Set in a fictional world occupied by terrifying creatures, the story of Resident Evil Village centers in the struggle of its protagonist, Ethan Winters, to find his missing baby daughter Rosemary while at the same time facing and surviving all kinds of dangers and threats. The village of the title is occupied by some of the most fearsome enemies in the whole Resident Evil world, but interestingly enough those are not the most intimidating and frightening when it comes to face-to-face encounters. Those creatures, at least, the Lycans, as well as their variations, are mindless entities that, like the zombies, attack because it is the only thing that they can do. They may have some degree of intelligence, but it is still limited; and although sometimes their reactions show signs of a cunning mind, in reality they are just "programmed" that way as a result of the bad outcome of the experiments to which they had been subjected when they were still humans. The most frightful and, subsequently, most dangerous enemies are those that have a human appearance or behave as humans, because they combine exaggerated physical strength with human intelligence, of course using both features for evil purposes. What is even more interesting in these cases, is that said characters have historical or cultural references, something that is obvious in the way they are depicted and, sometimes, their powers as well.

Miranda in the 1920's with her real daughter Eva

Mother Miranda is the arch-villain of the story, and the one to have caused all the mess and chaos that Ethan encounters. Once a brilliant scientist, she lost her dear daughter during the 1920 pandemic in Spain and from that point and on she became obsessed with bringing her back to life somehow. Subjecting herself to numerous experiments, she managed to maintain her youth and achieve immortality, so as to be able to go on with her research while following the developments in medicine and technology. Naturally all this could not end well, and gradually she became a monster, but she still succeeded in keeping her activities underground, without raising suspicion. A few years before the events in Village, she discovered a strange giant fungus in the caves of a mountainous area in Eastern Europe, which had the ability to store people's memories and could also regenerate itself; Miranda decided this was exactly what she needed so as to finally bring her daughter back to life. Of course this could not happen without further research, processing and experimenting, so she set her new lab close to the source of the fungus, the Megamycete, to be able to carry out her experiments. 

Miranda (third from right) with her team, including Eveline, Alan and Mia

In her "human" appearance which is close to how she once looked, Miranda can be seen wearing an embroidered robe where the black color is prominent, with several golden and silver details. Her hair is combed back, and she has a strange object on her head that looks like a heavily decorated makeshift halo. Although the ornaments on her outfit are in fact symbols directly connected to her and her experiments, her look from a distance deliberately brings to mind a certain depiction of Virgin Mary, where she is shown with an impressive halo around her head. In her attempt to further subdue and intimidate the surviving residents of the village, Miranda would show up in this outfit so as to make them believe she was in fact a saint or, even worse, an incarnation of Virgin Mary herself. It is not random that she has the word "Mother" in her name, clearly identifying herself with the holy figure. This depiction of Virgin Mary is called "Our Lady of the Sorrows"; she mainly represents the stage in Virgin Mary's life when she was grieving for her son and, in extension, symbolizes the sorrows that humans have to endure in their life. It is clear that Miranda not only sees herself as pretty close to the holy figure because she is also in a similar situation, but she additionally believes she is equally holy. Several holy icons can be found in the abandoned village houses, which depict Miranda in her "saint" outfit, hinting that, in spite of the sacrilegious nature of her appearance, she had managed to persuade at least some of the villagers that she was not a simple human, but she had holy qualities and was a protector of their homes.

Miranda (left) and a depiction of Our Lady Of The Sorrows

The Megamycete fungus that Miranda uses in her experiments appears to be also "responsible" for the existence of the Mold back at the Baker residence, in Resident Evil 7. In Village, we are finally able to see the main source inside a cave, as Chris makes his way towards Miranda's secret lab. The fungus appears as a huge pinkish blob attached to the rocky walls of the cave, and what is interesting about it is that its shape resembles that of an embryo, clearly symbolizing both its regenerative power and Miranda's desire to have her daughter born again. The idea of a substance that records and stores human memories is not new; we have seen something similar in The Evil Within, although there the core element was a human brain. The fungus in Village brings to mind a similar idea from Mexican Gothic, a novel by Silvia Moreno Garcia that was published a year prior to Village's release, where members of a family living in an isolated mansion in the mountains are experimenting with achieving immortality after one of them discovered some strange fungi in the caves around the house. The fungi, aided by the existence of a human core, had the ability to multiply in the walls of the house, witnessing and recording the memories of the people that they would affect with their smell and mold, causing weird behaviors and sick hallucinations to them.

The Megamycete in the caves of the village

One of the most impressive villains in the Resident Evil world is undoubtedly Alcina Dimitrescu, the towering hostess of the ominous castle that looms at the outskirts of the village. Apart from being a vampiric creature as a result of Miranda's experiments, alluding to all the bloodthirsty characters of fiction before her, she also seems to have another, far less chilling reference: Mary Ellen Powers, declared in 1868 the tallest woman in the world. At 2,13 cm, Ellen, who was also the tallest among her male siblings, pursued a career in entertainment. She joined a famed circus and toured the world with it, being characterized a great sensation wherever she would appear. As part of her acts, and to make her look even more imposing, she would wear very high heels and top hats decorated with large feathers to further accentuate her impressive stature. She made a lot of money in this business and eventually got married. Her husband was an equally tall man and it was love at first sight for both of them when they crossed paths. A way happier and far less dramatic life than Alcina's, definitely.

Alcina Dimitrescu (left) and Mary Ellen Powers

I have analyzed Donna Beneviento's case in another article, but the character as an image alludes to several cultural and historical elements. An eccentric presence, looking as if she comes straight from Victorian times, Donna is always seen with her face almost entirely hidden by a veil, concealing her half-disfigured face, and being accompanied by a creepy marionette which she calls Angie and she only is able to animate and make her behave like a mischievous child, a power that she gained after taking part in Miranda's experiments. In a loading screen of the game, Angie appears sitting on Donna's lap, while Donna herself is nearly totally camouflaged in the darkness. This pose alludes to the infamous "hidden mother photography" trend of the Victorian era, which was a way to have little children and babies photographed supposedly on their own: the mother would sit completely covered on a chair holding the child in her lap to keep them still and calm, and the resulting photograph was supposed to focus on the child. The final picture however was most of the times marginally disturbing.

Donna and Angie (left) and an authentic "hidden mother photography" sample

Additionally, Donna's obsession with dolls and the way dozens of them can be found in every corner of her house, nods to the classic epic drama Raintree County by Edward Dmytryk where the mentally unstable Suzanna (unforgettably portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor) is a crazed doll collector, insisting on having many of them hanging above her bed.

Donna's dolls in the living room (left) and a scene from Raintree County

Angie herself is a direct reference to Emily, the ghost protagonist/antagonist of Tim Burton's stop motion film Corpse Bride, although the movie's bride was just a victim and in spite of the tricks she did to gain the gullible Victor, in the end she did the right thing and allowed him to live his life happily with his beloved Victoria. Of course Angie, being just a soulless marionette, is not to blame for anything in reality; the only one to blame is Donna and her insane obsessions.

Angie (left) and Emily, the original Corpse Bride

While trapped in Donna's mansion, Ethan is forced to play a sick hide-and-seek game with Angie. There's some discreet music playing in the background, which in fact is a dark nursery rhyme of french origin, titled Promenons-nous dans les bois (many thanks to Anthony Auzy for pointing this out). The lyrics of the song go like this: Promenons-nous dans les bois / Pendant que le loup n'y est pas / Si le loup y était / Il nous mangerait / Loup, y es-tu ? / M'entends-tu ? which means: "Let's take a walk in the woods while the wolf isn't there; if the wolf was there, he would eat us. Are you there, wolf? Can you hear me?" The nursery rhyme also has an english version, as well as a greek version, but the original comes from France. There is no mystery why a song with such theme plays during that specific scene; with her disturbed mind, Donna loves to create hallucinations made from elements of a rickety childhood. In the game that accompanies the nursery rhyme, the "wolf" is supposed to hunt the children. In Angie's version, Ethan takes the role of the wolf, and Angie plays the part of the innocent victim. Which is ironic, to say the least, since in reality Angie (and, eventually, Donna) is the malevolent spirit, while Ethan is not only the innocent one, but moreover the one who is actually being hunted.

Angie forces Ethan to stab her so as to bite him furiously afterwards

With his rather ridiculous mutation and his constant whining, Salvatore Moreau is easily the most deplorable enemy of Village. Although he is as dangerous as his "siblings", and his attacks are quite cunning, in the end you can only feel sorry for him. Once a member of a prominent family of the region, he lurks around the grounds of what once was a clinic, although it is not clear if he was actually a physician himself.

The sign pointing to Moreau's Clinic in the Reservoir

More likely, this must have been the profession of his parents or other close relatives, as among the few remaining human features of his pathetic existence are several tattoos, which may indicate that he might have been a sailor once. A specific one reads "Mother", something that ties well with his obsession with his "mother" Miranda and his desperate struggle to prove himself capable in her eyes. 

Salvatore Moreau's "Mother" tattoo is prominent on his arm

Moreau's mutation is particularly gruesome, alluding to a sea monster or a mutated giant fish. Not randomly, since his territory is a flooded area complete with a dam. He can be seen walking around hunched, as there is a mess of what looks like live tissue blobs on his back. Although his full name is a mix of Spanish and French, his surname is of French origin. Anthony Auzy (thanks again!) pointed out something very interesting about his surname, which I am quoting verbatim: "Moreau sounds a lot like "Morue", which is a French term that carries two meanings: it's the name of a fish species (Cod in English), and it's also a way to call ugly or vulgar people. Both of the meanings of the term "Morue" define Salvatore Moreau pretty well, which is why I'm pretty sure it was done on purpose."

Moreau in his private cabin

The most obvious reference for his name, however, is H.G. Wells' famous novel "The Island of Doctor Moreau". Published in 1896, it was quite innovative for its time, as all sci-fi novels by Wells actually were. The story of the book follows narrator Edward Prendick, a shipwreck survivor, who finds himself stranded on an isolated island where Doctor Moreau, once renowned physician whose reputation was ruined after his gruesome experiments became known, runs a makeshift clinic to keep on experimenting on creating humans from animals. The failed results of his experiments are several monstrous creatures, neither human nor animals, that reside on the island grounds in some sort of settlement that the Doctor has set up for them with his loyal assistants. The game's Moreau looks like such a monstrous creature, a combination of human and fish, who was also a victim of a crazed scientist and ended up a failed experiment himself. The creature from Wells' book named "The Limbless Thing" brings strongly Salvatore Moreau to mind and interestingly enough, certain "species" created by the novel's Moreau carry a vague resemblance to the game's Lycans.

The Limbless Thing (left) and one of the Beast Folk (illustrations by Lawrence Sterne Stevens, 1946)

The most human-looking enemy in the game is notably the most terrifying. Exactly because he looks like a normal human being, without any obvious defects and nothing abnormal in his features, Karl Heisneberg is the most intimidating among his "siblings" because you cannot know what to expect from him. His mutation is limited to a superhuman ability to control electric power and attract metallic objects with magnetism, also being able to project them to any distance at will. Although very specific, this ability allows him to have all sorts of machines, mechanisms, robots and mechanical men under his command, and he has created a factory in which he produces super-powerful machine-controlled soldier robots. The way he manages to use metallic objects around him resembles the power of Magneto, the hero of the Marvel comics, which is pretty similar.

Karl Heisenberg (left) with metallic objects around him, and Marvel's Magneto

Although not one of the bad guys in the game, The Duke is definitely a mysterious figure what with his imposing appearance and his enigmatic words. Showing up for the first time as Ethan makes his way towards the Dimitrescu territory, The Duke acts as Ethan's helper and consultant, providing him also with weapons, ammunition and resources of all kinds. His design is quite impressive: he appears as an obese man who can hardly fit in his armchair, shoeless, due to the swellings around his ankles, and dressed like he belongs to another time and place. His overall appearance resembles Daniel Lambert, a famously obese jail keeper who lived in England from the late 18th to the early 19th century. He was a very strong man whose extreme weight was rather unexplainable, as he did exercise and would not eat nor drink uncontrollably. In 1805, he was registered as the heaviest person in recorded history. Later in his life, driven by poverty, he decided to put himself on exhibition, so that people could come and see him as an attraction, at a fee. As he was very smart and pleasant, he became quite popular, so he managed to make good money from his business. When he died, he weighed 335 kg, and his coffin required 20 men to be carried.

The Duke (left) and real-life jail keeper Daniel Lambert

Unlike all previous characters, The Duke's fate remains a mystery. We can't even be sure if he is real, or just part of Ethan's hallucinations. In any event, the world of Resident Evil Village is a most interesting one, rich with elements that go beyond its gameplay qualities and call for further research and exploration.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.niagara2008.com/history144.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_mother_photography

https://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2013/12/17/the-island-of-doctor-moreau/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lambert

Rosemary's Dad

Shadows of Rose was released recently, as a complementary content for Resident Evil: Village, which, upon ending, informed us that "the father's story is now done", presumably opening the path for the daughter, Rosemary, although whether she will indeed become the lead of one or more games in the future is quite unclear, just as unclear is her role and presence in her own DLC story. Rosemary Winters was introduced to us abruptly as a baby at the start of Village, and we also had the chance to see her as a teenager in the game's ending cutscene. In Shadows of Rose, we get to play as her in third person, while following her in an attempt to get rid of the powers that she had inherited from Ethan. To do so, she needs to mentally travel to another realm where she will have to face monsters of various kinds and finally come face to face with Miranda herself. 

Rosemary, as Lord Heisenberg informed Ethan in the main game, is supposed to be an extremely powerful kid, but what her powers are and what exactly they can do, is as vague as her father's in-game face. When, early in the DCL story, she realizes that she can actually freeze enemies, she gets shocked, which means that up to that point she was unable to do such a thing, which in turn inevitably makes you wonder where exactly her infamous powers did lie until then. In reality, they seem to be literally asleep for most part of the game, and as she is struggling to survive in the most hostile environments, she moreover needs about half a dozen amplifiers, plus the final boost from Ethan, to help her powers reach their full level. This basically means that, in her normal life, her so-called powers must have been rather limited and if she had never traveled to that realm, she would have never been able to develop them and no one, not even her, would have been able to know what she was capable of, something that almost cancels Heisenberg's earlier comment about her. To add insult to injury, she cannot run to save her life (literally). You would expect a slender and swift girl in her mid-teens to be running as fast as the wind but no, why would she? There are sequences where she is hunted by face-eating monsters or evil mannequins or hammer-yielding giants and she can do no more than drag her feet so painfully slowly that you may find yourself desperately looking for a fast-forward button on your controller or keyboard.

That said, the DLC suffers from both technical and fiction-related flaws. From the technical aspect, apart from the extremely slow movement that Rosemary has throughout the whole story (she is even slower than Lara Croft in The Angel of Darkness, and honestly I never thought this was even possible but as it turns out, it is), she is rather clumsly with guns - which may be partly natural since she is a civilian, but growing up under the custody of Chris Redfield with several agents in the training constantly around her, you would expect her to have learned a thing or two. To make things even worse, because she reaches the full level of her powers just before the final boss fight, this is exactly where you get to learn her new moves. It is such a waste of good gameplay options, since you get to use said new moves against the final boss only, minutes before the story reaches its conclusion.

Fiction-wise, the story has several plot holes, and in fact Shadows of Rose was not exactly a necessary addition. The fact that Ethan was the one to offer Rosemary the strongest boost, basically means that he was super powerful himself. Mind you, Miranda had ripped his heart off and he got caught in the grand explosion that he caused himself in the village, yet he was still able to manifest in Miranda's domain, just like she did, therefore he was nearly as powerful as Miranda was. This combined with the regenerative powers that he already had from the mold, made him super-humanly strong, practically nullifying his demise in the main game. Although the DLC is titled after Rosemary, it is actually Ethan who carries the strongest part, both metaphorically and literally, while Rosemary is way too weak until the finale, where her powers may look impressive, but the whole sequence feels more like a quick time event and less like an actual interactive boss fight.

It would have been much more intriguing if, in the main game, we had Ethan, still unaware of his own powers at the start, interacting with those weird amplifiers and gradually becoming stronger, finally understanding that he is not an ordinary human being anymore; and then in that scene where Eveline reveals to him the shocking truth about his death, he would come to realize that he was actually superhuman, rising over all evil in the village and defeating Miranda in a most impressive way. If this was how the story unraveled, there would be practically no need for Rosemary's extra story, which feels nearly unnecessary anyway since she ends up with her powers not only intact but also boosted up, therefore we are back at point zero. The only essential part of the story is her meeting with Ethan, which could have easily been the most interesting plot point of the DLC and would have made our struggle worthwhile but sadly it is void of all emotion because, guess what: again we are unable to see Ethan's face or watch his reactions in what could have been one of the most touching, heartbreaking and memorable scenes of the whole saga. During the most crucial instances, his face is blocked by Rosemary's arm or his own arm, then we get to see his back while he is talking to his daughter, a scene that could have stayed with us forever but instead all we get is a bland-feeling dialogue because we can't even see a hint of Ethan's expressions as he is looking at and speaking to Rosemary.

Other than all that, the DLC feels a lot like a superficial copy of The Evil Within 2 at times, what with Rosemary traveling inside her gray matter via the mutamycete and the evil mastermind wanting to take advantage of the girl's powers. Also if you have read Mexican Gothic, the whole idea of the fungus that is "recording" people's memories will feel familiar to you. Even so, there are some really good sequences in the story, like the painting puzzle in the Castle and the whole House section which is very atmospheric and creepy, although the first half with the diorama puzzles is definitely its best part. The second section, which is basically an extended stealth hide-and-seek, feels and looks very interesting when it comes to avoiding the floating dolls (an intense sequence accompanied by a discreet, creepily beautiful music) but trying to escape the giant Mia mannequins is so exhausting due to Rosemary's slow-motion running, that it ends up more annoying than scary. And I really could have done without Eveline's hysterics. I also loved the Duke's new look, although it is unclear why he is so mean towards Rosemary, while he had been so helpful with Ethan.

 

 

Overall, Shadows of Rose does have its own merit, but it feels more like an unnecessary chore in relation with the main game. And I am not very sure if I will be interested in playing a possible future Resident Evil with Rosemary Winters as the main protagonist, because as much as I generally like her, she is too weak and indifferent as a character of fiction and lacks too much background to hold a story on her own. I would be more keen on playing a game with Jake Muller or Sherry Birkin as leads, for instance, who are not only strongly connected to the saga's core, but they still are literally and directly the new blood of the Resident Evil series.

 

» My playthrough of "Shadows of Rose":

The Psychosexual Subtext of Resident Evil: Village

 

Resident Evil: Village is centered around Ethan Winters's nightmarish journey to find his abducted daughter Rosemary, however there are several other themes explored in the game on a secondary level that, however, add a lot to the story and the development of its characters. While Mother Miranda is the prominent evil mastermind, her four "children", the four lords of the village, are in fact the characters who give the tone of the adventure and the ones who, in the end, are the most memorable. When it comes to sexual imagery in particular, the obvious thought would be Alcina Dimitrescu, but in fact she is a red herring on the matter, as the essence of this subject lies somewhere else.

As Ethan is about to enter the Castle Dimitrescu, he is captured by Carl Heisenberg and brought to a peculiar council consisting of Miranda and her four children. It is the only time when he has the chance to see all the villains gathered together, and moreover while they are arguing about who is going to be the one to carry out his execution. Sounds like an evil child's game, which isn't random if we consider that Miranda, by having condemned these four individuals to be a part of her experiments, she has essentially shattered their personality and their own free will, and while they feel super powerful thanks to their unusual abilities, in fact they are just puppets in the hands of their "mother".

The whole scene looks like a grotesque act performed by a circus of freaks, and it would have been marginally hilarious if it wasn't so chillingly creepy. Alcina and Heisenberg are the most loud; each one of them makes it very clear that they want to be the one to kill Ethan. Their over-confidence is more than obvious and they feel much superior to their other two siblings. The badly disfigured Salvatore Moreau limits himself to getting close to Ethan to have a better look at his potential prey while whimpering like a whiny baby. And then there is Donna Beneviento. She can be seen sitting in a corner, her face covered with a black veil, never speaking a word while her creepy puppet Angie, controlled by her, rushes forward to have a look at Ethan as well, in a bold, unafraid and sadistic way. Donna looks like a silent stalker, patiently waiting for her prey to fall in her hands.

Donna Beneviento is an extremely intriguing character, one that definitely deserved more game time and more details revealed about her past and her family. But even what we do know about her and, mainly, what we see, understand and decipher as the story unfolds, is enough to make her stand out among the villains and end up being one of the most iconic characters in the Resident Evil saga. On first look, she is not easy to read. In her notes, Miranda characterizes Donna as mentally underdeveloped, which is the main reason why she could not be a good host for her daughter, Eva. Donna has the appearance of a grown woman, but mentally and sentimentally she is still a child. An insecure, lonely child, but at the same time a child with vicious, twisted instincts. Donna's backstory is a tragedy, something that can be reflected in her overall appearance and attitude. Born an aristocrat, she lost her parents at a very tender age, when they both committed suicide. Her mental health issues prevented her from becoming more social in her teen and early adult years, finding solace strictly in making dolls, a craft that she had learned from her father. Her only companion was a girl named Claudia, who belonged to Donna's bloodline but no one knew for sure whether she was Donna's sister or maybe her daughter, most probably an illegitimate one, if this was indeed the case. Claudia is buried in the Beneviento Flowerbed, a private cemetery just outside the entrance to the grounds of the residence.

Growing up, Donna's obsession with dolls and doll-making became even stronger. She also studied a lot in her mansion's rich library, and she became an expert on the local plants and flowers, learning to locate those that were poisonous, and use them to create mixtures that caused heavy hallucinations. As a side-effect of Miranda's experiments on her, she developed the ability to control inanimate objects with her mind, something that she took advantage of in order to manipulate her dolls around. She especially became attached to Angie, a very special puppet / doll, which looked like a skeletal figure, was dressed in bridal rags and the architecture of her face resembled a lot the Beneviento family's crest, the sun / moon complex. 

Donna's obsession with dolls is a major element of her character and an axis around which her whole personality revolves. According to Sigmund Freud, children subconsciously use the dolls as a means to indirectly express erotic and aggressive fantasies. The doll is a small object, therefore is much closer, as an image, to what the child sees in the mirror and, subsequently, much easier to identify with. With the dolls, children create an imaginary world where they hope to feel satisfied and happy, while at the same time attempting to explore aspects of the adult world. According to Rainer Maria Rilke, however, the doll acts as a safety belt for the child who would feel lost and alone if cast out in the wild world. But exactly because the doll is an object with which the child can easily familiarize, their identities get mixed and the erotic element becomes prominent again. Sometimes children treat dolls with viciousness and this, from the aspect of psychoanalysis, is an aftereffect of the subconscious, premature yearning for a sexual partner. Donna's attitude reflects all this, adding a most powerful sexual imagery in the story. Alcina and her daughters may look promiscuous and revealing with their seemingly saucy attitude towards Ethan, but in reality they only want blood. Donna, on the other hand, neither speaks nor moves, but the way she traps Ethan in her twisted, morbid game is overloaded with psychosexual nuances.

Dolls were prominent in yet one more Resident Evil game, where again they were linked to a disturbing sexual behavior: Alfred Ashford in Code Veronica had his secret palace filled with vintage dolls, plus one giant and very creepy dismembered one hanging from the ceiling at the entrance hall. Although the house used to be inhabited by a girl as well in the past - Alfred's twin sister Alexia - it is rather clear that, now at least, it is Alfred who is obsessed with dolls, given how he keeps them around the rooms standing like silent guardians: seemingly harmless but not the least terrifying. Being very close to his sister as a young boy, he developed an unhealthy obsession with her as a teenager. After her supposed death, Alfred took on the habit of wearing her dresses and a wig that resembled her hair and strolling around the house pretending to be Alexia. To be more precise, he did not only pretend to be his sister, but he would actually "become" her when in female disguise. The dolls kind of substituted her actual presence in the house, while at the same time they maybe signified Alfred's hidden desire to have his sister as a living doll instead of her obviously being the dominant and omnipotent twin when she was alive.

Being Donna's literal creation, Angie is a medium that is used to express her master's mood and feelings. While Donna is silent and motionless, Angie is talkative, sassy and restless. Here we have a peculiar inversion: the puppet acts like a living person, while the human adapts the attributes of a doll. Donna identifies with Angie on multiple levels and the way that she chooses to express herself through the doll is different every time. For Donna, Angie mainly acts as a substitute for Claudia but on a second - and maybe much stronger - level, the doll represents a complex combination of Donna's primitive maternal instinct and her carnal attraction to the opposite sex. The most obvious manifestation of the combination of these two symbolic attributes in Angie is the doll's appearance: she looks like a little kid, but she wears a grown woman's bridal gown.

In the secluded and spooky Beneviento residence, Ethan becomes the forbidden fruit. He is pretty much like McBurney in the iconic movie The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1971). Deprived of his weapons, he becomes a victim to whatever sick plans Donna has in mind. She begins by trapping him in her workshop, in the basement of the mansion, and there she creates a haunting string of hallucinations where Ethan's wife, Mia, appears as a giant wooden doll with several items hidden in parts of her body. Ethan hears Mia crying or talking to him, he finds her wedding ring, the music box that was a gift from a relative for their wedding, a photographic film including snapshots connected to his family life, then a baby's cradle, which subsequently breaks, hidden even deeper at the bottom of a well in a second basement. Donna attempts to sentimentally and psychologically break him by bringing up painful memories connected to his family, while at the same time she makes sure that the atmosphere in the house is scary enough to keep him under control. Eventually she creates the hallucination of a giant, cannibalistic embryo, a morbid and horrifying mockery of Rosemary, which is chasing Ethan around the house threatening to kill him. 

And this is when Donna shows up and it's the one and only time when she speaks to Ethan directly, telling him that she can't let him leave. At this point, she still appears with her head covered, although she is on her own grounds and there is a portrait on a wall depicting her holding Angie, where her face fully shows. By choosing to appear like this in front of Ethan, she avoids eye-contact with him which would possibly lead to her not feeling secure enough to go on with her game. Determined to keep him there, she makes him chase her in the residence's rooms, although Ethan is actually seeing Angie floating around and hiding in several places in the mansion, forcing him to take part in a morbid hide-and-seek game. The only thing that Ethan can do to attempt to defeat Donna is to stab Angie with a pair of scissors; but in reality, he is actually chasing and stabbing Donna herself.

 

 

The scissors is again a strong sexual symbol with many nuances and Ethan's action of using it as a tool to overpower Donna works, for her, as a substitute for the sexual act. This sequence can potentially become even more intense if Ethan fails to find Angie in time; if this happens, the dolls around him grow blades which make them look like mechanical spiders, and stab him with mania, and of course it is in fact Donna again who attacks and stabs him, once more creating a hallucination involving the dolls. Notably, the first time that Ethan finds and stabs Angie, the doll bites him. Knowing that it is actually Donna who does this, the whole scene takes a completely different perspective, seen through the prism of Freud's theory about children using the dolls to express aggressive erotic fantasies. Donna may not be technically a child anymore, but her psyche is stuck in a problematic and sad childhood, something that obviously keeps defining her actions even in her adult life.

Up to the point where Ethan arrives at Donna's house and after he escapes from there, his role is standard and specific: he is the protective father figure and Rosemary's rescuer. But for the time that he spends inside the Beneviento mansion, his role changes dramatically. He becomes a potential game partner for Donna who, due to her emotional clinging to childhood, employs childish tricks (the hide-and-seek game) and objects (the dolls) in order to lure him towards her, which subsequently leads to Ethan acquiring one more role: that of the object of Donna's sexual desires. Donna's sick inner child views Rosemary as an antagonist, something that is intensified by Angie's reactions every time that Ethan grabs her and stabs her, but Donna as a grown woman also views Mia as an antagonist, and this is manifested mainly in the way that she chose, in the workshop hallucination, to present Mia as a grotesque giant puppet. After Ethan kills Donna by stabbing Angie with the scissors and all hallucinations are gone both inside and around the Beneviento estate, the basement of the mansion still remains off-limits to him. From a freudian aspect, the basement represents the memory storage: a place where past images are stacked and remain there abandoned and seemingly forgotten but still affecting the person involved.

The whole stage that takes place in the Beneviento residence is on a much different pace from the  rest of the game, and it is several levels creepier and scarier because it is built around psychological horror. It is pretty similar to The Evil Within's chapter "The Cruelest Intentions", not only as far as its atmosphere and setting are concerned but also because in both cases the memories of the protagonists are mixed with those of their stalkers. This is a feature that is always present in The Evil Within, but in that specific chapter it reaches its climax because memories become more personal for the stalker, just as is the case with Donna in Village. Story-wise, Donna  has many things in common with Ruben Victoriano, Sebastian's stalker in The Evil Within. She is playing with Ethan's memories by infiltrating them and placing herself in them by force. By presenting to him the human-sized Mia doll, it is as if she is implying that she, being a doll-maker, actually created Mia for him, and because it was her (Donna) who, as the creator, would breathe life into the doll, she would turn Mia into a host for her own manifestation and, indirectly, her own suppressed and undeveloped sexuality. From the moment when Donna appears in front of Ethan and establishes her own role as Angie's puppet master and, in a wider sense, as the one who pulls the strings in her domain, the child's play begins to transform to a sexual game, at which point Ethan stops being Donna's game partner and his role as the object of her sexual desire is the one that prevails in the end.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Uncanny Dolls: Images of Death in Rilke and Freud

Mother Miranda's Secret Manifestation and Other Theories in Resident Evil: Village

The two confirmed manifestations of Mother Miranda, the villain mastermind in Resident Evil: Village, are the creepy village crone and Mia Winters, Ethan's wife. But, as she herself confesses to Ethan during the final battle, she could take any shape and form that she wanted, listing a series of creatures that he may or may have not encountered on his way to find and rescue Rosemary. Technically, this means that, as Ethan went through all those impossible trials, Miranda could have been anyone or anything among the hordes of enemies and very few allies that he came across. Essentially though this was not exactly the case; Miranda was too busy trying to put everything in order for her ceremony that she definitely had better things to do than constantly shape-shift in the lycan-inhabited village. There is one person though whose form Miranda could have possibly taken, with this manifestation passing unnoticed due to the distinctive circumstances in which it might have taken place.

When Ethan first arrives at the village, the first person that he meets is a terrified resident who very soon is grabbed and devoured by something that attacks from the roof. Minutes later, our hero listens to a radio transmission which directs all survivors to "Luiza's house near the fields". After surviving an attack by a group of lycans, Ethan bumps onto the local crone, who we now know is a manifestation of Miranda and who confuses him with her creepy riddles. As Ethan is about to reach Luiza's house, he finds Elena, a young girl hiding in a shack with her father, Leonardo, who apparently had been attacked and bitten by a lycan.

Elena is the first sane-looking human that Ethan encounters in this cursed place, so he instantly clings onto her for emotional support. He offers to help her and her father get safely to Luiza's house, opening the way for them since they are in an extremely dire situation. When they knock on the door, however, Luiza's gamekeeper, Iulian, refuses to let them in, his main concern being Leonardo's wounds that may attract the monsters towards their temporary shelter. At this point, Luiza arrives and orders him to allow Elena, her father and Ethan to get inside her house before sending him out in the fields to look for more survivors.

When all but Iulian are safe in Luiza's living room, and after only a few minutes have passed, the lycan-bitten Leonardo suddenly turns and mortally attacks first Luiza and then all the other survivors, except Ethan and Elena who somehow manage to move towards the back of the house. As Leonardo is about to attack Ethan, Elena shoots him with a gun and saves Ethan's life. Moments later, during Ethan and Elena's eventful attempt to escape from the attic while the house is on fire, Elena tells Ethan that she hopes his family is safe, to which Ethan casually responds that they would all have the chance to meet each other once all this was over. Just then, Leonardo appears, calling Elena by her name, something that makes her drop her guard and run towards him. Within seconds, the burning floor collapses, burying both Leonardo and Elena in the flames below.

Ethan leaves the house from the upper floor but just as he is about to exit to the fields, he hears a gunshot and a man's voice calling Mother Miranda's name. He opens the gate just in time to witness a mysterious figure, who now we know was Miranda herself, brutally killing poor Iulian then evilly laughing as she walks away. A bit further down, in the church courtyard, Ethan once more bumps onto the crone who again gives him the creeps with her sibyllic chanting.

Now let's switch our focus for a moment away from the main story, which is the hard road that Ethan has taken to find his daughter, and set it on the village itself. Except for the terrified old man who got killed as soon as Ethan met him at the start, most of all the other living souls in the village were already gathered in Luiza's house. The only missing ones were Elena and Leonardo. When Ethan found them, Elena confessed to him that when she knocked on Luiza's door, nobody answered. So apparently, Elena and Leonardo had attempted to get to Luiza before Ethan arrived, but no one let them in. Judging from what happened when they knocked again, with Ethan this time, quite possibly Iulian saw them and didn't want to allow them to enter. And when he finally did open the door, he even pointed his gun at them, making it very clear that they were not welcome in the house, because of Leonardo's injury.

The whole scene that takes place in Luiza's house is quite intense, and there is a lot going on under the surface. People are arguing, crying, praying, shouting, but never nobody asks Ethan what he is actually doing in an isolated village to which he clearly doesn't belong. They acknowledge him as a stranger and an outsider but none of them expresses any wonder as to what business may a stranger and an outsider have in such a place which is, obviously, very hard to locate and reach. So the whole scene ends without anyone ever mentioning anything about why Ethan is in the village. Which makes it extremely weird and suspicious when Elena tells him, as they are climbing towards the attic, that she hopes his family is safe. How could she possibly know that he was actually looking for his family in the village? Since he was not a local, he could have arrived there for whatever other reason. The only way Elena could know about Ethan, since he never had the chance to mention anything himself, was if she already had heard about him, which is impossible since she and her father had apparently been stranded all this time.

When Ethan first meets the Duke, he is surprised to hear that the eccentric merchant already knows him. When he expresses his surprise, the Duke replies with a cryptic "Anyone who is anyone has heard of the likes of you". Anyone who is anyone - not "everybody", not a humble peasant girl like Elena, not even Luiza, who seems to have once been a powerful figure in the village, but anyone with a higher status. Anyone who is anyone, like Miranda's four children, like the Duke and like Miranda herself. 

These peculiar details made me suspect that Elena could very well have been another manifestation of Miranda, who, in the process, was revealed to have done far more complicated things, so killing an innocent peasant girl, then shape-shifting to take her form and place would be nothing for her. My theory is that Miranda wanted to keep Ethan isolated without any potential allies around him. Seeing how all the survivors were locked in Luiza's house, she needed to find a way to infiltrate their shelter, since it was her perfect chance to eliminate everyone at the same time and make sure noone was left alive, but without revealing herself to Ethan just yet. So she somehow caused Leonardo's injury, which could have been very easy with all those lycans roaming the fields, knowing that sooner or later he would turn. At some point, she killed Elena and took her place without her father taking notice; she had already done it with Mia, so she knew very well how to repeat the process with success. Before Ethan arrived, she had tried to enter Luiza's house but Iulian refused to open the door. It is very possible that he did sense something weird about Elena, which made him be so hostile towards her. When Ethan arrived, it was the perfect chance for Miranda to make one more attempt to enter Luiza's house, and this time the plan worked. Under that light, it is not random that, excluding Ethan, Elena was the only person among the locals who managed to survive Leonardo's attack. When Elena / Miranda made sure that everyone was dead for good, she "sacrificed" Elena and then reverted to her original form. Once back in the fields, she bumped onto Iulian whom Luiza had sent out before the tragedy happened. Ethan saw her killing the poor man, but not before he managed to cry out her name. 

Following my theory, Miranda had two reasons to kill Iulian with her own hands: one because if he remained alive he could become Ethan's ally and she didn't want that; and two because, unbeknownst to him, he had "disobeyed" her by refusing to let her in the house when she appeared at Luiza's door in Elena's form, and this disobedience was something that she could never tolerate. But there could also be another reason: maybe Iulian "caught" her during her transformation from Elena to her real self, which partly explains why he said her name before she killed him. So if Elena really was Miranda in disguise, she knew about Ethan already, meaning it is no surprise that she made that comment about his family. Of course Ethan was too overwhelmed with anxiety and fear to actually make the necessary connections, so he simply witnessed the tragedy of the villagers as one more dramatic incident in his life.  

Elena being a manifestation of Miranda kind of ties with my analysis in the article Ethan Winters, An Unfortunate Hero, in that this theory may shed some light on whether Miranda actually knew something about Ethan being a bio-weapon. If she really appeared to him in Elena's form, planning to lure all survivors in Luiza's house and have them killed but leave Ethan alive on purpose, it could possibly mean that she at least suspected that he had super powers and she actually wanted him to get to her so as to be sure and decide what would be the best way to deal with him. Or maybe she did know that he was all mold, but by closely watching him during his interactions with Heisenberg, she realized that Ethan was too strong for her and she would be unable to control him like she did with all her other victims. She knew he would stop at nothing to save his daughter, therefore it would be impossible for her to make him part of her experiments in any way. So killing him would be the only solution for her, but since he had regenerative powers, she knew he would be able to come back to life anyway. She had to make sure to exterminate him in a way that would leave no room for regeneration, so she ripped his heart out. Still, he did manage to revive himself and even fight her afterwards, albeit with very little life left in him. That said, in the dramatic finale we never did actually see him die. We only saw him returning to the ceremony site and then, from Chris's helicopter, we witnessed the explosion down below. This is Resident Evil after all, so we can never tell for sure that someone has definitely died.

If Miranda is a character defined by her dark secrets, the same albeit on a different level can be said about another mysterious figure, the Duke. Although his role is not new in the Resident Evil series, his predecessor, the Merchant in Resident Evil 4, was a neutral character whose part in the story was entirely practical: he would appear in the game's stages, usually positioned in safe havens or at least places that could not be easily reached by enemies, presenting an array of goods and equipment that Leon could choose from and arm himself accordingly. Leon had no other interaction with the Merchant who would only express his opinion about the guns that Leon would decide to buy from him. The Duke in Village, though, is an entirely different story. To begin with, we get a special cutscene when he first appears outside Alcina Dimitrescu's castle. The Duke is an obnoxiously obese man, whose clothing style seems to come from many years ago, yet as we have the chance to observe near the finale, his haircut is rather modern, with the lower back of his head being completely shaven. 

The Duke recognizes Ethan as soon as he sees him, and moreover he seems to know everyone in the region. As the story proceeds, he offers Ethan valuable information about Miranda and the four Lords of the village, as well as about the things that Ethan has to do and what he needs to look for. Additionally, he is obviously in good terms with at least three of the four Lords, since he can be seen in places where normally outsiders wouldn't have been exactly welcome: we find him in the Dimitrescu Castle, in Heisenberg's factory and in the heart of Moreau's Reservoir. He doesn't go near the Beneviento residence, though, which is quite curious, given that there is nothing truly lethal or dangerous in Donna's house, except for whatever creepy hallucinations are produced as an effect of her tricks; but the Duke would definitely be aware of all this anyway.

When Ethan gets back to his senses after Miranda rips out his heart and after Eveline's revelation, he finds himself in the Duke's carriage, lying on the floor, while the Duke is riding at the front. Just then, Ethan asks the Duke who or what exactly he is, to which the Duke replies "Even I can't quite answer that". So really, who or what exactly is the Duke? Is he simply what he appears to be, a merchant who puts his financial interests above all so he doesn't care who he does business with as long as he has money to gain - which would explain why he is in good terms with both the good guy (Ethan) and the bad guys (the Lords)? Is his unusual appearance also a result of Miranda's experiments? Or is he something far more complicated? Is he truly how we see him though Ethan's eyes or, like with Miranda's case, he is a manifestation of something else? 

If we attempt to decipher the Duke via clues offered by the game's scenario itself, there is one crucial keyword we could start from. When Ethan bumps onto him again after killing Alcina in the castle, it is when the Duke starts to be more talkative and to give more information to him, albeit he still speaks in riddles. At the end of one such conversation, Ethan gets frustrated and calls him "Joker". This characterization, on first look, refers to him seemingly making fun of Ethan, like the jesters did in royal courts in the very distant past. But the Joker also nods to the wild card figure that is always featured in a deck of cards. The "Joker" card serves as a balancing one, and can be used in a variety of ways when something is missing, or even as a means to bluff the opponent. It is a card that, plainly put, adapts to its "surroundings", corresponding each time to the rule that its owner sets. Similarly, the Duke assumes a series of roles in the story, depending on how he is needed to act. The peculiarity of his looks is there to highlight his obvious status, that of the merchant who always looks for ways to make money, meaning he is greedy enough so as to overlook other things, like the evilness of a customer like Alcina or Heisenberg, for instance. But when it comes to Ethan, his attitude becomes more friendly and more human. 

So could this mean that the Duke's attitude changes depending on who he deals with, or maybe that he is literally a wild card that takes up the role that its "owner" decides each time? Or does he even exist as we see him, in the first place? Ethan may not be aware of his own situation until near the end, but him being not exactly human definitely grants him with a power to see and feel things that normal people cannot. Given that he is the only one whom we see interacting with the Duke, we can not even be sure that the Duke is just how he appears. Mind you, in Chris's part of the story, there is no sign of the Duke at all. The last time that Ethan interacts with the Duke is when the latter transports him near the Ceremony Site in his carriage. When Ethan gets out of the carriage, we can see that it is led by a black horse. If seen from a distance, the carriage at that point looks like a Victorian hearse. 

Considering that, after this, Ethan confronts Miranda and then sacrifices himself in the subsequent explosion, we could assume that the Duke at that point in the story acts like the Grim Reaper, leading our hero to his death. But while the Grim Reaper is always depicted as a silent, skeletal figure with no human features, the Duke is obese, flamboyant and loud. In that part of the story, Miranda has already ripped out Ethan's heart, which means that Ethan is then in a sort of zombie state. From that point and on, the only entirely human being that he interacts with is Chris. Miranda is more or less like him, Rosemary has been ripped apart then put together again by Miranda; in that stage, Ethan has already crossed the boundary between the living and the dead. But since he had always been more dead than alive anyway, everything he sees, everything he says and does, is anything but normal, and things appear to him in reverse. The Duke could very well have been a manifestation of the Grim Reaper himself all along, appearing in front of Ethan as a figure seemingly opposite in appearance, but in the essence all the same. Isn't the Grim Reaper a merchant of sorts after all? In ancient Greek mythology, the dead were obliged to pay Charon, his counterpart, in order to be able to cross the river Styx to the other side. 

Something that Miranda and the Duke have in common is that they were both introduced to us for the first time in Village, unlike someone else, a most familiar and beloved face, no other than Chris Redfield himself. Chris has been the protagonist or co-protagonist in several stories so far, and we know quite a few things about his stellar career, however very little is known about his and Claire's childhood. In fact we know nothing about the early years of the Redfield siblings, except for the fact that they lost their parents at a very young age. There is no information about how and where they grew up, and how they managed until they became adults.

After Chris saves Ethan and Mia and takes them away from Louisiana, he secretly locates them in an isolated region of Eastern Europe so as to keep them safe. But it is exactly in that place where the heart of Miranda's activities lies. The Megamycete, the fungus that she uses to carry out her experiments grows in the mountains surrounding that area. Even if Chris already had information related to this, it would be very unlikely that he would put Ethan and Mia deliberately in danger by having them live in a place so close to a most dangerous source. So why, from all the places in the world did he choose specifically that region for them to stay? One explanation could be that he indeed have information about Miranda and the Megamycete, but he couldn't leave Ethan and Mia without his protection, so he took them with him; this way, he would be able to investigate the case further while still keeping an eye on them. But even so, it would be too risky to have them exposed to such an extreme danger. So maybe there was another reason why he chose that specific country of Eastern Europe as a hideout for Ethan and Mia.

Since there is almost no information about Chris and Claire's early years, we cannot even be sure that "Redfield" is indeed their real surname. Because they are both so strong and imposing characters whenever they appear in a game, you rarely ever - if at all - enter into the process of wondering about their past. Could it be possible that Chris had his own reasons for picking that specific part of the world to relocate Ethan and Mia? Maybe something personal, something about his past. Consider that one of the promo images of the game features him in a rather cryptic collage, his half face being replaced by that of a wolf. 

The symbolism and imagery of wolves are both very strong in the story and play a great part in its development: the name of Chris's rogue team is Hound Wolf Squad, his own professional alias in it is Alpha (as in, the Alpha wolf, the leader of the pack), and the respective aliases of his team mates are also related to wolves. And of course there are the lycans, the terrifying creatures that inhabit the once peaceful village and its countryside, that are, in their essence, werewolves. These two depictions of the wolf, like a representation of the "good Wolf, Bad Wolf" idea, have both a realistic and an allegorical interpretation. The realistic one has to do to the story itself: the literal lycans that both Ethan and Chris encounter, and the actual name of Chris's team. The allegorical interpretation pertains to the psyche of the two protagonists and how it changes as the story progresses. Ethan is, on a first level, the "good wolf" from the start until the end; he is the good and clean hero, set on a journey to save his daughter. On a second level, however, after it is revealed to him that he is actually mold inside, his human substance collapses and although him being a bio-weapon doesn't make him necessarily bad, it still makes him potentially extremely dangerous. 

Chris, at the beginning, seems to be the "bad wolf", what with killing Mia in front of her husband without explanation. Gradually however, as the truth comes out, he assumes his well-established and pre-determined role as a protector and savior. Therefore we could say that both sides, the "good" one and the "bad" one exist equally in Ethan and Chris. But although Ethan is not responsible, so to speak, for his "bad" side, Chris's case is far more complex. There is something undefinedly dark about him, something that keeps him distant and mysterious, something marginally unworldly. His presence in the game carries a vaguely ominous aura, as if there are things connecting him with that place that he would rather not share with anyone, not even his own team.

Among the various interesting journals and notes that Ethan finds in the Castle Dimitrescu, is one featuring a list of tasks written possibly by someone in charge. One of the names that appear in that list is "Rednic". 

Although "Rednic" and "Redfield" have no common root or meaning, their sounding is cunningly similar. Could it be that Chris and Claire had ancestral roots in the area, and their surname was initially Rednic, then after moving away and relocating in the USA, they changed it to Redfield? Probably keeping the first part as a reminder of their origin, but changing the suffix to make it sound more neutral as far as the ethnic identity was concerned. If this is the case, there could still have been relatives of theirs in that area, who not only were involved in what was going on in the Castle Dimitrescu, but had something to do with the lycans as well, thus connecting Chris with his "wolf" self, his decision to give that specific name to his team and the respective aliases to himself and his partners, and to which the image depicting him as half-human / half-wolf may hint. As an additional side note, when Alcina Dimitrescu was human, she suffered from a hemoglobin deficiency, due to which she needed to consume blood on a constant basis in order to survive, which is why she became an actual vampire after her mutation. This disease, more commonly called vampirism, is also known under the scientific name "Renfield syndrome", which unavoidably alludes to Chris and Claire's surname, and maybe this is not something random.