So Just Where The Hell Is Raccoon City Anyway?
(or, wes makes up some Bullshitttt. originally for @starryuroboros and I's AU, but can apply to canon RE/is ENTIRELY FREE TO USE!!)
so. where the fuck is it, capcom. it's been put in various states throughout various adaptations: SD perry's novels put it in pennsylvania, in the novelizations of the anderson films it's apparently a small island off SoCal???? what even?, and, supposedly it is in colorado in the newest movie.
of these choices, colorado is the *most accurate*, but by no means is it *actually* accurate.
in terms of location details about game-verse raccoon city, we know a few things:
- it is in the midwestern united states (which strikes out colorado, which is considered to be a western state. not midwestern)
- it borders a mountain range that does not exist in real life, thus ensuring that anywhere it *could* be placed would need to at least have the *potential* for mountains, ie: a place where tectonic plates are colliding, such as a fault line
- there are rivers near it/running through it, named as the Circular River, Marble River and Mendez River, none of which are real and would likely be smaller tributaries of a larger river
- it's a big city, and a decently old one, with trams, and a proper railway nearby as shown in RE0
- raccoon forest appears to be a decent mix of deciduous and evergreen trees
- the NEST is specifically and explicitly built inside a large limestone cavern
and as such, i have determined a *fairly good* (and very non-canon) placement for raccoon city
welcome to Raccoon City, Missouri.
the Arklay Mountains have been situated on top of the New Madrid Fault Line (technically, i could have just renamed part of the actual Ozarks, but i wanted to go the extra mile). in photos the Ozarks really do look how Raccoon Forest and the Arklay Mountains have been depicted, with the same rolling, hilly landscapes and seas of trees
in this universe, the three rivers near the city would be smaller offshoots of the Mississippi River, similar to the Meremec; and like the Meremec they carved out the caverns that the NEST is built in; there were probably efforts to dam them after the Raccoon City Incident in case the t-Virus leaked into them
in real life, an actual transcontintal railway passes by right next to where i've set the Arklay County, which accounts for the presence of the Ecliptic Express in RE0
the raccoon city shown in the REmakes and RE9 is very reminiscent of downtown St. Louis and Jefferson City, so everything checks out there
wrenwood would be right on the Missouri-Kentucky border, but in aesthetics i'd consider it (pre-1998) to be similar to small towns in the middle of the state such as Marshall and Nelson, with more and larger buildings being added as Raccoon City survivors fled to Wrenwood, resulting in the cramped, bustling, more modern Wrenwood we see in RE9's intro, with mis-matched older buildings such as the Wrenwood Hotel and Rhodes Hill Care Center being from the pre-expansion Wrenwood
as for Rhodes Hill itself, other than it being an obvious pun on the Colossus of Rhodes (since, you know. giant doctor there.), i would wager that either wrenwood was once two towns that merged together, that there is an actual mountain *called* rhodes hill, or both, but that's just a little pet theory as to why it's named that (though this whole post is pet theories)
additional fun little tidbits to chew on:
- in the scrapped george romero script for a live-action RE movie, yawn is a giant copperhead, which are very common in missouri
- plant 42/43 could easily be an intensely mutated kudzu, which would make sense to use as a bioweapon, since it spreads easily and chokes the life out of other plants (and assumedly people as well now)
- raccoon city itself would be a parallel to the real world town of times beach, missouri, which was evacuated and abandoned after it was contaminated by dioxin sprayed to keep the dust down; the dioxin-infused soil was incinerated much like how raccoon city was. well. you know.
- this one is an insane stretch but raccoon zoo is like a smaller and shittier version of the st. louis zoo combined with the st. louis botanical garden
ok thats it thats the post
obligatory: I DO NOT LIVE IN MISSOURI I AM INCREDIBLY AUTISTIC AND LOVE DOING BORING ASS WORLDBUILDING LIKE THIS SO I HAVE POURED HOURS INTO RESEARCH
next episode of Wes Monologuing will either be my personal (very different from canon) writeup on t-virus or my frantic attempts to place kijuju into an actual location and also make it less racist (grimacing)
