Fall Asleep While Learning About Sephiroth
In the I Can't Sleep Podcast episode, I fell asleep while learning about Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. Known as one of the most complex and memorable antagonists in gaming history, Sephiroth's journey from a celebrated war hero to a fallen angel of destruction is both tragic and captivating. We'll explore his origins, the events that led to his descent into madness, and his impact on the Final Fantasy universe. Whether you're a long-time fan or new to the series, join us as we unravel the mystery behind the legendary One-Winged Angel. Happy sleeping!
Transcript
Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast,
Where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.
I'm your host,
Benjamin Boster.
Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled,
Sephiroth Final Fantasy.
Sephiroth is a character from the Final Fantasy video game series,
Developed by Square.
Appearing as the main antagonist of Final Fantasy VII.
A former soldier of the megacorporation Shinra,
And the co-worker of Zack Fair,
And superior of Cloud Strife,
He possesses superhuman physiology as a result of an experiment in which Shinra injected him with cells from the extraterrestrial life form,
Genova.
Upon discovering this,
Sephiroth becomes consumed by rage and decides to take control of the planet by harnessing its life force and annihilating all life on it in order to become a god amidst the destruction.
Sephiroth's background and role in the story are expanded upon in the compilation of Final Fantasy VII.
Additionally,
He appears as a guest character in other video games and media,
Such as a recurring boss in the Kingdom Hearts series,
And as a playable character in Super Smash Bros.
Ultimate.
Character designer Tetsuya Nomura conceived and designed Sephiroth as an antagonist and foil to Cloud,
As he rejects his identity in order to fulfill what he believes to be his destiny.
While Cloud reaffirms his self-worth amidst a similar crisis of identity.
In Japanese,
Sephiroth has been voiced by the character actor Toshiyuki Murakawa in the majority of his appearances.
He was voiced by Shinichiro Miki in Airgaze and Uchiro Omahara as young Sephiroth in Ever Crisis.
In English,
Sephiroth has been voiced by Lance Bass in Kingdom Hearts 2002 and by George Newborn in Kingdom Hearts 2 2005 and the compilation of Final Fantasy VII Meta Series 2004 to present.
In Final Fantasy VII Remake,
He was voiced by Tyler Hoechlin,
A role he reprises in the remastered Crysis Core Final Fantasy VII Reunion 2022,
Replacing Newborn's English performance in the original release.
Sephiroth has been well-received within the video game community and is highly ranked on many lists of the best video game villains and Final Fantasy characters,
Based on his role in the narrative and his high challenge level.
He was also the subject of analysis as a Final Fantasy villain who lost his humanity upon learning of his alien heritage.
Who lost his humanity upon learning of his alien heritage and how he attempts to corrupt Cloud by exploiting his mental weaknesses.
Sephiroth was a collaborative effort between Yoshinori Kitase,
Tetsuya Nomura,
And scenario writer Kazushige Nojima.
Kitase says back when he was designing Sephiroth,
He had villains like Darth Vader and Thanos,
Who are absolute evil powers.
All of these different characters have these different ideals about where they think the world should be and how it should change.
The conflict between them is clear in the remake,
The idea of multiple possibilities and worlds that could happen,
Which will become clear in later installments.
Looking at the villain,
He was a heroic soldier operative just like Cloud was,
More experienced,
And Sephiroth was an idol to the people.
A character like that turning evil was the kind of appeal he was going for.
Kitase believes that inspirations for Sephiroth came from a lot of different places.
Kitase further said Sephiroth is not a copy of one character,
But taking different aspects and merging them together,
Resulting in the character shown in the game.
In regards to his characterization,
The character does not see himself as an evil being,
But instead a chosen man to accomplish a goal.
Changing the world throughout his chaos will reach the promised land,
Which is the opposite of what he was meant to do.
Sephiroth was designed by Final Fantasy VII's character designer Tetsuya Nomura.
Nomura has stated that Sephiroth was made to be a contrast to the game's main protagonist,
Cloud,
Who was originally designed to have slicked back black hair.
Kitase believes Sephiroth's role in Final Fantasy VII to be one of the main reasons for the game's popularity.
His name was derived from the Kabbalah,
In which the ten Sephiroth on the Tree of Life represent the ten attributes through which God reveals himself.
His character and role as main antagonist existed from the earliest stages of development,
As originally Nomura thought that the game's plot would deal exclusively with Cloud's strife pursuing him.
His weapon,
The Masamune,
Which has been featured in numerous Final Fantasy titles,
Is an elongated nodachi that he learned to use during his days in Soldier.
The Masamune is named after the famous Japanese swordsmith Oro No Yudo Masamune,
Whose blades are considered national treasures in Japan.
When designing Cloud and Sephiroth,
Nomura was influenced by his view of their rivalry mirroring the legendary animosity between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro.
Sephiroth's look was defined as kakoi,
A Japanese term combining good looks with coolness.
Yoshitaka Amano,
Who had handled character illustrations for previous Final Fantasy titles,
Noted a contrast between Cloud,
A young,
Passionate boy,
And a young,
Passionate girl.
And Sephiroth,
A more mature and cool individual,
As intriguing,
Though not unusual as a pairing.
Nomura wanted Sephiroth to appear early on in the game and then have the plot deal with the protagonist following him,
So that gamers would not meet the final boss until extremely late in the game.
Sephiroth was initially going to be Aerith Gainsborough's sibling,
As indicated by their similar hairstyles.
Later,
However,
He was changed to Aerith's past love,
Whom she would remember upon meeting Cloud.
This character was then changed to Zack Fair,
And Sephiroth's prior relationship with Aerith was dropped.
In early drafts of the game,
Sephiroth's personality was brutal and cruel,
With a strong-willed and calm ego.
He was to suffer from Mako addiction,
Resulting in a semi-conscious state as a result of high exposure to Mako energy.
Sephiroth was also intended to manipulate Cloud into believing that he was a creation of his will.
But this aspect of the story was later abandoned.
In another cutscene,
When Sephiroth's physical body is first seen in the northern crater,
It was to be female.
Jason Greenberg,
The only artist working on the original PC port,
Recalled a crash bug that happened during Sephiroth's supernova technique.
Near the end of the development cycle,
Many team members were done with their work and helped to test the game as much as possible.
Greenberg spent nearly 24 hours playtesting battle during development.
Since his transformation into safer Sephiroth in the game's final battle,
Sephiroth has had a single black wing on his back,
Referencing his theme song,
One Winged Angel.
While in Japanese,
Toshiyuki Murakawa consistently voiced Sephiroth,
Multiple actors voiced him in English.
Lance Bass,
George Newbern,
And Tyler Hoechlin.
Nomura has called Sephiroth the ultimate antagonist in the Final Fantasy VII saga.
There can't be anyone else,
And regards him as an enemy anyone else,
And regards him as an enemy from a previous generation,
In contrast to his remnants who appear in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.
For Advent Children,
The film sequel to Final Fantasy VII,
Scriptwriter Kazushige Nojima thought that the film's plot would be less entertaining without Sephiroth.
His rival in the film was introduced in the early stages of development,
But the official decision as to how to bring him back was not reached until later.
Nomura originally planned to have him appear from the start,
But as it took the staff two years to develop his design,
The idea of his presence throughout the film was scrapped,
And it was decided instead to have him only appear on screen for a short time.
Sephiroth was designed for the film to emphasize his otherworldliness,
Such as the fact that he is never seen blinking or breathing,
And his voice is always monotone and calm.
In the film,
The staff stated that his strength had considerably increased,
To the point that he had ascended to a new level of existence.
Despite initially encountering problems as to who would voice him,
Nomura said that once Murakawa auditioned for the role,
They knew they had their actor.
Murakawa was instructed by the staff to speak all of Sephiroth's dialogue as if he felt superior to every other character in the film.
The voice director and Murakawa agreed to make Sephiroth's voice as his own,
And the agreed to make Sephiroth's voice sound calm to the point that he believes he cannot lose to Cloud,
Suggesting to Murakawa that he may reappear at some point in the future.
In the prequel,
Crisis Core,
Murakawa portrayed Sephiroth in a charismatic fashion,
As early on Sephiroth is presented as a hero.
The black wing that Sephiroth and the other Shinra experiments on Jill and Genesis show act as a sign of corruption.
For Final Fantasy VII Remake,
Yoshinori Katase wanted Sephiroth to have more scenes than in the original game,
Due to his popularity,
And compared him with the build of the film Jaws.
In the climax of the remake,
Cloud encounters Sephiroth once again,
And his swords following the fight were kept as ambiguous.
While Remake and Rebirth focus on the adult Sephiroth,
The Mobile Phone,
Ever Crisis,
And First Soldier instead focus on Sephiroth's childhood,
Where he was given a more sensitive characterization as he interacts with other characters related to Soldier.
Nomura reworked the design to fit properly,
Focusing more on his shorter hair.
Yuichiro Umehara was shocked upon being cast for Sephiroth's role in the game,
Pressured due to how Murakawa already established Sephiroth's popularity in previous installments.
He was influenced by Murakawa's presence when recording for the game,
To the point he feared Sephiroth did not sound as young as requested by the demands.
As a result,
He often talked with the director and the rest of the staff about how he should sound.
In Final Fantasy VII,
Sephiroth is the focus of two pieces of music written by series composer Nobuo Uematsu.
His primary theme is The Chosen by the Planet,
A piece utilizing bells,
Low drums,
And a deep chorus which accompanies his appearances throughout the game.
In the final battle,
Birth of a God plays while the player fights Sephiroth's first form,
Bizarro Sephiroth,
Also known as Reverse Sephiroth.
The most well-known piece is One-Winged Angel,
An angel with a wing on one side,
Which is played during the final confrontation with Sephiroth.
It contains Latin lyrics taken from sections of the Carmina Burana.
In an interview featured on G4's Game Makers,
Formerly Icons,
Uematsu revealed that the piece was designed to be a fusion of the musical styles of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and rock musician Jimi Hendrix.
The song revolves around his character,
As this was what Uematsu was thinking about when writing it.
Two official covers have been done of the song.
The first is an orchestration used in Kingdom Hearts,
Arranged by the series composer Yoko Shimomura.
The second is used in Advent Children,
Which plays throughout the battle between Cloud and Sephiroth and features the progressive metal stylings of Nobuo Uematsu's former band,
The Black Mages,
As well as orchestral elements and new lyrics.
There is also a fourth version titled Vengeance on the World,
Which plays in Crisis Core.
Sephiroth is the main antagonist in Final Fantasy VII.
It is revealed over the course of the game that Sephiroth was once the most powerful member of SOLDIER,
Shinra's elite military division,
Who was celebrated as a heroic veteran of the Shinra-Wutai war.
After the war,
Sephiroth was sent on a mission to the village of Nibelheim,
Where he discovered that he was the product of a biological experiment that combined a human fetus with tissue from the extraterrestrial life-form Jenova.
Upon discovering the truth of his origins and the experiments that created him,
Sephiroth developed an intense hatred for Shinra,
Which developed into hatred for all life.
After learning that Jenova,
Who he comes to consider his mother,
Attempted to take control of the planet 2,
000 years ago,
He decided to follow in her footsteps and become a god who would rule over the planet.
His plan to become a god is based upon his belief that he can merge with the planet's lifestream,
Taking control of it and the planet itself.
Sephiroth makes several cameo appearances in the Final Fantasy VII prequel,
Before Crisis,
In which he supports Shinra in their battle against the eco-terrorist organization Avalanche.
The Nibelheim incident is also featured in the game.
The OVA Last Order also depicts the Nibelheim incident.
Sephiroth also appears in Advent Children,
A CGI film set two years after Final Fantasy VII.
In the film,
Kadaj,
Laz and Yazoo,
His remnants,
Try to reincarnate him.
Although Kadaj eventually succeeds,
Cloud once again defeats Sephiroth,
Whose body changes back to Kadaj's upon his defeat.
Sephiroth is also the focus of the On the Way to a Smile novella,
Case of the lifestream,
Black and White.
The story is set after the end of Final Fantasy VII,
But prior to the events of Advent Children,
And centers on Aerith and Sephiroth's journey through the lifestream,
And Sephiroth's creation of Geostigma,
A disease that infects anyone who came into contact with the tainted lifestream.
He is mentioned in Dirge of Cerberus,
A game set one year after Advent Children,
In which his biological mother,
Lucretia Crescent,
Discusses the experiments which gave birth to him.
He is one of the main characters in the Final Fantasy VII prequel,
Crisis Core,
In which he and protagonist Zack Fair search for two missing soldiers,
Genesis Rapsidos and Angeal Hewley.
This game also depicts the Nibelheim incident where Sephiroth appears as a boss.
Executive producer Yoshinori Kitase was pleased with Sephiroth's role in Crisis Core,
Feeling that he was given a more human side.
Sephiroth appears in Final Fantasy VII Remake as the main antagonist.
While his role as a presumed dead Shinra soldier retained similar,
Sephiroth now appears into the early hours in the game as an illusion to taunt Cloud and warn him to leave the planet.
He also projects himself as a Sephiroth clone named Marco.
In the final hours,
Sephiroth appears in the Shinra building.
After the group escapes Shinra's troops,
Sephiroth awaits them at the end of the Midgar Expressway,
Where he acts as the final boss.
Defeated,
Sephiroth spares Cloud and gives him seven seconds until the end,
Before disappearing,
Leaving behind only a fallen black feather.
In Final Fantasy VII Rebirth,
Sephiroth appears as a playable character and party member in the game's first chapter,
Fall of a Hero,
Which depicts their survey for the new world.
Which depicts their survey for the Nibelheim's reactor and his villainous origins with the infamous Nibelheim incident.
In the present time,
Sephiroth taunts Cloud again with illusions.
He is then pursued by Cloud and the party,
Where they encounter Sephiroth clones as well.
Sephiroth later manipulates Cloud into giving him the black materia to summon Meteor.
When Aerith attempts to stop him by summoning Cloud into an alternate reality,
Sephiroth appears behind and swiftly kills her,
Prompting the party to avenge her.
However,
Sephiroth transforms as Sephiroth Reborn,
And upon defeat flees in the northern regions.
Sephiroth's first appearance outside Final Fantasy VII was as a selectable character in the fighting game Air Guides.
A redesigned Sephiroth also appears in the North American and European versions of Kingdom Hearts as an optional boss character in Olympus Coliseum.
Lance Bass voiced Sephiroth in the game,
While in subsequent titles he was replaced by George Newbern.
In the Japanese release of the game,
Final Mix,
An additional scene was added in which Sephiroth fights Cloud,
Although the result of the fight is not revealed.
Sephiroth was not included in the sequel Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories,
As director Tetsuya Nomura could not give him a storyline related to Cloud,
And feared negative fan response if Sephiroth did not have a notable role in the game.
He reappears as an optional boss in Kingdom Hearts 2,
Where he is first encountered by the series' protagonist Sora,
And then Cloud,
Who is pursuing him.
When Sephiroth battles Cloud,
Both of them disappear,
With Sora believing that they went somewhere else to continue their fight.
Nomura said that in the game Sephiroth represents Cloud's dark side,
In contrast to Tifa Lockhart,
Who represents his light side.
Although Sephiroth does not appear in the prequel Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep,
He is mentioned as a hero that Zac Fair aspires to be.
The staff,
However,
Did not know if they would portray him as a being of darkness,
Like he was depicted as in other titles.
Due to Sephiroth's many appearances as a boss in the Kingdom Hearts series,
Square Enix decided he would not return in Kingdom Hearts 3,
As it would be redundant.
Sephiroth also appears in the Itadaki Street Games special and portable,
As an unlockable playable character.
Sephiroth was also the representative villain of Final Fantasy VII in Dissidia,
And is featured in his Final Fantasy VII guise,
While an alternative outfit features his safer Sephiroth form.
His fight against Cloud in the game was based on their fights from Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children.
Along with the rest of the seven characters in Dissidia,
Sephiroth appears in the prequel Dissidia 012.
The game includes a slightly altered Final Fantasy VII form for Sephiroth,
As well as his Kingdom Hearts form.
Sephiroth returns as a playable character opposite Cloud in the third entry,
Dissidia NT.
His form from Final Fantasy VII Remake also appeared in Final Fantasy Brave.
His form from Final Fantasy VII Remake also appeared in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius.
He is featured in the rhythm game Theatrism Final Fantasy,
And its sequel Curtain Call,
As an unlockable character representing Final Fantasy VII.
He appears in the puzzle platform game LittleBigPlanet,
And its sequel as a character model.
Media Molecule's Alex Evans felt honored that Sephiroth was allowed to appear in the games.
He also appeared as a cameo in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate as a weapon,
Which was designed as a single black wing,
Representing Sephiroth's appearance during the final battle of Final Fantasy VII.
Sephiroth was included as a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros.
Ultimate as the third fighter in Fighters Pass Vol.
2.
Despite being officially released on December 22,
2020,
He was made available five days prior for a limited time by an event called the Sephiroth Challenge,
In which the player must defeat him in a Final Fantasy-themed stamina match.
4.7 (18)
Recent Reviews
Sandy
September 16, 2024
Very educational. Very boring. Didn't learn a thing. Slept well.
Beth
September 16, 2024
I have no clue what this was about because I was asleep in minutes! 😂 Thank you!! 😊 😊