re: the obviously doomed character not getting a happy ending, i often think about how the only way dante was going to realistically have a happy life without terrible strife or illness is if solaria was a different place.
we get shown happy, well-adjusted dante in journey to the nu world and it's fairly obvious he's like that because the kingdom of samasama (that world's equivalent of solaria) is doing very well. both his parents are alive. nuworld!dante has the riches, good will, and confidence to broker a deal with a alleged demon sorcerer.
meanwhile, regular dante, our dante, has two major roadblocks.
the first issue is that the riot that killed his parents was lowkey inevitable. solaria was easy pickings for any roving group of bandits or any neighboring nobles. while being ultra pacifists might be acceptable if you have the money and defense to back it up, dante's parents emphatically did not.
dante's parents dying lead to regular dante with all the cuts, bruises, and chips in his shoulder from surviving that tumultuous time onward.
buuuuut. there is a slim possibility that dante's parents could've survived. they died 'in an accident' (barring translation error). so, maybe they could've toughed out the threats that came after solaria and its citizens.
which leads to the second issue.
the second issue breaks into headcanon territory, so take it with a grain of salt. i include it in pretty much all my analysis of dante because it lines up very nicely with canon and, in my opinion, it's a pretty reasonable extrapolation of canon. maybe it's a theory then? who knows... disclaimer over...
the headcanon is, essentially, that dante's gem contract, the one his ancestor made with huey way back when, concerns 'taking care of solaria' similiar to how quincy's contract is about protecting his tribe.
obviously, dante's parents were pretty staunch on not protecting solaria while they were alive because they abhorred violence. this, in turn, violated the terms of dante's gem contract. as we see with rei, violating your gem contract makes you Sick as Hell (though rei has other stuff going on too. my sickly victorian child). so, we can reasonably attribute dante's childhood sickness to his gem contract and solaria being left undefended, especially since, after his parents died and dante took over solaria and started taking care of it, at some point, dante stopped being sick. this could also be attributed to him taking his second contract with the elemental spirit of fire... so, it's not air-tight. anyhow.
actually getting to the second issue: if dante's parents didn't die, then they would continue ruling solaria and dante would continue to be sick. his parents would continue to coddle him. and solaria would probably just... be stuck in an endless conflict.
dante would basically be stuck as a caged bird, something he would come to resent because, even before his parents died, he was someone who wanted to do something. (to be clear, the illness isn't really the issue. it's the utter lack of agencyyy)
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