Hello ladies, is this the line for people who want to badmouth Homura Ameki?!
Because I can throw out some items if need be!
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FF7: Wife-beater Cid? Am I meant to like this guy?
- Thread starter TannerDemoz
- Start date
Hello ladies, is this the line for people who want to badmouth Homura Ameki?!
Because I can throw out some items if need be!
Trigonometrize.
Member
I never really thought about it before but Final Fantasy VII is like the edgiest game ever. I think it works though because there's plenty of levity so that it's not defined by it, but yeah, ow the edge. I'm hoping they don't take the darker elements of VII at face value for the remake and it just turns into my pre-teen imagining of a VII remake.
autoduelist
Member
Not all game characters have to be likable. If we're going to treat this as a mature medium, we need to accept that. That this game came out so long ago [and that no actual 'beating' is going on] makes this thread a bit comical, but the point stands: it's perfectly fine to have characters in games that are abusive. We wouldn't complain about a work of literature having a character like that [though we might complain about the terrible dialog, but that's a different issue].
IMO Vincent is the only truly edgy thing in the game, with maybe Hojo and Sephiroth bordering that fine line.
Everything else either expertly or accidentally avoids falling into obvious and unnecessary uses of "edge." Its surprisingly mature - not to mention heartfelt - in how it handles its themes, like mediocrity, environmentalism, depression, loss, and the human condition.
Of course most of the post-VII depictions of its stories and characters have gone full edge, so I am extremely wary of the remake. Would love to be proven wrong.
tomato shrub
Member
Uh, no. It's very much also a Japanese trope to have husbands/fathers turn bad/pathetic (i.e. abusive) after failing in life one way or the other.
One of the reasons I have hope for the FF7 remake is that the last trailer showed Cloud with the scrawny heroin-junkie physique that I always imagined his depressing ass to have.
The world of FF7 was often dark, grimy, and depressing. But the simplistic dialog added an air of pulpy camp and innocence. Yet another reason I liked the last FF7R trailer: they kept the campy dialog.
They need to have this in the remake, verbatim. FF7 is a pulpy story about a group of hippie-terrorists trying to take down a corporation through violent means.
The world of FF7 was often dark, grimy, and depressing. But the simplistic dialog added an air of pulpy camp and innocence. Yet another reason I liked the last FF7R trailer: they kept the campy dialog.
And Cid is basically an asshole with everyone, I mean, that's how he asks you to drink the tear:
They need to have this in the remake, verbatim. FF7 is a pulpy story about a group of hippie-terrorists trying to take down a corporation through violent means.
Cornbread78
Member
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
1997 was a different time. Wife-beating was so in. We didn't even know it was wrong yet.
malboroking
Banned
Hundreds of thousands? Not even close.
Gunmonkey36
Member
So back in 1997 and even now women in Japan are not exactly treated well in comparison to men. I'm not an expert or anything but I'd wager that this would be considered acceptable behavior in Japan in the case of a wife ruining her husband's dreams. So maybe squaresoft writers found this acceptable? Just a guess.
malboroking
Banned
FF XIV is a great game and previews for XV have been pretty positive.
Uhhhh, what? This is no way acceptable and isn't shown as such throughout the game. Even discounting the political climate at the time, it's a shitty attitude to have and became a central part of Cid's character development.
I want them to keep most of the stuff in the game. Not sure about Cloud going Mike Tyson on Aeris, though. Some stuff will have to be reworded, though. Like Tifa saying stop acting like a retard. Shut up and drink some GODDAMN tea would be cringe to listen to. Doesn't Barrett say foo in the game? Who says foo 20 years later, lol. Don Corneo absolutely needs to be a perverted creepy fuck, but I don't know about the pelvic thrusts.
Don Corneo should join the Zipper Gang.
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
Well, I don't think Barrett and Cid will be swearing as much unfortunately.
Oh and remember this:
Wasn't a big deal in 1997, though more risque today obviously. But yeah, I love the shades of grey personally.
FFVII's characters have extreme character flaws in a way JRPG characters usually don't, and not just in what they say either.
Like this^
he's an asshole to people in general, though
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
You...you didn't like Barret?
How?! I mean, I know people like different things, but no way a significant amount of people want him changed.
FFVII probably has the greyest overall group of characters in any RPG, characters you can sit down to goddamn tea with. It's kind of the game's unique personality if you will.
Barret...another character I didn't want in my group and didn't want anything to do with. Would have left his ass rotting on the side of some lonely road if it were possible. I used him when I had to, but other than that he was warming the bench. I have no regrets and I'll do the same thing in the remake as well. As a black man, I hated that character and it just reminded me of some stereotypical black dude with anger issues. That kind of thing just turns me off. Same with Cole in Gears of War. The moment I see characters like that, I'm out.
NinjamicWZ
Banned
For some reason I remember Cid slapping Shera, but that's apparently not the case. I absolutely remember the verbal tone he had with her. I suppose over time I just filled that blank in with how I imagine his character. At any rate, it will be interesting to see how deftly they translate these characters to the remake. I suspect some will simply have aspects changed about them but I'm hopeful they can be as faithful as possible.
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
To each his own. I can at least see where you're coming from with the stereotype, though I almost feel it's a parody of Mr. T alone.
But I mean, the cast of "heroes" is gritty, Barret and even moreso Cid being on the extreme of that. But think about what AVALANCHE is and how standoffish Cloud is. It's a gritty, gritty group, other than perhaps Aerith.
Agreed. He comes off like a walking stereotype with his Mr. T-like way of speaking. Thankfully, they seem to be getting rid of that in the remake.
I hate him too. I don't see this deep arc others are saying he went through. I don't mind asshole characters but I never really felt like the game truly made it seem like Cid's behavior was wrong. Instead, it felt like you were supposed to feel sorry for him because he was a loser who couldn't move on from a failure. Plus when he apologizes to Shera it's only really because he found out the truth that she had saved his life? If that hadn't happen he still would treat her like garbage then? He actually just has a moment where he realizes his behavior is awful in general and decides to change.
People in this thread are acting as if just because he didn't hit her and that he's rude to everyone justifies his behavior. As someone who grew up with someone who was actually verbally abusive I can say those people are rude to everyone, they also eventually alienate everyone they know. So nothing about Cid's story is realistic or deep to me.
Don't get me wrong, I'm totally fine with "gritty" characters. This can be done without resulting in crappy stereotypes. I didn't have a problem with the rest of the cast. Heh, if they were trying to capture that Mr. T vibe, they failed in my eyes. But considering we're talking about Japanese folks, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't 100% understand what he was all about to begin with.
The problem is whether the developers wrote him while aware that he's a flawed character worth scrutinising or whether the devs' perspective was "lol he's abusive and she's in a sick relationship lol tropes".
I'm not saying there's an answer to this question.
Put it better than me.
Christ I can totally imagine that. It is such a stereotype. So frustrating.
Riposte
Member
I always thought the desire for a serious FF7 remake, something done differently from the FF DS ones, was weird because the game is actually very goofy, mostly involves chibi-characters (not to mention the abstractness of turn-based battles), but people have this image of something like Evangelion in their heads because of a few cutscenes (which the extended universe built upon, I guess).
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
Yeah, pretty much.
Trigonometrize.
Member
A couple of things I liked about Barret's character:
- him stepping down from leader early on admitting he's not cut out for the role, but then growing into more of a better leader from there
- him having a genuine passion for saving the planet
...and that's about it. If he would just calm down some instead of being portrayed as this angry bubble waiting to burst he could be improved a lot.
DarkConfidant
Member
I came here for this.
Also, I dont think youre supposed to admire him as a role model.
I think youre supposed to appreciate him for being some mess of a man that is finding purpose again in his life by helping your party.
fargofallout
Member
It's been so long since I played this game (and I think I only played it once) that I have zero recollection of this scene.
Why should the game show you that his behaviour was wrong ?
You as human being should come to your own conclusion and see how his behaviour was shit and it looks like you did.
Also the game doesn't justify his behaviour, it just shows how he became the person he was at that point and nothing more.
There was no narrator that told you this is wrong, there was no inner monologue and his past certainly didn't justify anything.
You can take that as reason for his behaviour or not, or you can think that it's particularly weak how he behaved. That's all up to yourself and up to your judgement.
There is no moral compass that everyone would agree upon on every type of behaviour.
And you're right, it's not particularly deep or realistic.
It's fiction after all and a video game. Compared to other J-RPGs that tend to go the black and white route with the bad (and boring) villain and the pure hero, this grey layer is far more interesting though, at least for me personally.
enigmatic_alex44
Whenever a game uses "middleware," I expect mediocrity. Just see how poor TLOU looks.
LMAO. People ITT going in on Cid. Dude has issues but he's no Chris Brown.
Might I remind you that Final Fantasy IX, besides being trash, starred a garbage main character (Zidane) that literally groped the female lead and it was played off as "cute"?
Might I remind you that Final Fantasy IX, besides being trash, starred a garbage main character (Zidane) that literally groped the female lead and it was played off as "cute"?
Doctor_Thomas
Member
Cid's a dick.
Verbally abusive, but not just to one person, to everyone because he is blaming probably the only person who cares about him for ruining his dreams of making it into space, despite the fact if she hadn't made the choice to stay, he would have died during the mission. Pride, frustration, disappointment, betrayal and the loss of said dream probably means his only outlet is to take it out on her.
Thiis is character development. Characters don't need to be "good" or "moral" or "kind" to be a reflection of what real people are like because people aren't always good or moral or kind.
As for Barrett, he's an interesting character... the "angry black man" stereotype isn't really good, but I still think he has a great character arc that, at least, explains why he's angry. It's another example of a character being helpless and trying to find redemption by righting the wrongs of their past and putting those demons to rest. Edit: In fact, that's an ongoing theme throughout the game - people accepting their past, facing it head on and moving on from it.
Verbally abusive, but not just to one person, to everyone because he is blaming probably the only person who cares about him for ruining his dreams of making it into space, despite the fact if she hadn't made the choice to stay, he would have died during the mission. Pride, frustration, disappointment, betrayal and the loss of said dream probably means his only outlet is to take it out on her.
Thiis is character development. Characters don't need to be "good" or "moral" or "kind" to be a reflection of what real people are like because people aren't always good or moral or kind.
As for Barrett, he's an interesting character... the "angry black man" stereotype isn't really good, but I still think he has a great character arc that, at least, explains why he's angry. It's another example of a character being helpless and trying to find redemption by righting the wrongs of their past and putting those demons to rest. Edit: In fact, that's an ongoing theme throughout the game - people accepting their past, facing it head on and moving on from it.
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
What.
IX is one of the best games in the series. I think you must have meant X, as that is complete trash. So there's an I too much in your roman numerals.
Neff
Member
Final Fantasy VII in 1997
Final Fantasy VII in 2017
FTFY
Napalm_Frank
Member
Can't wait for 7R with boring Cid and good guy Turks.
Well, at least Cid won't appear until part 2 coming in 2025.
Well, at least Cid won't appear until part 2 coming in 2025.
JayBabay
Member
This man's right you know.
SaintMadeOfPlaster
Member
Character development, how does that work?
Does this matter?
To answer your question, characters have arcs in which they may develop into a better or worse character. Stick around and see where they go. At that point in the game he's probably meant to be seen as a broken character so I guess you are supposed to feel pity? Perhaps a bit of sympathy for his background.
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
You mean this nerd shut-in who won't even go outside and plays with life size anime dolls?
LordKasual
Banned
When did "retard" start becoming a slur? I feel like this came out of absolutely nowhere and in random spots people really take offense to that.
Final Fantasy VII in 1997
Final Fantasy VII in 2017
LOL
The underlying themes of FF7 make this way more funny
Seriously?
"retard" and "retarded" has been considered a slur for well over a decade now.
It amazes me to this day that he wasn't imprisoned for betraying his company and still working for them. You'd think they would have kept tabs on his activities...
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