Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
She/Her- 9,828
- 12,449
I would rather not be here.
The Original Claims
Tier 1 DMC is primarily based upon two statements as showcased in this blog (ignore the first half, as it is outdated), both indicating that the Demon World is qualitatively superior to the Human World. The first stems from the manga, where it is stated that the HW is but a mere ray of light against the endless darkness that is the DW (finite vs infinite, essentially; the DW has other statements of being infinite as well). This is backed up by DMC1, where the DW is shown to contain a mirror replica of the HW, implied to be its own space-time yet only acting as the entrance to the DW.
Both of these statements ostensibly fit the tiering system’s criteria of treating a low 2-C as infinitesimally small relative to (or embedding it within) oneself, therefore making the DW low 1-C.
About That Mirror World…
The mirror world being a low 2-C space embedded as a finite part of the DW is, at a glance, very solid… until you realize that it isn’t actually connected to the DW at all. When Dante accesses the DW at the end of DMC1, he is required to first enter the mirror world, and then break a seal which opens a portal to the DW. Now, this begs the question of why the portal is even necessary if these locations are effectively one and the same; They’re quite clearly meant to be different locations disjointed from one another, accessible only through special means. Given the necessity of opening the portal within the mirror world itself, it’s quite clear that it being the “entrance” to the DW is referring to the portal you use to enter the DW. Treating it as though it’s the metaphorical living room to the house that is the DW isn’t corroborated anywhere else.
Even if we did treat the mirror world as part of the DW, there’s still an issue with the evidence at hand. There’s also the statement about the entrance to it being a “window in space-time”, implying that it is a full space-time continuum. The obvious problem is that, if you want to treat the HW and DW as different space-times (which they are), and the mirror world as an extension of the DW, then a window in space-time is most likely referring to the DW and HW being separate space-times, not the DW and mirror world… which means the mirror world is not actually a low 2-C space, just a vaguely large space inside the DW. Of course, this assumes the statement actually means that, and isn’t just a “window in space-time” in the sense that it’s a portal.
So, either the mirror world is a different space-time, or it’s a part of the DW. It literally cannot be both at the same time. To be clear, the bit with the portal makes me believe it is in fact not a part of the DW at all, and the “entrance” line is merely being misinterpreted, but I wanted to cover both angles.
Is the Mirror World Even Universal, Though?
The above arguments were made under the pretense that the mirror world is, in fact, an entire universe and a smaller realm. That’s not necessarily accurate though, and in fact, the mirror world being a universe was clearly rejected once before (the thread itself was applied, though specifically the 9D upgrade; nobody really gave the go-ahead on the mirror world stuff).
First is the statement of evil being a reflection of man, and evil lurking inside the mirror. This has nothing to do with tiering at all. “Yeah bro there’s demons in there” =/= a low 2-C rating, shockingly.
There’s the statement about the mirror itself being a window in time and space, which doesn’t really indicate low 2-C. The mirror world itself isn’t what’s being described here, it’s the mirror that takes you to the mirror world; Basically, it’s saying it’s a portal, which is accurate. The statement doesn’t really give us any info on the properties of the mirror world, so we can toss it.
Then there’s the “reflects this world” statement, which, to be fair, looks good at a glance. Two problems though; First is that we don’t really see the full extent of the mirror world, and the art book implies it’s only really Mallet Island. Second is that our universe guidelines actually prohibit using this for low 2-C ratings:
Higher-Dimensional Demons?!?!?!
I’ve occasionally seen these scans crop up as arguments for the DW having some sort of superiority. These are pretty easy to tackle one by one:
-This is referring to the war between humans and demons before Sparda showed up and cleaned house, the obvious implication being that humans were getting massacred because they cannot physically compare to demons. Doesn’t have much of anything to do with dimensions.
-This was originally claimed to be Mundus creating a world of “similar proportions” to the DW, which uh… no??? It’s said to be infinitely expanding, but no scan compares it to the DW in any way - It’s its own thing entirely. Even if the comparison were valid, being “beyond human comprehension” doesn’t mean a whole lot; Not only are there a lot of things humans can’t comprehend that aren’t higher dimensions, but demons and the DW both already induce madness by existing, which fits the bill for “beyond comprehension” just fine.
-This is the “scan” for the third claim, that being that the DW can affect large parts of the HW just by merging a small part of itself with it. Aside from the obvious issue of “why the **** are you linking an entire CRT as your evidence instead of just a regular scan”, this feat, again has nothing to do with dimensional superiority. Not relevant in the slightest.
-There’s this scan which… aside from the fact that it’s just kinda hard to read, referring to a human as an “insignificant insect” is just tropey villain talk. It’s no indication of dimensional superiority, or any real superiority at all since words like this are obviously just bragging.
-Finally there’s the statement of it being like one is looking at infinity compared to a demon. Again, as we’re dealing with regular humans here, it’s natural to assume that this is in reference to the very clear difference in power between humans and demons. A Normal Guy would, in fact, feel pretty insignificant next to a literal demon from hell that brings despair in their wake and has enough power to tear the universe apart, regardless of higher-dimensional nonsense.
So yeah, none of these statements are particularly relevant, but they’ve been used as supporting evidence before so I wanted to tackle them anyways.
Okay, but the Ray of Light Scan is Still Valid, Right?
Then you’d be using a one-off, possibly flowery statement in secondary canon in order to scale an entire verse to higher-dimensional levels of power. But ignoring that, at least this single statement still fits the low 1-C criteria, right? Uh…
As you can plainly see, just being vaguely infinitely greater than a low 2-C space is not in fact sufficient to reach low 1-C levels of power. We have blatant rules in place to prevent a vague “infinitely larger than” statement from upgrading an entire verse to low 1-C. Take the ray of light statement as you will, it’s way too vague to assume it’s referring to dimensionality and not just size (or literally any other metric of measurement that people tend to think of before higher dimensions). The nature of this superiority is simply not elaborated on in any other DMC content; Taking it as qualitative superiority by default is a massive reach, especially since it’s just one statement.
Of course, what about the other two standards I see DMC supporters use to defend tier 1? Well, they have their own reasons for being inapplicable here:
So… the ray of light doesn’t meet the standards for qualitative superiority, the mirror world doesn’t factor into this argument at all, and PoC is… well, yknow. So what does that leave us with? That’s right, absolutely nothing.
EDIT: As pointed out below, @DontTalkDT has pretty much said that you can't get low 1-C just by being infinitely larger than a tier 2 structure.
TL;DR: im tired man, just bring back the 2-C ratings
AGREE: @Antvasima, @Deagonx, @Firestorm808, @Maverick_Zero_X, @Eficiente, @Ultima_Reality
DISAGREE: @Elizhaa, @Planck69, @DarkDragonMedeus, @LephyrTheRevanchist
NEUTRAL: @Theglassman12
The Original Claims
Tier 1 DMC is primarily based upon two statements as showcased in this blog (ignore the first half, as it is outdated), both indicating that the Demon World is qualitatively superior to the Human World. The first stems from the manga, where it is stated that the HW is but a mere ray of light against the endless darkness that is the DW (finite vs infinite, essentially; the DW has other statements of being infinite as well). This is backed up by DMC1, where the DW is shown to contain a mirror replica of the HW, implied to be its own space-time yet only acting as the entrance to the DW.
Both of these statements ostensibly fit the tiering system’s criteria of treating a low 2-C as infinitesimally small relative to (or embedding it within) oneself, therefore making the DW low 1-C.
About That Mirror World…
The mirror world being a low 2-C space embedded as a finite part of the DW is, at a glance, very solid… until you realize that it isn’t actually connected to the DW at all. When Dante accesses the DW at the end of DMC1, he is required to first enter the mirror world, and then break a seal which opens a portal to the DW. Now, this begs the question of why the portal is even necessary if these locations are effectively one and the same; They’re quite clearly meant to be different locations disjointed from one another, accessible only through special means. Given the necessity of opening the portal within the mirror world itself, it’s quite clear that it being the “entrance” to the DW is referring to the portal you use to enter the DW. Treating it as though it’s the metaphorical living room to the house that is the DW isn’t corroborated anywhere else.
Even if we did treat the mirror world as part of the DW, there’s still an issue with the evidence at hand. There’s also the statement about the entrance to it being a “window in space-time”, implying that it is a full space-time continuum. The obvious problem is that, if you want to treat the HW and DW as different space-times (which they are), and the mirror world as an extension of the DW, then a window in space-time is most likely referring to the DW and HW being separate space-times, not the DW and mirror world… which means the mirror world is not actually a low 2-C space, just a vaguely large space inside the DW. Of course, this assumes the statement actually means that, and isn’t just a “window in space-time” in the sense that it’s a portal.
So, either the mirror world is a different space-time, or it’s a part of the DW. It literally cannot be both at the same time. To be clear, the bit with the portal makes me believe it is in fact not a part of the DW at all, and the “entrance” line is merely being misinterpreted, but I wanted to cover both angles.
Is the Mirror World Even Universal, Though?
The above arguments were made under the pretense that the mirror world is, in fact, an entire universe and a smaller realm. That’s not necessarily accurate though, and in fact, the mirror world being a universe was clearly rejected once before (the thread itself was applied, though specifically the 9D upgrade; nobody really gave the go-ahead on the mirror world stuff).
First is the statement of evil being a reflection of man, and evil lurking inside the mirror. This has nothing to do with tiering at all. “Yeah bro there’s demons in there” =/= a low 2-C rating, shockingly.
There’s the statement about the mirror itself being a window in time and space, which doesn’t really indicate low 2-C. The mirror world itself isn’t what’s being described here, it’s the mirror that takes you to the mirror world; Basically, it’s saying it’s a portal, which is accurate. The statement doesn’t really give us any info on the properties of the mirror world, so we can toss it.
Then there’s the “reflects this world” statement, which, to be fair, looks good at a glance. Two problems though; First is that we don’t really see the full extent of the mirror world, and the art book implies it’s only really Mallet Island. Second is that our universe guidelines actually prohibit using this for low 2-C ratings:
So none of these statements are particularly usable, unfortunately. I’d prefer to save this argument for if the above section on the mirror world is denied, just so the text walls don’t get too long.“Saying that it "Mirrors your world" does not automatically equate to mirroring the entire universe you came from as World can also mean planet. And it can even refer to locations in between planet and Universe. And even if the realms are larger than planet sized, the "Your World" aspect often refers to specific sceneries rather than the entire Space-Time Continuum. And just because world frequently refers to universe doesn't mean everything larger than a planet that is called a world is a universe.”
Higher-Dimensional Demons?!?!?!
I’ve occasionally seen these scans crop up as arguments for the DW having some sort of superiority. These are pretty easy to tackle one by one:
-This is referring to the war between humans and demons before Sparda showed up and cleaned house, the obvious implication being that humans were getting massacred because they cannot physically compare to demons. Doesn’t have much of anything to do with dimensions.
-This was originally claimed to be Mundus creating a world of “similar proportions” to the DW, which uh… no??? It’s said to be infinitely expanding, but no scan compares it to the DW in any way - It’s its own thing entirely. Even if the comparison were valid, being “beyond human comprehension” doesn’t mean a whole lot; Not only are there a lot of things humans can’t comprehend that aren’t higher dimensions, but demons and the DW both already induce madness by existing, which fits the bill for “beyond comprehension” just fine.
-This is the “scan” for the third claim, that being that the DW can affect large parts of the HW just by merging a small part of itself with it. Aside from the obvious issue of “why the **** are you linking an entire CRT as your evidence instead of just a regular scan”, this feat, again has nothing to do with dimensional superiority. Not relevant in the slightest.
-There’s this scan which… aside from the fact that it’s just kinda hard to read, referring to a human as an “insignificant insect” is just tropey villain talk. It’s no indication of dimensional superiority, or any real superiority at all since words like this are obviously just bragging.
-Finally there’s the statement of it being like one is looking at infinity compared to a demon. Again, as we’re dealing with regular humans here, it’s natural to assume that this is in reference to the very clear difference in power between humans and demons. A Normal Guy would, in fact, feel pretty insignificant next to a literal demon from hell that brings despair in their wake and has enough power to tear the universe apart, regardless of higher-dimensional nonsense.
So yeah, none of these statements are particularly relevant, but they’ve been used as supporting evidence before so I wanted to tackle them anyways.
Okay, but the Ray of Light Scan is Still Valid, Right?
Then you’d be using a one-off, possibly flowery statement in secondary canon in order to scale an entire verse to higher-dimensional levels of power. But ignoring that, at least this single statement still fits the low 1-C criteria, right? Uh…
This is fine. If this was the only paragraph describing low 1-C, DMC would qualify if you buy the ray of light thing. But the requirements for tier 1 don’t stop there:“Characters or objects that can universally affect, create and/or destroy spaces whose size corresponds to one to two higher levels of infinity greater than a standard universal model (Low 2-C structures, in plain English.) In terms of "dimensional" scale, this can be equated to 5 and 6-dimensional real coordinate spaces (R ^ 5 to R ^ 6)”
That’s where we run into qualitative superiority, which has a few interesting caveats to it:“Characters or objects that can significantly affect spaces of qualitatively greater sizes than ordinary universal models and spaces, usually represented in fiction by higher levels or states of existence (Or "levels of infinity", as referred below) which trivialize everything below them into insignificance, normally by perceiving them as akin to fictional constructs or something infinitesimal.”
Right off the bat, it’s made clear that being countably infinitely greater than a low 2-C space is not enough; Rather, you need to go one step beyond that. The DW has no statements or implications that’d place it above countable infinity in terms of its size difference when compared to the HW.“In the same vein a space being qualitatively superior to another space, means that destroying that space would land you on a higher level of infinity in the Tiering System than destroying the space it is superior to. In rough terms it means as much as being "more than countably infinite times greater in power or size".
Here, it’s yet again stated that an infinite difference is not enough to qualify for qualitative superiority; Instead, the difference is reliant on things such as R > F difference (not relevant here), and a difference in dimensionality. Now the obvious issue is that the ray of light statement doesn’t really go into too much detail, which makes it impossible for us to go “yeah sure it’s talking about higher dimensions”.“The reason it is called qualitative superiority is that, instead of quantitative terms such as being 2 times, 100 times or even infinite times more powerful or greater, this type of superiority is typically justified by the nature of the superiority. The most standard case is dimensionality, where a difference in the quality that is dimensionality, implies the necessary quantitative difference. Another typical example is reality-fiction differences. Those are cases like viewing a plane of reality as mere fiction, like for example writing on a sheet of paper or a dream. They are assumed to imply superiority of a similar scale.”
And then we wrap right back around to most statements of superiority, even those referring to infinite gaps above infinity, are simply not enough to qualify.“As the idea of "more than countably infinite times greater in power or size" implies, most statements of superiority wouldn't suffice to reach qualitative superiority, even if applied to already being infinitely stronger than the baselines for the level. E.g. being twice, a hundred or even infinite times stronger than a Multiverse level+ character, who already has infinite multiversal strength, would still not be enough to reach qualitative superiority over a multiverse.”
As you can plainly see, just being vaguely infinitely greater than a low 2-C space is not in fact sufficient to reach low 1-C levels of power. We have blatant rules in place to prevent a vague “infinitely larger than” statement from upgrading an entire verse to low 1-C. Take the ray of light statement as you will, it’s way too vague to assume it’s referring to dimensionality and not just size (or literally any other metric of measurement that people tend to think of before higher dimensions). The nature of this superiority is simply not elaborated on in any other DMC content; Taking it as qualitative superiority by default is a massive reach, especially since it’s just one statement.
Of course, what about the other two standards I see DMC supporters use to defend tier 1? Well, they have their own reasons for being inapplicable here:
Given that the mirror world can either be the same space-time as the DW, or not part of the DW at all, it wouldn’t be “embedded” in anything.“One of the more straightforward ways to qualify for Tier 2 and up through higher dimensions is by affecting whole higher-dimensional universes which can embed the whole of lower-dimensional ones within themselves. For example: A cosmology where the entirety of our 3-dimensional universe is in fact a subset of a much greater 4-dimensional space, or generalizations of this same scenario to higher numbers of dimensions; i.e A cosmology where the four-dimensional spacetime continuum is just the infinitesimal surface of a 5-dimensional object, and etc.”
PoC is no longer being used, and seeing as this statement was used to defend the “9-dimensional soul” statement from that game, it would no longer apply. There are no other implications of the DW possessing higher spatial/geometric dimensions, either.“However, vaguer cases where a universe is merely stated to be higher-dimensional while existing in a scaling vacuum with no previously established relationship of superiority towards lower-dimensional ones (or no evidence to infer such a relationship from) should be analyzed more carefully. In such cases where information as to their exact nature and scale is scarce, it is preferable that the higher dimensions in question be fully-sized in order to qualify.”
So… the ray of light doesn’t meet the standards for qualitative superiority, the mirror world doesn’t factor into this argument at all, and PoC is… well, yknow. So what does that leave us with? That’s right, absolutely nothing.
EDIT: As pointed out below, @DontTalkDT has pretty much said that you can't get low 1-C just by being infinitely larger than a tier 2 structure.
TL;DR: im tired man, just bring back the 2-C ratings
AGREE: @Antvasima, @Deagonx, @Firestorm808, @Maverick_Zero_X, @Eficiente, @Ultima_Reality
DISAGREE: @Elizhaa, @Planck69, @DarkDragonMedeus, @LephyrTheRevanchist
NEUTRAL: @Theglassman12
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