Just a thought...

[JET73L]

The Midgar company is evil. (destroying the life of the planet)

Sephiroth is enemical against the company (not against humans, he's following Jenova's will for that).

Cloud is vengeful torwards Sephiroth (for destroying his life, or at least thinking so).

Which is more evil? Cloud is coinsidered "good" because he's the main character. What does he actually do that is at all for an actual, good, non-personal cause, besides work for AVALANCHE? He may not be considered evil, but he is at most a protagonist, not a hero except by coincidence. He set out to kill Sephiroth, and in doing so ended up saving the world. If you played like a FFVII-2, as Sephiroth's girlfriend trying to rescue him or something, Cloud would totally be considered evil for that game. I see no reason why he should really be considered a "good" guy and Sephiroth "evil."

Just something I thought of while posting on the Mosty Evil FF Villain thread. Not picking a fight with Cloud fans.

[Terminal Est]

The relativity of good and evil presented within this game has always impressed me, to say the least. Of course, the strings are set up so that most people's reasoning of the matter will make for Cloud as good 9His breakup from Shinra and rebelling against them.) and Sephiroth as evil, (Killing Aerith, and even trite examples such as his Super Nova attack.) but upon reflecting the matter as you've done for example, we see that, indeed, it goes deeper then the fanboy base would like to argue.

I believe most people like Sephiroth not because of the pain he has endured at realizing that he was nothing but an experiment, but because he has cool hair and a giant katana. *Sigh.*

Sephiroth is convinced that the humans have stolen what was rightfully his, and I have always though of Cloud as a heartless bastard for knowing this, and not caring, weather he believes it or not.

I personally believe that Jenova is a non-sentient being whom devours planets (Like Edgar Allen Poe's Cthulhu.), and that everyone in the game becomes a pawn of its machinations after Hojo digs it up from the Northern Crater. The Cetra knew that much, which is why they had sealed it, but when looking at the events in this way, one cannot fail to grasp the relativity of alignment, and even more so, the futility of the characters in the game with their attempts to justify their reasons.

They are all personal, and Cloud is a testament to such, as is Vincent.

Sephiroth will, most folks believe, destroy all obstacles for his principles, which seem almost stronger then his actual desire.

I cannot say whom is more evil, Cloud or Sephiroth...one is delusional, the other is selfish...those are much more concrete in attributes, and define quite a lot more the motivation for action then the concept of good and evil labeled to both of them by the onlookers.

[VITG]

Sephiroth tried to summon meteor so that he could become the God of the planet and would've subsequently wiped all the humans out for killing his mother eons before. How can he not be evil? Yeah he was brainwashed by the ultimate villain of the piece, JENOVA, but it doesn't change that he did some pretty horrendous things.

[Terminal Est]

If he was brainwashed as we believe, then he is not responsible, or conscious, of his actions. Neither is Cloud and company, as in the end, they had done everything set out by Jenova for them to do. And so, this entire machination was played out by a non sentient being that was just hungry.

Once again, the relativity stands out.

And if I am completely wrong, and Sephiroth is conscious and responsible for everything, as was my understanding the first time I had finished the game, then might we not argue that Sephiroth's actions were induced by the ''evil'' of other people, like the Shinra? (Before he figured out all that stuff about being an experiment, he was a good person. He had went ''insane'' and delusional, more then evil, whatever the true scenario may suggest.)

Of course, that does not, either way, change what he had attempted to do...which is why this sort of pondering never seems to work; people concentrate on the direct actions, as opposed to the root of the problem.
I like this game for the many reflections it seems to have upon real society with its concepts, and for presenting a rather legitimate example of the ''Weed effect''.

[Miss Lockheart]

I absolutely agree. The intriguing thing about this game, that really makes it stand out, is that ambiguity between who is really good and who is really evil. Cloud himself admits this, (spoiler, sorry) when near the end he discusses it with Barret, and they agree that is is "cool" to say they are saving the planet, but really they have their own selfish reasons for wanting to defeat Sephiroth.

It's funny you should mention Vincent, Terminal est. I've been thinking about his role for quite a while, especially after playing DoC. Wow they made that complicated! It's really unclear how much Hojo and Lucrecia actually experimented on him (I now seriously believe L was the worst for that), and he always wrestles with himself over whom to blame for those circumstances. He obviously finds it easy to blame Hojo, since he "lurves" L so much. And of course, he blames himself for apparently standing back and watching them two have a baby and offer it to science, creating Sephiroth. Idiot, they would have done it even if he'd had a screaming fit about it!

As for Cloud and Sephiroth, I think we are supposed to pity them both. Sephiroth for his tragig life and delusion, and Cloud for his weakness, the way he runs away in his own mind, he even tries to be someone else for a long time! Imagine stealing someone else's memories and making them your own!

[Terminal Est]

I wonder...Vincent's love for Lucrecia pretty much overshadowed any information about her (Which we only really ever get to learn about in the waterfall.) so therefore, you are right, we do not know much about her, or her role in the whole scheme. She must have been willing, I presume, to have her womb injected with the cells, but nothing says that she was resisting either.

From what I know of Hojo, and, for example, how he had attempted to force Nanaki and Aerith to mate, I had always imagined that he oppressed the actions on her...

Damn it, now I wonder about that. :/

[Miss Lockheart]

I know what you mean. In DoC lots of the story about Lucrecia is from Vincent's memories, but I get the impression that she is rather unstable and confused, she says to Vincent that she agrees to the experiment because she is "doing it for herself", which doesn't seem quite right. I wondered how she actually felt about Vincent, because she talks about him in relevance to his father Grimoire, saying that Vincent "has his eyes". She was also really upset about Grimoire's death, which may have contributed to her being quite erratic in her behaviour. It also seemed to me like she wanted to get back at Vincent for some reason, it doesn't make much sense. But he just stood there and let it happen, he couldn't bring himself to object to her. I think that to an extent she was manipulated by Hojo, of course more for his thirst for experiments than anything else (and he did have a lot of those). It would be easy to do so when she was so unstable.

Hee hee I know what you mean, I always end up analysing storylines like this, but for me that is the magnetism of Final Fantasy! Hmm I wonder why they chose to only give a small amount of the FFVII storyline to Lucrecia when she is Sephiroth's mother, maybe they wanted to concentrate on the whole Jenova thing, it being Sephiroth's "mother".