Original Story

another way to see it

Despite sticking to the same general frame -- Turk Vincent fell in love with Lucrecia, Lucrecia rejected him for Hojo, Lucrecia fell ill from the Jenova Project, Vincent was shot protesting, etc. -- the portrayals of Vincent and Lucrecia's relationship in the original Final Fantasy VII and the newer Dirge of Cerberus manage to be strikingly different. It wasn't even possible to refer to a blend of both in this website; it either had to be one or the other.

What makes the difference between the two games? The main deciding factors are the depth of Lucrecia's character, the reasons behind her decisions, and the role and persona of Professor Hojo. In reality, Square Enix did nothing more than fill in the existing holes, but it's surprising how just that can drastically alter the story's meaning. (Incidentally, Vincent was probably the character most unaffected by the retconning.)

FFVII, from the start, gave a distinctly different impression from DoC. As a surprised Vincent rushed towards Lucrecia in the cave behind the waterfall, she yelled at him to stay back. She didn't seem the least bit concerned about him -- even as he expressed his relief at her being alive, she wept about how she wanted to die. She then proceeded to ask about Sephiroth. If Vincent was hurt by her disregard for him, he didn't show it. Instead of further damaging her fragile emotional state by telling her the truth, he lied and said Sephiroth was dead.

The flashback itself -- though vague -- seemed to emphasize a one-sided love from Vincent. He was shown conversing with Lucrecia on a walk through Nibelheim, showing that he did have some sort of friendly relationship with her. However, when the scene switched to that of Vincent holding Lucrecia's hands, she broke away and ran off, obviously distressed. Later, she was shown in the arms of Hojo, hugging him passionately, while Vincent looked away a couple yards off. When he and Hojo argued about the experiments performed on Lucrecia, she simply stood apathetically on the side.

Between the conversation and the accompaning flashback, the player will get the impression that Lucrecia felt nothing for Vincent. If she really did love him, why would she so adamantly order him to stay away from her? Why would she appear to care nothing of how Vincent had obviously suffered for her? It would have only made sense for her to be aware of how Hojo shot and experimented on him -- why did she not express any concern for these things?

The sequence never provides explanations for its most important scenes. Whether this was for the purpose of preserving Vincent's mysteriousness or out of good ol' laziness we don't know. What we do know is that it left a ton of things open to interpretation. However, the basic meaning is clear: based on these events, it can be implied that Lucrecia never thought of Vincent as a love interest because her heart truly laid with Hojo.

site index