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"In case you haven't already figured it out,...the monster that's been tearing my precinct apart is yet another product, of the G-virus...the ultimate bioweapon!
" — Irons, threatening Claire Redfield and giving her information on William Birkin's project. |
Brian Irons was Raccoon City's corrupt Chief of Police of the city's local precinct.
Biography
Prior to Outbreak
Irons was arrested on two rape charges as a university student. He underwent psychiatric evaluation as a result of the charges, but was released due to circumstantial evidence, as well as his phenomenal academic standing.
According to Marvin Branagh, Irons was said to be the mediator in the deal that resulted in the purchase of the art museum that would be refurbished into the R.P.D. headquarters.
In addition Irons' financial records show that he had been taking bribes from Umbrella, particularly from William Birkin himself for five years before the Raccoon City Destruction Incident.[1][2] To keep Umbrella from any harm, and ensure that he continued to receive bribes, Irons closed down the S.T.A.R.S. division after the Mansion Incident and stopped them from continuing their investigation.[3] He also was given orders by Birkin to put the various surviving S.T.A.R.S. members under surveillance, as he knew they were snooping into Birkin's latest project, with Birkin even implying a request that Irons kill them and make it look like an accident if they go far enough. He also gained $10,000 in bribe money. Eventually, he was also ordered to be on the lookout for suspicious persons due to Umbrella trying to take Birkin's G-virus sample.[4]
Irons also paid several visits to the sewers meeting room on the 6th and 16th of every month for meetings regarding the lab. On July 7, however, he arrived in a grim mood (presumably due to Birkin's requests becoming more unreasonable). On August 16, he was late to meeting with the sewer manager, and was in a grim enough mood that he nearly threatened to shoot the manager, to the latter's shock.[5]
By September 1998 Irons became concerned with safety due to recent events and decided to relocate weapons to various caches around the precinct. This left the Raccoon Police Department at a distinct disadvantage when the Raccoon City Outbreak began. In actuality, leaving the RPD at a significant disadvantage had been his intention all along, as he had learned beforehand that Raccoon City was to be infected with the t-Virus, and intended for all of the city to die and leave no survivors.[6]
Raccoon City Outbreak
By September 23, Irons was already aware that the outbreak had begun. Irons began to become paranoid that he too was infected with the T-Virus and began to act more and more irrationally as he started to spread confusion among the police force in an effort to prevent anyone from leaving the city alive. By September 26 he decided to kill off any surviving officers,[6] seeing it as a game. An officer named Ed was one of his notable victims.
Chief Irons in his office with Warren when he meets Claire in RE 2
Claire Redfield first met the Chief in his office with the recently deceased body of mayor Michael Warren's daughter on top of his desk. He initially holds her up using a Desert Eagle, thinking she's a zombie but instead greets her and confirms his identity as the chief of police, as well as apologizing for his error. He also intended to ask for Claire's identity, but decided against it since she'll most likely end up succumbing to the outbreak like all the others. Noticing her attention to the corpse on his desk, Irons also explains how he had failed his task in protecting the mayor's daughter, although he then proceeded to give very creepy statements about her appealing physical appearance before dismissing it by saying she's most likely going to become a zombie within the hour. When Claire asks how they can stop the infection, he answered that there were only two ways to stop it, in a manner of speaking: Putting a bullet through her brain, or decapitating her completely before absentmindedly mentioning his hobby as a taxidermist. He then tells Claire that he would like to be alone and later disappears from the office by using his secret door to escape to the basement. He left his diary nearby in which he described, in addition to his intentions to sabotage evacuation efforts and even kill several of his own officers, his desires to hunt down the girl and use her body as a stuffed trophy, having previously indicated to Claire he was once an avid taxidermist. He lied to Claire, claiming that the mayor's daughter died after being attacked by a Zombie.
As William Birkin's mutated form searched the police station for his daughter Sherry, he crossed paths with Irons in the chamber below his office. Irons was quickly overpowered and infected with a G-embryo. Birkin left him alive to gestate the pupa.
Claire confronted Irons one last time in the same hidden room. Irons, congratulating Claire on finding his taxidermy room, then declares he's intending to have everyone in Raccoon City die. He then threatens Claire, also admitting he was on Umbrella's payroll when lamenting that Umbrella had their monsters ruin Raccoon City. Claire (who had already suspected his involvement with them thanks to evidence implicating him) then attempted to inquire about the G-virus, with Irons then proceeding to explain what the G-virus was under the rationale that she might as well learn what it is before killing her, including the identity of its creator, William Birkin, and also revealing the relationship between Dr. Birkin and Sherry. He also deduced that Umbrella was going to "cover [their] tracks", with Irons vowing to take Claire with him in the event that he dies at Umbrella's hand as a result. However, he was unable to kill Claire, as he was killed shortly thereafter by the G-larvae erupting from his body.
Personality
Irons is shown to have an uneasy relationship with people within his own police force as well as members of the press. His criminal history was found out through a fax sent to Chris Redfield that was found by his sister Claire Redfield in the S.T.A.R.S. office.[1] In his diary, he mentioned that Edward's pained expression when he shot him in the back was "positively exquisite" and "beautiful," suggesting that Irons was also extremely sadistic and a likely psychopath.[6] He was also extremely selfish to an unhealthy degree, which was best showcased in how he attempted to ensure the city died with him, even going out of his way to sabotage police efforts to evacuate the civilians, all because he became paranoid that he had been infected with the t-Virus. Similarly, he also had a severe lack of control over his temper. This was best demonstrated when he was tasked with going to the sewers on August 16, where he managed to threaten to shoot the Umbrella-affiliated manager in charge of the sewers simply for trying to tell a joke with the chief. This short temper was similarly demonstrated when Claire encountered him just prior to his death, where, when she asked him to calm down and tell her what happened, Irons angrily told her to shut up and proceeded to threateningly point his gun at her while ranting angrily that she can't ever understand what happened.
Ben Bertolucci is able to intercept letters from Umbrella to Irons showing the connection between the two.
In Resident Evil Outbreak File #2, Irons is implied to drink on the job or at the very least keep a secret stash of alcohol on hand. A bottle of liquor belonging to him is found in the east office of the R.P.D. during "desperate times". In addition, a file found during "outbreak" in Resident Evil Outbreak file #1 as well as the presence of human skulls in his taxidermy room implies that Irons was a serial killer and killed at least eight women whose profiles resembled that of Mayor Warren's daughter sometime between the Mansion Incident and the Raccoon City Destruction Incident.
Taste in the Arts
Irons was a collector of fine art, and used his bribes from Umbrella to purchase a variety of artwork including paintings and statues. His secretary's diary shows that he had leered when he received the painting of the nude woman[notes 1] being hanged. He uses this painting as well as a statue to hide the Virgin Heart jewels as well as other "keys" to progress through the various hidden areas of the police station. His secretary had accidentally leaned into one such statue, which set him off. Whether this was over the protection of his secrets or the safety of the artwork is unknown.
Irons was a taxidermist by hobby earlier in life and was ready to stuff the mayor's daughter and display her as a trophy. His office was full of stuffed animals including bears, eagles, a raccoon, and others. A file found during "end of the road" in Resident Evil Outbreak file #2 also strongly suggests that not only does he auction off several taxidermied animals from the defunct Rams museum off the books and illegally, but that some of his auctions involved stuffed endangered species members.
Other Appearances
- Brian Irons made a cameo appearance in the Mini-Game, The Mercenaries - Operation: Mad Jackal in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. You meet him at the end of the mini game when you manage to get into the Warehouse Save Room, the end point of the mini-game where he beckons a woman to deliver a briefcase that presumably contained the player's payment. His face is hidden by shadows when the player meets him, though.
- In the prototype version of Resident Evil 2 (known as Resident Evil 1.5), Irons was originally intended to be an ally to the player, as opposed to him being an antagonist which he was in the final version of the game. He was injured (apparently he was bitten by zombies) and was laying down on a couch as a result of his wounds. Eventually he sacrificed himself, allowing the players to escape from an imminent death.
- Brian Iron's signature is seen in the ID cards of Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine in the first Resident Evil game and its remake.
- His death is different in Leon A, Claire B: He is pulled in the trap door by the mutated Birkin. His screams are heard as Claire listens. When Claire approaches the trap door, the mutilated top half of his corpse flies out of the trap door and lands on the floor. This version of his demise was later used for the WildStorm interpretation of the character.
- The other death scenario is when a mutated Birkin inserts an embryo in Brian's body and the player listens to his screams before entering the room, when inside the room Brian seems to be fine but after a few seconds a G embryo bursts out of his chest and escapes down the ladder to be confronted later by Claire.
- In Darkside Chronicles, Brian Irons had a brief appearance in the level Memories of a Lost City, where he encounters Claire Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy, and Sherry Birkin. He is seen with a blonde cadaver in a white dress (implied to be the Mayor's daughter) and voicing his intentions to stuff her. Kennedy then recognizes Irons, with Claire asking how he knew him. Irons then accuses them of being after the G-virus due to their snooping around. He then notices Sherry and recognizes her as William Birkin's daughter, although he is interrupted mid-sentence by painful spasms, knocking over the cadaver he had earlier been working on and weakly asking for help as it was not supposed to happen as "G" emerged from his body.
- The seventh clue of Inserted Evil leads to a collection of documents relating to Chief Irons; including a complaint by his secretary, a statement by Irons addressing the complaint (and a more strongly-worded rough draft which implicated Umbrella), a report by Umbrella detailing Irons's increasingly erratic behavior, ultimately recommending that Umbrella has to take action to ensure secrecy.
Further Notes
- In an act of censorship, the English localization of Darkside Chronicles establishes in a file Irons as having a wife, and he has a criminal past regarding domestic violence. The Japanese script for the same file instead describes his criminal past as being two cases of rape or sexual assault. The same file was also censored in Umbrella Chronicles as well.
- In the scene where Brian Irons relays everything he knows about the G-Virus while threatening Claire in his taxidermy room, the localization erroneously inferred that the T-00 (referred to as "that monster that is tearing apart the precinct") was created by the G-Virus and that it was the ultimate bio-weapon when Brian Irons was explaining its properties to Claire. In the original script, he instead commented that the virus has the ability to rapidly advance human evolution without even mentioning the T-00.
- Brian Irons was armed with a Desert Eagle when he met Claire and threatened her with it at a later encounter.
Gallery
Sources
- Notes
- ↑ In the localization, the gender of the subject being hung was left ambiguous, but the Japanese version made very clear that the subject was female, in reference to his past violence against women.
- References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Resident Evil 2, Federal Police Report (Mail To Chris)
- ↑ Resident Evil 2, Secret file
- ↑ Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (2007), "Raccoon City Police Department"
- ↑ Capcom. Resident Evil 2. (Capcom). File: Mail to the chief.
- ↑ ">Resident Evil 2 (1998), file: "Sewer manager diary".
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Capcom. Resident Evil 2. (Capcom). File: Chief's Diary.
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