Devil May Cry/WMG

Rebellion and Yamato were both demons at some point
Yamato may of been but Rebellion is said to be a manifestation of Dante's own power.
 * actually it's also a keepsake from their father

Descendents of Sparda don't have their own devil triggers
Here's what I'm saying in 3 Dante doesn't have a devil trigger until being impaled with rebellion. Rebellion is the reason Dante transformed and when he is in devil trigger with any other weapon he changes form slightly. In 1 he doesn't have a devil trigger until impaled by alastor and burned by ifrit. He doesn't get one from force edge because it's incomplete and he doesn't get one from sparda until the end because it's the power of a much stronger demon and harder to control. In 4, Nero has Yamato absorbed into his arm which gives him a partial devil trigger mainly because he only 1/4 a demon. The reason his devil trigger loos like Vergil's has more to do with the fact that there using the same weapon and that's just how Yamato looks

The difficulty of the various titles is a way of showing Dante's skill at those points in time
Think about it for a moment, if you've played all 4. Ever notice how Devil May Cry 1 and 3 are extremely tough, but DMC 4 and 2 rather easy? In DMC 3, because Dante is still young, he is still somewhat inexperienced, and prone to mistakes. DMC 1 rolls around, and he's learned a few lessons, but he still has a thing or two to grasp. By DMC 4, he's learned just about everything he needs to, and when DMC 2 happens, he might as well be toying with his foes by that point.

At some point in the past, Dante was a ballerina
Dante's got a flair for style, and a dramatic streak you could race a Ferarri on. He always manages to make his fights look more like coreographed action sequences than actual duels, what with the way he casually leaps ten feet into the air, juggles enemies, and dodges attacks with impossible speed. What sort of person do you know of that has astounding physical coordination, superhuman grace, and an uncanny ability to turn even the most serious matters into unbelievably campy affairs? The reason so many of his lines are poorly-acted is because his career was a silent one, and when he takes his "life's a stage" attitude, it shows. That might also explain the rather theatrical nature of his encounter with Agnus.
 * This troper supports this WMG simply for the fact that the thought of Dante killing demons wearing a tutu and tiara is freaking hilarious.
 * That would explain all of the backflips and whatnot Dante could perform with the Escape button in 2...

DMC 4 is about Vergil working out his issues. Just as Yamato was fragmented, so was Vergil himself
...And he's Nero, and Kyrie, and Credo, and Agnus, and even Sanctus. They all have part of him in them to a greater or lesser extent.

All of the other people (except Kyrie) were confirmed to have been given power from Yamato, pieces of Vergil's fractured soul/shattered mind. And want to bet they gave their songstress some of that 'sacred' power?
 * Agnus' design clearly echos Arkham/Jester and Sparda - Vergil's inner father figure.
 * Sanctus' 'the savior' design is pretty clearly based on Mundus' original appearance in DMC 1.
 * Determined to protect others (shielding the children) yet powerless (in the end). Kyrie's the Eva figure.
 * Nero's clearly the Dante figure,
 * And Credo's the one representing Vergil - honorable, fights only with a sword, makes the wrong decision and 'dies,' leaving 'Dante' to carry on, and is successful in saving Kyrie where he failed.

They appear to be acting out Vergil's inner conflict over his family, power, and the means he took to reach his goals. The fact that the representative of Vergil ends up dying isn't exactly a hopeful sign that Vergil will be able to pull himself together someday.
 * Well... Okay, but if Nero's the Dante figure and Agnus represents Sparda, then who does Dante represent?
 * Clearly, he's the Sparda figure. (Agnus is just Arkham/Jester.) He can do everything, but better. He's always going on ahead. He eventually grants Nero Yamato and then departs into the unknown. Obviously, this is Vergil's skewed perception of Sparda - an amazingly powerful warrior, who is full of mystery and ultimately favors Dante. Bonus points for being the first to "fight" Sanctus/Mundus and accepting Credo/Vergil's last request (Vergil's feeling that Sparda is the only one who can be relied on?).

Nero's Devil-Bringer is actually..
...Nelo Angelo's arm. Agnus mentioned that the Order of the Sword had studied a powerful demon-arm and that was the source of their powers. Somehow Sanctus and his followers salvaged Yamato and fragments of Nelo Angelo (Vergil) from the remains of Mallet Island and used them to build their power, but then Sanctus comes up with a back-up plan as construction of their Saviour nears completion. What if they can't get Dante to form the Saviour's core? They'll need a back-up, so Sanctus selects a young and expendable member of the order for an experiment. If it fails, no one of importance was lost. If it suceeds, the new Sparda-hybrid should be easy enough to manipulate. And so, after Nero is severely injured Sanctus has his arm amputated and the arm of Nelo Angelo grafted in it's place, blaming it's demonic appearance on side-effects of his demon attack. Sanctus just didn't anticipate how Badass Nero would become with the power of a son of Sparda now his to control.
 * Except that Devil Arms are the name of the demonic, living weapons that are commonly the manifestation of a defeated devil's soul or power, such as Gilgamesh, Lucifer and Pandora.
 * The Devil Arm that the Order was studying was strongly implied to be Yamato. Also, going by everybody's reactions, Nero just had something like a broken arm at the start of the game. Despite that, he still got his arm from Vergil.
 * The origins of Nero's arm are a bit fuzzy. The manual states he got the Devil Bringer after a demon attacked him, but there are other sources that stated he always had it.
 * Nero got the Devil Bringer shortly before the game, if his blackout-flashback during mission 7 is to be believed. Kyrie's concern over him "not having fully healed" at the beginning of the game is obviously about his arm, which she (along with everyone else) presumably thinks is broken. Agnus' bit about studying "an extremely powerful Devil's Arm" is probably just a dubbing error regarding "Devil Arms", the official name for all demonic weapons. The Devil Bringer itself is purely a manifestation of Nero's demonic lineage - apparently according to some reliable source he's Vergil's son.

Devil May Cry is an alternate universe of Metal Gear Solid
The main character of this game is nearly identical to his father. He has a twin brother, who is an antagonist, in every one of his appearances. Later, this brother is bonded to another of the main character's rival's arm*. As well, their mother's name is Eva. Their father is a legend, whose name is still carried by his sons. This game is usually referred to by three initials, none of which are vowels.

Now, which game am I talking about, Devil May Cry (DMC) or Metal Gear Solid (MGS)?
 * (That is, if we accept the WMG below about Vergil being bonded into Nero's Devil Arm.)


 * Now all we need is for Devil May Cry 5 to have Sparda as protagonist and the case is closed.


 * Funny this WMG is here, since Devil May Cry 4 would have been better taking a few pages from Metal Gear Solid 2's book.


 * And the rival with an alien arm, with the help of the main character, ends the rule of a malevolent organisation. Which, by the way, uses the legendary father as a symbol.


 * And the Replacement Scrappy shows up in the fourth game in the series as a whole (counting Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake), the PS2/XBox game with "2" in its title is known for being ... controversial, to say the least, and the first game for the 360/PS3 generation has 4 in its title.

Mundus orchestrated all of the events leading to DMC 1, DMC 3 included.
Let's think about this for a second.

Why would he have sent demons to kill Eva (and Dante and Vergil had she not protected them) only to be inactive until the events from DMC 1 (Bar the secret cutscene after the credits where he corrupts Vergil)?

He must have played a bigger hand in the events of the third game. It's awfully convenient how Vergil has Arkham, a man who knows everything about who he is, what he is, and how he came to be, working under him. Sure, you can pin it on demon texts, but by DMC 3, Sparda's become nothing but a fairy tale. No one would really know that Eva was his bride and that he sired twin sons unless they have awesome deduction skills. In the Manga, he even goes so far as to mention Eva having died by some strange occurrence. He mentions her being mutilated and burned beyond recognition with scales and feathers being left (a sign that demons attacked), but that on the same day, he (or was it people?) found some ancient text that no one could decipher (it being in demonic dead language and all). How would he know? How could he connect that to Eva's death?

The idea is that Mundus did it (obviously), but that he corrupted Arkham enough to have such knowledge, and was using him as a consort/liaison to keep in touch with the human world and extend his corruption to Vergil who would actively undo the seals in the Temen-Ni-Gru, freeing the demons bound to the tower. The seal to Sparda's power could only be undone in the human world, but if Vergil gets to the power successfully, that by itself presents another problem. That, and if Arkham was genuinely trying to become a god without Mundus' influence, that be one big slap to the face in his plans of revenge and regaining his spot as Prince of Darkness or whatever. So, as Mundus' ally, Arkham would steal Vergil's chance at power, grab it for himself or make it easier to access for Mundus (who would probably kill him anyway and take the credit. Power is everything!)

But DMC 1 happens, so it's obvious this plan didn't actually work in the long run, what with Arkham being corrupt through Sparda's power and being beaten by Dante and Vergil. Mundus still wins by getting Vergil on his side (making him Nelo Angelo) which is where the second part of the plan comes in. Knowing that it's impossible to unseal Temen-Ni-Gru again (Dante and Lady would have to be REALLY stupid to fall for something like that again, and the amulet halves aren't on one side of the seal anyway) he decides to resurface in Mallet and do what he does best. Creates Trish, lures Dante to unseal most of the Underworld in Mallet from the human world, all while sending demons in Dante's general direction to end him. Preferably Nelo Angelo. Since Nelo Angelo has one half of the amulet, if he killed Dante, took the amulet and nabbed the FE and turned it into the Sparda, the fact that he's by all intents and purposes a slave of Mundus and unable to break the control, Mundus by association would have the power of Sparda. Nay, he'd HAVE SPARDA.

Unfortunately for him, that doesn't actually happen, Nelo Angelo is defeated, Trish defects, and he gets sealed. Again.

TL;DR, DMC 3 was one big Xanatos Gambit that would lead to Mundus being freed from his seal prematurely and successfully be able to rule the world. DMC 1 was just the second part in his attempt, and that just makes him the biggest bad in DMC, smarter and more manipulative than the average demon and a very huge threat.

Sparda didn't close the gateway to hell all the way.
This would largely account for the fact that demons are still able to reach the human world, and e.g. kill Dante and Vergil's mother Eva, apparently without help.
 * Conversely, one could assume that the seal was at its strongest right after having been made and actually weakened over time. It would account for the fact that only lesser demons make it through and why bigger demons (around the size of Phantom, maybe?) didn't show up to kill Eva.
 * This troper, after having watched the anime and read the DMC 3 manga (what there is of it, unfortunately), believes that lesser demons always had the ability to cross over into the human world, seals and gateways be damned. It's the bigger and more powerful "Boss" demons that are stuck in Hell, requiring their servants to go on ahead and prepare a gateway or ritual or what have you in order to let their masters through. It's dealt with in the one episode where a minion, sent out to collect souls for a gateway ritual, falls in love with a human girl.
 * Like in Yu Yu Hakusho.
 * So, Raizen is the Sparda-like figurehead?
 * Or, more specificially, Sparda sealed Temen ni Gru and any other portals Mundus had built in order to invade, and then spent two thousand years destroying or sealing any new portals that demons tried to built.

Vergil is responsible for the spelling of his name, in his preteen years.
The correct spelling is "Virgil"; Sparda and Eva would presumably have known this. However, when he still had a single-digit name, he misspelled it (after going through a phase of "Vrjl" or some such), and the new spelling stuck.
 * Take it from a student of classical literature; Vergil can be spelled either way.
 * To help clear the confusion... The original spelling of the (Latin) name was Vergilius, as in the poet. However, the alternate spelling Virgil began in his lifetime, as a pun - "virgil" refers to a magic wand. Vergil was not promiscuous - unlike a whole lot of Roman men - and so he was famous for "magically" keeping his "wand" under control!
 * Hmmm... Virgil... Virgin... Virgil... Virgin... I'm sorry, but those sound awfully similiar...

Eva wasn't the first human Sparda had children with.
Seriously. How else could Nero "possess the blood of Sparda"?
 * Makes sense. He WAS in the human world for hundreds of years and his sons were in their twenties...
 * Vergil could have gotten a woman pregnant prior to raising the tower.
 * HEY. HEY. HEY. Look above. Dante probably did it. I mean, Nero DOES look a lot like him.
 * Heheh, "raising the tower."
 * Actually one of Capcom employees said that Nero was supposed to be Vergil's son, but it was scrapped in the final version of DMC 4.
 * So your argument is that Nero looks like Dante, therefore he must be his son. Vergil and Dante are twins.
 * The below has to be true, in that case.
 * There's always the chance that he's Vergil reincarnated or something. This troper always found a few things about him rather suspicious- his strong connection to the Yamato, his "Give me more power" quote after receiving it (rather similar to Vergil's frequent statements about constantly desiring more power), the similarities between his Devil Shadow and Vergil's demon forms (particularly the sheath attached to his arm and the face that resembles the Nelo Angelo)- all combine to indicate that Nero might be what was left over after the Nelo Angelo went asplode. You know, despite the fact that Capcom flatly denies that Vergil had any connection to DMC 4.

Dante has unknown children.
I mean come on from what's seen of him he'd be more of the type than Vergil is. Vergil seems more like he'd think that was just a distraction and he wouldn't want a kid getting in his way or taking his title of ruler of the world. Plus it seems like wanting more power runs in the family, and even if not Vergil would be the kind of cold a** to come back from the dead and take over his brother's kid's body to spite Dante. +18 or more years have been passed since the 3rd game.
 * The time gap between the games could possibly have been less then 18 years, although not by much. Dante strikes me as being the type who might've started early as it were. Nero looks about 18 or 19 and Dante is probably in his early to mid thirties in DMC 4, so he probably would've been between 15 and 17 when Nero was born.
 * If this is the case then it raises the question of whether or not Dante was aware of this possibility. He seemed to know that Nero was family in some way (although that was rather glaringly obvious), but that doesn't mean he knows how they are related.
 * This seems good but Dante probably doesn't know 'cause he would have probably claimed the kid already and he would have told him if he knew when he seen him.
 * Very true. Heh, if it's true can you imagine what their reactions would be if/when they find out? For some reason I can see Dante taking it better then Nero.
 * Yeah Nero would probably FREAK OUT! As for Dante...
 * Oddly enough, I can see Dante actually being pretty happy about it. (Once the shock wore off of course...)
 * Uh, no you guys. Word of God says Dante's 18-19 around DMC 3, DMC 1 happens not even a decade later (9 years, actually) and DMC 4 is not at all farther from that, making him somewhere in his early thirties. Nero's around 20.
 * Um, doesn't Trish say in the opening to the first game, "Are you the one who lost a Mother and a Brother to evil 20 years ago?" Discounting Eva's death, wouldn't it be assumed (especially with the Mundus orchestrating everything theory) That she was referring to Vergil's apparent death?
 * Point made, theory dead. I guess that's what we get for failing to do the research. It was fun while it lasted.
 * There's no reason Nero couldn't have just aged up really fast; hell, he's some-parts demon, who can say what happens?
 * ...Even though that would kinda throw out all those theories that demons don't age quickly at all (which gives them their long lifespan), it would be perfectly reasonable under the assumption that the demon in him would age the body to something appropriate to contain the demonic power. Kids don't make good vessels. But then we'd have to consider what age he really is under all of that. What if he's younger than Kyrie? Ridiculously younger? Squiiiiiiick.
 * Well, it would give the sentence "like a sister and lover" a new and disturbing meaning. Yuck.
 * Not to nitpick but I think the line is "like a sister, mother, and lover", which is even more disturbing. Whatever happened to "friendship" in a relationship?

Sparda is still alive somewhere.
There have been no direct references in any of the games to Sparda being outright dead. In fact, his absence is barely referred to.
 * The first game's introduction clearly states he "quietly reigned over the human world until his death", and nearly everyone acknowledges he's either missing or dead, because let's face it-- Where else would he be?
 * As part of this, he will show up in the final DMC shortly after dante tries to kill himself, while Nero and Lady are getting married, while Patty make's her first friend outside the sho-wait a minute, thats Metal Gear Solid 4's ending only with DMC characters...

The series takes place in the same universe as Darkstalkers.
Hey, they're both made by Capcom, they're both monster/hell-themed Fantasy Kitchen Sinks with a "human world" and a "demon world" that the demons travel to, and there's already an official work featuring Dante (as seen in DMC 3) about to attack Jedah (from Vampire Savior).
 * This actually gives a lot more sense to Sparda's heroism, as it is stated in the Darkstalkers canon that not all of Makai's (the demon world) inhabitants are evil. In addition to that, Morrigan and Nevan both use shapeshifting bats as weapons and clothes.
 * Additionally, supplemental material notes that Makai is several hundred times the size of the earth and that even its ruler doesn't fully know its entire span, so who's to say that there isn't a portion of Makai where the demons were too far away to be influenced by the current ruler and a new one stepped up in his place (i.e. Mundus and/or Argosax). Additionally, that might explain all of the Hellgates and other means of access to the Demon World; there's only one known connection between the Human World and Makai (the Gate), but that's not necessarily the only portal in existence, period.

== Normal humans can acquire phenomenal abilities through heroic stature or exceptional willpower in the Devil May Cry universe, although Dante's are clearly superior to normal humans. == Not only did Nero's clearly phenomenal abilities not raise an eyebrow from any of the non-corrupt members of the, Lady demonstrates fairly impressive skills herself. Although Nero has the advantage of, Lady has only her willpower. Furthermore, Dante himself concedes that humans "may not have the raw physical power of a demon," but they have something special of their own.
 * Twist on that theory. Dante never answers Agnus' question of what humans actually have, but Nero answered it with his statement to Sanctus. "Sparda had a heart. One that could love another person." They don't get Charles Atlas Superpower in the traditional sense, but the human heart can invoke insane Determinator or Berserk Button powers when it gets down to it. Also take into account the "humans have firepower and technological advances" argument (since it would be weird if everyone became The Hulk when their loved ones are threatened)
 * Of course, Lady may not be a normal human. She has eyes just like, can fight despite pretty serious wounds, and is a descendant of the priestess, who was probably pretty powerful, and if we're arguing that Sparda could have had other descendants, the priestess is a likely candidate. Not to mention that Devil May Cry 2 establishes that yes, there are other half-demons running around doing heroic stuff: anyone want to bet that a lot of them would move to the Order's city, where they'd be seen as holy instead of unholy? They might not have though Nero was unusual because it wasn't. And that's without bringing what the novels establish about what humans can and can't do into it (since the second novel has Beryl going places that probably should have killed her according to the first's rules about humanity's vulnerability to demonic power).

Nero somehow inherited his power from Vergil.
Potentially, he could be Vergil's own son. This would account for the similarity in appearance between Nero and the Sons of Sparda, as well as how he can "possess the blood of Sparda". And let's review a few more points.
 * Nero showed a particular connection with Yamato, Vergil's sword.
 * Dante eventually allowed Nero to keep Yamato, even after showing concern that it should be "kept in the family".
 * The entity that follows Nero during his Devil Trigger looks remarkably similar to Nelo Angelo.
 * For that matter, Nero Angelo would be the correct transliteration to begin with. And doesn't the Nero/Nero Angelo blend seem familiar, with Credo/Credo Angelo, Agnus/Agnus Angelo, and so on?
 * One problem- if Dante's around thirty in DMC 4, and Vergil was the same age, he'd have to have been around thirteen at the time for Nero to be his son.
 * Only if Nero was born with the Devil Bringer. If, like the rest of the Order seems to have been, he was modified in the (relatively) recent past, it works.
 * Not even. Sparda is pretty much a natural immortal, yes? What's to say he didn't pass some of that on to his kids? Lady looks a HELL of a lot older in DMC 4 than she did in 3, not to mention that she and Dante aren't an item (Dante may have opted to not go through the heartbreak from watching his girl age and die; they seem pretty attracted to each other in 3) and she's had SERIOUS macular degeneration in the intervening years--look at those coke bottle glasses.
 * Or in Trish's case Dante could just be squicked out by the idea of dating a woman who looks uncannily like his dead mother. I doubt Dante has an Oedipus Complex of any sort.
 * Sparda is not a natural immortal. He died. That's not what immortality is.
 * They're sunglasses. And she doesn't look old, sheesh.
 * Overly simple explanation: Nero's arm has the power to steal powers via absorbing magic items. Nero gets DT after absorbing Yamato. Nero literally has Vergil's Devil Trigger
 * Variation of that theory. Some part of Vergil's spirit is inside Yamato, hence Nero's little possessed moment after holding it for the first time (hence the quote that the "Nero is Vergil's son" camp is claiming as evidence). Personality traits don't transfer to children, especially if they never knew their parents in the first place. Rather, Vergil is partially possessing or living inside of Nero.
 * The above is canonically true. Even if Nero isn't related to Vergil in any other way, all Devil Arms are literally the weaponized remnants of demons. When Vergil died, it makes sense that everything left of him would have been absorbed into Yamato (Take a look at how Sparda's sword behaves for evidence of this).

Dante and Trish have a sort of pseudo sibling relationship
No real evidence, just a couple of moments in the anime and the cutscenes for DMC 4 (eg Dante laughing over Trish's disguise, and Trish's use of The Look just before they split up) that had a sort of sibling-y feel to them.

Nero is not actually related via birth to Sparda at all.
As noted above, there's all sorts of problems with the timeline by trying to tie Nero into it as actually related via his parents. Nero was infected with Vergil's soul during the attack where he met his girlfriend, or at least that's what the manual and official back story seem to imply. The only reason he has the blood of Sparda and resembles the twins so much is because Vergil's soul has been living in his arm for several years. For all we know, he could have been a dumpy, stocking guy with red hair and freckles before this event and slowly morphed over the course of a few years into the Nero we meet in 4.
 * Or, Nero is related to Revolver Ocelot; one character design at least suggests he got fashion tips from our favorite chronic backstabber.
 * IIRC, the manual and the official backstory says he had gotten injured a few months/weeks prior to the game. He can still resemble the twins and have the blood of Sparda, or the change could have simply happened overnight, even. For the sake of comprehension, though, it's best to think he's related to Sparda through a third child he'd had in the earlier part of 2000 years, and the family line kept going on the down-low until the only real dominant trait left in Nero was having superhuman powers and the white hair/resemblance to the twins.

Being Half-demon does more than imbue superhuman qualities into people.
Because of Dante's, Vergil's, and Nero's birthing from both a demon and a human, this threw off how the cells in their bodies age. In reality, there is a tug of war between the human side and the demon side. Once their "devil trigger" is unlocked, their bodies could be locked in the age state they are currently in, once their human genes deteriorated from finally losing this metaphorical tug of war against the more powerful demon genome. This would explain all three's prematurely white hair, because their hair pigments literally were destroyed in the presence of the demon genome. This would also Hand Wave the "signs of aging" that appear on Dante throughout the years as scars and terrible accidents as he lived his life as a demon hunter.
 * Scars from what, exactly? It's been shown that he can regenerate from wounds in a split second (like in the first cutscene of DMC 3 with the Hell Prides and whatnot). Alternately, they'll all stop aging once their bodies reach a certain maturity, and then they'll simply stay that way until they either die of 'old age' or get killed.
 * Wasn't there an inteview with the creator of DMC 2 where he said that eventually, all the human cells in Dante would die and he'd become a full demon with no human heart? It may have been an attempt to handwave how he had no personality in that game.
 * Just by the fact that Capcom itself has all but disowned the game (come on...if releasing a manga that puts these events into alternate dimension isn't disowning it, I don't know what it), I seriously doubt this is true (you are the first person I've heard mentioning something like this). Also, DMC 2 Dante was as kind as DMC 1 Dante (the fact that he flipped a double headed coin and told people he would help them if he flipped the coin and its outcome was heads shows his kindness. Also, the whole thing where he refuses to kill Lucia even though she is a full demon and a clone because, "Devil's never cry" shows this as well. On top of all of this, he works for free) and was very self-sacrificing, seeing as how he potentially seals himself off good in hell just to finish the job and take out the main demon.

Sparda really was the ruler of Fortuna.
And he gave demon power to a person/family in order for them to protect the city once he left and the power is hereditary.
 * ....I'm totally taking this idea for a fanfiction. Do you mind?
 * nah man just leave a link to it here for me 'k
 * Hehe. Thanks. (But the fanfiction isn't coming very soon, so this'll be a long wait.)

Nero is or is related to Sora from Kingdom Hearts.
Look at the clothes, they're kinda similar.
 * If Nero is related to Sora, then his Devil Trigger is really an anti-form.
 * Suddenly I imagine the whole DMC crew dressed up as the characters... A disturbing thought indeed...

Sparda is really True Neutral, of the Type 4 variety.
For the humans, the day Sparda rebelled and sealed up Mundus was the most important day of their lives. But for him, it was Tuesday.

...No seriously, the reason he rebelled so long ago was to preserve the Balance Between Good and Evil since the demons took the initiative against the humans; humans who were either horribly outnumbered or simply not powerful enough. Had it been the other way around, he would've been against them, but that wasn't the case in this scenario. The humans took this act as him "waking up to justice" and quite possibly any accounts of his "upholding the peace"/"reigning quietly over the human world" was their biased and/or skewed version of him still keeping the balance between good and evil every time more demons kept showing up. They were just lucky enough not to be on the receiving end.


 * Or, since demons seem to have a different (might make right) ethical system from humans, Sparda might have been Lawful Good all along and had a Heroic BSOD when he found out that, among humans, it was actually bad to kill the weak (like children, elderly and civilians) for red orbs. Who knew?

Nero is a reincarnation of Rush Sykes from The Last Remnant
in some botched cross-universe reincarnation, he ended up in Devil May Cry but somehow kept his Remnant in the form of the Devil Bringer. The powers of his Remnant are somehow equated to "having the Blood of Sparda" but really is not so.

Along with this, he retained very unimportant memories from his previous life as Rush, so the reason he's so confused about who 'Dante' is throughout most of the story is because he's thinking about that random shopkeeper from Ghor. Also, he misses David and thinks Credo is some Captain Ersatz of him, Kyrie really reminds him of his sister Irina except completely useless, and Roeas got hotter somehow (he's really looking at Gloria, but the fact that she's "really blonde" under the disguise wouldn't help him much).

Or alternately...

The events of Devil May Cry 3 are a somewhat-skewed retelling of the Legend of Marion Marshall, from the Last Remnant. (Beware, possible spoilers)
The legend goes that long ago, a woman named Marion Marshall had the power to bind the Remnant Ark above Elysion (and others) and travel to the Sacred Lands. She also had an affair with the Imperator, among other things.

DMC 3 might just be some random retelling of what happened, with Lady-- known in this legend as Mary Marshall-- binding the Temen-Ni-Gru (the Remnant Ark, or should I say, Remnant Arkham) to serve as a medium between the regular town and the Demon World (the Sacred Lands). With her blood (Marion's Blessing), she bound the tower to be able to travel to and from the Demon World/Sacred Lands, and possibly seal some evil in a can. Over time the legend changed, and Mary was known as Mary Ann (Mary being her real name, Ann taken from Kalina Ann) and eventually Marion Marshall.

Vergil is the "Imperator" Mary had an affair with, or he with her over the Queen of Glenys, who is actually Alice from the manga. With Mary's power to bind Remnants pretty much in his possession, he changes his title from Imperator to God Emperor and starts razing a few towns. After finding out about said affair, and losing the kingdom to the God Emperor, Alice's hatred for him is so great that it spans ages, maybe hinting at who "The Ladies of Bloody Alice" really are. ....What? Don't look at me that way!

Nero is an alternate universe fusion of Hellboy and Ichigo from Bleach
He may be some sort of mixed-clone, combining aspects of the two, or the product of some inter-dimensional Mister Seahorse sex or any other claim you care to suggest. In addition to having the same voice actor as Ichigo, he combines aspects of the two, most notably in his weapons of choice and powerset (he has Hellboys strength, durability, hugeass revolver and Power Fist, combined with Ichigos BFS and superpowered evil-side- note that when using there more powerful forms, both Nero and Ichigo switch from a BFS to a katana), and elements of their personalities (notably, Nero's disrespect for the chain of command and protocol of the Order of the Sword resembles that of Ichigo for the Soul Society, or Hellboy for the BPRD).
 * While we're on the subject, Kyrie is Orihime. No seriously, she has red hair, wears almost the same clothes as Orihime in the Hueco Mundo arc, and even share the same voice actress!
 * Also, Dante is Grimmjow, Las Noches is the Order of the Sword's castle, and Sanctus is Aizen.

Gloria is/was an actual character. Not just Trish's disguise, but an actual member of the Order.
Trish's goal wasn't originally to join the Order under that identity, it was to take borrowing the Sparda sword to its logical conclusion (read: it was to kill the members and finish the mission then). On her way to Fortuna, she encountered the real Gloria and was promptly beaten due to her lack of expertise in hand-to-hand combat versus Gloria's agility-based fighting style. Gloria then took the Sparda sword intending to return it to the Order when Trish made a comeback and struck her down. Trish donned Gloria's form and finished her job for her in a sense, knowing that she might not be able to take down the entire Order with just the sword in the event there are members more powerful than Gloria running around and leaving that task to Dante.

Gloria's really been out of commission throughout the entirety of the fourth game, possibly dead rather than unconscious. Between the fourth game and the second, Arius might have found her and used her as the base for his Lucia/secretary clones.

The events of Devil May Cry 3 are horribly exaggerated, and at worst, are made up entirely, by none other than Lady.
Doesn't anyone find it weird that while she is the one narrating this story-- Prologue all the way through to the Epilogue, presumably-- we are playing as Dante? Lady is not omniscient, and she was trekking through the tower on a near-entirely different path, only meeting with Dante for (at most) twenty minutes in a story that technically spans two or three days starting from sundown when the tower is raised, followed by nightfall all the way through mission 13, the next day at around mission 15, nighttime again by mission 17, and day again by the end of the game.

The only solution here, is that the entirety of Dante's story, what we're playing through, is something she made up to justify where exactly he was while she was grapple-hooking and biking her way everywhere in the most non-linear fashion available. It also explains the weird gaps in her location. There was no real way she could have gotten to the bottom of the tower at Mission 9 from her spot in Mission 7 which was with her Kalina Ann lodged into the side of the tower after somehow surviving a fall that should have killed her from the sudden stop (see: Gwen Stacy). She was too far down to climb up to where Dante was standing, and obviously too high up to finish her fall down. It is very likely she was sidetracked the old fashioned way and, while narrating the story to some hapless listener, made that part up.

Let's look at the rest of this story, shall we? Clowns? Hollywood-esque movie-magic action scenes? Her having survived all of these weird occurrences in the choppiest, weirdest, and as stated before, non-linear fashion possible? Clearly, we're dealing with a girl so upset over the loss of her mother that she's retelling an event six shades of silly as a form of escapism or to make herself feel better. At best, the tower isn't even as big, spacious, or weird as it seems in the game.

Alternately, Dante could have just told her his side of the story, which explains why she can narrate it to you, but then he falls into Unreliable Narrator status too. Really, kicking ass with a motorcycle? Demon swords that can talk? Being able to stop or slow down time, but somehow not having that ability ten years later (read: in DMC 1)? Clearly, we're dealing with a guy so upset over the loss of his mother (and brother) that he has to make himself look the regular Hollywood Badass Longcoat to make himself feel better.
 * Or instead of being traumatized and trying to make up unbelievable stories to feel better, they're just regular boasting show-offs. Dante'd definatly be the type to make up the most incredible story for laughs, at least. If Lady did, I could imagine it be to reel in customers for better business if not just for showing off.

Nevan is actually a singer/dancer/performer.
It explains why you fight her in an opera house, why her moveset involves spinning around, and why exactly she turned into an electric guitar. The fact that her conversation with Dante sounds similar to what one would hear at a brothel just happens to completely overshadow any other talent she could possibly have, leading people to the wrong assumption that she just naturally propositions people for sex.

To be more exact, Nevan is a Dearg-Due / Dearg-Dul.
A Dearg-Dul is like a succubus, but not. Instead, it's an Irish female vampire said to seduce men and lead them into underwater chambers where she drains their life force (their blood as opposed to sexual energy), sometimes in exchange for creativity. That is to say, her victims are inspired to write songs and works of literature that no one will read anyway since they're imprisoned and killed soon after. This explains why Nevan is in an opera house to begin with, why the opera house is located behind a waterfall, her red hair, her Irish name, why she turns into a guitar, and why she still attempts to suck Dante's neck, rather than his-- ... you know.
 * This...makes PERFECT sense!
 * As an added note, vampires of her kind are said to surface on either the anniversary of their death, or on the full moon. What do we see in Mission 8? The full moon needed for her to appear in the Opera House. Also, they tend to be attracted to poets and musicians. Dante is named after a poet. What does he do as soon as he attains Nevan as a guitar? Rock the fuck out. Out of nowhere, almost as if he were compelled to do it. She can work her magic very well.

Lady is a Slayer
Or a potential who has unlocked most of her power through her unique background. I'm not sure whether the DMC timeline has ever been matched to actual dates, so this would depend on whether DMC 3 is before or after the activating of the Potentials in Buffy.

The Anime is from the little girl's point of veiw
Thus why Dante feels so diffrent. She sees him that way because she doesn't completly understand the situation. When she is not there the point of veiw is based on what she heard or how she would have seen it. We don't see the last fight because her mind refuses to comprehend what she saw. Or she is telling someone the story and making it that way to entertain the people or person she is speaking to or to see the look on their face(s), think about it tellinf them all this Badass stuff then saying anyway then he...naaaa you don't need to hear the rest. I could even be her telling her mother what happened.
 * Then how do you explain Dante's narration at the start of each mission?

Vergil was never really evil
This is a theory that came up with a lot of thinking involved the recent revelation of Nero being Vergil's son (Confirmed here). Stick with me for a while to see how much this makes sense.

Let's come in realization with something first: We never knew why Vergil turned "evil" in the first place. Demons attacked Sparda's family years ago (20 years before DMC 1, 10 years before DMC 3) and Dante was left alone. Eva died, and Dante thought Vergil had died as well, but he hadn't. Vergil somehow managed to survive and then... what? Well, nothing is certain, but if the event caused Dante to become a Demon Hunter, there's no reason to believe things must have been too diferent for Vergil.

One way or another, one thing for certain is that, as suggested (made obvious) by the Novel, Vergil visited Fortuna once, and it is possibly that he even worked with The Order of the Sword for a while. There, he met a woman he fell in love with, and had a son with her. That son is Nero, of course. But then something happened, and Mundus' legion once again comes after Vergil, causing the death of his wife.

With this, Vergil decides that he has had enough and, after leaving his baby son safe with the Order of the Sword, he decides to go on a Well-Intentioned Extremist quest to defeat Mundus. Of course, he knows he's not powerful enough, so he needs to obtain his father's power, which were sealed in the sword he left in the Demon World (Come to think of it, he could have learned that in Fortuna, and that's why he went there in the first place, knowing the people there knew plenty about Sparda).

So, the plan isn't so simple, and to reach the Demon World, Vergil finds himself forced to cooperate with Arkham. Knowing he needs Arkham, and since he already cared for nothing but to defeat Mundus and guarantee his son's safety, he went along his plan's needs, no matter how many innocent lives he had to sacrifice in the way, and since Arkham was present most of the time, he always had to pretend to be as evil as possible in front of Dante, even declaring he would kill all of humanity to buy Arkham's trust. After all, to fool your enemies, you must fool your friends first.

In the end, Vergil killed Arkham when he was no longer needed, which was to be expected since every interaction between them showed that Vergil never liked Arkham. At that point, however, the relationship between Dante and Vergil is way too messed up like for bringing explanations, and possibly fueled by the fact that both twins never liked one another too much. Not to mention that Vergil has no needs for justifications, he doesn't care if what he's doing is right or wrong, he wants to protect his future, his son and take revenge from Mundus, no matter what. But Dante made it a point to stop him because of the colateral damage he was causing, so he had already become Vergil's enemy, and Vergil would stop at nothing.

This is pretty much suggested as well by two quotes of Vergil: ""And without strengh, you can not protect anything." "I-Need-More-POWER!""

He never claimed to desire for more power. He said he needed more power. He clearly has a very strong motivation behind his actions, and what better than a son, someone to love, for that motivation?


 * Nero being his son still screws up the timeline though. If Dante and Vergil are in their early thirties as of DMC 4, (or Vergil would be if he weren't probably dead, anyway,) and Nero's in his late teens (because "around 20" like stated above really wouldn't work,) then we're talking Vergil having been thirteen, give or take a couple years.


 * It doesn't. Dante could be on early thirties as he could be already 35 by then, and who the hell says Nero is around 20? If Dante was 19 during DMC 3, Nero can easily be between 17 and 19 during DMC 4, 20 would be top.
 * All in all, we can easily assume Vergil became a father, or impregnated a woman, when he was around 15 or 16. Which, while it isn't the appropiate age to become a parent, it's not like it doesn't happen in real life as well.


 * Kobayashi stated in an interview that DMC 4 happens 10 years after DMC 3, so if Dante and Vergil were 19 in DMC 3 then they'd be 29 in DMC 4. The novel makes Nero's age 16-17 so if we do the math, then yeah, he had Nero around 13 years old. While it does happen in real life, that doesn't excuse it from being utterly ridiculous, given Vergil's opinion on humans which is no secret if his profile in the back of the manga proves anything. Then there's his dialogue with Alice in which he insults her for wanting to grow up too fast (Unless he's speaking from experience and insulting himself as well, lol).


 * It's DMC 4 being 10 years after DMC 3 which just doesn't fit. DMC 1 was 10 years after DMC 3, and after DMC 1 comes the Anime, and then comes DMC 4, which even has a background history of a month old or more. All in all, there has to have been at least a year between DMC 1 and DMC 4, and it could easily be more, since Dante does look a bit older. But that of DMC 4 being just 10 years after DMC 3 gets right out jossed by the presence of DMC 1 and the Anime.
 * And if the standpoint of this theory didn't give you the clue already, Vergil could have been somewhat different in the past before becoming the cold blooded warrior he is in DMC 3. As for him speakingg from experience when talking to Alice, hell, I could easily see that being truth.

The entire series is just a wish fulfillment/coping hallucination or daydream of Dante.

 * Unable to rationalize his mother's murder any other way, he imagines the killers as demons.
 * Perhaps he feels his father is partially responsible or resents him for being gone and thinks of him as some sort of demon, too.
 * Vergil committed suicide at some point. Dante's survivor guilt and other feelings about this support this, as well as his 'death' in 3.
 * Nelo Angelo is a manifestation of his guilt (hey maybe this is all the Silent Hill experience for a wildly creative person) that causes more problems with him but also insists on being dealt with (defeated).
 * The series seems to get more lighthearted with each installation, which could be him sinking further into delusion. They're in anachronic order, though so maybe Dante is 'remembering' these events out of order or after 4 starts coming back to reality, which is why he's so grim in 2.

Normal humans already have phenomenal abilities in the Devil May Cry universe.
Namely, firepower and technological advancements. If Devil May Cry 3 and 1 are any indication, demons locked up in the Underworld for two millenia aren't familiar with modern weaponry and are therefore susceptible to it. In relation to the theory up above, Dante conceding that humans don't have the raw physical power of a demon but instead have something of their own, is merely the series alluding to a potential war between the humans and demons when it gets to it. The only reasons we aren't playing this game as humans fighting non-humans are As an added yet slightly unrelated note, this is likely the reason why Sanctus didn't attempt to "convert" the people living outside of Fortuna; his Savior would just get nuked, along with the artificial/released demons from the Hell Gates. That would have made for an odd game.
 * Because it's being done already.
 * Contrary to the narration, the human world has many defenses and Dante is just the first line of it against the demons. He's the humans' way of "beating them at their own game", so to speak. If he fails, then the resulting outcome is obvious, yet drastically less stylish depending on the viewpoint.
 * Beryl, in the second novel, is a pretty effective human demon hunter. They aren't entirely dependant on halfbloods like Dante, Lucia, and whatever Lady is.

The (boss) demons Dante defeats try to possess him after the fight.
They want to take control of him, because someone who was able to defeat them in a fight has GOT to be really powerful. The reason they don't end up succeeding is because, well, Dante is stronger than them, meaning he can contain and control them, instead of the other way around, and manifest them into weapons (or abilities). Even Agni & Rudra and Nevan were attempting this; they only pretended they were going to help him to get a chance at possessing him or taking control of his body. This is also why Nero didn't get any new weapons when he defeated bosses - he's weaker than Dante, so he wouldn't have been able to contain the demon's soul and would have just been possessed.

Dante IS Sparda.
He isn't Sparda's son, he IS Sparda reborn. Sparda's two sons were Vergil and Nero. Alternatively, Dante is a normal human that was possessed by Sparda's soul. The Devil Trigger form is Sparda's soul emerging fully (extremely fully in the case of the Desperation Devil Trigger from Devil May Cry 2). Dante was adopted and raised by the woman he calls his mother and was told by her that Sparda was his father (since of course he wouldn't remember his past life). Nero, however, was taken in by the Order and raised by them back when Dante was still too young to remember, which is why they don't recognise each other when they meet as adults. Nero always had that arm - he was born with it, as a result of being half-demon.
 * So Nero has a demon arm from being half-demon, but Vergil doesn't? O.o
 * Who knows how demon DNA works?
 * You have a point there. =o

Alternatively, Nero is Sparda.
Before anything else, the affinity with Yamato. That's automatically written off as a connection to Vergil, but Yamato belonged to Sparda before he handed it down to Vergil. It makes sense that Yamato would recognise its original master as well as Vergil, especially if you take it that Vergil is dead. Nero's arm is the way it is because he's a full demon, and whatever is keeping him in human form (possibly some kind of demonic subconscious survival instinct that kicked in so he wouldn't be killed in the human world? It's open to debate) is beginning to break down as he gets older and gains more power. His rebellious nature also works well with this too; Sparda was nothing if not rebellious, after all. Also, don't hold me to this, but I'm fairly sure I remember a line from the game remarking on that.
 * While not related to his rebellious nature, Berial remarks that when he came to the human world 2,000 years ago, there was "no such human as the likes of [Nero]", which means he was apparently sealed away by Sparda along with Mundus and all of them. It's possible he senses something of Sparda in him, reacting violently when Nero makes a remark of "wanna make it another 2,000?", possibly actually fearing re-sealing by who he perceives as Sparda.
 * The fact that Nero and Sparda both fell in love with human women could support this, especially as it was an explicit comparison in the games. When Nero is explaining this to Sanctus, he seems to identify very much with Sparda despite having only known him from legend. The Order's stories seem to roll off him too. Maybe he inherently knows what's true and what's not?

Even more alternatively, Sparda IS both Dante and Vergil, sort of
Sparda never disappeared per se, but rather both Dante and Vergil are the two halves of Sparda that represents his need to bring balance to both Hell and the Human world. That's why they each represent his soul (Dante) and spirit (Vergil), and while they were meant to work together, Eva's traumatic death caused a schism in his psyche which led to both halves opposing and rejecting each other. That was when the Sparda persona shattered and the real Sparda came to live in a deluded dream world where he is represented by his two stereotyped "sons." Eva was not actually the mother of the twins, but was still Sparda's lover and caretaker during the later years of his life. She was hiding Sparda from the demons because he relinquished some of his power and was vulnerable. She was killed because of that and Sparda feels guilty. This whole split personality thing would fit with some elements of the game, such as:
 * The strange and inexplicable absence of Sparda. It makes sense, because each persona would obviously not be able to perceive the originating psyche from which they were generated.
 * How the twins, Dante especially, are always having to clean up Sparda's past messes, and they never have adventures unconnected to Sparda (anime not included). Also, how so many demons recognize Dante as being similar to Sparda. Phantom and Griffon literally saw him as Sparda.
 * Why the twins are always fighting each other. Each represents one aspect of Sparda, either the human side or demon side, but they complement each other as well. They fight for one side to establish superiority over the other, even though neither side can destroy the other. I would venture to say that, neither twin can die if the other is still alive, since they are parts of the same whole.
 * They both use Sparda's own keepsake swords
 * The amulet comes in two varieties but is meant to combine into one, symbolizing the complete Sparda persona
 * This might fit with the broken family theme of the series. The twins obviously come from a broken family, so does Lady. Lucia and Trish were created by evil beings and have no family per se. Nero is an orphan raised among a false family on Fortuna. (I'm grasping at straws with this one)
 * Both personas seek to become like Sparda, either in power or in benevolent intent, and they each see the other as embodying Sparda. This is pretty obvious, in that Vergil is pursuing the FE/Sparda sword and wants to become more like Sparda because he feels incomplete or impotent. Arkham even comments in the manga that Vergil is "half a man." Likewise, when Dante used the Sparda sword, he literally turned into Sparda. Also, in the manga, it says that Vergil reminds Dante of Sparda because of his coldness, and Dante resembles Sparda in his rebelliousness (I might be misremembering that last part)
 * Not part of the game, but it would also fit within any "DMC is just the dream/hallucination of Dante/Vergil" WMG as well. Although, it would then be the split persona becoming split further.

Yeah I think that's it. I find it pretty compelling as a little twist and I'm sure there is more evidence to support it.

Trish is Dante's mother, possessed by the soul of a lightning demon.
It would explain the resemblance. And just because someone's dead doesn't mean they can't be possessed. Perhaps Mundus put the soul in there himself. It would also explain her human form, which most (full) demons don't have - or if they do, it's just a disguise, whereas (as implied in the anime) Trish's human appearance actually IS her true form.

Adding to the theory above, Trish's resurrection in the first game is a result of Eva possessing her body back.
In a subversion of Demonic Possession, Trish was Killed Off for Real the first time but her body was conveniently left intact for Eva to transfer her soul into. With all of the body's previous powers in addition to her newfound powers of LIIIIIIGHT (sorry, couldn't resist), "Trish" teleported conveniently to where Dante was facing off against Mundus, in order to aid her son. In the current games, she continues to keep up her appearance without explaining any of it to Dante, perhaps out of fear that he would devote himself more to protecting her rather than seeing her as a partner and putting his attention on world-saving. Or maybe he just wouldn't understand.
 * According to Mundus in Viewtiful Joe, Eva is possessing the amulet, and was responsible for not just Trish coming to back to life but Dante, as a child, which would explain why Vergil didn't try to find him - he may have seen the body.

The ladies of DMC are avatars of Eva.
If Dante is making part of the series up as a result of going crazy, then the women he encounters are all different aspects of his mother. His mind has remained fixated on her death, and seems to be in a 'loop' in which he remembers her differently each time. The anachronistic order of the games makes sense in his head, as he starts from the basics of who his mother was.

DMC 1 has Trish, in which he remembers Eva physically. This avatar of her is clearly incomplete; he remarks on how Trish has no 'soul' and that while she may look like Eva, she'll never have her 'fire'. Near the end of the cycle, Trish undergoes a change-- she sacrifices her life for Dante in a mirror of how Eva did it originally. Dante seems to be on the right track with this one, which leads into DMC 2.

Lucia is the representation of Eva's willingness to sacrifice herself for the good of those she cares for. However, this is blown out of proportion. She's hell-bent on sacrificing herself 'heroically' to the point where demands that someone kill her in order to save everyone-- she even orders Dante to do it at one point. Eventually she grows a backbone and realizes that sacrifice isn't necessary all of the time. Which leads into DMC 3.

Lady is Eva's 'fire'. It's... almost too obvious. Her no-nonsense attitude towards Dante possibly stems from how Eva treated her children while raising them. Despite Dante and Vergil being the sons of Sparda, she more or less treated them like normal humans when appropriate and wasn't very lenient if they did stupid things or blatantly disobeyed her. Needless to say, it's taken over the top. In this 'loop', Dante is shot in the face and attacked by Lady any time she's not getting her way, and she is stubborn to a fault. But since Dante seems to get a kick out of being the catalyst for his mother's avatars changing for the better, she becomes less of a bitch. Yet he misses Eva's motherly side, which is what brings us to DMC 4.

By this point, he very well realizes that he's far too old to angst about his mother, so he creates both Kyrie and Nero. Nero being his younger, more emotional self and an expression of his desire to be more human (or regress to being a child, whichever comes first). Kyrie is Eva's motherly and nurturing self, with all of the (intentional) sex appeal excised. One can assume that Dante likes this part of Eva the best, as Kyrie doesn't undergo much change in her character and supports Nero for better or for worse, loving him unconditionally.

As for the appeal, Dante found himself unable to get rid of it, so it all formed into another character: Gloria, a woman very very far removed from anything Eva (or her avatars) represent(s). Even her allies are suspicious of her. Somewhere in the delusion of DMC 4, Dante realized he had to put Gloria away somewhere and so fused her with Trish in order to give a reason she won't ever appear again, as this 'adventure' isn't about her. It's about Kyrie and Nero.

Lest we not forget the DMC anime, Patty is just the part of Eva that has to clean up after Dante all the damn time and gets a kick out of scolding him. Really. He went off the deep end by this point, but one day he'll be able to successfully put together all of the female characters into one form.
 * I'm the one who posted the Dante is making it up/delusional thing and I really like this. Only thing is the order of the game's releases/numbers aren't chronological and this theory kinda is. I guess if he's sufficiently crazy though it doesn't matter that much.
 * Which theory, yours or mine? I was trying to imply that Dante was so crazy that the chronological order wouldn't matter because the proper order is by the games releases/numbers, as he's making it that way. His constant shift in age / personality just highlights the crazy. ...that's pretty much what you just said.

Phantom is female, leading to Unfortunate Implications. That, and Dante has an irrational hatred of spiders
Running on this one guess, any of Dante's actions in DMC 1 concerning the Phantom (whether as part of the story or optional through player intervention) can be seen in an entirely different light. Let's start with the beginning. Dante walks into the chamber with the Pride of Lion, and Phantom crashes in. We get a small exchange between the two. To paraphrase:

"Phantom: I sensed something a little bigger. What a disappointing catch. Dante: What a big surprise. I hope for your sake, you have something inside that big body of yours."

Phantom was only looking for food for its recently born offspring, and Dante goes ahead and calls her fat. No wonder Phantom got pissed enough to attack him. That's just in bad taste.

One boss fight later, Phantom is defeated and Dante obtains the Pride of Lion. Rather than go about his way to complete other tasks, he goes back into the room previous and slaughters Phantom's children. He leaves, and Phantom (justifiably mad by this point) chases him down the hall. He escapes, comes back, goes into another room and shoots/stomps more of her children then uses their blood to buy himself nice things.

One more hallway chase later, and Phantom attempts to end Dante for the last time. He, being the Jerkass that he is, tricks her into impaling herself on a statue and finally kills her. If that wasn't bad enough, the father Phantom shows up in the second game to get revenge, and Dante kills him too! All they were trying to do was feed their children, man, what a jerk.

In the gap between Devil May Cry 2 and Devil May Cry 4, there was a cataclysmic event that caused a major shift in Dante's personality.
This came to me in bits and pieces after playing both Devil May Cry 2 and Viewtiful Joe. For Dante's noncanon, guest appearance in the latter, Trish asks if Enzo "stole [Dante's] clothes again." This seemingly implies that Dante's major change of character in the game was due to Enzo impersonating him (and as such could be a Lampshade Hanging on why Viewtiful Joe brought back Dante's DMC 1 voice actor (despite the fact that the PlayStation 2 version of Viewtiful Joe came out a year after 2). Obviously, this half-baked explanation could only be taken with a grain of salt.

Then comes Dante's stark change in characterization in 2; He is decidedly less of a wisecracking smartass, more somber and serious, and puts faith into the flipping of a coin (which is later revealed to be a trick coin with Heads on both sides).

However, look closely at Dante's lucky coin in 2. What's engraved into both sides of the coin? A silhouette of Trish in her pose from the Devil May Cry logo and Viewtiful Joe artwork. Trish's appearance in 2 is also denoted as non-canon. Put two and two together, and Dante's reliance on said coin may not be so farfetched.

Dante has already been to Hell and back (no pun intended); his mother was killed (by demons that were believed to have been sent by Mundus) when Dante was only a young child, causing Dante and Vergil to become erstwhile twins (Dante becoming a Hunter of His Own Kind so that he could hit the Jackpot and bring justice to whoever killed his mom, Vergil trying to gain power so that he would never have to suffer like that again). While Vergil apparently idolized Sparda to some degree, Dante's Oedipus Complex had grown to such immense levels that he flat-out denied the existence of his dad during his first fight with Vergil in Devil May Cry 3. It doesn't help that Dante was drawn to Trish almost solely because of her resemblance to Eva (and the endgame cutscenes came this close to making me believe that he and Trish were going to become the Official Couple). While Lady seems to be a bit less drawn to Dante, the subtext is still there (the first three games each set up the leading lady as a possible love interest for Dante; plus, the breathing space between Dante and Lady after their fight was a bit too close for comfort). At the very least, the relationship between Dante and his ladyfriends is a very strong platonic bond. Dante had already believed Vergil to be dead after 3 and cried for him although he had previously lived by the mantra of "Devils never cry." Then, when Nelo Angelo died, Dante realized that his brother, the only remaining family he had in the world (excluding Trish, a clone of his mom, and Nero, his nephew who he didn't even know existed until Devil May Cry 4 and is still completely unaware of their full relationship), had been Killed Off for Real. The trauma of losing a sibling must have been hard to take, but Dante probably surmounted this due to the close ties he had with Trish and Lady.

Keep in mind that Dante is eerily Vergil-like in 2, if not moreso. This is also the only game to feature Dante's Devil Trigger Majin Form (or as the fans call it, the Desperate Devil Trigger), a form where Dante becomes the closest to his demonic heritage, even surpassing when he took on his Dad's form to face Mundus at the end of 1. There's no official word to how long after the fourth game Devil May Cry 2 takes place, but something big had to have happened that would turn the lovable and cocky half-demon into a grim loner. For all we know, Trish and Lady (and even Enzo, Dante's confident from the Devil May Cry backstory) could have died in yet another Sparda/Demon World-related incident (read "bloodbath"). As a result of this, Dante became cold and demonlike, which was caused Vergil to careen into villainy in the first place. Look at how surreal the urban sections of 2 (namely the Uroboros Tower) look in comparison to the rest of the series. 2 shows signs of vast technological advancement, so for all we know, Dante could have detached himself from society for years, maybe even decades. Eventually this would culminate with little of his original personality remaining. As for the coin bearing Trish's likeness? That could be attributted to one of several possibilities. For one, Lady hadn't been conceptualized in the series yet, so her lack of presence on the coin could be fixed with a Retcon. Either that or the coin actually belonged to Trish (making it something of a MacGuffin) and she passed it on to Dante before her fated demise. Or maybe Dante made the coin in honor/mourning of Trish. You should get my drift. Dante probably carries around the coin and complies to every request (within reason I suppose) as a blatant reminder of how he was yet again powerless to protect his loved ones. It would be atonement taken to a radical extreme.

By the end of 2, however, Dante seems to have warmed up a bit to Lucia (see how he comforts her when she believes that she's expendable), and (to a larger degree) vice versa (see how intently she waits for him at Devil May Cry). So it's probably a continuation of Unresolved Sexual Tension between Dante and the main females of the series (obviously not counting Kyrie). Thus, what could be a possible Downer Ending could show signs of how every cloud has a silver lining. ""The Perfect Devil form of Dante, with an image of him losing control & dangerous is still impractical to appear even in DMC 4." "The concept is, after the normal devil trigger, we'll give him another much more powerful devil form/abilities, a power that can be said far surpass Sparda, his legendary father, which means making him all powerful & almost unbeatable; for the side effect, he might be losing control over his human self & going berserk." "The idea & design for this form, is like, combining his normal devil trigger form, but with wide spread wings & also bigger in size, with his Rebellion sword, thus where that tail of his came from. And yes, his tail will also be his lethal weapon." "We even had created the counterpart for the Perfect Devil Dante, a complete devil trigger form of Nero (not the half-appear aura as in DMC 4) so that Nero's power/ability can match the perfect devil form of Dante. Either way, neither of those forms are yet to be found in the series.""
 * If you don't mind my adding, it's possible the cataclysmic event you're referring to could very well be Dante's fault. In the Devil May Cry 4 art book, there's a concept drawing of Dante's Devil Trigger which wasn't featured in the game, with the following comments:


 * That note about the tail being Rebellion made this troper think about how at one point in the DmC trailer the whip-like weapon looks sort of like a skeletal tail. It's Probably Nothing, though.
 * With that information, one could assume that the event involves him going berserk and killing his allies which would lead into him being a recluse and avoiding the human world for decades (either in fear that he would lose control again, or training to better control his transformation). It could give him more of a connection to Lucia as well, since she would be fearing what he literally lived through, and his comforting her would be more heartfelt (rather than a hamfisted delivery of the line he used last game). Unfortunately for the rest of your Guess, some of the content in what you're saying is either subjective or proven wrong. Dante's denial of his father in 3 is less of his Oedipus complex going rampant, as it is a proof of his own self-loathing (as stated in the manga, he hates his father because of his demon side, and by denying his father he denies his demonic heritage which he blames for Eva's death). Vergil's wanting to attain power is no more character interpretation than it is one of his lines in Mission 8 (and then confirmed in a Devil May Cry artbook of which I cannot for the life of me remember the name of).
 * Haha, fair enough. Thanks for the input. But, there's a reason it's called Alternate Character Interpretation. I'm not saying that I necessarily buy how everyone sees Vergil as a Well-Intentioned Extremist because of one line from Mission 7, but it is one of the more common fan theories out there. As for the snippets of info that you provided from the Devil May Cry 3 manga, I don't own the manga myself (nor have I ever read it) and I was indeed going off of how I viewed Dante due to his dialogue (arguably, every main character can be seen in a different light), so you got me there. Hey, to each, his own.
 * Or perhaps Dante saw the trailer for the reboot.

== When Nero gives his small monologue after acquiring his Devil Trigger, the lines he's saying are echoes not only of Vergil's motivations, but also Vergil's failures, specifically the one to protect his mother ==

There's little evidence to support this unless you like to read between the lines (in which case there's, arguably, a ton), and this one doesn't affect the story of 4 much at all, but it adds a heart-rending touch to Nero's (and Vergil's) personal story. To be specific, the lines Nero says are;  "From that day forward, my arm changed. And a voice echoed. Power. Give me more power. And if I become a demon, so be it. I will endure the exile. Anything, to protect her. " 

Now coming from Nero, he's describing the demon attack that brought out his latent demonic blood (a quarter devil, his father being Vergil). But that echo is one of Vergil's lines. So, imagine if it isn't just the line about power that's the echo? What if all the rest, about becoming a demon and whatnot, is Vergil speaking as well?

Take the manga into account to really get the full effect of this. Eva made Dante hide when the demons attacked. But we don't know what happened to Vergil: presumably he tried to defend their mother, which would explain why Dante thought he was dead as well until they met again. Assuming Vergil had his Devil Trigger from before the events of DMC 3, isn't that the exact kind of situation it would awaken in? And doesn't that just put a tear-jerker spin on almost all of Vergil's lines? To have all that power and still have failed to protect their mother?

"Foolishness Dante. Foolishness. Might controls everything. And without power you cannot protect anything. Let alone yourself."

'' " You're wasting time!" ''

And then from Nero,

"And if I become a demon, so be it. I will endure the exile. Anything, to protect her."

Maybe, just a little bit, the last remnants of Vergil speaking through his son about a long-lamented failure? And then through the rest of 4 (and especially at the end), helping Nero succeed where he couldn't?

Just something to think about.
 * Mmm... I support this theory!

Dante is the son of Neo from The Matrix
Think about it: he uses guns that he never seems to have to reload, he's an incredibly good shot, he's a Badass Longcoat, he has mastered Gun Fu, he can do insane mid-air acrobatics, and he's completely insane.
 * It ALL MAKES SENSE NOW. Except for the fact that the reason he doesn't ever reload his guns because he uses his own demonic energy instead of bullets.

Devil May Cry and Bayonetta share the same universe
Which explains why there is a Devil but No God-- Jubileus is stuck in a statue (inactive and asleep) and the Cardinal Virtues are trying to get her out while Inferno attempts (unsuccessfully) to take over the human world. In addition, - Mundus is Queen Sheba's son (he's only a Prince of Darkness? Very suspicious). - the Fallen are Affinities cast down from Paradiso for deceiving humans. - The demon doors blocking paths throughout the games are lesser demons caught in Purgatorio and unable to interact with anything except... well... doors. - Rodin is the weapons dealer that Dante ends up handing all of his Devil Arms to after each game. - The Savior from DMC 4 was created with Jubileus as the reference.

The amulet is now Eva's devil arm.
According to Mundus in Viewtiful Joe, which was made by the creator of Devil May Cry, Eva's soul is present in the amulet and was responsible for ressurrecting not just Trish but Dante as a child. Yamato is also Vergil's devil arm when it was Sparda's sword first, meaning there's precedent for a pre-existing artifact (the amulet was used to seal the tower) becoming someone's devil arm. There's also the effect the amulet has on Force Edge (growing larger, red and throbbing...) Eva's soul clearly has magical power (since the amulet's origin wouldn't give it any ressurrection abilities), and so far in the series there's no magic that's been confirmed not to be demonic in origin. Eva being a human in life but becoming at least somewhat demonic to save her children and watch over them in death would fit with the themes of the series.
 * So, the Sparda sword's true power is awakened if the amulet (Eva) and the blade (Sparda's power) become one?... Good grief... Back on track, this theory may be moot, seeing as Hideki Kamiya is no longer with Capcom, so his Word of God (such as Bayonetta being able to wipe the floor with Dante, or Eva's backstory as a witch, or the above WMG) won't necessarily be the true Word of God for the series.

Lady isn't human.
She fights despite, and then outright ignores, a pretty serious injury. She has She may just be a  Devil May Cry 2 established that there are half-bloods running around that are descendants of allies of Sparda, and that there are indeed devils worshipped as gods with part-blood priestesses. Not to mention that this priestess was supposed to be powerful enough that Sparda couldn't have done it without her, and there's no precedent for magic that's human instead of demonic in the series. So either the priestess was just that special, or Lady's a partblood.
 * If we assume, but it's still enough to explain her extraordinary speed, reflexes, aiming skills and recovery. The assumption makes sense, since I can't really see . Plus I like the irony behind Lady forsaking and spitting on anything demonic, while might be the only reason she actually stood a chance against the dangers of Temen-ni-gru.
 * Material Archive: Note of Naught, the DMC 3 artbook proves that

Nero isn't Vergil's Son biologically, but figuratively due to the nature of Devil Arms
Devil Arms, the weapons Dante uses, are essentially the bottled up essence of a Devil. Alastor and Ifrit in the first game tried to kill Dante before becoming his tools, and all the weapons from Devil May Cry 3 are defeated bosses. In the same way, Yamato is Vergil's personal Devil Arm and thusly contained Vergil's spirit. When Agnus broke Yamato during experimentation, it released part of Vergil's spirit which found solace in Nero's freshly-wounded-protecting-Kyrie arm. This explains why Nero's Devil Bringer became stronger when Nero acquired Yamato, it was two pieces of Vergil's soul reuniting. Of course, now that Verigl had committed himself to Nero, he had no choice but to continue to aid him.

This is how Nero is the successor or "son" or Vergil and why Nero's dialogue is mostly quotations of Vergil. As for why Nero? Beyond the "any port in a storm" situation, Vergil's motives are nicely mirrored in Nero's. After all, Vergil's driving force is his inferiority complex at failing to protect his mother while Nero's driving force is his attempts to protect his love.
 * If Vergil's personality influenced Nero's, that would've been sweet.

The 'Dante' (referred to in the theory below as 'Not-Dante') shown in the DMC 5 trailer isn't a rebooted form of Dante at all.
Bear with me, because this is VERY convoluted.

Let's say that somewhere in the future, Dante became an epic hero of epic proportions. Like, Sparda times a million. BUT HE DIED, AS PEOPLE ARE PRONE TO DOING. However, some uber-technological cult that runs that shitty city dedicated to the worship of Dante the Savior (think the Order of the Sword but not pretending to be the Vatican) decided that they weren't gonna have a world without their precious savior and his amazing antics.

SO, they took some common criminal off the street and mentally/physically/sexually conditioned him to truly believe deep down that he is the legendary Dante. One of their main influences was how Dante was in DMC 2. The main internal conflict will be Not-Dante trying to live the way the cult wants him to, but the world will be all like NOT-DANTE, START BEIN' YOURSELF RIGHT THIS INSTANT. Eventually, Not-Dante will come to terms with who he really is and revolt against the cult, becoming his own man and giving up smoking.

Of course, Capcom/Ninja Theory's gonna be all like LOL NO, but I can at least dream.
 * For an alternate theory in that vein, reDante still isn't even technically oDante, he's some kid with some demonic powers that's heard the legend of the original Dante. Realizing that the demon-infested world that he lives in needs a hero, he starts doing his best to live up to the stories of the original Dante.

The black-haired Dante from the DMC trailer is a clone of Dante. Ninja Theory is faking us out on the reboot.
Given the levels of science in the DMC universe seen in DMC 4, I don't think cloning would be impossible, and it's not like Dante hasn't been leaving his blood/DNA lying around everywhere all these years.

Similar to the WMG above, some organization would create the clone and condition him to believe he was Dante, and then send him out for whatever purpose they have planned, sinister or otherwise. During the game you'll wind up encountering and or fighting some of the other characters, like Trish, Nero, and Lady. After meeting and fighting Dante and realizing what's going on, the final battle will be against that organization.

This explains his hair (the cloning was imperfect) and the fact that he doesn't use Rebellion (the E&I in the trailer are replicas).
 * Expanding on this theory (which I love, and is now my canon unless the game is mind-bendingly awesome), it's the government. Come on. Dante's not exactly sublte about what he does. I know the American government is often portrayed as completely useless, but there's not way they're NOT aware of what's going on (I'm reminded of a wonderful post-DMC 1 fic I read once involving the huge clean-up crew, but I can't bring the title to mind). They pretty much leave Dante to it because he's the only one who can do what he does, but when he finally kicks the bucket the response is "well, shit" and the cloning goes ahead. OR, alternatively, they were already working on some kind of project before that as a failsafe for if Dante died or went over to the dark side; experimentation in combining human and demon DNA. The results are... unstable, to say the least, hence Not-Dante's apparent mental issues.

Dante throwing the car at the enemies in the DMC 5 trailer wasn't Cutscene Power to the Max, DMC 5 will let you use the environment in combat.
Because after all, it is the next logical step.

Classic Dante will be unlockable in DMC 5
Because the series has a history of doing that. Whether oDante will play like he did in his own games or just be a skin for reDante depends on how much the game mechanics differ.

Similar to the '09 Star Trek Movie, the original DMC games will be referred to/involved in the new game.
Because... Why not?
 * So... That's the definition of win in my books.

== The reboot series is intended to become a spin-off series like the various Megamen. == Capcom has decided it needs to exploit Devil May Cry more. Personally, I hope this guess turns out to be true. The reboot actually looked pretty cool, if perhaps a bit too different to really fit in with the rest of the series.

The reboot is an elaborate ploy to make fans accept DMC 2.
Alternatively, they didn't want to keep dancing around the matter of either retconning it or placing a game after it, so they decided on the continuity equivalent of Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.

The New DMC is the psychological troubles of a normal youth
[Exactly What It Says on the Tin] this new Dante isn't "Dante" but some kid who has... issues. He truly is in need of psychological rehabilitation. The way the enemies in the trailer look like the surveillance camera he is addressing lends credence to this theory. Plus his convulsions in the middle of the trailer flash between him in the street and him in the cell. None of the Devil Hunting is real.

Nero is Virgil's Nobody.
He came into being after Virgil made the full transformation into Nelo Angelo. The Devil Bringer is the result of his incomplete memories of the transformation, granting him a fragment of Nelo Angelo's power without actually consuming him.

Capcom wants to make another DMC 2 before making a good game
This is silly, but maybe Capcom makes DMC in cycles. DMC 1 was good, DMC 2 wasn't because they asked someone else to do it, DMC 3 was good again and DMC 4 was only half bad despite repeating levels and Nero, so they handed DMC 5 to another developer to make a game as good as DMC 2 and then they'll make a good one. Probably DMC 4 prequel about Dante, how Nero got his arm(perhaps because yamato was broken by him and Vergil's spirit that remained in the sword, possesed him?).

Dante is an alternate universe combination of Blade and Deadpool.
Think about the similarities. From Blade, he gets the job of hunting evil supernatural creatures, fact that half of his biology is made up of the creature he hunts (Dante is half-demon because his father was a demon and Blade is half-vampire because his mother was bitten by a vampire immediately before giving birth to him.) and that he wears a Badass Longcoat also comes from Blade. From Deadpool, he gets his wise-cracks, his mercenary occupation, and his red costume. But he also inherits a few attributes that the both of them share: mastery of swords and guns, regenerative abilities, and the fact that he finishes off his foes in a really stylish and cool way. The reason that he is an alternate universe combination of these two is because of Capcom's crossover with Marvel around the year 2000 (Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes), affected the Capcom world. Although these two characters were not included in the game, Blade was gaining massive popularity due to his new fims and Deadpool's new ongoing series really made the character a hit. The popularity of these two somehow leaked into the Capcom world and influenced the creation of Dante which happened a year or two after, making many things about him similar to these characters. Years later, Dante finally made it into a Capcom vs. Whatever game where the company was reunited with Marvel, and his main rival is Deadpool. The reason for this is that where Blade slipped down the ranking and has become a B-list character recently, Deadpool has continued to gain support and has become the face of Marvel (sorta). Now, his connection to Deadpool is stronger than his to Blade.

Limbo City is just that - Limbo
This really is Dante... kind of. Basically, this game is set post-series, and Dante is, unfortunately, dead. Being a half-devil, and given the ridiculously long list of Bad Things he has racked up, he should go to Hell... HOWEVER, because he dedicated his life to fighting demons and defending mankind, he's also pulled towards Heaven. Thus, he gets dumped in Limbo. The appearance change is because this isn't his body any more, it's the manifestation of his soul, or something similar. Same goes for him looking like a teenager again; Dante is a kid at heart, so that's how he's represented. He has to work out his issues in Limbo and at the end we'll see whether he's finally pulled into Heaven or Hell. Along the way, Vergil will try to lead him into Hell, and someone else - Trish, maybe - will try to get him to Heaven.


 * Or Vergil will serve as Dante's guide through hell, showing him the horrible suffering he must work to avoid, making the 'Dante and Virgil' theme come full circle.
 * Idea! Karma meters, choices and alternate endings, like in In Famous

The new Dante will eventually resemble the classic Dante
At the beginning, he starts of looking like a (relatively) normal human being. His hair will gradually turn white as he taps into his demonic powers. It will also grow to a more classic hair length. Near the end of the game he'll trash his brown longcoat and don a red leather duster that either came from a mentor figure, the final boss, or both. The scariest part is that this will all have gone just as Ninja Theory and Capcom planned. They new that releasing a DMC trailer where Dante looks nothing like the classic Dante would provoke a negative reaction by the fans. That was their intention for the very beginning as it would create a positive reaction to Dante's development. For older fans it shows that the series reboot remains true to its roots. For players new to the series, it gives them a better context than having to know what went on in the other games. For series itself, it creates a fresh start for the reboot on the mythology of Dante and the basis for a consistent series.
 * This theory is pretty much what is officially confirmed by Capcom, what you said is scarily accurate to what they planned.

Dante has a Trophy room where he leaves the weapons he obtain in every game

 * Well, i don't think that he throw them away. Also, it can be cool that, in a future title, we saw a Cut-scene of a fight in dante's house. The enemy send flying dante and make him breaking a wall, the other side there is AN ENTIRE ARSENAL OF GUNS AND WEAPONS!
 * That would be the coolest thing ever, but I doubt that any villain would be savvy/stupid enough to actually attack Dante at his home.
 * It's happened before, hasn't it? (*cough*Start of DMC 3?*cough*). It would be great if there was an extra cutscene with someone looking through Dante's trash, and then finding Agni and Rudra, who just haven't learnt the meaning of the phrase "Silence is Golden", and a ton of other weapons he hasn't used in a while.
 * I meant as in attacking Dante in the present age, where his powers have only grown exponentially. That idea would be a good Continuity Nod, not to mention awesomely funny.

The writers realized that the four games prior to the reboot couldn't be satisfactorily explained
There are simply too many plot points that they couldn't write away and so they decided to reset the entire series.
 * Which makes no sense, considering that they could taken the obvious route of pulling a Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and finally showed us what exactly constituted the legend of Sparda and the story of his life and family besides the few facts that had been disclosed previously.

Trish's High Heel Face Turn is only possible with her death.
If you noticed her talking with Mundus, her eyes are shown red, meaning she is controlled by him into revealing her true nature when she didn't want to; otherwise, Dante would mouth off her, which he has done it. When Trish is captured, she is by her free will into Taking the Bullet. Therefore, when she comes back to life, Trish is free to do what she wants, including siding with Dante.

DmC takes place in a dream world
Dante is trapped in a dream world, which is why he looks so radically different.
 * Halutination caused by drugs, you wanted to say?
 * Dante in Wonderland? Some of the character were present in the manga...

The Devil Trigger power in DmC will explain Dante's drastically different appearance.
As seen in the gameplay trailer, activating his Devil Trigger ability changes his hair white and his coat into a brighter shade of red, making him look more like the Dante of old. The story exposition for this ability will be the (or at least a) connecting point that bridges this game with the rest of the series.

As children, Vergil and Dante were in a boy's choir
Based mainly on the musical score of DMC 3, which made heavy uses of choral music during scenes dealing with with their memories. It would give a context for their childhood besides competing for chocolate cake or whatever (as in the DMC1 flashback) and allude to a time when their relationship was literally harmonious.
 * Heavy metal and matching lyrics are just as prevalent if not moreso, particularly during the first two Vergil battles; yet, given what we know of the timeline, it seems unlikely that the twins had time to be in a band before everything went wrong.

DmC Devil may Cry is a bad fanfic
Apparently the main character is half demon and half angel. Dante's appearance is apparently [[media:dantej_6823.jpg|based on the art director's]]. This trailer seems to spout a rebellious 'the system is a lie' message. Sounds like the traits of a fanfic made just to make a character 'cooler' and bash everything in the story.


 * Which does not make any sense. Its most likely a reboot (or preboot) and Tameem looks nothing like Dante. The images shown at Gamescom show Dante looking more like DMC 3 Dante and not Tameem.

The Temen-ni-gru is the DMC3 version of the Tower of Babel.
According to the biblical story (possibly influenced by Etemenanki, "temple of the foundation of heaven and earth"), back when humans spoke one language and came to the land of Shinar (or just Mesopotamia if you want to be general about it), they resolved to build a city with a tower to connect Heaven and Earth, either as a monument to their God or just because, I forget which. God came down to see what they did and decided he couldn't let that happen, so he confused them all by separating them and their languages and making them unable to understand/interact with each other.

According to this story, humans wanted to build a tower connecting the Demon World (Arkham called it "Heaven" in the manga at one point) and Earth as a monument to Mundus/Evil. Sparda went over, decided he couldn't let that happen, and got to kicking some ass. He sealed the (Japanese) Seven Sins, stuck the (Greek) Cerberus in mission 3, the (Hindu) deities Agni and Rudra in mission 5, the (Irish) vampire Nevan in mission 8, the (Hebrew?) Leviathan. . . somewhere, the (Old English) Beowulf in Mission 11, the (also Greek) Geryon in mission 12, and so on and so forth. Point is, he split each boss demon into their own area so they wouldn't be able to interact with each other, scattered the humans, and stopped them from building the axis mundi by sealing the tower into the ground rather than just leaving the thing in ruins.

It's likely that in the DMC continuity, the story of the Tower of Babel was based on the actual event of Temen-ni-Gru being built and sealed, given how much alike they both look.

DMC2 Dante is actually post-DMC1 Vergil.
Actually stolen from a Japanese fanart site... probably. This Troper doesn't read Japanese, but that seems to be what they were implying; and in a WMG sense, it's not impossible.

As far as This Troper could figure, it would mean that the third battle between Dante and Nelo Angelo ended in the latter's victory and the former's death; yet, just as Dante's memories were triggered after the fight, so did Nelo Angelo recall his past as Vergil. Somehow defeating Mundus, even temporarily, Vergil assumed Dante's identity as a kind of penance, a trope not uncommon in fiction and particularly common in Japanese fiction. This is meta-appropriate, given the DMC series' as a Japan-originating gameline.

DMC2 Dante is a drastic departure from the Dante seen in other games as well as the novels and manga; he rarely quips, and what he does say tends to be sardonic rather than sarcastic. His relatively no-nonsense approach to the events of the game are in contrast to Dante's typically-irreverent attitude; his abrupt transformation into The Stoic is startling, and hints of a more ambivalent persona - rigging the coin-toss and setting Arius up - meshes more with what we've seen of Vergil pre-Angelo than Dante's usually straightforward attitude. And, while this is admittedly a Just for Fun link, DMC2 Dante had an unlockable costume with a scarf, which seems to be a running theme in Vergil's outfits: His standard outfit has a cravat, his Gilver persona has a scarf over his suit, and concept art for his design in 3 features a similar suit-and-scarf combo. Though DMC2 Dante uses firearms and broadswords rather than Vergil's katana and melee styles, this is easily explained by the fact that both twins seem familiar with each other's styles as seen during the Arkham fight in 3.

Of course, the reason why we never see anything more of Vergil-Dante (semi-officially use for Vante?) is that timeline being reversed/undone; somehow, perhaps with knowledge located on Dumary Island, he undoes the critical fight back on Mallet Island so that Nelo Angelo loses, Dante wins, and time flows in the manner we're familiar with. The 'why' is up in the air: Perhaps it was guilt at killing his brother added to the humiliation of having lost to and served their father's greatest nemesis, perhaps it was an acknowledgement of his prior misdeeds and admitting that Dante had/would make better use of his life than Vergil had. Alternately, maybe Hell - which Dante winds up trapped in at the end of 2 - is capable of tearing holes between times/dimensions as well as into the human world, and that enables Vergil to rewrite the past.


 * Not mine, but it's the plot of this fancomic.

Dante and Vergil were Color Coded for Your Convenience by their mother.
Eva had twins, after all, and even the best parents sometimes have trouble telling identical twins apart; or maybe it was for the benefit of any neighbors, who knows? But that's where their iconic Red Oni, Blue Oni look comes from: One day Eva decided that Vergil got the blue sweater and Dante got the red one, and they've stuck with those colors ever since. It could be that it was their respective favorite colors to begin with, or became their favorite after years of Eva buying/making them the appropriate colors; they might stick with it as adults out of habit, because they think it suits them, or even as a homage - subconscious or otherwise - to their dearly departed mother.
 * Sounds like a pretty good idea. They look so alike that it might have been the only way to keep them apart.
 * Related: The Badass Longcoat of both twins came from their father. More specifically, young Vergil - with his idolization of their father - wanted a coat like Sparda's; Eva, being a loving mother, gave Vergil his child-sized blue longcoat. Of course, being brothers and twins (which translates here into super-competitive; birthdays and Christmas were likely insane) meant Dante wanted one like Vergil's. So Eva came through, and Dante got a red version. Once again they kept it into adulthood, perhaps symbolic of their being Not So Different; either of them could have drastically changed their style if they wanted to differentiate themselves that much, but instead they wound up looking like mirror-images instead of diametric opposites.

There is going to be one more DMC.
The whole idea with a Prequel full of Character Development is nice and all, and a few of the theories posted here would make a damn good game, but thats not why people play DMC. Admit it, you're playing it because you want to see a snarky Badass in a red duster beat or shoot the crap out of demons. So they will make another DMC, Devil May Cry 5. This game will do everything it can to be even more awesome than the rest. The enemies wioll be bigger, the weapons cooler, the fights more spectacular and Dante will finally get the girl. Or both of them. Furthermore, Dante will finally find a use for that huge stash of deamon arms, like an attack on his office, perhaps, or as a way to equip a lot of fighters, or bringing all of them for the final confrontation with the Big Bad. It will also try to solve a lot of the questions around the series, like Nero's parentage and powers and what happened to Sparda.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.
 * That's not to say that any of the several theories about sequels and prequels and whatnot couldn't be done in the same stylish crazy action manner that DMC is known for. There's no reason the series should end with one more game after DmC when the plot threads left hanging throughout the series could easily constitute another 2-3 games. I have a feeling that trying to answer everything at once will only end up making the plot's pacing a bit too wonky and convoluted.
 * Pretty sure there was a fanfic with this theme, not that it's a bad thing. Imagine the pre-Arkham boss fight from 3, with Dante and Vergil's Slow Walk into a Charge Into Combat Cutscene, except with all the playable characters thus far, plus Lady. Yes, even Lucia.

After Ninja Theory are done with the series, Capcom will make a game where Nero goes to Hell to save Dante after the events of DMC 2
Let's face it, the plot point of Dante being in Hell has been left a little ambiguous, and whilst it does give the series an air of mystery, it also means you can't set any games after DMC2. DMC4 was just warm-up to introduce Nero to the players, and now that we know who he is and understand him, there will be another game with him as the main character, where he releases Dante from Hell, using Dante's old Devil Arms and such. He feels that he owes Dante a favour since Dante gave him Yamato, so he's going to repay it by saving Dante.
 * While ambiguous, the ending of 2 already implies that Dante went "all the way to Hell" on that motorcycle left in Demon World and eventually returned to Lucia at Devil May Cry, so I don't think Nero can save someone who doesn't need to be saved.
 * Then why hasn't there been a Devil May Cry game set after Devil May Cry 2?
 * At the time of DMC2's release, it was stated to take place after DMC1 and before DMC4, which at the time didn't exist. However, as part of the Retcon, Capcom is doing their damnedest to erase said game from continuity as much as possible... which is why they now claim it takes place after DMC4 despite their statement contradicting the canon at the time of DMC2's debut. While the original timeline would have gone 3 > 1 > 2 > 4, the revised timeline goes 3 > 1 > 4 > 2. Long story short, they have made a DMC game set after DMC2, which was 4.

Nero's arm isn't all that unusual
Allright, this came to me while just browsing some of the concept art of DMC4. It's been shown repeatedly that demons have the ability to take on a human form(especially in the anime). Well, perhaps for the sons of Sparda, it's inversed. The devil trigger form is their true demon form, however they obviously can't maintain it. So, they're more or less stuck in their human forms outside of combat.

Now think of the human form as a shell. An extremely durable and healing shell, but a shell nonetheless. It contains the demon form on the inside. Well what if the "shell" recieved an injury it couldn't recover from? Look at Nero's arm. It has a large opening on the back of the hand, and a jagged line gowing down to the elbow. It looks like a wound. Nero's arm is what happens when half demons recieve a scar.

This sort of explains his powers. Because the shell is broken, demonic energy is seeping out. That energy is very unstable, and can get cast about anywhere during combat, which is why Nero can do things like expand his arm. That would also explain Nero's unique devil trigger. I think that when Dante and Vergil go devil trigger, they're opening up their "shells" to unleash their demonic energies, thus exposing their demon forms. However, with Nero, his demonic form is already exposed through his arm. Demon energy is alread leaking out, so when he goes devil trigger, the energy already has an escape route. So, when Nero goes devil trigger, the energy just becomes more noticeable, attributing to the aura he gets during it.

This also ties in to my Vergil theory. Nero has Sparda's blood. There is no denying that at this point. My theory is that Vergil is sealed inside Yamato. However, he isn't fully conciouss. He sensed Nero's exposed energy and, detecting Sparda's line in there, was instictively drawn to it. Thats why Yamato was repaired when Nero grabbed it and why he is able to use it. It's Sparda's blood interacting with Vergil.

There will a Wolfpack Boss in DMC 5.
Possibly composed of Minibosses (Or Bosses) of previous Games.

In DMC 3 the haywire neo generator has another special ability.
It has the ability to suck the life force out of a defeated opponet. Explaining why every enemy drops green orbs everytime you kill them ONLY while you have the broken haywire generator.

DMC 1 - Dante was on to Trish from the start
Dante knew Trish was a demon sent by Mundus from the start. That's why he never seems interested in why she just runs off after they get to Mallet Island, or how she can shoot lightning out of her hands, or why she looks like his mother. He's also not very surprised when she finally attacks him. He knew how suspicious the whole set up was, but decided to go along with it because why not? (He even purposefully brings Force Edge instead of Rebellion!)

Luce and Ombra were Eva's guns
According to Bayonetta, Eva was an actual Umbra Witch, and according to everyone else, Sparda didn't use guns (Vergil, the Order of the Sword). So Luce and Ombra were actually Eva's guns. We only see them in the Legendary Dark Knight costume in DMC 1 anyway, and if that was really Sparda, then he could have gotten them from Eva when she died.
 * If so, then what about the other two? Umbra Witches use 4 guns, not 2... unless she wasn't like the others, since she must have signed with Sparda at some time within decades of Dante and Vergil's birth. Perhaps the Italian words for Dusk and Dawn?

Trish's High Heel Face Turn comes from the fact that she's a Punch Clock Villain.
This is what she's trying to Dante in mission 20 before he puts her at gunpoint; she's only doing this because Mundus told her. Now that her boss is dead, Trish is now sided with Dante.

Devil May Cry, Resident Evil and Onimusha all share a universe
Well, the T-virus and la Plaga and w/ever could all be artificial beings made with the genetic code of demons, and onimusha could be a prologue to what happens in both DMC and Resi Evil with the exception of onimusha 3, which involves temporal shenanigans. the Resi Evil games all take place while Dante is off fighting the 'true' demons, leaving the likes of chris redfield ect. to clean it all up. I reckon a future resident evil game will feature Dante as a supporting character, showing up just as wesker's about to win, kicking his arse in spectacular fashion, making a cheesy remark and hitting on the female team member before walking off into the NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!