Dracula's power is Dark Lord. That power is the ability to command the demonic legions, and nothing more. Any human can become Dark Lord if they're willing and able to control those forces. Alucard even confirms this in Dawn by essentially calling the Candidate thing a bunch of crap. Julius also says in Aria that he sealed the whip on the castle to "weaken Dracula's spirit," which obviously can't be referring to the soul inside Soma since that wasn't sealed. Ergo, "Dracula" and "Mathias" are two different entities. If Mat feels sleepy and doesn't wanna get outta bed that day, Big D takes over, and true to the name "Big D" proceeds to try and fuck everything (up).
The writers didn't need to outright state that Dracula's identity and his power are two different things--there're more than enough heavy hints at it in the series. IGA himself even clarified back in SotN's days that Dracula has an "evil spirit" take the reigns when he doesn't feel like waking up.
Everything else of his is just magic. Fireballs, meteors, teleporting, rawr giant monster, it's all just regular old dark magic. Highly
powerful dark magic, but still abilities that theoretically anyone can learn. Graham's "miracles" and charismatic powers of seduction of the masses could be done by anyone with magical inclination--Succubae have powers of mass seduction and any sorcerer can produce "miracles" depending on who/what defines a miracle. Dario's possessed by a flame demon, and Dmitrii has powers of imitation--much like a Doppleganger or Mimic. Nobody in the series has inherently unique or special abilities,
except Dracula's long-time ownership of Dominance.
Dominance is the only unique ability, and is what defines the mantle of Dark Lord. In theory, any regular old human could've taken that title from Dracula, if he or she had a lust for death and power that surpassed Dracula's. But he's a pretty hateful dude, so that's a rather tall order.
A world without evil or conflict just means he's not Dark Lord. Everything else of his not directly correlated to that power is still on the table. It would be just as your plant analogy suggests. It isn't ideal, but he could work his way back up to it if given enough time.
Basically, the canon explains more than you give it credit for. It's not as if we're writing philosophy here, which is meant to be open-ended. It (OG Dracula's arc) is a narrative plot, one with a beginning (Lament) and an ending (1999). Dracula's role and power and how it all connects is explained in the canon in every way but outright "boom, here it is" statements. It is not the fault of the writers or IGA if someone cannot connect their dots for whatever particular reason, and to suggest that somehow the canon or official writing is "wrong" because one doesn't like it is, barring certain circumstances that I will say are NOT the case here, is both an insult to the writers and a bit of narcissism on the part of the accuser.
It doesn't matter what you come up with. It doesn't matter what I or even Plot comes up with. It'll never be canonized and legitimized unless IGA/Konami declare it so (yes, I know he's not officially able to touch CV anymore and honestly I don't give a shit about the parts of the fanbase with an unreasonable butthurt hatred of the man and literally anything to do with him--IGA is to CV lore as Tolkien is to Middle-Earth's, and just for comparison's sake J.R.R. doesn't hold the rights to his work anymore either, it's his kid, so both guys in my comparison wrote a bunch of shit and don't officially own it anymore). The only thing we as fans can do to write legitimately faithful stories is to rely on what canon we have as well and with as much scrutiny for details as we can. Some disregard more or less of the canon than others, and that's completely fine. But the more one disregards, the less truly faithful their work is--even if they consider their work more accurate or faithful to, say, a given character's mindset or motivations. If their work doesn't line up at least somewhat neatly with what's officially canon, then it's objectively inaccurate and unfaithful as far as those two areas are concerned.
You don't have to like the canon or parts that you can't wrap your head around or just don't make sense. Nobody does. But the canon is still true regardless. It's the word of god whether we like and want it to be or not. There is no debating this. It's not a matter of opinion. We're not talking about the Bible and its hundreds and hundreds of official derivatives. It's a game series with (in one universe anyway) one timeline and most of the same writers' involvement (directly or indirectly, as IGA collaborated with previous writers to ensure his additions fit). There IS no room for argument over whether a detail is canon beyond the simple question of "is the source it's from retconned or not?".
And just for the record on this particular thing:
Accepting that canon is fact and true whether I want it to be or not != Showing absolute unwavering loyalty to it. It
is the Alpha and it
is the Omega, and nothing your or I or anyone comes up with will change that unless we start working for Konami.
There's shit in the canon I don't like myself. But my opinion doesn't matter as to whether those things remain true or not.
Also, I too have enjoyed the Tour. But you said "ran through."
"Ran."Silly Aperture, have you forgotten?