Topic: Mathias or Dracula

[Mystic Myotis]

... Mathias turned himself in defiance of God because God killed Elisabetha.  Understandable, BUT he also orchestrated the death of his best friend's fiance AND he had the gall to attempt to sway Leon to his side.  Dude was obviously a prick right from the start but he was suave enough that he could hide it from others.

Furthermore, the back-story ties in pretty damn well with SotN AND AoS/DoS.  Elisabetha was obviously based off of Lisa from SotN, implying that either Dracula has unwavering taste or that Lisa was Elisabetha's reincarnation.  This can be taken another step when you factor Mina into account.  Elisabetha->Lisa->Mina.  And each time one of them died (or in Mina's case, appeared to die) Mathias/Dracula/Soma went completely batshit-psycho.

With Elisabetha, he renounced his humanity and made a mortal enemy out of his best friend.

With Lisa, he started killing (impaling, Vlad the Impaler) people indiscriminately.  This is supported by the time-line particularly as Vlad was born in the 1430's and Trevor and Co fought him in the 1470's.  Vlad Tepes ruled mainly from... 1456 to 1462 (had to look it up) and he died in 1476.  It is obvious that whoever came up with the story of SotN, and even CoD, thought about this.

With Mina, he lost control and even without the memories of his past life, he let the darkness consume him and struck out against his former friends (in the bad ending, anyway).

The character is nothing if not consistent.


Another thing I liked about the Mathias background was that it explained how the Belmonts originally became entangled in this.  Mathias was Leon's friend, a brother in arms, and that makes his acts against Leon all the more despicable.

Someone like Mathias... was perfectly worthy of becoming Vlad Tepes, I think.

[Donvermicelli]

I love Mathias and the idea that Dracula was originally human. I just don't buy his being a "master tactician" according to the LoI story... Think about it. For nearly a thousand years the guy always uses the same vain strategy of kidnapping women and luring... who?... the Belmonts! Why not lure to my castle the only guys who can defeat me and always do? And he always sends out the same bosses after them. Yeah Death and Legion are cool but they fail their master every single time! I assume a true "master tactician" would have fired 'em a long time ago. Frankly I'd expect more from the so-called Lord of the Vampires.

I'm just kidding here. I love Castlevania since the very first game in the series. But I'm more pleased with the more original titles such as OoE which breaks that nonsensical cycle of Drac chasing trouble.

Ok going with your story here, you intend to fire a god? he is THE most powerful servant he could ever have, Death isn't around for just his looks or for the sake of it he actually is there because there is none better. He might not be good enough but still, and the fact that he lures the Belmonts isn't that a bad idea,(besides if you want a real tactician you should look at the Dracula from castlevania64) that way the only battle that matters becomes settled instantly, would you like to build an entire empire only to see it crumble to dust because you know the Belmonts are still around and they have a 90% chance of killing all in their path?

Oh and on a side note, we've seen Drac absorb others to gain power before. Legacy of Darkness anyone? if you look at it Mathias and Dracula from Legacy have a lot in common.

[X]

The real life Vlad was also a tactician of sorts as well so it should come as no surprise. But the Mathias character is nothing more then IGA trying to "remake" Castelvania and Dracula in his own image. To me, the evidence is quite clear.

-X

[crisis]

Everybody at Konami likes Mathias, even COX. Why else would he make Gabriel related to him?

[Nagumo]

Forced fanservice. And its a false lead you can see coming from a mile away.

 

[crisis]

Nagumo, where's our LoI cell phone comic you promised you'd track down for us =[

[justin312]

Meaning do you prefer Dracula before the Mathias idea or after it was implemented.

I prefer Dracula before the Mathias idea was implemented, absolutely.  The original appeal that Castlevania had to me was its use of classic horror themes, and specifically of Dracula.  Thing is, because Dracula is a character that is such a staple in our culture, everyone already has their own ideas of who that character is.  When you make such drastic fundamental changes, basically altering the character's identity, it makes him less appealing to me.  Dracula's "origin" was a story best left untold, remaining in the imaginations of the players.  Adding the Mathias back-story was one of Iga's worst mistakes with the Castlevania story, in my opinion. 

It doesn't help that Dracula is almost never portrayed as his traditional vampire self in Castlevania anymore; he is almost always depicted as some "Dark Lord" evil wizard, who we now know is really named Mathias.  What's the point of even calling him Dracula?  If the backstory, appearance, powers and motivations of the character are all Iga's vision and none of the traditional Stoker character, why not just call him "Dark Lord Mathias" and be done with it?

[X]

Good argument there justin312. That's exactly how it is.

-X

[Nagumo]

Nagumo, where's our LoI cell phone comic you promised you'd track down for us =[

The dog ate it.

[Mystic Myotis]

^ I'm so sad, now... I've been wanting to read that ever since I stumbled across the wiki that talked about it.


Look... I don't see that it matters too terribly much.  They stayed pretty damn true to the Castlevania Dracula's personality when creating Mathias and furthermore, his next appearance in the series took place hundreds of years later.  Castlevania is hardly known for its historical accuracy (Frankenstein's monster, robots in days of old, etc) so really, who cares?
You could argue that he killed the original Vlad and took his place using magic.  Problem solved.

[X]

Look... I don't see that it matters too terribly much.  They stayed pretty damn true to the Castlevania Dracula's personality when creating Mathias and furthermore, his next appearance in the series took place hundreds of years later.  Castlevania is hardly known for its historical accuracy (Frankenstein's monster, robots in days of old, etc) so really, who cares?
You could argue that he killed the original Vlad and took his place using magic.  Problem solved.


This problem could also be solved by Vlad Dracula starring in his own game. LoI states that Mathias dissapears for hundreds of years before ressurfacing. I see Mathias becoming King Matthias of Hungary and Imprisoning Vlad for his six year term before being released. (Note: King Matthias did, historicaly imprison Vlad for six years.) Then once Vlad is freed and given the oppertunity to take back Romania, he takes advantage of Matthias and kills him, thus removing a well-known contradiction in the CV timeline and restoring most of the damage that IGA had done when he did the LoI Dracula back-story. Problem solved IMO. Now the other IGA games...   

-X

[Nagumo]

That would kind off destroy the entire set up for the Belmont vs. Dracula struggle. As intented by IGA I mean.     

[justin312]

I liked it better way back when Castlevania III was considered the original Belmont vs Dracula struggle.  Dracula raises an evil army and is on the verge of conquering the world when Trevor and his companions defeat him.  Before perishing, Dracula places a curse on the Belmont bloodline, so that Dracula will rise every 100 years as long as Belmont descendants live.  The Belmonts are now burdened with stopping Dracula every hundred years in an eternal struggle of good vs evil, because their cursed bloodline is the key to his resurrection, but also gives them the power to stop him.

I don't know, to me that setup is more simple and at the same time carries more weight than something as petty as one man's grudge over a dead wife.

[Profbeanburrito]

I like the idea of Mathias, its gives more purpose to why the Belmonts go to kill Dracula all the time. I like to think that maybe mathias gets all sorts of power after LoI and he lives out the rest of his life gaining strength, then gets old and dies. Then maybe he goes to Hell and defeats the devil or whatever, and that's how he comes back as Dracula. I don't think Mathias is just walking around for hundreds of years and decides to change his name. There has to be something more to it. Maybe Vlad Tepes is the reincarnation of Mathias like Soma is to Dracula

[thernz]

But Dracula never cursed their bloodline in CVIII. And the Belmonts were apparently already special enough to be feared by CVIII's time. It makes sense to me that there would be another story before that. I feel like the whole set up for LoI gave a great reason for the Belmonts to go after Dracula, considering that Leon played a crucial role in creating Dracula by defeating Walter and that Sara was sacrificed to form the Vampire Killer gives a lot more meaning to it as a heirloom.

The idea of Matthias dying before CVIII can't happen though because Trevor was declared the first to kill Dracula.