Sephiroth Conundrum

Link2010

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BE WARNED!! THAR BE SPOILERS UP IN HERE

I recently replayed FF VII and i remembered an old question from the first time i played this great game: If Sephiroth is crystalized in Mount Nibel(which you discover in disc 2) how could he have possibly killed President Shinra and Aerith? I could understand if he sent projections of himself to send messages to scare your team into submission but how could he stab the pres and Aerith?? I know that you never fight him because he leaves pieces of Jenova and runs like he stole something but it doesn't make sense that those Jenova pieces could or WOULD make themselves look like Sephiroth until you fight it. Please help me solve this riddle as it's been driving me crazy all day!
 
> Sephiroth controlled Jenova's body half the game, he used that to shiv Aerith and Shinra

> It looked like Sephiroth because one of Jenova's powers was shape-shifting
 
First, please read my megapost here.

It will explain everything in full. It's long, but detailed, an will surely answer most of your questions. When you've read it all, please feel free to ask further questions here, and I'll be happy to answer them. I've spent a lot of time accumulating info on FF7 plot and metaphysics, and though I'm by no means an expert, I am somewhat a scholar on the subject. I can't help it -- complex plots are just fascinating to me, and I can't leave them alone until I've picked them clean and examined every detail. ^_^
 
Wow. That answered a lot of questions and I give you an imaginary cookie of your choosing :)

Now I have a couple more questions. So because Jenova technically killed Aerith while being controlled by Sephiroth, was that Jenova forcing it's body to not be controlled for that short period of time thus continuing its goal of destroying the Cetra or Sephiroth simply stopping Aerith from saving the world with her White Materia?

Also, when Cloud was being controlled and heard voices in his head, was that Sephiroth's control of Jenova branching out to Cloud since he was infused with Jenova cells 5 years ago in Nibelheim with Zack? What I mean is, was Sephiroth actually controlling Cloud to hand over the Black Materia and other stuff or was that the Jenova cells coming to life in Cloud and they just happened to want to work with Sephiroth's goals?

Again, nice work with all that info, hope my questions are understandable :p
 
Link2010

Hey, you could try to replay the scene after Cloud and the party defeated Jenova Death at Whirwind maze or look up a walkthrough video at youtube. ;) It will answer a lot of your questions too since Sephiroth and Hojo explained quite a lot about Jenova experiments there! haha! Dragon Mage will probably give you a good interpretation of the events and your questions too.
I have to admit, Sephiroth is such a mysterious and interesting character. I'm still angry at him for killing Aeris since she was so useful to the team but I still like him! lol! I personally won't say Jenova is the one who kill Aeris eventhough I know most of the Sephiroth encounters are Jenova cells shape shiff to look like Sephiroth because it also have the mind of Sephiroth.

If you notice, Clould first encounter with a Sephiroth clone (Jenova shape ship to become Sephiroth) at the Shinra Cargo ship in Junon. This clone does not reconise Cloud and have no memories of who he is. Therefore it's safe to assume he don't even know who he really is anyway, but just a clone send by Sephiroth to interupt Cloud.

However when Cloud saw Sephiroth at the Temple of Ancients, this clone have the mind and memories of who Sephiroth is. Since then, it looks like the real Sephiroth is able to transfer both his physical form and mind/memories to the Jenova cells.

Ok, for your first question, Jenova theoretically should not have any consiousness or mind of her own. Therefore, Sephiroth is not controlling 'Jenova the alien', but controling the cells. Therefore, Sephiroth killed Aeris to stop her from summoning Holy using the White materia but it's also to upset Cloud knowing that she means a lot to him! haha!

As for your second question, I don't know how to explain but the scene after you defeated Jenova Death should give you the answer!
 
The big thing is there really is no right or wrong answer, you can say that Sephiroth controlled Jenova or you can say Jenova controlled Sephiroth, you can argue both forever, and in the end only the creature of FFVII can tell you which way is right.
 
The big thing is there really is no right or wrong answer, you can say that Sephiroth controlled Jenova or you can say Jenova controlled Sephiroth, you can argue both forever, and in the end only the creature of FFVII can tell you which way is right.

Exactly, this is what I'd always thought off. However it's much easier to argue that Sephiroth controlled Jenova because we know more about Sephiroth than the 2000 years old alien!

Sephiroth had already became evil before he found Jenova's body so you could say that Sephiroth had initally thought about doing something horrible like becoming a God and destroying the Planet. He initially mistaken Jenova for a Cetra and thinking he is the last Cetra and blamed the humans for betraying the Cetra causing them to extinct.

However when Cloud got lucky and managed to send Sephiroth down the Mako reactor, What happen to him after that???

My question is how did he learn about the Meteor? How to use the remaining Jenova cells in the SHinra building to shapeshiff to himself and about the Reunion? How did he found out that Jenova is not a Cetra but alien instead? How did he found out about Clould and Zack being taken by Hojo for experiments after that incident when he was stuck in the lifestream all that time???!

Would anyone be able to answer that? haha!!!
 
Well my guess is that when he was in the mansion he could of read a lot about all the stuff of Jenova and the Centra, which hid the Black Materia, and that might explain a little on that.

as far as the other stuff goes, you could argue that (whichever way you argue who controlled who) That Jenova cells in the body of Zac and Cloud made it possible to control them and Sephiroth could feel the cells moving in them?

As far as Jenova not being a Cetra, maybe he got the research from Professor Gast (Aerith's father) who learned from Elmyra that Jenova was actually a calamity from the sky.

Now this is all assuming that Sephiroth was really controlling Jenova mind you, and had the ability to communicate with all the clones while in the North Crator.
 
No, Sephiroth controlled Jenova, not the other way around. There really is no arguing this guys, It's an essential part of the plot of FFVII that after discovering about his past Sephiroth went psychotic and omnicidal and merged with Jenova. Hence why he wanted to kill them all.

It's stated by Hojo that Sephiroth controls Jenova, and the Sephiroth clones(including Cloud, who is one).
 
I find Sephiroth is the most mysterious character in FFVII. Once you learn more about him, you find yourself understanding the complex story plot better.

Here are some sites which should be a good read about him.

http://www.ffshrine.org/ff7/ff7_theory_sephiroth.php

(some minor details are wrong here but it make no differences to the main theme)

http://www.angelfire.com/anime5/shinra/Sephiroth.htm

This one is about his past.

http://thelifestream.net/final-fantasy-vii/523/sephiroth-character-profile-p76-81/

The website said that this profile is from the Ultimania so I guess it should be the correct details about him!


Well my guess is that when he was in the mansion he could of read a lot about all the stuff of Jenova and the Centra, which hid the Black Materia, and that might explain a little on that.

Thanks. My guess is different however. I believe that he learned all these details from the lifestream after his body died in the Nibeheim incident.
 
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Wow. That answered a lot of questions and I give you an imaginary cookie of your choosing :)

Now I have a couple more questions. So because Jenova technically killed Aerith while being controlled by Sephiroth, was that Jenova forcing it's body to not be controlled for that short period of time thus continuing its goal of destroying the Cetra or Sephiroth simply stopping Aerith from saving the world with her White Materia?
Yay, double-chocolate chunk! :cookie:

Well, Jenova was dead, recall. It's mind/consciousness is totally gone. Think of Jenova as a puppet -- a floppy, ungainly thing that can't do anything under its own power. Sephiroth is the puppeteer, pulling the strings to make Jenova move the way he wants. Jenova was utterly defeated by the Cetra 2,000 years ago -- the mind that attacked the Cetra is gone, dissolved into oblivion. There's only Sephiroth behind the body of Jenova.

Also, when Cloud was being controlled and heard voices in his head, was that Sephiroth's control of Jenova branching out to Cloud since he was infused with Jenova cells 5 years ago in Nibelheim with Zack? What I mean is, was Sephiroth actually controlling Cloud to hand over the Black Materia and other stuff or was that the Jenova cells coming to life in Cloud and they just happened to want to work with Sephiroth's goals?
Well, first off, Cloud was never controlled. Not in the way the "clones" were at least. Also important to know is this: Cloud is not a clone. The "clones" if you recall, were the survivors of Nibelhiem and some SOLDIERS that Hojo was experimenting on. So, sure, Cloud and Zack were both experiments, just like the others -- but they broke out. They escaped and were making their way to Midgar before they got caught. So while Cloud was dunked in Mako, and he did have Jenova cells injected to him -- he got out before any serious damage was done. He still has a mind, unlike the other "clones" (which is a horribad word to describe them, really).

Anyways. The voices that Cloud hears has always been a subject of debate. Some of them are flashbacks. Others -- like before he wakes up in Junon -- are his "inner mind" as it were, speaking to himself. It's like this:

When Cloud escaped the ruins of Nibelhiem, and after Zack died outside of Midgar, Cloud went a little batshit insane. Not rowing with both oars in the water, as it were. Cloud's mind, as damaged as it already was by the trauma of losing his house and family, by being dunked in Mako and thus bombarded by alien memories not his own, and now suffering further from the death of his one and only friend -- well, something snapped in there. The mind is a very resilient thing, and it can perform some crazy stuff to keep itself going. Which is exactly the case with Cloud.

He.... formed a world that he could adjust to, in his mind. In this living dream he made, he became a SOLDIER first class; he blocked out being at Nibelhiem when it was destroyed as he remembered it. Instead, he fashioned it to be that when he was there, he WASN'T failure, that he wasn't just a grunt. A lot of things got twisted up in his head. There was the new, very fake "self" he made to handle the trauma, and then there was the real "self" that remembered everything -- but he was blocking out that part. So when you see the younger Cloud appear when Cloud hands over the BM, and during the Lifestream scene, that is just the construct of himself that remembers what really happened.

That's why Cloud says he created an illusion for himself. He did. Think of it as a kind of force schizophrenia -- which ends immediately after the Lifestream scene with Tifa. The created identity he made (the successful SOLDIER etc.) did it's job and prevented him from losing his mind entirely after escaping Nibelheim. But it was no longer needed by the time of the game, and he gets back his true identity he had buried so long ago. It was a defense mechanism, pure and simple. This has happened in the real world before, when faced with incredible trauma, so it isn't really that far fetched.

So! That should explain who/what that strange voice is. That's Cloud's sub-conscious self speaking to him.

As for Sephiroth's part in all this, no he does NOT control Cloud. Sephiroth is like the ultimate jackass. He's the enemy that sneers at the slightest weakness and uses it as fodder against you. The ultimate bully. Sephiroth knows very well how broken Cloud's perception of reality is. He uses this against Cloud, saying that he's only a puppet and that he's just an experiment. He's basically saying that Cloud is, in fact, just like Sephiroth -- a lab creation to be manipulated then thrown away. Since Cloud has divorced himself from the knowledge that would easily refute that, he actually starts to believe it. In fact, he believes it so much that he actually starts to do things he believes he has no control over.

That is why when Cloud hands the BM to Sephiroth, you see the ghostly image of a younger Cloud appearing and shouting things like he doesn't have to do that, he is stronger than this. That is the REAL Cloud, not the made-up living dream Cloud, that is saying "Sephiroth is a god damned liar" and knows better but since Cloud has blocked that part of his mind with a wall of wish-fulfillment.... he doesn't know better. So he basically allows himself to believe that he's nothing but what Sephiroth says he is -- which is, of course, rectified once Mideel is broken up and Tifa does some digging in his spiky little brain.

Sephiroth is like a god of mind-fuckery (pardon my french). It was a small thing for him to just sneer and act superior and use Cloud's own mental defense mechanism against him. But by the time this severe weakness is discovered and patched up, it's already too late -- and Sephiroth begins to summon Meteor. The Jenova cells in Cloud really have nothing to do with it -- that's just a red herring, really. What it really was, was Cloud's mental jigsaw puzzle which made him so susceptible to being mind-screwed by Sephiroth's lies and the like.

Hope that lays some things clear for ya! ^_^
 
Well, first off, Cloud was never controlled. Not in the way the "clones" were at least. Also important to know is this: Cloud is not a clone.

I thought the game made it very obvious that Cloud is a failed clone.hmm. Sephiroth controlled Cloud at the Temple of Ancient to give him the black materia and also tried to make Cloud kill Aeris in the Forgoten City but Cloud manage to resist it and come to realised what he was doing when the team told him to stop.

That's why Cloud says he created an illusion for himself. He did. Think of it as a kind of force schizophrenia

I read that it was because his memories were muddled due to the experiment Hojo did on them! So Cloud thinks that he is 1st class soldier because he think he is Zack. He had also lost some parts of his memories due to the experiment. At the early part of the game, in Kalm during the flashback scene, Cloud cannot remember that he was the one to stabbed Sephiroth from behind and threw him into the Mako reactor (until Tifa made him remember). However, Sephiroth said that Cloud was able to remember about his childhood moments with Tifa because the Jenova cells in him were able to extract some of Tifa's memories and merge with him. Poor Cloud. Don't think he created the illusion on purpose just to make himeself feel good but I believe it was very much due to the the effect of the experiment that messed up his memories.
 
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No, Sephiroth controlled Jenova, not the other way around. There really is no arguing this guys, It's an essential part of the plot of FFVII that after discovering about his past Sephiroth went psychotic and omnicidal and merged with Jenova. Hence why he wanted to kill them all.

It's stated by Hojo that Sephiroth controls Jenova, and the Sephiroth clones(including Cloud, who is one).

I know he said Jenova was moving towards North Crater, but that was where they thought the "promise land" was anyways You can easily argue Jenova controlling Sephiroth also, You don't find it odd that Sephiroth only goes insane when he finds out he was an experiment, and that he can only control people with Jenova cells in them? and that he wants Jenova to come back alive and have it be HER reunion?

I'm just saying that you can aruge it and that people have argued it, and can easily prove it.
 
This is a chicken and egg situation. Whether or not Sephiroth controls Jenova, or the other way around, the fact of the matter is that Sephiroth is what he is because of the cells of Jenova placed within his body. He is an experiment, and in many ways a different manifestation of everything that Jenova is. I can understand the view-point that ambitious Sephiroth is trying to manipulate Jenova towards his goals. However, I think it's infinitely more likely that Jenova's cells are influencing Sephiroth to influence the wider collective of Jenova cells to achieve dominance over the world. This theory may break down to some extent because nobody can be sure what Jenova's intentions were. Perhaps, in melding with Sephiroth, the intent of Jenova was influenced towards malice, and Jenova in turn was something of a victim of Sephiroth. Or perhaps, as seems more likely, Jenova was in fact malicious in and of itself, hence the war with the Cetra and the dubbing 'calamity of the skies'. Now, obviously, nobody can say what is right or wrong because there is no right or wrong answer. However, from what I can tell, the story begins with Jenova, and ends with Jenova, even though the faces that Jenova takes on are vastly different as the story progresses. The story begins with the experiments on Jenova cells and all the major protagonists thereafter are victims/willing participants in that.
 
I thought the game made it very obvious that Cloud is a failed clone.hmm. Sephiroth controlled Cloud at the Temple of Ancient to give him the black materia and also tried to make Cloud kill Aeris in the Forgoten City but Cloud manage to resist it and come to realised what he was doing when the team told him to stop.

Well, okay, you're right. Techinically. "clone" is just a BAD word to use overall. Appropriately, Cloud was an experiment, but he wasn't a failed one... more like an unfinished one.

I read that it was because his memories were muddled due to the experiment Hojo did on them! So Cloud thinks that he is 1st class soldier because he think he is Zack. He had also lost some parts of his memories due to the experiment.

That's certainly a major factor as well. Damn, I must have neglected to mention it. :wacky: very easy in such a convoluted subject. Though keep in mind that this is an illusion/dream he made for himself. Dreams are merely recycled bits of your day being mashed together without context and they look really strange. Such is the case here: He took some memories, took some desires, mashed them together and got a result that wasn't really compatible with the world.

This is his mind making a defense mechanism, remember. It made up some things and buried others. He didn't lose any memories, just buried them deep, where they couldn't break his new "reality" that he had constructed.

However, Sephiroth said that Cloud was able to remember about his childhood moments with Tifa because the Jenova cells in him were able to extract some of Tifa's memories and merge with him.

Ah, but recall, Sephiroth is a lying bastard. He's screwing with Cloud's mind in the most ultimately screwed up way. NOT the most reliable source of info. Whatever Sephiroth says, take it with a whole salt mine. Sephiroth is sitting in the Lifestream. If he wanted to dig up dirt on Cloud, he could easily just rifle through his mother's memories, or Tifa's dads' memories, and so on~
 
Exactly, this is what I'd always thought off. However it's much easier to argue that Sephiroth controlled Jenova because we know more about Sephiroth than the 2000 years old alien!

Sephiroth had already became evil before he found Jenova's body so you could say that Sephiroth had initally thought about doing something horrible like becoming a God and destroying the Planet. He initially mistaken Jenova for a Cetra and thinking he is the last Cetra and blamed the humans for betraying the Cetra causing them to extinct.

However when Cloud got lucky and managed to send Sephiroth down the Mako reactor, What happen to him after that???

My question is how did he learn about the Meteor? How to use the remaining Jenova cells in the SHinra building to shapeshiff to himself and about the Reunion? How did he found out that Jenova is not a Cetra but alien instead? How did he found out about Clould and Zack being taken by Hojo for experiments after that incident when he was stuck in the lifestream all that time???!

Would anyone be able to answer that? haha!!!

No it's not, seeing as Sephiroth was just a Soldier until Genesis told him about his origin--the experiments, Hojo, and Jenova cells--which was when he went up to the mako reactor and found Jenova's body in the tank behind those doors. And he learned about Meteor from Jenova and the records inside Shirna mansion. As to what happened after Cloud scewered him, either Hojo got his body or he went into the lifestream to lurk until he could get back and start his plans and whatnot.
 
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