YMMV / Castlevania (2017)

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A-C

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • A few of the comments Trevor makes to the priests in Season 1 imply that they might not be priests, just soldiers and thugs in robes. Trevor emphasizes that the knife one draws on him is a "thief's knife" and when he puts a call forth for the good priest his remarks imply that the others weren't properly ordained (that priest having the power to bless and consecrate water whereas the others could not). On the other hand, a number of the priests were seen serving the church before the country went to hell and it's clear that being ordained doesn't necessarily give them the power to ward off the demons, but rather their morality (the Bishop's ability to fend off demons being withdrawn from him by God because he was an evil man). They could still just be official priests and Trevor's comments were simply him trying to get under their skin or could just indicate that he doesn't think of them as "true" priests.
  • Carmilla schemes with the Vampire Generals and it's clear they take issue with how Dracula is running the war. Yet when Carmilla launches her betrayal they're targeted as well and they stand by Dracula. Outside of Godbrand, whose treachery was explicit, the other Generals' allegiances are a bit more ambiguous. She might have simply led them along and betrayed them when convenient or perhaps they were only critical of Dracula but still loyal enough to him that she couldn't sway them.
  • How much did Dracula really respect Lisa's ideals? She was the only human he cared enough about to completely renounce his wicked nature for, but Dracula's accounts of what he'd been up to while traveling the world indicate that he really made no effort to understand her point of view. The only humans he ever put any notice into were the most horrible wastes of skin that he found, and the only ones he made friends with were misanthropes like himself. When he returns home and finds out that Lisa has been killed, the greatest leniency he gives anyone is to warn the woman mourning Lisa the chance to leave Wallachia — a kindness which ultimately will mean nothing given his plan to Kill All Humans everywhere anyway. While it's certainly true that Lisa was Dracula's Morality Chain that gave him hope in finding the goodness of humanity, Dracula apparently didn't try very hard when outside of her presence.
  • Does Lenore actually think she's doing Hector good? No interpretation comes close to them being anything but a heinous manipulator, but the way she phrases giving Hector better living conditions makes it sounds like she genuinely believes in her own Fair-Play Villain status. On the other hand, it's quite possible she just wants him to be better cared for so she can sexually abuse him. Their last words on the subject in Season 3 are also debatable, as she tells Hector that she's just giving him "what he's always needed." Considering her fascination with him and pet-like perception of him, this could either be simple Victim Blaming or she could genuinely see him as inferior and believe this is what he needs. There's also Hector's own fascination with "pets" to consider: Isaac states that Hector sees the world in terms of owners and pets, considering his own Forged devils his pets, and that Dracula's campaign wouldn't erase humanity, just reduce them to vampire "pets." Does Lenore pick up on this, and think Hector needs to be a "pet" to fulfill his worth? Her actions in Season 4, for what it's worth, imply she genuinely cares about him in her own twisted way and she comes to reconsider her actions and treat him very kindly. The question then becomes not whether or not she cares about him, but when she came to do so — did Lenore always care for him like this, or did she develop into it?
  • Whether or not God Is Evil in this setting, in particular the circumstances around Flyseyes' damnation. Did God actually condemn him to Hell for simply being non-Christian, or was it because he condemned other people to die by identifying them as Pagans in order to save his own skin? Throwing more confusion onto this is that in Season 1 a demon explicitly states that the Bishop's religious zealotry disgusts God.
  • With the reveal that Varney was actually The Grim Reaper in disguise, it turns every scene with him in it into a Rewatch Bonus just so viewers can figure out what part of him is genuine and which is not. Was Varney just a guise the entire time, Death having cultivated an image as a Big Bad Wannabe that allegedly wormed his way into Dracula's good graces, or did Varney die and Death simply took his likeness to act more directly? Is Varney's ineptitude and demand for respect him Obfuscating Stupidity or this him trying and failing to translate his true form's The Dreaded reputation in-person? When he describes war as nothing more than two armies killing each other, is he just making fun of Ratko, or is a bunch of people dying en mass at once genuinely what he thinks war is, war nothing more than quantities of death happening at once for the likes of Death?
  • What was Saint Germain's relationship with his "loved one" like, and how did she feel about him? Everything we learn about her comes from him, we see his flashbacks of their partnership and having a moment but there were no explicitly romantic interactions between them. Were they in a relationship, or did she see him as just a friend looking for something she was also interested in? One of his hopes for reuniting with her was to "have sex again", but had they gone that far in the past when previously he said he wanted to find her so he could confess his feelings? Did she turn her back on him because she saw he was dying and could do nothing for him or was it because of his actions? Why did she stay in the corridor? Considering he never says her name out loud, even when calling for her in a massive space, did he actually love her or fall in love with the idea of her after losing her with how little else was going on in his life before they met?
  • Striga and Morana, how deep were their loyalties towards Carmilla? Beyond (assumedly) turning them, allowing them to be together forever, they are awfully quick to abandon Carmilla and Lenore to Isaac's attack. Early on in the 4th season they do have a moment when they realise Carmilla's plan is fruitless, with them realising that they would be locked in a Forever War with the people they are trying to subjugate. Did they genuinely believe trying to rescue Carmilla and Lenore was a Lost Cause, or was it simply a case of them finally having an excuse to strike out on their own?
• And You Thought It Would Fail: When it was announced that Castlevania would be adapted into an animated series, many fans were skeptical. Even discounting the already-dismal track record of video game adaptations, the skepticism rose when it was announced that Frederator Studios would be producing it, since the company is better known for comedies aimed towards children. Furthermore, Konami had just entered an Audience-Alienating Era resulting from their exit from the console game business and their firing of Hideo Kojima, leaving people rather unenthused about Konami-related products in general. When the series premiered, it got rave reviews, and ensured that four seasons of the show would be produced, with all four receiving high marks. The entire series has a 94% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes, with Seasons 2 and 4 in particular earning a 100% positive rating.
• Arc Fatigue: Season 3 got hit with this hard. There is build-up for Carmilla and her posse, but it doesn't really go anywhere other than planning out how they're going to conquer Wallachia, and enslaving Hector. Then there's Isaac's arc, which seems to abruptly stop after he acquires an army to rival Carmilla's and a transmission mirror big enough to send said army through. The main trio probably got the worst end of this, with Alucard especially suffering from Trapped by Mountain Lions.
• Ass Pull: Taka and Sumi's seduction and betrayal of Alucard. Not only did many find it disturbing, many felt it came out of nowhere and only served as an excuse to undo a lot of Alucard's character progession. Worse yet, we have multiple scenes of the two conversing privately, and if one isn't reading heavily into their conversations, they only show a mild distrust of him, and certainly not a desire to kill him.
  • The Magic Dagger Trevor uses to kill Death. Outside of some small scenes here and there of him finding the pieces, there is no build up or explanation about it prior to it's use, and then a fast-paced explanation is given in the last episode about what it is comes off very clumsilsy and forced. It basically ends up coming off like a Deus ex Machina to give Trevor an out on how to actually fight Death.
• Awesome Art: Unlike Frederator's other cartoons, Castlevania adopts an Animesque aesthetic that adapts the game's distinctive character designs. It's so convincing that one could easily mistake it as an actual anime series.
  • The penultimate episode of Season 4 — and the series as a whole — stands out for its astonishing animation.
• Awesome Music: What better theme to accompany the heroes laying siege to Dracula's generals than a hauntingly beautiful arrangement of "Bloody Tears"!
• Awesomeness Withdrawal: The cost of being a 2D hand-drawn series with a complex art style and scripts all written by a single writer (Warren Ellis, at that): it takes a longer time for new seasons to be made and released, with the seasons so far being shorter than what is typical. This can lead to withdrawal.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • While many can agree that this adaptation of Carmilla is far more developed than in the games, the fanbase seems to be split on her. One side loves her for her smugness, political scheming and decisiveness, but the other side loathes her because of it (especially those who like Hector more).
  • This show's version of Hector always had an uphill battle to be liked by fans, considering he is nowhere near the fighter his game counterpart is, but what truly made him divisive was his Season 3 arc where he was being manipulated and toyed with, just like in Season 2. Hector's fans like him due to him being an absolute Jerkass Woobie, whose suffering is constant and whose motives are sympathetic, and have expressed hope that he'll become more competent, feeling his arc is likely a slow-burn into his eventual development into the badass of the games. His critics feel that his plotline is a pointless time-waster, don't like how helpless he always is and how easily manipulated he tends to be, especially compared to his game counterpart and fellow Forgemaster Isaac, and many outright dismiss his plotline and mock the character.
  • Some viewers see Lenore as a Manipulative Bitch and offer her no sympathy, believing that she deserved her fate. Others ship her with Hector, and believe she was worthy of a redemption arc.
• Broken Base: While the quality of the Netflix series is commonly regarded as much better than most other video game adaptations, a sharp divide has formed in the Castlevania fandom over whether it's a good adaptation of the source material. Fans justify the changes to story and characters as a necessity to build upon the thin storyline of the games, while also pointing to the inclusion of many familiar monsters and Mythology Gags that will be recognized by fans of the games. However, critics argue that the series takes too many liberties to the point where some major characters (such as Carmilla and Isaac) are In Name Only, while Grant Danasty and many iconic elements of the games, including their trademark action-platforming and dungeon/castle-crawling exploration, are Adapted Out or very downplayed in favor of Canon Foreigners and time-wasting subplots, making the occasional fanservice like the game monsters and the few sequences akin to game stages or boss fights feel like cheap appeasement instead of faithfulness when weighed against everything else.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Among the Bishop's more noble deeds in the first three episodes, the viewer is treated to scapegoating, attempted bribery, terrorizing his own congregation, corruption, plotting to use the night hordes to accelerate his own rise to power, and, oh yeah, basically defiling the sanctity of the Church at every turn while going totally unchecked. Come Episode 4, when a demon lieutenant stares the Bishop down, invoking Breaking Speech, "Not So Different" Remark, and Your Approval Fills Me with Shame all at once before giving him a hellishly undignified death right at his pulpit, any viewer would be forgiven for standing up and cheering. It happens again in Season 2 when his shredded and half-eaten corpse is given multiple lingering camera shots.
  • After Season 3's Trapped by Mountain Lions subplot and Hector's constant suffering, Hector turns the tables in Season 4 and makes his own happy ending by playing the Styrian Council, arranging Carmilla's death, and letting Lenore go so she can die free.
  • After all the characters go through, seeing everyone from Trevor to Dracula get happy endings in the show's conclusion is nothing short of satisfying.
• Common Knowledge:
  • Many, many, many people mistake this show for an anime, to the point many people believe the Japanese dub of the series is the original version, and it's not hard to see why. It's Animesque in its art style, clearly takes inspiration from several notable anime, and it's based on a Japanese-created franchise. However, Castlevania is not an anime. It was written and voiced natively in English, it was animated by a western studio, and has a mostly western production team.
  • When Season 3 released, the fandom collectively assumed that Taka and Sumi were siblings. Their similar looks, personalities, and sibling-like dynamic almost certainly had a lot to do with it, but even after the director stated on Twitter that the two are not related, the misconception continued. Not helping is that despite their threesome sex scene with Alucard, the long discourse on bestiality that closed the series premiere means what barely counts as Brother–Sister Incest is hardly beyond the pale for this show.
  • Greta of Danesti is commonly assumed to be a Gender Flipped version of Grant Danasty, due to their similar names and her role as a protagonist fighting alongside Alucard, Trevor, and Sypha. However, series executive producer Kevin Kolde has explicitly denied that it was an intentional reference.
• Complete Monster: "Death" — the true identity of the seemingly blowhard vampire Varney — is revealed to be the mastermind behind the fourth season's conflict, and a creature far worse than Dracula ever was at his cruelest. A gluttonous, sadistic Ancient Evil who has been feeding on souls since the birth of humanity, Death personally partook in Dracula's attempted genocide against humanity with the anticipation of a feast, only to be left disappointed and hungry upon Dracula's demise. Solely so he'd never be hungry again, Death concocts a plan to manipulate the Count St. Germain into evil as part of a complex scheme to pluck both Dracula and Lisa's souls from Hell, upon which Death fuses them both into the same body in a state of pure agony. Death intends to drive Dracula so insane with his wife's screaming soul he'll slaughter the entire planet, a prospect Death is all too entertained and delighted by.
• Cry for the Devil:
  • The series portrays Dracula sympathetically and even implies that he doesn’t want to destroy mankind, but doesn’t know what else to do.
  • The same goes for Dracula's two Forgemasters, Isaac and Hector, who each have horrible backstories. (Abusive Parents and an abusive master respectively.) Both of them are quite sympathetic, and it's hard not to feel bad for them even as they seek to cull mankind alongside Dracula.

D-G

• Diagnosed by the Audience: Despite Hector's overall brilliance and the horror-show that was his upbringing, his worldview is oddly naive, and he has significant difficulty relating to other people or interacting with members of the court. On top of that, he's very easy to manipulate, as noted by both Carmilla and Dracula. At least one theory pegs him as autistic.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • The Council of Styria, Carmilla, Striga, Morana, and Lenore, have gotten this quite a bit from the fandom after the third season. Their True Companions camaraderie with one another in this Crapsack World setting has made their goals come off as A Lighter Shade of Black.
    • With Lenore in particular there was a vocal segment of the fandom who found Hector "deserving" of the abuse and deceit he suffered at her hands. For what it's worth, the show does present Lenore as a sympathetic character in its fourth season.
    • Likewise, by series end, Striga and Morana are almost played off as outright tragic heroes, victims of Carmilla's ambition and manipulation, who just want to leave to live and love each other in peace once they recognize that humans aren't animals and have a right to fight for their lives. Their fans are, of course, overlooking that Striga was killing humans a few episodes earlier, or that they casually abandoned Lenore after just assuming she was dead without bothering to check on her well-being.
  • Dracula himself gets a fair bit of this, owing to him being a very nuanced and sympathetic take on the character, in addition to the obvious elements of classy fanservice and the awesome-factor.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Even for those not Rooting for the Empire, we have Blue Fangs, who became met with lovely reception for making the famous scene where he delivered his awesome "The Reason You Suck" Speech to, and afterwards killed, the despicable Bishop who was responsible for having Lisa executed and therefore enraging Dracula into beginning his genocide against humanity.
  • The nameless priest in Episode 4, who's a genuinely good man of the cloth who, despite being terrified, was an essential support unit in Trevor's plan to retake Wallachia.
  • The vampire generals from Season 2 (besides Carmilla and Godbrand, who are major characters) do not have a speaking role and boil down to background props, yet they really stand out among the fanbase due to their diverse appearances and having different ethnicity and backgrounds. Their awesome fight scene with the main trio where they each have distinctive powers and fighting styles also works in their favor.
  • Out of all his undead pets, Hector's pug Cezar who accompanies him receives a lot of love from the fanbase for being Ugly Cute — it also helps that he was based on one of the writers' pets who passed away before production. Considering what happens to Hector at the end of Season 2, some are hopeful of his return and that Alucard adopts him, with many fans lamenting its lack of appearance in later seasons.
  • Mrs. Djuvara has gotten love as well for being one of the only people who not only believed that Lisa was a real doctor, but also grieving for her.
  • The Captain in Season 3 is a stone-cold badass who's unafraid of a monster horde, negotiates for the safety of his crew with nothing but his charm and logic, treats Isaac with dignity, and engages in a philosophical debate that gives the Forgemaster some new ideas to consider. He also has a really mellow Jamaican accent, and is voiced by master of subtle charisma Lance Reddick, but appears in all of two episodes.
  • A number of game fans were pleasantly surprised that Isaac's Innocent Devil Abel made it into the series as a Nightcreature. He's only in one episode but his distinctive design, competency, and memorable fight at his Master's side made him a stand out.
• Epileptic Trees
  • Due to the character’s absence in the series, many are assuming that Isaac will ultimately become the character of Death, due to both characters sharing a fanatical loyalty to Dracula and how Isaac’s powers in the series has some shades of necromancy rather than just summoning demon and creatures. This was proven wrong in the final season, however, where this show's version of Death shows up as an entirely separate character. He and Isaac even have a brief conversation.
  • Before Season 3, many believed that Sumi and Taka would have some sort of connection to the Hakuba family, who aided Julius Belmont in the battle of 1999 by sealing Castlevania in an eclipse, allowing for Dracula to truely die. This, however, was not the case, as they betrayed Alucard and were killed by the end of the season.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Dracula. I mean, c'mon. It's not just Dracula, but Castlevania Dracula. The addition of a very sympathetic backstory for his villainy certainly doesn't make it any harder to be on Dracula's side.
  • Isaac is a badass and skilled Forgemaster who serves Dracula with loyalty and efficiency, even deciding to raise his own army once his service to Dracula is done. Thanks to an incredible voice performance and a sympathetic motive, he's considered by many to be a highlight of the series.
  • The Council of Styria (Carmilla, Morana, Striga, and Lenore) are very popular with the fanbase due to their teamwork, cool designs, and varied personalities. Many have praised them as a very unique variation on a Decadent Court and love the way their strengths make up for each other's flaws. Season 4 exacerbated this, with Carmilla and Striga both getting cool fight scenes that show off that they're not all talk, and Morana and Striga being the only antagonists in the show who Know When to Fold 'Em.
  • After two seasons of him enduring torture and being ineffective, getting to see Hector finally show his utterly fantastic stuff as a plotter and remind everyone that he is a threat is nothing short of awesome, even if his endgame is to revive Dracula.
  • It's telling that fans utterly rejoiced at seeing none other than Death in the show's final season, looking absolutely awesome and manipulating people to his own ends right under their noses, not to mention being voiced by Malcolm McDowell.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The leader of Dracula's demonic forces in Season 1 was given the name "Blue Fangs", since he doesn't have a name in the show, and because he stands out because of his glowing teeth.
  • Alucard is often referred to as "Floating Vampire Jesus" after Trevor told Sypha "Tell it to your floating vampire Jesus here" in the midst of their duel.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Instead of pairing them off individually, most fans have taken to pairing the protagonists, Alucard, Trevor, and Sypha, together as a One True Threesome. Most fanfiction and fan art are of this OT3, and it even outranks the canon combination Trevor/Sypha on most sites.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Season 2 ends with Alucard becoming sole-lord of both Castle Dracula (and all of the cosmic secrets and amazing technological innovations inside) and Castle Belmont (which is basically an Überwald Secret Government Warehouse and Great Big Library of Everything all rolled into one). The idea that Alucard puts these to good use to train a new generation of monster hunters is a popular one. It especially helps that he does just that in Season 3 with Sumi and Taka.
• Fanfic Fuel: This series provides lots of ideas for fanfic writers to pull on and explore, with one or two having already been tackled in some depth.
  • Up to the time of Lisa's death, Dracula was away on a trip as part of his honoring her wish for him to "live as a man, travel as a man." The series finale even indicates that the town he wants to retire to with Lisa was one he came across during said travels. What were his adventures like, and where did he go?
  • Dracula's personal past and his antagonistic history with the Belmont family are only briefly alluded to at times. Assuming those plot points are not the same as in the games, how did Dracula become a vampire and start his feud with the Belmonts?
  • Among Dracula's vampiric generals, the only ones who we get any kind of background on are Carmilla, Godbrand, and Cho (the last one being recounted by Sumi and Taka in Season 3). What sort of rulership do the others have in their respective home territories, and how did they establish themselves?
  • Speaking of Carmilla, how did she and the Styrian Sisters meet?
  • Trevor is an Experienced Protagonist at the time we meet him during the series premiere. We know he had to endure his family name being slandered and his relatives being massacred/excommunicated, which explains a lot of his bitterness toward the Church. What sort of adventures did he have in between that traumatic past and the present day? And on a related note, we get snippets of his recounting of various adventures with Sypha in between the end of Season 2 and the start of Season 3 (including the flying devil-goat creatures whose turds were on fire), and we get glimpses of other adventures they have in Season 4—what sparked all of those?
  • The climax of Season 3 has the protagonists see Dracula and Lisa in Hell together, and that experience is briefly referred to later in Season 4. How did that experience go?
  • During his travels in Season 3, Isaac meets characters such as the blind trader, the ship captain, and the mad former devil-forger, none of whom are fazed by him and his hordes of night-creatures. What were their respective life experiences like, so much so that they've basically Seen It All by the respective times they all meet Isaac?
  • Greta of Danesti is basically the Hero of Another Story prior to her meeting Alucard. All we know about her is that she once had a boyfriend and a girlfriend at the same time and that the boyfriend's wife tried to kill her with a pitchfork, and—more importantly—she's been protecting the people of Danesti for quite some time, only calling on Alucard to come and help because their defenses have gotten more compromised by that point. What kind of adventures did she have up to that time?
  • Saint Germain has gone through quite a lot in his quest for the Infinite Corridor. What were those adventures like?
  • Season 4 reveals that some of the antagonists have met each other before. This includes Hector knowing Saint Germain and warning him not to trust Varney, and Isaac also knows Varney separately. How did the characters first meet, and what led to those encounters?
  • Dracula and Lisa being revived and seeking to travel the world has been touched on by quite a few fanfic writers, usually in relation to how others (mostly their son Alucard) react to that bit of information. How does that information turn out, as well as said reactions?
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • One of the biggest fan criticisms regarding Castlevania: Nocturne was the numerous liberties taken with its source material such as Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. This was despite Castlevania itself already being a rather loose Adaptation Amalgamation of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, with a major member of the group, Grant DaNasty, being Adapted Out, Isaac being a far more morally sound character, and St. Germain significantly worse — but considering that Dracula's Curse was rather light on story and Curse of Darkness was generally seen as an underwhelming entry even in circles that'd actually heard of it, the changes were less popularly criticized. Nocturne, on the other hand, applied the same Broad Strokes formula to both Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, both of whose plots and contributions to the franchise's worldbuilding are some of the most popular parts of the franchise and seen as having held up fairly well. Fans thus regarded them as an attempt to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place.
  • Another criticism was the pacing problems and general lack of Dracula in Nocturne. Both of these things were also true of Castlevania, which saw an evil Corrupt Church serve as the major villain for the first season and St. Germain as the enemy for the last. Dracula himself only lasted two of its four seasons and was barely in the first. But Castlevania could at least present itself as just part of a larger story; Nocturne sequel-baits so hard for its future Symphony of the Night adaptation that it feels like it's outright missing something.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Being a Dark Fantasy animated series with good production values, Castlevania gleans a lot of enjoyment from Berserk fans. In Season 4, when Striga goes to town against an army of farmers. It's commonly joked that it's the best modern adaption of Berserk.
  • The show has a lot of overlap with Part 1 and 2 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fans due to the vampire theme, anime styled designs close to the franchise and Trevor himself being a playful Deadpan Snarker like Joseph Joestar. There's also a small overlap with the Part 6 fans thanks to this depiction of Isaac having many similarities with Enrico Pucci.
  • The show has some fandom overlap with the 2018 reboot of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, given the parallels between the romance of Vlad Dracula Ţepeş and Lisa, and the friendship between Hordak and Entrapta.
  • The series has the rare distinction of being a western animation series well-regarded by even the more hardcore anime fans (who tend to be rather heavy on gatekeeping). This can be attributed to it being arguably even more anime influenced than Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as the animation being largely 2D hand-drawn, which is a rarity in the West these days.
• Genius Bonus:
  • While many found the line in question to be rather odd, Blue Fangs' line to the Bishop, "Let me kiss you," is a reference to how Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus to the Pharisees with a kiss and handed him over to be killed, which is very much what Blue Fangs wryly implies God has done to the Bishop.
  • "Godbrand" seems an odd name for a vampire. But an actual Old Norse name is "Asbrand" (pronounced "AUS-brand"). "As" means roughly "of the gods/God," "Brand" relates to a sword, making the name mean "sword of the gods/God." This would have been a valid "translation" to English at the time of the series, but especially the hundred or so years earlier when Godbrand would have been mortal.
  • Striga's day armor, has a glass visor protecting her face that appears to be made out of gold. Astronaut's visors have gold in them to filter out ultraviolet light so they don't get burned. Which could work well for a vampire trying to protect themselves from daylight.

H-M

• Harsher in Hindsight: The infamous threesome scene, which has strong overtones of Alucard being sexually assaulted by Sumi and Taka as well as Lenore gaslighting Hector into becoming her Sex Slave becomes this after sexual harrassment allegations against co-creator Warren Ellis were revealed in June 2020, three months after Season 3 debuted on Netflix.
  • In-Universe, Sypha's joke about Alucard being a broody teenager after he reveals that he rapidly aged is funny at first, but then by the season's end, it really dawns on you that Alucard literally is a teenager. In short order, he's had to cope with his mother's death, being cast into a year-long sleep by his father, getting woken upon by Trevor and Sypha, and now undertaking a mission to kill his father. This was all without ever really coping with the grief of losing his mother. Once Dracula is dead, Alucard finally has the time to collect his thoughts and the very first thing he does is break down in tears.
  • In Season 2, Sypha teases Trevor about his attitude, asking why every story he tells is about him getting punched in the face by strangers. Trevor tells her that it's because "everyone else is a piece of shit". Sypha laughs this off at the time, but this comes back to bite her hard at the end of Season 3. Trevor and Sypha try to help a Town with a Dark Secret and even form a begrudging respect for the local Judge. Then the season ends with most of the town winding up dead, and when Trevor ignores Sypha's insistence of burning down the Judge's home like everyone else's, they learn that he is a Serial Killer and child murderer.
    Sypha: "This could not have gone more wrong. What happened?"
    Trevor: "We've spent a couple of months living your life. Adventures and victories. And now, we're living my life."
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Trevor and Dracula are voiced by Richard Armitage and Graham McTavish, respectively. The two previously worked together on The Hobbit trilogy, but while they played close friends there,^note McTavish's Dwalin to Armitage's Thorin. here they're inevitably going to try and kill one another.
  • Anyone who watched the Japanese dub will notice Alucard is voiced by Shin-ichiro Miki, who was the voice actor for Zamasu in the Japanese version of Dragon Ball Super. The hilarious part is where Zamasu wants to commit genocide to all humans (like Dracula is doing, save a few), but in this series, Alucard wants to prevent genocide to the human race. The same goes for Ryōtarō Okiayu (Trevor), who previously voiced Alucard in the games.
  • In the Mexican Spanish dub, Alucard is voiced by José Antonio Macías, who previously voiced another invincible anti-hero, except this time his personality is switched out with Trevor instead.
  • Peter Stormare voices Godbrand in this series. Godbrand is one of Dracula's highest ranking generals and also has a fancy towards Carmilla. Stormare not only voiced Dracula himself in The Batman vs. Dracula, but Dracula's ultimate goal in that story was to resurrect his bride, whom just happened to be Carmilla.
  • The original pitch for a Castlevania movie said it would not be an anime. The product we have now has an obvious heavy anime influence.
  • Bran Castle, which has been nicknamed "Dracula's Castle", has offered free Covid vaccination shots to tourists. Now consider that Dracula is married to a doctor in this show.
• Ho Yay: A few to go around.
  • In Episode 4, there's a scene after their fight where Alucard pins Trevor down and has his face lean in rather close to him. The fact that Alucard is, of course, still shirtless and straddles Trevor's thigh (which the camera angle draws attention to) doesn't exactly detract from this either. According to a tweet by a character artist, the scene was deliberately designed to be sexy. Interestingly enough, Season 3 actually shows that Alucard isn't straight, which retroactively adds to this.
  • Isaac's devotion to Dracula has large Ambiguously Gay overtones with Dracula, that he could probably give Pucci a run for his money. Dracula feels the same way, saying that he trusts Isaac more than he trusts any other person in his castle. When Isaac prepares to die defending Dracula from his son, a Belmont and a sorceress, he affirms that Dracula is worth death itself. Dracula then apologizes and sends Isaac to safety through a mirror. He says that one friend is worth more than a vampire imbued with knowledge.
• Iron Woobie: Alucard, born Adrian Tepes, is Dracula and Lisa's son. In the first episode alone, with everything seemingly going well for his family after a happy childhood, the Church ransacks his mother Lisa's house, condemns her as a "witch" for being a practiced medic, and burns her alive at the stake. Once his father learns of her death, he snaps, his one reason to tolerate humanity gone. Adrian tries to reason with Dracula but is tossed aside and horribly wounded, forced to go into hiding as his father raises an army to wipe out mankind. Fast forward a year, and Alucard is awakened by Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades. After battling Trevor to see if he has what it takes to fight Dracula, Alucard swears to kill his own father. He remains stalwart and unflappable through the majority of the second season, but there are hints that he's in pure misery, like when Sypha talks to Trevor about him in the Belmont Hold, described by her as a "cold spot" that sucks all the joy out of everything around him. In the end, Alucard is the one to stop his own father, witnessing Dracula break down before him when their pitched fight takes them into Alucard's own childhood room, using a post from his old bed to stake him before Trevor finishes the job. At the end of it all, Alucard collapses into tears.
  • It becomes way worse in Season 3 where Alucard becomes close to two individuals who come to him in order to know how to combat and protect themselves after they were kept prisoner with others under the control of one of Dracula's generals. While all seemed good, they become disillusioned with Alucard due to his refusal to show them how Dracula's castle moves (despite the system being broken) or even any magic, prompting them to trick him into having sex with them (as a way to "repay him" for being alone for so long) before tying him up and nearly killing him over apparently "keeping secrets" from them, prompting him to kill them in self defense. By the end of it all, Alucard is left more broken and bitter at what happened, before skewering their bodies in front of Dracula's castle in pikes. Like his father.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A common complaint among viewers, even among those who liked it, was that Season 1 was too short, being only four episodes long with 20 minutes each (not counting intro and credits). This stems from the project's origin as an animated film trilogy, each part running 80 minutes.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Lord Dracula himself is a Tragic Monster much as he is in the games: a roaming, misanthropic monster who found a chance at happiness when he met the healer Lisa, only to witness Lisa cruelly taken and burned at the stake for supposed heresy. Left so broken and despondent he even turns against his own son Adrian — or Alucard — Dracula pledges to take humanity to the grave with him, reduced to depressed lethargy as he waits for an end long denied to him. Dracula's tragedy shines forth most prominently in the final battle where he completely breaks when his battle with Alucard takes him into his son's childhood bedroom: "I'm killing our boy."
  • Aide to Lord Dracula he may be, Isaac is presented as a much more tragic, vulnerable character than his caricatured video game iteration. Isaac was abused by his master when he was still a slave even despite his love for the man, and ended up being driven to killing his own master in a hysterical fury when his master cruelly persisted in his abuse after Isaac confessed his feelings. Even as Dracula's unflinchingly loyal ward, Isaac is still thrown to the dirt again when Dracula forces Isaac to leave as the heroes converge to kill Dracula, with Isaac's final scene heavily indicating he's finally done with being kicked around once and for all.
  • Hector, Dracula's other Forgemaster, has been mistreated by society and even his own parents for his powers, with only the dead animals he brings back to life his only friends. Much more vulnerable and naïve than Isaac with standards Isaac doesn't have, Hector's own naivety is taken advantage of by Carmilla who convinces him to betray his own longtime friend Dracula, before doubling back and ending the second season reducing Hector to her beaten-up slave and pet Forgemaster. It only gets worse as it goes on, with him imprisoned in Styria, being hunted by Isaac and betrayed and Made a Slave by the one person he thought loved him.
  • Trevor Belmont. The surviving son of his family, who was disgraced and exiled, he wanders Wallachia while it burns, doing his best to stay drunk and well-fed. He feels Surrounded by Idiots where the church is concerned and is quite a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. He refuses to leave people who need his help because he doesn't believe in Bystander Syndrome.
  • Lenore ends up being this. After being a sociopathic Manipulative Bitch in Season 3, Lenore reveals that she really does have some soft spots and sympathetic traits, between treating Hector kindly and showing him genuine care, and lamenting how she has no purpose anymore. Ultimately, she kills herself after Isaac and Hector's victory rather than live a safe yet unhappy life with Hector, exactly the same fate she would have sentenced him to.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: While Dracula has flairs of Evil Is Cool and is presented as a Tragic Villain who deep down doesn't actually want to destroy humanity but simply doesn't know what else to do, the same cannot be said for the hypocritical, self-righteous Bishop, the one responsible for his genocidal crusade against humanity in the first place by accusing his wife of witchcraft and burning her at the stake, making him far more reviled by the fanbase.
• Love to Hate: The Bishop is a complete trash can of a human being who treats virtually everyone around him with contempt and had an innocent woman killed. He's so deliciously vile that it becomes all the more satisfying when Blue Fangs reduces him to a stammering mess and makes a finely mangled carcass from his body.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Isaac is a Devil Forgemaster who begins as Dracula's last friend and ruthlessly competent lieutenant. An abused servant until he killed his master, Isaac believes the world will only know love once all humanity is purged. To this end, Isaac revives corpses as monsters for Dracula's army while effortlessly deposing of would-be threats to Dracula like Godbrand, with such efficiency even Dracula is never aware of the threat in the first place. After Dracula's death, Isaac continues his war on humanity, expanding his army through a path of slaughter that he ends by defeating a magician who's enslaved an entire town. Isaac's repeated experiences with the better side of humanity led to him questioning and eventually abandoning his mission, putting Dracula's memory to peace and deciding to embrace a brighter future, all while he simultaneously mounts a successful invasion of Styria that ends with the demise of the wicked, treacherous Carmilla and Styria conquered by his own hand.
  • Hector is a Devil Forgemaster who came into Dracula's service due to his desire to cull humanity's worst elements. Though initially easily deceived by Carmilla in a plot that leads to Dracula's death and enslaved by Carmilla's sister Lenore, Hector abandons his naive nature and begins plotting against the Styrian Council. Hector proceeds in planning the bulk of Dracula's resurrection, stalling the Styrians' plans, and preparing traps and escape routes in the event of emergency, even noticing that something's off about a well-disguised Death. Upon the arrival of Dracula's vengeful ally Isaac, Hector traps Lenore in a magical cage and freely offers his life to Isaac before making peace with him when he realizes Isaac is not here to kill him. Hector then improvises his escape route into a path straight for Carmilla's death to save the world from her and cuts off his own finger to aid Isaac along that path, all while keeping a calm demeanor. After a lifetime of torment and abuse, Hector creates his own happiness, vowing to write a book to keep others from making his mistakes.
  • Striga and Morana are two members of the Sisterhood of Styria and a pair of ruthless and brilliant vampire lovers who treasure one another dearly. While Morana is the careful strategist, Striga is a general and tactician, with both working to make Carmilla's mad schemes into feasible reality. The two devise a plan to subjugate the humans of Styria and Europe, launching campaigns to pacify them, with Striga rallying her vampire forces to crush an uprising and save Morana's life with her own personal day armor. Realizing that humanity will never cease resisting, the two turn on Carmilla's schemes before realizing their lead sister is dead. Deciding how to best ingratiate themselves in a decapitated Styria, Striga and Morana opt to set off together, affirming their love and deciding all they need for the future is one another.
• Memetic Badass: As much of a badass he is in the story, Trevor Belmont's badassery gets exaggerated and memeified by the fandom on a collective basis, not to mention the Belmont family as a whole. After all, in-universe, every member of the two factions of vampires fighting each other immediately stopped and joined forces the moment Trevor, Alucard, and Sypha walked through those doors, and Trevor later had the nerve to call out Death and then 1v1 him. Out of universe, the fandom jokes that while children check under their beds for monsters, monsters check under their bed for Belmonts.
• Memetic Loser: Hector, Hector, Hector. Compared to Dracula's other Forgemaster, the extremely badass Isaac, all Hector's really pulled off is being manipulated by multiple different people, betraying Dracula, and getting imprisoned and beaten up by female vampires. While he's a tragic figure and a Jerkass Woobie, it's little wonder the fanbase took to considering him something of a punching bag. To add insult to injury the scene in which Lenore betrays Hector is shown paralleled with Sumi and Taka's betrayal of Alucard, and yet the fandom reception to both have been night and day. While Sumi and Taka were reviled and fans felt sorry for Alucard, Lenore and the Styrian Council got cheered on. Many fans expressed that he had grown out of this in a single episode after absolutely cleaning house in the show's fourth season by manipulating the Council of Styria and cutting his own finger off to help Isaac. Although, some think the aspect of this still remain.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Isaac is cool, and he's definitely meant to be sympathetic, but his actions in Season 3 are meant to be seen as a tragedy, and his ambition to go after Hector, who was manipulated, was meant to paint him as descending into total villainy. Many fans, however, absolutely loved Isaac's villainy due to him being even more badass than before, and were Rooting for the Empire the whole way through.
  • Hector is clearly intended to be seen as the lesser evil compared to the Styrian Council, but due to them being cooler and Hector being so pathetic, many made excuses for them and saw their poor treatment of Hector as karmic.
  • Lenore turning Hector into her slave is meant to be seen as horrific and tragic, which only gets exacerbated with Lenore herself being depicted as genuinely not understanding his suffering in Season 4, and them getting along well but essentially being broken apart by that aspect of their relationship, but plenty of fans saw it as a good thing. This is owed to Lenore's attractiveness and fan-favorite status, along with the Romanticized Abuse elements of their relationship.
• Moe: Sypha Belnades. While she's not an out and out Cute Witch in appearance, she's still a Nice Girl with a sweet voice and an adorable accent who uses magic to help the innocent. Her blushing when Alucard asks if she knew about the future doesn't hurt, and her adorable enthusiasm with Trevor in the end of the second season affirms her huggability.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Dracula makes a good case against humanity (and it's hard not to sympathize with him), but the fact that he murders everyone makes it clear he's not willing to turn back from his wrath. After Lisa's death, he almost fatally injures his own son when the latter tries to stop him. Rectified in the final moments of the series in a downplayed version of Redemption Earns Life.
  • The Bishop quickly crossed it by having Lisa burned at the stake, seeing her as a witch when all she wanted to do was help people. If he hadn't crossed it then, then he definitely crossed it when he convinced an angry mob to kill the Speakers, blaming them for the attacks by Dracula's army.
  • Carmilla's already a remorseless, manipulative bitch. But she doesn't just cross it at the end of Season 2; she gleefully jumps right over it when she forces Hector to serve her by viciously beating him into a bloody, frightened pulp.
  • It's revealed at the tail end of Season 3 that the Judge is a serial killer who keeps the shoes of his victims in a hidden shrine in his home. And they're all children.
  • Lenore crosses it big time when she tricks Hector into putting on a slave ring that forces him to obey every command from Carmilla's council, with the implicit intention of using it to turn him into her personal Sex Slave. Even she seems to consider it this by Season 4, as she apologizes to Hector for it and it seems she's treated him better than she implied she would.

N-S

• Narm: Dracula showing himself to the townspeople in his vengeful wrath due to Lisa's death should be awesome and chilling. It becomes unintentionally funny when one notices that Dracula inadvertently blows up what's left of Lisa's remains when he manifests as a giant flaming head right where her stake is.
• Narm Charm:
  • Blue Fangs ending his Breaking Speech to the Bishop with "Let me kiss you", right before killing him. While on paper this sounds like it'd be awkward, his distorted voice and the scene's atmosphere make it work.
  • Trevor saying good night to a tree he used to play in as a child should by all rights sound pretty dumb; but seeing how that line was preceeded by a recollection of what must have been the happiest memories of a profoundly unhappy life and the way he says it in a little-boy voice make the eyes kinda sting a little.
  • The swearing works a lot better when used in scenes meant to be humorous. For example, the bar scene in Episode 1 and 2, since everyone is drunk at that point.
  • Similarly, Death dropping swears left and right is initially offputting and hilarious, but Trevor's comment that he's not The Grim Reaper, helps make it make sense while maintaining the dread he inspires. He's just a very old vampiric spirit with a more "exclusive" diet. It makes Death seem both funny, and also intimidating, as if he's trying to justify his importance. Plus swears being dropped by an almost primordial and intimidating being (voiced by Malcolm McDowell) is so out of the left field that it just veers into being charmingly hilarious.
• Nausea Fuel: Given the series comes close to Berserk and Gantz in terms of blood, gore, and visceral imagery, this is to be expected. A specific example is the scene where Dracula unleashes the hordes of Hell on a town, complete with blood, fire, and unborn fetuses raining from the sky and demons literally ripping people apart; not even the infants are spared.
• Nightmare Retardant: Death is the most terrifying, and possibly the most powerful foe the heroes have ever faced, and looks like the epic Final Boss the series deserves... until he starts cussing like a drunken Cockney fratboy — then he just comes across as silly.
• Not Badass Enough for Fans:
  • Hector compared to Isaac. Isaac is sharp-witted, hypercompetent, and a badass fighter, so despite him being openly evil and seeking to wipe out humanity, he receives a lot of audience praise and sympathy. Hector, on the other hand, is equally sympathetic. As of Season 3, however, Isaac only grows in competence and fandom praise, whereas Hector is manipulated and brutally enslaved by Lenore, with many fans and critics alike dismissing him as incompetent and stupid.
  • Similarly, Lenore versus Hector. Lenore is a demure woman who is threatening and competent, effortlessly beating him in a Curb-Stomp Battle fight and stringing him along in her plans. Due to this coolness, many called her a highlight of the season and disliked Hector. This is despite her being a cruel and manipulative woman who openly states she intends to sexually abuse him, though we don't know if she actually went through with it.
• No Yay:
  • At first glance, it seemed like Carmilla and Hector were going to have a Mistress and Servant Boy dynamic, what with her buttering him up to slowly becoming her ally in overthrowing Dracula. But then the other shoe drops and it becomes blatantly clear that she doesn't see him as anything other than pet. And then the second season ends with her literally beating Hector to a bloody pulp for simply questioning her.
  • The aforementioned subtext between Carmilla and Hector ends up becoming straight text with him and Lenore. Lenore takes an immediate interest in Hector but relishes in the Power imballance of their position. She ends up slowly Gaslighting him throughout the third season to make him co-dependent on her and tricks him into becoming her Sex Slave.
  • Many interpreted Alucard's relationship with Taka and Sumi as having a parental aspect to it. Hence, when they seduce an emotionally-damaged Alucard in an attempt to kill him, it's far more disturbing than it is sexy.
• Older Than They Think:
  • This series has been criticized for introducing supposed anti-Christian themes in a setting that's supposedly free from it.^note Not helped by Warren Ellis' own history with anti-church sentiments, or the fact that Sypha has been retconned from being a Christian mystic to being from a group stated to be hated by God. In actuality, holy-themed antagonists have always been a staple of the Castlevania games, albeit mostly as fallen angels and other divine beings who serve Dracula for unknown reasons.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Blue Fangs, a higher ranking part of Dracula's horde who spells out in no uncertain terms that everything the Bishop did only served the forces of hell, and God would be disgusted at what he's done before devouring him.
  • In the Season 1 finale, a Catholic priest who is actually good instead of being corrupt makes holy water that helps defend the town against attacks from Dracula's minions.
  • Season 3 has "The Captain", a snarky but charismatic ship captain who manages not only to save him and his crew from getting their ship stolen, but successfully barters with Isaac despite knowing full well that his small army of night creatures could tear everyone apart with no hassle. He also strikes up a meaningful conversation with Isaac, causing him to almost reconsider his "kill all humans" goal, with the Captain being respectful of Isaac's choices even if he finds them odd or unorthodox. He only appears for about two episodes, but he's one of the most memorable parts of the season.
• One True Threesome: Seeing Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard become Fire-Forged Friends through Season 2 has lead people to declaring they belong together more intimately. Their reunion in Season 4, and the fact that at one point Sypha brings the boys into a sort of group hug in order to cover them with her ice shield, has reignited calls for their coupling (tripling?). The fact that Season 4 gave Alucard his own Implied Love Interest in the form of Greta did nothing to quell this with most fans simply adding her to the polycule as a foursome.
• Pandering to the Base: While Season 4 was generally considered a good final season for the series, many fans took issue with how many things resolved too smoothly, and were clearly aimed to please vocal sections of the fanbase.
  • Alucard's newfound misanthropy is completely disposed of and he goes back to being a hero very quickly. In addition, the first thing that happens is that he gets out of the castle and interacts with a new set of characters, assuaging complaints that he was stuck with a very minimalist cast too long in the third season. While somewhat well-received as an Author's Saving Throw, this causes some to see his Season 3 storyline as tossed aside almost entirely, with no attempt to give it more value or weight.
  • Isaac is a fan-favorite Villain Protagonist, seen as sympathetic and cool. By Season 3, many were Rooting for the Empire despite the fact he consistently slips back into his destructive ways. Season 4 has Isaac resolve this issue in two discussions, one with Flyseyes and the other with himself, deciding it's time to rebuild and repair everything, cleanly resolving any issues about his morality by pitting him solely against the much worse Carmilla, and having him wrap up his plans after becoming ruler of Styria with no further conquest. This makes those already rooting for him very happy at the expense of making him a true Karma Houdini and upsetting those who had come to find him Unintentionally Unsympathetic. Not helping was the fact many felt the season underutilized him.
  • Hector's storyline was among the most divisive in the show due to how much of it was his endless suffering with him being incompetent and manipulated throughout much of his screentime. Season 4 alleviates this in his very debut, as Lenore is shown to care about him, her talk of him being a Sex Slave is never brought up, the slave ring he was given doesn't even work as it was supposed to, and he develops into The Chessmaster very quickly. While this satisfies fans of the character who'd stuck with his storyline and didn't want to see him suffer any longer, it also means that one of the darkest, most tense plotlines in the series ended up resolving almost entirely without tension.
  • Lenore quickly got a pretty leather dress from much of the fanbase due to her charm and attractiveness, despite emotionally abusing Hector, having dubiously consensual sex with him to trick him into swearing an oath to her, and threatening to make him her Sex Slave, clearly pleased by her own handiwork. Season 4 goes to a great extent to depict Lenore sympathetically, with her relationship with him being shown to be mutually loving, the Sex Slave idea never even touched upon, and Lenore herself legitimately turning out to be A Lighter Shade of Black as she claims, ultimately going out completely on her own terms in an Alas, Poor Villain moment. While this pleased those who love Lenore, think she was sympathetic, and/or ship her with Hector, it came off as Romanticized Abuse and Double Standard Rape: Female on Male to those who felt it was a convenient retcon to cash in on her fan-favorite status.
  • Season 4 has much, much more action and the plot moves extremely quickly. Earlier seasons were criticized for the lack of action and slow plot progression, whereas Season 4 has a full action scene in almost every episode and a much quicker, simpler plot with far fewer twists and turns. Also, fans who complained about the Adaptational Wimp treatment many characters received (in particular, Trevor) were treated to a season in which all of the protagonists Took a Level in Badass. Vampires and night creatures pose so little threat to them in this season, that Trevor and Sypha engage in idle banter while in battle, only marginally being challenged by the fact that they're both completely exhausted and Alucard is total wreck. While this makes the fighting look much cooler, it also diminished any sense of danger save for a few exceptional opponents.
  • Perhaps the biggest and most visible point is that the show in general goes extremely far to discard its Too Bleak, Stopped Caring reputation. The main characters become much more proactive, multiple villains are made more sympathetic, the horrific experiences the cast went through last season are mostly written off to keep the story from becoming too dark, and despite the show's nature as a tragedy, the sheer number of cast members, hero and villain alike, who get happy or bittersweet endings is massive, being Trevor, Sypha, Alucard, Isaac, Hector, Morana, Striga, Greta, Lisa, and even Dracula himself. While many fans welcome the change of tone and were overjoyed at the characters they'd come to love not having to endure yet more pain, some feel everything resolves too cleanly and makes the show's dark and morbid nature feel inconsequential.
• Replacement Scrappy: Greta for two seperate characters. She's first seen as an inferior replacement for Grant Danasty, the fourth and frequently forgotten fourth hero from Castlevania 3 who was explicitly not included because Warren Ellis didn't like the character. This made fans feel as if he had been unfairly replaced by an original character that could have easily just been him, and despite the creators claims that Greta wasn't intended as a reference to Grant fans remain unconvinced. The second character is Maria Renard, as Greta gets various Ship Tease moments with Alucard that made fans feel that she was a shoehorned in love interest that undermines the connection he had with Maria in the games, be it romantically as the pairing is among the most popular in the game's fandom, or platonically as canonically Maria is the catalyst for him living a semi normal life.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Dracula is given a sympathetic backstory and makes a good case against mankind. So much so that many fans actually rooted for him.
  • The same applied come Season 3, with many rooting for Isaac even as he grew more evil, mainly due to his One-Man Army status and sympathetic qualities. It doesn't hurt that he comes across as a bit less evil than Carmilla and her council. Season 4 proceeds to completely vindicate this, surprisingly enough, as Isaac ultimately abandons his endgame of human destruction after giving it some thought, takes Styria, and is essentially one of the season's heroes alongside Hector.
• The Scrappy: No characters are hated so much as Sumi and Taka. Many feel that their existence in the plot is completely redundant, and that their seduction/assault and attempted murder of Alucard were extremely uncomfortable and completely unexpected and pointless, leading to Alucard just being in a worse place than he was at the series' beginning with their motivations being considered rather nonsensical and petty for a series which otherwise does well with character motives. Overall, they're considered the show's weakest written characters.
• Seasonal Rot: A fairly common opinion among fans is that Seasons 1 and 2 are generally pretty good, while Seasons 3 and 4 suffer from a quality decline in writing and storytelling. Season 3 is regarded as the weakest of the 4 seasons and while Season 4 is generally considered to be an improvement over Season 3 and a good final season, it was still seen as weaker than the first 2 seasons.
• Signature Scene: Dracula's Villainous BSoD ("I'm killing my boy.") is considered the moment that stands out the most in Season 2, and probably the entire series so far.
• Slow-Paced Beginning:
  • There's quite a lot of exposition in Season 1, with the first two episodes mostly being dedicated to Worldbuilding. The third episode picks up about halfway through and the fourth is almost entirely action, making up for this.
  • Season 3 has also suffered from this to an arguably bigger extent as, aside from a few low-stakes fights and one-sided battles, the first eight episodes are filled with tons of exposition without much being done until the final two episodes where it truly kicks into high-gear.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Before this show came out, Warren Ellis wrote G.I. Joe: Resolute, similarly an Animesque cartoon miniseries adapting a property aimed at kids in a grittier, darker and more explicitly violent way than the original media was, with those who had grown up with it being a big part of the target audience. Ellis was also similarly unfamiliar with the source material when he was approached to write and similarly opted to go for a Broad Strokes approach with the setting and characters instead of being a stickler for copying the previous media. So the show can be considered a successor in spirit for it, though being stuck in Development Hell for years meant that Ellis had finished the script for at least the equivalent of Season 1 (which was going to be an animated movie, the first of a planned trilogy covering Dracula's Curse) before Resolute came out.
  • A lot of fans of Berserk would consider this to be a better adaptation of its themes and tone than the official anime released in 2016. A comparison that grew in Season 4 with the showing of Striga's 'day armor,' which bears a certain resemblance to the Berserker Armor from the series.
• So Okay, It's Average: The consensus of Season 3 to those who are more merciful to it. It has some especially good animation and shout-outs to the games, but has a lot of filler episodes resulting in the story not advancing as much as previous seasons. It has also faced heavy criticism for being needlessly dark and pessimistic. It especially compares poorly to the following Season 4 which had much tighter writing and a more idealistic tone.
• Squick:
  • The "threesome" scene in Season 3. Setting aside that watchers of Season 2 already know that Alucard is really a boy in a man's body, despite the fact that it was confirmed via twitter that Sumi and Taka are not brother and sister, the situation is noticeably uncomfortable due to them taking advantage of Alucard's emotional state. It is a messed up scene all around that many agree is completely unnecessary.
  • Similarly the sex scene between Hector and Lenore also quickly veers into it. While initially on a consensual basis, it ends with Lenore taking advantage of Hector now in a vulnerable state to slip a slave ring on his hand and "bind" him to her. The kicker is this scene plays out concurrently with the aforementioned threesome. And while Alucard ultimately kills Sumi and Taka, Hector is still Lenore's slave by season's end and she states that he is very much going to get used for sex as well.
  • Alucard mentioning that his pee is coming out as scabs and wax in the first episode of Season 4. We don't see it, but the image it brings to mind is by no means pleasant to think about.

T-W

• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Besides Godbrand and Carmilla, none of Dracula's other vampire generals get any form of backstory or spoken dialogue. They're never even referred to by name, and only serve as cannon fodder once the heroes storm Dracula's castle. Season 3 gives some posthumous character (and a name) to one of his generals, a woman named Cho. But not much (she's just a cruel, evil ruler and nothing much beyond that) and she's still dead.
  • This can also apply to Godbrand himself, as the only other vampire general next to Carmilla to actually speak and have personality, but he is killed by Isaac only four episodes in and doesn't get to fight or even see the heroes.
  • The entire Sisterhood of Styria ends up barely relevant in Season 4 despite being hyped up as the new vampiric power in Europe throughout Season 3. Dissent is suddenly grown between four despite the previous season making such a show out of them being True Companions. Carmilla throws out her previous ambition and is now hellbent on world domination while the other three have grown disillusioned with her. Worse, this happens and largely wraps up halfway through the season.
  • Isaac was largely the fan-favorite character of the series and he does not come out unscathed in the final season. After the third season spent the entire time with him grappling over whether to become Dracula's Dragon Ascendant or not, apparently he made his resolution to fight for peace entirely off-screen. He kills Carmilla half-way through the season, opts to take over her castle to build a new kingdom, and is effectively written out for the remainder of the story. This is all despite him making peace that Dracula should not be resurrected and yet he learns that there is a plot of former followers trying to do so.
  • Complaints about Grant Danasty being Adapted Out despite his decent popularity among game fans and the reasoning for it (that a character archetype like him wouldn't fit in the landlocked Wallachia) was met in Season 3 with the "Pirate of the Roads", who attached wheels onto his boat. While that sounds like potential for a fun character who is equal parts crazy and awesome, the pirate never appears in-person and is relegated to merely being mentioned in passing, which is particularly upsetting for fans of Grant.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The series glosses over Lisa and Dracula's relationship as it develops from an apprenticeship to a marriage, and eventually to a family. While we can see why Dracula fell for Lisa, due to her kindness, wit and bravery, it would have been cool to see her learning more science and Alucard's childhood. In addition, we don't really get a good look at the relationship between Dracula and Alucard; the only scenes they share are their clash in the first episode and when the son kills the father.
  • We see very little of Dracula's castle in Season 2 and when the heroes finally storm it, they quickly cut through some minor vampires in the entrance hall and immediately race to fight Dracula within the same episode. There is a lot of missed potential within the Eldritch Location of the games.
  • One especially persistent criticism of the show was not utilizing very many of the iconic monsters from the games. Season 1 was hit with it the worst since outside of the cyclops, it didn't use any recognizable monsters from Castlevania III or even other games. The appearances of Slogra, Gaibon, and Carmilla in Season 2 helped alleviate this, but fans have still been disappointed with how few iconic monsters from the games have appeared and hoped Season 3 will bring in more. Thankfully Season 3 would deliver, with St. Germain and Legion being highlights. Season 4 would also further help with this especially with Death himself finally appearing.
  • One of the major criticisms of Season 4 as the grand finale of the series is that a lot of the threads built up to by the prior two seasons are neatly resolved halfway through the season in favor of a new, last minute villain. In particular, Isaac being sidelined to a fairly marginal role despite being a fan favorite, Hector's enslavement amounting basically to a non-issue that he out-gambits mostly offscreen, Alucard's newfound misanthropy being undone almost immediately, the resolution of the Sisterhood of Styria happening without the protagonists being involved in any way, and several major villains just simply giving up or turning good without any real conflict, have all been viewed as some of the few blemishes on what was otherwise seen as a good farewell.
  • Striga's day armor seemed like foreshadowing that Trevor might fight her and have trouble dealing with a vampire in daylight. The armor was shown for one scene and never again afterwards.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: While the show in general flirted with this from the beginning, due to the gruesome deaths, and the general Crapsack World the characters all live in, there was always hope and the feeling that things would get better, as Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard began to take down Dracula. However, Season 3 seemed to dial up the grim nature of the show up to eleven, with every character at best fitting into a Black-and-Gray Morality spectrum, or otherwise pulling a Diabolus ex Machina at the end, not to mention the fact that no one except Isaac received a happy ending to the season in any capacity (and this is at a point where Isaac, while still portrayed sympathetically, is being set up as one of the show's villains). Season 4, however, fixed this with a constant question of whether or not people, vampires, and night creatures can be better than their base instincts, and it gives nearly every sympathetic character a happy ending that they worked oh so hard to get.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions:
  • Hector's arc is often cited as being one of the weaker parts of Season 2. Fans expecting a classic showdown of Good vs Evil, with the heroes fighting their way through Dracula's hordes to face the big man in his throne room (like in the games) were disappointed by what was essentially an Enemy Civil War that took out the vast majority of Dracula's army and support before the heroes even got there. This results in the main protagonists actually doing very little throughout the season while the bulk of the action is centered on bad people doing bad things to each other. Further, any viewers that dislike Hector for being blindly naive, ineffectual, and whiny compared to his videogame self didn't really care about him or what happens to him. This goes even further in Season 3, where he pretty much winds up in the exact same position yet again. Season 4 is really only where he finally gets to show off.
  • Alucard's storyline in Season 3 is rather disjointed from the rest and ends up as a "Shaggy Dog" Story. Alucard befriends two young people who then turn on him causing the vampire to kill them in defense.
• Ugly Cute:
  • Hector likes to raise and play with zombie animals, which for all intents and purposes, act perfectly normal despite clearly missing several pieces.
  • Season 4 casts a number of Nightcreatures as this trope. Ratko's massive multi-eyed lizards just curl up and sleep like dogs when not in action. A Nightcreature burying human dead acts more like a confused domesticated animal than a monstrous creature from hell.
• Unexpected Character: Hector, the main protagonist of Castlevania: Curse of Darkness in the second season's trailer, was quite the surprising addition to the cast. He and Isaac, the antagonist from the same game, are Dracula's most trusted lieutenants, simply because they are still standing there while Dracula declares war on Humanity.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The citizens of Wallachia are clearly meant to be seen as sympathetic later on, what with the horror and pain they're enduring thanks to Dracula's revenge. However, not only are they cruel and/or cowardly enough to stand by while an innocent woman is burned alive, but they're also stupid enough to go home and sleep when Dracula starts taking his revenge (instead of trying to flee or preparing to fight). With that in mind, it's hard to feel sorry for any of them but the children when Dracula's Roaring Rampage of Revenge gets underway.
  • Isaac in Season 3. He's supposed to be seen as sympathetic in that he is at least trying to find reasons to see goodness in humanity, only to constantly be met by cruel, sadistic humans who make him descend back into bitterness and evil. While this is justified for the final major conflict (i.e. the evil wizard), the first two are because the town guards refused to let him and his monster army in, leading to Isaac slaughtering the local townsfolk. While not exactly polite, it's hard to not sympathize with the guards when the thing they are reacting to is a necromancer with an army of hell-spawn abominations made from human corpses. Still, Isaac acts as though their reactions are proof that they're the assholes, and slaughters every single person his monsters can find. Dracula in the first two seasons was sympathetic (to an extent) because humans killed his wife while he was genuinely trying to change and see the good in humanity. Isaac conversely still has utter contempt for his fellow humans and more or less goes around looking for trouble.
• The Un Twist: Many found the reveal that Lenore betrays Hector and makes him her slave to be completely obvious, with many pointing out that it is spelled out in their very first meeting of the season that she clearly considers him inferior to her. Between the slave collar and her treating him like a dog, almost nobody was surprised that her High-Heel–Face Turn ended up being fake. That said, this meant that many were more surprised by the later revelation that her generosity and attachment to Hector turn out to be just that, with her Becoming the Mask and actually seeming to care about him.
• Video Game Movies Suck: Not a movie, and there have been decent animated series adaptations of video games in the past (mostly Anime), but Adi Shankar flat out declared his intention to "end the streak of bad video game adaptations" with this series. Adi Shankee has mostly succeeded with his goal too. The first season, which got fairly good reviews, to the point where Rotten Tomatoes themselves congratulated the series for being the first ever Video Game adaptation to have a Fresh rating on their site ^note  79% fresh . Praise came for the character of Trevor Belmont being delightful as a snarky asshole, for making Dracula sympathetic, and the action scenes being very intense, with high praise going to the demons descending and Trevor versus Alucard in Episode 4. The second season managed to climb up to 100 percent thanks to it's vastly expanded cast, new and interesting characters, more great action sequences, and a heaping helping of game-faithful elements. Season 3 would unfortunately be a straighter example, receiving positive ratings from critics but being mostly maligned by fans for its poorer writing and excessive darkness. Season 4 on the other hand is widely regarded as a vast improvement and an excellent closer to the show.
• The Woobie: Lisa Tepes, a woman that just wanted to help people with science. The Church manages to catch her while she's alone at home, destroy her equipment, and burn her at the stake without even a trial. She can only scream in her last moments to beg Dracula to not avenge her death, because her executioners are ignorant. Dracula doesn't hear her, due to being away from home, and he avenges her a hundred times over.

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