Topic: Is Winona Ryder part of Castlevania canon?

[Dracula9]

Oh, if it wound up being confirmed that there was no reference to '93 Dracula I would be pretty fucking surprised.

Dracula origin story about a wife named Elisabetha dying tragically and making him pissed off at God and going immortal to spite him?

That be just a mite too specific to me to just be concidence.

I can't say I feel the same about the Dracula revival cycle, though. Evil demon overlords returning from life either by natural evils or by cultists killing fools to wake them up have been around long before Coppola made monster movie history.

[TatteredSeraph]

I've always read into it that Mina Hakuba is the reincarnation of Mina Harker, who is in turn Lisa, and before her, Elisabetha's reincarnations, with Bram Stoker's Dracula's take directly seen as the version of the story that feeds into the Castlevania series.  To me, it feels like it was a big source of inspiration for Iga on those aspects, such as in LoI, etc.  Yes, Keanu's acting is incredibly hammy, but Gary Oldman is a magnificent Dracula, and the film does make a good effort of linking the original Vlad Tepes and Count Dracula the vampire, which not all Dracula stories have done, and linking the real Dracula's alleged history and Mina Harker makes for a more interesting tale, with more motivations.  With Mina Hakuba, the way that Soma reacts in responce to Mina being in danger, potentially kiled (as in DoS) is to start going vampire Lord mode - a subconcious reaction to knowing that the love of his life is in danger.  This all ties in nicely as well with the links to Lisa in SotN, as in the reported history of Vlad Tepes, following the death of his first wife ('Elisabetha'?), he married Ilona Szilagyi, a relative of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. 

[AlexCalvo]

Oh, if it wound up being confirmed that there was no reference to '93 Dracula I would be pretty fucking surprised.

Dracula origin story about a wife named Elisabetha dying tragically and making him pissed off at God and going immortal to spite him?

That be just a mite too specific to me to just be concidence.

I can't say I feel the same about the Dracula revival cycle, though. Evil demon overlords returning from life either by natural evils or by cultists killing fools to wake them up have been around long before Coppola made monster movie history.

I was talking about his reincarnation into Soma, not his ressurectons.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Even in Dracula Untold, you have him walking around centuries later, and he notices a girl that resembles his anciently-dead wife, that fell from the tower.
He asks her her name, and she says "Mina".

So you have:

Matthias with Elisabetha.  A tragic death, which starts his quest to find a way to defy Death and Mortality, seeking out Leon and his ambition with the alchemy dabblings of Walter Bernhardt.

Matthias (as Vlad Dracula III) with an unknown woman, his first wife as Dracula, who threw herself from the Tower ("I would rather have her body be eaten by the fish of the Argeş than be captured by the Turks."  Causes him to defy God Himself.

Vlad Dracula III with Ilona Szilágyi a.k.a Jusztina Szilágyi, a fraternal cousin of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.  "Dracula" 's 2nd wife.  If we were trying it all into Castlevania canon, this wife may be fictitious, as she is 'cousin' to the Matthias Corvinus that Matthias Cronqvist seems to be based on.

Vlad Dracula III  with Lisa, with whom he has a child named Adrian (somehow), and she is killed by mankind, starting his war with humanity.  Lisa is a woman he seems to have fallen in love with, but I am not sure whether they ever exchanged the vows of Marriage.  I think he may have just been a visitor to her and her knowledge of medicine and healing, or perhaps magic, is what drew him to her, but love kept him from turning her.  Her genuine goodness sparks his hatred for humanity.  He has already found a way to defy Death, and was already angry at God.  This was the last straw, which drew him to hate Mankind as well.  This is when he begins to really dwell in sorcery and witchcraft and becomes a warlock.

Vlad Dracula III (as Vlad Tepes) with Mina Harker.  After his many reincarnations, Dracula finds Mina Harker as per the Stoker novel, whom he seems to think is the reincarnation of his original wife (whether that is Elisabetha as Matthias, or his unnamed wife as Dracula III who falls from the tower, we do not know for sure).

Soma Cruz with Mina Hakuba.  Even the "Hakuba" surname reminds you of "Harker" a little.

Did I miss any?

[AlexCalvo]

Well, in my own head canon/fanon, Lisa and both Minas are reincarnations of Elisabetha.  I figured Soma finally having her is a big part of why he doesn't fall to the dark side.  She's his rock, as always.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Well, in my own head canon/fanon, Lisa and both Minas are reincarnations of Elisabetha.  I figured Soma finally having her is a big part of why he doesn't fall to the dark side.  She's his rock, as always.

That does provide some nice closure.  It wraps up everything neatly in that:
-He is redeemed, in the end.  No longer has to curse God, as he did good deeds as Soma.
-He is forgiven by God, in that in his own special way, he gets to be with his beloved.  Causes him to no longer have to defy Death.
-He can die in peace, with the love of his life and with the great friends he's made.  Causes him to no longer want to war with Mankind.

[Briraka]

I can't say I feel the same about the Dracula revival cycle, though. Evil demon overlords returning from life either by natural evils or by cultists killing fools to wake them up have been around long before Coppola made monster movie history.

I have a feeling the revival cycle was more inspired by the Hammer films more than anything. In those movies, he's always getting resurrected somehow, from some cultist performing a satanic ritual to something as contrived as accidentally getting blood dripped into his frozen body.

[DraculaCronqvist]

Even in Dracula Untold, you have him walking around centuries later, and he notices a girl that resembles his anciently-dead wife, that fell from the tower.
He asks her her name, and she says "Mina".

So you have:

Matthias with Elisabetha.  A tragic death, which starts his quest to find a way to defy Death and Mortality, seeking out Leon and his ambition with the alchemy dabblings of Walter Bernhardt.

Matthias (as Vlad Dracula III) with an unknown woman, his first wife as Dracula, who threw herself from the Tower ("I would rather have her body be eaten by the fish of the Argeş than be captured by the Turks."  Causes him to defy God Himself.

Vlad Dracula III with Ilona Szilágyi a.k.a Jusztina Szilágyi, a fraternal cousin of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.  "Dracula" 's 2nd wife.  If we were trying it all into Castlevania canon, this wife may be fictitious, as she is 'cousin' to the Matthias Corvinus that Matthias Cronqvist seems to be based on.

Vlad Dracula III  with Lisa, with whom he has a child named Adrian (somehow), and she is killed by mankind, starting his war with humanity.  Lisa is a woman he seems to have fallen in love with, but I am not sure whether they ever exchanged the vows of Marriage.  I think he may have just been a visitor to her and her knowledge of medicine and healing, or perhaps magic, is what drew him to her, but love kept him from turning her.  Her genuine goodness sparks his hatred for humanity.  He has already found a way to defy Death, and was already angry at God.  This was the last straw, which drew him to hate Mankind as well.  This is when he begins to really dwell in sorcery and witchcraft and becomes a warlock.

Vlad Dracula III (as Vlad Tepes) with Mina Harker.  After his many reincarnations, Dracula finds Mina Harker as per the Stoker novel, whom he seems to think is the reincarnation of his original wife (whether that is Elisabetha as Matthias, or his unnamed wife as Dracula III who falls from the tower, we do not know for sure).

Soma Cruz with Mina Hakuba.  Even the "Hakuba" surname reminds you of "Harker" a little.

Did I miss any?

If that was all actually in the Castlevania canon, that would be one clusterfuck.

[Super Waffle]

"Let me guess. That guy thinks he's Count Dracula."

- "Well, he's supposed to, but he has multiple personalities. All of them Dracula."

-- "I have 200 murdered wives."

[zangetsu468]

#ambitionzasaRyder

[crisis]

[Super Waffle]

I've been seriously waiting for someone to make this analogy since OP but now that you've all disappointed me I'll just have to do it myself

[Ratty]

Even in Dracula Untold, you have him walking around centuries later, and he notices a girl that resembles his anciently-dead wife, that fell from the tower.
He asks her her name, and she says "Mina".

While the whole reincarnation thing was popularized by (the misleadingly named) "Bram Stoker's Dracula",  I've read that it actually dates back at least to the 1974 adaptation of Dracula which was made by the people who had produced the vampire soap opera "Dark Shadows". And the whole "reincarnated love interest" bit was basically them plagiarizing their own Dark Shadows storyline and sticking it on Dracula. I've never seen that version but here's the trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6jEUmHZfv0
I would be interested to know if that's true (I forget where I read it) or if it was an element added in one of the stage plays or something. I can't recall it being a story element in any Dracula movie I've seen that was filmed before 1974.

But yeah "Bram Stoker's Dracula" was THE big Dracula movie throughout the 90s, and arguably still is, with Dracula Untold's lukewarm reception. I think its influence can be felt in the change in direction from monster mash monster movie homage to the slightly more contemplative Anne Rice style we saw in SOTN and beyond. Even the US television commercial for Symphony of the Night directly copied/paid homage to BSD, replacing the cross falling toward the stone ground in slow motion at the start of that movie with a sword falling in slow-mo to stone ground.

[Super Waffle]

I don't remember Dracula '74 doing any kind of reincarnation plot line. But they did flip the two main girls around, so Mina gets nibbled on first to become the story's sacrificial lamb, while Lucy marries John Harker to become Lucy Harker, and she's the one he's trying to save for the whole last third of the movie. In addition to that, Mina is Mina Van Helsing instead of Mina Murray, so instead of having Arthur face the dilemma of having to stake his new wife to put her out of her misery, it's turned into this whole different melodrama where Van Helsing has to stake his own vampirized daughter.

And the Dracula-Lucy (who, again, is actually this movie's Mina, and Mina is Lucy) dark love scene was directed by the cinematographer who did all the trippy James Bond opening credits in the 60s-70s era.

That particular adaptation of Dracula was kinda weird in a good way. And it's apparently the version Hideyuki Kikuchi was watching when he was writing the original Vampire Hunter D novel.


edit: wait, no, disregard everything I just said. I'm thinking of Dracula '79. I have no idea what Dracula '74 is about.