How Resident Evil Village Hides Its Big Twist in Plain Sight

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard follows Ethan Winters, a normal systems engineer who gets caught up in the crazy monster-filled world of Resident Evil after he gets an email from his three-years-missing wife, Mia, telling him to come to rural Louisiana. Resident Evil Village, picks up several years later when Ethan’s newborn daughter, Rosemary, is kidnapped by a strange cult and taken to their village in rural Spain.

*This article contains major spoilers for both Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village.

Image source: Resident Evil on Twitter

Ethan’s journey through both of these games is hardly an easy one. Be it from the unkillable Baker family or the werewolves, zombies, and vampires of Mother Miranda’s village, Ethan takes a lot of damage. Luckily, scattered around are a large supply of herbs and chemical fluid, which when combined, can cure all but the most grievous of wounds.

From a gameplay perspective, this makes sense. Ever since classic FPS games like Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM, health-restoring items have been a staple of the genre. It goes without saying that, in the real world, simply walking over a medkit can’t heal a beaten and bloody person. But with the suspension of disbelief we have built up from years of playing such games, it seems perfectly reasonable—if not downright normal—in a video game. We simply ignore miraculous healing items as a quality-of-life game mechanic somewhat removed from the actual story and world portrayed in the game.

Image source: Resident Evil on Twitter

The latest two Resident Evil games play on our familiarity and acceptance of the supernatural effectiveness of in-game healing items to hide their big twist. Over the course of those games, Ethan experiences some serious body horror. In Resident Evil 7, he is stabbed, stung, and has his left hand chopped off by a chainsaw—only for it to be stapled back on later. Resident Evil Village kicks it up a notch. Not only is he bitten, slashed, smashed, and shot with flaming arrows, he is also clawed, impaled, strung up on metal hooks, covered in acid, and has his other hand chopped off (and later reattached with healing fluid). It’s only when Ethan recovers from having his heart literally ripped out of his body that the truth is revealed. It isn’t magical healing fluid that’s been keeping Ethan alive. It’s that Ethan isn’t human—and hasn’t been since the end of Resident Evil 7’s prologue.

Like the rest of Eveline’s “family,” Ethan’s body is made up entirely of the strange mold responsible for the monsters of both games. While the mold can make itself appear to be human down to the DNA level it’s not. Ethan is no different from the members of the Baker family. He is basically as unkillable as Jack. And while Mia and Zoe, the other former Baker family survivors, have gotten the antidote to the mold, Ethan never has. Honestly, with all the damage he has taken, we should be surprised Ethan didn’t become a rage-filled mold monster in his final fight against Mother Miranda.

This revelation also makes it clear why Rosemary is so special—why the baby could be crystallized, chopped up, and then be put back together without any ill effects. Both of her parents have had their bodies altered by the mold, with Ethan’s entire body being made of the stuff. Rosemary’s DNA wasn’t altered by the mold, she is literally a child born of the mold and a mold-altered human. She is almost certainly more powerful than Eveline and, without the tampering of The Connections, is far more mentally stable.

Her nature also gives her final scene in the game an extra layer of meaning. While the agent sent to recover her says she’s just like her father—referring to her quick temper—she takes it another way. Unlike Eveline, Rosemary was not born alone in the world. She had a father that loved her and was like her. She knows this and is proud of the fact. Being told she is like Ethan is the greatest praise she could receive—it means she is not a monster like Eveline and is on the right path.

Resident Evil Village is available for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Stadia.


Top image source: Resident Evil on Twitter.

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Richard Eisenbeis Written by:

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