Who murdered Aeris? Jenova or Sephiroth?

[the.forbidden.materia]

So I just recently played through the entire original FF7 after 20+ years (amazing experience by the way) but there are a few questions I have...
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When Cloud confronts Aeris, assuming he is being manipulated by Jenova at this point, hence him saying, "what are you making me do?"

Sephiroth then comes down and kills Aeris, at which point you fight JENOVA-LIFE

the REAL sephiroth could not have killed Aeris because that sephiroth was still trapped in the northern crator due to Cloud attacking him 5 years ago during the Nibelheim incident
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doesn't this mean that ALL versions of "Sephiroth" that you encounter up to this point are actually NOT the REAL Sephiroth, but JENOVA CLONES?

even when you first encounter a battle with Sephiroth on the ship, you end up fighting JENOVA-BIRTH, doesn't this mean that the character "Sephiroth" that you keep encountering is actually a Jenova clone?

 

[Verena]

from quora:
The “Sephiroth” you see during Disc 1, isn’t actually the real Sephiroth.
Think back, to earlier in the game, when we see President Shinra dead at his desk with a sword in his back. Remember leading up to it, there was a long blood trail, with the origin point being headless Jenova’s containment cell.
If you had looked at the containment cell back then, Cloud makes an observation that it had been broken open… from the inside. Without this detail, you’d assume Sephiroth broke her out, carried her body and killed Shinra on the way out (to be fair, I did too.)
But something you’ll learn about Jenova, her cells are able to manipulate whatever body they are host to, both in control.. and in body form.
Recall every time you meet Sephiroth, he leaves behind a piece of Jenova to boss fight.
After all this, if you haven’t guessed, what is actually going on with Sephiroth in disc 1, is that it isn’t actually Sephiroth, but Jenova masquerading as Sephiroth. Every time you encounter “Sephiroth” it’s actually Jenova, and she literally flings a piece of herself at you as a boss fight to escape.
The real Sephiroth is as you saw, is the shirtless one in the chosen land whom Cloud gets mind controlled to give up the Black Materia to.
So if you watched FF7 Advent Children and got confused how Kadaj transformed into Sephiroth, this is why (he absorbed Jenova’s unaccounted for missing head.)

 

[the.forbidden.materia]

bingo, that's what I thought...I bring this up because I was trying to explain this concept to someone and they got super aggravated with me saying I "don't understand the story" which was hilarious because I just beat the original game 2-3 days ago LOL

 

[Dionysos]

Yeah, essentially Sephiroth had been at the Northern Crater since Cloud plopped him into the Lifestream during the Nibelheim Incident. His body was effectively screwed up, but his will clung on and he managed to hatch his scheme nonetheless, eventually manipulating his connection with Jenova via the Jenova cells in his body. Since Jenova was a shapeshifter, and her corpse was never 100% dead on a cellular level, Sephiroth was able to reshape the image of his mother's body into a copy of himself.

Hence Jenova-Sephiroth broke out of the containment tank and killed President Shinra, the/a Midgar Zolom, and so on. Every time we encounter 'Sephiroth' during our chase we are really seeing Sephiroth working through Jenova. This is why we fight a form of Jenova whenever we encounter 'Sephiroth', and also why a piece of Jenova's corpse is left behind each time.

With that, the body of Jenova, but the will of Sephiroth killed Aerith.

That said, the sole line attributed to Jenova herself is said by the entity during this same scene ("Because‚ you are a puppet", addressed to the mind-muddled Cloud), and the extent to which Sephiroth manipulated Jenova, or vice versa, is heavily debated amongst some fans. To some, Sephiroth has never really been free of Jenova's influence in the OG, even when he appears to be using his connection to his own advantage. I sometimes am in that camp myself, and I think one of the fascinating things about this game is that it can be open to interpretation.

Spoiler: FFVII Remake spoiler

There is a possibility that things might turn out differently in the Remake. And we have already seen some significant deviations on this point. No longer does Sephiroth take direct control of Jenova's corpse. Instead he uses the 'clones' to morph into his form and then they carry the corpse of Jenova. The 'clones' are Nibelheim Incident survivors/victims which were injected with Jenova cells and have now turned into Reunion-obsessed zombies. In the Remake Sephiroth manipulates the Jenova cells within the 'clones' and, at times, directs/controls them. Why has Sephiroth changed his plan? Is this a significant or only a minor shift? Has he realised that using Jenova's corpse directly led to his failure the first time round?

What implications might this have for Aerith's future death? Will that be carried out by Jenova-Sephiroth, a 'clone'-Sephiroth, or maybe even Sephiroth himself? Or, maybe she'll be spared the blade?

I'm curious, but also quietly cautious. Whatever they do could be very interesting, but it could also easily alienate some fans. Whatever does or does not happen, I'm sure it'll have fans (myself included) discussing it for years to come.

 

[the.forbidden.materia]

this is great info, thanks for providing this info, I actually haven't played FF7:REMAKE so I'll have to dive into that next, but I need to rewatch advent children as well and see how it all connects

 

[Verena]

yepp thx for the info. i see now that there is soooo much room for interpretation how tbe relationship between Sephy and Jenova is. if Sephy put his will on killing president Shinra and Aeris then he really is a great villain

 

[Voltaire Adams]

Cloud.

He clearly drowned her.

 

[Ariel Mortroni]

Cloud.

He clearly drowned her.

such nice comment. my niece had same idea. she asked me "if she is dead ,why she didn't turn to light like bad guy in Advent children?"
if we pass it, it was clearly Genova who wanted to ancient dead. it is not about Sephiroth or Aerith. they were just names for headless Alien woman.

 

[Verena]

aeris went back intoo lifestream, where she is once whole again with the planet. the planet sephiroth/jenova wanted to destroy and insurging her energy to let them move into space to another planet

 

[Voltaire Adams]

such nice comment. my niece had same idea. she asked me "if she is dead ,why she didn't turn to light like bad guy in Advent children?"
if we pass it, it was clearly Genova who wanted to ancient dead. it is not about Sephiroth or Aerith. they were just names for headless Alien woman.

Yeah if Sephiroth had hit a vital organ there would have been a LOT more blood. She would not have died THAT quickly otherwise. In a universe where there is healing magic/items and REVIVE spells and items too...they could have probably at least tried to do something instead of chuck her in a lake.