Sephiroth

Name: Nessy
E-mail: SamzSanz@gmail.com
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□ Name: Sephiroth

□ Journal: asharppoint

□ Series: FFVII

□ Canon point: Right before Zack and Sephiroth depart for Nibelheim, post-Sephiroth remarking that he’ll probably desert SHINRA.

□ History: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Sephiroth

□ Personality:

Not much is known of Sephiroth while he's growing up, though by the time we see him in Crisis Core (and the flashbacks of FF7), he's a responsible, if somewhat distant, man. Canonically, he not only dislikes the idea of seeking glory, but also thinks little of those who hunger after it, as seen by his discussions with Genesis after he starts, uh, cloning himself. He's also, perhaps distressingly, one of the more normal characters in the entirety of Crisis Core, second only to Zack himself.



His entire world seems to center around his job and the two- or three, with the possible inclusion of Zack- friends he ever seems to have made. With such a small universe, it’s easy to see how he cracks later on. Sephiroth is, in Crisis Core canon, cheery but not unduly so, quick-witted if taciturn, and certainly prone to moments of dry humor. He’s also attentive to those under him, always showing up in the nick of time when need be to bail Zack out of trouble in-game. Even when Zack sasses him, he shows a relatively high level of patience, never pausing to chastise the younger man. Sephiroth even seems to indulge Zack now and then when the younger man is stuck in a moment of teenaged awkward mumbles. You couldn’t really say Sephiroth is kind, but he’s also not cruel. Not yet.



All-business most of the time, he nevertheless has moments of melancholy, as when he remarks to Zack that a mission they’re starting has nothing to do with “... old friends.” He expresses irritation at being branded the “hero” of his group and doesn’t seem to quite understand the animosity that Genesis holds towards him because of it.



He’s no open book, but it’s evident from very early on that he is enormously attached to people that can accept him. On the flip side of the coin, he holds his dislikes very, very closely, and seems to have no problem turning his back on the rest of the world in favor of one or three souls of value to him. Given that and the smallness of his world, it’s easy to see how he goes very, very wrong a bit later in canon when it’s revealed that his entire life is, basically, a lie.



□ Age: 22-23 at current canon point

□ Gender: Male

□ Appearance: Tall with long silver hair and piercing, glowing green slitted eyes. Sephiroth always wears black, and is rarely seen without his characteristic black trenchcoat with hilariously large shoulder pauldrons. According to FFVII canon, he also has a large black number one tattooed on one of his hands. He’s left-handed, according to series creators, but seems to have no great preference when it comes to his weapon, the iconic masamune.

□ Abilities/Powers: At the point in canon Sephiroth is taken from, his powers center around SOLDIER enhancements: super-strength, super-resilience, crazy jumping, magic-casting via materia, and (probably) accelerated healing rates. He’s spent most of his life studying swordplay and the martial arts.

□ Personal Items:

A SHINRA ID card
His cell phone- a battered, hopelessly out-of-date item.
A seriously battered copy of LOVELESS with notes and scribbles and dog-eared pages.
His coat, in impeccably perfect condition.
The shoulder guards for his coat.
□ First Person Sample:



I was hoping a few things could be clarified.

When it was mentioned that we can’t go back to our homes... does anybody have verification, one way or another, that this is true? Or are we simply taking the general word of the very people that have captured us?

I’m sure I’m not the only one with unfinished business at home.

Also: who here has been in this place the longest?



□ Third Person Sample:



He felt guilty for even thinking it, but there was a tinge of relief in all the shock of finding himself somewhere strange and new. He’d been pursuing ugly realities for so long, he’d been finding the world turning darker and darker around him for so long, that to be ripped away from all that was almost a welcome distraction. He worried about Zack, all on his own to face the machinations of SHINRA, of course. But not unduly. Frankly, the boy wasn’t quite bright enough to get into too much trouble- he hoped.

Sephiroth was torn. His guilt led him to want to dash into the wasteland, searching for home. Intellectually, he knew that to make a move like that would be a mistake. He had no weapons (and the missing weight of the masamune, always on him, was like a hole in his body), no materia, no armor past the barest basics. But he also wondered.... this was what he’d been thinking of when he thought of leaving SHINRA, wasn’t it? A new start? What was further away than another city on another world?

“I’ve never yet been prone to rash decisions,” he told the empty air, as if reassuring himself would somehow do something. A passer-by looked at him oddly. “I won’t start now.”




ALSO

Through the canon of CC, the core of what makes "Sephiroth" as a person undergoes a dramatic change. As I mentioned in the app itself, Sephiroth's world seemed to consist of a very few, narrow things- his friends, his job, his coworkers. Unlike most people, Sephiroth only had two people that could really be taken as friends. When Zack initially runs into Sephiroth, his faith in one of his closest friends, Genesis, has already been shaken. Already he seems more withdrawn and less personable than when he's shown in the practice room scenario where Genesis was wounded. (This could also be argued to be a result of Sephiroth not really being very familiar with Zack yet, as opposed to his close relationship with Angeal and Genesis.) He does open himself a bit to Zack, possibly through the legacy of Zack having been Angeal's student.

So- when canon begins, his world has already begun to crumble from under him. In somebody who said that he had "always known" that he was different from other children growing up, losing his only ties to humanity is a catastrophic event. He seems to retreat inward, to what little he has left of his identity- his role as General Sephiroth. Gone is the young man who complains good-naturedly to his friend that he's had LOVELESS beaten into his skull. After a certain point of Zack being sent on missions to take down Angeal and Genesis, when it becomes clear as to what has happened to them and why, Sephiroth seems to begin considering his own tie to the company. (As a side note, in the English sub, Sephiroth notes that he might desert SHINRA, while in the dub, he states that SHINRA might "discard" him soon. While the implications are quite different, I'm not willing to read in to what might well have been fan-translated word choice over canon translation.)

By the time he arrives in Nibelheim to face what might well be his last mission under the company that's been his life, his laughter at the idea of his father is a sign of his own blossoming distress at the collection of lies and realities that have been abruptly revealed in the recent past. At that point, it's clear from his interactions with Zack that he's still hanging on to the idea of Sephiroth the person mostly through Zack's own presence and tentatively extended friendship. But by that time, it's far, far too late. Sephiroth has finally put two and two together and realized that he, like Angeal and Genesis, is not completely human. The realization completely cracks him. The whole time he had been fighting against Angeal and Genesis, he had been fighting against friends that he had rationalized as monsters- but alas, they're revealed to be fellow monsters.

Sephiroth expresses horror and dismay at the revelation, stating that while he always knew he had a "special purpose," he didn't think it would be "something like this." Genesis' abrupt appearance, confirming to Sephiroth that he is in fact a monster, certainly doesn't help. Sephiroth looks anything but happy as Genesis gleefully informs him that his mother is an organism discovered 2,000 years ago. Sephiroth rejects Genesis in the Nibelheim plant, but his eventual actions- eventually trying to destroy the world- can in a really, really weird way be viewed as him joining the fight of his friends against a world that doesn't want them obsessively, direly, and entirely too late.

In summation, Sephiroth is a creature of devotion, for better or for worse. After he turns from the path of being a human on to that of a monster, his devotion changes rails as well. Still, despite his best efforts, he is devoted to people. Originally he centered himself around Angeal and Genesis, then, briefly, Zack, and finally, Cloud. Whether or not that devotion is positive is unimportant- Sephiroth is nothing if not devoted. Or, you know, totally obsessive to the point of destroying every other aspect of his personality. As Zack states, once Sephiroth has truly gone mad, he's "no longer the Sephiroth I know!" The lukewarm, reliable, somewhat-considerate-somewhat-reserved person Zack came to rely on is no more.