The Great Resident Evil 2 Coverup

[Treblaine]

Totally unconvincing explanation. How can you say a woman running off on her own agenda is a "betrayal" I just do not understand. Claire ran off as well and Leon ran off from her. That little kid ran off. Leon saving Ada from being shot isn't her manipulating him.

The closest thing to any kind of betrayal was her pointing an unloaded gun at him to get him to hand over a bioweapon that he may have no right to have. Was Ada a government agent? Then she should be the one to confiscate to bio weapon before all of raccoon city get incinerated by a thermonuclear blast.

Far more likely SHE was the one who let go because from where she was she could tell it was not a fatal fall. She could see there was a place below her where she could land safely, either a ledge short below in the darkness, or a pile of soft rubbish or deep water to land in. I think you at mistaking bad voice acting for "clearly lying"

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Not to destroy a good conspiracy theory but Leon is kind of a moron and I don't think he's mentally capable of making that kind of decision. He's good at killing stuff, not getting killed by stuff and pushing/pulling stuff but still, he's a moron.
I remember when I was playing RE2 for the first time and getting to the scene where Annette explains to Leon that Ada is a spy. He then replies:
"Ada wouldn't do that. I know her!"
Dude, you met her a few hours ago and you had like 2 conversations with her. What the fuck can you possibly know about her? Stop thinking with your dick!
It was 1998 and I was just a 13 year old kid but I thought "Man, is this guy dumb".

Ellis says the exact same thing about Zoey in Left for Dead 2 (word for word I think) I wonder if it's a reference rofl.

The other characters response is pretty much the same as yours haha.

I loved Resident Evil 2 mostly because Claire was such an unusual character I agree with the people who are saying that they accepted Claire A as being lore. Claire was originally a much more important character than Leon as she was looking for Chris from the first game.

I do love the resident evil storyline (despite it's complexity and Jill sandwiches). It's a shame 5 was such a bleh game and kind of ruined things.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Look at lautrec from dark souls, he was dead the second he walked out of his cell even if he did not know it yet and I didn't even know he kills the firekeeper

What?... What the fuck does that even mean?

Hi, my name is Ryan and I haven't finished Dark Souls yet. I would've if I hadn't recently gotten a job but now I work so often I haven't had the time to beat it yet. Thanks! Because I wasn't looking forward to seeing where that side plot would go or anything. Nope, no mystery to be solved here anymore.

Spoiler: And these are spoiler tags, awesome, right?

This is where the spoilers go.

 

[I.Muir]

Look at lautrec from dark souls, he was dead the second he walked out of his cell even if he did not know it yet and I didn't even know he kills the firekeeper

What?... What the fuck does that even mean?

Hi, my name is Ryan and I haven't finished Dark Souls yet. I would've if I hadn't recently gotten a job but now I work so often I haven't had the time to beat it yet. Thanks! Because I wasn't looking forward to seeing where that side plot would go or anything. Nope, no mystery to be solved here anymore.

Spoiler: And these are spoiler tags, awesome, right?

This is where the spoilers go.

How could you not know
It's barely a quarter way into the game or three fire keepers souls used to upgrade the estus flasks. Time to finish! You have barely even started that game. As for the plot, it's difficult to figure out why he does it and it's not significant or connected to your journey whatsoever. It's about as significant an event as coming back to base and finding that somebody has moved a chair across the room. You have no idea why it happened just that it's a pain in the ass to revert so your better off killing him whilst your ahead.

Any real plot is found in item descriptions and half of it has to be speculated on anyway. You can run through that game as many times as you like and you still might not know why anybody did anything.

 

[Arkley]

I enjoyed this article a lot, it's great to see another huge fan of the early Resident Evil games. I don't buy a word of it, of course, but it's great to see theories like this and the Indoctrination Theory popping up.

Anyway, I'm too lazy to read the whole thread to see if anyone has already mentioned it, but just in case no one has; there's a small error in your article.

Ada's actions in the Leon B scenario - where she is wounded by the Birkin mutation but survives, and eventually aids Leon in killing the monster.

It's a minor mistake, but Ada isn't wounded by/doesn't assist in killing Birkin. You're thinking of the Tyrant (commonly called Mr. X, or That Pale Giant Guy in a Green Trenchcoat and Holy Shit It Just Smashed Right Through That Wall) that pursues a character throughout their B game, Nemesis-style.

Leon is fighting Captain Trenchcoat when Ada attempts to help and gets a sound beating and a choke-hold for her trouble. As Sir Trenchcoat is attempting to strangle her to death, Ada empties a clip into its face, and it falls over the edge of the balcony that they're fighting on, and into the pit of molten whatever below. Leon stops doing whatever it was that kept him busy while Ada was being murdered by Lord Trenchcoat and stops by to see if she's okay. Turns out she isn't. They kiss and she dies. Or so we're led to believe!

Later on, Leon encounters a certain pit of molten something-or-other, and out pops Dr. Trenchcoat, sans trenchcoat, plus giant claws. Leon fights it for a while, but can't kill it. But then someone appears - subtly implied to be Ada by virtue of looking exactly like Ada and speaking in Ada's voice - and tosses Leon a rocket launcher, before running away again, because running away from Leon worked out for her so many times in the past. For his part, Leon looks on and shouts "Ada!" as he is wont to do.

And that's it, pedantic and unnecessary correction complete.

 

[Britisheagle]

Very interesting perspective however I think it is Ada that lets go of Leon, not the other way around. Leon's reaction is probably right though, showing that it was the best choice hence the lack of grieving.

Maybe this will be explored mroe in Resi 6, especially after she has been untrustworthy since her reintroduction into the series. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Oh and Resi 2 is still one of my favourite games of all time. Its a shame that Capcom have picked and chosen the parts for canon, it would have been better if they kept the whole "A" and "B" scenarios throughout the games, so Resi 4 "A" could have Ada not appear at all, as she was dead in Leon "A".

Too complex perhaps but I think alternate endings etc would do the series good. Give the games replay value like they did back in the PSOne and Gamecube days.

 

[Farther than stars]

Well, with Leon's cop instincts, I can understand Capcom's decision to retcon the antithesis of his personality out of the canon, no matter how engaging it might have been. But ultimately I think that this issue doesn't have a right answer.
Aside from that:

"Ada, tells him in an all-business tone to hand over the sample."

What the hell is that comma doing there?!

 

[Trishbot]

At least we can all agree that Ada Wong is being handled well in the previews of Resident Evil 6. That's obviously the Ada Wong we all know and love. Yes siree... that's exactly how I remember her. She hasn't changed a bit...

And I hope Chris is still punching boulders and trying to find out where his neck disappeared to.

 

[natster43]

As you may or may not remember, Resident Evil 2 has a total of four different endings. Playing through either the disc one or disc two with a fresh save file yields different versions of events for both Leon and Claire, called "Leon A" and "Claire A." But when you beat the game using one disc, a save file is created allowing you to play through the game with the other character. These stories are labeled "Leon B" and "Claire B," and they feature some big changes from the A versions.

Also RE2 didn't have 4 different endings it had 2. The whole A/B scenario thing was basically who ended up on which side of the accident in the opening intro. If you played Claire A then Leon's B scenario was the corresponding story to hers. It wasn't a whole new story as much as it was "what the other character was doing the whole time" so imo Capcom really didn't bastardize canon by simply saying Claire A and Leon B were what happened over Leon A Claire B. Trust me I think Capcom has been terrible when it comes picking and choosing what actually happened in RE games vs what they said happened but I don't think choosing Claire/Leon over Leon/Claire is their worst offense by a long shot.

Beat me to it. The A and B scenario are the same story, just from a different perspective. Clair A and Leon A are essentially the same. I personally always thought of Clair A/ Leon B as canon though, but thats just me.

I would like to go ahead and third this.
The A/B scenarios aren't entirely different plotlines Leon B is what Leon does during Claire A, and vice versa. So picking Claire A/Leon B as 'canon' makes perfect sense as you couldn't actually have Claire A/Leon A happen together the way the game is set up.

I specifically remember all this from when I played RE2 as a kid because it blew my fucking mind when I played my first 'B' scenario. If memory serves me I preferred the Claire A/Leon B telling of the story anyways, though I can't remember exactly why.

I am just going to jump in on this quote as well.
according to the Resident Evil wiki (because I spend way too much time on these things), bits of both Leon A/Claire B and Claire A/Leon B are canon, with Claire A/ Leon B being the more canon telling of events. http://residentevil.wikia.com/Resident_Evil_Wiki:What_is_canon%3F
Claire A/ Leon B makes a bit more since as the canon one due to whoever is on the A path deals with Birkin, and Claire is doing stuff with sherry for her story, so them running into Birkin who is trying to infect his daughter fits better than Leon running into him over and over.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

How could you not know
It's barely a quarter way into the game or three fire keepers souls used to upgrade the estus flasks. Time to finish! You have barely even started that game. As for the plot, it's difficult to figure out why he does it and it's not significant or connected to your journey whatsoever. It's about as significant an event as coming back to base and finding that somebody has moved a chair across the room. You have no idea why it happened just that it's a pain in the ass to revert so your better off killing him whilst your ahead.

Any real plot is found in item descriptions and half of it has to be speculated on anyway. You can run through that game as many times as you like and you still might not know why anybody did anything.

What the fuck do you mean "how could I not know"?

Spoiler

I just returned to the camp to find the find the mute lady dead. I had no idea it was Lautrec, thanks a lot. Then you mentioned that he's dead or that he's going to be dead, or more dead considering how he's already undead, thanks a lot for spoiling that for me too. I was really happy that I was able to get him out of that cell. But I now I know that it doesn't fucking matter, that's great.

As I mentioned before, I HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME YET. Even once! I'm just getting to Sen's Fortress and no, just because I haven't gotten very far in the game that's not a good reason to run around spoiling things!

Use fucking spoiler tags!

And so what if there isn't much story to the game? That's not a good reason to run around spoiling it either. Matter of fact, because there is so little story the bit you did spoil feels exponentially greater.

"Any real plot is found in item descriptions and half of it has to be speculated on anyway"

Oh, so I guess there's no hope for the rest of the story that I've apparently "barely started". Thanks. You really don't even know what you're saying, do you? Or at least you have no fucking clue how much you're giving away (of what little there is).

Just shut the fuck up and use goddamn spoiler tags [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.198114-Escapist-User-Guide-to-Posting-Commands] next time.

To make the words in your post appear in spoilers you simply type [ spoiler ] and [ /spoiler ] on either side of the words you want to be in spoilers, when typing your message/post - with the exception of there being no spaces between the different symbols/characters in the command.

Example:

Spoiler

See?

 

[I.Muir]

How could you not know
It's barely a quarter way into the game or three fire keepers souls used to upgrade the estus flasks. Time to finish! You have barely even started that game. As for the plot, it's difficult to figure out why he does it and it's not significant or connected to your journey whatsoever. It's about as significant an event as coming back to base and finding that somebody has moved a chair across the room. You have no idea why it happened just that it's a pain in the ass to revert so your better off killing him whilst your ahead.

Any real plot is found in item descriptions and half of it has to be speculated on anyway. You can run through that game as many times as you like and you still might not know why anybody did anything.

What the fuck do you mean "how could I not know"?

Spoiler

I just returned to the camp to find the find the mute lady dead. I had no idea it was Lautrec, thanks a lot. Then you mentioned that he's dead or that he's going to be dead, or more dead considering how he's already undead, thanks a lot for spoiling that for me too. I was really happy that I was able to get him out of that cell. But I now I know that it doesn't fucking matter, that's great.

As I mentioned before, I HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME YET. Even once! I'm just getting to Sen's Fortress and no, just because I haven't gotten very far in the game that's not a good reason to run around spoiling things!

Use fucking spoiler tags!

And so what if there isn't much story to the game? That's not a good reason to run around spoiling it either. Matter of fact, because there is so little story the bit you did spoil feels exponentially greater.

"Any real plot is found in item descriptions and half of it has to be speculated on anyway"

Oh, so I guess there's no hope for the rest of the story that I've apparently "barely started". Thanks. You really don't even know what you're saying, do you? Or at least you have no fucking clue how much you're giving away (of what little there is).

Just shut the fuck up and use goddamn spoiler tags [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.198114-Escapist-User-Guide-to-Posting-Commands] next time.

To make the words in your post appear in spoilers you simply type [ spoiler ] and [ /spoiler ] on either side of the words you want to be in spoilers, when typing your message/post - with the exception of there being no spaces between the different symbols/characters in the command.

Example:

Spoiler

See?

You need to stop being so mad
It's not a big deal

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Laurtrec leaves a note saying that he has slain the harlot known as the fire keeper and has left for anor londo. A note you seem to have failed to blunder into like everybody else. He also does this regardless of whether or not you free him. The guy is so obviously evil, he would be wearing a curly mustache in any other game and probably is under his helmet.

If you didn't notice this I can't imagine how you will figure out the why to the events that occur from now on just that they happen like this one. You may have never found out at all if you had not read it here. Just seems to me about as much of a spoiler as shepherd dying at the beginning of mass effect 2. Should I also put what chests are actually mimics in spoilers or would you prefer the joy and surprise of having your head chewed off or how to spot them. Is the fact there are mimics at all a spoiler for you.
How can such a small event such as this even come up on the radar as being a ruining experience for that game.

Ive been able to use spoilers all along and I still won't hide that insignificant detail, not my fault you didn't see his note.

 

[Frylock72]

Nope, gotta call BS on this one. Ada dropped the gun because she couldn't shoot Leon, how would she have seen Annette pointing a gun at her when Annette was behind her. Plus Ada's gun didn't have any rounds in it, she was bluffing.

And I'm pretty sure Capcom made the Claire A Leon B scenario canon because they needed to explain how Ada survived and how Wesker got the G-virus.

The gun cock you hear when Ada is pointing her gun at Leon, before she lowers it, is Annette. Ada heard the gun cock, knew there was someone behind her with an actual loaded gun and lowered hers because she had no bullets.

She probably didn't know it was Annette, but she knew there was someone behind her.

Edit: Also, in the article it's mentioned that Leon saves Ada three times, but I only counted two. The first time they met, it's mentioned that they meet in an underground parking garage. Unless the author skipped over some details, that wasn't 'rescuing' her, just meeting and agreeing to help each other out.

 

[itsthesheppy]

Yeah, I don't buy it. I think that 'dangling off the bridge scene' was every bit as rote and cliche as it appeared.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

You need to stop being so mad
It's not a big deal

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Laurtrec leaves a note saying that he has slain the harlot known as the fire keeper and has left for anor londo. A note you seem to have failed to blunder into like everybody else. He also does this regardless of whether or not you free him. The guy is so obviously evil, he would be wearing a curly mustache in any other game and probably is under his helmet.

If you didn't notice this I can't imagine how you will figure out the why to the events that occur from now on just that they happen like this one. You may have never found out at all if you had not read it here. Just seems to me about as much of a spoiler as shepherd dying at the beginning of mass effect 2. Should I also put what chests are actually mimics in spoilers or would you prefer the joy and surprise of having your head chewed off or how to spot them. Is the fact there are mimics at all a spoiler for you.
How can such a small event such as this even come up on the radar as being a ruining experience for that game.

Ive been able to use spoilers all along and I still won't hide that insignificant detail, not my fault you didn't see his note.

Blow me! Your original post (the one I see when I get quoted) wasn't in spoilers anyway. So I already read it and now I know

Spoiler: THIS is how you use fucking spoilers!

So chests are going to attack me now? Great. That would've been awesome because I wouldn't have been expecting that. But now I know. Fuck.

Oh and how is he more obviously evil than anybody else? He never talks about anything evil. He just sits there and thanks you for saving him. There (SO FAR!!!) has been nothing evil about him.

You know what, I'm not reading anything else from you so don't bother quoting this, I'll just delete. I just want you to know that Dark Souls is one of the games I've enjoyed most in a while and that you keep spoiling it. And continuosly spoiling it is an asshole thing to do especially because I've been enjoying this game so much.

Just shut up!

 

[Arkynomicon]

Nice read.

I rather like it when games leaves things open for speculation kinda like with Demon's Souls and Dark Souls where you have to make up your own opinion about the world and piece together most information from scraps of description on items.

 

[Craig Whetstone]

Very interesting reading that drivle but it is flawed to the max...adas gun wasnt loaded so thus had no intention of ever shooting leon if he resisted, you need to do yur research better