Ok. @dankesdarkman putting this here because I really wanna address all these points in a post rather than a reply!
(To those only seeing this post, it's in reply to "Ayin, Carmen, and the Circles of Hell Project Moon's Works.")
I'm going to start with the last point and agree that yes, I don't trust the motives of Limbus Company (the Company) either. Point is, neither do the characters. The fact that none of the Sinners really know who they're working for is a plot point we're meant to follow as they unravel it.
The ones I was talking about when bringing up the game's title were the individuals, the fifteen people on the bus. Twelve Sinners, their Manager, their Guide Vergilius, and Charon. Who are the ones either doing the character development, either for themselves or contracted by other people.
So I do actually agree with you on the Company itself, as a whole! That sure does seem to be what they're doing, especially with the way there's talk of selling monoliths as of TKT.
The thing about Dante, though... I'm gonna take that apart.
First off - "Someone who knows Ayin, directly."
I find this highly unlikely because as far as I'm aware, we SEE every single person that was close to Ayin back in Lobotomy Corporation. There may have been others who knew him at one point or another, but they would have either:
-Never fully realised what he was getting up to after he left education
-Have died in the Outskirts lab if they had followed him into Carmen's research
-Known him during the Smoke War
Any time after this is pretty much too late to get a good read on his character because that's the period in which he isn't going outside, while he is building Angela, and then after that the construction of the Facility through the extraction of his own mind and the burrowing of it into the earth... at which point the only ones to see him for ten (outsider) years would be those already in the Facility, Benjamin (who would become Hokma) and the Rabbits. Who don't actually see him, and mainly deal with Angela.
Unless we're trying to say that Benjamin is Dante, that... doesn't really work, and Benjamin is accounted for over in the Library, currently heartbroken and sorting books on Religion.
If someone had known him well enough to later emulate him, then this would not be accurate. And it clearly is.
Secondly - "Someone who's done a whole lot of research on him, such as a fan."
While it's not impossible that someone could be a superfan of a researcher who became one of the leaders of the very Wings themselves... we have to look at how feasible it is.
You can see above how fragmented Ayin's life is, and also how he kept to himself with only those in the lab. We know that there was at least one person who was his biggest fan, but... hello again, Benjamin, we already know where you are.
How would one be able to research someone like Ayin? To know the exact details of his life, to the point that they're able to bring up this image during a moment of extreme emotional stress:
Ayin was the only one present for this moment. Unless this "fan" of his was somehow able to assimilate his very memories... I'd love to know how they had access to it. Like, it is a very specific moment, too.
And on top of all of that, this person would have to have a scientific mind to match or rival Ayin's own, since during the Origin of Sin node in "Yield my Flesh to Claim Their Bones" event, the time when Dante is either affected by the monolith or their memories surge up with far too much information for Dante's current amnesiac self to handle, and they clearly know the exact way that Peccatula are created and how they work - everything.
A person with a scientific mind who would be described by those in the prologue as a "big shot," as an "important person," and in the most recent event, someone who must be preserved for the "flow of this world":
The coincidences stack up.
There's two other things that I hold against the theory that Dante's simply a "fan," however.
The biggest, and to me most glaring problem, is...
Now, if you've played or gone through Library of Ruina and actually finished the game, you'll hopefully understand what I mean by just that one name.
If not, either go back to Ruina and then come back, or take my word for it. Because:
This is a screenshot from the Library of Ruina wiki. Note the sheer scale of destruction that Roland caused.
He massacred "anyone he believed was responsible for the Pianist - Fixer Offices, Syndicates, even the Five Fingers" and this also included scientists.
If anyone at this point in time happened to be a big fan of the Founder of L-Corp, and up until the collapse of the nest that would have been a perfectly safe thing to talk about... then by the time the Pianist has appeared and been dealt with, they are now a TARGET. Their life is forfeit. Those who survived were either very smart, or part of organisations that could afford to defend themselves, or hide away before Roland was stopped and demoted.
With this being the case, I have no idea how an Ayin Fan would have survived to become Dante. If that is the case, then honestly, my respect and esteem for them is raised simply because "congratulations, you survived Orlando Furioso, who would have wanted you eviscerated."
Isn't even a story/in-universe thing. It's simply a meta thing of - when an author has already got a character who perfectly fits the role, and who may not have finished their story, then why would they go through the effort of creating another character only fractions different to them?
Project Moon uses the characters they already have. We see that with how the core cast of Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina is the same, even though their roles are shifted. We see it with how characters keep on returning, or being referenced - Myo of the Rabbits coming back from her cameos in the Facility, so many of the "guests" of the Library coming back in either Identities or actual cameos in Limbus (or both, with the Molar Office Boatworks!).
In fact, the only one who's the "ghost" of the story in that he hasn't ever had an Identity based on him, who we haven't ever had a direct look at... is Ayin.
And the most direct we ever get of him is....
Angela's Battle Announcer, who explicitly refers to Dante as "a manager of an unknown spacetime."
And in case it's possible to mistake that as "someone who isn't Ayin"...
She also says "They were well aware that such an outcome may await them when they joined our company."
Perhaps this is merely an easter egg, as Angela is supposed to be A's secretary first and foremost, but... she certainly appears to be aware of who she's talking to.
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