Y'know, one thing I do like about the Netflix anime is the dichotomy between Mundus and Argosax in season 2. A demon of order vs a demon of chaos. Like, it's a nice way to faction out Makai/hell. Especially when you think of how the connects to Dante & Vergil. Both Game and Netflix Vergils are creatures of extreme control and restraint, in no small part because of Mundus' respective influences on the different iterations of Vergil. Hell, Game Vergil's arc was learning to loosen the leash he puts on himself, hence why World of V is a reward for getting max concentration for example.
On the contrary, Dante and Argosax are 'chaotic' in different ways. Argosax is obvious THE Chaos in a #BadWay, but Dante's biggest personality dimension (in both iterations) is openness to experience (Champion Analysis, 2020). Game Dante is the most creative fighter in the series, and Netflix Dante has a thing about choosing his own fate.
I honestly can't stop thinking about how a Dante and Argosax relationship would go in a "if our fates were switched" scenario. Because Champion Analysis already sorta planted the seeds of how 'evil Dante' looks in my head, I keep imagining how Dante's Argosax trauma would look and Dante turning to Argosax as a means of killing Mundus because a freedom/chaos demon is more appealing than a control one to Dante.
One aspect of DMC lore that I find endlessly fascinating is the lack of distinction between divine and demonic beings; in the world of DMC, angels and devils are largely one and the same and whether the beings you worship are evil or benevolent is just a matter of perspective. That said, it should come as no surprise that some demons possess godlike powers that can, at times, bewitch humans, warp their minds and bodies and even bend the fabric of time and reality itself.
One such godlike being is the demon emperor Mundus. It is said that after being defeated by the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda, Mundus was sealed in a vault, and though the vault’s location has not been clearly identified, it is a popular theory that Mundus was imprisoned on Mallet Island.
The lore surrounding Mallet Island can be a bit confusing at times, because there are a lot of implications about the island’s history but very few explicit accounts about what exactly happened to the residents - and anytime the majority of clues is implicit instead of explicit, there is a lot of room for interpretation, so please keep in mind that anything you will read in this post is heavily influenced by how I interpret canon texts and events and your interpretations may differ from mine.
In this post, I would like to analyze and compile a list of ‘typical’ behavior exhibited by persons and places that are possessed by a powerful demon by comparing the fate of Mallet Island’s residents with Arius and the progressive deterioration of Dumary Island.
Say what you want about DMC2, it may not be your favorite entry of the series (it certainly isn’t mine), but the lore it added to the DMC universe is actually quite valuable in regards to confirming the implications of DMC1’s several pieces of lore scattered throughout the game that Mundus has, in fact, been manipulating the residents of Mallet Island for centuries, even before he broke free of his prison.
We do not have any documents in DMC1 explicitly stating that the castellans were either possessed or communicating with a devil and not just being super weird and cruel for the sake of being eccentric, but there is another, better-documented instance of a demon with godlike powers trying to break free from their prison: Argosax.
Now, you may already know this, but let us refresh our memory about demon world history, just in case: at the time of Mundus’ rise to power, there was a gruesome war for the throne and the right to rule the demon world. Mundus was - without question - among the most powerful of devils and up until Sparda’s rebellion, he ruled over one half of the underworld. The other half was ruled by Argosax.
After being defeated and sealed away by Sparda and the guardians of Vie du Marli, Argosax was stuck between the realms, much like Mundus. However, even though they were stuck, Argosax was still powerful enough to communicate with those that were receptive to their powers - namely Arius. Arius was a man of great wealth and questionable morality.
He desired to undo the seal that kept Argosax locked out of the human realm in order to absorb their power and become immortal; a feat that is both ambitious and downright delusional.
Arius was quite a remarkable man: he used obscure magic to create artificial demons and watched idly as Dumary Island sank into chaos. Even the seasoned warrior Bolverk, who once crossed swords with Sparda himself, fought for Arius’ cause! Which… is a little weird, don’t you think? Bolverk was loyal to Argosax before their imprisonment. And if you read through the enemy files carefully, you will find that some of them are described as having been corrupted by malicious forces or, in the case of DMC2’s Blades, it is even outright stated that they were created by an incredibly powerful demonic being.
Even though Arius seemed convinced that he was a genius who could conquer a god, he was merely a tool, a human who became too greedy for power and messed with something that he should have left alone, something that slowly but surely corrupted his mind until he was barely more than a puppet and not a puppeteer; a physical vessel for Argosax’s own ambitions, if you so will.
Another interesting aspect that might support this theory is the fact that not only did Dumary Island start to distort and warp as Argosax was about to resurrect, Arius, too, became corrupted before he was killed. He may have been human once but his prolonged exposure and closeness to Argosax and the underworld made him into something distinctly inhuman.
The same thing happened, for many generations, to the residents of Mallet Island, the only difference being that Mundus was much more subtle in his attempts to gain control and break free - possibly by necessity but that is another post for another day.
What we will focus on are a couple of scattered documents and comments by Dante that can be found while exploring the castle in DMC1.
“There’s a book written about the rearing of this castle. It says that during the twelfth century the castle had gone through a number of modifications since its establishment as a citadel. The last sentence in the book states, ‘Why have the successive castellans modified this castle so repetitively and unnecessarily? Were they possessed by some kind of evil spirits?”
This document can be found in the library that you first encounter the Hell Scissors in.
The very important thing to keep in mind about this document is the fact that, apparently, Mundus always targeted one specific person at a time: the ruling castellan. Now, this could be for the very simple reason that obviously a castellan is the most influential person inside the castle, but frankly speaking, I think that his imprisonment left him weakened and possibly confined in a dimension that could only be accessed through a very specific method and medium: by looking into a mirror.
This mirror, to be precise. The mirror in the castellan’s bedroom. This mirror is the entrance to the mirror dimension beyond which lies the entrance to Hell itself. The longer Mundus gained access to the human realm by using the castellans as a conduit, the more the island changed and warped: in certain areas of the castle, the flow of time was irregular, the inhabitants suffered hellish nightmares and crops grew out of season, to name a few signs that the island was progressively changing and possibly even merging with the demon world due to Mundus’ presence.
Something very similar happened in DMC2. The closer Dumary Island became to Hell, the more distorted and warped it became. Demons that should already be dead, namely Phantom, could suddenly be fought again because Argosax created a time paradox when the demon and human realm merged. And since Mundus and Argosax are equal in power, I’d assume that the same thing happened on Mallet Island.
A very interesting piece of DMC trivia is a statement by Kamiya that Mallet Island is the closest place to Hell on earth. It cannot be placed on a map because it changes locations every night. Since there are no documents left behind by the residents of Mallet Island describing this phenomenon, we have to assume that it is either non-canon or that Mallet Island only started behaving like this when it had already merged with the netherworld to the point that the residents had long since become nothing but mindless puppets.
Godlike demons such as Argosax and Mundus seem to be able to bend the flow of time and drag the human realm into the demon realm through their mere presence alone - but they need a vessel in the human world. They are too powerful to slip through the divide between the world without the aid of a Hell Gate but powerful enough to influence receptive minds - and since the divine and the diabolical is one and the same in the DMC’verse it is probably not too far-fetched to assume that they may have initially presented themselves as benefactors.
Their targets received obscure wisdom and likely thought that by using said wisdom wisely, they could further their own power, when in reality, their actions would ultimately lead to their own downfall and their master’s rise.
Keeping all of the above in mind, let us make a list of ‘symptoms’ that might hint at a demonic possession in progress.
One specific person is targeted at a time.
Said person may experience delusional thoughts but will likely still think they are in control.
The possessed person may experience certain physical changes the longer they are being controlled and the closer they get to the demon world.
The person being possessed will receive wisdom from the demon possessing them as showcased by Arius creating demons and the castellans making seemingly arbitrary changes to Mallet Island in preparation of Mundus’ arrival.
The person possessed will become apathetic to the needs and agonies of other people, even those that were once close to them.
A place in close proximity to a powerful demon may become warped and distorted; time and space behave differently than they normally would.
Why is all of this even interesting or relevant?
Because, dear reader, I am almost convinced that Mundus used Arkham to open a Hell Gate and lure Dante and Vergil towards his hideout.
And I think I can prove it, too.
But before we can properly dissect the how, we will have to look at the why.
And since this post is part of a week-long series, we will need to get a little more ground work out of the way before we can confidently get our tinfoil hats, put them on and sit down to get into the really crazy implications of some obscure pieces of DMC lore.
Tomorrow, we will take a look at in-universe mythology and we will very briefly touch upon Sparda’s possible reasons to defy Mundus.
We will look at the light buried deep within, if you want to put it that way.
