A little something I've kind of wanted to try for a bit is reading out some of the things I write, so I put together a recording to see how it turned out. Any thoughts and comments on it would be very much appreciated, especially on the background music I added (I tried it without, but the cold vacuum of space sounded really odd afterwards). Also, I'll put in the written version here as well.
~
When Sephiroth gets brought up in casual conversation, it’s not uncommon to hear about how badass he is, how he’s the most feared swordsman on the planet, and how gosh darn nice that coat is. It’s a perception of the character that has lasted for nearly two decades, and when you think about who the most iconic Final Fantasy villains are, chances are that Sephiroth, if not your number one choice, will still come up in the conversation. It’s an image that no doubt Sephiroth himself would approve of and endorse: whether you view him as the fallen hero whose lone wolf status makes him all the more cool, or the man who killed the only person in your party that you ever bothered to teach healing spells to, the infamous reputation that follows him always seems to circle around his power. But while his superb swordsmanship, heavy intimidation factor, and luscious locks tend to make up the bulk of his PR, a critical part of his character, perhaps even the most important part regarding Final Fantasy 7’s plot, always seems to be left out: Sephiroth is crazy.
The reason why Nibelheim gets burnt to the ground and a giant meteor makes a beeline for the planet is because Sephiroth lost his marbles and can’t find them again. But unlike Kefka, one of the reasons Sephiroth’s reputation is so strong is because his background demonstrates him as a calm, collected, and rational individual. The glances we get of Sephiroth’s days working for SHINRA indicate a man who has a firm control over himself and his emotions. He fights Angeal and Genisis at the same time, who are arguably the two people closest to being on his level, and wins because he’s able to keep his calm and focus while the others begin to crack under pressure. While leading the investigation of the Mako Reactor in Nibelheim, he gives quick and concise orders which are followed obediently, even in the event of potentially leaving a man behind. And this composure and display of skills makes Sephiroth into something of a celebrity: Even a young Cloud hopes to one day be the kind of man his eventual arch rival is, and everywhere he goes, Sephiroth is renowned as something of a hero. From the president of Shinra to some yokel who just wants to take a picture of him, everyone knows the name Sephiroth.
But all of that taken together indicates something interesting about Sephiroth, that he himself might not even be aware of. He’s constantly told he’s great, that he’s a hero, that he is without a doubt the strongest and best human being on the planet. For his entire life, Sephiroth is surrounded by awe, admiration, respect, and prestige, so much so that it almost becomes expected from the great hero. And perhaps, in one of the greatest ironies from someone who paints himself as something of a loner, Sephiroth comes to almost rely on other people if only to prove to himself how important he is. Even as one of the good guys, he probably doesn’t care all too much about most other people, yet he still enjoys it when people seem to think of him as all powerful. The knowledge that both he and everyone around him shares about how he is something special is what feeds Sephiroth’s ego. He might not revel in it as much as someone like Seifer, but what’s important to note is how attached Sephiroth is to being thought of as the greatest soldier who ever lived, both by other people and by himself.
Unfortunately for Sephiroth, his firm belief in being a special snowflake is confirmed to be true, but not really in a way that he was hoping. The one thing he knew growing up was that his mother was named Jenova, and it isn’t until investigating the Mako reactor at Nibelhiem that it dawns on him that Jenova is in fact an alien life form that crashed onto the planet years ago. What’s more, Shinra has been using extract from Jenova to try and make superpowered soldiers, which more often than not have wound up just making monsters and other things that try to kill you. And after a couple days of being cooped up with Shinra’s conveniently placed archives, it doesn’t take too long for Sephiroth to put two and two together that he was one of the subjects of the Jenova project.
And from this newfound tidbit of knowledge, Sephiroth’s grip on reality becomes more tentative. But why should a man who has shown nothing but rational thought in the past suddenly become shaken and disturbed? Well, for one thing, one of the main reason for Sephiroth’s confidence is that he’s certain of his own greatness, and everyone around him only reinforces that idea. For the first time in his life, he’s being forced to question himself, and he doesn’t necessarily like what he finds. He says himself that he always believed he was different from everyone else, but no doubt in a more flattering light. In a piece of crushing irony, the primary reason he’s more unique than other humans is because they’re actually human, while he is something of a science project. And even in that sense, he’s not alone: the sludgy, mutated creatures that are the byproducts of Shinra’s experiments are somewhat his kinsfolk. Keep in mind that Sephiroth’s ego fed off of the knowledge that he’s better than other humans, only now that he’s on the same level of monsters, he can’t be so certain that he’s better off than them at all.
For a man who’s so used to being on top of the world, Sephiroth cannot hack it that he just found himself at the bottom of the barrel. Even his lauded sword skills can be chalked up to a benefit due to the Jenova project. Essentially everything he knew was a lie, including all of the admiration and fame that is due to him. He spends the better part of a week locked in the basement of the Shinra mansion, more or less a broken man in the throes of despair. Yet, when Cloud goes down to the basement to check on what his boss is up to, he finds Sephiroth not so much crushed as he is a few cards short of a full deck. He informs Cloud of his epiphany that Jenova was one of the Ancients / Cetra that crashed onto Earth to take it over, that the ancestors human kind refused to let that happen, and now that Sephiroth has decided that he is part Cetra, he’s going to finish the job alongside his mother. And then he inexplicably proceeds to set Nibelhiem on fire before Cloud makes it back up the stairs.
Within a week, Sephiroth goes from being a hero of the people to arsonist and raving lunatic, and as jarring as that sounds, it makes sense given what we know about him. After a lifetime of being number one, only to have his ivory tower topple to the ground, Sephiroth’s ego simply will not let him accept that he’s no better than anyone else. So he decides to take all of the research he’s found and twist into something that still lets him be the best. The Cetra, and specifically Jenova, were the most advanced lifeforms in the universe, so Sephiroth begins to cling to idea that he is their descendent, and thus ALSO more advanced. And the fact that the less advanced, less special, and less powerful members of the human race managed to stop Jenova from taking over the world offers an explanation that covers more than a few of Sephiroth’s problems. By choosing to view every human being as the unworthy successor of their unworthy ancestors, it means that Sephiroth doesn’t have to feel bad about not being a human, because now he can argue that humans suck by default. And to make himself feel even better, he decides to moralize the situation by arguing that they were wrong to stop the Cetra from taking over, stunting the natural progression of things. And now, given that he’s the last descendent of the Cetra, not only is he the only morally correct person in the entire world, not only is he still better than everyone else, but he’s also the most unique and special by virtue of being the last Cetra standing. He’s not the problem: everyone ELSE is the problem.
Sephiroth’s descent into madness comes about because he’s unable to cope with a harsh reality. He got off on being thought of as the most powerful and unique person on the planet, and even in his post epiphany state, that’s still kind of what he’s after. He wants to crash a meteor into the planet in order to fuse with its energy and become a god in order to fulfill his deep seeded need to be at the top of the heap at the highest possible tier. Even as Cloud and friends keep chasing him, we can see just how much he’s trying to distance himself from everyone else by denying the idea that the average person even has legitimate emotions on the same level as he does. And yet, in spite of all this bluster and his attempts at ascension to the Promised Land, Sephiroth can never really escape the fact that the only reason he’s even trying to do all of this is because he is a deeply insecure person who needs to be told that he’s the best. Heck, maybe that’s why he becomes so attached to Jenova: even if the rest of the world thinks he’s nuts, at least his mother still thinks he’s number one.
The great crushing irony of all of this is that the facts which Sephiroth bases his pseudo justifications on aren’t even necessarily true, namely concerning the roles and motivations of the Cetra and Jenova, and who exactly his parents are. So even in his desperate attempt to legitimize his ego, he still falls short of the mark. And in the end, even in his ultimate, god-like, super special form of Safer Sephiroth, he still winds up failing to Cloud, who also discovered that everything he knew about himself was a lie, who also had to come to grips with the fact that he wasn’t particularly special, but unlike his former idol, managed to come through with a greater appreciation for the things he did have, such as the friends who helped him get this far. Cloud’s success in managing to make it through the existential mindbender kind of helps display some of the benefits of staying humble and reminding one’s self of what really matters, while the demonstration of the dangers of becoming blinded by grief, clinging too hard to your ego, and the folly of shunning the world just in order to try and convince yourself that you are special, ultimately, is the importance of being Sephiroth.
A little something I've kind of wanted to try for a bit is reading out some of the things I write, so I put together a recording to see how it turned out. Any thoughts and comments on it would be very much appreciated, especially on the background music I added (I tried it without, but the cold vacuum of space sounded really odd afterwards). Also, I'll put in the written version here as well.
~
When Sephiroth gets brought up in casual conversation, it’s not uncommon to hear about how badass he is, how he’s the most feared swordsman on the planet, and how gosh darn nice that coat is. It’s a perception of the character that has lasted for nearly two decades, and when you think about who the most iconic Final Fantasy villains are, chances are that Sephiroth, if not your number one choice, will still come up in the conversation. It’s an image that no doubt Sephiroth himself would approve of and endorse: whether you view him as the fallen hero whose lone wolf status makes him all the more cool, or the man who killed the only person in your party that you ever bothered to teach healing spells to, the infamous reputation that follows him always seems to circle around his power. But while his superb swordsmanship, heavy intimidation factor, and luscious locks tend to make up the bulk of his PR, a critical part of his character, perhaps even the most important part regarding Final Fantasy 7’s plot, always seems to be left out: Sephiroth is crazy.
The reason why Nibelheim gets burnt to the ground and a giant meteor makes a beeline for the planet is because Sephiroth lost his marbles and can’t find them again. But unlike Kefka, one of the reasons Sephiroth’s reputation is so strong is because his background demonstrates him as a calm, collected, and rational individual. The glances we get of Sephiroth’s days working for SHINRA indicate a man who has a firm control over himself and his emotions. He fights Angeal and Genisis at the same time, who are arguably the two people closest to being on his level, and wins because he’s able to keep his calm and focus while the others begin to crack under pressure. While leading the investigation of the Mako Reactor in Nibelheim, he gives quick and concise orders which are followed obediently, even in the event of potentially leaving a man behind. And this composure and display of skills makes Sephiroth into something of a celebrity: Even a young Cloud hopes to one day be the kind of man his eventual arch rival is, and everywhere he goes, Sephiroth is renowned as something of a hero. From the president of Shinra to some yokel who just wants to take a picture of him, everyone knows the name Sephiroth.
But all of that taken together indicates something interesting about Sephiroth, that he himself might not even be aware of. He’s constantly told he’s great, that he’s a hero, that he is without a doubt the strongest and best human being on the planet. For his entire life, Sephiroth is surrounded by awe, admiration, respect, and prestige, so much so that it almost becomes expected from the great hero. And perhaps, in one of the greatest ironies from someone who paints himself as something of a loner, Sephiroth comes to almost rely on other people if only to prove to himself how important he is. Even as one of the good guys, he probably doesn’t care all too much about most other people, yet he still enjoys it when people seem to think of him as all powerful. The knowledge that both he and everyone around him shares about how he is something special is what feeds Sephiroth’s ego. He might not revel in it as much as someone like Seifer, but what’s important to note is how attached Sephiroth is to being thought of as the greatest soldier who ever lived, both by other people and by himself.
Unfortunately for Sephiroth, his firm belief in being a special snowflake is confirmed to be true, but not really in a way that he was hoping. The one thing he knew growing up was that his mother was named Jenova, and it isn’t until investigating the Mako reactor at Nibelhiem that it dawns on him that Jenova is in fact an alien life form that crashed onto the planet years ago. What’s more, Shinra has been using extract from Jenova to try and make superpowered soldiers, which more often than not have wound up just making monsters and other things that try to kill you. And after a couple days of being cooped up with Shinra’s conveniently placed archives, it doesn’t take too long for Sephiroth to put two and two together that he was one of the subjects of the Jenova project.
And from this newfound tidbit of knowledge, Sephiroth’s grip on reality becomes more tentative. But why should a man who has shown nothing but rational thought in the past suddenly become shaken and disturbed? Well, for one thing, one of the main reason for Sephiroth’s confidence is that he’s certain of his own greatness, and everyone around him only reinforces that idea. For the first time in his life, he’s being forced to question himself, and he doesn’t necessarily like what he finds. He says himself that he always believed he was different from everyone else, but no doubt in a more flattering light. In a piece of crushing irony, the primary reason he’s more unique than other humans is because they’re actually human, while he is something of a science project. And even in that sense, he’s not alone: the sludgy, mutated creatures that are the byproducts of Shinra’s experiments are somewhat his kinsfolk. Keep in mind that Sephiroth’s ego fed off of the knowledge that he’s better than other humans, only now that he’s on the same level of monsters, he can’t be so certain that he’s better off than them at all.
For a man who’s so used to being on top of the world, Sephiroth cannot hack it that he just found himself at the bottom of the barrel. Even his lauded sword skills can be chalked up to a benefit due to the Jenova project. Essentially everything he knew was a lie, including all of the admiration and fame that is due to him. He spends the better part of a week locked in the basement of the Shinra mansion, more or less a broken man in the throes of despair. Yet, when Cloud goes down to the basement to check on what his boss is up to, he finds Sephiroth not so much crushed as he is a few cards short of a full deck. He informs Cloud of his epiphany that Jenova was one of the Ancients / Cetra that crashed onto Earth to take it over, that the ancestors human kind refused to let that happen, and now that Sephiroth has decided that he is part Cetra, he’s going to finish the job alongside his mother. And then he inexplicably proceeds to set Nibelhiem on fire before Cloud makes it back up the stairs.
Within a week, Sephiroth goes from being a hero of the people to arsonist and raving lunatic, and as jarring as that sounds, it makes sense given what we know about him. After a lifetime of being number one, only to have his ivory tower topple to the ground, Sephiroth’s ego simply will not let him accept that he’s no better than anyone else. So he decides to take all of the research he’s found and twist into something that still lets him be the best. The Cetra, and specifically Jenova, were the most advanced lifeforms in the universe, so Sephiroth begins to cling to idea that he is their descendent, and thus ALSO more advanced. And the fact that the less advanced, less special, and less powerful members of the human race managed to stop Jenova from taking over the world offers an explanation that covers more than a few of Sephiroth’s problems. By choosing to view every human being as the unworthy successor of their unworthy ancestors, it means that Sephiroth doesn’t have to feel bad about not being a human, because now he can argue that humans suck by default. And to make himself feel even better, he decides to moralize the situation by arguing that they were wrong to stop the Cetra from taking over, stunting the natural progression of things. And now, given that he’s the last descendent of the Cetra, not only is he the only morally correct person in the entire world, not only is he still better than everyone else, but he’s also the most unique and special by virtue of being the last Cetra standing. He’s not the problem: everyone ELSE is the problem.
Sephiroth’s descent into madness comes about because he’s unable to cope with a harsh reality. He got off on being thought of as the most powerful and unique person on the planet, and even in his post epiphany state, that’s still kind of what he’s after. He wants to crash a meteor into the planet in order to fuse with its energy and become a god in order to fulfill his deep seeded need to be at the top of the heap at the highest possible tier. Even as Cloud and friends keep chasing him, we can see just how much he’s trying to distance himself from everyone else by denying the idea that the average person even has legitimate emotions on the same level as he does. And yet, in spite of all this bluster and his attempts at ascension to the Promised Land, Sephiroth can never really escape the fact that the only reason he’s even trying to do all of this is because he is a deeply insecure person who needs to be told that he’s the best. Heck, maybe that’s why he becomes so attached to Jenova: even if the rest of the world thinks he’s nuts, at least his mother still thinks he’s number one.
The great crushing irony of all of this is that the facts which Sephiroth bases his pseudo justifications on aren’t even necessarily true, namely concerning the roles and motivations of the Cetra and Jenova, and who exactly his parents are. So even in his desperate attempt to legitimize his ego, he still falls short of the mark. And in the end, even in his ultimate, god-like, super special form of Safer Sephiroth, he still winds up failing to Cloud, who also discovered that everything he knew about himself was a lie, who also had to come to grips with the fact that he wasn’t particularly special, but unlike his former idol, managed to come through with a greater appreciation for the things he did have, such as the friends who helped him get this far. Cloud’s success in managing to make it through the existential mindbender kind of helps display some of the benefits of staying humble and reminding one’s self of what really matters, while the demonstration of the dangers of becoming blinded by grief, clinging too hard to your ego, and the folly of shunning the world just in order to try and convince yourself that you are special, ultimately, is the importance of being Sephiroth.
Edited by Dave