Silly Seifer !

Does anybody find it rather sad and tragic that this boy sabotages himself and his future ? The game makes it clear that the boy has talent. He can wield a gunblade which is difficult to master and his talent is so good that it rivals Squall. Though because of his impatience, aggressiveness, and ego - he ruins his chances of becoming a Seed, meeting up with Rinoa again, and most likely becoming the hero and getting his dream of becoming a knight like he wanted.

I would also debate that the boy is also a unrealistic thinker and is a bit of a dreamer, which again, sabotages him. Seifer is not a victim at all, he's old enough to know that he's doing wrong, though it seems to be that not only is Seifer a asshole to other people, but the person who he's the biggest asshole to- is unfortunately himself.

Seifer COULD have been that SeeD. Seifer could've met up with Rinoa again and had a relationship with her. Seifer COULD have been that romantic knight that he wanted to be.

A lot of people think that the ending with Seifer feels sudden, odd or out of place and he just feels " suddenly redeemed ", but I got to disagree. Seifer has learnt his lesson. He knows what he did wrong, and knows that he's gone done smurfed up bad. His smiling and feeling proud of Squall and troop shows this.

Seifer is a good example of how having a certain attitude/ attitudes can smurf up your own life, I feel.

Seifer very well could have been that SeeD, but just like you said his hubris and self serving attitude prevented him from being the kind of person that becomes a SeeD in name. I think that besides the aforementioned traits he is unable to understand the concept of being a team player.

Yes, Seifer was ultimately his own worst enemy. He had such an idealistic view on what he wanted his life to be, that he tried to force things to go that way, it seems, but in doing so, he screwed things up for himself, even before siding with the Sorceress, against SeeD.

I wouldn't be surprised, if the whole reason he chose to be a SeeD, was because it was realistically the closest he could get to being a knight at the time - I'd assume that, until Edea returned, Sorceress Knights were considered a more historical thing (Adel was the most recent Sorceress, but did she even have any knights? I think Sorceress Knights could have been from older times, or possibly even only in movies - I can't remember if they've been described as real things, excluding Seifer), so Seifer had no chance of being one in the present time, it seemed. However, he probably viewed SeeD as being the closest modern day equivalent of being a knight; your missions could involve you heroically saving others, you could fight against "evil" and monsters, and you could use a gunblade if you chose to do so - to someone like Seifer, this probably did sound like a knight under another name. It was the fact that he actually did get the chance to become a real Sorceress Knight that I would say made him ultimately give up on SeeD, because why would you settle on the thing closest to your dream, when your dream itself becomes reality? He didn't need SeeD anymore.

But when he was training to be a SeeD, even then his idealistic views were what defeated him. He had to be the centre of attention, because he had to be the protagonist of his own story (don't we all?), he had to be the one making the decisions, even when he had no authority to, because he had to be the hero. During the Dollet exam, he goes against orders, because the boring mission you've been given not only isn't exciting enough, it's also not heroic enough, and when the mission is over, he expresses frustration over the withdrawal order, as though it cheated him out of being the hero he was meant to be, but if he had just stood by the original orders, and put his ego aside, he could have become a SeeD and then eventually become that hero, but he just wanted his whole romantic dream handed to him, straight away.

So yeah, ultimately he defeated himself...

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Originally Posted by maybee

He can wield a gunblade which is difficult to master

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That is simply not true.

Once you you get the timing for the R1 trigger it is mastered very easily.

Something definitely happened to him in that TV studio, though. I'm not sure exactly how far that went - was he permanently affected or under some kind of spell? I'm genuinely unsure.

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Originally Posted by Bubba

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Originally Posted by maybee

He can wield a gunblade which is difficult to master

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That is simply not true.

Once you you get the timing for the R1 trigger it is mastered very easily.

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I meant in universe wise lol.

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Originally Posted by Loony BoB

Something definitely happened to him in that TV studio, though. I'm not sure exactly how far that went - was he permanently affected or under some kind of spell? I'm genuinely unsure.

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Yeah same. Always assumed that he was under Edea's/ Ulti's mind control. If you speak to some NPC's after Edea's parade they speak about feeling weird, like they were under some spell.

Always assumed that Ulti took advantage of Seifer's weaknesses.

Good thoughts

I always liked the 'Seifer as rival' concept in the story. How he and Squall are two of the most promising students at Garden and their fates diverge so radically. Incidentally, I think this is also why Quistis is interesting -- her being that former child prodigy that's fallen from grace -- it's another riff on the same theme

We never SEE Seifer learn his lesson, though. The last thing he does before we see him in the ending is throw Rinoa to Ade. And before that he tried to fight the whole party after thoroughly rebuffing and throwing away his friends.

Seifer is the best character in FFVIII without any serious competition. He's very believable and entertaining. What's more, he has a consistent character arc that we could all "character destruction" as opposed to character development. We watch him just fall apart as the game progresses.

The ending SHOULD have been Seifer joining the party for Ultimecia's Castle. Then he could have truly been redeemed.

Overall, Seifer really is one of FFVIII's better handled story elements. He is the quintessential hero; brash and cocksure, rushes in without thinking, wants to save teh girl and get things done as quickly as possible. He even looks the part of a typical FF main protagonist. (ever notice how many of them are blond?) But this is all subverted and it's very interesting. The problem is that they just didn't follow through on it and give him or the audience a satisfying conclusion.

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Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

We never SEE Seifer learn his lesson, though. The last thing he does before we see him in the ending is throw Rinoa to Ade. And before that he tried to fight the whole party after thoroughly rebuffing and throwing away his friends.

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We see him fishing with his friends though by what looks to be either Balamb or FH and he smiles as Balamb Garden flies by, that subtly says that Seifer is no longer angry at Squall or jealous of him. It's not huge, but it is character development and some sort of redemption on Seifer's part.

It sort of says that he knows that he's done wrong, and he's growing up a bit.

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Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

Overall, Seifer really is one of FFVIII's better handled story elements. He is the quintessential hero; brash and cocksure, rushes in without thinking, wants to save teh girl and get things done as quickly as possible. He even looks the part of a typical FF main protagonist. (ever notice how many of them are blond?) But this is all subverted and it's very interesting. The problem is that they just didn't follow through on it and give him or the audience a satisfying conclusion.

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I feel like this role fits Snow from FFXIII as well. Snow is more kind and is less abusive towards his friends, but both Seifer and Snow would of been the main leads in a different story.