Cosmetics and Lore for Licenses
So earlier this week I saw a post here talking about Jill being from RE3 and how that completely destroys everything we know about RE games involving Jill after that point (same with Leon and RE2) because they were in their outfits from those games. I had asked the question "How do you know they're from Resident Evil 3?" They kept using cosmetic choice as a reason. Which to me, it was very curious. Now I want to be clear I'm not shaming this person at all because the dbd lore and some things in game don't always match and sometimes they do and we have no lore concerning the RE killer and survivors so I can't just be like "Well you're wrong" because for all I know, they're right. Now I ask you, the community, what do you think? Do you think licensed characters are given the bases they have because they're iconic looks of the character or because that's the era they were actually from?
I ask because it could be both. Let's take Pig for example (with SAW spoilers ahead).
Amanda died at the end of SAW 3, but the outfit she woke up wearing in the realm of the entity isn't what she was wearing at the moment of her death. This implies that the entity does have control over what you wear in it's realm. Maybe it chooses an outfit that you've worn that amplifies what it wants out of your role. In the case of Amanda, she was to fulfill the role of The Pig in the Entity's Realm and so the Entity gave her back the Pig mask and the outfit she wore in this role to amplify that feeling of bloodlust. The Entity could have easily made Amanda a survivor as we've seen her be tested through a different trap in each movie she was alive in. The Entity could have made her wear the outfit she wore when facing the Reverse Bear Trap and brought back those feelings of hope and surviving.
Now let's take someone who was wearing the outfit we see in the realm, Bill Overbeck.
Based off of his lore for Dead by Daylight, we know he was in fact taken after the events of Left 4 Dead. We can also guess based off of the lore and what we know of Left 4 Dead, he was wearing his base outfit when he was taken by the Entity. That makes sense seeing how he was wearing it while trying to survive and hope to live another day.
To this day, I don't think there's been a licensed character who's lore suggests they were taken prior to their role in their games being fulfilled. However, things don't end there. Not everyone believes that the licensed survivors and killers actually exist within the Entity's Realm and they're just there more as a "What if" or even just because we recognize them.
So what do you think? Do you believe the licensed killers and survivors are actually in the realm? Do you think Jill, Leon, and Nemesis were taken prior to their roles within RE were finished and the cosmetic choice prove that? Or do you think the entity has them wearing those cosmetics to bring back the feelings they need in order to fulfill the role the Entity wants them to play?
Personally, I believe they were taken after their roles within the RE franchise were complete and that the entity has them wearing what they are/looking as they do to bring up the feelings they need to fulfill their role. That also goes for any legendary skins we get from Resident Evil and any franchise that we already have in the game or are going to get.
Comments
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Laurie Quentin and Tapp are the only canon licenses that we know Of. Since the 3 of them have quotes Just like the Original survivors.
But I believe that the entity can also travel time, That would make sense for jill and leon's case tbh
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For me it depends both of your suggestions can be right but here's my take:
It's been stated in the lore that the entity steals people from mutiple universes so we can assume that the entiry is omnipresent.
The character's versions we have ingame are not from their original univers but from an alternate timeline since they are a part of franchise and they just didn't disappear in the middle of the story. But for me every character is a different case
Laurie and Michael: they have very vague backstories ingame but since the dev's stated that they only got the rights for their appearances from the first Halloween movie.
Bill: there's nothing much to say, bill is dead in his canon universe so you can come up your own conclusions, I like to believe Bill ending up in the entities realm is canon since we won't get more development in the character.
Tapp and Pig: Same case as Bill, but for Amanda's clothing even though she wqs wearing her civilians clothing at her death, she performed as the Pig prior so the entity saw it more fitting.
Quentin and Freddy: It is stated in lore that they were taken a few weeks after Anoes ending and Quentin was taken while he was dreaming so it isn't impossible that in his dream he was wearing the clothes that he wore when fighting Freddy for the first time. For the rest it's another Bill case.
Ash: he usually wears that when going into combat, he probably dressed up like that before the demon started doing the incantation (sorry if there's not much to say, I don't know much about Ash).
Steve and Nancy: Devs stated that they were taken after season 3 when they were fully adults, so I believe in this case it's just like how you mentioned, the entity gave them the appearance from when they first encountered the demogorgon.
Cheryl: stated in lore that she was taken months after silent Hill, the outfit she was wearing when she was taken probably was the green rarity one in the shop, similarly to Steve and Nancy, she had the appearance from her visit at Silent Hill, I think it was an attempt to mock her or make her believe her nightmare would never be over.
Leon, Jill and Nemesis: since we don't have their ingame lore I just have to assume everything and come back here later. I think the three of them were taken during the events of Re2 and 3 so they would be from an alternate timeline. The reason why would be just personal preference, I think it's way more fun if they were taken in the middle of chaos that was raccoon city and lorewise it would make more sense, a major scale event like raccoon city would probably had attracted the attention of the entity quicker and it would make more sense to take their younger versions since they were less experience, more easily overwhelmed and prolly to make mistakes instead of agents with years of experience in hopeless situations.
Sorry for the long wall of text and also for any mistakes, english it's not my first language.
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Leon's lore just dropped and insinuates he was taken during his first day at the job :3
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Wait wasn't the entirety of Resident Evil 2 (at least Leon's story) his first day on the police force? Then he got there and Mr. X had killed everyone but Leon just thought they were all missing? Or am I wrong. Either way it doesn't matter because it could have technically been after his first day was over? I obviously haven't actually READ the lore yet lmao.
Edit: Omg, thank god the lore isn't 5 hours long. I hate when they more or less write a novel for backstory. Get to the freaking point and then come back to them in the archives, or if they're licenses, make us watch the movies/play the games. Get to the freaking point still lmao
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In his lore it says that he was taken while investigating a lab in raccon city and as soon as re2 and raccon city gets nuked so it would be during his first day.
And for the lore part I'm sad I like when characters have a bible for a backstory.
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This whole idea is ixnayed anyway, because it's a well known confirmed fact that The Entity is an interdimensional creature / dimension all entirely on it's own. It pulls the killer that it turns into it's minions and henchmen from different realms, realities, and dimensions.
So the simple answer is that identical (or nearly identical) copies of these canon characters were taken to serve a role in the hellish purgatory like state. For example, Steve and Nancy still have a narrative role to play in Stranger Things and the upcoming season 4 (the show is not over) however, in an alternate dimension Steve and Nancy disappeared and were taken at some point in their timeline (perhaps before season 4, perhaps after). When specifically does not really matter, as they are different alternate versions of the characters we know, and thus does not interrupt the timeline of events and the overall story that we know as Stranger Things.
The same logic can be applied to every other licensed character.
Although I think preferably, as an answer, it would be sometime after their timelines, past + future, as we know them end. Since we see most licensed characters wearing clothes that they have worn in the past for some reason or another. I think the explanation being that those within the realm of the entity learn to control "Auric Cells" which are the smallest "building blocks" of what make up the entity and its constructs. (Ex: the crows are not actually crows that are alive and trapped in the realm of the entity, they are reconstructed as part of the mental image the entity creates when mimicking the maps where great tragedies and bloodshed took place.)
So basically, any survivor or killer, can reconstruct the clothes around them in conjunction with their memories or emotions. I would bet that feeling a certain way- nostalgia about certain parts of your past when you weren't trapped in the hell that is the realm of the entity would have an influence on how you appear in the fog. Especially in a place that feeds off any and all strong emotions, such as rage, anger, hope, desperation, despair, grief, and yes- nostalgia.
Now this doesn't answer the question of cosmetics that show up that we haven't seen licensed characters wear, for example The Pig's "Pig Leather" and "Deceiver" skins I don't think were things we saw her wear in the films. Or Legendary cosmetics which change you into another person.
Alas- that's not what this thread is about, so I won't take the time to answer those questions.
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Devs said a while ago that cosmetics aren't canon, the characters are always with their default outfits.
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I've heard this before, but it was under the stipulation that not "all" cosmetics are canon. Which is slightly different, the implication being that most of the cosmetics represent canon parts of character backstory (that's, kind of the entire point of the rift) but there are a few that just don't make sense, or have conflicting descriptions that contrast the lore or what have you.
If you've got a source that proves otherwise, please link.
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or its alternate reality Jill
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Sorry what I meant was that they aren't canon ingame, the rift ones were just about their past but ingame they are always in their defaults.
It's been a while since I heard that so I could be wrong, it just seem silly they being in hell and be able to change their clothes at will.
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I mean, I think it makes a lot more sense if you consider it the way I wrote it.
I'm certainly not thinking the survivors are seriously standing by the campfire, selecting from their mental wardrobe the way we actually do in game.
But the idea that certain memories, thoughts, or emotions will result in actual physical changes, in this case in terms of their clothes, in the realm of the entity. This isn't an out of the blue idea either, and this is actually directly mentioned in the lore as a core component of the lore- the entity itself "chooses worlds that have failed to understand the metaphysical relationship between their thoughts and the world they live in, feeding off their ignorance"
The way I understand that, metaphysics "examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality." If you think that the rock you're holding in your hand is Gold, then it suddenly becomes gold, and so on and so forth.
This is backed up within the lore more or less: "Vigo and the Observer were aware of the originally mentioned metaphysical relationship between their thoughts and the world they lived in, and thus able to hone their skills and "bend the Fog's irrefragable rules", which allowed them to create to mould and shape The Black Fog to their own will"
There's also this line within the very first tome in Arcus 557 about people who have his power and understanding:
"This is not by chance. It is, to my mind, self-preservation. Victims who know this truth and have honed their ability to manifest could be poisonous to The Entity."
And so on and so forth you get the overall idea.
So point being, it seems to me that the survivors, though they may not understand it, do have this power on a very basic and rudimentary level. Sitting at the campfire gives you a lot of time to think, and when you're a survivor trying not to think about the future, and you don't want to think about the present, you end up thinking about the past. When they remember holidays that they used to celebrate in their former lives, like Christmas for example, they wake up in the next trial wearing holiday sweaters, or other related clothing. When you remember the summers you spent lazing around and having a good time, you appear in the next trial wearing that filmsy straw hat and majestic tropics shirt you wore one summer at the beach.
So quoting myself:
"Basically, any survivor or killer, can reconstruct the clothes around them in conjunction with their memories or emotions. I would bet that feeling a certain way- nostalgia about certain parts of your past when you weren't trapped in the hell that is the realm of the entity would have an influence on how you appear in the fog. Especially in a place that feeds off any and all strong emotions, such as rage, anger, hope, desperation, despair, grief, and yes- nostalgia."
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It's a nice way to put it but it's just my personal dislike about the idea, if this end up being canon they stuck in their defaults would just turn into a headcanon of mine.
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I'm the flip side about this one actually. The more I think about it the more I like this explanation / head canon, it fleshes out the mechanics of how the entity itself works, and if DBD were a TV series I could see an audience learning more and more about the main characters in this fashion.
Everyone permanently wearing their default clothes seems kind of boring and lackluster to me. The default clothes have a timeless and classic look to them of course, but I think I'd get to hate the idea of them wearing the same thing forever. Wardrobe is an important (and fluid) element of building characters after all.
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We can agree to disagree :)
For me, it actually takes always the seriousness of the situation, Feng running away with a different colored dress in every trial takes away the horror and turns into goofy.
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