Netflix Lady: the devil’s in details
The role of demons, politics, Dante's power level are all beloved aspects when it comes to criticizing the Netflix adaptation. Still, everything pales in comparison with the biggest object of dissatisfaction - the new version of Lady.
Why do people dislike Mary Ann Arkham so much? What's the difference between her and the original Lady? Today I’ll try to break through prejudices and, playing Devil's advocate, deconstruct the fandom's myth around her.
She isn't even Lady! This woman calls herself Mary even though the real Lady despised her birth name!
It's well known that dmc Lady hates her name. The one she got from her father, the cold-blooded murderer of her mother. Lucky her, Dante was around to suggest a new iconic way to call herself.
So where did "Mary Ann Arkham" even come from? Surprisingly enough, the full name isn't Adi's invention, you can meet it in the CD-drama to the dmc2007 anime. But even in this source, Lady made it clear that she won't allow anyone to call her that.
So why not respect her personal choice? The tragedy has already happened, her mom died before her eyes, but Netflix Lady still goes by “Mary”. The answer is quite simple: she keeps her name, because she never disowned her dad.
The show portrays John Arkham as a devoted family man who truly loved his daughter. It's safe to assume that before the subway incident they spent a lot of time together, which is why little Mary was so upset and desperate to reach out when her father changed and became isolated.
We see Kalina's death from Mary's POV. Her father has turned into a demon, a monster who mercilessly killed her mom. Still, the last thing the girl saw through the flames was his human face, regretful, him reaching out to her.
In ep 4, Arkham keeps appearing in Mary's hallucinations, in both: demonic and human forms. Like her fallen teammates, Arkham the human blames his daughter for his painful death. After all, she was the one to set him on fire.
Of course, the vision is nothing but a mirror of Mary's guilt. She separates her beloved father from the demon who killed her mother. She blames herself for being too weak to prevent - not only Kalina's death, but the entire family tragedy.
The name she keeps isn't tainted by the most brutal betrayal. In a way, the show has chosen to adapt the scenario that Arkham used to manipulate Lady in dmc3, convincing her that he was incapable of fighting possession. The question is... Is his story truly over this time? Or maybe soon Mary will have no choice but to consider the nickname Dante has already given her? Long story short, in the show's universe Mary doesn't have a solid reason to abandon her birth name yet.
Lady the government lapdog
Lady working for the government? The rebellious girl we know would never take orders from anyone!
Once again, the difference comes from the changes in her backstory. The original Lady lost her family when she was in high school, which according to the manga was about a year before the events of dmc3. So she was ~16 yo. Still a teen, still deeply traumatized, but at this point the core of her personality was already formed and she had more opportunities to act independently.
Now, I'm not so good at guessing the ages of cartoon characters, but there's no doubt that Netflix Lady was much younger, just a child, when the tragedy happened. A traumatized orphan, an easy target for someone's influence, as Rabbit pointed out in his calling out speech. The show heavily implies that Mary didn't get the Darkcom card accidentally and, who knows, they might have even groomed her for years before she became a real soldier.
Little Mary always wanted to fight monsters and protect people. Her father went crazy because no one took his warnings about demons seriously. And now she suddenly had the opportunity to join an organization that knows about demons and has real weapons to deal with them. Of course, she didn't hesitate.
Despite her traumatic past, Mary is hardly blindly obedient. She doesn't hesitate to make her own decisions, such as releasing Makai refugees, which was clearly not in the protocol. Gradually her moral compass starts to oppose the given orders and even Baines notices this, trying to tighten her leash. Still, in a tough struggle between heart and duty, duty wins. But more on that a bit later.
Finally, the soldier Lady was quite necessary from the writing perspective. Let's be honest, it was never really explained why dmc3 Lady is so good at fighting demons and has an entire arsenal at her disposal. Well, things happen, when a veteran mercenary is turned into yesterday's school girl to meet the public demands. But it's fine, it's a game and the rule of cool works pretty well, besides, the power of revenge does wonders. Meanwhile the show took a more realistic approach, so we got military training and an access to the latest technologies instead, which also allowed Mary to fight by Dante's side in the final battle.
Lady aka overpowered girlboss
Why does Dante always lose to Lady? He toyed with her in the game! She's human, she stands no chance against serious opponents!
And very smoothly we move on to the next point. Thanks to the changes in the backstory, Lady has acquired a good combat experience and some tricky gadgets. Analyzing her fights, it’s easy to understand that she succeeds not because she is stronger, but because she is more strategic and knows which buttons to push, while Dante isn't in his best mental state. However, in a direct confrontation, when he really focuses and gets serious, Lady loses immediately.
Interestingly enough, they kinda contrast with their dmc3 counterparts. Lady is more emotional, driven by revenge, so her anger fuels her clashes with Dante, who always gets in her way. While he keeps his feelings to himself, hiding behind a devil-may-care mask for much of their interactions. No matter the fight, the power imbalance between them is rather obvious.
Meanwhile, Netflix portrays Dante and Lady as equals, each with their own strengths in different areas. Dante is a power house, brute force, stamina, regeneration, but he's too reckless, chaotic, uncoordinated and easily emotionally manipulated. Lady has a cool head, quick adapting and a smart use of environment on her side, but she often bites off more than she can chew, which results in Dante’s dashing acts of heroics.
In the end, the show maintains a nice balance in their winning/saving score. The power imbalance isn't that visible, bc Mary is already in a solid form, while Dante is just starting out. But he'll certainly level up, so the power scalers could find some peace.
Lady - the screentime thief
Devil may cry? Ah, yes, the Lady show, which features Dante as a cameo!
Now this is a really funny argument because technically Dante has more screentime than Lady, although the difference isn't that big. So why are so many people convinced that Lady stole his glory?
Let's start with the fact that Lady is the clear deuteragonist of Season 1. With Dante as the protagonist and Rabbit as the antagonist, duh. So she was bound to have a solid part of the story to herself.
It does help that Season 1 has Vergil only as a cameo now the real one. The role of the deuteragonist was taken over by him in the end of dmc3, leaving no room for Lady in the final battle. Meanwhile, Mary had no such restrictions and used her place as Dante's foil at its fullest. Actually I'm surprised that nobody blamed her for stealing Vergil's color palette lol
Lady is an active player, she needs to act first, because she knows that she may not get a second chance when the fate of the world is at stake. So she strategies, comes with the plans, rushes to change things, fights for her truth.
Dante's original goal is much smaller in comparison: he just wants his chill life and his mom's necklace back. Suddenly, he finds himself in the middle of the 4-D chess game, without any helpful knowledge. Darkcom and Rabbit keep fighting over him, moving him from location to location, the news about Sparda hit him like a truck, and he faces some big self-acceptance issues. Lady gets the luxury of making her own choices, while Dante is constantly forced to do things, because otherwise someone will die on him again. And just when he finally finds a solid motivation and decides to take a step out of his routine, he gets a beauty sleep in a freezer instead.
The adaptation chose to explore Dante's inner world, showing his doubts and vulnerability, which I personally like to see. He still got his cool action scenes, but in contrast to Lady, who has her flashbacks too but also does a lot of stuff to influence the plot, Dante's role in Season 1 might look rather passive. Again, the problem is that Dante just starts his journey, absolutely unprepared, while Lady knows stuff and has some experience in critical situations. Still, this can create the illusion that the more active participant is the actual lead, while the protagonist is busy fighting his inner demons.
What a bitch is this Lady!
Netflix Lady is a horrible person! She never was so mean! Why does she keep abusing Dante and calling him slurs?!
Well, first of all: Mary isn't mean to everyone, despite her sharp tongue, she is actually quite caring when it comes to her allies. A quick look at her interactions proves that she is friendly, when a person gains her respect, always willing to lend a helping hand, feels deeply responsible for her teammates.
Now let's talk about her enemies: of course, Lady hates demons with all her heart. And Dante falls into this category, because she refuses to acknowledge any exceptions at first.
In this prejudice she is no different from her dmc3 counterpart. The original Lady continued to judge Dante by his origins until their final confrontation, even though he had already saved her life several times by that point.
In the show Lady's attitude towards Dante slowly changes once she learns that not all demons are bloodthirsty monsters. Her mean behavior peaks in ep 3, when she is convinced that Dante is a super-cunning demon who is only pretending to be an idiot to fool everyone. But after she allows herself to reconsider her perspective, she gradually softens towards him, which even her enemy notices.
But she shot him in the leg after he saved her life! And the original Lady fired at Dante twice after he stopped her fall, initially not even knowing if he would survive the headshot. What can I say, Lady was always ruthless when someone gets in her way, but in the show, she also tries to protect Dante and stop him from doing something stupid in her own stern, caring way.
Now about “hellblood” being a slur- sorry, I think it's “a friend who is too woke” situation. Demons aren't a race, for starters. If anything, Dante is on thin ice too, remember how he mocked poor Cavaliere!
Funnily enough, when Dante isn't around, Mary is comfortable calling him by his name, but she clearly avoids doing so directly. Maybe it's her own revenge for “Lady”, but you can see that in the last episode she doesn't use "Hellblood" in a negative context. Still, whether this nickname is appropriate is up to you to decide.
Devil may cry? More like Lady may swear!
This probably should have been the first point on the list. Because a lot of people have complained that Lady sounds like she's from another big cartoon about demons. And you know what? As someone who doesn't swear irl, I'll even agree with the criticism. But not without throwing in my two cents.
The problem isn't that Lady has a foul mouth. She has one, dmc2007 wasn't shy about it either. The problem is the amount of swearing, which at some point becomes a bit comical. It's like Lady is trying too hard to be cool and menacing.
But what if it's intentional. Mary is a young woman in the military who rises through the ranks, takes responsibility for people, chains her feelings behind armor. It's worth noting that she uses swear words mainly to establish that she is in control, fearless, to hide her vulnerability, to demonstrate that her enemy is worthless and can't do shit to her. It's like another layer of her armor, a hard facade she has created.
Or maybe Adi just thinks it's cool. Let's check out the next season(s) to see if character development correlates with the amount of cussing.
Lady was never a backstabber! Her last decision destroyed all her progress for the season!
The last few episodes proved that Lady warmed up to Dante. She was trying her best to convince him to cooperate, to trust Baines, because from her POV, Darkcom is the only organization capable of protecting the amulet and Dante by default.
Mary's faith visibly cracks after Baines treated the deaths of her team so coldly and then ordered the "demon" to be taken into custody. It's more than obvious how upset she was by this turn of events.
The final battle gave Mary even more reasons to struggle: she saw first-hand what Dante's carefree confidence could lead to. Dante now has a new personal goal: to find his brother, who is clearly connected to the greatest threat to humanity. Mary, as a person, understands and sympathizes with his desire to reunite with his only family. She deeply regrets betraying his trust, especially after he asked her to come with him. But Mary, as a soldier, could not allow that to happen. Not when it could cause another apocalypse.
Mary's choice feels natural: she knew Dante for a day, while Darkcom was her everything for much longer time. But it's also important to consider - when Mary made her final decision, she didn't know that Baines would attack Makai first. She didn't know that he had ordered the deaths of all the refugees she had saved, to begin with. In the end, she looks absolutely devastated, her moral sacrifice for world peace was in vain.
Well, that’s the tragedy of Mary Ann Arkham. A character who is clearly beloved by writers, but often misunderstood by fans. It’s hard to disagree: she’s not the Lady we know. But it’s also important to add: she’s not Lady yet. And if that tedious long speech has convinced you to wait a little longer and give her a chance to prove herself, my mission is well accomplished
