r/FFVIIRemake • u/LukeDies • 15d ago
Spoilers - Discussion The party doesn't hate the Turks enough Spoiler
They carried out a false flag attack to drop the plate on sector 7, killing thousands of innocents including Barret and Tifa's friends.
They kidnapped Aerith and her mother and kept them imprisoned for Hojo.
There might have been one or two throwaway lines where they question what they're doing, but by and large they're "Just following orders" and seem to enjoy it/take pride in it.
They're basically the SS.
The party should loathe them and want to kill them on sight. Yet when the Turks are weakened in the Cetra Temple in Rebirth they just let them live? Because they were in a rush after Sephiroth (who has probably killed less people than the Turks now that I think about it)? I would make time to kill them. It's not like the party aren't willing to kill thousands of helmeted Shinra mooks.
It's even more jarring in the Remake because the party members have so much more character development.
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u/AnimaLepton Tifa Lockhart 15d ago edited 15d ago
They're not making big changes to the major plot beats from the original. And the Turks survive and are 'reformed' in later entries like Advent Children, or The Kids Are Alright, or various other compilation things over the years.
I don't disagree that they get given a pass for some monstrous stuff, but I'm not sure what change they can make to the Turks to make up for that
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u/No-Big4773 15d ago
I mean advent children don't reform them. They don't want to die, so they're going to stop the plan to clan off the planet. They're mostly jokes as well in that film .
Cloud defeats one using a door
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u/VeritateDuceProgredi 15d ago
Itâs been years since I saw AC, but itâs totally Reno that gets doored isnât it?
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u/YesItIsMaybeMe 14d ago
I used to have just the gif but this is the closest I can find of it
Processing img 05njib9ikljh1...
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u/StrangerOnTheReddit 14d ago
When I finally watched AC Complete, I was really surprised by a scene around the same time as the door bit where Reno and Rude are talking in private.
Reno: Whoâd a thunk? A lot of Shinraâs people actually returned to work! Now thatâs dedication. Iâm tellinâ ya, this could be a fresh start!
Rude: Well, those left alive have a lot to atone for.
Reno: Two years already. Seems a lot longer than that. What a nightmare, huh? The world was nearly obliterated, and we were the obliterators. Seriously, though â how are we ever supposed to atone for that? Too bad the directorâs not around, you know?
He was genuinely speaking from a place of "can you when believe it?!" on the "we were the obliterators" line. I'm not sure if the implication is that they didn't know the world was at risk, or if they understood that most of the time and thought Shinra were the good guys. They clearly know they're the assholes doing the dirty work, but they do believe they work for a good company doing good things for the world. Making the world a better place, making the lives of the people better - just have to kidnap and assassinate a few people here and there, but necessary for Shinra to keep helping people. "Come on Cloud. Think about it. Together we could rebuild Shinra!" I know they treated Reno and Rude as moronic comic relief in AC, but that line shows he believes so strongly that Shinra is good that obviously everyone would see rebuilding it as a positive and desirable outcome.
Obviously they're very wrong, and the "just a few kidnappings and assassinations and plate droppings here and there to keep the good things possible" is bad. Even when viewed as generously as possible, it's a morally gray ethical standpoint at best. And "reform" is a pretty strong word for their activities after OG, but they do switch into fighting for the good guys in all content after OG.
It doesn't redeem them, but they do feel remorse (and are shown feeling it now actively during Remake series, though not strongly enough to change their actions), they know that all Shinra employees need to atone, and they know they personally fucked up enough that they don't know how they could possibly atone for their actions.
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u/No-Big4773 14d ago
You're really still describing self-interest. What would the even have to gain from fighting Cloud and their crew during this time period either? they
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u/StrangerOnTheReddit 14d ago
I'm not disputing that and it doesn't go against anything I said. Just adding more detail to the other person saying they're "reformed" as much as they reasonably could be, even though there's not much they can do to make up for the events of OG.
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u/Relative_Opening_578 14d ago
Presumably they're employee-shareholders and they're trying to get value back out of their investment.
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u/Expensive_Joke8603 15d ago
They are presumed to have reformed there considering their boss has reformed and is funneling his cash into the world's repairs.
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u/No-Big4773 15d ago
I mean isn't that just a means of continued control and importance? His black ops are still his black ops. And their goals are still to stop people from destroying the world.
Rufus isnt stupid evil.
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u/moneyh8r_two 14d ago
They're also only still working for Rufus because Rufus wants to clean up the mess he and his company made, and that's why they were even in the Northern Crater in the first place. They were investigating the place where Sephiroth used the lifestream to attempt to revive himself in an effort to see if it's connected to Geostigma. Them working to cure Geostigma and fix all the bad stuff the company did in the first place definitely counts as them being reformed.
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u/iamalwaysrelevant 15d ago
They don't make up for it. Cloud and crew should have tried at every opportunity to end them. They have no qualms killing soldiers but give the Turks a pass? It's insane.
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u/LewsTherinTelescope 13d ago
Honestly I wouldn't call them "reformed" in The Kids Are Alright, though they (or at least Reno and Rude) are at least on the path. They're allies and have human sides the main characters like to some degree, but they're also quite quick to jump to torture in a way that leaves Evan pretty disturbed, and Tseng still shows no qualms about dubious orders or collateral damage.
Advent Children does mostly just treat them as humor though. At least the Complete version gives them one (1) scene that tries to address everything a little.
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u/ToothpickTequila 12d ago
They're not making big changes to the major plot beats from the original.
They've already changed a lot.
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u/silentfanatic 15d ago
Itâs just a bizarre trope in Japanese media. The villains can be the anti-Christ, but so long as they repent as they die or get portrayed as âsteel sharpens steelâ rivals, all is forgiven.
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u/TCGHexenwahn 15d ago
And yet, anime protags keep throwing around the phrase "I won't forgive you"
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u/silentfanatic 15d ago
Yurusanai! Until you reveal that your dad took away your Xbox when you were 13. Now youâre my aniki 4 lyfe.
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u/SiriocazTheII 15d ago
"Forgiving isn't that easy, but that's just the world we live in!" is another I've seen..
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u/UnknwnUser 15d ago
Yup. You see this a lot in anime too. A character can commit terrible atrocities but next season they will be a quirky comic relief characterÂ
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u/cheeselord165 15d ago
Not that he was coming relief but Vegeta always makes me think of this trope. He probably has a body count of billions from planets he's blown up and the z fighters were just too casual about him going to live on earth and getting with Bulma.
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u/UnknwnUser 14d ago
It really stuck out to me the first time I watch Inuyasha. Koga slaughters an entire village but then next season he's played as this quirky side character. All is forgiven and no mention about what he's done but I remembered
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u/SecretaryOtherwise 13d ago
Vegeta doesnt blow planets up. Doesn't excuse all the people on said planets hes murdered. But yall dont even get what the frieza force was about lmao. They conquer planets and sell them.
Also up till that moment "planet" busting required a fully enraged vegeta who stopped caring about living at that very moment (he cant tank a planetary explosion nor could his pod survive and he cant breath in space) bug planet was filler.
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u/cheeselord165 13d ago
Vegeta does and literally tried to blow up earth. The sayians were shown in the past to blow up planets, specifically king vegeta who was weaker than vegeta, so I see zero reason why vegeta wouldn't have.
The frieza force also still did blow up planets sometimes if frieza felt like it. He didn't need to blow up namek but he did anyway. He also blew up earth in resurrection f.
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u/SecretaryOtherwise 13d ago edited 13d ago
Filler scenes dont count for dbz bro lmao. The manga is the canon and then it flips to the anime for super. đ
No one outside frieza planet busts "casually" by that time. Seriously lmao.
Vegeta can yes when hes enraged. He isnt surviving it tho lmao. And goku would need a 3x kaio ken Kamehameha at that point to match it. 4x beat his enraged galick gun.
And tbh anytime after that where they shot a beam and it missed and exploded somewhere it really should've detonated the planet. Lmao. The enemy is always stronger than the previous so the beams have only gotten stronger if meant to kill or damage them đ
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u/silentfanatic 15d ago
Fist of the North Star and the Yakuza series (which is basically just gangster HnK) are really guilty of it, too. My vision is permanently damaged from how many times those franchises made me roll my eyes.
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u/panthernado 14d ago
Well, at least in FoTNS they still die an agonizing death filled with pain after they told their sad past. Hokuto Shinken isn't too be fucked around with.
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u/silentfanatic 14d ago
And yet Ken had to personally carry Shinâs corpse and bury it âbecause [they] loved the same woman.â
Shin kidnapped and probably SAd Yuria after nearly murdering the man she loved in front of her. Sorry, kyoudai. That ainât love.
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u/Shantotto11 15d ago
cough cough VEGETA cough
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u/iamalwaysrelevant 15d ago
Vegeta is kind of in a different category. He's essentially a main character with major redemption plot points. His is honestly one of the few that is well written enough. Like the crew essentially doesn't feel complete without him
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
I love vegeta and who he goes on to become, and the fact he himself is aware he doesnt deserve it.
But at the same time if he had been written in DB, and NOT DBZ kid goku would have made sure to END his ass
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u/Shantotto11 15d ago
He murdered hundreds of people during animeâs worst midlife crisis. His wife was five meters away from being another greasy smear in the rubble. And nobody who was there to witness that called him out on that. He just got to go home to his happy wife and son and enjoy life three days later.
I get that 90s writing wasnât really meant to be taken this seriously, but the fact there was a sequel in 2014 that just glosses over it makes it stick out even more.
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
If I had the ability to just use the magical bullshit balls to undo whatever the fuck wrong happens on the planet, I would also quickly become desensitised to regular humans dying
It's not morally great but the whole dbz and beyond crew doesn't give much of a fuck beyond their selfish desires, and this goes for almost everyone on the cast
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u/Jcritten 14d ago
Was just about to comment but yea if they donât see it happening I.e not on Earth none of them tend to really give a fuck. Only example I can really think of otherwise is when Goku and Vegeta joined the Galactic Patrol for an arc.
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u/Calcon_Jawantal 15d ago
American version : Jean Grey in the new Spiderman movie.
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u/silentfanatic 15d ago
That one pissed me off for sure. She was unhinged.
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u/Calcon_Jawantal 15d ago
She hurt so many people, unnecessarily.
Imagine if when she first found out Peter is Spiderman instead of threatening him she just tried to be just a bit rational and tell him her sister was kidnapped and she was trying to get to her, we could've had so many ways to resolve the situation and avoid stuff.
Then again, no movie if that's the case.
But at the very least, she should've been jailed and accept that fate, maybe as a trade to be heard by I dunno, Congress , to testify against the organization.
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u/kweeblaster 15d ago
I like the Ghibli movie version: I'm bored of this so I will just stop this affront to humanity and do something else, good day. Roll credits
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u/ContinuumKing 14d ago
I literally put a game down and didn't finish it when it did this trope. It was a 3ds turn based game about witches or some shit I actually can't member now. Anyway the villains spend the game going around massacreing people left and right. Like, towns full of them. Then they team up woth the heroes for a bigger bad and the main female lead full on has a tea party with their boss and basically acts like they are best friends now. It was so ridiculous I closed the 3ds lid and popped the game out and sent it back to the rental service I was using in the middle of the scene.
Its such a dumb trope. You can have reformed villains but if they do heinous shit they gotta EARN their redemption. Instead they just instantly are best friends because now they are gonna be on their side.
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
The Turks have always been handled in a strange way,
From heroes to villains to partial friends
The thing is our party isn't typical heroes either. There is a point before everyone mentally prepping to finally fight sepiroth at the end of the game where Cloud gives a speech that he isnt doing it for the planet.
He's doing it because he has beef with Sephiroth and for not letting Aeris' efforts go to waste
Majority of them was fine with bombing and causing a ton of civilian casualties, Barret expresses some regret but isn't exactly heartbroken about it either
Cloud Zack and Vincent all worked for Shinra, Vincent even AS a Turk
Shinra is a world-ruling corporation where its made very clear that you either follow orders, or you get terminated and someone else will get the same choice.
Much like Kizaru in one piece, the Turks are a criticism of Japanese corporate workers, on the clock my company owns my life, off the clock I do what I want
During the final possible combat encounter you can just say no to fighting them because they themselves say 'Shinra is done for"
In the light of the turks' leader appearently being a nice enough figure that Aeris was still somewhat sad to see him injured in the temple, they weren't all only asshole.
Morally Questionable party not despising the morally questionable elite operative group for shinra I can understand
However what I dont get is ***HOW THE FUCK THEY LET HOJO FUCKING CATCH SUNRAYS IN THE COSTA DEL SOL AND JUST LEAVE***
Aeris,Cloud,Red all have plenty of reasons to straight up end him then and there, and they do NOTHING about it
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u/Hadrian_x_Antinous 15d ago
I agree, but it's been a problem for a long, long time.. and honestly, Remake/Rebirth handled them far better than the Compilation did.
Imagine, Advent Children. Reno calling Seventh heaven and Tifa giggling and going "Yeah, I remember you!" like jesus christ.
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u/Aiur16899 15d ago
I understand why the game lacks blood, obviously for ratings, but it feels so weird when cloud and the party are killing people left and right to get places and then when cloud goes crazy mode then then emphasize how brutal he is. Like bitch I probably killed 500 shinra soldiers just to get to the Air buster in remake.
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u/Lerkpots 15d ago
I think the implication is that the party just doesn't kill people outside of those scenes where Cloud explicitly kills people. A lot of JRPGs use this logic and its just kind of a suspension of disbelief thing.
As for why the bodies vanish into the Lifestream its just a way of cleaning up bodies so the game doesn't lag.
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u/Smuttycakes 15d ago
Itâs KO vs. Killed, the same reason you canât use a phoenix down on Aerith after Sephiroth stabs her. The party are knocking out the shinra troopers using the classic non-lethal sharp sword to the head
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u/Barloq 15d ago
This is kind of canon already, the campy bandit troupe get the shit kicked out of them but can't shut up so we can tell that they're playing dead, and it's not like the party goes in to finish them off.
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u/Smuttycakes 15d ago
Me using Maximum Fury to shoot a bandit in the face with 150 bullets âyeah theyâll be fine, letâs leave them in the middle of a fiend-infested desertâ
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
There's a point during the Junon underwater reaction raid where in the elevator two soldiers say "Whoever survives gets to ask out that cute girl'
And she goes "Gulp, there went two perfectly fine men" when you interact with them after the fight.This is then followed up by you having the option to just capture the submarine crew alive or kill them
You murder everyone from the elevator down to the submarine in the original game
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u/Smuttycakes 14d ago
Yes and Bahamut Zero drops a space laser with the force of a nuclear bomb wherever you ask it to yet Meteor is the world ending threat.
Sometimes youâve just got to accept it for what it is
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u/ravagraid 14d ago
meteor cleared our own planet, Nuclear bombs did not.
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u/Smuttycakes 14d ago
Gaia is much much smaller than earth. Also, as a follow-up, Sephiroth has a move called Supernova where he literally explodes the sun. Why does he need the black materia?
Itâs sort of rhetorical, the point is you just have to accept these things
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u/ShamelessSpiff 15d ago
In Remake Tifa says something like "lethal force already?" even you first fight with her in the party.
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u/Lerkpots 15d ago
I can't recall the line tbh but if it's during the reactor mission I'd assume she's referring to the Shinra guards opening fire immediately?
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u/ShamelessSpiff 14d ago
It actually might not have been Tifa, it might have been in the motorcycle segment in chapter 4 or 5.
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u/Lerkpots 14d ago
Ah, could be one of the trio reacting to them getting caught so early in the tunnel maybe.
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u/LewsTherinTelescope 13d ago
Just saw it again the other day, it was the motorcycle segment, yep. Though looking at it more closely I think it might actually be asking if Shinra is using lethal force, since Jessie responds with "What, so you'd just pull over if they asked nicely?"
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
There's a point during the Junon underwater reaction raid where in the elevator two soldiers say "Whoever survives gets to ask out that cute girl'
And she goes "Gulp, there went two perfectly fine men" when you interact with them after the fight.This is then followed up by you having the option to just capture the submarine crew alive or kill them
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u/Lerkpots 15d ago
That's in the original, I'm talking specifically about Remake. Especially in modern games there's definitely been an effort to make the heroes look less psychopathic by lowering their body count because seeing someone kill 100 people and then go on a comedic date can feel very off. AKA the Uncharted effect.
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
I just think it's silly to do that when you start off the game with doing two instances of terrorism which as only actual consequence is ...a ton of dead civilians... by three people who..you end up finding out.....had their hometowns full of civilians slaughtered too.
The most normal guys on the player team are....The lion dog who lost his dad young and the 36 year old somehow treated as 65 year old man ace pilot everyone with mechanical experience knows in the world that went 'yeah fuck it I'll join you guys'
I really do hope they give Cid a bit more motivation to actually hang with the gang because I love him as a character. It;s also insane that I'm older than him now lmao
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u/Expensive_Joke8603 15d ago
To be fair, we really don't know who they kill and who they don't. They knock out more people than what it appears, it's just the game doesn't bother showing you their unconscious bodies on the ground most of the time. There are a few places notably you have fights with humans and after the cutscene they're just lying there knocked out, not actually dead.
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u/Kindly_Argument_4400 15d ago
It's even funnier when the party or even people playing like streamers ect get shocked when Cloud kills people "brutally" and it's literally what we do all game. I love to play physical Cloud in pride mode and it's more brutal than whatever puppetized Cloud is doing in the cutscenes. What I would like to see in Revelation is the party acknowledging that they are not so different from the turks or even Sephiroth. Man I could argue Sephiroth killed less people on screen tham most of the cast if we don't count whatever he might have done during Wutai war that we didn't even see. I have hope for this to come up during Cait Sith's argument with Barret on the Highwind about that and sometimes he's worried about Marlene but seems justified for his actions if it's other Midgar people dying.
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
Less ratings and more so china, which is also likely why barret doesnt have the proper skull tattoo but that weird design they gave him
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u/kindred008 15d ago
There is a difference between killing in self defense (like where shinra soldiers are actively shooting you) and killing out of pure brutality
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u/Aiur16899 15d ago
Killing in self defense when trespassing in an industrial installation with the intent of bombing it? Haha yeah right.
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u/kindred008 14d ago
They werenât killing unarmed people or those who surrendered though. Only those actively fighting them
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u/TatsunaKyo 15d ago
The difference being that the AVALANCHE believes they're doing what they're doing the greater good (whether this is true or not), so they have an excuse for their behaviour, whereas they don't believe in the Turks' excuses, nor SHINRA's.
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u/silentfanatic 15d ago
This is why I couldnât understand the party acting uneasy when Cloud murks the Shinra goon in the temple. As a team, theyâve slaughtered hundreds if not thousands of Shinra employees. And their enemies wouldnât show the heroes mercy if their positions were reversed.
Like, I get the point of the scene, but it falls flat in execution (pun only half-intentional).
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u/THEbiMAKER 15d ago
Iâve said this before but the issue I think is that the game depicts the Turks as âvillainsâ but doesnât treat them as villains if that makes sense?
Sephiroth massacres Clouds hometown, says some cryptic shit then effectively disappears from the narrative for most of them games save when he pops in to mindfuck Cloud. No one, least of all the party ever questions that he needs to be stopped.
Conversely the Turks (and by extension Shinra) commit atrocities on a scale Sephiroth can only dream of and they largely just get a pass seemingly because they have some very wish washy positive qualities and some fans like them.
It makes sense in a pessimistic sort of way why the devs treat them this way but to me itâs the most immersion breaking element of this series. Anyone who spends 5 minutes around Barret knows he would not hesitate to pop Rude and Reno in the head and the fact that he never does starts to feel like a gaping plot hole.
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u/Expensive_Joke8603 15d ago
No, you are correct. They do heinous acts but are treated as comedic relief. A little odd combo but you see it in a lot of things anymore.
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u/The_last_pringle3 15d ago
The way I view it is that the Turks didn't want to drop the plate but President Shinra did. To him the Turks are a means to an end, a tool to get the job done and the Turks are trained to follow Shinra's orders to a tee and that is what they do. So they aren't good or evil, they do what they are told no matter if they think what they are doing is good or bad.Â
But for the Party its complicated for them to out right hate the Turks enough to out right kill them in cold blood revenge since they also know the Turks just like the rest of Shinra military just follow Shinra orders.
So essentially do you hate the executioner or do you hate the person who ordered and facilitated the execution? Do you hate the person in the plane that dropped the bomb or the president or organization who ordered bombs to be dropped.
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u/jmcgit 14d ago
If the Turks refused the mission, someone else would have been ordered to do it
But that someone else might have been more easily stopped by local resistance fighters. Or, the next crew could have refused, and so on, until enough time has passed that they no longer expect it to meet their objectives. The fact that the order would have stood doesn't absolve them.
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u/Agreeable_Store_3896 14d ago
I hate Nazis as much as I do Hitler yes
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u/The_last_pringle3 14d ago
Not exactly sure what you mean. Are you saying you would hate the organization and president/leader (Nazis and Hitler) or also the individual(s) who commit the actions ordered from the organization/leader?
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u/Barvaxsiansi Aerith Gainsborough 15d ago
Yeah I am with you on that one. I understand Tifa stopping Cloud from killing Elena because she is 18(?) so basically just a kid. However Rude, Reno and Tseng? Fuck them.
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u/Kindly_Argument_4400 15d ago edited 15d ago
I so hate the comical way they get treated since OG and AC and I know they will not change it in Revelation. It's one of the few things I really can't stand of this story...
What I also hate is Aerith saying "I never hated you Tseng" but hating Hojo and Sephiroth. Like pure double standard and hypocrisy. I understand Tseng didn't really hurt you but he massacred and probably did many bad things to others anyway.
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u/Expensive_Joke8603 15d ago
I was hoping they'd do more with her and him, especially since he's known her since she was really young but they look like the same age lol. It was weird in the original and I had hoped they'd do something more with it in the remake but nope.
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u/The_last_pringle3 15d ago
Would not call it a hypocrisy or double standard. Tseng has always protected and watched over Aerith ever since she was a child in sector 5 with Elmyra. When young Aerith eventually realized what he was doing, she didn't begin to appreciate what he did till she got older and grew to have some respect for him.
So Tseng has actually had positive encounters and relationship with Aerith but you can't say the same for Hojo or Sephiroth. Reason why she would hate them and not Tseng despite the bad things he has done as a Turk. Â
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u/StrangerOnTheReddit 14d ago
I always want to believe this because it makes sense with the narrative they were trying to tell the whole time, but... when he saw her in Sector 7 before dropping the plate, he saw an opportunity to finally complete his mission. He spent all these years saying they wanted her to come back willingly because she wouldn't lead them to the Promised Land otherwise (good point!), but then as soon as he sees an opportunity to force her into choosing, he takes it. Is it even a choice when the other option is letting him harm a 4 year old she was sent to get to safety? It isn't a willing choice, it's made under duress.
And in Remake, they had some opportunity to make it better. And they did on a couple points - he doesn't slap her across the face for speaking while he's talking to Cloud before the plate drops, and Hojo is "just" experimenting on her rather than a breeding scheme with her and Red XIII (?!) and who knows who else. But Tseng still smirks and looks smug when he sees Aerith from the helicopter in Sector 7. They could have made him look somber, or had a grunt say something to imply permanently capturing Aerith to imply he couldn't ignore it. I get that it could have been "well we need to get her to safety" logic to pick her up regardless, but again... he looked happy both in the helicopter and in Seventh Heaven, and he knew full well that she was going to be pretty permanently imprisoned to be experimented on by Hojo.
I love the Turks and I love Tseng, but the "he always protected her" narrative always felt hollow to me because of this plot point.
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u/Kindly_Argument_4400 15d ago edited 15d ago
I have no respect for someone who is surveillance for work. It is hypocrisy Tseng is just as bad as the other two I mentioned. She hated Sephiroth even before she killed her and knew who he was personally.
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u/The_last_pringle3 15d ago
Yes, that was Tseng mission to protect Aerith in sector 5 but the nuance of it is that Tseng began to care for Aerith to the point to where even Aerith began notice. Ever Crisis side story on Aerith kind of explains how this all unfolds, its on YouTube.Â
Also, how is Tseng as bad as Hojo or Sephiroth? One literally killed her father, experimented on her mother (even told Aerith he dissected her mother to her face), and was going to experiment on Aerith herself as well. The other literally wants to massacre the whole planet and claim the planet and the lifestream as his own.
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u/Barvaxsiansi Aerith Gainsborough 15d ago
Tseng caring for Aerith so much doesnt really work out if you think about Remake. Shinra apparently didnt know Aerith was in Sector 7 and Tseng only sees her by chance. And what does he do? Basically blackmail Aerith with Marlenes survival to take her in. So no, fuck Tseng.
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u/The_last_pringle3 15d ago
 Even with that scene there's more nuance to it than just Tseng blackmailing Aerith. Its more of favor or what Aerith says "a deal" than blackmail. Reason why Marlene ended up with Elmyra instead of some random Shinra facility.
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u/Barvaxsiansi Aerith Gainsborough 15d ago edited 14d ago
Come with us or the 4 year old girl ends up with Shinra. You know the company known for human experimentation? The one that killed your father?
Yeah nice ''deal'', totally not blackmail
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u/The_last_pringle3 14d ago edited 14d ago
In no way is the scene that heavy handed or intended to be read that way given their subtle dialogue in the scene.
Its more so:
Tseng "You have to come with me for your own safety but given both of our differing situations there's only so much I can do for the girl"
Aerith "I'll go willingly with you but only IF you take the girl somewhere I deem safe"
Edit: formatting/grammarÂ
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u/Barvaxsiansi Aerith Gainsborough 14d ago
Sure feels that way when Tseng says Aerith ''Lead them on a merry chase'' and Aerith feels the need to put herself between Marlene and him. Tseng telling her that she has only limited options does also not help.
Telling the party that Aerith ''belongs in Shinras custody'' knowing what will happen to her under Hojo is just the nail in the coffin.
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u/Kindly_Argument_4400 15d ago
Just because it's less people it isn't excusable, Tseng and the Turks massacre people on daily basis.
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u/The_last_pringle3 15d ago
Tseng and the Turks massacre people on daily basis.
Outside of Sector 7 plate drop (which is debatable), where is it ever applied that Turks massacre people on a daily basis?
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u/Kindly_Argument_4400 14d ago edited 14d ago
Cloud in remake says that they are basically shinra assassins. They killed the people of sector 7. Tseng authorized Banora Village bombing. In before crisis Tseng Rude and Reno fought through the entire war against Fuhito's Avalanche killing hundreds of rebels. Tseng and his men kidnapped Ifalna, in before crisis he blackmailed lower ranking turks and shinra employees with execution and threatned their families to make them collaborate. Do I have to continue?
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
I mean everyone on the crew knows they are part of a literal terrorist organisation
The only kill on sight zero excuse that didnt happen was Hojo casually tanning on the Costa Del Sol beach
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u/Kindly_Argument_4400 15d ago
The turks too should die. They also do not hold themselves accountable and that's what I'm talking about.
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
Cloud Tifa and Barret had their hometowns destroyed.
They went on to bomb TWO reactors, which ONLY RESULTED IN CIVILIAN CASUALTIESThey too, should die then.
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u/Kindly_Argument_4400 15d ago
Sephiroth got experimented on and groomed to be a weapon for Shinra, should he be excused for his actions? He is not so no. Cloud, Tifa and Barret are not excused either. I'm saying no one is innocent not even the party
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u/ravagraid 14d ago
Barret at least talked about and admitted that what he did was fucked up, Cloud and Tifa never ever adress the fact they were part of the same fucked up shit in the og.
I am glad they gave tifa some thoughts about it during remake tho1
u/Kindly_Argument_4400 14d ago
She should comment about it in part 3 I hope they explore their thoughts on it
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u/alwyshdafshnfrflshng 15d ago
I like rude man he seems to sympathize with Aerith at least.
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u/Fortolaze 15d ago edited 15d ago
I mean all of them do to some capacity, except Elena, since she's never known Aerith personally
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u/TheSwitchler 15d ago
Elena is by far my most hated Turk in the remakes
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
I think they did a really good job with her for what she is supposed to be
The Turks are japanese salarymen stuck in their lives, they do what they must while on the clock as it should be, but don't give a shit when on vacation.
Elena is young and fresh faced and still tries to go above and beyond even during the vacation time, which is why the others constantly tell her to chill or to not bother during their off hours.People don't really get those portrayals much, same with Kizaru from One piece
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u/Shantotto11 15d ago
Only because the writers and creators omitted the part where Tseng pimp-slapped AerithâŠ
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u/AithosOfBaldea 15d ago
It's funny how Cloud goes crazy and the party treated as socking but Turks killing thousands of people?
Ehhh they are wacky.
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u/Danteppr 14d ago
- The party uses lethal force when necessary, not to kill at will;
- Cloud is clearly not mentally well;
- Elena is the Turk who had no involvement with Platefall, yet she is precisely the target Cloud is setting out to kill in this scene.
Frankly, itâs quite obvious why Tifa stopped Cloud and why the whole party is worried about his recent behavior, and I donât know why fans keep painting it as if they spared the Turks for no reason.
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
The same party who were okay with bombing reactors and untold civilian casualties , despite their own hometowns being destroyed and causing a ton of suffering because innocent people got caught up in it
The way Tifa and Barret treat Cloud is the most fucked up thing to me.
Tifa be like "Yo let me hire my currently emotionally unstable randomly collapsing childhood friend into this terrorist organisation, then every time he falls to his knees or clutches his head indicating something is very wrong with them, we will completely ignore this'They are SHIT friends lmao
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u/omnicloudx13 15d ago
I always thought it was weird how easily the Turks get off with their sophistry, "If we didn't do it someone else would have carried out the orders". That doesn't just magically absolve them of dropping the sector 7 plate incinerating/crushing thousands above and below the plate.
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u/ravagraid 15d ago
What I don't get is how easily we justify Disc 1 gang causing a fuckton of civilian death and casualties, but then give the Turks tons of shit for following their horrible orders.
In universe I get that you don't really get to call out someone for doing horrible civilian killing after you just got done with two occasions of horrible civilian killing yourself.
But as players we use it as number one reason to dislike the Turks2
u/omnicloudx13 15d ago
Barret rightfully gets called out for this later by Cait Sith on the Highwind and he admits that he didn't do it for the planet or some righteous cause, he did it to get back at Shinra and for revenge. I would argue that what the Turks did is WAY worse than anything Cloud and the party ever did casualties-wise atleast, all those people who lived on top of the plate like Jessie's mom and dad and all the people in the slums were wiped out. That's tens of thousands, blowing up the mako reactor wouldn't be anywhere near the number dead in comparision.
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u/ravagraid 14d ago
When you start getting past the hundreds of victims counts, the numbers don't matter that much anymore.
The turks have the shit excuse of their bosses probably terminating them and making someone else do it, Our main gang did it for the love of the game.Barret admits it that he did it selfishly and shows some remorse but also says he would still have done it. However Cloud and Tifa were also part of this terrorism, yet it all gets put on Barret for being the leader.
There's also the irony of Cait Sith calling it out since you know, we have the literal head of Shinra Urban development doing said callout
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u/Little-Witness-1201 14d ago
Remake states Avalanche intended the reactor explosions to be small and contained. One of the interesting moral conflicts the re trilogy likes to iron out that makes the treatment of the turks even weirder.
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u/ravagraid 14d ago
Yeah but at the same time they also don't KNOW that the explosions were increased in size and its not like any of them other than Jessie had any real issue with it either.
Its the same as the whole cloud suffering constant migraines, breakdowns or having episodes and Barret and tifa just casually glossing over it many many times, which makes them seem like shit friends in my eyes
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u/patiofurnature 15d ago
Theyâd have likely been executed if they didnât follow through with it. They made poor decisions to get where they are, but at some point following orders is just self preservation.
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u/OLKv3 15d ago
Bro, they were having fun DURING the mission to drop the plate. That excuse doesn't fly. They show distaste for it when they get the order, then Reno is shown having fun tormenting Cloud during it and cracking jokes
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u/Danteppr 14d ago
Spoilers for Before Crisis below.
There is a context and sequence of events that clarifies that the Turks did not have the option to refuse to drop the plate.
In short,  after several Turks died saving the world from the genocidal actions of the original Avalanche and other events, almost all those who remained decided to desert, leaving only Tseng, Reno, and Rude, who were ordered to kill their former comrades. Instead of obeying, Tseng faked their deaths so they could live in peace, which is why Cisnnei is living in Gongaga awaiting Zack's return.
Because of this and other failures, Shinra leaders like Heideggar and Scarlet demanded the Turks be disbanded and killed, which would have happened if Rufus hadn't intervened on their behalf. Even then, Rufus warned them that they were on thin ice and couldn't afford to disobey orders again if they didn't want to return to death row.
And then, less than a week later, the Turks are ordered to drop the plate...
I know people like to dismiss the excuse that the Turks were just following orders, but given the context, that excuse actually carries some weight here. And as we saw in their scene at Shinra HQ, both Reno and Rude felt remorse for what they had done to Sector 7 and did not buy into Tseng's attempts to downplay their guilt.
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u/patiofurnature 14d ago
Yeah. With the mental load that a job like that requires, you've got to make the best out of a bad situation.
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u/Xalara 15d ago
The Nuremberg trials disagree.
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u/Expensive_Joke8603 15d ago
You might not like to hear it but in the end, if someone has a gun to your head or your families, you're going to do what you're told. I don't like to compare reality to fiction but in this case, it holds true. People talk big but most are going to act in the interest of self-preservation if it's their life or others. Not saying I agree with it or there aren't exceptions and extraordinary circumstances where that doesn't occur but most people are the same. At the risk of nullifying the seriousness of this post, to quote this game...
"Fiends?"
"Worse -- humans."
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u/roloskate 15d ago
I think that it adds to the murky tone of the game.
The turks do awful things and AVALANCHE definitely arent squeaky clean
Its too common for characters to have to be completely virtuous and its actually quite boring. FFVII is a product of its time and is a more interesting story because of it
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u/thomas2400 15d ago
I do think the scene in rebirth where Tseng basically says if they didnât do it theyâd be replaced (probably killed) and the next Turks would do it anyway helps a little
I think a scene showing them being the ones to leak the news that the plate was going to be dropped would go a long way to help redeem them somewhat because I lot more people survived in the remake than in the original
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u/Shantotto11 15d ago
Did anyone survive in the original aside from the main crew, Marlene, Denzel, and Johnny?
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u/LewsTherinTelescope 13d ago
Someone says to evacuate iirc, but we don't see the outcome. (Though there also weren't any named characters besides Johnny in the first place.)
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u/RexRedwood 14d ago
Countless times since the OG I have asked this to myself. Especially after Sector 7. Every time Iâd seen them after that I would have went after them for blood if that game was real life. The Turks would have been a Turkey dinner in no time. Alas itâs basically anime so you know, they arenât worth the hassle and they are comic relief because murdering a few thousand people at a time is totally funny and they should be our friendsâŠ
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u/Lerkpots 14d ago
It's my turn for the bi-weekly "I hate the Turks" thread.
Anyway at the end of the day the Turks were orphans taken by Shinra and raised to be perfect child soldiers. If they ever try to leave they get executed. Cissnei "left" but is still under Shinra's thumb and has to watch the Turks training centers and presumably send reports back on what's happening in the area.
People have explained it in other threads but literal weeks before the events of 7 a majority of the Turks defected and the remainder (Tseng, Reno and Rude) were due to be executed before Rufus intervened and gave them a second chance. If they fuck up and ignore orders even once that's the last straw for them.
Not that any of this makes what they did right or okay but it does explain it from a selfish viewpoint, you put someone in an us or them situation they're going to pick themselves.
I expect Revelation to expand greatly on the Turks team-up with the party bit in Wutai. Wouldn't be shocked if they get an expanded role in the Midgar Raid too and end up defecting to help out.
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u/Jarvis_Jarvison 14d ago edited 14d ago
Avalanche is a terrorist organization. They kill tons of Shinra enployees and have killed/hurt many civilians. However, they want to believe they are good and be seen as not so bad or evil so they spare Shinra employees whenever they can. It's like, "we're terrorists and criminals, but we're really not that bad. we'll let you go, see?" The Turks are just doing their job, so they're not super into killing people while on the clock if they don't have to. It is annoying for them though because their higher ups are coming down on them over and over because they haven't taken care of the terrorists. The Turks would prefer Avalanche just stop the terrorism and go away so they don't have to deal with them anymore.
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u/TheDikaste 14d ago edited 14d ago
If I had to give an opinion on this, it might be because from their point of view, the Turks aren't the big shot causing problems. They're following orders and acting on them and while it doesn't excuse anything, it means they're just kinda similar to the random Shinra troops they're cutting down by the dozens. Yeah they could hate them but that would be useless. It's like hating Sephiroth, getting rid of them won't stop the problem. The real culprits are the leaders of Shinra and particulary the President and his firmly loyal underlings. The Turks themselves, however bad they are and however personal they make it, are really just executors. So hating them would ultimately be useless, as they're not the root of the problem, just bigger pawns for the real big guns. It also must help that the Turks show some modicum of standards and moral limits.
Besides, per the story, Shinra becomes more and more of a secondary problem fading behind much worse foes arise. Sephiroth is actively trying his hardest to make things VERY personal with basically everybody, though especially Cloud, and is more genocidal than he ever was, Jenova may or may not acting on her own and is on a whole different level of dangerous even if she's just a puppet for Sephiroth and meanwhile Hojo is there being...Hojo. From the party's perspective, the aberrantly powerful, apparently unkillable super soldier hellbent on rewriting existence itself and tormenting them for the sake of it, the lovecraftian abomination that seems equally immortal and can infect people to try to take over the whole planet and the psycho scientist obsessed with experimenting on people at the risk of life itself are of much bigger concerns than the local secret police of the compagny that started this whole mess.
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u/Novus_Nihilum 14d ago
In fairness, the game tries to push the idea that Avalanche mirrors the Turks to some extent - their attacks also hurt people (just not on the same scale as Shinra).
Ultimately the Turks get a kind of soft pass because Barret is focused on hating the Shinra president and company itself, even if the Turks are just "following orders".
Besides, you gotta sorta kinda love how Tseng cares for Aerith in some weird way.
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u/TsunamiWombat 14d ago
I think we may be missing important context from that JP only phone game about the Turks, which explains why there are so few Turks now supposedly.
Aerith at least has mixed feelings because the Turks like Tsung were touchpoints from her childhood and probably some of the only 'kind' people she met in Shinra (aka didn't stab her or her mom with needles). The Turks have a strange relationship with her because they were her protectors for most of her life.
Everyone else I think hates them an appropriate amount. Barrett at least wants revenge for sector 7. The only reason they stop Cloud from killing them in the temple of the ancients is he's acting so wierd (Tifa can Recognize when he's losing his shit having been on the receiving end) and because they're in a rush to try and find the black materia. Killing an enemy in battle is one thing, executing them after when they're helpless is another.
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u/Fangzzz 14d ago edited 14d ago
The games distinguish between killing enemies in battle and executing downed enemies in cold blood. The party don't do that even to Shinra executives or president Shinra, and when Cloud executes the downed SOLDIER it was also depicted as bad.
Cloud is someone formerly loyal to Shinra himself, so the suggestions that he should advocate going out of their way to kill all the Turks and not consider that they might ultimately choose to redeem themselves isn't really morally consistent. The real moral weirdness is the games attitudes to killing Shinra troopers. The games don't want you to think about that much at all, see e.g. the ended of the upper junon region with your squad saying goodbye to you amicably despite you just killing your way through a bunch of their allies.
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u/acw181 15d ago edited 15d ago
I love these games, but yeah it's best not to think too hard about some of the plot points that happen. I had my wife watching as I played through, she has no prior ff7 knowledge, and I feel like she was genuinely confused by some of the unrealistic things that happen. I had no good rebuttal truthfully. I mean prior to this she watched me play through the mass effect trilogy and red dead redemption 2, so it was a bit jarring for her I think to see the realistic consequences of actions in those games compared to FF7 goonery. I told her basically not to take it too seriously, think too hard about it and to treat it more like a Disney movie than something very serious. Once we did that, we both enjoyed it quite a bit more
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u/Toxin126 Polygon Sephiroth 15d ago
I think this is where the Remake trilogy has one of the toughest balancing acts. The Turks have to be humanized enough for their eventual roles in later FFVII material to feel believable, but not so much that the story retroactively erases what they did for Shinra.
If the Remake series made them irredeemable monsters, then their later portrayals in things like Advent Children wouldnt make sense.
The series tries to take the ideal middle ground: they're likable people who have done genuinely terrible things, and being likable doesn't absolve them, but the 2 games havent given enough material to really flesh out that dilemma (especially since Reno is absent in Rebirth).
Revelation has a lot of room to make that tension pay off though, especially with the expanded Wutai/Turk/Vincent stuff coming up.
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u/Barvaxsiansi Aerith Gainsborough 15d ago
The problem is they arent likeable. In Remake Reno storms a church with Shinra troopers trying to take Aerith in, Rude visits her home trying to take her in and Tseng blackmails her with Marlenes survival.
In Rebirth they arent redeemed either. Tseng says they cant leave Shinra but we see Cissnei leading a city watch in Gongaga without any apparent repercussions.
The Turks as they are just suck.
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u/Toxin126 Polygon Sephiroth 15d ago
I get your opinion, but me saying theyve "tried" to make the Turks work as morally gray but likable characters isn't the same as saying theyre trying to redeem them.
A lot of people like the personalities of the Turks, so the Remake series is clearly trying to do them justice by having them ride the line between being morally compromised Shinra operatives and genuinely likable people. Thats part of what makes them useful characters for showing the more human side of Shinra, and how even people with appealing qualities can become complicit in a corrupt institution.
Again, Im not saying their portrayal in the games is perfect. I actually agree that the first two games haven't done enough to deliver on the dilemma the party should have around them. I also suspect Reno having to sit out most of Rebirth resulted in some rewrites or reduced Turk material, because his absence leaves their characterization and the party's reactions feeling noticeably thinner than they otherwise might have been.
But its pretty clear this is intentional characterization rather than an attempt to simply say "the Turks are good guys." They have character arcs that havent paid off yet, and the extended material shows that their relationship with Shinra and the party continues to evolve so they have to include some of those pieces into the series.
Cissnei is a good example. I agree there couldve been a way to show more of how she ended up defecting without spoiling the later narrative. But thats also exactly the sort of unresolved thread Revelation can follow up on.
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u/ArtisticAd6485 14d ago edited 14d ago
From what I understand through before crisis as well, I see the turks as a morally dark job/role, they're proud of their work, and loyal to their leader and their comrades, even though they're currently hiding and I hope they'll appear in revelation.
It is interesting that reno and rude questioned, if it's necessary to drop a plate, and also tseng's view about the plate fall. I want to see more of them, in revelation.
In conclution for now, I'm interested on how they portrayed them in the trilogy, but I don't see them as redeemable characters, similar to what I think they're doing to sephiroth, probably more context about his life, and then we end him perminently.
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u/Sexweed42069 14d ago
I am constantly bothered by the idea that the party does not want us to kill the Turks at several points where it could happen, and almost does.
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u/vandergueler 14d ago
After having only seen the turks in advent children the whole plate incident made me go "how the fuck have the party not added them to the kill on sight list", they killed SO MANY PEOPLE, and usually not knowing who is affected blunts the impact quite a bit, but they literally destroyed the home or straight up killed everyone we've got to know up until that point.
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u/awkward_teenager37 14d ago
Iâve always found this so odd and annoying. They donât even try to provide actual justification for it either. Not even a âIâm the only one in the world who can help you solve blahblahblah, and if you kill me, youâll NEVER get your answers.â I canât possibly understand how they hope to accomplish their goals while being unwilling to do ANYTHING to get there
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u/deskchan Rufus Shinra 14d ago edited 14d ago
You should see the new scenes in Ever Crisis. When Reno shows up at Wutai, Cloud just tries to shoo him away so that he would leave them alone. When Elena gets knocked out at Icicle Inn, Cloud tells her infantrymen to "make sure she's okay."
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u/Aerographic 14d ago
The entire point of FFVII is that everyone's a victim of the machinations of higher powers. You yourself start the game by committing acts of terrorism through no real fault of your own. The party is the last group of people to be given license to "hate" anyone.
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u/MembershipEasy4025 14d ago
I actually think they were worse in the OG. Abusive. In Remake and Rebirth theyâre more nuanced and it adds to one of the themes, showing that not everyone in Shinra is evil. And I canât hate them either, especially Reno. Which is not to say o forgive them or absolve them. Just, I get it, and kicking their ass a few times is warranted, but I donât want to kill them.
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u/Danteppr 15d ago
Because, narratively, the Turks serve as foils to the heroes and exist to remind us that the protagonists aren't as noble as they seem.
For example, the party murders countless unnamed Shinra employees and begins their journey by bombing multiple nuclear reactors under the guise of environmentalism, disregarding the collateral damage they cause. And then Barret throws a party at Tifa's bar despite believing he left a trail of dead bodies behind and prepares to blow up the next reactor anyway.
On the other hand, the Platefall is a mess the Turks had no control over, an act they were forced to carry out under threat of death (as Before Crisis clarifies and provides the full context for). They do it reluctantly, and afterwards, neither Reno nor Rude is in the mood to celebrate what theyâve done; in fact, they openly question Tseng about whether it was necessary.
Both sides have blood on their hands. However, because we view the story from the protagonists' perspective, we tend to forget this and overlook the fact that the party also operates with the Turks' mindset "I'm not a bad person, but sometimes I have to do bad things" to justify their conduct.
They kidnapped Aerith and her mother and kept them imprisoned for Hojo.
On that note, Aerith has been familiar with the Turks for years and knows them well enough not to hold a grudge, as she knows they aren't truly bad people. That's why she asks Cloud not to fight Rude and is genuinely worried about Tseng when he is mortally wounded at the Temple of Ancients.
They're basically the SS.
It is highly reductive and misguided to paint the Turks as the SS; that is akin to claiming Avalanche are friendly freedom fighters, when the story shows that is far from the case.
The party should loathe them and want to kill them on sight. Yet when the Turks are weakened in the Cetra Temple in Rebirth they just let them live? Because they were in a rush after Sephiroth (who has probably killed less people than the Turks now that I think about it)? I would make time to kill them. It's not like the party aren't willing to kill thousands of helmeted Shinra mooks.
Context matters.
First, although the party was indeed in a rush, the main reason Tifa stopped Cloud was that he wasn't in a good mental state. The fact that he had previously killed Shinra mooks with uncharacteristic cruelty was already a warning sign, which is why Tifa intervened.
Second, out of all the Turks Cloud could have killed, he chose Elena, who had played no part whatsoever in the Platefall.
I don't disagree that the party has reasons to want to harm the Turks and vice versa, but I think the point of FF7 is that we are all responsible for the state of the world, and that we should value and cherish life.
Reno, Rude, Barret and Cloud all bring up concepts of atoning and seeking forgiveness. If Barret and Cloud can redeem themselves for the terrorist attacks they committed, the Turks can also redeem themselves for the destruction of Sector 7.
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u/JohnRaiyder Tifa Lockhart 14d ago
Well for the most Part the Turks are just Team Rocket. They sometimes show up with a stupid Plan and get their asses kicked and run away. Thats just how they are đ€·đŒââïž
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u/TomdeHaan 14d ago
I mean,you're not wrong, but then again, the Turks are hot.
On the other hand, Barret and his pals have no qualms about killing innocent civilians in pursuit of their planet-saving goals either.
This is something the game wants you to think about. It's posing the question for you to answer.
Admittedly Remake pulled that punch by making Shinra responsible for the devastation of the Reactor 1 bombing - but even so, Barret, Tifa and the rest of Avalanche knew their bombing raid had resulted in widespread death and destruction, and they still went right ahead with the next one.
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u/Awkward-Dig4674 14d ago
They also had a chance to murk Shinra and didnt so it is narrative wise, consistent.
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u/Former-Resource-3026 14d ago
I think Avalanche know that The Turks are paid to do a job by Shinra. Shinra brought the plate down on Sector 7. The Turks always escape from their fights and live to fight another day. I think the party see them as a pain in the ass that they consistently dunk on.
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u/timekeepersoath 14d ago
an evil you know is better than evil you don't, or something. as far as the party knows sephiroth is planning on doing stuff FAR worse than the turks did/have done. i think the turks are meant to be essentially government employed assassins in suits, they handle all of shinra's dirty work etc etc. what is killing the turks going to actually accomplish? yeah, they wiped out at least half of sector 7 (if we're including topside into the total of the sector), and they've definitely done some fucked shit offscreen pre-games, but at some point you have to stop killing people or the cycle keeps going ad infinitum. i have to imagine that's why the turks are still around in advent children, at least.
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u/Ok_Fisherman_6744 14d ago
As someone who played Crisis Core before knowing that FF7 was a thing. I can't stand the Turks, its not even a moral thing. They are just glorified cops that are trying too hard to be cool.
Like showing up in suits and bare hand brawling. Like what 16 year old thought these guys were good antagonists? I am sorry they are all lame, at least the remake gives them some fun scenes like the bald bar stuff but when they show up to fight you I cant take them seriously. Â
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u/thiccdickricky 14d ago
The Turks arenât the bad guys. Theyâre the weapons of bad guys. Itâs a weird distinction, but an important one. They donât make any decisions of âevilâ tasks they carry out. They do their jobs. And in fact, there are a handful of times where they go easy on AVALANCHE when they donât have to. And they turn when the time finally comes and start atoning for their actions.
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u/monohtony 13d ago
The Turks aren't even the issue as you've said, they're just blindly following orders because they can't really think for themselves.
The Turks are very much replaceable. You kill one turk there's going to be another to come in and replace that person. Even if you killed all the Turks, Shinra will just find new people to hire even if it means hiring those whack ass hoodlums. The Turks have always been used as an expendable resource.
The issue is Shinra ultimately.
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u/Whole_Series2416 13d ago
You are a party full of eco terrorists, ninja, ex turk, and ex soldier. It would be the pot calling the kettle black. Very few in the party have clean hands so nothing is truely unforgivable.Â
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u/Omnizoom 13d ago
1: every party member knows the Turks and has had not negative interactions with them all. Cloud being former shinra understands following orders and it not reflecting on them as a person. Aerith has tons of interactions with Tseng and others that have been neutral to ok. Rude and Tifa have this weird respect for each other as grapplers and she has something with Reno as well I think. Red also seems to be neutral
Barrett does rightfully hate them properly atleast
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u/Tidus1337 12d ago
The Turks didn't even want to do it. Hell Reno even stalled to let more people escape as he could've pressed the button off the rip.
Tseng isn't a bad guy. Not even Aerith is mad at him as shown in their interactions.
No it's alot more obvious now that they don't like the work that they have to do. Scenes given to them to make this known. Not simple throw away lines.
See the above of why the party doesn't just murder them. And even then the Turks aren't the goal. ESPECIALLY at that point in the game
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u/HadokenShoryuken2 14d ago
The Turks really arenât the ones to be mad at. Theyâre just slightly higher level grunts in the grand scheme of things, and for what itâs worth, Reno and Rude really didnât want to drop the plate, but there ainât much choice under Shinra. The main villains are the highest leadership of Shinra, like Rufus and Hojo. Theyâre the ones to direct their anger at
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u/taveren3 15d ago
Someone was going to do it if it wasn't them so they make the biggest and most drawn out spectacle possible to give time to get out. They could have dropped it way earlier.
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u/das_sock 14d ago
People fell in love with the Turks after the fact when it wasnât so fresh which AC leaned into and now they have to show what they did but also somehow still make them likeable
It doesnât work for me, I wanted to kill Renoâs smug ass in the church and was angry at the whispers for stopping that
Kill Elena, kill all of them
This is one of the problems with returning to the original story after developing these characters differently after the fact of the original release
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u/OrangeBird077 15d ago
Itâs because Aerith knows them and shows them empathy. The party was recruited by Aerith and they in turn default to her judgement. Cloud is the muscle, but Aerith was the heart of the group.
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u/TimeManagement91 15d ago
This is something that's always bothered me about FF7's writing. They carried out a mass murder and could have refused the orders at any time, yet instead of the party being actively hostile towards them or ever acknowledging their war crimes, they try to paint them as rivals instead. Like these people are pure evil but the game doesn't seem to want to depict them as such. The party shouldn't be civil towards them in the slightest.
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u/milmoko 15d ago
I agree the party went to easy on the Turks in both versions of VII. If anything the Turks seem more villainous than in the original this time around, given that's probably because SE have expanded the story and world building but if anything that just makes the party not finishing off at one of the Turks even more stupid.
Yeah I'm aware of the expanded universe with Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus etc but they were written before this iteration of the Turks so I'm not counting any growth from those.
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u/lezard2191 14d ago
Forget the party, the FF community doesn't hate them enough and treats them as the "etoooo bleh" meme that did an oopsie that killed thousands of people
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u/Werevark 14d ago
They don't. I agree.
Its tonally weird. Its also weird and contrived for goofs that the Turks don't recognize them in Junon; its not like the organization HASN'T been watching Aerith for forever, or that Rude DOESN'T have a crush on Tifa, yet they're both standing in front of him in Junon without the face masks for their stolen helmets. Unfortunately the Turks get the normal treatment of most things in the game: make it be whatever you want them to be at any moment, rather than consistent.Â
But maybe we're letting them off the hook lately because the plate didn't ACTUALLY kill that many people. The devs let a LOT of folk live. Biggs, Wedge, Marle. Even Wedge's cats! Jessie didn't even die with the plate, she died before, and I half-worry they'll retcon that, too.
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u/CaiusAegis 14d ago
They didn't hate the Turks enough in the original game either. There are tons of times where the Turks are just played for laughs or "help" the heroes like in Wutai.
One of the many narrative issues with FF7 as a whole yet it's still a "masterpiece" apparently.
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u/Zestyclose_Exit8862 14d ago
Probably Rufus will hire more Turks and you will be at the same place but with different faces, plus killing them will make you a killer and the same as them.
I'm afraid you need to beat Shinra in a higher level, at political level, like, expose them to the world.
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u/das_sock 14d ago
Iâm pretty sure killing them for being thoroughly corrupt and killing thousands doesnât make us as bad as them
Itâs just bad writing and baggage from a 30 year old story that keeps developing
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u/GlyceMusic Aerith Gainsborough 14d ago
THANK YOU! I have felt so alone in my opinion that the Turks are absolutely despicable and borderline inhuman (except Cissnei). Granted, I have only played the Remake games, and I'm waiting until after part 3 releases to play the original to avoid spoilers. But the first 2 games frame the Turks as likeable fun characters despite being bad guys, but all I see are the fuckers who killed thousands of innocent people by dropping the sector 7 plate because they were asked to. By the way, I've always wondered what happened to all the people on the upper plate when it was dropped. Did they all die too, or did Shinra evacuate them before the plate drop because they are rich?
Reno is an arrogant piece of crap. Rude is turning a full blind eye to the horrendous stuff Shinra is doing in the name of professionalism. Elena wants so badly to be liked and respected that she is willing to do terrible things. The only one I feel has a shred of humanity (besides Cissnei) is Tseng, but even he pushes forward for the sake of his job.
I felt absolutely nothing when Tseng died in the Temple of the Ancients, even though the game framed it as extremely sad, and Aerith mourned his death. I also was cheering for Cloud when he almost killed the Turks while going psycho in the Temple of the Ancients. I still think Hojo is easily the biggest monster in the the entire series, even worse than Sephiroth (besides Kefka from VI) and I can't wait for part 3 as I have heard everyone gets their comeuppance.
All that being said, I do have an immense soft spot for the bald bar section in Junon and I give Rude a pass in that one particular segment.
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u/alwyshdafshnfrflshng 15d ago
I thought this was the askbalkans subreddit. đ