Interestingly, in the Japanese version, Victor says to Grace: “Shall I show you the secrets of this place?” (君にここの秘密を見せてやろうか?), referring to the medical center.
In English, the line sounds a bit more double-edged. "Would you like to see what’s hidden under the hood?" could be a reference to the hooded killer, so perhaps he was planning to tell Grace the details of her mother's murder. I’ve thought a lot about what would have happened if Grace hadn’t chickened out and run away back then. Victor could have revealed her true origins and told her that Alyssa wasn't her biological mother.
But in Japanese, the line is much more specific, which leaves me guessing: what was he actually planning to show her in that case? His underground lab? It seems like he just needed an excuse to get Grace to stay in his office with him.
Ever since I started posting actively, I've been finding myself blacklisted by more and more people. There are so many reasons that I'm at a loss: is it because of fat Victor? Gidcroft? AI? or all of them? I feel like by the end of the year, I'll be blacklisted by half the fandom.
Have you noticed that both main villains in RE9 are cosplaying – one as Wesker, the other as Spencer? Victor even wears the same hairstyle as his master. Just like Spencer, he wants to trigger evolution using a virus and become the leader of humanity.
If we take this thought further, I feel like if these two had reached the ARK together, Victor would have ended up completely repeating Spencer's fate. Because it's doubtful Zeno would have shared Elpis with his old colleague. Just as Wesker considered Spencer unworthy of becoming a god, Zeno despised Victor and saw him as unworthy of the power Elpis could offer. A new world can only have one god. Before administering the injector to himself, Zeno would have aimed a revolver at Gideon. And Victor, under the influence of the Nemesis parasite, wouldn't have even been able to put up a fight.
(I wonder if Victor had considered this scenario, and whether he had a backup plan for a case like that?)
Victor's backstory is completely unexplained in the game. It's no surprise that the fandom is forced to invent their own headcanons about his former life and how he got to his current state. And as long as we don't have a canon biography for Victor, any theory has a right to exist, but in my opinion, not all of them fit his character. So today, I’d like to share my vision and address two very common headcanons, namely:
Victor never actually knew Spencer.
Victor implanted the parasite into himself.
I completely disagree with these claims. And here is why.
The in-game files don't give a clear answer as to why Victor calls Spencer his "Master." It’s unknown whether Gideon worked directly under him, if Spencer was his mentor, etc. But the tone Victor uses when talking about him, and the specific word he uses—"Master"—must imply a personal connection. I mean, wouldn't it be incredibly weird to call someone your "Master" if you'd never even met them? It is far more likely that Spencer mentored Gideon and served as a role model for him. Otherwise, I don’t know how else to explain this fanatical devotion.
Given that Victor used to work with the T-virus at Umbrella, it’s easy to imagine that that’s exactly where he could have met his future mentor. But what if I told you his connection to Spencer might have been much closer? What if Victor didn’t just work at Umbrella, but was actually one of the researchers at ARK, working on memory transfer experiments?
In ARK, there’s a file written by a new employee who is thrilled to soon begin experimenting on orphans. The author isn't named, but the writing style and the breathless, reverent way they speak about Spencer clearly hint at Gideon. On top of that, you can find the exact same kind of notebook, filled with bookmarks, belonging to Victor in Rhodes Hill.
So from 1990 to 1998, he worked at ARK on preserving his master’s memories, which could also explain his attachment to Spencer. But then September 1998 happened, and Victor, sensing things were going south, managed to escape the city. However, this meant he had to abandon all the research he had worked on for so many years. The memory transfer experiment was never finished, meaning he now had to become the torchbearer of Spencer’s ideas himself.
As you know, practically the entire Umbrella staff was eventually killed off due to Spencer's paranoia. Yet, Victor survived the employee purges. It’s highly possible he’s the sole survivor of the entire ARK research team. What if that wasn't an accident? Victor might have seen this as a sign that Spencer chose him to carry on his work.
And the next headcanon flows naturally from the last one.
Could Victor have implanted the parasite into himself? For some reason, the fandom collectively decided he did. Probably because he radiates those mad scientist vibes, the type who experiments on their own body. I don't know.
In my previous post, I broke down in detail what the Nemesis parasite is and what its primary function is. The whole point of this thing is to mind-control the host. Why on earth would Victor voluntarily implant a parasite in himself that turns him into a compliant puppet for The Connections?
But maybe he did it for the strength and the upgrades the parasite granted his body? In that case, mind control is just the price to pay for evolution.
Well, let’s look at what these "upgrades" actually are. Due to the mutation, Victor acquired a massive list of health issues. Because of the T-virus, he is literally rotting alive, and his cracked skin looks incredibly painful. Let's not forget his ruined eyesight, destroyed joints, and sterility. The next step of evolution, clearly. Apparently, this is exactly what Spencer's "master race" is supposed to look like.
If Victor did this to upgrade his body, why doesn’t he use the advantages the parasite supposedly gives him? Strength and regeneration? Sure, Victor is highly efficient when dealing with unarmed people. Strangling a young girl? Easy. Tearing his own staff to pieces? No problem! But the second a slightly more serious threat like Leon S. Kennedy appears on the horizon, Victor immediately turns tail and runs. He's a Nemesis, an unstoppable killing machine with boosted regeneration – he should be engaging in combat without a second thought. Imagine Mr. X seeing Leon with a handgun, getting scared, and running away. It's absurd.
Victor isn't stupid, and he understands this perfectly. Any severe injury carries the risk of irreversible mutation. So, he isn’t going to take unnecessary risks. In his encounter with Leon, he wanted to avoid hand-to-hand combat, and during the motorcycle chase, he tried to stick strictly to ranged weapons.
He's a doctor first and foremost, not a fighter. In terms of physical strength, he's clearly inferior to a regular Tyrant, who doesn't have the parasite inside him. Even when Leon is sick, he easily kicks Victor off himself. It's hard to imagine something like that happening with a Tyrant, who would slam Leon into a wall with a single strike.
So what advantages does the Nemesis parasite actually offer? Boosted regeneration at the risk of losing your sanity and mutating into an amorphous blob? Highly questionable. Mind control? That’s a plus, but for the handlers, not the host. And other than that, the parasite doesn’t really do much. I don’t quite understand what kind of "evolutionary perfection" the fandom is talking about when describing Victor’s Nemesis.
Most likely, these perceptions were shaped by Wesker's line in RE1 when he called the Tyrant the "ultimate lifeform." Meanwhile, the ultimate lifeform: has no dick, and all its weak spots are completely exposed.
So why would Victor need to implant a parasite in himself if it doesn't offer any positive effects? It's simple: he didn't. The Connections did it to him.
First, let's figure out how such a devoted Spencer fan ended up working for The Connections. For the very people who did everything in their power to bankrupt his beloved master's company. Shouldn't Gideon absolutely hate them?
After the Raccoon City Incident, he was called as a witness in the Umbrella trials, but the court couldn't track him down.
So, we have a gap of several years from 1998 to 2003. It's not clear what happened to Victor during this time, but the next time he surfaces in the story, it’s as the director of Rhodes Hill. And that immediately raises a question for me: where did an ordinary scientist get the money to acquire such a building? It’s obvious that The Connections appointed him to that position.
So my version of events goes like this:
For a few years, Gideon was hiding out from prosecution somewhere, until The Connections tracked him down and told him he was working for them now. The Connections were desperate to get their hands on Elpis, and Victor – as a former (and likely only surviving) ARK employee – was the perfect fit. He had experience working with clones and knew everything about blood factors, making him an incredibly valuable specialist.
Victor himself might have been glad to return to his research, but helping the very organization that bankrupted Umbrella and hijacked his master’s life's work? He would never submit to such humiliation. To which the people from The Connections would clarify that this wasn't an offer. He was going to work for them, and his consent was completely irrelevant. So, Victor is sent to get the Nemesis parasite implanted, after which he becomes far more cooperative and compliant. They hand over a building from the former Spencer Foundation for his use and set him up with everything he needs, just so he can make the key to Elpis for them.
He spends the next 22 years under Zeno's supervision, unsuccessfully trying to recreate Spencer’s key. He can't run away; he has to do exactly what he's told. Siphoning funding out of them for his meaningless clone experiments while actually spending some of that money on jewelry and snakeskin coats – that is about the only thing he can get away with. His own little rebellion against his captors.
The Connections treated Victor strictly as a tool to achieve their goals.
What I'm trying to say is that in this story, Victor is a victim of forced labor. This by no means excuses his crimes – he would have done the exact same experiments anyway, probably with great pleasure, if the hand of The Connections hadn't been looming over him.
His attitude toward The Connections shows in everything. Even down to how he keeps his lab coats. Here is a relic of his past at Umbrella – clean, pressed, kept under glass like a sacred artifact. And then, the polar opposite of his attitude toward his work at Rhodes Hill, which was forced upon him by The Connections: a completely tattered, stained lab coat.
Source
So, as soon as he finds Grace, he easily discards Rhodes Hill and slaughters its entire staff. He doesn't need this place anymore.
All these years, he remained loyal only to Umbrella and Spencer’s ideas. Victor never considered himself part of The Connections. He draws a clear line between himself and them.
Yet he outwitted you all.
There is "me," and then there is "you."
He doesn’t give a damn that Zeno and The Connections no longer need him. He is finally free; he no longer has to dance to their tune.
In character analysis videos, people often claim that Victor is such a blind Spencer fanatic that it doesn't matter to him what Elpis actually is – he will accept any reality and follow his master’s vision. But in doing so, nobody looks at the situation from Victor's perspective. For him, Elpis is, first and foremost, a way to put an end to The Connections. At first, he thought it was a mind-control virus, and perhaps he pursued it not just because of his ideas on evolution, but also to regain control over his own life.
What? Elpis turned out to be an antiviral agent rather than a weapon? Even better! Now all virus-based weapons will become useless, meaning bioterrorists are in for a rough time. What an excellent way to screw over the people who have kept you on a leash all these years.
That is what the Nemesis parasite is for. Not for strength or regeneration, but for control. To keep Victor on a chain and force him to work for the benefit of the very people who were his master's enemies. And once he does his job, to dispose of him by sending him on a suicide mission.
But if even that wasn't enough for you, here is the final and most important argument for why Victor could not have infected himself. The NE-γ is listed in The Connections' product catalog. It is a biological weapon for sale. Here is how its description reads:
Code: CM-NE-γ-001 (Nemesis-γ)
Price: Negotiable
Product Specifications:
Based on the Umbrella Corporation's parasitic "NE-α," this mass-produced model focuses on cost reduction and performance enhancement.
Repeated improvements have resulted in a significant boost to physical ability and recovery, regardless of the host's durability.
This isn't an ad for a body-mod surgery like in Cyberpunk, where you can get an implant to make yourself stronger. Like: "Hey, come to us, we'll turn you into a new, perfect being." No, this sounds more like: "Hey, want a personal slave/bodyguard/mercenary? Price negotiable."
So I find it hard to imagine anyone voluntarily undergoing this procedure, whether for a load of cash or for free.
This is why my eye starts twitching every time I see posts claiming that Victor implanted the parasite into himself to become "perfect."
Victor x OC fanfic lovers, I have some bad news for you.
You can't kiss Victor because he is contagious.
3D Render: van_vindigo
He’s infected with the T-virus, right? And the T-virus is transmitted in several ways, including the entry of the infected host's DNA through blood, saliva, and other bodily fluids. Meaning, if Victor kisses someone or sleeps with them and comes inside, he could easily infect that person with the T-virus through micro-wounds in the oral cavity, etc. It’s like HIV, but worse.
I mean, you can kiss him, of course, but it will most likely be the last kiss of your life.
If he wanted to kill Leon, he could have just made out with him right there on that chair.
It's also known that the NE-α parasite produces a secretion capable of infecting anyone who comes into contact with it with the T-virus. I don't know how much this applies to the NE-γ, but just to be safe, physical contact with him should probably be limited too.
So, if you are seriously determined to sleep with Gideon, here are the basic rules:
No kissing
Condoms only
Hazmat suit (optional)
In fanfiction, he’s constantly portrayed as some kind of ladykiller who can’t keep his snake in his pants. When in reality, his sex life is probably an absolute nightmare. He hasn't had a proper kiss in a continuous eternity. Maybe he had some hookups before the mutation, but after? If he ever laid anyone, it was probably just escorts at The Connections' corporate parties.
It's a good thing Grace is immune🥰. I can't even fathom how absolutely flabbergasted Victor would be if Grace suddenly laid a massive kiss on him out of nowhere (hey, you never know?). I really love his reaction in this fanart.
Out of the canon characters, the only other person who could safely kiss him is probably Zeno.
Today, let's analyze the peculiarities of Victor’s vision.
How well does he see? Why do his eyes look like that?
Part of the answer can be found in the lore. Since Victor is infected with the T-virus, he has typical Tyrant eyes – with a red sclera and a golden iris.
But what sets him apart from a standard Tyrant is his incredibly narrow pupils. This exact detail is what gives Victor's eyes such a creepy, wild beast-like look. I love it when artists draw him with big, round pupils, like right here or here – he instantly looks like a little puppy. But it got me wondering: can his pupils even dilate at all, or are they permanently this narrow?
In the previous post, we established that the NE-γ parasite is attached to his brainstem. Does it have something to do with this?
So I decided to ask Google's AI what this phenomenon is called and what a person with permanently constricted pupils experiences. I'm afraid you guys won't like the answer.
A permanently constricted pupil that doesn't react to changes in light is medically referred to as fixed miosis. This condition signals a malfunction of the iris muscles (the sphincter or dilator) or the nerve pathways controlling them.
One of the many causes is neurological pathology:
Damage to the brain, brainstem structures, or the autonomic nervous system interrupts the signals to dilate the pupil.
"Damage to brainstem structures" — bingo. That's our patient right there.
A person with fixed miosis faces specific difficulties directly related to the pupil's inability to adapt to changing light levels. Here are the main problems and limitations caused by this condition:
1. Impaired night vision
The pupil cannot dilate to let in more light. This leads to the following consequences:
Night blindness: The person can barely see anything in twilight, poorly lit rooms, or outside at night.
Spatial disorientation: It becomes hard to distinguish steps, obstacles, and small objects on the floor in dim light.
2. Hazards when driving
A narrow, fixed pupil makes operating a vehicle extremely dangerous:
Tunnel blindness: During a sudden transition from bright light to darkness, the eyes don't have time to adapt, and the driver completely loses control of the road for a few seconds.
Blinding by oncoming headlights: At night, the headlights of oncoming cars hit the retina much harder because the pupil cannot properly regulate the light intake.
3. Reduced quality and clarity of vision
"Sunglasses" effect: The person sees the world as less bright and with less contrast; colors may appear more washed out.
Narrowed visual fields: Due to the physical restrictions of the narrow opening, peripheral (side) vision deteriorates.
Focusing issues: If the miosis is caused by an accommodative spasm (for example, from eye drops), it’s hard for the person to quickly shift their gaze from near to distant objects.
Add to this the fact that due to his very light irises, he must have increased sensitivity to light (photophobia), and we get a whole combo of eye problems.
Light irises allow far more light rays into the eye than dark ones. Because of this, bright sunlight, camera flashes, or fluorescent lighting cause severe discomfort, sharp pain, tearing up, and force the person to constantly squint.
In the dark he can't see a damn thing, and in the light, his poor eyes hurt.
So he doesn't wear his visor just for looks. This thing is a vital necessity for him; otherwise, he wouldn't be able to ride his bike or perform surgeries. The visor helps his eyes adapt to different light levels, including night vision, and also solves his issues with focusing on fine details by scaling and analyzing them.
Bonus: Here are all three modes of his visor: night vision, analysis mode, and camera feed (the last one, by the way, is very often ignored or missed).
Another misconception regarding Gideon is that he has been stalking Grace for a very long time, likely since her childhood. I don’t know why the fandom collectively decided this. Maybe people find the trope of a stalker who has been watching her for ages and knows everything about her life highly appealing. But if you look at the game's canon and read the files carefully, it becomes clear that no, Victor did not stalk Grace since childhood. It wouldn't make any sense within the context of the game's plot. The exact reason Victor was creating clones of Grace was that he couldn't find the original. All he had at the time were the records of her genetic data, provided to him by the Organization back in 2004. From that year onward, he dedicated himself to recreating a perfect copy of Grace.
December 8, 2004
The organization was able to get me the child's medical records. It was lacking in certain areas, but did have her genetic information. I can use this.
Until 2018, Victor didn’t even know where Grace was or where to look for her. Most likely, The Connections stumbled upon her by accident while planning an assassination attempt on Alyssa, and in the process, he became intrigued: who is this girl the journalist keeps dragging along with her? Is she her biological daughter? And since Victor had spent his entire life working with these clones, he instantly recognized Grace as one of Spencer's experiments.
“It took forever to find you.”
"Forever" is right. First, for 14 years, he didn’t even know where to look for her, and then he lost her for another 8 years.
After the Wrenwood Hotel incident in 2018, Grace vanishes into thin air again for another 8 years. Don’t ask how a powerful organization that has the country's government by the balls and is capable of bombing an entire city couldn't find one specific girl for eight years – especially when they already knew her name and what she looked like. The game doesn't give a clear answer. Maybe Grace came under someone's protection (like Chris's, for instance). Well, let's assume she really is just extremely low-profile, and thanks to her shut-in lifestyle, she managed to fly under The Connections' radar all these years.
This went on until September 2026, when Zeno visited Rhodes Hill and pressured Victor, saying that the Raccoon City blockade had been extended until 2040 and that they needed to hurry up with securing Elpis. After that, Victor immediately scrambled and hired a private investigator, M. D. Birdie, who instantly tracked down the girl, including her workplace and residential address. The question is, what stopped them from doing that from the very beginning?
I have my own headcanon regarding this. I personally think that Victor actually knew where Grace was and had been secretly watching her for the past 8 years. But just to spite The Connections, he kept it to himself and simply continued to milk them for money to fund his pointless clone experiments. And he put off kidnapping Grace, perhaps because he felt she was still too young and not ready to fulfill her destiny. But that’s just my headcanon.
To sum it up: if Victor had been watching Grace since childhood, there would have been no point in creating copies of her. He could have just taken the original right away.
This post was supposed to come out later, but since I keep seeing posts claiming that Victor supposedly knew Grace from infancy and watched her grow up, I have to publish it early. It feels like people made up their own headcanons and then got offended by the pairing because of them. If you like to think that Victor was attracted to an underage Grace, that’s not a Gidcroft problem.
Warning: May contain graphic imagery (autopsy diagram).
Ever since RE9 came out, I’ve been wondering why Victor looks the way he does, , what that scar on his chest is, etc. Unfortunately, the game itself gives almost no information about his character, his past, or how he ended up like this. All we know is his age, that he’s been running Rhodes Hill since 2004, and that he is a massive Spencer fanboy. However, the Tyrant and Nemesis articles on the Resident Evil Wiki provided exhaustive answers to most of my questions, and today I’d like to share this knowledge with you. Because I keep seeing people in the fandom who don’t seem to fully understand what the Nemesis parasite is and what its purpose actually is.
The NE-parasite is an organism that is implanted into a host infected with the T-virus. Essentially, Victor is a Tyrant with an NE-γ parasite, possessing all the traits characteristic of Tyrants. The T-virus causes dermatological necrosis and an overproduction of growth hormone. This accounts for his abnormally tall height and pale, cracked skin.
His skin isn’t dry at all; it’s actually slightly moist. Fluid (most likely lymph) and even blood ooze from the cracks. Those bleeding cracks on his lips aren't scars, as it might seem. It’s more noticeable on his texture map.
The Nemesis parasite also secretes chemicals that corrode the skin, causing it to become covered in brown staining. These secretions also have regenerative properties, which further enhance the existing regenerative abilities of the Tyrant.
Victor has similar brown staining on the back of his neck and shoulders. The skin there is uneven, looking almost burned. This means, the closer to the parasite, the more damaged the skin is by its secretions, because his lower back looks perfectly fine.
In this photo, Victor is already infected. Along with his towering height, he has golden eyes with red sclera, and his skin is pale as chalk, though not yet as heavily damaged. Apparently, his skin condition grew progressively worse over the years. A scar on his throat is also visible.
This means we don’t have any images of Victor before his infection. We can only guess at his human height and appearance, but I still think he was quite tall in life - around 1.9 meters (6'3").
While writing this post, I also noticed a scar above his lip on the right side. Twenty years later, that exact same scar is still there, but it's more noticeable. (Probably something from his past life. Wrecked his bike and kissed the asphalt? This is why you wear a helmet.)
I have two theories about the scar on his body. Either it's the result of an organ transplant, because tyrants need heart replacements due to their increased muscle mass.
Or it’s an autopsy suture. If so, that means Victor was already dead by the time the parasite was implanted in him, meaning there’s no way he could have infected himself. Which raises even more questions. How did this happen to him? What did he die of? The guy is literally Frankenstein’s monster. He was dead, his body was dissected, and then he was reanimated by injecting the T-virus and the NE-γ parasite.
Apparently, Victor is infected with the same T-virus strain as the other zombies in the game. This strain doesn't have a name, nor is there any detailed information about it. All we know is that it allows the infected to partially retain their consciousness and personality traits. Just like the cleaning lady endlessly wiping down mirrors in the restroom or the chef chopping meat, the reanimated Victor became fixated on his last action: fulfilling Spencer's ideas. That being said, his intelligence wasn't impaired, and he managed to fully preserve his former personality thanks to the NE-γ parasite.
His teeth deserve a special mention. They look like a firecracker went off in his mouth; he also has extra fangs on his upper jaw and one extra incisor on the lower one. Were they always like that, or is it a result of mutation? I still lean toward his teeth looking this way specifically because of the T-virus. This unnamed strain affects teeth in a certain way:
• The infected cop at the beginning spits out his teeth;
• Killed zombies eventually mutate into "Blister Heads" with multiple teeth on their palate.
So Victor's teeth likely deformed during mutation when his bones grew and rapidly increased in size. Also, these are his real teeth, not prosthetics- they just have gold veneers on them. In some places, the coating has worn off, revealing the enamel underneath.
His forked tongue, however, feels like it was caused by the parasite. The parasite also affected his senses, sharpening his sense of smell.
Due to his massive height (2.25 m / 7'4"), he definitely has joint problems, since the increased body weight must put a massive strain on them. You can see in the game that Victor moves a bit stiffly, especially in the scene where he kicks down the door after a fleeing Grace.
I’ll make a separate post about his eyes and the peculiarities of his vision. Here I'll just say briefly: he has very serious problems with his eyes.
And one more fascinating fact about those infected with the T-virus:
t-Virus mutants are almost unanimously infertile, while "G" mutants are capable of asexual reproduction.
So, on top of everything else, Victor is sterile. But don't celebrate just yet - having unprotected sex with him is a terrible idea. Short answer: he is contagious. More on that in another post as well.
Now, let’s look closer at the Nemesis. First, answer this question: where exactly is Victor's parasite located? If you think it’s in his chest, the text below is written specially for you.
First, let's figure out what the Nemesis actually is and what it's used for. Time for a nerdy lore.
Nemesis Project staff created this species as a work-around for brain damage and mental degradation, a common result of t-Virus infection.
The inspiration of the project was that of Las Plagas, a parasitic species present in regional Spanish folklore which would hook itself to the spinal cord to control or influence the host, and break out through the neck to defend themselves if need be. The NE-α were genetically engineered to mimic these qualities.
Upon entering the bio-weapon's spinal cord, it hijacks the T-virus-infected cells, grows, and forms its own brain near the medulla oblongata. Simultaneously, it invades the central nervous system, destroying the host's frontal lobe and altering the neural circuits to link all remaining brain functions with their own. In this way, Nemesis takes over the host's thoughts and completely controls its body.
Meaning, the entire purpose of the Nemesis is to control the host's mind. Unlike the Plaga, which is injected into a living human, the Nemesis is implanted into a T-virus-infected body specifically to prevent intellectual decay. Implanting it into the chest simply makes absolutely no sense.
Another difference between the Nemesis and a Plaga is that it attaches to the brainstem. A Plaga, on the other hand, settles in the human body just below the heart between the lungs, where it anchors into the host's spinal cord to hijack the nervous system. This is likely where the misconception that Victor's parasite is located in his chest comes from.
Going back to the scar on Victor’s body and its origin. Just like the Plaga, the NE parasite is introduced into the host's body at an embryonic stage. You don't need to cut open the abdomen for this; a regular injection is more than enough.
Unfortunately, there is no information in the game about this new Gamma-type parasite. Its mechanism can only be inferred through external signs and Victor's behavior. So, everything written below is purely my own speculation and headcanon.
The main difference with NE-γ is that it's an upgraded version of the parasite that doesn’t suppress the host's brain, but rather works in symbiosis with it. At least until the host suffers severe injuries.
In the original "Nemesis" project, the parasite took full control of the body, turning the host into a controlled killing machine. The NE-γ is likely modified to act merely as a "bio-processor" for regeneration and physical strength, leaving the cerebral cortex completely intact.
In addition to that, it also acts as a sort of barrier between the T-virus in the body and the brain, protecting it from decay.
Actually, intelligent Nemeses have been mentioned in the games before:
Restarting the Nemesis Project, Umbrella Europe requisitioned several of the new T-103 clones to serve as test subjects. The NE-α parasites implanted within their bodies succeeded in hijacking brain functions without killing the hosts. Soon after this procedure, however, at least two of the Nemesis-T Types demonstrated completely unexpected senses of ego and self-awareness, and made an attempt to escape from their laboratory.
Apparently, after seizing Umbrella's assets, The Connections refined the parasite, creating the Nemesis-γ, which allowed for the complete preservation of cognitive brain functions. Furthermore, as noted in the catalog, this model is less expensive to produce and is mass-manufactured. Which means that somewhere in the Resident Evil universe, other intelligent Nemeses like Victor must exist.
Victor was able to retain his personality after infection. This leads me to conclude that the NE-γ doesn't perform such drastic rewirings of the nervous system; it simply attaches to the brainstem and responds to commands.
But that doesn't mean it has zero influence on the host. You can witness the parasite at work during the helicopter scene when Zeno tasks Victor with dealing with Leon. Those facial twitches from Victor aren't just irritation or a nervous tic - it's the direct influence of the Nemesis. Victor is clearly unhappy that Zeno is dumping his workload onto him, but he cannot disobey or exert his own will.
Frankly, this capacity of the parasite to obey orders raises a whole bunch of questions for me about how it actually works. I mean, I can picture them showing Nemesis photos of S.T.A.R.S. members and telling him to kill them, after which he just goes and gets the job done. But Victor is a far more intelligent being, with his own will and desires. What if he refuses and starts resisting an order? Can he even resist at all?
How strong is this mind control over Victor? Do any orders from any person work? Or does he only obey Zeno? And what forms the basis of this connection? If the Nemesis was designed after the Plaga, where a dominant strain could control other parasites, does that mean the same principle applies here? Meaning, Zeno would have to host a different parasite that Victor's Nemesis perceives as dominant.
I know that Tyrants were capable of being trained and could execute a limited range of commands:
T-103 models were used as bodyguards, assassins sent to hunt specific individuals, Umbrella agents sent to acquire important objects, and hard-muscle for tackling armed opposition.
But I haven't been able to find any info on how Nemeses are trained or programmed.
So many unanswered questions. But what a vast field for imagination (Zedeon shippers, I'm giving you some food for thought here).
Still, my personal take is that Zeno injected himself with - if not a parasite - some kind of substance that Victor's Nemesis reacts to. This allows for a limited level of control. The parasite probably only recognizes commands related to tracking and neutralizing targets, while the host retains relative autonomy otherwise. So, it's not the total mind control, as it might initially appear.
By the way, Zeno lost his powers after injecting Elpis, which means his control over the Nemesis was lost too. That’s why Victor kills him so easily at the end. Perhaps up until that moment, Victor was held back from killing Zeno by a set of commands programmed during his initial infection - along the lines of "do not turn against your boss," etc. But now, all the restrictors were gone, Zeno no longer held power over him, and his head flew right off his shoulders.
Before this, I intentionally sidestepped the topic of regeneration. Yes, the Nemesis speeds up wound healing, but the consequences aren't exactly pleasant. If an injury is too severe and the Nemesis can't keep up, it can trigger uncontrollable mutation and a subsequent loss of sanity.
However, the effects of continual t-Virus exposure means that the more times Nemesis-T is injured, the greater it will mutate. Unlike most Tyrant series who usually develop thicker skin and clawed arms, the Nemesis Alpha's tentacles became larger to serve as a weapon, but at the cost of damaging the brain-stem.
In the finale, we see Victor with a torn arm and a crushed head. A few gashes stand out on his forehead, and judging by the amount of blood covering his face, the wounds are pretty deep. His brain definitely took a hit in the process. I’d even venture to guess that Victor actually died in that crash and was reanimated by the parasite. The Nemesis completely invaded the cerebral cortex, copying his personality traits and hijacking control of the body. So the person we see is no longer truly Victor. He’s more like a pale shadow of himself.
Essentially, the same thing happened to him as to Marcus, whose body was absorbed by Queen Leech.
The Plaga works on the same principle:
Unless the host's brain is destroyed or compromised, the plagan influence is not absolute, allowing them to continue their daily routines.
Victor's brain was clearly damaged, and the parasite took over its functions. That explains his bizarre behavior in the finale. He speaks and acts differently than he does in the rest of the game, and even his facial expressions change.
If he retained any remnants of humanity before, the moment that tentacle sprouted, he ceased to be himself. His voice distorts and starts sounding monstrous. And as the boss fight progresses, the more tentacles rip out of him, the more his speech degrades. At first, he throws out more or less coherent lines, but as he transitions into phase two, he can barely get the words out and mostly just roars like a beast. By the end, he completely loses the ability to speak, and his eyes roll around chaotically like a zombie's, proving his brain has suffered irreparable damage.
I cracked up when I heard some YouTube breakdown claim that Victor was fully conscious at that moment. Right, sure - just look at this guy, he's totally fine.
To sum it up, the parasite that had been sitting quietly in the back of Victor's head sprouted (like a potato) through his neck after he was wounded, bursting out of his shoulder as a tentacle and destroying his brainstem in the process. As a result, we get a completely unhinged Victor, screaming absolute nonsense about leading humanity, sacrifices, and evolution. Seriously, what kind of "sacrifices" come from an antiviral?
And why did he destroy the ARK with all the Elpis supplies if he was going to use it to cause chaos in the world?
Or is it just the Nemesis doing a terrible job of mimicking his behavior?
I notice the fandom treats the Nemesis way too lightly, like it’s just some cute little thing safely nestled in Victor’s chest, wriggling with excitement. When in reality, it's more like a ticking time bomb planted directly in your brain, ready to go off if you aren't careful enough. And under normal circumstances, it can be used to control you.
And all of this brings us to the ultimate question: could Victor have infected himself? But I’ll save that analysis for a separate post.
And some more detailed renders of my metal obsession. While working on making some fanart with him I thought I would render some detailed shots of the in game model for those interested.
Small details make so much of a difference, look he's knotted the back of his coat to fit him better!
And for those wondering about his thickness, well there is a bit there to grab on to and I love it!
Unfortunately the model does not have a body mesh without the coat so I have no images of him without the coat, etc. This is why I am going to try and recreate him in Daz Studio, although I would have loved to be able to see an actual shot of his in game body without the shirt, for research and all of course... 😁 But I am not certain that this is possible?
Anyways I thought others might want to see the little things I've uncovered as I played with him, maybe these can help those wanting to recreate him in fanart and cosplay?
Where did this information come from that Victor infected himself with the parasite? Everyone online is writing about it with absolute certainty, but I couldn't find any confirmation in the game itself, neither in notes nor in dialogue. Am I missing something, or is this just someone's widely circulated headcanon?
I don’t know how to format this post. It’s just a random bunch of facts about Victor.
He is 2.25 meters tall (7'4"). No, he's not 2.4 meters, despite what many people think.
I did all subsequent calculations using AI.
Given his height and build, he should weigh around 140–160 kg (310–350 lbs). Personally, I lean toward the 150 kg mark. (So yeah, missionary style with him is not a great option. RIP to your pelvis.)
Knowing this data, I got curious: how much does Victor need to drink to get drunk?
At 150 kg and 2.25 m tall, his blood and tissue volume is significantly higher than average, so intoxication would set in much slower. Here is the calculation based on the standard formula (0.5 g of ethanol per kg of body weight for a light buzz):
• Light buzz: ≈ 5–6 glasses. Requires ~75 g of pure alcohol. A 150 ml glass of wine (12% ABV) contains 14.4 g of alcohol.
• Moderate intoxication: ~10–12 glasses.
• Heavy intoxication: 15–16 glasses or more.
The verdict: Outdrinking him is impossible. Your liver would probably fail before he even gets tipsy.
A useful reference for artists. This is what his scars look like under his clothes. On his normal map, there are cracks detailed on the back of his forearm, while the inner side of his arm has almost no damage. There are also cracks on his shoulders. The rest of his body looks normal, though. Naturally, it made no sense for the texture artist to add detail to areas the player would never see, but for some reason, these scars on his arms and shoulders are actually there. And I like to think that this is his canon appearance.
So, it turns out Victor's skin is in the worst shape on his arms and face – the exposed areas of his body. Meanwhile, on his stomach, except for the surgical scar, the skin is relatively smooth. Could this be related to sunlight and the fact that it's harmful to those infected with the T-virus? In the mutated Marie, this manifested in an extreme form. Victor, on the other hand, was rotting gradually over the years, and his skin condition kept getting worse and worse in the places most exposed to the sun. And this got me thinking that, in that case, his dick should look normal👀
Let’s take a closer look at his clothes. He wears a biker vest. I don’t know why, but I find it hilarious. I laughed even harder when I looked at his shoes and suddenly realized they were cowboy boots. To be more precise, they are Western harness ankle boots, which are also quite popular among bikers.
By the way, his boots are 43.9 cm long, which corresponds to a European shoe size 68 (US size ~24).
Looking at the finer details, you can notice that his vest is splattered with blood, and the fasteners are covered in something black that looks like motor oil. Did he get messy while tinkering with his bike?
If you've been plagued by the question of whether Victor wears underwear, the answer is yes, he does. You can see the waistband of his briefs on his normal map. Enjoy living with this piece of information.
Among the models, I managed to find this zombie body with the exact same underwear (that normal map is practically burned into my retina, I recognized it instantly).
I tried to fit this underwear onto Victor. do not judge me
Canonical shirtless Gideon from the game files. Please welcome him with open arms.
Fandom draws Victor as fat.
Meanwhile Victor:
I want to run my nails down that back.
I also discovered that his hair is extremely thin at the crown of his head.
His wing has extra joints, allowing it to open much wider. I wonder how much more varied his moveset could have been during combat? Perhaps Victor could have used it as a shield, similar to the enemies in RE6.
Comparison of his height with Tyrant. Two wardrobes. Place your bets, who's knocking down whom?
Important note: THIS IS NOT GIDEON'S FINAL FORM! This is five models merged into one.
Now I understand why this render has been floating around the web looking like this. It’s a horrific mess of meshes. I separated them all, and here is what I got:
There's an attack and jump-back animation here.
He's definitely enjoying the process
Vik the breakdancer.
Lizard
Honestly, this version of his final form looks weird. It's some kind of mixture of reptile and insect. He has segmented limbs, similar to the legs of a praying mantis, and fly wings stick out from his neck (remember the fly with a skull on his ring?)
There's also some kind of tumor growing out of his head.
Instead of a right arm, he has an appendage resembling a feathered wing (I'll make a separate post about this detail analyzing the biblical references in RE9).
It looks like a very early model, possibly even predating Victor's tentacle-arm model. Because, as you can see, his left arm is still there. Does this mean that in the original script, Victor didn’t lose his left arm, and the motorcycle chase didn’t exist at all? How different could the early version of the game have been from what we ultimately got? Every time I think about it, I feel sick.
There is also a piece of clothing on his left arm, but the fabric texture looks more like a lab coat than his snakeskin trench coat.
The scar on his stomach has turned into a toothy tear... and what are those two appendages between his legs? They look like chelicerae, but we all know what you're thinking right now. A male counterpart to vagina dentata? Is double-barrel Victor canon?
Comparing his size to Leon. With dimensions like these, I feel like this should have been his final form – as in, without mutating into a Nemesis.
Finally, I wanted to take a look at the Nemesis model. I wish I hadn't. I'm afraid you guys aren't ready for this information.
This is Victor's body
If you hide this part, you can see his ribcage.
This is what his back looks like
And this is his butt.
Side view. He has one tentacle growing clearly from his ass, like a tail.
This nemesis part grew from his back and has its own chest. I counted 3 hearts: two under his ribs, the third near the blister on his “head”.
alexwlwesker has a good post analyzing his final form. The only mistake is in the diagram where the legs are marked – those aren't legs at all, they are Nemesis's arms.
Because Victor is upside down, I used to think Leon was pounding away at his hemorrhoids here. But it turned out to be Nemesis's hemorrhoids. Victor's butt and legs are much further away.
And just when I thought I'd seen it all, this thing managed to surprise me again. I took a closer look at the flesh spreading across the floor around the Nemesis. There are two arms, a skull, and human bodies.
It has always baffled me how Resident Evil bosses can generate a ton of biomass out of nowhere. But in ARK, they did show us a biological waste dump. It would have made a lot more sense if Victor had fallen in there instead of the reactor. Otherwise, I don't know how else to explain the presence of human body parts in his flesh.
I checked the Nemesis model from the RE3 Remake. First of all, Capcom is a bunch of lazy asses. Second of all, it's literally the exact same model with minor tweaks. You can see the same bodies. The same ribs, the same oval-shaped vessel structure. Even the head is the same, with arms instead of hair.
Seriously, why make a new, original model for a final boss when you can just reuse Nemesis from the RE3 Remake?
Special thanks to 4de for the heads-up, and to the creator of this video.
