NationStates Jolt Archive

Who is the greatest final fantasy villain ever?

Darth Smedley. *nod*

Sony.

Sony.

More like Enix. Ever since Square merged, the games have been downhill.

Well, if we have to be serious, I'd pick Kefka. Yes, he's cooler than Sephiroth.

I agree. Sephiroth was an angsty kid with mommy issues.

Kefka was a thoroughly INSANE and diabolical villain, and was also humorous at the same time.

The ultimate FF villain.

Sephiroth = A pretty boy bitch with abandonment issues, and "compensates" with an impractically large sword.

Kefka Pallazo = Insane nihilist clown/mage who hates everything and ACTUALLY managed to destroy the world.

My vote's with Kefka.

Definately Kefka, as Bolol said, he DID it. He didn't just have dreams of world domination only to be foiled at the last minute, he actually shattered the world and kicked all sorts of ass.

FF3 FTW.

Poll is finally in. :)

Definately Kefka, as Bolol said, he DID it. He didn't just have dreams of world domination only to be foiled at the last minute, he actually shattered the world and kicked all sorts of ass.

FF3 FTW.

FF6.

I agree. Sephiroth was an angsty kid with mommy issues.

Kefka was a thoroughly INSANE and diabolical villain, and was also humorous at the same time.

The ultimate FF villain.

Sephiroth = A pretty boy bitch with abandonment issues, and "compensates" with an impractically large sword.

Kefka Pallazo = Insane nihilist clown/mage who hates everything and ACTUALLY managed to destroy the world.

My vote's with Kefka.

Definately Kefka, as Bolol said, he DID it. He didn't just have dreams of world domination only to be foiled at the last minute, he actually shattered the world and kicked all sorts of ass.

FF3 FTW.

lolz, why does everyone hate Sephiroth.

He is the best. Sure, he had issues with his mom, but you can't say his character design, mannerisms, and that long ass katana of his don't kick ass. Plus, he was a total badass in Advent Child.

Kefka is cool too. He certainly is one of the more unique and defined FF characters, but I was a little disappointed with him. The way everyone one was talks about Kefka, I expected more. He just turned out to be kind of like the joker from batman, although more serious. Thats why he is second only to Sephiroth(a firm second;))

FF6.

I never played 6, but, apparantly, FF6 was the American release of Japan's ff3, or some such shit. I never knew this and lived quite happily under the assumption that the FF3 cartridge I played blissfully in Texas was, indeed, FF3. I only realized that my existance was offensive to internet dorks everywhere when I posted a pretty much identical post as my previous one in a thread similar to this one maybe five years ago, only to thoroughly abused by a pair of militant gamers.

:( I don't know my shit.

But yeah, the game I know and love as ff3 is apparantly your FF6. I still have it and my SNES. I may have to fire the old slut up today.

EDIT: Hmmm. Looking for an article explaining this, but wiki is showing a different game than I have. But yeah, my Final Fantasy 6 is labelled as 3, with Mog the moogle on the cartridge. I'll keep looking...

EDit 2: There we go. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VI "It was first released in North America as Final Fantasy III, although the original title has been restored in later releases."

You've got it backwards. FF2 and FF3 were NES games never released in America.

The FF2 and 3 for the SNES that were released here in the states are actually FF4 and FF6, respectively, in Japan.

So the FF3 cartridge you played in Texas is actually FF6.

If Final Fantasy VI were ever to be made into a live action movie, this guy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKFAbxuxfVM) should play Kefka.

*Caution: Contains cosplay, high pitched voices (seriously, turn down your speakers) and generally geekiness.

Totally Cefca.

(I have the new translation of FF6, so Terra is Tina, Kefka is Cefca, and Locke is Lock, etc,)

FF6.

No, Kefka is FF3.

Also where is Chaos?

I've only played X and XII. Seymour was rubbish, barely intimidating at all. Vayne was interesting, but again, not a true villain. *votes Sephiroth at random*

Kefka was a badass.

Then again Vayne did kill his own father<--Tis a spoiler

I vote Kuja.


You have to be a badass to try pull the shit he did in your underware...

Kefka, for sure. He was just pure badass. Golbez comes in second.

Sephiroth, while cool, is extremely overrated.

Okay...on some level I can understand WHY someone would like Sephiroth. He does have a very large sword, and a no-doubt intimidating look and stature.

[/devil's advocate]

But seriously, he's just like every other pretty boy in Final Fantasy: nigh silent and with a significant stick up his ass. And it's only made worse by the fact that he's a NANCY LITTLE MAMMA'S BOY!

Okay...on some level I can understand WHY someone would like Sephiroth. He does have a very large sword, and a no-doubt intimidating look and stature.

[/devil's advocate]

But seriously, he's just like every other pretty boy in Final Fantasy: nigh silent and with a significant stick up his ass. And it's only made worse by the fact that he's a NANCY LITTLE MAMMA'S BOY!

Right on the mark. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13161423&postcount=6) :D

lolz, why does everyone hate Sephiroth.

He is the best. Sure, he had issues with his mom, but you can't say his character design, mannerisms, and that long ass katana of his don't kick ass. Plus, he was a total badass in Advent Child.


Not really. He's a one-dimensional whiny momma's boy. He fails to convince me as being a good villain.

Of course that's true of practically everyone, meaning that the only two people who could truly qualify as the best--and that's best among a decidedly poor crowd--would be Kefka and Edea.

Final Fantasy Mythology; my specialist subject in mastermind. Below is a brief summary of my opinions on villains, but it's a tie between Jenova and Kefka, where one is the ultimate example of an unstoppable threat to mankind (a sentient, mind-altering, apocalypse-surviving parasite, essentially), while the other an example of mankind's own innate depravity and evil.


Exdeath was a tree. I don't care that he was an evil bastard that thought nothing of sucking the entire of reality into nonexistence, including pretty much every character of any importance you ever met; he was a bloody tree. Maybe that gains points, maybe not, but I certainly couldn't vote it "greatest Villain". It's just too ridiculous to merit.

Ultimecia is an unusual one. I certainly can't give her the villany award, since actually her plan is really stupid. Basically, she became really spiteful of something in her past, so planned to eliminate the past by squeezing time into one chunk of information. But, of course, time doesn't work like that, and all she did was give your party a means to travel forward in time and kick her butt in payback for all the posession she does in the future; which, similarly, makes no sense, since with backwards-time mind control, all the posession will continue to happen anyway. Guh!

Chaos was just a power-hungry monster. Nothing really sinister or evil about it. Similarly for Necron of FF9. In both incarnations, Garland was just a tool. Kuja, on the other hand, is actually quite different. Sent as a soldier to take over Gaia, he was betrayed by the ones he served and promptly rebelled, eventually finding forgiveness in his brother, the one who he perhaps felt most betrayed by. I couldn't give him the greatest villain title because although he managed to cause chaos in his role as the terran Angel of Death, he turns into what is really more of a tragic antihero in his own way. His destruction of first Terra then the Crystal at Memoria only served to reveal Necron's true form as a devourer of life, which in the grand scale of things you're going to need to deal with at some point anyway.

Vayne is the same sort of thing. Though driven to self-destruction by the power of the rogue occurian Venat and forced to fight back a well-organised and well-equipped rebellion (don't listen to Ondore's Lies!), his personal goal was to liberate Ivalice from the rule of its real oppressive regime, and it is profound dramatic irony that his goal was actually fulfilled by those who he was forced to oppress himself in his role as Arcadian emperor. Again, whether he really qualifies as a villain is up to interpretation.

Yu Yevon and Sin were both little more than fiends, essentially acting on raw instinct. Seymour's plan, while not quite Ultimecia-bad, was still pretty damned feeble; you'd just be replacing Sin with another Sin that was a little more motivated to cause damage. Of course, Seymour had the additional bloodthirsty edge with the freaky double-identity of technically being a priest, but he was still clearly just a misguided Momma's boy.

Speaking of Momma's boys, Sephiroth. Sephiroth is an interesting one, because it actually refers to two separate entities: both the original human being that torched the town of Nibelheim and Cloud threw into the lifestream, and the hybrid of this entity with the hive-mind Jenova. The human was feeble as a villain, as has been remarked, but when the Jenova aspect of him began to use his identity and familiarity with the world, the result was the "Sephiroth" you meet and fight with throughout the game: a cold, violent, manipulative and power-crazed demon that was astonishingly good at what it did as a result of having the form of the most powerful human alive under its thumb.

Basically, Jenova is what Zemus/Zeromus of FF4 should have been. It was constantly pulling the strings behind the scenes, but always doing so under the guise of someone else. Zeromus was the same idea, but was totally incompetent in doing so. Where I think Jenova-Sephiroth wins is in its calm and merciless efficiency; it simply led the lead character (ie; you) into doing all of its dirty work for it, without ever once leading you to suspect your own intentions.

This leaves Kefka, and I really have to think about this one. The fact is, what motivates Kefka almost entirely is his own sociopathic nihilism, which uniquely renders him both entirely human and villainous, unlike Vayne and Seymour who are acting towards an honourable purpose through dishonourable means, and Ultimecia, who is essentially just pissed off at the way her life turned out and wants to try to undo it. Seymour, granted, seeks to destroy everything, but he does so under the delusion that doing so will bring a satisfactory end to Spira's suffering, whereas Kefka winds up destroying everything simply because existence is worthless and he likes destroying things.

But the thing that really gets me about Kefka is that he had fun doing it! He enjoyed the murder and mass destruction in a way that I can grasp the notion of, but that shocks me far more than the angst of Ultimecia, Kuja, Seymour and Vayne. The only other person that can claim a similar level of villainry is Hojo, and his scale (ignoring Dirge of Cerberus) just doesn't quite compare to the clown-man.


The reason I can't pick between the two is that they're fundamentally very different kinds of villains. Would you rather be blown up by a sadistic maniac or confront a calculating superbug that can either control you itself or control someone else to kill you? If the former, pick Jenova as the ultimate villain. If the latter, pick Kefka.

Kefka. No contest.

I liked Seymour. He gained power, using religion, in a very sneaky way. Plus, his voice was creepy.

Anyways, you have a flawed Poll. Edea wasn't the main bad guy on FF8, it was Seifer. Edea eventually turned out to help the good guys at one point. So haha! Take that. :p

The real question is why that wannabe emo hasn't fatally cut his wrists yet. He's got the legendary Masamune, so it must have conected. Don't feel bad -- you'd probably be an emo too if you looked like http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:Doofus.jpg!

And no, Seifer wasn't FF8's ultimate villain either.

Everybodys favorite insane transvestite clown-mage! Heeeeeeeeeeeres Kefka!
*World explodes*

I agree. Sephiroth was an angsty kid with mommy issues.

Kefka was a thoroughly INSANE and diabolical villain, and was also humorous at the same time.

The ultimate FF villain.

Pah. Ultros, self proclaimed octopus royalty was a lot better as a villain. :p

I can't stress this enough...

Not... Sephiroth...

He's not a particularly good Villain beyond having an unnecesarilly long over-compensating sword and knowing how to stab pretty girls in the back with it.

All of the plotting, scheming and general Villainy in FF7 was perpetrated by:

{SPOILER ALERT!!!}




TA-DA!!!

Hojo!!!

Sephiroth is merely his Jenova-born puppet in the grand scheme of things.


{END SPOILER}







Kefka is a much better FF Villain. He not only can fight, he's a good schemer. Villainy is not really about looking like a badass swinging a sword.

SNIP

I am very impressed with such a well thought out comparison of each character. Kudos to you!

Speaking of Momma's boys, Sephiroth. Sephiroth is an interesting one, because it actually refers to two separate entities: both the original human being that torched the town of Nibelheim and Cloud threw into the lifestream, and the hybrid of this entity with the hive-mind Jenova. The human was feeble as a villain, as has been remarked, but when the Jenova aspect of him began to use his identity and familiarity with the world, the result was the "Sephiroth" you meet and fight with throughout the game: a cold, violent, manipulative and power-crazed demon that was astonishingly good at what it did as a result of having the form of the most powerful human alive under its thumb.

Basically, Jenova is what Zemus/Zeromus of FF4 should have been. It was constantly pulling the strings behind the scenes, but always doing so under the guise of someone else. Zeromus was the same idea, but was totally incompetent in doing so. Where I think Jenova-Sephiroth wins is in its calm and merciless efficiency; it simply led the lead character (ie; you) into doing all of its dirty work for it, without ever once leading you to suspect your own intentions.

Oddly enough, the writer himself stated that this possibility is entirely false. He stated that Sephiroth had an unbreakable will, and it was he who was controlling Jenova, not vice versa.

It goes like this: Sephiroth goes on a rampage because he's found that his mother is Jenova, a supposed Ancient, and begins killing countless people, burning down Nibelheim, stabbing Tifa, throwing Zack into the facing of a contaiment chamber, and gutting Cloud. Cloud then (somehow) summons the will and strength to overcome Sephiroth and throw him into a wall; Sephiroth admits defeat, grabs Jenova's head, and jumps into the Lifestream below.

It's in the Lifestream where he realises that Jenova's actually an alien life form that landed on the planet ages ago, manipulating people to do its bidding, and infecting them with a horrific disease, literally ending the way of life the Ancients followed. It's because of this that he becomes hngry for absolute power --- hungry because, he, Sephiroth, is the single most powerful being to ever grace the planet, even so powerful as to bend the will of Jenova itself to do his bidding.

It's because of this that he decides to summon Meteor to crush any opposition, as well as all civilisation, so he can build anew and enslave all life... Not to mention having a final one-on-one with the only person who was actually able to best him.


There is much documentation about this, all canonical. Sephiroth is a truly bad-ass villain, who does have adequacy issues (the whole being beaten by a sixteen-year-old kid who's been gutted with a huge sword thing), but manages to do a shitload of damage before being eliminated by somebody who happened to be more determined than he ever was.

Cefca, in contrast, was an honorable General turned insane by a Magitek infusion gone wrong, thus creating the violent, hell-bent jester we know from FFVI. Sephiroth's iron will and sheer focus on eliminating any and all opposition make him a better villain, not because his "evil" was more concentrated, but because his mind and concience were completely clear while doing so.

As for the greatest Final Fantasy antagonist? I'd have to say Vayne Solidor, easily.

He was intent on freeing the world from the control of the Occuria, and he reached his goal. Unfortunately, he became an unwitting puppet in Venat's plan to enslave the world in place of them. You can't say that all of his actions were bad (he did treat his people rather well), but many of them definitely weren't good.

He was black and white, plain and simple. He was all about necessity, and that was cleansing the world of any influence the Occuria had... And that came in the form of obliterating Nabudis (he gave the order to Dr. Cid to do so) and staging an assault on Mt. Bur-Omisace.

In the end, he pretty much got what he deserved... But, he was the catalyst that freed the world of the Occuria. Many of his actions were done for good, though just as many were done knowing that they were terrible deeds... This alone keeps him from attaining the status of a tragic figure. In being so black and white, he was purest grey.

Cefca, in contrast, was an honorable General turned insane by a Magitek infusion gone wrong, thus creating the violent, hell-bent jester we know from FFVI. Sephiroth's iron will and sheer focus on eliminating any and all opposition make him a better villain, not because his "evil" was more concentrated, but because his mind and concience were completely clear while doing so.

This is kinda like saying Joker is the lesser of the two villains in comparison to say...Two Face or Bane.

Just because they're clinically insane doesn't mean they're any less villainous, and may be more because of it.

Spoilers...










And there's another aspect of the character. We really don't know all too much about Kefka before his "transformation". His descent into madness is a tragic aspect of the villain. In addition, the very product of the Magitek experiment that the Ghestal empire conducted on Kefka: the "new and improved" Kefka, is what eventually leads to the destruction of the empire.

Ironic, no?

And besides, Kefka volunteered for the Magitek infusion that wreaked havok on his mind. He knew the risks when he signed on the dotted line! Maybe he should have seen the company safety video.

"This is your brain"

*shows an egg*

"This is your brain on Magitek."

*smashes egg with frying pan*

Pah. Ultros, self proclaimed octopus royalty was a lot better as a villain. :p

Don't tease the octopus, kids!

The real question is why that wannabe emo hasn't fatally cut his wrists yet. He's got the legendary Masamune, so it must have conected. Don't feel bad -- you'd probably be an emo too if you looked like http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:Doofus.jpg!

And no, Seifer wasn't FF8's ultimate villain either.

He was the main one, all through the game. Ultimecia was the final one, but her presence was rather small until the end.

How can one NOT vote Kefka. Kefka is a homocidal maniac clown who kills only because he likes killing. He's not after revenge, trying to impress anyone, or trying to improve the world. He basically has NO good in him. He's just pure evil, living to kill and killing to kill. Plus, he achieves his main goal in life-having a LOT of power. Enough power, in fact, to permanently alter the entire face of the earth and make himself ruler of the world. He serves no one, as proven by the fact that he killed General Leo and the emperor, two people he was SUPPOSED to obey. Why kill them? Why not? Why would Kefka spare them?

I voted for Kefka. Why? Sephiroth's overrated, Seymour's a Sephy rip (and a total fruit loop to boot) and Vayne's a girly-boy. Kefka, however, is the only FF villain so far to actually take over a world and **** things up, plus nihilist clowns are awesome.

Also, you can't really say that FF games have gone downhill since Square and Enix merged*. There's only been one game released since then (FFXII), which was pretty cool, and one game isn't enough for there to be a definite drop in quality.

* They merged in 2003. FFX was released in '01 or '02, around that time.

Kefka is a homocidal maniac

If I remember correctly, Cefca was indiscriminate in his harming of others...

If I remember correctly, Cefca was indiscriminate in his harming of others...

LOL

Oddly enough, the writer himself stated that this possibility is entirely false. He stated that Sephiroth had an unbreakable will, and it was he who was controlling Jenova, not vice versa.
Maybe that is the intention, but it seems like to put it that way is to tag details on to the original game. It's kinda like JK Rowling saying Dumbledore was Gay all the way through the books.

The thing is, Sephiroth himself was obviously being manipulated as a human being, whether or not he was in control in the lifestream. Sure, you could interpret his misreading of Gast's and Hojo's works in assuming Jenova to be both an Ancient and his biological mother as entirely coincidental, but remember that controlling what people perceive and understand is exactly what Jenova does. Furthermore, the clincher is that Sephiroth cut Jenova's head off while still believing it to be both an ancient and his mother. There is no way he would have done that if he wasn't being controlled.

Whether or not the author wants to state it, the story leans towards Jenova being in control. Though, of course, the distinction becomes blurred as Jenova reads Sephiroth's mind and feelings and adopts the form of the one he loves as part of its instinctive behaviour: himself.