Shinra executing Barret/Tifa=Justified? (kinda)

[CameoAmalthea]

Also, Hojo created Vincent and Elfe, those experiments were probably funded by some general make human weapons fund, right?

Like I said, I think President Shinra is delusional and paranoid. There doesn't have to be real threats, he's just convinced his power isn't secure (in contrast to Rufus who is rational and confident, President Shinra is irrational and terrified).

Also, having a visible army as a deterrent isn't panem et circuses, it's ruling by fear. If Rufus had a giant army everyone would know about it because that makes sense and Rufus is confident in his own power. President Shinra is insecure, so he wants to have an ace up his sleeve and to be over prepared so nothing can ever challenge him. Hojo might be feeding President Shinra's delusions to get more funding.

Also, Hunger Games AU where Elfe is Katniss, because reasons.

I think President Shinra's method of ruling is marked by fear. The people will turn against me, cover up all mistakes, throw money at propaganda, destroy any possible threat, over kill all the way! I must be invincible.

Although President Shinra is certainly not a coward...so I'm not sure what to make of that. Or maybe he acts brave out of fear that showing weakness will make the whole system collapsed, a bluff born of insecurity?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I thought septimalshenanigans made a great case for President Shinra being a man ruled by fear, to the point of paranoia, and I think the Compilation can accommodate such an interpretation of his character. It definitely makes for some great fic.

However, for me, the weight of evidence doen''t really support this take on the Old Man.

In terms of the timeline, the first time we meet him is in Before Crisis when he's paying a visit to the military academy in Junon and making a broadcast on TV. Avalanche repeatedly attack, killing large numbers of his soldiers, and at one point almost blowing the President to pieces, but he never loses his steely nerves or his sang froid, and he insists on going ahead with the broadcast when Veld would rather cancel it. The one time he shows any weakness or softness is when he 'skypes' with Rufus. If anything, the President's behaviour in this episode betrays the attitude of a man who believes he's indestructible.

I can't remember a single moment anywhere in the whole of BC when President Shinra displays fear, except when he's afraid for his son's safety.Of course one can put all sorts of spins on why he's worried about Rufus; just because he's worried, doesn't necessarily mean he loves Rufus. But I digress. My main point is that President Shinra seems more like the kind of character to hold his enemies in contempt, and under-rate them, than to build a huge secret army and hide it in the basement on the off-chance that some incredibly powerful threat might one day materialise out of nowhere.

This is the man, remember, who told his son that escape routes were for losers. This was right after he laughed at Rufus for being worried that their Tower might be attacked by ShinRa's enemies. "ShinRa," the President informed him, "Has no enemies." He even said that Rufus was soft in the head for worrying about it!

Now look what happens when Reeve tries to manipulate the Old Man by raising the spectre of public unrest:

"Reeve
"Sir, if you raise the rates, the people will lose confidence..."

President Shinra
"It'll be all right."
"The ignorant citizens won't lose confidence, they'll trust
Shinra, Inc. even more."

Heidegger
"Ha ha ha!"
"After all, we're the ones who saved Sector 7 from AVALANCHE!"

That doesn't really sound like someone who's secretly afraid that his power is insecure or that the people will turn against him.

Again, let's remember that this is the man who takes time out from his busy schedule to drop in on a group of heavily armed terrorists caught red-handed in the middle of blowing up his reactor, merely to taunt them - and later he invites them into his office for more of the same. "Oh really, don't you know? These days, all it takes for your dreams to come true are money and science."

I agree that President Shinra is delusional - and grossly mistaken in his beliefs, which isn't quite the same thing - but to me his delusions spring from overconfidence and arrogance, rather than from paranoia or fear.

RE Vincent and Elfe. I always assumed that Vincent was a private little project of Hojo's that the Old Man knew nothing about. Turks died in the line of duty all the time, so he wouldn't have thought anything of it if Vincent just disappeared one day. But that's the thing, right? The Old Man didn't die. He paid other people to die for him. As for Elfe, IIRC correctly Veld gave her to Hojo hoping Hojo could save her life. Hojo experimented on her by putting the materia in her hand, and when that idea failed he just chucked her out like a contaminated petrie dish and didn't even bother to check if she was properly dead. (I hope that's actual canon and not what I made up. I can't even remember any more! I do know it's canon that Veld's daughter was among the survivors of the Kalm bombing who were taken to Nibelheim and given to Hojo.)

So, in a nutshell: I really enjoy the characterisation of the Old Man as a delusional paranoic seeing assassins behind every curtain, and I also think it's possible to write him that way without needing to distort any other part of the story. But if the defense of the Deepground concept rests on the argument that the Old Man lived in fear of attack either from his citizenry or from as yet unknown enemies, then for me it's not very convincing.

(I mean, he might well have been in danger of attack by his citizenry, but he didn't seem to be able to see it. He was very complacent.)

 

[CameoAmalthea]

Well put, I concede all your points. Honestly, I was stretching when I tried to reconcile how seemingly fearless President Shinra can be (I had Episode 2 of BC in mind) with the President Shinra as paranoid/insecure person and it didn't really fit.

Now I have the problem that I really don't understand his character at all. He seems not to be concerned about a potential threat from the populace, but he levels Sector 7 to kill a small group. Septimalshenanigans theory made so much sense, and I thought I was finally beginning to understand how the President might tic, but you're right, it doesn't fit with his bolder actions and arrogance.

I do not understand President Shinra as a character and it bothers me.

 

[Shademp]

I do not understand President Shinra as a character and it bothers me.

At times like this I'm happy that I'm more of a "behind-the-scenes analysis" guy, rather than a fanfic-writer. The latter requires characters to be perfectly understood, the former can acknowledge contradictory character actions as oversights by the writers without suffering from it. Though if I were to write fanfics, I would simply not include questions which have no good-enough answer, such as President Shinra's choice to level Sector 7.

...Well, now that I think about it I don't see *that* much of a problem with his choice to level Sector 7. President Shinra's sights was on Neo Midgar. Midgar was starting to become an old toy that he'd rather throw away if it meant he could get the new one faster.

Gee, this thread sure is generating a lot of potential new threads within itself.

 

[Clement Rage]

Well put, I concede all your points. Honestly, I was stretching when I tried to reconcile how seemingly fearless President Shinra can be (I had Episode 2 of BC in mind) with the President Shinra as paranoid/insecure person and it didn't really fit.

Now I have the problem that I really don't understand his character at all. He seems not to be concerned about a potential threat from the populace, but he levels Sector 7 to kill a small group. Septimalshenanigans theory made so much sense, and I thought I was finally beginning to understand how the President might tic, but you're right, it doesn't fit with his bolder actions and arrogance.

I do not understand President Shinra as a character and it bothers me.

If he can't distinguish AVALANCHE 1 and 2, he might just have been frustrated as hell that the group that recently very nearly destroyed the world is still active despite the best efforts of his army and Turks, and that it was worth losing a sector to finally be sure they were put down for good.