The Darkside of FF7

[RedPouch]

Kefka's appearance and character was very cliche too, but you still liked him.

I actually have to disagree with that. The appearance of a regal clown? I don't see too many games or anime that have a primary antagonist that looks this way [anyone who thinks otherwise is free to spend a while on google to find villains that have this type of appearance. For every one that's pasted to me, I'll paste 10 Sephiroth look-a-likes]. As for his personality, he's a bit of a joke and a goofball, but in a demented way. This connection which is strangely more humane than what most FF villains display gives good connection to the audience in my opinion.

Well, I had the impression that you didn't know some things, because you said:

"Most of them manage to wreak heavy destruction of some sort before they're finally defeated, but Sephiroth did very little. He almost had something going with Meteor, but it was countered. I don't think torching a small town or killing Aerith really count as "heavy destruction" either."

Right here, you ignored all the "heavy destruction" caused by the Weapons and Meteor. And I know this is your opinion, but... I want to understand why you think he "did very little", after watching the entire planet of FFVII being in complete chaos because of his actions(Weapons attacking cities, Meteor approaching, Shinra failing to stop both of them, and later, Geostigma infecting and killing the world's population, soon after Shinra and Midgar were completelly erradicated by his Meteor).

Let's address this. First off, the destruction caused by the weapons was caused by the weapons, not Sephiroth. They were released by his doing yes, but let's not branch credit here. As for Meteor destroying Midgar, evidently a huge portion of the population of Midgar ends up surviving anyways [as shown in the FF AC movie, who proceed to build the city of Edge outside of Midgar's ruins], and for the most part this destruction doesn't really do a whole lot to change the face of the world or anything, unlike the Mist-infected world of FF IX or the World of Ruin brought about in FF VI by Kefka's recklessness with the three statues of the Warring Triad, as well as fooling around with his tower. One crushed city does not a destroyed-world make. Even the emperor of Final Fantasy II [arguably] wrought a heavy amount of destruction, despite the fact that you don't really get any attachment to all of the cities that are wiped out. Besides, in the end, Meteor ends up getting countered anyways, even though there are some casualties attached [as you show in your current signature].

As for Geostigma, you're going off-track from the game FF VII itself [which is what the discussion is about] and are trying to bring other things in here. On the issue of Geostigma, it's a failed world poison that I found a bit too disney-ish because it's easily cured by the released outflow of water that's been exposed to lifestream [which is actually supposedly mentally hazardous as explained in the first game] that cures Cloud's Geostigma, along with everyone else's.

I just want to understand, why do you think all that was "very little".

And to tell you the truth, I find it harder to respect Kefka than Sephiroth. But that's just me.

Ah, and if you didn't like the convoluted plot of AC, I suggest you go watch ACC. Many plot points not explained in AC, are explained in the Complete version of the movie, and it's much easier to understand the story now.

I have, but it didn't really change my mind on it to be honest. Those three extensions/manifestations-of-Sephiroth/whatever-you-wanna-call-it just bugged the hell out of me. They were annoying and had ridiculous personalities. The Geostigma concept was silly, especially seeing how easily it was cured [the way they slid that in was also a face-palmer, being that it was so simple that it could've been done at any time].

As for respecting Sephiroth, I explained my arguments and reasons stated above. And to that, I guess I'll have to add that even by the time FF VII had come out, I had already seen too many "Sephiroth"s. That general appearance combined with that personality archetype in general was [and still is, though to a slightly lesser extent] very prevalent in anime.

I'm not trying to be rude either, but I dislike Sephiroth for several reasons which I've already stated. It may sound redundant but, these reasons are there for a reason. Trust me, if I didn't have any issues with Sephiroth, I wouldn't dislike his character so much. I was a fan of Final Fantasies, RPG's in general, and anime [as well as the anime culture in Japan] long before FF VII came out. Not all, but a good portion of the people that I talk to who I feel overly-praise FF VII admit that FF VII was the first RPG they played [or at least one of their first]. A good amount of them say things along the lines of older FF games being "crappy" because they're too primitive/weren't designed for a powerful enough console or had inferior graphics or whatever, which drives me up the wall due to its hideous close-mindedness. However, I hope you don't mistake me for someone that hates FF VII. As I've stated in several topics, I really liked this game a lot despite all of my complaints about it, and it's nowhere near my bottom list.