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raccoonscity · 2 years ago

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How Ada is being mischaracterized in the RE2 and RE4 remakes

I've been thinking about Ada in RE2/RE4make and how her character is so badly characterized. Ada is made out to be a selfish, manipulative villainess or whatever. Massive changes were made to the story and her character in both remakes, which fundamentally don't understand her character. Yes, she manipulates people, but most of the time it is the villains (Wesker, Krauser, Simmons, etc.). She is also made out to be selfish and heartless and that couldn't be further from the truth. She's morally complex but that doesn't make her a villain or inherently evil or selfish.

Ada's character was changed majorly in RE2make. In RE2, she's still a spy sent to retrieve the G-Virus, but her cover was a civilian looking for her boyfriend, John Clemens, who worked for Umbrella and was presumably in Umbrella's underground laboratory. In RE2make, her cover is an FBI agent sent to take down Umbrella and take the G-Virus as evidence. This change could work, in theory, but the problem with RE2make is that her cover achieves nothing but fooling Leon--when Ada first meets Annette, she immediately asks for the G-Virus and Annette does a background check on Ada she knows she's a spy. What is the point if the most important person to your mission can see through your cover immediately.

The other thing that was changed about Ada in RE2make is that in the original, Ada isn't really manipulating Leon at all. Ada never asks for Leon's help, he instead runs into her and chooses to help her. She always either runs off alone or, when she's injured, tells him to worry about himself because she'll slow him down. And even when injured she leaves where Leon left her to complete her mission alone. Ada didn't want him to get involved and is consistently discouraging him from following; even in their confrontation she says: "That's why I told you to leave without me. But you wouldn't listen." Checking her gun after she falls reveals that she didn't load her gun and never intended to hurt Leon if it had to come to that.

Except in RE2make, even though she initially doesn't want his help, after a certain point (especially when she's injured) she is actively manipulating him. The change in her cover story was made so Ada can appeal to his sense of duty as a cop, by lying and telling him the sample would be used for evidence. The kiss in RE2make is meant to manipulate but backfires, but the only kiss scene in the original is genuine, after Ada gets injured saving Leon from Mr. X.

When she is manipulating someone, it's the actual villains--Wesker, Krauser, Simmons, etc. We don't know a lot about Ada's true motives or backstory, but we know she never goes out of her way to make the other protagonists' lives/missions harder, and she's not out to destroy the world or cause wars.

She regularly helps the protagonists--not just Leon. In RE2, she will throw a rocket down to either Leon or Claire in the B scenario (even though she never interacts with Claire otherwise). She patches Leon up after he takes a bullet for her and will "die" protecting him from Mr. X. In RE4, she repeatedly tries to convince Wesker that Leon was not a threat and when Wesker tells her Krauser was sent to kill Leon, she does not hesitate to stop Krauser. Ada gets the jet-ski so Leon and Ashley can escape, and in a few instances Leon can find notes that Ada left behind giving tips. She agrees to help get Luis away from the Los Illuminados. In RE6, she helps Jake and Sherry fight the Ubistvo and helps Leon and Helena defeat mutated Deborah. She also gives Leon the evidence needed to take Simmons down.

But unfortunately, RE4make removed one of the key moments Ada helps Leon (saving Leon from Krauser after Wesker orders his assassination) and gave this moment to Luis. I do actually like this scene but it sucks that one of Ada's defining moments in RE4 was just given to another character. It also annoys me that the scene in which we see Ada talking over comms to Wesker, he doesn't seem to care at all about wanting Leon out of the way. In Separate Ways Ada tries to convince Wesker that Leon is not a threat, but Wesker knows otherwise, so Ada avoids Leon and lies about not being able to kill Leon. When Wesker tells her about Krauser being sent to kill Leon, she drops everything to stop him, lies to Wesker about what happened with Krauser, then finishes him off herself. Except now, Wesker doesn't see Leon as a threat at all? Wesker was the one Ada was working with in RE2 so he's well aware of who Leon is. So there's no threat on Leon and that removes a key part of Ada's conflict in SW, unless we're missing some context without a SW campaign yet.

Ada also left him notes in RE4 such as this one where she tells Leon how to remove the Plagas and warns him of the dangers (this role is also given to Luis):

Once a Plaga egg hatches, it's nearly impossible to remove it from the body. But if it's before it hatches, then it can be neutralized by medication. If it does hatch you might be able to get it out by surgery before it turns to an adult. But it won't be easy. There's a high chance you won't survive the operation. As far as I know the girl was injected with the egg before you. Her time is ticking. You should prepare yourself for the worst case scenario.

Now to be fair, Ada does still give Leon advice when they talk over comms, and it makes more sense for Luis to tell Leon about the surgery. Even then, Ada still helps Leon plenty. But why rewrite her story from RE2, why change and take these interactions from Ada, then say she only ever manipulates Leon? Ada never tries to convince Leon that saving Ashley is a lost cause either.

Again, Ada is not a heartless person. I hate that scene with Kendo in RE2make for that reason, because it exists so Leon can teach her to be sympathetic. She doesn't always have ulterior motives for helping others (most of the examples listed above she has no reason to do so and is doing it just to help, and in some cases she is actively putting her life/mission on the line) and is capable of being sympathetic. In RE6, she sympathizes with Carla and says: "If you had only sought vengeance against Simmons alone, I would have helped you." In Ada's reports, she says this about wanting to help Luis:

I'm the one who told the organization of [Luis Sera's] importance. I did it because I like him. His history betrays an enthusiasm I once shared. It was a stroke of luck that I happened to intercept his e-mail for help. It seems he can't trust the police, so he sent the e-mail to an old friend from college. He must have thought his friend was still alive. At any rate, that's how I managed to find him. […] When I told him who I was, he practically begged to be taken into custody. He needed protection. He said, "I have no love for Las Plagas or this stupid cult. I want out. I just want peace and quiet again." I ordered him to bring me a master Plaga specimen - a sample - for evidence.

And then there's that ending scene of Ada and Wesker in RE4make. After Ada secures the sample, she talks to Wesker and seems blindsided by the fact that Wesker is planning something that will kill billions of people. This scene bothers me for two* reasons.

One: This is framed like Ada has just now had a change of heart and doesn't want to be complicit in the death that Wesker will cause... except that's what her arc in RE2 was. Ada expresses this in Umbrella Chronicles immediately post-RE2. After her conversation with Wesker, she narrates: "If the T-Virus did this [to Raccoon City], what would happen if the G-Virus got out?" The only reason Ada gives the G-Virus to Wesker at that point was because she had no other way out of Raccoon City. Why wasn't this in RE2make?

Two: Ada already knows Wesker is planning something horrible, even if she doesn't know the extent of it. The whole point of Ada working with Wesker in RE4 was to sabotage his plans and send him a fake sample. She and her organization want to take the sample for themselves and want to gain insight into his plans.

In Ada's last report regarding Wesker, she says this:

It wasn't easy, but I'd say the mission has been a success. Getting my hands on the sample was my initial objective after all. But I've sent Wesker a different present, just as the organization ordered. Pretending to work with him was entertaining. Albert Wesker… I wonder where he's headed next. Something tells me this whole affair was just a taste of what he's got in store. To him, Umbrella represented power. He used it to hide behind while he made plans of his own. And now the umbrella's been folded. With the sanctuary of their old umbrella ruined, those in power struggle to erect a new one. They are aware of their own crookedness and deceit as they engage in their personal war of light and darkness. That's why Wesker will stop at nothing in opening his new umbrella. The giant pharmaceutical corporation, "S" maintains medical and drug facilities the world over. We know for certain that Wesker has been in contact with them following Umbrella's demise. There's no doubt we'll next hear from him there. The organization must remain vigilant.

A quick note: "S" or "Seashell" was the working title for what eventually was made into Tricell in RE5. Ada and her organization already know that Wesker is in contact with Tricell and want to "remain vigilant" against whatever he's planning. We don't know too much about the organization she works for, what their goals are, and how she came to work with them, just that they research and sell viruses and bioweapons and work with people like Wesker--which sounds bad except look at everything Mia does while working with the Connections, but Capcom just ignores that. Yet Ada is the evil manipulative one 🤔

Some other instances of Ada working with villains include her history of working with Simmons, who she stopped working with specifically because he was involved in the decision to destroy Raccoon City. At the end of Damnation she hints that she won't hand over the Plaga sample to her anonymous buyer/Simmons.

The problem with Ada is that while Capcom has hinted since RE4 about her true motives, they've not touched on the subject since, and everything we know about Ada's backstory is vague. Is she just in it for money or authority? Was she forced to work with them? Does she want to destroy Umbrella and other bioweapons groups from the inside? Does she want to research the viruses hoping to find cures or vaccines? Ada's moral complexity comes from the fact that we don't know why she does what she does, but just because she mostly helps out in the shadows doesn't mean she's selfish or manipulative, and she is still considered one of the main heroes (or anti-hero) of the series.

*A secret third reason I hate this scene is it's so OOC for Wesker, it drives me crazy. There's no reason for Wesker to tell Ada any of this (they don't trust each other) and he's notoriously a strategist who works in the shadows and doesn't tell people his plans. Wesker didn't even have any doomsday/Uroboros plans yet because he only starts his plans after learning about Project W from Spencer, like two years after this. I hate this scene🙃

#re meta #my meta #ramblings #resident evil #resident evil 2 remake #resident evil 4 remake #ada wong #video games

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