Hope, Snow, and Empathy

[Ⓐaron]

I think the problem is that we have different definitions of the word "terrorist". To me a terrorist is a person who commits terrorist acts, and terrorist acts must involve violence directed for explicitly political aims at people who are uninvolved in a conflict. Tifa has not committed a terrorist act; she has simply been an accomplice to terrorist acts. She is a member of a group which has committed terrorist acts, but she herself did not personally carry out any of those acts. Tabloid news reports would probably identify her as a terrorist, but they would not be technically correct, as she has not personally done anything that could properly be identified as terrorism, although it is unlikely she would be able to sue them successfully in this country for libel as, having made herself a public figure, she would have to demonstrate actual malice, which is almost impossible. In the U.K. she might have quite a bit more luck, although the varying definitions of the word "terrorism" would still make this difficult. Attacks on Shinra guards are also not terrorism because Shinra are part of the conflict. The attacks on uninvolved civilians are terrorism because the people killed by the explosion of the reactor have nothing to do with the conflict other than perhaps using energy derived from Mako, which in a society dependent upon Mako energy is almost entirely incidental.

Most accepted definitions of terrorism require that it be directed at people. Not that Wikipedia is the authoritative last word on anything, but Wikipedia notes that "an abiding characteristic" of most definitions of terrorism is "the indiscriminate use of violence against noncombatants for the purpose of gaining publicity for a group, cause, or individual" (emphasis mine). This squares with most definitions I've come across in my readings (for instance, the United Nations has defined terrorism as any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act"; however, there are over 100 known definitions, so they certainly vary), although certain sources consider violence that is likely to be interpreted as a threat against noncombatants (such as bombings of religious places of worship) to be terrorism. However, these are uncommon and most definitions require terrorism to be directed at people who are uninvolved in the general conflict.

It is also worth noting that under some of the more restrictive definitions of terrorism it might be possible to interpret Avalanche's actions as not being terrorism at all, since the primary goal was in fact the destruction of the Mako reactor and not the coercion of Shinra into any particular course of action, and the deaths of noncombatants were simply collateral damage and not the primary purpose of blowing up the reactor. However, this would be an extremely daft way of looking at things and it is unlikely to be accepted by many people (in case it's not obvious, I don't accept it either), but it's worth pointing out since the fact that there are so many differing definitions of the word "terrorism" has come up.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Aaron, you are right that there's a number of definitions applied to the word, though many are likely colloquailisms based on common characteristics of terrorists, which is how we get miscommunications like this (see also: "koibito").

By your definition, sure, Tifa is not a terrorist -- but then neither is the rest of Avalanche. Even with incurred civilian deaths, Tifa et. al.'s actions were not directed at those people.

I guess the matter should really boil down to this: do you consider Avalanche a terrorist organization? If yes, you'd kind of have to consider Tifa a terrorist. Even for operations that she didn't participate in executing, she was still involved in the preliminaries and afterliminaries.

 

[Ⓐaron]

I think you've misunderstood my definition. My definion of a terrorist is a person who commits or at least attempts a political murder. Thus Barret would be a terrorist for planning the attack, Cloud would be a terrorist for setting the bomb, Jessie would be a terrorist for making the bomb, but Tifa, who never did nor attempted any of those things, is simply an accomplice to terrorists. Avalanche definitely has committed terrorist attacks, there's no question of that.

 

[ForceStealer]

I'd count Tifa a terrorist at that point. She went on the mission, she was part of the machine that enabled the (second) bombing to occur. The only one who might be arguable is Cloud since he was merely a mercenary.

Like Tres said, the only way she isn't is if AVALANCHE is not a terrorist organization, for which I guess an argument could be made. Given that they weren't trying to engender "terror" or anything political; they literally wanted the reactor itself destroyed.

This specifically says it didn't happen in the middle of the night, so losses probably weren't minimized as much as they could have been.

But...it DID take place at night. If not the middle of it. They get on the Sector 8 train back to the slums at midnight.

I'll grant you that blaming him for that is a stretch. It's not hard to see why he did, though, given everything else.

Well I don't think its hard to see why he did either. But I imagine my "why" is reasonably different from yours

You still have to understand it -- and short of experiencing it yourself or performing a Vulcan mind-meld or some shit, you're not going to be able to intellectually identify with them.

That's what vicariously means. You don't have to experience it yourself, you experience it by way of a character given that you go on the journey with him - as opposed to thinking he's a little brat.

Yet, as she herself admitted, she definitely did when an excuse presented itself.

Yeah but an excuse, in addition to being a rather good one, is still more than Hope had.

So you agree with Dacon that there's a more obvious connection between a soldier and the organization he is part of (even when acting independently and against their wishes) than a specific battle and the specific person who started it?

Yes. Because Shinra is responsible for Sephiroth's actions. Snow is not responsible for Nora's actions. She acted on her own, and even if he did "start" the battle, everyone who didn't stay to fight lived. So if they had just done what he said in the first place, they all would have lived and he probably would have been the only one killed.

How you can think that Shinra's culpability for Sephiroth and Snow's culpability for Nora are of the same ilk baffles me.

 

[Ryushikaze]

How you can think that Shinra's culpability for Sephiroth and Snow's culpability for Nora are of the same ilk baffles me.

Sephiroth is the emblem and emissary of ShinRa, working on their behalf. Even though he went crazy go nuts on a mission, expecting his employers and the people who hold him to be the standard for something he did while working explicitly on their behalf, even if a stretch, is a logical conclusion.

Likewise, holding Sanctum responsible for the people their PsiCom troops kill.

Now, had ShinRa publicly repudiated or punished Sephiroth, or made reparations somehow, then they might be absolved of their culpability at least in part- same as if a US soldier went rogue and shot up a village, you'd expect them to be punished and amends of some sort to be made by the Government. Of course, ShinRa didn't. They covered everything up. They wanted to avoid embarrassment, not make things right. They weren't upset it had happened. They were upset it might hurt their image and their profit margin.

Like I said earlier, even if Blaming ShinRa is a stretch, it's still consistent- she's holding Sephiroth's employers responsible for his acts under their employ.

Had Snow made Nora join, then there'd be a case that he was directly responsible for her death, that he 'got her killed.' But she volunteered. Snow did his damndest to help her.
Hope's best rationale is to blame Snow for getting everyone into the situation to begin with. And even then, he probably ought to have changed his tune shortly after learning Psicom Killed her.

As for Tifa, she wasn't a Terrorist- as far as we know- until she joined the bombing mission.
One can be in league with a terrorist without being the terrorist themself.

 

[Eerie]

I wasn't really able to post in here but damn, I wonder if comparing Tifa and Hope was the best thing I ever did

Anyway, what you missed on my comparison Tres, because I wanted to clear that out and couldn't before, is that yes, there is lazy writing when it comes to Hope. When Tifa's past is revealed, you ALREADY care for the character. It's part of what makes her, but you have already seen her caring, trying to help, to understand, you saw her fight - and not whine - you saw a LOT of her already.

With Hope, you only see him whining throughout the game, more or less. Hearing him going on about Snow, even if I hate the dude, isn't going to make me like him I don't hate him, but I fail to see why I should love him. And it's the same for all the characters, the least I can say about them is that they're not really original, fitting stereotypes to a T [a few minutes after meeting with Vanille, I had already guessed that she came from Pulse, and I already hated her].

If you take FFVII as example, you'd think at first that Tifa is the flirty girl while Aerith is the "good girl" one. Exept, it's the contrary, and it's not all they have either. A good writing should be able to show you more in 1 hour of gaming than what FFXIII shows, and that was my point.

Also, too many movie sequences. That's my other beef with this game. I pay to play, not to watch a damn movie where characters want to kill each other and spam the same lines over and over. At least, let me play. And it's a shame, because I fucking LOVE the gameplay. -__-

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I think you've misunderstood my definition. My definion of a terrorist is a person who commits or at least attempts a political murder. Thus Barret would be a terrorist for planning the attack, Cloud would be a terrorist for setting the bomb, Jessie would be a terrorist for making the bomb, but Tifa, who never did nor attempted any of those things, is simply an accomplice to terrorists. Avalanche definitely has committed terrorist attacks, there's no question of that.

Well, none of them really attempted a political murder per se (the word "assassination" comes to mind for me for that), but I just can't see how Tifa's excluded from having attempted anything that Avalanched attempted. They were a team -- and while you certainly can distinguish an individual from the larger group, the same way you can distinguish Sephiroth from the rest of Shin-Ra (though this doesn't seem to be happening in your, Force and Dacon's arguments =P), the difference here is that they shared the same goal and everyone on the team (Tifa included) was doing all in their power to achieve that goal.

I could maybe agree with something like "Tifa ... is simply an accomplice to terrorists" if she ever disagreed with the activities of the rest of the team, tried to stop them at some point, or even voiced a bit of disagreement with anything they did at any point. But since she didn't do that, since the actions of a terrorist group (which, by definition, must be comprimsed of terrorists) are a team effort, and since Tifa even participates in at least one operation every bit as much as Barret, I can't see how she could be the sole exception to this label.

I'd count Tifa a terrorist at that point. She went on the mission, she was part of the machine that enabled the (second) bombing to occur. The only one who might be arguable is Cloud since he was merely a mercenary.

I'd even count Cloud. I know some people would probably exclude him based on a definition of "terrorist" that takes the individual's mindset and motivations into account, but I'd still count him since he was part of the whole thing.

But, yeah, if anyone gets an out, it's him.

But...it DID take place at night. If not the middle of it. They get on the Sector 8 train back to the slums at midnight.

Yeah, but we're not given any reason to believe this lowered the loss of life. For all we know, it was higher than it would have been during the day. Maybe the people who got blown up in their nearby homes would have been at work somewhere other than near the reactor.

That's what vicariously means. You don't have to experience it yourself, you experience it by way of a character given that you go on the journey with him - as opposed to thinking he's a little brat.

I guess I'm used to a more strict definition of "empathy" then, because I certainly don't feel like I understand Hope's situation. I just feel real bad for him.

How you can think that Shinra's culpability for Sephiroth and Snow's culpability for Nora are of the same ilk baffles me.

For me, there's a more direct and immediate association between a specific fight that someone is killed in and an organization that shaped a soldier who, years later, went off on his own and did wacky shit that the organization would not have approved of. Might as well be blaming parents for the actions of their adult kids.

Also, keep in mind that we're talking about a fight that wouldn't have happened if not for NORA interrupting the train that -- as far as Hope and Snow both knew -- would have safely escorted everyone aboard to the wilderness instead of off a bridge. Given what they all knew, Hope is not being insane to make an association between Snow's recklessness and the battle that killed his mom.

Granted, what NORA did actually saved Hope, Sazh, and Vanille's lives, but that's not the kind of thing we're discussing.

Anyway, what you missed on my comparison Tres, because I wanted to clear that out and couldn't before, is that yes, there is lazy writing when it comes to Hope. When Tifa's past is revealed, you ALREADY care for the character. It's part of what makes her, but you have already seen her caring, trying to help, to understand, you saw her fight - and not whine - you saw a LOT of her already.

With Hope, you only see him whining throughout the game, more or less.

I just don't understand getting annoyed with a character who's expressing believable, expected anguish over the violent death of his mother that had just happened.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Well, none of them really attempted a political murder per se (the word "assassination" comes to mind for me for that), but I just can't see how Tifa's excluded from having attempted anything that Avalanched attempted. They were a team -- and while you certainly can distinguish an individual from the larger group, the same way you can distinguish Sephiroth from the rest of Shin-Ra (though this doesn't seem to be happening in your, Force and Dacon's arguments =P), the difference here is that they shared the same goal and everyone on the team (Tifa included) was doing all in their power to achieve that goal.

I could maybe agree with something like "Tifa ... is simply an accomplice to terrorists" if she ever disagreed with the activities of the rest of the team, tried to stop them at some point, or even voiced a bit of disagreement with anything they did at any point. But since she didn't do that, since the actions of a terrorist group (which, by definition, must be comprimsed of terrorists) are a team effort, and since Tifa even participates in at least one operation every bit as much as Barret, I can't see how she could be the sole exception to this label.

It's politically motivated murder because their primary interest is getting rid of something they (correctly) regard as detrimental to the planet, and they know that the bombing will kill people and do it anyway. However, only the people directly involved in the killing can be said to have committed political murder - the people who make and plant the bomb, and the person who planned the operation. You wouldn't say someone who participated in a bank robbery where people were killed but didn't personally kill anyone was a murderer, even if they would've killed those people if they were required to - a person who hasn't killed anyone isn't a murderer, period. It's the same deal here. Tifa hasn't killed anyone for political reasons. Therefore she's not a terrorist, just an accomplice of them. She could realistically be considered a potential terrorist in the future, but she hasn't yet committed terrorism herself.

 

[Dana Scully]

However, only the people directly involved in the killing can be said to have committed political murder - the people who make and plant the bomb, and the person who planned the operation.

Out of curiousity, did it ever say Tifa never had any part in planning the operation?

I know we never really see her actively scheming in their secret basement, but she does identify herself as a member of AVALANCHE. You would think she would have had some say in what they did.

You wouldn't say someone who participated in a bank robbery where people were killed but didn't personally kill anyone was a murderer

Out of all the fights she had with Shinra, I can't believe she didn't kill at least a few guards, even accidentally. I mean, seriously, I know she's a pro and that she knows what moves would and wouldn't kill a person, but maintaining that balance in a combat situation when someone is shooting at you is asking a lot. The line between incapacitation and death when it comes to blunt force is a very fine line.

 

[Eerie]

I just don't understand getting annoyed with a character who's expressing believable, expected anguish over the violent death of his mother that had just happened.

/before I forget to post

The problem is not to express it. I think it's fine to express it a few times. Things with Hope is that whenever he opened his mouth, 95% of the time, if not more, it was about Snow. People DO get impatient; that his hate for Snow DEFINED him wasn't a good thing AND lazy writing.

Just this point is NOT going to make him liked.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Out of curiousity, did it ever say Tifa never had any part in planning the operation?

As far as I can remember she's never shown involved in planning. That said, the game never explicitly says she didn't plan anything, but I figure that if it wanted her to be considered one of the masterminds behind the bombings it would've presented her as such.

I know we never really see her actively scheming in their secret basement, but she does identify herself as a member of AVALANCHE. You would think she would have had some say in what they did.

Just because she has say in what they do doesn't mean she personally is responsible for everything every member does. The fact that she never objects to any of the group's actions would make her an accomplice, but unless she actively advanced the agenda of blowing up reactors, or directly contributed to coming up with the means by which they did it, or did something that directly contributed to blowing up the reactors (such as making or detonating the bomb), it wouldn't make sense to hold her responsible for it.

Out of all the fights she had with Shinra, I can't believe she didn't kill at least a few guards, even accidentally. I mean, seriously, I know she's a pro and that she knows what moves would and wouldn't kill a person, but maintaining that balance in a combat situation when someone is shooting at you is asking a lot. The line between incapacitation and death when it comes to blunt force is a very fine line.

If they weren't wearing helmets and body armour I'd agree, but they were, weren't they? When you get someone as experienced with hand-to-hand combat as Tifa is dealing with people who are already well protected the odds of anyone dying because of her actions are pretty damn slim.

Besides, at any rate it generally wouldn't be considered terrorism to kill Shinra guards because they're part of the conflict - by most definitions of terrorism, it must be explicitly aimed at noncombatants. So if they died by accident she'd be guilty of manslaughter or murder, depending on laws, but not terrorism.

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah, but we're not given any reason to believe this lowered the loss of life. For all we know, it was higher than it would have been during the day. Maybe the people who got blown up in their nearby homes would have been at work somewhere other than near the reactor.

Nearby homes weren't intentionally hit anyway, that was the miscalculation of the bomb. It stands to reason that there would be fewer employees in the reactor at night, but also fewer guards. And since I'm not sure where I heard this (I think I heard Mako say it in some thread about how many people AVALANCHE killed throughout the came or some such) I'll drop this point.

For me, there's a more direct and immediate association between a specific fight that someone is killed in and an organization that shaped a soldier who, years later, went off on his own and did wacky shit that the organization would not have approved of. Might as well be blaming parents for the actions of their adult kids.

Organizations are held responsible for the actions of their members all the time. The Catholic Church is blamed for actions of touchy-feely priests, governments are blamed for anything any gov't worker or miltary member does, and hell, the Arizona shooting is being blamed on the Tea Party, and that guy hasn't even been shown to really belong to them.
Even if it isn't rational, its pretty damn common. And I'd say its rather rational anyway, as has been pointed out, it was Shinra's stupidity that this happened - sending Sephiroth to where all the information about the Jenova Project was kept.

Also, keep in mind that we're talking about a fight that wouldn't have happened if not for NORA interrupting the train that -- as far as Hope and Snow both knew -- would have safely escorted everyone aboard to the wilderness instead of off a bridge. Given what they all knew, Hope is not being insane to make an association between Snow's recklessness and the battle that killed his mom.

For all Hope knows, the train crashed on its own

I just don't understand getting annoyed with a character who's expressing believable, expected anguish over the violent death of his mother that had just happened.

I just can't ever imagine that I would act similarly in an identical situation. Whereas I could see myself reacting the way Tifa does, or Cloud, or Sazh. Then there are characters like Cyan, who react in a manner much stronger than I would (but still realistically, not all but ignoring it, for instance), so I am able to admire them. Hope reacts in a manner far less rationally than I could ever see myself doing, even as a 14 year old.

And as Eerie says, its the only thing he says in addition to "Why me" over the L'cie thing. Which would be an acceptable response except that literally the ONLY PERSON he has to blame for that is himself. And given that that is his entire character for 15 hours, its pretty grating. Tidus' whining is NOT all he does, despite whatever hyperbole his haters purport, he has a much more rounded personality.

 

[Dana Scully]

/before I forget to post

The problem is not to express it. I think it's fine to express it a few times. Things with Hope is that whenever he opened his mouth, 95% of the time, if not more, it was about Snow. People DO get impatient; that his hate for Snow DEFINED him wasn't a good thing AND lazy writing.

Just this point is NOT going to make him liked.

Don't forget though how quickly Hope gets over his Snow obsession in game-universe-time. Gameplay-wise we have to listen to him whining for the entire first half of the game, and it gets on your nerves really quickly. But it's only a few days in-universe, which is piddly squat considering what Hope's been through.

As far as I can remember she's never shown involved in planning. That said, the game never explicitly says she didn't plan anything, but I figure that if it wanted her to be considered one of the masterminds behind the bombings it would've presented her as such.

Fair enough. I don't actually think she had any real part in planning out the details - I just think that she would have had a say in the high level aspect of their plans (ie, agreeing with the suggestion of bombing the reactors).

Just because she has say in what they do doesn't mean she personally is responsible for everything every member does.

Wasn't trying to suggest she's responsible for the actions of the other members. But she is responsible for her own actions, and those involve providing shelter, helping to recruit new members (to specifically aid in blowing up the reactor), and going along with them to the reactor and helping them infiltrate it for the express purpose of blowing it to hell and gone.

The fact that she never objects to any of the group's actions would make her an accomplice, but unless she actively advanced the agenda of blowing up reactors, or directly contributed to coming up with the means by which they did it, or did something that directly contributed to blowing up the reactors (such as making or detonating the bomb), it wouldn't make sense to hold her responsible for it.

I don't see how helping Barret and Cloud fight their way through the reactor isn't a direct contribution to blowing up the reactor.

If they weren't wearing helmets and body armour I'd agree, but they were, weren't they? When you get someone as experienced with hand-to-hand combat as Tifa is dealing with people who are already well protected the odds of anyone dying because of her actions are pretty damn slim.

True. Though I'd also point out - and I'd forgotten about this myself until just now - that she was also, arguably, using magic such as Bolt or Ice. And body armour won't help you much when you get zapped by lightning.

I just feel its unrealistic to claim she killed no one at all.

Besides, at any rate it wouldn't be terrorism to kill Shinra guards because they're part of the conflict - terrorism is explicitly aimed at noncombatants. So if they died by accident she'd be guilty of manslaughter or murder, depending on laws, but not terrorism.

I'm not really fussed on the definition of terrorism or labeling AVALANCHE's actions as such, tbh. It's not whether or not Tifa/AVALANCHE qualifies as terrorists that concerns me; it's Tifa's role in AVALANCHE's actions, whether that action be 'terrorism' or 'environmental sabotage' or 'BLOWIN' STUFF UP' or anything else you'd care to call it.

 

[ForceStealer]

Don't forget though how quickly Hope gets over his Snow obsession in game-universe-time. Gameplay-wise we have to listen to him whining for the entire first half of the game, and it gets on your nerves really quickly. But it's only a few days in-universe, which is piddly squat considering what Hope's been through.

Well when the person onto which you've projected all of your hatred onto carries you to safety under full pursuit of the military with broken/bruised ribs (and YOU'RE the reason they are as such), I feel like that might make you change your tune.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Fair enough. I don't actually think she had any real part in planning out the details - I just think that she would have had a say in the high level aspect of their plans (ie, agreeing with the suggestion of bombing the reactors).

Quite likely. This still doesn't make her directly responsible for it.

Wasn't trying to suggest she's responsible for the actions of the other members. But she is responsible for her own actions, and those involve providing shelter, helping to recruit new members (to specifically aid in blowing up the reactor), and going along with them to the reactor and helping them infiltrate it for the express purpose of blowing it to hell and gone.

Yes, but she still didn't set the bomb, she still didn't make the bomb, etc. Her part in the bombing is incidental. She knocked out a few guards, and she recruited some people to Avalanche's cause. Those actions are on a completely different level from making or setting a bomb that kills several dozen people.

I don't see how helping Barret and Cloud fight their way through the reactor isn't a direct contribution to blowing up the reactor.

Would Barret and Cloud have been able to blow up the reactor without her? Probably; the Shinra guards are pretty weak enemies. Her actions are a direct contribution to, well, knocking out some guards. They're an indirect contribution to anything else. A direct contribution would be making a bomb, setting a bomb, planning a bombing, or doing anything directly related to the bombing. Knocking out guards is tangential - it's questionable whether it should even be necessary to blow up a reactor. If this were a Metal Gear game the bombing would probably be pulled off without knocking anyone out. Of course, the game mechanics pretty much force you to knock them out, but that seems more a case of unimaginative game designers or restrictive game mechanics than anything.

True. Though I'd also point out - and I'd forgotten about this myself until just now - that she was also, arguably, using magic such as Bolt or Ice. And body armour won't help you much when you get zapped by lightning.

Well, that depends on the player. Some players might not use magic at all. Furthermore, given that enemies in this game routinely survive Bolt spells it's pretty unrealistic to expect magic to react any differently than hand-to-hand combat. Battle mechanics are not the real world etc.

I just feel its unrealistic to claim she killed no one at all.

I severely doubt she killed "no one at all" throughout the course of the game, but at the same time concluding that she must have directly killed someone while infiltrating the reactor is pretty unlikely. There's no evidence that she kills anyone she knocks out in the reactor.

I'm not really fussed on the definition of terrorism or labeling AVALANCHE's actions as such, tbh. It's not whether or not Tifa/AVALANCHE qualifies as terrorists that concerns me; it's Tifa's role in AVALANCHE's actions, whether that action be 'terrorism' or 'environmental sabotage' or 'BLOWIN' STUFF UP' or anything else you'd care to call it.

Right, I just don't see how her actions make her anywhere near as culpable as the person who actually makes the bomb, sets the bomb, plans the bombing, etc. Her actions make her an accomplice rather than fully culpable. You apparently just think a person needs a lot less involvement to be considered directly responsible than I do. In reality she'd almost certainly be nothing more than an accomplice.

 

[roku]

They expected a boy of 14 to wield a real gun? Or a real sword? He was a civilian, ffs, and a KID! He needed something that could be used as a weapon but without looking that harmful.

When my grandfather was his age, he was putting lead in nazi's.

But seriously I agree with you.

 

[Ⓐaron]

It's worth pointing out the definition of the word accomplice. Wikipedia:

At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller and asks for the money is guilty of armed robbery. However, anyone else directly involved in the commission of the crime, such as the lookout or the getaway car driver, is an accomplice, even though in the absence of an underlying offense keeping a lookout or driving a car would not be an offense.

This fits Tifa's role perfectly. She took no part in the actual offence - the bombing. Her actions contributed to it, but she had nothing directly to do with the bomb itself.

 

[ForceStealer]

It may still be in a legal context, but I happen to like seeing Aaron talk about Final Fantasy at all

It's like the old days

 

[Dana Scully]

Well when the person onto which you've projected all of your hatred onto carries you to safety under full pursuit of the military with broken/bruised ribs (and YOU'RE the reason they are as such), I feel like that might make you change your tune.

Oh, for sure. It's just that - and I blame this on bad character development after Hope gets over his issues - people seem to think Hope is nothing but a huge whiner and nothing else. It's not an entirely unfair assumption, given how much the game focuses on it, but I feel that context (the timeframe in which all his whining takes place) is important.

If they hadn't had Hope just fade into the background so much after they arrive on Pulse, and, you know, actually explored other aspects of his character, I think Hope would get a lot less hate.

And I'm pretty sure I just did a tl;dr of what Eerie was trying to say in the first place.

Well, that depends on the player. Some players might not use magic at all. Furthermore, given that enemies in this game routinely survive Bolt spells it's pretty unrealistic to expect magic to react any differently than hand-to-hand combat. Battle mechanics are not the real world etc.

They also routinely survive several rounds of machine gun fire and getting whacked repeatedly over the head with a giant sword. So unless we feel that bullets and swords are 90% foam in the FF7 universe I think it's perfectly fair to assume a bolt of lightning is just as deadly as getting shot.

I severely doubt she killed "no one at all" throughout the course of the game, but at the same time concluding that she must have directly killed someone while infiltrating the reactor is pretty unlikely. There's no evidence that she kills anyone she knocks out in the reactor.

Well there's no evidence that she simply 'knocks out' anyone either. Don't get me wrong, it's more than fair to assume that not everyone you fight in game is actually killed - especially with Tifa. I just want to point out that we're both making assumptions either way.

Right, I just don't see how her actions make her anywhere near as culpable as the person who actually makes the bomb, sets the bomb, plans the bombing, etc. Her actions make her an accomplice rather than fully culpable.

...

You apparently just think a person needs a lot less involvement to be considered directly responsible than I do. In reality she'd almost certainly be nothing more than an accomplice.

Yeah, I don't think we're going to see eye-to-eye on what defines responsible in this situation. Which is fine.

 

[Ⓐaron]

They also routinely survive several rounds of machine gun fire and getting whacked repeatedly over the head with a giant sword. So unless we feel that bullets and swords are 90% foam in the FF7 universe I think it's perfectly fair to assume a bolt of lightning is just as deadly as getting shot.

Yes, but getting shot isn't particularly deadly in the FF7 universe, so it's not as if it's like getting shot irl

Well there's no evidence that she simply 'knocks out' anyone either. Don't get me wrong, it's more than fair to assume that not everyone you fight in game is actually killed - especially with Tifa. I just want to point out that we're both making assumptions either way.

Right, but irl legal systems operate on the principle of the defendant being innocent until proven guilty. So in the absence of evidence she definitively killed at least one of the guards I'm going to go with the way irl legal systems work

Yeah, I don't think we're going to see eye-to-eye on what defines responsible in this situation. Which is fine.

Yep, but see the definition of accomplice above

 

[roku]

Another example: Cyan. His family and kingdom is killed by poison and the guy who did it escapes. What does he do? He goes after the Empire who gave him the authority to poison the entire kingdom, not just the guy who was directly guilty.

And Snow(as stupid as he is) is not going to kill a bunch of innocents.

TLDR: Hope should be going after PSICOM.

 

[ForceStealer]

Well, technically, the Empire had no part in Kefka's underhanded tactic, but Cyan doesn't know that. Also, see previous "organizations are responsible for their members" arguments, so...yeah

 

[Obsidian Fire]

As far as Tifa killing/not killing guards in the reactor...

The problem I see with her not killing guards is that it means the guards have a chance to warn Shin-Ra that AVALANCHE is in the reactor. If you're infiltrating a building, the easiest way to make sure no one knows your there is to kill the people you come across so they won't report back to their superiors. Seeing as AVALANCHE can't take any chances like that, I would say that yes, Tifa is killing the guards in the reactor. As for if she can kill them through all the armor and stuff, (a) she has materia, (b) the FFVII world is an anime-style world, and Tifa is a main character; the "normal" physical laws of our world don't apply to her, so yes, she can lethally hurt people even if they have armor on. Also, if armor slows her down, it makes no sense that she would be able to hurt Sephiroth.

As far as Tifa being/not being a terrorist...

Regardless of what your definition of terrorist is, Tifa basically calls herself one. The fact that she admits she is one should be reason enough to consider her one. Also, there's no reason to assume that the legal definitions of our world hold fast in the FFVII world.

 

[Ⓐaron]

As far as Tifa killing/not killing guards in the reactor...

The problem I see with her not killing guards is that it means the guards have a chance to warn Shin-Ra that AVALANCHE is in the reactor. If you're infiltrating a building, the easiest way to make sure no one knows your there is to kill the people you come across so they won't report back to their superiors. Seeing as AVALANCHE can't take any chances like that, I would say that yes, Tifa is killing the guards in the reactor. As for if she can kill them through all the armor and stuff, (a) she has materia, (b) the FFVII world is an anime-style world, and Tifa is a main character; the "normal" physical laws of our world don't apply to her, so yes, she can lethally hurt people even if they have armor on. Also, if armor slows her down, it makes no sense that she would be able to hurt Sephiroth.

Yes, but they only need to be knocked out for about ten minutes, because after that point the bomb will have been set and it won't matter. Tifa seems to me like she'd be a good enough fighter that she could give someone a severe enough injury that there'd be no way they'd revive for at least ten minutes, and yet kill someone with her bare hands if she wanted to as well. That might be reading too deeply into things, but at any rate it seems highly unlikely that anyone she knocked out would recover in time to warn anyone of their actions, so it doesn't seem like a likely concern of theirs.

As far as Tifa being/not being a terrorist...

Regardless of what your definition of terrorist is, Tifa basically calls herself one. The fact that she admits she is one should be reason enough to consider her one. Also, there's no reason to assume that the legal definitions of our world hold fast in the FFVII world.

I don't remember this in the game at all, but regardless of what she calls herself, she still hasn't done anything that qualifies as terrorism. People say a lot of things about themselves; some of it is just hot air. A lot of people call themselves gangsters who have never done anything gangster-like as well.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

It's politically motivated murder because their primary interest is getting rid of something they (correctly) regard as detrimental to the planet, and they know that the bombing will kill people and do it anyway. However, only the people directly involved in the killing can be said to have committed political murder - the people who make and plant the bomb, and the person who planned the operation. You wouldn't say someone who participated in a bank robbery where people were killed but didn't personally kill anyone was a murderer, even if they would've killed those people if they were required to - a person who hasn't killed anyone isn't a murderer, period. It's the same deal here. Tifa hasn't killed anyone for political reasons. Therefore she's not a terrorist, just an accomplice of them. She could realistically be considered a potential terrorist in the future, but she hasn't yet committed terrorism herself.

Right, I just don't see how her actions make her anywhere near as culpable as the person who actually makes the bomb, sets the bomb, plans the bombing, etc. Her actions make her an accomplice rather than fully culpable. You apparently just think a person needs a lot less involvement to be considered directly responsible than I do. In reality she'd almost certainly be nothing more than an accomplice.

I don't think the bank robbery example applies here because the ultimate goal of a robbery is, presumably, to get the money and get away. The person holding people up but not shooting them has contributed to that goal, but not so much to the murders.

In a terrorist strike like FFVII, the ultimate goal is blowing stuff up. Tifa very much made efforts to contribute to that goal, even if one disagrees about the extent to which she realistically contribute (e.g. "Barret and Cloud could have pulled it off without her").

Out of curiousity, did it ever say Tifa never had any part in planning the operation?

I know we never really see her actively scheming in their secret basement, but she does identify herself as a member of AVALANCHE. You would think she would have had some say in what they did.

As far as I can remember she's never shown involved in planning. That said, the game never explicitly says she didn't plan anything, but I figure that if it wanted her to be considered one of the masterminds behind the bombings it would've presented her as such.

First, everything YACCBS said in this post, 'cause it was made of win.

At the very least, Tifa was involved in planning to the extent that she knew exactly what the mission to reactor 5 entailed and didn't need to have directions given to her like Cloud. As well, she did bring Cloud (a very valuable asset to AVALANCHE) onboard for assisting with blowing stuff up. Heck, her say-so is even enough to get Barret to pay Cloud more money so he'll stick around for the second bombing operation.

Furthermore, her 10th Anniversary Ultimania profile says that she "immersed herself" in AVALANCHE's radical activities.

All that to me is enough to meet any standard of being involved in planning AVALANCHE's activities. Based on your comments to YACCBS, I guess you disagree, though, and probably won't see it differently.

At any rate, thanks for the discussion. Like Force said, it was good to see you talking FF again.

For me, there's a more direct and immediate association between a specific fight that someone is killed in and an organization that shaped a soldier who, years later, went off on his own and did wacky shit that the organization would not have approved of. Might as well be blaming parents for the actions of their adult kids.

Organizations are held responsible for the actions of their members all the time. The Catholic Church is blamed for actions of touchy-feely priests, governments are blamed for anything any gov't worker or miltary member does, and hell, the Arizona shooting is being blamed on the Tea Party, and that guy hasn't even been shown to really belong to them.

There's being "held responsible," though, and there's being held responsible. The first is, "Your man, your mistake somehow (even if it's really not). You should read a previously prepared speech at a podium in front of cameras and make apologies you may or may not mean."

The second is being treated as though you are personally to blame and, thus, your death is the necessary token to make things as fair as possible. This is the context of being held responsible that we're discussing with Hope and Tifa, so I don't even know why all this talk of how organizations are held responsible in the real world came up.

But all that is getting us away from the point I was making that -- real-world legal terminology aside, common, meaningless rituals of the real world aside -- there is a more direct and immediate association between someone beginning a battle and the deaths of civilians killed in that battle (especially when they would have safely left otherwise) than there is between an organization and the actions of their rogue agent.

Keep in mind that I'm not saying Shin-Ra is no way responsible for Sephiroth's actions (as you said, even the stupidity of sending him where he could come across information on the JENOVA Project would make them partly responsible). I'm also not saying that I think Hope's blaming of Snow was rational. What I'm saying is that it's equally as rational as the actions of a character like Tifa who almost all of us love and give excuses for the same behavior as Hope -- who is almost universally reviled for that behavior.

For all Hope knows, the train crashed on its own

It's safe to say he saw all the fighting. That and Snow's first statement to the Purge exiles being "Don't worry, no one's moving to Pulse today" kind of gave it away.

Well when the person onto which you've projected all of your hatred onto carries you to safety under full pursuit of the military with broken/bruised ribs (and YOU'RE the reason they are as such), I feel like that might make you change your tune.

And it did, right? Hope even puts himself between Snow and their pursuers at that point.

/before I forget to post

The problem is not to express it. I think it's fine to express it a few times. Things with Hope is that whenever he opened his mouth, 95% of the time, if not more, it was about Snow. People DO get impatient; that his hate for Snow DEFINED him wasn't a good thing AND lazy writing.

Just this point is NOT going to make him liked.

I just can't ever imagine that I would act similarly in an identical situation. Whereas I could see myself reacting the way Tifa does, or Cloud, or Sazh. Then there are characters like Cyan, who react in a manner much stronger than I would (but still realistically, not all but ignoring it, for instance), so I am able to admire them. Hope reacts in a manner far less rationally than I could ever see myself doing, even as a 14 year old.

And as Eerie says, its the only thing he says in addition to "Why me" over the L'cie thing. Which would be an acceptable response except that literally the ONLY PERSON he has to blame for that is himself. And given that that is his entire character for 15 hours, its pretty grating. Tidus' whining is NOT all he does, despite whatever hyperbole his haters purport, he has a much more rounded personality.

Well, that's fair enough. I won't disagree that it would have been a good idea to give us more insight into his character during that time. I do really like what they did with him throughout the game, though, and just wish he'd had even more of his character explored.