Sephiroth The Purpose Seeker

Everyone who has played Final Fantasy 7 first and watched Advent Children meet Sephiroth as the megalomaniac villain who seeks the world's destruction and become a god/or go sailing throughout the galaxy planet hopping. However, people then watch Crisis Core and even Before Crisis then see a more humanized Sephiroth before he became evil. Here we see even though he is Shinra's ace card he is also shown to have emotional and mental vulnerabilities. Although aloof and stoic there seems to be always something eating at him like he is always trying to find something missing in himself. The scene where he fights Elfie has her questioning him about what is he fighting for as if she can see in his eyes that he actually doesn't have a true purpose in his life but to be a warrior on Shinra's behalf. Not to mention how he mentions the fact of having somewhere to belong and when it's brought up the issue of his parentage it actually kind of seems to effect him in a way but he shrugs it off.

This side of him might have actually been the reason for his transformation into his personality in the present. Because he finally finds what he can truly fight for and found his sort of mother he has been pining for all his life. Even though he no longer sees the planet as where he belongs he actually probably sees anywhere he is connected with Jenova as fine.

The thing I disliked the most about the sequels and spin-offs (not the prequels, of course) is how they simplified Sephiroth's character so much they made him a monochrome, single-issue villain.

They could have made so much with what they had :/

I think the biggest puzzle into how Sephiroth is the way he is would probably stem from his own childhood. All we have is he was raised under Shinra with no strong parental figures and was trained from day one to be the company's poster boy. Then of course one aspect of him I want more explored is his relationship with Professor Gast because even after his death it still affected Sephiroth.

Yeah, its like they didn't even try to keep him complex and interesting as a villain. He has sort of decayed into becoming a generic dooms day villain that is just there to obsess over Cloud, try to cause havoc, and be defeated once again.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: The way they wrote Sephiroth in the OG pretty much restricted SE to writing him as a one-dimensional character post-CC. The OG portrayed him as a maniacal, powerful, Cloud-obsessed, cheesy villain. Now, I'm not going to qualify all those adjectives with evidence, but I'd argue that they're all present and accounted for in the OG. What does this mean? It means that his one-dimensional character is essentially a fixed point in time (to use DW terminology), and SE has to somehow write around it -- and that's really fucking difficult.

I mean, it's easy to criticize SE for how they write Sephiroth -- I love to do so myself! -- but when you take a step back, you'll see that he was already written into a hole from the very beginning. His potential as a 3D character disappeared with the release of the OG, because OG!Sephiroth is the end point for his character. There is no further development to be had with him.

The best SE could do was write backwards -- and that's exactly what they did in CC. Some people like it, some people don't. I admit I still don't find the turning point for him very convincing, but there's definitely some intriguing material in there for anyone interested in writing character-focused fanfic. The sad part of it is, of course, that it's all going to end the same goddamn way if you want to stay true to canon -- he's still going to go utterly bonkers, rendering all your character development moot.

In a way its kind of sad and pointless to write anything really deep for Sephiroth because in the end he will end up as a one note villain for all time who is obsessed with only the destruction of the planet. Probably because throughout the game the player goes into the history of how he was conceived and who even his true mother is. You get all of this and you somewhat feel that Sephiroth should have a more deeper character to look at but its the opposite instead.

If I want to be honest pre-evil Sephiroth in a way reminds me a little bit of Elsa from Disney's Frozen in personality. Someone who is regal and cold natured but underneath has a sweet side that can be thawed out by those who are close to him. Not to mention how alienated both are from others because of their abilities.

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I'll admit that I somehow find Sephiroth the least compelling character amongst the top brass in SOLDIER (i.e. Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth).

If you want to include Zack in that list, I think Zack is even less interesting than Sephiroth, but he makes up for it by being one of the most likeable characters to come out of FF7.

(That being said, I would really like to see some non-ridiculous Angeal-Genesis-Sephiroth buddy-buddy fic. There's a lot that can be done with those three without violating canon, methinks.)

dief said:

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I'll admit that I somehow find Sephiroth the least compelling character amongst the top brass in SOLDIER (i.e. Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth).

If you want to include Zack in that list, I think Zack is even less interesting than Sephiroth, but he makes up for it by being one of the most likeable characters to come out of FF7.

(That being said, I would really like to see some non-ridiculous Angeal-Genesis-Sephiroth buddy-buddy fic. There's a lot that can be done with those three without violating canon, methinks.)

Click to expand...

I guess its the opposite with me because I actually am interested in Sephiroth when he was good and had his head on straight. I see a lot of fan fictions of depicting pre-Evil Sephiroth as being comically serious and having a dry,snarky sense of humor.

I guess I don't see much conflict in Sephiroth's character until Genesis and Angeal come into the picture, so I don't find him interesting. If you've been raised in one environment for so long, shaped specifically to fight, and don't have many close friends (whether because you're "special" or because you prefer solitude, etc.) ... you kind of just end up taking what you're given, even if you're inwardly unsatisfied with it. He totally reads to me like a character who would work himself to death for ShinRa just 'cause he's ordered without much of a second thought (at least until the aforementioned duo creep into the picture). It's just what he knows, and therefore, it's what he does. As you mentioned before, he's very purposeless, but he doesn't seem to care about his lack of purpose until certain catalysts explode into his life.

Kind of like Squall before he makes friends. (And yeah, I know they're very different characters, but I think you see what I mean here, yeah?)

In regards to Sephiroth-Genesis-Angeal buddy-buddy fics, I've found a lot of the time people tend to portray Genesis as the sole aggressor in the group, the guy that always causes the trouble because of his being uber-jealous of Sephiroth. It probably largely stems from how much of a douche Genesis is in the Junon Canon sparring FMV from Crisis Core. But in the same FMV I always thought Sephiroth was being just as childish as Genesis, but in a different way. Genesis is childish in an overly spoiled, rich kid who always gets what he wants kinda way. Sephiroth, on the other hand, is childish in a 'doesn't know when to stop' kinda way. He was full on ready to keep that fight going until Angeal stepped in. Sephiroth's the guy who didn't have an ordinary childhood and didn't have other kids around him to adjust fully to other people his age or thereabouts. He's that kid in school who takes the joke past joking point into bullying. His big redeeming quality is that he seems to be remorseful at times when he does realise he's taken it too far, unlike Genesis.

'Course he basically becomes Genesis sans poetry once he goes nuts. Obsessed with his own glory and overly remorseless and with a remarkable proclivity for saying vague things to himself like "I wonder..."

dief said:

I guess I don't see much conflict in Sephiroth's character until Genesis and Angeal come into the picture, so I don't find him interesting. If you've been raised in one environment for so long, shaped specifically to fight, and don't have many close friends (whether because you're "special" or because you prefer solitude, etc.) ... you kind of just end up taking what you're given, even if you're inwardly unsatisfied with it. He totally reads to me like a character who would work himself to death for ShinRa just 'cause he's ordered without much of a second thought (at least until the aforementioned duo creep into the picture). It's just what he knows, and therefore, it's what he does. As you mentioned before, he's very purposeless, but he doesn't seem to care about his lack of purpose until certain catalysts explode into his life.

Kind of like Squall before he makes friends. (And yeah, I know they're very different characters, but I think you see what I mean here, yeah?)

Click to expand...

Yeah, probably before he met Genesis and Angeal he always just kept to himself and was dedicated to the position in life that was set for him. I think his only true personal friends in his world gave him a semi-purpose in life outside fighting for Shinra. He had people who he could emotionally connect with and would hear him out. Something that was missing from when he was growing up and probably didn't have anytime at all to make in the early years of the war.

Keveh Kins said:

In regards to Sephiroth-Genesis-Angeal buddy-buddy fics, I've found a lot of the time people tend to portray Genesis as the sole aggressor in the group, the guy that always causes the trouble because of his being uber-jealous of Sephiroth. It probably largely stems from how much of a douche Genesis is in the Junon Canon sparring FMV from Crisis Core. But in the same FMV I always thought Sephiroth was being just as childish as Genesis, but in a different way. Genesis is childish in an overly spoiled, rich kid who always gets what he wants kinda way. Sephiroth, on the other hand, is childish in a 'doesn't know when to stop' kinda way. He was full on ready to keep that fight going until Angeal stepped in. Sephiroth's the guy who didn't have an ordinary childhood and didn't have other kids around him to adjust fully to other people his age or thereabouts. He's that kid in school who takes the joke past joking point into bullying. His big redeeming quality is that he seems to be remorseful at times when he does realise he's taken it too far, unlike Genesis.

'Course he basically becomes Genesis sans poetry once he goes nuts. Obsessed with his own glory and overly remorseless and with a remarkable proclivity for saying vague things to himself like "I wonder..."

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've noticed this tendency. Which is really unfortunate. Genesis is so poorly sketched out in canon that you can create any sort of backstory for him and have it be supported by some small detail,* and the fact that people don't take advantage of CC's horrible writing is disappointing. (Heck, look at how many good fics you can find in FF8 expanding upon the characters in all different directions!)

*I personally think Angeal was the only one with anything resembling an ordinary childhood, since apparently he's the only one who can understand people as people. I find it likely that Genesis was similar to both Sephiroth and Cloud (well, SE is hardly being subtle with parallels here) in that he thought he was better than all the rest of the kids. This attitude crept into how he interacted with them, and, together with his socioeconomic status, served to isolate him from basically everyone but Angeal. The isolation subsequently made him more and more self-absorbed; he convinced himself that he was better than everyone else, that they didn't know it, that they were just jealous, that he'll show everyone he's the best, etc. and it just snowballed into him becoming a highly competitive glory-hound. (Of course, the fact that he was actually above average did nothing to help his ego.)

Of course, it's entirely possible that he's just a spoiled rich kid, but being a spoiled rich kid still rarely makes one an amoral jackass, so I think there has to be more to the story. But again, it's all just headcanon.

I've never been particularly interested in pre-Nibelheim Sephiroth because it was always obvious, even from the original game, that there wasn't a lot there. He never had a "when he was good" phase; he did as Shin-Ra ordered and that's it.

From a fanfic angle, one of the main issues is that it's very difficult to write good, long stories about a character that doesn't have that much personal drive. Anyone who has set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) knows what I'm talking about. At some point the character just won't care, and your story will fizzle out.

dief said:

From a fanfic angle, one of the main issues is that it's very difficult to write good, long stories about a character that doesn't have that much personal drive. Anyone who has set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) knows what I'm talking about. At some point the character just won't care, and your story will fizzle out.

Click to expand...

Or the other thing is to make him have character development so that he does have a reason to care about the world and others around him. Sephiroth before he turned evil was more neutral than good. He never cared for the hero image because it was just a hollow propaganda tool used by Shinra to get people to support the company.

One thing that fanfiction writers do when trying to make Sephiroth a bit more comical character is to actually have him not liking other people messing with his hair. It probably comes from that e-mail shown in Crisis Core where his fanclub got the memo about how Sephiroth takes care of his long hair.

jazzflower92 said:

Or the other thing is to make him have character development so that he does have a reason to care about the world and others around him. Sephiroth before he turned evil was more neutral than good. He never cared for the hero image because it was just a hollow propaganda tool used by Shinra to get people to support the company.

Click to expand...

You have to walk a really fine line in that sort of story. We all know where Sephiroth ends up, so if you don't want to write an AU, you have to be careful to not contradict the canon by overdeveloping his character. (It's the same issue with writing Genesis or Angeal pre-CC. We all know where they end up, so if you want to be canon-compliant, Genesis can't "learn his lesson" until Zack beats him and Angeal will have to be kind of a brittle type of character. That means any development that takes place will have to go in an entirely different direction.)

I think neutral characters are way harder to write than evil or good characters. They just don't give a shit. Trying to motivate them to do things is like pulling out teeth.

dief said:

You have to walk a really fine line in that sort of story. We all know where Sephiroth ends up, so if you don't want to write an AU, you have to be careful to not contradict the canon by overdeveloping his character. (It's the same issue with writing Genesis or Angeal pre-CC. We all know where they end up, so if you want to be canon-compliant, Genesis can't "learn his lesson" until Zack beats him and Angeal will have to be kind of a brittle type of character. That means any development that takes place will have to go in an entirely different direction.)

I think neutral characters are way harder to write than evil or good characters. They just don't give a shit. Trying to motivate them to do things is like pulling out teeth.

Click to expand...

Its why I kind of like AU fan fictions starring Sephiroth because there is more freedom to develop more of his character which is restrained by canon limiting him to a one note role. Some really good fan fiction writers do a great job in slowly developing him from being neutral as he originally was to actually being considered someone who could be called good. "Final Fantasy 7 Another Side" is a good demonstration of an AU Sephiroth who goes through a good amount of growth and continues defrosting as the story goes on.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6595872/1/Final-Fantasy-VII-Another-Side

jazzflower92 said:

Or the other thing is to make him have character development so that he does have a reason to care about the world and others around him.

Click to expand...

How do you do that with a character like Sephiroth, though, who is going to do what he does at Nibelheim? You can't give him that development and then take it away just in time for him to go full on sociopath.

EDIT: Seems we were posting at the same time. So, you agree then that following canon leaves no room to do anything else with him?

Squall Leonhart said:

How do you do that with a character like Sephiroth, though, who is going to do what he does at Nibelheim? You can't give him that development and then take it away just in time for him to go full on sociopath.

Click to expand...

I was referring about a general neutral character not Sephiroth before he turned psycho. I know that can only possibly work with Sephiroth if it was in an AU. Otherwise, its kind of pointless to give him that kind of development.

Edit: In other words yes I agree with the fact that following canon puts a dead end with anything concerning Sephiroth.

jazzflower92 said:

Its why I kind of like AU fan fictions starring Sephiroth because there is more freedom to develop more of his character which is restrained by canon limiting him to a one note role. Some really good fan fiction writers do a great job in slowly developing him from being neutral as he originally was to actually being considered someone who could be called good. "Final Fantasy 7 Another Side" is a good demonstration of an AU Sephiroth who goes through a good amount of growth and continues defrosting as the story goes on.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6595872/1/Final-Fantasy-VII-Another-Side

Click to expand...

Yeah, but I'm talking about being canon-compliant. (Also, I'm tired of seeing Sephiroth, Genesis, and/or DG being scapegoated as villains. I'd rather read about Lazard-the-mastermind or Reeve-playing-dirty, personally.)

On a more canon-friendly ground: I think one could easily develop his friendship with Angeal and Genesis and not contradict canon. I do think Sephiroth was more affected by their betrayals than he let on in CC. There are some other things one can do with the characters too ... how does Angeal reconcile his code of honor with ShinRa's shadiness without it breaking him? How does Genesis (re)act under authority? (I constantly waver on whether he would be an outright rebellious character who barely managed to crawl his way through boot camp due to being an utter snot to the drill sergeant or one of those "I-hate-it-but-I'll-grit-my-teeth-'cause-I-have-to" types.) What effect does SOLDIER in general have on Angeal and Genesis? (Yet another thing I like to see ... relatively "good" people getting used and eaten up by a corporation. In the same vein, I definitely want to see some development or rejection of moral code by Genesis in particular.) How does Angeal's sense of honor influence Sephiroth's sense of purpose? So on, so forth...

dief said:

Yeah, but I'm talking about being canon-compliant. (Also, I'm tired of seeing Sephiroth, Genesis, and/or DG being scapegoated as villains. I'd rather read about Lazard-the-mastermind or Reeve-playing-dirty, personally.)

On a more canon-friendly ground: I think one could easily develop his friendship with Angeal and Genesis and not contradict canon. I do think Sephiroth was more affected by their betrayals than he let on in CC. There are some other things one can do with the characters too ... how does Angeal reconcile his code of honor with ShinRa's shadiness without it breaking him? How does Genesis (re)act under authority? (I constantly waver on whether he would be an outright rebellious character who barely managed to crawl his way through boot camp due to being an utter snot to the drill sergeant or one of those "I-hate-it-but-I'll-grit-my-teeth-'cause-I-have-to" types.) What effect does SOLDIER in general have on Angeal and Genesis? (Yet another thing I like to see ... relatively "good" people getting used and eaten up by a corporation. In the same vein, I definitely want to see some development or rejection of moral code by Genesis in particular.) How does Angeal's sense of honor influence Sephiroth's sense of purpose? So on, so forth...

Click to expand...

All good questions that Square probably would not even think that hard about. It seems with a lot of these concepts SE just loves wasting a perfectly good plot for something simplified and generic. In fact one thing that bugs me is the fact that the war with Avalanche and Genesis were going on at the same time but nary a peep about the other in both games. I think it would be kind of hard to do both wars at the same time. It would have actually been smart to have Genesis join Avalanche to tie in those two games. It is a thing that actually happened in another AU fanfiction called Mother's Legacy although that one has an AU Aerith as the star of the story. It does show how AU Aerith perceives Sephiroth from her point of view and how underneath his stoic exterior he is cracking under the fact that one of his friends has deserted the company and is in leagues with a terrorist organization.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8143897/1/Mother-s-Legacy

Now the million-dollar question is ... is Genesis Aerith's half-brother?

As long as we're still complaining, I wish AVALANCHE wasn't given such a black/white role in BC. The entire strategy of making mad scientists the root of all evil in FF7 is getting old. I mean, on the surface, they have a pretty decent agenda, but then you throw Fuhito into the mix, and as evil as ShinRa is, you just gotta root for them. Destroying the world for the greater good is never an option!

It was like they couldn't think of any other way of making you "root for the bad guys" than to make their opponent even worse. Not nearly the complexity I expected BC to share.

dief said:

Now the million-dollar question is ... is Genesis Aerith's half-brother?

As long as we're still complaining, I wish AVALANCHE wasn't given such a black/white role in BC. The entire strategy of making mad scientists the root of all evil in FF7 is getting old. I mean, on the surface, they have a pretty decent agenda, but then you throw Fuhito into the mix, and as evil as ShinRa is, you just gotta root for them. Destroying the world for the greater good is never an option!

Click to expand...

Yeah, I mean they even made the guy look up to Hojo as a role model. I mean you have to be evil enough to look up to Hojo. Then again the feeling was probably mutual because of the fact that Hojo actually was thinking of joining AVALANCHE until he saw how powerful Sephiroth really got.

And now that brings up the topic of Hojo and Sephiroth. Although he is Sephiroth's biological father Hojo would probably consider himself more his creator than parent. Hojo always seems to be rattling about how Sephiroth is his greatest creation and has a very unhealthy obsession with him. Some mistake it for actually being twisted paternal love but at the very end of the game it shows that when it comes to the bare facts Hojo only sees his own child as a science project that he wishes to see bloom to its fullest. One can say this mindset concerning Sephiroth could one of the reasons why the guy felt alienated from others is because he was always told he was special and it was reinforced by his skills honed through the years. He was probably given high standards to meet and would often try to achieve them so he wouldn't be considered a failure.

Squall Leonhart said:

It was like they couldn't think of any other way of making you "root for the bad guys" than to make their opponent even worse. Not nearly the complexity I expected BC to share.

Click to expand...

Yeah. Not that I've played the game (or managed to sit through an entire Let's Play), but for me, part of the allure of ShinRa's characters (SOLDIERs, Turks, etc.) is that they're mostly decent people who do bad shit, and they presumably have to cope with the fact that they're doing bad shit for no good reason except that they were ordered to do so. :/

Then again, SE has always danced around the deeper moral implications of their games. BC's, DoC's, and CC's villains all glimmered with a bit of gray promise, but alas ... let's just make most of the villains irredeemable so that you have to root for the designated "good guys"!

jazzflower92 said:

Yeah, I mean they even made the guy look up to Hojo as a role model. I mean you have to be evil enough to look up to Hojo. Then again the feeling was probably mutual because of the fact that Hojo actually was thinking of joining AVALANCHE until he saw how powerful Sephiroth really got.

And now that brings up the topic of Hojo and Sephiroth. Although he is Sephiroth's biological father Hojo would probably consider himself more his creator than parent. Hojo always seems to be rattling about how Sephiroth is his greatest creation and has a very unhealthy obsession with him. Some mistake it for actually being twisted paternal love but at the very end of the game it shows that when it comes to the bare facts Hojo only sees his own child as a science project that he wishes to see bloom to its fullest. One can say this mindset concerning Sephiroth could one of the reasons why the guy felt alienated from others is because he was always told he was special and it was reinforced by his skills honed through the years. He was probably given high standards to meet and would often try to achieve them so he wouldn't be considered a failure.

Click to expand...

Tbh, given Sephiroth's disdain of Hojo, I don't think he would jump Hojo's hoops for Hojo's approval; he seems more like the type to jump the hoops, because they're there, and he's told to do so. Sephiroth has never given me the impression that he's actually scared of failure; yeah, he was likely held to very high standards, but he doesn't read to me as a character who's ever even considered that he may not reach and surpass those standards.

I know he wouldn't do it for Hojo's sake but he would do it because that is pretty much his main purpose in life which is to be Shinra's top warrior. The reason why I say he might have a thing with being a failure because in Crisis Core he even questions how expendable he could be in Shinra's eyes after seeing how his own friends are being hunted down.

Going back to the topic of Hojo. Does anyone remember how he set up his fanclub when Sephiroth was just five years old. It says the Silver Elite was started twenty years before the events of Crisis Core.