ understand the game but all i knew was that i loved the music, the atmosphere, the story, and of course, the characters.

cloud as a favorite character pick is honestly sooo basic but i can't help it, i relate to him a lot and see a lot of myself onto him, which i think is a big point of why so many people like him. like when you really look at the story as a whole, he wasn't meant to be a hero, he kind of was meant to be a normal guy. he's failed so many times, he failed to join soldier, he failed to save zack, he failed to save aerith... there have been so many instances during the game where he's been so close to dying or giving but still in the end— he was able to persevere. which i admire , a lot honestly.

he's just one of those characters where i think "i want to see you happy !!! i want to see you live the life you want !!!". the end of the original ff7 was kind of open ended, but we can see in advent children that despite the baggage he carries with him— the heaviest he carries being the fact he couldnt save aerith— he still tries his best to live on. and like it is in real life, it isn't easy !! he struggles a lot, and he ends up hurting people.

AC Prologue: Nojima: “Cloud never had a candid personality to begin with, and although he started living with Tifa and even started working, he obtained a peaceful livinghe’s never experienced before, and this conversely made him anxious. And in the midst of this he contracts Geostigma himself, and rather than being able to protect the people dear to him, he instead was forced to face his own death, and so ran away.”

there have been so many times when i played it back in 2018, and even when i replayed it in 2025 where i was like "omg he's just like me fr."

as a kid he was kind of a punk, had a temper, and wasn’t really liked by adults. there’s even stuff that might imply he was a bastard child, which is… yeah. then he develops a crush on tifa, the incident happens, and to prove himself he leaves for midgar to become soldier... but he fails, and ends up as an infantryman instead.

by the time he meets zack at 14, he’s mellowed out a bit. he likes corny jokes!! (me? gongaga) and his temper is more controlled (though moments like the nibelheim incident show it's still there). then ff7 begins, and because of mako poisoning, trauma, and zack, he ends up mixing emories and starts acting out this emo persona. aerith sees through it, and tells him during their gold saucer date 'i want to know the real you, cloud' (this isn't verbatim dont @ me..) until everything collapses during his identity crisis and... aerith’s death ˙◠˙

after tifa helps him piece himself back together during disc 3, we finally see the real cloud as an adult. he's a little loser-ish, jokes more, and allows himself to be vulnerable. he leans on his friends, asks for help, gives advice, apologizes— things his soldieer persona wouldn’t do. he accepts his past, and himself a little.

then meteor is stopped!!! woohoo!! and it feels like things might finally be okay ?

in "on the way to a smile", cloud actually tries really hard. he takes in denzel, a kid who has geostigma, and keeps pushing forward for his sake. but when he gets geostigma himself, something in him just gives out. he keeps going, but he feels ... exhausted and hopeless.

that’s the version of cloud we see in advent children. he’s depressed, withdrawn, and distancing himself from everyone— tifa, marlene, denzel. he barely talks, barely sleeps, and isolates himself from the people who actually care about him. he’s carrying old trauma while adding new pain on top of it. he’s just not okay. but the latter half of the movie is him slowly finding his way back, starting to reconnect, starting to heal.

so really, cloud is awkward, loves corny jokes, cares deeply about his friends and family. he’s not naturally cold or distant, it's a learned behavior he uses to cope.

something i dislike is a lot of people either view him based on his soldier persona or how he is advent children (mostly larpers probaby...), so people think that’s his “real” personality. but that’s not!!! really!!! him!!!

so yes i like cloud a lot... he isn't really perfect, but i like him because he’s not. he struggles, he fails, but he still keeps trying, over and over again.

fun facts