I think I figured out why I don't really like Sephiroth.

[Captain Jack Harkness]

i must admit that sometime i think the 'i'm your father' scene with hojo and Seph. and is always hilarius

 

[ForceStealer]

Sephiroth is not 'insane' for very long. He loses in his moment of insanity, and when he's soaking up knowledge in the lifestream, he realizes how he can exploit the Planet's defense mechanisms.

I disagree that he was poorly written Tiff, he's actually one of the few villains with a PLAN to make things better, in his view. Kefka, Kuja, Seymour, Ultimecia, they basically wanna just destroy everything for various reasons. Sephiroth doesn't want to rule the world for the sake of it. He thinks the world is cruel and shitty and that with himself as a god he could make a better one. He certainly gets a high at the prospect of being that god, I'm not saying he's being selfless, just that he has more of a plan.

So he is a different kind of villain, not a poorly written one.

And I also like the side we see of him in Crisis Core, screw all yas.

 

[Masamune]

I always took that laugh as Sephiroth chiding himself for talking about such personal matters in front of his subordinates, momentarily dropping his image as the aloof and consummate leader. I doubt he had any idea who his father was and maybe the irony is that he felt Hojo was the closest he had to a father figure.

I disagree that he was poorly written Tiff, he's actually one of the few villains with a PLAN to make things better, in his view. Kefka, Kuja, Seymour, Ultimecia, they basically wanna just destroy everything for various reasons. Sephiroth doesn't want to rule the world for the sake of it. He thinks the world is cruel and shitty and that with himself as a god he could make a better one. He certainly gets a high at the prospect of being that god, I'm not saying he's being selfless, just that he has more of a plan.

Sephiroth is your typical JRPG villain with a god complex. Another Frankenstein's monster like Kefka who was let off the leash. There was no greater good in Sephiroth's master plan. He had become the next stage of Jenova's evolution and was now simply assimilating everything on a planetary scale.

 

[Octo]

I still don't really understand Sephiroth, he starts off thinking Jenova was an Ancient and all that 'rightful heirs to the planet crap' does he still believe that at the end? I mean presumably during his time in the lifestream he figured out the truth of the matter.

I don't think he thinks the world is 'cruel and shitty' he definitely thinks humans are inferior though. I don't know what kind of better world he had in mind, as far as I can tell summoning meteor was going to wipe everything out and then he could soak up all the planets energy/lifestream. I dunno what the fuck he was going to do after that. Float about in space bored perhaps?

EDIT: Thinking about it he'd probably create a state where Cloud could survive and then he could spend eternity torturing him. Which is pretty pathetic

 

[Captain Jack Harkness]

i totaly agree with Forcestealer.

the irony is that he felt Hojo was the closest he had a to father figure.

hojo as the closest father figure? wow, what a happy childhood he should had have
(masa, i'm not saying that you idea is wrong, but imo Hojo isn't the best avuncular figure in the world )

 

[Alessa Gillespie]

sephiroth is basically the same as roger bacon in shadow hearts. or, even better, he's walter in silent hill 4. has a huge mommy complex, hates a particular person a lot but has a lot of weird homoerotic connections with him, wants to be god...

now that i think about it, that might be why I never liked silent hill 4 much

 

[Octo]

I can imagine young Seph and Hojo's relationship being a bit like Gendo and Shinji Ikari, eg Hojo is a twat who just turns up and evaluates Sephiroth's progress, and Sephiroth wants his approval....until he realises he's a twat of course.

 

[Captain Jack Harkness]

I still don't really understand Sephiroth, he starts off thinking Jenova was an Ancient and all that 'rightful heirs to the planet crap' does he still believe that at the end? I mean presumably during his time in the lifestream he figured out the truth of the matter.

yeah, i don't remember where, but i'm sure i readed somewhere that in FFVII he know that he isn't a cetra and that jenova isn't his mother. so he started to think that he is outmatch cetras.

I don't think he thinks the world is 'cruel and shitty' he definitely thinks humans are inferior though. I don't know what kind of better world he had in mind, as far as I can tell summoning meteor was going to wipe everything out and then he could soak up all the planets energy/lifestream. I dunno what the fuck he was going to do after that. Float about in space bored perhaps?

i think that he finds human shitty, worthless and corrupted ( born, grown and live inside shinra without really know how is the world outside surely isn't quite educative) so he want to create a 'better' world. sadly we don't know his definition of better

EDIT: Thinking about it he'd probably create a state where Cloud could survive and then he could spend eternity torturing him. Which is pretty pathetic

he just need a hobby

 

[Masamune]

hojo as the closest father figure? wow, what a happy childhood he should had have
(masa, i'm not saying that you idea is wrong, but imo Hojo isn't the best avuncular figure in the world )

That's the point.

 

[Captain Jack Harkness]

what a lucky kid

 

[Roger]

I guess it's a misnomer to say I dislike Sephiroth, but in 1997 he was cool for a while then, and yeah he still has a certain 'cool' factor now, but in general? Eh. It's not for the more popular reasons either; not 'he's too generic' or 'too derivative' or whatever, so why?

Because nothing changes about the guy. He has stayed the same pretty much forever, not only in his personal fictional timeline, but real life as well; an insanely powerful warrior/swordsman that nobody can beat but Cloud. He has always been that. From Crisis Core to Advent Children. From 1997 to 2012.

Think about the evolution that other FF villains go through; the player watched as Kefka went from someone who ran away from being pummeled by Sabin to a living God who ruled over a force of nature. Vayne from FFXII plotted and worked from becoming simply a powerful political figure to being an intermediate of the gods and the harbinger of a new age. It's not even stuff that the player always sees either; it's implied that Ultimecia started her life as a persecuted, afraid individual who got pushed to the brink, FFIV (at least the remakes) tell us that Golbez was once an excited, but impressionable little boy.

But Sephiroth never really got that kind of growth or contrast either. The only mention of his past was "as a kid he knew he was different". Narrative wise he was always the cocky warrior with no equal and little worries. Within the narrative of FFVII he simply goes from being already really powerful to...even more powerful. His upgrade to near god in FFVII doesn't really have as much 'oomph' because for what it's worth he was already utterly unbeatable by everyone as it is. Kefka and Kuja's transformation into their uber selves had more impact because there was a sense of "Shit, we should have gotten him while we had the chance what have we done"

I do give Crisis Core some credit for trying to give Sephiroth some depth by showing him while he was still human; I can appreciate that, but it never quite erases, at least for me, the impression that SE was so comfortable with their creation they were too lazy to give him any malleability.

I don't think this is very fair. Golbez, Ultimecia and Kuja's formative years are hardly explored in depth if at all, whereas we see quite a bit of Sephiroth in his time of being a loyal SOLDIER of Shinra and a close friend of Zack before his villainy.

I do agree that his character arc of all powerful soldier > all powerful soldier that wants to be the Chosen One > all powerful soldier that wants to be a God > all powerful soldier that wants to be a cosmos travelling destructive force lacks a cosmetic change.

It's mostly cause of the rivalry with Cloud. We know that he will always be or return to being the guy in the black coat that has a big swordfight with Cloud.

 

[Max Payne]

Honestly in the original FF7 I never got the incline that Sephiroth felt like Cloud was his rival or even a real threat to his cause. He was just another puppet for him to use in his mad quest for power, and then just another stepping stone to his greatness.

It wasn't until AC/ACC that the rivalry bullshit started I think, and even then I feel like thats kind of pushing it.

 

[looneymoon]

I think it's really hard to take Sephiroth seriously as a well-written character because his thought process is so disjointed. It's like the writers just pulled out of their ass a reason for him to go crazy.

Hey so my mom's an alien I think I'll just go burn down this town and take over the world now. You'd think that reading all that shit he did in the ShinRa he'd find out something about Lucrecia, or at least consider her existence. Not think OH WELL THEY CLAIM THIS ALIEN IS MY MOM I MUST BE AN ALIEN TOO HAHA. That's a painfully stupid thing to think, and just downright lazy character development.

Like Aki/Rukia said, it all comes across as incredibly contrived. It honestly just makes him seem unstable from the onset, and he was looking for any excuse to go full-blown manic. That's why I adopted the headcanon that he was always antisocial and sadistic, SOLDIER was just the perfect outlet for those tendencies. Once again, Crisis Core shat all over that and the writing became even more disjointed and contrived than it already was.

The whole Frankenstein aspect of his character just fails so miserably because it makes so little sense. The only arguments I've ever seen to counteract the ridiculousness of it all is: "well, he's crazy of course he's not going to make sense" or "Jenova was manipulating his brain of course he's going to be unhinged." Which is basically saying he's crazy just because he is. Which would be fine if the story actually tried to present itself that way, but they give him this aspect of humanity which ends up meaning shit all to his character because it's too readily thrown out the window.

I do maintain the whole Jekyll/Hyde dynamic he has with Cloud is pretty great though. It's what makes him a great antagonist, if anything.

 

[Captain Jack Harkness]

honestly i think that in nibelheim he readed random book in random order. if not he surely must have readed not only about Lucrecia (or at least knew that a woman called Lucrecia worked in the project) but that Jenova isn't a Cetra

 

[Octo]

Yeah, I get the feeling Hojo probably didn't even include Lucrecias name in the research papers, probably just said something like 'female subject' or something. I guess Sephiroth never really gave a shit by then as he was getting delusions of grandeur.

 

[Zee]

sephiroth confuses me

in that i don't understand how a raging madman can be so utterly boring

 

[Roger]

Honestly in the original FF7 I never got the incline that Sephiroth felt like Cloud was his rival or even a real threat to his cause. He was just another puppet for him to use in his mad quest for power, and then just another stepping stone to his greatness.

It wasn't until AC/ACC that the rivalry bullshit started I think, and even then I feel like thats kind of pushing it.

Rivalry is a bad word to describe it, but the point stands. Whether he perceived Cloud as threat after getting killed by him a hundred billion times over or not, He's Cloud's personal one-on-one enemy, which limits the scope that his threat can reach.

 

[Lord Noctis]

Honestly in the original FF7 I never got the incline that Sephiroth felt like Cloud was his rival or even a real threat to his cause. He was just another puppet for him to use in his mad quest for power, and then just another stepping stone to his greatness.

It wasn't until AC/ACC that the rivalry bullshit started I think, and even then I feel like thats kind of pushing it.

I got the impression that Sephiroth did specificly want revenge on CLoud in the OG over Nibelheim. But he probably didn't really regard Cloud as being much of a threat or rival. . He was some punk who got lucky, and Sephiroth decided to make him pay for it along the way to godhood.

Of course by ACC he's changed his viewpoint a bit. At this point CLoud isn't just some twerp who stabbed him from behind, now he's actually defeated Sephiroth in a head-on confrontation. Sephiroth's gone from just trying to make CLoud suffer for Nibelheim to outright trying to re-assert his superiority.

 

[Splintered]

I was never a huge fan of Sephiroth unless it came to cutscenes and he was awesome-insane in those.

As for Sephiroth's descent into insanity, I'm going to regurgitate my belief that Final Fantasy VII is primarily a Search for Self story in which Cloud, Aerith, and Sephiroth all play a dynamic.

Aerith is the right coming of age, finding yourself and your place in the world story. It's natural, mystical, and almost fated. She's nervous at first, and it's a bit alienating, but she comes into well, learns about herself and embraces her responsibilities and knowledge with grace. And just as she finally understands and accepts her heritage, she is killed.

Sephiroth is the exact opposite. It's hinged on lies, self deception, and scientific manipulation-interference. It's an unnatural abomination and he feels alienated from the world because of it. Where as it was Aerith who learned and loved the planet more- to the point the question came down to "what can I do for this planet", Sephiroth felt the world was just stupid and while I don't feel he hated it like AC/C suggests, he was definitely disgusted by it and the question was "what can I get from the world."

I also felt that there was a huge ego thing that Crisis Core should have capitalized on. Tifa says that there's something cold about Sephiroth, something just enough to make her uncomfortable even though he was openly nice to everyone. And it shows when he learned about Jenova. He believed he was special as a kid, he was better. When that "better" turned out to be that he was just a monster he quickly turned somewhere else. He began to try to justify what he was no matter what, but he never in a way that connected him to anything, just to keep those feelings of superiority.

If I'm not human, I'm an ancient and it means I'm better than you lowly humans. If I'm not an Ancient, okay. Then I'm a fucking god.

His twisted relationship with Jenovah was more of him swallowing his own horseshit, that he is now favoring his "better" side.

Cloud is a parallel to Sephiroth. Based off of scientific interference that leads to lies and self denial. He props up an idealized version of himself. In the end though, he finally finds and accepts his true self while in the "natural" lifestream, throws away his ego, becomes stronger for it and defeats Sephiroth.

Honestly in the original FF7 I never got the incline that Sephiroth felt like Cloud was his rival or even a real threat to his cause. He was just another puppet for him to use in his mad quest for power, and then just another stepping stone to his greatness.

It wasn't until AC/ACC that the rivalry bullshit started I think, and even then I feel like thats kind of pushing it.

I kind of agree. The hate thing was awkward. I never got that Sephiroth cared about Cloud. He messed with him sure, but that was because he was evil.

I got the impression he just didn't give a shit unless people were in his way. He didn't care about Cloud. He didn't care about the world. If the world burned, who cares, I'm a god.

 

[Dark and Divine]

I think it kind of works for Sephiroth to be this way, though.(...)

All in all FFVII never seemed like it was about that. Sephiroth was already dead, already in the Lifestream, already rebuilding his body, etc. It was all about Cloud himself overcoming the serious mindfuck that Sephiroth was giving him. How Cloud grows to become strong enough to face him. It fits with how that final fight is more in Cloud's head rather than the physical world.

(...)

I agree with Tennyo, it's a different kind of villain. And one that I like just as well.

I've said it before, for all the fan arguments about Kefka and Sephiroth, they could not be more different as villains. Sephiroth is a threat that looms over you that ENTIRE game. Kefka doesn't do that, as he's only powerful for the last third. At no point was I ever AFRAID of Kefka. I thought he was despicable and I hated him, but he was still that goofy-ass clown with sand on his boots. Sephiroth you live in fear of the whole game.

I don't think either villain is better than the other, they are very different.

Comparing Kefka and Sephiroth is like comparing Saruman and Sauron.

Different story, different flavour. The exploits of Rufus and Shinra Inc. are what drive the plot forward, which is why you constantly see scenes with them throughout the story. Sephiroth is an entity, a presence, but he was never meant to carry the story. He was the Emperor, not Vader. That's kind of ironic, but FFVII loves establishing cliches and then twisting them just a smidge.

The problem with the sequels is that they shouldered all this screentime on someone who is only an effective villain when he's not around. One of the many reasons that the sequels dropped the fucking ball.

@Thread: I for one like the way Sephiroth has always been shown to be really strong. Having a villian pose little threat to start with but gaining more power later is an effective way to do things. But its not the only way.

The player spends the entire game knowing that Sephiroth is incredibly powerful. Everything from Cloud's flashbacks to the Midgar Zolom and the various slaughters the guy goes on along with the various times he gives the party samples of his power all tell us what we need to know. This guy is icnredibly strong and a huge threat, and is most likely way beyond our abilities.

The best part of it though, is the game never shows you all of Sephiroth's power. We get samples of it. An illusion here, a dead Zolom there, watching the party get swatted aside on the cargo ship.

Thus he feels like a threat, you're worried about facing him. Worried about what might happen. A fear which only increases after Aerith's death. After all, if she can die so can the others. Couple that with his ability to control and mindfuck Cloud and suddenly the following meetings with Sephiroth are tense and suspenseful, leaving you wodnering what will happen.

Of course we know Sephiroth can be beat, we see it happen in the past. But what about now? All of that built up to a good final battle. One where you knew the enemy could be beaten, but weren't sure if you were strong enough to pull it off.

This.

Sephiroth is a bit underdeveloped in terms of his Start of darkness. Luckily theres more to him than simply his origins. His dynamic with Cloud, his perssonality, appearance, and just the way the story handles him even when he's not on screen elevate him far above the average villian IMO.

I will add that I appreciated Crisis Core's efforts to flesh out Sephiroth's descent into madness, but I wish they would have done it without putting Genesis in Nibelheim.

^All these opinions basically cover what I think of Sephiroth as character and makes me like him so much. But that only in the context of the original game and maybe AC/C, because of...

Honestly in the original FF7 I never got the incline that Sephiroth felt like Cloud was his rival or even a real threat to his cause. He was just another puppet for him to use in his mad quest for power, and then just another stepping stone to his greatness.

It wasn't until AC/ACC that the rivalry bullshit started I think, and even then I feel like thats kind of pushing it.

...this, basically.

In FFVII, Sephiroth wanted revenge against Cloud, but that was hand-to-hand with his plan to achieve godhood. Neither objective was over the other. In fact, Sephiroth, at one point, seemed more concerned to achieve his godhood than to destroy Cloud.

Even in Advent Children/Complete, Sephiroth was bent to get his revenge on Cloud, by making him suffer and ultimately kill him, but before that Sephiroth already drove the planet to despair through Geostigma and through the corruption of the Lifestream. In fact, Sephiroth, through the creation of his own Lifestream, the Negative Lifestream, achieved to an extent what he wanted to achieve in FFVII, being more powerful and godlike than ever before, and his plan to use the planet as a vessel was well on its way.

But since OTWTAS: Case of Lifestream - Black, and being quite noticeable in Dissidia and in the KH games (though the latter are not canon), Sephiroth seems like only a shadow to Cloud. In FFVII and AC/C, Sephiroth was always the top dog and Cloud was always in his shadow (and one of the reasons Cloud struggled so hard was also to get rid of Sephiroth's shadow).

But nowadays, Sephiroth seems like he's dependable of Cloud. Shit like "as long as Cloud remembers me, i'll persevere" or "as long as there's darkness in your heart, I'll be here craved in your heart" is really disapointing compared to what Sephiroth was before.

Ok, he also had a plan in Dissidia, but that was relegated to second plane compared to his fixation on Cloud.

So, to answer the original question, I think that there was a subtle change in Sephiroth, not in the character itself, but mostly in the relationship with other characters, namely Cloud.

And I would hardly say that it was a change for the best.

 

[Lord Noctis]

With CoL Sephiroth does seem fixated on Cloud, obssesed even. However it was also established that the Sephiroth we see in CoL is not really the whole package. He was killed and sent into the lifestream, and he had to use a strong emotion to keep from fading altogether. Given his recent defeat it does make sense that his hatred of CLoud would be the emotion he would choose. He also had to surrender many other memories just to survive, even that of his own appearance, so by the time all was said and done the only truly coherent piece of him remaining would be his hatred of CLoud, and the feelings and emotions relating to that.

I do believe that he regained all he lost by the time he was ressurected in AC/C, but at the time of CoL he had literally been worn down to a far more basic version of himself.

I'm not saying the change was a good thing per se, but there is a narrative reason for it, at least in CoL.

Now Dissidia is a whole different story. That game watered down pretty much all of its characters to some extent. Except Garland.

 

[Unlucky]

I also felt that there was a huge ego thing that Crisis Core should have capitalized on. Tifa says that there's something cold about Sephiroth, something just enough to make her uncomfortable even though he was openly nice to everyone. And it shows when he learned about Jenova. He believed he was special as a kid, he was better. When that "better" turned out to be that he was just a monster he quickly turned somewhere else. He began to try to justify what he was no matter what, but he never in a way that connected him to anything, just to keep those feelings of superiority.

If I'm not human, I'm an ancient and it means I'm better than you lowly humans. If I'm not an Ancient, okay. Then I'm a fucking god.

His twisted relationship with Jenovah was more of him swallowing his own horseshit, that he is now favoring his "better" side.

^This, this is what I was trying to say. The superiority was there inside him from the start, brewing with confusion and insecurity of what he really is, and when he finally learned the truth, he stuck to the one thing that he believed from the start: that he's special.

So basically I see Sephy as : insecurity/doubt + superiority complex + denial of truth ---> justification + insanity = I'm a god, fuck you all

 

[Ite]

Honestly, it's easier for me to think that Sephiroth died at Nibelheim. Jenova makes a much more compelling main villain, especially if she just spends the whole game tricking everyone. Planet-eating cosmic horror > retarded JRPG god-complex.

 

[Octo]

Honestly, it's easier for me to think that Sephiroth died at Nibelheim. Jenova makes a much more compelling main villain, especially if she just spends the whole game tricking everyone. Planet-eating cosmic horror > retarded JRPG god-complex.

Yup, Jenova as a concept is quite terrifying, like the Thing. I've never really understood how mixing human with evil shape shifting abomination could result in something more powerful than the original.

It would make sense if Jenova was more like a virus - not actually intelligent/sentient or anything - but as Iflana says :

"That's when it appeared!"
"It looked like... our... our dead mothers... and our dead brothers. Showing us spectres of their past." "Who is the person that appeared at the North Cave? I haven't any idea."
"That's when the one who injured the Planet... or the 'crisis from the sky', as we call him, came."
(She covers her face with her hands.)
"He first approached as a friend, deceived them, and finally...... gave them the virus."

Lol @ 'he'

Anyway that doesn't sound like the actions of an unintelligent being, it knew what it was doing. I still don't get how Sephiroth could bend Jenova to his will, as the only special thing about Sephiroth was his Jenova cells.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

as the only special thing about Sephiroth was his Jenova cells.

That's the thing, the reasons for Sephiroth's power were so exact and down to a science (unlike by chance, personal ambition, or long term planning, like a lot of powerful antagonist), something Shinra could have easily done twice.

What I don't understand is why Shinra never tried to replicate Sephiroth's creation process exactly after it was proven a success.

And I don't mean Genesis/Angeal like, I mean, exactly.