![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Application: Queen of Hearts
Apr. 15th, 2013 03:18 pm( In the Place Where I Make No Mistakes. )
Character Information
Name: Kadaj
Source Canon: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Age: indeterminate, late teens
Role In Canon: major antagonist
Justification:
Justification: I do think that Kadaj makes for an unusual female antagonist. She's powerful and utterly mad, but with a longing to belong, to unite (read: to be loved) that makes her sympathetic in the end. What lies behind the construct isn't a pitiful lost child, but neither is it a mindless juggernaut-- which is refreshing in a female antagonist. Kadaj does and does not have agency-- her actions and choices are her own, but they are also made at the will of another, and towards that other's goals. The notion that the "other" is represented as a mother figure in combination with Kadaj's fully realized, united self (Sephiroth) is compelling.
Also interesting is the idea that the relationships between the antagonists and heroes of FFVII: AC would be structured based on notions of relationships between women: what it means to be a sister, a daughter, a mother, concepts expressed for both good and ill.
I'd like to explore how it would be for Kadaj to be forced to relate with a young Sephiroth she's never known, of course, but also how it would be for her to relate to humans, as well as beings both more and less powerful than herself. I think it would be fascinating to watch Kadaj learn more about humanity and human concepts (such as gender) in a setting where Reunion is not an immediate, reachable goal. I don't believe that gender matters an awful lot to Kadaj, she'd see it as a human idea-- she's more interested in being as like her "mother" as is possible. Witnessing first hand how the women of the Garden interact, the webs of relationship they form, the myriad of ways that feminine identity is expressed, I think would begin to color Kadaj's perception of herself and others after a time, even though she would never acknowledge the idea.
The feminine isn't always nurturing and desirable, and in the feminine, power and madness are often sexualized-- neither is true of Kadaj. The idea of an antagonist of Kadaj's stamp as a woman uninfluenced by the sexism present in the culture of the world she inhabits is an idea worth exploring, I think-- and one that adds a layer of complexity to an already complex character.
History: LINK
Changes:
Kadaj has never "grown up", Kadaj wasn't, then she simply was.
The Kadaj who will appear in the Gardens belongs to the same canon as the Sephiroth already present. They share a past to the extent that Kadaj, being a Remnant of Sephiroth's conciousness, is influenced by what there is that remains of Sephiroth's experience as a human being-- which isn't much. Kadaj doesn't recall Sephiroth's experience as a woman in what is essentially a man's world, because the Sephiroth's of whom she's a part doesn't seem to recall it either. The Sephiroth she'll encounter in the Garden is the Sephiroth who inspires the young women of Gaia, notably including Cloud Strife, to pursue non-traditional careers, particularly in the military. The Sephiroth Kadaj is a part of was insane and for the most part inhuman, out of touch with the life she knew as a SOLDIER. The Sephiroth Kadaj meets in the Garden, will be a Sephiroth she has never known-- one more human (by contrast with herself) than she could imagine.
no_hometown, has this to say about Sephiroth's experience as a woman:
Due to her role in the company and in Hojo's experiments, she is raised female much the same as she would have been raised male. Hojo and Shinra ultimately do not care about Sephiroth as an individual, but as an experiment and a "Cetra". Sephiroth's behavior in the game is not particularly gendered, and female Sephiroth would be no different.
Though there is gender inequality in the world of FF7 comparable to our own (e.g. less women than men in positions of power in the military and government; the commodification of women shown in the slums), Sephiroth is raised isolated from that environment. She is aware that she is female in a clinical sense; she finds it largely irrelevant, because that is how she was raised to see the fact. However, her sex does affect others' perception of her, a fact she is not unaware of. That she is the highly publicized super soldier as well as a woman makes her even more of an oddity in her world. This does increase her feelings of isolation and detachment somewhat.
Though her relationships with some of her colleagues might be altered because of this, Sephiroth remains friends with Angeal and Genesis, who were inspired by her exploits.
Since she's far more susceptible to Sephiroth's influence than she'd like to admit, Kadaj may come to identify with some of these emotions, associations and attachments over the course of her time in the Garden-- but, having the scorn she does for all things human, she'd never admit it. She views herself as a powerful alien being linked to other powerful alien beings, she's uninterested in human convention.
Personality:
Given life by will, Kadaj is a construct -- and an incomplete construct at that. A Remnant of Sephiroth's will, her essence, she embodies the former General's intelligence and cruelty, both of which are great. Kadaj has never been her own person. She has never been fully a person at all.
What will Kadaj has comes from her origins-- it comes from Sephiroth, and from Jenova, from a place of madness and hunger. Along with her sisters, the other Remnants, Kadaj is the child of an unnatural union. What she has always wanted most was to be complete-- to return to her Mother, her sisters (a group in which she includes Cloud Strife), to finally achieve Reunion. Then to transform the life of the Planet. These were Sephiroth's desires, and so they were Kadaj's desires.
Though technically ageless, Kadaj appears to be in the last years of her teens. Like a teenager, she can be mature one moment and childish the next. Gifted with incredible destructive power and a willingness to sacrifice anything to her goals, she loves and hates Sephiroth, admires and resents her. The most intelligent of her sisters, Kadaj does everything for the sake of the Reunion and her Mother's desires, while knowing that Sephiroth is her Mother's favorite, the chosen one. This insecurity only increases Kadaj's emotional volatility. During her fight with a recently healed Cloud, Kadaj unites with her Mother on her own only as a last resort. She would rather have waited for her sisters, for the perfect Reunion, but forced to her limits, she embraces her Mother's remains-- the Sephiroth that emerges is not what she should have been, and is defeated by Cloud.
In the end, dying, her Mother lost, Sephiroth gone, her sisters absent, Kadaj dissolves into the Lifestream. Only able to understand the wholeness she feels in terms of the goal she failed to reach, Kadaj calls Aerith, the spiritual voice of the Planet, "Mother".
It's from this point in her canon, the ultimate point, that Kadaj will enter the Garden. Given that the acceptance and comforting oneness she felt on her death will have disappeared, her reaction is likely to be one of explosive rage. She believes that Sephiroth failed her, failed them all-- and that if she had only had her sisters with her, there would have been perfect Reunion, and Cloud would have been defeated. She is probably right.
Kadaj is a creature of brilliant madness-- Sephiroth's brilliance on and off the battlefield, and Sephiroth's madness of knowing, of her anger and betrayal. It isn't enough that Kadaj is a puppet, her intellect won't let her ignore the fact, or forget it. Emotionally, Kadaj is unstable-- an amoral child.
She could easily have made an end of the Shinra, as seen in her visit to Healin Lodge, but Kadaj is petulant and vindictive as well as brilliant. Having taunted Rufus Shinra with the knowledge that she and her sisters had captured and tortured half of his Turks, at Healin Lodge on her own, she disables the other half quite easily before his eyes. Afterwards, she alternately gloats over and threatens Rufus, but fails to understand his motivations and capabilities well enough to predict his actions. Though she despises the Shinra, the higher, more human emotions evade Kadaj's understanding as motivations, and so she fails to see through Rufus' ruse.
Kadaj sees human beings as lower lifeforms who exist only to be transformed to her Mother's will. She doesn't emulate human behavior and has no desire for intimacy of any kind with the human inhabitants of Gaia. What she does desire is Reunion, and if she were to be intimate with anyone, either emotionally or physically, it would be her sisters. Of course, being parts of a split psyche makes that difficult, and the Remnants fight amongst themselves in a fashion reminiscent of human siblings.
The urge for Reunion in always calling out within Kadaj, the cells she's made of calling out to others of their kind. In the Garden, without the drive of Jenova, the will of Sephiroth and the influence of the Lifestream, the cells within Kadaj will continue to seek that which is like themselves. The disconnect she feels will be painful for her, and will remind her that she is an incomplete construct. Should she encounter any other being carrying Jenova's cells, she will be drawn to them, seeking union-- how she'll express that desire is another matter.
Believing as she does that fulfillment can only come for her by returning to her mother, the essence of Kadaj's personality lies in her thwarted desire for a union that would obliterate her as a being. It's hard out there for a Remnant.
Abilities:
Kadaj shares some abilities with Sephiroth, of course, but she's an incredibly powerful, merciless killing-machine in her own right. She has great skill with the sword (a double katana called Souba) and with different sorts of Materia based magics, both summons (including Bahamut SIN) and attacks. On Gaia, she's able to summon monsters known as Shadow Creepers from the tainted Lifestream, without Materia-- but of course in the Gardens, without the Lifestream, this would be a no go. Kadaj can also transform herself into a black mist-- she's able to do this at will and uses the skill to gain access or avoid confinement whenever it's necessary.
Preternatural strength and speed are hers, of course, as is the ability to think ahead of most human beings. It isn't precisely mind reading, but it can come very near.
Kadaj is a thing made from rage, sorrow, madness, and alien urges-- her physical being itself is her greatest weapon. Due to the lack of poisoned Lifestream, her powers as expressed in the Gardens would have certain limits, since Kadaj is notonly made of that poison, but draws on it and manipulates it as well. She is intelligence and cruelty personified-- and unleavened.
