Character Breakdown: Sephiroth

Sephiroth Quick Navigation Links:
Character Breakdown: Sephiroth
The Sephiroth Workout
The Skills of Sephiroth
The Mind of Sephiroth

Name: Sephiroth
Game(s): Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, Final Fantasy Dissidia, Kingdom Hearts 1&2
Skills/Attributes:

• Absurdly Strong
• Arrogant
• Cold
• Calculating
• Determined
• Ruthless
• Insane

Summary:
If you just started humming “One-Winged Angel” in your head, congratulations, this one’s for you(btw, my favorite rendition of this iconic tune can be found here)!  Sephiroth enjoys the honor of being both our first Final Fantasy character, and our first bona fide bad guy!  While Kratos is definitely a ruthless and cruel bastard, Sephiroth is a straight-up psychotic arch-villain.  This dude psychologically and physically breaks people, cities, and planets as he sees fit, in the pursuit of a delusional belief that he deserves to be a god, wielding a planet like an enormous organic death star.  He also has fantastically conditioned hair.

Quips about his luscious locks and slender build aside, Sephiroth is the very definition of “bad guy” for a lot of gamers, and while my personal favorite villain may be Gannon/Ganondorf, I cannot deny his level of badassitude.  He wields a seven-foot long sword, kills love interests just to see their boyfriends squirm(spoilers!), and is willing to commit genocide just to achieve his own goals of attaining godhood.  Delusional, sure, but you can’t deny his methods are effective.

We’re going to approach our fitness section in the interest of developing lots of raw strength, while still maintaining a slender, fast build.  This means lots of powerlifting and plyometrics(by the way, you might want to pick up a weight set or grab a membership at a local gym).  We’re also going to be doing a lot of cardio, with a good mix of high intensity(for explosiveness and good anaerobic combat conditioning), and low-intensity(to keep slender form and to have good overall stamina).

For skills we’re going to be taking a look at wielding the nodachi, the style of japanese greatsword that Sephiroth’s signature weapon, the manamune, is modeled after.  We’re also going to look at psychological analyzing and influencing people, as well as mental conditioning against such techniques.

Finally, we’re going to peer into the mind of a delusional, arrogant asshole, with homicidal tendencies and a god complex that would give anyone a run for their money(I’m looking at you, Loki).  I can’t promise this is going to be a pretty place, but we’re in the business of emulating video game characters here, and if you want to be a villain that bad, we can least look at a roadmap as a mental exercise.  That said, I’m also not going to endorse you follow anything written in this particular section when we get to it, and we’ll talk more about that then.

So buckle up, and get ready, we’re going to go for a bit of a ride in the coming days.  Hope you’re ready =)

Dan “DaRatmastah” Wallace