#women in castlevania

[autumnmobile12]

All right, it's been almost year since Nocturne aired and I think my lack of enthusiasm really showed in that my Nocturne posts are pretty nonexistent compared to Castlevania. I've gone over my points in the few posts regarding my issues with the series. Most of them are personal preferences and not so much a writing problem. Richter and Marira are the types of character I don't like, so that automatically makes me less inclined to enjoy Nocturne right out of the gate. Again, personal preference and I'm hoping it's just part of their development and they'll be more likable as the series progresses. As I've said in previous posts, I'll continue Nocturne when Season 2 drops, but I'm more invested in Annette and Olrox's characters.

...

Julia's death, though, is still something that really bothers me.

Setting aside the obvious refrigeration here, she really got screwed over.  On the surface, dying in battle protecting her son is a good death, but here’s what ruined it:

Her last words to Richter are,  “I’m so sorry.”

Why is this a problem? Take this scene from the perspective lens of Julia, not the audience or the plot.  There is a dangerous vampire on the offensive in front of her.  He challenged her, not the other way around.  She knew his name and what he was capable of, and she did not hesitate to try to take him down to defend herself and her child. In this circumstance, she was a defender, not a hunter.  As a Belmont, killing Olrox is the objective.

But Julia doesn’t know Olrox is going to spare Richter!

Olrox is a vampire and he’s pissed; from Julia’s point of view, kiddo is next on the hit list.  She has no reason to believe Olrox won’t kill her son.  So she’s pinned and losing the fight, has limited options, is losing her strength, and at the point she realizes she can’t do this and that she’s going to die here, she turns to Richter and says she’s sorry.

Yeah, sorry she’s going to die and the Belmont line is going extinct tonight apparently.  Again, she has no reason to believe Olrox won’t kill Richter.

For this scene to have worked the way the writers intended, her last words, at the very least, should have been, “Run, get away!”  Or something like that.  Or they could have given her a true death in battle by letting her have that classic anime surge of energy and motivation that only the most dogged of characters have, you know——“Over my dead body are you killing my boy!”——and dying that way.

She didn’t die protecting her son.

She gave up and died. She, a Belmont, gave up and died.

She did her ancestors dirty, and therefore, the writers did her dirty.  If you’re going to kill off a character for the plot of the protagonist, especially a woman (because this happens way more often to a female character than a male,) at least do them the dignity a good death.  Make it worthy.

But getting back to the refrigeration issue, I have mixed feelings about that.  On the one hand, if they really wanted the ‘dead parent trauma’ trope, I guess I appreciate that it was Richter’s mother and not his father and therefore just another run-of-mill male hunter.  But still, we did need something a little more original than this. Even though Lisa was part of the original games and her only lore was the 'dead mother trope,' Castlevania Netflix gave her more than that: She was a doctor, she was intelligent, she was kind and always tried to do right by others. It's not a lot, but with the short amount of time Lisa is onscreen, she was given something fans could remember her for aside from 'the woman who died.' Castlevania honored the content of the original plot while expanding on it and giving it more substance.

Julia is not from the original video games, and in spite of endless possibilities they had, Nocturne still went with the 'woman whose tragic death drives the protagonist.'

The body count of dead women in Nocturne is so uncomfortable that when Edouard was killed, my immediate reaction was not the emotional response the writers probably wanted.  It was, “Oh, thank goodness, a dude finally died.  Between the two dead moms and the dead sister, we were running out of room in the fridge.”  At least Edouard and Jacques still have the benefit of still being active characters instead of plot devices and, yeah, of course I was sad to see Edouard go, but I am still irritated about what they did to Julia.

[itsalbir]

Rogue's name in portuguese is Vampira and that means vampire.

So it's just fitting that she dressed up as Carmilla from Castlevania for Halloween 🎃

[aestheteasteria]

Men with long hair are my religion

[mistrezzofmagic]

Her voice, a melody of ancient lore, Tells tales of magic, myths of yore. In every note, a spell is cast, Binding the present to the past.

She weaves her song through the air, Filling the void with something rare. A symphony of power and grace, In her realm, she sets the pace.

-The Spellbinder's Song

@pscentral EVENT 32: Magic - Witchy Women from Animation

Blood of Zeus (2020-present) Castlevania (2017-2021) Justice League Dark (2017) Twilight of the Gods (2024-?)

(insp)

[gio-goose]

WOMEMNN GRAAAAHHHHHHH!!!

[levismommymilker3000]

Imagine lonely Alucard wasting away in his castle and you so happen to find yourself in front of the beautiful architecture during a storm…..you knock feverishly as his doors open…..he allows you inside in a few days you learn about each other, You’re a sweet kind thing, with a pretty smile, and big heavy breasts and a thick wide frame….you then decide to allow him inside your tight walls taking what he gives you… each mind breaking thrust fucking into you deeply. Yummy brown areolas and nubs hard and enticing through his gaze…. His thoughts are absolutely disgusting.. he imagines you filled with his seed, Round after round fucking his baby batter deep so it takes for pregnancy….allowing his fangs in your neck sucking your yummy nutrients, Your plump lips gasping for release…….this lovely beauty taking his cock~ years after years of being lonely….deprived from one’s touch and sulking in his sorrows he was not about to let you leave without filling you like you filled his emptiness~

I um will probably delete this 😭 this is my first time so yeahhhhhhhh……..

[beevean]

You know, the funniest thing about how the games treat Dracula compared to the show is that the former have no less than four foils for our villain! To really hammer in the point that dude chose to be a bastard when he could have not!

Alucard also lost Lisa - he watched her die, he listened to her last words, and by all account it was a slow, painful death. He could have been angry towards the mob who unfairly put his mother through such a terrible death. Instead, accepting Lisa's final message, he chose to protect humanity from his father's fury, and kill him over and over which causes him so much internal turmoil that he'd rather sleep his life away.

Soma discovered that his fate was to become the Dark Lord. He simply refused. In fact, he was scared to become the Dark Lord, to the point of making Julius promise that if he lost against Chaos, the vampire hunter would kill him. Soma wants to be a normal human with his friends, and he'll fight to stay so. (worthy of noting that he's the only foil here who can't resist the darkness' call when he sees his beloved die, in DoS: Mina's Talisman can only slow the process down for Arikado to intervene in time. It proves that he really has to struggle to remain as himself)

Hector also was forced to see her beloved be executed in a sham witch trial - deliberately! Isaac deliberately set this up to enrage him to the point of being easily manipulable, and Death deliberately fanned the flames of his anger so that he'd succumb to the Curse and become Dracula. Hector not only directed all of his anger to the only responsible for Rosaly's death, but by the end he pulled back, because he realized that anger was not real, and recognized Isaac as another victim before peacefully moving on.

And Leon also had his fiancée die (see a pattern here), in fact he had to strike the fatal blow, under her request. Mathias honestly believed that because of this, Leon would understand his grief, and also renounce to God. But Leon not only had no intention to forgive Mathias for his cruel plan, he insisted that he'd rather live as a human and honor Sara's final wish, than exist for all eternity all alone, the fate Mathias doomed himself to.

So yes, eventually it almost becomes funny how much the games keep insisting "look at how much of a pathetic loser Dracula is. what a weak bitch. really thinks he's all justified because Wife Died™. Look at all these badasses with Dead Wives™ and how they still do the right thing! lol, dracula. lmao, even."

the virgin "he did nothing wrong 🥺" vs the chad "he did everything wrong and he's a petty manbaby about it". we stan

(ofc there is the heavy implication that Dracula literally cannot move on nor become a better person because of Chaos' influence inside him, which is why his soul had to do a hard reboot in the form of Soma to be freed from the cycle of destruction he stuck himself in. But there is certainly a discussion to be had about how much this affects Dracula's agency and culpability)

[louzathame]

———————————

“May I introduce Emissary Drolta Tzuentes”

I’m free! No more uni work for a couple of months now. Hopefully that means more art.

And yes another Castlevania character; absolutely adore Drolta. I tried to give her a more “vampire” appearance - She has some scary camera angles x.x

Not one of my best works. It’s like 3am but I couldn’t resist drawing her. Anyways I must sleep. Maybe I’ll draw her again :)

I love Castlevania way too much.

[veldrin]

Striga doodle I did earlier this year

[lady-of-the-lyre]

How to write a good woman villain/anti-hero/victim of abuse who now kills people — Jinx from Arcane.

How NOT to write a good female villain; Carmilla and Drolta for being "insane, power hungry, fools"

Seriously. The writers of the Castlevania series on Netflix are butchering the women

It is awful. I hate it. They need to do better.

[castlephantom]

My favorite girls/women

[hearts4lxsa]

I'm gonna need fanfiction writers to get on it...

[sleepynegress]

On Greta Danesti...

I'm just taking this time to correct a certain anti-Black, (and anti-Romani) sadly typical fandom troll's misogynoir fuckery in the tag and establishing who Greta Danesti is in canon Castlevania animation lore. This is Greta Danesti's official character sheet:

She's the village headwoman of Danesti a few miles away from Alucard's castle. This is what her voice actress, Marsha Thompson looks like:

It's pretty obvious her character design took cues from the actress, who is Afro-British. In show canon, however, her family escaped from the Roman city of Carthage, which today, is located in the African country Tunisia. Alucard correctly speculated where her people are from while conversing with her, here (s4 e5):

Greta then confirms that her people did escape the Romans, but she now fully embraces her "family" in her village who are "from all over" and the responsibility of taking care of them.

This same troll used the g-slur to insist that she is Romani.

She is not. This troll used an early character design here, to make her case.:

And though it does have similarities to Romani clothing... It also looks like it takes cues from Tunisian clothing and likely local and non-local European clothing of the era with "fantasy" elements sprinkled in, as well, which would match the fact of her village's people coming from all over:

There definitely should be more Romani rep in media as it is so often whitewashed, but Greta is not Romani.

FYI, these women actors actually *are* of Romani descent: Fairuza Balk of The Craft, Oona Chaplin who played Robb Stark's wife in GOT (she's also Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter[!]), and Noomi Rapace from the Swedish movie, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo says her father may have been of Romani descent, as well.

And because I can predict it, as people like to find ways of discounting blackness in every way...

Yes, there are plenty of non-Black indigenous POC in North Africa, including within Tunisia. Another fun fact... Africa has more indigenous human genetic variation among its peoples than every other people on the planet has with everyone else on the planet[!]. All this to say non-white POC AND Black people are indigenous to Tunisia.

I feel I have to say that because there is a lot of anti-Black anthropological fetishization of North Africa. Egypt is a major example of that (see: Rami Malek, an indigenous Coptic Egyptian who self-identifies as African man of color and has likely had to clarify that *often* because people keep wanting to mislabel him as an Arab, but I digress...) And sadly, there is a decidedly anti-black movement to totally disconnect certain North African countries' identities from a continental African one, and to largely see it as mainly a part of the MENA world (it is both kiddies, BOTH). Here is an informative article (linked in the image) about that struggle:

So, this got heavy...but between the post insisting that Greta is NOT Black and the one saying she's not bisexual because that same troll is purposefully and maliciously being obtuse about how words go together... I figured clearing some things up and educating folks might be helpful. BTW, the fact of those issues in the article makes her blackness all the more resonant as rep in pop culture. And hey, poly folks have disagreements, just like the het folks do... -Still bi. I'm gonna end here with two images from the linked article of anti-racist Tunisian protesters (MENA and Black):

P.S. I also side-eye those keen to make her muscular... I mean yeah she wields a big-ass hammer and shortsword/dagger, but the tendency to masculinize black woman characters deserves a hardy eye-squint. Especially, given that the show has *no problem* making muscular women look like that and they DIDN'T for Miss Greta.

See: Zamfir and the Berserk-style sword-carrying Vampire warrior, Striga. Both of whom had that flex going on.

[alpaca-clouds]

Let me talk about Women in Refrigerators

You know what? This is a thing that is kinda annoying me in the Castlevania fandom. How everyone is screaming about Women in Refrigerators, while folks so clearly do not understand what the trope actually is about and why it is a bad trope.

Like, there is not a single death of a named woman in Castlevania, that not at least someone has called "fridged". Alright, maybe Drolta. But other than that... yeah, folks definitely have called Lenore and Carmilla fridged. And... No, people, you misunderstand the trope.

The name of the trope was coined based on Green Lantern vol. 3 #54 (from the 90s), in which Green Lantern finds his death girlfriend stuffed in a refrigerator - mostly for shock value in the reader. Mind you, this was the 90s, when superhero comics were really, really edgy and stuff. And in fact the kind of story happened a lot of times during this time. Female characters being killed, raped and tortured for pure shock value, with the story not featuring any idea of what this did to the female character, but rather focusing on what this does to the male characters. (And mind you: Yes, a woman can be considered fridged and still survive the ordeal. A lot of folks do consider Barbara in The Killing Joke fridged as well.)

So, what does "Fridging" in terms of the trope mean? Basically it means that a female character suffers a horrible fate just so that another (most probably male) character can be motivated to do something and react to this thing happening, setting in motion a character arc for the surviving character - or even setting into motion the plot.

In many examples it should also be noticed that at times the female characters mostly just exist to meet their horrible end. Supernatural as a show is really bad in this regard. Like, within the first episode of the show THREE FUCKING WOMEN get fridged, just so that the brothers can travel together and start the plot.

So, let's move back to Castlevania.

Lisa is fridged. There is no way around it. Yes, it does not feel like it, because they still managed to make her a character of sorts, but yeah, she definitely is fridged. She dies a horrible death and that death is what motivates the plot, as well as what motivates both Alucard and Dracula. That is very classical fridging no way around it.

Carmilla and Lenore, though? Yeah, they are not fridged. They are characters who just die. Their death is not used to motivate another character. Their death is also not random, like most fridging deaths. Especially Carmilla is basically asking for her death, of course. She is a villain and gets the same death as all other villains. And while it is a bit different with Lenore, she definitely is not fridged either, giving that she literally dies in the last episode with no plot or development happening because of her death.

In Nocturne it gets a bit more complicated. Is Julia fridged? In a way, I would argue, she is, mostly on the value that she exists as a character to die and for her death to be the basis for Richter's character arc, giving him the trauma he needs to overcome.

Esther meanwhile does not feel fridged to me. Because Annette's trauma is not deeply linked to her death, rather than the entire slavery experience in general.

Tera? Well, for Tera it is too early to tell. I still assume that her change into a vampire is going to be used to have the characters realize, that vampires are not inherently evil, and to give us a view into what vampire society looks like. At least that is what I assume.

By the way: The fridging of female characters is my big issue with the PS2 Castlevania games. Like, in Lament of Innocence both Sara and Elisabetha are getting fridged to motivate Leon and Mathias. And the same is true for Rosalie in Curse of Darkness, who as a character only exists to motivate Hector. I mean, she is so replacable as a character, that Hector fucking replaces her by the end of the game.

[famousflowermagazine]

i'm sick of seeing the hate that annettte from castlevania nocturne is getting so if you love annette please reblog this post and i will give you a follow also if your a richette shipper that's a plus. i need more content of them.

[lmae98]

Tagged by: @dmc-questions-anon (their post)

Rules: Make a poll of your favorite female characters (no limits - as many or as little as you want) and see which your followers like the most!

@unlucky-leek @space-diablo @hoba-kirk @xxlucyxlolaxx and anybody who wants to!