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“ | It's sheer perfection. My precious G-virus. No one will ever take you away from me... | „ |
~ William Birkin, before being ambushed by HUNK and the Umbrella Security Service. |
“ | SHERRY!! | „ |
~ G in his final form. |
“ | William: You don't get away that easily... (injects himself with a syringe of G-Virus) Annette: (horrified) Good god, William. What have you done? William: (stands up) G is my creation! |
„ |
~ William after injecting himself with G-Virus before chasing Alpha Team in the remake. |
Dr. William Birkin, also known as the G mutation or The Golgotha Monster, is the secondary antagonist of the Resident Evil franchise.
He is an extremely knowledgeable virologist who became a highly and influentially decorated member of the Umbrella Corporation, to the point where both Birkin and his wife ended up being responsible for the creation of the Golgotha Virus (G-Virus).
He is also a close friend of Albert Wesker, with Birkin being the one who gave Wesker the virus that granted him his superhuman abilities, and the father of Sherry Birkin.
Portrayals[]
- In Resident Evil 2, he was voiced by Diego Matamoros.
- In Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and Resident Evil 2 Remake, he was voiced by Terence J. Rotolo.
- In Biohazard Operation Raccoon City and Biohazard RE:2, on Japanese he was voiced by Toshihiko Seki.
- He was portrayed by Jason Isaacs in the movie.
- He was portrayed by Neal McDonough in the 2021 movie.
Biography[]
Past[]
William Birkin started working for Umbrella as a researcher when he was only 16 and was assigned to a management training facility under Dr. James Marcus. While there he became good friends with a fellow researcher, Albert Wesker and the two became Marcus’s best students. Birkin and Wesker began research on the T-Virus, which they continued after the shut down of the training facility and their transfer to the Arklay Mountain facility. He had a friendly rivalry with Alex Wesker during the latter's time working for Umbrella. Birkin was proud to be the youngest researcher to ever work for Umbrella until Alexia Ashford arrived on the scene. Though only 10 years old, Alexia became head of the Antarctic Research facility and ignited great jealously from Birkin since his coworkers praised her constantly. He focused on his research and, after no results for a long time, finally created the Hunter, B.O.W. Birkin focused completely on his research from that point onward, even when Alexia was announced to be “dead” in 1983.
In 1988, he and Wesker helped to assassinate their former mentor, James Marcus and were put in charge of t-Virus research with Birkin himself being credited for the t-Virus’s creation. By that point, he had married his assistant, Annette, and had a daughter, Sherry.
Discovering the G-Virus[]
Later, Birkin and Wesker began experimenting with the NE-a parasite. One of their test subjects, Lisa Trevor, was the only subject who fully accepted the parasite into her system, while the others died shortly after it had been implanted. Birkin noticed this and examined her body structure to find that she'd had a Progenitor virus variation injected into her body many years before. This had absorbed the mutagenic organisms in her body, resulting in a new virus that Birkin called the G-virus. After receiving approval to begin further research into the G-virus, Birkin and his wife were transferred to an Underground Research Facility in Raccoon City that had been established specifically for the project. Birkin also bribed the head of the Raccoon City Police, Chief Irons, to ensure the project remained under wraps.
Arklay Mountains Incident[]
After Birkin and Wesker began looking into the Outbreak of the t-Virus in the Arklay Mountains area, they were shocked to find out that it had been caused by their former mentor, James Marcus, returned from the grave. Knowing that the truth could not get out for the sake of his career, Birkin activated the self-destruct on the training facility, destroying all of the evidence of his involvement in the conspiracy to get rid of Marcus.
Raccoon City Incident[]
Birkin finally completed his G-virus in 1998 and planned to use his research to become an Umbrella’s Executive. However, due to conflicts with his superiors, Birkin decided to sell his research to the government. He requested that the military retrieve him, but a unit of Umbrella’s Security Service, the Alpha Team, got to him first. After being shot by an overexcited soldier for either knocking a beaker over or pulling a gun on Alpha Team (depending on the continuity) Birkin was left to die with gunshot wounds from an overexcited soldier and his virus research was stolen.
Before dying, he injected himself with the G-virus, becoming a terrible monster, dubbed "G". After mutating, G went after the USS team that stole his research, cutting all of them down except the leader, HUNK, and two other members. Vials containing the T-Virus were smashed in the fight, releasing them onto rats, which caused the outbreak throughout Raccoon City. G returned to his lab where he rendered the staff unconscious and infected some of them. However one of the staff members, Monica, stole a G-virus sample and planned to escape to the surface with it. Unfortunately for her, G tracked her down and implanted her with one of his G-virus Spawn embryos. Since Monica’s DNA was not compatible with Birkin’s, she was killed when the embryo tore out of her body. Later, he began wandering around the Raccoon City Police Department and came across a few of the survivors of the outbreak, including his daughter, Sherry. G implanted one of his embryos into Brian Irons, who was not compatible and killed when the embryo burst from his body and also killing a reporter named Ben Bertolucci who locked himself in the precinct's cell. He was able to plant an embryo in Sherry and even called out to her a few times. As he attacked Claire Redfield, Leon S, Kennedy, Ada Wong, and Sherry again and again, G continued to mutate until he faced off against Leon and Claire in his final form. In his final grotesque form, G faced off Leon and Claire on the train
As the trio leave on the train, an underground self destruction protocol occurs, sending a shock wave of fire and molten metal down the tunnel after them. Hearing a strange noise, Leon or Claire investigates, only to find G has become a huge amalgamation, who appears delighted in the fact he can finally kill them. He slowly advances towards them, using it's tendrils to attack Claire and Leon. After a hefty fight, G can no longer continue through the train, and Leon/Claire uses a metal pipe to stab him in the eye. His eye quickly regenerates, but the train cart he is on breaks loose and is left behind in the tunnel. G manipulates the voice of his former self, Birkin, and screams "SHERRY!" down the tunnel. It is too late for him however, and the flames from the underground explosion envelop him, which kills him instantly and destroys Golgotha for good.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
After being accidentally gunned by the Alpha Team of the Umbrella Security Service, a dying Birkin injected himself with the G-Virus so as to gain vengeance upon the Alpha Team. While the G-Virus initially revived him back to normal as seen when Annette found him, he nonetheless began to mutate further into a large monstrous beast with uncanny regenerative powers.
- Self-evolution: G-Virus possesses seemingly unlimited evolving capacity, causing its host to constantly undergo monstrous mutations whenever horribly damaged, gaining even more physical power and developing new adaptations. As such, G-Birkin can involuntarily sprout numerous eyeballs to give himself a wider array of vision, manifest Tyrant-like sharp talons that can slash and eviscerate living beings, additional arms for further dexterity or enhanced means of locomotion, and tendrils to move around as his biomass increases to critical levels. The more biomass Birkin consumes and assimilates into his body, the larger he will become. As shown in Biohazard 3: Last Escape, William can survive as an eyeball and regenerate given enough time.
- Parthenogenesis: Contrasting with infertile T-Virus subjects, G-Birkin is highly fertile and capable of asexual reproduction by impregnating human beings through their mouths, forcing G-Larvae down their esophagus. However, since Golgotha rejects anyone not related to Birkin, most of these subjects will have G-Larvae tear their way out of their bodies through the chest. If they can produce growth hormones, these embryos will evolve into G-Adults capable of impregnating humans minutes after their birth; if not, they will remain larvae and try to force their way into compatible human hosts.
- Immense strength: G-Birkin surpasses nearly all Umbrella-manufactured B.O.W.s with his superhuman strength, being able to easily defeat T-00 in his first form in both Biohazard 3: Last Escape and cleave through one like butter in the Resident Evil 2 Remake. Similarly, William can eviscerate human beings with just one strike and cause an enormous hurricane with just shock waves of his blows crashing with Nemesis T-Type, devastating Raccoon City. By his fourth form, Birkin has become stronger than Nemesis and was able to snap necks of four Tyrants T-103 at the same time.
- Immense agility: In his third and fourth form, G-Birkin had enormous agility and speed, being able to outrun Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield with ease, jump from wall to wall and run on all fours.
Abilities[]
- Genius-level intellect: As a researcher of Umbrella, William Birkin is an incredibly genius individual, who is proficient in virology. Birkin is the head scientist for the creation of the Tyrant Virus and discovered Golgotha Virus. In the past, Birkin is a child prodigy who earned a doctorate degree when he was in his youth.
Weaknesses[]
- Regenerative Mutation: His ability to 'evolve' can also be considered a weakness, since the more damage he takes, the more deformed he gets. By his fifth and final form, he was deformed into a shapeless blob barely capable of proper movement.
- Tumorous Growths: Birkin's eye-like tumor growths around his body served as potential weak spots which can injure him, even with conventional firearms.
- Great Explosions: A massive explosion will completely obliterate him, thus killing him. When Birkin came close to killing Claire, she stabbed him in his eye and Leon speared the train carts, sending Birkin into the upcoming explosion. With one final stare from his eye, Birkin exploded into nothingness, putting the beast to rest for good.
Appearance and Forms[]
First Form[]
In this form, Birkin looks the most like his human self but has had a large increase in muscle mass. One of the most noticeable mutations of this form is the enlarged right arm with a huge, tumor-like eyeball near the shoulder. Since this form lacks any natural weapons, Birkin wields a piece of pipe that he tore from a guardrail with his superhuman strength. He can also throw it or swing it multiple times in succession. Strangely, when Annette remembers how he killed the USS soldiers, Birkin is seen possessing talons that he slices them apart with. However, these claws may have simply atrophied away from lack of use, due to the unpredictability of the G-virus. Interestingly, G1's right arm periodically "de-evolves" slightly, becoming smaller as the eye on the shoulder closes and the spikes retract; this seems to represent Birkin attempting to restrain the G-Virus's degenerative effects on his mind, although it's clearly a losing battle. This is taken further in the Resident Evil 2 remake, where Birkin seems to retain a degree of his humanity; when his right arm shrinks, his cries become less monstrous and distorted, he screams "Help Me!" and "Kill!", and he occasionally pauses to swing at thin air or attempt to pry open the eyeball on his shoulder, leaving him vulnerable. In cutscenes, he also appears to be attempting to protect Sherry by attacking threats to her safety (such as Brian Irons and the T-00) before the G-Virus instincts take over once again.
Second Form[]
In this form, Birkin’s head has been forced down into the chest to be replaced by a new skull, the right hand has sprouted large, bone talons, and two new arms have begun to develop underneath the originals. In this form, G possesses all the same abilities as the previous one but now has the added advantage of its sharp talons. In this form, it attacks by slashing and stabbing at its opponents with its new claws. Interestingly, this form of G managed to recognize Annette, to some extent at least. When it found her, it hesitated and looked at her for a few moments, but attacked her when she drew a gun on it, recognizing her as a threat. G2's general appearance was retained in the Resident Evil 2 remake, but only its left secondary arm is functional; the right side of its stomach shows either signs of the other arm developing or part of its rib cage. Its claws are longer, and the developing rings of spines on its chest have been removed. The developing secondary cranium has yellow eyes (bloody parts of flesh slightly obscuring the right eye) and a mouth to show its fangs.
Third Form[]
In this form, G has lost all of its outer skin to reveal a more muscular body. Countless spike-like projections emerge from the chest while William Birkin’s face has almost utterly faded into the torso. The left arm has also gained talons, though these ones are more like nails rather than the ones made of bone on the right. G has also grown to far beyond the size of a normal human and its primary arms have grown beyond that of a normal human, moving back to become more secondary appendages. The second set of arms from the previous form have become fully functional and developed claws. The new head has fully developed and another tumor-like eye has developed on G’s left arm. In this form, G has most of the same combat characteristics of its previous form, except that it is far more acrobatic, able to use powerful jumping slashes and even a bizarre roundhouse kick where it follows up with a slash from two of its arms.
The remake version of G3 has a slightly more hunched physique and an elongated neck, giving his head a slight resemblance to his later forms in the original game. The remnants of Birkin's human face are horribly distorted, barely visible under G's lower-left arm, the eye on its left thigh has become proportionately larger, and the monster has several more bony protrusions on its limbs. The "mouth" on G's chest is slightly smaller and less toothy; however, it's revealed to contain a cluster of small eyeballs that are exposed when the monster is significantly damaged.
Fourth Form[]
In this mutation, G has become a quadrupedal mutant, utilizing its four primary limbs to move around. The skull and jaw have extended to accommodate the newly formed mouth, which is little more than a gaping maw surrounded by spikes, combining with the spikes that used to cover its torso. Despite having a rather bulky body, G is quite agile and quick in this form and can run, climb walls, and jump all around with little effort. The eyes on its shoulders may or may not be its actual eyes, which would indicate that the ones in its skull are simply for show. G can attack by impaling enemies with the spikes around its mouth, spitting acidic slime out of its mouth, swiping at enemies with its forearms, and biting at them.
The Resident Evil 2 remake takes G4's design in a noticeably different direction, resembling a heavily-degraded version of G3 on its way to mutating into G5. Its secondary arms have vanished, and the "mouth" on its chest now dominates most of its torso, with large tusks and eyes protruding in an almost random fashion. Its flesh has become bloated and almost tumorous - seemingly dissolving into independent tendrils only partially fused together - but the monster maintains a bipedal stance, dropping to all fours to move more quickly and climb up walls. The eyes of its degraded head are green, while the rest dotting its body are their usual yellow-to-red.
Final Form[]
Without a doubt, G's fifth form is the most twisted out of all of the mutations. After experiencing massive physical damage, the creature has mutated into a formless abomination of flesh, spikes, limbs, and tentacles. It is only able to move by attaching its largest tentacles to a stationary object and dragging itself forward, with some help of its lesser ones. It is unknown if G would have continued to mutate into other forms after this one. However, this is unlikely since it has already become a formless blob and has nothing left to mutate into. But this mutation is not produced from evolution like the other forms, instead, it is produced by the virus responding to the heavy damage the creature had taken. However, files from Albert Wesker claim that the G-Virus never stops mutating, so it is possible that G could have grown to gargantuan sizes had it survived.
Though while extremely weakened in this form, G isn't defenseless. It attacks by swinging its massive tentacles at its prey and hurling wreckage. It also has two highly bizarre attacks, spitting up recently consumed zombies to attack its enemies and ejecting its own mouth to strike at them. It also has some level of intelligence, since it realized that its train car was about to explode and screamed “SHERRY!” However, this creature was unable to escape and was destroyed by the explosion. Even the regeneration factor of the G-virus wasn't strong enough to counter the damage, finally putting an end to G.
In the Resident Evil 2 remake, G5 is larger than previous appearances, having to rip off the top of the train car to accommodate room for its immense size. Instead of several tumor-like eyes inside of its mouth like in its previous forms, it only has one singular large eye that appears to be a gooey mass stretched across the inside of the mouth, rather than an eyeball. It also seems to spread tiny tendrils of biomass ahead of its main body, giving the train car a fleshy, "rotting" appearance as it advances. This is likely a side-effect of its rapid and uncontrolled mutation.
Resident Evil Films[]
Anderson Series[]
William Birkin makes a brief cameo in the first Resident Evil movie. Like in the video game of the same name, William Birkin is one of the scientists that work for the Umbrella Corp. However, unlike the video game, Birkin never injected himself with the G-virus and as such never mutated into the monster known as G. His connection with Albert Wesker, his former mentor James Marcus and what ultimately happens to him in this version is currently unknown, as he was later replaced by Dr. Alexander Isaacs.
Reboot Series[]
- Main article: William Birkin (2021)
William Birkin appears as the main antagonist of the film Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which is an adaptation of both the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2. Rather than just being a high-ranking scientist within the Umbrella Corporation, this version of Birkin personally runs the Raccoon City Orphanage and uses the children there as his test subjects. This Birkin also has a direct connection to Chris and Claire Redfield, as they were once orphans who lived under his care.
He is portrayed by Neal McDonough who also portrayed Damian Wayne and The Flash from Injustice: Gods Among Us and Damien Darhk from Arrowverse.
Quotes[]
Resident Evil 2[]
“ | It's sheer perfection...my precious G-virus. No one will ever take you away from me. | „ |
~ William Birkin |
“ | Oh, you finally come. | „ |
~ William Birkin |
“ | Sorry, but I won't just hand over my life's work... | „ |
~ William Birkin |
Resident Evil 0[]
“ | It just doesn't make sense. Do you honestly believe this to be the real identity to that crazy young man? Impossible! And yet somehow it is true that Umbrella will be finished. | „ |
~ William Birkin |
“ | What are you going to do? | „ |
~ William Birkin |
“ | You can't be serious! I refuse to abandon my work, I've just finished my research on the T-Virus but I need a little more time to complete the more powerful G-virus! | „ |
~ William Birkin |
“ | Fine. In the meantime, something must be done by that madman. As I recall, you are equipped with an assault to destruct device in the basement. I'll find it, set it off and annihilate the place to nothing more than a pile of rubble. | „ |
~ William Birkin |
Resident Evil 2 Remake[]
“ | You think I didn't know you were coming? This is my life's work! I'm not handing over anything! | „ |
~ William Birkin |
“ | You don't get away that easily... | „ |
~ Before injecting himself with the G-Virus |
“ | G is my creation! | „ |
~ After injecting himself with the G-Virus |
“ | HELP ME! | „ |
~ William in his first mutated form |
Trivia[]
- William Birkin was originally going to be the main antagonist in the movie; Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but Jason Isaacs left the production for undisclosed reasons. Therefore, a character named Sam Isaacs was created for the film to both fill the space and honor Jason Isaacs.
- William's G1 mutation is available as a skin for The Blight in Dead by Daylight.
- William's G3 mutation form resembled of John Carpenter's The Thing, in a nightmarish form with eyes and sharp teeth like appearance.
External Links[]
- William Birkin on the Resident Evil Wiki