Hojo and lies

[The Twilight Mexican]

I think you read the wrong tone into "perhaps because."

I was just responding to the question with a possible explanation.

 

[Tashasaurous]

I think we can all agree that none of Japanese games or anime made sense in the first place, no matter how hard we try. They're totally awesome, emotional and amazing in many ways, but I think they just like to leave us in the dark.

I mean, when it comes to the Universe of Final Fantasy VII, just when they answer questions to things that've been driving people nuts, they just add in more things that leaves you trying to figure out on your own and drives you crazy, and then they mix up the previous answers with so many versions at a few things like with Sephiroth's birth and Hojo still being a totall evil bastard(excuse my langauge).

The only things that remained the same in pretty much all versions of Final Fantasy VII are Sephiroth walking through the flames of fire as he burnt Nibelhiem to crisp, that Zack ends up killed, and Cloud's head is messed up until after Meteor is summoned.

 

[Clement Rage]

TTM, Can you show us where it says Vincent was shot two years after Sephiroth's birth. Because I'm also in the 'huh?' camp.

Dirge dialogue

"Talk! Why did you let this happen?"

"Silence!"

"You-"

For Vincent to react like that, something bad happened to lucrecia. He doesn't care about Sephiroth. Some side effect, that affected her health. Vincent wouldn't confront H for anything less.

On maternal instinct: Bad mothers are a thing that exist in the world, it's not impossible.

All the hate for Lucrecia kind of puzzles me, why is it that mass murder is forgiveable, but marrying the wrong guy isn't?

 

[Tashasaurous]

TTM, Can you show us where it says Vincent was shot two years after Sephiroth's birth. Because I'm also in the 'huh?' camp.

Dirge dialogue

"Talk! Why did you let this happen?"

"Silence!"

"You-"

For Vincent to react like that, something bad happened to lucrecia. He doesn't care about Sephiroth. Some side effect, that affected her health. Vincent wouldn't confront H for anything less.

I don't even think Vincent even cared on what kind of gender the baby would've been anyway. As you said, something did happen to Lucrecia.

On maternal instinct: Bad mothers are a thing that exist in the world, it's not impossible.

Sadly, you're right. I know from experience since I've met a mother who made such a wrong decision to her teenaged kid a few years back and now the said kid's in hospital, having finally lost it while she's on a holiday.

Thankfully, there are good mothers that exist too. Sure all mothers drive their children crazy as they do to their parents, but that's human nature.

All the hate for Lucrecia kind of puzzles me, why is it that mass murder is forgiveable, but marrying the wrong guy isn't?

Shouldn't it be the other way around?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

TTM, Can you show us where it says Vincent was shot two years after Sephiroth's birth. Because I'm also in the 'huh?' camp.

Dirge dialogue

"Talk! Why did you let this happen?"

"Silence!"

"You-"

For Vincent to react like that, something bad happened to lucrecia. He doesn't care about Sephiroth. Some side effect, that affected her health. Vincent wouldn't confront H for anything less.

On maternal instinct: Bad mothers are a thing that exist in the world, it's not impossible.

All the hate for Lucrecia kind of puzzles me, why is it that mass murder is forgiveable, but marrying the wrong guy isn't?

i think - I hope - that the hate is for her decision to use her baby as a human experiment. There doesn't seem to be the same hate for Gillian, but maybe it's because she raised Angeal herself and was in all other respects clearly a "good woman". Obviously Hojo was equally a part of this decision, but he's an established villain anyway.

Re Lucrecia being a bad mother: it seems self-evident that good mothers don't let their babies be used as experiments, although I have seen it argued that a mother might let her baby be used as an experiment if she thought - as perhaps Lucrecia did - that it would be to the baby's advantage. This argument seems to me to have some merit. Aside from that, we aren't really given enough evidence to judge - rather than guess at - her feelings, and what we are given is contradictory. She's such a core character, yet she's terribly underwritten.

 

[Clement Rage]

Well, the only reason Lucrecia didn't raise Sephiroth was that she was prevented from doing so, an we otherwise know almost nothing about Gillian.

Sephiroth being experimented on was a bad move, but Lucrecia is probably among the most qualified people in the world in assessing how risky it would be, and the experiment itself didn't end up doing any harm to Sephiroth. It wasn't good, but other characters seem to me to have been forgiven for worse.

Her story seemed fine to me, my impression from Dirge was that Vincent was being overly clingy and that made her less inclined to listen to him than she might otherwise have been.

(my 'd' key not working well today, so some might be missing in this post)

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

TTM, Can you show us where it says Vincent was shot two years after Sephiroth's birth. Because I'm also in the 'huh?' camp.

I'm glad you asked.

More than one entry tells us that Vincent was shot 23 years before the original game while several also tell us Sephiroth was born 25-30 years before. So, by the closest estimate, that's two years later.

If it helps any with the believability, I will say that it likely wasn't more than 27 years prior to the OG at the most when Seph was born. We know Gast left Shin-Ra in 1980, 27 years before the original game, and Hollander took his place for a little while until it was determined that Hojo's part of the project (Sephiroth) showed more promise than Hollander's (Angeal and Genesis).

So, Vincent was shot anywhere from 2 to 4 years after Sephiroth's birth.

Dirge dialogue

"Talk! Why did you let this happen?"

"Silence!"

"You-"

For Vincent to react like that, something bad happened to lucrecia. He doesn't care about Sephiroth. Some side effect, that affected her health. Vincent wouldn't confront H for anything less.

Not even her mental or emotional well-being? Those would likely matter to him just as much.

And not that she couldn't have had something wrong with her physically (she most definitely did; DC's depiction is unclear about whether her fatigue started before or after Vincent was shot, but it's there), but she wasn't in a difficult labor or anything at that moment either. She walks into the room literally right after Hojo shoots Vincent, while he's still standing over him, cackling like the Joker.

All the hate for Lucrecia kind of puzzles me, why is it that mass murder is forgiveable, but marrying the wrong guy isn't?

Her sins are a little more significant than "marrying the wrong guy." =P

When you say "mass murder," I assume you're referencing Barret, Cloud and Tifa. Their mistakes with that first bombing mission, while something that will always hang over them, wasn't something they did knowingly (the bomb was more powerful than expected), and they also all tried making up for it.

Lucrecia knowingly experimented on Seph, then just kind of wandered off into a cave.

And that's without getting into her utterly grating personality otherwise, with its emotional immaturity and self-destructive behavior that dragged others down with her.

Like I've said elsewhere, she's better than Machina, but just ever so slightly.

 

[Tashasaurous]

When you say "mass murder," I assume you're referencing Barret, Cloud and Tifa. Their mistakes with that first bombing mission, while something that will always hang over them, wasn't something they did knowingly (the bomb was more powerful than expected), and they also all tried making up for it.

The Turks were doing something similiar in regards of Advent Children Complete(yes, it's canon as far as I'm concerned) and while this is most likely not the case, but Reeve had pardoned Reno for the destruction of Sector 7 but the latter felt twinge of guilt for that along with what happened with the Planet two years previously despite the Mako Reactors not being his fault since he wasn't the one helping with the construction of those things. Hell, he wasn't even born when the Mako Reactors were first built.

And Reno certainly didn't create Sephiroth.

Yes, mass murder is unforgiveable, but I respect in those who regret their actions in killing innocent people, even as Cloud, Barret and Tifa were unaware at first.

Lucrecia knowingly experimented on Seph, then just kind of wandered off into a cave.

And that's without getting into her utterly grating personality otherwise, with its emotional immaturity and self-destructive behavior that dragged others down with her.

She mainly did that because she wanted to hide from the world and die, but the Jenova cells refused to let her do that, so she resulted in sealing herself up in the very same place where she and Vincent's father Grimoire found Chaos.

Like I've said elsewhere, she's better than Machina, but just ever so slightly.

I actually like Lucrecia, believe it or not.

But if I have to choose between the two worst Final Fantasy characters; either Machina or Snow, I'd rather Machina anyday.

 

[Clement Rage]

I'm glad you asked.

More than one entry tells us that Vincent was shot 23 years before the original game while several also tell us Sephiroth was born 25-30 years before. So, by the closest estimate, that's two years later.

Hmm.This timeline goes with your figures, but Vincent's profile in the 10th Anniversary Ultimania (here) puts his shooting in the same 25-30 years bracket as Sephiroth's birthday is usually put. So which one is right? I know you know the Ultimanias much better than I do, but are you sure that isn't meant to be '23 years before CC' instead of FF7? As CC is 7 years before FF7, that would fit in to the '30 years' as mentioned elsewhere, and 23 seems like an oddly precise number to throw in as an approximate date otherwise.

nd not that she couldn't have had something wrong with her physically (she most definitely did; DC's depiction is unclear about whether her fatigue started before or after Vincent was shot, but it's there), but she wasn't in a difficult labor or anything at that moment either. She walks into the room literally right after Hojo shoots Vincent, while he's still standing over him, cackling like the Joker.

Some illnesses do work like that, with short violent attacks that fade quickly, but gradually get worse as it progresses. Think of Geostigma, where Cloud is functional most of the time, but gets a sharp sudden attack that lay him out in the church.

When you say "mass murder," I assume you're referencing Barret, Cloud and Tifa. Their mistakes with that first bombing mission, while something that will always hang over them, wasn't something they did knowingly (the bomb was more powerful than expected), and they also all tried making up for it.

Lucrecia knowingly experimented on Seph, then just kind of wandered off into a cave.

I was actually thinking of Reno there, and Cloud handing over the black materia, which could have doomed the world. But let's go with your example.

AVALANCHE didn't expect things to get as bad as they did, but they still went about the bombing knowing there was a risk.

Lucrecia knowingly experimented on her own child, and nothing bad happened to anyone but her. She suffered, but Sephiroth was totally fine. She does do her best to get him back thereafter, but Hojo doesn't allow it and there's not much she can do against a man that just gunned down her bodyguard in cold blood.

Lucrecia then suffers more remorse than any other character in the entire series (her catch phrase becomes 'I'm so sorry'), saves Vincent's life with science, (possibly while still suffering the effects of whatever it is happened to her) and then seals herself away, just like Vincent. If that's such a bad call, how much worse does Vincent look? There's not much Lucrecia could have done, but Vincent is

a)immortal
b)a trained black ops operative
c)presumed dead

, but still does nothing.

And that's without getting into her utterly grating personality otherwise, with its emotional immaturity and self-destructive behavior that dragged others down with her.

Who did she drag down with her? Sephiroth was fine, and Grimoire and Vincent made their own choices. Vince chose to stay in the coffin, and Grimoire chose to jump into the path of the swirly black stuff, their choices are not her fault.

Re grating personality, it's an eye of the beholder thing maybe. I found that Vincent came off looking worse in most of their interactions in Dirge, if breaking off the relationship, marrying someone else, and having a child with them are not enough of a signal that it's over between them, that's on Vince, not Lucrecia.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I totally agree with you, Clem. I just thought I'd say that since, you know, it doesn't happen all that often.

 

[Roger]

Lucrecia knowingly experimented on her own child, and nothing bad happened to anyone but her. She suffered, but Sephiroth was totally fine.

This is not true. Angeal and Genesis were born normal children and thus Jenova Project G was judged a failure. It was exceedingly obvious to everyone involved from the day he was born that Sephiroth was not normal.

She does do her best to get him back thereafter, but Hojo doesn't allow it and there's not much she can do against a man that just gunned down her bodyguard in cold blood.
Lucrecia then suffers more remorse than any other character in the entire series (her catch phrase becomes 'I'm so sorry'), saves Vincent's life with science, (possibly while still suffering the effects of whatever it is happened to her) and then seals herself away, just like Vincent. If that's such a bad call, how much worse does Vincent look? There's not much Lucrecia could have done, but Vincent is

a)immortal
b)a trained black ops operative
c)presumed dead

, but still does nothing.

There was nothing to do. Sephiroth was already robbed of a normal life by these scientists. Trying to take him away from Professor Gast doesn't accomplish much. He was just meant tell them where the Promised Land by being born with Cetra abilities. Vincent can only offer him a life on the run utterly incapable of tending to whatever medical needs this baby might have as a result of being turned into a freak.

But Vincent railed against Hojo resulting in him getting shot, Lucretia lived in the same house as Hojo with access to the labs underneath for years which is just weird given that she has "more remorse then any character in the series". Cloud resigns to death several times but before and afterwards, proactively does things.

Who did she drag down with her? Sephiroth was fine, and Grimoire and Vincent made their own choices. Vince chose to stay in the coffin, and Grimoire chose to jump into the path of the swirly black stuff, their choices are not her fault.

Re grating personality, it's an eye of the beholder thing maybe. I found that Vincent came off looking worse in most of their interactions in Dirge, if breaking off the relationship, marrying someone else, and having a child with them are not enough of a signal that it's over between them, that's on Vince, not Lucrecia.

It's Vincent's game. Puts you in his shoes. He has good interactions with plenty characters in the present. And then there are the horrible flashbacks with Lucretia back when she had a thing for Hojo, the flashbacks back when she had a thing for Vincents dad and the flashbacks where she is just a crystal statue for Vincent to brood against.

Vincent does not look good in those scenes but he's good elsewhere, it's Lucretia's presence on screen that you look up to throughout Dirge of Cerberus.

 

[Clement Rage]

Good or bad, Lucrecia had nothing to do with Sephiroth's upbringing, because she was kept from intervening.

The flashbacks with Lucrecia are all we have screentimewise, I don't see what's so objectionable about them, really.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Hmm.This timeline goes with your figures, but Vincent's profile in the 10th Anniversary Ultimania (here) puts his shooting in the same 25-30 years bracket as Sephiroth's birthday is usually put. So which one is right? I know you know the Ultimanias much better than I do, but are you sure that isn't meant to be '23 years before CC' instead of FF7? As CC is 7 years before FF7, that would fit in to the '30 years' as mentioned elsewhere, and 23 seems like an oddly precise number to throw in as an approximate date otherwise.

It looks like a mistake or poor choice was made when formatting that translation article. There should be a more obvious line of demarcation drawn, as the "25-30 years ago" thing is not meant to be read as an umbrella covering several points along the timeline.

For comparison's sake, look at how both Vincent and Sephiroth's profiles use the "25-30 years" label:
Vincent's
Seph's

It just applies to the point directly under the label.

Notice as well in Vincent's timeline that it identifies his birth as approximately 50 years before FFVII while referencing his well-known age of 27 when he was shot. Fifty minus 27 is, of course, 23. This is, then, in line with what we had been given previously in FFVII's Ultimania Omega, where both the pre-game timeline at the beginning of the book (click here for scan; here for translation) and Vincent's profile (click here for scan) explicitly reference the "approximately 23 years ago" marker while drawing a clear line between it and the "25-30 years ago" timeframe.

And not that she couldn't have had something wrong with her physically (she most definitely did; DC's depiction is unclear about whether her fatigue started before or after Vincent was shot, but it's there), but she wasn't in a difficult labor or anything at that moment either. She walks into the room literally right after Hojo shoots Vincent, while he's still standing over him, cackling like the Joker.

Some illnesses do work like that, with short violent attacks that fade quickly, but gradually get worse as it progresses. Think of Geostigma, where Cloud is functional most of the time, but gets a sharp sudden attack that lay him out in the church.

I get that point, but my point is that nothing major was happening with her physical health right at that moment, so it's just as plausible that Vincent's upset about her emotional well-being when he yells at Hojo.

I was actually thinking of Reno there, and Cloud handing over the black materia, which could have doomed the world. But let's go with your example.

AVALANCHE didn't expect things to get as bad as they did, but they still went about the bombing knowing there was a risk.

Lucrecia knowingly experimented on her own child, and nothing bad happened to anyone but her. She suffered, but Sephiroth was totally fine.

She does do her best to get him back thereafter ...

"Let me see him! ::cries and flounces impotently:: No? Oh. Okay."

... but Hojo doesn't allow it and there's not much she can do against a man that just gunned down her bodyguard in cold blood.

Which is a fine point, but if she's at the point of sealing herself inside a crystal and giving up on life, why not take that sort of fatalism to its logical endpoint and really do her best? Like I mentioned before, she has the means to let the planet's killswitch off its leash, yet uses it neither as a bargaining chip, a threat, nor anything more overt than that.

Lucrecia then suffers more remorse than any other character in the entire series (her catch phrase becomes 'I'm so sorry') ...

Yes, if only I could forget.

... saves Vincent's life with science, (possibly while still suffering the effects of whatever it is happened to her) and then seals herself away, just like Vincent. If that's such a bad call, how much worse does Vincent look? There's not much Lucrecia could have done, but Vincent is

a)immortal
b)a trained black ops operative
c)presumed dead

, but still does nothing.

Oh, I'm not saying Vincent doesn't look pathetic for his inaction either. He absolutely does, though probably for different reasons than Lucrecia.

With regard to Sephiroth specifically, Minato brings up a good point that if Vince ever did even think about it, he could have reasonably concluded he'd be doing the kid more of a favor by leaving him alone.

And that's without getting into her utterly grating personality otherwise, with its emotional immaturity and self-destructive behavior that dragged others down with her.

Who did she drag down with her? Sephiroth was fine, and Grimoire and Vincent made their own choices. Vince chose to stay in the coffin, and Grimoire chose to jump into the path of the swirly black stuff, their choices are not her fault.

I'm not counting Grimoire at all. Definitely counting her kid (who was so not fine), though, and Vincent -- at least in so far as her inability to deal with her irrational guilt over Grimoire led her to make herself and someone who loved her (and whom she supposedly loved) miserable rather than, you know, make Grimoire's death count for something for two of the people he cared about most. One of whom he gave his life for during an incident that no rational person would really conclude was her fault.

Maybe I'm the crazy one, though. No, Lucrecia, you just go on and choose to make both of you miserable for no fucking reason, and then use your kid as a fucking guinea pig.

Re grating personality, it's an eye of the beholder thing maybe. I found that Vincent came off looking worse in most of their interactions in Dirge, if breaking off the relationship, marrying someone else, and having a child with them are not enough of a signal that it's over between them, that's on Vince, not Lucrecia.

Not that he wasn't pathetic too, but it seemed like he had accepted that particular truth.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

DoC (which I've never played; just watched the cut-scenes) certainly doesn't do Lucrecia's character any favours. However, it's possible that if she had been allowed to know and raise her own child, as it seems she wanted to do, Sephiroth would have been a different person and would not have become unhinged by the revelations at Nibelheim.

I'm playing devil's advocate here, but plenty of mothers in real life allow their children to be experimented on because they think it will be in the child's best interest. Louise Brown, the first "test-tube" baby, was something of an experiment. And what about the "three-parent" babies currently being proposed as a solution to mitochondrial disease? Moreover, thanks to the retconning done by Crisis Core, prior to Sephiroth's conception two perfectly healthy, normal babies (Angeal and Genesis) were born through project G, so it would have been reasonable for Lucrecia to assume that the risks to her fetus were minimal.

Lucrecia is a difficult character, it's true, but I can't help feeling that a lot of the fandom dislike for her (not yours, Tres, I hasten to add) is due to nothing more than the fact that she wounded the heart of fan favourite Vincent by rejecting his love, and chose, for whatever reason, to partner up with Hojo instead. Vincent is way more forgiving than his fans are!

 

[Clement Rage]

It looks like a mistake or poor choice was made when formatting that translation article. There should be a more obvious line of demarcation drawn, as the "25-30 years ago" thing is not meant to be read as an umbrella covering several points along the timeline.

For comparison's sake, look at how both Vincent and Sephiroth's profiles use the "25-30 years" label:
Vincent's
Seph's

It just applies to the point directly under the label.

Notice as well in Vincent's timeline that it identifies his birth as approximately 50 years before FFVII while referencing his well-known age of 27 when he was shot. Fifty minus 27 is, of course, 23. This is, then, in line with what we had been given previously in FFVII's Ultimania Omega, where both the pre-game timeline at the beginning of the book (click here for scan; here for translation) and Vincent's profile (click here for scan) explicitly reference the "approximately 23 years ago" marker while drawing a clear line between it and the "25-30 years ago" timeframe.

I don't read Japanese, but I'll assume you're right, as I'm not good on timeline stuff generally.

I get that point, but my point is that nothing major was happening with her physical health right at that moment, so it's just as plausible that Vincent's upset about her emotional well-being when he yells at Hojo.

Well, we get her dramatically collapsing in the OG and Dirge, that seems the most likely trigger to me.

"Let me see him! ::cries and flounces impotently:: No? Oh. Okay."

That scene is shown from Vincent's perspective through a Mako tank, and his memories of the time are pretty patchy. We don't know that's all that happened. The thing about all those flashbacks is that a lot of story happens between them, we don't see it all.

Sephiroth was fine for all his life, he went off the rails later due to things Lucrecia had absolutely no hand in, substantially triggered by a misunderstanding about who/what his mother was. Which was clearly not what Lucrecia wanted.

Like I mentioned before, she has the means to let the planet's killswitch off its leash, yet uses it neither as a bargaining chip, a threat, nor anything more overt than that.

Not really, she doesn't have a big supply of purified Lifestream or a private army handy to provide it, an she doesn't want Sephiroth or Vincent dead, so a rampage wouldn't really solve anything. And Hojo is fearless, threatening him never works.

Dirge Lucrecia cutscenes for reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUtpAyjWZxc&spfreload=10

 

[Roger]

A village's worth of scientists got laid off and Hollanders career ruined based on the fact that Genesis and Angeal seemed normal as babies. That is not what Lucretia and Hojo were aiming for, nor did it ever look like that's what they produced.

And the reason for Project G failure was that they weren't invasive enough, harmed the fetuses too indirectly. altered Gillian and through her Angeal and Genesis. Sephiroth got injected with Jenova cells directly.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

How do we know a village's worth of scientists were laid off? Hollander's career was hardly ruined; he just came second to Hojo in the Science Department. Maybe he saw that as "ruin", but to my mind ruin means disgrace, dismissal, and being reduced to living in a paper bag in a gutter in Wall Market.

It's really difficult to understand how exactly Genesis and Angeal were deemed "failures" and Sephiroth a success, since all three of them ended up as super-soldiers, and while Sephiroth is the strongest of the three he doesn't manifest any powers that they don't have. Later, when Genesis and Angeal started demonstrating Jenova-like abilities to produce copies, fly with one wing and so, which as far as anyone knew were not things Sephiroth could do, I'd be surprised if Hojo hadn't quietly had some second thoughts as to which of the Projects had produced the real failure.

 

[Roger]

I misremembered about Banora, it was the abandoned site of different Shinra project beforehand but rest is here.

https://thelifestream.net/lifestream-projects/translations/340/crisis-core-ultimania-scenario-qa/

 

[Octo]

Reason why I hate Lucrecia more than say, Hojo - we are never asked to feel any sympathy for Hojo he's a fairly one dimensional 'evil genius' character. But we're supposed to feel sorry for Lucrecia when as far as I can tell she actively decided to do what she did, and made very little effort (as Tres pointed out) to make it right. Chose to, as far as I can see, wallow in self pity when I think most people would be galvanised into action even if they knew they were definitely going to lose.

And yeah, it makes Vincent look like a fucking moron, as I don't know what it is that he's supposed to have seen in her.

So yeah, there's a version of Lucrecia that makes sense as a sympathetic character, the OG's depiction comes the closest but now that has been overwritten.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Hey, since we're talking about a couple of Final Fantasy characters we dislike the most, maybe we should create a new thread of each of us making a list of the most disliked Final Fantasy characters we don't like.

I mean, pretty much everyone hates Hojo(me especially), Octo hates Lucrecia, can't remember who dislikes Machina, and I most certainly hate Snow.

What do you guys think?

 

[Roger]

Machina, terrible, every second of screentime he gets is a waste, especially since so many characters in that game seem great but can't get the time of day. I go back and forth on Genesis.

 

[Clement Rage]

Addressing stuff I missed:

at least in so far as her inability to deal with her irrational guilt over Grimoire led her to make herself and someone who loved her (and whom she supposedly loved) miserable rather than, you know, make Grimoire's death count for something for two of the people he cared about most. One of whom he gave his life for during an incident that no rational person would really conclude was her fault.

Watching someone die in an accident is legitimately traumatic, it's not wrong to have hang ups over it. She engaged in a relationship with Vincent in good faith, it wasn't as though she was tricking him or bullying him, but she just couldn't get over her hangups. Maybe it's not the best possible outcome, but she didn't set out to make him miserable, and she's not obligated to keep in the relationship for the sake of his mental health.

Not that he wasn't pathetic too, but it seemed like he had accepted that particular truth.

I don't think so, watching the 'am I sure' scene. He has no general complaint about human experimentation, his only concern is that Lucrecia is involved in the project. He refers to her over familiarly and corrects himself, kind of acting like he has a say in what she does with her own child by someone else. He also pisses her off by going to Hojo with his question rather than asking her directly, implies that she doesn't know what she's doing, which naturally pisses her off because she's had so much trouble being taken seriously by the scientific community. Maybe she would have listened if he hadn't gone about this in exactly the wrong way.

Hojo, by contrast, actually respects her abilities. "She and I are both scientists. We know what we are doing." He could have said 'I' but didn't. When Hojo is treating someone better than you are, you need to rethink your approach.

Vincent actually realises this and backs off after this occasion, but he overcompensates and doesn't get enough involved until his shooting.

With regard to Sephiroth specifically, Minato brings up a good point that if Vince ever did even think about it, he could have reasonably concluded he'd be doing the kid more of a favor by leaving him alone.

What could Lucrecia do that Vincent couldn't, though? Sephiroth doesn't need Mako infusions to live or anything.

But we're supposed to feel sorry for Lucrecia when as far as I can tell she actively decided to do what she did, and made very little effort (as Tres pointed out) to make it right.

How do we know that? Gillian tried to run and was caught, but was let go because Shinra didn't care about the project enough. Sephiroth is a much higher priority, for all we know she tried to do the same but couldn't get near him. She seems to have poor ish health after and during the birth, (collapses a couple of times), works herself to the bone keeping Vincent alive after Hojo's finished with him while trying to get contact with her son and maybe having more collapses, and finally can't take it anymore, makes sure Vincent is safe and leaves a copy of her records for him (which he never finds, likely due to Hojo interference) and seals herself in a cave because she can't commit suicide.

She doesn't do everything right, but she's not worse than many other characters that get forgiven their screwups.

Edit: I don't really hate many characters. Rinoa is annoying if you don't keep her in your party because she keeps wandering off and getting captured, though.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

"Let me see him! ::cries and flounces impotently:: No? Oh. Okay."

That scene is shown from Vincent's perspective through a Mako tank, and his memories of the time are pretty patchy. We don't know that's all that happened. The thing about all those flashbacks is that a lot of story happens between them, we don't see it all.

Of course, and I understand that. The thing about montages or time jumps like that, though, is that, as a storytelling tool, what's shown is going to be seen as representative of the whole -- i.e. what is shown, as well as what isn't. Even if that isn't the intended effect.

Since they should, as storytellers, be aware of how what's shown will be unpacked and digested, there's really no reason to think what was shown isn't representative. Sure, there's room there for some great struggle to have been going on; we just don't have any reason to believe it did.

Sephiroth was fine for all his life, he went off the rails later due to things Lucrecia had absolutely no hand in, substantially triggered by a misunderstanding about who/what his mother was. Which was clearly not what Lucrecia wanted.

It's hard for me to see these things as unrelated, particularly in light of the possibility (I'd even say probability) that the bastard's physiology opened him up to being prodded into instability by the newly reawakened Jenova.

Not really, she doesn't have a big supply of purified Lifestream or a private army handy to provide it, an she doesn't want Sephiroth or Vincent dead, so a rampage wouldn't really solve anything. And Hojo is fearless, threatening him never works.

You may be right that she couldn't have prompted Chaos into action without inciting a large flow of Lifestream, but from the looks of him raging inside that tube, he was about to go on a rampage anyway until the protomateria calmed him. Couldn't she have just taken it away again?

I wasn't suggesting threatening Hojo, by the way. More like Hojo's boss. For that matter, negotiating would have made more sense before breaking out threats. Knowing what Chaos is, Lucrecia should have been able to convince President Shinra that this creature sensitive to the flow of the Lifestream may be able to fulfill the purpose Sephiroth had been intended for (finding the Promised Land).

If he were convinced of that, and could be convinced that Lucrecia didn't intend to bounce, perhaps he could have been persuaded both to order that additional resources, if needed, be devoted to stabilizing Vincent (which Hojo apparently ended up doing on his own anyway) and to let this scientist who not only contributed a child to their goal but also then brought him such a prize as this be allowed to see her son if she continued cooperating with the mission.

Even though Lucrecia didn't want Vincent to die, she still left him in that lab, probably knowing Hojo would do something to him. It's simple fortune that Hojo didn't kill him.

If she was willing to give up on Vincent and life itself by the time she left anyway, why not take some kind of shot at this?

 

[Roger]

Watching someone die in an accident is legitimately traumatic, it's not wrong to have hang ups over it. She engaged in a relationship with Vincent in good faith, it wasn't as though she was tricking him or bullying him, but she just couldn't get over her hangups. Maybe it's not the best possible outcome, but she didn't set out to make him miserable, and she's not obligated to keep in the relationship for the sake of his mental health.

She never told him the truth about his father, even when he discovered she was involved with him in some way.

I don't think so, watching the 'am I sure' scene. He has no general complaint about human experimentation, his only concern is that Lucrecia is involved in the project. He refers to her over familiarly and corrects himself, kind of acting like he has a say in what she does with her own child by someone else. He also pisses her off by going to Hojo with his question rather than asking her directly, implies that she doesn't know what she's doing, which naturally pisses her off because she's had so much trouble being taken seriously by the scientific community. Maybe she would have listened if he hadn't gone about this in exactly the wrong way.

Obviously he does have an understanding that human experimentation is wrong, or he wouldn't care about it anymore about Lucretia being involved in it then all the other science stuff they'd done.

"if this only concerns me" reeks of manipulation. She now knew how he felt about him and knew the buttons to press to use to get him to back down.

Hojo, by contrast, actually respects her abilities. "She and I are both scientists. We know what we are doing." He could have said 'I' but didn't. When Hojo is treating someone better than you are, you need to rethink your approach.

Vincent didn't destroy Lucretia's mind and body by the sheer force of his inactivity alone. Hojo had a little something to do with it, both in seting it up and her not getting the help she needs afterwards. I really don't think this was the loving and respecting relationship between equal scientific minds you are hyping it up to be.

Vincent actually realises this and backs off after this occasion, but he overcompensates and doesn't get enough involved until his shooting.

How? It's the same with the complaint about how he alone dropped the ball with Sephiroth. He's not a physician. Once she stopped having a baby in her belly and it started being a scientific experiment that nobody can as yet make heads or tails of, "getting involved", as in removing Lucretia from the lab or removingh Hojo and Gast from life does not help. Time to do something was before they did it. And Vincent wanted to but blinded by love though he could appeal to Lucretia's better judgement. There was no such thing to speak of however.

What could Lucrecia do that Vincent couldn't, though? Sephiroth doesn't need Mako infusions to live or anything.

We hardly know what he needed. All we know is that he was not normal and that he started getting Mako showers at a very young age. Cloud communicated with Zack in the Mako tanks before the breakout, it's waning him off the stuff that turned him comatose.

How do we know that? Gillian tried to run and was caught, but was let go because Shinra didn't care about the project enough. Sephiroth is a much higher priority, for all we know she tried to do the same but couldn't get near him. She seems to have poor ish health after and during the birth, (collapses a couple of times), works herself to the bone keeping Vincent alive after Hojo's finished with him while trying to get contact with her son and maybe having more collapses, and finally can't take it anymore, makes sure Vincent is safe and leaves a copy of her records for him (which he never finds, likely due to Hojo interference) and seals herself in a cave because she can't commit suicide.

Vincent got an immortal body from Hojo not Lucretia, he was in deathlike state but she was not "keeping him alive". There was nothing that required her 'round the clock attending beyond turning him into the instrument of the Planet's destruction.

She doesn't do everything right, but she's not worse than many other characters that get forgiven their screwups.

I'm all for not forgiving the Turks either.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

@ Minato, nobody had any rights over Lucrecia's body except Lucrecia herself. Vincent literally had no business interfering. She didn't manipulate him into backing down, she straight up told him to back off. Clement's whole point is that what you describe as Hojo's "inactivity" was in fact Hojo respecting Lucrecia's choices about what to do with her body. We don't know what help he did or didn't get her, but it's unlikely he would have actively neglected her while Sephiroth was growing inside her. Three of the best scientific minds on the planet (apparently) were working on that project, one of those minds being Lucrecia's, so it's hard to imagine where they coukld have got more help from.

She was not a damsel in distress who needed rescuing. She was a woman who actively made choices, some of which were wrong choices, some of which she later came to regret. I'm not making Hojo out to be Mr Nice Guy, because he did take her child and refused to let her see him, but given his rather Vulcan-like nature and inability to understand feelings, he may have done this on what seemed to him entirely rational grounds.

@ Tres: what you say about Lucrecia using Chaos to force Shinra to do what she wanted is inspired thinking. But again, it comes down to whether or not the writers deliberately considered this possibility and rejected it as part of her character-building. I don't think they did. I don't think they were able to, because it would have involved the complete undoing of the plot of FFVII. Therefore I don't think we can deduce anything about her character from it. But that's a matter of opinion and others may disagree.