Character Introspection: the story-arc and development of Vincent Valentine
Vincent Valentine, a character described as a stone lost in the river of time. A character who’s entire set of methods and goals revolves primarily around those who are already long-dead or lost to their mistakes. And most importantly, a character who is driven solely by revenge to join our protagonists without their asking.
while hidden initially as a sort of tertiary character, vincent’s past becomes center-stage when dealing with aspects of other characters and their development and the backstories of characters like sephiroth, hojo president shinRa and professor gast.
when we first meet vincent, he is locked in a room filled with the dead. the room is locked only from the outside with riddles from hojo himself leading cloud and his party to this strange man. in this instance, while vincent makes it seem as though he’s come to terms with being locked away as his choice for penance, we understand that he was forced to endure these 30 long years of isolation.
cloud explains that sephiroth found out about his true self and set fire to nibelheim years ago, to which vincent exchanges information about sephiroth’s real mother, lucrecia crescent. however, hearing about what sephiroth is doing only drives him deeper into self-imposed guilt and despair, and he demands that they leave him be to deal with the nightmares that will punish him.
not before, however, telling them his name and former affiliation.
both cloud and vincent share a former affiliation with shinra and a trust that was broken by the self-same man: professor hojo. though cloud does not know it at this point in the story. the two have both been experimented on by the scientist and left worse for wear.
vincent has been disfigured and filled with the consciousnesses of monsters that gave him the strength to survive. one of which we later find out was put inside of him by lucrecia herself, Chaos. these creatures make it so that he cannot age or function as a normal human would. this includes giving him the ability to heal rapidly.
headcanon a/n: I also attribute these abilities to be the reason that vincent is, aside aerith, given the highest magic stats in the game and the highest amount of mp available at any given time.
rather than asking vincent to accompany the party, cloud and the others do as asked and decide to leave him to his repentant sleep. as they exit the haunted cellar however, vincent rushes after them and claims he intends to go with them so that he can get revenge on hojo himself.
even in side-quests like wutai, vincent portrays absolutely no emotion toward his comrades and their well-being. he is driven and focused only on getting from point a to point b: killing hojo and returning to the manor to continue his long sleep.
so where does this change?
we initially see vincent’s demeanor change in the temple of the ancients, when they come face to face with sephiroth- or what they believe to be sephiroth. when he takes control of cloud’s body and vincent is in the party, he completely flips out. he appears to be running back and forth at the top of the pyramid, searching for an angle to get down and help.
another scene that marks a drastic change in how vincent behaves is the death of aerith.
in this scene, if vincent is in your party, he takes his time not only to say goodbye to aerith, but also to seemingly console cloud through shared silence and eye-contact. he says absolutely nothing, but continues on his way after his point has been made. i take this as a signal from the developers that vincent knows and understands the pain of losing someone you love, be it platonically or romantically, to the point of no return. he and cloud are so alike in how they behave that he understands what this kind of pain might drive the man to do. the death of aerith also makes the need to stop sephiroth much more deeply personal. no longer just trying to ease lucrecia’s and his own pain, he has now lost someone too.
along with the others in AVALANCHE, he also dons a pink ribbon on his right arm (as the left appears to be disfigured) in order to remember his friend, aerith. and while the two spent little time on screen together, i genuinely believe that vincent must’ve considered her a good friend. especially since, similar to how he sought to atone for lucrecia’s death by haunting the mansion, he chooses to haunt The Forbidden City after the events of FFVII to watch over the location. he explicitly states that he goes there often. it’s likely a place of familiarity to him. but given that he also visits the crystal cavern, a place where lucrecia’s spirit rests, he likely also visits the Forbidden City in order to feel at peace with Aerith’s gravesite as well.
In later posts I'll discuss Vincent's role in destroying the world due to Chaos' eventual fusion with him (and his true form and inability to accept the things that have happened to him), as well as finally meeting and seemingly killing Hojo on top of the Sister Ray.
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