Turks (Final Fantasy VII)

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In the Square Co., Ltd. RPG Final Fantasy VII, Turks (written タークス in Japanese) is the unofficial nickname of the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department of the Shin-Ra Electric Power Company. They perform black ops on behalf of the corporation, including kidnappings and assassinations. The Turks function as recurring villains throughout the game, although they are not beyond temporary alliances with AVALANCHE, the game's protagonists. The spin-off game Final Fantasy VII: Before Crisis focuses exclusively on the Turks in the years leading up to Final Fantasy VII.

They also appear in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, which occurs two years after the first video game. Due to the fact that the Shin-Ra empire has collapsed, they are technically no longer Turks, although they continue to wear their Turk uniforms (of note, however, is that the original navy blue colour of their uniforms in the game has been changed to black in Advent Children) and work for their boss, former company president Rufus Shinra. They primarily serve as body guards, but they also aid Rufus in his mission to repay Shin-Ra's debt for "putting the world into its current, pathetic state" - with the ultimate goal of rebuilding the wounded conglomerate.

Contents 1 Roll call 1.1 Tseng 1.2 Reno 1.3 Rude 1.4 Elena 2 Former Turks

Roll call

At the time of Final Fantasy VII, the Turks are comprised of the following individuals:

Tseng

Tseng (ツォン) [tsɤŋ]: The stern, no-nonsense, and sometimes temperamental leader of the Turks. He has long, black hair and what appears to be a bindi in the middle of his forehead. He has known Aerith Gainsborough since she was a child and has a bit of a crush on her, although there are hints that his attentions later shift to Elena. Tseng is the only Turk not fought at any time during Final Fantasy VII. He is brutally killed by Sephiroth when he investigates the Temple of the Ancients.

However, he mysteriously re-appears in Advent Children, wherein he and Elena retrieve Jenova's remains from the Northern Cave before being attacked, and subsequently tortured, by Kadaj's gang. The two of them later show up in Midgar - to give Rufus a deus ex machina rescue. Tseng is voiced by Junichi Suwabe in the Japanese version of the film.

A misconception that has arisen, due to an early fan translation of Advent Children by Jasconius, is that Tseng's name is pronounced Shion in Japanese. Jasconius, rather than translating by ear, used the Japanese subtitles included on the DVD. Tson (ツォン), the correct katakana form of "Tseng", was misread as the similar-looking Shion (シオン). Many viewers were confused upon reading "Shion" but seeing Tseng (rather than a new character named Shion) in the film, and attempts to explain the error resulted in the aforementioned misconception. The reason "Tseng" is written Tson in katakana is due to the fact that his name is Chinese: In Pinyin - a standardized system that uses the Roman alphabet to phonetically represent the Chinese language - e represents a sound resembling the short o of English, also approximated in Japanese with an unlengthened o vowel. In Chinese Pinyin, his name is written as 'Zeng' (曾).

Reno

Reno (レノ) [ɹɛno]: A prominent member of the Turks and a favorite character among many fans. He has a lanky physique, unkempt red hair terminating in a long ponytail, and two symmetrical red marks on his cheek bones (apparently tattoos). He usually wears what appears to be sunglasses or goggles pushed up onto his forehead, an unbuttoned suit jacket, and an untucked dress shirt. He is cocky, cynical and somewhat lazy. While he is very competent on the job, Reno treats his job as a Turk as nothing more than a job and shows little interest in pursuing Shin-Ra's goals when off-duty. In battle, he wields an Electro-Mag Rod, a sort of nightstick with a taser in one end. Reno also has a penchant for gossiping and is a competent helicopter pilot.

Reno is first encountered when he comes to the slums church with soldiers in an attempt to capture Aerith. Not long after, he sets the bombs that blow up the Sector 7 pillar, but not without fighting Cloud, Barret, and Tifa, which leaves him temporarily incapacitated. He later confronts them outside of Gongaga with his long-time partner, Rude, to settle the score, but once again has to back down. Despite this rivalry, he is not beyond teaming up with Cloud and the others in Wutai, where both parties had a bone to pick with Don Corneo. When the Turks are last encountered in the subway tunnels of Midgar, Reno says that he is "not really up for" fighting, even though he and the others were ordered to terminate the protagonists; the player has the option of not fighting them.

Along with Rude, Reno has a prominent role in Advent Children. Reno makes his entrance by attacking Cloud when he first arrives at the Healin Lodge, although this seems a bit half-hearted; consistent with his attitude at the end of the game, Reno possesses no true hostility towards his former enemies [1]. He and Rude are on the same side as the protagonists and join the fight against Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo. However, they primarily serve as the comic relief, exemplified by the cartoon violence during their fight with the three antagonists in Edge. Interestingly, Reno's design overhaul for the film transforms him into a bishounen and eliminates the somewhat sly and shady air he had in the original game. He is voiced by Keiji Fujiwara.

A bit of trivia for English-speaking fans: Reno possesses a distinct speech pattern in Japanese, speaking in a drawling, slangy manner and, most notoriously, ending most of his sentences with zo, to (ぞ、と) or simply to (と). Tifa receives a phone call near the beginning of Advent Children, and, although the caller's voice is not heard, the audience understands that it is from Reno, as Tifa warmly replies, "Oboeteru zo, to" ("I remember you, yo"). The official page for the film [2] also makes a nod to this. Speech patterns such as Reno's are impossible to translate directly into English and can only be approximated by attempting to capture the same "feeling" as the original, which the English translation of the game did not attempt to do.

Rude

Rude (ルード): A tall, bald man with a little goatee. He always wears sunglasses and appears to carry spares on him in case something happens to the pair he is wearing. Rude is rarely seen without his long-time partner Reno and is rather taciturn, tending to relegate the talking to Reno. Rude is a superb physical fighter and prefers to use his fists in battle. In one of his rare lines of dialogue in Final Fantasy VII he reveals to Reno that he has a crush on Tifa Lockheart, who is also a phenomenal physical fighter, although nothing ever comes of this crush. Voiced by Taiten Kusunoki in the Japanese version of Advent Children.

Elena

Elena (イリーナ) [ilinʌ]: The only known female Turk in the timeline of the original Final Fantasy VII (whereas there appear to be more at the time of Before Crisis and Last Order). She is a young woman with short, blonde hair and brown eyes. Elena is the newest recruit, being appointed to the Turks after Reno sustained injuries battling AVALANCHE in Midgar. Elena is naive, impetuous and somewhat overeager, and Reno often has to rein her in. She takes her job much more seriously than do Reno and Rude, but she seems to be worse at it than either of them, having various slips in professionalism, such as when she inadvertently revealed the Turks' mission to Cloud and the others at the Mithril Mines. She also has a crush on Tseng and holds Cloud's party accountable for what happened to him.

Elena appears briefly in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, wherein she is voiced by Megumi Toyoguchi.

Former Turks

• Veld is the previous leader of the Turks. He has no patience with failure from his subordinates. Most of the Turks are terrified of Veld's severity; Tseng, however, considers him a role model and eventually succeeds him. Veld appears only in Before Crisis.

• Vincent Valentine served as a gunman in the Turks, thirty years prior to the start of Final Fantasy VII. While on a mission in Nibelheim during the later stages of the Jenova Project, Vincent was shot by Professor Hojo, who then used him for experimental purposes, turning him into the man seen in Final Fantasy VII and its subsequent sequels. The experiment Professor Hojo performed on Vincent altered his body in many ways, one of the most notable is he does not age. Thirty years after the experiment his features remains the same, although he has lived for 57 years.

• The main characters of Before Crisis were all Turks at one point. The player chooses from eight unnamed characters, four young men and four young women, each with his or her own back story, personality, strengths, and weaknesses. Six of these Turks also appear in the animated short Last Order: Final Fantasy VII, where they act as support for Tseng, Reno, and Rude, but none are named on screen and few of them have dialogue. What happened to these characters after Before Crisis and Last Order is not known.