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Devil May Cry - Before the Nightmare Novel Translation

@sevi007 @wingsofthenight @devilmaycry-headcanons

Version 1.0 (4th March 2019)

What is Devil May Cry Before the Nightmare?

Devil May Cry Before the Nightmare is the official prequel novel to Devil May Cry 5. It was published on March 1st 2019 by Kadokawa.

This novel is in Japanese only, and there are currently no announced plans to translate it. This means that only Japanese audiences get the full story behind Devil May Cry 5. With this in mind, Platinum, DMC5Info’s translator/co-admin, worked tirelessly to translate this 260 page book before Devil May Cry 5’s release.

It was no easy task and required a lot of coffee. If you would like to help replenish her coffee supply, Plat’s Ko-Fi account can be found at https://ko-fi.com/platinumparagon. Any spelling mistakes or errors will be corrected ASAP and will be reflected in the version number. If you are reading this via PDF, please consider checking DMC5Info for any issued corrections or updates.

Please note that everything before Nico Chapter 2 is safe to read regarding spoilers for Devil May Cry 5. After this chapter, some scenes from the game’s prologue begin to be retold and we are granted access to inner monologues. We particularly recommend skipping the second last chapter, V Chapter 3, if you do not want spoilers or hints for Devil May Cry 5.

Thank you and we hope you enjoy!

Prologue Chapter

● Nico is meeting an occult journalist named Jeffrey Turner in a bar. Jeffrey works for the ‘Occult Times’ magazine.

● Nico’s drink of choice is a boiler maker with beer and bourbon.

● Nico tells Jeffrey to call her Miss Goldstein and produces a copy of ‘Occult Times’ from five years ago. Jeffrey gets nostalgic about this issue as it contains the first feature that he ever wrote – how The Saviour attacked Fortuna. Nico bluntly tells him she doesn’t care about his nostalgia.

● Jeffrey is curious about how she knows about Fortuna as it is one of the most secluded regions of the world and its citizens are quite antiquated. He tells Nico that he didn’t witness the event for himself, but he heard that the city was destroyed by a white giant.

● Nico tells Jeffrey that while the magazine may exaggerate the truth or mix in a few falsehoods, those events did happen.

● Jeffrey tried to investigate The Order of the Sword as best as he could, but the locals would not speak to outsiders and it seemed that all key members of The Order (the leader, high members etc.) had disappeared. While general members remained, they became sceptical of the Order’s creed. Jeffrey speculates that the white giant was a result of some sort of failed summoning ritual that destroyed the city.

● Nico says she tried to investigate Fortuna herself, but most places have a ‘No Entry’ sign and she stood out among the citizens as an outsider.

● Jeffrey tries to make a toast with Nico and picks up his glass, but she ignores him and goes back to the magazine. He sighs and puts his glass down.

● Nico goes back to the magazine where she shows Jeffrey a picture of Fortuna covered in rubble. In this picture is a young man whose face is concealed. Nico asks about the young man and Jeffrey says that this is ‘N’. He was like a point of contact with Jeffrey about the story, but he didn’t give a lot of helpful information. Nico asks if N seemed like a member of The Order and Jeffrey said he did, but he had departed from them.

● Nico wants to know N’s name, but Jeffrey is apprehensive. He asks why she wants to know N’s name, and Nico immediately replies that she wants to meet N. Jeffrey would usually forget people's names, but this case was special to him as it was his first overseas reporting and he was so enthusiastic. Now his career his dwindling, so he outright tells her that his name is Nero. Nico also asks if he has a surname, but Jeffrey says he doesn’t know.

● Jeffrey asks Nico why she’s going to Fortuna. She replies – „I’m aiming high“ (as in aiming for the stars). She drops her bourbon in her beer glass, sinks it in one drink, gives a big smile and leaves. She leaves behind her copy of Occult Times and tells Jeffrey to keep it as a memento.

● Jeffrey wonders if he’s heard the name Goldstein before, but he’s too drunk to remember.

Nero Chapter 1

● The chapter begins with Nero working in his garage as he struggles to get Red Queen to rev properly. Nero playfully speaks to the sword and asks if it’s pouting.

● While tidying in the garage, Julio, an orphan that Nero helps Kyrie take care of, says that there is a strange woman outside. Nero asks what makes her so strange – does she have three eyes and no nose? Julio replies that it’s not her appearance that’s weird, it’s the fact that she says she’s searching for Nero.

● After the Order of the Sword incident, Nero is wary of strangers as occult reporters, novelists etc. come to the city for details, but he can’t tell them the truth.

● Julio says that the woman has dark skin and glasses. Believing this woman to be Gloria, Nero asks Julio if her hair is white. Julio says that her hair is black and frizzy. Overhearing this, Nico yells „Who has black frizzy hair, you stupid brat!?“ and barges to the front of the garage. Julio then points to her and Nico says, „It’s rude to point, brat“.

● Julio would normally retort, but Nero tells him to go to Kyrie with a serious face, so he listens.

● Nero asks what business Nico has while making sure to hide his Devil Bringer from her. He feels that the Devil Bringer bestowed him with great demonic power and he uses it to protect the person that he loves. While he used to be sick of its ugly appearance, he is now grateful for it.

● It is stated that Nero uses his arm to judge whether someone is a demon or not. If they are a demon, his arm has some sort of reaction. As his arm does not react, he believes she is either a human or a demon with minimal powers.

● Nico asks him if he’s Nero. Nero insists that she stop smoking before asking any more questions as he hates smoking and the garage is filled with combustible items.

● Nico basically tells him that he should save the lectures for the bratty kid from earlier. Nero starts to get irritated by her rudeness and tells her to put the cigarette out or get out. She drops the cigarette on the floor, squashes it with her boot and says „Is this okay, No Smoking Boy?“. Nero thinks she’s an unpleasant woman.

● Nero estimates that they are the same age, maybe she’s a little younger, but she acts like she’s older than him (a senpai).

● As Nico enters the garage, she keeps both arms in the air. She teases him by saying „Are you going to hit me, a frail woman?“ As she approaches him, she sees the Devil Bringer. Nero is afraid of what might happen from her seeing it. However, she sits on a box in the corner and says „What, have a complex about it? Don’t worry, it’s part of who you are.“ She then introduces herself as Nicoletta Goldstein and says that she has a favor to ask Nero.

● Nico is looking for missing Order of the Sword demonic research documents. She says that she has no choice but to ask surviving members of The Order for help finding them. While talking to Nico, Nero notes that there is no ill will in her eyes, more like child-like curiosity.

● Nero asks how Nico knew about The Order researching demons as this wasn’t public knowledge. She says that she researched this information from a range of people, from demon hunters to a chain-smoking, gossip-loving old lady.

● As Nico shows knowledge of demons and demon hunters, Nero reflects that this is the first time that someone with a genuine connection to demons (besides cheesy occult magazines) has found him. Because of this, he rejects her request to help her find Order documents.

● After being told no, Nico doesn’t leave. Instead, she asks how Agnus is now. This shocks Nero and he tells Nico that he was killed. Nico, with an air of loneliness, says that she’d heard about that rumor. Nero asks how she knows ‘that asshole’ and Nico says that he’s her biological father.

● Nero is in disbelief and can’t stop questioning Nico about it. Her response is simply „Yeah, what bad luck“.

● During the ‘You’re his daughter!?’ exchange, Nico notices Red Queen and instantly picks it up. Nero scolds her for touching his stuff without permission.

● Nico begins examining Red Queen and gets so excited at its design that she begins to stutter. Nero keeps trying to snatch it from her, but eventually stops and watches in awe as she quickly identifies what’s wrong with Red Queen and begins to repair it.

● As she fixes it, she scolds Nero and calls him an idiot for not keeping up with Red Queen’s regular maintenance. He then begins to accept that this is Agnus’s daughter as they both share the same love of research and even have a similar skin color.

● Nico repairs Red Queen and says to it „Baby, how’re you doing?“. She tests it out by revving it, but its power knocks her to the floor. While Nero thought she’d get angry, she smiles and dusts herself off. She says that Red Queen is ‘very rowdy, but a cutie’.

● After repairing Red Queen, Nero is indebted to Nico. He decides to show her The Order’s documents, and this makes her smile from ear to ear. She tells him that from now on, he’s allowed to call her Nico. The chapter ends with Nero thinking about the man who killed her father – Dante.

Dante Chapter 1

● The chapter begins with Dante reaching Dumary Island and speaking with Matier on the harbor. He struggles to recall her name and asks if her name is Matia, which she then corrects to Matier. She says that Sparda would forget her and other women’s names as well.

● Sparda is described as Mundus’s right-hand man who betrayed him due to feeling compassion towards humans. Before meeting Eva, Sparda would travel the world and that is how he met Matier.

● Dante doesn’t have many memories of Sparda, but recalls receiving sword-fighting lessons with Vergil. At this time, he had no idea that his father was a demon and didn’t know about the legend of Sparda.

● Matier calls Dante cruel for not returning to the island after the incident around ten years ago. Dante says he couldn’t help it because he was stuck in ‘a garbage dump’ (hell) and travelling between the human world and demon world isn’t easy.

● Matier asks how he was able to escape hell and he says that a hole unexpectedly opened up and he travelled through it. Sometimes holes connecting to the demon world will suddenly appear. These holes seem to be why Dumary Island requires guardians to protect it.

● It seems that ‘small port cities’ have a higher likelihood of holes appearing, which is used to explain why Dumary Island and Fortuna have demons appearing.

● The novel states that when demons enter the human world, they only project their consciousness into another physical entity. If a demon wants to enter with its physical body, the hole has to be massive. Dante feels like it wasn’t a coincidence that there was a hole large enough for him to pass through. When he went to Fortuna and saw the Hell Gate, he suddenly understood that perhaps his escape from hell was related to Yamato.

● Dante describes Yamato as a memento from their father that has the ability to cut away the boundary between the human world and the demon world.

● Matier says that Lucia objected to calling Dante back to Dumary Island, but there aren’t many ‘young men’ left on the island. Dante says that he’s not exactly a young man anymore. He contemplates his own lifespan in relation to Sparda’s and wonders when he’ll be considered an old man.

● Lucia waited for Dante to return from hell and made several round trips to the office and back to see if he returned. When Dante did return, they hugged and she cried. However, Dante had to leave shortly after as he received a call with the password.

● Dante has a rule where he tries to keep his focus solely on a job. Matier scolds him and says that it’s not like she’s asking Dante to marry Lucia for life, he just wants him to give her one happy memory. He says, „My bad, I have my reasons“, then Matier scolds him again for his subpar apology and says that Sparda had a better way with words. Dante says that he likes to think he’s a better man than his father, causing Matier to jab him with her cane. She says if that’s the case, he needs to stop being rude to Lucia. Tired of getting lectured, Dante changes the subject to why Matier asked him to come.

● Matier asks him if he remembers the demon that brought him to the island last time. Dante says that he killed things like a big monkey (Orangguerra), but Matier has to remind him that he killed Argosax. Dante considers remembering the names of all the demons he’s defeated a waste of his brain. However, there’s one name he always remembers – Mundus, the demon who brought harm to his mother.

● Matier says that the demon that has appeared was Argosax’s right-hand man. Dante jokes that he dealt with the number one guy, now he has to deal with the number two guy. Dante starts to remember Argosax, but also remembers that he wasn’t much of a threat to him.

● According to Matier, around half of hell have rallied around this right-hand man and he has been saving his strength for the past decade to come through to the human world. Because of this demon’s size, Matier doesn’t think it could just slip through a hole. Instead, she reckons that a human is summoning it through a ritual, but she doesn’t think that would happen easily on the island with her and Lucia protecting it.

● Dante asks if she knows who is summoning the demon, but she can’t find any evidence of who it is, particularly as Arius is no longer alive. Dante asks the name of the demon and Matier laughs, saying, „Aren’t you going to forget it tomorrow? The demon’s name is Balrog. According to legend, he’s a ferocious fire demon. Be careful.“ Hearing this warning makes Dante smile.

Nero Chapter 2

● The chapter begins with Nico and Nero in the basement of Fortuna Castle, the location of Agnus’s research facility. Nico is elated by the modern equipment in the facility, looking at and touching everything. She strokes the round cylinders that once housed demons and once again stutters with excitement.

● Nero asks Nico what she plans to do with Agnus’s research documents. He fears that Agnus’s daughter will continue his malicious work and once again bring demons to the world. While he asks this question, he keeps a concealed hand on Blue Rose as he may have to kill her depending on her answer.

● Nico tells him that she wants to be an artist. Nero becomes confused by her answer and takes his finger away from Blue Rose’s trigger. He asks if she wants to draw pictures of demons and this makes her burst into laughter. She says she’s not interested in pictures, she wants to become a first-class weapons/arms artist. Nero recalls how skillfully she disassembled Red Queen.

● Nico asks if Nero’s heard of her grandmother, the .45 Calibre Artist. Nero shakes his head, and this infuriates Nico as she makes a gesture with her head like she is spitting. She yells at him, „You don’t know anything, boy!“ Nero manages to keep his cool despite being insulted. He attributes this to spending time taking care of orphans, building his patience and resistance to insults from younger people.

● Nero explains that he probably hasn’t heard of her because guns aren’t very popular in Fortuna. He says that in his past, people looked down on him for using a gun. This raises Nico’s interest, asking him if he has a gun. Nero hesitates for a bit and then takes his concealed Blue Rose from his pocket. Nico runs up to it and fixates her gaze on it, once again stuttering with excitement. Her mannerisms remind him of Agnus.

● Nico asks if she can touch the gun and Nero allows it. Nico geeks out over the gun and Blue Rose’s design is explained: a double-barrel revolver that shoots two bullets with a slight time delay on each shot. One bullet penetrates while the other explodes.

● Nero’s impressed that she can identify the two different types of bullets from looking at them as they are nearly identical. Nico says, „Who do you think I am!?“.

● Nico says that Blue Rose’s concept could be thought of, but it would be difficult to execute and would require someone who’s very skilled. Because of a language pun in Japanese, Nero reflects on how Agnus certainly was the crazy type.

● Nero then reflects on his own life circumstances. While he feels his morality is questionable, he was raised in a home with honesty and integrity. He looked up to Credo, the person who was like an older brother to him. But now, he had Kyrie as his lover.

● Nico talks about how her grandmother’s guns were simple and beautiful. She says the final pair of guns that she made were very, very beautiful. Nico talks on and on about them which Nero is not interested in. However, she says, „They’re called ‘Ebony and Ivory’, one’s black and one’s white. Appropriate names for such fine art!“. The names raise Nero’s interest and she continues to describe

the guns, detailing how one is for rapid fire and one is for destructive power. The guns were designed with demon hunting in mind, and she believes that the guns are currently being used by a demon hunter. While trying to remember the name, Nero says it instead – „Dante“.

● Nico says that he is correct and asks if he is a celebrity in the demon hunting world. However, Nero is too dumbfounded to reply as he realizes the connection – Nico’s grandmother designed the guns that shot her father in the head.

● Nico demands an answer from Nero. „I want to know what type of guy is using my grandmother’s best work. Wait, don’t tell me he’s a piece of shit!?“ Nero asks her to be patient while he processes all of this information.

● Nero thinks about how Dante is an important person to him. Dante saved him from the chaos ensuing in Fortuna, but in the process he killed Agnus. Now Agnus’s daughter is in front of him asking what he’s like. Nero says aloud „Shit, how am I gonna explain this?“, causing Nico to raise her eyebrows.

Dante Chapter 2

● The chapter begins with Dante killing monkey-looking demons on the way to fight Balrog. While killing them, he reflects on how great Ebony and Ivory are and how they were Nell Goldstein’s magnum opus.

● While disposing of the demons, Dante hears a heavy French accent behind him say „As usual, your guns are wonderful“. He turns his head and replies with, „Long time no see, Lucia“. Lucia asks him if he’s aged a little and he gives her a bitter smile, telling her she’s just imagining it. Dante tells her she hasn’t changed at all, and Lucia reminds him that she can’t change no matter how much time passes.

● Dante tries to comfort Lucia by telling her that women pay large amounts of money to try to look youthful, but this isn’t a comfort to her.

● Lucia’s origin story as an artificial demon is repeated. Dante notes that she has a lonely face.

● Dante starts cracking wise with Lucia and says that compared to the horror around them, he’s like something that came from heaven. This gets a faint smile from Lucia and she thanks him for coming while putting out her hand to him.

● This is a surprise to Dante as he heard from Matier that Lucia wasn’t happy with him coming. Lucia says that Balrog is a bit too difficult for one person, so she would appreciate help dealing with him to finish it quicker. Dante smiles as he thinks this is a thinly-veiled ‘I can’t do this on my own’, but he’s fine with it as she appears more confident.

● Dante and Lucia walk shoulder to shoulder to go fight Balrog. He reflects that it’s been a long time since they’ve been together, but they walked together like old partners. There is a mutual trust between the pair.

● The pair fight their way to Balrog, and Balrog simply looks at them. Dante asks if he’s shy and Balrog replies with „So you finally came“. Dante asks if he was waiting for them to appear, and Balrog indeed says that he believed that if he waited here, eventually a person of strength would come to him. Balrog takes a step towards them which is enough to shake the ground. During this conversation, Dante experiences a familiar sensation nearby.

● Balrog says that after losing his partner Argosax, he has grown bored. But now, he has a new power. Dante sees something glimmering in his fist and he recognizes it – it is a shard of Yamato. It seems that when parts of Yamato scattered, a part remained in hell. It seems that Balrog used a shard of Yamato to enter the human world.

● Dante deduces that Balrog had been using the shard to travel to the human world. Dante was able to escape hell using one of these holes left by Balrog, believing his escape to be a coincidence.

● Dante says „Yamato...“ out loud. Yamato was once used to seal demons away, now it is helping demons escape from it. The Order of the Sword collected fragments of Yamato to fuel their ambitions, and that is how the Fortuna incident occurred.

● In response, Dante grabs Rebellion and readies himself for battle. Balrog lets out a massive yell, but Dante is unphased by it. He tells Lucia that this is his job and jumps at Balrog, attacking him in his fist.

Nico Chapter 1

● The chapter opens with Nico meeting Kyrie for the first time. As Agnus amassed a lot of research documents, Nico must stay for a little while in Fortuna with Nero and Kyrie.

● Nico doesn’t really consider people to be beautiful, she thinks well-made guns and swords are beautiful. However, she believes that Kyrie is so beautiful that it’s a rare sight. The way that Kyrie looks at Nico reminds her of her mother Alyssa who died when she was very young.

● Kyrie asks if it’s okay to call her Nico. Nico immediately nods and says „You can call me whatever you want! ‘Nico’, ‘Nicoletta’, even ‘Bitch’!“. In response, Nero stomps on her foot under the table, points at her and yells „Hey! Don’t use dirty words in front of Kyrie!“.

● Nico heard that Kyrie was Nero’s girlfriend, but she couldn’t imagine just how special Kyrie was to Nero. Nico apologizes to Kyrie for her foul mouth and says that her father is to blame; Nero lets out a small sigh. Kyrie smiles at them like she’s watching two children bicker, which puts Nico at ease.

● Kyrie invites Nico to eat with them as there’s plenty to go around. Kyrie asks Nico if there’s any food that she doesn’t like and Nico responds with, „If you cooked a tyre then I’d eat it!“, making Kyrie laugh.

● When Kyrie goes to the kitchen, Nico tries to get a rise from Nero by saying „Lovely woman, she’s too good for you“. Instead of a snarky rebuttal, Nero says „Yeah, I think so too“.

● As Agnus abandoned Nico and her mother when she was very young, she has complex feelings regarding him. While reflecting on this, Nico takes out a box of cigarettes which Nero promptly snatches away from her. He tells her that she can’t smoke in the house, and Nico asks if she can at least smoke in the garage as she can’t work if she doesn’t smoke. In the garage, kids won’t see her and she won’t be chased out of town for being an outsider.

● Nico was told by her mother that Fortuna was her father’s home town. She read about the town’s feature in Folklore Times, resulting in her starting to collect information concerning demons.

● After this segue, Nero still orders her to smoke outside. As she stands up to go smoke, she asks Nero if she wants any of her technology. He neither nodded nor objected, but Nico felt that there was an implicit acceptance of the offer. Nico says, „It’s fine, it’s give-and-take. I get to make fine art and you get to use it to kill demons. We’ll be like business partners“.

● Nero asks if this is really okay as he was an accomplice in her father’s murder. Nico reflects on the story Nero told her about how the man who wields her grandmother’s masterpiece used them to kill her father. Even Nico with her vivid imagination would struggle to think of something like that. However, she concludes that she has no emotional attachment to her father. As he abandoned her when she was around two or three, she didn’t even have memories of him.

● Nico tells him that the incident is in the past, then asks to make a phone call when she’s done smoking. Nero asks who she’s calling, and she says, „My dad, I want him to send me a package“. Realizing how confusing her words were, she corrects herself and says „Not Agnus, my current dad. He’s a blood relative – my uncle“. Nero heard this explanation with his mouth wide open.

Lucia Chapter 1

● Lucia is watching Balrog and Dante fight. Balrog seems to be enjoying himself and doesn’t even get angry when Dante dodges his attacks.

● While watching Dante fight, Lucia clenches her fist. She committed herself to her studies and to getting stronger not only so she would never have to rely on Dante again, but so that she could one day repay the favor to him. While watching Dante fight, she felt powerless.

● Lucia wonders if his battle prowess is due to his experience, or whether it is simply because he has the blood of Sparda.

● The fight between Dante and Balrog heats up (literally) as Balrog’s fire causes trees and abandoned houses to catch on fire. Dante asks why Balrog likes fire so much since it’s so commonly used. Balrog says that his fire is unprecedented and goes to punch Dante with a burning hot fist.

● The punch collides with the ground and causes a cloud of dust to appear. Lucia reflexively calls out Dante’s name, but as the cloud of dust disappears, she sees that he is protected by a transparent wall. Lucia sees him holding a three-pronged nunchaku.

● „It’s been a long time since I’ve used these, I’m not good with heat“, says Dante as the wall of ice shatters. This tactic infuriates Balrog and he readies his fist once more. In response, Dante makes an exaggerated pose with Cerberus like a protagonist in a kung-fu movie.

● During the pose, Cerberus starts emitting cool air. Dante comments that he hasn’t used it in a while, so he thinks it’s pouting with him. Upon seeing it, Balrog says „That shape, that ability...did you tame Cerberus?“

● Lucia remembers what Matier taught her about Devil Arms. She says that there are two ways for Devil Arms to be created. A demon will turn into a weapon of overwhelming power if it has been defeated and becomes submissive, or a demon will change into a weapon if there is a strong emotional bond present.

● Dante talks to Cerberus again, saying „C’mon puppy, it’s not like I got rid of you“. Dante and Balrog resume fighting, with Dante throwing some mad shapes with Cerberus.

● Dante lands a big blow against Balrog and he staggers, but it turns out Balrog’s stagger was a bait for Dante to lower his guard. He fires up his right hand (the one with the Yamato fragment) and goes to attack Dante. Dante surrounds himself with Cerberus’s ice, but Balrog punches him so hard that Cerberus itself shatters.

● However, this was a bait from Dante. The force of the dual attack shattered the Yamato fragment that Balrog had. Both the Yamato fragment and Cerberus fragments are said to be granular-sized and they dissipate. After Cerberus breaks, Dante takes out Rebellion.

● Upon seeing Rebellion, Balrog asks if he is Sparda’s son. Dante replies „What’re you gonna do if I am?“. Balrog says that he heard the rumors of him defeating Mundus and Argosax. At this point, Balrog has either used up most of his strength or is losing his will to fight.

● Balrog says he understands the difference in their strength and accepts that Dante won. Dante is suddenly surrounded by a whirlwind of flame.

● Balrog says that he will allow Dante to use him as a Devil Arm. He says that fighting with Dante will allow him to power up, and then one day they can have a rematch. This seems to be the lore explanation for Balrog’s Ignition mechanic.

● The whirlwind disappears and Dante is standing with Balrog equipped. He replies, „Jeez, what a selfish guy. Didn’t even wait for my reply“. Lucia asks if he’s okay, he shrugs and says, „These things happen to me“.

● Balrog starts talking which immediately annoys Dante. Dante tells him that it’s one thing to hitch a ride with him, but if he keeps talking then it’s going to drive him mad. Lucia can’t help but smile at the exchange.

● Lucia becomes lonely at the thought of the job ending. She realizes that Matier saw through her all along. The reason why she didn’t want to see Dante again was because her heart longed for him. Lucia calls Matier a meddler out loud. Dante replies that she’s a good mother irrespective of there being no blood link.

● Dante says Lucia’s name out loud and she becomes excited, but he begins talking about the fragment of Yamato in Balrog’s hand which disappoints her.

● Dante explains how the fragment allowed demons to travel through. He tells her that if an incident like this happens again, she can call him. Lucia tries not to read too deeply into it and nods. She recognizes that the fragment Dante destroyed must have been important to him.

● She tells Dante that he is a cruel man and he gives her a puzzled look. She says that they should return separately and she bids him farewell. Dante tells Lucia to take care of herself.

Intermission Chapter

● Please note that there is a lot of reminiscing in this scene, so that is why it can jump from scene to scene.

● Rock Goldstein is taking a collect call from Nico in his gun shop, Rock’s Guns and Ammo. As she is staying in Fortuna for a while, she wants him to send her clothes, tools, and an issue of Folklore Times from her bedroom. Rock calls it a third-rate magazine and Nico yells at him to just send it, then hangs up. Rock rubs his hair which is covering the eye-patch on his right eye.

● Rock Goldstein is the son of Nell Goldstein and Roy Martin, a wealthy man. He wasn’t sure what sparked their romance, but he thinks it may have been guns due to Roy’s love of hunting.

● Rock was brought up in a gun-loving home, but he was never allowed near them unsupervised and wasn’t allowed into Nell’s workshop without permission. When Rock was seven, he snuck into Nell’s workshop and played with a gun that she was building. His carelessness resulted in him losing most of the sight in his right eye.

● Roy blamed Nell for Rock’s incident and the two argued more. Eventually, Roy told Nell that she needed to stop making guns. To Nell, that was like a death sentence.

● That night, Rock goes to Nell’s workshop and apologizes as he blames himself for what happened. Nell is moved to tears and she soothes him, telling him it’s her fault.

● Rock slips her a piece of paper. He has drawn her a medal to recognize her greatness as a .45 calibre artist. Due to Rock’s age, it is misspelled – ‘.45 ART WARKS’. Nell begins to sob and hugs Rock tightly, saying „sorry“ and „thank you“ repeatedly. Rock says, „Mommy, please don’t stop making guns – I’m okay“. Nell decides to continue making guns, resulting in the end of her relationship with Roy.

● While Rock wanted to go with his mother, she didn’t have anywhere to go or anyone to rely on. In contrast, Roy was wealthy and had property. Rock was forbidden from seeing his mother and had to run up to his bedroom window to see her leave. While she didn’t look back, Rock saw that she was walking with his medal in her hand.

● After divorcing Nell, it didn’t take long for Roy to re-marry. Rock couldn’t accept Roy’s new wife and became rebellious. When Alyssa was born, Roy focused his attention on her, leaving Rock to become more estranged from the family.

● Rock got a job at Uroboros in the weapons development department. He learned of his mother’s whereabouts, but due to the company’s strict working conditions, he wasn’t able to get a day off for a year. By the time he went to see her, she had been dead for six months.

● From that day, Rock abandoned his father’s surname of Martin and became Rock Goldstein. He quit Uroboros and opened a small gun shop named Rock’s Guns and Ammo in an attempt to be Nell’s successor.

● Rock’s father was furious that he quit his job at Uroboros as he helped him get that job. In response, Rock says that he is proud to be Nell Goldstein’s son.

● While looking for the key to Nico’s bedroom, Rock comes across failed and abandoned creations of his. He reflects that while he wanted to be Nell’s successor, he didn’t have her abilities. He wonders what he would be capable of if he was trained by her.

● Rock remembers a time he was made fun of by a woman who spent the night with him. „I thought you were a tough guy, but it looks like you have an Oedipus complex. You kept saying ‘Mommy! Mommy!’ in your sleep“.

● Shortly after Rock started his business, his father and step-mother died. Rock suspects that it was due to suicide as Roy accrued a considerable amount of debt after a failed investment. The mansion was repossessed and they had no savings left, so Alyssa was left with nothing. Although Rock’s business wasn’t doing too well, he couldn’t stand to see a blood relative left out in the cold, so he brought her to the shop and let her live there.

● Alyssa got an office job at Uroboros. They could live more comfortably thanks to Alyssa’s income, and Rock’s shop got more trade thanks to his improving skills.

● One day, Alyssa asks if it is okay to bring someone home. When Rock asks who it is, Alyssa blushes. Rock says, „Huh, a lover? Where did you two meet?“. Alyssa tells him it’s a company employee, and he replies, „What does he work as? Don’t tell me it’s a researcher. Uroboros researchers are beyond weird“. Alyssa clears her throat and tells him it’s a researcher.

● Rock couldn’t understand what Alyssa saw in Agnus. When he asked, she’d just say „He’s cute!!“. Rock thought she was too lovesick to understand what cute meant.

● Rock reflects on how Agnus didn’t look like other researchers as he was large and burly. Rock says to Agnus, „Nice monocle, a lil’ antiquated“, to which Agnus proudly replies, „It’s c-custom-made“. Rock smiles at Agnus not understanding sarcasm.

● Alyssa became pregnant and she left her job at Uroboros. Rock feels that the following two years were the happiest of his life. He got to see little Nicoletta grow and eat Alyssa’s delicious food.

● After these two years, Agnus tells Alyssa that he needs to return to Fortuna on his own due to His Holiness’s orders. They knew that he belonged to a religious organisation known as The Order of the Sword, but they didn’t mind as he didn’t do anything weird like sacrifice pigs.

● Alyssa asks why she can’t go to Fortuna with him, and Agnus says that only believers can live there. She says that she can become a believer, but Agnus says it’s impossible as she’d never understand their creed. A few days later, Agnus disappeared.

● Alyssa planned to follow Agnus to Fortuna, but she collapsed and went to hospital. She was diagnosed with an incurable disease, but her focus always remained on going to Fortuna. A few years later, Alyssa died without being able to go.

● After Alyssa’s death, Rock legally adopted Nico and raised her into adulthood. He didn’t intentionally raise her to become a gunsmith – she became interested herself.

● One day in the shop, Nico exclaimed, „W-w-what’s this!? It’s so b-beautiful!“. She was holding a photograph of two guns that were brought to Rock’s shop several months ago. He replies, „Momm- my mother made those, we took a photo of them“. Nico responds, „Your mother? My g-granny? She’s awesome!“.

● These guns were Ebony and Ivory. A man named Dante brought them to Rock, and he found it suspicious that the engraving read ‘Tony Redgrave’. Dante explains that it is the name that he told the old woman who made them. It was common for people to give excuses like that if they robbed a gun from someone, but Rock didn’t suspect Dante. He could tell from examining the guns that they were designed to hunt the occult, and he could tell there was something abnormal about Dante.

● While in the shop, Dante points to the engraving on the gun barrel and asks Rock to fix it. Rock gasps at seeing ‘.45 ART WARKS’ on the gun and says „Mommy“ out loud.

● Dante explains that he eventually wanted the spelling mistake corrected, but he didn’t want any old garbage gunsmith to touch the old lady’s masterpiece. „If anyone should correct it then it should be you. Don’t you think, Rock Goldstein?“

● While fighting back tears, Rock replies, „Guns this beautiful shouldn’t have a spelling mistake on them“. After fixing the mistake, he gets the feeling that he’ll never see Dante again.

● Rock packs a box to send to Nico. Rock feels that Nico didn’t choose to stay in Fortuna simply because of Agnus, she must be doing something else there.

● Before leaving on her travels, Nico told Rock that she is giving up on becoming a gunsmith – she doesn’t think she can surpass Nell just by making guns. This surprises Rock, and he asks her what she plans to make instead. Nico replies, „I don’t know what weapons I’m gonna make yet, but I know they’re gonna be art“.

● Rock and Nico are connected through blood by his half-sister Alyssa, but there is no blood connection between Nico and Nell. Despite this, Nico always calls Nell ‘Grandmother’. When she speaks to Rock, she doesn’t even call him ‘Dad’.

● Before Nico leaves, Rock says, „Do your best Nico. I know you’ll surpass Momm...Mother“. He knows that one day Nico will be an artisan of arms, and when that day comes, he’ll get to say ‘My daughter made that!’. The thought makes him smile.

Nico Chapter 2

● The chapter begins with Nico and Nero in the garage as she installs the Devil May Cry neon sign that Dante sent in the previous novel. Nico says she finds a name about devils crying weird, but Nero didn’t think much of it since Dante told him it was the name of his business.

● Nico jokes that it should be ‘Devils May Cry’ since Nero is working with him. Nero says he thought about it, but it doesn’t sound cool.

● At this point, Nico has been living in Fortuna for around a year.

● The conception of the Devil May Cry van is explained. Basically, Kyrie and Nero don’t have a lot of money and there’s not a lot of work in Fortuna. Kyrie asks Nero to help the locals which he struggles to say no to, but when it comes to payment she usually refuses. If they do get paid, it’s in meat and vegetables and other items. Kyrie wears the same clothes, but she makes clothes for Nero and the orphans. With a work van, Nero can travel outside Fortuna and make money for Kyrie and the orphans.

● Because they don’t have a lot of money, the van they purchased was near the end of its life and they are working together to refurbish it. Due to always helping out, Nico hasn’t been able to advance any of her research in the time she’s been in Fortuna. Just as she’s about to air her grievances, Kyrie says it’s time for dinner. Nero tells Nico to go on ahead while he finishes up.

● Nico is eating dinner with Kyrie and three orphans: Julio, Kyle and Carlo. The orphanage in Fortuna hasn’t been rebuilt after the incident, so it’s up to people like Kyrie and Nero to take care of orphans for now. Nico calls Kyrie’s cooking unprecedented and ponders how Nero was able to have such a goddess as his girlfriend.

● Kyrie wonders what’s keeping Nero. She places the youngest orphan Carlo on Nico’s lap and goes to check on Nero. She calls to Nero that his dinner’s getting cold, but Nero yells at her from the garage not to come. She stands there stunned.

● Sensing danger, Nico passes Carlo off to Julio. After hearing an anguished cry from the garage, Kyrie runs towards it and Nico chases after her.

● The scene in the garage sends shivers down Nico’s spine. The garage is covered in blood and Kyrie is screaming Nero’s name while holding him. Nico then notices that Nero’s right arm is severed. She yells at him that she only left him alone for a few minutes, but he didn’t reply. The man who usually returned her insults was staring at her with vacant eyes.

● Nico tells Kyrie to call a doctor. Realizing that the culprit could still be around, Nico pulls Blue Rose from Nero to protect them. Nico takes a wire from the toolbox and wraps it around Nero’s stump to try to stop the bleeding. While doing this, she threatens whoever did this out loud, saying she’ll crack their skull like a walnut.

● Nico thinks about who could have done this. She wonders if it’s possible for a human to sever Nero’s arm as quickly as it was. She struggles to imagine why someone would quickly enter, sever Nero’s arm and disappear again, particularly if they had no intention to kill Nero.

● Suddenly, Nico recalls reading about Yamato in Agnus’s research documents. Agnus recovered fragments of Yamato on a coast on the outskirts of Fortuna. She recalls talking about Yamato with Nero and Nero tells her it belonged to Dante’s older brother. She asks where it is now since it must be powerful – she’d love to research it.

● Nero asks her if she’d like to see a magic trick and makes Yamato appear from his arm. Seeing Yamato makes her stutter with excitement. Nico asks how he did that, and he says he doesn’t really understand, but it’s stored in his arm. He tells her that she can’t research it because it’s too dangerous.

● Nico deduces that the aim of the person who attacked Nero was to take Yamato rather than kill him. The chapter ends with the doctor arriving at the garage.

Morrison Chapter 1

● Morrison is walking down a street holding a bouquet of gerberas. He walks to Bobby’s Cellar, the bar from the very first Devil May Cry novel. Morrison hasn’t been in the bar for more than ten years; he used it to get information on jobs.

● He sees that the bar has been renamed to Grue’s Cellar, the same Grue from the first novel. Inside the bar is Grue’s surviving daughters, Tiki and Nesty.

● Morrison shares a warm greeting with the sisters and gives them flowers to congratulate them for taking over the bar. The three of them, plus a woman named Sally, make a champagne toast.

● Morrison and Sally apparently watched over the sisters after their father’s death. Morrison reflects on the events of the first Devil May Cry novel, including the deaths in Bobby’s Cellar, Nell Goldstein’s death, and the demon invasion of the hospital where Grue’s now deceased daughter Jessica was a patient.

● Nesty asks Morrison how Tony (Dante) is doing and what he’s up to. Sally replies, „Hopefully he’s dead. If he’s alive, I’d love to stick a shotgun up his ass“. The sisters defend Dante as he sent them money many times. Sally doesn’t budge on her hatred of Dante, considering him to be an ill omen. As a note, former patrons of Bobby’s Cellar and those in the mercenary world dislike Dante as they blame him for the deaths in Bobby’s Cellar, Grue’s death, and the hospital massacre.

● While the four of them celebrate, a man enters the bar. He is covered in tattoos, uses a cane, and is described as having a pale and lifeless face. He is holding a discolored book with the letter V on it. Morrison considers the possibility that he may not even be human.

● The party try to explain to the man that it is a private celebration, but he ignores this and asks, „Are you Morrison?“. Morrison nods and asks what he wants. The man says, „Let me meet Dante“. Morrison asks if it is a ‘special request’ and V nods. Morrison accepts this to mean that this client needs help with demons. Morrison apologizes to the sisters and tells them that he has some business to take care of.

● Morrison and V leave the bar and talk outside. He asks V if he has any money. While Dante will take jobs regarding demons even with no payment, having money would be beneficial as business hasn’t been booming. In response, V casually hands him dozens of paper bills. Some of the bills appear to have blood stains on them.

● Morrison hears a groan behind him. He turns around and sees a man lying in an alleyway surrounded by blood. It appears that he has been attacked by a large bird.

● V stretches out his right arm and the bird rests on it. Morrison asks V if that’s his bird, and the bird itself replies that he’s his own bird. Morrison notices that this isn’t like a parrot repeating speech, the bird appears to be able to talk on its own.

● The bird jokes with Morrison that money is money, but if he’s a clean-freak then they’ll go to the bank and swap them for cleaner notes.

● V tells Morrison that if he’s dissatisfied with the amount, they can collect more. Morrison has a feeling that more people would need to be hurt to get the money, so he says this amount is fine. After all, it’s enough to help his friend living in poverty.

● Morrison, V and Griffon make their way to Dante’s office, but Morrison has two or three places to go first.

Dante Chapter 3

● The Devil May Cry office has no water, gas, electricity or phone connection due to a lack of work in the past few months. In comes Morrison, who Dante is happy to see as he has a history of providing jobs when Dante needs it.

● Morrison asks him if he wants to hear good news or bad news. Dante says whichever, and Morrison gives him the bad news – Miss Patty, the girl Dante took care of ten years ago, is very angry: she wants to invite him to her birthday party, but his phone line isn’t working. While Dante doesn’t hate Patty, he shudders at the idea of spending time at a party with people even more ‘normal’ than she is.

● Morrison’s good news is that he has a big job for him, cash up front. Morrison used this money to pay Dante’s bills, which Dante is a little sad at as he wanted to treat himself to a strawberry sundae.

● As he’s mourning his lost sundae, the lights come on and the telephone rings. Patty is on the phone inviting him to her party – he hangs up. She won’t stop calling him, so he pulls out the telephone cord.

● Morrison tells Dante to speak to the client while he goes to talk to Lady and Trish. Dante says „Hey, I can do this myself“, but Morrison reminds him that he said it was a ‘big job’.

● Dante eyes up the client leaning against the wall. He thinks he is a strange man. Dante asks his name and V replies with, „I have no name, I am but two days old“. V closes his book and smiles at Dante. „Just kidding. You can call me V“. While it’s clearly an alias, Dante doesn’t mind as he’s used to people using pseudonyms in his shop.

● V approaches him while walking with the cane, but Dante thinks his way of walking might be an act. Either way, he doesn’t look like a normal person.

● V tells Dante that a powerful demon is about to resurrect and he needs Dante’s help. Dante doubts the strength of this demon as people approach him about the ‘strongest demon’ and ‘worst demon’, but they turn out to be disappointments. Dante begins to think that termite extermination might be more challenging. Still, Dante feels that he has no choice but to hunt demons as he doesn’t want them throwing their weight around in the human world.

● V tells Dante that this time is different as this demon is his reason for fighting. Dante stares at V and his intuition tells him that V is not a demon. But if he’s not, how does he know this?

● Dante asks the name of the demon, but if it truly is his reason for fighting, he already knows the name. V says the demon’s name, but the chapter ends without stating it.

Lady Chapter 1

● Morrison visits Lady in her motel room. Together, they watch a television broadcast about a large tree appearing in a city. Lady speculates that while it looks like a tree, it could be an enormous living being.

● Morrison tells Lady that if they defeat the ‘boss’, the tree should disappear.

● Lady asks Morrison why he’s contacting her about it. Dante alone should be able to handle it, and even partnering with Trish should be more than enough. Morrison admits that he has a bad feeling about this job. Lady believes he is serious as it’s rare for him to meet with her so suddenly. Usually to get in touch with Lady, you need to schedule an exact time and meeting place in advance.

● Lady asks what makes the job so dangerous, is it a self-proclaimed demon emperor? Morrison tells her that the job relates to the demon emperor trying to resurrect. Lady replies, „If it’s the actual demon emperor then Dante already beat him once before“. Lady recalls Trish telling her that Mundus’s army killed Dante’s mother and he was barely able to escape the attack. Twenty years later, he avenged her death.

● Morrison says that he’s aware of Dante’s previous success, but he’s taking precautionary measures. Lady asks why Morrison’s so anxious, and he leaves while saying „The city’s name“.

● Lady turns to the television and sees ‘The Mysterious Phenomenon in Red Grave City’ on the news broadcast. The same name as on Dante’s guns.

● Lady recalls asking Dante if Nell Goldstein made his guns. The reason she asked is because the name ‘Goldstein’ is on her own guns. But this is from Rock Goldstein, Nico’s uncle. Dante asks about Rock’s skills and she says he’s not bad. Lady reflects on how his ‘daughter’ Nico might be more skilled than him. Lately, she has been going to Nico with her requests instead.

● Dante takes out Ebony and Ivory and asks Lady to tell him where Rock’s shop is. This is when she notices the ‘Redgrave’ name on his gun. She ponders whether the name on the guns and the name of the city are connected to Dante’s past.

V Chapter 1

● V feels that Morrison is an excellent man for recruiting Dante, Lady and Trish along with a helicopter to take them to Red Grave City. Thanks to Morrison’s quick work, V, Lady, Trish and Dante are now inside the tree. Inside the tree is said to have a disgusting smell.

● While in the tree, they hear an ominous roar and the ground begins to shake. V believes this to be the aftermath of the demon emperor resurrecting. V’s original plan was for the four of them to attack before he had awoken, now this plan seemed overly optimistic.

● Dante tells V to escape as V is dead weight. V reflects on how his former self would have been irritated by those words, but he does as Dante says and begins to leave.

● Griffon flies after him in shock and asks if he’s seriously leaving. V’s demon familiars don’t always share his demeanor at a given time as V is described as extremely calm. V is said to no longer have the excessive pride that he once had.

● V tells Griffon he is going to get the youngster (Nero) as insurance. Griffon replies, „Youngster? You mean that brat Nero? Don’t be ridiculous! That guy stole his right arm, how’s he going to fight?“. V replies that it’s better than nothing. He feels that getting a blood descendent of Sparda could help improve their odds of defeating the demon emperor even by a single hair. As V is quite familiar with the demon emperor, he isn’t prepared to take any chances.

● V emerges from the tree and uses the helicopter to travel to Fortuna. Uncharacteristically nervous, Griffon asks V if he gets the feeling that this is risky. V silently nods in response.

Trish Chapter 1

● Trish reflects on being a creation of Mundus’s in the image of Sparda’s wife. Mundus sent his army to kill Sparda’s wife and sons. While they killed Eva, Dante and Vergil escaped. This unsettled Mundus as they would naturally grow up and want to take revenge.

● Mundus found Vergil first as Vergil didn’t assume a fake identity like Dante did. However, Vergil had inherited Yamato from an early age and was able to defeat the minions Mundus sent to kill him.

● Ten years after Eva’s death, Mundus found Dante assuming the identity of Tony Redgrave. Mundus sent demons to Tony and he dealt with them easily, confirming to him that it was Dante.

● Mundus decided to create a demon for the sake of revenge. Mundus created black knights using battle data from Sparda, Dante and Vergil. These knights were clad in strong black armor made by Machiavelli, a craftsman from hell. Mundus experimented with black knight prototypes, but their imperfect nature and the power limit of artificial demons meant that they were not enough to kill Dante and Vergil.

● It was around this time that Dante and Vergil began to fight. While travelling around the world, Vergil learned about Sparda’s seal and wanted that power for himself. Dante had a strong disdain for Vergil’s lust for power.

● When Mundus was told of the fighting, he decided to sit back and watch – the brothers’ in-fighting would only benefit him. Vergil’s defeated and wounded state was indeed a benefit to Mundus. As Mundus had not been fully revived yet, he felt that Vergil in perfect condition would have been able to beat him. However, Mundus was able to overpower Vergil in his weakened state.

● Mundus captured Vergil and used him in his black knight experiments. This resulted in a knight so powerful that it was incomparable with the others. Mundus named this knight Nelo Angelo, but Mundus did not yet have perfect control over this knight. Mundus was able to win Vergil’s obedience by returning his amulet to him, a symbol of the power that he so desired.

● Mundus had the perfect revenge demon, but he wanted to bring Dante to the demon world rather than send Nelo Angelo to the human world. For this purpose, he created Trish. She was deliberately made in his mother’s image to take advantage of Dante’s strong affection for his mother and bring him to Mallet Island.

● While thinking of the first time she met Dante, Trish wakes up in the demon tree. While breathing heavily, Lady asks her if she’s just woken up. Trish apologizes for her carelessness and stands up. Lady asks if she can still fight and Trish replies with „Just about“.

● Despite thinking this would be an easy job, they are struggling in their fight with Urizen. Urizen barely acknowledges them and remains sitting on what appears to be a throne.

● Trish and Lady begin to attack Urizen, but it is useless – a strange object floating beside Urizen is blocking the attacks. Trish begins strategizing how to land a blow with the Sparda sword, but before she can, Urizen unleashes a wave that sends the ladies backwards.

● Trish concentrates on her right arm and summons Artemis, Dante’s former Devil Arm and a creation of Machiavelli’s. Trish scatters multiple shots in the air, hoping that the multi-direction attack will catch Urizen. However, Urizen summons a wave to blow them away. Trish says out loud, „This is impossible...such power“.

● Trish thinks about how she has heard many rumours about demons. Even if she’s never seen or fought a demon, she has typically heard of them. When it comes to Urizen however, she has never heard anything about him.

● Trish says „Dante...“ out loud and passes out while contemplating Urizen’s identity.

Nero Chapter 3

● Nero wakes up after being in a coma for several days. When he does, V is standing beside him. Nero immediately raises his guard after what happened to him, but V smiles at him. V admits that he came in through the windows and tells him that his name is V.

● Nero would usually rely on the Devil Bringer to tell whether someone was a demon or not, but what remained of his arm was wrapped in bandages. Still trying to process what happened, Nero scowls at V and asks who he is.

● V tells Nero that he knows the demon who stole his arm. The demon acquired the power of Yamato from stealing Nero’s arm and now Dante is on his way to face him.

● Nero asks how V knows this, and he says that he is pursuing the same demon as Dante – the one who stole Nero’s arm. V says he can’t possibly beat this demon alone, so he enlisted Dante’s help. V then invites Nero to come with him as he doesn’t think Dante can beat this enemy alone.

● Nero is incredibly doubtful that there is an enemy alive that Dante can’t beat. Nero sticks out his bandaged arm as if to say ‘What am I supposed to do?’. Suddenly, the tattoos on V’s arm begin to wriggle and a bird emerges from them.

● Griffon calls him a slowpoke and tells him to hurry up and get a move on as there’s not much time left. Nero thinks that this is coming from V, but V chimes in with his own words. He asks Nero if he doesn’t feel confident that he can beat the demon that stole his pride and his right arm.

● In response, Nero grinds his teeth. He acknowledges that V looks suspicious, but he wants to take back what was stolen from him. Following V and the trail of this demon may be his only opportunity to do so.

● He notes that he has experience fighting one-handed as he used to hide the Devil Bringer. The only problem was Kyrie – he didn’t think she would permit him to go demon hunting in his current condition.

● Nero asks V if he can wait a little while so that he can retrieve Blue Rose and Red Queen; he plans to sneak into the garage and retrieve them so as not to alert Kyrie and Nico. Griffon and V tell Nero to hurry at the same time.

Dante Chapter 4

● Note: So far, I have been referring to Mundus as ‘the demon emperor’ in accordance with the kanji (魔界の帝王). In this chapter, Urizen is referred to using separate kanji – ‘the demon king’ (魔王). If I say ‘demon king’ from this point onward, it is due to this kanji.

● The chapter begins with Dante asking Urizen if he’s the king of the garbage dump. Dante has arrived at the location of Urizen’s throne and notices that Lady and Trish are unconscious. He tells Urizen that he’s surprised as they are the two most terrifying women on the planet.

● Dante aims Ebony and Ivory at Urizen and says that it seems like he’s hit the jackpot. Dante had his doubts about the legitimacy of V’s words, but after seeing Trish and Lady defeated, it was enough evidence for Dante for who this was – and he wasn’t going to let him resurrect.

● Urizen finally speaks and says „Dante...“. This is further evidence for Dante that this is the demon that V described as ‘your reason for fighting’.

● Dante says it’s a pity that he didn’t die and that he’ll send him back to hell. He begins firing Ebony and Ivory, but the strange object near Urizen stops the bullets from reaching him. Instead, he pulls out Rebellion and swings at Urizen. However, the object prevents even this attack.

● Dante reflects on how it is hard to tell who it is from the muffled voice, but there is only one person who could deflect his blows. Dante asks the demon if he’s tougher than last time. In response, the demon lets out a faint laugh.

● Dante says it’s been a while since he’s gone all out and then devil triggers. He tells Urizen to make it quick as, while he’s a day late, he has someone’s birthday that he wants to celebrate.

Morrison Chapter 2

● Morrison is observing the tree from Red Grave City’s central plaza. It has been a few days since the tree appeared, and citizens are doing things like taking pictures and praying to it.

● It has been three hours since Dante, Lady and Trish entered the tree, and it has been 30 minutes since V returned with the young man Nero.

● Morrison thinks about how the name Red Grave City and Dante’s alias Tony Redgrave can’t be a coincidence. Morrison thinks about Dante’s/Tony’s ill omen reputation from the first Morrison chapter. Other mercenaries would refuse to work with him because those who did died.

● Morrison theorizes that because Dante is a son of Sparda, he is the natural enemy of demons. For his safety, he adopted the Tony Redgrave persona to hide from demons. Tony’s ill omen reputation began when demons found him and began to attack him. While this is his speculation, it is strengthened by the appearance of the demon king in Red Grave City.

● Dante is usually able to finish his jobs in a few minutes, an hour at most. With Dante gone for three hours, Morrison begins to worry.

● „We’ve known each other a long time. You’ve never had this much trouble, you gonna make it through this?“

Nero Chapter 4

● Nero and V are inside the demon tree, and Nero sees Dante fighting Urizen in the distance. Seeing Dante alive and fighting, Nero questions why he’s even here. V tells him not to underestimate the demon: he stole Nero’s right arm and gained a mighty power.

● V tells Nero that he will go on ahead and not to be late. With this, V floats off using Shadow’s ability. Nero says out loud how V is undoubtedly suspicious.

● Nero mentally rhymes off the reasons why V is suspicious: clearly using a pseudonym, looks suspicious, never says more than what’s necessary, and possesses strange abilities. However, he wants to believe that V is telling the truth. Whether it’s V’s voice, his gaze or even his appearance, there’s something about him that makes Nero want to follow him without reason.

● Nero says he’ll do as V says, then holds his right shoulder. „I’ve got a score to settle with that son of a bitch“.

● He thinks about the idea of an enemy even Dante can’t beat. Despite knowing that he’d have no prospect of winning, he marches forward. He can’t forgive the demon who stole his arm and wants to retrieve Yamato with his own hand.

● Nero thinks about how he was given Yamato. Dante originally made it his mission to retrieve Yamato, then he let Nero have it like he was just giving candy to a child. He didn’t understand why, but the fact that Yamato was so powerful meant that Dante really trusted Nero. Losing Yamato felt like a betrayal of Dante’s trust which Nero felt guilty about.

● Fly and mantis-like demons block Nero’s path to Urizen. Nero says, „What, feeling motivated? Let’s go“ and revs up Red Queen.

V Chapter 2

● V went ahead to deal with some demons for Nero, making things easier for him to reach Urizen as quickly as possible. As the demon tree Qliphoth served as a hole to the demon world, countless demons were breaking through in search of human blood.

● Despite clearing obstacles for him, Nero still hasn’t arrived. Griffon remarks that he’s late, and Shadow gives a small howl at V’s feet. Griffon translates for Shadow – „The kitty thinks so too“.

● V returns Shadow to its quick movement form and goes to find Nero. He reflects on how Shadow helps him to move beyond his current capabilities. At that moment, V is said to only have a little power as he is on the verge of death.

● V finds Nero fighting demons. Nero insists that he doesn’t need help, but a large number of demons appear which Griffon begins to attack. Griffon says to Nero, „Don’t you get it, hero? Get a move on, we’ll handle these guys“. Griffon then yells at V to hurry up and finish off the enemies as they are unable to.

● A description is given for why V must be the one to deliver the finishing blow. V describes Shadow and Griffon’s abilities as ‘dream-like’. He explains that while things can suffer because of their dreams, their dreams cannot kill them. In the same way, the beasts can inflict pain, but they cannot kill. It is V’s duty to kill demons that have been afflicted by the dream. V finishes off the demons while calling them trash.

Nico Chapter 3

● Kyrie is distraught after hearing the news that Nero has escaped from hospital. She shakily asks Nico what they should do, and Nico fights back the urge to hug Kyrie. She tells Kyrie that they can’t do anything but wait, but Nero will return soon.

● Nico notices that Blue Rose and Red Queen are missing from the garage. Nico believes that he has gone to fight the person who stole his arm.

● She feels that it’s not like Nero to make Kyrie worry so much, but it’s understandable – there’s no way she would be happy with him going in his current state. She also wonders how Nero knew who to pursue and how to find them.

● Julio enters the garage. Nico tries to dismiss him as it’s not time to eat yet. However, he tells the ladies that he saw a helicopter last night.

● Nico begins quizzing Julio about the helicopter. He says that it landed in the outskirts of the city and then took off again. As it is rare for helicopters to be cited in Fortuna, Nico believes the helicopter and Nero’s disappearance are linked.

● Kyrie is worried by this, and Nico tries to comfort her. „Like I said, we can’t do anything but wait. Don’t worry, Nero’s a tough guy – he won’t kick the bucket easily“. Kyrie nods in agreement.

● Nico determines that Kyrie can’t leave because she needs to look after the orphans, but it would be reckless for her to leave as she had no clue where Nero was.

● Nico tells Kyrie that she won’t be eating for a while and to keep the orphans away from the garage. Kyrie asks her why, and Nico replies that she will be designing all night and wants to concentrate as much as possible.

● She wants to make Nero a prosthetic arm. But she didn’t want to make just a regular prosthesis, she wanted to create one that was imbued with power to help Nero. She could use Agnus’s research to create powerful and demon-infused artificial arms.

● While smoking outside, Nico blows smoke into the air and hopes that Nero returns safely.

Nero Chapter 5

● Nero arrives at the Urizen battle as Dante is blown back. He calls out to Dante, but Dante is lying limp. Nero also sees Trish and Lady knocked unconscious.

● A tentacle reaches for Dante, but Nero fires Blue Rose at it and it retracts itself. Nero smiles at saving Dante as Dante was his own lifesaver; it’s because of him that Fortuna’s citizens and Kyrie are safe. Nero always wanted to repay Dante’s help, and he is determined to protect Dante in this fight.

● Nero says to the demon, „Hey asshole, didn’t your mother tell you it’s not nice to steal?“. Urizen does not respond. Nero takes out Red Queen and revs it while saying „Sorry Dante, I’m bagging this bitch“.

● Nero swings at him with Red Queen, but the strange floating object is preventing his attacks from landing. He tries to break the barrier by revving Red Queen more. While doing this, a tentacle attacks him. He is unable to fire Blue Rose at it due to only having one arm, so the tentacle knocks him back. Afterwards, the ground shakes ominously.

● Nero hears Griffon behind him yelling „It’s no good! This is the end!“. Griffon and V are approaching behind him.

● Nero theorizes that if he keeps attacking the object, he should be able to destroy it. However, he doesn’t feel he has the strength to execute his theory as he is struggling to regain his breath.

● Urizen raises his hand. Nero believes that this is to deliver the finishing blow, but he doesn’t have the energy to move. Suddenly, a gunshot is fired at Urizen’s hand that stops it moving.

● Dante, while aiming Ebony and Ivory at Urizen, says „Round 2“. Dante devil triggers and rushes towards Urizen, but Urizen is easily able to stop the blow. After this, the ground shakes again.

● Dante tells V to take Nero and run. In response, Nero yells „You gotta be shitting me! I can still fight!“ as he feels he hasn’t received any mortal wounds. Dante turns his head to Nero and yells back, „Nero, go! You’re just dead weight“.

● Nero stops in shock as he never imagined Dante would say something like that to him. He came to help Dante as he was told that there was a chance Dante couldn’t do this on his own. Knowing this, he didn’t want to leave. V grabs his shoulder and tells him that he needs to leave, but Nero shrugs him off and tries to rush to Urizen.

● Afterwards, debris falls from the ceiling and the ground shakes. Nero stumbles backwards and debris lands on the ground, blocking the path to Urizen.

● Nero tries to climb over the debris to get to Dante, but V holds him back. V tells him that he needs to escape as the demon’s power is beyond imagination. Nero eventually stops trying to push V back, but he yells out to Dante. „You think I’m dead weight!? Don’t bullshit me!“. Nero reflects on how he came here to save Dante, but he didn’t expect to be treated like worthless trash.

● V tells him that if he is frustrated, he should think of ways to get stronger – if Dante loses, it’s up to Nero to beat Urizen. Nero asks if that is the demon’s name and V nods. V reiterates that Urizen is the demon that stole Nero’s arm. Nero tries to look at Urizen, but their line of sight is completely blocked by debris.

● V tells Nero to hurry up and escape, to which Nero complies.

Morrison Chapter 3

● Outside the tree, someone points to a part of the tree and says „Huh, what’s that?“. Part of the tree starts to wriggle, then Nero and V burst forth from it. They immediately head for Morrison.

● Morrison asks them what happened and what’s happened to Dante. V tells him that Dante’s buying them time and they don’t have much time left. At this point, tentacles begin breaking through the road. These tentacles begin to pierce people, causing mass hysteria.

● Morrison replies, „No way, Dante lost?“. Nero goes to attack the tentacles, but V stops him and tells him that he needs to retreat.

● Morrison asks V if they have a plan. V says while they don’t necessarily have a plan, they know that they need one thing – power. Morrison asks if that will be easy, and V says that they have no choice. V says that they have about a month left, but the world will end after that.

● Morrison sighs. There have been world-ending prophecies before, and Dante has always dealt with them. With his voice trembling, Morrison asks, „Hey, did Dante really lose?“. In response, V says „It is likely“.

● Morrison says, „What the hell!“ out loud. He feels useless as there is no one else to recruit who could help. V replies with, „Don’t give up. Humans don’t give up, that is their saving grace“.

● Nero, who was silent until now, asks if there really is a month until the world ends. V tells him to obtain as much power as possible as he is their only hope, besides Dante, to defeat Urizen.

● Nero asks Morrison to take him back to Fortuna and he will return in a month.

Morrison respects Nero’s tenacity and notes that it is probably because he is young, but great power can be born from youth.

● Several years ago, Dante told Morrison about an interesting young man that lived in Fortuna. He had demonic power similar to Dante’s, and Dante seemed to take a liking to his brash nature. This was evidenced by Dante asking Morrison to order and send a Devil May Cry neon sign to him.

● V tells them that he will stay in Red Grave City. As he cannot gain power, he will stay and collect information. Nero says that he will see him a month; V nods and walks away.

Nico Chapter 4

● When Nero returns to Fortuna, he asks Nico to make him a prosthetic arm. Nico, being one step ahead of him, discusses her idea with him. Her initial idea was an enhanced prosthesis with a creation time of six months. Nero tells her that he needs a new powerful arm without one month. She finds this time frame absurd.

● After pulling a second all-nighter, Nero asks if she’s started making it yet and she snaps at him – it’s not like she’s just making a plastic model.

● Nero volunteers to ask Morrison for help and Nico rejects it. She regrets not being able to meet Morrison as she’s sure that he’d have great stories to tell about Dante.

● It’s said that she was too busy working in the garage to even notice that Nero was home.

● Nero asks how work is proceeding and she tells them that she has ideas floating around. He says to her, „You’ve worked two all-nighters and have nothing to show for it?“.

● This irritates Nico. „Amateur! The most important part is the planning stage! Do you want to end up with an arm like a pirate hook?“. Nero looks at her apologetically and admits that he’s getting impatient as they don’t have much time.

● Nico says she’s getting impatient too because she wants to go help Dante, see Ebony and Ivory, and hear stories about her grandmother. She jokes about making him a shitty arm that’ll help him eat pasta.

● Nero apologizes and says he’ll wait a bit longer. Nico thinks about how her brain can’t produce the best ideas when the fate of the world might rest on her.

● Julio runs to them and tells them that demons have appeared in Mitis Forest. Nero asks if there are any injured people, and Julio says he doesn’t think so as people are hiding at home. Nero pats Julio on the head and says he did a good job telling him.

● While Nero is heading out, he asks Nico if she wants to come. Although there have been a number of demon sightings during her time in Fortuna, she was too busy reading over her father’s research material to accompany Nero. This time, she thinks she could benefit from watching Nero and demons fight.

● Nero gives her a bunch of instructions to keep her safe (e.g. don’t get too close to demons). Nico says she’s not too interested in demons themselves anyway, so he doesn’t need to worry.

Nero Chapter 6

● Nero enters Mitis Forest, but he can’t see anything. He wonders if people may have simply seen a bear. Nico says that she doubts the residents of Fortuna would confuse a bear with a demon.

● Nero reflects on how Mitis Forest was mainly used as a training ground for The Order. People rarely use it now except for things like obtaining timber.

● Nero deduces that if a demon is here, it’s probably hiding at the back of the forest. Nico gets exhausted easily as desk work is her speciality and she’s just worked two consecutive all-nighters. Instead of leaving her behind or telling her to go home alone, Nero leads her by the hand through the forest.

● Nero suddenly gets covered in shadow, and he determines that it’s an overhead attack. Nero kicks Nico out of danger and begins fighting the demon – a Blitz.

● During the fight, Nero takes a quick glance at Nico. While looking petrified, she stands absolutely still. He realizes that she knows from Agnus’s research documents that Blitzes cannot see, so she’s making sure not to make any noise to alert it to her presence.

● Nero tries to distract Blitz enough to give Nico an opportunity to escape. Nero executes a perfect bait to let Nico escape. However, instead of escaping, Nico scribbles something on a memo pad. She then shows it to Nero – „I got one! I got one! I got an idea! I’m a genius!“. Nero yells „Are you serious!?“ at her.

● As Nico didn’t use her opportunity to escape, Nero feels he has no choice but to start attacking using Red Queen as its revs create more noise for distraction. Nero attacks Blitz with Red Queen and electricity surges through his body. He groans in pain but continues attacking, and it is enough to kill the Blitz.

● As Nero goes to return home, Nico points to Blitz’s corpse and says that she needs to take it home. She came up with a special design for an arm, but she needs a demon organ capable of producing electricity.

● While picking up the Blitz corpse, Nero asks if she plans to use parts from it to create an arm. Nico says that the Blitz parts aren’t going to feature in the arms, they are simply for reference. Instead, she wants to research how Blitz is able to generate electricity, and she will use those findings to create an arm.

● Nero says that it’ll be a good idea for her to come on future hunts so that she can get inspiration. She pulls out a cigarette and says, „Roger that“.

V Chapter 3

● In Red Grave City, the Qliphoth continues to grow and the hole allowing passage between the human and demon world grows larger.

● Griffon asks V if the situation would be better if they evacuated people from the city in advance. If people and their blood were kept away from the Qliphoth, it would not have grown so quickly.

● V replies that nobody would believe him if he tried to warn them. It was also not possible for him to negotiate with politicians as he didn’t have that type of authority or that much time. V tried his best with what he could do, but his heart was still dominated by indescribable regret.

● Griffon asks V if he’s worried, and he says he is. It won’t be long until armies are dispatched to Red Grave City, but it’s useless as they too will become sacrifices to the Qliphoth.

● Griffon asks if he thinks Nero will return. V replies, „He’ll come back. He’s not the type of guy to accept a losing streak“. Griffon laughs and says, „And who does he get that from?“. V simply replies, „No idea“.

● V looks at the book in his hands, an old collection of poems. V treasured this book when he was a young boy. When you turn the page, each psalm is eye-catching.

● ‘And it grew both day and night till it bore an apple bright’. The title of the psalm this line originates from is ‘Poison Tree’ – the psalm that predicted the Qliphoth. Remembering the delusions of his former self, V grimaces and closes the book.

● V begins to move and Griffon asks where he is going. V says he is going to help the humans who are being attacked by the Qliphoth. In response, Griffon says, „Help!? You!? The humans!? Seriously? Did you hit your head or something?“.

● V told Nero that he was staying in Red Grave City to gather information, but that was a lie. V already knew everything. He knew why the tragedy was unfolding in this city. He knew Urizen’s identity. He knew everything down to its very origin.

● While remaining in this town, he wanted to avoid too much movement as his body was eroding away. But still, V wanted to help the people of the city.

● Griffon flies after him while saying, „Hey V, wait! Are you seriously doing this? You don’t have to, but I’ll help!“.

● V knew that saving one or two people wouldn’t stop the Qliphoth, but if it bought one or two seconds more, he was still willing to do it. V’s soul told him he was obligated to do it.

● V says out loud, „I’ll do what I can“. He vows to minimize the damage in the city until Nero returns in a month.

Epilogue

● Nero is preparing to return to Red Grave City. Kyrie tells him that she will stay inside taking care of the orphans. Nero says Morrison may bring people to Fortuna to help protect it.

● Nico beeps the horn and tells Nero to get a move on. Nero replies, „I got it, shut up“.

● Nico gets out of the van and tells Kyrie not to worry, Nero won’t die while using the work of the ‘heavenly artist’. Instead of continuing the banter, they decide it’s best to get a move on as Nero made a promise to meet V.

● Nico and Nero drive off together. Nero chides Nico for her rough driving, but Nico insists she’s trying to tame the van.

● Nico looks at Nero’s artificial arm and the arm holster she designed. She reflects on how it was necessary to prepare a holster because, while the arm she designed is incredibly powerful, a problem it has is that it breaks easily. She believes this is a result of concentrating so much power in such a small thing.

● Nico asks Nero if he likes the Devil Breaker, and Nero replies „Devil Breaker?“. She tells him that is the name that she came up with. Her reasoning is that it is a powerful tool to break demons, and Nero replies, „Is it not because it breaks easily?“.

● Nico pouts and reiterates that it’s because so much power is in such a small and light thing. However, it means that several can be carried at once to offset this.

● Nero decides to go easy on Nico and says, „Well, you did your best. I didn’t think you’d be able to design two different arms in the time limit“.

● Nico created Overture several days after Nero fought the Blitz. While watching Nero fight demons, she was inspired to make Gerbera after looking at some gerbera flowers. Nero wasn’t sure if this was true, but he supposed it was possible that Nico likes flowers.

● Nico says she had a few more ideas for Devil Breakers, but she wasn’t able to make them due to time and resources. Nero says that he can source things locally for her. She says that if he brings her back demon corpses, even fragments, she can make him new Devil Breakers.

● Nero reflects on how he never imagined he and Nico would be work partners as she was the daughter of his former enemy. He wondered what Dante would think of this.

● He hadn’t heard any news about Dante during the month. He murmurs „Dante, wait for me...“.

● For Nero, the upcoming battle isn’t just to save Dante and it’s not just to save the world. For him, it’s a battle of pride.

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miss-musings · 6 years

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My List of Top 10 Blacklisters

Let me say right off the bat that it was really difficult to compile this list. Because while I feel a lot of one-off Blacklisters are pretty much throwaways, especially all the different cults and kooky people that the show likes to keep introducing, many of the better ones (IMO) were bad guys who had been around for multiple episodes, maybe even entire arcs or seasons.

So, picking out my Top 10 -- based on how unique they were, how memorable they were, how intimidating, how threatening they were to the main cast, etc. -- was relatively easy, but ranking them was difficult. Because, again, a lot of them get way more screentime than others.

So, I'll try to rank them based on a combination of how much I personally liked them, how much of an overall impact to the story/characters the Blacklister had relative to their screentime and build-up, how well the actor did with the role, how unique and memorable they were, etc.

You'll notice that people like Laurel Hitchen, who was an antagonist but not technically a Blacklister, isn't on the list; and you'll notice that "good guys" like Dembe or Marvin Gerard who were technically Blacklisters, but weren't antagonists for Red or the Task Force aren't on here either. Tom, who flip-flopped between good guy and bad guy as the show progressed, isn't on here either; but that's because there's so much material to judge from as he was a main cast member for at least three seasons, which is unfair.

Anyway, without further ado: my list. Again, feel free to disagree and make your own lists if you like.

(EDIT: I’ve done a follow-up list of ‘Top 10 Best One-Off Blacklisters’, because so many of the below entries had multiple episodes in which to be menacing.)

Note for future reference: this list only includes Blacklisters up through the end of S5.

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HONORABLE MENTION: MR. KAPLAN

I really wanted to put Mr. Kaplan on this list, and I had at one point, but then I realized I forgot one of the more imposing Blacklisters and had to slide him into the spot where I had Mr. Kaplan. The only reason I took her off completely rather knocking every lower-numbered entry down a spot, was because while I really liked Mr. Kaplan up until S3c, I hated how the showrunners forced the storyline where she had once been Liz's nanny and hated Red for doing her and the Keen family wrong. I love Susan Bloomaert and think she's a very talented actress who's incredibly underrated; but I loved her character more when she was on Red's team -- his cleaner, his friend, his confidant. Granted, there were some really good episodes with her as an antagonist, but I hated the way she died -- throwing herself off a bridge.

Anyway, again, I want to emphasize that this list is purely subjective. So, if you think I've done Mr. Kaplan a disservice, feel free to make your own list to give her to honor you believe she deserves. As I said: I loved Mr. Kaplan, but I felt the whole S4b storyline completely assassinated her character as we knew it up to that point.

P.S. I also feel like GREGORY DEVRY should get a shout-out, but I’ll probably include him in my list of Best One-Off Blacklisters.

10. LEONARD CAUL

This is one of those entries where I guess I kind of cheated. Caul didn’t really end up being an antagonist for Red, Liz or the Task Force. But he was introduced to us a little ambiguously with him developing photos of Liz and Red, listening to the police scanner -- and then holding Liz at gunpoint (briefly) in Red's Bethesda apartment... I really liked all of that and how it was kind of vague from the beginning whether he was on their side or not. Granted, he doesn't get much screentime even in his own episode, and honestly, after S2, I'm not really sure what happened to him. I know he was hanging around with Red up until the S2 finale or thereabouts, but yeah, whatever happened to that guy?

Anyway, it was a really tense episode, and I felt like Caul brought a level of adrenaline and urgency to the situation with Red and the Cabal, as well as the show in general.

9. IAN GARVEY

You'd think Garvey would be higher on this list, but I was never really a big fan of him. Granted, he did pose a pretty serious threat for our main crew, after he stole the Real Reddington’s bones, killed Tom and his goons knocked Liz into a coma. And the actor did a fine job. But, I just felt that -- up until his connection to the Reddington family was revealed -- he was just kind of cartoonish. A dirty cop who runs a drug cartel? Yeah, I don't care.

But, again, while I don't really like Garvey, I felt like he had such an impact on the show and the characters that he deserved a spot -- even if it was a low one.

8. MADELINE PRATT

The only female Blacklister to formally make it onto the list. (Sorry, Mr. Kaplan.) I thought her character and this episode was incredibly well-done. It was a little bit of a heist storyline, and Pratt was a good foil for Liz and Red, forcing both of them to open up in ways we hadn't seen before (up to that point). Liz became more comfortable doing criminal-type things, using her slight-of-hand, infiltrating locations and lying/manipulating people; while Red, conversely, became more human and opened up about why he has been so distant with people and the hurt he has experienced in the past.

Also, Madeline is one of the few past/current love interests of Red that we see on the show, and I really like Jennifer Ehle (mostly because of the 1995 version of Pride & Prejudice). I felt like she matched well with Spader and wasn't overpowered by his always-charismatic performance. And, while we only ever saw her in this episode and briefly in 2x14, I felt like she deserved a spot because she was such a unique character and that episode introduced a lot of character details and traits that became important later.

7. THE STEWMAKER

I really, really liked the Stewmaker -- both the bad guy and the episode. The only reason I didn't put him higher on this list is because I feel everyone else is too good (or bad, depending on how you want to look at it) to be displaced.

So, I remember reading on one of those TV-watching websites that if you weren't entirely sure about a show but you wanted to give it a chance, you should watch at least four episodes to see whether it was any good. By the fourth episode, the show should have established its characters, its dynamic, its continuing plot points, its feel, etc. Pilots, of course, always feel a little different than the shows themselves because they're filmed months before any other episode; so you have to give shows a chance to establish themselves and walk on their own two feet.

So... when THIS was the show's fourth episode... oh, buddy.

The Stewmaker posed a serious threat as he was the first person to ever hold Liz captive and feel the wrath of Red for such an offense. The episode gave us the infamous Parable of the Farmer; and continued the then-mystery of Liz finding out about Tom's shady past.

But, as for the character himself, he was just really weird. Walking around naked while he was working, but having that mask on; disintegrating bodies; having his dog with him; actually being a family man but having this criminal work on the side. And, also, we had a little bit of interaction where Liz was actually trying to do her job (for once) and profile him and use that info to her advantage.

He was a character that I feel the show has tried to redo several times -- the kooky weirdo who's very calm, apologetic and doesn't like violence but who is also fascinated by death, bodies, etc. But, of course, this was the FIRST time the show had used such a character, so it was much more memorable then and not so watered-down.

In any case, I really liked the Stewmaker and thought he was a fantastic Blacklister for the show to have in its fourth episode of the entire series.

6. MATIAS SOLOMON

So, this is actually the spot where I had Mr. Kaplan. But, while I was doing some background research on my #1 choice, I ran across Edi Gathegi's name and remembered that I left Solomon completely off the list. He had been an antagonist throughout the whole of S3a and then came back for his namesake episodes where he and his crew attack Liz and Tom's wedding, Liz gives birth to Agnes, and later she "dies" with Red by her side.

Solomon is either directly or indirectly responsible for a lot of major shit that happened on this show -- hell, just in those two episodes. And, I really like Gathegi's performance, especially considering how Solomon was a little Extra™. So he had to play him as dramatic with a penchant for flair and style ... but without him becoming cartoonish. He was just a little bit eccentric but could still hold himself and lead a team of goons in shooting up a church.

Again, I hated to leave Mr. Kaplan off the list but I felt it was a greater disservice to not put Solomon on it, considering how much of a threat he posed to our main cast throughout various points of S3.

5. THE DECEMBRIST (A.K.A. ALAN FITCH)

This is basically just an outlet for me to talk about how amazing Alan Alda is and how much I love him and wish the show hadn't killed his character off. Seriously, he's just so adorable, and it was hilarious to see him partly playing against type here. Fitch was intimidating, but I also kept wanting to give him a hug.

And, I felt like that was how Red felt toward him. He hated Fitch for the whole bullshit in that raid on the Post Office, but yet, he also respected him. That look on his face when he's having that last conversation before the bomb on Fitch's neck goes off... just heartbreaking.

And while so many actors seem to bow under the weight of Spader's performances, Alda is also one of the few actors who I felt like was on-par with him in terms of charisma and acting chops. It seems he just strolls onto the set and does whatever is required of him without a care in the world. "Need me to be gruff and menacing? I can do that. Need me to be sad and fearful? I can do that. Need me to look bored and indifferent? I can do that." God, I just love Alan Alda, and I want to give him a hug.

But, seriously, Fitch was a Blacklister who's impact on the story goes all the way back to setting Berlin on Red decades before S2 takes place, and he was one of the few people (at that time) who seemed to know Reddington from the pre-Night of the Fire era. (It's unclear now whether that was actually true; he probably knew the REAL Reddington, but never knew our guy was an imposter.)

Anyway, Fitch had a major impact on the story because he was the one person/thing who had a connection to the raid on the Post Office, the Cabal and Berlin. So, he definitely deserves a spot on this list. And also, ALAN ALDA!

4. BERLIN

This is a weird entry, because Berlin is hardly in either of his two namesake episodes; and even when he is, his identity is obscured until the very end of "Berlin: Conclusion."

Berlin had been built up for a long time, and while I still am so frustrated that it was never addressed how he organized a giant criminal syndicate from inside a Russian prison. Honestly, for as much as for as long as he was built up, I feel like the pay-off was a little bit disappointing. Which is why he’s at number four for me.

Still, when he came back in the first half of S2, he was such a good baddie. I absolutely love when he and Red meet on Coney Island, and that weird, dynamic and layered conversation that they have. And overall, Peter Stormare's performance is fantastic. He's mustache-twirling, sure, but he was so intimidating at the same time... threatening Liz, capturing Naomi, being responsible for the attacks on Cooper and Meera, etc.

He had a tremendous impact on both S1 and S2a, so he definitely has to have a spot.

3. ALEXANDER KIRK (A.K.A. CONSTANTIN ROSTOV)

Like Berlin, Kirk is hardly in either of his namesake episodes, but we get to see him more fleshed out as a character/villain in S4a.

Unlike most villains, we actually got to see quiet moments of Kirk, where he was caring, respectful, loving and just ... generally not villainous. Most of these other Blacklisters never got those opportunities, and Kirk -- in hindsight -- was built up as a kind of hero out of a Greek tragedy. Odette tells Liz that he was a kind, caring and gentle man up until he found out about Liz’s identity as Masha and her connection to Red. Then, he flipped his shit and did whatever it took to get his (step)daughter away from him. And, honestly, I really liked his little farewell speech to Liz about how she would only ever remember him as a villain who kidnapped and threatened her and her child; and she would never remember him as the young, happy father who held her in her arms, excited at what the future would hold for their family.

God, just thinking back to that speech makes me feel such sympathy for the man... not the one he became but the one he used to be. Kirk was hurt and betrayed multiple times by Katarina, the Real Reddington, the Fake Reddington, and all these other people who played him like a puppet for their own ends. Really thinking back on it, it’s no wonder he became the broken man he is, so desperately trying to cling to this frayed prospect of happiness with the family he once had. Yes, he was hoping that Liz or Agnes would help cure him of his disease, but I truly believe that was only a bonus in his mind and he was really hoping to piece his family back together -- to have a second chance in his (step)daughter’s life and help her with her newborn.

He’s also one of the few villains with his own arc who WASN’T killed off at the end of said arc, so I REALLY hope he comes back. I doubt it, but I would really like to see it. Maybe he could help Liz understand what all happened with Katarina, Real Reddington, Fake Reddington, and everything on the Night of the Fire.

And, again, like with Fitch, he was a really important Blacklister as he was connected to both Red’s past and Liz’s. And, that scene where he’s about to kill Red, and the two stop to reminisce about Katarina, who she was, and how important she was to them ... that’s the kind of depth we don’t get out of most Blacklisters.

Honestly, even though his introduction to the audience was a little too Darth Vader/Alias-esque, I still really enjoyed the range of emotions Ulrich Thomsen got to run through in his portrayal, especially in that final episode. And while he doesn’t really have a lasting effect on the story once his arc is resolved, he was a major threat to everyone, including Liz, and the main characters to make major decisions in the latter half of S3 and the first part of S4 that showed us who they really are.

So, yeah. IMO, he deserves to be this high on the list.

2. ANSLO GARRICK

It might seem a little weird to have a one-off villain this high on the list, but Anslo Garrick -- both the character and his namesake episodes -- was an actual game-changer. Here we were, skipping along through S1, pretty complacent and chill. And then all of a sudden, Anslo Garrick shows up and turns everything on its head. The Post Office is under attack; Ressler gets seriously injured and he and Red have to make due hanging out together inside the box; Cooper et al is captured; Liz and Aram, who have little field experience between them, have to team up to try to get to safety. Luli is killed; Dembe is almost killed; Liz is threatened; Red is captured and later escapes.

God, so much happened in those episodes, and I still think “Anslo Garrick: Part One” might be the best episode of the show to date. Seriously. Even though Red and Liz have zero screentime together, that episode is just SO GOOD. Intense, dark, with high-stakes and important character moments -- and there have been very few episodes like it since.

But, anyway, as for Anslo Garrick himself... he isn’t really all that much. He was a rabid dog sent by Fitch to bring Red in. He was intimidating, coarse, violent and gave zero shits about his actions.

This entry doesn’t really celebrate who the character of Anslo Garrick was, but more of what he represented and the major impact he had on the show at that point in time. He introduced us to Fitch, who first brought up the whole “Cabal” storyline, which was responsible for a lot of shit in S2 and S3a.

Again, Garrick woke us viewers out of our little complacency that Red & co. were just going to glide through their Blacklisters with only a few cuts and bruises and no real stakes (outside of the Tom/mystery storyline that was going on at the time). This was a good kick in the pants to make us realize that we were wrong.

So, yeah. I feel like he deserves to be Number 2.

1. THE DIRECTOR

So, you’re sitting there, wondering who the hell could be sitting at Number 1... above Garvey, above Kirk and Garrick and Fitch and everyone else?

It’s the man who if I could push a button and bring any of the show’s dead character back to life, he would be the one I’d pick:

Peter Kotsiopulos, The Director ... played by the amazing David Strathairn.

Even though he appeared in 12 episodes over what amounted to an entire season of the show (from 2x09 to 3x10), I really wish The Director hadn’t been killed off. Seriously, I have no idea how much money TPTB had to throw at Strathairn to get him to appear for as long and as many times as he did, but it wasn’t enough. I've always said that this show deserves a Big Bad (assuming that Red isn’t it), and he would’ve been great as the Big Bad for The Blacklist.

While Strathairn's basically just reprising his role as "Unethical and Shady AF Government Official and Resident Mustache-Twirler" from The Bourne Series, it's a role he's REALLY good at. And even though he didn’t get a lot of quiet moments to be humanized or come across as sympathetic, like Kirk did, I still feel like it was such a bitch move for Red and his crew to play on The Director’s feelings for/obligation to his wife as their opportunity to abduct him. I know that Liz was facing trial for murder and desperate times called for desperate measures, but I can just imagine that poor lady sitting in her therapist’s office, wondering where her husband was only to find out that he was a villain who had ditched her and fled the country, when that wasn’t the case AT ALL.

Yeah, I know The Director’s an absolute piece of shit who’s responsible for threatening the entire Task Force, publicly demonizing Liz and almost killing Red... but he was so good at being bad that I wanted him to stick around long-term. I wanted to see him and Liz have more interactions; and again, Stathairn was one of the few actors who held his own in scenes with Spader without any effort.

He was also the first one, as I recall, to set Liz on this path toward Katarina Rostova’s backstory and finding out how alike the two of them were. Remember in 2x19, he remarks how much Liz looks like her mom, and I feel like that sends Liz down a road to get answers from Red about who she was and what his connection was to her mom and her family.

But, anyway, yeah. I just love David Strathairn; I loved him in this role, on this show; and I loved how diabolical, manipulative, and just conniving his character was. I also just absolutely love the look on his face in 3x10 when he and Red are watching Laurel Hitchen on the TV and Hitchen just outs The Director as a member of the Cabal. He just goes from angry and staring daggers at Red to flustered and “oh shit” in an instant.

So, just like my Fitch entry was my opportunity to celebrate how amazing Alan Alda was, this is my chance to celebrate how underrated David Strathairn is as an actor and how much I wish he was still on the show.

But, putting all of that aside, why should The Director as a character be ranked above all those other people as a better Blacklister?

Because, The Director represented the Cabal, which was an entity that had been built up from 1x09 as a major force that had power to easily destroy everything Red, Liz and their crew was trying to work toward. They sent Braxton after info about the Fulcrum, they sent Karakurt to frame Liz, they sent that team of commandos to attack Red. They were a force that seemingly could not be stopped, and the Director was at the head of it all.

And, while I can’t find it anywhere (so help me out if you know what I’m talking about), I know there’s a saying about how the worst man is the one who does evil in the name of good. And that’s The Director. He is the embodiment of all the worst parts of The Blacklist’s villains, actual real life government officials and humanity at large. He has dozens of people killed without batting an eye because it’s all in the interest of “national security.” Or so he tells others. But, deep down, we all know that he’s only really concerned about his own self-interest.

Now that the show has killed him off, obviously, there’s no way for Strathairn to return as The Director; but perhaps, if/once the show delves more into Katarina and Red’s backstory, maybe we will see a Young Director in a flashback so that we can see exactly how he was connected to Katarina, the Cabal, and that whole mess with the Fulcrum.

Plus, I can’t get over how awesome his interactions with Liz were, and Strathairn’s delivery of the now infamous line, “I know who you really are, Raymond -- who you are TO HER.”

###

Again, if you disagree, feel free to reblog with your comments or your own list. This is all purely subjective, but -- because we’re on this crazy-long hiatus until January -- I felt like it was good to fill the time with SOMETHING. My goal with this isn’t to give a definitive list and that’s it; but rather, to prompt discussion about the topic.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end and cheers! ~mm

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ramialkarmi · 8 years

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The 'messy' way a former Goldman Sachs employee grew a $150 million startup, then turned half his employees into millionaires

Scott Belsky is an early investor in startups such as Uber, Pinterest, and Warby Parker who began his career at Goldman Sachs.

He realized quickly that Goldman wasn't for him, so he spent the next four years saving $18,000. He used the money and some help from those close to him to quit and bootstrap a startup called Behance. Belsky didn't take a paycheck for the next two years.

In the end, the hard work paid off. Adobe purchased Behance for a reported $150 million, and Belsky went out of his way to turn half of his employees into millionaires from the sale.

But he says the sale isn't the interesting part of his story. Instead, it was the stressful "messy middle" years of Behance that defined his career.

Belsky sat down with Business Insider for an episode of our career-focused podcast, "Success! How I Did It," to discuss how he built a $150 million company, how he discovers billion-dollar startups like Uber before anyone else, and how he turned half of his employees into millionaires.

And if you're looking to join a startup, Belsky has advice for you too. He says there's one simple stock-option question everyone needs to ask before accepting a startup job.

Here's the episode (or keep scrolling to read the lightly edited transcription):

Shontell: We have Scott Belsky, a venture partner at Benchmark. He is also an entrepreneur who left Goldman Sachs to start a company called Behance, which was acquired by Adobe for $150 million. He's a best-selling author.

We'll talk about all of that, but first I want to go back to the Goldman days. You graduated from Cornell and went to Goldman Sachs, which is where a lot of people want to build and end their careers — but not you.

Scott Belsky: In 2001, 2002, I wanted to be in business and was looking for an internship or a full-time job. And people say, "You have to cut your teeth on Wall Street," especially if you were on the East Coast back then. And so I did — I migrated to a very mundane job on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs.

It was the 50th floor of 1 New York Plaza at the time, and it definitely did whip me into professional shape. I learned a lot about how the markets work and certainly improved my finance skills. A year and a half in, I realized this was not where I was going to spend my career.

Shontell: And you stayed for four years?

Belsky: Yes. So when I realized that I said, "OK, finance is not my thing." I had a design background from undergrad, and I was interested in flexing some of those muscles as well as learning about how a company is run. I was fascinated with leadership development and succession planning.

There was a job that opened up in the executive office that was focused on organizational improvement and succession planning, and they needed an analyst-level person to come in and help. I thought that was such a cool opportunity to be a fly on the wall, seeing how the firm was run. So I did that and then I stayed for three years before going to business school and starting my company.

How a Goldman Sachs employee launched a bootstrapped startup with $18,000 — then survived without a paycheck for 2 years

Shontell: So you had a plan in the works and you were squirreling away money with the hopes of someday starting your own thing?

Belsky: Yes. When I was in the second job at Goldman, I was learning so much. I had a group of colleagues I really looked up to who were mostly academics. In the world of leadership development I worked with people like Jack Welch at GE, that sort of thing. And then at night I was kind of working my own ideas.

Things really got real in 2004, or early 2005, when I met another designer by the name of Matias Corea. And he and I started having a bottle of wine at night at 9 p.m. after work and sketching out this idea for what would ultimately become Behance.

Shontell: So what is Behance? Or what was it? Is it still around?

Belsky: It is still around, and it's now a network of over 10 million creatives all around the world showcasing their work and getting jobs and opportunities and that sort of thing. It's probably the largest creative professional network in the world at this point.

And so the idea behind Behance was to put up your work, have your own personal portfolio hosted on your own domain, but also to have all that portfolio content categorized and organized for people to find it and give you jobs.

Shontell: So, when you were starting this company — which sounds extremely different than being an analyst — it was not cool to leave Wall Street for a startup. You were one of the first, and then there was this wave of people moving from Wall Street into tech. Was that scary?

Belsky: It's strange thinking back about how scared I was to leave this comfortable womb of Goldman Sachs, where I had healthcare and all of these little perks. I felt like I was in the mix in New York, being employed. And to explain to people that I was leaving with this idea just didn't make sense to most. So I more often told them I was leaving to go to business school. Which in some ways was a hedge. It was, "If this idea doesn't work out, at least I can probably get a job again, because they'll have seen me go to business school, which is somewhat normal."

Shontell: Do you think the business-school era of your career was necessary?

Belsky: It's a great question. I would say it's like 51-49% I can't regret the relationships I made and certainly some of the things that I learned. Also I would say that business school does not add a lot of credibility in my field of technology and entrepreneurship, and I don't find that it gives me a ton of value.

I also think that it's really helpful to learn the playbooks of the past, but when you're really, really innovating at the edge of an industry, the playbooks of the past also can paralyze you. And so maybe it's a help to understand them, but sometimes being naïve at the top of the funnel of doing something is helpful. You know, it almost makes you think that there's potential beyond what's been done before. And when you know too much about an industry you get scared away from it.

Shontell: And I assume you went to Harvard, just because you're so successful?

Belsky: Yes. Actually, there's this woman named Teresa Amabile who is a professor at Harvard focusing on creativity in business. And so I actually emailed her before I even applied anywhere and tried to ask her about her research, and if I got in would I be able to work with her? And she was like, yeah sure, if you can get in, call me.

And so I only applied to Harvard and with the explicit reason of working with her. My essays were actually about building this company to organize the creative world. And I'm sure they were like, I don't know who this kid is, but he definitely knows who he wants to work with and what he wants to do with it. That probably helped me, because my scores were not very good.

Shontell: So let me get this straight. You were a Harvard guy and a Goldman Sachs guy, and you chose to bootstrap your startup when you started Behance. You probably could have raised money, I would assume, with that background, from a good number of VCs.

It's kind of like being a Google engineer — it seems like the money just sort of rains down on you when you're looking for a seed round. So why did you put that burden on yourself financially? Why bootstrap?

Belsky: I think there were two reasons. One was probably I just wanted to control my own destiny at that point, and I wasn't sure whether ... This might be a lifestyle business. I mean we started ... We always liked to say we were medium-agnostic but mission-centric, so the mission was to organize the creative world, but we would do it through any medium possible, whether it was a book or a conference or a blog or a technology like the Behance network. And so I knew that was really a red flag to VCs, who would say: "Oh, not focused. We're not going to invest in a company that's going to spend the money on producing a conference."

I knew that that just didn't resonate. And so I said to myself, OK, I want to control my own destiny here, and I want to be able to do these things because I think they're important for our brand. And also I want to allow for the ability for this to maybe be a lifestyle business, where we provide for the team and everyone can make a decent living, and we don't have anyone else owning our equity.

Shontell: And so how long was it that you went without a paycheck?

Belsky: I went without a paycheck for about two years.

Shontell: And your family was cool with it? They're fine — it wasn't scary?

Belsky: I had money saved up from Goldman. I had been there for about 4 1/2 years. I had family that was willing to kind of help me on my rent and stuff like that, so I certainly wasn't on my own completely, but I definitely had a small bank-account balance. And I was definitely always saying to myself, "OK, when am I going to have to get a 'real' job?"

It got to the point where I just wanted the business to succeed so much that I remember actually not even reimbursing myself for taxi receipts because I'd be like, OK, I just want these numbers to look as great as possible. And the least that I can take out of the business, helps us kind of show that the business is working. And I also just wanted to make sure that the team was as comfortable as they could be in this period of time where there was so much uncertainty, and we weren't really making it yet.

Shontell: And so at two years, is that when you, I assume, started making money? Because to me, sounds great to connect the world's creative people, but it's not obvious how you're going to make money with that. So how did you kind of get the ball rolling there?

Belsky: Our first product ever was six months after the company was sort of officially founded in late 2005, and this was a paper product line. And so they were basically a design line of paper products that I actually used to design for myself when I was at Goldman. And it had a really defined area where you capture actionable items, and a sketch area, and the idea was to push designers towards capturing actionable stuff that came out of meetings and brainstorms.

And so we put this line out there and Matias helped do the final design and make it look good. We got it printed by a printer in Massachusetts, and we got featured on some blogs like Cool Hunting and a few others right away. And immediately there was this loyal following of people who were purchasing these products. And so that was when we first had revenue, and then as that scaled up, and we had a retail distribution channel as well, I said OK, I should probably take a little bit of salary to pay my bills. And then that led to conference, led to us being signed with Federated Media alongside Business Insider and other early publications to get ad deals for the pageviews we were amounting. And this is back in the day when there were good CPMs (cost per thousand ad views) for things like that.

Shontell: Definitely. Yeah, so for people who don't remember who Federated Media was, it was basically the way your company, our company, TechCrunch, Bleacher Report, all of the great sites that were founded I feel like in 2007, 2008, or even a little bit before were funded by this company, Federate Media, who would sell ad deals for you when you didn't have a sales team yourself.

Belsky: Exactly, which we didn't. And for a medium-agnostic platform like us, we didn't have an ads sale team of course, so that was a perfect partner at the time. And that's we bootstrapped the business, and it was really hand-to-mouth type of activity. We were always maybe a few months away from not making payroll. It made us really feel the granularity of our business, and it was extraordinarily tough.

Shontell: Did you have some sort of benchmark in your mind where you're like, OK, if I'm not at this point by this amount of time, I'm just pulling the plug and going back to corporate America?

Belsky: That's a really good question. No. I didn't. And also, and this is crazy, but until we raised venture funding five years into the business, I had never had a conversation with my team about an exit of any sort. Even Matias and I were the first two people there, we never even over coffee said, "Well, should we ever exit?" It just never was in our lexicon until we had these meetings with investors. We just were loving what we were doing. We felt like it was important. We felt like design was becoming a competitive advantage in the business world. And we said OK, if we're the number one platform for designers and design is becoming the competitive advantage, we're going to be fine.

Shontell: And so how did bootstrapping for all those years, and then you later raised money from Square Ventures and a few others, how did that help your terms with venture capitalists?

Belsky: Well it helped extremely — I don't advise people to do this, because there were many near-death experiences. I do believe that we in some ways squeezed blood from stone at times and maybe survived at times we shouldn't have. So I don't think it's wise, per se. However, it's one of those things where if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. And so five years in, we were a breakeven business. We had a team of over 15 people probably. We had a brand that was established. We had a network that was rapidly growing. We went to raise money, and we could do it on our own terms. And we only sold a very small percentage of the company, because we had earned that right. But I don't know if the odds were ever, you know, good enough to have made that decision wisely.

Shontell: So, what are some of these near-death experiences?

Belsky: Ad deals falling through and realizing, oh, our three months of runway just went down to 1 1/2. Or people not paying their bills. Not being able to hire certain people that you needed because you didn't have the cash to do it. The downturn of 2008, when things just kind of went south. And I was doing some of these little speaking things for companies on helping them have better-organized design teams, and suddenly the budgets go away for something like that. Realizing we built our network wrong, basically had to recode the whole thing because it wasn't scalable. Or that we signed on to the wrong hosting partner and realized, oh shit, they're not going to be able to scale us either.

It's all of those things, that each one of it — it's sort of like death by a thousand paper cuts in some way, but also at times we just realized oh my goodness, this may not work. And we just persisted. I think it was the team, and the culture, and the fact that we really liked working together. Also, we were in New York, where people weren't always buzzing about like, another company just got funded, or, another job at Facebook they could get. There was a degree of loyalty that I think was essential in New York uniquely, to keep our team together long enough to survive.

Shontell: One benefit that you get when you have a team of investors, and I guess you had a board probably, but when you get investors there's strategic investors. They can help make connections for you; they can help advocate your brand; they can be someone to vent to all the time. How did you get through those highs and lows when you're bootstrapping and you don't necessarily have access to all that?

Belsky: Well I think as the leader of a company it's always lonely. And you look for mentors and other people that you can go to for specific things, and I think I did that. I didn't have anyone that I could just tell everything to and who could just be there shoulder to shoulder with me, until we actually raised money and I had the USV and other folks in the circle. I think I was just really selective about it, and it was really lonely. It was anxiety-filled, and I also believe that as an entrepreneur one of the greatest costs is the constant processing of uncertainty that your brain is managing. It's almost like dedicating 20% of your RAM to one task that is always running. And you're never as present with your family, or your friends, and you're always just processing. And I think that's really, really hard, but it's part of the cognitive costs you pay.

The 'messy middle' of a startup no one ever talks about

Shontell: And so part of the reason why I'm touching on this is that you've kind of coined a term for all this called the messy middle.

Belsky: Yeah.

Shontell: Which is something that the press doesn't really get to write about or doesn't write about very much. It's usually the launch, or the ending of a startup when you sell, or something like that, or going under. But there's all these things that happen in the middle of a startup that are really hard for entrepreneurs to grapple with.

Belsky: I'm glad you ask about it — it's my obsession lately and over the years. Which is that the press and media, and everyone else, loves covering the romanticism of the start, when people quit their jobs and start something and launch a new idea or raise some funding. And then we also love covering and talking about the finish, whether it's an acquisition or an IPO, or a bankruptcy. Or a legal investigation. These are piffy headlines that people love to write about. What doesn't get covered really as often is just everything that happens, as like you said, in the messy middle. And all of that is really, in my mind, two things. It's endurance. It's enduring the amenity and the uncertainty and the lack of rewards, or financial rewards, or customers — or anyone telling you you're doing a good job or anyone even knowing what you're doing. And then it's enduring that, and hacking yourself and your team to be able to withstand that.

And then it's also optimization. It's constantly optimizing anything that actually is working, like the way your team is working, the way you're hiring, the way you are working and being productive. Optimizing your product or service, constantly making it better. When anyone says they liked it for some reason you accentuate that. All of those things make up the optimization side of the messy middle. And I just think it's one of those parts of the journey — not only entrepreneurs but artists and anyone else that people seldom talk about.

Shontell: So the press person in me, titling this podcast would probably be something like, "Man puts $18,000 into startup." That was your initial investment, wasn't it?

Belsky: Yeah.

Shontell: And turns it into, dun dun duh, the end, the 150-million-plus sales to Adobe.

Belsky: Which tells you absolutely nothing, right? The writer in me would also look for the same, piffy, whatever. But in truth, that was so sort of ancillary to all of the real calculus. In the real strokes of fate and luck, and individuals that joined our team, that made all the difference. And there are probably at least a dozen or so people that without any one of them, the stars would not have aligned and Behance would have never succeeded.

Shontell: Well we do have to talk about the ending a little bit.

Belsky: Sure.

How a giant startup acquisition actually happens

Shontell: So, you did end up getting this great exit to Adobe. How did that come about? You guys had been partners for a while. How long had you been talking to Adobe? How does a deal like that come to be?

Belsky: Yeah, well, there's always a relationship. And my attitude was we were never looking to sell the company. We were never really thinking about--

Shontell: People always say that, but if you're a first-time founder, it's hard to not imagine what it would be like.

Belsky: But also is in vogue to never think about it too.

Shontell: Right.

Belsky: I mean you just, you had this idea of, oh, well, you know Facebook never thought about that, and like, I'm just going to stay focused on the long term.

Shontell: I'm sure he thought about that when Yahoo came around.

Belsky: Probably.

Shontell: I think he was pretty close.

Belsky: Well when you get an offer you do think about it. But before you get an offer, you just tell yourself you're in it for the long haul. You have a vision of what this is going to look like years from now, and anything that gets in the way of that, including talking to Corp Dev people and stuff, is sort of noise. And so I really didn't like these sorts of conversations, but sometimes there were partners where I said OK, they could do an ad buy. They could do a partnership where we could get people who download their products to automatically sign up for Behance portfolio. There are a lot of things like that.

When Adobe decided to make the switch from software to service, and really literally overnight that flipped a switch, and they became one of the largest SAS businesses on Wall Street. Over a billion dollars and annual ARR in annual occurring revenue, they realized that they needed a network at the center of their offering. And we were the really best alternative out there, aside from building it. And so it became very clear to me that we were very strategic, that we would not be a tech acquisition, or something that was broken up. We would be like a core, product-strategy acquisition.

I loved the team that I was working with there when I was starting to really get to know them. And then from the financial perspective, the question was — it was really a simple math problem. It was basically OK, we've taken very little dilution. We've only done one round of funding and it was small. The team owns a big percentage of the company, and if we don't do this now, we're going to have to probably do a B and C. We're going to take this much more dilution — we're going to take this much more market risk for a team that's already been together for five-plus years.

There's a lot of risk there, and if you actually do the math and start to think about it, the outcome of this acquisition versus waiting for five more years and potentially getting bought for $500 or $11 billion. It's actually the same. It's literally the same. And the question is, well, if that's a really good outcome from an investor perspective, and we think it's a really great acquirer, and we're going to be really centralized and empowered at this company, maybe this is our parent. Maybe this is meant to be.

Shontell: You know I think there's a good point in that. If you look at the exits of Huffington Post versus TechCrunch, Huffington Post sells for $300 plus million; TechCrunch $20 million to $30 million. But both Mike Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, and Arianna Huffington, the cofounder of Huffington Post, made about the same. They both walked away with about $10 million or so, I think were the reports.

Belsky: I wrote an article recently about the sort of unicorn space that — it was also shared with Business Insider, and you guys were generous enough to republish it. And it was really about this question of the economics of these financings and trying to get employees to understand the ramifications of these things. Obviously the billion-dollar acquisition sounds amazing, compared to a $100 million acquisition or $20 million acquisition. But when you actually, as you're saying, do the math, you start to realize it's all about not only the dilution but also the terms of the financings that these companies have done and what the liquidation preferences are. And there's a lot of other math that happens where — I remember when Tumblr got acquired for $1 billion. There were people who didn't get much of anything that worked there, right? And you see, I hear those stories all the time. So it should really be about the mechanics of the company, and the decisions that were made in the financings and less so that total number that the press likes to cover.

The one stock-option question everyone should ask before accepting a job at a startup

Shontell: So, talk a little bit about what employees can do to realize what kind of a situation they're in when they join a startup. What questions should they be asking? What do they need to know about stock options? How do you know if — you know it sounds great when your company raises $50 million to $100-plus million, but what does that actually do to you?

Belsky: Sure. The two things that I think are important are one, is to realize that when you're joining a startup the likely outcome is nothing. And even if the company does OK and has an exit, if you're a later-stage employee, you should really be making sure that you get an experiential education that is extremely rewarding, first and foremost. But if you are sacrificing salary, you have a right to upside. And you also have a right to understand what your upside might be.

And so rather than suggest to every engineer or designer or anyone else out there to get copies of term sheets and look — I mean it's really hard to do all that stuff and to ask a million questions. You're probably not going to get far in the interview process if those are your questions. But what you can do, when it's in the final stage of accepting an offer, is you can ask a simple question. Based on the equity you're offering me, what would my stake be worth if the company were acquired for $200 million, for $500 million, for $1 billion? Just ask that question.

Your answer might be that if it's acquired for $200 million, your stake is worth zero. If it's acquired for $500 million, your stake is worth zero. And if it's acquired for $1 billion, your stake is worth $100,000. Or whatever. But at least that answer can give you some sense of really what's going on. And I think that's the company's obligation to at least give you some directional guidance on what the likely value of your equity would be in those circumstances, and those are the questions people should ask.

Shontell: And any negotiating tips if you do hear that what you're being offered is zero?

Belsky: Well I think that just having that knowledge allows you to say something like, "Well, if the company were to be acquired for $1 billion and my equity is worth zero, maybe my salary should be a little higher," right? So it's that kind of calculus. Recently an entrepreneur called me with an acquisition offer from one of these unicorn companies. And he said it was like an $85 million acquisition offer for a company that had raised basically seed funding. And he was really psyched about it.

And he had not even asked these questions yet. And when he did, because I said to him, if you got your company acquired right now for $85 million in equity from this unicorn company, and you found out that they ended up exiting at the valuation they raised their last financing at, ask them like how much you would end up getting. And he ended up learning that it was basically nothing. And he didn't go through with it. So, I think he could've negotiated a much larger acquisition price I think based on that. But he chose not to just proceed at all. I think these are the types of questions and they open up obviously the types of negotiating points you could pursue.

Shontell: Are companies obligated to tell you?

Belsky: I don't think they're obligated to. But then as a prospective employee, you can decide whether you want to work for them or not. And that's just part of the calculus.

How to sell your startup for $150 million and turn half your employees into millionaires

Shontell: So one thing that you did when you were selling the company is you actually went out of your way to make sure that a lot of your employees were in good shape financially. Not something that you legally had to do — you actually looked at how many options they had been granted and how much they would make from the sale. I think you had a spreadsheet, right? Where you said like, OK, this is how much they have, and here's how much I think they deserve. Talk me through that, because that's very admirable. You don't hear a lot of people doing things like that.

Belsky: Well I'll tell you what, I first of all, selfishly, that was one of the most important things I ever did. Because I have a team of people that I got to continue working with for another three years at Adobe, and we were all rewarded again for the work that we did because we stuck together. It was like a long-term greedy decision I would say, because when everyone feels like they're taken care of, they're more loyal, and they stay engaged and focused on the right things. And you can have what I like to call second coming at Adobe, which is, just you know, doing something all over again and making an impact and being rewarded for it.

I also think that I've already realized that those sorts of stories get out. I want to admit that there is a selfish side to that, right?

Shontell: Yes, but if you had your $100 million exit or whatever you could ride off into a sunset and never worry about if you piss people off or not.

Belsky: I think that that happens too often, and I think that there's something about the values of an entrepreneur should be. That you should be able to look at everyone that's worked for you, look at them in the eye, and know that they feel like you took care of them. And I think it's like the stewardship role of an entrepreneur is to take care of your team. And I think that goes through in difficult times as well as in great times.

My math is very simple. I looked through the whole roster of everyone on our team--

Shontell: And how many people were there?

Belsky: So at the time of acquisition maybe like, 27, 32, I forget. That's something in the high 20s or low 30s. And what I did as an exercise with Will Allen, our COO, at the time, is I said OK, what would be the re-up grants that we're going to give all these people over the next two to three years? And let's assume that all of them had vested over those two or three years, and we had sold the company for $150 million, $200 million, what would their stake be worth?

And the let's make sure that's what they get out of this acquisition. So I can go to all of them and say this is what your equity would've been that you were going to get over the next couple of years. This is what it would all be worth once it's all vested. I want to make sure you have that now, and so for the next three years we can make some of the greatest work of our lives and we can all feel like this is resolved and exceeded our expectations. And we did that for every single member of the team.

Shontell: So you basically accelerated the vesting process?

Belsky: So we accelerated their unvested equity, as well as allocated additional value across the board to people, based on what we felt like their future grant would have been. For example, we had some incredible engineers who had joined us just six or eight months ago but really made the difference between this deal maybe happening or not. But none of their equity had been vested, and they'd only gotten one grant so far. And we wanted them to be a part of the team for years. And we figured if we could just synthetically make them realize that they were kind of getting what they would've gotten as sort of locked in, with some retention of course, some retention incentive that we could do that.

And so it kept the team together at the expense of some of the return to the investors and myself. And one thing I have to say about square ventures is I had one call with them, where I told them this and it was basically millions of dollars off the top in return for them — they were totally OK with it. And supportive.

Shontell: So you have to get by from your investors and the company that's buying you to do this. And I guess for some entrepreneurs, it's an acquire situation where they might not have the most negotiating power during a sale, but--

Belsky: In our case we did, but Adobe loved this idea, because this is to their benefit. I mean if you think about it, they were having less money go in my pocket and investor's pockets, and they were having more money going into the team with some retention incentive. So to them it was like, yeah sure, this is great. It was really the sell to the investors that I was worried about, but they were supportive.

Shontell: So it ended up being that about half of those people, like a dozen or so, became millionaires in the sale. Which is pretty amazing. So half of your team.

Belsky: Right. A million more. And it was great. I mean it's really rewarding. And I will never forget the conversations I had with each person, where I knew about each of their situations: I knew about their college loans. I knew a lot about these things because as a bootstrap business, you get very intimate with people's financial situations because you're working with them to figure out what will make it work. And to deliver that news and see their faces, and share it also with the whole team, is probably one of the most emotional moments of my life.

How Scott Belsky discovered and invested in Uber, Pinterest, and Warby Parker before everyone else

Shontell: I want to switch gears, put your other hat on a little bit, and talk about your investing that you do. Since you've left Adobe, you were an executive there for a couple of years after the sale. You joined Benchmark as a partner, and you're a venture partner with them. But you've always been a seed investor for as long as I've known you, anyhow. And a couple notable things that you've invested in very, very early on are Uber, Pinterest, Warby Parker, Periscope, which sold to Twitter before it really even launched. So how do you find these things? And what are you looking for in entrepreneurs to know if they're going to win?

Belsky: Well, I think — you know, I like to say that a labor of love always pays off. And when I meet entrepreneurs that excite me, solving problems that are interesting to me, and they allow me to roll up my sleeves and take in a product a little bit, I geek out over it. And I get involved, and if I can, I put in money. And that's sort of in my seed-investor playbook, right? To be honest. And of course when one of those companies does well, then you get more, as they call it in the industry, deal flow. Because people who know you were involved with say, Uber, then say OK, well do you want to see this? Do you want to see that?

So I've enjoyed that part of life and have dedicated some percentage of my energy towards investing and working with these really sage teams. I think I went into the full-time general-partner role at first at Benchmark. My assumption was that my love of that would be a proxy for me loving the traditional investor job at a kind of classic venture-capital firm, and I just realized that they're actually very different. And while there's some of that that you would do, being at a VC firm, I just like the flexibility and the creativity. And the problems that are faced at an earlier seed stage versus like the late stage, postmomentum, series A or series B, that a firm like Benchmark traditionally does. And so that's why I am spending more of my time on the earlier-stage, venture-partner-type deals now.

And what do you look for? You look for a team that is really receptive to feedback, really not just passionate but also empathetic with the customer. That's really one of the biggest mistakes I see in entrepreneurship, is a team that's super passionate about a solution, but they really don't have empathy with the people that they're targeting.

Shontell: So what was the first meeting you had with Pinterest? Ben Silbermann, the CEO there, finds you. He's in New York; you're in New York. What happens?

Belsky: Well he was building a product that was grid-centric, from a design perspective, and Behance was always also a grid of projects. He also realized that the most valuable pins were well designed. They were beautiful pieces of art and design and whatever and--

Shontell: But this is back in what year? People didn't even know what pins were.

Belsky: Yeah, this is so when, 2010? Pinterest was already live and already getting some traction in unexpected places like middle America, not popular at all in Silicon Valley. But he had always a design sensibility, and he was going around New York meeting people for product advice. And we were introduced by — actually one of our interns who was like, oh, I know a guy who knows a guy who's here, he's building this. And I looked at it, and was like, "Oh, this makes a lot of sense." And so we just spent a couple hours brainstorming around on mechanics of pinning something and following somebody. And maybe automatically following their boards versus just following certain boards, and the problems, and that sort of thing. And he was actually trying to raise a seed round and was struggling to do so. I think that was why he was in New York in the first place.

Shontell: I remember a story that he told to I think Y Combinator people where — he said I walked into a VC meeting and everybody was in there, and I was so excited because I thought they were here to hear my idea. And then I realized there was a, like, plate of cookies on the table, and as soon as all the cookies were gone, all the people left.

Belsky: They could leave. Right.

Shontell: So yeah, it was not a layup bet that you made then.

Belsky: First of all, Pinterest has always been an underdog and still is today somehow. But he is extraordinarily anchored with what his product does for its users. He's also one of those people that's always thinking about process as well as product. And you ask him what his goals are, sometimes they're actually even more processed goals for how his team can better function and perform than they are what the product can become. He's extremely mission-driven, and those are the things that excited me during that time with him. And so even though I had no business seed investing in 2010, believe me, I was barely making a salary at the time, but I told them I'd put in some money. And I also I wanted to just stay involved with the product conversation. It was one of those things where I just wanted to have another conversation like this and realize if I wasn't an investor, it would be harder to do so.

The first version of Uber seemed like a terrible idea — here's why Scott invested anyway

A similar story with Garrett Camp. Which also happened in 2010, where he and I were doing deals together because he was the CEO of StumbleUpon, which he had recently repurchased from eBay. And StumbleUpon was one of the biggest driver of traffic to Behance. And some of the best-performing stumbles were photography projects on Behance. And so we were doing some type of ad credit deals together and at the end of the meeting he actually whips out one of our notebooks and shows me this diagram that he had made of the Uber prototype. Which wasn't Uber at the time — he was going to call it Uber Cab, and it was basically a livery service. And he was asking me if I wanted to help on some product and brand stuff, and just be like one of the New York people to help them out. And my first blush response was, What're you doing? You just bought back your company, and you're now CEO and trying to grow it, and I'm an entrepreneur as well. Like why are you building a livery service?

Shontell: Yeah, and back in those days I think it was Black Cars for the 1%. So does that sound like a good idea to an investor? When I heard it I was like ugh, what is this company?

Belsky: I just remember back to my Goldman Sachs days — I remember the slips that I used to always have to give the driver, who would then send back to firm, that would come to accounting, and they'd go to my assistant, and then they go back to me for every Black Car I took. And so I figured OK, maybe you can streamline that process, but good luck getting a firm like Goldman Sachs to work with you on this little mobile app. But again, it was the product problems that they were trying to solve, the back and forth that engaged me. And I just started to feel some sense of connection to the prototype and this concept. And then your mind starts to run, it's like well, what if all transportation was done this way? What would that mean for other things like delivery? It's always exciting when you open up a product problem and then it becomes this Pandora's box of opportunity and questions. And that's one of the things I look for when I meet an entrepreneur.

Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, and tips on how to land an investment

Shontell: So now that you've helped a lot of companies with early-stage deals and you've been a seed investor yourself, what advice do you have for people who are looking to raise their first round, trying to navigate the whole venture-capital scene, figuring out how to get endorsed, how to negotiate terms?

Belsky: Well I think that the meeting with individual investor angel-types who really you can tell a story to that they can resonate with, you can get them excited about some problem that you're solving, when you do that, those people have great connections to other firms. I have a lot of different firms in the seed and later stages that I collaborate with, but it's based on what the company is doing, what the story is, and who the people are. And then I say in my head OK, who would be the perfect person to extend this conversation and bring it to another level? And presumably invest.

And so I do find one role that I play as early-seed-angel type is to help people find their match from a larger raised perspective. So I do think you should target angels, and I stay away from angel groups, because I find that it's more about the money and less about the story and one to one mentorship and resonance in terms of chemistry. I think that individuals, in my biased opinion, are the way to go. I also think that having a really good splash page that just emphasizes what your go to market is and the marketing copy. All that stuff matters not only for potential customers but for investors who get a pitch and then just go to the website URL. It's amazing how many times you'll get a deck or a one-pager, but then you'll go to the URL and there's like nothing there, or even if the company's launched, there's just not really established and updated yet. And it's like well, that should always be a perfect representation of your story, because your go to market matters. That's what people are investing in you in the first place.

Shontell: So know you've got also this great view of the landscape of what's happening in Silicon Valley and the tech world in general. What sort of trends are you seeing? Are you seeing entrepreneurs all starting to tackle one thing? Another thing that's happening in the valley is we had all this investment flowing through, and you had all these companies become unicorn billion-plus-valuation companies. And that seems to have slowed, so how do you look at the trends of what people are building, and how do you look at what's happening in the venture-capital landscape?

Belsky: I'm seeing a lot more of companies building things off of the address book rather than off of Facebook or other established social graphs.

Shontell: So through your iPhone, address book, contact list, what are people kind of working on in that space?

Belsky: I think anything can be built — that is ultimately the source of truth of your network, right? Is who you have a connection to via email or phone. And if the quality of the connection matters more than the number of connections, which I think is another trend by the way, that real connection over mass connection. Facebook is really just about the number; LinkedIn, or whatever. But when it comes to commerce and collaboration and working together, whatever, your network is basically already in your phone. And so I think more products are being built off of that, and so I think there's options there whether it's marketplaces or different things like that.

I also think that we're seeing — the whole live-video phenomenon is exciting to me, but the potential of it is always killed by notifications that just drive us crazy. And so I actually think one of the other sort of auras or levels of innovation is around notifications themselves. How can we make them smart and intelligent? What if you were only notified about something when artificial intelligence knew that you cared about it? And so whenever you're at work, it just didn't notify you about stuff. But whenever you were moving in a car and they knew you were idle and just like hanging out, suddenly you got notifications that your friends were live about something. That should be happening, and it's not yet. And I think insights like that around media and the core operating system that we use will unlock things like live video and other sorts of new modern social networks.

It's a great time to start a company, but expect a 'reckoning' in Silicon Valley

Shontell: And what about what's happening broadly in the tech world right now? You have companies that are raising tons of money, they're waiting a really long time to go public — there's just a lot happening. How do you look at that? Do you think that some of these unicorn companies are going to die? Like what's the danger of over raising, and what are the struggles there?

Belsky: I think that we're going to see a lot of them die. They're going to happen at moments where they're not able to raise another round, because of the climate or because they've just raised too much at this point, or they've exhausted any investors that would be willing to. And then they're going to realize that their unit economics need to come into check, and so they're going to stop spending so much money to acquire new customers, which means that their new-customer numbers are going to go down, which means that their valuation is going to go down.

Which mean that even if they're good companies, they're going to get acquired or go public at a much lower valuation than they last raised. Which means a lot of employees will not get the return they were hoping, which means that they will leave.

You can kind of play that out, and you can see that there will be a reckoning, where there will be a lot of M&A activity that a lot of investors and employees will not benefit from, and some companies will probably just go under. And it's just kind of inevitable — I actually don't see how that could not happen.

Shontell: So is now then a good time or a terrible time to start a company?

Belsky: I think it's a great time to start a company.

Because again, it's easier than ever to start something. It is getting increasingly harder to scale, but if you start something that really needs to exist, you will find your audience for it. There are so many new modern ways of raising money like AngelList and crowdfunding. You know, there was this new upstart publication called The Hustle that just raised $300,000 of seed funding in one day from their users, from their readers. You're going to see more things like that happen, and that's exciting. And I think that a lot of them will not work, and some of them will, but the point is that it's great time to take that idea that you have and see if it has legs.

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