How did Cid survive?

[Wolf Kanno]

...poor writing is the obvious answer but this is a baseless theory thread, so come up with some imaginative way Cid survived plummeting to his death into a volcano world while exploding. Best theory gets a banana sticker...

[Fynn]

It was a robot double?

[Evastio]

It's Cid. Do we even need any more explanation? That guy is as hardly a human being as they come. Even as an old man in the original Final Fantasy IV, he's still got plenty of strength and fighting ability left in him in The After Years.

[Big D]

Maybe he dropped the bomb moments before it went off... the explosion was still close enough to injure him, but at the same time the upward shockwave broke his fall a little.

Either that, or FFIV exists in a universe where medicine is based on the principle that "two wrongs DO make a right" - so the explosive damage of the bomb, and the crushing impact from falling hundreds of feet, somehow counteracted each other. This would also explain why Yang recovered from amnesia when his wife subjected him to a traumatic head injury.

Another possible explanation is that time-honoured RPG/fantasy trope: falling off a cliff, as we know, is a sure-fire means to survive any injury, including the injuries that are inherent to plummeting off a rocky precipice. See, for example:

Gollum (LotR) - thrown off a cliff by Sam, survived unscathed

Dyne (FFVII) - shot, then fell down a crevasse. Survived with only a gunshot wound to his hand

Kiros, Ward and Laguna (FFVIII) - bludgeoned, stabbed and magicked to within an inch of their lives, then threw themselves off a high ocean cliff, sustaining absolutely no additional injuries during their fall

...Now that I remember it, just check out rule 143.

[Sephex]

The explosion we see in the game is merely the launch point of the bombs that closes up to way to the underground. So, that explosion was survivable with all that gear he was wearing (even safety goggles)! As for the fall? Well, Cid probably fell somewhat into the drafty thingy that helps airships lift out of the underground. Why else is that weird crater there? So he sailed on that and while I am sure the landing sucked, it wasn't fatal.

Myth: CONFIRMED