TV Tropes calls it the "Moral Event Horizon", a line that, once crossed, there is no coming back. In this case, we're talking about an action so vile, so horrifying, so evil, that it leaves no doubt in anyone's mind that the perpetrator is beyond any redemption. Final Fantasy 7 has no shortages of these types of actions; most of them done by Sephiroth himself. But it was Shinra, not Sephiroth, who committed the most heinous act in the game. That act is the third best moment of the game: the destruction of Sector 7.
*Due to illness and fatigue, this entry will be much shorter than I intended*
Sector 7 refers to the seventh sector of Midgar's upper plate. It is both a residential as well as a business area, although the player never gets to see it. The area is home to hundreds, if not thousands of people. Beneath the plate there lie the Sector 7 Slums, a much poorer area where pollution is everywhere, people live in shacks made of scrap metal, and businesses barely scrape by.
The slum is also home to AVALANCHE, a terrorist/freedom fighting group that focuses on destroying Mako reactors because the reactors are heavily draining the Planet's life force. Midgar depends on Mako energy, as it is not just cheap, it is plentiful. However, AVALANCHE insists that Mako is a danger to the Planet, and will bring about its end. Considering the entire vicinity of Midgar is a giant wasteland, AVALANCHE has a pretty damn solid argument.
Shinra, owners of the Mako reactors, consider AVALANCHE a nuisance, and the news media (owned and controlled by Shinra) takes every opportunity to show that AVALANCHE are evil. Ironically, President Shinra himself is a highly amoral man, as was already discussed in a previous blog entry here: http://vidgameanalysis.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-top-11-best-moments-in-final_6.html
When Shinra discovers where AVALANCHE is based, the President hatches a wicked plan: bomb the Sector 7 pillar, bringing that section of the plate down on the slums, killing everyone, including AVALANCHE. That group was six members strong up to that point in the game, and that's counting Cloud.
An untold number of people died, just to kill six people. And three of those managed to escape. So in the end, Shinra succeeded in killing only three of the people...
President Shinra didn't have to do it like that. He had the resources to have an elite squad of SOLDIER bust in at AVALANCHE's hideout and arrest, or kill, every last member. He could have sent the Turks, his elite hit squad, to take care of them. The fact that he resorted to THIS tactic speaks volumes about what a scoundrel the man truly was.
What makes this moment so awesome, besides from the visual of seeing the entire plate actually fall down, is that it's a turning point in the game. That whole "bombing Mako reactors" schtick that the player had been doing for an hour or so since the game started? That's over. The stakes have been raised.
While President Shinra's introduction helped show that he was really a bad guy, THIS was the moment that cemented the notion that the entire corporation was truly evil and needed to be stopped. Before, there was a moral ambiguity regarding what was happening; AVALANCHE's actions had considerable collateral damage, after all. But this moment underscored the main difference between AVALANCHE and Shinra: only one kills innocents deliberately.
As far as character development goes, this is also a HUGE moment for Barret, who suffers the major loss of his three comrades. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie were Barret's three henchmen who supported his crusade against Shinra.
No, wait, scratch that. The way their deaths impacted him, it's clear they were more than comrades. They were friends. And Shinra killed them. And they killed thousands of other people in the process as well. Barret's hatred of Shinra, from that point on, is fully justified to the player.
And thus, the third best moment in Final Fantasy 7 is the worst thing Shinra does all game.
*Due to illness and fatigue, this entry will be much shorter than I intended*
Sector 7 refers to the seventh sector of Midgar's upper plate. It is both a residential as well as a business area, although the player never gets to see it. The area is home to hundreds, if not thousands of people. Beneath the plate there lie the Sector 7 Slums, a much poorer area where pollution is everywhere, people live in shacks made of scrap metal, and businesses barely scrape by.
The slum is also home to AVALANCHE, a terrorist/freedom fighting group that focuses on destroying Mako reactors because the reactors are heavily draining the Planet's life force. Midgar depends on Mako energy, as it is not just cheap, it is plentiful. However, AVALANCHE insists that Mako is a danger to the Planet, and will bring about its end. Considering the entire vicinity of Midgar is a giant wasteland, AVALANCHE has a pretty damn solid argument.
Shinra, owners of the Mako reactors, consider AVALANCHE a nuisance, and the news media (owned and controlled by Shinra) takes every opportunity to show that AVALANCHE are evil. Ironically, President Shinra himself is a highly amoral man, as was already discussed in a previous blog entry here: http://vidgameanalysis.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-top-11-best-moments-in-final_6.html
When Shinra discovers where AVALANCHE is based, the President hatches a wicked plan: bomb the Sector 7 pillar, bringing that section of the plate down on the slums, killing everyone, including AVALANCHE. That group was six members strong up to that point in the game, and that's counting Cloud.
An untold number of people died, just to kill six people. And three of those managed to escape. So in the end, Shinra succeeded in killing only three of the people...
President Shinra didn't have to do it like that. He had the resources to have an elite squad of SOLDIER bust in at AVALANCHE's hideout and arrest, or kill, every last member. He could have sent the Turks, his elite hit squad, to take care of them. The fact that he resorted to THIS tactic speaks volumes about what a scoundrel the man truly was.
What makes this moment so awesome, besides from the visual of seeing the entire plate actually fall down, is that it's a turning point in the game. That whole "bombing Mako reactors" schtick that the player had been doing for an hour or so since the game started? That's over. The stakes have been raised.
While President Shinra's introduction helped show that he was really a bad guy, THIS was the moment that cemented the notion that the entire corporation was truly evil and needed to be stopped. Before, there was a moral ambiguity regarding what was happening; AVALANCHE's actions had considerable collateral damage, after all. But this moment underscored the main difference between AVALANCHE and Shinra: only one kills innocents deliberately.
As far as character development goes, this is also a HUGE moment for Barret, who suffers the major loss of his three comrades. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie were Barret's three henchmen who supported his crusade against Shinra.
No, wait, scratch that. The way their deaths impacted him, it's clear they were more than comrades. They were friends. And Shinra killed them. And they killed thousands of other people in the process as well. Barret's hatred of Shinra, from that point on, is fully justified to the player.
And thus, the third best moment in Final Fantasy 7 is the worst thing Shinra does all game.
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