rpanons | 007

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Concerns?

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I've always wondered this, but... I know Dirge of Cerberus was unpopular for a lot of reasons. The one I never got was people claiming it destroyed Lucrecia's personality. I really have to wonder what personality, since she has barely any lines and you couldn't really make an app to most games off of OG content alone.

So basically, where do people get the idea that Lucrecia was a cold-hearted woman who was in it for the fame? I've seen this lauded on F!S as what was canon until DoC, but I've never been brave enough to ask where they got this idea from. The only thing I can remotely think of in OG alone is her rejection of Vincent and dating of Hojo, unless I missed something.

I never found her cold, personally. I mean, from what I remember anyway, she got pregnant for the sake of science, and not really because she wanted a baby (OR she got pregnant accidentally and was like "Hey lets inject the fetus with Jenova cells!" I don't remember, so please correct me if I'm wrong lol).

You don't see much of her personality really, and I got the feeling she had a fangirl crush on Vincent's father anyway. But cold, unfeeling, in it for the fame? Nah, I never got that feeling.

It's implied to be the latter. That Lucrecia ended up pregnant and decided to use her own child for the experiments. At least, how I read it, but it wasn't clear.

However, I've seen a lot of hatred for how she wasn't the "cold-hearted, fame-seeking professional she was displayed as."

That, I don't really get either. I don't think Lucrecia was a saint; she did willingly put her child up for experimentation, but I don't think she did it for fame. They thought JENOVA held all sorts of secrets that could lead only to good things. She probably thought her child would end up benefiting mankind in some way either by becoming something great or by being a noble sacrifice for the sake of science.

But even in the OG, she regretted that. You find her in a cave desperate to know what became of her child and badly wanting to know if he was a good man. Sure, she did terrible things, but I find it hard to believe she was a "I will do whatever and not feel bad because it's FOR SCIENCE!" character.

Not dating. According to supplemental materials, they were married. Yet it seemed Vincent thought he could have been the father, judging by his surprise when it's revealed that Sephiroth is Hojo's son and how that leads him to say it should have been Hojo who slept instead of him.

I wouldn't say that automatically sets Lucrecia's personality to be cold, if anything it sounds like a more impulsive woman to me, but it does mean Dirge blindly stumbled around and neglected things the creators had already set out about the history involving her.

Which isn't too surprising, seeing as they forgot to include the head scientist of the project in any flashbacks and he only gets one trailing voiced-over line in the game.

I guess people would get "coldness" if they thought Lucrecia had led Vincent on somehow past her rejecting him for Hojo, which is raised as a possibility by him questioning Sephiroth's paternity. Still, he may have drawn the wrong conclusion on his own.

...I actually don't recall Gast in many of the flashbacks even in the OG, though, unless I'm mistaken. I always thought he was elsewhere while the mansion group was just one team working on the project.

Really, the only concrete history Lucrecia ever had was:

-Worked with Hojo and Gast (though, since DoC focused a lot on her relationship and mistakes concerning Vincent and Hojo, it's entirely understandable he's not shown since 90% of them took place on the hill, in a room with only Hojo and Lucrecia or in Lucrecia's own lab)
-Rejected Vincent for Hojo
-Gave birth to Sephiroth
-Attempted suicide
-Ended up in the crystal, plagued by regrets

I could see that being the case too, but it still seems wrong for him to not even be mentioned. (The OGC didn't have many flashbacks about the project anyway, and the scene was, as Dirge is, focused on Vincent and Lucrecia. The major difference being the length of the flashbacks.) That's a pet peeve of mine with the compilation in general though.

-Worked with Hojo and Gast
-Was intimate with both Vincent and Hojo in the same time period (otherwise Vincent is being stupid like he was hit with a bag of bricks at the mako cannon)
- Rejected Vincent
- Married Hojo (it was word of god, so of course fans would have been using it before Dirge)
- Gave birth to Sephiroth
- Attempted suicide
- Ended up in crystal with regrets

From how she acts in the flashback, though, she was hardly excited about the project itself, even before bad things started happening. I pretty much agree with whoever said above that she's not a saint, not a cold bitch either. But I still don't think Dirge was that great with her.

I have a LOT of reasons for hating DoC--Lucrecia's personality is only the tip of the iceberg. However since you're asking specifically about Lucrecia I'll try to address just that.

From the original game there wasn't much to go off of concerning Lucrecia's personality. All we really knew was that Vincent found her good-hearted enough to stay in love with her even thirty years later and he was always placing her on a pedestal. (He calls her "the person I respected most" when you first find him in the Shinra mansion, iirc...) And when you encounter her in the cave later on, she doesn't do anything to dash this image of her.

It's just that the Lucrecia in DoC was portrayed as flighty, flakey, whiny, and manipulative. She thought everything, everything was her fault/responsibility, whether it involved her participation or not, and while this could have been interesting if done correctly, it just...wasn't. "I'm sorry" were practically the only words she knew. To the point where you couldn't sharpen a goddamn pencil without her apologizing for it. It became annoying, and fast.

She spends a good portion of flashbacks flirting with Vincent, then he finds out that she survived a catastrophe his dad didn't so her idea of coping is to run to Hojo. It just seems like petty reasoning to begin with... "Oh I feel so guilty that I survived a lab accident and your dad didn't so I must reject you now and go make whoopee with a guy I don't like at all!!" It just comes off as extremely Soap Opera-ish for want of a better analogy.

Then when Vincent tries to stop her from experimenting on Sephiroth (there's a bit of a retcon here, I think, because Vincent doesn't behave at all in DoC flashbacks like he thinks Sephiroth is his kid, whereas in the original game I got the feeling he thought he was Sephiroth's dad), she screams at him to butt out, that the project "only concerns her." I don't know about anyone else but this completely made me hate Lucrecia as a character. Yeah, experimenting on an unborn baby with alien cells when you don't know just how harmful or devastating the outcome might be on his health or longevity, but that only concerns YOU. Right, Lu. Right...

Oh, and I also hated how her name was pronounced "Lucrettsia" but spelled "Lucrecia." That may just be an unwarranted nitpick, but phonetically, I don't see how that makes sense at all. "Lucreesha" (like the more modernized pronunciation of the Roman martyr, whom I always thought Lucrecia was supposed to be named after) or even "Lucresha" I could understand... Where is the invisible t coming from?

I always took her going to Hojo as, "This is the only person I deserve. I don't deserve someone as good as you, Vincent" because, well... She got overexcited, and someone she cared for paid for it. And how could she admit that to Vincent? Because, technically, it WAS her fault. IIRC, Grimoire even told her not to rush. He paid the price for her mistakes, and she was devastated since they seemed to have a father-daughter relationship almost. He wasn't looking down on her for her thesis, which is stated to be a source of ridicule and she wanted so badly to prove her worth.

She rejected Vincent because, frankly, he found out she had a connection to his father. And not only did he look like his father, but he was pushing and it brought everything back to the surface. And he would be hurt--and she didn't want to hurt someone she actually cared for again. Not after Grimoire died for her mistakes. So, depressed, she pushed him away and went with the man she thought she deserved--someone she hated and who was horrible. She had very low self esteem brought on by her mistakes and the ridicule she faced over her thesis, among likely other factors.

And yes, technically, the decision for Sephiroth's fate was her decision. Vincent had literally no say in it. He wasn't the father. He was her bodyguard. As well, they didn't think Jenova was an alien at the time. They thought she was a Cetra, and that there could only be beneficial things to be gained from the experiments. I'm sorry, but I also view it as, "Better my child than someone else's." It was a sacrifice so someone else didn't have to, and it pissed her off that, once more, someone in her life was questioning her choices--like always. I'm pretty sure she weighed the consequences against perceived benefits and went for it. She wasn't entirely stupid--she was in the field of biotechnology, so yeah. Also, you're wrong. She was entirely calm until Vincent goes, "Are you sure [you want to do this]?" Which is, again, none of his business. At which point, fed up with him questioning her choices like she didn't weight any of the options, which are hers to make, she goes, "Am I sure? Am I sure!? If this decision only concerns me, then yes, I am sure!"

Also, I feel like the only one who never got the impression Vincent thought Sephiroth was his son. :|; He was just surprised Lucrecia actually slept with Hojo and there wasn't some artificial insemination involved.

Also, I feel like the only one who never got the impression Vincent thought Sephiroth was his son. :|; He was just surprised Lucrecia actually slept with Hojo and there wasn't some artificial insemination involved.

So Vincent was surprised she slept with Hojo when before he had seen her with him and gave her up, saying, "If she is happy then... I don't mind." She needs artificial insemination to be pregnant via a man (who Vincent believes) she's happy with? Original game Vincent has little reason to be surprised that the two could have had sex. There's no reason for him to be surprised that Hojo is the father unless he had believed someone else was.

As far as the "only concerns her"/getting mad at Vincent for asking "are you sure" thing. I am pretty sure she was mad because Vincent is a waffler. Especially in Dirge of Cerberus. She pushes him away, makes a lot of bad decisions, gets monstrously in over her head. And then. Seems. To want Vincent to save her 8||| That's the impression I got.

So when she gets involved in this project she seemed really uncertain about/not happy with. And Vincent comes in all WELL IDK LU... ARE YOU SURE...... I JUST. WANNA CHECK. I DON'T HAVE AN ACTUAL OPINION OR... YOU KNOW THE BACKBONE TO ADMIT THAT THIS IS ME ASKING OUT OF PERSONAL INTEREST CAUSE I LIKE YOU. JUST WAFFLING HERE. She was mad because she wasn't sure and didn't want to do it, but he wasn't being the strong person standing up and going "I'll save you Lucrecia!!".

I could be interpreting this wrong, but it really seemed to me in Dirge that Lucrecia wanted to be a big baby and have everyone take care of her. But like a big baby she couldn't deal with being judged (especially after the whole thing with Grimoire since she was constantly judging herself after that). So she always ran away to where she felt "least" judged. Which happened to be with Hojo in the game.

But yeah Vincent's waffling is a big theme in Dirge and it's only near the end when he screams LUCRECIAAAAAAAAAAAAA and turns into emo batman that he seems to really "connect" with her.

Which marks another change from the original game's flashbacks, which has Vincent say:

I'm against it!! Why experiments on humans!?

to both Hojo and Lucrecia. That's not a waffling line. He had an opinion about the experiment and he was clear on it. But... Dirge came in.

Then when Vincent tries to stop her from experimenting on Sephiroth, she screams at him to butt out, that the project "only concerns her."

...Yes, because she should totally let someone else question her decision that she made with her husband who wasn't him, and not get angry when he asks if she's sure like she hasn't already considered everything. She should go, "Oh, I guess you're right, silly me, I'm a woman! What am I doing making the decision I think is right!" Not, you know, get rightfully pisses and yell at him to butt out because really, he has no goddamn say.

You sound like one of those people who think Vincent can do no wrong. Lucrecia made mistakes, but this was one of the times I cheered for her because, fuck that noise, Vincey-poo had no reason to ask that.

I...haven't played Dirge in the longest time, but I think that double checking to make sure that someone is okay with using their child as a lab rat and performing dubious experimentation on them is the sort of thing that is good and appropriate to ask about.

I mean, seriously. I'm not a huge fan of controlling men, controlling people in general, bleating breeder's rights, or Vincent Valentine, but I think it's appropriate to occasionally question the decisions of others when they head in certain directions.

I don't think Lucrecia is that out of line to be annoyed or upset about being asked, but I think it's strange to say Vincent has no reason to be concerned that someone he loves is about to put a foreign substance in her body when they don't know what the effect will be. They have theories, and theories in science are overturned all the time. They didn't have proof. The proof that did result? Justified Vincent being concerned about a thousand times over.

Actually I really hate Vincent (no offense to Vincent fans!), I only bought DoC because I was excited for what I thought would be the first FPS FF game. I digress though. I couldn't care less about Vincent's intervention, it's just that the scene presented Lucrecia as NOT thinking of the longterm effects that the experimentation would have on this living, breathing human being that she planned on bringing into the world.

I mean, I'm all for women's rights. I think a woman has the right to do what she has with her body. But the thing is, if you're planning on giving life to a human being, why would you do anything you think might detriment that human being's life in the long run? And I know, I know, I guess that's where the "science can be evil" theme comes into the series. But it just shocked the shit out of me that Lucrecia was so ignorant as to think that the experiments performed on her baby "only concern her."

I wouldn't care if she was supposed to be as villainous as Hojo is, but from what the series tries to convey about her, she clearly wasn't intended as a villain. Just downright ignorant. And I guess I didn't like seeing that aspect of her.

I think the thing that is tripping me up is, well, you're using knowledge they didn't have at the time. We know Jenova is an alien from outer space who works like a parasite. They thought she was an Ancient at the time! As far as they knew, Jenova cells wouldn't cause a mutation or be detrimental in any way, shape or form. The child would either be special--you'd have a false Cetra--or... A normal human being. And considering the technology of FF7, it's safe to say with that line of thought, and that mistaken knowledge, there was no real risk. You can't be ignorant in the field of biotechnolgy, which is exactly her field. She was smart. She knew what she was doing. The thing is, she was operating under the thought that she'd A. still be able to see and interact with her son (Hojo is the kind to lie, after all, to get his way) and B. that Jenova was an Ancient who were similar to humans, just in-tune with the Planet on a genetic level.

Anon.

If this was real life

If you saw in the news that a woman was allowing herself and her unborn fetus to be injected with cells from a recently-discovered specimen believed to be from an extinct species in humanity's ancestry in order to create some kind of superhuman

(Which means they were expecting it to make a significant change in biology, or they wouldn't get the hoped-for results! They were expecting it to be beneficial rather than detrimental, but were still messing with fundamental shit at the crucial development time for the child and a more delicate time for the woman's health. There was real risk. They should know that.)

Would you not think it sounded a little crazy? Would you not question the sanity of her friends and family if not one stopped her to ask "are you sure about doing this?"

Someone who knows the field of biotechnology should know this could easily carry risks. Even without specializing in biotechnology, disregarding foresight, it's pretty easy to tell this is a situation where concern is valid. And yes, even an expert should be questioned because even experts make mistakes, or make decisions under pressure.

> Applying real life to a game where people can fly and become virtual vampires

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

> Laughing at applying real life concerns to a game with real life concerns as its themes where the guy with real life concerns is proven right

> Or acting like any part of Hojo or Lucrecia's actions show they were actually striving to be safe in experimentation

OK

> Applying knowledge of humans to characters who are (or were originally) humans

Unless you're saying that the people in FF7 are not actually humans and shouldn't be expected to think like them?

Then when Vincent tries to stop her from experimenting on Sephiroth (there's a bit of a retcon here, I think, because Vincent doesn't behave at all in DoC flashbacks like he thinks Sephiroth is his kid, whereas in the original game I got the feeling he thought he was Sephiroth's dad), she screams at him to butt out, that the project "only concerns her." I don't know about anyone else but this completely made me hate Lucrecia as a character. Yeah, experimenting on an unborn baby with alien cells when you don't know just how harmful or devastating the outcome might be on his health or longevity, but that only concerns YOU. Right, Lu. Right...

Curious: out of people who defend her decision like it's a women's rights issue, how many would vilify a scientist who injected Jenova's cells into a fetus grown in an artificial womb?

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007

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lol emo batman, oh vincent

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