Topic: Let's talk about how much of a magnificent bastard Death is

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Death.

Holy hell this guy is crafty.

I honestly believe that Death killed Elizabetha Cronqvist to provoke Mathias into becoming Dracula. Why? Who knows. But that's what I have come to believe; that Death is the "minion" who unbeknownst to anyone else is secretly running the evil show.

But even barring that (unconfirmed) ULTIMATE Batman Gambit, Death has been shown to back up his incredible powers with a cunning mind. Whether it's maneuvering his opponents into a tight space from which he can press his advantage, or out and out manipulating people to do what he wants them to for his own purposes, Death is truly a magnificent bastard.

Three events which stick out in my memory are Curse of Darkness, Harmony of Dissonance and Portrait of Ruin. In the case of Curse of Darkness, assuming the disguise of Zead enables Death to play Hector like a fiddle, and had Julia been less persuasive (or Hector's memory slightly less quick), Death would have achieved everything he wanted (and he still succeeded by keeping Isaac as a backup plan).

In Harmony, despite having all the power he needed to kill Juste at the outset (which would have been a dangerously genre savvy move in and of itself), Death gambled and kept him alive instead, saying the right things to put Juste on a path which would reveal to Death the truth of Maxim's dual selves and his relationship to the castle. This information would prove quite valuable to Death, at which point he attempted to dispose of his "asset" of Juste Belmont. Okay, so Juste still beat Death, but it's not like death sticks to... um... Death. So the Joke's on Juste!

Then, in Portrait of Ruin, he plays his enemies against each other. This tends to be kind of difficult when they know you're doing that, and before long, Brauner and Charlotte have figured it out. Despite this hurdle, Death does it brilliantly. Then, wise to the circumstances of Dracula's prior defeats, he reentered the fray and tag teamed Jonathan and Charlotte with Dracula, eventually giving up his current incarnation to feed Dracula the extra power needed to defeat the hunters. Again, it didn't work, but it's hardly Death's fault that Dracula's fighting skills weren't up to par in that instance.

Death routinely ranks as one of the most effective Castlevania villains because he's not just dumb muscle. He's crafty. A strategic thinker (inasmuch as any Castlevania foe can be), and that's not even getting into the sheer degree of Magificent Bastardness possessed by Zobek, his alternate universe counterpart... and likely the most dangerous incarnation of Death ever seen in the franchise due almost entirely to how silver-tongued a manipulator he proves to be.

I think we should give the old Bonehead his due credit as one of the smartest, most tenacious, most adaptable villains in the franchise, which makes him one of the top antagonists in Castlevania whenever he appears (which is practically every damn time there's a Castle involved minus a resurrection or two).

Topic. Discuss.

[Lelygax]

"They killed Brauner!"
"YOU BASTARD!"

[TheTextGuy]

Death literally throws everything at you the moment you enter the room in Castlevania I / Castlevania Chronicles

Literally

Those scythes are painful to dodge

[theplottwist]

The best displays of cunning from Death in the entire series, for me, are in Curse of Darkness, and the Ricordanza novel.

In CoD he's able to escape even a time travelling individual, and in Ricordanza he uses the body of a human to achieve his goal. I like the last one because it shows that Death has a kind of code of honor, and a soft-side, even.

But he's still as cruel as always.

Ultimatelly, I don't think he's the one pulling the strings. I think Chaos is the "thing" behind Death. Chaos yearns for mankind's downfall, needing an agent to carry it out. So Death is the one responsible on finding and protecting this agent.

[Dracula9]

I don't think Chaos is sentient to that degree. I imagine it's more that humankind is very orderly in its mannerisms and social constructs; and what opposes chaos better than order?

[theplottwist]

I don't think Chaos is sentient to that degree. I imagine it's more that humankind is very orderly in its mannerisms and social constructs; and what opposes chaos better than order?

Yeah well, I agree with you in part.

Chaos, as I understood by the numerous explanations mostly given in the novel, appears to have some kind of intention. Not exactly sentient, but not exactly a "force of nature" or merely "opposite of order".

Chaos is explained to be born from humans in the novel. In Aria we see that it has an affinity for Soma, and it defends itself against Soma's attack. That's intention. Sure, one could argue that it is defending itself like an anemone does - no intention at all, it simply does. However, we know that Chaos takes Soma's souls away, targets him multiple times, and is defending itself specifically so Soma heeds the call for a Dark Lord. It is more like an animal than a plant. An animal can't exactly "reason", but it understands such things as not attacking animals bigger than itself, or to evaluate the costs of pursuing certain goals while being in a vulnerable state.

Death explains, also, that "human death" is merely one part of what comprises Chaos -- implying it has more "parts" comprising it. And it is confirmed that monsters are born out of chaos, too. As we know, monsters are pretty freaking misanthropic, with VERY few exceptions. Death, who is born from Chaos, has a pretty cunning mind and pretty clear objectives. How, if he was born and is made from the thing that has no intention at all? Death is not "affected by chaos", Death comes from it. Is made of it. And the same is true for many other demons with clear objectives.

To me, Chaos appears to be some sort of "collective consciouness" comprising everything negative about mankind, such as fear or death - maybe even including a desire for self destruction. Again, not exactly "sentient" as we understand it, but also not exactly a "force of nature" as things like "gravity" or "storms".

Keywords here: Not exactly. I'm not saying Chaos is NOT one or the other, I'm saying I don't think Chaos is entirely one thing or the other.

EDIT: One important thing I forgot to add: Saying Chaos is "the opposite of order" implies that it has been always here as part of the universe ever since it began - as a counter to order. This conclusion is not correct for the Castlevania context, as it is clearly stated Chaos is born from mankind. Chaos exists because humans do. As a product of humans, Chaos is not "as old as the universe". It may be the opposite of order, but not as in "order of all things", but more like "order imposed by humans".

[Lumi Kløvstad]

The best displays of cunning from Death in the entire series, for me, are in Curse of Darkness, and the Ricordanza novel.

In CoD he's able to escape even a time travelling individual, and in Ricordanza he uses the body of a human to achieve his goal. I like the last one because it shows that Death has a kind of code of honor, and a soft-side, even.

But he's still as cruel as always.

Ultimatelly, I don't think he's the one pulling the strings. I think Chaos is the "thing" behind Death. Chaos yearns for mankind's downfall, needing an agent to carry it out. So Death is the one responsible on finding and protecting this agent.

I really don't see Chaos as being a sentient entity. I think it's more like a simple fact of the universe; it just is. It has all the planning capability of an algae in and of itself, but living beings under its influence are profoundly affected and can come up with vast schemes that end up benefiting the proliferation of this negative force we know as Chaos. It can't make plans, but those it affects can, and their plans naturally turn to the benefit of chaos.

[Dracula9]

I don't think Chaos is sentient to that degree. I imagine it's more that humankind is very orderly in its mannerisms and social constructs; and what opposes chaos better than order?

Note that I used capitalization very precisely here, plot. I was specifying CV Chaos and the universal concept of chaos (or entropy, whichever you prefer).

Castlevania Chaos is more or less the darkness born from the hearts of men (considering how much Drac preaches about that) made manifest; though considering the amount of power it contains, I'd be willing to bet the universal force of chaos has a role in it, if only for how cosmically powerful CV Chaos has the potential to be.

But that's another theory. Right now, I'm more attuned to the idea that it IS an offshoot of universal chaos, in that it draws power from universal chaos through the destruction its followers enact (thus satisfying the cosmic force of entropy), but isn't sentient on its own. It just exists, and humans being humans, the followers of Chaos just give it name and face so that it's more identifiable.

It's basically just a malevolent force of human evil manifesting through the power of destruction and entropy. In this way, both Chaos and chaos are of the same coin.

Its will isn't necessarily a conscious one; its followers do things in its name, so naturally anything they do is going to benefit its will. The thing Soma fights can actually be easily explained as a form of sentient Chaos devised to protect the font of Chaos Dracula used for his powers: the font is the "heart" of the Castle, and the Chaos boss is the ribcage, if you will.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Death is crafty. That is for sure.
And very difficult to defeat.
He is technically the 2nd main character in Ricordanza.

[zangetsu468]

I doubt Chaos is a sentient entity also. But I do believe that chaos in Castlevania is kind of like a centennial version of Berserk's IOE

(click to show/hide)

(which is highly sentient)

I like the idea that Death had something to do with Elisabetha's demise, though is he not literally "God of Death" in Japanese? An well, he is the God of Death. In addition to Elisabetha dying from natural causes as far as we know. I doubt he orchestrated it, caused it nor had the capacity. (unlike in Family Guy where he's Norm McDonald and just kills people randomly)

However, if Walter making his pact with Death is considered canon (only in the manga so far as I understand) then is it also not possible that after Elisabetha's demise, Death calculative as he is -  swooped in and caught Mathias in a time of great despairity knowing there was a strong possibility he'd make a pact with him for the Crimson Stone?

After all, Mathias' endgame in gaining the Cs was to defy God and have his revenge by living and cursing God eternally. At that stage I don't think he gave two shits about whether he would become a Vampire or not. It was simply a side effect. (If anything Walter was the stereotypical Vampire who liked biting women on the neck and making people his playthings, torturing them and their loved ones, etc.)

[Lumi Kløvstad]

God of Death OR Angel of Death, or just a nefarious demon pretending to be either, it would be painfully easy for a being like that to kill Elizabetha slowly and make it look like natural causes. Hell, Van Helsing even points out in Dracula that this is a frequent modus operandi of vampires so that humans are not alerted to what's really going on. Honestly, I could VERY easily see Death gradually weaken and wither Elisabetha because he saw potential in Mathias to spread evil and serve Chaos. Make it look like God did it. Get Mathias to rage against the heavens.

Humans have done more for less, so a being as capricious as Death could probably pull that without a single moment of hesitation. Crafty bastard. And, furthermore, he struck GOLD with Mathias.

Also, seriously, Zobek. Does he not do that with Gabriel Belmont? Maybe his endgame was supposed to be different, and his methods didn't line up precisely, but it would be uncannily similar, showing that no matter what the universe, Castlevania always begins with Death taking a woman before her time and using that to manipulate her lover into doing something dark and wicked.

[zangetsu468]

Yeah except LOS isn't canon, and side from certain constants being there throughout the multiple CVverses and the LOSverse, there's nothing in LOI to indicate Death killed Elisabetha.
I would say it was more so causality that her death occurred at the time that it did. Mathias being his most susceptible to crumbling with the premise he was coming home to see the love of his life with normal health.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Nothing in my statement indicates an if:then statement, nor was it meant to.

I was just saying it would be cool to find that level of parallel between universes. We already know Zobek pulls something like that with Gabriel, so imagine one day getting a canon game in which Death admits to Alucard (who he'd have more reason to confess something do than just some other person) that yes, he killed Elisabetha, prompting Mathias' fall.

If we wanted to sweeten the deal and sour Alucard further, who's to say Death couldn't have placed that doubt in the villager's minds about Lisa? After all, someone like Death might have seen Dracula being happily married, settling down, and not raging as a betrayal.

I get MAJOR yandere vibes from Death and always have for some reason. He's called Dracula's best friend and confidante, but somehow I suspect Dracula doesn't get as much say in that as he thinks he does. Death is Drac's best friend, but he's still rotten to the core evil.

I know I know, this is MY turn at spotting patterns where none probably exist, but you have to admit this would make the story hella interesting and Death would be the guy to do it. He doesn't ever really come across as less cunning than Zobek, so we might guess they have about the same potential in the arts of manipulation and conniving. Though to be fair, the main series focuses on Death's abilities as a combatant and Lords focuses on Zobek's abilities as a persuasive dick, so this does in the end muddy any comparison that might be made between them.

[Lelygax]

You should read Ricordanza to understand more about Death's loyalty to Dracula. For now I will only tell that Death wouldn't betray him and so thinking that it has something to do with Lisa being killed doesn't seems right.
There isn't no need to do that also, since at this time if you did something different to cure people and were a woman chances were high that they would accuse you of witchcraft.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

You should read Ricordanza to understand more about Death's loyalty to Dracula. For now I will only tell that Death wouldn't betray him and so thinking that it has something to do with Lisa being killed doesn't seems right.
There isn't no need to do that also, since at this time if you did something different to cure people and were a woman chances were high that they would accuse you of witchcraft.

I'd love to, but Konami doesn't care about translating their stuff into English anymore. Or even making the Japanese version available.

But I still think Death was a factor in Lisa being killed. After all Isaac is essentially his human equivalent in Curse of Darkness: Isaac was similarly loyal to Dracula, and Hector's best friend and confidante. He clearly valued having Hector around, and not just as an asset to use. But he still threw the first stone at Rosalie, as it were, when he felt Hector was getting soft, causing Rosalie to be burned as a witch, which is also how Lisa died. Almost to a T.

I don't doubt that Death is a good friend around Dracula, and probably truly values his presence and partnership, but really, he's routinely shown to be one of the most evil characters in the series. Never make an assumption about a force you know to be dyed-in-the-wool evil, unless that assumption is "he's totally going to be picking on people smaller and more helpless than him for any or no reason." That's kind of the calling card of evil.