Originally Posted by Squall of SeeD
1) _-The JENOVA Thesis-_
-Explanation of JENOVA and its Goal-
JENOVA is an ancient lifeform that arrived on the Planet Gaia some 2,000 years
before the main events of the game. Its landing site was the giant fissure --
and wound to the Planet -- known as the "Northern Crater." The area where
JENOVA had arrived was in the vicinity of the land known as the "Knowlespole"
in those days. The Knowlespole was likely a lush and fertile land, as it was
the home of a Cetra tribe that had cultivated it. These Cetra at the
Knowlespole had been the first to discover the Planet's wound and attempted to
help the Planet heal, using their abilities to guide the Planet's flow of
Spirit Energy to the wound. However, the wound was too severe, and would have
to be left to the Planet to heal on its own. Further still, due to the
Planet's Spirit Energy being redirected to the Northern Crater, the land
around the area of the Crater -- the Cetra's Knowlespole -- withered away, and
the Planet tried to persuade the Cetra to leave the land they loved.
As they prepared to abandon their land, a being appeared at the Northern
Crater and approached them, feigning friendship, appearing to them (either
through projected psychic illusions, or through shapeshifting) as their dead
relatives. When it got close enough, it infected those Cetra that it could
with a virus that caused insanity and physical transformation into monsters,
and then proceeded to approach other Cetra clans and do the same to them.
This being was JENOVA, the Crisis from the Sky:
Gast
"Tell us Ifalna... Where is the land called 'Knowlespole'?"
Ifalna
"Knowlespole refers to this area. The Cetra then began a
Planet-reading."
Gast
"Ifalna, what exactly does Planet-reading entail?"
Ifalna
"...I can't explain it very well, but it's like having a conversation
with the Planet..."
"It said something fell from the sky making a large wound."
"Thousands of Cetra pulled together, trying to heal the Planet..."
"But, due to the severity of the wound, it was only able to heal
itself, over many years."
Gast
"Do the Ancients, rather, the Cetra, have special powers to heal the
Planet?"
Ifalna
"No, it's not that kind of power. The life force of all living things
on this Planet becomes the energy."
"The Cetra tried desperately to cultivate the land so as not to
diminish the needed energy..."
Gast
"Hmm, even here so close to the North Cave, the snow never melts."
"Is that because the planet's energy is gathered here to heal its
injury?"
Ifalna
"Yes, the energy that was needed to heal the Planet withered away the
land... then the Planet..."
"The Planet tried to persuade the Cetra to leave the Knowlespole,
but..."
Gast
"Ifalna... Let's take a break."
Ifalna
"I'm all right... When the Cetra... were preparing to part with the
land they loved..."
"That's when it appeared!"
"It looked like... our... our dead mothers... and our dead brothers.
Showing us spectres of their past."
Gast
"Who is the person that appeared at the North Cave? I haven't any
idea."
Ifalna
"That's when the one who injured the Planet... or the 'crisis from
the sky', as we call him, came."
"He first approached as a friend, deceived them, and finally......
gave them the virus."
"The Cetra were attacked by the virus and went mad... transforming
into monsters."
"Then, just as he had at the Knowlespole."
"He approached other Cetra clans...... infecting them with... the
virus..."
A small number of uninfected Cetra banded together and mounted an assault on
the Crisis, defeating it and sealing it away, though how is not explained in
the game. JENOVA is eventually discovered by Professor Gast of Shin-Ra Inc.,
studied, and falsely believed to have been a Cetra by the Professor. Sadly, he
and his assistant Hojo extract some of the creature's Cells and use them to
the effort of enhancing Sephiroth while still in the womb of his mother,
Lucrecia, in an attempt to create a new Cetra, and thus a great many of the
problems that have to be faced by AVALANCHE and the Planet Gaia begin.
The exact details of the creature's origin are unknown, but what it is, and
what it's goal was, can be determined. JENOVA was essentially a virus. The
virus it unleashed upon the Cetra was actually its own Cells, which are stated
in-game to be capable of changing form:
"The ability to change one's looks, voice, and words, is the power of Jenova."
Viruses have two goals: 1) Survival, and 2) replication. By infecting other
life forms, JENOVA was replicating, as these other creatures would be part of
JENOVA itself, an extension of the creature.
We find further suggestion of this concept in the official Final Fantasy VII
novel, "On the Way to a Smile," written by Kazushige Nojima, which serves to
bridge the two-year gap between the events of Final Fantasy VII and those of
Advent Children. In this story, Denzel tells Reeve that those people INFECTED
(note the terminology) with JENOVA's Cells that were spread by the Lifestream
flowing across Midgar were discharging a black pus through the pores of their
bodies. With this in mind, recall that the malady known as "Geostigma" is
revealed in the film to be the result of the body overworking itself in an
effort to rid itself of JENOVA's Cells. When JENOVA's Cells entered people, at
first they would discharge this black pus, as this is the body's natural
reaction to an intrusion by viruses: One's natural immune system involuntarily
rushes white blood cells to the location of an infectious substance within
one's body in an attempt to contain it and then discharge it from the body.
That's exactly what was happening with those infected by JENOVA's Cells.
However, the virus was too strong to be removed as simply as random bacteria
would be.
In regard to the creature's gender, while it typically appears as a female
during the main events of the game, in light of its ability to change its
shape ("Sephiroth: 'Cloud... Don't blame Tifa. The ability to change one's
looks, voice, and words, is the power of Jenova.'"), and it -- or parts of it
to be more specific -- taking the form of Sephiroth during the course of the
game, it cannot be reasonably classified as female with any strong measure of
certainty, nor as male. It may very well be genderless.
NOTE: That JENOVA had taken a male's form before this point, and that the
Cetra had not even identified it as having a gender for certain, is something
that is often fallaciously made reference to based on the following dialogue:
Gast
"Who is the person that appeared at the North Cave? I haven't any
idea."
Ifalna
"That's when the one who injured the Planet... or the 'crisis from
the sky', as we call it, came."
"HE first approached as a friend, deceived them, and finally......
gave them the virus."
"The Cetra were attacked by the virus and went mad... transforming
into monsters."
"Then, just as HE had at the Knowlespole."
"HE approached other Cetra clans...... infecting them with... the
virus..."
Note that other times, JENOVA is simply referred to as an "it":
Cloud: "...Did IT get away? Jenova...?"
Barret: "Where's ITS $#&*&@ head? This whole thing's stupid. Let's keep
goin'."
Ifalna: "When the Cetra... were preparing to part with the land they loved..."
"That's when IT appeared!"
"IT looked like... our... our dead mothers... and our dead brothers. Showing
us spectres of their past."
Further, while the PlayStation Version of FFVII's script has JENOVA being
referred to as a "he" during those first parts of Ifalna's story related above
from the Original Crisis Reports seen at Icicle Inn, in the PC Version of the
script, in which many errors were corrected, all dialogue during the Original
Crisis Reports refers to JENOVA as an "it." Taking this into account, the
gender references within the PlayStation version of the script would not be
valid in regard to discussing the matter of JENOVA. JENOVA's shapeshifting
abilities and the fact that Ifalna didn't identify the creature by any gender
tells us that JENOVA cannot reasonably be considered as definitely being
female, or definitely having a gender at all.
