If one chooses to believe in the insane ideals of another, does that make them insane, as well?
At the risk of revealing more about my personal life than I most likely should, I'll start off by saying that I'm well acquainted with the concept of insanity. Moreover, I'm well-versed in the reality of insanity brought on by a nervous breakdown. Having seen first hand what years' worth of repressed memories and emotions will do to a person's mental state, I believe I have enough experience to grasp the differences between psychological instability and outright lunacy. I've seen a lot of both. So, from that perspective, I think I can say with a pretty good accuracy that Sephiroth, formerly the human female, Yomi Isayama, never quite reached the latter.
Oh, she was quite unstable, I won't argue that. Homicidal, delusional, and with a Messiah complex the size of a star, yes, but one can be all of those things without being clinically insane. Sephiroth, if you recall, still seemed quite lucid and capable of rational thought throughout the course of the story. Granted, there's the mention of devouring her fellow Angels and God himself to become a Goddess herself and create life as she deems fit, but those ideas weren't a product of her own mind, and therefore could be attributed to outside manipulation, which brings me back to my first question.
If one chooses to believe in the insane ideals of another, does that make them insane, as well?
That in and of itself is an oxymoron. One can't come to a conscious decision to believe what someone tells them and be completely beyond rational thought. Willfully deluding one's self into believing what someone tells them, illogical or not, doesn't make them insane; it just makes them gullible. Sephiroth, for all her iron will, had gullibilityin abundance.
Imagine for a moment; put yourself in the position of that lesbian-obsessed otaku. Your perfectly normal family got eaten by mechanical monsters brought to life by suffering souls. A greedy fascist of a national President runs your life just like he does his business, dictating where you go, what you do, and even who you are. You know that he nor anyone else cares anything for you, beyond what you can offer them. You know that you're far from normal, that you're very different somehow, but that's no reason for everyone to treat you the way they do. You're human, right?
What if you weren't?
What if you were exactly what everyone treated you as? You were a lab rat now, a walking monster who broke her tight leash. You have nothing now. You are nothing. Imagine for a moment, just how much would that fuck with your sense of self?
Then, like an angel, four presences comes swooping down in your darkest hour. They tell you what you've always been yearning to hear; you're special, you're better then they are, they don't deserve you, they should pay for all the suffering they've made you and everyone else endure, and most importantly, that you're loved. You're not a freak, you're not a monster, or a walking weapon; you're something beautiful that's been buried and exploited by those who have harmed you so much in the past. They need to pay, and pay dearly, and then, then, you can recreate this beautiful society that you came from-recreate their wonderful, peaceful world where you don't have to worry about being abused and abandoned. You'll be loved for all eternity, and it will help you get all of that, if you just free her from the prison they've put her in. Just help her, and love her the way she loves you.
'Crazy' is an easy way out; a one-size-fits-all description of anyone and anything that is odd or disturbing in nature. Sephiroth was indeed odd, disturbing, and most likely psychopathic, but she wasn't insane.
She was a Grade-A sucker.
If one chooses to believe in the insane ideals of another, does that make them insane, as well?
Maybe, maybe not. But in the end, as is always the case, it probably doesn't make a difference. The poor little bitch.
The End