Topic: Why is the supernatural hidden from ordinary people in the CV universe?

[Nagumo]

i feel like the implication is that human hunters and the church just got really effective at doing what they do at a certain point, or that maybe only cv3 was the only actual big incident of hell invasion of demons attacking humans

so in the modern age it just doesnt happen, bc all the demons are mostly fucking dead

I suppose the explanation that would make the most sense would be that supernatural beings are extremely rare and perhaps most of them live in hell/makai/whatever. CV enemies also tend to burn into flames when killed which is an covenient explanation for why archaeologists wouldn't be digging up minotaur skeletons or something.

But then there's still the problem of magic being hidden instead of reshaping society in significant ways.

[zangetsu468]

"probably cosplayers"

Hahahaha that's fucking gold, Flame!

Reminds me of when Kang and Kotos knock on Homer's door and are met with "Oh great.... Mormons..."

[Nagumo]

I have been doing some more thinking regarding the "why?" of the masquerade in the Castlevania universe and I think I have come up with a (at least for me) satisfying and believeable answer. It's pretty much complete fan-fiction and it might not completely fit with everything we know regarding the lore of the games but nevertheless I'm quite fond of it. My idea is sort of based on something from Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy. (I strongly recommend these books in case any of you are looking for more fantasy to read) Basically, there's this council of mages and the head of said council issued an edict that forbids any magician from interfering in temporal matters or playing favorites with any ruler. His reasoning is that any such interference would sooner of later inevitably transgress upon the interests of other magicians, and thus lead to said magicians blasting each other out of existence. Any magician who breaks the rules has to deal with the combined powers of the rest. It's implied the edict was created in response to a huge disaster which happend a long time ago and ended with Atlantis sinking in the ocean. I should mention  the magicians in these books don't hide the existence of magic but I think doing so would be a logical extension of a non-interference edict. For example, the Prime Directive from Star Trek forbids a technology advanced species from interacting with civilizations which are below a certain technological threshold. This also means they cannot make their presence known to them.

That covers magicians and magic but what about the various monsters? Why would those be hidden? In order to explain that, I came up with a certain headcanon: the idea that every magical creature is the result of a magical experiment. It's already sort of implied this is the case with certain creatures because Devil Forging exists. This would also explain why, for example, an unicorn (an artificially created creature) would be considered "magical" and horse just a regular animal. Of course, most of the monsters in Castlevania tend to belong to the "mindless, raging beast" variety, so they wouldn't be actively involved in maintaining the masquerade. But that relates to the "how"? part which is a while other can of worms.     

So when applying this idea to the Castlevania universe it would mean that magic is passed down soley in certain magical families. These would be the Cronqvists, Belnadeses, Hakubas, the Belmonts (after Leon got "initiated" into the magical world so to speak), etc.
           
I like the above explanation because it avoids certain flaws which are prevalent in other masquerade stories. First of all, it avoids the pitfall of having magicians hide because humans would somehow be a threat to them.Of course this might be plausible depending on the power level of magicians but magic users in the Castlevania universe possess a ridiculously varied arsenal of spells: control the elements, teleportation, transfiguration, stop time, summon familiars, heal spells, and plenty of other things I didn't think even think of. There's just no way someone like say, Charlotte, would have anything to fear from a pitchfork mob. Secondly, it also explains why history in Castlevania still roughly follows the one of your world. Otherwise someone in power would have thought of a way to use magic for their own ends and ended up significantly altering the course of history. Lastly, because the reason for the masquerade existing is preventing the near or complete destruction of the magical community, it's a perfect reason why every magician would be on the same page about it. The only reason a magician would be able to break the masquerade and want to do so, is because he or she is powerful enough to take on all the other magicians, and wants to cause mass chaos and destruction. And of course, in the Castlevania universe there happens to be a certain vampire who happens to meet those two criteria.