My theory on The Duke from Resident Evil: Village.

Easily, Duke is the greatest merchant since the one from RE4. Though great doesn't always mean good. His motives are what bug me, so too is that gigantic body of his. Allow me to explain: When Ethan first meets Duke, that's at the entrance of Castle Dimitrescu. His first thing he says is, "I've been waiting for you, Mr. Winters."

"How do you know my name?" That's a perfectly fair question to ask when you think about it. How on earth did he know this prior to meeting Ethan. The only possibility I can imagine is if he was around Mother Miranda and she mentioned it to him. You must understand that Miranda views everyone as experiments, much like Alexia Ashford did back in Code Veronica.

"Anyone who's everyone has heard of the likes of you." This would imply that Miranda told everyone at the Village, but the Villagers don't know who he is? This confuses me. If everyone knows all about him, wouldn't that be taken quite literally? Instead, only the important characters know that he exists.

"Although, I must say, that castle does arouse suspicion." This feels like he's guiding Ethan through his adventure, you'll notice this quite a bit as you progress.

"Oh yeah? Well so do you." Well, yes, in a desolated village, you just so happen to be selling merchandise of all things and in regards to weapons for the most part? It's as if he already knew about all this and prepared for all of it in advance.

"I'm just a humble merchant." Regressing back to my earlier point: Here of all places does feel very suspicious for obvious reasons.

"Here?" A village that has been used as a testing bed for experimentations of the molded hivemind is not a place that I'd typically expect to see someone wanting to ignite commerce at. Let alone at the front gate of a royal family castle to which you meet him at directly after he saw Lady Dimitrescu for their business meeting.

My theory is that he's biding his time and preparing his resources through business. Either that or this was all a part of Miranda's elaborate planning. In case you guys haven't noticed it already, I'll just point it out: This man is motherfucking HUGE. There's no way in God's Green Earth that this is normal for anybody.

Pay attention to how he reacts when you're around him, you'll occasionally see him convulsing and seizing up before composing himself. This detail I find to be particularly interesting. This leads me to believe that The Duke's fat is not really fat at all. It's his actual body and the convulsing is him trying to maintain that body. This is the best that he can do to make himself as human as possible.

It's also worth mentioning that in the earlier concepts of The Duke, it shows that he was originally meant to be a lord that Ethan would have fought. This was scrapped of course in favor of him being the new Merchant. Actually, I believe that it wasn't entirely scrapped. In his caravan, there is a symbol or crest that looks very similar to the other lords' sigils. Clearly a sign of nobility. Duke is also a title of nobility. Capcom aren't really being very subtle here, you know. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I believe that he was to some degree working with Miranda, though not directly. The reason why he was helping Ethan was to get money from him for his own purposes. 'The whole gathering his resources thing' and such. He knows way too much and happens to be always one step ahead no matter what. How? That's my question. He knew about the flasks, this would imply that he was aware of her plans that I would imagine Miranda keeping to herself and the other lords.

It's unlikely that he was with Heisenberg even though he was sighted at his factory a couple of times. Heisenberg made it quite clear that his goal was to stab Miranda in the back. The Duke however knew everything like the rest but prepared Ethan knowing that Ethan was unique. Yes, I would even go so far as to say that Duke knew Ethan's secret if he knew about Rose Winters and the flasks as well and how to reverse it so Rose could be reassembled.