Oh for the love of...

The Core The Polling Forum
1

Gee, I didn’t see that one coming.

For those who don’t know, Gamefaqs ran a different version of their “greatest character of all time” poll focused on villains and you can clearly see the results. I don’t know what power protected us from the usual bozos asking people to vote but I suggest you go sacrifice a virgin to show your gratitude.

I know that a great percentage of Gamefaqs posters don’t even qualify as lower-level thinking organisms but normal gamers like me browse the main page every day, so I would like to know what the heavens does this mean?

I totally missed what made Sephiroth so awesome. All I saw where four or five cutscenes of him being ominous. He never actually did anything worth of recognition as badass. As a matter of fact, almost everything you hear or see about Sephiroth is from other people telling you about how awesome he is.

What does he do? Walk on fire? Diablo did that in the Diablo II intro, with better graphics I might add, and I don’t see raging legions of fanbrats going nuts about him… it… whatever.

I guess what I’m saying is, am I missing some vital revelation about his characterization? Because I can’t honestly say what puts him above or even at the same level as Kuja, Kefka, Id or any other sexually-dubious megalomaniac psychopath.

2

I think the attraction was due to the timing. I mean look at this way: it’s 1997, the coolest bad guy in anything we’ve had so far is probably Darth Vader (and by this I mean for mainstream audiences, since there will of course be cooler villains out there but I’m talking about those that your average joe will know about), then this long haired trenchcoated guy appears, murderises an entire town, burns it to ashes, kicks the ass of anything he fights and devises one of the coolest plans for world domination ever. It kind of made people think “Wow, this guy is the shit.”

And Kingdom Hearts helped too, making him a badass just for the sheer difficulty of the fight and when you think about it he had at his disposal some pretty powerful magic, almost bordering on DBZ levels of world-smashing power, while still managing to be a human being.

I also think part of the attraction comes from empathising with the character, how would you feel if you discovered your whole life was a lie?

But that’s just me… I kinda like the whole trenchcoat and katana thing.

3

Sephiroth never found out his life was a lie. He never realized he was human, Hojo’s son, that Jenova wasn’t his mother, nothing. He went psycho for something he thought had happened but didn’t.

And this is 2005, we’ve had several villains that are more badass than him. Kain from LoK for example.

4

Remember the Shinra mansion? Where he learnt about everything? It sent him mad.

And yes this is 2005, and many of the people who liked him back then are still fond of him.

Incidentally a friend of mine and I had an arguement who would win out of Sephy and Raziel, in the end we agreed that it would probably last forever :stuck_out_tongue:

5

That’s what I meant. He thought he was created out of Jenova cells because of what he saw in that mansion. In reality, he was just a regular kid that got the SOLDIER treatment while he was still in the womb. Sephiroth was human just like Cloud, but he never found out about that.

6

Heh…I suppose.

7

Kefka…! ;_;

8

I myself happen to favour the Leblanc Syndicate and stand by my statement that they made excellent villains.

9

Tenpenny is still like a million times cooler than Sephiroth.

10

Well, he wasn’t EXACTLY like that. I think it was more complicated than just getting the Jenova genes when he was in the womb.
But before that Seraph, he had believed he WAS a human being, although he had always felt different, and then he started thinking he was created the same way monsters were. I think he has every right to go insane.

11

He never actually did anything worth of recognition as badass.
You must have been awol when he murdered an entire city, the entire Shinra Building, an entire cargo ship, and impaled a Zolom’s fucking FACE on a wooden stake. Trying to destroy the planet to become a God by killing the protagonist’s girlfriend in order to stop her from stopping his texas-sized plasma-immersed meteor wasn’t exactly fairy-tale material either.

Voting Sephiroth as top villain may seem like the fallacy of popular appeal, but there are definately solid reasons to do so.

12

Well, he wasn’t EXACTLY like that. I think it was more complicated than just getting the Jenova genes when he was in the womb.

SOLDIER treatment = Jenova Cells + Mako Energy. Hojo tested it on Sephiroth to make sure it worked. It’s all in Vincent’s flashback.

Technically speaking, he only did the first one, the rest was done by random remote controled clone. My little band of jolly men killed Midgar Zolom too, big whoop. And Nibelheim was a backwater village with not a single man able to fight save for Tifa’s master.

EDIT: He killed like three people on the cargo ship. All the rest, Rufus included, got to Costa del Sol perfectly fine.

Keyword: Trying. All he really did to achieve this was steal the Black Materia and then sit on his ass for half a game waiting for Meteor to fall, while he could have been, like, trying to stop me from gathering enough power to kick his ass.

Yes, between these last options he does seem to be one of the most favorable, but that’s because the rest of villains with actual development that were available at the beginning of the poll don’t seem to appeal to the random Gamefaq browser. There were far better options that people overlooked just because they didn’t have that stupid sword that, while we’re at it, wouldn’t actually be useful for anything in real combat.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is: How long until they stop worshipping Sephiroth as the ultimate villain?

13

I think it’s because he killed a really big snake

14

Just to further prove my point and ramble gratuitously:

Sephiroth tried to devastate the world. Kefka actually got it done.

Sephiroth destroyed a backwater village filled with peasants. Diablo burned down a refuge filled with warriors without even trying.

Sephiroth tried to gain God-like powers. Ganon actually did get them.

15

Until they find a better villain, I guess.

I have a few comments, though.

You say your “little band of jolly men” killed the Zolom too, but I have no reason to believe they aren’t also badass. Look at Cloud. He alone took on an entire bike division of Shinra Corporation with a giant steel paddle and a show bike. I’d hardly call him little or jolly.

Sephiroth only techinically committed the first act, true, but ask yourself: Would his clones have been able to accomplish what they did if not under his influence? They were normal civillians, if that. According to Hojo they were “failures.” Furthermore, their bodies mutated to take on Sephiroth’s form, and as we see with Cloud, clones completely lose their free will under Sephiroth’s influence. Some examples would be when Cloud gives the Black Materia to another clone, when he attacks Aeris in the temple crater, and when he almost kills Aeris in front of the altar under the city of the ancients. They may not have possessed the original body, but they were virtually indiscernable from the real thing, and since they were <i>failed</i> Sephiroth clones, do you not think they’d be less powerful than the real Sephiroth, making his projected acts LESS violent than he intended them to be?

I’m not sure about this last one, but I think what is seen of Nibelheim is only a synechdoche, a small part that represents the whole. Let’s be honest, when’s the last time you’ve seen a real village with a mere five or six houses, an inn, a mansion, and no trace of infrastructure? And yet every city in almost every final fantasy before VIII is represented this way.

In my opinion, you’re really downplaying Sephiroth’s evil endeavors. There are probably worse villains, I give you that, but you’re taking Sephiroth far too lightly.

16

Plus his them. Can’t forget his theme.
Curse Hades and his leet replying skills.

17

I agree that his clones must be weaker than the real thing, and they are, but their feats aren’t beyond a higher-than-average fighter. True, the rampant clone did kill several guards in the Shinra H.Q. and the Midgar Zolom, but my characters can do that just as easily. And I mean all my characters, like Tifa, Yuffie or RedXIII who don’t have anything supernatural about them. My point is that Sephiroth is strong, I won’t deny that, but he’s not the absolute elite warrior he’s cracked up to be.

About Nibelheim… well, we’re talking about something that’s just impossible to prove. Nibelheim got their income from the Mako reactor though, and it once was a research spot for the Shinra, so it did seem capable of standing on it’s own. Remember that Shinra funded the cities they placed the reactors into. They at least had water, as seen in the big tank on the middle of the plaza, but they wouldn’t be able to grow anything with the reactor so close by, so it’s safe to assume they imported most of their goods, making a small village like that rather plausible. Even if the city was bigger than what is shown I still don’t see why would there be any more men able to fight than the ones shown. There are plenty of cities filled with nothing but common peasants.

A note about Cloud: I’m not sure why people don’t get this. He’s not a clone of Sephirtoth nor a construct. He was born in Nibelheim as a regular human kid, enlisted in SOLDIER and got the treatment, but since he didn’t get strong enough he never climbed ranks. The SOLDIER treatment finally kicked in on the fight with Sephiroth in the reactor, allowing Cloud to kill him. Then he was altered further by Hojo while he was captive with Zack. Sephiroth can control him simply because he has enough Jenova cells in him for his internal structure resemble that of a clone.

18

They’re more rigged than the Oscars.

19

Grahf > Sephiroth

Even though Grahf wasn’t the real villian, and he redeemed himself at the end. I guess.

20

I still suspect that the Sepiroth “Clone” we saw all thru the game was actually Jenova’s body being remote-controlled by Sephiroth. Why?

*Jenova was clearly stated as being a shape-shifter, able to take other people’s forms. None of the ‘clones’ (actually altered people) were.

*What was the WHOLE POINT of having the headless body in the game, anyway? We see it once, then it’s gone?

*And just WHY did Seph rip off her head?? Would you do that to your mother if you found her captured? (I believe that Jenova made him do it. Why? Because as we saw, Jenova can survive if cut apart, and its cells seek to reunite and reform. Only the head is important, apparently. So, having its body too entangled to free quickly (which could delay Sephiroth too long, giving Shinra or someone else time to attack them) she mentally influenced him to free only her head. In fact, Sephiroth’s madness might have been Jenova’s telepathic effect all along.)

*The characters believed that Sephiroth freed the body from the lab. But we never saw that happen, only the massacre left behind. I believe Seph just activated the body, changed it into his form, had it break free from its holding tank, then attack Shinra HQs.

*Every time that the heroes caught up to Sephiroth, he’d leave a lesser Jenova manifestation to fight them, which changed back to a Jenova body part upon defeat. Were was he getting them from? If he freed Jenova WHERE was he carrying the body???

*Parts of the telepathic speech on Cloud’s mind was Jenova’s, not Sephiroth’s. This is revealed in one of the final telepathic speeches (look it up.)

*Finally, where was Jenova at the end? We see Jenova Synthesis, which we assume is the fully reformed Jenova, then we defeat it. What, no villainous speech? And considering its nature, HOW do we know it’s dead and not just reforming?

Hopefully this will be verified (or denied) in Advent Children.

And yeah, if I’m right and Seph was never more than a deluded pawn of Jenova, then he is NOT a Badass villain, no matter what things he did. He was pathetic, in fact.