LogFAQs > #960995909

97. Mia Winters (Resident Evil 7, 8) (14 points)
Nominated by: Axl_Rose_85 (3/5 remaining)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okrEfDb9VFo

Importance: 3
Fear: 6.5
Snake: 4.5

Romance, especially marriage, in the Resident Evil series is a weird beast. Two of the preeminent married couples are the Burtons and the Birkins; Barry's is the more idealized version. Through his lens, we see what Barry would go through to protect his wife and kids, going so far as to sacrifice his own teammates and friends to ensure their safety. William and Annette represent the more cold side of marriage, two people so married to their work that they neglect their own daughter in the process. They are married more out of obligation than true love. Between these two spectrums, Ethan and Mia Winters fall somewhere in the middle.

At the start of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Mia has been missing for three whole years from Ethan's life, and when Ethan suddenly receives an email from Mia out of the blue, asking him to come get her from the Baker farm, he immediately jumps at the chance. He arrives at the strange, overgrown, dilapidated mansion, and finds Mia imprisoned under the guest house, except she's a lot different now, malnourished and constantly frightened of someone or something in the house, and I love Katie O'Hagan's frantically voiced and terrifically mocapped performance in this whole sequence. Ethan's subdued performance works as well, as someone still in shock and confusion on one, what he just stumbled in to, and two, what exactly happened to Mia to make her like this. Next comes the best part: Mia turns full crazy and starts attacking Ethan viciously and relentlessly. All Ethan can do is block and watch in horror as Mia knocks herself out in a futile attempt to get whatever entered her head, OUT. It's a whirlwind of emotions and horror and a completely brutal way to start the game off. Imagine yourself in Ethan's shoes: you find your missing wife after 3 years, only to see her like this. And to make matters worse, YOU'RE the one who has the end it by jamming an axe straight into her neck, as she collapses in front of you, reaching out in her last desperate moments. The tension isn't over, as Mia returns to lop your hand off with a chainsaw (poor Ethan). She's totally demonized now, and nothing can stop her intense rampage, well nothing except for a few well-placed handgun shots. It's truly over now... Mia collapses to the ground, and in desperation, mutters out, "I love you." If Resident Evil needed a new direction and new tone to continue thriving in the gaming landscape, this beginning was it. Mia's violet assault on Ethan is part twisted tragedy and part midnight grindhouse, and she is the biggest initial part of what make RE7 such a dive into the deep end of the pool in terms of establishing the game's modus operandi going forward.

In isolation, the scene works gorgeously, but this is not all we get out of Mia. See, the whole game's set-up is a lie. Mia's whole character is a lie. She's not the bubbly, upbeat babysitter she makes herself out to be in the game's first scene. She's not the one that sends the email to Ethan. She's not the one controlling her actions while she attacks Ethan. This extends to Resident Evil Village too - since the Mia we see in that game's intro is just Mother Miranda. My problem with Mia is that she has no agency as a character on her own, and that we have no idea what the true Mia Winters is like. Is she the ebullient character we see in her message to Ethan? Is she the more stoic, hardened agent type seen in the tanker flashback? Or is she the snarky teaser Mother Miranda plays up in Village's intro? The games' sure like to tell us Ethan and Mia love each other, but rarely is it ever shown and thus a lot of the emotion we could be getting falls flat. I mean, you can barely even talk about Mia or her own merits without discussing Ethan in the same breath, and I already went over what a blank slate his character is. It's telling that Barry's marriage gives me more emotional depth without ever even seeing his wife Kathy outside of some pictures due to how strong and memorable Barry is a character and how his family life plays into some aspects of his personality without ever outright telling you about it.

I won't say Mia is a total failure as a character, but unfortunately she exists only as a plot device and not much else. The typical video game damsel in distress to give you a goal to go after. While I do adore her whole sequence at the beginning of Resident Evil 7, she just doesn't quite work for me outside of that context. It's too bad, because romance in the Resident Evil series deserves to be explored more, and it would've been a great chance to get even more psychological and intimate with the series moving forward, much like the sequence in Donna's mansion. With Mia still being an active player in the series, Resident Evil 9 or whatever game comes next can still be a perfect chance to explore her character, her relationship with Rosemary, and her grieving the lost of Ethan, but it remains to be seen if the developers and writers will take that opportunity or just it all pass by again.