The JENOVA Reunion

by Max Murphy (Janus_Zeal)

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about Final Fantasy VII. After reading a few recent editorials, I couldn't resist putting in what I thought. In particular, I plan to discuss the way SOLDIER was run and also JENOVA, which I consider one of the most misunderstood characters in the game. So, to start off, I will begin with Hojo's experiment that started this whole thing.

After ShinRa dug up and captured JENOVA, Hojo had the idea of putting some of JENOVA's cells into his pregnant wife. This experiment was incredibly successful, as it created one of the strongest soldiers ever: Sephiroth. So ShinRa tried to duplicate this process to create a large group of these powerful men. However, not many women were willing to give up their unborn children, for obvious reasons, so ShinRa did the next best thing. They injected the cells directly into the soldiers, which was semi-successful. While these men were some of the best soldiers in the world, none were as powerful as Sephiroth. Hojo tried many experiments afterward, but none were as successful as Sephiroth, as he was created differently than the other soldiers. ShinRa took this group of powerful soldiers, and named it SOLDIER. That is the reason Cloud never was in SOLDIER, because when he tried to get in, he found that the honor would come with becoming an experiment, so he rejected it. When Cloud and Zack were later tested on, Cloud reacted while Zack did not. This is because Zack, being in SOLDIER, has already been through this, while Cloud had not. As far as what happened to Cloud, I recommend reading Aujang Abadi's "The Strife Manifesto," as I agree with his ideas concerning Cloud's mako poisoning being a third injection and his reasons for thinking he was Zack.

Now, on to my second subject, which is JENOVA. JENOVA landed on Earth thousands of years ago. Nobody knows why, and it isn't really important. Perhaps a different spikey-haired kid took a ride on his Epoch, killed a different space monster, and this left space for rent on Earth for super-powerful aliens. Whatever the reason, JENOVA was headed for Earth and it impacted at what became the North crater. The impact nearly destroyed the planet, but due to the Weapons, they saved the planet and sealed up JENOVA. Now, here is the important point: JENOVA DID NOT INTEND TO DESTROY EARTH. It is only a side effect of something heavy moving very fast and hitting the Earth. The Weapons seal up JENOVA, but this is due only to the complete lack of knowledge of JENOVA's intentions. Thousands of years later, JENOVA is dug up by ShinRa and its cells are injected into other people. This is JENOVA's motivation, to bring itself back together, to start the JENOVA reunion. JENOVA has the ability to turn people that it resides in into mindless drones, and summon them all together. Niether Sephiroth nor Cloud is immune to this, they are just able to resist it better. Sephiroth is the first to gather with JENOVA, but he found that if he submitted to this, he could keep his own will. Cloud does the opposite, he keeps his mind by convincing himself he is going after Sephiroth. Often he feels JENOVA's wrath for this, because he won't submit, yet he is summoned to JENOVA just the same. The only exception is the times he gives the black materia to Sephiroth. This is because Sephiroth has learned to control the JENOVA inside of him. So Cloud sees it as a small piece of JENOVA wants the black materia, and this puts him in the drone state.

With this information about JENOVA, it shows that Sephiroth is definitely alive. JENOVA has no reason to create Sephiroth copies, and doesn't really care either way about Meteor. Also, there is no reason Sephiroth would be dead, it says that he went through the lifestream and gained the wisdom of the ancients, and there is no reason he would create copies when he could be there himself. Also, it is important to see that Sephiroth is more powerful than JENOVA. The experiment gave him the good qualities of both human and JENOVA, and in that way surpassed JENOVA. He still was not immune to the JENOVA reunion, as he took part in it, but he learned JENOVA's ability to control the minds of people with JENOVA in them. Mostly this was useless to him, except when one piece of JENOVA got his hands on the black materia, he had a reason to use his ability.

I would like to close this by saying that these are my opinions. Final Fantasy VII, like any great piece of art, is up for interpretation. Anyone who says they can prove what happened is wrong: his ideas are just as valid, but they are not the only right answer. If this made you think of the game and what your interpretation is, whether you agree with me or not, then I did what I set out to do. And if this sparked your interest and made you want to play the game again so you can re-experience what it meant to you, then I succeeded better than I thought that I could.