- See also: Claire Redfield (film version)
| “ | Look, you have two choices here: kill or be killed, your call! | ” |
Claire Redfield is a current member of the human rights organization, Terra Save. She is the younger sister of BSAA operative and former S.T.A.R.S. member Chris Redfield. Claire is a survivor of the Raccoon City Incident, which took place in September 1998 after she travelled to the city in search of her brother. After escaping the city with the help of Leon S. Kennedy, Claire ventured to Europe to continue her search for Chris. In December, she was captured by Umbrella after infiltrating their Paris Medical Lab, and transported to the Umbrella owned Rockfort Island and imprisoned. When Rockfort Island was attacked by a mysterious outbreak of the T-Virus, Claire tried to escape with fellow prisoner; Steve Burnside, leading to both of their involvement's in the Antarctic outbreak. Her brother soon learned of her situation and rescued her. In 2005, Claire confronted the T-Virus again when she arrived at Harvardville Airport to meet some friends. While survivng in the airport, she was reunited with Leon, now a U.S. Government agent, who had been sent to deal with the outbreak.
Biography
Early life
Claire grew up with her older brother Chris. Eventually, Chris joined the US Air Force, while Claire became a student at university, and took an interest in motorcycles.
Raccoon City Incident
| “ | I never thought any of this stuff my brother taught me would work! | ” |
Claire during the Raccoon City incident, 1998
Claire arrived to Raccoon City in search of her brother, but found something much worse. After she is saved from a zombie by Leon S. Kennedy, Claire and Leon hatch a plan to get out of Raccoon City as soon as they can. After being separated by a zombified trucker, Claire and Leon headed towards the police station from opposite directions, where they hoped to rendezvous. Claire manages to get into the Raccoon City Police Department, where she met an injured police officer named Marvin Branagh, who told her that they lost contact with her brother Chris, and his comrades Jill; Barry; Brad and Rebecca 10 days ago.
Claire explores the deserted police station and eventually finds Leon reading Chris' Diary in the S.T.A.R.S. office, which she reads and finds out that Chris is no longer in Raccoon City, as he went to the Umbrella HQ in Paris, and asks Claire to forgive him for not informing her as to where he was going. Claire eventually runs into the corrupt Chief Brian Irons, who then attempts to kill her with a machete, and twelve-year-old Sherry Birkin, the daughter of two important Umbrella researchers, William Birkin and Annette Birkin. Claire encountered Annette on at least one occasion, during which she accused Claire of being a spy for Umbrella.
As Sherry and Claire looked for a way out of the city, they were stalked by the mutated William Birkin. Whilst inside the sewers, Sherry and Claire were separated, during which time Sherry was found by William and infected with the G-virus. Upon reuniting, Claire attempted to find a cure for Sherry within Umbrella's underground labs. While in the laboratory, Claire ran into Annette one more time, before William arrives and fatally wounds his former wife.
Before dying, Annette gave Claire the instructions for creating the G-virus antidote. Claire contacts Leon to take Sherry to an escape train before the lab self-destruct sequence activated. She manages to create the antidote, and when finished, attempts to flee. However, she and Leon (who was looking for her since his communicator was sparked up) was thwarted once again by Birkin, forcing them to fight the monster, but Leon instead rushes back to the train while Birkin is wounded, leaving Claire to finish off and incapacitate it. Claire then rushed to the train, joined Leon, and successfully administered the vaccine to Sherry. Unfortunately, Birkin, now a gigantic amorphous blob, attacked the train, thus triggering another self-destruct sequence. Claire, Leon, and Sherry escaped moments before the train exploded, destroying William once and for all. Not long after their escape, Leon urged her to leave them and go search for her brother, but goes to the neighboring town first to wash off the nightmares she experienced.
Rockfort Island Incident
Claire on Rockfort Island, 3 months after the Raccoon City incident.
| “ | I don't know what went on between you two, but you have it all wrong. My brother is not the kind of person you think he is. | ” |
Three months after her escape from Raccoon City, Claire infiltrated Umbrella's Paris facility in search of her lost brother, Chris. At some point in her investigation, her presence was detected, and a security team was dispatched along with a military chopper to eliminate her. After evading the security force, and having narrowly evaded helicopter gunfire, she was ambushed by the team's remainder, and captured by Rodrigo Juan Raval. She was then taken to Rockfort Island to be imprisoned. Upon her arrival, she is knocked unconscious. She later awakens to the sound of explosions and is freed by a wounded Rodrigo. Due to her strong will to survive and to find her brother, she was able to find her way through the island once it had been attacked by an unknown enemy. Another viral outbreak happened on the island. During her attempt to escape, Claire ran into Steve Burnside, another prisoner on the island, and the two eventually joined forces. Soon, after finding out that Umbrella was spying on her brother, she contacted Leon to tell him and to come get them (as Steve checked her out). During this time, Claire also encountered Alfred Ashford, who insisted that Claire had led enemy forces to the base, and who then released multiple B.O.W's to stop her. Claire also had a run-in with her brother's old rival, Albert Wesker, who decided to leave her as bait to get Chris to arrive at the island. As all of this happened, Claire soon found out about Alexia Ashford, and had a supposed run-in with her, only to be saved by Steve, who then shot "Alexia", revealing that it was none other than Alfred, calling him a "cross-dressing freak". As the two found a cargo plane to escape the island, Alfred then sent out a T-103 Tyrant (model number 078) to deal with the two survivors, and also had the plane's auto-pilot redirected, sending the two survivors directly to Antarctica. Upon arriving at the base, Claire and Steve found that the entire facility had been infected by the tyrant virus. They managed to locate an Australian research base nearby. After having one last showdown with Alfred, she and Steve used a snowmobile to escape the Australian base, but were forced to deal with Nosferatu before leaving. Things seemed fine as the two headed for the base, until a dying Alfred managed to awaken the hibernating Alexia from stasis, who then held them captive.
When Chris finally arrived at the Antarctic facility, he managed to rescue Claire, but was separated from her once again by Alexia. To make matters worse, Claire soon found Steve, who had been infected with the t-Veronica virus, thus causing him to mutate. Claire was forced to escape from the monster, only to be nearly killed by a giant tentacle. Steve suddenly came to his senses, and freed Claire, only to be mortally wounded in the process. As he reverted back to his human form, he confessed his love to Claire, and died by her side.
Though emotionally distraught from what happened to Steve, Claire managed to give Chris instructions for initializing a self-destruct sequence, before eventually reuniting with him. After Chris killed the mutated form of Alexia once and for all, he attempted to escape with Claire, only to be interrupted by Wesker.
Once their confrontation was over, Chris and Claire evacuated in a harrier, determined to bring Umbrella down, once and for all.
Harvardville Incident
| “ | Bastard! That little girl will probably have nightmares for the rest of her life because of you! | ” |
Claire at the airport in Harvardville
Claire shooting zombies
After Chris rescued Claire, the Redfield sibling parted ways. Chris joined the BSAA, while Claire joined a non-governmental human rights organization called Terrasave. Seven years after the Raccoon City incident and the Rockfort Island incident, Claire arrives at Harvardville Airport to meet a friend who was part of Terra Save as well. Claire's friend, Aunt Chawla, asks Claire to watch over her niece, Rani Chawla, as Aunt wants to bring the "limo" around front. Claire and Rani introduce themselves and wait for Aunt to come back. As Claire and Rani are waiting,they see senator Ron Davis comes on the airport TV and passes a comment which Claire and Frederic Downing find rather pathetic.
Frederic introduced himself and then leaves. Ron, in disguise, and his bodyguards try to leave the airport until Rani spots him out as "The bad guy we saw on T.V!" . As Ron pushed past the reporters, he spotted a man standing around acting like a zombie. Claire takes off the man's mask and he is arrested by the police. The Police Chief asked if Claire was involved with the protest and she responded cautiously, knowing the cop would arrest her too. The cop then thought he spotted another protester, so he went to stop him. It turned out that it was a real zombie, which attacked and killed the cop instantly. Moments later, Ron's bodyguards were killed as well.
The airport was in chaos, and Claire went to go get Rani, who was still in the rest area. She spotted her and ran in her direction until she ran into Curtis Miller, who seemed rather suspicious. Claire focused her attention on Rani and was stopped once again when the senator grabbed her arm and begged for help. Moments later, a plane crashed through the terminal, and Claire threw herself and the senator to the ground to avoid being hit. The airplane door opened, and zombies started coming out from it, bringing Claire back to her nightmares in Raccoon City.
Claire, Rani, Ron and others took refuge in the VIP lounge of the airport. Claire sent out a 911 call for rescue, which was received by SRT member Angela Miller. After calling 911 and waiting for help, a sudden scream followed by gunfire gave Claire the knowledge of other survivors. Equipped with an umbrella, Claire made her way into the hallways to find the scream. She eventually came into contact with her old friend, Leon S. Kennedy, and SRT members Angela Miller and Greg Glenn. The group headed back to the lounge and tried to think of an escape route. Leon suggested they head through the lobby, seeming as if it is the widest area. Ron disagrees until Claire agrees with Leon, saying that the zombies are slow and the group can get around them.
Ron lets out his frustration on Claire until Leon informed the senator that she was one of the survivors of the Raccoon City Incident, giving the reasons why she knew what to do with the outbreak. The group ran through the lobby with Leon, Angela, and Greg killing the surrounding zombies. As the group reached the end of the lobby, Greg is bitten, and tells the group to go on without him. They sheltered themselves up on a large broken piece of debris caused from the plane. The zombies start to surround the group, and zombies from the plane managed to get the door down and attack the group. Ron decides to leave without them and knocks Rani off the debris.
Claire hears a scream and notices Rani is being attacked by zombies. Claire, without a weapon, jumps down to protect Rani. Leon goes to help Claire until he is pinned by a zombie. He throws Claire his gun and she kills all of the attacking zombies in an instant. Claire and Rani then rejoin the rest of the group, and make it out of the airport alive. As Rani reunites with Aunt, Claire meets back up with the Senator and Frederic Downing, the man she saw earlier in the airport. As Frederic talks about a vaccination, Claire is convinced that the current outbreak is Terra Save's fault. Leon comforts Claire and tells her that it isn't her fault. At that time, the vaccine trucks blow up, which makes Leon, Claire and Angela investigate. They meet up with Ron and Frederic. Claire tells them that she thinks Curtis Miller might be the terrorist.
Eventually Claire heads to WilPharma with Frederick. After hearing a conversation between Frederic and Ron, she learned that the G-virus was being researched there, just as Frederic had to go fix the server. As she called Leon, a time bomb was set off, causing a shard of glass to embed itself within her leg, severely affecting her mobility. Leon found Claire, and helped her get to an elevator which would lead to her escape. Instead of leaving, Claire found the control room and tried to help Leon and Angela escape from Curtis, who had mutated due to a self-injection of the G-virus.
Once Curtis was disposed of, the three survivors meet up outside along with Ron. Claire finds out that Frederic was behind the whole incident at the airport. Leon, Claire and Angela went to arrest Frederic Downing, who had a sample of the G-Virus with him. Angela arrests Frederic, and the cops come and take over the rest of the situation. The next day, Leon and Claire met up with Angela. They told Angela about Frederic's plans and that her brother Curtis was innocent. With the threat of any further outbreaks temporarily subdued, Leon and Claire opt to meet again under more normal circumstances. Leon rushes off to his next mission in a helicopter whilst Claire decides to leave with Rani and Aunt in their vehicle.
Wardrobe
Claire's original outfit in Resident Evil 2 consisted of a one-piece black , short legged cycling skinsuit worn under a pink vest with a "Made in Heaven" design (which she gives to Sherry during the course of the game), pink-colored shorts, brown boots, and black riding gloves. Her alternate outfit in the game consists of a leather jacket and trousers with a "Let Me Live" design on the back and a red bandanna. In the N64 version, this outfit is colored purple and features the Angel Studios logo (the company that designed the N64 port) on the back. Her dark, layered, auburn hair is pulled back into a high ponytail with two free locks parted in the middle, framing the sides of her face.
Updated version of the cycling skinsuit
Claire's original cycling skinsuit
In Resident Evil - CODE: Veronica, she wears a different red vest (this time with a "Let Me Live" design) over a short black half tee-shirt with jeans as her standard outfit. She wears an alternate outfit in the minigame Battle Game which consists of red and black hot pants and tank top with Umbrella's logo on the sides, and white boots. Claire is also shown wearing a third costume consisting of a red skin-tight unitard in the game's unlockable art gallery, but she never appeared in-game in this outfit.
The titles on the back of her jackets (in her original outfits and alternate ones as well) are homages to songs by the band, Queen (One of the games designers was once questioned about this link in an interview and expressed that they were indeed fans of the band).
In Resident Evil: Degeneration, Claire wears a tan, short-sleeved shirt with a red, long-sleeved shirt underneath it, along with khaki pants.
In the Resident Evil 2 portions of Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, Claire sports an entirely new outfit from her original biker suit. She still has the black, short-legged skinsuit, but it is now covered with denim shorts and a dark red vest featuring a much wider collar, resembling her CODE: Veronica vest. She also now sports Western-style boots. She also sports a Western-style side bag. Her CODE: Veronica attire seems to be slightly altered in Darkside Chronicles as well. Everything remains the same, but her jeans have holes in them and this time her hair is parted on the left side of her head and pulled down into a low ponytail. Her remodeled CODE: Veronica outfit is used once again in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D.
Personality
Throughout the series, Claire showed signs of emotions either concealed or non-existent in most of the characters in the series. Thus, she is often considered as the most emotional character by fans. Claire also develops very close relationships with other characters like Leon, Steve, Sherry, and Rani to name a few. But the closest relationship she has is with her brother Chris, as shown in CODE: Veronica.
Claire seemed to have troubles surviving Raccoon City at the time, but with the little training she had from using a gun and help from Leon, she was able to get out of the city in one piece. She gained experience with zombies during the Rockfort Island invasion and in Antarctica which helped her survive most encounters, although she receives help from Steve and Chris at times when she was in danger. It's been seven years since those events and Claire no longer fears the zombies or any other biohazard creatures. She knows their strengths and weaknesses as well as how to keep track of her surroundings. Despite her expertise, Leon once again saved her in Degeneration, the same way they met back in Raccoon City.
In the films however, Claire is introduced as stronger, tougher, more athletic and capable than her video game counterpart. In Resident Evil: Extinction, her personality seems a lot different than her video game counterpart. She appears as somewhat arrogant, but acts like a leader. One similarity to her video game counterpart is that Claire also takes on a sisterly role to many of the younger survivors (in particular, K-Mart, who is commonly found in her company).
In other media
Resident Evil Survivor 2: Code Veronica
Claire also appears in Resident Evil Survivor 2: Code Veronica. A first person shooter during the events of the original Code Veronica, however, the events of the game are revealed to be a dream Claire is having during her escape with Chris at the end of Code Veronica.
Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D
Claire will be appearing in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D as a playable character. In the game, she is shown to have melee attacks similar to her brother's, specializing in hand to hand combat.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
Claire will appear in Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, along side Leon. The story takes place during the events of Resident Evil 2 with an Umbrella Task Force hunting the two survivors down. It is unknown if the two will be playable characters.
Resident Evil: The Deck Building Game
Claire's card in Alliance.
Claire is a character card in the Resident Evil DBG. Her abilities allow her to accumulate more ammunition and gold, making weapons such as machine guns and shotguns perfect for her. Her Level 1 ability adds +10 ammo to any ammunition cards, which allows her to make x30 ammo cards into x40 cards. This is a valuable skill when combined with weapons such as the Full-Bore Machine Gun or Gatling Gun. Her Level 2 ability adds +10 gold to ammunition cards. Although this is rather pointless unless she has additional Buy actions. Claire has 70 health; the lowest amount of health in the game alongside Rebecca, Ada, Steve, and HUNK. A new Claire card has been inlcuded in the expansion set, Alliance. This card of Claire is based on the Darkside Chronicles rendition of her Code: Veronica appearance. Claire reaps interesting benefits from using Green Herbs and Red Herbs. When she trashes either of them from use, her Level 1 effect adds 20 damage to her base damage that turn. Additionally, if she combines both herbs and trashes them, her Level 2 effect doubles all damage she deals that turn. This version of Claire has 80 health.
Trivia
- In Resident Evil 1.5 (the original prototype version of Resident Evil 2), a blonde-haired motorcyclist named Elza Walker was featured as the heroine of the game instead of Claire Redfield. She was unrelated to Chris Redfield and was instead a college student attending Raccoon University and wore a red and white leather suit with the Raccoon University logo (probably a uniform). Otherwise, the character was identical to Claire and the two even shared the same personal data. According to Research on Biohazard 2: Final Edition, Elza's backstory was similar to Claire's, in which she comes to Raccoon in search of a missing person. In Resident Evil 1.5, Elza's supporting characters were Sherry Birkin (like in the released version) and an early version of Robert Kendo (the gun shop owner), which was originally known as "John". The reason for transforming Elza into Claire was done to create a greater tie between the original game and the sequel without reusing an old character.
- In the Nintendo DS game Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble there is a picture of one of the enemy foot-soldiers dressed as Claire.
- Claire is the only recurring main character in the Resident Evil series to maintain the same voice actress (Alyson Court) throughout all of her voiced appearances in the series.
- Claire wears a red jacket that looks similar to her jacket in Resident Evil Code: Veronica, in the film Resident Evil: Afterlife.
- Claire, and Sheva are the only main female characters to have encountered lickers.
- CAPCOM had originally planned not to have any siblings in the series, but after a few changes in the storyline for the games, Chris and Claire Redfield were made into a brother and sister pair.
- In Code: Veronica, Claire reunited with Chris in Antarctica after Leon contacted him about her whereabouts. In the live action film Afterlife, Chris and Claire reunited in the Los Angeles prison. However, Claire lost her memories and therefore doesn't recognize him.
- In Afterlife, the fight scene between the Redfields and Wesker is similar to the fight scene in Resident Evil 5, except Chris fought him with the help from Sheva Alomar in a tanker in Africa.
- Claire is one of the characters in the series to have a hairstyle change (the other being Jill Valentine in Resident Evil 5). In Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, her high ponytail is now a low ponytail in the Code:Veronica scenario.
- Claire's Resident Evil 2 original outfit has a "Made in Heaven" design on the back. The same logo has her brother, Chris, on the jacket of his alternate outfit, in Resident Evil.
- According to Famitsu, Claire will appear in The Mercenaries 3D, making her first appearance in Mercenaries and in camera over the shoulder view.
- Claire is pictured on the cards in both SNK vs Capcom Card Fighter's Clash and SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters Expand Edition
- Claire is one of the playable characters in Capcom's Trick'N Snowboarder.
- In the video games, there is no mention on the status of Claire's parents. In the Novels, it is stated that her father was killed at his construction job and her mother died in a car accident.
- The designs on the jackets of both of Claire's primary outfits in Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil Code: Veronica contain references to the band Queen. "Made in Heaven" (from RE2) and "Let Me Live" (from CV) are both names of Queen songs. She shares this trait with Billy Coen (whose tattoo, "Mother Love", is also the name of a Queen song).
- Claire has been confirmed for Operation Raccoon City.
Sources
Gallery
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil - CODE: Veronica
Resident Evil: Degeneration
Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles
.jpg "Claire (the Darkside Chronicles Code Veronica).jpg (18 KB)")
Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D
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