copying from my twitter thread in case i decide to delete it someday :D

ok so i'll preface this by saying i genuinely don't care or mind if other people like him or ship him w anyone. i love ff7 and that includes characters i don't exactly connect with

anyway TW big rant and opinions :33333

my issue with zack is mainly that i find him frustratingly underwritten and underutilized in storytelling. in the beginning of crisis core, he fights in the war against wutai for shinra but the story gives him no serious reflection on what shinra is doing and the consequences of his actions in participating in the war. zack stays happy go lucky and loyal to shinra rather than critically questioning the system he serves that is actively ruining not only foreign countries but his OWN home! gongaga has a reactor!!

i could understand if that first segment was meant to set him up as an unreliable narrator and how shinra's exploitation of land and resources is seen as a good thing at first and how wutai is the bad guy just because of his initial perseption, but that doesnt change until very late into the game, and even then barely at all. when shinra's experiments are discovered by zack and all the corruption + its impact on cetras and sephiroth, zack witnesses all of these horrific truths but he doesnt even stop to think about them? he doesn't go through any sort of internal conflict or identity or morality crisis in his role as a shinra soldier. he is the same upbeat puppy throughout the entire story. ik some people like that but he feels like insane missed potential for a story that could've been extremely relevant to todays [political climate]. a protagonist who was the same rank as sephiroth, participated in the war, and was experimented on shouldve had a MUCH deeper moral arc man like what..

i also srsly dislike how his character is like a placeholder to explain away things they couldn't be bothered to write about. seventh heaven being named by him is ridiculous even as a joke. also zack explains cloud's past, the soldier image, and how he ends up back in midgar but his own character feels like an after thought.

my main reason for disliking him though;;; unsurprisingly aerith LOL

i know a lot of people love them together but i personally think that the way that aerith's writing is minimized by making her iconic personality and traits retroactively linked to zack (ribbon, "one date", personality) SO gross. it reduces her individuality as an original, stereotype breaking character to "zack but girl",, totally separating her development from her own personality, choices, and experiences. and compared to cloud, who was my first introduction to ff7, zack is just so boring;
cloud has layered trauma, is emotionally repressed, is confused over his identity and experiences depression and then OVERCOMES!!! his depression.. he is so so special to me as someone who takes 7 too many pills every morning for my mental health (tmi sorry lol) zack is brave and cool and happy and thats cool. its just not for me and yes thats why i dislike zack fair thank you for coming to my ted talk.

cough his fans can be really annoying too