Sephiroth is a misunderstood victim

applet

Banned
Joined
Oct 14, 2012
Messages
43
Age
29
Location
wherever there are bishies
Gil
0
Why do people think that sephiroth is a evil monster even though he is actually a victim Sephiroth grew up as a sexy badass SOLDIER loved by many , when he found out what he really was he was broken because it basically meant was a half human creature . This breakdown left him vulnerable to being possed by jenova. Its not sephys fault he was possesed by jenova when he was doing bad things.. Sephiroth is really just misunderstood. Sephiroth didnt have to be killed . Sephy needed love .The power of love could have realesed sephy from being possesed.
 
Sephiroth certainly had his reasons which I'm sure many players understand and empathise with (he does have a rather large fan base for a reason). But you cannot expect the characters in Final Fantasy 7 to just sit back and accept the fact that he wanted to kill them whilst singing "All you need is love waa waa wa wa wa waaa". :wtf:
 
Generally speaking there are therapeutic benefits for labeling people who commit terrible atrocities as a monster, and piling all of their hatred into them, and with that there is sometimes the wish for the person responsible to die. Compare this with people's reactions to anyone on our Earth who goes on a killing spree, etc. The monster label is easily applied, and this is sometimes dangerous in itself.

Sephiroth is the same, but inflated to global extremes (and with a bit of alien-DNA and cosmic horror thrown in). Sephiroth was actually a monster, in a physical sense, but the appropriate labeling and its issues can still apply.

Such reactions are natural. It is true, however, that oftentimes people can overlook the underlying causes behind disasters such as this, and the danger is that people then cannot learn. These incidents do not just happen because a person is hardwired to be evil (and if that was a case, and the person was evil from birth, than that is a terrible tragedy in itself for how free was this person?). There are usually causes and triggers. Something leads someone to do what they do. For fiction the audience give more thought to these causes for villains than they may do for people in real life (where the label of monster is applied to the perpetrator, and the matter is sometimes brushed under that label until the next time someone loses themselves and acts in this way). For Sephiroth this is perhaps the same.

Sephiroth is a very sad story. He was born for war, and he became a hero according to the moral values of his world. He was loved, and he wasn't a bad guy to start with. He had grievances, true. But what he came to learn about his origins, and his misunderstanding of the facts behind this, combined with what he discovered about the atrocious actions of the Shinra company drove him mad. Sephiroth changed.

In Sephiroth's case I think there was no turning back after the Nibelheim incident had ended. Once Cloud had thrown Sephiroth into the lifestream (and he ended up at the Northern Crater), Sephiroth transformed into a more monstrous being, with more power, and he was able to manipulate the body of Jenova. The Jenova situation worked both ways, to an extent. Whilst the landing of Jenova on the FF7 planet is at the root of all of the world's ills, and Sephiroth was in a way continuing the will of Jenova, Sephiroth was also able to manipulate the body of Jenova into taking his own form.

My point being that Sephiroth was not being mind-controlled by Jenova as such, but there were several underlying causes for his behaviour which make the story sad. Hopefully the inhabitants of this fictional planet learned from Sephiroth and would not ever repeat these mistakes.
 
My point being that Sephiroth was not being mind-controlled by Jenova as such, but there were several underlying causes for his behaviour which make the story sad. Hopefully the inhabitants of this fictional planet learned from Sephiroth and would not ever repeat these mistakes.

Aye, this was my point when I said he needed to go back and pay more attention. Either that, or speak to Dragon Mage ; her thread should help the understanding a bit more. Sephiroth misinterpreted or misunderstood the findings that Gast had written. Or did he? Or did Gast just get it wrong? Either way, he truly felt that Jenova was his biological mother and that he was an ancient. Both of these are of course, false; but understandably finding out things which appear to be fact could cause someone to question themselves and their beliefs. I think the fact that Sephiroth 'snapped' like that is testament to his unstable upbringing. Like Dionysos said; he was literally bred for war. He didn't have a childhood like other kids; he missed out on so many things that affect the mental stability of a person growing up. I don't think he is misunderstood, however I do think that his behaviour wasn't entirely of his own fault and that he wasn't inherently evil. Was he evil by the time we play FF7? I'd say so. I can imagine that much mako infused festering hate would be enough to make anyone evil.
 
To add to what the posters above me said, yes he was a victim to a certain point. But what he went through did not give him free rein to go on a murder spree. It's a nice thought that we can all go around hugging murderers and serial killers and make them better but that's hardly reality even for a fantasy game. There was no way Sephiroth would have stopped or submitted so the protagonists chose the only option they really had.
 
Maybe we should play this for Sephiroth :hmm:
(thats right, I went to this crap :mokken:)

Now back to the subject at hand...

The thing about Final Fantasy after I would say IV, is that they give the villains some very sad, depressing back story.

Really though with Sephiroth, you can blame it on him being an experimentation if you want, or you can blame it on the fact that he found out about the Jenova project (since he seemed to be just a super strong caring SOLDIER before then...) In the end he went around and burned a whole village, killed many other people, summoned the Black Materia (Meteor), so why should I try to feel sorry for him? Should we feel sorry for Kuja? or Seymore? heck Vayne?

Sorry, but I wont feel sorry for Sephiroth, he did terrible things, and attempted to destroy the world... Now that doesn't mean I am not going be pissed at Hojo (because he was a monster before Sephiroth obviously,) but Sephiroth was good before he found out about his "mother" (which if he did the math he should of realized that something over 1000 years old wouldn't ever be his mother...)
 
No, I'm sick of bad guys being made into victims just so others can feel "alright" about liking them. Sephiroth is a bad guy, he's done terrible things. Yeah, he had some issues. But so did everyone else and we don't see them killing people or planning to kill the whole planet because of so and so reason. I mean, look what happened to Vincent, Cloud, Yuffie, Red XIII, or hell--Aerith. Each character had their fair share of bad things, but Sephiroth's one of those poor cases where instead of overcoming his demons, he chose the path of "darkness" (not to get all kingdom hearts on you guys :wacky: ).

The whole game is about dealing with terrible situations and coming out with redemption or not. So, while Sephiroth DID have reasons for his later breakdown and "evil" ways--so did the other characters, but they didn't become a "monster". I can sympathize with Sephiroth to a certain point, but I'm not going to make up excuses for why bad characters do bad things. That would just sorta ruin his badness.

I'd hate to get Star Wars on you guys but I've always compared Sephiroth to anakin skywalker. Both Sephy and Anakin have bad pasts, piles of misfortunes, and both went to the "dark side". The only difference is that Anakin had a chance to redeem himself (what he did for Luke at the end of EpIII) and until I see Sephiroth have that moment of "redemption" I can't seriously sympathize with him now. I mean, I guess I do in the way where it's sad that he chose the life he did, but I can't justify what he did all because of his past, just like I can't justify what Anakin did.

I guess what I'm saying is; Sephiroth needs to acknowledge what terrible things he's done before I can sympathize with him. Because, if he just continues to be bad and think nothing is wrong with his actions, then there isn't anything there to sympathize with.


However;
Dionysos said:
Sephiroth is a very sad story. He was born for war, and he became a hero according to the moral values of his world. He was loved, and he wasn't a bad guy to start with. He had grievances, true. But what he came to learn about his origins, and his misunderstanding of the facts behind this, combined with what he discovered about the atrocious actions of the Shinra company drove him mad. Sephiroth changed.
That was very well said. I enjoy reading your VII posts... they're always intriguing because it seems as if you're one of the few people that paid attention to the main plot. And I'm not even sure if you really like the game :lew:
 
If you said that Golbez or Kuja was a misunderstood soul or victim I would agree with you. But Sephiroth ? No. He did wrong without a decent source of empathy ot to mention played with Cloud's head with some serious mind rape at least three- five times, even in Advent Children he enjoys playing with Cloud's head.

Sephiroth is a douche. Sephiroth did have a rough up-bringing but so did Aeris, Cloud, Tifa and the others and you don't see them burning down towns or murdering innocent people. Please stop letting characters get away with some downright terrible things just because they look attractive or " hot "
[ main reason why I try and flee from the Dangan Ronpa fandom on Tumblr liking dickass characters like Celes because she's pretty ]

I... can't

If Sephiroth looked like Queen Brahne or just as bad nobody would ever think twice about liking his awful character. He isn't even a good villain, just a Mothers Boy and a sore looser because Cloud injured him and threw him into the Lifestream. Sephiroth acts like he's hot stuff but he acd
ts more like a butthurt 12 year old that lost his game of WoW because his Mum deleted his game because he didn't do so homework so he takes it out on other people, in this case Cloud.

Golbez- Mind controlled by a alien with nothing but pure hate within his soul and heart. Had no idea what he was doing. had no idea that he was attacking his younger brother. When he is released from the mind control he feels gulity for harming Cecil. Sephiroth never, ever had gulit towards harming Cloud or even using Jenova to murder Aeris in cold blood.

Kuja- Did wrong, did tons of shit things, was a complete and utter bastard. Snapped like Sephiroth did, however he realized that he did wrong, that he was in the wrong, that he was being a right bastard and saved Zidane and the crew from the Lifa Tree collapsing. Apologized to Zidane and felt SORRY for hurting him and his friends. Sephiroth ? Defeated by Cloud, Aeris, Tifa and the rest. Didn't realize that he did wrong, didn't realize that he being a right sicko- continued to mind fuck Cloud and used Kadaj in hopes to kill Cloud. Sephiroth, unless Square-Enix changes this by creating a new Final Fantasy VII title will always be a butthurt child trying to play villain, because young Cloud managed to one-up him with his plans.
 
But sephiroth had a sad backstory.. He had a rough liife.His mom is a freaky ass alien who mind controlled him. You'd do bad things too if u went what he went though. If sephiroth were real i would offer him love (especiallyb in bed) to help him get over his past. The power of love is powerful.
 
But sephiroth had a sad backstory.. He had a rough liife


So did Vincent, Cloud, Aeris and others. You don't seem them going around slaughtering innocents.

.His mom is a freaky ass alien who mind controlled him.

Jenova did nothing of the sort and Jenova isn't Sephiroth real Mother. That's Lucredia Crescent. It was Sephiroth that used Jenova to mind-fuck with Cloud and murder Aeris.

You'd do bad things too if u went what he went though.

Again Vincent, Aeris, Cloud etc all went through bad things and you don't see them being a murderer.


Btw even if you beleive sephiroth was teh eeevull

Because he IS evil you just can't seem to look passed his appearance.
 
I do believe that in the past, Sephiroth was a good hearted character. However he was corrupted and led to believe he was a monster which in turn... caused him to act like he was a monster. Locking himself away and reading all that information about Jenova and the Cetra didn't do him any good, it made him crazy. People can start off good, but they can change. And when they do change into something evil, the good part has long since been gone. So no Sephiroth is not a misunderstood victim. It was his own thought process that led to him being the way that he is. Yes he went through some rough times and yes he was lied to about who his Mother really is. That does not excuse his actions and how he chose to handle things. Because he did betray all of his friends from the past and chose to believe that all humanity was scum for pretty much no reason except what his twisted thoughts were telling him.
 
Back
Top