Timeline Changed - DMC 2 Now Takes Place Before DMC 4

[berto]

in the manga, it's hinted that Dante forsake his demonic heritage.

But can we really say that when he uses his demonic blood to fight off demons? If he had he would resent it, refuse to use that power. You might see that as him being a hypocrite or maybe not having a choice since he almost died without it.

So it makes perfect sense that he doesn't want to embrace his demonic nature, because he's afraid if what he will become.

I don't know about that. Dante often talks about his father. There is a book for DMC1, the Sacred Heart, where Dante is thinking about him and how he never understood him. He was a devil and yet he was not like one. It wasn't until he thought Trish was dead that he understood a lot about his parents. Unlike in DmC, Dante doesn't have this begrudging and aggressive attitude about his father being a demon. Basically, there is a difference between embracing his humanity and rejecting his demonic nature. One is not exclusively attached to the other. Simply because you choose to live in a metropolitan city doesn't mean you hate the countryside.

A while ago, someone asked the director of 1 if Dante was immortal. The director responded that he could be but he chose to live his life as a human. Because of his attachment to his humanity anyone would assume that he rejects his demonic side, that he hates or fears it, but that's not necessarily true. As I said, the fact that there are a lot of different people handling the story means that there is a lot of disparity between interpretations. You might even argue that because it's in the manga it disqualifies any other elements, being a cannon depiction. Well, yes, but the whole issue is the constant disparity between the characters, even by the same people.

 

[Morgan]

This is something they said around the time the anime and 4 were releasing. It' was their incannon reason for why we don't see him using DA's from previous games. I guess because video games was not cutting it.

Well that's pretty dumb of them seeing as how the Sound Drama has Dante using Alastor and Cerberus in an episode, and Agni and Rudra have speaking lines. If Dante ever wanted to sell off any weapons, it'd be A&R.

That's from the DMC1 novel. A completely different writer did that so I'm sure it's another matter of different people doing different things with different mentalities for the character.

I'm aware. I was just saying they could have adopted that ages ago as the reason why he's in debt instead of butchering him to be incompetent, only to cannibalize the novel and put it back into continuity anyway. The trait in the novel matches what was supposed to be in the Drama CD. They just don't know what they're doing.

I remember that. The other instance of disconnection was when he made some off comment to Patty about being an orphan. Not because he said it and it was cruel but because to me it seemed to me like a simple P: I'm an orphan. D: So am I but you don't see me crying about it all day, would've been a simple solution.

Dante would still have a little more sense than that. He just comes off as a wannabe manga!Vergil who called Alice a painted hooker and told her that men would get tired of her quickly. But I guess that's the best they can do with a character who doesn't correct a little girl when she mistakes his mother for his girlfriend.

Other greatest hits from Dante In Name Only:

Tells a man whose brother got killed by Redeye that he's stupid for wanting vengeance for his elder brother's death (.....seeing a pattern here.....).

Tells a man to give up on his rockstar best friend who was either possessed by a demon or seemingly gave up her humanity to remain famous, calling her a lost cause and implying she'd die if he [Dante] went to hunt her down. Somehow the episode ended with her being ejected out of the demon shell like a Matryoshka doll of has-been stardom and getting a happily ever after. Yeah, I don't get it either.

Tells a woman to give up on her husband due to a gambling addiction that may get the husband killed by the demon named King. That the woman turned out to be King in disguise is kind of irrelevant in the face of Dante killing the husband himself by wearing one of King's artifacts to win a game, and the man was clearly under the impression that he loved someone given that he whispered "Sarah, I'm sorry..." as he died. Being an unwitting pawn to (or having ones life co-opted by) a demon isn't a crime, but you wouldn't think that watching that Poker episode! It would have wasted a lot less of the viewer's time if Dante had walked in and lit the place up with E&I.

"We humans never give up," indeed.

Also, I guess after the complete crapshoot that was him clocking Trish as a demon within a minute of meeting her as well as the opening episode of this very anime, Dante just can't tell when all these demons are walking around in human bodies unless they either confess to it, have a few murders under their belt already, or literally pop out of their human skin. Top-tier investigative work right there. Writers sure do know what they're doing with this character.

@Morgan V should be the lead for 5....

... Oh, right. V. Forgot about him.

I really like you're synopsis of the DMC series. But I only disagree with DMC3 should not have Dante. I think he serves his purpose of the story how he fully accepts his demonic heritage. And doing the right thing to save the world from his brother's ambition to gain power, because he realized that's how his father Sparda stood for. Even if he's over-the-top with his character. And his personality pretty much forgivable, because he was about in his late teens early 20s.

Now, I personally don't mind Dante being on DMC 2. He just needs to be rewritten to give him a reason to be in the story. Hell, they could make a potential romance story with Lucia and Dante. That's just my 2¢. Other than that, good post!

Bur Dante tells us in the first game that he was always aware of his demonic powers. "Even as a child, I had powers. There's demonic blood in me." He drops that truth with 0 apprehension hinted or otherwise, swears on his dad's name to "kill Mundus", and just generally shows no hint of ever having the attitude he did at the age of 19 where "I don't have a father, I just don't like you, that's all", considering that..... y'know..... Eva told stories about Sparda and how great he was. DMC3 Dante carrying animosity over Sparda and his demonic bloodline requires either the stories not being told, or Dante just not giving that much of a damn about his mother's own words, in effect placing his dislike for Sparda as more important than her fondness for the man, which is as disrespectful to her memory as what Vergil is doing. And we're supposed to believe that this guy who "at first... didn't give a damn" about the importance of stopping Vergil's plot would have a reason to be in the situation to begin with? He really could have just skipped town if he didn't care. He still had his amulet on him in Mission 1 and actively made the situation worse by going to the tower.

The thing is his character arc in 3 has no real reason to exist and isn't resolved in a way that properly takes into account what characters know and what they would need to know to move forward. He pins his character development on Lady, but all of Lady's interactions with him except for maybe mission 16 is her being negative and racist to him. Dehumanizing/demonizing him, accusing him of murder just because he's next to a dead body, and actually trying to kill him before she figures out he can survive otherwise lethal shots to justify her use of force. Meanwhile she talks about how her mother was killed by a demon and now she hates all demons, and Dante's supposed to learn from that?**

Anyway Dante has that same issue of his mother's death fueling a hatred for demons, so one would think we'd see how much he truly wants to distance himself from his identity by disavowing his demon blood and insisting on his human side exclusively, right? Yes but actually no, he only denies Sparda in front of Vergil, not in front of Lady, and throughout all that, Eva might as well not exist as a person. If Dante was denying his demonic heritage as-is, he did a ****-poor job of it by never mentioning Eva to Lady to prove he had human blood in him and that they share similar pain. He doesn't even mention how much he treasures his amulet as it's a gift and the last good memory he has of his mother. Every other bit of dialogue from him was about his father or his brother or himself, all partially or fully demonic in nature. No humanity there to even start with as a baseline. Lady winds up learning off-screen that Dante has a human mother, enough to mention it in passing in the epilogue narration for 3. And he takes all of it back anyway in DMCs 1 and 2 precisely because "devils never cry" and "tears are a gift only humans have". He self-identifies as a human pretty consistently.

Kamiya was asked on Twitter why Dante disliked Sparda in 3 and he expressed confusion about it (along the lines of "What? Who said Dante hates Sparda?"). Thus that's not an organic trait to his character.

** I mean, 5 kinda craps all over the idea of a family member having to take responsibility for an evil person in their group and then having to put them down, considering how traumatized Lady suddenly is about killing Arkham, and how 5 resolves the conflict by Nero stopping Dante and Vergil from killing each other even though Dante thought that was what he had to do. So what exactly was he supposed to learn in the third game? Because Lady was all about stopping her own family with lethal means back then. The game would not have ended the same way if Dante were half-assing his intent to save the world from Vergil and wasn't convicted enough to "stop you... even if that means killing you".

 

[berto]

Tells a man whose brother got killed by Redeye that he's stupid for wanting vengeance for his elder brother's death (.....seeing a pattern here.....).

Yeah, why the dishonesty? If he's doing it as a form or deflection or as a way to say 'unlike me' it still incredibly childish and kinda very a'holish.

Tells a man to give up on his rockstar best friend who was either possessed by a demon or seemingly gave up her humanity to remain famous, calling her a lost cause and implying she'd die if he [Dante] went to hunt her down. Somehow the episode ended with her being ejected out of the demon shell like a Matryoshka doll of has-been stardom and getting a happily ever after. Yeah, I don't get it either.

Tells a woman to give up on her husband due to a gambling addiction that may get the husband killed by the demon named King. That the woman turned out to be King in disguise is kind of irrelevant in the face of Dante killing the husband himself by wearing one of King's artifacts to win a game, and the man was clearly under the impression that he loved someone given that he whispered "Sarah, I'm sorry..." as he died. Being an unwitting pawn to (or having ones life co-opted by) a demon isn't a crime, but you wouldn't think that watching that Poker episode! It would have wasted a lot less of the viewer's time if Dante had walked in and lit the place up with E&I.

Why all of this? why the lies? Why act like a total c*** and kicking people while they're down only to end up helping anyway? Because it certainly doesn't come off as being cruel to be kind. It only makes him come off as a right bastard. Unsympathetic and even mean spirited. Even if in the end it shows him helping those people, anyway, it doesn't make him come off as heroic.

"We humans never give up," indeed.

I remember a time above, a time before. There were perfect things, diamond absolutes. Things fall, things on earth, and what falls…is fallen.

See what I mean, though? There is a cheesy sense of nobility here. That dumb action hero attitude. There is so much more sincerity in that one tacky and corny line than in the entire anime.

Also, I guess after the complete crapshoot that was him clocking Trish as a demon within a minute of meeting her as well as the opening episode of this very anime, Dante just can't tell when all these demons are walking around in human bodies unless they either confess to it, have a few murders under their belt already, or literally pop out of their human skin. Top-tier investigative work right there. Writers sure do know what they're doing with this character.

Back in May I finished a script for a thing I'm making not on this specific subject but very much related to it. In one section I basically state that these two are not the same character. They might look alike but they're not.

 

[BlackAngel]

But can we really say that when he uses his demonic blood to fight off demons? If he had he would resent it, refuse to use that power. You might see that as him being a hypocrite or maybe not having a choice since he almost died without it.


I don't know about that. Dante often talks about his father. There is a book for DMC1, the Sacred Heart, where Dante is thinking about him and how he never understood him. He was a devil and yet he was not like one. It wasn't until he thought Trish was dead that he understood a lot about his parents. Unlike in DmC, Dante doesn't have this begrudging and aggressive attitude about his father being a demon. Basically, there is a difference between embracing his humanity and rejecting his demonic nature. One is not exclusively attached to the other. Simply because you choose to live in a metropolitan city doesn't mean you hate the countryside.

A while ago, someone asked the director of 1 if Dante was immortal. The director responded that he could be but he chose to live his life as a human. Because of his attachment to his humanity anyone would assume that he rejects his demonic side, that he hates or fears it, but that's not necessarily true. As I said, the fact that there are a lot of different people handling the story means that there is a lot of disparity between interpretations. You might even argue that because it's in the manga it disqualifies any other elements, being a cannon depiction. Well, yes, but the whole issue is the constant disparity between the characters, even by the same people.

But Vergil said to Dante: "Why do you refuse to gain power?" "Might controls everything. And without strength you cannot protect anything. Let alone yourself." Also confirms that Dante refuse to use his demonic power at the time, because he forsakes his heritage unlike Vergil. As I said in DMC1, he embraced his demonic heritage to use his powers to fight evil. Just like his father have before him, so he finally realized that using demonic power can be use for the greater good.

Well that's pretty dumb of them seeing as how the Sound Drama has Dante using Alastor and Cerberus in an episode, and Agni and Rudra have speaking lines. If Dante ever wanted to sell off any weapons, it'd be A&R.



I'm aware. I was just saying they could have adopted that ages ago as the reason why he's in debt instead of butchering him to be incompetent, only to cannibalize the novel and put it back into continuity anyway. The trait in the novel matches what was supposed to be in the Drama CD. They just don't know what they're doing.



Dante would still have a little more sense than that. He just comes off as a wannabe manga!Vergil who called Alice a painted hooker and told her that men would get tired of her quickly. But I guess that's the best they can do with a character who doesn't correct a little girl when she mistakes his mother for his girlfriend.

Other greatest hits from Dante In Name Only:

Tells a man whose brother got killed by Redeye that he's stupid for wanting vengeance for his elder brother's death (.....seeing a pattern here.....).

Tells a man to give up on his rockstar best friend who was either possessed by a demon or seemingly gave up her humanity to remain famous, calling her a lost cause and implying she'd die if he [Dante] went to hunt her down. Somehow the episode ended with her being ejected out of the demon shell like a Matryoshka doll of has-been stardom and getting a happily ever after. Yeah, I don't get it either.

Tells a woman to give up on her husband due to a gambling addiction that may get the husband killed by the demon named King. That the woman turned out to be King in disguise is kind of irrelevant in the face of Dante killing the husband himself by wearing one of King's artifacts to win a game, and the man was clearly under the impression that he loved someone given that he whispered "Sarah, I'm sorry..." as he died. Being an unwitting pawn to (or having ones life co-opted by) a demon isn't a crime, but you wouldn't think that watching that Poker episode! It would have wasted a lot less of the viewer's time if Dante had walked in and lit the place up with E&I.

"We humans never give up," indeed.

Also, I guess after the complete crapshoot that was him clocking Trish as a demon within a minute of meeting her as well as the opening episode of this very anime, Dante just can't tell when all these demons are walking around in human bodies unless they either confess to it, have a few murders under their belt already, or literally pop out of their human skin. Top-tier investigative work right there. Writers sure do know what they're doing with this character.

... Oh, right. V. Forgot about him.



Bur Dante tells us in the first game that he was always aware of his demonic powers. "Even as a child, I had powers. There's demonic blood in me." He drops that truth with 0 apprehension hinted or otherwise, swears on his dad's name to "kill Mundus", and just generally shows no hint of ever having the attitude he did at the age of 19 where "I don't have a father, I just don't like you, that's all", considering that..... y'know..... Eva told stories about Sparda and how great he was. DMC3 Dante carrying animosity over Sparda and his demonic bloodline requires either the stories not being told, or Dante just not giving that much of a damn about his mother's own words, in effect placing his dislike for Sparda as more important than her fondness for the man, which is as disrespectful to her memory as what Vergil is doing. And we're supposed to believe that this guy who "at first... didn't give a damn" about the importance of stopping Vergil's plot would have a reason to be in the situation to begin with? He really could have just skipped town if he didn't care. He still had his amulet on him in Mission 1 and actively made the situation worse by going to the tower.

The thing is his character arc in 3 has no real reason to exist and isn't resolved in a way that properly takes into account what characters know and what they would need to know to move forward. He pins his character development on Lady, but all of Lady's interactions with him except for maybe mission 16 is her being negative and racist to him. Dehumanizing/demonizing him, accusing him of murder just because he's next to a dead body, and actually trying to kill him before she figures out he can survive otherwise lethal shots to justify her use of force. Meanwhile she talks about how her mother was killed by a demon and now she hates all demons, and Dante's supposed to learn from that?**

Anyway Dante has that same issue of his mother's death fueling a hatred for demons, so one would think we'd see how much he truly wants to distance himself from his identity by disavowing his demon blood and insisting on his human side exclusively, right? Yes but actually no, he only denies Sparda in front of Vergil, not in front of Lady, and throughout all that, Eva might as well not exist as a person. If Dante was denying his demonic heritage as-is, he did a ****-poor job of it by never mentioning Eva to Lady to prove he had human blood in him and that they share similar pain. He doesn't even mention how much he treasures his amulet as it's a gift and the last good memory he has of his mother. Every other bit of dialogue from him was about his father or his brother or himself, all partially or fully demonic in nature. No humanity there to even start with as a baseline. Lady winds up learning off-screen that Dante has a human mother, enough to mention it in passing in the epilogue narration for 3. And he takes all of it back anyway in DMCs 1 and 2 precisely because "devils never cry" and "tears are a gift only humans have". He self-identifies as a human pretty consistently.

Kamiya was asked on Twitter why Dante disliked Sparda in 3 and he expressed confusion about it (along the lines of "What? Who said Dante hates Sparda?"). Thus that's not an organic trait to his character.

** I mean, 5 kinda craps all over the idea of a family member having to take responsibility for an evil person in their group and then having to put them down, considering how traumatized Lady suddenly is about killing Arkham, and how 5 resolves the conflict by Nero stopping Dante and Vergil from killing each other even though Dante thought that was what he had to do. So what exactly was he supposed to learn in the third game? Because Lady was all about stopping her own family with lethal means back then. The game would not have ended the same way if Dante were half-assing his intent to save the world from Vergil and wasn't convicted enough to "stop you... even if that means killing you".

Now, I understand that the 3rd game handled Dante poorly when it comes to character development around Lady. Where he could've explained his mother was killed by demons, and his father was a demon who was Sparda who saved humanity. I agree that it could've been a lot better, if they went further of the relationship between two characters. And Dante should been horrified that Vergil destroyed a city, and it should made Dante very angry at him.

Especially when in mission 3 during an interaction, he mentioned that there are people behind slaughtered by demons. When you entered Love Planet, there's a lot of blood and debris hinted that people were killed by demons.

And he says that he does not "give a damn", but he ended up to the tower anyway to stop his brother from destroying the world. It doesn't make any sense, but I understand what they're trying to do with the story. Like how Dante became a reluctant hero, and start to embrace his demonic heritage and use his gift for the greater good.

 

[berto]

"Why do you refuse to gain power?"

I believe that had to do with Vergil's objective in 3 to raise the tower and kill all those people to get the sword more than to use his demonic blood. Dante didn't have access to it at that point. Not till he gets impaled so even if he wanted to he didn't have access to that power, forsaken or not.

 

[Foxtrot94]

Now we have this guy who's always acting like he doesn't care about anything, that he has no basic attachments or concerns/priorities that others would because he's too 'cool' to care.

That may have been true for 4 but not 5. You genuinely can't say Dante doesn't care about anything in 5. The whole time he was trying to keep Nero out of the fight to spare him the deed of killing his father. He made it his priority at the risk of his own life. That is caring. A lot.

I understand that the 3rd game handled Dante poorly when it comes to character development around Lady.

It didn't. They were both pretty antagonistic to each other but it was his witnessing of all her struggles and tribulations, her constant determination to right her father's wrongs in a quest that was hopeless for a human, that made him grow.

Lady being a prick, or blowing smoke up his arse, doesn't matter, it's not the point. It's not about Dante reacting to her attitude towards him specifically, it's about him reacting to her attitude towards the situation and the events that unfold around her, which sort of mirror his own, thus making him relate.

 

[BlackAngel]

I believe that had to do with Vergil's objective in 3 to raise the tower and kill all those people to get the sword more than to use his demonic blood. Dante didn't have access to it at that point. Not till he gets impaled so even if he wanted to he didn't have access to that power, forsaken or not.

That may have been true for 4 but not 5. You genuinely can't say Dante doesn't care about anything in 5. The whole time he was trying to keep Nero out of the fight to spare him the deed of killing his father. He made it his priority at the risk of his own life. That is caring. A lot.



It didn't. They were both pretty antagonistic to each other but it was his witnessing of all her struggles and tribulations, her constant determination to right her father's wrongs in a quest that was hopeless for a human, that made him grow.

Lady being a prick, or blowing smoke up his arse, doesn't matter, it's not the point. It's not about Dante reacting to her attitude towards him specifically, it's about him reacting to her attitude towards the situation and the events that unfold around her, which sort of mirror his own, thus making him relate.

I understand of what they're going for. I'm just saying that it could've been fleshed out more.

 

[Morgan]

Yeah, why the dishonesty? If he's doing it as a form or deflection or as a way to say 'unlike me' it still incredibly childish and kinda very a'holish.

Why all of this? why the lies? Why act like a total c*** and kicking people while they're down only to end up helping anyway? Because it certainly doesn't come off as being cruel to be kind. It only makes him come off as a right bastard. Unsympathetic and even mean spirited. Even if in the end it shows him helping those people, anyway, it doesn't make him come off as heroic.

This, this right here is the behavior that made me call Dante a Gary Stu. Being powerful is one thing, but the story twisted itself into a pretzel by having Dante be an insufferable jerk to everyone around him only for him to be right and save them anyway, resulting in them agreeing with him and not even pulling him to task over his jerk attitude. Dr. House pulled that in his show that but at least he helped cure diseases. If this were any other character being "sassy"/"tough"/rude to random strangers people would call it for what it is, I'd hope.

See what I mean, though? There is a cheesy sense of nobility here. That dumb action hero attitude. There is so much more sincerity in that one tacky and corny line than in the entire anime.

I think I'm seeing a problem with media in general that writers are afraid to have sincere moments in their work for fear of being portrayed as cheesy/corny/soft/tacky/whatever, so they always have to couch everything in "humor" or ironic aloofness because they don't want to dwell on actual emotion or be outed as caring about anything, like a transmedia equivalent of breaking eye contact to avoid someone looking into them. There was a lot of that going on in Infinity War but that's a side note.

Back in May I finished a script for a thing I'm making not on this specific subject but very much related to it. In one section I basically state that these two are not the same character. They might look alike but they're not.

So you're saying.....
Red lookin kinda sus?

Can't wait to read that script.

But Vergil said to Dante: "Why do you refuse to gain power?" "Might controls everything. And without strength you cannot protect anything. Let alone yourself." Also confirms that Dante refuse to use his demonic power at the time, because he forsakes his heritage unlike Vergil. As I said in DMC1, he embraced his demonic heritage to use his powers to fight evil. Just like his father have before him, so he finally realized that using demonic power can be use for the greater good.

The quote is about gaining power. Dante had no Devil Trigger for sure, but he was still using regeneration and his natural affinity for weapons to hunt demons and is notably superhuman compared to others in the field. Given that Vergil's method of attaining power is being duplicitous and causing a genocide, Dante can simply not want power Vergil's talking about ("The power of our father, Sparda") out of not feeling like a cheststabbing mass murderer that day, regardless of whether the power is demonic in nature or not. There could have been a lifetime supply of cash, pizza, tomato juice, and buxom babes on the other end of that Hell portal and Dante still probably wouldn't unleash demons and kill people to get to it. At least I'd hope not. That doesn't mean he's not interested in those things, he just wouldn't be willing to get them that way. He clearly has no problem with defeating demons on his way to Vergil and using them to make his attacks stronger, so if he wanted to refuse demonic power by whatever means he can, not adopting those weapons would have been a start. Shouldn't he be worried about them corrupting him, or something?

It really doesn't make much sense for why Dante is there and doing the things he does, and honestly the same goes for Vergil. This is the series with an artbook that suggested Vergil wanted power to make up for his own weakness and his inability to protect himself and his mother but his initial reason was twisted up and he descended to being amoral and self-centered. But he never explained himself in the least bit when he was literally asked by Dante about what his goal was in attaining power and instead acted like a tantruming child on at least two occasions. Then his next appearance crossed him from amoral to immoral as he facilitates another world-ending event, and he's a petty little biyotch to boot whose reason-for-being is that Dante won against him too many times and he was jealous because Mommy Loved Dante More. Not even his separate halves-who-are-not-really-him-but-still-him laser focused around how much they don't like Dante because of what he represents to them. He's been harboring that petty hate for how many years? How could he have that animosity for Dante and yet Dante asks him why he wants power? Or he otherwise deliberately regresses as a character so he can gain power to beat his longstanding rival and he forsakes care for his son and the boy's human mother on top of that. That's....

Yeah that pretty much is Goku vs Majin Vegeta, huh. I liked that plot better when it was in DBZ.

 

[V's patron]

@Morgan
That term is called "bathos" and explained better here-

 

[berto]

That may have been true for 4 but not 5.

I was actually very specifically talking about the anime.

 

[Foxtrot94]

I was actually very specifically talking about the anime.

My bad. You said "these days" and "now" so I thought you were being more general.

 

[berto]

I understand of what they're going for. I'm just saying that it could've been fleshed out more.

Well, with PS2 games they didn't always have the luxury. No excuse nowadays but back then it wasn't always an option.

Can't wait to read that script.

It's a video presentation and it's somewhat far off. I still have to get through 3 others, in Spanish and English, before I get to this one.

I was actually very specifically talking about the anime.

To an extent that does but that would require quite a bit of clarification. For now, and regarding what I said in that statement, it's most prominent in the anime.

 

[V's patron]

Didn't they set 2 before 4 the first time all those years ago?

 

[Morgan]

Don't remember that; pretty sure they said "DMC2 takes place in the far future" when they promoted DMC4 to clear questions on whether anything in 4 would address 2. Then the artbook came titled 3142.

 

[Vergil95]

Didn't they set 2 before 4 the first time all those years ago?

Yeah before release they say dmc 4 was set before dmc 2

 

[BlackAngel]

This, this right here is the behavior that made me call Dante a Gary Stu. Being powerful is one thing, but the story twisted itself into a pretzel by having Dante be an insufferable jerk to everyone around him only for him to be right and save them anyway, resulting in them agreeing with him and not even pulling him to task over his jerk attitude. Dr. House pulled that in his show that but at least he helped cure diseases. If this were any other character being "sassy"/"tough"/rude to random strangers people would call it for what it is, I'd hope.



I think I'm seeing a problem with media in general that writers are afraid to have sincere moments in their work for fear of being portrayed as cheesy/corny/soft/tacky/whatever, so they always have to couch everything in "humor" or ironic aloofness because they don't want to dwell on actual emotion or be outed as caring about anything, like a transmedia equivalent of breaking eye contact to avoid someone looking into them. There was a lot of that going on in Infinity War but that's a side note.



So you're saying.....
Red lookin kinda sus?

Can't wait to read that script.



The quote is about gaining power. Dante had no Devil Trigger for sure, but he was still using regeneration and his natural affinity for weapons to hunt demons and is notably superhuman compared to others in the field. Given that Vergil's method of attaining power is being duplicitous and causing a genocide, Dante can simply not want power Vergil's talking about ("The power of our father, Sparda") out of not feeling like a cheststabbing mass murderer that day, regardless of whether the power is demonic in nature or not. There could have been a lifetime supply of cash, pizza, tomato juice, and buxom babes on the other end of that Hell portal and Dante still probably wouldn't unleash demons and kill people to get to it. At least I'd hope not. That doesn't mean he's not interested in those things, he just wouldn't be willing to get them that way. He clearly has no problem with defeating demons on his way to Vergil and using them to make his attacks stronger, so if he wanted to refuse demonic power by whatever means he can, not adopting those weapons would have been a start. Shouldn't he be worried about them corrupting him, or something?

It really doesn't make much sense for why Dante is there and doing the things he does, and honestly the same goes for Vergil. This is the series with an artbook that suggested Vergil wanted power to make up for his own weakness and his inability to protect himself and his mother but his initial reason was twisted up and he descended to being amoral and self-centered. But he never explained himself in the least bit when he was literally asked by Dante about what his goal was in attaining power and instead acted like a tantruming child on at least two occasions. Then his next appearance crossed him from amoral to immoral as he facilitates another world-ending event, and he's a petty little biyotch to boot whose reason-for-being is that Dante won against him too many times and he was jealous because Mommy Loved Dante More. Not even his separate halves-who-are-not-really-him-but-still-him laser focused around how much they don't like Dante because of what he represents to them. He's been harboring that petty hate for how many years? How could he have that animosity for Dante and yet Dante asks him why he wants power? Or he otherwise deliberately regresses as a character so he can gain power to beat his longstanding rival and he forsakes care for his son and the boy's human mother on top of that. That's....

Yeah that pretty much is Goku vs Majin Vegeta, huh. I liked that plot better when it was in DBZ.

DBZ have the exact same problems of its story, and characters as much as DMC series. (But, I digress) But at least we know the reasons why Vergil was in the path to darkness to gain power, because he lost his mother and the woman he loved. And Dante refuse to accept his demonic heratige because he saw his mother died by demons, and possibly has a dark past of his demonic blood took over him and he killed many people. Because he couldn't control his anger that awakens his demonic nature. They could do so much with the story, if they have talented writers and a director who knows how to execute a story.

 

[Morgan]

DBZ have the exact same problems of its story, and characters as much as DMC series. (But, I digress) But at least we know the reasons why Vergil was in the path to darkness to gain power, because he lost his mother and the woman he loved. And Dante refuse to accept his demonic heratige because he saw his mother died by demons, and possibly has a dark past of his demonic blood took over him and he killed many people. Because he couldn't control his anger that awakens his demonic nature. They could do so much with the story, if they have talented writers and a director who knows how to execute a story.

Well..... yeah? And? Of course DBZ has problems with the story. Me mentioning DBZ favorably wasn't an open challenge. But at least the Dragonball series has the excuse of the transition from a gag manga to serious character action manga across 40 years of the work's existence and Toriyama is almost 70. Toriyama often forgot plot points and entire characters and admits to it as well as the massive workload he had and how little sleep he got in the creation of Dragonball, with changes being the result of forgetfulness, editorial decisions, and the company that technically owns the story doing whatever it wants with their adaptation of it (anime, dub, filler, GT, DBS) and the tons of out-of-continuity additions (the Movies) plus promotional material for side-games, video-games, and spinoffs (Dragonball Heroes and Super DBH, DBZ Kakarot, etc), and now Tori just writes outlines and hands them off to Toei and Toyo for either the DBS anime or the manga respectively, with continuity differences between either side since whatever isn't outlined by Toriyama is subject to Toyotaro's whims since he started off as a fan of Dragonball and got scouted as Toriyama's successor thanks to a post-GT fan continuation under his belt.

In comparison, the fact that DMC has such issues with its plot with only half the runtime, a fraction of the characters, and a fairly consistent writing team for the past three games with an inconsistent "release schedule" compared to a weekly manga and still can't even rip off Dragonball movies or even it's own past work passably is pathetic, yet DMC5 is still being hailed on some hellsite as having a plot worthy of Shakespeare while DB in general gained a level of cultural relevance and influence around the world that DMC can't dream of, a long-running Abridged Series that maintained its popularity, and the fandom good-naturedly memes the hell out of "Freeza's Five Minutes" and how long it takes for the anime to get anywhere if not arguments about powerscaling or comparing Broly or whatever.

I'm saying DBZ and DMC have issues with plot but Toriyama has been up front about how much he prefers humor, cares little about powerscaling, and draws what interests him and not necessarily what the hardcore fans want and "casual" fans generally vibe with that, while Capcom, whether its Itsuno or Bingo or whoever, have put up a front about pleasing fans with the games and the story and they just can't do it and don't feel like doing it given how easily they retcon a timeline for one whole game and something as simple as a character's age has to be pieced together with interviews and dialogue snippets that they can easily ignore when the next game rolls around. For all we know DMC6 could have Dante and Vergil be 12 or early teens when they lost Eva instead of 8. Itsuno doesn't give a damn, he said every game before 4 took place in the 80s just because he didn't want to explain why Dante didn't have a cellphone or a laptop (thereby retconning the DMC1 blurb of Dante "living in Modern America"-- he could just have a rotary phone to be old fashioned or for the aesthetic) and yet Nero rocks bluetooth headphones that function perfectly in a low-tech medieval island-town and they still use payphones in DMC5 when there's a hotel in the setting with a flatscreen TV, so Itsuno still has to contend with Dante and the rest of the cast not using cellphones and laptops but won't explain it. He doesn't care. The fandom deserves better than that.

I mean, aside from what I just said, what's your proof that Vergil loved Nero's mother? The game clearly wants to give the impression that he was impulsive in that stage of his life and that he just tapped that and left; he literally asked if he had a son suggesting he didn't even know the woman was pregnant.

And what's that about Dante killing people? You're free to write a fic about it but that's not something that's been hinted at in his past, just an idea they scrapped for Dante's future that would have explained DMC2.

 

[BlackAngel]

Well..... yeah? And? Of course DBZ has problems with the story. Me mentioning DBZ favorably wasn't an open challenge. But at least the Dragonball series has the excuse of the transition from a gag manga to serious character action manga across 40 years of the work's existence and Toriyama is almost 70. Toriyama often forgot plot points and entire characters and admits to it as well as the massive workload he had and how little sleep he got in the creation of Dragonball, with changes being the result of forgetfulness, editorial decisions, and the company that technically owns the story doing whatever it wants with their adaptation of it (anime, dub, filler, GT, DBS) and the tons of out-of-continuity additions (the Movies) plus promotional material for side-games, video-games, and spinoffs (Dragonball Heroes and Super DBH, DBZ Kakarot, etc), and now Tori just writes outlines and hands them off to Toei and Toyo for either the DBS anime or the manga respectively, with continuity differences between either side since whatever isn't outlined by Toriyama is subject to Toyotaro's whims since he started off as a fan of Dragonball and got scouted as Toriyama's successor thanks to a post-GT fan continuation under his belt.

In comparison, the fact that DMC has such issues with its plot with only half the runtime, a fraction of the characters, and a fairly consistent writing team for the past three games with an inconsistent "release schedule" compared to a weekly manga and still can't even rip off Dragonball movies or even it's own past work passably is pathetic, yet DMC5 is still being hailed on some hellsite as having a plot worthy of Shakespeare while DB in general gained a level of cultural relevance and influence around the world that DMC can't dream of, a long-running Abridged Series that maintained its popularity, and the fandom good-naturedly memes the hell out of "Freeza's Five Minutes" and how long it takes for the anime to get anywhere if not arguments about powerscaling or comparing Broly or whatever.

I'm saying DBZ and DMC have issues with plot but Toriyama has been up front about how much he prefers humor, cares little about powerscaling, and draws what interests him and not necessarily what the hardcore fans want and "casual" fans generally vibe with that, while Capcom, whether its Itsuno or Bingo or whoever, have put up a front about pleasing fans with the games and the story and they just can't do it and don't feel like doing it given how easily they retcon a timeline for one whole game and something as simple as a character's age has to be pieced together with interviews and dialogue snippets that they can easily ignore when the next game rolls around. For all we know DMC6 could have Dante and Vergil be 12 or early teens when they lost Eva instead of 8. Itsuno doesn't give a damn, he said every game before 4 took place in the 80s just because he didn't want to explain why Dante didn't have a cellphone or a laptop (thereby retconning the DMC1 blurb of Dante "living in Modern America"-- he could just have a rotary phone to be old fashioned or for the aesthetic) and yet Nero rocks bluetooth headphones that function perfectly in a low-tech medieval island-town and they still use payphones in DMC5 when there's a hotel in the setting with a flatscreen TV, so Itsuno still has to contend with Dante and the rest of the cast not using cellphones and laptops but won't explain it. He doesn't care. The fandom deserves better than that.

I mean, aside from what I just said, what's your proof that Vergil loved Nero's mother? The game clearly wants to give the impression that he was impulsive in that stage of his life and that he just tapped that and left; he literally asked if he had a son suggesting he didn't even know the woman was pregnant.

And what's that about Dante killing people? You're free to write a fic about it but that's not something that's been hinted at in his past, just an idea they scrapped for Dante's future that would have explained DMC2.

It's kinda obvious that Vergil has cared for Nero's mother, just as much he cared for the mother that he lost. If they go that route of Vergil's story, it would've explained a lot that why Vergil's driven to become stronger. And lectured Dante that might controls everything, because he's misguided by his own pain thinking that strength is everything. Because he lost everything.

About Dante's past, I'm just coming up with ideas of why Dante refuse to embrace his demonic heritage. Like how he was hunted by a lynch mob when he was a child, when they found out that he was a demon. When he was in danger, his demonic nature awakened and Dante slaughtered them in the most gruesome ways. (Think of Alucard from Hellsing) And he snapped out of it but he can't remember what happened, and he was horrified when he was covered in blood. Now we could see why he want to hold back his power, because he couldn't control it when he was a child at the time.

Since then, he was on his own and picking up a trade to kill demons to earn a living. But mostly he wanted to kill demons, because they killed his mother and the people he grew up with. And wanted to hold back his power, because he doesn't want to become like what he was when he slaughtered the humans when he was going to be lynched by them. That would've explained why he refuse to embrace his demonic heritage, and not very fond of humans because of his traumatic past.

 

[Morgan]

It's kinda obvious that Vergil has cared for Nero's mother, just as much he cared for the mother that he lost.

Which is.... not much.

Unless you have a totally different definition of "caring" that includes

Not knowing he had unprotected sex

Not knowing he impregnated a woman given that he was having sex with her

Not knowing he had a son

Not caring he had a son

Assaulting his son and implicitly disrespecting the will of the woman he apparently loved who, considering she carried her child to term, would probably have wanted her son to keep his bodily integrity

It being passed off as "happened a long time ago" and "you were young once too", phrasing that suggests it was an impulsive teenage decision he doesn't consider himself obligated to honor and not one born out of commitment and love like an adult.

Not sure how you got "he cares" out of

Vergil: My son... means nothing to me!

Vergil: Nero is my son?

Dante: Yeah, dumbass. You can't remember through that thick skull of yours?

Vergil: Well, well... That was a long time ago.

Dante: I guess you were young once, too.

Do you know anyone who forgets they have a child? We generally call those deadbeats, not maintain illusions that they truly loved their baby mama. That's like saying Nero cares about Kyrie and expressing that by having him cut off Credo's leg on purpose with no compunction. Even Bingo knew that Nero loving Kyrie meant that he would have to care for what she cared about, even if he wouldn't on his own, and that's why Nero refuses to fight Credo-- "I don't want to hurt Kyrie like that".

Like I said, you're free to write fic about it, but it's not in the game. They don't get credit for it because the woman or Nero weren't invented for 3 and Vergil didn't act like they existed (because they didn't), and then 5 had him not even care and in fact contributed to his son's harm when Nero is supposed to be an extension/product of his love for the woman he was with.

 

[berto]

Which is.... not much.

We don't know that, though. We don't know about the events that led Vergil this way nor why he left whoever she was. In the original Japanese version Vergil doesn't say 'I don't care about my son.' He basically says 'Son? I don't know of any son.'

You know the reason Vergil left to cut the tree down was for Nero, right? Even if he was able to keep fighting and just decided to stop and go was for him. Even if he fought him beforehand Vergil's actions at the end have to do with Nero.