Hojo, Vincent, Lucretia

[The Twilight Mexican]

You know, Sephiroth's father could go either way without stretching things as far as people seem to think. I'm surprised other aspects of fatherhood besides biological relation haven't really been discussed. I completely understand Lic's frustration with people claiming Vincent's the father and Hojo's not based on relative hotness or lack thereof, seeing as it's a common source of frustration for me with shipping or the prevalence of the draco in leather pants trope. However, that's not the sole reason someone could headcanon Vincent as the father.

It's entirely possible that Hojo considers himself the father not due to being the contributor of Sephiroth's Y chromosome, but because he's the "brilliant mind" that made Sephiroth what he is, in a I am your creator, therefore your true father kind of way. There's also the fact that as Lucrecia's partner at the time and with Lucrecia herself out of the picture, Hojo would have sole custody of Sephiroth, making him his father in the legal sense, if not necessarily the biological one. This is without even getting into whether or not he mistakenly believes himself to be the biological father. Similarly, he may have genuinely considered Jenova Sephiroth's mother and not Lucrecia, rather than both or Lucrecia being the mother and Jenova a genetic donor of sorts (think transgenic organisms, where the organism the foreign genes come from isn't considered a parent). That still doesn't change the fact that Lucrecia is Sephiroth's mother, Jenova is not and Hojo had no qualms lying to Sephiroth about it. Knowing that, why should we trust his word on Sephiroth's paternity or assume that he means it in the biological sense?

These are good points. To add to them, Hojo is explicitly an unreliable source when it comes to Cloud and some other matters.

First,

Spoiler: he expected the Reunion to take place where Jenova's body was

("I have been waiting for the Reunion to start. Five years have passed, and now the Clones have begun to return. I thought the clones would begin to gather at Midgar where Jenova is stored. But my predictions were not entirely correct. Jenova itself began to move away from the Shinra Building")

(i.e. in the Shin-Ra building in Midgar). That didn't happen. Then, during the Reunion,

Spoiler: he offhandedly claims to have created Cloud

(Rufus: "Who... was that?"; Hojo: "...He's a Sephiroth-clone I created after the real Sephiroth died five years ago. Jenova cells and Mako, with my knowledge and skills, have been combined with science and nature to bring him to life")

when what he really means is that he used him in his Sephiroth copy experiment. And on top of that, he can't even remember that Cloud was a successful experiment,

Spoiler: accepting Cloud's explanation for why he didn't receive a number

(Hojo: "Ha, ha, ha... this is perfect!!! It means that my experiment was a complete success. What number were you? Huh? Where is your tattoo?"; Cloud: "Professor Hojo... I don't have a number. You didn't give me one because you said I was a failed experiment."; Hojo: "What the--? You mean only a failure made it here?"; Cloud: "Professor... please give me a number. Please, Professor..."; Hojo: Shut up, miserable failure...")

, and still later

Spoiler: referring to him as a failure again

(Cloud: "Hojo! Stop right there!!"; Hojo: "Oh... the failure."; Cloud: "At least remember my name! It's Cloud!"; Hojo: "Every time I see you, I... It pains me that I had so little scientific sense... I evaluated you as a failed project. But, you are the only one that succeeded as a Sephiroth-clone")

while incorrectly concluding that Cloud had been the only Sephiroth copy to make it to the Reunion (he didn't see the ones Sephiroth slaughtered and sent down into the crater for Jenova to consume).

So, yeah, even if Hojo did check whether he was Seph's sanguine father, with him being so deranged as to look at another human being as someone who didn't exist until he got his deranged mitts on them for experimentation, it's not hard to fathom that he could have such a distorted point of view as to consider himself Sephiroth's father without being biologically related to him. Especially in light of his many oversights and his opinion that Jenova is Sephiroth's mother.

Hojo seems to think of Sephiroth as a tool to fulfill his goals rather than as a person, so I never really interpreted what he said and did on the sister ray as genuine fatherly love for him so much as doing his part to get his ultimate creation to destroy the world so he'll have the satisfaction of saying he's the mind that made it possible. He's effectively treating Sephiroth's actions as an extension of his work, so his reasons for caring about Sephiroth and helping in that scene come across as pretty self-centered.

This is correct. Hojo even acknowledges it when Cloud initially interprets Hojo's actions at that time as being meant to make things up to Sephiroth for being a shitty father. The line mangled in translation as "I can't believe you're the one who did this... The illusionary crime against Sephiroth..." was essentially "I can't believe you're doing this to atone to Sephiroth" -- which Hojo promptly clarifies: "Heee, hee, hee, hee! No you're wrong! It's my desire as a scientist! Heee, hee, hee, hee!"

While I'm at it, that scenario doesn't make Lucrecia a duplicitous bitch for not listening to Vincent. Like I said in the other thread, it's fairly reasonable given her scientific perspective and everyone thinking Jenova was a cetra that the experiment was supposed to be relatively safe for both her and her child.

That's a fair point. To clarify, though, I found her duplicitous because of her behavior toward Vincent himself rather than toward his advice.

That's psychological, verbal and emotional abuse within a relationship. To add to that, there's a good chance Hojo had a hand in Lucrecia breaking up with Vincent in the first place, at least in the DoC version of things. There, Vincent walks into a room looking for Lucrecia only to find an open file about his father, then Lucrecia walks in and thinks he was snooping around about it, suggesting she may not have been the one who left it open. If that's the case, then it would mean Hojo was the one who left that file open for Vincent to find, making him the reason they had a falling out.

Huh. I ... had never thought of that. It makes a lot of sense, though. Great point!

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I agree with you Starling, but it's hard to believe an intelligent woman of the world like Lucrecia couldn't see what she was getting into when she threw in her lot with Hojo. Of course it's possible that he hid his true self from her, but we're straying into the realm of fanfiction there, since nowhere in any game or story do we ever see him being anything other than genuinely himself. Dissimulation seems utterly foreign to his nature. If you get into a cage with a tiger you have to expect to be mauled. She's an adult, she made her choices with her eyes open. Wishful thinking wouldn't excuse them.

 

[Starling]

I agree with you Starling, but it's hard to believe an intelligent woman of the world like Lucrecia couldn't see what she was getting into when she threw in her lot with Hojo. Of course it's possible that he hid his true self from her, but we're straying into the realm of fanfiction there, since nowhere in any game or story do we ever see him being anything other than genuinely himself. Dissimulation seems utterly foreign to his nature. If you get into a cage with a tiger you have to expect to be mauled. She's an adult, she made her choices with her eyes open. Wishful thinking wouldn't excuse them.

See, IRL people can end up in relationships like that and it still doesn't make it their fault they went through what they did, nor does it mean they aren't worthy of sympathy. If you said that to an IRL abuse victim, it'd be considered victim blaming, so I don't see why that sort of reasoning should be given a free pass just because we're talking about a fictional character. Read or listen to personal accounts of people who've been in abusive relationships and the usual pattern is that the person in question makes themselves seem like an appealing person to be around, whether by showering the person with gifts and compliments, giving them something they aren't getting from other people, such as romantic interest, emotional comfort about something or actually seeming to understand a point of view everyone else just rejects without providing reasons for it and so on. Once they've gotten the person to spend more time with them, they also begin to isolate them from other people, saying or doing things that suggest only they listen to the person in question, other people don't understand and are just keeping you from being happy/doing what you want, etc. Once the person is cut off from the people who would help them, that's when the abuse tends to become more overt, dropping all pretense of having the person's best interests in mind and actively preventing them from doing certain things or seeing certain people. Another thing about abusive relationships is that while people outside of it are more likely to notice the signs than the person experiencing it, it's quite common for them to be unsure of how much they can intervene in the matter or recognize the situation for what it is, committing a similar mistake to Vincent by trying to respect the person's wishes rather than getting them out of the unhealthy relationship.

Spoiler: Here

Signs of an Abusive Relationship without/before physical abuse

8 signs of an abusive relationship

Domestic Violence and Abuse

Parental Child Abduction

Personal video account of someone who was in an abusive relationship

Abuse PSA video from the UK

Another abuse PSA video from the UK

are some sources about domestic abuse if you want to read up on it.


In DoC, Hojo starts his relationship with Lucrecia by saying she's finally come to her senses, which implies she wasn't reasonable for being with Vincent and that Hojo is the better partner. Since Lucrecia had just had a falling out with Vincent, saying something like that would exploit her still raw feelings about it to keep her away from Vincent and further undermine any doubt he could express about her being with Hojo. When Vincent expresses doubts about the experiments, Hojo capitalizes on his and Lucrecia being scientists and Vincent not being one to make it seem like he can't have perfectly reasonable doubts about the safety or morality of what they're about to do. Lucrecia's doing it because she doesn't see any risks, thinks any doubts Vincent expresses are bias, an attempt to undermine her agency or something around those lines and Hojo kept up a decent pretense of supporting her out of agreement while he ultimately just wanted to conduct the experiment for selfish reasons, as seen with his motives later on. Once he gets what he wants out of her, that's when we actually see him be overtly maniacal and sociopathic, such as shooting Vincent, cackling about it and keeping Sephiroth away from Lucrecia. Vincent didn't see the danger Hojo posed until he was shot mid argument, so Lucrecia's not the only one to have not seen it in time. We can't just assume that just because Hojo is blatantly psychopathic and amoral years later that it was obvious to everyone back then. We're speculating with a wider range of information about Hojo than the characters had at the time, from their perspective. Do you really think Gast would've had him on the Jenova project at all if he knew what Hojo would do? Do you think he knew Hojo was like that before he decided to go into hiding? If he didn't then that makes a third person to not see it in time.

There are plenty of real life cases where despicable individuals put up a convincing facade that kept people from realizing just how horrible a person they really were until it was too late. Abusive relationships can also happen to a variety of individuals who are perfectly capable of being successful and intelligent, so the fact that Lucrecia ended up in one doesn't mean she isn't a smart and capable woman in her field of study. It just means that she was in an abusive relationship, which can seriously mess someone up. If we had the chance to see more of her outside of that relationship where she has more agency and control over her circumstances, then I don't think people would be giving her such a hard time, being able to sympathize with her more easily.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

People IRL can end up in these situations and it doesn't mean it's always their fault, but sometimes it's partially their fault. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but most people here know I'm divorced. My husband didn't treat me very well (he separated me from people who cared about me, and constantly belittled me, among other things), but on the other hand, I put up with it. That was my choice. There was certainly a degree of what Sartre calls "bad faith" - my belief that I had no options, when in fact I had lots of options. He had his problems but the fact that I stayed as long as I did is my fault. Looking at it that way makes me feel stronger, not weaker. So don't tell me to read up on it. I am pretty well informed on the topic. I just don't happen to subscribe to current popular opinion on the topic, but that doesn't mean I am guilty of "wrong thinking".

I think we may have gone too far the other way - people who get themselves into sticky situations through their own short-sightedness or lack of judgement are now beyond all criticism. People can claim to be victims and refuse to accept any accountability. For example, if I text while driving, and get into an accident, I deserve to be blamed despite being the victim. The fact that I got into a bad marriage and stayed in it is down to me, not anyone else.

Again, there's scope to interpret Hojo as luring Lucrecia into the relationship under false pretenses, but there's equally no reason to suppose she didn't go into this with her eyes wide open.

 

[Ite]

Abusive relationships all have one thing in common: the power dynamic is out of whack. Moving forward (out of that relationship and towards your new beginning) is a process of finding your power, finding where your power was and wasn't in your abusive relationship, what you gained and what you lost while "under" and what all those lessons can do for you now. That includes taking stock of when and why you surrendered your power, and ways in which you can maintain it next time. That doesn't mean you're not a victim, it means you're healing. It sounds like Lic's response was some tough love directed at herself, and it sounds like she's happy! My friend, on the other hand, spent years playing the victim card whenever anyone disagreed with her (about anything really, but particularly on her wild spending). That was part of her healing process, and in the years since she has taken the reins on her life, stopped thinking of herself as only a victim, and her situation has improved drastically. No one could do that for her but herself.

Both Vincent and Lucrecia's responses to their heartbreaks is the same: literally entomb themselves. A major theme of FFVII is how we deal with the past, and these characters (two of many who are abused by Hojo) do not cope in a healthy way. Vincent's redemption begins when he accepts Cloud's call to adventure, strikes back at the man who took his power, finds strength in what the situation gave him (in this instance, a bunch of monsters living inside of him) and saves the future. Lucrecia, tragically, sits in a cave lamenting for all eternity.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

That's why I can't feel sympathy for Angeal, Genesis or Sephiroth. Was what was done to them before they were even born fucked up? Absolutely! But you never see them draw anything positive from their situations despite at least two of them having great childhoods, the third at least being able to say he was always proud to feel different from others, and all three being gifted with celebrity and incredible strength they didn't have to work for.

Instead of doing anything positive with what they learned about their origins, they all lashed out at others (usually people not involved) and brought their own destruction down on themselves.

How differently would things have played out had Genesis learned the truth from Hollander the same way, but then decided to share it with Angeal and Sephiroth? Provided those two didn't devolve into petulance, the three of them could have turned against Shin-Ra -- and given that Genesis was able to get most of SOLDIER to desert with just him, all three together could most certainly have roused the remainder, overthrown Shin-Ra all the way back then, and exposed many of the company's wrongdoings long before Nibelheim was burned, Meteor was cast, Geostigma ravaged the populace, etc.

Maybe knowing the outcome of Lucrecia's story ahead of watching it makes it harder to feel sympathetic toward her, but when many of the decisions she makes to move us in that direction are horrendously immature things, I can't feel bad about it.

 

[Starling]

People IRL can end up in these situations and it doesn't mean it's always their fault, but sometimes it's partially their fault. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but most people here know I'm divorced. My husband didn't treat me very well (he separated me from people who cared about me, and constantly belittled me, among other things), but on the other hand, I put up with it. That was my choice. There was certainly a degree of what Sartre calls "bad faith" - my belief that I had no options, when in fact I had lots of options. He had his problems but the fact that I stayed as long as I did is my fault. Looking at it that way makes me feel stronger, not weaker. So don't tell me to read up on it. I am pretty well informed on the topic. I just don't happen to subscribe to current popular opinion on the topic, but that doesn't mean I am guilty of "wrong thinking".

I think we may have gone too far the other way - people who get themselves into sticky situations through their own short-sightedness or lack of judgement are now beyond all criticism. People can claim to be victims and refuse to accept any accountability. For example, if I text while driving, and get into an accident, I deserve to be blamed despite being the victim. The fact that I got into a bad marriage and stayed in it is down to me, not anyone else.

I linked sources about abusive relationships because they're relevant to the discussion and are beneficial to everyone reading this exchange. It's by no means a comment on your personal experience with unhealthy relationships (which I didn't even know about) and not all such experiences are exactly the same, so reading about other experiences and the various forms of abuse is still useful to learn about how other experiences with abuse can differ from what you're already familiar with. Regarding the matter of culpability, the issue with blaming someone for their situation is that it draws the topic away from the issue of abuse and shifts the blame onto the person subjected to it, failing to acknowledge how difficult it can be to recognize abuse for what it is and find help. While some people have the benefit of simply walking away once they realize there's no reason to stay, others can't or have been made to believe as much. Abuse is not a universal experience. Take sexual abuse, for example. Rape victims are often subjected to victim blaming, where instead of addressing the problem that a rapist needs to be put to justice, people make it about how it's the victim's fault because of what they were wearing, what they were doing, etc, claiming that they were "asking for it". I understand what you mean about not paying attention to potential risks of a situation you're getting into but that's not the point, nor does it account for the fact that people aren't omniscient and as such can't identify each and every danger of a situation. Some people notice red flags for a potentially abusive relationship, others don't. That by no means makes someone at fault for being abused and there isn't any situation where abusing someone is somehow OK.

Having personal experience on the subject doesn't mean you know everything about it or that you can't learn something new on the subject, nor does it mean that your particular experience with it is representative of everyone else's. From what you're saying about the length of time you spent in that relationship being your fault, it seems like the element you find makes you stronger is affirming that you still had agency to change your situation once you decided it needed to be changed and to actually go through with it rather than about your situation being your fault. If that's the case, we're actually in agreement about it and I'm pretty sure I've brought it up when saying that Lucrecia being in an abusive relationship doesn't mean she's completely helpless and has no agency, but it doesn't mean she knows how to get out of the situation or hasn't tried either. What I disagree with is that someone being in an abusive situation has only themselves to blame for it, again due to the difficulties in recognizing an abusive situation, recognizing your options and successfully going through with it, which can be quite difficult in many cases even if some don't experience as much difficulty in their particular case.

Depending on the specific case, abuse victims may have to overcome people they reach out to (including authorities) not believing them about the abuse, threats or the safety of others in the household preventing them from reaching potential resources, isolation or the abuser controlling their communication and financial resources, emotional abuse creating a sort of stolkholm syndrome, not knowing where to go, the abuser intercepting attempts to find help and so on. A lot of the time in the case of people not believing them about the abuse, it's a case of victim blaming where the victim of abuse is made out to be responsible for the situation instead of people actually doing something about the abuser. A lot of rape victims don't report it because they feel too ashamed about it, the low probability of the rapist getting arrested means they'll make themselves a target again without getting any justice and they may already be dealing with threats or blackmail to prevent them from talking.

Again, there's scope to interpret Hojo as luring Lucrecia into the relationship under false pretenses, but there's equally no reason to suppose she didn't go into this with her eyes wide open.

Wide open to what? That Hojo was going to steal her child as soon as he was born? That he would deny her status as a parent and have him grow up thinking it was Jenova instead? That he was going to shoot Vincent if he got too insistent about her safety? That Hojo didn't care about her at all and just wanted a prized experiment? The cutscenes make it pretty clear she wasn't expecting any of that to happen. I've already explained how what we know Hojo to be like is based on things that hadn't happened yet at that point, meaning there's no reason to believe anyone recognized the kind of threat Hojo posed. The actions of not only Lucrecia but Vincent and what little we have on Gast supports as much and I've pointed out that the lapse of judgement on the matter Lucrecia is so often blamed for would apply to them as well.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I'm not going to get into a discussion of what constitutes abuse. If A is an evil bastard, that doesn't exonerate B's bad choices; and if B makes bad choices, that doesn't justify A being an evil bastard. There is responsibility on both sides. I find too many people are too quick to look around for somebody else to blame for their own screw-ups.

What's more, Lucrecia knows perfectly well that she is to blame for some of it, that's why she locks herself away in a crystal. She knows she was an idiot to put her trust in Hojo. She was blinded by science and ambition. All three of these people - Gast, Hojo, and Lucrecia - were willing to inject non-human cells into an unborn baby. I don't care what special powers you think you're going to give your child. You don't infect your unborn baby with non-human DNA. That's about as morally wrong as it gets. That's Dr Mengele levels of wrongness. If they didn't know by looking that the cells were non-human then they're not very good scientists, and they're supposed to be geniuses, so we can assume they knew. None of them are what we'd call good people or innocent people. Hojo was the worst, but that doesn't absolve the others.

 

[Channy]

She was blinded by science

....sorry, I had to. >.>

What's more, Lucrecia knows perfectly well that she is to blame for some of it, that's why she locks herself away in a crystal. She knows she was an idiot to put her trust in Hojo. and ambition. All three of these people - Gast, Hojo, and Lucrecia - were willing to inject non-human cells into an unborn baby. I don't care what special powers you think you're going to give your child. You don't infect your unborn baby with non-human DNA.

I think maybe in the beginning, the very beginning, Lucretia did believe in Hojo and thought that he was a good scientist. Renting out her womb for the Jenova/Sephiroth project shows dedication on her side but like any other mother, that maternal instinct took over at one point, shown in her "Let me see him, just once!" outburst. I really felt for her there. I think maybe she was a bit naive, possibly thinking that she would have had a little more control over Sephiroth after birth, but sounds like Hojo just strictly restricted access and it drove her further insane.

 

[Starling]

I'm not going to get into a discussion of what constitutes abuse. If A is an evil bastard, that doesn't exonerate B's bad choices; and if B makes bad choices, that doesn't justify A being an evil bastard. There is responsibility on both sides. I find too many people are too quick to look around for somebody else to blame for their own screw-ups.

That's still the formula and reasoning behind victim blaming, even if not intended as such. There are forms of abuse that actively undermine a person's judgement and manipulate them into allowing things they normally wouldn't allow and your reasoning still assumes that everyone has the awareness to notice every little sign of danger or that a dangerous situation will be obvious from the start. It's not the victim's fault if someone who seemed perfectly normal at first suddenly turns abusive or that the changes are so gradual and minute that they didn't notice immediately. It's not their fault that something looks more obvious from your perspective than it does to theirs. You have to acknowledge that outside influences can impede a person's judgement, as a major element of abuse is manipulating them, such as gaslighting, where they're made to believe their perceptions are false, or emotional manipulation that conditions them to put the needs of others before their own, including a situation where they feel they need to stay for the wellbeing of someone else.

If you have legitimate criticisms concerning the victim about something you think is their fault, then it's best to hold off for a while rather than bring it up immediately, due to the issue of victim blaming and giving the abused individual time to heal from what they went through. If someone reached out about an abusive situation and you immediately went on about why something about it is their fault, then all you'll accomplish is piss them off, make them feel like you don't care/believe the abuser needs to be dealt with or ruin their trust in you. It's like if someone came to you for comfort and advice about their dog dying and you decided to respond by telling them they should've walked it more often as if it's the reason the dog died. Even if you genuinely believe they could've walked their dog more often than they did, it's not relevant to the fact that the dog is dead, the owner needs help dealing with the loss and bringing it up at that moment would be dismissive of the person's grief. What if they actually did walk the dog a healthy amount but you either believe a healthy amount is more than that or that they didn't walk the dog as much as they actually did? What if circumstances you weren't aware of prevented them from walking the dog more often than they did? Timing and context matters and you don't want to be insensitive about something that was emotionally taxing for the individual in question.

What's more, Lucrecia knows perfectly well that she is to blame for some of it, that's why she locks herself away in a crystal. She knows she was an idiot to put her trust in Hojo. She was blinded by science and ambition. All three of these people - Gast, Hojo, and Lucrecia - were willing to inject non-human cells into an unborn baby. I don't care what special powers you think you're going to give your child. You don't infect your unborn baby with non-human DNA. That's about as morally wrong as it gets. That's Dr Mengele levels of wrongness. If they didn't know by looking that the cells were non-human then they're not very good scientists, and they're supposed to be geniuses, so we can assume they knew. None of them are what we'd call good people or innocent people. Hojo was the worst, but that doesn't absolve the others.

Genetic modification isn't inherently evil and the idea of genetically modifying a human isn't a black and white issue where everyone unanimously agree that it'S morally wrong without exception. While the potential for exploitation makes it a very risky thing to allow, if used correctly it could actually be beneficial in allowing humans to adapt to environments they'd never be able to naturally or would adapt too slowly to survive in. It would make living on other planets far easier to manage, as well as inhabit environments we aren't currently capable of living in, not to mention increase humanity's chances of surviving sudden and widespread changes in environment like what could happen due to climate change. You see sci-fi works explore that kind of thing in a positive manner all the time. Incidentally, designer babies are already a thing that people do, which while not incorporating genetic material form another species, is still artificially influencing the genetics of future offspring to get the traits you want, such as a specific eye colour or sex. We also routinely introduce genetic material of other species into organisms, as I said when I first mentioned transgenic organisms, so while it's not done to humans, we have no qualms doing it to other species and it's produced beneficial results for society such as better crops, more effective means of harvesting spider silk and some harmless stuff like glowing cats and chirping mice from research regarding what genes could successfully be transferred to another organism. All it takes is one society that has no objections to doing it on humans and it'll happen IRL. It's even safer than cloning, which is currently only capable of producing individuals with shorter lifespans than the original due to the use of older cells instead of gametes, not to mention the issue of genetic diversity you see with inbreeding. So no, the scientists in FF7 aren't inherently evil for introducing genetic material of another species into a human child just because of values dissonance. Jenova was thought to be a cetra, who were known to be benign. We don't know about what the genetic difference between a human and cetra is supposed to be and we know Jenova can copy and mimic the traits of other organisms, so there's a chance they mistook her for a cetra because the genetic code actually looked like what they though a cetra's genes were supposed to look like. I'm not saying it was right of them to do it, nor that whoever misidentified Jenova was irresponsible, but again, this isn't a black and white issue like you're making it out to be.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Like I said, I don't want to get into a discussion of what abuse means. My views on the topic are complex and well-informed and it would take a long time to do them justice, and that's not something I want to do here.

Perhaps no scientific idea is inherently evil. But I actually have a tremendous problem with taking genes from one species and putting them into another, and the more sentient the species is, the more wrong I feel it is to do it to them without their consent. I think that's pretty black and white. I have serious qualms about transgenic organisms and I wish they weren't happening.

But this isn't really about what I think is wrong, it's about the meaning and significance of this game we all love. And what I am willing to argue about is my belief that FFVII is sending a message about science. The message is this: science is vital to the survival of humanity and often necessary to our comfort, but we should not meddle with the forces of nature just because we can, even if it may result in some benefit to us. Benefitting ourselves is not alone a sufficient justification for tampering with nature. In fact, our determination to tamper with nature in order to benefit ourselves may mean we are a threat to the planet on the same level as Sephiroth. We have to live in harmony with nature and abide by its rules, not exploit it for everything we can get.

It is absolutely wrong to implant non-human DNA into a human fetus without its consent. That would be the case even if it were to save the fetus' life. There's no shades of grey here. This is a line no one should cross. The fact that someone will cross it somewhere, someday doesn't make it right. It's is the same kind of argument used to support all kinds of evil things:

If we increase minimum wage, someone somewhere will do it more cheaply, and our country will lose jobs
If you won't sell us slaves, someone somewhere else will
If you won't traffic these humans across the border, someone somewhere else will

Someone somewhere else is bound to do it, so we might as well do it and get the profit for ourselves.

That "someone somewhere else" argument is a terrible argument. It doesn't reduce the wrongness of the action being proposed, it's simply a way to justify doing morally bad things.

Which brings me back to Lucrecia. At the beginning of this project she, Gast and Hojo were of one mind regarding the total ok-ness of implanting non-human DNA into her unborn fetus. (Is this the "illusionary crime" against Sephroth? I have never understood what that line means.) To that extent, all three are equally guilty. Then Lucrecia and Gast for various reasons began to have huge doubts about the project. Exactly what they would have done if they'd been free agents, we'll never know: Lucrecia appears to have been derailed by grief, and she also had Jenova cells in her body, while Gast was murdered in the middle of gathering evidence.

Hojo never wavered from his "scientific" attitude: he started this experiment and he was going to observe it to the end, come what may. I think we had a discussion maybe in this thread or another about whether he had any feelings of fatherly pride in his son. The evidence is ambiguous. But I do think Hojo is presented in the game as a warning of the dangers of pursuing "science" in total disregard of all ethical considerations.

And Lucrecia was totally on board with Hojo's approach to science, until she saw what it meant for her personally, at which point she began to have second thoughts.

Your interpretation of Lucrecia seeks to paint her as better than she is by depriving her of judgement and agency, which is why I don't really like it.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Which brings me back to Lucrecia. At the beginning of this project she, Gast and Hojo were of one mind regarding the total ok-ness of implanting non-human DNA into her unborn fetus. (Is this the "illusionary crime" against Sephroth? I have never understood what that line means.)

Clicky.

It is absolutely wrong to implant non-human DNA into a human fetus without its consent. That would be the case even if it were to save the fetus' life. There's no shades of grey here. This is a line no one should cross.

I'm not sure I entirely agree. My values place our species first and foremost in everything, and so I'm not entirely concerned about ethics for their own sake so much as to what extent they serve us.

In general, I'd agree that this sort of genetic tampering is inherently wrong. Particularly if it's "just because we can" or to satisfy scientific curiosity. If it were necessary as some last resort to benefit the species, though -- and especially an individual representative thereof -- I could probably get behind it.

That "someone somewhere else" argument is a terrible argument. It doesn't reduce the wrongness of the action being proposed, it's simply a way to justify doing morally bad things.

This, however, I do fully agree with.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I'm not sure I entirely agree. My values place our species first and foremost in everything, and so I'm not entirely concerned about ethics for their own sake so much as to what extent they serve us.

Fair enough, then that is where we must respectfully disagree. I don't think humans are more important than any other species. I've always been a fan of the Gaia theory which is probably why I like this game so much. (FFVII is mentioned in that link.)

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Also fair enough.

There's been a time in my life I shared that view, but circumstances (some actual issues, some hypothetical considerations) led me to decide that I have to draw a line somewhere in what I prioritize. I'm not sure whether the utilitarian ethics or that prioritization came first.

 

[ForceStealer]

[Off-topic posts split to this thread]