Wednesday 4 October 2023

Part 3 – some conclusions and a note on the Japanese context

(For those who have not read the introductory post, you will find a series of disclaimers and content warnings there. I encourage you to read to those first if you are concerned about thorny topics).

If there is no chosen one in the world of FF7, nor is there a chosen one here in the real world – at least, as I understand the message of the game’s writers. To repeat what we said above, FF7 seems to dramatize many of the ideas encapsulated in Friedrich Nietzsche’s diagnosis of monotheistic religions and their secular offshoots. Messianism appears in the most desperate times, among the most desperate, vulnerable people. It expresses the bitter frustration of the powerless: Sephiroth cannot rectify the past injustices of the human race against the ancients, nor those of Shinra and Professor Hojo against him and his real mother. The storyline of Dyne is a microcosm of FF7s story as a whole:  powerless to bring back his dead wife or ruined hometown, Dyne turns to murderous and ultimately suicidal nihilism “Why? […] because I want to destroy everything”. This is Dyne’s outlet for his ressentiment, it is the only way of exerting his will in a world he is otherwise unable to change. This is true even to the point where he is willing to murder his own daughter and best friend rather than tolerate the world that has been created by Shinra’s corporate greed. In a way, Dyne is simply an honest representation of what both Barret’s and Sephiroth’s mentality really amounts to: if self-destruction is the only outlet available through which a person can act upon the world, or attain meaning and agency, that is the one they will take. To take one of Nietzsche’s most famous quotes out of context, ‘man would rather will nothingness than not will’.[1]

Do I think FF7 is somehow a Nietzschean game, though? Not exactly.

It is hard to find any direct connection between this Nietzschean line of interpretation and any interview comments from the main story writers, Kitase, Nomura or Nojima. In particular, Nomura, who designed Sephiroth, and came up with the story idea in which characters chase after the villain, mentions only that his physical appearance and his relationship to Cloud being inspired by the historical figures of Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamoto Musashi, (Sephiroth being the latter).[2] We might not be totally surprised by Nietzschean themes given the developers and other personalities associated with this game, and their history of inserting such references and messages into other similar games of this period. For instance, one of the ideas pitched for FF7 (which was rejected and later became Xenogears) was written by Soraya Saga and Tetsuya Takahashi – two writers whose games are full of Nietzsche references (Look at the Xenosaga episode I and II subtitles, for instance).[3] Another figure worth mentioning in Masato Kato, who wrote large chunks of Chrono Trigger, was the director on Radical Dreamers and later Chrono Cross – a veritable existentialist nightmare of a game -  and also wrote much of the dialogue in many of FFVII’s key story scenes.[4] Of course, none of this contextual proves anything about the game meaning or its developers intentions, given the lack of explicit references to religious thought or German philosophy – our only leads here are the character names Sephiroth and Heidegger (the latter being a topic for another essay unto itself). Indeed, one should probably be grateful that the writers of FF7 chose not to fill the game with unsubtle references to German philosophers and esoteric religions, as so many other games from the JRPG genre seem to, even today.

Perhaps more interesting is the disquiet that seems to be expressed in a great deal of Japanese media, from around the nineties, concerning messianism as a cultural import of the West. This essay has sought to show how this unease is expressed in respect of Final Fantasy 7, but there are many other games, films, and television series in which this ambivalence seems to be found. This output is not simply dismissive about messianism, but rather ambivalent about it: messianism is something powerful, but destructive; it is like a foreign body (a machine, a virus, a sperm, or indeed, Jenova cells) that cannot be removed or expelled. It is here to stay. Here I list a few examples.

The most obvious and well known outside Japan is perhaps Neon Genesis Evangelion, which contains an extensive number of explicit references to both Kabbalah and Nietzsche, both in its visual symbolism and in its dialogue. The manga/anime Berserk features a great deal of similarity with FF7, particularly in the androgynous design of its antagonist, and their bloody ascent to godhood. The anime/hentai Urotsukidoji features a messianic prophecy of a chosen one who will restore the world to its original balance by becoming united in sexual congress with a human woman. In the event, the chosen one renews the world by destroying it, reducing cities to rubble, inflicting extreme sexual violence and spectacular death on its inhabitants (the series is an infamous and early example of the tentacle-rape genre). Finally, the masterpiece Tetsuo the Iron Man (the only media mentioned here I can actually recommend beside FF7) features a man who runs over an innocent bystander, and whose girlfriend persuades him to run from the scene. Tetsuo’s guilt is then personified by a character named the fetishist, who slowly destroys his relationship with his girlfriend – and with himself – by physically fusing with him, turning him slowly and painfully into a machine. The film closes in a way which ought to remind us of the long Nietzsche quote early in this essay, and with words which we can easily imagine a more sweary Sephiroth saying to Cloud. As the new, two headed being blasts-off triumphantly to the strains of Chu Ishikawa’s ‘Megatron’, the fetishist declares to Tetsuo: ‘our love can destroy this whole fucking world’.

Notes

[1] Friedrich Nietzsche The Genealogy of Morals in Basic Writings of Nietzsche trans & ed Walter Kaufmann (Modern Library 2000) 599.

[3] https://www.siliconera.com/soraya-saga-on-xenogears-and-xenosaga/

Saturday 23 September 2023

Part 2: Illusion, Persecution and "Ressentiment"

(For those who have not read the introduction, you will find a series of disclaimers and content warnings t/here. I encourage you to read to those first since there are plenty of thorny/adult topics covered in this part.)

Jenova and Jehova, giving and receiving, and the symbolic rape of Cloud

The name “Jenova” requires only a small amount of imagination for the player with some religious education to decode. One can read it is a cross between Jehovah (the anglicised pronunciation of “Yahweh”) and “nova” (i.e. “new”), meaning “new god”. Of course, this fits easily with the idea of an otherworldly being arriving to take over the planet and thus, has this obvious, superficial meaning. Alternatively, however, Jenova’s name can be decoded as je-NO-va, as in, god of “no”, “god of negation”, or something similar. This can be connected with the Kabbalistic negative theology discussed above, in which God, ein sof is believed to lack any humanly definable characteristics.

This latter reading is supported by some of the dialogue in the game. During the Kalm flashback, we learn from Sephiroth that Jenova ‘was found in a 2000 year old geological stratum. Since there is nothing in-game to suggest what year it is in the story, it is not too much of a stretch given the religious themes mentioned so far to make the connection between the timeline of Jenova’s arrival on Gaia, and the advent of Christianity in the real world. FF7 would not be the first JRPG to take crude stabs at Christianity or Abrahamic religions more generally, and so the idea of a 2000 year-old “crisis from the skies” named “Jenova” has an obvious anti-religious flavour to it. As if to hammer this real-world point home, Sephiroth exclaims ‘Don't you get it? An Ancient named Jenova was found in the geological stratum of 2000 years ago’ (my emphasis).

The idea of Jenova as a god of negation is represented, in certain other small comments made during Sephiroth’s dialogue, as well as that of Ifalna (Aerith’s mother), and Professor Gast, the scientist who unearthed Jenova. Sephiroth describes Jenova’s key characteristic as that of making things appear differently then what they really are. During a pivotal scene in the middle of the game, Sephiroth explains, ‘The ability to change one's looks, voice, and words, is the power of Jenova.’ He uses this to imply that Tifa’s memory of Cloud and even Cloud’s own physical appearance are mere illusions projected by Jenova: ‘Inside of you, Jenova has merged with Tifa's memories, creating you. Out of Tifa's memory...... A boy named Cloud might've just been a part of them.’ In another scene later on, Aerith’s mother, Ifalna (a true Cetra) describes to Professor Gast the nature of this extra-terrestrial being. Ifalna calls Jenova ‘the crisis from the sky’, and details her abilities:

It looked like...our...our dead mothers ...and our dead brothers. Showing us spectres of their past. […] That's when the one who injured the Planet... or the 'crisis from the sky', as we call him, came. He first approached as a friend, deceived them, and finally...... gave them the virus. The Cetra were attacked by the virus and went mad... transforming into monsters. Then, just as he had at the Knowlespole. He approached other Cetra clans...... infecting them with... the virus...

The first thing to note in all of these descriptions of Jenova is his/her ability to manifest in different forms, particularly to appear in the form of a living person’s memories. Another way to express this is that Jenova has no definite form of his/her own. In this sense, she/he is a mirror image of the Kabbalistic ein sof: whereas the ein sof has no graspable characteristics because they are beyond any kind of definition, Jenova has no real characteristics of her own in the sense that she/he completely lacks them. All that we see of Jenova is deception, dissimulation, illusion and shape-shifting, and this explains why Jenova initially appears to the player in the guise of Sephiroth’s body (or at least, Cloud’s memory of it) just before the protagonist’s party confronts her at numerous points in the game.

This illusory or dissimulating characteristic of Jenova is also represented obliquely in the ambiguity of his/her gender identity. It’s noteworthy that whilst Jenova’s design is stereotypically female (breasts, wide hips, delicate jawline, etcetera), and whilst Sephiroth designates Jenova as his ‘mother’, Ifalna refers to Jenova as he/him. This cannot be dismissed as a one-off typo as the script uses the masculine pronoun here repeatedly. Again, there is kabbalistic connection that can help to make sense of this ambiguity. Within kabbalah, there exists the idea of a masculine and feminine (but not necessarily male or female) aspect of God’s/ein sof’s manifestation in the material world. As with other medieval thought, Kabbalah also inherits the classical Greek philosophical idea of the parallel between the local, earthly, or personal on one hand, and the global, cosmic, or divine on the other. That is, Kabbalah makes use of the microcosm/macrocosm analogy. [1] Thus, for instance, the Lurianic Jewish tradition posits that the individual’s religious observation has, as its goal, the (re) unification, or balancing, of masculine and feminine within the person of the worshipper, in order to restore the primordial oneness of masculine and feminine within the universe.[2]

Most obviously, the ambiguity in Jenova’s gender seems to reflect this kabbalistic belief in the duality of the divine masculine/feminine, since she/he appears female but is designated by Ifalna as male. On a deeper level we can also understand this ambiguity, once again, as reflective of Jenova’s essential characteristic, namely, his/her capacity for creating illusion. Jenova lies about who she/he is – she/he produces false memories, and visions of things that never happened. Thus, he/she is a unity of opposites only in the sense that a lie can stand in for the truth, as though it were the same thing. This androgyny is also present in Sephiroth’s physical appearance, since his design incorporates long hair, flowing robes and a delicate jawline, combined with huge phallic sword and hulking muscles. Yet in his case the significance is different: Sephiroth believes he is one thing, the chosen one, the son of Jenova, whilst in fact he is another: the son of two very flawed humans, Hojo and Lucretia.

This discussion on the theme of the unity of opposites in FF7 leads us, of course, to the ‘Jenova reunion’. The Kabbalistic idea of a messianic reunion of masculine and feminine, is bastardised in the catastrophic ‘reunion’ that takes place in the middle of FF7s storyline. In the game’s lore, the reunion will bring about the world-ending event (a giant meteor) which Sephiroth had described in the temple of the ancients, as mentioned above. Professor Hojo also explains: ‘You see, even if Jenova's body is dismembered, it will eventually become one again. That's what is meant by Jenova's Reunion. I have been waiting for the Reunion to start.’ Within the fantasy realm of the story, the reunion grants Sephiroth the spiritual energy required to cast a spell, which will summon the giant meteor. Tifa exclaims: What are you so happy about, Professor? You know what this means, don't you? […] Sephiroth is going to summon Meteor! Every single person is going to die!’ This event is only made possible by a grand misdirection, which the entire game up to this point has subjected both the player and Cloud to, one in which we are manipulated by the game’s antagonists to perform certain actions, whilst believing ourselves to be acting autonomously.[3]

This reunion is foreshadowed in a much earlier scene with subtle kabbalistic symbolism in the character’s gestures. When the player reaches Nibelheim and descends into the Shinra mansion, the following scene plays out:

Sephiroth: Are you going to participate in the Reunion?

 Cloud: I don't even know what a Reunion is!

Sephiroth: Jenova will be at the Reunion. Jenova will join the Reunion becoming a calamity from the skies.

At this point in the game, there is no way for the player know what is meant by the term reunion, forcing us to adopt Cloud’s perspective. The setting of this dialogue makes use of the classic gothic-horror trope of a liminal space, as Cloud is stood at one end of a dark corridor, and Sephiroth’s phantasmic figure stands at the other. Thus, not only is Cloud uncomprehending of what Sephiroth is saying, but nor are we totally sure, as players, who or what we are looking at, whether it is a ghost, an illusion, Jenova in the guise of Sephiroth, or the man himself – this only becomes clear on a second watching. Once again, the liminal setting in which the dialogue plays out enables the perverse “reunion” between truth and lie described in the paragraph above; it is as if Sephiroth’s words and his figure are being transformed from one thing to another in their journey through the corridor: nothing he says is false, exactly, but nor is its meaning evident.  The cryptic nature of Sephiroth’s dialogue keeps Cloud (and us, the player) in the position of wanting to find out what was meant so as to prevent the calamity we are warned about. But in doing so,  we fall prey to Sephiroth’s manipulation of Cloud (and us), since we both take the bait, so to speak. However, what is cryptic at the level of the dialogue is elaborated clearly at the level of the symbolism of the character’s physical gestures during this scene. In particular, we must note the symbolism of Sephiroth gifting Cloud an item (the “destruct materia”), by throwing it forcefully from one end of the corridor to the other, knocking Cloud to his knees. In Kabbalah, the masculine and feminine are occasionally characterised in terms of giver and receiver respectively, and cosmic union is discussed as a matter of the masculine giving and the feminine receiving, in order to become one with each other.[4] Here, of course, Sephiroth is foreshadowing the later reunion by giving Cloud the “destruct” materia. Although the physical force with which the gift is delivered indicates that the gift is violently forced upon Cloud, it is nonetheless gladly received by the player. The symbolism of the violently delivered gift seems to indicate that giver/receiver dichotomy is, for the authors of FF7, apparently a matter of “destruction”, in this case the “destruction” of the receiver (Cloud) by the giver (Sephiroth). Only much later on, when Sephiroth’s/Jenova’s manipulation comes to fruition, is Cloud able to acknowledge his passivity, and his role as the receiver of Sephiroth’s gift, i.e. the destruction of any positive notion of his own personality: ‘I wasn't pursuing Sephiroth. I was being summoned by Sephiroth. All the anger and hatred I bore him, made it impossible for me to ever forget him. That and what he gave me’ (my emphasis).

If, within the symbolism of Kabbalah, giving is masculine and receiving is feminine, and if, within FF7 this coercive giving/receiving brings-about the calamitous reunion, then we can think of Sephiroth’s gift to Cloud as amounting to a symbolic rape. It is a symbolic rape in the sense that Sephiroth imposes a feminine, passive role upon the unwilling Cloud. Much earlier in the game, Cloud’s encounter with Mukki in the honeybee inn (a brothel) seems to foreshadow this, by suggesting that he falls all too easily into a passive role in perusing his aims.

Mukki: How is it, bubby!? Feels good, huh?

·       [Upon selecting ".........".]
Cloud: I don't feel good. Let me out...

·       [Upon selecting "It hurts".]
Cloud: Too stuffy in here...

Mukki: You'll get used to it. Try counting to ten.

Cloud’s name is also suggestive, not only of a stormy personality, but of a personality that is amorphous, lacking in a clear, coherent form. Remember here that the importance of sefirot in kabbalah is to give singular form to a multiplicity of spiritual attributes that would otherwise remain disconnected. We should not be surprised then, that something similar is true of Sephiroth in his relationship to Cloud. Sephiroth’s gift to Cloud, (i.e. ‘what he gave me’) is a form. Sephiroth gives a consistent form and meaning to the inconsistent fragments of memory that add up to Cloud’s life at that point in the story. But it is a purely negative form, since Cloud’s only understanding of who he is mediated through his desire to avenge the murder of his mother, and later on, Aerith. That is to say, Sephiroth’s gift has not been asked for by its receiver. Sephiroth’s method of imposing a form upon Cloud’s life is to coerce him, robbing him of his autonomy and making him the passive recipient of a vengeful personality. But it is equally true that Cloud is an empty vessel, so to speak, an individual whose lack of strong connections to others, and whose sense of personal inadequacy makes him only too susceptible to the influence of stronger personalities and ideas.

Once again, we might begin to consider what FF7s authors are saying about real-world messianism through the symbolism of Sephiroth’s behaviour. Messianism, whether religious or secular, gives a form to the lives of their adherents. Correlatively, it is a force which requires, and which feeds off the passivity and personal weakness of those adherents. It is a form that destroys more than it creates, and which is imposed rather than being freely chosen.

Messianism, revenge fantasy and shame

Here a short bit of historical information about the social context of kabbalah’s emergence might be useful, in order to understand the story that FF7 seems to be telling us about the significance of messianism. One must be careful to note that the authors of FF7 are not offering a blunt condemnation of messianism, (nor of Judaism or Christianity) but are trying to construct a narrative in which the messianic impulse makes psychological sense. In offering such a story, the player is enabled to make sense of messianism in the real world by reference to the cautionary story of the game’s main antagonist. As we will see, the events that produced Sephiroth’s warped messianism are mirrored in the real-world history of Kabbalah. But we will also see that the attraction of messianism is rooted in Sephiroth’s inner sense of shame about who and what he is, that is to say, that messianism functions by appealing to the psychological weaknesses of those individual living beings who fall prey to it. It offers an other-worldy escape for those who come to experience the flesh of their own living bodies as a prison.

As we already noted, Kabbalah, (particularly within the Lurianic tradition) posits an analogy between the individual (microcosm) and God/ein sof (macrocosm). We also noted that, according to this analogy, religious observance is directed towards achieving a kind of spiritual balance within the individual, in order to achieve a corresponding state of balance at the divine or cosmic level. It is instructive to understand the historical context in which these aspects of Lurianic Kabbalah developed, in order to see how it is reflected in the Sephiroth’s story arc in FF7. In particular, it is important to note that Lurianic Kabbalah’s particular messianic understanding of world history can be understood as a product of the politics of the middle-ages. An event of particular importance was the expulsion of Jews from Spain after the Alhambra decree of 1492.[5] During this period, a very strong significance came to be attached by Kabbalist thinkers to the microcosm/macrocosm analogy. To grossly oversimplify, if God’s creation, i.e. this world, is a macrocosm, of which the human is a microcosm, then the inner practice of the religious devotee is aimed at fixing, or rebalancing the broken outer world. In other words, for the Jews of medieval Europe, the pursuit of inner balance between spiritual attributes was a theurgical attempt to remedy their precarious status in the outer world, given the existential threat to Judaism posed by the medieval church. Kabbalistic messianism (in contrast to Christian messianism) involves the salvation of the Jewish people, not solely by any particular identifiable person, but by bringing into correspondence the human and the divine. Particularly for Lurianic Kabbalah, a product of this medieval context, the rebalancing of the sefirot presages the coming of the messiah, the return of the Jews to the promised land, and liberation from worldly slavery and from persecution.[6] Thus, what Sephiroth says a propos the Cetra in FF7 strongly mirrors the beliefs of the medieval Jews of southern Europe as concerns their own destiny: ‘Cetra was a itinerant race. […] At the end of their harsh, hard journey, they would find the Promised Land and supreme happiness.’

Yet, Sephiroth’s spurious membership of an oppressed group-identity cannot be the only explanation for his actions. Up to this point we have only alluded to Sephiroth’s motivations: his denial regarding, and his avoidance of confronting his true paternity, ‘My father... What does it matter...? All right, let's go’. Not only is Sephiroth disgusted at the mere notion of his father, but also, like the eponymous hero of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, seems to be disgusted at the idea of female reproduction. This can be seen from the design of the room in the Nibelheim reactor where we learn about Hojo’s scientific experiments. The room closely resembles a womb, replete with red walls resembling the endometrium, metallic eggs resembling ovaries or ova, and gigantic pipes resembling fallopian tubes or blood vessels. In this room, Sephiroth asks ‘Was I created this way too? Am I the same as all these monsters......?’ Recall that Sephiroth appears to be oblivious of his human mother’s true identity (i.e. Lucretia) for the entire duration of the game. He is in ignorance regarding his own motherhood, and his only encounter with something resembling the facts of childbearing triggers the beginning of his madness: there is brief CG in which a humanoid monster is born from one of the metal eggs.  Immediately after this scene, Cloud recalls Sephiroth asking ‘Am I...... human?’ At first glance, it appears that Sephiroth’s unease results from the idea of being created in a giant test-tube like one of Hojo’s monsters. But, given what we have just pointed out, it seems equally likely that Sephiroth’s problem is not that he is a monster, but that he cannot bring himself state the answer to his own question: ‘Am I...... human?’ - yes, human, all too human. As Cloud adds, ‘I didn't quite understand what Sephiroth was saying at that time.’ Even more unsettling is that the monster we see being born does not appear threatening, but closely resembles a human infant (purple, curled-up and shrieking) whilst being the size of an adult. Sephiroth’s personal vulnerability, his shame regarding what he is and where he comes from, is thus externalised in the guise of this monster. With these observations in mind, it is no surprise that Sephiroth would choose to identify an alien life form, Jenova, (Je-NO-va) a being lacking any real characteristics – as his mother, rather than the appalling scene witnessed in the Nibelheim reactor. Once again, here, FF7s reference to the negative theology of kabbalah in the character’s names takes on deeper significance. Sephiroth’s inability to affirm that he is made of flesh, blood and all the other slime that makes up a living body leads him to the negative theology of himself. The chosen one is only what he is by virtue of what he is not – or rather, what he refuses to acknowledge himself to be.

The case of Sephiroth’s mistaken identity (i.e. his belief that he is the son of the “new god” Jenova, preferring to ignore or forget his flawed, human parents, Lucretia and Hojo) is a metaphor for the profound spiritual mistake which defines messianism: to define the self only in terms of what one is not (i.e. a normal human, ‘you stupid people’); only in terms of what one is missing (i.e., omnipotence ‘to be reborn as a 'God' to rule over every soul’); only in terms of what has been taken away (the promised land). That is to say, according to FF7, messianism is quintessentially reactionary. Cloud learns this only too late, only coming to terms with who he really is having basically destroyed the world; Sephiroth does not learn at all.

But it is important to realise that FF7 is not dealing in blunt condemnations – which would be merely another reactionary gesture (thou shalt not…).

Just as in the case of Kabbalah and other religious strands in western history, messianism appears in FF7 at the most desperate time. It was during the exile from Israel, during the roman occupations, during the various pogroms in medieval Europe that messianism reappeared as a cultural force among the Jews. Likewise, in the universe of FF7, it was when Sephiroth (incorrectly) understood the crime against him, and understood himself as the last remaining member of a persecuted race, that his sense of a messianic calling came upon him. It is only at this point that he sets out to achieve Jenova’s reunion, and to exact his apocalyptic revenge against the human race. In FF7 then, Sephiroth’s way of becoming “the One”, of making everyone else be at-one with him as their “new God” is a terrible case of mistaken identity. On one level, this is because Sephiroth is not who he thinks he is, (at least to begin with – he states that he has surpassed the ancients during the temple scene, implying his non-identity with them. At that stage, it seems that Sephiroth has simply lost any idea of his identity, other than his desire for revenge). On another level, this is because there is no “chosen One” – certainly not the man named Sephiroth.



[1] Nokso-Koivisto, Inka. "Microcosm-macrocosm analogy in Rasāʾil Ikhwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ and certain related texts." PhD diss., Ph. D. diss., University of Helsinki, 2014. P.26.

[2] Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava, and Frederick E. Greenspahn. "Gender in Jewish mysticism." Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah: new insights and scholarship (2011): 191-230.

[3] See Resonant Arc’s youtube video essay on FF7 and Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige – (sorry don’t have the link just now!)

[4] Feldman, Fern. "Gender and Indeterminacy in Jewish Mystical Imagery." Unsettling Science and Religion: Contributions and Questions from Queer Studies (2018): 199.

[5] Pérez, Joseph History of a Tragedy: The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Translated by Hochroth, Lysa. (University of Illinois Press 2007).

[6] Martin, John Jeffries. A Beautiful Ending: The Apocalyptic Imagination and the Making of the Modern World. Yale University Press, 2022. 34.

Saturday 16 September 2023

Sephiroth, Sefirot and Messianism: Final Fantasy 7’s ambivalence to Western culture and religion - Introduction

 

This essay aims to explore the significance of some of the naming choices made by the developers of Final Fantasy 7 (hereafter FF7), in particular the game’s two main villains (Sephiroth and Jenova), the real-world sources for these characters’ names, and the occult or mystical concepts associated with them. In turn, it will be shown how real-world religious ideas – but also their history and politics - are mirrored in the script and the story of FF7. This will allow for an interpretation of the deeper meaning of those names, characters, and story-arcs. As with all good science fiction, the story of FF7 is not merely fantasy, but reflects thorny topics from our real world, in some subtle and surprising ways, and this essay we will not therefore talk about Jewish mysticism in isolation as it might appear from the title, but will touch upon its relation to European history, politics, psychology, philosophy and many things besides.

In particular I will argue that the characters and story arcs of Sephiroth and Jenova, and the concept of the “Jenova reunion” are critiques of the theme of messianism, as it appears in both religious and non-religious contexts. We will see how these characters derive their names from the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, and how the spiritual significance of these concepts is reflected in the role played by these corresponding characters in the game. We will also see, in the second half of the essay, how the depiction of these characters seems to embody a critique of messianism. But I will also argue that FF7 is not a mere critique of messianism as a Western cultural artefact. Rather, it will be important to show that FF7 attempts to digest the theme of messianism by presenting a story in which the messianic impulse, in both its political and psychological manifestations can be made intelligible to the player through their depiction in a fictionalised, high-fantasy setting.

We will do this in 3 parts. In the first part I will try to outline a definition of what I mean by messianism, what is the meaning of the name “Sephiroth” and begin to suggest what the connection here might be. In turn, I will focus on some key dialogue in Sephiroth’s storyline and explain how we can connect these to the idea of messianism. In the second part we will do the same thing again, but this time with Jenova. This will allow us to connect this information together and show how Sephiroth’s messianism reflects the history of Jewish messianism. In the final part, I will try to spell out the historical-political message that seems to be represented through Sephiroth’s storyline, and how this all fits into the context of other JRPGs and Japanese media with (more or less explicit) philosophical themes, released during the late nineties and early 2000s.  

Before we begin, I must give the following disclaimers.

·       Firstly, and as will be clear to - careful - readers, this is not intended to be an anti-religious screed. I am not claiming that final fantasy 7 is anti-Christianity, anti-kabbalah or anti-Judaism. Instead, I am saying that the writers of ff7 borrowed concepts from these religions to critique a broader cultural theme, namely messianism – in both its religious and secular varieties – and the psychology behind it. My ultimate point is that messianism is not the target of a dismissive critique. Rather, it is through this critique that FF7 attempts to incorporate and make intelligible an aspect of Western culture that is, in some sense, alien to that of its Japanese developers.

·       Secondly, in this essay I am not claiming to have direct access to the minds and intentions of the creators of this video game. What I will say here is simply my interpretation on the basis of the text of the game, and of my research into its real-world sources. I am not claiming that the writers at FF7 are spiritual adepts in Kabbalah, or scholars in German philosophy (perhaps this is something to be grateful for). Nor do I claim to have any expertise on Kabbalah, beyond the admittedly superficial research I present here. The point of the essay is simply to explore the meaning of the game’s real-world references, rather than the intention of the game’s developers.

·       Thirdly, and on a related note, this is not meant to be a piece of academic writing. All of the information contained here, with a few exceptions, can be found using online dictionaries, Wikipedia, the FF7 wiki, or Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. I have mentioned my sources where possible, but prefer to avoid breaking the flow with constant footnotes, etcetera. Whosoever wishes to correct or challenge what they find here is welcome to do so. I also encourage you to offer your own references if you have them.

·       Fourthly, in the course of our discussion on Jenova and Sephiroth, the topic of gender identity will inevitably come up. This, of course, has become a much bigger deal, culturally, than it was in 1997. Whatever the attitude of FF7’s developers is towards gender/trans issues, and whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter are, this is not what I am concerned with in this essay. I simply aim to point out certain ambiguities in the text, and to point out what their significance may be – again, I do not know the minds of Nojima and the rest, and so it is not for me to take issue with them on this point one way or another.

·        Finally, I will assume the reader is already familiar with the plot of FF7. For those who are not, it is recommended either to play the game first (!) or at least to read a plot synopsis.

Part 1: What is Messianism? And what has it got to do with Sephiroth?

Sephiroth, Sefirot and the concept of the One

Let us begin, then, by delving into some of the real-world religious and mystical signification of the names and themes in FF7. However, this will require a bit of patience on your part before we get to talking about the game itself.

As I said at the beginning, this essay will argue that the target of FF7’s critique is the cultural phenomenon of messianism. Ordinarily in an essay of this type, one might begin by giving a dictionary definition of this concept, so that everyone knows exactly what is being talked about. Dictionary.com defines messianism as 1. ‘the belief in the coming of the Messiah, or a movement based on this belief.’ Or 2. ‘the belief in a leader, cause, or ideology as a saviour or deliverer.’[1] Similarly, Britanica.com describes messianism as ‘applied to a variety of “redeemers,”’ adding that ‘many movements with an eschatological or utopian-revolutionary message have been termed messianic.’ Further, ‘Although messianic movements have occurred throughout the world, they seem to be especially characteristic of the Jewish and Christian traditions.’[2] As this definition hints, the problem is that the word “Messianism” has different significations depending on the religious or cultural context where it is used. Even within certain religions, particularly Judaism, there are different manifestations of this concept that look quite different to one another, arising from different traditions of interpretation and religious practice. In this essay, then I will argue that the writers of FF7 drew upon religious sources to exemplify the phenomenon of messianism as it appears in various contexts, both religious and secular. That is to say, FF7’s is not focused on any one manifestation of messianism, even if it makes specifically Kabbalistic references. Of course, I do not believe that Kazushige Nojima and the others are seasoned religious scholars, and nor do I think the point of a video game is to thrust this kind of learning down the throats of average players. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see the real-world sources of inspiration behind the game’s story, and to use that to make sense of what its real-world message might be. 

Let’s turn to the meaning behind the name “Sephiroth”. Sephiroth, as is widely known, draws his name from the kabbalistic term “Sefirot”. The meaning of this term is difficult to explain without first explaining some other basic concepts of Kabbalah. Firstly, in Kabbalah, God is understood as an infinite being, existing in a formless state, beyond the comprehension of mortal beings such as humans. In this context, God is referred to as Ein Sof (or “En Sof”), a term which means “without end”. [3] Ein Sof is said to have no characteristics which can be meaningfully or truthfully described, since the nature of these characteristics so far exceeds the boundaries of human knowledge as to make all attempts at description incomplete, and therefore false.[4] Kabbalah’s conception of God would then count as an example of what is often called “apophatic” or “negative theology” in religious thinking more generally. This refers to the idea that God can only be known in terms of what he/she is not (this idea in both Christian and Jewish thinking, may be traced back to the Neo-Platonist philosopher Pseudo-Dionysus).[5] If Ein Sof is transcendent or infinite, the Sefirot, by contrast, represent the worldly emanations of Ein Sof which can be understood by the human mind. These emanations of God are manifested in specific instances of wisdom, understanding, kindness, glory, or other humanly comprehensible “spiritual” attributes.[6]

These “emanations” are typically visually represented as 10 points or nodes on a diamond shaped pattern, often referred to as the tree of life. You have probably seen this image represented on countless new-age self-help books and death metal album covers. The term Sefirot, gathers together the multitude of God’s emanations, the ten nodes on the tree of life, into a united whole. This gathering together under one term is an important point to grasp. Sefirot is a notoriously difficult word to translate into English: early Kabbalists espoused many different meanings of the term including “text” “scribe” “storytelling”.[7] However, it is typically understood, in a more literal way, to mean something like “count” or “enumeration”.[8]  The 10 Sefirot are thus the finite, countable, and worldly manifestations of the infinite God; the word Sefirot is the gathering together of these worldly manifestations into a single representation.  

To fully grasp the significance of this, we must make the point that counting involves gathering together discreet entities into a single representation, such as a number or a symbol. For example, one can readily grasp that a picture of ten, individual, red apples is far less efficient at representing the real apples than the words “10 red apples”. The same is true of the Sefirot: it is much easier to condense the information about the different emanations of Ein Sof into a single word than it is to name all of them. This idea has a long pedigree in Western philosophy, but also in Christian and Jewish religious thinking, and can be traced back, in both cases, to the Aristotelian doctrine of “hylomorphism” (and probably earlier, to Plato’s dialogue the Timaeus).[9] Put simply, hylomorphism designates the notion that all beings are composed, not only of matter, but also of form. For the classical Greeks, the concept of form was invoked to explain what causes objects to maintain their identity despite physical changes to their component parts. Some of you reading may be familiar with the Ship of Theseus – the philosophical conundrum that asks whether a ship is the same ship (i.e. the same form) if it has all of its planks (its matter) replaced. Returning to our number-example, we can think of the symbol “10” as a singular form which gives shape to the many 1s which add up to the number 10. This form also contains qualities that are not to be found in the matter which it gathers together: this is often what is meant by saying that something is more than the sum of its parts. For example, even if 10 is made of 1’s, the number 10 has various qualities that are not shared with the number 1, such being divisible by 2 and 5. We might also think of the capacity of a boat to carry large, heavy objects on water, even if its individual planks could never do so. The hylomorphic doctrine assigns an active role to form: it is form which acts upon the matter to give it shape and unity. In relation to Kabbalah, we can understand the notion of Sefirot as hylomorphic: the term Sefirot gives a singular representation, i.e. a form, purpose and identity to the different spiritual powers that add up to the tree of life.

The hylomorphic theory is not just a philosophical idea, but also, historically, one which has come to have a spiritual dimension attached to it. Even if one is not aware of Aristotle, Plato or any of the medieval philosophers they inspired, most of those raised within a Western cultural context can intuitively grasp the importance of oneness or “The One” as a primordial harmony of things. Typically, this oneness is understood as a pure point of origin at the beginning of time, or the oneness of God’s creation before Adam and Eve’s fall from innocence in the Bible, or perhaps, in new-age thinking, the sought-after oneness that would return the world, and the self, to a state of perfect balance. But we can also recognise here the cultural idea, common in the West, of a person who is the One, whether that person be God, his human embodiment in the guise of a messiah, or in a secularised idea of a person whose mission it is to lead, save, or redeem, humanity. In this context, hylomorphism is expressed in the idea of one person representing or somehow gathering together the multitude of human beings and conferring upon that group a meaning, purpose and form (“hyle”) that they would not otherwise have.

For example, in Christianity (whose development was closely entwined with the spread of Platonism and Aristotelianism), Christ is not “Christ” in isolation. Rather, he is only who he is in so far as he represents a kind of spiritual containment (or, to be more politic, inclusion) of his followers. This is at least part of the significance of term Holy Spirit: for instance, in 1 John 4:12 it is written that ‘No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.’[10] This idea of “the One” who gathers together the many, who gives them a shape and a historical meaning, and who acts on their behalf to bring about a cosmically pre-ordained destiny, is also common outside of the specifically Christian context. We have already seen how this hylomorphic philosophy informs Kabbalah, and we will see it again in connection with other secular forms of messianism. It is this idea which, intentionally or not, the developers of FF7 have invoked in naming the game’s main antagonist Sephiroth, i.e. “count”. In what follows, we will try and make the connection between this Kabbalist concept of Sefirot as counting or oneness, and Sephiroth’s character arc in FF7s story – specifically the way he gives a negative form and meaning to Cloud and the other protagonists.

Sephiroth’s messianism, and the logic of sacrifice

Here, we will begin to show how these hylomorphic concepts of messianism borrowed from Kabbalistic (but also Christian sources) are exemplified in the game through Sephiroth’s increasingly monomaniacal behaviour.

After reading the books in the Shinra mansion during the Kalm flashback, Sephiroth explains to Cloud:

This Planet originally belonged to the Cetra. Cetra was [sic] a itinerant race. They would migrate in, settle the Planet, then move on... At the end of their harsh, hard journey, they would find the Promised Land and supreme happiness […] Long ago, disaster struck this planet. Your ancestors escaped... They survived because they hid. The Planet was saved by sacrificing the Cetra.[11]

Further, Sephiroth explains his own connection to the Cetra as he (mistakenly) understands it at this point: The Jenova Project wanted to produce people with the powers of the Ancients...... no, the Cetra. ...I am the one that was produced.’ Shortly afterwards, in the Nibelheim reactor, Sephiroth explains ‘I am the chosen one. I have been chosen to be the leader of this Planet.’ At this stage in Final Fantasy 7s story, Sephiroth’s messiah complex is not fully fleshed out. Yet we can already see some important themes emerging in this dialogue and begin to recognise their connection to the concept of Sefirot we described above.

Firstly, we grasp Sephiroth’s sense of persecution – he identifies himself mistakenly as a ‘Cetra’ (their name for themselves) rather than an Ancient, as is clear when he corrects himself in the quote above. If Sephiroth is a Cetra, it seems to follow that he is, in some sense, a victim of the historical ‘sacrifice’ that he has described. The word ‘sacrifice’ is another interesting choice here in the context of Sephiroth’s self-identification with the persecuted Cetra race. This terminology and its context ought to remind us of the old meaning of the Biblical term ‘holocaust’ (derived from French, Latin and Greek). In its earliest usage, this term signified a religious, sacrificial offering, and only came to have the modern meaning of massacre much later in the 1670’s. [12] Sephiroth’s usage of the term ‘sacrifice’ here carries both of these meanings, given that within the story of FF7, the Cetra are more or less extinct. In other words, only through the mass, sacrificial killing, i.e. the holocaust of the Cetra was the planet ‘saved’, according to Sephiroth. Just as a religious sacrifice is typically something offered up in exchange for the gods’ good favour, so the Cetra were offered-up in exchange for the continued life of the planet.

Secondly, it becomes clear that this sense of persecution is linked in some way to Sephiroth’s notion of being a special individual. Not only is he ‘the chosen one’, but he has been chosen for this role by virtue of his membership of the persecuted Cetra race: as he puts it ‘I have orders to take this planet back from you stupid people for the Cetra.’ There is a paradox in this line of dialogue. On the one hand Sephiroth professes his superiority as an individual by claiming to be ‘the chosen one’, yet in the very next line, he places himself at the service of an external power, stating he has ‘been chosen’ (i.e. by someone else). One way to read this is that Sephiroth understands his legitimacy as being conferred upon him by an entity greater than himself, namely the collective will of the Cetra race: Sephiroth’s actions are supposedly done ‘for’ the Cetra at large, not just for himself or Jenova. Yet the opposite interpretation is also strongly suggested to the player, namely that this acknowledgement of a power greater than himself is a spurious appeal to an absent authority, the Cetra, who cannot speak for themselves on account of being (mostly) extinct.

Finally, we also see that the concept of a cosmic destiny or eschatology plays a significant role in Sephiroth’s thought process. By eschatology, I mean any discourse which expresses ideas about the end of the world or history in terms of a pre-ordained destiny. An eschatology can be religious, as in the Christian notion of the salvation of the elect at judgement day, but it can also be secular, as in communist, fascist or any other vision of an ideological utopia. In FF7, the persecution and extinction of the Cetra was not simply a neutral fact of history as far as Sephiroth is concerned. Rather, he understands the Ancients as playing a part in an eschatology, in which the reward for their harsh, earthly lives was to be given the ‘supreme happiness’ of a ‘promised land’. This, of course, reflects the real-world Jewish notion of a chosen people or the Christian notion of being elect. But it also reflects many different secular narratives that equate the grand destiny of a nation, or of an ideology with a particular ethnic, social, or religious identity. Returning to the game, Sephiroth does not see himself as actively taking the role of chosen one; rather, it is an obligation that has been placed upon him and which he passively accepts, as he has been ‘chosen’ and given ‘orders’. In short, Sephiroth’s messianism is a result of his understanding of history, of the tragic role his people played in it, and in the notion of a cosmically-ordained destiny (the attainment of the “promised land”) which it is his duty to bring about. Once again, the obvious comparison here is with the Jewish notion of Israel but could apply just as easily to the American concept of manifest destiny, or any other real-world ideology in which God or capital-H History designates a certain people as the chosen people, or any place as the promised land.

Later in the game Sephiroth explains how he intends to live-up to the role of chosen one. Here it becomes clear that it is not enough for Sephiroth to be the chosen one in the sense of being a special individual. Rather, he also intends to become the One; that is to say, a hylomorphic, spiritual container of everything that lives and exists. In the temple of the Ancients, he explains:

I am becoming one with the Planet […] All the spirit energy of this Planet. All its wisdom...knowledge... I will meld with it all. I will become one with it... it will become one with me.

According to FF7’s in-game lore, when any living being is born, it is imbued with spiritual energy, which is bestowed upon them by the planet’s “lifestream”. Likewise, when the same beings die, this spirit energy returns to the planet’s lifestream. The lifestream then serves as a concrete representation for the games central theme of “life”, as described by Hironobu Sakaguchi in contemporaneous interviews.[13] In this piece of dialogue, what Sephiroth says mirrors the earlier quote from 1 John, which bears repeating here: ‘God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us’.[14] Just as God is ‘in’ the Christians and the Christians are ‘in’ God, so Sephiroth aims to become “one” with the lifestream, at the same time as making the lifestream “one” with him. Nor is this comparison a merely a superficial parallel between the syntax of 1 John 4:12 and FF7’s dialogue, as the intermingling of Sephiroth and the lifestream is supposed to enable Sephiroth to inhabit the role of God, just as the Christian God only ‘lives’, in some more or less metaphorical sense, through the intermingling of his ‘Spirit’ and that of his believers. In the temple of the Ancients, Aerith asks Sephiroth: ‘How do you intend to become one with the Planet?’ Sephiroth replies:

It's simple. Once the Planet is hurt, it gathers Spirit Energy to heal the injury. The amount of energy gathered depends on the size of the injury. What would happen if there was an injury that threatened the very life of the Planet? Think how much energy would be gathered. Ha ha ha. And at the center of that injury, will be me. All that boundless energy will be mine. By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet... I will cease to exist as I am now... Only to be reborn as a 'God' to rule over every soul.

In other words, by injuring the planet, and by absorbing the energy it gathers to repair itself, Sephiroth will have gathered all of life into himself. At this point in the game’s story, Sephiroth appears to have given up all pretence of serving the chosen people (i.e. the Cetra), or anyone other than himself, ‘I'm far superior to the Ancients. I became a traveler [sic] of the Lifestream and gained the knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients. I also gained the knowledge and wisdom of those after the extinction of the Ancients. And soon, I will create the future.’ Yet, his messianism remains, in the sense that he still regards himself as the One, or as the bringer of One-ness.  If Sephiroth’s destiny is to be the chosen one, he will achieve this by robbing life of its difference, variety, and diversity, and making all other selves identical with his own self, imposing his monolithic vision of the future upon them.  Once again, one may note the sacrificial logic of what Sephiroth says. In many religions, the process of spiritual growth is believed to be one that involves sacrifice, whether that be literal offerings to the gods (as in the medieval meaning of the term ‘holocaust’), the sacrifice of wealth or personal possessions (as in the case of “tithes” paid by Christians or Islamic “Zakat”), or even sacrifice of personal attributes, attachments or attitudes (as when Saint Paul ‘put away childish things’ in 1 Corinthians 13:11).[15] [16]In order to become the One, Sephiorth intends to sacrifice the lives of all living beings on the planet – a ‘holocaust’ in the more modern sense. To put it in the biblical terminology of Corinthians, life, in all its chaotic variety, is a mere ‘childish thing’ which Sephiroth intends to ‘put away’, in order to ‘become a new life form, a new existence.’

Sephiroth’s hylomorphic vision of a perfect world comes at a cost, then. The player, but also the game’s main protagonists are given a glimpse of this sacrificial logic in action a few scenes earlier, as Sephiroth kills the enemy operative, Tseng. Sephiroth consoles his victim and attempts to justify his actions ‘The way......lies here. Only death awaits you all. But do not fear. For it is through death that a new spirit energy is born. Soon, you will live again as a part of me. This scene does not merely show someone simply being killed, but is framed as a religious spectacle, as is clear from the fact that the death-scene is projected on a large, magical screen to the game’s protagonists, from the fact that the killing takes place in the inner sanctum of a temple, and even from the fact that Sephiroth feels the need to explain, or rather, impose an interpretation of his actions upon his audience in hieratic gestures and rhetoric. Moreover, we are shown that Tseng’s life is worth something to the people around him, and that his ‘sacrifice’ is a heavy price to pay. Immediately before Tseng is killed, we see him developing a romantic attachment with his colleague Elena:

Elena: Be careful, Tseng.

Tseng: Yeah... Hey Elena, how 'bout dinner after this job's over?

Elena: Th...Thank you very much. If I may be excused...

 

Aerith is also shown upset when the party find Tseng lying all-but dead near the opening of the temple, and explains her connection with him to the player’s party, ‘Tseng's with our enemy, the Turks, but I've known him since we were little... There's not a lot of people I can say that about. In fact, there are probably only a handful of people in the world who really know me.’ Within FF7’s story, it is not enough to show that Sephiroth’s perverse sacrifice involves ending the lives of many people. Rather, we, as players, must see that the sacrifices are worth something to the people involved, otherwise they are not really sacrifices. All of these contextual clues (i.e. the framing of the sacrifice as a spectacle, the religious setting, the dialogue) make it clear that Sephiroth is not simply murdering Tseng, but sacrificing him to the ‘new God’ that he himself intends to become. Within the story that FF7’s authors present, what is most disgraceful about Sephiroth’s behaviour – but also about messianism more generally in the real world – is not simply that people are killed in its name, but that terrible sacrifices are done on behalf of people who have not asked for them.[17]

But it goes even further. The writers of FF7 are subtle here to show Sephiroth doing what real-world ideologues and self-appointed moral guardians often do, namely, to sanctify their vengeful motivations with virtuous language. Thus, Sephiroth even forgets that his revenge is a revenge. As we saw in the temple of the ancients, Sephiroth presents his scheme almost as though he were doing the human race a favour, by allowing them to join with him as their “God”: ‘do not fear. For it is through death that a new spirit energy is born. Soon, you will live again as a part of me.’ Returning, once again to the comparison we made between 1 John and Sephiroth’s megalomaniacal declarations, we can see a subtle commentary on the way that many real-world ideologies and religions frame their beliefs and actions in terms of a universalised love, in which often oppressive actions are justified in terms of a greater benefit (doing a favour) to humanity. The concept of agape, as understood within Christianity is useful to grasp, here, insofar as it is central to many of the religious and non-religious messianisms that have emerged in the history of the West. The Greek term agape is typically translated as love, but the Greek term, as used in a Christian context is more specific, and refers to a sacrificial love between the individual, the human race and God.[18]  As 1 John 4:8 puts it, ‘he that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love’.[19] To be in God and to have God in oneself is to love one’s neighbour. Sephiroth’s attempt to engulf the entire human race within himself as their new god is simply a sci-fi fantasy representation of this idea of messianic agape. Sephiroth expresses his love for Tseng, Aerith, Cloud and the rest of the human race by sacrificing them.

FF7’s story here seems to rehearse Nietzsche’s condemnation of Christ in Beyond Good and Evil. This particular passage bears quoting at length:

It is possible that underneath the holy fable and disguise of Jesus’ life there lies concealed one of the most painful cases of the martyrdom of knowledge about love: the martyrdom of the most innocent and desirous heart, never sated by any human love; demanding love, to be loved and nothing else, with hardness with insanity, with terrible eruptions against those who denied him love; the story of a poor fellow, unsated and insatiable in love, who had to invent hell in order to send to it those who did not want to love him -  and who finally, having gained knowledge about human love, had to invent a god who is all love, all ability to love – who has mercy on human love because it is so utterly wretched and unknowing. Anyone who feels that way, who knows this about love – seeks death.[20]

Sephiroth’s desire to murder the entire human race in order to have them in him (and vice versa) is a dramatization of this destructive, all-embracing demand for love. His explicitly stated desire to do Tseng and everyone a massive solid is the flip-side of an unacknowledged vengefulness, a vengefulness that is not even allowed to recognise itself as such.  Much as Christ, according to Nietzsche, ‘invents a god who is all love’ in order to satisfy his own ‘insane’ and ‘explosive’ demands, so Sephiroth’s personal wrath disappears behind the new god’s impersonal beneficence. The scene we witness during the Kalm flashback, as the town is vividly and memorably burnt to the ground, is the ice-cold ‘hell’ (Nibelheim) that is inflicted upon Cloud; the biblically-reminiscent falling star summoned towards the end of the game is Sephiroth’s last judgement upon the human race (see Revelation 6:12-14 - ‘lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;).[21]

Sephiroth’s sacrifice of unwilling victims to attain the promised land, and to become the One, the new God, can thus be seen as a metaphor for the sacrificial, ascetic logic that is at play in real-world messianisms. His mercurial demeanour and his mock-biblical rhetoric dramatizes the tendency of messianic figures, religions and ideologies to hide cruel, violent and destructive intentions behind noble sounding words like love.

NOTES:

[4] Ibid.

[9] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/form-matter/ “2. Prime Matter” accessed 16/09/2023

[11] All quotes from the script of FF7 I have taken from https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII_script

[12] https://www.etymonline.com/word/holocaust (accessed 16/09/2023)

[13] “Interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series and producer of Final Fantasy VII.” From PlayStation Underground #2, 1997. Accessed at http://www.ff7citadel.com/press/int_sakaguchi.shtml 16/09/2023.

[14] See note 10

[15] I prefer the KJV here of this verse, as it is the one most commonly heard. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+corinthians+13%3A11&version=KJV accessed 16/09/2023

 [17] See Georges Bataille Eroticism trans. Colin McCabe (Penguin Books 2012) “Christianity”. Bataille argues that Christianity attempts to remove the sacrificial element in religions by emphasising the ‘continuity’ between believers and the rest of existence, at the expense of recognising the ‘discontinuity’ involved in death: ‘The Christian God is a highly organised and individual entity springing from the most destructive of feelings, that of continuity. Continuity is reached when boundaries are crossed’. (119) This is echoed in Sephiroth’s desire to make everyone ‘one’ with himself. Further, Christianity hides the importance of sacrifice by making it impossible for the believer to be directly and self-consciously involved with it: ‘In Christian sacrifice the faithful are not made responsible for desiring the sacrifice. They only contribute to the crucifixion by their sins and failure.’ (120). This is echoed in Sephiroth’s indifference to the wishes of those he sacrifices.

[18] https://www.britannica.com/topic/agape (accessed 16/09/2023)

[19] Again, I prefer the KJV here for elegance: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%204%3A8&version=KJV accessed 16/09/2023

[20] Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil in Basic Writings of Nietzsche trans & ed Walter Kaufmann (Modern Library 2000) section 269, p.410

Part 3 – some conclusions and a note on the Japanese context

(For those who have not read the introductory post, you will find a series of disclaimers and content warnings there. I encourage you to rea...