History TearJerker / Castlevania

* Grimoire of Souls reveals that even though he doesn't really want to, he is unable to truly rest in peace, as his DealWithTheDevil is permanent, and he is seemingly forever stuck as the embodiment of humanity's capacity for malice. Unless humanity is completely purified of it's darkness, which is technically impossible, Dracula will keep coming back, [[DownerEnding meaning he can never truly be together with Lisa]].

* ''TearJerker/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow''

[[quoteright:254:[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/987be130b289e0f2a941af8550ab4190.JPG]]]]
[[caption-width-right:254:''[[WhenSheSmiles "Smile for me.]] [[LastRequest That will be enough."]]'']]

!! Meta Examples

* For a while, people were looking forward to a {{Metroidvania}} starring Julius Belmont in his youth, chronicling his truly epic adventure in finally killing Dracula for good in the Battle of 1999. Now with Iga having left Konami to continue the Castlevania Legacy with the SerialNumbersFiledOff with ''VideoGame/BloodstainedRitualOfTheNight'' (and thus not being allowed to make the story himself), Konami generally showing no interest whatsoever in continuing those styles of games or even that continuity of Castlevania, and Iga's declining to reveal what his 1999 game would have been on the off chance that Konami ever decides to actually do it, it looks like that story is never going to be told.
* Similar to the above, for a period of time between September 2019 and September 2020, a mobile app in the form of ''Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls'' was available in [[NoExportForYou certain regions]]. This seemed like it would have returned the series to full form, but the story seemed to have been on pause for some time. And then Konami announced in July 2020 that they would be pulling the plug on the app, leaving the story unfinished and the players who were still waiting for a proper release in the rest of the world noticeably upset, given the details that were just revealed [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot before the hiatus]]. For now it seems as though this game shall remain as an AbortedArc, leaving the players with more questions than answers about the Elgos Order, what motivated Hermina to pull up Dark Soma from one of the Grimoires, and whether or not Seward is indeed the noble individual that he presents himself as.

* Exactly why did Dracula ''did'' everything? It turns out that he was just a human crusader tactician who ''lost his wife to a terrible illness,'' causing him to take revenge against god for killing his wife by renouncing humanity. ThePowerOfLove played to a really tragic degree...and talk about CryForTheDevil!

* For a while, people were looking forward to a {{Metroidvania}} starring Julius Belmont in his youth, chronicling his truly epic adventure in finally killing Dracula for good in the Battle of 1999. Now with Iga having left Konami to continue the Castlevania Legacy with the SerialNumbersFiledOff with VideoGame/BloodstainedRitualOfTheNight (and thus not being allowed to make the story himself), Konami generally showing no interest whatsoever in continuing those styles of games or even that continuity of Castlevania, and Iga's declining to reveal what his 1999 game would have been on the off chance that Konami ever decides to actually do it, it looks like that story is never going to be told.

* ''TearJerker/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia''

* Similar to the above, for a period of time between September 2019 and September 2020, a mobile app in the form of ''Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls'' was available in [[NoExpoerForYou certain regions]]. This seemed like it would have returned the series to full form, but the story seemed to have been on pause for some time. And then Konami announced in July 2020 that they would be pulling the plug on the app, leaving the story unfinished and the players who were still waiting for a proper release in the rest of the world noticeably upset, given the details that were just revealed [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot before the hiatus]]. For now it seems as though this game shall remain as an AbortedArc, leaving the players with more questions than answers about the Elgos Order, what motivated Hermina to pull up Dark Soma from one of the Grimoires, and whether or not Seward is indeed the noble individual that he presents himself as.

* Exactly why did Dracula ''did'' everything? [[spoiler:It turns out that he was just a human crusader tactician who ''lost his wife to a terrible illness,'' causing him to take revenge against god for killing his wife by renouncing humanity. ThePowerOfLove played to a really tragic degree...and talk about CryForTheDevil!]]

* In ''VideoGame/Castlevania64'' and ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaLegacyOfDarkness'', when you play as Reinhardt you get to know a female vampire named Rosa, who against all of Reinhardt's expectations as a vampire killer, is a noble and kind woman who suffers because she is forced to exist as a cursed vampire. She even attempts to kill herself by stepping into the sunlight, from which Reinhardt saves her... Only for Rosa to be controlled later by Death and made to fight Reinhardt. Her soul seems lost, until you fight Death, whereupon Rosa shields Reinhardt with her body from Death's attacks. Dying in Reinhardt's arms, she wonders if God will ever forgive her. Reinhardt prays for her salvation and God's forgiveness, places a crucifix in her hands and she dies in Reinhardt's arms. [[spoiler: Thankfully, if you get the Good ending, just as Reinhardt despairs over the unending cycle of war against Dracula despite his victory over the Vampire Lord, Rosa is materialized, having been resurrected and cured from her curse. Reinhardt and Rosa then get to have a kind of HappilyEverAfter ending.]]

!!Meta Examples

* Perhaps a saddening thing that crosses over with FridgeLogic is the nature of the portraits in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. They can be seen as more than just locations that Brauner has made, they can be depictions of events at the time.
** First off, the Burnt Paradise and Nation of Fools. Both of them contain a carnival set on fire with nothing but monsters roaming there. The FridgeHorror in VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin's YMMV tab has noted this may be where Brauner's actual daughters might have died and shows how his world turned upside down (much like the stage itself). As fridge logic notes, given how Romania in 1944 had embraced Nazism and sent many Jews, Romani and Romanians to the death camps, the boss of the area, Legion, a monster that wears LOADS of human corpses as a protective shell could represent the people sent away. Medusa for Burnt Paradise could represent the country going stagnant or [[JustForPun petrified]] by the nature of Nazism.
** Now for the Sandy Grave and the Lost City. It was around the beginning of the 1900s when the Egyptian Pyramids were being excavated and their stuff being taken to museums within Europe. Take note of the Repatriation Movement, which is based on returning those artifacts back to their homelands. For Egypt, excavating the pyrmaids of their items can be argued to be grave robbing. This adds at least a little more emphasis when Brauner mentions within the Sandy Grave of how "humans despoil the natural world". The Lost City by comparison is one undespoiled and the monsters within probably represent "the mummy's curse".
** Then there's the Dark Academy and the Forest of Doom. Both of them are broken down or horrifying academies with forbidden things being learnt or simply schooling left in ruin. Part of the Nazi Agenda was censorship of non-Nazism ideals and teaching them over other curriculums. These can respectively represent the Forest of Doom (where anything not-Nazism is left to rot and decay) and the Dark Academy (where bad ideals are taught). The Frankenstein's Monster in the Dark Academy could also represent the darkest of the Nazi's ideals: the idea of creating the perfect race with a man-made monster.
** Finally, there's the City of Haze and 13th Street. The most obvious impression one gets from these places is that these can represent Britain, specifically London. Sure, these look the least harmless, but think about the factor that [=PoR=] takes place in 1944. The City of Haze is deserted save for monsters patrolling it's streets, and the theme is called "Victorian Fear". Meanwhile, 13th Street looks the same, except that it's during the night at sunset. Or more explicitly, what appears to be sunset. What if the far off red light in the background is really fire? What if the City of Haze and 13th Street represent Great Britain before AND after the German Air raids respectively?

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaJudgment'' has Golem's storyline: [[spoiler:Golem spends his storyline trying to figure out if he really has a soul and hoping to find a place to live. During this process, his creator, Carmilla, declares he can never be human and tries to destroy him, and then Death notes that he has a soul, but tries to destroy him for no longer being a mindless servitor. Then, whilst Golem is reveling in the proof that he has a soul, Aeon reveals that if he leaves the time rift, then he will lose his soul and revert back to his mindless former self. However, unless he stops the Time Reaper who is creating the rift, all of humanity will eventually be destroyed. After hearing this, Golem makes a HeroicSacrifice and battles Time Reaper, because "that's what a human would do". He ends up stranded in ruins, a mindless beast once more, and ends up being destroyed by some random nameless nobody of a hunter.]]

* The bad ending of ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Dawn of Sorrow]]'' probably counts. HistoryRepeats doesn't even begin to cover it...
** In Julius mode, [[spoiler:if Julius is the one to land the final blow against Dracula!Soma, he apologizes to his former friend for being unable to save him.]]
*** Or, if you're feeling particularly cruel, [[spoiler:you can make Alucard land the final blow, forcing him to kill his father for the third time.]]
** To twist the knife, listen carefully to [[spoiler: Dracula!Soma's roar upon entering his second phase.]] Very carefully. Sounds like a heavily distorted [[spoiler: "Ha...kuba...", doesn't it? [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes He's still grieving for her.]] And he dies completely unaware of the truth.]]

* ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaLamentofInnocence Castlevania: Lament of Innocence]]'' has a pretty noteworthy one; Leon Belmont, the protagonist of the game, renouces his title in the ongoing Crusades of that time period, and all of the benefits that came with that very title, all in a bid to rescue his beloved Sara Trantoul, who had been kidnapped. [[spoiler: [[ForegoneConclusion While this comes across as of little surprise]], knowing that the game is the origin story of the Belmont clan and Dracula's blood feud, it's still pretty heart-wrenching to watch as, even after everything Leon sacrificed for the chance to save his love, he failed. He arrived too late to save Sara from the fate of vampirism that her kidnapper imposed upon her. This turns very bitter at the end of the game, when Mathias Cronqvist, Leon's best friend in the Crusades, reveals that he basically masterminded the events of the whole thing, just to spite the very god that the two had fought in the name of.]]
** Just listen to Leon moments [[spoiler:after having to give Sara the merciful end she asked him to give her. Made all the more worse considering just ''where'' Sara's soul is from that day afterwards. Leon may have done everything he could to ensure that his beloved's dying wishes were fulfilled, but Sara's soul, now inhabiting the weapon that was used in the game, will never truly move on to the next world. [[LampshadeHanging Hell, the narration in the game's closing moments even lampshades this!]]]]
---> Narrator: [[spoiler:The years before their next meeting pass slowly and quietly, but with finality; the intermission from this exquisite play in which two souls will never escape.]]