Theory: Ethan was an Umbrella scientist [Spoiler]

[Pebbles]

[EDIT] This post has been edited with new evidence and ideas, scroll to the end to read the EDIT part.

Before you read on, I recommand you to play through the game, read all the files carefully, and know what happened in the game. Also spoiler alert!

First, Mia is clearly an undercover agent from a bio-weapon organization. She pretends to live as a normal person, and undertakes missions when she's needed. To protect Evie from being abducted by competitive organizations like Umbrella or Tricell, she was called to act as Evie's imprining target and escort. You know what happens next ;)

Also, no one tried to recover Evie at all in these years. It is likely that whichever organization responsible for the creation of Evie knew about the Bakers and the missing persons, but decided to wait and observe the potential of Evie's power via Lucas Baker. If you read the emails in the Salt Mine, you would learn that Lucas was secretly cured by this "thrid unknown party", in exchange for his cooperations. Evie wants a family but Mia won't be her mommy, so she decided to lure Ethan in to become her daddy by controlling Mia and sending that email.

Now, Capcom said that Ethan is just a normal person whose life got f%$ked up by bioweapon. But is this really the truth?
Below is a list of evidence that suggests Ethan is not just a "normal person" as Capcom said he is.

1. Ethan has a very high pain threshold:
His arm and leg got cut off, he was thrown around with inhuman strength, and he fell from high places without any protection; not only can he endure and survive these situations, he can remain calm and combative - a "normal person" won't be able to aim and reload a gun with only one arm right after his arm being cut off by a chainsaw - most people would just pass out from the pain. Ethan has the kind of pain tolerance a soldier would have.

2. Ethan knows how to properly operate firearms:
Pistols, shotguns, machine-gun, homemade flamethrower, even a grenade launcher! A "normal person", at most, could learn how to operate pistols and shotguns via hunting experience, but military-grade machine-gun and grenade launcher? you have to have military experience to learn these.

3. Ethan is experienced in fighting, and is instinctive to fight:
Mia was gone for three years and now he has found his wife. His wife goes berzerk and tries to kill him with a knife - he grabs an axe and pistol and kill his wife. Later, it might even be possible for Ethan to kill Mia with a crowbar. A "normal person" doesn't tend to fight back if he's being attacked by his loved one - he should be prone to run away. Instead Ethan hacks Mia's neck with an axe, blows her brain out with a gun, and stabs her heart with a crowbar - the fierceness and precision is something only a soldier would have.

4. Ethan isn't afraid of stuff:
Remember Clancy Javis, the actually normal person from the demo? remember how he reacted when he saw Andren's body? Yeah, that's how a "normal person" is supposed to act when he sees a dead person. But Ethan? he is more surprised than scared: goresome bodies everywhere, pasta monsters popping out of nowhere trying to kill him, arm and leg got cut off and healed back, giant bug lady and giant monster? no problem, Ethan can totally tough it through and kill them all.

5. Finally and most importantly, Ethan knows Umbrella!
When he was rescued by Umbrella Chris Redfield in the end, he said "The f@*k took you guys so long?". He knew Umbrella is coming to neutralize Evie.
Also, remember that phonecall he made at the beginning of the game? It is likely that this person on the other side of the phone is an Umbrella associate. That's how Chris got to know that things are getting out of hand and Evie needs to be killed.

[EDIT]: Some people have provided with new evidence, and they are very sounding:

fet_thunderdome původně napsal:

ok another one, and it's a very strong one:
read Spencer's Notebook from Resident Evil 5 and scroll down to the last name, level 9:

http://residentevil.wikia.com/wiki/Spencer's_notebook

The Ethan we are playing as could very well be the Ethan W. that faked his death during the Spencer purge. This would explain why he is so calm around bioweapon monsters, and how he can handle most firearms.

On a side note: some people said that Ethan has high pain tolerance and regenerative power because he too is infected, that much is obvious, but what's interesting is that Evelynn just can not mind control Ethan at all - it's as if Ethan is already immune to the virus; he already took some kind of serum against the T-Virus (the mold is an advanced product from the original T-Virus, same as Jill is immune to Uroboros in RE5)

In conclusion, is it likely that Ethan Winters is the Level 9 scientist Ethan W. from the Spencer purge. He somehow faked his death and managed to live a normal life. But fatefully his wife Mia is actually an undercover agent working for a bio organization.

[poncho.]

it could be that Mia was working for a sub company of Umbrella while Ethan is (undercover) agent for BSAA / Anti-BOW Umbrella. Neither of them knew about the other tho. Or maybe...considering the Note wich says Ethan W. - deceased. Maybe, Ethan is also an experiment.

[MKPsyOps]

I also think the name Eveline is significant as in Eve-line, the first of a new line of B.O.W.s

[Pebbles]

I've edited the post and shared some of you guys' evidence and ideas on it, happy reading!

[poncho.]

MKPsyOps původně napsal:

I also think the name Eveline is significant as in Eve-line, the first of a new line of B.O.W.s

The Virus is called the E-Serie so...probably. ALso right at the beginning somewhere you find the Photograph of the old lady with E-001 written on it so i guess the new virus is called E-Virus.

T-Virus = Tyrant
G-Virus= Golgotha
E-Virus= Eveline

makes Sense.

[King Dickus]

zombies and related outbreaks are common knowledge in the RE universe.
ethan most likely knows about zombies and stuff. he might just be a strong person.
and i think the first aid actually numbs all pain, wich could be a reason why he has such a high pain threshold

[fet_thunderdome]

Novalex původně napsal:

[EDIT] This post has been edited with new evidence and ideas, scroll to the end to read the EDIT part.


In conclusion, is it likely that Ethan Winters is the Level 9 scientist Ethan W. from the Spencer purge. He somehow faked his death and managed to live a normal life. But fatefully his wife Mia is actually an undercover agent working for a bio organization.

that would be sufficient for a very good new beginning of RE episodes.

[Pebbles]

I guess now we wait for the DLCs to explain these things. Can't wait for them; RE7 has definitely returned to the style of the original RE, which is by all means the best of the RE series.

[Shadow75]

Novalex

Appearently the reason why Ethan has a high pain threhold, I just read Ethan Winters profile. Ethan is appearently Superhuman. Remember he got his arm chopped off by Mia with a chainsaw? Ethan never screamed and his hand was stapled later, to a point where eventually he can remove the staples on his wriest without pain..

Appearently Ethan has bonded with the virus in the game called "mold" which is also what the Bakers, Mia, Eveline (Girl and Granny)

[Waylander]

Novalex původně napsal:

1. Ethan has a very high pain threshold
2. Ethan knows how to properly operate firearms
3. Ethan is experienced in fighting, and is instinctive to fight

Gameplay>Story. Essentially it makes more sense that he is capable of doing those things just for the purposes so that the player can focus on playing the game rather than watching him bumble through.

Also I don't think that the firearms that he uses are particularly complicated to use. Yeah okay someone who is unexperienced would probably not be amazing with a grenade launcher but it is still point and click you don't need to use some kind of complex gun repair/gun training to just fire it.

Novalex původně napsal:

4. Ethan isn't afraid of stuff:

I discussed this on another forum. In the RE universe they have had terror/bioterror attacks on several cities, cruise ships have been completely wiped out, parts of Africa/Asia have been infested by Majini and somewhere in Europe the Ganados took over essentially a small country (Notspain). This has been happening over the last 20 years. These incidents are also only the more public ones there have been a bunch of more small scale incidents. It is likely that all sorts of footage of some of these attacks is widely broadcast either on television networks or via social media/ the internet. All in all it is entirely less likely that he is going to be completely freaked out by the sight of a lot of these events.

But again Gameplay>Story.

Novalex původně napsal:

5. Finally and most importantly, Ethan knows Umbrella!
When he was rescued by Umbrella Chris Redfield in the end, he said "The f@*k took you guys so long?".

I think that was more of a quip than some kind of knowledge of the Umbrella situation. Also in the mines near the end of the game you overhear a radio call saying that they are mobilising forces to search for Evie so its not exactly surprising to Ethan that they show up.

Novalex původně napsal:

The Ethan we are playing as could very well be the Ethan W. that faked his death during the Spencer purge. This would explain why he is so calm around bioweapon monsters, and how he can handle most firearms.

This part is good. Ethan's last name is Winters (or we assume it is based on Mia's)

Novalex původně napsal:

On a side note: some people said that Ethan has high pain tolerance and regenerative power because he too is infected, that much is obvious, but what's interesting is that Evelynn just can not mind control Ethan at all

Nope. The mind control thing is just progressive. In earlier stages she causes them to hallucinate and over time their psyche eventually snaps and she is able to manipulate them more and more. Mia for instance appears to be able to resist at least partially even though she has been infected for around 2-3 years. The only time we see her do anything more quickly is on the ship and none of that was direct mind control only exposure and subsequent mutation into Molded. Ethan would have fallen to her powers too if enough time had passed.

Another point of evidence towards this is Travis. You find a few notes detailing that he managed to escape after his initial capture and was eventually recaptured and had to be held in the basement incinerators/morgue chamber things until he had fully converted.

[Peelsepuuppi]

First what on earth is this soldier level pain tolerance? Regular troops are human beings with combat training not some superhumans.

Second. Where is there a "military grade" machine-gun in the game. That looks like a sub-machine gun. IMO submachine guns, assault rifles and carbines are even easier to use than pistols. It doesn't take a genious to figure out how to use one. That grenade launcher is as much military as the "flamethrower" you find.

Three you are being ridiculous and reading way too much into this. There are some valid points but some are just nonsense Is this a parody topic?

[Johnny Two Tips]

Just gonna throw this out there, the game makes efforts to conceal Ethan's face all the time. He's blonde and picks up a pistol called "Albert" that basically resembles the Samurai Edge, Wesker's signature pistol. Umbrella Corps is considered canon and a timeline sequel to RE6 and Wesker is heard as an end of match dialogue. What does this mean? Who knows. Just throwing it all out there.

[Waylander]

blee717 původně napsal:

Just gonna throw this out there, the game makes efforts to conceal Ethan's face all the time. He's blonde and picks up a pistol called "Albert" that basically resembles the Samurai Edge, Wesker's signature pistol. Umbrella Corps is considered canon and a timeline sequel to RE6 and Wesker is heard as an end of match dialogue. What does this mean? Who knows. Just throwing it all out there.

I've always thought (even though you can kinda see him die) that Wesker managed to make it out of the volcano at the end of 5. People have done slow mo and it looks like the rocket hits and blows him up but ive always thought that it looks a little like his speed dash teleport thing at the last second.

Although I really doubt Ethan is Wesker... they are so ridiculously different.

You do have a point about them covering his face all the time though that could just be trying to help the player to be immersed AS the character rather than break it by showing his face all the time which would break immersion a little.

[Johnny Two Tips]

Waylander původně napsal:

blee717 původně napsal:

Just gonna throw this out there, the game makes efforts to conceal Ethan's face all the time. He's blonde and picks up a pistol called "Albert" that basically resembles the Samurai Edge, Wesker's signature pistol. Umbrella Corps is considered canon and a timeline sequel to RE6 and Wesker is heard as an end of match dialogue. What does this mean? Who knows. Just throwing it all out there.

I've always thought (even though you can kinda see him die) that Wesker managed to make it out of the volcano at the end of 5. People have done slow mo and it looks like the rocket hits and blows him up but ive always thought that it looks a little like his speed dash teleport thing at the last second.

Although I really doubt Ethan is Wesker... they are so ridiculously different.

You do have a point about them covering his face all the time though that could just be trying to help the player to be immersed AS the character rather than break it by showing his face all the time which would break immersion a little.

I was just throwing it out there. Seemingly unrelated points. The thing with Wesker at the end of 5 is Japan has a big issue against dismemberment. That scene was probably in relation with localization. Amnesia Wesker maybe? It was easy for Mia to forget and it took a blow to the head for Chris to forget in RE6.

[Rumi]

I disagree with a majority of the points, simply because he was infected with the virus like others addressed. But on to what you added.

Novalex původně napsal:

On a side note: some people said that Ethan has high pain tolerance and regenerative power because he too is infected, that much is obvious, but what's interesting is that Evelynn just can not mind control Ethan at all - it's as if Ethan is already immune to the virus; he already took some kind of serum against the T-Virus (the mold is an advanced product from the original T-Virus, same as Jill is immune to Uroboros in RE5)

In conclusion, is it likely that Ethan Winters is the Level 9 scientist Ethan W. from the Spencer purge. He somehow faked his death and managed to live a normal life. But fatefully his wife Mia is actually an undercover agent working for a bio organization.

If you read the research journals on her abilities down in the mine compound it states that at first her psychic ability on newly infected is very minor with it's ability for hallucinations and thought suggestion. Then over time the infected target becomes more weak to her abilities until they have to obey her unreasonable demands.

The game takes place over the course of a day and a night. Ethan doesn't really start hallucinating until midway through the night and it isn't very strong until just minutes before you destroy her.

It's not that he's immune to the virus, if you read the research notes the virus ran it's natural course on him.

I'm not saying he isn't possibly who you think. But a lot of your points feel unlikely and this part isn't credible based off what we know about how Evelynn's powers work. They already explained it.

[Waylander]

blee717 původně napsal:

The thing with Wesker at the end of 5 is Japan has a big issue against dismemberment.

Maybe or it could just be a giant conspiracy with high up Capcom reps paying off enough people to convince them that Wesker is really dead and now he is secretly getting stronger and going to come back and achieve COMPLETE GLOBAL SATURATION... man I love Wesker he's such a doofus...

blee717 původně napsal:

Amnesia Wesker maybe? It was easy for Mia to forget and it took a blow to the head for Chris to forget in RE6.

With regards to Mia I think it was more the mental manipulation of E-001 which causes her memory issues. Chris WANTED to forget which is why it happened, his amnesia was psychosomatic and brought on by trauma rather than simply the blow to the head. I don't think Wesker wants to forget.