Rufus Shinra



Rufus Shinra (ルーファウス神羅, Rūfausu Shinra) is a character from Final Fantasy VII and one of the game's main antagonists. He acted as Vice President of the Shinra Electric Power Company through Before Crisis and Crisis Core, and as President through most of Final Fantasy VII. He most likely gained the title due to the fact that he is President Shinra's son. Rufus is stated as being twenty-five years old during the events of Final Fantasy VII in the novella On the Way to a Smile: Case of Shinra.

Appearance and Personality
Unlike many of the characters in the Compilation, Rufus wears the same outfit in all his appearances: a white business suit with a matching jacket over a black shirt. Rufus has blue eyes and pale blond hair, and uses a shotgun as his weapon of choice. Though he is a normal human with no augmentations, Rufus is strong enough to wield the weapon with one hand.

Like his father, Rufus's main goals are to control the world through the Shinra Company, and increase the company's power. Unlike his father though, Rufus uses fear to control people, playing on their suspicions of AVALANCHE and Sephiroth to manipulate them; in Final Fantasy VII, he makes AVALANCHE the scapegoats for the arrival of Meteor, and attempts to have them publicly executed to assuage the public's rage. Rufus seems to have no love for his father, using the original AVALANCHE during Before Crisis to try and disrupt his father's hold on his employees and the Planet, and he wastes no time declaring himself the new head of the company when his father is killed.

In Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus, Rufus appears to genuinely wish to atone for his crimes, and is hinted to be the one funding the World Regenesis Organization. However, he still wishes for Shinra to have a dominant hand in the world's affairs - when the city of Edge is being built, it is done using Shinra resources, and Rufus has a monument to Meteor placed in the center of the city to claim the city as Shinra's and secure their ownership of it in the minds of the citizens.

Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-
Rufus plays a major role in the mobile game Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-. He is the main financier for the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE, and feeds them key information to allow for their success. Along with the other Shinra executives, Rufus takes part in meetings and strategy, and has special access to his father, personally discussing key issues as the second-in-command. Rufus has no interest in the Planet or its fate while funding AVALANCHE, rather, he was using the organization as a way to take power from his father. It is obvious early in Before Crisis that Shinra has a traitor, but it it not revealed to be Rufus until Episode 14 in Wutai. The Turks capture him in Episode 16 during the attack on the Old Corel. The Turks use Rufus as leverage with President Shinra so that they can save their commander Veld, and his daughter, Elfé, the AVALANCHE's commander. Afterward, Rufus is neither killed nor stripped of his title for being a traitor. President Shinra orders him to be placed under house arrest in Junon. His absence is explained by claiming he is on an "extended assignment overseas". President Shinra eventually saves him while the Turks are out searching for the support Materia and attempting to rescue Veld. Before the Turks are ordered to be executed for insubordination, Rufus interrupts and announces the Turks should be spared since Tseng "assassinated" Veld and Elfé.

Final Fantasy VII
During Sephiroth's attack on Shinra Headquarters in Midgar, the Shinra executive Palmer calls Junon for help. Rufus responds by hopping on a helicopter to Midgar to take command of the company. By the time he arrives, mostly everyone in the building is dead, including President Shinra, Rufus's father.

After a brief fight against Cloud Strife, during which he uses a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun and is accompanied by his Guard Hound, Dark Nation, Rufus flees the building. It is eventually restored and Rufus resumes normal operations as the President of the Shinra Corporation.

Rufus decides to go after Sephiroth, and follows him across the Planet with an entourage of Shinra executives. The next time Rufus is seen by AVALANCHE is when they board his cargo ship from Junon to Costa del Sol. He never interacts with them. His attempts to take control of Cid Highwind's Tiny Bronco airplane are foiled when Cloud's crew help the pilot escape in said plane.

Rufus is encountered again when Cloud confronts him at the Northern Crater, which Shinra believes to be the Promised Land. Afterward, he tries to have Tifa Lockhart and Barret Wallace publicly executed to help calm the panic from Sephiroth's summoned Meteor. His plans are foiled when Sapphire Weapon attacks Junon and causes enough confusion for the two to escape on the Highwind.

Rufus is seen one last time in Final Fantasy VII when he has the Sister Ray cannon moved from Junon to Midgar in order to destroy Diamond Weapon and the barrier surrounding Sephiroth. As he launches the cannon, Diamond Weapon launches its own attack on Midgar, which hits on-level with the President's office, from which he is overseeing the operation. Due to the damage, no one can reach the office to find a body, so he is presumed dead. However, he "ducked". The opening of Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII- further reveals he was alive, being loaded into the helicopter during Meteorfall.

Novella
Rufus and the Turks are the central characters in On the Way to a Smile: Case of Shinra. Rufus escapes death in Diamond Weapon's attack by using a hidden escape tunnel his father built for when Rufus would need it. Taking refuge in Kalm, Rufus is taken prisoner by Mutten Kylegate while the Turks are absent and is interrogated, where he reveals his plan to construct the city of Edge, in the east of Midgar using the remains of the fallen buildings and the corrupted roads. After escaping with the help of Kilmister, Rufus helps him recover Professor Hojo's research from Midgar to discover the origins of Geostigma, which Kilmister knows is connected to Jenova. Though Kilmister is eventually killed, Rufus still orders the Turks to locate Jenova's remains and keep them safe from being used by others.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children/Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete
In Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Rufus reveals himself to Cloud and that he was under the Turks' protection for the two year period, living with them in the Healen Lodge in a wheelchair, covered by a white sheet which is supposedly hiding his Geostigma, being in the disease's final stages. Seemingly reformed and renouncing his past cruelty, Rufus explains his near-death experience opened his eyes to the truth and now desires to undo the chaos his company brought onto the world. Near the movie's climax, he backs up his resolve as he removes the sheet and stands from the wheelchair. The sheet seems to have only been around him to hide the head of Jenova from Kadaj. Rufus has something of a shootout with the villain after throwing the container off the ledge with him and Kadaj plunges after it. Like most of the characters, Rufus is cured of Geostigma at the end, prolonging the life of the Shinra family and Rufus's chance for further redemption.

In Advent Children Complete, in a new opening scene, after Kadaj asks Rufus why mankind bothers to constantly rebuild after destroying everything they make, Rufus tells him that people rebuild in order to "gild the past" and rid themselves of a recent problem. Kadaj assumes Rufus means Geostigma, something he says Shinra brought upon the Planet. Kadaj says Rufus has a short memory. Rufus objects and says it is his choice to forget. In the scene he is revealed, Rufus explains to Cloud Sephiroth's will in the Lifestream is the cause of Geostigma rather than Mako energy as the populace believes.

Rufus in the film was covered with a sheet so as to hide his face, and his voice was also made soft and deceptive to give him a sense of mystery. Toru Okawa, who voiced Rufus in the film's Japanese version, stated he got the impression Rufus was the type of person who was always hiding something, and states that the scene where he rises from his wheelchair and casts off his cloak is one of his favorites, where Rufus reveals his secrets at last. Okawa also noted that Rufus's line "a good son would have known" has become a fan favorite, and Nomura has joked the irony is that such a line comes from Rufus. Nomura said that Okawa's voice had an undertone of mystery and elegance, and was perfect for Rufus's part: "Only someone like Rufus, a big shot president, would be able to jump off a building without hesitation and expect his Turks to take care of everything".

Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-
It is hinted at in the game Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII- that Rufus is secretly funding the World Regenesis Organization headed by Reeve Tuesti, who had a feeling his mysterious benefactor was someone who owed "a debt to the planet" (nearly quoting Rufus Shinra's words to Cloud from Advent Children word for word). His signature white jacket is seen in the opening of Dirge of Cerberus as Rufus is being loaded into an emergency transport while Yuffie is evacuating a sector of Midgar during Meteorfall.

Powers and Abilities
As President of Shinra for much of the game, Rufus has power over the company, and with it all of their weaponry and resources. He is also very intelligent, as he has more than once known where Cloud and his party would be, albeit with the help of the Turks. He is also fought in a boss battle and is capable of fighting Cloud with just his Dark Nation, and retreats when the situation calls for it, further showing his intelligence. His intelligence is demonstrated again when he saved Barret and the rest of the party, for them to be killed in the public, so that they take the blame of the current problems in The Planet instead of Shinra. He has also displayed great survival skills, when he managed to survive after being attacked by Diamond Weapon. Later on in Advent Children, when he confronts Kadaj, he is capable of shooting at Jenova's head at midair, although he needed help from the Turks to avoid a would-be fatal fall. Despite the fact that he is never fought outside the boss battle in the original game, he is by no means as weak as the average person.

Battle
Rufus fights Cloud alongside Dark Nation atop the Shinra Building early in Final Fantasy VII.

Musical Themes
Rufus has one theme that plays on his initiation ceremony titled "Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony". "Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony" is also heard in Final Fantasy IX being played by a band on the Prima Vista after it is shot down by Queen Brahne.

Trivia

 * As revealed in in Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-, Rufus is Lazard Deusericus's younger half-brother. An infantryman in the director's office tells Zack that he found Lazard to resemble "the V.P.".
 * In Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-, Rufus is not seen throughout the whole game, but only mentioned in an email from Kunsel to Zack Fair that Rufus had become the company's Vice President.
 * In On the Way to a Smile: Case of Shinra, Rufus discovers his father's passkey to unlocking anything in the Shinra Building was always the same, and the key was the date Rufus was born. Yet, the actual code was not presented, therefore, the exact date of his birth is still unknown.
 * Also in Case of Shinra, Rufus gave the idea of an escape route in the executive office in the Shinra Building when he was five years old when President Shinra showed him the blueprints. Much to the President's hesitation, it was built, and Rufus used it after Diamond Weapon attacked Midgar.
 * In the Case of Shinra, it was mentioned Rufus had a habit of choosing the farthest part of the room for a bed.