Discussion VideoGame / DevilMayCry

I'm almost done, and will probably be able to make the individual game pages sometime this weekend. I want it on the record, however, that this is one of the worst and sloppiest pages I've ever seen on TV Tropes and it is quite frankly amazing how many tropes have been misapplied or twisted to suit some function that doesn't actually apply. What the heck, people. Do better.

It's done. Hope this kind of cleanup will stick. Feel free to hit me with any questions or concerns or anything.

Major kudos to you! Should make putting in entries in their respective titles a hell lot easier, as well whichever cleanups.

I have to agree on splitting each game for its own page. DMC might not have as many works as its sibling series Resident Evil does, but each game certainly deserves its own page. The entries in the "Other Works" folder can stay on the main page here. Heck, the animated series has its own page.

The Designated Hero doesn't quite need to be "as bad as the villain of the story", since that's just the extreme version. All they need to be doing is something not-heroic no matter which way it's spun. Still, you can have a true villain in the story but the hero can still be such a total un-heroic jerk you might not figure out who to root for unless the narrator were singing their praises. I mean, just look at the Sword Of Truth series.

Designated Hero and Anti-Hero are not mutually exclusive terms, as said in the trope page. It can and will hit any brand of Anti-Hero.

The reason I put Dante and Lady up as such (and put up the distinction: notice I didn't say Dante from, say, the first game was a Designated Hero) is because even an Anti-Hero is a hero, just one that lacks the moral limitations to do the job (saving the world). These two both lacked the limitations of the conventional Hero and the goal. They didn't want to save the world, they only went in for personal gain and changed sometime later. Dante admitted that did not give a shit about anything until literally 4/5ths of the game was done (which is a problem), then he turned around into what would lead into the Anti Hero Type II/Lovable Rogue that people know from 1. So he actually starts off Designated and ends as an Anti.

Then again, the series makes it a point (read:drives it into our heads) that Dante is so very much like his father before him, if not in terms of power, then in personality. They also accompany this with another piece of the legend stating just how great Sparda was back in the day, how he had a heart and fought for the sake of the weak and defenseless, and while not mentioning he might be an Anti-Hero, it's heavily implied he's not that and is more like a straight-up hero considering his Heel–Face Turn and idealism concerning the human race.

To see Dante not acting that way anymore  ^*

None of this explanation excuses Lady, however. Her line in the epilogue implies she's going to be a better person/hero, since her goal is now to eliminate evil demons, and Dante's helping her out. The fourth game has her dumping her work on her supposed "friend" (even the handbook has the quotations around the word, meaning she doesn't think very highly of him). That, and not taking part in any portion of the adventure which would logically be in line with the goal she stated herself doing. And yeah, all that stuff Arkham said about Lady being 'pure and/or innocent' just like her mother before her (if that wasn't a lie or a taunt) might be discoloring my view of her character just slightly.

They're Anti-Hero(es) by design, but I still think that they're Designated Hero(es) by the contrast between "actions" and "dialogue and narrative", where the latter touts them as being just like [Insert example] and their actions are clearly not that.

Well, I feel like we have a difference of oppinions here about Dante's portrayal. You claim he's been flanderized into a Jerkass during the course of the series, but in DMC 3, I saw his attitude as just a trait of him being a teen, therefore inmature, and more of a mix between Jerkass Façade and Jerk with a Heart of Gold, probably the reason being not taking well the death of his parents yet. Look at how Dante seems to dislike Sparda, or at least pretend to hate him ("Father? I don't have a father.") perhaps for being mad at him for leaving him, his brother and his mother vulnerable to the demons (Freudian Excuse, I know, but hey, it matches.)

But aside from joking around at every chance he got, even in DMC 3 - his most inmature incarnation, Dante never does anything that would classify him as morally ambiguous as Designated Hero(es) usually do. He never even actually hurt Lady (despite how much she'd shoot him) outside of what he may have had to do to stop her from going after Arkham (and even that had to be pretty much nothing for him if she was alright shortly after). So like I said, Jerk With A Heart Of Gold is the "worst" I can call Dante, because he stays morally right during pretty much the entire story.

As regarding Lady, well... I'll claim she is the one being Flanderized. They made quite a dramatic yet likable character out of her in the third game, with character development and everything, but after that, clearly the writters ran out of ideas and - in the anime and the next game - they kept her as pretty much a running gag to pick on Dante's bad economy. Mind you, the novel suggest that she actually helped with the deal in Fortuna a bit, but that said, I think it's understandable she'd leave the hardest jobs to Dante, although yeah, she should likely take a bigger part.

Oh, and for Arkham calling her "pure and innocent", I figure she may have been more like that before Arkham killed her mother, which probably broke her, but little Mary rebuild herself as the Darker and Edgier Lady. And after DMC 3... well, Flanderization took place I'm afraid. Let's hope the writes do a better job for DMC 5.

But even then, I can't agree that Designated Hero applies to neither of them. They are shown in not good light sometimes, but by the end of the day, they are both contributing to hunting evil demons and protecting innocent humans. Even Lady passing a mission to Dante because she might not be able to handle it herself could be seen as that, and it could be argued that Dante was going to the tower in DMC 3 from the beggining to do the right thing, just that he wouldn't admit it, not even even to himself. But, again, by the end of the day, they do the right thing and save the day, that's what makes them better than Designated Hero(es).

Can you really call Dante a hero to begin with? From the start of DMC 1 he was the person seeking vengence over justice for family and saw some compassion in Trish in the end. The from DMC 3 and 4, he doesn't give a single fuck about the current affairs of worldly conflicts between the demon cults of his father or his father in general, he simply tackles personal interests that focus on his needs or wants(whether it's fighting, his family, his interests in making money etc etc). It seems he had no interest in anything regarding simple justice or peace unless it's tied to a personal task of his.

I wouldn't call him a hero like I call Spider-Man or Captain America a hero, he's more like a heroic rouge or lovable rouge in tv tropes language. He isn't virtuous for one thing, being compassionate and sympathetic isn't always the same as being unconditionally noble and selfless. He's a guy who holds a passed duty to the world which is just all that needs to be said to him, but it's been implied he isn't in the world saving stuff for the sake of saving people and doing rightous acts of idealism, he's making it a buisness and a cause for himself so that he won't be bothered by human society in giving himself his own freedom and desires unlike his father.

He also like any other Anti-Hero of the type 2 verity, kills and murders to deal with the force of evil, and it's implied in manga stories, he'd kill enzo (a human) if he pissed him off so he's far from the regular conventional hero who doesn't kill his enemy and incapacitates him for the authorities to deal with. They may be demons but they are still living beings who as shown in the DMC anime aren't all evil beings and Dante would kill any demon reguardless of good or evil unless he cares about them.

He's derogatory, uncivil, super egotistical, anti social, unrefined(in mannerisms not style), carefree(sometimes careless), reckless, brash, rude and arrogantly condescending. Not a pretty vivid description of a normal hero, the guys a dick to even nice and kind hearted people like Patty and Lady, Gets his kicks mocking a foe even when he's defeated, takes the situation of terrorized innocents from Fortuna as a game in DMC 4, and really sounds like a unlikeable prick if you compared him to real life people. It's in his games themes, he doesn't care unless he wants to care. Really selfish and unethical if you think about it, reason he isn't as bad as Vergil is because he holds his humanity and keeps being driven by his willpower and sense of priorites while the former lives and breathes his demonic nature and overall will to obtain power. Him being more human like doesn't even mean he's automatically a model example of morals either, he's both the goodside and the badside of human quirks which is just enough to make him the better of the two.

Nearly every game, he's hunting for himself only to be caught in others messes and cleans them up because he holds himself above everyone he meets to be the only one who can make things right, so he doesn't really have general generosity or simple consideration for others because he's self centered and values the actions of only himself which applies to everyone else in the series. In DMC He helped Trish because she depended on his revenge on Mundus to fight for her and he did and thats because he's really wants to destroy Mundus, decided to help lucia with the ceo dude because of a coin flip, dmc3 lady gets help from dante because vergil worked with her father who was stealing his power from sparda with his mother's amulet and using it without his permission, dmc4 nero and fortuna got dante to give his time to save him from the savior when dante got a moment with one of the priests on his deathbed and wanted the kid to live in his place which dante honorably accepted but Dante initially wanted to get the sword yamato back from nero dead or alive and didn't care either way. But I guess you could say Dante learns from people and develops kindness to help during cut scenes, but thats contradicts each game where he goes into stuff with his own agendas and no true heroic intent until later in the games story.

You could argue Lady herself is more a hero of the tradition sense than Dante is, even Nero is more a hero. They both put their friends and the good of protecting mankind over sheer fun and excitement than Dante does despite being in the same business, maybe because they have human layers that Dante himself lacks because Dante is a fish out of water type who takes all the exagerations of the game and makes it into a surreal over the top action caricature badass action hero and suffers from flanderization, badass decay, and mostly wolverine publicity.

Yes, search for Devil May Cry The Animated Series

...Really? I was reading Game Informer a few minutes ago, and I swear it was called a reboot.

In case anyone's reading (I know it's a little late) it's been called a reboot from the start. The first press release called it such and all subsequent interviews have used reboot or a variation. Ther is some confusion going around but offical sources have never used the word prequel. http://gamaganda.net/2010/09/15/tgs-new-dmc-unveiled/ -first press release

In addition the newest E3 interview confirms it to be a continuity reboot, saying they're making a new world and you shouldn't "look at the old DMC" for what to expect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE4pz3yi7dk

It's recently been outright stated to be a prequel: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/17/devil-may-cry-preview-from-black-to-white/

It's most likely Flip-Flop of God. There is a chance they'll continue to change their statement. Let's wait until the game is released first.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-11-devil-may/719710

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-11-devil-may/719741

It's being called a reboot again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg-nPG_TRN8

The director of the game confirmed that it takes place in another timeline. I really hope that they don't call it a prequel again.

Considering this is a Continuity Reboot, I have a proposition to make: Let's make a separate article for the new game, so we can keep things appart and, when new info is revealed, we don't have to start refering to the protagonist as "New Dante" or "Old Dante". And we can take all arguably unnecesary negativity over there as well, leaving only a comment and link about that game on the introduction of the article.

The page for the series has gotten pretty bloated and unorganized. I think it's time we break up the page into appropriate, seperate pages for each game and the Animated Series, keeping this page for series wide tropes like White-Haired Pretty Boy and Crazy Awesome, for example.

That sounds good for me.

In addition, I propose that the character sheet (when the time comes) be further divided (or perhaps the DmC reboot be given its own page), since I have a feeling the differences between the games are going to be so starkly different to the point of irreconciliation.