Why do people feel sorry for Sephiroth?

[Kieron_ODuibhir]

My viewpoint on how-much-can-we-blame-on-Hojo is that, based on the one reminiscence to his childhood we get from Sephiroth, Hojo was a major presence in his formative years and he was emotionally abusive.

We don't really know that, though, do we? For all we know, Hojo may have had little interaction with Seph during his youth (e.g. far from enough to qualify as his caretaker), much less whether he was typically emotionally abusive or just coldly clinical.

I'm not sure Hojo can interact with people without being emotionally abusive, but obviously it's worse for a small child.

It's not normal for a caretaker's reaction to a phrase like 'mysterious power' being insufficiently scientific to be such intense rage that you're still vaguely traumatized by the memory like twenty years later, after fighting a war.

We don't know how old Sephiroth was when that conversation took place either, do we?

For that matter, Hojo's reaction could stand out to Sephiroth because it was the one time he saw any kind of emotional reaction at all from him.

We just plainly don't know anything about Sephiroth's childhood, and certainly not what role Hojo had in it. I appreciate the rest of your observations, though.

XD Thanks! Twilight? Do I call you Twilight? It seems more natural than 'Mexican.' Or 'The.'

Well, it's true we don't know, but between Sephiroth feeling the need to reminisce about the incident on no more provocation than the phrase 'mysterious power,' and to mourn aloud that Professor Gast (to whom, he spontaneously affirms fiercely, Hojo was vastly inferior) 'had to go,' he sounds like a hurt kid about the whole thing.

It's uncharacteristic emotionalism and yeah, it foreshadows the 'Are You My Mommy?' breakdown but it's also characterization in its own right. It contextualizes the breakdown. There is no reason for that material to be included other than to make him sound like a kid with a much-loathed stepdad, even if technically this person was his actual biological parent. And also....

Look, Hojo isn't really a calm guy? Like, ever at all? He snaps unpredictably, he laughs inexplicably, he presents data at board meetings with needless dramatic pauses, he gets in your face and makes mysterious pronouncements, he leans against the glass of containment tubes and croons, he makes the effort to gloat in person when murdering former colleagues, he locks his specimens in together and shouts triumphantly about it...and he displays an intermittent obsession with Sephiroth and a perpetual preoccupation with 'specimens.'

It's...really unlikely he wasn't up in Sephiroth's business on a regular basis for as long as Shinra had him classified as a research project instead of a military asset. Not necessarily constantly, I don't really see him having that kind of attention span, when even the most prodigious kid spends a lot of time growing and eating and learning how to pilot its shiny new physical form, but it's difficult to justify a scenario where he wasn't a giant in young Sephiroth's world. Especially after Gast left and he was 100% in charge.

Given Hojo never opens his mouth without either saying something generally horrible or making a specific dig at someone within earshot, that would have been a pretty damaging relationship, even in the best-case scenario for how Shinra structured Sephiroth's upbringing.

And all of that analysis and probability aside, being coldly clinical with a child to whom you have denied alternate attachment figures is in fact a form of emotional abuse.

 

[Roger]

Well, it's true we don't know, but between Sephiroth feeling the need to reminisce about the incident on no more provocation than the phrase 'mysterious power,' and to mourn aloud that Professor Gast (to whom, he spontaneously affirms fiercely, Hojo was vastly inferior) 'had to go,' he sounds like a hurt kid about the whole thing.

He laughed at Zack using the same phrase he once did. I don't see how you got anger to the point of having breakdown already out of that.

It's uncharacteristic emotionalism and yeah, it foreshadows the 'Are You My Mommy?' breakdown but it's also characterization in its own right. It contextualizes the breakdown. There is no reason for that material to be included other than to make him sound like a kid with a much-loathed stepdad, even if technically this person was his actual biological parent. And also....

No reason other then establish what Materia is, who Gast is in respect to Hojo, give Zack some characterisation.

Look, Hojo isn't really a calm guy? Like, ever at all? He snaps unpredictably, he laughs inexplicably, he presents data at board meetings with needless dramatic pauses, he gets in your face and makes mysterious pronouncements, he leans against the glass of containment tubes and croons, he makes the effort to gloat in person when murdering former colleagues, he locks his specimens in together and shouts triumphantly about it...and he displays an intermittent obsession with Sephiroth and a perpetual preoccupation with 'specimens.'

It's...really unlikely he wasn't up in Sephiroth's business on a regular basis for as long as Shinra had him classified as a research project instead of a military asset. Not necessarily constantly, I don't really see him having that kind of attention span, when even the most prodigious kid spends a lot of time growing and eating and learning how to pilot its shiny new physical form, but it's difficult to justify a scenario where he wasn't a giant in young Sephiroth's world. Especially after Gast left and he was 100% in charge.

Given Hojo never opens his mouth without either saying something generally horrible or making a specific dig at someone within earshot, that would have been a pretty damaging relationship, even in the best-case scenario for how Shinra structured Sephiroth's upbringing.

And all of that analysis and probability aside, being coldly clinical with a child to whom you have denied alternate attachment figures is in fact a form of emotional abuse.

Hojo was 100% in charge from the moment of her birth with her never being anything but a science project in Aerith's case. She never sees Hojo as a some fatherfigure that was the foremost figure in her upbringing. If Hojo was so utterly in charge and constantly up in people business, then I guess it's only by his grace that Aerith and Ilfana still had a mother-daughter relationship at all. Or, it wasn't as absolute as all that.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Hojo never saw Aerith and Ifania(sorry for the spelling mistake) as people; he calls them creatures or animals.

He called the comatised Vincent a specimen up until before the former's first death and then calls him by his name in Dirge of Cerberus, and doesn't refer Cloud by his name because he doesn't care.

As far as Hojo goes, if he sees potential in people who are badly wounded or have unusual abilities, he sees them nothing more than specimens for him to experiment on; never as people.

 

[Roger]

"I knew, ever since I was a child, I was not like the other children, I knew mine was a special existence."

If Sephiroth spend his childhood in Hojo's lab being poked at with a stick, that statement means far less as no one then pretended to Sephiroth that he was human in the first place and the revelation at Nibelheim coming to him as any revelation at all just paints him as an idiot.

 

[demonwolf]

I wouldn't call him an idiot per se, more like a drama queen.

Srsly tho, no one in the lab might have treated him like human but they prolly didn't tell him he's not human either. Considering that Hojo refers to virtually anything that he could get on his poke table as a specimen, anyone in the lab would have been 'not human.' Sephiroth would have seen that he's not being treated much differently from others in the lab, just that Hojo is fascinated with him. Therefore he knew he was 'special,' just not 'not human.'

Further, he seems to have developed a sort of lifelong sore spot from not really fitting in with his peers and may have been consoling himself that at least he's still 'human,' all superpower set aside. So once even that was taken away from him, he went for the other extreme and decided to screw fitting in. He's not human, he's Cetra, a race that had been wronged by human. Let's kill em all in revenge (and fit in with the last member of the Cetra, i.e. his mumsie) (let's ignore Aerith, she's half human).

With this line on assumption, he's less of an idiot and more...human (idiotic still).

 

[Roger]

Why the "in the lab" setting at all though? Isn't it far more likely that he believed himself more then just a science experiment because he remembered something other then just being a science experiment as a child?

 

[demonwolf]

It doesn't have to be in the lab tho. Outside the lab people just know he's different, but not how different. So they just treat him like they would special individuals, further reinforcing his understanding that he's special.

With the assumption that he has a deepseated need to belong (which everyone all do to some degree anyway, and he might have it more than others considering his upbringing in ShinRa) he would seek out anything that agrees with his belief and dismiss or minimize whatever doesn't. He'd consciously and unconsciously avoid labelling himself as anything other than human. Anything he sees/hear/experience growing up that might suggest that he's not human could and would be explained away by the influence of mako, training, experiment, etc and basically him just being "special."

Overwhelming 'evidence' in the Shinra manor pointing towards him not being human would tip him over the edge.

 

[Roger]

It doesn't have to be in the lab tho. Outside the lab people just know he's different, but not how different. So they just treat him like they would special individuals, further reinforcing his understanding that he's special.

With the assumption that he has a deepseated need to belong (which everyone all do to some degree anyway, and he might have it more than others considering his upbringing in ShinRa) he would seek out anything that agrees with his belief and dismiss or minimize whatever doesn't. He'd consciously and unconsciously avoid labelling himself as anything other than human. Anything he sees/hear/experience growing up that might suggest that he's not human could and would be explained away by the influence of mako, training, experiment, etc and basically him just being "special."

Overwhelming 'evidence' in the Shinra manor pointing towards him not being human would tip him over the edge.

I agree. So, no need to attribute everything to Hojo specifically.

 

[Kieron_ODuibhir]

Well, it's true we don't know, but between Sephiroth feeling the need to reminisce about the incident on no more provocation than the phrase 'mysterious power,' and to mourn aloud that Professor Gast (to whom, he spontaneously affirms fiercely, Hojo was vastly inferior) 'had to go,' he sounds like a hurt kid about the whole thing.

He laughed at Zack using the same phrase he once did. I don't see how you got anger to the point of having breakdown already out of that.

It's...not a matter of anger? It's a matter of pain. And general loss of control. He also provided a fairly lengthy personal reminiscence of someone getting angry at him that was a digression from the previous conversation, and he also talked sadly to Professor Gast out loud while in the middle of conversation with a military subordinate and a civilian he met today, with a random lower-ranked subordinate also present. This is melodramatic overshare.

Some people are just like this, but Sephiroth when sane was, we are shown and told, usually pretty stoic. So his fit of melodrama and overshare looks like the crazy starting, because Crazy Sephiroth talks about his feelings and his mommy issues and his dramatic goals enough that i want to stuff a sock down his throat.

Hojo was 100% in charge from the moment of her birth with her never being anything but a science project in Aerith's case. She never sees Hojo as a some fatherfigure that was the foremost figure in her upbringing. If Hojo was so utterly in charge and constantly up in people business, then I guess it's only by his grace that Aerith and Ilfana still had a mother-daughter relationship at all. Or, it wasn't as absolute as all that.

Uhm? Could you...maybe communicate in a way other than sarcasm? Not only is it not constructive, it's really hard to tell sometimes what you're actually trying to say.

Obviously Hojo didn't have Aerith from the moment of her birth, he kidnapped her when she was 20 days old. Having gleefully murdered her father with evidently the full support of the Shinra military. Her mother died getting her out of Shinra Tower several years later. She came out of this childhood very talkative and with a longlasting knee-jerk inclination to avoid and lie about her powers and heritage.

These are the things we know. We can extrapolate from this some things--Aerith was not treated so badly she did not learn to speak, or learn never to trust at all. Aerith was treated badly enough that Ifalna was willing to die for her freedom and the idea of being recaptured made Aerith panic, and Tseng take pity on her and intentionally throw the mission for a decade.

Does Aerith chattering all the time once she settled in at Elmyra's suggest that talking was an important outlet when she was at Shinra, or that her speech was so restricted at Shinra that she was making up for it in a flood of words now that she could? That's the kind of question we're really at sea about, and why I want to know more.

Sephiroth he definitely had from birth, though.

Why the "in the lab" setting at all though? Isn't it far more likely that he believed himself more then just a science experiment because he remembered something other then just being a science experiment as a child?

The 'in the lab' setting is because we aren't told that he was ever anywhere else. That's the thing about existing: you have to do it somewhere. And you develop attachments to that place. It shapes you. It and the things that happen in it and the people who make the day-to-day decisions about your life in your early years are perpetually relevant.

'Sephiroth does not have a home town' is one of the facts about him we are told most firmly and explicitly. Even if we posit that Midgar is not considered a legitimate hometown--which I doubt; Tokyo is after all if that's where your family is registered--this lack of attachment is set out as a notable lack. As something you'd expect a person to have which Sephiroth Does Not Have.

Which suggests that wherever Shinra put him from birth to military deployment, they made no effort to simulate a homelike environment. They certainly did not give him foster parents of any kind. There is no childcare facility hinted at. The lab is where he was created. It's where his actual biological father who created him centers his own entire life. It's where he'd have had reason to look up to Gast with such intensity, considering Gast left Shinra when Sephiroth was like. Eight.

It's the only place Shinra had any motive to place him, the prototype product of a high-stakes scientific duel the outcome of which decided order of precedence within the Science Department, and whose longterm potential and rate of development and whether he was going to drop dead at any moment from genetic complications were all giant unknowns.

So where else are you imagining he was?

....Overwhelming 'evidence' in the Shinra manor pointing towards him not being human would tip him over the edge.

I agree. So, no need to attribute everything to Hojo specifically.

Yeah except. All of the above. And Hojo then gets lumbered with most of the responsibility because he is 1) this kid's Actual Father who 2) stars in a negative light in two of the only three things Sephiroth ever says about his experiences growing up and also 3) actually exists in canon; any other assumptions about Sephiroth's early life require making up whole characters whom we then arrange to have had no lasting impact and never come up again. This is...silly.

(I'd be interested to see good fic of it, but it is reaching and it is hella multiplying entities beyond necessity.)

I don't assume Growing Up In The Lab was some constant bubbling-tube vivisection horror show necessarily--I suspect he'd have fucked off a lot sooner if it was, for one thing--but it has to have been shitty.

Assuming formal child custody is even a thing on this Planet, Sephiroth's would have been with either Hojo or Shinra. Neither of these entities have any record of basic decency. Generally, when useful children are left to the sole care of entities without basic decency they are badly treated and it fucks them up. More or less inevitably, actually.

This therefore seems to me like an extremely safe basic assumption. You are welcome to come up with an explanation of how severe emotional harm could possibly have been avoided.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

The only abuse I'm feeling completely sure about right now involves italics. =P

It's...not a matter of anger? It's a matter of pain. And general loss of control. He also provided a fairly lengthy personal reminiscence of someone getting angry at him that was a digression from the previous conversation ...

It was three sentences (two of them pretty short) preceded by a chuckle. Don't blow it out of proportion.

Also, no, it was not a digression from the previous conversation at all. Cloud (i.e. Zack) had literally just asked "By the way... Why is it that when you use materia you can also use magic too?" -- and then made his "mysterious power" comment after Sephiroth explained. It was perfectly in line with the conversation they were already having, not something from out of left field.

... and he also talked sadly to Professor Gast out loud  while in the middle of conversation with a military subordinate and a civilian he met today, with a random lower-ranked subordinate also present. This is melodramatic overshare.

Sephiroth thought he was in the library by himself when he said that; Cloud just happened to be listening. You're getting a lot of this wrong.

Obviously Hojo didn't have Aerith from the moment of her birth, he kidnapped her when she was 20 days old.

Was you asking Minato not to use sarcasm while saying this yourself deliberate irony, or do you not see the negligible difference the first 20 days of Aerith's life would make in all of this? =P

Having gleefully murdered her father with evidently the full support of the Shinra military. Her mother died getting her out of Shinra Tower several years later. She came out of this childhood very talkative and with a longlasting knee-jerk inclination to avoid and lie about her powers and heritage.

These are the things we know. We can extrapolate from this some things--Aerith was not treated so badly she did not learn to speak, or learn never to trust at all. Aerith was treated badly enough that Ifalna was willing to die for her freedom and the idea of being recaptured made Aerith panic, and Tseng take pity on her and intentionally throw the mission for a decade.

Does Aerith chattering all the time once she settled in at Elmyra's suggest that talking was an important outlet when she was at Shinra, or that her speech was so restricted at Shinra that she was making up for it in a flood of words now that she could? That's the kind of question we're really at sea about, and why I want to know more.

You completely missed the point Minato was making.

He was pointing out that Hojo doesn't even qualify for the "major presence during formative years" status of the other child who definitely spent the first seven years of her life in the same lab you're insisting Sephiroth spent his formative years.

Ifalna, another test subject and Aerith's actual mother, had that role. So Minato's straightforward point -- which you labeled sarcasm for some bizarre reason -- is that either Hojo felt like being uncharacteristically gracious in their case or his presence with these kids wasn't necessarily as overwhelming as you're insisting.

The 'in the lab' setting is because we aren't told that he was ever anywhere else. That's the thing about existing: you have to do it somewhere. And you develop attachments to that place. It shapes you. It and the things that happen in it and the people who make the day-to-day decisions about your life in your early years are perpetually relevant.

'Sephiroth does not have a home town' is one of the facts about him we are told most firmly and explicitly. Even if we posit that Midgar is not considered a legitimate hometown--which I doubt; Tokyo is after all if that's where your family is registered--this lack of attachment is set out as a notable lack. As something you'd expect a person to have which Sephiroth Does Not Have.

Which suggests that wherever Shinra put him from birth to military deployment, they made no effort to simulate a homelike environment. They certainly did not give him foster parents of any kind. There is no childcare facility hinted at. The lab is where he was created. It's where his actual biological father who created him centers his own entire life.

These are valid observations. At the same time, though, you have to square them with the observation that Sephiroth still had normal enough of a background that the notion of being "created in a lab" never occurred to him even though he was aware of the kind of crap Hojo does.

When he sees people in those materia chambers in the Mt. Nibel reactor, he immediately knows Hojo did it. The idea that Hojo would make humanoid monsters wasn't shocking to him in the slightest. Yet he had never thought about that in relation to himself.

Why?

Maybe he didn't get foster parents, but he could have still grown up in one of those Shin-Ra controlled orphanages like Cissnei did -- where Shin-Ra can then make a "charity visit" for PR purposes to identify kids with a lot of potential (i.e. test them and train them for use as military assets).

You're playing too much to a false dichotomy between the upbringing Genesis got and one even more sterile and clinical than Aerith got -- a dichotomy that doesn't have to be the case, and which we really don't have any hard evidence to believe is the case.

It's where he'd have had reason to look up to Gast with such intensity, considering Gast left Shinra when Sephiroth was like. Eight.

We don't even know if Sephiroth met Gast. What we know is Gast left Shin-Ra in 1980, 27 years before the original game, and Hollander took his place as head of the science department 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).

All official sources place Sephiroth's birth at "25~30 years" before the original game. Being that Gast's departure is placed at a more specific 27 years prior; that Sephiroth had not yet been determined to be superior to Genesis and Angeal; that Genesis and Angeal are confirmed to be slightly older than Sephiroth; and that G & A were still young enough when placed with their parents in Banora as not to remember anything about laboratories -- we pretty much have to conclude that the precise point in the "25~30 years" thing for Seph's birth would be closer to 27 years (perhaps even less), and that if he had even been born when Gast took off, he was still just an infant.

Sephiroth's admiration of Gast could be constructed from stories he heard.

It's the only place Shinra had any motive to place him, the prototype product of a high-stakes scientific duel the outcome of which decided order of precedence within the Science Department, and whose longterm potential and rate of development and whether he was going to drop dead at any moment from genetic complications were all giant unknowns.

So where else are you imagining he was?

Orphanage owned by Shin-Ra works fine for me. Even the other two Jenova-human hybrids they deemed to have less potential than Seph were still sent to a town owned by Shin-Ra, where the town trustees worked for them, and where they intended for the children to be kept under surveillance.

Shin-Ra wasn't counting on Genesis's foster parents and the rest of the town building such a genuine attachment to the kids as to avoid reporting that they were developing superhuman strength.

Assuming formal child custody is even a thing on this Planet, Sephiroth's would have been with either Hojo or Shinra. Neither of these entities have any record of basic decency. Generally, when useful children are left to the sole care of entities without basic decency they are badly treated and it fucks them up. More or less inevitably, actually.

This therefore seems to me like an extremely safe basic assumption. You are welcome to come up with an explanation of how severe emotional harm could possibly have been avoided.

Cissnei was also a useful child left in their care. She came out with some issues, but pretty alright all things considered. And hell, she knew what kind of organization she was involved with in the Turks; she didn't get to be praised as a hero or fed any pretense that she was making the world a better place.

 

[Roger]

Tres addressed most points quite adequately, so I won't reply to the whole thing. Though I do I apologise if you feel I made excessive use of sarcasm.

The 'in the lab' setting is because we aren't told that he was ever anywhere else.

This simply isn't true. The only location Sephiroth definitely remembers from his childhood is the exterior of Nibelheim. Everything else is guesswork. Though the Compilation rules out the lab of Shinra Manor, where Lucretia continued her work at the time.

That's the thing about existing: you have to do it somewhere. And you develop attachments to that place. It shapes you. It and the things that happen in it and the people who make the day-to-day decisions about your life in your early years are perpetually relevant.

'Sephiroth does not have a home town' is one of the facts about him we are told most firmly and explicitly. Even if we posit that Midgar is not considered a legitimate hometown--which I doubt; Tokyo is after all if that's where your family is registered--this lack of attachment is set out as a notable lack. As something you'd expect a person to have which Sephiroth Does Not Have.

Again, Sephiroth has an impression of Nibelheim. It follows then that he has an awareness of a time not being in Midgar, that he is not allowed to know about. But on the whole Hojo's personal lab isn't the only place Sephiroth can be stored that he can fail to see as a real hometown.

Which suggests that wherever Shinra put him from birth to military deployment, they made no effort to simulate a homelike environment. They certainly did not give him foster parents of any kind. There is no childcare facility hinted at. The lab is where he was created. It's where his actual biological father who created him centers his own entire life. It's where he'd have had reason to look up to Gast with such intensity, considering Gast left Shinra when Sephiroth was like. Eight.

While I imagine that Gast was around long enough for Sephiroth to recollect him personally, eight is unreasonable by any model of the timeline. And as I already pointed out Sephiroth tells us he was not like the other children. His actual recollection tells us he grew up in a place where there were other children who were quite normal.

Him expressing a lack of a hometown is significant, but so is him feeling a distance between other children who existed at some point near him. Hojo's lab is not a comprimise between those two ideas.

It's the only place Shinra had any motive to place him, the prototype product of a high-stakes scientific duel the outcome of which decided order of precedence within the Science Department, and whose longterm potential and rate of development and whether he was going to drop dead at any moment from genetic complications were all giant unknowns.

The promotion was a byproduct. Shinra wanted a son of Jenova and the reward for success was a promotion. Sephiroth was declared a success, the idea that he thereafter handed off to Hojo to abuse as he will because he might drop dead due to complications anyway is indefensible. Shinra wanted a Ancient that can lead them to the Promised Land. It follows that they wanted Sephiroth to be educated and raised to be a functional individual and nothing contradicts that they neglected to do that.

Yeah except. All of the above. And Hojo then gets lumbered with most of the responsibility because he is 1) this kid's Actual Father who 2) stars in a negative light in two of the only three things Sephiroth ever says about his experiences growing up and also 3) actually exists in canon; any other assumptions about Sephiroth's early life require making up whole characters whom we then arrange to have had no lasting impact and never come up again. This is...silly.

Hojo stars negatively in everyone's assessment of him. Rufus was under much more dire and timesenstive circumstances then the ones you describe when he felt it neccesary to casually point out how much worse a scientist Hojo is [then Gast]. Nobody thinks this is telling of an abuse childhood Rufus suffered at the hands of Hojo where Gast served as a beacon of hope. It's enough for Rufus to have met Hojo to have these opinions.

And why does this absolve everyone other then Hojo of any responsibility? Hojo didn't start the Jenova Project. He didn't found the Shinra Company. He didn't decide that the Promised Land was worth genetic experiments. He's at most one of many blunt instruments through which these aims were accomplished. Vincent was there, he at least includes Gast (Hojo's superior at the time) in the list of people he failed to stop.

I don't assume Growing Up In The Lab was some constant bubbling-tube vivisection horror show necessarily--I suspect he'd have fucked off a lot sooner if it was, for one thing--but it has to have been shitty.

Assuming formal child custody is even a thing on this Planet, Sephiroth's would have been with either Hojo or Shinra. Neither of these entities have any record of basic decency. Generally, when useful children are left to the sole care of entities without basic decency they are badly treated and it fucks them up. More or less inevitably, actually.

This therefore seems to me like an extremely safe basic assumption. You are welcome to come up with an explanation of how severe emotional harm could possibly have been avoided.

Cait Sith/Reeve and Sephiroth had no idea Sephiroth was Hojo's son so can we please dismiss the idea that Hojo asserted parental rights over his son? This came as a surprise to everyone in the game.

And I don't deny that severe emotional harm was done, just that Hojo was the one and only source.

And Sephiroth survived it enough that he arrived at Nibelheim calm, someone that protected his team from a dragon that can obliterate everyone except him at a moment's notice, respectful of Cloud's situation enough to give him time off to visit family, a friend to Zack, assuring Tifa's dad that his daughter won't come to harm and generally at ease with Zack's overly casual attidute towards a superior officer.
He's enough of sane, rational, friendly individual that one can expect better decision making of him then to murder an entire village for something that happened over a 1000 years ago. That he did in fact do this can be fully held against him, in despite of pointless torture you imagine Hojo must surely have inflicted on him just because.

 

[Kieron_ODuibhir]

Uhm...okay there is a lot of projecting going on here. I don't think anything in this absolves anyone of shit or that Hojo has entire blame for anything, since for one thing he belongs to an equally fucked institution, and I've said both those things?

I just thought the dismissive hostility toward the idea of Hojo as major harmful influence and the lab as a major part of Sephiroth's upbringing was uncalled-for. It's plausible. It's reasonable. Someone asked why people think that and I explained.

The over-the-top horror torture abuse-porn scenario, or the idea that Sephiroth is a helpless woob who's used and not the baddie is <em>also</em> stupid, but the attitude that lab baby Sephiroth is a ridiculous idea, or that Hojo needs defending from accusations of fucking his kid up, especially with reasoning that amounts to 'we don't actually know he had an opportunity,' really grinds my gears.

Hojo is a monster, who in DoC is shown specifically denying access to infant Sephiroth to the baby's mother. I took from this that he had some control over access in general going forward. It's possible he didn't, but entirely reasonable if he did. Especially after Gast peaced, who else would be in charge of that? The President? In person?

My assumption has always been that the day-to-day care of small Sephiroth was handled very impersonally by interchangeable minions, that he was housed in Shinra Manor until probably shortly after Gast left and then moved into the Tower, and that as the successful prototype he was at least brought in regularly to have his development measured. And probably mako shots administered, since I'm pretty sure SOLDIER was under development with Project S as the jumping-off point when S himself was a child. These are clearly not your assumptions, but they are canon compliant.

What are the sources on the existence of Shinra-run orphanages, anyway? I keep hearing about them, they must actually appear somewhere.

I do agree that the turn of phrase 'not like the others' is interesting and opens interesting possibilities, but I don't think it's nearly indicative enough of anything to close any possibilities off. He doesn't have to have had any other children around to have thought of himself as not like them; only to have been made aware of other children. Maybe met some once. 'Not like the others' is the kind of sentence that he actually could have copied off Hojo ranting (or Gast bragging encouragingly) about what a special child he was.

The main thing about Sephiroth's childhood we can pretty definitively tell despite not actually having been told it is that he had no secure attachments. He lacked a person or a place that he could define as 'home.' If he was housed in an orphanage, it was under a structure designed to separate him from the group; the caretakers provided by the institution were not emotionally available. He did not have bonds.

People complain about the retconned existence of Angeal and Genesis because it messes with the 'Sephiroth never had any real human bonds' vibe, but I like it because the ultimate weakness of the strongest bonds he ever had just emphasizes all the more how utterly alone this fucker was. He came out of childhood with nothing and no one of his own. That is fucked when it happens to people by accident. Nothing about Sephiroth was ever an accident.

Children cannot help responding emotionally to the people who control their lives. It is a hard-wired evolutionary response, wrapped up in an instinctive need to please, because the parent-equivalent is necessary to live. If the figures available change often enough and/or are emotionally unresponsive enough, they will often focus their attachment needs on some entirely imaginary figure--such as a dead parent--or a distant one who it can be imagined would come help and defend the child if they were alive/knew about the problem.

That's how Sephiroth's invocations of Jenova and Gast during his breakdown sound to me. That's something I'm sorry for, that child. A child harboring unreasonable rescue fantasies is always pitiable, whatever the specific circumstances, and as far as I'm concerned that's the image Square built breakdown!Sephiroth around.

(After all, we were supposed to start the game not realizing Sephiroth was the Big Bad. Even after the Kalm flashback, we were supposed to entertain the possibility that he'd gotten his shit back together after however that encounter in the reactor ended and stopped being genocidal and was now going to help the party defend the Promised Land from Shinra.)

Aerith in contrast had two secure attachments, a mother in the lab and a mother outside of the lab. I think her childhood was probably still pretty awful, but she had her mom. Having someone who loves you is a huge difference, psychologically, even if they don't successfully rescue you, and the point of Hojo as a dominant figure in Sephiroth's mental development has never been that he micromanaged the kid (though he could have done) but that he was a dominant figure and really fucking toxic. The latter of which should not even be a subject for debate.

Frankly, I think the breakdown at the revelation he'd been created in a lab and not just modified there makes a lot more sense from someone who'd lived with a sense of alienation all his life, with having been a person experimented on (perhaps because of some unique natural qualities he was assured he possessed) but not a thing that was an experiment.

That kind of distinction is crucial, probably especially in a society where intelligent anthropoids like Snows and Sahuagin are not considered people. But that kind of distinction is also fragile. Senses of identity that rest on very precise shades of distinction are particularly vulnerable to imploding when that part of their foundation is removed.

Cissnei makes no damn sense. The Turks as a whole are super inconsistently written even for FFVII, but the fact that she wasn't raised with major input from Hojo probably helps. Like. Veld is kind of an asshole, but he's not an asshole just for fun. (The Planet as a whole makes no goddamn sense, you have to assume an entire agricultural base into existence or declare these people do not have to eat to survive. Tight and thorough writing we are not looking at.)

But the point is not that Sephiroth must have been raised primarily in the lab under Hojo's control but that it is a perfectly good theory.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I'm pretty sure the Shinra orphanages are mentioned in Crisis Core.

My only contribution to this debate is to ask this: Sephiroth is the biggest asset Shinra has and the crowning achievement of Hojo's life's work. He was possibly even more of an asset when he was a baby and small child, before they realised he couldn't find the promised land but did have, instead, unreal strength and abilities using materia. In his own strange twisted way, Hojo seems to have loved him, if not as a son then at least as a successful science experiment. Is it really likely they would have let him grow up anywhere other than under their very close supervision? He didn't have to 'live in the lab' in order to live in the Shinra building. Maybe he had nannies in the Shinra building and went to kindergarten in Midgar. Why does he have to have been stuck in an orphanage?

I always thought that when Sephiroth had a frisson of recognition in Nibelheim he was either seeing it through Jenova's eyes, or else accessing some incredibly early, lost babyhood memory.

 

[Tashasaurous]

I'm pretty sure the Shinra orphanages are mentioned in Crisis Core.

Don't remember that, but I do remember Cissnei say to Zack that she was raised by ShinRa in Crisis Core, and there's a little info somewhere about her in Before Crisis.

I always thought that when Sephiroth had a frisson of recognition in Nibelheim he was either seeing it through Jenova's eyes, or else accessing some incredibly early, lost babyhood memory.

Despite Sephiroth being a mental hybrid, I don't think even he could even recongise Nibelhiem from his babyhood. Despite FFVII having so many unusual things the real world doesn't have, even the people in that universe don't have strong memories of their babyhoods, same with us.

Sephiroth might think he recongises it, but maybe it's more due to Jenova starting to call out to him because he has her cells and we all know how that turned out.

 

[Roger]

Uhm...okay there is a lot of projecting going on here. I don't think anything in this absolves anyone of shit or that Hojo has entire blame for anything, since for one thing he belongs to an equally fucked institution, and I've said both those things?

I just thought the dismissive hostility toward the idea of Hojo as major harmful influence and the lab as a major part of Sephiroth's upbringing was uncalled-for. It's plausible. It's reasonable. Someone asked why people think that and I explained.

Not a major part, the argument was that Jenova and Hojo were the only ones to blame. The Shinra Company and Sephiroth himself not being allotted any blame. You then defended this under the assumption that Hojo was (in your words) his caretaker. But we don't know that much. We only know that he knew his coworker Hojo before coming to Nibelheim and that nobody knew Hojo was his father. Which to me points to Hojo not having raised him.

The over-the-top horror torture abuse-porn scenario, or the idea that Sephiroth is a helpless woob who's used and not the baddie is <em>also</em> stupid, but the attitude that lab baby Sephiroth is a ridiculous idea, or that Hojo needs defending from accusations of fucking his kid up, especially with reasoning that amounts to 'we don't actually know he had an opportunity,' really grinds my gears.

Hojo is a monster, who in DoC is shown specifically denying access to infant Sephiroth to the baby's mother. I took from this that he had some control over access in general going forward. It's possible he didn't, but entirely reasonable if he did. Especially after Gast peaced, who else would be in charge of that? The President? In person?

Lab Baby, sure, I'm fine with that. Not lab entire childhood and teenage years. That makes his reactions to Zack's question take on whole new needless shape.

My assumption has always been that the day-to-day care of small Sephiroth was handled very impersonally by interchangeable minions, that he was housed in Shinra Manor until probably shortly after Gast left and then moved into the Tower, and that as the successful prototype he was at least brought in regularly to have his development measured. And probably mako shots administered, since I'm pretty sure SOLDIER was under development with Project S as the jumping-off point when S himself was a child. These are clearly not your assumptions, but they are canon compliant.

At some point he underwent a Mako Shower, yes (that they were injections instead of the method we see in the actual game is exactly the kind of assumption a illogical need to raise sympathy for Sephiroth gives us). SOLDIER existed long before Sephiroth. He served a a template for a new kind of SOLDIER but they had been perfecting Mako infusing for years now.

What are the sources on the existence of Shinra-run orphanages, anyway? I keep hearing about them, they must actually appear somewhere.

They own Midgar to the point that the major works as their HQ's librarian. Hard to see how orphans can wind up anywhere other then Shinra.

I do agree that the turn of phrase 'not like the others' is interesting and opens interesting possibilities, but I don't think it's nearly indicative enough of anything to close any possibilities off. He doesn't have to have had any other children around to have thought of himself as not like them; only to have been made aware of other children. Maybe met some once. 'Not like the others' is the kind of sentence that he actually could have copied off Hojo ranting (or Gast bragging encouragingly) about what a special child he was.

The main thing about Sephiroth's childhood we can pretty definitively tell despite not actually having been told it is that he had no secure attachments. He lacked a person or a place that he could define as 'home.' If he was housed in an orphanage, it was under a structure designed to separate him from the group; the caretakers provided by the institution were not emotionally available. He did not have bonds.

People complain about the retconned existence of Angeal and Genesis because it messes with the 'Sephiroth never had any real human bonds' vibe, but I like it because the ultimate weakness of the strongest bonds he ever had just emphasizes all the more how utterly alone this fucker was. He came out of childhood with nothing and no one of his own. That is fucked when it happens to people by accident. Nothing about Sephiroth was ever an accident.

Children cannot help responding emotionally to the people who control their lives. It is a hard-wired evolutionary response, wrapped up in an instinctive need to please, because the parent-equivalent is necessary to live. If the figures available change often enough and/or are emotionally unresponsive enough, they will often focus their attachment needs on some entirely imaginary figure--such as a dead parent--or a distant one who it can be imagined would come help and defend the child if they were alive/knew about the problem.

That's how Sephiroth's invocations of Jenova and Gast during his breakdown sound to me. That's something I'm sorry for, that child. A child harboring unreasonable rescue fantasies is always pitiable, whatever the specific circumstances, and as far as I'm concerned that's the image Square built breakdown!Sephiroth around.

What this glosses over is the part where, whether founded on a deep rooted sense of something within that was genuinely there or because Hojo just told him, Sephiroth was right. He really is special. Hojo didn't turn a human baby into Sephiroth. Lucrecia, Gast and Hojo took a human fetus and turned into a something other then human in the womb. If it's all abuse that Sephiroth was old enough to conciously remember suffering at Hojo specifically that informs his decision making in Nibelheim then it detracts from everyone else's involvement in the matter. Hojo's a monster, he doesn't need to be everyone' monster always and I'm a lot less interested in FFVII if he was.

(After all, we were supposed to start the game not realizing Sephiroth was the Big Bad. Even after the Kalm flashback, we were supposed to entertain the possibility that he'd gotten his shit back together after however that encounter in the reactor ended and stopped being genocidal and was now going to help the party defend the Promised Land from Shinra.)

I absolutely disagree with that. Cloud tells us Sephiroth is the real threat to the planet, not Shinra. Kalm Flashback explains why he knows this. Before any new information is revealed, you are already less antagonistic with Tseng and the Turks for all their involvement in the Plate drop because you are both working towards stopping Sephiroth.

Aerith in contrast had two secure attachments, a mother in the lab and a mother outside of the lab. I think her childhood was probably still pretty awful, but she had her mom. Having someone who loves you is a huge difference, psychologically, even if they don't successfully rescue you, and the point of Hojo as a dominant figure in Sephiroth's mental development has never been that he micromanaged the kid (though he could have done) but that he was a dominant figure and really fucking toxic. The latter of which should not even be a subject for debate.

That you feel sure she had her mom in the lab tells of basic humanity on part of the people in lab that facilitated them being able to interact as prisoners. Sephiroth should be afforded the same, at least. He wasn't there against his will like Ilfana after all.

Frankly, I think the breakdown at the revelation he'd been created in a lab and not just modified there makes a lot more sense from someone who'd lived with a sense of alienation all his life, with having been a person experimented on (perhaps because of some unique natural qualities he was assured he possessed) but not a thing that was an experiment.

That kind of distinction is crucial, probably especially in a society where intelligent anthropoids like Snows and Sahuagin are not considered people. But that kind of distinction is also fragile. Senses of identity that rest on very precise shades of distinction are particularly vulnerable to imploding when that part of their foundation is removed.

A sense of alienation yes, not someone who can't remember ever not being experimented on in a lab by Hojo. He knows these creatures high mako levels are due to experimentation by Hojo, Zack asks what about him, Sephiroth freaks out. There's no reason for that if he remembers an unusually level of mako experimentation done on him by Hojo. There's nothing for him to figure out because he already knows everything to answer Zack's quandry.

He HAD to figure stuff, because Hojo messing with him as a child isn't enough to explain Sephiroth being the way he is. And as it happens there really was plenty more to figure out.

Cissnei makes no damn sense. The Turks as a whole are super inconsistently written even for FFVII, but the fact that she wasn't raised with major input from Hojo probably helps. Like. Veld is kind of an asshole, but he's not an asshole just for fun. (The Planet as a whole makes no goddamn sense, you have to assume an entire agricultural base into existence or declare these people do not have to eat to survive. Tight and thorough writing we are not looking at.)

I agree but a lot of the Before Crisis Turks do have backstories of having grown up and having adult lives before Shinra hired them, and they all sacrifice everything to live for Veld and his secrets too. Cissnei doesn't need to have been raised by Veld to explain her actions.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

In response to the thread title: I can feel sorry for Sephiroth because it's not hard to feel sorry for a character with a shitty upbringing and reason for existing, while still acknowledging that he's done some pretty terrible shit.

I feel sorry the Sephiroth we met in Crisis Core, the one that was brought up to be a living weapon but still harbored the desire to have friends that understood him more than anything. I feel sorry for the Sephiroth that grew up in a lab, never having a childhood, never knowing what it meant to be a child and being treated as a company asset rather than a human being. I feel sorry for the Sephiroth that might have abandoned Shin-Ra if the mission to Nibelheim had gone differently.

Sephiroth has done some horrible things. It doesn't mean I can't feel pity for him and what he could have been. I think this notion gets skewed by many fans who are willing to forgive anything just because they find the character attractive, or in Sephiroth's case, believe 'Jenova made him do it', when we all know that isn't true. It's even been cleared up by the devs.

 

[Tashasaurous]

In response to the thread title: I can feel sorry for Sephiroth because it's not hard to feel sorry for a character with a shitty upbringing and reason for existing, while still acknowledging that he's done some pretty terrible shit.

I feel sorry the Sephiroth we met in Crisis Core, the one that was brought up to be a living weapon but still harbored the desire to have friends that understood him more than anything. I feel sorry for the Sephiroth that grew up in a lab, never having a childhood, never knowing what it meant to be a child and being treated as a company asset rather than a human being. I feel sorry for the Sephiroth that might have abandoned Shin-Ra if the mission to Nibelheim had gone differently.

Sephiroth has done some horrible things. It doesn't mean I can't feel pity for him and what he could have been. I think this notion gets skewed by many fans who are willing to forgive anything just because they find the character attractive, or in Sephiroth's case, believe 'Jenova made him do it', when we all know that isn't true. It's even been cleared up by the devs.

Precisely what I feel about Sephiroth while at the same time can't forgive him for his actions.

And I also happen to like Genesis and Angeal...Angeal not so much, but I do like them both none the less. They fit in perfectly as Sephiroth's friends, considering how the three of them would sneak into the Training Simulation Room without anyone knowing just for fun. That's true friendship there...until things went horribly wrong.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Precisely what I feel about Sephiroth while at the same time can't forgive him for his actions.

And I also happen to like Genesis and Angeal...Angeal not so much, but I do like them both none the less. They fit in perfectly as Sephiroth's friends, considering how the three of them would sneak into the Training Simulation Room without anyone knowing just for fun. That's true friendship there...until things went horribly wrong.

On the contrary, I like Angeal way more than Genesis (I'm a member of his fanclub ffs), because Angeal didn't antagonize Sephiroth the way Genesis did. And then Genesis has the gall to show up at Nibelheim after everything and expect Sephiroth to help him, after telling him what a monster he is? Pffft, I would've told the asshole to rot too.

But I respect your opinion Tasha. I used to be a Genesis fan when CC first came out. Now that I'm older... not so much. Still love Angeal and Sephiroth though.

 

[Tashasaurous]

On the contrary, I like Angeal way more than Genesis (I'm a member of his fanclub ffs), because Angeal didn't antagonize Sephiroth the way Genesis did. And then Genesis has the gall to show up at Nibelheim after everything and expect Sephiroth to help him, after telling him what a monster he is? Pffft, I would've told the asshole to rot too.

But I respect your opinion Tasha. I used to be a Genesis fan when CC first came out. Now that I'm older... not so much. Still love Angeal and Sephiroth though.

Yeah, but he did leave Zack in a loop and forced him to kill him, which was heart-breaking having to lose a mentor and best friend like that.

Sure, what Genesis did was wrong too, but I just kinda like him as a villian that needs serious help. I just wish they'd make a new sequel set after Dirge of Cerberus to explain the secret ending better instead of just waiting for ten years to finally say that the Compilation ended with Crisis Core, though.

Thanks, anyway. And you can call me Tash.

 

[jazzflower92]

On the contrary, I like Angeal way more than Genesis (I'm a member of his fanclub ffs), because Angeal didn't antagonize Sephiroth the way Genesis did. And then Genesis has the gall to show up at Nibelheim after everything and expect Sephiroth to help him, after telling him what a monster he is? Pffft, I would've told the asshole to rot too.

But I respect your opinion Tasha. I used to be a Genesis fan when CC first came out. Now that I'm older... not so much. Still love Angeal and Sephiroth though.

Yeah, but he did leave Zack in a loop and forced him to kill him, which was heart-breaking having to lose a mentor and best friend like that.

Sure, what Genesis did was wrong too, but I just kinda like him as a villian that needs serious help. I just wish they'd make a new sequel set after Dirge of Cerberus to explain the secret ending better instead of just waiting for ten years to finally say that the Compilation ended with Crisis Core, though.

Thanks, anyway. And you can call me Tash.

In my opinion, I think Angeal as a concept is better than Genesis. I just think they should have something that focuses on Sephiroth's childhood to understand more about his character. It makes me wonder what would have happened if Sephiroth learned that Hojo was his father before he went loony.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

The over-the-top horror torture abuse-porn scenario, or the idea that Sephiroth is a helpless woob who's used and not the baddie is <em>also</em> stupid, but the attitude that lab baby Sephiroth is a ridiculous idea, or that Hojo needs defending from accusations of fucking his kid up, especially with reasoning that amounts to 'we don't actually know he had an opportunity,' really grinds my gears.

Who has been speaking to the contrary of the notion of "lab baby Sephiroth," defending Hojo, or saying anything to the effect of "we don't know Hojo had an opportunity to abuse his son" -- either as reasoning or conclsion? What was said is that we don't know the specific things you described early in this discussion (e.g. Hojo going on an abusive tirade toward Sephiroth as a child for describing magic as "mysterious power") happened, and there's little to nothing to go on to reach those sort of conclusions.

The aim here isn't to defend Hojo; it's to keep our recollections of canon appropriately separated from headcanon. The two have a nasty tendency to entwine, especially with FFVII.

Hojo is a monster, who in DoC is shown specifically denying access to infant Sephiroth to the baby's mother. I took from this that he had some control over access in general going forward. It's possible he didn't, but entirely reasonable if he did. Especially after Gast peaced, who else would be in charge of that? The President? In person?

Just to be clear on this: Hojo's access to Sephiroth was never in question.

My assumption has always been that the day-to-day care of small Sephiroth was handled very impersonally by interchangeable minions, that he was housed in Shinra Manor until probably shortly after Gast left and then moved into the Tower, and that as the successful prototype he was at least brought in regularly to have his development measured. And probably mako shots administered, since I'm pretty sure SOLDIER was under development with Project S as the jumping-off point when S himself was a child. These are clearly not your assumptions, but they are canon compliant.

Minato has addressed why these notions aren't really canon compliant, so I'll move on.

What are the sources on the existence of Shinra-run orphanages, anyway? I keep hearing about them, they must actually appear somewhere.

https://thelifestream.net/lifestrea...ore-crisis-player-turks-character-profiles-p/

A girl who loves to take care and assist others. She was living in an orphanage when her potential talent was recognized, and she received a special education for gifted children while growing up. She is a talented woman who is the youngest member in the history of the Turks, and she also became one of Zack’s friends.

https://thelifestream.net/lifestrea...sis-core-complete-guide-keyword-collection/6/

Orphanage
An orphan housing facility run by Shinra as part of their charity work. But in actuality, the children are put through harsh training with the goal of cultivating future candidates for the Turks and SOLDIER. Cissnei is also from this facility, and after enduring the brutal training she was hired by the Turks.

The main thing about Sephiroth's childhood we can pretty definitively tell despite not actually having been told it is that he had no secure attachments. He lacked a person or a place that he could define as 'home.' If he was housed in an orphanage, it was under a structure designed to separate him from the group; the caretakers provided by the institution were not emotionally available. He did not have bonds.

People complain about the retconned existence of Angeal and Genesis because it messes with the 'Sephiroth never had any real human bonds' vibe, but I like it because the ultimate weakness of the strongest bonds he ever had just emphasizes all the more how utterly alone this fucker was. He came out of childhood with nothing and no one of his own. That is fucked when it happens to people by accident. Nothing about Sephiroth was ever an accident.

Children cannot help responding emotionally to the people who control their lives. It is a hard-wired evolutionary response, wrapped up in an instinctive need to please, because the parent-equivalent is necessary to live. If the figures available change often enough and/or are emotionally unresponsive  enough, they will often focus their attachment needs on some entirely imaginary figure--such as a dead parent--or a distant one who it can be imagined would come help and defend the child if they were alive/knew about the problem.

That's how Sephiroth's invocations of Jenova and Gast during his breakdown sound to me. That's something I'm sorry for, that child. A child harboring unreasonable rescue fantasies is always pitiable, whatever the specific circumstances, and as far as I'm concerned that's the image Square built breakdown!Sephiroth around.

...

Aerith in contrast had two secure attachments, a mother in the lab and a mother outside of the lab. I think her childhood was probably still pretty awful, but she had her mom. Having someone who loves you is a huge difference, psychologically, even if they don't successfully rescue you, and the point of Hojo as a dominant figure in Sephiroth's mental development has never been that he micromanaged the kid (though he could have done) but that he was a dominant figure and really fucking toxic. The latter of which should not even be a subject for debate.

Frankly, I think the breakdown at the revelation he'd been created in a lab and not just modified there makes a lot more sense from someone who'd lived with a sense of alienation all his life, with having been a person experimented on (perhaps because of some unique natural qualities he was assured he possessed) but not a thing that was an experiment.

That kind of distinction is crucial, probably especially in a society where intelligent anthropoids like Snows and Sahuagin are not considered people. But that kind of distinction is also fragile. Senses of identity that rest on very precise shades of distinction are particularly vulnerable to imploding when that part of their foundation is removed.

This is an excellent analysis, and I agree with it. As I have from your first post in this thread, I think the vast majority of your commentary is insightful -- but I still have to do my part to keep the canon/headcanon distinction.

My only contribution to this debate is to ask this: Sephiroth is the biggest asset Shinra has and the crowning achievement of Hojo's life's work. He was possibly even more of an asset when he was a baby and small child, before they realised he couldn't find the promised land but did have, instead, unreal strength and abilities using materia. In his own strange twisted way, Hojo seems to have loved him, if not as a son then at least as a successful science experiment. Is it really likely they would have let him grow up anywhere other than under their very close supervision? He didn't have to 'live in the lab' in order to live in the Shinra building. Maybe he had nannies in the Shinra building and went to kindergarten in Midgar. Why does he have to have been stuck in an orphanage?

No one has said he had to be. In fact, the possibility was only raised to point out that he didn't have to have been raised a different way (i.e. in the lab) while also satisfying what little is known about his childhood (growing up without a sense of home and being in a position to compare himself to other kids).

I always thought that when Sephiroth had a frisson of recognition in Nibelheim he was either seeing it through Jenova's eyes, or else accessing some incredibly early, lost babyhood memory.

It's the latter. He remembers the view from that window because he was born in that room (this is mentioned in at least one of the Ultimanias; I can check where later).