If there’s one thing that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has gone to great lengths to prove, it’s how Sephiroth has a much larger presence than in the original game. Sephiroth is a lot more present in the plot and confronts Cloud and the rest of AVALANCHE on a much more frequent basis, which is nice and does lead to some wonderful set-pieces, but it obfuscates the true villain of Final Fantasy VII. Through all of its versions, whether it be the original timeline, remake timeline, or any other timeline, the real villain of the story isn’t Sephiroth, but Shinra’s Chief Scientist Hojo.
In almost every installment in the Final Fantasy VII subseries that Square Enix has cultivated over the past 25 years, one thing is abundantly clear – Hojo is a monster. Of course, mad scientists are a common villain trope, but Hojo’s lack of morals and ethics makes him a truly heinous character in the context of the narrative that Final Fantasy VII wants to tell. Nearly every bad thing that happens in the series can be traced back to him and while Sephiroth is the more dramatic and powerful of the antagonists, Hojo is the more detestable of the two. It was true in the original Final Fantasy VII, it was true in Crisis Core, and it’s still true today thanks to the remakes.
The games certainly do present him as an untrustworthy figure. While Sephiroth exudes a sense of style and grandeur and even develops a sense of camaraderie with his peers while he was still in SOLDIER, Hojo is the complete opposite. He’s grimy and unpleasant and frequently belittles and insults anyone in his presence. He has little regard for human life and is much more interested in manipulating others in service of his research than in developing trust and friendship. Sure, he’s not quite as present in the game’s plot as Sephiroth, but his pursuit of scientific knowledge led to the chaos and destruction that Cloud and his party face in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
While it’s clear from the flashbacks in Nibelheim that Sephiroth was born from genetic experimentations with Jenova, it can’t be understated how integral Hojo was to that process. Crisis Core, the Final Fantasy VII prequel makes it clear that Hojo led that project and did the experiments he did because he was in direct competition with another scientist, Hollander. Sure, both men engaged in genetic experimentation to further their own goals, but there’s something extra insidious about injecting your unborn child with genetically volatile cells in an effort to one-up a rival.
The experiment was a success, resulting in the birth of Sephiroth, and Hojo gaining the influence he needed in Shinra to do whatever the hell he wanted. And like the wonderful father he is, he proceeded to ignore Sephiroth and kept the truth of his birth from him. He honestly deserves to be in the same company as other Father of the Year contenders like Shou Tucker and Gendo Ikari.
From then on, it seemed like no one ever had a single positive thing to say about him. Within the context of the narrative, Sephiroth’s turn to villainy is somewhat tragic and even sympathetic. He discovered the true nature of his birth, went insane, and the life and reputation he had built as the strongest member of SOLDIER came crashing down around him. He had a mental breakdown and never had the ability to process everything that Hojo did to him. People like Cloud and Zack respected him. Nobody respects Hojo. The other Shinra executives find him offputting and barely tolerate his presence. Genesis, the product of Hollander’s research, finds him vile. Sephiroth thinks he’s an inferior and disturbing man, calling him “a mass of complexes.” Aerith and the rest of the party think of him as a monster and they barely interact with him. Within any product surrounding Final Fantasy VII, it’s hard to find anyone who has a single nice thing to say about Hojo.
Despite that, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth don’t seem to acknowledge that fact. It’s true that we don’t have any glamorous boss fights with Hojo in the remakes (yet). If the inevitable conclusion to the remake trilogy decides to keep Hojo’s role in the game’s climax intact, then we’re almost certainly going to get one hell of a boss fight, but that’s still years away. For now, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is content with giving the fans what they want; more Sephiroth. Much like in Final Fantasy VII Remake, there are enough changes within the narrative to justify fighting Sephiroth at the end of each game. These moments are full of spectacle and energy and showcase just how cool of a villain he is, but it’s pretty evident that these sequences seem to satisfy more a gameplay function rather than a narrative one.
But then again, Sephiroth is the more presentable villain. He’s easier to digest. Hojo isn’t.
Hojo is a man who isn’t afraid to murder his colleagues and steal their research. He’s a man who will tell a girl that he killed her mother and offers to show her the corpse. He’s a rapist. He’s ruined countless lives, arguably more than Sephiroth given how Sephiroth spent years lost in the Lifestream. And he’d do all of it again in a heartbeat to satisfy his own curiosity. He even nearly dooms all of Midgar in the original game to aid Sephiroth just to see what would happen.
Also, consider just how much screen time Hojo is given in nearly all other supplemental Final Fantasy VII material. He’s the true antagonist of Dirge of Cerberus, which is fitting given how he completely ruined Vincent Valentine’s life. Crisis Core makes him one of the game’s final antagonists as he begins his experiments on Zack and Cloud. While Sephiroth looms large over the plot of Final Fantasy VII given how public his actions were, Hojo’s are worse due to how little we actually know about them. There’s always something more chilling about leaving the true extent of a villain’s actions to the viewer’s imagination.
Ultimately though, that doesn’t matter to most fans of Final Fantasy VII. Sephiroth is the poster boy for Final Fantasy villains and when you think of great video game villains, he’s usually one of the first people that pop into your mind. He has a sleek design, he has an iconic weapon, the songs associated with him are iconic, and his actions lead to some of the most important scenes in all of gaming. But it’s important to remember who made Sephiroth the way he was. Who was the person that not even Sephiroth could tolerate? Who was the man who had such a callous disregard for ethics and human life that led to Spehiroth’s creation? Who was the person who time and time again made the life of everyone he interacted with worse? It’s Hojo.
Sure, within the context of the narrative, Sephiroth is the main antagonist of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. That much can’t be disputed. But as to who is the real villain of the entire Final Fantasy VII story, it isn’t Sephiroth or even the space alien Jenova. It’s the reclusive and glowering old man who combined the two of them. True power, and true villainy, stay in the shadows, and Hojo is nothing if not the shadiest individual in all of Final Fantasy VII.
