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{\*\generator Msftedit 5.41.21.2510;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sa200\sl276\slmult1\lang10\f0\fs22 If I had to ask someone what Resident Evil as a whole is about, the answer would probably depend on their range of experience with the franchise. If they played the first 3 games, they would say it's about killing zombies while thinking a way out. If they played more of them, they probably would not be able to come up with anything better than ''fighting against bioterrorism with the same set of people from the first 2 games over and over''.\line\line As more terrorist entities other than Umbrella came into the picture, in the likes of los iluminados, veltro, tricell and for some reason even the head of national security from the United States itself, as well as a barrage of side characters that would be seen once and never again and the everchanging camera perspective and gameplay mechanics, the actual point of Resident Evil games might have gotten a bit fuzzier and harder to grasp.\line\line One could even say that there is none; each new game is just a new excuse for killing more monsters, and that's kinda true. However, there's a subtext that was kept in every game as I interpret it, and it's actually the sole thing that keeps me interested in where the series might go. That subtext I will try to demonstrate to you in this essay, so you can maybe see these games from a new lens and perspective that you might have not considered before.\line ______________________________________________________________________________\line\line I think a great way to begin is to point out how real it is that, ever after the second game, the protagonists have been nothing but reappearences of previously seen characters. It would not be until the seventh game that an entirely unrelated and new character would take the role of the protagonist, and before that game would come out, lots of other spin-offs would feature these same characters as protagonists again and again (except the ones we don't count).\line\line What this meant for these characters is that they would have already become staples of the franchise. This, in term, strongly reaffirms their story archs as the most important aspect of Resident Evil, and by this virtue implying: a Biohazard game is about how these specific people fight biohazards. Although much of the substance you can find in Resident Evil as a whole is, now inevitably, from the character development of these protagonists, there's a subtext to it all that was almost completely overlaped by how relevant these reappearences made these characters be. \line ______________________________________________________________________________\line\line So what we conclude from this is that what ties all of the games together are 3 things: bioterrorism, the subtext I will soon reveal, and the recurring characters whose elevated relevancy I just argued made that subtext harder to read. \line ______________________________________________________________________________\line\line Back to the question I proposed at the start of the script: what is Resident Evil about? Well, what makes a piece of fiction compelling can be found at the core of the struggle that its chacacters must come on top of, and the ways they decide to accomplish that. And what can we see in Resident Evil taking that into consideration?\line\line We can see characters taking care of one another amongst the terrors that represent the acts of those that want to alter what being human is about...\line\line What I just said might, at first, sound as a really far fetched way of finding what little meaning I can get from something that has none beyond itself; but if that's the case, I would argue that just proves what I said about why it's so hard to find in the first place. So, assuming everyone raised their eyebrows, I'll try to convince you.\line ______________________________________________________________________________\line\line First, think about the fact that the different characters from the franchise that weren't the main antagonists were never definitively in conflict with one another; and even if they had their differences at first, they would come to terms once they realized that they had the same ultimate goal; that would be to come on top of the struggle they're all facing. The characters that do have a conflict with the rest are the ones causing the trouble, and fighting that trouble is always all about preserving what makes us human, and rejecting the antagonist's plans of altering it.\line\line The antagonists are characters that pursue inmortality as a whim for the idea of playing god (spencer), artificially imposed natural selection through a test that would determine which humans are worthy of becoming a ''superior'' version of the species (wesker), sacrificing the autonomy of people's consciousness in order to reincarnate (wesker2), vengefully unleashing chaos out of spite for the world (Carla), or just simply to gain money and power (nikolai/krauser), all at the expense of human lives.\line\line With this, and for ease of reference, I'd like to define a dichotomy between what I'll call philanthropists and misanthropists, the former consisting mostly of protagonists, and the latter consisting entirely of antagonists.\line ______________________________________________________________________________\line\line Each time an incident occurs where the misanthropists were able to strip people from their humanity, the few characters that lived through these incidents came to terms with one another even when their primary intentions where completely different. For instance, and spoilers ahead:\line\line Rebecca Chambers was in all her right and duty to arrest Billy Coen given his criminal record and his fugitive state, and so Billy Coen would have easily erased that potential problem by taking her out when he had the chance, but none of that happened. They instead teammed up to fight as humans against those who wanted to take that from them.\line\line Luis Sera didn't have anything to gain from helping Leon and Ashley from their inner parasite taking over, yet he went out of his way to do just that, ultimately dying because of it.\line\line At the point when Chris decided to go against the orders from his higher ups, Sheva was better off just going home and finnishing her mission, nonetheless she decided to help him find his old partner, a person that not only she didn't know but also knew was officially announced dead.\line\line And I think Ada is an example of how a character that was technically on the misanthropist side of the park made the jump into the philanthropist pool, as she was merely a paid spy that manipulated someone into being her fiancee only to extract information, and she would have done anything to complete her mission in Raccoon City... yet she stopped right on her tracks because of a blond boy being kind to her. I really love to think she fully reconsidered her life's goal this precise moment (ada not shooting leon).\line\line All the characters across all games came to an agreement to act together in fighting for humanity despite their differences, and that, to me, is an incredibly heart-warming thing about Resident Evil that let's us interpret a beautiful message about the value of being what we are.\line ______________________________________________________________________________\line\line Just to further prove my point, let's focus on how the misanthropists decided to handle their struggles, which I've made clear now are those whose purpose is to defy the value of humanity.\line\line While all these characters that were caught under the chaos the misanthropists managed to unveil decided to help each other despite their differences, each and every antagonist across all games were, at some point, either betrayed or, to some extent, committing acts of betrayal, sometimes EVEN WHEN their goal was the same.\line\line Oswell E. Spencer, one of the founders of Umbrella, made the order to assassinate James Marcus; another cofounder and one of his peers. Wesker set up his entire crew from the Raccoon City Police Department, left his partner Birkin to die then sent an agent to recover his work; and then made friends with Excella, who upon realizing how much of a traitor Wesker was became so disgusted she puked all over the place. And let's not even get started on these two (simmons and carla).\line\line We should also notice how philanthropists NEVER formerly killed another human being; in fact they would actively refuse to do so even when there was no other choice, and only once they were certain what they were dealing against was no longer human, ONLY THEN they would retialiate with fatal force. Resident Evil 4 would even lead you to believe you were fighting another human to death for a while, only to reassure you that this is them against us.\line\line Conversely, there's the misanthropists...\line\line So it seems to me that, with this, Resident Evil was always trying to say something, and I hope I managed to shine a lightbeam onto it, and maybe even helped you understand why Chris killing Mia should be such an impactful thing to see, why Leon would want to be absolutely sure he wasn't killing a human (re4 first encounter, re6 president scene), or why Ada would say something like this (re6 ada ending).\line ______________________________________________________________________________\line\line The plot in each game got more and more convoluted as more of them kept coming out; perhaps the peak of this can be found on Resident Evil 6 with its four interconnected stories and two different antagonists. Yet no matter how complicated the stories ever got, the games would not fail once in pushing forward this message with not one drop of cynicism nor self-doubt.\line\line Even when a victim like Barry gets coerced to betray his peers, he would not take long to come to his senses and figure out he should not let that happen (re1). Even if Jill is starting to consider her low chances of survival, she will end her journey on a note of determination for her cause (re3). Even if Chris is slowly losing grasp on why he's still going through such traumatizing and life-threatening situations, he'll end up remembering it once seeing a smile on his loved ones faces (re5). Even if Leon feels overwhelmed by the realization that there will probably be no end to bioterrorism, he'll rest assured knowing that his time is not up yet for him to stop fighting against it (re: vendetta).\line\line Not everyone along the way will make it, but as long as there are people willing to fight, they'll keep at it for once humanity may triumph.\line\line Resident Evil is about people coming together despite their differences. It believes that as long as two people share the fundamental view that humanity is worth it, they should be fine, and it's only when someone displays an unmistakable disregard or, worst yet, hatred for humanity that we should worry. Our differences make us who we are; and we ought to either be different or not be at all. That is the subtext.\line ______________________________________________________________________________\line\line I want to clarify that my intention wasn't to undermine the relevance of the popular characters from the Resident Evil franchise, but rather and solely elevate the importance of what I interpret to be the inner message of it all. I have grown to love these characters, and I wouldn't want them gone nor taken out of consideration, because there's a lot of interesting stuff to say about them, and I'll most likely talk about them in future essays.\line\line I also want to point out there's one and only one instance in the entire Resident Evil list of games in which the rule I put together about humans always coming together was broken, and the guy that broke it is this one (re6 gunshop boyfriend). Although, I'm pretty sure the western capcom developers are at fault for this, and it may be one of the many reasons Capcom had the great idea to internilize development and started making awesome games once again.\line\line And talking a little bit more about Capcom, it's funny that I mention that given how one of those late awesome games they made is Devil May Cry 5, a follow-up to a franchise I didn't yet get to play but I know also has an underlying message about the value of humanity, a message that was once stripped from its purity when a western studio reimagined its metaverse with a much more cynical tone.\line\line So I guess what I'm trynna say is: we should be a bit more like Japanese people and have some faith in humanity for once. (I promise I'm not a weeb).\line\line Thank you for reading :)\line\line\line\line\line\line\line\line\line\line\line\line\line\line\line\par
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