Dante

Dante is a major character from the 2017 Disney•Pixar animated feature film Coco. He is a stray Miguel adopted as his pet and friend.
==Background==
===Personality===
Dante is extremely loyal to Miguel due to the boy's kindness earlier in the movie and the Riveras as a whole. Dante has a weakness toward food, as it leads Miguel to embarrassing situations in the film. Although Dante is superficially goofy and simple-minded, it is shown that he is smarter than he looks. Throughout the film, he covertly guides Miguel to Héctor whenever the dog runs off and brings them together. However, these attempts were motivated by benevolent intentions. Dante was eager to help Miguel find who he was looking for, although being a dog, his actions came across as the dog being overly excited and random. Dante can also sense spirits and was, therefore, the only living creature to live in the Land of the Dead.
Dante's loyalty is demonstrated to be his most endearing quality. He can become extremely defensive for Miguel's well-being, as he tries to stop Miguel from finding Ernesto de la Cruz after the boy tries to avoid his late family members and ditch Héctor; being fully aware of the boy's heritage. While he is most loyal to his owner, Dante is very sensitive when people close to him hurt his feelings. However, his loyalty is proven when he never gives up looking for Miguel, allowing the Riveras to rescue Miguel later in the film. It was because of this that Miguel's acceptance and declaration of Dante revealed Dante's true nature as a spirit guide. The revelation highlighted that, despite the opposition he faces, Dante's relationship with the people he identifies as his family brings him to help them however he can.
===Physical appearance===
Like most dogs of the Xoloitzcuintle breed, Dante is a skinny, almost hairless dog with wrinkled brown skin and long legs. He appears to be under-conditioned with a tear on his left ear, given the fact that he is a street stray. He also has messy-aligned ears and long whiskers on his muzzle, and his tail is notably bent. He is often seen with his tongue sticking out, due to his missing teeth and his crooked fangs.
Much later after he helped Pepita and Imelda rescue Miguel and Héctor from their exile in a cenote, Dante becomes an alebrije guardian and is revealed to gain wings smaller than Pepita's. This appearance retains Dante's body shape, although his skin became radically multicolored, his tongue turned blue, and his left and right eyes turned pink and yellow respectively. He would retain this appearance only in the Land of the Dead. When he returned to Santa Cecilia, he resumed his Xoloitzcuintle form.
==Role in the film==
Dante first appears coming out of a trashcan after Miguel drums it and an alebrije stall close by. Miguel greets his friend and they walk into town. Although Miguel tries to keep Dante's adoption a secret, Dante shows up later to get Miguel's attention when the boy is walking home with his family. This proves to be a problem to Abuelita Elena who after berating a mariachi (with her chancla) in the Mariachi Plaza chases Dante (who tries to follow Miguel home) off with her chancla as she escorts her grandson home.
Later in the evening, Dante tries to eat the food offered by the Rivera family ofrenda. Miguel asks him to hide under it as Abuelita arrives. After Abuelita leaves the family ofrenda room, Dante tries to eat the food offering again only to be stopped by Miguel at the cost of the picture frame of Imelda, Coco, and Miguel's great-great-grandfather. This makes Miguel realize that his great-great-grandfather has the same guitar as Ernesto de la Cruz and believes him to be the same person.
At night, Dante follows Miguel who ran away from his family to Santa Cecilia's graveyard but stops as he senses spirits from the Land of the Dead. After Miguel is transformed into a spirit by strumming Ernesto's guitar in his mausoleum, Dante is the only living being who can interact with him. He then leads Miguel to the deceased Rivera family members and accompanies them to the Land of the Dead. After a rift between Miguel and his deceased family members (Imelda included) in the Department of Family Reunions, Dante accompanies Miguel and Héctor as they escape from Imelda's sight. Héctor takes them to the art district, during that time Dante spots a monkey Alebrije, whom he gets into a scuffle with. The alebrije's owner Frida Kahlo takes a liking to him as she hypothesizes to Miguel about Dante being an alebrije guardian. During Miguel's performance in the "Battle of the Bands" contest, Dante brings Héctor into the performance. After their cover is blown by Pepita and the Riveras, Miguel leaves Héctor following a scuffle between them and goes to find Ernesto himself. Dante tries to bring Miguel back to his family (unintentionally exposing his living self to the land of the dead in the process), but he is rejected by Miguel as a result.
Despite this, Dante would later help Pepita and Imelda to get Miguel and Héctor out of the cenote after the two were exiled there by de la Cruz. During the rescue, Miguel realizes Dante knew the truth all along and declares him a spirit guide for reuniting him and Héctor (his real great-great-grandfather). Dante becomes an alebrije from Miguel's declaration. At first, Dante struggles to fly due to his small wings and keeps falling during the journey back to the deceased Riveras.
Dante later joins in the Riveras' mission to recover Héctor's photo from de la Cruz as he knocks down one of his security guards. He later tries to pull Miguel from Ernesto's grasp but to no avail. While Miguel is thrown by de la Cruz from the latter's stadium, he dives down and struggles to save him but fails as Miguel is too heavy for him, leaving Pepita to save Miguel instead. Dante remains in the Land of the Dead with Riveras after Imelda and an almost forgotten Héctor transports Miguel back to the Land of the Living just in time before sunrise.
During the one year before the film's epilogue, Dante appears to be friends with Pepita in the Land of the Dead, thus becoming a new alebrije guardian to the family with her and eventually managing to be appreciated by the living Riveras (in fact, Abuelita has warmed up to him). He is last seen with Pepita accompanying Héctor, Imelda, Mamá Coco, and the other deceased Riveras to the Land of the Living (taking on their animal forms once they enter) and they join in Miguel and his older cousins' celebration of music in the family during the next Dia de los Muertos.
==Disney Heroes: Battle Mode==
Dante is a playable character in Disney Heroes: Battle Mode. He is a Front-line Tank role hero. Dante's basic attack is biting nearby enemies. His main ability "Bone-anza" have Dante chasing a bone which appeared before him and then sliding away across battlefield, this deals damage to enemies, applies pierce, and removes all buffs from enemies, after returing Dante gains armor and reality. With Dante's green skill "Bow Wow" Dante bows and wiggles in excitement, cleansing, healing, and Energizing himself, this also applies charm to 3 random enemies, charmed enemies by him also have armor and reality decreased. Dante's blue skill "Make a Mess" causes his tongue to be tied with a bone which he found, then bone darts off toward the enemy line together with Dante, this deals damage to enemies, this also applies saping, limiting, and shattering to them. With his passive ability "Alebrije" Dante is invincible and immune to disables for the first 10 seconds of each wave/battle. With his second passive ability "Xolo Power" Dante becomes Berserk for 10 seconds after each use of Bone-anza.
Dante's abilities are inspired by his short Dante's Lunch: A Short Tail.
Dante has friendship campagins with Hercules and Baymax. While he doesn't have friendship with Miguel in-game he appears in both campaigns.
==Gallery==
==Trivia==
*Dante was inspired by the Xoloitzcuintle breed (or "Xolo" for short) the filmmakers played with during the film's research process, which is the national dog of Mexico. According to Lee Unkrich, the Xolo is featured in legends of the Aztec afterlife where the traveler needed to have a Xolo with them to make the journey through the afterlife.
*Dante's tongue hangs out on the side of his mouth rather than in front. In real life, this is because the Xolo is genetically prone to losing teeth and their tongue will hang out when this happens. When learning this, the animators decided to make this trait part of Dante's character.
*The name "Dante" can be associated with the Italian poet . He was famously known for writing the narrative poem , in which Dante himself goes through the three realms of the afterlife (Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise) to reach salvation, for he was so morally confused he lost his right way; he is accompanied, one by one, by three guides (Virgil, Beatrice, and Bernard of Clairvaux), who follow one another with the progress of the journey.
**Ironically, the three guides in the poem can be seen as a parallel to Dante's role in Coco: a spirit guide who must accompany his protégé, Miguel, who is, like Alighieri's character, a lost and confused living person who has to make his way in an otherworldly land, in search of truth and happiness.
**In the film, Miguel named Dante after the horse Ernesto de la Cruz owned in his films.
*Dante's whimpering when Miguel calls him a dumb dog is probably the same recording of Bullseye's whimpering from Toy Story 3, and Gamma's from Up. 
*During the film, Miguel passes by a table of alebrije figures. Next to the table is a trash can which Dante pops out, foreshadowing that Dante is a spirit guide.
*Dante was first shown in the 2017 teaser clip for "Dante's Lunch". Which focuses on him trying to catch a bone he encountered, but ends up in all types of shenanigans while fetching for it.
*Dante's Alebrije nature is hinted multiple times throughout the movie:
**At the beginning of the movie, we're first introduced to Dante after Miguel passes a table full of alebrije figurines.
**When climbing up to Miguel's hideout, Dante's footing displaces a few stacks of bricks, which would take quite a feat of strength to do effortlessly. This could hint that Dante is an alebrije and has supernatural strength because of it.
***Also, in regards to "Dante's Lunch", there's the fact that Dante goes through an unusual amount of injuries whilst holding on to the bone (crashing clean through a fence, through tables of cacti, flour and luchador costumes). Normally, this would be taken as cartoon physics. But as it turns out, Dante is an alebrije, and it's likely he's much sturdier than the average dog.
**The fact that Dante can still see and hear Miguel after Miguel is transported to the other side despite no one else being able to do so likewise hints at the dog's true nature.
**Frida Kahlo immediately saw Dante for what he actually is, although she also quite humorously took it back later.
**When Chicharron goes through the final death, Miguel is the only person confused what happened. Dante is uncharacteristically saddened by his fate like Héctor, indicating he knows more about the Land of the Dead than it seems.
**When Elena, Berto, and Rosa are dragging Miguel back from Mariachi Plaza, Elena chases Dante away with her chancla at one point; Miguel protests that "it's just Dante", and her response is "Never name a street dog; they'll follow you forever." Since Dante is Miguel's spirit guide, he probably will, one way or another.
**And most bafflingly, upon rewatching the movie thoroughly, everyone makes a big deal about Miguel being a living boy in the Land of the Dead, but no one does the same towards Dante, who's a living dog. The two who did acknowledge Dante (Frida and the clerk) both initially saw Dante as an alebrije. This implies it's common for alebrijes to look like normal animals, let alone normal animals existing in the Land of the Dead.
***In fact, Rosita, Oscar, and Felipe don't comment about Dante's presence as a living dog, only his appearance.
==References==
==External links==
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es:Dante
ja:ダンテ
pt-br:Dante
ru:Данте
Category:Coco characters
Category:Pets
Category:Dogs
Category:Pixar characters
Category:Animated characters
Category:Hispanic characters
Category:Silent characters
Category:Mystical animals
Category:Legendary creatures
Category:Characters who fly
Category:Males
Category:Spirits
Category:Heroes
Category:Transformed characters
Category:Characters in video games
Category:Disney Magic Kingdoms characters
Category:Disney Emoji Blitz
Category:Tsum Tsum characters
Category:Disney Heroes: Battle Mode characters
Category:TV Animation characters
Category:Mickey's Philharmagic characters
Category:Tritagonists