Color me interested!
My hypothesis is basically this:
Brauner, as a painter, even if he's very creative (just look at the circus themed paintings), he would have to have seen something to inspire him before actually painting something.
For instance: Even though the circus paintings are very surreal, one still needs a basis on a real circus to be able to paint that. Even though the pyramid paintings have impossible concepts, he'd need to know what the pyramids are and the egyptian themes surrounding them to actually be able to bend the concept with his creativity.
And then, here comes Sanctuary. Brauner didn't invent Sanctuary. He has already seen it before, and the concept bled into his painting.
Now, this dialogue is on the game's script:
Wind: It is indeed Dracula's Castle. However, the castle's
lord is a vampire by the name of Brauner.
Charlotte: I've heard nothing about that!
Wind: As one would expect. His identity has been kept secret
for years, after all. He infuses magic into paintings to
increase his power. You will undoubtedly come across
these paintings in this castle. Search for these paintings.
Well, so someone in power - which may or not be the Church - knew about Brauner, and he was dangerous enough to have his identity hidden. So I think it's very possible that these people in power have confronted Brauner before, with Eric Lecarde being the last to do it.
Now, with this in mind, I think it's ALSO possible they tried to revert Brauner's vampirism with a spell that failed - either by sheer incompetence or he simply escaped before the spell could take effect. The fact that no one knows a purification spell could imply that, in fact, the spell didn't work as intended, so they scrapped it.
Thus, Brauner has seen it before. It could've been used against him, and the concept engraved itself on his mind. So, when Brauner painted, the concept materialized inside the painting, hidden away to be found later. Thing is - with Brauner's power and creativity, the spell could've been actually improved and NOW it works as intended, therefore allowing one to use it properly.
OR the spell was so advanced that only a genius like Charlotte could pull it off, thus justifying the "incompetence" scenario I mentioned above.
Damn, I had this massive post above but you guys beat me to the punch! :-X
Another reason why Sanctuary may not work on Dracula and Brauner: Their loss of humanity.
As long as one clings to their humanity, Sanctuary may work. But as soon as they let go, then Sanctuary is useless as there is nothing to turn this new creature back to - no "human" is present anymore. So that may explain the "early stages" thing - the "early stage" being the time one is able to cling to their own humanity.
Sorry if I'm simply saying the same thing you are only rewording it slightly.
Interesting that in another thread only a day or so ago there was discussion about how post SOTN Dracula seems to have completely lost his humanity. In SOTN his and Alucard's final exchange of words seem more thoughtful compared to other instances we've seen Dracula speak.
I find it interesting that, in a series where Dracula is the main antagonist, there is very little actual engagement with Vampires and Vampire mythology in the Castlevania games. And when there is, they more often than not seem to shy away from the idea of Vampire's biting someone when they turn them.
Aside from our beloved 64 entries where Vampires could actually bite you and you can cure yourself.
In the band ending Vampire hunter Vincent gets turned
Most of the Vampires you do encounter seem to have their origins in different ways, like Mathias using the Crimson Stone or what is implied with Brauner.
Which always seems to revolve around losing the most precious person(s) and cursing/ rejecting God/ humanity.
It kind of reminds me of the way Apostles and Godhand awaken in Berserk, though their metamorphosis involves sacrifice of people.
The part in LOI where Walter is absorbed into the Crimson Stone
I disagree. What is "real" is based on an individual's perception and that perception is based on on a pre-conceived and/ or post-conceived notion of something. Everything takes form in the mind, what is "real" is in the eye of the beholder.
Oh boy I'm surely not discussing this then with you. But this is pretty much enough for me to disagree with your entire point as I don't hold such a relativistic viewpoint about the nature of reality. Of course I understand different people might perceive something differently, but this doesn't objectivelly change what is being perceived (which in Brauner's case are Pyramids and Academies).
I'll just point other things and leave this up for another time:
With your reasoning we are then back at square one stating "ultimately it has to be real".
Nope. My point is that his inspiration comes from something that exists outside his painting yet is bent with his creativity.
Therefore one more reason to disagree with your entire point. The premise is flawed, as we'll see on the next point:
That's the entire point of art. Art blends elements some of which are real/ some of which not real, and places them into a configuration which is entirely up to the artists inspiration
Here is me saying this exact same thing three times:
For instance: Even though the circus paintings are very surreal, one still needs a basis on a real circus to be able to paint that. Even though the pyramid paintings have impossible concepts, he'd need to know what the pyramids are and the egyptian themes surrounding them to actually be able to bend the concept with his creativity.
Thing is - with Brauner's power and creativity, the spell could've been actually improved and NOW it works as intended, therefore allowing one to use it properly.
My point is that everything he has painted has a basis on something real - no matter what are his personal views. He had to use this real concept to actually be able to paint something about it/on its context, bending it with surrealism.
I never said he's painting exactly what he saw. I'm saying he used real things as basis for his paintings, which are twisted creatively into surreal things, but that still are unmistakable from the real counterpart. You can still look at the pyramid and all the elements inside and say "its a pyramid". You can still look at the circus, even upside down, and say "it's a circus". You can still look at the Academy and say "It's a school/college/academy".
Brauner didn't stray THAT far from the real counterparts as we'd like to assume, which makes me deduce he's following the real concepts pretty closely. Hell the real Victor Brauner went MUCH MUCH (https://thelonelyonedotnet.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/76-2553.jpeg) further.
Given Brauner's "Nation of Fools" there are elements from the real world (mainly people; legion, soldiers, clowns etc) there are also unreal elements such as Medusa heads and upside down Architecture, and the freaking Legion itself. How are these last 2 elements particularly the Medusa heads in Brauner's painting??
I even thought about explaining this point before, but I thought it was unnecessary. Well, it is, then here I go:
Fantastical creatures exist in Castlevania's universe. You may want to argue that they don't exist outside of Dracula's Castle or aren't significant enough, but I'll have to raise Order of Ecclesia (where there CLEARLY are fantastical creatures living outside of the castle that are much more numerous and complex than simply Medusa Heads), and I'll have to say that Brauner did revive Dracula's Castle, so he clearly saw the creatures there at some point that could very well be before he actually painted anything.
So, again, they exist in Castlevania's universe.
Plus, they are described in books too. So it still falls in the category I put above: Brauner could very well have read a book on mythology to get inspiration for Medusa - had he painted it, of course, in the case these creatures weren't creation of the castle itself. Another point I'll get to later.
Brauner (age unknown, male)
A vampire who lost his daughters 30 years ago, and had his magical
powers awakened by Dracula's castle. Revived Dracula's castle by
collecting the tortured souls of those who died in World War II.
His goal is to destroy humans, who have yet again started war.
I know this information came from the manual, but it directly contradicts the game. The in-game dialogue says that these powers were awakened by grief, not by the Castle:
Eric: Brauner lost his real daughters in World War One. His anger and grief awakened his hidden power, which he used to become a vampire.
I tend to value in-game dialogue over manual descriptions, but I think the japanese version (of both dialogue AND manual) could give us a better result. I can provide the manual, but I can't provide the in-game dialogue (yet).
Brauner isn't painting every interactable volumetric inch of what is actually inside the paintings
I agree with this, but that is also not what I said. The painting is created with magic too, as I said before, and this could be one way through which he built the environments. But further than that, I recognized since the beginning that the paintings are made with Brauner's will, as Charlotte puts. This obviously could cause a number of things to spawn inside the painting from Brauner subconscious mind without his direct input, of course (which is what I used to explain how Sanctuary is possible, as I don't believe he'd directly create something that could thwart him like that).
But he could ALSO have directly built the painting manually! As we see in the game, he can teleport inside the paintings, just like Charlotte and Jonathan. Who is not to say THAT's how he created the environment - by directly entering it and materializing things? We did see that Brauner is able to spawn physical, surreal things from ink when he's inside a painting (I'm not sure about the real world, since we never get to see him on the real world at all).
This could indeed mean that yes, he created every interactable volumetric inch of what is actually inside the paintings, even though I don't personally believe this to be the case.
Charlotte: He's using the paintings to make the castle's power
his, isn't he? Still, he isn't Dracula, after all, so
we're safe for now.
This is irrelevant. This could mean he's feeding on the castle's power as much as it could mean he's using the paintings to control the castle (Something that Charlotte directly states later). On both scenarios the castle's power is technically his, but in the latter, using the painting to control the castle's power doesn't necessarily mean he's feeding on it. It only means he's using the paintings to control the castle's power.
This explains the castle's influence on Brauner's artworks. It also explains why Dracula's minions and bosses are inhabiting Brauner's paintings.
I can agree with this, as it's obvious the paintings' locations have become infected with the castle's influence. YET the point above stands: There are creatures in the real world independent from Dracula's Castle and much more fantastic than Medusa Heads. Plus Brauner revived the castle, thus he could've seen the creatures there before actually painting.
Also 'war' is a conceptual term as well as something which can be physical practiced, as is 'hatred'.
We can ultimatelly reduce anything to "conceptual", but I can actually see a war rage. I can't see "hatred for mankind" when someone hates mankind; An act of hatred is called "violence" which is spurred by hatred.
When someone hates, I can only see someone having a biological reaction that, until explained by the one having it and the feelings that evoked this reaction, is nothing more than a biological reaction that mimicks many others. You can't paint "hatred for mankind" in the literal meaning of the expression, but you can paint something that represents your hatred for mankind, such as war - something materialistic and not a "feeling" - through the evokation of a feeling that this war transmits.
Paintings are made to evoke feelings on the viewer. I know that. But they are not "paintings of a FEELING". What's on the canvas are a selection of visual concepts arranged in a such a way to evoke a feeling or many feelings. Not the feelings themselves.
It's not a specific spell, it's simply above and beyond the capabilities of any purifying spell learned previously in the CV series.
You're misconstruing what I meant with "specific". I was not talking about the effect.
The spell may be able to cure anything which is pretty general, but it has area of effect, MP consumption, specific aria (Charlotte says she needs time to recite an aria for a spell to work), AND casting-time. Plus, Charlotte needs to "learn from it" - implying that specific instructions are flat-out written on the scroll.
The "instructions" make this spell far from "ample" or "too unspecific".
I actually would like to point out, on a side note, that stating "everything" is pretty specific in itself, as it objectivelly means something with definite properties (which in this case is ALL status ailments possible). The spell is not meant to cure vampirism, but to cure every status ailment, which again is specific in itself. And its in-game described function is pretty specific about it (it says it cures everything , and it indeed does. No room to ask "can you be more specific?" There is NO WAY to be "more specific" here.)
When I say "all healthy bipeds are able to walk on two legs" I'm not being "unspecific". I'm being pretty fucking specific actually. The word you might be looking for is "too general" which in fact it is indeed too general. Supremely general. But it doesn't cease to be specific.
But this last bit about "specific" is besides the point and just nitpicking :P
It's more than likely to be science based rather than magic, as the creature steps out of a machine which emits electricity and seems to be powered by several generators. This seems scientific in nature as evidenced by the blackboard riddled with equations in the boss room.
Yet we have bloody handprints appearing out of nowhere on the walls, which look nothing like something "sciencey".
The point is: If Sanctuary were to be in any other painting, we'd be making rationalizations about it. What I'm saying is that the spell carries little to no resemblance to anything, and at the same time resemblance to everything, as it is too general to call it a "purification spell because Egyptians had purification rituals".
It's so general that I could place it in any other painting and rationalize it given enough time.
I'm not saying you're wrong in doing it - I do it all the time. I actually like how you retroactively rationalized it. But I'm saying that "It fits perfectly!" is a long shot, as it'd fit perfectly anywhere else, too, if properly retroactively rationalized.
Goddammit I wrote so much I even forgot what the hell I'm trying to prove.
Oh boy.
Based on something existent within the mind of Brauner, whether its premise have come from something "real" or an initial complete "warping of reality" to begin with is the creator's intention.
So Brauner now invented streets, chapels, circuses, pyramids, fantastical creatures, etc etc, and he absolutelly had no point of reference whatsoever from objetcs of reality at all so he could use his creativity to bend the concepts based on the real counterparts. What a genius vampiric painter, how could I be so blind!
Your interpretation of my premise is flawed.
No it's not.
I said one thing and one thing only: Brauner takes inspiration from things that are real, to bend their concepts with surrealism.
You keep arguing, for some strange reason, that I think he simply painted things from the real world with no creativity applied at all. You said my argument amounts to "With your reasoning we are then back at square one stating "ultimately it has to be real"." yet this is not what I said at all.
Nothing on Brauner's paintings are ACTUAL REAL PLACES in the world. What I said is that he's taking real concepts inspired by places or things from the real world to create new things using them. With his own creative mind he bends these concepts into surreal landscapes, of original makeup, but with inspiration from something real.
That's why your premise is flawed. You keep acting as if I said something I didn't, or as if such conclusion like that can be drawn from something I didn't even imply at all anywhere.
I'm not here to argue semantics with a close minded individual
Well man, I could say you're strawmanning me all the time. What does it make you?
If the notion of the "idea of reality" being free doesn't appeal to you I'm surprised you've taken a vested interest into Castlevania or any type of popular media that isn't based strictly upon reality as you know it to be.
Because I'm not like, utterly dumb as a rock, y'know? I'm sorry my filmsy gray matter can't grasp yer mighty and vast intellect (that curiously can't understand how my simple-celled brain likes Castlevania so much, somehow) and that my plebeian fondness can't rival your unparalleled taste for the fine arts.
Really now, dude. Elitism may look cute on your mind, but it's not.
Ugh, do I have to read the same thing over? I'd rather not...
Explains a lot.
Why? There are still enemies that appear in POR that haven't appeared in previous games even in the portraits. If you look at the portraits themselves especially the initial ones as I stated before there are undertones to the creator's intentions, much of which is to do with death in a broad sense.
And I'm not denying that, man. I'm saying he took reference from real things - and you can find many of them in the Ars Goetia or other literature. They don't need to "have appeared in Castlevania before" because we already established "reading a book" is also taking inspiration from something real.
Why would a vampire paint a fucking circus called "nation of fools" if the subject matter was predominantly about "the circus"?
Oh, so because he named the painting "Nation of Fools" then it's not a painting of circus anymore. I wonder what do you think when you read "Dark Academy" and the painting is mostly about a fucking academy at night which is badly illuminated.
See, again you're insulting my intelligence as if I didn't knew what a "theme" is or "symbolism" means.
Him having "ideas" and "feelings" of his own doesn't mean that a representation of a circus ceased to be a freaking representation of a circus, even if said circus is a symbolism for something else.
You can tell me it represents Barack Obama playing cricket and is called "Singing Bananas Don't Play Basketball", and I'll still fucking see a circus there.
Yeah fantastic counter argument, I'll write that one down..
You better do, because you're doing horribly man.
Condescension doesn't really suit you, I'd lose that.
I was being honest here, but see, you can't even grasp when I use "condescencion". I used it a LOT on this response so you can get the comparison by contrast.
Yeah okay, I'm sure he saw all of the creatures, including the bosses, one of which is underwater and from ancient mesopotamia, one of which is a deity from the 18th century, one of which is the f'ing Legion, all outside the confines of Castlevania prior to going in and painting exactly what he's seen. Yeah okay....
Why the heck you keep ignoring the possibility he has read about these things and they qualify as "taking inspiration from something in the real world" is beyond me.
Also is beyond me why, according to your logic, a water spirit from Slavic mythology, Goliath himself, a creature from German folklore, or a ghostly appearance from Phillipines are allowed to exist outside the castle, but not a 18th century deity, or an underwater entity from ancient mesopotamia. I see no difference at all amongst them. They're all pretty fantastical to me. Why is Legion more fantastical than a giant, foating maggot inside a colossal skull?
Brauner couldn't have seen them? Hell, all it took Shanoa was a light jog of a week or two, son. Imagine what a teleporting vampire is able to do.
The generic enemies yes, and I'm not refuting this, but I don't buy that Brauner saw all these enemies and all these bosses wandering through the forest on his way in to town.
How much did Brauner travel? How did he know about Dracula's extensive history? We don't know any of these things, but I think it's quite possible he could've seen things even worse than that. And, even so, he doesn't necessarily need to have seen these things in flesh and bone, all he'd need is a descriptive book.
And again, I fail to see why you consider one monster "more fantastical" than the other, and therefore "impossible". All of them are pretty equally fantastical and impossible.
This is a special-pleading fallacy, btw. All monsters belong in the same category - fantastic monsters. Yet you keep inferring some monsters are "more possible" than others for reasons completelly arbitrary and unexplained.
Exactly my point, he doesn't need to see shit.
He might not need to indeed and we might not know the full extension of his power, but this doesn't apply to the "books" example I used. Books are STILL SOMETHING REAL, OUTSIDE OF HIS PAINTINGS that he could see and use as reference or inspiration.
Again: Books are still things/contain information you can SEE to take inspiration from.
it's not NOA translating it and prior to this in CV games translations have been pretty on point.
Look, if you like the manual and game translations, points for you. Yet, I do not, and there is evidence on top of evidence in this very forum that these translations are faulty. There are japanese-speaking people here that can attest to that (and that I have annoyed to death thanks to this.)
They have proved time and again to not be reliable on the details, getting the general idea right, but screwing up on the finer points. Finer points that, sometimes, change the entire equation.
For some bizarre reason you think only "NOA" fucks manuals up. I have no experience with NOA translated manuals, but I have plenty with Castlevania, pre and post IGA eras, and I'm certain these translations are not as good as you think.
It doesn't contradict the game
So, you're telling me this:
His anger and grief awakened his hidden power, which he used to become a vampire.
Doesn't contradict this:
and had his magical powers awakened by Dracula's castle
Right.
This may be a coincidence, it may be the Castle reappeared due to Brauner's grief being so strong that it manifested Chaos enouhg to bring the Castle back. After the time of WWII it may have been that Chaos itself was already rampant and Brauner's grief tipped the return of Castlevania over the edge.
So, first he revived the castle using tortured souls of WWII, now it reappeared due to Brauner's grief because "coincidence".
C'mon, man, you boldened that part yourself to make me look retarded... If I may suggest something, Occam's Razor - It's much more logical to consider this a contradiction than a convoluted plot-based explanation.
His "magical powers" probably have shit all to do with him becoming a Vampire.
Oopsie:
Eric: Brauner lost his real daughters in World War One. His anger and grief awakened his hidden power, which he used to become a vampire.
His powers are directly correlated with his becoming into a vampire. The game says it, not me.
Probably right there. I do favour game script>manual.
However I stick to my above points as Castlevania translations from what I've seen in the past have generally been good. Also Iga's timeline was released with POR, I really think they would not have let something storybreaking slip passed the goalie, even if in the manual and not in the game.
I will try to get Shiroi to translate the manual and a screen capture of the dialogue for us, and see it they both coincide or keep contradicting to settle this matter.
You might consider these translations to be good, but I have found them to be generally shit in the details. Again, the general idea they usually get nicely, but when it comes to the details they fuck it up. Examples of shit-crap translations would include:
-Mentioning the Belmonts get stronger with each generation when no such thing is ever mentioned in the Japanese manual or in-game story.
-Flat out stating Eric received the spear from Alucard himself when the original Judgment manual says something much more ambiguous, with the game itself contradicting this information as Alucard has no idea about who Eric is.
-Calling Maxim's sword "Stellar" in the manual when it is clearly called "Stella", the same name Eric gave his daughter and the sword he possesses.
And others more that make a world of difference (at least FOR ME) when you read the original manuals. And that's not mentioning aaaall the other things that got translated in total crap quality in the past, and all the others completelly ignored. I've learned to absolutelly ignore the english versions whenever possible.
It can't thwart him, this is my point. Aside from turning the sisters back it can't physically harm Brauner or nullify his status as a Vampire.
His entire reason of being is to have his daughters back and punish mankind. On the bad ending, when the sisters are about to be killed, he looks PRETTY thwarted to me and goes away.
On the scenario they are cured, he looks mad enough to break his cool. He's not MADDER because he believes he can turn then back:
Brauner: And now I must suffer the loss of my daughters to humanity
again. I'll show you how that feels. And then I'll make those
girls my daughters once more!
So yeah I think removing his daughters from him by either using Sanctuary or beating them is pretty thwarting to his plans, as he wants them to be by his side when he crushes humans. It's the point of the plot.
Um, he's gathering it for himself and his own use obviously. Whether he absorbs or redirects it etc is hardly here nor there.
Well lad, there are many things here obvious to me, too. Such as him taking inspiration and reference from real world things to create his paintings.
Yet you don't find this THAT obvious, do you?
Brauner revived the castle by collecting the tormented souls of WWII to do so which was exactly what I mentioned before - it goes out of its way to say they are 'tormented' - they all have one thing in common (along with Brauner and Dracula) Chaos.
The Castle then awoke his "magical powers" = painting farts and rainbows.
I'll refrain from repeating Eric's line again and how it contradicts your logic.
I mean, it might make sense to you, but that dialogue is pretty damning evidence that something here is not following.
I think there are artists out there who would like a word. There are plenty of ways to represent a feeling, or something more platonic than representing a specific scene that is occurring.
My god... where the fuck did I say there were NO OTHER WAYS BESIDES A SPECIFIC SCENE TO EVOKE FEELINGS. I'll just paste what I said because gosh dangit:
" What's on the canvas are a selection of visual concepts arranged in a such a way to evoke a feeling or many feelings. Not the feelings themselves."
You ARE aware that "visual concepts" can be anything from a car to a bunch of colored lines and circles arranged/executed in such a way to evoke a feeling, right? Like, full-on Jackson Pollock?
I sure hope you didn't stop at "such as war - something materialistic and not a "feeling"" and deduced "this guy is a dunce! where in the world only something materiallistic would evoke a feeling LOL HOW DUMB BWAH HAH HAH" because this is sure as fuck not what I said - or what I meant to say.
I was specifically pointing how WAR is something materiallistic and can be used to convey a feeling. Other things can too, even abstract things. It depends purely on the painter. HOWEVER it is also up to him on how to arrange these visual concepts in such a way that these feelings are conveyed.
Little to no resemblance to anything aside from being what it is fundamentally about “purification”. Because…Google it! Ancient Egypt had a shit tonne of spells regarding purification in general.
Yeah of course, because only Egyptians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_purification) have "general purification rituals".
But I'm a total kook that doesn't "back his shit up". Next thing you'll tell me is that only Dark Academies have spells for turning people into animals and that it's PERFECTLY FITTING HOLY CRAP :o !
For someone who believes reality depends on an individual's perception of it, you're sure as fuck bent on telling me how I should or not perceive Brauner's artworks and that he has NO CONCEPT OF WHAT A CIRCUS IS AT ALL.