A Summary and Analysis of Selva Oscura【Limbus Company】

[@HazIosefka]

Hey, so it's getting pretty late here - I'll be updating this comment with some stuff that I didn't put into the video that I thought were notable. I'll just be adding a few things for now, but will get to it when I have free time. 8:37 - I still can't shake the idea that Vergilius might actually be able to understand Dante. Maybe I'm crazy. 22:12 - Vergilius' reaction here is pretty weird, I personally think it's pointing to how he feels about Lapis/Charon (go read Leviathan if you haven't already, seriously). That's it for now, gimme a bit till I wake up, 'kay?

[@weferin]

He probably understands us. Probably gaslighting us.

[@tetsuchris9636]

The row of crystals that changes your identity you mentioned are very reminiscent of a certain tool abnormality in Lobotomy Corp called "Mirror of Adjustment" The abno basically does what ID system makes. It lets you peak to your infinite alternate selves, and if stared too long, would overtake your own identity

[@mulberrytea549]

I think an interesting thing to note is that while lunacy is desribed as rose shaped and colored, it can also be seen as a nervous system.

[@medeteee5078]

she can't keep getting away with this

[@mulberrytea549]

@@medeteee5078 girl needs to take a break 💀

[@doneedanickname3522]

She will never leave us...

[@Silancet]

...Car-man

[@dylanmcglothlin7636]

If you want additional confirmation for the trio being related to Iori, when Vergilius comes in to save Dante, he says, "Tell the serpent this, false lion: This flow cannot be stopped." Most things about her such as her outfit, logo and combat pages in Ruina mention snakes or relate to snakes in some way (Coat with a scale pattern, Snake Slit, Serpent Sword Technique, Snake's Prey etc.), so it may as well be certain that Iori is their leader. While I haven't read the divine comedy, seeing as it is a biblical fanfiction I imagine that there is at least some symbolism regarding serpents as well that may add to your analysis in the future.

[@mush6681]

Also there's been a theory going around that Iroi picked up some of the unbooked guest's, with Panther, and Lion being Pete and Lenny

[@ozwaldgrey7471]

Actually, after revisiting Ruina the other day, I noticed that the special effects when the animal trio attack are Kinda(remotely, at least) similar to those we can see when the Claw attacks in the final reception. Just an interesting observation of sorts.

[@thaumoking9947]

Im PRETTY sure Dante's head is an abnormality, the aberration of one we have seen in Ruina too. But before answering which one, the more important question is "how?" How would Dante just come across an abnormality in the middle of nowhere? Well... In Lobotomy Corporation we are told that Abnormalities can be born naturally in areas where there are openings to the underground river. They mention on place in particular, the Dark Forest. Not the first time we hear about the Dark Forest, the Three Birds originated in this same place. And, while this not be as important, the fact the forest is on District D, on of the closest ones to the Head, which the birds represent. Now, I said Dante's head was an aberration of an abnormality we know. That Abnormality, I believe, is The Price of Silence. Both revolve around the concept of cheating death, either by delaying it or reversing it, and the price that comes attached. Price of Silence would harm those around you if you were to stop time and delay your death. Meanwhile, Dante's head does the opposite. It reverses the death of others at the cost of the one who uses the clock itself As Hopkins said in the chapter 1 Dungeon, the clock's abilities are on par with Singularities, if not beyond them. I dont think someone would leave such a thing in the middle of nowhere

[@dugless7381]

My headcanon is that Dante's head is his ego manifesting/distorting, like the whole thing at the beginning with etching seems like dante beginning to manifest/distort his ego and I think he might have distorted by him saying that he did it too fast, plus he don't got no memories and lost his head which is an awfully distortiony thing to happen like the reverb ensemble who don't have humanity. This whole thing with the star and redemption? might be going from being a distortion back into ego and recovering memories. We all know EGO is crazy powerful and being able to reverse death of certain individuals with special connection to him seems like an EGO/Distortiony thing to be able to do, because full singularity would be able to heal to no limits, like k corp maybe. I do agree that Dante has weird connections to the price of silence or just time in general as a clockhead, but I'm pretty sure distorting does stuff like that. Like in Distortion Detective lots of weird distortions are seen and time probably plays some very important part to dante's backstory.

[@thaumoking9947]

@@dugless7381 Dante doesnt have as many connections to time as he has to death, which is Price of Silence's central theme, even more central than time, so its unlikely it is just a coincidence. It could be that time and death are the same thing when it comes to the human mind and how it gets manifested, but still. Likewise, it could be EGO/Distortion, but the fact the prologue has a big chance of taking place where the only natural entrance to the river (that we know of, there are 2 other abnormalities that we know where not created by or on Lobotomy Corporation) is very suspicious

[@dugless7381]

​@@thaumoking9947 I do admit that Dante and Price of Silence have a lot of strange connections to time and death, and the number 13(13th toll, 13 sinners, probably more 13s somewhere). I don't think an aberration or an abnormality in general is the best way to describe whatever Dante's head. Dante was a human(based on faust and vigil mentioning he was someone important before memory loss(might be a lie)), and not a weird creature from the mind made material. Abnormalities are from the collective unconscious/subconscious of the city/mankind as a whole/people stuck in binah extracted artificially/river that garrion mentions or something carmen related(Binah LC cutscenes)(minus birds and other natural abnos who came from other openings of the river like the dark forest, perhaps from other people falling into the river like carmen). My interpretation of this is that at the start of the story, LC's well is somewhere in the city and rubble of L-Corp but isn't being used, Garrion/Binah is a librarian who is in the library yeeted out of the city, Dante was someone important that was studying L-corps singularity and everything (Faust mentions distortion and other L-corp stuff is being researched by limbus comp). This somehow leads to Dante finding the other opening to the river(not the artificial one made by A and Carmen but the one the birds came out of), he looks in and finds his own "river"/EGO/Distortion thing, begins to develop his own, but also loses his mind(and takes an amnesiac) or just memories but keeps personality/humanity from looking inside the underground river/carmen mind bits/collective unconscious, bada bing bada boom dante has an ego/distortion clock head and no memories. Side theory: the river/carmen mind bits/collective unconscious might be why he can see stars or something when turning back time. The stars are ego/distortions/rivers of other people, bright star is our ego, we can revive the sinners because connection to them from magic river(idk how we are connected maybe vigil contract related) and like abnos their souls/personality/sm is extracted back into the material plane, bone for bone, eye for eye. Also probably related to why they all have ego by default that don't have a sanity cost, because their own ego not donning someone else's ego.

[@thaumoking9947]

@@dugless7381 Oh I didnt mean Dante himself was an abnormality. Just the head itself is what I suspect would be the abnormality. Abnormalities are no stranger to just lodging themselves in into people. Tool Abnormalities are a thing afterall, and LoR showed why they are still considered to be Abnormalities Also one of the two Burrowing Heaven aberrations is literally just the abno stuck in a person but still Besides, the underground river itself having any effect on people is debatable, as there is no proof to support it. If one could just go to District 4 and get EGO by going into the Forest, how is it that the Seed of Light Project was needed? Why not experiment with the river directly? Why is it that Kali getting her EGO was such a big deal, such a rarity? I wouldnt be surprised if the opening to the river was completely innacessible to people. A one way exit rather than an entrance perhaps.

[@evilevilcritter]

not everything has to be an abnormality, Dante's head is more likely to be LCC's singularity

[@goolhelm5807]

Something to note about Dante is how they are not really as much of a self-insert as we might first believe. Even with amnesia, Dante still has their own opinions, personality, and even goals, albeit one they themselves don't remember, that don't always align with our own. Spoilers ahead: Besides their vague goal of "engraving their aspect," we also see how inept they are at actually "leading" the sinners in the current chapters as he repeatedly fails to garner their respect (being repeatedly called clockhead and nobody following their orders) and their poor attempts at boosting morale (cracking jokes to lift the mood after Guido threatened to end them). Dante even explicitly monologues this in their head, the fact that they have failed to play any active role beyond being the sinner's spawn point before vowing to try harder. This shows that Dante, just like the sinners, is going through their own charcter arc. (One that might progress throughout the whole story). That's not even mentioning the fact that we neither get to decide any dialogue options for Dante nor do we see through them, in a literal sense, instead seeing them in front of the screen, together with the other charcters (Unlike other gacha self-inserts). X from Lobotomy Corporation is the closest PM has had to a real self-insert: Dialogue options, First Person Perspective, No discerning personality 90% of the time, The name "X" So if PM really wanted to, they could have just made Dante more like X. From what we're seeing so far, Dante's less of a self-insert like X and more of a psuedo-Roland character. Or more fittingly, Dante from DMC, just without a voice. We play AS them, just not literally them. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that the only reason they gave Dante no voice is to cut down on unnecessary voice acting for exposition (describing a scene, charcter, etc).

[@HazIosefka]

I agree, actually - Dante consistently makes their own decisions and even has a few...moments (i.e, the slots bit), which sets them pretty far apart from a self-insert character especially as compared to other gachas like Arknights (which lets you pick dialogue options) or even past PM games, like you mentioned with LC. That was uh...a bit of a bit due to the thing where they literally call pre-amnesia Dante 'you', which I personally was a little put off by. Thanks for writing this, though! It's pretty hard to explain to non-players how/why most people (including me) don't really think that Dante is definitely a self-insert character.

[@eggguy20]

My personal theory is that Dante not having a voice actor is actually intentional since there's a plan from the writers to give Dante multiple voice actors the moment we get a chapter relating to them to fit the theme of Dante's memories being shattered and forgotten

[@gigablast4129]

i mean technically we do see through them from the menu when interacting with the sinners and their ids,since they refer to dante when talking to you through the screen.another time when dante doesnt appear is during internalized dialogue dante has no potrait only when talking to others does he appear in the story

[@ronwinters3571]

Off the top of my head I think there's 3 things you may have missed, one is how Lunacy relates to Dantes Inferno, the connection between Vergilius and the Golden Bough, and the sinners relation to the 12 Fixer Associations. Lunacy itself takes the form of a rose which is similar to the rose housing the faithful in heaven in The Empyrean in Dante's Paradiso (funnily enough paradiso also has the spheres of virtues with the cardinal virtues prudence, temperence, justice, and fortitude). Vergilius's connection to the boughs comes from the poet he's based on Vergil's story The Golden Bough where the main character needs as an offering to the queen of the underworld to see his dead father. The last one is that the sinner's authors and sinner's number match the known 12 Fixer Associations names. So with the current known Associations its Hana (1) Association and Yi Sang's (Sinner #1) Book's Author- Korean Zwei (2) Association and Faust's (Sinner #2) Book's Author- German Tres (3) Association and Don Quixote's (Sinner #3) Book's Author- Spanish Shi (4) Association and Ryoshu's (Sinner #4) Book's Author- Japanese Cinq (5) Association and Mersualt's (Sinner #5) Book's Author- French Liu (6) Association and Hong Lu's (Sinner #6) Book's Author- Chinese Seven (7 haha) Association and Heathcliff's (Sinner #7) Book's Author- British English Öufi (11) Association and Sinclair's (Sinner #11) Book's Author- Swiss (in this case the Author of Sinclair's Book is Swiss-German)

[@dungeonmaster0656]

Thank you Mr iosefka for sacrificing your health for the sake of making this video

[@DMrLeeds]

Who? Me? Thanks for the shout out! Very well put together!

[@HazIosefka]

Your videos have brought in even some of my friends into PM's grasp, so thank you~

[@tepig2828]

A few things I would like to mention that are somewhat related to this chapter: 1. The art for the Representation Emitter EGO shows the Gacha machine outside the jail bars wrapped in golden chains. Combine this with Dante also having a theme of gold chains (forming the contract with the sinners, how you command your sinners by selecting skills in battle) and there is a possibility that Mephistopheles and Dante are linked. The best theory I can come up for this is that Faust also invented Dante’s clock head which is how she understands what the Aspect is and how to fix Dante’s memories. 2.Dante is seen in District D at the start of the game and is revealed to be someone important in a Nest. There is a possibility that Dante worked for District D or fled from a nearby District into the backstreets of District D (maybe even The Claw although it is highly unlikely)

[@andresarancio6696]

So on Iori. There is a pretty straightforward reason why she might be involved in trying to take you down. I know by this point we shouldn't think of it as canon, but remember the original stinger scene at the end of the Library of Ruina? Iori was planning to build a 13th Association. Dedicated to the research of the Distortion, and, I believe, by proxy the more "magical" side of the City, the stuff the Head has been keeping behind close doors, Astolfo was looking for in the Ruins and what seems to be powering the Will of the City. To an extent we have a confirmation that's what Limbus Company is interested in at the end of the day, considering how the Golden Bough was powering [REDACTED]'s transformation at the end of chapter [REDACTED] and how [REDACTED] tells Dante she was trying to "become a god like those of old". My theory is the Limbus is, actually, Iori's competition. Either working in the sidelines to challenge her 13th Association or actively antagonizing her. It is possible the squad you meet at the end of Chapter 1 are also related to her in some way (the purple motif is all I have going for that tho) but they could easily be a third party. This actually might be explained in Leviathan (haven't read past the official English translation), but I wouldn't be surprised one of Vergilius' reasons to work for Limbus aligns with his trying to antagonize Iori in some ways, specially after the orphanage incident.

[@mulberrytea549]

If you mean the squad that had to do with the bough in chapter 1, they're very distinctly red. I do like this theory though. Also, Leviathan wise, what I can gather from the fan translations, Vergilius is here because Faust promised to help Lapis and Garnet. That's probably going to come up later,,,

[@k31un]

somehow i didnt catch how lion panther and wolf guys r indicated to be related to Iori when i played through the prologue

[@HazIosefka]

It can be pretty tough to see similarities, especially since *that* shade of purple only really shows up on their accessories, which can be a little hard to see if you're not paying attention!

[@weferin]

Holy shit haz, you make videos?! Jokes aside, nice.

[@HazIosefka]

ikr it's so crazy

[@Alice-he2zh]

>Lion >Man haz you might be deaf

[@HazIosefka]

my bad okay listen im dumb

[@weferin]

@@HazIosefka you can’t disrespect her like that, man. She already lost to the apex predator of the woods, a bus

[@kirumitojo1853]

I think the cylinder crystal might be the part of Garnet

[@treedude4246]

I do wonder if vergilius can understand us

[@LTDLetsPlays]

I’m here waiting for the event that will kill 300 million people

[@Cinneder]

danteh.

[@bsantini3616]

Nuh uh

[@AilithNix]

Nuh uh

[@LTDLetsPlays]

Too much summary not enough analysis

[@HazIosefka]

yeah, i'm aware - i really shouldn't have chose to do a summary, was more pain than it was worth