Curious about this dialog...

[Moogie]

This always stood out to me as something not quite right, but I've never seen it discussed anywhere before.

You know those two guards who stand blocking the path south at the base of the Sector 7 pillar? If you chat with them before heading back to the train for your next mission, the 'wimpy' guy on the left says some pretty weird things. I've never been able to make much sense out of it.


Here's how the conversation goes.


Wimpy guard: "You know, I got some tickets to 'Loveless', do you want to go?"
Gruff guard: "What're you, retarded? Midgar's under martial law now!"

The next line is very peculiar. I have no idea which guard is saying this, because there's no pause between these dialog boxes, and nobody moves.

???: "Cloud, are you really concerned for me?" --Wait, is he talking to Cloud? These guards don't know who Cloud is. And what a weird question to ask him...?

Stranger still, it's the Gruff guard who responds to this, as if this question was directed at him.

Gruff guard: "Hell no! But in case you forgot, we're in the middle of a slum. They could be anywhere around, so stay on your guard."
Wimpy guard: "Right. You mean the AVALANCHE? Don't you worry. SOLDIER has been added to the police force."


So... what exactly is going on here? Is this just a translation error? It doesn't feel like one, tbh. Why would the name 'Cloud' even be there?

[Covarr]

My guess would be it was a mistake made in the original Japanese version (there are a decent number, though not usually in the dialogue), and the translators didn't bother to fix it or make sense of it.

[Touph Guy]

Maybe it's trying to show that in the world of FFVII, Cloud is a somewhat common name.

[guitar_dudester91]

If I remember correctly I always interpreted it as a double agent kind of thing. Like the cop/soldier is secretly in cahoots with AVALANCHE in some way shape or form. But I kow this is most likely wrong, it is probably a dialogue error.

[Cazador]

or Cloud is seeing his past when he was in soldier!!! ::Gasp:: 

[Bosola]

HMM. SO THAT'S HOW YOU FOOLED THEM.

[pyrozen]

it is puzzling... but what puzzled me even more was what they were guarding. I always thought it was some kind of extra area. It took me nearly 10 years to realize that they are standing in front of the gate behind the playground

[sl1982]

Well that is still much better then spending 10 hours fighting those guards trying to go back down the train track.

[Bosola]

I hated those damn guards. I think I spent a month trying that out before I discovered the maintenance chute.

Also,

HMM. SO THAT'S HOW YOU'LL FOOL THEM.

[DLPB_]

ＬＯＶＥＬＥＳＳのチケット取れたんですけど
　いっしょにいきません？」<End>
「やめとけ！
　ミッドガルは非常警戒体制に入ってる」<End>
「あっ、先輩！
　僕のこと、心配してくれてるんですか！」<End>
「そんなんじゃねえ！！
　テロリストはスラムにひそんでる。
　俺たちだって、気をぬけねぇ」<End>
「ああ、アバランチですか？」<New>
「大丈夫ですよ。
　なんてったって
　ソルジャーが警備に導入されたんですから」<End>
「ソルジャーの出動かぁ、久しぶりですよね。
　ねえ、先輩」<New>
「僕、ソルジャーの試験
　落っこちちゃったんですよ。
　この話、しましたっけ？」<End>
「おう！！
　ペラペラペラペラ……」<New>
「すこしはだまって、仕事できねえのか！」<End>
「……しゅん」<End>
「アバランチと先輩……
　どっちがこわいんだろ？」<New>
「きっと、先輩だな」<End>
「おう！！
　ここから先は立入禁止だ！！」<End>

-----------

This is the dialogue.  There is no mention of Cloud in that sentence, but I will have it translated.

[Covarr]

I couldn't make too much sense of a quick Google Translate of that, but it looks like they're talking about AVALANCHE. They seem to be arguing over whether or not AVALANCHE is actually a threat.

[DLPB_]

Automated translation sadly won't work at all with Japanese...  but that Cloud entry is definitely erroneous.  I will get Luksy to translate it all if someone hasn't beforehand.

The original translation won't be too far out.

[Gemini]

「あっ、先輩！
　僕のこと、心配してくれてるんですか！」<End>

This is the dialog with the incorrectly translated Cloud tag. The problem here is 先輩 (sempai): the guard is talking to the other officer, but the translator probably intended the target of sempai as the player, hence why it says Cloud. So, basically, replace Cloud with "sir" or something similar to get the real thing.

[DLPB_]

That is very poor since when referring to cloud directly, the {cloud} tag is always used...  not very bright to get things like that wrong...

[Gemini]

People who don't know Cloud never refer to him by his name, just like these guards. My guess is that the translator wasn't really familiar with this scene's context, so he had to make a rough guess of the situation. Japanese is frequently subject to this kind of mistakes.