We are AVALANCHE-

And we are idiots!

I never really thought about it until recently, but for all the good AVALANCHE says it's doing it just seems to make things worse. Arguably, they did save the day in the end, but they were a direct cause of all the havoc wrought up until then.

They destroyed two Mako reactors for the "sake of the planet", not realizing or not caring that they were directly affecting the inhabitants of the planet. THAT'S KIND OF AN IMPORTANT FACTOR THERE! What's the point of saving an inhabitable planet if you don't care about the inhabitants? They killed hundreds with that act of rebellion, and caused the deaths of many more when Shin-Ra dropped the Sector 7 plate.

Granted, the adventure they set out on after those incidents was of a noble cause, but then Cloud's crazy ass decided to hand over the most destructive Materia ever known to be made to one of the world's most dangerous people, effectively dooming the entire planet. Yeah, I know, he wasn't in control of his own body, but he had shown multiple signs of being off his rocker up until this point. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong in my logic, I just know that I wouldn't feel safe giving Opie a hand grenade and hoping he throws it in the right direction. Kind of a shot in the dark, Barret relinquishing his leadership to Cloud.

THEN, after the government steps in to fix this new mess AVALANCHE has caused in the best way they think possible, the damn idiots decide to sabotage this new contingency plan by stealing all of the Big Materia. I think maybe it would have been a good idea if they didn't hide it all away in Bugenhagen's observatory! That's just stingy.

Not only that, but the WEAPONs' rampage is a little bit entirely their fault as well. If Sephiroth never found the Black Materia the WEAPONs never would have woken because Meteor never would have been summoned, and Junon and Midgar would have remained un-attacked! More people dead, look at that!

Don't get me wrong, I love FFVII, it's my favorite installment, I'm just baffled as to how I never noticed that we are essentially in control of a very driven and rebellious terrorist group.

They're just a bunch of underdogs who didn't have their ducks in a row, Eric! They had good intentions!

They should put a little forethought into their plans then!

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Originally Posted by G13

They killed hundreds with that act of rebellion, and caused the deaths of many more when Shin-Ra dropped the Sector 7 plate.

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You can hardly blame AVALANCHE for that

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then Cloud's crazy ass decided to hand over the most destructive Materia ever known to be made to one of the world's most dangerous people,

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Im sure if AVALANCHE handnt been on the case the Materia wouldve been taken anyway

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THEN, after the government steps in to fix this new mess AVALANCHE has caused in the best way they think possible, the damn idiots decide to sabotage this new contingency plan by stealing all of the Big Materia. I think maybe it would have been a good idea if they didn't hide it all away in Bugenhagen's observatory! That's just stingy.

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Now this I agree with. I hate how even when they suceed in taking the big materia out of the rocket aimed at meteor, they have the audacity to say "Oh it didnt work anyway". I know it doesnt work even if you dont manage to remove the materia but how can they possibly know it wouldnt have worked since they took the materia out?

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Not only that, but the WEAPONs' rampage is a little bit entirely their fault as well. If Sephiroth never found the Black Materia the WEAPONs never would have woken because Meteor never would have been summoned, and Junon and Midgar would have remained un-attacked! More people dead, look at that!

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Again im sure Seph wouldve found a way to obtain the Black Materia even without the presence of AVALANCHE, Sure they ballsed up since they couldve prevented it, but it's not like they actually caused it.

I agree that blowing the reactor was quite a malicious act but Im sure if Shinra's employee policy were more laxed they probably couldve gotten all the soldiers out in time.

No use crying over spilt milk.
Yes Barret is a moron, that's why cloud was voted leader by his groupies.

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Originally Posted by Hypoallergenic Cactuar

No use crying over spilt milk.
Yes Barret is a moron, that's why cloud was voted leader by his groupies.

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Exactly. Cloud may have been a head case for most of the game, but Barret was way too emotionally driven by bitterness and revenge.

Yes, Cloud leaned in that direction too, but he at least managed to keep him self under control from that angle.

When you visit Kalm, you can chat with a few people who basically pose the "is Mako/Shinra making the world better" question. I feel like it helps expand upon the reasoning behind AVALANCHE's actions but, really, when you think about it, rebels are often forced to do bad things for some kind of abstract greater good. No different here.

AVALANCHE's conduct in blowing up the reactors at the beginning of the game brings up interesting questions about terrorism, especially since that's been such a hot topic for the past decade. It was literally environmental terrorism. They're portrayed as the "good guys," but there's definitely a strong counterargument. They did cause massive destruction of property as well as deaths from collateral damage.

However, the Huge Materia issue is just stupid, and is widely cited as one of the (many) major plot holes in the game.

"Hey, there's this stuff called Huge Materia which is like materia but super big and special."
"That's awesome. Where can I find them?"
"Well Shinra has them and is going to destroy them to try to save the planet."
"Oh, good, they're trying to help! No, wait, smurf the planet, I need to collect them all!"

Cloud's priorities did not seem centered around anything remotely rational at that point. If it wasn't for the master materia, I would have let Shinra keep them on principle.

They're killin' the planet, Eric!

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Originally Posted by G13

What's the point of saving an inhabitable planet if you don't care about the inhabitants?

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"People come first, Doctor Iseley."

Most of your argument fails to account for Sephiroth's puppeteering of the J-cells in Cloud's special place. No one had any way of knowing due to no information existing on the S-clones aka black cloaks. As for the materia, yeah, that was just a bad call all around. Cloud just came out of a coma and it has been discovered that, not only is he not who he claimed or believed he was, he was being controlled by Sephiroth. Time for another to man up! Cid!

I always figured Barret's self-proclaimed leadership of AVALANCHE was just an excuse for revenge, and not so much about wanting to save the planet (though he probably convinced himself it was) - at least towards the beginning of the game. So he obviously wasn't thinking too hard about any collateral damage that would occur.

If Before Crisis is anything to go by, at least his attitude is somewhat consistent with the original AVALANCHE. Though the original group were much more smurfed up.