Zen Crib Notes

How I feel about this character:

Man, this fucker is kinda fun. I already liked him for one of the few times we get to see him before he got his own game, like in “Last Order” and “Advent Children,” and even in that one stupid scene in FFVII where you can tell he’s this fun-loving friendly knucklehead who’s got grand and simplistic visions and then got GUNNED DOWN MERCILESSLY. As silly and idiotic those polygon lego people are, shooting Zack looked pretty chilling. Then he got his own game and I’m just like “how can this nice guy keep working for Shin-ra for a few years and not realizing he’s committing war crimes in the name of being a hero?” And then a bunch of other headcanons popped up because of it, like perhaps people working for Shin-ra got repetitively brainwashed into dehumanizing people via intensive powerpoint meetings and subliminal advertisement. Not like, Clockwork Orange kind of brainwash, but like as in being continually fed and educated to think this way in an institutional system where you can’t help but learn that way as the truth. Makes working at Shin-ra seem even more sinister than it usually is. 

Another thing I liked about him was that he’s this tall, dark-haired and handsome positive dude, coupled with kickass voice actors and seiyuu that made him super fun. His English dub person? That’s a guy from “Band of Brothers” and he’s a light-hearted fun guy in that series, too. I got a good kick out of that. Zack’s best representation was, to me, when he was in “Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep,” cuz you see him as being some teenybopper kid and so he kinda looks like his mental age. 

Zack, to me, would have been this perfectly normal kid who got thrust into the crazy that is Shin-ra and he copes with it by trying to keep up his idealistic and childish side of himself because you really can’t take what he’s going through seriously and when he does it’s just so bizarre in the plot that he’s in. I also think that, as well-meaning as he could be, Zack doesn’t know what the right thing is beyond what he can do for other people. He does a lot of things that sets up the FFVII thing, but a lot of them are for Shin-ra, the current oppressor, and that, because of plot reasons, eventually make him feel powerless in trying to pull away from Shin-ra which he had once seen as a bastion of doing good. It shows in his very last words when he wonders if he was ever a hero, and I guess for him the only time he had been one was in making sure Cloud lives at the expense of his life.  And also being able to display mercy towards Genesis when he wasn’t able to with Angeal and Sephiroth.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: 

I ship Zack with… all the good-looking people, I guess. It kinda just came from good fanfic-writers, actually. Like, with Tifa and Aerith and Cissnei and Tseng and so forth. To be honest, I’m more of the impression that in-game he’s like a friendship freak like Sora and Aqua. ACTUALLY. NO. RETRACT THAT. ALL OF WHAT I SAID. Him and Aqua are stupidly adorable together, he’s the only guy that made Aqua lose her game and made her blush like cutie stupid, I love it. It’s also like the only time that shipping happened blatantly in KH: BBS, so that’s fun to see. Also, I like his interactions with Aerith, reminds me of a couple of idiot teenagers going through idiot relationship stuff, it’s adorable and fun to look at. I don’t know if Zerith is really meant to be or not, since it looks more like how in highschool relationships you get together for funsies and good times but not exactly serious looking, but they think well of each other and that’s really all that matters. 

My non-romantic OTP for this character: 

Zack can be great friends with Cloud and Sephiroth, it’s just really amazing how he can into a banter with Sephiroth. It’s a shame that their friendship as, what, like between a kohai/senpai thing isn’t that deep enough to pull Sephiroth away from his madness and depression over his tomato-in-the-mirror thing, but it just goes to show that sometimes you don’t know how to help people with their troubles. I don’t really get the thing with Angeal, as to me I don’t think Angeal totally respects him as an equal, not to mention as a mentor. Kingofbeartraps did a great essay on that, and it convinced me enough to not see it as some sort of deep friendship or respect between the two. Also, too bad that Zack didn’t get many opportunities to reach out to Genesis, as I think that guy would actually respect Zack and how that guy tries his hardest to do the right thing, despite failing that. The friendship moments he has with Aerith are pretty sweet, too. 

Another one which I also liked was his interactions with Tseng, and that they seem to be on the ball with each other. Tseng even bothers to go out of his way to find Zack and make sure he’s alive, which is most likely against Heidegger’s orders and also being silently encouraged by Veld. The Turks respect Zack, and it’s really a shame that they were too late. Cissnei’s feelings or whatever they were aside, I think that Zack was able to cross friendships to people who were normally enemies/rivals to one another, whether it’s between different divisions at work or to people in AVALANCHE making an impact, and even to the one Wutai person who tolerates him (oh Yuffie). 

My unpopular opinion of this character: 

Zack doesn’t exactly do good in his game. His missions include suppressing Wutai uprisings, doing stuff for the science department (usually not to no-good, though could be for some good), and covering up for Shin-ra’s mistakes. Despite being able to reach out to people who need him and being friendly, he hasn’t been able to really go in-depth for Genesis and Angeal and Sephiroth, and that’s fine because it highlights how much these problems are out of his league and are beyond what he expects in working with Shin-ra. It shows how he’s casually promoted to 1st Class, and he realizes that not only has how he’s achieved it bears little weight or is not how he expected (despite his many, many contributions to the company in his missions), but I think by then he realizes that being a hero isn’t a rank to be worked towards like going up a career ladder. He goes a bit late in realizing that the things he’s done for Shin-ra is a whole lot of bad news, and whether that cause actual remorse or cognitive dissonance for him is kinda not addressed because by then he got held captive in Nibelheim after a traumatizing disaster and he just wants to get out to safety. 

I also think that in the end that he became super disillusioned and copes with it by forcing a cheerful behavior. He clings on impossible hope while not knowing how to achieve it, and that he acts out on how crazy his circumstances is by being positive. It’s not to say that he isn’t affected deeply and doesn’t properly grieve over what’s happened to him, but I maintain that he goes through it by rolling with the punches in order to not break down like Sephiroth did or Angeal and Genesis did.