Castlevania : Season 1 Discussion
Videogame adaptations are one of the trickiest to do. Whether be
it making a movie based off a game(almost all of which haven’t been popular at
all) or a TV show. This is one of the few uncharted areas where one has to
tread very carefully. Now here’s the thing. I know about Castlevania ok. I do.
But ask me the lore adnd I ll probably be all like “umm, something about
vampire and monsters maybe,, what about Dracula also and yes the protagonist has
a sweet whip as his weapon”. Yes, that’s how less I know about this game
series. Look now am a gamer ok. But heres the thing , growing up in a middle
class family in India doesn’t help much to this fact at all. Heck while the
rest of the world had their N64 and PS1 we were seeing the magic of NES system games
through the form of Chinese bootleg machines. The games which I remember playing
were those like Mario, Donkey Kong,Ice Climbers, Contra ,Popeye, Duck Hunt and
those types and few ones more. Classics like Street Fighter, Castlevania(yes n thats
the point of my discussion) and so many more were never there. And not to help
the fact that Nintendo has no market of any sort in India so getting the games
from foreign was near non existent earlier although now Ebay and Amazon and so
many dealers here have helped in the fact. But still getting any 3ds or Wii U
games is a very very pricey affair. I don’t even count the Switch as being
available in India at all. I guess it ll take one more year to get any sort of
its presence being felt here which is a big shame, considering the switch is a
hell lot of a lovely console and I would love to play it. Ok, here’s enough to
my rant about the marketing ans economic strategies of Nintendo, lets talk
about Catlevania the TV show and its first season.
So all I know from the wonderful world of internet and its
numerous articles about games is that Castlevania is basically about a guy
fighting monsters in a castle till he gets to fight Dracula and yes that’s it’s
a very very hard game . That there have been numerous instances where due to
direct translation of the game from Japanese a few puzzles were way harder to
solve than they should have been. And yes whenever I have seen that guy uses a
whip as a weapon. That’s all I know. And last week just subscribed to Netflix
and saw this as the trending one right now and decided to give it a try.
Right from the beginning I was blown away, the introduction of
Dracula is shown as someone who was cruel once and hungered for bloodlust. But
upon seeing the woman who believed in sciences and not just myth reveals Dracla
to be rather a man of modern science and mystery. So modern that people haven’t
yet reached this level. Cut forward to the future where she is being burnt for possessing
mystery chemicals and apparatus and branded as a witch in a town of Wallachia.
Vlad Dracula Tepes having travelling the world as a man just like his wife
suggested him to find out about this and furious that he couldn’t save her
appears in the church as a projection. Here I got a glimpse of his powers and
also the lovely artwork being a sorta fusion of gothic and anime type. Giving
the people of Wallachia one year to leave the country or else face death from
the depths of hell sent from his hands. And someone off screen tries to stop
but is shown being attacked by him. Episode 2 sets up the introduction of
Trevor Belmont and although I didn’t like the character at first he gets
likeable as the episode progresses. Being excommuned by the church for dealings
in “black magic” he believes that there is no point in helping the people
anymore. By episode 3 we find out that Gresit is one of the last major cities
left standing and the vampiric hordes have been attacking it and by the night
it will be a complete massacre. Speakers have come to help the people but the
corrupt church believes it’s their fault and only killing them will solve it. Although
the biggest irony is that it is the church whose fault it was at the first
place. Their ignorance proved to be their and the people’s undoing. Heck the
bishop who was there responsible for burning Dracula’s wife is still not
content and believes his work to be from the hands of god. Trust me I hated
that guy so much it was a sort of pleasure when the hordes killed him by
proving that his work was never that of God and even the lord would have been
disgusted by all the lies and stuff he did in his name. Mind u although the potrayal
of the fact that Dracula is as much
dangerous as a corrupt church was nicely shown that this a world where priests
carry concealed weapons and are not afraid to kill. I completely understand
Trevor’s condition as he’s not interested in saving the people since even if they
were ignorant of science and all and blindly believed the church the reason the
bad people win is because they remain silent. His family sacrificed their lives
and spent generations fighting vampires and monsters so that the people of this
country could be safe and in return just because the church scared of the
people moving from healing through faith to healing from science decided that
the Belmont family should be treated as outcasts. But its what matters is
standing up to the wrong ones and making the people believe in you through
their actions. Its seen at the end when the people take matters in their hands
and kill the corrupt priest. Hey I m not much of a religious person and if
someone finds peace through their faith then and well so but yes blind faith is
wrong and this has been nicely portrayed here. Trevor Belmont’s fighting skills
have been nicely shown and it shows that he’s rusty now but he carries his family
name and the reminiscent of the fact that they were great fighters once is
conveyed properly. The Speaker who is revealed to know magic and helps him at
the end. There was a prophecy that there would be the sleeping saviour under
gresit who is revealed to be Alucard, the son of Dracula and the person who was
injured during Dracula’s outburst and the fight between him and Belmont seemed
a bit overstretched but it was a nice way to end the climax and end the first
season. Yes it was short and I really really wanted more, but I think of it
as movie and it worked out perfectly
this way dividing each episode as a way to introduce a particular character. And
trust me, now I really wanna go back and play these games, heck I’m buying
castlevania for my virtual console on 3DS soon . Although there was some lore
since I heave heard that this wasn’t the Belmont in the original games and all
that , but as a newbie I loved this.
Thankfully positive results and all, Netflix has renewed
Castlevania for another season and this one will be of 8 episodes. Well I look
forward to some more Castlevania lore now.
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