Y'know, after Lei Heng Gaming's video on how Dante's Inferno connects to the story of Limbus Company, I've also been taking a look at some of the details of Dante's Inferno and I think I've found something interesting.
One of Dante's unique traits within the Divine Comedy is that, as he's a living human rather than a dead spirit, he's the only person in the story who casts a shadow. We've known for a while now that the Sinners' Base EGOs almost all have shadows, which may represent how just like Inferno Dante, they're not yet condemned to their fates and have the potential to find redemption.
The exception, however, is Rodion; her Base EGO has no shadow, and furthermore, the deepest part of her Canto's dungeon is a cavern of ice with people frozen inside of it, which is heavily reminiscent of the punishment of the Round of Judecca in the Circle of Treachery, the deepest part of Hell.
While I can't definitively say what this means for the greater story of Limbus Company, I personally see this as greater evidence for Rodion being the "traitor" Sinner; TKT has already shown her having doubts about whether it was right for her to refuse to rejoin the Yurodiviye, and while I'd love for Canto X to have her call out Sonya for his shit, I think it more likely for him to worm his way into her head again, giving her further doubts about her position.
anyways canto seven says that to live in reality without fiction and to live in fiction without reality is to live in an incomplete world.
Without the capacity to dream, nothing in one’s life can change. For one cannot even dream of the capacity to change.
Without the capacity to realize, nothing in one’s life can change. For one cannot even realize their capacity for change.
Don Quixote cannot thrive without Sancho.
Sancho cannot thrive without Don Quixote.
HELLO, I HAVE FINALLY RETURNED WITH AN ANALYSIS POST WORTH MAKING!!!!
Today, I want to get into the characterization of Dante during the Sinnerlings April fools event and how it may hint towards pre-Dante stuff, Trauma regarding yuri and generally Dante's thoughts towards children.
While some of the discussion today will be more farfetched, I still will say that this has spoilers for the Sinnerling April fool event, so read at your own want!!!
[Also not as many pictures cause. Yes.]
AHEMEMEMEM.
The April fools events are an interesting thing to me. While sure, they are not meant to be taken seriously, we get a whole lot to interesting characterization to go along with it.
Of course, we cannot speak of complete accuracy- Every April fools event so far has taken place in Dante's head, which only leaves things up to their interpretation.
But, that's exactly my point- WE GET AN IDEA TOWARDS DANTE'S OWN OPINIONS!!!!
Now, why am I going indirectly onto the Sinnerling event and not the bodyswap one which came previously?
I gotta be honest I gotta analysis that one again I haven't played it in a while apologies hshshshshs
ANYWAY!!! Let's get right onto our first point:
An idea of Dante's Childhood.
Now, this is one of the farfetched ones, but I wanna put it into view because I'm insane and I love analysing things that ain't important.
In the April fools event, Dante clearly isn't the SUPER greatest with children and I don't expect them to!!! They don't often interact with children throughout the story at all.
If anything, we often see them confused, a bit baffled and fascinated by how others treat children, which is a accurate way to show it.
However...two specific things stand out to me specifically.
That is:
1: Dante clearly seeming to praise 'mature' children.
2: Dante being quick to scold children on their 'bad behavior' and sending them off into a corner if necessary.
[Perhaps this one isn't as bad? Perhaps I just had very bad experiences with timeout corners like urgrhrhr.]
Now, why are these two things special to me? Well....Let me give you a very quick psychologically lesson towards parent and child.
You see, a Child is easily affected by their Parents behavior and opinions towards a child. Kindness will be learned, strictness will be learned, abuse can be learned.
If, let's say, a Child is often left alone or learns things rather quickly due to teaching themself how to handle themself, a Parent may see them as 'mature' and 'responsible'.
If a child is way too young and shouldn't be doing this, then this is not a good thing. However, the Child will start to pick up on it and get used to caring for themself, seeing the 'maturity' as a natural and good thing.
As they have been taught.
Same goes for the idea of being punished when causing bad behavior.
Isolation and being cast out is often a very, very bad response to children doing bad things, as this can cause bullying, a refusal to communicate and learning that acting a bit harsher can cause immediate consequences.
This, again, can cause the child to get used to such opinions. And for both of these, the Child will turn into an adult who thinks that both of these things are okay.
And often, even if trauma is forgotten, the body and mind will still hold those opinions automated in their head.
Now, WHY AM I TELLING YOU ALL THIS???
Because Dante seems to indirectly go down at both of these traits towards the Sinnerlings.
Be it calling both Meursault and Outis 'Mature' for acting more like adults and the ones 'controlling themself and the sinnerlings' or putting Rodya into the corner for acting 'not correctly' for a longer period of time, even if they indirectly note the starving behavior.
Now, of course, this can just be them having Manager urges- After all, the Sinnerlings are based of Dante's opinions of the Sinners.
And of course, perhaps I'm overdoing it. They are pretty observant and are ready to put about anyone in the time out chair. And that the more 'mature' children still have struggles with words.
But still, it is quite interesting how easily they seem to just...accept that some children are more 'mature and useful' than the others. Or that other children need to be put in time out much more often. Naturality, of sorts.
Or yknow. Them literally seeming quite comfortable just letting other children do the controlling. Because. Yknow. Why not trust the toddler.
Is this an indirect reference to me thinking Dante might have shitty parents? Absolutely. Especially due to me noting that they don't like Christmas music, but perhaps that a Nagel reference
Anyway, ONWARDS TO POINT NUMBERO TWO.
Yuri and the trauma of those one couldn't save.
[This is the more proper point]
Now, we all mourn Yuri. Of course we do. It's Yuri. She's wonderful. But at first, it may not seem that Dante is too bothered by that fact throughout the story-
They care about everyone else, but most of the Yuri stuff is sparse. That is natural- after all, they were freshly into the job and couldnt do much in that position.
However, if we take anything from the dream, her Death might still be haunting them.
Yuri, in the April fools story, is a simple Caretaker. A Caretaker, who is very, very tired of doing all this over and over again.
Doing all this for the children. Doing her job. Overworking herself to achieve anything in life. Clearly being exhausted and in the end turning into a monster and harming everyone she grew close to.
This, in my opinion, indirectly reflects Dante's thoughts towards her. Becuade they are quite observant, even if they don't seem so.
With the way she clearly is pissed in the fever dream they are having, I can only assume that Dante innerly still regrets her death. For not letting her be alive to see another day, fo show more emotions, to perhaps be able to join Limbus company.
In the end. She died. She died by the able, swallowed and grossly transformed into a mere husk of herself.
Especially the transformation itself seemed to be unnatural and rather grotesque, a slow descent into nightmarish territory despite the goofy boss fight and somewhat scarce content.
Sometimws, Nightmares don't make sense. They seem ridiculous after you wake up.
But that doesn't make them any less of a nightmare.
And Dante clearly still hasn't fully moved on. Still keeping the people they couldn't safe deep in their thoughts.
One must wonder how many times they dreamed of such horrid things, even in funnier context?
Maybe we will know someday.
Now, this isn't a big point and may axtually fit more into other points, but I want to mention it.
I find it interesting how clearly, Dante orders the Sinners into baby's or more grown children based on their own opinions.
Like Outis being one of the oldest yet still being in kindergarten and Don being one of the youngest despite being a somewhat fully grown blood fiend.
They even drop that entirely and grow serious when Yuri snaps, which is interesting to see.
In the End, this is all farfetched. Perhaps too farfetched. But hey, it's an April fools event. So might as well!!
I might be inaccurate too, but I try my best to get my points across.
Im always happy to hear other opinions but am just haPPY to go insane and ramble NONSENSE.
I felt similarly about the Sinnerlings aspect, but I have a bit of a different take towards Yuri.
In my (possibly far-fetched - bear with me) opinion, I think Dante uses Yuri as a placeholder for themselves. A projection of someone they wish they could be in a world they don't understand due to their amnesia.
Yuri comes to us as a survivor of something horrific, who lives with guilt and regrets, but is trying to keep on living for something better. I feel like Dante relates to that even if they dont know it yet, like an underlying feeling they can't quite name. And how would they, they have no memories to call back to realise 'oh hey we share similar experiences'. But the subconscious mind still remembers.
Dante doesn't know Yuri well enough to give her a full character, other than witnessing her caring enough about the sinners to help them during the Canto 1 events. Thus, putting her into a caretaker role.
But Dante doesn't remember going to school, and doesn't seem to know how it works either, so how would they know to give Yuri a 'dietician' role specifically?
When you look at a dietician job description, what do they do: 'They assess, diagnose and treat dietary and nutritional problems at an individual and wider public health level' - take out the diet-specific terms and isn't that what Dante's job really is? Not just with the Sinners but with distortions as well?
When Yuri starts breaking down, it feels like another projection of Dante's inner thought given life: 'I still work late nights [despite feeling unwell]', 'I didn't want to work overtime; none of us did ', 'What was I supposed to do? Is it wrong that I chose this career path'
It's a stretch, but you can see these phrases relating to Dante in their work currently; being pushed to the limit from rewinds, not understanding why they ended up on this kind of path, but most importantly - 'I wanted our students to be happy' - still caring for the Sinners in all of their actions.
Yuri broke down into a Bongy, and despite appearing as a gag enemy, it is important to note that this distortion aims to latch onto a person's head to speak through them. Kinda like how someone replaces their head with a clock with no mouth and uses Sinners to speak through? They could've just used the original distortion Yuri turned into, but nope, they chose Bongy.
Also, at the end of it all, I like the takeaway that Dante, despite the chaos and disagreements and countless tragedies they go through, knows the Sinners still trust, rely, and look up to them.
Some more than others currently, - which could relate to their Sinnerling ages as well - the younger they are, the more they actively rely on Dante (Heathcliff for Cathy memories, Don for the motivation to continue her path, Gregor to keep him from breaking out of his cocoon) and then the older they are the less reliant on Dante they are as they still have more growth (and their cantos) to go through (Outis, Faust, Mersault - Yi Sang is breaking this pattern but you get where i'm going)
But no matter Dante's shortcomings and flaws, the trust of a mentor and their pupil is still there, even with their amnesia.
TLDR; Dante is projecting.
Anyway, I wrote too much. I'm joining you in the insane ramble about these lovable idiots whom I adore.
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
blakekathryn
origamiaround
ellievsbear
