Your thoughts on Kefka...

[Llanowar]

In all honesty his statement before the final battle I think sums his ideas up the best. "Why do you hold on to life. You can't live forever so why do you try."

This tells me that he feels that since we are all going to die he just as well speed the process along by killing us all himself. Truly a diabolical and great Villain. Really Sephy may have been "EVIL" in some peoples eyes but he is PATHETIC when compared to the heights at which kefka rose only to have 12 adventurers smite him down after over a years dominance of the planet. I must admit the final battle with kefka at least holds a little more challenge to it the first time than Sephy did too. Sure you can use the broken genji-offering combo and whatever but first time thru VII you just start throwing 12 KNIGHTS of the Round up at him and he falls truly a pathetic final encounter with your VILLAIN.

[Sefie1999AD]

To be frank, I'll disagree with everyone and say that I don't think Kefka was too good a villain. I guess this is for personal tastes, but I've seen loads of villains who are pure evil, madmen who enjoy being evil and hurting people. They know they're evil and they love everything of it. So what? That's so old, cliched and overused that I don't want to see it again. I prefer villains who are humans, who have a cause where they sincerely believe in because they think what they're doing is right and good, and who have human emotions (and Kefka's tantrums and laugh aren't enough to make him a human villain, IMHO) and weaknesses.

That's why, in my opinion, two villains who many consider clearly the best villains ever, i.e. Kefka and Luca Blight, aren't really well made at all. I thought Sephiroth was one of the greatest villains with his tragic background story and personality, but I think even he met someone who's better developed than he is. Kuja. And maybe Shuyin. Now you may wonder, what on Earth, the other one is a cross-dresser and the other one is a ghost image of (SPOILER)Tidus. However, most of the things Kuja did was because he believed in those things. And as for Shuyin, (SPOILER)he died to protect his loved one, hoping to stop the war. However, one thousand years passed, and the people never stopped hurting and killing each other, even though Sin was dead. He just couldn't take it anymore. After being an unsent (or a ghost or whatever he was), trapped in this realm because of his desire to see people stop hurting one another, for thousand years, he wanted to just fade away and rest in peace. So he wanted to use the Vegnagun, the machine of destruction, to destroy everyone so that people couldn't hurt each other anymore, and he could fade away too. Now that's what I'd call a lot more human reasoning than Kefka's "I enjoy frying ants with magnifying glass! Hahaha! Ouch, there's sand in my boots, I must poison, rape and kill everyone because of that! Die die die! You Goddesses refuse to obey me? [insert 17 F-words here] I will burn the world! Burn, burn, burn it all! Hahaha!"

[Dignified Pauper]

I have to disagree... I think Kefka was one of the most human character ever. He was a bit loony, but as I stated above, there was a reason that he went awol.

"Why do you hold on to life. You can't live forever so why do you try."

This is one powerful statement that Kefka states... He's not immortal, he has immense power, but he is human, and he knows that he will die soon, and that he has no real reason to live when ultimately it is death that conquers. He is angry at the short time that life grants, and figures that if you can't live forever, why should anyone bother, thus he feels he is relinquishing others of their ultimately purposeless existence.

You also have to realize, that he is insane, he wasn't born insane, read first post in this thread, and you'll see why. He may have thought about these things for a long time, but upon becoming insane, he became more outright in his actions. The poisoning of Doma, that may very well been another instance of the above quote, that he is executing this thesis. Sure, he also says "Nothing can beat the sound of thousands of voices screaming in unison" this ties in with his insanity.

"You all sound like chapters from a self-help booklet." Because ultimately, what are those, things to better our short and meaningless lives, which he deems already worthless. Why try to better it...

I think Kefka is immensely human, with deep emotions, not just insane.

[Metallicfuzz]

A low-down from the villians of FF6 to 10.
May be Spoilers
Spoiler:

Kefka-Was excellent. Completely original and loved mass destruction (who doesn't?)

Sephiroth-Was brilliant. Wanted to become a god and rule the world with mummy(which was a bit sad).

Ultimecia-WTF? Where'd she pop out of with the worst dream ever, just her and only her. Where's the evil? You can't think of how evil she is if your frozen for all eternity.

Kuja-Very evil but too efeminite. Plus, he only really went crazy when he realised he coudn't live for ever.

Yu Yevon-Worst enemy ever, too easy, was just a black spider, wait a min......

Seymour-Here we go, much better then Yu Yevon. I think he should of gone out with Kuja, Kuja would wear a dress and Seymour would talk like a girl, plus he had a beer belly - that's not evil!

[Blitzer Lionheart]

He is what is thought logically impossible, that is he believes he is evil, and sanely chose to destroy the world.

I actually liked him before the destruction of the world. Back then, he was funnier.

(also, Seymour? Beer Belly? For sooth, my version of X must be different, because he didn't have one ).

[Gwelenguchenkus]

Kefka was an effective villain because he was completely insane, and that made him somewhat scary.

But, I also felt that he didn't have much developement at all, which makes him somewhat uninteresting at the same time.

[Llanowar]

Some of the biggest development pieces in Kefka's story were hidden.

for example the lady in vector that tells you how he was infused with magitek power and went crazy. pieces of his story are easily missed and it makes him seem to be more of a hollow villain than he really is.

[Sasquatch]

It's not so much that he wanted or expected to die, or that he wanted other people to die, but that he realized that life is only a finite time frame, and one must do what they can in that time. He didn't kill people just to kill people, he did it to demand loyalty. Power was his motive, not wrath...as opposed to Sephiroth, who's just a schmuck.

[Destai]

Sephiroth had just as much motive for killing as Kefka, I think anyway.

[KoShiatar]

Kefka was evil, cool, and irritating.

You hate him and love him at the same time.

[Lenna]

I think Kefka reminds me alot of Zorn & Thorn. Really evil, but can be comical in the game sometimes. like when he runs away from the fights at the army camp

[Blitzer Lionheart]

Personally, I think Kefka is more remembered for his quotes than his plotting.

It is odd how the more recent FF villians all 'realise' that they are only mortal, (or in Seymour's case, just didn't want to give up). I'm not sure if that calls for the term 'unoriginal', though.

Kefka, as mentioned above, was quite sadist. He wasn't insane for quite a while, though, as he could recognise power and was consumed by it. In his mind Gastra was weak, and had to be disposed of (as it did happen). In the end, his mindset was not to save humanity, but to destroy it. In the minds of some of the other villians, they were what they believed (in one way or another) helping the world.

I thought that JENOVA was controlling Sephiroth, or was I wrong?

[Gwelenguchenkus]

I thought that JENOVA was controlling Sephiroth, or was I wrong?

FF7:
(SPOILER)
You are not wrong, in fact all f the sephiroths you've fought through most of the game were fake. This has been discussed a TON on a lot of boards, there should be a FAQ about it by now :x_x:


FF6 spoilers ahead, too many to cover:

as for Kefka, what makes him so scary are the things he has done to the world, and how he can kill so easily without even a second thought, and then give a sickeningly ominous laugh. At first he seems just like a bad egg with an extremely evil disposition, someone that is annoying and needs to be taken care of (kind of like Zorn and Thorn, except more evil). Later on though he really starts to develop into a mroe evil forboding character when he poisons doma castle. Then when you go to the magitek factory.. you see another ugly scene where he kicks the corpses of some espers down a conveyer belt.

Kefka seems to gradually lose his 'pathetic' charm and become a scarier, more dangerous apponent. When he begins meddling with the statues, betraying and killing ghestal, and destroying the world, I was truly SHOCKED when I first played the game.

What makes kefka so scary is how he is 'unfolded' to the player. He is seen initially as just some crazy underling of ghestal, but quickly changes. There is nothing likeable about his personality, he is simply an evil bastard that is worth slaughtering. When I first fought Kefka, it was definitely a fight I was nervous for. Kefka is indeed 'scary' in a sense (maybe not totally literally, but I can't think of a better word).

[Lenna]

So true! I completely agree Gwelenguchenkus

[UltimateSpamGrover]

Crazy Psychopath.