Hope, Snow, and Empathy

[Cat Rage Room]

Which makes them doubly retarded. Also the sum of decades of scientific research shouldn't rest with one dude (Hojo).

Keep in mind that all of that stuff is instrumental in the laundry list of reasons why Shinra ended up going belly up in the first place.

 

[Max Payne]

I think there was a purposeful breakdown in communications between Shin-Ra and Hojo. There's a good chance Hojo never told Shin-Ra exactly what was in the Shin-Ra Mansion. For all they knew, everything in the basement had been destroyed. There is also the pov that the Nebilheim mission was a set up by Hojo.

They still knew he, gast, and Lucrecia all worked there. There's no way they never looked through all that shit.

Also, Shin-Ra does not have a good track record with watching out for it's people's mental states. If they did, Hojo wouldn't have even got employed. For all his faults, Lazard seems to have cared, but he left. Heidegger has been repeatedly shown to be incompetent and he was the one who took over SOLDIER. In fact, the only department heads that do care would be Tseng and Reeve. I get the feeling from Shin-Ra that even if they did think Sephiroth was in bad mental shape, they would have made him go anyway so that they wouldn't loose face

Yeah, but Hojo wasn't crazy, just devoid of a moral center. Heidigger wasn't crazy either.

But yeah sending Sephiroth there even with suspicions is downright psycho.

 

[minimosey]

Tifa didn't know her hometown was replaced at first, but because we know that, we know her teenaged self would have seen that no one in Midgar cared what had happened. If this happened in the real world, the company/government would have to rush in with apologies and reparations to not get criticized without end. In fact, she says something interesting in Kalm:

Tifa
Official records state Sephiroth is dead. I read it in the newspaper.

So Tifa was following the newspaper to have seen this... but since Nibelheim is being hushed up, there's no mention of that. A fifteen-year-old who just lost her hometown sees the company that sent the madman reporting his death as though it were a loss, without any mention of the town he razed. As though it had been completely insignificant. I'm pretty sure nearly anyone would be seeing red at that point.

 

[Ⓐaron]

I think there was a purposeful breakdown in communications between Shin-Ra and Hojo. There's a good chance Hojo never told Shin-Ra exactly what was in the Shin-Ra Mansion. For all they knew, everything in the basement had been destroyed. There is also the pov that the Nebilheim mission was a set up by Hojo.

Either way, whether Hojo hid information from them or not, this reflects badly on Shinra. If he didn't hide information from them then they made a piss poor decision with all the evidence at their hands. If he did hide information from them then it's their fault for taking his word when he was clearly a dishonest sack of shit who cared about nothing more than advancing his own agenda. And I disagree that Hojo has an "unstable mental state." He is one of the few characters in the entire game who can be described as completely in control of his actions throughout the storyline - which is exactly what makes him such a monster. He knows what he's doing, and how bad it is; he just doesn't give a shit. He's a sociopath. In many ways, he can be described as much more evil than Sephiroth, because there's plenty of evidence suggesting that Sephiroth may not be fully rational, or may, in fact, be completely fucking nuts. However, there is no evidence suggesting that Hojo has any form of mental deficiencies whatsoever. He's just a terrible human being.

 

[Dana Scully]

Sephiroth is Shinra's posterboy. They pimped him out like crazy. He was THE IMAGE that SOLDIER would always be around to protect the populace. And now that symbol of Shina's might killed her father and everyone she knows. Associated him with them is kinda rational.

It makes total sense for her to associate Seph with Shinra, but going from 'association' to blaming them is a stretch.

A lot of the responses sort of overlapped, so forgive me for summarizing a bunch of points rather than properly quoting it all.

Sephiroth shouldn't have been sent because of psychological warning signs, ie antisocial tendencies.

This certainly has some merit. But by this point, with Genesis and Angeal gone, Sephiroth is a one-of-a-kind supersoldier. Him being antisocial wouldn't exactly be unexpected - there's no who can really relate to him and I imagine he'd be pretty intimidating if you were just a regular grunt. And I just don't see Sephiroth failing any sort of psych test - he's just too damn smart, and would know exactly what to say.

And - Obsidian already touched on this, and it goes against my own argument but I'm going to mention it anyways - if Shinra did feel uneasy about him, what are they going to do, pull their poster boy off the active roster? If word of that got out it would do a lot of damage to their image.

Shinra could have sent other soldiers

Very true. But sending Sephiroth to protect the old country town is a great opportunity for a nice press clipping - it shows that Shinra is willing to use its greatest asset to protect the people.

Wtf, Shinra, why would you leave all those records in the mansion/send Sephiroth where he could find them?

Obsidian pretty much read my mind on this one.

I think there was a purposeful breakdown in communications between Shin-Ra and Hojo. There's a good chance Hojo never told Shin-Ra exactly what was in the Shin-Ra Mansion. For all they knew, everything in the basement had been destroyed. There is also the pov that the Nebilheim mission was a set up by Hojo.

I mean, honestly, IIRC the mansion was first headed by Gast, then Hojo, both of whom were the heads of the Science Dept at the time. Do you really think they'd report all the shit they do/don't do (ie, properly destroy old labs/records) to the President? If Hojo even knew that Sephiroth was going to Nibelheim, I doubt he'd say anything just so he could watch what happens if it Seph discovers all the old paperwork. And as far as the Shinra brass go, I really doubt they knew that those records were still there.

That's retarded. He's their man, they sent him, he works for them. Therefore they're responsible. It's common sense. You are responsible for the actions of your people, and if you can't ensure that they're not going to do something stupid you shouldn't send them.

People do unpredictable, stupid shit all the time. I don't believe an employer should be held responsible for someone going nutso and burning down/slaughtering a town, because extreme sudden onslaught of the crazies like that just can't always be predicted.

Of course, Shinra made Sephiroth. So they are to some degree responsible for him in every situation. But he had no prior history of madness in thirty years. There was no reason to ever suspect he would snap in Nibelheim.

What? That doesn't make any fucking sense. The fact that they're responsible IS what justifies her rage and makes it rational.

Responsible or not, Tifa doesn't know about any of this. Here's what we know she knows about Shinra:

- Sephiorth works for Shinra.
- Zack works for Shinra.
- Her childhood friend/crush/koibito whatever the fuck you want to call Cloud has left to work for Shinra and idolizes Sephiroth.
- Shinra owns the reactor which provides power/presumably jobs for her town.

None of which justifies her taking her hate for Seph and applying it to Shinra. And a couple people mentioned she just said she 'hated' them, but that she didn't actively seek revenge like Hope; we didn't get to see Tifa until five years later. If Tifa came across a Shinra employee President Shinra a few days after Nibelheim (aka the same timeline in which Hope tries to kill Snow) I think it's fairly reasonable to say she would have tried to kill them him.

I guess a lot of it depends on what happened in the time between Zangan rescuing her and her going to Midgar. Did she go to Midgar because she though Sephiroth was still alive and would find him there? Or did she go with the intent of joining AVALANCHE (revenge against Shinra)? When did she find out Sephiroth is dead? When did she find out just how fucked up Shinra really is?

I think I mentioned this before in one of the random LTD offshoots, but I really wish we had more info on those 5 years of Tifa's life.

 

[Max Payne]

Here's what Tifa knows.

Sephiroth killed everyone and burned her town. Shinra sent Sephiroth. Shinra is responsible for their people.

That's justified, it's logical. I don't know what's not to understand there.

If Tifa came across a Shinra employee a few days after Nibelheim (aka the same timeline in which Hope tries to kill Snow) I think it's fairly reasonable to say she would have tried to kill them.

Yeah no. That's pure supposition and completely out of character. Tifa wouldn't just gank some random guy who had nothing to do with what happened. She blames and hates shinra for what they did, but she knows that the average employee is just doing their job to get by. She's also not the kind of confrontational and violent person that she'll just accost some random stranger.

I mean, honestly, IIRC the mansion was first headed by Gast, then Hojo, both of whom were the heads of the Science Dept at the time. Do you really think they'd report all the shit they do/don't do (ie, properly destroy old labs/records) to the President? If Hojo even knew that Sephiroth was going to Nibelheim, I doubt he'd say anything just so he could watch what happens if it Seph discovers all the old paperwork. And as far as the Shinra brass go, I really doubt they knew that those records were still there.

Of course they did for fucks sake. They're being paid, and monitored by military personel as evidenced by the presence of the turks. Shinra didn't just give these people money and give them free reign. That's retarded. They knew what they were up to ffs and were keeping tabs on them. There's no way they didn't keep track of their records.

They knew all of this shit was there and did nothing about it.

 

[Dana Scully]

Here's what Tifa knows.

Sephiroth killed everyone and burned her town. Shinra sent Sephiroth. Shinra is responsible for their people.

Yeah, we're just gonna have to disagree on this one.

Yeah no. That's pure supposition and completely out of character. Tifa wouldn't just gank some random guy who had nothing to do with what happened. She blames and hates shinra for what they did, but she knows that the average employee is just doing their job to get by. She's also not the kind of confrontational and violent person that she'll just accost some random stranger.

That's funny, because she certainly has no issues blowing up reactors that have Shinra MPs and no doubt other employees working in them.

Of course they did for fucks sake. They're being paid, and monitored by military personel as evidenced by the presence of the turks.

Waht. Hojo made the Turks his bitch in BC.

Shinra didn't just give these people money and give them free reign. That's retarded. They knew what they were up to ffs and were keeping tabs on them. There's no way they didn't keep track of their records.

I doubt Shinra gave a fuck what their Science Dept did as long as they got results.

 

[Max Payne]

Yeah, we're just gonna have to disagree on this one.

It doesn't matter if you disagree or not. Companies,corporations, and the military are all held accountable for the actions of their employees.

That's funny, because she certainly has no issues blowing up reactors that have Shinra MPs and no doubt other employees working in them.

Tifa never blew up anything. All she did was accompany on the missions and fight alongside them. Either way, comparing a mission to destroy a giant planet life sucking machine to save the world, isn't comparable to attacking a random stranger for something they have nothing to do with. That's retarded.

Waht. Hojo made the Turks his bitch in BC.

I dunno about whatever BS went on in BC. But there was military personel posted there that answered to Shinra, not Hojo.

I doubt Shinra gave a fuck what their Science Dept did as long as they got results.

Yeah, a business tycoon like President Shinra is gonna dole out gobs of money to his employees without knowing wtf they're doing with it. Doesn't make any sense. Granted a lot doesn't with the situation, but this is breaking suspension of disbelief.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

That's funny, because she certainly has no issues blowing up reactors that have Shinra MPs and no doubt other employees working in them.

Collateral damage in the form of people is a lot different from actually going up to some random suit's face straight up and snapping his neck. Real life people will tell you that much.

 

[Dana Scully]

What do you think she'd do if she came across the Pres a few days after?

 

[Max Payne]

I don't think she'd even know who he was back then.

 

[minimosey]

Zangan's letter said that he headed to Midgar with the wounded Tifa and presumably left her there with the doctor he found, which addresses two points: Tifa didn't go to Midgar for any reason of her own, revenge or otherwise; and shortly after the incident, she found herself in a city with many Shinra employees, but the game fails to mention any violent action taken against them. On the other hand, the game has the whole incident with the Shinra manager on the train, where Barret gets menacing with the guy as he figures out that he's a Shinra employee. Tifa yells at Barret, then bows to the manager in apology. Makes me doubt we're supposed to think she was attacking people simply for being Shinra employees at any point.

 

[Dana Scully]

Zangan's letter said that he headed to Midgar with the wounded Tifa and presumably left her there with the doctor he found, which addresses two points: Tifa didn't go to Midgar for any reason of her own, revenge or otherwise;

Neat, totally forgot about that. For me, though, there's still the question of why/how she joined up with AVALANCHE.

and shortly after the incident, she found herself in a city with many Shinra employees, but the game fails to mention any violent action taken against them. On the other hand, the game has the whole incident with the Shinra manager on the train, where Barret gets menacing with the guy as he figures out that he's a Shinra employee. Tifa yells at Barret, then bows to the manager in apology. Makes me doubt we're supposed to think she was attacking people simply for being Shinra employees at any point.

Yeah, saying any Shinra employee was a bad example. In comparison to Hope vs Snow, Snow was a recognizable face/leader/someone with a distinct personality, which would better equate to President Shinra.

 

[minimosey]

Except Snow and President Shinra are not comparable to each other at all, or in their roles in the tragedies, besides being individuals.

Snow: opposed the organization responsible for Nora's death
Shinra: president of the organization that sent Sephiroth to Nibelheim
Snow: seen by Hope trying to hold Nora up
Shinra: if Tifa had seen him, he would not given a damn about Nibelheim. Seriously, we see this every time we see the guy. He watches sector 7 drop to classical music.
Snow: protects Hope when they're together
Shinra: once again, would not have had a care in the world about Tifa.

I mean, as you said, "someone with a distinct personality". Snow has the personality of someone who wants to be heroic; he doesn't think about the consequences enough beforehand, but he does care about them and demonstrates that in front of Hope. Hope perceives it differently because of his grief and need to blame someone. Shinra doesn't have any concern or good intentions to misinterpret. If he was the type of guy to worry about protecting survivors, there would not be an FFVII in the first place. Or it would be very, very different.

Part of the reason Hope's blame of Snow is seen as so unreasonable is because of the actions Snow takes in-game that demonstrate he didn't mean for Nora to die. Comparing Nora's death and Snow to another tragedy and a character who doesn't act to either prevent it or help survivors afterward doesn't work; the only similarity they have is both of them had some kind of role in the tragedy being set into motion (Shinra was OK with Sephiroth going to Nibelheim, either failing to keep on top of his own company enough to realize this was a VERY BAD IDEA or just failing to care).

And it's still speculation to say Tifa would have tried to kill Shinra. She sees him in reactor 5 and doesn't react with rage at all. She just wonders what he's doing there.

 

[Dana Scully]

Except Snow and President Shinra are not comparable to each other at all, or in their roles in the tragedies, besides being individuals.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as comparing them as characters or their motivations. They are, of course, completely different. I just mean they both are representative of what Hope/Tifa blame, nothing more.

And it's still speculation to say Tifa would have tried to kill Shinra. She sees him in reactor 5 and doesn't react with rage at all. She just wonders what he's doing there.

Touche.

 

[Roger]

Seriously we only know that Hope turned at an explosion and saw him mom falling, before getting forced to stop looking by Vanille half a second later. He didn't watch the documentary about how Snow felt during the ordeal.

Shinra Corp. made the safety of the people in Nibelheim their business and didn't give two shits when they, Tifa didn't know how far they went with their cover up, but she knew it wasn't publiced what Sephiroth did .

Snow made theirs group safety his business too, the moment he killed the people guarding them and had his men collect guns and pass them around, and after they died following him, he came back with a big goofy smile and proclamations that he is a hero, i.e. he didn't seem to give two shits either.

Thus Hope and Tifa's revenge.

Also Tifa didn't get outraged the many times she encountered Sephiroth, I still think we are supposed to think she wants revenge

 

[Dana Scully]

So just played the part where Hope tells Lightning about how Snow 'killed' his mother. In the flashback he has, this is what he sees:

- Nora getting up and walking over to Snow
- Nora smiling at him
- Snow grinning and winking (which is from just after he gives Vanille her gun)
- Nora falling to her death

There's no indication he saw Snow try to save Nora.

 

[ForceStealer]

There is zero reason that he wouldn't have seen and heard what transpired when she took her gun. So again, more reason to be angry at her than Snow. I also don't get how he'd be able to see that it was her falling, but not when she was dangling there by Snow. Also, iirc, the flashback of her falling is much closer view than his vantage point was, isn't it?

This tells me he's selectively remembering what best supports his wacky theory. And a theory is all it is, considering there's still no image of Snow pushing her off or something.

And another thing, Snow didn't come up handing out guns and telling ANYONE to fight. He came up saying that they (he and his friends) would clear a path, and people in the crowd said stuff like "You can't expect us to just sit here," and "We're gonna fight with you," etc. And his mother was one of the people that VOLUNTEERED without any prodding from Snow.

Snow made theirs group safety his business too, the moment he killed the people guarding them and had his men collect guns and pass them around, and after they died following him, he came back with a big goofy smile and proclamations that he is a hero, i.e. he didn't seem to give two shits either.

Thus Hope and Tifa's revenge.

It's still not the same. That's reason to resent or hate Snow, but not reason to blame him. That is, hold him responsible to the point that he must die to pay for it.
He does not represent the people that killed her (PSICOM), like Sephiroth represents Shinra. But even then, Tifa doesn't take revenge on Shinra, she just says she hates them (notice she also hates inanimate objects in her little speech, I don't see her taking revenge on them either). She takes revenge on SEPHIROTH, specifically.
Her revenge on Shinra comes 5 years later under Barret's tutelage, I don't think you can include that in her kneejerk response to her father's death.

Yes, it'd be difficult to find the specific PSICOM trooper that caused the explosion, but that ship was right freakin there and Hope had a hover..bike or whatever it is. But does he go after it? No, he goes after Snow.

 

[Roger]

For the hundreth time, there is no way Hope could have watched that whole scene, if the first explosion was what caught his attention, he would not have seen her fall, Snow and Nora hanged on for waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long, and yeah the flashback was from from a closer vantage, specifically a few metres above her, like Snow when we watched the scene from his perspective, no need to bring wild theories based on lazy reusing of footage into this.

And yeah he didn't prod them, they just brought ten guns to... lay there I guess? And they still followed him to absolute certain death facing 1 to 100 odds. The PSICOM soldier is doing what he believes will protect the peopl of Cocoon, NORA is just helping die them quicker.

And he wasn't thinking about revenge when followed Snow on the hoverbike.

 

[Dana Scully]

There is zero reason that he wouldn't have seen and heard what transpired when she took her gun. So again, more reason to be angry at her than Snow.

Yeah, I agree with you on that.

I also don't get how he'd be able to see that it was her falling, but not when she was dangling there by Snow. Also, iirc, the flashback of her falling is much closer view than his vantage point was, isn't it?

This tells me he's selectively remembering what best supports his wacky theory.

The flashback of her falling reuses the same clip from when it originally happened (from Snow's perspective, so its very close up). I figure this is because SE didn't want to bother animating the same scene twice, as obviously Hope didn't see it from that angle.

Here's the clip of Nora and Snow falling and then Hope watching from afar. At 2:25 you get a view of what I assume is Hope's perspective.

From that perspective, you can't actually see the area (front, ruined part of the bridge) where Snow and Nora were hanging from. You would only see them once they fell.

It honestly seems like he just didn't see it.

And a theory is all it is, considering there's still no image of Snow pushing her off or something.

A theory that Snow directly killed his mom? Eh, I really don't think Hope saw it that way (Snow being directly responsible for killing Nora, ie pushing her off a bridge). He just saw him as the indirect cause of her death. Which he was, though of course it was never Snow's intent to get anyone killed. It's part of the reason Snow feels so guilty about it.

And another thing, Snow didn't come up handing out guns and telling ANYONE to fight. He came up saying that they (he and his friends) would clear a path, and people in the crowd said stuff like "You can't expect us to just sit here," and "We're gonna fight with you," etc. And his mother was one of the people that VOLUNTEERED without any prodding from Snow.

I don't think anyone's arguing that Nora isn't at fault for volunteering in the first place. But if Snow hadn't shown up, there would have been nothing to volunteer for.

It's still not the same. That's reason to resent or hate Snow, but not reason to blame him. That is, hold him responsible to the point that he must die to pay for it.

As far as Hope's concerned Snow started the whole battle that ended up with Nora's death. I think that's more than enough reason to blame him, though obviously Hope goes a bit overboard.

But even then, Tifa doesn't take revenge on Shinra, she just says she hates them (notice she also hates inanimate objects in her little speech, I don't see her taking revenge on them either).

Only inanimate object I remember her hating on are the reactors, and she does help blow up/attempt to blow up reactors later down the line (though by then of course she has plenty of reasons to do so).

Her revenge on Shinra comes 5 years later under Barret's tutelage, I don't think you can include that in her kneejerk response to her father's death.

I always imagined she joined AVALANCHE because she wanted revenge on Shinra for her father's/town's death.

Yes, it'd be difficult to find the specific PSICOM trooper that caused the explosion, but that ship was right freakin there and Hope had a hover..bike or whatever it is. But does he go after it? No, he goes after Snow.

Well the ship is already going down thanks to mom's awesome rocket launching skills - its final act was to fire the shot that wounded her and destroyed the bridge. So with the ship gone, the other major player in Nora's death (as far as Hope is concerned) would be Snow.

Is Hope's blame/quest for revenge irrational? Certainly, but it's not baseless.

 

[LunarSkye]

I think these'll be helpful.

Spoiler

Skip to 1:20 and 7:50
Snow's a retard for letting regular civilians with no experience on the battlefield volunteer.

4:22

8:00

 

[ForceStealer]

And yeah he didn't prod them, they just brought ten guns to... lay there I guess? And they still followed him to absolute certain death facing 1 to 100 odds.

No...he brought the guns for the people to have when they made their escape AFTER Snow and his buddies had cleared the path. He had no intention of bringing them along in the battle.
(And furthermore, why is it certain death? NORA got through to them facing the hoards of enemies and a Behemoth. What was certain about it? Not fighting back was MORE certain. Everyone that did survive that battle would have died, bar none. But yeah yeah Hope doesn't know this I guess, though it wouldn't take a genius to put that together.)

The PSICOM soldier is doing what he believes will protect the peopl of Cocoon, NORA is just helping die them quicker.

All right, so the PSICOM soldier is absolved because he thinks he's doing what is for the best, but Snow is not for doing the same thing? I know you're talking from Hope's point of view, not your own, but that doesn't make any more sense.
But 'grief isn't rational' so if Hope decided to start rubbing his face in a cactus we'd just have to go with it I guess.

And he wasn't thinking about revenge when followed Snow on the hoverbike.

He...wasn't? Why did he follow him then?

He just saw him as the indirect cause of her death. Which he was

As were a billion other things. And several things were a more direct cause and go ignored.

I don't think anyone's arguing that Nora isn't at fault for volunteering in the first place. But if Snow hadn't shown up, there would have been nothing to volunteer for.

Except extermination

I always imagined she joined AVALANCHE because she wanted revenge on Shinra for her father's/town's death.

Well of course she did. But she had (good) rationalization by that point in that they were destroying the Planet. Snow had done nothing but help save his ass since then. All while being insufferable, I know, but that's different.

but it's not baseless.

But the base is tenuous at best. It's very simple, Hope's rationale (there's no better word I know he's not rational, stop it.) is not strong enough for me to empathize or care with what he is doing. And then his actions very nearly get him and Snow killed with some of the worst timing imaginable, and so I find him aggravating. Obviously none of us will change how feel about the little shit, all I've been discussing now (and enjoyed it, mind you, I hope you have ) is that the situation is different from Tifa's revenge or Tidus' whining. The presentation and scenarios differ in such a way that I understand how the latter two feel, but not the former. And he DOES get better, he just also...doesn't do or say all that much afterwards.

I'm sure it also helps that we don't have to listen to Tifa say the same thing four hundred times for 15 hours.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Seriously we only know that Hope turned at an explosion and saw him mom falling, before getting forced to stop looking by Vanille half a second later. He didn't watch the documentary about how Snow felt during the ordeal.

Shinra Corp. made the safety of the people in Nibelheim their business and didn't give two shits when they, Tifa didn't know how far they went with their cover up, but she knew it wasn't publiced what Sephiroth did .

Snow made theirs group safety his business too, the moment he killed the people guarding them and had his men collect guns and pass them around, and after they died following him, he came back with a big goofy smile and proclamations that he is a hero, i.e. he didn't seem to give two shits either.

Thus Hope and Tifa's revenge.

That's a really good summary of things, actually, and probably what sent Hope over the edge.

That's not the same the guys. They weren't blowing up the reactors TO kill the people inside. They blew the reactors to harm Shinra, and considered the casualties a necessary evil. It would be the same if the express purpose was to kill the people in the reactors.

So they weren't even trying to directly target the people in charge at Shin-Ra (which actually points to crap planning on their part, but I'll get into that more later). They were targeting a building valuable to them and accepting the collateral damage that came with it.

Big improvement there, Forcey.

Furthermore, the civilian casualties on the Reactor 1 explosion was a miscalculation on Jessie's part. They intended to blow the reactor - and just the reactor - at night to minimize innocent deaths.

It's true that the explosion was intended to be smaller, but Barret and Tifa do admit that they'd expected some civilian casualties (Barret says this in the original game when Reeve/Cait Sith calls him out over the civilians who died when the first reactor blew, and Case of Tifa says "She had considered a small number of sacrifices unavoidable for the sake of a greater purpose"). I also don't remember anything about the timing of the attack being at night specifically to minimize civilian losses rather than to cover their mission. If you have a reference for that, let me know.

Also, Tifa only SAYS she hates Shinra. The only person she actually exacts revenge against (or tries to) is Sephiroth. She takes no action against the Shinra (nor do we have any particular reason to believe that she would have) until she learns of what else they are doing under Barret's tutelage.

She found herself under the tutelage of a terrorist bent on taking down Shin-Ra by accident?

You don't think she sought Avalanche out? She even admits in Case of Tifa that the whole anti-mako thing was a way of hiding her true motivations. Maybe I'm wrong, but I took that to indicate that she learned about Avalanche and their claims concerning Shin-Ra through their posters/flyers, then sought the group out to join them so she could have help getting her revenge.

He...wasn't? Why did he follow him then?

As far as we know early on, he just wanted to talk to him. It's only after hearing the guy call himself a hero, see him trying to save a l'Cie (remember, Pulse shit is what got Hope and his mother put on that train to begin with), and then getting turned into a l'Cie himself (which he felt was a situation Snow had dragged them all into) that he appears to want to actually kill Snow.

Except extermination

Which Hope didn't know about.

Remember, as far as most people knew, the exiles were being sent to Pulse. From Hope's perspective, while he and his mother were being exiled to a shitty place, they would at least have still been together and alive had Snow not started a battle that ended with Nora Estheim dead.

That last bit is all over XIII's story, actually. I've complained before how many times the characters realize their being played - announce they won't stand for it...and then change absolutely nothing about what they're doing. And this happens SEVERAL times.

Despite disagreeing with literally everything else you said in this thread, I agree with this very much.

Tres, you miss the point: It's not that people don't understand grief or can't follow Hope's logic or lack thereof...it's that they don't give a shit about him. That's bad writing and characterization no matter which way you slice it.

Lack of empathy is not indicative of a failure in the audience's comprehension skills. You sit here and try to explain his actions as if facts and a laundry list of all the events in his life will create a connection with the audience. It won't.

I'm not saying that alone is or should be enough to create a connection with the audience -- I've already said in this thread that there's a difference between sympathizing with and caring about a character. I didn't like Aerith for more than a decade but always sympathized with her.

I'm saying even if you failed to give a shit, you shouldn't ignore the facts of the situation when analyzing the character's behavior.

By the way, almost everyone's misusing "empathy" in this thread, including in the thread title. Sympathy is when you feel bad because someone else feels bad. Empathy is when you've experienced what they have yourself and can actually understand what they're going through.

Characters don't have to be good or rational in order to engage us. Hope doesn't because SE gave him a sob story and then expected his history to sustain the character. Doesn't work that way.

Hey, he engaged me. I thought he was done well.

Are you talking the one truly heated moment she ever had RIGHT after her father is brutally murdered by King Shit of Shinra himself? She wasn't thinking straight and she eventually evolved past personal revenge not long after. Comparing that to Hope's completely illogical single minded quest against Snow for something he didn't even do is silly. Not to mention kinda retarded.

Tifa disagrees with you in Case of Tifa. See below:

And then Sephiroth, whom Shinra had dispatched in response, killed her father. She hated Shinra and Sephiroth so much it hurt. Then she joined Avalanche. Yes. started with my own personal grudge. The anti-Shinra, anti-mako slogans Avalanche adopted were the perfect way to mask her true motives. But the loss of life was too great, even when weighed against the planet they were trying to save. And if it was all for one person's revenge...

The guilt waited its turn deep in her heart.

I said she's right in blaming them because of what they did. They sent Sephiroth there, he had to come there because of Shinra's reactor. IT'S THEIR FAULT for sending the monster, and his fault for killing everyone. It's rational. Sephiroth is a representative of shinra, hell he's their shining hero. He wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for them.

...

Except it is rational to blame the company that destroyed her village by sending their maniac swordsman. No matter what you say, they are responsible for their employees and their actions.

If one of the military's people go nuts and kills an assload of civilians they're responsible for it and they take that responsibility. They try and make up for not seeing it coming and try and help those that suffered because of it.

In this case, though, "taking responsibility" means being the one whose head should justifiably be literally on the chopping block, since that's the kind of responsibility Tifa wanted taken.

If one of the military's people goes nuts and kills a shit ton of civilians, do you see generals offering the survivors or the families of the dead an opportunity to shoot them? Do they offer themselves up to be imprisoned? Should they?

Should Shin-Ra have helped the survivors instead of sticking them in a lab to be experimented on (which Tifa didn't even know about for years)? Yes. Should the executives have offered a gun and blindfolds to Tifa while getting down on their knees? No.

Just because they (most of them anyway) were assholes doesn't mean that on that particular count they should have been capped. And Tifa herself admitted that her mission to take down Shin-Ra was about her vendetta.

Now I will acknowledge that had Tifa known about the cover up of the town's massacre, she would have had pretty sound grounds to go after the executives. Of course, she didn't know about the cover up until AVALANCHE's journey around the world anyway, and she read in the papers that Seph was dead -- so for all she knew, Shin-Ra had dealt with him themselves.

Shinra is responsible for the Nibelheim incident. It's their fault. Wrong party my ass.

Tifa doesn't only lose her father too, she lost everything, her home, her town, her friends. The similarties between their situations are superfluous at most. Tifa has a clear cause and reason for her hate for Sephiroth and co. Hope did not.

There's nothing irrational about blaming the people responsible for a man's actions, especially when they're just as much the cause of his actions. If Shinra hadn't sent him there, then the event would never have happened.

Well, if you want to play that game, it's because of Snow and Serah that Hope and his mom were on a train out of Bodhum to begin with.

Did they mean for all that shit to happen? Nope. Did Shin-Ra mean for Sephiroth to torch Nibelheim and fillet its residents, though? Nope.

And Hope lost more than just his mom for that matter, as YACCBS said. He became a pariah who people wanted dead.

THEY DID SEND A MONSTER. LOOK WHAT HE FUCKING DID. THIS IS THE GUY WHO CAN TAKE OUT ENTIRE ARMIES AND PLATOONS ON HIS OWN. IT'S LIKE YOU'RE DELIBERATELY BEING OBTUSE. He obviously is a maniac swordsman.

Sephiroth is a dedicated soldier who has seen tons of action. Not to mention he's a fucking social pariah who lost both of his best friends. They didn't think to give the man psych evaluations? Try to keep him from things that would be sensitive to his mind? Liek, I DUNNO THE SHINRA MANSION.

Yeah this is true. It actually does take a bit of thinking to realize that Nibelhiem is the last place Sephiroth had any business being assigned to, ever.

There's absolutely no reason why Shinra should have sent him there; hell, there's no reason why Sephiroth was even necessary for that mission in the first place; even with the dismantling of SOLDIER by that point in time (which wasn't even a plot point that was thought of in that point in time back in 1997), there's no reason why SOLDIER, the Turks, or even the regular Shinra Army couldn't have performed that mission.

That's retarded. He's their man, they sent him, he works for them. Therefore they're responsible. It's common sense. You are responsible for the actions of your people, and if you can't ensure that they're not going to do something stupid you shouldn't send them.

Don't be vapid. The man is a soldier. Any soldier can snap at any time, especially someone that's disconnected from society and has no friends. The very fact that he's solitary and cut off from everyone else IS A BAD SIGN.

MOG has already stated the kinds of folks that could have been sent in Sephiroth's place.

There are always outliers and signs that a person is going to snap. The fact that they didn't see this coming means they DIDN'T do an extensive enough psych exam.

As YACCBS asked, how can you even know that they didn't evaluate the dude? Yeah, sending him to Nibelheim for such a shitty little mission was overkill, but for all we know, he was sent on such an easy mission because he was given a psych exam and a psychiatrist at Shin-Ra considered the loss of his friends.

Maybe someone suggested giving him some easy stuff for a while, or perhaps suggested sending him off to a quiet little country town for some R&R. Should that town have been Nibelheim? No. Hell no.

But within an organization of Shin-Ra's size, a little bureaucratic bungling and lack of communication had to happen from time to time.

While we're talking about stupid organization decisions, by the way, Avalanche really should have just marched up the stairs of the Shin-Ra headquarters before even screwing around with reactors given how easy it was to get close to the executives.

What? That doesn't make any fucking sense. The fact that they're responsible IS what justifies her rage and makes it rational.

Yet Tifa herself disagrees.

As far as Shinra mansion goes, this is where their top scientists experimented and worked. There's no way they didn't document everything that happened and keep up with those records.

Not that I'm disagreeing that Shin-Ra didn't know about what went on in the mansion, but Hojo kept a lot of things to himself. The other executives hadn't even seen Gast's report on the WEAPONs and JENOVA.

I just want to add, since I had completely forgotten the chronology of events, just how thoroughly Shinra fucked up by sending Sephiroth to the location of the Nibelheim mansion. The fact that they stored records of all the fucked up shit they did, and then sent the central subject of all those records to where he just had to walk a few hundred metres to learn about everything they did to him, is either incompetence or arrogance of the highest order. Any organisation that did that in real life would be completely ruined if the general public were to find out about it. Like, utterly dismantled. Unless it was some dictatorship where no one else had any power I guess.

It was definitely a mistake, especially since -- as you say -- anyone could have stumbled upon that shit if they could find the hidden staircase in the mansion and make it past the monsters. Perhaps they didn't expect anyone else to do that, though.

Maybe they didn't even think Seph would find those stairs, nor have cause to look for them. It's really only after the shenanigans in the reactor that he decides to hunt for information on himself in the mansion.

Tifa never blew up anything. All she did was accompany on the missions and fight alongside them.

Might as well say AVALANCHE didn't blow up shit, their bombs did. They built the shit, planted the shit, and blew up shit -- and Tifa was one of them.

 

[Max Payne]

fuck it, doesn't matter.

 

[Dana Scully]

Herp derp. The point is that blood ain't directly on her hands because she never actively planted any bombs or helped make the plans to plant them. She was just there. She holds some responsibility for not stopping them maybe.

...Wow. Just, wow.

She went with them to the No 5 reactor to plant the bomb. She was THERE. IN THE REACTOR. Does she have to physically hit the 'on' switch to make your qualifying standards for getting blood on her hands? And that's not to mention all the support and enabling she provided for AVALANCHE.

Seriouly, people being argumentative for the hell of it, or just cuz you love Hope oh so much?

Ahahaha waht. Sympathizing with a character does not mean liking them. Pretty sure everyone arguing here has agreed that Hope is an annoying little shit.