A Good Reason Why Lucrecia In Dirge Of Cerberus Is Heavily Derided- Her Self-Pity

[Clement Rage]

The only thing we know Gast did as a scientist is make the catastrophic mistake of assuming JENOVA was an Ancient. The combination of that and marrying a real one seems unlikely to be unrelated to me, and to be honest, always comes off as shady to me. It's hard to interpret this any other way than that he learned of his mistake through Ifalna in some fashion. There are many ways that could go, few of which reflect well on Gast. For instance

Spoiler: fanfic digression

Gast, bragging in bar: I'll have you know that I'm the foremost expert on the Cetra on the Planet!
Ifalna(amused): Oh yeah? What have you discovered?(
Gast: We found this ancient corpse from 2,000 ago, it's hanging up in the lab, the only known specimen of a live Cetra, can't wait to start digging into it. People hear voices when they go near it, it's weird.
Ifalna: How do you know it's a Cetra?
Gast: A human woman, but with wings. We found it-
Ifalna: ...In the crater.
Gast: Yes, actually. How did you-
Ifalna: YOU JUST WOKE UP CTHULHU YOU FUCKING IDIOT!
(later)
Gast: ...My entire career was a waste of time.
Ifalna: Yup. Your work actively endangers the entire planet. Congrats.

Sephiroth is a very unreliable gauge of Gast's skills, he would rate absolutely anyone above Hojo.

While she didn't know how depraved Hojo was, Dirge's depiction of him just shows him to be openly unpleasant to her and bossing her around. Even if you don't know the actions he would do later, the fact that he acts like an ass from the front would give anyone the red flag. Again Dirge's take on why she chose Hojo is self-pitying punishment,

Those scenes are mostly after Hojo comes out, though. He shows his true colours after Sephy is born, which is well after getting married (as far as we know.)

I don't see self pity in Lucrecia. 'Why did this have to happen to me' is self pity, but her catchphrase is 'I'm so sorry' instead. That's more remorseful than self pitying.

Genuine question because I don’t remember all the lore details, was he really needed? Like, couldn’t she just research it all by herself, and have everyone else be all “Lucrecia, would you be a darling and put that inconclusive nonsense on hold to focus on this beautiful Ancient specimen that we just found?”

I think so. Lu has a very specific situation where she wrote this amazing paper about Omega and Chaos that was so far ahead of its time that no-one understood it (except possibly Hojo?). She got laughed at for it despite being right and wants to prove everyone wrong. She has a sample of Chaos and the Protomateria, she's close to proving her thesis, she's not going to stop for any reason unless she herself decides it's too dangerous to keep meddling with, which needs some kind of lab accident which is dangerous enough to stop her in her tracks, but can't be witnessed so she doesn't have proof of her thesis and /or get permanently kicked out of the labs.

If anyone else witnesses this accident, Gast hears about it and either goes 'holy shit you're fired' or 'wow, you were right, let's pursue this, have some money and expendable research assistants'

Apart from Sephiroth, Lucrecia's driving force is to vindicate her research, to prove that she was right all along. In the end , she ends up pulling a Cid, sacrificing her one shot at her dreams by giving up the Protomateria and the Chaos sample to save Vincent's life.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

To be fair to Gast, I can't think of any reason he shouldn't have assumed Jenova was an Ancient to begin with. We know from Ilfana that Jenova had made herself look like an Ancient to infect them. Actually... I can't really fault him for experimenting on Jenova's remains either. That's... exactly what is done now a days when soft tissue samples are found. Fine really old cells, stick them in a petri dish, start poking them with various things, hopefully find out what they are made out of. Too bad he's dealing with a shape-shifting Thing From Outer Space. It would probably make a mess out of the results!

Where what Gast did with Jenova gets dicey is when he starts doing human experiments with her. Since it sounds like those started not long after Jenova was found and Gast was probably making a ton of assumptions based on the idea Jenova was an Ancient... and therefore native to the Planet at a bare minimum... The interesting thing with this is that Jenova being an alien doesn't really matter when it comes to why doing this is a bad idea. It would probably have been a bad idea even if Jenova was an Ancient. Human experimentation never ends well.

But really, Gast finding Ilfana is one of the biggest Dues Ex Machina in the entire Compilation. Certainly in the OG at least. What are the odds that the scientist who discovered Jenova and is the world's sanest expert on her would find the one person in the world who knows what Jenova actually is? And then has a kid with her who has the power to mitigate Jenova's influence on the Lifestream? It's something I try not to think about too often because it sounds so contrived for the sake of making the plot work.

 

[youffie]

Gast, bragging in bar: I'll have you know that I'm the foremost expert on the Cetra on the Planet!
Ifalna(amused): Oh yeah? What have you discovered?(
Gast: We found this ancient corpse from 2,000 ago, it's hanging up in the lab, the only known specimen of a live Cetra, can't wait to start digging into it. People hear voices when they go near it, it's weird.
Ifalna: How do you know it's a Cetra?
Gast: A human woman, but with wings. We found it-
Ifalna: ...In the crater.
Gast: Yes, actually. How did you-
Ifalna: YOU JUST WOKE UP CTHULHU YOU FUCKING IDIOT!
(later)
Gast: ...My entire career was a waste of time.
Ifalna: Yup. Your work actively endangers the entire planet. Congrats.

I… need this to be canon

It's not unreasonable to think that while they looked for dead Ancients they also looked for living Ancients. And if we assume that Ifalna lived in Icicle Inn it's not thaaaat much of a stretch that he'd meet her at some point, though the timing is really unfortunate. He probably went to the Northern continent a lot because of his researches, after all. Perhaps when Sephiroth was born he realized something was wrong and went back there to find more information and found Ifalna instead.

But yeah the game doesn't really provide an answer, I'm curious to see what the Remake will do with it all.

The interesting thing with this is that Jenova being an alien doesn't really matter when it comes to why doing this is a bad idea. It would probably have been a bad idea even if Jenova was an Ancient. Human experimentation never ends well.

This. I think it's no coincidence that one of the last scenes in the game is Hojo revealing the truth about Sephiroth. I've played it recently with my boyfriend (it was his first FF and then I got him hooked on the series, HA), and it was a refreshing experience, because I got to notice so many little things that I had kind of overlooked out of habit. I remember that during that scene he was surprised, because he had assumed that Sephiroth had been entirely created in a lab somehow.

I found that a bit weird, but thinking it over, I realized that there is a deliberate vagueness on this particular point until those very last moments, which is interesting considering that that's the very last thing the game has to say about his big, evil villain. Sephiroth says he was "produced", Jenova sure didn't give birth to him, and when you first meet him even Vincent just says that Sephiroth was born from this Lucrecia and that an experiment was involved – not that the experiment began before he was even born and that it was carried out by Sephiroth's own father, while others accepted it or looked the other way.

I feel like the game really tries to drive home how the real tragedy in Sephiroth's life was never Jenova, but the fact that the whole world – even generally good people – failed him before he was even born. Which is also a theme of the game as a whole: not even good ends can ever justify the means.

 

[jazzflower92]

The only thing we know Gast did as a scientist is make the catastrophic mistake of assuming JENOVA was an Ancient. The combination of that and marrying a real one seems unlikely to be unrelated to me, and to be honest, always comes off as shady to me. It's hard to interpret this any other way than that he learned of his mistake through Ifalna in some fashion. There are many ways that could go, few of which reflect well on Gast. For instance

Spoiler: fanfic digression

Gast, bragging in bar: I'll have you know that I'm the foremost expert on the Cetra on the Planet!
Ifalna(amused): Oh yeah? What have you discovered?(
Gast: We found this ancient corpse from 2,000 ago, it's hanging up in the lab, the only known specimen of a live Cetra, can't wait to start digging into it. People hear voices when they go near it, it's weird.
Ifalna: How do you know it's a Cetra?
Gast: A human woman, but with wings. We found it-
Ifalna: ...In the crater.
Gast: Yes, actually. How did you-
Ifalna: YOU JUST WOKE UP CTHULHU YOU FUCKING IDIOT!
(later)
Gast: ...My entire career was a waste of time.
Ifalna: Yup. Your work actively endangers the entire planet. Congrats.

Sephiroth is a very unreliable gauge of Gast's skills, he would rate absolutely anyone above Hojo.



Those scenes are mostly after Hojo comes out, though. He shows his true colours after Sephy is born, which is well after getting married (as far as we know.)

I don't see self pity in Lucrecia. 'Why did this have to happen to me' is self pity, but her catchphrase is 'I'm so sorry' instead. That's more remorseful than self pitying.



I think so. Lu has a very specific situation where she wrote this amazing paper about Omega and Chaos that was so far ahead of its time that no-one understood it (except possibly Hojo?). She got laughed at for it despite being right and wants to prove everyone wrong. She has a sample of Chaos and the Protomateria, she's close to proving her thesis, she's not going to stop for any reason unless she herself decides it's too dangerous to keep meddling with, which needs some kind of lab accident which is dangerous enough to stop her in her tracks, but can't be witnessed so she doesn't have proof of her thesis and /or get permanently kicked out of the labs.

If anyone else witnesses this accident, Gast hears about it and either goes 'holy shit you're fired' or 'wow, you were right, let's pursue this, have some money and expendable research assistants'

Apart from Sephiroth, Lucrecia's driving force is to vindicate her research, to prove that she was right all along. In the end , she ends up pulling a Cid, sacrificing her one shot at her dreams by giving up the Protomateria and the Chaos sample to save Vincent's life.

Actually in Crisis Core some NPC's talk about how great Gast was in contrast with how things are run by Hojo.

Also you can feel remorse, but go into self-pity as well. The reason why her saying "sorry" is seen as self-pitying is because of the fact that in Dirge she repeatedly made one mistake after another. And her experiment to save Vincent was a double edged sword, which cost him a lot. Well, it doesn't have to be an accident because she could have her experiment turn out to be a dud and it makes her discouraged.

 

[Clement Rage]

Never played CC, what do they say?

And her experiment to save Vincent was a double edged sword, which cost him a lot. Well, it doesn't have to be an accident because she could have her experiment turn out to be a dud and it makes her discouraged.

Then you have a different story, because Lucrecia has to be right and believe she's right for the story to work. If she thinks her experiment straight up doesn't work, then she has no reason to believe she can save Vincent with it.

To be fair to Gast, I can't think of any reason he shouldn't have assumed Jenova was an Ancient to begin with. We know from Ilfana that Jenova had made herself look like an Ancient to infect them. Actually... I can't really fault him for experimenting on Jenova's remains either. That's... exactly what is done now a days when soft tissue samples are found. Fine really old cells, stick them in a petri dish, start poking them with various things, hopefully find out what they are made out of. Too bad he's dealing with a shape-shifting Thing From Outer Space. It would probably make a mess out of the results!

Where what Gast did with Jenova gets dicey is when he starts doing human experiments with her. Since it sounds like those started not long after Jenova was found and Gast was probably making a ton of assumptions based on the idea Jenova was an Ancient... and therefore native to the Planet at a bare minimum... The interesting thing with this is that Jenova being an alien doesn't really matter when it comes to why doing this is a bad idea. It would probably have been a bad idea even if Jenova was an Ancient. Human experimentation never ends well.

But really, Gast finding Ilfana is one of the biggest Dues Ex Machina in the entire Compilation. Certainly in the OG at least. What are the odds that the scientist who discovered Jenova and is the world's sanest expert on her would find the one person in the world who knows what Jenova actually is? And then has a kid with her who has the power to mitigate Jenova's influence on the Lifestream? It's something I try not to think about too often because it sounds so contrived for the sake of making the plot work.

It really depends on what information is available. Are there texts about the Calamity Gast should know about? We don't know.

We know human experimentation is wrong because we have historical examples of very bad things that were done with it. In ff7's world, Hojo is that example. Post Hojo, anyone suggesting his breed of experiments will be lynched from the nearest lamp post, but they don't know how badly it can go until he shows them.

Agreed re Gast finding Ifalna, which is why I think they can't be unconnected. This could mean anything from the Turks kidnap her to use as a research specimen to the Planet telling Ifalna to do something about the idiots messing with JENOVA so she signs on as a research assistant to sabotage the project.

 

[jazzflower92]

Never played CC, what do they say?



Then you have a different story, because Lucrecia has to be right and believe she's right for the story to work. If she thinks her experiment straight up doesn't work, then she has no reason to believe she can save Vincent with it.



It really depends on what information is available. Are there texts about the Calamity Gast should know about? We don't know.

We know human experimentation is wrong because we have historical examples of very bad things that were done with it. In ff7's world, Hojo is that example. Post Hojo, anyone suggesting his breed of experiments will be lynched from the nearest lamp post, but they don't know how badly it can go until he shows them.

Agreed re Gast finding Ifalna, which is why I think they can't be unconnected. This could mean anything from the Turks kidnap her to use as a research specimen to the Planet telling Ifalna to do something about the idiots messing with JENOVA so she signs on as a research assistant to sabotage the project.

Vincent multiple times says that his state was a curse. That also reminds me if that part about Lucrecia binding him with Chaos was something retconned in the DOC game, because in the OG it seemed like everything done on him was by Hojo. Also what did the Ultimanias say about who really experimented on him.

From an earlier thread here is what they found in dialogue from Vincent about Lucrecia's reasoning for choosing Hojo:
Vincent
Hojo... what a queer fellow.
Such utter lack of scientific talent... compared with the genius of Dr. Gast......
Lucrecia chose him trying to protect him...
Now I understand... I understand... but...

And also it shows that someone besides Sephiroth thinks that Hojo is nothing compared to Gast. And Vincent wasn't a Gast fanboy like Sephiroth.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Vincent is out of it for the entirety of both his experimentation by Hojo and his experimentation by Lucrecia, so he probably didn't know who did what to him. At least when he first wakes up. We know Lucrecia was the one who experimented on Vincent with Chaos, even as early as the OG. Up in her cave, Lucrecia has the Chaos report, which unlocks Vincent's 4th Limit Break (Chaos) and she also has Cerberus, Vincent's ultimate weapon.

Lucrecia experimenting on Vincent was needed, as without Chaos and the Protomateria, Vincet's other monsters were not controllable. While Lucrecia can't fix what Hojo did to Vincent, she did at least make sure he was in control of them and not the other way around. Which is a way better shape for Vincent to be in then if Lucrecia had done nothing. She basically uses the science that she is an expert in to save him and completely ruins the rest of her career over making sure Vincent has a chance of not being a complete monster. She actually had no reason to do all that except her own guilt over the whole situation.

While I do think Vincent waited too long to do something, I can't blame him for hiding at first. He's got three monsters in him which are crazy and kill stuff indiscriminately. And he actually doesn't want them to go on a rampage most likely. Which really narrows down the options for what he can do while Hojo is there. Being that one lab experiment that's always kept in storage at least at first isn't... the worst decision he could have made. The last thing Vincent would want is for Hojo to know whatever Hojo did to Vincent actually worked in some way.

Staying in the mansion for over 20+ years while no one was there though? That I definetly have an issue with. Since Vincent did manage to get control over the other beasts in him sometime during then. But just leaving while he knows he's not in control of himself... if you can't get a time to stop when you've had three other being's consciousness and bodies grafted into yours, when can you stop to think things through?

 

[youffie]

I guess I understand that at first he was also just too traumatized to do anything, but yeah, what really irks me about Vincent is that he was literally there while Sephiroth was going mad and Cloud and Zack were being tortured by Hojo in the next room. Things might have been very different if he hadn't come up with the dumbest self-punishment in the world. Of course, he was not aware of any of it and I'm sure he would have done something if he was, but… yeah.

 

[Rose_of_Night]

I mean, if he wasn't immortal now I think Vincent would have probably killed himself. Shutting himself to sleep on a coffin was probably the closest thing he managed

 

[Roger]

Vincent multiple times says that his state was a curse. That also reminds me if that part about Lucrecia binding him with Chaos was something retconned in the DOC game, because in the OG it seemed like everything done on him was by Hojo. Also what did the Ultimanias say about who really experimented on him.

From an earlier thread here is what they found in dialogue from Vincent about Lucrecia's reasoning for choosing Hojo:
Vincent
Hojo... what a queer fellow.
Such utter lack of scientific talent... compared with the genius of Dr. Gast......
Lucrecia chose him trying to protect him...
Now I understand... I understand... but...

And also it shows that someone besides Sephiroth thinks that Hojo is nothing compared to Gast. And Vincent wasn't a Gast fanboy like Sephiroth.

Rufus has a similiar line at the crater.

 

[Clement Rage]

Vincent is also not Hojo's number one fan. Rufus complains about him, but still relies on him for all his information.

What do those NPCs in Crisis Core say?

Lucrecia left records for Vincent to find when she woke up (she had already started to suffer from some kind of Jenova related condition and couldn't stay). We can presume Hojo interfered with that, as he doesn't find those records until Dirge.

So Vincent wakes up, gets his demons under control, finds something that makes him believe Lucrecia dead and Hojo gone. It really depends on what he knows, and we don't have much information on that. We know he got off the table, then immediately hit his knees and screamed. For all we know, he did kill everyone in the mansion or was subdued and nailed into the coffin. We have no information except that whatever was done to him was extremely unpleasant.

He seems to have decided it was too late to change anything and so he might as well go back to sleep. Maybe he killed everyone in the mansion and afterwards decided he was a monster that had to stay away from people?

 

[Odysseus]

Okay this is only a little related, but it's always bothered my that vincent's elaborate outfit has no explanation. Where did he get it? Did Lucrecia leave it for him? Did he trip and fall into a box of Halloween costumes?

 

[Makoeyes987]

Since when do FF characters have to have explanation for their clothes???

Grimoire wore a similar outfit, and Vincent does too.

It's simply hereditary.

 

[Odysseus]

Yeah but he still had on the Turks suit when he was experimented on. Before he sealed himself in a coffin, did he go clothes shopping? I need answers damnit.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Lucrecia experimenting on Vincent was needed, as without Chaos and the Protomateria, Vincet's other monsters were not controllable.

I don't remember the protomateria being said to do anything but control Chaos?

 

[ForceStealer]

Also, I kind of assumed that Vincent had only recently gained control of his monster forms, given that in FF7 you can't control him but in Dirge you can. And the fact that his limits in Dirge maintained more of his features (his cape, face, etc) was supposed to reflect that. But the game kind of implies that he could always control them. It's true that in VII it's not like he attacks the PARTY or anything, he only attacks the enemy, but still...

 

[youffie]

As I was pondering the question about Vincent’s clothing, I was suddenly reminded of a doujinshi I read 15 years ago where Hojo just gave the clothes to Vincent and he was like “uh ok”.

After a sweet session of passionate love-making of course

The shit I've read, folks, the shit I've read…

He seems to have decided it was too late to change anything and so he might as well go back to sleep. Maybe he killed everyone in the mansion and afterwards decided he was a monster that had to stay away from people?

That’s a fascinating thought, though I don’t think that’s what transpired in the game. I might be misremembering, but I don't think he ever talks about the experiments he had to endure or the monsters that live inside him, nor does he seem to necessarily view himself as a monster, despite the obvious self-loathing. He specifically mentions what happened to Lucrecia and Sephiroth as his sin, though he had no direct involvement with it, and even when he finally confronts Hojo he says “I was......wrong. The one that should have slept was... ...You, Hojo!” This seems to suggest that had he not felt responsible for that, he might not have stayed in the coffin, just as he doesn’t go back to sleep after the events of the game that helped him settle the score and gain perspective. The OG even pokes fun at how flawed his logic was, with every single character being all “So you slept? What the hell is wrong with you”

But I’ll concede that we shouldn’t take what characters say about themselves and their choices at face value, especially in FFVII. It's very possible that the remake will explore all of this better than the OG did, since Vincent's scenes do feel less fleshed out than those of the other characters.

 

[Clement Rage]

Fair point. What gets him out of the coffin is the prospect of meeting Hojo, either to ask questions or to do something violent.

Re his costume, take away the cape and it's not all that different from what anyone else is wearing.

 

[Odysseus]

I don't think you understand what I find weird about his outfit. It's not WHAT he's wearing I find strange, its WHEN he got it. At some point after being experimented on but before sleeping in a coffin for 30 years, he decided to stop wearing his turk uniform and start dressing like a vampire. It's just really weird to me.

Okay that's enough about that, sorry for derailing things a bit.

 

[Clement Rage]

It's a valid question, no need for apologies.

Our options are Hojo, Lucrecia, Vincent himself, or some research assistant that wanted to make him look cool/pretty.

It's hard to tell if Vincent himself had a vote: He DOES have a massive penchant for theatrics, but he can also be pretty passive and indifferent, I could equally see him waking up in costume and going 'huh. I guess I'm wearing this now.'

I can't really see Hojo playing dress up. He doesn't care about frivolous things like clothing. But he also doesn't care if Vince looks ridiculous or not, so might just dress him up in the first things to hand with no regard for how it looks.

 

[Odysseus]

The dumbest theory I came up with was that, seeing how in dirge his limit forms all have aspects of his outfit, perhaps it grew out of him as a result of the experiments and it's literally part of his body.

 

[jazzflower92]

It's just a riddle for the ages.