You can accept the past and examine it, use what is valuable from it;
or you can return to it to suffer again and again in whatever misery you've already had;
or you can forget it, and be ruled by it in ways you'll never understand.
Corel Village of Coal Mining
Barret is from Corel, a poor mining town hidden in the mountains. The Coal there is important and has been protected for generations. People threw their lives away for it. Barret and the Village wanted to get rid of the coal and upgrade to a reactor. He thought it was a good idea and that it would bring an easier life. He argued with Dyne over this but the town agreed with Barret's vision. An accident occurred at the reactor and Shinra blamed the people of Corel. So, Shinra destroyed everything and the villagers blamed Barret. His wife died in the fire and Barret kept all of this to himself for a long time, until asked about it from the others.
Barret talks about when he and Dyne came back from their
trip and how there was an incident at North Corel:
Old Man: Barret! Dyne! Come quick! The village's being attacked! It's
Shinra soldiers!
Barret: What!!!? What the hell happened?......
Dyne: Hey, Barret! It's not over yet! Everyone's waiting! Let's go back
to the village!
Barret: Hmp!! Old man!!
Dyne: C'mon, Barret! We gotta hurry!
Barret: Krggh!!
Scarlet: Kyaa haa, ha!! You can shoot all day and never hit them with
aim like that.
Barret: Shu'up!!
Scarlet: Haa, ha, ha!! Stop playing around and cover me!
Dyne: Watch out!! (the Shinra soldier opened fire and almost hit Dyne
and he's about to fall off a cliff)
Barret: (grabbed on to Dyne's left arm) Dyne!! Hang on!! Listen to me!!
You're comin' back to the village, hear!!?
Dyne: Yeah... I ain't lettin' go... You're comin' back... Everyone's
waitin' for ya... Eleanor... and Marlene... They all waitin' on us...
We watch a movie of the Shinra soldier's continuously firing and shooting
Barret and Dyne's arms off, each lost an arm and Dyne fell of a cliff.
Barret lost his right arm and Dyne lost his left arm. The memory ended.
Barret: From then on, I couldn't use my right arm no more. ...I was
depressed for a while. But then I threw away my artificial arm and got
this gun grafted in. Got a new right arm to get revenge on the Shinra,
who took everything away... Back then, I heard the doc say there was
another man who got the same operation as me. But, his was the left
arm.
The people of North Corel spurn Barret; he was the one who championed the cause of ShinRa in setting up a reactor at the original Corel (now the Gold Saucer Prison Town). It is slightly confusing when Barret returns to North Corel as he is blamed for destroying that town. Barret believes Corel to be "... here no more. Heard it got buried... in just 4 years". Also, the reactor is nearer North Corel as well, so maybe North Corel is the result of people moving up to work nearer the reactor, and when it shut down and the desert began to envelop Corel, most of the rest of them moved to the wreckage of North Corel to carry on trying to make some kind of living. Anyway, this revelation is told to us by Barret at the Gold Saucer ropeway station. Later in the game, if Barret, Cid and Nanaki manage to stop the train hitting North Corel, Barret will be forgiven. If not, they spurn him again.