VN Talk: Piofiore: Fated Memories - Part 4: Dante

It felt a bit odd playing Dante's route in the middle, because he's the poster boy (usually sharing the spot with Gilbert), but given that I got Nicola first and wasn't sure about doing back to back Falzone routes, this is how things played out. He was a conscious choice rather than a roleplaying one though, since the prologue doesn't introduce new choices with a second route completion and because I knew some spoilers I had a preference to play his route before Orlok's.

Dante is the dedicated boss of the Falzone family, and as such is intrinsically tied to Liliana's own story, and it's in Dante's route that we find out why. In fact his story is so tied to why everyone's fighting over her that some players are surprised he's one of the two routes available at the story of the game, as playing Nicola's route is a fairly straightforward mob story and Dante's shoots off into Da Vinci Code territory.

Though it starts in a similar fashion to other routes, with Liliana falling under Dante's protection and being hustled away to the Falzone manor, and then there's some sitting around at home while lots of mafia dealings are happening, there's a distinct change when the term "Key Maiden" comes up.

Interestingly, it's dropped by Fei, who gives no indication of knowing what a Key Maiden is in Yang's route, and in turn Yang seems to know what this means, even though he gave no indication in his own route either. I suppose it's possible Yang just knows the Lao-Shu are supposed to pick up a Key Maiden with Liliana's birthmark for Bishop Rosberg, but it seems odd that the bishop would actually tell the Lao-Shu any formal designation for her since that places a greater level of important on Liliana than he'd probably want to reveal.

My feeling is that the writers needed to bring up the topic somehow in Liliana's presence and Fei was the most convenient way since Dante himself is not inclined. No one is really supposed to know about the Key Maiden except for the Church with a capital C and the highest ranking members of the Falzone family, which is why Sister Sofia is so pleased that Liliana has found safety with the Falzone in both Dante and Nicola's routes. The fact that the Lao-Shu know at all is something that alerts Dante to the fact the Church may no longer be aligned with him.

The backstory behind all this is that a long time ago, an ancient Falzone ancestor brought back the bones of Jesus from the Holy Land and buried them in Burlone. (Jesus is just referred to as the son of God in the game itself, but it's pretty obvious who they mean just like the "Church" is obviously the Catholic Church even if it's never referred to by name.) Because the existence of such remains runs counter to the story of resurrection and ascension to heaven, the Church does not want them to ever be discovered and the Falzone family's real mission is not to be a crime family but to serve as guardians of this holy grave.

For centuries they managed Burlone as part of the Papal States, and as times changed and they became a part of the Kingdom of Italy, the Falzone outwardly relinquished control to the king while remaining the de facto power in Burlone as the Falzone crime family. It's not clear exactly when or why they picked up criminal acts as their way of making a living when not guarding the grave, but Dante's route demonstrates his family's political clout more than any other as he leans on both the police and the politicians to get the job done.

But, as we know from the opening narration by Roberto, the Falzone family isn't what it used to be. Dante may be a dedicated leader, but he doesn't control even half the city anymore, with the breakaway Visconti and the newly arrived Lao-Shu controlling the rest. The Visconti split probably happened before Dante's time since the two factions are relatively cordial to each other during the game itself, but Dante acknowledges that the growth of the Lao-Shu happened on his watch and that he ignored them for too long.

Though it's not spelled out in this route, the Falzone's diminished power over Burlone is why a split emerges in the Church and why Rosberg reaches out to the Lao-Shu to capture the Key Maiden. (And though Dante's route deals a lot with the Church, oddly Rosberg himself doesn't make an appearance.) Rosberg is setting up the Lao-Shu as potential replacements for the Falzone, as well as potential disposables in the way that the Church may not want to use fellow Italians.

What's not entirely clear is what Rosberg really wants to do with Liliana (and to a lesser degree Dante since Yang says he was told to leave him alive on Dante's route). We learn that there is a seal over the relic, so it cannot be accessed without two things; the Falzone heir and the Key Maiden, which Dante and Liliana are aware of by the second half of his route, but there's another condition and that's for the two parties to know each other... in the biblical sense. None of these characters are aware that's a condition, so I have no idea what Rosberg would have actually done had he captured both of them.

I am pretty sure the Catholic Church would not condone premarital sex as the key to open the tomb of Jesus, but in the best ending storyline, Dante and Liliana just get really comfortable one night and discover that her birthmark changed color in the aftermath, which was the signal that they were ready to open the tomb. Neither of them seem to realize it was the sex responsible for it, but to be fair, if I was told I had to get a hitherto unknown eighth sacrament and I notice the sign I got it the morning after, I probably would not have attributed it to the premarital sex either.

And in that way I was a bit disappointed that they were told to go find a solution and they just lucked into it, especially since I otherwise liked the slow burn of Dante's route. The early portion was a little maddening when she first arrived at his house since he's busy and we see more of Nicola and Leo than Dante, but Dante is very good at doing his best to make Liliana comfortable without taking credit for the things he gives her, which makes it easy to fall in love with him when things get more dire and it's not safe to keep her even in his own home.

Dante is driven to do his duty and he's willing to sacrifice anything to protect Liliana and keep custody of the grave he's supposed to be guarding. At one point he even offers Gilbert the keys to his family's criminal organization just for the safe return of Liliana and enough time to wrap up one last job, so it's easy to see why Nicola sees nothing less than the destruction of the Falzone family itself as a means to free Dante from the weight of his bloodline.

And it's also easy to see why Dante and not Nicola was chosen to succeed Dante's father even though Nicola is older. Nicola's route likely makes no mention of Liliana being the Key Maiden because Dante wants to spare her the knowledge if at all possible and Nicola is an unbeliever who regards the family heritage as an antiquated story. The fact the blood of the Falzone is necessary to unlock the seal is the reason the Falzone family is highly traditional and run by a literal family, with the position of boss being passed down through bloodline. (And it makes me wonder if Lili would get… activated after being intimate with Nicola as well since he's of the bloodline even if he's not the current boss.)

Dante's best ending also reveals that the reason he doesn't know everything about how to use the Key Maiden is due to his father's assassination, which I thought was a nice touch and a completely realistic way for an incomplete set of information to be passed down from father to son. Under normal circumstances the Falzone boss would know ahead of time what was necessary to unlock the seal (which was only supposed to be done in case of emergency) so while he would keep an eye on the Key Maiden from afar, like Dante did, he also wouldn't flail around trying to figure out how he's supposed to use the Key Maiden.

And I did like that in his good ending, Dante figures out how to use Liliana, but out of respect for her, declines to unseal the relic because he doesn't want to use her that way.

Aside from the fact the relic turned out to be the bones of Jesus, opening up a can of theological worms the game doesn't bother to address, I rather liked Dante's route even though it's not really what I expected from a mafia game. I mean, there's a lot of Dante making intimidating gazes, even (amusingly enough) at a leaf he's trying to pick out of Liliana's hair, and he has his own brutal scene of torturing another man like Nicola did, but outside of that he's fairly gentlemanly. Maybe irritated, but gentlemanly once he recognizes the reason. I like how he understands that Liliana acting out against him in the early part of his route is because of his own failing for not keeping her informed.

But despite how the eighth sacrament solution was found, I enjoyed how the final third of his story was a lot of Dante and Liliana working together to find a solution, whether it was the two of them pouring over old books together or joining together in the fight against Yang. Though I prefer a female protagonist who can fight, Liliana's participation is handled very well with Dante giving her one of his guns, which she takes so easily without protest that what he's handing her isn't even called out in the narration, and she later uses it to shoot into the air to distract Yang. Considering she's untrained and would be as likely to hit Dante as Yang if she shot at a target, having her shoot into the air was the safest thing she could do and served the same useful purpose in making Yang think someone was firing at him and distracting him long enough for Dante to get the kill.

I'm also a sucker for routes where the story of the protagonist and the story of her love interest dovetail, and Dante's route does just that. Though we learn early on that the Key Maiden is chosen by astrological signs, one of the clergy, Emilio reveals in epilogue narration that the Key Maiden's choosing isn't random, but rather the chosen is the one fated to be with the current generation Falzone, implying that the two meeting and coming together was destined to happen (except not in various bad endings and every other romance route in this game).

Still, this means that no matter the route, Dante will always be invested in protecting Liliana, and makes his death in Yang's route more than just trying not to hit a lady. She's one part of a whole he is dedicated to protecting.

That said, one reason I did want to play Orlok's route after Dante's is because he's… well… not very nice in one of the bad endings (as I found out while reading through triggery content on this game) and I didn't want to get into his route already having a bad impression on my mind. Orlok's bad ending did not ruin my enjoyment of the character, but I can see why it did for other people.