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charismastaticarchive · 4 years

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ok here’s a BRIEF. brief meta about sephiroth vs ardyn izunia representing how the queercoding in final fantasy has changed between ff7 and ff15 and how the remake could ACTUALLY fix some problematic themeatic elements of sephiroth (markedly, anti-semitism and transphobia thru symbols like jenova & the death of aerith)

this is discourse. this is solely discourse. some people may read this and think i am reaching. this is genuinely what i believe tho. i do not hate anybody that disagrees with me. i do not hate anybody who likes ff7. i also like ff7. this is just how i feel given my understanding of cultural and themeatic analysis. please do not read this if u are going to yell at me or hate me lol. this is my blog tho and i’m going to put my opinions out there....

note: i dont actually go into the anti-semitism too much that’s not my area of expertise i’m more knowledgeable about queercoding.

okay to start with. sephiroth is literally the same character as psycho’s norman bates. an obsession with their mother (a being that the rest of the game refers to as non-gendered whose genitals are notably covered in a flex that is admittedly problematic all on its own), that culminates with his mother ‘taking over’ their mind & body and sephiroth trying become a god and MURDER a ‘cis woman’ who has become the most iconic symbol of final fantasy church girl prayer-hands purity and innocence. even more damningly, this biohacked false god / false woman sephiroth has the audacity to go against the lifestream / the symbol of womanhood and NATURE by ‘transitioning’ into a new body. and of course, they want to blow up the world in the process to appease their mother. basically this game is a very reactionary fear to the concept of ‘biohacking’. the only thing worse than the government experimenting on human beings? trans women transitioning---in the narrative of the game’s eyes, ‘experimenting on themselves and going against nature.’ by making sephiroth the big bad of the game instead of shinra, they say that the ultimate evil of unethical technology and a cyberpunk dystopia, is basically trans people.

add TO THAT that even just the name sephiroth is from jewish kabbala and sephiroth is portrayed as a manmade god that u are supposed to destroy instead of a true god... like it just. it’s not great. it’s not a great look.

in their defense. the original game came out in 1992.

the last numbered final fantasy game to come out (not including kingdom hearts which has its own brand of racism and queercoding that it has to work out lmfao) was final fantasy xv.

for all final fantasy xv’s faults, it ALSO had a queercoded villain dripping in religious symbolism. (they all do. its final fantasy lol.) but THIS time, despite ardyn still looking just as if not moreso predatory than sephiroth. ardyn is given a FULL DLC BACKSTORY.

the difference between sephiroth and ardyn is basically that. ardyn in the dlc, where he is meant to be portrayed sympathetically, starts out as a queercoded character. he has basically the same design, except his hair is now in a ponytail, and he wears all white. he starts out as a healer---not a stereotypically masculine role, like a soldier. his hair is still fuckin pink. he wants to heal the whole world, and he absorbs the plague. he thinks he is healing people---instead he is just taking on their illness. (and i have done whole metas about how the plague was viewed as a punishment against humanity for going against god and how that could ALSO be a metaphor for queerness. there’s also a queerness to taking on other people’s disease in my opinion that reads like a metaphor for penetration.) in his inability to actually heal the world (or his failure in a traditionally female role) and his inability to take a decision and excute people with the plague like his more masculine, violent short-haired armor-wearing brother, he is chosen by the gods to be the bearer of the plague, spread it all over the world, and renew the world when the plague dies with him when the chosen male heir of his brother’s long line of heterosexuals kills ardyn. ardyn is rejected from heterosexual maleness by the gods in his own minds if he tries to go against this fate, his girlfriend literally pushing him out of heaven.

but he’s viewed as sympathetic. tortured. unlike sephiroth, who is portrayed as mostly just insane, ardyn is coded not just as monstrous, violent and predatory, but because of the plague metaphor, he is basically explicitly deemed ‘sick.’ and ardyn gets time shown where he is ‘holy’. notably, the game uses christian imagery to describe a kind of ‘sacrifice’ of his brother trying to imprison him in a tomb because he cannot die, and then ardyn waking up from the cusp of death to. technically bring salvation to the people of eos (by first infecting them with plague and bringing about eternal night, but hey, the rapture only comes after the world is destroyed, right).

there is something to be said about the sympathetic christian imagery and ‘holiness’ / ‘goodness’ of ardyn’s sacrifice and pain vs the antisemitism of sephiroth as a false god. but ardyn’s queercoding starts at the very beginning of his story. meanwhile---we don’t really get to SEE the beginning of sephiroth’s story. we get to see cloud’s story. and zack’s. and we kind of get like a whole story about like lol vincent for some reason lmfao

but we never get to see sephiroth experience signs of lgbt-ness at The Start Of His Story, where he is still viewed as sympathetic and wholly good and wholly tragic at the same time.

this is where the remake comes in.

i believe the remake can make sephiroth more than a predatory trans/queer coded character. i think they can fix this by making sure 1) sephiroth doesn’t kill aerith, thereby eliminating the trans woman vs nature AND trans woman vs poor defenseless cis girl narrative (i play aerith as trans and jewish but thats not technically canon even tho it should be lol)

2) instead of sephiroth having an UNHEALTHY relationship with womanhood through an alien creature representing inhumanity, sephiroth has a healthy relationship with a jewish-coded goddess-like human woman that they COULD’VE GROWN UP WITH AND BEEN FRIENDS WITH AS A CHILD WHILE THEY WERE BOTH CAPTURED BY SHINRA, and through their friendship and relationship with her both as someone they experience the same trauma AND as someone who seems to understand time travel the same way as, we see their backstory and bond grow and sephiroth stops being obsessed with a canonly cishet man (cloud) and starts having a healthy loving relationship with their planet-protecting peers where sephiroth can start to represent a holy relationship with loving themself and the planet the same way aerith does. and it can be very jewish for bonus points bc i cannot get over the way that sephiroth is considered a false god / only a half angel and happens to be named that. that’s fucked up.

ok thanks for coming to my ted talk sorry for the discourse on main

#{ ooc: hc }#ff7r spoilers #ooc #i feel dumb posting this but its just like HOW I FEEL!!!! I JUST FEEL THIS WAY #I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYBODY ELSE TALK ABOUT IT BEFORE BESIDES LEA WHO I LOVE AND STAN WITH ALL MY HEART #transphobia tw #transmisogyny tw

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