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snowblindmods) wrote2015-04-06 10:43 pm
snowblindmods) wrote2015-04-06 10:43 pm
Application
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Re: Dio Brando | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure | reserved
Name:
Smug BananamanLiterally Worse Than HitlerDio BrandoCanon: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Age: 120
Gender: Male
Canon Point: A little bit before Vanilla Ice goes to fight Avdol, Polnareff, and Iggy. I'm really glad that this is a sentence I can actually type.
Background Link: Here you go!
Inventory: -Some clothes that are either hilariously ill-suited for cold weather, look like the end result of raiding a Hot Topic store, or both except for maybe his cape.
-The gaudiest jewelry known to man, but just what he's wearing (two golden earrings, a few rings, and bracers)
Personality: Hirohiko Araki is really interested in serial killers. In an interview, he talks a bit about reading about an American serial killer, who's name is omitted from the interview. The killer would trap people in his basement, all in one room. He would then go into the room, take one person at a time, leave, and then kill them, which confused Araki at first. It's several people in one room and apparently none of them were physically bound. They could probably overpower the killer pretty easily if they worked together and rushed him. Why were they acting like that? Why did they just sit there and accept their fates? It was later that Araki realized that the killer had complete control over them in different mundane ways and he did research on how one could possibly do that. The ultimate villain would not only have to be powerful, but be able to exert control over whatever, and whoever he wanted. Who could possibly beat a villain like that?
That was the first inspiration for him, Dio. The second was the thought, "What would happen if someone had unlimited ambition, but nothing holding them back? How far would they go? How powerful would they become?" Those questions are answered through the course of the series, from parts one through six, and the answer to them is "He and his priest boyfriend reset the entire universe."
Keep in mind that Dio, like Jonathan, is less of an actual character and more of an archetype. While Jonathan is mainly virtuous, innocent, and a symbol for good, Dio is referred to as "the embodiment of all evil", "the worst man in the world", and indulges in all of the seven deadly sins except for maybe sloth. He is megalomaniacal, manipulative, a sadist, and a sociopath. But, that admittedly describes a lot of villains. Let's look at Dio bit by bit over the course of the series, as he does go through a significant amount of character development.
In the beginning, while he was human, Dio never actually saw himself as evil. Which is odd, given all of the horrible things he's done just as a human but hey, never underestimate Dio's ability to construct an elaborate narrative about how he's always justified in anything he does forever. The main seed of Dio's motivations is to have control over his own life. This isn't any different from any other JoJo antagonist, but Dio's need for that extends to controlling others, whether it's how they view or treat him, if they live or die, or if they serve him if he finds them useful. Why this is becomes pretty clear when you look at his childhood; growing up in a household with an abusive alcoholic dad and losing probably the only pillar of love and stability he's ever had (his mother) is chaotic and confusing at best. You mess up? Get yelled at and have shit thrown at you. You do good? Get yelled at and hit because he thinks you did something wrong. Dinner's not ready because father's asleep in a drunken stupor. You want to go to school and are ignored. Why don't you sell your mother's dress for booze money? He doesn't need a dead bitch's old clothes.
That was when Dio, only twelve years old, decided that Dario had to die. Not only did Dario have to die, but Dio had to be the one to kill him. It was the only way to take control of his life, and not only would he kill him, but he would send him to hell, and he would do it so he wouldn't get caught. And even though he was more angry about what Dario did to his mother than to him, his mother was used as justification to kill another human being. Years later, after Jonathan finds out about this and suspects Dio did the same thing to his own father, Dio goes on a nightly drinking binge, worried about whether or not Jonathan's going to come back with the antidote to the poison he's been using and blames his emotions running wild on JoJo. The audience knows that no, it's not JoJo's fault, it's Dio's for being a shithead. And again, when confronted by the police later on, he chooses to become a vampire instead of going to jail, even though he was a law student and could reasonably think of a way to get out of jail early. A century later, he mentions to someone that he knows the pain they're going through because he can't go out in the sunlight. While that's probably sincere (in Part 6, he's revived as a plant creature and a Joestar, if that tells you anything), not being able to see the sun again is his own fault, but in his mind he had no choice. The end goal of gaining control of your own life is complete freedom, and in Dio's mind he is a constant victim of circumstance, even though Fate would smile upon him if he stopped being such a shithead.
In another interview, Araki said that Dio is incapable of loving another person because he's that self-centered, and this would mean any kind of love, whether it's romantic, platonic, familial or otherwise. So, while Dio very much felt affection for his mother and a few other characters, it becomes twisted into coveting. He covets what's left of her, he ends up coveting Jonathan and his body when he realizes that Jonathan can become powerful enough to incapacitate him, and the few times he's shown complete and unconditional love he becomes suspicious and thinks there's some kind of trick afoot. He thought Jonathan's father was taking him in as a charity case, he thought Jonathan being nice to him when they met was a passive aggressive attempt at showing how he's a superior rich kid, and while years later he now understands that most people just want to be genuinely nice, he still shows confusion and paranoia if someone shows him unconditional love, thinking about the potential of being betrayed. He understands that most people wouldn't actually do that, but it's implied in this scene that he just thinks most humans don't want to feel bad for their actions and doesn't take the next step of "why those actions would give someone peace of mind." Since Dio sees morality as arbitrary rules that hold humans back and considering how self-centered he is, he can't really fathom that most people would rather choose being good or decent anyway, even without strict moral guidelines. He can try to love but his general attitude gets in the way of forming any meaningful relationships.
Even though Dio constantly shows that he makes terrible decisions at all times, it's still hard not to blame him for choosing to become a vampire if you view is as a form of extreme escapism. Dio was a man who had a lot of self-hatred, which centered around how he had his real father's "blood in his veins." They're a lot alike; they make their main living off of taking things from others, they both have uncontrollable tempers and Dio sees that as a weakness, and Dio picked up his father's alcoholism. He never even talked talked about his real father, much less the abuse he suffered, when he was a regular human, as he wanted to put his past growing up in poverty behind him and he didn't want anyone to give him any sympathy...unless he can use that sympathy as manipulation, but anyway, when you're a vampire, none of that matters. Alcoholism is a moot point, being angry and violent is just fine because no one else can fight back, and you're pretty much filling yourself with other people's blood all the time. Dario Brando? Who's that, and more importantly, who cares? It's a sort of rebirth and Dio very much treats it that way. Distancing himself from his birth family continues after he decides to steal Jonathan's body when he realizes that neither of them would be the way they are if it weren't for each other and Fate obviously brought them together to make two in one which is, first of all, as close to real confession of love as he's going to get and second, it's a major marker on his road to character development but I'll get to that in the next paragraph. The point here is, over the course of the series he becomes less "Brando" and more "Joestar", first being accepted into the family and planning on becoming the sole inheritor of the estate, then taking Jonathan's body, then draining Joseph's and becoming "high" off of it (super energized and really, really happy), and then being revived from the dead in a new form...that has the Joestar birth mark, and being completely fixated on the protagonist's own birthmark despite having no other memories. Dio is completely fixated on the Joestar family and views them as his only obstacles to ruling the world, but at the same time might be subconsciously wanting to be one.
I mentioned his character development path before, and the thing that needs to be understood is that Dio does mature over the course of the story, but he's Dio so he takes the wrong things from lessons he's supposed to learn. When Jonathan first kicks the shit out of him, Dio comes to the conclusion that "the more you beat him, the strong he gets." It isn't wrong, that's actually one of the main features of the Joestar family, but the reason Jonathan finally snapped was because Dio sexually assaulted his girlfriend Erina. When he's confronted by Jonanthan and the police about poisoning George Joestar, Dio tries to justify himself by saying that anyone would have thought to do that with his background, but Jonathan's new friend Speedwagon calls him out because he also grew up in poverty but understands and appreciates the kindness of strangers when he sees it and insists that Dio was born bad. Whether or not that's true isn't the point; what matters is that Dio is forced to stop lying and can either face the consequences of his actions or not. Instead of entertaining the thought that there's something wrong with him, Dio concludes that being evil seems like the way to go and uses the stone mask to become a vampire, fully embracing how evil he can be with his new powers. Much later, Jonathan masters the art of the Ripple (sunlight martial arts) and manages to destroy Dio's body, leaving only his severed head. At this point, the average person might think, "I might have deserved that. Maybe I should stop being such a shithead." Not Dio, because this was the point where he realized that he really respected Jonathan. There was probably a slow build to this in his mind, and it sort of shows when he makes up excuses about why he didn't just kill Jonathan himself and let his zombies do it instead. "It would be weird," or "We grew up in the same house," "It wouldn't be any fun," and he probably liked the attention that having a nemesis gave him, not to mention that during their fights he kept complimenting Jonathan on his strength when he felt he deserved it. So, as a severed head who couldn't do much, Dio looked back on his relationship with Jonathan and realized something magical. That there's a force out there, much like gravity, that draws certain people together, and that happened with him and Jonathan. And their meeting changed each other irrevocably, and neither of them would be the same without each other. For someone who's incredibly self-centered and seems to be vaguely agnostic, coming to the conclusion "GOD EXISTS AND HE USED FATE TO BRING US TOGETHER AND CHANGE EACH OTHER'S LIVES" is a pretty big deal and even if it's still kind of self-centered (of course God decided you were important enough to meddle with your fate. Of course He did, Dio. Wow.) it does sound pretty idealistic, if not outright romantic. And then Dio took the next step of "I NEED TO TAKE THE BODY OF THE ONLY MAN I RESPECT AND LIVE GORGEOUSLY FOREVER!" because of course he did. And of course he managed to kill Jonathan, but not before Jonathan did his best to make the ship they were on sink so it would never make it to America, so...Dio ended up in a coffin at the bottom of the Atlantic for almost a century.
It's incredible that Dio managed to stay relatively sane after a long period of forced isolation from anything mentally stimulating, but if there's one good thing you can say about him, he has the iron will of most Shounen protagonists. No matter what, he will find a way to continue to live and when he was released from his hellish imprisonment by some hapless treasure hunters, he seemed to have adjusted to life in the 1980s quite nicely. However, after this is when Dio exhibits the most change. Before, he was only concerned with attaining wealth or power or whatever would let him feel like he was in control. Now he appears to be more introspective and philosophical, usually using others as a sounding board for what his goals should be and to talk about the nature of happiness or fate, not to mention not getting as easily mad as he used to because things could always be worse. He now uses the wealth he's gathered over time as a means to an end for something much bigger. Dio is even more self-aware, telling his closest friend that he knows full well that gaining wealth or physical capabilities or even his Stand didn't actually make him happy, and the entire reason he needed to find a close friend in the first place is because Dio understands that he's fucked up and needs someone to reign him back in when he "veers off track." But once again, this is Dio, and the idea of just changing himself for the better, or realizing that the nice and calm feelings he gets when he's around someone he really likes would be enough to make him feel happy never crosses his mind. Instead, he concentrates on a plan that he can put into motion once he gets rid of all the Joestars, and that's to obtain "Heaven". Not the kind with the fluffy clouds and angels and shit, it's just his way of saying "I'm going to make a stand that lets me control Fate." Dio only thinks he can be happy when Fate itself is in his complete control but, since his Stand's tarot arcana is The World, and the antagonists usually demonstrate their arcana reversed, Dio will never know completeness or actual happiness because he's looking in the wrong place for it. It never occurs to him that friendship and camaraderie should be enough because he thinks people look for those things just for the sake of peace of mind, which is exactly what he's doing when he talks about how living means to conquer fear. While that's also the goal of every human, it's ignoring the lessons of William Antonio Zeppeli when he talks about courage. Everyone experiences fear, and it's a completely natural feeling. But fear is also needed to experience courage and to do truly courageous things. Dio implies in his writings that he has yet to find this courage because he needs it for his plan, as it would require destroying his stand and he'd have to die temporarily.