FInal Fantasy 7: Gongaga

Even more back-peddling! I skipped over one of the most low-key, overlooked locations in the game, mostly because it's full of 100% foreshadowing: Gongaga.

The first thing that happens when you enter Gongaga is that you notice the Turks nearby. The party becomes suspicious that there's a mole in the group, but Cloud doesn't want to hear it. "I trust everybody," he says.

What? Are you serious?

Let's see here: you've got Tifa and Barret, both of whom have been with Cloud since the beginning and have well-established reasons for hating Shinra. Okay, they're probably clear.

Red XIII was actually rescued from the Shinra Building and helped the party to escape in turn. No reason to distrust him, either. Likewise for Aeris.

Next, it's possible that you have Yuffie in the party. She could have joined since before Junon or five minutes prior, but either way is irrelevant if you trust Yuffie you are an idiot. She's clearly untrustworthy, and at this point in the game I don't think her issues with Shinra have been explored at all. Still, she's an optional character, and this suspicion occurs whether she's there or not, so we'll dismiss her as the mole for meta reasons, with the understanding that she's absolutely untrustworthy regardless.

And that brings us to the (most likely) newest member of the party. The one that we know absolutely nothing about except that he basically forced his way into your party without permission. Nothing further was said about it, yet now Cloud trusts him absolutely? In short, Cloud should immediately be suspicious of Cait Sith. He's a pretty goofy character, though, so I suspect that most people don't even think about him much, much less keep him in the active party.

So, Cloud is naive. We'll just accept this fact and move on.

In that same exchange, though, we learn that Rude has a thing for Tifa, which is pretty fitting, actually, since they have similar fighting styles.

Gongaga is a village of people living without Mako, mostly because their reactor blew up and they're slightly pissed at Shinra about it. You can visit the reactor, which gives you your first mention of huge materia. More importantly, though, you learn of the dynamic between Scarlet, the Turks, and Heidegger. This is another instance in which you feel kinda sorry for the Turks and form more of a connection with them through a mutual hatred of Scarlet.

Gongaga is also where Zack's parents live. They're under the impression that he's out there just being a typical son, not calling him parents. When they ask about him, Aeris responds with "Zack..." Based on that, Zack's parents deduce that Aeris was Zack's girlfriend from five years ago. What a couple of sleuths!

More importantly, though, Tifa is disturbed by Zack's parents as she struggles with the discrepancy between her memory and Cloud's of what happened in Nibelheim five years ago.

In any case, even after Cloud gets his past straightened out and you go to Nibelheim to view the Zack flashback in the basement, you still don't mention Zack's death when you talk to his parents. How rude.