Honestly, this is a random thought and it's not related to any Ikevamp route specifically but it's low-key funny how the devs made Vincent's & Theo's height rather on the average side of the spectrum because Dutch people are TALL. Like very tall.
One of my friends is currently studying in the Netherlands, and she always tells stories about how the locals are genuinely way taller than what we're used to at home, or anywhere else.
...Anyways, but now that I actually did a quick search most sources do say Vincent or Theo weren't tall at all. And it seems the game even did them justice. Some sources say Vincent was about 1,7 meters tall or 5'7, and I saw some say he was only 164 cm tall. Or 5'4 in feet. I didn't really find specifics about Theo though.
Obviously, they were born in the middle of the 19th century so things definitely changed in the last 100+ years— So I did a deeper dive.
As a European, for the longest time, I was familiar with the popular belief that the Scandinavians are the tallest. I mean there are a lot of outside sources that prove this, like a bunch of tall Swedish or Norwegian celebrities, or the Danish royal family is also incredibly tall, but somehow all of this made me believe that very tall people almost don't exist anywhere else xd. Anyways, I'm older and smarter now, I no longer think that of course.
But I still decided to look for more interesting information about how the Dutch became among the tallest in Europe in around 150 years!
In general, the sources said that in the early 19th century, Dutch people were among the shortest in Europe, with men averaging just 163–166 cm (which seems exactly around Vincent's recorded height) due to widespread poverty, poor nutrition, and diseases. Then their height began to rise significantly in the late 1800s as living conditions improved, marking the start of a 20 cm growth spurt over the next century. Which is crazy, but they're probably not the only ones since a lot of things were modernized and improved since then.
In Hungary (or in the middle of the 19th century it used to be the Austro-Hungarian Empire), where I'm from, resources said the average male height was about 165 cm. But it also highlighted that Croatia for example, which also used to be a part of the Empire back then had a taller average at about 167 cm. Which is interesting again, because nowadays we associate a shorter average with the Balkans and Southern Europe, while back then they used to be taller.
Anyway, the second industrial revolution started only around the 1870s so it kind of makes sense that's when things only started to improve for the Dutch as well and it seems Vincent and Theo were born a bit before that. And although they both died early, even before the start of the 20th century, the start of WW1 marked the end of the revolution in 1914. And I mean it does make sense, before but even during WW1 technology and other inventions skyrocketed. The Netherlands did not take part in the fighting, but the countries around them were still affected + they gained about 1 million Belgian refugees during that time, and trading blockades were also present.
Factories took off, more people moved to cities for work and soon the need for better housing, social care, hygiene and everything else was developing + in comparison infant death and some diseases minimized because of better living arrangements.
So yeah, in fact Cybird had done justice for Vincent and Theo, making them a universally average height in the game — not that it matters too much in their routes but on the contrary it's funny to imagine if they were to be their original height. I think our MC is supposed to be about 1,6 m tall which sounds like an average for modern-day Japanese women, but imagine she arrives at the mansion and a lot of the guys are around her height or even shorter? It would be a funny scene.
Or maybe they acquired a few extra centimeters when they got turned into vampires? I don't know if this conversation or info dump ever occurred in the game, but when Comte revived them were they able to choose their 'vampire forms'? At what age would they like to be reborn? Because some of the guys died early, but some others died rather old. I know the game depicts them differently, and they don't have discussed ages, in fact, they're supposed to look the same age and I guess being a vampire does have its quirks looking kind of ageless, but still, it's fun to think about. And it raises a lot of other funny questions in me about their transformation and the possible alterations in their human appearance transitioning into a vampire.
But back to their heights, this makes me think more, whether they became taller or not, that low-key the purebloods as the ones who can turn others, living for eternity, and the genuine superhuman strength they possess, they would naturally have a bigger & taller build as well, no? Imagine Comte and Leonardo towering over the others in the mansion, being like 2 meters tall, while everyone else is of normal height. Or especially in the streets of 19th-century Paris the two of them being giants for the current age xd.
But they never talk about MC or Sebastian either, if I remember correctly? I remember the game sometimes making comments on how MC as a Japanese woman is deemed pretty unusual being in Europe in the 19th century — I admit sometimes I forget she's ethnically supposed to be Japanese, as well as Sebas lol —, but I don't think they made comments about their height. Because if we go down this path I analyzed a few paragraphs ago, both of their heights should be very surprising too.
If I remember correctly Ikesen made a comment about this in someone's route, but I have no idea who it was. The warlords' heights were upgraded too I'm pretty sure, but MC, who's probably also around the same general height as the Ikevamp MC, would be deemed very tall for the Sengoku age as well.
Anyways, I'm yapping on way too much and this post turned way longer than I intended to, and I lost the plot about the van Gogh brothers' heights so I will just end it here. But if someone's up for more discussion about this, or has more silly ideas to offer about either of these situations I'm interested xd.
