Topic: castlevania's theological structure

[undeadknight777]

i find the castlevania world and the different types of mythologies that inhabit its world interesting. i wanted to ask you guys about the theological structure of the world. it seems as if the judaic/christian philosophy is the predominant force and the God of the bible is the hierarchical power. but we also have the gods, goddess, demigods and demons from other religions. so how do all these mythologies interact with each other? is God in the castlevania universe all powerful? did He create the other deities(like in the DC universe)? are all the gods evil demons(like in the biblical text)? is dracula satan himself or a demonic underlining next to satan? sorry it just seemed like a fun question. i love learning about the mythologies of fictional worlds. thanks

[Profbeanburrito]

i find the castlevania world and the different types of mythologies that inhabit its world interesting. i wanted to ask you guys about the theological structure of the world. it seems as if the judaic/christian philosophy is the predominant force and the God of the bible is the hierarchical power. but we also have the gods, goddess, demigods and demons from other religions. so how do all these mythologies interact with each other? is God in the castlevania universe all powerful? did He create the other deities(like in the DC universe)? are all the gods evil demons(like in the biblical text)? is dracula satan himself or a demonic underlining next to satan? sorry it just seemed like a fun question. i love learning about the mythologies of fictional worlds. thanks

Seeing as all the other gods and demigods and other mythologies seem to be enemies, I look at it as them being false gods like Christian/Judaic peoples look at them. They're probably all demons or something. I think they're in Castlevania games just because they're cool looking or have interesting ideas behind them.

At least they don't seem to change the monsters too extremely like Final Fantasy does, for example: Bahamut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamut

[DingusBelmondo]

Honestly it's just the result of the original Castlevania having lots of different monsters. Crosses and Christianity obviously play a lot into vampire mythos, so that's the predominant force. And all the other creatures are just for the sake of having creatures. Its as nonsensical as Iga's time line, I wouldn't think to much of it.

[undeadknight777]

thanks guys for taking time the answer. its helpful

[uzo]

Seeing as all the other gods and demigods and other mythologies seem to be enemies, I look at it as them being false gods like Christian/Judaic peoples look at them. They're probably all demons or something. I think they're in Castlevania games just because they're cool looking or have interesting ideas behind them.

At least they don't seem to change the monsters too extremely like Final Fantasy does, for example: Bahamut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamut

That's a pretty good way of looking at it.

[Lumas]

is dracula satan himself or a demonic underlining next to satan? sorry it just seemed like a fun question. i love learning about the mythologies of fictional worlds. thanks

In the beginning of the series I do believe that he was just and underling of satan but with the implementation of Aria and Dawn of sorrow I do believe that the "Dark Lord" is the true force of evil within the castlevania universe as stated by Alucard that the Dark Lord is the opposite of God. Correct me if I am wrong but before Legends got retconned and was the first entry in the series I believe it stated that Dracula actually sold his soul to Satan to gain dark powers thus making him an underling. But like i said with the newer entries and that game being retconned I think it would safe to assume that Dracula as well as any of the other Dark Lords are mere vessels for the entity of the Dark Lord to inhabit while here on our plane of existence since it never really states where Dracula goes (though I would assume Hell or Demon realm or whatever you want to call it), so therefore there could be some other dark realm in which Castlevania itself comes from being that it dematerializes.

[crisis]

Actually I believe it was stated he made a pact with an "evil deity," which was most likely Chaos, not the Christian Satan. That may have been a translation error, as in Aria you get "Satan's Ring" (description: "Satan himself once wore this ring"), and the series is no stranger to translation errors. But all this is up to interpretation, there may be no right or wrong answers.


I believe in the CV universe Lucifer never existed, it was always Chaos. Dracula chose to become one with Chaos, thus beginning the Dark Lord legacy.

[Lumas]

Actually I believe it was stated he made a pact with an "evil deity," which was most likely Chaos, not the Christian Satan. That may have been a translation error, as in Aria you get "Satan's Ring" (description: "Satan himself once wore this ring"), and the series is no stranger to translation errors. But all this is up to interpretation, there may be no right or wrong answers.


I believe in the CV universe Lucifer never existed, it was always Chaos. Dracula chose to become one with Chaos, thus beginning the Dark Lord legacy.

Actually it doesnt state anywhere in the manual that he made a pact with the devil or an evil deity so we both stand corrected on that unless stated in the japanese manual which doesnt hold much ground with me being Im an american. I understand what you are saying, that evil deity=chaos but given the amount of "christian" references I would have to say if he did make a pact with an evil entity then one at that time would have to assume it was the devil.  Even Sonia stated "..until your soul is saved." Which is a common Christian saying and given they use Crosses,, holy water, and other traditional christian methods of slaying creatures of the night and Trevor himself and if im not mistaken even Reinhardt was found praying at the start of both of their games though i believe Reinhardt was more or less asking for strength.

EDIT: Plus at the time the whole Chaos and Dark Lord theory wasn't introduced since it was IGA that did that with Aria though hinted on in SotN. Until then Dracula was just an evil vampire pissed at the world.

But again there is no right or wrong answer being that legends was retconned and the actual evil of the world that exists in castlevania, at least until lords of shadow drops meaning IGA's timeline, is Chaos.

[X]

God is definitly the dominant force in Castlevania and since it's ecsentually a medeival game, it makes sense from a historical point of view. The other monsters taken from mythology are just servents to Dracula since he is the strongest controling negative force on earth. Even all those false gods and goddesses cannot hope to win against him. Not that that's actually the case, but having different elements like that in a game makes it one hellava game!

-X

[Nagumo]

But again there is no right or wrong answer being that legends was retconned and the actual evil of the world that exists in castlevania, at least until lords of shadow drops meaning IGA's timeline, is Chaos.

I actually think evil deity = Death because....

The orgins of Dracula and his son Alucard along with his reasoning for declaring war against humanity given in the manual are different then later explanations given by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and Castlevania: Lament of Innonence, leaving some fans to believe this information has been retconned.

Dracula is said to have received his powers from an evil deity while in Lament of Innonence he got his powers by absorbing the soul of a powerful vampire with the Crimson Stone. However, evidence in the game supports that the evil deity given in Akumajou Densetsu's manual and Death are supposed to be one and the same.

The roles of the two beings are identical. When Dracula was still known by the name of Mathias Cronqvist, he found the Crimson Stone which allowed him to gain power over Death. Being an Angel of Death, he was bound to the stone and his role was to harvest souls and grant them to his master, thus allowing that individual to absorb them. After Walter's defeat, Death was able take his soul and granted it to Mathias, his exact words being:

This power... I offer to the king who wields the Crimson Stone!

Thus implying he and the evil deity are retconned to be the same individual

Seems the most sensical option to me.
 

[Lumas]

That actually makes some sense, very anti climatic that technically, according to this theory, is how Mathias got his powers from  a boss who has had his ass handed to him just as many times as Dracula. Ya figure he would have gotten it from someone a little more....powerful. But again I'm not too sure on this theory completely.