An excuse to use Sephiroth rules, especially when he gets a chance to beat up AC and later versions of Cloud. I really liked Cloud in FF7; it was easy to sympathize with him, especially during the lifestream brain-dead sequence (which was written by Masato Kato). But something about Cloud in AC...I don't know, the arc just didn't work. So Cloud blames himself. And? The final battle was completely one-sided, just as Nomura explained; Sephiroth was so utterly powerful that he barely exerted himself the entire time. Yet when Cloud realizes something he learned two years ago -- that, oh my God, people actually care about him -- he uses one cheap trick and instantly dispatches the One-Winged Angel? Really, I don't agree with Cloud's later portrayals. He had a lot of heart by the end of FF7, but the Compilation made him some kind of stone-cold machismo silent-type.
What I'm saying is, Sephiroth should have won. Hah. Character criticism towards him can be laid just as well on Cloud in Advent Children. The film manages to heighten what Sephiroth is best at -- being frightfully and charismatically dark and powerful. His lines, as intended by the writers, are like poetry, profound enough to signify a mind that has transcended its human origins. Meanwhile, Cloud is shunted back into the Square-Enix second generation Final Fantasy protagonist archetype.
