ada approaches with mega milf swagger and elegance
"heya handsome"
"ada," leon says with a warm smile
they hug
and a voice interupts, "there you are, asshole."
chris redfield, stage right.
"you're one to talk," leon scoffs and ada gives him space to walk towards the other man.
"you know that man is married, right?" chris still holds a bit of jealousy when he sees her, but he trusts leon
"don't worry, big boy. im already taken."
that's when chris' ring is shown and he reaches a hand around leon's waist.
bam, motherfucker. chris gay redfield and leon s gay kennedy are married.
ada wong has a wife.
gamers are mad. resi fans who understand the critiques of capitalism and imperialism cheer at the queer-coded manifesting of the truth. all is well. sun shines. skin smooth.
Maybe this is a controversial opinion, but I think the reason a lot of people hate the Aeon ship, call it “toxic,” and deny that there’s any canon basis for it boils down to racism. Ada is a Chinese woman, and they can’t stand the fact that a desirable white man like Leon (the most lusted-after male character in video game history, lol) is in love with her.
The female selfshippers are mad as fuck that they can’t project onto her because she isn’t a white woman, and a lot of the white men who self-insert onto Leon would rather see him with any of the white female characters (even Sherry) who are considered more “wife material.”
I don’t know what other fandom has such an obvious romance that has been teased for decades, yet huge portions of the fandom want to pretend it will never happen. Leon has been in love with Ada since he was first introduced in Resident Evil, but people still claim Aeon is a “delusional” ship and suggest alternate love interests for him.
(To make this abundantly clear, I am not hating on any specific person or character. I love all the female characters and I love RE for having such a variety of women. This is just me expressing some of my frustrations with the fandom.)
I see this sentiment a lot about Ada, and I think race is a factor in it. I've frequented various fandom spaces and the general trend is that a lot of people think, for one reason or another, that Ada is undeserving of Leon. She is viewed as an "other" moreso than any other character. For this reason, a lot of women find her difficult to relate to and a lot of men don't consider her "wife material." However, I think in addition to Ada being Chinese, another major factor here is that Ada is not a conventionally feminine woman.
Ada and Femininity
You might it think sounds weird to say that Ada isn't conventionally feminine considering that she's always wearing heels, dresses, and has this femme fatale persona (note, I don't think Ada fits that trope as neatly as a lot of people think, but that's another conversation). But if you think about it, Ada really does not embody the type of femininity expected of women. Ada is highly independent. She is not gentle and nurturing. She is a cold, morally gray mercenary dedicated to her work before anything else. And you know what? I love it. She is arguably the most complex character in the series. She's mysterious, she's interesting, and she carries a strong presence. But you'll notice, morally gray women are always shit on in fandoms, especially when they commit the crime of being loved by an attractive male lead. And especially when they're women of color.
I personally find Ada to be a fascinating character. I also love her relationship with Leon, because the way she treats him reflects deeper layers to her character. It calls into question if she really is a cold blooded killer, it gives her depth and motivations other than simply carrying out her orders. I don't need their relationship to be completely healthy. It's interesting. That's what's important in fiction.
The Hypocrisy
Now here's what annoys me in fandom. Think about the reverse of this. People give male characters so much more leeway in this department. Male characters who mistreat women are outright idolized a lot of the time. For some reason, it's so easy for people to separate fiction and reality and claim being interesting is so much more important when it's a toxic man. So why are female characters who aren't nearly as bad get relentlessly shit on?
Here's an example right here in the very same fandom. A lot of people thirst over Albert Wesker (no shade if you aren't a hypocrite about it) despite him literally being a genocidal maniac and a clear reference to Nazi/eugenicist ideology. He's even shipped a lot... including with Leon and Chris. So tell me why I see more complaints about Ada's toxicity than his? It's a complete double standard and you can find it in every fandom. If a man is cold, dark, toxic, morally gray or even evil, he is idolized. People ship him with men because they love their toxic yaoi. People ship him with women because they love a dark romance. But for some reason, when you want to ship a morally complex woman with a heroic man, it's a problem.
This is a form of internalized misogyny that people don't want to talk about. People are instinctively uncomfortable with a relationship like Ada/Leon because it does not follow conventional heterosexual relationship dynamics. It makes them uncomfortable that Ada is not warm, submissive, and constantly available for Leon. I guarantee that if the genders were swapped (or if both were men) this ship would be wildly popular.
The Self Insert Problem
I want to make it clear that this is not just clowning on women who selfship with Leon, or women who ship him with characters they can more easily project on. Straight men do this too. They project themselves into Leon and therefore only want him with whichever woman they consider to be the perfect waifu. However, what these groups have in common is that they lean into the exact same tropes that have this weirdly racist (and sexist) undertones.
Because look. These are the characters most frequently brought up as those who would be good waifus. Better wives than Ada. Notice what they have in common? I also don't think race is a coincidence here. Especially with the male side of this fanbase, there is this weird emphasis on childbirth. With Claire, it's the whole "Redfield bloodline" shit which has had racial undertones for years. With Ashley, Grace, and Sherry (🤢), I also keep seeing people point out that they're much younger than Leon and therefore better for birthing children. Just ew. That's so gross and misogynistic, towards these women, and also towards Ada. I actually love all four of these women too, and I hate how people reduce them to potential love interests for Leon. They are all unique characters with their own stories.
I also want to note that some of these people just fundamentally don't get Leon as a character either. I see men project the most disgusting misogyny into Leon that his canon character (especially in the remakes) would never tolerate. They act like that just because they are creeps who find women over 30 undesirable, that surely Leon has the same taste, right? (No).
Then there are some selfshippers on this site who write the most insane shit about Leon then turn around and trash Ada. Like how does it make sense that you are literally warping Leon, a deeply sensitive and empathetic character, into some kind of stalker/rapist/pedo/whatever, but then people shipping Aeon is crossing a line? It's insane. I don't get how you can police the shipping of a character who you clearly care nothing about beyond his looks.
In sum, yes, I get it! It's so frustrating. Leon and Ada have this interesting and complex relationship that adds depth to both characters. It has been consistent and built up for almost 30 years now. It isn't delusional! You just can't handle a complex female character who interferes with your Leon fantasies.
There is this constant treatment of Ada like this "other" and like she could never have a peaceful life, or that she doesn't deserve it. Ada is treated as if she's incapable of change, when the narrative shows that not to be true, especially if you paid any attention to Separate Ways. She's held to harsher standards than other characters, because she's a prominent woman of color who is a morally complex character. The emphasis on family/children especially has a racist undertone to it.
What kind of music do you think Leon would like?
He strikes me as someone who’d really like stuff like Dirt by Alice in Chains
im so happy youve asked :-) i had a post in my drafts about this topic i was sitting on but deleted it bc it got pretty pretentious and technical and i was too embarrassed to post haha
-
the only canon diegetic (the song plays in-universe) reference you really have is the intro to re2 when hes first driving to the gas station. hes listening to this song 'saudade' that (if im not mistaken) was written and published specifically for the game and for leon.
'the bullet and the blade' from re4r and 'into the darkness' for re9 are similar and even though they're non-diegetic, theyre pretty much the same genre and vibe as saudade so i think all 3 would be good representation of his music taste...?
so tldr: alt-rock if youre talking generally, but thats such an umbrella term at this point its basically meaningless.
ive noticed when most people say leon likes alt-rock they specifically mean """divorced dad rock""" like creed and nickelback. which, i guess its possible, but they were basically the imagine dragons/sleep token of that era (manufactured alt-rock meant to be as generic and appealing to the masses as humanly possible) and i have more respect for leon than for them to be referred to as his go-to bands lmao
people have also pointed at like 90s grunge (like alice in chains, ive also heard soundgarden referenced) and i feel like he definitely goes through grunge phases depending on his mood. like i can definitely see re9 leon being more into the heavier grunge-y shit, but otherwise i generally dont see it really gelling with the softer, more sensitive side of his personality.
ALL THIS IS TO SAY - i see him being into the softer more melodic/ melancholic but still intense post-hardcore branch of alt-rock:
by 21 in re2 hes into fugazi, hum, slint, sunny day real estate, smashing pumpkins, foo fighters
by 27 in re4 hes into queens of the stone age, muse, radiohead, linkin park, nine inch nails, perfect circle
by 49 in re9 hes into an amalgamation of the others plus pink floyd, alice in chains, mad season, them crooked vultures
I like to think that breakfast is Leon's favorite because it was the first thing he shared with the police officer after his parent's death... OR simply because breakfast meant that he had a valid excuse to eat something sweet (given the hc that he has a sweet tooth).
Leon’s love language being food, he’s a decent enough cook to make his favorite dishes, but I also think it would be funny if he could only make sweet things. Just the imagery of an exhausted Claire going, “No, you can’t eat sweet things for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner.” That being said, Leon never got the chance to cook food for Sherry because the normalcy never happened and they were quickly taken into custody after Claire departed.
RE4r Leon lacks fat and is mostly pure muscle. His body struggles to regulate its temperature and he often ends up with cold limbs. I think his relationship with food deteriorated during his time in military training, both because of the quality (and quantity) of food he was afforded, and due to the environment he was in. The forced conscription and the way Leon is/was treated like a tool to be honed and sharpened definitely messed up his psyche, and his tendency to value the mission above all bleeds into his relationship with food. Leon often forgets to eat during his missions. He might tell himself that he'll grab something to eat after he gets Ashley back... but once Ashley is with him, all he can think of is progressing forward. I think post-RE4r, Leon is better about eating, but between missions and the knowledge that he's contributing to the government coverups, Leon starts to deteriorate again... until the fight with Arias in New York.
I think of Leon in Vendetta choosing to drink in some bar in Colorado vs drinking alone in his room a lot, and I think of Leon hardly living in his (government-issued) apartment to the point where it's like a dusty show-room. The absence of a tangible proof of his existence in the form of a lived-in space... The bed is hardly slept in because Leon is almost always shipped off to some new mission and the kitchen cabinets are empty because even if he does have some off-time, the majority of it is spent exhausted or drinking to numb the emotions away. In a twisted way, Leon might prefer to drink outside, more than just to maintain appearances, but also because if something did happen to him, Hunnigan wouldn't be the first one to find him.
DI Leon is much healthier. He's filled out and grown even more muscle mass to the point where his old shirts don't fit anymore... Hunnigan might joke about Leon dying from clogged arteries before dying from a mission, but she's internally happy that Leon seems better than she's ever seen him. Leon's living space is more lived in now. The fridge and cabinets have food in them and Leon is trying his best to get back into cooking. He might've even gotten married (who knows?) or moved in with someone. His relationship with Sherry might've been a little shaky post-RE6 but by DI, it settled down and Sherry now comes by to eat dinner with him often (Jake might stop by...). She also visits Hunnigan's office for a Dunkin' run every once in a while. If Leon isn't drinking a large-sized Dunkin' macchiato, then it's his coffee with a concerning amount of creamer and sugar.
By RE9, Leon still has a sweet-tooth but he's probably been scolded by his doctor enough that he's at least a little cautious of it. A few DSO agents once saw him throw in a generous amount of sugar into his coffee but no one believes them because he looks so scary and gruff (plus, have you seen his car???) that no, that was probably for his handler or something.
My resident evil hyperfixation has officially reached new heights because what do you mean that when I opened my camera roll today, I was met with an “Early Moments Together” memory montage of ada wong like this grown woman is my child 😭 I probably have a combined >200 photos of re characters in my camera roll, but it’s the fact the my phone decided that ada wong is now my daughter, and then created a whole ass slideshow, that makes this so funny to me.
like what the hell is this?! why does it look like a photo montage of a dead person meant to be played in the background during their funeral reception?
what i hate the most ab re9 discourse rn is when anyone mentions any resident evil women and how they should’ve been relevant in requiem it all boils down to debates about their importance to leon’s character
any mention of them is discussed as PROOF LEON IS MARRIED TO THEM or how they shouldn’t be there bc of what they mean or don’t mean to leon
jill has the most connection to racoon city, it’s a place where she lived, worked and was hunted down for trying to stop the unimaginable
it’s sherry’s home and a place where she lost both her parents in a horrific way
it’s a city claire went to in search for her only family, her big brother, her stability and protection, and instead ended up finding it in herself to become “the elder” to another, protecting and fighting for sherry. racoon city incident changed her entire life and her idea of self, she never wanted to fight, was looking for a fighter (chris) and ended up becoming a fighter herself and continued fighting for humanity after going through that transformation
raccoon city was a place where ada saw firsthand not just the devastation choices of others lead to, but also saw hope, evidence that not every person is selfish, that there’s still humanity. her “death” was symbolic to the rebirth of ada who made her own choices and chose to save people. she explicitly mentions raccoon city changing her as a person later and that change leads to her saving billions of people
most of RE fans are failing the bechdel test in their own heads i swear
leon’s character has his own ark and we love him, but resident evil women are so much more than their connections to men and their paths and sole inner turmoil deserves same consideration outside of relationships, it’s 2026 how is this something that has to be spelled out yet again in our day and age
im not even saying they should be in the game, i’m not speaking on their involvement or lack of it bc i think this group mindset is exactly why capcom left them out of the picture and continues to do so with new characters (have my thoughts ab that as well but that’s a monologue for another time) but this particular line of thinking is frying my brain
I Will Die Your Daughter — A Thematic Analysis of Daughterhood in Resident Evil: Requiem
In Resident Evil: Requiem, about halfway through an optional section of Leon’s campaign in Raccoon City, the strangest thing happens.
To get to BSAA container 04, Leon has to veer off the main path and fight through the dilapidated subway systems underneath the city. The walk to the container is identical to things we’ve seen before — hallways chock full of idle infected, and zombies that crawl out from open areas. But as we finish up, and make our way back to the main camp, this pattern changes.
The music from outside swells, and fades to nothing. Inside, other than Leon’s footsteps and the sound of his laboured breathing, we’re met with silence. And then, once he reaches the turnstile, we hear a static switch — a signal that Leon’s earpiece is on — but the first voice we hear isn’t his.
The first voice we hear is Sherry’s.
Hey Leon, do you still think about what happened there? […] That night, I was just a kid. Scared and confused… I imagine Grace must feel the same right now.
Usually, within these eerie moments of cleared out areas in Resident Evil titles, something happens. We have been primed for that exact outcome — a payoff to the tension, something that validates our reason to be on alert. Most often, the stillness we are subject to is directly followed by a jump scare.
But in this specific moment, that never comes. It’s a short stretch, but once Sherry’s line is delivered, there’s no interruption. No enemies, no music — just more quiet, and the sound of Leon pushing forward. You’re forced to sit with what she said to him for far longer than expected.
It almost felt intentional, like the developers wanted that moment to exist outside of the main story’s progression — still, and untouched by chaos. Something you were meant to remember.
And on my subsequent playthroughs of Requiem, I did.
Strap in. This is about to get crazy.
We Were In A Race To Grow Up
I don’t know if you noticed, but the Leon that we see in Requiem is different.
At 21, Leon starts off as a greenhorn kid whose whole entire life took a turn. He was in the wrong place on the wrong night — the desperate need to do the right thing as an officer accidentally roping him into years of involuntary federal service.
Unlock this cell, and I’ll give you this.
Sorry, I can’t do that. I have to talk to the chief first. (RE2make)
At 27, Leon has 6 years of USSTRATCOM training under his belt. He’s weary, slowly climbing the ladder of distrust for those around him, but he isn’t fully there. The RE4make does an incredibly good job at this characterization. Although he’s less trusting of those around him, he still exhibits that “Scouts Honour” moral code.
Major! You’re not thinking straight!
You’re still a kid, holding onto fantasies of what’s right and wrong. […] You can’t save her, you can’t save anyone.
Give it up, Krauser! (RE4make)
At 49, something’s changed.
During his perspective of pathing through the care center, he comes off as deeply jaded. Not only are his voice lines strikingly apathetic in comparison to the past, but his combat style is brutal and bloody in a way we’ve never seen before.
This place is infested. […] What a fuckin’ shame. (RE9)
This Leon fights and kicks to destroy, in comparison to before, where he only kicks to make space so he can reload.
This Leon sneaks behind zombies to shoot them in the back of the head and looks angry while doing so, in comparison to before, where he only does reactionary takedowns and grapples.
He’s aggressive. The way Leon fights — meticulous, crushing, straight for the kill — feels like he’s running out of time. And he is.
Yesterday, Through Today, Until Tomorrow
Earlier, it was revealed that Leon is fighting an illness, one that has already killed 6 different survivors of the Raccoon City incident. It’s T-Virus — the remnants of the infection initially dormant in the bodies of those exposed to outbreaks. Over time, the virus mutates after building an immunity to natural antibodies.
Leon has embarked on one final personal search for a potential cure. It's likely that he's operating without explicit permission from the DSO, as his usual handler Ingrid Hunnigan is absent. Instead Sherry, having been pulled from field work due to the progression of her own infection, acts as his FOS.
This led him to the Chronic Care Center, which has been run by T-Virus researcher Victor Gideon since the dissolvement and bankruptcy of Umbrella. At the Care Center, Leon doesn’t find the cure he's hoping for.
Instead he finds an inconclusive report, a photograph of Grace, and a redacted file containing the word “Elpis”. With what we’re given at this point in the game, we’re to assume that both Raccoon City and Grace herself have something to do with this mystery word.
Leon, at this point, is in stage 2 of this latent T-Virus infection. The virus has spread to multiple extremities, notably his hands and his neck.
He doesn’t know how long he has left. Stage 3 is next, and it's terminal. So, Leon’s goal naturally shifts. If he can’t find a cure, he’ll go to Raccoon City instead, and try to look for an answer to everything he's just found.
Gathering everything I’ve said just now, we as the players come to the conclusion that Leon is in genuine pain, and bone-tired of his war. He’s fought too hard for too long, and this time, the stakes are too high.
So, he gets in his car, and heads to the center of Raccoon City.
Effective at this exact moment, Leon has gone AWOL to die.
But When The Plant Blew Up/1998, Forever And A Day
Once in Raccoon City, we walk alongside Leon as he works to get to the city center. And once we do, we see the RPD.
At the precinct doors, Leon can barely bring himself to look up and meet the ruins. He has brief flashbacks of the people he met that night, specifically his Lieutenant Marvin Branagh, who died saving him.
This confirms something crucial. In Requiem, the Leon we see is built off this emotional development. He is the one who formed a bond with his lieutenant in his dying moments, and the one who carried that loss forward with him.
In RE4make, Leon bringing Marvin’s knife with him to Spain isn’t just a detail — it establishes a throughline. It confirms we’re following Leon A, someone who has carried the loss of that night for years.
Later, Leon — having run into his welcome banner, and a taunt of 'you can’t save anyone' written on a piece of paper — has little to no reaction to what he’s seeing in front of him.
He pauses to take it all in, plucks the note to read it, and immediately crumples it to toss it aside. This phrase is something that used to be such a core trigger for his character, and now, it’s brushed off almost as quickly as we read it.
We continue on through the West Office, where Leon finds Marvin’s name plate and the party plans they made for his first day as an officer. Here, we get a voice line from Leon – a gruff and clipped:
Hey, Lieutenant Branagh. Kennedy… reporting for duty.
But what strikes me the most about this moment at the nameplate — and the few moments of interaction with key photographs and puzzles scattered around — is that all of these are optional.
These interactable moments don’t lock us in cutscenes. They are things we choose to engage with as the player.
It shows us a lot about Leon’s hesitance. Even when he’s walking through the RPD and directly facing the remnants of his past that are all around him, he’s restrained. He chooses to parse through it all one at a time, not fully ready to face exactly what he will find in front of him.
A Piece of Shrapnel Flew and Slowed That Part of You
However, when we get to the back door of Kendo’s shop just past the RPD, that changes.
Leon loses the choice he had before. Here, he’s forced to pass through a door he’s never walked behind, and forced to confront what happened there 30 years ago.
Leon pauses well before the threshold, and we get another flashback. But it's not of Robert, it’s of Emma. It’s a standalone shot of his daughter.
Notably, this standalone shot lingers longer than it does in the original scene from the RE2make. Here, the memory of Emma in that doorway is not just passing. It’s being dwelled on by Leon.
A beat passes, and hesitantly, Leon opens the door that Robert took Emma behind. The first voice line that rings in his head is heartbreaking.
Terminate? That’s my fucking daughter.
What’s interesting, though, is that this is not the first thing Robert says to Leon in that original scene. This happens midway through the original scene, and is actually a direct response to something that Ada says. She tells Kendo to:
Step aside. We need to terminate her before she turns. (RE2make)
Here, Leon isn’t just remembering Robert and his words — he’s remembering an exchange. The clinical language used to refer to an infected daughter, and the immediate visceral rejection of it from her father.
In these moments, Leon’s entire demeanour shifts. He drops to one knee to face Robert’s bones, the words said that night continuing to ring through his head. And as he looks around the small room, his eyes catch something new — something Requiem introduces to this sequence.
It’s an Umbrella prescription that Robert filled for Emma. It lingers on a single detail.
Relation to Patient: Father.
And where this token of protection lies on the floor, evidence of a father's need to heal and give life, the shotgun Robert used that night is high on a shelf behind him — with Leon caught right in between the two.
It’s only after he reads over the prescription that Leon speaks for the first time.
I am so sorry.
He apologizes, his voice soft and barely held together — caught somewhere in his throat, and his chest. It’s shaken, an involuntary whisper meant for nobody other than the bones of a father before him.
But then, a rupture from outside shakes the ground, and something in him reignites.
Anger, and an anguished vow of never again.
This is strikingly different from how Leon has not only processed the entirety of the RPD, but also different to how he processes this moment in RE2make. There, he initially frames Robert and Emma through his role as an officer.
Helping people like them, that’s why I joined the force. (RE2make)
It’s broad, and principled. It’s rooted in his duty.
But here, that framing is secondary. Leon, at this exact moment in time, is not just seeing another failure as an officer.
His first instinct is to see a daughter, and then her father.
His flashback of Emma alone and Robert’s accompanying voice line, and his reaction to the prescription read less like a memory. It's more like something long repressed finally resurfacing. It’s as if he pushed their familial dynamic aside, like he didn’t fully understand the weight of it at the time. But he has to now, 30 years later. It is inescapable.
We do see more of Marvin after the RPD, but it's not through flashbacks or voice lines. It's through letters left behind scattered all across Raccoon City.
But the letters aren’t left behind by Marvin himself — they’re left behind by his daughter, Meryl.
The letters detail Meryl leaving a safe house and heading deeper into the infected city, all because she wants to see her father again. The second letter appears right after Kendo’s shop, in the windshield of a decrepit car. It's only here that Leon realizes who the author of these letters actually is.
This girl… it can’t be.
They continue through the alleyway behind the shop, where we find Meryl’s shoes, and a charm that she dropped presumably before she died. The charm was initially Marvin’s, and the tooltip describes it as a gift he gave to his daughter.
In the ruins of the city, immediately after these two moments, Leon has one final showdown with the Tyrant — someone that terrorized him that night, a fight that he was unprepared for at the end.
He’s not unprepared now.
Right before shooting out a rocket that Tyrant is holding, Leon says something we’ve heard before.
I couldn’t save them. But I can stop bastards like you.
You'll Go Fight A War
It takes this version of Leon a long time to get here.
And later, when he’s laid bare and actively dying of stage 3 T-Virus infection, the theme comes back full force.
Grace asks him why he’s even in Raccoon City if he was so sick. Leon responds, and he’s incredibly emotional. It sounds like he’s surrendering. He tells her this is where it all began for him, that he couldn’t make a difference in saving people’s lives no matter how hard he tried. So he is here now. He is chasing Elpis — seeking to destroy it before it can be unleashed.
The good ending of this game, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, shows us something important. Leon finally has a life outside of his job. He made a vow to his spouse — for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.
But in the grief of his terminal infection, he broke that vow.
He takes his ring off, puts his gloves on, and pre-emptively accepts an unknown outcome. In doing so, he’s trying to shed every emotional reminder to the life that he is actively leaving behind.
But Leon, conducting this mission outside of the DSO, needed an operations support — someone in his life that he trusts with everything he has. And over the course of the game, we see Leon try to push that fact aside. He only speaks when necessary, and he chooses to hide the full scope of his progressing infection from her.
But now, after being forced to reminisce on the fathers and daughters of Raccoon City, after coming face to face with two broken families that are defined by that relationship — he can’t forget anymore.
Leon can walk through the RPD and remain composed, because the loss there is scattered — it's spread across people, across an entire building that we don't even get full access to. He can choose to engage with everything on his own terms.
But at Kendo’s, he can’t. It’s one room, one father, and one daughter.
It forces him to truly remember Emma. And after he does, he reads the letters he sees and understands something that he didn't before. He finally saw what he missed that night, when he had no emotional connection pulling him towards those family dynamics, because he now has a reason to.
Leon has something he didn’t have back when he was a rookie on his own journey through the city.
Leon has Sherry.
Pathing through the city, now as a surrogate father to Sherry, has unconsciously forced Leon to remember the life he was leaving behind. He saw an infected daughter and a girl searching only to face the worst, and the memories of the life he was supposed to have come back — the protector he was supposed to be to Sherry after so long apart.
And what’s tragic is that the breakdown of their dynamic is not for the reasons we’d assume, like their gruelling job, or endless years of war. The true answer is a lot simpler.
It’s because they got infected the day they met.
He realizes now that he is just like Marvin, and he is just like Robert — fathers that are forced to lose their daughters to bioterror.
He makes Grace vow to destroy Elpis if he can’t, and makes her promise that another outbreak like this will never happen again.
Leon will die, and right after him will Sherry — he is hours away from his body fully shutting down. And if it must happen to him, if it must happen to his daughter, he will use his last dying breath to make sure that it doesn’t happen to another family ever again.
I'll Go Missing
Sherry Birkin is the daughter of William Birkin, a long-time Umbrella researcher. During the Raccoon City incident, William injected himself with the G-Virus to save his own life. The G-Virus duplicates by embryo implants to a suitable host.
Sherry shared his genetic makeup by blood, so he started to search for her across the entirety of NEST — a blind rampage spurred by the progression of the virus in his body.
Sherry, at only ten years old, was forced to watch her father die in front of her alone — she had to watch his mind get taken over by his own creation. She tries to hide, but eventually is found by him and implanted with a G-Embryo.
Claire comes across Sherry later, with her infection slowly taking over her body. Claire fought to protect and save her, and eventually Sherry had the DEVIL antigen administered to her.
Claire, Leon and Sherry reunite and escape the city. They vow to work together and stop Umbrella once and for all. In the remake, as they’re walking into the sunset — finally free and hand-in-hand — Sherry says something to the two of them.
Hey! You guys can adopt me! We can get a puppy! (RE2make)
This heartfelt scene cements their found-family dynamic. Sherry, a young girl with parents who spent more of their lives at Umbrella than they did with her, was saved due to the heroic actions of Claire and Leon.
But keeping her protected, administering the antigen to prevent mutations, and ensuring her safe escape from the city — none of that was enough.
The G had taken over the cells in Sherry’s body and mutated alongside her, altering her biology permanently. She was cured of the progression of the disease, but will have it in stasis in her body for the rest of her life. This made her blood a target for research.
In the aftermath of that night, Sherry was taken into protective custody by the US government.
Here, Leon was given an ultimatum – either he joins USSTRATCOM and fights against bioterror, or the government will take Sherry’s blood for their own anti-bioterror program, and she will die due to these experiments.
And Leon chooses to fight to protect her. Sherry is the last survivor of Raccoon City that Leon has the opportunity to save — something he desperately wanted to do to anyone he came across that night, something he failed at over and over again.
A file in RE6 proves this. Leon said he was close to giving up, but he remembered that Sherry needed him. She was his reason to keep fighting this war.
To tell you the truth, I even thought about ending it — several times, actually — with just a quick bullet to the head. But I didn’t give up. Sherry needed me. […] She was our reason for not giving up — especially for Claire. (Leon and the Raccoon City Incident, RE6)
But even though Leon accepted the ultimatum that ensured the safety of Sherry, she was still forced to live her life in federal confinement. One of the official reasons was to keep her safe from bioterrorists — more specifically, to keep her safe from Albert Wesker.
Wesker, after the Raccoon City incident and now in possession of superhuman powers, was on the hunt for viral samples with the intention of his spearheading Spencer’s now defunct vision of a new world order.
The reason the U.S. government took Sherry Birkin into custody is twofold: one, they had hoped to study the G-Virus that remained in her blood, and two, they sought to protect her from Albert Wesker, who wanted to possess a sample of the G-Virus. (A Deal With The United States, RE6)
That Picture On The Wall You're Scared Of
Grace Ashcroft is the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, journalist and Resident Evil Outbreak character. Grace, an F.B.I analyst, is persuaded into exploring the Wrenwood Hotel — a federal mission that is revealed to have been helmed by rival company The Connections, and the place where she watched her mother die.
The trauma of her mother's death forced her to become very reclusive. She folded herself inward, and stopped trying to reach out to others. It’s a form of self-protection, a way to parse through her past.
On her federal mission at the hotel, she is kidnapped by Victor Gideon — a key member of The Connections — and taken to the Rhodes Hill Care Center. Here, Grace wakes up upside down and strapped to a medical gurney, and it’s revealed that Victor has set up an IV to drain her blood.
As Grace tries to escape the Care Center, she meets a little girl named Emily who is being kept in a glass room locked away under the center itself.
Although lacking the natural inclination, Grace vows to protect Emily and escape with her. Through this, she is forced to confront her fear of emotion and her fear of touch. And in doing so, she gains something.
She now has someone who she can make sense of this mess with — a reason to keep going.
I wanted it to be clear that when she meets Emily, this is the moment in the story where she is finally connecting to another human being properly. (Angela Sant’Albano, Vice)
It is later revealed that Emily is a clone. The Connections, for decades, have been running a blood-memory program using the mutated T-Virus in order to gain access to the password that locked Elpis. They have been administering it to all of the girls in the care center, including Emily, to dire results.
After suffering excessive blood loss, Grace can do nothing but watch as the T-Virus mutates Emily.
It Looks Just Like You
Leon has lived this before. We have lived this before. A daughter, hunted, stalked, and taken. A girl watching someone change right before her — the shadow of a person she loves, gone like that.
Here, Leon desperately tries to reason with her. Tells her he understands how she feels, but she has to keep going — we have to keep going. To this, Grace throws the Requiem down to the floor, effectively refusing the protection he offered her earlier.
Leon tries to head after her, but is paralyzed by his own body — stuck in place to stare at her refusal, his infection continuing to spread.
This is a crucial moment. Where Sherry was protected by Leon, Grace leaves. And where Leon seeks to reach out, his body fails him.
And Leon is the only one who can see both outcomes at once.
Held Close All The Time
Before getting the chance to do anything drastic, Grace stumbles into Victor again, and he introduces her to someone we’ve seen before — a clone of Albert Wesker, Zeno.
They interject at the perfect time, and subtly pick up the role of 'protectors'. They tell her it’s okay that she feels lost, because she’s right where she needs to be.
Her and Zeno eventually end up at RPD, where he tells her she is one of Spencer’s projects — one that he favoured over the others. Zeno tells Grace that The Connections have used her blood to try to clone her memory to no avail. They reveal here that Elpis, a powerful mind-control virus, is locked behind a password only she must know.
And because she was made by Spencer, her life's purpose is to release it.
She asks about her mother, if everything that happened to Alyssa truly was her fault — if the people she loved were just collateral in a larger plan, pawns in a pre-determined outcome.
Zeno doesn't give her an answer. He dismisses it all — tells her the death of her mother isn’t the focus here, nor are her failures.
Selfishly, he reduces her entire life to one single purpose, and calls it a 'reason'.
To him, Grace's role as a daughter is reduced to something that's measured by usefulness, and not by loss.
It is only when Grace becomes overwhelmed with this realization that Leon, who has overheard everything, interjects to try to take control of the situation.
Knowing I'm Half Of You
Hey Leon, do you still think about what happened there? […] That night, I was just a kid. Scared and confused… I imagine Grace must feel the same right now.
It is here, in this exact moment, that the game presents Grace and Sherry as mirrored outcomes of the same cycle.
Where Sherry had Leon and Claire to guide her through that night — the good guys who swore above everything to keep her safe — Grace does not.
Grace’s ‘protector’ is now Zeno — the spearhead of The Connections, and a clone of the exact man that Leon’s service protected Sherry from.
And it’s here, after he hears the exchange between Zeno and Grace, that it all clicks for Leon.
In real time, he is seeing history repeat itself — a daughter, freshly faced with loss, being hunted for her blood.
And what does Grace say when she sees Leon for the first time since the water treatment plant?
… Mom?
Subtly, we are seeing another outcome of what would have happened to Sherry if Leon had let her go — if he refused the ultimatum that was given to him all those years ago.
And overtly, the game supplements this protective familial dynamic by having Grace mistake Leon for her mother.
Here, they split. Leon, thinking of Sherry, is forced to go to Kendo’s. Grace, thinking of Alyssa, is forced to go to PANDORA. Two mirrors of the same cycle.
But the RPD isn’t the only time this game does this.
In ARK, the game splits Leon and Grace apart again — and it’s here that these parallels become unavoidable.
Suffering The While, To Lie A Time Or Two
In the elevator up to PANDORA, Leon makes one last attempt to talk to Sherry. He knows he’s going to die, but he wants to reach out to his daughter one last time before he does — talk to her, update her, hear her voice before he can’t anymore.
The connection is static. He has lost his chance. The last thing he hears before he collapses due to pain and exhaustion is Sherry.
But on the other hand, Grace comes across somewhere to inject a magnetic disk into, one that her mother left her the night that she died. As Grace puts the disk in, she is met with countless videos that detail interviews her mother did with Ozwell E. Spencer, the founder of Umbrella.
Grace, in her office in the F.B.I, does not have any pictures of Alyssa around. The last time we see her confronting pictures of her mother is incredibly traumatic. This leads us to believe this is the first time in a long time that she’s seeing her mother in motion, hearing her voice again.
Grace is watching a video of her and her mother meeting for the first time, of her mother holding her as an infant. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Leon collapse.
Leon’s connection is present, but static — Sherry says his name for the last time, and he’s too late. Grace’s connection is clear, suspended in time long past — Alyssa says her name for the first time, and she’s still too late.
Grace rushes to meet Leon at the door, and desperately tries to wake him.
Leon, it’s me, it’s Grace. Please wake up.
Hey, you. I was just resting my eyes.
Leon’s lines, in their surrender, are incredibly dismissive. It’s something he says to downplay the severity of the situation — to turn the attention away from himself.
The girl he wants to protect, the one who reminds him of his daughter, is now the one protecting him. She’s pulling him up to his feet, helping him walk alongside her. His service couldn’t save Sherry, and now, he almost died before saving Grace.
And for Grace, this moment means something else entirely. She is watching a different cycle conclude right in front of her eyes.
Her gestures are careful, and her voice is pleading. If Leon doesn’t wake up, she has to watch another protector fall victim to a pre-determined outcome — and just like last time, she’s powerless to stop it.
These last moments in PANDORA make the non-canon ending so much more devastating.
Leon dies without ever having truly saved Sherry, and without being able to properly say goodbye. But he can’t fail another person like her again. So he lifts Grace up, pushes her to safety, and stays down.
And Grace doesn’t leave. She watches from the catwalk as the building self-destructs, and pleads with Leon to come with her. She loses the ability to change this outcome again. Paralyzed, she watches as another person tries to fight for her — as they die for her.
Their final words are said facing each other.
At least I was able to save you.
I wish I could have saved you, Leon.
In the canon ending, however, Grace releases Elpis. She is the one to put an end to Progenitor-based viruses after decades of endless carnage. I theorized more on Elpis here.
Elpis, hope itself, restores Grace's agency. It tells her that her role a daughter matters, and she wasn't created to be a tool. She was born, taken in, and loved by Alyssa. Elpis gives her a choice, and that choice is what defines her.
And by releasing it to the world, it cures Leon, and saves Emily. And most importantly, it frees Sherry from the cage she has been in her whole life.
This Was All For You
For a long time, Leon believed that nobody remembers that boy he used to be that night in 1998. He believed that he changed too much, that he has been forced to become an entirely different person to cope with everything.
Raccoon City. You know, after the incident. The world changed. I guess I changed, too. (RE4make)
But that isn’t true.
Sherry remembers.
When Leon was 21, a fresh faced rookie with a strong moral compass, he believed that he was a critical failure. He believed that he couldn’t save anyone he came across that night.
When Leon is 49, he finally does.
After an entire lifetime together, Elpis gives Leon a way to truly save Sherry. The last daughter of Raccoon City — the only person he’s wanted to save for the last 30 years.
And for a long time, Grace believed she wouldn't be able to have a world again.
She shut herself out for years, never learned how to trust someone other than her mom. And the first person she met and she connected with after that trauma got taken away from her in an instant.
But now, Elpis gives Grace a way to save Emily, too. We get this mirrored closure touched on in the post-credits cutscene where she's on the phone with Leon, asking about Sherry.
That last scene can be read as a symbolic passing of the torch.
Leon's fight is over. But, he’s still in touch and talks regularly with Grace. He asks her how she is and how Emily is doing, and in turn, Grace does the same about Sherry. They talk about their daughters together.
Leon gets to watch Grace keep her safe and live simply — raise her gently, and teach her to read.
He gets to watch her have a normal life with her daughter after Raccoon City, something he didn't manage to get the first time around.
Grace leaves that night with two new friends and a surrogate daughter who all get to live because of her strength.
She starts the game off as meek, and shy. But ultimately, her relentless courage prevails. She single-handedly shapes the lives of those around her.
After 30 years of grating service, endless war, and unimaginable loss, Leon can lay his arms down. And in doing so, he gets to have a front row seat in watching the next generation of survivors live peacefully.
And Grace? She frames the pictures of her mother, and of Emily. They’re on her desk, for the world to see.
I Forgive It All As It Comes Back To Me
Horror games have a penchant for using daughters negatively. We see that not only across this series, but in other franchises, like Silent Hill and The Evil Within.
Daughters carry blood and babies, and in becoming wives, often lose their names. They are easily forgotten and easily targeted — innocent, young lives that are broken purely for shock value.
Grace, however, shatters this mold. She has her own arc, and works wonderfully as not only a mirror for Sherry and Leon, but as an important co-protagonist who saves Leon’s life with her agency multiple times.
She starts this game off as closed off, afraid of touch and of emotion. She's a girl with little to no friends who is still reeling over a core trauma that she doesn’t understand – the death of her mother, the death of her whole world.
Over the runtime of this game, we watch her become strong. She ends the game knowing what happened to her mother, figuring out where she came from, and leaving it all with someone she can trust again. She fights for her life, for Emily’s life, for Leon’s life, for Sherry’s life.
Without Grace putting her foot down, and telling Leon that she’s going to fight for what’s right alongside him if it’s the last thing she ever does, him and Sherry would have died.
Without her holding a gun to her own head, Leon would have died the first time he walked into PANDORA.
Without her trusting her gut, and going against Leon’s wishes, the war that she ended would have continued. Emily would have died in the water treatment plant all alone.
She’s first introduced as Alyssa’s daughter, then as Spencer’s daughter. And yet, she loses no importance.
A girl we see repeatedly re-emphasized as a daughter above all else, strikingly normal and unimportant, still becomes the main emotional crux of the game.
It is through Grace that we realize a daughter’s choice matters, the lives of millions hinging on it.
Requiem gives us this – a girl, breaking a generational cycle. A daughter, tied seamlessly into the theme of hope and revival.
Tell me all the time, not to worry
And think of all the time I'll have with you
When we won't wake up on our own
Held close all the time knowing, knowing
This was all for you. (Nettles, Ethel Cain)
A Deep Dive Into RE:Requiem - Elpis, The Curse of Hope
In Hesiod's poem Works and Days, a ceramic jar was left in the mortal woman Pandora's care. The jar contained evils unknown – disease, strife, jealousy and death. Although she was told against it, Hesiod said that it was human curiosity that led Pandora to open this jar.
Opening the jar released the evils inside onto the mortal world, and Pandora tried to make quick work of resealing it. It was for naught though, as almost everything had already managed to escape, except for one thing that remained at the bottom.
Pandora resealed her jar before the spirit of hope, Elpis, could have the chance to escape.
Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,
she remained under the lip of the jar and did not
fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the
lid of the jar.
This passage in Works and Days does not touch on the true intentions of Elpis, and that ambiguity has led to a centuries-long debate over the fact. From this point onwards, the goddess Elpis became inexorably tied to the feeling of hope, with many Greeks reading her staying inside of the jar as deceptive, thus coming to the conclusion that hope itself must have ill intent.
Euripides, a Greek tragedian of classical Athens, even goes as far as describing hope as a treacherous illusion that is ultimately humanity's curse in his play The Suppliants.
Hope is man’s curse; many a state hath it involved in strife, by leading them into excessive rage. (The Suppliants, 421 BC)
But this isn't his only play that concerns that idea of hope. In Heracles, hope is presented differently, as something that is deeply complicated – something that constantly shifts.
Throughout the tragedy, gathering momentum by contrast, runs the rhythm of its minor terms: first despair, then hope, then again despair, and finally an endurance deeper than either. (Forward by William Arrowsmith, Euripides II, 1969)
The question regarding Elpis' intent has always been complex in nature. Did Elpis hide herself under the lip of the jar out of preservation, essentially turning herself into a blessing to be found after ills have plagued the world? Or was the jar sealed before Elpis could leave it, effectively making her another curse inside – a blind hope, a belief that only serves to prolong suffering?
This ambiguity is not lost thematically in Resident Evil: Requiem. It's almost a one to one of the discussion that many have been having about the intention of Elpis since the game came out. Was Elpis, the antiviral found in the ruins of Raccoon City, a cure at inception – something Spencer made to preserve life, and undo the suffering he has caused? Or was it just another way to seek viral control – a private, strategic failsafe meant to be deployed at his own discretion?
And that's a good question to ask. Over the course of the whole series, Spencer's work has involved horrific atrocities and terrible ideologies. So it does feel shocking at first glance that Requiem tells us that in the 80's, Spencer had a huge shift in ideology, and started the development of a cure. His words are clear at the end – he felt guilt, and he hopes that the concept of Elpis serves as a requiem for all those who have died.
But the question still stands. What could have possibly happened for him to have started development of an extremely potent antiviral, a cure to his entire life's work so early into its research?
I, in good faith, will try to answer that question, focusing on Grace's report and Spencer's last on screen appearances in 5 and 9.
The Timeline of Elpis
We know that the first mention of Elpis was in 1980. Spencer continued R&D of Elpis all the way through to the mid 1990s, where it is suspected the cure was finalized due to a decrease of public appearances and a confiscated record from 199X. The Raccoon City Incident seems to have happened shortly after, and Spencer was locked into court proceedings which ended in 2004.
If it was meant to be a cure, why didn't Spencer ever use it? Why did he greenlight horrific eugenics experiments for a decade after its initial mention, why did he still remain obsessed with his evolution of humanity well into his final years? Why does even Grace herself say that his true intentions regarding Elpis will forever remain unclear? What gives?
1978-1980, a Rift Between Founders
Umbrella's outward objective was the development of B.O.W.s using viral research, particularly through the T-Virus project. This objective existed within a broader ideology established by Spencer himself, whose true aim for Umbrella was to develop a new world utopia by any means necessary. After the discovery of the Progenitor virus, which held the special ability to make and remake life, Spencer realized that his ambitions of a new world order actually had the chance of becoming a possibility.
However, while the Progenitor virus had the capability of granting immortality and superhuman traits, its mortality rate on infection was incredibly high. In order to successfully use the Progenitor virus for forced evolution, it had to be weakened, thus leading to the development of the T-Virus.
When viewed in the context of Umbrella's internal history, particularly the ideological divide and growing paranoia between Marcus and Spencer in the 1970s, its inclusion alongside T-Virus research and the first inklings of viral research into the Wesker Project gives us a much clearer read on its original intention.
From its earliest mention in the 1980 ARK roadmap, Elpis actually seems less like an intentional cure, and more like a structural component that was baked into Spencer's long-term strategy. While Marcus was developing the T-Virus, Spencer saw the potential in the new strain as it was less lethal, but never was able to fully trust Marcus during its R&D.
Placed within this rift, Elpis reads not as a contradiction of Spencer's goals, but as a contingency against them spiraling out of his control.
Elpis is presented here as a failsafe – something capable of stabilizing, suppressing, or even reversing the outcomes of the Progenitor virus should Marcus ever turn against Spencer. This would make it highly invaluable not only as a preventative measure against the possible internal weaponization of Marcus' viral work, but also as an important safeguard within the Wesker Project itself.
If a subject eventually proved to be uncontrollable by Spencer, Elpis would allow him to invalidate that result entirely. In this sense, Elpis represents the complete and total authority Spencer wanted over the Progenitor virus – not just the creation of power, but the ability to take it away.
Around 1986, Marcus started to receive funds from the "F Foundation", a puppet organization of The Connections, whom Marcus eventually became an operative for. Although Spencer's isolation of Marcus led him to continuing his research and correspondences separately from ARK, Spencer was still able to deduce Marcus' intentions of presenting the T-Virus to Umbrella's executive directors, and his intention of betraying Spencer by seizing the company.
Spencer promptly started an internal purge of Umbrella. In 1988, Spencer had Marcus killed, and took over his lab and research. Seizing these correspondences – and Marcus' true motivations becoming clear through them – validated Spencer's worst fears. His decision to eliminate Marcus did not resolve his paranoia, but instead expanded it.
1990, Paranoia's Slow Build
Even after Marcus' purge, Umbrella still continued to see gradual destabilization and infiltration by The Connections throughout the 1990's. As the organization expanded, it grew too large to control effectively.
Plagued by leaks, internal sabotage, and pressure from rival companies, the role of Elpis in Spencer's life naturally evolved. A viral failsafe bred from an insular and focused distrust towards one person had suddenly turned into an extremely important contingency plan against anyone trying to weaponize the Progenitor virus against him. This caused Spencer, already obsessed with a controlled outcome, to double down inside ARK to continue his research into Elpis.
Spencer's message of "Elpis shall bring it all to an end" suggests a shift from distrust towards specific researchers, to distrust towards the entire system that houses them. If Umbrella itself can no longer be counted on, then its entire foundation should be privately rendered useless – not out of good will, but out of paranoid desperation. This is evidenced by Elpis being password protected on completion. It was Spencer's private safeguard – his last Hail Mary. A tool, not a cure.
Spencer's viral goal of godhood could now be met by any means necessary. He pulled back from his duties as CEO post-completion to seemingly complete step four of his long term plan privately, as the distrust for his subordinates still lingered even after full development of Elpis. He let them take over main roles, but he did so knowing if the purging or seizing of whoever betrayed him next did not work, he could use Elpis at his discretion.
1998, The Raccoon City Incident
The direct cause for the outbreak in Raccoon City was due to the betrayal of one of the lead T-Virus researchers, William Birkin.
In 1988, Birkin discovered another progenitor based retrovirus, the G-Virus. A decade later, after further research, Birkin entered talks with the US military and plotted to sell the G-Virus for their own bioweapons project. In September of 1998, Birkin began sabotaging Umbrella facilities. Spencer, noticing these behaviours but still seeing potential in the G-Virus, grew concerned that Birkin would prevent him from receiving the G samples and hinder his plan of viral evolution.
Umbrella caught wind of the plans to sell the G-Virus, and a U.S.S task force confronted Birkin in his laboratory. In the confrontation, a sample of the T-Virus not only leaked into the sewers of Raccoon City, but was also leaked into the city's main drinking water reservoir by rats who drank the virus from broken vials.
Following the raid, Umbrella's underground lab had fallen into irreparable chaos, with the T-Virus spreading through it at an alarmingly fast rate. The city itself fell into the same chaos shortly after, as tens of thousands of people became infected through the waterways. Taking advantage of the viral outbreak, The Connections had swiftly seized control of ARK, meaning Spencer no longer had access to the failsafe he spent so long developing.
Spencer, having lost his main research facility, had actually not abandoned his ambitions like many believe. Spencer's notebook in RE5 gives us a little more insight on his personal thoughts immediately after the incident.
In it, he outlines a plan to return to Umbrella's hidden Progenitor facility and rebuild from the ground up. He plans to get rid of anyone who knows of the facility to the best of his abilities, showing that even after a large-scale outbreak like Raccoon City, his research still holds sole importance. He believes he can start again, that maybe that he can recreate Elpis to take back control, so long as the Progenitor facilities remain in his hands.
2004, The Paradox of Hope
Spencer's plans to rebuild never come to fruition. Whether due to age, the court hearings, or loss of access to tools, Spencer fails to return to the Progenitor facility and recreate Elpis. Spencer has not chosen to abandon his ambitions of forced evolution. Instead, he is forced to come to terms with the fact that he no longer possesses the ability to realize them.
In this lens, Spencer's characterization in Alyssa's interview reads less like moral redemption and more like a desperate attempt at conceptualizing his failure. Elpis, once seen by Spencer as complete control, is now reframed as his personal hope.
My research has opened Pandora's Box, unleashing disaster upon the world.
Except Elpis, the goddess of hope? Or so the myth goes...
A Blind hope. [...] Humans cannot predict when death will come for them. This is why they have hope.
I was wrong... and I am plagued by guilt. Happiness cannot be achieved at the expense of others. (Alyssa's Interview, RE9)
This shift is not because the viral function has changed, but because Spencer's relationship to it has. We even see him attempt to undercut the hopeful framing that Alyssa tries to give it. Spencer can no longer wield his creation as a weapon, and so in turn it becomes something he has mythologized. A blind hope.
He spent his entire life pursuing godhood by any means necessary, only to lose that pursuit due to his own greed. He had so many opportunities to use Elpis. He could have used it when The Connections began to infiltrate his company in the 1980s-90s in droves, or when global Umbrella labs started to see repeated accidents, or even when his subordinates started to show early signs of betrayal, but he didn't. His role as god was more important. He would see it through using viral research no matter what.
For Spencer, Elpis was not hope, but safety — something he believed he could rely on at any time. That belief allowed him to continue his research unchecked. And in the end, his inability to act cost him everything.
By the time of the interview, Spencer is no longer a demigod on the path to ascension. He is a human man forced to confront the hand he played in the collapse of his own legacy. The conclusion he presents, that happiness cannot be achieved at the expense of others, is in turn deeply ironic. We are watching a man who did everything in his power to become a god attempt to rationalize his failure in the most human way possible.
The guilt he expresses is not moral. It is selfish. And the decision to take in Grace as one final atonement fits into this selfishness.
Is she...
Perfectly normal. Just an average child needing a home. She ... is my hope. (Alyssa's Interview, RE9)
Although Spencer himself sees it as one, this act is not a redemption. This is a desperate scramble to control one last life, a way to change one outcome. Where he once desired to rule the entirety of humanity, he is now left with only one life he can influence. So he tries again, and seemingly treats her with care. His idea that this one simple act can offset decades of cruelty, and him being fully content with that is not evidence of moral growth, but is evidence of a man building a narrative he can live with while he is actively trying to parse through failure.
Spencer didn't become good, or change his entire ideology at the end of his life. He simply lost the ability to enforce it, so he tries to rewrite his life at the end to make it more bearable. He reframes Elpis as hope, Grace as a redemption, and selfishly reframes himself as remorseful.
2006, the Connective Thread
I was to become a god... creating a new world with an advanced race of human beings. However, all was lost with Raccoon City.
Despite that setback, your creation still holds great significance.
Now my candle burns dimly. Ironic, isn't it? For one who has the right to be a god. To face his own mortality... (Ozwell Spencer, RE5)
Elpis, in hindsight, gives his conversation with Albert Wesker new emotional weight. In this moment, Spencer, a man obsessed with immortality and godhood is not just facing death. He is facing the loss of significance, and the loss of being a key developer in a new world he thinks he was supposed to rule.
The bitterness that we see stems from the realization that the complete authority he once held over Progenitor research through Elpis has been taken from him. Spencer has not only lost the ability to complete his vision, but also the power to control it. Now, Wesker stands in front of him as a fully realized version of the future that Spencer envisioned. In hindsight, the absence of Elpis is crucial. And in the end, he is destroyed by the very system he was too greedy to stop.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, Elpis serves as a continuous thread throughout Spencer's time at Umbrella. Much like the shifting idea of hope in Heracles, Elpis starts as a failsafe against internal paranoia, then becomes a contingency against an entire system, and ends as a mythologized symbol of failure.
And much like the Elpis in Hesiod's original poem, Spencer's true intention is not clear, and is still layered in deep ambiguity. Although I have spent the last thousand something words trying to make sense of it all, we still do not hold a complete and total answer over the intention of Elpis. And honestly, we might not even get one. But that is unimportant.
Whether you view its inception as a cure, or a weapon, or anything that lies in between those two, the importance of Elpis to Spencer is clear. It is a constantly shifting, private tool that represents the selfish lengths he would go to have complete and utter control over the future he is trying to shape.
And Spencer's blind obsession with that control made it so that even in death, Elpis – hope itself – has eradicated any dream he had that one day that vision would come to life, with or without him.
me listening to the most gut-wrenching songs known to man and waiting for it to rain to really get into that my mother was murdered right in front of me Grace Ashcroft headspace.
snowghoul
blakekathryn
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
