Compilation of moments from Deadly Fortune that make me want to whisk Nero away to therapy:
I think the game does a good job at showing this too, but Nero truly does have a startling lack of self-esteem and self-confidence. Although he presents himself as angry and almost arrogant, we know this is just a cover. While Nero pretends to be confident, he's actually deeply insecure and seems to harbor a certain hatred for himself as well, which is just reinforced by many of the adults in Fortuna treating Nero as subhuman. Their dedication to bullying, harassing, and demeaning a child needs to be studied. But all of this feeds into him wanting Dante's acceptance, attention, and stamp of approval. Though they start the game as adversaries (well... Nero viewed Dante as an adversary, Dante just saw Nero as the child he is and ragebaited him lmfao), Nero comes to view Dante as 'cool' and thus secretly wants Dante to view him as cool too, a desire that only deepens Nero once he discovers that he may be part-demon and thus Dante would be the only other person Nero knows exists that would be like him-- but they save exploring that angle mostly for DMC5.
Without further ado, roll the torture:
Despite eventually going on to save the whole fucking city, Nero doesn't view himself as a hero, and he doesn't get assigned to team tasks because he's "not a team player" (which was code for any time Nero got paired up with someone, they'd lose sight of the mission because they were so busy harassing Nero, so Nero gets punished with doing the Order's dirty work aka being forced to execute people who 'failed' the Ascension Ceremony and thus were 'possessed' as we see later in the novel.)
Nero 🤝 Vergil 🤝 blaming themselves for "not being strong enough" to protect their loved ones despite them being children. Bonus mention of Nero being bullied... again!
The dehumanization of Nero extends so far that he comments on the fact that he was named like how people name stray puppies or kittens. Now Nero doesn't dislike his name, but it is interesting to me that he recognizes the way it came about was akin to the way animals are named.
Nero thinks it would be "just" if God wanted him dead!!!!
Nero admires Kyrie, partially because she was kind enough to smile at "someone like Nero"
Nero didn't like Fortuna because he didn't feel like he fit in, but he stays for Kyrie.
He's quite literally fighting for his life and has been essentially kidnapped, and contemplates asking Dante for help, but then decides not too because a. it'd be too embarrassing and b. he doesn't want to "dump his problems" on Dante
He thinks his adoptive parents adopted him not because they loved him, but because he looked like their religious figure, and doesn't know why they would care about him outside of that.
I had to narrow it down to a select few because honestly both part 1 and part 2 of the novel are a goldmine for Nero being incredibly self-deprecating and just casually mentioning being bullied, harassed, abused, etc.
This is why I love the novel so much for expanding on Nero.
