| |
| Vlad "Dracula" Ţepeş (ドラキュラ・ヴラド・ツェペシュ Dorakyura Burado Tsepeshu) | |
|---|---|
| Biographical information | |
| Physical description | |
| Bloodline | Lisa Ţepeş (wife)
Adrian Ţepeş (son) |
| Gender | Male |
| Hair Color | Long Black |
| Eye Color | Crimson |
| Chronological and political information | |
| Universe | Castlevania |
| Creator | |
| Other | |
| Film Portrayer | Graham McTavish |
Vlad "Dracula" Ţepeş (ドラキュラ・ヴラド・ツェペシュ Dorakyura Burado Tsepeshu?, lit. "Dracula Vlad Ţepeş") is the main antagonist of the first and second season of the Netflix original series, Castlevania. He is the father of Alucard, as well as the widower of Lisa Ţepeş.
History[]
Early life[]
Dracula rose to become the strongest of vampire-kind and the leader of his race. He had a dislike of humanity, and a reputation for sheer brutality. He was known to impale his victims and slaughter entire villages should they wrong him.
By the late medieval period of Europe in Wallachia, Dracula had lived alone in a castle, which could be magically teleported. He had also come to possess a vast wealth of scientific knowledge, which was stored away within the depths of the castle.
To deter visitors or robbers from entering, Dracula had the impaled corpses of his victims displayed at the front of the castle grounds. A warning that promised a brutal and painful death to those willing to ignore it.
Meeting Lisa[]
In 1455, he had an unexpected visitor: a woman named Lisa who was conducting research to improve medicine and wanted to become a doctor. She had come to Dracula to learn the science that only he knew, but he threatened her with his distrust of the humans. To his surprise, Lisa was not afraid of him, and she encouraged him to explore the changing world. Finding himself attracted to her, Dracula welcomed Lisa into his home.
At some point later, Dracula married Lisa. Together they had a son they named Adrian, who would later be known as Alucard. They then lived in a cottage outside of Targoviste, Wallachia, where Lisa continued her research into medicine. At his wife's behest, Dracula traveled across the world to learn from its people and humanity. During his travels, he met and befriended two misanthropic human Devil Forgemasters, Hector and Isaac.
War on Humanity[]
In 1475, Vlad's happy days with Lisa came to an abrupt and tragic end. One night, while returning home from his travels, he discovered that the cottage was completely burned down. He then encountered Mrs. Djuvara, who was treated by Lisa. While she was laying flowers, Vlad learned from her that Lisa was arrested on false charges of witchcraft, and she was sentenced to death. Enraged, Vlad abandoned his human identity and became Dracula once more. He then warned Mrs. Djuvara to take her family and leave Wallachia before teleporting away in a pillar of fire.
Arriving at the site of Lisa's execution, Dracula demanded to know what happened to his wife. When the Bishop proclaimed that she was a witch and that he himself was just a myth, the vampire was angered and gave the people of Targoviste one year to make their peace with God before his return to destroy them. Returning to his castle, Dracula prepared to summon an army from Hell within one year. But then his son Alucard appeared and begged him not to kill innocent people. Dracula shouted that there were no innocents left because no one acted to save Lisa. Alucard attacked Dracula but was swiftly defeated, and was allowed to leave afterward.
Dracula approached both Hector and Isaac respectively to help create his new army, to differing perspectives as Isaac immediately understood the need for genocide while Hector preferred a more humane way to culling humans. Nonetheless, both parties agreed to aid the former in building an army of night creatures from the dead.
One year later, Dracula appeared in Targoviste, as promised, to the Archbishop and people celebrating Lisa's death and calling his existence a farce. He unleashed his army on Targoviste, massacring the populace, and the horde proceeded to descend upon the rest of Wallachia.
Depression and betrayal[]
As the war dragged on and word of his horde's failure in killing the people of Gresit, Dracula calls upon his generals, vampires from across the known world, into his castle to discuss strategy. His war council protests the state of the war, particularly the lack of strategy, in which Dracula introduces his Devil Forgemasters, Hector and Isaac, to his council as his newest confidants to lead the war more effectively. This decision sparks discord and outrage from the vampires, but Dracula silences their protests. Despite his, arguments continue to run rampant within the vampire leadership, with Dracula either desponding in his study or growing irritated with his vampire's squabbling. Soon enough, the deadly vampire mistress, Carmilla, arrives. However, instead of providing stability, she questions Dracula's priorities in the war, beginning with the question on why he hadn't turned Lisa into a vampire in the beginning, enraging Dracula considerably.
Unknown to Dracula, Carmilla schemes to assume power over the vampire world by inciting disloyalty among the vampire generals and even Hector and Isaac. Though she successfully manipulated Hector, Isaac is loyal to Dracula to a fault. Even the vampire viking, Godbrand, begins to question on what the vampires will do in the future once humanity is extinct, fearing on what the vampires will feast on. Dracula expresses only disinterest and anger with Godbrand's concerns, which the viking takes as Dracula wanting to die, so he joins his wife and is willing to have every vampire starve in the attempt, thereby confirming that Dracula has gone mad.
The situation between the vampires and their lord becomes more complicated when details of the failure in Gresit come to light: that the villagers had help from a Belmont and that Alucard has awoken. Though unconcerned with Alucard, the revelation that a Belmont, one of the few forces in the world that can truly threaten the vampires, remains alive sparks surprise and fear within them.
Final stand and death[]
- "My boy... I'm- I'm killing my boy. Lisa, I'm killing my boy. We painted this room. We... made these toys. It's our boy, Lisa. Your greatest gift to me... and I'm killing him. I must already be dead..."
- — Dracula in "For Love"
Ultimately, the vampires grow tired with their current state and decide to invade the town of Braila and feed on its people. In this moment, Carmilla makes her move against Dracula, having the majority of her forces storm his castle and kill him. However, her usurpation is crushed as Dracula kills most of her forces and Alucard, Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades arrive and kill the vampire generals. Isaac confirms Alucard's presence and that of the Belmont's, advising Dracula to return to his study with the Forgemaster swearing to protect him. Dracula is touched by Isaac's loyalty and decides to spare him from the intruders by sending him to the desert from whence he came, to Isaac's shock and protest.
Alone in his study, Dracula finally confronts his son again, who states that his war is over in his mother's name. Dracula counters that it endures in the name of Lisa. Regardless, though Alucard grieves with Dracula in Lisa's death, he refuses to allow him to commit genocide. Dracula remains unfazed, remembering and reminding Alucard that he couldn't stop him before. Alucard agrees but counters that he was alone before, in which Trevor and Sypha enter, ready to face the Vampire Lord.
Though Alucard initiates the attack, Dracula easily blocks his son's attack with two fingers. While severely weakened from starving himself for nearly a year, Dracula managed to push back Alucard with one arm and with no visible effort. He quickly dodges Alucard’s strikes and beats back his son with minimal engagement, then sprints Belmont into a wall. Just then, Dracula shields himself from an advancing Sypha with his cloak, blocking the waves of fire. Realizing that a Speaker magician is attacking him, he quickly subdues her with a slash, sending her flying across the hallway. Distressed by his friend's injury, Trevor recklessly punches Dracula in the face, which doesn't even phase him. The futile tenacity allows Dracula to identify Trevor. The smirking Dracula merely punches the outmatched Belmont in the gut and grabs him by the throat. Before killing him, Alucard stabbed through both of Dracula's arms which locked him to be scorched by a recovered Sypha. The powerful vampire's skin proves highly resistant, and the heat of the flames merely annoys him until the young Speaker realizes that her magic cannot kill Dracula. As she stops, Dracula returns with an elbow smash that releases his right arm. Even though he used slight force, Sypha got smashed into a wooden beam, rendering her unconscious. He then frees himself and knocks back Alucard. Trevor uses this opportunity to stab Dracula's left side as the latter turned to face his opponent. The two then engaged in hand-to-hand exchanges. Noticing Sypha behind him, Dracula tosses Trevor at her, only to be met with Alucard charging him against a wall. Dracula returned with a downward uppercut but got throttled in the neck by Alucard's precise strikes. His father countered with a powerful palm thrust that launched his son away. The three thus far manage to agitate Dracula but not hurt him. However, Trevor's skill with the Morning Star whip and both wounds, enrages Dracula enough to summon a fiery ball of magma at the trio. Despite his power, the three combine their strength to push the fiery orb back, destructively sending him and Alucard through the castle to the central library. There, father and son engage in a vicious and brutal fistfight that takes them both throughout the castle, although it becomes evident that Dracula is the stronger of the two. Alucard manages to arm himself with a wooden stake and states that Dracula knows he died when Lisa did and that he wants to die, calling his war "history's longest suicide note." Dracula, angered once again, strikes at his son, forcing Alucard to strike at his father with the stake, although he misses his heart.
Dracula beats his son deeper through the castle, but Alucard refuses to back down, despite being overpowered. They reach the transportation room, which had its cogs melted after submitter to the Belmont locking spell. Utilizing his high speed, Alucard manages to deliver powerful blows; however, Dracula quickly tracks his son's blazing velocity and grabs him by the forehead. An enraged Dracula smashes his son into walls, finished with going easy on him. Ultimately, their battle takes them to the room where Alucard grew up, the very room he and his beloved Lisa built for their son. Now, Alucard is tired and bruised after failing to match his father's incredible strength and lies by his old bed. Seeing the room and remembering the memories he shared with his wife restores a semblance of his sanity, realizing that he is killing his son, the greatest gift Lisa ever gave him. In his deepest moment, Dracula confirms that he already feels spiritually dead as a result of his actions. At this moment, Alucard arms himself with a wooden stake again from his bedpost and stabs Dracula, with a heavy heart and crying tears of blood.
Dying, his body rapidly decaying, Dracula's form closes in on Alucard, but before he can do anything, Trevor and Sypha arrive, and the Belmont decapitates Dracula with Leon Belmont's longsword, thereby killing Vlad Dracula Ţepeş. Sypha then uses her magic to burn Dracula's remains which erupt into a fearsome demonic black cloud that spreads across the castle before dissipating completely, leaving behind only his wedding ring.
Legacy[]
Dracula, the most powerful vampire in the world, the apex of his kind, would die a broken man as a result of the actions of the church, forcing his son and heroes of humanity to rise up to end his madness. Though Alucard had committed the deed, he states that Dracula died long ago, when Lisa died. With his castle empty and the knowledge within too important to leave behind unattended, Alucard decides to take custody of the castle to ensure the knowledge within is not pilfered. Trevor even offers Alucard the remains of the Belmont Hold to ensure the safety of the knowledge the Belmonts collected. Alucard, surprised and grateful, accepts. Trevor and Sypha then depart to forge a life together, leaving Alucard in the castle, where alone in a study, he grieves and weeps at the loss of his loved ones.
In the vampire world, the deaths of Dracula and his generals leave a power vacuum, with abandoned night creatures and upstart vampire factions wreaking havoc across the war-torn region. Carmilla plots to assume control over vampire-kind herself, betraying and enslaving Hector with the intentions of using his abilities as a Forgemaster to replenish her forces, returning to Styria with Hector in chains. In addition, within the desert he was banished to, Isaac resolves to continue Dracula's war on humanity as well as seek vengeance against Carmilla and Hector for their betrayal. Beginning with a group of bandits, Isaac kills humans unlucky enough to cross paths with him and forges their bodies into night creatures, raising his army over time.
Attempted resurrection[]
Not long after Dracula's death, a cult formed in the village of Lindenfeld with the hidden intention to bring him back from the dead. Sala, the head of the village's priory, prepared a dark ritual to open a portal to Hell through the Infinite Corridor. He was helped –and even inspired– in this task by a night creature known as the Visitor, whose blood would complete the ritual.
When the portal opened, Saint Germain, a man investigating the cult, discovered that Dracula was in Hell along with his wife Lisa. When Dracula tried to reach the portal, Saint Germain, with the help of Trevor Belmont, killed the Visitor and closed the portal. Saint Germain disappeared in the Infinite Corridor in the process, but prevented Dracula from returning back on Earth.
Revival and conclusion[]
Following the thwarted attempt of Dracula's resurrection at Lindenfeld, several other groups would plan to do the same, covering six weeks of preparation and carefully planned timing to bring back the vampire lord. It was made clear that Dracula's role and image in the human and vampire world was somewhat sacred. Though Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades would scour the countryside of Wallachia, stopping apparently unending hordes of Dracula cults and worshippers, it would not be enough. The goal of restoring the deceased Vlad Dracula Tepes became a goal shared by many, including the once just Count Saint Germain, who had gone unhinged in his quest for meeting with his lover again, who had disappeared in the Infinite Corridor. To once again pull Dracula and his wife out of Hell, a sacrifice needed to be made.
A band of vampire magicians had assembled a body sewn together of both male and female body parts. The disfigured hybrid was meant to imprison both Tepes and create a hermaphrodite; a dichotomy of two separate sexes intertwined in the same body. With the addition of incantations and the power/rage of Dracula, this abomination held the ability of becoming a Rebis, a tool strong enough to control the Infinite Corridor like the night creature at Lindenfeld, the Visitor. However, due to the sheer trauma of being ripped out of Hell and back in the land of the living, coupled with the fear of Lisa's torment, Dracula's rage would know no bounds and be nothing but hatred, malice, and destruction incarnate. This unknown information served as the ultimate endgame of the true manipulator and deceiver of the series, Death.
The clouded Saint Germain, who had destroyed his humanity to save the woman he loved, believed he controlled the whole procedure. However, in truth, he was deceived by an English vampire called Varney, disguised as the Alchemist, which had goaded Germain to fully commit to his magician education, which was revealed to be the Grim Reaper himself.
Ultimately, this plan was orchestrated by the eternal death-eating creature due to his anger over Dracula's demise. The vampire king's onslaught of the human race would have fed Death beyond compare and make him virtually the most powerful being on the planet. As a being unable to interact with warfare and magic, Death relied on murderous people such as Dracula to keep him well fed. Therefore, he desired to restore Dracula to his original plan, only now even more uncontrolled and mad.
They managed to pull the Tepes couple into Dracula's castle and into the hermaphrodite, which was struggling to contain the two. Mercifully, their torture was cut short as Alucard, Trevor, and Sypha destroyed the body, unknowingly freeing the Tepes's spirits. They woke confused, suddenly back in life. The next day, Dracula and Lisa took the clothes of some strangers and rented a room at a house, where they tried to make sense of things. Inevitably, they decided that they were both been given a second chance and opted to utilize it. The Tepes realized that it would be better if their son was left alone for the time being and try to get some closure in life, seeing how much devastation was caused following both of their deaths. The unremarkably calm Dracula suggested that they traveled somewhere remote, a place of solitude fit for them. He said he had been reading about an English town called Whitby, near the coast with about twenty houses, little sunshine, and fish. The two then stated that they would never get better without each other and fell asleep together at the bed, finally embracing one another and looking forward to a new, peaceful future.
Personality[]
- "After centuries of hunting humans, Dracula was convinced to give them a chance by his human wife Lisa. After the church burned her at the stake all of Dracula's worst assumptions were confirmed and declared war on humanity."
- — Dracula's profile description
At this time, it's not clear how much traditional Dracula and Castlevania lore applies to this Dracula's background. Thus, Dracula's background is largely a mystery. What is clear is that by 1455, he had once killed humans and been in conflict with Leon Belmont, but now avoided them and lived an isolated life in his castle. Given Dracula's extreme intelligence, physical superiority and discussion with Lisa, it's strongly implied he sees humans as far inferior life forms. Where he was once involved in human affairs, by 1455 he didn't see the point in wasting his time with "peasants".
While intelligent and lordly in stature, Dracula lacks charm. He has a feral and threatening nature to him that is only accentuated after Lisa's death. While many would use weapons in combat, he uses his own claws like a lion or bear. Lisa herself noticed his lack of charm and suggested he could relearn manners from her. He took this to heart during his married years and had a far more human bearing than usual.
Before he fell into insanity and depression, Dracula would suffer no insult and delighted in meticulously planning vengeance on those who did so. He would maneuver his prey using both his supreme power and mind before surgically striking at his targets. This was demonstrated when the forty merchants of Kronstadt disrespected him. He set fires to the town that insured the innocent women and children fled and understood the psychology of the merchants, that they would stay to retrieve their treasures before escaping. He would then kill those forty men and only those forty, sparing the rest of the town, for precision and so they can see his terrible work to discourage retaliation. This would change in his war on humanity where Dracula was bereft of pleasure, only desiring the death of everything.
When Dracula and Lisa met, and she requested to learn from him, they quickly developed a strong mutual attraction. Neither had met anyone like the other before. Dracula was, of course, attracted to Lisa's beauty but even more so by her character. He described her as being "definitely different to most humans" he had met. Lisa's courage, civility, intelligence, and good-hearted nature impressed him, and he allowed her to study under him. They soon married and had a son, Adrian Ţepeş.
Lisa saw the best in Dracula and immediately acknowledged he had the potential to improve the lives of humans everywhere with his knowledge. As per Lisa's wishes, he would spend much of his time traveling. She hoped that he would also learn from his travels and humans as she did from him. Dracula himself seemed to appreciate her encouragement, although his later actions imply he never was able to see other humans the way Lisa wished he would. If anything, the light of his experiences only turned into more ashes after he returned to his home and was informed that his wife had been executed.
- "Kill everything you see. Kill them all. And once Targoviste has been made into a graveyard for my love, go forth into the country. Go now. Go to all the cities of Wallachia: Arges! Severin! Gresit! Chilia! Enisara! Go now and kill. Kill for my love! Kill for the only true love I ever knew. Kill for the endless lifetime of hate before me."
- — Dracula in "Witchbottle"
When Lisa was unjustly killed in 1475, Dracula grew to deeply resent humanity; he no longer considered them peasants, but he now considers them all animals he could no longer tolerate. He would later admit that she was the only true love he had ever known. Immediately after Lisa's bones burnt into ashes, Dracula rose from his wife's flames and demanded an explanation. He was enraged to learn that his wife had been killed out of unjust dogmatic stupidity and further enraged when the Bishop who ordered the execution denied Dracula's existence. In that moment, Dracula proclaimed he would take everything from the citizen's of Wallachia and leave no signs they ever existed. Although he surely knew his wife wouldn't want him to take vengeance, his heart was now so embittered that it was filled with nothing but absolute misanthropy. Dracula believes that every human is guilty of his wife's death as none did try to stop the unjust murder, and hence when Alucard tried reasoning with his father to kill only those responsible, Dracula angrily refuted this. To Dracula, Lisa was the one good thing humanity had ever produced, and humanity had killed it.
He was even more than willing to severely injure his own son, Alucard, when he tried to reason with him and stop him from committing genocide. Despite all of this, Dracula does seems to retain fractions of what he became after marrying Lisa. For example, even though he had Alucard in his mercy, he did not pursue him any further after inflicting a severe injury on him, which seems to show that the only person who Dracula has any remaining attachment to was his son, as he could have killed him easily but let him escape, apparently meaning he simply wanted to incapacitate Alucard long enough for his massacre to be completed. He also notably uncharacteristically had a woman who still showed great adoration to Lisa live and even warned her to flee, showing he at least has a softer side for those who was not blinded by the accusations of the reasons of his wife's death enough to not want to kill them. It is worth noting that he also issued a one-year warning to humanity to make peace, suggesting he may have tried to give humanity a chance to prove that they were worthy of living. Indeed, Dracula was further disappointed in humanity that no humans heeded his warning or repented to him and instead celebrated the death of his wife, saying to them before unleashing his army that "you had your chance".
One year later, Dracula began his war of extermination, unleashing an army of Hell on Targoviste, bidding his army to kill all humanity and accepting his future eternity of endless hatred. Despite being on a revenge quest to wipe out all of humanity, Dracula grows more and more despondent as time passes, largely isolating himself from the rest of his court and leaving command of his army in the hands of his forgemasters, Hector and Isaac. He doesn't care much for strategy, as long as all of humanity dies at the end, much to the discomfort of his generals. Dracula planned to use machines to turn the sky dark and allow vampires and the night hoard to rule the world. However, many of his generals and Alucard observe that Dracula's plans are self-destructive. Godbrand realizes that human genocide will mean the end of the vampires' food supply and that no one would survive Dracula's plans for the world. Alucard observes that Dracula is dragging the whole world with him on "history's longest suicide note".
When Alucard assaults his castle with Trevor and Sypha, Dracula shows great care toward Isaac by banishing him to the desert, not wanting his friend to be killed. Dracula truly admired Isaac's unshakable loyalty, acknowledging him as one of his species' greatest. He ruthlessly overwhelms and beats on Trevor and Sypha, mocking them for their inferiority, but never strikes the fatal blow on Alucard, mostly ignoring his son unless he attacks him, at which point he savagely strikes back but does not deal any truly decisive blow. Only after being sufficiently angered was he willing to brutalize his son, but even in such a murderous rage, his love for his son shone through when after arriving in the room where he and his wife raised Alucard, Dracula finally snaps out of his murderous rage and is driven to tears by the realization that he was killing the greatest treasure Lisa ever gave him. Dracula realized at this moment that Alucard had been right about him; he had been dead on the inside and fallen into insanity on the day that Lisa was killed. He allowed himself to be killed by his son afterward.
To put it simply, Dracula is a broken and bitter man who tries to kill all of humanity in revenge, but doesn't feel pleasure or joy in this, nor does he care about the fact he could potentially starve his own army to death in the process. He is so detached that Alucard believes that Dracula only waged war on humanity because he wanted to die, for he is figuratively dead without Lisa. Dracula died as a broken being but also expressing what love he had left toward his son; the greatest gift his beloved wife had given him, which was what allowed him to finally be at peace as he reunited with his wife in the afterlife. Dracula's spirit briefly appeared before Alucard and showed no hostility, nodding curtly before disappearing, apparently making peace with his son.
Death wasn't the end for Dracula but a new beginning. Now a spirit in Hell, he could once again be with Lisa. Choosing to seek her out was Dracula's first sane act since she had died. After he found her, they embraced and found comfort even in Hell itself. Being together with his beloved Lisa, Dracula regained his sanity and tranquility. Dracula and Lisa would be revived and chose not to return to their old lives so that their son Alucard could find closure for the time being, but eventually would reunite with Alucard and be there for him. With Lisa by his side, Dracula warmed to the idea of living with a small community of humans in a quiet part of England. They were finally free to start a new peaceful life together.