How long were the Tsukinami brothers trapped in Bandmaden for?
This post is just me theorizing from a couple of clues we’re given in canon. As far as I’m aware we’re not given an exact length of time. Also my translations here are fairly loose, so please take them with a pinch of salt.
Rejet have always been extremely vague when it comes to dates and the boys, however they have given us a little bit of information that we can use to estimate how long the founders were sealed in Banmaden for.
With the information from the Tsukinami Dark Fate drama CD, we know that Menae (Cordelia’s mother) left Banmaden after the founders were trapped there by Karlheinz. This means the Tsukinamis must have been imprisoned for at least all of Cordelia’s lifetime plus the time after her death (around 17 years presuming her heart was immediately implanted into Yui), up until the start of Dark Fate.
Unfortunately we don’t know how old Cordelia was when she died, but we are given a couple more hints that point to when the Tsukinamis may have been sealed away.
Hint 1: Shin’s dialogue in track three of the Versus II Carla versus Shin CD.
The first time Shin sucks Yui/the listener’s blood, he mention that it’s been several hundred years (数百) since he drank blood.
“ こんな感覚、 本当にいつぶりなのかな。 数十年？いや、 数百年ぶり 。 “
“This sensation, I wonder how long it’s been since I last felt it. Several decades? No, several hundred years.”
We’re not given any specifics but I’m going to hazard a guess that the last time Shin drank blood was probably before the founders were sealed in Banmaden.
My reasoning here is that by the time Karlheinz defeated them, Endzeit had already spread to some degree, so I don’t think Shin would have risked drinking from another founder during that time, and he wouldn’t have been able to drink from any of the sub-races or a human even if he’d wanted to.
From this we can guess that the founders were trapped for roughly +200 years.
Hint 2: Carla seems to recognize one of Shakespeare’s plays.
In the Tsukinami DF prologue, Yui encounters Carla in the library and he notes that one of the books is Macbeth. I don’t think him commenting on this in particular would make much sense if Carla wasn’t familiar with it himself and we know that he does read human literature from later on in his DF route.
( ??? (Carla): Macbeth, huh? You like it?)
I also doubt that Carla would have bothered to read up on human literature that had been published in the time he was imprisoned before meeting Yui in this scene, so I think it’s safe to say Carla was made aware of it before the seal was placed on Banmaden.
Macbeth is thought to have first been performed in 1606, so this tells us that the founders must have been sealed away after this date at the very earliest.
I think we can narrow it down a little more though, as although Macbeth was first performed then, it certainly wouldn’t have gained enough notoriety to draw the attention of an inhabitant of the demon world.
As far as I can tell, Shakespeare’s works became widely known sometime around the start to middle of the 18th century (so 1700 onwards). When we take into account Shin’s comment from above, I’d say we can limit the range in which the defeat of the founders occurred to being between 1700 and 1800, and this would allow enough time for Cordelia’s birth and the events thereafter to take place.
Hint 3: Their clothes in the Dark Fate flashback scenes.
Now I don’t think this is the most reliable piece of evidence, as the fashion trends in DL are not necessarily going to reflect those of the time period in which they occurred, but it is still something to consider.
Unfortunately we’re not given full sprites for these outfits but we’ll work with what we can see. The style appears western (at least for the time period I’ve estimated above) so that’s where I focused my research.
The large cuffs that we can see on both of their jackets, as well as the length and the fit, match those found in mid-18th century men’s fashion. The length of Carla’s waistcoat and the high turned down collar on his coat, fit with the trends of the later 18th century.
By the time we get to early 19th century fashion, the cut of men’s coats start to change from the slim-fitting one of the 18th century (and the style it appears Carla and Shin are wearing) to give a more hourglass silhouette, so I think I’m right in my estimate that the Tsukinamis were trapped before the early 19th century.
Similarly, the trends of 17th century men’s fashion in the west don’t quite fit with their outfits either, so their clothing certainly supports the range I gave above and allows us to narrow it a little.
With all of this in mind, I’d put my final estimate of the date when the Tsukinamis were sealed away as being between 1750 and 1800 i.e. the mid to late 18th century, meaning that they were trapped in Banmaden for around 210-250 years.
If you want anymore information on the order of events in the DL timeline, then you can check out my post on it here.
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