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I’ve just finished RE8, and I decided to check out some more information about Ethan. I found him to be an incredibly enjoyable protagonist, who reacted like a normal(ish) dude compared to some of the wacky cast we’ve seen in prior games. I always found that his frequent swearing or down-playing of a situation by cracking jokes to be severely human.
I guess I’ve always liked him because he’s built different, to put it casually; no matter how badly he gets beaten, he just gets right back up again, continued and determined.
Anyway, enough with the tangent. I was looking up some stuff about him online when I came across a headline that said he was boring, and the least rememberable character in the entire of RE history. I thought it was kinda stupid, but I wanted to know everybody’s thoughts on the matter, do you think he was a good protagonist or not? why?
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He's rather good. Back in 7 he worked due to the reintroduction of horror. I simply can't feel scared playing as Chris or Claire or Leon; knowing where they are and what they've been through. So Ethan helped to re-ignite actual tension. Beyond that his slow change as the game progressed was great and I found his comments to be almost 100% in line with what I was thinking in various moments so that was equally immersive. Character wise, he worked due to the subtle aspects of he and Mia's relationship. He felt typical; just someone trying to figure out what's even real for him so he was easy to connect to.
RE8 just built on all of this. It made his personality stronger, made him more self aware, and gave him more emotional cues which added to his humanity.
Overall pretty great and he's got one of the most visceral and engaging character journeys in the series.
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ethan is my favorite RE character cuz he just feels really reasonable, and actually human.
i also think hes kinda hot
with chris or leon or claire or whoever, i dont feel any sort of connection to them cuz they just seem so exaggerated. i feel like alot of people dont like ethan because of how normal he is compared to the other characters.ID: gz3ns9eID: gz3nyhbi love the idea of ethan smiling like an idiot every time he does a one liner, thank you for the mental image :>
edit; ethan anytime he does a one liner:
ID: gz3ov4eMold be Pretty Hot
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I've seen a lot of people complain over the years that Ethan doesn't act more surprised or horrified by the things he sees, but Ethan has grown up in a world of B.O.Ws. Ethan probably watched news footage of Zombies rampaging in both China and New York. Eastern European countries use four story tall BOWs for terrorist attacks. Ethan doesn't have to come to terms with monsters existing, he's lived most of his life with that knowledge. He's just got to react to being stuck in a situation with those monsters.
ID: gz3o31yI like that train of thought. He sees the lycans and is just like,”at least you’re not the crawling type, man I hated those.”
ID: gz3zq9vI imagine knowing monsters exist is a lot different than actually encountering them. I know lions exist. Throw me into a lion’s den and I’d be scared. I don’t think knowing they exist is a good reason to not be horrified of BOWs.
ID: gz468y9people complain over the years that Ethan doesn't act more surprised
Funny too because going back to the original RE games everyone is pretty fine with the horrorific craziness going on.
Even in the recent games like RE2 Remake, Leon and Claire pretty easily accept what's going on and just roll with it early on and by the end they're complete super heroes staring down danger with no issue. Leon even makes the most blasé comment to Ada with the "The explains all the horrible things I've seen!" line which he speaks with absolutely no fear or tension.
Ethan's about the only one that, two games in, still questions things or calls things out.
I'm not sure what people wanted honestly. Did they want him constantly just cowering? What Protagonist in any media actually does that anyway? The fact that he's even screaming in pain shows more vulnerability than most.
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Had a post a while back defending him as a character after playing 7. He always (in 7 at least) seemed ordinary and relatable. RE doesn’t always have to be bombastic and over the top with characters. It was very refreshing and I think Capcom has done a good job of cementing his legacy as a protagonist in the series.
ID: gz3o7rgI didn’t love him at first, but by the end of the game you find yourself relating to his personality. It’s much more realistic than these serious stone faced action hero types.
ID: gz3xiqzYeah for sure. Even if he’s a dope it’s so refreshing and grounded compared to the super human like protagonist of the series (I love them too by the way).
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I actually went back and played 7 twice, once for Normal and then Madhouse this week after not playing it in 2-3 years. I enjoyed Ethan a lot as a Protagonist, granted I havent played Villiage at all yet. But I enjoyed how Human he is compared to other characters. One of my favorite lines from him is when you kill Marguritte and he just is like, Fucking Stay dead. Just fed up with the Viruses bullshit. Definately excited to play Villiage and see more of him.
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I agree that he’s great, very relatable. Whenever I’m in situations that I’m nervous or freaked out, I say stupid shit to try and downplay the severity of the situation. Ethan seeing Marguerite transform, snatch her lantern and run down a tunnel, only to say “Well that’s special” is fucking great. I can definitely see myself saying some shit like ,”I’m in danger” in a Ralph Wiggums voice, while contemplating the fact that I now have to chase that thing down the tunnel.
Great character, 10/10 hope he returns in some form.
I do get why they would want to get rid of him now though, he’s kinda OP. I think Rose is OP too, feel like she’ll be and unintentional villainess or something instead of a protagonist.
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I like him a lot in a general sense. He works very well for the shift towards story-telling through first person visual presentation.
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I don’t recall him swearing much (beside that moment when bugs are crawling all over him in Margaurite’s section) or downplaying the situation with jokes in 7 (fixed in 8 though). He felt like he didn’t have enough internal monologue or enough time to interact with other character to have a personality in 7 for a character we never get to see in third person. As a result he felt more like stand in character for players rather than a full fledged character (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for other games, but is a detriment for a series like RE that has characters with strong personality)
ID: gz46yr3I don’t recall him swearing much
Honestly this is something I liked. Every Protagonist and their mother these days has to swear a bunch. It lacks creative and has no personality beyond a generic one.
It's one of my complaints from RE2R where Claire and Leon just became the typical "swear at everything to sound cool" characters that every game series has these days. Every one liner or comment seemed to be something related to cursing someone out, which just started to feel typical.
At least Ethan was normal, but still different.
Also, that's not to mention that characters like Leon started out in similar ways. In the original version of RE2 Leon was a bit nonchalant about a lot. He didn't swore at all to my memory and just dealt with things as they came up. He evolved over time. Same with Claire. And Chris and Jill back in the original version of RE1.
Ethan felt more in line with a classic RE character personality - kind of toned down but still delivering those emotionally driven lines when appropriate - rather than a RE 4 - 6 or "modern" gruff, game Protagonist.
ID: gz48gwlI think remake characters cursing more than their original counterparts has more to do with 1)being written by Japanese team vs having help from native speaker and 2) swearing being more acceptable compared to past.
For point 1 I think I read that native English speaker consultant for Remake 2 said something along the line of “anyone being thrown into stressful situation like that will be cursing left and right” (which I completely agree. Felt that was the case for remake characters rather than the case of swearing to look cool)
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I had a lot of fun playing as Ethan. Maybe cause I can relate to him being a father and having a family. Pretty much anything that was thrown at him he didn't really have a choice but to take it head on. Yeah he can be a little corny at times but from the Baker house to Village I loved every second of it!
引用元:https://www.reddit.com/r/residentevil/comments/niraca/ethan_as_a_protagonist/
I would love to see more down to earth characters like Ethan. People think he doesn’t respond enough to BOW’s, but I think his reactions are fitting based on situational cues. Someone cuts off a limb, Holy Fuck run! Monster transforms and runs away (I.e. Marguerite) heh, that’s fucking creepy. And everyone knows that if they’d just killed a giant monster, they’d say the first shitty one liner to come to mind. He probably smiled like a fucking idiot every time he did a one liner, I know I would.