History WMG / Castlevania

The Game itself never says he's Dracula himself remember! Gabriel Belmont on the other hand did. Soma's goodness is a result of[[spoiler: Gabriel's goodness in seeking the destruction of Satan as God's Chosen One.]] Lords of Shadow 2 takes place ''after'' Soma's lifetime upon which Death/Zobek awakened/ressurected him.

One of few constants of the Castlevania canon is that Dracula is left-handed. In addition, those who use Dracula's powers or are related to Dracula in some way are left-handed. Alucard, [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow Soma]], and [[OrderOfEcclesia Shanoa]] are all left-handed, as is the possessed Richter Belmont. The only time this wasn't true was for the Game Boy games, and since Sonia's been retconned out, this leaves Christopher Belmont, who has been retconned into being right-handed as of Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth. However, both [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaBloodlines John Morris]] and [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin Jonathan Morris]] are left-handed, the latter coming out well after Dracula's left-handedness was noticed. Obviously, neither could handle the full power of the whip because they were descendants of Dracula!

* OrderOfEcclesia is one of two things - either he is holding an Everstone (and has levelled up more without evolving, hence the bat and wolf attacks, which are likely new moves not named yet), or after half of his health is depleted, he goes into daruma mode (Hihidaruma anyone), and gets insanely strong. After that, he uses his Demonic Meggiddo, which is a new Reversal type attack which is useless at high health (in this version anyway, in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' version you only need to hold the Death item to do it well). Dominus is basically like Explosion (hence why it "kills" Shanoa), but Shanoa is holding the Albus item which allows her to survive at the end of the game.

One of few constants of the Castlevania canon is that Dracula is left-handed. In addition, those who use Dracula's powers or are related to Dracula in some way are left-handed. Alucard, [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow Soma]], and [[OrderOfEcclesia Shanoa]] are all left-handed, as is the possessed Richter Belmont. The only time this wasn't true was for the Game Boy games, and since Sonia's been retconned out, this leaves Christopher Belmont, who has been retconned into being right-handed as of Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth. However, both [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaBloodlines John Morris]] and [[PortraitOfRuin Jonathan Morris]] are left-handed, the latter coming out well after Dracula's left-handedness was noticed. Obviously, neither could handle the full power of the whip because they were descendants of Dracula!

[[WMG: ''Bram Stoker's Dracula'' is a result of [[CameBackWrong coming back wrong.]]]]

''Bloodlines'' links the Castlevania mythos to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Which is confusing, as Dracula in that story didn't have a castle full of deathtraps and armies upon armies of demons and undead at his beck and call. Nor did he have many of the powers he has in CV history. Most have assumed that only the most basic of Stoker's tale is true. At the very least, there's a Dracula, and a guy named Quincy Morris who kills him. But suppose the story is canon? How could that be?

* OrderOfEcclesia is one of two things - either he is holding an Everstone (and has levelled up more without evolving, hence the bat and wolf attacks, which are likely new moves not named yet), or after half of his health is depleted, he goes into daruma mode (Hihidaruma anyone), and gets insanely strong. After that, he uses his Demonic Meggiddo, which is a new Reversal type attack which is useless at high health (in this version anyway, in PortraitOfRuin version you only need to hold the Death item to do it well). Dominus is basically like Explosion (hence why it "kills" Shanoa), but Shanoa is holding the Albus item which allows her to survive at the end of the game.

[[WMG:The Morrises inherited the Vampire Killer Whip so the Belmonts can cleanse themselves of the taint left by Dracula after Richter's {{Brainwash|ed}}ing in ''Symphony of the Night''.]] While it can be argued that Soleiyu was the first Belmont to be corrupted by Dracula in the series (or, before then, Simon with his curse), Soleiyu had ''just'' come of age to inherit the whip, and had not been given it when he was turned (and Simon didn't turn evil through the curse, it just tried to kill him); Richter was the first Belmont to be a full-fledged Vampire Hunter, whip and all, to fall to the Dark Lord's thrall. Also, [[spoiler: the Whip's Memory you fight in ''Portrait of Ruin'' - which was the memory of the last master the whip had - is Richter, not any of the other Belmonts]], meaning that the Morrises gained control of the whip sometime after ''Symphony'', soon enough for Richter ''not'' to be able to give it to his heir in between. The only explanation for why the Belmonts would give the whip to the Morrises for safe-keeping for so long, is that the events of ''Symphony'' corrupted the line to the point where they ''couldn't'' wield it properly, and needed to cleanse themselves of the corruption before they could be "accepted" by the whip again.

[[WMG:The kidnapped women in Rondo/Dracula X Chronicles were supposed to be a means to resurrecting Lisa]]

Almost every Castlevania game has Dracula needing a boost to get resurrected. Needing the body of a Devil Forgemaster, the spirit of a werewolf, collecting his remains, etc. Even the 100 year resurrections required assistance. ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaChronicles'' and ''Dracula X Chronicles'' show a virgin sacrifice. (Well, a sacrifice of a young girl, at least.)

Even in the early games of the series, the ClockTower was a recurring landmark, and usually ThatOneLevel at the same time. The minions Dracula placed in charge have varied from game to game, from generic bosses such as mummies and werewolves to named characters such as Grant and Annette. In fact, Death was only the boss of the clock tower twice in the early days: ''Dracula X'' and ''64'' (even then, only if you were Reinhardt).

* He also has several OneWingedAngel forms, each of these are likely split evolutions? Think about it. We have the RondoOfBlood form, we also have the PortraitOfRuin form, and the ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon'' form to name a few. I theorise after being owned by the vampire killers he doesn't die or anything, he just faints, and then each time he comes back a Max Revive is used on him, but he somehow de-evolves as well (not sure how to explain this yet).
* Dracula's evolution methods are usually getting owned enough (maybe canonically he "gains experience" and levels up, then evolves mid-battle as he's a cheat). However, in PortraitOfRuin, he only evolves with Death's power - maybe it's an alternate method of evolution, like how Death becomes a "held item" and is used up on evolution, akin to Gligar or Sneasel's evolution methods.

[[WMG: VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair is orchestrated by the Time Travellers.]]

Heck, St. Germaine was even trying (rather annoyingly) to talk Zead into surrendering in CurseOfDarkness. The problem is, Death only has a personality when Dracula is around. (Hence his silence in the [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Sorrow]] games.) They won't let Dracula die, TimeParadox be damned, heck, even if he already reincarnates into a good guy, until Death is dealt with.

This is why he is hostile to Soma Cruz in Aria and Dawn of Sorrow. He is aware that this is Dracula's reincarnation, his old friend, but he is not the Dark Lord, and as such will not serve him. Graham seemed to be the most likely candidate to become the Dark Lord at the time, and under Chaos' instruction fought on his side. However, should the Bad Ending occur and Soma succumb to Chaos and become Dracula, he will serve Soma until Soma is finally killed for good. Likewise, however, if Dmitri or Dario became the Dark Lord, he would fall under their service as well, despite Chaos being dead (unless the creation of a new Dark Lord also heralds the creation of a new Chaos, whom he will also serve).

*** ANNETTE PWNZ J00. * cough* Seriously though - even if Richter didn't have kids (unlikely, in that time period, for this to be the case) - does anyone really truly honestly think the family doesn't have ''any other'' candidates besdies Richter's theoretical kids to pick up the whip, per generation? It's the 1790s, Richter probably has a bunch of siblings. The whip could be taken up by one of their kids. So, too, would Leon have had a ton o' siblings - and he ''cannot'' be the firstborn son of his family, because if he were, there would be no way in hell he'd have been crusading! We only SEE one Belmont at a time, but given the family's, uh, fortitude...they're probably pretty prolific too. There's probably several kids per generation who can use the whip, but it's the guy (or girl, depending on if you're pro-or anti-IGA; this troper is ambivalent but has seen giant flamewars oh god) who is the most skilled and has the most clout with the subweapons and so forth who goes to kick Dracula in teh harbl. tl;dr Families back then WERE BIG. The only Belmont who's real likely to have been an only child by birth is Julius. The others may have had siblings die, or whatnot, but the Belmonts we see in games would ''not'' be only children. In the time period we're talking, Fridgery aside, that didn't really happen so much. People took the 'be fruitful' business very seriously back in the day!
** Richter being the last Belmont is definitely Jossed by ''Order of Ecclesia''; [[spoiler: the villagers you save in the game are direct descendants of the Belmonts]]. However, [[spoiler: they ''have'' been kept hidden for at least 50 years (Richter's last appearance was in 1797, and ''Order of Ecclesia'' takes place somewhere in the mid-1800s}]], so it's likely this WMG is viable.

[[WMG:There was no "Castle War" during Dracula's final defeat in 1999.]] There was a battle, but in no way was the world's governments or military involved in it. The official storyline for ''Aria of Sorrow'' doesn't specify who Julius and his gang brought with them against Dracula, but it seems unlikely that any of the worlds' governments or military would believe in the threat of Dracula or his minions to help. The church may have formed some sort of army against the Dark Lord, but that's about it. Plus, there were plenty of unrelated armed conflicts going on around the area for Dracula to forge his own army out of, so the undead soldiers you fight in the game aren't necessarily military personnel specifically sent to fight Dracula. There's also the behavior of Hammer when you meet him in the castle; he seems genuinely surprised at all of the weird goings-on around him, like he wasn't briefed at all about Dracula or his castle; if the military ''was'' involved with Dracula's 1999 defeat, and they saw his castle reappear, you'd think that they'd give their soldiers a short disclosure on what to expect before sending them out to investigate.

** We know Julius, Alucard and a Belandes were present at the shrine during the eclipse in 1999, that doesn't mean they couldn't have brought backup. Though I'm thinking they decided against briging soldiers and called the Film/{{Ghostbusters}}.

* Neither does [[spoiler: Dmitrii crucifying himself (disguised as Mina) in an attempt to goad Soma into a towering rage.]]
** That was actually [[spoiler: Just a dopplegänger that Celia intended to use to make Soma into the evil lord. Dmitri just possesed it to regain his body.]]

And, of course, in SOTN, Galamoth is one of the toughest (Relatively speaking) bosses in the entire game. So, Galamoth is a powerful Demon who wants to take over Dracula's power. Ever since Alucard took him down in his younger days, Galamoth has been kept under control by Drac, but he still plots and keeps his loyal Frozen Halves at the ready, looking for an opportunity to strike and become the next Dark Lord.

Perhaps it means after a certain time a Belmont had kicked his ass for good, the Powers That Be decided to let Dracula be reborn as a Human - Namely, Vlad Tepes. However circumstances worked against him for becoming a decent human being - between being a Political Hostage as a child, and the death of his wife... again, he manages to find Death and reforge their agreement. Thus, becoming a vampire again.

Later on, in a failed [[ThePlan plan]] He is reborn as the child prodigy Malus, to gain more power and to trick the Belmont to trust him, possibly spurning yet another chance at Redemption.

** Or how about this--''Legends'' did happen, but in 1431, not 1450. It hasn't been that long since Lisa died and Matthias declared war on the world. Alucard has just defected. And, as part of his campaign, not-Dracula-yet has recently finished the work meant to make him a true Prince of Darkness who will, one way or another, keep resurrecting. However, it doesn't ''work right''. Sonia Belmont kills him, and he reincarnates "normally" as Vlad Draculea, born in that year. As twisted as he gets, it still takes a blood sacrifice to really kick off the spell, not just any sacrifice but his own. Thus, in 1476, when Vlad is killed, he finally resurrects "properly" and picks up his battle with humanity, leading directly into the plot of Castlevania III.

[[WMG: Lisa/Elisabetha is a construct that's part of [[TheGrimReaper Death's]] GambitRoulette to create a never-ending battle between good an evil]]

Since Symphony of the Night, it has been stated Dracula's main motive is [[LoveMakesYouEvil the death of his beautiful wife]], the first from a plague, causing Matthias to RageAgainstTheHeavens and made [[DealWithTheDevil a deal with Death to become Dracula]], the second by [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters the hands of the very humans his wife tried to heal]], turning Alucard temporarily against humans, and cementing Dracula's [[KillAllHumans genocidal tendencies]]

Notice the women looked exactly alike, they even have very similar names, since Lisa is a shorten form of Elizabeth. This can't be just concidence, and who would benefit from tearing out the Vampire's non-beating heart and stomping on it repeatedly?

Mina Harker, Mina Hakuba, whatever. Note that anything [[MoralityChain hints at killing her, he turns evil]] without even bothering to stick by and check if she's actually dead.
* Well, all three of them are interlinked in a way. Elizabetha died of disease--Lisa is a doctor. Then Lisa was executed as a witch--Mina is a Shinto shrine maiden. If you look at this way, the way they died influences the type of person they become in their next incarnation.

Consider what we know about the Philosopher's Stone. It grants eternal life to the person who possesses it. Failed attempts to create it have resulted in the Ebony Stone and Crimson Stone. It's surprisingly well-known, defined and named for something that doesn't exist. Almost as if it's been created before, right?

Funny, that. He has more control over life than he does over death. And his owner possesses eternal life beyond that afforded most vampires in the series.

When Kid Dracula defeats Galamoth, Aeon is freed and time and history reasserts itself, stranding Galamoth in the SotN era where he is put down once and for all by Alucard.

* Lisa Fahrenheight, Alucard's mum and Mathias's second wife, is convicted of witchery and burnt. Having lost another SO, Mathias takes things up a notch, declaring war on humanity and thus becoming the true Dracula, Lord of Darkness.

* Sonia decides to tell the story of her fight against Dracula but, being a very vain person, she ends up telling a stilted narrative starring a very MarySue version of herself. She de-emphasized the tale of her ancestor Leon Belmont, making it sound like she was the first Belmont to encounter Dracula (which was technically true). She also made up a very Narm –ey romantic subplot between her and Alucard which read like bad fanfiction (in reality, they knew each other, but while Sonia was crazy for Alucard he didn't want anything to do with her), going so far as to suggest that Alucard was actually Trevor's real father. Castlevania: Legends is this story, rather than what actually happened.

There's no way in hell they're mortal. In Kojima's 'Prelude to Vengeance' manga, Hector gets lanced through the lungs by Drac's talons and thrown off the keep, and lives. Isaac gets slashed across the gut and upper thighs, and lives. (In the other manga, he gets cliffed. From a considerable height. And lives.) Dracula has an intense distaste for Mortals, and judging from his attempt to jab Trevor in the eyeball he's tired of these Belmonts up in his grill already. Therefore what better way to get them OUT of your grill than setting up someone who's as capable and tough and etc. as they are, only, you know, loyal to Drac? One gets the feeling that an awful lot of work went into making those guys what they are. There's only two of them after all!

In Aria, you find Hammer in the library. Right after a BOSS. And he doesn't act at all like he was needed to be rescued or anything. And he sells various weapons he happens to find lying around the castle, implying that he's capable of handling the monsters. If he was an [[ShopliftAndDie Easily Angered Shopkeeper]], I'd bet he'd pull an RPG on Soma (or the Positron Rifle) if he tried any funny stuff.

** He was meant to be playable in Dawn of Sorrow's Julius mode going by some dummied dialogue (the text dump on gamefaqs has it). He may or may not have been the Grant analogue, made redundant by Alucard's bat transformation and Julius's triple jump

Rather, he was killed there by Matthias Cronqvist, who then replaced him and lived out his life as The Impaler (which is why he was so vicious a ruler- he need the blood to live, but didn't want anyone to know he was a vampire). Matthias had decided that he needed to settle down and rule his own country, and poor Vlad was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Matthias snuck in, killed him, took his form, and returned to Walachia under his name. He then met Lisa, fell in love, and the rest is history. He kept the nickname of his alias as his title because its so much more threatening than "Matthias Cronqvist".

*** Based on the timing, its gotta be something Richter did- he was the incumbent at the turn of the 19th century, and only 50 years or so later, Shanoa is covering for the incumbent Belmont. Furthermore, in Portrait of Ruin, the Memory of the whip's last owner is of Richter. Maybe something Richter ''did'' while brainwashed tainted him, and consequentially his testicles and any children produced, with dark thingy?

***** A lot of the monsters need dark magic maintenance- zombies, for instance, need regular necromancy or you run out; demonic beings need summoning to stay or even appear on this plane (Malachi/Cthulhu, for example, is so loosely tied he disappears into a portal; it can be presumed that other demonic beings are similar but better summoned). And the castle itself ''is'' dark magic- hold the title of Lord, and you'd absorb dark magic even without doing anything.

This came from a game idea for "Bram Stoker's Castlevania", a Castlevania-style retelling of the original novel. Anyway, the idea was that Soma is a descendant of Johnathan and Mina Harker, from the original Dracula novel. Due to what Drac did to Mina, the bloodline is, regardless of Dracula's death at the time, still "tainted", and unlike the other Dark Lord's canditates, Soma's blood is linked to Dracula's, making him the perfect canditate for his reincarnation. And heck, it could've [[GambitRoulette been planned all along as a backup plan in case things went badly for Drac in 1999]]. Though, it still didn't quite go to plan...

Another theory as to why Vlad goes by Vlad, and is never thought of as Mathias. In short, Vlad isn't Mathias Cronqvist. Mathias had the powers of the Crimson Stone and Ebony stone, but never really did much of anything with them. Somewhere along the way, he met and made deals with Vlad Tepes, who betrayed him and found a way to steal/claim Mathias' powers for himself. And this time, he took a more active role as the Dark Lord. The love of Lisa held him down for a bit, but then her death sent him spiraling head-on into Dark Lord territory.

As a safety precaution, knowing that even Dracula can get servants of goodness working for him (Amalaric Snipers), members of the Belmont Clan, somewhat paranoid, steadily increased the wards and protections on the Vampire Killer Whip. They, rather self-assured, didn't even consider the possibility that a Belmont may end up using the whip for evil deeds. (As Richter did) Thus, the Belmonts ended up unable to use their own whip, and it took considerable scrambling to find a clan close enough to the Belmonts to be able to use it, but even then, the cost of using it would be high, all because of the wards slapped on over five-hundred years.
* This explains nicely why, exactly, it took close to 200 years for another Belmont to be able to use it- that's how long it took for the dark taint to be gone enough to not trigger the wards.

Soma seems to be primarily a good person (Although his personality skirts between LawfulGood and LawfulNeutral), but as soon as he sees the visage of Mina die, he starts to turn evil immediately. Incidentally, he doesn't just become wrathful, he dives into Dracula's personality instantly. The powers of Chaos and the darkness he absorbed were strong, but it seems that his dark emotions subsided after Dmitrii left his body. Dmitrii definitely has the capability for darkness, and his soul affected Soma enough to make him enthusiastically evil.

Dracula abused his powers because of his own grudges with humanity and God, and if [[spoiler:Soma]] would willingly become the Dark Lord, rather then being manipulated into it, he could [[DarkIsNotEvil use his powers without being evil]]. The evil [[spoiler:Soma]] is a direct result of outside influences pushing him to be evil, [[spoiler:first was Dracula's spirit, second was Dmitrii's Soul or just trauma]]. (It also follows that Chaos was evil only becuase of Dracula and not the other way around)

* Dracula not being entirely eeeeevil also ties into some esoteric stories about the devil being what he is by choice - he doesn't necessarily WANT humanity to fall, indeed it's quite the opposite - but damn it the little bastards just keep going DUR OKAY to every suggestion he makes--!

[[GodIsEvil God is really evil]], and Dracula was actualy doing the right thing the whole time (be it missguidingly by also blaiming humans). It would be amusing if the final boss in a third Sorrow game was God or another holy being, since all the others have dark-aligned final bosses. Also what kind of good God can only be good if there is a Dark Lord to offset him?

** That still implies God somehow NEEDS evil to be good or to exist which calls into question how good or god-like he can be if he requires evil to be that way.

** Only one cult leader made this claim. Thus far, theres been no proof to suggest God can only exist as long as Dracula does.
* Alternatively, said God is actually Ahura Mazda of Zoroastrian faith. Unlike with God, Ahura Mazda has an equal and opposite number, [[GodOfEvil Angra]] [[TheAntiGod Mainyu.]] Maybe its something like that, granted [[FreudianExcuse Dracula]] is a far nicer version of Angra Mainyu than [[CardCarryingVillain in Zoroastrianism.]]

* So what your saying is, being boned by drac makes you magic?
** VampiresAreSexGods. * nods sagely*

For someone that apparently hates god, he has a rather large cathedral and occasionaly has angels running around in his castle. Or maybe...

Wall meat? Random useful items laying around randomly? A gothic cathedral? Angels? Alucard once said that Castlevania is a "Creature of Chaos" in reference to how the castle is never ther same. I assume he wasn't simply being poetic. Chaos is [[spoiler:the final boss in Aria of Sorrow and the true source of Dracula's power]]. Perhaps Chaos changes the castle on it's own, and even leaves a way for the Belmonts/heros to win despite Dracula's best intentions.

Annette, Maria, Tera and Iris represent the four main qualities Lisa is most known for: being the most important person in someone's life, having absolute faith in humanity and the triumph of good over evil, having an unshaking faith in God, and being a practitioner of medicine. Given Dracula's OMGBFF status with Death and his penchant for mucking around with Alchemy, it's not entirely farfetched to speculate that he had one hardcore equivalent exchange sacrifice in mind.

This one's a blast from the past that originated shortly after Rondo of Blood became known to a few hardcore fans willing to import it. The opening cinema of Rondo, featuring a human sacrifice as the catalyst to Dracula's resurrection, led people to speculate that the same thing was supposed to happen to Simon in ''Castlevania II'' - either the townspeople were going to all jump him at the moment he succumbed, or Dracula would just elbow his soul aside and take the body for his own when the curse came to fruition. I've seen this one passed off as canonical (people assuming fanon to be canon since it was relative BNFs from the early days of yon internet fandom who talked about this theory a lot), but it's more than likely just speculative. ''Curse of Darkness's'' plotline lends it some plausibility, though.

Another old one, and not unique to NA fandom either. Japan beat us to it, but people have been speculating over here about Eric's connection to Alucard since it came to light that he wields the Alucard spear (which funnily doesn't appear in the games again until ''Symphony of the Night's'' Sega Saturn port) and that 'Alcarde spear' was blind idiot antics. The spear is the first hint as to what's up with his ancestry, and it's not the only one. He's skilled with magic. He's a lot more agile than is Jonathan. Also, he's absurdly bishounen, with long wavy blond hair and so on - the way he looks is a very possible combo of Maria and Alucard's appearances. His surname, too (whether you call him Lecarde or the Japanese Ricardo), could be a portmanteau smush of 'Alucard' and 'Renard' (and it still works if you use Learned as Maria's surname).
* Ooh shit. That might explain too why his spear ''impales him when he dies'' in the JP and NA games - trying to prevent his latent vampirism from coming out to say yo what's up? Yeah, there's some distance between him an the source but Dracula is a jerk that way... Either that or he's trying to keep Elizabeth Bartley from snacking on him.

One of few constants of the Castlevania canon is that Dracula is left-handed. In addition, those who use Dracula's powers or are related to Dracula in some way are left-handed. Alucard, [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow Soma]], and [[OrderOfEcclesia Shanoa]] are all left-handed, as is the possessed Richter Belmont. The only time this wasn't true was for the Game Boy games, and since Sonia's been retconned out, this leaves Christopher Belmont who has been retconned into being right-handed as of Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth. However, both [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaBloodlines John Morris]] and [[PortraitOfRuin Jonathan Morris]] are left-handed, the latter coming out well after Dracula's left-handedness was noticed. Obviously, neither could handle the full power of the whip because they were descendants of Dracula!

[[WMG:The real reason Richter wasn't around to help [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia Shanoa]] kill Dracula in the 1800s ) was because...]]

** No Richter got killed by a zombie unceremoniously because he's a bloody useless character. Maria was the only one who was any good in the first place.

Notice how Ricter has a lot of StreetFighter like moves in SOTN? Thats beacuse he invented them.

After SOTN, Ricter fled to Japan to get as far away from Dracula as possible. He then took a new identey and decited to train two brothers (Goken and Akuma) his fighting style. The dark side of the style(like the Rageing Demon and immorality) came from when he was brainwashed by Shaft. He was able to live long enough to have Julius as his son beacuse of the immortalty thing Akuma has. This would also explain why Akuma and Goken are so badass.

** So Richter invented the Cross that Simon, Trevor, Leon, Christopher and (maybe) Sonia were using some time before? I'll probably give you the whip jump but really. Plus it sounds more like "Everyone with a fireball and jump punch are Ryu ripoffs". Furthermore the spin kick thing was DummiedOut. And another, where was it said that the Murder Wave makes you immortal? And I'm sure Gouken and Akuma were born in the 1940s, so unless they're as ageless and immortal as you purpoted Richy to be (Or if you misplaced the "he trained two brothers" part) then this is probably a poorly thought out WMG.

** We can blame Toru Hagihara for merely deciding to copy said colour scheme
** We can blame the artists for making her look like a Japanese anime loli
** We can blame Annette for choosing the dress

* ''Dawn of Sorrow'' is much easier than the GBA installments (barring maybe ''[=HoD=]'') because Soma has gained combat experience and familiarity with his powers since ''Aria''. Ironically, obtaining the Chaos Ring no longer gives true infinite mana and but you can still cause the game to become insanely easy anyway.

** Except that Julius is the strongest Belmont yet (even in his age), armed with the Vampire Killer, and teamed up with Alucard ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Yoko]]) in the DoS one and his mode are far far harder than PoR (mostly due to the lack of healing outside of checkpoints...).

** Because TheFourGods are very well known in Japan, too, and she uses the Japanese versions of the names in (Genbu instead of Xuanwu for the Turtle summon) ''Symphony of the Night''

* Dracula's evolution methods are usually getting owned enough (maybe canonically he "gains experience" and levels up, then evolves mid-battle as he's a cheat). However, in PortraitOfRuin, he only evolves with Death's power - maybe it's an alternate method of evolution, like how Death becomes a "held item" and is used up on evolution, akin to Gligar or Sneasel's evolution methods. He evolves mid-battle

(Yes, yes, game hasn't come out yet, but...) The God Mask can resurrect people, [[CameBackWrong but in all the ways you can think of that aren't good.]] If this holds true, then the game's good/best ending would require piecing this information together and rejecting the Mask. (Zobek is unaware of this catch, or else he wouldn't have mentioned this to Gabriel)

** Now it has, an no it's not. It [[spoiler:can't resurrect people or do anything it's touted as able to do. All it does is let the wearer see through the eyes of God.]] I expected a CameBackWrong, too, but no dice.

[[WMG: [[spoiler: The creature that Dimitri tried to gain dominance over in The Abyss was Satan]] ]]

* This raises questions as to what happens with ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair''. One of things Soma can do? He can absorb Dracula's soul. Multiple times. And the 8-Bit Version too. [[TimeyWimeyBall Oh dear.]]

[[spoiler:Gabriel Belmont, after defeating Satan, became Dracul and holed himself up in a church.]] Meanwhile, some years after the charade, Leon Belmont (who may or may not be related to Gabriel) went after Walter Bernhard (who either demolished the Vampire's Castle in the mountains and had it rebuilt in the Forest of Eternal Night, assuming it was his, or just got another castle) who had kidnapped Sara Trantoul for kicks. It turns out [[spoiler:Mathias Cronqvist, perhaps related to Gabriel (I think it's stated that Gabriel might be a bastard of the Cronqvist clan), had set up a plan to take revenge on God over his wife. Mathias becomes Dracul'''a''', and later launches his war on humanity.]] The Belmont Clan (Leon's) deals with Dracula over time, while [[spoiler:Gabriel, aka Dracul, idly waits in an old Church.]] Come 1999, [[spoiler: Dracula AND Satan resurrect, though in different areas. Zobek and Gabriel/Dracul deal with Satan, while the Belmont Clan deals with Dracula and Death, who is unrelated to Zobek. Satan bites it again, Castlevania is sealed, and Dracula/Mathias is dealt with for good.]]
* It follows that [[spoiler: Gabriel]] is still alive and kicking by the time Soma turns down the position of Dark Lord, which [[spoiler: Mathias]] managed to get because [[spoiler: Gabriel]] had never done anything with it. Presumably Alucard/Arikado is going to try to pressure [[spoiler: Gabriel]] into finally taking up the mantle he's been refusing for the past millenium, trying to guilt him into it by saying that if he keeps shirking his responsibility like that, Soma will go the way of Mathias.

** At the end of ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' we do see Dracula starting to question his purpose and existence. "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul?" He never shows this to anyone other than his own son though.

Failing that, he might want to only die for real in a worthy way - against his old adversary, the Belmonts, as a sort of a post-humous thank you. He's just biding time until the next Belmont comes, in an only he can kill me situation. However, Shaft's possession of Richter might have fucked up the Belmonts' ability to vanquish Dracula and resist the darkness (hence the 1999 destiny), so he fucked it all up and now Drac has to wait even longer to be redeemed. One would imagine the 1999 game, if ever made, would have a TearJerker ending for Dracula, regardless of how it happens.

The main character will be Julius (natch), but it will be like Julius mode in DoS, a homage to Castlevania 3, and star the following characters

Jonathan shows up part way to deliver the Vampire Killer.

If for Cafe, Harmony of Dispair (with Hammer and Young Julius playable) will be included as multiplayer.

Starting with ''Aria of Sorrow'', this changed drastically. Since that game, there have only been three games with clock towers in which Death was ''not'' the boss: ''Dawn of Sorrow'', ''Curse of Darkness'' and ''Judgment'''s story mode.

Who were the clock tower bosses in those games? Zephyr, St. Germain and Aeon. Apparently they got first pick of the spot because of their connection with time. This made Death bitter.

Alucard said reality would pick a different Dark Lord if it wanted one, it didn't have to someone in particular. Well, reality isn't confined by space and time, and decided that it STILL wanted Dracula; even though it couldn't touch Soma's Free Will. So it smashed all the timelines together and made the old Dracula the current Dark Lord; causality be damned. Soma dominating Dracula caused reality to try and pull candidates from even further back; "The Count" at the height of his power; and then the Demon Dragon King; Ryukotsuki.

This explains why there are no monsters in Dracula's Castle in Simon's Quest, but there are everywhere else, they got away from the castle. Dracula's influence is needed to make monsters, but they don't die with him, if he dies, the monsters gain free will, and so, they got away, and spread around Romania, to be destroyed by Simon when he looked for Dracula's remains. Without Dracula's influence, no monsters could be created in his castle, and he was re-killed so quickly, that he had no time to make monsters, this explains why he's easy. Next, the monsters in Harmony Of Dissonance were creations of [[spoiler:Maxim's will]], and since Castle B is more or less a creation of his mind, he has more control over it's monsters, the Merchant is also a monster, but made with [[spoiler:Maxim]]'s good side. In Symphony Of The Night, [[spoiler:Richter's brainwashing gave him the same will to do this, this is why he could summon the monsters in the Arena]], monsters in Aria Of Sorrow are leftovers from the battle of 1999, and when we get a game featuring the battle, the bosses who were left over shall be {{Bonus Boss}}es. Dawn Of Sorrow has the souls from Soma released and they go to the closest to Castlevania they could find, the so-called replica.

I was watching a documentary, the other day and it briefly talked about the Black plague, and said it was in the 1400s. Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse,takes place in the late 1400s. It then hit me: Dracula's Curse IS the plague. Considering the fact we really don't know much about the curse since its pretty much just in the title, it could be the plague. The next chronological game, Curse of Darkness's, opening narration talks about how, even after Dracula died, his curse rages on, but this time it goes more in depth about the curse. Its plaguing the land, AND the people. Dracula's curse left the land to rot while poisoning the minds of its inhabitants, who pillaged and scourged it without remorse. Sounds like a plague doesn't it? It is also said that during Castlevania 1 right before dying Dracula, put a curse on Simon,and is said to have non-healing wounds and cursed the land just as he did in CV 3. One of the effects of this curse as shown in curse of darkness, is the dark sides of humans. The villagers "help" in Castlevania 2: Simon's quest may have been trying to genuinely help Simon but the curse made them give cryptic or pointless info. Also it is possible that Simon could of had the plague as well as the curse. This makes Simon Belmont EVEN MORE BADASS. Also even if I am mistaken about that Dracula could of caused the plague, he certainly could of benefited from it, seeing how if the world is in an very miserable state, Dracula could potential be revived earlier than 100 years.

Very plausible for his innocent devil counter part. He isn't aware that he is actually fighting very evil dark forces of nature evidenced by his jolly singing, dancing and playing about. Apparently he thinks that this whole Dracula scenario is just a game somewhat as the same as the player does. In his mind he there is no conflict going around, everyone is just simply "playing" with each other. When he is fighting(like he is in Lament of Innocence) he in reality is just playing much like [[Manga/DragonBall Majin Buu (fat)]].]]

Explaining why he is always in the more important castlevania games involing the Belmonts(excluding fanon, cell phone manga, handheld games and comics). Even though he has only been seen in two of these games, those games are the only real important castlevania games that heavily emphasis on the Belmonts.

Anyway... shortly after his defeat in PoR, someone attempted to bring back Dracula, but it was simply too early. The result was a partial resurrection of a kindly old man with only a small degree of powers and limited vampirism. While we know Dracula had one son, it's quite possible he'd sired other children over the years, especially a daughter who may have been raised outside of Dracula's evil, but knew her lineage. With a damaged memory, Dracula sought out Lilian, who had married Herman Munster (himself being Dr. Frankenstein's monster). With practically no memories and no need to drink blood, with only limited ability to change form and no aversion to sunlight, he was seen mostly as harmless, and Death and the others left him alone while they worked on the means to complete the process. Meanwhile, he took up the first name "Sam" and took up odd science as a hobby.

Until Alucard located him. Maybe he wanted to protect his now sane father, or maybe he wanted to destroy Dracula while he was weak. Either way, Death knew this would be bad... and sent the entire Munster family forward in time by roughly 20 years(the time warp that led to the 1980s series ''Munsters Today''). Alucard lost track of Dracula and Death had 20 years free to work on the process without having to worry about Dracula being killed or turned forever from evil. Eventually, Death succeeded in finding a means to restore Dracula's powers, memories and evil nature, which led to the events of 1999.

Of course, that's one workable theory... another is that, during one period of resurrection, a second Dracula was created out of "junk" material, which was left to wander around. He THINKS he's Dracula but has no idea about the Belmonts or anything else, in which case he's not even the real Dracula, but a leftover copy made of qualities that Dracula wasn't gifted upon rebirth(and also avoids any conflict with anything that could explain the events of 199 or what led to them, should they ever be revealed). Either WMG could explain why Grandpa, who was supposedly Dracula, didn't display most of the usual vampire traits or even any of the same behavior as any of the Castlevania versions, or even the Bram Stoker or Bela Lugosi versions.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate revolves around both Simon and Trevor, apparently through time. Konami has said that Lords of Shadow 2 will be the last of the Lords of Shadow arc, which leads to the thought that this is the last one to do with [[spoiler: Dracula's Origins]]. If Simon and Trevor are thrust into this time, logic would dictate it's a big deal. Why not just use Gabriel again if it wasn't?

It's pretty obvious in multiple games that Dracula doesn't have much of an interest in (un)life and only pops back up when there's enough concentrated evil to manifest him, usually against his will. He's been in suicidal despair since the death of Lisa and been looking for a WorthyOpponent to off him for good (and if they fail, he gets to destroy all life--either way, he sees it as a victory). Therefore, even in the NintendoHard games, whomever is trying to kill Dracula gets infinite retries to do so--Death is the Dark Lord's servant, so if Boss Man says to resurrect the idiot who got pushed into a {{Bottomless Pit|s}} by a Medusa Head (again), well...

The "Despair" in VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair refers to how Dracula feels--he's gotten so desperate to die that he breaks the rules of time-space to collect a vampire-killing dream team and showers them with weapons and abilities.

Dracula finds pretending to be an Angel of Light insulting; so he ''never'' sugarcoats BlackMagic. It's obvious from the get-go that the covens within Castlevania itself are diabolists. He never shows any favoritism to communities that condemn white-magic users; in fact; given his disgust in humanity and what happened to his wife; probably targets them first. Centuries of this after Sypha's time; and the Church is more than willing to have WhiteMagic witches like Charlotte and Yoko as members.

** In addition, the Vampire Killer and the history of the Belmonts and Morrises was excluded at Van Helsing's request. He felt that because the Morrises were already in great danger thanks to "zat fockink vhip", publishing a book that reveals the connection the Morrises and Belmonts have would further jeopardize them.

Aeon failed to prevent Galamoth and the Time Reaper to kill Dracula and creating a Time Paradox. Without Mathias to take place as the Dark Lord, the world was recreated into one where Gabriel Belmont would be the one to take the place of the Dark Lord.

[[WMG: The Monsters in The Castle Are made by the Devil Forgemasters .]]
The monsters from myth and lore (Like Cthulhu, or the greek monsters, or the Oz monsters) were simply recreations made by Dracula, Death and the Devil Forgemasters using souls and their magic to... Uhh... Forge demons, based on folklore and their own knowledge, as to better convey fear and submission on mankind through familiar faces of their lore. Like, for instance, to attack Brazil, Dracula would require many Curupiras (A prankster spirit of sorts on my country's folklore), and would demand that Death and the Devil Forgemasters create them and used them as artifices to better convey fear on a region through their specific cultural knowledge. That would also explain why they are submissive to Dracula (He controls souls, and since the monsters are made from souls, yeah...) and why are they so weak compared to their fictional counterparts. They are made to be powerful, indeed, but most importantly, visually threatening. They cannot be as powerful as they are in their home fiction simply because it would require a WALLOP of souls to reproduce such power. So they try making them *strong*, enough to execute supernatural/strong/magical feats.
Dracula's huge library was one good evidence for such extended cultural and fictional knowledge being used as base for his ever growing army (which came to encompass even Criptozoology). Proof of this are creatures that were never even hypothesized to exist , not even through legends, created exclusivelly for fiction, like Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow, or Cthulhu, or The Creature, or Chronomage.
And let's not forget that Devil Forgemasters learned their trade from Dracula himself. On CoD, their power is said to rival Death, so I assumed that it was most logical for this to be one of Death's jobs. To create an ever growing army for Dracula using the souls he reaps. (And the explanation for "no more Devil Forgemasters on the franchise" is that when Dracula had two, very early on his first attempt at terrorizing mankind, one of them failed miserably in serving him, and the other was used as a vessel, but was too weak to withstand him, leading him to not trust humans as his so-close partners because they would fail again, prompting him and Death in making them legendary monsters by themselves.)

Despite being "that which governs death", Death seems very eager to obey the Dark Lord, regardless of whom it may be. In the end of his story in ''Judgment'', it goes as far to say "Death, unconstrained by mortality, pursued every possible means of reviving his master. He sowed the seeds of evil by weakening the faith of man. Why would such a being serve Dracula so loyally? Perhaps there is some greater force at play behind it all..." This greater force is nonother than Chaos itself. As the UltimateEvil of the Castlevania universe, it's the only creature with the power to always order Death. As Chaos' main purpose is to chose a Dark Lord, he assigns Death to their service to safeguard the Dark Lord to maintain the balance between a being of absolute good (God) and absolute evil (The Dark Lord). In ''Lament of Innocence'' Death betrays Walter despite him being a master vampire and the Lord of the Castle in favor of the mortal Mathias. This was because Chaos sensed the hatred of God and utter despair within Mathias' soul, and decided this made him a better candidate for being the Dark Lord than the arrogant and [[WhoWantsToLiveForever bored]] Walter, and thus assigned Death to safeguard his ascent to becoming Dracula, and to assist him whenever he resurrects and even take the means himself to resurrect Dracula if he knows how to (such as when he was Zead).

Despite being "that which governs death", Death seems very eager to obey the Dark Lord, regardless of whom it may be. In the end of his story in ''Judgment'', it goes as far to say "Death, unconstrained by mortality, pursued every possible means of reviving his
master. He sowed the seeds of evil by weakening the faith of man. Why would such a being serve Dracula so loyally? Perhaps there is some greater force at play behind it all..." This greater force is nonother than Chaos itself. As the UltimateEvil of the Castlevania universe, it's the only creature with the power to always order Death. As Chaos' main purpose is to chose a Dark Lord, he assigns Death to their service to safeguard the Dark Lord to maintain the balance between a being of absolute good (God) and absolute evil (The Dark Lord). In ''Lament of Innocence'' Death betrays Walter despite him being a master vampire and the Lord of the Castle in favor of the mortal Mathias. This was because Chaos sensed the hatred of God and utter despair within Mathias' soul, and decided this made him a better candidate for being the Dark Lord than the arrogant and [[WhoWantsToLiveForever bored]] Walter, and thus assigned Death to safeguard his accent to becoming Dracula, and to assist him whenever he resurrects and even take the means himself to resurrect Dracula if he knows how to (such as when he was Zead).

master. He sowed the seeds of evil by weakening the faith of man. Why would such a being serve Dracula so loyally? Perhaps there is some greater force at play behind it all..." This greater force is nonother than Chaos itself. As the UltimateEvil of the Castlevania universe, it's the only creature with the power to always order Death. As Chaos' main purpose is to chose a Dark Lord, he assigns Death to their service to safeguard the Dark Lord to maintain the balance between a being of absolute good (God) and absolute evil (The Dark Lord). In ''Lament of Innocence'' Death betrays Walter despite him being a master vampire and the Lord of the Castle in favor of the mortal Mathias. This was because Chaos sensed the hatred of God and utter despair within Mathias' soul, and decided this made him a better candidate for being the Dark Lord than the arrogant and [[WhoWantsToLiveForever bored]] and arrogant Walter, and thus assigned Death to safeguarding his existence, to assist him whenever he resurrects and even take the means himself to resurrect Dracula if he knows how to.

However, his dialogue throughout the games makes it very clear he does have respect for Dracula. This is especially true in ''Portrait of Ruin'', where he seems genuinely upset that Brauner is usurping Dracula's position as Lord of the Castle. Not only is he trying to overthrow his friend, but he is not the Dark Lord and as such has no claims to Death's loyalty, unlike all the other monsters of the castle which are all loyal to Brauner. Only the Dark Lord designated by Chaos

master. He sowed the seeds of evil by weakening the faith of man. Why would such a being serve Dracula so loyally? Perhaps there is some greater force at play behind it all..." This greater force is nonother than Chaos itself. As the UltimateEvil of the Castlevania universe, it's the only creature with the power to always order Death. As Chaos' main purpose is to chose a Dark Lord, he assigns Death to their service to safeguard the Dark Lord to maintain the balance between a being of absolute good (God) and absolute evil (The Dark Lord). In ''Lament of Innocence'' Death betrays Walter despite him being a master vampire and the Lord of the Castle in favor of the mortal Mathias. This was because Chaos sensed the hatred of God and utter despair within Mathias' soul made him a better candidate for being the Dark Lord than the arrogant and [[WhoWantsToLiveForever bored]] and arrogant Walter, and thus assigned Death to safeguarding his existence, to assist him whenever he resurrects and even take the means himself to resurrect Dracula if he knows how to.

A large, powerful monstrous demon that is still capable of speech who was defeated by Dracula, only to come back years later, surrounded by witches, with intent to overthrow the new dark lord, yet who keeps getting defeated by Dracula's child instead, despite their common enemy? Sounds familiar. Granted, his appearance is completely different and one wonders how Galamoth would respond to being mechanically reconstructed... unless it had something to do with that robot in the Game Boy ''Kid Dracula''...

* He also has several OneWingedAngel forms, each of these are likely split evolutions? Think about it. We have the RondoOfBlood form, we also have the PortraitOfRuin form, and the CircleOfTheMoon form to name a few. I theorise after being owned by the vampire killers he doesn't die or anything, he just faints, and then each time he comes back a Max Revive is used on him, but he somehow de-evolves as well (not sure how to explain this yet).

[[WMG:Soma's sudden jarring shift into Dracula in [[CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow Dawn of Sorrow]] was due to Dmitrii's Soul]]

One of few constants of the Castlevania canon is that Dracula is left-handed. In addition, those who use Dracula's powers or are related to Dracula in some way are left-handed. Alucard, [[CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow Soma]], and [[OrderOfEcclesia Shanoa]] are all left-handed, as is the possessed Richter Belmont. The only time this wasn't true was for the Game Boy games, and since Sonia's been retconned out, this leaves Christopher Belmont who has been retconned into being right-handed as of Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth. However, both [[CastlevaniaBloodlines John Morris]] and [[PortraitOfRuin Jonathan Morris]] are left-handed, the latter coming out well after Dracula's left-handedness was noticed. Obviously, neither could handle the full power of the whip because they were descendants of Dracula!

Almost every Castlevania game has Dracula needing a boost to get resurrected. Needing the body of a Devil Forgemaster, the spirit of a werewolf, collecting his remains, etc. Even the 100 year resurrections required assistance. ''CastlevaniaChronicles'' and Dracula X Chronicles show a virgin sacrifice. (Well, a sacrifice of a young girl, at least.)

A big deal is made in ''[[CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia Order Of Ecclesia]]'' that Dominus is the only thing that can destroy Dracula besides the Vampire Killer whip. (And Alucard.) It even plays out that Dracula cannot be destroyed by Shanoa herself. Dominus is also Dracula's Power directly channeled. Perhaps, because of this, the direct use of Dominus on Dracula did far more damage than just putting him down until he gets resurrected again. Given that Dominus is likely related to the Power of Dominance talked about in the [[CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow Sorrow series,]] it seems that Dominus destroyed Dracula's ability to control all his minions, as well as Castlevania itself, leaving him with only a crumbling castle and a few human and vampire servants in Bram Stoker's tale.

[[WMG:The real reason Richter wasn't around to help [[CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia Shanoa]] kill Dracula in the 1800s ) was because...]]
He was chasing after another [[TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld Richter]] that stole his first name. I was always wondering why Richter couldn't help out since he was still technically alive (1800 or so is just a few years after SOTN, so...).

* Soma as Dracula (in [[CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow Dawn of Sorrow]]) is like what Staraptor is to Pidgeot - like an expy of sorts. Dracula doesn't come back as normal Dracula as he isn't available in this generation! Soma has similar powers, but his new soul powers (he even has "ability" souls) are what sets him apart competitively. This allows him to evolve and still use soul powers. Soma as a playable character is just restarting and levelling up and learning all his different moves again, and he is holding the Mina Talisman (Everstone) to stop him from evolving into Dracula (looks pretty much the same, like how many Pokemon don't really change much on first evolution, then change drastically on final evolution, which in this case is the re-use of the [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaRondoOfBlood Rondo of Blood]] final form, but again, another expy).

He travelled between various time periods, stealing Dr. Frankenstein's plans for the Creature and bringing it to Count Dracula during the 17th century. During the events of CastlevaniaJudgment, however, he was lost in the time rift and went RetGone. His involvement against Simon Belmont and with Dr. Frankenstein no longer exists (as is evident by SuperCastlevaniaIV and the Mary Shelley novel), though schematics for The Creature were recovered by an early incarnation of Dracula.

A bit of OutOfGenreExperience, but let's examine it. [[FridgeHorror A Bydo can (theoretically) travel to any point in time]] before its birth in the [[TimeyWimeyBall 26th century.]] Let's say it decides to stop by the 11th century, where Matthias made his debut as Dracula. Using Matthias' angst as a medium, the Bydo shows itself as Death to make a {{deal|WithTheDevil}} after the death of his wife, which transfers the command of the Bydo from other times over to him. Evidence? In SOTN, Dracula's final boss seemed much more like a Xenomorph, attacking with [[WaveMotionGun triangular beams of light.]] Dracula's [[EldritchLocation castle]] seems to be [[WombLevel organic]] in some of the games (and don't get started on the paintings). Finally, [[CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow Chaos']] true form itself seems a bit too otherworldly. Now, why do the Bydo let the Belmonts win? They have their own battle to fight, and they're just bored.

[[Tropers/X2X I]] already brought this up on the page for the ''[[CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Sorrow]]'' series, but it really belongs here.

* This raises questions as to what happens with ''CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair''. One of things Soma can do? He can absorb Dracula's soul. Multiple times. And the 8-Bit Version too. [[TimeyWimeyBall Oh dear.]]

* In ''OrderOfEcclesia'', he doesn't transform at all.
* In ''CastlevaniaBloodlines'', he needs Drolta Tzuentes to distract you while he transforms.
* In ''PortraitOfRuin'', he has to [[DevourTheDragon absorb Death's soul]] in order to transform.

The reason they weren't the hero of 1999 is not that they were younger, but that they wanted a quite life as [[CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance an interior decorator]] instead of trying to stop demons from killing them.

[[WMG: CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair is orchestrated by the Time Travellers.]]

A relatively minor theory for how the events of ''CastlevaniaBloodlines'' played out. Namely that while the two fought together in chasing Bartley throughout Europe, when it came time for the final battle, Eric challenged Bartley and held her off so John could go ahead and battle Dracula. It also fits in that while John would be dedicated to Dracula's demise, being the heir of the Vampire Killer, Eric would have a bigger beef with Elizabeth for turning his girlfriend into a vampire.

So, we know from CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence that Joachim Armster, the vampire who is imprisoned by Walter for attempted rebellion, was once human. So what caused his current predicament? There are two possible theories:

[[WMG: Multiplayer mode in CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair represents all of space-time breaking as a result of the massive time paradox.]]

The "Despair" in CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair refers to how Dracula feels--he's gotten so desperate to die that he breaks the rules of time-space to collect a vampire-killing dream team and showers them with weapons and abilities.

** At the end of ''SymphonyOfTheNight'' we do see Dracula starting to question his purpose and existence. "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul?" He never shows this to anyone other than his own son though.

The first difference would be in their appearances. Mathias is a raven-haired {{bish|onen}}ie who dresses predominantly in dark colors. Soma is a {{white|HairedPrettyBoy}}-haired bishie known for his white [[BadassLongcoat longcoats]]. In Western culture, dark colors (''especially'' black) imply [[DarkIsEvil something more sinister]], while white denotes [[LightIsGood virtue and purity]]. Symbolically, Dracula's soul has been cleansed and Soma [[RefusalOfTheCall rejects any attempts to be made into the next Dark Lord.]]

** Well, all three of them are interlinked in a way. Elizabetha died of disease--Lisa is a doctor. Then Lisa was executed as a witch--Mina is a Shinto shrine maiden. If you look at this way, the way they died influences the type of person they become in their next incarnation.

Aeon failed to prevent Galamoth and the Time Reaper to kill Dracula and creating a Time Paradox. Without Mathias to take place as the Dark Lord, the world was recreated into one where Gabriel Belmont would be the one to take the place of the Dark Lord.

In Aria, you find Hammer in the library. Right after a BOSS. And he doesn't act at all like he was needed to be rescued or anything. And he sells various weapons he happens to find lying around the castle, implying that he's capable of handling the monsters. If he was an EasilyAngeredShopkeeper, I'd bet he'd pull an RPG on Soma (or the Positron Rifle) if he tried any funny stuff.

[[WMG:Soma's sudden jarring shift into Dracula in DawnOfSorrow was due to Dmitrii's Soul]]

[[WMG:The Morrises inherited the Vampire Killer Whip so the Belmonts can cleanse themselves of the taint left by Dracula after Richter's [[Main/{{Brainwashed}} Brainwashing]] in ''Symphony of the Night''.]] While it can be argued that Soleiyu was the first Belmont to be corrupted by Dracula in the series (or, before then, Simon with his curse), Soleiyu had ''just'' come of age to inherit the whip, and had not been given it when he was turned (and Simon didn't turn evil through the curse, it just tried to kill him); Richter was the first Belmont to be a full-fledged Vampire Hunter, whip and all, to fall to the Dark Lord's thrall. Also, [[spoiler: the Whip's Memory you fight in ''Portrait of Ruin'' - which was the memory of the last master the whip had - is Richter, not any of the other Belmonts]], meaning that the Morrises gained control of the whip sometime after ''Symphony'', soon enough for Richter ''not'' to be able to give it to his heir in between. The only explanation for why the Belmonts would give the whip to the Morrises for safe-keeping for so long, is that the events of ''Symphony'' corrupted the line to the point where they ''couldn't'' wield it properly, and needed to cleanse themselves of the corruption before they could be "accepted" by the whip again.

With the power of the Crimson Stone and Death as his personal servant, each demise-and-resurrection allows Dracula's soul to return to the Crimson Stone over and over, multiplying his accumulated power exponentially. This is the reason he becomes more powerful from game to game. It's all part of ThePlan to reach the pinnacle of his power, and either he finally acted on this seriously in 1999 and was narrowly and finally defeated, or even ''that'' was part of his EvilPLan and he's using Soma and the others post-1999 as [[UnwittingPawn Unwitting Pawns]] to engineer his ultimate victory!

In both versions, you fight Galamoth for the first time after ascending a long vertical tube of mechanical platforms to a space-like vista. In the Game Boy version, his sword is replaced by a light saber, and his body turns out to be a robot piloted by one of the "alien people" from a previous stage. The Famicom version goes on to a flying ship complete with Main/WaveMotionGun, and both versions go on to have boss fights against large robots, one of which is several screens tall. The final form of Galamoth has a head that vaguely resembles the titular villain of ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'', and the Game Boy version has a series of similar creatures (even referred to as aliens in the manual) on the way to the final confrontation. In the Game Boy version, Galamoth even talks about the many worlds he has conquered.

Combine the above three [=WMGs=], and you are left with an alien invasion that took place before the end of the 15th century and was thwarted by Alucard. The perpetrator was forced into Dracula's service, but continues to scheme to overthrow his master. It's not very realistic, but hey, [[Main/RuleOfCool who wouldn't want to have]] [[Main/AttackOfThe50FootWhatever a giant]] [[Main/TheStarscream treacherous]] [[Main/NinjaPirateZombieRobot alien magician demon lizard]] stomping around?

A [[Main/MacguffinGirl MacGuffin Ghoul]]? Maybe.

It is said that Kid Dracula woke from a long sleep at the beginning of the first game. Very long. [[OverNineThousand More than ten thousand]] years, and he remained prepubescent. Galamoth had become the Dark Lord by this time, and Death served him as the Time Reaper. But Dracula's son knew his lineage, and fought the dark lord to reclaim his throne. He succeeded.

One of few constants of the Castlevania canon is that Dracula is left-handed. In addition, those who use Dracula's powers or are related to Dracula in some way are left-handed. Alucard, [[CastlevaniaSorrow Soma]], and [[OrderOfEcclesia Shanoa]] are all left-handed, as is the possessed Richter Belmont. The only time this wasn't true was for the Game Boy games, and since Sonia's been retconned out, this leaves Christopher Belmont who has been retconned into being right-handed as of Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth. However, both [[CastlevaniaBloodlines John Morris]] and [[PortraitOfRuin Jonathan Morris]] are left-handed, the latter coming out well after Dracula's left-handedness was noticed. Obviously, neither could handle the full power of the whip because they were descendants of Dracula!

A big deal is made in ''[[CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia Order Of Ecclesia]]'' that Dominus is the only thing that can destroy Dracula besides the Vampire Killer whip. (And Alucard.) It even plays out that Dracula cannot be destroyed by Shanoa herself. Dominus is also Dracula's Power directly channeled. Perhaps, because of this, the direct use of Dominus on Dracula did far more damage than just putting him down until he gets resurrected again. Given that Dominus is likely related to the Power of Dominance talked about in the [[CastlevaniaSorrow Sorrow series,]] it seems that Dominus destroyed Dracula's ability to control all his minions, as well as Castlevania itself, leaving him with only a crumbling castle and a few human and vampire servants in Bram Stoker's tale.

Look at her portrayal in ''RondoOfBlood''. Anime artwork, blatant TokenMiniMoe, [[{{Dojikko}} sliding and rolling all over the place]], wielding the power of TheFourGods, etc. Despite being ostensibly European, her character is ridiculously Japanese. She's largely considered a LethalJokeCharacter.

Now look at her portrayal in ''SymphonyOfTheNight''. Mature, realistically drawn, and seems to fit well with the other characters in the ''Castlevania'' series. She's practically a different person altogether.

* Now that, my friend, is a great IncrediblyLamePun. Congrats.

* Soma as Dracula (in DawnOfSorrow) is like what Staraptor is to Pidgeot - like an expy of sorts. Dracula doesn't come back as normal Dracula as he isn't available in this generation! Soma has similar powers, but his new soul powers (he even has "ability" souls) are what sets him apart competitively. This allows him to evolve and still use soul powers. Soma as a playable character is just restarting and levelling up and learning all his different moves again, and he is holding the Mina Talisman (Everstone) to stop him from evolving into Dracula (looks pretty much the same, like how many Pokemon don't really change much on first evolution, then change drastically on final evolution, which in this case is the re-use of the RondoOfBlood final form, but again, another expy).

The Devil Mask may have similar powers, but the alternate final boss(?) it produces looks like it escaped from a [[SilentHill different Konami series]].

[[WMG: Chaos is actually a [[Main/{{R-Type}} Bydo.]]]]
A bit of Main/OutOfGenreExperience, but let's examine it. [[Main/FridgeHorror A Bydo can (theoretically) travel to any point in time]] before its birth in the [[Main/TimeyWimeyBall 26th century.]] Let's say it decides to stop by the 11th century, where Matthias made his debut as Dracula. Using Matthias' angst as a medium, the Bydo shows itself as Death to make a [[Main/DealWithTheDevil deal]] after the death of his wife, which transfers the command of the Bydo from other times over to him. Evidence? In SOTN, Dracula's final boss seemed much more like a Xenomorph, attacking with [[Main/WaveMotionGun triangular beams of light.]] Dracula's [[Main/EldritchLocation castle]] seems to be [[Main/WombLevel organic]] in some of the games (and don't get started on the paintings). Finally, [[Main/CastlevaniaSorrow Chaos']] true form itself seems a bit too otherworldly. Now, why do the Bydo let the Belmonts win? They have their own battle to fight, and they're just bored.

The first difference would be in their appearances. Mathias is a raven-haired [[{{Bishonen}} bishie]] who dresses predominantly in dark colors. Soma is a {{white|HairedPrettyBoy}}-haired bishie known for his white [[BadassLongcoat longcoats]]. In Western culture, dark colors (''especially'' black) imply [[DarkIsEvil something more sinister]], while white denotes [[LightIsGood virtue and purity]]. Symbolically, Dracula's soul has been cleansed and Soma [[RefusalOfTheCall rejects any attempts to be made into the next Dark Lord.]]

Also of note is that he ''values'' the bonds he's cultivated with his allies (including the descendants of the two clans that took up arms against Dracula the most as well as Dracula's prodigal son). When Mathias succumbed to his anger at God, he hastily threw away any and all of his previous relationships in his fanatical quest to spite God. Of special note is his [[VictoriousChildhoodFriend relationship with Mina]]. Mina is heavily suggested to be the next incarnation of both Elisabetha and Lisa, much like Soma is Dracula. Destiny seems to be perpetually making these two attract like magnets. However, whereas it was Mathias' love for Elisabetha/Lisa [[LoveMakesYouEvil that turned him evil]], it was Soma's love for Mina (and vice versa) that ultimately ''spared'' him from this very same fate (as best seen in ''Dawn'', where it is his thoughts of Mina that allow Soma to suppress and expel the numerous souls invading his body, thus preventing them from overwhelming his body and turning him into the next Dark Lord).

[[WMG: Dracula's power began to wane after the events of ''SymphonyOfTheNight'']]

[[WMG: Pumpkin is a CloudCuckoolander.]]
Very plausible for his innocent devil counter part. He isn't aware that he is actually fighting very evil dark forces of nature evidenced by his jolly singing, dancing and playing about. Apparently he thinks that this whole Dracula scenario is just a game somewhat as the same as the player does. In his mind he there is no conflict going around, everyone is just simply "playing" with each other. When he is fighting(like he is in Lament of Innocence) he in reality is just playing much like [[Anime/DragonBallZ Majin Buu(fat)]].]]

* Alternatively he is a ''PsychopathicManChild'' of the good kind.

Anyway... shortly after his defeat in PoR, someone attempted to bring back Dracula, but it was simply too early. The result was a partial resurrection of a kindly old man with only a small degree of powers and limited vampirism. While we know Dracula had one son, it's quite possible he'd sired other children over the years, especially a daughter who may have been raised outside of Dracula's evil, but knew her lineage. With a damaged memory, Dracula sought out Lilian, who had married Herman Munster(himself being Dr. Frankenstein's monster). With practically no memories and no need to drink blood, with only limited ability to change form and no aversion to sunlight, he was seen mostly as harmless, and Death and the others left him alone while they worked on the means to complete the process. Meanwhile, he took up the first name "Sam" and took up odd science as a hobby.

It's pretty obvious in multiple games that Dracula doesn't have much of an interest in (un)life and only pops back up when there's enough concentrated evil to manifest him, usually against his will. He's been in suicidal despair since the death of Lisa and been looking for a WorthyOpponent to off him for good (and if they fail, he gets to destroy all life--either way, he sees it as a victory). Therefore, even in the NintendoHard games, whomever is trying to kill Dracula gets infinite retries to do so--Death is the Dark Lord's servant, so if Boss Man says to resurrect the idiot who got pushed into a BottomlessPit by a Medusa Head (again), well...

Which is why none of the characters look like themselves. They are actually illusions of themselves created out of Aeon's mind by the Time Reaper to give Aeon hope in finding the "Chosen one" who can destroy the time rift and save time. Thus the game takes place over a millennia or so while Aeon keeps sending the false characters into the rift to fight the Reaper, possibly while Galamoth is already ruling the world in the KidDracula era. Every time a character goes to fight the Reaper, Aeon is sent back to the beginning of the scenario and has to play it out again.

Very plausible for his innocent devil counter part. He isn't aware that he is actually fighting very evil dark forces of nature evidenced by his jolly singing, dancing and playing about. Apparently he thinks that this whole Dracula scenario is just a game somewhat as the same as the player does. In his mind he there is no conflict going around, everyone is just simply "playing" with each other. When he is fighting(like he is in Lament of Innocence) he in reality is just playing much like [[Manga/DragonBall Majin Buu(fat)]].]]