#ada characterization

Up to this point in SW, Ada's exposure to Leon has been:

Seeing him during the village fight and then ringing the bell for him

Seeing him getting choked out by Mendez, then watching him stumble his ass over to the gate, unlock it, and head back towards the village

Luis's radio call to him at the start of his castle section

Their very first scene together in his campaign

The "babysitting's tough, huh?" conversation

Seeing him run over to a dying Luis

The "I guess you're not heartless" conversation

That's it.

So, let's explore Ada's feelings as she goes through Separate Ways with regards to Leon, Ashley, and herself.

The very first time Ada hears Leon's voice, it's him teasing Ashley with:

"I wanted to go home, but Ashley had to see this castle first."

The very first time Ada speaks to Leon herself, the first expression of emotion he shows is when she tells him to leave Ashley behind -- and it's anger at her.

The very first time Ada sees Ashley in person, it's this moment ^^^ in the shots.

This is what I mean by SW making the main campaign feel like "The Leon and Ashley Show" from Ada's perspective. Of those seven encounters, four of them have been about Ashley. In fact, the only conversations that Leon and Ada have had up to this point have been about Ashley.

And this happens over and over and over and over again. Ada can't seem to catch Leon at all without Ashley also being in the picture in some way. The boat scene is literally the only conversation they have or moment they share where Ashley doesn't come up at all.

This is what I mean when I say that SW feels like Ada's being forced to bear witness to what her relationship with Leon could have been in Raccoon City if only she'd been honest and genuine with him up front.

The point of having Ada listen in on the "Ashley had to see the castle" line was so that she became aware of what the relationship between Leon and Ashley was actually like. It isn't just business between them; it's warm and playful.

And Ada rejects that, at first. She outright denies it to herself. That's what's really at the heart of her telling Leon to leave Ashley behind -- because Ada, at first, almost doesn't confront Leon at all. She damn near leaves the room before he walks in, but then she thinks better of it at the very last second.

The full line of dialogue of:

"Leave the girl. She's lost no matter what. You walk away now, and who knows? Maybe you'll live to meet me again. And then I might get you that 'greeting' you were looking for."

immediately follows her openly hitting on him ("Not a bad move. Very smooth."), to which he has no reaction. And so she gets more explicit with him. Let's break it down:

"Leave Ashley. She's not important. If you leave her, you'll finally get to have me. That's what you really want, right?"

That's why her actual line isn't framed as a warning. She doesn't double down on it when Leon pushes back on it; her response is: "Right. How about we continue this discussion another time?" It's not about Ashley turning or not turning -- it's not about Leon saving her. It's about Ada offering herself and then feeling "what the fuck" about it when the offer is refused.

But she still denies it to herself. That's why her follow-up line of dialogue once she jumps out of the window is a very coy "See you around, Leon." She still isn't ready to accept that she's been replaced as the focus of his attention and affection -- hence the pettiness of her "Babysitting's tough, huh?" line.

Her attitude only starts to change after Luis's death -- when his dying wish is for her to help Leon. So, Ada puts her pettiness aside and switches from demeaning and belittling Ashley to referring to her as "your friend" instead. It shows a degree of respect while still removing the overt affection from the equation.

But then Krauser runs off with Ashley. Leon's anger boils over, and he shoots Salazar in the face. And now, Ada's reaction is:

But when she finds him right on her heels because he's that fucking pissed and that fucking determined to go after Krauser for Ashley's sake, it still catches her by surprise. It speaks to the depth of Leon's concern and affection for Ashley.

Once again, it reaffirms that Ashley's not just a mission objective to Leon. It's personal, for him.

This leads directly into the boat scene, where Ada tells Leon that his greatest strength is still the love and compassion he has for other people...

... though it's not as if he hears her at all.

The next time Ada sees or hears from Leon, it's her walking in on the "for Luis" scene.

Along with the pep talk scene, this is the most intimate scene in the game. Ada is intruding on a very private, vulnerable moment between Leon and Ashley that ends in a promise:

"For Luis."

This is Ada's affirmation that Luis wasn't jerking her around -- he was being genuine about wanting to help Leon and Ashley, and now they're committed to honoring his memory and granting him his dying wish.

And Ada's pettiness finally melts away -- at least, for a time. They have their way of honoring Luis, so now it's time for her to do it her way.

Suddenly, Leon and Ashley's closeness doesn't matter to her anymore -- because it's not about them, and it's not about her. It's about Luis.

Walking out of the comms facility, she hears Ashley successfully fighting off Saddler. Interesting framing here with the jet ski in the foreground.

But interestingly, Ada's focus doesn't fall to her.

There's actually not a single moment in this game where Ada says Ashley's name out loud. Ashley is either "her" or "the girl" or "the president's daughter." No matter how far she comes in this, Ada still can't let go of that last little bit of pettiness. It's still personal for her, and the only reason why Ada helps Ashley at all is because it also helps Leon, which in turn honors Luis.

So, she does do it.

But not for Ashley's sake.

And she isn't about to go out of her way, either.

And then we reach the apex of it all.

Ashley's watching Leon's fight with Saddler with her hands clasped against her chest as though in prayer, as embers float around her like fireflies. This is overtly romantic imagery. I've said this before but: this is so romantic in its imagery and symbolism that it's just straight up on the level of Final Fantasy nonsense.

And not only is Ada forced to reckon with that, but the first and only thing out of Ashley's mouth to her is an order. Not a request. Not a plea. An order.

And all Ada can say in return is:

"I'm on it."

She's lost this fight.

Leon and Ashley (and Luis, to an extent) are a team, and Ada isn't part of that team. She sees it in this moment. Ashley is so comfortable in her place at Leon's side that Ada is a non-factor in the equation all together. That's why she wasn't in the lab with them. Ada acted as Luis's substitute, but in the lab, he was still with them.

"All of this -- removing the parasites -- this was Luis?" "Yeah. We're alive thanks to him."

The matching scars that Leon and Ashley end up with as a result of their radiation surgery are different from the matching scars that Leon and Ada have.

Leon and Ada's scars are a symbol that they once carried the same consequences born of the same mistakes.

Leon and Ashley's scars are a symbol that they once carried each other.

And that’s a huge fucking difference.

Ada feels that difference in that moment.

There is no "Who was that woman, anyway?" "She's like a part of me I can't let go" in this version of the story, because Leon has long since let her go.

And so her pettiness comes back. At the very end, she shoots her final shot:

It's a bookend for and a direct callback to what we were talking about earlier:

"Leave the girl. She's lost no matter what. You walk away now, and who knows? Maybe you'll live to meet me again. And then I might get you that 'greeting' you were looking for."

which really meant:

"Leave Ashley. She's not important. If you leave her, you'll finally get to have me. That's what you really want, right?"

and led into:

"Right. How about we continue this discussion another time?"

She's ready to continue the discussion. One last ditch effort to see if all love is lost between them.

Leon's answer is very clear.

The Leon and Ashley Show isn't over, but Ada's role in it is.

Which leaves her to wonder who and what, exactly, she'll be the next time she and Leon meet now that her status as The Love Interest has been completely and utterly usurped.

Incidentally, I think this is also why she refuses to call Ashley by name at any point in SW. She doesn't want to get attached to her, too.

We know that Luis's death affected her because of this moment:

Ada wouldn't have fucked with the bombs to save Ashley if not for Luis's influence.

In fact, Luis's death was the catalyst for a lot of change in her.

So, when Ada witnesses the "For Luis" scene and she stands up and says:

That's her own way of joining in the chorus of "For Luis" -- because helping Leon and Ashley was Luis's dying wish.

I think what would be helpful would be mapping out Ada's character arc in RE4make:

the lie she believes: looking out for myself is the most important thing

doubt moment #1: helping Leon during the village fight and at Mendez's house

test moment #1: Wesker taking her blood and yelling at her for incompetence

test moment #2: Luis expresses a desire to help Leon and Ashley

doubt moment #2: learning that she's infected, too

doubt moment #3: chasing Luis into his burning lab

doubt moment #4: sending Luis away as U3 approaches

CHANGE MOMENT: Luis's death

reinforcement of change: Ada fucks with the bombs even after Wesker pointed a gun at her

further reinforcement of change: refusing to give Wesker the Amber, despite knowing what he's capable of and willing to do to her

moment when she's actively realized that she's changed: encountering Ashley

ending mindset: helping others helps me help myself; I am not an island

I think Ada realized that she couldn't have gotten as far as she did without Luis's help, and she saw that Luis was sincere in his desire to help. So, to watch him fail sparked an "I can't let it end like this" feeling in her, which then prompted her to honor his dying wish.

What's interesting about Ada -- and what probably makes her so hard to read for a lot of people -- is that she doesn't realize right away that she's changed. Most characters have their "aha!" moment as part and parcel with their change moment, but not Ada. Her change kind of sneaks up on her and hits her all at once when she encounters Ashley and finally sees the face of the woman she's been helping all this time.

Poor Ada strikes out harder in this game than Leon did in OG.

There's something very poignant about the blocking of these two scenes when placed side-by-side.

Wesker stands in front, and he walks away from her.

Leon stands in back, and he makes her walk away from him.

They're both rejections. Wesker's become unhinged; he's going down a road that Ada can't follow him on, and he has no qualms about leaving her behind. Leon's become resolute; he makes a stand and puts his foot down because it's not that he can't follow her -- it's that he won't, and there's no love lost on his end.

The villain who's taken care of her for years has no further use for her, and the hero who wished he could've taken care of her years prior now looks at her with contempt.

Ada's left with no other choice than to take care of herself. These are the consequences of the decisions she's made since Raccoon City, the night that changed everything. She's able to start living a more honest life, but due to the mistakes she's made and lies she's told along the way, the start of an honest life -- for her -- is a lonely one.

Do they continue to write out her romance with Leon, or

Do they commit to her role as an ambiguous third party agent keeping her fingers in all of the pies?

They chose the latter. They chose the latter because it was more important, narratively. And they couldn't have both, because having both doesn't make any fucking sense and never has made any fucking sense.

Ada is a selfish character, at her core. To have her constantly be soft for Leon undermines that selfishness and makes her other actions not make any sense; if she cared that much about him, why would she continuously serve the bad guys that make his life a living hell? And the reverse is also true. Why would she care so much about Leon if all he does is get in her way and act as a distraction for her?

So anyone who complains that RE4make's Separate Ways didn't show Ada caring enough about Leon -- that was the point. They solidified her identity as a character by doing that.

The writers of the Remake series made a conscious decision to make Leon and Ada's interactions/relationship in RE2make serve an actual function/purpose for their characters instead of "uwu they're in love."

For Leon -- Ada taught him that the people opposed to him aren't always bad guys. She taught him the true lesson of "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions." He learned to trust that little voice in the back of his head that tells him "something's not right here." She also taught him that there's a way to do the right thing without following the rules -- and, sometimes, by breaking them entirely.

For Ada -- Leon taught her that being independent doesn't mean self-isolating -- because just looking out for herself and no one else actually resulted in her just keeping her head down and not asking questions, which screwed her over big time in the end. Leon didn't teach her love or compassion or empathy; he showed her that she was actually being just as naive as he was, just on the other side of the fight.

Basically, they both taught each other: QUESTION EVERYTHING. Because that was the one thing that neither of them did in RE2make until it was way, way too late.

And so, in RE4make/Separate Ways, Ada spends far less time and emotional energy worrying about Leon because she's actually taking the lesson he taught her to heart and she's questioning the people and circumstances around her in order to protect herself. That was the point of her early voiceover about how Raccoon City changed her perspective and made her start asking where her efforts were going and why she was doing what she was sent to do.

She doesn't ask questions for moral reasons. She asks them for selfish ones. Because Ada is an inherently selfish character.

On the boat, Leon asks Ada: "Are you just trying to use me again?" and Separate Ways answers and repeats over and over and over again: YES. The only reason she helps Leon in the village and at Mendez's house is so that he can continue being useful for her. Because Leon didn't teach her to care about people; Leon only taught her how to better take care of herself -- the same way she did for him.

This is a really damning exchange of words:

So, yes -- Ada is using Leon in RE4make. Yes, she only helps him because it benefits her. No, she genuinely doesn't care whether he lives or dies. Yes, she meant it when she told Leon to leave Ashley for dead, and yes, her sole reason for doing it was to get Ashley out of the way because Ada found Leon's new demeanor hot and she wanted to fuck him. No, she had no intention of taking Ashley with them on the chopper at the end -- because yes, her invitation to Leon was a bookend to her earlier offer for Leon to leave Ashley and go fuck her (Ada) instead.

And that's why Leon tells her to go fuck herself and shakes his head in utter disbelief when she asks if he's coming with her.

Because Ada is a selfish character.

I don't say this to hate on the character or even express dislike for her. This doesn't make her a bad character -- in fact, the opposite is true. It makes her consistent, which makes her a better written character overall from what/who she was in OG.

It also doesn't make her evil or a bad guy. Ada Wong is the most Chaotic Neutral character in the entire RE series -- even moreso than Billy Coen or Jake Muller ever were. She's in it for herself, and that particular approach is neither inherently morally good nor evil.

But Aeon is dead canonically in the Remake-verse. It was sacrificed in the name of bringing consistency and logic to both characters.

And that was the true point of the boat scene.

Neither of them have changed who they are at their most fundamental level. Leon is still the selfless hero, and Ada is still the selfish spy. Their relationship in RE2make served as a strengthening of those core traits -- not an erosion of them. Leon can better protect and save Ashley because of the lessons that Ada taught him, and Ada can successfully outmaneuver Wesker because of the lessons that Leon taught her.

But that doesn't change who she is. It doesn't change who either of them are. In fact, it only served to create a more authentic version of them both. Leon is more zealous in his heroism, and Ada is more committed to her own self-preservation and naked about her selfish intentions.

The camerawork and blocking here. There's symbolism happening.

Ada is looking down at Leon and Ashley in this moment, because she's always seen such things as beneath her -- and it makes her feel some type of way to notice it.

Ada's having a revelation about herself in that moment of watching the two of them together, but then she doesn't properly apply the lesson she's learning at the end, because her character has only just started its path down this portion of her arc.

The look on her face when Leon turns her down at the end is equal parts cynical and disappointed, because that was the answer that she expected him to give, but she doesn't understand why he insists on maintaining his distance from her even when she's offering to help.

What Ada doesn't realize is that Leon does something in the "for Luis" scene that she doesn't do at the end.

He actually extends his hand.

Ada invites him on the chopper but never actually reaches out to him to bridge the gap between them.

Leon's warmth is sincere. Ada's is not.

That's why the "for Luis" scene ends with Leon and Ashley side by side in frame together, whereas the invitation scene ends with Leon and Ada at a distance from each other, with Leon out of focus in the background.

The way that Ada talks to Wesker in Separate Ways is very different from how she talks to literally anyone else in the series. She is more casual/colloquial with him than she is with anyone -- with the sole exception to this being the way she talks to Leon in Damnation. Basically, the way that Ada talks to Leon in Damnation? Is how she talks to Wesker in Separate Ways.

And... what happened between Leon and Ada leading into Damnation?

Just saying.

Separate Ways tried to heavyhandedly put more sass into Ada's character in general, but it's more honest when it comes to Wesker. She cracks jokes at him and emotes openly at him. She gets openly annoyed with him at times, and even has a tone of "dude, come on" with him when he gives her a ridiculous order.

She just always seemed very... comfortable with him.

And it always struck me as weird that Wesker wanted Leon dead so badly in Separate Ways. It is the only time in all of Resident Evil that Ada is given orders to assassinate/kill someone. And it's the way he goes about telling Ada to kill him:

"And that US government lapdog, Leon -- if you do happen to encounter him, put him out of commission. We can't let him interfere with our plans. [...] He's a survivor of Raccoon City. We could do without the extra distraction. Take him out."

Like, obviously, Wesker sees Leon as a threat to Ada's mission, and the pretense that he gives overtly for it is "If he can survive Raccoon City, there's no knowing what he's actually capable of."

But the "extra distraction" part always seemed like a weird choice of words. It was like Wesker knew that Ada had some sort of attachment to Leon already and thought that he would get in the way of her mission not because he'd overpower/kill her, but because she'd be too distracted by him to do her job.

And that struck me as being a little jealous.

Later, when Ada reports to Wesker that Luis is dead and Saddler has the Sample, his response isn't... anger or frustration or irritation or even disappointment. It's:

"Have you had a chance to eliminate Leon?"

It's only after Ada says no that Wesker gets the idea in his head to use him. He didn't ask her that with the intention/plan of using Leon if he was still alive; he just wanted to hear that he was dead -- and, when he didn't get that, he drums his fingers against the arm of his chair in thought and then comes up with the idea to use him.

And what's crazy about it is that Leon plays his part perfectly and unknowingly does exactly what Wesker wanted him to do -- and Wesker still wants him dead. And since he's clearly not going to get his way and have Ada do it, that's when he decides to sic Krauser on him.

And after Krauser dies, Wesker is still on this, and he's all like: (paraphrased) "Make Leon and Saddler fight each other and then kill the winner. MAKE SURE YOU KILL HIM, ADA."

And then he fucking hangs up on her.

It's starting to feel a little personal, at this point.

And then Umbrella Chronicles happened. And it's revealed that Wesker saw all that shit go down between Leon and Ada in real-time.

Which now makes his desire to see Leon dead feel really, really personal.

When Wesker contacts Ada in Umbrella Chronicles, he does so via video chat (somehow in 1998 the tech for that existed shut up), and her reaction on seeing him fucking shocked me.

I expected that her reaction/tone would have a hint of "oh shit" behind it or "oh god here we go" or even just cold, unfeeling business -- kind of like how a soldier "Sir"s their CO. But that's not what she does.

She sighs his name in that dreamy sort of way she sighs Leon's name during Separate Ways.

At the very end of Umbrella Chronicles, Ada says in her narration:

"[Wesker and I] are both used to being backstabbed and manipulated. I have a feeling our relationship will last for a little while longer."

Ada's hookshot? That has become a huge staple of her gameplay and character design? It was a gift from Wesker -- it's what he gave her so that she could make it out of Raccoon City alive.

And she never stopped using it.

NOW, WITH ALL THIS BEING SAID

I am not trying to make a case that Wesker and Ada loved each other or that their relationship was romantic at all.

What I am saying is that I do think that their relationship went deeper than just a professional working one. I think that they were definitely sleeping together, and I think that Wesker knew and understood who Ada was better than anyone ever has in her life, and I think Ada knew that.

Wesker is a sociopath, but he still trusted Ada's ability and her judgement and seemed to, on some level, also genuinely enjoy her company.

And Ada, I think, found some comfort in Wesker's familiarity and felt a connection with him based on their similar past experiences. I think that her keeping the hookshot even after she betrayed him and after he'd been killed is her way of honoring who he was to her and what he did for her without remaining beholden to him in any way.

Leon was the reason why Ada ultimately betrayed Wesker in the end, but it wasn't a matter of "Well, I love him now, so I'm going with him. Boy, bye." Ada says in Umbrella Chronicles that her meeting with Leon changed her, and she says at the start of Separate Ways that betraying Wesker is part of her own objective -- which, presumably, has to do with the way Leon changed her. It had to do with a change in worldview, not a change of heart.

And I think that what Remake is trying to do is to show that change in her happen in real-time. That's why she doesn't go into RE4make already intending to betray Wesker; it's a decision she comes to organically as a result of Leon's impact on her inspiring her to ask questions as to where her efforts are going.

She didn't betray Wesker because she fell in love with Leon. She betrayed Wesker because she started to look at the world differently and realized that Wesker's ambitions were incompatible with her new worldview. It wasn't personal -- it was just that their lives were now going in two different directions (two separate ways, you might say ayyyyyyy).

But I think that there will always be a part of Ada that's grateful to Wesker and holds some degree of affection for him -- even if it's not at the intensity of actual love, it was still meaningful, and he still had a profound impact on her life.

In some ways, I view Ada's attachment to Wesker the same way that I view Leon's attachment to Ada in the OG timeline. It's not true love, but it was something that kept her bound to him and that she found comfort in when she felt like she had nothing else and her life was spiraling out of control.

Ada is a part of Leon that he thinks he can't let go.

To start off, there's a difference between knowing someone well and being intimate with them. Luis's death scene was very intimate in RE4make, and Leon and Luis knew barely anything about each other at the time of his death. But that doesn't take away from the intimacy of the scene.

I feel like a similar principle applies to Leon and Ada.

Ada was with Leon throughout the majority of what was objectively the worst night of his life. Nothing else comes close to Raccoon City in terms of what it did to Leon -- no matter how much greater of a threat he faces logistically, it's still not as bad as what happened to him in Raccoon City. So, Ada knows Leon in ways that no one else in the series does.

Claire got a glimpse of the old Leon -- arguably, the "real" Leon -- but that's all it was. A glimpse. They weren't together long enough for her to really get to see what made him tick or to understand the perspective he was bringing into the city with him -- but Ada got to see all of that. And there's an intimacy to that all on its own -- especially when you consider that, after RE2, Leon starts building walls around himself made of machismo and bad one-liners that eventually wash away beneath a sea of liquor, which then dampens and darkens everything around it.

But no matter how fast he tries to run from himself, or how many walls he tries to put up, or how hard he tries to become someone else, there's still one person in his life who has seen and remembers who Leon S. Kennedy really is, and her name is Ada Wong.

He's allowed himself to be weak in front of her, to fail in front of her, to get frustrated and angry and overwhelmed around her -- and there is a real intimacy in that kind of vulnerability. And not once has she ever judged him for it or held it over his head or tried to harp on him about how he's changed -- because, to her, he hasn't changed. She can see through all of those new defense mechanisms he's put in place and knows that the core of who he still is is still intact. So, she silently allows him to work through whatever it is that he needs to work through while still trusting that he'll always be who he's always been -- and that's pretty fucking powerful, honestly.

And that's why he feels like he can't let her go -- because he's afraid that, if he does, he'll be letting go of the very last piece of himself that's still alive and holding on from before all the trauma set in.

The sad reality of the ship, though, is that that's not true. If Leon were to let Ada go, he wouldn't be letting go of his old self. Because, while Ada has seen the old Leon -- has met and known and spoken with him -- she is not what's keeping the memory of the old Leon alive; she is not the actual bearer of his legacy. Sherry is.

Even though Sherry wasn't around Leon nearly as much as Ada was and didn't get to know him the same way, that doesn't matter. What Leon doesn't see is that he didn't give up who he was because of Ada. He gave up who he was because of Sherry. He did it for her sake -- to save and protect and take care of her.

That's why he almost breaks down and cries when he sees her for the first time in RE6, when he's never done that when reuniting with Ada. It's because Sherry is carrying with her so many of the pieces of Leon that he left behind in order to properly fill the role of a federal agent. Doing what he did for her makes him more of a father to her than William Birkin ever was, and Sherry knows this. That's why she didn't think twice about following in his footsteps and jumping at the opportunity to become an agent herself -- and, to do that, she trusts Derek goddamn Simmons when she really shouldn't have, but she does it because she's still carrying the old Leon's optimism and trustfulness and faith in humanity. Again: she's following in Leon's footsteps, and the old Leon is the only Leon she ever really knew. Even if she didn't know him nearly as well as Ada did.

I think, on some unconscious level buried deep within his psyche, Leon knows this -- but it's a reality that's too painful to face, so he doesn't. Instead, he projects all of that shit onto Ada, because it's easier that way. Besides, he's been doing it for so long already, so why stop now? There's comfort in the familiar, and Ada is nothing if not familiar.

But, to go back to what I was saying earlier about Ada trusting that Leon will always be who he's always been -- that's also why he believes in her in RE6 when no one else does. Part of it is his projections about his past self and all that bullshit, but there's also an element of... "she would do the same for me." Because she has. She's been doing it for years.

And in that specific regard, there is a real maturity to their relationship that doesn't really get enough attention or praise from the fanbase. The whole "sexual tension" thing is stupid, and you're right to point it out in your ask as being stupid, because Leon and Ada's relationship isn't about sex -- and it shouldn't be! And that's why that line in Damnation is so fucking pointless and stupid AND I HATE IT lmao Leon and Ada's relationship is about two people who accept and trust each other without judgement, even when they really shouldn't.

NOW.

WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID.

EVERYTHING I JUST WROTE OUT IN THAT HUGE WALL OF TEXT IS ONLY APPLICABLE TO THE OG STORYLINE. THE REMAKES DO SOMETHING VERY, VERY DIFFERENT WITH LEON AND ADA. And honestly, the massive changes to their relationship are really the #1 major reason why I believe the remakes are a completely different timeline of events -- because so much of what I just said is not fucking true for the remake versions of Leon and Ada. It's just straight up not true.

Remake Leon does not accept Remake Ada for who she is (he literally asks her to fucking change, for god's sake!! LMAO), and he definitely does not fucking trust her. RE4make basically erased the canonicity of Leon/Ada as a romantic relationship. It's not there anymore; it's no longer a canon romance; it's gone. If it's anything still at all, it's one-sided unrequited Ada having fallen for Leon, and him not being able to get away from her fast enough.

But that doesn't mean that their relationship is lacking in intimacy.

The scene between them on the shuttle is very intimate -- and not just because she kisses him. It's the way she sits so close to him, the way she leans into him, the way she keeps a hand on his knee and gently caresses it with her thumb. It's the way they both speak in more hushed tones, the way she tries to be soothing with the tone of her voice. It's how she kisses him -- close-lipped and gentle, meant only to ease his anxiety and quiet his mind (and also get him to shut the fuck up for two goddamn seconds. god I respect her so much for this LMAO).

And not just that scene, but it's also present in the way she patches him up after he gets shot. We don't get to see it, but if you look again at Leon's bandages? She had to strip him the fuck down in order to do that LMAO home girl was sitting there unbuttoning his shirt and going "this sucks he's unconscious this isn't even fun. pain in the ass." And when he wakes up? Sure, she's gone, but he definitely knows that she had to have been all up in his business in order to do what she did -- and she left her coat behind with him as a fucking blanket and I'm sorry but that's so cute. IT'S CUTE. I'LL ADMIT IT. But it was probably a moment for him of "Wow. She really cares." -- because, again, touch is his love language. AND BOY DID SHE DO THAT A WHOLE FUCKIN LOT.

So, basically.

What I'm trying to say is.

Leon and Ada's relationship is poorly written and poorly executed and I hate it for a myriad of reasons, most of which involve the fact that it limits Ada's character and waters her down to a really unnecessary degree, but... I can't bring myself to say that there's no there there. Are they the hot and sexy spy vs spy ship that the director of Damnation desperately wanted us to believe they are? Absolutely fucking not. Is the ship predicated on only semi-resolved sexual tension? Also fucking no.

Does any of that actually matter...? Again... No. It doesn't matter. There is something to it. Even if they are still mostly strangers to each other, knowing facts about each other isn't what's important about their relationship. It's knowing who the other is at their core that's important.

At least, in OG.

In Remake, Leon can't fucking stand her by the time of RE4. And if anyone tries to say otherwise, they're fucking delusional.