Shop Mobile More Submit  Join Login
:iconsephirothslave:
Sephirothslave Featured By Owner Aug 31, 2012
Well, hello to the random new...person. I'm always excited to see a new face around this nearly-abandoned haunt of mine. So, the question is...how detailed do I want to go with my explanation?

At its most basic, all I really have to say is, "I hate Cloud." I do. I can justify it all day long, in as many ways as I need to before my opponent's head explodes...rarely do I find this particularly necessary these days, as I spend little to no time in the fanbase. We could go slightly deeper, inasmuch as another charming young lady pointed out - Cloud has defeated Sephiroth, whether I like it or not = well, as Cloud lacks ANY quality I value in a character, hating him is pretty damned easy. Or, we could go just one shade deeper: After I've heard your sob story more than twice, and you've done little to nothing but cry over it, my patience is gone. Likewise, Vincent Valentine annoys the hell out of me. I get it, his life sucks, I'd be upset too...but shut the hell up about it. Please, by all means, take your revenge on Hojo - do us both a favor! But stop crying about it!

At its core, setting aside my bias as much as I'm able (which, to be fair is not much after spending more than half my life with this series), I support Sephiroth and will do so until the end of my days on several key points when we match Cloud and Sephiroth next to each other:

1.) Older vs. Younger - I have low tolerance for children. Sephiroth wins.
2.) Maturity - Sephiroth has been through more shit (in my slightly-biased opinion), but I find him more mature, and easier to imagine spending a length of time with. (As I imagine Yuffie trying to hang herself in the background of the AVALANCHE base.)
3.) Skill level - Luck vs. Skill. Cloud should have died in the Nieblehiem Reactor. He should have died in Hojo's custody. He should have died in the escape attempt. (For God's sake, SOLDIER...do one God damned perimeter check!) The fact of the matter is, when I run these scenarios without SQUARE'S bias (i.e: Of course the good guy wins. That's how it HAS to be.) I don't see Cloud winning due to a total lack of skill. (As you yourself said, he failed out of SOLDIER.)
4.) Compelling story - Yes, Cloud's story is sad-ish. Compared to the other stories on the board, I really have issues putting him first. I still feel Sephiroth's story is the most tragic, and sympathize with Vincent and even Aerith over Cloud's story. Especially because he hardly remembers Nieblehiem anyway, and gets together with his childhood crush anyway...he comes out okay, I think. I honestly find background stories that aren't even told more compelling than Cloud's. I'd be fascinated to learn more about Tseng's past, and Reno's.

At the end of the day, back to my fully biased self, I maintain - as I always have - that there is more than ample space to maneuver in, to save Sephiroth. I maintain he's likely totally innocent (a theory that's becoming more and more popular, I add), or, if for any unlikely reason I'm wrong, he's not beyond redemption. All he needs is someone with half a heart who can understand where he's coming from.

Cloud...would be better off euthanized. And the fact that he's caring for orphans in AC terrifies me for the youth of the planet. Someone call child services.

And, myself? Hateful / spiteful toward the majority of the FFVII cast...well, yes. Because if you've failed my background check (Can you be swayed to aid Sephiroth?) you have effectively become nothing more than fodder for my novels, to be eliminated to clear the path to save Sephiroth. This can, and does include Cloud. Sorry...when it comes to defending my favorite characters in any series, I am a bitch. And I own that bitchiness fully.

And, arrogant? Well, yes, I'll give you that too...but on the premise that I've probably spent more time dealing with thes characters than their initial creators. I've written so much for every one of them, and I do feel that I know the nuances of how they behave better than Square. They, as a business, have more games to produce, and little time to keep track of the subtle details of their older character's personality traits. I, on the other hand, have been churning out novels, short stories, papers and articles on these characters starting seriously in the year 2000. And, it was basically my sole "media" project. So, when I say I know these characters better than their creators, I mean that they've run with me and my stories long enough that I can provide a detailed background for each and every character that may or may not be provided in cannon that can and will mesh seamlessly with whatever drivvle Square tossed at us recently, given the openness of the viewing audience to accept the common-sense notion that every single event going on in the original Final Fantasy VII could not be given specific notice or attention because of the enormous amount of detail already put in place.

For example: When Sephiroth was in the Nieblehiem Mansion, reading Hojo's old files, he would have absolutely come across the information that his mother's name was LUCRECIA. That would have been noted very, very frequently along with all the details of the experiments performed on her. Accounting for the obvious, yet unmentioned detail, we follow smoothly into the debate about what effects Jenova cells have on a human, to range anywhere from schizophrenia to full blown possession.

Hmm...I really should put that thesis up here, just for kicks and giggles...

Some people choose very poor outlets for their anger. We're all angry over something, some days, most of the time. We're humans, and have our pet peeves. And, as a human, who contends with anger, I've chosen a relatively safe and wholesome way to vent it out and maintain my cheery outer demeanor (see: sarcasm). I don't hurt real, living people. However, I can, and do, and enjoy mutilating characters like Cloud Strife as a substitute for...trolls.

Thank you for your feedback, and I do hope this has been enlightening.
Reply

Devious Comments

:iconarkayo:
Arkayo Featured By Owner Sep 25, 2012
I don't get why you hate Cloud so much. Or more specifically, why you blame him so much.
Let's assume that your theory is correct. Sephiroth is completely innocent, and everything we saw him do was the result of him being controlled by Jenova.
How would Cloud know this? From his perspective, Sephiroth locked himself in the mansion for a few days, then started burning down Cloud's hometown and killing his friends. Then he suddenly shows up again and starts killing again. If Cloud never gets any information that suggests Sephiroth is possessed, rather than just insane, how can you blame him for trying to stop what appears to be a murderous madman? How can he try to save Sephiroth if he doesn't know Sephiroth needs to be saved.
Even if he did know, what could he do differently? Jenova was summoning a comet to wipe out all life on the planet. That doesn't give him a lot of room to maneuver. Even if he was completely innocent, how could Cloud justify letting everybody else die to save one life? Should he have put Sephiroth's life over Marlene's? Over all the other children on the planet?
And would Sephiroth want him to? If Sephiroth is such a good man, wouldn't he prefer to die, if living meant the entire planet burns? Wouldn't death be better than being dragged as Jenova's meat-puppet from planet to planet, watching billions die over and over again?
I'm not a troll. I'm not trying to flame you. I'd just like an honest, thoughtful answer.
Reply
:iconsephirothslave:
Sephirothslave Featured By Owner Oct 5, 2012
Hello, Arkayo. I understand my perspectives on FFVII are, extremist, to say the least, and many of my decisions need a lot more explanation than I realized until recently. I'm composing an answer to Jaelixa too, but since she's going to take a lot longer to explain things to, I thought I'd answer you.

On several points, you're right. "Assuming I'm right," I do agree that Sephiroth would rather die than have become Jenova's puppet in the first place, and would prefer to die than take the whole planet down in his place.

That said, a huge part of my problem with Cloud comes to my (likely unreasonable) high expectations of characters. In this case, if Cloud idolized Sephiroth as much as was implied, he would have noted the downward spiral his idol was on, and perhaps would have intervened (this is also where I take my shots at Zack). Even though no one was really, really close to Sephiroth, he did have friends, and the fact that NO ONE did anything measurable to help him makes me...well, chuck absolutely everyone involved headfirst under a bus. It doesn't help that I don't find the characters compelling enough to really want to bother saving.

At the end of the day, I probably hate Cloud more than Sephiroth himself, just because, I, as someone who has run, rerun and adjusted every scene ever given to the fanbase to see how and where Sephiroth could be saved...am sick of Cloud defeating him, and am sick of Cloud hurting him. (And, I again cite that I find Cloud boring as a character. Even when I'm writing, I don't even cast Cloud in a major role, because he's very one dimensional, WHEN I'M WRITING FOR HIM.)

I've gone to a lot of "extra effort" recently to see how the rest of the fans feed these days. It started here at good old DA, where I was looking through fanart and found a lot of people had started coming around, taking little jabs at Cloud in some amazingly funny art and comics. I went on to, dare I say, even sort through fanfiction sites, and see what the temperature of the group was these days, years and years after I holed up with, "my council," of people to check in with and stopped interacting with th general fanbase.

I'm finding that a lot of people have warmed up to the Jenova Possession Theory. And, I also found quite a few authors use the same phrases I do, refering to how the characters behave, for them, as writers, individually.

I'm getting off track here, so let me recap. My problems with Cloud can be summed up as:

1. I've never found Cloud compelling, interesting, or anything special as anything but a whiny character I don't like.
2. He doesn't write well for me. I've tried very hard to handle him, and work with him in different scenarios. For Me, he refuses to work well with the characters that I do enjoy working with.
3. I only HATE Cloud because he poses a direct threat to Sephiroth. "My Task," as I see it when I write for FFVII, is to make sure Sephiroth gets out alive. This involves OCs, cross-over characters, altering crucial plot moments, substituting primary positions, and obliterating...95% of the cast.
4. If Cloud actually retired, and didn't pursue and/or try to kill Sephiroth, I would cheerfully ignore him, because he bores me.

I could go on for a long time, but I hope I've explained my loyalty approach to the series. Sephiroth is my first, and only priority. I ignore Genesis and Angeal, and find Reno works better as Sephiroth's best friend. I find Tseng gets along better with Sephiroth than either aforementioned CC add-in.

At the end of the day, I expect more from characters like Cloud, Zack, Genesis.

I still feel that Sephiroth should not be persecuted as he is, and after spending more than half my life in this fanbase, would rather have you all hate ME, than hate him.

Weird, certainly. But...Loyalty is my key word.
Reply
:iconjaelixa:
Jaelixa Featured By Owner Sep 3, 2012
Hang on a minute - "do nothing but sob about it?" Practically the whole plot of Advent Children was Cloud doing something about his issues, and it wasn't sobbing. To recap: He had a deadly, painful disease which is essentially a cross between cancer and AIDs. His adopted son has it, and both are going to die from it if Cloud can't find a cure. He still has trauma from watching Aerith die and feels that it's his fault. All the children in Midgar get kidnapped by a group of men who make it perfectly clear they've got an agenda that means no good. And, to top it off, he's got Sephiroth almost literally haunting him - I don't know if you've read the novels, but it's pretty strongly implied that Sephiroth is able and willing to attack him through Geostigma - one of the symptoms of which happens to be depression, so Cloud is getting trolled every time he gets close to resolving any guilt. And don't forget - he's lost four years of his life, from when he was the sixteen year old captured by Hojo to when he and Zack finally escaped. Four years, from a stage vital in his development and he'll never get them back, so he's actually got a mind younger than his body (note: seeing as you seem fond of labelling Cloud as stupid and moronic, I should point out that the four years lost does /not/ make him an idiot).

And in response, Cloud...spends all of his time searching for a cure, asks Aerith what he can do to be forgiven (that was the whole point of the phone scene, to point out that she never blamed him at all) and immediately comes in to rescue his friends when they get into trouble. He did /not/ sit around crying about it - whenever he saw a chance to make things better, he was off like a shot to fix things. To use a TV Tropes term, he fully had to Earn His Happy Ending.

Also, to address the problem that most people have with your depiction of Sephiroth and Cloud: it is one thing to be a fangirl of a villainous character. It is one thing to say that you feel that the villainous character has the more complex story, the richer character, or the better character development. It is, however, quite another to declare that the villainous character was never villainous at all, to attack the hero and declare that he's everything from being two cells short of qualifying as an amoebae to being straight-up evil.

That is my main problem with your depictions - you yourself just said that Sephiroth is 'totally innocent'. He BURNED DOWN CLOUD'S HOMETOWN! He's killed women and children! He murdered Aeith! He was fully prepared to destroy the planet, and when that failed, he tried to corrode the Lifestream so that he could suck the planet dry and take over another! By no one's definition is he innocent! You can't even claim he's been controlled by Jenova - she's brain-dead, and has been that way practically since when she crash-landed into the planet. He doesn't need anyone with a 'heart' to give him snuggles and kisses - he is NOT a misunderstood woobie. Unless you've forgotten the scene where Zack was pleading with him to try and find out what was wrong with him, and Sephiroth...yeah, I don't think there's any need to pull up the whole 'Sephiroth against a backdrop of flames' that's so iconic.

Also, in a question of luck vs skill - not only did Cloud have the motivation of, y'know, seeing Sephiroth burn down his town and murder his mother, as well as not trying to confront him verbally as Zack did, it was also shown beforehand that he was more skilled than people thought when he picked up a sword and defeated a group of enemies much stronger than he was. Not only did it show that he was actually quite skilled with a sword rather than the rifle he had to use as a Shinra MP, but it was also foreshadowing for what Cloud was able to do when he was under stress and had a suitable weapon available.

Also, at the risk of invoking Godwin's...Saying you want someone euthanized because they don't fit your idea of what a character should be? Yeah, that's not both potentially triggering and uncomfortably reminiscent of a certain historical someone.

Also, you are aware that massive companies like Square in all likelihood probably do have someone to check if they mess something up with the game timeline and story arc? Hell, that's being charitable - Blizzard has an entire department of people who literally do nothing but check and check the development of both characters and stories to make sure that there's no mistake being made. True, mistakes can slip by, and sometimes stuff does get retconned, but on the whole, there are likely many people who do nothing but study the characters to make sure that no mistakes are made.

Also, to address your own produce: I've only read one of your essays, but if you want, I can talk with detail about how what you stated within it was both contradicted by canon and not backed up by any verifiable facts. As for your novels and short stories, I thought that you had disowned them for being badly written. If not, I am, of course, perfectly willing to point out the top ten mistakes you made regarding canon (there are considerably many, but I can narrow it down to ten on short notice). Thus, I would not advise you to use those stories as credentials for knowing canon better than the creators.
Reply
:iconjaelixa:
Jaelixa Featured By Owner Sep 3, 2012
Oh, sorry, I forgot one thing - what was 'Sephiroth's sad backstory?' He was experimented on in the womb, yes, but seeing as you believe that if a character doesn't remember their suffering, it doesn't count, I'll strike that from the list. In the last week, he had stress piled on top of him which, combined with sleep deprivation and shock at his (mistaken) origins, caused him to snap, but overall, his life wasn't that bad - certainly better than Cloud's.
Reply
Add a Comment: