Do Jenova From Final Fantasy VII & Lavos From Chrono Trigger Belong To The Same Species?

Final Fantasy VII Remake gives fans cause to look into an old theory on a connection between FF and Chrono Trigger.

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Final Fantasy VII is the game that helped JRPGs find a mainstream audience in the west. There were many fans who became curious about the first six Final Fantasy games after they were finished with VII, which led many of them to check out the other games released by Squaresoft. It didn’t take those fans long to discover the masterpiece that is Chrono Trigger, which became easily accessible to fans across the globe thanks to emulation.

Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII were both adored by vocal fanbases in the early days of the Internet. As such, many fans quickly saw a link between the villains of both games. Jenova of Final Fantasy VII and Lavos from Chrono Trigger share a lot of similarities in their design and purpose, and the fact that so much is left unexplained about them left the fans a lot of room to fill in the blanks for themselves. Final Fantasy VII Remake could teach fans more about the true nature of Jenova in future entries, which is why we’re going to examine one of the oldest Square Enix gaming theories and see if it holds any water.

The Shared Development Of Chrono Trigger & Final Fantasy VII

Any similarities between Jenova and Lavos could be attributed to the fact that Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII shared several key developers. Yoshinori Kitase was a co-director of Chrono Trigger and the sole director of Final Fantasy VII, while Masato Kato worked as a writer on both games. The development of both games overlapped and the production of Final Fantasy VII was stopped in order for the team to help finish work on Chrono Trigger.

The concept of Jenova changed many times throughout the development of Final Fantasy VII. Jenova was originally meant to be the name for a gene or part of the brain that could unlock magical powers. The original concept for Jenova was later used in Parasite Eve. The limitations of the Super Nintendo (and Nintendo’s notoriously strict content guidelines of the era) restricted how the developers could portray Lavos in Chrono Trigger, so it’s possible that Jenova reflects the original scope for what they wanted with Lavos.

The Cosmic Horrors

It didn’t take long for fans to realize the similarities between Jenova and Lavos, to the point where it became a popular fan theory that they belong to the same species.

We know nothing of the origins of either Jenova or Lavos, but we do know why they travel from planet to planet and destroy the lifeforms that inhabit them. Both Lavos and Jenova move from world to world and use them as sustenance, as this is seemingly how they breed and feed. In Lavos’ case, it buried itself beneath the crust of the planet and began draining its energy. Lavos also absorbed information from the DNA of the living beings on the planet, in order to add their potential to its offspring. Once Lavos was done with a world, it would burst forth from the ground and annihilate as many lifeforms as it could with an apocalyptic attack, before continuing its journey to another planet.

Jenova’s plan is a little more vague, as the villain’s role in Final Fantasy VII was taken by the Shinra Corporation and Sephiroth. Jenova was slain long before the events of the game began, but the effects of her actions are felt into the modern-day. Jenova aims to use a planet as her vessel on a journey through the cosmos, which involves wiping out the populace. When Jenova arrived from outer space, she used her shapeshifting ability to move among the Cetra (the magic-using natives of the planet) and spread a virus among them, as her DNA could take over living beings and turn them into monsters. Unlike Lavos, Jenova was defeated by the Cetra before she could wipe out all life on the planet and she likely would have been stopped by the Weapon monsters before she could have departed into space. It took the intervention of time travelers to stop Lavos, as the world of Chrono Trigger lacked the defenders to protect itself from an alien invader.

The fact that Jenova and Lavos are both extraterrestrial lifeforms that travel from world to world, influencing the lifeforms on each planet before wiping them out and heading back out into the galaxy suggests to many fans that they belong to the same species. Some fans have also noticed a visual connection between the two, as the final form of Jenova that players face in Final Fantasy VII (Jenova-SYNTHESIS) has a spiky back that resembles Lavos’ shell.

Cross, DS, & Remake

Lavos reappeared in a new form in Chrono Cross, though we don’t learn any more about its origins. Once Lavos was defeated in Chrono Trigger, it was sent to the Darkness Beyond Time, which is the place where all nullified timelines are sent to. Lavos found Schala there and the two joined together to become the Time Devourer, which threatened all of reality. In Chrono Trigger DS, it was revealed that Lavos/Schala were temporarily bound together as a creature called the Dream Devourer.

In Final Fantasy VII Remake, the player doesn’t learn any new information about Jenova’s origins, but they do get to battle a new version of her within the Shinra Headquarters. This version of Jenova is called Jenova Dreamweaver and using the Assess ability on it reveals that it has the power to induce hallucinations. Is it possible that Jenova Dreamweaver is meant to be a reference to the Dream Devourer?

In Final Fantasy VII Remake, the story is going in a new direction from the original game, as the cast is able to defy the Arbiters of Fate and forge a new path for themselves. It’s heavily implied that Sephiroth has knowledge of the events of Final Fantasy VII, which is why he wants the party members to break free from their original course of action. Now that Final Fantasy VII Remake has (seemingly) added time travel to the story of the original game, the connections between Jenova and Lavos are more blatant than before.

If Final Fantasy VII Remake is introducing the concept of multiple timelines, then Sephiroth (thanks to his Jenova cells) might have survived when the original timeline came to an end. Advent Children and On the Way to a Smile confirmed that he could linger on in the Lifestream and resist being reincarnated, thanks to his Jenova cells. It’s possible that Sephiroth survived until the end of time and has come back to change the events that led to his defeat. Sephiroth’s comments about the “edge of creation” could also mean that he will become a threat to reality itself, becoming a Final Fantasy VII equivalent to the Time Devourer.

All of this raises the question of whether future Final Fantasy VII Remake games will confirm a connection between Jenova and Lavos. It’s unlikely outside of a fleeting reference, in the same way that Final Fantasy VII Remake threw in a small easter egg that connects it to the world of Final Fantasy X. It’s hard enough for people new to the Final Fantasy franchise to understand some scenes in Final Fantasy VII Remake (like Zack’s last stand), and it would be even more ridiculous for Square Enix to expect fans to be caught up on the stories of two unrelated games, one of which cannot easily (or legally) be played on modern systems. Jenova worked best as an unknowable threat and it’s likely that she will remain that way in future Final Fantasy VII Remake games, so it’s unlikely that we will learn her origin stories, or if she is connected to Lavos. There is a lot of evidence to suggest a connection between the two, but the fans probably won’t see a canon confirmation of them belonging to the same species.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/jenova-final-fantasy-vii-lavos-chrono-trigger-same-species/