As of recently, I have gotten very invested into the Resident Evil franchise. (As can be seen by the last article I have written). And while I have tried to come up with other subjects to write an article about than those damned games, I sadly cannot get them out of my mind. So instead of writing yet another review, I will present a character from the Resident Evil franchise and all the reasons why he is my personal favorite.
Ethan Winters is the main protagonist in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard as well as Resident Evil 8: Village. He is a man from Texas who is married to Mia Winters. In the second game, he and Mia have a child called Rosemary Winters.
Contrary to every other Resident Evil protagonist, Ethan is a civilian. He does not have any official military or weapon training, which makes the feat of dealing with bioweapons and strange mold creatures even more impressive.
What I love the most about Ethan Winters is his dedication and love for the people he cares about. Resident Evil 7 is all about him trying to find his wife who mysteriously disappeared three years ago and recently just contacted him. I knew that love could make you stupid, but I didn’t think it was that extreme. Either way, Ethan does manage to find his wife, of course. He shows as much dedication to Rose, his daughter of a few months, who gets kidnapped in Resident Evil 8. Ethan then proceeds to quite literally kill anyone that stands in the way of him and his daughter, including (and not limited to) five century old bioweapons. Spoiler warning here, but to fully talk about the character as a whole, I have to talk about the games as a whole as well. At the end of Village, Ethan sacrifices himself to save his wife and kid, and destroys the mold bioweapon that was plaguing the Romanian village Rosemary got kidnapped to. In Resident Evil 7, Ethan confronts similar bioweapons, albeit slightly less impressive, but equally as dangerous. The Baker family are a genuine threat, even though they were all mind controlled by someone else.
Ethan is genuinely a great character, and I personally think that the fact that he is so different from every other protagonist in this franchise has a big role in it. In every single other game, each protagonist has military training. Leon Kennedy is a cop, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine are special unit members, Carlos Oliveira works with Umbrella Corp, and I could go on. Ethan was a systems engineer for the biggest part of his life. The fact that he took on so many mutated people in the span of three years is very impressive. And not to mention the fact that Chris Redfield, a trained operative, was here with Ethan during the events of Resident Evil Village and could have helped. And yet, Ethan has to deal with horrors beyond comprehension all by himself.
It is known that Resident Evil is packed with corny one-liners in the style of “where the hell is everyone going, bingo?” and I am saddened to say that Ethan also falls victim to the poor writing from CAPCOM. However, I personally do not care, because Ethan is a dad, and is fully allowed to make dad jokes and corny comments, unlike Leon Kennedy, who does not have such credentials.
Another thing which contrasts Ethan to most other protagonists from Resident Evil is how emotional he is, and how easy it is to connect to him. Characters like Leon or Chris don’t really show what they feel. Leon, for instance, does not talk about his issues and prefers to drink instead. Ethan, on the other hand, makes his feelings very clear. The player very clearly feels his frustration, hope or even fear. I think the fact that Ethan’s games are played in first person greatly amplifies the fact that we can relate to that specific protagonist. What also helps the player connect with Ethan is the fact that the stories delve on a more personal level than other games. For instance, I know that what happened to Leon is deeply traumatic. Seeing a zombie outbreak occur on your first day as a police officer and then having the city you work in gel blown up would be enough to traumatize anyone. But I can’t feel or relate to that in the same way I relate to the idea of a man having lost his wife or daughter and doing anything in his way to get them back.
In conclusion, I finished Ethan’s storyline a week ago and simply put, these two games are all that I have been thinking of. While I am a big fan of Resident Evil as a whole, Biohazard and Village are and most likely will remain my favorites mostly because of its main player character.
