Just thought i’d offer some evidence and see what people think!

Evidence 1/why it can’t be Loid:

Personally, i don’t think Loid being the one to succeed would make a huge amount of sense for the simple reason that he’s pretty much a total stranger to Donovan. They had a nice conversation and everything, but i doubt that would be enough for loid to be able to convince him to stop. (Mind you Endo’s a great writer so i could see him pulling it off) I can see Loid’s attempts going 1 of 3 ways: 1: he attempts to convince Donovan but fails 2:accidentally invigorates Donovan, making him push harder for war 3: doesn’t get to meet him at all, perhaps because Donovan got suspicious of him after their meeting.

Evidence 2/ Donovan’s psychology:

I think we can get a lot more about Donovan from that first meeting than we may realise. What i find interesting, is how little prompting it took to get donovan to talk about his ideology, and also the ideology itself. He talks about how people can’t understand each other, and even your child is practically a stranger to you. The reason i find this interesting is that sort of point of view doesn’t come across to me as necessarily malevolent as much as it does lamenting, like somewhere deep down Donovan wishes himself and Damien (and possibly by extension, Westalis and Ostania) could grow to understand each other. I feel the fact that he not only bothered to come and see Damien, but actually made sure that Damien had said everything he wanted to, enforces this. In other words, what i think Donovan wants is his son to communicate/ be honest with him.

Evidence 3/ Damien’s character:

Personally what i think Damien’s character is building up to is him finally standing up to his dad in some way, and finally being honest with him. Ultimately, i think a great way for this to happen would be convincing his dad to stop a war.

Scenario: (purely for fun, you don’t have to read this.)

At some point or another, Damian finds out about his dad. Either because he overheard Loid trying to convince him to stop, or some other way.

Next day at school, his mind is stuck on this. He doesn’t tell his friends/minions this because he has no idea what happens if he does.

Anya finds out what happened through mind reading, and then in a similar way to how she convinced Damien to see his dad in episode 25, she convinces him to confront his dad (in a roundabout way of course. Damien goes to his dad, and tells him he’s doing wrong, and that people can understand each other.

So what do you guys think? I personally don’t think im necessarily going to be right on specifics, only thing im really strong on is loid not being the one to succeed.