Resident Evil 4 Remake: Hosts of the Las Plagas Respect Thread

Explanation

This will be a respect thread dedicated to all of the major players in the Resident Evil 4 Remake that have been imbued with the plaga. These characters tie into each other so much that I feel that it's better to lump them into one respect thread, as opposed to multiple ones.

Q&A

• "Will you combine OG RE4 feats and lore with the remake?"

No, they are two separate sub-canons within the franchise.

• "Did others help you make this RT in any capacity?"

Nope.

• "Why are there so many different videos posted here to show us the cutscenes?"

Mainly because I've been working off and on with this RT in private for a very long time, with chunks of it being sporadically posted in separate areas isolated from each other that I'd forget about until finally combining it all together.

• "Why are there multiple posts for this RT?"

Because I can only add 10 or something videos in a single post at once time, so I must split them.

• "Is G L O B A L - S A T U R A T I O N (TM) featured in this RT?"

No, because he is not a carrier of the plaga, on top of his remake self lacking any feats currently.

• "Will you make an OG RE4 RT eventually?"

No. I like OG RE4 a lot, but I lack energy to make this type of stuff. It has taken me many many months to make this RT simply due to me barely doing bits and pieces of it off and on. I've got that Jeb Bush energy going on, sorry.

• "Why did you choose to do a remake RT over the OG?"

Because the remake has much more info to work with and has far more impressive feats non-gameplay-only feats.

• "What do you consider to be valid feats?"

Anything that is either a cutscene or a scripted gameplay segment. Normal everyday gameplay is not lore-accurate at all, and so I'd feel it'd be unfair and bias of me to cherry pick impressive non-scripted gameplay feats, while ignoring all of the abysmally terrible ones.

Las Plagas Explained

The Las Plagas is an ancient parasite unearthed by the Los Iluminados several times throughout the centuries. It is a species of parasite that acts as a hivemind that can embed itself in various types of animals, including humans, so that it can be protected better and spread.

Starting at the timestamp 1:35, this video is the best summary of Las Plagas that covers the basics:

There are three types of plaga, which we will list now.

The Dominant Species:

The highest form of plaga that is able to control other plaga via ultra-high-frequency sound waves. Anyone infected with this plaga is mentally and physically unaffected, with them being able to completely mind control anyone infected with lesser variants of the species.

They also can mutate their bodies in various ways if they so choose, up to the point that they can completely transform into inhuman beings.

These things are spoken of in the video above at 2:35. ^

The Superior Species:

This is a subordinate plaga that can infect a host without causing brain damage, allowing them to operate at 100% of their former mental capacity and leaving their base personality mostly unaltered:

Furthermore, hosts of the Superior Species, provided that it fully merges with a host, can mutate their bodies to a more limited extent at will, along with showing no visible signs of infection once the merger is complete, as seen in Krauser, which we will go over later.

The Standard Species:

This is the most common plaga that can be found and is what the vast majority of the people of Valdelobos are infected with. Being infected with this variant causes clear physical changes in appearance, along with minor brain damage. However, those infected with this plaga still retain enough of their mental faculties to communicate, go about their daily lives, preform mundane tasks, and use weaponry to a decently efficient level.

If damaged too much, the parasite can hijack the nervous system of the host to keep it functioning, along with mutating itself to sprout out of the host's head to attack targets directly:

U-III Variant:

A special variant of the plaga that solely exists within U-III. It is unknown if it is more similar to the Standard Species or the Superior Species, as we've never seen a fully infected person with this variant, but it logically has the same basic physical enhancements that every other plaga variant has. However, the parasite will die if U-III itself dies:

Lastly, it should be noted that the physical enhancements provided by the plaga's mutations seems to start the moment one is infected, not needing to be fully hatched to gain such effects. And removing the plaga from the body before it fully fuses with you still seems to keep the physical strength mutations one has gotten up to that point, which we will get into in Luis's short section.

Now, it is time to get into another parasite that is not Las Plagas at all.

The Amber Explained

The Amber is another parasite discovered with Las Plaga. It is a greater, and perhaps even older parasite that even while dormant, increases the strength of other nearby parasites and its relationship to its host:

The true power of the Amber is yet to be revealed, as it has not been awakened yet. However, it's role in further increasing the power of plaga's hosts is significant and worth mentioning.

We will further discuss the Amber in some of the following sections.

So now, let's get into the capabilities of the characters.

Osmund Saddler

Saddler is the leader of the Los Iluminados and the only person in the series that has a Dominant Species Plaga:

Due to having the Dominant Plaga within him, his mutations can be far more extreme, with even his base form having large tentacles strong enough to casually smash large stone pillars to pieces:

Timestamp at 3:22:21:

We see that he can make several of these tentacles at an even larger and more powerful scale branch out of his body and attack rapidly.

Timestamp at 3:20:28: ^

Saddler can also borrow his tentacles in the ground and have them attack by sprouting out of the ground right under targets.

Timestamp at 3:20:52: ^

Saddler can also absorb projectiles like bullets and reposition them in his body, followed by him shooting them back out.

Timestamps at 3:18:21 and 3:21:02: ^

He can use his tentacles as enhanced legs to leap and cover distance more quickly, along with being able to use it as a slam attack.

Timestamp at 1:35:

He can shoot black liquid as a projectile.

Timestamp at 2:14: ^

The last notable thing for his base form is that he is able to rapidly spin his tentacles so fast that they turn into a drill, followed by him dashing at the opponent at high speeds. This is portrayed as his strongest attack in base form.

Timestamp at 4:43: ^

Saddler then is able to mutate into a second form.

Timestamp at 1:50:

His attacks are generally the same, but he lost the ability to fire projectiles like bullets back out from his body. And he has lost the drill ability, but that is pretty much negated by the fact his normal attacks are far stronger now.

He is capable of leaping much faster and at much greater distances.

Timestamp at 5:11: ^

He can now also shoot far larger blasts of his black goo and an even shoot 3 blasts at once:

Timestamp at 6:23: ^

Saddler then is able to mutate even further, leading to a final transformation, to which we see him rip through a reinforced steel platform easily with one of his tentacles.

Timestamp at 7:21: ^

Saddler's core/main body now stays in a protective shield while he attacks his target from afar with even larger tentacles.

This shield, despite being destroyed in one shot by a Special RPG, took most of the force of it by far to where it protected Saddler's main body.

His main body can also still attack with his staff.

Timestamp at 8:36: ^ (Watch it all in one go, since the feats I've mentioned happen back to back.)

Unfortunately, we don't have anymore feats for this Saddler, as Leon kills him quickly.

Jack Krauser

Krauser is a major in the United States Special Forces and one of the best of the best even among them, with him and his unit being the "most elite" among them, as stated in documents detailing the events of Operation Javier and how only his unit was selected for this major operation:

Not only were they the best of the best, but them and their unit were chosen over people like Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, meaning they should be above those two at that point in time.

Despite the accolades of S.T.A.R.S. members, eclipsing them combatively is not an impossible task.

One example of S.T.A.R.S. members being outclassed is when Nikolai casually moves faster than Jill at the time of RE3 can react and kills her before she pulls the trigger if she doesn't shoot him while Carlos is holding him.

Timestamp at 13:50:

And nothing suggests that Nikolai is greater than Krauser by any means. At the bare minimum, they should be relative to each other, with them being above someone like Jill at the time of RE3, who dodges stinger missiles in-game in a scripted segment of the game where Nemesis shoots said missiles at her in narrow back alleys, with the only logical option being for her to outrun the missiles or dodge them or the explosions.

Timestamp 0:14:

An example of properly dodging them.

Timestamp at 1:47:

But not only do we have a scripted in-game segment where she must dodge missiles, but she was shown to move faster than one in a cutscene as well, as she raised her arm up faster than the missile could reach the ground that it was a few meters away from.

Timestamp at 1:20:

A stinger missile can travel up to Mach 2.2.

She also shrugged off the explosion of it right under her feet without any protective gear, as you can see in that same timestamp.

Further evidence that Krauser is above Jill is that she was mainly recruited to Delta Force and S.T.A.R.S. for her specialization in ordinance disposal and lock-picking skills, as opposed to combative capabilities:

Belongs to the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team. She has excellent explosive ordnance disposal capabilities and impressive lock-picking skills. She may seem delicate at first glance, but she has also gone through the training course of America's proud anti-terrorist force, Delta Force. Her combat ability is proven. She faithfully carries out her duties and is trusted by her teammates. - Biohazard Official Navigation Book: page 13

Krauser, on the other hand, seems to mainly focus on combat, as he trained Leon and others in such endeavors, with a specialization in CQC specifically seemingly, as Krauser taught Leon that knives are faster than guns:

This is logically because they are faster than bullets, which makes sense if they scale to or above Jill and Nikolai.

Furthermore, we see their training in flashbacks is CQC training.

Timestamp at 0:13:

So it makes sense that Krauser would be superior to someone like Jill. He is older and far more experience, as you can clearly tell by his appearance and rank, on top of specializing actual combat, as opposed to things like ordinance disposal.

But you see, this is only Krauser as a mere human. Krauser later gets injected with a Superior Species Plaga that is further amped by the Amber, as you can see in the third note under "The Amber Explained" section.

Krauser also has two mutations above his base state. His first mutation is his classic blade arm, which he easily destroys a stone roof with.

Timestamp at 12:26:

Later we see him mutate his second arm as well:

Along with obviously be able to attack with it, it works as a useful shield as well:

And Krauser should scale far above Mendez, as Mendez is an untrained person with a Superior Species Plaga and no Amber amp, which leads me into the next section.

Bitores Mendez

Mendez is the chief of the village in Valdelobos, and while it isn't explicitly stated that he has the Superior Plaga, it should be obvious due to the fact he's the chief of the village, with the second note in "The Amber Explained" mentioning that those at top of the Los Iluminados have this plaga.

Furthermore, Mendez is clearly has no brain damage. He speaks calmly and clearly.

Timestamp at 1:18:00:

This is clearly a higher level of intelligence than portrayed by those infected with the Standard Species.

Timestamp at 25:06: ^

More proof of Mendez being injected with the Superior Species is his stats. Mendez was able to one-shot Pre-Plaga Leon effortlessly without even mutating, to which he then infects Leon with the Superior Plaga. And even after Leon received said Plaga injection, Mendez was able to effortlessly defeat him again, all while tanking gunfire from him and Ada.

Timestamp at 18:40 and 23:10 respectively:

Mendez is also able to bend metal bars with ease, as seen in the timestamp 54:53: ^

The only reason Mendez is defeated by Leon so early on is because he made the wrong decision to transform, likely due to annoyance at Leon's persistence in rescuing Ashley. And while it does increase his speed and strength, unlike Krauser, it leaves his internal organs exposed, allowing him to take more damage than in his normal state ironically:

It should be a reminder though that Leon was still in the early stages of his plaga infection when facing Mendez, meaning his strength increases shouldn't have been completed yet by any means. It is still impressive though, and it shows that guns are irrelevant to anyone at Mendez's tier or higher, provided they have no exposed weak points.

Luis Serra

Luis was a researcher for the Los Iluminados who then turned on them in hopes of taking them down. He was injected with a Superior Species Plaga, but removed it himself.

Timestamp at 1:11:37:

We know he logically had the Superior Species within him, because again, he was a researcher for the Los Iluminados:

And obviously, Saddler would want to retain the intelligence of a person like this, which is proven by the fact that all top-ranking researchers were given the Superior Species:

Now, Luis doesn't have too many feats. He survived in Valdelobos off and on by himself at various points, so he's quite skilled for a mere scientist, with Leon even noting this, with his skills being good enough to make Leon question him being just a mere researcher:

Aside from this, there isn't much to see in regards to Luis, but we have one extraordinary feat from him. He was able to briefly contest an El Gigante in a tug of war match over Leon:

Timestamp at 0:10:

Now how strong is an El Gigante? Well beyond just its sheer size, we see it smash a big chunk of rock/stone on the side of a mountain, and later see one picking up boulders and crushing them to pieces with its grip strength alone, and throwing said pieces like a shotgun projectile.

Timestamps 2:04:01 and 3:53:03 respectively:

This is extremely important though, as it tells us that even if you remove the plaga from yourself, the physical alterations to your body it has subjected you to remain even after the plaga's removal, meaning the increase is permanent period.

Now, onto the main event.

Leon Scott Kennedy

Leon is an agent working for the United States directly under the president, sent to Valdelobos to rescue Ashley Graham.

As already covered in Krauser's section, Leon was trained by him directly, and while it isn't directly shown or stated that Leon took part in Operation Javier with Krauser like the original, I think there is enough evidence to support that this is still the case for the remake, since Krauser and Leon talk about it as if he was there, with him knowing everything about it:

And while the original is different from the remake, it should at least be noted that Leon and Krauser in the original Operation Javier were in a jungle at one point:

So it seems the remake is just more subtle about it.

I bring this up, as I believe it is relevant to Leon's skill level, being the only one able to survive the operation, along with Krauser. The reason Leon wasn't listed in the report likely because he's an undercover agent, as opposed to strictly a part of the Special Forces.

Regardless, while relevant, I do not think it's vital to determining Leon's level of skill later on.

Anyways, for Pre-Plaga Leon's RE4-ONLY feats, there is only one notable one, which is the fact that he blocked an overhead strike from a Ganado infected with the Standard Species Plaga and broke his neck with a single kick, showing he is clearly superhuman already.

Timestamp at 7:35:

We then see Leon get injected with the Superior Species Plaga at 30:00: ^

Now I feel like I need to address the obligatory "Where is the evidence that X has Superior Species within them?" Well for one, Mendez would've noticed that he slaughtered a chunk of his village and realized he'd be a powerful ally. And on top of that, by this point, mass production of the Superior Species had been completed:

So there is no reason not to administer the Superior Species to everyone at this point, let alone someone as valuable as Leon.

As for Plaga Leon, he gets stronger the more the infection progresses, but we do see immediate results, as Plaga Leon is able to take a kick from Mendez. It hurts him noticeably and knocks the wind out of him.

Timestamp at 23:17

But this is already a big improvement from getting knocked out instantly via getting casually thrown by Mendez earlier before Leon's plaga injection.

Leon later on is able to pierce Mendez's arm with his knife, despite his and Ada's bullets not being able to earlier, even when hitting Mendez's head, showing that his physicals and knife scale far above his firearms. And he takes a direct hit from Mendez here and recovers more easily compared to the first two times.

Timestamp for both of these at 54:37: ^

And a bit later after that, we see him take getting hit by a full on shoulder charge by Mendez.

Timestamp at 56:20: ^

Now, while Leon has clearly improved already over the course of the early game, I still think he is clearly below Base Mendez ironically, as he lacks the means to truly do significant damage, despite being able to pierce his body with knife strikes. It's just that Mendez needed to catch Leon without him escaping and made the mistake of mutating to get longer limbs, likely more attack power to confirm a kill upon contact, etc.

Much later on in the middle of the game, Leon is able to swiftly defeat Ada.

Timestamp at 1:41:47: ^

This would make Mid-Game Plaga Leon scale directly to or above all of Ada's feats that will be shown in the next section.

Later on in the game, remember the feat in Luis's section of him contesting an El Gigante in a tug of war? Remember who they were playing tug of war over? Leon. The same grip that smashes boulders to pieces not only gripped Leon, but was pulling on him violently, while someone of weaker, but relative enough power to briefly contest this creature, was pulling Leon from the other direction (aka Luis). The result? Leon took no damage from any of that.

Timestamp at 0:20:

Continuing on, Leon and Luis later run into Krauser, with Leon being able to hold his own in a knife fight:

Leon then takes a direct kick from Krauser that sends him flying, but is able to get up and resume the fight, before eventually being defeated and saved by Luis.

Timestamp at 2:31:00:

This shows massive growth since his fights with Mendez, as he is now taking hits from someone with far higher base stats than Mendez due to being a trained soldier, and one of the best at that, on top of having the Superior Species Plaga that is further increased by the Amber. And Leon is able to recover and get up, resuming the fight and is capable of physically contesting Krauser's blows with his own.

Now, Leon once he reaches the military island and meets Saddler gets a massive power boost beyond normal. Why? Well, it isn't fully confirmed, but we know he got stronger just based off his feats alone, which I will get into soon, but as for the reason WHY he got stronger, I believe it is the amber.

In the first note of "The Amber Explained" section of this RT, it states that even in suspended animation, the Amber has influence on the plaga. In fact, the Amber hasn't even been awakened so far. So it seems like the Amber simply being near other parasites strengthens them.

Once Leon reaches Saddler, he and Ashley are by a massive collection of Amber not concealed in a container, which to me, says that the Amber would've increased the strength of Leon's Superior Species Plaga and also furthered its progression in taking him over.

This is all made more likely by the fact that Saddler chose to finally confront Leon directly after all this time right when they conveniently reached this batch of Amber, to which Saddler then starts pseudo-controlling Ashley and Leon, despite their merger with their respective plagas not being complete yet. It seems too convenient.

Timestamp at 2:58:28: ^

Now, this is merely an explanation for HOW Leon got massively stronger during the end of the game. It doesn't change the fact that he explicitly does get stronger based off his feats, which we will get into now.

Leon faces off against Krauser one final time and flat out defeats him.

Leon went from solidly losing to Base Amber Krauser to directly blocking an attack from Second Form Krauser's blade arm in a scripted gameplay segment where you can only block it, and then mocking him by saying "So that's your true power? Oh I'd ask for a refund."

Timestamp at 13:44 for the block and 15:56 for the defeat:

And a reminder, Krauser's mutations don't have weak points like Mendez's and instead increase power and defensive capabilities. Leon damaging him with guns is a gameplay thing only.

Lastly, at the end of the game, Leon also tanks an attack from Saddler that completely rips through a reinforced steel platform and sends him flying. After that, he intercepts a strike from Saddler's main body, then uses his strength to rip his limb off and stab him with his own staff. And after that, he withstands one final desperate attack from Saddler that hits Leon so hard that he goes out of sight in an instant.

Timestamps are at 7:20, 8:57, 9:20 respectively:

And so that wraps up Leon. I think it's clear that he's the strongest character in this RT by the end.

Ada Wong

Ada is a mercenary that is working for G L O B A L - S A T U R A T I O N (TM) to retrieve the Amber, in order to progress towards the goal of G L O B A L - S A T U R A T I O N (TM).

We see Pre-Plaga Ada dominate a group of Ganado, while fighting Base U-III, with her being strong enough to take them down with physical strikes.

Timestamp at 13:25:

She then gets infected by its plaga variant.

Timestamp at 13:50: ^

Luis also mentions that she is infected.

Timestamp at 1:23:52: ^

Ada after being infected is strong enough rip down a partially attached steel platform with ease.

Timestamp at 2:09:18: ^

Ada kicks down a large stone pillar, followed by her stabbing Base Saddler in the mouth so hard that the back of his head is blown out.

Timestamps at 3:22:18 and 3:22:26 respectively: ^

And finally, the narrative further seems to support the idea that guns are irrelevant to characters at this level (provided they have no special internal weak point and lack the mobility to dodge), as Ada taunts Wesker for pulling a gun on her at close range, with her saying "You think that gun's gonna be enough?"

Now yes, G L O B A L - S A T U R A T I O N (TM) would stomp Ada, but she's not aware of his physical capabilities. Her being confident in his gun being irrelevant against her at close range to the point she felt safe taunting him is just more evidence in the end that guns don't matter at this tier.

Timestamp at 2:47:20: ^

This is even more impressive when you factor in that the guns of Resident Evil seem more impressive than real life ones, as 9mm handguns can break large chains holding up massive stone statues.

Timestamp at 3:18:29: ^

It is done twice too, meaning it isn't an outlier, as we see Leon break another chain with a single shot.

Timestamp at 1:10:34: ^

Addressing Anti-feats

There seems to be what appears to be an anti-feat for the strength of Luis and Leon when they appear to struggle to break basic handcuffs.

Timestamp at 33:58:

My argument for this is that Leon was just knocked out by Mendez, and likely Luis as well, so they're dazed, just awaking from consciousness, and likely need time to gather their strength. This is backed up by Luis saying "And I'm beat up enough as it is."

Timestamp at 34:20: ^

There are two more where Leon can't get the gates to the church open by force and a certain blocked entrance way after Saddler possesses Ashley and makes her flee from him. I don't really have much to defend here, as there isn't really any added context to explain why this should be the case. My pseudo-headcanon is simply that some manmade structures are sturdier/more durable compared to IRL, which isn't entirely baseless, as guns clearly are more impressive in RE, but yeah. I don't think you can feasibly argue two gate scenes where Leon just jiggles said gates a bit invalidate literally everything else in the game, even if you reject any pseudo-headcanon explanations.

Addressing Who and Who Doesn't Scale

This will be very quick. I'm simply going to address who and who doesn't scale to these characters outside of RE4.

Chris: I don't think he scales to Leon anymore as of the time of writing this, which could easily change. But the only reason Chris gets concrete scaling to Leon is due to their RE6 fight. However, it should be noted that Leon didn't know who Chris was and was just trying to stop what he thought was a random soldier from killing Carla, who he thought was Ada, meaning that Leon would logically hold back, as to not cause serious injury. Chris, on the other hand, was bloodlusted and logically would've presumed that the person that intercepted his attack against Carla was an ally of hers and thus an enemy that he must kill.

I also think Vendetta gives credence to the fact that Leon is way above Chris currently, as Chris lost to Glenn Arias badly in their first fight. He did better the second time, but he was still losing and only won via an environmental advantage. Base Glenn had the physicals in both fights to completely rival Chris, while Leon's was keeping up with a Glenn and Deigo-fused Tyrant, being capable of dodging its attacks and hitting it so hard that it recoiled in pain, with Leon only losing that fight due to bad equipment, no knife seemingly, and a bad environment with little room to maneuver.

Jill: I think Jill by the time of Dead Island scales to Leon at least somewhat. She trained under Wesker in RE5, got an extreme amp that may have been partially permanent, on top of just being much older and more experienced compared to her RE3 self. I doubt she can actually defeat or even equal Leon personally, but she should be in his general physical realm quite blatantly.

Jake Muller: Jake only beat a weakened Ustanak that took a ton of damage throughout the course of the game and got overwhelmed by a group of J'avo. Next.

Svetlana: She fought a Leon specifically trying not to kill her, with neither landing blows on each other. However, Leon would be less hesitant to seriously injure her, as he didn't consider her an ally like Chris, so she may scale a bit. There's implications she has a plaga inside of her too, so yeah, leaning towards her scaling, but I don't see any evidence that puts her equal to Leon in a fight to the death. Leon still wasn't trying to kill her, while Svetlana was and resorted to throwing him away from her (to which he effortlessly rebounded from btw), just so her soldiers could fire upon him.

G L O B A L - S A T U R A T I O N (TM): Probably scales to Leon's level, if not higher. Regen will ensure Leon can't beat him regardless.

And the OG version still has what it takes to defeat Leon, mainly due to weaker, but kinda comparable physicals, on top of regen Leon can't deal with.

Probably more characters I could think of, but these are the most relevant ones.

And I skipped over posting scans here, since that'd start to derail this RT too much.

With that being said, feel free to share your thoughts down in the comments, including any potential disagreements. However, I'd just like to note that I'm not going to actively engage anyone disagreeing with who scales and all that, as this isn't a versus debate thread. Try to keep that to a minimum if you will. You can tell me if you disagree though and post some reasons. I just don't want the thread to get completely derailed with a full-on debate over such a minor bonus segment of this RT.

People who may be interested: @pedrolopesmateus@eredin12@renegadism

@seventhmoon: This looks amazing man, great work. It will take quite some time for me to read it all.

@seventhmoon: pretty cool.

@seventhmoon: it woul be cool if you tagged @a_marques. He would prob disagree with you on Chris not scaling to Leon.

Neat

Only saw this now. Sure, though I don't want this thread to derail into a debate about that. I'd be willing to debate that in a versus debate though for the fun of it. But I'll tag anyways. Only tagged so few because I don't remember the names of most of the RE debaters yet.

@a_marques