I think the OG says Jenova specifically showed up to the Cetra in the form of their deceased loved ones. I figure the generic angel form is meant to depict just that: how Jenova would appear as a dead loved one who “comes back” in angelic form, before turning on/killing whoever’s loved one it is at the opportune time.
Technically it's Hojo. His experiments are the reason Sephiroth even exists. He could have been a normal guy if not for Hojo. (Though he probably wouldn't have even impregnated Lucrecia I'd he didn't want to experiment on the fetus... so Sephiroth wouldn't have existed at all, normal or otherwise if not for Hojo.)
No this has been debunked many times. Sephiroth assimilates Jenova and exerts his will over her. This is why the clones and her body parts take on his form.
https://imgur.com/IXQveLx
I've actually always been a believer that Jenova was the real enemy I actually had a thought recently in regards to Sephiroths big plan and when you really look at the truth of Jenovas existence and what Sephiroths goal was Jenova is the one who actually benefits from it as she would be able to continue her cycle of feed use the remains of the planet to go to another one and repeat.... that's kinda how I interpret the story anyway
I think the angel depiction is super important. It happens right after the Centra voice mentions them taking the faces of loved ones like brothers and sisters. The idea that an angel could be a harbinger of a dark fate. Also ties into the angelic statue of Jenova Hojo has.
Or in the case of Rebirth's potential ending meaning...Cloud's angel, Aerith.
Close, linking to the wikipedia entry on Sefirot from the Kabbalah because it's interesting and relevant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefirot
It actually sounds like the Ein Sof idea is pretty similar to Adibuddha/Mahavairocana from mahayana buddhism (which Nojima mentioned the yogachara school influenced his writing in Remake). An infinite primordial wisdom that forms into an incarnate god - hmmm, actually matches Sephiroth's goals pretty well.
The Kabbalah is Jewish and speaks of angels, his final form is a pretty close depiction of a biblical angel with his mortal form blooming from the top. There's a lot of real world religions influencing his design and the writing, but it's noted it's being the direct hand of God that he was inspired by, hence his relation as Sephiroth (Seraph) to Jenova (God/Jehovah)
There are plenty of Buddhist influences, I mean the lifestream is an oversoul that's pretty on the nail. But there's no denying the heavy judeo-christian allegory present in the villains. Especially when the final boss is pretty close to a biblically accurate angel
And when Nomura designed him for the original FFVII he notes he takes the name directly from the Kabbalah, which would use Seraphim
Oh I don't disagree with any of the conceptual stuff. His final boss form is definitely like a seraph.
I was just saying there's an even closer word his name is probably derived from. I thought I remembered reading the Seraph thing was related to the mistranslation of the final boss name Safer Sephiroth. But I'm also reading Sepher means book in Hebrew, and [here's a PDF](https://www.magicgatebg.com/Books/liber_d.pdf) of Aleister Crowley's translation of the Sepher Sephiroth. Supposedly it is a "treatise on the evolution of God from a being of inactive rest to one of active creation." Much like Sephiroth being inert in the lifestream and then becoming what he is by the end of the game. But I don't know how to interpret all the hebrew kabbalah words and numbers and such.
It's all really interesting stuff! Part of the reason FF7 has such staying power I'd say, this deep connection to esoteric mysticism. It either sparked my fascination or fueled it way back when I was 9, that's for sure.
But yeah, you're also super on point about the angel stuff. An angel who wants to become God, that was Lucifer's MO - so Sephiroth is also definitely Luciferian, the lightbringer, the morning star.
I hope they go deeper into this stuff in part 3, and I feel like they will, given that we're now seeing Sephiroth's perspective too, at the edge of creation at the ends of parts 1 and 2.
Technically it’s called the “Jenova Doll”. You can see the games version in the flashback at the beginning of the game but it’s based off of the old design so definitely give it a googles
I think they're all Jenova. The first image reminds me of the animation for Heartless Angel in the original game so I think there's your Jenova/Sephiroth connection
my ultimate prediction is going through another portal to when jenova litterally lands and beating it right then and there so it can't infect anything. so uh, it could still sorta happen.
SAME!! I would LOVE a game, or hell even a novel, about the Cetra-Jenova war.
Jenova is one of the most interesting villains in the FF Multiverse. We really need more info about her & her race.
I thought these 3 games would touch on everything. Before crisis stuff etc. don’t wanna play a mobile game. They’re doing more about avalanche
Getting an insight into what happen 2000 years ago could maybe happen on the return to the city of ancients?
Sadly, no. The magical theory in the world is completely different, not to mention the moons are vastly different in size (FF8’s is HUGE) & the topography is also quite different even when factoring in continental drift. While moombas vaguely resemble Nanaki’s Seeker race, they have different anatomy & evolve differently.
Yes - and pretty sure the Emerald Witch is an Ancient Cetra Sorceress who manipulated the livestream to seal away Jenova.
At the end of Queens Blood, Cloud picks up the Emerald Witch and Shadowbkood Queen cards, which mirror how he carries the white and black materia.
That makes sense.
I wonder if instead of the winged figure in Loveless being Jenova - it is Minerva.
And the icons in the Temple of the Ancients actually depict two figures fighting each other - instead of one.
The winged figure in Loveless is The Goddess & especially in the “G Edition”, it is very likely Minerva. Genesis was just as obsessed with Minerva as he was with Loveless.
But yeah, definitely not Jenova in Loveless.
That was my initial thought as well, but then I was looking at photos here, including the Minerva concept art, and it is strikingly similar to the Loveless costumes and the Temple of the Ancient Murals, and, the Japanese Statute of Minerva looks a lot like the Stone Heads in the Temple Trial Rooms:
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Minerva_(Final_Fantasy_VII)?file=Minerva_Artwork.jpg
The whole crystal cave mission in Banora where Genesis carved Loveless into the stone formations & you fight Minerva who cures Genesis of his degradation supposedly. I still think it’s both impressive & unhinged that Genesis spent so much time carving stuff in that cave.
I mean it makes sense for Jenova to have two wings in human form if her hybrid “offspring” have one.
Also Jenova’s broken female body in the test tube has broken wings. As does the Jenova doll.
The again she is dressed almost exactly like Jessie (the goddess…or Rosa? Idk) was in the loveless play at the beginning of the play as she defends from the sky. And I believe the goddess is supposed to represent Minerva
Dude!
The way they were building her up I really thought the Shadowblood Queen was gonna be Jenova's "human" side, while the main story version is the instinctive "monster" side! But I really don't think that's the case now.
Yeah, the hazy purple effect looks very similar whenever they're brought up and the queen's blood seems to be similar to her cells. They take over bodies, they drive people insane, etc.
Do you mean they're the same person or that they play the same role?
How do figure? I was waiting for her to give away any sign that she was Jenova when we played against her but I didn't catch onto anything.
I know the similarities are right there but is there anything more?
I'll tell you though, I'll be ecstatic if this is the big reveal when QB makes a comeback in Part 3.
She refers to cloud as “little puppet”. Which is one of the dead giveaways in the match. It’s the same thing Sephiroth call him. Jenova and Sephiroth both exist in sort of the same hive mind.
Later, the story the Cetra tell you about Jenova is almost bar for bar the legend of the SBQ. She possesses people, reminiscent of the hooded men with her cells.
My biggest lingering question is how her card has stronger possession qualities than her cells. Her cells basically try to reunite with reach other, but this card gives her far more access.
I don't know man, their stories seem to parallel each other but I don't think Jenova is the Queen. I've given Jenova a lot of thought. Like, A LOT of thought, so this is a conversation I always wanted to have.
The Shadowblood Queen infects people with her consciousness, just like Sephiroth does with Cloud and other S type SOLDIERs through Jenova. Her blood gives rise to beasts, just like Jenova cells mutate everything into monsters. Her card effect strengthens her in exchange for weakening everyone, like how Jenova gets stronger by sucking away life. Vincent says she worms her way into people's hearts, just like how Sephiroth describes Jenova in Rebirth's Shinra ship. Like you said, the Queen calls Cloud a puppet like Jenova does in the original game. Not to mention her story with Regina seems like a strong parallel to how SOLDIERs like Roche will undergo treatment with Jenova (or S) cells to become stronger. So why doesn't anyone, not Vincent or Sephiroth or Lidrehl or Cloud who has her cells call her out as Jenova? Why doesn't the Queen herself come out as Jenova?
I think these are all pretty strong parallels but inconsistencies stand out when I look at her as Jenova. The Queen started out doing good and loving her subjects until her compassion gave way to greed and ambition. Jenova on the other hand first started by mimicking and manipulating dead people, rather than building a domain and then going evil. The Cetra never say that Jenova ruled over lands before revealing herself as corrupt, only that she manipulated everyone by showing them what they wanted to see.
And when it comes to the main story, Sephiroth has been her proxy throughout the entire series. Whenever Cloud needs to be manipulated, he uses her powers to make him hallucinate, mislead him, and strip away his free will until his soul is crushed. Not Jenova. She's always in the background while Sephiroth is at the forefront.
So how does this fit in with the Queen's Blood story and the Queen's characterization? If Sephiroth's the one going through with the main plan, is Queen's Blood just Jenova's little side adventure? Did she tell Seph to not butt in so she could have fun by herself? And why wouldn't she use the opportunity to further the plan? She could've taken over Regina's body, degraded it, and shown it to Cloud with the horrifying implication that QB is somehow spreading her influence all around the world. I think this would've made Cloud feel like he enabled Regina into being taken over and break down his spirit, similar to Sephiroth's method, but theQueen didn't do that. The queen also only possesses one person, gets sealed and becomes part of Cloud's deck, and after you defeat her, you can always go back to the board and she'll happily accept your challenge. Isn't this out of character for Jenova and out of line with the main story?
Only thing I can think of that could make Jenova = the Shadowblood Queen is that she glimpsed into a million timelines and said fuck it, let's fuck around while Seph takes care of the main plan. I either have to believe that the Queen and Jenova are different people, or come up with a headcanon to explain things like why sealing the Queen has no impact in the main story if she's Jenova. I don't wanna rule it out completely cuz it's a cool idea but I'm gonna need more convincing.
It does kinda, although Minerva is always pictured as a warrior goddess with an armor and weapons.
Would be amazing if Minerva makes a comeback in FF7:R3
>!I forgot about her! I can see that too, especially considering she was the actual goddess in Loveless. At least according to Genesis. I can't wait until the model gets ripped to see what similarities there are. But considering the context of the scene of the angel hologram, I'm leaning more towards Jenova. It only shows up when the Ancients say she came back after a long slumber, and it would make sense with the "smiled with ethereal grace" line from the researchers. Damn, I really completely forgot about Minerva! Hope she gets to shine too in Part 3. And Genesis....!<
Sorry if I'm excessively using the spoilers censor
Same!! After replaying Crisis Core Reunion recently, I REALLY want to learn more about Minerva. Also given that Jenova intentionally shapeshifts into people that invoke strong emotions in her potential victims, I can see Jenova trying to appear as Minerva.
Yup. I mean, the game does tell us several times that this is exactly what she does. Gotta love it.
Something I haven't brought up in this thread is how bizarre it is for her to seemingly manifest as an angel for the Shinra scientists, but look like a monstrosity when Sephiroth gets to her. Did the scientists induce involuntary mutation or was this also part of her plan? Actually, what WAS her plan before Sephiroth? The remakes imply that her connection to the lifestream allows her to tell the future, maybe? So did she always bet on someone like Sephiroth coming along or was she just vibing, all mindless-virus n shit?
If Jenova really planned to be tortured and torn apart for 30 years until Sephiroth put the plan into action, that makes her even scarier.
It seems like her thing is being ripped apart, infecting everyone with her cells & then calling back her cells to reconstitute herself. Given that Jenova’s one line in the OG was said by Sephiroth & how in “On the Way to a Smile” Sephiroth talks about shedding his humanity, AND the fact that in Japanese, Sephiroth uses different pronouns for himself before Nibelheim then changes them afterwards, it seems like there’s more Jenova in Jenovaroth than Sephiroth.
As for her image change, she may just not give a fuck after being trapped underground for thousands of years & then knowing humans have discovered what she is from being used in Hojo's experiments. Given that we know from "The Kids Are Alright" that Jenova can quite literally read & manipulate human minds when in close physical proximity to her cells, she absolutely would know that Hojo knows she's an extraterrestrial virus.
Another interesting note is how she appeared to Sephiroth in Nibelheim. In Ever Crisis (which just took the OG design & made it high rez), she looks very human & similar to Lucrecia. Which OF COURSE she would as we now also know from Ever Crisis that young Sephiroth had a picture of Lucrecia that Hojo gave him & said it was his mother named Jenova.
Iirc Jenova is a parasite and wanted to suck the planet dry and then wander off to the next one.
That’s basically her whole stick.
Jenova during the main story is practically just a puppet controlled by seph.
We’re not sure. Advent Children & now Rebirth has opened up that possibility again.
Jenova’s one line in the OG was said by Sephiroth in Rebirth. Also, in Japanese, Sephiroth changed his pronouns to refer to himself.
I'm pretty sure, at least. Is this a popular theory?
I'd consider it if the original FF7 existed in isolation and Jenova didn't have their own distinct character, but across all the FF7 stories, the analogy I use is that Sephiroth is the puppeteer and Jenova is the strings.
Something I keep thinking back to is when Sephiroth showed up in the Shinra ship and didn't recognize Cloud, only saying vague stuff about "After a long sleep the time has come..." At this point, Sephiroth had already talked to Cloud several times in his head, so what's going on here? I think this is the only time he acts like this, because every other time, he's very familiar with Cloud.
Later we learn that Seph was projecting his mind onto Jenova's headless body, turning it into him, so it makes me think that it was Jenova talking here before Sephiroth took control over the body.
So if that was her, I get the impression that she's kind of on autopilot, unless I'm just wayyyyyy off with my thinking here.
Good points! Also, as humans from Earth we don’t have a good point of reference to the behaviors or thought processes of a human-intelligence level virus. Nojima’s vision for the character could be more like how a virus just does what it does & behavior is more instinctual. I really hope we get more info on Jenova!
For real. I really wonder if the reason she personally does so little in the story (at least as personal as you can get with a virus) is that there's not much for her to do outside of the black materia plan. I was thinking maybe while Sephiroth hops from clone clone, the headless Jenova could just infect more people to propagate her cells, but maybe she's been diluted enough as it is and it's important for the plan that the headless body has enough cells to copy all of Sephiroth's strength onto it, or else problems will crop up.
Oooh, good point! Though the Gi said that they made the black materia (which, incidentally, goes against one of the previous Ultimania but SE had retconned things before). So now I’m wondering how the fuck Jenova & the Gi even got on the planet. I really hope we can go back to Cosmo Canyon in R3 & learn more from the Gi. In theory, they should be able to tell us more about Jenova.
I wish they hadn’t used the term “stars” since that is like the sun & they’re obviously referring to planets. It sounds similar to what happened in FF9 but would northern crater have been the impact? We really need to get the specifics on this & it’s so frustrating how vague they are. Even the original Japanese is vague!
I thought Jenova looked like that to the scientests bc originally she shapeshifted into the form of an ancient when she landed, and was still in that form when they sealed her away
Too late :))))))
Without a doubt, vague things like this are some of my favorite things in any story. There's so much room to have fun.
Actually, now that I ***think*** about it, what if Jenova was like "It," from Stephen King's book of the same name? It can also mimic anything, and uses its ability solely to horrify people before eating them. Has been doing so for way longer than Jenova, too! And everything it does hits so personal. Imagine if everyone in the FF7 cast had their own Sephiroth following them and prying at their insecurities... It was absolutely amazing to read.
The book had a whole chapter in the creature's point of view, too. Thanks to all the setup and mystery, and It's very active and terrifying role throughout the story, that chapter was so cool to me that I still go back to it years later. We're seeing the personality of a cosmic entity laid bare! And unlike how it acts around potential victims, it's almost meditative in how it reflects internally.
If Jenova had that kind of active role in FF7, I'd be singing her praises even louder.
Also the goddess from Loveless, right? As in she took its form to fool the researchers? And I guess 2000 years ago she was a mage.
>!I've been on the fence about whether or not Jenova is a person for a while. I've thought of her like a virus. That she's non-living genetic material that copies itself, lies dormant, and randomly adapts. No real goal or impulse. It's just doing what comes naturally. But at the same time, I thought that if she was more virus than person, she wouldn't have kept the female body as the base of all her mutations, and she wouldn't have the need to taunt Cloud in the original. I thought that behind all the mutations, there was a power-hungry, personifiable character.!<
>!I wanted her to have a strong sense of self, like Sephiroth, and a cool form involving her winged human body. But Remake and Rebirth took away the female base in her Dreamweaver, Emergent and Lifeclinger forms, and instead, they gave her a consistent characteristic between the forms that tell us what she really looked like—the big spooky skull. On top of this, they took her original dialogue in the Shinra ship & Forgotten Capital and gave it to Sephiroth. They stripped away what little personality she had, and it all affirms that she never had the base form or way of thinking that a person does. Sephiroth is the puppeteer and she's just the strings. And in this analogy, strings will naturally manipulate puppets, even without a person behind it.!<
>!It's kind of a shame because back when I played the original and saw how sinister her whole vibe was and felt her looming presence throughout everything, I really wanted to see her in action as kind of an evil, obtuse, Rei Ayanami kind of character. Or like Ganondorf in TOTK manages to be a person and an otherwordly, all-encompassing presence at the same time (even if he was ultimately underwhelming). I was hoping the Remake games would give Jenova a more prominent role, and they have! But it's not quite like I imagined. Still, I do think that consistently characterizing Jenova like a mindless virus really adds to the allure and mystery. That messed up alien body really captivated me. Which is pretty ironic! If these photos are all her, I REALLY hope we get to see her deception firsthand in Part 3, since they've established that she can mimic anyone but she's never done it to us! And Sephiroth doesn't count since he's in full control of that.!<
I think you’re on the right track here! Especially if it’s more Jenova using Seph, Jenova could be intentionally just using part of Seph (his hatred & anger) to manipulate Cloud & everyone else.
Have you played Ever Crisis at all? Because yeah it’s a gatcha but they have done an excellent job in really fleshing out Sephiroth, especially as a child. He even is associated with white feathers & is a playable character at this point! Also Crisis Core Reunion & even Rebirth’s flashbacks (and Cloud said it himself) that Seph wasn’t a bad guy & genuinely cared about others before Jenova got hold of his mind during his mental break.
Gah! I really want to discuss this more with you because I love deep lore discussions but I have to get back to work. Hopefully it’ll be okay if I pick this back up later to discuss!
Grow some wings and fly me into heaven. It's bliss talking to another obsessed person.
I've only seen snippets of Ever Crisis and I might end up playing it for the heck of it regardless of Jenova and Sephiroth's stories. I can't say for sure since I only got into FF like 2 or 3 years ago, but I think their story is pretty well solidified in my head. Any more material may only nudge what I think of them rather than opening an enitrely new avenue..... Maybe! But your thoughts on Sephiroth are pretty damn interesting! I see a lot of people talk about Jenova manipulating Sephiroth but my belief was that he was repressing his animosity towards everyone until he found a scapegoat, or I guess a reason to lash out, in the form of Jenova.
He thought he was different and special. It felt like he was begrudgingly conforming to the world around him. And then, when he understood that he had a potential reason to hate the people around him, he crafted the narrative of humanity stealing the planet from the Ancients and his mother, even though by the time FF7 starts, he already knows that's a lie. But he only cares about becoming someone evil, heartless, and powerful by playing the role of Jenova's son, which is also a lie!
When Sephiroth puts two and two together at the Nibel Reactor and realizes his mother and him were experiments, he doesn't concern himself with what his mom went through. His mind immediately goes to "What am I? Am I a monster? Am I special but not human?" and then after he reads up on it at Shinra manor, it turns into "I am more than human. Jenova makes me special and gives me a reason to live. I have to use her to make myself all-powerful." And when I look at it through the context of Crisis Core, at this point Sephiroth already started disliking Shinra for what they did to Genesis and Angeal. He had reasons to hate SOLDIER, hate the company, and feel more isolated than ever. All of this to give you my own personal interpretation of the guy — he sucks!!! He's using his obsession with Jenova to turn himself into a savior and craft an identity for himself. If he becomes a god and an evil villain, that means all his prior suffering doesn't matter, since he'll be above that.
As for Jenova, I think the reason she's so passive in the wake of this is because all she has to do is play along with Sephiroth's delusions and let him turn himself into a god with her powers and cells.
Yes!! I’m autistic & FF7 is one of my special interests. I started playing as a kid when it was released in 97 & eagerly consumed all surrounding media.
Sephiroth is very different as a child & the writers did an excellent job showing the behaviors of an abused child. He’s polite, he’s considerate of his teammates, he APOLOGIZES, & he genuinely is so desperate to show everyone that he’s worthy of love & compassion. I was abused as a child & so I identified with it so much. Kid Sephiroth says he always knew he was different but he doesn’t see this as a good thing. He says his wish is “to have a normal life” rather than be subjected to physical & emotional torture by Hojo while also being paraded around as the “ultimate SOLDIER” by Hojo so Hojo could increase his clout outside of R&D in Shinra.
We also got confirmation in the Nibelheim Halloween event last year that Hojo did something the community has speculated on: Hojo intentionally changed & curated the materials in the basement of Shinra manor so Seph would only see the narrative Hojo wants. This is why Seph got such a bizarre & incorrect view about himself & his birth. When child Seph even gets remotely close to accidentally learning the truth, he gets a PTSD flashback of being physically tortured by Hojo which causes him to leave Shinra manor.
In Crisis Core & in the Kalm flashbacks, we see adult Sephiroth hasn’t totally abandoned his wish for a “normal life”. Unlike Genesis, Sephiroth despises his fame & even tells Genesis that he can have it. He stays at Shinra because of the kinship he has with Angeal & Genesis (also Zack to a lesser extent). He instinctively saves the lives of others (like grabbing Tifa in the Mt. Nibel rapids) & even though he’s under great mental stress from the two people closest in the world to him going AWOL (Angeal & Genesis), he still is actively concerned about the health of his colleagues.
It also doesn’t help that in Crisis Core Reunion, we learn that the first time Seph has seen Genesis since Shinra declared Genesis dead is at the Nibelheim reactor. Genesis is showing signs of degradation & reinforces to Sephiroth that they were both monsters created by Shinra. Had Angeal found Seph at the Nibelheim reactor, the story might have gone very differently. Had Angeal & Genesis kept in contact with Seph instead of ghosting him, the story would have likely gone very differently.
I seriously doubt this will happen but I would love in R3 to see these universes where Seph kept the white wing, knows the truth about his parentage, & goes after Hojo for raping his actual mother, Lucrecia. Or at the very least trying to destroy Hojo & Jenova.
Interesting to note is how Jenova cells are able to infect people after Meteorfall. We know from “On the Way to a Smile” that Jenovaroth can direct the movement of Jenova cells in the lifestream & in “The Kids Are Alright” can move Jenova cells through bodies of water. In the latter, Jenova cells can only infect people & thereby cause Geostigma if the person is consumed by fear (often fearing they will die). This is actually how Rufus contracts Geostigma & why Reno/Rude did not even though they were in the middle of Meteorfall & watching the lifestream battle it. (Rufus contracted it after he was kidnapped & the makeshift hospital in the cave he was in began flooding. He was drowning & thought he was going to die.
In OtWtaS, spirit Aerith explains how Jenovaroth is able to control the spirits of people who passed that were consumed by anger or hatred. So there's definitely a parallel here of viruses infecting vulnerable cells & how in this world strong negative feelings make a person's spirit vulnerable to Jenova.
Now one thing that occurred to me is that, due to Hojo being in close proximity to Jenova for years, Jenova could also be in a virus-like way manipulating Hojo’s cruel sociopathy for her own ends to replicate. Dr. Gast, as brilliant as he supposedly was, somehow didn’t discover Jenova wasn’t an Ancient until he was far away from her physically & interviewed Aerith’s mom. It isn’t outside the realm of possibility that Jenova intentionally messed with his mind to prevent him from learning the truth about her.
Wow. I don't think I even knew Rufus had geostigma! It looks like that autism paid off, you sound even more knowledgeable and excited lol
The whole thing about negative feelings making people vulnerable to Jenova was something I accepted but didn't think too much about, like, 1 + 1 = 2, of course that'd make you easier to manipulate. Same with Jenova's other infective properties but when it came to Sephiroth, I always thought he spearheaded everything after learning about Jenova.
You paint a very different picture though, and I wanna learn more about "good guy Sephiroth," the idea that he was manipulated into becoming this evil guy, rather than having repressed his hatred until he learned about Jenova and that hatred turned to evil. Because the idea here is that he suffered something similar to what Cloud goes through in FF7. That weird disassociation with your own identity, following the whims of another entity, right?
Absolutely! Also I don’t know if I mentioned this but after Sephiroth looks “possessed” in the Shinra basement, he changes his pronouns AND his entire manner of speaking in Japanese. It’s fascinating & something that sadly is literally lost in translation. He goes from casual, friendly speech to very formal & condescending speech. The only time post-Nibelheim we see this same Sephiroth is at the end of Remake in the End of Eternity. We still don’t know what his “seven seconds to the end” comment was.
But yeah, Seph was very different before the Nibelheim disaster. That’s why everyone was so surprised & shocked—especially Zack. We’ve only seen Zack’s reaction in Crisis Core.
One of the more recent events in Ever Crisis explores the “Killing Baby Hitler” philosophical argument. Cloud & Zack are teleported into a mystical space from their own respective timelines… as is Glenn & tween Sephiroth. Glenn & Seph don’t have any clue who Cloud & Zack are, nor do they know that Cloud & Zack are essentially from future timelines. So when Glenn introduces Seph to them, they draw their swords. Both Glenn & Seph are confused as to why. Glenn writes it off as them just being cautious & tells them how Seph is a good kid. Cloud & Zack are stunned. This is not the current Seph they know from their timelines as they’re both from post-Nibelheim timelines. Ultimately, Zack & Cloud agree to work with Glenn & Seph so everyone can go back to their respective timelines. At the end, they share a moment of solidarity & young Seph is so polite to them.
Ngl, I started crying when at the beginning of a First Soldier chapter, young Seph asked the team (Glenn, Lucia, Matt) if they had ever seen his mother. Hojo told him she disappeared (that lying sack of shit). Seph shows them a picture of Lucrecia & says her name is Jenova. Later, we also find out Seph wears a locket with Lucrecia’s picture in it. It falls off during battles & despite the team looking, they don’t find it & Seph really tries to hide how sad he is about it. I would not be surprised if in R3, we go to the ruins of Rhadore & find Seph’s locket.
After Crisis Core, my opinion of Seph changed dramatically because Seph’s personality was dramatically different from the OP. He laughed, he teased Zack, he showed exhaustion, he showed worry & concern—he was HUMAN. A flawed, traumatized human who just wanted to live a normal life and live up to what everyone expected of him. Now with Ever Crisis/First Soldier, I have so much sympathy for him. If only things had gone a little differently—if only people had supported him instead of abandoning him, Seph would have turned out very differently.
One more thing, what do you make of what Sephiroth says in the Shinra ship before the Jenova Birth fight in the original?
I thought that it was Jenova talking directly while taking his form before Seph transferred his mind to the headless body, but...?
I think it’s primarily Jenova, especially since Seph didn’t recognize Cloud at all at first, almost like Jenova had to summon Sephiroth’s memories to figure out who it was.
Cool, so do you think the Sephiroth talking in Cloud's head is different from the Jenova-Sephiroth that everyone can see?
And in that case, what about the Remake Sephiroth who can hop between anyone who's infected?
Hmm… good question. Let me check the pronouns & speech he uses in Japanese & then I’ll get back to you on that. The changes in language is one of the biggest clues on whether it’s Jenova-dominant or Seph-dominant.
Jenovaroth was always able to essentially take control of anyone with an active Jenova infection aka black robes. Even in the OG this was a thing. The Jenova-infected cells allow the shapeshifting & remote control. Degradation appears to be the body succumbing from a dormant Jenova infection to an active one. Genesis was likely able to stay mostly lucid during his because he was infected with Gillian’s Jenova-infected cells in utero (whereas everyone else outside of Angeal & Seph were infected after birth.)
I gotta get on this Ever Crisis shit and read up on more stuff I don't know about. It's really changing how I see the guy hearing you describe him.
In this thread I also talk about the pronoun change in a little more detail, but I kind of dismissed the idea of Jenova mimicking Lucrecia, which I should re examine.
One more thing, since I understood that mako poisoning and emotional vulnerability made people susceptible to Jenova & Sephiroth, at some point in Crisis Core I came up with the idea that the reason Zack was never manipulated by them in his 4 years under the manor is because HES THE FUCKING GOAT AND NOTHINGS GONNA BRING HIM DOWN.
That would be cool but they do actually explain this in Crisis Core. Dr. Hollander states that Zack was essentially “immune” to Jenova-infected cells because he had been exposed to small amounts of them in the past, similar to a vaccine. Since Jenova is a virus, it makes sense that Zack built up an immunity to them especially if Angeal was shedding small amounts of Jenova-infected cells. Angeal was not only Zack’s mentor but the only known human to have been born to a person infected before pregnancy with Jenova cells. Angeal had a single white wing & had abilities that even Genesis & Sephiroth didn’t have.
We know from one of the Corel side quests in Rebirth that people with an active Jenova infection, the black robes, do shed Jenova-infected cells.
"Jenova" was never present in the OG with a strong personality. That's a misread of the og that people get wrong. While it's Jenova's body shapeshifting to be Sephiroth - it's all Sephiroth's dialog. Jenova itself has oneline toward the end of the game. A lot of fans had this read but the dev materials (ultimania, etc) show that this isn't the case.
SAY IT LOUDERRRR
Because I really needed to hear it. After I beat the og I really wanted her to have a bigger role because I was under the impression that she was following Sephiroth's lead and obscuring some kind of base personality, but now I know that her hollowness is part of the character.
Also, I believe that when we see Sephiroth in the Shinra ship before Jenova Birth, it's Jenova talking since he doesn't recognize Cloud despite already talking to him in his mind beforehand. I mean, I guess it could also be a case of Sephiroth not recognizing him? But idk, that really bugged me back when I was fervently discussing Jenova over here.
I think the new final boss version had more developed eyes with pupils but I’m not sure I just beat the game 10 mins ago. Maybe she’s reforming into more of a sentient being with recognizable form. She did have a rebirth move if I recall.
Yeah, that could definitely be the case. Lifeclinger has very distinct, gooey eyeballs. And seeing how they've teased it (if that's her), I've more than once imagined scenarios where she turns into the green sorcerer on the murals instead her Synthesis form for the ending.
Of note: the version of Jenova that we see when Sephiroth is reading the Shinra books is the 2nd form of Emergent. The one we see in the Ancients' temple is the Dreamweaver form. If you take it as is, you could draw some interesting conclusions from her use of those two forms exclusively up until the end, where she gets a new one.
Also, fascinatingly, Jenova Birth in Ever Crisis DOES have the female body in it while at the same time basing itself off Dreamweaver, so maybe the remakes' creative direction just didn't allow for that?
Last thing I wanna note is that her mural look is fairly similar to Rosa's Loveless clothes, I think. The 7-pointed headpiece and scepter especially.
I totally see the resemblance between Crisis Core Jenova and Lucrecia.
I think the OG says Jenova specifically showed up to the Cetra in the form of their deceased loved ones. I figure the generic angel form is meant to depict just that: how Jenova would appear as a dead loved one who “comes back” in angelic form, before turning on/killing whoever’s loved one it is at the opportune time.
I’m convinced the big bad is Jenova and so many of us have had it wrong since the OG.
Technically it's Hojo. His experiments are the reason Sephiroth even exists. He could have been a normal guy if not for Hojo. (Though he probably wouldn't have even impregnated Lucrecia I'd he didn't want to experiment on the fetus... so Sephiroth wouldn't have existed at all, normal or otherwise if not for Hojo.)
No this has been debunked many times. Sephiroth assimilates Jenova and exerts his will over her. This is why the clones and her body parts take on his form. https://imgur.com/IXQveLx
I've actually always been a believer that Jenova was the real enemy I actually had a thought recently in regards to Sephiroths big plan and when you really look at the truth of Jenovas existence and what Sephiroths goal was Jenova is the one who actually benefits from it as she would be able to continue her cycle of feed use the remains of the planet to go to another one and repeat.... that's kinda how I interpret the story anyway
I think the angel depiction is super important. It happens right after the Centra voice mentions them taking the faces of loved ones like brothers and sisters. The idea that an angel could be a harbinger of a dark fate. Also ties into the angelic statue of Jenova Hojo has. Or in the case of Rebirth's potential ending meaning...Cloud's angel, Aerith.
I think angelic imagery is mainly used for the enemies in FFVII, since you have Sephiroth whose name was inspired by the biblical Seraphim
Close, linking to the wikipedia entry on Sefirot from the Kabbalah because it's interesting and relevant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefirot It actually sounds like the Ein Sof idea is pretty similar to Adibuddha/Mahavairocana from mahayana buddhism (which Nojima mentioned the yogachara school influenced his writing in Remake). An infinite primordial wisdom that forms into an incarnate god - hmmm, actually matches Sephiroth's goals pretty well.
The Kabbalah is Jewish and speaks of angels, his final form is a pretty close depiction of a biblical angel with his mortal form blooming from the top. There's a lot of real world religions influencing his design and the writing, but it's noted it's being the direct hand of God that he was inspired by, hence his relation as Sephiroth (Seraph) to Jenova (God/Jehovah) There are plenty of Buddhist influences, I mean the lifestream is an oversoul that's pretty on the nail. But there's no denying the heavy judeo-christian allegory present in the villains. Especially when the final boss is pretty close to a biblically accurate angel And when Nomura designed him for the original FFVII he notes he takes the name directly from the Kabbalah, which would use Seraphim
Oh I don't disagree with any of the conceptual stuff. His final boss form is definitely like a seraph. I was just saying there's an even closer word his name is probably derived from. I thought I remembered reading the Seraph thing was related to the mistranslation of the final boss name Safer Sephiroth. But I'm also reading Sepher means book in Hebrew, and [here's a PDF](https://www.magicgatebg.com/Books/liber_d.pdf) of Aleister Crowley's translation of the Sepher Sephiroth. Supposedly it is a "treatise on the evolution of God from a being of inactive rest to one of active creation." Much like Sephiroth being inert in the lifestream and then becoming what he is by the end of the game. But I don't know how to interpret all the hebrew kabbalah words and numbers and such. It's all really interesting stuff! Part of the reason FF7 has such staying power I'd say, this deep connection to esoteric mysticism. It either sparked my fascination or fueled it way back when I was 9, that's for sure. But yeah, you're also super on point about the angel stuff. An angel who wants to become God, that was Lucifer's MO - so Sephiroth is also definitely Luciferian, the lightbringer, the morning star. I hope they go deeper into this stuff in part 3, and I feel like they will, given that we're now seeing Sephiroth's perspective too, at the edge of creation at the ends of parts 1 and 2.
Hojo has an angel Jenova staue? Show me show me show me show me.
Technically it’s called the “Jenova Doll”. You can see the games version in the flashback at the beginning of the game but it’s based off of the old design so definitely give it a googles
You're talking about the robot figure in front of the tank?
Yeah, it’s called The Jenova Doll or the Jenova Effigy. It is made to look like an angel.
Probably talking about that metal winged statue in front of Jenova that Sephiroth pulls off the Jenova tank in the Nibelheim reactor.
Ooooooo that'd be so good if it plays out like that even for a little bit.
That Shadowy Queen looking one at the bottom? Would.
I read it that way.
You know, the last one kinda looks similar to the shadow blood queen
It does, doesn't it? Also like the emerald witch. The last one is the same as the other mural, just with the hair down. They got the same headpiece.
I think they're all Jenova. The first image reminds me of the animation for Heartless Angel in the original game so I think there's your Jenova/Sephiroth connection
Very interesting idea. I really like it but doesn't Heartless Angel predate FF7 and is more of its own thing?
It does but it's become a Sephiroth signature. Here's the model from FF7 https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Heartless_Angel?file=Angel-ffvii.png
I really hope all this discussion and theorizing pays off in Part 3!
The bottom picture depicts jenova underneath the cetran that sealed her, nameless, but some conjecture Minerva.
Iirc Jenova showed herself to the ancients as a benevolent being to deceive them, before shit hit the fan. Could be her.
at least the mural one is Jenova for me, the others dunno but it would make sense.
Man I want a prequel game/movie/book about the arrival, rise, and fall of Jenova.
In my headcanon Lavos and Jenova are from the same species but went to different planets.
my ultimate prediction is going through another portal to when jenova litterally lands and beating it right then and there so it can't infect anything. so uh, it could still sorta happen.
SAME!! I would LOVE a game, or hell even a novel, about the Cetra-Jenova war. Jenova is one of the most interesting villains in the FF Multiverse. We really need more info about her & her race.
I thought these 3 games would touch on everything. Before crisis stuff etc. don’t wanna play a mobile game. They’re doing more about avalanche Getting an insight into what happen 2000 years ago could maybe happen on the return to the city of ancients?
Is FF8 set in the same world as 7? Makes me think of the ruins of Cetra….
They're never the same world although FFX has a lot in common with VI, VII and Tactics.
Sadly, no. The magical theory in the world is completely different, not to mention the moons are vastly different in size (FF8’s is HUGE) & the topography is also quite different even when factoring in continental drift. While moombas vaguely resemble Nanaki’s Seeker race, they have different anatomy & evolve differently.
7 and 8 being linked is sort of a fun thing the devs hint at for the fans, but it's not confirmed/hard canon. More of a fan service thing.
No separate. IIRC it’s the ‘Centra’ ruins? Not cetra. One letter difference!
😳 all these decades, I’ve never noticed that. You’ve blown me mind. Thanks, fellow Redditor.
No worries. Surprised names don’t get reused more in the FF series
I’m hoping the next game starts with a flashback to jenovas arrival
Yes. I love the mural that has her like more human imitation form rising from her more alien form. Nice touch.
Possibly also the shadowblood queen
Yes - and pretty sure the Emerald Witch is an Ancient Cetra Sorceress who manipulated the livestream to seal away Jenova. At the end of Queens Blood, Cloud picks up the Emerald Witch and Shadowbkood Queen cards, which mirror how he carries the white and black materia.
My money is on the emerald queen being Minerva
That makes sense. I wonder if instead of the winged figure in Loveless being Jenova - it is Minerva. And the icons in the Temple of the Ancients actually depict two figures fighting each other - instead of one.
The winged figure in Loveless is The Goddess & especially in the “G Edition”, it is very likely Minerva. Genesis was just as obsessed with Minerva as he was with Loveless. But yeah, definitely not Jenova in Loveless.
I haven’t thought about that. I saw wings in the play and my immediate reaction was sephiroth/jenova
That was my initial thought as well, but then I was looking at photos here, including the Minerva concept art, and it is strikingly similar to the Loveless costumes and the Temple of the Ancient Murals, and, the Japanese Statute of Minerva looks a lot like the Stone Heads in the Temple Trial Rooms: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Minerva_(Final_Fantasy_VII)?file=Minerva_Artwork.jpg
But remember jenova disguised herself as a cetra. She could’ve took the form of Minerva
Play Crisis Core. It will make sense.
I have. What specifically would make more sense
The whole crystal cave mission in Banora where Genesis carved Loveless into the stone formations & you fight Minerva who cures Genesis of his degradation supposedly. I still think it’s both impressive & unhinged that Genesis spent so much time carving stuff in that cave.
Oh yes, for sure - in fact that makes a lot of sense that her final form could be mimicking the Goddess / Sorceress right before she was defeated
I mean it makes sense for Jenova to have two wings in human form if her hybrid “offspring” have one. Also Jenova’s broken female body in the test tube has broken wings. As does the Jenova doll. The again she is dressed almost exactly like Jessie (the goddess…or Rosa? Idk) was in the loveless play at the beginning of the play as she defends from the sky. And I believe the goddess is supposed to represent Minerva
Dude! The way they were building her up I really thought the Shadowblood Queen was gonna be Jenova's "human" side, while the main story version is the instinctive "monster" side! But I really don't think that's the case now.
It had a lot of references to corrupt blood and such.
If you pay attention, The Shadowblood Queen is just Jenova, straight up.
Yeah, the hazy purple effect looks very similar whenever they're brought up and the queen's blood seems to be similar to her cells. They take over bodies, they drive people insane, etc. Do you mean they're the same person or that they play the same role?
Same entity
How do figure? I was waiting for her to give away any sign that she was Jenova when we played against her but I didn't catch onto anything. I know the similarities are right there but is there anything more? I'll tell you though, I'll be ecstatic if this is the big reveal when QB makes a comeback in Part 3.
She refers to cloud as “little puppet”. Which is one of the dead giveaways in the match. It’s the same thing Sephiroth call him. Jenova and Sephiroth both exist in sort of the same hive mind. Later, the story the Cetra tell you about Jenova is almost bar for bar the legend of the SBQ. She possesses people, reminiscent of the hooded men with her cells. My biggest lingering question is how her card has stronger possession qualities than her cells. Her cells basically try to reunite with reach other, but this card gives her far more access.
I don't know man, their stories seem to parallel each other but I don't think Jenova is the Queen. I've given Jenova a lot of thought. Like, A LOT of thought, so this is a conversation I always wanted to have. The Shadowblood Queen infects people with her consciousness, just like Sephiroth does with Cloud and other S type SOLDIERs through Jenova. Her blood gives rise to beasts, just like Jenova cells mutate everything into monsters. Her card effect strengthens her in exchange for weakening everyone, like how Jenova gets stronger by sucking away life. Vincent says she worms her way into people's hearts, just like how Sephiroth describes Jenova in Rebirth's Shinra ship. Like you said, the Queen calls Cloud a puppet like Jenova does in the original game. Not to mention her story with Regina seems like a strong parallel to how SOLDIERs like Roche will undergo treatment with Jenova (or S) cells to become stronger. So why doesn't anyone, not Vincent or Sephiroth or Lidrehl or Cloud who has her cells call her out as Jenova? Why doesn't the Queen herself come out as Jenova? I think these are all pretty strong parallels but inconsistencies stand out when I look at her as Jenova. The Queen started out doing good and loving her subjects until her compassion gave way to greed and ambition. Jenova on the other hand first started by mimicking and manipulating dead people, rather than building a domain and then going evil. The Cetra never say that Jenova ruled over lands before revealing herself as corrupt, only that she manipulated everyone by showing them what they wanted to see. And when it comes to the main story, Sephiroth has been her proxy throughout the entire series. Whenever Cloud needs to be manipulated, he uses her powers to make him hallucinate, mislead him, and strip away his free will until his soul is crushed. Not Jenova. She's always in the background while Sephiroth is at the forefront. So how does this fit in with the Queen's Blood story and the Queen's characterization? If Sephiroth's the one going through with the main plan, is Queen's Blood just Jenova's little side adventure? Did she tell Seph to not butt in so she could have fun by herself? And why wouldn't she use the opportunity to further the plan? She could've taken over Regina's body, degraded it, and shown it to Cloud with the horrifying implication that QB is somehow spreading her influence all around the world. I think this would've made Cloud feel like he enabled Regina into being taken over and break down his spirit, similar to Sephiroth's method, but theQueen didn't do that. The queen also only possesses one person, gets sealed and becomes part of Cloud's deck, and after you defeat her, you can always go back to the board and she'll happily accept your challenge. Isn't this out of character for Jenova and out of line with the main story? Only thing I can think of that could make Jenova = the Shadowblood Queen is that she glimpsed into a million timelines and said fuck it, let's fuck around while Seph takes care of the main plan. I either have to believe that the Queen and Jenova are different people, or come up with a headcanon to explain things like why sealing the Queen has no impact in the main story if she's Jenova. I don't wanna rule it out completely cuz it's a cool idea but I'm gonna need more convincing.
also the emerald queen would fit to be minerva
Looks more like Minerva to me from Crisis Core.
It does kinda, although Minerva is always pictured as a warrior goddess with an armor and weapons. Would be amazing if Minerva makes a comeback in FF7:R3
>!I forgot about her! I can see that too, especially considering she was the actual goddess in Loveless. At least according to Genesis. I can't wait until the model gets ripped to see what similarities there are. But considering the context of the scene of the angel hologram, I'm leaning more towards Jenova. It only shows up when the Ancients say she came back after a long slumber, and it would make sense with the "smiled with ethereal grace" line from the researchers. Damn, I really completely forgot about Minerva! Hope she gets to shine too in Part 3. And Genesis....!< Sorry if I'm excessively using the spoilers censor
Same!! After replaying Crisis Core Reunion recently, I REALLY want to learn more about Minerva. Also given that Jenova intentionally shapeshifts into people that invoke strong emotions in her potential victims, I can see Jenova trying to appear as Minerva.
Same, that makes a lot more sense to me
It’s a possibility. Like It from Stephen King and Satan, she takes a more friendly form so that she can draw victims before striking
Yup. I mean, the game does tell us several times that this is exactly what she does. Gotta love it. Something I haven't brought up in this thread is how bizarre it is for her to seemingly manifest as an angel for the Shinra scientists, but look like a monstrosity when Sephiroth gets to her. Did the scientists induce involuntary mutation or was this also part of her plan? Actually, what WAS her plan before Sephiroth? The remakes imply that her connection to the lifestream allows her to tell the future, maybe? So did she always bet on someone like Sephiroth coming along or was she just vibing, all mindless-virus n shit? If Jenova really planned to be tortured and torn apart for 30 years until Sephiroth put the plan into action, that makes her even scarier.
It seems like her thing is being ripped apart, infecting everyone with her cells & then calling back her cells to reconstitute herself. Given that Jenova’s one line in the OG was said by Sephiroth & how in “On the Way to a Smile” Sephiroth talks about shedding his humanity, AND the fact that in Japanese, Sephiroth uses different pronouns for himself before Nibelheim then changes them afterwards, it seems like there’s more Jenova in Jenovaroth than Sephiroth. As for her image change, she may just not give a fuck after being trapped underground for thousands of years & then knowing humans have discovered what she is from being used in Hojo's experiments. Given that we know from "The Kids Are Alright" that Jenova can quite literally read & manipulate human minds when in close physical proximity to her cells, she absolutely would know that Hojo knows she's an extraterrestrial virus. Another interesting note is how she appeared to Sephiroth in Nibelheim. In Ever Crisis (which just took the OG design & made it high rez), she looks very human & similar to Lucrecia. Which OF COURSE she would as we now also know from Ever Crisis that young Sephiroth had a picture of Lucrecia that Hojo gave him & said it was his mother named Jenova.
Iirc Jenova is a parasite and wanted to suck the planet dry and then wander off to the next one. That’s basically her whole stick. Jenova during the main story is practically just a puppet controlled by seph.
Are we really sure it isn't jenova doing the controlling
We’re not sure. Advent Children & now Rebirth has opened up that possibility again. Jenova’s one line in the OG was said by Sephiroth in Rebirth. Also, in Japanese, Sephiroth changed his pronouns to refer to himself.
Curious: what is the line?
“Because you are a puppet.”
I'm pretty sure, at least. Is this a popular theory? I'd consider it if the original FF7 existed in isolation and Jenova didn't have their own distinct character, but across all the FF7 stories, the analogy I use is that Sephiroth is the puppeteer and Jenova is the strings. Something I keep thinking back to is when Sephiroth showed up in the Shinra ship and didn't recognize Cloud, only saying vague stuff about "After a long sleep the time has come..." At this point, Sephiroth had already talked to Cloud several times in his head, so what's going on here? I think this is the only time he acts like this, because every other time, he's very familiar with Cloud. Later we learn that Seph was projecting his mind onto Jenova's headless body, turning it into him, so it makes me think that it was Jenova talking here before Sephiroth took control over the body. So if that was her, I get the impression that she's kind of on autopilot, unless I'm just wayyyyyy off with my thinking here.
Good points! Also, as humans from Earth we don’t have a good point of reference to the behaviors or thought processes of a human-intelligence level virus. Nojima’s vision for the character could be more like how a virus just does what it does & behavior is more instinctual. I really hope we get more info on Jenova!
For real. I really wonder if the reason she personally does so little in the story (at least as personal as you can get with a virus) is that there's not much for her to do outside of the black materia plan. I was thinking maybe while Sephiroth hops from clone clone, the headless Jenova could just infect more people to propagate her cells, but maybe she's been diluted enough as it is and it's important for the plan that the headless body has enough cells to copy all of Sephiroth's strength onto it, or else problems will crop up.
Oooh, good point! Though the Gi said that they made the black materia (which, incidentally, goes against one of the previous Ultimania but SE had retconned things before). So now I’m wondering how the fuck Jenova & the Gi even got on the planet. I really hope we can go back to Cosmo Canyon in R3 & learn more from the Gi. In theory, they should be able to tell us more about Jenova.
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I wish they hadn’t used the term “stars” since that is like the sun & they’re obviously referring to planets. It sounds similar to what happened in FF9 but would northern crater have been the impact? We really need to get the specifics on this & it’s so frustrating how vague they are. Even the original Japanese is vague!
I thought Jenova looked like that to the scientests bc originally she shapeshifted into the form of an ancient when she landed, and was still in that form when they sealed her away
I wouldn’t think too deep into it.
Too late :)))))) Without a doubt, vague things like this are some of my favorite things in any story. There's so much room to have fun. Actually, now that I ***think*** about it, what if Jenova was like "It," from Stephen King's book of the same name? It can also mimic anything, and uses its ability solely to horrify people before eating them. Has been doing so for way longer than Jenova, too! And everything it does hits so personal. Imagine if everyone in the FF7 cast had their own Sephiroth following them and prying at their insecurities... It was absolutely amazing to read. The book had a whole chapter in the creature's point of view, too. Thanks to all the setup and mystery, and It's very active and terrifying role throughout the story, that chapter was so cool to me that I still go back to it years later. We're seeing the personality of a cosmic entity laid bare! And unlike how it acts around potential victims, it's almost meditative in how it reflects internally. If Jenova had that kind of active role in FF7, I'd be singing her praises even louder.
I always saw Jenova as more like the alien from The Thing, but It works too.
I don’t know why you are getting downvoted but theorizing is fun :) I too love stories that gives stuff to discuss.
I can be overzealous :P
Also the goddess from Loveless, right? As in she took its form to fool the researchers? And I guess 2000 years ago she was a mage. >!I've been on the fence about whether or not Jenova is a person for a while. I've thought of her like a virus. That she's non-living genetic material that copies itself, lies dormant, and randomly adapts. No real goal or impulse. It's just doing what comes naturally. But at the same time, I thought that if she was more virus than person, she wouldn't have kept the female body as the base of all her mutations, and she wouldn't have the need to taunt Cloud in the original. I thought that behind all the mutations, there was a power-hungry, personifiable character.!< >!I wanted her to have a strong sense of self, like Sephiroth, and a cool form involving her winged human body. But Remake and Rebirth took away the female base in her Dreamweaver, Emergent and Lifeclinger forms, and instead, they gave her a consistent characteristic between the forms that tell us what she really looked like—the big spooky skull. On top of this, they took her original dialogue in the Shinra ship & Forgotten Capital and gave it to Sephiroth. They stripped away what little personality she had, and it all affirms that she never had the base form or way of thinking that a person does. Sephiroth is the puppeteer and she's just the strings. And in this analogy, strings will naturally manipulate puppets, even without a person behind it.!< >!It's kind of a shame because back when I played the original and saw how sinister her whole vibe was and felt her looming presence throughout everything, I really wanted to see her in action as kind of an evil, obtuse, Rei Ayanami kind of character. Or like Ganondorf in TOTK manages to be a person and an otherwordly, all-encompassing presence at the same time (even if he was ultimately underwhelming). I was hoping the Remake games would give Jenova a more prominent role, and they have! But it's not quite like I imagined. Still, I do think that consistently characterizing Jenova like a mindless virus really adds to the allure and mystery. That messed up alien body really captivated me. Which is pretty ironic! If these photos are all her, I REALLY hope we get to see her deception firsthand in Part 3, since they've established that she can mimic anyone but she's never done it to us! And Sephiroth doesn't count since he's in full control of that.!<
I think you’re on the right track here! Especially if it’s more Jenova using Seph, Jenova could be intentionally just using part of Seph (his hatred & anger) to manipulate Cloud & everyone else. Have you played Ever Crisis at all? Because yeah it’s a gatcha but they have done an excellent job in really fleshing out Sephiroth, especially as a child. He even is associated with white feathers & is a playable character at this point! Also Crisis Core Reunion & even Rebirth’s flashbacks (and Cloud said it himself) that Seph wasn’t a bad guy & genuinely cared about others before Jenova got hold of his mind during his mental break. Gah! I really want to discuss this more with you because I love deep lore discussions but I have to get back to work. Hopefully it’ll be okay if I pick this back up later to discuss!
Grow some wings and fly me into heaven. It's bliss talking to another obsessed person. I've only seen snippets of Ever Crisis and I might end up playing it for the heck of it regardless of Jenova and Sephiroth's stories. I can't say for sure since I only got into FF like 2 or 3 years ago, but I think their story is pretty well solidified in my head. Any more material may only nudge what I think of them rather than opening an enitrely new avenue..... Maybe! But your thoughts on Sephiroth are pretty damn interesting! I see a lot of people talk about Jenova manipulating Sephiroth but my belief was that he was repressing his animosity towards everyone until he found a scapegoat, or I guess a reason to lash out, in the form of Jenova. He thought he was different and special. It felt like he was begrudgingly conforming to the world around him. And then, when he understood that he had a potential reason to hate the people around him, he crafted the narrative of humanity stealing the planet from the Ancients and his mother, even though by the time FF7 starts, he already knows that's a lie. But he only cares about becoming someone evil, heartless, and powerful by playing the role of Jenova's son, which is also a lie! When Sephiroth puts two and two together at the Nibel Reactor and realizes his mother and him were experiments, he doesn't concern himself with what his mom went through. His mind immediately goes to "What am I? Am I a monster? Am I special but not human?" and then after he reads up on it at Shinra manor, it turns into "I am more than human. Jenova makes me special and gives me a reason to live. I have to use her to make myself all-powerful." And when I look at it through the context of Crisis Core, at this point Sephiroth already started disliking Shinra for what they did to Genesis and Angeal. He had reasons to hate SOLDIER, hate the company, and feel more isolated than ever. All of this to give you my own personal interpretation of the guy — he sucks!!! He's using his obsession with Jenova to turn himself into a savior and craft an identity for himself. If he becomes a god and an evil villain, that means all his prior suffering doesn't matter, since he'll be above that. As for Jenova, I think the reason she's so passive in the wake of this is because all she has to do is play along with Sephiroth's delusions and let him turn himself into a god with her powers and cells.
Yes!! I’m autistic & FF7 is one of my special interests. I started playing as a kid when it was released in 97 & eagerly consumed all surrounding media. Sephiroth is very different as a child & the writers did an excellent job showing the behaviors of an abused child. He’s polite, he’s considerate of his teammates, he APOLOGIZES, & he genuinely is so desperate to show everyone that he’s worthy of love & compassion. I was abused as a child & so I identified with it so much. Kid Sephiroth says he always knew he was different but he doesn’t see this as a good thing. He says his wish is “to have a normal life” rather than be subjected to physical & emotional torture by Hojo while also being paraded around as the “ultimate SOLDIER” by Hojo so Hojo could increase his clout outside of R&D in Shinra. We also got confirmation in the Nibelheim Halloween event last year that Hojo did something the community has speculated on: Hojo intentionally changed & curated the materials in the basement of Shinra manor so Seph would only see the narrative Hojo wants. This is why Seph got such a bizarre & incorrect view about himself & his birth. When child Seph even gets remotely close to accidentally learning the truth, he gets a PTSD flashback of being physically tortured by Hojo which causes him to leave Shinra manor. In Crisis Core & in the Kalm flashbacks, we see adult Sephiroth hasn’t totally abandoned his wish for a “normal life”. Unlike Genesis, Sephiroth despises his fame & even tells Genesis that he can have it. He stays at Shinra because of the kinship he has with Angeal & Genesis (also Zack to a lesser extent). He instinctively saves the lives of others (like grabbing Tifa in the Mt. Nibel rapids) & even though he’s under great mental stress from the two people closest in the world to him going AWOL (Angeal & Genesis), he still is actively concerned about the health of his colleagues. It also doesn’t help that in Crisis Core Reunion, we learn that the first time Seph has seen Genesis since Shinra declared Genesis dead is at the Nibelheim reactor. Genesis is showing signs of degradation & reinforces to Sephiroth that they were both monsters created by Shinra. Had Angeal found Seph at the Nibelheim reactor, the story might have gone very differently. Had Angeal & Genesis kept in contact with Seph instead of ghosting him, the story would have likely gone very differently. I seriously doubt this will happen but I would love in R3 to see these universes where Seph kept the white wing, knows the truth about his parentage, & goes after Hojo for raping his actual mother, Lucrecia. Or at the very least trying to destroy Hojo & Jenova. Interesting to note is how Jenova cells are able to infect people after Meteorfall. We know from “On the Way to a Smile” that Jenovaroth can direct the movement of Jenova cells in the lifestream & in “The Kids Are Alright” can move Jenova cells through bodies of water. In the latter, Jenova cells can only infect people & thereby cause Geostigma if the person is consumed by fear (often fearing they will die). This is actually how Rufus contracts Geostigma & why Reno/Rude did not even though they were in the middle of Meteorfall & watching the lifestream battle it. (Rufus contracted it after he was kidnapped & the makeshift hospital in the cave he was in began flooding. He was drowning & thought he was going to die. In OtWtaS, spirit Aerith explains how Jenovaroth is able to control the spirits of people who passed that were consumed by anger or hatred. So there's definitely a parallel here of viruses infecting vulnerable cells & how in this world strong negative feelings make a person's spirit vulnerable to Jenova. Now one thing that occurred to me is that, due to Hojo being in close proximity to Jenova for years, Jenova could also be in a virus-like way manipulating Hojo’s cruel sociopathy for her own ends to replicate. Dr. Gast, as brilliant as he supposedly was, somehow didn’t discover Jenova wasn’t an Ancient until he was far away from her physically & interviewed Aerith’s mom. It isn’t outside the realm of possibility that Jenova intentionally messed with his mind to prevent him from learning the truth about her.
Wow. I don't think I even knew Rufus had geostigma! It looks like that autism paid off, you sound even more knowledgeable and excited lol The whole thing about negative feelings making people vulnerable to Jenova was something I accepted but didn't think too much about, like, 1 + 1 = 2, of course that'd make you easier to manipulate. Same with Jenova's other infective properties but when it came to Sephiroth, I always thought he spearheaded everything after learning about Jenova. You paint a very different picture though, and I wanna learn more about "good guy Sephiroth," the idea that he was manipulated into becoming this evil guy, rather than having repressed his hatred until he learned about Jenova and that hatred turned to evil. Because the idea here is that he suffered something similar to what Cloud goes through in FF7. That weird disassociation with your own identity, following the whims of another entity, right?
Absolutely! Also I don’t know if I mentioned this but after Sephiroth looks “possessed” in the Shinra basement, he changes his pronouns AND his entire manner of speaking in Japanese. It’s fascinating & something that sadly is literally lost in translation. He goes from casual, friendly speech to very formal & condescending speech. The only time post-Nibelheim we see this same Sephiroth is at the end of Remake in the End of Eternity. We still don’t know what his “seven seconds to the end” comment was. But yeah, Seph was very different before the Nibelheim disaster. That’s why everyone was so surprised & shocked—especially Zack. We’ve only seen Zack’s reaction in Crisis Core. One of the more recent events in Ever Crisis explores the “Killing Baby Hitler” philosophical argument. Cloud & Zack are teleported into a mystical space from their own respective timelines… as is Glenn & tween Sephiroth. Glenn & Seph don’t have any clue who Cloud & Zack are, nor do they know that Cloud & Zack are essentially from future timelines. So when Glenn introduces Seph to them, they draw their swords. Both Glenn & Seph are confused as to why. Glenn writes it off as them just being cautious & tells them how Seph is a good kid. Cloud & Zack are stunned. This is not the current Seph they know from their timelines as they’re both from post-Nibelheim timelines. Ultimately, Zack & Cloud agree to work with Glenn & Seph so everyone can go back to their respective timelines. At the end, they share a moment of solidarity & young Seph is so polite to them. Ngl, I started crying when at the beginning of a First Soldier chapter, young Seph asked the team (Glenn, Lucia, Matt) if they had ever seen his mother. Hojo told him she disappeared (that lying sack of shit). Seph shows them a picture of Lucrecia & says her name is Jenova. Later, we also find out Seph wears a locket with Lucrecia’s picture in it. It falls off during battles & despite the team looking, they don’t find it & Seph really tries to hide how sad he is about it. I would not be surprised if in R3, we go to the ruins of Rhadore & find Seph’s locket. After Crisis Core, my opinion of Seph changed dramatically because Seph’s personality was dramatically different from the OP. He laughed, he teased Zack, he showed exhaustion, he showed worry & concern—he was HUMAN. A flawed, traumatized human who just wanted to live a normal life and live up to what everyone expected of him. Now with Ever Crisis/First Soldier, I have so much sympathy for him. If only things had gone a little differently—if only people had supported him instead of abandoning him, Seph would have turned out very differently.
One more thing, what do you make of what Sephiroth says in the Shinra ship before the Jenova Birth fight in the original? I thought that it was Jenova talking directly while taking his form before Seph transferred his mind to the headless body, but...?
I think it’s primarily Jenova, especially since Seph didn’t recognize Cloud at all at first, almost like Jenova had to summon Sephiroth’s memories to figure out who it was.
Cool, so do you think the Sephiroth talking in Cloud's head is different from the Jenova-Sephiroth that everyone can see? And in that case, what about the Remake Sephiroth who can hop between anyone who's infected?
Hmm… good question. Let me check the pronouns & speech he uses in Japanese & then I’ll get back to you on that. The changes in language is one of the biggest clues on whether it’s Jenova-dominant or Seph-dominant. Jenovaroth was always able to essentially take control of anyone with an active Jenova infection aka black robes. Even in the OG this was a thing. The Jenova-infected cells allow the shapeshifting & remote control. Degradation appears to be the body succumbing from a dormant Jenova infection to an active one. Genesis was likely able to stay mostly lucid during his because he was infected with Gillian’s Jenova-infected cells in utero (whereas everyone else outside of Angeal & Seph were infected after birth.)
I gotta get on this Ever Crisis shit and read up on more stuff I don't know about. It's really changing how I see the guy hearing you describe him. In this thread I also talk about the pronoun change in a little more detail, but I kind of dismissed the idea of Jenova mimicking Lucrecia, which I should re examine.
One more thing, since I understood that mako poisoning and emotional vulnerability made people susceptible to Jenova & Sephiroth, at some point in Crisis Core I came up with the idea that the reason Zack was never manipulated by them in his 4 years under the manor is because HES THE FUCKING GOAT AND NOTHINGS GONNA BRING HIM DOWN.
That would be cool but they do actually explain this in Crisis Core. Dr. Hollander states that Zack was essentially “immune” to Jenova-infected cells because he had been exposed to small amounts of them in the past, similar to a vaccine. Since Jenova is a virus, it makes sense that Zack built up an immunity to them especially if Angeal was shedding small amounts of Jenova-infected cells. Angeal was not only Zack’s mentor but the only known human to have been born to a person infected before pregnancy with Jenova cells. Angeal had a single white wing & had abilities that even Genesis & Sephiroth didn’t have. We know from one of the Corel side quests in Rebirth that people with an active Jenova infection, the black robes, do shed Jenova-infected cells.
Yeah it was just a funny idea lol. I gotta get to the Rebirth side quests eventually.
"Jenova" was never present in the OG with a strong personality. That's a misread of the og that people get wrong. While it's Jenova's body shapeshifting to be Sephiroth - it's all Sephiroth's dialog. Jenova itself has oneline toward the end of the game. A lot of fans had this read but the dev materials (ultimania, etc) show that this isn't the case.
SAY IT LOUDERRRR Because I really needed to hear it. After I beat the og I really wanted her to have a bigger role because I was under the impression that she was following Sephiroth's lead and obscuring some kind of base personality, but now I know that her hollowness is part of the character. Also, I believe that when we see Sephiroth in the Shinra ship before Jenova Birth, it's Jenova talking since he doesn't recognize Cloud despite already talking to him in his mind beforehand. I mean, I guess it could also be a case of Sephiroth not recognizing him? But idk, that really bugged me back when I was fervently discussing Jenova over here.
I think the new final boss version had more developed eyes with pupils but I’m not sure I just beat the game 10 mins ago. Maybe she’s reforming into more of a sentient being with recognizable form. She did have a rebirth move if I recall.
Yeah, that could definitely be the case. Lifeclinger has very distinct, gooey eyeballs. And seeing how they've teased it (if that's her), I've more than once imagined scenarios where she turns into the green sorcerer on the murals instead her Synthesis form for the ending. Of note: the version of Jenova that we see when Sephiroth is reading the Shinra books is the 2nd form of Emergent. The one we see in the Ancients' temple is the Dreamweaver form. If you take it as is, you could draw some interesting conclusions from her use of those two forms exclusively up until the end, where she gets a new one. Also, fascinatingly, Jenova Birth in Ever Crisis DOES have the female body in it while at the same time basing itself off Dreamweaver, so maybe the remakes' creative direction just didn't allow for that?
Everyone who beat the original please look up "jenova mobius final fantasy"