Besides the fact that Shinra still kept being Shinra after that, Sephiroth is very obviously a manifestation of the planet’s wrarh due to Shinra draining the lifestream. I mean, if you google the name you’d see where the devs got the inspiration for the character:
I’m gonna disagree on Sephiroth being a product of the planet. He’s a product of the arrogance of man.
He was conceived when Shinra and Hojo discovered Jenova and put her cells in a human fetus to make a god.
By all measures, he has the powers of a god, but he’s ultimately an ego project put forward by an electric company who wanted to drain the essence of heaven for personal profit.
Defeating Sephiroth is telling him he’s not prefect or a god and that he too will return to the planet when he dies.
He’s a supersoldier made by a capitalist empire and he believes he’s better than humanity because he was born powerful. He’s like the worst kind of nepo baby who thinks the world should not go on without him.
When he finds out about his heritage, and that he wasn’t naturally just born better, he snaps and doubles down on his insistence that he’s a god. He goes on a killing spree.
His whole plan is to become undeniably powerful so he doesn’t have to think of the material conditions that created him.
Edit - with Jenova being from space, I don’t see Sephiroth as being as much a product of earth’s wrath. His attempt to destroy Gaia to gain power feels like the ultimate goal of Shinra. He’s a a product of Shinra.
Also, I think it would be interesting to see an evil Cetra, but I don’t want that to happen in the already complicated VII universe.
And Jenova (totally not an analogue of the Tetragrammaton and in no way resembling a theonym) is the calamity from the skies who sought to destroy Gaia.
The Sephirot = Yehova’s will
Sephiroth seeks the absolute destruction of Gaia as he is essentially the instrument of Jenova’s will, being a product of Gast’s research on Jenova and Hojo’s human experimentation using Jenova cells.
Jenova is basically a cosmic horror take on the question: What if God is evil?
Sephiroth is the result of the foolishness of Shinra in thinking they are above nature. They created Sephiroth using the cells of a creature they couldn’t possibly control, thinking they could use it like a tool. But of course the moment everything goes off balance they lose control and their ineptitude shows, and suddenly these powerful executives can do nothing while the ones to finally bring balance back end up being ecoterrorists from the slums.
Sephiroth and Cloud are also mirrors of each other. Both were duped into being tools for capitalist imperialism, when they find out one of them says “I am going to carry on with my own brand of imperialism and conquering” and the other goes (after a lot of character development and a mental breakdown) “I am going to break the cycle.”
Besides the fact that Shinra still kept being Shinra after that, Sephiroth is very obviously a manifestation of the planet’s wrarh due to Shinra draining the lifestream. I mean, if you google the name you’d see where the devs got the inspiration for the character:
I’m gonna disagree on Sephiroth being a product of the planet. He’s a product of the arrogance of man.
He was conceived when Shinra and Hojo discovered Jenova and put her cells in a human fetus to make a god.
By all measures, he has the powers of a god, but he’s ultimately an ego project put forward by an electric company who wanted to drain the essence of heaven for personal profit.
Defeating Sephiroth is telling him he’s not prefect or a god and that he too will return to the planet when he dies.
He’s a supersoldier made by a capitalist empire and he believes he’s better than humanity because he was born powerful. He’s like the worst kind of nepo baby who thinks the world should not go on without him.
When he finds out about his heritage, and that he wasn’t naturally just born better, he snaps and doubles down on his insistence that he’s a god. He goes on a killing spree.
His whole plan is to become undeniably powerful so he doesn’t have to think of the material conditions that created him.
Edit - with Jenova being from space, I don’t see Sephiroth as being as much a product of earth’s wrath. His attempt to destroy Gaia to gain power feels like the ultimate goal of Shinra. He’s a a product of Shinra.
Also, I think it would be interesting to see an evil Cetra, but I don’t want that to happen in the already complicated VII universe.
And Jenova (totally not an analogue of the Tetragrammaton and in no way resembling a theonym) is the calamity from the skies who sought to destroy Gaia.
The Sephirot = Yehova’s will
Sephiroth seeks the absolute destruction of Gaia as he is essentially the instrument of Jenova’s will, being a product of Gast’s research on Jenova and Hojo’s human experimentation using Jenova cells.
Jenova is basically a cosmic horror take on the question: What if God is evil?
Sephiroth is the result of the foolishness of Shinra in thinking they are above nature. They created Sephiroth using the cells of a creature they couldn’t possibly control, thinking they could use it like a tool. But of course the moment everything goes off balance they lose control and their ineptitude shows, and suddenly these powerful executives can do nothing while the ones to finally bring balance back end up being ecoterrorists from the slums.
Sephiroth and Cloud are also mirrors of each other. Both were duped into being tools for capitalist imperialism, when they find out one of them says “I am going to carry on with my own brand of imperialism and conquering” and the other goes (after a lot of character development and a mental breakdown) “I am going to break the cycle.”
I loved that about Cloud. He had his mind shattered and he had a similar horrifying realization and did not become like Sephiroth.
Which is why I hate they won’t let Cloud have a permanent victory. Sephiroth is too popular for the wrong reasons.