Final Fantasy 7: The Nibelheim Incident - How Sephiroth Became the Villain 

Sephiroth is the antagonist but Hojo is the villain.

I'm playing FF7 for the first time in a few years. What really stood out to me about the Kalm flashback is how normal it is until Sephiroth goes nuts. He's running the operation but he wants everyone to be loose yet focused during it. He gives everyone a science lesson about materia and isn't uncaring regarding the lives of others. He's very professional in his conduct. And then it all went wrong.

Genesis being added to the Nibelheim Incident makes complete and total sense, especially since his main goal is to prevent himself from prematurely aging. Where else could he have possibly found a chance to reverse the genetic deterioration but at the place where Sephiroth had been experimented on, where Sephiroth had been infused with Jenova's cells and still survives without deterioration?

Wow...I'm left speechless. All this time I always felt that Sephiroth's turn to evil was out of nowhere, but how in depth you go in piecing everything together during the events of the games. This was well done. I can't thank you enough. Masterfully done. Excellent job!

As a kid I watched my brother play this game, I always thought Sephiroth went mad because he read his whole library haha, weird kid I was.

What if Zangan is Cloud's father? His mother explains that Cloud's father could never stay in one place. In his letter to Tifa, Zangan says he can't stay in one place. Could be a reasonable explanation for Cloud's strength and combat skill.

Just binged all 4 videos on this channel, good stuff, hope to see more

Before Crisis and Last Order Nibelheim incident is a bit different because it’s meant to be from the perspective of the Turks. Not believing anyone could defeat Sephiroth, they assumed Sephiroth jumped vs being thrown. Those events are being read by Tseng in Last Order.

What an amazing video: kudos! One thing that always bothered me was how Sephiroth injured Tifa to the point of almost dying yet appears almost unscathed in nearly every game in the series. Hearing how bad her injuries actually were and how long her recovery had been was such a jarring thing to hear but also felt like the last piece of the puzzle.

Thank you for a fascinating video! I love how you've used so many sources to explain the Incident. It makes sense now.

At the end, is all Shinra and Hojo's fault

I really liked this video, great to listen at work. I also like the idea of breaking down parts of the game´s lore and explore them, instead of going through a full game. Great work, i hope you start getting the recognition you deserve. The production values are also very good!

This was exactly the video I was looking for! A comprehensive understanding of every aspect to this key plot point in FF7 and from all of it's reinterpretations. Thank for making this video!

This channel is a hidden gem! I hope you get the recognition you deserve :)

I can't really call sephiroth an evil villian. He snapped and because of several reasons 1.all ppl close to him turned on him so the protective emotional net of ties most ppl have he didn't. 2. He realized he was being used and manipulated by Shinra Inc. Also the guy haven't slept for days so to put a fine point to it he was delirious, mentally unstable,angry and confused. And that's not considering the impact the jenova cells could very well were affecting his thoughts and judgements. Within a blink of an eye he turned from being a Beloved Hero to a brutal murderer. Actions like that ate caused by numerous factors and shouldn't receive that kind of a simplistic label.

This was very well done. Thank you and subbed. Well spoken and paced

I never believe how much lore and importance nibelheim had! Thank you so much!

As fascinating as it is exhaustive. Thank you so much for this video. It really deserves more exposure.

I find it funny how every lore video gives more and more similarities between StarWars and FF VII. Sephiroth and Anakin for example. Both had terrible upbringings and were abused by organizations they pledged their lives to until it became too much and both joined the darkside. And much like the StarWars community the FF community didn't understand Sephiroth's turn to darkness and felt it was just out of place just like Anakins until you look deeper and actually read between the lines do things become more clear. I love both these franchises.

I'll have to listen to this several times to digest it and dissect it. Great job. Liked and subscribed.

Well presented - subbed. Do NOT become plain toast with this subject - passion and talent will show. Thank you for your content.

Amazing explanation!! Loved the video!!

This was an amazing analysis. Thank you for this

Yeah.. I'm surprised this doesn't have more views.. you should make a few more of these.. there's so much lore to get into!

I'm very happy to have found your videos, they are very well done, but I'm sad that the channels seems to have gone dormant. I hope to see you put out more content like this if you ever decide to come back to it.

Cloud defeated him cause he was carrying a pre emptive materia at the time. So he back attacked a weakened sephiroth.

What an amazing video! Well done.

This was amazing.. how is this not more popular?

Genesis’ presence in the Nibelheim Reactor during Crisis Core doesn’t change anything from the original. It simply adds another scene not otherwise seen in the original, or any other piece of FF7 media for that matter. Crisis Core still shows the scene that occurred in the original as well, completely unadulterated, and as it was in the original.

"sketchy stuff was going on there" Oh, I guess that explains the flying pumpkin enemies inside the mansion and the buff blond-haired dudes with metal scythes instead of legs who swing from the ceiling.

I'm revisiting this universe as an adult. Having not played it since around release I have gone through Crisis Core reunion and the remake integrade. It's literally just left me a speechless because when I went through it as a kid I did not pick up on the extent of the Zach and Cloud stuff. It's just so good and I've been totally hooked as of late.

I really how you showed early on how Cloud attacks Sephiroth in Last Order. The scraping of the blades is epic

Thank you for this video.

This creator is fire and her content should not be this hidden. Make it more available RU-vid, do it now. We need an updated version of this video.

Best video I'm watched in a long time.

I’m a year late but the algorithm works. Excellent stuff, subscribed

Excellent video! A lot of stuff I wasn’t aware of (such as Mt Nibel being the first reactor they built). It does make a lot of sense thinking back. I remember when I first played through FF7 as a kid, the Nibelheim/reactor in the flashback creeped me out, a lot lol. The first time I watched the flashback it was late at night and I was staying up late on a Friday night, whole house was dark, then I see the Makonoid (or whatever they’re called), then Sephy’s creepy theme plays when he says “I’m going to see my mother” with the creepy Jenova scene, actually legit gave me the creeps lol. Hey I was only like 10 when it first released. >_>

in the first minutes I thought this might be just a halfassed retelling of what everone knows but it quickly turned into an interesting reconstruction of the events in Nibelheim, very well done

There are many reasons that built up to Sephiroth's rampage, but aside from all of the things that he learned and the recent events with Angeal and Genesis, we can also assume the Jenova cells inside him were becoming active what with being so close to the main body. Even without any of the discoveries he made that factor alone would be enough to explain why he would suddenly lose his mind. In fact it's probably safe to assume that the only reason it took so many reasons combined is because Sephiroth's will was so strong that he was able to resist Jenova from taking over and making him into a puppet.

Criminally underrated channel. Keep up the good work!

Well done you fully explained the correlation between Jenova and Sephiroth. While I wholly agree that Sephiroth is the villain I still have my grievances about him continuing with Jenova's plan/life cycle in using meteror to destroy the plan. In such an instance I would have to say Jenova is the villain....However as you explained and showed that Jenova meeting the group on the boat had NO idea as to who Cloud actually was. Later when Sephiroth finally gains full control of Jenova is when he becomes the villain. I just have to say this Bravo, a job well done. I will add this however, Jenova is something of what we call a MIMIC character. with a MIRROR a mirror Reflects, creating a MIMIC and a mimic Emulates. As they said in the game she would take the form or Mirror image of their loved ones. There are an assortment of these types of characters and I have been researching them all. I can name a few: Mimikyu, Keckleon, Ditto, Castform, Flood from halo (especially the pure forms), X-Parasite from Metroid Fusion and Dread, and Zerg from starcraft the changeling. While there are a lot more and varying types I can only mention this for now, as the rest is research. I'm glad I watched the whole video.

I already knew why Sephiroth went insane and evil, it was because he believed the LIE he's been told since he was a kid that his mother's name was Jenova but that's not his real mother! Also the Jenova reunion experiment was all Hojo's mad scientist ambitions for his mad scientific curiosity.

This video looks like is exactly what I’ve been looking for after recent replays of OG and crisis core.

Please don’t stop making RU-vid videos. This was great.

The S's are piercing my eardrums

Wonderful video 👍

34:51 “Excuse me, Tifa.” “Sure don’t mind me.”

Only Lucrecia can stop Sephiroth

thank you!!!

Last order gets several facts wrong. Sephiroth never jumped into the reactor. Cloud threw him. Cloud also never had a mako eye glow before Hojo took him.

Felt like im Watching National Geographic here

Small channel... Subscribed.

After he lock himself in the mansion and read deep into the reports he started looking at humans like we were ants also that he was cetra and we took the planet from them hence why he slaughtered the town

imagine if he found out who his father is 🤣

I’ve always felt he was sadly misguided… imagine if he knew jenova was an alien and not a cetra…in my mind jenova has always been the main enemy…

What a lovely voice you have

Rebirth’s newest trailer adds even more to this 37:44 👀

Do you guys think that sephiroth was manipulated all his life, even the books? And Shinra too. Even if he was smart enough he would go searching for the real truth instead of lies that he thought was truth

In the new version of Crisis Core they cut a huge part of the journey to Mount Nibleheim and people think its to save development time. But I think they did that on purpose. Because the whole theme of FF7 is about memories and more importantly altered and manipulated memories. I am certain that the second part of FF7 Remake will tell the "true" story of the "Journey to Mount Nibleheim" and give us a very different story to what we are used from OG FF7 and Crisis Core. My guess is that as the title Rebirth states that Cloud is given back all his correct and real memories while Zack is being Reborn (well I hope that Zack is being reborn but it might very well just be a Goodbye to Zack who is den seperated from Cloud.. as currently Cloud in FF7R is having parts and memories of Zack AND Sephiroth in him) THe whole remake was just about Sephiroth freeing himself from Jenovas control and I think the next part will tell the same about Cloud and Zack. The whole Jenova being Sephiroths Mother thing was just falsely implanted memories that were caused by Jenova cells being implanted into Sephiroth. They poisoned their baby with Jenova cells but that doesn't make Jenova Sephiroths mother. Jenova is just a smart plague that mimicks its prey and gives it false memories. Sephiroth had a Mom and Dad just like everyone else and I wonder what this new.. untainted Sephiroth is going to be... Whatever it is part 1 showed us at the very last we will meet him again 7 seconds before the world gets destroyed and he and Cloud will have a role to play in preventing the destruction.

And of course there is a comment section full of people again who do not get the game and believe in the Brittenham theory, not understanding that Jenova is not a villain, not even a character but an alien animal and that the original game explained it was all Sephiroth and his willpower, same goes for all the supplemental material.

I think Last order is like an AU XD

Hajj my beautiful Sephy! *.* I've been otaku for ff7 since a kid from the original JRPG and Remake was a dream that actually came real with Crises Core, an ova special of the Nebeheim incident, the movies, etc. This game was always special to me plus it was my very first JRPG introduced to me by my brother! I'll never understand why can't the US not make American anime and RPGs as the conceptual beautiful artistic view of Japanese ?

awesome

i had never played any of the FF series. got bored of WoW one day (16 years in) and decided to try the FF14. i knew from pop culture a lot about 7 and i felt like even though 14 was a different world and different characters, there was a lot of cross-over and similarities and i knew 7 was the classic title that everyone seemed to love the most. so i finally decided to play 7. it was a bit odd to me that it was a long series with many titles yet there wasn't much connection between most of the games while also being a ton of connections between games. the writing seemed pretty bad and the performances similarly overly dramatic or bad....yet i still enjoyed seeing this insanity and inanity. i tried to make sense as best i could, but not till i played Crisis Core did it click. just watched this video after finishing CC and it confirms my interpretations almost 100%. it was hard to piece together what was really going on and somehow just as hard even after it all happened, but apparently the truth is sprinkled enough.

In Nibelheim, I was forced into ---

Oh I definitely didn't cry at all

You have the voice of a BBC News reporter.

FF7: Ever Crisis is gonna RAMP THIS SHIT UP! Young Sephiroth everyone!!! PS; there may be nothing STRONGER than Sephiroth, but there is someone just as strong: Cloud

I love your accent ❤

holy smokes u have a sibilent voice

let's face it Cloud's Dad probuby wiped the floor with them

I know a lot people and developer believe that Sephiroth somehow overpower Jenova's will. While I admit that his will is powerful, it is not enough to overcome Jenova's influence. Everything he does supports Jenova's goal. The headaches he received during the revelation indicates Jenova was at work. I think Jenova was letting Sephiroth take the reign, but never actually submitted to his leadership. In Japanese, Sephiroth changes his pronouns from ore to watashi. Any thoughts? At the edge of creation, he is using his ore pronoun again, so i am thinking he must have broken free of Jenova's control. Remake is trying to recontextualize who is really in control. Sephiroth might have realized that he, too, was a puppet of Jenova.

The cooments sections says everything i can think about this amazing video. All the best for you and blessings from Mexico.

It’s pretty obvious jenova was the true villain. Before sephiroth was just a regular guy. People liked him. Even with discovering all that i don’t think he would’ve turned evil without jenovas influence. She realized he was near which was why he was so eager to go deeper towards the reactor. She was stringing him along once she sensed he was nearby. Then in a vulnerable moment she took over.

💙💚❤

A thing that I don’t think people take into account is the fact that Sephiroth didn’t sleep for 3 days due to his intense obsession to find the true and read all the reports. Your brain’s cognition and mood are affected and honestly with all that has happened and the information he found out, Sephiroth most definitely snapped in the worst way possible. Why else would he cut off Jenova’s head instead of trying to take all of her out? Lol. I’m joking kinda with the last one. Yeah Seph is so broken here that he is the definition of wrath.

The Nibelheim incident was the blueprint for big events in future titles. It’s what The purge from XIII or The fall of insomnia in XV could’ve been. It’s what the calamity in XIV was. It’s what I’m hoping the death of Joshua in XVI will be. I don’t normally compare the stories of the numbered titles, but the Nibelheim incident is the perfect example of a tragedy that has far reaching consequences.

Genesis is canon ❤ duh 🙄 The devs made Genesis and crisis core is the expansion ff7 needed. And crisis core is the origin story of ff7!

I agree with most of your theories, but I disagree about most of the parts regarding Zack, the first one being that he wasn't so easily defeated by Sephiroth, he was holding back at the start of the fight because he was trying to reason with him, but as the fight drew on and Sephiroth kept trying to cut him down, he received a lot of environmental injuries due to being pushed around since their fight was all over the Jenova chamber, I see it more as a feat of strength that Zack held out for as long as he did, because when Sephiroth was attacking him, he was actually out for blood and was full of rage, and not even Genesis when he was at his prime had been a match for Sephiroth, and later on in Crisis Core you actually had to fight a more powerful form of Genesis, and Zack actually beat Genesis because he didn't have to hold back against someone he didn't care for. The reason why Zack was able to escape all the experimentation, was because he was never stabbed or badly injured like Cloud was, he also possessed a strong mentality and willpower, so he was not going to be influenced by external sources like Jenova or anything, and I also find it as another incredible feat of strength, that Zack after his fight with a more powered up Genesis with barely any rest, he went back to Midgar in order to fight the ENTIRE Shin Ra army, and he eradicated almost all of the forces, except for the last 3 guys who arrived by helicopter, and they basically cheap shotted him, since he was already lying down due to all the excessive damage he had endured, but he still somehow managed to survive all of that, long enough to have one final conversation with Cloud, even after he had been shot in the head and chest several times... Also I strongly believe that Hojo never told all his higher ups, that he had managed to find Zack alive in the cleanup, just so that he could keep him as a test subject, especially after Hojo basically got embarrassed multiple times by Zack’s performance, in all the training experiments he had taken part in, where Hojo was trying to kill him with Summons and stuff, and this makes perfect sense, based on what you mentioned regarding those other games that I didn’t know about, where the Turks basically retreated because they didn’t want to deal with a job that was too dirty even for them, as I think that if Tseng or Cissnei would have known that Zack was alive, they wouldn’t have turned their backs on him due to how close they all were, I don’t think they would have allowed for Hojo to experiment on him, since even one of their own Vincent who used to be a Turk, had been a subject for Hojo’s experimentation and they should have been familiar with that story, everything makes sense though if Hojo covered things up, and the proof is how overwhelmed Cissnei had been with her feelings, once she realized that Zack was alive which is why she did everything she could to try and help him, she may have had trust issues with the other Turks though, as she could have believed that Tseng or the others were in on it, but then Tseng also realized that Zack was alive, which is why he had made the order to every force available to him, to try and make a search for Zack, while of course keeping it confidential what he was doing, since it is possible that some of the higher ups may have also been somehow involved in the coverup, but unfortunately he was unable to save his friend.

Not sure if I'm listening to an A.I. or some sort of Australian Japanese lady. Either way stories about madness are always fascinating, it's like gender dysphoria but you think you're the planet...almost was

I thought this was about Final Fantasy 7. Not the crappy remake. Thumbs down