Topic: Mathias or Dracula

[Lumas]

So Negumo (one of my favorite debaters on here and I actually mean that) brought up an interesting question which sparked my curiosity. I would like to know if you prefer the back story of Dracula introduced in LoI or just classic Dracula meaning Vlad Tepes and your reasons why. Try not to turn this into a flame thread remember its all a matter of opinion.

[crisis]

It really shouldn't matter since they're one in the same, Castlevania's Dracula is different than all other depictions. So when you say Vlad Tepes Dracula, I assume you mean the 15th century warlord. I don't know how that would've worked in CV's world. The Mathias story can work because it adds several hundred years to the history, however they've yet to take advantage of this, but I think I recall some Japanese manual(s) saying Dracula was a sorceror long before he declared war on humanity. If they had used the historical Vlad's backstory, wouldn't it contradict the evil sorceror legend?


I guess they could've went the easy route & released LoI with the name Vlad replacing Mathias. Either way it doesn't bother me that Mathias "evolved" into Vlad Dracula. Same characters, different identities. I'm sure Lords of Shadow will have an entirely different Dracula backstory as well.

[Sumac]

I'm not sure about this. On one hand I like to think about Dracula as an ultimate evil, some sort of vampire sorceror with no trace of humanity left in him. Him being Mathias Cronqvist take something away from that.

On the other hand Dracula being Mathias make his character more interesting and tragic then "Lord of Darkness" who want to destroy everything just because he can.

As it is in the IGA timeline, Dracula being Mathias doesn't really have any effect in the games, except for LOI. It wasn't mentioned anywhere in the games even after LOI release and in most IGA'vanias Dracula appears just for purpose of being killed in the next five minutes. There is no really any chance to show his character.
But that's how IGA stories works. So in the end Dracula = Mathias is another interesting idea that wasn't properly executed and practically doesn't change much in the storyline. Just probably makes AOS / DOS stories more legitimate.

[DragonSlayr81]

I don't mind Mathias as Dracula. They already made CV's Dracula something that goes BEYOND historical Vlad III by saying that he was old in RoB, IGA just ran with that. People blame him for it, but he didn't concieve that plot idea. He just thought people might start to get confused at how the real Vlad III would've NOT been around 800s old in the late 1700s. So yeah, I'm fine with Mathias. People say his reason to transform into a vampire is cheap, but I don't see the "reason" as being THAT important, either. It was just the means to transform him into a vampire, the catalyst. What caused him to hate humanity was far more important, IMO, than what caused him to become a vampire.

And I've never been above the idea that Mathias shouldn't be Vlad III. People act like it's impossible to undergo new identities. You try to explain that Mathias changed his name to "Dracula Vlad Tepes" and they look at you and say, "But, but, Vlad III is a different person from Mathias Corvinus. Th-they CAN'T be the same. You can't change your name! Mathias will always be Mathias, and Dracula is Dracula!!". It's not hard to swallow, unless you fight it. I don't mind. There's been so many original takes on Dracula's origin in stories and films, it doesn't bother me that CV tried to make it's own. Set IT'S Dracula apart from others. I'm totally content in that and have problem with Matthias being butthurt because his love died, so he wants to dedicate his life to mocking god. Oh well.

[darkwzrd4]

I like Mathias as Dracula better.  Keep in mind that it proves that even some good people can turn evil.  Pure evil for evils sake doesn't sit right with me.  For me, being the ultimate evil needs a sort of evolution from something else.  In this case, we have a man who lost his wife, blames "God", becomes a vampire as a result as some sort of rebellion, and finally starts to hate humans (probably because humans murdered Lisa, who he loved).  If you follow this, you can see that he hates and tries to destroy it, if he can.  In essence, everything Mathias does is based on the premise that "I am a victim and I am going to get revenge."  Sometimes the best people become the worst villains.  You can also compare Mathias to Anikin Skywalker/Darth Vader from Star Wars.

[DragonSlayr81]

Yes. Also, I liked how the ties between Leon and Matthias form the root connection between Belmont and Dracula. That both Leon and Matthias were holy warriors, fighting in God's name, but Matthias would turn against God when tragedy struck, and Leon did not. But really, both are almost different sides of the same coin. Leon just didn't choose to let his sorrow overwhelm him and cause him to curse God when he had to kill Sara. But yeah, I actually liked that a lot. It made the connections run deep. You start to see it as two good friends, "brothers in arms", that go through similar tragedies, and wind up coming to a fork in the road and both take different paths that, somewhere down the line, will cross(of course, symbolically, since it's the Leon's descendants that meet Dracula).

Besides, I never seen Matthias Dracula as NOT being a "surpreme evil being of pure evil". He DOES eventually become that later on(after Lisa is killed). He just doesn't start off that way. But yeah, after years of darkness, seeking to wipe out humanity, Matthias, who is now Dracula, IS the Dark Lord, the ruler of the Demon Castle. Just because he started his life as Matthias doesn't make that part of him any different. He was still causing great death and chaos through Europe during the time of CVIII. He's still the heartless, cruel vampire lord that all the townsfolk fear. That never changes.

[DingusBelmondo]

That just makes him so less actually the Dracula. I see him as the Bram Stoker character, the original dracula, a part of that story line. It just has always interested me more to think of it like that.

[Koutei]

Dracula.

[Nagumo]

I don't think they ever had the obligation to make Dracula the real life Vlad Tepes. They kind off played with the idea in CVIII but even so he was always combined with his evil sorcerer background which orginated in the novel. At the time that game was released Bram Stoker's Dracula hadn't been around yet. I believe the quite popular idea that Vlad III was meant to be Dracula was already around for a while (I believe it orginated during the 70's) but back then the historical figure had no reason evident from his life to return after his supposed dead as a vampire making it kind off a silly connection as far as "how and why" is concerned. Aside from that I don't think he has mostly the similarities as Mathias, his only really outstanding thing is that he likes to put people on stakes and the CV Dracula also seems to have a sadistic obsession with killing people in the exact same way. So no loss there. In the end I think they are roughly the same character anyway.                                 

[VGuyver]

I prefer mathias, because his origin story and delivery is so much more impacting to me.

[shelverton.]

I would accept Mathias more if there was another game with him. Leon should have a son or daughter who fights Mathias before he turns into Dracula forever. Or something. Dunno.

[nicoduches]

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.

[Lumas]

the time that game was released Bram Stoker's Dracula hadn't been around yet.

Umm the novel has been around since 1897 and the idea of Vlad III being Dracula was introduced in that novel. So its been around for a really long time.

Also I think its fair to say that Vlad as Dracula has stood the test of time longer than Castlevania being that the novel was introduced first. So it has almost 90 years on Castlevania.

[X]

I'd pick Vlad III over Mathias since in my mind, it's always been Vlad the impaler/Dracula in castlevania and not Mathias. Some have mentioned that Mathias' past is more tragic then Vlad's...I degress on this. Vlad was only 6 years old when his father was assassinated, his mother imprisioned/sold to slavery; either or, and his older brother was buried alive. Vlad himself was imprisioned by the Ottomon turks and being their slave, was sexually assulted. Now it doesn't take a detective to imagine the effect this would have on a young child. Vlads obsession of impalement would've been draw from such a tramatic experiance. When Bram Stoker wrote his book, he took the most frightening aspects of Vlad and created THE Dracula we all know. While Mathias' tragity was losing his wife, becoming bedridden (which he was faking) then blaming God for his troubles, that was almost a direct take from the Bram Stoker novel. Vlad was winning the war, the Turks get revenge by delivering false news of Vlad's death and his wife reads the note then throws herself out of the castle window. Vlad returns only to see her dead body littering the chaple floor. Then the head priest tells Vlad that by taking her own life she will not be saved. This, of course, pisses him off somethin' fearce. He screams out loud in hatred and shouts "I renownce God!!" Then whiping out his blade, he lunges at the chaple cross, stabs it and drinks the blood oozing from it like a waterfall. This was one of my favoret parts of the film seeing the stone cross bleed like that. A perfect christening for Dracula's begining. It's interesting to note that even the book takes some of the real life Vlad's tragities as well. The part where his wife throws herself out the window? That actually happened in real life. As the Turks and Saxon armies closed in on the castle, Vlad's wife feared for her well-being and chose suicide rather then any other horrible fate she might face. Another reason why I think Vlad is THE Dracula over Mathias is that Mathias had to aquire the Ebony and Crimson stones in order to gain his full powers and become Dracula. Bram Stoker's Dracula didn't need such things as he became Dracula out of shear will-power alone. He didn't need Alchemy-produced trinkets to assisst him. He did it all by himself. And since the original Dracula character isn't bogged down with the Emo looks or being a winer as IGA had made mathias out to be, then for me, Vlad III is and the only true successor to the title of Dracula and the only one worthy of being Dracula in Castlevania

-X.

[Nagumo]

I actually if you would compare Mathias and Copella's version of Dracula I think the latter has a better reason for renouncing god just because they mention that his wife's soul couldn't be saved because of the suicide and all while according to Lament (the manga) Mathias's wife died of uh tuberculosis. In both cases though I think their reasoning for their human genocide is way too exceggerated to be taken seriously and only makes them look egoistic.