Sephiroth's Nonhumanity, Monstrosity, and Why I Find Him Relatable: A Very Strange Video Essay

An analysis of Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, specifically looking at the subject of nonhumanity, personhood, monstrosity, and my own personal reasons for why I relate to him. The 'script' is an essay I wrote a few months back, and is merely reflective of my own opinion and musings on the subject. This is the first video essay I have ever made, so the quality isn’t going to be mind-blowing. I may or may not revisit this topic in future, depending on whether Revelation or the upcoming Sephiroth DLC gives me more to unpack and analyse. Let’s hope neither of them completely throw my essay on its head, because I’m going to look quite ridiculous if they do. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 - Introduction 1:47 - Biology, Other Monsters and Portrayal 11:01 - Humanity, Personhood, and Embrace of the Abnormal 20:23 - Monstrosity 22:02 - Personal Perspectives 27:27 - Conclusion VIDEO CREDITS All Final Fantasy game footage belongs to Square Enix. Of course, respective films to respective companies (Godzilla to Toho, for example). But here I will list the sources where I got the film/cutscene/other footage. FINAL FANTASY | Jurassic World | StudioCanalUK | Trash Talkin’ | Tuts | AEP | Faz Faz | BuffMaister | Predator1986 | Asiaverse | David Max Steinbach (Gaming) | James Bullock | But Only That | Universo Godzilla | Spiderman | Piol Mopi95 | ThatOneGameBoy | Shirrako | MysteriousxLonexWolf | Jagdeep | SuperBaraz | NightSky夜空 | Cyniic | The Grimoire | godnic p | Avyous | AMHarbinger | caldwin | Kellitubby | Console & Control Gaming | Xygor Gaming | Applekiwi PS5 | bythemoon138 | José CRAZYTACO | M. REX Screen Time & Edits | Levas | The Independent | GMC PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS Amazon River Basin- Neil Palmer/CIAT for Center for International Forestry | “Sentience” collage on wikipedia | The Thinker- Kaisching on wikipedia | Great Woodswallow Allopreening- markaharper1 on wikimedia | Indian Elephants- Tisha Mukherjee on wikimedia | Traumatised deer- Source: L.Y. Zanette and M. Clinch / AR Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 2020, Credit: Knowable Magazine | Tiger- Dave Pape wikimedia | Tiger 2- Svetlana Sutyrina wikipedia | Nonhuman Rights Project Logo | Animal Liberation- Ted Aljibe | Animal Aid- Vuk Valcic | Animal Rebellion- Animal Rebellion | European Lobster- Bart Braun wikimedia | Octopus- Nick Hobgood wikimedia | Bumble bees become first insects known to 'play with balls’- The Independent | Aral Sea- NASA, Dylan240 wikipedia (Holocene Extinction) | Dodo killings- wikipedia (Holocene Extinction) | Megafauna extinction rates- ElinWhitneySmith