Alright, hold up, everyone!!! I wanted to ask this question a long time already: is Cloud a bastard child?

Some person told me that Cloud is a bastard son (he and his mother is the illegitimate family of some married guy and to avoid scandal, they had to move away from the city and ended up living in Nibelheim). I just want to verify if it is true or false from you guys because I really doubt the credibility of the person who told me that! :no:

omg that hasn't crossed my mind ever before ...

I have no idea, to my knowledge, the game just tells us about him and his mother living in Nibelhelm. Nothing beyond that .

Never heard that before :huh: . Maybe his parents were married to eachother and his dad died when Cloud was very little. I dont know something like that :ermm: .

This is an interesting topic... :ermm: I don't believe he is --- maybe his dad died, like what Sakura said. And besides, Tifa, who told you that Cloud was a bastard child? Depending on who said it to you, maybe we can finalize if it really is true.

You can always ask for proof from that person.

Nothing was said in the game to imply that. The only thing ever said about Cloud's father in the game was that his father died when Cloud was young. This is all that was said about his father when Cloud's party gets to Nibelheim:

Barret "Tell us more!"
"You saw your family, right?"

<CHOICE>
Don't want to talk about it
All right......

***Cloud All right......

Cloud "I don't know if you could call it a 'family'........"
"My father... died when I was still very young."
"That's why my mom...... was living alone in this house."
"Yeah, I saw my mom."
"My mom... she was a vibrant woman. Hadn't changed at all."
"But a few days later, she died...."
"But when I saw her, she looked fine."

That's the only thing ever said in the game about Cloud's father. It's hardly enough to come to the conclusion that he's a bastard child.

Hmmm... Cloud said his mom died, even though she didn't seem to be ailed by anything. :ermm: Maybe those were the first cases of Geostigma...?


::coughcough:: Okay, back on topic... Thanks, Aly, for that! ^_^ Does that help your question, Tifa?

His mom died when Sephiroth set Nibelheim on fire. We saw Cloud passed out on the ground in front of his house, which was engulfed in flames. He had tried to save her and failed. That's what he meant when he said she had died a few days after he spoke to her last, and that's another part of the guilt he's feeling now. In one trailer, Cloud says: "I don't think I can save anyone... family, friends, anyone." The only family Cloud had in FFVII was his mother, so he's referring to being unable to save her in the fire.

But I thought she died suddenly one day. :unsure: Cloud said so himself, right? She died suddenly one day...? Or maybe I read the script wrong... :wacko:

When they got to Nibelheim - no, wait! Sorry, it's during the Kalm flashback - Barret asked Cloud if he had seen his family when he got to Nibelheim with Sephiroth. Cloud says this:

Cloud "I don't know if you could call it a 'family'........"
"My father... died when I was still very young."
"That's why my mom...... was living alone in this house."
"Yeah, I saw my mom."
"My mom... she was a vibrant woman. Hadn't changed at all."
"But a few days later, she died...."
"But when I saw her, she looked fine."

A few days after Cloud got to Nibelheim with Sephiroth, Sephiroth set Nibelheim on fire. We saw Cloud's house engulfed in flames, and Cloud was passed out on the ground in front of his house. (I think we saw that when Sephiroth showed Zack running out of the mansion during the illusion of Nibelheim created by Sephiroth before the Reunion.) When Cloud came to, he headed to the reactor to kill Sephiroth. His mother had died in the fire. A death in the fire would be sudden, wouldn't it?

Maybe it was an arranged marriage and Cloud's mother and father didn't love each other and thta's why 'family' was in quotations.

cloud says:

i lived with my mother in nibelheim..my dad died when i was a litlle kid...

'Family' is in quotations because Barret had asked Cloud if he saw his family:

Barret "Tell us more!"
"You saw your family, right?"

Cloud "I don't know if you could call it a 'family'........"

I don't think "family" in a normal sense, that's what Cloud was saying. Maybe Cloud wasn't especially close to his own mother? <shrug>

i think he refers that " he lived only with her mother, so its not realy a familiy

Well I know single parents raising kids, and they consider themselves a family already.

Single parenting wasn't always considered a family back in 1997 when the game was made.

Dunno about that... the two characters of Suikoden 2 from 1998 consider themselves family, and all three of them (main character, sister and grandfather) were not even related by blood (grandfather adopted them). Their best friend turned game antagonist has parents and a brother, but he never considered his own a family, and was much closer to the former.

It really depends on what the family dynamics are, doesn't it? But I don't think that single parenting was as accepted in 1997 as it is now.

At any rate, I still think that the quotes around family were there just because Barret asked Cloud if he saw his family. Cloud was also supposedly a "problem child", which would probably mean that he wasn't that close to his mother.

But seeing that the question is really whether or not he was a bastard child, the story says that his father died when Cloud was very young. I don't think that's enough evidence to conclude that he was indeed a bastard child.

There were fanfics where Cloud was related to Rufus o.0;. But I too don't think he was an illigitimate child. Also the games didn't put much importance on Cloud's parents in particular, so it's safe to assume Cloud was 100% sure his dad croaked.

Well, that would certainly make for an interesting twist. :P

O_o

I thought the reason why the Nibelheim townspeople didn't particularly like Cloud was that he was a bastard child.

.... (or am I inventing things again?)

But if he isn't a bastard child......... :ermm:

All that was ever said was that his father died when he was very young. It was Sephiroth who acted like he didn't know who his father was. Is that what people are confusing? :unsure:

From the Kalm flashback:

Barret "Tell us more!" "You saw your family, right?"
Cloud "I don't know if you could call it a 'family'........" "My father... died when I was still very young." "That's why my mom...... was living alone in this house."

Now, this is what Sephiroth says about his father during the Kalm flashback:

Cloud (offscreen) "Umm.... how 'bout your parents?"
Sephiroth "My mother is Jenova. She died right after she gave birth to me. My father..."
(He laughs.)
Sephiroth "What does it matter...?" "All right, let's go."

What Sephiroth says sounds more like it's unknown who his father is. Are people confusing what Cloud and Sephiroth say? :unsure:

Unfortunately it was one of my close friends who told me about it... I found it unbelievable at first but found it useful for fanfics (especially my upcoming fic with Zhakeena "Cloud and Tifa: The Reality"). That friend of mine said that President ShinRa is Cloud's real dad and since Cloud and his mother is the illegitimate family and it could ruin the President's "good" reputation to the media and the masses, they were forced to move out of Midgar and transfer to Nibelheim. ... and so Cloud is Rufus's half-brother. :no:

The reason why I find it unbelievable is because she once told my best friend that Vincent is Tifa's dad! (can you believe that?! :no: ) and for like, two years, my best friend believed her... and she asked about it to me when we were talking about Tifa's childhood. <_< I was mortified when she told me about that made-up story and corrected every detail to her.
Another reason why I didn't trust her is because she said that Advent Children has been released already and can be downloaded in Kazaa. Yeah right. :yawn:
Whatever... <_<


Anyway, this has been such an interesting discussion so far.

In my opinion and from what I've learned from Philosophy, Sociology and even from experience and observation, Family can be defined in different perspectives, depending on who belongs to it or how a person sees it, since everyone has different experiences that vary from person to person. Like in "Lilo and Stitch", Family as been defined as "...Nobody gets left behind."... and many other definitions from different people.
A single mother and her son might treat their companionship as a family. In a family, there exists love, understanding and care (in whatever amount, even if there is little understanding whatsoever)... I guess... O_o'

When Cloud said, "I don't know if you could call it a 'family'" he must've been doubtful because he must've known or it must've been implied to him through the influence of the others around him that a group of people cannot be called a family unless it's complete with a mother, father, brother, sister blah blah blah. But it's a stereotypical family. I think Cloud and his mother can be considered as a family, even if there are only two of them in it.

I'm guessing Cloud meant "we didn't exactly fit the common definition of a family" as in togetherness, loving and all that. But I think Cloud still considered his mom family...after all, he said "I don't think I can save anyone, family, friends, no one" Undoubtedly, the family he was talking about was his mom.

Sometimes family doesn't necessarily mean you're blood-related. Like what Anti-R said about Suiko 2, as long as you create love and companionship, there can be a family.
Eh, I sound like a Values Education teacher :rolleyes:

Interesting plot twist if it were true...where the heck did your friend get this idea anyway??? :blink:

I heard it sometime ago, too... People said that because they think Cloud and Rufus seem a lot each other (physically talking ^^UU); and like Cloud doesn´t have father and Rufus doesn´t have mother.... But I don´t believe this theory, in the game none mention that... Although it would be good if it was true ^^

I don't know... maybe she likes to take advantage or other people's ignorance of the Final Fantasy games... especially Final Fantasy 7 because it's the most controversial one. <_<

I've heard this theory before (about Cloud being a bastard, not Rufus' half-brother) and I think it's great to have a thread on it... :rolleyes:

Some ideas to support Cloud as a bastard: The way Cloud hesitates before saying that his father is dead might imply sadness or discomfort talking about it, or it might be his cover-up of the truth. The idea of Cloud as an illegitimate child does work well because it gives a good foundation for his family being considered "outsiders" in Nibelheim (a very small community, likely to have very traditional and conservative values), and to heighten Cloud's sense of alienation as a child. It might explain why Cloud was left out of Tifa's group as a child, if Cloud's mother was ostracised for her illegitimate pregnanacy then the children could simply have been copying the adults' behaviour, especially if the adults keep telling them not to go near that Cloud, and assume that he's trouble (the way that Mr. Lockhart assumes that Cloud was to blame for Tifa's fall).

My opinion: The idea's interesting, but it's still not one that I buy into personally, though. IMHO, there's just not enough evidence for it, or to suggest that Cloud was lying when he said his father was deceased. There's nothing to suggest that Cloud's mother was treated badly by the townspeople or that she was afraid that Cloud would be discriminated against (in fact, she seemed like quite a happy woman, blissfully unaware of how socially impared her son was). And to me, half the reason why Cloud had no friends as a child was because he was so shy and never made any effort to ask the other children if he could play with them (after all, Tifa had no idea that he secretly wanted to be part of the group, so he must've hid his feelings pretty well). As for Mr. Lockhart blaming Cloud for Tifa's fall...so many people write him off as a bad man for that and forget that he's grieving deeply having only just lost his wife earlier that day. He's not going to take special care to act sensitively towards an odd young boy that he honestly believes is responsible for Tifa's accident. And in my opinion, the reason he holds Cloud responsible isn't "bad blood" or anything like that, but (from his perspective) because Tifa was obviously not thinking clearly when she went into the mountains and wasn't aware of the danger, and while her other friends ran back to tell the grown-ups what she was doing (which explains how they were found so quickly), Cloud just followed her, like it was a game (personally, I think that was part of the reason why Cloud followed her - to participate in what the others were doing, to prove he was brave, and to watch out for Tifa and be with her - maybe he even believed Tifa and thought that they'd see her mother again...). So when he finds Tifa and Cloud, he assumes that Cloud's to blame for not trying to stop or discourage her. And of course, Tifa's in a bad way - he's just lost his wife and now his daughter was involved in a terrible accident. That's a terrible burden to have to deal with. Of course he's not in his right mind when he blames Cloud, having no idea that he's placing a terrible amount of guilt on poor Cloud.

Hmm...I drifted a bit off the topic, but...that's it, I suppose. I like the theory and it makes for interesting fanfiction, but personally I don't believe it. ^_^

I dont consider myself to have a family even know i have a mom dad and brother

Sombody should write a fic about what happend to Clouds dad we know he died when cloud was young but was he muredured mabey he was in the army and died fighting

Doubt he a Basterd child from the little info he gives about his mom she probley wouldent have a kid then get married