Powers and Abilities essay-post

Alright. This is the essay I've been promising various people for a while. If I said I would discuss something in here I haven't, it's probably because I forgot: like I keep telling people, one of the things this ing depression is doing is completely ing up my memory.

Comment and I'll put it in.

Aging:

I don't go on the IGN boards, but I've heard they're on a *lot* of crack and what haloradio discovered re her site confirms it. Apparently someone is saying that Dante ages a day per year like Anne Rice's vampires do: I wouldn't know, having read like the first few pages of Lestat and put it down. Oh, and a friend made me see the Interview movie, but I haven't seen it in there. But let's do the math.

Dante looks around 18 (japanese fanon age 19, according to nyxmidnight: could just be fanon, but they have access to more info. than us over there) in DMC3. At 364/365 days a year, that means he'd be around 6.5 to 7 thousand years old.

Now, he could have aged normally or at a faster rate for a while, we don't know, but given that Sparda... no, that's debatable, really, and I would have to do that in another post, it's too OT for this one. So, we will assume they were not born before Sparda rebelled, alright?

Now, the guy in Interview isn't several thousand, but he only started aging that way when he became a vampire. Dante isn't a vampire. The only thing that was a similar 'changing' event was the first trigger in DMC3, and saying he's mimimum 25 in DMC1, that puts 3 and 1 2000 years apart. ...which would mean 1 was the second time Mundus busted loose post-Sparda. So, probably not.

We know the priestess is not Eva: as valeria_15 pointed out, if they were descended from her, the seal would have been broken before Lady arrived.

The novella, according to redgrave01, confirms they were born in modern times, at least.

Which is what most people seem to agree with in any case, even those who don't accept the novella as any more 'core' canon than the American comics, but it's nice to have even sketchy confirmation: the novella wouldn't have wanted to be too far off, and Kamiya supervised it and would have known what the story was given he thought it up. However, what other people Capcom puts it in the hands of will do to it... *points to 2*

Throughout the games, there is as far as can be seen, a 1:1 correlation between Dante's aging rate and the normal: tech/language changes 3 to 1 to 2. Don't make me cut and paste my timeline. 4 we will have to wait on: he could be a guant from suffering post-2 or in-between 3 and 1.

However, 2 complicates that. The tech in 2 is very advanced. This could be due to Arius mixing magic with it, or indicate that longer has passed than Dante's age would indicate (perhaps 10 years instead of 5), or that tech. has progressed that fast. They're already doing stuff with gene therapy and cell cloning you wouldn't believe: my Dad works on, among other things, retro-viruses supplementing normal medication for eye conditions. But, it's possible that his aging rate is 'tapering off'.

What complicates the ages-at-a-normal-rate and will die when a human would thing is the say hello to my son in 2000 years line in 1. Now... you have to take all quotes with a grain of salt. After all, people can be wrong about things just as well in fictional worlds as in ours, or outright lying (I would want Mundus to worry even if there was no reason for him to if I was Dante). Dante/any children would have died of old age by then despite the quote. If, hybrid sterility theory aside, he does have kids.

However... 2 information indicates that Sparda survived at least to 1600 or so (as well as the circumstantial evidence of the Sparda 'skin' in 1 and 3 having 19th century clothes and modern guns), and he looked pretty good. And, of course, Mundus and Beowulf, who were around in 0, are quite spry still.

On the other hand, Matier apparently has the blood of the gods, and she looks quite old. Of course, her actual age is quite up for debate: we only know she met Sparda. She could be anywhere from 60 to 6 thousand, as the Vie du Marii cultural evidence suggests very strongly that 'devils' were interacting with humans in a non-conquering way, as gods, pre-Mundus. On the other hand, she seems quite spry, given her 'yawn' reaction to being bombed, and she might *want* to look that age: she's a high priestess and hence high-profile, and there are foreigners on the island: the natives might know she doesn't age, but other people would wonder why she looks the same in photographs 20 years or so apart. But then, Lucia is her heir/substitute... it could be just that she's a trainee and Matier wanted her to confront Arius for her own sake(after all, Lucia is quite child-like, I wouldn't want to put her in a position of great responsibility for several more decades), that Matier is getting old and needs to retire, or that Matier wants to give the job to someone else and spend the next few centuries on the beach. We really don't know.

We also don't know about the capabilities of Green Orbs: can they reverse aging? If they can heal scythes through the chest, it seems intuitive that yes, they can: and mythology is full of potions that decrease aging. Given Dante's profession/'destiny', I'd say he would make it a high priority to get his hands on as many different formula as possible, and would be in a good position to. So it's highly possible that even if Dante isn't naturally immortal, he can take a pill for it. XD

Especially as, in 1, he acquired a Philosopher's Stone, and as anyone knows, especially since the Harry Potter books came out, that can be used to make an immortality draught.

Oh, since we're on the subject: immortal doesn't mean can't die: it means doesn't age and will survive wounds unless they are pretty immedietly fatal, etc. It's a common trait among prettymuch all panthenons and many lesser beings.

The ones in those traditions that aren't created fully grown (eg Athena), tend to grow up at a regular rate and then stay whatever age (eg Apollo and Artemis, who were half-breeds). After all, human-type beings need a latency period for a whole bunch of reasons, but when you grow up and look mature you get more respect, are stronger, etc.

Dante in 2 looks about the same age as Sparda in 1. A pretty indeterminate, healthy and strong, maturity. The maximum of people not being able to precisly spot your age (they could be anywhere from 30 to 60: great for an immortal), respecting your kick-assness, and respecting your ability to make decisions. It's interesting that they level off to the same place, if they did (see shape-changing below): it would support any theory that this is Dante's 'natural' age, by blood.

Now, my memory sucks, but I seem to remember someone I know from lj, I think valeria_15 saying Tanaka had said in an interview that as Dante aged he was becoming more demonic. That would also support a reach-a-certain-age-and-level-off theory.

Humans aren't really designed to make 40. As Dante is a half-breed, it makes sense that as joints get cranky, etc, if he couldn't youthen them with a potion/heal them with green orbs, his demonic half would compensate. Taking that to extremes, it's possible within a couple centuries, cellular degeneration would kill off all his human cells, which is another possible theory.

After all, he wouldn't want to look old/get old, he wants jobs/to stay alive.

So, as I've listed above, there are a whole bunch of ways/reasons that suggest Dante would age naturally/choose to age to a healthy 'mature' age and stay there. That scenerio seems to fit best with the games/history/common sense, so I'm going to got with it.

I think I'm going to go with the immortal and doesn't age beyond maturity cause for it for a few reasons, including that I don't like the idea of him ceasing to be human... although it would be interesting if DMC goes that route...

In any case, do what you want, and I'll read it. *shrugs*

Irony on ff.net, which is one of the best DMC fics I've seen, has Dante wondering if he'll be around to kick Mundus' ass in 4000 and maybe even 6000.

Shapeshifting:

Now... I'd been saying devils prettymuch had to shapeshift way before I saw this cutscene, but this (spoiler alert! mission 19)
In DMC3:
Arkham: You can still talk big after seeing THIS?
I feel it... the power...
I feel the devil's power overflowing in my body, the power of
SPARDA!

And what is he doing while saying this? Turning into the blob-thing. Which is not Sparda's 'natural' devil form (most people says he has one, I don't think so though).
would seem to indicate that what Arkham, at least, feels is the true power of a devil is... shape-shifting.

Now, in prettymuch all cultures, the really powerful supernatural beings being able to take on any form is a *given*. Eg Zeus getting it on as swans: the greek gods never used their 'natural' froms around humans, even when appearing humans: the glory would blind them.

Some people say that Sparda's human form is somehow what he would be if he were a human, which is... well, from my perspective it makes no sense other than on a 'mystic' level, and they're little or no backing for it in the Christian/Greek/Japanese traditions, which are what the DMC creators would probably have been most familiar with, as these are the major ones they reference (other than some, not in depth, references to Norse, Hindu, and a Gaelic name. Nevan demonstrates in so many ways they did no real work researching Celtic traditions. Celts do not have red hair unless their ancestors were raped by Vikings, thank you.)

Now, as I've said before, Sparda's form is good on so many levels:
-Strong: not only shows he can handle himself in a fight, encouraging the humans not to tick him off, but also getting respect as a warrior/someone who takes good care of himself
-Mature appearance: not only gets respect as an experienced adult, but in combination with the strong makes it very hard to guess his age: a thoughtful 35, or a 60-yr-old who takes very good care of themself? This would be even more important earlier, when worse medical care would make the range 25-40. He's been around for 2000: people noticing he wasn't ageing would have been *trouble*
-White hair: Very important. As well as adding to the air of maturity, it helps *incredily* in disguising his age. Grey hair is caused by white hairs coming in: to pretend to age with any other hair color... if he couldn't shapeshift, he'd have had to dye/enchant them one-by-one. Ouch. If he could, he'd have to pick individual ones to shift, and the number would have given a clue to his age, which would make things more difficult to confuse. Of course, could be dyed.
-darkish skin: indicates out in the sun/hard worker for Europeans... and makes his ethnic group a little harder to guess, meaning he can fit in more places. Could just be a tan, though.
-Male: gets more respect. (If he isn't... already addressed this in another post)
-Hot: hot.

Now... the strong could just be that he works out, etc... but it's just a little too ideal. Basically? If he got to pick a form, I couldn't think of a better one. The odds...

And, as for natural... demons are traditionally naturally ugly. Of course, you might ask, what about succubi and their hotness? They *shapeshift* to fit what ever form the victim most desires. Which partly comes from their traditonal role as wet-dream causers: one succubus, many forms in dreams (usually of monks). Which means the tradition that succubi are acutally *incubi* and can take male or female form depending on the target in said dreams... indicates a lot of gay and bi people joined the priesthood, which makes sense given the society. I mentioned this before in a joke regarding Nevan.

Also: devil triggers. Some say they reflect a 'natural form'. Or, specifically, that Dante's trigger off of the Sparda is his natural form.

Here's what can be found by looking at them in the games:

In 1, Dante triggers off of 3 objects. Each trigger is substantially different. Mundus changes from the Angelic form to the tentacle monster, without a trigger seeming to be involved.

In 2, Dante and Lucia trigger off of identical objects. They end up looking very different. Arius also turns into a demon, but that seems to not be a trigger.

In 3, Dante triggers off of many, and looks slightly different. So does Vergil. Dante's and Vergil's triggers off of Beowulf look different from each other in much more than the color. Arkham triggers off of the Sparda. He looks different (even before the spoiler above) from both Sparda and Dante triggering off of it. Arkham does what Arius did in 2.

Dante triggering off of the Sparda in DMC1 actually looks *less* like Sparda than Arkham triggering off of it does. I'd link you, but I can't find a cap of Dante's trigger from the front (there's this mask-thing on his chest...). I don't count Dante's trigger off of Force Edge in DMC3: that never happened in the main plot of the game... but if that would have been his trigger off of it *at that time*, than how different it is from his in-main-plot trigger off of it in DMC1 indicates that triggers not only vary by person and object, but by time as well.

My personal theory is that the demonic energy of the user and item intermesh and a compromise is reached, dominated by the user, which is why D and Lu same object are less alike than D on different objects. That the user's mind affects the trigger is also shown by Arkham-triggered looking much more dark and evil than our *mottled brown* Sparda. Which, if we want to give any validity to the Dante & Force Edge trigger in 3, might suggest why he would have had that trigger at that time and another, less like his father, in 1: he's more conscious of having his *own* power as well as his fathers, and hence feels he needs less to look less like him/be like him, subconsciously... but I don't think the user's control over the trigger form is conscious.

Or, at least, over the *default* trigger form. Once they trigger... Jester says (mission 13 spoiler)


Jester: It is quite a ride, you know.
If any of you had died, my little plan would have gone to waste!
So my job is to let you battle each other and weaken you,
but at the same time I need to guide you here to make sure you are
kepy alive. I've gone so far as dressing like a complete idiot!
So, him wearing that outfit isn't the automatic, but a choice. Now... it says *dressing*, not shape-shifting, but it's reasonable he uses magic to get that appearance/clothes, given he goes from black-body suit Arkham to Jester instantly. If he had to 'dress' from a default trigger to Jester's outfit, and couldn't shift into it instantly, that wouldn't work. And the outfit... Jester is laughing at them all with it in so many ways. Incidently, nyxmidnight has a Jester fanlisting...


he took action to look like he does. Which, as it says in the white text above, strongly supports a shape-shifting ability.

Now, a lot of the demons Dante encounters can change form, at least among a few modes. Eg Shadows being cats, spinny things, forming spikes; Plasmas going from bats to human; Nevan turning into bats... now there are more, but I can't remember currently.

Of course, that could be dismissed as switching between a few 'default' forms, not picking out a new one as I'm suggesting Sparda did.

It's possible the shape Arkham took was Sparda's natural form, and so were the dragonfly and the human... or the Dragonfly, it could be argued, seems to be only reached by devil triggering even by Sparda and the blob is his 'default' devil form, or that Sparda could have 2 'default' devil forms.

And Arkham's and Arius's default other forms could be what they would be as demons, and Sparda what he would be as a human...

As you can see, strong cases can be made for both Sparda being able to choose forms and everyone just switching between defaults (as well as the semi-random trigger forms). And, different demons have different abilities in-game, so that adds more...

Also, there is magic. Just as Arkham/Arius did magic to get a demon form, Sparda might have done something to get a human form. *shrugs* It's really a matter of opinion, it seems: we have many *examples*, but no explanations: everything is anecdotal evidence, unless there's some in-game thing like valeria_15's been posting about that I haven't seen...

Also, Mundus's angelic form, given he wants to be worshiped, is as ideal as Sparda's human form is: it combines a Zeus look and an angel look. That it being a spell/shapechange maintained by an act of will is supported by him losing it as he gets more and more beat up.

Mundus's 'default' and Arkham's tentacle blob are kind of similar in outline... sort of like complex uni-cellular organisms, cells and psuedopods... The single core thing also seems analogous to a nucleus, which I did for amusement purposes but won't be writing. (Execpt in the RP with nemi_chan for purposes of more amusement XD)

In any case, due to the fact it just adds up too well that way, the constant mythological tradition, and the fact that I don't want the blob to be the 'real' form of Sparda instead of just Arkham being nuts, which is what going with defaults would strongly suggest, I'm going with Sparda can shapeshift and that Dante, being the same kind of Devil as Sparda is, inherited the ability.

What do you guys think? Again, you have any facts that contradict/require looking at the above facts differently, or just different opinions, I'd love to know.

Magic, demonic and human?:

While the existance of psychic abilities or any other form of human magic can't be ruled out, as we have no explicit facts either way, all the magic in the games seems to be at least demon-derived, with only one possible exception.

Green orbs from them heal; red orbs can be used to power spells such as yellow orbs and holy water (notice that even what would intuitively be anti-demon 'white' magic draws upon demonic power); Dante's abilities come from his heritage; Arius and Arkham, the only two 'humans' with magic in the games, get their power from demonic sources; Lady, who hates demons and wouldn't use their power views being shot in the head as fatal to non-demons, which indicates there is no way she knows for a human to survive it (of course, there's a lot she doesn't know, and so this doesn't rule out human hunters who use blue orbs, like my Eva); etc.

There seem to be alchemy in existance, given the names, but those objects have demonic origens and draw their power from that. But, that suggests that humans manipulating demonic power in spells as Dante and the Protectors do is quite possible. After all, Arkham wouldn't have sacrificed his wife unless he had some proof it would do some good (unless he was just a legend reading nut... it's quite possible he was a Mundus cultist like the Mallet Is. people were, it would explain a lot).

And here we come to it.

-Human sacrifice-

Now, most of the evidence that human sacrifice creates power is debatable. That Eva sacrificed herself to ressurrect Dante is according to both the untranslated novella and VJ so far, although hopefully it'll be in the manga. Now, VJ is a parody, but as it is a parody, it would make sense that they only put things in to make it better as a parody, and I can't see how Dante's mom dying makes it funny. (Although Mundus saying "The real enemy was you, Eva!" rocks for me, as I am an Eva fan.) The fact that Kamiya put it in 2 very different works, one of them serious makes it extremely unlikely it's a random thing.

However, the reason I'm saying it's debatable is that Mundus goes on to say in VJ: "This amulet was used to ressurrect the child Dante! I shall destroy it, and you with it!"

Which suggests that the amulet was what did the actual ressurrecting, and contains Eva's soul. She also, later, in the amulet, was able to ressurrect Trish despite the already-dead Eva killing herself again, which also suggests Eva dying was not key.

Why the 'sacrifice' thing though? And Dante says Mundus killed his mother after the Griffon battle.

Well... if Dante had died, and there wasn't time to grab a yellow orb (or they were out) that suggests a battle. Assassins sent by Mundus seems likely: Dante is looking for demons for revenge, some must have been involved. So...

If you're a human, and ressurrection is a big spell traditionally, and there are a horde of demons around you, and you stop shooting to chant, and you're all out of yellow orbs... so it might not have been a matter of Eva killing herself deliberately to ressurrect him, ala virgin sacrifice, but risking her life to ressurect her kid.

The second case is that of Kalina Ann. It's said by Lady that Arkham sacrificed her to become a devil. However, did killing her actually give him power, or did sacrificing her to a devil such as, I don't know, MUNDUS, prove his loyalty and get Arkham to give him power?

The other debatable case will be addressed below: I already had a discussion about this on the DMC_fanfic yahoo group, but I though you might like it.

The Seal:

Okay. Well, the Sparda legend is a legend, and as Arthur, who spent his life fighting off english invaders becoming an english king, legends are often on crack. The intro to 1 says, and Mundus confirms by saying he'll be back and Dante referring to 2 thousand years, that it lasts around 2000 years.

But a major item is the topic of the priestess. Arkham says (spoiler, mission 13)... forget it, this whole section is spoilery. Skip if you're worried!

Arkham: Good girl. Pure and Innocent... just like your mother.
(then, later)
Arkham: Two amulets... a set of Sparda's blood. Now I need one more key. He
sacrificed two things to suppress the tremendous force of this tower:
His own Devil's blood, and a mortal priestess.
I needed you, in whose body flows the same blood as the sacrificed
woman. His spell cannot be undone without your blood!

Okay... now, Arkham sacrificed Kalina after Lady was born, so barring artificial insemination... let's put virginity aside.

The key is the blood of the priestess. That usually means descendant, but could mean descendant of a relative. Or, if virginity not necessary, a kid she'd had before she was sacrificed. We don't know a priestess of *what*, after all. So it's possible she did die.

But, as I said in the yahoo group,
"Exactly. Espec. since the unsealing method in 3 is the old re-cast
the spell one, and given that he needs a double set of the blood,
that indicates it needs a damn close re-cast. So, depending on how on-
crack Capcom is in this case... well, for a non fourth-wall
breachage, the Priestess dying can't have been part of the spell. Or
else Lady would have had to die.

Of course, Arkham says the priestess was sacrificed, but we all know
Arkham is on DAMN good crack. I looove the faces Vergil makes while
Arkham is fanboying."

Given the existance of yellow orbs, and Sparda being anti-killing humans at that point, even if he had to kill the priestess, I think she would have been alive again in a jiffy. And that's magical traditions aside. *points above* Also... well, Sparda could have grabbed some random demon to kill for symmetry, so forget that objection.

Of course, this is Capcom: those are a few of the omni-cultural magical laws of physics, but who knows. Someone said it be good to have him kill her and be dark and broody. I said Ookaaaayyyy....

In any case, it's highly possible the Priestess, like Sparda, just needed to donate *blood* to the seal, which would be valid with traditional magical laws. And the sacrifice thing got added by storytellers because it's a better story that way. Or they both killed themselves and used yellow orbs. *shrugs*

That would let the Priestess be a pure virgin (if that matters at all) when the seal was cast, and let Lady be her descendant by a later birth.

Virginity might also explain why Arkham sacrificed Kalina Ann specifically (wouldn't he have wanted her alive? With her dead, no more Marys: if Lady died, there went his chances of breaking the seal): she would give him more power, being magically connected to the seal, and also he couldn't use her to un-do the seal if she wasn't a virgin anymore, if that mattered. And, back in the day of the priestess, if there were Mundus-supporters running around, and there was this woman who they could use to let their boss back in if she was a virgin, I'd marry her off damn quick if I was her boss.
The seal also supposed to, according to Lady's rendition of it at the beginning, seal off demonic powers, including Sparda's own. That Sparda didn't die until at least 1600 suggested he still had some abilities, at least (2 booklet, did in other post).

I said, earlier, to Mousa:
"Well, in the legend, it says that when Sparda sealed the gate to the
Underworld, he 'locked the dark power away', and Lady's narration in
the intro to 3 says, 'his power was also trapped on the other side.'
So, it makes sense that demonic powers are more powerful in their
natural habitat.

While Dante and Sparda (when unlocked in 1 and 3), and other demons
too, can do a lot of stuff in the human world, for the sword of
Sparda to be at full power requires the amulets to be together in 1
and 3, and possibly the seal to be down as well. It's also possible
maintaining the seal uses up a lot of power. (I need to do that
powers post...)"

Also, when the demonic power is rising, Mallet starts to get distorted. Which suggests that demonic power can saturate the asmosphere of a place/flow into the human world, and the seal stops it... Temen-ni-Gru was a demonically powered edifice in the first place, so no additional effect.

So... it's possible that aside from power directly taken from demons, there might be ambient 'leakage' magical power available to humans, or maybe just before the seal was put up...

And that seems to be about it. Please give me your thoughts!