In Castlevania, you kill Dracula. That much is quite evident. It's been true for decades now, and over the years not much has changed. Every 100 years, Dracula returns, and the Belmonts (who must synchronize their birth cycles so that there's always a 20-something year old family member to fight him) smack him back down. Over the years, all sorts of protagonists have emerged. But I've never quite sympathized with any of them. You know who I do sympathize with? Dracula himself.
The thing is, despite having resurrected countless times, Dracula never actually does much when he actually shows up. How could he? He never has a chance. After patiently waiting one hundred years, spending his afterlife designing a brand new castle and doing situps preparing for the next epic clash, Dracula rarely sticks around more than one measly night. And he clearly puts a lot of effort into it, totally redesigning his castle every time, hiring brand new types of underlings, and thinking up new forms to take on for his epic final boss fight. All of that effort, wasted.
And this happens every time! His entire existence is made of the same old grind: get resurrected, build a pimpin' new castle, wait for another Belmont to kill me, wait 100 years and repeat. In one game, just after you beat him, he says, 'I can take some small solace in the fact that you, as a monster hunter, will be bound to this life until you die.' *****, please! Who else is there to fight, besides you? He's in retirement now, and even his children won't have to deal with any monsters at all.
No, Dracula is clearly the one stuck in a rut. Die, resurrect, die, resurrect - he's lucky if he can find the time to kidnap a single love interest before yet another death. So the next time you feel triumphant for vanquishing the Prince of Darkness, ask yourself this: did he truly earn that death? What did he ever do to you?
What is a vampire? A miserable little pile of failures?
The thing is, despite having resurrected countless times, Dracula never actually does much when he actually shows up. How could he? He never has a chance. After patiently waiting one hundred years, spending his afterlife designing a brand new castle and doing situps preparing for the next epic clash, Dracula rarely sticks around more than one measly night. And he clearly puts a lot of effort into it, totally redesigning his castle every time, hiring brand new types of underlings, and thinking up new forms to take on for his epic final boss fight. All of that effort, wasted.
And this happens every time! His entire existence is made of the same old grind: get resurrected, build a pimpin' new castle, wait for another Belmont to kill me, wait 100 years and repeat. In one game, just after you beat him, he says, 'I can take some small solace in the fact that you, as a monster hunter, will be bound to this life until you die.' *****, please! Who else is there to fight, besides you? He's in retirement now, and even his children won't have to deal with any monsters at all.
No, Dracula is clearly the one stuck in a rut. Die, resurrect, die, resurrect - he's lucky if he can find the time to kidnap a single love interest before yet another death. So the next time you feel triumphant for vanquishing the Prince of Darkness, ask yourself this: did he truly earn that death? What did he ever do to you?
What is a vampire? A miserable little pile of failures?
