Critical Characterization Failure - Sephiroth

I just re-discovered this thread. There's some really great stuff in here. Skyblade and silentenigma, you guys have made some really great posts. It's uncommon to see such thoughtful stuff being said about this game.

I myself like to think of Jenova as similar to Lavos from the Chrono games. FFVII, Chrono Trigger, and Chrono Cross all share a script writer (Kato) and the themes of all three games often overlap in interesting ways, such as the parasitic Lovecraftian alien intelligence that lands among an unsuspecting human population (which I have always thought is a very interesting take on the ultimate demon evil genre trope) or the idea that humans are not quite the worthy race that most games lazily spout during the Final Battle. In FFVII and CC - CC in particular - there is a huge emphasis on positive and negative. For every good thing that is accomplished by an individual (or a whole race) there is often a bad thing that off-sets it (and vice versa). Morality in one's personal life does not always lead to morality in one's social life - most of the AVALANCHE members are guilty of this is some way (Barret and Tifa, notably).

But neither game is ever really negative. For every bad thing that is shown, something positive follows at some point (again, Barret or Tifa). Neither game falls into the trap of showing one type of behaviour and then showing an opposing type, confirming that the former is a deception of some sort and ending up as a story about The Evil of Humanity or The Redemption Found In Love and Friendship. Often in games, someone will do something morally reprehensible but, later on, will be shown performing some kind of noble task that off-sets it. More than those of other games, I think the writers of FFVII and CC in particular are consciously trying to pose these conflicting scenarios. They flip-flop (not in a bad way) usually up until the end. Both games have ambiguous endings that, while a bit of a let down after a long journey, leave a lot to be talked about. Of course this cleverness doesn't always hold up since each game has some serious execution issues in spots (likely due to the fact that the games are, unavoidably, designed by a collective of writers, designers, and executives - some inconsistency is bound to occur in the final product because of so many different perspectives). But it's great that Squaresoft tried. They had some serious budding talent back then. There's probably a lot to be said if one takes into consideration the Chrono games when looking at VII.

Ah thanks Flying Arrow. And that kind of makes me want to go play Chrono Cross again XD

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Originally Posted by MJN SEIFER

Jenova controlling Sephiroth does make some level of sense, but Square have apperently stated that it is another way around - Sephiroth takes control of Jenova, who appears as Sephiroth, it sounds more confusing than it is, but when you think about it makes a whole lot of sense, as the answer is there in front of you the whole time.

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Did Square say that or did Square-Enix say that?

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Originally Posted by Haha_YouAint

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Originally Posted by MJN SEIFER

Jenova controlling Sephiroth does make some level of sense, but Square have apperently stated that it is another way around - Sephiroth takes control of Jenova, who appears as Sephiroth, it sounds more confusing than it is, but when you think about it makes a whole lot of sense, as the answer is there in front of you the whole time.

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Did Square say that or did Square-Enix say that?

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Whoever wrote Ultimania said it. I have never read Ultimania so I don't know how it's worded - I never will read Ultimania because from what I hear everything it "explains" I already got from the game (such as the identity of the clones).

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Originally Posted by MJN SEIFER

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Originally Posted by Haha_YouAint

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Originally Posted by MJN SEIFER

Jenova controlling Sephiroth does make some level of sense, but Square have apperently stated that it is another way around - Sephiroth takes control of Jenova, who appears as Sephiroth, it sounds more confusing than it is, but when you think about it makes a whole lot of sense, as the answer is there in front of you the whole time.

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Did Square say that or did Square-Enix say that?

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Whoever wrote Ultimania said it. I have never read Ultimania so I don't know how it's worded - I never will read Ultimania because from what I hear everything it "explains" I already got from the game (such as the identity of the clones).

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Oh. Unless it came directly from Sakaguchi, I wouldn't take it seriously. But then again, I've never read the Ultimania, so it's easy for me to say that.

This is all interesting speculation, I've never thought about the charactization of Sephiroth like this. I've just went with the idea that Sephiroth went insane and perhaps even he didn't know his own motives before they were given to him by "his mother" who told him what to do. I also think it didn't help that Hojo started this whole thing in the first place with his experiment, putting cells of Jenova into Sephiroth was a dangerous thing to do, but at the same time, I think Hojo has been insane to begin with and therefore, he wanted his experiment in Sephiroth to suceed what no matter what, a more sane person would work to help Cloud stop Sephiroth, rather than aid Sephiroth as he's trying to destroy the Planet with an ancient forbidden magic.

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Originally Posted by Darth Cid

they were given to him by "his mother" who told him what to do.

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I will answer this with your own quote:

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Originally Posted by Darth Cid

This is all interesting speculation

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But, if we go by all the information presented to us in the original game and other Compilation titles, wrong speculation.

While the interpretations here range into the awesome and onwards, I feel a little compelled to rain on the parade... Sorry.

Wazzat about the rain? Well, see, all of these interpretations involve a lot of effort/thinking on our side, with hardly any hints in the game itself (debatable, okay, especially considering the translation). Either Square's authors are veeeery very subtle and trying as hard as you like, or such theories is pure guess-work. Considering the medium of delivery, I question the likelihood that Square aimed such an in-depth philosophical reasoning at the people who were likely to own a Playstation. Maybe the market looks different in Japan (What? People old enough to go to a bar, owning PSXes??), I don't know, but for such intricate interpretations to be true, the storytelling has to be unbelievably ambitious... At any rate, I don't believe it. :p

Perhaps trying to get intricate about the plot can sometimes lead to grasping at straws, but I don't think that's a bad thing. No one ever said that these theories were supposed to be what the writers intended. It's more like they are trying to make sense of the events that are presented, within the restrictions of the work itself. Often writers don't consider everything, and if no explanation is made by the author then I think it is valid to try to reason one. To use a good quote:

"A narrator should not supply interpretations of his work; otherwise he would not have written a novel, which is a machine for generating interpretations."
—Umberto Eco, postscript to The Name Of The Rose

They didn't have Playstations back then so just replace "novel" with "narrative." Anyway to add my two cents I do think that Sephiroth was the one in control, while at the same time he was executing Jenova's will. basically Jenova was the one with the goal (absorb all life) and Sephiroth was the one with the power (after he took control of Jenova) but it turns out he wanted to do the same thing Jenova wanted to do anyway. Considering that her will was passed on genetically it still holds up to say that Jenova's will was carried out even if Sephiroth was the one doing so. I think that's the extent of Jenova's control on him and I don't think the Ultimania's words are compromised by it. Sephiroth was basically an "evolved" form of Jenova. Not Like he literally evolved from her because his creation was artificial, but in the same vein. The reason Sephiroth is better than Jenova is because he can come up with plots like a human. Plots such as crashing a giant rock into the planet to make it gather all the life up and then hopping in and absorbing it. Jenova was more animalistic in her methods. So Sephiroth is the one calling the shots but he's still just doing what his biology tells him to, even if he wants the same thing consciously. Most likely it's a combination of both the influence of Jenova and his own desire for power. Either way Jenova wins. Until they both get a buster sword to the face.

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Originally Posted by MJN SEIFER

it could have all been avoided, if the Jenova Experiment had never took place.

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Actually, it could have been avoided simply by keeping Sephiroth away from those Mako reactors and any of Hojo's research notes. If they hadn't opted to use Sephiroth as the weapon to win the war against Wutai... if instead he'd been allowed to live a semblance of a normal life, there's absolutely no way he'd have become an ego-maniacal sociopath even on his worst day (at least not without some massive mind-freak manipulation).

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Originally Posted by silentenigma

One possible interpretation is that as Sephiroth learns more and more, he becomes increasingly deranged, self-glorifying, and thus more hateful towards humanity altogether. He is obsessed with the thought of their inferiority and his own entitlement as a superior being. And while I believe this to be true, I don't think it's the whole story. After all, Sephiroth is a very sensible man before the Nibelheim incident - yet in a short time frame, he completely loses it.

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The same is true for Light Yagami of Death Note. Though it may be the knowledge that having used the Death Note, he'll neither go to heaven nor hell that dips his sanity in the wrong direction.

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It appears that deep down, Sephiroth was indeed doing Jenova's bidding all along. This does not necessarily mean that he was being manipulated directly by Jenova. Still, the Jenova inside him did take advantage of his mind at a time of weakness, causing him to 'inherit' the will of Jenova, a condition from which he never recovered. This remained a constant subconscious goal of Sephiroth, even though his surface-level motivations later changed. Sephiroth was not directly controlled by Jenova like some unconscious puppet; rather, as I believe Squall of Seed once put it, he in a sense "became Jenova."

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Kind of like a soldier who is the lone survivor of his tortured unit and develops cancer to top off the crap that's been slung onto his life. Jenova is a disease that warps the mind, seeding it with a voice that convinces the victim that the horrible thing they're about to do is actually what they desire most. The best manipulators convince people that it was their decision to do horrible things regardless of what leverage the manipulator may have earlier had. So, basically, Sephiroth gave in to the Jenova will, it's desire, it's instinct. He had his own ideas on how to accomplish the end goal and that's what truly distinguishes Sephiroth from Jenova, but as it stands, he fell before the will of Jenova because he was weak... he was weak because he was alone. Unlike Cloud who had Tifa to guide him through his problems. Most people see Tifa as one of those "friend-types" who tag along but don't really serve a purpose, but even if Aerith had lived, she wouldn't have been able to reassure Cloud of his identity in the Lifestream. Without Tifa in the game, Cloud may have very well became a "second Sephiroth" as the in-game characters would call him regardless of whether they realize it's an insult because Cloud would have become a harsher villain than Sephiroth ever could be. lol

Actually, I believe it was the fact that Genesis remembered his family that his humanity remained mostly intact and maybe this is what drove him to become more of an annoyance than an actual villain.

New VII Vision concept:
main storyline villains: Genesis, Weiss, Cloud, Sephiroth
main storyline hero: Zack... go!

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Originally Posted by I think it was Mercen-X , but I'm not sure

Actually, it could have been avoided simply by keeping Sephiroth away from those Mako reactors and any of Hojo's research notes. If they hadn't opted to use Sephiroth as the weapon to win the war against Wutai... if instead he'd been allowed to live a semblance of a normal life, there's absolutely no way he'd have become an ego-maniacal sociopath even on his worst day (at least not without some massive Zack).

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Very well put, I think you may have it right here.