Sephiroth

Sephiroth is the main antagonist from the Final Fantasy VII games.

Sephiroth is depicted as Cloud Strife's archenemy, and is seen as a symbol of Cloud's troubled past that haunts him. Sephiroth is a former renowned SOLDIER, who became twisted.

Before his fall from grace, Sephiroth was one of the most lauded success stories of the Shinra Electric Power Company's SOLDIER program. His successes in the field of battle during the conflicts surrounding Shinra's bid for global domination led to his status as a celebrity war hero and the poster boy for both the Shinra Military and the company's SOLDIER program. Learning of his true origins drove him insane, causing him to be driven by a desire to destroy the world.

Sephiroth is briefly a party member during a flashback, and is both the penultimate and final boss.

Appearance
Sephiroth is a tall man with a muscular build. He wears a long black coat with silver pauldrons, black boots and black trousers. The top of his coat is open to reveal his chest, with his leather SOLDIER suspenders crossed over it. Sephiroth's long silver hair has bangs parted to either side of his face. In Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-, the bangs are shorter. Sephiroth has green cat-like eyes and wields the Masamune, a seven-foot long katana he is rarely seen without. His battle stance with the sword is to hold it over his left shoulder with the blade curving downward, known in the Japanese sword stance as Te Ura Gasumi No Kamae, which is primarily used in Ninjitsu and Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū, the latter of which is one of the oldest extant martial arts.

Sephiroth usually wields the Masamune two-handed, in later appearances a single black wing emerges from his right shoulder. Sephiroth is left-handed, but has been depicted wielding his sword in his right hand in many pieces of art and merchandise.

In the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth's uniform remains the same as in Final Fantasy VII, but his coat has several buckles instead of just one, and the original SOLDIER logo in his belt is replaced with the redesigned version for the Compilation.

In the Kingdom Hearts series, Sephiroth retains his core design of silver hair and a black coat, but his clothing is given red linings and is of different shape. His sleeves have small red wings, and he bears a dark blue and black wing over his right shoulder. He bears two additional wings underneath his coat in Kingdom Hearts II, acting as a subtle reference to his boss form from Final Fantasy VII. Unlike his other appearances, Sephiroth has blue eyes, and other characters comment he looks like Cloud, as the Kingdom Hearts incarnation is implied to be an embodiment of Cloud's inner darkness.

In Dissidia Final Fantasy, Sephiroth's design in his base outfit is similar to his Final Fantasy VII design, but his pauldrons are changed to resemble Yoshitaka Amano's artwork of him, and his coat is closed by a belt as in Tetsuya Nomura's design. Beneath his coat are two white sashes with lavender on the edges, a reference to both Amano's artwork of Sephiroth and his wings as Safer∙Sephiroth.

Personality
Prior to his madness, as shown in Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-, Sephiroth maintains an outwardly professional demeanor during his time at Shinra. While his cold exterior and professional attitude turn people away, he is not anti-social, as he values his friendship with his only friends Angeal Hewleyand Genesis Rhapsodos and willingly tells Zack and Tifa about Mako and Materia on Mt. Nibel. He can act more humane and caring than his reputation would suggest, disobeying orders due to conflict of interest if it would impact his friends, and offering his blood for a transfusion to help Genesis when he was injured.

Sephiroth is intelligent and respects those he deems worthy—he considers Professor Gast Faremis a great scientist, but scorns Professor Hojo. Well-spoken and graceful, Sephiroth is calm, collected, and in control, and has a dry sense of humor. Rarely, he can be frustrated and caught off-guard. As the strongest SOLDIER alive, Sephiroth is confident to the point of arrogance, yet has no interest in personal glory, as he tells Genesis, who envies Sephiroth's reputation, that he can have it.

Following his fall into insanity, Sephiroth retains most of his personality traits, but becomes murderous, ruthless and vengeful. He develops a messiah complex, proclaiming to be "the chosen one" destined to lead the Planet. He becomes sadistic and enjoys mentally torturing Cloud. Sephiroth is devoted to Jenova and its cause, even though its body serves as little more than his avatar. He has become an agent carrying out Jenova's will.[8]

In Dissidia Final Fantasy Cecil Harvey notes sorrow in Sephiroth's eyes. In the PlayStation Portable Dissidiagames, when he is defeated, Sephiroth calmly remarks, "I'll fall into the shadows," implying he either accepts defeat, or does not care. When he is defeated by the Warrior of Light, he asks if the Warrior participates in the war because he enjoys battle, implying Sephiroth himself enjoys it. This is reinforced in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy when Kefka mentions that Sephiroth was made for combat. He is willing to work alongside his nemesis when necessary, as showcased in Dissidia Final Fantasy NT.

In the Japanese releases, Sephiroth uses the pronoun ore prior to his insanity, a common masculine pronoun used by confident males. Following the Nibelheim Incident, he begins to use watashi instead, a more formal pronoun that is genderless in formal context, likely because he now sees himself as superior to everyone else. This post-madness mannerism carries into his spin-off appearances, such as Dissidia Final Fantasy.

Abilities
The full extent of Sephiroth's abilities is unknown. The official book Reunion Filesstates that the Sephiroth seen in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children has "ascended to a new level of existence" and is stronger than before. Though Cloud and others have battled him competently, it is implied that in most of these fights Sephiroth was not fighting at his full potential, his power being somehow limited or he was holding back.

Even prior to the Nibelheim Incident, Sephiroth's superhuman physical abilities and fighting prowess marked him the greatest fighter produced by Shinra. An immensely skilled swordsman, Sephiroth is the only one deemed capable of using the Masamune proficiently. He is also fully capable of fighting hand-to-hand. In his boss battle in Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- he can teleport. One of his trademark abilities is to summon angels to drain his opponent's health. Sephiroth can cast powerful blades of energy by swinging the Masamune. In Dissidia Sephiroth has more energy-oriented powers: he can empower his blade, generate shields and bursts of energy, and even slow down time for his opponents.

Though preferring swordsmanship, Sephiroth was proficient in magic even before his immersion in the Lifestream. After absorbing the knowledge of the Ancients, he no longer needs Materia to use magic. After gaining the Black Materia, he can use the most devastating destructive magic of all: Meteor. His special attack is Supernova, which has been described as his Limit Break.

Sephiroth had great resilience even before his ascension to something of an immortal being. Even after his physical body is destroyed, his will persists. Having gained control over Jenova's cells, he can construct avatars in his likeness, as well as other eldritch entities, enabling him a physical presence in the world of the living and attaining a sort of immortality. He can remotely control Jenova cells inside living organisms, control the thoughts and actions of those injected with her cells, and in severe cases can outright puppeteer their bodies. His ability to project his will through these avatars is limited, but is compounded by the subject's willpower (or lack thereof), and intensifies over shorter distances, being strongest at the Northern Crater (the site of his physical body).

Being immersed in the Lifestream has granted Sephiroth psychic powers, allowing him to read others' minds, making him adept at emotional manipulation, preying on his foes' dark emotions. He can project illusions and levitate objects and even people, float even without his wing, and can summon the Masamune at will. He can erect an impenetrable energy barrier to cover a entire crater.

Trivia

 * According to a Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- fan letter mailed to Zack, Sephiroth uses an entire bottle of both shampoo and conditioner to wash his hair. Both are provided by the Shinra Company and are scented with thirteen kinds of perfumes.


 * During the scene at the end Part I of Final Fantasy VII, when Sephiroth is descending from the ceiling, his hands are bare. However, in the rest of the scene, he has gloves on.
 * Despite stating that Professor Hojo is a walking mass of complexes, Sephiroth himself (at least after his downfall into insanity) fits that description. Sephiroth has a messiah complex, a god complex, and arguably has an Oedipus complex, as he detests his father and, to some extent, worships his "mother" Jenova.
 * His statement about not having a hometown when arriving at Nibelheim can be considered ironic, as Sephiroth was born in Nibelheim.
 * In Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-, a Sephiroth fangirl in Midgar mentions she would "love to see him stripped to the waist", a reference to how he appears during the final scripted battle in Final Fantasy VII.