Castlevania Season II By Warren Ellis

Castlevania Season II

By Warren Ellis

So I ended Season I's review a bit early I'll admit but I wanted to devote some real space to Alucard, Dracula, and Lisa's son. Trevor and Sypha find him slumbering away at the bottom of the crypts of the city of Gresit, where Dracula planted him after kicking the crap out of him (He may also have gotten there under his own power.). Alucard doesn't think his mother would approve of wiping out her entire species for the sins of a single group of corrupt old men and made the mistake of telling his father that to his incredibly old, powerful, and increasingly unreasonable face (He’s a good kid.). Which led to the whole getting the crap kicked out of him bit. So when Alucard wakes up he's a bit... Cranky. So after a fight session that also qualifies as a bout of heavy flirting (Seriously, hate-thirst. I was getting kinda hot and bothered.), Alucard agrees to join Trevor and Sypha in their quest to stop a genocide by committing a murder (Honestly, that is often how it has to happen.). Specifically to kill his Father, to honor his Mother by protecting the people who killed her, which strangely enough is exactly what she wanted. Shockingly he's deeply conflicted about this and still has a lot of unprocessed emotions bubbling around in regards to his mother's murder. It doesn't help that despite having the body and intelligence of a full-grown man, he's bloody 10 years old. There's a certain lack of life experience here that only makes things harder for him and even someone with three times his life experience would find mourning his mother while plotting his father's death a little hard to handle (That he manages it at all is remarkable.). This kind of explains his relationship with Trevor and Sypha, as Trevor and he engage in belligerence and name-calling (Plus really obvious sexual tension of the urge-to-hate-fuck variety.) at each other (Remember Trevor's not much better off, having been more or less on his own since he was twelve.) while alternating between coldness and reaching out for emotional support to Sypha, who is experiencing a role shift into the adult in the room (Which she handles very well because while the Speakers seem to have a gerontocratic society to an extent, she is a grown-ass woman.). This is hazardous since up til now she's been the gifted but younger member of her Speaker family. This creates an interesting dynamic because Sypha doesn't become the team mom, nor do the boys settle down into snipping brother roles. Things are too raw for that. Especially when they return to Belmont's ruined manor and start tearing at Trevor's wounds. However, Trevor is just mature enough to handle this and stay focused on the job.

Which is good, because Dracula has recruited a small army of villains to aid him on his mission of massacre. Since Season II is longer than Season I, we get to spend a good amount of time with them, so let's take a look, shall we? First up is the simplest but honestly one of the most fun members of team evil, the Viking Vampire Godbrand! Godbrand is here to give someone we can just flat out be entertained by while being an utter beast (Of all of the Villain Set, he is by far the most fun.). He also helps reinforce that in the end vampires are predators who view us as something to hunt and devour because Godbrand accords humanity zero respect or recognition as worthwhile persons or creatures. He's forceful and cunning and is the first to really see the flaw in following Dracula's plan, but he's also a straightforward, simple creature. In Godbrand's ideal world there are only three types of other beings, the ones you eat, the ones you screw, and the ones you make boats out of to go off and do Vikings things to the other two types. He is underestimated by the people around him and I think he prefers it that way. Of course, that doesn't stop him from underestimating others in turn, which bites him rather hard (Yeah, not respecting the humans will do that.).

Speaking of being underestimated, we're introduced to Hector and Issac who are humans but working with Dracula as his chosen conductors in this symphony of slaughter. There are several reasons that Dracula has recruited them as his generals (Fucking species-traitors. Normally it's class traitors but sometimes…). First, from what I can tell he simply doesn't trust other vampires (I can’t blame him.). Second, they are both gifted and talented men who have suffered heavily at the hands of society and are therefore as isolated from humanity as he is in a lot of ways (They are in fact a cautionary tale in a lot of ways. How someone can be so cut off and alienated from Society that they are easy to radicalize into destructive ideologies. Fascists, terrorist groups, cults. They all preferentially target those who lack communities.). Lastly is their mastery of an arcane art that earns them the title of forgemasters. Using human (and animal) corpses they can create monsters, which may be empowered by demons or perhaps even human souls from hell. There's some debate on that between me and others I'll admit (It’s entirely possible they can use both.). This makes the two of them a vital resource, as Dracula can use them to build large, expendable armies of monsters that can overrun even the most heavily fortified position. This also drastically simplifies his logistics. This is an interesting shift as in Season I, it's heavily implied that he's summoning creatures directly in hell but I'll get to the reasons behind that shift in a bit. Let me discuss our forgemasters separately, Hector is the more social of the two. In fact, he seems to crave acceptance and validation, perhaps because his own parents reacted to his arcane gifts in the field of necromancy by trying to beat the devil out of him and he responded by burning them alive in their house (Can’t blame him for burning abusers alive. But it also leaves him incredibly isolated and needing that connection, which makes him very easy to manipulate.). Dear readers, let this be a lesson to those of you who are parents or are considering it, if your child shows unorthodox gifts, it is important not to react from a place of fear, hate, or rage. Calm acceptance and attempts at positive mentoring will save lives! Possibly your own! Consider this a PSA. This leaves him rather easy to manipulate and willing to believe lies as long his belief buys him that sense of acceptance. It's kind of easy to pity Hector even as you're driven into spasms of frustrations with Hector and his passiveness and willingness to be manipulated (He’s almost child-like in his ability to be deceived.).

Our second Forgemaster is made of more dangerous trauma and emotional fallout. Issac, who seems to be a Sufi mystic (Sufi mysticism is a particular subset of Islam, mostly Sunni, but some Shiite. It isn’t really a sect, but rather a mode. Unlike the externally directed practices of most of Islam, Sufis tend toward inwardly directed contemplation of the nature of Allah, renunciation of worldly things, and purification of the soul.) of some sort into self-flagellation may in fact be the most dangerous individual in Castle Dracula (He absolutely is.). If not, he's certainly in the top three. Raised by an abusive master (And we mean this in the bad-BDSM way. Not the good-BDSM way. In that he both loved his master possibly in a gay way, but was also in a very much non-consenting actual-slave arrangement that violated his agency. He broke free of the Stockholm Syndrome and regained his own agency by, rather predictably, killing said master which both liberated and deeply traumatized him.), Issac has long ago decided that there's nothing worth saving in humanity and is perfectly happy to throw us all in the trash pile. To be fair, it seems that the only person in his life who treats him with any respect is Dracula, who openly considers him to be one of the most intelligent and gifted human beings alive. A fact that humanity may come to deeply regret in the future. Isaac is driven by a need for control and order in the world around him and inside of himself, what's interesting is he doesn't seem disrespectful of others until he is disrespected. It would be easy to dismiss him as a misanthrope but his willingness to open up to people like Hector and Dracula who treat him with respect and dignity suggest someone who doesn't loath his fellow man but is exhausted by the disappointment he suffers every time he interacts with them. Issac is honestly one of the strongest people in Castle Dracula in that he is unshakable in his loyalty, firm in his convictions, and willing to confront the truth whatever it may be. If you're like me, you find yourself both respecting Isaac and honestly afraid of the guy because people like him have no breaks when they commit to something. Which might be why he's not considered an ally but a target by our next villain.

Carmilla is a magnificent queen b- (You shouldn’t use gendered insults.) bastard of a villain. From the minute she walks into Castle Dracula like she owns the place to the last minute of Season II. While Dracula has summoned basically every vampire in the world to his bastion of butchery, Carmilla took her damn time showing up basically being the last major Vampire to arrive. The moment she shows up, she takes one look around and decides that what this campaign of carnage needs is new management and she's available (She is certainly sufficiently competent.). She starts plotting and working every side she can find against the other to undermine Dracula, break apart Hector and Isaac and subordinate the vampire officers to her whims. She also does it with style and aplomb. Part of this is Carmilla's own mental and emotional baggage that leaves her associating following a male with being helpless. Another part is the fact that she is legitimately a gifted and talented woman who is tired of watching people who are frankly less than she is in every way taking the lead because of their birth, their gender, their age, or whatever other reason that gets her passed over (I can certainly understand that. Though no one should go mistaking her for some sort of feminist hero. She is definitely not one of those. I’d make a joke about bourgeoisie feminism - as opposed to proper intersectional leftist feminism - and needing more woman drone pilots, {y’all can’t see it but I’m rolling my eyes} but she’s even worse. She’s an aristocratic feminist and there is nothing she deserves but the guillotine.{certainly can’t disagree with that}). She frankly doesn't care about Dracula's genocide or his reasons, all she is here for is to take charge and pursue her own goals, and if that means burying Dracula? So much the worse for the old man in her view. Because she will kill, lie, cheat, steal, and do whatever it takes to get on top of this heap. Carmilla serves as a hidden danger and complication to everyone in this season because she is utterly and completely hostile to both heroes and villains alike and is damn good at it. That said she needs to be careful because if she rouses Dracula with her actions, he is still capable of utterly wiping the floor with her. Now I do have to make a quick note, Carmilla is actually the name of the oldest vampires in Anglo fiction. The novelette Carmilla actually predates Dracula, being published in 1872, about a vampiress who preys on young women going by the name Carmilla. That said the show's Carmilla doesn't share much with her namesake beyond a willingness to use lies and manipulation, since in the book Carmilla uses those tools to be invited into the homes of her targets as a guest and in the show, Carmilla is all about using lies and manipulation on what she considers a pack of children, animals and dying old men. Which leads me to Dracula.

When we last saw him in Season I, making the sky burn and thundering out with the voice of an angry god, Dracula was full of rage and hate. Since then, all the demonic destruction has done nothing to fill the hole in his heart, rent even larger with the loss of his son. Which was likely made worse by the fact that his son is lost to him due to his own actions. In most of Season II, the fire has utterly gone out of Dracula, we only see some brief embers of it when someone foolishly challenges him to his face but for the most part, he is lost to despair (I mean…). Reacting with barely any energy to his own murderous mission and for the most part only able to gaze into the fire and think about what it has robbed him of. It's here you realize that this rip-roaring rampage of revenge? Is nothing more than an excessively drawn out and brutal murder-suicide as Dracula is practically doing everything he can to dare a Belmont or some other vampire hunter, or someone, anyone to come along and put an end to him! Not that he intends to make it easy for any would-be hero though. Because whatever else he is, he is still Dracula the Prince of the Night and if he's going to die, he's going to do so on a mountain of bodies belonging to his victims. Because how else can he die? (And even if he wins, this isn’t the culling he has promised the others except Isaac. Pairing humans back to reservations where they will be kept in their place as cattle. No no. He plans to exterminate all of humanity, not just Wallacia. He’s had some mission creep. And that means no food. So even if he wins, he and all the other vampires will eventually starve. {When Dracula takes everyone with him, he takes everyone!})

During all of this, the heroes are also scheming to rob Dracula of his advantages and pin him down and kill him. The intrigue is complex, the violence is bone-jarring and no punches are pulled here. When our heroes confront Dracula we are forced to see the sheer emotional impact of the battle between Trevor, Sypha, and above all Alucard against Dracula. The stakes are world-shattering but that's not what takes the forefront in the mind of any of the characters. Because the world is too big, too abstract, and too complicated in the feeling it invokes for any of these people to be willing to kill or die for it. Instead, everyone is here for intensely personal reasons. Trevor is here to prove everyone wrong, live up to his family legacy, and maybe prove to himself that he can have a measure of self-worth after all. That he can live like a human being. Sypha is here to protect her people and her family as well as to fulfill her promises to her friends. Alucard is fighting for his Mother and his memories of family. In what I can only consider a tragic twist, Dracula is fighting for the same person, Dracula is fighting for his wife and his own memories of family and it's those memories of families and what they mean that will decide the victor of this fight, not any magical lore or brute strength but what breaks first; the bonds of father and son or the demands of vengeance for a murdered spouse? Join us tomorrow when I talk about Season III which covers the fallout and sets up what happens next.

Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula Bram Stoker and Valdimar Asundsson

Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula

Bram Stoker and Valdimar Asundsson

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In 1899 a Swedish newspaper, named Dagen (the Day) published a serialized variant of Dracula that ran from June 10, 1899, to February 7, 1900. A shortened version also ran in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladets Halfvecko-Upplaga (Evening Paper's Half Weekly) starting from August 16 1899 to March 31, 1900. Now, these papers were owned by the same publisher and had the same editor. On top of that, The Dagen was published daily for the people of Stockholm, while Aftonbladets Halfvecko-Upplaga was published twice a week for more rural audiences so there was little chance of a conflict between them. That said the two versions would go on to very different fates. The longer Dagen version would be reprinted in Tip Top magazine, a Swedish publication in 1916, and then largely forgotten until the topic of today's review surfaced. The abridged Aftronbladet version, however, would fall into the hands of Valdimar Asundsson (My God. This is gonna be so bad. Shields up!).

Valdimar Asundsson was born in 1852 in the north of Iceland. He never attended high school or university; despite that he taught himself English, German, French, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish (That is actually pretty impressive. Note that schooling back then was non-compulsory and often not free. However, there wasn’t much to do in leisure time but read so…). He eventually became a teacher and wrote a grammar book for the Icelandic language. He also became a noted expert in the Icelandic sagas, creating a popular edition of those sagas that weighed in at 38 volumes. It was on the strength of these honestly admirable achievements that Asundsson became an adviser to the Albingi, the Icelandic parliament in regards to medieval writing (which at the time had to be referred to in regards to things like property boundaries, etc [Iceland is fucking weird like that.]). In 1884 he founded the magazine Fjallkonan (Lady of the Mountain) it would become a leading publication with over 2000 subscribers. In 1888 he married Briet Bjarnheoindottir, who herself was a remarkable woman being one of Iceland's first women's rights activists and founder of the first Icelandic women's magazine Kvennabladid. She was also a teacher and a member of the Reykjavik city council (Niiiice!). In 1890, they bought a two-story house in one of the more fashionable districts of Reykjavik, soon after their daughter Laufey (who would grow up to become the first woman to enroll in an Icelandic university) was born, with a son named Hedinn born in 1892. They got a good deal on the house with mortgage payments not having to be made until 1900 which might explain what happened with Powers of Darkness. The first edition appeared in August 1901 with no mention of the Swedish version, published in book form, and episodic form in Fjallkonan.

The Icelandic version was very similar to the version in Aftonbladet, although it was cut down even more. No mention was made of this by Asundsson, presenting himself as a translator for Bram Stoker. It is unknown if Asundsson ever had contact with Stoker (although not impossible, it is entirely possible Stoker knew about this and even approved but it's also possible he was completely ignorant [It is also possible, given Stoker, that he knew Bram Stoker. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself!]). This gives the book an air of piracy, by translating it into Icelandic without making any deals, Assundsson would be able to keep the proceeds and cover his growing expenses (Only the air of piracy? Arrgh me hearties!). Ironically an issue that the Stoker family was dealing with at the same time. Not that the Swedish versions are entirely without sin, as parts of the story and prefaces would be found to match the memoirs of Lutheran pastor Bernhard Wadstorm. A Swedish pastor who relocated to England in 1788 and became a leading figure in the abolition movement. Publishing reports and engravings of the conditions on slave ships and the general crimes being conducted against the African peoples of the time. It should be something to consider that a mere factual report of how African slaves were treated and what they went through to be shipped to the new world was enough to incite a good number of Britons and others into becoming opposed entirely to slavery (Kinda highlights the moral decrepitude of the Confederacy and in fact, the United States generally at the time, doesn’t it? {Abolitionism grew in the US due to books written by the slaves factually reporting what it was like to be a slave. The Confederate states were so terrified of these books that they banned them. It was bluntly easier for the British because their paychecks didn’t rest on slavery}). But this is a book review, not a reviewer preaches about the evils of slavery review (But it could be… Hell, I could rail about the evils of wage-slavery...) so back to our novel. Before this came to light, many believed that Powers of Darkness was an earlier version of Dracula, one written before Victorian censors got hold of it. That said this still isn't impossible as a lot in this story matches the notes and half-formed written ideas we've found of Bram Stoker’s. Powers of Darkness could be a weird blend of an earlier Dracula, a Swedish Pastor's memoirs, and an Icelandic scholar's piracy (Which would be really cool.). Or it could be just another bootleg, either way, the possibilities and lack of surety give the novel an air of mystery that the more I read about, the more I knew I had to get my grubby paws on it and share it with you, dear readers. So this book was the genesis of the idea of fangsgiving, which was duly approved and supported by our ever-wise patrons (And I for one will follow the collective wisdom of the Soviet of Patrons Deputies. {We’ve talked about this, our patrons aren’t a soviet.} Yet.). Let us have it then shall we?

The vast majority of the book takes place in Castle Dracula and is told in the same epistolary style as the original book. In this case, however, we only get a single viewpoint character. That of Thomas Harker the solicitor sent to that remote corner of the Carpathian Mountains that provided our reigning Prince of Darkness his first and final fastness. Much like Jon before him, Thomas is here to finalize a real estate deal and is confused at how the local people react to being asked about Count Dracula. This confusion makes sense because it's not normal to claim you don't know anything about a guy while practically pissing yourself in fear at the mention of his very name (There are times and conditions where it happens though.). Although I will note to my readers that in and of itself should give you valuable information about the person in question (Yes, and that information means you should turn around and run back the way you came. This has been your periodic edition of How To Be Genre Savvy with your comrade, Comrade Tortoise). The trip to the castle is unchanged. Harker is given a crucifix and people do their best to give him defenses and talk him out of going but Thomas being a good Victorian Gentleman is here to do a job and won't be dissuaded by the superstitious fears of the quaint but pleasant natives. Although he soon comes to realize that maybe when you're in a strange country and the people who live there tell you something is super dangerous? You should listen to them! (How forward-thinking of this Victorian man! Too bad it comes too late right?) It is once we are inside the castle that the story changes and expands.

The Castle in Powers of Darkness is vaster and more populated than the one in Dracula proper. There's the appearance of a deaf-mute housekeeper that does most of the actual housework and although the number of brides is reduced from three to one, the bride we see in Powers of Darkness is a powerful woman with her own agenda and a much greater effect on the plot (Yaaasss! I think the Dracula series on Netflix was probably inspired by this to an extent.{really wish we could have fit it in this month… Actually, idea…}). A blue-eyed blond with the kind of beauty that can stop hearts, she is also a supernatural predator, who can stop your heart in a much more brutal and literal manner. Throughout the story, she stalks Harker, slowly drawing him out to investigate the castle, solve the mysteries within, and expose himself to the risks of those mysteries. She also works to seduce him, to the point that he has to struggle to keep his mind off of her and only barely succeeds at times. Even then it's only due to his thoughts of his fiance Wilma and the crucifix around his neck. We're not given much about this woman, we're not sure if she's a loyal servant (if she is, why does she push Harker to uncover so many of the villain's secrets? Why does she help him lie and hide things from Dracula?) a prisoner in her own right (then why does she seem able to move about freely? [Said Dracula series has it that the castle itself is a labyrinth. A prison without locks.]) or a possible ally (why is she trying to drain him dry then?). Dracula will claim to Harker that she is a kinswoman who was driven mad in her youth (Which might also be true?), believing herself to be her great grandmother. Which is why she dresses like a woman from the Napoleonic era. However, he'll also tell Harker a story about a woman who looks a lot like the bride, claiming her as a powerful member of the Dracula clan, who went out into the world by marrying a minor nobleman. Dracula claims that marrying her was the man's main claim to fame and it's her name that is the only reason this family is remembered (Could also be true. Or it could be gaslighting. Remember, immortal being. Youth is relative.). This could be an underhanded reference to Elizabeth Bathory, a real-life person who due to actually bathing people's blood keeps getting pulled into the Dracula legend (She bathed in the blood of virgins to maintain her youth, you see. She ended up locked up in a very comfortable oubliette, the only human contact she got during imprisonment was being fed.). Of course, he also states this ancestor then moved to France and set the hearts of half the empire aflame, dallying with royalty and even higher before returning home out of boredom and in her old age still being one of the most beautiful women in the world married a kinsman. She got bored of that though and started cheating on her latest husband. Who in response arranged her lover's suicide and then killed her.

It's here that Dracula shows some interesting stances on the matter of martial fealty. He looks down on the lady's husband, stating that as long as the spouse receives all due respect and all duties of marriage are met, that taking other sexual partners should at best be a minor matter (This was normal at the time. {depending on the class and beliefs of the people involved}). This is combined with Dracula preaching an ideology of the strong ruling as they see fit and the weak contenting themselves with following orders and directions (Very contemporary for his… original time.). Dracula, unlike Bram's version, openly holds democracy in naked contempt and states it can only lead to ruin because the masses aren't fit to rule themselves (Fuck around and find out.). Bram's Dracula was pretty apolitical. Now, the audience of the book is supposed to condemn this and see Dracula as an aberration, someone clearly against the values of Victorian England and the West as represented by Thomas Harker. However to those of us who know how the upper classes of the Victorian era actually lived... Dracula comes across as a member of that class who simply is saying the quiet part out loud (Also true. Honestly, the bourgeoisie think this way today. Which is why they must be removed from power.). The Victorians may have presented a publicly prudish and stuffy front in public but once you get into their private writings, they make our society look like a collection of innocent virgins trading first kisses in our parent's gardens (Dear God yes. They were sick fucks. One of the first things cameras and especially movie cameras were used for was porn, and they weren’t above snuff.). On top of that, the whole Victorian world turned on the idea of the strong ruling the weak, that's how imperialism worked! This is without even getting into the frenzied confrontations taking place over the rights of middle and lower class people in the European and American states that were taking place at the time, which many reacted to by preaching a dogma of Social Darwinism! (Which is just a precursor to fascism. It too must be destroyed.) Now Harker is a solid member of the middle class, who for the most part did avoid the hedonism of the upper classes, if for no other reason than they couldn't afford it. As a middle-class lawyer, Harker is also a member of the groups that Dracula wants to suppress. So this Dracula becomes almost an avatar for a reactionary upper class (Send him to a fucking Gulag. It’s ten AM in Russia, motherfucker! {Sorry folks this is an inside joke} From a combined Vampire/Mage game. Do the math.) seeking to suppress reform and overturn any restraint on their behavior, and openly raging at the idea that there should be anything between the achievement of their immediate desires and reality but their own wills. If my readers will forgive me for being blunt, this Dracula frankly is a more fitting villain for our own time and place than the classic one. A Dracula declares that there are two kinds of people, one that is bound by the law but not protected by it. Another that is protected by the law but not bound by it in any way. A Dracula who believes that not only does he have the right to prey on us but would tell us that the elites of our society have the right to prey on us as well declaring it to be Law and Order (There is already one law for the rich and another for the poor, we all know it. One law for us, another for the fucking cops. One law for the left, another for the reactionary.). The fact that he also keeps a cult of degenerate beastmen who may be his inbred relatives in the basement that practices human sacrifice doesn't even merit surprise at this point but a muttered: “Of bloody course he is!”.

The book however goes drastically downhill once Harker escapes from the castle. Instead of sticking to the epistolary format, the rest of the story is told briefly with each chapter being more of an outline told by an omnipresent narrator. This leaves you with the feeling that the writer just kinda ran out of gas halfway through the story! So we barely spend any time with Wilma (who is Mina) or the other characters (This is a real disappointment. There was such potential!). Many interesting ideas are presented, such as Dracula bringing together a secret society of upper-class people for some unknown goal and taking over Seward's asylum, eventually driving him mad (Poor Dr. Seward.). What's even more interesting is the hints at the expanded role for Lucy, by having her interact with a group of Tartars/Roma/wandering mystic people who start to show her the rudiments of sorcery and tell her that she has gifts (Sorcery is always fun!). Which would give us a reason why Dracula targeted her in the first place, either out of a desire to own such a person or to destroy a possible threat in its infancy. Quincy Morris is also hinted to have an expanded role, by performing thrilling heroics, like infiltrating Dracula's asylum and rescuing Dr. Seward (Badass {They fucking handle it in 3 sentences. I WAS FUCKING ROBBED!}). Although Van Helsing and Wilma seem to play greatly reduced parts in the story, which I'm not entirely thrilled with. What drives me utterly frothing mad here though is all of this is just sort blandly told, in an ‘Oh Yeah, this other stuff happened I guess’ tone. The wrap out is in and of itself entirely disappointing as well, since Dracula is slain in London and the society he built isn't dealt with, it just sorta... sloughs apart without him. I mean what is with writers and skipping the chase throughout Europe back to Castle Dracula!?! For fuck sakes people, it's a chase sequence, not a poisoned chalice! I mean if the public put half as much effort into following health directives as these writers put into avoiding going back to Castle Dracula we would have ended the COVID epidemic in fucking JUNE! (Woah there comrade, tone it down a little. Besides, the public is bimodally distributed when it comes to following health directives.).

Right. Back to reviewing. Sorry. So I enjoyed reading at least 2/3rds of this book. When we're in Castle Dracula, the suspense is high, the menace and mystery spills from the page and you're drawn into trying to find out what wickedness lurks in the halls and tunnels of this ancient fortress of supernatural peril. Thomas, while a touch stiff, makes for a completely believable and sympathetic viewpoint character, clearly terrified of his situation but steady and brave enough to do something about it. I like that (Yeah, that’s actually a believable person.). I like the care and slow steady unspooling of secrets, the tenseness of being stalked by a person who may be an ally or just a predator playing some bizarre game with her meal. I like the build-up to Harker's decision to escape the castle at all costs as he grimly plays out his ever-shrinking options (Poor bastard.). This is balanced by the utter and complete disappointment and simmering rage I feel at the second part of the novel. There are so many good ideas, characters, and plot points introduced here that are plopped out with a shrug and a meh by a narrator who gives us all the emotional investment of your overly medicated aunt explaining what her least favorite child does for a living (...Ouch.). Look, do it badly, do it well but invest yourself in it damn it, or don't bother writing the story at fucking all! It does leave me wondering just what happened in the Swedish Dagen version that all of this is supposed to be based on? If I could give you two grades for this story I would give the first part an A- and the second part a D-. However, one story, one grade. Which means that... I'm giving Valdimar Asundsson's version of Powers of Darkness a C. It's full of ideas and characters that are worth a read but falls flat on its face when it comes time to bring everything together into a climax and land this turkey.

So this will be the last book for this year's Fangsgiving, whether or not Fangsgiving returns next year will be a decision by our ever-wise patrons. If that's a decision-making process that you'd like a voice in, consider joining us at Frigid Reads is creating book reviews, book discussion | Patreon you get a vote for a dollar a month in future reviews and themes. The November poll is still open! That said, Fangsgiving isn't over, join us tomorrow for Castlevania Season II and Sunday for Castlevania Season III. Until then, stay safe and Keep Reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen
Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Castlevania Season I By Warren Ellis

Castlevania Season I

By Warren Ellis

So Castlevania is one of those weird examples of multiple cross-pollination that our current global structure makes possible. Start with Eastern European myths, add a British novel, simmer for half a century in Hollywood, kick it over to Japan to spice it up with the Japanese perspective via a series of video games, and bring it back to the US to make a television series (The result is basically… a thirsty slash fanfic writer’s wet-dream). Now this series was originally planned as a film trilogy based on the 1989 Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and was under development by Kevin Kolde and his company Project 51. However, events led to the series being put on hold until 2017 until Adi Shankar showed up and convinced Netflix to pick it up as a show and Frederator Studios to help create it. As of this writing, 3 seasons have been produced and released with a 4th season coming. Let me talk about Warren Ellis, the guy they got to write the show.

Warren Ellis, who was born in Essex on the 16th of February 1968, is mostly known for his comic book work. His most famous creation most likely being the comic book Transmetropolitan, about a gonzo journalist in a dystopian future United States (I wonder how close to that dystopia the one we’re currently living in is…{Not very}). He has however written other things such as a hard-boiled detective novel, episodes for television shows, and a large number of nonfiction columns for everyone from SuicideGirls to Reuters. Strangely enough, he never played the games in question but did his research on them and noticed that the creators of the series seemed to be fans of Hammer horror films. Being himself a hammer horror film fan, he leaned into it (So much camp and scenery-chewing!). He was brought in early in the project and has largely steered the writing of Castlevania's three seasons and will be working on the fourth. However in June of this year, a group of nearly a hundred women accused Ellis of sexual coercion and manipulation, including gaslighting, and emotional abuse (And because we believe victims in this blog, and there are nearly a hundred of them, fuck this guy.). Ellis for his part denies any conscious predatory behavior (Bullshit.) but has largely withdrawn from the industry and season four will be his last season of Castlevania, although the production is prepared to move forward without him (Good. No abuser is too important to let go.). My own view is such a large group of accusers that I think these women and non-binary people should be believed and I am disappointed in Mr. Ellis, to put it mildly (I fucking hate that kind of trash-person. Clearly. Seriously, how hard is “not sexually coercing people”? Really hard evidently.). You can read their side of the story at somanyofus.com. Let's turn back to the review.

Season One starts us off with a young woman marching determinedly to Lord Dracula's door and demanding that he teach her what he knows of science. Right away we learn that Lisa is fearless and driven (And I fucking love her.). Even though Dracula is an immortal predator over seven feet tall, she has no problems handing him a mountain of sass in his own damn home (She reminds me of one of my de facto moms.). When questioned about her motives, she reveals she wants to be a doctor and heal people. Now I have to admit that if I had ambitions to be a healer heading over to the guy who maintains a forest of people on stakes on his front lawn wouldn't be my first thought but Lisa clearly is all about thinking for herself. (In fairness, there are legends about his scientific abilities she’s following up on. {There are legends about nazi scientists to, doesn’t mean I’m turning to them anytime soon} Sure, but you’re not living in a medical regime where “take enough blood to make you anemic” is a cure for what ails you.) Dracula finds himself intrigued because... Well, the kind of personality that Lisa has is intriguing and it helps that she's a knockout. So he decides what the hell, he'll teach her while trying to seduce her with his lab and library. So we're given a promising beginning of a relationship that could do a lot of good for the world and for the people in it. This is a gothic horror fantasy, however, so of course, our next scene is ten years later with Lisa being burnt at the stake for witchcraft by a power-hungry priest who is bucking to become the next Cardinal of Wallachia. This goes... Horribly. It goes horribly. You see, Dracula was away on a little trip on Lisa's advice, to see the world, get to know humanity, and see if he could interact with us on a more level playing field (You see he’s never experienced what life is like for actual people, so he has had a hard time empathizing with them. Doing a little sojourn like that would help him see why humanity is so backward, given the material conditions they live in.{He would have been an actual person at one time and it doesn’t seem to have helped} Was he though? It is clear that some people are born vampires.{If he's Dracula he was born a human, this is also game lore}). How anyone would mistake him for a normal man given that he's like seven feet tall and has pointed ears and teeth that could rip out a yak's throat is beyond me but I'm in favor of anything that keeps Dracula from viewing me as something to hunt for sport and/or sustenance! Well just as Lisa is being burnt alive, Dracula comes home and he doesn't take it well. In fact, he summons a beautifully animated storm to announce to everyone that he is going to take the kind of vengeance that gets listed in Old Testament books. He gives the people of Wallachia one year to prepare themselves, a year in which no one does a damn thing. I mean... Seriously! A demonic face emerged from the sky! The sky turned blood red! A voice thundered from the heavens! You have two options, get the hell out of dodge or start prepping for war. It seems like the majority of the powerful decided instead to shrug and say they were sure it would be fine! (Well, you see, the church says he doesn’t exist, and the church rules the roost with inquisitors and pears of anguish.{See, I don’t get that in the medieval era the church was often suppressed when the inquisitors became a problem for the wealthy and powerful. Hell in Spain, the Inquisition was openly working for the crown, not the church, defying the Pope several times in favor of the Kings and Queens of Spain. If I’m building an army to defend against the armies of hell, killing some Inquisitors is a fine warm-up exercise. PLUS THE SKY TURNED INTO BLOOD WITH A THUNDERING VOICE! FUCK YOU, I’M RAISING AN ARMY!!!} That works in Spain with a powerful monarchy or at least wealthy nobility. I don't get the impression that Wallachia has one of those in this fiction, or if it does, he’s in Hungary or something and the church has been given discretion. There is also an alternative explanation, which is that this is a second medieval period after a civilizational collapse. Say an asteroid the size of Mt. Everest hits the Yucatan again. The global air temperature above ground would be hot enough to burn paper, and there would be an EMP strong enough to wipe out electronics, leaving a rump humanity as survivors and having completely lost the ability to manufacture and maintain advanced technology. Eventually, the knowledge would be lost completely and humanity would have to rebuild from scratch. Religion in such a world would probably be even more important than it is now, and the church would be extremely powerful. ) I mean, I'm appalled when Dracula brings forth the literal legions of hell to wipe the capital city of Wallachia from the map and kill every man, woman, and child in it but a nasty voice in the back of my head suggests that maybe they deserve it if they're going to ignore such a blatant warning. Maybe I'm just an asshole like that.

At this point, we're introduced to our main character Trevor Belmont, a member of the Belmont family, a dynasty of monster killers, vampire hunters, and general badasses. Trevor is a drunk who gets smacked around by a trio of (literally) inbred (livestock-fucking {in-law screwing too, remember?}) hicks but mostly because he wouldn't go all out against them (He was trying to be nice.). Trevor is the character we spend the most time with here and he is an interesting and actually rather complex character. Now I'm going to avoid spoilers so I'm just gonna address what we learn in Season I. When Trevor sees Dracula's hell legion leaving after a night-time raid on the walled city of Gresit, he goes in. He asks around to get information and finds out that a priest is telling the townsmen that if they turn on a minority group called (((Speakers))) and purge them (I use the triple parentheses because they basically get treated like any medieval city facing a crisis would treat its Jewish population.), that God will protect them from Dracula. He decides to help the Speakers and get them out of the city. Before I go further, I want to say this about the good citizens of Gresit. What they're discussing is monstrous and insane but if you'd ever gone two days without a decent amount of sleep, you'll know how they got talked into it. Because what we're seeing is a city that has been attacked every night, homes have been torn apart. Children snatched from cradles and mothers left screaming. We don't see much of an armed force so I assume the militia of Gresit was mostly murdered on the first night. So these people are terrified, every night they literally hear their neighbors and family members being eaten alive by the armies of hell and afflicted with heart-stopping, pants-wetting fear and the fact that the night assaults will leave them in a muzzy state and finding it difficult to concentrate the next day... Then they got this priest telling them that all they got to do is get rid of people they don't really like anyway. All their lives they've been taught and trained to trust and obey men of the Church and protecting them from Hell is literally the job of the Church anyways. This doesn't excuse their bigotry but it does show how they can be talked into committing a crime against humanity and we should ask ourselves if we would do that much better in their place (The answer is “Probably not” as a society given the state of the world right now, and the fact that right now, we have children locked in cages and effectively orphaned by systematic cruelty in our immigration system over a problem that is basically made up entirely. That having been said, I hold that kind of bigotry in contempt anyway.{I’m not saying you shouldn’t hold it in contempt but let's not make the mistake of thinking we’re inherently better people. Admitting that in that situation it’s possible that someone we trust and look up could lead us down a similar path is the first step to avoiding becoming like them.}). Let me get back to Trevor.

Trevor postures cynically and acts like he doesn't give a damn in a traditional anti-hero manner but his actions tell a different story (The cynicism is a very obvious self-defense mechanism.). This is a guy who can't stop himself from trying to help somehow but has a feeling for his limitations and is carrying some grudges. I mean we learn that the Belmonts have been basically torn down and excommunicated (Getting rid of your monster hunters seems like a really bad idea to me but people keep doing it in fiction! [Honestly, it happens to any institution that becomes too powerful or respected and becomes a threat to the established hierarchy. The Roman Catholic Church did it a bunch of times. To the Albigensians, their own Knights Templar, the Hussites, etc] {Why do you always pick such terrible examples? The Albigensians and Hussites weren’t social institutions that the powers turned on like the Belmonts, they were movements to overthrow authority, the Albigenses openly wanted to get rid of the priesthood. This is a valid goal but they were preaching in a period of authoritarian government, to put it mildly! As for the Knights Templar, they outlived their purpose and that made them an easy target. The Belmonts still had a purpose!} I will grant the movement vs institution thing, but the same principle applies. Had the Albigensians or Hussites been a thing in some small hamlet no one would have bothered. The Albigensians in particular controlled the Languedoc, and their suppression of IIRC leads to the extinction of that language.) and that's made him bitter towards society. I can only imagine there's a string of failures in Trevor's past as well. Because while he gathered information and scouted the group, he seems to have come to the conclusion that he couldn’t save Gresit and its panicked mob of citizens but he could save the Speakers (In fairness, it is a much easier task to protect a dozen or so people on their way out of town than it would be to defend an entire town against a slathering army of the minions of hell.). He also seems to have come to the conclusion that comes Hell or High Water he is saving someone from this mess. This frankly tells us that inside of Trevor Belmont is a man who cares about his fellows but has been subjected to constant disappointment and failure. Despite that, he's still trying to do something, and damn if that isn't admirable. This is also paired with a willingness to do incredible damage to his enemies. Using his ancestral weapon of a whip to relieve them of all sorts of things, knives, fingers, eyes. Trevor fights messy, just like he does everything else (And it is very satisfying, and dare I say sexy, to watch. {This makes me wonder just what do you do on dates… (I mean, look, if I meet a nice boy at counter-protest against fascists…)} But then, I am an extremist who doesn’t like seeing corrupt assholes direct the people they exploit toward the throats of innocent scapegoats.).

Of course, the leader of the Speakers won't leave without his granddaughter. A girl who headed into the catacombs beneath the city because of legends that sleeping under the city was a legendary hero. So Trevor goes and finds the girl, exploring a dungeon that is definitely not up to code (They’re never up to code.) but has a hell of a slide. He ends the adventure by adding a Cyclops to his kill count and saving the girl. This brings in Sypha, the mage, idealist, and pretty redhead into our group (She is also ruinously lethal.). Like Trevor, she is intent on helping people and fighting back but isn't struggling under the weight of failure and disappointment like Trevor is. Her role is to basically goad him into more and more heroics (And she is very good at it.). So Trevor is going to attempt to lead a rebellion against an insane priest while fighting the armies of Hell for a doomed city for three reasons. First off is because Sypha won't stop hectoring him about it (And the thirst is increasingly obvious). Second is the Speakers won't simply fucking leave and let him complete his one good deed and he needs that good deed to keep going. Lastly is the fact that the priest in question has offered to restore his family's good name if he simply walks away and lets the Speakers get pogromed, I kinda feel there's a hefty chunk of 'you're not my real priest and you can't tell me what to do' going on here (Justifiably. That priest is a fucking monster.{I was pretty okay with his final fate}). Don't get me wrong, I don't disapprove. I'm a protestant after all and doing the right thing to spite corrupt Catholic clergy is like a huge high for people for me (And I am an atheistic Jew, so fuck those people too. This is for the Rhineland Massacres you schmucks!) I do enjoy the following tradition when I can after all. So can Trevor face off against a band of robed thugs and a demon army? What is under the damn city anyway? Why haven't I mentioned the third member of this happy band of anti-Dracula murderhobos? Well, join me next week when I discuss season II to find out. That's when I'll get into our 3rd band member because he'll need the space.

Now I’m not going to hand out a grade until we hit Season III but I am going to recommend you watch this series. It’s fun and interesting, although I feel Ellis could have done more historical research. Join us next week for Powers of Darkness and Season II and III. Until then, stay safe and keep reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Dracula in Istanbul: The Unauthorized Version of the Gothic Classic By Ali Rıza Seyfioğlu

Dracula in Istanbul: The Unauthorized Version of the Gothic Classic

By Ali Rıza Seyfioğlu

Ali Riza Seyfioglu lived through many drastic changes. He was born in 1879 in the Ottoman Empire and basically lived through the end of the empire (I have no idea what that would be like…). The year he was born for example the first year of Bulgaria's independence and Serbia’s formal independence from the Ottoman Empire was recognized internationally that year as well, although they had thrown out the Ottoman's decades prior. Throughout his early years, the Ottoman Empire went from one of the Great Powers of Europe and the Middle East to the prey of ambitious colonial powers (Which is both a good and bad thing. Bad because they should not have been made prey, good because they should not have been ruling over… well, everything within Janissary range of Anatolia). Egypt went from imperial province to supposedly submissive vassal state to a protectorate of the British Empire. Libya was outright conquered from them by the Italians (You know you’re in a bad way when the Italians start taking your stuff. In WWI, Germany was shackled to the walking corpse that was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Said walking corpse managed to dunk on the Italians.) and then came the utter disaster of World War I, the primarily agrarian Ottoman Empire somehow walked itself into a war with most of the industrialized world (Yeah, that did not go so well for them at all.). I'm not going to get too deep into the weeds of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, it's a deeply complicated subject with a lot of other things happening. Like the Arab revolt, or the Armenian Genocide (Which happened. The Turks deny it and get away with it because they are important geopolitically, but they fucking did it. They deported thousands of Armenians… into the Black Sea. As in, took them out on boats, and chucked them over the side. To say nothing of the fucking Death March into Syria.{All of this is true, but let's stick to the novel}), and more. I'm just going to note that at the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire basically just didn't exist anymore. Its holdings were partitioned off to the victors, a good number of those in violation of promises the victors made to the natives, and the Greeks came knocking in the Greco-Turkish War. I'm not going to get into that war either, just note that the Greeks lost that war and for the Turks, if the end of WWI was the depths of despair, their seeing off the Greeks was the beginning of pulling themselves out of the abyss. Although some ethnic groups will see it differently. Going on at the same time was the Turkish War of Independence where the Turks fought to hold on to Anatolia against basically all comers. They won and the Republic of Turkey was declared and formally recognized by the world in 1923.

At this point, Ali Riza Syfioglu was in his mid-40s and was an English translator working as the head of a branch office of the Shipping Chamber of Commerce in Istanbul, where he translated/wrote what he published as Kazikli Voyvoda or Impaler Prince; which is the title that the Turks gave to the historic Dracula. He would claim to be the original writer which is odd considering the vast majority of this book is basically a copy of Bram Stoker's work (Plagiarism never ends.). I suppose he felt that his changes were enough to make the claim (Or he didn’t care.) and given that the book was first published in Ottoman script in 1928 (being re-released in the new Turkish Latin script in 1947) a year before Florence Stoker passed away, it was never really tested in court. Now, this isn't Ali Riza Syfioglu's only work, he's written about 29 published works, mostly history as he was a naval officer in the Ottoman navy and was trained to have an interest in military history, but also wrote at least six fictional works I know of and one book of poetry. So like many people in his situation, Ali Riza turned to patriotism or nationalism depending on what you want to call it to center himself in the face of the changes and losses he had experienced. Also to recognize the great achievements of the Turkish people in managing to fight off several invasions of their homeland and keep from being colonized by the Western Powers. Who, let's be honest, if they’d thought the Turks to be weak enough, would have done it. That said I don't think the Turks themselves can cry foul too loudly given that when they found the Europeans to be weak and disorganized, they merrily proceeded on their own imperial ambitions and for a time openly discussed ruling the world (And they genocided the Armenians, who look like they’re going to war with a Turkish proxy right now.). I'm not saying this to excuse anyone's actions here, just to note the context in which those actions were taken. Well, let's take a look at the novel itself here, shall we? Warning: I will be including spoilers because the book is about 90 years old!

Dracula in Istanbul is very streamlined compared to the original novel, Ali Riza removed a number of the “side stories” of the original novel, such as the story of the ship that brought Dracula to England or the story of how Dracula basically stole a wolf from the zoo to break into Lucy's (renamed Sadan in this novel) home. I have to admit I'm not entirely a fan of that, but I can understand omitting the boat story entirely given that sailing from Romania to Istanbul just isn't that long and hazardous a trip and it makes sense that Dracula would just control himself until he's a big city to hunt in (Yeah, that trip would be really trivial.). Especially compared to sailing from Romania to London. He does introduce the brides of Dracula but they are left without any real impact in the story as Ali Riza chooses to finish the book in Istanbul instead of having Dracula flee back to Romania. So they show up as a menace in Dracula's castle but are never given a final fate, which I suppose means in this version they might still be lurking in Romania, devouring anyone they catch (Probably. They were really bloody thirsty.{Well, that’s gonna be a problem}). All the human characters are renamed and remade into Turks, although there isn't much of a change in their characters or social positions. Although instead of being an Aristocrat, Major Turan Bey (this book's version of Arthur) is a Turkish officer and the son of an officer, which is I suppose as close as the Turkish Republic of the time could have to nobility. The streamlining I think does hurt the characterization, however, especially of the female characters. In the original novel, we have the ladies spending time with colorful locals and learning some traditions and customs which gives us more insight to them but that's not present here. Which makes the book a bit more... Bland. The book is also moved in time to take place in the 1920s, after the Turkish War of Independence. Oh, quick note, the use of the word Bey is apparently something like the English word Mr. as it is always given as part of the characters name in the book, I use it in the review but I wanted to note that so my readers weren't asking why all these men had the same last name. (It’s a Turkish honorific. Historically, it was the title for a chieftain but it’s meaning has shifted over time and now it is a formal title akin to a Sir or a very old-school use of Mister, which is derived from Master. It is used with first names though, as opposed to with the Surname.)

I have to also admit that part of me mutters in rebellion of the characters being turned into a single nationality. The original book had Americans, Dutch and English folks working together, I kind of feel myself trying to mutter to Ali Riza across time and space “What you couldn't include a single Kurd, Jewish person, or maybe even a Turk from Iraq?” (Well the Kurds don’t exist Viking. They’re Mountain Turks, clearly. I kid, of course. Long live my Kurdish comrades!) That said I can kind of grasp why he wouldn't do so, as this book is clearly envisioned as an example of the Turkish people coming together to repeal an ancient and foreign threat and Ali Riza might argue with me that his life showed that no, he couldn't count on people like the Kurds, Jews, or even Turks in other lands rising up in solidarity with his own people against threats but would be vastly more worried about such folks working with foreigners against him and his own. That said I wouldn't call the book xenophobic; Ali Riza goes to pains to show the Christian peasants of Romania trying to provide Azmi Bey (Jon Harker's Turkish doppelganger) means to protect himself from Dracula even when that means taking on risks to do so. Furthermore, Dracula isn't depicted as a Romanian hero here but as a danger to the Romanian people even when he was alive. A vile tyrant that the Ottoman Empire removed at great costs to itself for the profit of Turk and Romanian alike, at least according to Ali Riza. So Ali Riza to me at least seems to believe that there is a common humanity that people can work together on but perhaps that recent events have shown that the Turks can really only count on themselves for protection. Or I could be reading too much into things, sometimes blue walls are just meant to symbolize that the walls are blue and have no deeper meaning.

That said, Ali Riza does go all-in on the historical aspect of this, with his characters repeatedly painting their conflict against Dracula as the continuation of an old war and the final act in a struggle between the Turkish people and Dracula as an individual, who was Vlad Tepes. He has Dr. Resuhi discuss some of Dracula's real-world atrocities, such as staking captives and nailing the turbans to the heads of ambassadors. I have to admit, I rolled my eyes a bit since Dracula learned to stake people from the Ottomans in the first place (Shh. Just sleep now, the Ottoman Empire was kind and glorious. Dream….{I can see arguments for glorious but kind? Empires do not do kind} Shhhhh. Don’t be a “Mountain Turk” sympathizer. I kid of course. Shout out to my comrades in the YPG.). I find it interesting that he is so careful to make clear that he doesn't see Dracula as a legitimate representative of any rival nation or people. Just as a singular monster to be killed. This may be why he cut out Dracula's flight and made sure that Azmi Bey had no interaction with any of Dracula's human servants or followers, unlike Jon Harker. That said I found the ending that Ali Riza went with, where they just happen on Dracula asleep in the second house they raid and Major Turan Bey lops his head off with an ax. So in this version Dracula never attacks Guzen, Azmi Bey's betrothed, and later wife and they don't have to deal with that whole complicated issue. I also feel that kinda lessens the stakes of the conflict, no pun intended. Dracula's attack on Mina was a ruthless and arguably brilliant action that heightened the intensity of the battle between him and his hunters showing them that he would strike them where they were most vulnerable. This Dracula does kill poor Sadan but then never makes any real moves against the hunters until they find and kill him. Reducing his menace considerably. For that matter, Dracula is much reduced in this book, here he has no mastery over human subjects, displays few of the powers of the original novel, and is often referred to as a coward. I’ve got to point out that cheapening your main villain only reduces the stature of your heroes. Your heroes are only as mighty as the perils they overcome, after all. Frankly, the victory just feels to easy here.

There were things that were interesting to me, such as switching out Christian symbols for verses of the Quran which repeal the undead and I would have liked to see more use of Islamic mysticism or symbolism. I was also glad to see the change to Istanbul and wish that Ali Riza would have used the story to explore the city for us some more. As it stands though, this book is a pale shadow of the original and its primary use seems to be as a moral lesson on the value of Turkish unity. I suppose that can be expanded to the idea of unity in general but Ali Riza, for understandable reasons, was very focused on the need for his own people to stand together in a world that must have felt very hostile to him. The book was turned into a Turkish movie in 1953, with even more changes made. Sadly I haven't had time to watch that movie but if anyone has and would like to leave us a review please feel free to do so. As for Dracula in Istanbul: The Unauthorized Version of the Gothic Classic By Ali Rıza Seyfioğlu, I have to give it a D+. Most of the changes are frankly for the worse and I was left feeling that I would have a better time reading the original novel again. Hopefully, next week when we hit Powers of Darkness we'll have a better showing.

This has been an installment in Fangsgiving, a month long look at Dracula literature. This was voted on and made possible by our ever-wise patrons. If you would like a vote on theme months and upcoming reviews, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads Where your voice can be heard for as little as a 1$ a month! Join us on Sunday for a look at the first season of Castlevania, the Netflix series! Next week at long last we venture forth against the storied Powers of Darkness! Until then, stay safe and Keep Reading!

Castlevania I through III a (very through) guest review

Castlevania I through III a (very through) review 

So as part of the Dracula extravaganza known as fangsgiving, I want to offer my services as a guest reviewer (I’d like to welcome Mr. Davis our guest reviewer! I, your normal reviewer will be here in green text!). After myself, your editor, and our host reviewer along with other friends watched the Castlevania Netflix series I took it upon myself to research and play the original video game series. Now before we begin and dive into the history of this franchise I’ll clear a few things up. I do not have access to the original hardware/software instead I took advantage of steam and purchased the “Castlevania Anniversary Collection” for the PC. This provided me with both the opportunity to play the games and take advantage of things like saving progress which I would not be able to otherwise.

Now to take a page from our usual reviewer I’ll start with a little history lesson (Does this make me a positive influence? {It makes you an influence…}). The first Castlevania game was released in Japan in 1986 and something hilarious I learned is that it was published for the “Family Computer Disk System” under the name Akumajō Dracula. Which can be roughly translated to either “Demon Castle Dracula” or “Dracula’s Satanic Castle” but when the game was ported to NES cartridge in 87 the name Castlevania was coined to conform to Nintendo North America’s censorship standards (Considering we were in a panic over satanic music and games… That was likely a wise choice!). So for the sake of simplicity, I’ll be using the North American titles of the games from here on while I talk about this franchise. The first three games, which have been consistently ranked in the top 25 games ever made by Nintendo, owe their existence largely to director Hitoshi Akamatsu.

Akamatsu stated that he set out to direct the game like he was directing a classic horror film, the visuals and soundtrack were designed to deeply emulate this. In the first game from the very beginning scenes the background and music. The first game is much like a side-scrolling platformer of its day but with a few notable changes, this led to massive commercial success for the original Castlevania. According to interviews at the time Akamatsu was a fan with a deep love of western horror films and cinema, reportedly wanting the main weapon of the Belmont’s to be a whip due to his love of Indiana Jones. Little is known about Hitoshi Akamatsu, beyond what coworkers have stated about him and his eye for detail which had a ripple effect through not only Castlevania but also Konami and the game industry. A particular sticking point in development was the synchronization of what action the player took to what was displayed on screen. Akamatsu is reported to have wanted players with a little practice to feel that Simon’s movements were an extension of their own limbs. This attention to detail is something that I will bring up as I dissect the three games he directed in order with my own take on their review before I ultimately discuss why so little is known about their director.

The first Castlevania game begins with a text crawl describing how every hundred years wicked men with evil in their hearts (their words not mine) chant dark prayers to Dracula to bring him back to life. Now 100 years since Dracula was defeated at the hands of Christopher Belmont evil cultists assemble in the ruins of a monastery to revive their dark lord Dracula during the Easter holiday. Only one man can stop them Descendant of the Belmont family Simon Belmont! At the start of the game you begin by walking up the entryway to the castle, this gives you a chance to get used to the controls and experiment with the whip. Along the path, you can see a variety of textures for trees, statues, the cobblestone of the path, and the burning braziers which you learn quickly give you rewards for smashing. This right here if you can put yourself into the headspace of a kid playing Super Mario which they might think is the most cutting edge graphic is worlds away in terms of game design. The controls are smooth though not as fast as Mario but that fits with how Simon’s walk animation works. You are able to not only move forward through the scene but also backwards as well something many other games of the era did not allow (This blew my mind as a kid and remains a treasured memory). The music has a charming synthesized organ sound to it and the whip animation is frankly satisfying. As Simon moves through the castle you are able to pick up not only upgrades to the whip (very quickly usually before the main game even starts) but also a secondary weapon. This was a unique challenge for the original NES because remember there were only two main buttons and a simple 4 directional control in addition to the system operating buttons start and select. So how do you quickly work a secondary weapon when you also need to be able to jump? Well, this was solved with what was at the time a clever bit of coding using the up button on the directional pad to designate that the secondary weapon should be used. In all, there are several alternate weapons including throwing daggers, axes, holy water, and even a watch that can pause time for a moment. These weapons all work at the cost of in-game currency, hearts, which come in large and small sizes and are dropped by breaking objects like candles or by killing monsters.

The monsters are another subject that I have to tackle because OH MY GOD FUCK THAT RED SKELETON AND THE FLYING MEDUSA HEADS! (Hated those things!) The monsters in this game are varied and unique to the individual levels and the game designers were smart in how they reused multiple sprites and movement animations often by simply changing colors and stats. Something quite clever that was considered quite the twist when the game first came out was the red skeletons that you can easily break into a pile of bones with a single hit and seemed like less of a challenge than the bone throwing blue skeletons. However, these bastards only stay dead for about 4 seconds or so then they are right back up and coming for you. Weird fish people that pop out of the water at the beginning of the game are also vastly different later when they start spitting fireballs at you out of nowhere. The boss fights are usually larger or tougher versions of monsters you have already fought until you get to Dracula… who you have to kill by taking off his head so he will have to transform into a demon and you know what? Fuck it just throw holy water at it till the problem goes away (Holy Water was awesome in the game and I’ll hear nothing against it).

The second Castlevania released in 1988 game is a massive departure from the first game, in terms of format and layout (never got the chance to play this one). The art, enemies, weapons, and music are similar but with a few notable updates in quality and variety. For gameplay, this installment uses a much more non-linear map in addition to a challenging day-night mechanic. Similar to Metroid and a few others the game features a maze-like map that you will have to explore repeatedly to find all 5 parts of Dracula’s body so you can return them to the castle, burn them and end the curse once and for all. There is a starting area where you will return repeatedly to talk to villagers who can sell you new/upgraded weapons for hearts. During the daytime, any monsters outside are noticeably weaker/slower and villagers are willing to interact with you. During the night monsters are stronger and will drop more hearts but the village is filled with zombies and friendly NPCs are presumably hiding. The mazes can get a little confusing and it's possible to get turned around trying to get back to where you need to be. There were reviews at the time that disparaged the game saying it “ripped off” Metroid’s map design, but this is false but without the internet, the rumors persisted. These factors combined along with some poor language localization (which has since been corrected) caused North American sales to falter on this installment.

Finally, the third chapter in this saga is actually a prequel that takes place 100 years before the events of the first two games. You start as Trevor Belmont, the last of an exiled noble house that had previously protected the people from Dracula and other monsters. This game feels more like the platformer of the first game and is actually the direct inspiration for the Castlevania Netflix series. In this game, you have two major paths that you can follow to make it to the inner sanctum of Dracula’s castle with smaller different paths along the way. There are some new enemies and bosses (including a cyclops with a hammer) but the main mechanic difference is the addition of an alternate character. In this game, you are able to switch between the main character Trevor Belmont and one of 3 alternates, and if you switch alternates when the opportunity presents itself you cannot go back. This mechanic actually leads to 4 different end text/synopsis including one for if you defeat the whole game as Trevor. The two alternates that most people will play with are either Alucard the son of Dracula, or Sypha Belnades. The third character who unfortunately does not appear to make the cut for the Netflix series is Grant Dynasty which is frankly a shame (Warren Ellis felt that a pirate just didn’t fit the world and that the name Grant Dynasty was just silly {I’ll give you the name but man it could have been great to hint at him in the third season with Isaac traveling across the sea. Fun fact the plot of crazy monks in a monastery reviving Dracula comes directly from the game!}). Grant is a pirate who uses a dagger and can climb walls, that ability makes some of the platforming puzzles much easier, but not as easy as some other options. Playing as the other characters can also offer some differences to the challenges that the game offers. I can honestly say that with the right spell on Sypha can make very quick work of any boss battle, the spells like all alternate weapons require a pool of hearts to cast, but the weird sphere spell thing that sends bouncing globes of destruction across the screen is clearly the best (I think a Megaman game has a weapon like that!). Especially when faced with an enemy that is very mobile, as they can quickly fill the entire boss screen leaving no place to hide. Alucard can also make some of the challenges much easier as he can use hearts to turn into a bat and simply fly past the endless jumping layers that were popular in this era of video games.

The end of Castlevania III (simpler due to limitations of space on old cartridges) can actually be seen reflected in the Netflix series. If you end with Alucard the text states that he knows he did the right thing but is conflicted about killing his father. Ending with Sypha you see Trevor put his arm around her as she reflects that even though her life has been hard she is hopeful about her future. However, one difference is that while the game states that the Belmonts will forever be honored and respected, the Netflix series is a bit more realistic in how slow the truth of events would spread in the medieval period (We also needed grist for more seasons!).

As a final note, let's take a look back at the release of these games: three vastly different games with extremely cinematic elements were released from 1987-1990 (North American releases). Few games these days manage to incorporate new mechanics as well as a departure in story and style with such a quick release schedule. Unfortunately, video games can be a lot like Hollywood movies, where you are only as good as your last project. So looking back at the director and a strong force in writing these games, Hitoshi Akamatsu, we have little evidence of what happened to him. At the time Konami published the games with directors under pseudonyms to prevent corporate talent poaching, so the actual name of the director was not known till years later when former coworkers were interviewed. Yes, former, after the commercial failure of II and III Akamatsu was transferred to managing one of Konami’s commercial locations (essentially an arcade) before he resigned. After a good bit of searching, I have been unable to find any direct interviews with him (This is a terrible shame, as I feel that if he was given more time and space that we would have seen a powerful talent emerge. We lost out here in my opinion!).

In the years since Nintendo power, Kotaku, Game Informer, and dozens of independent reviewers have regularly placed all 3 games in the top 25 games of their era. Konami has re-released these games several times in collections, updates, and across multiple platforms. These games changed the ideas of what a game could be and if you put them against some of the best-selling games of their era, they are miles ahead technically and thematically. I can't really give them a grade they haven’t earned before (I disagree, it’s your review, give them whatever grade you feel they’ve earned!) but what the hell they all get a solid A (There you go!).

So I’m posting this a day late and I would like to apologize. I won’t go into details but events and my day job caught up with me. I humbly request everyone’s forgiveness. I would like to thank Mr. Davis again for this great guest review and I will note that my door is open for such things, although I should note that I won’t post guest reviews on short notice. Give me a couple of weeks at least to work it in unless it’s something I’ve specifically requested. At the end of this week, join us for Dracula in Istanbul and a look at the first season of Castlevania, the Netflix series! Until then, stay safe and keep reading!

Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992 Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

 Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

So the story of this film actually starts with the production of Godfather III. Winona Ryder was originally meant to play Mary, the daughter of Michael Corleone. She had, however, just finished filming three movies back to back and when she arrived in Rome, she had a 104 temperature and could barely move (oh Jesus). She was told that she would need to recover from her fever before even thinking of working again. Coppola, who was in a hurry because his debtors were at the door, cast his daughter Sofia Coppola as Mary in Godfather III the successful but widely considered worst Godfather film. Francis Coppola survived of course but Ms. Ryder, afraid she had managed to burn a bridge with one of the most well-regarded directors in Hollywood. set up a meeting to mend bridges. She brought a script with her, and as she was leaving suggested Coppola might like it but was privately sure he wouldn't touch it. However, Coppola was a Dracula fan and when he saw the title, he was all in. Let's go ahead and look at our director first before we dive in ourselves.

Francis Ford Coppola was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 7, 1939. The middle child of three, he was a third-generation American, with his grandparents on both sides having come to the US from southern Italy. His paternal grandparents came from Basilicata while his maternal grandparents came from Naples. His father was a professional flutist and when he was offered the job of principal flutist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra the family moved to New York, settling in Queens. Coppola contracted polio as a child and was bedridden for long periods as a result of it. He turned to homemade puppet shows and reading to fill those long hours before moving up to 8mm film. Coppola also excelled at subjects he was interested in but tended to be rather lackluster in other subjects making him an overall mediocre student. He entered Hofstra College in 1955 as a major in theater arts but after seeing October: Ten Days that Shook the World he decided that cinema was where his passion lay. He founded the cinema workshop at Hofstra and contributed heavily to the campus literary magazine. After graduating he headed off to UCLA Film School in 1960, by 1962 he was working regularly for film companies and was recruited by Roger Corman. In 1963 he directed the first feature film that he had written himself using leftover funds from one of Roger Corman's films. It was on the set of that film Dementia 13 that he met his wife. I should note he's still married to her, which is a hell of an achievement in Hollywood. By 1969 Coppola was running loose and would soon become one of the linchpins of a group of filmmakers known as “New Hollywood”. This group would challenge the established system and among other things champion the director as the king of the filmmaking process. It's as part of this movement that we see his greatest works, like The Godfather, or the script he wrote for the film Patton. It's beyond the scope of this review to go into any great detail on Coppola's career, but I'm just gonna state that even if you've never seen any of his films, you know them because half the jokes on the Simpsons and other pop culture mainstays are derived from Coppola films.

Now as always the film will get two grades, the first being how it stands up on its own and the second how it stands up as an adaptation. Now since the movie is almost 30 years old, I don't have any problems with spoilers so y'all been warned. The film starts with a prologue showing Dracula battling on Crusade (Not technically a crusade), only for the Turks to trick his wife into killing herself (Those wiley Turks!  Insert comment about getting away the Armenian Genocide here.). This enrages Dracula who renounces God and is turned into a vampire for it. Which as origin stories go is to the point and makes a certain degree of sense, but if it was that easy to be turned into a vampire, you'd think we'd be up to our eyes in hideous bloodsuckers (I’d have been a vampire a long time ago.  In fairness, he renounced God in a fairly spectacular fashion. {Maybe you should have stabbed a cross with a broadsword?}). The movie then jumps into the plot of the novel, starting with John Harker's trip to Romania, his imprisonment by the count, and his escape. Meanwhile in England Lucy must choose between her three suitors and Mina waits for her husband to come home. Until she meets a dark stranger on the street and starts to engage in an affair (In fairness, it seems to me that Dracula was psychically and perhaps unconsciously manipulating her.). When she receives a letter from an asylum letting her know that John has been found and wants to see her, she breaks off the affair in a spasm of guilt and rushes off to her soon-to-be-husband. It's hard to feel sorry for Dracula though because the whole time he's been assaulting (Let’s be fair, raping.  It was rape.) and slowly feeding on Mina's best friend Lucy. Now I'm supposed to find this relationship between Mina and Dracula romantic but you know what? Murdering your beloved best friend is not a romantic gesture! If anything it strongly implies that Drac is trying to isolate Mina, which is kind of a red flag! Seriously folks, if your boy or girlfriend keeps trying to destroy your friendships and split you away from everyone else? It's a bad sign! (It is in fact the hallmark of an abuser.  There is practically a manual.) Stop romanticizing this! For that matter, there's an implication that he's using his mental powers to push her into choosing him.  This is also really creepy.  Anyways, upset that Mina has broken up with him, in favor of her... You know... Actual spouse (Fun fact for everyone, the marriage between Mina and Johnathon was filmed in a Greek Orthodox church in LA and the priests used the real rite [You’d think the priest would like, change something because he knew it was for a movie, but nope!]. So Winona and Keenu might be actually married in the Orthodox church. Imagine explaining that on the third date! [In fairness, intent matters.  So I don’t think it would actually take. {Most modern Christianity would say you cannot be married against your will.  God won't sanction such a union}]) Dracula decides to finish off Lucy and drain her completely. He does this despite the best efforts of Dr. Seward and Dr. Helsing, who figures out there's a vampire involved when Lucy grows fangs and starts trying to drain people dry (Pretty obvious signs.  By the way, Helsing is extremely happy when he figures this out, and it is fantastic to watch Anthony Hopkins chew scenery.). Despite seeing Lucy grow a whole new set of teeth, the others are unconvinced until Helsing drags them into Lucy's tomb and they see her up and about and getting ready to have a small child for dinner!

The movie kicks into high gear here, with John recognizing Dracula on the street, while Mina stands between her husband and Dracula and frantically hopes that Dracula doesn't mention that they've met. Repeatedly and illicitly. The boy's plot to kill a predator while Mina mopes until Dracula shows up in her bedroom one last time and starts the process to turn her into a vampire. After that, the boys, under the leadership of Dr. Helsing, chase Dracula down to his home and almost kill him until Mina jumps in with a rifle to defend him but ends up doing the job herself and declares that it was Dracula's and her love for each other that saved them both.

So what did I like? The cast is great for the most part. Gary Oldman throws himself into the role of Dracula as if immortality is hidden somewhere in the scenery he's chewing. Sir Anthony Hopkins is right there dueling him for each piece with a larger than life performance that shows just how imbalanced Van Helsing is and I love it. Cary Elwes plays Arthur fairly well but I feel he's kinda wasted here and not given enough to do; the same can be said of Billy Campbell playing Quincey Morris. Winona Ryder does her part really well, to the point that I didn't realize that she and Gary Oldman actually were feuding during the filming (Yeeaaaah.). Keanu Reeves is the weakest part of the cast, to be honest, but … Look, guys, I know the kind of shit that Reeves has been through and I know a good amount of the work he's done for other people. Considering this was the 4th film he was performing in without a break and he was still basically a kid, I just can't criticize him too heavily. Maybe that makes me a crappy critic but it is what it is. His English accent in this movie is terrible though. The costuming is amazing, I honestly love it when filmmakers go all out like this (They did proper Victorian fashion for the time period and social class.  I was impressed.). The armor Dracula wears at the beginning is distinctive and sinister enough that you could have used it for a villain in a medieval film and people would have loved it. The Victorian costumes are detailed and signal the kind of characters we're dealing with. The cinematography is a damn dream to behold, the sets are beautiful and move from the nightmarish in tone to solid and safe and to the depths of fever dream as needed by the film. The only problem I have here is that the writing is, honestly kind of lackluster to terrible in quality. I mean the dialogue is well done enough but considering how many lines they lift from the novel completely or borrow from earlier Dracula films (much as I like Oldman's performance, I think Bela delivered the line about never drinking wine a lot better {Oh Yes, absolutely!}) I would argue that the dialogue was the easy part, it was half-written back in 1897! The biggest problem is the plot which is all over the place. Things are brought up, like Dracula buying a number of houses in London and then just dropped. Relationships are suggested like Renfield being the first solicitor sent to Dracula only to go mad. Now if you're John Harker locked in battle against a creature of the night wouldn't it make sense to find his earlier victim and see if you could maybe get some information out of him that would help? Apparently not! Mina's reaction to her “Dark Prince” murdering her best friend? Is basically a shrug and a meh! Which brings me to the dark heart of the problem in my eyes. The romance between Mina and Dracula is frankly something that works better in the Mummy movies (preferably starring Brendan Fraser, come at me Cruise fans!). Now I'll admit the change from brutal assault to forbidden romance is not an invention of this movie but it sticks out because besides this plotline the movie is actually pretty damn faithful to the novel. Vastly more than your average Dracula film. So we end up with a romance that pushes out the rest of the plot and in my view at least diminishes Mina. She goes from a woman who knows exactly what she wants and is a driving force in the plot, to someone who stands on the sidelines for most of it wringing her hands not sure who to support. Instead of being the brains of the outfit, she's sighing over her best friend's murderer and the guy who abused her husband so heavily that his hair turned white (Yeah, this just… it’s problematic in a lot of ways.  Maybe it was okay at first until Lucy died and then she shakes free of the shackles and goes after his head only to be turned anyway?  Or have it be very clear she was being psychically dominated?). Instead of being the one who pointed out that she could be used to divine the Count's movements, she's forced by Helsing to give that information. All these changes make her more passive than she was in a bloody Victorian novel!

So I honestly feel that how you feel about this movie is going to turn on how you feel about the romance plot specifically and the romanticizing of vampires in general. I hate it. Utterly. So it brings down Bram Stoker's Dracula to a C for me as a stand-alone. I would love to grade it higher but the fact is Coppola made the romance plot a pretty big part of the movie so the fact that it still gets a C from me is a testament to the sheer work the actors, customers, and stagehands put in (I’d give it a B, Garvin hates the vampire romance thing in general. {I do, but I do admit it can work in specific circumstances like a new vampire struggling with his new predatory nature for example} I think it can work.  So while I hate the application here, I don’t hate it generally.). As an adaptation, it's actually better than the standard Dracula movie and if you cut out the romance plot, it would actually be pretty close to perfect. So considering that I'm grading on a curve, I suppose it gets a C+ as an adaptation. I imagine that my opposition to the romance plot is going to be unpopular so I encourage y'all to post your own thoughts, defenses, and explanations in the comments or join us on the patron to tell me I'm insane.

I hope you enjoyed the review even if you think I'm insane!  This is a bonus review that the support of our ever-wise patrons makes possible.  If you like this kind of content and would like to see more, consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month where you can vote on future reviews, theme months and more!  Join us tomorrow as we have a guest review for the first 3 Castlevania game!  Until then, stay safe and Keep Reading! 

Red Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders