Nero: "You takin' notes?"
...I'm never not doing so.
Welcome to A LINE THROUGH T⌛ME, where I take the time to look through your favourite
franchises and work out how it all lines up.
It should go without saying, but you should watch the previous timeline video first, as
it lays the foundation for this one. You could say it's the Kamiya to this video's Itsuno.
...I guess that means the next one is Ninja Theory...
Fuck.
It's shocking how many people asked me about my thoughts on the timeline changes introduced
through DMC5. Did you... think I wasn't going to talk about it in a video? Or that I'd talk
about it before the game came out? Guys, come on. You're smarter than this.
Well, I say that, but there are still people out there who think that Trish talking about
Dante losing his mother and brother 20 years before DMC1 is referring to DMC3, by which
time Eva had been dead for a decade. No, idiot. She's talking about Eva's death when Dante
was a child and unable to protect her. Vergil's "death" there was retconned by 3. Okay? Eva's
death is fixed in time, but Vergil's got moved. If they remade DMC1, that line would change
to reflect Dante knowing Vergil survived until DMC3. Jesus Christ...
So, Devil May Cry 5 released recently, much to the elation of the fans and the chagrin
of stupid people. The game takes place at the end of the timeline and brings with it
quite a few changes and clarifications.
First of all, according to the in-game History of Devil May Cry video, DMC2 is now set prior
to DMC4. This is a change I'm conflicted about. It's annoying that it happened after a decade
of us understanding 2 to come after 4, but some of the ongoing story arcs work a little
better with the change, but it's also irrelevant to 5's story, since 2 isn't even mentioned
in the game. We'll discuss Dante's new age in 2 in a little bit.
Second, the anime is confirmed canonical through a voice cameo by Patty. If you said the anime
wasn't canon last time, please find and delete your comment to avoid looking like a fool.
Third, newcomer Nico is the granddaughter of Nell Goldstein, the woman who created Ebony
and Ivory in the first game's prequel novel. Despite having seemingly been stripped from
canon by the events of DMC3, DMC5's tie-in novel apparently has Morrison reflect on the
events of the first novel very explicitly. This can work, if we ignore Gilver being revealed
as Vergil and treat it as some sort of trick. Given Dante's use of the Tony Redgrave alias
throughout the first novel, plus Dante already having his guns in the manga, the novel would
take place prior to the manga. It does seem weird for Dante to be fairly well-known as
a mercenary by then if he's still a teenager, but it really is the best we've got.
I also need to add in the two drama CDs released to tie-in to the anime a few months after
the show ended. According to a fan summary on Reddit, the first CD has a story about
Enzo, with a flashback set shortly after DMC1, at a time when the shop was still called "Devil
Never Cry". The flashback ends with Trish leaving the shop to go and work on her own.
So, this part obviously comes between 1 and the anime. The present day portion has Patty
recognise Trish from Dante's portrait of Eva, not from their physical meeting in the show's
finale, thus setting the present day portion during the anime; some time after Episode
4, as Lady and Trish are already friends. As for the second volume, all I have is a
brief wiki summary of the two stories, which doesn't help. It's probably also set during
the anime.
Before the game was released, there was a stage play called Devil May Cry: The Live
Hacker that ran in March 2019. This kind of thing is quite common in Japan, especially
from Capcom, and they're often canonical for some reason. From what I can gather, it's
about Dante fighting a demon named Gideon. Dante's in his DMC3 form and Lady is also
around, suggesting this comes after DMC3, but before Dante opens his shop in his DMC1
outfit. As such, we'll say he's the same age as he is in 3 here.
And finally, as previously stated, DMC5 was accompanied by a tie-in novel, which currently
only exists in Japanese: Devil May Cry 5: Before the Nightmare. It's part prequel and
part adaptation of the game's prologue. It's also going to be our primary source of information
for working out the revised timeline.
Now that we have the order sorted, let's look over the ages I concluded last time and see
what's changed. Well, with the firm confirmation that Vergil is indeed Nero's father,
Dante: "He's your father!"
I'd say our existing timeframe for the war, Eva's death, the manga, 3, 1 and 4 is unchanged.
And the Drama CD flashback and live show, by extension.
According to Before the Nightmare translation notes from DMC5Info on Twitter, Nico talks
with a reporter, who wrote an article about the Fortuna incident five years prior. While
the article could have been written quite some time after the incident, with nothing
else to go on, we'll assume it was shortly thereafter and place the novel five years
after DMC4, thus making Nero twenty-four and Dante forty-three here.
When adapting the scene where Nero loses his arm in 5, it's claimed that Nico has been
living in Fortuna for a year now. She came to Fortuna in the first half of the novel
specifically to meet Nero, so that half is set a year prior to the game, making Nero
twenty-five and Dante forty-four in the game.
In its adaptation of the scene where Dante first meets V, the novel also states that
Dante looked after Patty ten years ago. This makes Dante thirty-four in both the anime
and audio dramas.
This is weird, though as, in the first half of the novel, Matier mentions that Dante didn't
return to Dumary Island after the incident "around ten years ago", i.e. DMC2. So, if
the anime is ten years before the game, and 2 is ten years before the first half of the
novel a year prior... this places DMC2 a year before the anime? While it's possible this
is the case, Dante using his DMC1 outfit in the anime makes this unlikely. With Matier
saying it was "around ten years ago", we have some leeway. We could say it was nine years
ago - the same year as the anime but a little later on; or we can say it was eight years
ago - a year after the anime. The anime is evidently set over the course of at least
a few months and, when you combine that with the Drama CD and 2 and the 2 novel, that's
quite a lot of significant stuff to go on in just a single year. As such, I'm going
to place 2 and its novel a year later, making it eight years before the 5 novel thus making
Dante thirty-five in 2 and its novel. Quite a far cry from the original forty-eight, eh?
And yes, this does mean that Lady ballooned up in only four years, but what do you expect
from Capcom, who think this is a reasonable amount of bulking up for Chris Redfield to
do in two years?
As for the flashback from the Drama CDs, sticking to my logic from last time, we'll say Trish
stuck around for a year after DMC1 before leaving, even if we now know she left to hunt
dangerous Devil Arms, rather than just getting fed up with Dante's shit.
This just leaves the DMC1 novel. Sadly, we get nothing specific on the timeframe, beyond
that Morrison hasn't been to Bobby's Cellar in over a decade. I think the best we can
do is assume that Dante was still eighteen there, to allow him time to build up his reputation
as Tony Redgrave.
So without further ado, the revised Devil May Cry timeline goes a little something...
like this.
Devil May Cry Timeline by The4thSnake
2000BD - The Demon King Mundus wages war with the human world. A demon named Sparda betrays
his own kind to protect humanity, defeating Mundus and sealing portals between the two
worlds. He then spends the next two millennia protecting humanity before settling down with
a human named Eva.
0AD - Eva gives birth to Sparda's twin sons, Vergil and Dante.
8AD - Sparda dies and the family is attacked by Mundus' demons, resulting in Eva's death
and the brothers being separated. Dante adopts the alias "Tony Redgrave".
18AD - Dante is blamed for a number of massacres arranged by a demon named Gilver, which alienates
him from the rest of the mercenary community. Dante receives a pair of custom handguns from
Nell Goldstein as she dies from wounds inflicted by Gilver. Dante slays Gilver and returns
to his true name. He decides to open his own mercenary business to track down the demons
responsible for his mother's death.
Vergil meets Arkham and the two begin working on a plan to obtain power. While investigating
a group of demons themed around Alice in Wonderland, Dante learns that Vergil is still alive. Vergil
travels to the city of Fortuna, having a sexual encounter with one of the locals. Arkham murders
his wife, prompting their daughter Mary to become a demon hunter and seek vengeance.
19AD - Vergil's son, Nero, is born in Fortuna.
As Dante attempts to open his business, Vergil and Arkham's plan goes into motion, prompting
Dante and Mary into action. Arkham and Vergil are defeated, Dante obtains his father's sword
and Vergil remains in the demon world, where he challenges and loses to Mundus.
Dante and Lady clash with a demon named Gideon.
Dante opens his shop under the name Devil May Cry.
28AD - Dante is visited by a demon named Trish, who resembles his mother and informs him that
Mundus is returning. Dante defeats the corrupted Vergil and then defeats Mundus. Trish joins
Dante at Devil May Cry.
29AD - Dante and Trish accept a job from Dante's friend, Enzo, costing Enzo his arm to a demonic
weapon. Trish temporarily leaves Devil May Cry to hunt down similar weapons.
34AD - Dante is hired to look after a young girl named Patty until the demons hounding
her are killed.
35AD - Dante works with a human named Beryl to stop an artefact known as the Beastheads.
Dante is hired by Lucia to help stop Arius's attempted summoning of the demon Argosax.
Dante leaves Arius to Lucia, while he heads into the demon world and kills Argosax.
38AD - Dante travels to Fortuna to investigate the Order of the Sword. He fights against
and alongside Nero and defeats the Order, leaving Vergil's sword Yamato in Nero's possession.
43AD - Dante works with Lucia to defeat the new ruler of the Fire Hell, Balrog. Nero befriends
Nell's granddaughter, Nicoletta Goldstein.
44AD - Vergil takes Nero's Devil Bringer arm to reclaim Yamato. He then uses Yamato to
split himself into the human, V, and the demon, Urizen. Dante and his allies attack Urizen,
but are defeated and presumed dead.
Nero and V return to battle Urizen and save Lady and Trish. Dante awakens his full demonic
powers and defeats Urizen, and V merges with Urizen to become Vergil once more. Nero interrupts
Dante and Vergil's battle to stop them from killing each other, awakening his own demonic
powers in the process. Dante and Vergil depart for the demon world to close the portal and
settle their rivalry, leaving defence of the human world in Nero's hands.
And before anyone says it, no, DMC and Bayonetta are not set in the same universe. Kamiya just
likes to make nods to his previous works. And also no, Dante showing up in SMT3 isn't
canon. Aside from the fact that they retconned him out in favour of Raidou Kuzunoha in a
later release, guest characters really can't be considered a sign of a shared universe
unless it happens twice.
...fuck!
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