Blather, rinse, repeat

I actually never felt that Cloud had any pity for him. In fact, one thing that annoyed me about Cloud is that he never seemed to acknowledge victimization outside of himself.

Oh, but he was the only one who did! He calls Hojo out on his crime against Sephiroth. It seemed to me then that he got it, when everyone else missed it. That is one of my favorite lines in the game. :)

Aside from in the original, he says in AC that he pities him, too. He says it heatedly, during their fight, but I still believe it. ;)

I never really saw him as particularly bitter or sneering towards Cloud, only concerned with him to the extent that he was useful... But he's kind of obsessed with the poor boy in the compilation in a way that is probably-not-entirely-accidental-but-bordering homoerotic!

Oh, I was actually thinking about AC when I wrote that rather than the original. He sneers his name through the whole thing. "Kuraudo." Like a little bitch. Actually he seemed a little sneery in the scene in the library too, now that I think of it, in the original. Although, perhaps more "out of his frigging mind" than "sneery." :)

Yeah, you know I'm not sure how much yaoi fanservice pandering Squeenix was doing, but Sephiroth does seem pretty obsessed with Cloud in AC. It's not only about him "sailing the universe with the Planet as his vessel" etc. blah blah, which actually seemed a little halfhearted TBH, but rather something personal. As if he came back for Cloud, and not for his "goal."

I love me some Aeris. I don't think I have anything to say about her that isn't gushing, though, so I'll just say I am pleased that you are in agreement. =)

You can gush; I won't mind. :)

I'm going to continue your other comment here and maybe I won't run over. ;)

I don't necessarily agree that he was the weakest of the lot... I think that's putting it in too uncertain terms.

Who would you think was the weakest? In terms of major characters I mean.

I have always felt that Aeris wasn't the tragedy of the game: she was its victory and perhaps even the true hero. Cloud has a huge journey and, yeah, he is the hero, but her journey is so much more expansive (she dies,) and without her, there would be nothing left anyway.

Sephiroth's journey is nihilistic: he learns nothing, he gains nothing. But in that it could have been prevented had he the strength and the emotional and mental resources to go down a different road, that, to me, is the real tragedy of the game. Because in all, it is not a happy story.

(Tangentially, my favorite character journey outside of Cloud's is Reeve's. God I love that character and I wish he'd had more time in the series.)

When you're raised by the military and you never get to do anything else, what are your options when they betray you? What can you really do with yourself when your entire life is a lie? I guess I can see what you mean by "weakness," but then it's hard to say whether or not he ever had the building blocks he needed to develop the strength to keep going and keep hope after a blow like that.

Yeah, totally! I think we agree on that for sure.

fftarot has a drabble on him under "The Magician" and it's probably one of the most interesting and thought-provoking pieces on his character that I've ever read.

That was fantastic; I read quite a few of those. Very nice! Thank you for the link. :)