The rise and fall of Donna Beneviento. A deep dive and comparison within Resident Evil Village

 When looking at Resident Evil Village, one of my favourite villains was Donna Beneviento. Just simply because her area of the game is so different from the rest and it is memorable. Gone are all the shooting your way through the section, but this is puzzle solving. So naturally, this lead me to do a deep dive on her history and it made me compare it to all the other lords of the game.

Alcina Dimitrescu, her fall was her debilitating blood disease which then lead her to have uncontrolled mutations, but her rise was creating this bloody thirsty household and gaining 3 obedient daughters. 

Salvator Moreau, his fall being his change of appearance and childlike brain but his rise in the form of him being taken in like a child by Mother Miranda, giving him the opportunity to test on humans without consequence. 

Karl Heisenburg, the only one of the lords who despised Miranda and saw through her facade. His fall being when he was turned into a molded but his rise being when he harnessed that power to create his own army.

Mother Miranda falling after the loss of her daughter Eva, but rising when she harnessed the power of the mold and took over the village and everyone within it.

Donna Beneviento was a lost soul from the beginning, losing her parents when she was young to suicide, she was already predisposed to mental illness. This however, went undiagnosed and only worsened as she got older, her only comfort was in the form of Angie, a doll which her father had made for her before he took his life. She wore black mourning clothing permanently and this covered her face to protect her from having her scar on her face exposed to the outside world. She focussed all of her time into creating dolls like her father did, and these creations of hers became somewhat of a surrogate family. But then she met Mother Miranda who took advantage of her trauma and posed as mother figure who faked caring for her, just to implant her with the Cadou parasite. Not because Miranda wanted to make her stronger, but because she wanted to see if Donna would be a suitable vessel for her reborn daughter. 

Donna's ability was that she could secrete a gas which would cause hallucinations to whoever breathed it in. This only further fed into her delusion and she used it as a way for her to communicate through Angie more efficiently and make her more like a living being. Once Miranda noticed that Donna's mental illness would make her an unfit vessel for Eva, she manipulated the doll maker into using her illusions to torture people. Donna would do this in the name of her so called 'mother' and would only torture people when she was instructed to do so. This is shown primarily in her altercation with Ethan as she is shown to be manipulative, making Ethan go back into his trauma between his distrust with his wife and his fear as to what his daughter was to become. 

However, when he over comes these trials, Donna's true voice is heard, almost begging him not to leave saying she can't let him, This is almost like she is repeating an order, one which was probably given to her by Mother Miranda. She couldn't disobey her new mother because she also knew what Miranda was capable of and if she did disobey her, she would surely die. 

Donna is different from the other lords, as she was lost in the depths of untreated mental illness and was taken advantage of at every possible opportunity. Her main insecurity was from the scar on her face, which quickly mutated as she was infected, turning her beautiful face into a monstrosity. She thought of herself as a monster. She found herseld feeling more positive about life, but was also ignorant to the fact she was just being used as a pawn in a messed up game. 

Overall, the story of Donna Beneviento is one of tragedy and manipulation, a woman who is plagued by horrific mental illness being taken advantage of to become a monster which she despised. But all she wanted was a family and she got it but at the cost of her giving up her freedom and falling deeper into madness.