I could write more about this but I'll leave it at this for now. Any thoughts or reasons for why this idea couldn't work?
I also find interesting to note that Marcel came from somewhere where monsters do not get much credibility from the press. He has a "hunch" and comes to wherever-Ecclesia-takes-place to confirm his suspicions. Then, when he tries doing a piece on Shanoa, he notices there's a press ban on her. Then he's eventually fired for talking about monsters.
If it's that easy to get information about the supernatural out there then why is the masquerade still in effect during the events of AoS/DoS?
If it's that easy to get information about the supernatural out there then why is the masquerade still in effect during the events of AoS/DoS?
“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”
In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency in order to mentally function in the real world. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable, and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance. This is done by making changes to justify their stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance, or by actively avoiding social situations and/or contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance.
If it's that easy to get information about the supernatural out there then why is the masquerade still in effect during the events of AoS/DoS?
The reason the masquerade is still present well into the 21st century is because time and time again, people (not just the Church, but people) saw the truth and decided they wanted no part of it. They chose, as a society, to forget. To rationalize things until the cognitive dissonance was eliminated.
Of course Soma thought Dracula was made up. He grew up among a society that had chosen to believe that. And, as PlotTwist points out, there's so little actual evidence as many of Dracula's resurrections are brief and his death obliterates his castle each time that the rest is easy to cover up if you had the slightest interest in doing so. Between the church, which has a vested interest in keeping people ignorant for their own collective sanity, and people themselves, who would rather be ignorant than live in fear, it's not hard to see how the masquerade manages to keep reestablishing itself.
At a certain point, the games never denied it's somewhat easy to get info on these creatures. So I'd wager it's much more a case of denial than of impossibility. Also a case of being at the right place at the right time to witness the supernatural (Soma climbing temple stairs at the exact moment of an eclipse). Keep in mind that this is a world where "all religions are real". The Abrahamic god seems to be as real as Amaterasu. As Lumi said, there comes a point where you gotta choose what to believe, and all the rest is denied (these things becoming "demons" or "illusions" or "con artists" etc etc the human mind is really creative when making up excuses).
Also, when you start fictionalizing stuff, it gets discredited. So, like X said, if the truths you expose are made to look like insane ramblings or products of flimsy research, people stop believing you.
Or we can also argue that there is a magical "mist" that distorts the minds of normal humans ala the Percy Jackson book series.
Going with your explanation creates a weird situation where humanity is perfectly fine at first with believing in the existence of all kinds of magical beings, and then suddenly they are not.
This is just my opinion but regarding the deniability argument, doesn't that run counter to history? Like I mentioned above, most of what is regarded today as supernatural was considered to be very much real in the past, up to the point that the existence of certan magical creatures was part of scientific consensus. But then, somehow, people started disbelieving for no particular reason?
About the religion thing, needless to say religions often clash in real life, but there's no reason for say a Christian, after having seen Odin's horse Sleipnir, to deny its existence just because it's part of a different religious tradition.
That might be a viable short-term strategy but once the number of such reports would rise it would become more and more suspicious when these keep being discreted.
I think it's fair to say that, in real life, the reason most paranormal happenings are dismissed as insane ramblings or products of flimsy research is because they are insane ramblings or products of flimsy research. I would imagine this isn't the case in an universe in which the supernatural is very much real.
This is possible but then why the need for press bans and for the Church to cover everything up? Also, how could things "leak out", like Graham said, if something as powerful as the mist is at work? However, it would help explain some of the more severe masquerade breaking events in the series.
dracula a big dood
too big to exist
But that is how it happens on the CV world, isn't it? Soma doesn't believe supernatural stuff until he has a hands on experience with it, DESPITE the world teeming with this around him. He believes it only when he has NO CHOICE but to believe it.
Of course it doesn't run counter to history. I don't know where in the world you live, but where I live, the supernatural is common sense; Most people believe in stuff such as "miracles" and "prophets". Churches amass thousands of followers. The deeper you go inside a given state, the more ludicrous stories about supernatural sightings become. It's EXTREMELLY rare to find someone who doesn't believe to have seen or interacted with some sort of supernatural phenomena.
The emergence of humanism did jack squat to these people.
lol do you even Christianity? :P
When I say "denial" I don't always mean "the individual completelly refuses X exists". I also mean "the individual interprets that as another thing that better fits what they already believe". So, in a Christian's case: He can see Sleipnir and accept it exists.... But not as Odin's horse, but as an illusion of Satan or a demon from Hell. So, instead of starting to believe that Odin (or at least his horse) is real, this hypothetical Christian will return to his church, share what he saw with his brothers and sisters, and that will become the story of "Joe who saw a demon horse with eight legs" and not of "Joe who saw Sleipnir and found evidence Odin is maybe real".
Risking the biggest fedora-tipping this forum has ever saw: The biggest religions' bread and butter is saying that "that other god/spirit over there" is not real. No matter what you see, it's a lie made up by [respective religion final boss] to make you stray from god's teachings -- the only reality is what their respective holy scripture says. The Bible itself classifies many other gods as demons, for instance.
And in the CV universe that does not seem to be that much different, either... I doubt Juste Belmont ceased to be a Christian after verifying for a fact that Asura and Garuda are real, or Richter ceased to be Christian after verifying for a fact that four chinese animal gods can make you indestructible. How do they both rationalize these phenomena when their belief system says that those shouldn't exist? Hell, in the CV world there is an entire INSTITUTION founded on precepts saying that much of what they see shouldn't even exist.
These people are called, on our world, conspiracy theorists. Some conspiracies have thousands of followers -- does nothing to change the status quo. It's obvious that there are many who know the supernatural is real in the CV world -- this would still not be enough to convince others. You might argue that, different from our world, in the CV world you can actually gather evidence, but I raise you this: The theorists of OUR world also have "evidence". What do we do at this evidence? We ignore it.
You're arguing that it's not hard to proof the existence of the supernatural in the CV universe and that a large reason for this is because people don't want to open their eyes to the truth.
My problem with your argument is this: you're starting from a position of "some people just don't believe in the supernatural, and wouldn't believe it even if the evidence stares them in the face", which only works in a world where magic doesn't actually exist.
People really want to believe in the supernatural and they don't stop until a total lack of evidence makes them, and then only grudgingly. If there is actual evidence then there would be no reason for unbelievers like Soma to be a thing. Yet, somehow this isn't the case. Meaning there must be a very damn good reason why the existence of the supernatural is disputed in CV's version of the modern era. And you can't explain this soley with the deniability argument or coverups.
But how hard would it really be to take a good, unambiguous photo of a supernatural being in the CV universe?
OK no, that's not what I said. I might have misrepresented myself somewhere. If so, apologies -- may this answer stand as the "canon" version of my thought process:
I DON'T think it's so easy to prove the supernatural in the CV universe, for many reasons: Enemies burst into flames leaving nothing behind, the Church has a stranglehold on information, it has agents to go and do "cleaning up", merely witnessing these monsters and escaping alive to tell the tale is in itself a feat not easily accomplished (unless you're goddamn Hammer apparently). And that's not getting to Dracula and how that much harder would be to prove HIM as real. And ALL of that ON TOP of people's own biases, which are by themselves incredibly powerful things.
Now, it's still possible. Just not that easy that flipping a rock proves the existence of a fairy. We NEED to understand that OUR perspective of the CV universe just happens to always be positioned where the supernatural action is taking place (which, in most of the games, is somewhere pretty isolated). But it being possible, then there are cults amassing hundreds of thousands of followers, just as Graham's modern 21th century cult.
Also let me say this: Celia summoned monsters in the middle of the street. Once. All of them burning into nothingness, in a battle lasting incredible 2 minutes. This is not something that happens everyday constantly. This is enough to AT MOST become a town rumor/urban legend to attract tourists.
Just out curiosity, how do you imagine Dracula's monsters terrorizing Wallachia for several months and the outside world not knowing about it?
Just out curiosity, how do you imagine Dracula's monsters terrorizing Wallachia for several months and the outside world not knowing about it?
Imagine proving to the entire world Dracula is real when not even the people who live around his castle and the destruction he causes can remember him for 100 years.
give them fake human forms and dress them in armor, maybe?
i mean it worked for griffith
The fact that people remember is also supported by canon. For example, the All About Akumajou Dracula guide mentions that for the village people who live in the area, Dracula is more than just a legend. And this makes a lot of sense when you take into account what I mentioned above. People within Wallachia are very much aware about what's going on, it's the people from outside that don't know.
Therefore, even if the Church would start rewriting history by inventing this Vlad Tepes individual right away, they still would have to forge documents about his earlier life (from 1431 to 1476).
After all Vlad Tepes didn't just pop into existence in 1476.
How about this idea: the reason the Church was able to cover up the 1476 incident was because all of the local population at that time was illiterate, with only Church officials being to able to read or write.(I'm sure that's not historically accurate at all but Castlevania is very flexible when it comes to the finer details). The only thing the Church then had to do is order one or two people from their ranks to compile an "official history" of the area, leaving out all about Dracula and so on. At that point, it would be a case of written accounts vs oral tradition, and of course all the "rational" people would favor the former. That would seem like simple, elegant solution.
I would personally prefer such an explanation above attributing Illuminati-level capabilities to the Church. That would just suspend disbelief to the breaking point.
.........but I thought we all agreed on that?
I mean, the people are already very religious and supersticious, and in dire need of guidance. Any Church official with a basic knowledge of manipulation could easily convince these people that there weren't monsters and they were just mistaking warriors for monsters on a moment of terror, or could say those were illusions (think the Pharaoh's magicians trying to debunk Moses, but without Moses actually being there to debunk them back). The Church could try a myriad of things here to guide the "sheeple" to the "truth". Hell, they were killing innocents thinking women such as Lisa were witches. They were ALREADY being manipulated by the forces of darkness into seeing things were there was none.
>calling cv3 the demon castle war
burn the apostate for this sacrilege
There is no such thing as a foolproof cover-up.
In the words of Benjamin Franklin, three people can keep a secret... if two of them are dead. The people involved in cover-ups are still individuals with their own motivations and ideals. People get guilty consciences, or they decide there's something to be gained by coming forward to another party, or the stress of keeping a secret just gets to be too much. People also get sloppy and make mistakes, and sometimes tying up each and every loose end is simply impossible. And the more people that are involved in a cover-up, the higher the odds are that someone will slip up or spill the beans - and it potentially only takes one person to send the whole thing crashing down. There have been many instances of attempted cover-ups coming down thus.
A January 2016 paper published by Dr. David Robert Grimes shows just how fragile conspiracies and cover-ups really are, especially when large numbers of people are involved. An article that sums up the results of the paper, along with a link to the paper itself, can be found here (http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-01-26-too-many-minions-spoil-plot). Grimes's numbers show that it's not a matter of if a conspiracy or cover-up gets exposed, but when - especially if you have hundreds or more people involved.
i would say 1999 was big enough to pretty much break the secret and "normalize" the existence of the supernatural to most of the world--perhaps this explains why celia summons shit in a city in broad daylight and it's fine; maybe by that point in time people know about it enough that monsters running amok would be regarded not unlike a riot or localized terrorist attack today
Yeah I know what your saying, I think its a shame cos I feel that the whole Dracula thing should be under raps and only a few know of it. there would be some who have herd of the legend of the Belmont's fight against Dracula. and they would try to uncover it, sort like an investigative journalist, or some sort of Folklorist who is trying to uncover the legends.
But yeah, and Soma seem to know who Dracula is as well, I mean you could put that down to him just knowing the legends but still, it does point to the fact that the battle of 1999 uncovered the whole thing.
There could also be public knowledge due to Nostradamus' prophecy for 2035.
i would say 1999 was big enough to pretty much break the secret and "normalize" the existence of the supernatural to most of the world--perhaps this explains why celia summons shit in a city in broad daylight and it's fine; maybe by that point in time people know about it enough that monsters running amok would be regarded not unlike a riot or localized terrorist attack today
That would be an interesting background setting to have. On the other hand, that doesn't really fit with what is implied between Graham and Soma's dialogue in AoS. (Graham asks if Soma believes in vampires and replies something like: "Isn't that just fiction?") Unless every supernatural creature except vampires are considered to be normal in Soma's world, but that would be weird.
None if this changes that Graham amassed a cult following; a man who believed he was Dracula reincarnate
You know, now that I think about it, it's only AoS that ever suggested there was ever any kind of masquerade in place. Most likely because Soma is the only protagonist who is supposed to be your average Joe-type of character. No other games (aside from some implications from the OoE) ever bothers to address this. Which is actually fine but I suppose that's why there are so many events in the series that are just impossible to keep under wraps. It simply wasn't a thing the story writers concerned themselves with.
Which brings me to the following thought: wouldn't it be easier to just say that in the CV universe there is a general awareness of the supernatural but it's still rare and nobody really knows much about it? You don't want a setting where magic and monsters are completely normal because the history of the CV universe is still roughly parallel to our own. But perhaps it could be more along the lines: "Yeah, all these unbelievable things are real but it almost never impacts normal life, and almost no one can manipulate magic well enough to receive any kind of benefit from it, so people are fine with letting hunters take care of any supernatural threats." That way, you don't have to come up with some kind of contrived reason events like ghost castles materializing above London, etc. always manage to completely pass under the radar , while at the same time allowing a fantastical and a (relatively) relatable world to coexist.
I'm not sure it any other piece of media has a setting like that but it would make sense to apply it when a lot of blatant supernatural shenanigans occur in the story (like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example), moreso than a masquerade.