The Turks have files on everyone... ◇ Moss ◇ they/she, 30ish ◇ FFVII brainrot ◇ Fic writer, lore magpie, digital art noob ◇ Message for Turks Discord server recs!
Fuhito is one of my favorite villians in the FFVII compilation but due to Before Crisis's obscurity, not many fans know about him, let alone discuss him. Even among my fellow BC enjoyers, I find that people often don't really know what to make of him other than him being a general douchebag. Which is fair, he does a lot of terrible things during the story and the narrative clearly wants you to despise him by the end. I suspect this is why he's the only one in BC's Avalanche trio who doesn't get any semblance of a backstory because that might humanize him too much. Yet I still find that there is sufficient explanation for his motives in the story which was pretty clear to me even on first viewing but apparently many people have missed. So I've decided to go over the finer details of his characterization and explain why I find him a compelling villian.
(CW for brief discussion of suicide towards the end. Also spoilers for Before Crisis, obviously.)
I'm gonna start with his profile from the Gunshot Romance website, as to my understanding, it was the primary source of information about BC back the day. But it was a fan-run site, meaning there were some inaccuracies. Already there is a bit of contradiction here, with the second paragraph stating that "nothing is known about Fuhito and his motivations" and in the fourth, his intentions are described as "he truly believes he can save the world by ending it." I feel like this might have contributed to the notions that Fuhito's motivations are a black box.
One thing I do find interesting though is the mention of him using polite language with both his comrades and enemies, which implies that he's keeping a distance between himself and those around him (with the frustrating addendum that the reason for that is "up to speculation", like you were so close!), which is a detail I will circle back to.
Now, lets get into what we actually know about Fuhito. Most obviously, his name. Japanese names in FFVII usually indicate that a character is from Wutai or of Wutaian descent. According to the most recent official timeline, Shinra's war with Wutai began sometime between 22 to 15 years ago before the events of the main game, so 16 to 9 years before the events of BC.
While Elfe, Shears and Fuhito's ages are unknown, if we presume that they're young adults, Fuhito would have been a child or a young teenager at the time the war broke out. But since we don't know where he grew up, it's not clear how directly he was impacted by it. However, his grudge against Shinra and Avalanche 1.0's HQ being in Wutai could suggest that he was directly impacted in some way.
The other thing that is known for certain about Fuhito's past is that he studied planetology from the founders of Avalanche. (Official profile translation credit goes to TurquoiseHammer.)
However, he twists planetology's teaching about the cycle of the Lifestream into a death cult-like ideology. He often talks about death like it's a "fleeting thing" and something that should not be feared. To him, dying is simply a means to becoming one with the Planet and giving one's life force back to it.
On the other hand, individual human lives matter very little to him, even when it comes to those on the same side as him. After their battle against the Turks in Wutai, Elfe is lamenting the deaths of their comrades, while Rufus and Fuhito casually talk about the necessity of sacrifices, highlighting their similar attitudes about using others for their own gains.
So Fuhito believes that those serving Shinra should die to return the life force of the Planet they stole. Initially his ire seems to be directed more specifically at Shinra, but by the time the destruction of the Corel Reactor happens, it seems to have expanded towards all of humanity.
But why this jump in scope? Fighting against Shinra is understandable but why destroy all life? From the perspective of planetology, Fuhito likely concluded that simply defeating Shinra just wouldn't be enough. Even if they shut down all mako reactors, the Plante would still be drained of too much of its life force. And there will likely be new people in the future like Shinra, who will want to exploit mako energy again. That technology is now out there and widely known for anyone to use it again. This is where I want to bring up Fuhito's name again because I found something interesting when randomly looking up its meaning:
His name meaning 'historian' and him being a student of what is essentially the Planet's history makes his perspective much more clear when we take the bigger lore into consideration. The Cetra were weakened and had their numbers cut in the fight against Jenova, and we learned from Rebirth that they were under threat by humans too, who have always coveted the power of the Planet. Admittedly, this is me retroactively fitting newer lore into an older game but it just solidified my understanding of Fuhito as someone who views humans as unworthy of living on the Planet. He even comes to see everyone who tries to stop his plans as a "traitors."
So, to sum things up so far: if the usual naming conventions of the FFVII universe apply, Fuhito is most likely from a nation that was ravaged by a war because they refused to comply with Shinra's demands which would have led to their lands being destroyed. He studied planetology and through it, he came to see death as the true salvation for the Planet's ills and adopted a nihilistic and misanthropic view on humanity. This brings us back to that detail about him using formal language with everyone around him. It serves a double purpose; on one hand it makes him seem more approachable and lures others into dropping their guard around him, on the other it's about him keeping a distance from everone because he doesn't value human connections. Everyone around him (Elfe, Shears, Rufus, the Ravens) are just tools for him to exploit.
That is what ultimately makes Fuhito a tragic villain imo. Because we see this type of nihilistic desire to burn the whole world down in Shears too, who is Fuhito's narrative foil and opposite. But through his connection with Elfe and finding a new purpose in Avalanche, Shears was able to overcome that hatred and eventually even ally himself with the Turks in order to save the person he cared about.
Meanwhile Fuhito, who's known Elfe for even longer than Shears has, refused any actual connection with her and anyone else, and continued to make choices to betray and hurt those around him over and over again. Whatever relationship he had with Elfe before realizing her materia had the power to destroy the world didn't matter - he was willing to sacrifice everything and everyone for his endgoal, even himself.
Another detail people seem to miss about Fuhito is his subtle suicidality. It is implied that if his plan to summon Zirconiade succeeds, he will die along with everyone else - this is not a Sephiroth situation where he becomes the ruler of the destroyed Planet. This is made the most explicit during the final battle against him when he fuses with the summoning materia. He already knows what the incomplete materia did to Elfe - he knows the completed materia will surely kill him but he doesn't care.
In my opinion, Fuhito represents the way radical elements can infiltrate well-meaning social movements (in this case, ecofascism withing environmentalism). He likely started out as someone with good intentions but ultimately succumbed to despair which lead him to see no other solution than mass murder-suicide. He is every bit a monster of Shinra's own creation as most other FFVII villains are, except he wasn't created through genetic experiments but through both Shinra's impact on the world and by Rufus funneling funds into Avalanche.
P.S. I am not interested in whether Fuhito's plans would have actually worked or not because of later lore we learn from DoC. Lucrecia's research on Chaos and Omega was shut down and it wasn't public knowledge, and it's doubtful that Fuhito or other planetologists have known about it. But it's also not the point. I'm more interested in what drove him to even attempt such measures in the first place.
Weird thing that bothered me about Rebirth and I want to hear other people's thoughts.
Um... Why did they gentrify Gongaga? I can't be the only one who feels cheated by the chummy suburban development vibe in Rebirth.
OG Gongaga is an isolated village deep in a jungle. It's possible to completely miss the first chance to visit, because it's practically unheard of. All the young folks fled to the big city. A reactor blew up and killed most of the inhabitants, leaving the town in a state of decay. The houses are falling apart, the people are desperate, it's derelict and miserable.
An understated theme in the OG is how life is difficult without modern technology. Avalanche sets out to destroy these reactors without considering the consequences for their own futures, thinking "well it won't be easy but i'm sure it'll be fine." Gongaga is the story's way of showing you just how fine everything is going to be— despite being in a lush rainforest, long since violently cut off from Shinra's influence, these people still suffer immensely.
I wanted to see it in hd so bad honestly. The splintered rotting wood, the furskin rugs, the dirty brick walls. The unspoken yet unignorable trauma. The mournful purple twilight that quietly hangs over the whole village. I wanted to see the survivors' spiteful determination to make things work without mako.
Instead we got a squeaky clean Crisis Core rendition of Gongaga, with its down-to-earth upbeat stardew valley soundtrack and generic hard workin' country folk. The houses are like... twice the size i expected them to be. Neat and tidy, no holes in the roofs, no dishevelled interiors. No sign of struggle. Everybody is content at worst.
The reactor may as well have never exploded. Nobody talks about it. We hear some bullshit about Shinra trying to "make amends" or compensate people for the damages, and that's about it. Apparently everybody's just fine with this, because all of the original version's resentment and grief is gone.
Don't even get me started on the barker stationed at the town entrance. "Come experience nature's bounty!" Man... why are we treating it like a goddamn hippy tourist attraction. OG Gongaga would have had someone knock this kid's teeth out.
Idk I'm just sad. The melancholy is what made Gongaga so memorable despite its bump-in-the-road identity. I wish we could have gotten that instead of one big callback to CC.
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