Well, here we are again, back to
this ever-reoccurring question. Well, I suppose I should offer my usual two cents, although I don’t expect everyone to agree with me…however, I hope that THIS time, I can reel in my argumentative impulses and civilities
But in response to the topic….no. Vergil isn’t honorable, as hordes of people mistakenly consider him to be, and I’m certain it was never the developers nor the original storywriters intention to present him as such.
He’s
traditionalist, but not honorable. Allow me to explain:
Vergil is a character who does the things he does because he believes himself superior. It’s an aristocratic way of thinking, a mental framework that he can use to justify every action he does, no matter how questionable or vile. He believes that simply because he’s Sparda’s son, the heir to the Legendary Dark Knight, his power and bloodline literally entitles him to ownership of power…not because he’s earned it, but because in his mind,
he deserves it by default. As such, he fights and acts with the brutality expected of that mentality: he walks and acts with a regal sense of superiority over lesser demons and the entirety of the human race. He fights with traditional Devil Arms and outright avoids the machinations of inferior beings, like guns. He talks down and dismisses everyone, because they are all lesser in his eyes; and all of this stems from destructive, irrational, and ultimately self-damaging urge to cling to tradition at any cost. The tradition is that demons of his kind are superior to all other things, and he fights and acts with that notion exclusively in mind…so much so, it’s his best character flaw. Ultimately, when he’s defeated at Dante’s hands, he seizes his heirloom—his right by tradition—and remains in the Underworld where he, by nature and not by his own desire, belongs by right of bloodline.
That’s who Vergil is. It has nothing to do with being “honorable”, because honorable, in addition to preserving tradition, also means to show some level of selflessness or acknowledgement of an enemy’s equal status…something that Vergil is incapable of, because he thinks he’s superior to EVERYONE.
This is the crux to his entire charcter, and people misinterpret as “honor” for some of the dumbest reasons imaginable (I speak mainly of my experiences on Devil’s Lair, not regarding any of YOU fine fellows, before anyone gets defensive).
And I think one of the main reasons people develop this misconception about Vergil is his use of a katana. It’s always been this weird fascination I’ve noticed where the trail of assumptions is that: “Oh! Vergil fights skillfully and honorably with a katana. He’s just oozing with far Eastern values and combat prowess…he probably follows bushido, too! Oh, so honorable,
so SAMURAI…he MUST be honorable!”
As someone who studies Japanese history, the feudal era, and samurai culture quite religiously, I can only face-palm myself until the front of my skull literally implodes. This is one of the most widespread misconceptions about not just Vergil, but the samurai, demonstrating how limited people’s knowledge actually is about these topics.
Bushido, first and foremost, is not about fighting. It is not conduct in a sparring match, nor the tactics they carry out. It’s the principles behind the fight itself, the decisions before and after each one ensues, the decisions made by leaders and damiyo....
that’s what bushido is.
If bushido literally boiled down to “fighting honorably”, then literally every famous samurai in history, from common ronin to the Unifiers of Japan would be all violators by definition, because even the greatest damiyo of the Sengoku Era
fought in methods and practices contrary to bushido.
The reason famed warriors like Yukimura Sanada, Hattori Hanzo and Shimazu Toyohisa are literally remembered by name are NOT because of their accomplishments through combat, but their decisions they made outside of battle, the principles they held as warriors first. They’re considered the embodiments of the warrior’s way, literally because of
why they died, not
how, and it’s because their actions were a
rarity that they’re remembered so well.
Bushido, much like Western chivalry, was a novelty that very few actually practiced.
“A samurai cannot stand the shame of defeat”, and yet both warriors and their damiyos accepted defeat quite often, and fled with even more frequency. Hara-kiri (or seppuku) was almost NEVER in use, and literally considered something only practiced by the utmost hardcore warriors, or someone who had nothing else to lose (Christian samurai probably committed it the most in recorded history, because their faith is what propelled this “nothing-to-lose” mentality”). And treating your enemy with respect? Pfft. Tell that to the thousands of Christian rebels, whose heads
and the heads of their women and children, were put on public display without being buried to set an example, without washing or tending (the equivalent of not receiving a proper burial in Japan). Even my favorite historical figure in Japan, the legendary Oda Nobunaga (Google this guy sometime, he’s simply fascinating) left such a controversial legacy, because his methods and tactics were so barbaric, so cruel in nature, so disregarding of the lives of innocents even to where he was willing to sacrifice members of his own
family (sounding familiar yet?), that he was never considered an active follower of bushido. Why? Well, simply…because being honorable and heeding to rigid Japanese traditions “didn’t win wars”…which is
exactly how Vergil functions.
And rigidly upholding tradition through bushido is precisely why Japanese people don’t regard Samurai as romantically was we do here in the West. The Japanese have been opposed to the rigid traditions of bushido for centuries, and is partially why they view samurai as corrupt and vile, and why they see Western films like
The Last Samurai as “glorifying” greedy warlords who harshly imposed these traditions…a trait that has been upheld in countless Japanese cultural representations, from Taiga dramas to Jidaigeki films.
If you want an example of how the brutality of Japanese tradition can cripple and destroy the lives of innocent people, watch
Hara-kiri (then prepare to perform some on yourself when you watch it and realize just how terminally depressing it is).
And the decisions Vergil makes and the motives behind them are not characteristic of what is seen as honorable in Japan. Not in the ****ing slightest. His reasons to fight and his justification for doing the things he does has NOTHING to do with honor—it’s all about superiority.
But I implore you all to bear with me as I say this, because it isn’t a knock against Vergil at all, because this superiority complex is
what defines him as a character. That’s why I liked him in the first place, and why in my eyes he was one of the few, fleeting number of redeeming factors from
DMC3—he was a good villain whose appeal endured the completely ****ty implantation of his character through the backwards-ass script.
And if you think the point of his character, the point of him
being the villain, is to be honorable or justifiable in any sense, you don’t understand the character the way he was intended through the confines of the narrative. It’s literally that simple.
And even if you
could argue his “honorable” status without the whole bushido thing, that’s still a stance no one in their right mind with any understanding of Vergil should take, because there’s
so much to his character that contradicts that notion.
Vergil simply doesn’t function with any selfless or proper conduct towards his enemies in
DMC3. He slaughters entire an entire city of people without hesitation or conscience before they can even get out of their homes…faceless millions he deems as insignificant lesser.
This is also the same guy who literally plunged Dante in the chest with his own sword, literally while he was choking on his own blood and wriggling on the ground (as others prior to my arrival have pointed out)…before a few hours into the game, also killing Beowulf, and—in traditional, worthy conduct towards the body of a deceased enemy—all but river-dances on his corpse to prove his superiority with his newly obtained weapons.
Why does he do these things? Because he believes he’s superior, and doesn’t have to answer for a thing. That’s who Vergil is.
And don’t even get me started on the
worst line of defense people turn to when trying to speak in defense of Vergil’s honor, and that’s the
DMC3 manga.
I have never seen a group of people hoist something as absolute gospel like people do this manga, amusingly enough despite it:
A) Not being finished
B) Being made literally months after the game, by a manga artist who had no prior involvement with the game or script and with no aid or supervision by a single one of the scenario writers who actually PENNED the original story, essentially rendering everything in that manga from its poor dialogue to its gaping plot holes as living, breathing contradiction to everything the game established.
First things first: Vergil’s supposed “avenging of his mother.” I still, even as I live and breathe, can’t even believe people consider this as a proper insert of motivation to his actions in the game. If you actually approve of this “theory” with a straight face, and think that Vergil’s motivated not by power, ambition, proving of self-worth or flat-out greed, and is instead carrying out his entire scheme in
DMC3 to avenge
Eva of all people…you and I officially didn’t play the same game.
Every single frame of Vergil’s actions literally dismantles this. Not only does this shatter the superiority complex, the thing that makes him rabid about replicating Sparda at all, the root of his urge for world-domination, the FOUNDATION OF HIS CHARACTER…but it just deflowers his prejudice against humans. He literally views his human blood as the ONE WEAKNESS HE HAS, the impurity he wants to remedy by becoming the next Legendary Dark Knight, and unsurpassed Demonic GOD. He slaughters an entire city of humans and intends to rid the world of the human race
LITERALLY because they’re lesser to him, and a plague on his existence and bloodline…so WHY, in the name of everything, would he give two flying elephant turds about his
HUMAN MOTHER??? Isn’t that like someone trying
How barebones and ****-poor does the writing have to be, how
desperate for a redeeming quality in Vergil’s one-note villain prowess do blind fans have to be, to come up with a chunk of head-canon that literally dismantles the basis of HIS ENTIRE CHARACTER?
And then there’s him giving the amulet to Dante, and I don’t even know how people can even use this to defend Vergil when it literally spits on everything he was established to have planned in the confines of the game’s plot. Consider:
We watch Vergil spend the entire game trying to get these amulets back….literally spending two of the three in-game confrontations he has with Dante trying to pry it from his cold, dead hands….so that he could use their combined power to not only unlock the hellgate (which was never something they were written to do in DMC1, adding yet another to one of DMC3’s lovable retcons to the original mythos) and to cast of Force Edge’s form to obtain the Sword of Sparda and become the most powerful demon in existence….a goal he’s willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands, including his own, to inherit Sparda’s role…a goal which he is passionate, driven, and unhealthily-obsessed with, by the game’s own admission….
…and you’re telling me that he’s just willing to drop it next to Dante, letting him keep it, out of some misplaced sense of “honor.”
This is like Lord Voldemort ending
The Deathly Hallows with allowing Harry, the figure of his obsession whom he’s spent almost twenty years fixated on to extinguish….just to go on his merry way, and live life peacefully.
Are. You. Kidding Me.
I get that the mangaka was trying to explain how Dante got the amulet in the first place prior to the game (even though
DMC1 already established how the Twins got their amulets already, so his attempt was essentially rendered utterly pointless), but all it does is screw the game’s plot straight in the ear, and in traditional
Devil May Cry narrative fashion, complete collapse in on everything established about the character.
These aren’t answers or justifications for the things Vergil does…they’re blatant, confusing, and flat-out offensive contradictions to Vergil’s character.
DMC3 literally went out of its way to rip apart everything Dante had been established as being in the very first game, but the MANGA seemed dead-set on shattering everything established about Vergil in
DMC3.I don’t know who’s worse, Bingo Morihashi, or the backwards moron who penned
this crapocalypse.
So, no. Vergil isn’t honorable, and all the contradictions raised in that manga that is just as questionable and unreliable as a well-written resource for ANYTHING character-related as that god-awful anime, do nothing to further it. He’s a tenacious and self-serving villain, and that’s
exactly how he was intended through the writing.
Implying anything else, as much as I hate to say it, is simply grasping for aspects to his character that, simply were never there.
