Shinra: The True Evil?

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Umbreox

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Hey everyone. I'm new to these forums, might stick around. We'll see ^_^
Anyway, just a random thought that occurred to me. I haven't played FFVII, but I know *quite* a bit about it.

Everyone sees Sephiroth as the real villain, the big baddy. What about Shinra? They cannot be forgotten nor forgiven. They're the standard mega-corporation, the huge evil company, the fuse that sets the events of FFVII in motion. This is how I look at it.
1. Shinra decides to search for remnants of the Cetra, and stumble on our friends Jenova.
2. Motivated by curiosity, they experiment like crazy on this unstable being.
3. After discovering the use of Jenova's cells, they 'create' Sephiroth.
4. Sephiroth becomes a top SOLDIER, maintained as a hero by Shinra. Used as a heroic public figure, even though he is performing evil deeds for Shinra behind the scenes.
5. The Nibelheim incident.
6. Sephiroth goes berserk, and he and Jenova nearly destroy the planet.

Conclusion: If it weren't for Shinra's hunger for power and authority, the superbeing Jenova would never have been found, and Sephiroth would not have even become a warrior. Maybe not even born. o_O

I suppose you can blame Sephiroth's insanity as much as Shinra, but remember that Sephiroth wouldn't be insane if it weren't for Shinra's immoral and corrupt experiments.
 
Well from the start you can blame Jenova more than anyone else IMO. It caused the original wound to the planet, pretty much wiped out an entire race (the Cetra, of course). As a result of Jenova the planet created the weapons that caused quite a bit of destruction all by themselves.

And according to Ifalna the planet could never recover while Jenova exists, reguardless of whether Jenova is discovered or not, seeing as Ifalna was the last remaining full blooded Cetra, we can assume she knows what she's talking about.
"You see, as long as Jenova exists, the Planet will never be able to fully heal itself."

I'll admit that Shinra played a majo role in the catastrophic events of the game (Hojo in particular did quite a bit), but I think the core of the battle is between Jenova and the planet.
If the planet were truly concerned about Shinra, you'd think it would have unleashed the weapons on them long before the events of the game.

That's just my take on things though.
 
Jenova is to blame first and foremost. But Shin-Ra and their greed for power and money comes next. Sephiroth was merely a by product of these two things. That by no means excuses his actions but were it not for those before him he would never have acted as he did or perhaps even existed at all. And had he been brought up differently maybe it would have been him fighting for the planet not Cloud. Who knows..
 
Shinra did find Jenova, and initiated Project Sephiroth, but ultimately, if Jenova did not fall out from the sky and cause havoc among the Cetra, The Planet would be in a much better condition.

Both of them are equally to blame in my opinion.

EDIT: It was Hojo who was the ultimate evil, though...
 
You can turn this all around and say that by "creating" Sephiroth and having him trying to destroy the world, thus forcing Cloud and co to save the world and get rid of Jenova makes them the good guys. :P
 
I don't care if Shin-Ra was evil or not but I really liked the FFVII world when Shin-Ra existed.AVALANCE,Jenova,Sephiroth and Genesis were the real enemies of the planet.
 
ShinRa were a bunch of greedy butt holes, but I wouldn't call them the root of all evil.

In my opinion the most sinister force in FF VII's world is Hojo. He was the one who helped create Sephiroth, he was behind Vincent's troubles, he was the one who ruined Cloud's mind and set up the events leading to Zack's death. He was responsible for much of Deepground, etc. Hojo pretty much directly or indirectly caused all of the major catastrophe's in FF VII for his own curiosity, ShinRa just let him do what he wanted so he'd help them make a buck.
 
Actually, blame Yu-Yevon from FF X. If he hadn't decided to make Sin, then Bevelle wouldn't have countered with creating Vegnagun. Because they made it unreachable, they couldn't destroy it, so left it around.

Meanwhile, if Shuryin didn't feel so angry over losing Lenne, then he wouldn't have tried to use Vegnagun to get revenge. Therefore, Yuna and co. would not have had to go down to the Farplain and destroy the bastard. Therefore, Shina wouldn't be trying to use that energy for his own purposes.

Therefore, when the planet dies or whatever, Shinra's decendents wouldn't carry this information to Gaia. Therefore, they wouldn't be able to use the Lifestream to make electricity, and so become power hungry. Therefore, they wouldn't be able to do a full scale excavation to discover Jenova.

Because of this, none of the Complination would have (or, at the very least, create events portrayed vastly different from the games/movie).

Just my 2 cents.
 
jammi568 said:
Actually, blame Yu-Yevon from FF X. If he hadn't decided to make Sin, then Bevelle wouldn't have countered with creating Vegnagun. Because they made it unreachable, they couldn't destroy it, so left it around.

Meanwhile, if Shuryin didn't feel so angry over losing Lenne, then he wouldn't have tried to use Vegnagun to get revenge. Therefore, Yuna and co. would not have had to go down to the Farplain and destroy the bastard. Therefore, Shina wouldn't be trying to use that energy for his own purposes.

Therefore, when the planet dies or whatever, Shinra's decendents wouldn't carry this information to Gaia. Therefore, they wouldn't be able to use the Lifestream to make electricity, and so become power hungry. Therefore, they wouldn't be able to do a full scale excavation to discover Jenova.

Because of this, none of the Complination would have (or, at the very least, create events portrayed vastly different from the games/movie).

Just my 2 cents.
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Well, whether or not they're going to officially connect FFX with FFVII still hasn't been actually confirmed. They've talked about it, but it may or may not actually happen.

Personally, I like both games, but I'd rather they not connect them.
 
Well, whether or not they're going to officially connect FFX with FFVII still hasn't been actually confirmed. They've talked about it, but it may or may not actually happen.

Personally, I like both games, but I'd rather they not connect them.
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No, the connection has been official for a while now. They made it canon in the FF VII Ultimania Omega. X and VII occur in the same universe, just on different planets and thousands of years apart.
 
Shinra started out as an manufacturing electrical power company that provided jobs and services throughout the world. Then they discovered Mako technology. It turned out to be a major boon with the ease and effectiveness of providing even more services and having increasing resources to protected their assets.

Then this is where it gets hazy when these four primary departments -- Urban, Biological, Space Science, Military -- (if anyone remembers the libraries while infiltrating the Shinra building)

I don't think that the administration really knew/cared about the day to day activities of these departments other than they accomplish. In short, they wanted results no matter the cost. The administration simply provided generous funding to accomplish their desires and if there were side projects or personal pursuits along away that didn't hinder their goals, then that was fine.

Then it became a game of "One hand not knowing what the other hand was doing"

By the time the events in game started, it had expanded in to an economic superpower with the City of Midgar as its pride and glory. (Come to think of it: I don't think that it was ever finished before extensive damage was done to it by AVALANCHE)

The peoples' opinion was split in two about Shinra - either they approved and wanted to work with them, and there were those that despised them.
 
I don't think Shinra, as a company, is inherently evil as a whole. Most employees are not evil people - just clueless to the activities and goals of the major players. The security levels in Shinra Towers are testament to the closed door policy between different employee ranks. There's the Manager we meet on the trains - and later in Junon - who doesn't seem to have a clue about anything going on. All his lines of dialogue are about the personal mundane.
 
SOLDIERis1337 said:
No, the connection has been official for a while now. They made it canon in the FF VII Ultimania Omega. X and VII occur in the same universe, just on different planets and thousands of years apart.
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I read that, but I'm pretty sure they just mentioned that they liked the idea and that they might have plans for something like that. They never officially came out and said it was set in stone yet.
 
I think as a whole Shinra is not evil. Though I do believe that there are people within Shinra, Hojo for example, who are evil. When you have evil mixed with good, the overall vision or mission is thrown off. It's like our political system :) But I won't go there.

Jenova was definitely evil from the start, there is no questioning it. She was used as a weapon of death against the Cetra and then of course to try and destroy the planet and lifestream itself. In my opinion its not honestly fair to call sephiroth inherintely evil, due to the fact he was not made self aware of who he was until the later part of his soldier career. He was a puppet, and a hero in the same mind while under Soldier, but then when absolutely nuts when he learned of his creation. If Jenova was never around the scientist would have never been able to explore the potentials of the Jenova's cells. Then of course the WEAPONS would never have been activated if the planet was not at peril.
 
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Any corporation type assholes who so blatantly abuse there power for there own gain have to have a certain ammount of evil because sacrificing others for such meagre things is a staple of being an evil fucker like rufus
 
I read that, but I'm pretty sure they just mentioned that they liked the idea and that they might have plans for something like that. They never officially came out and said it was set in stone yet.
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No, its set in stone. Its spoken of in the FF X Ultimania Omega, FF X-2 hints at it, the FF X-2 Ultimania speaks of it, the FF VII Ultimania Omega mentions it, and Dirge hints at it.

I didn't care for it at first either but you can't argue with canon. You can take solace in the fact that its a very minimal connection, separated by different planets and thousands of years.
 
SOLDIERis1337 said:
No, its set in stone. Its spoken of in the FF X Ultimania Omega, FF X-2 hints at it, the FF X-2 Ultimania speaks of it, the FF VII Ultimania Omega mentions it, and Dirge hints at it.

I didn't care for it at first either but you can't argue with canon. You can take solace in the fact that its a very minimal connection, separated by different planets and thousands of years.
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No, I mean they mention it in the Ultimania's, but they've been known to change their minds before. It's not like they announced a new game in production that directly comes out and connects them.

Although I do agree that X-2 and Dirge drop hints.
 
They could change there minds if they wanted to, like making Sephiroth jump into the mako instead of being thrown, and then having him jump back again, but until they change there minds the connection is as canon as any event in the two games.
 
Munin said:
I don't think Shinra, as a company, is inherently evil as a whole. Most employees are not evil people - just clueless to the activities and goals of the major players. The security levels in Shinra Towers are testament to the closed door policy between different employee ranks. There's the Manager we meet on the trains - and later in Junon - who doesn't seem to have a clue about anything going on. All his lines of dialogue are about the personal mundane.
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Exactly like the Empire in FFVI or Star Wars, if you will. They simply don't care about the Empire's actions, they simply go about on their daily routine, doing what they're told to do.
 
It's harder to blame Shinra, for me, as it's not one sole person. It's a corporation doing what corporations do. Clearly they have some "rogue" elements like Hojo who go far beyond the ethical limits but most everything else they do is not beyond anything a corporation or government might do.

And regardless of whether or not the game shows it, they've had to have done some good things in their time. Not because they're decent souls but happy thriving people spend more money than sad desperate ones. I don't think they can be forgiven but I can't say I really hate them either.
 
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