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| “ | You know that expression 'Know your enemy'? Well, that's my job. | „ |
| ~ Diana Burnwood. |
Diana Penelope Burnwood, better known as just Diana, is the deuteragonist villain of the Hitman video game series. She serves as the handler of Agent 47, providing him with clients, targets, and information.
She was voiced by Vivienne McKee, Marsha Thomason in Hitman: Absolution, and Jane Perry currently.
History
Diana was born to Sir Peter Lloyd Burnwood and his wife Lady Nancy Burnwood. She grew up wealthy and was mostly conscientious and attentive as a student. She showed great potential in oral and written communication, and was above average in maths and science.
Diana later attended the Wycombe Abbey School in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, starting in 1985. Around the same time, a facility in Surrey owned by Blue Seed Pharmaceuticals leaked dangerous chemicals into the water throughout the Surrey/Buckinghamshire region. Diana's younger brother James Oliver Burnwood (1980-1989). During or shortly after James' funeral, Diana's parents died in a car bombing on the orders of Blue Seed executives and their connections at the secret society
As a teenager, she fell in with a female arms dealer and gang boss named Savi, who helped her exact revenge on Blue Seed executives (as seen in the comic book series Birth of a Hitman). The first time Diana confronted one of the executives alone in his office, she hesitated to pull the trigger and the executive was killed by one of Savi's snipers. Police soon showed up to investigate the gunshots, and Diana had to flee the police. Offended that Savi would put her in such a dangerous position, she hired away Savi's best men and overthrew her.
While attending University of Oxford, majoring in psychology and/or computer science, Diana uses some of Savi's old underworld connections to maintain a small murder-for-hire business of her own, most of her clients being abused women and other everyday people under difficult circumstances. During the mid-1990s she also instructed them to kill two more Blue Seed executives, Richard Torres. She graduated with a Bachelors from Oxford, followed by a 1-year Masters degree abroad, possibly at Yale.
By 1998, Diana found a day job as a counselor at Vincent DePaul Mental Healthcare Associates in Dublin, Ireland. That year, Diana's men had apprehended Blue Seed executive Cheryl Franklin, the final name on Diana's hit list. Diana instructed them to keep Cheryl hostage until she could confront her herself, but mere minutes later, rival mercenaries rescued Cheryl by force and rammed a car into Diana's office. She fled to the United States and was nearly killed trying to assassinate Cheryl at her home, when Erich Soders (a good friend of Diana's parents) rescued her. Soders offered her a job at the ICA, on the condition that she give up her vendetta against Cheryl Franklin and the rest of Blue Seed Pharmaceuticals.
Diana apprenticed under ICA handler Robyn Gore, who had an office disguised as an accounting firm and the fake surname Smythe. In late 1999, they jointly oversaw a contract out on Bricolage Technology founder Franklin Marchand - publicly known as a producer of satellite technology, he had a side business producing chemical weapons in Afghanistan, and a leak at one of his secret plants killed at least 500 people in the immediate area. He was set to make a rare public appearance at the Place de la Concorde in Paris to announce a relief fund for impoverished people in Afghanistan. The ICA sent a four-member team to shoot Marchand, but a separate client ordered a hit on Marchand and insisted it look like an accident - 47 subdued the ICA team in rapid succession, then held a cab driver at gun point to make him run down Marchand with his car. Afterwards, Diana met with 47 in a bar and delivered ICA's offer to audition him, and strongly recommended to the ICA that they hire him.
Biography
In the prologue of the 2016 game HITMAN, Diana welcomes a young 47 into the ICA facility, introducing herself as his handler. She's under the leadership of Erich Soders, the training chief of the ICA. After a couple of simulated assassination exercises, she learns that Soders sees 47 as a threat due of his mysterious past, his uncanny skills and his lack of leverage so he planned to make his final test, a simulation of Soder's legendary mission in Cuba, fail augmenting the difficulty of it. Diana supports 47 through the test and finally awarding them field operation clearance.
In Hitman: Codename 47, Diana was only a minor character, as this was her first assignment as a handler as well as being a newly-appointed handler of an agent known only as 47, who up until that point was relatively unknown himself. As Agent 47's handler, her duties were to send him briefings and mission details before the start of a mission. However, she only communicated via texts, and never spoke to Agent 47 in person.
In Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Diana speaks to Agent 47 through an Agency communication line and details his mission briefings in voice messages. This added layers of personality to Diana, and her role was gradually expanded in subsequent games.
In Hitman: Blood Money, Diana was a double agent and faked Agent 47's death, saving the Agency from liquidation, and dodging death herself. In the end, her efforts paid off when the Agency was brought back online. It was even implied that Diana was promoted to a higher position, despite the fact that she had apparently lost contact with Agent 47.
Diana played her biggest role yet in Hitman: Absolution, after betraying the ICA to save a cloned girl named Victoria. 47 is sent to assassinate her, but merely wounds her and rescues Victoria, later saving her from Blake Dexter and his associates and assassinating ICA division chief Benjamin Travis.
In HITMAN, Diana serves as handler for a series of seemingly unrelated missions before discovering a shadow war involving Providence and the Shadow Client.
In Hitman 2, Diana, 47 and the ICA intially work on behalf of Providence to kill off the Shadow Client's allies, but Diana and 47 defect after the latter learns that the Shadow Client is Subject 6, his long-long childhood friend.
Abilities and Skills
- Manipulation: Diana proves to be quite manipulative and cunning, able to successfully fake her defection to the Franchise.
- Intellect: Diana is highly intelligent, scoring well above the 90% rate of the ICA's specialized BHL/A tests.
- Multilingual: She is fluent in 6 languages, though what they are is unknown.
Personality
In the early games, Diana is shown to be an amoral woman, not caring about who 47's targets are or even much of 47's wellbeing. However, in future games, she shows a compassionate side, being disgusted by 47's targets's evil actions.
Appearance
In HITMAN, Diana is a tall, blue-eyed, redheaded Englishwoman. She wears a black dress and blue coat.
Trivia
- Though a British national, she holds multiple citizenship, such as Swiss, British, and American passports.
- Her Agent Number is: ICA-PF-54718/BURNWOOD
- She is the one of two of Agent 47’s targets to survive their hit (with Mark Faba being the other).
