1. If she did the series would be over besides by the end of DMC3 she still proclaim her life duty is to eliminate all demons (probably just the one's on Earth) to make sure more people like her father isn't made.
Did you miss the point of her narration and her entire story? Demons like her father are
twisted humans with no empathy and homicidal ambitions, i.e. Sanctus and Arius, not genetic demons. If demons didn't exist, people like him would have likely found other avenues of power and ways to abuse people to get it (see: killing a loved one for inheritance money, etc.) Even the anime shows a human was perfectly willing to endanger a child for money and the woman that did it wasn't actually in league with demons or doing it for demonic power. She just did it for money. If you're going to subscribe to the idea that every single human act of evil in DMC's history was because "demons were involved, everyone would be good otherwise", that's just too woo-woo.
2. Its hard to be bigoted towards a collective group of non-human species who on a regular basis (and on instinct) eat and kill humans and want to dominate humans. DMC operates on the notion that demons on the average are savage, primal monsters whose main reason for existing is to f**k with humans and demons who aren't like that aren't demons (when Dante in DMC1 said Trish isn't a demon because demons can't produce tears).
"Demons who aren't like that aren't demons" except.... genetically. Which is the part that actually matters. You suggesting Trish lost her powers and healing factor as soon as she shed a few tears? What about when Dante did it? Or Lucia? Or Sparda? Nero isn't a demon anymore by virtue of his emotions too, I suppose. Never mind that Trish was specifically created to f#ck with Dante, and she actually fulfilled that part of her purpose clearly in DMC1. So you're saying demons can... stop being demons? Yet actually still keep other things that make them clearly non-human such as their powers, which is the main marker that they are demons, as stated by Lady when she
shot Dante in the head and saw him survive it?
And demons are a "collective group" of non-humans who exist only to be evil (you haven't seen the actual majority of demons yet you make this claim?), and yet the premise of the plot is that one of their own betrays them and they somehow have enough of a concept of
loyalty and that
"betrayal is wrong" to still hold a grudge against that one guy, even though their collective should be too evil to care and he was acting within his morality to stab them all in the back and screw them over, when backstabbing and screwing over to attain or exercise power is part and parcel of being a demon.
3. No she learned some demons are more human than some humans but at the end of the day she still strives to eliminate all demons (at the very least the ones that cause trouble).
"Humans can be as evil as any devil", so she should be seeking out humans that are corrupt and seeking terrible power to abuse people with. She should have been the first person to shoot a bullet in Sanctus's general direction but by DMC4 the series
wholly accepts that she alone (despite her
human heart/determination and ingenuity) cannot best any humanoid that is remotely demonic, so she fobs the work off to Dante, who is genetically part-demonic and has the power set to pull this off.
4. No not really. Whether he still seeked out demonic power and that corrupted him. To become a demon he needed to sacrifice his wife. Demons still played a role in his actions. He tried to pin blame on Vergil (who had nothing to do with his corruption) and claim he was being brainwashed all this time not blame all demons. Arkham did everything of his own accord but demons still played a role in his corruption.
Arkham was corrupt and did everything of his own accord.
That's all. He sought demons and demonic methods of power of his
own volition. If demons didn't exist, he would have found something else to latch on to and fulfill his need for power, because it was in his personality. He was not brainwashed
at all, no "demons played a part" or not, to say otherwise is just blaming demons by association when in reality he contacted these demons as a peer, not as a victim. The initial festering scar he has on his neck was because
he was studying a book and
he summoned a demon. That demon didn't come from nowhere.
5. Dante never told her to stop killing demons (otherwise she would stop being a Devil Hunter). Dante didn't want Lady to get herself killed over a conflict started by his own family and she was too injured to continue fighting so she should have faith in him to clean up this mess because Arkham is his responsibility too. It was less about don't hate all demons but putting your faith in others and relying on the strength on others (even demons like Dante and Trish).
Oh, I'm sorry, wasn't your point that
human heart and determination can best demonic power? Why would the game go against that and teach her to rely on non-humans?
Perhaps because your point isn't the one that the game wants to make? At all?
And it still stands that the only reason Lady would "get herself killed" in the conflict is an executive decision made from outside of the game, literally if the writers decided it. Beryl in DMC2 was also a human yet was still involved in the conflict against Chen when she could very well have been sidelined.
6. Lady underwent her own arc in DMC3 in tandem with Dante. I mean yeah she could be the protagonist but Dante has been the protagonist since the first game and while half demon he is capable of overcoming tremendous demonic forces due to embracing his humanity and is the reason why he was able to defeat Vergil in DMC3 (who forsaken his human side) as cheesy as that sounds.
So you admit that someone who "embraces their humanity" very late in their own arc is more valuable to the plot than someone who had their humanity from the beginning and was using that to push through most obstacles they were faced with.
So if Dante wasn't embracing his humanity for missions 1 to 15 or so, how was he surviving anything in the tower, which included repeated encounters with "tremendous demonic forces"?
Could it be... because he's a half demon and that gives him genetic perks like increased durability, dexterity, and healing speed, as well as demonic transformations?
If all that Lady needed was her human heart and determination, why did she need to stop at Mission 16, when we've already seen her survive something that is humanly impossible? She was stabbed straight through the femur with a serrated bayonet and instead of bleeding out or even being remotely paralyzed or simply passed out, she remained conscious through the injury, stood perfectly fine on that bad leg, and then a bandage fixed her enough for her to climb up an entire side of tower and end up in the library. So I mean, she clearly has, for an inexperienced devil hunter and a human at that, a high pain tolerance and an inexplicable healing ability. So why wasn't she involved in the last stretch of the game?
Could it be... because she isn't remotely demon and doesn't have the genetic perks usually associated with Dante et. al., and that she stopped being useful except to give Dante morality?
7. You have a point there but Lady at that time was still developing and due to plot and the fact its a video game couldn't beat Arkham (its pretty rare in video games where unplayable characters defeat a major villain and if they do its usually after the main playable character(s) do). She was only demon hunting for a few years and for regular human who like what started doing this for like 3 years the fact she made up that tower and pass all those demons (although Dante dealt with the more powerful foes) trough sheer tenacity and skill is quite impressive. I'm sure the Lady now could take Arkham.
"Still developing" is an excuse. A character is as developed as they're allowed to be and if they're not developed enough, you should ask why. Nero was similarly inexperienced in the ways of saving the entire world from evil megalomaniacs making bids for power, and he only had Yamato for like ten minutes in DMC4, with (depending on who you ask) Dante clearly being more powerful than him, but all he had to say was "I need this..." and Dante just let him have the sword and go off to save the world from an evil megalomaniac.
No, seriously, think about this. Dante kicked Lady’s ass to convince her not to get herself killed facing off against someone she can’t beat because she was inexperienced, full of rage, and going half-cocked into a battle against a supremely powerful being because of a personal issue. But then Nero, who was inexperienced, full of rage, going half cocked into a battle against a supremely powerful being because of a personal issue, Dante lets him go, even though Dante had even less reason to let Nero go than he would have Lady (the Blood of Sparda was needed to awaken the Savior and the Savior wasn't awakened yet, whereas Lady's blood was already used for the Tower and the worst had already happened, so "protecting" her wasn't necessary anymore).
This is what you're accepting.
Also, Lady being strong
now doesn't change the past and make it so that she was able to truly end things by her hand when she wanted to do it. She was still weak then, and that's the truth.
And I'm gonna need a source on that "three years". You don't just throw numbers around like that.
8. I don't understand that last part but it seems pretty irrelevant.
Just because you didn't understand my point doesn't mean that I didn't make one.
The point was that Lady shooting Arkham was a complete afterthought. For all intents and purposes, she was done when she gave her Kalina Ann to Dante and said "Please... free my father." and an additional cutscene showed her
doing nothing but sitting around while Vergil passed her by, with no hint that she was motivated to stand up and follow them. You could eliminate the scene where she shoots Arkham herself and nothing is out of place, because Arkham's final moments would then be him getting blasted by Dante and Vergil's Jackpot Shot, which is the
usual finishing move in the series (Jackpot Shot sealed Mundus, Jackpot Shot obliterated The Despair Embodied, etc.).
If Lady didn't shoot Arkham, people would just accept that he died in Mission 19 and all Lady did was wait for Dante at the bottom of the tower. She doesn't even mention that she did it, so again, not necessary to the narrative in the least bit.
People would accept that
it was not human heart/ingenuity/determination that bested Arkham, but the skills of two half-demons whose birthright he stole from them, because that's exactly what happened. Two half-demons defeated "a pure demon" and a human had nothing to do with it except giving one of the pair "more to fight for" as moral support.
Vergil was there to help Dante defeat Arkham while Lady was not there. Explain to me how that works while you argue that Dante's power is "capable of overcoming tremendous demonic forces due to embracing his humanity". What is Vergil overcoming forces with, that he was allowed to defeat a Hell Vanguard, Dante himself, Beowulf, multiple Abyss demons, and also play a part in the defeat of Arkham? It certainly wasn't his
humanity. He didn't embrace it, while Lady has it in spades. But he was still there. Maybe because humanity is not actually relevant?
9. I guess we can ignore the numerous amounts of demons Lady as mowed down throughout DMC3 and in other media (the anime, etc) and according to DMC4SE and pachinko machines was there during the events of DMC4 helping save civilians and kill demons. Lets not forget the other human characters in the series who are devil hunters like the Order of the Sword (who fell because they started turning themselves into demons).
I can tell you didn't finish reading the rest of my post when you made this point because it's already addressed that Lady is given "concessions" by being able to kill off lesser demons and weak demons instead of major demonic characters, when the plot revolves around the more major demonic characters making moves and being defeated by
Dante or other demonically enhanced characters.
"(who fell because they started turning themselves into demons)" No, they fell because Dante broke through some glass on some Stone Cold Steve Austin sh#t, murdered their Pope, and proceeded to utterly wreck them single-handedly with his own skills when Credo led the charge. They were perfectly fine before that happened and no one in the public suspected anything was wrong with the knights they trusted.
Also, do you really think I give a crap about what possible retcons they show in some Pachinko machines? Saving civilians and killing lesser demons was exactly what Trish was stated to do in the game and the novel, and Lady had nothing to do with it then with her only showing up to collect some cash, so whether or not she's added after the fact to give her the relevance they didn't put in the
first two media she could have been featured in actually proves the point that she's only treated like an afterthought and not a character who needs to be consciously thought about and included in things.
You make a good point with Beryl but the intent of DMC3's writing was that they wanted Dante and Vergil to come together to beat Arkham. There was no place for Lady in that moment and they used her quite well in that part (for her first appearance). Also I don't remember the DMC2 novel all that well but I looked up Beryl's profile and based on what I remember and know she doesn't utilize demonic power or witchcraft but relies on weaponry and firearms like Lady. So the fact a human character not using demonic power can help Dante defeat a demon with power on par or a greater than Dante's is more fuel to my point that you don't need to give a human demon powers to make them relevant it really boils down to writing and how its done.
So let me get this straight...
You just said that the fact they had Beryl helping Dante in DMC2 Novel but that they completely neglected to do that for Lady in DMC3 and in every mainline game proper (point out Lady helping defeat the Savior/Sanctus, please!)
proves that humans can help defeat great demons and that they can be relevant?
I don't think you understand truly what I'm saying. Beryl is a strike
against Lady. Beryl shows that Capcom has
refused to make Lady relevant even though the building blocks to her character and her tropes (Beryl herself, since they ripped off her character) was right there in other materials. Lady
could have been involved in the battle against Arkham and/or helped take down the Savior, but
instead she's killing lesser/weak demons and anything bigger than a lesser demon requires her getting Dante or Trish's help.
"There was no place for Lady in that moment" is an excuse. in DMC3, that was her father they were defeating. She had every right to be there, even more than the guy who stabbed Arkham because he thought Arkham wasn't being evil enough. Again, explain how a half-demon that forsook his humanity for power has more right to defeat a human that forsook his humanity for power, more than the human that taught a half-demon how to embrace his humanity through her own (Lady). I'll wait.
There
shouldn't be a difference between one "demon hunting woman with a huge gun and a dead mother whose father got involved with the occult and became a demon, and got a scar from the encounter" and another "demon hunting woman with a huge gun and a dead mother whose father got involved with the occult and became a demon, and
possibly got a scar from the encounter", especially when the latter was ripped off of the former, except "writing and how it's done" clearly sidelined the latter character despite her supposed achievements and the moral that you're getting from the story. You even agree with her sidelining saying that she "had no place" and that she was "used quite well" as it was. If she was "used well" already then there's no need to prove that human ingenuity, heart, determination, whatever, by itself can best demonic power, because for a lot of this series,
it doesn't do that on its own.
Beryl was relevant in the DMC2 novel. She was after the Beastheads and Chen, and got the Beastheads and Chen. She fought alongside Dante even when Chen mutated into a hulking demon boss, and there was no stretch of the novel where Dante tells her to stop and let him handle the job or otherwise treats her like a little girl. That was in the DMC2 novel.
What you don't seem to grasp is
that story is not the story they want to tell in DMCs 3, 4, and possibly 5. If Capcom wanted to show Lady as part of the Arkham boss battle, they would have but they didn't. If they wanted to show Lady playing a major part in taking down the Savior, they would have but they didn't. If they wanted to show Lady and Dante against that boss in the leaked footage, they would have but they didn't: they show her out cold and "possibly dead". How's that for human ingenuity?
DMC5 seems to be enforcing this theme even more by taking away Nero's demonic arm (the source of his tremendous demon power) and is replaced with human made/engineered robot arms meaning outside increased agility and durability/healing Nero relies more on his human made assets than demonic ones.
Firstly, he didn't stop being a quarter-demon just because he lost an arm, just like Dante wouldn't stop being half-demon if he lost his legs and got prosthetics. Secondly, you're using DMC5 to enforce this point that "solely human methods can stand up to demons" when a big deal of those Devil Breakers is that they
keep breaking and needing replacement so they're not durable to begin with, and also
some of them are made directly from demonic materials and/or have magical properties, see: Ragtime, Buster Arm, Punch Line, and Tomboy. So, Nico is showing human skill in
manipulating demonic matter, and Nero will use something made from
demon materials and magic to help him defeat demons, and you still think Nico's inventions are 100% mechanical and human? And no magic is involved whatsoever in their use? Or that Nero would be fighting the same way if he didn't get demonic materials in his arms that can magically charge his Blue Rose and Red Queen or an arm that's meant to function the same as his original Devil Bringer or whatever?
