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I just wanted to see what the opinion here was in Umbrella Chronicles' antagonist. I also wanted to re-post a little thing I wrote on him as I like to explain to people why I like the things I like ya know?
“Everything...for Umbrella.”
The above line perfectly describes the primary antagonist of Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. His name is Sergei Vladimir and my first reaction to him was “wait...that’s two first names. It’s like a character named John Bob”. But as I delved deeper into the character, such a rather minuscule detail was lost and I quickly became interested. Since my coming to know the full plot of UC and reading all its files, I have to say Sergei is now tied with my favorite antagonist William Birkin who has remained the unrivaled king of RE villains for me ever since I played RE2. (UC totally fucked him up though...well it fucked a lot of characters up but let’s skip passed that)
So why do I like Sergei? A couple reasons that I’ll try to illustrate to you all.
1. His Presence.
Sergei is a vital character to the storyline though of course he’s brand new. Some complain about introducing a new character and some are disappointed about the lack of Spencer finally gaining a real presence in the series. Well Spencer, and to a degree HUNK, gain their fame from their lack of presence. They have what could be called mystique that allows fans to freely wonder who they really are, what they really look like, what they’re really after....
But even still, Sergei is possibly the best thing next to Spencer appearing himself as he’s the closest character to Spencer thus far introduced and basically appears like second-im-command. Look at this excerpt from a document in the game that I’d bet my left leg is written by Lord Spencer:
“I realize it is sudden, but I have a request that only you can handle, old friend.”
“You have always been our loyal cleaner”
Needles to say the mysterious Spencer seems to hold him in high regard. Throw in the fact he’s the one behind the UBCs and the Special Forces and Sergei easily holds the highest position in Umbrella of any physical antagonist to date. (Marcus as an antagonist was dead to Umbrella so he doesn’t count)
Aside from his high position in the company we’ve been indirectly and directly fighting since the start, Sergei’s existence adds another element not previously seen in the plot: a true physical rival to Wesker. Albert Wesker since Code Veronica has had the entire Resident Evil plot shifted to circulate around him and his ambition. He’s beaten the heroes, he’s outsmarted the bad guys, he’s been basically an untouchable manipulator. Sergei’s role seems to present someone who is on par with the series main antagonist. His first appearance in the game is actually to “punish” Wesker by sending a Tyrant after him and force the, still human, Wesker to flee.
Wesker is also brough tto a lower level by Sergei. While he played the one “running the show” in Resident Evil 2 and 4, he must enter the field of battle in Russia in his quest to take down Umbrella. He does this by attacking Sergei’s base and having a final climacticbattle to the death with first his bodyguards and then the man himself. Wesker in the end does defeat his rival as we all know he would. Sergei in the grand scheme of things is not as important as Wesker or Spencer who I know most consider Al’s true rival. However for the time being, Sergei was introduced for that role and the identity and goals of Ozwell E. Spencer are still but a mystery.
2. Differing From “the Norm”
It’s odd that when one reflects on the history of Umbrella and the villains presented in the Resident Evil series, few of the bad guys have truly represented Umbrella.
Our first antagonist was of course Albert Wesker. Yes he had worked for Umbrella for quite a long time but as of RE1 his motives were entirely self-centered. The whole Mansion Incident was just a part of his plan to betray Umbrella, steal their newest creation and jump ship. So while it’s true we battle Umbrella’s creations, our main bad guy is manipulating everything for his own ends and is also going against Umbrella.
RE2 comes along and well...the only two antagonists in the game are really William Birkin and Chief Irons. Birkin, like Wesker, was a long time researcher and agent of Umbrella but, again like Wesker, he was on the outs with the company by the time his game came along. Umbrella sent a team to kill him and take his G-Virus sample and thus ended his life as a human being. Irons was only ever a pawn of Umbrella, taking their money for his own greedy purposes and nothing more.
So now we have RE3. One could count Nemesis as an antagonist but not really a villain. It has intelligence but it’s pre-programmed and is little more than a robot set to follow orders. The human antagonist in the game is Nicholai. Nicholai is a Supervisor/Monitor for Umbrella and was sent in there to gather data. However he again is not truly representing the company’s interest as we see here:
“I made certain none of the other supervisors survived. Since I’ll be the only one who knows what really happened I’ll have more bargaining power when it comes to discussing my bonus.”
So he’s offing Umbrella personal to gain money. Hardly befitting of the company motto. Where’s the unity?
Then comes Code Veronica. Alfred has pulled a Norman Bates and nothing he did really had anything to do with Umbrella. It did have to do with “restoring the Ashford name” but again, that’s no different than Nicholai’s or Birkin’s self-centered ambitions. After poor transexu-Al dies, Alexia awakens and we never get much insight into what her ultimate goal was. However seeing as Umbrella at large thought her dead for about 13 years I think, she can’t really represent Umbrella either. She was in it for her own experiments and research, just like Birkin.
Now as I said at the start of my character analysis, that line summarizes Sergei to the letter. He follows the company motto which is, in case you don’t recall:
“Obedience breeds discipline.
Discipline breeds unity.
Unity breeds power.
Power is life.”
(Always loved how Marcus delivered that line in RE0)
Not a single action taken by Sergei is outside Umbrella’s interest and, more importantly, he does it because it’s in Umbrella’s interest. He gives up his flesh and blood and his life even for a cause greater than himself. Faith in a cause, belief in an ideal, it’s something we all can understand. Our ideals may be different but the feeling is the same.
3. A Human Monster
It’s amazing how inhuman the bad guys of the Resident Evil series are. As a fan of Japanese RPGs and anime, I see villains regularly given deep, tragic motivations that makes you feel bad at the end or wish that it didn’t have to come to this.
When it comes to Resident Evil antagonists though... Wesker was a greedy ass. That’s all there is to it. There’s no tragedy or humanity to mourn over. Birkin, despite having a child and wife, came off as quite monstrous himself. Whether it was the standard mad scientist “my previous G-Virus....” while his face was partially hidden in shadow, or the “I will take over your research! AHAHAHAHAHAAHA!” in RE0, he never came off anything more than a monster. The additions in Wesker’s Report II about killing people at a huge rate didn’t help anyway....
Nicholai is like Wesker and was just greedy. Alexia...well she did have some pretty standard evil laughing and dialogue in addition to brutally experimenting on her own father. However she might have cared for Alfred. That’s about all the human we got out of her.
Now it comes to Sergei....while it’s never shown n the game, documents allude to his true self - the man beyond the monster.
“After all, these men were all raised by me and \are a part of me. I can't help but feel reservations about turning these thinking, feeling human beings into biological weapons and cursing them to an eternity of living death.”
And Wesker’s hypothesis.
“Sergei mutated into a monster whose very body is the picture of suffering as he was ripped apart from the inside by thorns. I can only imagine that his transformation represents the true mindset of the person he was inside.”
Sadness at giving up literally parts of himself to endure the agony of the Tyrant transformation, living with a mind that is apparently “the picture of suffering” all serve to show Sergei is not “another Umbrella psycho” like Chris claimed. The pain in his mind could be grief at the loss of his clones, at the end of Umbrella, at the loss of his great Motherland...it remains a mystery. But it does show that despite his outward appearance of cold indifference he is a very passionate human being. Which is also seen In his letter:
“If I have to cut down my very body it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. I will wail and shed tears of blood and rend every last flesh of regret from my body if it means I can usher in a new age.”
4. Conclusion
There is nothing revolutionary about Sergei Vladimir. He is not original, he is not unique and he is not anything most will consider all that memorable. He was a one-time villain in a game many Resident Evil fans will never play or give much thought. Yet I found him intriguing, felt he got a healthy amount of character development and enjoyed his presence in the series.
“Everything...for Umbrella.”
The above line perfectly describes the primary antagonist of Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. His name is Sergei Vladimir and my first reaction to him was “wait...that’s two first names. It’s like a character named John Bob”. But as I delved deeper into the character, such a rather minuscule detail was lost and I quickly became interested. Since my coming to know the full plot of UC and reading all its files, I have to say Sergei is now tied with my favorite antagonist William Birkin who has remained the unrivaled king of RE villains for me ever since I played RE2. (UC totally fucked him up though...well it fucked a lot of characters up but let’s skip passed that)
So why do I like Sergei? A couple reasons that I’ll try to illustrate to you all.
1. His Presence.
Sergei is a vital character to the storyline though of course he’s brand new. Some complain about introducing a new character and some are disappointed about the lack of Spencer finally gaining a real presence in the series. Well Spencer, and to a degree HUNK, gain their fame from their lack of presence. They have what could be called mystique that allows fans to freely wonder who they really are, what they really look like, what they’re really after....
But even still, Sergei is possibly the best thing next to Spencer appearing himself as he’s the closest character to Spencer thus far introduced and basically appears like second-im-command. Look at this excerpt from a document in the game that I’d bet my left leg is written by Lord Spencer:
“I realize it is sudden, but I have a request that only you can handle, old friend.”
“You have always been our loyal cleaner”
Needles to say the mysterious Spencer seems to hold him in high regard. Throw in the fact he’s the one behind the UBCs and the Special Forces and Sergei easily holds the highest position in Umbrella of any physical antagonist to date. (Marcus as an antagonist was dead to Umbrella so he doesn’t count)
Aside from his high position in the company we’ve been indirectly and directly fighting since the start, Sergei’s existence adds another element not previously seen in the plot: a true physical rival to Wesker. Albert Wesker since Code Veronica has had the entire Resident Evil plot shifted to circulate around him and his ambition. He’s beaten the heroes, he’s outsmarted the bad guys, he’s been basically an untouchable manipulator. Sergei’s role seems to present someone who is on par with the series main antagonist. His first appearance in the game is actually to “punish” Wesker by sending a Tyrant after him and force the, still human, Wesker to flee.
Wesker is also brough tto a lower level by Sergei. While he played the one “running the show” in Resident Evil 2 and 4, he must enter the field of battle in Russia in his quest to take down Umbrella. He does this by attacking Sergei’s base and having a final climacticbattle to the death with first his bodyguards and then the man himself. Wesker in the end does defeat his rival as we all know he would. Sergei in the grand scheme of things is not as important as Wesker or Spencer who I know most consider Al’s true rival. However for the time being, Sergei was introduced for that role and the identity and goals of Ozwell E. Spencer are still but a mystery.
2. Differing From “the Norm”
It’s odd that when one reflects on the history of Umbrella and the villains presented in the Resident Evil series, few of the bad guys have truly represented Umbrella.
Our first antagonist was of course Albert Wesker. Yes he had worked for Umbrella for quite a long time but as of RE1 his motives were entirely self-centered. The whole Mansion Incident was just a part of his plan to betray Umbrella, steal their newest creation and jump ship. So while it’s true we battle Umbrella’s creations, our main bad guy is manipulating everything for his own ends and is also going against Umbrella.
RE2 comes along and well...the only two antagonists in the game are really William Birkin and Chief Irons. Birkin, like Wesker, was a long time researcher and agent of Umbrella but, again like Wesker, he was on the outs with the company by the time his game came along. Umbrella sent a team to kill him and take his G-Virus sample and thus ended his life as a human being. Irons was only ever a pawn of Umbrella, taking their money for his own greedy purposes and nothing more.
So now we have RE3. One could count Nemesis as an antagonist but not really a villain. It has intelligence but it’s pre-programmed and is little more than a robot set to follow orders. The human antagonist in the game is Nicholai. Nicholai is a Supervisor/Monitor for Umbrella and was sent in there to gather data. However he again is not truly representing the company’s interest as we see here:
“I made certain none of the other supervisors survived. Since I’ll be the only one who knows what really happened I’ll have more bargaining power when it comes to discussing my bonus.”
So he’s offing Umbrella personal to gain money. Hardly befitting of the company motto. Where’s the unity?
Then comes Code Veronica. Alfred has pulled a Norman Bates and nothing he did really had anything to do with Umbrella. It did have to do with “restoring the Ashford name” but again, that’s no different than Nicholai’s or Birkin’s self-centered ambitions. After poor transexu-Al dies, Alexia awakens and we never get much insight into what her ultimate goal was. However seeing as Umbrella at large thought her dead for about 13 years I think, she can’t really represent Umbrella either. She was in it for her own experiments and research, just like Birkin.
Now as I said at the start of my character analysis, that line summarizes Sergei to the letter. He follows the company motto which is, in case you don’t recall:
“Obedience breeds discipline.
Discipline breeds unity.
Unity breeds power.
Power is life.”
(Always loved how Marcus delivered that line in RE0)
Not a single action taken by Sergei is outside Umbrella’s interest and, more importantly, he does it because it’s in Umbrella’s interest. He gives up his flesh and blood and his life even for a cause greater than himself. Faith in a cause, belief in an ideal, it’s something we all can understand. Our ideals may be different but the feeling is the same.
3. A Human Monster
It’s amazing how inhuman the bad guys of the Resident Evil series are. As a fan of Japanese RPGs and anime, I see villains regularly given deep, tragic motivations that makes you feel bad at the end or wish that it didn’t have to come to this.
When it comes to Resident Evil antagonists though... Wesker was a greedy ass. That’s all there is to it. There’s no tragedy or humanity to mourn over. Birkin, despite having a child and wife, came off as quite monstrous himself. Whether it was the standard mad scientist “my previous G-Virus....” while his face was partially hidden in shadow, or the “I will take over your research! AHAHAHAHAHAAHA!” in RE0, he never came off anything more than a monster. The additions in Wesker’s Report II about killing people at a huge rate didn’t help anyway....
Nicholai is like Wesker and was just greedy. Alexia...well she did have some pretty standard evil laughing and dialogue in addition to brutally experimenting on her own father. However she might have cared for Alfred. That’s about all the human we got out of her.
Now it comes to Sergei....while it’s never shown n the game, documents allude to his true self - the man beyond the monster.
“After all, these men were all raised by me and \are a part of me. I can't help but feel reservations about turning these thinking, feeling human beings into biological weapons and cursing them to an eternity of living death.”
And Wesker’s hypothesis.
“Sergei mutated into a monster whose very body is the picture of suffering as he was ripped apart from the inside by thorns. I can only imagine that his transformation represents the true mindset of the person he was inside.”
Sadness at giving up literally parts of himself to endure the agony of the Tyrant transformation, living with a mind that is apparently “the picture of suffering” all serve to show Sergei is not “another Umbrella psycho” like Chris claimed. The pain in his mind could be grief at the loss of his clones, at the end of Umbrella, at the loss of his great Motherland...it remains a mystery. But it does show that despite his outward appearance of cold indifference he is a very passionate human being. Which is also seen In his letter:
“If I have to cut down my very body it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. I will wail and shed tears of blood and rend every last flesh of regret from my body if it means I can usher in a new age.”
4. Conclusion
There is nothing revolutionary about Sergei Vladimir. He is not original, he is not unique and he is not anything most will consider all that memorable. He was a one-time villain in a game many Resident Evil fans will never play or give much thought. Yet I found him intriguing, felt he got a healthy amount of character development and enjoyed his presence in the series.
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