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Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy IX]

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I think they should've kept President Shinra as a morbidly obese guy, but given him the same random ability to fly like Bugenhagen, really go all-in on a Baron Harkonnen thing. Then they coulda made Rufus a ringer for Sting.
 
Omicron said:
Sephiroth: "How does it feel? It's your first time back to your hometown in a long time, right? So how does it feel? I wouldn't know because I don't have a hometown…"
Cloud: "Ummm… What 'bout your parents?"
Sephiroth: "My mother is Jenova. She died right after she gave birth to me. My father…"
[He has a burst of laughter, then shakes his head.]
Sephiroth: "What does it matter? All right, let's go."
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I thought Sephiroth had already been aware that Hojo was his dad, so went back to the Nibelheim flashback to double-check. Turns out it was more ambiguous, with the likely implication of Sephiroth having no clue who his father might be.

Rereading that segment did cause my third eye to open and turn its gaze upon yet more cursed implications. Hojo wasn't a scientist, but he did fetishise it. When conducting his "experiments", I'm sure he left detailed notes for later "review". Perhaps he had his assistants add their "notes" to the log too. And it would fit Hojo's fetish to treat Sephiroth's conception as an "experiment". In other words, it's very probable that among the documents that drove Sephiroth to madness was Hojo's first-person account of Sephiroth's conception.

If it happened in Nibelheim, burning Nibelheim to the ground is in retrospect a very reasonable and sympathetic course of action.
 
Omicron said:
The "President Shinra" thing isn't that weird to me, because President Shinra is very obviously the effective head of state of Migdar, a kind of "Corporate Monarch," and that's just how monarch names work.

It's most obvious with Japanese Emperors, what with FF7 being a Japanese game: Naruhito is Emperor of Japan and belongs to the Yamato Dynasty, but he's not "Naruhito Yamato." He's just Naruhito (although to the Japanese press he is currently specifically "His Majesty the Emperor" and never referred to by name).

The British monarchy is different, I think? "Mountbatten-Windsor" is their surname but you don't use it as a surname (unless you're the French press, who insist on referring to British monarchs as "Elizabeth Windsor" or "Charles Windsor.") Charles III in normal nomenclature is just "King Charles."

So to me it parses as totally coherent for President Shinra to be using "Shinra" as his "royal name" - if he had a surname before, it got erased from the historical record. He's just "Shinra," and by extention under his full honorific title, "President Shinra."

The only thing that makes that weird is Rufus. Because Rufus is Rufus Shinra instead of, like, Shinra II. It'd be like if Charles ascended to the throne and took on the name Charles Elizabeth. He throws a wrench in a very simple analogy.


It's weird to say but out of all the FF7R characters who got a glowup from the original, President Shinra is absolutely one. He doesn't get to shine much but his final confrontation with Barret actually had some charisma even though he starts the scene cringing and begging for his life.
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Head of state, incidentally, is essentially the argument made by the wiki- it points out that the company title of president used in org charts and by Rufus is very specifically 'president of the company', whereas the english word president can mean that but also a head of state, which is probably why using the english at all and not just that same japanese title, to convey that dual meaning.

Not that there's any official cites or whatever, but that President Shinra is both Company Head and Effective Head Of State is sorta evident from the story so far.
 
Dirge of Cerberus makes it clear that Vincent and Lucrecia never got together, The sequel introduces the fact that Vincent's scientist father died protecting Lucrecia from her science experiment exploding and she felt horrible about it.

Also not really relevant but his name was Grimoire and he looked like this



So I guess emo just runs in the Valentine family
 
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Omicron said:
With that said, it's been brought to my attention that the "Vincent is Sephiroth's father" is a relatively common interpretation of events?
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…I just can't imagine a world in which Vincent Valentine has reproduced.

Hojo does it in exactly the way you'd expect- involving a giant syringe full of glowing alien DNA, that is- but honestly? I can see it. He's an evil, petty fraud, but he's ambitious. He's got drive, you know? He makes things happen. Generally bad things, and not the things he intended to happen, but still.

Vincent's idea of a big dramatic gesture to atone for his sins is laying down to sleep for thirty years.
 
pedanterrific said:
Hojo does it in exactly the way you'd expect- involving a giant syringe full of glowing alien DNA, that is- but honestly? I can see it. He's an evil, petty fraud, but he's ambitious. He's got drive, you know? He makes things happen. Generally bad things, and not the things he intended to happen, but still.
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Y'know, the more I think about it, the more sense this makes as an analogue to Hojo...


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMER4ULvUx8
 
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Wouldn't be the first time a mistake of his became a massive success.

Actually, thinking about it, it would be. Sephiroth was born before Cloud.
 
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maskedanddanger said:
I think that Hojo is the more likely candidate to be Sephiroth's father then Vincent, if only because it functions better as you yourself pointed out.

Vincent is just such a non-character in FF7 due to his everything being left on the cutting room floor that him being Sephiroth's father would be such an out there revelation. Shadow and Relm gets more foreshadowing. Hojo, meanwhile, functions as Frankenstein with Sephiroth as his monster. Hojo has always been the bridge between the Shinra plot and the Jenova plot, him being the literal father of Shinra's false Messiah is well written storytelling.
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In a way, Hojo being the father makes more sense because it makes Sephiroth more tragic. If Vince had been the father, it would have been a tale of a son of good roots corrupted by bad upbringing. Vince and Lucrecia are both well-meaning but weak-willed people, thus wouldn't have been the source of Sephiroth's twisted drive. He [Sephiroth] could have been a better person had not Shin-Ra gotten their hands on him.

Hojo, however, makes this a case of fruit from the poison tree. No matter how far Sephiroth tries to deny it, his father is a monster in human skin, living breathing filth that ruins everything he touches. In a way, Sephiroth can't escape Hojo's corruption, so his choosing to side with the monstrous JENOVA is not surprising. In a sense, between his twisted, monstrous father and his weak-willed mother, he never had a chance.
foamy said:
My take on 'no, Vincent is Sephiroth's father' ideas is that they are born of nothing more complex than an instinctive revulsion to the idea that this man



this man


fucks​
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Some people have very poor taste, Lucrecia Crescent especially.
UnsneakyLurker said:
I thought Sephiroth had already been aware that Hojo was his dad, so went back to the Nibelheim flashback to double-check. Turns out it was more ambiguous, with the likely implication of Sephiroth having no clue who his father might be.

Rereading that segment did cause my third eye to open and turn its gaze upon yet more cursed implications. Hojo wasn't a scientist, but he did fetishise it. When conducting his "experiments", I'm sure he left detailed notes for later "review". Perhaps he had his assistants add their "notes" to the log too. And it would fit Hojo's fetish to treat Sephiroth's conception as an "experiment". In other words, it's very probable that among the documents that drove Sephiroth to madness was Hojo's first-person account of Sephiroth's conception.

If it happened in Nibelheim, burning Nibelheim to the ground is in retrospect a very reasonable and sympathetic course of action.
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Then again, the idea of Hojo putting his sex tape in the Niebelheim mansion would be reason enough to raze the place to the ground.

*Niebelheim burns*
Cloud: "Why?! Why'd you burn our town?!"
Seph: *Shows him the video of Hojo's "research"*
Cloud: "Welp, I'm with him on this one." *grabs gun and blows his own brains out*
Avernus said:
From the looks of it President Shinra is Fuhrer King Bradley decade or two after he removes the eye patch and his hair greyed. Or just a dye job. Maybe he decided he needed a new identity and went undercover.

I mean, we never see them in the same room so maybe they are the same guy, right?


:D
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Well, we haven't seen them together in the same universe so maybe you're on to something there :D
 
Maybe I missed something, but do we know it's Lucrecia legitimately having the taste of a pebble, or wasn't something sordid happening there like abuse at the workplace, blackmail...?
 
Connelly said:
do we know it's Lucrecia legitimately having the taste of a pebble, or wasn't something sordid happening there like abuse at the workplace, blackmail...?
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As we have no dialogue for that passage, that's a possible reading, but considering the issues with female agency that Omicron pointed out, I think I'd prefer it if Lucretia actually decided to take part in the experiment rather than being forced into it somehow - it gives her culpability for her own actions, which I prefer, instead of making her just another woman victim. Also, it makes Vincent look even more pathetic, which was clearly the writers' intent, and thus any explanation which encourages that reading is the most likely to be canon.
 
Dirge adds a lot of context, most of it Very Dumb, about what exactly Lucrecia's intent was. But in the very broadest strokes it absolutely reinforces that she was down for the cause (Mad Science), even if the consequences were something she hadn't foreseen. Saying anything more would be spoilers, but maybe Omi can just skim a video LP or something after FF7 is done if he has any interest in The Okay Adventures of Vinnie V.
 
The proper and best way to experience Dirge or Cerberus is through The Dark Id's Let's Play of it. There is something extremely cathartic in having somebody along that mad journey that doesn't just commiserate with you, but is eager to call out the nonsense for what it is as it comes up.
 
*googles 'The Dark Id'*

...

*checks date*

>it's a late-00s Something Awful poster

So like. What's the slur density I should expect there
 
R-slurs and misogyny, IIRC? Probably some homophobia in there somewhere.

EDIT: Like, by 00s SA standards TheDarkId is a pretty progressive LPer, for context. (The context is 'early 00s SA was very much the Edgy Loser Geek forum with the commensurate slinging of shitty language and opinions')
 
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Omicron said:
So like. What's the slur density I should expect there
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If you go for just the let's play itself as saved on the let's play archive, not the actual thread on the forums, I would say in terms of slurs it's relatively low? Not zero, because that's just the site style, sadly, but I didn't found it too much (which I have with other let's plays on that site); I don't personally like anything that includes slurs as a rule.

Mind, it does treat the game extremely harshly and with a large amount of insults, but I don't think many of those are slurs, more just general highly disparaging comments. The Dark Id does have a very brazen style, and has a preference for selecting extremely bad and weird games - the Drakengard let's play is a particular highlight - which is probably intended to justify the highly aggressive tone, but even with that, I don't remember it being intolerable. Although, fair is fair, it's been a few years since I last read it, so I might be forgetting stuff.

Oh, and also it's full of FFVII spoilers, of course, being that Dirge of Cerberus is set after Advent Children.
 
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