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.