Humanity’s Theme

For anyone who has never played Final Fantasy 7, I want to share a truly beautiful piece of music that represents both the protagonist of the game, and I’d argue humanity as a whole. Cloud, a young man whose memories are altered physically, and whose fear of who he really is veils the truth, only knows that he has to defeat a terrible enemy, Sephiroth.

He lives under a false identity as an elite operative, leads a group of ragtag freedom fighters against a global corporation and their destruction of the planet they share, and in pursuit of this enemy. He is battered mentally as the journey causes him to lose a close friend, and is manipulated into doing a terrible thing at the wrong possible moment.

This enemy, for his part, taunts him the entire way through and is revealed to be alien in origin, but human in form. He uses his link to Cloud to control him and laugh at his “weakness,” but has something to hide, which Cloud discovers in an etheric and spiritual process.

Cloud learns that he is not who he believed he was – not an elite operative but a second rate grunt who happened to be around this enemy and his forgotten mentor and inspiration for a terrible moment in the planet’s history. He is weak, frail, but in a moment that inspired me and probably millions of people, found the strength to stop Sephiroth after he destroyed his home village and nearly killed two of his friends. He did the unthinkable – killing a man whose alien origins amount to several degrees past the normal strength, speed, and intelligence of normal humans.

Sephiroth was dead and used every trick in the book to get Cloud, the man who killed him, to bring him back to life so he could finish what he started. Cloud, now empowered by the truth and with friends at his side to support him, finds strength that only an awakened and spiritually aware person can have. He leads his friends into the heart of Sephiroth’s domain, his friends and he dismantle his defenses, and he slays him again to stop a terrible catastrophe that would have killed millions.

Cloud was as we are as a people – brainwashed, controlled, dominated, and tricked into betraying ourselves, but our spiritual process is ongoing and we will emerge aware and victorious.

This music is a reminder that we all live a tragic life but our destiny is to defeat our tormentors and save our homes, our friends, and our soul from those who would ravage it.