2. The wolf’s appearances – Now I’m sure you are thinking, “This has been asked before, there is a thread up right now,” but bear with me. This random wolf appears a number of times in the movie:
- Near the beginning the wolf stands next to Cloud’s old buster sword on a cliff overlooking Midgar.
- When Cloud and Tifa are passed out in the flowers within Aeris’ church.
- When we see the cell phone falling into the water at Ajit, the wolf is looking over the water for a brief moment (when the camera passes through the trees).
- When Cloud dies and we are brought into his mind (the white nothingness) the wolf walks up to Cloud’s unconscious form and then disappears.
There are a few theories regarding who/what the wolf is. First let me dismiss the silly ones. – The wolf is Zack. I don’t see how this works out; Zack is seen in the movie twice. Once when Cloud remembers failing him after planting the buster sword back into the ground. And again at the end of the movie when Aeris and Zack’s spirits (assuming they are spirits) walk out of the church and leave Cloud forever. Now why would Zack be represented as a wolf? The wolf disappears at the end. If the wolf was Zack then why would Zack show up as a wolf, disappear, and then show up again with Aeris, and again disappear? Kind of redundant. Same explanation goes for people who say that the wolf is Aeris. It just doesn’t match up. But the primary theory among these is the belief that the wolf symbolizes Cloud’s guilt over the deaths of Aeris and Zack. Personally, I disagree, although I can’t think up a better answer. Why would the wolf be standing next to his sword overlooking Midgar? Aeris did not die in Midgar. Zack did not die in Midgar. So why is his guilt associated with a city that nothing particularly heart-stopping occurs in within the game? Cloud does not fail anybody in Midgar, so why would he feel guilt over that aspect of his life? It would be more suitable for them to plant the sword on a cliff overlooking the Forgotten City and then put the wolf next to that if the wolf were to represent guilt. After all that is where Aeris is killed so it would be more appropriate. For the other three appearances of the wolf it makes more sense that the wolf is Cloud’s guilt, except Cloud feels guilty over never answering his phone? Kind of ridiculous. And by the way, it seems out of the ordinary to have a symbol like that show up multiple times within the movie that does not affect the plot or the characters whatsoever. Cloud never sees the wolf. In FF7 Aeris was a symbol in that she recognized Life, but she actually participated in the story and had a purpose. The wolf has no purpose except to appear as a symbol. Assuming that the wolf is supposed to symbolize guilt. It would actually be more suitable to have Cloud’s old sword represent his guilt by having it overlook the Forgotten City and for him to take it away after the story ends. After all, Cloud’s old sword partially represents all that happened within the game, so for him to get rid of it would mean he finally has overcome his problems with the past, which is the purpose of the FF7 movie. This is why I don’t think that the wolf is supposed to symbolize Cloud’s guilt. So to finalize this section: Why would the wolf appear in two parts of the movie (overlooking Midgar and the sinking cell-phone) where Cloud does not feel guilt? Is the wolf really Cloud’s guilt? Why use a wolf to represent Cloud’s guilt when his old sword could be much more relevant?
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