Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

** Vincent probably thought she was less willing in the experiment on her son than she claimed. Considering that she was nearly in tears when she told him that it was her own choice I can believe it. Which really starts to justify a lot of Vincent's guilt over not stopping her.

*** I dunno. She's already a high-ranking Shinra scientist, who all seem to be pretty unethical, and she already knew she was going to experiment on people. And while [[Even Evil Has Standards]], she's not exactly a paragon of virtue at that point. (Granted, neither is Vincent, being a Turk.)

*** Oh, trust me, I also hate Rufus and the Turks for their actions; one of the biggest reasons why I dislike the [[FF 7]] sequels is how they smooth over and ignore the horrible things they did [[Draco in Leather Pants|just to appeal]] to those fangirls. But to your points - even if their world is more advanced than ours, experimenting on unconsenting subjects is immoral, and this goes double for children and ''especially'' babies. Not only that, but they were injecting him with JENOVAH cells; even if they thought she was an Ancient, they were injecting foreign cells into a baby to see if that child would have special powers. They had no idea what they were doing was safe or not. And even though Sephiroth was 'successful' in the fact that he was a powerful being, they could just have easily doomed him to insanity later in life. That, right there, is an immoral and unethical thing to do, period.<br />But let's say that Vincent has no reason to really judge her for that since he's a Turk, who has no real higher ground. So what else did she do? She started a romantic-esque relationship with Vincent until he found out that she knew his father, and then broke his heart to shove him away. Kinda cruel, but understandable. But she then ran off to ''Hojo'', who ''is'' a complete monster and does ''nothing'' to hide this from anyone. Even if she was hurting emotionally, having a relationship with a man as evil as Hojo is another immoral thing to do (since you are more or less condoning or ignoring what they do).<br />Finally, what she did to Vincent. She genuinely feels sorry for what she did and wants to help Vincent. But the way she did it was experimenting her thesis on him with full knowledge of what would happen to him if she succeeded - that he's turn into the harbringer of the apocolypse fated to cleanse the earth. Even if you were desperate, how is that a moral thing to do to someone, even if you were saving their life? And when she finally gives up, she leaves him there in that lab, knowing the likelihood that Shinra would dissect him or experiment on him more. Why not just put him out of his misery then?<br />Trust me, I like the fact that they tried to flesh Lucrecia out of the rose-tinted vision that Vincent had of her into a more flawed human being. But they did the exact same thing to her that they did with the Turks; ignore the horrible things they did so they can idealize them. Not once does Vincent ever criticise his love for her or even re-evaluate his opinion of her. She's a pure crystalized madonna from beginning to end, like a martyr, despite the fact that her fate is entirely the result of her own flaws. Sorry for the massive TL;DR, but I wanted to explain my criticisms of her character because I really do understand the unfair hate that female characters get.

*** I'm just going to get this out of the way before I type my equally big paragraph on Lucrecia (not a bad thing by the way, so you really shouldn't apologize; it's always best to make your point clear, even if it takes a huge block of text): I don't think the Turks' characterization was catering to fangirls. The first big appearance they have outside of FFVII was in FFVII:AC, which is where everyone seems to claim that they had new characterization. AC made them popular to this new generation, and set off the fangirls. But here's the thing, the way they act in AC isn't much different from the original <ref>(where they discuss their romantic crushes, opt to not fight Cloud due to being on vacation (and slightly drunk), and then there's Reno's "Don't step on the flowers" to the soldiers while he himself is stepping on the flowers, just to name a few)</ref>. The original and AC approach to the characters are basically the same, and it's shown that they genuinely do have some sort of regret for what they did. Keep in mind, most of the fangirls these days are younger, and have never played the original game, which is why the popular depiction in fanon has them wearing leather pants. Also, take a look at On the Way to a Smile[http://thelifestream.net/ffvii-advent-children-complete/5602/on-the-way-to-a-smile-case-of-shinra-translated/\]. Now regarding Lucrecia. I look at it from a psychological standpoint. She's having a[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nervous_breakdown nervous breakdown]. If one lasts long enough, it can lead to impaired judgement, depression, severe anxiety, panic attacks, etc. On top of appearing to be in anguish, she attempted suicide. She's clearly unstable, and needs a doctor. Something many people don't know is that depression isn't something you can pull yourself out of; it's an actual chemical unbalance in the brain that takes medication (sometimes in conjuction with therapy) to correct. No, this doesn't make what she did right, but it makes her licentious behavior understandable. I don't think the game attempts to make what she did seem okay. Lucrecia herself says that she was wrong and, again, spent 25+ years in a crystal for it. But yes, you are right about experimenting on a child. I was under the impression they were going about this similar to how people give their children flue shots<ref>they have been shown to come with severe risks (though rare)but people give them to their children anyway due to the evidence that, more likely than not, it is actually beneficial.(yes, this is a wierd comparison, but it's the best way I can explain it at the moment. And just so we're clear, I'm not advocating child experimentation)</ref>. Now, her design. The white outfit she wears in the crystal (in both FFVII and [[Do C]]) is a stark contrast to her original attire pre-[[Do C]]. She wears black, red and yellow, with an almost goth design, oddly enough[http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120103191761/finalfantasy/images/e/eb/Lucrecia-ffvii-field.png\]. For some reason, it was retconned in [[Do C]] to her new look[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080223075839/finalfantasy/images/5/54/Lucrecia1.jpg\]. Personally, I like the old look better, because I think it shows a sort of visual character development. Her choices were the catalyst for many negative events, and she's painfully aware of that. And this brings me to something else I kind of want to point out/emphasize more: Time. I can't stress how important that really is. 25+ years is a lot of time, and being stuck alone for that long gives one so many opportunities to reflect on their life and the choices they've made.

**** The amount of Lucretia hate is absolutely stunning. Can I quote Vincent? I think I'll quote Vincent. "You are the reason I survived." And...people think that procedure was immoral? In modern medicine, unless you have a Do Not Resuscitate order, your consent to a life-saving procedure is considered to be implied. As far as Sephiroth goes, if that experiment was going to be harmful, she probably would have just miscarried. Which, while tragic, you can't really hold the mother accountable for it, because it's not as thought she has some sort of instinctive knowledge of how to prevent one.

*** Agreed with the above post, regarding Vincent. It's never implied that he's stupid or blinded by love; he's just wise enough to look at her motives and know that she didn't want to hurt him.<ref>Also note that we only get glimpses of her in the game, compared to what Vincent had. He would know her better than we do; after all, he asked for her hand in marraige.</ref>Being able to understand the feelings of others is a sign of being mature. Holding a thirty year grudge against someone for breaking up with you and trying to save your life is anything but that.