Vergil is the coolest loser ever and it is important to always remember he’s a giant loser trying to be cool. Dante is cool because he’s lame and isn’t trying to be cool. Nero has a job. Runs a soup kitchen. Shelters orphans. Married his childhood girlfriend. Beat up his deadbeat dad. And has a car. And SOMEHOW he’s the lame one in the family.
Vergil is the try-hard (who's really good at it nontheless) Dante is the lovable dork that bottles his emotions by acting unserious. Nero is the underdog that tries his best to handle the situation maturely while being open about his emotions.
Men will literally try to open a portal to hell and water a demonic tree with the blood of innocents in their pursuit of power instead of going to therapy
D-16/Megatron in Transformers One is one of my favorite new additions to this archetype. You know what he's going to turn into, but you can't help but feel bad for how things transpired. "I'm Done Saving You"
@@zztzgza He does have a sympathetic reason. He was forced to watch his childhood home be razed and was powerless to stop it. That's where his power obsession comes from, he doesn't want to be hurt ever again. Everything he did afterwards was evil, but he had a reason that sounded good in his head. He doesn't want to be hurt ever again, so he'll be the one doing the hurting.
Calling Vergil smart is a bit of a stretch. He jumps into hell, trusts people who look like arkham, stabs himself and has unprotected sex with strange women.
The hell instance was done due to his arrogance/pride. Not lack of intellect. Vergil is portrayed as someone who is too blinded by pride in his demonic blood. Of course he would think being stuck in hell as a form of punishment for losing is a good thing. Except he never trusted Arkham. He knew that he had ulterior motives from the start, but realized he was too useful to ignore. Stabbing himself was done in a moment of desperation to live. Not the best example to say he isn't smart. Fair enough. But to be fair, if that woman managed to make him wanna sleep with her, then Vergil was either too horny that day, or Nero's mom is (bare minimum) as attractive as Bayonetta.
I think a better description is that he's thick-headed. He's usually calm and collected, but will act on instinct before anything else. He'll jump at the chance to fight Mundus for a chance at glory and surpassing his father, odds of survival be damned. Contrast this with Dante who goofs around most of the time but makes the important decisions when the situation calls for it. Such as encouraging Nero to not get involved for his sake since it involves his dad.
@@AnakinSkywalker-u5b in regards to the random woman he banged: it was very likely he just wanted the experience out of the way. He was in his teen years at the time, late teen, likely, and was probably tired of feeling horny. the whole "silence wench, i do not wish to be horny anymore" meme and whatnot. Thing is, Vergil is a *doer* in the end. If he decides on a course of action, he will do it. If its the *wrong* action, doesnt matter, he has chosen his path and he will see it through. Like how in DMC5, when he's atop the tree, he realizes he did some seriously messed up things, and in the end, wonders if things would have played out differently if it was Dante caught outside, and Vergil the last person their mother directly interacted with. He knows he has done Wrong, but has decided, if anything, for all the lives he cost along the way (since its at this point he is beginning to actually *understand* humanity) he must see his ambition through, whether it leads to his end (which at this point he may be welcoming) or his victory. So back to the woman he had sex with, it was most likely a case of him understanding that lust is both a human and demonic feeling, and wanting to conquer it. lust. not love. he also likely anticipated that just going one night of sex wouldnt be enough to have a child. he ended up being *wrong* like he was about a *lot* of things, but for once, he had no reason to believe he would be incorrect.
Vergil and Dante are both equally stupid that's like their whole basis for interaction is Dante telling Vergil to stop trying to look so cool and come eat pizza and say jackpot with the guns
@@Xenmaru00 I think its possible maybe Vergil did have feelings for that woman but denied them as to not give in to his human side and thats why he left her before Nero was born.
I like to believe that he got the form by reaching an acceptance within hinself and by fusing back with Urizen but yeah the genocide fruit is still a big bad
Knocked a woman up and dipped. Never ONCE visits his orphan son. Stabbed his brother (multiple times) Ripped his son’s arm off. And Genocides MILLIONS of people. ALL for his own power. Nah, my man is a Villain with a capital V. And the V stands for Vergil.
It's very heavily implied that Vergil was raped or at least sexually assaulted by the religion that worshipped Sparda He literally has no idea that Nero is related to him until 5 He rips a demon's arm off, demons are capable of regeneration. He literally stabs Dante through the chest with his own sword like 4 times and Dante just walks it off so why shouldnt that also be true for Nero? (Hint, it is true for Nero)
to be fair, he doesnt even know Nero's his son. never knew the hooker he banged, got pregnant. never had any inkling of him having a descendant. not to say he'd do anything *different* if he knew (if anything that would be even more self-justification for his quest for power: now he has something he MUST become the Strongest, to protect) he had a kid out there, but he simply never knew.
@@miguelnewmexico8641first of all there's no genocide involved because genocide has a specific definition, he does kill a lot of people though. Dante and Vergil's relationship and moral structures are based on Goku and Vegeta. Vegeta literally does perform multiple counts xenocide as well as killing thousands of humans and giving up his mind in a quest for power to keep up with Goku, but he is still an archetypal anti-hero.
@@Vanity0666 "Very heavily implied that Vergil was raped or at least sexually assaulted" No? It's never even hinted anywhere that's what happened. We have no idea what actually happened that day. All we know is that a random woman in red in Fortuna, who may have been a prostitute, took an interest in Vergil, and they banged shortly after.
Post DMCV Vergil is probably going to just be Vegita. He's just around, he never apologizes, almost none of the cast likes him, and nobody can do anything about it because he's the second strongest and the first strongest doesnt want to kill him, and he fights the bad guys sometimes if he feels like it so he's tolerated.
you're more right than you might think. he even has a son! and not even one that needed to time travel! one in the current timeline! who *happens* to be an adult! with a girlfriend! and a not-sister! Vergil speedran Vegeta's Family Arc!
It's literally Piccolo Jr. after having fused with Kami, remember that Demon King Piccolo and Kami were the same guy named Piccolo originally. After having fused with Nail as well, technically Dende is one of his own kin.
@@Vanity0666 jesus how can someone get so much wrong about the thing they allegedly know so much about? not necessarily in this one particular comment, just overall.
3 With arkham of course Granted he likely wanted to get force edge to do...something good, like killing mundus? And in 5 he was just desperate. But yea he def. Fucked up.
I mean there's people who'll still forgive Jean grey just cuz her health bar is short. Hell there's people who still think that cyclops is unironically cool. People are just opposite haters sometimes
Na, the odd thing about Marvel is that people think vergil has ways been broken and op. When that idea is only a thing in Marvel. And become a Canon idea by dmc4 special edition.
I love how Vergil is so plainly flawed that you can't even say "He did nothing wrong". He is plainly incorrect about how his world works, he's bad at following his framework, and he gets beat CONSTANTLY. He does the most wrong, actually, and consistently gains NOTHING for it.
Idk about that He's now super powerful, got a strong son, gets to fight-chill with his bro while nero is likely happy to see him when he does get back All things considered, he's doin pretty well right now
Very few of those things align with what he explicitly wants outside of becoming super-powerful. And considering he's right next to the meter stick he uses to evaluate "super powerful", his brother, and he can't yet surpass him, he probably wouldn't agree with you. If you asked Vergil, this guy wouldn't be happy, and under his own framework he should be at the apex. From his perspective, he hasn't got a lot.
Idk about that. He got the power he wanted. He's now one of the most powerful creatures in existence, thanks to Urizen's acts, and now has gained the awareness and the ability to self-reflect and grow as a person thanks to his time as V. Objectively speaking, he prett much won.
I think it's because Dante and even Nero don't approach him with a hard stance of "we need to get rid of you," he's treated more like Sasuke is with Naruto, somebody you just gotta smack on the head until he calms down lol. Logically, he is a villian, but every other protagonist in the series takes their actions less seriously than the average citizen.
@@raccoonofmotivation20 1. He has always been super powerful. And considering the whole point of DMC5, Urizen & the Qliphoth, and the fact that he still can't beat Dante after all he did to gain ultimate power, Vergil more or less would consider that a massive L. 2. His son becoming powerful on his own has nothing to do with Vergil. Would he feel proud? Sure. But that was never one of his goals as someone else mentioned. 3. He gets to chill-fight but has to accept that he more or less can never beat Dante or be the most powerful like he always wanted. Even though they both canonically surpassed Sparda. Vergil will forever (until we see what the future has for them) live under the delusion that he isn't as strong as his father, because he isn't Numero Uno. And even though he was heavily exhausted, he took an L from Nero at the ending of V. Which he considered a fair and square loss and another proof that he isn't top dog. From any reasonable human being's POV, sure. He is doing well. But from Vergil's POV, he is doing very shitty after all he has done. And is stuck with the fact that no matter how far he went, he ended up just being equals with Dante and not the Strongest. Which he deeply hates, while Dante doesn't mind the fact that they're equals.
Reminds me of the LP moment of “Did Vergil even kill those people?” And I’m happy that majority realize that yeah Vergil’s quest for power has caused tons of indiscriminate death TWICE and he didn’t care. He might be more neutral post DMCV but he is nothing less than an absolute villain up to that point
Yeah, like we can argue that time spent as V gave him some sort of moral revelation and he's "good"( or at least "better") now... but Virgil up until he split himself into halves is a villain, even if he might be one you can sympathize with.
What would make Dante an anti-hero? He hunts down demons to protect humans. He doesn't do it for free, but he has no income. And he befriends non-hostile demons. The only murky thing he's done is maybe assasinating an organisation member without notifying the public of their true goals (DMC4). His goals started out selfish, but he is pretty heroic overall.
@@leithaziz2716 he's a rude, slacker, mercenary, at his core he's a heroic person but how he does so is very much not virtuous. Personally I put him as around the border of hero/anti-hero depending on the game though, while say, Venom goes across the spectrum of anti-hero until very recently breaking through into full on hero, as well as Spawn and Punisher living in Anti-hero land.
Being a kid is thinking that Vergil is the smart cooler brother because he's really dry and not "wacky" like Dante. Being an adult is realizing that Vergil is a short sighted manchild that's basically always at most a step and a half away from throwing a tantrum and always has been. I still love him all the same though, lmao. It was crazy seeing how my opinion on him and Dante flipped when I replayed 3 before 5 released.
The Yamato is a literal projection of strength The real life Yamato, the japanese battleship, was the crown jewel of the japanese navy and their projection of strength as a threat to the US, but it never saw a single battle and they ended up beaching it to use as an artillery battery which also never fired a shot.
My favourite line from Vergil is "WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING!? Must more blood be spilled?" I feel that line really gives us a solid look at his ego. And, as some others in the comment describe, one can maybe assume that Vergil mighta had plans to kill Mundus. Maybe he had a plan of ends justifying the means. In V he learns from his experiences of seeing Urizen, being V, and meeting Nero... But before that. Barring more development, for Vergil, it's simple: Might controls everything. He loves his demon half. He probably sees his dad's legacy as something he's owed, and in 3 especially, something that will make him special and untouchable. That will legitimize himself, and his life after it all fell apart. Something that shouldn't be left on the table for the sake of "good", because it's half of who he is, and the half he got to spend more of his childhood died in front of him, killed because of his relation to his father's power. He cares about power because power legitimizes itself, and he doesn't want anyone to ever have power over him, or make him vulnerable. It gives him control. Weak people are hurt, and victimized, and get pushed around by the strong, and ultimately a lot of Vergil is fueled by fear. That, his ego, and a rivalry with Dante. So of course in 5 when he's dying, he's gonna sacrifice others so that he saves himself. Because Vergil is paramount to himself.
and it all happened cause he was born and raised *far away* from any of that bullshit. Yes i know, the Order of the Sword worshipped Sparda, but they worshipped the fact that this big tough evil guy said "you humans a'ight" and defended them. Sanctus was just a cockbiter, is all.
He's literally the best of the Sparda bloodline to be. Stable job. Kids to take care of. Smoking hot and kind nun wifefriend. He's got his shit together.
Ironically the closest thing to a genuine Hero is Nero. Sure he's sarcastic and flippant at times but he genuinely cares about the people around him and expressed such sentiments openly. To continue the metaphor, if Dante would see a building falling but act like he doesnt care, but Nero would check on them after make sure theyre okay after saving them.
Nero would also make a horrible joke about it all while making sure it's all okay. Remember the opening of 5 ? Random soldier man watches his whole squad and civilians get torn apart and Nero just goes "cheer up crew cut"
@jerryjezzaberry5009 yeah for sure, but i dont think its out of callousness towards human life. I think that's cause he's an awkward dork, though, and trying to look cool to make people safe.
@@jerryjezzaberry5009Poor guy is traumatized after almost getting murdered by a demon and all Nero says to him is, “You look like you need a hug, but you’re not gonna get one from me.”
Honestly even Dante’s frustration with Vergil (that Nero says is wrong or whatever) near the end of 5 is justified. He keeps fucking shit up and Dante is left picking up the pieces every time.
No. It's that Dante lost sight of what he was fighting for. At that point in the story, Dante was only concerned with killing Vergil. Dante was doing the right thing, but for the wrong reasons. It's basically "screw you, mother liked me best" where Dante was concerned. Dante and Vergil had fought each other for so long, they never once approached their issues in a different way, and nothing was changing because of it. This was what Nero was calling out; their shortsightedness, and why he had to intervene. It never would have ended well otherwise. The brothers would have kept fighting, and humanity would continue getting caught in the crossfire until one or both of them died.
@@li-limandragon9287 Dante's reasons were valid in DMC3. Such validity is past tense, as he had little to no care for anyone in DMC V. If Dante truly cared for humanity at that point, then the logical thing to do would have been to let Nero help him bring Vergil down quickly and efficiently, as opposed to using Nero's parentage as an excuse to keep him out of it. Again, Dante was more concerned with his sibling rivalry than the safety of the human world. Dante completely forgot that the demon world was encroaching on the human world until Nero reminded him after the fight. Nero might have had personal reasons to stop them, but you're kidding yourself if you think Nero wasn't spot on about the entire situation. It was for this reason Dante entrusted the human worlds safety to Nero at DMC Vs end.
Demon King Piccolo is still Piccolo which means he enslaved humanity and declared May 9th Piccolo day but that doesn't mean he's not also the Guardian of Earth up until he gives Dende the title.
@@Vanity0666 Yeah: He does that *later.* He *chooses* a different path. He is *redeemed* from his past sins. Vergil does the same shit over and over again with absolutely no remorse.
I mean the context is different but Vergil is still responsible for everything Urizen did, it just wasn't his intention. If Vergil didn't have so much evil in his heart Urizen wouldn't have gone that far for power.
Their is no distinction between femto and Griffith when there is an explicit difference between Vergil, V and Urizen. Urizen is a part of Vergil but he is not Vergil Urizen is an externalization of vergils obsession and drive
@@Vanity0666 Demon King Piccolo is Piccolo's dad. Piccolo was evil to start out with but that changed overtime because he was his own person who could develop and grow rather than being Kame's Evil Half which kinda locked his dad into his alignment.
Ada from Resident Evil is an another Capcom example. She’s responsible for untold loss of life as a result of her actions, but she also wears sexy outfits, so she isn’t viewed as a villain. Heihachi is another case of a character with almost no redeeming qualities but is adored.
reminder that Piccolo is literally a demon from hell who split himself into 2 beings, the pure evil Demon King Piccolo and the Guardian of Earth Kami, who later fused again to become Piccolo again
Wasn't Vergil's plan literally "I want to get rid of my humanity to become stronger as a pure demon"? but then his human part was like "oh damn this sucks"
It was more of a desperation thing. He was falling apart and severing his humanity with Yamato was a sort of Hail Mary to fix that. He probably assumed he was dying because of his own human weakness, but was obviously wrong since Urizen was also still dying before he ate the fruit.
@@LPBelligerentsGamingthat's worse. people who do terrible things when they're afraid are more dangerous than people who do terrible things for ideological reasons.
@@LieseFuryI feel like we could argue about which is truly worse. It feels kind of like comparing apples and oranges when trying to find out which is more evil, but the apple is made out of 1 million innocent souls and the orange is a full of tormented child blood or something or smthn idk
@LieseFury I wouldn't limit it to Vergil just being afraid. More than likely, he wasn't in a sound state of mind. Mundus broke his mind over the course of years to the point his trauma was personified in the form of V's summons. Trauma so bad that they willfully chose death by Dante over returning to Vergil simply to spare him the agony. Pat likens using Yamato to drunk driving, but I think it's more like being forced to OD for a decade and getting in an accident while trying to administer treatment you didn't fully understand.
The Vergil situation is so wild because, to the best of my knowledge, Vergil *never* does *literally anything* that could even be remotely construed as "Heroic." He does cool shit. He does epic shit. He does hype shit. But the man has never done anything for a single person who wasn't himself. At the absolute most, he cleans up his own mess. After his brother bullies him into it.
Update: Adi Shankar was allegedly trolling, which I'm gonna believe it's true because the alternative is that he thinks "I need more power" is a viable/logical ideology
He's said on multiple occasions that he's basically a pro at trolling, certain things he says just sound intentionally outlandish and the only way to see where he really stands (with or without the trolling) is to see how the anime turns out when it releases. I personally can't wait lmao
@@UrobourosZero I've been following the man on twitter for years, whenever he pops up it is for two reasons. To retweet someone saying something nice about something he worked on, or to shitpost lmao. That is fine by me, it's why I can't read into his tweets with as much seriousness as Woolie and Pat, which to their credit, probably haven't followed him for very long if at all, so out of context they can jump to conclusions.
I dont know, have you seen the way that guy dresses in public? he's either willing to troll his entire life or is just a an angsty Teenager trapped in a 40 year olds body and I honestly believe the latter more XD
@@Gojiro7 That just describes my 30 year old self pretty well so I have no problem giving him the benefit of the doubt! I dress like a mid-2000s era Adam Gontier with the mouth of Ryan Reynolds even though I have the looks of a low rent Danny DeVito, after a while you just find what you like and just stop giving a fuck lmao Seriously though, Adi seems like a chill and fun guy that just likes to fuck with people sometimes and I'm all here for it lol
That's not really the best example. That's just due to the Yamato separating his human side from the demon one. If Dante was put into the same position, it wouldn't have been any different since the devil side actively needs their humanity to be kept in check. That's a running theme in the series. Honestly, the you don't even have to bring up Urizen. Just DMC3 Vergil working with Arkham and helping penetrate a city with the sheer girth of a large demon tower prison is enough to prove that he's not the nicest dude in existence.
@@AnakinSkywalker-u5bHow is that not a good example? Vergil intentionally separated his human half from his demon half. It's not like the Yamato just grew legs and attacked Vergil, he took the sword back from Nero specifically to bring Urizen into existence. Urizen's actions are the direct result of Vergil's actions.
@@RevyaAeinsett Piccolo split himself in half to become Demon King Piccolo and Kami Guardian of Earth. Both of them were completely individual people with their own motivations, morality, and intention up until Demon King Piccolo reincarnates as Piccolo Jr. (who also attempts to take over the world and kills Goku) who then fuses with Kami again to regain their original form as Piccolo. Does the current Piccolo shoulder the burdens of Demon King Piccolo, who enslaved humanity and declared every May 9th to be Piccolo day? Does he wear the laurels of Kami, Guardian of Earth who created the Dragon Balls? Is he his own person?
Man, Nox just giving up because his entire (artificially extended for hundreds of years btw) life's work only resulting in 20 minutes of time travel is going to stay in my head forever.
It's such a punch to the gut, because the logic in his argument was sound (kill a bunch of people so that he can go back in time and prevent the cause that led to him killing a bunch of people, thus saving everyone).
Vergil is a villain, but he’s just so cool and (more importantly) you get to control him killing hundreds of demons. When the vast majority of fans’ time with the character is him doing the same thing the heroes do in gameplay, then it might be easy to forget all the cutscenes where the actual story happens. If there was ever an actual Vergil campaign where you control him while he does evil shit (or any story at all), then it don’t think this misconception would happen. In three different games he doesn’t do anything different than Dante when you control him: killing demons.
I think the best part of DMC 5 that shows how stupid Vergil is, is the cutscene immediately after V rejoins into vergils body. Trish and Ladybare like "What happened?" And Dante says, very nonchalantly: "My dumbass brother is back and he needs an ass kicking." And I was like, "yeah, vergil IS a dumbass!"
Also, Vergil seems like the kind of guy who’d mock anyone trying to tell him he’s a good person. He’d call you a peasant and laugh at your silly human ideals of morality, and if you press the issue he’d threaten to kill you.
The best way I personally describe a character like Vergil is that he is someone who doesn't know what it means to be a normal guy. All he prioritises is escaping the feeling of powerless (contextilised through losing his family by demons). It's motivation fueled by trauma. He loathes his human heritage and embraces his more powerful demonic heritage, contrasted by Dante who embraces both his lineage. And this is why Dante grows more confident with each game while Vergil suffers defeat after defeat. Does this make Vergil a bad person? If you judge by actions, then yes absolutely. Does Vergil directly have it out for anyone in particular? My reading is that he doesn't really care rather than being outright malicious. He lacks a moral viewpoint so he will rip off his son's arm because he is desperate and is not gonna think twice about it. Being a loner most of the time isn't helping matters. This is how I see Vergil. And to make it clear, I like Vergil. I find him a fascinating portrayal of someone haunted by tragedy that tries to cover it up but only makes thing worse for himself repeatedly. I don't think the game ever says his actions don't matter, but it's clear that him and Dante a complicated relationship they want to fix. I don't see Vergil as a "good guy", but I don't mind him and Dante bonding by being the brothers they used to be from the start. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
YES This! Absolutely this! As well, to be fair in the arm-ripping, that only happened cause Nero's natural demonic ability is to absorb *other* demonic power sources. Yamato was stuck bound to the arm, so the arm had to come off. If it was a case of Yamato being permanently manifested OUTSIDE Nero's arm, the way it was before Nero absorbed it, then Vergil probably at worst would have knocked Nero into a wall, taken the sword and fucked off. Also, if anything Vergil has it out for Dante, but not in the "i want you dead at my feet no matter what" manner, but in the "we never finished our goddamn fight and i wanna see once and for all which one of us is better" manner. Once he GOT his proper 1v1 salty runback, he was *chilled out* about it.
"Should Vergil get credit for V's actions?" I'm gonna say yes because that's just being consistent if you're arguing that he's at fault for Urizen's BS. Like might as well.
*Pat in 2019:* Vergil did nothing wrong! On a serious note, Adi is shitposter and has been trolling people since the trailer came out. He is making the same "arguments" for Mundus on twitter now too. I find it hard to take him this seriously lmao.
if thats his aim then congratulations Adi, you now extra confirmed to the world your a child in a man's body for taking a dream job and trolling it ontop of dressing like a someone who wants to outdo the emo parody that is Matthew Patel in Scott Pilgrim XD
I don't understand this recent trend of fans downplaying the crimes of villains they like. You understand and even agree with villains, but their still villains. For me thats part of the fun.
I think there is a bit of the audience that is afraid of the term "likeable a-holes/glorious bastards", where you fully embrace or like a villian in spite of the fact that he's wrong. To take a look at JoJo for example: Dio and Kira is a good example of a beloved villian who you fully root against but still admit are cool. Then you have villians like Funny Valentine that are so charimsatic and entertaining and a "somewhat" noble goal that some of the fandom will try to root for, while ignoring that his goals only benefit his country and the other missdeeds he's caused. I think some of us forget that villians that fully embrace their villian nature doesn't make them "lesser". Basic does not equal bad. A simple premise can still be very effective.
@@leithaziz2716 It all just runs back to depictions are not endorsement. I don't know what has happened to make people so infantile when consuming art.
It's been going on for a while. I remember people thinking just because Frieza was in the tournament of power he was suddenly a good guy when dude's still as much as an evil mf as ever.
As Pat said back when him and Matt played Revengeance, during Armstrong's speech, "You know as crazy as he sounds, there's at least 30 people watching this video going, 'Oh my god, I would so vote for that guy!'" And as someone said in the comments of that finale, the funniest thing about beating a guy who says "Might makes right," is that by beating him you prove to be the mightiest, and therefore become the right one. So, even when you win, he wins.
especially cause Kratos got shafted by Ares. Kratos was literally doing Ares' bidding as was his job under someone with the title "God of War". And then Ares tricked him into slaughtering his family. Vergil lost his family but not at his own hands, and then went way too far trying to put himself in a position where if he ended up with a family of his own, the same thing wouldnt happen.
Context aside, Kratos has fully acknowledged his past and wrongdoings and worked to be a better role-model for his son and everyone around him. And the game now openly leaves it to the audience how they wanna judge his character. It's a simillar method to Megatron's redemption in the Transformers IDW comic. Wether he's "forgiven" is your choice to make for yourself. I think that's the most you need to do to justify the change in a mature manner.
I do find Kratos an interesting "Greek Tragedy" style villian in the Greek games. He would never have committed any of his actions past the 1st game if the Gods gave him want he wanted: to erase his horrible memories that haunt him. When he tries to escape in the form of death, he's denied and is forced to become the next God of War, quite literary becoming the person he hates the most (Greek Tragedy 101). Then he's killed by Zeus out of fear that he might overtake Olympus, causing Kratos to seek his demise. And that's not to bring up the context from the PSP games (losing his daughter and brother again). The world around Kratos made him the monster that he is because they denied him any semblance of peace.
4:45 Now that's something that got me really bothered in 5. V literally says that "Now I realized the gravity of crimes I've committed" but when Vergil is back the only moment of self reflection he has is alone, NOT A SINGLE WORD ABOUT IT WITH DANTE. And after that is just haha brothers fighting so fun!
I mean V is a Verbose motherfucker but Vergil would rather die than talk openly. The fact that he does at all even attempt to seal the gate back up shows that indeed on some level he sees the bad in his actions. DMC3 Virgil wouldn't have given 3 fucks and would've either bailed or just gotten himself killed in combat. V talks about his trauma, his feelings as Vergil all the time. Stuff Vergil wouldn't be caught dead saying
@@Vanity0666 What I mean is that for Vergil that's huge character shift to be left as a single line of lonely self reflection. I think we needed a longer cutscene with serious dialogue like dmc3.
actually no. The reality of that is his self-reflection makes him realize that trying to justify things to his brother, the arguably more "moral" of the two of them, would be pointless. His end goal was always to become The Strongest, and Dante was his measuring stick. Dante never asks him a second time anything along the lines of "what the hell were you thinking, was it all worth it?" , he just goes "give me the sword." if you look back at the scene where Nero is dictating terms to the two of them, Vergil is gently nodding when Nero flat out states "neither of you is going to die today." Vergil accepts those terms, because he's now got the _perspective_ to be able to see beyond his own blind ambition. After the Qliphoth is cut down, *we are never told how much time has passed* with those two in the Underworld. We arent even given a solid number of bouts they had, just that they're now so balanced with each other that they can quip back and forth for the most part, as if they'd gotten all the *actual* aggression out of their systems, and are starting to mend the familial rift. Not to mention, previous games established there are beings in the Underworld capable of altering temporal flow, so nothing states that there's no *places* that arent the same. For all we know, they've been caught up in a temporal dilation field where they spend months inside but only a week passes on Earth. We *dont know* at all. Its very likely that in between fights, they talked. and with the post-game loading screens showing Vergil now in the van with the others, they likely talked a *lot* before they got back.
@@Xenmaru00 I don't think he needed to justify anything since he knows there is no justication but I think Vergil wouldn't even attack Dante after coming back in first place, he shouldn't have any reason anymore to "settle the matter" and at the tree he should try to have a open heart talk so Dante could at least see he really changed but then still insisting in taking Yamato, instead of that "haha we silly brothers fighting since forever when that gonna stop hey?". Not just because I think that would be better but just so all the human moments with V didn't go to waste. Because the way that whole final fight at the tree plays out it doesn't matter how much Vergil changed because of V, the whole game could be just Nero and Dante hunting Vergil and that section would fight all the same
People who think Vergil is not a villain probably also think Batman is an anti-hero instead of just a hero The dude kills less people than most other heroes; where is the anti- part? Because he's sad and wears black?
Depending on the version, it could be agrued Batman is so self-destructive and self-sabotaging in his personal life that he could be anti-hero in regards to his mental state. But his general methods and goals are straightforwardly heroic.
Batman is one of the most selfless heroes ever portrayed and I love him for it. He looks dark and broody, but his actions reveal someone who embraces the worth of humanity in a manner few heroes do. Sacrificing his own personal life to help people in need. Being a symbol of hope, providing charity and helping to reform the mentally insane.
@@leithaziz2716 That depends on the version. Many iterations of Bruce are the furthest thing from selfless, and have been portrayed as "holier than thou" type morons who think they're doing the lord's work when in reality they're screwing everyone over by playing Cat & Mouse with their villains.
@@AnakinSkywalker-u5b only the versions that are written to be dickheads (like All-Star Batman and Robin) or the ones being written by people who don't understand the character.
@@AnakinSkywalker-u5b So...stick to the adaptations that vibe with you. I like that Batman respects the value of life so much that he will never compromise with his moral code. He will apprehend criminals and send them to the authority. If the villians escape and commit more crimes, that's on the responsibillity of the authorities, *not Batman's* . He can make the choices I might not make and I like that. Overly Sarcastic Productions put it best with Red's quote. “Stories aren’t ethical optimization exercises, they’re scenarios for your brain to chew on, and the most important thing is that they’re interesting.”
Another way to define an anti-hero: someone with selfish or otherwise unheroic motivations who, when the chips are down, is willing to do the right thing. I feel like it's easy to forget that Dante runs a business - he is more than willing to kill demons, but unless it's an existential threat to a significant population or is related to his brother (and it's often both), he's gonna charge you for it. Even then, he enjoys lazing about most of the time. I've also heard a similar description for Mad Max. He's out for himself, but he'll do the right thing when it lines up with his own interests.
Aside from the fact that Dante is regularly broke due to not actually taking the payment he is owed for jobs, you're mostly right. All the times he's saved the world is usually spurred on in the quest to put his past demons to rest.
@@xenowarrior282 he makes them bet on a coin flip but the coin is double heads or double tails, if they lose the bet they have to pay up. This is explained in SMT Nocturne when recruiting him to your party.
@@Vanity0666 Literally only dmc2 Dante does this. Which Nocturne uses. In every other instance of Dante, he either demands full pay, any amount of pay his clients can muster, or just does it for free. It's a case by case basis and is part of the many reasons why his business is struggling.
Technically, the only heroic thing he did was fight and hold off the demon hoard in redgrave City for a month until nero was ready to come back to the fight. And even then, he was V at the time. It's hard to say if vergil would have done the same thing.
I'm of the opinion that if Vergil can get the blame for Urizen's actions, he should get the credit for V's. That said, V isn't exactly a moral paragon, either. He probably counts as an anti-villain, actually. He's out to save his ass from disintegrating, but if he helps stop a demon invasion in the process, that's a nice side effect. If you haven't read the Visions of V manga, you absolutely should, it fleshes out V/ergil's character a lot more. He's still an asshole, but it does a lot to humanize him (pun intended :P ). Afaik there's no official English translation but there's a few fan translations out there, and there is *literally* a scene where he encounters a crying child in the ruins of Redgrave (Red Grave?) City. As an aside, there's a piece of fanart living rent-free in my head of the Yamato scene that is literally V popping out of Vergil post-sudoku and immediately going "oh no the brain part of me was in the human part of me."
Honestly I think V is the only reason you could ever argue any moral ambiguity to Vergil. V saw all the fucked up things Urizen did from a ground view and realized how bad it was, and even though he reformed into Vergil that part of his mind remained. I mean Vergil in 5 wears black like V but has a blue vest to show how he’s still the same dude deep down, and questions his position in life merely minutes after reforming, something 3 Vergil wouldn’t be caught dead doing. V adds so much to his character that it’s insane to think that only Urizen’s actions count for what Vergil did in 5.
I feel like the reasoning isn’t “he is responsible for urizen’s crimes because that is him” and more “he created urizen with the intention that those crimes would happen” meanwhile, his human half was probably an afterthought. It’s about Virgil’s intentions at the moment of the split and what the consequences were.
When Pat was bringing up his examples of Anti-Hero VS Villain, it reminded me of a moment in the Gungrave Anime when Harry McDowell achieves his goal of being the new boss and comes across a kid whose boss hits him for screwing up. Harry is feeling high on his success and decides to help this kid out by shooting his mean boss to death right in front of the kid only for the kid to be in tears going "Noooo!!! I didn't want him dead!!" (the boss may have also been his father, i'm not sure) and Harry is utterly befuddled thinking he did a good guy thing killing that man who did a bad thing only for him to break down from the weight of all the other evil things he's done to get to this moment, in particular, killing his best friend. I think that's a great example of a character whose an anti-Hero in his own mind but a Villian to reality. Funnily enough The Punisher is the perfect opposite example, Society see's him as an Anti-Hero, but Frank see's himself as a villain and even once berated and threaten to shoot a pair of cops who thanked him for killing criminals and said they wanna be like him.
It always scares me to see people try to look up to Punisher, because The Punisher HATES what he's doing. He's just given up and tries to resort to the quickest way to fix things. He wants other people to be better than him.
@@kamikazelemming1552 it is great but it does kinda tease you with how long it takes to actually become Gungrave, its almost Cowboy Bebop esc for the first 12 ish episodes
One thing to note is that I don't even think Vergil himself really tried to blame Urizen for everything. He just kind of sits at the Qlipoth and gets retrospective. I take the ending as Vergil taking his lumps and cleaning up his mess. (After a fight with Dante and an ass beating by his own son)
Yeah, being V(and Urizen?) Definitely gave the recombined Vergil some sort of character growth, though how much V gained some sort of Moral clarity vs V just wanting to not die is a whole other thing to argue about...
Literally half of V's journey was an active guilt trip over how he fcked up as Vergil, including seeing the ultimate result of him abandoning his only child and what he left him to deal with, despite coming from a family (ESPECIALLY EVA) that loved him enough to ensure his survival by leaving him with a protective sword What I love was that Urizen, in-game, is like "Yeah I did it but...why did I do it again? I don't remember but I'm hungry so" lol
Virgil is probably a margarita pizza guy. Has one slice. Eats with a knife and fork to avoid grease. On the ice cream front… either just vanilla hand made with real vanilla bean or like… pistachio or coffee flavored
@@jaideay3003 As someone who loves Margarita Pizza, eats pizza with a fork and knife, and makes homemade vanilla ice cream with real vanilla beans, I feel so called out right now.
I genuinely think the DmC Reboot Vergil might be closer to being an anti-hero than the original Vergil, and the reboot one aborted a baby with a sniper rifle.
Eh. He was only an anti hero in apperance. Because his actual goal/third act twist was that he always wanted world domination. The most stereotypical villain motivation one can have
@@nahuel3433 Oh, I know. I'm not saying he is an anti-hero. I'm saying that by merit of him even pretending that he is fighting for the weak, he's automatically closer to being an anti-hero than OG Vergil, who couldn't be bothered to even pretend to care about them one way or another. But that lack of f*cks to give is part of what makes OG Vergil so much better than the reboot one.
@@Half_Bl00d_H3R0 How did I back pedal? If anything, I doubled down because when I stopped to give it further thought while responding, I realized DmC Vergil IS closer to being an anti-hero by pretending to be one, and discarded any doubt I had on the matter.
The idea of Vergil being any flavor of hero, or even an anti-villain, is just so utterly insane to me. Absolutely wild take. Still an awesome character. 10/10 would be the storm that is approaching anytime.
It appears they're going the anti-villain route with him. He seems at least a little more introspective since restoring himself. While he's responsible for Urizen, he's also responsible for V, who spent his whole existence putting himself in danger trying to stop Urizen. So while more character development is needed, I don't think he's going to be a full villain anymore going forward. His Hell vacation with Dante is their big extended bonding session.
Calling him a complete villain is just as insane selfishly motivated or not he does objectively save the world twice (defeating Arkham and destroying the tree)
Now that Vergil and Dante are cool with eachother and big V seems to have given up his quest for MOAR POWAR then the Kratosing of Vergil can begin. Make him admit and own up to his mistakes and ultimately be redeemed like it happened to Kratos.
In the 30 second cutscene from DMC 3 when the Temin ne gru raises from the ground, you can see houses, presumably with people in them, crumbling. People definitely died. Raziel from Legacy of Kain is an anti hero because he’s trying to save his world but he’s motivated and being manipulated by his desire for revenge (at least at first). He’ll save Nosgoth, and he’ll pull out an organ to do it. Vigil? Vigil is a villain. Possibly an Anti Villain but still a villain.
Raziel isn't trying to save the world though. In SR1 he's trying to get revenge and in SR2 and Defiance he's just trying to escape the Elder God's control. Raziel arguably cares less about what happens to Nosgoth than Kain does by the end.
@@SeruraRenge11that’s definitely true, but the way I always feel about it is: after seeing Nosgoth uncorrupted, there’s a secondary heroic motive of saving the world, and then it becomes twisted around in the many manipulations. That’s why he sacrifices himself to the reaver in the end of Defiance, because he wants Nosgoth free from the elder god more than he wants to live. At least that’s how I see it.
Vergil is not a villain that you can redeem in other peoples eyes but for it's less how other feel about him and more about how Dante wants his brother to be family again. Vergil is irredeemable to the rest of the world but he still has at least one person that still loves him and that one person want him to better, for him to at least not actively seek fucking over the rest of world for insane petty reasons. Vergil is that family that's gone to jail, who's lived a horrible life but still has at least one or two family member trying to keep him out that cause they remember who they were before that shit. Edit: 18:20 Let be fair an say yes since if Urizen is all of Vergil hunger for power uninhibited by shame than V is Vergil's real sense of responsibility and disgust over what he willing to do to get what he wanted.
Even MORE irritating than Vergil are those who insist Emet-Selch from FF14 did nothing wrong and "now he's a hero" for helping the Warrior of Light. Dude was a selfish, spiteful murderer who would have been happy to kill a whole planet of "lesser" beings if it meant helping HIS people. He gives some marginal help because "whatevs, I lost anyway" but he never for a single second is repentant for any of his actions.
The thing about Emet-Selch that a lot of us (not myself included, however) give him a pass for is that by the time Shadowbringers rolls around its very obvious in his character interactions is that he's looking for a *reason* to stop doing what he's been doing. The only reason he doesnt, is because of his own arrogance, and his morality pet Hythlodeus isnt around to verbally smack him upside the head and make him pick the Right path because Emet can *see* the Right path but is willingly ignoring it because he's too stuck in his ways. Emet-Selch is the kind of person who can and will do moral and immoral things, but will be more "moral" as long as he has trusted figures at his side prodding him in that direction. The loss of Hythlodeus is also something that likely spurred him on to try to undo the Sundering because he *knows* he's able to go off in the wrong directions without someone he trusts to keep him on track. Back in Elpis, it was made very clear that he is arrogant, rather selfish, but also if you end up as someone he vaguely cares about, he will bitch, he will moan, he will make a big deal out of it, but he *will* help you out in the end. And if anyone *hurts* you, they are forfeit. He did, however, do terrible, horrible, fucked up things, and he even agrees that under the exact same circumstances, he'd do them all over again because he is the kind of person that if he makes a choice, for good or for ill he will see it through to its conclusion. Much like Mithos Yggdrasil of Tales of Symphonia, he would make the same choice, because his goals to him, were noble, and he was given no other options until he had already bathed his whole damn *body* in the blood of countless innocents. Emet-Selch's whole personality is "Prove me wrong. in a way i cannot counter." We couldnt, so we had to absolutely rip him apart, to which he acknowledges, and merely asks that we remember *why* all of this came about. Not merely *him* but all that came before him, and before Us. Remember during the Hades fight, he is *losing* and then becomes so desperate he reaches out to the remnants of his brethren, not so much the Ascians, but the *Ancients* that he was attempting to revive. the people *he* believed he was fighting for. and he becomes powerful in the same manner *we* do: fighting in the name of not ourselves, but for others. Where Zenos is a reflection of the WoL if the WoL had no goal other than "Die Fighting the Most Powerful", Emet-Selch is a reflection of the WoL if we existed in a world where none were our equal, and we were fighting for an ephemeral goal. Remember, even Alphinaud acknowledges that ultimately, if it came down to trying to save our people, we'd be willing to do very similar things. Emet-Selch is one of those cases where the person has no *reason* to wish to repent, nor truly regret, because ultimately what they were doing was something they believed had to be done, for a cause greater than themselves. and every harm they inflicted, every care they gave, was because that was their choice to do so. and in the end, while his goal *failed* he also knows it was destined to fail because he was missing crucial information, but under the same exact circumstances, he would make the same choices, because he would know no different and have no reason to do otherwise.
The only maybe slightly tiniest bit of heroic behavior from Vergil is at the extreme end of DMC5 where he finally agrees to fix the shit he started, but A- he started it, no questions asked, and B- it's still 99.999% personal because he still wants to fight both Dante and Nero. You can maybe possibly argue he has finally *stopped* being a full-on villain, but I'd put him at best as just pure pragmaticism rather than even remotely approaching heroic. If he comes back to Earth with Dante, he's got an absurd amount to answer for, and I doubt anyone else in the main cast are going to be letting him out of their sight to make absurdly sure he doesn't go on another manchildish power trip (which I mean, Dante went with him to hell for that reason anyways, to make damn well sure he fixes what he broke).
It’s not even that Vergil chooses to go to Hell and stop the tree because he has a moral imperative to do so, he operates purely on a might based meritocracy and Nero beat him in a fight so he feels obligated to concede, but in the SAME BREATH he gives him his book so he has a reason to come back for a salty run back. Heroism, even incidental heroism will always only ever be a bi-product for Vergil. He’ll never go out of his way to help someone unless he wants to fight them later.
@@BigPennyInc the end is sealing the portal to the demon world forever, picking up after his father Sparda because Sparda's seal was only a half-measure and able to be opened again.
Vergil being a villain lies in the fact that he couldn't weld Sparda, or activate it at least. That was the whole point of Sparda using his power, to protect others but vergil disregarded that too much. I think he was originally more tame than dante tho, before mundus attacked the family.
Vergil would’ve been able to activate Sparda’s power with the two amulets and force edge. It’s about having heart that could love another person like Nero says to Sanctus
He is more than implied to have been a "tame" kid, as you put it. The attack on the house and death of his mom is what pushed him over the (this time metaphorical) edge.
Vergil literally never cared about innocents dying by his actions, and somehow people still see him as an anti hero? He is literally not saving anything, not even his own son that he never cared about.
I mean it’s the same thing Ada. She clearly doesn’t give a shit about anything other than Leon (somewhat) and is purely motivated by lining her own pockets. RE6 adds scenes of her doing nice things but her body count is still as high as Wesker’s was.
@@li-limandragon9287 While Ada is certainly a terrible person motivated by greed, I'm fairly certain her body count is nowhere near close to Wesker's, because she was never responsible for any of the outbreaks that have taken place throughout the series. -In RE2, the outbreak was caused by Umbrella. -In RE4, the outbreak was caused by Saddler. -In RE5, the outbreak was caused by Wesker. -In RE6, the outbreaks were caused by Simmon's and Carla. -In RE7, the outbreak was caused by Eveline. -In RE8, the outbreak was caused by Miranda. At worst, Ada uses the chaos caused by the outbreaks to her advantage, but she still has something resembling morals, like when she refused to hand over the Plagas samples to Wesker and her unknown benefactor in RE: Damnation.
@@kamikazelemming1552You’re forgetting Ada absolutely contributed to outbreaks by stealing samples and selling them around to the highest bidder. That’s her entire profession and it’s implied she done it her entire life. Oh and that “benefactor” in Damnation she worked for previously was Simmons the guy who killed millions of people. Ada changing her mind does not wash any blood from her hands whatsoever, especially given RE6 has take yet another assignment from a shadowy company. She’s no better than Wesker or Carla.
@@kamikazelemming1552 You’re absolutely forgetting that Ada had worked for Umbrella since the start being was involved with them as early as RE1 (she was manipulating one of the scientists John as revealed in notes). Plus her entire profession is stealing viruses and selling them to other evil organisations. She’s absolutely responsible for propagating viruses across the globe, resulting in mass loss of life. She can be tied to any number of outbreaks. Glad you mentioned Damnation because that film confirms she was working with Simmons since he gets name dropped. Yes she betrayed him, but she was still working with him and that dumb Family for years. RE6 ends with her just taking another assignment, likely going to result in another outbreak. She’s not Catwoman, she’s Lady Hydra.
@@kamikazelemming1552 You’re absolutely forgetting Ada was working for Umbrella and other shady companies from the start she’s mentioned in the RE1 notes. It’s pointless to shift blame to other characters especially characters like Simmons given she worked for the guy and aided the Family or whatever they are called for a buck. Her entire profession is stealing viruses to other organisations all of whom are as bad as Umbrella and she doesn’t care. Her body count is probably in the thousands just as a consequence of her actions.
I still rmemeber when DmC Vergil shot Mundus' baby mama hostage in the back with a 50 cal to abort the Mundus baby and people complained "Vergils too noble to do soemthing evil like that!"like the FUCK any incarnation of Vergil is actually noble
A lot of people confuse "isn't terribly written" with "is a good person". A lot of people also confuse "I like this" with "therefore it is good and pure and wholesome".
The Kratos bit has me wondering how we'd get this talk yet again if we somehow did a "Devil May Cry" like God of War(2018) where Vergil literally is an old man protagonist going, "I was a piece of shit."
Adi Shankar always had wacky "read too much into it" takes about stories and characters. Like, he has always been weird. However, the fact we got great, faithful stuff from him in spite of that doesn't make me worried about his series' take on Vergil. Especially since he's been nerding out about the same stuff in the games we do. That all being said, I'm going to pay close attention Shankar's Vergil after his recent statements. Giving him more depth is fine, just don't make him a misunderstood anti-hero when he isn't and shouldn't be.
Seeing Ari call Vergil an anti hero reminds me of how some people in the mha fandom view Toga especially after the recent episodes of s7. I'll keep it vague to not spoil anything but in essence having a tragic back story and saving someone does not excuse all of the horrible things she did and people she killed for no reason, she's still a villain
no but it does beg the question "where does the line begin?" In Toga's case, her descent into villainy was brought about by abuse, ignorance, and the failures of society to care for someone with an unusual...trait. not too different from reality where some people born with certain disabilities or mental/emotional/learning disorders, end up feeling so...attacked, just for existing, so hated just for being born different (something none of us who ARE born different, ask to be) that they decide "if i am to be treated like X just for existing, i might as well reap the benefits of BEING that way." All Toga needed, before a certain point in her life, was someone who stepped up an accepted her for what her born conditions were. Depending on *when* that happened, its likely she'd have clung to them for a long while, but with some effort on others' end, could have become a fairly adjusted individual. But that acceptance didnt come till far too late in her life, after she'd already built up a body count, and came from individuals who were willing to *encourage* her negative impulses, rather than loop them into being neutral and work towards "redeeming" her. In Vergil's case, his was psychological trauma mixed with a burning, lingering, festering terror of having history repeat itself. As an intellectual, Vergil even at the age the original event happened, likely knew on some level, "if it can happen once, then it can happen again". The "failure" in this case, was simply that he had nobody around to curb his reaction, to soothe his fears, to temper his ambition. He was always favoring Sparda, but it wasnt till this all happened that he took that favor beyond its logical conclusion. to young Vergil, the lack of power on his or his brother's end, was what caused their family to be ripped apart. the only way to prevent that from ever happening again, is to become so powerful nothing can threaten you. Referenced in his statement to Dante in DMC3: "Without strength, you cannot *protect* anything. Even let alone yourself." His goal is to gain power by any means possible, so he can never feel so helpless again, so when it comes a time he decides to even fathom starting a family of his own, *nothing* can threaten them, because he is the Strongest Thing. And then his own arrogance leads him to getting chucklefucked by Mundus, mindraped, brainwashed, and *ultimately made weaker* by the Demon King, and that broken state has him taking drastic measures to obtain his ambition. Leading to Urizen slaughtering a city to power the very fruit that Mundus consumed, to gain as much power as *he* did. And then, in the end, he ends up unintentionally forcing himself to embrace his helplessness by becoming V, learns what it means to be Human in a world full of exceedingly powerful demons, learns what it means to cherish something once again, and upon merging with Urizen, and returning to Vergil, comes to realize that while he has technically achieved his goals...it might not have been worth it. Because everything Vergil believed, was based on a half-truth. He thought he was cast aside, but Urizen (disregards it but still) learns that Eva tried to find him, but was killed before she could secure his safety. It was a twist of *luck* was all. And that key piece of information he was missing, along with his experiences as the very thing he tried to flee from (also likely through self-reflection after being captured, brainwashed and then nearly destroyed by Mundus), leads to his...softness, towards Nero, and the Deal of "if i beat Nero, i beat You by default, Dante."
It's like Bakugo said to Shigaraki in Season 3, "You're just looking for an excuse to harass people." The League of Villains can make up all the excuses they want about why they're doing what they're doing, but that doesn't change the fact that they mainly target a bunch of innocent children who had nothing to do with the situations that turned them into villains, and work alongside known serial killers like Muscular and Moonfish.
@@miguelnewmexico8641I think it is. Being essentially rejected by her family and society for what came naturally to her does suck, rather than getting some help.
Reminder that once Vergil broke free of his possession by Mundus in DMC1, his immediate action was to fight Dante on the spot. He’s rad, one of the coolest rivals in gaming by far, but he’s totally not a good guy.
i would love for dmc 6 to have a running gag in which Vergil calls himself king of hell but nobody takes him seriously. "Dude, i know like at least two people that are stronger than you. You didnt even kill Mundus."
Actually Vergil has been seen defeating a lot of people: -During his intros -Against Beowolf -Every first fight he has against Dante he defeats him, that be it as himself in 3, Nelo Angelo in 1 and as Urizen is 5. -If you really want to make it count, though a bit of a stretch, he did technically won against Nero in their first encounter. So yeah, I don't know where Pat gets that Vergil has lost all his battles.
Bedman is a great example of the villain that justifies it all by 'fixing' everything in the end. He memorises every single face and name of people he kills so he can resurrect them later.
the ONE person Vergil would consider protecting pre-DMC5 is his mother... But she's dead AND the event is what made him that way. Post DMC5, you could perhaps consider he'd give it a thought about protecting Nero, but only because of his personal ties to him, because Dante and Nero shoved his responsibilities in his face. And even then he's a jerk. Vergil's main reason for looking to become stronger is selfish. It's himself he wants to protect the most, and the way he does it is disregarding all lives in the path to power. He's a bad guy with a rare few good moments.
Love that Woolie brought up Nox from Wakfu. Super good villain. An absolute monster, but in his mind he can justify pretty much all of the horrors that he inflicts on people because he thinks he can just undo everything bad.
Remember when Vergil juiced a city of like 100,000 people into the demon juicer and used their blood to restore himself? That's some Word Bearers 40K level shit. But he's handsome, so he can't be the villain
Vergil is one of the coolest guys in a series about watching people do cool shit. Yeah there's an impulse to overlook his crimes but he'd be a less compelling character if you did.
Vergil's entire appeal is that he's unapologetically evil, a total loser, & yet he makes it look so cool... except for the time he used a gun without doing a Pizza Wahoo Sick Smokin Style combo (also he ruins every meta he is in)
At best, you could say that Vergil got a stick out of his ass at the end of DMC5 while trying to figure out where he goes from there. In the end, Nero is the one who ends up being the closest to a successful person in-universe as he didn't have any of the emotional baggage that affected the Sparda twins. Even Dante who's stronger than Nero is barely making ends meet.
The best part of the Wakfu villain Woolie is talking about is that he succeeds, he casts his time travel spell after spending 200 years stealing life energy and only has enough to go back 5 minutes and then loses his shit.
Man where the heck have I seen all this conversations before? *Hears H.T. slowly rising in the background and getting louder by the second* I'm so serious I was literally waiting for either of them to mention Knives bc the amount of times I'd seen people say he's not a villain but an "antagonist" is crazy man...
Vergil might not be a mustache-twirling sadist who enjoys tying puppies to train tracks, but he IS so insanely selfish that he'll cause exactly the same levels of world-ending damage as any other bad guy. Does it make him interesting and entertaining? Yes, I love characters who get blinded by their own internal hypocritical bullshit! Does it make him a hero? Nope!
hey now we've already done the math on this: Evil + Attractive = Morally Dubious
With a heaping dose of "Rule Of Cool" on top. Look at Sepiroth. Or Travis Touchdown, kind of
Frank Herbert's Paul Atreides set the bar too
A character could stomp puppies and if they're hot people will be like "he's just misunderstood!"
works for akechi in P5
@@zombieplasticclock Well i mean, travis touchdown actually does some good things sometimes, in nmh3 he's literally fighting to save earth.
Vergil is the coolest loser ever and it is important to always remember he’s a giant loser trying to be cool.
Dante is cool because he’s lame and isn’t trying to be cool.
Nero has a job. Runs a soup kitchen. Shelters orphans. Married his childhood girlfriend. Beat up his deadbeat dad. And has a car. And SOMEHOW he’s the lame one in the family.
Nero has autistic common sense for a demon child. That's why.
Vergil is the try-hard (who's really good at it nontheless)
Dante is the lovable dork that bottles his emotions by acting unserious.
Nero is the underdog that tries his best to handle the situation maturely while being open about his emotions.
Also has a temper and knows how to control it.
"childhood girlfriend" thats one way to word it ...
she was more like an adoptive familymember
Thats what you get for being the baby of the family tho.
Men will literally try to open a portal to hell and water a demonic tree with the blood of innocents in their pursuit of power instead of going to therapy
That’s the Eva problem isn’t? Fucking Gendo couldn’t just have a therapist on NERV.
Okay look dude, what I did on Thursday isn’t the subject of the conversation. We’re talking about Vergil.
A villain can have understandable/sympathetic motivations and reasons for why they are the way they are.
But they're still a villain.
Basically "Cool motive, still murder!"
D-16/Megatron in Transformers One is one of my favorite new additions to this archetype. You know what he's going to turn into, but you can't help but feel bad for how things transpired.
"I'm Done Saving You"
Except Vergil doesn't have sympathetic/understandable motivations and reasons for being evil. He's just evil.
Man, cause. genocide, rape and murder. But look at that kick flick he did!
@@zztzgza He does have a sympathetic reason. He was forced to watch his childhood home be razed and was powerless to stop it. That's where his power obsession comes from, he doesn't want to be hurt ever again. Everything he did afterwards was evil, but he had a reason that sounded good in his head. He doesn't want to be hurt ever again, so he'll be the one doing the hurting.
Calling Vergil smart is a bit of a stretch. He jumps into hell, trusts people who look like arkham, stabs himself and has unprotected sex with strange women.
The hell instance was done due to his arrogance/pride. Not lack of intellect. Vergil is portrayed as someone who is too blinded by pride in his demonic blood. Of course he would think being stuck in hell as a form of punishment for losing is a good thing.
Except he never trusted Arkham. He knew that he had ulterior motives from the start, but realized he was too useful to ignore.
Stabbing himself was done in a moment of desperation to live. Not the best example to say he isn't smart.
Fair enough. But to be fair, if that woman managed to make him wanna sleep with her, then Vergil was either too horny that day, or Nero's mom is (bare minimum) as attractive as Bayonetta.
I think a better description is that he's thick-headed. He's usually calm and collected, but will act on instinct before anything else. He'll jump at the chance to fight Mundus for a chance at glory and surpassing his father, odds of survival be damned. Contrast this with Dante who goofs around most of the time but makes the important decisions when the situation calls for it. Such as encouraging Nero to not get involved for his sake since it involves his dad.
@@AnakinSkywalker-u5b in regards to the random woman he banged: it was very likely he just wanted the experience out of the way. He was in his teen years at the time, late teen, likely, and was probably tired of feeling horny. the whole "silence wench, i do not wish to be horny anymore" meme and whatnot.
Thing is, Vergil is a *doer* in the end. If he decides on a course of action, he will do it. If its the *wrong* action, doesnt matter, he has chosen his path and he will see it through. Like how in DMC5, when he's atop the tree, he realizes he did some seriously messed up things, and in the end, wonders if things would have played out differently if it was Dante caught outside, and Vergil the last person their mother directly interacted with. He knows he has done Wrong, but has decided, if anything, for all the lives he cost along the way (since its at this point he is beginning to actually *understand* humanity) he must see his ambition through, whether it leads to his end (which at this point he may be welcoming) or his victory.
So back to the woman he had sex with, it was most likely a case of him understanding that lust is both a human and demonic feeling, and wanting to conquer it. lust. not love. he also likely anticipated that just going one night of sex wouldnt be enough to have a child. he ended up being *wrong* like he was about a *lot* of things, but for once, he had no reason to believe he would be incorrect.
Vergil and Dante are both equally stupid that's like their whole basis for interaction is Dante telling Vergil to stop trying to look so cool and come eat pizza and say jackpot with the guns
@@Xenmaru00 I think its possible maybe Vergil did have feelings for that woman but denied them as to not give in to his human side and thats why he left her before Nero was born.
Vergils sin devil form literally comes from a fruit distilled via thousands of people being horrifically murdered by demon vines lol
Which was caused by Urizen who is not Vergil
@@Vanity0666But is half of Vergil, so he still killed all those people
@Vanity0666 he literally is tho
I like to believe that he got the form by reaching an acceptance within hinself and by fusing back with Urizen but yeah the genocide fruit is still a big bad
@@Vanity0666not only is urizen vergil, urizen came into existence as a direct result of vergil's actions
Knocked a woman up and dipped.
Never ONCE visits his orphan son.
Stabbed his brother (multiple times)
Ripped his son’s arm off.
And Genocides MILLIONS of people.
ALL for his own power.
Nah, my man is a Villain with a capital V.
And the V stands for Vergil.
It's very heavily implied that Vergil was raped or at least sexually assaulted by the religion that worshipped Sparda
He literally has no idea that Nero is related to him until 5
He rips a demon's arm off, demons are capable of regeneration. He literally stabs Dante through the chest with his own sword like 4 times and Dante just walks it off so why shouldnt that also be true for Nero? (Hint, it is true for Nero)
and he still lost
to be fair, he doesnt even know Nero's his son. never knew the hooker he banged, got pregnant. never had any inkling of him having a descendant.
not to say he'd do anything *different* if he knew (if anything that would be even more self-justification for his quest for power: now he has something he MUST become the Strongest, to protect) he had a kid out there, but he simply never knew.
@@miguelnewmexico8641first of all there's no genocide involved because genocide has a specific definition, he does kill a lot of people though.
Dante and Vergil's relationship and moral structures are based on Goku and Vegeta. Vegeta literally does perform multiple counts xenocide as well as killing thousands of humans and giving up his mind in a quest for power to keep up with Goku, but he is still an archetypal anti-hero.
@@Vanity0666 "Very heavily implied that Vergil was raped or at least sexually assaulted"
No? It's never even hinted anywhere that's what happened. We have no idea what actually happened that day. All we know is that a random woman in red in Fortuna, who may have been a prostitute, took an interest in Vergil, and they banged shortly after.
Post DMCV Vergil is probably going to just be Vegita.
He's just around, he never apologizes, almost none of the cast likes him, and nobody can do anything about it because he's the second strongest and the first strongest doesnt want to kill him, and he fights the bad guys sometimes if he feels like it so he's tolerated.
you're more right than you might think. he even has a son! and not even one that needed to time travel! one in the current timeline! who *happens* to be an adult! with a girlfriend! and a not-sister! Vergil speedran Vegeta's Family Arc!
It's literally Piccolo Jr. after having fused with Kami, remember that Demon King Piccolo and Kami were the same guy named Piccolo originally. After having fused with Nail as well, technically Dende is one of his own kin.
Android saga Vegeta.
@@Vanity0666 jesus how can someone get so much wrong about the thing they allegedly know so much about? not necessarily in this one particular comment, just overall.
i'd buy a pink Badman polo shirt dlc costume for Vergil
Some people try to excuse what he did, but there's no justification. He caused the death of thousands TWICE.
Twice? I know about 5 but what was the other time?
Edit: Watched the video. Nevermind.
And that is valid
3
With arkham of course
Granted he likely wanted to get force edge to do...something good, like killing mundus? And in 5 he was just desperate. But yea he def. Fucked up.
@@_2fcd_978 DMC3. He helped Arkham unleash the Temen-ni-gru, which was in the middle of a city.
Oh we're not excusing him. But he's so cool so we're letting that slide.
He broke the UMVC3 Meta and people still think he's an anti hero? that Menace is a Villain!!
I mean there's people who'll still forgive Jean grey just cuz her health bar is short. Hell there's people who still think that cyclops is unironically cool.
People are just opposite haters sometimes
Na, the odd thing about Marvel is that people think vergil has ways been broken and op. When that idea is only a thing in Marvel. And become a Canon idea by dmc4 special edition.
Hey man, UMvC3 got updates. They could've chosen to nerf him, and they didn't. He was clearly where Capcom wanted to be in the meta.
@@moopersworthninjason42nd81cyclops is cool
A villain! I want pictures of Vergil on my desk by tomorrow!
I love how Vergil is so plainly flawed that you can't even say "He did nothing wrong". He is plainly incorrect about how his world works, he's bad at following his framework, and he gets beat CONSTANTLY. He does the most wrong, actually, and consistently gains NOTHING for it.
Idk about that
He's now super powerful, got a strong son, gets to fight-chill with his bro while nero is likely happy to see him when he does get back
All things considered, he's doin pretty well right now
Very few of those things align with what he explicitly wants outside of becoming super-powerful. And considering he's right next to the meter stick he uses to evaluate "super powerful", his brother, and he can't yet surpass him, he probably wouldn't agree with you. If you asked Vergil, this guy wouldn't be happy, and under his own framework he should be at the apex. From his perspective, he hasn't got a lot.
Idk about that. He got the power he wanted. He's now one of the most powerful creatures in existence, thanks to Urizen's acts, and now has gained the awareness and the ability to self-reflect and grow as a person thanks to his time as V.
Objectively speaking, he prett much won.
I think it's because Dante and even Nero don't approach him with a hard stance of "we need to get rid of you," he's treated more like Sasuke is with Naruto, somebody you just gotta smack on the head until he calms down lol. Logically, he is a villian, but every other protagonist in the series takes their actions less seriously than the average citizen.
@@raccoonofmotivation20
1. He has always been super powerful. And considering the whole point of DMC5, Urizen & the Qliphoth, and the fact that he still can't beat Dante after all he did to gain ultimate power, Vergil more or less would consider that a massive L.
2. His son becoming powerful on his own has nothing to do with Vergil. Would he feel proud? Sure. But that was never one of his goals as someone else mentioned.
3. He gets to chill-fight but has to accept that he more or less can never beat Dante or be the most powerful like he always wanted. Even though they both canonically surpassed Sparda. Vergil will forever (until we see what the future has for them) live under the delusion that he isn't as strong as his father, because he isn't Numero Uno. And even though he was heavily exhausted, he took an L from Nero at the ending of V. Which he considered a fair and square loss and another proof that he isn't top dog.
From any reasonable human being's POV, sure. He is doing well. But from Vergil's POV, he is doing very shitty after all he has done. And is stuck with the fact that no matter how far he went, he ended up just being equals with Dante and not the Strongest. Which he deeply hates, while Dante doesn't mind the fact that they're equals.
Reminds me of the LP moment of “Did Vergil even kill those people?” And I’m happy that majority realize that yeah Vergil’s quest for power has caused tons of indiscriminate death TWICE and he didn’t care. He might be more neutral post DMCV but he is nothing less than an absolute villain up to that point
Yeah, like we can argue that time spent as V gave him some sort of moral revelation and he's "good"( or at least "better") now... but Virgil up until he split himself into halves is a villain, even if he might be one you can sympathize with.
Virgil is rad as shit. But hes definitely a villain. You could argue Dante is an anti-hero, but Virgil is a villain.
What would make Dante an anti-hero? He hunts down demons to protect humans. He doesn't do it for free, but he has no income. And he befriends non-hostile demons. The only murky thing he's done is maybe assasinating an organisation member without notifying the public of their true goals (DMC4). His goals started out selfish, but he is pretty heroic overall.
Conversely Dantes lame as all hell but he's still a cool hero
Dante is a classical hero archetype and literally has heros journey narrative structure
I don’t think you know what an “anti-hero” is
@@leithaziz2716 he's a rude, slacker, mercenary, at his core he's a heroic person but how he does so is very much not virtuous. Personally I put him as around the border of hero/anti-hero depending on the game though, while say, Venom goes across the spectrum of anti-hero until very recently breaking through into full on hero, as well as Spawn and Punisher living in Anti-hero land.
Being a kid is thinking that Vergil is the smart cooler brother because he's really dry and not "wacky" like Dante.
Being an adult is realizing that Vergil is a short sighted manchild that's basically always at most a step and a half away from throwing a tantrum and always has been.
I still love him all the same though, lmao. It was crazy seeing how my opinion on him and Dante flipped when I replayed 3 before 5 released.
The Yamato is a literal projection of strength
The real life Yamato, the japanese battleship, was the crown jewel of the japanese navy and their projection of strength as a threat to the US, but it never saw a single battle and they ended up beaching it to use as an artillery battery which also never fired a shot.
My favourite line from Vergil is "WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING!? Must more blood be spilled?"
I feel that line really gives us a solid look at his ego. And, as some others in the comment describe, one can maybe assume that Vergil mighta had plans to kill Mundus. Maybe he had a plan of ends justifying the means.
In V he learns from his experiences of seeing Urizen, being V, and meeting Nero... But before that.
Barring more development, for Vergil, it's simple: Might controls everything. He loves his demon half.
He probably sees his dad's legacy as something he's owed, and in 3 especially, something that will make him special and untouchable. That will legitimize himself, and his life after it all fell apart. Something that shouldn't be left on the table for the sake of "good", because it's half of who he is, and the half he got to spend more of his childhood died in front of him, killed because of his relation to his father's power.
He cares about power because power legitimizes itself, and he doesn't want anyone to ever have power over him, or make him vulnerable. It gives him control. Weak people are hurt, and victimized, and get pushed around by the strong, and ultimately a lot of Vergil is fueled by fear. That, his ego, and a rivalry with Dante.
So of course in 5 when he's dying, he's gonna sacrifice others so that he saves himself. Because Vergil is paramount to himself.
Nero is the only normal and stable DMC protag
and it all happened cause he was born and raised *far away* from any of that bullshit. Yes i know, the Order of the Sword worshipped Sparda, but they worshipped the fact that this big tough evil guy said "you humans a'ight" and defended them.
Sanctus was just a cockbiter, is all.
He's literally the best of the Sparda bloodline to be. Stable job. Kids to take care of. Smoking hot and kind nun wifefriend. He's got his shit together.
That's because he had a positive male role model in his life up to becoming the protagonist
Growing up with a family who don’t all die when you’re like 8, and then having the next group of people you get attached to also die, probably helps.
He’s also probably the closest the games have to an actual hero.
When your precious little meow meow has killed thousands:
Ironically the closest thing to a genuine Hero is Nero. Sure he's sarcastic and flippant at times but he genuinely cares about the people around him and expressed such sentiments openly.
To continue the metaphor, if Dante would see a building falling but act like he doesnt care, but Nero would check on them after make sure theyre okay after saving them.
Nero would also make a horrible joke about it all while making sure it's all okay.
Remember the opening of 5 ? Random soldier man watches his whole squad and civilians get torn apart and Nero just goes "cheer up crew cut"
@jerryjezzaberry5009 yeah for sure, but i dont think its out of callousness towards human life. I think that's cause he's an awkward dork, though, and trying to look cool to make people safe.
@@music79075 ooh I'm not at all saying he's callous he's just an awkward goof who got that little bit of asshole humour from his dad.
@@jerryjezzaberry5009 yeah fair haha
@@jerryjezzaberry5009Poor guy is traumatized after almost getting murdered by a demon and all Nero says to him is, “You look like you need a hug, but you’re not gonna get one from me.”
Honestly even Dante’s frustration with Vergil (that Nero says is wrong or whatever) near the end of 5 is justified.
He keeps fucking shit up and Dante is left picking up the pieces every time.
Yeah that sums up brothers all right!
No. It's that Dante lost sight of what he was fighting for. At that point in the story, Dante was only concerned with killing Vergil. Dante was doing the right thing, but for the wrong reasons. It's basically "screw you, mother liked me best" where Dante was concerned. Dante and Vergil had fought each other for so long, they never once approached their issues in a different way, and nothing was changing because of it.
This was what Nero was calling out; their shortsightedness, and why he had to intervene. It never would have ended well otherwise. The brothers would have kept fighting, and humanity would continue getting caught in the crossfire until one or both of them died.
@@Ninja07KeatonDante’s reasons to try and kill Vergil are valid. Nero just didn’t want to lose what family he had.
@@li-limandragon9287 Dante's reasons were valid in DMC3. Such validity is past tense, as he had little to no care for anyone in DMC V. If Dante truly cared for humanity at that point, then the logical thing to do would have been to let Nero help him bring Vergil down quickly and efficiently, as opposed to using Nero's parentage as an excuse to keep him out of it. Again, Dante was more concerned with his sibling rivalry than the safety of the human world. Dante completely forgot that the demon world was encroaching on the human world until Nero reminded him after the fight. Nero might have had personal reasons to stop them, but you're kidding yourself if you think Nero wasn't spot on about the entire situation. It was for this reason Dante entrusted the human worlds safety to Nero at DMC Vs end.
"he's not a villain, he just murders people indiscriminately in the vague pursuit of "power".
That's what villains tend to do yes.
The people who say that Virgil isn't Urizen are the same sort of fools who say that Griffith isn't Femto, and Zelda isn't Shiek.
Demon King Piccolo is still Piccolo which means he enslaved humanity and declared May 9th Piccolo day but that doesn't mean he's not also the Guardian of Earth up until he gives Dende the title.
@@Vanity0666 Yeah: He does that *later.* He *chooses* a different path. He is *redeemed* from his past sins.
Vergil does the same shit over and over again with absolutely no remorse.
I mean the context is different but Vergil is still responsible for everything Urizen did, it just wasn't his intention. If Vergil didn't have so much evil in his heart Urizen wouldn't have gone that far for power.
Their is no distinction between femto and Griffith when there is an explicit difference between Vergil, V and Urizen. Urizen is a part of Vergil but he is not Vergil Urizen is an externalization of vergils obsession and drive
@@Vanity0666 Demon King Piccolo is Piccolo's dad. Piccolo was evil to start out with but that changed overtime because he was his own person who could develop and grow rather than being Kame's Evil Half which kinda locked his dad into his alignment.
You can love a character and think they're completely full of shit,
people gotta stop acting like you can only like morally correct things
Ada from Resident Evil is an another Capcom example. She’s responsible for untold loss of life as a result of her actions, but she also wears sexy outfits, so she isn’t viewed as a villain.
Heihachi is another case of a character with almost no redeeming qualities but is adored.
People also gotta stop acting like morally bad things can be justified because the person is charismatic or likeable
majin vegeta killing a crowd of spectators and then asking Picollo if he'll go to heaven🙂
People forget Vegeta begins kill people at age 5. He was literally prince demon child
reminder that Piccolo is literally a demon from hell who split himself into 2 beings, the pure evil Demon King Piccolo and the Guardian of Earth Kami, who later fused again to become Piccolo again
He only asked if he could see Goku in the afterlife, never really said anything about heaven itself.
@@Vanity0666 He's not a demon from hell, he's more like an alien, or a Yoshi.
@@plazmadood namekians are literally demons from hell
Wasn't Vergil's plan literally "I want to get rid of my humanity to become stronger as a pure demon"? but then his human part was like "oh damn this sucks"
It was more of a desperation thing. He was falling apart and severing his humanity with Yamato was a sort of Hail Mary to fix that.
He probably assumed he was dying because of his own human weakness, but was obviously wrong since Urizen was also still dying before he ate the fruit.
@@LPBelligerentsGamingthat's worse. people who do terrible things when they're afraid are more dangerous than people who do terrible things for ideological reasons.
@@LieseFuryI feel like we could argue about which is truly worse. It feels kind of like comparing apples and oranges when trying to find out which is more evil, but the apple is made out of 1 million innocent souls and the orange is a full of tormented child blood or something or smthn idk
@LieseFury I wouldn't limit it to Vergil just being afraid. More than likely, he wasn't in a sound state of mind. Mundus broke his mind over the course of years to the point his trauma was personified in the form of V's summons. Trauma so bad that they willfully chose death by Dante over returning to Vergil simply to spare him the agony.
Pat likens using Yamato to drunk driving, but I think it's more like being forced to OD for a decade and getting in an accident while trying to administer treatment you didn't fully understand.
"He was the best guy around!"
"What about all the people he murdered?"
"WHAT MURDAAAAA!?"
The Vergil situation is so wild because, to the best of my knowledge, Vergil *never* does *literally anything* that could even be remotely construed as "Heroic."
He does cool shit. He does epic shit. He does hype shit. But the man has never done anything for a single person who wasn't himself. At the absolute most, he cleans up his own mess. After his brother bullies him into it.
Update: Adi Shankar was allegedly trolling, which I'm gonna believe it's true because the alternative is that he thinks "I need more power" is a viable/logical ideology
He's said on multiple occasions that he's basically a pro at trolling, certain things he says just sound intentionally outlandish and the only way to see where he really stands (with or without the trolling) is to see how the anime turns out when it releases. I personally can't wait lmao
@@UrobourosZero I've been following the man on twitter for years, whenever he pops up it is for two reasons. To retweet someone saying something nice about something he worked on, or to shitpost lmao. That is fine by me, it's why I can't read into his tweets with as much seriousness as Woolie and Pat, which to their credit, probably haven't followed him for very long if at all, so out of context they can jump to conclusions.
I dont know, have you seen the way that guy dresses in public? he's either willing to troll his entire life or is just a an angsty Teenager trapped in a 40 year olds body and I honestly believe the latter more XD
@@Gojiro7 That just describes my 30 year old self pretty well so I have no problem giving him the benefit of the doubt! I dress like a mid-2000s era Adam Gontier with the mouth of Ryan Reynolds even though I have the looks of a low rent Danny DeVito, after a while you just find what you like and just stop giving a fuck lmao
Seriously though, Adi seems like a chill and fun guy that just likes to fuck with people sometimes and I'm all here for it lol
Ok good I was genuinely worried about the show if he was being real
Virgil losing and going "Nu-huh!" is villain worthy.
Vergil: FOR THE GREATER GOOD...OF MY POWER!!!
I'm amazed that Virgil has never uttered any variation of Vae Victis.
You remember when like half of Vergil turned into a demon screaming about power?
That's not really the best example.
That's just due to the Yamato separating his human side from the demon one.
If Dante was put into the same position, it wouldn't have been any different since the devil side actively needs their humanity to be kept in check. That's a running theme in the series.
Honestly, the you don't even have to bring up Urizen. Just DMC3 Vergil working with Arkham and helping penetrate a city with the sheer girth of a large demon tower prison is enough to prove that he's not the nicest dude in existence.
@@AnakinSkywalker-u5b in dmc 3 he was an asshole, not really evil but sure as hell not good where as arkham really was the typical evil character
@@AnakinSkywalker-u5bHow is that not a good example? Vergil intentionally separated his human half from his demon half. It's not like the Yamato just grew legs and attacked Vergil, he took the sword back from Nero specifically to bring Urizen into existence. Urizen's actions are the direct result of Vergil's actions.
@@RevyaAeinsett Piccolo split himself in half to become Demon King Piccolo and Kami Guardian of Earth. Both of them were completely individual people with their own motivations, morality, and intention up until Demon King Piccolo reincarnates as Piccolo Jr. (who also attempts to take over the world and kills Goku) who then fuses with Kami again to regain their original form as Piccolo.
Does the current Piccolo shoulder the burdens of Demon King Piccolo, who enslaved humanity and declared every May 9th to be Piccolo day? Does he wear the laurels of Kami, Guardian of Earth who created the Dragon Balls? Is he his own person?
You mean Vergil?
Man, Nox just giving up because his entire (artificially extended for hundreds of years btw) life's work only resulting in 20 minutes of time travel is going to stay in my head forever.
It's such a punch to the gut, because the logic in his argument was sound (kill a bunch of people so that he can go back in time and prevent the cause that led to him killing a bunch of people, thus saving everyone).
Vergil is a villain, but he’s just so cool and (more importantly) you get to control him killing hundreds of demons. When the vast majority of fans’ time with the character is him doing the same thing the heroes do in gameplay, then it might be easy to forget all the cutscenes where the actual story happens.
If there was ever an actual Vergil campaign where you control him while he does evil shit (or any story at all), then it don’t think this misconception would happen. In three different games he doesn’t do anything different than Dante when you control him: killing demons.
kid named ludonarrative dissonance
I think the best part of DMC 5 that shows how stupid Vergil is, is the cutscene immediately after V rejoins into vergils body. Trish and Ladybare like "What happened?" And Dante says, very nonchalantly: "My dumbass brother is back and he needs an ass kicking." And I was like, "yeah, vergil IS a dumbass!"
"You know Kefka is one of my favorite anti-heroes" -This Writer, for Some Reason
I love when these guys talk about DMC characters.
Also, Vergil seems like the kind of guy who’d mock anyone trying to tell him he’s a good person. He’d call you a peasant and laugh at your silly human ideals of morality, and if you press the issue he’d threaten to kill you.
The best way I personally describe a character like Vergil is that he is someone who doesn't know what it means to be a normal guy. All he prioritises is escaping the feeling of powerless (contextilised through losing his family by demons). It's motivation fueled by trauma. He loathes his human heritage and embraces his more powerful demonic heritage, contrasted by Dante who embraces both his lineage. And this is why Dante grows more confident with each game while Vergil suffers defeat after defeat.
Does this make Vergil a bad person? If you judge by actions, then yes absolutely. Does Vergil directly have it out for anyone in particular? My reading is that he doesn't really care rather than being outright malicious. He lacks a moral viewpoint so he will rip off his son's arm because he is desperate and is not gonna think twice about it. Being a loner most of the time isn't helping matters. This is how I see Vergil.
And to make it clear, I like Vergil. I find him a fascinating portrayal of someone haunted by tragedy that tries to cover it up but only makes thing worse for himself repeatedly. I don't think the game ever says his actions don't matter, but it's clear that him and Dante a complicated relationship they want to fix. I don't see Vergil as a "good guy", but I don't mind him and Dante bonding by being the brothers they used to be from the start. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
YES This! Absolutely this! As well, to be fair in the arm-ripping, that only happened cause Nero's natural demonic ability is to absorb *other* demonic power sources. Yamato was stuck bound to the arm, so the arm had to come off. If it was a case of Yamato being permanently manifested OUTSIDE Nero's arm, the way it was before Nero absorbed it, then Vergil probably at worst would have knocked Nero into a wall, taken the sword and fucked off.
Also, if anything Vergil has it out for Dante, but not in the "i want you dead at my feet no matter what" manner, but in the "we never finished our goddamn fight and i wanna see once and for all which one of us is better" manner. Once he GOT his proper 1v1 salty runback, he was *chilled out* about it.
"Should Vergil get credit for V's actions?" I'm gonna say yes because that's just being consistent if you're arguing that he's at fault for Urizen's BS. Like might as well.
*Pat in 2019:* Vergil did nothing wrong!
On a serious note, Adi is shitposter and has been trolling people since the trailer came out. He is making the same "arguments" for Mundus on twitter now too. I find it hard to take him this seriously lmao.
if thats his aim then congratulations Adi, you now extra confirmed to the world your a child in a man's body for taking a dream job and trolling it ontop of dressing like a someone who wants to outdo the emo parody that is Matthew Patel in Scott Pilgrim XD
I want to believe it is entirely shitpost but also like, this was a dude comparing him to thanos a few years back
"I was merely pretending to be retarded. 😏"
@@Gojiro7 This is the man who killed Apu, it has to all be a bit at this point.
@@SeruraRenge11 I thought an Indian Documentarian killed Apu and Shankar was just one of the more annoyingly loud cage bangers on twitter?
Virgil isn’t a broken anti-hero, he’s a lore accurate villain.
I don't understand this recent trend of fans downplaying the crimes of villains they like. You understand and even agree with villains, but their still villains. For me thats part of the fun.
I think there is a bit of the audience that is afraid of the term "likeable a-holes/glorious bastards", where you fully embrace or like a villian in spite of the fact that he's wrong. To take a look at JoJo for example: Dio and Kira is a good example of a beloved villian who you fully root against but still admit are cool.
Then you have villians like Funny Valentine that are so charimsatic and entertaining and a "somewhat" noble goal that some of the fandom will try to root for, while ignoring that his goals only benefit his country and the other missdeeds he's caused.
I think some of us forget that villians that fully embrace their villian nature doesn't make them "lesser". Basic does not equal bad. A simple premise can still be very effective.
@@leithaziz2716 It all just runs back to depictions are not endorsement. I don't know what has happened to make people so infantile when consuming art.
It's been going on for a while. I remember people thinking just because Frieza was in the tournament of power he was suddenly a good guy when dude's still as much as an evil mf as ever.
@@diegomedina9637Then he started torturing people during the tournament.
As Pat said back when him and Matt played Revengeance, during Armstrong's speech, "You know as crazy as he sounds, there's at least 30 people watching this video going, 'Oh my god, I would so vote for that guy!'" And as someone said in the comments of that finale, the funniest thing about beating a guy who says "Might makes right," is that by beating him you prove to be the mightiest, and therefore become the right one. So, even when you win, he wins.
Kratos is absolutely a villain in original GoW - but he's WAY more justified then Virgil is.
especially cause Kratos got shafted by Ares. Kratos was literally doing Ares' bidding as was his job under someone with the title "God of War". And then Ares tricked him into slaughtering his family.
Vergil lost his family but not at his own hands, and then went way too far trying to put himself in a position where if he ended up with a family of his own, the same thing wouldnt happen.
Kratos absolutely was an A-hole in a room of A-holes. At the very least he’s capable of admitting it and teaching his son to be better than that.
Context aside, Kratos has fully acknowledged his past and wrongdoings and worked to be a better role-model for his son and everyone around him. And the game now openly leaves it to the audience how they wanna judge his character. It's a simillar method to Megatron's redemption in the Transformers IDW comic. Wether he's "forgiven" is your choice to make for yourself.
I think that's the most you need to do to justify the change in a mature manner.
I do find Kratos an interesting "Greek Tragedy" style villian in the Greek games. He would never have committed any of his actions past the 1st game if the Gods gave him want he wanted: to erase his horrible memories that haunt him. When he tries to escape in the form of death, he's denied and is forced to become the next God of War, quite literary becoming the person he hates the most (Greek Tragedy 101). Then he's killed by Zeus out of fear that he might overtake Olympus, causing Kratos to seek his demise.
And that's not to bring up the context from the PSP games (losing his daughter and brother again). The world around Kratos made him the monster that he is because they denied him any semblance of peace.
@@Xenmaru00All Ares did was nudge Kratos slightly to the right.
4:45 Now that's something that got me really bothered in 5. V literally says that "Now I realized the gravity of crimes I've committed" but when Vergil is back the only moment of self reflection he has is alone, NOT A SINGLE WORD ABOUT IT WITH DANTE. And after that is just haha brothers fighting so fun!
I mean V is a Verbose motherfucker but Vergil would rather die than talk openly. The fact that he does at all even attempt to seal the gate back up shows that indeed on some level he sees the bad in his actions. DMC3 Virgil wouldn't have given 3 fucks and would've either bailed or just gotten himself killed in combat.
V talks about his trauma, his feelings as Vergil all the time. Stuff Vergil wouldn't be caught dead saying
I mean he can't exactly take it back, he just has to live with it. Human lives are kinda worthless in the grand scheme of demon wars.
@@Vanity0666 What I mean is that for Vergil that's huge character shift to be left as a single line of lonely self reflection. I think we needed a longer cutscene with serious dialogue like dmc3.
actually no. The reality of that is his self-reflection makes him realize that trying to justify things to his brother, the arguably more "moral" of the two of them, would be pointless. His end goal was always to become The Strongest, and Dante was his measuring stick. Dante never asks him a second time anything along the lines of "what the hell were you thinking, was it all worth it?" , he just goes "give me the sword."
if you look back at the scene where Nero is dictating terms to the two of them, Vergil is gently nodding when Nero flat out states "neither of you is going to die today." Vergil accepts those terms, because he's now got the _perspective_ to be able to see beyond his own blind ambition. After the Qliphoth is cut down, *we are never told how much time has passed* with those two in the Underworld.
We arent even given a solid number of bouts they had, just that they're now so balanced with each other that they can quip back and forth for the most part, as if they'd gotten all the *actual* aggression out of their systems, and are starting to mend the familial rift. Not to mention, previous games established there are beings in the Underworld capable of altering temporal flow, so nothing states that there's no *places* that arent the same. For all we know, they've been caught up in a temporal dilation field where they spend months inside but only a week passes on Earth. We *dont know* at all.
Its very likely that in between fights, they talked. and with the post-game loading screens showing Vergil now in the van with the others, they likely talked a *lot* before they got back.
@@Xenmaru00 I don't think he needed to justify anything since he knows there is no justication but I think Vergil wouldn't even attack Dante after coming back in first place, he shouldn't have any reason anymore to "settle the matter" and at the tree he should try to have a open heart talk so Dante could at least see he really changed but then still insisting in taking Yamato, instead of that "haha we silly brothers fighting since forever when that gonna stop hey?". Not just because I think that would be better but just so all the human moments with V didn't go to waste. Because the way that whole final fight at the tree plays out it doesn't matter how much Vergil changed because of V, the whole game could be just Nero and Dante hunting Vergil and that section would fight all the same
People who think Vergil is not a villain probably also think Batman is an anti-hero instead of just a hero
The dude kills less people than most other heroes; where is the anti- part? Because he's sad and wears black?
Depending on the version, it could be agrued Batman is so self-destructive and self-sabotaging in his personal life that he could be anti-hero in regards to his mental state. But his general methods and goals are straightforwardly heroic.
Batman is one of the most selfless heroes ever portrayed and I love him for it.
He looks dark and broody, but his actions reveal someone who embraces the worth of humanity in a manner few heroes do. Sacrificing his own personal life to help people in need. Being a symbol of hope, providing charity and helping to reform the mentally insane.
@@leithaziz2716 That depends on the version. Many iterations of Bruce are the furthest thing from selfless, and have been portrayed as "holier than thou" type morons who think they're doing the lord's work when in reality they're screwing everyone over by playing Cat & Mouse with their villains.
@@AnakinSkywalker-u5b only the versions that are written to be dickheads (like All-Star Batman and Robin) or the ones being written by people who don't understand the character.
@@AnakinSkywalker-u5b So...stick to the adaptations that vibe with you. I like that Batman respects the value of life so much that he will never compromise with his moral code. He will apprehend criminals and send them to the authority. If the villians escape and commit more crimes, that's on the responsibillity of the authorities, *not Batman's* .
He can make the choices I might not make and I like that. Overly Sarcastic Productions put it best with Red's quote. “Stories aren’t ethical optimization exercises, they’re scenarios for your brain to chew on, and the most important thing is that they’re interesting.”
Another way to define an anti-hero: someone with selfish or otherwise unheroic motivations who, when the chips are down, is willing to do the right thing. I feel like it's easy to forget that Dante runs a business - he is more than willing to kill demons, but unless it's an existential threat to a significant population or is related to his brother (and it's often both), he's gonna charge you for it. Even then, he enjoys lazing about most of the time.
I've also heard a similar description for Mad Max. He's out for himself, but he'll do the right thing when it lines up with his own interests.
Aside from the fact that Dante is regularly broke due to not actually taking the payment he is owed for jobs, you're mostly right. All the times he's saved the world is usually spurred on in the quest to put his past demons to rest.
Dante charging people money for those jobs is wildly inconsistent. It really depends on how he feels sometimes
@@xenowarrior282 he makes them bet on a coin flip but the coin is double heads or double tails, if they lose the bet they have to pay up. This is explained in SMT Nocturne when recruiting him to your party.
@@Vanity0666 Literally only dmc2 Dante does this. Which Nocturne uses.
In every other instance of Dante, he either demands full pay, any amount of pay his clients can muster, or just does it for free. It's a case by case basis and is part of the many reasons why his business is struggling.
Remember: if the character's hot, they're not evil. Theyre "morally grey".
I mean Ada from Resident Evil is guilty but of mass war crimes and colossal loss of life. But she looks damn good in red so morally grey I guess.
Technically, the only heroic thing he did was fight and hold off the demon hoard in redgrave City for a month until nero was ready to come back to the fight. And even then, he was V at the time. It's hard to say if vergil would have done the same thing.
I'm of the opinion that if Vergil can get the blame for Urizen's actions, he should get the credit for V's. That said, V isn't exactly a moral paragon, either. He probably counts as an anti-villain, actually. He's out to save his ass from disintegrating, but if he helps stop a demon invasion in the process, that's a nice side effect.
If you haven't read the Visions of V manga, you absolutely should, it fleshes out V/ergil's character a lot more. He's still an asshole, but it does a lot to humanize him (pun intended :P ).
Afaik there's no official English translation but there's a few fan translations out there, and there is *literally* a scene where he encounters a crying child in the ruins of Redgrave (Red Grave?) City.
As an aside, there's a piece of fanart living rent-free in my head of the Yamato scene that is literally V popping out of Vergil post-sudoku and immediately going "oh no the brain part of me was in the human part of me."
V’s existence really does give Vergil more depth than he otherwise would under normal circumstances, doesn’t he?
Honestly I think V is the only reason you could ever argue any moral ambiguity to Vergil. V saw all the fucked up things Urizen did from a ground view and realized how bad it was, and even though he reformed into Vergil that part of his mind remained. I mean Vergil in 5 wears black like V but has a blue vest to show how he’s still the same dude deep down, and questions his position in life merely minutes after reforming, something 3 Vergil wouldn’t be caught dead doing. V adds so much to his character that it’s insane to think that only Urizen’s actions count for what Vergil did in 5.
The end result still leads to the same conclusion.
I feel like the reasoning isn’t “he is responsible for urizen’s crimes because that is him” and more “he created urizen with the intention that those crimes would happen” meanwhile, his human half was probably an afterthought. It’s about Virgil’s intentions at the moment of the split and what the consequences were.
@@jaideay3003 indeed
Vergil revisionist history the day I knew this would come and I am so I lived to see it.
When Pat was bringing up his examples of Anti-Hero VS Villain, it reminded me of a moment in the Gungrave Anime when Harry McDowell achieves his goal of being the new boss and comes across a kid whose boss hits him for screwing up.
Harry is feeling high on his success and decides to help this kid out by shooting his mean boss to death right in front of the kid only for the kid to be in tears going "Noooo!!! I didn't want him dead!!" (the boss may have also been his father, i'm not sure) and Harry is utterly befuddled thinking he did a good guy thing killing that man who did a bad thing only for him to break down from the weight of all the other evil things he's done to get to this moment, in particular, killing his best friend. I think that's a great example of a character whose an anti-Hero in his own mind but a Villian to reality.
Funnily enough The Punisher is the perfect opposite example, Society see's him as an Anti-Hero, but Frank see's himself as a villain and even once berated and threaten to shoot a pair of cops who thanked him for killing criminals and said they wanna be like him.
It always scares me to see people try to look up to Punisher, because The Punisher HATES what he's doing. He's just given up and tries to resort to the quickest way to fix things. He wants other people to be better than him.
Just started watching Gungrave myself. It's a lot better than I thought it was going to be.
@@kamikazelemming1552 it is great but it does kinda tease you with how long it takes to actually become Gungrave, its almost Cowboy Bebop esc for the first 12 ish episodes
One thing to note is that I don't even think Vergil himself really tried to blame Urizen for everything. He just kind of sits at the Qlipoth and gets retrospective. I take the ending as Vergil taking his lumps and cleaning up his mess. (After a fight with Dante and an ass beating by his own son)
Yeah, being V(and Urizen?) Definitely gave the recombined Vergil some sort of character growth, though how much V gained some sort of Moral clarity vs V just wanting to not die is a whole other thing to argue about...
Literally half of V's journey was an active guilt trip over how he fcked up as Vergil, including seeing the ultimate result of him abandoning his only child and what he left him to deal with, despite coming from a family (ESPECIALLY EVA) that loved him enough to ensure his survival by leaving him with a protective sword
What I love was that Urizen, in-game, is like "Yeah I did it but...why did I do it again? I don't remember but I'm hungry so" lol
We don't even know Vergil's opinion on pizza or his favourite flavour of ice cream.
Virgil is probably a margarita pizza guy. Has one slice. Eats with a knife and fork to avoid grease. On the ice cream front… either just vanilla hand made with real vanilla bean or like… pistachio or coffee flavored
@@jaideay3003
As someone who loves Margarita Pizza, eats pizza with a fork and knife, and makes homemade vanilla ice cream with real vanilla beans, I feel so called out right now.
Vergil's favourite ice cream flavour is cold
I genuinely think the DmC Reboot Vergil might be closer to being an anti-hero than the original Vergil, and the reboot one aborted a baby with a sniper rifle.
Eh. He was only an anti hero in apperance. Because his actual goal/third act twist was that he always wanted world domination. The most stereotypical villain motivation one can have
@@nahuel3433 Oh, I know. I'm not saying he is an anti-hero. I'm saying that by merit of him even pretending that he is fighting for the weak, he's automatically closer to being an anti-hero than OG Vergil, who couldn't be bothered to even pretend to care about them one way or another. But that lack of f*cks to give is part of what makes OG Vergil so much better than the reboot one.
@@MoostachedSaiyanPrinceyou said he might be closer to. Then you back peddled
a baby that Donté shoot & Savage! SSadistic! SSSeñor Sombreo Salsero! combo not a minute before, mind you
@@Half_Bl00d_H3R0 How did I back pedal? If anything, I doubled down because when I stopped to give it further thought while responding, I realized DmC Vergil IS closer to being an anti-hero by pretending to be one, and discarded any doubt I had on the matter.
The idea of Vergil being any flavor of hero, or even an anti-villain, is just so utterly insane to me. Absolutely wild take.
Still an awesome character. 10/10 would be the storm that is approaching anytime.
Nero is the obvious Anti-Villain
@@Vanity0666 Nero isn't an anti-villian, what are you on about. Nero has never displayed evil in his entire life
@@In-The-Zone I misspoke I forgot anti-villain was a bad guy to start off with
It appears they're going the anti-villain route with him. He seems at least a little more introspective since restoring himself. While he's responsible for Urizen, he's also responsible for V, who spent his whole existence putting himself in danger trying to stop Urizen. So while more character development is needed, I don't think he's going to be a full villain anymore going forward. His Hell vacation with Dante is their big extended bonding session.
Calling him a complete villain is just as insane selfishly motivated or not he does objectively save the world twice (defeating Arkham and destroying the tree)
Now that Vergil and Dante are cool with eachother and big V seems to have given up his quest for MOAR POWAR then the Kratosing of Vergil can begin. Make him admit and own up to his mistakes and ultimately be redeemed like it happened to Kratos.
Yo NOX MENTION!? Great villain, and very good showcase of what you mean.
Watching this video's made me realize that Jin Kisaragi is what Vergil apologists think Vergil is like.
Murder-crush on his brother included?
@@Wolfedge75 For the Vergil apologists that are also into Spardacest? Probably.
In the 30 second cutscene from DMC 3 when the Temin ne gru raises from the ground, you can see houses, presumably with people in them, crumbling. People definitely died.
Raziel from Legacy of Kain is an anti hero because he’s trying to save his world but he’s motivated and being manipulated by his desire for revenge (at least at first). He’ll save Nosgoth, and he’ll pull out an organ to do it.
Vigil? Vigil is a villain. Possibly an Anti Villain but still a villain.
Raziel isn't trying to save the world though. In SR1 he's trying to get revenge and in SR2 and Defiance he's just trying to escape the Elder God's control. Raziel arguably cares less about what happens to Nosgoth than Kain does by the end.
@@SeruraRenge11that’s definitely true, but the way I always feel about it is: after seeing Nosgoth uncorrupted, there’s a secondary heroic motive of saving the world, and then it becomes twisted around in the many manipulations. That’s why he sacrifices himself to the reaver in the end of Defiance, because he wants Nosgoth free from the elder god more than he wants to live. At least that’s how I see it.
Listen I don't like Virgil despite being a villain, I like him BECAUSE he's a villain. Villains are cool!
To be fair, if Vergil is to be held responsible for Urizen's evil actions, logically he must also be responsible for V's good ones.
Vergil is not a villain that you can redeem in other peoples eyes but for it's less how other feel about him and more about how Dante wants his brother to be family again. Vergil is irredeemable to the rest of the world but he still has at least one person that still loves him and that one person want him to better, for him to at least not actively seek fucking over the rest of world for insane petty reasons. Vergil is that family that's gone to jail, who's lived a horrible life but still has at least one or two family member trying to keep him out that cause they remember who they were before that shit.
Edit:
18:20
Let be fair an say yes since if Urizen is all of Vergil hunger for power uninhibited by shame than V is Vergil's real sense of responsibility and disgust over what he willing to do to get what he wanted.
Im actually really happy Wakfu got mentioned that was one of my favorite shows growing up and Nox is the best
also the funniest part is that Vergil jumped into the underworld to cut the Qluipoth just to run away from the concequences
Ali Shankar didn't understand the assignment yet again...
Virgil, even if mostly indirect, has a body count that can be measured in cities
Even MORE irritating than Vergil are those who insist Emet-Selch from FF14 did nothing wrong and "now he's a hero" for helping the Warrior of Light. Dude was a selfish, spiteful murderer who would have been happy to kill a whole planet of "lesser" beings if it meant helping HIS people. He gives some marginal help because "whatevs, I lost anyway" but he never for a single second is repentant for any of his actions.
"But though you have defeated me. My ideals are inviolent, invincible"
The thing about Emet-Selch that a lot of us (not myself included, however) give him a pass for is that by the time Shadowbringers rolls around its very obvious in his character interactions is that he's looking for a *reason* to stop doing what he's been doing. The only reason he doesnt, is because of his own arrogance, and his morality pet Hythlodeus isnt around to verbally smack him upside the head and make him pick the Right path because Emet can *see* the Right path but is willingly ignoring it because he's too stuck in his ways.
Emet-Selch is the kind of person who can and will do moral and immoral things, but will be more "moral" as long as he has trusted figures at his side prodding him in that direction. The loss of Hythlodeus is also something that likely spurred him on to try to undo the Sundering because he *knows* he's able to go off in the wrong directions without someone he trusts to keep him on track. Back in Elpis, it was made very clear that he is arrogant, rather selfish, but also if you end up as someone he vaguely cares about, he will bitch, he will moan, he will make a big deal out of it, but he *will* help you out in the end. And if anyone *hurts* you, they are forfeit.
He did, however, do terrible, horrible, fucked up things, and he even agrees that under the exact same circumstances, he'd do them all over again because he is the kind of person that if he makes a choice, for good or for ill he will see it through to its conclusion. Much like Mithos Yggdrasil of Tales of Symphonia, he would make the same choice, because his goals to him, were noble, and he was given no other options until he had already bathed his whole damn *body* in the blood of countless innocents.
Emet-Selch's whole personality is "Prove me wrong. in a way i cannot counter." We couldnt, so we had to absolutely rip him apart, to which he acknowledges, and merely asks that we remember *why* all of this came about. Not merely *him* but all that came before him, and before Us.
Remember during the Hades fight, he is *losing* and then becomes so desperate he reaches out to the remnants of his brethren, not so much the Ascians, but the *Ancients* that he was attempting to revive. the people *he* believed he was fighting for. and he becomes powerful in the same manner *we* do: fighting in the name of not ourselves, but for others.
Where Zenos is a reflection of the WoL if the WoL had no goal other than "Die Fighting the Most Powerful", Emet-Selch is a reflection of the WoL if we existed in a world where none were our equal, and we were fighting for an ephemeral goal. Remember, even Alphinaud acknowledges that ultimately, if it came down to trying to save our people, we'd be willing to do very similar things.
Emet-Selch is one of those cases where the person has no *reason* to wish to repent, nor truly regret, because ultimately what they were doing was something they believed had to be done, for a cause greater than themselves. and every harm they inflicted, every care they gave, was because that was their choice to do so. and in the end, while his goal *failed* he also knows it was destined to fail because he was missing crucial information, but under the same exact circumstances, he would make the same choices, because he would know no different and have no reason to do otherwise.
The only maybe slightly tiniest bit of heroic behavior from Vergil is at the extreme end of DMC5 where he finally agrees to fix the shit he started, but A- he started it, no questions asked, and B- it's still 99.999% personal because he still wants to fight both Dante and Nero. You can maybe possibly argue he has finally *stopped* being a full-on villain, but I'd put him at best as just pure pragmaticism rather than even remotely approaching heroic. If he comes back to Earth with Dante, he's got an absurd amount to answer for, and I doubt anyone else in the main cast are going to be letting him out of their sight to make absurdly sure he doesn't go on another manchildish power trip (which I mean, Dante went with him to hell for that reason anyways, to make damn well sure he fixes what he broke).
Someone clearly took the Vergil memes WAY TOO CLOSE to heart. LOL
But if evil why hot?
Don’t take this seriously plz lol he is hot tho
It’s not even that Vergil chooses to go to Hell and stop the tree because he has a moral imperative to do so, he operates purely on a might based meritocracy and Nero beat him in a fight so he feels obligated to concede, but in the SAME BREATH he gives him his book so he has a reason to come back for a salty run back. Heroism, even incidental heroism will always only ever be a bi-product for Vergil. He’ll never go out of his way to help someone unless he wants to fight them later.
The old "The ends justify the means" argument.
What is the end for him though!! More power? More power for what dude Dante killed all the big demons you’re the one causing these problems now
And that end is "I won! You never beat me!"
@@BigPennyInc the end is sealing the portal to the demon world forever, picking up after his father Sparda because Sparda's seal was only a half-measure and able to be opened again.
@@Vanity0666 HE OPENED IT AGAIN THOUGH
Vergil being a villain lies in the fact that he couldn't weld Sparda, or activate it at least. That was the whole point of Sparda using his power, to protect others but vergil disregarded that too much.
I think he was originally more tame than dante tho, before mundus attacked the family.
The mundus attack fucked up his mentality hard he was just a kid at the time
Vergil would’ve been able to activate Sparda’s power with the two amulets and force edge. It’s about having heart that could love another person like Nero says to Sanctus
Ik dad's power was sealed off behind his moral conviction but what if fuck off mine tho?
He is more than implied to have been a "tame" kid, as you put it.
The attack on the house and death of his mom is what pushed him over the (this time metaphorical) edge.
Literally all Vergil wanted to do as a kid was read books and sometimes fight Dante. Most of which were instigated by Dante himself.
Nox from Wakfu mentioned? Let's gooooooooo!
Vergil the kind of guy to put "I'm not hacking you're just bad" on his steam profile description
Vergil literally never cared about innocents dying by his actions, and somehow people still see him as an anti hero? He is literally not saving anything, not even his own son that he never cared about.
I mean it’s the same thing Ada. She clearly doesn’t give a shit about anything other than Leon (somewhat) and is purely motivated by lining her own pockets. RE6 adds scenes of her doing nice things but her body count is still as high as Wesker’s was.
@@li-limandragon9287
While Ada is certainly a terrible person motivated by greed, I'm fairly certain her body count is nowhere near close to Wesker's, because she was never responsible for any of the outbreaks that have taken place throughout the series.
-In RE2, the outbreak was caused by Umbrella.
-In RE4, the outbreak was caused by Saddler.
-In RE5, the outbreak was caused by Wesker.
-In RE6, the outbreaks were caused by Simmon's and Carla.
-In RE7, the outbreak was caused by Eveline.
-In RE8, the outbreak was caused by Miranda.
At worst, Ada uses the chaos caused by the outbreaks to her advantage, but she still has something resembling morals, like when she refused to hand over the Plagas samples to Wesker and her unknown benefactor in RE: Damnation.
@@kamikazelemming1552You’re forgetting Ada absolutely contributed to outbreaks by stealing samples and selling them around to the highest bidder. That’s her entire profession and it’s implied she done it her entire life. Oh and that “benefactor” in Damnation she worked for previously was Simmons the guy who killed millions of people. Ada changing her mind does not wash any blood from her hands whatsoever, especially given RE6 has take yet another assignment from a shadowy company. She’s no better than Wesker or Carla.
@@kamikazelemming1552 You’re absolutely forgetting that Ada had worked for Umbrella since the start being was involved with them as early as RE1 (she was manipulating one of the scientists John as revealed in notes). Plus her entire profession is stealing viruses and selling them to other evil organisations. She’s absolutely responsible for propagating viruses across the globe, resulting in mass loss of life. She can be tied to any number of outbreaks.
Glad you mentioned Damnation because that film confirms she was working with Simmons since he gets name dropped. Yes she betrayed him, but she was still working with him and that dumb Family for years.
RE6 ends with her just taking another assignment, likely going to result in another outbreak.
She’s not Catwoman, she’s Lady Hydra.
@@kamikazelemming1552
You’re absolutely forgetting Ada was working for Umbrella and other shady companies from the start she’s mentioned in the RE1 notes. It’s pointless to shift blame to other characters especially characters like Simmons given she worked for the guy and aided the Family or whatever they are called for a buck.
Her entire profession is stealing viruses to other organisations all of whom are as bad as Umbrella and she doesn’t care. Her body count is probably in the thousands just as a consequence of her actions.
I still rmemeber when DmC Vergil shot Mundus' baby mama hostage in the back with a 50 cal to abort the Mundus baby and people complained "Vergils too noble to do soemthing evil like that!"like the FUCK any incarnation of Vergil is actually noble
A lot of people confuse "isn't terribly written" with "is a good person". A lot of people also confuse "I like this" with "therefore it is good and pure and wholesome".
The Kratos bit has me wondering how we'd get this talk yet again if we somehow did a "Devil May Cry" like God of War(2018) where Vergil literally is an old man protagonist going, "I was a piece of shit."
Adi Shankar always had wacky "read too much into it" takes about stories and characters. Like, he has always been weird. However, the fact we got great, faithful stuff from him in spite of that doesn't make me worried about his series' take on Vergil. Especially since he's been nerding out about the same stuff in the games we do. That all being said, I'm going to pay close attention Shankar's Vergil after his recent statements. Giving him more depth is fine, just don't make him a misunderstood anti-hero when he isn't and shouldn't be.
Seeing Ari call Vergil an anti hero reminds me of how some people in the mha fandom view Toga especially after the recent episodes of s7. I'll keep it vague to not spoil anything but in essence having a tragic back story and saving someone does not excuse all of the horrible things she did and people she killed for no reason, she's still a villain
no but it does beg the question "where does the line begin?"
In Toga's case, her descent into villainy was brought about by abuse, ignorance, and the failures of society to care for someone with an unusual...trait. not too different from reality where some people born with certain disabilities or mental/emotional/learning disorders, end up feeling so...attacked, just for existing, so hated just for being born different (something none of us who ARE born different, ask to be) that they decide "if i am to be treated like X just for existing, i might as well reap the benefits of BEING that way." All Toga needed, before a certain point in her life, was someone who stepped up an accepted her for what her born conditions were. Depending on *when* that happened, its likely she'd have clung to them for a long while, but with some effort on others' end, could have become a fairly adjusted individual.
But that acceptance didnt come till far too late in her life, after she'd already built up a body count, and came from individuals who were willing to *encourage* her negative impulses, rather than loop them into being neutral and work towards "redeeming" her.
In Vergil's case, his was psychological trauma mixed with a burning, lingering, festering terror of having history repeat itself. As an intellectual, Vergil even at the age the original event happened, likely knew on some level, "if it can happen once, then it can happen again". The "failure" in this case, was simply that he had nobody around to curb his reaction, to soothe his fears, to temper his ambition. He was always favoring Sparda, but it wasnt till this all happened that he took that favor beyond its logical conclusion. to young Vergil, the lack of power on his or his brother's end, was what caused their family to be ripped apart. the only way to prevent that from ever happening again, is to become so powerful nothing can threaten you.
Referenced in his statement to Dante in DMC3: "Without strength, you cannot *protect* anything. Even let alone yourself." His goal is to gain power by any means possible, so he can never feel so helpless again, so when it comes a time he decides to even fathom starting a family of his own, *nothing* can threaten them, because he is the Strongest Thing.
And then his own arrogance leads him to getting chucklefucked by Mundus, mindraped, brainwashed, and *ultimately made weaker* by the Demon King, and that broken state has him taking drastic measures to obtain his ambition. Leading to Urizen slaughtering a city to power the very fruit that Mundus consumed, to gain as much power as *he* did.
And then, in the end, he ends up unintentionally forcing himself to embrace his helplessness by becoming V, learns what it means to be Human in a world full of exceedingly powerful demons, learns what it means to cherish something once again, and upon merging with Urizen, and returning to Vergil, comes to realize that while he has technically achieved his goals...it might not have been worth it.
Because everything Vergil believed, was based on a half-truth. He thought he was cast aside, but Urizen (disregards it but still) learns that Eva tried to find him, but was killed before she could secure his safety. It was a twist of *luck* was all. And that key piece of information he was missing, along with his experiences as the very thing he tried to flee from (also likely through self-reflection after being captured, brainwashed and then nearly destroyed by Mundus), leads to his...softness, towards Nero, and the Deal of "if i beat Nero, i beat You by default, Dante."
It's like Bakugo said to Shigaraki in Season 3, "You're just looking for an excuse to harass people."
The League of Villains can make up all the excuses they want about why they're doing what they're doing, but that doesn't change the fact that they mainly target a bunch of innocent children who had nothing to do with the situations that turned them into villains, and work alongside known serial killers like Muscular and Moonfish.
@@miguelnewmexico8641I think it is. Being essentially rejected by her family and society for what came naturally to her does suck, rather than getting some help.
Reminder that once Vergil broke free of his possession by Mundus in DMC1, his immediate action was to fight Dante on the spot.
He’s rad, one of the coolest rivals in gaming by far, but he’s totally not a good guy.
i would love for dmc 6 to have a running gag in which Vergil calls himself king of hell but nobody takes him seriously. "Dude, i know like at least two people that are stronger than you. You didnt even kill Mundus."
Actually Vergil has been seen defeating a lot of people:
-During his intros
-Against Beowolf
-Every first fight he has against Dante he defeats him, that be it as himself in 3, Nelo Angelo in 1 and as Urizen is 5.
-If you really want to make it count, though a bit of a stretch, he did technically won against Nero in their first encounter.
So yeah, I don't know where Pat gets that Vergil has lost all his battles.
Tbf Beowulf just had a fight with Dante and was blinded by him. So Vergil winning that fight wasn’t really honest
Nelo didn’t win anything he cried at the sight of the amulet and ran away.
Bedman is a great example of the villain that justifies it all by 'fixing' everything in the end. He memorises every single face and name of people he kills so he can resurrect them later.
tldr : Adi Shankar is still good at viral marketing
How can my villain possibly be this cool
He's like Darth Vader of videogames, I don't care how many millions he killed he just the coolest motherfucker ever and I cannot hate him
the ONE person Vergil would consider protecting pre-DMC5 is his mother... But she's dead AND the event is what made him that way.
Post DMC5, you could perhaps consider he'd give it a thought about protecting Nero, but only because of his personal ties to him, because Dante and Nero shoved his responsibilities in his face. And even then he's a jerk.
Vergil's main reason for looking to become stronger is selfish. It's himself he wants to protect the most, and the way he does it is disregarding all lives in the path to power. He's a bad guy with a rare few good moments.
I can’t believe Shankar is Vergil-pilled this is the funniest shit
Love that Woolie brought up Nox from Wakfu. Super good villain. An absolute monster, but in his mind he can justify pretty much all of the horrors that he inflicts on people because he thinks he can just undo everything bad.
14:03 Me: "So it's a 'Who shot Hannibal' situation?"
Woolie: Says exactly that
Me again: "Like minds....."
Remember when Vergil juiced a city of like 100,000 people into the demon juicer and used their blood to restore himself? That's some Word Bearers 40K level shit. But he's handsome, so he can't be the villain
Vergil is one of the coolest guys in a series about watching people do cool shit. Yeah there's an impulse to overlook his crimes but he'd be a less compelling character if you did.
Vergil's entire appeal is that he's unapologetically evil, a total loser, & yet he makes it look so cool... except for the time he used a gun without doing a Pizza Wahoo Sick Smokin Style combo
(also he ruins every meta he is in)
The thing about Dawntrail is the villain actively avoids being around you and is scared of you.
At best, you could say that Vergil got a stick out of his ass at the end of DMC5 while trying to figure out where he goes from there.
In the end, Nero is the one who ends up being the closest to a successful person in-universe as he didn't have any of the emotional baggage that affected the Sparda twins. Even Dante who's stronger than Nero is barely making ends meet.
I dont remember where i read this but a quote that perfectly describes Vergil is : He is smart but not wise!!
The best part of the Wakfu villain Woolie is talking about is that he succeeds, he casts his time travel spell after spending 200 years stealing life energy and only has enough to go back 5 minutes and then loses his shit.
And all that time it only saved is the kingdom he was currently razing and the main cast that technically died within that 5 mins, really neat stuff.
Man where the heck have I seen all this conversations before?
*Hears H.T. slowly rising in the background and getting louder by the second*
I'm so serious I was literally waiting for either of them to mention Knives bc the amount of times I'd seen people say he's not a villain but an "antagonist" is crazy man...
Vergil might not be a mustache-twirling sadist who enjoys tying puppies to train tracks, but he IS so insanely selfish that he'll cause exactly the same levels of world-ending damage as any other bad guy. Does it make him interesting and entertaining? Yes, I love characters who get blinded by their own internal hypocritical bullshit! Does it make him a hero? Nope!