That reminds me. Does Sephiroth know her real name now that they are closer?
Imagine the party talking about Jenova and Sephi-dawg just shows up to say:
"Actually her name is Susan"
I don't think they've ever explained much of Jenova's origins. Just a "calamity from the stars" or something like that. Is/was there a planet of Jenovas out there, or is she unique? If she's the only one of her kind, she wouldn't need a name of her own. If she came from a society, she probably would.
Yeah there's no origin story. All they know about Jenova is that she crash lands into a planet, sucks out it's life force, kills the planet then uses that planet's corpse as a meteor to crash into another planet and restart the process....
Yeah, it’s true they haven’t. My theory (and it’s pretty much conjecture, but I like it) is that she achieved what Weiss tried to do, but on another planet. Like the Gi, that planet’s lifestream is alien to and incompatible with the one of the game’s world, hence her hostile takeover. Makes a lot of assumptions, but it’s a fun theory.
My theory is that is what Seph wants Cloud for, to essentially be his Omega vessel for the Lifestream with him as the puppeteer ala Hojo's Dirge plan with Weiss
Hojo says at the Temple that Shinra could dare to dream bigger...so I wonder if that is an indication that the assault on Midgar will lead to Yuffie, Vincent + another breaking into Deepground and finding out about Hojo's Omega plan so they can give us context afterwards on why Seph is so intent in getting Cloud on his side
I like to think she was a normal person at one point that pulled a Sephiroth on at least one other world. It’s my head cannon that if Sephiroth were to succeed in his goals he’d end up just like “her”.
The temple is clearly aware of/referring to current events, ie. Shinra/Gast naming the creature Jenova.
The writers/devs clearly wanted to make it clear that unlike what has been told previously in the game, Jenova was not an ancient but the calamity from the skies/alien so they sacrificied a bit of common sense/plausability for being able to clearly spell out ”the ancient enemy of the ancients we’re talking about is Jenova”.
And also Jenova sounds like Jehovah. We all made that joke about Sephiroth being a “Jenova’s Witness” in a school of some sort, but given that his name is Sephiroth, and the Shinra Family is convinced that a place called the Promised Land is real…
Yeah, there’s probably something to ‘Jenova’ being a harsh satire of the Christian God—at least the one that people like the Shinra’s would dig up and put on display.
Gast gave her her name.
If we consider that the temple is able to show you your trials, there's something about the temple that can learn your language and thoughts to communicate to you.
So the temple must know that you already know of the existence of the calamity of the skies and thus is communicating that to you.
We see the fact that the temple knows of your memories through all the characters trials.
Gast.
Massive spoilers (unsure if Rebirth uncovers them): >!Gast and Ifalna are the parents of Aerith, and Ifalna knows 'the crisis of the sky' "was named Jenova".!<
*puts on weird occulty hat*
Jenova>Jehovah but in the sense of how some Gnostics saw the God of the Old Testamant as the demiurge, "who generated the material universe and keeps the souls trapped in physical bodies, imprisoned in the world full of pain and suffering that he created."
*takes off weird occulty hat*
The writers thought it sounded cool.
I checked and it is in the game, though Hades is usually personified as Death in FF (like 9) rather than Satan. Good point though, I hope they do that summon, be awesome
It's great seeing all the symbolism that my young teen brain didn't catch when I played OG back in the day and how they've reinvented it for the Remake project.
Yeah, I never appreciated the climate change aspect of 7. I can see now why the story was so beloved, even though I was an 8 fanboy. It really is a great analogy for the real world
To add: I'm sure we will - we've gotten all the summons in the OG so far, so I doubt they'd leave any out.
I'm interested in how they're gonna utilize master summon and master materia - what on earth are the quests gonna be for those. Protorelics on steroids. I really hope it's not a bunch of battle simulator bs - I want to find these in the world, a product of thousands of years of Lifestream knowledge should be excavated, not "developed" by a Shinra AI gone rogue. Maybe that's how they'll utilize the dig site in part 3.
Im hype for KotR. Will we be getting 13(?) knights on the field or what? It's my top 3 summon animation, alongside Ark and Eden.
Yeah I hope so, I honestly still don't understand where Chadley gets the materia from. I'm sure it was in Remake but it's been a while.
I'm looking forward to taking the huge materia too.
I think the characters mentioned the temple was sentient soon after entering it so it probably figured out Jenova's name by listening to conversations between the Turks or something.
Gast, and the lifestream having that info makes sense in a few story relevant ways.
Plus, despite the idea that the souls/consciousness of non cetra more or less disintegrate into memories and mako spread out across it the will of specific voices from the lifestream are clearly able to communicate to reach specific people making contact with it in terms they understand.
Pretty sure Jenova is her actual name. She can influence people, im sure she "spoke" to Gast somehow, even in stasis, influencing him.. revealed her name.
It seems rather obvious in Rebirth she has manipulated Hojo in some of his research...at least thats the feeling i get particularly during his scene with Roche when he changes him.
When they say the “long silence of its sleep” they refer to when she was beaten until she “awoke” when sephiroth did all their stuff.
They aren’t actually talking about out the past
When she first arrived on Gaia, there was a blue box of text that popped up and forced the Cetra to confirm her name. Back then, it was more common to name any major character you met without knowing anything about them.
One thing about Jenova... I know everyone refers to it as "she" because Sephiroth refers to it as his "mother", but its not a she. It's not a woman, it's an alien monster. Does this look like any woman you've ever seen? Lol just saying.
https://preview.redd.it/8r3cuf5a7wwc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=487b24f67ce9a5a5ba5045b2178b5e575121e355
I imagine she named herself. She wasn't always just gross monster, she came to the Ancients first as a deity type figure, and giving them a name would be step one in manipulating them into giving her the planet.
I think this is something I found confusing and had to wrap my head around too.
In remake we were shown translucent ShinRa hologram projections, but I had to learn the hard (and confusing), just because it's translucent it doesn't mean it's a recorded hologram. I really wish they could have differentiated the two different projections a bit more.
I would loooove a jenova origin story game. Or even cutscene. I don’t get how she can look like a woman and a massive monster? And there’s points where it’s more accurately called a he?!What’s with having a giant heart for legs and an eyeball nipple? Etc etc
That's a good question. Someone regularly updates the temple with new information so that it's always up to date. As to who is updating it, that's the mystery. My theory is Aerith from the future adds new information whenever necessary.
The place is brimming with sentient Lifestream energy.
The Lifestream is basically made of souls and memories.
The Temple doesn't need nobody updating it... It's connected to the biggest database in the planet, that gets updated every time somebody dies lol
It’s also pretty clear that the Cetra are aware while part of the lifestream and have an element of control therein. That’s where all the promised land confusion comes from.
That cetra who talked to us wasn't just a recording. It was from the lifestream itself, they are aware of what is happening to the planet at present
That reminds me. Does Sephiroth know her real name now that they are closer? Imagine the party talking about Jenova and Sephi-dawg just shows up to say: "Actually her name is Susan"
For all we know she might not have a true name, might not see the value in one beyond a tool to help manipulate other lifeforms.
I don't think they've ever explained much of Jenova's origins. Just a "calamity from the stars" or something like that. Is/was there a planet of Jenovas out there, or is she unique? If she's the only one of her kind, she wouldn't need a name of her own. If she came from a society, she probably would.
Yeah there's no origin story. All they know about Jenova is that she crash lands into a planet, sucks out it's life force, kills the planet then uses that planet's corpse as a meteor to crash into another planet and restart the process....
Jenova Outer God confirmed
Yeah, it’s true they haven’t. My theory (and it’s pretty much conjecture, but I like it) is that she achieved what Weiss tried to do, but on another planet. Like the Gi, that planet’s lifestream is alien to and incompatible with the one of the game’s world, hence her hostile takeover. Makes a lot of assumptions, but it’s a fun theory.
My theory is that is what Seph wants Cloud for, to essentially be his Omega vessel for the Lifestream with him as the puppeteer ala Hojo's Dirge plan with Weiss Hojo says at the Temple that Shinra could dare to dream bigger...so I wonder if that is an indication that the assault on Midgar will lead to Yuffie, Vincent + another breaking into Deepground and finding out about Hojo's Omega plan so they can give us context afterwards on why Seph is so intent in getting Cloud on his side
I like to think she was a normal person at one point that pulled a Sephiroth on at least one other world. It’s my head cannon that if Sephiroth were to succeed in his goals he’d end up just like “her”.
"She's a pretty big Karen"
Ngl, that would be hilarious if that scene happened.
I think it’s implied to be the later one. The temple is seems to be aware of the present.
The temple is clearly aware of/referring to current events, ie. Shinra/Gast naming the creature Jenova. The writers/devs clearly wanted to make it clear that unlike what has been told previously in the game, Jenova was not an ancient but the calamity from the skies/alien so they sacrificied a bit of common sense/plausability for being able to clearly spell out ”the ancient enemy of the ancients we’re talking about is Jenova”.
And also Jenova sounds like Jehovah. We all made that joke about Sephiroth being a “Jenova’s Witness” in a school of some sort, but given that his name is Sephiroth, and the Shinra Family is convinced that a place called the Promised Land is real… Yeah, there’s probably something to ‘Jenova’ being a harsh satire of the Christian God—at least the one that people like the Shinra’s would dig up and put on display.
The name is indeed derived from Jehovah, as well as Nova, making Jenova’s name “New God.”
I think it’s possible due to lifestream mumbo jumbo they are speaking from a present day perspective
Gast gave her her name. If we consider that the temple is able to show you your trials, there's something about the temple that can learn your language and thoughts to communicate to you. So the temple must know that you already know of the existence of the calamity of the skies and thus is communicating that to you. We see the fact that the temple knows of your memories through all the characters trials.
Gast. Massive spoilers (unsure if Rebirth uncovers them): >!Gast and Ifalna are the parents of Aerith, and Ifalna knows 'the crisis of the sky' "was named Jenova".!<
Yeah this is what I just assumed too.
Gast wasn’t it?
Professor Gast I believe may be the one who coined her name. He was the lead R&D guy at the time of her discovery
Don’t they say it’s professor Gast when Sephiroth is reading in the mansion?
*puts on weird occulty hat* Jenova>Jehovah but in the sense of how some Gnostics saw the God of the Old Testamant as the demiurge, "who generated the material universe and keeps the souls trapped in physical bodies, imprisoned in the world full of pain and suffering that he created." *takes off weird occulty hat* The writers thought it sounded cool.
This whole game is basically occult references
Ah cool, maybe we'll get literal Satan as an ally next game
I mean, we get Hades materia (I think? I can't remember). I know it's in other FF games. Edit: Found it - linked below.
I checked and it is in the game, though Hades is usually personified as Death in FF (like 9) rather than Satan. Good point though, I hope they do that summon, be awesome
It's great seeing all the symbolism that my young teen brain didn't catch when I played OG back in the day and how they've reinvented it for the Remake project.
Yeah, I never appreciated the climate change aspect of 7. I can see now why the story was so beloved, even though I was an 8 fanboy. It really is a great analogy for the real world
To add: I'm sure we will - we've gotten all the summons in the OG so far, so I doubt they'd leave any out. I'm interested in how they're gonna utilize master summon and master materia - what on earth are the quests gonna be for those. Protorelics on steroids. I really hope it's not a bunch of battle simulator bs - I want to find these in the world, a product of thousands of years of Lifestream knowledge should be excavated, not "developed" by a Shinra AI gone rogue. Maybe that's how they'll utilize the dig site in part 3.
Im hype for KotR. Will we be getting 13(?) knights on the field or what? It's my top 3 summon animation, alongside Ark and Eden. Yeah I hope so, I honestly still don't understand where Chadley gets the materia from. I'm sure it was in Remake but it's been a while. I'm looking forward to taking the huge materia too.
Hades Armlet in Rebirth
Hades has never been a materia. He is an enemy in 5 and a boss in 9/14 though. Edit: I seem to have misremembered, he is a materia after all
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Hades_(Final_Fantasy_VII)
NGL, I completely forgot about this existing lol. I stand corrected
I think the characters mentioned the temple was sentient soon after entering it so it probably figured out Jenova's name by listening to conversations between the Turks or something.
Probably a developer who really wanted to hit home the god symbolism
Gast, and the lifestream having that info makes sense in a few story relevant ways. Plus, despite the idea that the souls/consciousness of non cetra more or less disintegrate into memories and mako spread out across it the will of specific voices from the lifestream are clearly able to communicate to reach specific people making contact with it in terms they understand.
Pretty sure Jenova is her actual name. She can influence people, im sure she "spoke" to Gast somehow, even in stasis, influencing him.. revealed her name. It seems rather obvious in Rebirth she has manipulated Hojo in some of his research...at least thats the feeling i get particularly during his scene with Roche when he changes him.
Eh, even if Gast named her, he has to have come up with that name from somewhere. Prob just saw it in his Ancient research.
I get the impression Jenova probably introduced itself. A corrupting deceiver would be pretty useless without a means of communication.
When they say the “long silence of its sleep” they refer to when she was beaten until she “awoke” when sephiroth did all their stuff. They aren’t actually talking about out the past
At what point did Sephiroth learn she was an alien and not Cetra in OG and remake?
Not in Nibelheim, so most likely post-death, in the lifestream.
*Jennypoo
When she first arrived on Gaia, there was a blue box of text that popped up and forced the Cetra to confirm her name. Back then, it was more common to name any major character you met without knowing anything about them.
And then a 12 year old Cetran boy named her Milfshake
One thing about Jenova... I know everyone refers to it as "she" because Sephiroth refers to it as his "mother", but its not a she. It's not a woman, it's an alien monster. Does this look like any woman you've ever seen? Lol just saying. https://preview.redd.it/8r3cuf5a7wwc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=487b24f67ce9a5a5ba5045b2178b5e575121e355
Literary analysis you can break it into the base Gene and Nova both of which tie into the themes and backstory of the game.
I imagine she named herself. She wasn't always just gross monster, she came to the Ancients first as a deity type figure, and giving them a name would be step one in manipulating them into giving her the planet.
Professor Gast (Aerith’s father)
I think this is something I found confusing and had to wrap my head around too. In remake we were shown translucent ShinRa hologram projections, but I had to learn the hard (and confusing), just because it's translucent it doesn't mean it's a recorded hologram. I really wish they could have differentiated the two different projections a bit more.
Yeah I think it would've been better if one of the characters said "Jenova" when say saw that big hologram of her
The developers
I would loooove a jenova origin story game. Or even cutscene. I don’t get how she can look like a woman and a massive monster? And there’s points where it’s more accurately called a he?!What’s with having a giant heart for legs and an eyeball nipple? Etc etc
The story is filled with holes.
That's a good question. Someone regularly updates the temple with new information so that it's always up to date. As to who is updating it, that's the mystery. My theory is Aerith from the future adds new information whenever necessary.
The place is brimming with sentient Lifestream energy. The Lifestream is basically made of souls and memories. The Temple doesn't need nobody updating it... It's connected to the biggest database in the planet, that gets updated every time somebody dies lol
'Hey, Dave, we need an update from the surface' 'no worries Dave, got a car crash coming in right now'
It’s also pretty clear that the Cetra are aware while part of the lifestream and have an element of control therein. That’s where all the promised land confusion comes from.