Final Fantasy VII: Sephiroth

[branchandroot]

I don't think he went insane the way people normally mean it.

From the little we can see he seems to have managed to deal with the rest of the world, or at least the rest of the Shinra army, pretty well. The banter over the mission, the chatting and questions about hometowns, that wasn't cold or distant. He's cold and distant with civilians, but much more at ease with the soldiers. Not just Zack, but Cloud as well, who was in full withdrawal-mode himself.

So I don't think he was suffering from isolation to the extent a lot of writers assume. He had a place to belong, even if it was a limited place.

What I don't think he had was any answers about his origins. He had to know there was something unusual about it, given how much more altered he is than the average SOLDIER. But the only thing he was told seems to be that his mother died giving birth and her name was Jenova.

So, as he says, he knows he's different. He's managed to find a niche, but has this constant mystery at the back of his mind about how he came to be. And then there's Nibelheim.

He gets one shock in the form of the monsters at the reactor. He thinks, then, that he might have found the answer, that he might be an experiment like them, kin to their monstrosity and victimization. So he goes looking for more information, at the associated research facility, the mansion.

There he finds a different answer, that he is Cetra. The victim, yes, but of treachery not of abuse.

What I think makes him snap is actually relief.

He has an answer, and it fits, and it gives him a purpose. If he's the inheritor of the Cetra, then his purpose is not merely to be the toy of Hojo and Shinra, but to be the avenger of his race. Finally, after thirty years of nagging uncertainty, he is certain. I can definitely see how that would catapult him into a sort of mania--euphoria at having an answer, a place, and rage at the wicked, treacherous humans.

Because I think that's the other part of it. Finally, he has a solid reason to be enraged with Hojo and the researchers who, given Hojo, probably treated him as a specimen; with Shinra and the President who treat him as a security blanket, treasured but still jerking him around; with, in fact, absolutely everyone who made him feel uncertain and different purely because they were not like him.

Those two consecutive shocks seem to have brought all of Sephiroth's uncertainties and instabilities roaring up from the back of his mind where he managed to stuff them while he was busy becoming a successful and respected SOLDIER. And he's given the perfect excuse to express them, to lash out, to spend his anger and stretch his abilities, not for anyone else but just for himself.

Really, it makes sense that he went berserk.

And then, of course, he wound up in the Lifestream and merged with Jenova and figured out what he really was, and ran with it. At that point, I suspect that Jenova's biological instincts came into play and nudged the agenda toward destruction, but the basic idea was still the same. To be what he was. To live out the destiny of his blood (or, in this case, genes). After a lifetime of not having known what he was, I wouldn't call his reaction insane precisely; there's a lot of logic in it.

Psychotic, but not insane.

Incidentally, the logic in question is a lot more logical if you understand the phenomenal importance Japanese culture places on blood. Your blood is your destiny. If you've ever watched anime and wondered what on earth all those adopted kids were angsting over so hard, this was it--if you don't know where your real blood comes from, you don't know who you are. Moreover, if you are not of your parents' blood, then, no matter how much you love each other, you are not theirs and you are not part of them. Read through this lens, Sephiroth's insecurity and freaking out make a lot more sense.