WMG / Devil May Cry 4

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Nero is Full Human

The only reason he's described as being part-demon is because of his Devil-bringer.

• Jossed: Vergil's been officially confirmed to be his dad.

Vergil IS Yamato in DMC4

And Nero's father, in an "Immaculate Conception" sorta way. As Vergil obtained more and more power, he became more and more demonic, eventually fusing with Yamato and taking on the look he has as Nero's DT. Nero was created by the order Via experimentation with the "Extremely Powerful Devil's Arm" Yamato/Vergil (calling it a Devil's Arm instead of just Devil arm is to show that it is both a Devil's ARM (Arm meaning WEAPON) and a Devil Weapon. The quote "from that day on my arm changed, and I heard a voice" something saying "Give me power, MORE POWER" is him referring to hearing Yamato/Vergil calling out to him to wield him, thus bring them both more power. Upon accepting this, even if he "Becomes a Demon" as Vergil did, they make a contract, Vergil/Yamato will help him in exchange for further increasing his, and by extension, Vergil/Yamato's power.

• Yeah... no. Yamato is already a Devil Arm, but Vergil didn't fuse to it as it still exists while Vergil's body was destroyed by Mundus, while his Nelo Angelo body was used to create the Angelos by the Order. The book series that was based on 4, as well as includes details not included in the games for time restraints, shows that Nero is a Son Of A Prostitute who Vergil slept with — Nero was conceived as a Tyke Bomb to be used against the order. Sorry, man.
• Jossed: Vergil is alive and separate from Yamato in 5.

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.

• 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.

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?

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?).
• OR Vergil is literally fractured, in that the remains of his persona Nelo Angelo were harvested to create the knight enemies in DMC4. It's in their in-game enemy files.

• Everything above is Jossed: 5 finally acknowledges that Nero is Vergil's son. That said, Vergil is fractured in that game, as V and Urizen.

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 succeeds, 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.

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).
• Confirmed: He's Vergil's son.

Nero is not Vergil OR Dante's son, but Mundus's

Lifting this directly out of a fanfic I'm writing, but based on his name and some behaviors, I'd argue Nero could be Mundus's kid somehow, given he shares his name with Nero Ceaser, who is one of the most described tyrants in the Bible (you know 666? Number of the beast? Those numbers were a way to say His name without letting his guard know you were criticizing him). Given Devil May Cry is based in part off the works of Dante Aligheri, who would certainly have believed in Revelations and considered Nero pure evil. Despite being raised in a society that worshipers Sparda, Nero gives him indifference at best, disdain at worst and, given the time she spent as a character (overthrowing a blatant stand-in for the Pope), he could even be a false profit. All traits of The Antichrist who, in Devil May Cry, would be Mundus's son.

• Jossed in 5, he's Vergil's kid.

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.
• Jossed: 5 confirms that he's Vergil's son.

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...

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).

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.

• This theory's title is semi-confirmed, but only in a meta sense. Although the idea wasn't implemented in the game, Gloria was actually meant to be a character of her own and not just "Trish in disguise". Scenario writer Bingo Morihashi confirmed it in page 210 of the 3142 Graphic Arts artbook. However, the prototype Gloria was also meant to be a straight-up villain working as a "combat officer" of the Order.

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?
• Jossed: 5 confirms that he's Sparda's grandson by virtue of being Vergil's son.

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!

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.
• Jossed: Nero is Vergil's biological son.

Nero is Vergil'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.

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" received 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 receive 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.

• Jossed: Nero doesn't have to save Dante since their meeting takes place after he gets out of hell (4 now officially takes place after 2).

If Nero is Vergil's son, he's actually three quarters demon

We know that Vergil has more of an affinity for his demonic heritage than his human one, so it's not especially likely that he would have children with a human: besides, there's probably lots of demons that would jump at the chance of breeding with an entity as powerful as a son of Sparda. The reason for the Devil Bringer manifesting itself is because there is a lot more demonic power in his body and soul, which makes it a lot harder to control (this part has the bonus of making another parallel to Ichigo).

Nero is an Umbran Witch.

As a Tweet from Kamiya reveals, it seems like men can become Umbran Witches and females can serve as Lumen Sages. This, combined with how Nero's Devil Trigger and Devil Bringer manifests almost exactly like Umbran Climax and Wicked Weaves, seems to give the impression that Nero had managed to become an Umbran Witch. Hell, he's even made a part of a dormant god (artificial in this case, unlike in Bayonetta) like Bayonetta was. The only two questions left to be answered is "who is his Contract Demon" and "why can't he make use of Witch Time"? The first answer is basically Vergil, or at least whatever is left of him. Notice how Nero's Devil Trigger looks almost entirely like Vergil when he was Nelo Angelo, as well as how the DMC4SE Vergil ending has his shadow looking the same as Nero's Devil Trigger. As well as the factor that Nero's words right after getting it sound as if he's accepting a condition or contract. The second question isn't spoilery to answer: Nero doesn't have an Umbran Watch, which seems to give most Umbran witches their ability to manipulate time, hence why he doesn't have the capability to.

• As fun as this is, this doesn't work post 5 since Nero has been confirmed to be Vergil's son (with the latter still alive as the Big Bad of the game), and his Devil Bringer is actually the manifestation of the "wings" of his true Devil Trigger.