Dante

Overview

Story

Gallery

"Wait!"

Managers should be reminded that this article contains major plot synopses, artwork, and/or game data that might spoil the story of Limbus Company.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

"Abandon hope, all ye who enters here."

Dante (Hangul: 단테, Dante) is designated Sinner #10 and executive manager of Limbus Company's LCB department.

Dante is a relatively grounded and attentive manager with a tendency to make quips. The game opens with them purposefully wiping their memory and replacing their head with a prosthetic clock, only to be approached and recruited by Limbus Company minutes later.

Dante acts as Limbus Company's ever-present main character, bumbling through the hellish journey of guiding the Sinners down their paths to the Golden Boughs.

Appearance

Dante is a person of average build with a distinctive prosthetic head that resembles a clock and has constantly burning flames emerging from the back and top of the prosthetic. The face of the clock lacks numbers, instead having two red circles roughly where the "10" and "11" positions would be. Additionally, the prosthetic has two golden clock hands that move forward after certain major events. Starting in the Prologue, Dante's minute hand rested at 9, then moved forward to just before 10 after Canto IV, and moved forward again to its current position of just after 10 after the events of Canto VII. Dante's flames burn black and gold, and never seem to go out.

Their uniform differs from the other Sinners, their coat being a mix of red, yellow, and white — likely due to their role as Executive Manager. 'NO. 10' is written on their coat near the lapel, along with 'DAN TE' near the end of it. They wear a red tie and a tucked long-sleeve dress shirt, with black pants and a white belt.

Personality

Compared to their twelve companions, Dante is a considerably grounded and passive individual. Despite their position as manager, they tend to fall in line with whatever other, more enlivened people are around, making snide comments as they're strung along for mischief and antics. Likewise, as a person, Dante is somewhat awkward. They have a penchant for cracking jokes to lighten the mood, but said jokes are rarely well-received, even among the moodmakers of the LCB. Given their situation, Dante also frequently finds themselves out of the loop, forced to ask basic questions and give up when they only receive cryptic answers. Luckily for them, Dante appears to be comfortable asking questions and relying on others as needed.

As the LCB's executive manager, Dante is initially very amateurish, half-hearted, and spineless. They start off painfully aware that none of the other Sinners respect them, and make very little effort to command the group in times of danger or coach them through their personal struggles. Canto III acts as a turning point for Dante, forcing them to realize that it's their responsibility to uplift the Sinners in their worst moments. However, their encouragement of Sinclair is ultimately awkward and delayed, forcing them to continue to find their footing throughout Canto IV and Canto V. Canto VI: The Heartbreaking and its successors eventually demonstrate the determination Dante has mustered, as Dante learns the values of persistence and trust, tailoring their advice to what each Sinner needs to hear the most. Nowadays, Dante is a much more reliable leader, and many of the Sinners are willing to confess their worries to them even outside of their missions. Despite this, however, Dante remains the same lovably quirky and bumbling person in their day-to-day life.

Beneath their usual demeanor, Dante appears somewhat insecure about their lack of memories. Others repeatedly point out that their desire to fix their amnesia is probably the only reason they've stayed with the company, an idea which Dante never refutes. However, Dante seems to genuinely care for the Sinners, approaching them in a friendly manner and highly respecting their space and feelings. They are also very flexible, for as much as they groan about the Sinners' horseplay, events like Intervallo III: Miracle in District 20 show that Dante struggles to deny their requests. While Dante seems to see their relationship as more professional than amicable overall, they have a strong desire for everyone to get along with each other. Their tendency to make judgemental comments similarly never extends into genuinely disruptive or offensive.

Through their few lines in the prologue, Dante's past personality appears to have been much more snarky and aggressive. Moreover, Vergilius refers to their former self as a "bigwig", and Faust suggests that they weren't the type to value other people's lives very much. Though overall, Dante's former identity remains a mystery even now.

While Dante has their fair share of flaws and a looming, unknown past, they always do the best with what they're given. Alongside their familiar companions and plenty of other, ever-changing ones, Dante marches forward through the uncertainty of amnesia, helping their Sinners in whatever ways they can.

Anatomy and Abilities

Dante forming a "contract" with the Sinners

Dante's own head had been replaced by a prosthetic clock serving as their new face, which seemingly gives them powers comparable to absurd technologies such as Singularities.

The Sinners recruited by Limbus Company were specifically chosen because they could "resonate" with Dante's abilities, forming the "contract" with them to gain the boon of Dante's powers.

Dante resonating with the Golden Bough to sense its location.

• Golden Bough Resonance: Dante is able to sense where the Golden Bough are through resonating with them, able to perceive their location by "following their star". This gives Dante the visions of the Boughs as shining stars in a swirling sky; Dante can also share these visions with the Sinners through their telepathy.
• Telepathy: Dante can only commune through a ticking sound, which they can alter the frequency and intensity of. Only the Sinners and a few others can understand the intended speech behind the ticks. When agitated, Dante's speech may include bell chimes and/or steam whistles.
  • Selectivity: They are also capable of selectively limiting the recipient of their words to one person only, or to the whole group of the Sinners all at once. However because of these limitations, Dante can only verbally communicate with the Sinners and has to rely on using one them as an interpreter when relaying information or queries to anyone outside the LCB.
  • Distortions: Dante can also understand the speech of Distortions that lost the ability to communicate using human language, this understanding extending to their subordinate entities as well. Dante can thus act as a interpreter for Distortions, relaying invaluable information to the other Sinners to achieve their missions. Faust speculates this is possible due to Dante resonating with the Golden Boughs they collected.

The Sinners reviving after their time has been rewound.

• Turning back the clock: After Faust had Dante bind the Sinners into a "contract", Dante is capable of healing their injuries and reviving the Sinners from death, at the cost of physically feeling how they died.
  • With cases like death, Dante undergoes a vision of themself opening a foreboding door filled with the wails and lamentations of unknown sufferers, as they pull out the hands of the Sinners from the gateway. When doing so, Dante feels the sins and pain caused by them wriggling through their body as the Sinners revive with their wounds physically reversing. Although the pain felt is only temporary and quickly fades to nothing in almost an instant, the sensation is still so great that Dante incredibly prefers not using their abilities.
• Winding down: When the clock on Dante's face winds down, Dante themself is rendered unconscious.
  • Dreams: In this state, they are able to "dream" of various alternate realities known as Mirror Worlds. Vergilius and the other Sinners were able to interfere with what Mirror World was seen by Dante by messing with the circuitry in their prosthetic head, as Dante unfortunately experiences when this happened for the first time.
  • Rewinding: Fortunately, Dante can be resuscitated by rewinding their clock — waking them up from their "dreams". Dante is able to recall their memories from such experiences, but it still leaves them confused and frazzled nonetheless.

• Sapling of Light Ability: When Dante aligns themself to help the Sinners realize their dreams, they're able to resonate with the Golden Bough within them, activating new abilities. Each of these are themed after a Patron Librarian, as well as being represented by their floor's symbol.
  • Pigritia: Introduced in Canto VI, Dante creates a field that slows everything except the Sinners within a certain radius. This is used to let the Sinners catch up with the Erlking. In game, this halves the Speed of all enemies, rounded down.
  • Superbia: Found in Canto VII, Dante appears to strengthen the power of a Sinner. Dante uses this on Don Quixote to help her realise her dreams. In game, this allows an E.G.O. Skill to be slotted without having to spend any E.G.O Resources on it.
  • Morositas: In Canto VIII, Dante uses the strength-averaging aspect of their contract to bring an enemy down to the Sinners level. In game, this sets the Offense and Defense levels of all units to the average of all units' values for three turns. The first time this was used, against Lei Heng, the effect lasted the entire battle.
  • M@!l%#th: In Canto IX, Dante attempts to bring all of the Sinners to them. However, due to not being able to resonate with the ability fully, it is shown to be imperfect, and is not fully unlocked. In game, it allows for every Sinner to be available for 9-33, the only stage it is available. However, it is listed as allowing the manager to remotely command and communicate with every Sinner. During the battle, certain "manifested" Sinners do not play their voicelines.
• On the Durante interface, they are labeled with the name of their associated Librarian, while their given names are the Latin versions of the Sin types.
  • Exception being for the M@!l%#th ability, only having one name.

• 'Last Resort': A preventative measure to prevent the Golden Boughs from falling into wrong hands. By inputting a sequence into a button on the back of their head, Dante can self-detonate a charge within their clock with enough heat 'to melt even the Stars of the City'. The Golden Boughs cannot survive such an explosion, and will be effectively cremated.

• Golden Bough Synchronization: Currently only used once during the events of Canto 6-48 to perform an otherwise impossible feat with the help of a Golden Bough, leaving it 'burnt' afterwards.

Whether these capabilities are because of the clock or are inherent to Dante themself is unknown (bar the 'Last Resort').

Trivia

• Dante is based on the protagonist of the 14th-century narrative poem, the Divine Comedy, particularly of the first part, Dante’s Inferno. Both Dantes take their name after the author of the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri.
  • Dante is a hypocorism of the name Durante, their in-game call sign and the baptismal name of Dante Alighieri — whose full name was Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri.
  • 'Durante' originates from the Latin verb dūrāre (“to endure”). This references their role within the story, with Dante metaphorically and literally enduring the pain and sins of their fellow Sinners, along with their ability to revive the fallen back from death as an ever-enduring group.
  • The Italian word durante, also derived from ‘durare’, means “during” or “in the course of”, which again ties in to Dante's clock motif and ability to "turn back the clock" for the Sinners.
• Dante's introduction quote references the third Canto of the Divine Comedy, wherein Dante and Vergil, upon leaving the dark woods, find themselves before the gates of Hell, which bear the inscription: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Splash art (left) versus Talk sprite (right)

• The overcoat on Dante's talking sprite shows their name, "DAN TE", while their splash art shows "DURANTE". This is the only instance where a Sinner's callsign that was written on their personal belongings is replaced by the character's actual name.
• Dante's 'face' does not resemble a normal clock; instead it bears a resemblance to the Doomsday clock, a symbol that represents the likelihood of a human made global catastrophe.
  • Additionally, the minute hand of said clock moves slightly towards the 12 o'clock position by the end of every few Cantos, so far at the end of Cantos IV and VIII. The conditions for this change and what it foreshadows are currently unknown.
• Dante is designated Sinner #10; however, Sinclair appears to have originally been Sinner #10, as his uniform has the number 10 on it, with the zero crossed out and replaced with a one.
• Dante (단테) shares their name with Dante (단테), a Fixer of the Seven Association's Southern Branch, Section 3 — fought in an optional encounter in Library of Ruina.
  • This is likely a coincidence, as Dante is not the only instance of two characters sharing a name (ex. Rose from Wonderlab and Rose from Library of Ruina).
• Their head appears in both the logo for Limbus Company and the symbol used to represent Mephistopheles, though lacking their flame and with the clock hands in their original 9 o'clock position.
• Despite their inability to eat, some Identities mention them having meals.
• Dante's story sprite used to feature them with their left hand in their pocket and their right hand hanging down by their side. This sprite was used up through Canto IV, until it was replaced at the start of Intervallo II: S.E.A. with an updated sprite to reflect the movement of Dante's clock hands. For unknown reasons, this altered sprite showed Dante with both hands in their pockets. More than two years later, the December 4th, 2025 update would change the original sprite so that Dante had both hands in both pockets for the entirety of the game.
  • This second update was accompanied by an identical alteration to Demian's sprite, which also did not receive any kind of explanation from the developers.

External Links

• Dante (단테) - Korean page (Namuwiki)
• Dante (ダンテ) - Japanese page (wikiwiki)
• Dante (Данте) - Russian page (Project Moon wiki)