Castlevania, and living long enough to become the villain.
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- Опубліковано 22 кві 2023
- My name is Thane Bishop, and I need to talk about Castlevania.
More specifically, I need to talk about a single scene from Castlevania.
Godbrand Vs Dracula is the scene that originally pushed me to get into this sort of video creation; I think this scene is critical for the core of the show, but in talking about it I haven't heard many people discuss this scene with the weight I feel it deserves.
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This was the scene that originally sparked the idea of talking about the media I consume, and how it makes me feel, and it was a fun smaller project to work on for a week while working on larger things in the background. If you want to support projects of all sizes, then consider heading to my Patreon, and seeing what tier works best for you.
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This is analysis was very so on point I'm surprised it never occurred to me, despite having rewatched it from scratch every time there was a new season.
While for the most part the last two episodes were pretty much garbage especially in writing, I actually found the action to be the least interesting part of the show. It was always characters and their development.
I think Carmella was actually a pretty amazing villain, that also became everything that she hated.
On the other hand you had Hector and Isaac going through interesting character journeys, and (I think it's especially on point that Hector was trapped and enslaved by Lenore via sexuality, with a ring, during intimacy. 😂 There's just a lot of little details like that that mythically map to something real.)
The world is dark, but somehow it seems real. From cult priests to a town judge that turns out to have a dark secret of his own, that was in plain sight the whole time, you can see why someone would think the world was better without people. And yet, there are people trying to do good despite their own flaws, or even being betrayed like when Alucards protégés try to kill him.
While the animation got pretty good towards the end, fighting death was stupid, as was death revealing himself sooner than necessary. It made no sense. But outside the ending, beating up monsters always seemed like filler around character development of people getting on in a effed up world as best as they could.
The real monsters weren't the physical monsters. It was the psychology of the people and especially of the villains, that's what made it good.
I do wonder if Dracula blaming literally every person in the city is covering for the fact that, unlike the individuals in the mob, Dracula could have stopped the burning single-handedly. But that's wasn't his priority.
God that is so good. That's a brutal idea, that for all his power he didn't even know something had gone wrong until he got home, because he was so intent on living as Lisa had suggested.
If you don't mind me building off this thought, there's some very interesting imagery in the first episode, Lisa being introduced by stabbing a bat through its heart, and Dracula, after learning that Lisa has been killed, accidentally, or non-caringly, incinerating flowers left to mourn her death. To me, this reads as symbolically showing that these characters were both, passively, destroyed by each other. Dracula is eventually killed because of the war he starts over Lisa, and Lisa is destroyed in turn because of her association with Dracula. I think the flowers being burnt could also signify how much this war is going to destroy innocent lives.
Thanks for the comment! Always neat to see an OG still around.
'she said you were traveling...' , Dracula : I was... the way MEN... do... SLOWLY... no more... I do this last kindness in her name, she, who loved you humans and cared for you ills, take your family and leave Wallachia tonight, pack and go, and do not look back... for no more do I travel as a man... ; Dracula was just trying to do what Lisa had told him , to cut these ppl some slack , try to see things from their eyes , travel the world in the way that they do , here he is coming home probably just wanted to talk to Lisa about his experiences , and what does he find? some fucking ignorant religious bullshit , and he is furious with himself , becuz he knows that if he had only teleported back home he could have saved Lisa , but he was just trying to do what she had said and that in turn means that he allowed them to kill her ; superb storytelling
Hector and Issac still having humanity in them was my favorite storyline.
For me, Dracula in this series is a wonderful examination of what grief, regret, and depression can do to a person. After the initial shock of her loss, Dracula just can't function anymore. The ennui of his life before was already killing him, and with her loss, his will to go on living was just obliterated. He was still going through the motions, but by the end of season two, it was clear he was so mentally disconnected and lost that he didn't even care if his grand revenge happened or not. Belmont, Sypha, and Alucard may have killed him, but he was dead long before that confrontation.
I also think the show is a good metaphor for Classism, and how unchecked power or authority, and unthinking fealty to that authority, can ruin societies. But I suspect that's a topic for a different video. :)
Warren Ellis, for better or worse, is a great writer in his own way. The first two seasons of Castlevania are phenomenal. Season 4, in my opinion, is the weakest, but it has the massive upshot of tying up loose ends in a way that was (mostly) satisfying.
It’s hard to fault Seasons 3 and 4 for being disjointed, ESPECIALLY 4, since at this point they had incredibly well-established but wildly disparate plotlines, which would be a challenge for any writer to tie together satisfyingly, especially when the main antagonistic force of your series was eradicated in season 2, and you have to somehow make the new threats as dangerous for a variety of reasons.
Regardless, Castlevania, in my opinion, still has some fantastic moments of character writing, and this scene is a hallmark.
I liked castlevania. Not entirely my thing, but still very enjoyable.
Specifically i loved isaacs journey. How a man goes from an edgelord to a philosofer. Its facinating.
I love these types of video essays, these deep analyses of more then surface level details. This and your first video are fantastic and would love to see more shows/movies getting a video. Tokyo ghoul, ghost in a shell, or Akita would be cool(tho I haven’t seen the latter two, just clips and heard of them)
Great video
Thanks man!
Another class A video
Glad to hear it!
I never put this together until now. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I've watched this show several times and I didn't catch the tragic irony of this scene. Dracula is evil, but damn it the show does a great job at evoking sympathy for him
This is the second video of yours I've watched. Amazing stuff! I would love to hear your thoughts on Isaac's scene on the boat with the captain. It's the scene that sticks with me the most.
First comment
castlevania is made by people who have absolutly no understanding of european history
Care to elaborate? I personally don't believe good historic accuracy is necessary for a work of fiction to be good but I thought they did a decent job of setting their stage, considering it's historical fantasy to begin with.
Yeah.... season one writing, top tier. Season two, i feel like it was just a part of season 1. Season 3... well i only remember parts of season 3 but... god they ruined everything in the very next season. Season 4... well, other than every scene with issac... god it was unbearably awful. They did the 'teehee we subverted all our characters because surprise, teehee.' But... somewhere in that kinda shitty mess of season 3 and 4, we got the issac storyline. And thank god, it was the only thing that became great, honestly greater than the show itself, even if parts of it were...questionable
I disagree heavily with season 3. Out of the four,it had the strongest narrative. It's the only one where the series had far more time tell its story.
@gutsonthemic5261 i might be a bit fucked on the seasons, as i did very much binge watch them, but first two are dracula arch, thrid is a world without dracula, with the jester type guy, WHO LEARNED NOT TO SACRIFICE THE WORLD FOR HIS BELOVED, THEN FIRST EPISODE OF SEASON 4 HE SACRIFICES THE WORLD TO FOR HIS BELOVED, and season 4 was the finals of the issac arch yes? I say season 3 was mid only because season 4 (other than issac thank god) undid every plot point of season 3. Season 3 was fine, but without any overarching goal or theme it felt very weird. Till that one end of alucard plot line, that felt like classic grim dark. The rest was... well it only works if the end works, and the end works, but season 4 upheavals that ending
@gutsonthemic5261 i should also say, half the plots had a lack of stakes and felt aimless, till the very end. Great with character development, not great with overall coherentcy of the season