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The Hidden Significance of Men's Jewelry in RE

If there's one thing I love doing, it's analyzing character designs. As someone who's dabbled in film production and character creation, character designs are very important-- more specifically, choices for things such as clothing, hair styles, jewelry, etc. because they are usually very purposeful. It can give insights into characters as well as provide other valuable information, such as when something is taking place, but it's often overlooked.

Especially with a franchise like RE, if you want more information about the characters, you really have to look. The franchise lore is very complex, and Capcom certainly does not make it easy to follow along with, but that doesn't inherently mean the lesser-known aspects are less valuable. And in this case, some of the jewelry worn by some of the men in the franchise actually provide some insight into their characters as well as their mental state or expected journey throughout the piece.

RE 1.5 Leon

While it's certainly not canon, I don't want to overlook Leon's original 1.5 design because I think it's cute, and also it just looks cool.

As depicted in this original design, Leon had two necklaces: a choke with a piece of a sheep's bone, and a longer one with a Mjölnir pendant. Many people already know this since it was popularized by the MCU and is part of Norse mythology, but Mjölnir is Thor's hammer. While it is possible the pendant could be related to the character, there's really nothing that points to Leon being a comic book fan, although it's definitely a cool headcanon. That being said, Mjölnir exists outside of Marvel, and in mythology, it is said to represent bravery, strength and courage-- all qualities Leon possesses, especially going into Raccoon City.

And like with most RE symbolism posts, I get to talk about catholicism. (Seriously, RE really loves religious symbolism and references to catholicism.) Although it's not strictly christian, nor strictly catholic, sheep or lambs are often used as a symbol of innocence and self-sacrifice, as seen with the corollaries in the bible. That also makes sense with Leon's character, especially when you consider the association with youth, naivety, and innocence (all of which were at the forefront of Leon's characterization in RE2/RE1.5), the fact that we know Leon was raised religiously, and that he does a hell of a lot of self-sacrificing in the series.

OG- RE4 Leon's Collection

As part of the marketing campaign for OG4, Capcom partnered with several different brands to create a line of clothing that was said to be Leon's casual wear. For purposes of this post, I'm only going to be talking about the necklace, but if you want more info/want to see the pictures, you can find them on this post.

One of the items from the collection was a silver guitar pick necklace with a cross on one side. As previously mentioned, we know Leon was almost certainty raised in the christian religion, and we see that reflected here as well. It's also on a guitar pick pendant, which calls back to Leon's music taste as well. While the remake of RE2, and thus the grunge song Leon was listening to, didn't exist at the time this line was created, it could be presumed through Leon's attire (especially in this line) that he was likely a fan of rock music. So while there's no canon confirmation nor suggestion of Leon being able to play a guitar, I think it's easy to see the connection there, especially since we know he listened to grunge in the remake.

RE4R Luis' Rings

(Shout out to @wisecrackingeric-2 for the very high-res image here) In RE4R, we can see that Luis wears two rings. The gold rings has the Virgin Mary emblem in the center, which makes sense considering the game hits you over the head with religious imagery and we know Luis was catholic.

The silver ring you can actually buy on ebay-- it's a real ring that Capcom seemingly bought and scanned or otherwise copied into the game. The item descriptions don't really provide much concrete information, and I wouldn't exactly call them a great source since they're all listed a little different and none of them are very clear, but they all mention that it's a geometric vintage ring originating from Mexico. I don't have enough information to personally speculate on the significance of this, however, I think it's a neat find and also gives a window into how Capcom does things for RE.

RE6 Chris' Necklace

Chris' necklace was admittedly not as easy to find. It's not mentioned in the RE6 artbook, but I had managed to find a close-up image of it. Using reverse image searches and looking through far more designs than I'd care to admit, I believe it's a Saint Christopher's necklace. I made a more expanded explanation in this post, but if it is in fact a St. Chris necklace, that would make a lot of sense considering Chris' arc in RE6. According to what I found, Saint Christopher represents "protection and guidance for those who embark on journeys, both physical and spiritual. The pendant often features an image of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ child on his shoulder, symbolizing the weight of the world and the responsibility of carrying others."

And this doesn't even get into Chris and Leon's matching watches, which could be a whole other post on it's own, but the point is that there's a lot of really cool, small details about the characters that often get overlooked, but it's highly entertaining to take a look at the details since it can oftentimes give us more information about the characters.

#leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #chris redfield #luis serra #resident evil #re4 #re 1.5 #re6 #biohazard #capcom

Looking at Elza's wiki page...

I KNEW IT! I KNEW THERE WAS NO REASON TO VIEW HER AS A DIFFERENT CHARACTER THAN CLAIRE! She isn't some complete character who got scrapped and replaced while Leon was the only 1.5 protagonist carried over. There's one character who had a name change.

They didn't even drop the racing suit when they first renamed her and changed her hair color:

There's also this variation of a brunette character in the racing outfit:

Basically the second RE2 protagonist design timeline is something like:

Rachel Speyer (no further info about what the character was like at whatever point that was?) -> Blonde wearing a Raccoon University racing suit named Elza Walker -> Brunette wearing a Raccoon University racing suit named Claire -> Brunette motorcycle enthusiast who comes to Raccoon City because she's Chris's sister looking for him

Not a case where they just crossed out the Elza designs and started from scratch with a new character, every variation of Elza/Claire was building on something that came before.

On one hand it is a little unfortunate that my vague Elza and Claire meeting and being (girl)friends concept is 100% extinguished now, but on the other hand this does provide some ideas for me to flesh out Claire as a character more.

Also, William being a good guy is interesting.

#claire redfield #claire resident evil #elza walker #resident evil 2 #re2 #resident evil 1.5 #re 1.5