Devil May Cry 5 Tv Tropes Funny

Main characters index | Heroes (Dante | Nero | V) | Villains (Vergil) | Other | DmC: Devil May Cry

V

"What evil lurks... I must destroy."

Voiced by: Brian Hanford (English), Kōki Uchiyama (Japanese)

Face Model: Owen Hamze (DMC5)

The mysterious third Playable Character of Devil May Cry 5. After enticing Dante with a cash-up-front offer and Nero with information on the hooded man who attacked him to ostensibly stop the resurrection of a powerful demon, he soon becomes embroiled in the battle for Red Grave City himself.

He fights by utilizing three demons: Griffon, Shadow and Nightmare. Griffon is mapped to the gun button and functions as the primary ranged attacker, dealing damage with lightning-based projectiles and giving V air support by allowing him to glide. Shadow is the melee attacker, and deals powerful and wide sweeping strikes, and gives V faster ground movement. Nightmare is summoned when V uses his Devil Trigger, being an autonomous but incredibly strong golem-like demon that beats V's enemies down with its bulk and fires a powerful laser from its eye. With an upgrade called "Promotion", V can directly take control of it by piercing its body with his sword cane. However, all three of his familiars share the same problem: they cannot actually kill any demon they attack, leaving V to finish them off himself (though a Promoted Nightmare can bypass the problem and kill enemy demons directly).

In his moveset, V also has other attacks to fight with using his cane, such teleporting himself to a chosen target with Gambit and Touch and Move or destroying all dying enemies in close proximity with his ultimate attack Royal Fork, a rain of demonic canes from above that consumes his Devil Trigger gauge.

---

    open/close all folders

    A-L

• A Day in the Limelight: He's the protagonist of the Visions of V manga which details his beginnings after Vergil split himself into V and Urizen, making a contract with Griffon and so on.
• Ambiguous Situation: If you manage to defeat Urizen during the prologue mission or on Mission 8 (which is difficult to do on your first playthrough), V's fate becomes ambiguous as the post-credits photograph only shows off his cane as he approaches the DMC crew. It's unknown if he's still going to die, or if he managed to reform into Vergil after Urizen's defeated earlier than expected.
• Ambiguously Evil: V is presented as this for half of the game, with both Nero and Lady even being distrustful of his true intentions.

  Nero: V... Can I trust you?

• Ambiguously Human: He looks human and his body clearly lacks the supernatural strength of a demon, but other characters aren't quite convinced; they keep noting V seems somehow "off", not quite acting or moving like a normal person should despite it being clear he's basically a normal human without his three demon familiars and Power Tattoos. It's ultimately revealed he is the living personification of Vergil's human heritage, so he probably qualifies as human on some level, although his demonic powers certainly stem from Sparda's lingering influence on him.
• Air Guitar: Using his Classy Cane, one of his S-rank taunts has him miming playing a violin in the air, where he actually plays the opening part of Niccolò Paganini's Caprice No. 24. Another one has him conduct an air orchestra performing Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries".
• Assist Character: V tosses some Devil Breakers to Nero while the latter is fighting Malphas in Mission 15.
• The Atoner: He considers what happened to Red Grave City to be his fault, so he goes to try and fix it.
• Badass Bookworm: V is often reading a book of William Blake's poetry and a letter from his past has the man who gave him the book calling him a bibliophile. Griffon even refers to him as "Shakespeare".
• Badass Fingersnap: V summons his Super Mode familiar, Nightmare, by snapping his fingers together. Even more badass is that it can deflect projectiles and one-shot weaker enemies.
• Badass in Distress: He comes very close to death several times, most notably when cornered by Malphas.
• The Beastmaster: He fights primarily by utilizing three creatures to do most of the fighting for him.
• Being Good Sucks: Trying to help people in the month between the prologue and the first mission of 5 is just killing his dying body even faster. He still does it anyway.
• Body Horror: He is Secretly Dying. Early in the process, you just see what looks like skin flakes constantly falling away, but as the game progresses, cracks start appearing all over his body.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: V quite literally took his cane from an antique shop to defend himself when a demon came after him. Luckily for him, the metal used to make the cane was from the demon world from a previous event where the two worlds collided, making it an ideal conduit for magic.
• Break the Haughty: Noted by V himself. In the prequel novel Before the Nightmare, Dante tells him "There's no crime in turning tail V, these things might be a little too much for you." V reflects that once upon a time, being told something like that would have angered him to no end, but now, he is no longer motivated by such excessive pride.
• Call-Back: His familiars are all enemies from the first game who worked for Mundus, and Nelo Angelo had authority over them. This hints at V's connection to Nelo Angelo's real identity, Vergil.
• Came Back Strong: In Special Edition after re-merging with Urizen to become Vergil, any time Vergil uses Yamato to temporarily become V, his familiars also return, insanely more powerful than before. With the full demonic power of Vergil behind them, they can spam their best attacks while V merely floats in the air.
• The Cameo: He showed up alongside Dante and Nero as an event-only character in a collaboration with Shin Megami Tensei Liberation: Dx2 from March 14, 2019 until April 3, 2019.
• Cane Fu: Utilized with V's Checkmate finishing moves. Although some of his attacks are fairly down and dirty stabs with his cane, others are more flashy; such as hooking an enemy's limbs, brutal beheadings and crushing skulls using the cane's head as an impromptu hammer.
• Cassandra Truth: In Visions of V, much like their first meeting, Dante is initially skeptical about V's claims of there being a powerful demon that is about to resurrect and raise hell after having dealt with so many with the same circumstances. It's only after V tells Dante that the demon is Vergil and will launch an assault on Red Grave City that Dante takes him seriously.
• Cast from Lifespan: V's body slowly decays over time, and him exerting his abilities only serves to accelerate the process.
• Casting Gag: Via V being a playable missing-half of someone else, is it any coincidence they casted Kōki Uchiyama to play as him, a la Roxas?
• The Chessmaster: He has skill and knowledge but not much power, so he uses agents to do the heavy lifting before closing in for the killing shot. In gameplay he uses his demonic familiars, but in the main story he's using Dante and Nero to defeat Urizen so that he can reunite his demon and human halves and resurrect Vergil.
• Chess Motifs: Most of his Cane abilities and summons' moves are named after chess terms, such as Checkmate, Double Check, Hedgehog, Promotion, Round Robin, Switchback, Illegal Move, and Royal Fork.
• Classy Cane: Carries an ornate antique cane with him, and he utilizes Cane Fu to finish off enemies - violently jabbing enemies or impaling them upon it. Nico comments the cane itself seems to be a mundane object but it is forged with an unknown metal which makes it an ideal conduit for channeling demonic energy. As such, the cane can be used as both a conduit to channel magic and a synchronisation medium to control demon familiars, and it can possibly even absorb the power of defeated demons because V evidently needs the cane to merge himself back with Urizen.
• Cold Ham: Never raises his voice, but all of his lines are spoken with a certain weight.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Doesn't he look vaguely like Adam Driver?
• Creepy Good: His mannerisms (especially in combat) can come off as rather sinister, but he's firmly on the side of the heroes.

  V: Scorch them... Gouge them... Pin 'em to the wall...

• Cultured Badass: V constantly gives off the impression of someone with an impressive classical education: His love of literature, poetry, and classical music. As he is the human half of Vergil, it makes sense since he spent most of his childhood with his nose buried in books, with a special fondness for poetry and William Blake in particular.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He's a mysterious man who dresses in black, magically summons three shadowy familiars and ruthlessly kills his enemies, but he's on the side of the good guys and is concerned about innocent bystanders. Later on, it's revealed that he is the human half of Vergil made flesh.
• The Determinator: Even when dead on his feet, V keeps picking himself back up to finish his duty.
• Death of Personality: Played with. Near the end of the story when Vergil becomes whole once more, the more affable and humble V is subsumed into the arrogant and overly stoic Vergil. That said, Vergil seems to be mellowed as he acknowledges Nero's help, suggesting that V at least influences him. Come the Special Edition, Vergil can use Yamato on himself to temporarily become V again, showing that the V persona isn't gone for good.
• Difficult, but Awesome: He is described as a "tricky", methodical, complex and strategic character.
  • V requires far more judicious management of the Devil Trigger Gauge because he has a very different relationship with it compared to the other playable characters. Whereas they mostly use it as a resource for powering their Super Mode, V can use it for all sorts of different things: he can empower his familiars, spend DT on unique moves like Royal Fork, and summon Nightmare, whom he can control directly or let loose. V is also the only character who can refill his DT Gauge at will, but doing so limits his movement options for a while and it generally requires moving him closer to enemies he can't stagger by himself. As a result, he is going to be building up and spending DT a lot more than the other characters. Played wrong, V will be running out of DT Gauge and his familiars can be temporarily knocked out if you're not careful, leaving him defenseless. Played right, V's familiars can smother the battlefield with their combined attacks and allow him to fight at extremely long range.
  • V allows you to carry out attacks with four different characters at once by using him and his summons in conjunction. Although this means keeping track of Shadow and Griffon's individual health bars and Nightmare's consumption of the DT Gauge, it makes V fun to play in a very different way than the other characters, and he can still pull off some pretty stylish moves by himself. For example, he's the only person in the entire series who can taunt while his familiars are attacking the enemies.
• Disability-Negating Superpower: Short-ranged teleportation and assistance from summons help V compensate for his otherwise limited mobility.
• Does Not Like Shoes: Downplayed, but he's in sandals when almost everyone else is wearing boots.
• Enemy Without: A heroic, inverted version of the trope. He's made of all the human qualities like compassion, empathy, and sense of humor which Vergil disdained or buried deep down to prevent them from getting in the way during his quest for power. As a result, V is outright ashamed of the enormous Jerkass tendencies of Vergil, he fights to protect innocent civilians, and helps fight his demonic side, which he named Urizen, from spreading further chaos.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Ridiculously pale under those tattoos.
• Evil Laugh: Inverted; V is very firmly on the side of good, but other than one "ha!" in a cutscene, his only laughter is during one of his taunts... and good lord, does it sound maniacal. After a few seconds of this he speaks, and sounds like he's talking through his laughter, indicating that V just laughs like that.

  V: [audibly chuckling] You make me laugh.

• False Flag Operation: Minor example. He feigns stabbing Dante through the head with the Sparda, knowing that his Killing Intent will be enough to jolt the guy awake.
• False Reassurance: Nothing he says is a lie, exactly... but he conceals his true purpose with a creative use of words. For example, when he hires Dante, he says he needs help because a powerful demon is about to resurrect and even tells him that the demon's name is Vergil. But he never explicitly says he wants to prevent that resurrection.
• The Farmer and the Viper: Noble as he might be, he's still working to resurrect Vergil, and he has no scruples about manipulating Dante and Nero into doing the work for him.
• The Fettered: Despite living on borrowed time, he feels duty bound to stop the Qliphoth Tree and Urizen and spends the month after the prologue doing whatever he can to save whoever he can at great expense to his already short life.
• Finishing Move: While his familiars are the primary damage dealers, V has to finish off enemies himself. Against bosses, they tend to be cinematic.
• Flash Step:
  • His dodge has him move in this manner rather than rolling like other characters, but only when Shadow is available.
  • He can also do this as a part of a finisher; Checkmate allows V to throw his cane at a dying enemy and finish them off, while his Touch and Move skill allows him to teleport to the next target immediately after killing the previous one.
• Foreshadowing: There are multiple hints to his true nature as the human half of Vergil.
  • Him having demons associated with Mundus as familiars hints at his past as Nelo Angelo.
  • He has a Flash Step move to dodge attacks instead of rolling. Vergil can do that too via his Trick techniques.
  • His hair turning white when he summons Nightmare hints at his half-demon heritage. When his familiars are temporarily taken away from him in Mission 14, it's subtly revealed that his hair color is naturally white, just like the other descendants of Sparda.
  • He regularly adjusts his hair during his Idle Animation, and his "Royal Fork" animation ends with him about to stand while slicking his hair up and back. This behavior is similar to Vergil whose Character Tic consists of slicking back his hair.
  • His choice of a vest, Badass Longcoat and a glove on the hand he uses a weapon with mirrors Vergil's own taste in clothing.
  • His battle theme, "Crimson Cloud", includes the lyrics "split myself in two". That's not just edginess for edginess's sake. Vergil really did split himself in two.
  • Urizen's name is a William Blake reference; and V quotes William Blake all the time. This is a hint that the two characters are connected. The "I am but two days old" quote also counts in the sense that V and Urizen were separated from Vergil on May 1 and then V meets up with Dante on May 3, exactly two days later when he introduced himself to Dante.
  • And of course, there's his name, though he drops all but the first letter to subtly signify his status as a small part of Vergil. The Visions of V manga reveals that he took the letter alias from his William Blake poetry book, which Vergil owned when he was a child.
  • When he gets his hands on the Sparda and struggles to lift it before dropping it back down, he notes that the sword is "still too strong" for him. Vergil had dreamed of wielding the Sparda for years yet he never had the chance to wield its true unsealed form (the closest being the sealed Force Edge in 3, and Dante still kicked his ass).
  • Though he says at the time that it was just a ploy to make Dante wake up through natural instincts, V seems pretty genuine in his anger towards Dante when he fakes stabbing his unconscious body. Right before fusing with Urizen, he notes that his feelings towards Dante are the one thing he and Urizen share.
  • While in combat, V often uses the same lines spoken by Vergil and sometimes, Nero ("Die!", "Begone!" "Blast!", "Scum"); he can also use a line that will be used or echoed later by Urizen ("What an eyesore."). V also has access to "Gambit", a Dark Slayer style "near-enemy" teleport (a move nobody but Vergil and Trickster-Styled Dante know), which he performs to finish up distant enemies. Gambit is performed by V impaling an enemy with the thrown cane, and then warping to it (which is similar to Vergil's Trick technique impaling a target with a Summoned Sword and warping to it). The demonic canes summoned by his "Royal Fork" skill also resemble Vergil's Summoned Swords (especially their spread-out formations), and the way V swings his cane to initiate a finishing move is like a right-handed version of the first hit in Vergil's basic combo strings with the Yamato.
  • One of his taunts is the line "I need more strength." If the player does not revive V after his health is depleted, he might also say "I need power." These are reminiscent of Vergil saying "I need more power."
• Fusion Dance: V forcefully re-merges with Urizen after Dante beat the crap out of the demon to make Vergil whole again.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: V grows increasingly sickly and reliant on his cane as the game goes on, but when played, he can leap and sprint around as easily as Dante or Nero, and his flashy finishing moves stay as showy as ever. Aside from a Scripted Event in Mission 14, you never get to feel him getting weaker in most of the missions even if the story keeps on saying that his body is slowly crumbling.
• Good Counterpart: To Urizen, being Vergil's cast-off humanity given form. V possesses Vergil's positive traits such as his love for poetry, compassion for others, and sense of humor. V also retains Vergil's childhood memories, which Urizen doesn't remember. Though it turns out "good" is relative; V still resents Dante, and just before he fuses with Urizen to turn back into Vergil, he remarks that the desire to see his brother beaten is the one thing they share.
• Handicapped Badass: The cane isn't just to look cool, as he walks with an increasingly noticeable limp as the game goes on. This comes across in gameplay, as he doesn't run as much like the other past playable characters, but instead surfs on Shadow or teleports to cross large distances. When Shadow is temporarily taken away from him in Mission 14, it only takes a few strides for him to become exhausted.
• Hazy Feel Turn: V's motivation is rather cloudy; he despises Urizen and everything he's done but he still seizes the opportunity to take the power Urizen had used Blood Magic to obtain. Vergil's first act upon resurrecting himself is to challenge Dante to a Duel to the Death, showing that a month of painful Character Development was not enough to strip him of his lust for power and his resentment towards Dante.
• Helpless Good Side: He's all of Vergil's humanity with almost none of his demonic power, making him unable to defeat Urizen on his own.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He represents parts of Vergil's personality that were seldom brought up in the previous Devil May Cry lore. Through V, we discover that Vergil is a Badass Bookworm who loves William Blake's poetry, or that his hatred of Dante springs from a sense that Eva loved Dante more.
  • In Chapter 9 of the Visions of V manga when he's trapped in Nightmare's pocket dimension, we see that deep down, V and by proxy, Vergil, feels that Dante cares for him and will protect him. While V himself believes that Nightmare is showing him he will never be as powerful as Dante, it should be noted that the illusionary Dante was able to save V from a Nightmare version of Nelo Angelo and even open a path directly to Nightmare's core, meaning V's feelings towards his brother were stronger than Nightmare's own power.
• Horrifying Hero: He comes across as this in the Visions of V manga. Though he saves a woman from being mugged, she is horrified by how he took them out and jerks away from him when he moves to return her necklace. During the demonic invasion in Red Grave City, he also defends a group of civilians from a mob of demons and all of them are scared out of their wits, with one of them saying he's "not human".
• I Hate Past Me: His internal monologue in Before the Nightmare reveals that he feels deep shame about his past self's Pride and It's All About Me attitude.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: V tells Trish that all he had wanted growing up was for people to love and protect him. Funnily, it's "Vergil" talking to the doppelganger of his dead mother, Eva, from whom he still secretly yearns for motherly love.
• Incurable Cough of Death: One of his taunts is actually him doubling over in a brief coughing fit before he collects himself. Indeed, his body is degenerating without the demonic power that keeps it going.

  V: Have to keep going...

• In-Series Nickname:
  • Griffon calls him "Shakespeare" for his penchant for quoting William Blake.
  • Dante calls him "Mr. Poetry" in a cutscene of Mission 12.
• Irony: As Vergil, he wanted the Devil Sword Sparda and sought its might fervently. As V, he can barely even lift it. He finally got what he desired above all else, at a point when he didn't want it, and could no longer use it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In chapters 12 and 12.2 of Visions of V, he unintentionally saves a woman from being mugged after hearing that the necklace the thieves were demanding was a memento from her mother, reminding him of Eva gifting Vergil and Dante their amulets on their birthday. After the muggers are taken care of, V returns the necklace to the woman before leaving.
• Karmic Thief: In Visions of V, he initially plans to steal from someone rich for money before deciding to rob from thieves for pragmatic reasons since his weak appearance can easily draw them to him rather than him trying to find them.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: He's not stupid enough to pick fights with demons he has no hope of beating, such as when he turned back after seeing Gilgamesh (as quoted below). He also tries to flee when he saw Malphas in Mission 14 because his body is already too weak at at point, but Nero fortunately defeated the demon on his behalf.

  V: [faced with a 30-foot tall metallic demonic monstrosity] I'm afraid that...that's a little bit more than I can take on right now.

• Limit Break: In the Special Edition, V himself becomes Vergil's super move via the "World of V" skill wherein Vergil stabs himself with the Yamato and briefly turns himself into V, who unleashes an attack that utilizes all of his familiars.
• Literal Split Personality: He's Vergil's human half.
• Living on Borrowed Time: He walks with an increasingly noticeable limp, and one of his taunts is an Incurable Cough of Death. He later reveals to Trish that his body is falling apart and decaying, and the traces of demonic power he has left after being split from Vergil is all that is keeping him alive.
• The Load: Although V and his familiars are fairly formidable, he still considers many of the bosses in the game above his weight class, requiring Nero to fight them in his stead. The earliest example happens when Gilgamesh, the giant four-legged demon, appears. V's first reaction to seeing it is to run for his life, while Nero's first reaction is "Welp, guess I need to take care of that." This becomes especially so near the end of the game when V is so weak that Nero has to all but carry him.

    M-Y

• Manipulative Bastard: He's a good person overall, but he's still ultimately using Dante and Nero for his own ends. While it's hazy just how much he loathed his old self, there's no doubt that his true intentions required Dante and Nero beating Urizen into submission long enough so he may re-merge into Vergil. Thankfully, V's experience and better nature triumphed, making Vergil into a better man in the end.
• Master of Illusion: Used briefly in his Checkmate against Miraggio Angelo (a phantasm version of Cavaliere Angelo in Mission 14), who stabs him only for what was stabbed to vanish while an unharmed V appears behind the demon and finishes the job with his cane.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: He's basically the Devil May Cry equivalent of a Puppet Fighter, a la Zato-1/Eddie. Most of his attacks are done by summoning familiars, and the only direct attack he does himself is a finishing blow with his cane. His Devil Trigger gauge doesn't directly grant him Super Mode, but is instead used to either power up Shadow and Griffon, or to summon Nightmare, a massive beast capable of devastating attacks. V also doesn't have the straightforward Regenerating Health mechanic of the other playable characters while in Devil Trigger mode. Instead, Nightmare's presence increases the chance for enemies to drop Green Orbs.
• Memento MacGuffin: His book of poems is a treasured keepsake from his childhood that he used to often read, fantasizing it was a Tome Of Prophecy And Fate predicting a future Hero's Journey for himself through a world of magic and myths. In-game, V reads it in order to slowly refill his Devil Trigger gauge. And after he merged back into Vergil and dives into the Underworld, Nero holds onto the book until they meet again.
• Must Make Amends: Feels personally responsible for the events in Red Grave City, and is committed to making it right.

  V: I have a duty to see this through.

• My God, What Have I Done?: By separating from his demon half, V regains enough presence of mind to see how Vergil's act of creating a completely unfettered pure demon version of himself was a terrible idea. He sought out Dante in hopes that maybe the legendary devil hunter could help him fix it. He even asks Trish, likely because of how much she looks just like his mother, if she thought he could do it.
• My Greatest Failure: He regards what's happening in Red Grave City, specifically the existence of Urizen, to be all his fault and is committed to doing whatever it takes to set this mistake right.
• Mysterious Stranger: He shows up with no explanation, but he has cash Dante urgently needs and information Nero desperately wants, so they don't ask him too many questions. Even his title is "The Mysterious One."
• Mystical White Hair: V's hair is actually white, shown when he summons Nightmare, as the magical ink used to dye his hair dissolves to give Nightmare form. This of course, is a sign that he is of Sparda's bloodline.
• Necessarily Evil: He got the money to pay Dante by stealing from mercenaries with his demon familiars. It is noted he only injured rather than killed them though.
• Nice Guy: While his stoicism and aloofness make this a bit of a downplayed trope, he is nevertheless polite and kind to everyone who isn't an enemy. During the one-month period after the crew got their asses kicked by Urizen in the first round, he spent the whole time in the city rescuing people and fighting off whatever demons he could, to his increasing detriment. After V re-merges into Vergil, this trait actually rubs off on Vergil even if only just a little bit, mellowing him out somehow.
• No-Gear Level: In his final playable mission, V is trapped in another dimension where his familiars are taken from him. He must fight a short Boss Rush and retrieve his familiars one at a time.
• No Name Given: Lampshaded when he first meets Dante, as "V" sounds more like a nickname than an actual one. As it turns out, he was only kidding about not having a name.
• No Shirt, Long Jacket: He actually does wear a vest underneath his Badass Longcoat, but it too is open, exposing most of his chest.
• Not Hyperbole: Turns out that crack about him being two days old wasn't a joke. Vergil split himself into V and Urizen just two days prior.
• Not Quite Dead: While it seems like he ceases to exist when he merges with Urizen to reconstitute Vergil, the Special Edition reveals that Vergil can retake V's form at will by stabbing himself again with the Yamato.
• Not Quite Flight: V can hover briefly when Griffon carries him.
• Not So Above It All: V may be the most serious of the three protagonists, but he's not above jokes and wit as evidenced by him using a literary quote to describe himself as "two days old" before clarifying that he's kidding, and his habit of reciting poetry while killing enemies. Three of his taunts also include doing a little tap dancing jig, playing an air violin, and pretending to conduct an orchestra. To top it off, his EX Provocation taunt is the dance from Singin' in the Rain. TVTropes shits you not.
• "Not So Different" Remark: He gives one to Urizen. Despite being a physically frail human and an imposing demon lord respectively, V states both of them share the same desire for power, which is likely how V convinces Urizen to fuse with him and reform Vergil. Downplayed in that Urizen is driven solely by a mindless lust for power, to the point where there seems to be no reason for it beyond simply wanting it, while V is a frail and dying human who will decay into dust when what little demonic power he has runs out, if he isn't murdered by demons first.

  V: We are one and the same, you and I. But you've lost me, and I've lost you. Yet we are connected by that one feeling.

• Older Than They Look: V looks like a young man around Nero's age, but he acts like someone much older, calling Nero a "boy" or a "child" many times. This is zig-zagged later on as V is the human composite self of Vergil, a man who looks like at least in his forties, but then he is also a month and two days old between the time he was split off from Vergil, and during the story's proper date on June.
• One-Letter Name: He typically goes simply by the letter "V".
• Power Dyes Your Hair: Inverted. V is shown with black hair in most of his screentime and gameplay. Summoning Nightmare turns his hair white, but it's actually his natural hair color. This is first shown in the flashback scene when Vergil split himself in two; V has white hair by default when he emerged. If Griffon and Shadow make up parts of his body tattoos, Nightmare is the familiar that dyes V's hair when it's not summoned yet. The player can notice this more easily in-game during Mission 14; V's familiars are taken away from him so his hair turns white and his tattoos fade away, but retrieving Nightmare recolors V's hair into black.
• Power Incontinence: His theme song includes the line "Summoning the power, drag myself through pain" implying his Summon Magic is causing him immense pain. It's later revealed that V is only being kept alive by what little demonic power he has left, and it's slowly running out. And as the game goes on, he finds it more and more difficult to even walk, his skin begins cracking, and his veins start turning black.
• Power Tattoo: His tattoos contain his familiars. When he summons his creatures, his tattoos will dissolve to give them form.
• Powers Do the Fighting: His familiars do most of the heavy lifting, with V only stepping in to deliver the killing blow.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: V usually delivers quotes and one-liners just before a boss fight or a Mook Debut Cutscene. When dealing the final blow to a boss, V always caps it off with a quote from a William Blake poem that usually relates to the boss in some way.

  (To Goliath) "Little Wanderer. Hie thee home!"

  (Before fighting Nidhogg) "As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible."

  (To Nidhogg) "The cut worm forgives the plow". What do you say?

  (To Elder Geryon Knight) "The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom, no clock can measure". Die.

• Protagonist Title: He's the Tritagonist of the fifth game, with the 5 being represented by the Roman numeral version, V. Also counts as Antagonist Title, since he's the good half of Vergil, the game's overall Big Bad.
• Psychotic Smirk: Zig-zagged; V often sports a pretty impressive psychotic smirk when taunting or killing demons, usually quoting poetry and generally being an Ice-Cold Ham. But V also smirks darkly at low, Kubrick angles when he's genuinely amused by Griffon's wisecracks or even his own witticisms. Even when he's not trying to be, V just ends up appearing sinister.
• Really Was Born Yesterday: Though he claims to Dante he was "just kidding" when saying he's two days old (he's actually quoting William Blake in that scene), he really was not kidding: He was indeed born two days before he met Dante at his Devil May Cry shop.
• Redemption Demotion: Vergil is one of the strongest characters in the franchise, while his human half can barely run under his own power and uses demon familiars to fight for him.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: V is calm and thoughtful in contrast to Nero and Dante being more aggressive and direct.
• The Reveal: He is the human half of Vergil, left behind when Vergil used Yamato to cut out the human part of himself in hopes of leaving behind his weakness. Similarly, his familiars are the Shell-Shocked Veteran parts of his personality from the time he spent as the slave of the demon who killed his mother.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Since he regularly quotes William Blake poetry, he often says lines that rhyme with each other. Griffon occasionally teases him about it.

  Griffon: Okay Shakespeare, just remember this: You and I like to exist. So get rid o' those demons quick, 'cause killin' ain't my shtick! I've got your back, 'cuz dyin' is whack!

• Secret Identity: Goliath appears to recognize him, but is killed by V before the demon can explain how.
• Shadow Archetype: To Vergil. As the embodiment of the humanity Vergil has been trying to cast away throughout the whole series, V shows what Vergil would have been if he stopped obsessing over power.
• Skill Gate Character: V is easy to use on a lower difficulty setting because he can stay safely at long range while his summons do the heavy lifting. But on higher difficulties, he receives a significant difficulty spike because managing the vitality of said summons becomes a higher priority with the more powerful enemies capable of stalemating them quickly.
• Slasher Smile: He starts breaking these out the closer he gets to Urizen because he is eager to restore himself into his original form alongside claiming Urizen's power. By the time he reaches Urizen, he is positively grinning while insisting that he deliver the finishing blow, and sports a Cheshire Cat Grin while standing over him. Potentially downplayed as we don't ever learn the details or explicit motivations behind his plans, and as a notably Creepy Good character, he may simply be smiling so much because he's getting closer to stopping Urizen's immense body count, not to mention preventing his own slow, painful decay.
• The Slow Walk: When he is locked on an enemy, he doesn't really run like Dante or Nero do, and just calmly strides around the chaos while summoning his familiars and occasionally intervening himself. However, he can sprint around normally otherwise.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: A ton of his lines are just quotes from William Blake poems.
• Spectral Weapon Copy: With his "Royal Fork" skill, he can conjure copies of his cane to launch at enemies as projectiles in a Storm of Blades style attack to finish off all dying enemies.
• Spell Book: Downplayed. By reading from his book, V will slowly restore his Devil Trigger gauge, and the closer he is to enemies, the faster it will fill up. The book itself is just a book of poems though, and V is only reading from it to focus himself.
• Spiritual Successor: V is described in interviews as a more bookish, intellectual character, making him very similar to the original concept for Nero when he was envisaged as a more Victorian, Sherlock Holmes-esque character.
• Squishy Wizard: He is not physically gifted as the other characters, needing a cane to hobble along and having less knockback resistance than them. And even if all playable characters share the same Vitality Gauge, he still takes more damage from enemy attacks in comparison. V also cannot directly regenerate health with his Devil Trigger, making him even more vulnerable in contrast to the other characters' Devil Triggers. That being said, his ability to fight at a distance while his familiars gang up on enemies gives him a HUGE advantage, he's the only character who can refill his Devil Trigger gauge at will during battle, and he can transfer some DT gauge to Shadow and Griffon to power them up and have them act independently for a short time.
• Stealing from Thieves: In Visions of V, V initially plans on stealing from a rich person to get the necessary funds for his plan, but then decides to steal from muggers since he can take advantage of his weak appearance to draw victims to himself rather than him searching for them.
• Summon Magic: His gameplay revolves around him summoning three of the first game's enemies to attack other demons.
• Super Mode: Unlike the other playable characters, V's Devil Trigger gauge is consumed to temporarily summon Nightmare, a giant golem that can barrel through enemies with ease, or to make Griffon and Shadow attack on their own.
• Sword Cane: A variant; looking closely enough at V's cane reveals a very distinct bladed edge, which means he is essentially using a sword-like object AS a cane. This also neatly explains why it functions as a weapon, though V doesn't seem to have enough strength to actually inflict damage to demons without his familiars weakening them first.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: According to in-game models, he's just a bit taller than Nero. He's dark with his black hair and and clothes. As for snarky, he can deliver lines as good as Nero and Dante can.
• Tattoo as Character Type: His body is covered in various mystical symbols, symbolizing his link with the occult and his supernatural ability to fight toe to toe with demons.
• Teleportation:
  • With his "Gambit" skill, he can throw his cane and use it as a teleportation beacon in order to quickly reach and finish off dying enemies.
  • He can also do this with Nightmare when taking direct control of the golem via the Promotion skill. As a part of their shared arsenal during Promotion, their "Illegal Move" skill allows them to create a portal to teleport and move instantly towards the target.
• Tragic Hero: A slowly-dying human trying to fix his failure before he falls apart completely and is being drawn to recombine into his former Anti-Villain self in something akin to More Than Mind Control.
• Tranquil Fury: When V is confronted by one of Vergil's lingering "nightmares", which happens to be Phantom, he becomes eerily quiet when the overgrown spider mocks him when Griffon suggests he form a contract to survive, claiming that there is absolutely no reason, much less sense, that he should serve a "pathetic human." V's response?
• Trauma Button: He reacts poorly to seeing the Proto Angelo and Scudo Angelos, seemingly momentarily overcome before becoming enraged. This is because they are the prototype and mass-produced versions of the Nelo Angelo armor Vergil was trapped in. He has a similar reaction towards Cavaliere Angelo in Visions of V where he briefly mistakes it for his previous self as Nelo Angelo.
• Unscrupulous Hero: V is a very ruthless demon hunter, having no qualms with stealing, using Black Magic and injuring, or even killing humans if it achieves his goals. He's also a little Ax-Crazy when fighting demons and shows absolutely no mercy. That being said, he's staunchly opposed to all evil, worried about the survival of innocent people, and does his hardest to try and minimize civilian collateral damage. He may Pay Evil unto Evil, but he's on humanity's side for the right reasons. It's very telling that even Vergil's good side is so ruthless.
• Warrior Poet: V is a skilled warrior on his own, as he can face hordes of demons with his cane and familiars, all while quoting his favorite poet, William Blake. This is best seen before he faces a group of Angelos; he recites a quote from Blake's poems before proceeding to kick their asses.
• Weak, but Skilled: Aside from directly controlling Nightmare's attacks via Promotion, V lacks highly-damaging attacks to stagger the stronger enemies on his own, and on higher difficulties, his summons can get stalemated fast. However, being able to mix ranged and melee attacks while recovering Devil Trigger gauge at the same time makes it very easy to get style points as V and he offers better crowd control than Nero and Dante.
• Younger Than They Look: His use of "I am but two days old" from the William Blake poem Infant Joy was surprisingly on point. He was born exactly two days before meeting and enlisting Dante's help in stopping Urizen.
• Your Days Are Numbered: His body is slowly decaying, with the process accelerating the more he exerts himself.

V's Familiars

    In General

The three demons who serve as V's loyal familiars. While they can attack his enemies for him, they cannot actually kill them, leaving V to finish the job himself once they've weakened an enemy enough.

---

• Ambiguous Situation: It's not made clear if they're re-incarnations of the DMC1 demons or if they're their own thing. As the only one that talks, Griffon is the source for the majority of the speculation; Nico's reports mention that this bird familiar is similar to a demon that Dante defeated long ago, but she thinks that the similarity might just be a coincidence.
• Attack Animal: Griffon and Shadow are bestial demons who serve as V's ranged and melee attacks respectively.
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: V's familiars cannot destroy other demons so V himself must deliver the finishing blows with his cane. This is because V describes his demon familiars as "dreams" that can inflict pain but can never actually kill anything. Notably, the only way his demon Nightmare can get around this is for V himself to manually control the familiar with the skill Promotion, so in a sense, it is still V himself who kills his enemies.
• The Bus Came Back: These three (or the demons of their kind) haven't made any further appearances since the first Devil May Cry game, but now they return as V's familiars.
• Continuity Nod: V's familiars resemble two bosses and one enemy mook encountered in DMC1, along with having many of the same moves as those demons Dante fought long ago. When Dante fights Griffon, Shadow, and Nightmare on the way to confront Vergil, the background music plays the same battle themes that were on the first game. Dante himself also mentions that it's like being back on Mallet Island.
• Familiar: They are V's demonic servants.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: They all form this dynamic with V.
  • Shadow and Nightmare are the fighters, serving as V's main forms of offense.
  • Griffon is the mage, striking enemies form afar with bolts of lightning.
  • V is the Thief, finishing the enemies off after they are weakened by the familiars.
• Gameplay Automation: V can spend his Devil Trigger gauge to make Shadow and Griffon act independently for a given time instead of being manually controlled by the player.
• The Heartless: A rare benign example of the trope. Mission 18 reveals that they are the physical manifestations of Vergil's traumatic memories from his time as Nelo Angelo. In a unique spin, they are aware of this and they face off against Dante in hopes that he will kill them so Vergil can finally move past his trauma.
• Heel–Face Turn: They resemble some demons from Devil May Cry 1, but since they serve as V's familiars, they are allied with the protagonists. Specifically, they're revealed to be Vergil's memories from his time as Nelo Angelo, and when V and Urizen merge again to bring Vergil back, they confront Dante so he can destroy them and free Vergil from the pain they represent.
• Literal Split Personality: They represent Vergil's twisted thoughts and emotions from his time as Nelo Angelo.
• Living Dream: V's familiars are described as "dreams" that can hurt demons, but never kill them, so V has to finish the job by himself. They're specifically Vergil's bad memories of the time when he was Nelo Angelo and commanded the three demons. Later on after Vergil's reawakening, Griffon asks Dante to kill them so that Vergil could be free of his bad memories.
• Regenerating Health: In-game, Shadow and Griffon's health meters are gradually refilled after not taking damage for a while, especially outside of battles.
• Satellite Character: Zig-zagged. For most of their role and screentime in the story, they're simply known as V's familiars, and it's difficult to talk about them without mentioning their connection to V. From a certain perspective, it also has something to do with them being literal parts of their master's body, specifically his Power Tattoos. Once the story reveals that V is half of Vergil, it's also made clear that the three familiars are his memories, and they deliberately don't merge back into Vergil because they want him to live without the trauma that they represent.
• Suicide by Cop: Mission 18 has them facing off against Dante, knowing full well they don't stand a chance against him. After the fight, Griffon reveals that they are the manifestations of Vergil's trauma from his enslavement as Nelo Angelo and that they wanted Dante to kill them so Vergil could finally be free from his pain.
• Undying Loyalty: They are all fiercely loyal to V to the point that they face off against Dante so he can kill them once V and Urizen have merged, allowing Vergil to finally move on without them.
• Wolfpack Boss: Mission 18 has several miniboss fights against V's familiars throughout the level, and finally has all of them converge to team up against Dante at the end. The individual fights with them aren't too difficult, but it's quite a challenge when all three of them are attacking you at once. Dante only has to bring down Nightmare to end the fight, but beating down Griffon and Shadow will force Nightmare to sacrifice part of its health to revive them and leave itself open doing so.

    Griffon

"Okay Shakespeare. Just remember this: You and I like to exist. So get rid of those demons quick, 'cause killing them ain't my shtick! I got your back, 'cause dyin' is whack!"

Voiced by: Brad Venable (DMC5, English), Tomoyuki Shimura (DMC5, Japanese)

V's smart-mouthed primary familiar, this eagle-like demon uses his mastery of lightning to aid V in battle by fighting from a distance and keeping the demon hunter safe.

---

• Deadpan Snarker: In contrast with the original Griffon, who was respectful of his enemies, this Griffon can go toe to toe with the protagonists in a battle of words.
• Expy: As the high-pitched Feathered Fiend Familiar, obnoxiously snarky Jerk with a Heart of Gold and the resident Snarky Non-Human Sidekick, he's basically the Devil May Cry franchise's own Iago.
• Giant Flyer: Relatively. He can perch on V's arm, but he's also strong enough to carry V for short distances.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a cocky thunderbird who spends most of his time insulting his teammates, and snarking endlessly. However, he also shows a deeply compassionate side, as he's always putting himself in danger trying to protect V and Nero. He ultimately sacrifices his life to help Vergil in a Suicide by Cop moment and wishes Dante a sincere farewell after their duel, and even the veteran Devil Hunter mourns him, and admits he had a good heart.
• Running Gag: Several characters, and in completely independent moments from each other, compare him to a chicken.
• Shock and Awe: Just like the original Griffon, he has complete mastery over lightning and electricity.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Compared to everyone else in the original Devil May Cry continuity, he is one of the most vulgar.
• Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Griffon can be chatty and obnoxious to contrast with V's more subdued personality.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: While this Griffon differs greatly from the previous Griffon in terms of personality, as he is a more loose and extroverted demon in contrast to the original's very formal and composed self, in the end, both share a common sense of loyalty towards their masters; Griffon in 1 was loyal to Mundus to the very end even when his master had enough and killed him for failing to kill Dante several times. This Griffon in 5 choose to die with the other two familiars as a means to erase Vergil's unpleasant memories as Nelo Angelo.
• Thunderbird: Just like the original Griffon, he's a demon bird with lightning powers, only a lot smaller this time.
• Voice for the Voiceless: Since Griffon is the only one who can speak the human language, he speaks on behalf of Shadow and Nightmare.

    Shadow

V's secondary familiar, a panther-like demon that transforms parts of its body into various weapons in order to destroy V's enemies.

---

• Advertised Extra: Shadow takes a significant portion of the updated Special Edition box art, even if its just one of V's familiars.
• Animalistic Abomination: While it may look like a panther, it can shapeshift into weapons or even a more humanoid form.
• Ascended Extra: While all three familiars are based on demons Dante fought in first game, the original Shadows were mere Mini Bosses in contrast to the original Nightmare and Griffon who were major bosses.
• Combat Tentacles: Makes liberal use of these, transforming its head into a drill or flail and even using them while drilling through the ground. Tentacles are also Shadow's usual method for dealing against airborne enemies during its basic combo string.
• Elemental Shapeshifter: Shadow can transform into a shadow matter to help V move quickly. In-game, it functions as V's side-dodge evasion mechanic (via the "Forced Move" ability), or his Sprint Shoes mechanic (via the "Quickplay" ability).
• Enigmatic Minion: Shadow is a demon that rarely says anything, and even when it does, Griffon has to translate it to a language humans can understand, though not much is even translated. That being said, it still formed an allegiance with V and the other two familiars. This stands in contrast to Griffon, who has the role of the Snarky Nonhuman Sidekick.
• Informed Attribute: Shadow can speak, but we have to take Griffon's word for what it says. Given that its apparent "speech" sounds like the sort of growling you'd expect from something that looks like a panther, it's easy to miss even with Griffon's commentary. The first instance is just before V's tutorial fight shortly after taking control of him for the first time in game; Griffon mocking its apparent warning to "be careful" as obvious is the only indication that it spoke at all. The second instance happens during the Boss Banter with Nidhogg when the boss is being mocked by V's familiars, while the third happens when Shadow calls V and Griffon's attention to the comatose Dante.

  Griffon: (to Nidhogg) Even the big bad kitty knows you got shit for brains!

• Living Shadow: It is a shadow demon in the form of a panther. It can also be V's literal shadow and carry him very quickly across the ground.
• Shapeshifter Weapon: In order to attack, it can transform parts of its body, or even its entire body, into massive blades, whip-like tentacles, spears or spikes as needed.
• Swiss Army Weapon: Glaives, drills, spikes, blades, Shadow can transform into them all.

    Nightmare

V's most powerful familiar and ace in the hole, the Nightmare is a hulking golem that can turn the tide of any battle in V's favour. While lacking any real personality, it is completely loyal to V.

---

• Belly Flop Crushing: One of the ways V can summon Nightmare, having it drop from the sky and fall flat on enemies.
• Blob Monster: Nightmare is an amorphous creature of shadowy ooze that manages to cobble together a roughly humanoid shape, and can reform and resize however it needs. It can emerge and dissolve into a puddle of goo to enter and exit battles.
• The Brute: For V's squad of familiars. It's already huge on its own and it provides the highest damage output among them. Unlike the other two, Nightmare can even wreck some parts of the environment when it is summoned.
• Combination Attack: V's Checkmate against Goliath involves summoning Nightmare and waiting on its arm as it punches the other giant. As Nightmare's fist reaches Goliath's chest, V then stabs the latter's heart with his cane.
• Comeback Mechanic: Summoning Nightmare also fully restores Griffon and Shadow even when they're in stalemate, making it a great comeback for V if both of his two other familiars are down.
• Death from Above: V can summon Nightmare as a meteor falling from the sky.
• Dynamic Entry: Nightmare is quite fond of making dramatic entrances, such as breaking a nearby wall, crashing down from the sky like a meteor, or breaking a hole through reality itself. These also work offensively as it can damage several enemies when it arrives. In Mission 4, you can even earn an achievement for summoning Nightmare by making it burst through a specific wall.
• Eldritch Abomination: Just like the original Nightmare, this musclebound blob demon has reality-bending powers in a debatable state of living with the power to destroy the underworld, limited only by V's fragility.
• Energy Weapon: From its core, it can fire smaller lasers that cause massive explosions, or a single massive laser that requires some time to charge but is absolutely devastating. Nightmare will occasionally fire them out automatically, or V can make it do so at will when taking direct control.
• Eye Beams: Nightmare's core appears as a single eye on its head, which then fires laser beams of varying size and intensity.
• Flunky Boss: When you fight it in Mission 18, it is the main enemy that you must defeat. During the battle, Griffon and Shadow will try to keep you busy. While you can put them into a permanent stalemate during the fight, Nightmare has the power to revive both of them with 1/4 of their total health when it comes into the arena, meaning you can never truly put them down until Nightmare goes down, at which point the whole fight ends. This also essentially counts as a Keystone Army example.
• Golem: Though it's naturally a demonic goo, Nightmare usually takes the form of a hulking golem in battle.
• Limit Break: Nightmare acts as V's Devil Trigger, but it functions more like a powerful move that's only available when V has enough DT gauge.
• Mighty Glacier: Hits like a tank, and moves about as slow as one.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: When summoned by V, it not only takes no damage from all attacks, but also prevents Griffon and Shadow from taking damage. The only thing that can damage it is someone as powerful as Dante.
• Nightmare Sequence: Inflicts this on V during the events of Visions of V, trapping him in an empty void with a construct of Nelo Angelo. V might have died if not for a construct of Dante appearing to save him.
• Power Parasite: Requires Devil Trigger power from V to manifest, and once his DT gauge runs out, it returns to him.
• Redemption Promotion: In essence. The original Nightmare demon fought by Dante in Mallet Island can be damaged and killed. When the familiar Nightmare is under the player's control as V's Limit Break, it's completely invincible. Justified as the original Nightmare was so powerful that even Mundus was disturbed by its potential and had to impose mechanisms to make it vulnerable, whereas V's own Nightmare is only restrained by his Devil Trigger gauge.
• Spin Attack: One of its attacks has it rapidly spin around with its arms outstretched.
• Sweeping Laser Explosion: One of its many attacks. When manually controlling Nightmare with Promotion, players can do a horizontal-vertical combo of laser explosions with "Strongpoint" and "Critical Position".
• Unskilled, but Strong: Nightmare basically moves on pure instinct, so it either just flails around or fires beams willy-nilly, even when V takes direct control over its attacks. Despite that, it still hits like a truck, can't be stalemated, and can even revive Shadow and Griffon when summoned.
• Your Size May Vary: Noticeable if you fight Goliath as V. Throughout most of the fight, Nightmare in its normal size is roughly up to Goliath's hips. But when V summons it for the finishing blow, Nightmare grows to be the same size as Goliath. It's justified as Nightmare's body is made of liquid, allowing it to reform and resize as needed.

---

combsunth1962.blogspot.com

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/DevilMayCryV

Share this post