Topic: The second most difficult Castlevania thread in history

[theplottwist]

Couldn't Brauner just have placed Dracula's body inside the Throne Room? No idea how exactly he got the remains, but does it matter? For example, it's never explained how Shaft or Elizabeth Bartley got hold of his remains either.

Why would he get those remains if:

1. He managed to revive Dracula's castle without them.
2. He had no intention of reviving Dracula.

Imagine you're Brauner. You want the power of the castle without the owner of the castle knocking on your door. Will you reunite his remains (AKA the evil Dragon Balls) and place them RIGHT where he can wake up and take the castle from you?

True. It's never explained how Shaft or Elizabeth managed it (hell, we can barely discuss how Barlowe did it without entering suposition territory). We can neither explain how any of the other 349723984 worshippers managed it. Hence why I'm saying that Death having them is a non-issue. We know already the remains can spawn by themselves, so Death having them without us knowing how is perfectly OK.

The point I'm trying to make with my OoE example is that the Castle clearly doesn't appear until after Dracula is revived by Barlowe. Meaning it never could have been a requirement for Dracula's resurrection.

And I still think you're reading way too much into that specific line from Death. Too bad Koutei isn't here too settle that dispute.       

Koutei can't settle the dispute of story comprehension. I trust your translation, if that's what you're trying to settle. I just don't think rewording the line actually changed its logic. I'm also not reading onto the Throne Room line by itself, but on the entire context. I'll put, in spoiler tag, what is my exact comprehension of it:

(click to show/hide)

Brauner, using the souls of the dead, revived Dracula's castle [1].

Brauner, then, gained masterhood over Dracula's castle by reaching the Throne Room, thus ensuring his complete command over the powers of the castle [2][3].

Following this, Brauner sealed the Throne Room to stop Dracula from reviving [4] and stop anyone else from reaching it [5].

Upon Brauner's defeat, Death revives Dracula with the remains in his possession [6].

[1] = Portrait's intro.
[2] = Aria defines that to become the castle's master, one needs to reach the throne.
[3] = Brauner has his own powers and can teleport at will. Would take him entire 3 seconds to claim the castle for himself.
[4] = Dracula is too strong for Brauner. Revealed earlier by Wind. He could simply revive and destroy Brauner, retaking the throne. So Brauner simply made it impossible for Dracula to resurrect at all by making the castle incomplete (see Addendums).
[5] = Aria, again, shows that one can defeat the current master and become the new one. If Brauner is not to seal the room away, anyone strong enough can come and kick his ass.
[6] = The remains are consistently shown to spawn outside of the castle. How they are acquired is irrelevant, and Death of ALL people would certainly know where they are.

Addendums:

1. HoD says that the castle being whole on is important for Dracula to revive. "Separated Throne Room" characterizes as "unwhole".
2. The Throne Room is unique (Kabuchi no Tsuisokyouku), and the Throne Room is where the castle recognizes its master (Aria of Sorrow). This could explain why Brauner separated the Throne and not, say, the Entrance or the Stairway or the Tower of Death.
3. The series explains time and again that the castle is connected to Dracula's revival cycle. This point and point 1 seem to be very clearly connected, as Death explained in HoD that making the castle whole again in the case it isn't is needed before Dracula can be resurrected.

[Nagumo]

Why would he get those remains if:

1. He managed to revive Dracula's castle without them.
2. He had no intention of reviving Dracula.

Imagine you're Brauner. You want the power of the castle without the owner of the castle knocking on your door. Will you reunite his remains (AKA the evil Dragon Balls) and place them RIGHT where he can wake up and take the castle from you?

True. It's never explained how Shaft or Elizabeth managed it (hell, we can barely discuss how Barlowe did it without entering suposition territory). We can neither explain how any of the other 349723984 worshippers managed it. Hence why I'm saying that Death having them is a non-issue. We know already the remains can spawn by themselves, so Death having them without us knowing how is perfectly OK.

Brauner wants Dracula's remains because he wants to lock it away so that Dracula's followers can't get to it and revive him. It's the exact same situation as Ecclesia, except Dracula's remains are sealed inside a room instead of inside of a coffin.

[Dracula9]

You don't prevent yourself from getting shot by knocking out the person wanting to shoot you and tying them up in a gun store.

Which is exactly what Brauner would be doing in that situation.

[theplottwist]

Brauner wants Dracula's remains because he wants to lock it away so that Dracula's followers can't get to it and revive him. It's the exact same situation as Ecclesia, except Dracula's remains are sealed inside a room instead of inside of a coffin.

Right.

So Brauner took the remains and, instead of sealing them each into a urn and locking them on the bottom of the sea all across the planet, he locked them all together inside the Throne Room, where his entire plan has a monumental chance of failure if something goes SLIGHTLY wrong and the Throne Room is unlocked. Also, he revived Dracula's castle with the souls of the dead instead of using the remains right on his hands.

The logic works (since we're discussing a fictional character's mindset), but I can't buy that Brauner would be this monumentally stupid.

[Nagumo]

The seal didn't break until he died thought, didn't it? Why would it matter where he would lock away Dracula's body if the seal is broken by killing him? It wouldn't matter because then he would be dead.

[theplottwist]

(EDIT: Never mind, you addressed this in your previous post. I really don't agree with the theory you're putting forward, though. I suppose it's because you're only using secondary evidence to proof something very specific instead of primary evidence. If what you're saying is really true then why isn't that spelled clearly out in the games somewhere? Surely IGA or whoever is responsible for the story must have realized people who may not have played all of the games are not aware of all the story details.         

There's actually a good reason. The game formula.

You'll notice a trend amongst all IGA Castlevanias that the story is basically entirely between the lines. You can never make full sense of one game alone without having played the others.

Hell, IGA couldn't explain on SotN ITSELF about the Demon Realm or Alucard's "holy bloodline" descendence. IGA only finally revealed about the Evil Intent of Dracula on Aria, 6 years after SotN. SotN itself needs lore from other games to make sense. OoE needs lore from a source that is not even a GAME to know why there's no Belmonts. Truth is they cannot show the entire lore on one game everytime they want to do something with it.

This is why there are people like us who can have discussions like this.

My guess, which I believe is rather plausible, is that IGA/his team didn't want to cram too many plot points on their games, since Castlevania is known for gameplay, not story, and this would make the plot too bloated to follow. This was the reason he didn't add certain plot points on SotN, if I'm not mistaken. It appears to me they started relying on you knowing the story up until this point to fully grasp the rules of the current game's plot as a way to not make the plot cumbersome. And people will say "Castlevania has no story".

The seal didn't break until he died thought, didn't it? Why would it matter where he would lock away Dracula's body if the seal is broken by killing him? It wouldn't matter because then he would be dead.

Except that he literally has more than one reason to make reviving Dracula as hard as possible: His two "daughters".

He's considering his daughters to be reincarnated as Stella and Loretta. HIM dying and THEM dying is different, as seen by PoR's bad ending. He's willing to give up on his entire plan if it means saving them.

If he dies, alright. But, would he make it so easy to revive Dracula after his death knowing this could mean Dracula consuming the souls of those who he believes to be his daughters? Because he has no guarantee he'd die AFTER them. So, making Dracula so easy to revive in case he dies is a sure way to get his daughters killed (by his own stupidity, no less!). And, as PoR shows about his mindset, having them die is not on Brauner's plans.

So, again, I have a hard time believing Brauner would be this stupid and unable to predict one step ahead.

[zangetsu468]

Doesn't OoE have a rather unique position for Dracula, though?

I mean, we've seen him in past titles wherein he's possessing somebody directly and using their body, and we've seen his mere essence incite one to madness and violence.

But in OoE, we see his essence inciting one not only to madness and violence (Albus), but actually *speak* as himself.

Either Albus's extended contact with Dominus made him think he was Dracula, or Dracula's being was actively occupying him.

Considering Dracula himself stays locked in a statue most of the game, yet still manages to consciously exert his will (as seen when he "communicates" with Barlowe and has him sacrifice himself to break the seal), I should think Dracula's mind actively occupying Albus seems more plausible.

I bring this unique circumstance up because of what it suggests for the revival cycle.

Dracula in OoE isn't actually "dead" as he has been in so many past titles. He wasn't physically slain and his soul sent back to his summer home in hell. They put him in a magic rock.

I still believed OOE's Dracula was quite unique as per the above. However I've had this discussion with plottwist about the SOTN radio drama whereby its mentioned somewhere that Alucard was in possession of Dracula's remains after defeating him. These remains presumably ended up with Ecclesia, sealed inside an object.

If this is the case, does it change much? Maxim was completely possessed by Dracula's remains, and it's safe to assume he had them for longer than Ecclesia did. In terms of Albus he may have been affected by carrying Dominus the time he did (eventually being its sacrifice).

What I believe was initially meant to happen in OOE according to Barlowe's plan was Shanoa using Dominus (her own soul) to break the object open which held Dracula's remains, then either Dracula revives or he revives with Barlowe as his host body (like Isaac in COD) in physical form, right there and then which would have completed a proper resurrection. By Shanoa refusing and beating Barlowe, the first aspect is gone and by Barlowe pulling a Majin Vegeta (albeit for the wrong reasons) he did manage to free whatever essence was sealed in that object holding Dracula's remains, at which point he resurrects but it involves him being "beyond the gates of hell" (in the underworld itself).

OOE is still one the more unique scenarios.

Back to the original thread, I doubt Brauner had anything to do with Dracula's remains.
The fact Death went back to the throne room after Brauner's defeat probably means that he had them with him imo. This explains the freshness (blood dripping and all) of his resurrection.

EDIT: Maxim didn't have Dracula's remains as long as Ecclesia

[DraculaCronqvist]

Doesn't OoE have a rather unique position for Dracula, though?

I mean, we've seen him in past titles wherein he's possessing somebody directly and using their body, and we've seen his mere essence incite one to madness and violence.

But in OoE, we see his essence inciting one not only to madness and violence (Albus), but actually *speak* as himself.

Either Albus's extended contact with Dominus made him think he was Dracula, or Dracula's being was actively occupying him.

Considering Dracula himself stays locked in a statue most of the game, yet still manages to consciously exert his will (as seen when he "communicates" with Barlowe and has him sacrifice himself to break the seal), I should think Dracula's mind actively occupying Albus seems more plausible.

I bring this unique circumstance up because of what it suggests for the revival cycle.

Dracula in OoE isn't actually "dead" as he has been in so many past titles. He wasn't physically slain and his soul sent back to his summer home in hell. They put him in a magic rock. I don't recall if it specifies whether or not his body was destroyed prior to this, but I would presume it was due to him not just appearing in physical form right when Barlowe blows the statue up.

EDIT: (Obviously Barlowe was his revival sacrifice, this is just inference to justify the likelihood that his untethered soul was sealed in the statue and that his body was destroyed.)

So if Dracula wasn't "killed" and then revived in his usual fashion, why would any of the established rules about the castle, the throne room, his connection to said castle, or anything of the sort hold water in OoE?

By sealing his soul and consciousness in a corporeal prison on Earth, the standard rules for how he comes back become changed, if they don't go out the window altogether.

Right after Albus absorbs a part of Dominus, Shanoa pities him and says he's been driven mad. That shows that Albus only thought of himself as Dracula, since a part of his power was inside Albus - but it wasn't Dracula actually speaking through Albus.

[Dracula9]

Shanoa's word isn't good enough. An outside person with no past experience with Big D would recognize such an occurrence as anything more than madness.

Albus: Shanoa... What am I--!? Gaaah! No, Shanoa... RUN! You have to get away from here! Now!

(Albus clutches his head again, and then begins laughing.)

Albus: Run...? Ha! What good would that do her? She cannot escape me. All of humanity is merely cattle, led to slaughter at my behest. I, Lord Dracula! Give yourself as sustenance to me, weak, foolish human! That will be your honor!!

Seems a lot more like someone with multiple personality disorder internally vying for control, rather than simple madness.

Barlowe, meanwhile, is just batshit nuts. He has no delusions about his identity.

The closest excuse I'd be willing to buy is that Dominus transplants the evil will of "Dracula" onto an unprepared host, rather than Dracula himself speaking through them. But even then we have the above issue of multiple personas arguing, which is a step beyond simply going mad.

And again, we see Dracula exert his will through some manner of telepathic communication with Barlowe. If he's able to do that (presumably because he's now in the presence of all three bits of Dominus, otherwise why hadn't he visibly done anything prior to then--although, perhaps he WAS telepathing with Barlowe all this time and just never made any visibly outward manifestations like he did when Barlowe was beaten), then I see no reason why he wouldn't be able to exert his will using the fragments of Dominus as a vector. It's as I said, he's not truly "dead" in Ecclesia like he is every other time, so the things he's able to do with his power are not wholly gone.

[DraculaCronqvist]

Shanoa's word isn't good enough. An outside person with no past experience with Big D would recognize such an occurrence as anything more than madness.

Seems a lot more like someone with multiple personality disorder internally vying for control, rather than simple madness.

Barlowe, meanwhile, is just batshit nuts. He has no delusions about his identity.

The closest excuse I'd be willing to buy is that Dominus transplants the evil will of "Dracula" onto an unprepared host, rather than Dracula himself speaking through them. But even then we have the above issue of multiple personas arguing, which is a step beyond simply going mad.

We have little else to go on but Shanoa's word, though. At most, I'm willing to accept that this is a HoD kind of deal, with a piece of Dracula acting inside Albus, much like Dracula's Phantom/Wraith, but not Dracula himself, only a part.

Albus absorbs Dominus' Anger (mistranslated as Dominus' Agony in the translation), right? So maybe it was just that: Dracula's anger inside of Albus, not Dracula himself.

[Dracula9]

Maxim had the remains and a subconscious desire for power.

Albus had short exposure to actual bits of his power/soul, one of which he actually absorbed successfully, and had no subconscious sins save perhaps for his anger at and desire to see Barlowe thwarted.

Dracula Wraith was quite literally just the remains coming together without a proper vessel. It was incomplete because it lacked a proper sacrifice, and was little more than duct-taping Dracula together.

Ecclesia Dracula had an actual sacrifice in the form of Barlowe, after settling for second (or perhaps third, since Albus was already dead by this point) best when Shanoa proved untameable.

Very different circumstances.

I also cannot accept that it was merely Dracula's anger acting through Albus. The words he spoke as "Dracula" were not indicative of anger, but of arrogance and pride. We all know the Anger portion of Dracula has a scathing hatred of all things human, and if not balanced out by his pride and everything else would just result in human massacre.

Pure Dracula Anger wouldn't have taunted Shanoa, it would've tried to slaughter her outright.

[DraculaCronqvist]

Maxim had the remains and a subconscious desire for power.

Albus had short exposure to actual bits of his power/soul, one of which he actually absorbed successfully, and had no subconscious sins save perhaps for his anger at and desire to see Barlowe thwarted.

Dracula Wraith was quite literally just the remains coming together without a proper vessel. It was incomplete because it lacked a proper sacrifice, and was little more than duct-taping Dracula together.

Ecclesia Dracula had an actual sacrifice in the form of Barlowe, after settling for second (or perhaps third, since Albus was already dead by this point) best when Shanoa proved untameable.

Very different circumstances.

I also cannot accept that it was merely Dracula's anger acting through Albus. The words he spoke as "Dracula" were not indicative of anger, but of arrogance and pride. We all know the Anger portion of Dracula has a scathing hatred of all things human, and if not balanced out by his pride and everything else would just result in human massacre.

Pure Dracula Anger wouldn't have taunted Shanoa, it would've tried to slaughter her outright.

Fair enough, but if it really had been Dracula talking through Albus, he would have recognized Shanoa when she confronted him in the throne room. However, when she entered, nothing indicates that Dracula recognizes her (and it only happened a short time ago, when Albus made an attempt at Shanoa's life). Dracula would remember her if he had been there, but his dialogue implies that he's never seen Shanoa before, expressing mild surprise to see her.

[Dracula9]

I would not consider

Such a lovely maiden... Are you the one to whom I owe this great
pleasure? Tell me your desire, child. Is it eternal life you seek? A place at
my side?

or

Dracula: No? Then please...Tell me of yourself. Surely you've realized my
company comes at a price.

to be anywhere near "mild surprise."

He knows someone who wasn't Barlowe played a hand in him getting a body again. But he either doesn't know or doesn't care who.

But to counter you more fairly:

-Dracula also makes no mention of Barlowe, whom he very clearly had that moment of communication with.

-Dracula doesn't give a shit about those who helped him revive or otherwise regain shape. They're means to an end, and once they're finished with their purpose, they no longer matter.

-We don't see Dracula making much mention of anyone else throughout the series beyond the person/people he's immediately talking to. Outside of the Belmonts themselves, the only human Dracula speaks with with any real frequency is Shaft.

-If we assume my theory is correct and Dracula consciously exerted bits of his will through Dominus to corrupt Albus, then it may very well stand to reason he might have no memory of those events that occurred while he was still fragmented. As Dracula Wraith shows, a not-whole Dracula doesn't have all his wits about him, and that presumably includes his memory. Put all the pieces back together, and the result is no longer those unique pieces, but the sum of their parts. I can propose therefore that anything Fragmented Dracula might've done got wiped once he became whole again. We already have instances in the series where he's not whole and it messes with him and his efficacy.

I by no means consider everything stated to be bulletproof, but there's enough leeway either way, and I prefer to take the side that plays Dracula as the manipulator he is.

[DraculaCronqvist]

I would not consider

or

to be anywhere near "mild surprise."

He knows someone who wasn't Barlowe played a hand in him getting a body again. But he either doesn't know or doesn't care who.

But to counter you more fairly:

-Dracula also makes no mention of Barlowe, whom he very clearly had that moment of communication with.

-Dracula doesn't give a shit about those who helped him revive or otherwise regain shape. They're means to an end, and once they're finished with their purpose, they no longer matter.

-We don't see Dracula making much mention of anyone else throughout the series beyond the person/people he's immediately talking to. Outside of the Belmonts themselves, the only human Dracula speaks with with any real frequency is Shaft.

-If we assume my theory is correct and Dracula consciously exerted bits of his will through Dominus to corrupt Albus, then it may very well stand to reason he might have no memory of those events that occurred while he was still fragmented. As Dracula Wraith shows, a not-whole Dracula doesn't have all his wits about him, and that presumably includes his memory. Put all the pieces back together, and the result is no longer those unique pieces, but the sum of their parts. I can propose therefore that anything Fragmented Dracula might've done got wiped once he became whole again. We already have instances in the series where he's not whole and it messes with him and his efficacy.

I by no means consider everything stated to be bulletproof, but there's enough leeway either way, and I prefer to take the side that plays Dracula as the manipulator he is.

But that is what I am saying, that it was a fragment of Dracula acting through Albus and not Dracula as a whole unified being.

Also, it has been shown that Dracula does care to some extent for those who revive him, as is seen with Shaft, who's given a very high position of power, but that's beside the point.

[Dracula9]

A metaphor:

The words I speak through a telephone do not become any less driven by my own mind and will simply because they're only the audio waves of my voice and not literally all of me.

Same principle.

And let's be reasonable here. Shaft got a promotion because Shaft had further use. I have no doubts that Shaft would've been...well, shafted the instant he ceased to be useful.

He returns as a ghost in Rondo and reappears as disembodied in SotN, but that's due to his own magic rather than a Dracula intervention.