Summary
As any gamer can attest, most mothers in video games are either the best moms ever orthe absolute worst. They’re either the most tender, nurturing women in existence or the most vile. There is no in-between. And the bad moms in video games tend to be the most interesting, which makes sense.
When it comes to storytelling, terrible parents often raise compelling characters. Many villains owe their motivations to deep-rooted mommy issues. Bonus points to mothers who are so wrapped up in their evil schemes that they forget that their kids are their greatest schemes of all.Capcomis no exception to the evil mother trope. Their games feature some ofthe coldest charactersto ever call themselves a mom.
To be fair, Emma’s doing her darn best inGhost Trick: Phantom Detective. Newly separated from her husband, the Justice Minister, she struggles to balance caring for her sick daughter Amelie and meeting the deadline for her latest novel. But it’s hard for a little girl to get her much-needed rest when she’s in bed with the flu when her mom is loudly clacking away at her typewriter,loudlyexplaining the plot of her erotic prose. And when she’s not talking about the steamy subject matter, she’s banging on their neighboring tenant’s wall, screaming her head off for them to keep the noise down.
It’s also worth noting that during their separation, Emma categorically refuses to allow her husband to see his daughter, not even to wish her a happy birthday over the phone. While she has her reasons (namely, forcing him to resist the blackmail controlling his power in office), it’s an unfair punishment for Amelie. Kids shouldn’t be used as bargaining chips in their parents' marital issuesormatters of state.
Here’s an example of a good mother gone bad. Before the events ofResident Evil 7, Marguerite Baker was a paragon of true Southern hospitality. A loving and traditional wife and mother dedicated to keeping house and filling bellies with the best cooking in Louisiana. But all that changed when she wasinfected by Eveline, the bioweapon disguised as a little girl looking to add some new members to her fungal family.
By the time Ethan Winters comes to the farm, Marguerite has become a moldy, rotten husk of her formal self. Her kindly Southern mannerisms are intertwined with insults, venomous insects, and the need to violently control her “disobedient children.“Her daughter Zoecan’t wait to escape her clutches, bitterly mourning the person her mom used to be.
An evil queen with a 14-year-long reign as the worst adoptive mother ever. Ga’ran spends the first half ofSpirits of Justiceposing as the controversial-yet-seemingly-benevolent queen of Khura’in, as well as Princess Rayfa’sawe-inspiring motherand role model. But, by the end of the game’s final chapter, it’s clear that Ga’ran has all the maternal instincts of a spider. Not only has she lied to Rayfa her entire life about being her biological mother, but she spent that entire time subjecting her “daughter” to impossibly high standards and expectations. The poor girl has a full-blown panic attack in the courtroom when she crumbles under the impossible pressure, to which Ga’ran coldly dismisses her without a second thought.
While Rayfa’s adoptive father, Inga, for all his faults, came to genuinely care for Rayfa as his own child, Ga’ran makes it abundantly clear that she couldn’t care less. This royal pain’s only real concern in life is she, herself, and her.
Some parents are far more invested in their work than in their children, and then there’s this lady. Poor little Sherry is left to her own devices during the Raccoon City outbreak, relying on the kindness of strangerslike Claire Redfieldin order to escape foes like Chief Irons or her own mutated father. Meanwhile, her mother, Annette, seems far more preoccupied with securing the G-virus from interlopers like Ada Wong.
Even when Annette does finally get around tohelping Claire cure Sherryof her infection, it feels like too little, too late. Annette’s priorities are clearly science first and family second.
A lot of villainous moms can at least claim to care somewhat in their own twisted ways. They often claim their child as the reason for their evil plots to ensure their safety and protection or to provide them with a better future by any means necessary. At first glance, that seems to be the case with Morgan Fey. All the despicable crimes she committed throughout the originalAce Attorneytrilogy stem from her desire to see her precious daughter Pearl ascend to the Master of the Khurain tradition. Even if it means getting rid of her own niece, Pearl’s beloved cousin Maya, to do it.
But for all her scheming, Morgan apparently forgot to account for one tiny detail: what Pearl herself would want. Pearl is the sweetest ball of innocence in the entire franchise. She adores her big cousin and would never dream of usurping her. It was Morgan who wanted the Master’s seat. When she missed her opportunity, she began committingcrime after crimejust to live out her broken dreams vicariously through her daughter. The worst part of it all is that Pearl is largely oblivious to all of this, still believing in her mother despite the trauma she puts her through again and again.
It’s impossible to say for surewhat kind of mother Mirandawas before becoming a god-like cult leader ofResident Evil Village. She could’ve been the sweetest, most doting mama ever to her daughter Eva, and judging by the utter despair she fell into after Eva’s passing, that’s very likely the case. But in the century or so since then, it’s clear that Miranda’s grief has stripped away whatever maternal instincts she may have once had.
By the time she meets Ethan Winters, Miranda has become “Mother” to many: the lords of the four noble houses and the entire village the game takes place in. She’s loved by so many, and yet she can’t be bothered to care for any of them. They’re all nothing but test subjects to bring Eva back from the dead, things to be used and discarded. It’s a tragic irony that her desperation to reunite with her child has made her unrecognizable from the mother Eva would’ve remembered.
