Why do people feel sorry for Sephiroth?

[Agrippa]

My view of Sephiroth is pretty much the same as Will Graham's take on Francis Dollarhyde in 1986's Manhunter.

"Absolutely... My heart bleeds for him, as a child. Someone took a kid and manufactured a monster. At the same time, as an adult, he's irredeemable. He butchers whole families to pursue trivial fantasies... As an adult, someone should blow the sick fuck out of his socks..."

 

[jazzflower92]

People feel sorry for sephiroth because he really was a misunderstood victim. He found out he was a half human creature then he got mindraped/possessed by jenova who made him do bad things. He wasn't in his right state of mind. So peple should lay off and stop callin him a monster. They would do the same thing in his shoes.

Though sephiroth could have been easily redeemed if somebody had simply gave him some lovin.

Translation: Sephiroth is sympathetic 'cause he's a hawt bishie.

That's for shallow fangirls. People who know about his backstory do feel there is a tragic element to it.

 

[Agrippa]

People feel sorry for sephiroth because he really was a misunderstood victim. He found out he was a half human creature then he got mindraped/possessed by jenova who made him do bad things. He wasn't in his right state of mind. So peple should lay off and stop callin him a monster. They would do the same thing in his shoes.

Though sephiroth could have been easily redeemed if somebody had simply gave him some lovin.

Translation: Sephiroth is sympathetic 'cause he's a hawt bishie.

That's for shallow fangirls. People who know about his backstory do feel there is a tragic element to it.

That's true, he does have a tragic backstory, but that does not excuse Sephiroth's behavior or make him any less of an irredeemable monster.

 

[jazzflower92]

Translation: Sephiroth is sympathetic 'cause he's a hawt bishie.

That's for shallow fangirls. People who know about his backstory do feel there is a tragic element to it.

That's true, he does have a tragic backstory, but that does not excuse Sephiroth's behavior or make him any less of an irredeemable monster.

He's far too gone, and the worst part is how he got to that point.

 

[Roger]

Tragic and sympathetic are two different things. Sephiroth went from perfectly reasonable to too far gone by reading books. No one tortured him into becoming what he is. What he read about his creation was terrible but no one suggested the idea to start slaughtering the people Nibelheim to hm in any way. That reaction was all Sephiroth.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Original game wise: I blame Hojo and Jenova for Sephiroth's craziness and by the time everyone figured out the real truth, it was too late to turn Sephiroth back and the only way to end it was to kill him.

Compilation of FFVII wise: I blame Hojo, Jenova, and Hollander for the craziness of Genesis who is also the third reason for Sephiroth's craziness.

Yes, I cannot forgive Sephiroth for his actions for what he did, but at the same time, I somewhat respect him as a man who'd been lied at for his entire life.

If you really think about it, it's Hojo who is the real monster for betraying humanity due to wanting to prove the stupid 'Jenvoa Theory' and it's also Jenova's fault for things coming to this in the first place.

Up until Crisis Core, I really didn't like Sephiroth.

 

[Roger]

Hojo was just doing his job, trying his best to deliver the product Gast and President Shinra was looking for when he made Sephiroth. He's despicable, but that doesn't absolve the people that ordered him to do what he did.

 

[Tashasaurous]

He experimented on other people, wanted to use the Sister Ray to give Sephiroth more power and even used Deepground to kill many innocent clean people while pretending to be Weiss and used his body to become one with Omega to trick the Planet that the end is coming and many years before that, shot Vincent who tried to demand answers for Lucrecia and was laughing evilly when poor Vince was on a brink of death before Sephiroth was born.

And he kept it hidden from everyone else, even the President who were all oblivious to the man's evil scheme up until FFVII.

And in Before Crisis, he implanted the Zinconiade Materia in Felicia's body while lying to Veld that she was among those dead.

Hojo did more damage to humanity than Sephiroth did.

 

[Roger]

He experimented on other people, wanted to use the Sister Ray to give Sephiroth more power and even used Deepground to kill many innocent clean people while pretending to be Weiss and used his body to become one with Omega to trick the Planet that the end is coming and many years before that, shot Vincent who tried to demand answers for Lucrecia and was laughing evilly when poor Vince was on a brink of death before Sephiroth was born.

And he kept it hidden from everyone else, even the President who were all oblivious to the man's evil scheme up until FFVII.

And in Before Crisis, he implanted the Zinconiade Materia in Felicia's body while lying to Veld that she was among those dead.

Hojo did more damage to humanity than Sephiroth did.

After he made Sephiroth. Everything you said came after he won his promotion because Gast and Shinra were satisfeid with their Ancient imitations they requested. Then he acquired autonomy as Head of the Science Department to pursue his own projects, which were nothing good. But that doesn't retroactively make him the mastermind of what was done to Sephiroth or what Sephiroth himself of his own free will did.

 

[Tashasaurous]

He experimented on other people, wanted to use the Sister Ray to give Sephiroth more power and even used Deepground to kill many innocent clean people while pretending to be Weiss and used his body to become one with Omega to trick the Planet that the end is coming and many years before that, shot Vincent who tried to demand answers for Lucrecia and was laughing evilly when poor Vince was on a brink of death before Sephiroth was born.

And he kept it hidden from everyone else, even the President who were all oblivious to the man's evil scheme up until FFVII.

And in Before Crisis, he implanted the Zinconiade Materia in Felicia's body while lying to Veld that she was among those dead.

Hojo did more damage to humanity than Sephiroth did.

After he made Sephiroth. Everything you said came after he won his promotion because Gast and Shinra were satisfeid with their Ancient imitations they requested. Then he acquired autonomy as Head of the Science Department to pursue his own projects, which were nothing good. But that doesn't retroactively make him the mastermind of what was done to Sephiroth or what Sephiroth himself of his own free will did.

Didn't Cloud or someone else say during the Original game fighting against Hojo called the latter "The Puppet Master of the Puppet Master" or "The Mastermind of the Mastermind" or something like that, though?

Either way, the entire blame for all of this falls onto Hojo's shoulders and ShinRa didn't even see this. They only saw his success just to make money. Besides, Hojo also killed Gast at Icicle in after the latter married Aerith's mother who gave birth to Aerith, remember?

 

[Roger]

Didn't Cloud or someone else say during the Original game fighting against Hojo called the latter "The Puppet Master of the Puppet Master" or "The Mastermind of the Mastermind" or something like that, though?

Either way, the entire blame for all of this falls onto Hojo's shoulders and ShinRa didn't even see this. They only saw his success just to make money. Besides, Hojo also killed Gast at Icicle in after the latter married Aerith's mother who gave birth to Aerith, remember?

Cloud said Hojo was the one that committed the invisible crime against Sephiroth, which he did. Under orders. Gast found Jenova, Gast declared it was Ancient, President Shinra wanted to find the Promised Land, Gast started the Jenova Project at Nibelheim, under his supervision Lucretia and Hojo created Sephiroth, Shinra Corps declared Sephiroth a success and then Lucretia and Gast decided to peace out, leaving Vincent and Hojo to pick up the pieces (Lucretia later came back, DoC is dumb). Hojo does plenty of evil things, but Sephiroth was a commission job that others came up with. Then Sephiroth became SOLDIER and for all his negative influenced he made real friends, who he really wanted to help, and he really was disgusted by Hojo exactly because of those evil practices.
And then that guy, who clearly knew right from wrong in spite of Shinra and Hojo decided that killing civilians was the way to deal with his problems.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Cloud said Hojo was the one that committed the invisible crime against Sephiroth, which he did. Under orders. Gast found Jenova, Gast declared it was Ancient, President Shinra wanted to find the Promised Land, Gast started the Jenova Project at Nibelheim, under his supervision Lucretia and Hojo created Sephiroth, Shinra Corps declared Sephiroth a success and then Lucretia and Gast decided to peace out, leaving Vincent and Hojo to pick up the pieces (Lucretia later came back, DoC is dumb). Hojo does plenty of evil things, but Sephiroth was a commission job that others came up with. Then Sephiroth became SOLDIER and for all his negative influenced he made real friends, who he really wanted to help, and he really was disgusted by Hojo exactly because of those evil practices.
And then that guy, who clearly knew right from wrong in spite of Shinra and Hojo decided that killing civilians was the way to deal with his problems.

Because Sephiroth came up with the wrong answer. If he found out the real truth, I think he would've instead gone ahead and killed Hojo and ShinRa President a lot sooner.

Yes, claiming that Jenova was an Ancient was a mistake on Gast's behalf, but I don't see him as an evil villian. Scientests like him make mistakes and later try and avoid it without causing harm to the world.

Plus, Rufus didn't even know about any of this since he didn't like his father much either, and while I am aware of him being a bad guy, he's redeemed himself a little as of On the Way to Smile, and he saved the Turks who most of them saved the world from the first AVALANCHE's own crazy scientest.

Either way, Hojo is the evil mind of everything, only caring about science and was on the original President's perfect list along with Scarlet and Heidegger, and while Hojo wanted to support Sephiroth in secret, everyone else in ShinRa, while what I call "side-Antagonists"(villians but with their own reasons and not realising their errors) tried to get rid of Sephiroth.

 

[Roger]

Because Sephiroth came up with the wrong answer. If he found out the real truth, I think he would've instead gone ahead and killed Hojo and ShinRa President a lot sooner.

Why? Hojo and Shinra aren't more or less evil on account of Gast being wrong about Jenova nor the Nibelheim civilians more or less deserving of death.

Yes, claiming that Jenova was an Ancient was a mistake on Gast's behalf, but I don't see him as an evil villian. Scientests like him make mistakes and later try and avoid it without causing harm to the world.

I don't remember Gast backing up Vincent on the ethics of the experiment. Gast and Lucretia both meant to do tremendous harm to Sephiroth in order to creatre a being that could lead Shin-Ra Inc. to the Promised Land.

Plus, Rufus didn't even know about any of this since he didn't like his father much either, and while I am aware of him being a bad guy, he's redeemed himself a little as of On the Way to Smile, and he saved the Turks who most of them saved the world from the first AVALANCHE's own crazy scientest.

Yet Hojo quit Shinra to just be a spectator in the pursuit of Sephiroth. It's Rufus and his Turks that forced him to get back to his work as Shinra's evil scientist (even if Shin-Ra Inc. didn't survive this decision for very long).

Either way, Hojo is the evil mind of everything, only caring about science and was on the original President's perfect list along with Scarlet and Heidegger, and while Hojo wanted to support Sephiroth in secret, everyone else in ShinRa, while what I call "side-Antagonists"(villians but with their own reasons and not realising their errors) tried to get rid of Sephiroth.

Rufus didn't pursue Sephiroth to avenge his father or save the world. He was racing him to the Promised Land. Aerith should count herself lucky she never had to find out how the Shinra management styles differs on the matter of Ancient experimentation.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Because Sephiroth came up with the wrong answer. If he found out the real truth, I think he would've instead gone ahead and killed Hojo and ShinRa President a lot sooner.

Why? Hojo and Shinra aren't more or less evil on account of Gast being wrong about Jenova nor the Nibelheim civilians more or less deserving of death.

Well, Sephiroth wasn't able to get straight answers from Gast, now did he? The latter died when the former was just a child and obviously had no idea it was Hojo who murdered him.

Yes, claiming that Jenova was an Ancient was a mistake on Gast's behalf, but I don't see him as an evil villian. Scientests like him make mistakes and later try and avoid it without causing harm to the world.

I don't remember Gast backing up Vincent on the ethics of the experiment. Gast and Lucretia both meant to do tremendous harm to Sephiroth in order to creatre a being that could lead Shin-Ra Inc. to the Promised Land.

Well, Gast left ShinRa and quit his days in researching and through Ifana, learned about the Planet and decided to keep it a secret.

And Lucrecia never got the chance to hold Sephiroth once, and this is actually from the original game should the player have Vincent join you, and not just from Dirge of Cerberus. She herself in guilt hid away inside that Crystal as shown in both games.

Not to mention that Tseng had delayed in bringing Aerith back to ShinRa for several years.

Plus, Rufus didn't even know about any of this since he didn't like his father much either, and while I am aware of him being a bad guy, he's redeemed himself a little as of On the Way to Smile, and he saved the Turks who most of them saved the world from the first AVALANCHE's own crazy scientest.

Yet Hojo quit Shinra to just be a spectator in the pursuit of Sephiroth. It's Rufus and his Turks that forced him to get back to his work as Shinra's evil scientist (even if Shin-Ra Inc. didn't survive this decision for very long).

That was more trauma due to being attacked by Nanaki(Red XIII). Plus, Rufus and the Turks were getting a little desperate.

Either way, Hojo is the evil mind of everything, only caring about science and was on the original President's perfect list along with Scarlet and Heidegger, and while Hojo wanted to support Sephiroth in secret, everyone else in ShinRa, while what I call "side-Antagonists"(villians but with their own reasons and not realising their errors) tried to get rid of Sephiroth.

Rufus didn't pursue Sephiroth to avenge his father or save the world. He was racing him to the Promised Land. Aerith should count herself lucky she never had to find out how the Shinra management styles differs on the matter of Ancient experimentation.

She should also be lucky that Tseng actually cared for her despite having slapped her when he finally captured her, or put it more simply, surrendered herself for Marlene's safety and that he didn't order the Turks to attack her or Cloud and the others.

And I know what Rufus' original goal was, but Hojo was saying to himself during the ride to the Nortern Cave, "No one shall get the Promised Land" and was laughing evilly without Rufus and the Turks even knowing.

Besides, Hojo didn't care if the world was coming to an end. When Weapons and Meteor appeared, ShinRa focused their goal to stop both of them, until Rufus 'died' and Scarlet and Heidegger decided to take over, neither of the two caring about the world either.

 

[Roger]

Hojo being really evil doesn't mean he ought to be held accountable for everyone's deeds instead of those people. President Shinra, Lucretia and Gast decided that their research into Ancients and the Promised Land was worth turning a baby into something inhuman. Hojo also being involved for his own reasons doesn't mean they didn't make that call themselves. Gast had other insights afterwards, but none to Sephiroth's benefit. And Hojo didn't kill Lucretia, or put her in that crystal long before Sephiroth could have known her. He deprived Lucretia was seeing her child before she left, but Lucretia's own decision to have herself by injected with Jenova cells were what deprived Sephiroth from ever knowing a mother. Gast wasn't planning to visit Sephiroth either. The only crime against Sephiroth singlehandedly committed by Hojo is depriving him of knowing Vincent.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Hojo being really evil doesn't mean he ought to be held accountable for everyone's deeds instead of those people. President Shinra, Lucretia and Gast decided that their research into Ancients and the Promised Land was worth turning a baby into something inhuman. Hojo also being involved for his own reasons doesn't mean they didn't make that call themselves. Gast had other insights afterwards, but none to Sephiroth's benefit. And Hojo didn't kill Lucretia, or put her in that crystal long before Sephiroth could have known her. He deprived Lucretia was seeing her child before she left, but Lucretia's own decision to have herself by injected with Jenova cells were what deprived Sephiroth from ever knowing a mother. Gast wasn't planning to visit Sephiroth either. The only crime against Sephiroth singlehandedly committed by Hojo is depriving him of knowing Vincent.

I still don't view Gast as a bad guy, and I never said Hojo killed Lucrecia either or do what she did to herself in that crystal. She wanted to kill herself, but the Jenova cells didn't allow her to do so, so she did the next best thing.

And like I said, yes, I do think Sephiroth was aware of Gast's death but he didn't know it was Hojo who killed him and who had also pretty much lied to Sephiroth to his entire life; never mentioning Lucrecia and had switched the mother thing being that of Jenova.

Rufus's father only cared about power and money. Same thing with Scarlet and Hedigger. All Hojo cared about was proving was right about his theories and when he discovered about Chaos and Omega, he took it to the next level; mentally.

Hojo knew he couldn't fully get what he wanted unless the time was right, so he was careful in hiding behind the scenes until he got his chance to make a full strike of betraying humanity. Otherwise, the Turks would've arrested him a long time ago.

Besides, can't we think of the 'What-If?' about Sephiroth? Unless he's not allowed to be in the 'What-If?' catagory.

 

[Roger]

Hojo being really evil doesn't mean he ought to be held accountable for everyone's deeds instead of those people. President Shinra, Lucretia and Gast decided that their research into Ancients and the Promised Land was worth turning a baby into something inhuman. Hojo also being involved for his own reasons doesn't mean they didn't make that call themselves. Gast had other insights afterwards, but none to Sephiroth's benefit. And Hojo didn't kill Lucretia, or put her in that crystal long before Sephiroth could have known her. He deprived Lucretia was seeing her child before she left, but Lucretia's own decision to have herself by injected with Jenova cells were what deprived Sephiroth from ever knowing a mother. Gast wasn't planning to visit Sephiroth either. The only crime against Sephiroth singlehandedly committed by Hojo is depriving him of knowing Vincent.

I still don't view Gast as a bad guy, and I never said Hojo killed Lucrecia either or do what she did to herself in that crystal. She wanted to kill herself, but the Jenova cells didn't allow her to do so, so she did the next best thing.

And like I said, yes, I do think Sephiroth was aware of Gast's death but he didn't know it was Hojo who killed him and who had also pretty much lied to Sephiroth to his entire life; never mentioning Lucrecia and had switched the mother thing being that of Jenova.

Rufus's father only cared about power and money. Same thing with Scarlet and Hedigger. All Hojo cared about was proving was right about his theories and when he discovered about Chaos and Omega, he took it to the next level; mentally.

Hojo knew he couldn't fully get what he wanted unless the time was right, so he was careful in hiding behind the scenes until he got his chance to make a full strike of betraying humanity. Otherwise, the Turks would've arrested him a long time ago.

Besides, can't we think of the 'What-If?' about Sephiroth? Unless he's not allowed to be in the 'What-If?' catagory.

We can, but a proper What-If for Sephiroth can't go on the premise "What if Hojo wasn't so evil." If Hojo wasn't so evil, Gast would still start the Jenova Project, Lucretia would still want to father the end product, she'd still need to leave soon after birth, Gast would still discover Sephiroth's worth as model for the new SOLDIER, Gast would choose to leave soon afterwards and never be seen again, Wutai war would still be fought, Jenova and those books would still lie waiting in Nibelheim for Sephiroth should he ever choose to go there. Hojo not being a dick would be good for a lot of people but it's rather incidental what Sephiroth is concerned. Whatever Hojo's motives were, he was just doing his assigned job as a scientist when making Sephiroth.

 

[Kieron_ODuibhir]

Huh this is quite a debate. I'm not going to try to quote because it's just too involved at this point.

My viewpoint on how-much-can-we-blame-on-Hojo is that, based on the one reminiscence to his childhood we get from Sephiroth, Hojo was a major presence in his formative years and he was emotionally abusive. I'm not sure Hojo can interact with people without being emotionally abusive, but obviously it's worse for a small child.

It's not normal for a caretaker's reaction to a phrase like 'mysterious power' being insufficiently scientific to be such intense rage that you're still vaguely traumatized by the memory like twenty years later, after fighting a war. (It's also not normal to reminisce out loud about it to near-strangers; OG Sephiroth definitely seemed to already be cracking up on the way to the reactor.)

Gast was pompous and had poor judgment and less than stellar ethics, but he clearly had a self-image that wasn't compatible with being intentionally cruel; whether he was much 'better' in some absolute sense is irrelevant to the fact that Sephiroth clearly felt he had reason to pine for him, having been abandoned to Hojo.

Of course, even if Hojo hadn't been around Sephiroth would have been raised within Shinra's corporate culture, which is still pretty toxic, but Hojo having regular access to if not control over him as a child is one of many reasons it's easy to pity pre-Nibel Sephiroth, especially after you see more of him in CC and determine he was kind of clueless a lot of the time and not actively malicious.

(I always wish Aerith had talked a little about her childhood. She had Ifalna, of course, and having someone you know loves you even if they can't protect you much can make all the difference in the world, and then she got out while she was still a child, but Hojo had her from infancy, too. I really wish we had any of her perspective at all on...anything in her life. Other than Tseng.)

Genesis doing most of the same things Sephiroth goes on to do, to people who care about him, without being nearly as crazy, does seem to have been intended to make Sephiroth look better, especially since after Crisis Core a lot of Sephiroth's early stages of insane look like he's taken Genesis as a role model, like 'what does defying the Company for higher purpose look like? right, murder town.'

However, Sephiroth goes out of his way to be awful based on really cruddy reasoning after he snaps, and honestly it's the petty mind games as much as the actual crimes that make me utterly unsympathetic to Sephiroth-as-villain, because they show he knows exactly what he's doing and that other people will suffer for it, and in some cases at least actively enjoys the suffering.

And just...I'm seeing a conflation in this thread of 'feeling sorry for' and 'excusing.' You can pity without exculpating.

And as far as the debate about him needing love...honestly, that is the impression the story gives. His fragility was definitely founded in part on isolation, and however his breakdown progressed exactly, the delusion that Jenova loved him was definitely a factor. But--and I say this with the most intense disrespect for whoever was being a misogynistic ass about fangirls further up the thread--it's not exactly the kind of isolation that's easy to break; it's not that there were no volunteers in-universe, after all. Just no one he could take seriously.

This is an arrogant, unsociable individual with immense trust issues--if Zack had been more persistently friendly over a longer period, maybe he could have made a difference, and maybe he couldn't. If Genesis hadn't been a prick, maybe he and Angeal could have. If Lucretia had come to different conclusions about which battles it made sense to fight and how safe other people were around her, maybe she could have found a way to be in his life and made the difference. Or maybe the people who think Sephiroth was the real puppet have the right of it, and there was absolutely nothing anyone could have done. Who the hell knows.

There are a ridiculous number of factors here, but without even having clarity on basic elements like 'how much psychic pressure if any was Jenova exerting on Sephiroth in Nibelheim?' we can't come to any secure conclusions.

 

[demonwolf]

Was typing up a post but Kieron- san said everything I wanted to but way better. I feel sorry for Seph for the honourable SOLDIER he was, the madman he'd become and the happy ending he'd never have. But ultimately he'd become a deplorable ass. He'd been wronged and that's sad and unfair and he'd been dealt a bad hand and all that stuff, but no one is more at fault for his own crime than him.

For that matter I feel sorry for Hojo too. He lived for science and achievement and prolly had never known love. That's sad too. But he's much less of a sympathetic character (and not a bishie ) so it's way easier to hate him.

 

[jazzflower92]

Was typing up a post but Kieron- san said everything I wanted to but way better. I feel sorry for Seph for the honourable SOLDIER he was, the madman he'd become and the happy ending he'd never have. But ultimately he'd become a deplorable ass. He'd been wronged and that's sad and unfair and he'd been dealt a bad hand and all that stuff, but no one is more at fault for his own crime than him.

For that matter I feel sorry for Hojo too. He lived for science and achievement and prolly had never known love. That's sad too. But he's much less of a sympathetic character (and not a bishie ) so it's way easier to hate him.

No, Hojo isn't sympathetic because he's not a bishie. He's not sympathetic because never once in the story has he been shown to be a good human being.

 

[demonwolf]

I never said he's not sympathetic because he's not a bishie. I said he's not sympathetic and he's not a bishie so he's easy to hate.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Was typing up a post but Kieron- san said everything I wanted to but way better. I feel sorry for Seph for the honourable SOLDIER he was, the madman he'd become and the happy ending he'd never have. But ultimately he'd become a deplorable ass. He'd been wronged and that's sad and unfair and he'd been dealt a bad hand and all that stuff, but no one is more at fault for his own crime than him.

For that matter I feel sorry for Hojo too. He lived for science and achievement and prolly had never known love. That's sad too. But he's much less of a sympathetic character (and not a bishie) so it's way easier to hate him.

No, Hojo isn't sympathetic because he's not a bishie. He's not sympathetic because never once in the story has he been shown to be a good human being.

Yeah, Hojo has no sympathy in him what so ever. As far as the story goes, he's a monster in human disguise.

Sephiroth at one stage did want to prevent Angeal's death and even said so to Zack before Nibelhiem. While he isn't a much liked guy, I still respect him since Crisis Core now. Besides, I prefer him and Genesis to Hojo.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

My viewpoint on how-much-can-we-blame-on-Hojo is that, based on the one reminiscence to his childhood we get from Sephiroth, Hojo was a major presence in his formative years and he was emotionally abusive.

We don't really know that, though, do we? For all we know, Hojo may have had little interaction with Seph during his youth (e.g. far from enough to qualify as his caretaker), much less whether he was typically emotionally abusive or just coldly clinical.

I'm not sure Hojo can interact with people without being emotionally abusive, but obviously it's worse for a small child.

It's not normal for a caretaker's reaction to a phrase like 'mysterious power' being insufficiently scientific to be such intense rage that you're still vaguely traumatized by the memory like twenty years later, after fighting a war.

We don't know how old Sephiroth was when that conversation took place either, do we?

For that matter, Hojo's reaction could stand out to Sephiroth because it was the one time he saw any kind of emotional reaction at all from him.

We just plainly don't know anything about Sephiroth's childhood, and certainly not what role Hojo had in it. I appreciate the rest of your observations, though.

No, Hojo isn't sympathetic because he's not a bishie. He's not sympathetic because never once in the story has he been shown to be a good human being.

For that matter, neither has Sephiroth.

 

[demonwolf]

Yeah, Hojo has no sympathy in him what so ever. As far as the story goes, he's a monster in human disguise.

Sephiroth at one stage did want to prevent Angeal's death and even said so to Zack before Nibelhiem. While he isn't a much liked guy, I still respect him since Crisis Core now. Besides, I prefer him and Genesis to Hojo.

I wouldn't say Seph isn't a much liked guy. His fan base can prolly raze down a small town in a stampede. Unless you meant in-game, then yeah, he's feared and hated.

And like TTM-san said, Seph is Hojo 2.0, post-Nibelheim incident.

I definitely prefer Seph before he turned insane, but after he turned insane? I actually prefer Hojo. He didn't need the "I snapped" excuse to be evil. His increasingly evil deeds stemming from obsesssion for science and brilliance is a more interesting character development than going insane from existensial crisis to me.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Yeah, Hojo has no sympathy in him what so ever. As far as the story goes, he's a monster in human disguise.

Sephiroth at one stage did want to prevent Angeal's death and even said so to Zack before Nibelhiem. While he isn't a much liked guy, I still respect him since Crisis Core now. Besides, I prefer him and Genesis to Hojo.

I wouldn't say Seph isn't a much liked guy. His fan base can prolly raze down a small town in a stampede. Unless you meant in-game, then yeah, he's feared and hated.

And like TTM-san said, Seph is Hojo 2.0, post-Nibelheim incident.

I definitely prefer Seph before he turned insane, but after he turned insane? I actually prefer Hojo. He didn't need the "I snapped" excuse to be evil. His increasingly evil deeds stemming from obsesssion for science and brilliance is a more interesting character development than going insane from existensial crisis to me.

You've got a point. Then again, pre-Nibelhiem incident, people like Zack and Cloud worshipped Sephiroth and wanted to be like him in strength and being heroes before they realise how cruel ShinRa is(The Turks only do as they told while being good in hiding their emotions).

And like you, I prefer Sephiroth before he completely lost it. He had more of the respected leadership thing happening and a bit of a heart.

I find Hojo extremely icky, horrible and annoying. On the other hand, I like villians who start to turn good or still have goodness inside them and begin to realise the error of their ways;

Rufus and the Turks for the perfect example. Given the player's choice in the original game, I prefer the optain where Cloud and the others decided to not fight them when they meet for the last time for the next two years(Advent Children and it's slight remake Advent Children Complete), and how their story developed in "Case of ShinRa" and the recently completed translation of "The Kids Are Alright".