#TLDR they're working backwards to make the dynamic more organic

[princesseblade]

Hey, so I saw ur post about infinite darkness' ending and I was wondering what RE Vendetta is all about. I've only seen resident evil's recent games and remakes so I'm pretty rusty with the lore. What ever happens to Cleon in the canonverse and with the path Infinite Darkness prompts them to take?

Sure I got you so:

RE Vendetta takes place in 2014* EIGHT (count em) odd years after Infinite Darkness, before I get started this is why the timeline frustrates me so much in REverse because there's too many huge time jumps that are void of information and I really wish they hadn't done that; the first 5 original games:

RE 0, 1, 2, 3 and Code Veronica all take place in 1998

RE4 jumps all the way to 2004, RE5 2009 and RE6 2013

there isn't too much lore to be rusty on because after RECV it's blank there's just NO information about how anyone is doing or whos interacting with who sans some measly files but we never actually get to see any meaningful relationships play out platonic/ familial/ working/romantic or otherwise.

Anyway in Vendetta Leon and Chris team up to stop a bioweapons dealer who has a grudge against the US government Also Rebecca is there.(but who cares I don't) Leon is over people dying around him and he's really questioning what his life is and he sees the government as being just as bad.

And so with Infinite Darkness, this seems to be Capcom's way of padding out the timeline and working backwards into a "how we got here" situation, it's why I'm not understanding all of the commotion about how ID ended and why some Cleon shippers are acting like it got nuked and that the pair were acting OOC when thats just not true.

Leon here is at the start of his career as a government agent(RE4 only happened 2 years ago), and a core part of his character is his wide eyed idealism of justice and the law to a fault and we begin to see the hairline fractures in his ideology starting here. Claire is a passionate member of Terrasave(established in RE: Degeneration which takes place a year before this) because of her connection with Sherry and her love for children and family; her core theme.

They both want the same goal but have to do it their own way Claire even says that verbatim, but it's completely in character for Leon to have kept the chip because he's doing it to protect her who's not seeing that? It's why he says to himself that he'll fix this, She was already almost killed for the little bit she did uncover? I love Claire and she's got spunk but leaking the whole thing to the media woulda been to quote Leon "something stupid" this is the same girl who went in guns blazing into a heavily armed Umbrella facility in Paris with no backup looking for her brother, it was badass but ultimately she got caught and jailed on a torture island sooo??? Claire can be too rash, I can't really blame Leon for his motivations however misguided and lowkey chauvinist they are lol j/k.

This is such a common drama trope actually and lowkey romantic for him to risk his standing with Claire and have her think lesser of him all to keep her safe, it's set up that way too because all Claire could see in that moment is him looking like a government lapdog. It's (hopefully) building up and establishing a more nuanced dynamic between Leon and Claire, because with the way things are going I don't think either will be in any more new numbered games.