Ethan Winters’ poor hands are the laughingstock of the internet

Ethan Winters has it pretty rough. Not only did he have his left hand chainsawed off by his then-girlfriend Mia in Resident Evil 7 (and generally suffer through the horrifying events of that game), he loses his wife and child at the start of Resident Evil Village. Plus, Capcom seems intent on using Ethan’s hands for gratuitous torture porn throughout the events of Village.

Adding insult to injury, now the internet is making fun of Ethan for constantly getting his hands chopped off, chewed off, slashed, and stabbed. It comes with the territory when you’re a first-person protagonist in a Resident Evil game, I suppose.

[Warning: Spoilers for Resident Evil Village follow. There’s also some horror movie gore in here.]

In the first few hours of Village, Ethan succumbs to the following hand-related trauma:

• A Lycan bites off two of Ethan’s fingers and part of his left hand
• Lady Dimitrescu slices open his hand to get a taste of his blood
• The Dimitrescu daughters hang Ethan up on hooks by his hands (and he pulls himself free by ripping them out of his palms in the most painful way possible)
• Lady Dimitrescu cuts his right hand clean off!

Over the course of two games, Ethan has had BOTH of his hands severed and reclaimed full use of each, in part thanks to Resident Evil’s magical healing herbs. Ethan simply has to drench his hands in First Aid Med, a miracle sauce that not only heals skin, muscle, and bone, but also repairs sleeves(?). It’s a magic potion, basically.

Poor Ethan’s hands have since become endless meme fodder for Resident Evil players.

At least Ethan’s suffering all this hand-related trauma for admirable reasons! He may not be “smart” but he is ... persistent.