The netflix series is amazing, Castlevania and Castlevania: Nocturne. A good use of my time. It took me a bit, but I watched it after slowing being drip fed clips from the series. I came into it knowing the videogames, I haven't played them (tried symphony of the night but then . . . just didn't continue) but I knew of Simon, Alucard, Richter, Dracula's cycle of defeat and resurrection cool stuff. I think the netflix series has its own take on the characters, but since I don't know much outside of names, and simple backgrounds I wouldn't know. Either way I love them. Dracula is sympathtic feels wrong to say since he was acting out a genocide but still; his motivation is one that's understandable to the layman. He is just a grieving man morning the loss of his wife an otherworldy powerful man but a man none the less. Then there's his son Alucard (Adrian Tepis) a youngman who sadly doesn't have time the to grieve. The boy who fights his father, the man he loves, the man that raised him, for the sake of his mother's memory. The boy that after the ordeal is scard for his troubles left to flee his home to rest and recover till is strength returns. Seeing that alone made me sit down and say "this is their story" a father and son struggling over a shared loss. Just in the first episode. The first episode alone sets this up.

We get to see what Dracula is like just before his wife dies. We see him doing as she wanted of him living as a "man", walking the earth as a "man", all to better understand them and what not. We see as he reuturns to his home in the woods with Lisa where he finds nothing but ash, where his last act as a man was to die and become a moster, a monster kind enought to warn an elderly woman to leave the country with her family. The Rage he has is potent; appearing in the fire that's consumed his wife demanding to be told of whats taken place. He publicly promises to bring death to all. Dracula is our villain, The villain but even so like I said before, he's sympathtic. We don't get much of Dracula's history. When he decides to do a genocide against humanity the death of his wife was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

I have to wonder what hes gone throught that's made him decide fuck it everyone dies (I know we get to see a bit and He's like Oh "there was a time when I reveled in cruelty" he says this to Issac. He has not been a good man, but wanting to out right kill all of humanity is a massive jump. In the example he shares with Issac his actions were in response to disrespect (his actions were still wild but . . . ). He can be crule truly, he is a monster one hunted for generations, but to act to this scale is madness). Its not just his wife's murder, he's tired of humanity, he's accustomed to this barbaric behavior and despises it. Alucard, tries to direct his anger from the entirity of humanity to those responsibe, mentioning how this genocide would result in the killing of innocents like his mother. Only to be met with the remark "There are no innocents. Not any more." that all is to blame since any one peroson could've stood up and said "no, we won't behave like animals anymore" yet no one did and as a result his wife died. She could've still been here or things could've been different if they did but no. Ignoring his rage and the fact that he uses this to justify a genocide; I'd argue he's right. Even if Dracula were to only go after the church there'd be no reason for the population's attitude to change. The chruch did not decide lets hunt for the human wife of Dracula, the church was tipped off to her actions, her act of healings as a "doctor" (whatever that is). Someone who lives by the belifes of the church reported her as a witch bringing us to where we are now. If he were to go after the chruch, then it'd allow for this ingrained behavior to continue. The same animalistic, barberic behavior he so hates, the same ignorance that took his wife when all she desired and done was for healing of others.

Its interesting to see how Trevor meshes with this belief. When we first see him he has no real care or desire to stop Dracula. He does not care, willing to allow the church and the country to suffer from their actions we do learn why, but even so (He's the last Belmont having lost his family due to the church excommunicating the family due to rumors of them practing black magic (more good people slandered by the people and left for dead by the church, how odd) the rumors of course aren't true yet the church did nothing and the same people they acted to protect tore them apart) to allow the deaths of so many would make him just as bad as Dracula (i.e. He's not innocent but in fact complicit to whats going on). He did not unleash demons upon the earth but he allowed them to crawl and feed on humans (crazy how Dracula and Trevor mirrored each other early on, two men broken by the world choosing to let it suffer rather than actively making it better). We understand why, but that does not excuse the fact that he allowed suffering seeing it as just. In that moment he is as Dracula, believeing no one to be innocent to the downfall of the Belmonts. Therefore they all get to suffer.

This changes though, he changes, he chose to do better to stop "acting like an animal" and take responsibly. You couldn't compare him to Dracula after this point at least in this manner.

The sleeping soldier, the first man to oppose Dracula, the only man who understands what hes lost. Honestly he feels like the sadest character. I said before that this is his and his father's story. Like sure Trevor is the one who goes down as saving the world from Dracula, but here you have Alucard. Dracula's son a boy that has to stand against his father, one that is scraed for his troubles (again as I mentioned before). He is hyper aware that he has to kill his father to save humanity and for the sake of his mother, and he laments it.