Hi I’m back to being insufferable because I love the irony in the symbolism here:
The pyramid of bodies is the exact visual language used in classical Renaissance art:
The triangle the eye unconsciously identifies is a structural shorthand used to represent a struggle toward a singular point. Géricault explicitly used it in The Raft of the Medusa to show a pyramid of dying people culminating in the one guy waving a flag for salvation:
Another good example is the Vigeland Monolith in Oslo:
A mass of bodies reaching upward is heavily present in Ascension art like the Assumption of the Virgin above. The physical rule of these pieces is usually: the lower figures are crowded together and dynamic to show struggle— while the top figure is alone, calm, still, and surrounded by negative space ((showing detachment)). This is the case with Sephiroth at the top there to mirror how divine figures are framed to contrast earthly chaos with divinity.
The mass of bodies reaching upward represents human desperation, the collective cry of people suffocating under mortality and the chaos of existence, desperately clawing their way to the highest peak of spiritual escape to try to liberate themselves from that suffering.
But .... Then you have the irony. You place Sephiroth at the top of that exact structure like a god looking down on a mountain of black robes, the world, humanity.
And the reality is he’s not detached from the desperation at all. He’s completely trapped by it, and if anything that's why he’s at the top. His “ascension” is fueled by the exact same desperate, obsessive need to escape his past, his trauma, and everything that binds him to the humanity he despises.
Just as everyone else is below him. What makes this even more brilliant (imo) is that it visually mimics the physics of the Reunion itself. Sephiroth thinks he’s pulling the strings from above, but that mountain of bodies is rushing toward him because every single cell of Jenova is magnetically snapping back into place. But even Jenova herself is trying to break free of her own isolation. Meaning the creature Sephiroth worships (I use this word lightly) is just as trapped by hunger and desperation as the humans she infects.
He’s just as stuck in the mud of pain and existence as the rest, but he’s represented as a god, the savior, the judge at the top of the mountain. When he’s just the guy screaming the loudest at the top of the raft.
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