Subject: Thoughts on the duke being a villain in RE8 DLC: SOF; painting a better picture of his identity in RE8 Village.

[Amsie Rielski]

SPOILER AHEAD: RESIDENT EVIL 8 and SHADOW OF ROSE

Subject: Thoughts on the duke being a villain in RE8 DLC: SOF; painting a better picture of his identity in RE8 Village.

If you've played Shadow of Rose, you'd find the Duke to be a villain out of place. Playing RE8 Village, the duke is more help than you could ever imagine from guiding Ethan to saving his life.

With the fact in which the Duke was meant to be the fifth Lord rather than a humble lovable merchant comes to play. It seems that though his Lord status is no longer established upon our first encounter with him, his abilities and history as a potential lord remains the same, that he himself might have a Cadou giving him a deeper mutamycite connection.

This meant that the Mutamycite having the ability to retain the capabilities and memories of those it had infected is able to replicate some of the individuals it has connections to as corrupted individuals.

The question here is why was it able to replicate the duke and not Ethan. It's most likely because Ethan had already assimilated himself unconsciously in the mutamycite at the same time he has become an independent being within its core much like Mother Miranda, Ethan with his anarchic ego would be difficult for Miranda to replicate within the Mutamycite as replicants might be independent, much like the Rose clones has a very similar goal to Rose. The Duke is still apparently very much alive, thus what we see in the DLC is most likely as fake as the Rose clones, an independent replication under Miranda's command. RE8 shows that the Duke is happy whenever Ethan gives him ingredients he had hunted, the fake Duke in SOF also enjoy a hunt.

Therefore the Duke we see in SOR is not the true Duke. On the otherhand this explains why the Duke has deep knowledge of each lord and Rose's initial demise at the beginning of RE8. As one of the Duke's abilities is probably being able to learn and know the current experiences and memories of those infected by the mutamycite, and this is how he knows so much without truly being part of Miranda's lackeys.

If this were true, it could support a Theory in which the Duke is actually an independent extension of the Megamycite itself, which is why he seems to be unbothered, dependent from Miranda's eyes, with little mention of his existence, as he is the extended form of the Megamycite