I have so many thoughts about how some of the fandom perceives young Sephiroth right now and how itās clear there is a divide between people who look at this conflicted, Shinra-conditioned teenager with a shitload of trauma and see someone who is inclined to feel comfortable with killing even out of self-interest rather than strictly by command vs the people who are far more merciful when interpreting him, judging his actions based on the presumption that he wasnāt inclined to kill if he didnāt have toā¦.and that he also did not want to kill much at all, actuallyā¦because he hated his status as Shinraās hero weapon and wanted to be a normal kid.
And that he also grew up to almost make it to be normal but regressed in Nibelheim instead and thatās why his story is perfectly tragic. Because there was, actually, a good person blossoming inside Sephiroth that was snuffed out way too soon.
Iām firmly of the belief that the latter, more merciful perspective on young Sephiroth is more accurate to what weāve seen so far and that the times when young Sephiroth kills anyone outside of the obvious ākill or dieā battlefield, there is a specific reasoning or even hesitance that suggests he lacks the coldness to carry it out with perfect efficiency, despite his upbringing and training. Heās a killer, but heās not a killer.
Iād say this is validated by the two times we have seen him kill within a grey area so far. The Rhadoran children + elderly incident in episode 1, and the killing of Rosen.
(I say grey because these were the times he killed people who were not also actively trying to kill him, but the political situation in Rhadore is still grey overall because Shinra is in the wrong as usual. But Iāll go over that in another post because right now Iām talking about decisions Sephiroth himself made).
For Rosen, the story is simple. Sephiroth did not want to kill that boy, and in chapter 4 of First Soldier Episode 2, it was confirmed that he even wanted to meet Rosen. He pleaded with the last Rhadoran to come with the team and find a new place in the world, almost blind to the devastation Rosen was facing as the last of his people becauseā¦.wellā¦.who knows if Sephiroth felt the weight of such a loss since he was born into a seemingly solitary existence himself.
Rosen felt every time he was deprived because he was conscious of it whereas Sephiroth was less aware of just how much he had lost until Nibelheim, oddly enough.
Rosen was also partially deprived because of Sephirothās actions, but to the latter, it was all a game of survival on the battlefield that was over in a few days. To Rosen, it was the devastating outcome of an unfair war against his people.
But itās not like Rosen had the time or desire to sit down and explain this all to the kid pleading with him to come and live. He already knew what the obvious solution was, and he only had to order Sephiroth to carry it out and save his friends. He practically gave Sephiroth the answer, not really letting Sephiroth think through the choice. Sephiroth killed him in a miserable and conflicted state, and now heās facing a dramatic spiritual trial in retribution (See: First Soldier Episode 2).
Now, for the Rhadorans who were fleeing after Sephiroth wiped out their combatants, the situation is hazy, because Sephiroth explains that they were the last people evacuating and that they couldnāt fight. The young and old Rhadorans who couldnāt fightā¦and yet he apparently misjudged the situation to some degree, because he ended up wounded by one of the children who was in the fleeing crowd.
He goes on to explain that he realized the children were like him. Trained soldiers.
He explains that warriors like this tend to be underestimated because of being children. Because of presumed weakness. Sephiroth says that he himself is always fighting to prove that assumption wrong because he IS strong and capable of being a warrior despite his age. This is his explanation for why he swung in killing after the other child soldier hurt him. He realized the kid could fight and immediately threw aside any potential hesitation, killing the last of the ānon-combatants.ā
He further explains himself (because Team Glenn are rightfully horrified by the scene), by saying that he learned to ākill or be killedā on the battlefield, even when it came to children or elderly who were in the combat zone because āYou never know! Donāt underestimate them like people underestimate me! They could be trained soldiers like me!ā
And to Sephiroth, who was a child soldier himself, why would this be unreasonable? He doesnāt see the elephant in the room like we do, which is that his age is a massive problem for his position. We know itās unethical and inhumane and that child soldiers are a war crime because children are innocents who should not be involved in the murderous hellscape that is war. But for Sephiroth, itās all heās ever known, and hell, Shinra is actively trying to recruit other boys his age, so why would it be wrong to be a child of war? He IS strong and he CAN fight.
Why would fighting and killing children like himself be a problem? Or elderly people who could be combat vets?
What we learn about Sephiroth from this is that he was raised solely to stand on the battlefield and on the battlefield, you trust nobodyā¦not even potential noncombatants in the crossfire. If they are in the war zone, they are potential threats. Kill or be killed. Trust nobody or you die. Survive at all costs because you have to complete your mission. Men? Women? Children? Elderly?
Sephiroth doesnāt underestimate any of them.
Or at least, thatās how he thought when he left his world inside Shinra for the first time.
Itās like the situation with Rosen again. He was not equipped with the reasoning or guidance that he needed to even understand why his worldview was skewed as he stood there begging Rosen to come be saved after being the one to help destroy the boyās people. Yeah, we see that this is all fucked up, but meanwhile Sephirothās over here talking to a kid his age for the very first time (aww) while already having more blood on his hands than most grown men who have seen war (uhh?), but he barely registers that at first.
This is where the āhe was never a good personā crowd almost have me sympathizing, but the reason I still stand with the āHe was trying to be good and almost wasā crowd is because of how he responded to positive influence and was inclined to try to practice goodness after being safely shown love and encouraged to step away from Shinraās mold.
Glennās big moment with Sephiroth where he says āShow some compassion, I know you got it in you,ā followed by a warm embrace seemingly broke down Sephirothās wall of self-defense almost immediately. Suddenly he broke down in emotion, forgot about the battlefield, about his Shinra-conditioned worldview, and just confessed something as human as injured feelings over being called a cyborg (part inhuman). If you translate the metaphor, Sephiroth is almost saying āIām not missing parts of my humanity as some othered, killing machine. I never wanted to be this.ā
Thatās exactly why āIām not a cyborg, I never wanted to beā erased the doubt in my mind about Sephirothās true nature as a boy. Thatās the point of that damn scene. Your genocidal 14 year old is actually just a kid who needs to be steered away from the violent burdens on his shoulders. Heāll let you steer him too, promise.
Yes, he was conditioned to be a killer that does not hesitate to even cross moral boundaries in battle because of survivalism, but did his natural self align with that behavior? Did his natural self desire that as his norm?
Well, no. Because as he repeatedly states, he wants things Shinra cannot permit him to have or that he is very unfamiliar with. In his dreams, itās blatant that his ultimate longing for his motherās perfect love and the acceptance of home and a peaceful, restful life is what makes him tick. He is lacking in things a normal, healthy child would be given in some capacity in most cases, and craves them by nature.
Furthermore, when Sephiroth receives a glimpse of this normalcy and happiness when bonding with Team Glenn, suddenly his mind begins to travel beyond the world he was conditioned into. He moves past the battlefield, surviving, killing, and completing the mission, tedious as the movement can be. He has moments where he discovers human emotions, the complexity of human relations, the excitement of gaining new experience and knowledge, the feeling of slacking off or having fun, and he drinks this up so much that he starts to feel the loss when it goes away. He starts to understand why Rosen felt the way he did, perhaps, instead of just living in a state of preexisting deprivation.
But before losing it all, Sephiroth grows up to seek out that warmth and life again with Genesis and Angeal. That humanity he craves and finds with them when they have fun together and talk. When Angeal lectures and Genesis geeks out over Loveless. Sephiroth memorized Loveless for Genesis, he remembered Angealās speeches fondly. He loved the humanity of his friends.
And as for what Glenn left him, it was that purity that Ever Crisis has symbolized with doves. Compassion and a streak of humanity that was budding even on the battlefield, which we saw in the final chapter of the first episode of First Soldier.
Sephiroth telling himself to use his strength to save everyone he could and become a hero in that way instead of Shinraās was a huge deal. That was meant to show us that he had transcended the mindset that his caretakers had sculpted him to have and was finally making his own decisions about how to use his strength. I am sure itās why he was so close to leaving Shinra too.
He had been born numb and blind, kept in the dark, carefully fashioned to be a single-minded killing machine, but his heart was still innocent enough to be shaped by the love of people like Glenn or Angeal. He was affected by figures like Rosen. His worldview as a child grew and in his early adulthood, he was ready to walk away and be aware and self-sufficient for the first time in his life, to try to be a good person who didnāt use his power only for harm, and who was no longer blind to the immorality of Shinraās actions against himself and others.
Itās Zackās arc in Crisis Core but longer, slower, and sadly, with a different ending. If it werenāt for Nibelheim, Sephiroth could have walked away from Shinra realizing that everything that happened with Rhadore and Wutai was a tragedy spurred on by Shinra itself. He would have made it.
I donāt think it has to be one extreme. āHe was always bad by default because of being a Shinra propā is not 100% fair because at some point, Sephiroth started to make some of his own decisions and they were GOOD.
āHe was always a total angel being forced to do it allā isnāt really a realistic take on it either, because he was objectively trained to kill with that paranoid mindset that resulted in those unfair Rhadoran deaths, and Sephiroth DID once adhere to that training and mindset, albeit after being conditioned to see no other way. But even still, thatās a compromise of morality.
Where things shift and where Iād say Sephirothās natural goodness almost won was during the Crisis Core years, when he was trying to find the real hero in himself and was close to leaving Shinra. By the time he reached that reactor in Nibelheim, completely unaware of what was about to hit him, Sephiroth may as well have been the ādove.ā But then his innocence was thoroughly crushed a second time and he never came back from it.
I donāt fucking know, man. I guess Iām just trying to say like what if you were born dead and legitimately fucked up because of who raised you but then you were hit with some genuinely good influences and your natural inclination was to respond to those and you hit adulthood with the right ideas in your head and you were starting to break free from the chains of your upbringing and were becoming someone better but then you were massively fucked over right in the middle of it and you gave up on everything and turned hateful like yeah thatās Sephiroth.
Thatās his whole point.
