Che!

Watching the 2007 anime for the nth time, and throughout it Dante's deep in his sorrows, he's wearing his hair like he did at 19 (the last time he saw Vergil as 'Vergil' and not Nelo), he's just going through the motions. Caring seems like nearly too much of an effort. But then comes Patty.

Bratty, loud, stubborn. Human, innocent, alone.

The parallels are obvious from the start, two orphans yearning for their mothers. Patty is loud and in-your-face, even annoying at times. And these are all traits that Dante himself has. Loud, brash and rebellious, those are parts of him that he's used to playing up. The armor, the mask he hides behind. Though when they meet Dante is subdued. He's just come out of unimaginable loss at his own hands, he doesn't have it in him to put in that effort. He's aloof, distant, cold and even mean. He feels like he's already dead, and might as well be.

But then there's Patty. She is sunshine, she is life. With her golden hair—so much like Eva's—and blue eyes—so much like his own, like Vergil's—she looks like the family he's lost. She's the embodiment of why he does what he does. Why he still cares about humanity at all.

Dante's experiences with humanity have been people welcoming him, caring for him, only for tragedy to be their reward again and again. So he began pushing people away, it would keep them, and his bruised heart, safe. He saves and he saves and he saves. But he is rarely saved in turn. At least, not anymore. People come into his life, but they don't stay (he won't let them, sometimes they just don't want to, he's too much), so it means something when Patty breaks the mold. She stays and she repays in her own way by never giving up on him.

Patty comes around again and again, cleaning up the office and trying to encourage Dante in the only way an 8-year-old may know how to. He's depressed as shit, and it manifests in the shop being the mess it is. Patty likely can't understand that and to her it seems like laziness. But kids are also more perceptive than we give them credit for. She may not make the connection between the cause and the manifestation, but she can tell there's a deep sadness in him. He frustrates her, but she's relentless. She just doesn't want to give up on him, because she knows there's good in him. She's seen it. He is nice to her, underneath all his biting words and his sarcasm. So she comes back, and she cleans and she pokes him about his debt and his habits. She cares.

So much of it is subconscious on her end because she's so young, it all boils down to her caring about him a lot and being endearingly stubborn. And Dante doesn't know what to do with it. He's depressed and thinks he's unlovable so it does not compute to him how she could. Why she would. But he can also look at it rationally and see the honesty in what she does because she's so young and innocent. He objectively knows she cares but he doesn't quite feel it because he doesn't think he deserves it. He doesn't feel like he belongs in her world. It's why he doesn't go to her 18th birthday party.

She went to hell for him; he understands the enormous meaning of it, undeserving though he thinks he is. That's why he's happy to let her go to her mom, because she shouldn't risk herself for him, she shouldn't so easily give him her love. She deserves better, she deserves safer. It's bittersweet when Nina turns up alive and Patty gets to have her mom, the happy ending Dante was never afforded. But then they're gone and Dante is alone again. He's happy for her, that's how it should be. Yet he misses her all the same.

And so, it is sweet to know that Patty is still around like the anime end credits and dmc5 phonecall show. Patty doesn't come to the shop as often, but she refuses to give up on him. He ain't getting rid of her so easily.

I think this frame from one of the episodes summarizes them so well. The fact that she comes to him when the sun is rising, this is one of the very few times we see his face so openly, and he looks so soft and gentle. She's the warm sun pushing the dark away, thawing what he thought was frozen over. It makes me foam at the mouth.

Her bright presence and constant chatter were a soothing balm to his aching heart, and when she's off with Nina he feels the loss of every second she's not there. Every time she visits he feels glad to see her, yet still guilty because she's wasting her time on him. He is undeserving of her love.

I love Dante, he breaks my heart. He is deeply, deeply depressed. And that's not an easy pit to come out of. He can't accept people might actually care, or that he is deserving of it. The complexity of depression like that, because it's obviously not easy to be in that state, just as it is not easy for the people around to support someone who's in that state. It's a lot of love and resilience from all sides.

I'll never get tired of them. And if anyone says she doesn't matter, and that her voice cameo in 5 was just fan service I will not hesitate to shoot you. The way he talks about her in supplemental material suggests otherwise. Dante's whole shtick is caring while pretending like he doesn't.

THE BOSS