#'we've been together for so long why don't you trust me' you are actively deceiving him!!!!

[navree]

if it weren't so clearly gearing up towards a desperate tragedy this entire exchange of arthur going "lying bad" and john going "what if lying good" and then getting incredibly fake offended when arthur asks if he has, perchance, been lying would be comedy gold

[misc-obeyme]

Grey Asmo here again!

Who do you think is the nightbringer? (Goes by many names) im thinking its barb but that does not make sense

Hello again, anon!

Okay. Here's the thing. I think whether or not Nightbringer is Barbatos depends on whether or not they are actively trying to misdirect us.

The evidence for Barbatos being Nightbringer is overwhelming, so at the very least, they want us to think it's him. They could be deliberately making it seem incredibly obvious so that we won't see it coming when they do something twisty.

Now, even if they do some kind of unexpected twist, it might not be about Nightbringer's identity. For instance, they reveal that Nightbringer is Barbatos as we all thought, but it's Barbatos from a different timeline. That's not really a surprising twist, but it's just an example.

When the game first came out, I thought for sure Nightbringer was Barbatos. They were making it so obvious. And this game isn't exactly known for having a lot of really surprising things happen. Dramatic stuff, sure, but nothing on the level of making us think Barbatos is Nightbringer just to reveal it's actually someone else.

But recent events in the game have made me think they're more likely to do something like that after all.

SPOILERS for HARD LESSON 20 just in case:

I never in a million years would have guessed that Raphael was actually Michael in disguise. That twist came out of nowhere for me. I'm usually pretty good at picking up on these things, but yeah I did not see that one coming at all. This makes me think that it's perfectly possible that they're planning some kind of misdirection.

END SPOILERS

Now, if they are trying to deceive us, I think Nightbringer would have to be someone we haven't met yet or an alternate timeline version of someone we have. Nothing else makes sense to me.

The big thing with Barbatos, in my opinion, is motivation. Right now we really don't know what would motivate him to do the things that Nightbringer is doing. But there's a lot we don't know about Barb. So it could be that they're going to fill in that missing information and that it will explain how Barbatos went from being the father of all demons to a butler. If he is indeed Nightbringer, they will have to explain that.

One other thing that I think is interesting is Lesson 10-A. Solomon talks to Nightbringer, but there's actually no indication that he's aware of Nightbringer's identity. He seems to know Nightbringer as Nightbringer. He even says he has an agreement with "him" in quotes like that. Which is interesting if Nightbringer is Barbatos. Why would Barbatos present himself to Solomon that way? Especially when Solomon already trusts him as Barbatos?

Whether or not Nightbringer is Barbatos, I very much believe that both Barbatos and Solomon are deeply connected to him in some way. I think we need to know what happened when Barbatos brought Solomon to the Fountain of Knowledge. I think we need to know who Solomon's friend was when he was telling us that story he couldn't finish. And I think we need to know why Barbatos became Diavolo's butler.

All of this is to say that at this time, I think it's possible that Nightbringer is Barbatos, but I also think it's possible that he isn't. And if he isn't, then I don't know for sure who he could be. Someone we haven't met yet? Michael? An alternate version of one of the other characters? Maybe even the reveal that it's been one of the characters we've known all along?? They could really make us lose it by revealing that it was somehow MC?!?! Okay, I don't think that's the case, but man that'd be insane.

Anyway, I apologize for this long response, but there's just so much to consider when it comes to Nightbringer's identity. They keep giving us little bits but none of the pieces fit together.