Flip flappin zombies!
Will they ever die?
yes i know, i’m very funny.
But this is no joke, so listen closely sheeple.
Listen as i tell you something, something muy importante!
Si!
The RESIDENT EVIL 2 remake is out!
And it’s good, it’s very good.
Back in my day resident evil was the pinnacle of the horror genre of video games.
These games literally gave me nightmares... resi2 specifically.
The lickers man, i can’t do the lickers.
Like, their brains are on the outside!
HOW IS YOUR BRAIN ON THE OUTSIDE??
Speaking of brains on the outside, ready your skull to have yours blown out your head as
we get into this shiznizzle.
Fo rizzle.
Resident evil (or biohazard in japan for you anal beads in the comments) is an ongoing
series with lore out the bizzle and enough secret labs to leave you questioning if our
earth's crust is secretly a secret lab secretly beneath us holding secrets.
But that's what we’re here for!
So quell those thoughts, quell them.
Are they quelled?
GOOD!
Since 1996 we’ve seen heroes in the franchise come and go, but one character has stood the
test of time.
One character is so badass, so shmexy, so dangerous, so good at what they do it’s
finally time they got their moment in the sun after wandering around all those secret
labs.
We’re talking about claire redfield!
Who did you think we were talking about?
Barry burton?
Yes, the titular female protag of resident evil two, a simple college student, with a
knack for riding two wheeled death traps you may think?
Yes. and NAY!
For there is more here waiting under the surface of claire, like a secret lab of her own, which
is gross if you think about it.
STOP THINKING ABOUT IT!
Instead, PREPARE YOURSELF!
For the story of a 20 something year old who got herself in over her head, for an epic
of feminine ability and power put on display, for the prose of a woman on a mission to save
a dude for once in this weener driven community we call gaming!
This is the story of claire redfield, THE STORY… you, never knew.
There will be resident evil spoilers in this video, if you haven't played the games and
don't want to be spoiled here’s your warning.
Now that you’ve been warned appropriately, let me introduce you to claire.
This is claire.
She goes to college, and likes motorcycles.
But that's not it, she is more than just what she looks like!
She is actually an orphan who grew up with her brother, chris redfield, a member of S.T.A.R.S.
(Special Tactics And Rescue Service - alpha team in particular) an elite unit of police
in raccoon city.
Chris was one of the main protagonists of the first resident evil game, along with his
counterpart jill valentine who was almost a jill sandwich.
But that’s neither here nor there.
In resi 1 STARS alpha team gets stuck in what they thought was an abandoned mansion after
bravo team went missing.
They were investigating some cannibalized corpses in the outskirts of raccoon city.
Chris, jill, a very nice man named albert wesker, and some other less important individuals
begin investigating only to find out the place is full of zombies.
And other mutated stuff.
HAH!
Turns out this evil residence wasn't abandoned, and it was really a testing ground for weaponized
viruses used to create super powerful mutants to one day release on humanity after being
sold to the highest bidder as weapons for war!
Got em!
Also that very nice man, Wesker, is actually a giant DICK that lured the STARS team into
the Residence of Evil in order to force them to fight the T virus mutants to test their
weaknesses.
Then he’d genetically scrub those weaknesses from future iterations.
Yeah!
Man, this whole mess is a real biohazard.
Turns out the whole thing is the work of the umbrella corp, the premiere pharma producer
and gem of raccoon city.
Who would’ve thought a humble and noble pharmaceutical company could ever hurt a fly.
After the jaunt through the mansion and a fight with the tyrant, chris and jill take
off in a helicopter.
Unbeknownst to claire who was probably asleep in psych 101.
Pay attention in school kids, Ryan got a D in that class.
What was that?
Sorry, Ryan read over the script and wanted you to know it was actually a D+.
Anyway.
After a while with no word from chris, she heads to raccoon city to look for him, which
was a big whoopsy cause the little mansion incident spread into an all out contamination
of the city!
The place is a mess and the DPW really has their work cut out for them!
On her way into the city claire meets a much lesser known character: leon kennedy who saves
her from a zambo attack at a gas station.
Naturally they immediately become besties fo life and proceed to get smashed by a tractor
trailer truck carrying oil which explodes sending clair flying into a cop car, smashing
the windows, but she was fine, no worries.
Now normally what people would do in this situation is sit down, wet themselves and
wait for the inevitable, but claire just like, goes through a burning infested city to the
police station to find her brother.
Oh, leon’s fine too btw.
Thankfully, having a spec ops brother as her only support structure and living in the midwest
means claire knows her way around a gun.
A lot of guns actually.
Like a grenade launcher, and a machine gun, and grenades, and this zappy gun that i don't
really understand…
Either way, as she states to the only black dude in the game (spoilers, he dies), she
can take care of herself.
And others too, throughout her truly horrific journey in the convoluted police station she
runs into a little girl named sherry who becomes her ward, you know, until this psycho necrophiliac
police chief kidnaps the little girl and binch slaps clair with a pistol.
Oh and leon shows up for a sec too, but he doesn't know how to climb a fence.
(Looks like that border wall will only work on whities)
Also Claire is told Chris is on vacay so no big deal there either.
During her time in the police station claire comes upon countless zombies and fricken LICKERS
ughhhh, and then is stalked by the tyrant, which is the absolute worst, nothing like
a giant zombie tombstone who follows you quickly, takes a million bullets to down and falcon
punches you everytime he gets close.
All to get to the umbrella run orphanage to rescue sherry from the police chief.
Btw that orphanage was using the kids for bio experiments.
And i really thought pharma companies were our friends =(
After rescuing sherry, going through the sewers and fighting G (who is actually sherry’s
psycho scientist dad who infected himself with the new G virus after a swat team tried
to steal it from him,) and finding sherry’s mom (who is actually another scientist involved
in the creation of the g virus), sherry gets implanted with an embryo of the G virus from
her dad.
Claire makes her way through the zombie/licker infested underground umbrella corp lair, and
gets the antidote for sherry.
Sherry’s mom dies but no one cared cause she was a bad mom and they make their way
to safety, until G daddy attacks again.
This is when claire pulls out the gatling gun and blows him away once and for all.
Sherry and Claire escape on a secret underground railway and leon shows up at the very end
and they all smile like nothing happened.
But shit DID happen, it HAPPENED CLAIRE.
Why are you so ready to just jump back frey?
Any normal person would’ve been scarred for life given the events Claire went through,
yet...Claire is fine.
Well, maybe not fine, but she’s holding up incredibly well.
What exactly is going on in her mind?
To answer that, we’ll need to go into her second game.
It seems claire eventually pieced together that her bro wasn’t on vacation because
she show’s back up in the cult classic: resident evil CODE VERONICA, again, looking
for chris, this time in le paris.
But she gets captured and sent to a facility in the south pacific, and meets this douchenozzel
named steve burnside, who definitely changed his last name after playing tonyhawk 1 too
much.
The two escape and end up in antarctica and inevitably in some hot tentacle action.
In the meantime chris had been chilling out with the STARS crew that survived the mansion
all along!
He gets a message from that leon guy explaining claire is in danger.
Plot holes aside, chris and claire get reunited and steve ruins my fantasies by rescuing claire
from the tentacle.
I hate you steve.
I’m glad you’re dead.
Regardless, i think we’ve gone far enough.
By now you should get the idea of who claire is.
She appears in multiple other games, movies, books, comics, and she’s beloved by the
resi community.
She’s a hero, she’s caring, bold, highly skilled, eventually becomes an agent of a
non government search and rescue team for victims of biohazards.
But she’s also completely, 100% bat shit crazy.
Claire is a survivor, obviously from a situation that doesn’t exist in the real world, however
when you break down her experiences and actions her mental stability begins to reveal itself
before your eyes.
The goings on in the environments of resident evil are horrific, i mean, LOOK AT THE LICKERS.
Simply the shock of the situation should’ve had the average person catatonic.
Our brains are built around certain expectations.
Zombies exist within the uncanny valley: the concept that things which resemble humanoid
objects but don't meet human expectation inherently elicit feelings of fear, hatred or revulsion.
The uncanny valley can feed into expectations as well, if you shoot a human in the head
you expect them to die, if they don't, or they are unphased by a grievous wound, the
shock alone could give someone acute stress reaction.
ASR, or mental shock is what happens when a terrifying or traumatic event triggers an
exceptional emotional reaction.
If left untreated it inevitably turns into post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
These afflictions can literally change your brain physically, reshaping the way you think
and experience reality.
Something like this: is more than enough to mess someone up, and claire does show emotional
reaction, but it's there and gone, replaced again by her will to survive.
This isn't even taking into consideration the lickers, tyrant, OR G.
there are people that have what are known as “resilient brains.”
These people are naturally able to resist things like ptsd more than others, due to
the way their brains are literally wired.
While the majority of all soldiers have been shown to have weaker connections in areas
of the brain regarding motor control and self reflection, ones WITHOUT ptsd have greater
connections in the area regarding attention.
Meaning they have better control over their attention and where they place it.
Clearly claire has a resilient brain, i mean she’s able to kill zombies, not get shell
shocked, and solve wire puzzles at the same time.
In raccoon city claire essentially finds herself in the middle of a war, one she has to fight
in to survive against overwhelming odds, but it’s important to note that she is a civilian.
Besides her experience with her brother she has no formal combat training, and no high
stress training.
She’s simply a college student who gets caught up in a huge terrifying mess.
Her ability to not only keep her head but also make it out is literally superhuman.
It’s no secret that many soldiers return from war with ptsd and other mental trauma,
it’s a natural reaction to consistent high stress.
But there’s also many who choose to stay, or choose to go BACK.
In a ted talk on this subject, sebastian Junger (annotate) talks about the mental effects
of combat: time slows, you become highly aware of certain things, and other things completely
fade out, it's an incredible adrenaline rush.
After a 2 week stint with no action sometimes soldiers will wish to be attacked, simply
for something to do.
In his wrap up he explains how brotherhood; the belief that the lives of people in your
company are worth more than your own, that you love them more than yourself, and the
understanding that they feel the same way, is what draws people back to the battlefield.
Because that mutual agreement does not exist in society, many soldiers feel isolated when
they return home.
But claire is alone.
She has no brotherhood, yet she continuously puts herself through horrors of the uncanny
valley and life threatening danger.
There’s no psychological data that can explain her actions other than she’s warped.
But how is she warped?
That’s really the question.
it’s undeniable that claire redfield is no ordinary person.
By all rights she should be a drooling pile of goo in the corner.
However, not only does she save sherry and make it out alive with leon in resi2, but
she goes BACK into umbrella three months later to try and find her brother AGAIN.
Knowing full well what she’s getting herself into.
ALONE.
When you look at leon, or chris (not you steve, fuck you) you see two cops, and eventually
spec ops agents.
Men who were trained in the art of combat and conflict.
Claire was just a civilian, someone at the wrong place at the wrong time.
She has an extra resilient brain, and she keeps a positive mental attitude no matter
how many lickers are coming for her secret lab. she’s wired to understand that things
are situational, but that doesn’t fully account for her actions.
What makes her special is how ORDINARY she is, there's plenty of women out there who
can handle a gun, and plenty of people with resilient brains, but what makes claire redfield
not only who she is, but MORE exceptional than her male counterparts is that search
and rescue is not her job.
She’s taking on the mental stress and danger that people NEED training to handle, and often
even with training, PTSD and mental illness bleeds through.
Yet Claire preservers.
It's not a skill she was taught, it’s not something she was conditioned to do, it’s
simply who she is, how she was born.
Her need to save others at any cost regardless of the situation is what makes her special.
And nuts.
I mean i would never do that.
Never.
And then to go and do it again, and again???
Fuck that.
Playing the games are hard enough, actually seeing that stuff and dealing with the mental
trauma, running out of ammo and having to use a typewriter throughout it all?
No thanks.
Not for me, not for you, not for anyone.
I’m good.
Prolly woulda blown my head off immediately.
But thats me, and i’m not claire redfield, and that's the story you never knew.
And...that’s my take on Claire Redfield from that new-fangled resident evil game and
beyond.
Let me know down below what you think!
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GOONDOIT!
I’m Grant, it’s been a pleasure having my voice in your ears.
Bye everyone!