Plot Theory I've been thinking of.

[Skyblade]

Ok, ok, everyone stop.

There is no possible way that the beast is Cloud. The game's scenes show this extremely explicitly. We know precisely what happened, and when. We know where Cloud was during all of the Nibelheim events, we know where and when Cloud was experimented on.

Cloud was at Nibelheim during the events five years prior to the game. He was the Shinra soldier standing guard outside the reactor when Sephiroth and Zack went inside. The flashback's events are mostly correct in terms of what happened, because Cloud was there for most of the events.

The end of the flashback is where the scenario changes. Cloud rushed in after everything went down, grabbed Zack's sword, rushed up, and stabbed Sephiroth while Sephiroth was so obsessed with Jenova and not paying attention. Afterwards, Sephiroth limps away with Jenova, and Cloud confronted him again on the bridge of the reactor. Sephiroth stabbed Cloud, then Cloud overpowered Sephiroth, and used the Masamune as leverage to hurl Sephiroth off the bridge.

At this time everybody is essentially completely worn out and half dead with blood loss or exhaustion. Zagan rescues Tifa, his pupil, but the rest of the survivors, including Zack and Cloud, are picked up by the Shinra cleanup team (led by Hojo) and experimented on. This is when Cloud (along with the other Nibelheim survivors) is rebuilt into a Sephiroth clone. Part of the reason Hojo did it was because Hojo was completely shocked that Cloud had managed to overpower Sephiroth, something he had previously thought impossible. This might be part of the reason why the two of them are segregated from the rest of the survivors and experimented on in the basement together, but there is no concrete evidence of this.

During this time, Zack recovers better than Cloud, and manages to bust the both of them out. He grabs Cloud, gives Cloud an old uniform, and the two of them head to Midgar. During the trip, Zack talks to Cloud. We're explicitly shown him talking to Cloud about what he's going to do when he gets to Midgar, but given the length of the trip from Nibelheim to Midgar, I think it's a fair bet that Zack talked to Cloud about all sorts of things, from his early days with ShinRa, to his adventures in SOLDIER.

This is most likely the time during which Cloud's "Zack Persona" developed. Cloud, having suffered extreme mental trauma through both the events that occurred surrounding Sephiroth, and the experimentation done to him, retreats in his own mind. He develops a split personality. The core of his mind hides away, and is the ghostly "child Cloud" that we control during several of the scenes when Sephiroth dominates Cloud's minds and actions. A replacement personality develops, which fuses his own memories with the tales Zack told him. This new persona serves to hide not only from the events of Nibelheim, but also from Cloud's own failures. He retains his memories of his past, but everything from when he joined ShinRa on are based on Zack's memories. Joining SOLDIER, becoming First Class, being old war buddies with Sephiroth... All of these are Zack's memories. These are supported and influenced somewhat by his own (such as allowing him to recall ninety percent of what happened during the flashback scene), but also serve to distance him from the events to a degree.

Reconstructed Memories:


The Bonus Scene from the Shinra Mansion During Disc 4:

[zx12y]

Thanks for the rebuttal Skyblade, always appreciated. I think Psychotic put my thoughts the best in that the beast was foreshadowing of the bonus scene linked by Skyblade.

The scene I describe actually occurs on a different day before the big fight that leads to them being incapacitated. You really need to understand the context in that some of Cloud's last memories before being traumatized were of him being next to Sephiroth in the reactor. So, the beast actually "is" Cloud in a figurative sense, in that Cloud created the fictional event of the beast breaking out of the capsule to parallel his own process of being infused with Jenova then escaping with Zack. Cloud's mind didn't want to accept the reality of him being experimented on in that tank. His mind places himself as having a conversation with Sephiroth to mask the missing time in the capsule. This is all likely the workings of the Jenova cells working through him.

The beast is out of context. Where did this beast go, why didn't Cloud and Sephiroth react at all? I mean, Cloud and Sephiroth fought that stupid dragon earlier under similar circumstances. The scene blanks out, just like Cloud's memories. This theory explains why the memory exists. Pretty crackpot theory at this point, I know, but I still love it for what it is.

[Skyblade]

Thanks for the rebuttal Skyblade, always appreciated. I think Psychotic put my thoughts the best in that the beast was foreshadowing of the bonus scene linked by Skyblade.

The scene I describe actually occurs on a different day before the big fight that leads to them being incapacitated. You really need to understand the context in that some of Cloud's last memories before being traumatized were of him being next to Sephiroth in the reactor. So, the beast actually "is" Cloud in a figurative sense, in that Cloud created the fictional event of the beast breaking out of the capsule to parallel his own process of being infused with Jenova then escaping with Zack. Cloud's mind didn't want to accept the reality of him being experimented on in that tank. His mind places himself as having a conversation with Sephiroth to mask the missing time in the capsule. This is all likely the workings of the Jenova cells working through him.

I know. But the point is, we know that the experimentation on Cloud did not begin until after the fight scene. You'd already linked that video, so I had no reason to do so.

We also don't know that the beast event is a fabrication. It is certainly a possibility. But, again, it could have been one of the reconstructions from Zack's memories. Zack talked to Cloud a lot. Which makes sense, actually. Zack is an extremely outgoing person and Cloud had suffered a lot of mental trauma. Talking can help to keep someone focused and awake in that situation (similar to a concussion, you don't want them falling asleep, you want them focused), so Zack could very well have told Cloud about what was in the reactor.

Actually, in all likelihood, Cloud knew about it even earlier. After the beast incident, Sephiroth locked himself in the mansion for weeks. Zack would almost certainly have shared what they found in the reactor with the rest of the ShinRa team while they were sitting there, essentially killing time until Sephiroth said it was time to go home. So Cloud would most assuredly know what the cause of the delay was, and why they were remaining so long.

The beast is out of context. Where did this beast go, why didn't Cloud and Sephiroth react at all? I mean, Cloud and Sephiroth fought that stupid dragon earlier under similar circumstances. The scene blanks out, just like Cloud's memories. This theory explains why the memory exists. Pretty crackpot theory at this point, I know, but I still love it for what it is.

Actually, the beast, at the time it broke out, seemed only half formed. They likely either killed it, or it wasn't yet ready to survive outside. Either way, this would be another indication that it was a reconstruction of the tale as Cloud was told it. The fate of the monster is largely unimportant. In fact, the cutoff could have occurred even if the beast ran outside and Cloud killed it. That is already the start of a time-skip section of the story (where he jumps forward several weeks time in a few scenes while describing Sephiroth's obsession). Remember, the flashback is explaining Sephiroth. Most of the extraneous bits are only told because the rest of the team asks for it (such as Cloud visiting his mother). There is no reason, in the story being told there, why that monster's fate would need to be expanded upon. The importance of it was that it served as a catalyst for Sephiroth's insanity.



While it could fit as a fabrication, and would make sense as the sort of thing that a mind would construct to help cope with the problems it faces, we do know that something occurred which changed Sephiroth that day, and it is very unlikely that Cloud would not have known what that event was (even though he wasn't there), or that, if that event had been fabricated, that we would not have discovered the truth when his memories were rebuilt.

[Jiro]

Skyblade is right. Like, it's an interesting theory, but it's not solid. Foreshadowing at best. Otherwise I think they were simply trying to make something human but monstrous to have the greatest impact.