#(harkula is the superior ship lmao)

[beevean]

You know, it's really funny how execution can make or break a concept.

In the Francis Ford Coppola film Bram Stoker's Dracula and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Dracula had a wife before he became a vampire, and said wife's death drives him to villainy. Centuries later, he meets the reincarnation of his dead wife, who he has a doomed romance with.

Yet because Bram Stoker's Dracula derailed a lot of characters not named Dracula and tried to make him out to be a tragic hero while he was still doing terrible things, I disliked the film, while the Castlevania games never pulled such a thing. It used his tragic backstory as a reason why he is the way he is, without excusing his behavior. As a result, it adds dimension to Dracula's character without feeling out-of-character.

Oh yeah, IGA clearly liked the movie and introduced elements of it with his own spin, such as Dracula descending into villainy because he returned home after an expedition only to find his wife Elisabetha dead, or him having the chance to live again with a girl named Mina (although Dracula needs to be reincarnated into a good person first lol)

Something I like about CV is that it has tragic villains, but it has a good balance between showing them in a sympathetic light and still reminding you that they're bastards. Dracula is a grieving man stuck in a cycle of rebirth, but he's also a petty monster who wants to make everyone pay for the sins of a few. Isaac lost everything he held dear through no fault of his own and fell prey to his own master's curse which lead him to a pointless death, but he's also a cruel, bitter man who unfairly caused the death of an innocent woman out of jealousy spite. Brauner lost his dear daughters in the war, but he also took two daughters from another man to turn them into vampires, and he gets called on his delusion by Jonathan. The story never tells you "look at these sad meows meows 🥺 they're not so bad after all 🥺", but they're not generic baddies either, and you come to see at least where they're coming from.

The show takes the "sad meow meow" approach when it comes to Dracula, Isaac and Lenore, and that's why I'm less than impressed. Dracula is a poor man too bereft with grief to think logically and who deserves to live again with his wife. Isaac is actually a gentle man who deserves peace after killing innocents to grow an army because he wanted to continue Dracula's slaughter. Lenore is actually a good, pacifist vampire who only wanted to protect Hector after resorting to deceit, manipulation, gaslighting and rape. You can feel the narrative holding your hand to push you to think a certain way.

Carmilla is a weird case because you'd expect her to be meowified, but she's just a generic badass #girlboss who gets no sympathy for her offscreen trauma. Still, not an elegant approach.