Does anyone find it really strange that people are now bashing the original versions of iconic Castlevania characters in order to praise their Netflix counterparts? I mean, no judgement, I like most of the Netflix versions and I think characters like Sypha, Carmilla and Isaac are improvements over their original counterparts, but classic Alucard and Hector had some depth to them that's largely ignored because new fans just dismiss them. The Castlevania radio drama, Nocturne of Recollection and the Curse of Darkness manga really fleshed out OG Alucard and Hector, but newer fans seem to ignore that and insist that the Netflix versions are better, which is really unfortunate in my opinion. I think a lot of the people that complain about the OG characters don't really understand them and are part of a larger problem of dismissing video games as a whole.
I appreciate and respect the effort on Warren Ellis (even if I personally can't stand the guy), Adi Shankar and the Deats brothers' part when it comes to putting their own spin on their versions of Castlevania characters and even if there's a lot I disagree with and trust me, there's a lot, I genuinely like the fact that they're committed to telling their own story using the games as a base. I'm genuinely interested in a potentially villainous Alucard and am hoping that all the abuse Hector went through has a cathartic ending. Honestly, and this might be a little personal on my part, but I can't stand the pretentious wannabe writing "experts" that try to dismiss the original characters when Adi Shankar and the Deats brothers respect said characters and the franchise they come from. In fact, other than Warren Ellis, Netflixvania is a labor of love by Castlevania fans since the most obscure things are referenced by the animation team and again, I can respect that, despite disagreeing with some choices and the cultural clashes that always come from western takes on Japanese franchises, but hey, I can get over that, after all, I liked Lords of Shadow for the most part from a narrative perspective.
While I agree that Netflixvania benefits from its medium since the characters have more dialogue and time to develop outside the action, I think it's unfair to outright dismiss the source material. I'm posting this because I feel this sub's gonna be full of weirdness when season 4 comes out and there are people who genuinely dismiss the source material. I think more eloquent people can describe the surprising depth of the original characters in the comments better than I can, so if you have a defence of them as well, I'd like to hear it.
As a Devil May Cry fan, this is almost exactly what happened when the franchise was rebooted as DmC: Devil May Cry, a bunch of new fans that hated the source material and made it a point to attack the previous characters for being poorly written despite DMC3 having a much stronger despite being simpler narrative. It was the same type of people, pretentious pseudo-intellectuals who acted like they had degrees in writing. Though to be fair to Netflixvania, it's not as big a departure as DmC was, despite it being set in a different continuity as well.
Anyways, I hope we can all get along and that us old fans don't gatekeep and new fans respect the source material. I know fandom wars haven't happened since the first half of last year, but I'm afraid it might happen again soon.