Piggybacking on my last post about how underrated and overlooked Resident Evil Zero was, it made me think about game, namely co-main character, Rebecca Chambers and her character background.
When Rebecca is introduced in the original Resident Evil during Chris Redfield’s scenario, we meet the timid and deferential field medic for the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team, who quickly latches onto Chris, and aides him in his quest by being able to mix chemicals as well as (with enough practice) play The Moonlight Sonata on the piano, to solve puzzles.
Little do we realize in RE1 that Rebecca has already been through hell and back at the time she’s introduced, because she had already encountered zombified humans, leeches, apes and other monsters in another mansion/laboratory, with the aid of a marine falsely accused for genocide whom she helped escape execution during the events of RE0.
But forget the fact that by the time you meet her, she’s already an accomplished zombie and monster slayer as well as a survivor; when you meet Rebecca Chambers for the first time, she is 18 years old.
Not just a surprisingly capable 18-year old holding down gainful employment, but an 18-year old special forces field medic, of all the occupations in the world.
Rebecca Chambers is basically the equivalent of a video game version Doogie Howser.
If Rebecca was ready to go out into the field at the age of 18, that pretty much means she was a child genius that breezed through basic and high school curriculum by like the age of 9, graduated college by like 12, had some sort of medical schooling between the time she finished college and joined S.T.A.R.S., and of course, the customary two months of combat medic training, not to mention a lengthy period of time doing practice, simulations and testing, before being deemed ready to be sent out into the field.
Now that I think about it, it’s almost an insult to prodigies that Rebecca even has to practice The Moonlight Sonata at all. She should be able to sit down and play it on the first try like Jill can, or rather it should be the other way around, with Jill needing to stumble and fail a few times before succeeding.
So pretty much like Doogie Howser, but instead of becoming a resident surgeon, Rebecca went the route of high risk field medic, that wielded heavy artillery, fought the undead, and had an innate ability to mix chemicals and wild plants on top of everything else.
Needless to say, despite the fact that Doogs came first in the history of fictional youth medical prodigies, Rebecca Chambers’ gritty experience in life and death situations essentially makes her superior in the end.
