Trish Dmc - Blog Posts

THIS

This is The Problem with new dmc anime. All other stuff can be overlooked. But not this shit. They made a such grand mistake taking out the literal soul of the gameverse. Everything else doesn't work as it should without this conflict done right.

And it's done completely wrong. Who's idea was it to poorly disguise USA politics and racism problems as "demons", "slavery" and "hell".

Dmc explored the union of human and demon parts, questioned what they are, what they represent. With main themes as love, power and survival, explored through different concepts of family. It was always there in different forms that evolved and layered over each other with each new game and manga.

So the most noticeable outcome of those? We got intimate family melodrama with brutal and unstoppable action. Which is a receipt for success!

In the new anime we get boring "save the world, save them all" in a grand plot because "they're just like us" and Dante who has NO IDEA that he's a halfdemon and what was his family. Unless they play the amnesia card which would be ridiculous ngl but also even worse. So he's basically left without conflict AT ALL.

He's just a guy.

When the whole premise of dmc is that this "just a guy" is not in fact "just a guy".

I'm almost crying, send help

I think part of what makes the Netflix show so frustrating is the fact that there's definitely blind spots in the original lore that could allow for a deeper discussion on a demon's capability for love and goodness, but the show itself just did not seem interested in actually exploring those ideas.

I've seen some posts going around about how demons not being inherently evil was already established in the games, and I think that is true. The gameverse has a bit of a strange philosophy when it comes to demons and their capacity for good. On one hand, the original two games act as though the only way for a demon to be good is to actively distance themselves from their demonic heritage.

Dante telling Trish and Lucia that "devil's never cry" actually feeds into the idea that demons are inherently evil and that they aren't actually demons because they are capable of goodness. In those games, this is played straight. However, in later entries, they seem to recognise this for what it actually is - the rhetoric of a man who is projecting his own self loathing in regard to his demonic half onto the people in his life who are dealing with similar problems.

Vergil and his core beliefs around demonic power being the only thing to keep him safe when human fragility failed him is the first time Dante is forced to confront a flaw in his worldview. Vergil is technically correct in that their heritage is what has kept the two of them alive up until that point and that in order for Dante to stop his brother and Arkham, he'd need to embrace that power too. Dante seems to internalise this as the idea that his power needs to be used as a force for good - "with great power comes great responsibility," style, but still retains that he is good in spite of his demonic power.

Power in DMC is not inherently evil, the folly of the villains in the series is that they seek it to fill a hole that should have been filled with love instead. On some level, Dante recognises this, but is often too burdened by his self loathing that he has a hard time excepting and seeking out love himself.

In contrast, Nero is able to acknowledge what is truly important to him, allowing himself to be vulnerable when he gives and receives love, while also fully embracing his demonic side and the power it gives him. V also has a similar revelation, although his is just as much about learning to love life itself and rediscovering passions so he can have a better coping mechanism that isn't more power.

These core character arcs clearly indicate that the reason humanity is seen as morally superior in the games is their willingness to love and willingly give. To gain more out of life than just power (it's also what makes the power hungry human villains so evil, they want to throw away what makes them human for the chance at being powerful). Whereas demonic power means that demons live in a perpetually dog-eat-dog world where there is no incentive to love or create, you can only ever take. But when demons like Trish are given the chance to grow from that, they are just as capable of love as any human.

This then opens up for the line of questioning, well, if environmental factors are what's making demons so power hungry, then wouldn't exploring how being shut off from the opportunity to grow in the human world be an actually valid idea for the Netflix adaptation to explore? It could have been! Genuinely!

However, the writers were not interested in exploring that concept, not really. The need to fit established DMC lore into the shape of a narrative about how the Iraq war and the US government intensionally otherised Arabic people meant that those ideas couldn't be expanded upon because of how that would have impacted the portrayal of a very direct analogue of a real life group of people.

This is often the problem central to the fantasy racism trope, because it's a direct reference to a real group of people who's only actual differences from any other ethnic group is appearance and culture, any discussion of how physiological differences may impact the way they live and experience the world very quickly become a minefield.

The demons in the games are often one of a kind or a species with entirely alien biological incentives, trying to make them seem like their way of life would be no different from the average human is actively contradictory and just plain boring. It's part of why the demons that were taken from the game look so out of place compared to their more human shaped counterparts.

There is the potential in examining a demon's ability to love in the gameverse version of the lore, and it wouldn't have been a problem for the anime to explore that. That sort of exploration would have had to focus on how love can come in many forms, how a fundamentally different way of perceiving the world around you doesn't mean your perspective isn't valid. However, because demons are an exact reference to a real life group of people now, making them out to be anything other than just like any other human is risking a lot.

So that's the crux of the issue for me. I think trying to force the demons from the game lore into an Arabic shaped hole is kinda a bad idea. Hell, if they were desperate to make the US government into the big bad then there would have been precedent for it. DMC2 and DMC4 both concern powerful groups in society abusing demonic power for personal gain, the idea that a government would do the same isn't too dissimilar in my opinion.

To be honest, I feel a lot of the criticism of the anime has only been scratching at the surface of the actual problems so far. I'd appreciate it if the pre-existing fandom could recognise where problems existed in the source material before jumping to complaining about the adaptation, even though there is a lot to complain about...

[rupaul voice] three divas stand before me

TRISH APPRECIATION TIME

This is a follow up of my "NERO DEFENCE TIME" post, you can check that one below:

Let's talk about her design first: dressed entirely in black with leather accents, a corset and sunglasses at night. Smooth blonde hair, cleavage and hourglass figure. No doubt, you are supposed to be alured by here since the first moment.

Trish is a more conventionally attractive version of Eva. Where Eva has a slightly hooked nose, Trish's straight and long. While Dante's mother hid her body and hair behing many layers of fabric and a veil (also evoking the imagery of a catholic saint), her clone's outfit could be seen in a nightclub.

Despite being created to lure the main character to Mallet Island by looking like his deceased family, her personality shines and acts in an almost opposite way to Eva.

Tapping into her story, the player sees she sacrifices herself to do the right thing. Despite living under Mundus' thumb her entire existence, her connection to Dante and experience of the human world is combined with her courage and resilience. Despite bring met with destruction, she endures.

In Devil May Cry 5, she accompanies V while he goes through his emotional turmoil (her knowing he is a part of Vergil is up for debate) and speaks the truth he needs to hear.

'I'm not your mommy, V." I think this sentence is great BECAUSE it crushes Vergils' expectations regarding Trish. She will never be his mom. She is her own person and deserves to be treated as such.

While Dante has the Devil May Cry shop, Trish has traveled to many places to work. I see this as curiosity (while also fighting demons) to experience what humanity has created.

She was created as torture. With a purpose that didn't involve her at all. And even so, she rose against her creator, found connections and a reason to live. There is nothing more beautiful than that.

CAPCOM SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE A DLC IN DEVIL MAY CRY 4 I WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT YOU TOOK FROM ME

SHE IS SEVERELY UNDERRATED

GIVE HER WHAT SHE DESERVES BECAUSE SHE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN YOUR SEX APPEAL AND I WILL LOVE HER UNTIL MY DYING BREATH-

Since today is Trans Visibility Day I will give my DMC headcanons, behold:

- Lady is a trans woman (choosing a name for herself and Dante helping? Iconic.)

- V is trans. (Although im not sure if transmasc or transfem.)

- Vergil is either a trans woman or bigender but I haven't quite figured it out yet.

- Agender Trish. No I will not elaborate.

Happy Trans Visibility Day! Keep yourself safe!