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agonycrossbow · 7 months

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Leon says in the intro of OG:

"Soon after [the incident at the Spencer Mansion (aka the events of RE1)], the news was out to the whole world revealing that it was the fault of a secret viral experiment conducted by the international pharmaceutical enterprise, Umbrella. [...] With the whole affair gone public, the United States government issued an indefinite suspension of business decree to Umbrella."

and yet in RE6 the entire inciting incident that kicks off Leon's campaign is that the president is going to "reveal the truth about what happened in Raccoon City"????

Like???

Literally what is still being kept secret, exactly??

And it bothered me for the longest fucking time until RE4make was announced to be in development and someone went and interviewed Shinji Mikami regarding his thoughts on it, and Mikami's response was (paraphrased) "I support any attempt at a remake as long as they fix the story and give it a better one. We wrote literally the entire story of RE4 in two weeks because we'd spent so much time perfecting the gameplay that we legit forgot to write a story."

And then all the pieces clicked together and it finally started to make sense.

So we really gotta keep in mind what RE4 OG actually was at the time of release. Prior to RE4, the last two major RE releases were REmake and RE0, both of which completely and utterly fucking bombed. Mikami, to this day, considers REmake his magnum opus, and for it to sell like complete and utter dogshit to the point where it almost legit ended his career was literally traumatic for him. In 2013-2014 leading up to the launch of The Evil Within, he would say in interviews that he still had nightmares about how badly REmake performed after he'd poured so much into it.

In those same interviews, he also talked about how RE4 was a make or break moment not just for his career, but for the entire RE franchise. If RE4 underperformed, not only would he get fired from Capcom, but they were going to pull the plug on Resident Evil all together. This is a huge reason why RE4 took so long to come out compared to previous RE titles and why two different completely viable builds for RE4 got scrapped (one became Haunting Ground and one became Devil May Cry) before they settled on the version of the game that was actually released.

It's also why they fixated so hard on the gameplay and let the story go by the wayside.

So, Leon's voiceover in the original RE4 literally only exists for two reasons:

to get players who have never played an RE game before relatively up to speed with what's happened in the story up to this point

to give some explanation to existing fans why Leon is in Spain looking for the game's escort mission when, the last time we heard about him, he was just... nebulously with the government and was working as a point of contact between Claire and Chris in CVX.

Basically, neither Mikami nor Capcom had a plan for Leon's character at the time RE4 was being made. It had already been established in the RE3 epilogues that Leon and Sherry had been kidnapped by the US Government and that the gov't was holding Sherry hostage and forcing Leon to work for them, but... that was about it. That was the only sort of baseline that Mikami and his team were working off of, so they basically were making it up as they went along and taking whatever liberties with his character and the base lore that they needed to in order to make the game coherent and successful.

We also need to keep in mind that Mikami left Capcom in the time between RE4's Gamecube release and its PS2 release (and that's a whole fucking drama all on its own), so he was not at all involved in the writing or creation of Separate Ways.

So, the father of the entire Resident Evil franchise, who developed the whole fucking idea himself, and who created and directed RE4's base game fucking dipped out right after release, leaving absolutely no notes behind because Capcom fucked him over, which left the PS2 team to just kind of fucking... figure it out on their own during the creation of Separate Ways, because Sony wanted exclusive content for their version of the game. So now, in addition to Mikami taking liberties with Leon's character for the creation of the base game, the B-team now had to take even more liberties because they didn't know what the fuck to even do.

Like.

Degeneration is a bad fucking movie and it's a huge shitshow, but I do not at ALL fault or envy the writers or directors of that movie, because I wouldn't even know where to START when it came to working off of the spaghetti plot that RE4 just kind of threw at the wall and hoped stuck.

And there's more I can go into about Degeneration, too, and why that's such a shitshow and how half of it doesn't make sense, but. That's for another post.

So, all of this to say... don't take Leon's voiceover in the intro to RE4 OG too seriously. It was literally just a way for Mikami and his team to really quickly just be like "okay, so, there were zombies and shit in the previous games, but now that's over and Leon's a government agent, and he's going after the president's kidnapped daughter. everyone follow me??? yes??? ok good let's start the game." because the story was a rush job, and the game was developed under extreme duress, and all that mattered was that it made enough sense to not put people off.

Like... does it suck, as a Leon/Ashley shipper, to see in the intro that he was actually, at one point, specifically assigned to her? And that the rest of the series then just ignored that? Yes. It does suck. But, the only reason why that was said in the first place was just as a scene-setter, and, realistically, there was no way to keep Leon relevant in the RE series if he was just assigned to presidential security detail. And of course they were going to want to make sure Leon stayed relevant in RE because of how much of a cultural phenomenon RE4 actually became. They'd have been stupid to not change the role of his character to one that could be used over and over and over again for different stories.

But at the time, Mikami and his team didn't know -- and had no way of knowing -- just how successful RE4 was going to become. It was just as likely that RE4 was going to go the way of REmake, and the series was going to die with its release. So, if it died, at least it ended with Umbrella being defeated and long gone, and Leon having a mostly happily-ever-after in a cushy gov't job protecting the president's family.

We know now that that's not how it went, so things had to change, but. It would've been a fine way for things to have ended, if they did, in fact, end there.

So it just kind of... is what it is.

#RE development history

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sapphire-weapon · 6 months

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Sort of as a follow-up thought to this post...

I really can't wait for that Operation Javier project -- whether it's a full game or a DLC or whatever it is -- to come out and give us a closer look at what Leon's life was like between RE2make and RE4make. Because I think something that really gets missed in the fandom (likely due to the ridiculous misinformation listed on the wiki that then gets passed around the fandom like fact) is that Leon wasn't trained by the government to kill bioweapons. Leon was trained by the government to kill people. Ashley just got ridiculously lucky that the agent who was sent to retrieve her also happened to have experience fighting against bioweapons due to having been in Raccoon City.

It's subtle, but there's evidence for this in RE4make itself. It's actually baked into Leon's character arc.

At the Hunter's Lodge, Leon's trained response to encountering a person on the ground during a mission is to reach for his gun. He even starts taking it out of the holster. It isn't until the hunter appears to not be a threat that he puts it back down and tries to talk to him.

But when the hunter does become a threat, Leon doesn't hesitate in killing him. And not only does he not hesitate to kill him, but he even pulls out his gun and doublechecks that the man is really dead.

This happens before anyone knows that there's bioweapons at play. As far as Leon knows, in this moment, he just killed an old man in his home. Just an old man.

His subsequent conversation with Hunnigan is structured as such that the US's intel on the ground is only that Ashley is being held in this village. The statement "Something's happened to the people here" is tacked on as an afterthought, as something unexpected. Leon suspects that there's biological warfare involved after seeing the hunter come after him chittering and with a broken neck, but he doesn't get the chance to voice that to Hunnigan and ask for more information before he's interrupted and has to cut the conversation short.

Later, this happens:

Prior to Mendez mutating into his boss form, Leon didn't actually suspect that he was infected with las plagas. He was opening fire on and trying to kill a man who he thought, much like the hunter, was just a man. Because that's his job.

The line "I'll do my job" is particularly interesting, because most people think of Leon's "job" in this game as rescuing Ashley -- but that's not how Leon himself seems to see it. His mission objective is to rescue Ashley, but his job -- at least, in the context in which he says it -- is to kill people.

We also know that Leon was part of Operation Javier. This is never stated explicitly, but Krauser tells us this without telling us:

Krauser had a revelation in the jungle, and Leon was there with him in that jungle two years ago.

So, what was Operation Javier?

Well, we don't really know yet. I'm sure that it did involve bioweapons somehow -- Capcom wouldn't be making it into a separate title release if it didn't -- but that wasn't the original conceit for it set out by the US government in-universe.

This was the official mission statement for Operation Javier:

Eradicating drug cartels.

Which means going after people. Not BOWs.

And Leon being sent on this mission alongside Krauser and his unit didn't seem to raise any eyebrows or key anyone into the possibility that there could be BOWs involved. They all seemed to have been taken by surprise -- especially Krauser, which shouldn't have happened as Leon's trainer if Krauser knew that the purpose of Leon's training was BOW combat.

This also isn't the first mission that Leon was sent on alongside Krauser and his men. He says as much in the intro with the plural use of "missions" attached to his training.

So... Leon is a killer. He was specifically trained to kill people for the US government. He just happens to also be adept at fighting against BOWs thanks to his experience in Raccoon City. And what's chilling is that, during the intro, he also expresses a strange sort of gratitude for his combat training because it "kept [his] mind off things."

That's how broken Leon is going into RE4make. The kind-hearted guy who just wanted to protect people in RE2make spends the next six years following Raccoon City being turned into a hitman and murdering people for the federal government, and his response to that is "thank you."

That's why Ashley's contribution to his character arc is so important. At a certain point during RE4make, he stops fighting against the villagers and starts fighting for Ashley. She shakes him out of that killer's mindset and reminds him that, once upon a time, he was a boy named Leon Kennedy who wanted to save the world.

And the culmination of this is Leon's realization that both of these parts of him can coexist. He can use his intense combat training and killer instinct to protect people -- just like he protected Ashley. But he's not so naive anymore (like he was in RE2make) to think that he can protect and save everyone. And he was forced to accept, through his training and through killing Krauser, that sometimes some people need to be sacrificed in order for other people to be saved.

#resident evil 4 #leon kennedy #meta analysis #this is also more evidence that leon was never in STRATCOM #why the fuck would they send the anti-umbrella STRATCOM guy to save the president's daughter if no one knew BOWs were involved #hint: they didn't #they sent the guy who was trained to kill every motherfucker who got in his way without hesitation or remorse #THAT'S who they sent #though just because that's how leon was *trained* doesn't mean that that's who he *is*#and leon remembers who he actually is over the course of the game because of his bond with ashley

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sapphire-weapon · 1 year

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Since we've been talking about Leon and Ada a lot lately, I wanted to take a closer look at this scene. (And also take shots of her mercs dress that I've modded in for her while silently mourning the loss of "Well, if it isn't the bitch in the red dress.")

In OG Separate Ways, she's been following him closely ever since the village fight. I don't think that's going to end up being the case in RE4make's SW. Ada saving Leon from Mendez is probably going to be a chance encounter/lucky moment of happenstance thing this time around, rather than her actively trying to keep him alive throughout his entire mission.

I say that because Ada is completely and utterly baffled by Leon during this first encounter. She's caught off guard by his non-reaction to her, confused by his attitude, and totally shocked when he gets the upper hand on her in combat -- as well as the subsequent realization that, if it'd been a serious fight, she would be dead.

That's not the Leon that she knows.

But if she'd really been keeping an eye on him at any point prior to this, she'd have already known that. So, I really do think that this is completely new information for her; this is her first time since arriving here that she's really paid attention to him.

It's kind of cute on Leon's end, too, because that smirk at the end of the scene comes off as a bit of smugness -- he knows that she wasn't expecting any of that from him, and it probably felt really good to "win" so to speak against someone who he probably assumes didn't ever think much of him in the past.

I also really don't think that this is the moment that Leon first learns that she's still alive, coming out of Raccoon City. His line once she leaves the room: "Last person I thought I'd run into here..." implies that it's not her living status that's surprising to him; it's her physical presence in this space. So, for everyone who kept trying to argue that Leon has a right to be pissed off after learning that Ada's been alive this whole time: no. That's not what he's mad about, because he already knew that she was alive going into this game -- and he's probably known for a while.

I guess you can think of this post as an addendum to the one I wrote about this scene previously, because I feel like that one also still holds up.

#resident evil 4 #leon kennedy #ada wong #meta analysis

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sapphire-weapon · 1 year

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Do you think Leshley being canonical is straight forward? I used to think it was but seeing how majority of the fandom is still in denial and do not see them as a canon romance makes me think otherwise.

So... yes and no.

Yes in the sense that, on paper and taken in a vacuum, yes it's very straightforward. I can't tell you the number of people who have come here to my inbox saying "I played RE4make with no prior knowledge of the series and no exposure to the fandom and I could not BELIEVE what I was seeing when I finally looked at the fandom, because the romance couldn't have been more obvious."

But the thing is... RE4make does not exist in a vacuum. Resident Evil is 27 years old. Resident Evil 4 is 18 years old. That's 2-3 decades worth of history and precedence and bias that the text of RE4make is not explicit enough to contend with, much less erase. Even I had a really hard time coming to terms with -- much less admitting out loud -- that Leon/Ashley, of all fucking ships, was intended canon, and I am probably the one person in fandom who's best primed to be able to see and say it. I mean, I got there eventually (clearly), but I spent a not-insignificant amount of time refusing to see it and then calling myself crazy once I did.

RE4make is up against the fact that:

+ Aeon has been canon for 25 of the 27 years of RE's existence + Aeon's canonicity was established with the explicitness of "I'm just a woman who fell in love with you" and an on-screen kiss, thus creating precedence for what a romance looks like in RE + Ashley has been the single most hated character in RE fandom for the past 18 years + Aeon stans are so annoying and so vocal and so ubiquitous that no sane person would ever be willing to readily admit that the ship has been officially axed in favor of shipping Leon -- the fan favorite and series darling who's been embroiled in a bitter ship war for 25 years in the fandom -- with neither of the girls involved in said bitter ship war, but rather with the single most hated character in RE history

EagleOne is not straightforward enough to push back against that kind of history and bias. It just isn't. Short of Leon breaking the fourth wall, looking into the camera, and saying explicitly that he does not love Ada and has, in fact, fallen in love with Ashley, nothing will be explicit enough for the vast majority of this fandom.

The Dining Hall scene could have actually literally ended in sex, and you'd still have people in this fandom going "yeah well he was thinking about Ada the whole time."

This is why I need EagleOne fandom to stop being a bunch of pussies and start talking about it openly and without fear. We have to be the ones to take control of this narrative and stop waiting for the rest of the fandom to come around to us, because they never, ever, ever, ever will. EVER. We are literally in a Frodo Baggins situation. This task was entrusted to us, EagleOne fandom. If we do not find a way, no one will.

#resident evil 4 #leon kennedy #ashley graham #eagleone

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sapphire-weapon · 8 months

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They are waiting for 6 remakes to prove to you that you were wrong.

imagine having so little going on in your life that you're sitting around waiting for a game that won't come out for at least five years because someone on the internet made you feel insecure about whether a fictional relationship will be portrayed a certain way in a video game.

like, dude. these mfs think way more about me than i ever think about them or their ship. because, at the end of the day, i don't really care.

aeon's been a feature of RE's canon for 26 years, and it hasn't impeded my love for or enjoyment of the games. if aeon continues to be canon, then nothing in my life will have changed. i'm not going to get upset about something being the same way it's always been. it doesn't matter. RE will still be the same series i've always loved.

all i'm doing over here on this blog is interpreting the games' stories as they were written and providing analysis with evidence based in the text itself. that's why i have a giant wall of text post defending leon and ada's relationship as it's portrayed in OG -- because that's what the story is.

me liking or disliking the relationship has no bearing as to whether or not the relationship is canonically romantic. i don't have to like something for it to be true. and the fact is -- the truth is -- that for a majority of OG RE's runtime, leon and ada have a romantically coded relationship. and so i interpret it and analyze it that way, because that's what it is.

the fact also remains, however, that their relationship is no longer romantically coded in the remakes' version of events. and i'm not saying that because i dislike the relationship. clearly, as evidenced above, if the relationship was portrayed as romantic, i would treat and talk about it that way, regardless of whether i liked it or not. i'm saying that leon and ada's relationship is no longer romantically coded in the remakes' version of events because that's how the story is told.

and if that's upsetting for you (ubiquitous "you"), then maybe you should take it up with capcom's division 1 studio, because they're the ones writing the story. i didn't write the fucking story.

and, not for nothing, but like

i'm also wrong all the fucking time. i was wrong in predicting a wesker boss fight in SW. i was wrong in predicting more DLC coming for RE4make. i was wrong with my initial reading of remake ada from just base RE4make alone, and SW rendered all of my prior meta about her completely worthless.

and if i turn out to be wrong about aeon, i'm not going to be upset. i'm just going to add it to the list of shit i've been wrong about and move on with my life and continue analyzing the text with the new information we've been given.

but they keep trying to drag me into their ship wars as though i give a shit, and i don't. i don't fucking care about what ship is fucking canon, bro. i care about digging into the text and accurately interpreting the story because that's how i personally have fun in a fandom. it's not about the ship, for me. it's about the story.

like, eagleone isn't my only ship. it's not like i'm sitting over here concocting ways to twist the narrative in such a way that it looks like my ship is canon. i fucking ship leon with five other goddamn characters. and yet you don't see me making a case for any of those other ships being intended romances.

RE also isn't my only fandom. i play and talk about and care about other things and the industry in general all the time. i don't care about any of this RE ship shit nearly as much as they do, because i'm busy doing and caring about other things.

it's just so stupid, man. it doesn't matter. none of this matters. and it still won't matter when RE6make comes out.

we're all just trying to have fun here, and what i'm doing here on this blog, i do for myself. for my own fun. because this is how i have fun in fandom. it should have absolutely no bearing on anyone else's ability to have fun in the fandom -- and, if it does, then that person needs to stop fucking looking at my blog.

because none of this matters.

you know

i keep begging aeons to play other games, and this is exactly why.

#sorry i just had to get this out #i've had this fucking annoying anon in my inbox every goddamn day #crying about eagleone and yelling AEON CANON like they're trying to make me feel bad or smth #but i don't feel bad it's just annoying #it's really kind of worrying how obsessive they are #i don't understand why people insist on making themselves so miserable #if i upset you that much why do you check my blog on a daily basis?#why would you do that to yourself?#what does that get you?#i don't understand #i'm just tired of it man #it's so annoying

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sapphire-weapon · 1 year

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In re4 it says in the intro:

Specifically want to focus on "protecting the new president's family"

In the OG it's his first time meeting ashley, but would this presumably have meant he was planned to be on the president's secret service? We never really see this in any of the other material following RE4 (I think???), so I'm not sure if he ever follows through with this.

We also don't see it in the remake! So would you say this was retconned, or did I maybe misinterpret this?

Leon also says in the intro of OG:

and yet in RE6 the entire inciting incident that kicks off Leon's campaign is that the president is going to "reveal the truth about what happened in Raccoon City"????

Like???

Literally what is still being kept secret, exactly??

And then all the pieces clicked together and it finally started to make sense.

It's also why they fixated so hard on the gameplay and let the story go by the wayside.

So, Leon's voiceover in the original RE4 literally only exists for two reasons:

to get players who have never played an RE game before relatively up to speed with what's happened in the story up to this point

Like.

And there's more I can go into about Degeneration, too, and why that's such a shitshow and how half of it doesn't make sense, but. That's for another post.

We know now that that's not how it went, so things had to change, but. It would've been a fine way for things to have ended, if they did, in fact, end there.

So it just kind of... is what it is.

#resident evil 4 #leon kennedy #and this is why you keep a certified RE Old in your back pocket #to give you context like this #i just happen to be an RE Old who's also a massive mikami fan #so i probably know more than most by default anyway #at least when it comes to shit like this

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sapphire-weapon · 1 year

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You might be bored answering this type of question, so feel free to ignore. I just needed a rant lol and to see if anybody out there at all agrees with my views. I'm just so mad at the complete WASTE of potential that Ada had. I sincerely hope that the remakes decanonise Aeon altogether because oh my god, it makes no sense for either character. Like at all.

Ada (despite the complete lack of background information) is at the very least an independent, stubborn, capable and (often) profit driven woman. She has multiple priceless connections and opportunities up her sleeve that she obtains by herself. This idea that Leon's the only kind person she's ever met is so fucking stupid. She took her chance to manipulate him when he was young and stupid, and I'm supposed to believe that their sparse meetings for a few hours every couple of years leads her to continuously question her motives because this One Guy changes her mind, because he's kind and handsome or whatever. It's so fucking stupid. The way the fandom perceives her is so super sexist. Why is she constantly portrayed as the Wine Mommy trope by fandom? It does my head in. She has been completely and utterly minimised to "how does she serve Leon Kennedy". That's it. That's all a large majority of the fanbase see her for. I would kill for Ada content that decanonises their "romance" and to have her OWN story, devoid of the male leads. (Also I hc her as lesbian lol, but that's neither here nor there.)

Then there's my understanding of Leon. I like that you pointed out he often takes the "easy choice", which I somewhat agree. Regardless, the pinnacle of his character is empathy and anger (as far as I understand). Bioterrorism has haunted him his whole life. He's witnessed countless atrocities at the hands of greedy billionaires. All he wants is to help innocents where he can. This trope of turning the other cheek because the antagonist is hot... makes no sense. Yes, she helps him, but she's consistently betrayed him and openly admits to working for her own gain. In what universe does his leniency make any sense when lined up with his other decisions and worldviews? Every "romantic" encounter they've had has required Leon to act completely out of character imo and "oh... he must have strong feelings" is the only reason we're provided with. It's so stupid and it's a pet peeve of mine that so many just don't see how horrificly written it is, lmao!

Anyway, do you agree? Am I maybe perceiving characters the wrong way? I can only hope the remakes fix this debacle. Aeon is some of the worst writing that RE has ever produced imo, but the excellence of RE7 and 8 give me hope for the newer content. :)

you're super not wrong about Ada

and while I really wish I could say you're not wrong about Leon, either... there is some there there. I get it. I get why he's so attached to her. the issue is that Leon's attachment to Ada is nothing more than a trauma response, but the series never treats it like that.

what's funny is that the actors do. both Matt Mercer and Nick Apostolides know that it's a fucked up trauma response, and they've both said so at different points in not so many words, and so they both treat it like that when they're actually delivering his lines -- but the actual games are over here like "aren't these two so hot together 😏" like... completely unironically.

the closest thing that RE came to self-awareness about the true nature of Leon and Ada's relationship (prior to RE2make and RE4make) is this:

whew. don't strain yourselves, there, Capcom.

I don't even think Capcom realizes just how alarming Leon's manic breakdown about her in RE6 actually is. I legit think they meant for it to come off as sincerely romantic and loving. but that scene -- like a few others in RE6 -- is carried on the shoulders of Matt Mercer's acting talent, and it is legitimately upsetting to watch/listen to.

I find his breakdown about Ada in RE6 to be more distressing than his cries for help in Vendetta, personally, because at least his cries for help are cries for help. the shit that happens in RE6 is just Leon's brain fucking breaking and no one is around to stop it or do anything or help him in any way -- and then later on, Helena, who couldn't actually hear what was said, assumed it was romantic, and Leon never corrects her, and that's that.

it's just

the line "if you're really Ada..." like holy shit what the fuck is that line WHAT IS THAT LINE Leon is literally ready to reject reality on the spot in that moment.

it's rough, dude.

and what's frustrating about Aeon is that that kind of dynamic has such huge potential to be legitimately compelling and tragic and heart-wrenching, but it isn't that because the script is so shitty.

all they had to do was just go one step further with Chris calling out Leon for his blind faith in Ada, axe the "lol u like her" shit from Helena, and then bookend that previous conversation between Chris and Leon with a more upsetting version of "She's like a part of me I can't let go" (make it something more like "But if I do let her go... what else will I lose?") and like

that's it, that alone makes RE6 way more nuanced and interesting in terms of characterization for Leon. it doesn't fix Ada in any way (because it's too late to fix Ada tbh), but it at least makes Leon's shit feel less ... bad and stupid.

but the way it is right now, it's just like...

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sapphire-weapon · 1 year

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Genuinely, I don't think the writers know what to do with Ada anymore. In fact, I don't think they especially like her character. Like she was perfect for the second game, OG and remake, because she was created specifically for it. But when she became a favourite and people wanted more of her, they just genuinely didn't know how to work her in, which led to her mess of an arc in RE6. After that, I feel like they just kinda slowly and quietly removed her from the movies, and even her appearance in RE4R was extremely limited.

What we need to keep in mind about Ada is that the problem with her starts at conception. She was originally developed as a racist caricature in the form of the dragon lady stereotype. Whether or not that was done on purpose is up for debate.

The second issue with Ada is that there was clearly a plan for her character in place with her RE3 epilogue -- which was then thrown out and never honored because of how fucked up RE4 OG's development was.

And then, to make things worse, Shinji Mikami actually did have an idea for the change in direction for her character when his team put RE4 OG together, but then he ragequit out of Capcom and took all of his notes with him before Separate Ways started development.

So, honestly, Ada as a character was doomed from the start. And I can't really blame Capcom for leaning back on her relationship with Leon, because that was the single easiest thing that they could pull on when they were struggling to pick up the loose threads that were left behind in the wake of Mikami's departure.

It was also the reason why fans liked her so much (seriously I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen people express love for Ada without once mentioning Leon's name), so why not center her character around Leon and their relationship?

But then they went too far, and they fucked up Leon's characterization for RE6, and it nearly killed Resident Evil as a franchise.

Because you don't piss off the biggest portion of your fanbase (in this case, Leon stans) and get away with it.

So, for Capcom, it was absolutely worth every effort for them to salvage Leon's character and try to win back the good graces of his fans -- which they did with Vendetta and then RE2make and then RE4make and now Death Island. But it's far less important for them to rehabilitate Ada.

What I have found interesting is that, in Ada's absence, Rebecca has been brought back into the spotlight. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she's being treated like she was always one of the main recurring characters all along.

She hasn't been.

The last time we saw Rebecca, prior to Vendetta, was the original REmake in 2002, and I'm not joking. Fifteen real-life years and almost twenty in-universe years passed between her appearances in this canon, and now she's part of what the devs and the fanbase refer to as "the main five."

But that's not who the main five always were.

Before Vendetta, the main five were Chris, Jill, Leon, Claire, and Ada.

And now Ada's been completely pushed out of the picture from a marketing perspective when it comes to this series's branding... which is just kind of wild for me to think about, honestly. And the change in perspective among the fanbase was so easy and natural that it actually took me a few years and a tweet from Dusk Golem pointing it out before I even noticed.

I think the Remake series is Capcom's chance at rebuilding Ada's character from scratch in a way that makes sense -- and I also think that if it goes over well, then they can use the ideas from Remake and put them into OG canon and bring her back that way.

But we'll have to see.

#resident evil #ada wong

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sapphire-weapon · 1 year

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Ada/Leon still clearly are into each other though, and I disagree with the idea that the Remakes made it so they aren’t/or they hadn't developed in or past 4.

In the 2RE round-table development video they spoke about how Aeon needed more interaction first before falling in love like they did in the OG.

4R isn't the latest we've seen of Leon and Ada chronologically. After 4R, we see them again in Damnation, where Ada insinuates they had some kind of romantic night together we never got to see, and then in 6 we see Leon tell Chris firmly that he'll defend and keep Ada alive, even under the possibility that she may have killed innocent people (even if this ended up just being Carla).

The remakes still lead into the later games, after all. Leon's feelings in 4R don't change how he feels in 6 - it just means he developed differently than we assumed. Last we've seen of them chronologically their relationship has only gotten closer, with both of them caring about each other more and more.

I guess you didn't catch Leon's constant head tilt after Ada comes into scene and also his immediate action when he saw Ada's captured. The man didn't spare a single second and even told Ashley that he knows it's a fucking trap but he's going in.

Remember, people often say things not exactly how they feel. I picked up all the small body language and actions that Leon and Ada do for each other that I firmly believe these 2 have a real thing for each other and the bond is not going to be broken no matter what.

The most telling sign to me is when Leon and Ada are on the speedboat, Leon tried to get an answer from Ada about what happened at Raccoon City and Ada never gave him a straight answer. This is not how a man who's moved on would act. If Leon moved on, he would not have even asked that question.

I don’t understand how people believe that just because there was no declaration of love given in OG2, or constant flirting like in OG4 that means they don’t like each-other anymore? If anything they just made their relationship more realistic which was their intention.

How are you really trying to justify the things that happen in games that were released in 2019 and 2023 with things that came out a decade prior? That doesn't make any sense, anon.

Damnation and RE6 came out in 2012 -- years and YEARS before the development of the games that we're talking about. The decision to pull back from the ship seems to have been made as a result of the backlash to RE6, so you can't point to RE6 and go, "this is proof that they're still dedicated to the ship." Like.

Come on, man. The response to my point of "They rewrote RE2 and RE4 to erase the romantic connection between Leon and Ada" is not "but look at the romantic connection they wrote in before that." Yeah, no kidding. You can't erase something that was never there in the first place.

I also don't understand how any of the things you're pointing at in RE4make are indicative of a romantic interest.

Tilting your head at someone is not a romantic gesture.

Refusing to leave someone to be tied up for slaughter is not a romantic gesture.

Asking someone if they have literally changed who they are as a person because you don't like/respect/want to be around the person they are/were is ABSOLUTELY NOT a romantic gesture -- and, in fact, is the complete and total opposite of what romance should be.

Like, let me just state, for the record: if a man asks you to change who you are for him, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM AND OUT OF THAT RELATIONSHIP. That's not a relationship that you want to be in. Period.

And, also for the record: Leon wasn't going to ask the question on the boat, because he didn't see the point in asking the question, and he even says up front that he doesn't trust her to be honest with him. He only asked it because Ada pulled it out of him, and he expected nothing less than the answer he got. I don't know how you read that as romantic and not as, idk, someone who's still trying to process the anger they feel over the trauma that they've endured. Feeling as though you still don't have closure with someone due to a traumatic event involving them is not romantic.

And it's not just the fact that they removed the declaration of love that's my point. In a vacuum and by itself, no, you're right, that doesn't mean anything. But to remove that declaration of love and then replace it with "As much as I wanted to trust you... I didn't [ever trust you at all]."? The intentions of the writers are made crystal clear when you consider those two things in tandem -- especially when you also factor in Leon acting like a total cunt to Ada throughout the entirety of RE4make for absolutely no reason other than petty childishness.

In Remake canon, it seems pretty clear to me that the relationship has been rewritten to be one-sided unrequited Ada having fallen for Leon, which sucks, because he treats her like shit and she shouldn't have to take that -- let alone be okay with taking it -- from anyone, least of all him.

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sapphire-weapon · 6 months

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yeah i get what you mean

i think they were just worried that the cycle of making a game to remaking it would get shorter and shorter, and how that would effect the writing of og

i don't think they realize that the remakes aren't just better graphics and newer actors

but that's

not how video game development works.

CVX is already 24 years old. if it's the next remake, by the time it comes out, it'll be at the very least 27 years old. if it's not the next remake, it'll be pushing 30.

if RE5 is the next remake, by the time it comes out, it will probably be around 18 years old. if it's not the next remake, it'll be over 20.

if we're being really, really, really generous to this release cycle and assuming they skip CVX and go straight from RE5make to RE6make, RE6 will be, at youngest, 16 years old at the time the remake comes out. but realistically, by the time an RE6make comes out, RE6 will be probably about 18-19 years old.

for reference, RE4 was 18 years old when RE4make came out. RE2 and RE3 were both 21 when their remakes came out.

these games take time to make. as far as we know, no other remake had been greenlit at the time that RE4make came out last year. RE2make took 4 years to develop. if we assume that a new remake just got greenlit last year, then we're not looking at a release until 2027, which is how i'm getting these numbers.

going by this timeline, by the time we reach RE7make -- if that even happens -- that won't come out until after 2030. probably not until well after 2030. because it's not just CVX, RE5, and RE6 that needs remaking. RE0 needs it, too. there's a non-zero chance they'll remake outbreak. and this is on top of new OG titles they'll be making. and they're not going to release more than one big RE title per year. all of that has to happen prior to an RE7make.

people who make the argument that these games are too new to be remade don't realize that like...

time continues onwards LMAO these remakes aren't just going to come out as soon as they pop into your head as being possible. they take time to develop, and time marches on. and by the time that release comes, the original game will be old.

just like the person who probably initially made that argument.

anyone who says that RE5 is fine and doesn't need a remake thinks that the year is still 2014. it's not. it's 2024, and RE5's 2009-ass control scheme plays like sweaty asshole, and that game sucks shit to play. it's not fun. i can't, in good conscience, tell a new fan go to play RE5. because that game fucking sucks because it's old.

and RE fans don't realize that they're getting old, too. and they perceive time as moving faster, so these releases seem closer together, but they're not. they're coming out at a reasonable pace. but your perception of time warps as you age.

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