Two Sephiroths?

[OWA-2]

In the Temple of the Ancients sometimes when Sephiroth appears, there is two of them. One normal and one transparent(moving independently of the other one, in one scene).
I never understood what that was supposed to mean, it was so weird and nonsensical.
At least with Cloud we had an explanation for the transparent Cloud(his forgotten real self), but Sephiroth didn't had the same memory-problem of Cloud's, so what's the deal?

 

[Arianna]

I think it was just movement, surrealism because of the whole atmosphere of the place, and how Sephiroth transcended his humanity. Also, being so close to whatever Jenova truly is, he could tap that power and probably could be in several places at once.

 

[Ite]

It's been many years since I've played the Temple of the Ancients sequence, but I remember two distinct places where this occurs, and I didn't find anything strange about them.

The first is when you are looking inside of that pool in the boulder(!) room, and it shows you what exactly happened to Tseng inside the Mural Room. Sephiroth "does him in" and soliloquizes, while a giant translucent Sephiroth appears over the scene. Even during my first playthrough I figured big see-through Sephy was symbolic of Sephiroth knowing that Cloud was watching him -- either at the time of the "doing in" (aka he can see the future) or at the time of the observation (aka he is super aware).
--tl;dr-- Solid Sephy is the 'video-recording' of the past, See-Through Sephy is his consciousness spying on Cloud spying on Solid Sephy.

The second time it happens is when Sephiroth is ranting about his plans for Meteor, and he stabs his sword into the ground. There are I think three or four Sephiroth models standing in the same spot, each fractionally behind each other. I always thought that this was just a kind of 'undulating-with-power' kind of effect, and never read much more into it than that.

 

[Makoeyes987]

It's been many years since I've played the Temple of the Ancients sequence, but I remember two distinct places where this occurs, and I didn't find anything strange about them.

The first is when you are looking inside of that pool in the boulder(!) room, and it shows you what exactly happened to Tseng inside the Mural Room. Sephiroth "does him in" and soliloquizes, while a giant translucent Sephiroth appears over the scene. Even during my first playthrough I figured big see-through Sephy was symbolic of Sephiroth knowing that Cloud was watching him -- either at the time of the "doing in" (aka he can see the future) or at the time of the observation (aka he is super aware).
--tl;dr-- Solid Sephy is the 'video-recording' of the past, See-Through Sephy is his consciousness spying on Cloud spying on Solid Sephy.

The second time it happens is when Sephiroth is ranting about his plans for Meteor, and he stabs his sword into the ground. There are I think three or four Sephiroth models standing in the same spot, each fractionally behind each other. I always thought that this was just a kind of 'undulating-with-power' kind of effect, and never read much more into it than that.

God, that's exactly how I thought of it too. It's good to know I wasn't the only one who did.

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

Same here. Semi-transparent after-images turn up as a "undulating-with-power" effect pretty frequently. Offhand I can recall seeing variations of it in Dragonball, fairly sure it turned up in the DCAU with Superman once or twice, its not uncommon to see it used. Albeit the images usually move a bit faster than Sephy's did, but he's a special snowflake and all.