Cloud Is A Pathological Liar

Remember when you crawled out of Dickensian Midgar and stretched your legs on the open grasslands outside on your way to Kalm? A team of adventurers, some new acquaintances, all renting a room in the local inn to sit down and talk about all that had transpired. When you think about it, that little group, Cloud, Barrett, Aeris, Tifa and Nanaki had already been through so much. Collapsing an entire section of the city onto another section of the city, beating up a sewer pimp, killing a piece of the evil guy's mom, and rooftop fighting the Shinra president and his tentacle dog. Remember the exciting bond that this game was making you feel with your weird little group? Remember when Cloud stood up, declared himself leader, then spent the next 30 minutes lying straight to your fucking face?

Cloud's backstory is a weird one, but just because your past is complicated, doesn't give you the right to withhold information or outright lie to those who have entrusted you to steer the team in the right direction. This isn't a Morgan-Stanley team building exercise in the park, this is a hunt for the most powerful being on the planet, a mission to kill what is basically immortal to save everyone and everything. Cloud is asking every single team member to risk their lives on a daily basis without giving them the full truth beforehand. Before you start screaming that the team does eventually learn everything, remember that Aeris died before that reveal, a consequence of the lies that Cloud narcissistically invented.

You find a similar situation in FFX. The player assumes the role of Tidus, who isn't told the truth behind the group's violent pilgrimage. He does finally learn the reality of the situation, after he has already fought dozens of bosses and escaped certain death. Obviously, Tidus is a more forgiving man than I am, because my reaction would be that of someone who felt tricked, deceived into giving my help. Sure, the death fish is Tidus's dad, which involves him whether he likes it or not, but the group he is supposed to rely on omitted the fact that Yuna dies at the end of her pilgrimage from their big recruitment speech.

I'm replaying one of my favorite games of all time, Suikoden 3. Geddoe, a character I remember liking a lot, seems to be pulling a Cloud. I must not have noticed it when I was younger, but Geddoe knows immediately who the Flame Champion is but decides to keep it from the rest of the group. Even as Zexen's massive army marches to war with the grassland clans over a misunderstanding that Geddoe could easily clear up, he remains silent. To some, this type of personality from a leader comes across as "enigmatic", or "mysterious", but if I were on Cloud, Yuna, or Geddoe's team, these lies would be the reason for my leaving the group. Fuck you guys. Next time, be honest.