A research on character building, character symbolism of Genesis Rhapsodos (Part 2)
There are many things to talk about Genesis Rhapsodos’s design, so for this part, I will talk about some references that were used to create him
Warning: This part contains literally a lot of religious reference, read with caution.
1. Name.
“Genesis” means “the origin” in Greek. “Rhapsodos” is also from Greek, which means “one who performs the epic poem”. So overall, we can link those two words together and has “the original performer of the epic poem”.
Yet, we can totally stop right there. Or we can look further a “little” bit.
I have long pointed out that with the combination of being a very short poem inside a large book, which is then held by a character named “Genesis”, LOVELESS is actually, the “Book of Genesis” of the FFVII world. And Genesis was seen as “the first person who brings LOVELESS to the knowledge of the world” by his fanclubs’ members. So if we do a similar linking process like how we do with “Genesis” and “Rhapsodos”, we can come to this: Genesis is the first one who brings knowledge of LOVELESS to the world, yet LOVELESS is the “Book of Genesis”, so Genesis is the one who brings the knowledge of the “Book of Genesis” to the world. We know the Book of Genesis was written and popularized by Moses, so if we follow that we could assume Genesis’s name being referenced from Moses.
2. Motivation.
In Crisis Core, Genesis was the first to learn about the secret behind his birth and went for revenge against Shinra. However, he didn’t just go alone, he brought a whole lot of Shinra’s SOLDIERs with him. Instead of just going to snatch someone and copy his genes onto them to make G-copies, Genesis went to explain his reason of betrayal to people and offer them to join him, often with a Banora dumbapple.
Here there are two ways of interpreting.
For the apple being the image of the Fruit of Knowledge in the Bible, which caused Adam and Eve to fall from Eden, we can assume that Genesis offering the apple to people he wants to join him takes reference from the snake that offered the apple to Eve.
The other option is to see Genesis playing the role of Moses, in the part where “Moses brings God’s chosen people out of bondage and into the Promised Land”.
Of course, there’s a way to intertwine these two references into one proper narrative. We can take the first reference being from the perspective of those who weren’t “enlightened” to the truth behind Shinra, while the second one will apply to the those that were “enlightened”.
Therefore, it’s safe to assume that Shinra sees Genesis as the “snake” while his followers see him as the “prophet”.
3. Abilities and Terms
Genesis’s unique ability in FFVII is “Apocalypse”. The name of it is very easy to recognize so I won’t spend much time to dissect it.
I will talk about his other abilities that come with his boss form and recorded out of FFVII (mainly from FF Record Keeper).
Purgatorial Wave: Purgatory is where a souls of “all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified” will be purified. So the ability itself literally means “the wave that purified those who are still imperfectly purified”. This ability is only used in FFVII Crisis Core by Genesis Avatar after Genesis telling Zack that “We will all join the Lifestream, you are no exception.” We will talk further about this in the next part, as it will become a theory rather than just explaining the reference.
Ode to a Sundered World: The name of the FFRK event that announces Genesis’s release in the game. Sunder is an act of separating or parting of something from something else. Ode is a piece of poem that is written for an occasion, often meant to be sung. I will explain how this term and Genesis related to each other in the next part.
4. Some certain poses in connection to Weiss the Immaculate
Genesis inside his crystal cocoon (uhmmmmmmm this one’s reference is easy to be seen I won’t explain it, in case you can’t recognize it, key word is “T pose”)
Genesis carrying Weiss in his arms (taking reference from “Pietà” by Michelangelo)
Thanks for coming to my “Square Enix playing PPAP religion version” Ted Talk. The next part will come soon (I swear, I’m itched to write it now but it’s late)