User blog:Pat141elite/PE Proposal:Professor Hojo

Though we're five months away before the Final Fantasy VII Remake, my focus on this proposal is the one of the FFVII compilation's key antagonist, Professor Hojo. Take note that the article had the "PE" category, but it hasn't yet given an approval. So I will take this s

What is the work?
Final Fantasy VII follows the story of mercenary Cloud Strife, who is hired by the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE—led by Barret Wallace—to help fight the mega-corporation Shinra Electric Power Company, who attempts to drain the planet's lifeblood as an energy source to further their profits. Apathetic to the cause, Cloud initially fights for personal gain, and for the promise he made to childhood friend Tifa Lockhart. Cloud eventually joins forces with many others to save the planet, which is threatened by Shinra and Cloud's nemesis Sephiroth, and discovers a reason to fight for a cause other than his own.

Who is the villain?
Professor Hojo is one of the overarching antagonists in the game besides Sephiroth himself. Hojo is the main mastermind behind SOLDIER and the Jenova Project, and initially heads the Shinra Electric Power Company's Science Research Division. However, Hojo's goals stand apart from Shinra's, with a focus on scientific pursuits and monitoring the actions of his greatest creation, Sephiroth, who is in fact his biological offspring.

What he has done?
Hojo's very existence is among the reasons that drove Sephiroth to madness in the first place, and that's saying something.

To begin, thirty years before the events of the game, Shinra's top researcher, Gast Faremis, discovered Jenova, a destructive extraterrestrial being, buried in the North Crater. He mistakenly believed Jenova to be a Cetra, a member of a mystical ancient race that inhabited the Planet before present day humanity. Dr. Hollander, Hojo, and another Shinra scientist named Lucrecia Crescent, were assigned to work on the Jenova Project under Professor Gast.

The project's ultimate goal was to create a human with the powers of the Cetra who could lead Shinra to the Cetra's Promised Land. It was believed this could have been realized by testing the effects of Jenova cells on an unborn child. Hojo worked on what would come to be called "Jenova Project S" while Hollander worked on "Jenova Project G".

Lucrecia became the romantic interest of Vincent Valentine, a member of the Turks assigned as the scientists' bodyguard. Due to her guilt over causing Vincent's father's death, Lucrecia rejected him and entered into a relationship with Hojo. Lucrecia became pregnant, and she and Hojo offered up their unborn child to the Jenova Project. Vincent objected and during a heated argument Hojo shot Vincent and performed experiments on his body before leaving him sealed in a coffin in the Shinra Manor basement in Nibelheim.

After an incident where Lucrecia attempted to save Vincent's life by infusing him with Chaos, and his brief transformation into Chaos, Hojo conducted an experiment to summon Omega and see the results of Omega's awakening. Eager to produce a superior specimen to Hollander's methods, where Hollander had injected a woman named Gillian Hewley with Jenova cells and then transferred her cells to a fetus, Hojo injected Jenova cells into Lucrecia's unborn child. The child Lucrecia had was Sephiroth. Eventually the superiority of Sephiroth over Hollander's specimen, Genesis Rhapsodos, led to Hojo taking control of Shinra's Science Research Division and all experiments involving Jenova.

Although Sephiroth did not gain the powers of the Cetra as originally envisioned, his physical strength was exceptional, and so Shinra raised Sephiroth to be the ultimate soldier, becoming a hero in the Wutai War. Sephiroth was unaware of his parentage, being told his mother was named Jenova, and never knowing Hojo was his father.

Twenty days after Aeris's birth Hojo led a team of Shinra operatives to their home. Hojo killed Gast and captured Ifalna and Aeris. The last two Cetra would spend seven years in captivity in the Shinra Building in Midgar before escaping to the Midgar Slums where Ifalna died from wounds sustained in their escape, entrusting Aeris's care to Elmyra Gainsborough before her death.

In Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-, Hojo indirectly fuels Fuhito's ambition to create the Ravens, Fuhito's twisted counterpart SOLDIERs. Hojo had implanted the Zirconiade Materia within Elfé, the leader of the first AVALANCHE. Hojo is mentioned by the Turks when they are dispatched to Cosmo Canyon to capture Red XIII to be used as a test subject.

During the events of Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Hojo works in the Shinra Building Training Room prior to the first attack by the Genesis Army. He tests programs he created aiming to prove his genius by having a SOLDIER member Zack defeated. When Zack survives, Hojo tells him they will have a special relationship. During his visit, the scientists normally stationed there show their fear and disgust of Hojo. Hojo continues to challenge Zack in the Hojo's Lab series of missions, pitting him against genetically enhanced monsters and virtual reality simulations.

When Genesis rebels against Shinra he attempts to kill Hojo on behalf of Dr. Hollander, but Zack and Angeal Hewley intervene. Hojo mocks Genesis, and tells him Hollander won't be able to halt his degradation, referring to him as a "second-rate hack who couldn't even cure a cold," and implies Hollander doesn't even know about the Jenova Project. During the encounter Hojo demonstrates knowledge and dislike of the epic LOVELESS — he claims to have read it in the belief it might further his research, but denounces it as "pure drivel".

Five years prior to the start of FFVII, Sephiroth leads a Shinra team on a mission to investigate a malfunction of the Nibel Reactor. The mission ends in a disaster when Sephiroth learns of the experiments tied to his birth and destroys the village of Nibelheim in a rage and attempts to reclaim Jenova stored in the reactor. It is implied in Final Fantasy VII that Hojo deliberately left enough clues for Sephiroth to figure out his origins to manipulate him for his final experiment. SOLDIER First Class Zack Fair and a Shinra guardsman Cloud Strife combat Sephiroth, and though Cloud throws Sephiroth into the pool of Mako within the Mako Reactor, both Zack and Cloud are badly wounded.

Arriving at Nibelheim during Shinra's clean-up, Hojo decides to further his research of Jenova and test his "Jenova Reunion Theory" of divided Jenova cells seeking to reunite. Hojo injects the survivors, including Zack and Cloud, with samples of Sephiroth's genetic material and infuses them with Mako, turning them into Sephiroth Clones. Only Tifa is spared, having been rescued by Zangan before Shinra arrived.

Hojo believed the subjects' minds would break down and they would be driven by the desire to reunite with Jenova. Hojo had numbers tattooed on the hands of each of his successful Sephiroth Clones but Zack and Cloud were deemed failures: Zack because his SOLDIER training and strong will made him resistant to Jenova cells and prevented his mind from collapsing, and Cloud because his mind was too weak and was rendered catatonic. The two would be kept captive beneath the Shinra Manor in Nibelheim until they break out several years later and escape.

During the game proper, when Cloud's group infiltrates the Shinra Headquarters in Midgar to rescue Aeris, who had been kidnapped by the Turks, they witness a Shinra executives' meeting where Hojo also takes part. He explains to President Shinra he plans to breed her with another test subject to create a specimen with a long enough lifespan to withstand the lengthy study. Cloud and his friends follow Hojo to his lab where they find Aeris in an enclosure with Red XIII. They release them and Hojo flees the scene.

The party encounters Hojo again at Costa del Sol during his brief period of retirement from Shinra. Hojo spends his time relaxing on the beach, surrounded by beautiful women. He taunts the heroes and hints at Cloud's status as a Sephiroth Clone and the Jenova Reunion Theory. Much later, at the North Crater, Hojo has returned to Shinra and accompanies them into the crater where Cloud's group and the Shinra executives congregate.

With Cloud's mind reeling from Sephiroth's manipulations and revelations about his false memories, Hojo reveals his Jenova Reunion Theory. When he finds Cloud never received a number, he brushes him aside as a "failed experiment". This insult is the last in a series of traumas that causes Cloud to have a severe mental breakdown, and he willingly hands over the Black Materia to Sephiroth whose body lays dormant in the crater. As the Weapons are awakened Hojo and the others escape on the Shinra airship Highwind.

Having summoned the Meteor, Sephiroth remains in the North Crater and erects a barrier over it preventing his enemies from disturbing him. Shinra's Mako cannon, the Sister Ray, is fired at the barrier, killing Diamond Weapon along the way, destroying it. The Weapon's final salvo of attacks destroys Shinra Headquarters, and the new president Rufus Shinra is presumed dead. With Midgar in chaos and Shinra's leadership fractured, Hojo commandeers the Sister Ray intending to fire the cannon at the North Crater to grant Sephiroth further Mako energy, which Hojo states he does to see the results of his research blossom.

Hojo's actions risk the city's destruction by overloading the Mako Reactors, so Cloud's group parachutes into Midgar to confront him. Hojo reveals he is Sephiroth's father, concedes that Cloud is the most successful Sephiroth Clone, and that he has injected himself with Jenova's cells (which is implied to have cost him what little sanity he had). The party attacks Hojo as he mutates into grotesque forms, and is killed.

In Dirge of Cerberus, Hojo returns as the main antagonist towards the near end of the game by possessing Weiss the Immaculate via a computer-simulated copy of Hojo's personality and memory that he had implanted in the network before his death reassembles and possesses Deepground commander Weiss the Immaculate. Through Weiss, Hojo commands Deepground to massacre the people, triggering the summoning of Omega, the ultimate Weapon that gathers the Lifestream and delivers it to another planet when it senses the Planet is in dire danger.

Hojo within Weiss reveals himself to Vincent and explains his plan three years ago was to inject himself with Jenova cells to perfect his body to merge with Omega. As a back-up, Hojo implanted a copy of his personality and memories on the Worldwide Network, allowing a "neo-Reunion" when it came back on-line and the fragments of the program reunited. Vincent defeats Weiss/Hojo in battle, and Weiss's brother, Nero the Sable, merges with Weiss. Hojo, protesting that Nero will "corrupt" his vessel for Omega, fades away as the brothers become one.

Mitigating Factors
As captioned on the picture, Hojo is easily described as an unrepentant scumbag by most of the main cast, that even includes Sephiroth, who refer to him as "a walking mass of complexes" and seeing him as an inferior scientist to Gast. Vincent also has a strong grudge against Hojo for driving a wedge between him and Lucrecia. A shining example of an archetypal mad scientist, Hojo also showcases symptoms of textbook sociopathy, lack of empathy, and even disturbing signs of god complex. He sees everything around him as his playthings (or test subjects) he can use to achieve his goals with little to no concern of the world in the brink of extinction, something that Lucrecia Crescent found out way too late.

Heinous Standards
The Shinra Inc is nothing short of a corrupt conglomerate that train soldiers, mercenaries, etc. President Shinra was first established as a deplorable individual motivated by greed and power that showed the willingness to eliminates those he called terrorists (i.e., AVALANCHE) who oppose him. While his son, Rufus Shinra is an entirely different story, a tyrannical businessman wanting to instill fear on people, though is shown to have redeemable qualities since Advent Children. Sephiroth himself is a walking apocalypse after driven to insanity after coming to question of his origins. Hojo stands out to be the most heinous of them. He is responsible for Professor Gast's death (Gast is Aerith's father), having covered it up from Shinra. His most horrifying one is the creation of Sephiroth, using his unborn child with Lucrecia as a test subject for the Jenova Project by implanting him with Jenova cells in the embryonic stage, at the same time causing Lucrecia to foresee all the future atrocities done by Sephiroth. In one point in the game, he attempts to have Aerith and Red XIII to be used in a horrifying experiment by interbreeding them to "preserve" their species (Aeris being a Cetra), and provide him with new specimens.

Final Verdict
To sum it up, Hojo is considered as the most evil villain in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.