The RE4 Merchant Exemplifies Everything Great About the Game
The Resident Evil 4 merchant is one of the most absurd parts of a game that’s already jam-packed with completely ridiculous over-the-top stuff — but he also exemplifies everything that makes that game so great.
This guy first pops up in a random window like a sock puppet and then coaxes Leon to meet him around a corner with all the subtle salesmanship of a crack dealer in a 1980s anti-drug PSA. He’s vaguely menacing at first but you quickly realize how goofy he is — and that’s like so much of the resident evil series: it’s scary at first, and then it’s silly.
The merchant’s design also distills RE4 visual sensibilities into one guy: his clothes and mask and knapsack almost make him look like he stepped out of a fantasy RPG, but then he opens his coat, and it’s clear his area of expertise is the OTHER kind of RPG — And that’s really the game’s whole aesthetic, this incongruous mix of creepy old fairy tale stuff like villages and castles but also slick futuristic stuff like scientific laboratories and submachine guns with thermal scopes.
In what universe would someone trade an antique goblet covered in hand-inlaid gemstones for an automatic rifle and a spraycan of bactine? Well, in the Resident Evil universe — it doesn’t make any sense, but it works, because video games! You’ll guide Leon through the most arduous, death-defying obstacle course, fighting off unthinkable horrors, and then walk around the corner, and this chucklehead has folded out his little table and put up his spooky lantern he got from Spirit Halloween, ready to buy your dead fish and chicken eggs and sell you a laser sight for your gun.
How did he get there? It doesn’t matter, you’re always happy to see him, and he’s always happy to see you.
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