Guile
Having a really great time right now
Well, probably made by Gast. Who he seemed to trust. Which might be worse.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
This is kinda interesting. My initial reaction to encountering that name just now while reading this LP was 'A FF7 character I am not already aware of via osmosis? Must be a footnote'
Then I made the connection that a similarly named scientist from a famous RPG decades later is probably a reference to Gast and based on the punchline of that reference my conviction settled.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
Sephirot may have just spent three days binge-reading a library, but I doubt any of the books he read were Descartes.
Hm, that's one way to get Umineko LP start early...
- Location
- Albion
- Pronouns
- They/Them
What exactly do you think a nihilist is? I don't see how the Sephiroth described in this LP could be described as one.
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
Sephiroth isn't a nihilist. He found out he was a tomato and then decided he was the Cheese from Wacky Deli instead
Last edited:
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's now a thread banner put up and a rewritten opening post in that thread for this very reason. Here's hoping people remember to follow them
If it doesn't Omicron could try putting you on his ignore list since that will likely hide everything from threads you started
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
It sure seems like he thinks things like betrayal and bloodlines and promised lands matter, at least, which is definitely not nothing.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, I do buy 'Sephiroth, man whose entire life has been dedicated to killing the Other, discovers he is the Other and therefore all humans are the Other to him' combined with 'Sephiroth, man who has not slept in literal days' and 'Sephiroth, man who's just discovered the man he respected sorta like a father lied to him his entire life' could result in him having a psychotic break like this.
But also, uh, the sudden obsession with and beeline to the grotesque eldrich horror hidden in the reactor might indicate more than just 'normal psychological problems'? I definitely look at Jenova and think 'this is some sort of horrible gribbly Thing That Should Not Be' and that sort of thing has its own set of story beats - and Cthulhu stuff is extremely popular in Japanese geek culture, so I have no doubt it'd come into play here.
But also, uh, the sudden obsession with and beeline to the grotesque eldrich horror hidden in the reactor might indicate more than just 'normal psychological problems'? I definitely look at Jenova and think 'this is some sort of horrible gribbly Thing That Should Not Be' and that sort of thing has its own set of story beats - and Cthulhu stuff is extremely popular in Japanese geek culture, so I have no doubt it'd come into play here.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've heard that Call of Cthulhu is reportedly more popular in Japan than D&D (and D&D's still pretty popular there). Also, that it's slightly more popular among Japanese women than men, though I don't have a good source for that
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
AIUI Call of Cthulhu is the most popular non-native RPG in Japan, yeah.
A big part of it is that oneshots are a lot more common in Japanese TTRPG scene than campaigns, with a lot of native games being specifically structured around oneshots with only slight support for longer games.
CoC fits this paradigm better than D&D.
(Also, basically every other Japanese TTRPG has a "make a roll at the end of a session to see if you irrevocably lose your character, probably to a fate worse than death" mechanic. It's a standard tech there.)
Wade Garrett
Just trying to do the right thing
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Sephiroth isn't a nihilist. He found out he was a tomato and then decided he was the Cheese from Wacky Deli instead
Cast In The Name of God, Ye Not Guilty
Junior Researcher: Sir, we just found this weird goddamn The-Thing-'82-esque corpse under a million pounds of rock. What should we do with it?
Gast: My God! It's an ancient! We must create a child from it which will lead us to the Promised Land!
Junior Researcher: Sir, we just found this talking charmander dog thing. What should we do with it?
Hojo: My Science! It's an ancient! We must create a child from it which will lead us to the Promised Land!
Junior Researcher: We just found this woman who seems like an ordinary human person but she can see ghosts or something.
Hojo:
I think what we're seeing is this immediate "post-snap" Sephiroth and conflating him with him in spin-off material - for all we know, he has more character development left to do. This Sephiroth I can't imagine making the kind of ominous pronouncements that he does in the Remake - this is him at his least stable, before his fractured mind has a chance to come to terms with the revelations he's undergone and become more capable of long-term planning.
My overwhelming impression about his rampage at Nibelhiem is one of impulse. Sephiroth feels like he's talking to himself in that basement as much as Cloud - we're watching him justify drastic action to himself. He's desperately trying to justify his feeling of superiority that he's secretly held inside himself for all there years, and he settles on "Jenova is the only thing that matters" and makes a mad dash for her containment unit. This isn't FF7R Sephiroth carefully manipulating Cloud - this is Sephiroth snapping and desperately trying to get to his mother, and all the liars and traitors in his way are collateral damage.
If Sephiroth was just some nihilist, why all the religious framing? If he had just been convinced of the ultimate meaninglessness of life, Kefka-style, then why Nibelheim? Why not wait? Hojo and President Shinra are the ones who lied to you. Just wait. Hell, talk to Cloud! Maybe you can turn him! You're his childhood hero, after all. Can you imagine the scale of the devastation Sephiroth could have cause if he decided to start his rampage in Shinra Tower? We've already seen what he's capable of, during the Trail of Blood segment.
In conclusion, viewing Sephiroth's actions here through any sort of lens of pre-planning or cosmic nihilism is a misreading of the actual *text*. At least to me, they read as the actions of a desperate man who suddenly has a connection to the one thing he's always wanted - his mother - and suddenly has an ideology that he's built for himself telling him that everyone between Jenova and him are traitors to the planet. Not a carefully-planned massacre to somehow "teach Cloud a lesson" or something.
- Location
- Portugal
And there's Sephiroth's transformation into the iconic nightmare... I hadn't considered the angle of how this is basically a personal horror breakdown for Sephiroth, and how in hindsight it even makes him as a person a bit pathetic and pitiable, but the way this update goes through things, it's actually very clear.
FFVII may be old, but this sequence still seems pretty chilling.
FFVII may be old, but this sequence still seems pretty chilling.
MiskWisk
Hoot
- Location
- Somewhere devoid of wit
- Pronouns
- He
A War Hero to boot. More specifically, a War Hero who fought under Shinra's banner. Even if he had sufficient clout to decide his own missions (something not known), he's likely ran into at least one or two atrocities that he's had to keep bottled up.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Clout Sdrife
- Location
- Canada, probably
No, Sephiroth is clearly not a nihilist. I was using the phrase "cartoon idiot nihilist" to mean omnicidal maniac. Which is pretty bad phasing.
Now that I've recovered from how disappointed I am, it's not as nonsensical as I thought. For example, when a super-soldier has a psychotic break, naturally it's likely to involve massive violence. And I guess if he was concealing a lot of anxiety, then receiving some confusing ("I am an alien clone") and horrible ("Hojo is my father") news could trigger a psychiatric event.
But this isn't just some villain-of-the-week. This is the tentpole villain of the whole game, the guy who burned the heroes' hometown to the ground. His motivation being something as abrupt and absurd as "he had a psychotic break, so he invented his own religion to write a self-insert fic" is intensely unsatisfying to me.
Apropos of nothing, quick show of hands - how many know what's gonna happen, how many reasonably spoiled but don't know the details, how many going blind?
(myself, rushed ahead to complete the game before Omi gets here)
Sephiroth: "The Jenova Project wanted to produce people with the power of the Ancients… Or, the Cetra. …I am what they produced."
Cloud: "Pr… Produced?!"
Sephiroth: "Yes. Professor Gast, leader of the Jenova Project and genius scientist, produced me."
Gast, not Hojo. Different scientists.
(myself, rushed ahead to complete the game before Omi gets here)
Sephiroth: "The Jenova Project wanted to produce people with the power of the Ancients… Or, the Cetra. …I am what they produced."
Cloud: "Pr… Produced?!"
Sephiroth: "Yes. Professor Gast, leader of the Jenova Project and genius scientist, produced me."
Gast, not Hojo. Different scientists.
Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
If it helps, this could just be considered an extension of the already established villainy of Shinra: making monsters and fucking over everyone and the planet in the process of making money.
If it helps, we haven't seen the present Sephiroth at all. And Cloud's flashback is explicitly full of holes - we don't know what he might be wrong about, considering several scenes are blocked off. And we're seeing Sephiroth mid psychotic break.
He hasn't thought this through. He hasn't "gone crazy" like all of his imitators throughout the years - he's in the grips of a breakdown, and instead of burning bridges and breaking vases like a normal person, he's… well, burning houses and breaking containment units. It works for me - this very human reaction, blown up to a dangerous scale. Don't focus on the exact wording or interpretation of the stuff in the library - the idea of "I thought I was special, but I'm a lab baby… so… I am still special! I just… was lied to! I'm still the chosen one!" works for me. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine.
- Location
- Canada, probably
Ah. OK, so instead of horrible, it was sort of melancholy news, because he actually thinks his dad is awesome, but he's missing or dead or whatever.
It's thematically appropriate, I guess, sure. But it doesn't change the fact that I just find it silly. It's very, very silly that in only three days Sephiroth invented his own religion, installed himself as anti-Jesus, and sent himself on a crusade to exterminate everyone.
But yes, this is extremely important.