Is Vincent Sephiroth's father?

[LicoriceAllsorts]

The irony is that canonically Hojo gets more action than almost anyone else in the game. He had a hot wife and produced a child, and then he has all those beach bunnies lusting after him in Costa del Sol. I think his record may only be beaten by President Shinra himself, a man who, like Boris Johnson, probably doesn't know exactly how many children he has.

 

[Ite]

Do either of those guys have a “Young Bubbies Club” though?

 

[looneymoon]

Lucrecia from mythology/history is known for being raped, so that was always my assumption with what was going on with that. I dunno if there's actually anything to support that FF7 Lucrecia was written with the story of the Roman Lucretia in mind. The series isn't super strict about tying the names it uses to the real life stories they derive from.

 

[dz]

Do you think that sex tape would be in the basement and Vincent knows?

Maybe Sephiroth found it and that's what tipped him over the edge into full-on crazy-pants Sephiroth.

 

[Odysseus]

Yep, that's it, new head canon. Hojo's sex tape is responsible for all the mental anguish in ff7. It made Vincent lock himself in a coffin, made Sephiroth go crazy, and made Cloud suppress his memories. Amazing.

 

[Cat on Mars]

Yep, that's it, new head canon. Hojo's sex tape is responsible for all the mental anguish in ff7. It made Vincent lock himself in a coffin, made Sephiroth go crazy, and made Cloud suppress his memories. Amazing.

Truly amazing.
It looks like I have the best worst ideas to create headcanons with.
I'm not even sorry.

 

[Clement Rage]

We'll see what happens when the remake makes a 'young Hojo' model. Maybe all your expectations will be met beyond your wildest dreams.

 

[Makoeyes987]

It's funny when you realize all of Vincent's anguish, nay the anguish of all of the main characters of FFVII, can essentially be traced back to Hojo cucking Vincent so hard, he put himself in a box for 30 years.

Relationships are hard. Especially when a mad scientist steals your crush and you watch helplessly as he implants alien DNA into her baby.

 

[S.L.Kerrigan]

It's funny when you realize all of Vincent's anguish, nay the anguish of all of the main characters of FFVII, can essentially be traced back to Hojo cucking Vincent so hard, he put himself in a box for 30 years.

Relationships are hard. Especially when a mad scientist steals your crush and you watch helplessly as he implants alien DNA into her baby.

This interpretation works very well and I am convinced that the plot was built to be understood like this, at least for one of its strata.

It can be understood that Lucrecia and Vincent died successively then were revived with a method of which we were not given the details (but which was probably implemented in an environment close to Jenova).
The two characters would then each on their side have decided to cut themselves off from the world (same behavior).
So was it the feeling of guilt that drove them into exile or was it the influence of the force that enabled them to revive (or prevent their death).
In any case it seems that their state before is very different from their state after and I don't think that this change can be attributed only to the feeling of guilt.

So how does this force influence them, if it ever had the idea of influencing them?
My intention is to show that these characters may not be completely who they once were and that this change may serve a purpose.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Lucrecia herself says "I can't die so easily". She can't easily die because of the Jenova cells in her, which entered her when she and Hojo carried out their experiment on the embryo Sephiroth. So it's highly unlikely that she died and was then revived by some unknown method.

 

[S.L.Kerrigan]

True, but is it Lucrecia speaking or the new entity?

Side note: I don't think we can think of Lucrecia as a "monster" as defined by the game. This designation requires some kind of method that involves an injection of cells.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

We have no reason to suppose it's not the original Lucrecia.

I don't understand what you mean by the second comment.

 

[S.L.Kerrigan]

We have no reason to suppose it's not the original Lucrecia.

Yet you seem to recognize that she was somehow contaminated by Jenova.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

She was indeed contaminated with Jenova, as she herself states. She carried a child in her womb that was a combination of the genes of Hojo, herself, and Jenova. We don't know exactly how Hojo and Lucrecia made Sephiroth, but we can assume that if she didn't acquire this Jenova material during the course of the experiment (e.g., injecting Jenova cells directly into her ovaries), then she acquired it during the course of her pregnancy.

"During pregnancy, cells from the fetus cross the placenta and enter the mother's body, where they can become part of her tissues. This cellular invasion means that mothers carry unique genetic material from their children’s bodies, creating what biologists call a microchimera."

Smithsonian Magazine

 

[The Blindfolded]

Lucrecia from mythology/history is known for being raped, so that was always my assumption with what was going on with that. I dunno if there's actually anything to support that FF7 Lucrecia was written with the story of the Roman Lucretia in mind. The series isn't super strict about tying the names it uses to the real life stories they derive from.

I'm pretty certain that it's actually a reference to the knight chapter in Live A Live. The whole area or kingdom in that chapter is called, "Lucretia". And Square often (a lot of the time) when I've made comparisons between FFVII (and others honestly, they're still doing it with FFXV and FFXIV Online) and previous games likes to ripoff or reference their older games.

Anyhow, Lucretia has a lot of bad stuff happen in it in the knight chapter (spoilers). Oersted snaps like Sephiroth did and becomes the next demon king (mao) just like Sephiroth (who is allegorically alluded to as a "resurrected demon king" (or alternatively- "resurrected Satan"). Also, I find the connection of the statue and the shape-shifting extraterrestrial being called Jenova to be interesting; they play roughly the same role. They fought; they were beaten by the heroes and driven out. And they both need heirs to succeed them while still being alive or active in some capacity.

 

[S.L.Kerrigan]

She was indeed contaminated with Jenova, as she herself states. She carried a child in her womb that was a combination of the genes of Hojo, herself, and Jenova. We don't know exactly how Hojo and Lucrecia made Sephiroth, but we can assume that if she didn't acquire this Jenova material during the course of the experiment (e.g., injecting Jenova cells directly into her ovaries), then she acquired it during the course of her pregnancy.

"During pregnancy, cells from the fetus cross the placenta and enter the mother's body, where they can become part of her tissues. This cellular invasion means that mothers carry unique genetic material from their children’s bodies, creating what biologists call a microchimera."

Smithsonian Magazine

I understand what you are saying and I find it very consistent.

I still allow myself a digression:

When we enter Lucrecia's cave (with Vincent in the team) we are shown a kind of flashback.
In Kalm it is Cloud who tells his story but who is telling this particular one?

Two thousand years ago, the Cetra saw relatives approaching them. Parents they thought were dead

Ifalna
It looked like ... our ... our dead mothers ... and our dead brothers. Showing us specters of their past.

Could the flashback we are witnessing be what the Cetras have called a "specter of the past"?
It seems to me that some similarities can potentially be observed between these two situations and their protagonists.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I can see you're having a lot of fun playing with ideas, so I won't get in your way.

 

[S.L.Kerrigan]

What's fun is playing with other people.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Indeed.

 

[The Blindfolded]

I understand what you are saying and I find it very consistent.

I still allow myself a digression:

When we enter Lucrecia's cave (with Vincent in the team) we are shown a kind of flashback.
In Kalm it is Cloud who tells his story but who is telling this particular one?

Two thousand years ago, the Cetra saw relatives approaching them. Parents they thought were dead

Could the flashback we are witnessing be what the Cetras have called a "specter of the past"?
It seems to me that some similarities can potentially be observed between these two situations and their protagonists.

....
Actual dialogue:
(Through Google Translate)
その姿は、亡き母の…亡き兄のものでした。　それぞれに過去の幻影を見せるのです」
"The figure was that of his late mother... late brother.
Each one shows the illusion of the past"

 

[S.L.Kerrigan]

I'm pretty certain that it's actually a reference to the knight chapter in Live A Live. The whole area or kingdom in that chapter is called, "Lucretia". And Square often (a lot of the time) when I've made comparisons between FFVII (and others honestly, they're still doing it with FFXV and FFXIV Online) and previous games likes to ripoff or reference their older games.

Anyhow, Lucretia has a lot of bad stuff happen in it in the knight chapter (spoilers). Oersted snaps like Sephiroth did and becomes the next demon king (mao) just like Sephiroth (who is allegorically alluded to as a "resurrected demon king" (or alternatively- "resurrected Satan"). Also, I find the connection of the statue and the shape-shifting extraterrestrial being called Jenova to be interesting; they play roughly the same role. They fought; they were beaten by the heroes and driven out. And they both need heirs to succeed them while still being alive or active in some capacity.

I think that there's a great chance Lucrecia (some of) in Live A Live is inspired by the mythological one.
It is interesting to learn that this theme has already been explored in a Square Enix game older than FFVII.

 

[Stiggie]

I've always kinda liked this theory, not necessarily because I don't WANT Hojo to get laid, more that I can't imagine him getting laid OVER Vincent, not just because he's ugly, but because he's evil AF.
Vincents inclusion in the game has always seemed rather pointless to me, which is not that weird considering he's an optional character.
But the way his story ties into the main goings on through Lucretia has always just seemed weak to me.

I don't get why he'd love her if she's actually a mad scientist who chose freaking Hojo over her and then experimented on her child. Nor do I really see what he's even doing on this journey.

Honestly, while I do believe HOJO is probably the actual father in the OG, this is one thing they could retcon as far as I care, would make me engage with Vincents character a lot more all of a sudden.

 

[The Blindfolded]

I think that there's a great chance Lucrecia (some of) in Live A Live is inspired by the mythological one.
It is interesting to learn that this theme has already been explored in a Square Enix game older than FFVII.

It's sad to say that a lot of information or a lot of what seems original in Square's games have actually been taken from an earlier point. While I think that Kitase, Sakaguchi, Nomura, and Nojima have been key players in the Square's early timeframe, I'm beginning to think that Takashi Tokita's involvement may be severely underrated and that he might even be responsible for Square's darker, yet often moral themes early on, such as in FFIV, with the themes of forgiveness and redemption, betrayal, hatred, and madness. He was a prominent scenario writer in Final Fantasy IV, and some of that has been echoed and passed on to Live A Live and FFVII, I believe, even though Tokita was only a producer in FFVII and was responsible, it seems, only for the Padoga part of the game with Yuffie.

I did some more research on Lucrecia's name origin last night/early this morning, and I found that the name of the kingdom in Live A Live appears to be ルクレツィア . However, the actual name utilized in the original FFVII is Lucrecia (rukurettsuia) ルクレッツィア. It has an extra small "ッ". I found it interesting that in games post-FFVII, the name utilized, such as for Dirge of Cereberus (https://w.atwiki.jp/aniwotawiki/pages/16617.html) the name is now ルクレツィア.

 

[Clement Rage]

All the evil stuff Hojo does comes after his marriage, though (that we know about). Lucrecia can't know about it before it happens.

The real world disapproves of unethical experiments because of very bad things that happened, which made the world go 'okay, let's not do that again'. Hojo is that guy in FF7 world, before him, they don't know how badly it can go.

 

[ultima espio]

I read a theory years ago that Hojo had raped Lucrecia. The FF wiki makes a note of it in her Etymology:

The name Lucrecia (and its Latin counterpart "Lucretia") comes from lucrum, meaning "wealth". Lucretia was a mythical Roman figure who was infamously raped by Sextus Tarquinius. This may have been meant to hint to the nature of Lucrecia's forced participation in the Jenova Project in early game designs (when she was named), or it could be meant to emphasize the perverse nature of Sephiroth's conception.