Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > Final Fantasy: The Quickening > Final Fantasy VII > The Darkside of FF7

[Guardian XIII]

I'm sorry but I've got to do this:

"It doesn't get heated until you're in here!" Bow chicka bow bow

[Skyblade]

The "misunderstood" part never really struck me as any sort of justification for Sephy's rampage. The only person who really "misunderstood" Sephiroth was himself. He kept everyone else fairly clear on the subject. "My mother once ruled the planet, and I blame all you little insects for usurping her". It was kind of hard to misunderstand that after he told you for the dozenth time.

The big "misunderstanding" was in Hojo's lies and pitiful scientific results, coupled with the misunderstandings of Gast's original project. That information, along with the constant whispers of Jenova in his mind, finally cracked him and turned him into the psychotic world-destroyer.

No one else "misunderstood" him. Cloud and the rest of the gang know exactly what his motives are, and knew almost all of what Sephy went through. They just feel (correctly) that none of that justifies genocide.

The big theme of FFVII is not people being misunderstood by each other, but being misunderstood by themselves. Neither Cloud nor Sephy really understood what they truly were. Cloud finally comes to grips with the truth of his life, though, while Sephiroth does not.

[Crop]

Ok, I liked Sephy. He was pretty good, when I played it when I was a young whippersnapper I thought "Wow, this guy is badASS!"

But who did I like more? Even when I was a young tyke?
Shinra...or more specificly - Rufus.

These guys were badass to the core. I mean seriously. Rufus was this Dictator of the worlds biggest company whos reach and power stretched globaly. I remember playing the game and seeing everything Shinra had (Soldiers, the Turks, Cannons, Citys, Hojo, the people in the board meeting) and thinking "Yeah, I hope these guys gun down Sephy and sweep aside Cloud and his group of clowns!"

Every time I saw a victory for Shinra, or a powerful move (destroying Sector 7, capturing Cloud and Co, destroying the weapons) I was like "Yeah screw the world, Shinras here baby and they're gonna dominate you".
On the flip side, every time I had to face one of them or see them fall apart I died a little inside.

Best Shinra parts? Lemme list 'em in a random order from the top of my head.
1. President Shinra mocking AVALANCHE when you first see him
2. Destroying the Plate and seeing half of AVALANCHE get killed (that's what happens when you mess with Shinra)
3. Shinra getting killed and Rufus coming in to power
4. Rufus capturing them all and throwing them into Junon
5. When Rufus starts battling the Weapons with the might of Shinra. (not even the planet can beat Shinra)
6. Rufus DYING in the battle with Weapon. Yes, this was my favourate part, I loved Rufus but this was perfect. I know he didn't die before anyone says anything, but he should have...it was the final fall of the struggling Dictator, his expression and the way it happens is just perfect. (I thought AC was crap anyway but Rufus living just sent me into rages). After the part were Rufus died, Shinra was gone to me.

I think the last thing I want to say was said by this guy anyway:

Originally Posted by Khalin ^

They are! Evil corporations are generally shockingly ruthless. For some reason, I've always liked the "evil offices" concept in a lot of video games/anime/movies/etc.

[ReloadPsi]

Sephiroth just wasn't involved enough. He was never really there to harass you and cause you grief like Kefka and ExDeath were, he seemed to leave that to everyone else.

[The Space Pope]

I'm not gonna spend alot of time reading every post so I don't know if this has bene said already (probably), but the true villain was Shinra itself, not Sephiroth.

Shinra blurred the line between a megacorporation and a government, and intentionally "kept the man down" so to speak, and was knowingly destroying the planet. Furthermore, they employed Hojo and created Sephiroth to be the way he was, so in a way you really can't blame him for what he did.

Look at what Shinra did to Corel, built them up with false promises and when things didn't work out, they burned the village down. Or Kalm and Nebelheim, two small wonderbread towns that were left in shambles because of Shinra.

By the way, Sephiroth wasn't a very interesting bad guy, he was a glorified nihilistic momma's boy. He was only somewhat interesting due to the fact that he in essence could control Cloud and the fact that he didn't just magically appear on the last disc *cough*FF8*cough*.

[-kuri-]

I read this thread from beginning to end. Well..I did skim through the heated debate, which was a good one btw.

Like many have stated, Shinra and Hojo were the main antagonists of the show. I think Sephiroth was just a show of his own. He wasn't the main antagonist....he was just there. Destroying the world, one day at a time. We gotta blame those who worked in the Jenova project; Hojo, Gast, and Lucrecia. In regards to his character development, I don't think there was any. He was mentally derranged and way too obsessed with his mother.

He was only somewhat interesting due to the fact that he in essence could control Cloud and the fact that he didn't just magically appear on the last disc *cough*FF8*cough*.

I may sound like a total fangirl for defending VIII but Ultimecia was trapped in her own time. Ze time kompression wouldn't allow her to magically appear in the first three disks and there are plenty of good reason why she shouldn't go back in time. If you believe in the theory that Ultimecia and Rinoa are one person, then its safe to say that if she was to go back in time to kill Squall & co., she would be then killing herself and ending her existence as we know it. She played it safe and became the master of puppets. WHO NEEDS TO SHOW UP NOWADAYS WHEN YOU HAVE MINDLESS HENCHMEN WORKING FOR YA? You wanna talk about random appearances? Necron. We NEVER heard about the guy until there was that surprise boss battle, which pissed me off because I thought I had finished the game, only to find out I was about to be raped by a...necron that was there to destroy Gaia. At least there was a build up to Ultimecia some time in the 3rd disk.

Back to topic, has anyone noticed that from VII - X, there has been some serious Oedipus complex among the antagonists? Especially the first one.

Sephiroth ---> Gast and Jenova
Seifer ----> Edea and Cid
Kuja ----> Garland...kinda...except there's no mother figure.
Seymour ---> his mom and Jyscal

[Jaffer]

I honestly cannot agree, sure Hojo, Jenova and Shinra did a lot wrong. But AVALANCHE could care less. Why? Sephiroth was infinitely more threatening. As soon as Cloud got word of Sephiroth's return, he took the reigns and focused on that. Shinra was if anything, your morally ambigious rival in the battle against Sephiroth. Hojo wanted to prove a theory, was proven right and that's as far as his interest went pretty much. Sephiroth is the guy that's as Cloud said "the true threat to the planet".

[-kuri-]

That's true but think about it, with no Shinra there would be no Sephiroth. Of course, with his immense power, he would be the bigger threat, but keep in mind that Shinra was the group that was playing around with the Jenova project. They are just as responsible for Sephiroth's actions as he is. When they realized that they couldn't control Sephiroth, that's when they took the initiative to try to stop him.