#plan.exe

Do you guys ever consider how that, according to the tabletop, the doctor, Milt Nauman, who patches up Johnny in Never Fade Away was the father of his best friend who died in the war, and that’s why Johnny is so nice to him? And the reason why Milt considers Johnny like a son to him is because he was his real sons best friend and all he has left of that son is Johnny, who likely told him about how he died to save him. This makes me unreasonably upset and no one talks about it.

Ya know what bothers the fuck out of me? And this relates back to my post about Ethan getting hate for defending himself against The Lords. I keep seeing people go “It’s so hypocritical of Ethan to kill the Lords because they are a family and he’s trying to save his family-” Did--did you miss the part where they try to kill him? Like, literally, every single Lord attempts to kill him. Ethan never attempts to harm any of them, he just wants to leave with their flasks and save his daughter. It’s always the Lords who start the fight by directly attacking Ethan. do people not understand you can’t waste time with “Damn killing this vampire fly colony woman sure would be hypocritical of me considering she’s someones daughter” No, because those Daughters are TRYING TO MURDER HIM. FOR FUN! I love the Lords as much as anyone else, but stop calling Ethan a hypocrite for not wanting to get fucking murdered by a bunch of crazy gothic horror villains.

Something I still see a lot of in the Resident Evil fandom is hate for Ethan because he killed the Lords--usually talking about how the Lords like Donna and Moreau weren’t that evil and were just vibing, doing their thing. But, the issue with that, and why I hate seeing it, is Ethan didn’t want to kill any of the lords. It’s not like he was purposefully attacking them, he only ever does it when provoked. He didn’t attack Alcina or any of the daughters until they attacked him, He would have left with the flask if Donna had let him, same with Moreau. What was he supposed to do? Let the Lords attack him just because they “aren’t so bad” at their core? Usually people who hate on Ethan for killing the Lords also forget how canonically they kill and torture people for no real reason (The Dimitrescu’s) or how all of them were going along with literally ripping a baby limb from limb for no other reason then “Mother Miranda told us too”. Hell, during the Moreau fight Ethan even says “I guess I have to do this.”--Ethan doesn’t want to fight any of these people! He wouldn’t have even fought Heisenberg, he just assumed he’d have too since he thought Karl would attempt to stop him--and by the end, he did try to stop him. Ethan is just trying to save his daughter, and if the Lord’s weren’t so loyal to Miranda, he would have left them alone.

I rewatched RE7 recently and it reminded me once again of something that really bothers me: Zoe tells you to use the serum during the boss fight against Mutated Jack to kill him, right? So why does she act so surprised afterwards when Ethan comes back and is like “I had to use one”? She acts like five seconds ago she didn’t tell you too use it on Jack. Like, it’s pretty much common sense that Ethan would have to use all of it to hurt something as big as Jack was at that point. Then she has the fucking audacity to get on Ethan’s ass when he chooses his literal wife over her. What did you expect Zoe? For the married man to choose you, a woman he barely knows and has barely talked to except when you called him and acted abrasive, or the woman he married? Like, the woman he willingly chose matrimony with. Something most people do with the mind of it being permanent. It’s just so confusing to me? Like, why did Capcom write her like this? To make us feel bad? Cause it doesn’t make me feel bad whatsoever when she’s screaming and freaking out. I mean, of course she’d be scared and afraid. But I really wish the game didn’t make such a big deal and have her gasp like she’s been betrayed. Zoe, what the fuck did you expect? Not to hate on Zoe--Zoe’s great, but her writing in 7 is all over the place.

I think a massive writing mistake with RE7 was the choice to, very sloppily, try to make Ethan a “blank slate” character for the player to insert themselves into instead of focusing on fleshing out his very obvious personality that puts a serious damper on that “blank slate” direction. The devs of RE7 have stated several times that they wanted Ethan to be a complete blankslate for the player to become, so you could feel like you were really in the front seat for all this horror. However, that ends up missing the mark simply due to the fact Ethan’s story and character are written like a fleshed out character, but the game treats him like a blank slate character. Take, for instance, the story of the game. Ethan’s central goal for the entire game is to rescue his wife Mia and escape the Baker house. Originally, in early development, Ethan wasn’t related to Mia in any way. She wasn’t his wife, just a random missing person the early concept for Ethan as a private investigator would be looking for. That original concept contained no emotional attachment between Ethan and Mia and therefore the blank slate idea was probably in full force during that period. That concept as a story concept contains no emotional attachment. The Main Character, and therefore the player, has no real reason to care about his Early Mia concept at all and likely there reason simply becomes escape rather then rescue, with rescuing Mia likely only being a goal you follow arbitrarily rather then because you, as the player, give a damn about the character. However, at some point during development, they decided to make the story more personal. Mia became Ethan’s wife, and therefore an emotional and romantic connection is instantly established between the two characters. This instantly makes a blank slate concept for the MC very awkward. We never have any sort of prologue or anything where we get to know Mia. Her video in the final version of the game gives us an introduction to her, but it doesn’t establish an emotional connection between Mia and Ethan and therefore this blank slate idea cannot work. The final game wants Ethan to be a blank slate, but expects you to empathize with him and grow attached to Mia because of him, while also repeatedly trying to make him be a blank slate for the player. I think the story tug-o-war becomes obvious at this point. On one end, the story is written in such a way as to expect you to view the story as you riding along with Ethan’s story, while also being written as if this is your story and Ethan is just the vessel. This doesn’t work and it falls mostly flat because of it. As a blank slate character embodying the player, you have no reason to care about Mia because there’s no extended scene where you as the player bond with Mia. In the final game, it’s written as Ethan being a fleshed out character who you will empathize with and therefore understand his bond with Mia despite not being truly shown it at first. You can’t have it both ways, but the game seems to be attempting both at the same time and it makes it harder on the story of the game. When you view the story as I do, Ethan being someone I’m merely going on this haunted house ride with and controlling, then it becomes so much easier to get attached to him and Mia and understand how much they love each other and how much Ethan is willing to do to save her. But, if you view the story from a blank slate perspective, the player has no reason to care about Mia. I like talking about this, because it’s such a dissonance in the direction of 7′s story and I’m glad they mostly fixed it in Village thanks to similar complaints.

Beat Village. Got Sad. Cried a little. Cried a lot. Mercenaries is fun tho. I need to emotionally recover from this game.